Harry Potter and The Natural 20

Harry Potter and the Natural 20 - Sir Poley
Harry Potter and the Natural 20
by Sir Poley
Milo, a genre-savvy D&D Wizard and Adventurer Extraordinaire is forced to attend

Hogwarts, and soon finds himself plunged into a new adventure of magic, mad old
Wizards, metagaming, misunderstandings, and munchkinry. Updates Fridays.
Rated: Fiction T - English - Chapters: 72 - Words: 301,307 - Reviews: 5,495 Favs: 4,472 - Follows: 5,124 - Updated: 2/27/2015 - Published: 5/7/2012 - id:
8096183
URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8096183
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
1. Chapter 1: Solo Adventures
2. Chapter 2: Diagon Alley
3. Chapter 3: The Sorting Ceremony
4. Chapter 4: The Defence Professor
5. Chapter 5: The Forbidden Forest
6. Chapter 6: Crime Scene Investigation
7. Chapter 7: The Potions Master
8. Chapter 8: Sidequests
9. Chapter 9: Hallowe'en
10. Chapter 10: Odds of Survival
11. Chapter 11: The Troll and the Dementor
12. Chapter 12: Of Rats and Bowler Caps
13. Chapter 13: Roleplaying
14. Chapter 14: Talking is a Free Action
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15. Chapter 15: Quidditch
16. Chapter 16: Be Good For Goodness' Sake
17. Chapter 17: White Christmas
18. Chapter 18: Red Christmas
19. Chapter 19: Visitors
20. Chapter 20: The Mirror of Erised
21. Chapter 21: Bewitched
22. Chapter 22: The Chessmaster
23. Chapter 23: The Duelling Club
24. Chapter 24: Nick of Time
25. Chapter 25: Roll for Initiative
26. Chapter 26: Bluff Checks
27. Omake: HP:MoMunchkinality
28. Chapter 27: Enchanter's End Game
29. Chapter 28: Grappling with the Rules
30. Chapter 29: Check Mate, Mate
31. Chapter 30: Troll Wanted: Dead or Alive
32. Chapter 31: The Man With Two Faces
33. Chapter 32: Dumble-dnouement
34. Epilogue
35. CC 1: Dynamic Entry
36. CC 2: Nicked
37. CC 3: Too Quiet
38. CC 4: Railroading
39. CC 5: How Could This Go Wrong?
40. CC 6: Whitewashed Secrets
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41. CC 7: A Head Full of Hot Heir
42. CC 8: Gilderoy Lockhart
43. CC 9: I Scry With My Little Eye
44. CC 10: The Duel
45. CC 11: Trick or Treat
46. CC 12: Hallowe'en Masks
47. CC 13: Conspirators
48. CC 14: Cacophony in C Sharp
49. CC 15: Not So Subtle
50. CC 16: Equivalent Exchange
51. CC 17: Remedial Divinations
52. CC 18: The Boy Who Lived
53. CC 19: The Boy Who Didn't
54. CC Epilogue: Awakenings
55. SD 1: Decease and Desist
56. SD 2: Old Friends
57. SD 3: Know Thyself
58. SD 4: Dragon in a Half-Shell
59. SD 5: City of Light
60. SD 6: City of Magic
61. SD 7: Magnum Opus
62. SD 8: Boss Room
63. SD 9: The Fourth Mistake
64. SD 10: The Dogs of War
65. SD 11: No News is Good News
66. SD 12: Hot Fuzz
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67. SD 13: Passing Notes
68. SD 14: The Hogwarts Express
69. SD 15: The Tour Guide
70. SD 16: Safer Justice Practices
71. SD 17: Stones and Windows
72. SD 18: A Better Story
Chapter 1: Solo Adventures
Disclaimers: This story is a Dungeons and Dragons/Harry Potter crossover, and

primarily aimed at readers who are fans of both. That said, people only vaguely
familiar with either Harry Potter or D&D will still likely get most of the
enjoyment this story has to offer. For those who don't know much about either,
reading a quick plot summary of Harry Potter and the Philospher's Stone (say, on
Wikipedia) and skimming the article on D&D will likely suffice. Anyone still
confused can search d20srd (.org), a wonderful website with the entirety of the
D&D 3.5 rules available for free. Players of AD&D, D&D 3.0, 4th edition,
Pathfinder, and probably other RPGs will probably be just fine. You can check my
Author's Page for a link to Milo's character sheet, more details, and a link to
Semiautomagic, an RPG I'm working on, currently available as a free beta.
For D&D buffs: this fic uses a few minor house rules which I've played with so
long I didn't even realize they weren't canon. We're using 3.0's XP system
instead of 3.5's (XP divides a little differently) and Wizards are able to swap
out their Scribe Scroll bonus feat at 1st level for alternate class features (in
this case, Spontaneous Divination) as if they were the 5th, 10th, 15th, or
20th-level bonus feats. Also, magic items like Bags of Holding track only weight
for carrying capacity, not volume. I rolled Milo's stats using the usual system
(4d6, drop the lowest) and roll his hit dice every level, as well as most of the
other dice in combats and things.
Anyways, on with the story! If you like it, review it!
oooo
Thud
Milo hit the groundhard. There was a brief moment of silence before he heard
the sound of chairs being slid back on a stone floor and people rising to their
feet.
Page 4

He wasn't alone.
Milo quickly glanced around, taking in the unfamiliar surroundings. He was in
some sort of dining room, lying face-up on a hardwood table. The room was richly
appointed, and Milo was keenly aware of their solid brass candlesticks, as one
was currently poking him most uncomfortably in the lower back. Most notable,
however, were the half-dozen figures sitting around him. They were evillike,
really, obviously evil. Black robes. Masks. Hells, there was even a chandelier.
It didn't take Milo long to realize he should be putting his Improved Initiative
to good use. As the cultistthese guys had to be in some sort of cultwho was
sitting at the head of the table reached up the sleeve of his robe for a wand,
Milo unleashed sparkly arcane fury.
"Avada KedavrAaaah!" the cultist was cut off.
"Glitterdust!" A cloud of blindingly bright, glowing golden particles exploded
out of Milo's outspread hands, covering the cultists and their furniture. The
cultists clutched at their masks, temporarily blinded by the spell. Milo paused,
briefly stunned. He'd gotten all of them? Surely, as primary casters, they'd
have a higher Will save than that... oh well, think later, escape first.
Taking advantage of their condition, Milo rolled off the table and made a dash
for the window. Standard action to stand up, move action to hustle and jump...
he figured he'd make it just in time. There was a surprisingly painful crash
(note to self: never jump through glass again) and Milo found himself in
freefall. The window, it seemed, was roughly seven storeys aboveground.
"Feather Fall," Milo muttered, slowing his descent. As his feet gently touched
the ground, he took stock of his surroundings. He was standing in the grounds of
a rural manor, in the middle of some carefully kept gardens. The only thing
between him and freedom was a clear shot over flat ground with the occasional
shrub and a low fence. As he began to run, the cultists, judging by the hail of
magic, recovered from their temporary blindness. An unfamiliar sparkling green
bolt of light struck a shrub next to Milo, causing it to rapidly turn brown and
wither.
Gulp.
"Mirror Image," Milo cast, summoning a trio of identical illusory copies of
himself. The four Milos bolted in different directions, splitting the cultist's
fire between them. As Milo approached the edge of the manor grounds, he noticed
some distinctly unfamiliar mountains in the distance. The sky, he noticed, was
missing a pair of moons.
"Crap," Milo muttered. He must have gotten hit with a Plane Shift or Greater
Teleport, which was improbable, because both of those were well beyond even the
supremely dark power of the Fell Lord, Thamior the Thaumaturge...
One of the illusory Milo's was hit with one of those weird green spells,
vanishing instantly. As another of his doubles went down, Milo hopped the fence
and ducked behind it briefly. His next spell took a little longer to cast than
Page 5

the others had, but Milo hoped it would pay off.
"Mount," he said quietly after concentrating for a few seconds. Next to him
appeared a grey pony, which, except for its eyeswhich were glassy and
lifelessappeared all but indistinguishable from a natural one. Unlike the
mirror images, the mount was realdepending on your definition of real, of
course. It was real enough to get him the Hells out of here.
Milo awkwardly pulled himself into the saddle (he never was much of an
equestrian, as Skill Points were few and far between for a Wizard) and kicked
the summoned pony's rump with his heels. As he was catching his breath, thinking
of how close his run-in was (if that spell could just kill a plant like that,
imagine what it could do to him? Milo's Fortitude save was lower than a serf's
daily wage) he heard a loud crack from his left. One of the cultists suddenly
appeared, wand brandished threateningly.
"Glitterdust!" Milo cast again, burning his last 2nd-level spell. As before, the
burst of golden light blinded the dark wizard. If another one shows up, I'll
have to resort to harsh language...
"They can teleport?" Milo shrieked. "That's a 5th-level spell! This is way
beyond my ECL! I call shenanigans. Shenanigans!" But nobody responded. Who he
was even talking to was unclear, as there wasn't another soulexcept for the
blinded Death Eaterin sight. After several minutes of galloping, Milo decided
to rein his pony in for a short break while he considered his options.
Now you may be wondering, "what the heck is going on?" And that's a perfectly
valid question, but unfortunately, Milo is as confused as you are. Perhaps a
brief description of our perplexed hero is in order. As far as Milo is
concerned, the information written on his character sheet sufficed as
description: True Neutral, Wizard 3, Human, Male, Age: 11, Weight: 71 lbs (his
world runs on the imperial system, the poor barbarians), Height: 4'9'', Hair:
brown, Eyes: brown. And you may be thinking, "eleven years old? That seems a
little young to be a Wizard." And you're right. Most Wizards, from where Milo
comes from (more on that later) are at least seventeen before they become even a
level one Wizard. Milo, however, managed to pull a fast one involving starting
life as a Rogue and doing some retraining. "But wait," you protest. "That jargon
doesn't mean anything to me at all. And even if it did, the minimum starting age
for a human Rogue is still 16." But unfortunately, you don't have time to worry
about problems like that, because Milo is, in fact, being attacked by a Death
Eater on a broomstick. See what happens when you nitpick?
"Avada Kedavra!" the evil flying cultist shouted, making weird gestures with his
wand. Milo felt his pony suddenly go limp beneath him as its heart stopped. Milo
collided with the ground for most of his remaining Hit Points (Milo dumped
Constitution during character creation, which seemed like a really good idea at
the time). Weakly, he staggered to his feet as the cultist came around for
another pass.
"You know, there's a reason most Wizards prefer to use a Phantom Steed to a
Broom of Flying," Milo muttered. "That reason is Grease!" he said, with a
complicated hand gesture to accompany the last word. He cast the spell, not
Page 6

targeting the cultist but his broomstick, which became nearly frictionless.
Without any sort of safety strap or foot petals, the broomstick continued
accelerating while the cultist, unfortunately, did not. Before meeting the
ground, the cultist vanished with another distinctive popping sound. Milo
frowned. What kind of cultist can cast save-or-die spells multiple times,
teleport, afford a Broom of Flying, and yet not manage a simple Feather Fall?
Maybe they're some obscure non-core class? Milo thought. Well, time to loot the
corpse. A Broom of Flying would make an excellent replacement for his ex-pony,
which was already starting to fade out of existence now that the magic keeping
its form together was gone.
As Milo searched for the broomstick, he let his mind wander again. The last
thing he'd done before slamming into that table in the manor house was confront
the Supremely Evil Fell Lord Thamior the Thaumaturge (try putting that on a
business card) with his companions. Everything was going according to plan, then
suddenly... table. Milo was sure Thamior hadn't had a chance to get a spell off,
especially not one of this magnitude. Maybe something over here pulled him
across? Why in the Prime Material would anyone want to summon Milo, of all
things? Milo shuddered to think of what Thamior was doing to his party without
his arcane support. It was probably going to be his job upon returning to raise
funds for three Raise Deads, because a thief, a meatshield, and a glorified box
of band-aids against Thamior's power spelled T-P-K.
Milo stumbled across the broomstick, which had flown into the ground,
point-first. He confidently pulled the stick out of the dirt, straddled it, and
leapt into the air. Nothing happened except that Milo looked rather foolish.
"Hmm, must be command-word activated, I suppose? Swordfish!" Nothing happened.
"Melon! Rise! Up! Activate! Flight! Abra Kadabra!" Ten minutes later, with all
the usual suspects attempted to no avail, Milo gave up.
"Detect Magic." Nothing. The broomstick, as far as Milo could determine, didn't
have enough magic to power a Bard's cantrip. It was an ordinary, mundane broom.
For sweeping things.
"Wha... what? Then how... Agh, my poor head." Nothing happening was making any
sense here. Maybe if he found some non-cultist residents of this strange world,
they'd be able to explain things to him. Shouldering the broom, he chose a
direction completely at random and started walking.
oooo
Some time
bloodied,
young boy
clutching
after 3 AM, the villagers of Hogsmeade were surprised to find a dirty,

half-dead (or rather, five-sixths, to be precise, since you asked)
stumble into their village before collapsing of exhaustion. He was
in his hands a Nimbus Two Thousand.
"Who is he?"
"Is he a Muggle? How did he get through the wards?"
"Is he a student?"
Page 7

"Blimey! Is that a Nimbus?"
"If he had a broomstick, why was he walking?"
"Someone send for Dumbledore, this kid needs help."
"I'm right here in front of you."
"No, not you, the other Dumbledore."
"Oh," said Aberforth, slightly disappointed. "Nobody ever wants to send for me."
As the nearest medical facility was the hospital wing of Hogwarts, and, as the
villagers reasoned, this boy was more likely than not some student from the
castle caught up in one of their fool adventures, he was rushed with all
possible haste to the care of Madam Pomfrey, and, more than likely, detention.
It was a very surprised, and somewhat sleepy, Professor McGonagall who answered
the door. She immediately sent a Patronus to wake the school's Headmaster before
carrying the boy to the hospital wing.
"Minerva! What's happening?" Dumbledore (the right one, this time) said as he
entered the wing. The Deputy Headmistress quickly filled him in about what the
villagers at Hogsmeade had discovered.
Dumbledore frowned. "I don't recognize him, do you?" McGonagall shook her head.
"This is most unusual. He's clearly of an age that he should be just starting in
Hogwarts, so if he's a wizard of magical Britain..." McGonagall said, trailing
off in thought.
"Why don't we wake him and ask?" Dumbledore suggested.
"Poppy believes it best that we let him recover. He's suffered some fairly
serious injuriesit looks like a particularly nasty fall, perhaps."
"Could he be a student of Beauxbatonsor Durmstrang? I'll owl Madame Maxime and
Professor Karkaroff. In the meantime, keep me updated."
McGonagall sighed. She wouldn't give up being Deputy Headmistress for all the
gold in Gringotts, but it did involve rather a lot more sleepless nights than
she would have preferred.
oooo
Milo awoke to the sound of people talking quietly. The odd thing about whispers,
Milo had discovered, is that they tend to catch the ear even faster than
ordinary talking. There were curtains around his bed, so he couldn't place a
face to the speakers.
"Minerva! II noticed something well, something most unusual," the first voice
(female, human) said.
Page 8

"What's the matter?" inquired a second (also female, human).
"The patient, he well, he recovered," the first voice said hesitantly.
"Surely, that's good news?"
"Well, yes, normally very good news, this being an infirmary, recovery is most
appreciated. But not normally with quite the alacrity demonstrated."
"Explain."
"After precisely eight hours of bed rest, the majority of his wounds simply
vanished before my eyes," the first voice said.
There was a brief silence.
"Well, I daresay I'm impressed. How did you do it?" the second
voiceMinervaasked.
"I didn't do it!" the first voice said, her voice rising. "I hadn't actually
done much of anything beyond cleaning and bandaging his wounds!"
"Then perhaps he had some Charm cast on him when he entered? Or one of the
villagers did something?"
"That was the first thing I checked! I think I think the possibility should be
considered that he isn't entirely human," the first voice said cautiously.
"Poppy, get professors Dumbledore, Snape, Flitwick, and Sproutin that order,"
Minerva commanded. "I'll watch him until then, whoever he is."
Milo frowned. Why were they so confused? A night's rest resulted in healing a
hit point per level. Everyone knows that. Had they never slept? Were they
Constructsor even Undead? Milo reached for his Belt of Hidden Pouches, where he
kept (among rather a lot of other, useful things) his spellbook. He needed an
hour to prepare new spells (which he doubted he'd get, but it was worth trying.)
His Belt was gone.
Milo sat straight upright and checked his other pockets. Nothing. He broke out
into a cold sweat. Without his spellbook, he couldn't memorize spells. If he
couldn't memorize spells, he had a mere four 0th-level spells and then nothing.
He was a Commoner for the rest of time, or at least until he could make a new
one.
Almost as importantly, Mordy was still in the belt. Milo concentrated on the
empathic bond, to see if Mordy was all right. Hunger, Fear, Confusion.
Milo licked his lips nervously. He'd just begun searching for something he could
use as an improvised club (not his preferred way of doing things) when the
curtains were drawn aside.
Page 9

"Who are you, where am I, and what have you done with my Magic Items?" Milo
demanded, before they were even pulled all the way aside. In walked an odd duo.
A pair of aging humans in robes (Venerable meant +3 Intelligence, Wisdom, and
Charisma, so Milo made a mental note not to underestimate these two) who were
obviously spellcasters of some sort. Great big white beard, half-moon glasses,
wands What is it with the casters here and wands? Milo wondered.
"If you are talking about your broomstick, young man, its right beside the bed.
And I would suggest you mind your manners," said the lady, who was sporting a
rather severe bun of hair.
"Peace, Minerva," said the man in the purple robes. "He's clearly been through
some sort of ordeal." The old man turned his pleasant, grandfatherly face to
Milo. "Now, if you would be so good as to tell us who you are?"
"I am Milo Amastacia-Liadon," said Milo proudly. For those of you keeping score
at home, Milo's parents, being cosmopolitan humans, decided to give him a
Halfling first name and both of their (Elven) last names.
"And I," said the grandfatherly man, "am Professor Albus Percival Dumbledore."
He said it like Milo was supposed to know who he was. Maybe he really was
famous; it was Zook who had all the Ranks in Knowledge (Nobility and Royalty) in
their party. "This, of course, is Professor Minerva McGonagall. You are in
Hogwarts, school of Witchcraft and Wizardry."
"Wizardry? Oh, thank Boccob. You're Wizards, then?" Milo asked, feeling
profoundly relieved.
Dumbledore looked slightly taken aback.
"Well, naturally we're wizardsExcept for Minerva, of course, who is, in fact, a
witch. You didn't take us for Muggles, did you?"
"What? Muglook, I think we're getting slightly afield. Was I wearing a belt
when I came in here?"
"I'd have to ask Madam Pomfrey to say for certain, but there is a belt on your
bedstand," the old wizard said.
"Oh, thank the gods. Don't you know that it's terribly rude, not to mention a
sign of hostile intent, to part a person from his Magic Items?" Milo grabbed the
belt, which was covered in tiny pockets (and had many more besides, which were
invisible) and quickly opened the snap on one of the hidden ones. Out crawled a
very distressed-looking brown-and-white rat. "Not to mention a Wizard from his
familiar."
"Best not let Poppy see that," Dumbledore suggested. "She would not, I believe,
take kindly to seeing a rat in her hospital wing. Now, could you please tell me,
of what schoolif, indeed, anyare you a student?"
"Conjuration," Milo said proudly, "though I've always had something of a knack
Page 10

for Divinations as well."
"The School of Conjuration?" Albus frowned. "Unless I'm mistaken, they were shut
down, oh, sometime in 1869, after the Spoons Incident." Nearby, McGonagall
shuddered. "Would you take it amiss if I asked to see your wand?"
"My wand? I don't have one. Never saw the point, really, and even if I wanted
one I couldn't afford it."
"No wand?" McGonagall gasped. But Dumbledore frowned.
"Now, I'm not one to pay close attention to the ins-and-outs and developments of
sporting equipment, but how is it that you managed to come by what I believe to
be a most expensive racing broom if you can't afford even a simple wand?"
Dumbledore asked.
"Oh, that thing? I took it off a cultist," Milo said blandly. "Seems pretty
useless to me. If there's any magic in it, I have no idea how to make it work,
and its shape is hardly optimal for sweeping."
McGonagall's mind recoiled from the notion of using a Nimbus Two Thousand to
clean a house. Thinking the very thought was unthinkably unthinkable.
"I think the more questions he answers, the less sense this makes," Dumbledore
said. "Start with the cultists, then how you came to be in Hogsmeade so late at
night, then we'll discuss your school and the broomstick."
Milo shrugged.
"My party and I were storming the tower of the Most Maliciously Malevolent
Magus, Thamior the Thaumaturge. After fighting our way past all the usual
defensesyou know, skeletons, goblins," McGonagall choked slightly on hearing
that, "that sort of thing, pretty routine, when we confronted the dark Wizard.
Our Rogue crept into a flanking position while I distracted him with taunts,
interrupting his monologue. The Cleric and I were about to unleash magical fury
when suddenly, I was somewhere else entirely. The next thing I know, I hit a
table in a room surrounded by cultists," Milo said. "They had dark robes and
masks and everything; you should have seen them. So, one of them started casting
some spell, it went like, 'Avada Keda'" Milo was interrupted as McGonagall
desperately clamped a hand over Milo's mouth.
"There's no need to worry, Minerva. He doesn't have a wand," Dumbledore said
gently.
"Right. Er. Continue your story, then, Mister Amastacia-Liadon," said the old
witch, slightly embarrassed. "But you must never say those words again. They are
the incantation for the worst of the Unforgivable Curses."
"Please call me Milo; elf names tend to be on the long side," Milo said.
"Elf names?" McGonagall asked incredulously. "Albus, add that to the list of
questions."
Page 11

"Right, so I blinded the cultists with a Glitterdust, jumped out the window,
provided false targets with illusions, summoned a pony, and rode off as fast as
I could, but one of them chased me on that broomstick. One casting of Grease on
the stick and the cultist fell but he teleported to safety somehow. Not before
he killed my mount, though. So I started walking, and I think I'd just found
some village or another when I passed out. Pretty lucky, really, all things
considered."
"Albus," McGonagall said quietly. "These cultists he speaks of. They sound an
awful lot like"
"I'd noticed, Minerva. It appears they were not quite so disbanded as we had
once believed." Dumbledore said ominously. Milo grinned. That sounded like a
plot hook if he'd ever heard one.
"Now, young wizard, if you could tell me what school you attend so I can see you
home safely?" Dumbledore asked.
"Oh, that kind of school? Nah, never bothered," Milo said. "You gain experience
way faster hunting dark Wizards and goblins and things, let me tell you."
"No school?!" McGonagall gasped again, this time even more offended than when
she'd heard of his lack of wand. "That's criminal! Your parents should be
arrested!" The professor paused, looking concerned. "Youyou do have parents,
don't you, Mister Amaer, Milo?" she asked gently.
"Parents? Most likely. They're" he paused. Something was wrong. He reached out
for his memories of his parents, but came back with nothing. He started to
panic. "I don't understand. My parents, they're they're what's happening?"
"Are you quite alright, young man?" McGonagall asked, her voice full of
concern.
"I this has never happened before," Milo confessed. His backstory generally
wrote itself on an as-needed basis. "Obviously I had parents, but I I just, I
can't remember them."
"Oh, I am so, so sorry." McGonagall said seriously. It broke her heart how many
orphans came through Hogwarts, especially in the time after the war.
"Minerva, if you would please come with me for a moment, I think we need to
discuss this with the other heads of houses," Dumbledore said. "We'll be back
shortly, Milo, in the mean time I'll let Poppy take care of you."
oooo
"I think it's obvious that we're dealing with a very confused individual,"
Sprout said sadly after McGonagall had explained the situation. "He seems to
have been orphaned at a young age and fended for himself since then, and is
quite delusional."
Page 12

"Sadly, I must agree," Dumbledore said. "I think we can assume that very little
of his story is true, although he did describe the Death Eaters and the Killing
Curse with an alarming level of accuracy. I think it likely, unfortunately, that
his parents were killed by them at a young age."
"The broomstick," Flitwick said suddenly. "It's our only clue. We know that the
Nimbus is a brand-new model of Quidditch broom, so he must have come across it
recently. Judging by his vagabond nature and lack of wand, he didn't obtain it
through legitimate channels. If we can find any of the broomsticks reported
stolen, it might be able to discern the veracity of his story."
"Clever as always, Filius," Dumbledore congratulated him.
"Headmaster, what if his story is true?" McGonagall asked. "There could very
well be active Death Eaters out there, looking for revenge." And, she thought
quietly, the Malfoy Summer Manor is at about one night's walking distance from
Hogsmeade "Investigating the Nimbus will only draw attention to him."
"Well, it would appear we have but one option," Dumbledore said. "And the law is
quite clear. Regardless of all else, the boy is clearly magicalotherwise,
Hogsmeade's wards would have driven him off well before he made it within sight
of the village. Term starts in only three days, and I believe this young man,
both for his safety and for that of those around him, should be among the first
years to be sorted."
"Headmaster, with respect," sneered Snape, who in fact meant none, "we can't
just offer every street urchin and vagrant who wanders to our door a spot in
this school. We're the best school in magical Britain, not the only one."
"I'm afraid I'll have to insist," Dumbledore said gently, but firmly. "Minerva,
if you could take the young Mr. Amastacia-Liadon to Diagon Alley to get his
school supplies and robes tomorrow, it would be much appreciated. Filius, would
you please anonymously return the Nimbus to the Department of Magical Law
Enforcement and quietly keep an eye on who picks it up? Pomona, would you be so
good as to take over preparations for the sorting ceremony for us? As for
myself, I will make inquiries at the Ministry of Magic, to see if any underage
magic has been detected."
"And myself, headmaster?" asked Snape.
"Ah, Severus, I have a special task for you. I'm afraid you'll have to visit
certain old acquaintances again."
"I understand," said Snape with a sigh. He'd hoped it wouldn't come to this.
"Well then, I believe we all have our tasks. We'd best get to them."
oooo
On the one hand, Milo was not particularly enthusiastic about attending school.
But on the other hand, it was pretty clear that this was what the plot demanded
of him. Besides, this was his best shot at getting at those cultists, and
Page 13

everything about them said "we have loads and loads of Magic Items and gold."
And it wasn't like he had anything else to do. Besides, he was only 300 XP away
from a new level, and with it, one step closer to the untold arcane power of
3rd-level spells.
"I suppose I might be interested in attending your school, Deputy Headmistress,"
Milo said respectfully. Never hurts to flatter powerful NPCs on occasion.
"Excellent. We only have three days until term starts, so tomorrow we'll go out
and purchase you your school supplies," McGonagall said.
"Oh, er. I haven't got any money, per se." Milo had spent the last of his loot
buying that Belt of Hidden Pouches.
"None at all? Well, Hogwarts does have a small fund for unfortunate students
such as yourself," McGonagall said thoughtfully, "but I'm afraid you'll likely
have to make do with second- or third-hand materials."
"No complaints here. So what are we talking, like, quills and parchment and
things?"
"That, of course, and also, oh where did I put that list? Here we are. Wand,
robes, pointed hat, dragonhide gloves," Milo choked slightly in surprise at
that, "telescope, a cauldron, scales, and various text and spellbooks, wand..."
McGonagall frowned as she read through the list. "It seems wand was listed
twice. I'll be having a word with someone about that, I should think. It also
says that you can have an owl, cat, or toad, though we generally make allowances
for rats as well."
"A wand? What kind? Probably no higher than first level, but seriously, that's
on your mandatory list? And, wait spellbooks?" Milo asked incredulously.
"You're going to buy me spellbooks?" Milo felt faint. There had to be some kind
of catch. Telescopes clocked in at 1,000 gp alone, and if they had the
capability to slaughter enough dragons to make gloves for the entire student
body, the faculty here were not to be trifled with. This little shopping list
was way beyond the average Wealth By Level of a 1st-Level Wizard, and Milo's
rapid addition placed it at almost half of his current total value.
"II think I need to sit down for a moment," Milo said. "I appear to have been
Dazedor possibly even Stunned."
"Yes, well, I suppose it can be a bit overwhelming at first," McGonagall frowned
at him. She couldn't imagine how someone could be so poor that a second-hand old
textbook seemed extravagant. "In the meantime, I suppose, just stay here and
focus on feeling better."
"Oh, I was going to ask about that. Don't you have any Clerics on staff?" Milo
asked. His injuries weren't anything that a Cure Light Wounds wouldn't solve; it
really was faster than bed rest.
"Oh, er, no. Not many in the magical world feel a, um, religious calling of that
nature." McGonagall said carefully. Most wizards and witches felt a little
Page 14

awkward around matters of religion, what with all the
suffer-not-the-witch-to-live's and inquisitions and all that.
"Hmm, that would explain that, then." Wizards heal injuries in a manner
resembling how pigs flythey generally tried to keep such a situation from
occurring in the first place.
"In the mean time, I suggest you try to relax as much as possible, and I will be
here early tomorrow morning to take you to London," McGonagall said before
leaving.
Milo sat back, trying to contain his excitement for tomorrow. This time in two
days, he thought, I'm going to be absolutely rolling in new spells and items he
was practically salivating at the thought. In fact, he realized, he was
salivating at the thought.
Chapter 2: Diagon Alley
The next morning, it was a slightly apprehensive McGonagall who approached her
newest student in the hospital wing. To the growing concern and, frankly, terror
of their resident mediwitch, the last of Milo's injuries had vanished
completely.
"So," he said brightly, "What's the plan, then? Travel by horseback, Teleport,
Wind Walk, Phantom Steed, or something else?" The boy's rat was sitting on his
shoulder, mimicking Milo's every hand gesture and expression in a most
disconcerting way.
"We'll walk to the edge of Hogwarts grounds and Apparate there directly," she
explained.
"Apparate, eh? What's that?" Milo asked. He was getting very concerned at the
number of Knowledge (Arcana) checks he'd been failing recently. It was most
unlike him.
"We will be transported directly to Diagon Alley in London," she explained.
"From the point of view of those watching, we will appear to disappear."
"Oh, so we'll teleport?"
"In a manner of speaking, yes."
"Why can't we just do it from here?" Milo asked, gesturing around the hospital
wing.
"You can't Apparate or Disapparate on the Hogwarts grounds," McGonagall
explained.
Page 15

Milo frowned.
"That really makes a lot of sense, actually. I can see how dark wizards
teleportingsorry, 'Apparating'" he said with finger-quotes "into your school
would be a problem. Well, let's be off, then." Milo had woken up an hour early
to memorize his spells for the day and as a result felt like he was practically
buzzing with magic.
The castle, Milo decided, was pretty cool. There were moving staircases and
talking portraits (he wasn't sure how they pulled that off, Animate Object was a
Divine spell after all), suits of armour (the value of that many suits of full
plate set Milo salivating again. He wondered if they'd notice if a few went
"missing"), and the castle was, on the whole, apparently larger on the inside
than the outside (what was it, an entire Castle of Holding? The cost of
something like that would be astronomical, not to mention that it would drain
enough XP to de-level an epic Wizard), they even had
"Holycrapghost! Glitterdust!" Milo shouted, reaching for the only spell he
thought would affect it.
"Mister Amastacia-Liadon!" Professor McGonagall barked, "At Hogwarts, we do not
blind history teachers! I'm dreadfully sorry, Professor Binns."
"Hehe he's a teacher?" Milo asked, stunned. "Cool! So sorry about that,
Professors. I was startled."
"No matter, no matter," Binns said distractedly, floating past them with a trail
of golden dust falling off of him in his wake.
"It's considered impolite to draw attention to Professor Binns' condition,"
McGonagall said quietly. She sighed. Milo had somehow, apparently, achieved an
unusually high degree of control over his accidental magic (or so she thought).
Hopefully, that should stop once they got him a proper wand and training.
As they walked out of the castle's huge front gates, Milo soaked in the castle's
grounds. There was an evil forest. An animated tree (a disguised Treant,
possibly?). A lake with mermaids.
"This place is awesome," he said. The amount of XP he could get just from random
encounters in the school grounds alone it suddenly made sense to him how such a
school could be an effective way to gain power. This place was clearly, really,
incredibly, obviously, brilliantly dangerous. With all the adventure and monster
fighting that must be happening between classes, not to mention the magical
brawls that naturally occur when you give an eleven-year-old untold arcane power
in a practically unsupervised environment (it would take a staff of thousands to
keep an eye on all of Hogwarts at once), these kids would be leveling up like
crazy.
Milo grinned happily, thinking about all the XP he was about to gain.
McGonagall smiled, thinking about how happy Milo looked now that he had found a
Page 16

home.
"This should be far enough," McGonagall said. "Hold on closely, a Side-Along
Apparition can be somewhat startling at first."
As it turned out, that was putting it rather lightly. It felt, roughly, like
someone had buffed his Escape Artist bonus to +70 and forced him to crawl
through a lengthy stretch of lead pipe, backwards.
"I think I failed a Fortitude save," Milo said somewhat queasily.
He looked around to find himself in a dark, somewhat shabby tavern. He felt,
like all adventurers the world over (despite being under-age in all civilized
nations) simultaneously at home and somewhat homesick. Everyone they passed gave
McGonagall a respectful nod. Milo hadn't realized she was a retired adventurer,
but it made sense. Who better to teach at a school for wizards?
"Good Lord," said the barman, peering at Milo. "Is thiscan this be"
"Tom, I thought I asked you to stop doing that to every student who passes
through here?" McGonagall said sharply.
"Sorry, Professor," the barman mumbled, somewhat sheepishly.
"I remember you when you were this tall," she said, gesturing to about her
waist. "A wide-eyed, innocent young Hufflepuff, not that that's anything to be
ashamed of, in my Transfiguration class," (a-ha, thought Milo. She's a
Transmuter; no wonder everyone respects her) "such promise. Such potential." She
shook her head slowly. "And what do you do with it? Prank every little boy who
comes your way into thinking they're secretly the Boy-Who-Lived. Honestly, I
don't know how you sleep at night."
"Sorry, Professor."
"It's a good thing for Hufflepuff House that you've already graduated, young
man," (Milo noted that Tom already had graying hair. Just how old is
McGonagall?) "or your antics would seriously handicap the students of that poor
House (bless their little, hardworking, earnest hearts) in their chances at
winning the Cup. If I ever hear of you pulling this on the actual Harry Potter,
why Well, I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise by saying what I'll do." She
led Milo off, making soft tut-tut sounds to herself. The barman, Milo noted,
looked somewhat sick. Milo was impressed. He'd never met a Wizard (or witch, as
the people here seemed to think that witch was the feminine form of Wizard, for
some reason) who put cross-class ranks into Intimidate before.
"Merlin!" she said as they left the pub. "I've wanted to do that for years." She
reached out and tapped a seemingly-innocuous brick wall, and a hole appeared in
the wall which rapidly grew larger. In a manner of seconds, they were standing
before an archway into a bustling alley.
"Cool, if somewhat showy," Milo said, gesturing to the wall. "Wouldn't keep
anyone out who held the mysterious and cosmic power of a heavy sledge, though."
Page 17

McGonagall was amazed by his blas reaction. Milo seemed to be astonished by the
most innocuous things, and completely shrugged off what most unfamiliar with the
wizarding world practically fainted at. After the boy's reaction when they asked
him about his parents, however, McGonagall decided to keep questions about his
past to a minimum.
"Ah, it's just like home," he said as they walked past rows of magical shops. At
that point, she had to ask.
"Where, exactly, was home for you?" McGonagall asked him.
"Myra, capital of the great Azel Empire!" he said proudly. "City of Light! City
of Magic!" It was the city's motto, and the guards touted it endlessly. It was
legally required to say it with exclamation marks and added emphasis on 'magic.'
"A city where every tavern has an outlandishly-dressed man with a strange accent
making mysterious requests, where the aging emperor's wicked, goatee-sporting
advisor's power grows steadily every day, where the civic authorities are
helplessly inept at dealing with local bandit problems yet still capable of
preventing high-level Adventurers from robbing Magic Item stores at night, and
where quest opportunities appear around every corner."
McGonagall looked at him somewhat askance. She was starting to grow concerned
that the boy had been hit with a powerful Confundus charm at some point, and
resolved to keep an eye out for any Missing Persons posters.
"I suppose," she said, "that we'll start with your uniform, then get your books,
then drop by Ollivanders for your wand, leaving the cauldron for last."
"Works for me," he said as she steered him towards Madam Malkin's Robes for All
Occasions. He was somewhat disappointed to find that the uniforms were, in fact,
merely mundane black robes. After everything else, he'd half-hoped that they
were some kind of magical stat-boosting outfit.
Madam Malkin was a squat, smiling NPC dressed all in mauve. Milo's brain barely
registered her existence.
"Another for Hogwarts?" she asked McGonagall. "Isn't he a little late? Most of
the students came through here a month ago."
"He'ssomething of a special case, Madam. I'm afraid this is coming out of our,
erm special fund," McGonagall said. The technical term was 'The Destitute Orphan
Fund,' but she decided to avoid the term in front of the poor boy. "So we can't,
unfortunately, stretch for a custom job."
"Ah," she said sadly. "But, no matter! I have just the thing! Some unfitted
display models, which I was just putting into storage, now that the
back-to-school-rush is over." She ruffled through a few boxes before finding
what she was looking for. "Here you are! A very nearly perfect fit!"
Madam Malkin's idea of a 'very nearly' was, Milo thought, a little far from the
mark. Despite this, he shrugged and accepted the much-too-large robes happily.
Page 18

His perfectly serviceable explorer's outfit was getting somewhat worn, anyways.
Probably something to do with all the pointy sticks and serrated teeth he dealt
with on a regular basis. Besides, it wasn't like he was paying for them, or that
too-big robes gave him a circumstance penalty to anything.
"Thank you, ma'am," he said respectfully. "I can hardly even remember the last
time I got new clothes."
McGonagall's heart broke very slightly when she saw how the boy's face lit up at
receiving hand-me-down robes. She passed the witch a few bronze knuts from her
small supply before they headed out for books.
They left the bookstore with a small pile of very, very well-used (the clerk had
described them as 'well-loved') books. Milo could hardly keep his hands off of
them especially The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1). He figured Grade 1 was
probably analogous to Level 1, in which case there was a book of first-level
spells practically within his reach nothing to be sneezed at. He resolved,
however, to read it later and, in the meantime, pocketed it in his
extradimensional Belt. He was a little apprehensive about Magical Drafts and
Potions, however. There was no place for Item Creation in his build, especially
not for anything as suboptimal as Brew Potion.
"Er, Professor," he asked cautiously. "Do I really have to take potions class?"
"Yes, it's mandatory until fifth year, and extremely practical, besides."
"It's just that I'm not sure I have enough experience for potions," he said.
Making magic items permanently drained Experience Points, so he'd always stayed
away from it.
"Oh, don't worry, Professor Snape teaches from a beginner level," she said
reassuringly. "No experience is necessary."
"Huh. How did you manage that? In any case, I don't have the proper feat for
it," he explained.
"It appears you have two solid ones, as does nearly every student attending our
school," McGonagall said. "Though we would make arrangements for the
handicapped, of course."
"Like those who take Run and Endurance?" Milo laughed. "'Handicapped' is a good
word for them. Also, I realize Eschew Materials is sub-optimal, but it really is
very convenient. So I would say that I have three solid feats, including
Improved Initiative and Spell Focus (Conjuration). But to each his own. I don't
have any to spare for Brew Potion, however."
"Oh, you don't have to worry about that," McGonagall said. "None of Snape's
students have lost feetor hands for that matterin years."
Milo laughed at what he thought was a pun.
"Well, as long as I don't have to worry about the feat and experience, I'm in.
Page 19

Potions could be a lot of fun, actually." Never hurts to show a little
enthusiasm around educators.
"I'm glad you feel that way," she said. Not a lot of students looked forward to
spending time in the dungeon with Severus.
They then entered Ollivanders. Milo had never understood how the sale of magical
items in large-scale could be economically viable. The experience cost alone
would reduce any mighty spellcaster to a novice in a few years. Still, he was
glad someone was willing to do it, or he wouldn't have anywhere to spend his
gold.
"Good afternoon," said a soft voice, presumably Ollivander. "Ah, Professor
McGonagall. Nine-and-a-half inches, made of fir. Stiff, with a dragon
heartstring core. Excellent for advanced Transfigurations. Made by my father...
of course."
Again with the dragons, Milo thought, feeling slightly intimidated. What, do
they have a farm of them somewhere?
"Hm. Well, yes. We're here to get a, er, preferably discount wand for our latest
student here," she said. Ollivander peered closely at Milo, who jumped backwards
slightly. Their noses had practically touched, and Milo was sure he hadn't seen
him move
"Er, before we, uh, um, start choosing one," Milo stammered awkwardly. "There's
something I've been, ah, meaning to ask of you, Mr. Ollivander."
"Yes?" he said softly. Gods, but this guy is weird.
"Your store nameI mean, Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands Since 382 BCwell,
it's just that, er"
"Yes?"
"Shouldn'tshouldn't Ollivanders have an apostrophe in it?" Milo said, and
instantly regretted it.
Mr. Ollivander chuckled, slowly and irregularly. It was a disconcertingly
unnatural sound.
"Not if it's plural," he said.
Milo swallowed nervously. Plural?
"Right, well," McGonagall, fortunately, interrupted their weird conversation.
"While you find Milo here a wand, I'll go and fetch him his potions supplies."
"But of course. Right this way, Mr. Amastacia-Liadon." He led Milo through a row
dusty aisles, each packed with small boxes. "Which is your wand arm?"
"My right," Milo said. Ollivander passed Milo a series of wands, each with more
Page 20

improbable ingredients than the last. Unicorn hair? Phoenix tail feathers?
Dragon heartstring? Yeti fur? There were even some from creatures he'd never
heard of, like Thestral tail. He waved them each about randomly in turn, with no
effect.
"Look, I'm pretty sure this isn't how wands are supposed to work," he said to
Ollivander, who was searching through a storeroom in the back. "I can't just
wave them. I have to activate them. Very different thing."
"Oh? Young wizard, my family has been making wands since they were invented,"
said Ollivander, who had somehow gotten behind Milo. Right behind him.
"Gah!" he said, backing up into an aisle of wands, causing several to fall to
the ground.
"I think we know a thing or two about how they are supposed to work," he said.
"Right, of course, sorry." Milo said, eager to do anything to get out of here.
"So, what's supposed to happen when I wave my this stick around, assuming it's
the, ah, right wand for me?"
"It varies. Sparks. Fire. Light. Once even a spurt of blood, cat's blood, I
would say, judging by the distinct flavour."
"Oh, my gods." Milo had never been so scared in his life. "Detect Magic," he
murmured quietly. Just like the broomstick earlier, there was no response.
Either the wands were somehow hiding their magical auras, which was possible, or
McGonagall had left him alone with a madman who could recognize the blood of
kittens by taste and butchered dragons for their heartstrings. Maybe this was
some sort of test, to see if he was worthy of their school? Milo frowned. Well,
if it was a magical response Ollivander wanted, he'd bloody well get one.
Ollivander passed Milo another allegedly 'magic' wand, and as soon as Milo's
hand touched it, he whispered "Silent Image." A swarm of illusory bats flew out
of the wand, before bursting into varicoloured flames. As the flames began to
disappear, the bat's skeletons continued flying, circling the interior of the
store seven times each before assembling themselves into a floating, bony
pentagram just below the ceiling. Upside-down, dark blue flames lit, one by one,
at the vertices of the five-pointed star, and drops of water began to fall
upwards from the floor to the ceiling. For added effect, hundreds of wholly
imaginary insects crawled up the walls and cast themselves into the flames. Milo
was sweating slightly, concentrating on the illusion, as he decided to go for
the finish. The ceiling appeared to open up into a gateway to some unimaginable
dimension in the dead-centre of the pentagram. The bony bats, still hovering in
their star-pattern, flew as one into the gateway and vanished. Milo put out the
fires and closed the imaginary portal, dispelling the illusion. Normally, the
fact that a Silent Image can't create any noise was a handicap, but this time
the dead silence actually added to the overall creepiness. All in all, Milo was
rather proud of himself.
"My, my, my. That was certainly something," Ollivander said softly in Milo's
ear, somehow having managed to get behind him again. "It would appear that we
Page 21

have found the wand for you, my young wizard."
Milo almost hated to ask, but couldn't resist.
"What kind is it, exactly?"
"Thirteen inches, chestnut wood, dragon heartstring core. Good for curses, Mr.
Amastacia-Liadon."
"G-good length. Thirteen, that is. I I'll just be leaving now."
Milo had already left the store before realizing that he'd never told the wizard
his name.
"Oh, my gods," he whimpered. Mordy was quivering in fear, deep in the
extradimensional reaches of Milo's Belt of Hidden Pouches.
oooo
McGonagall had decided that, in order to appear normal, Milo would stay at
Hogwarts until the day of the sorting ceremony, and then they'd Apparate back to
London and he'd take the Hogwarts Express with the other students. There was one
part of this plan that confused Milo, however.
"Professor, what's a train?" Milo asked curiously.
"You've never heard of a train?" she asked incredulously. "It's a, well, it's a
big metal contraption all with wheels and things. It travels along rails at high
speeds."
"I hate railroad plots," Milo grumbled as McGonagall shook her head in
amazement. How could someone have heard of a railroad, but not a train?
Milo spent the next day uneventfully wandering the halls of Hogwarts, engaging
in conversation with the paintings. He used a little Craft (Sewing) to do the
hems of his robes, so he could walk without them dragging along the ground quite
so much. Later, maybe, he could tailor them properly. He was forced to admit
that he didn't strike a very impressive image, with his sleeves rolled up four
times and still hanging past his hands.
The next morning, McGonagall Side-Along Apparated him to Platform Nine and
Three-Quarters.
"What is that?" he asked, shocked. He was pointing past the bustling students to
the train itself.
"That's the Hogwarts Express," McGonagall explained. "The train."
"H-How does it move? Where are the horses?"
"There aren't any horses, it moves itself."
Page 22

"What, by magic?"
"A little magic, but mainly Muggle know-how," McGonagall shrugged. "They can be
quite ingenious at times."
Milo was floored. He couldn't believe that something so huge could be moved
without without anything, it sounded like.
"What's a Muggle?" he asked reverently. "They must be mighty creatures indeed."
"What, Muggles?" McGonagall exclaimed, laughing. "No, they're just like you or
me, only without magic." Well, like me, anyway, McGonagall thought. We're not
quite sure what you are.
"I, um, I suppose I'll get on board the horseless iron wagon now, shall I?" Milo
asked nervously.
"Go on ahead, dear. I'll meet you at the castle," McGonagall said and teleported
away. Disapparated. Whatever.
Somewhat apprehensively, Milo climbed one of the stairs. He'd arrived early, so
most of the carriages were empty. Choosing a compartment at random, he sat down
forcibly in one of the seats. The more he thought about it, the more he was
convinced that there was no possible way to move this much iron all at once
without either magic or a whole herd of horses. The crew of this vessel would be
pretty embarrassed when they tried to get it moving.
After a few minutes, a round-faced boy popped his head through the door.
"Um, I don't suppose you've seen a toad anywhere?" he asked.
"Hmm. No, I can't say that I have, but my Spot score is lousy," Milo responded.
"Oh," the boy said, crestfallen. Milo began to feel sorry for him.
"Here, let me try something," he said. "Spontaneous Search," he cast
spontaneously, using his Spontaneous Divination ability to replace Mirror Image.
Spontaneously. Milo began to wonder if somebody was getting paid a silver piece
every time he thought 'Spontaneous.' Milo became instantly aware of everything
within twenty feet of him as if he'd carefully searched the contents of the
carriage by hand. "He's three doors down, under the North-facing bench," Milo
said.
"Blimey, that was impressive," the boy said. "I haven't been able to pull off
even the simplest of charms, yet. I'm Neville, by the way."
"Milo. And don't worry, Neville. Everyone was first level once in their lives."
"Err, thanks, I think," Neville said as he went off to grab his toad. Solid
choice for familiar, toads. Mordy, still sitting on his shoulder, playfully
nipped him on the ear.
Page 23

"Though I prefer rats, of course," he said aloud.
"Prefer rats to what?" asked a black-haired boy.
"Toads," Milo said, somewhat embarrassed. "Mordenkainen was feeling insecure."
"Oh," said the boy. "Mordenkainen is that your pet's name?"
"Familiar. Mordenkainen doesn't take kindly to being called a pet, he thinks its
de-humanizing."
"Oh. Er, sorry, Mordenkainen."
"His friends call him Mordy."
"His his friends? Of course they do, don't they? You know, I'm starting to
think that wizards are just weird for the sake of weird. Do you mind if I sit
down? The other compartments are full," the boy asked.
"Sure. I'm Milo, by the way."
"Harry," the boy said, sitting down across from him. There was something unusual
about him, but Milo couldn't place his finger on it. It wasn't the tussled hair,
or the broken glasses, or even the lightning-bolt scar. It was everything taken
together. Like there was just more to him than the others Milo had met in this
world.
"Oh my gods!" Milo shouted, delighted. "You're "
"You've heard, too?" Harry said darkly. "I was hoping to meet somebody who
didn't realize it immediately. The scar gave it away didn't it?"
"I'm so pleased to meet you!" Milo said.
"Yes, yes, can we please skip past this part?"
"Not much of a roleplayer, eh? Straight to the goblin-killing? I knew it! You're
a PC!"
"Wait, what?" Harry asked. "What's a Peasea? Is that another weird wizarding
word, like Muggle?"
"New to this? Ah, I remember my first adventureI was nearly slain by a kobold.
Very embarrassing, that. Ah, those were the days," Milo said dreamily. "No, PC
is nothing like Muggle. It means Player Character. Basically, the universe will
go out of its way to cast you into dangerous situationsbut also makes sure, to
a certain extent, that you get out of them as well. Usually. In short, if this
were a book, you'd be the main character."
"I think you're mistaking me for somebody else; I'm not really much of
anything," Harry said despondently.
Page 24

"Are you kidding? You've got a scar shaped like a lightning bolt! Okay, stop me
if I'm wrong: you've had a dark and troubled past." Harry nodded glumly. "Events
seem to be moving so quickly that you can barely keep up with all of the
foreshadowing and plots."
"Well, things have been happening pretty quickly," Harry confessed. "Just last
month I found that, when I was a baby, an evil wizard tried to kill me but was
somehow unable to, and died mysteriously because of it. Now, strange people are
coming up to me to thank me for something I don't even remember."
"Ha ha! I knew it. Make sure to stay on your toes these next few days. The early
days are keyeverything anyone says is going to be a clue to events that will
come up later. In fact, make a list. Here," Milo said, passing Harry a sheet of
parchment and a quill from his belt. "write down everyone you've met who could
be described with more than two adjectives, everything anyone said in a quiet
voice that was cut off before they could finish, and every named character
you've been introduced to, okay? It will be relevant. There may be an exam on it
later, and it will probably be pass-or-die. Have you started gathering your
party together yet?"
"Mymy party?" Harry asked, while he started writing down a list of names.
"Oh, you know, a quirky bunch of allies. Friends to help you through dangerous
times and adventures, that kind of thing."
"II can't say that I have."
"Okay. The next two to three people you meet will stick with you for lifeunless
they're future recurring villains, of course."
The door to the compartment slid open, and a lanky (one), red-headed (two) boy
came in.
"Anyone sitting here?" he asked, pointing to the seat next to Milo. "Everywhere
else is full."
The boy had a black mark on his nose (three! We have a winner) and seemed to be
glancing nervously at Harry.
"Hey, Ron," Harry said.
A pair of identical (one), freckled (two), equally red-headed (three!) twins
walked to the door.
"Listen," one of them said to Ron, "we're going to the middle of the train Lee
Jordan's got a giant tarantula down there."
"Right," mumbled Ron.
"Harry," said the other twin, "did we introduce ourselves? Fred and George
Weasley. And this is Ron, our brother. See you later, then."
Page 25

"Bye," said Harry and Ron. The twins slid the compartment door shut behind them.
"Are you really Harry Potter?" Ron blurted out.
Harry nodded. This was getting to be almost too much for Milo. Finally, the solo
adventure was over, and there was someone else to soak up damage.
Harry pulled back a fringe of hair to show his lightning-bolt scar more clearly.
"So, that's where You-Know-Who...?"
"I, um, I do not know who," Milo said.
"Oh, blimey! You don't?" Ron paused. "I don't think we've metI'm Ron, Ron
Weasley."
"Milo Amastacia-Liadon, but please just call me Milo. Anyways, what's with this
You-Know-Who character?"
"He was this dark, evil wizard who went on an unstoppable rampage of death and
destruction. Well, that is until Harry PotterI still can't believe you're
actually himproved to be too much for him and he died."
"What, just like that?" Milo asked.
"I wouldn't say it was 'just like that,'" Harry said. "Hehe killed my parents."
"But he's gone, though," Ron said. "And good riddance, too."
"No, he's not," Milo sighed. "But you probably won't believe me. See, in my
experience, when a Dark Wizard dies under mysterious causes, he'll come back ten
to fifteen years later more powerful than before. And that's assuming he's not a
lich."
"You talk a lot of nonsense, you know that?" Ron said. "Cool rat, though."
"Thanks," Milo shrugged. "His name's Mordy."
"Neat. I've got one too, he used to be my brother's." Ron pulled out a fat, grey
rat, who appeared to be quite dead.
"Uh, I think what you have there is an ex-rat, actually," Milo said.
"Nah, he's alive. He's just useless. His name is Scabbers."
"That seems oddly appropriate," Milo said. "But, enough character development.
Tell me more about this Dark Wizard."
"There's not that much more to it," Ron frowned. "What did you want to know?"
"Well, for starters, there's his name?" Milo said. "Because, really, I don't
know who."
Page 26

"Uh, they also call him He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, but I always thought that was
a bit of a mouthful," the redhead said, somewhat uncomfortably.
"Voldemort," said Harry, who had been silent. "He's called the Dark Lord
Voldemort."
Ron gasped.
"What?" Harry asked.
"You said You-Know-Who's name!" said Ron, sounding both shocked and impressed.
Milo tuned out as they continued chatting and comparing back stories and such.
Ron came from a poor family with lots of kids, Harry was an orphan raised by
Muggles, yadda yadda. Milo looked out the window for the first time since he'd
seen Neville.
"Sweet, merciful, Pelor! We're moving!" Milo shrieked. "How? What? How? Why?
How? When?"
Harry and Ron glanced at each other.
"Uh, you alright mate?" Harry asked.
"II've never been on a train before," Milo confessed. "I can't believe how fast
we're moving."
"What? Who never heard of a train? Everybody knows about trains," Ron said.
"They're just big metal things that move on rails, nothing to them."
"But it's moving so fast," Milo said in awe.
Shortly later, there was a loud clattering sound by the compartment door, and a
trolley selling candy came by. Milo and Ron passed, not having any money to
speak of, but Harry bought just about the entire cart. Harry shared his candy
with them all (Neutral Good, eh? Milo could live with that) which seemed to be a
big moment in his life for some reason. Milo never really paid much attention to
food in the past; he'd spent his first 350 gp on Everlasting Rations and had
more or less subsided off of that ever since. The savings over the years were
astronomical. Milo started listening again when Harry opened his Chocolate Frog.
In the package was a card containing a picture of Albus Dumbledore.
"Oh, hey, that guy with the beard," Milo said.
"You know him?" Harry asked.
"Oh course he does, everyone's heard of Dumbledore," said Ron.
Harry turned the card over and read the back. Then he passed it to Milo, who
read:
Albus Dumbledore, currently Headmaster of Hogwarts.
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considered by many the greatest wizard of modern
times, Dumbledore is particularly famous for his
defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945,
for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's
blood and for his work on alchemy with his partner,
Nicolas Flamel. Professor Dumbledore enjoys
chamber music and tenpin bowling.
Milo passed the card back.
"Dumbledore, the dark wizard Grindelwald, Nicolas Flamel, and the twelve uses of
dragon's blood," Milo said, counting each on his finger. "Write all those down,
they'll be important later."
"Important?" Ron asked. "Important for what?"
"For the adventure, obviously," Milo said.
"Um. Okay, pretend for one moment that we're all not as crazy as you," Ron said,
"and elaborate?"
"Oh, another newbie." Milo said, briefly explaining the concept of a PC to the
bewildered Ron.
As Ron was about to open his mouth to object, the compartment door slid open
again, and Neville's round face appeared again.
"Oh, hey Neville," Milo said. "Neville, this is Harry and Ron."
"Hey, pleased to meet you. Um, so I lost my toad again, I was wondering if you
could cast that spell again?" Neville asked.
"Sure," Milo said, but was getting concerned that he'd run out of magic before
even reaching Hogwarts. "Spontaneous Search," he cast, this time giving up Mount
for the day.
"Your toad's two compartments towards the rear of the cart, nobody ever taught
Ron how to fold his clothes properly, and Scabbers is eating Harry's last
Chocolate Frog," Milo said, as knowledge of the contents of the area flooded
into his mind rapidly. It was dizzying, and he knew, instantly, far more about
the contents of twenty-six students' luggage than he'd ever wanted to.
"Thanks!" Neville said, and scampered off.
"That was a mean trick," Ron accused. "Fooling Neville like that."
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"What are you talking about? I helped him," Milo said.
"Please. You didn't even use your wand," he said.
"What, this old piece of junk?" Milo asked, pulling out the stick that demon of
a man had sold him. Ron blushed slightly and mumbled something about his wand.
"Sorry, what was that?"
"I was just saying, I wish that I was rich enough to afford a brand-new wand and
still consider it a piece of junk," Ron muttered angrily.
"Oh, I didn't buy it. Professor McGonagall bought it for me with Hogwarts'
Destitute Orphan Fund."
"Oh. Sorry." Ron said, then went silent.
"You, too?" Harry asked.
"Uh, see, the thing about my parents is that I don't think I'm an orphan. I
just can't remember them." Milo said.
"That's terrible!" Harry said. "I'll help you find them, okay?"
"Oh, thanks, but don't worry. It's not important."
"Not important?" Ron asked, surprised. "How could parents possibly be
unimportant?"
"Well, they just I my back story isn't working. I think it's because I'm cut
off from my world," Milo said. Harry and Ron looked at him like he'd said he'd
just gotten engaged to a goblin. He briefly explained what happened with the
cultists.
"That's you're a nutter, mate." Ron said.
"Says the person who thinks you need a wand to be a Wizard," Milo shot back.
Mordy folded his arms and shook his little rat head at Ron and Scabbers,
emphasizing his point.
"Whatever. Want to trade rats?" Ron asked hopefully.
"Not on your life, Weasley."
"Can you really do magic without a wand?" Harry asked. "I don't seem to know
anything about anything, but I was led to believe that was practically
impossible."
"Oh, sure. Here, take this," he said, passing his wand to Harry. He shook his
hands free of his sleeves, to show he didn't have anything up them. "Okay, no
wand, right? Dancing Lights."
Page 29

Four glowing white lights appeared in front of his hands, then flew around the
compartment briefly, as the compartment door slid open again.
"Neville said, and of course I didn't believe him, that someone in this
compartment could perform magic without a wand," a girl said, then gasped as she
saw the lights. She had a bossy sort of voice (one), lots of bushy brown hair
(two)
"And the buck teeth make a winner!" Milo shouted happily and dismissed the
spell. "Come in! Who are you?"
"Hasn't anyone ever told you it's rude to comment on other people's appearance?"
she asked angrily.
"What? Oh, I'm sorry. Where I'm from it's actually a compliment," he said.
"What, really?" she asked disbelievingly.
"Yeah. Dumping Charisma is a sign of great wisdom and foresight." Milo blushed
slightly. He wasn't sure what he'd been thinking, all those years ago, when he'd
decided his Charisma should be two points higher than his Constitution. Stupid,
stupid, stupid, and now he was stuck with it.
The girl frowned, trying to figure out if she'd been insulted or not.
"Well, I'm Hermione Granger. I've tried a few simple spells for practice and
it's all worked for me, but never without my wand. How did you do that?" she
asked, sitting down next to Harry. Milo made frantic gestures to Harry to write
her name down on the growing list.
"Well, I'm a Wizard, right? So I do what Wizards normally do. I learned the
spell, wrote it down in my spellbook, and every morning I memorize it on an
as-needed basis. Then I can cast it later, once."
"That that doesn't sound like magic at all," Hermione said slowly. "At least,
not like any magic I've read about. And believe me, I've read a lot."
"What, seriously?" Milo asked. "How do you do it, then?"
"Well, I learn the spell by reading how it's done. Then, after I practice enough
to get the gestures and incantation just right, I just have to do it again and
the spell gets cast."
"Huh," Milo said. "How many times can you do that? In a given day, I mean?"
"I've never noticed a limit," Hermione said. "I mean, it can be a little
exhausting, depending on the spell. But there's no hard cap."
"What, seriously?" Milo asked again. "Well, that's hardly fair. How many spells
can you learn?" They were starting to sound like Warlocks, who could cast an
infinite number of spells per day but only learned a few different ones to
Page 30

choose from.
"Well, I can cast three, but nothing very impressive so far. But learning them
isn't all that hard," she said.
"Not that hard, she says," Ron muttered. "Don't listen to her, mate; it's pretty
hard."
Harry just shrugged.
"I mean, is there no limit?" Milo asked. "Or, if you worked hard enough and
practiced enough, could you just keep learning them?"
"Yes, that's right. With enough hard work and practice, there's no upper limits
beyond the confines of normal human memory," Hermione said, as if reciting the
line from memory. "I'll bet Dumbledore knows thousands of spells."
"That's sososo broken!" Milo exclaimed. "That's so unfair! I can get eleven a
day, and almost half of those are cantrips! And I've been doing this a lot
longer than you!"
"What, you've already been using magic?" Ron asked. "That's illegal, that is."
"Psh, who's to stop me? Besides, I haven't set foot in this country till three
days ago. I wasn't even on this plane before that."
"The word's train, mate," Harry said. "Planes fly up in the sky, though most
wizards don't know much about them from what I've heard. It's an easy enough
mistake to make, don't feel bad."
"No, a plane is a universe into its own, with its own rules and laws governing
it," Milo said. He should know, had maximum ranks in Knowledge (the Planes),
after all.
"Excuse me, to head off this discussion before it becomes any more unbearable,"
Hermione interrupted, "it's clear we're operating under different meanings of
the same word. Harry is talking about an airplane, a Muggle form of
transportation. Milo is talking about a plane of existence, a totally different
concept with no known grounding in reality, forcing me to conclude that he is,
in fact, quite insane."
"Gee, thanks," Milo muttered. He was about to come up with a snappy retort when
the door slid open yet again.
"I'm sorry, I can't help you find your toad again today," Milo said irritably.
While not strictly speaking true, any more and he'd be cutting into his
emergency first-level spells. Milo never went anywhere without Feather Fall and
Grease.
Unfortunately, it was not the good-natured Longbottom boy standing in the
doorway. A pale (one) blond (two) boy entered imperiously (and three! We have a
recurring character). After a brief moment of shock upon hearing Milo's words,
Page 31

he apparently decided to completely ignore the young Wizard's existence.
"Is it true?" the boy asked. "They're saying all down the train that Harry
Potter is in this compartment. So it's you, is it?"
"Yes," said Harry. Flanking the sneering boy were a pair of mooks.
"Oh, this is Crabbe and this is Goyle," the boy said, although Milo wasn't sure
why he bothered. Everything about them said mute NPC. "and my name's Malfoy,
Draco Malfoy."
Ron sniggered slightly.
"Think my name's funny, do you? No need to ask who you are" Draco paused,
staring at Milo. The blood drained from his face, making him look, if it were
possible, even paler.
"You! I would have thought you'd be in hiding down the deepest, darkest hole you
could find, after showing your face at my father's mansion. Well, Potter, I can
see you've chosen your side alreadya Weasley, a mudblood, and a dead man. I'd
be careful, if I were you, or you might just wind up going the way of your
parents." With that, Malfoy spun about on his heel and started to leave. Harry
and Ron stood up, their faces livid. Hermione had tears in her eyesapparently
mudblood was some kind of insult. Maybe her ancestors were part dwarf, or
something?
"Either of you want to get him, or shall I?" Milo asked.
Ron smirked slightly, but his fists were still held, his knuckles turning white.
"Be my guest," he said through clenched teeth.
"Grease," Milo muttered. The ground underneath Malfoy and his mooks became
all-but frictionless. The results were fairly predictable, especially given that
they were on a moving train.
"You! You! When Father hears about this," Malfoy said, trying (and failing,
quite hilariously, in fact) "he'll, he'llgah!" the Hogwarts Express lurched
around a corner, sending causing Crabbe to fall onto Malfoy again.
Unfortunately, the spell only lasted for eighteen seconds. "You haven't seen the
last of me!" Draco shouted, then stormed off, furiously.
"Mate, forget everything I said about you being crazy. You are alright in my
books," Ron said.
"Same goes for me," said Harry. "Let's all hope for Gryffindor together. Are you
alright, Hermione?" Harry asked the crying girl.
"F-fine. I'm fine," she said.
"What was that he called you, anyway?" Harry asked, confused.
"Mudblood," Ron said. "It's a dire insult. It means someone whose parents
Page 32

weren't wizards. We'll get him back for that one."
"I rather think we did already get him back," Milo said smugly.
"Nah, that was just interest. We'll come and collect in full one day."
"Hermione, I wouldn't worry about it," Harry said. "Nobody here cares whether or
not your parents were Muggles."
"Easy for you to say!" she shot back. "You're all, all purebloods!"
"Hey, take it back!" Milo said. "There's not a drop of magical blood in my
family."
They all paused for a beat or three.
"Andyou're proud of that?" Ron asked.
"Nine Hells, yeah. It means I'm a Wizard. I had to scrounge and work and fight
tooth and nail for my magic. What do you take me for, a Sorcerer?" he asked.
Hermione looked somewhat mollified (though confused), and gave him a brief,
thankful look.
"What was that all about, anyway?" Hermione asked, her voice steady but her eyes
still rimmed with red.
"Oh, he's some git I met at Madam Malkins," Harry explained.
"He comes from a big, rich family," Ron added. "They were among You-Know-Who's
first supporters, and also the first to turn their backs on himor so they
sayafter he fell. Malfoy's dad claims he was being controlled by magic, but my
dad thinks he's full of it."
"Hmm," Hermione said. "Maybe you shouldn't have humiliated him like that. We
could come to regret this, if his family's as powerful as all that."
Milo just grinned. Three CR ones defeated, split three ways, was 300 XP each. He
lay back as the train reached its destination, enjoying his +1 Intelligence, +2
hp, +6 skill ranks, +1 1st level spell slot, +1 2nd level spell slot, +1 Will
save bonus, and +3 friends.
Chapter 3: The Sorting Ceremony
The first years all filed into the Great Hall apprehensively as McGonagall
explained about the four houses. Milo mentally filed them into: house for the
PCs, house for the villains, and two NPC houses to make up the numbers. Fair
enough.
Page 33

The other first years around him were nervously discussing what they thought the
Sorting Ceremony would entail. The group conclusion seemed to be that it would
be some sort of horrible test, performed in front of everybody. Milo's
post-level-up elation hadn't passed yet, but he still wished he hadn't burned so
many spell slots on helping Neville find that toad. There was a kerfuffle as a
group of ghosts drifted through the walls, but Milo was already ready for this.
He shuddered to think of what he would have done in this situation had he not
met the late Professor Binns the other day.
The students were formed into a line alphabetically by McGonagall, and once more
Milo cursed his last name. Why couldn't he have been Milo Liadon-Amastacia
instead? The only person in front of him was a pink-faced, blonde girl.
"Wh-what do you think I'll have to do?" she asked, the signs of abject terror on
her face. "I'm first! Why am I always first?" she asked.
"Don't worry, you'll be fine," Milo said. "They expect everyone to do this test,
remember? So how hard could it be?"
"B-but"
"And besides, they wouldn't start out every year by humiliating all their new
students."
"Maybe it's all just a cruel joke, and everyone will laugh at me," she said
through tears.
"If they do, I'll unleash magical hell on them," Milo muttered. What he meant
was, 'if they do (that to me) I'll unleash magical hell,' but that's not what
the frightened young girl heard.
"You would? For me? Th-thank you!"
"Don't mention it," Milo said, slightly embarrassed, and cast about for some
fairly generic encouraging platitudes. "You're braver than you think. Just keep
that in mind, and confidently walk up there, and whatever happens, happens. Uh.
There's bravery in everyone, you just have to look," he finished, somewhat
lamely.
"When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be
sorted," McGonagall said to them. "Abbott, Hannah!"
The girl looked determined as she walked up to the stool, and while in another
life she might have been sorted into Hufflepuff (not that that's anything to be
ashamed of, of course), perhaps it was because she was thinking I'm braver than
I think, I'm braver than I think, I'm braver than I think, when the hat was
placed on her head, it only took a moment before it bellowed:
"GRYFFINDOR!"
"Amastacia-Liadon, Milo!" McGonagall said. Well, here goes nothing.
Page 34

"GRYFFINDOR!" the hat shouted after barely touching his head, and his new house
applauded as if it wasn't already a foregone conclusion. Gryffindor was clearly
the house for main characters. To confirm his suspicions, Neville, Hermione,
Ron, and Harry were all sorted into Gryffindor (although, oddly, the hat seemed
to have a hard time deciding with Harry). Draco and his minions, however, were
sent to Slytherin. Milo wondered briefly what would have happened if one of
Crabbe or Goyle had been sent to Gryffindoror, perhaps even worse, Hufflepuff.
Milo looked around the tables, and found that, oddly, the plates and dishes were
all empty. He shrugged and pulled his Everlasting Rations out of his utility
belt, and started munching.
"Whacha got there?" Asked Hannah, who had, for some unimaginable reason, sat
next to him at the table. On Milo's left was Hermione, followed by Harry, Ron,
and Neville.
"Everlasting Rations," Milo explained, gesturing to the blue silk pouch.
"They're not very commonI heard about them in an obscure book, and had to get
them custom-madebut they're super handy. Every sunrise, the bag fills itself up
again."
"Convenient," she said somewhat dubiously. "They tasty?"
"You know, I don't think anyone's ever asked that before." He thought about it
for a moment. "Tastes a little like granola, only even less."
She made a face.
"You don't think we were supposed to bring a lunch, do you? They will feed us?"
she asked. Milo shrugged.
"Hermione?" he asked, on the assumption that she'd know.
Hermione paused briefly, as if doing a mental catalogue search for the relevant
information, before reciting as if from memory:
"'Hogwarts is world-renowned for owning some of the best cooking elves, and
prides itself in never having one complaint for its dining experience.
Durmstrang Acadamy, by comparison, has received four-hundred and forty-four
complaints as of the 1991 fifth edition of this book,'" she said. "It's in
Hogwarts, A History. You should read it sometime."
"Elves?" Milo asked incredulously. "For cooking?" Milo had never known an elf to
approach within twenty feet of a frying pan, and doubted that a single solitary
potato the world over had ever been peeled by delicate, elven hands. Milo was
convinced that they were holding out on a rare, Arcane-version of Create Food
and Drink, because otherwise, their civilization would have crumbled to dust
about two weeks after creation.
"Wish I was rich enough to own an elf," Ron said dreamily. "I'd never have to
clean my room again."
Page 35

Milo's brain heard the sentence, of course, but rejected it immediately with a
notice: 'Does not parse.' Own an elf? He must have misheard. Before he could
ask, the Headmaster spoke.
"Wecome!" Dumbledore said. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts. Before we begin,
I would like to say a few words. And they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!
"Thank you!"
And then sat back down again.
"Is he a bit mad?" Harry asked.
"Well, yeah, he's a bit of a nutter, but some people say it's a disguise and
he's really a genius," Ron said.
"He seemed normal when I last talked to him," Milo said.
"And you don't get to be Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot and Supreme Mugwump of
the International Confederation of Wizards by collecting bottle caps," Hermione
said. "Or by being stark raving mad," she added.
Everyone looked at her again.
"It was in Hogwarts, A History, and honestly, don't any of you read?" she asked,
slightly indignantly.
"Quidditch magazines, mainly," Ron admitted.
"Newspapers rescued from the trash, but only when the Dursley's weren't
watching," Harry confessed.
"Outside of spell books and fell arcane tomes? Not that much," Milo said.
Hermione sighed.
"You should try it sometime, you might find it fairly enlightenoh, my
goodness!" Piles and piles of food appeared, suddenly, in front of them.
"Huh, neat trick," Milo said. "I knew the elves cooked their food by magic.
Pointy-eared pansies never worked a day in their lives."
His last sentence drew a number of odd looks, but fortunately, most people were
too busy digging in to pay much attention to him. Harry Potter in particular
looked like he was about to cry tears of joy at the food laid out in front of
them. Milo shrugged. To him, food was something to keep you from getting
hunger-based check penalties. While the rest of the party was distracted by food
(Milo made sure to cast Detect Poison before he touched any of it), Milo decided
to check out the head table.
The teachers at Hogwarts were the quirkiest bunch of characters he'd seen since
Milo had been hired to take out a gnome barbarian's band of performing
Page 36

cutthroats. One of them was wearing a purple turban. One of them was tiny (Milo
couldn't tell, from this distance, if he was a gnome, halfling, or dwarf). One
of them was Albus Dumbledore, for gods' sakes. The last, though now, he was
really interesting. Black cloak. Greasy hair. Hooked nose.
Necromancer, hands down. Milo grinned. Ladies and gentlemen, we have our dark
wizard. Milo gave it a fifty percent chance that the professor was working for
You-Know-Who, with the other fifty percent saying he was You-Know-Who. The only
nail missing from his coffin was a goatee.
"Hey, Hermione, who's he?" Milo gestured to the obviously evil wizard.
"'Professor Severus Snape, born 1960, made Potions Master at Hogwarts in 1981 by
Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, and as of 1991, is the Head of House Slytherin,'"
she recited. "Hogwarts, A History, page 371."
"You're a very useful person to have around, you know that?" Milo asked.
Hermione beamed. "Harry, listen up. Add Snape to your list, he's bad news."
"Are you sure?" Harry asked.
"Absolutely. I mean, just look at him. He's wearing all black, for goodness
sake."
"Er, I don't mean to put too fine of a point on it, but we're all, also, wearing
all black, Milo," Harry said, gesturing at his uniform.
"It's black of a different sort. We're in the sober, working black. He's in evil
black. Back me up here, Ron."
"Fred and George say he's a smarmy git, and he favours Slytherin students
outrageously," Ron said. "They also say that he's half bat, he can read your
mind, and that shampoo spontaneously combusts when it touches his hair, but I
think they made that last one up."
"He's probably just allergic to shampoo," Hermione said. "He's a professor. He
can't be evil, or Dumbledore wouldn't let him teach here."
Milo barked a laugh. They clearly had very different views of education.
Harry abruptly clutched his forehead in pain.
"What's wrong?" Hermione asked in concern.
"I was just looking at Snape, and suddenly my scar hurt," Harry said.
"The scar You-Know-Who gave you?"
"No, the other scar on my forehead, of course the scar Vol- You-Know-Who gave
me," Harry snapped. Hermione blushed slightly. "S-sorry," he said. "I didn't
mean to be mean, I was just so angry all of a sudden it was weird."
Page 37

"I'd say that's basically proof," Milo said. "Harry looked at Snape, and his
curse scar hurt. Ergo, Snape is evil."
"Sounds good to me," Ron voiced his agreement. "I mean, look at him. Seriously."
"I don't think we should just jump to conclusions like this," Hermione said.
"One's fashion choices and hygiene, no matter how unfortunate, have no bearing
on moral standing. Also, we should really tell an adult about Harry's scar, it
might be importanthe might need a healer."
"What does Snape need to do, eat a baby or something?" Milo asked. New PCs could
be so thick sometimes.
"He hasn't even done anything yet," Hermione protested.
"She has a point," Harry added. "All he's done is sit there. Maybe he's a really
nice bloke, and I don't think any of us know enough magic yet to say if my
scar's reaction means anything. We should give him the benefit of the doubt."
"Fine, it's your adventure, after all. But can we at least agree to keep a close
eye on him?" Milo pleaded.
They all agreed, albeit in Hermione's case, somewhat reluctantly.
Dumbledore then stood to make another speech, laying out some ground rules. The
Forbidden Forest washah, yeah right. Milo couldn't imagine a better way to
encourage students to go there and gain XP than to forbid them from doing it.
Milo's ears really perked up at hearing about the forbidden, trapped, mysterious
corridor, however. Harry laughed when he Dumbledore said that anyone who
investigated it would die a painful death, but nobody else did. The Headmaster
was serious.
Milo grinned. He loved this school already.
"I can't believe Quidditch is restricted to second years," Ron complained.
"What's Quidditch?" Harry, Hermione, and Milo asked simultaneously. Ron fainted
into his pudding. Once he came around, he described the rules. It was some
unbelievably dangerous-sounding sport (two of the players' jobs were to send
heavy leather balls flying at the opposing team!) played on broomstick. As Ron
explained about the Golden Snitch, Milo considered it thoughtfully. From what he
could tell, the Seeker's success or failure completely invalidated everything
that the other players did. It was as if the sport was set up entirely to give
Seekers a backdrop to compete against.
"I like it!" Milo said. "It has everything. Magic, danger, and rules blatantly
skewed for the PCs to shine. Harry, make sure to write this down." The
Boy-Who-Lived dutifully added it to his growing list of plot-relevant items.
"I think it sounds stupid," Hermione declared, ignoring Ron's protests. "And way
too dangerous to be allowed in a school setting. Flying in general sounds
dreadful."
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Dumbledore sent them all to bed, so Percyas Gryffindor prefectled the first
years to their lair. En route, they were attacked by Peeves.
"Peeves! Show yourself!" Percy bellowed. "He's a poltergeistbe careful, he only
answers to the Bloody Baron. That's the Slytherin ghost."
"Getting all this, Harry?" Milo asked. Peeves flew past, throwing sticks at
Neville's head. "Prefect, that was an attack if I've ever seen one. Permission
to retaliate?"
"Now, I don't think that will be necessary. He knows that if he goes too far,
I'll tell the Baron," Percy said. "Besides" Percy was interrupted, however,
when Peeves unloaded a bucket of water on the prefect's head. "Hit him with
everything you've got, Mr. Amastacia-Liadon. Everything."
"Glitterdust!" Milo shouted, the shower of sparks blinding the poltergeist for
twenty-four seconds, now (level-ups were the greatest), and preventing him from
turning invisible. Peeves, whirling in astonished fury, began dropping walking
sticks, pies, and associated other miscellany on the students. "Feather Fall!"
Milo cast, slowing their descent to a harmless speed. As a coup de grace, once
the blindness wore off, then created a Silent Image of the Bloody Baron slowly
drifting around the corner. Peeves bolted, leaving a trail of glittering dust in
his wake.
"Well done!" Percy congratulated him, after using a Cleaning Charm to dry
himself off. "Is everyone alright? Excellent. That was Peeves the Poltergeist,
if you encounter him in the halls, it's best to find a member of the faculty or
the Bloody Baron. He won't hurt deliberately hurt youthough his pranks can at
times get out of handbut he's irritating, and might make you late for class.
After decades of certain disreputable Hogwarts students using Peeves as an
pretext for tardiness, teachers have stopped accepting run-ins with the
poltergeist as an excuse."
Milo couldn't believe they had random encounter within the castle walls. This
school was awesome. Percy led them, finally, to the Gryffindor Common Room,
which was guarded by a painting requiring a password. Milo hadn't realized that
inter-house rivalry was quite so heated as to require secret bases and
passwords, but it fit with his general theory of Hogwarts education.
Both Harry and Milo felt at home immediately upon entering Gryffindor tower, but
for different reasons. Harry was overwhelmed at all of the magic and wonder, and
glad to finally be rid of his abusive foster parents. The sense of camaraderie
in the dorm was something new and amazing to him. Milo, on the other hand, felt
the calling of all wizards everywhere, regardless of universe: wizard=tower,
tower=wizard. He was excited for tomorrow, when he could fully enjoy the
benefits of being fourth level, and memorize a whole slew of new spells. He
decided, after a bit of thought, to add Levitate and Invisibility to his
repertoire. He made sure to prepare an extra Silent Image in case of another
run-in with Peeves.
The next morning was interesting. Word had spread that the famous Harry Potter
Page 39

was attending school, and Milo's unfortunate friend was pestered with constant
whispering and glances. Milo suggested that he borrow some makeup from Hannah
(Hermione didn't seem the type) and hide the tell-tale scar (minor details only
gave +5 to Disguise checks), but Harry adamantly refused, claiming it was the
only reminder he had of his parents. Ron howled with laughter at the suggestion,
adding that some eyeliner or, as he put it, "guyliner," would really bring out
Harry's emerald eyes.
Their first class was Herbology, which Milo figured was safe enough. He was a
bit concerned that learning about plants meant he might be obliged to invest
Skill Ranks in Knowledge (Nature), or, Vecna forbid, Survival, but after
clarifying that it was magical herbs they were studying, Milo was quite
convinced his Knowledge (Arcana) would be up to the task. History of Magic was
likewise no trouble at all, Milo spent the class trying to figure out what his
immediate response would be when the ghost of Professor Binns invariably snapped
and starting draining the students' Constitution scores, or when an evil Cleric
showed up and seized control of the undead Professor with Command Undead.
Professor Flitwick apparently taught Charms, which was a problem for Milo. As a
specialized Conjurer, he was obliged to drop two schools of magiche chose
Necromancy (he didn't look good in pale make-up and mascara) and Enchantment (he
was uncomfortable about mentally controlling people). The Charms subschool fell
neatly into the second category of spells, which Milo was forbidden from
casting. Fortunately, the excitable professor, who Milo was convinced was some
sort of deformed gnome, fainted dead away when he called Harry Potter's name
while taking attendance.
"What have we got next?" Milo asked Ron.
"Uhh, let me check," the redhead said, patting his pockets for his schedule.
"Transfiguration with McGonagall. I hear she's really strict."
"Transfiguration, eh? That might be a problem," Milo frowned. That would
involve, presumably, performing actual magic with a wandsomething Milo hadn't
even tried to do. He was worried that if he actually succeeded, he might wind up
as a multi-classed Wizard/"wizard," and be doomed to spend the rest of his days
as a walking joke of a character.
"Why's that?" asked a first-year NPC. The other Gryffindors had started
following Milo around between their classes after word spread that he could
scare off Peeves.
Professor McGonagall was so astonished that the entire class arrived on time
(apparently, that had never happened before) that she awarded them five points
for Gryffindor. After then warning them of the dangers of Transfiguration, she
told them to try and transform a matchstick into a pin.
Milo broke out into a cold sweat, staring at the stick in front of him. Surely,
wizards in this plane couldn't cast Polymorph Any Object at first level? That
was an eighth level spell! Milo felt a bit foolish waving his wand around
ineffectually, but he really wasn't sure what else he could do. Hermione,
sitting next to him, had managed to turn her matchstick silver.
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Milo's eyes narrowed.
"Prestidigitation," he murmured. It was a cantrip, a 0th-level spell, used for
practice by novice castersbut it was also one of the most versatile. Milo
preferred to think of it as Least Wish. One of its many effects was that it
could recolour an object temporarily.
He then sat back smugly in his desk chair, satisfied with a job well done.
McGonagall passed by, giving encouragement and pointers to the struggling
students she passed. Upon reaching Milo, however, she frowned and stared at the
silver matchstick. To Milo, it was indistinguishable from Hermione's. McGonagall
picked it up, examined it very carefully, and dropped it on the desk. It made a
quiet, wooden tick.
"Mr. Amastacia-Liadon," she said sternly, "did you paint your matchstick?"
"N-No, Professor," he stammered. Drat, curse her cross-class ranks in
Intimidate!
"Then bravo. One point for Gryffindor," she said grudgingly, before walking to
Hermione. She frowned, and gave hers the same examination. She dropped it, and
it gave a silvery metal ping! Upon colliding with the desk.
"Well done, Ms. Granger! It's been many years since I've seen someone change
anything more than mere colour on their first try! Two points for Gryffindor!"
Hermione turned slightly pink, and shot Milo a smug look when McGonagall passed
by.
Next was Potionswith the Slytherins, no less. Whoever is involved in the
scheduling of classes, Milo thought, should be awarded a medal. He couldn't
think of a possible scenario that would lead to greater conflict than the
obviously evil head of the obviously evil house teaching the heroes and villains
together. Put a PC in a powderkeg like that, and there'd be an explosion, sure
as sure.
Milo was the only Gryffindor smiling when they entered Snape's dungeon. Dungeon.
It had been far too long since Milo had been in a proper dungeon, now all they
needed was a troll or two to complete his day.
Milo didn't know what, specifically, was going to go down in the dungeon. But he
knew someone was going to start a fight, and he knew who was going to finish it.
He chose his desk warily, deciding to go right in the dead-centre. The rest of
the Gryffindors sat on the right-hand side of the classroom, leaving the
left-hand side emptya clear message for the Slytherins (whenever they deigned
to arrive). From the border between the two groups, Milo could safely target the
entire Slytherin first year with a well-placed spell on the first round of
combat.
There is an infrequently-used rule (and Milo loved infrequently-used rules)
Page 41

called the ready action. A character can, on his turn, ready an action to do
something specific when certain triggers, which he chooses in advace,
occurimmediately. It allowed rapid action, as long as you were prepared enough.
As the Slytherins drifted in one-by-one (a few were covered in whitewash, mute
evidence of Peeves' "humorous" "pranks"), Milo readied an action: Glitterdust in
the centre of the Slytherin side of the room as soon as the first Slytherin acts
offensively against a Gryffindor. That should cover it.
Snape walked into the room like a man with a purpose. He quickly called out
attendance, pausing on Harry's name.
"Ah, yes," he said softly. "Our newcelebrity." Draco and his mooks sniggered.
The other Gryffindors sitting along the borderlineNeville, Hannah, and
Lavendersat tensely, their hands near their wands. Snape began his introductory
monologue, lingering, a bit too lovingly for Milo's taste, on the 'subtle
science and exact art of potion-making.'
"Potter!" said Snape, suddenly. Harry sat bolt upright, a brief look of terror
on his face. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an
infusion of wormwood?"
Milo frowned. Nothing, he thought. Except, of course, a gods-awful smell.
"I don't know, sir." Harry said. Ah, well, even Wizards fail a Knowledge check
once in a while.
"Tut, tutfame clearly isn't everything," Snape sneered. Well now, that's just
rude.
"Let's try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a
bezoar?"
Hermione's hand shot into the air, as did Milo's.
"I don't know, sir," Potter said, his voice barely shaking at all.
"Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Potter?"
Well now, there's no reason for him to act like that to the poor Gryffindor kid,
Milo thought. In fact, the head of House Slytherin was acting downright
offensively Oh, crud.
"GLITTERDUST!"
Chapter 4: The Defence Professor
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"You know, it really could have been worse," Hermione said.
"Can't see how," said one of the Patil twins (the Gryffindor one, whatever her
name was).
"Well," said Lavender Brown, "at least the bloodshed was kept to a minimum."
"And St. Mungo's says Neville's supposed to make a full recovery," added Hannah
Abbot.
"And we weren't expelled," Hermione pointed out.
"Also," continued Lavender, "Snape managed to Finite that toadwho summoned
that, anyway? I don't think I've ever seen quite that shade of orange
beforebefore Pansy Parkinson suffered permanent injury."
"Really, it's a wonder he knew which one to cast it on. Couldn't tell the two
apart myself," muttered Ron.
"I think only taking ten points off showed remarkable restraint, all things
considered," Hermione mused. "Shame it was from every first year in Gryffindor,
though."
"Because, you know, seeing as how she looks like a toad," Ron said, disappointed
at the initial lack of response.
"Assuming we don't assault the Slytherins anymore, and we all put in a few extra
hours and some hard work in practice and revisions," Hermione said cheerfully,
"I think we might be able to manage to beat the Hufflepuffs at leastnot that
there's anything wrong with them, perfectly respectable housein the House Cup
standings."
Seamus and several other largely interchangeable first years groaned.
"Nothing a Golden Snitch or two won't fix," Ron said hopefully. "Wood
reckonsassuming we can find a Seeker half as good as Charlie waswe stand a
decent chance at taking the Quidditch Cup from Slytherin this year."
"Cease," said the Bloody Baron. He didn't exactly shout, and it wasn't exactly
loudin fact, it seemed little more than a whisper. But even over the ten
complaining eleven-year-olds (and Hermione, who was in fact twelve) the ghost's
voice was clearly audible. "Be glad it's only house points and detention when I
still attended this school, we didn't use the Cat O'Nine Tails."
The Gryffindors fell silent. A few scratched their heads, pondering the Baron's
last statement. Harry knew he shouldn'the really, really knew itbut he just
couldn't help himself. He had to ask.
"D-don't you mean, you still used the Cat O'Nine Tails?"
"No. It was introduced by a weak, soft headmaster after Emeric the Evil
retiredby a Hufflepuff, as I recall," the Baron mused. Harry swallowed. If a
Page 43

nine-tipped whip was seen as soft enough for a Hufflepuffnot that there's
anything wrong with themto use instead of whatever they did before
The entire first year of Gryffindor was in detention, overseen by the silvery
coloured ghost of Slytherin. Their task was simple enough on the surface: they
had to keep the suits of armour that lined the halls of Hogwarts free of rust.
The catch wasn't that they couldn't use magic (which they couldn't, of course)
or even that they were supervised by the Bloody Baron (Milo couldn't help but
wonder where the Bloody Baron's eponymous blood came from. It isn't because the
Baron died violently, or Nearly Headless Nick would be at least as bad...) but
it was that the paintings were ordered to ignore them during detention.
Now, you may be thinking, "is that all?" And if so, it is because you've never
been eleven years old in a shopping mall after closing time, completely alone,
with only a teddy bear. Only in this case, the shopping mall has (at last count,
and rounding up) a completely unknown number of floors. And the staircases move.
As do some floors. One notable corridor appears to twist somewhere in the
middle, and by the end of it you're walking on stone and there's a carpet along
the ceiling. But only on every other Tuesday, except on leap years. And the
shopping mall is a castle. And that castle is Hogwarts.
And your teddy bear is missing.
It only took half an hour for Hannah (Neville was still in St. Mungo's) to
vanish.
"Okay, the thing we need to do is not panic," Hermione said calmly, "and search
for her in a group. As long as we all stay together, we should be"
"Nah, that's rubbish," Ron interrupted. "We're at a four-way intersection, and
there's still nine of us. We can find her faster if we divvy up, send two in
every direction except one, which gets three. Faster we find her, the faster we
clean these ruddy statues."
"No, there's only three directions to go in unless we go backwards and in any
case that's beside the point because if we split then we'll have to stop and go
looking for you"
"What, just because you're so much smarter than all of us?" Ron asked rudely.
"For all you know, we could have to go find you!"
"That's exactly my point!" Hermione shouted.
"So we're in agreement. We split up."
"No!" Milo shouted. "You never split the party! Never!"
"You're one to talk, you got us into this mess," Lavender accused.
"Says the girl who lit Pansy Parkinson on fire," that Patil girl muttered.
"That cow had it coming," Lavender said defensively. "She called me a cow."
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"We're getting sidetracked," Hermione insisted. "We need to find Hannah, and the
best way to do that is to systematically search every room and hallway, as a
group, that she could have got to in ten minutes."
"That could take the rest of our lives!" Ron said. "Let's just split up and find
her already!"
"No, I'm telling you"
"Fine, how about a compromise? I'll split up with Harry, Dean and Seamus, you
and the others stay together. Coming, Harry?"
Harry gave an apologetic look and followed Ron and the others down the corridor
on the right-hand side.
Hermione sighed. "Okay, well the rest of us can start on the left and work our
way through"
"Who put you in charge, anyway?" Lavender asked. "Parvati, Fay, and I can take
the centre. We'll have found Hannah and be back to cleaning statues while you're
still organising." Lavender strode off, followed by a pair of witches.
"Parvati!" Milo said. "So that's her name."
Hermione groaned.
"You know, I sometimes wish I'd been sorted into Ravenclaw," she muttered. "This
sort of behaviour would never stand there. I don't suppose you have any tricks
up your sleeve?"
"Loads," said Milo. "But Locate Creature is a fourth-level spell, and I can only
do up to second. And unless Hannah's met an unfortunate end, Locate Object won't
be able to find her."
"Huh," said Hermione. "So you can find objects with magic, but not living
things?"
"Yeah, that's basically what I just said. Any unique object I've seen firsthand,
or the closest one of a type of object."
"Find her robes," commanded Hermione.
Milo paused.
"I think that's cheating," he said. "Or at least, bending the rules to the point
of breaking... I like it." He imagined, as best he could, Hannah's robes in his
mindeasy, because they were exactly the same as the ones he and Hermione were
wearing. "Locate ObjectHannah's robes."
"So, where is she?"
Page 45

"Uh. Sort of between forwards and left, and up a little. Now down. Now up
again."
"What? Any idea how far?"
"No, except that she has to be within the range of the spell. 560 feet at the
outer limit."
They decided to head left, based on the fact that it seemed to have as big a
chance of being correct as forwards and they didn't have to deal with Lavender
and whoever those other two girls were.
"Wish Neville were here," Milo said.
"Why's that?" Hermione asked as they walked. He was nice enoughfor a
boyHermione supposed, but he wasn't exactly useful.
"Well, see, if he were then he'd be the one who wandered off and got lost. Then
we'd be looking for him," he explained, "and not Hannah Abbot."
"You have a very unusual view of the world, you know that? So tell me," she
asked slyly, "why would you rather Hannah were here, with us?"
"Because then there'd be three of us, and we'd have a higher chance of making
our Spot checks."
"Our what's?"
"Spot checks. You make them when, say, Peeves is sneaking up on you from behind.
And I have a feeling we failed one."
"And why is that?"
"Just a feeling I get sometimeswait. Hannah's moving." The spell stopped
tugging him forwards and left, and abruptly started pulling more to the right.
And then down, rapidly. "She's falling," he said. "And depending on the
distance, it might be pretty fast."
"We should find a professor immediately," Hermione said. "She might be hurt."
"For once, I agree with youbut how are we going to find one? Face it, we're
lost."
"Gah!" Hermione said. "There must be something we can do. What other spells do
you know?"
Milo started listing. For an ordinary Wizard of his level, there would be only
about a dozen or sobut Milo was no ordinary Wizard. He was an optimized Wizard,
and one extremely broken ability he'd traded the ability to make magical scrolls
for allowed him to cast any kind of wizard Divination spellspells for finding
things, information, and peoplehe'd heard of. He'd heard rumours that it could
be used for non-Wizard spells as well, but Milo was unwilling to risk it. He
Page 46

knew the horror stories of what could happen to those who bent the rules too
far... suffice to say that the universe could be capricious.
"You can read people's minds?" Hermione gasped, after Milo explained Detect
Thoughts. "You're a Legilimens!"
"First of all, that's not a word, and second of all, only surface thoughts.
There's a whole bunch of restrictions on it, too."
"Other than Locate Object, though, there's not much there to help us. A rather
large amount of them seem to be focussed on fighting, which can't be very
useful."
Milo chuckled slightly.
"Well, not today, maybe. We're completely screwed, aren't we?"
"Unfortunately," Hermione said. She sighed and slid down a wall, sitting on the
cold stone floor. "If only we could ask one of the portraits for help."
"M-m-might I b-be of assistance?" Asked a timid voice. Behind them stood the
erratic Professor Quirrell.
"See. Told you we failed a spot check," Milo muttered.
"Professor! You have to help us!" Hermione blurted out. "Hannah went missing and
everyone ran off to go find her, and now we're hopelessly lost. We can't ask the
portraits for help, because we're... in... detention." She said the last three
words slowly, as if her mouth found them strange and foreign. Milo shrugged.
He'd never been in detention, either, but then again he'd never really gone to
school before.
"Sh-shouldn't be t-terribly difficult," he stammered. "W-when I w-was in
R-R-Romania once, my p-party was separated by v-v-v-"the blood drained from his
face, and he sat down shakily. "v-vampires."
There's vampires in this world? Milo thought worriedly. He made a note to start
taking anti-vampire precautions. Garlic, holy symbols... where's a Cleric when
you need one? Milo sniffed. Quirrell's turban emanated the distinct odour of
garlic. Smart, Milo thought, in case they're recurring characters and come for
revenge.
"Hold up," Milo said. "Vampires in this world: do they act like, well, like
normal vampires? You know, suck blood, never age, can turn other people into
vampires? That sort of thing?"
"Y-y-yes," Quirrell stammered reluctantly. He clearly didn't want to talk about
vampires anymore.
"They don't age." Milo repeated again. "So they could live forever unless they
ran out of blood or someone stakes 'em?"
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"I-I s-s-s-suppose so," Quirrell said. His stammer was increasing in frequency.
"Milo, we have to find Hannah. We'll worry about vampires later, okay?" Hermione
said.
"No, this is important," he said. Hermione opened her mouth to say Hannah is
important, too, so Milo added, "Really important."
Hermione frowned, but fell silent. Quirrell looked intrigued.
"So: we know You-Know-Who wanted to become immortal at any cost, right?" Milo
said. "I don't know much, but it sounds to me like that was one of his major
motivations."
"Yes," Quirrell said. "Yes, he did ever seek eternal life."
"And, we know that You-Know-Who didn't really die," Milo said. Hermione sighed.
We don't know that, she thought. We don't even suspect it. We don't have a shred
of evidence.
"Do we, now?" Quirrell asked. "Do we, really? Who else knows?"
"Just us, but it's obvious to anyone with a brain. I'm sure Dumbledore knows all
about it, and Harry, Hermione, Ron and I, of course, are going to stop him.
Anyways, back to the point: becoming a vampire isn't nearly as nontrivial as,
say, some sort of secret dark ritual for eternal life or I don't even know what.
All it takes is a couple of minions and a vampire: vampire turns you, minions
kill the original vampire, you're free."
"To what purpose?" Quirrell asked.
"Immortality, of course. Eternal unlife. I think we should seriously consider
the possibility that You-Know-Who is a vampire," Milo concluded. He had a
nagging feeling, like he failed a skill check of some sort, but it was probably
nothing. "He doesn't seem the type to mind having to drink blood every so often
to live."
Quirrell frowned, but said nothing.
"We need to find Hannah," Hermione stressed. "She could be in serious dangerand
all the other first years are still scattered across the castle."
"When last I saw, th-the young M-Miss Abbot w-was swimming to the sh-shore of
the lake," Quirrell said, his eyes going briefly distant. Milo wondered what
possible reason someone would need to use both Still and Silent spell on Scry.
"P-Percy the G-G-G-G- ah, your house's P-Prefect was attempting to u-use a
H-H-hovering Charm to a-assist her. I-I believe she is q-quite well."
"Well, that's a relief. I wonder how she wound up there?" Hermione asked. "We
should probably try to find all the others now, too."
The task proved somewhat more difficult than they'd hoped, and even with the
Page 48

help of the paintings (who could, at Quirrell's request, attempt to locate the
students but not speak to them), it took the better part of the afternoon.
Lavender and co had been delayed by Peeves, who managed to convince them that
Hannah was just around the corner (and then around the next corner, and the
next, and so on until they were hopelessly lost) while Ron had found himself
locked in an old, unused classroom, but when he turned around the door had
vanished. Harry and Seamus had got cornered by Filch and lectured lengthily
about wandering off. They finally found Dean sitting comfortably in the
Gryffindor common room, but he refused to say how he'd got there.
"Great," Hermione said worriedly, "just great. After detention and then hunting
down our classmates without enough sense to wander off, I haven't had the chance
to even touch The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection for a whole day! I've
probably forgotten everything and Defence against the Dark Arts is tomorrow!"
"Insufferable, isn't she?" Ron asked Harry, who looked uncomfortable. "How many
times have you read that book already, Hermione?"
"Three," she said, then the blood drained from her face. "Oh my god, only three!
I'm not going to know anything what if there's a quiz or he asks me, I'm going
to j-just stand there in front of everyone and not know the difference between a
Grindylow and a Boggart!"
"What, in the name of Elminster's pointy hat, is a Boggart?" Milo asked.
"A household pest that takes the form of whatever its viewer fears," she said
shakily.
"You have shapeshifting fear monsters as house pests here?" Milo asked,
impressed. "Cool!" Mordy, sitting on his shoulder, nodded vigorously.
"W-we aren't supposed to learn about them until third year but maybe Professor
Quirrell will try to get the jump on us like Snape did with Harry, so I thought
I should be prepared and read ahead a little, but what if it isn't enough? And I
wind up sitting there like Harry did until this trigger-happy lunatic assaults
the Slytherins again," she nodded to Milo. "I'm sorry! I don't mean to be
insufferable!" she was looking really distraught.
"Hermione, it's alright. Ron's just upset because you were right about not
splitting up, and it made him look a mite daft," Harry said gently. He looked at
Ron. "I'm sorry, but it did." He turned back to Hermione. "He's embarrassed, is
all."
"What, me, mate? Embarrassed?" asked Ron, defensively. "Nah. It's only that this
bookworm keeps just leaping at the chance to show how much better she is than
us. Really, she should have been in Ravenclaw. Then her own kind would have to
put up with her."
Hermione fled the Common Room, sobbing. Hannah shot him a look that could
petrify a Medusa with PC class levels, and chased after her.
"What?" he asked. Harry shrugged.
Page 49

"I think she's been hit by a Crushing Despair spell," Milo said. "Maybe I should
go find her, and see if I can"
"No." Parvati Patil said.
"see if I can dispel her," he finished. "Then she'd be fine."
"Don't even dream about it. Hannah will handle it, you stay here. Magic,"
Parvati said, "is not the problem. Ron, a word?" she asked, sounding deceptively
sweet.
"Yeah, in a mo, only me and Harry were about to play Wizard's Chess," he said.
"No, Ron. Now." The girl insisted.
oooo
"I've finally had a response from my contacts at the Ministry," Dumbledore said
to his assembled Heads of Houses.
"Albus, it's been nearly a week. Surely they could have responded earlier?"
Minerva McGonagall criticised, sitting down across the desk from him. She
wondered how he could even think in this office, with all its whirring and
clicking silver contraptions. When, and hopefully it would be a long time from
today, she became Headmistress she would have them carefully and respectfully
placed in a closet someplace. A clean one, of course, but on the other side of
the castle.
"Unfortunately, not even Merlin himself could devise a spell capable of cutting
through red tape." Dumbledore sighed. "The short answer is that there have been
no reported attacks on any wealthy wizard's residence recently, and no
detections of underage magic from the vicinity around Hogsmeade."
"I knew it," Snape sneered. "The boy spun us a web of lies. No mere child could
escape Death Eaters."
"I really had thought better of him," McGonagall sighed. "Oh well, I suppose he
is only a boy. Any word on the broomstick, Filius?"
"Well, as we all know, reported thefts are kept quite confidential down at the
DMLE," Filius said. McGonagall sighed, she'd hoped they could make headway
there. "But I have a friend from my duelling days down in the Department of
Mysteries, and he used to share an office with someone in the Department of
Magical Law Enforcement, and he says that while no official reports have been
filed, his old flame down in the organ that handles broomstick registry claims
that Walden Macnairwho works as Executioner for the Ministry, but he's an
ex-Death Eaterrecently bought a Nimbus Two Thousand," Flitwick said proudly,
then paused to catch his breath.
"Which tells us what, exactly? These... broomsticks... are, I'm led to believe,
extremely popular," Snape said.
Page 50

"They are also extremely expensive, and Macnair already owned one." Flitwick
said with aplomb.
"Hardly evidence. A man can have two broomsticks," Snape said. To Dumbledore,
however, he gave a quick, discreet nod. Dumbledore sighed.
"I have other information, and I dare not say from where or who, that suggests
the Death Eaters are up to their old game again."
Professor Sprout gasped.
"Surely not, Headmaster? Not with their leader dead, and their numbers reduced?"
she asked, her voice gripped with fear.
"I'm afraid so, Pomona."
"We should contact the Aurors at once!" McGonagall exclaimed.
"Without any proof? Lucius would have any who acted sacked," Snape sneered,
slouched across his chair.
"I'm afraid, Severus, that you are correct," Dumbledore said. "We shall have to
be extra vigiliant."
"And, what of the boy?" Flitwick asked.
"He shall continue his education here at Hogwarts until he learns to control his
magicaccidents like what happened in Severus's Potions class cannot be allowed
to happen out where Muggles might seeand until we are certain Macnair and his
comrades have forgotten that young Milo stole the broomstick," Dumbledore said.
"He appears to be an exceptionally confused and troubled young orphan, but his
heart is true. Quirinus spoke very highly of him this evening, and how he
attempted to help rescueunsuccessfully, unfortunatelya number of lost
Gryffindors."
Snape smiled briefly. He was particularly proud of that punishment.
"Which brings me to another matter," Dumbledore continued gravely. "Hagrid has
been finding something most concerning in the Forbidden Forest." The Heads of
Houses listened carefully, intrigued. "He's found signsblood, some hairthat
something has been attacking the unicorns who live there."
Sprout gasped. McGonagall looked stunned. Flitwick shook his head sadly, and
even Snape looked disgusted. Attacking a unicorn was low, even by his standards.
"Hagrid has been unable to find whatever has been causing the attacks, but
Quirrell has volunteered, as Defence Professor, to take over the investigation.
He said that it was likely the work of some fell creatureor possibly even a
powerful dark wizard."
If the collective amount of surprise felt by the assembled professors were
Page 51

expressed in terms of, say, water, using the baseline of one fair-sized pink
plastic beach bucket full of seawater representing the surprise felt when a
politician suggests something sensible in Parliament and a bathtub full of water
representing the theoretical surprise not felt when the idea doesn't get
ridiculed by the opposing party, then their earlier surprise (when they heard of
the unicorn attacks) could be collected in a two-litre bottle of Diet Coke (once
said Diet Coke has been safely disposed of alongside other toxic chemicals)
while their current surprise, caused by hearing that Quirrell had volunteered
for something dangerous, was almost, but not quite, the size of the
Mediterranean Sea.
"Well, now," McGonagall mused. "It seems we've quite underestimated the Defence
Professor."
"Indeed, it appears that, in a crisis, he can really pull himself together,"
Filius said. "I'm rather proud of him, actually."
"He also pointed out that this is an excellent opportunity for detention,"
Dumbledore said. "Between him and Hagrid, any students with them will be quite
safe, but absolutely petrified."
"You're not suggesting we deliberately send children into the Forbidden
Forestit got its name for a reason, Albusto hunt after something vile enough
to attack a unicorn?"
"I, for one, rather like the idea," Snape said. "Should make that boy think
twice about attacking my students."
oooo
"I heard there's werewolves in the Forbidden Forest!" Ron said when they heard
the news. McGonagall had come to inform them that Quirrell had offered an
alternate detention for Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Milo; and that while it was
particularly awful, if they went then the statue-cleaning punishment for all the
Gryffindors would be reduced.
"It's not a full moon, Ron," Hermione sighed.
"What, werewolves are real?" Harry asked.
"Obviously, everyone knows that," said Ron. "They're as real as dragons and
goblins."
"Dragons are reano, nevermind. If we do this, it counts against how many
statues we have to cleanand after the last time, I think we want to avoid
that," Harry said. "I'm in."
"Same. The experience alone will be well worth it," Milo said. "And I can
probably handle anything they throw at me."
"You're insane, mate," Ron said. "I'd sooner clean another thousand statues than
set one foot in that forest."
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"I'm with Ron," Hermione said. "Cleaning isn't so bad, and that sounds really
dangerous."
"We'll be fine," Milo said. "Quirrell will be with us, and I for one like the
cut of his jib."
"And Hagrid will be there," Harry said. "What's the worst that could happen?"
Chapter 5: The Forbidden Forest
They met Hagrid and the quietly quivering Quirinus Quirrell in the Great Hall.
Hagrid, evidently some sort of half-giant Ranger, was carrying a heavy crossbow
(Milo was skeptical, light crossbows were much more damage-efficient) and
carrying Fang's leash. Milo had carefully prepared his spells that morning, and
avoided casting any throughout the daymeaning the Gryffindors started to be
late for class, again, as Peeves could harass them with impunity, and Milo was
starting to appear rather useless in their lessons. Still, he wasn't about to
venture into something called the Forbidden Forest without a full complement of
spells.
"Mage Armour," he cast as soon as they approached the professor and the Keeper
of the Keys. A thin, invisible field of force surrounded him like a second skin.
It was far from complete protection, but it would help a little.
"Hagrid!" Harry said happily.
"A-all right" Quirrell said, "our j-job is simple: all we're t-to do is enter
the f-f-forest and f-find whatever it is a-attacking the u-unicorns," he
stammered nervously. "A-and then r-return to H-Hogwarts so the H-Headmaster and
I can d-d-decide what to do."
"Sounds like a plan," Milo said, although he privately wondered why all the
powerful wizards living in Hogwarts didn't just use some Divinations to
determine what was in the forest.
"Yeh all right, Harry?" Hagrid asked the Harry, who looked a little nervous, but
determined. Milo was a little impressed that he'd volunteered for this, his
friend was only three days into his wizard training. Milo hadn't, in fact, seen
him perform any actual magic, yet. Now that's guts, he thought. But smart. If he
lives, anything we encounter will give him so much XP that he's bound to level
up at least once.
"Let's be off, then," Hagrid said, and led
sure looks eerie at night, Milo thought. A
felt a brief pang of homesickness; Thamior
the number of times Milo and his party had
them through the grounds. Hogwarts

bit like Thamior's old place. Milo
was evil to the core, sure, but after
defeated him, he was practically
Page 53

family. "Now, I want ter be clear: anythin' happensanythin' at alland yer ter
send up red sparks an' run, yeh hear?"
Harry and Milo nodded mutely. Milo could do close enough with a Dancing Lights
spell.
"A-and keep y-your eyes p-p-p-peeled," said Quirrell. "A-and stick c-close."
A soft breeze caused the chill night air to bite clean through their school
uniforms, and Milo pulled out a warm scarf and some wool gloves (fingerless, so
as not to interfere with his spellcasting gestures) from his Belt of Hidden
Pouches.
"Right. I'll take Harry an' Fang, Quirrell can take Milo," Hagrid said as they
reached the outskirts of the forest.
"What, we're splitting up?" Harry asked.
"We've had bad experiences with that before," Milo added.
"Best way to find what we're lookin' fer," Hagrid said. "Too big of a group, an'
we'll spook it. Remember: run in ter trouble, send sparks."
"Well, Harry," Milo said. "See you on the other side, right?"
"'Course. Don't worry, I'm sure we'll be fine," Harry said. Milo was astonished:
was Harry trying to reassure him?
"You know, Harry, I think that one daywhen you've gone up a few levels, and get
a few magic itemsyou'll be quite the hero. Good luck."
The two groups split up and entered the forest.
"So, what are we looking for, exactly, Professor?" Milo asked Quirrell.
"We are not yet certain," Quirrell said. "Something that's been attacking
unicornsalmost certainly some kind of animal. Keep an eye out for any unicorn's
blood; it has a distinctive silvery colour."
Again, Milo had the nagging feeling that he'd failed a skill check. Quirrell had
his wand at the ready. It felt like they'd been walking for hours, but Milo
doubted it was more than half of one.
"Bet this is old hat for you, right?" Milo asked, feeling slightly nervous. "You
probably charge into the Forbidden Forest every other week, fighting monsters
and things?"
"No, that's Hagrid's job. I've only been this deep twice before," Quirrell said.
"Oh. Good."
"Wait, quietI think I heard something," Quirrell said. "Best hide behind that
Page 54

tree, I'll investigate. Just stay down."
Before Milo could argue, Quirrel strode off the path with his wand held out like
a weaponwhich, Milo, supposed, it was. Milo shrugged and ducked behind a tree,
which was covered in soft moss. He heard rustling in the darkness, and debated
whether to cast Dancing Lights to see what was going on. He eventually decided
against, reasoning that the light might reveal some sort of monster sneaking up
on him but would certainly attract everything in the entire forest.
Then he heard another rustle, closer this time. Okay, something is definitely
sneaking up on me. He moved to stand up quietly, but found, to his surprise,
that he couldn't. He appeared to be stuck to the tree.
"What theoh, gross." What he'd thought was moss turned out to be webs. He
struggled against it vainly, but it was uselesshe was stuck.
"Protection from Evil, Mirror Image, Invisibility," Milo cast in quick
succession. He vanished abruptly, but five identical illusory copies of himself
remained. Classic shell connone of the visible Milos were the real one. He
hoped he wasn't jumping at shadows, because he'd just burned through most of his
daily allotment of spells.
He was mildly satisfied when one of his illusory doubles was abruptly torn to
pieces by a shadowy creature. The satisfaction vanished when he realized he was,
illusions aside, stuck to a tree being attacked by a monster he couldn't see.
"Dancing Lights," he cast, sending four glowing red spheres into the sky above
him. On the way up, they briefly illuminated, in red, horrible compound eyes and
sharp pincers.
Great, he thought. Giant spiders. His invisibility spell would end as soon as he
attacked one of themthat is, cast any spell that included them in the area.
That ruled out Glitterdust and Grease, Milo's two favourite spells, but not
creative use of Levitate. He could move himself or up to 400lbs of objects
vertically, but not horizontally. Generally the spell was used by Wizards to
escape, but Milo doubted it would pull him off of the webs.
"Levitate," he, and all of his doppelgangers, said. A hefty fallen log nearby
Milo rose up slowly, ponderously, into the air a foot or two. Another mirror
Milo fell to the spider's attack, and Milo started to sweat. Seeing yourself
being eaten by a giant spider in dim red light while alone and trapped in a
forest is, probably, one of the worst experiences a kid can go through (after
visiting the dentist, of course). Milo then carefully reached into his Belt of
Hidden Pouches with his right hand (his left was stuck in the webs) and withdrew
an old adventurer's staplefifty feet of silk rope and a grappling hook. The
rope was invisible, but would cease to be as soon as it came to be more than ten
feet from Miloand the log was about twelve feet away. Hopefully the spider(s?)
wouldn't notice two feet of taut rope appearing from nowhere. He awkwardly
tossed the rope at the logand missed. Milo saw another mirror Milo wink out of
existence, presumably hit by the unseen attacker.
Milo looked at the fallen grappling hook, lying uselessly in the mud, and
Page 55

panicked slightly. Shouldn't help be coming? He thought. The glowing lights are
up above me and everything. Wish I prepared Mage Hand this morning. His plan had
been to lift the fallen tree up into the air, and use the grappling hook to pull
it over to above the monstrous spider, then drop it. He doubted he'd have time
to pull the hook back and throw it again. Well, nothing for it.
"No sense in us both dying, Mordy," he whispered to his familiar as he pulled
him from his belt. "Run back to Hogwarts, see if Hermione or Hannah want you to
be their familiar. Good luck, old friend."
Fear. Despair. Reluctance. He felt through their bond. Mordenkainen reluctantly
crawled out of Milo's grasp, and turned around briefly. Love, he felt, before
the magical creature skittered off.
"GLITTERDUST," Milo bellowed. The spider, now covered in glowing dust, was huge.
The hairy creature's legs spanned at least fifteen feet across. The thing was
blinded by the spell, but that would only last for twenty-four seconds. Also,
his invisibility was gone, and he was still stuck. He decided to try burning the
webs off of him with Prestidigitationhe might well get set on fire, but at
least he'd be free.
"Prestidigitation," he said, and a small jet of fire sprung out of his hand at
the tree but nothing happened. Milo was confused, he was sure that would work.
(Milo's only experience with webs came from the Web spell, which was used
frequently by his arch-nemesis Thamior, and only bear passing resemblance to
actual spider silk. Notably, the magical webs burn rapidly when exposed to
firereal spider silk, as Milo would know if he'd put any skill points into
Knowledge (Nature), is fireproof).
Only eighteen seconds left. The spider flailed about awkwardly, catching one of
Milo's duplicates with one of its eight hairy legs. The duplicate flickered and
vanished. All Milo had left was Silent Image, Feather Fall, Grease, and some
cantrips.
"Grease," he cast at the ground under the spider. The blind spider's eight legs
flailed about, trying to get traction on the slippery ground, it's pincers
creating an agitated clicking sound. It managed to keep its balance,
howeverMilo had forgotten that creatures with extra legs got a bonus to
stability. He felt, after casting, that it might have been more effective to
cast it on himself in case the spider tried to pick him up. Ah, well, twelve
seconds to live. Milo frowned, thoughtfully. One effect of Grease was that
anyone standing on the slippery surface had to make a Balance check to stay
standing, and one effect of Balance was that anyone who took damage had to redo
the check or fall. The amount of damage didn't make a difference.
Milo grinned.
"Acid Splash," he cast, and a pitifully small orb of acid hit the spider in what
its face would be if it had one. Acid Splash was one of the most useless spells
in existenceit hurt even less than just punching someone would, or even
throwing a small rockbut Milo, as a Conjurer, got an extra Conjuration spell
per level, and Acid Splash was the only 0th-level Conjuration spell in the
Page 56

multiverse. Milo had no choice but to prepare it every morning.
The spider fell to the ground, and Milo had six seconds before Glitterdust wore
off and the spider could see. Milo gestured at the Levitated log, still floating
a little above the ground, and it flew up into the canopy.
"Hey, ugly," Milo said, reaching into his belt. "Fear me, for I hold the mighty
eldritch power of an eleven-foot pole!"
He gave the fallen spider a light push, and it slid (slightly downhill) along
the Greased dirt, until it came to a stop in the slight depression where the log
once was.
The spider's vision returned, and as Glitterdust ended, it became stealthy
again. The spider's dark brown carapace was all but invisible in the darkness.
Milo dismissed Levitate.
He couldn't see what happened, but he definitely felt the 600 XP he got for
defeating a Challenge Rating 2 Monstrous Spider solo. Milo sighed. He was
somewhat disappointed by that, he thought the spider was worth way more than
that. Well, I guess the spiders here are pushovers compared to the ones back
home, he thought.
When Quirrell, Hagrid and Harry found him, he was whistling softly to himself,
stuck to a tree.
"Milo!" Harry shouted, panicked. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, totally fine," he said, though in truth he felt a little woozy.
"Yeh managed ter kill an Acromantula?" Hagrid asked, shocked. "Aragog's not
gonna like this. We'd best be leavin'."
"What took you guys so long?" Milo asked dizzily as Hagrid pulled him out of the
webs.
"We ran in ter Quirrell, who was in a right state, said we had ter help yehbut
we were delayed by centaurs. Them stargazers took an unnatural dislike to our
Defence Professor."
Quirrell appeared to have lost his short-lived courage, and was as pale and
quivery as ever.
"Centaurs in a forest? I figured horse-y types would prefer plains not planes,
mind, 'cause of all the weird monsters" Milo's eyelids felt heavy and his
head drooped slightly. He felt sort of numb all over.
"Hagrid? I think something's wrong with Milo," Harry said to the giant.
"What? Can't see anythin' in this ruddy darkness. Professor, could you?"
Page 57

"O-of c-c-c-course, Hagrid," Quirrell stammered. "L-lumos."
Quirrell held the tip of his glowing wand over Milo, so Hagrid could investigate
closer. It was hard to tell, because of the poor lighting and Milo's black
uniform, but there was a patch that seemed slightly darker than the rest.
"Oh, no," Hagrid gasped. "He's bin bit."
Milo frowned. He definitely didn't remember that happening. In fact, he was all
but certain the acromantula never got even close to close enough to him to bite
him.
"Nah, hairy brute never touched me," Milo said.
"H-he's delusional from the v-venom," Quirrell said. "I f-f-feel terrible, he
w-was my r-r-responsibility."
"You're stuttering," Milo said. Something was nagging at him, but it felt as
though his head were packed with wool.
"I-I a-always st-st-stutter," Quirrell stuttered.
"We need ter get 'im back to the castle," Hagrid said. "Acromantula venom can be
lethal."
"Poison?" Milo asked, and reached for his belt. He kept antitoxin in one of the
pockets which one? It seemed like it should be important, but he was having
difficulty focussing.
"I-I'll take him," Quirrell said. "You c-c-can keep s-searching."
"Right. Harry, you'd best be goin' with 'em," the giant said to the
Boy-Who-Lived.
"But, then you'd be out there alone," Harry protested. "Are you sure you'd be
okay?"
"Nah, I got Fang. Don't worry yerself about me."
"Wingardium Leviosa," Quirrell said, casting the Hovering Charm on Milo, who was
starting to lose consciousness. Quirrell led Harry through the forest back
towards the castle.
"Shouldn't we hurry, Professor?" Harry asked anxiously. "Milo looks really
sick."
Quirrell shook his head.
"N-not in a f-forest," he said, "and c-certainly n-not in a f-forest in the
d-d-dark. W-we could tr-trip in j-just about a-anything, and th-then we would
take e-even longer."
Page 58

Harry supposed Quirrell had a point, but their leisurely pace seemed torturously
slow to him.
Harry, frightened by the forest, gradually drifted closer to Quirrell as they
walked. The Defence Professor was a bit spineless, but he seemed pretty
competent with magicand he had faced down vampires at some point. However, as
Harry drew nearer, his scar began to ache abruptly. He doubled over, clutching
at his forehead. When his hand drew away, there was blood on it.
"A-are you al-alright, boy?" Quirrell asked.
"Uh," Harry said as the pain gradually decreased. "Yeah yeah, I'm fine. It's
nothing. It just my scar hurts sometimes, usually around Snape."
"Th-the scarI understand y-you got i-it from the D-d-d-darkfrom
H-H-He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?"
"Yes, Professor. That's what I'm told, at least."
Quirrell frowned.
"Th-then I'd s-s-suggest you b-be wary around the Potions M-M-Master," he said.
"H-He used to be a D-D-D-Death Eater, I-I'm told. A-and this d-d-detention was
h-his idea."
Harry was surprised. He didn't like Snape, but he hadn't realized that the
greasy professor had been one of Voldemort's followers. Maybe he was going to
try and finish the job that the dark wizard had started? Perhaps it was Harry,
and not Milo, who had been meant to be attacked by the giant spider. Good thing
Quirrell had been there.
As they continued to walk, Milo's condition worsened. He started babbling
incoherently about his pockets and Quirrell's stutter, before passing out
entirely.
oooo
Mordy scampered as fast as he could across the cold stone floor (which,
considering he was a rat (more or less), was not terribly fast) towards the
Gryffindor Common Rooms.
Everything was going swell until he encountered The Fell Beast. The Fell Beast
gave a cry of rage that would haunt Mordy's dreams for weeks and charged. Mordy
tried to dodge, but the cat was too fastits claws left a bloody gash down the
rodent's back. It would have been enough to kill a lesser rat, but Mordy, as a
familiar, had more hit pointsbarely. He had half as many as his master, who
unfortunately decided to dump Constitution at character creation.
Mordy climbed a suit of armour (rusty, the Gryffindors hadn't got this far yet)
to escape the dreadful claws. He tensed, and jumped over to the next suit,
barely catching hold of the helmet's visor. The Fell Beast, meanwhile, sat on
the ground, debating what to do. He saw her tense up, ready to pounce, and
Page 59

Mordenkainen started to wish, heartily, that his master had taken the Improved
Familiar feat.
As the Fell Beast jumped, Mordy let go of the visor and landed on the ground
painfully. The cat's collision with the armour toppled it to the ground, and it
spread in pieces over the hallway. Mordy evaded them easily (Improved Evasion
could be handy) and sprinted as the cat regained her senses. Terror, Panic,
Despair, he felt through the empathic bond with his master.
He rounded the last corner before the common room, and finally reached the
portrait. The Fell Beast was hot on his heels.
"Password?" asked the Fat Lady.
"Squeak," said Mordenkainen.
"Correct," said the painting, and swung open. He barely made it through the
portal as the painting swung shut. He could clearly hear the irritated sound of
the Fell Beast hissing in frustration on the other side. There was a promise of
pain and death in that hiss. Victory, Satisfaction, Triumph, he felt through the
bond with his master.
In the common room, he saw Scabbers eating some crumbs off the floor.
"Squeak!" he said to the ugly rat.
"Squeak?" the appropriately-named Scabbers asked, surprised.
"Squeak, squeak-squeak squeak!" Mordy said urgently. Fear, Pain, Dizziness, he
felt. Oh, no, Mordy thought. Has he been poisoned? Is he sick? Mordy
concentrated and tried to send strength through the bond. Every species of
familiar had some sort of special powerand rats could convey a measure of
resistance against things like sickness in their master, as long as they were
within a mile.
"Squeak," Scabbers said, and gave the
Scabbers a solid kick to the stomach,
find the one with the nice teeth. She
help. The problem was that the humans
rat-equivalent of a shrug. Mordy gave

and ran into the girls' dorms. He had to
was smart, she would understand, she would
all looked alike to him.
"Squeak?" he said hopefully to one, who woke up, looked at Mordy, and screamed.
Wrong one, he thought.
"There's a rat in my room!" she cried. "Lavender! Wake up!" another girl stirred
irritably.
"What?" Lavender asked sleepily. "Ack!" she shrieked. The other humans all stood
up out of bed while Mordy looked at them each, carefully, trying to figure out
which was the one with nice teeth. The fact that they all were screaming made it
easier.
"Hey, it's that rat Milo carries around all the time," said one (Hannah, in case
Page 60

you were wondering, not that Mordy knew that).
"What's he doing in here?" Lavender asked. Mordy gave the rat equivalent of a
sigh. This wouldn't happen if I were a mouse, he thought. Everyone loves mice.
"Squeak!" he said urgently.
"He looks kinda distressed," Lavender said. "Wait, is he bleeding?"
"He should be with Milo," said one. "And Milo's out in the Forbidden Forest"
she frowned. "We need to find McGonagall, immediately. Milo could be in
troubleand this poor rat looks half dead." As she spoke, he could see her
teethgood, rat-like teeth. Yes, this is the one, he thought as his hit points
slipped into the negatives.
oooo
This is taking way too long, Harry thought. Is Quirrell lost?
"Sh-should be just past the next few t-trees," Quirrell reassured him. "Th-then
we'll b-be in open t-t-territory and can sp-sprint."
Harry was skeptical. He was fairly certain they were going roughly perpendicular
to the castle, but then again, he'd never been in a forest beforeit was more
than likely that his sense of direction was misleading him. Still, he felt that
the return journey should be faster than the trip outthey were taking all kinds
of twists and turns while searching for the mysterious unicorn-killerbut it had
been at least that long since they'd left Hagrid.
Harry gripped his wand, for all the good that it would do. His scar still ached
somewhat, so he wondered if Snape was around, creeping in the bushes.
"Hello?" he heard a familiar voice call out. "Hagrid? Harry? Quirrell? Milo?"
"Headmaster!" Harry shouted. "We're over here!"
Quirrell, Harry noticed, looked briefly frustrated before regaining his
composure.
"Wait there!" Dumbledore shouted. As the grandfatherly man approached, Harry
could see a glowing red light coming closer. It looked like fire, but it felt
oddly soothing. Quirrell shielded his eyes from the bright light, but Harry felt
fine
"H-Headmaster, th-the boy was b-bit by an acromantula," Quirrell said to
Dumbledore, who had a red, glowing bird of some sort perched on his shoulder.
"H-he's been p-poisoned."
Dumbledore acted quickly.
"Quirrell, take Mr. Potter back to the Gryffindor common room. Fawkes,"
Dumbledore said to the bird, "take me and Milo to the hospital wing." There was
Page 61

a burst of red flame, and Dumbledore and Harry's friend vanished with a small
puff of smoke.
"Sh-showy, b-b-but effective," Quirrell noted.
oooo
Milo awoke, staring at an all-too familiar ceiling.
"I'm in the hospital again, aren't I?" he asked weakly.
"I'm sorry to say that you're correct, young man," Madam Pomfrey said. "And,
don't take this the wrong way, but it would be nice to go five days without
seeing you."
Milo laughed weakly.
"You'll note," she continued, "that we left you with your magical belt this
time. Your pet is on the bed next to you."
Mordenkainen was lying on the next bed over, wrapped in bandages.
"What happened to him?" Milo asked, his voice full of concern.
"He was attempting to get the Gryffindor common room, we believe, and was
attacked by Ms. Norris. He almost died, but Hermione got him here in time, bless
her. His appearance was how Dumbledore knew to go looking for you."
Milo frowned.
"Why did I need rescuing, again? It all seems so foggy."
"You were bitten by an acromantula, a highly intelligent and extremely dangerous
magical spider-like monster. You're lucky to be alive. It's the sort of thing
I'd think you'd remember," she said. The bite wound had, largely, healed
mysteriously during the night, much like his injuries had when he'd first
arrived. The venom's effects, however, lingered somewhat.
"No," Milo said. "I definitely don't remember that. There was a spider, and I
dropped a tree on it, but it never touched me."
"You're still very sick, and I'm sure it all happened very fast. I wouldn't
worry about it," she said, while pondering his words. He thinks he dropped a
tree on it? Pomfrey thought. He is delirious.
"How long was I out?" he asked.
"A day and a half, roughly. We managed to stabilize you, but it took until this
morning for Snape to brew the antidote," she said. "He worked all night, you
know."
Milo frowned. That story didn't add up at all. Something weird was going on.
Page 62
Chapter 6: Crime Scene Investigation
Author's Notes: Thank you to all of the nice reviews I've gotten (they make my
day), and to Blinded in a Bolthole in particular for helping me rewrite my
summary.
Don't forget that you can check my Author page for a link to Milo's character
sheet and the free Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and/or Modern RPG, Semiautomagic, that I'm
working on.
oooo
Throughout the day, several Gryffindor wellwishers came to visit Milo in the
hospital wing. Apparently, word had spread of his run-in with the acromantula,
and the rumours had quickly gotten out of hand.
"We heard you fought off a horde of giant spiders, mate " said one of the
Weasley twins (Milo decided, for convenience's sake, to call him George).
" and save a beautiful unicorn princess " said Fred (maybe).
" which is unusual, because unicorns tend to be male "
" and also managed to rescue Professor Quirrell "
" while growing increasingly weak from spider venom "
" defeated You-Know-Who for good "
" became king of the Goblins "
" found a Philosopher's Stone "
" so now, you can live forever "
" discovered a thirteenth use for dragon's blood "
" and that you're still an available bachelor "
" but maybe not for long, based on the rate these stories are spreading."
Following the conversation was somewhat dizzying, but sort of entertaining as
well. Hannah and Lavender dropped by with candy (though the people in this
strange land called them "sweets," which Milo supposed was generally accurate,
with the exception of several trillion flavours of the Every-Flavoured Beans),
and Lavender apologized for her behaviour during detention. Milo appreciated the
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gesture, but was somewhat suspicious of wizarding candy as a whole he
remembered Harry's chocolate frogs trying to escape back on the train (Milo
shuddered at the thought of that mechanical monstrosity) and the more unpleasant
flavours of the every-flavoured beans.
Hermione, naturally, brought him copies of her class notes from the ones he
missed (Milo copied them all into a notebook with Amanuensis (an obscure
0th-level spell that copies text rapidly) and then read it with Scholar's Touch
(an invaluable 1st-level spell that reads an entire book (and not, say, a stack
of loose-leaf) in a few seconds)).
Ron approached somewhat sheepishly to apologise for not going to the forest with
him and Harry, but said that it was really for the best because he was
absolutely useless around spiders and would probably just have gotten in the
way. Milo forgave him, and they played a game of Wizard's chess, which was just
like regular chess except the pieces were apparently intelligent. It really
changes the game when, instead of sending a rook forwards to be sacrificed,
you're sending up an old, tired wooden soldier begging to be allowed to live and
return to his family (he had a pair of pawns to take care of, after all), yet
nonetheless resigned to his fate. Ron won, of course, because Milo couldn't
remember ever playing chess before. He knew the rules, oddly, but had no
memories of an actual game probably because he was still cut off from any of
his backstory not yet explicitly stated.
While he recovered from his ability score damage, Milo tried to solve the puzzle
of the spider bite. There was, without a doubt, an ugly injury caused by a fang
in his side. However, Milo was absolutely certain that he hadn't been bitten.
Even if the spider tried, Milo had Mage Armour and Protection from Evil, which
gave him a net boost of +6 to Armour Class, assuming the spider was evil (which
it totally was). It was improbable, though not impossible, that the spider had
hit him in one attack. But between being blinded and off-balance from Milo's
magic, he really doubted the acromantula had a chance unless he'd been bit
before Milo started his attack. But that was impossible because Milo was
invisible, and had illusions up besides
He frowned. No, it really can't have been before I became visible, and probably
wasn't when the spider was blinded. Milo could account for the spider's actions
during the duration based on the number of mirror images it destroyed and the
number of spells he cast.
This doesn't add up at all.
And then there was the matter of Snape. If Snape had been trying to kill him,
why did he brew an antidote? Was it really some sort of terrible, slow-acting
poison that would kill Milo over the course of weeks, making it look natural?
But why bother he could have just left Milo to succumb to the acromantula
venom.
No, there must be another player at work here. Snape was evil, sure but he
wasn't actively trying to kill Milo. He might not even have realized, yet, that
Milo was a threat to him.
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"Hey, mate," Harry said, breaking him out of his thought process. Milo hadn't
noticed the boy entering the room. "Sorry I didn't come earlier, we had
broomstick lessons it turns out I can fly really well! I don't have any idea
where the skill came from, I was always rubbish at P.E. and anyway, Draco must
still be mad from that time on the train, so he stole Nev's Remembrall (poor
fellow just got out of St. Mungo's) and ran off with it. Anyway, I'm rambling.
The point is, I got it back, but McGonagall saw and guess what I'm on the
Quidditch team!"
"What, the game with six pointless players and one PC?" Milo asked.
"Yeah! And I'm the Seeker!" Harry said excitedly. "Hermione's upset because it's
against the rules and thinks McGonagall shouldn't have made an exception, but
Ron is beside himself."
"That's pretty cool. Bet you'll catch the Snitch like, really. Ten gold pieces
Galleons, whatever that you win the first match by the skin of your teeth."
"You're on, but I probably won't be able to pay you for a while when I lose. My
money's all in Gringott's," Harry said.
"Oh?" Milo asked. "What's Gringott's?"
"It's this big underground thing, full of dragons and run by goblins," Harry
said. "I was there once, it was actually kinda scary."
Milo's ears literally perked up upon hearing this (he was one-sixty-fourth elf).
"Goblins got your gold, eh?" he asked. "Well, well, well. Sounds to me like we
have a dungeon crawl in our future," he said excitedly.
"What's a dungeon crawl? Is that some sort of dance? Only, I've never danced
before," Harry said.
"What? No. It's where you go into a big underground thing, full of dragons and
run by goblins, and come out with piles and piles of gold," Milo explained.
"Oh, I've done that already," Harry commented. "Though I left most of the gold
behind for later."
"You you did what now? I think you're not really getting into the spirit of the
thing."
"Well, I was with Hagrid, and he only let me take so much out"
"Oh, that makes sense. Higher level character, he probably did most of the work
to get there. Still, try to argue for an even split next time. If you play your
cards right, you could wind up way ahead of your WBL," Milo said.
"My what?" Harry asked.
"Wealth By Level," Milo said. "It's the average amount of total money, in cash,
Page 65

magic items, fortresses, that kind of thing, that a person has based on their
level. So like, a powerful wizard can use a Broom of Flying to clean his floors
with because he can afford twelve, while a lower-level wizard couldn't even get
one."
"Oh," said Harry. "Here, we just call it capitalism."
"Weird. So, what's the deal with this Hagrid guy?"
"Oh, he's a giant, he's my friend he took me from the Dursleys and lives in
a hut outside the castle. Takes care of the grounds and things. He actually sent
me a letter inviting me down to visit him," Harry said. "I think I'll head down
later this evening."
"Huh. So tell me, did you notice anything weird about Quirrell's stutter last
night?" Milo asked.
"You mean, two nights ago?" Harry asked. Milo nodded, he was still sort of
disoriented from sleeping all day. Harry frowned. "I can't swear to it, but I
think, just briefly, he was talking normally. Maybe he was so frightened that he
sort of stuttered so far he wrapped around and came back the other side?"
"Yeah, maybe," Milo said. There was something he was missing, he was sure of it.
His forehead wrinkled with deep thought. "Okay, hang on. Describe Quirrell to
me, and pretend I've never met him before, okay?"
Harry looked at Milo like he'd gone crazy (Milo was used to that look by now)
but complied. Quirrell: had a verbal tic (one) wore a weird turban (two) was
completely spineless (three) but could apparently summon courage when necessary
(four!) and emanated an odour of garlic (five).
"Oh my gods," Milo said. "How could I have been so stupid?"
"What, what is it?" Harry asked.
"Five adjectives! Nobody gets five adjectives so soon after meeting them!"
"It's just like on the train, remember? When I told you to write down everyone
who could be described with more than two adjectives? It's why we go on
adventures with Ron and not Dean or Seamus. The more unique a person is, the
more important they are."
"So, what does this mean?" Harry asked. He was beginning to feel that Milo's
sanity was much like Quirrell's stutter: he went so far through insane that he
came out the other side, and started making sense. Well, kind of.
"It means Quirrell is big news, but it's too early to say yet which side he's
on. I feel like there's something I should be remembering but just can't."
"You mean, like your parents?" Harry asked.
Page 66

"No, like something someone said in passing but I didn't write down. Can I see
your notes?" Milo asked.
"What, you mean, like from Herbology?"
"No, not those. The adventure notes."
"Oh, sure," Harry said, pulling the lists that Milo had asked him to write from
his bag. There were the lists of mysterious things people had said, of
unexplained events, and of important characters. Milo pointed out Quidditch:
Seeker is for PCs with some satisfaction, but otherwise the search was
fruitless.
"Ah, well. It was worth a shot. Maybe we'll hear something that'll make all of
this make sense," Milo sighed. "Until then, we'll just keep listening closely."
His next visitor after Harry left was quite unexpected.
"So, we meet again, Malfoy." Milo said coolly.
"Indeed, we do at that," Malfoy sneered. "I just came to see if you were really
as weak, injured, helpless, and alone as they say."
"Oh, are you threatening me? Is this really happening? Because as I remember,
I've got you two for two, Slytherin."
"Not a threat, no, not at all," Malfoy said, and grinned. "Just thought I'd drop
by, say hi, wish you well and tell you I know what you're up to."
"What I'm I mean, you don't know anything. Fool." Milo said, but quietly his
mind raced. What was Milo up to? Not much, really. Just sort of blundering
through encounter after encounter, so far; brute forcing his way through
problems with magic. But active plotting? Not so much.
"And more importantly, my father knows," Malfoy said. "And my father controls
the Wizengamot." Malfoy grinned. "I'd keep an eye on the morning paper, if I
were you." He moved to leave, but paused. "Fortunately," he added, "I am not
you." He then walked off, whistling softly to himself.
"Well, that was cryptic," Milo mused to himself. "I'm starting to think I should
maybe figure out what in Baator is going on before I wind up there."
To do that, he had to go to the library. To do that, he had to get out of this
accursed hospital bed but that wouldn't happen until he had healed to Madam
Pomfrey's satisfaction.
"New plan," he said. "Bring the library to me."
oooo
"He asked for what?" McGonagall asked.
Page 67

"He wants to borrow half the library," Madam Pince, the librarian, said calmly.
"Said he didn't want to get behind in his studies, and that he would just start
at A and work his way down to Z"
"Don't we have rules against this?" McGonagall asked.
"Well, frankly, it's never come up," said the librarian. "Until Hermione
Granger, nobody ever took out more than a book or two at a time. Most students
only read when they absolutely have no other option, and even then, generally
only the Ravenclaws."
"Well I feel we have no choice but to allow it, save, obviously, those in the
Forbidden Section," McGonagall said. "Lest we encourage rule-breaking among the
students by example. I'll allocate a few first-year Gryffindors to help transfer
the books, I suppose. You owe me a favour, though, Irma."
The professors had started using Gryffindor's detention hours as the basis of a
crude barter system. Snape had been selling them at a premium price, mostly to
get out of his scheduled time patrolling the corridors of Hogwarts and dealing
with Peeves. They were then re-sold between the professors in exchange for
favours, assistance, and occasionally even money (the going rate three knuts per
hour per student, well below what minimum wage would be if the wizarding world
had a minimum wage). The students, of course, knew nothing of this.
oooo
"Scholar's Touch," Milo cast, and tapped a handful of books. He could read four
per casting, and could cast the spell nine times. Mordy's head perked up as his
brain, too, was flooded with information. Milo tossed the books into a
rapidly-growing Finished pile, and reached for the top few books in the To Read
pile, which was less of a pile and more of a small mountain. "Scholar's Touch,
Scholar's Touch, Scholar's Touch, Scholar's Touch"
oooo
The next morning, Milo was finally allowed out of the hospital wing. He was
still under strict orders not to exert himself, and to avoid any undue stress.
As a result, he was freed from the gruelling labour that the teachers were
forcing the Gryffindors to undertake by way of detention. He walked, somewhat
gingerly, down to the Great Hall for breakfast. As he entered, he made sure to
affect an exaggerated limp and weak pace. He staggered towards the Hall, and
pushed open the massive double-doors dramatically. He was deliberately a few
minutes late, ensuring that the enormous chamber was more-or-less full, thus
maximizing the impact.
oooo
Conversation in the room dimmed to a murmur as he walked silently down to the
Gryffindor table, and sat down between Hannah and Ron.
"Hey," he said casually. "I miss anything?"
Page 68

"Nice entrance," said Ron. "Though I think you were missing some sort of
dramatic announcement, like 'that dragon won't bother us again anytime soon,' or
possibly, 'the time has come.'"
"Everyone's a critic," Milo sighed.
"Don't be rude, Ron," Hannah said. "Or should I call Lavender back to have
another little talk with you?"
Ron's face paled, and he fell silent. Hermione, Milo noticed, was very pointedly
not speaking with Ron. Milo shrugged. The intricacies of most social interaction
were lost on him, and they seemed largely pointless anyways.
"I want everyone to keep a careful eye on Malfoy," Milo said. "He's up to
something, but I'm not sure what, yet."
"Sure thing, mate." Ron said as the owl post arrived. Milo questioned the
hygiene of having a flock of owls flying in during breakfast every morning, but
as he always ate from his perfectly-sterile Everlasting Rations anyways, he
didn't mention anything. Also, owls? Seriously?
A particularly large package was delivered to Harry, carried by three owls
working in unison.
"Oh, that reminds me," he said to the Gryffindors. "Anyone got a copy of the
Daily Profit sorry, Prophet that I can borrow?" A flood of papers were
offered to him immediately. Milo grinned. Celebrity had its perks, apparently.
His newfound fame for defeating the acromantula apparently overshadowed the
hatred for his losing 110 house points.
"Thanks," he said, grabbing one from some random NPC.
He looked at the cover, and nearly dropped it in surprise. Not because of the
headlines, or even the content of the newspaper at all, but because the photo on
the cover of some smiling blond wizard being awarded a medal was moving.
Someone out there saw fit to cast some kind of spell, Milo wasn't even sure what
would do this (some sort of Illusion, perhaps?) on every single one of these
papers. Or, gods forbid, they were all magic items, each costing XP. If each
newspaper cost even one Experience Point to make Milo shuddered, imagining the
soul-sucking factory needed to produce these tabloids, where wizards were
dragged in en masse to be drained of the essence of their power, left a shallow
husk of themselves.
Milo shook his head to clear his mind, and started scanning the headlines.
Gringott's Break-in Still Unsolved Nope, not that. Lockhart Saves Australia.
Unrelated. Moody Stops Bicycle Theft, Takes No Prisoners. Nothing to do with
him, certainly. Harry Potter Biography Hits Shelves, Shelves Hit Back.
Apparently Flourish and Botts had attracted a malicious poltergeist. Nimbus Two
Thousand Named Official Broom of Chudley Cannons. Yawn.
"Oh, by the way," Milo said as he read. "I found out what You-Know-Who is
Page 69

after."
"What?" Ron spluttered. "How?"
"Well, I cross-referenced everything on Harry's list with everything in the
Hogwarts Library relating to extending one's life," he said. "And the
Philospher's Stone is the only thing that appears in each. Nicolas Flamel was on
the back of Dumbledore's chocolate frog card which were invented in 1983
back on the Hogwarts Express, which was, incidentally built in 1936, and he's
the creator of the Stone."
"Why does it matter that he was on the card?" Harry asked.
"Well, something as important as the motives of the main villain would have been
mentioned at least once by now by way of foreshadowing," Milo said. "Hells,
you've probably been in the same room as the thing at least once and didn't even
know it."
"Oh," said Hermione, sounding disappointed. "Here I'd hoped, against all reason,
perhaps, that you'd finally found an ounce of sanity and logic."
"Mark my words," Milo said. "He's after the Stone or he's a vampire."
"Well, if it's the stone he wants, we don't have anything to worry about,"
Hermione said. "Nicolas Flamel has it, and he's seven hundred years old. He's
been able to keep it safe all this time, he must be pretty good at it. I mean,
surely You-Know-Who isn't the first person to want to be immortal? I bet Flamel
has to fight off dark wizards every other fortnight."
"Well, I'm glad that's settled," Harry said, cutting off Milo's reply. "Wait
till you guys see what I got in the mail."
oooo
Harry was so excited he could hardly speak as they hurried to the Gryffindor
common room to open his package. He skipped up the stairs two at a time, and
blurted out the password to the Fat Lady so quickly he had to repeat it twice
before she was satisfied.
"It's a Nimbus Two Thousand!" Harry exclaimed.
"Don't be daft, mate," Ron said. "Anyone who owned a Nimbus wouldn't just give
it away."
"Oh, a broomstick," said Hermione. "Hooray."
"I had one of those, once," Milo said. "Stole it from a Death Eater I defeated.
Dumbledore took it, though."
"Course you did, mate," said Ron condescendingly. "Course you did."
"Hey, Harry," Milo said. "Tell me something: why were you so excited to get this
Page 70

broomstick?"
"It's a Nimbus Two Thousand!" Harry said, practically shouting. "They're
top-line racing brooms!"
"Right, right, but how do you know that?" Milo asked.
Harry frowned.
"I saw one in the shop in Diagon Alley," he said. "There was a crowd around it
and everything."
"Ron, correct me if I'm wrong," Milo said to the redheaded boy, "but aren't
there a number of top-line racing brooms out there?"
"Well, yeah, but the Nimbus is the best one," said Ron.
"Sure, but still there'd be ones that are used by, I dunno, national sports
teams that still far outstrip those used by Hogwarts players, and are maybe
almost as good as the Nimbus?"
"Well, sure," Ron said thoughtfully. "There's the Comet Four-Eighty and it's
hush-hush, but apparently Firebolt is working on something really fantastic."
"Yet none of those," Milo said with satisfaction, "were on Harry's list of
notable items."
The four fell silent.
"There's a perfectly rational explanation," Hermione said. "McGonagall took
Harry to Diagon Alley, remember? She must have seen it there."
Milo laughed.
"Of course there's a rational explanation, if you look closely enough. Still
bears thinking about. Which is why we need to worry about this Philosopher's
Stone. It just keeps popping up."
"When I was in Diagon Alley," Harry said excitedly. "Hagrid took us to a
mysterious vault in Gringott's and all that was in it was a tiny package! I
bet it was the Stone!"
"Oh, come on," Hermione said. "That's just ridiculous if it were the Stone,
Dumbledore would have gone himself, surely. He's the only one Voldemort was ever
scared of."
"But Gringott's was broken into that same day, but they didn't find what they
were looking for!" Harry continued. "Remember, it was all over the news? They
didn't find it because Hagrid took it to Hogwarts!"
"Or, maybe they just couldn't find it or they were after something else or
Gringott's vault security, famed in the world, it employs dragons after all, was
Page 71

too good for them," said Hermione with growing frustration.
"Wait, wait, wait is Gringott's some sort of bank?" Milo asked.
All three of them gave him the usual look.
"If the security is so good, why is it overrun with goblins?" Milo asked.
"The goblins are the security, duffer," Ron said. "They run the bank. It's their
bank. A goblin bank."
Milo couldn't take it anymore.
"This world is insane!" he shouted. "GOBLINS running a bank? Dragonhide gloves?
TWELVE uses of dragon's blood? What are they, raised in farms? Elves cooking,
as servants? Wands? There's only one person in the entire country who makes your
wands and he's just allowed to wander about! What if he trips and dies, or some
evil git what the Hells is a git, anyways comes by and knifes him? What will
you all do then? Also, broomsticks? If you're all wizards, why don't you just
cast Fly? By Bigby, why don't you just cast Fly? You have infinite spells per
day and you let goblins guard your gold! With dragons! More dragons! You have
centaurs living in your forest Centaurs. The only possible reason having four
legs with hooves would be an advantage is if you were in the open plains! It's
like... it's like someone who had only vaguely heard of real magic got all the
words right but their meanings completely wrong!"
"You about done, mate?" Ron asked. "'Cause our magic is just as real. You see us
using it every day, it's just a bit different from what you're used to."
"Yeah, I'm done. So. Your resident Dark Wizard is trying to get the
Philosopher's Stone. The Stone is in Hogwarts. Dumbledore is guarding the stone,
apparently, but just being in Hogwarts isn't guarding guarding is guarding.
He'd have to be sitting next to the thing, all day, every day, for it to be
really safe. Seeing as how the other professors, perhaps with the exception of
McGonagall, are either completely useless, dead, or downright evil, that leaves
us."
"Leaves us for what?" Ron asked.
"When Voldemort oh, shut up, Ron, it's just a name makes his move, we have
to stop him," Harry said quietly. "He killed my parents. He killed a lot of
people's parents. We need a plan, though."
"I'd just like everyone to realize you have nothing remotely concrete," Hermione
said. "The world doesn't work that way. You-Know-Who is dead. Flamel has the
Philosopher's Stone. Professor Snape is stern and sometimes maybe a little
unfair, but he's not evil. Until you can prove even one of those statements is
wrong, you can do this without me. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have
Transfiguration homework as do you, in point of fact." With that, she stood up
and strode out of the room.
"You know, she has a point," Ron said. "What we've got is a bit thin. Mind,
Page 72

Snape's evilness is pretty self-evident."
"Right, well, I think someone tried to kill me the other night," Milo said. "And
even if I can't remember it happening, I'll find out how. Tomorrow, when I've
got my spells back, I'm going back to the Forbidden Forest. Something's not
right."
"The forest with the giant spiders, the werewolves and I know it's not a full
moon the human-hating centaurs, the... that's actually all that I can
remember, but I'm sure it's just the beginning," Ron said.
"Unicorns," Harry said. "What's killing the unicorns? And why?"
"Uh," Milo said. "I don't know, yet." Even Scholar's Touch had limitations
each one allowed him to read one book per level (so, four books, for those
keeping score back home) but he could only cast so many per day. He resolved
that from here on out, whenever he had extra spells remaining before going to
bed, he was going to burn them on Scholar's Touch until he'd learned everything
there was to know about this zany campaign setting. Seriously, he thought. This
place makes Eberron look as familiar as Faerun. "But I can find out tomorrow
or maybe the day after."
"Right. Once you can prove it was Snape who tried to kill you and come on, it
totally was then Hermione can help, and she probably already knows loads about
unicorns and things we don't even know to look for," Harry said. "Meanwhile, Ron
and I are going to try to find out everything we can about the Philosopher's
Stone and Nicolas Flamel. He's a seven-hundred year-old wizard, right? I bet
he's really famous. "
"Yeah," Ron said. "He was like, the Dumbledore of his day. I heard he's the one
who trained Dumbledore he might well be the most powerful wizard alive,
really, if he hadn't retired. That kind of takes you out of the running,
retirement."
oooo
Fortunately, the next day was Saturday, so Milo didn't have to worry about using
his spells to bluff his way through classes. Instead, he prepared the same
combat spells he did on the first trip into the forest, and set out. This time,
there would be nobody to rescue him so he went in the middle of the day,
protected by his invisible Mage Armour.
"Locate Object: acromantula's corpse," he cast, swapping out Mirror Image. As
far as the magic was concerned, a dead creature was an object (unless it was
undead, of course).
"You know," he muttered to himself as he followed the path set out by the spell.
"I think I've realized why I'm having so much trouble here. I was really
designed to neutralize a horde of enemies so that Zook and the others can take
them out with pointy sticks and things," he said. "My spell selection was never
designed to win fights solo." Now that he thought about it, Milo realized he
didn't have anything actually, you know, lethal. Just sort of annoying. "The
Page 73

other thing about this crazy world," he complained. "There's no Wizards. I mean,
there's these people here who call themselves wizards, but they're really more
like Warlocks gone wrong. But no proper Wizards." No Wizards meant he couldn't
copy spells for any amount of money, which is why his selection was still so
limited. Every level, all Wizards learned a mere two new spells from independent
research.
"It's all so unfair," he muttered. "I have to re-invent the wheel every time I
want to learn a new spell. Ah, here we are."
He turned a somewhat familiar corner and felt the angle of Locate Object change
suddenly, meaning he was close. It all looked so different during the day, but
there was the web-covered tree. He couldn't believe he hadn't noticed it during
the night, there really was a lot of web everywhere.
He cautiously approached the remains of the monstrous spider. Were Milo a normal
human, he would be repulsed by the smell but, Milo's nose, like those of
everyone from his world, only picks up on plot-sensitive scents. The rest are
just assumed to be there, but not explicitly mentioned.
If Milo had thought that the acromantula would look less frightening during the
light, he would have been wrong. It was enormous. His estimate of fifteen feet
across was wrong it was closer to twenty-five. Milo shuddered.
"A-ha!" he exclaimed. "That thing is way too large to have been killed by that
little log I dropped," he said. The log weighed at most 400lbs, because that was
as much as Levitate could carry, and only dropped twenty feet (the furthest he
could raise it in the one round he had to do so) meaning it only did 2d6 damage.
That's twelve, max, and if acromantulas (acromantulae?) are anything like the
monstrous spiders back home then it should have had twenty-four hit points,
minimum, but probably closer to fifty-two. "It should have shrugged that off and
bitten me in half."
Milo frowned. There was more, too. Even if the spider was only CR 2, he should
have had somewhere in the vicinity of 22 hp and Milo only did, maximum, 12
damage. Actually, he added mentally, 15 with Acid Splash. But the odds of that
happening are slim only one in 108. He shouldn't have been able to even kill a
CR 1 monstrous spider with all he did. And from what the people around here had
been saying, acromantulas were dangerous. Really dangerous. From that alone, he
would have thought that they were Challenge Rating four or more.
He moved closer to the body to investigate. It was, clearly, quite dead.
"So what happened to you, big guy? Were you already wounded? Expose the Dead,"
he cast, switching out Levitate. This was a spell the good people of Eberron had
developed, but it had been carried to Milo's world by powerful spellcasters
using Planeshift. He'd never actually seen it done before, and had no idea how
to cast it, but Spontaneous Divination let him do it anyways. Best ability ever.
Anyways the spell gave him a gigantic bonus to searching crime scenes, and let
him discover clues as if he were a trained professional. Some quick math told
him that he'd have to be able to beat DC fifteen (easy, given his massive
Intelligence and the bonus from the spell) to find a clue, if there was one, and
Page 74

then twenty-one to figure out any information from it. He frowned. It would take
a twenty-six to find out everything he needed, and that was beyond him without
more magical assistance.
"Master's Touch, Instant Search," he cast, this time in favour of Grease and
Glitterdust, respectively. He was starting to worry that he would run out of
spells before he was done. The spells together gave him another +6 to search.
Details of the spider's corpse, more than he really wanted to know in point of
fact, suddenly appeared in his mind as if he'd diligently investigated the body.
Aside from a few long-since healed scars on its side and face, a sprained ankle
(do spiders have ankles?), minor acid burning and 400lb of tree sitting on its
back, the spider was in perfect health except that it was missing one of its
fangs.
"Well," Milo said triumphantly. "This explains everythi wait a minute, no it
doesn't. Can acromantulas shoot fangs? Why didn't I feel it? I know I didn't
take any damage." Milo was aware, at any given time, how many hit points he had.
"Well," he said. "You weren't a wounded high-CR monster, or I would have found
the other injuries. You weren't CR 1, or I would have gotten less Experience
Points. You weren't weak to acid, or there would be more serious burns. There is
only one possible conclusion... and it changes everything," he said, pausing
dramatically for the scene to change.
Chapter 7: The Potions Master
"I'm just sad I didn't get to see his face when he read the Daily Prophet,"
Malfoy sniggered. Several Slytherins laughed as well. "I'll bet he was like,
'BWAH,'" he said, making a face that would match 'BWAH' rather well, in fact.
"Teach him to mess with Slytherin in our own dungeon," Crabbe (or Goyle) said.
"Yeah, shows him to mess with us in our own classroom," said Goyle (or Crabbe).
"And for that time on the train," Crabbe (probably) added.
"Yeah, that time on the Hogwarts express," said Goyle.
"Yeah, and for when Potter got the Remembrall from you," Crabbed continued.
"Yeah, for that time he showed you up in flying in front of everyone and got
Longbottom's Remembrall," Goyle clarified.
"And then when he got put on the Quidditch team even though first years aren't
allowed."
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"Yeah, for when the teachers were so impressed at how great his flying was that
he became the youngest Seeker in a century," said Goyle.
"In future," Malfoy said coldly, "could you two not list out every time they've
shown us up whenever I have a victory?"
"Sorry boss," said Crabbe. "It's just that they have so, you know, many of
them."
"Yeah boss," said Goyle. "They have so many, and they're real easy to remember,
because everyone always talks about them."
Malfoy sighed. He wondered if the warranty had expired, or if he couldn't just
send these two back for a pair of shiny, new goons.
oooo
"I can't help but feel like there was something I was supposed to do this
morning," Milo said as he walked back to the castle from the forest, "but I just
can't remember what it was. Can't have been very important."
oooo
Hermione was forced to admit to herself, however reluctantly, that she was dead
bored. The three boys were total morons, but they did make things interesting.
She wondered if there was some way she could work her way back into their
preposterous plan without looking exceedingly foolish. She applied her towering
intellect to the problem, hypothesized various scenarios and predicted their
likely outcomes, and thirty seconds later said:
"Nope."
Hermione sighed. It wasn't even that their points were even slightly convincing,
it was just that it was sort of fun, in a dark way, to imagine that You-Know-Who
really was returning and that he was after the Stone and Snape was a dark
wizard...
"But I can't go back on my position," she reminded herself. "Or I'll look like
an idiot."
"Yes, but just think," she countered, "what if it is true? What if Snape is
trying to get the Stone for You-Know-Who? Shouldn't I be helping put a stop to
this?"
"If it is, Dumbledore would know, and he would do something. He's the only one
You-Know-Who was ever afraid of, after all."
"But Dumbledore is just one person," the other side of her argued, "he could get
caught by surprise, or called away, or be sleeping, or distracted, or anything."
"But if Dumbledore isn't enough, how could I possibly help? I'm barely twelve."
Page 76

"Is that what everyone said in the last war?" she questioned herself. "Did they
just say, 'I'm only a dressmaker, Dumbledore will take care of it, and in any
case my marks in Defence Against the Dark Arts were rubbish,' and nobody did
anything?"
"Doing the opposite and going on a witch hunt now will only make things worse,"
she protested. "There's no knowing where it will end."
"Without a witch hunt, you'll never catch witches."
"I am a witch!"
"Youer, Iknow what I mean."
"So I'll just wait until there's proof," she said, "and then I'll help in any
way that I can. How is that not reasonable?"
"Just think, Hermione, think. Youer, Iknow what the problem is."
She sighed.
"It's that it's Harry and Ron that I'm depending on to find conclusive proof,"
she said defeatedly.
oooo
"Professor," Harry asked the ghost of Professor Binns politely, "Ron and I were
wondering if you could help us on a little independent research?"
"Researchmy helpindependentwhy, I'd be delighted!" the ghost said. "Would you
believe that in all my years of teaching, no student has ever asked me that?
What is it you need to know?"
"Nicolas Flamel," Ron said. "He just seemed like such a... a... uh, a dynamic
and interesting"
"historically significant" Harry added.
"yeah, historically significant, dynamic, interesting, historical, erm a,
figure." Ron finished lamely.
"And we'd love to hear everything you know about him," Harry said. For some
unimaginable reason, most of the library seemed to be checked out already (maybe
they were doing some re-organizing?) so they'd resorted to actually asking a
professor for help. It seemed to rub Harry the wrong way, somehow, going to an
adult, but it was all they could come up with.
Harry diligently tried, he really did, to listen to everything Binns said about
Flamel and to stay awake while doing so, but the stone's texture in the floor
was just so much more interesting. Ron's eyes developed a glassy look in under
five minutes (glassier than usual, that is), and by the third hour Harry wasn't
quite sure that he didn't look the at least as bad.
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"Well," he said after they'd (finally) left Binns' office, "that was, uh,
interesting."
"Was it?" Ron asked. "Glad to hear it."
"I think," Harry said, "that we might need Hermione."
"I was hoping you wouldn't say that, mate," Ron said with a sigh. "Did we learn
anything important, though?"
Harry shrugged.
"Flamel's a big, powerful wizard and master alchemist who found out how to
create a Philosopher's Stoneturns out, it's not necessarily a unique object,
but he only ever made the one, anywaywhich can turn lead into gold and create
the Elixir of Life. He used to fight Dark Wizards, but decided to retire with
his wife way back, and he's been sort of neutral since then. Keeps to himself,
mostly."
"So, nothing we didn't already know," Ron said. "Great, just great. Well, there
went our Saturday, eh?"
"Yeah," Harry said. "I hope Milo found something more useful in the Forbidden
Forest."
"And that he didn't get eaten by werewolves," Ron added.
oooo
Milo, in a rare moment of luck, made a Listen check successfully. He almost
wished he hadn't. He'd hoped to get out of the woods without the mandatory
random encounter.
"Invisibility," he said as he faded from sight. Hope it's not a false alarm, he
thought. That was my last 2nd-level spell.
All he'd heard was movement in the shrubs, and it could have been caused by
anything. Really, when it came down to it, Milo not only didn't know what kind
of creatures lived in this forest, but this world. Bugbears? Owlbears? Dire
bears? Giant bears? Shapeshifted druids in the form of bears? Gods help him,
grizzly bears?
As it turned out, it was far, far worse than any form of bear or bear-like
monstrosity.
It was Professor Snape.
Is he here looking for me? Or is he the one killing unicorns, and he's going for
another one? I could follow him, Milo thought, but Invisibility only lasts four
minutes. And if I run into trouble, I'm already out of spells. Milo bit his lip.
I feel like Harry Potter would for sure, but... well... this is a job for a
Page 78

Rogue. I've got no business sneaking around in a forest, tailing people. I'm a
Wizard, I should have people for this. He frowned.
"Hey, Mordy," he whispered, "time to put that +10 bonus to Move Silently to
use." Mordenkainen, who had been sitting on his shoulder, nodded gravely
(although Milo couldn't see, because the familiar was as invisible as he was)
and scampered noiselessly after the Potions Master.
oooo
"You're late," Lucius hissed. "You were supposed to be here forty-seven seconds
ago."
Snape said nothing.
"I need a favour," Lucius said. "It would do well for you to comply."
"Go on," Snape shrugged.
"There is a certain individual who, I understand, is a first-year student
attending Hogwarts," Lucius said. "He has no business here. Have him expelled."
"The Potter boy?" Snape grinned. He'd wondered when Lucius was going to make his
move against the Dark Lord's mortal enemy. Fortunately, he and Dumbledore had
prepared for this.
"No, we can deal with Potter later; I speak of one Mr. ... Amastacia-Liadon,"
Lucius said. He... no, it knows too much, whatever it is that we summoned,
Lucius thought. "Whatever you have to do, get him out of that school."
"It shall be as you say," Snape said. Now,
Time to get back at that boy for insulting
And unlike Potter, I'm under no obligation
before masking it. No sense letting Lucius
this is good news, Snape thought.

my house and attacking my students.
to protect him. Snape smiled briefly
know I'd do this one for free.
"It shouldn't be too hard for you," Lucius said. "He's not a wizard." I doubt
he's even human. We may have accidentally created some sort of ... Homunculus.
An artificial human. There's no telling what it might do.
oooo
When Milo returned to the castle, it was late afternoon. He was glad to make it
to safetynot because he thought he was really in any mortal danger, after what
he'd discovered in the forest, but because without any powerful spells he was as
good as useless if another plot hook appeared.
What he had to do was find Harry. He had a right to know about Milo's
discoveryit directly affected the Boy-Who-Lived, after all.
"M-M-Milo," Milo heard a familiar voice from behind him. "M-m-m-ight I have a
w-w-w-word with you?"
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"Sure," Milo said. "What's up, Professor?"
"E-enjoying the sun, I s-s-see?" Quirrell asked.
"It was sunny?" Milo asked. Nobody ever paid much attention to weather where he
was from, unless it was an ominous thunderstorm. "Well, then I guess I was. And
I went to check out that spider thingy I killed the other day."
"Oh, did you?" Quirrell asked. "Whatever for?"
"It's just that something seemed wrong about the whole thing. The tree really
shouldn't have killed it," he said.
"It looked like a pretty heavy tree to me," Quirrell said. "Maybe it was an
extraordinarily lucky hit?"
"Falling objects can't critical hit, because they don't make attack rolls," Milo
said. "It would be different if I threw it."
Quirrell paused.
"I'm sorry, what did you just say?"
"Ah, nevermind. I'll figure it out eventually. I don't suppose you noticed
anything?"
"No," said Quirrell. "I did notalthough just a moment ago, I did see the
Potions Master heading into the forest." Quirrell looked Milo directly in the
eye when he did, as if expecting something.
"Oh, did you?" Milo said. "Wonder what he was doing. Gathering rare potions
ingredients or something. Probably. Yeah, totally that." Natural 1 on Bluff.
Great. Just great.
"Of course. Well, I'll be seeing you in class Monday," Quirrell said.
oooo
Not a Wizard? Snape mused. What could that possibly mean? How could he be in
Hogwarts and not be a Wizard? I'll have to keep a closer eye on him in class...
Snape's breath caught. The only reason Lucius would have an interest in him is
if the boy's tale were true, he thought. So, impossible as it seems, he really
is from another world.
Snape was caught in a dilemma. If he refused to do as Lucius asked, it would
blow his cover with the Death Eaters, and his position there would be necessary
in the next war. And, though he tried to keep it from influencing his decision,
he did want to get his revenge with Milo for 'accidentally' blinding his
students. But... Snape was under no illusions about what Lucius would do to Milo
once the boy was outside of the wards and away from Dumbledore's protection.
Page 80

The Snape that everyone knew, the pawn of Lucius, would comply. If he didn't, it
would confirm any suspicions Lucius had about him being a double agent. And
besides, if Milo really wasn't a wizard, then it would be Snape's duty as
professor to make sure he was expelled. Besides, Milo wasn't anyone important.
It was unfortunate, perhaps, but the boy had become a pawn that needed to be
sacrificed to protect the king.
Snape was broken out of his reverie when he bumped into the Defence Professor.
"S-s-s-sorry, S-S-Severus," Quirrell stammered and scurried away. Snape shook
his head. It should have been me with that position, Snape thought. Quirrell is
much more suited to his old job as Professor of Muggle Studies.
Hang on, Snape thought. He could practically hear the wheels clicking in his
brain. What was it Quirrell said about Milo? That he was impressed with his
magical abilities? From what Snape had heard, Milo was one of the least gifted
students that Hogwarts had seen, apart from his occasional demonstration of
wandless magic. And after that acromantula attack, Quirrell had tried pretty
desperately to save the boy... most unusual. The Quirrell that Snape knew
fainted whenever he saw a spider.
Most unusual, indeed. With everything going on involving Milo, nothing, Snape
decided, should be treated as coincidence. Snape resolved to keep a closer eye
on the Defence Professor, and watch for an opportunity to prove Milo's lack of
magic. Shouldn't be too hard, he thought. I'll just have to wait for the other
students to progress somewhat. When he fails to do so as well, that will be
evidence enough.
oooo
Sometimes I'm so clever I outsmart myself, Milo thought bitterly. This is one of
those times.
"Squeak squeak squeak squeak," Mordy said excitedly. "Squeak squeak SQUEAK."
"Mordenkainen: I don't speak Rat," Milo said, his voice tinged with an edge of
frustration. Though they shared an empathic link, which let each know the
other's general mood and condition, they couldn't actually speak until Milo hit
level five.
"What's up, mate?" Ron asked him. Milo was sitting in Gryffindor Common Room,
trying to figure out what Mordy had seen Snape do. From what he could tell,
there was a great deal of squeaking involved. Ron and Harry had just walked
through the portal, looking despondent.
"I found Snape sneaking about in the forest and had Mordy tail him, but I
evidently didn't think very far ahead when I did. You ever hear of a spell that
lets you talk to animals?"
"Nope," Ron said. "Except for Parselmouths, of course."
"Parcel mouths?" Milo asked. "What are those, aside from the worst thing to get
Page 81

in the mail imaginable?"
"Blimey!" Ron exclaimed. "Everyone knows about Parselmouths."
Harry sighed.
"Ron, I thought I asked you to stop doing that?" Potter said. "I was raised by
Muggles, and Milo's from another planet or something."
"Oh, right. Sorry."
"We know as much about Parselmouths as we did about Quidditch," Harry continued.
"Sorry."
"Which is to say absolutely nothing."
"Sorry."
"Because we, unlike you, were not raised in Magical Britain."
"Sorry."
"Just saying."
"Right."
Milo coughed.
"Parselmouths?" he asked.
"Oh, right," Ron said. "Well, it's this really rare ability some people have
that lets them talk to snakes," Ron said. "It's said Slytherin was oneSalazar
Slytherin, that isand You-Know-Who. It's a sign of Dark Wizards, for sure. I've
never heard of any after You-Know-Who, and it's just snakes, anyway."
"Oh," Milo said. "Well, that's pretty useless." Harry, however, had gone
completely white.
"I have tothat is, I should probablyI'll just go. Er. Bye." Harry said, and
fled the Common Room.
"Well, that was weird," Ron said. "Wonder what that was all about?"
"Something significant, probably," Milo said. "But I don't think it has anything
to do with us, yet. We can always ask him later, but right now, I have to figure
out how to speak with this rat."
"So you can find out what evil things Snape was up to in the forest?" Ron asked.
"Yeah," Milo said. "then you can use it to get Hermione to help you figure out
what's going on with the Philosopher's Stone."
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"How do you know we need help?" Ron asked defensively. "For all you know, we
learned everything we needed today."
"Oh? Did you?"
"Maybe. I wasn't really listening, to be honest," Ron admitted.
"Which is why we need Hermione."
"Which is why you need to make your rat speak."
"Yeah."
"Bollocks," Ron said. "Best of luck."
There was a spell Milo knew of that would help, called Speak With Animals.
Unfortunately, it was only available to Rangers, Druids, and Bardsand Milo
would sooner die than become any of those. If he could get his hands on a
gnomea proper gnome, not one of those garden gnomes that Ron kept complaining
aboutthen they could maybe help, because they could speak with animals a few
times a day. Only burrowing animals, though. Milo wondered if rats counted as
burrowing animals or, if not, merely digging a hole once would count. He would,
technically be "burrowing."
Milo sighed. He didn't have a gnome, he didn't have a Ranger, he didn't have a
Druid, and he neither had nor particularly wanted a Bard.
"Squeak, squeak squeak," Mordy continued without pause.
There were only two options, as Milo saw it. He could attempt to push the rules
past breaking point and test if his Spontaneous Divination ability could mimic
Druid spells, or he could wait until levelling up to find out. The first option
risked calling righteous fury upon himself from above, while the second took
time and monster slaying. Unfortunately, patience was a virtue, and Milo was
True Neutral.
"Speak with Animals," Milo tried to cast, attempting to swap out Protection from
Evil. Other than losing the spell from his memorized list, nothing happenedbut
Milo felt a distinct sense of wrongness. It was as if the universe recoiled from
him slightly, pondered for a moment, then...
"Excuse me," Lavender Brown said to him, "Professor McGonagall told me to tell
you that Professor Snape wants to talk to you, like, right this second."
"I'm sure it's totally a coincidence," Milo said nervously as he started to
sweat. "Heh, heh. Hah. Coincidence. OhmygodsI'mgoingtodie." Lavender gave him a
sympathetic look, but said nothing.
Milo supposed he would just have to wait until he gained another level before
finding out what Snape was up to in the Forbidden Forest. And this, he thought
as he walked towards Snape's dungeon, is why you don't try to stretch the Rules
Page 83

as Written to allow more than 150% as much as the Rules as Intended, er,
intended.
I just hope I'll have the opportunity to live long enough to learn from my
mistake.
Milo knocked on the heavy wooden door to Snape's office, which created a
surprisingly loud echo.
"Enter," a voice said sternly from the other side of the door. Milo quickly ran
through his assets before opening the door: a pair of Prestidigitations and
Dancing Lights, an Acid Splash, a Protection from Evil, a Silent Image, anda
Feather Fall, as well as the contents of his Belt of Hidden Pouches.
So, not much.
Milo cautiously opened the door and walked in. Snape's office was... uniquely
atmospheric. There was an eyeball floating in a jar, and it was probably the
least creepy thing there.
"Ah, mister Amastacia-Liadon," Snape said. "I've been expecting you."
Milo whimpered quietly. Sitting on Snape's desk was a lustrous black flask
inlaid with a silver skull pattern. There was a skull-shaped stopper with
reflective red eyes. To complete the image, the eyes glowed slightly.
"Madam Pomfrey has instructed me to give you this," he said, gesturing at the
very, very evil flask. "It contains a week's worth of antidote for acromantula
venom," Snape continued. "You are to drink one teaspoon every night, ideally
within a minute or two of midnight for full effect."
"W-why midnight?" Milo stammered.
"Oh, just so your body has time to process it before breakfast."
"W-why the sk-skulls?"
"It's the only flask I had in the correct size."
"Oh." That didn't, of course, answer the question of why he possessed such a
flask in the first place. It looked more suited to holding the blood of
sacrificial maidens than medicine. Well, no matter, Milo could just cast Detect
Poison on it as soon as he left the office to see if it was dangerous.
"Oh, before you go, make sure you don't drink more than your prescribed amount,"
Snape warned. "That's a powerful poison in large quantities." Well, Milo
thought, there goes that plan. It would just register as poisonous anyways. The
safest option is to just toss a teaspoon of it down the drain every night and
hope for the best.
"And make sure you don't miss a night, either," Snape said. "Or the venom could
relapse, and you'll most likely die." Oh, come on.
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"Oh. Um, thanks," Milo said. "I'll just, ah, go now. Bye, Professor." Milo fled
the room, and didn't stop running until he was in front of the Fat Lady.
"Password?" she asked.
"Squeak," Milo said, and the painting swung open to reveal Gryffindor Tower.
Milo found Ron and Harry sitting at a table by themselves playing Wizard Chess.
Harry had evidently returned from his weird flight earlier, but still looked a
little shaken. Milo was no chess expert, but judging by the fact that Harry only
had two pieces left, Ron was winning.
Milo collapsed into an overstuffed armchair and slammed the accursed flask on
the table.
"Detect Poison, Detect Magic," he started casting rapidly.
"Bloody hell, mate," Ron said, staring at the skulled flask. "What's in there,
You-Know-Who's tears?"
"Identify, Ancient Knowledge, Appraising Touch," Milo continued casting
uninterrupted.
"What's that you're muttering?" Harry said. "Are you sweating? What happened?"
"It's poisonous and apparently nonmagical," Milo said to himself. "But that
broomstick didn't appear to be magical, either. It could have a Magic Aura cast
on it to conceal it from detection," Milo said, "or something more powerful.
Otherwise I don't know at all what's in there... And it could really be
poisonous, and Snape was just saying 'it's poisonous in large quantities' as an
excuse to make me ignore the results of Detect Poison. Although Snape can't have
known that I could do that, could he? Nobody here knows what my capabilities
are, right? Unless he can read minds... Nah. Will is my highest save, that would
never work. But Detect Poison only detects, like, actual, literal poison," he
continued. "It wouldn't say anything was wrong if this were say, a Potion of
Bestow Curse or Potion of Horrid Wilting... No, potions only go up to 3rd-level
spells... so the worst it could be is, say, a Potion of Inflict Critical Wounds,
maybe, which would still be more than enough to kill me. Or whatever the closest
analogue is in this world."
"Sorry, what?" Ron asked.
"But if Snape is telling the truth and I don't drink tonight it I'll die." Milo
ran his fingers through his hair. "Did Snape really give me an antidote that's
technically poisonous just to fool my Detect Poison spell? And then make it into
a lethal, but technically non-poisonous potion of some horrendous instant death
spell once I'd concluded it wasn't really poisonous, at least in small doses,
and therefore it's safe? Surely nobody's brain is that twisty..."
"Yours is, mate," Ron pointed out.
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"But if this is going to kill me, why did he put it in such an over-the-top
flask?" Milo asked.
"Uh," Harry said, "I'm not really sure what you're talking about, but maybe he
gave you that flask of doom so you'd think 'surely no-one would put actual
poison in something like this' and then you'd drink it."
"Ah!" Milo exclaimed. "You could be right! I'm going to die I never should have
tried to speak to this useless rat!"
Over on the other side of the common room, Hermione rolled her eyes, put her
book aside, and stood up exasperatedly.
"I couldn't help but overhear your anguished shrieks of, well, anguish,"
Hermione said walking over. "And why would Snape poison you with something
everyone knows he gave you?"
"So you do think Snape's evil!" Ron said.
"No, dimwit," Hermione said, rolling her eyes again. "I said 'assuming your
half-brained theory is correct and Snape is evil,' first. Remember?"
"You did?" Ron frowned. "I don't remember that, actually."
"Then try listening, next time, maybe?" Hermione asked testily. "Anyway," she
continued as if Ron hadn't spoken, "if you drunk that and died, everyone would
know Snape did it."
"I'd still be dead!" Milo protested.
"What I meant is, he wouldn't do it if it would reveal himself. Obviously."
"No, because he explicitly stated it would kill me if I either didn't drink it
or if I drank too much," Milo countered, speaking rapidly. "So say I do drink it
and I die, he could just say, 'oh, that poor stupid boy, he must have overdosed
himself by accident, what a tragedy, oh, me, I'm so sorry, he showed so much
promise, mwa ha ha, we're all worse off for his untimely death, oh, the
humanity.'"
"So, ask Madam Pomfrey," Hermione said.
"Ask her what?" Milo asked, perplexed.
"If that's actually the antidote," she said.
Milo blinked.
"Why?"
"Because she'd tell you. She's a mediwitch; she knows what she's doing."
"I don't understand," Milo confessed. Asking adults for help was not something
Page 86

he, as an adventurer, had ever considered doing before.
"I'll use short, simple sentences so that even you can understand," Hermione
said sharply. "Take this flask. Go to the hospital wing. Say, 'Madam Pomfrey,
can you check that this is really acromantula antidote? I'm worried Snape gave
me the wrong flask by accident.' She'll look at it and say, 'yes, this is the
antidote, it's very dangerous so follow the directions precisely,' or,
alternatively, say, 'no, that's distilled nightshade, among the deadlier poisons
known to man.'"
"That's... a little unorthodox, but it just might work," Milo admitted. "But how
do I know I can trust Madam Pomfrey? Actually, what if Snape assumed I would ask
Pomfrey and deliberately made this here elixir of death to pass whatever test
she would think of?" he asked. "Because he certainly outsmarted mine."
"No," Hermione said. "You outsmarted yourself. Just drink it."
"On the plus side," Ron said. "If you do drink it and die, that will prove you
were right and Snape's evil and Hermione will help us stop him! It's a win-win."
"...but I'll be dead," Milo said.
"Can't have everything, mate," Ron shrugged.
"I've been outsmarted," Milo decided. "Whatever I decide, I'm probably falling
for Snape's evil plan. I'll just... I'll flip a copper piece. Emperor, I drink
it; Hydra, I don't."
He pulled out a copper from his Belt, and flipped it. It twirled four times in
the air, and landed with a heavy thud on the table.
The four of them stared at it in disbelief.
"Blimey," said Ron. "I... I didn't think that was even possible."
"It is, without a doubt, highly improbable," Hermione conceded.
The coin was sitting on the heavy wooden table, balanced perfectly on its edge.
oooo
Snape leaned back in his leather chair, smiling. He knew he wasn't supposed to
use Legilimency on students for his own amusement, but...
Even if I get sacked for this, he thought, it was, without a doubt, worth it. He
could only imagine the agony and indecision going through Milo's head after he'd
left.
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Chapter 8: Sidequests
The antidote, as it turned out, was harmless. That didn't stop Milo from buffing
himself up with a Resistance spell and keeping his Antitoxin on hand before
taking his dosage, however. Despite the fact that, aided by Snape's potion, Milo
recovered from the after-effects of his poisoning fairly quickly, the rest of
Autumn at Hogwarts was, well, unpleasant.
Harry and Ron made absolutely no progress in their hunt for information about
the Philosopher's Stone among the teachers, and for such a powerful and famous
artifact, Milo could barely find anything about it in the Hogwarts Library. He
Scholar's Touch-ed his way through mountains of thick, dusty tomes without even
opening their covers, and while he learned a lot of apparently useless
information, there was little that seemed relevant to him. Scholar's Touch
didn't grant any special powers to aid in memorization, so the fact that he
'read' the books so rapidly actually made it harder to keep his facts straight.
Still, he reckoned he'd absorbed enough general setting information that he
could start making Knowledge (History) checks about this world.
It was during this period that Milo noticed something unnatural about the people
here. The more he watched them learn, the less he was sure that they were even
human at allthey looked human, sure, but...
Well, to start, there was the food. The people here were obsessed with it, and
kept comparing the various flavours of dishes that the house-elves cooked up for
them (Milo was dying to meet one of the elves here, he was sure they could help
him. Elves were annoying, sure, but the pointy-eared pansies and magic went hand
in hand). Some even developed favourite foods and avoided certain ones
altogether. To Milo, food was a logistical challenge to be overcome while
adventuring and a source of danger if it ran low (thus, the Everlasting Rations,
which were all that Milo ever ate). The actual taste of food was something that
only came up in plot-relevant situations like smell, and the weather. The
people of Milo's world only smelled things when they were important, like a
Troglodyte's stench or a potential clue (or red herring, for that matter).
Otherwise, why bother even mentioning it?
Another peculiarity in these people was the inordinate amount of down time they
required. Milo had to spend eight hours sleeping and an hour memorizing spells,
but that left fifteen hours a day to put to use attending class, fighting
monsters, and crafting items off-screen. Milo knew an Artificer by the name of
Alton who, when he finally got his hands on a Ring of Sustenance, spent two
hours sleeping, eight hours crafting magic items (the maximum amount per day)
and the other fourteen hours in a day mass-producing baskets to fund his
adventuring. Alton did that every day for three hundred years straight, with
breaks to fight monsters to recover lost Experience Points, until he'd amassed a
fortune large enough to attract the attention of a wandering Blue Dragon.
Alton's unfortunate demise aside, it was just good sense to put their hours to
usethey were only given twenty-four in a day, after all. And besides, manual
labour was the sort of thing done during a timeskip, anyways, it's not like it
got in the way of the story. Even Hermione seemed shocked by the amount of time
he spent reading and working. In just one week, Milo managed to custom-tailor
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his fifth-hand Hogwarts uniform (untrained, but with +2 for masterwork tools
(which Milo also made himself) and +4 from his Intelligence) until it rivalled
Draco's in quality, read more books than any of his classmates (save Hermione)
could in a year, and carve holy symbols of Pelor, Heironeous, St. Cuthbert, and
Boccob into key locations around Gryffindor Tower. That had earned him some
strange looks, despite the fact that the residents there were fully aware that
there were vampires on the same continent as them. That was all in addition to
the daily chores all first year Gryffindors were required to do as punishment
for trying to kill or maim the Slytherins back in September. Milo theorized
that, while he had to spend an hour poring over his spellbook, performing arcane
research, and memorizing spells every morning, the Wizards here had to spend at
four to eight hours a day (judging by comparisons between Hermione and Ron, it
was an amount of time equal to eight minus their Intelligence Bonus, in hours
per day) sitting around on armchairs and talking about the weather.
But that wasn't the really weird thing. The more Milo watched these students in
their classes, the harder a time he had sleeping at night. The way they were
learning was wrong. It was oh, so, incredibly wrong. Ordinary people learned in
discrete increments: they levelled up, their powers, skills, and abilities
increased, and then they plateaued until attaining enough Experience Points to
go up another level. It was just obvious. That was, intuitively, the way
everyonehumans, elves, dwarves, kobolds, mindflayers, small fluffy hamsters,
everyonelearned.
Watching his fellow Gryffindors, Milo wondered, though it seemed impossible, if
their skills didn't develop gradually. There seemed to be a slow, constant
growth in magical ability, historical knowledge, broomstick skills, or whatever,
that depended on that student's particular aptitude in that area. Hermione, for
example, was the fastest to learn in Defence Against the Dark Arts, Charms,
Transfiguration, Potions, Herbology, Astrology... actually, pretty much all of
their classes except for Broomstick Flying (which went to Harry, who was also,
to be fair, pretty close to even Hermione in Defence), and History of Magic (to
Milo's intense embarrassment, it was the only class he seemed to be doing any
good in, and even that was only as a result of his supersonic library binge).
That wasn't to say that Milo was completely useless in class, it was just... he
had to wait and hope that whichever particular Charm (this world had a totally
different definition of Charm than Milo's, which caused him no end of confusion)
they were about to learn was fairly close to his limited repertoire of spells so
he could fake his way through. If it wasn't... well, having to be helped by
Neville Longbottom when attempting to learn the Cutting Charm was somewhat
embarrassing. Transfiguration wasn't too bad. He managed to get by, to a certain
extent, with using Prestidigitation to change the colour and, on one memorable
occasion, taste of the object he was attempting to transfigure. He started out
ahead, but now he was barely scraping a A (which stood for Acceptable, and was
counter-intuitively, the lowest passing grade) but if he didn't get some new
spells soon, he'd slip into P (for Poor) territory with alacrity. Charms was
going distressingly poorly until Flitwick announced they'd be learning how to
levitate objects. Milo simply cast Levitate quietly then said "Wingardium
Leviosa" with the rest of them, and astonished the class and earned him five
House Points by lifting an entire table, complete with Neville (who had been
leaning against it and grabbed one of the legs in a panic as it started to float
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away) and lowering it back down again.
Defence Against the Dark Arts was kind of pointless. Quirrell, for all the
mystery surrounding him, didn't seem to care whatsoever about teaching. What
they did learn was mostly limited to dealing with magical household pests. Milo
was forced to wonder what the Muggles did when confronted with a Bowtruckle in
their trees, or if the magical creatures had an inbuilt sense of decency and
fair play, and as a result only targeted humans carrying wands. Milo caused
quite a stir when he suggested the best way to deal with vampires was to impair
them with Webs, Glitterdust, and Grease so that your non-spellcaster allies can
take them out with wooden stakes.
"You would bring Muggles with you?" Quirrell had asked, sounding genuinely
shocked.
"Well, sure. You don't see many a Wizard pumping irons or practicing
hand-to-hand combat, now do you? Deck 'em out in full plate, give 'em a pointy
stick, and point 'em in the right direction." It was incredible. They seemed to
never have heard of the concept of a meat shield, and even the Slytherins were
shocked and appalled when he attempted to educate them. That there was something
morally questionable about sending the heavily armoured, greataxe-wielding
barbarian with mighty thews out front to soak up damage had never occurred to
Milo. It seemed to him that the wizards here were remarkably selfish, never
giving a thought to how their nonmagical allies would feel when the spellcasters
hogged all the glory and XP with their vastly superior powers.
Broomstick lessons, however, were dreadful. Milo had come to the conclusion that
the broomsticks weren't actually magical at all, but that the local wizards had
a spell or class feature that let them animate certain broomsticks (probably
with a specific cost requirement, which is why they didn't use ordinary cleaning
mops) for flight. Milo, not having said spell or perk, was completely
unsuccessful at making the thrice-damned stick float, and finally gave up and
Levitated the accursed thing. This let him go up and down, but to move
horizontally he had to awkwardly kick off of walls and objects. He felt like a
six-year-old who'd accidentally been signed up for swimming lessons for
eight-year-olds, and was desperately trying to dog paddle around the room while
everyone else was demonstrating backstrokes.
The worst, the absolute worst, was Potions. Snape seemed to go out of his way to
make Harry's life as miserable as possible, which was annoying, but the
concerning thing was how he always kept a very close eye on Milo. The thing was,
the potions didn't work. He chopped up the ingredients exactly how the book
suggested and made sure to turn the spoon clockwise three times and
counterclockwise one-and-a-half times, or whatever, but nothing happened. Even
Neville's potions occasionally exploded, or melted, or screamed, or caught fire,
or in one case got up and ran out of the room blabbering about the Kennedy
Assassination. But Milo's potions, though Milo would bet his spellbook he was
doing everything right, were just water with stuff floating in them. Whenever
one of Harry's potions failed catastrophically, Snape would deduct house points
and scold him, but whenever he noticed that Milo's was use-impaired (Milo was
hesitant to call them useless, because they could still be, and frequently were,
employed to put out fires) Snape just smiled to himself and made a note in the
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compact, leather-bound notebook he carried about his person.
It was that evening that Milo learned about Hallowe'en.
"So, what are you going as?" Hannah Abbot asked him. She seemed to enjoy sitting
next to him at meals for some inexplicable reason. Milo only bothered to go to
the Great Hall for dinner (as opposed to munching on Everlasting Rations in his
dorm) because he'd noticed a correlation between mealtimes there and having
important conversations.
Milo blinked in surprise. Being knocked out of a timeskip was rather like
spending the whole day reading a good book, then remembering you had a party to
go to, but the book was so good that you read it the whole way on the bus and
were completely distracted and absent-minded all evening, until you hear someone
say your name from the other side of the room, and snap. Broken out of your
reverie, just like that.
"Sorry, say that again?" Milo asked. "I was distracted."
"I was just asking what you were going to dress up for on Hallowe'en," Hannah
asked.
"No, that still doesn't make any sense. What's Hallowe'en?"
Hannah blinked, shook her head slightly, and blinked again. She looked like
someone had just asked her what a Natural 20 was.
"You don't even know? Everyone knows what Hallowe'en is!" she exclaimed.
Milo sighed.
"Look, I've been over this. I wasn't raised by wizards, etcetera etcetera, fill
me in?"
"No, but even Muggles know about Hallowe'en!" Hannah said.
"I'm not from around here, remember?" Milo reminded her.
"Well, I guess, it's a holiday where everyone dresses up as monsters and goes
around taking candy from strangers," Hannah said. "Which always confused me a
little, because that's exactly what me mum is always reminding me not to do."
"I see," Milo said. "that seems... terribly mundane, actually. Surely I didn't
get pulled out of compressed time for that?" Milo frowned. "Harry," Milo said,
turning to his left, "is Hallowe'en written on your list, anywhere?"
"Ah, lemme check," Harry said, and flipped through his lengthy list of notes.
"Nope, not at all."
"Try All Hallows' Eve," Hermione suggested, "and Samhain."
"Hey, I thought you weren't helping?" Ron pointed out.
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"I'm not," she said defensively. "I'm just... advising. Oh, and Harry, try just
looking for October Thirty-First."
"Advising is helping. And of course Hallowe'en is significant for Harry," Ron
said. "Everyone knowsoh, right, sorry. I forgot. Anyway, it's the day that
Harry defeated You-Know-Who ten years ago."
"You mean, the day when my parents..." Harry sighed.
"Uhm. Right. Sorry," Ron said apologetically.
"Still don't see what's important about that," Milo said. Hermione shot him a
look that could curdle milk, nodding slightly towards Harry. "I mean, aside
from, you know, being tragic. Just tragic. Uh. Terrible, that is. Tragic and
terrible."
"Don't worry about it," Harry said quietly.
"Oh, phew." Milo said, relieved, before moving on to what he saw as more
pressing issues. "Anyways. Tenth anniversary of You-Know-Who's alleged demise?
Dumbledore doesn't look very concerned," Milo said, nodding to the eccentric
Headmaster at the Head Table, "meaning there was nothing about it in the
Prophecy."
"Wait, what Prophecy?" Hermione asked.
"There's always a Prophecy, Hermione," Milo rolled his eyes. "Everyone knows
that."
"Point for his side," Ron muttered.
"I hadn't realized we were keeping score," Hermione said sharply.
"We're Quidditch players," Ron said nodding to Harry, "we always keep score."
"So, when's this Hallowe'en thing?" Milo asked.
"October Thirty-First," Hannah supplied. "Tomorrow."
"Hermione," Milo said. "If I'm right, and something dramatic does happen
tomorrow evening, will you admit that I'm right, that Snape is evil, that the
Philosopher's Stone is involvedthat it's maybe even at Hogwarts, in or about
the clearly relevant third floor corridorthat You-Know-Who isn't really dead,
and that... wait, was there something else? No, I think that's about it. Anyway,
will you?"
"Nope," Hermione said simply. "Because there is absolutely no correlation
between any of those events. Say, tomorrow, the Chamber of Secrets is opened and
Muggleborns start dying. There's no connection between that and You-Know-Who
being alive. If You-Know-Who is alive, that's absolutely no reason to think that
Snape is, quote, evil. If Snape is evil, that's no reason to think the
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Philosopher's Stone is in Hogwarts. Unless Snape releases Slytherin's Monster to
use as a distraction so he can get the Stone to bring You-Know-Who back to life.
That would make perfect sense, actually. Can the Philospher's Stone do that?"
"The great Hermione Granger, asking a question?" Milo laughed. "Well, mine can.
That is, Philosopher's Stones' from my universe can bring back the dead "
"What?" Harry asked quietly. "Really?"
"Sure," said Milo. "Of course, any old Cleric can do the same for a few gold
pieces and some diamond powder, so I don't really see what the big deal is."
Harry choked on his food.
"Wh-wh-what?" he asked.
"Raise Dead, Resurrection, True Resurrection, Reincarnate, Revivify, Miracle,
and Wish," Milo said, ticking off his fingers as he listed the spells, "are all
spells that can bring back the dead, to name a few."
"Y-you can bring the dead back to life?" Harry asked.
"Me? Ha! Boccob, No. It's really more Divine spellcaster territory. I think, but
I'd have to do a little research to be sure, that Wizards have to use Wish to do
it, and it's really powerful magic. Demands a huge sacrifice of Experience, and
in any case it's way beyond my abilities."
"Oh," said Harry, looking crestfallen.
"Milo," Hermione said acidly, "You and I will have words about this later.
You're going to have to learn some tact one of these days, even if I have to
shove it down your throat at wandpoint."
"Point for her side," Ron said.
"Oh, shuttup. So the Philospher's Stone can bring back the dead?" Hermione
asked.
"What? Oh, haha, no. Yours can't, anyways. From what I found in the library, it
just turns stuff into gold and lets you live forever."
"Well, that's aah. Nevermind," Hermione said, glancing at Harry.
"That's a what, Hermione?" Harry asked.
"Well, it means You-Know-Who can't come back, so it's kind of a..."
"A relief, isn't it? That the Stone can't bring back the dead?" Harry pushed.
"Yes, if you must know, that's what I was going to say. But that was before I
thought about it, and stopped myself, because I didn't initially think it
through the whole way."
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"Fair enough," Harry said.
"I think I missed something there," Ron admitted quietly to Milo.
"Hermione was about to say it was a relief that the Philosopher's Stone can't
bring back the dead, but right now Harry's thinking about his parents," Milo
explained in a whisper, "so she was as good as saying it'd be worth it that we
couldn't bring back Harry's folks, as well as anyone else decent who'd died,
just to keep You-Know-Who down."
"Let's try to stay on topic, okay?" Harry asked.
"Right. Sorry," Hermione apologised.
"Forget it. What should we do about tomorrow?" Harry wondered.
"Tell a professor," Hermione shrugged.
"We can't very well go up to McGonagall and say, 'excuse me, Professor,
tomorrow's Hallowe'en and Milo's Spidey Sense is tingling so can you lock down
the school, just to be sure?' she'd think we were nuts, for sure," Harry said.
"What's a Spidey Sense?" Ron asked.
Harry suppressed a grin.
"Blimey! You don't even know what the Spider-Sense is? Everyone knows that! It's
Spider-Man's ability to sense danger before it happens," Harry said. "How on
Earth did you become eleven years old and not know that?"
"Point for his side," Hermione smirked. "But Harry makes a good point. The
reason it sounds crazy is because it still is crazy."
"You're too hung up on actual, you know, facts, Hermione," Milo said. "Just be
on your toes tomorrow, okay? That goes for everyone," Milo added.
"In all seriousness, what could I possibly do, even on my toes?" Hermione asked.
"Use the Levitating Charm to save the day? Transfigure up some sewing needles?
I've only been a Witch for two months. I'll stay inside the castle tomorrow, not
that I have much choice, because someone got us all a full year of detention.
Aside from that, I don't know about you, but I'm going to enjoy Hallowe'en in
family tradition, passed down the Granger line for generations: by revising and
doing homework. Exams are only eight months away, after all." She sighed, a
slightly dreamy expression coming over her, "I do so love Hallowe'en. Which
brings me to the matter at hand: Harry, Ron, and I have to go now."
"What?" asked Harry.
"What?" asked Ron.
"I said that already," said Harry.
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"Yeah, but, I was confused, too, right?" said Ron.
"I just don't think it added much, is all. It was, what's it called...
redundant."
"I think it's considered polite to say learning disabled now, actually," said
Ron primly, "and I don't care for your tone at all."
Hermione coughed.
"Right. Why were we leaving, Hermione?" Harry asked.
"For a very important thing that we have to do far over there," she said,
pointing frantically to the far corner of the Great Hall. "You know? The thing?"
"Uh, nope, Hermione, sorry," Ron said. "I think you've lost a marble or ten. I
have no idea what you're talking about."
"Oh, just get up and walk, Weasley, Potter, or I swear I'll... I'll... I'll
think of something," she threatened. "and mark my words: I am very good at
thinking of things. Very, very good. Bwa, ha, ha."
"Did you just say Bwa ha ha?" Harry asked.
"Pardon," Hermione said. "I appear to have caught the hiccups."
"Only that didn't sound like a hiccup," Ron said. "It was more of a, you know,
evil laugh, sort of thing."
"Nope, it was a hiccup. What would an eleven year old girl be doing laughing
evilly? I hiccupped. I even covered my mouth and everything."
"Only... only, aren't you twelve?" asked Ron.
"Ron, mate," Harry whispered. "I think we should just go with her. It's less
painful that way."
"Fine," Ron muttered, and they stood up and walked away. Hermione kept glancing
surreptitiously back at Milo and Hannah.
"Well," Milo said, taking a bite out of his Everlasting Rations. "That was...
weird."
"Yeah, kinda," Hannah agreed evasively. "Anyway, about Hallowe'en tomorrow...?"
oooo
"He thinks he's so clever," Malfoy sneered. "He has no idea what's coming to
him."
"Yeah!" said Crabbe (or Goyle).
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"Right!" said Goyle (or Crabbe, but you get the idea, right?)
"After the last one, he acted like he didn't care, but you could tell. Oh, man,
you could tell, if you looked close. Real close," Malfoy said. "I got him, like,
right to the core. Just wish I saw him read the paper."
"Yeah, we got him deep down," said Crabbe.
"Yeah, we got him so deep you'd need a Bubble-Head Charm to swim down there to
see," said Goyle.
"Yeah, so deep you'd die from the pressure," said Crabbe.
"Okay, guys. Seriously, stop that," said Malfoy. "You aren't helping."
"Yeah, you're not helping, Goyle," said Goyle. Wait, Crabbe. Said Crabbe. Phew,
close call.
"Yeah, you're just making things worse, Crabbe," said Goyle.
Draco rolled his eyes.
"This time," Draco said, "this time, it'll get him so bad he won't even be able
to hide it. He'll be begging for mercy. And you know what I'll do then?"
"Relent, as he's seen the error of his ways, and demonstrate your kind,
forgiving personality?" suggested Goyle.
"Relent, and buy him a puppy," said Crabbe. "A fluffy one. So he doesn't feel so
bad about losing."
Draco gave them a peculiar look. Seriously, what was with these two?
"Nah, I'll kick 'im!" he cackled.
"Yeah!" said Crabbe.
"Yeah!" added Goyle, not wanting to feel left out. Goyle frowned, which made his
forehead looked a little like Mount Etna would if it collapsed slowly and
said, "So, boss, what's the plan?"
"The plan? You want to know the plan?"
"Yeah, boss, so's we can help," said Crabbe.
"Yeah, boss, so's we can... know the plan," said Goyle.
"I'll tell you the plan! It'll all go down tomorrow," Draco said. "Do you know
what day it is tomorrow?"
"Uh," said Crabbe. "Thursday?"
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"No!" shrieked Malfoy. "Well, actually, yes. Tomorrow is Thursday. But that's
not what's important!"
"Uh," said Goyle. "Friday?"
"No!" shrieked Malfoy. "Wait... what? Look, Goyle, I just said that tomorrow is
Thursday. Surely even you... I mean, really?"
"Well, you also said it wasn't what was important, so I thought, maybe the
important thing about tomorrow is that, while it's Thursday, it's really Friday.
You know?"
"Uh," said Malfoy. "No... not... really..." he frowned. "Look, guys, we're
getting off topic. It's not about the day of the week, okay?"
"Oh! Oh! I love this game," said Goyle. "Is it smaller than a breadbox?"
"Uh. Well, kinda, I guess, in an abstract sort of sense, tomorrow is bigger than
a breadbox... wait, no! We're not playing Twenty Questions! Just... just... just
guess, okay? It's like, really obvious. Here's a hint, even. Today's the
Thirtieth of October, so tomorrow is..."
"Friday!" said Crabbe.
"You're fired. You're both fired."
"The Thirty-First!" said Goyle.
"Yes!" Malfoy resisted, barely, the temptation to fist-pump. "And what happens
every year on October Thirty-First?"
"Hallowe'en!" said Crabbe.
"NO! Well, actually, yeah, again, kinda. But once again, you're right but
completely wrong! Tomorrow morning is the Northwestern Regional Semi-Finals for
the UK Quidditch League!"
"Bwa ha ha!" Crabbe cackled.
"Mwa ha ha!" Goyle cackled, too.
oooo
"I'm confused," Ron admitted.
"Well, there's a surprise. Look," Milo explained, "a sidequest is a short
adventure at most tangentially related to the major events of the story used
primarily for character development."
"Character development?" asked Ron.
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"Yeah. Getting hauls of XP, magic items, and gold, and thus making your
character more powerful, or developed. Character development."
Harry frowned. "Look, unlike you two, I actually went to primary school, and I'm
fairly certain that's not actually what character development means."
"Irregardless," Milo began.
"Not a word," Harry muttered.
"Says the boy on the Quidditch team. Anyways, regardless there, happy? of
the meaning of character development, sidequests are brief excursions, more
focussed on a single idea, generally simpler, and also where most of the best
loot comes from."
"And that's why you're going on a date with the cute blonde?" asked Fred (or
George, but we're not starting this again, okay?).
"Not a date. A sidequest," corrected Milo. He, Ron, Harry, and the Weasley twins
were sitting in a corner in the Common Room. Milo had planned to co-ordinate his
Hallowe'en schedule with them, so that they'd all know where the others would be
at any given time (for when, inevitably, disaster struck) but the conversation
had taken an unexpected turn when he'd filled them in on his conversation with
Hannah.
"On a secluded, dare I say, private walk around the Hogwarts lake," said George,
"where, being right out in the open, of course, everyone can see you."
"Yeah. An adventure past a body of water filled to the brim with monsters of
every sort," said Milo.
"Ah, I see," Fred said knowingly. "So you can protect the fair maiden, eh?"
"Well, if I have to. She's a witch, though, should be more than competent at
defending herself."
"I think, Fred," said George, "that he's not really getting into the spirit of
things."
"I'm forced to agree, George," said Fred.
"She said she wanted to talk to me alone for a while," Milo shrugged. "So I just
assumed she had some critical information she has to pass along, or possibly a
magic item. For all I know, she'll give me a quest."
"Maybe she has some sensitive information, if you know what I... ah, nevermind,
you know?" said Fred.
"Yeah, it's just not working. He seems to be immune to teasing," admitted
George. "Such a shame."
"A missed opportunity."
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"A wasted chance."
"A moment passed, never to return."
"Such a shame."
"No, we actually said that one, already," said Fred.
"Ah, nuts," said George. "And here I was, getting all Zen."
"Well, one way or another," Fred said, "I think you're going to have a very
interesting Hallowe'en."
oooo
Quirrell paced back and forth irritably in his office. He just had to think.
There must be some way to get rid of that boy... how did he know? How could he
possibly know that the Dark Lord was returning? Dumbledore must have told him,
Quirrell thought. No... that explains nothing. How could Dumbledore himself
know?
And the boy had just told him. He'd just come out and said it was obvious.
Obvious! To anyone with half a brain! He'd even named his three friends as
accomplices... Was it a trap? A test of some sort? Perhaps the boy had been
bluffing, trying to gauge Quirrell's reaction?
Irregardless, it didn't matter. The boy had to die. Snape would make things
difficult, though... he seemed to know, somehow. The only times the accursed
Potions Master isn't watching the boy, Quirrell thought, he's watching me. He
must be trying to protect the boy... they're all in it together. That's what
they were doing out in the forest... Snape went out to meet Milo in the
Forbidden Forest, to discuss how to stop me. It's too much of a coincidence to
be anything else. They must think they're so clever, but if they were really
clever they wouldn't have let me notice. No, they weren't half as sneaky as they
thought. Well, it'll all happen tomorrow, if everything goes according to
plan... No. No, there's no if about it.
"A Power He Knows Not..." Quirrell heard the horrible, hissing voice say behind
him.
"W-w-what was that, Master?"
"Nothing that need concern you," the voice lashed out at him, like a cobra. Then
the pain started.
It would be a long night for Quirrell.
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Chapter 9: Hallowe'en
When Milo walked downstairs Hallowe'en morning, he was greeted by utter bedlam:
"II never thought this day would come," said Seamus. "Me mum always said it
would, but... I guess I never really believed her."
"Well, I, mean, it's surprising, but really, we've been ready for it," said Ron.
"I say it's about time it happened," said Fred.
"Keeps us from having to live out the rest of our lives in suspense, just
waiting for it to come," said George.
"I... I lost everything," said Lee Jordan soberly. "Everything."
"What happened?" asked Milo. "Did Voldid You-Know-Who return?"
"What?" asked Fred. "You've lost it, mate, it's nothing like that"
"Although to some, like our dear Lee here, it's arguably worse" continued
George.
"Teaches him to bet the farm on a sure thing"
"Don't be snide, you're only happy because it's your farm, now"
"Our farm, Fred, our farm"
"Look, guys," Milo interrupted. "Can one of you just give me a straight answer?"
"I am led to believe," said Hermione Granger, sitting casually in an armchair,
"that the Chudley Cannons went up against the Wigtown Wanderers this morning and
actually won."
"Wait, and this is supposed to be important?" Milo asked.
"Blimey, important, mate!" said Ron, "That was the Northwestern Regional
Semi-Finals!"
"So, to answer your question, apparently," said Hermione.
"The Cannons haven't won a match in decades!" Ron exclaimed. "Their fan club,
back when they had a fan club that is, well, its motto was Let's all just keep
our fingers crossed and hope for the best."
"Yawn," stated Milo. "Anyways, I have a sidequest to prepare forand, for that
matter, classes."
"Speaking of," Hermione said coyly, "what are you going to dress up as?"
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"I don't actually have to do that, do I?" Milo asked.
"Oh, my, yes," said Hermione. "It's a prerequisite."
Well, that settled it. You can't ignore prerequisites. You can bend them,
re-interpret them favourably, work around them, or barrel your way on through
them, but you can't ignore them. Milo sighed.
"Okay," he said. "So I'll survive all my classes, stop a dark vampire wizard
from returning from the dead, foil an evil professor's schemes, and make a
Hallowe'en costume before the start of my sidequest, which is at five o'clock
sharp."
"Oh, before you go," Hermione said, as if she'd only just remembered, "make sure
you take this with you. Wouldn't want you to be late for your... sidequest...
with Ms. Abbot." She held out a small, pink strap of some sort. There was a sort
of a doodad in the middle, Milo wasn't sure how to describe it.
"Er," he said, "thanks, I think. What is it?"
"You don't even know what a watch no. No, I'm not saying it. It's called a
watch, Milo, it tells the time."
"Go figure. How's it work?"
"There's two hands, the short one points to the hour, the long one points to the
minute... only, it's the hour times five. It's a bit complicated. Here..."
She spent the next ten minutes trying to explain how the watch worked, before
giving up and bewitching it. She assured him that it would remind him when it
was time to leave, and there would be no possible way for him to miss it. She
then apologized, saying she had a bad case of hiccups coming on and fled the
common room cackling. Milo had read that the Muggles here had a ridiculous
stereotype of witches, flying around in broomsticks with mad hair cackling away
under a full moon. Turns out all stereotypes really are grounded in fact
somewhere down the line, he thought. Go figure.
Milo was particularly wary when he went down to get breakfast. The other
Gryffindors seemed absorbed in their discussion of the Cannons' latest victory,
so they lingered behind. At this rate, he thought, they'll miss their precious
breakfast.
Milo was vaguely aware that the food was sort of holiday themed (there was much
orange and black in attendance), but as usual, stuck to his Everlasting Rations.
As long as he had 'about a pound of decent food' per day, he'd be fine, and this
was really just more convenient than all this cutlery business.
"Oh, hey Milo," said a round-faced boy sitting next to him.
"Hey, Nev." Milo said. "What's new and relevant?"
"Well, I forgot where I left my Remembrall, I was wondering if you could do your
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trick...?"
"It's in your right pocket," Milo said.
"Wow! And I didn't even hear you cast it this time!" Neville said, grabbing the
ball from his pocket. Like any other time it touched Neville's hands, it was
glowing slightly red.
"I didn't. You always keep it in your right pocket."
"Oh, rightwhoops!" the ball dropped out of his grasp, and fell towards the
floor. The smoke in the glass ball turned black as soon it as left Neville's
hands.
Milo reached to catch it, but with the distinct feeling of a failed Reflex Save,
his fingers closed a second too late and he just wound up knocking it further
away. It hit the cold stone floor and shattered all over the ground, but Milo
was too distracted to care: in the instant that Milo's hands touched the ball,
it glowed bright red. Brief as it was, there was no missing it. Before Milo
could properly consider the problem, his thought process was interrupted.
"Had a little accident, have we?" Milo heard an all-too familiar voice.
"Mr. Malfoy, Mr. Coyle, Mr. Grabbe, pleased to see you," Milo said cheerfully.
"You know, after all that trouble Potter went through to get that ball back for
you," Malfoy said to Neville with a sneer, "you'd think you'd take better care
of it."
"Are you just here to exchange banter, or is this more than purely a social
call?" Milo asked. "I'm on a schedule, you know."
"Are you, now?" Malfoy asked, his eyes suddenly alight. "The pressure starting
to get to you? Distressed at seeing your plan fall all to pieces now, are we? I
know what you're up to."
What in the Hells is he talking about? Milo wondered.
"You can't prove anything," Milo said, because it seemed appropriate. "And even
if you could, you can never stop phase three," Milo said. He liked the sound of
that phase three. It implied that there had already been not one, but two
successful phases in whatever it was that Malfoy thought he was up to. Malfoy
looked him up and down, closely.
"You're bluffing," Malfoy determined.
"Of course I am," Milo said. "Everything I said to you today was already a lie.
Except this, of course." Milo leaned in close, and whispered, "or is it?"
Malfoy looked briefly perplexed, but recovered admirably.
"You act all tough," he said, "but I know where you really come from," he
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hissed. "And I know what you're trying to do. But it'll never work. My father's
much too clever, and has too many friends, for it to work."
...What?
"Oh, we'll see about that," Milo said. If I keep him talking, maybe he'll let
something else slip.
"Indeed we shall," said Malfoy. "Why don't you just ask your friends in the
Wigtown Wanderers what they think, eh? See if they've still got your back now,"
Malfoy laughed and walked away, flanked by his goons.
"Well, that was weird," Milo said to Neville.
"I think it's really cool how you stand up to Malfoy," Neville said. "And,
listen, are you going to eat your treacle tart? Can't remember where mine went."
"What? No, it's all yours," Milo said absently.
"Thanks," said Neville from around the tart.
"So, say Neville, any decent ideas for a Hallowe'en costume? Only apparently I
need one for later this evening," Milo said. "It's got to look like a monster,
but also allow enough movement that I can fight off actual monsters in it, if
the need arises. Which it will, I'm sure of it. And I need easy access to my
Belt of Hidden Pouches. No ideas, huh? That's cool, I'll think of something."
It occurred to Milo that Neville wasn't responding.
Milo glanced over at the boy, who was now slouched over the table, his face
lying flat in a pumpkin pie.
"That's odd," Milo said as he looked around the Great Hall for help; but was
surprised to find that, now that Malfoy had left, it was empty. What? He
wondered. How is that even possible? This place is never empty... Frantically,
Milo reached into his Belt of Hidden Pouches and grabbed his small vial of
Antitoxin.
"Right, Nev, we got to get you to the Hospital Wing. Upsie-Daisy," he said,
pouring the Antitoxin down Neville's throat. It wasn't an antidote by any means,
but it should help somewhat. He attempted to lift the (fairly heavy) boy, but
failed to have much success. "Agh! Curse this 8 Strength! There's no helping it,
Levitate." I'd hoped to get to the evening with all of my 2nd-level spell slots
intact. Never seems to work that way, does it?
Neville floated gently off the floor, and Milo gave him a solid push in the
general direction of the door. He followed along, pushing Neville occasionally
to keep him moving. Once he made it to the corridor, he broke into a run.
"Out of my way!" he shouted, scattering a bunch of students Milo didn't
recognize. Probably Hufflepuffs, then. Neville was floating in front of him,
looking decidedly unhealthy. The boy was shaking and growing increasingly pale
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as Milo pushed him along in front of him.
Why was the Great Hall empty? Milo wondered. How could that happen?
"Ickle wickle firsties," Milo heard an aggravating voice taunt from above. "Why
is the ickle firstie floating? Are we using magic in the halls? Naughty, naughty
firsties."
"I don't have time for this, Peeves!" Milo snarled, rounding a corner. "I think
Neville could die, so don't try anything."
"Firsties always so dramatic," said the still-invisible poltergeist, "never see
the joke, never see the laughs."
Milo decided to just ignore the taunting spectre. If he absolutely had to, he
could use a Silent Image to chase him away with an image of the Baron again, but
Milo really had to conserve his magic.
Milo, running at maximum speed and decidedly distracted (the most commonly
forgotten -5 penalty to Spot checks known to man), never noticed the oil slick
Peeves had placed in the corridor.
Milo slipped backwards, hitting his head on the floor. Neville, however,
continued to float at Milo's running speed down the wrong corridor.
"PEEVES!" Milo shouted. "Come out and face me!"
"Face you?" Peeves asked. "But of course!"
A cream pie (nobody knew where Peeves got them from; the house-elves stopped
making cream pies two hundred and thirty five years ago to try and discourage
him. It didn't work.) materialized out of thin air and hit Milo in the face.
"You're a coward, you know that?" Milo asked. "You're even scared of a Silent
Image of the Bloody Baron." Alright, it wasn't the smoothest sounding sentence
ever, but Milo had to find some way to work Silent Image into conversation
without making it obvious he was casting a spell. An image of the Baron drifted
towards them from around the corner.
"Lies and Tricks!" Peeves shouted. "Lies and Tricks! Lies and Lies and Lies and
Tricks! The Baron is in the Dungeons!"
Milo was already late for Potions, and hed'd lost sight of Neville. Milo stood
up and wiped the cream out of his face.
"Very well, Peeves, you leave me no choice but to destroy you," Milo said, lying
through his teeth. "I call upon the fell arcane might of Corellon Larethian!"
Corellon was the god of elves, but there was no possible way that Peeves could
know that. Milo, who still had an active and alterable Silent Image available,
made the Baron vanish and redirected the spell at himself. His eyes started to
glow white, and thirteen slender columns of white fire appeared about him in
slowly rotating circle. Milo had once seen a Meteor Storm cast by an epic
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Sorcerer, and it hadn't looked half so impressive as this.
"Magic in the halls! Magic in the halls! Filch!" Peeves called from wherever he
was hiding.
"In the name of Corellon Larethian, God of... of Doom, I abjure thee!" Milo
shouted. He threw in some illusory mist for atmosphere and made it appear as
though a pair of giant, purple eyes slowly opened from behind him. Milo was
making this up entirely as he went by now, and wasn't really sure what he would
do if Peeves didn't run away. Fortunately, bravery was not the poltergeist's
strong suit.
"No! No! No doom, no doom!" Peeves wailed, and fled. Milo dismissed the spell
and ran after Neville.
oooo
"What," Madam Pomfrey asked as the cream-covered Milo entered her domain at the
speed of sound, pushing a floating Neville Longbottom in front of him. "is the
meaning of this?"
"Shouldn't... have... dumped... Constitution..." Milo panted between breaths.
"I'm sorry, what about the Constitution?" Pomfrey asked.
"Poison," Milo managed.
"You've poisoned the Constitution?" Pomfrey asked. "Isn't it, you know, a sheet
of parchment?"
"Neville!" Milo sputtered. He really needed to catch his breath; he felt like he
was going to faint.
"You mean to suggest that Neville poisoned the Constitution?"
Milo groaned. Why did this keep happening to him?
"Neville's... been... poisoned!"
"Oh, my lord! Why didn't you say so at once? Quick, get him on the cot!" The
stern mediwitch grabbed her wand immediately and started casting what Milo
presumed where diagnostic divinations.
"We were just in the Great Hall," Milo said. "He was having breakfast, then I
turned around and found him face down in some pie. So I rushed him here as fast
as I could."
"And the food made him float, did it? Most unusual..." Pomfrey said.
"What? No, I Levitated him," Milo said.
"Oh? Impressive. Now get out, so I can try and save his life without
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distractions. He'll probably wind up in St. Mungo's again... poor boy."
"Right," Milo said, and bolted from the room. He had to make it to the Dungeons
in... negative twelve minutes. Ah, Hells.
He eventually stumbled into the Potions class twenty minutes late, still covered
in cream and bits of pie crust, drenched in sweat, and gasping for air.
"You're late," Snape said shortly, "by twenty-one minutes. Twenty-one points
from Gryffindor, and detention this evening immediately after your Defence
Class."
"But... Peeves..." Milo started to say, but immediately knew it was the wrong
choice of words. Peeves hadn't been an acceptable excuse for tardiness for
years. Snape just shook his head silently, then went back to berating Harry for
his latest minor mistake.
Milo groaned. He hadn't been awake for an hour and he'd already lost twenty-one
House Points and two of his very limited number of spells per day. And now he'd
have to suffer the humiliation of utterly failing to make a potion again. Well,
there's nothing else to do, he thought, than follow the directions on the chalk
board and hope for the best. Sigh.
Malfoy gave him a smug look.
"Hey, Ron," Milo whispered, "where was everyone during breakfast?"
"Well, most of the Gryffindors were too busy caught up talking about the
Cannons' latest victory to bother eating, and I imagine it was more-or-less the
same with the other Houses."
"But Hermione loathes Quidditch, why didn't she come down?"
"I can't say for sure," Ron said slyly, "but I think she was enjoying making
snide remarks too much to leave."
"And Neville? He was there."
"Dunno, mate," Ron admitted.
"Nev was rushed to St. Mungo's yesterday," Harry supplied, "after one of Fred
and George's pranks got out of hand. I guess he only just got back. Where is he,
anyway?"
"Poisoned," Milo said simply.
"No talking!" Snape snapped. "Five points from each of you."
Hermione groaned. Gryffindor was rapidly approaching zero points, and it was
largely their fault.
The rest of Potions was uneventful, with the exception that Snape seemed
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incredibly pleased with himself. If he were a normal human, Milo thought, he'd
probably be humming to himself. As it stood, he was simply sneering just a
little less not that this made him any more pleasant to be around.
Milo ran his fingers through his hair nervously as he left the Dungeons.
Detention after Defence class... well, the class normally ran until three, but
Quirrell had said he had something special planned for his Hallowe'en lesson.
That should still leave me with plenty of time to make my costume for five,
assuming Snape doesn't go overboard.
Milo paused.
My plan relies on Snape's mercy.
Crap.
"We've got half an hour before Transfiguration," Harry said from behind him.
"Want to visit Nev?"
"What?" Milo asked distractedly. "Why?"
"Uhm," said Harry. "Because he's our friend? And he's sick?"
"Oh, right, yeah. Friendship. Let's go, then."
oooo
"Nah, really, it's fine," Neville said, lying on his hospital bed. "Actually,
it's a shame it wasn't more severe."
"What? Why?" Harry asked.
"Well, it's just that if I go to St. Mungo's one more time, I get a free ice
cream," Neville said. Harry chuckled.
"So, what happened, anyway?" Potter asked.
"Madam Pomfrey says I ingested lethal quantities of arsenic, deadly nightshade,
cyanide, chlorine, and ricin this morning," the round-faced boy explained.
Harry gave a low whistle.
"I don't even know what half of those even are," he admitted.
"It's no problem at all," Neville said. "Madam Pomfrey says that as soon as I
regain feeling in my limbs, I can go back to class."
"Why would anyone want to poison you, Nev?" Harry asked.
"They weren't trying to poison him," Milo said simply. "They were trying to
poison me. What's more, I know who did it."
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"What? Who?" Harry asked.
"Huh, that's unusual. The scene's supposed to change after I make a dramatic
announcement like that."
Harry blinked.
"Oh. We should head to Transfiguration, or we'll be late and lose more points."
"Right."
oooo
As it turned out, they were late anyways.
"Two points from Gryffindor," McGonagall said sternly. The rest of the class sat
down and attempted, with varying levels of success, to turn pumpkins into
teapots. Milo, however, was given the same matchstick he'd had at the start of
the year.
"I can't let you start on teapots until you've managed to transfigure more than
just the colour of the stick, young man. I'm sorry," she explained, then sighed.
"If you can manage to change its weight, soundthat is, the sound it makes when
droppedor shape at all," she added, "then I'll let you move on."
Milo frantically pulled out his spellbook and re-read the description of
Prestidigitation. There was nothing in there about anything beyond colour. He
bit his lip. There was a sewing needle in his Belt of Hidden Pouches, but Milo
assumed that other students had tried to pull that one in the past and
McGonagall probably had a way to tell the difference. He hadn't prepared Ghost
Sound, which could create illusory sounds, but even if he had he probably
couldn't get the timing right to make a ping! sound at the exact moment the pin
hit the table. If he'd prepared Mage Hand, a weak telekinesis spell, he could
maybe push down very gently on the pin to simulate the metal's higher density,
but his only 0th-level spells were Dancing Lights, Prestidigitation, and Acid
Splash.
Milo ran his fingers through his hair nervously. There was absolutely no way he
could turn this stick into a pin using his arcane magic. He had one last,
desperate ploy...
He slowly withdrew his wand from its pocket and, following the directions that
Milo had only ever half-listened to, focused on the image of a pin in his mind.
He imagined every curve, the metallic glint, the slightly heavier mass, and the
steely sound a pin makes when dropped. With all of that in his mind he, very
carefully, tapped the wand on the matchstick and held his breath. He closed his
eyes.
Come on, secret wizard powers, activate!
He didn't feel anything happen, and very slowly opened one eye to peer at,
hopefully, a shiny new pin.
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Nothing had happened.
"Nuts," Milo muttered. It was probably for the best, though as he might have
been stuck multiclassing into two primary casting classesor in layman's terms,
permanently magically handicapped. Milo could use the oil he kept in his Belt of
Hidden Pouches to create a fire and sneak out in the ensuing chaos... no, these
wizards could create water. Milo sighed. He raised his hand.
"Yes?" asked McGonagall.
"Professor," Milo said quietly, then stopped. He looked around at the other
Gryffindors in the room. Harry was looking at him with an unreadable expression,
Ron was trying to find his wand on the ground under his desk, and Hermione was
studiously examining her newly-transfigured teakettle. He'd never been quite
sure what they thought about him. Milo was certain none of them completely
believed his story about being from another world altogether, so they probably
thought he was mad. Milo was okay with that. All the really brilliant Wizards
looked at least a little mad to outsiders. At times, they were
impressedseriously impressedwith what he could do with magic. He was the only
student below fourth year who could efficiently deal with Peeves, and his defeat
of the Acromantula in September was very nearly legendary. His nightly Scholar's
Touch-enhanced studying had made him the top student in History of Magic, much
to Hermione's chagrin. But... other times, times when he didn't have the right
spell prepared, times when he asked "what's Quidditch?", times when he'd run out
of spells per day, times when Arcane magic just couldn't do something times
like this, they just looked at him with pity.
"Yes?" the Professor asked.
But there was more at stake here than his own pride, although there was that,
too. What would Mordenkainenthe legendary wizard, not the ratsay about this?
What about Elminster, Treantmonk, and Otiluke? Sorry, legendary wizards, it
turns out I found another universe and their magic is superior to ours. Best put
away your spellbooks, start naming your currency after sailing ships, and drop
by Ollivanders for wands if you want to keep up.
But what could he do? Polymorph Any Object was eighth level. Eighth! Most
Wizards never made it past 3rd-level spells. By the time Milo could turn this
match into a pin, if he ever even got that high level, he'd be able to alter
reality to his liking. He'd be going toe-to-toe with Wyrms.
Even Wizards can't do everything, he reminded himself, so there's no shame in
admitting defeat. It takes a Cleric to heal... well, actually, a Wizard could
just summon a monster that can heal people for him. It takes a Rogue to pick a
lock... actually, that's not true, a Wizard could just cast Knock. Okay, a Rogue
to sneak around... no, Wizards can cast Invisibility.
Ah, screw it. So maybe Wizards can do everything. But not all at once, not all
in one day, not with only one Wizard, and not all at level three.
"I I can't do it," Milo admitted bitterly. "I can't turn one thing into
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another like this. It just can't be done."
McGonagall remained silent for a moment, her eyes boring holes into his head.
"I see," she said simply. "Well then. Drop by my office after your Defence class
and we'll decide what to do."
"I have, uh, prior arrangements," Milo confessed. The other students avoided
making eye contact with him.
"Then cancel them," McGonagall said simply. "Your education must come first."
"You'll, ah, have to take that up with Professor Snape," Milo said. "I've got
detention. Again."
McGonagall briefly covered her face with her hand.
"Very well. Come afterwards as soon as you can," she said, then left to go help
Ron, who had only managed to transfigure his pumpkin into another pumpkin.
Milo then realized his mistake: there was still half an hour left to
Transfiguration class, and it was going to be awkward without anything to do.
Next time, he thought, if there ever is a next time, never admit defeat without
an exit strategy.
Milo spent the time trying to figure out what to use as his Hallowe'en costume,
but hadn't made any progress by the time the Professor dismissed them for lunch.
"So," Harry asked him expectantly as they walked towards the Great Hall, "Who
did it?"
"Did what, convinced the capricious, adolescent, vengeful, petty being who runs
the universe to make my life as difficult as possible? Me. It's my fault for
trying to push Spontaneous Divination."
"You shouldn't talk like that," Hermione said. "You might offend someone."
"I think he's already pretty offended," Milo said. "That's sort of what I was
getting at."
"What?" Hermione asked. "Wait, you think you offended God? Wait, you believe in
God?"
"Wha?" Milo asked. "Gods? Sure, there's loads of 'em. Not believing in them is
like not believing in magic. In fact, it's exactly like not believing in
magicask a Cleric."
"Wait, no, I meant" Hermione began as they entered the Great Hall, but Harry,
uncharacteristically, cut her off.
"And I meant, who poisoned Neville?" Harry said. Milo waited to respond until
they'd approached the person he was looking for. Milo crept up directly behind
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him
"Draco Malfoy," Milo said, simultaneously to answer Harry's question and get
Malfoy's attention.
"Oh, it's you," said the blond Slytherin, jumping slightly. "What do you wa"
"This morning Neville Longbottom was poisoned," Milo cut him off. "It was by
someone attempting to get at me. Someone, probably, with access to Snape's
storerooms, someone with an inexplicable grudge against me, someone with access
to my food, and someone stupid enough not to watch me long enough to realize I
never eat any food offered me."
"What are you blabbering on ab" Malfoy began, but was cut off again.
"That would narrow it down to a limited list of suspects, but you even
practically told me who did it. You arrogantly bragged something about the
Quidditch game, frankly I wasn't really listening, but you seemed to think a
victory for the Wrongton Wunderbars, or whatever, was a problem for me. So I
thought, what made you think I care about Quidditch? And realized, nothing. You
knew I don't care about Quidditch, no, you wanted the Great Hall empty this
morning. So the ridiculously circuitous plot that your twisted brain invented
was to somehow rig the Quidditch Midwestern Final Pseudo-Regionals so that all
the students in Hogwarts would be so busy being flabbergasted about their
beloved Cuddly Cannons losing that they'd skip breakfast. All the students
except for me, that is me and Neville, who came in from St. Mungo's. And so
you poisoned my treacle tart where there would be no-one to help me. Draco
Malfoy, you tried to poison me. And you would have gotten away with it, if it
wasn't for my Everlasting Rations. And the fact that you came by to gloat in the
middle of the assassination attempt. I mean, seriously."
"He had me up until 'Wrongton Wunderbars,'" Ron said quietly to Harry.
"It was the Pseudo-Regionals that got me," admitted the Harry.
"Cuddly Cannons," Hermione laughed. An uncharitable person would call the sound
she made a giggle, because while it was still politically correct to have
giggling girls in a piece of literature in 1991, this is no longer the case.
Malfoy stared at Milo completely disbelievingly for a moment, then laughed. His
laugh was like a Wizard's power progression by level: it started slow and weak
enough to lose a fair fight with a cat on occasion, worked its way up gradually
to defeating, with some difficulty, Hobgoblins and Bugbears, then in the snap of
a finger was suplexing the laws of physics and ruling the universe before
breakfast.
"You seriously think I tried to poison you? Milo, if my family wanted you dead,
you wouldn't still be standing here. And besides, that's not why I rigged the
Quidditch game, and you know it."
"Wait, he actually" said Ron, flabbergasted.
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"This whole wild accusation is just to divert attention from the blow I struck
to your real masters," Malfoy sneered, "and only serves to underscore your own
defeat. Fool." With that, Draco spun on his heels, and started walking away.
Then he paused, and turned around. "Actually, this is my table. Gryffindor's is
back over there. You leave."
oooo
"Crap," Milo muttered when they got back to their table. "I was pretty sure,
like, 70% at least, that it was Malfoy who did it."
"I dunno," Ron said. "I still think it could have been him."
"Nah," Milo said. "If it was, he either would have denied everything, or fessed
up and challenged me to an honour duel or something. He admitted to being behind
the Quidditch thing, so it can't have been him."
"So what was he trying to do? What did he mean by 'your real masters?'" Harry
asked.
"Who knows? Who cares?" Milo shrugged. "Anybody want my treacle tart?"
Chapter 10: Odds of Survival
Author's Notes: Hallowe'en was originally going to be a three-part chapter, but

it's stretched out to four parts now (I had way too much fun with this). Thanks
to all of my readers! My inbox is flooded with hundreds of fanfiction
subscription and favourite alerts, which make me very, very happy indeed.
And remember: if you like it, review it! I try to read them all.
oooo
"So, if it wasn't Draco who poisoned Neville," Harry asked Milo as they sat down
at their Defence Against the Dark Arts desks, "who was it?" Harry had been
trying to get Milo to speak throughout their whole History of Magic class, but
Hermione kept shushing him (talking in History carried across the whole room,
not that the ghost of Binns noticed or apparently cared).
"I don't know, yet," Milo confessed. "But there's one thing I do know."
"What's that?" Harry asked.
"It was someone on your list," Milo said. "Adding a whole new character now who
poisoned Neville would ruin any element of mystery. It has to be someone we met
in the first two adventures."
Page 112

"Just once, you're going to use logic based on actual facts," said Hermione
primly, "and all the trees on Earth will wither and die."
The class filed in gradually in groups of two or three. Quirrell's course was
basically a joke, so punctuality wasn't exactly a top priority for most
studentsQuirrell hardly ever deducted House Points for tardiness. The
Gryffindors were marginally more excited today than usual, because rumour had it
that Quirrell had been preparing something special for today, it being
Hallowe'en and all.
"I-I-I-I've been p-p-p-preparing s-something sp-sp-special for t-today,"
Quirrell announced when the last of the students arrived, "it being H-Hallowe'en
and allor, as s-s-some n-now call it, Harry P-P-Potter Day." There was, Milo
thought he noticed, a hint of a sneer in Quirrell's voice. Milo had to agree
with Quirrell: Harry Potter Day was a pretty silly name, especially compared to
something as cool as 'All Hallow's Eve.' Quirrell was standing in front of
something massive and mostly rectangular, covered by a sheet of canvas.
Harry muttered something under his breath.
"Sorry, what was that?" Hermione whispered quietly.
"Should be Lily and James Potter Day," Harry answered simply. "I don't even
remember it."
"B-b-but before we b-begin," Quirrell said, "I'd l-like to ask y-y-young
M-M-Milo something," Milo perked up as he heard his name. "I'd heard th-that
you've b-b-been losing a g-great deal of the n-n-noble House G-Gryiffindor's
P-P-Points lately," he said across the classroom. There were a few chuckles, and
a number of angry looks. "I-I-I was w-w-wondering if y-y-you m-m-might like an
opportunity to earn s-s-some b-back?"
Whatever could have possessed a person with a crippling stutter to get a job
which required lecturing large groups of people on a daily basis escaped Milo.
Milo shrugged.
"Sure," he said. "Anything for the House, after all. Have to win the House Medal
and all that."
"Cup," Ron whispered.
"Cup Medal, that is." Milo corrected himself, wondering what Quirrell was
getting at.
"Excellent," Quirrell said. "C-c-come see m-me after c-c-class, then."
Milo nervously ran his fingers through his hair. Was there anyone who wasn't
going to want to see him this evening? This was something of an opportunity,
thoughMilo could just go to whatever Quirrell's thing was, then let him deal
with the fallout from Snape. If anyone can stand up to Snape, Milo thought, it's
Quirrell. I like the cut of his jib.
Page 113

Quirrell's 'something special' for Hallowe'en turned out to be rather awesome,
in the sense that it was something that evoked awe.
"A-and w-w-without further ado," Quirrell stammered excitedly to the class,
"allow m-m-me to p-p-present my H-H-Hallowe'en surprise!" With a dramatic
flourish, he pulled off the tarp, revealing, as it turned out, a cage of
monstrous proportions. The bars were made of thick steel wrapped in
unpleasant-looking razor wire. Hanging from the cage was an almost
cartoonishly-oversized lock, though Milo was certain that there were likely
layers of Abjurations protecting the cage not visible to the naked eye. The cage
emanated an entirely non-magical aura of immobility and intimidation. Nothing
short of the Tarrasque itself was getting out of that cage. It wasn't the cage,
however, that caused the collective gasp of fear from the Gryffindorsthe house
noted for its braverybut what lay inside.
"Blimey," said Ron quietly. "It's a Troll."
"A Giant," Milo corrected.
"Right," Ron whispered. "A Giant Troll."
Milo sighed. The brute inside was very clearly a Giant. Trolls, unlike Giants,
were green and sort of... weirdly proportioned, with long dangly limbs and spiky
black hair. This was obviously some non-core species of Giantsimple enough to
prove with a dagger, as only Trolls could regenerate.
"Th-th-this is a T-T-Troll," Quirrell stammered to the class, "The
G-Groundskeeper and I c-caught it in the F-F-Forb-Forb... in the Forest. It
appears to have b-b-been h-harassing the unicorns."
"Excuse me, Professor," asked a Gryffindor NPC (probably Seamus) "I thought that
was werewolves?"
"W-werewolves aren't f-f-fast enough," said Quirrell. And they're only active on
full moons, Milo thought irritably. I mean, seriously. What's the one defining
characteristic of a werewolf? It turns into a wolf on the full moon.Only the
full moon. Sheesh. "And T-T-Trolls, b-believe me, are f-faster than they
l-l-look. N-now, there's n-n-no need to w-worry about the T-T-Troll getting
out," he continued, "as this c-cage is very n-nearly indestructible. The
w-w-wire you see is, in addition to b-b-being very sh-sharp, b-bewitched to
entangle a-anyone trying to g-g-get out. A-a-anyone who t-t-touches the lock
w-without the k-keykept in the H-H-Headmaster's Officewill be struck by a
F-F-Full Body B-B-Bind and trigger an a-alarm. The b-b-bars themselves are
Goblin-made, and c-can withstand anything short of D-D-Dragonfire. There are a
f-f-few other s-s-surprises as w-w-well. Q-quite f-f-fortunate we h-had it on
h-h-hand, in f-f-fact. N-n-now, who c-c-can tell me w-w-what Trolls eat?"
Quirrell continued into a detailed lecture (in fact, significantly more detailed
than his usual lectures, which were generally considered 80-minute long
naptimes. Everyone's had at least one teacher like him) about Trolls. He seemed
quite enthusiastic on the subject, not unlike a Fighter asked about pointy
sticks.
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As the class came to a close and three o'clock approached, Quirrell dismissed
the rest of the students a little early to enjoy their Hallowe'en evenings.
"M-M-Milo?" Quirrell asked. Right, he wanted me to stay after. Almost forgot
about that.
"So," Milo said as he walked towards the alleged Troll. "What can I do you for?"
"Th-this fellow," Quirrell said, pointing to the monstrous humanoid in the cage.
"W-we have to m-m-move him t-to the d-d-dungeons until the M-M-Ministry can
d-deal with him."
Milo sized up the brute.
"Ah," he said. "Look, I know they say I'm good at Levitating things, but
this..."
"Oh, d-d-don't worry," said Quirrel. "The c-cage is S-Self Levitating.
H-however, it's e-easiest to p-p-push it from the b-b-back," he said, pointing
to a small area on the cage not covered in razor-sharp wire, "but then I c-can't
see where I'm g-g-going. So, if you could p-p-push it, I can l-l-lead?
H-H-Hagrid helped me b-bring it here, b-but he's b-b-busy now."
"Sounds like a design flaw to me," Milo said. "But sure, I can lend a hand."
Quirrell smiled. There was no warmth whatsoever in his expression. Milo gave the
cage a light push, and it drifted in front of him with surprisingly little
effort. He was reminded of his brief adventure with Neville that morning,
pushing the cage after Quirrell. The Giant inside seemed more perplexed than
frightening as Milo guided the cage down the ever-shifting hallways of Hogwarts,
only half paying attention to his surroundings. Quirrell was rightit really was
impossible to see from behind this brute. Every so often, Quirrell called out a
direction to him. Milo wondered briefly why Hogwarts had such a cageit looked
reasonably new, and could likely hold something quite a bit bigger than its
current occupantbefore remembering who the residents of the Forbidden Forest
were.
"So," Milo asked, more to make conversation than anything, "this is who we were
looking for in the forest?"
"L-l-looks like," Quirrell said from the other side of the cage. "H-H-Hagrid
caught him covered in u-u-unicorn blood. W-w-we'll know f-f-for sure if the
u-u-unicorns stop d-d-disappearing."
"Go figure," Milo said. "I sort of thought it would have been one of the Death
Eaters, or Snape."
"W-w-why?" asked Quirrell.
"Isn't it obvious? Well, we know You-Know-Who is returning, right? But he's
supposed to have died, and you guys don't have Clerics or Wish."
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"Clerics? Wish?" Quirrell asked.
"Where I come from, death is pretty cheap. Well, not cheap, exactly, but with
enough diamonds and the right spellcaster, pretty much anyone can be brought
back from the dead in some form. Clerics are the best at it by far, but a Wizard
like me can pull it off, too, with some difficulty." Milo explained.
"You can do this? You can bring back the dead?" Quirrell asked sharply.
"Not yet, but maybe in a few years at this rate. Unlike back home, there's only
a few methods available to you people for cheating death that I could find in
the Hogwarts LibraryScholar's Touch is so broken!and those methods were as
follows: Flamel's Stone, Unicorn's Blood, and becoming a vampire."
"Go on," Quirrell urged.
"In order of preference, the order is probably the Stone first, then the blood,
and lastly becoming a vampire. There wasn't much I could find on any of these
subjectsthey're probably in the forbidden areas in the library, or books
written by authors whose names start with letters after Fbut from what I can
tell, there's no mention of a cure for Vampirism, so it'd be a last resort. All
I could find about the unicorns was that whoever drank their blood would be
cursed to living a 'half-life,' which is cryptic as a crypt tick but sounds at
least halfway better than total unlife."
"So, why not simply assume he's after the Stone?"
"Oh, he is, of course. Dumbledore's supposedly guarding it, but there's about a
million and a half problems with that he runs a school, and he's chief whatever
of the thingamajig, and Supreme Muggle of the other thing. He can't be on guard
twenty-four hours a day like an orc in a ten-by-ten room guarding a treasure
chest. So in practice, the staff of Hogwarts are defending it, and while
Dumbledore is this legendary wizard, you aren't. I mean, you and McGonagall
clearly know what you're doing, and while you're a match for his minions, if you
could take You-Know-Who, you would have last time. But here's the thing:
You-Know-Who is weak right now, or he'd already be Dark Lord of the world
already."
"That he would."
" What's more, he's politically crippledHells, even the Malfoys have publically
renounced him. He can't storm the castle personally, and he doesn't have enough
minions to do it for him outright. He probably only has a handful of loyal Death
Eaters left, and they're all vying for who's going to be top guy when
You-Know-Who returns. He might not even know about their existence."
"Not all of his servants are Death Eaters, boy."
"Really? I thought that was just the catch-all term for it here."
"Interesting. What does this have to do with unicorns?" Quirrell asked. His
Page 116

voice sounded somewhat hoarse.
"You would know more than anyone else, Professor," Milo said. There was a brief
silence, and Milo heard a rustling of robes. "Vampires, Professor, vampires!
There's only three ways for him to return, and they've all been mentioned in the
story. Three ways, a pretty significant number, if you ask me. So, there's
likely followers going for the Stone, the Blood, and rounding up friendly
vampires as we speak. You're a trained combat wizard, Professor of Defence
Against the Dark Arts at the best school in the country, and pretty clearly high
level. And yet, even you got captured by vampiresso, unless they were the
vampire of Merlin himself, your captors had to have help from a wizard. A Good
wizard wouldn't help vampires, so it had to have been an Evil onemaybe working
for You-Know-Who. So, one of his minions has more than likely succeeded in
rounding up some poor sucker, no pun intended, to vamp our Dark Lord. That means
that another minion, if he wants to top the first one, has to one-up vampires.
That means unicorns, because the Stone is too well defended. The dead unicorns
would have implied that the second, at least, was successful, and You-Know-Who
can return, if he hasn't already, in some sort of limited form. That it was this
Giant sort of throws a wrench in my thinking, to be honest. Means we have to be
even more careful about Snape getting the Stone."
"Snape?" Quirrell asked, surprised.
"I'm surprised you hadn't put it together. Snape's after the Stone for sure.
He's probably one of those minions I was telling you about, and You-Know-Who
doesn't even know he exists. Or he does know. Or he is You-Know-Who in disguise.
Amounts to the same thing, really. So we have to be on the lookout for Snape."
"Why," Milo heard an unfortunately-familiar voice, "do you have to be on the
lookout for me, exactly? Is it because you're skipping detention?"
Ah, nuts.
"Ah, ah, no Professor," Milo stammered. "I was just helping the Professorthe
other Professorwith this Giant, and we were going to the dungeon anyways, so I
was just going to see you right after."
"Interesting," said Snape. "Because you're heading in completely the wrong
direction. This is the third floorthe dungeon is that way." Why has Quirrell
become so attached to the boy? Snape thought. He must know what I'm up to, and
he's trying to prevent me from having him expelled for Lucius. What's his game?
Is he after the Stone?
"The b-b-boy is with m-me, Severus," Quirrell said fiercely. Why has Severus
become so attached to the boy? Quirrell thought. He must know what I'm up to,
and he's trying to prevent me from feeding the boy to Hagrid's dog. What's his
game? Is he after the Stone?
"Is he, now?" Snape asked. "I'm afraid I have prior arrangements with him."
"He c-c-can have his d-detention later. I n-need him now, this is of upmost
i-importance," Quirrell maintained.
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"Discipline is what's important, Quirinus," Snape pressed. Milo wondered why it
was so important to Snape that he get Milo for detention... oh, Milo realized
suddenly. He's going to kill me. I'll just ready a Glitterdustwait, no, that
didn't work so well last time. I'll just be on my guard, and not get caught
flat-footed. Hopefully Quirrell can get rid of him.
"Th-th-the Troll is what's m-most important. You c-can have him a-afterwards."
"Milo," Snape commanded, "come with me at once. You have detention; this
transparent method of escaping it shames your house and our school. Come with
me, or I'll see to it that you're expelled."
Quirrell ground his teeth in frustration, but couldn't think of any way to
prevent the boy from going with Snape without compromising his cover. Quirrell
would pay for this soon, when no-one was around. He'd already failed his master
too many times...
"Sorry, Professor Quirrell," Milo said sadly. "I suppose you'll have to manage
for yourselfmaybe you can find a House Elf to help? I'll... well, I'll see you
around." Sweating profusely, Milo followed Snape towards the dungeons, away from
his perceived protector. Their every footstep, made by Snape's polished loafers
and Milo's worn adventurer's boots, rang through the empty corridors. Even the
normally garrulous wall portraits were uncharacteristically reticent. Milo took
the opportunity to plan his defence, should Snape make his move.
Opening move, he'll be expecting a surprise round, but I know he's coming, Milo
thought. Then it'll be a test of reflexes. If I lose, he draws his wand as a
move action and uses the Killing Curse as a Standard. I die. If I open with
Glitterdust, and he makes his save, I die. If I open with Glitterdust and he
fails his saveor, for that matter, I use Invisibilitybut he beats my 50%
concealment, I die. If I open with Mirror Image, I have an effective 50%-80%
miss chance, meaning I only have a 20%-50% chance of dying. Mirror Image it is,
then, followed by an expeditious retreat of a non-magical nature.
Milo licked his lips nervously as they rounded the last corner before Snape's
office. He didn't like those odds, and if he did die, his chance of getting a
Resurrection seemed slim. These wizards couldn't bring back the dead, and his
party members back home wouldn't know he'd died. It was more than likely, he
realized, that death here would be permanent.
Gulp.
Snape opened the heavy wooden door to his office and led Milo in.
"I've noticed that you've been falling behind in Potions lessons," Snape said
slowly to Milo. "And it seemed to me that you could use some... extra help."
So, Snape was going to kill Milo during a remedial Potions lesson and what, make
it look like an accident? Milo wondered why the pretense was even necessary. It
wasn't as if there were any witnesses.
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"I, ah, just don't seem to have a knack for it," Milo admitted.
"Indeed," Snape grinned slightly. "So, why don't we start with something
extremely basic? One that it is quite impossible for anyone with a drop of
magical blood to fail at?"
"Sure, sure," Milo said distractedly. He was anxiously examining the room for
hidden traps, and felt a brief pang of homesickness. Wellby, their Rogue, never
missed a trapor, more accurately, the traps never missed him. But at least they
were always detected, one way or the other.
"So, why don't we begin?" Snape asked, and with a flourish of his wand, a pewter
cauldron drifted slowly towards him from the side of the room. So, Milo noticed,
Snape has Silent Spell. But why did he show me this? As intimidation? "All you
have to do is pour in three ladles of ordinary water, one teaspoon of
Flobberworm mucous, and one teaspoon of ordinary glycerol; then stir
counterclockwise once. It is, literally, the simplest potion in existence. A
newborn could accomplish it. It makes bubbles, and nothing else."
"Okay," Milo said. Maybe Snape's idea is to keep my hands busy measuring so I
can't go for my wand? Surely he knows by now that I don't really need it? It
will make my Somatic components somewhat more difficult, however, although
dropping an item is a free action. I'll play along, for now. Milo carefully
measured water out of a glass beaker and poured it into the cauldron, then
reached for the Flobberworm mucous.
"Of course," Snape said as Milo worked, "a Muggle attempting to create the
potion would experience an... unfortunate side effect."
Milo's hand froze over the vial of mucous.
"R-really?"
oooo
Sprout sighed as she tried yet another spell to try to disenchant the singing
pumpkin. Someone (well, clearly, it was the Weasley Twins, but without proof,
they remained an as-yet unidentified "someone") had bewitched all of the
decorative pumpkins on the second floor to sing "The Wheels on the Bus Go
Round-and-Round," all at different keys and tempos. The consequent cucurbita
cacophony was enough to drive even Peeves away.
"Finite Incantatem!" she cast vainly. The vegetables were surprisingly resilient
to any attempts at dispelling them. If only those boys used their skills for
something productive, she thought, the world would be better for it.
She smelled it well before she saw anything. It wasn't so much that the smell
was bad, exactlythough it was thatit was just overpowering. The smell was
huge, one could almost say...
...Giant.
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There was a roar so loud that when it ended, Sprout couldn't even hear the
pumpkins' song.
"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" she screamed.
oooo
"I'm beginning to worry about Milo," McGonagall told the Headmaster. "I can't
help but wonder if you weren't wrong about his magic being an unusual form of a
child's accidental magic."
"So, you think he's telling the truth about being a... different wizard?"
Dumbledore asked.
"I... I really don't know. But his development in Transfiguration has been so
remarkably stunted that I can't tell if he's improved in any way whatsoever
since his first day off the boats," the Deputy Headmistress said. "And I'm not
even certain that what he's doing is really Transfiguration at all. He's
changing the matchstick's colour, to be certain, but... something seems off
about it."
"Not everyone can wrap their head around Transfiguration. Why, Filius says his
Hover Charm is worthy of a Seventh Year student, and Quirinus has nothing but
praise for him. And you heard Ollivander's report about the what happened when
he touched his wand the first time."
"Nevertheless," McGonagall pressed, "I think he may, in fact be... he might be a
Squib, Headmaster. Why, I was just speaking to Severus, and he says that the boy
is so hopeless at Potions that he actually believes him to be a Muggle, here by
accident somehow."
"You mean to say that you and Severus actually agree on something?" Dumbledore
asked.
"Perhaps. We'll know this afternoon, I believe, as Severus said he had developed
some sort of test, and I for one"
"Headmaster! There's a Troll loose on the second floor!" a small, cheerful voice
said from behind McGonagall's head. The Deputy Headmistress turned around, and
saw Sprout's Patronus floating behind her. Dumbledore and McGonagall stared at
each other for a moment, then sprang into action.
"I'll start clearing the area of students" McGonagall said, reaching for her
wand.
"and I'll contact the other Heads of Houses," Dumbledore said, standing up so
fast that he knocked his chair over.
oooo
By the time the smoke cleared, Milo's hearing had mostly returned. His robe was
in tatters, and he was covered in soot and dust.
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"Wh-wh-what was that?" he asked.
"A Muggle chemist, if a Muggle chemist had ever analyzed Flobberworm mucous,
would tell you that it reacts with the glycerol to form nitroglycerin."
Milo blinked blankly.
"Nitroglycerin is a volatile explosive," Snape said.
"And you let newborns do this?"
"No. A wizard's inborn magic prevents the chemical reaction from occurring, as
it is superceded by a magical one."
"Then why did it... ah," said Milo. One could practically hear the copper piece
drop.
Milo looked at Snape.
Snape looked at Milo.
Not a word was said, until...
"Severus! There's a Troll on the second floorthought you ought to know," said a
translucent silvery Phoenix that Milo could swear hadn't been there a moment
before.
"HolycrapghostPhoenix!" a living Phoenix was CR 24, and being a ghost only made
it more powerful. Fortunately, they were Good-aligned. A Phoenix's fire could
deal up to 40d6 damage, although Milo was pretty sure Phoenixes were generally
somewhat larger than a horsethis one was rather a lot smaller. A baby, perhaps?
"Get up, boy, and come with menow!" said Snape. Milo wasn't about to refuse a
direct command from a man who a Phoenix had apparently asked for help, and
followed. After leaving his office, Snape broke into a dead run towards the
stairs.
"Are we going after the Troll?" asked Milo as they ran up the spiraling
staircase. Judging by the dull look in the monster's eyes, Milo was fairly
confident its Will save was low enough that it would fail to Glitterdust for
certain.
Snape paused for a moment.
"Boy, look at me," he commanded. Milo shrugged and complied. "Now, what were you
and Quirrell talking about before I arrived?"
"Troll feeding and grooming," Milo lied blandly. Snape stared at him in the eyes
for a moment.
"Very well, we've delayed too long," he said, and started climbing again at a
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hustle. Well, that was weird, Milo thought.
"Professor," Milo said as they continued climbing the stairs, "we missed the
second floor. This is the third floor," but Snape said nothing as they rounded
the corner to the forbidden third floor corridor.
Snape stopped at the door and waited, still without an explanation.
"Professor," Milo pressed, "I think I deserve an explanation now. What are we
doing in front of the corridor of 'Die a horrible and painful death?'"
"Stop questioning me and be silent," Snape snapped.
"What, do you expect me to be able to simply Detect Thoughts or something? I
won't be able to understand what's happening and act appropriately unless you
tell me," Milo said, swapping out Invisibility. Detect Thoughts was a 2nd-level
Wizard spell that allowed one to listen to the surface thoughts of another. Milo
didn't really expect it to beat Snape's Will bonus, but everyone rolls a 1 once
in a while. For once, it appeared, it was Milo's turn to be lucky. Snape turned
around, catching Milo's eye.
"Five points from Gryffindor, and five more if you don't stop talking," the
Professor said.
Fortunately, it appears I got here before Quirrell, Snape thought.
Why is beating Quirrell so important? Milo wondered.
The boy suspects we were racing Quirrell here. Well, it wasn't too hard to
figure out, I suppose, Snape thought to himself (or so he thought). When he goes
for the Stone, I'll be ready.
Is Quirrell going for
unless... Something's
to prevent Snape from
knows I'm reading his
the Stone? Milo wondered. That makes no sense at all,

going on here I don't know about. Maybe Quirrell is trying
getting the Stone? Or they're both going for it? Or Snape
mind and
The boy is a Legilimens? Snape thought sharply. There was a sudden pain in
Milo's temple, and he felt a sudden sense of vertigo that knocked him to his
knees.
"H-how did you... what was... what just happened?" Milo asked, clutching his
head. His nose had started running, and he brushed it with his sleeve. The
Detect Thoughts spell no longer even registered Snape as an intelligent being,
it was like he wasn't even there.
"Answer me truthfully;I'll know if you're lying," Snape said imperiously. "Are
you a Legilimens?"
"Ah," Milo said, "No?"
Snape frowned. He's telling the truth, Snape thought to himself (and, this time,
Page 122

only to himself), and yet... he must be lying somehow. Could he be an Occlumens
as well? At eleven? No. He's not even a wizard. He must have some other powers,
similar to Legilimancy in effect, but called something else.
"Can you read minds?"
"Ah. Um. No," Milo lied.
Snape grinned. It faded quickly.
"Tell me," he said oddly, "do you smell something?"
"As a general rule, no," Milo said. "But now that you mention it..."
The silence was only broken by a particularly large spider scurrying across the
floor, and then a quick flash of emotion from Mordenkainen. FEAR, DISTRESS,
HORROR.
And then the wall exploded.
Chapter 11: The Troll and the Dementor
Author's Notes: I've gone back and changed the scene breaks on earlier chapters
to the oo that I use now, which actually appears on Fanfiction. Also, I've
edited some cases of the word Wizard to standardize capitalization: Capital W
refers to the D&D Wizard class, lower-case wizard refers to Harry Potter
wizards. However, I've probably missed a lot of them, but that's what I'll be
using from here on out.
oooo
"All students, return immediately to your Common Rooms," said a beleaguered
Professor Trelawneyan attack by a Troll was enough to knock even the
Divinations Professor out of her usual half-asleep dazeto a group of
Gryffindors lounging in the Great Hall.
"Excuse me, Professor," said Percy, the Gryffindor Prefect. "what's going on?"
"There's a Troll loose on the second floor!" she said anxiously. "And to think
of all the poor students who saw the Grim today..."
"Right! Just leave it to me, Professor," said Percy, standing to his full height
(as if that would do much against the twelve-foot-tall monstrosity on the
loose). "Gryffindors, come with me! Are we missing anyone?"
The Gryffindors, mostly first years, looked around at each other.
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"Hannah's outside, by the Lake," said Lavender Brown.
"And Milo's with Snape," said Ron.
"Professor Snape, Ronald," corrected Percy. "And he'll be fine if he's with a
professor. I'll find Hannah after I've walked you all to the tower, come
alongquickly, now!"
Harry, Ron, and Hermione shared a quick look as the other Gryffindors started
filing out of the massive room.
"Snape must have released the Troll!" Harry exclaimed to the others. "We've got
to go find Milo."
"Professor Snape can't have released the Troll, the key was in the Headmaster's
office," said Hermione.
"So, what, Dumbledore set the Troll loose? Obviously someone must have pulled a
fast one on him," said Ron. "And now Milo's alone with old batface, and it's a
perfect time to just throw him out a window and say the Troll did it. Let's go,
Hermione," Ron pleaded.
"But"
"I'm done talking," Harry said. "Our friend could be in danger right now.
Hannah's outside, she's probably the safest of all of us. I'm going, with or
without you two," and with that, Harry stood up from his table and walked away
from the group.
"Harry Potter!" said Percy. "Where are you going? The Common Room is that way!"
"Going with Trelawney," lied Harry. "To help find the Hufflepuffsyou know how
they are."
"Good man!" said Percy. "Best take Ronald with youhe could use someone like you
as a role model. Wellgood luck," he said, and left leading the others.
"Someone like you as a role model," sneered Ron. "Wonder what he'd say about
that if you knew you lied right to his face? Grumblegrumblegrumble..." Ron
trailed off.
Hermione sighed.
"All right, I'm coming with you. Someone has to keep you two from getting into
trouble," she said airily. Secretly, her heart was racing with excitement and
anticipation.
"Great job you've done so far," said Ron.
"Enough talking," snapped Harry. "Wands out, and let's go, already. Hermioneask
the paintings if they've seen Milo or Snape anywhere. They'll talk to you,
you're top of all our classes."
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"Not History of Magic," said Hermione, her face flushing slightly.
"Ron, keep an eye out for teachers and prefects," said Harry. "Oh, and rampaging
Trolls."
oooo
Why, Milo wondered (briefly), am I looking up at the floor?
Thud
Milo hit the groundhard.
"I have to stop doing that," he groaned. He'd gotten lucky and made his Reflex
Save for half damage when the Troll dropped a wall on his face, but was somewhat
less fortunate on his follow-up Grapple check to avoid being thrown across the
room. A normal human would have broken numerous bones or died, but adventurers
are somewhat more resilient than that. In total, he'd taken 8 points of
damageand for those of you keeping track back home, that put him at precisely 0
hp. That left him Disabled, meaning he can either shuffle about slowly or try to
attack (or cast a spell), but doing the latter will knock him unconscious and
dying.
Milo crawled slowly around a corner, and tried to stay as silent as possible.
Next time, he thought, make sure there's a Potion of Cure Light Wounds in your
Belt of Hidden Pouches.
Snape was nowhere to be seen.
I need a distraction.
"Sorry, Mordy," he whispered to his familiar. He had a bad feeling that, in a
few levels, when Mordy could speak back, he'd be getting an earful for this.
Mordenkainen, rodent extraordinaire, leapt out of his home in Milo's belt and
scurried around the corner to the Troll. Milo couldn't see what happened, but
heard a mighty roar worthy of an Elder Wyrm, and then a loud crash.
While the alleged Troll was occupied, Milo got to work. Reaching into his Belt,
he grabbed his flasks of oil and unstoppered their lids. Oil from his universe
goes a long way, and was enough to cover a five-foot square. The hallway was
closer to ten feet wide, and so Milo used four flasks to cover the whole hallway
ten feet deep. He then spread caltrops (nasty, spiky contraptions) across the
hallway as well.
Lastly, he (very carefully) took out a small, extremely valuable feather. The
feather, much stiffer and heavier than a mundane feather, was one of Milo's most
treasured possessions. It only worked once, and, while he had three of them, he
wasn't getting any more until he could return home. Gingerly, he placed it on
the ground in the oil, surrounded by caltrops.
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"Hey, ugly!" Milo shouted around the corner. "Leave my friend alone!" On cue,
Mordy scurried away from the Troll, up Milo's leg, and into his magic belt.
The Troll gave a mighty roar and charged Milo's position.
Milo grinned an evil sort of grin.
As the Troll placed its first heavy footstep on the oil-slick polished stone
floor, it lost its balance. It slid forwards a few feet, an almost comical
expression of surprise on its ugly features. It then fell backwards onto the
hard floorand the scattered caltrops. They weren't even close to powerful
enough to deal any real damage, but all Milo needed was to keep the troll in
position for a round. The Troll let loose a bellow of pain that shook the castle
as Milo muttered the command word to his Feather Token.
For those unfamiliar, the Tree Feather Token is the most useful magic item ever
devised. On command, it instantly creates an entirely real, nonmagical oak tree
five feet wide and sixty feet tall.
There was a swift, sudden breeze and a loud pop as a tree appeared in front of
Milo. It didn't grow, it didn't start small and swell up, it was just there.
The ceilings in Hogwarts were as varied as the halls, paintings, and geography
on a day-to-day basis, but here they were only eight feet tall (the Troll had to
stoop). The tree, which appeared directly underneath the Troll, blasted it
through the ceiling. And the one after that. And the one after that.
In total, the Troll was pushed bodily through seven floors, including three
hallways, two unused classrooms, Professor Binn's quarters, and the Hufflepuff
common room, which was now home to the forty-foot-wide canopy of a great oak
tree.
"Quaal," Milo said weakly to the mythical inventor of the Feather Tokens, "I'm
leaving everything to you in my will."
Crash.
"Uh," said Milo.
Crash.
"That really can't be good."
Crash.
"I'll just hobble away at half speed, shall I?" Milo limped down the hallway,
which ended in a dead-end, and a large window.
Crash.
"Milo!" Milo heard someone say. "We're here, to, ah, rescue you..."
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Crash.
"Blimey, was this great, dirty old tree always here?"
Crash.
"Ron!" said a sharp, female voice, "Careful, watch where you step. Someone's
booby trapped the ha"
CRASH. The ceiling caved in, and the Troll (heavily battered and bruised, but
still in the game, so to speak) landed, gracelessly, directly behind Milo.
Fortunately, it was looking away from him. Milo stood there breathlessly, trying
to make as little noise as possible. Maybe it will just... go away? That could
happen, ri
Milo's watch chimed, loudly, and then started to speak.
"Milo's got a da-ate, Milo's got a da-ate!" it sang cheerfully. "Don't be late,
don't be late, 'cause Milo's got a da-ate!"
"Oh, uh, hi there. See, the thing with the tree, that was nothing personal,
right?" Milo said weakly. "So, why don't we just put this behind us"
The Troll grabbed Milo with one arm, and, with a casual underhanded swing,
neatly defenestrated him.
Harry, who had boldly ran across the slick, spiky hallway, frantically tried to
help; but the young Wizard was out of sight before Harry was halfway through
"Wingardium."
Then the Troll turned to face the three under-trained, under-prepared,
under-aged wizards (well, two wizards and a witch).
The glass shredded Milo's already scorched and torn robes, but fortunately his
Mage Armour protected his skin from the worst of it.
Milo made a high, graceful arc over the Hogwarts Lake before he managed to stop
blubbering long enough to cast Feather Fall.
Our Hero, covered in dust and soot, his black robes in tatters, his hat missing,
his shoelaces untied, slowly floated to the ground, landing, as it would happen,
in the arms of a giant pink bunny.
"Amazing Dementor costume!" Hannah (in fancy dress) exclaimed. "Nice entrance,
too!"
Milo grinned briefly, then collapsed as his hit points dropped into the
negatives.
oooo
Concealed by his Disillusionment charm, Snape waited.
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The Cerberus slept, the low rumble of its triple snore shaking the floor
slightly.
Still, Snape waited.
Outside, the Troll was very likely killing one of his students.
His quarry was as invisible as he, but Snape had an advantage: the bane of all
invisible wizards, everywhere. One that would stop the Dark Lord himself, were
he invisible.
The door was closed. Quirrell would make his movesoon. Releasing the Troll was
an obvious distraction to allow him to get in here unnoticed.
The good-natured Muggle Studies Professor had come back from Romania...
different. Something had happened to him there, and it hadn't been vampires. The
good-natured Muggle Studies Professor was gone, now. The Headmaster knew
something, but whatever it was, he kept it to himself.
The castle shook, and a deafeningly loud CRASH shook the room. One of the
Cerberus's heads, jostled out of its slumber, perked up curiously.
The doorknob turned slowly.
Roots, of all things, slipped through the cracks in the masonry, breaking apart
the mortar. The walls buckled slightly.
The door opened, and closed.
oooo
"Uh, Hermione," said Ron anxiously. "If you were planning on doing anything
smart, now would be the time?"
Hermione simply stood staring up at the Troll, her face pale.
"Ron!" Harry shouted, barely dodging a large stone block. "What spells do we
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know?" The block, thrown by the Troll, exploded on the wall behind him.
"Uh. There's the one that makes our wands glow," he said. "and we can
Transfigure teakettles. Sh-should we Transfigure teakettles?"
"What about Wingardium Leviosa?" Harry suggested.
"I dunno," Ron said skeptically. "That Troll looks a little heavier than a
textbook to me."
"Not the Troll, the blocks!" Harry realized. Desperately, they began Levitating
anything in sightstone blocks, the weird spiky metal things, paintingsover the
Troll's head and dropping them. It was, it appeared, only marginally effective.
The Troll's thick skull was made of sterner stuff than even the
thousand-year-old masonry. If I get out of this, Harry resolved, I'm going to
learn how wizards fight. And I'm going to be the best there is. Nothing is going
to threaten my home ever again.
"...to all those who ask," Harry heard Hermione whisper.
"What was that?" Harry asked, his brow drenched in sweat from the effort of
Levitating the stone blocks that once made up the walls of his beloved castle.
His castle. This Troll would regret the second it scuffed the first candlestick
in his castle.
"Portraits of Hogwarts!" Hermione roared. "Run! Run to your neighbours, shout,
scream, anything. Find the Headmaster, or McGonagall, or Flitwick, Filch,
anyone." A nearby painting of a knight drew its sword and saluted, and with a
cry of "Yes, My Lady!" rode away on its stallion. The others just stared at her,
stunned.
"Well, I never," said a portrait of a fat lady (but not the Fat Lady) in an
evening gown. "The nerve of students these days, why, in my day, they employed
the whip."
"Couldn't have said it better myself, Agnes," said a bespectacled man.
"RUN!" she screamed at the paintings again. She didn't need to tell them a third
time.
"Right!" said Harry. "Now we just need to slow it down."
"Yeah," said Ron dismally, "assuming we can rely on Agnes to talk to Dumbledore
about anything other than the state of today's youth."
"Hermione, do you know any spell to create fire? Or sparks?" Harry asked.
Hermione shot a questioning look at him, before realizing what his plan was.
"Incendio," she cast, pointing her wand at Milo's oilslick. The lantern oil
erupted in flame, which quickly spread to the great oak tree. There wasn't
enough flammable material to create anything so impressive as a wall of fire,
but it did create a lot of smoke. Fortunately for the paint-based residents of
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Hogwarts, all of the living portraits had fled the area at Hermione's
instructions earlier; unfortunately, their homes were caught in the inferno. The
Troll was blinded by smoke, and started coughing hoarsely as it flailed its
fists around.
"What about wind? Harry asked. "We need as much dust in there as possible."
"Well, there's the Gust Jinx," admitted Hermione skeptically, "but it's
advanced. third-year."
"Hermione, can you cast it or not?" Harry pushed.
"Well... I've read about it," she said hesitantly. "I've never, you know,
actually tried it."
"No pressure or anything," urged Ron, "but if you mess up, we'll probably all
die."
Hermione's forehead wrinkled in concentration. She very carefully (and slowly)
placed her feet in the fencing-like casting position used when performing
complicated magic, and pictured the page in The Standard Book of Spells, Volume
3 that described the wand motions.
"Swish, flick, counter-swirl, three-quarters-twirl-clockwise,
diamond-inside-a-circle, VENTUS!"
It started gradually, building up strength somewhere behind Hermione. She felt
her robes stir gently, and her hair started to rustle. At first, she thought she
must have botched the spell (a thought which mortified her to her core), and
then it happened.
There was a rush of air that nearly knocked her from her feet, whipping her
curly hair around her head. Dust from the ruined hallway was picked up from the
walls, floors, the children's clothes, and from under the heavy masonry.
Hermione thought Harry's plan was to fan the flames with more air, until...
oooo
The third-floor window that Milo had flown out of exploded. A blossom of red
fire erupted from the remains of the frame, leaving spots in Hannah's eyes.
"That," she said, "can't be good." She drew her wand anxiously, but wasn't sure,
exactly, what she should be doing with it. She was, technically, a witch... but
needing magic for a potentially life-or-death situation wasn't something she
thought would ever happen. In fact, needing magic for anything outside of class
had simply never occurred to her. Imagine suddenly finding yourself having to
calculate how long it would take a sedan accelerating at 6 m/s2 to a maximum of
80 km/h to catch up to a truck moving at 60 km/h with a forty-five-minute head
start... to save the Prime Minister.
That, in a nutshell, is what Hannah felt like.
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First things first, she thought, deal with the unconscious boy. What Hannah
didn't know was that Milo, not simply unconscious, was, in fact, dying. Every
six seconds he'd drop one hit point until hitting negative ten, when he'd buy
the proverbial Outer Plane farm.
That leaves her, for those of you keeping score, fifty-four seconds to stabilize
him.
Fifty-three...
Fifty-two...
"Uh, I should, uh, probably get you to the hostpitaluh, hopsital, uh. Ah.
Hospital wing," she said. In another life, Hannah was a Hufflepuff. And
Hufflepuffs, not that there's anything wrong with them, wonderful, wonderful
people, are not typically noted (with the notable exception of the dreamy
third-year Cedric Diggory) for keeping their heads in a crisis.
"Locomotor Mortis!" she cast, and Milo's legs locked together.
Forty-two...
"No, wait! Wrong spell, I'm sorry!" she stressed. It was that last bit, the
Mortis part. "Locomotor Milo!" she cast, and Milo floated into the air.
Thirty-six...
"Uh, maybe I should counter that Leg-Locker Curse, now that I think about it,"
she said. "Finite Incantatem," she cast. Milo fell back to the ground.
Thirty...
"Oh, of course, that cancelled Locomotor as well. Locomotor Milo!" she cast
again.
Twenty-four...
"Well, to the Hospital Wing it is, then!" she said, and set off. Milo drifted
along behind her.
Twenty-three...
Twenty-two...
oooo
"Which one of you used the Blasting Charm?" Hermione asked, stunned, as she
picked herself up from the rubble.
"What?" asked Ron.
"I said, which one of you used the Blasting Charm," she repeated loudly.
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"What?" asked Ron, who had been deafened by the blast.
"Nobody here knows the Blasting Charm, Hermione," said Harry weakly. He'd been
thrown halfway across the room in the explosion.
"What?"
"Then, what spell was that?"
"What?"
"No spell," said Harry.
"What?" said Hermione and Ron simultaneously.
"Well, this one time Dudley fell asleep watching cartoons and I got to watch
Discovery," Harry said, "hiding in my cupboard, of course, in case my Aunt or
Uncle saw, and it turns out if you throw enough dust at a fire, it, well, it"
"explodes?" finished Hermione.
"What?"
"Yeah, basically. That's why I asked you to conjure up a windstorm."
"What?"
"That's clever. I strongly disapprove, you broke about a thousand school rules,
and maybe my ribs; also, I know for a fact 'no explosions in the hallwaysNO
EXCEPTIONS' is a rule, I saw it posted outside Filch's office, but it was
clever, but sometimes even when a plan is clever, even when it's really clever,
you should really warn me when you're going to blow something up."
"I'll do that next time," said Harry.
"What?"
"Oh, shut up, Ron!" snapped Hermione.
"What?"
"I know you can't hear me, but what you really expect to gain by saying 'what?'
over and over I don't even"
Hermione was cut off when a huge, ugly, scorched hand reached out from the smoke
and picked her up by the shoulder. She reflexively reached for her wand, but
realized she'd dropped it in the explosion.
The Troll held her up close to its face, gazing at her with a curious
expression. Then it opened its gaping maw. A fell odour of rotting meat and
extreme halitosis blasted her senses.
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"Uh, please don't eat me, Mr. Troll..." she begged.
Instead of eating her or charging down the injured Ron and Harry, the Troll
decided to take a third option.
oooo
Snape waited. Quirrell, Snape knew (though he could not see him), was likely
deciding what to do about Hagrid's dog. Whatever action he took would be proof
enough for Snape to bring Dumbledore, or even the Ministry, down on him.
Any moment now, the Defence Professor would kill the dog.
Unexpectedly, nothing happened.
What is he doing? Snape wondered. Then the Troll made an entrance.
Literally.
Stone bricks flew across the room when Quirrell's beast tore its way through the
wall as if it were made of paper, carrying the Granger girl in one hand as if
she were a rag doll.
The Cerberus awoke and leapt. Snape, though he would never admit it, was
reminded of the time he'd seen Godzilla Versus Mothra as a boy.
Stunned, Snape fumbled for his wand while the Cerberus collided with the Troll,
knocking it to the ground. Granger was tossed across the room, and slid limply
along the ground. She didn't move.
The Troll wrestled the larger beast off of it and grabbed an enormous flagstone
that used to make up part of the third floor's ceiling. With a mighty heave, it
brought the heavy chunk of stone down on one of the hound's heads. There was a
sickening crunch, and the other two heads led out bellows of rage; blood and
spit speckling the Troll. The Cerberus raked the Troll with sharp claws, gouging
thick slashes in its tough hide. One of is heads went for the Troll's neck, but
the Troll managed to wrestle its jaws open with its hands; the other head went
for Granger.
Snape began to cast a spell, but someone beat him to it.
"Avada Kedavra," Snape heard someone say, and there was a blinding green flash.
The Cerberus lay dead, and Quirrell stood in the centre of the room.
"A-a-are you a-alright, Miss G-G-Granger?" Quirrell asked, his voice full of
concern. When Hermione didn't respond, Quirrell frantically tore a strip of
cloth from his robe and tied it around her bleeding head.
"Episkey," he cast, and several of her smaller cuts and injuries healed rapidly.
"I'm s-s-sorry," he said, "that's the b-b-best I c-can do until h-help arrives."
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Quirrell, Snape noticed, never seemed to stammer when casting a spell. Well, at
least now his plan is clear. Really, it was obvious in hindsight, Snape sighed.
He should have seen it coming. Quirrell released the Troll not only as a
distraction, but as an excuse to enter the forbidden corridor and kill Fluffy.
He used a Forbidden Curse, but even those were technically legal against
non-humans. It did further cement Snape's view that Quirrell had gone Dark,
however. On top of everything, Quirrell would now be a hero in everyone's eyes.
What this had to do with Milo, however, Snape still couldn't figure out.
Wait, he thought, why was the Troll holding Miss Granger?
He paused. Granger must have been in the hallways, and where there's Granger...
...there's Harry Potter.
Climbing over debris and deceased dog, Snape rushed through the Troll's wall
entrance. The Troll itself lay gasping for breath under the hound's body.
Outside, in the hallway, was an... interesting sight. The window had been blown
open, taking much of the surrounding frame with it. The ceiling had not one, but
two troll-sized holes in it; one of them was at least mostly filled... by a
great oak tree, which was, incidentally, on fire. Just down the hallway was
another flattened wall, where the Troll had first entered. The sheer level of
damage was unlike anything Snape had ever seen beforenot even Fred and
George... not even James and Sirius had ever... no-one, so far as Snape knew,
had ever done so much raw, physical damage to the Hogwarts school in a thousand
years, much less under a minute.
Surely, the Dark Lord's hand must be at work, here...
Snape shook himself out of his reverie, and began searching for Potter. The boy
must live, everythingand everyoneelse was expendable. Dimly, he was aware of
movement behind him.
There was a brief, blinding flash as Dumbledore arrived, carried by his fiery
bird.
"You can come out, now," said the Headmaster. The eccentric Headmaster, it
seemed, had not taken Hallowe'en lightly, and was wearing an
uncharacteristically sombre gray robe and hat. Of all things, a sword was
buckled to his side. At first, Snape thought Dumbledore had directed the remark
at him, but the Headmaster looked right at him and winked.
The Troll, burnt and bloody, staggered out of the forbidden third-floor
corridor.
"You have damaged my school," the Headmaster said gravely. "You have injured my
students." The Troll cocked its head to the side, as if it actually understood
what he was saying. "And for these things that you have done," the Headmaster
continued, "you will leave. Now."
There was no threat, just a simple statement of fact. The Troll stared at the
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Headmaster blankly.
"Fly, you fool," Dumbledore said quietly. The Troll turned and leapt out the
window. Snape, dismissing his Disillusionment Charm, walked over to the edge.
The Troll was running towards the Forbidden Forest as fast as it could go.
"Professor," Snape heard a weak voice from behind them. Dumbledore turned to see
Harry and Ron lying, partially buried by (surprisingly dust-free) stone bricks.
"Mr. Potter! Mr. Weasley! We have to get you to the hospital wing at once!" the
Headmaster said in alarm.
"No, worry about us later," Harry said stoically. "Milo... was thrown out the
window. HeI'm sure he"
"Say no more, I'll take care of it," Dumbledore said reassuringly. "Snape, make
sure these twoand Miss Granger, she should be around here somewhereget to the
hospital wing." With that, and a flash, he and his Phoenix vanished as quickly
as they'd appeared.
oooo
"W-w-w-wingard... Wing... Wingardium Leviosa!" Hannah shouted, lifting Milo into
the sky. She was sureokay, pretty sureokay, she hoped she'd found the window
to the hospital wing.
Ten...
Milo slowly floated up to the fourth-storey window. Hannah hoped that someone
inside would see him and help.
Nine...
She considered sending up sparks with her wand, or even using magic to break the
window, but she wasn't sure she could do that and hold Milo at the same time.
Eight...
On the other hand, if necessary, she could always just shove him through the
window.
Seven...
What would that accomplish? If there's nobody in there, there won't be anyone to
help him.
Six...
Milo dropped to -9 hit points, not that Hannah knew that.
Five...
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I'm sure someone will notice him eventually.
Four...
Though I'm not sure for how long I can keep this levitate running.
Three...
There was a loud Crack and a blinding flash. Dumbledore appeared in front of
her, with a fiery bird perched on his shoulder.
Two...
Hannah's concentration broke, and abruptly she felt the strain of her Levitation
Charm vanish. Milo, no longer protected by his Feather Fall, started to fall to
the ground. Fawkes, with a mighty cry, leapt from Dumbledore's shoulder and flew
towards the falling boy.
One...
oooo
Milo awoke to an all-too-familiar ceiling. He heard raised voices from the other
side of the curtain surrounding his hospital bunk. He felt... well, pretty
great, actually. It was sort of hard to put his finger on.
"No, I don't know when he'll wake up!" said the frustrated voice of Madam
Pomfrey.
"You are a mediwitch, aren't you?" said the stern voice of McGonagall.
"Yes, and I'm fully trained and qualified to heal humans. What he is, I don't
even"
"So you're telling me you don't have a clue whether he's going to live or die."
"I'm telling you that he's survived life threatening injuries in the past; I
don't even know if he can die."
"Uh," Milo said cheerfully. "I'm awake! Hello?"
Abruptly, the curtain was drawn back from around his bed. McGonagall looked
concerned, and Pomfrey looked terrified.
"Wh-what, already?" she asked, trembling. "You should have been... I mean, you
shouldn't have..."
"What Madam Pomfrey is trying to say," said McGonagall, "is that we're very
relieved to hear that you're all right."
"Yup, just dandy. Can anyone tell me what happened? The last thing I remember is
nearly killing myself casting Feather Fall... of all the ways to die, I think
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that would have been the most humiliating. I can't believe it actually was the
fall that killed me."
"Do you mean to tell me that you were performing dangerous magic" McGonagall
started, but Pomfrey cut her off.
"Well, I can only assume we have Fawkes to thank," said the mediwitch. "although
as to why the Headmaster's been keeping a miracle cure like Phoenix Tears locked
away in his office, I suppose I'll have to bring that up with him..." she said,
trailing off into a series of angry grumbles. Milo thought he caught the words
"puts me completely out of the job" and "could have saved that Longbottom boy a
world of hurt"
"Uh," said Milo, "could anyone tell me what happened to the Troll?"
"Professor Dumbledore drove it away," said McGonagall. "I believe it's likely
still running, actually. Although your friends performed more than their share
of Gryffindor heroism, and, not that I'd like to encourage this sort of thing,
together you've all earned more than enough points to offset your... unruly...
behaviour."
"How come I'm not dead?" Milo asked, bluntly.
"Miss Abbot carried you back to the castle, and I rather think she was about to
break the door down when the Headmaster found youhis Phoenix, Fawkes, has
certain powerful healing abilities. She's quite distraught, in fact, and has
hardly left your side."
"I don't suppose you could tell us why you're awake?" asked Pomfrey. "Everything
I know tells me you should have either been completely restored when the Phoenix
healed you, or, failing that, unconscious for days. It's only been three hours."
"Well, I've got a hit point. If I had to guess, that Phoenix cured me into the
positives, and I was just sleeping since then. It was your shouting that woke me
up. Still, I feel sort of... weird."
Madam Pomfrey frowned.
"Lumos," she whispered. "Right, follow my wand with your eyes..." she waved the
wand slowly back in front of his face. When he, presumably, responded normally;
she followed up with a number of diagnostic spells.
"Look, I feel fine," he said. "Better than fine, actually; sort of like... I
could go toe-to-toe with a Ghoul or armwrestle a Bugbear. Like I could be or
do... well, anything. Like I'm full of untapped potential..."
"Well, Phoenixes have been known to have a sort of euphoric effect"
"No, it's not that. I think... I think I... my gods!" he said as he realized
what had happened.
"What?" asked McGonagall, alarmed.
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"I've levelled up!" It had never happened while he was unconscious before.
"Leave me alone for a minute, I need to pick skills."
McGonagall gave him a peculiar look and turned to leave with Madam Pomfrey, but
Milo ignored them both.
"Oh, by the way," said Madam Pomfrey as she left. "You're not to leave your bed
for at least 24 hours."
"Sure, whatever," Milo said absently.
Skills is easy, Milo thought. I'll just add another rank in what I've already
got. As for feats...
This part was really difficult for Milo. As a level five Wizard, he got a bonus
metamagic or item creation feat. Under normal circumstances I'd go for Extend
Spell, but...
I might have to face the fact that I'm going to be stuck here for a while, Milo
thought bitterly. I have to be self-sufficient. I have to be a whole party, a
whole economy, by myself. If I keep being tossed into encounters above my ECL
like this, I'm going to wind up dead.
What are my assets?
I have time.
With Harry Potter, I have money.
Feeling somewhat sick, Milo did something he swore he would never, ever do.
Mentally, he wrote down "Craft Wondrous Item" on the character sheet in his
mind.
If I ever get to go home, he reassured himself, I'll just retrain it.
When it came to spells, Milo felt like he might cry. I only get two. How can I
live with only two?! There are dozens of third level spells I absolutely have to
have. Haste. Fireball. Shrink Item. Fly. Summon Monster III. Heroics. With tears
in his eyes, Milo chose Fly and Summon Monster III. Next level, he promised
himself. Next level, I learn something that goes boom.
"What was that?" Milo heard a familiar voice.
"Sorry, Nev. This place has me talking to myself," Milo said.
"It's not so bad," he heard Neville say from next cot over. "Though I'd like to
try sleeping in our dorm once, if only for the novelty of it."
"You've never slept in Gryffindor Tower?" Milo heard Hermione say.
"Blimey," said Ron. "Now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever seen him
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in there."
"My suitcase isn't even unpacked," Neville said sadly.
Milo looked around. Harry, Ron, and Hermione were all lying in hospital beds as
well. Hermione's bushy brown hair was hidden by thick bandages around her head,
with more wrapped around her chest. Harry and Ron were similarly bandaged,
albeit to a lesser extent.
"Holy crap," Milo said, stunned. "What happened to you guys?"
As they filled him in on the events of their day (Milo was stunned at the
revelation that dust could explode; the possible applications for that were
endless. Okay, well, really there was only one application for it, and that was
for making things go boom on the cheap.) That these three "wizards" very nearly
took out that "Troll" made Milo's respect for them go up several notches.
"So all they were keeping in the chamber of die-a-horrible-death was a gigantic
three-headed dog?" Milo asked. "Huh. I always had it figured for the
Philosopher's Stone. Guess that explains why Hogwarts had a gigantic
ultra-secure cage, though."
As Milo was talking, the door to the hospital wing opened.
Hannah Abbot, in full rabbit regalia, entered, followed by a hovering trolley
covered in food.
"Seeing as how you're missing the Hallowe'en feast," she said, "McGonagall made
a special exemption and let me bring the feast to you. Also," she added, "you
lotMilo excluded, of course; very spooky as a Dementorwouldn't be allowed in
there without a costume, anyway."
The eyes on Harry's, Ron's, Hermione's, and Neville's eyes lit up
simultaneously. Milo shrugged and reached for his Everlasting Rations.
"She also said to tell you that it came with a twenty Gryffindor House Points
for each of you (except you, Neville, sorry), and five for me," she said
happily. "Oh, also," she said, looking archly at Milo. "If you even think about
eating those bland, tasteless Rations, I will personally throw you through
another window."
Ron choked slightly.
"McGonagall said that?"
"No," said Hannah. "That was me."
Hannah walked past her grievously injured friends, passing out plates piled high
with food. Milo felt that elaborate descriptions were in order, but, frankly, he
didn't know what three-quarters of the stuff was even called. Hannah sat down on
the bed next to Milo and passed him a plate.
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Milo sniffed it suspiciously.
"Detect Poison," he muttered. Everything looked clean (except Neville, who still
had enough poison in him to be flagged as 'poisonous'), but that paradoxically
only made him more nervous. The poison might be really well hidden...
"Oh, just eat it," Hannah said. "What could happen? You're already in the
hospital wing."
"Fine," Milo said reluctantly. He took a tiny bite of something sort of
orange-ish. His hand was already reaching for Antitoxin before he finished
chewing, but, surprisingly, he felt fine.
"Hey," he said, stunned. "This... this is pretty good."
"See? I told you so," Hannah said with a grin. Where Milo came from, taste was
only ever described when it was dramatically required, but here... everything
was so full of flavour, evenor, perhaps, especiallywhen it was completely
inconsequential.
"Beans," he said suddenly.
"Sorry, what was that, mate?" Ron asked.
"The Gringotts Every-Flavoured Beans," Milo said. "I want some. Now."
"They're Bertie Botts Every-Flavoured Beans," Ron muttered. "And there's a box
on the trolley, but, blimey, Harry made me swear to warn anyone before their
first time"
"I can handle it," Milo said, grabbing the box. He licked his lips hungrily and
downed a handful at a time.
Milo passed out from sensory overload.
"This," said Harry as Milo came to, "was the best Hallowe'en ever. Normally, the
Muggles only let me have the candies they took from Dudley because they think
they have razor blades in them."
Milo was forced to agree, and not only because it was the only Hallowe'en he'd
ever had. He'd fought monsters, survived by the skin of his teeth, levelled up,
discovered the wonders of a whole new sense, and felt, for the first time in a
long time, like he was part of a party again.
It was, rather, like coming home.
Chapter 12: Of Rats and Bowler Caps

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Author's Notes: Milo's new level five character sheet can be found here:
?sheetid=421496. because Fanfiction seems to dislike entire URLS.
Thanks to everyone for your nice reviews! If this story were a Wizard, those
reviews would be his spells per day.
oooo
Harry and Ron were released on Friday evening, but Milo and Hermione were
obliged to stay in the hospital wing for the weekend. Gryffindor (and even a few
Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw) well-wishers had brought in flowers, candy, and cards
to speed their recovery. Milo wondered idly where the students had got them
from, because it wasn't like there were any shops in the castle, and students
couldn't just leave the grounds.
"Owl-order," answered Hermione when he asked on Sunday evening. "Also,
third-years and above can go to Hogsmeade a few times a year."
Milo was disappointed at how... mundane the answer was, but liked the sound of
the Hogsmeade trips once he hit third year...
Milo cut off that line of thought quickly. There's no way I'm still going to be
here in two years, he thought firmly. Why, Zook and the others are probably
already paying to have a whole battery of Divinations cast to find out where I
am.
Totally.
...and the reason that's been two months, why, they're probably just trying to
find a really good Diviner to do it. Yeah. Totally. Or a Conjurer to Plane Shift
me home.
Milo sighed.
They could have at least sent a Sending once in a while, is that too much to
ask?
Of course, this all assumes they weren't TPK'd by Thamior because they didn't
have me to do, well, everything.
"Why the long face?" Hermione asked, full of concern.
"I think," said Milo, "that all of my friends back home might be dead."
"What?" she asked, her face gone white. "That's terrible! What... why... who...
Oh, Milo, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry; that's about the worst thing I've ever
heard."
Milo blinked. He'd forgotten that the people here seemed to view death as more
than a mild inconvenience.
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"It's not so bad," he said. "I mean, this isn't the first time it's happened."
"You don't have to put on such a brave face," she said. "It's only me."
"Where I come from, you can pay to have people brought back from the dead," Milo
said simply. "It's really not such a big deal."
Hermione just stared, thunderstruck.
"That's... so..." Hermione paused to collect her thoughts. "You really are from
another world, aren't you?"
"Yeah," Milo said quietly. "Everything was really"
"Hey!" Milo heard a small, sharp voice say.
"Uh, Hermione, did you say something?" Milo asked
"Listen!" the voice said.
"What?" Milo asked, irritated. Milo got a flash of Irritation, Frustration,
Annoyance from his empathic bond. "Mordy? Was that you? Since when can you
talk?"
"It's amazing, really, it is," the voice (presumably Mordy) said. "You
remembered to put a skill rank in Decipher Script, as if you'll ever find any
use for that, but you forgot that I got the Speak With Master ability?" Mordy
crawled out of his home in Milo's bag, and up his robes to talk to him
face-to-face. Hermione had an odd look on her face, watching the exchange.
"Well, I feel like that's more your business to keep track of" Milo protested
weakly.
"I'm your class feature," said Mordy firmly. "Bet you forgot my Natural Armour
increased, too, didn't you? No, don't tell me; I don't think my poor, adorable
little rodent heart could take it."
"Yes, well, but"
"And it's been ages since I got any share of the loot," Mordenkainen continued
as if Milo hadn't spoken.
"Share of the"
"That's right, my fair share of the loot. I do all the most dangerous
jobsdistracting the Troll, spying on Snape's secret meeting with Lucius"
"Wait, what"
"and what do I get in return?"
"Supernatural power above and beyond that of an ordinary rat, humanlike
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Intelligence, magical knowledge rivalling my own, the Skill Ranks of a level
five Wizardbut that's beside the point. What's this about Snape's secret
meeting?"
"Right after you were doing your 'Crime Scene Investigating' in the Forbidden
ForestI'm sorry, are you not taking me seriously? You're laughing."
"It's hard to maintain a straight face," Milo said between laughs, "when you see
a rat make little air-quotes like that."
"Stay on topic, would you? Snape snuck out to meet the Smarmy Git's father,
before you ask, yes, I could tell by his scent who he was but also because the
Oily One called him 'Lucius Malfoy.'"
"And? What did they talk about?" Milo asked, intrigued.
"You know, I got mauled by a cat once, helping you," Mordy said.
"What happened to 'Stay on topic?'" Milo asked.
"I just wanted you to appreciate how difficult my job is, sometimes."
"Yes, yes, you're very appreciated, now get on with it."
"Well, the Sire of Smarm told the Oily One that you weren't a wizard"
"Not a Wizard?" Milo asked, enraged. "I will end him! I'll show him which one of
us isn't a Wizard when I shove some high-powered arcana down his"
"and that he wants the Oily One to have you expelled."
"...Huh," said Milo flatly. "Expelled? That's it?" From where he was from,
enemies generally wanted you, dead, undead, re-dead, disgraced, disintegrated,
detained, and/or devoured. Being expelled seemed so... unimportant. "It must
only be Phase One of his plan. First, get me expelled, then, eaten by Bugbears."
"That's what I assumed as well. So, boss, what's the plan? Oh, before I forget,
there's this one other th"
"Okay," said Hermione, as if it had taken her this long to work up the courage
to mention it. "What are you doing?"
"Talking to Mordenkainen," he said. "Can't you tell?"
"No," said Hermione. "It sounded like you were spouting gibberish. You canwait,
you can talk to rats? You're a... a... huh. I don't actually know if there's a
word for that. A rodenttongue? Rattongue?"
"No, just to this one. I'm the one-and-only Mordytongue," Milo said. He'd
forgotten that the Speak With Master ability magically prevented anyone from
understanding what he said to Mordy, and vice-versa. Handy, he thought.
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"So, what are you saying?" Hermione asked curiously. "Er, that was rude. I
didn't meant to pry, or interrupt a conversation, or anything, it's just that
it's not every day that"
"Mordy was telling me that Snape and Lucius Malfoy met secretly in the forest,"
Milo explained, "and that Lucius asked Snape to get me expelled."
Hermione frowned.
"This was when you went to the forest to investigate the Acromantula?" Hermione
asked. "I'd been meaning to askwhat did you end up finding?"
"The Acromantula had a missing fang," Milo said. "And that I couldn't have
killed it with the log."
"But, that means..."
"Someone else must have done it, though I didn't see it happen. I would have
thought it was Quirrell, but he was very clear about the fact that he was
nowhere near the scene at the time. Also, the math on the Experience Points
checks out if I split it fifty-fifty with a more experienced character than
myself."
Hermione blinked.
"You know, when I was in school, people said I was weird."
"Must be nice," Milo said, "to have a backstory. Seems like a lot of work,
mind."
"You... you don't remember your childhood at all?"Hermione was shocked.
"Before I became an adventurer? Not really. I know that at some point, I became
a vagabond street thief, but I'm not really sure how that happened."
"But that's so sad," Hermione said, her eyes misting up.
"It let me become a Wizard younger," Milo said. "It's sort of complicated, and
it doesn't stand up to close inspection. It's... weird. For me. This only became
a problem when I came to this world, it's like... I'm cut off from something. I
don't suppose we can change the subject?"
"What were we talking about?" Hermione asked. "Oh, right. Snape trying to get
you expelled. Only Professor McGonagall and Professor Dumbledore have the
authority for that," she said, "short of the Minister for Magic stepping in
personally. It's out of Snape's hands."
"I guess Snape could try to set it up so that they had no choice but toaw,
crap. The potion."
"Milo!" Hermione said. "Language!" she paused for a moment. "Also, what potion?"
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"For Snape's detention on Hallowe'en," Milo said. "I thought he was trying to
kill me, having me make an exploding potion, but it was a test. I failed."
"Failing Potions isn't enough to have you expelled," Hermione said. "I mean,
take Neville."
"Hey!" said Neville from his bunk. He was back in the hospital wing after being
mauled by (and they wouldn't have believed it if there hadn't been twelve
witnesses) a Flobberworm. Flobberworms have no teeth, fangs, spikes, poison,
spit, anything. Their one claim to fame is their (harmless) slimy mucous. They'd
quite forgotten about him.
"Sorry, Nev," Hermione said, her face pink.
"No, it's not just about being even more hopelessly incompetent than Neville,"
Milo said as if Neville hadn't spoken. PCs could be like that around NPCs,
sometimes. "Snape told me himself: a newborn with a hint of magical blood could
make that potion. All you have to do is stir it, you don't need to think about
it or concentrate or anything."
"So?" asked Hermione. "What's your point?"
"I couldn't make the potion," Milo said quietly.
There was a meaningful silence.
"Maybe you had the ingredients wrong?" asked Hermione.
"No, they were perfect. Snape even checked them beforehand. It's not like I kept
it a secret, I'm not a wizard like you are."
"Witch, actually," said Hermione pointedly.
"But the only thing keeping me here is that Dumbledore thinks I'm like you,"
said Milo, "only crazy and deludedand even worse at magic than Neville."
"Hey!"
"No, that can't be," said Hermione. "If you weren't a wizard, the wards wouldn't
let you enter Hogsmeade or Hogwarts. You'd suddenly remember an important
meeting and run off, I believe."
"I suppose it depends on the exact wording of the spell. Maybe the wards target
everyone who isn't 'a wizard, witch, squib, or magical creature,' or something.
I don't suppose you have the spell description in the library?"
"Uh," said Hermione. "I... don't think so."
"More importantly, I've..." Milo's tongue tripped over itself. "I've..." he
sighed. "I've already lost. Snape won. I'm going to be expelled."
"No, I think it would take more than Snape's word for something like this. It's
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completely unprecedented; the Ministry will want to be involved, Dumbledore
tooand McGonagall, of coursethe department that handles underage magic... the
point is, I don't think we need to worry until ministry officials start showing
up"
"Hello!" said a cheerful voice, interrupting Hermione mid-sentence. Milo turned
to see a portly (one) little (two) man in a pinstriped cloak and green bowler
cap (three! Major NPC) standing at the entrance to the hospital wing.
Hermione gasped, her face completely white.
"Erm," said Milo. "Hello, ah, sir?" he was guessing wildly, but judging by
Hermione's reaction, this was either a local king, evil vizier, or Lord
Voldemort himself. Milo carefully re-arranged his blankets so they wouldn't
impede him if he made a run for the window, and stuffed Mordenkainen back into
his belt.
"Oh, that won't be necessary," said the man. "I'm Cornelius Fudge, the Minister
for Magic."
Milo blinked.
Aw, crap.
"M-M-Milo Amastacia"
"Liadon," Fudge interrupted as he moved to sit next to Milo. "Yes, yes, I know
who you are."
Milo licked his lips, which had gone suddenly dry. He wouldn't be up to full hit
points until midnight, when his second day of full bed rest finished. He slowly
pulled both hands out from under his blankets so they wouldn't interfere with
Somatic spell components. This man, as Milo understood it, was king of an entire
country of wizards. He probably had access to enough Arcane power to rewrite
reality according to his whims.
"I'm afraid there's been a spot of trouble," the Minister said. "I'm sure it's
nothing, but it has a lot of us at the Ministry scratching our heads. I'm here
with some colleagueswho are waiting in the hall; your mediwitch was quite...
severe with them, demanded no more than one of us be let in at a timewho are
here to sort it out and solve the little mystery. Shouldn't take more than a
moment, really."
Hermione shot Milo a look of absolute panic.
"H-how can I help, m-m-my lord?" Milo asked.
"Really now," said Fudge, "I'm not a lord, you know."
"F-forgive me, your Divine Imperial Majesty!"
The fat little man sighed and removed his bowler cap.
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"Just Mister Fudge will do, Milo. And to answer your question earlier, all you
have to do is follow me, answer a few questions, and brew a potion. We can have
you back to your bed and friends in a few minutes."
Milo panicked. It was the end of the day, and he was almost out of spells. He
couldn't prepare new ones until Monday.
"I, ah, I'd love to but I'm afraid I'm... I'm grievously injured," Milo
stammered. "I was thrown out a window just the other day, you know?"
"The lovely Ms. Pomfrey assures me that you're in good enough shape to move
about, if only for a short time," said Fudge. "And I'm afraid I have to insist.
It's quite out of my hands, you see..."
"But you're the" Milo said, before remembering who he was talking to. Fudge
could probably lay waste to armies with a wave of his hand. "...okay. I'll go
with you," he said meekly.
"Good lad!" said the Minister as Milo climbed to his feet.
"I want to go with him," Hermione said firmly.
"Er," said the Minister. "Well, shouldn't you stay here and rest?"
"No," she insisted. "I'll be fine, Pomfrey is just being over-protective. I'm
not letting him go anywhere aloneyou wouldn't believe what happens." Milo
grinned; it looked like she was finally grasping Adventurer Rule One: you never
split the party.
"Well, um, very well, but let it be known this wasn't my idea."
Hermione weakly struggled to her feet. Her head was still tightly bandaged, as
was her chest. From what Milo could understand, witches and wizardsand Muggles,
too, likelyhad a completely different healing process from what he was familiar
with.
Milo moved next to Hermione (just in case) and together they followed the
Minister for Magic. Outside the hospital wing's large double doors were four of
his flunkies.
"These are my colleagues," Fudge gestured at his underlings, "Mafilda Hopkirk
from the Improper Use of Magic Office," he said, pointing at a stern,
gray-haired witch, "Dolores Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for
Magic," Fudge pointed at what Milo could only assume to be a Half-Toad clad all
in pink, "and Broderick Bode of the Department of Mysteries," Fudge pointed at a
sallow-skinned wizard. "In the back there is Walden Macnair of the, er, the
Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. I'm sure he
won't be necessary." Fudge pointed at a huge wizard standing head-and-shoulders
taller than the others.
"This the little beastie?" Macnair asked in a low rumble.
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"Well," said Fudge awkwardly. "That, er, has, ah, yet to be determined. If
you'll all follow me?" Fudge asked, with a small gesture. Milo frowned. Is his
timid incompetence an act, as obfuscation? Or is he really this anxious all the
time? If so, how did he become ruler of en empire of what are, essentially,
demigods?
He can't have, Milo realized. Either he's a brilliant chessmaster behind this
facade, or...
Fudge led the group into the dungeons, but Milo barely noticed.
...or someone else is the real power behind the throne. But is it Dumbledore,
Lucius, Voldemort, or some third party?
Either way, I really need to figure out how to pass Snape's test.
It wasn't that impossible, really. All he had to do was get a cauldron to bubble
instead of exploding.
The only catch was that he hardly had any spells left; he'd been using Scholar's
Touch to catch up on his reading.
Milo ran his fingers through his hair. He hadn't quite realized how vulnerable
that made him at night.
"How long is it to midnight?" he asked Hermione, who checked her watch.
"Less than two hours," she said with a yawn. "It's way past my bedtime."
Milo chewed his lip. He had a plan, of sorts.
midnight, and then delay for an hour while he
to figure out how to make a handful of spells
ten-by-ten stone rooms do something they were
He just had to delay until

prepared spells. And then he had
designed for killing orcs in
never intended to.
All the while with the most powerful men in the country breathing down his neck.
Wonderful.
"I'm sure if you just double-check your measuring," Hermione said in an attempt
to be reassuring, "you'll do fine."
Milo grinned nervously, then steeled himself. He had the beginnings of a plan in
mind, but for that he would need spells.
"So, erm, Milo my boy, where did you say you came from?" Fudge asked.
"Myra," Milo said proudly. "City of light! City of Magic!" The Myrari
government, though completely inept at dealing with dragons, goblins, and
bandits, nonetheless had a sophisticated system of Divinations set up to detect
citizens who didn't add the legally-mandated city motto after saying the city's
name. Milo wasn't sure exactly how far-reaching the effects were, so even here
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he made sure to say itand, for that matter, think it. Nobody knew exactly what
the punishment was for breaking that particular law, because nobody knew anyone
who had ever done it.
Personally, Milo suspected that lawbreakers were retroactively erased from the
timeline altogether.
"Where is that, exactly?" asked Fudge. "America? Europe?"
"Uh," said Milo. He wasn't sure, exactly, how secret he was supposed to keep his
otherworldy nature. On the other hand, Fudge was probably watching him with a
battery of Divinations (or whatever the local equivalent was called) to catch
him lying. So, I can't tell the truth, and I probably can't tell a lie. "No,"
Milo said. "Not America or Europe." And now I need a diversion... "Did you see
that ludicrous display last week?"
"I daresay! I had more Galleons riding on a Wanderer's victory than were in the
Spanish Armada," Fudge said. "Mind, the Cannons were all riding Nimbus Two
Thousands," he said. "That must have been the reason. Donated at the last minute
by an anonymous benefactor. The Wanderers, though; rumour has it they were on an
experimental new broom. Must have been rubbish, though."
Milo's curiosity was perked. If there's one thing every adventurer listens to,
it's unfounded rumours told by fat little men. He knew his present situation was
dire, but he just had to dig for more information.
"An experimental broom?" Milo asked.
"So I'd heard. Made by a total unknown in Wales somewhere, doesn't even have a
proper name yet. It's all very hush-hush, even to meand I'm the Minister!"
"So, your, ah, Ministership, sir, do you have any guesses about who donated all
the broomsticks?"
"Off the record? There's only one family with the wealth and influence to afford
a team's set of Nimbuses with a vested interest in seeing the broomstick
succeed," Fudge said conspiratorially, "and that's the Malfoys. Mr. Malfoy is on
the Nimbus board of directors, you know."
Milo had no idea what a board of directors was, but he didn't care. Everything
he heard seemed to be pointing to that family: the manor he first woke up in,
Draco's very existence (and at the exact same age as him, too), Lucius in the
forest and wasn't Draco taunting him about Quidditch just the other day?
Milo knew an adventure hook when he saw one.
Later, Milo thought. First, I need to avoid being expelled. Expulsion would be
inconvenient and annoying, but it wasn't as if Milo had any vested interest in
obtaining a magic education in the wrong sort of magic. Mostly, he just wanted
to stay in Hogwarts because Lucius, for some reason, wanted him out.
"Ah, here we are," said Fudge as they approached Snape's classroom in the
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dungeons. "You know, when I attended this school, this was where they used to
lock us when we misbehaved. Ah, the joys of youth."
Without even being prompted, Macnair and Bode each opened one of the double
doors, allowing Fudge to enter. Milo was still unsure if the man's bumbling
nature was an act or not.
Milo and Hermione followed, with Fudge's underlings behind them.
Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, and a small group of men Milo didn't recognize
were waiting in the classroom for them. Something about the way the group of men
stood, and the fact that they were all dressed the same, made Milo think they
were some form of wizard police or military. What was the word for that? They
had a word for that Milo thought, trying to remember. It was in one of the
books he'd read with Scholar's Touch.
Sitting in the middle of the classroom was a small, pewter cauldron. Next to it
were the ingredients, such as they were, for Snape's test potion. Snape looked
excited, McGonagall worried, and Dumbledore as enigmatic as always.
"In accordance with Section Thirty-Two-Point-One-Four-One-Alpha of the 1634
Statute on Inexplicable Phenomena of a Magical Nature," Umbridge declared in an
authoritative voice, reading from a scroll she'd been carrying somewhere on her
person, "which states, in the words of the Great Wizard Peabody, 'When something
really, really, really wyrd happens, and hear ye me I do mean REALLY wyrd, and
lo, it hath never happened before, and neither sir nor gentle lady knoweth what
to do, let the goddamned Department of Mysteries handle it, y'hear? And
forsooth, maketh sure there are at least a half-dozen Aurors around, if ye know
what be good for ye,' the first preliminary inquiry to determine the nature of
one entity known as 'Milo Amastacia-Liadon,' of a species yet to be determined,
is to be convened, under the supervision of one Broderick Bode of the Department
of Mysteries and in the presence of six fully-qualified Aurors of the Department
of Magical Law Enforcement. Also in attendance are Hogwarts Professors Albus
Dumbledore, Minerva McGonagall, and Severus Snape, Dolores Umbridge, Senior
Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge, Minister for Magic,
Walden McNair of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical
Creatures, Mafilda Hopkirk from the Improper Use of Magic Office, and... Ms.
Hermione Granger. The objective of the inquiry is 1) to determine the species of
the individual in question, 2) if he turns out to be human, whether he is a
wizard, squib, or... otherwise, 3) if not a wizard, determine how he got past
the magical wards protecting this castle and the village known as Hogsmeade,
4)if not human, to turn the inquiries over to the Department for the Regulation
and Control of Magical Creatures for study and, if deemed appropriate,
execution. Let the inquisition commence."
Umbridge put away her parchment and stepped back.
Milo blinked. Well, he thought, this is unexpected. Bode, the strange, somber
man from the Department of Mysteries moved forwards slightly.
"Now, Milo, I want you to understand that these are just preliminary inquiries.
There are a lot of unanswered questions, and we're just going to try and see if
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they're worth looking into is all. That business about the execution is just a
formality," he said in a dry voice. Milo had just started sighing with relief
when he continued. "Unless, of course, you aren't human, and are some form of
hitherto-undiscovered magical creature, in which case you'll be staked,
beheaded, buried upside-down in sanctified concrete for a year and a day, then
dug up, salted, shot with thirteen silver bullets, cremated, and Disapparated
into the sun. In my experience, that'll kill anything short of a Dementor."
Milo laughed weakly.
"So," Milo said nervously. "How, exactly, are we going to go about this?"
"The first test is easy enough. Your Potions Master was good enough to brew us
up some Veritaserum. You just have to drink a drop."
"And what will that do, exactly?" Milo asked.
"It'll make it impossible for you to tell a lie," Bode said.
"Okay, hit me," Milo said, and reached out. Snape, with a grin, produced a tiny
vial of clear potion from his robes. For one brief, extremely embarrassing
moment, Milo wished he were a Bard in order to cast Glibness. Snape poured out a
single, tiny drop of Veritaserum into a glass of water, stirred it slowly, and
passed it to Milo.
"Er," Milo asked. "How long will this last for? It's not permanent, is it?"
"Unfortunately," Snape said, "It will wear off in a few hours."
"Okay then," Milo said, and gulped the potion down in one go. To his surprise,
it didn't really taste like anything, and he didn't even feel different.
Dangerous, he thought. A colourless, tasteless potion that makes one tell the
truth.
"Now," said Bode. "Are you a human?"
"Seriously?" Milo asked. "That's your test? Yes, I'm a human."
"What town or city are you from?"
"Myra (cityoflight!cityofMagic!)"
"And in which country is Myra situated?"
"The Azel Empire."
"And on which continent is this... Azel Empire located?"
"The Azel continent."
"Milo, are you, in fact, from another world?"
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"Yes," Milo said simply. Feeling he had to elaborate, he continued rapidly, the
words almost spilling over themselves in an effort to be said. "A few months
ago, I was summoned, without warning, to a manor near the village I later
learned was Hogsmeade by a group of Death Eaters"
"Oh, surely we're not believing this nonsense?" interrupted Fudge rudely.
"I must remind you," Dumbledore said calmly, "that he is under the effects of
Veritaserum."
"Then he must be deluded. His wild tales are proof of thatsurely you can see
that, Albus."
"We should wait for Bode to finish," Dumbledore said. "And then make a
judgement."
"Very well. Carry on, then."
"Milo, I'll be as direct as I can here," Bode said. "Are you a Muggle?"
"No."
"Are you a Squib?"
"No."
"Are your parents wizards?"
"I don't know."
"Are you an orphan?"
"I don't know."
"Are you a wizard?"
"Hells yes I am," Milo said fiercely. "And anyone who says otherwise has another
thing coming."
There was a low murmur from the Aurors present.
"Well, there you have it," Dumbledore said. "From his own mouth and under
Veritaserum. I don't think this breach of my student's privacy has to go any
further, do you?"
"He could be Confunded," Fudge said stubbornly. "In fact, I'd bet my hat that he
is."
"If you were going to come to that conclusion in any case," Dumbledore said with
a slight edge to his voice, "then, pray tell me, why bother questioning him at
all?"
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"The Board of Governors insisted, Dumbledore. It was out of my hands."
"I wonder how many of the Governors are under the impressionmistaken, I'm
surethat their families would be put in danger if they didn't insist?"
Dumbledore asked.
"Albus!" Fudge gasped, sounding scandalized. "What are you suggesting?"
"Nothing," he said. "I was just thinking out loud. Don't mind me."
"As I am led to believe," Bode said. "Your Potions Master has developed a test
which he believes can prove conclusively whether or not you do, in fact, possess
any magic. Professor?"
Snape stood up from his desk. He looked... almost happy. Snape happy terrified
Milo far more than Snape wrathful.
"Most conventional tests of magic," Snape said in a lecturing tone, "could be
fooled if the subject is merely extremely incompetent or weak. Even the simplest
of charms can be fumbled by the mentally deficient. That Milo is the worst
student of magic to enter this school in a century at least is not in question.
What remains to be seen is whether he possesses any magic at all."
Magic isn't a thing you just have, Milo thought angrily. It's something you have
to work at. Something you earn. You have to take magic for yourself; it isn't
simply handed to you.
"To that end, I have developed a test," Snape continued. "A potion that requires
no thought, concentration, knowledge, or effort in the slightest. I will measure
out the exact proportions of the ingredients, which will be checked by Albus
Dumbledore and any others who wish to. All the boy has to do is pour them into
the cauldron and stir once, counterclockwise. If the potion is created, he is a
wizard. If not... it will explode, and I will leave him in the more than capable
hands of the Ministry to deal with as you see fit." Snape's expression harboured
no doubt about what he thought should be done with 'the boy.'
"Er, excuse me," Milo said. He could feel everyone's eyes on him. "Does anyone
have the time?"
There was a brief silence. Eventually, Fudge fished a gold pocketwatch out from
under his cloak.
"Half past eleven," Fudge said. "So could we hurry this up? Some of us have to
be up early tomorrow."
This has to have been deliberate, Milo thought. Someone knows I have limited
spells per daythey might even know that I routinely burn my remaining spell
slots on Scholar's Touch before bedand scheduled this accordingly. Why else
would the Minister for Magic himself consent to an inquisition at this hour?
Surely he has other things to be doing.
"I think it's been established that I'm rubbish at Potions," Milo said
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nervously. He had to kill time until he could prepare spells. "Would anyone mind
if I did a quick read-through of my Potions textbook to make sure I did this
right?"
"But you just have to stir it!" Fudge said exasperatedly.
"Better safe than sorry," Milo said. "If I mess up the stir, the whole
experiment is void and I get buried in concrete. I might need the extra help.
After all, 'help will always be given at Hogwarts'"
"To those who ask for it," Dumbledore finished his motto softly. "Very well,"
he said to the assembled government types, "I think the request is reasonable
enough." Dumbledore said it without any particular weight to it, but somehow it
was very clear that, even if he wasn't technically in charge here, his word on
the matter was final.
"So I'll just run off and grab my text"
"I don't think so," Bode said firmly. "If you are some sort of magical creature
with powers unknown, I don't think we should let you out of our sight. Professor
Snape, do you have a copy of whatever your first year textbook is on hand?"
"Accio Magical Drafts and Potions," Snape said, and, with a flick of his wand, a
textbook flew out of a nearby bookshelf and into his hand. Convenient, Milo
thought. And a lot less expensive than Drawmij's Instant Summons, that's for
sure.
Without a word, the Potions Master passed Milo the heavy, and more importantly,
large textbook. If there's one thing about wizards (and Wizards), it's that they
never use standardized sheets of A4.
Milo made a big show of opening up the book and reading it studiously. Very
studiously.
Twenty-eight eyes bored into Milo's head as he, eventually, turned a page and
continued reading at a snail's pace.
"Oh, surely this isn't necessary," Fudge said impatiently. "Just go and stir the
ruddy pot, boy!"
"How far from the rim?" Milo asked. "How fast? With what length of spoon? No,
I'm sorry Minister, but my life is on the line here. If I'm going to stir it,
I'm going to stir it right. I'll just be a minute."
Milo turned another page.
Minutes rolled by. Fudge glanced at his watch every few seconds, and began
tapping his foot in irritation. Eventually...
"It's after midnight!" Fudge muttered. "Must we play along with this charade?"
"Oh, it's not so bad," McGonagall said. "I can't remember the last time I've
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seen someone his ageexcept for you, Miss Granger, of coursestudying so
diligently."
"What if he's delaying until the Veritaserum wears off?" Fudge asked.
"A simple enough question to answer," said Dumbledore. "Milo, if you would be so
kind as to answer, are you studying with the intention of delaying until the
Veritaserum wears off?"
"No, sir," Milo said truthfully, and had to stifle a laugh. That is not why I'm
delaying.
"Well, there you have it," said Dumbledore. Fudge grumbled quietly to himself.
Milo slowly reached into his Belt of Hidden Pouches and recovered his most
precious possession: his spellbook. Slowly, very slowly, he lifted the thick
(but small in terms of height and width) tome and placed it such that it was
hidden by Magical Drafts and Potions.
Milo grinned as he began preparing spells. Good thing I was bedridden all day,
he thought. Gave me my required eight hours of 'rest.'
Spell preparation is a bit of an odd quirk of the Wizard class. It involved
carefully poring over every intricate detail of the magic and memorizing it, but
also, at the same time, casting the vast majority of the spell. Ninety-five
percent of the casting was done during preparation so that only the very final
stage had to be done on the fly. The result was that every Wizard went about
their day holding, depending on their level, potentially dozens of unimaginably
complicated spells all at the point of being almost finished. Each spell was
like a sentence that just didn't quite. Was it any wonder that so many powerful
Wizards went mad?
"Not like I have anything better to do," Fudge muttered. "Just a country to run,
that's all. Don't mind me."
It takes a Wizard exactly one hour to prepare all of their spells, regardless of
how many there are. However, a very infrequently used rule allows them to
prepare a fraction of their daily allotment of spells in the same fraction of
time, to a minimum of fifteen minutes.
Milo could prepare at most seventeen spells per day, so in fifteen minutes he
could prepare one-quarter of that (four spells). He chose Prestidigitation,
Tenser's Floating Disk, Mage Hand, and Invisibility.
He quickly stashed his spellbook back into his belt and stood up.
"Okay," he said. "Let's do this thing. But if we're doing it, we're doing it
right. I'm a Wizard. I shouldn't have to prove that to youbut seeing as how
you're forcing me, I want to make sure there are absolutely no doubts after the
fact. And for that, I demand your largest cauldron."
Page 155
Chapter 13: Roleplaying
Author's Notes: The reviews I got this week really got to me. I'd hoped, but I'd
never really believed that something I wrote would be read around the world (I
just found out from Fanfiction that some of you live in places as far away from
me as Hong Kong, Jamaica, and South Africa) and actually enjoyed. Reading your
thoughts on what Milo's plan for escape would be was some of the most fun I've
had, ever. Coming up with his actual plan required me and a team of three highly
trained, well-equipped, professional, fully qualified geeks to stay up until the
birds outside started singing. The result is one that I'm particularly proud of,
and tops most of my zany D&D schemes by a wide margin.
Anyways. I'd just like to give a huge thank you to you folks around the world
for making a dream of mine come true.
P.S. Could someone with a recent print (i.e., bought it up to a few years ago
but not when it was new) of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire PM me? It's
important.
P.P.S. From here on out, a double-length bar-o-thingy denotes the end of the
author's notes and the start of the story.
ooooooo
"The nerve!"
"Who does he think he is?"
"He's in no position to make demands!"
The reaction to Milo's request for a larger cauldron was... varied.
"It's clearly a ploy," Snape sneered. "He hopes to dilute the potion so that it
won't explode in his face when he fails. It won't work."
"If he fails, Severus," Dumbledore said.
"No," Milo said. "Scale up the other ingredients proportionally."
There was a meaningful silence.
"Tell me, boy," Snape said finally. "Do you have a death wish? Do you have any
idea how large an explo"
"Oh, come now," Fudge interrupted. "We're in the presence of six of the
Department of Magical Law Enforcement's finest, not to mention the Supreme
Mugwump himself. I think we have more than enough magical muscle between us to
keep anyone from being harmed. Let's just get him a bigger cauldron and be done
Page 156

with it."
"But"
"Do remember to whom it is that you are speaking, Severus."
"As you command," Snape said between clenched teeth. "Accio Cauldron Size
Twelve." A large, heavy cauldron ponderously hovered from a store room, knocking
over a variety of expensive-looking magical doodads in the process. It (slowly)
came to a stop near the centre of the room. Milo gave it a quick look. Only
two-and-a-half feet in diameter, he thought. Needs to be larger.
"No," Milo said. "Bigger."
"That is the largest potions cauldron I keep in the dungeon," Snape protested
angrily. "Unless you plan on cooking a Troll"
"Of course!" Dumbledore said. "We can use one of the cooking pots from the
kitchens. The House Elves make enough oatmeal for hundreds of students on
Tuesday mornings in just one pot, except for this one occasion in 1941 when
there was a shortage of rolled oats and"
McGonagall coughed pointedly.
"and where was I? Oh yes."
Before Snape could say something biting and sarcastic, Dumbledore clapped his
hands twice. A small... creature... appeared in front of him with a loud crack.
It was, if you rounded up, entirely composed of large, floppy ear.
What the Hells? Milo wondered. Is that... some sort of goblinoid?
"Floppy, would you be so good as to fetch the kitchen's largest cooking pot?"
Dumbledore asked kindly.
"Yes, master," Floppy responded in a high, squeaky voice. "Right away, master."
With another crack, Floppy was gone.
There was only one explanation for the creature that Milo could think of,
impossible as it seemed. He'd heard that the kitchens were staffed by Elves,
which was insane, but this world seemed to turn everything he knew on its head.
So... so that little goblin-like creature he saw...
Milo broke into a cold sweat.
...must be a slave of the elves. Of all of the hundreds of subspecies of elf,
only one kept slaves.
Hogwarts has dark elves in the kitchen, he thought with growing horror. And they
have teleporting goblins in their employ. No wonder there was poison in that
tart, there's enough Chaotic and Evil in the kitchen for it to qualify as a
suburb of the Abyss.
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After a few seconds, there were six simultaneous pops. A half-dozen of the
goblinoid slaves appeared carrying a mammoth pot over their heads.
The goblins are apparently super-strong, Milo noted with steadily rising panic.
And can ignore Hogwarts' anti-teleportation Abjurations. Oh, gods.
"Yeah," Milo said, tearing his eyes away from the humanoids. "That'll do."
As Snape began gathering buckets of glycerol and Flobberworm mucous from his
storeroom (Milo wondered briefly how he managed to fit everything in there,
before realizing the closet was probably of Holding), Milo mentally ran over his
plan. I can prevent the liquids from mixing using Tenser's Floating Disk, he
thought. Tenser's Floating Disk was a moderately useful spell that created an
invisible shallow bowl that hovers three feet off the ground. He could dump the
mucous into the water, cast the spell above the liquid, then pour in the
glycerol. The tricky thing is that it's three feet widebut this cauldron is
more than sufficient. Then it's a simple matter of using Prestidigitation to
create bubbles. Milo had never actually tried it, but he was pretty sure that
creating a few bubbles in a pot fell within Prestidigitation's ability to exert
about a pound of force.
"There," Snape said in growing frustration. "You have, here, precisely the
correct amount of mucous and glycerol." He gestured to a pair of buckets. "Can
we get this over with, now?"
"You said the Headmaster was to check them," Milo reminded him.
Dumbledore thoroughly, and, to the Minister for Magic's irritation, slowly
examined the contents of both buckets.
"Everything seems to be in order," Dumbledore said. "Would anyone else like to
take a look?"
Hermione coughed awkwardly.
"I would, Headmasterif it's all right, of course," she said. Milo blinked. Was
this Hermione doubting her professors? What was the world coming to?
Hermione, still wrapped in bandages, painfully limped over to the cooking pot in
the centre of the room. She examined it until she saw, engraved near the bottom
in tiny letters, "CAST IRON 112 GALLONS." Then she hobbled over to the side of
the room and picked up a set of heavy brass scales. Then, with the Minister for
Magic, two of her teachers, her headmaster, four senior Ministry officials, and
six Aurors watching her intently, she limped over to Snape's desk. Carefully
avoiding eye contact with the Potions Master, she placed the heavy measuring
scale on the desk with a thud.
Hermione's right arm was in a splint, and Milo could tell that she quickly
realized there was no way she'd be able to lift either of the two buckets. She
drew her wand.
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Six Aurors drew wands simultaneously and aimed steadily at her. Hermione looked
like she would die in a panic.
"Peace," Dumbledore said. "She was just, I presume, about to perform a simple
Hovering Charm?"
"Featherweight Charm, actually," Hermione said matter-of-factly, although she
still looked nervous. "And then a Hovering Charm. You see, the two charms
combined are over one-fifth more efficient than a single, more powerful"
"Nobody asked for a lecture, Miss Granger," Snape snapped.
"Five points for Gryffindor," McGonagall said simultaneously. Upon hearing
Snape's remark, she added, "That's really rather clever, Miss Granger."
The Aurors put away their wands, looking somewhat sheepish at having drawn on a
twelve year-old girl. The two Heads of Houses glared at each other as. Hermione
carefully weighed both buckets (dispelling the Featherweight Charm in the
process, of course). Then she nodded at Milo.
"Thanks," he muttered as she walked past him to her earlier position.
"Any time," she said simply. She looked a bit stunned.
"Oh, before you begin," said Bode, "you should probably be informed that a
number of anti-cheating enchantments have been placed in this classroom."
Milo paused.
"Explain," he asked.
"Obviously I can't go into too much detail, but suffice to say that we'll be
well aware of any magical illusions that you create, or if you try to add
anything to the potion without our knowledge."
Milo frowned. This shouldn't cause any problems, he thought. Invisibility is the
only Illusion I'll be casting, and it isn't really an Illusion that I create,
exactly. That sounds like more of a Figment or Glamer.
Hopefully.
Well, I'd best begin. No time like the present. Pushing his fear and nervousness
to the side, Milo tried to emulate the tone of a performing Bard he once heard
back in Myra (cityoflight!cityofmagic!).
"All right. Professors, Minister, Officials, Government Goons, just sit back;
you're about to see magic done," Milo announced confidently, rolling up his
sleeves.
"What does he think he is, a stage magician?" Fudge murmured quietly.
"This reminds me of a time I was in a tavern back in my world," Milo said as he
Page 159

unceremoniously dumped the bucket of thick, slimy Flobberworm mucous into the
cauldron. "It was a nice little place, as far as roadside taverns go. Their soup
was terrible. It went by the name of Tenser's Floating Disko," he said, casting
the spell. Fortunately enough, the story was true. A retired Wizard built the
entire establishment hovering two feet off the ground using a copious number of
Immovable Rods; The Disko was famed far and wide for its resilience to
earthquakes, its Dancing Lights, and its terrible soup.
"Isn't he only eleven?" Fudge asked in astonishment. "What tavern would"
"But that, of course, was in another world," Milo said, pouring the glycerol
into the cauldron. Snape looked as if he were about to duck beneath his desk for
cover. Unbeknownst to the audience, the thick liquid hit, instead of the water
in the cauldron, Milo's magical disk. "A world which now seems to exist only in
the hazy reaches of my memory, and every day seems to be slipping deeper into
the murky depths of Invisibility." In the blink of an eye, the glycerol (which,
if anyone had looked, would have appeared to be floating in the air inside the
darkness of the cauldron) vanished.
Milo grabbed his ladle and dipped it into the cauldron in the area between the
force disk and the edge. The pot was so huge that, in order to stir it, he'd
have to actually walk around the perimeter of the cast iron monstrosity. When he
was about three-quarters of the way around, he began to speak again.
"And this, as you will soon see, was no mere sleight of hand, legerdemain, or,"
he completed the circuit, "Prestidigitation."
The pot bubbled.
Milo almost couldn't believe that he might actually be getting away with it.
He'd made the damned pot bubble, nothing had exploded, and Lucius's plot was
foiled. He felt lightheaded. He wanted to go back to the Gryffindor Common Room
and celebr
"Curious," Dumbledore said, raising his half-moon spectacles.
Snape smiled triumphantly.
"In this manner I will, of course, defer to the Potions Master," Dumbledore
said, "but... tell me, Severus, does this potion usually bubble?"
Milo froze.
"No doubt, it's bubbling because of how vigorously young Milo wanted his potion
to succeed," Snape suggested with amusement. Milo looked around the room in a
panic as Snape moved excitedly towards the cauldron to investigate.
It's not supposed to bubble? He'd miscalculated Snape. The devious Potions
Master had anticipated Milo's ability to fake the effects of the potion and
hadn't told him truthfully what they should, in fact, be.
Milo looked pleadingly at Dumbledore, and then at McGonagall, but neither
Page 160

offered him any help. He was sure to be ousted as a fake wizard and expelled
from Hogwarts, falling right into Lucius's (presumably) evil plot (whatever it
happened to be). Tap. Tap. Tap. Snape's polished leather loafers made loud,
echoing sounds as the greasy Potions Master approached. In blind desperation,
Milo looked into the faces of the Minister, his cronies, and even the mooks. I
need help, he thought frantically. I need someone who knows whatoh, right.
Catching Hermione's eye, she mouthed it turns purple. Milo had heard that, in
the distant past, only Rogues were able to read lips. He was blissfully happy
that this was no longer the case.
Fortunately, Prestidigitation (which, in Milo's firm opinion, was the best spell
ever invented) could last up to an hourand it could recolour liquids. The spell
wasn't an Illusion (it actually changed the object's colour), so it (hopefully)
wouldn't trigger their wards. By the time Snape got to the cauldron, the liquid
inside was a pale shade of violet. Milo could feel his heart pounding against
his chest as he waited for the anti-cheating alarms to sound. He nearly fainted
with relief when nothing happened, although the "potion" still had to pass one
more step... Milo just hoped he'd got the shade of purple right.
Snape peered inside suspiciously, and then did something Milo hadn't
anticipated.
To Milo's horror, Snape picked up the ladle. As he moved to dip it into the pot
(presumably to investigate the potion), Milo ran through his options. Tenser's
Floating Disk was not a dismissible spell; at Milo's level, it would be blocking
the majority of the cauldron's opening for another five hours. Snape was sure to
discover the invisible force disk, and Milo would be expelled. Then (presumably)
killed horribly by Death Eaters.
"Sorry, what was that Hermione?" Milo asked loudly, improvising wildly. "You
require help tying your shoes because your arm was grievously injured while
Snape was supposed to be protecting you from a Troll? Why, of course I can help
you!" Technically, no lies. Milo bolted towards Hermione as fast as he could
run.
Milo collapsed at Hermione's feet and started fumbling with her laces.
"What on Earth are you" she asked, surprised.
"Tenser's Floating Disk disappears if you move out of the spell's range," Milo
explained quietly. "I need to get another ten feet away from the cauldron before
Snape realizes what's going on." Hermione's back was to the door; ten feet would
put Milo well into the hallway.
"Your rat," Hermione whispered. "Ask him to run out, and chase him."
"Good plan. Mordy?"
"Don't need to tell me twice, boss," Milo's familiar squeaked. Mordy leapt out
of Milo's belt and made a mad dash for the exit.
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Snape dipped the ladle into the cauldron, and Milo heard a quiet thud as the
steel instrument hit his force bowl.
Snape blinked.
"What" he began.
"Mordenkainen!" Milo shouted, and pursued. Shortly after he reached the exit, he
heard a muffled splash from the cauldron as the Tenser's Floating Disk winked
out of existence.
"Here, now!" Fudge said. "We can't just have him leave."
There was a brief pause.
"Everyone duck for cover!" someone shouted. Evidentially, they had taken Milo's
flight to mean that the potion was about to explode.
"Accio Milo," one of the Aurors muttered, and Milo felt a strange tug in the
region of his stomach. The next thing he knew, he was being pulled to the centre
of the room by invisible hands. It was a weird feeling.
"You'll have to look for your rat later, Milo," Bode said in his dry monotone.
"We can't allow you to leave until the inquiries are closed."
"Right, of course," Milo said. Careful not to lie, he reminded himself. "I'm
only eleven; eleven year olds are notoriously flighty."
"Don't need to tell me twice," McGonagall muttered.
Snape, who had evidently been distracted by Milo's unexpected flight, began to
test the potion again. As soon as his ladle entered the cauldron, Milo had a
burst of mad inspiration.
"I think I've more than proved that I'm a legitimate Mage, Hand me that quill,
Headmaster, would you?"
"Sorry, what was that?" Fudge asked. Milo concentrated on the Mage Hand spell (a
handy (sorry), weak telekinesis), and, targeting the water in the cauldron (Mage
Hand can't target held objects, such as Snape's ladle) Milo created a small
current which forced the ladle to move in a very tiny counterclockwise circle.
Snape frowned. He wasn't sure if it was a trick of his eye, but he could have
sworn that the purple potion became slightly darker as he stared at it.
"I was just asking the Headmaster to hand me the quill on his desk," Milo said.
"But on second thought, I realize, I don't need it. How's the potion check out,
Professor Snape?"
"I think your student might be a bit funny," Fudge said not quite quietly enough
to Dumbledore. "A tad... off in the head, if you catch my meaning."
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"I am quite sorry," Dumbledore said apologetically. "I didn't bring my fishing
rod! I had no idea we were going out to catch meanings on this fine evening.
Why, once, when I was a boy, my brother and I caught a meaning that weighed"
McGonagall coughed again.
"but perhaps that story is best told later," Dumbledore said.
Fudge sighed and muttered something under his breath. Milo wasn't sure, but he
thought he caught the words 'surrounded by nutters' somewhere in there.
Snape carefully extracted a small amount of the potion with his ladle and stared
at it in astonishment.
"Well?" the Minister pressed. "What's the verdict, Severus?"
Snape stared at the contents of the cauldron, his face livid with barely
contained rage.
"You." He said, turning to Milo. His voice was like a Polar Ray with a confirmed
critical. "If I ever find out how you did this, boy, you'll rue the day your
mother first laid eyes on your fath"
"Severus," Dumbledore said reproachfully. Snape reined himself in with obvious
effort.
"I have the... unequaled pleasure" Snape said through clenched teeth, but Milo
was pretty sure he meant the other thing, "to say that this potion is, against
all odds and reason... adequate."
McGonagall looked relieved, Bode appeared somewhat disappointed (Milo was
willing to bet Bode hoped he'd discovered some form of new and exotic humanoid
monster in Milo), while Dumbledore (and only Dumbledore) started clapping.
Hermione stood in the corner beaming at him. Best of all, he earned 800 XP. That
alone will cover months of item crafting, Milo thought.
"Ruddy waste of time, this was," Fudge complained to Umbridge as the Ministry
officials filed out. "Wonder why he insisted it be done so late at nightand on
a weekend, too?"
"Minerva," Dumbledore asked politely, "would you please take Miss Granger back
to the hospital wing?"
"Of course, Albus," McGonagall said politely, and moved to the injured girl.
Snape was pacing back and forth by the cauldron, fuming.
"Milo," Dumbledore said, "I understand that it's late, and you have class
tomorrow, butwould you mind coming to my office for a brief chat?"
"Of course, Headmaster," Milo said politely. There were no rules anywhere for
sleep deprivation, ergo, Milo could stay up as late as he wanted.
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The eccentric Headmaster led Milo through the labyrinthine castle, up the stairs
(skipping, unconsciously, the trick step in the second-floor staircase) and, at
last, to a random dead end.
"Uh," Milo said. "Your office isn't just out here in the hall, is it?"
"Sherbet Lemon," Dumbledore said.
"That's... not really an answer, you know."
"Ah, young Milo, in that, you are wrong."
A nearby gargoyle statue slowly began to move.
"Holycrapgargoyle!" Milo shrieked. "Glitterdust!" He held out his hand, but
nothing happened. Right, he thought, embarrassed. I'm completely out of spells.
Until he had a chance to prepare new spells, Milo was basically a Commoner with
a high Will save and a pet rat.
The gargoyle, however, proved to be merely a statue, which rose as it turned,
revealing a spiral staircase.
"Sweet entrance," Milo said appreciatively.
"No pun intended?" Dumbledore asked wryly.
"What?"
"Well, you said sweet entrance, and the password, of course, is my favourite
form of sweet..."
Milo stared at him blankly.
The Headmaster just sighed and began climbing the formidable staircase.
Dumbledore's office was awesome. There was simply no other word to describe it.
Wondrous Items of all sorts decorated every flat surface that Milo could see;
many of which were ticking at inconsistent, conflicting speedsno doubt, Milo
assumed, to confuse his enemies. Up on the walls were more animated portraits
looking down at them, and, in the corner, lay the sorting hat.
"Please, sit down," Dumbledore said. "Can I get you anything? Cocoa? Tea?"
"That first one," Milo requested. "I have no idea what it is."
Dumbledore waved his wand lazily, and a large mug of hot cocoa appeared in front
of Milo. They have a spell for that? Milo wondered. Just for conjuring steaming
hot mugs of cocoa?
"You're probably wondering why I've invited you here," Dumbledore said. Unless,
of course, it's a spell that summons arbitrary hot drinks.
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"Actually, I was wondering what spell you used to conjure the drinks," Milo
said, then frowned. Wait, why on the Prime Material did I just say that?
"A nonverbal variant of the Summoning Charm," Dumbledore shrugged. "Created by
Helga Hufflepuff herself to summon food from the kitchens of Hogwarts. It only
works within the grounds."
I must still be under the effects of the Veritaserum, Milo realized. Was that
why Dumbledore had summoned him up here now?
"Now you're probably wondering why I've invited you here?" Dumbledore asked,
somewhat hopefully.
"No, I was wondering if you'd invited me here now because I'm still compelled to
speak only the truth," Milo said. Aarrrgh!
Dumbledore chuckled.
"As much as I feel the world could do with a little more honesty, no, that's not
the reason. I was travelling the past few daysWizengamot business, you
understandand my sleep schedule is quite turned upside-down. This was the first
in quite some time that I've had a spare moment, in fact."
"I see," Milo said. "Okay, I'll bite. Now I'm wondering why you've invited me
here."
"I wanted to know how you did it," Dumbledore said.
"Did what?" Milo asked.
"Faked the potion well enough to fool Snape. That's no easy task, you know."
Milo froze. He nearly dropped his cocoa (which, by the way, was delicious).
"Oh, don't worry," Dumbledore said. "I'm not the Ministry. You're not in
trouble."
Milo only then realized how vulnerable he was. No spells. No familiar. No-one
who knew where he was. No escape plan. No ability to lie.
"I used magic to keep the mucous from mixing with the glycerol," Milo confessed,
"then ended the spell right as Snape tested the potion. I then used some very
weak telekinesis to cause Snape to accidentally stir the liquid, thus completing
the final step in creating the potion."
"You mean to say that Snape created that potion?" Dumbledore asked, amazed. Then
he burst out laughing, and continued to do so until there were tears in his
eyes. "I haven't laughed so hard in days," he admitted. "And don't worry, your
secret's safe with me."
"Yeah, I guess it is pretty funny," Milo conceded. "And thanks."
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"Don't mention it. Not since the days of Emeric the Evil were Headmasters
involved in the business of having their students executed. But that wasn't the
only reason I asked you here."
"Oh?"
"You fought a Troll on Hallowe'en," Dumbledore said, "instead of doing the
sensible thing and letting trained, fully-qualified adult witches and wizards
handle it. Why?"
"It came at me," Milo said.
"You could have run for it," Dumbledore countered.
"It had me cornered."
"You could have jumped out the window," Dumbledore pressed. "You have, after
all, a spell for that exact purpose."
Milo frowned. He could have easily escaped the Troll with Feather Fall, now that
he thought about it.
"The thought never occurred to me," Milo answered honestly.
"Why not?" Dumbledore asked. "For nearly anyone else in the world, it would be
the only thought that occurred to them."
"It's not what I do," Milo said. "Running away from monsters, that is."
Dumbledore's eyes twinkled.
"But, have you ever asked yourself, why not?"
"I... no. No, I haven't," Milo paused. "But only because I haven't had to. I'm
an adventurer. Fighting monsters is what I do."
"Because you're an adventurer? So you do it... for the sense of adventure?"
"No, that's not it at all. It's... it's hard to explain." How do you explain to
someone something that's so obvious? Adventurers fight monsters. That's just how
it is. You'd have as much luck trying to explain to someone why two and two made
four.
"You're a smart boy. Try."
"I'm a PC. An adventurer. A hero. When there's a monster, or an evil
necromancer, or a murderer, or whatever, it's my job to take him out."
"But in this case, in Hogwarts, there are others who could fight that Troll, do
that job, at least as well as you could."
"It... it doesn't matter. I was there. The Troll was there. It happened for a
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reason; I was supposed to fight that Troll."
"You're a bit young to have set so much stock in fate."
"Not fate. Planning by a higher power."
"By God?" Dumbledore asked.
"Hah, no. In my experience, gods spend too much time fighting amongst themselves
and making powerful, yet shockingly unoptimized, magical artifacts and holy
relics to plan people's lives out."
"Then... who?"
"The same entity that makes sure that, eventually, a villain will always be
defeated by a hero. That arranges for Draco and Harry to be the same age, at the
same school. That arranges for the Philosopher's Stone to be hidden at that same
school in their first year. That keeps the background world running when we're
not looking at it."
"That sounds like fate to me," Dumbledore said. "Except maybe for that last
one."
Milo simply shrugged.
"So, you believe it is your fate to fight monsters?" Dumbledore pressed.
"I... I don't think I'm being clear," Milo said. "I fight monsters. I'm an
adventurer. A hero. It's a fact of life. There's no why to it, it's just... how
my life goes."
"Is it to protect innocent lives?" Dumbledore asked.
"Not... really. But when it happens, that's a perk, I suppose."
"To right great imbalances in the universe?"
"No. Are there great imbalances I wasn't aware of?"
"Not to my knowledge. Is it for revenge?"
"No. I don't have anything I feel all that... bitter about."
"For the thrill, then?"
"I don't do anything for the thrill of it."
"For glory and respect?"
"No, without Leadership, glory's about as useful as Skill Focus (Craft
(Basketweaving))."
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"And you don't see yourself as a leader, then?"
"A planner, maybe, but... a leader? One who stands on a crate and gives
inspiring speeches to a bunch of low-level Commoners and Warriors? No, I'll
leave that to someone else. What's with all the questions, Headmaster?"
Dumbledore sighed heavily.
"I've known witches and wizardsand more than a few Muggles, for that matterwho
set forth to battle evil without any clear motivation for doing so. They... tend
to fit into one of two categories. Either they discover the reason within
themselves later, and go on to do great things, or, more often... they fall."
"They die? Because I'd have to disagree, Professor; Neutral adventurers tend to
be much more pragmatic and level-headed and overall far less likely to die some
a stupid sacrifice or last stand than Good ones."
"Sometimes they do," Dumbledore admitted soberly. "But more often, they find
themselves becoming what they once fought."
"What, they go Evil? I don't think I'm in any danger of that. It's just not...
in character." Milo sighed. "I'm not... I'm not really equipped to discuss
philosophy, Headmaster."
"And why is that?"
"I... I fight monsters," he said firmly. "I kick down doors. I find treasure. I
gain Experience. I spend an inordinate amount of time in taverns. I operate best
in groups of four. I solve mysteries. I use magic. I don't... the discussion of
why very rarely comes up. And even then... if it did, the reason for it would
suddenly appear in my head. Poof. Like it had always been there, the same as if
you asked me what my parents' names were. It's like a part of me, the part that
makes those decisions and created the history and the hopes and dreams... it's
gone. I'm just the collection of stats and spells with a race and alignment. I
don't know how to explain it; to my knowledge this has never happened to anyone
before. It's like... like I'm a character in a play, and the player was left
behind when I was brought here."
"Maybe," said Dumbledore, "it's time you started to think for yourself? To be
more than a simple mask?"
"Are you suggesting..."
"If you're a character," Dumbledore shrugged, "I don't see any reason why you
can't be your own player."
Milo stared at the Headmaster, completely dumbstruck.
"And now, I believe, it is time for us both to go to bed. You seem to be quite
recovered, but would you do me one more favour and spend the night in the
hospital wing? You'll see why tomorrow," Dumbledore said.
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"Sure," Milo shrugged. He was used to sleeping in the wilderness and in ancient
crypts, anyways. While a step-and-a-half down from the four-poster beds in
Gryffindor tower, the hospital cots were a great deal more comfortable than a
bedrollnot, when it came to it, that Milo much cared.
"Goodnight, Milo."
"'Night, Professor."
Milo was already halfway back to the hospital wing when he realized that, when
Dumbledore asked him how he faked the potion, it meant he actually believed that
Milo was a different sort of Wizard.
What does he know that I don't? Or rather... what does he know that I know that
I don't know he knows?
And why does Lucius want me expelled?
And who really killed the acromantula? And why was it missing a fang?
The lack of injuries on the nonetheless dead spider implied one thing...
Death Effect.
The Killing Curse.
Chapter 14: Talking is a Free Action
Author's Notes: To my knowledge, Rowling doesn't ever say exactly how large a
gold galleon is, but the Harry Potter Wiki said that the ones used in the movies
were the same size as an American Silver Eagle (57.2g if it were gold). Gold
pieces are 1/50th of a pound (9.071g) each, so some number crunching gave me an
exchange rate of 6.30854106 gp per galleon, assuming both have equivalent gold
purities.
P.S: the short break, oo, denotes a flash between simultaneous events in one
location and another rather than a full scene break. You'll see what I mean.
ooooooo
Snape was decidedly more unpleasant towards Milo (and Gryffindor as a whole) in
Potions on Monday, presumably because of Milo's near-escape from Snape's test
over the weekend.
"You're holding your knife upside-down," Snape sneered at Milo as he sat
chopping Knarl tail. "Fifteen points from Gryffindor."
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Milo looked down at the knife. He was no expert on weapons (he left that to
Fighters and other use-impaired character classes), but the knife's blade was
sort of triangular and, by any account, perfectly symmetrical. Personally, he
didn't much care, at least now Harry was suffering proportionally less abuse. As
soon as Snape's back was turned, Milo siphoned off several potion ingredients
into his Belt of Hidden Pouches. He figured he could cut his research and
development costs somewhat using pilfered supplies.
It was with an intense feeling of relief that they left the dungeon.
"Oh," Milo remembered suddenly. "I should go see McGonagall, she asked me to see
her on Friday but I got mauled by a 'Troll' instead."
"You... you put off seeing McGonagall just because of a Troll?" Ron asked, his
face pale with horror.
"Run!" Hermione said, panicked.
Fortunately, their stern Head of House did not seem to mind as much as Ron and
Hermione had feared she would that Milo had missed their appointment for
frivolous reasons.
"So, erm, you wanted to talk to me about Transfigurations?" Milo asked her
nervously.
"Well, I have to admit I was worried that Professor Snape might have been right
about you," McGonagall said apologetically, "but, fortunately, you're just as
much a wizard as he ismeaning, of course, that there's absolutely no reason
that you can't succeed in Transfiguration."
Milo swallowed nervously.
"So, I believe the best thing for you would be to receive some extra help. With
this in mind, I've requested that Professor Snape allow you to serve some of
your further detentions with me twice a week so I can give you remedial
lessons."
"Th-that doesn't sound so bad," Milo lied. Remedial Transfiguration? He would
certainly forget to tell this to Hermione. "Thank you, Professor."
"Come to the Transfigurations classroom promptly
and Thursday," she said seriously, "and I'll eat
improvement." McGonagall glanced at the clock on
leaving if you don't want to be late for History
at seven o'clock every Tuesday

my hat if we don't see some
her wall. "Well, you'd best be
of Magic."
As Milo walked to Binns' classroom, he decided fervently that the first spell he
was going to research would be one that turned his matchstick into a pin. The
only problem was that he couldn't think of any spells he'd ever heard of at his
level that could even come close to doing that.
The reason for Dumbledore's odd request that Milo sleep in the hospital wing
became immediately apparent upon his return to the Gryffindor Common Room Monday
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afternoon.
"All hail the conquering Troll slayers!" Fred cried as Milo, Hermione, Harry,
and Ron climbed through the portal after their last class.
"No part of that sentence is accurate," Milo tried to say, but nobody heard him
over the sudden tumultuous roar. It seemed the entire Gryffindor house had
turned out to congratulate them for... not quite defeating a 'Troll'. Fred and
George had procured food (read: cakes and sweets) and drinks (read: butterbeer)
from somewhere.
"Harry and Ron insisted we wait for you two to get out of the hospital wing
before celebrating," said George. "Insisted you two did the real work."
"Dumbledore tipped us off that you'd be out today," said Fred.
Well, Milo thought, that solves the Mystery of Dumbledore Asking Me to Wait a
Day. If only the Mystery of Who Killed the Acromantula were so simple.
Someone had drawn a surprisingly good (if somewhat over-dramatic) scene of
Hermione casting the Gust Jinx on the Troll on a banner hanging from the wall.
They'd even bewitched it to move, complete with massive explosion as a grand
finale. Hermione turned slightly pink; Milo didn't think she was used to being
the centre of attention.
"'Course, the Hufflepuffs are all likely permanently scarred," Fred said.
"Yeah, having a Troll get blasted through your bedroom is likely to do that,"
said his twin.
"Putting a tree in their common room likely didn't help much, also."
"That said, even they're willing to admit it was pretty awesome."
"Sprout was furiousbut only until she got a good look at the tree, mind."
While the twins were talking, Hermione and Milo were lifted up by a crowd of
NPCs and passed around.
This is... unusual, Milo thought. He was more used to being presented with bags
of gold or magic items as a reward for defeating a monster, but... well, having
the Gryffindors throw a party for his party wasn't entirely unpleasant. He could
definitely get used to this.
"They're teaching 'The Hermione' in magical self-defence courses around
Britain," said Fred. "Some handsome devil leaked it to the Daily Prophet."
"Why, thank you," said George.
"But it was Harry's idea," Hermione protested, but nobody paid her any mind. The
Boy-Who-Lived, it appeared, was more than happy to step out of the limelight for
once.
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"And to think," Lavender said to Parvati, "I always thought she was just an
insufferable know-it-all!"
When the party finally wrapped up (well after a reasonable hour) and the
Gryffindors trudged off to bed, Milo realized that he hadn't been so happy in
ages.
oooo
The entirety of Gryffindor house, and to a lesser extent the Hogwarts student
body as a whole, became increasingly excited as the first Quidditch match of the
season loomed. Milo was surprised to find that, against all narrative
convention, the tournament was to be opened with Gryffindor playing Slytherin on
Friday.
"It's just wrong," Milo said to Harry after the black-haired boy returned,
covered in mud, from last-minute practice on Tuesday. "You can't play Slytherin
on your first match."
"Don't need to tell me twice," Harry said nervously. He'd seen their team
captain a few days prior. Flint (Slytherin's team captain), Harry thought, could
have been a distant cousin or nephew of the Hallowe'en Troll.
"You should be fighting them last," Milo pressed. "After a series of ever more
difficult games that proportionally match your Quidditch skills. This just
doesn't jive."
"Wouldn't that be something," Harry muttered tiredly. He flopped lazily onto one
of the Common Room's overstuffed armchairs. Between Gryffindor's communal
detentions, his homework (Snape seemed to be assigning the whole class extra
work solely to keep Harry occupied before the match) and Wood's frantic
Quidditch practice sessions, he'd hardly had any time to relax since his release
from the hospital wing. Milo, as usual, had his nose buried in his spellbook,
proving about as indefatigable as Hermione when it came to studyingalthough the
similarities broke down shortly after that. While Hermione was practically
obsessed with her homework, she was scandalized by how little Milo cared about
his school-related studies when, on Wednesday, Milo turned in his assignment for
Defence Against the Dark Arts (eighteen inches of parchment on Vampires), which
was revealed to be a page full of weird numbers and data, seemingly filled in at
random.
"So, about this match tomorrow" Milo began.
"Don't mention it," said Harry. "Please."
"Oh, okay," Milo said, sounding somewhat hurt. "I was just going to say that I
think I can keep you from getting grievously injured by Bludgers. No big deal,
though."
Harry paused. There was a short, but noticeable, glint in his eye.
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"Really, now?" he asked.
"Mage Armour," Milo muttered. "There. You're surrounded by an invisible force
field."
"You're just putting me on, aren't you," said Harry suspiciously.
"No, it's true. Watch this," Milo said, and threw a nearby mug at Harry.
"Ow!" Harry said, as the ceramic cup hit him in the chest. "That really hurt!"
(in the background, ignored by everyone, was a quiet "Hey! That was my mug!"
from Neville).
"Uh," said Milo. "Look, nobody can predict rolling a 20, okay? Happens to the
best of us. Let me try again." Milo picked up a Sickle (the silver coin, not the
Simple Weapon).
"No!" Harry said, raising his arms to cover his head. "I'll just... I'll just
trust you on this one, okay? I'm protected by an invisible force field that will
help against speeding Bludgers but can't stop small ceramic cocoa mugs. I'm
going to bed."
Harry started climbing the staircase to the tower that held their dorm room.
"Oh, wait," Milo said suddenly, "I'd been meaning to ask you something."
"Sure, what's up?" Harry asked sleepily.
"Well, you've got all these piles and piles of gold, right?"
"Look," said Harry seriously. "I didn't ask for them, right? I can't help being
rich"
"No, it's not that at all. The thing is, well, I need your help."
Harry frowned, all trace of exhaustion gone.
"Sure. What can I do?"
"Well," said Milo, feeling somewhat awkward about asking a friend for money,
"you've probably noticed that I tend to use the same spells a lot."
"Uh, yeah, I guess."
"That's because where I come from, Wizards mostly learn spells from other
Wizards. But there aren't any of those here," ("Hey!" said Neville) "so I have
to develop all of my spells myself."
"But I'm rubbish with spells," Harry said. "You should ask Hermione for help."
"I don't, er, need your, um, expertise, exactly. You see, I get two free spells
per level, but to get any others I need weeks of research and access to
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expensive materials."
"Oh," said Harry. "So you need money."
"...Yeah. But it's for a good causeyou know, fighting Evil and stuff."
"Sure, how much?"
"And I know of numerous ways in which I can turn 3rd-level spells into a way to
make us phenomenal amounts of gold"
"No, look, really, it's okay."
"so I'll be able to pay you back when I get some free time, probably over the
holidays."
"I don't mind, it's not like I'm using it for anything."
"Oh. You mean, you'll really share the loot?"
"'Course, we're friends. Although I sort of object to calling my parents' money
loot"
"Swag, then."
Harry sighed, but decided to ignore it.
"How much do you need?"
"You're not going to like it."
"Just tell me."
Milo told him. Harry didn't like it.
"A thousand galleons?" Harry spluttered.
"No, a thousand gold pieces. Galleons are quite a lot wider and thicker than
your standard gp," Milo explained. "There's closer to six and a third gold
pieces per galleon."
"So..." Harry said blankly.
"158 galleons, 12 sickles, and 12 knuts. Per week, that is."
Harry choked.
"Half that much again every day and I can make magic items, too."
"You know what? I don't even want to know," said Harry. Milo's hopes deflated.
It looked like he'd be stuck here without any spells or magic items after all.
"I'll write to Gringotts," Harry said, however. "I dunno exactly what the
Page 174

procedure is for transporting great heaps of gold halfway across Britain, but
I'm sure the goblins will think of something."
Milo grinned.
"Thank you. I mean it. We're talking direct money-to-power translation, here.
I'll pay you back in a few levels."
Milo climbed into his four-poster bed feeling like he was on top of the world.
oooo
"We have to kill Milo," Draco announced to Crabbe and Goyle Tuesday morning.
"Yeah boss, kill him!" said Crabbe.
"Sure boss, uh..." faltered Goyle.
"Try murder," Malfoy suggested wearily, "or dispatch."
"Sure boss, murder him!" said Goyle, who had never used the word dispatch before
and was frightened to try.
oo
"We have to kill Malfoy," Milo announced to his party Tuesday morning.
"Hear, hear!" Ron voiced his agreement. "S'what I've been saying for ages."
"Wait," said Harry slowly. "When you say kill..."
"What'd he do this time?" Hermione asked with a yawn.
oo
"Thus summer, he broke into my father's summer home," said Malfoy imperiously,
"and made off with the prototype Nimbus Two Thousand and One that Father had. It
can't have been a random act of burglary because it was all done up like a
regular Two Thousandhe'd have to have known it was there. I mean, how unlikely
would it be that he just so happened to grab the one test Nimbus Two Thousand
and One in all of England? There is only one possible conclusion," Malfoy paused
dramatically.
oo
"This Hallowe'en," Milo said theatrically, "he boasted about the Cuddly Cannons
defeating the Wigtown Whatevers at that big game thing" (adventurers are
notoriously bad about getting long names right) "admitting he was behind it.
Now, I thought, 'what could a Quidditch match possibly have anything to do with
anything?' when it hit me: the Nimbus Two Thousand. I grabbed one off a Death
Eater once, and Harry got one in the mail, and thus it is on our list and
therefore of relevance to the plot. The Cannons were all riding Nimbuses donated
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by Lucius Malfoy, who has connections to the Nimbus corporation. There is only
one possible conclusion," Milo paused dramatically.
oo
"Milo is working for Firebolt."
oo
"Malfoy is working for the Dark Lord."
oo
"What's Firebolt?" Crabbe asked, his forehead wrinkled in a gruesome imitation
of human thought.
Malfoy sighed.
"A wreck of a broomstick manufacturer; everything they make is a total disaster.
Remember? The guys who made the brooms the Wanderers were testing?"
Crabbe stared at Malfoy blankly.
"You're hopeless, Goyle," Malfoy muttered to Crabbe.
"Yeah, you're hopeless, Goyle," Goyle said to Crabbe.
"Yeah, I'm helpless, Crabbe," Crabbe said to Goyle.
"Anyways. The guys working for my father at Nimbus are the best in the world.
The Two Thousand is only a few months old but it's already a hopeless antique
compared to what they've got planned for the next one. Firebolt would kill to
get their hands on it and learn its secrets. We can't let that happen."
oo
"Seems a bit of a stretch, don't it?" Ron asked.
With a showy gesture, a massive chart appeared in the air behind Milo (in
actuality, it was a Silent Image that Milo had cast several minutes prior and
had been concentrating on it the whole time while his partymembers woke up. Yes,
it would have been easier to just cast it then (or simply used a chart) but he
felt this was more impressive).
There was a brief pause.
"Blimey," Ron said, though Milo had yet to figure out, exactly, what that word
meant.
"What are we looking at?" Harry asked. Milo's hovering chart had a variety of
names and events (such as Lucius Malfoy, Snape, the Stone, You-Know-Who,
Poisoning and the Troll) written neatly, connected by lines and arrows of
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various colours.
"This," Milo explained, "is
ascending level: Draco, who
house, Snape; Snape, who is
an ex-Death Eater and loyal
the plot. On the right are the villains in order of

is Lucius' son and is working with his head of
secretly the minion of Lucius Malfoy; Lucius who is
minion of You-Know-Who."
"Er," Hermione said cautiously. "What, exactly, do you mean by level?"

"Uh," Milo faltered. "Power. Importance. You know, the order in which we'll face
them. Further left are the suspicious camps of unsorted villainy: the elves and
their goblin servants, the Death Eaters, the Cuddly Cannons, and Fudge"
Ron and Harry were silent. Hermione simply sighed, shaking her head and
muttering quietly to herself.
oo
"So... what's Milo doing at Hogwarts, then?" Goyle asked. Malfoy shuddered
inwardly at the amount of effort that sentence must have cost him.
"Isn't it obvious? Milo's here to secretly befriend Potter" (Malfoy said the
last word with a contemptuous sneer) "who just so happened to get a Nimbus Two
Thousand in the mail shortly after arriving here."
Crabbe and Goyle both blankly blinked back in unison.
"It's the prototype!" Malfoy shrieked at them. "Someone recently handed a
perfectly ordinary-looking Two Thousand over to the DMLE in September and then
days later Potter gets one in the mail and, with it, stunning new flying talents
despite never having ridden a broomstick before. They've switched them! What
else could explain Potter's little stunt with the Remembrall?"
"Maybe he's just really good at flying?" Crabbe suggested.
"Yeah boss, maybe he's just, despite his young age, so unbelievably talented
at"
"Shut up!" Malfoy commanded. "And then he just so happens to be allowed onto the
Quidditch team despite being too young? It's all a conspiracy! McGonagall or
someone somehow managed to get Milo's stolen broom from him and gave it to
Potter so Gryffindor would have a chance at the cup. Then she went out and
bought a NimbusI checked, they have it on record at Diagon Alleyand turned
that in to the Ministry hoping nobody would notice."
oo
"So, let's go through this chronologically. I was attacked in the Forbidden
Forest by an Acromantula under highly suspicious circumstances, and the evidence
suggests that someone iced the thing with a Killing Cursehighly advanced dark
magic. The only people nearby were Quirrell, Hagrid, and Harry. As Hagrid can't
do magic and we can obviously rule out Harry, that points to Quirrell" (Milo
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traced a blue line from Quirrell to Acromantula on his chart).
"That can't be your only reason for ruling out Hagrid," Harry said, offended.
"but that's no reason to believe it wasn't Snape, hiding somewhere in the
forest," (Milo traced a line to Snape) "which kicks things up the ladder to
Lucius, as, thanks to my furry friend, we now know is Snape's secret master, and
eventually Lord Voldewhatsit.
"Next," Milo continued over Hermione's objections, "someone tried to poison my
breakfast and missed. This poisoning was facilitated by the elves in the kitchen
staff; nobody else could have got close to the food" (Milo pointed at their name
on the chart, "under instructions from Draco, Snape, or Lucius during Draco's
Quidditch distraction.)
"But I thought you said" Ron said, but was cut off.
"While it is true that I did confront Draco about this and decided it wasn't
him, my view changed when I found out that his father, Lucius, was having covert
meetings with Snape in the Forbidden Forest. Lucius ordered Snape to have me
expelled, presumably so Lucius can kill me while I'm no longer protected by the
wards and Dumbledore. 'Maybe,' I realized, 'it's time we stopped ignoring Draco
as a legitimate threat.' I'd betno, in fact, I'm certain of the fact that
Draco's up to something devious, and likely highly dangerous, as we speak."
oo
"So, I wrote Father and asked him to ensure that there was a Cannons victory on
Hallowe'enhe, of course, did so without question or hesitationto make Firebolt
look bad and make Milo crack. And Merlin did it ever work!" Draco said
exuberantly. "The nutter tried to end things for himself by the tried-and-true
suicide by Troll method. Shame Snape was there to save him; really, I'd have
thought better of him."
Draco paused to catch his breath.
"So," he said with a hint of finality, "we need to act, fast, before he can
recover. Milo's had far too long with Potter to study the prototype for my
liking. We need to stop that now. The Friday Quidditch match with Gryffindor is
the perfect opportunity."
oo
"And then," Milo continued, "someone released a Troll on Hallowe'en. While this
would point pretty clearly to Quirrell, who seems to be a bit of an expert on
Trolls, it just doesn't fit. Why would Quirrell release one right after teaching
us all how to defend ourselves against Trolls? And besides," he added, "Snape's
behaviour was more than suspicious. As soon as he heard about the Troll, he
rushed, not to the second floor, where the Troll was supposed to be, but to the
third floor, where we suspect they're hiding the Philosopher's Stone."
Even Hermione frowned at that.
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"That is a little odd," she said at last. "You don't think... you don't think
Professor Snape is trying to get the Stone?"
"A bit slow on the uptake, are we?" Milo asked. Hermione turned a bit pink.
"Snape used the Troll as a distraction to get to the Stone and, likely, to kill
me. He nearly succeeded on both counts."
Milo traced a line from the Troll to Snape to the Stone.
"Snape's backup plan, however, was already in the works. He'd devised a potion
to oust me as a different type of wizard and have me expelled from Hogwarts
which is when I met Fudge, your Minister for Magic. At first, I couldn't tell if
he was pawn or chessmaster, but eventually it became clear. He really wanted me
expelled, which means he's either got an agenda of his own, or he's working with
Lucius. Now, he's not on Harry's list, meaning he was introduced too late to be
a new, independent party. That means he was working on behalf of Luciusbut,
fortunately, the whole Ministry's probably not in on it, or there would be all
sorts of signs: wrongful imprisonment of sympathetic characters, horrific beings
of death and fear in their employ, mysterious rooms in their basement full of
gateways to evil dimensions, disagreements with Dumbledore, that kind of thing.
Also, probably spikes on the Ministry roofhey, Ron, your dad works there; has
he ever mentioned spikes on the Ministry roof?"
"Nope," Ron said. "He says the desk corners are pretty pointy, mind."
"Hmmm. I don't think that's quite enough. So I'm putting them down for blatant
corruption and incompetence rather than outright Evilness. Incidentally, this is
probably why obviously Evil wizards like Snape and, frankly, the parents of the
entire Slytherin house are so rarely raided by Aurors. Which brings me back to
Snape: he is clearly trying to get the Stone for Lucius, who will present it to
You-Know-Who in return for a position of power in the new world order. But his
well-laid plans were foiled by you three and Quirrell. So," Milo paused to catch
his breath, "we need to act, fast, before he can recover. The Friday Quidditch
match with Slytherin is the perfect opportunity."
oo
"I've got it all planned out," Malfoy said confidently. "I'll ask Father to
anonymously donate a team's set of Nimbus Two Thousands to Slytherin, but
they'll all have the names filed off and we'll leak to the Daily Prophet that
the Slytherin team is testing a new Firebolt design."
"But," said Crabbe, "I thought you just said they'd be Nimbus Two"
"Yes, yes, but they're in disguise. So it'll be a big thing, because everyone
wants to see Firebolt's answer to the Two Thousand, so the Prophet and Which
Broomstick and all of them will have people at the game to see how well it does.
And here," Malfoy said modestly, "is where it gets really clever. Milo will have
no choice but to try and rig the game so Gryffindor loses, or else his secret
master, Firebolt, will look bad."
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Goyle frowned.
"But, I thought he was friends with"
"But, I thought we want Firebolt to look"
"Oh, he cares about as much about Potter as I care about you two oafs!" Malfoy
said angrily. "And once we can tell Milo's rigged the game and it's a
shoo-inor, should I say,slither-in for Slytherin, then we'll have some of our
players lose control of their brooms, crash, and blame it all on Firebolt.
Slytherin wins the match, Potter never forgives his friend so Milo can't examine
the prototype anymore, and Firebolt will be ruined."
Crabbe and Goyle were silent, staring in awe up at their boss.
oo
"I've got it all planned out," Milo said confidently. "I'll break into Snape's
office on Friday right before the game and steal some Veritaserum. While Harry
is dazzling the school with his flying prowess, Hermione, Ron and I will sneak
some into Draco's water. Then we kidnap him, tie him to a tree in the Forbidden
Forest and beat him savagely until he tells us everything. We can bury his body
where the Acromantulas will find him, then go back and watch the rest of the
match."
Harry spat out the water he was drinking.
"We could be sent to prison for that," he exclaimed.
"Or worse," Hermione said, her face pale. "Expelled."
"Might be worth it, though," Ron said with a dreamy expression on his face.
"Fine, fine," Milo said. "Veritaserum is totally tastelessrather like that
Umbridge woman, actually. Malfoy will never know he's been drugged, and we can
just ask him in the hall what his evil scheme is and he'll spill the beans
without ever knowing why. We can deal with Malfoy later when it's more
convenient."
"Let me get this straight," said Ron. "You are going to break into Snape's
office."
"Yeah."
"Do we know any other Snapes?" Ron asked.
"Not to my knowledge."
"So... you're going to break into Professor Snape's office."
"Yeah."
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Ron stared at him with a mix of fear and respect.
"You're mad, mate."
"There's no other choice," Milo insisted. "It's time we go on the offensive; we
can't just keep waiting here for the next 'Troll' or giant spider or whatever. I
mean, what's next, dragons?"
"Don't be ridiculous," said Hermione sharply. "Nobody would dare try and bring a
dragon into Hogwarts, not while Dumbledore's here."
"Yeah, Dumbledore'd go nuts," Ron agreed.
"So," Milo pressed, "are we all in?"
"Yeah," said Ron. "Anything to get one over Malfoy."
"I don't see that there's much I can do," said Harry, "seeing as how I'll be
playing Quidditch. But... yeah, I'm in."
Everyone turned to look at Hermione, who remained silent, looking troubled.
"We did have a deal," Ron said. "Remember? Milo found proof that Snape's evil,
though I think his treatment of Harry should have made that clear enough."
"Oh, fine," she eventually snapped. "But only because you lot are hopeless
without me."
oo
Snape lay back in his worn leather office chair, thinking in silence. He
couldn't imagine how the Headmaster managed to get anything done surrounded by
those accursed ticking silver machines.
Quirinus Quirrell was trying to get the Stone. That much was obvious. The
nervous Professor's sudden change in personality was highly suspicious, but the
Headmaster refused to listen to Snape's warnings. Dumbledore, Snape decided,
could be far too trusting for his own good. Snape would have to take matters
into his own hands.
But... what of the boy? What's Milo's role in all of this? If Snape had thought
Quirrell seemed attached to the boy earlier, Hallowe'en had confirmed that.
Quirrell had tried to get Milo out of detention with Snape...
Snape frowned.
That wasn't all he'd been trying to do. Milo had been helping the Defence
Professor with the Troll, so...
Snape blinked.
Milo was helping Quirrell steal the Stone. That must be why Malfoy wanted him
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thrown out of Hogwarts, realized Snape.
So. Lucius knows about the Stone.
Snape ran his hands through his greasy hair. He had a fine line to walk: he had
to protect Potter without anyone realizing it, protect the Stone, help Lucius
have Milo expelled to maintain his cover with the Death Eaters, and, now, also
keep Lucius from getting his hands on the Stonewithout Lucius realizing he was
trying to do so. It was only a matter of time before Lucius commanded him to
steal Flamel's Stone.
Snape's next move, obviously, was to discover everything he could about
Quirrell. For whom was he working? What, exactly, was his relationship with
Milo? What really happened to him over the summer?
Unfortunately, it wasn't as if Snape could just ask him these questionsand if
Quirrell was ready to play the game at this level, he'd be too clever to let
anything slip accidentally. Even dosing him with Veritaserum would be unlikely
to succeed. Snape, for one, always carried the antidote in a small flask on his
person and drank it whenever he began feeling particularly honest (a rare enough
feeling to be immediately suspicious); there was no reason to believe Quirrell
did not do so as well.
Fortunately, Snape had a plan. There were potions other than Veritaserum for
learning what others wanted kept secret. It took a month to brew, but was useful
enough that Snape always kept some on hand.
All I have to do now, he thought to himself, is get the boy alone.
Snape smiled. There was no trace of humour whatsoever in it.
Chapter 15: Quidditch
Author's Notes: To my surprise, my writing is actually ahead of schedule and I'm

already putting the finishing touches on chapter 16. I've found that I write
faster (and better) when I'm under pressure, so tomorrow (Sunday the 11th), I'll
be posting a bonus chapter.
ooooooo
Milo waited for Friday to roll around with ever-increasing anxiety and
anticipation. His time was entirely taken up with classes, spell research (Milo
decided to start researching Benign Transposition, a handy 1st-level spell that
swaps the positions of a pair of willing creatures), and magic item crafting.
The latter was proving increasingly frustrating: one of the oft-forgotten
requirements in creating a magic item was that, during the creation process the
crafter or an assistant has to cast whichever spell the magic item most closely
Page 182

replicates. Normally, this is no problem at allfor a small charge, any item
crafter could hire a high-level Cleric or Wizard to cast the spell for them.
Milo, obviously not having this advantage, was severely limited in his choices
of items to craftand, worse, most of them produced effects he could already
manage much less expensively by just casting a spell.
Despite the severe restrictions, the Milo that entered McGonagall's office on
Tuesday was wearing a pair of sleek midnight-blue gloves with tiny yellow stars
on the knuckles. Twice a day, Milo's new Arcanist's Gloves could add a
significant amount of extra kick (+2 Caster Levels' worth of kick, to be
precise) to his low-level spells.
To McGonagall's increasing frustration, Milo showed no noticeable improvement in
his Transfiguration abilities, even under her expert tutelage.
"You have some sort of learning block," McGonagall had explained. "We just need
to figure out how to work around it. If you can pull off even one successful
Transfiguration, I'm sure you will have no trouble at all with further ones."
She'd decided to try trial-and-error. Since Transfiguration was largely
performed in the mind rather than with the wand, she'd explained, it only
followed that Milo had to try thinking differently, and the easiest way to do
this was to change environmental factors more-or-less at random.
She made Milo try to Transfigure outdoors, indoors, while balanced on one foot,
while blindfolded, while hanging upside-down, while inhaling burning incense,
with his wand in his left hand instead of his right, with his wand held in his
feet, with his wand held in both hands, with her wand, with no wand at all,
while under water, and while floating in the airand every possible combination
of the above.
"Maybe," she said thoughtfully, "if you're blindfolded and slowly turning
counter-clockwise while in the presence of a horned toad and the room is
smelling of lavender"
"Professor," Milo interrupted. "I don't mean to be rude, but... doesn't this
strike you as a bit ridiculous?"
"Of course!" McGonagall said, and for a moment Milo thought she'd agreed with
him. "Laughter! Maybe you'll be able to Transfigure while laughing. Tell me,
Mister Amastacia-Liadon" (Milo rolled his eyes. He hated being called by his
last name) "tell me, how many centaurs does it take to light up a wand?"
Milo sighed.
"I don't know," he said obligingly. "How many?"
"None," McGonagall said with the tone of someone saying something clever, "for
Mars is unusually bright tonight."
oooo
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When the other Gryffindors returned from their communal detention, they found
Milo sitting in the Common Room stitching up his fifth-hand robes.
"Still working on that?" Ron asked, interested. "They already fit better than
mine domind, mine were Charlie's originally."
Hermione stared at the thread Milo was using with interest.
"Is thatis that unicorn hair?" she gasped.
"Yeah, wand-grade." Milo said. "I was going to use silk, but it wasn't expensive
enough."
"Wasn't expensive" Ron said, his face going red. He paused to get control of
himself with obvious effort. "You're just as bad as Malfoy, you are."
"No, no," Milo said, aghast. "It's just that, for my magic, I need to use
magical components that cost a certain amount. And," Milo said with a grin,
"when I'm done, these robes could fit Hagrid."
"How much unicorn hair"
"Magic items resize to fit their wearers," Milo explained patiently. "Everyone
knows that, Ron."
"Thought we weren't going to do that anymore," said Harry.
"Couldn't help myself. Everyone ready for tomorrow?" Milo asked, setting aside
his under-construction Robe of Arcane Might. It would take another twenty days,
but when he was done, Milo would be a force to be reckoned with. Or not to be
reckoned with, Milo could never remember how that saying went.
"Yeah," Harry said.
"'Course," Ron added.
"Wellif you insist," Hermione said, although Milo guessed that her reluctance
wasn't entirely genuine.
"Excellent. Let's begin, then."
oooo
Milo waited until he could hear the thunder from the Quidditch pitch outside to
begin his heist.
"Invisibility," he muttered and withdrew his eleven-foot pole, looking
appraisingly at Snape's office door.
With a deep breath to steady his nerves, he turned the doorknob with Mage Hand
and gave the door a firm push with the wooden pole.
Page 184

Nothing exploded. Milo wiped sweat from his brow. Really, this is what Rogues
are for, he thought sourly. Milo stepped cautiously through the apparently
un-trapped doorway and entered Snape's office. He wanted to spend as little time
in here as possible.
"Spontaneous Search," he cast. Milo located the Veritaserum instantly in Snape's
cupboard. It was in a small cauldron next to one containing a thick, bubbling
orange potion Milo wasn't familiar with.
Milo reached into his belt and grabbed a small ceramic flask, filled it with the
truth potion, and gave it to Mordy, who was also invisible.
"Run this over to Hermione," he whispered. "I'll be right"
Milo started as the office door slammed shut. He hadn't seen anyone enter, but
there was no reason it couldn't have been someone invisible...
"See Invisibility," he cast as quietly as he could, though the spell didn't turn
up anything.
He exhaled. It must have been the wind...
...there couldn't possibly be any wind in the dungeons, could there?
So, maybe I should use Detect Thoughts? While he debated spending another
2nd-level spell slot on what might be nothing, Milo suddenly felt himself being
yanked upwards into the air.
"Gah!" Milo shouted reflexively as he dangled by his ankles.
To Milo's horror, the air near the door seemed to run like wet paint towards the
ground, revealing a very smug-looking Professor Snape, wand brandished like a
sword.
Unfortunately for our hero, the Disillusionment Charm only makes the target
very, very difficult to see by changing their colour to resemble the
backgroundrather like a chameleonrather than being actually invisible. As
such, See Invisibilitywhich only revealed invisible creatures and objects, was
ineffective.
I'm still invisible, Milo reminded himself. Maybe this dangly spell affects a
wide area and he doesn't actually know where I am...
"Finite Incantatem," Snape muttered, but nothing seemed to happen. "Accio
Invisibility Cloak." Milo held his breath. Snape frowned, staring at his wand as
if it must be broken. With a shrug, he cast "Accio Flour."
A heavy burlap sack flew from one of Snape's many supply cupboards and into
Snape's hand.
Milo panicked. Flour was, in addition to closed doors, an infamous bane of
invisible characters everywhereit was much like a Cleric's Glitterdust.
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"Ventus," Snape said with a sneer, and the flour in his hand was blasted around
the classroom.
Milo looked up at himself: he was completely covered in the white powder, which
gave away his position completely. He sighed.
"Look, I" Milo began.
"Stupefy," Snape cast, and with a red flash everything went black.
oooo
Quirrell sat by himself watching the Quidditch match without much enthusiasm.
Despite the crowd, all of the seats nearby him were strangely emptylikely
because of the strong scent of garlic his turban emanated.
"Slytherin in possession again," Lee Thomas announced miserably to the audience.
"Those Firebolts must be something else entirely." Lee sighed audibly. "Oh, and
guess what? They scored. Again. That puts the score at 140-30 for Slytherin,
although, might I remind you that all three of Gryffindor's amazing goals were
made by Angelina Johnson, the lovely and talentedand, might I say, beautiful"
"No, you may not," interrupted McGonagall.
"Sorry Professor. Anyways, oh, Slytherin's got the Quaffle again..."
To Quirrell's great surprise, Milo came and sat down next to him.
"Sh-sh-shouldnt you b-b-be with your friends?" Quirrell stammered.
Milo simply shrugged.
"I-I suppose you c-c-came to t-t-talk about v-v-v-vampires again?"
Milo stared up at him and frowned.
"Yeah," he said. "Remind me again where we left off?"
Quirrell eyed his student suspiciously.
"You w-w-were t-t-telling me how you b-b-believed that
H-H-He-Who-M-M-Must-N-N-Not-B-B-B-Be-N-N-N-Named" (Quirrell resolved to say
"Y-Y-You-Kn-Kn-Know-Who" from there on out, if only to save time) "had
s-s-servants r-r-rounding up v-v-vampires."
Milo stared at him with an unusual expression.
"Did I, now?" he said softly. "And, have you thought at all about it? What do
you think... Professor?"
Quirrell paused. What did he think? The truth of what he believed was something
Page 186

he tried not to think about, lest his master discover how odd he thought it that
becoming a vampire hadn't been his first plan...
"The D-D-Dark L-L-Lord is widely known to b-b-believe strongly in b-b-blood
purity," Quirrell explained. "I d-d-don't b-b-believe he would b-be w-w-willing
to b-b-become a v-vampire."
Milo choked somewhat, but recovered quickly. Something is not right here,
Quirrell thought. I have to press him for information... can he really bring
back the dead?
"M-m-more importantly," Quirrell stammered, "what y-y-you said earlieris it
t-true?"
Milo hesitated for a fraction of a second before speaking.
"Yes, of course."
"Buth-how?"
In the background, ignored by both of them, Slytherin scored again.
Milo paused.
"In the same way that all wonders are achieved," he said. "I think you know
how."
Quirrell frowned.
"N-no, I r-r-really don't."
Milo looked vaguely disappointed.
"Where's Snape?" Milo asked suddenly. "I wonder what he might be up to while the
students are all here, watching the game?"
Quirrell himself had just been wondering the selfsame question.
"Y-you think h-h-he's trying to g-g-get the Stone again?" Quirrell asked.
"Maybe. What are we going to do about it?"
To Quirrell's surprise, a small rat climbed up his leg without warning. Quirrell
reached for his wand to hex it, but noticed the rat was holding a tiny roll of
parchment between its teeth.
Unfurling it, Quirrell read:
Professor Quirrel,
Snape has me locked in his office. He hexed me and fled, I'm almost completely
immobilized. You're the only professor who knows what he's up to. Help!
Page 187

Milo
The writing was messy and hasty, and the ink blotches ran in the wrong
direction, almost as if it had been written upside-down.
"Oh," Quirrell smiled darkly. "I don't think you'll be needing to worry about
Severus Snape for much longer."
Without another word, Quirrell stood up and strode out of the stands, his purple
robes trailing behind him.
"Oh-oh OH!" Lee shouted, "POTTER'S SEEN THE SNITCH! HE'S GOING AFTER IT AND"
Dozens of students nearby saw it happen. His face mottled with rage and
frustration, Milo, to the horror of all watching, drew his wand and, pointing it
at Harry Potter, clearly cast the Hurling Hex. Ignoring the shocked looks of
horror on the bystanders' faces, Milo left the stadium.
oo
Harry was shocked to find that his beloved Nimbus was, suddenly, actively
attempting to throw him off.
"what's going on?" Lee asked in alarm. "Potter seems to be having some
difficulty with his broomstick. We were so close!"
"That's the signal, boys!" Flint, the Slytherin captain, shouted to his players.
Pucey, a Slytherin Chaser, abruptly screamed and went careening off into the
stands.
The Nimbus gave another lurch, and Harry slipped off of it. For a moment he felt
like this was the end, but he miraculously managed to catch hold of the shaft
with his left hand.
Harry risked a glance at the rest of the match. The Slytherin team was in
absolute disarray, flying chaotically and apparently at random. A second Chaser
and a Beater joined Pucey on the ground as they abandoned their apparently
uncontrollable broomsticks. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw a tiny
flicker of gold.
No... he thought. Could it be?
oo
"Oi, Malfoy," Ron said with a sneer. "Think fast!"
Before he finished speaking, Ron chucked a Veritaserum-laced water balloon at
Malfoy's face. That had been Hermione's idea: if all it took was a drop of the
potion, then surely he'd swallow at least that much by accident, right? Not to
mention how much got into his eyes. That rat always delivers, Ron thought to
Page 188

himself. Unlike Scabbers.
"AghwhatWEASLEY!" Malfoy spluttered, water pouring all down his front. The
crowd of students around him were too focussed on the game to pay much attention
to yet another Malfoy vs. Weasley row.
"So, Malfoy, what are you up to?" Ron asked casually.
"Trying to decide what to hex you with!" Malfoy said, then frowned.
"I meant, what's your evil plan?" Ron clarified.
"It's none of your business that I'm trying to get the Slytherin team to stop
pretending their fake Firebolts, which are really Nimbus Two Thousands in
disguise, are going haywire because its only Potter that's been hexed and
they're going to get flattened!" Malfoy clutched his hands over his mouth, as if
to stop it from speaking. He glanced around franticallywhere were Crabbe and
Goyle?
"And why are the Slytherins riding fake Firebolts?" Ron asked, intrigued.
oo
Harry was jostled back to his senses as his Nimbus gave another kick and his
hand slipped about two feet down the shaft towards the end. In addition to
rocking wildly back and forth, the Nimbus was still flying forwards at the speed
it had been when Harry had last had control over it.
The Snitch, if that's what it was, was on the other side of the pitch. Harry
swung his legs sideways, angling the broomstick, still bucking chaotically,
around in a wide arc.
He could see the snitch, buzzing above the stands. Nobody else seemed to notice
it, they were too fixated on the havoc that Harry's and the Slytherin's
broomsticks were wreaking. Harry was just a few yards away from his target when
the broomstick gave a particularly powerful kick and he lost his grip
entirelyliterally and figuratively.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" he screamed, flying through the air in a high arc
towards where the Gryffindors were sitting. His Nimbus, meanwhile, continued
flying over the audience and into the distance like a speeding bullet.
A red-and-gold sea began to part in front of him as Gryffindors fled. Harry saw
a tiny flicker of silver ahead of him and desperately reached forwards. It was
just over a foot away... now just inches...
Harry's gloved hand clasped around something round and heavy when everything
went dark.
The last thing he remembered was Neville's horrified face.
oo
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The door to Snape's office re-opened and Mordy, now visible, scurried through.
Milo was still hanging upside-down, which was making him dizzy and likely gave
him all kinds of circumstance penalties.
Milo glanced up from his furry friend and saw Quirrell's trademark purple robes
and turban.
"Hey," Milo said. "Did you get my note?"
"I-i-indeed," he stammered. "Liberacorpus," he muttered, and Milo slammed into
the ground.
"Well, that was embarrassing," Milo said. "Writing with Mage Hand is a really
weird experience, I'm surprised you could even read that."
"Show m-m-me your w-wand," Quirrell commanded. Milo stared at him blankly for a
moment before remembering he even had one.
"What, this old thing? Sure, it's all yours." Milo pulled his chestnut wand from
his pocket and tossed it to the professor. Quirrell caught it with surprisingly
quick reflexes, and examined it closely.
"A-as your Defence Professor," Quirrell said absently, "I w-w-would advise
against s-s-surrendering your w-wand in the f-future." Milo snorted.
"What am I going to do, poke you with it?" he asked with a laugh, standing up
from the floor. At some point while he was stunned, Snape had cleaned all traces
of flour from the office.
"Priori Incantato," Quirrell said under his breath. If he was surprised when
nothing happened, it didn't register on his face.
Apparently satisfied, Quirrell handed Milo back his stick. Weird, Milo thought.
Wonder what that was all about?
"Erm," Milo said. "I don't suppose we can leave now? Before he comes back?"
Quirrell gave Milo a quick appraising look.
"H-have you ever h-heard of Polyjuice P-Potion?" he asked.
"Uh," Milo said. "Maybe? It was in something I'd read in the Library." He
frowned, and, for once, succeeded on a skill check. "It lets you disguise
yourself as someone else, right?"
"C-correct," Quirrell said. "W-would it s-surprise you that s-someone is
w-walking around right now l-looking like y-you?"
"Well, that can't be good," said Milo, somewhat irritated that they weren't
leaving yet. "I wonder what Snape's up to?"
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"H-he tried to f-find out how I was d-d-defending the Stone," Quirrell said.
"After that, I d-don't know. W-walk with me," Quirrell commanded.
Milo shrugged and followed. Mordy, whose little rat legs couldn't keep up, sat
on his shoulder.
"I n-notice your m-mind jumped straight to the P-Potions Master," Quirrell said.
"W-why?"
"He's working for Lucius Malfoy," said Milo. "Who was a Death Eater, and
therefore working for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named." As Milo filled Quirrell in on
his theory about Draco, Snape, and Lucius, they approached Quirrell's office.
The simple wooden door opened with a wave of Quirrell's hand.
"H-how do you know that L-Lucius is still loyal to the D-Dark L-Lord?" Quirrell
asked. "Hasn't h-he told the w-w-world that he was 'b-bewitched,'" Quirrell said
the last with a sneer, sitting down behind his desk.
"Well, for one, that's obviously a lie. Everything about the Malfoys has evil
written all over it. But also, when I was summoned here, I woke up in the Malfoy
manor surrounded by dark wizards in masks that sound an awful lot like the old
Death Eater getups."
"S-so," Quirrell mused softly. "They're still active, even w-without their
m-master..."
"Oh," Milo added as an afterthought. "While I'm here, want me to protect your
office against vampires?"
"W-what?" Quirrell asked. He seemed totally thrown by the question. "Why?"
"To keep Vampiremort from murdering you in your sleep when he fails to get the
Stone," Milo said. It took effort not to add 'duh.'
"Wh-what exactly c-can you do against v-v-vampires? Y-you're only eleven,"
Quirrell said, taking a sip from a glass of water that he created with a wave of
his wand.
"Ah," Milo countered. "I might be twelve, nowI don't know when my birthday is."
"Q-quite besides the p-point," Quirrell said.
"It's easy, really," Milo said. "I just carve a few holy symbols onto the doors,
windows, vents, and, ideally, every brick of the wall. You've already got the
garlic coveredI don't suppose you can get Holy Water in this universe? Eh,
nevermind, it's suboptimal anyways. 'Course, the vamp can just Dominate you with
a lookyou guys have anything like Protection from Evil?"
"W-what is this 'Protection F-From E-E-Evil?'" Quirrell asked.
"Handy little spell. Makes it hard for Evil creatures to touch youthey can't at
all if they're summonedand makes you totally immune from all forms of mental
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control, whether the originator is Evil or not."
Quirrell dropped his glass, which shattered on the hard stone ground.
"Permanently?" Quirrell asked, his expression carefully neutral.
"Nah, just for a few minutes. Want me to Prestidigitate that?" he asked,
pointing at the shards of glass.
Quirrell shook his head, carefully waved his wand, and the glass shards were
gone. He looked and moved as if every part of him were focussing on the simple
cleaning spell.
"I think," Quirrell said slowly and deliberately, "that it would be best, if we
are to work together, if you explain to me just how your magic works."
Milo shrugged.
"It's simple enough. There are ten levels of spells, from 0th to 9th. There are
thousands of spells out there that wizards have invented (and a few dozen by
Sorcerers), but I can only cast ones that I've written into my spellbook. Every
morning, I can prepare a fixed list of spells from my book, and I can cast
thoseand only thoseat any point that I want. How many spells, and of what
level, is determined by my Wizard levelnot to be confused with spell level. I'm
a level five Wizard," Milo said proudly, "so I can cast up to 3rd-level spells.
At every second Wizard level, I can cast a higher level of spell."
"So, you can increase in level? How?" Again, Quirrell seemed to be spending a
large amount of effort concentrating on his words. Maybe it's a trick to avoid
stuttering? Milo thought.
"There are a few ways, but the main one is combat. Defeating monsters and such
gives me Experience Points, when I have enough of those I go up a level."
"You said you could cast up to 3rd-level spells. Could you give me an example?"
"Sure... Summon Hippogriff."
Milo decided, in hindsight, that summoning the largest possible creature that he
could manage into Quirrell's compact little office may not have been the best
idea.
The Hippogriff, a massive, aggressive Magical Beast that looked like the front
of a giant eagle on the body of a horse, let out a roar that knocked the stunned
Quirrell out of his chair.
"Uh," he said. "Sorry about that." With a deliberately casual wave of his hand,
Milo dismissed the voracious omnivore before it developed a taste for human
flesh.
"So, you gain power directly by being involved in combat? By defeating your
foes?"
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"Yup."
"Does the strength of the foe matter?"
"Oh, yeah. The harder the challenge, the more XP I getassuming, of course, that
I survive."
"Indeed."
"So, about the vampires and Protection from Evil" Milo began.
"It is of no matter. I already told you that I don't..." Quirrell paused. "I
mean, as I was telling your doppelganger, I don't believe the Dark Lord will
become a vampire; he has always believed strongly in blood purity" he said,
smoothly changing the topic.
"That's why the villains always lose," Milo said. "Blinded by their own
prejudices and killing their own minions. If I had minions," Milo said with a
slightly dreamy expression, "I'd treat them right. Well, I mean, I'd work them
like slaves, I wouldn't pay them, and I'd feed them only enough to keep them
from starving to deathit's just efficientbut aside from that, I'd treat them
right. Oh, and if I can find some way to keep them working without needing
sleep, I'd use that, of course, but honestly."
"Do you have any theories," Quirrell said carefully, cutting off Milo's rambling
speech, "as to why Lucius brought you here?"
Milo frowned.
"I'd just sort of assumed it was an accident," he said. "I mean, whatever they
were doing, it didn't look like they expected an eleven year-old to appear on
their dining room table in the middle of it."
"And yet, you yourself admitted that you could, one day, have the power to bring
back their lord."
"I don't follow," Milo confessed.
"You can bring back the dead," Quirrell said. "That makes you, Milo, a prize
greater than any Philosopher's Stone."
Before Milo could respond, there was a brisk rap on the door.
"E-enter," Quirrell said, looking frustrated, his concentration evidently
broken.
The door opened to reveal a very, very angry looking Professor McGonagall.
"You," she said, pointing at Milo. "Come with me." Her tone brooked no dissent.
oooo
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"Blimey," said Fred as Harry was carried out of the stands.
"Just once, we're going to be able to throw a party on a Friday" said George.
"and the star of the show won't be in the hospital wing"
"and on that day, the house-elves will overthrow their masters, and become
lords of the universe."
Chapter 16: Be Good For Goodness' Sake
Author's Notes: Here's your Sunday bonus chapter, as promisedbut wait, there's
more! I don't know what's wrong with me, but I'm on a roll lately. I wrote an
entire chapter yesterday, and it wasn't this one. I'll put the finishing touches
on it today, and tomorrow, you, my faithful readers, get Bonus Chapter 2:
Revenge of the this Time it's Personal Strikes Back. Also, I decided to rename
the Hallowe'en chapters from the rather boring Part 1, 2, 3, and 4 to be
Sidequests, Hallowe'en, Odds of Survival, and The Troll and the Dementor,
respectively.
So: Chapter Seventeen will go up tomorrow, and Chapter Eighteen will go up on
Saturday, as usual. (Who knows, maybe Nineteen will be on Sunday?)
Anyways, on with the story! I hope nobody is deterred by the flood of chapters!
And if you like it, review it!
ooooooo
"Sit," McGonagall commanded. Milo was in the hard leather chair in her office
before she'd finished saying the one-syllable word. "Your behaviour today was
cowardly, treacherous, sickening, and unbecoming of a Hogwarts student, much
less a member of my house. I have half a mind to expel you this very minute.
What do you have to say for yourself?"
"Well," said Milo, "in my defence, he sort of had it coming. I mean, look at
him."
"You will explain to me, right now, clearly and succinctly, how you could
possibly think that such a poor, sweet, innocent boy who has already suffered so
much hadwhat was it you said? Oh yes, how he had it coming. If I find your
explanation is in any way unsatisfactory, you'll be out of here faster than you
can say Mimbulus Mimbletonia."
"He's obviously working for You-Know-Who."
McGonagall sat down heavily in her office chair, stammering and apparently at a
Page 194

complete loss for words.
"Of all the ridiculousimpossiblewhy, he would be the last person to everin
any case, You-Know-Who's long goneI was a friend of his parents, I won't listen
to such unfounded accusations!"
"Oh, so you're in his father's pocket as well?" Milo asked, disappointed. "Seems
like the whole wizarding world is convinced he's such a great guy when he's
really, clearly, obviously evil. It's like you're all blind, I swear!"
"Evil? A tad arrogant, when he was younger, and I suppose he had an unfortunate
and blatant disregard for any rules he found inconvenient, but never evil. There
are places in this countryand right now, I'm debating if you're sitting in one
as we speakwhere statements like that would be responded to with challenges to
duels."
"I always had you figured as being on our side, Professor. I can see that my
trust was misplaced."
"And what, exactly, is your side, then, boy?" McGonagall asked, her face flushed
with anger. Milo was starting to wonder if she hadn't multiclassed into
Barbarian for some mysterious reason.
"The good guys, Professor," Milo said as if it were the most obvious thing in
the world.
"How dare you"
"If you're of a mind to call Draco Malfoy a poor sweet, innocent boy then," Milo
said with a hint of finality, "I think we're through anyways."
McGonagall stared at him as if he had just said the sky was green.
"IyouDraco..." she stopped talking and simply breathed steadily for several
moments, evidently trying to calm down. "Who did you think we were talking
about?"
"Who did you think we were talking about?"
"Harry James Potter," McGonagall said. "The boy you nearly killed today."
"Oh," Milo said. What was it Quirrell mentioned about the Polyjuice potion?
"That."
"Yes. That."
oooo
"There must be a change of plans... my family are still loyal... more than I can
say for some..."
"Y-yes, my l-lord, of c-c-course, my lord, but I have always b-been your most
Page 195

d-devout"
"Interesting, isn't it, that, when asked, all my servants profess to be my most
devout, my most faithful... paradoxical, it seems..."
"W-we've had setbacks, I-I'll admit t-t-to that, my l-lord, b-but"
"Indeed we have had... setbacks. Perhaps I should turn to Lucius instead.. one
of my other most faithful servants..."
"B-but my l-lord, w-we are weakf-forgive me, b-but y-y-you know it to b-be
truew-what is to stop him f-from s-simply killing us and c-c-continuing to rule
in y-your stead?"
"Killing you, you mean... for I am far beyond the reach of even Lucius
Malfoy..."
"Yes, of c-course, my lord, what I m-meant was that you w-would be as I
f-f-found you. S-surely, a s-significant s-s-setback even for one such as"
"Yes, yes, I know what you mean... ought to be more concise... takes ages to say
anything with your st-st-stutter..."
"S-so my l-l-lord, w-what shall we d-d-do? C-continue to t-try for the St-Stone
or for the b-b-boy?"
"I see no reason we cannot do both... for if one fails, and knowing you, one
will fail, we will have the other... simply prudent..."
"B-but he claims he c-c-cannot cast the spell yet."
"But his power grows with violence... provide him with violence, Quirrell,
violence at all levels..."
"A-at all levels, m-my lord?"
"Violence he can overcome, but... violence where he fears for his life... for
the lives of others...
at all times, Quirrell, all times... he must never know safety again... but keep
him alive... yes, always
alive..."
"It w-w-will take t-time m-m-my lord, a-as with the Acr"
"SILENCE. You are never to mention that to me again!"
"I-I'm sorry, my lord, have m-m-mercy... the p-p-p-pain..."
"Mercy?"
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"Y-yes, my lord, please, my lord, I b-b-beg"
"Very well... Am I not merciful, Quirrell? You are granted reprieve from your
sufferings... for the moment..."
"Th-th-thank you, m-my"
"Cease... no time to waste on your incomprehensible stammering... we must plan
carefully..."
"My lord, w-what if"
"I meant 'we' figuratively... I, of course, shall plan carefully... you shall
listen, and you shall act..."
"Of c-course, my lord."
"You are their hero, now, are you not? Saved the mudblood from the monster... we
must use this..."
"H-how, my l-l-lord?"
"This is what you must do..."
oooo
"so you see, it wasn't me at all who cast the hex or whatever it was," Milo
explained reasonably, "but, in fact, Professor Snape, polyjuiced to look exactly
like me."
"And you seriously expect me to believe this load of tripe?" McGonagall snapped.
"Snape's"
"Professor Snape," McGonagall corrected sharply.
"Right, Professor Snape's had it out for Potter since he first set foot in this
castle. Everyone knows it."
"Be that as it may," McGonagall said. Milo was somewhat
didn't contest the point, "the notion that he would use
assaulting one of our students is completely out of the
quite ready to tell me the truth, or would you rather I
front gates immediately?"
astonished that she

Polyjuice to facilitate
question. Now, are you
have you thrown out the
"Truth! Of course. Professor, dose me with Veritaserum and you'll be able to

tell that I'm being completely honest!"
"Regrettably, the use of Veritaserum is strictly controlled by the Ministry,"
McGonagall said, "and is not used in the investigations of school rule
infractions."
Page 197

"Then, doesn't the fact that I was going to volunteer to take it count towards
me?"
"Not if you were already aware of these regulations, Mr. Amastacia-Liadon."
Milo stared at her, fear rising. He couldn't believe he was about to be expelled
for something that happened offstage.
"You can't just expel me without any proof!" he protested.
"I have twenty-six eyewitness reports that say you brazenly used the Hurling Hex
on Mr. Potter in the middle of a Quidditch match in plain sight!"
"Butbut I didn't!" Milo was appalled that that was the best argument he could
think of.
"You will pack your school trunk in your dormitory, where you will remain until
morning when you will be taken to the Ministry to have your wand destroyed"
"My wand!" Milo said with sudden inspiration. "Here, look" Milo drew his wand
from his pocket.
"I don't have time for this foolishness," McGonagall muttered.
"Butlook at it, Professor! I had it on me the whole time, what wand did I
allegedly use to hex Harry? Was it chestnut, thirteen inches, with dragon
heartstring core? No! It can't have been because all wands are unique."
"It only would have been visible for a few seconds," McGonagall said, "nobody
reported what wand you used."
Milo's hopes deflated. That was his last hope. He couldn't believe he was going
to be thrown out of Hogwarts because a crowd of NPCs failed their Spot checks to
see something he wasn't even there for.
"So..." Milo said hesitantly. "What happens now? Where will I go?"
"After the Ministry?" McGonagall said. For an almost imperceptible moment, her
gaze seemed to soften. "After your wand has been destroyed, it's quite up to
you."
"Very well, Professor. I'll head to my dormitory now." Milo walked back to the
familiar sights of the Gryffindor Common Room in a daze.
oooo
"And then I hit him with a water balloon and said 'Hey, Malfoy, think fast!'"
Ron said exuberantly, causing Hermione to snort in a most unladylike fashion.
"How'd everything go with Grabbe and Coyle?"
"Oh, it was no trouble at all. I just walked up to them and said, 'oh no, I'm
just a poor defenceless Muggleborn girl who misplaced her wand, whatever shall I
Page 198

do?'" Hermione said with a wicked grin. "Took them about five seconds to try and
hex me. Anything I did after that was purely self-defence, you understand."
The pair of them were waiting outside Pomfrey's hospital wing for the strict
witch to declare Harry fit for visitors.
Eventually, the heavy doors opened.
"Oh," Pomfrey said wearily. "It's you lot again. Well, come in, come in," she
ushered the pair into the ward.
"Visitors!" Neville said happily, his nose just poking out between thick
bandages. "I never get visitors!"
"Nah, we're here for Harry," said Ron, ignoring a sharp look from Hermione.
"Hey," said Harry. Injuries notwithstanding, he seemed to be in high spirits.
"Did you hear? Or see? I caught it! Looks like I'm not rubbish after all!"
"To tell the truth, I only caught the first bit," Ron admitted, looking
apologetic. "But that's only because our plan worked. Can you believe it? Malfoy
told me everything!"
As he happily told Harry about Malfoy's crackpot scheme involving the Firebolts
and the Nimbuses, Harry burst out laughing, clutching his sides.
"So when they saw me lose control of my broom," he asked when he could finally
breathe, "they thought Milo hexed me?"
"Nutty, isn't it?"
"Where is he, by the way?" Harry asked, looking around.
"Dunno," said Ron. "Good question. Haven't seen him since before the match. You
don't... you don't think Snape caught him, do you?"
"Can't have," Neville said. Harry, Ron, and Hermione turned to him, somewhat
surprised that he'd spoken. "He was at the Quidditch game."
"What, really?" Ron asked. "He could have helped with Malfoy, then."
"Can't have," Neville said, his face (well, the visible parts anyways)
uncharacteristically grim. "He was too busy hexing Harry's broomstick."
"You mean Malfoy was right?" Ron asked, alarmed. "Merlin's pants! That
turncoat!"
"Looks like," Neville said sullenly.
"No," said Harry firmly. "I don't believe it. He was set up."
"I saw it myself! He just stood up, pulled out his wand, and hexed you! Right in
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plain sight!"
There was a brief silence.
"Did you say wand?" Harry asked.
oooo
"Squeak," Milo replied, and the portrait swung open. Stupid password, he thought
to himself. The 'ultra-secure' Common Room can be infiltrated by a Fighter in
heavy armour after a rainy day.
As soon as Milo entered the Common Room, he wished he still had Invisibility
prepared. The sounds of partying cut off immediately when he came into sight,
and everyone simply stared at him silently. Milo walked directly to the dorm,
and the crowd parted slightly around himit seemed that nobody wanted to touch
him. Milo was surprised at how much their shocked disapproval hurt himthey were
only NPCs, after all.
He collapsed onto his four-poster bed, exhausted. He knew he should be thinking
of a plan, some clever scheme, to get out of this, but he just felt too tired.
He'd been defeated, that was all there was to it.
He was going to be expelled. Lucius had won.
oooo
"Professor!" Hermione practically shouted, knocking sharply on the office door.
There was no reply. "She must be out somewhere!" she moaned.
"Maybemaybe she's in the staff room?" Ron suggested, "or the Great Hall?"
"Or she's patrolling the corridors," Hermione said, despair growing. "Or
visiting another teacher's office. Or overseeing detention. Or she's out of the
castle. She could even be"
Hermione gasped.
"What?" Ron asked, alarmed.
"You don't think shecould it be? She wouldn't, would she?"
"One day," Ron said, "you're going to give me a straight answer. And on that
day, I'm going to buy a lottery ticket and win a thousand Galleons."
"She might be"
"And then I'll be selected for Head Boy."
"Ron, listen, she"
Page 200

"And named Minister for Magic."
"Ron"
"Then Snape will apologize for being a
and he'll pull Malfoy in after him. To
ask me over for tea to give them a few
I'll go to bed early in my solid gold,
hair in my floating palace." Abruptly,
interrupting him.
git and stick his head in a cauldron. Oh,

round it off, the Chudley Cannons will
pointers on Quaffle handling. And then
king-sized bed stuffed with unicorn's
Ron realized Hermione had stopped
"Are you quite done?" Hermione asked testily.

"I was going to mention the butterbeer fountains, marble statues, and how it can
travel to Jupiter, but that seems somehow unnecessary now."
"I was going to say, before you so rudely cut me off, that she might already be
at the Ministry!"
Ron stared at her blankly.
"Why would she be at the Ministry?" he asked.
"Because," Hermione explained wearily, "when a student is to be expelled, the
DMLE and the Improper Use of Magic Office in particular have to be informed."
Ron continued to stare at her without comprehension.
"So that they can destroy the student's wand," Hermione said, fighting down the
urge to add 'Duh.'
"Blimey," Ron said. "Who do you think is getting the axe?"
Hermione stared at him with genuine surprise on her face.
"Milo, of course! Honestly, is there anything between those ears of yours?"
Ron paled.
"We have to find McGonagall before that happens!" he said.
"Yes, Ron," Hermione said, her voice commendably, under the circumstances, both
level and patient. "That's why we're here. Knocking on her office door."
Hermione paused for a moment, willing herself not to say it, but even her
doughty willpower could break under sufficient strain. "Duh."
oooo
Neville, who for one reason or another had been living in the hospital wing for
the past two months (when he was lucky, that isthe rest of the time, he was at
St. Mungo's) had a few special concessions from Madam Pomfrey that most
Page 201

short-term patients didn't get. They were little things, like a reading lamp
(Neville always had trouble with Lumos), a few extra pillows, the blanket that
smelled the least of cats, a bedside table with a pair of drawers for keeping
his clothes in, and the cot next to the window.
It was due to this last fact that, on Friday evening, he saw a tall, thin figure
striding confidently up to the Hogwarts gates.
"Hey, Harry," Neville said.
"What's up, Nev?" Harry asked sleepily.
"Well, Ron and Hermione went out to find McGonagall, right?"
"Sure."
"And that was four hours ago, right?"
"Was it?" Harry asked. He must have drifted off at some point, he realized.
"Yeah, it was. So they must not have found her."
"Guess not."
"Well, she's right outside."
"She is?" Harry asked, all trace of drowsiness gone. He looked around for Madam
Pomfrey, but she seemed to be out somewhere. Well, there was nothing else for
it. Agonizingly, he stood up and limped towards the door.
oooo
"Well, we've searched the staff room, the Common Room, every teacher's office,
all known corridors of Hogwarts, Hagrid's Hut, the dungeons, the Great Hall, the
lake, the Quidditch Pitch, the astronomy tower, and most of the empty
classrooms, but there's been no sign of her," Ron moaned in despair. He and
Hermione were standing in the entrance hall trying to decide where to look next.
"Sign of whom?" asked a familiar voice. The pair turned to see Professor
McGonagall standing at the entrance, taking off her coat and looking curious.
"Professor!" Hermione said with relief. "We finally found you!"
"Me?" McGonagall asked in surprise. "Is Peeves acting up again?"
"No," Hermione said at the same time that Ron said "Probably."
"Well, than what can I help you with?"
"It's about Milo," Hermione said. "He's innocent!"
McGonagall's face hardened.
Page 202

"I understand he's your friend, but there were dozens of witnesses. I'm sorry,
but I have no choice but to expel him."
"No, Professor, you don't understand. You see" Hermione froze. She was about to
say, 'you see, he was seen using a wand and Milo's magic doesn't need wands,'
but she realized that that would just get him expelled for a different reason.
She began to realize that maybe, this time, she hadn't thought their plan all
the way through. "He wouldn't do something like that," she finished lamely.
"Yeah," said Ron. "I mean, he's a bit of a nutter, mind, but he's Harry's mate.
He wouldn't hex him like that."
"I'm sorry," McGonagall said. "But without something a bit more than your gut
feelings, the case is open and shut. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a great
deal of paperwork to do. Unless one of you has something concrete?"
"I asked him to," said a voice. Hermione turned in surprise to see Harry,
wrapped in bandages and casts, leaning weakly against a doorway on the upper
level.
"Harry, what" Hermione asked.
"I asked him to pretend to hex me," Harry said. "We found out that Malfoy had
concocted a some nutty plan to rig the Quidditch match and make Firebolt look
bad, and he thought for some reason that Milo would hex me to protect the
reputation of the broomstick company. Can't imagine why. So I asked Milo to
pretend to go along with it, and faked the whole thing. Malfoy thought his plan
had worked, and his team pretended to lose control of their brooms. It was all
faked. Milo never really hexed me."
McGonagall, Ron, and Hermione stared at him, shock evident on their faces.
McGonagall's mouth moved a few times, as if she were about to speak, but
couldn't quite find the words. Harry, Ron, and Hermione stared at her in hopeful
silence. Eventually, she rallied somewhat.
"Of all thenot even Fred and George would haveokay, maybe Fred and
Georgebut... how did you discover this alleged plan?"
"Oh," said Ron, "that was me. He just bragged to me about it, right to my face,
during... er, just before the match. Can't imagine why."
"He told you?" McGonagall said. "But why... I spoke to Milo earlier, he came up
with some preposterous tale about Professor Snape and Polyjuice... why didn't he
just tell me the truth?"
"Because he's only eleven and was scared?" Hermione suggested hopefully.
McGonagall sighed.
"Well, I'll have to owl the Ministry immediately and tell them to cancel the
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hearing... of all the crackpot schemes, this one has to take the cake."
"So..." Hermione said, hope rising on her face like the sun, "so he's cleared?
He won't be expelled?"
"No," McGonagall said, "but this was, nonetheless, an underhanded move unworthy
of our House. And Mister Potter, I thought better of you. Twenty points from
Gryffindor from you and Milo each, and detention every Saturday for the rest of
November. And December. At least. And you two" McGonagall turned to Ron and
Hermione "were you involved in this as well?"
"No, not involved in any way whatsoever, Ma'am." Ron said smoothly, his years of
living in the same house as the twins paying off.
"Us? Involved? Hah. He. Hahaha. Nope," Hermione said nervously. McGonagall eyed
them suspiciously, but instead of giving them detention, just turned and walked
up the stairs to her office, muttering to herself about needing a Firewhiskey.
There were a few blessed seconds of relief for the three friends as they
savoured their triumph. It was interrupted, however, by a fell shriek that could
have raised the dead (in a manner of speaking, it didthe ghost of Nearly
Headless Nick, hovering nearby, was so startled that he (nearly) lost his head).
"What are you doing out of bed, young man?" came the terrible voice of a
wrathful Madam Pomfrey. Harry turned around in terror, while Hermione and Ron
simply fled.
oooo
When word got around that Milo's surprise attack on the Boy-Who-Lived was not,
as had been generally believed, treachery most foul, but rather a component in a
circuitous gambit to sabotage the Slytherin Quidditch team and guarantee a
Gryffindor win, there was much shuffling of feet and making of sheepish glances
in the Gryffindor Common Room.
"So, really, when it comes down to it, we're sorry, mate," said an NPC (Seamus
Finnigan, not that Milo knew or particularly cared).
"Why the sudden reversal of opinion?" Milo asked.
"Well, you see, Hermione came into the Common Room about an hour ago," said
Fred.
"And she stood up on the table, right in the centre of the room"continued
George.
"It was horrible," said another NPC (Dean Thomas). "like a banshee of wrath..."
"And she started speaking, and the walls shook"
"Only, see, nobody saw her cast Sonorus, so it was all her"
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"And she calmly told us about judging people before fully understanding the
situation"
"Oh, yes, definitely calm. Level-headed, she was. The windows shattered of
their own accord"
"And, if she asks, we didn't even hint otherwise"
"And thus, we were enlightened to the errors of our ways," finished George.
"Frankly, I'm surprised you didn't hear it, mate," said Dean. Milo noticed that
they were calling him 'mate' a lot.
"Hermione must have put up some kinda Charm to keep teachers in the halls from
storming in to see what all the screaming was about," Milo shrugged. "She's
careful like that." In truth, he'd heard every word, but wanted to hear them
explain it anyways. It was more fun that way.
"I thought you were innocent the whole time," said Hannah.
"Isn't this the boys' dorm?" asked Dean. Hannah coloured slightly.
"So," Seamus said, somewhat nervously. "Want to come down and have some
butterbeer? There's not much left, but it's really good. How Fred and George get
this stuff, I'll never know."
"And we'll never tell," Fred winked.
"Yeah," said Milo. "I think I'd like that."
The whole room gave a collective sigh of relief.
"So," he said on the way down the stairs into the Common Room, "what's your
excuse going to be next week?"
"Sorry, mate?" asked George.
"For a party. Seems like a weekly tradition 'round here."
"It isn't," said Fred slowly.
"But it should be," said George, whose forehead wrinkled in thought for a
moment. "We'll think of something," he said finally. "Trust us."
"And drink this," Fred said, pushing a heavy tankard of butterbeer into Milo's
hands. Milo sipped it cautiously, and suddenly grinned. The stuff wasn't ale
(the preferred method of hydration for adventurers everywhere), but it was
pretty fantastic. And before you cry, "But he's only eleven! He's far too young
for ale!" you should be advised that there are, in fact, no rules for
intoxication from alcohol anywhere to be found. It can therefore be concluded,
via strict interpretation of the holy Rules-As-Written, that one can drink
gallons of tequila like water.
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"Shouldn't we have waited for Harry to get out of the hospital?" Milo asked
suddenly.
"That's what we thought," said Fred (maybe), "but he gave us permission to
celebrate without him in future events such as this, so long as we save him some
of the provender."
"Speaking of which, hands off the last of the Every Flavoured Beans, you greedy
git!" George said, glaring at Ron.
The Quidditch victory party concluded a little after midnight when a sleepy
McGonagall made them all go to bed.
oooo
Despite Fred and George's promise, the next few weeks were surprisingly
uneventful (not that that prevented them from finding excuses for celebration,
as their "Happy November the 22nd Day!" festivities attested to). Milo's time
was taken up by almost constant detentions (both for McGonagall and Snape, now)
and lessons with McGonagall, but he found enough time in to research Benign
Transposition, Disguise Self, Nerveskitter, and Resist Energy. If Snape had any
reaction to his latest plot to expel Milo, it went unnoticed among his usual
horribleness. Quirrell started a unit on vampires, which sent Hermione into a
panic because it wasn't on the original reading list.
It was on a cold December afternoon when Milo returned to the Common Room to
find a small crowd gathered around the bulletin board.
"What's going on?" Milo asked.
"It's Quirrell," said Lee. Fear gripped Milo's heart. Had Snape finally gotten
the better of the enigmatic Defence Professor?
"What happened to him?"
"Nothin'," said Lee. "Only he's started a Duelling Club."
The bulletin had a large parchment poster pinned to it, reading SUNDAY DUELLING
CLUB SIGN-UP on it, with a number of lines for people to write their names in.
The lines were already all taken, and several people had scrawled their names
haphazardly in the margins.
Milo grinned. Sundays were his remaining free day, so there was nothing to stop
him from attending Quirrell's club and stomping some of the local 'wizards' for
fun and XP. What were they going to do, shoot sparks at him?
The poster said the club meetings would start after the holiday break.
"Hey, Ron," Milo asked, picking his partymember out from the crowd. "What's a
holiday break?"
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"You don't even know what a holiday break is?" Ron asked, flabbergasted.
"Everyone"
Hermione coughed pointedly.
"here would like nothing more than to illuminate you on this subject," Ron
finished smoothly.
"Everyone gets to go home for Christmas," Hermione explained.
"Do we have to?" Milo and Harry asked simultaneously.
"Jinx," muttered Harry.
"What? Where?" Milo asked, looking around warily.
"Nevermind," said Harry. "It's a Muggle thing."
"No," Hermione said. "You can stay for the holidays, but almost nobody does."
"Cool," said Milo.
"Also, what's Christmas?" Milo asked. Hermione, who had the bad timing to be
drinking from a glass of water right then, snorted her drink from her nose.
"What's Christmas?" she asked. "Everyone knows... ah. Ahem. It's a holiday that
happens once a year on December 25th where people give each other presents."
"Do I need a costume again?"
"No. Costumes on Christmas are strictly optional."
"Will there be Trolls?"
"No, there's just Father Christmas and his elves," Hermione said, regretting it
instantly.
"Elves again, eh?" Milo asked, rubbing his hands together. "Harry, put them on
the list. These elves have come up enough now that I'm sure they must be
relevant to something... what sort of elf are they, these ones that work for
this 'Father Christmas?'"
"Christmas elves," Hermione said in a quiet voice.
"Must be an obscure, non-core subrace. I'll keep an eye out for them. What's
Father Christmas?"
"He... children believe he travels to everyone's house at night on a flying
sleigh and delivers presents on Christmas," Hermione explained. "But nobody
really thinks he's real. People also call him Santa Claus."
"Santa Claws? This just keeps getting worse and worse!" Milo said. "He must be
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an exceptionally powerful caster to be able to cast enough Time Stops to get all
the way around the world in a single night... unless he has a use-activated
Magic Item... wow, that would be worth a fortune."
"Buthe's not really real," Hermione insisted.
"I can't tell you how many times I've heard that before," Milo snorted. "'there
are talesunfounded, of courseof a fell monster in the woods...' or 'they
speak, in whispered voices, of a wolf that walks among men... I'm sure it's just
rumour, though.' Hermione," Milo said, in the tone of someone talking to a
small, ignorant child, "if there's one thing I'm surprised you haven't learned
by now, it's that all rumours are true."
"But Father Christmas isn't real," she insisted.
"Oh, really?" Milo asked. "Harry once told me that Muggles don't believe in
dragons, magic, elves, or goblins," Milo scoffed. "And all of those things are
real."
"That's no reason to think"
"Hermione, how many of the things you believed as a small child, only to find
out as a medium child were make-believe, turned out to be real when, as a large
child, you discovered you were a witch?"
There was a brief silence as Hermione did some mental arithmetic.
"Most of them," Hermione admitted with a frown. "But come on. Father Christmas?
Not even wizards believe in himright, Ron?" Ron didn't respond. "Ron?"
"F-Father Christmas isn't real?" he asked, stunned. "Fred and George said they
saw him, once..."
"Oh, he's real alright," Milo said grimly. "And worse: he's in league with the
elves."
With that, Milo strode off to his favourite armchair (one in the corner which
presented him with a clear view of the room, while also being close enough to
the window that he could dive out and Feather Fall in an emergency), pulling
materials out of his Belt of Hidden Pouches.
"Where are you going?" Harry asked.
"I have to put the finishing touches on my Robe of Arcane Might," Milo said. "I
might be needing it, soon." He had to find a way to get out of his detentions,
they were cutting into his crafting time. Maybe if he could slay Santa Claws and
take his magic Item of Time Stop...
Milo wasn't sure exactly what this Father Christmas's connection was to the drow
in the kitchen that tried to poison him, but one thing was for sure:
If Santaor any of his little elvestried anything on or about Christmas, they
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weren't going to just walk away from it.
Chapter 17: White Christmas
Author's Notes: To anyone who didn't check yesterday (Sunday), and it confused,
this is the second bonus chapter this week. If the last thing you remember in
the story is an angry McGonagall pulling Milo from a meeting with Quirrell, you
need to go back a chapter.
Also, to my absolute horror, as The Lost Hibiki pointed out, I've been reading
the requirements on Spontaneous Divination wrongly this whole time. I am so, so
sorrymy intent from the very beginning was to have Milo stay strictly within
the confines of the Rules as Written (RAW) in order to poke fun at some of the
quirks and inconsistencies in D&D, and also so that D&D fans would have a very
clear understanding of Milo's abilities (making it all the more fun to try to
figure out how he's going to get out of a tough position). As it turns out,
Spontaneous Divination requires substitution of one of a Wizard's bonus feats
other than Scribe Scroll, meaning it isn't available for Milo until level five
(meaning he can't have used it before his battle with the Troll). Normally, for
an error like that, I would go back and edit the previous chapters to fix it,
but in this case Milo's use of Spontaneous Divination is too deeply interwoven
within the plot to pull it out. I hope the hardcore D&D fans out there aren't
too put off by my mistake!
The best I can do is apologize, and say that either Milo comes from a campaign
world run by a DM who house-ruled Spontaneous Divination's prereqs, or
alternatively, Milo is such a munchkin that he figured out how to get it early
even though I never could.
ooooooo
"Hey, Harry!" said Milo excitedly, running up to his partymember in their dorm
room. It was the day before the holiday, and everyone was eagerly awaiting two
weeks at homeeveryone, that is, except Harry and Milo, who were staying.
"What's up?" Harry asked.
"Check this out," he said, holding up an ordinary-looking Hogwarts school
uniform.
"You finally done tinkering with that thing?" Harry asked. "You said it would be
done weeks ago."
"Yeah, well," Milo said, "feature creep, you know. And then there's all the
detentions. Anyways, take this," Milo said, passing Harry the Cold Iron dagger
that he kept in his magic belt.
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"Why do you have a knife?"
"Okay," Milo said, practically bursting with excitement. "Now, stab it!"
"This is a pretty serious-looking knife."
"Never mind that, stab! Stabbity stab!"
"You carry this around all the time? I think that's against school rules."
"Oh, come on! Those wands are lethal weapons and they give them to
eleven-year-olds, what's a Masterwork shiv here and there? Now stab!" Milo was
bouncing on his heels.
"Is this like the time you threw a mug at me?"
"Exactly like that! This robe is practically made of Mage Armour!"
"Really?" Harry asked skeptically.
"No, not really. That's not how it works. But it's a simple enough lie that your
unenlightened brain can handle it, now stab the robes!"
"Fine!" Harry stabbed them. Much to his surprise, the knife simply glanced off
the garment as if it were made of hardened steel. Harry frowned, and stared at
the knife.
"Eh? Eh?" Milo said. "What do you think? Cool, no? Totally ordinary Hogwarts
uniform until Blam! I get attacked, and guess what? It's godsdamn invincible!"
"This must not be a very good knife," Harry said, ignoring Milo completely and
staring at the dagger in his hand.
"And that's not all!" Milo said. "It gives me +1 Caster Level to Conjuration
spells!"
"I mean, it can't even cut through an ordinary school uniform."
"That means a whole six more seconds of Hippogriff!"
"It looks sharp. I wonder if it's some sort of trick dagger?"
"Or ten feet more range to Glitterdust!"
"Or maybe you had a metal plate hidden in that robe?"
"That's a whole 20% more Caster Levels!"
"No, then I'd have still cut the robe... must be the knife."
"Or 60% more with the Arcanist's Gloves!"
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"Maybe I should try and cut something else with it. That would tell me for sure
if it was the knife or the robe."
"And that's not all! I added in Fire Resistance 5 as a custom bonus feature."
"I'll go test it on the curtain of my bed, maybe."
"So now it, and by extension, I, am fire-proof!"
"Well, it works on the bed, that's for sure."
"Well, maybe not fire-proof. More like fire resistant."
"Maybe I should test it on Ron's bed, too, just to be sure."
"But it's more than enough to make me very nearly safe against conventional
fire! With this, I can walk into a burning building for up to, on average, six
minutes! Or if the dice are against me, only seventy-two seconds before burning
to death. But that's still pretty good!"
"Works on Ron's bed just as well as mine. Maybe the knife is exceptionally good
at cutting curtains, but suboptimal on cutting robes. There's only one way to be
sure."
"You know, I think, somehow, that I'm not getting through to you here."
"Well, it certainly seems capable of cutting Ron's spare robes."
"I'll go show Hermione," Milo said dejectedly. "She knows how to appreciate
proper magic when she sees it."
"Fine, fine," Harry said distractedly. "I'll go visit Hagrid," Harry said
finally. "He's been a bit down ever since Quirrell killed his dog."
To say that Hagrid was 'a bit down' was rather like saying the Elemental Plane
of Water was 'a bit damp.' He'd been aimlessly wandering the halls in tears
since Hallowe'en, bemoaning the loss of his beloved omnicidal tricephalous
monstrosity. Milo shrugged and walked down the stairs into the Common Room.
True to form, Hermione was curled up on an armchair reading a thick, dusty old
tome.
"Hey," said Milo. "Can I see that?"
"Hmmm?" Hermione asked absently, not looking up.
"Scholar's Touch," Milo muttered, tapping the book quickly.
"Hey!" Hermione said, pulling it away from him.
"Interesting," Milo said. "But, no matter how knowledgeable she is on the
history of Goblin uprisings in Central Europe, she uses the word 'irregardless'
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twenty-four times. Just toss it in the fire like the kindling it is, would you?"
"Did you just come here to show off, or was there something else?" Hermione
snapped.
"Actually, there was something. I need you tohang on," Milo said, pulling on
his robes. "Okay. I need you to light me on fire. See, my robes are"
"Incendio," Hermione said, waving her wand in a complicated little pattern. A
bright little jet of fire shot out of the tip of Hermione's wand, but dissipated
as soon as it touched Milo's robes.
"I'm going to pretend that you waited for me to say 'my robes make me fire
resistant' before you tried to immolate me," Milo said.
"I figured it was something like that," Hermione said absently. "Although, I had
hoped otherwise. Don't touch my books."
"I'll try to keep that in mind."
Milo saw Hannah sitting in the corner, looking at him for some reason. As soon
as he noticed her, she abruptly looked away. Well, there's weirdoes all over.
"Hey," Milo said, walking over to her. "Whatcha up to?"
"Just, uh, reading the Tales of Beedle the Bard," she said.
"It's upside-down," Milo said.
"What, really?" Hannah asked in alarm, glancing down at it. "No, it's not!"
"Nah, but you checked. Anyways, look, there was something I'd been meaning to
ask you for a while, now," Milo said. He wasn't quite sure how to go about this.
"Yes?" Hannah asked, her heart beating rapidly.
"Well, it's about something I've sort of been wondering about with regards to
you," he said. "Something I just can't figure out."
"Mmhmm?" Hannah said, not trusting herself to speak.
"I was wonderingyou remember that day in September, the first time we all had
detention for Snape? We were cleaning statues, watched by the Baron?"
Hannah nodded quickly.
"Then you vanished, and I lead the search to find you," (Hannah felt like she
was about to burst) "and eventually had to enlist the aid of the Defence
Professor and most of Hogwarts' portraits," Milo continued. "But eventually, we
found you." Hannah just nodded again. "You were in the lake."
"What?" Hannah asked.
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"The lake. We found you in the Hogwarts lake. What on Earth were you doing
there?"
"You came here to ask me about the lake." said Hannah flatly.
"Yup," said Milo cheerfully.
"Oh, look at the time, I really must be going now, things to do, people to see,
lakes to fall into, gotta run, cheerio, bye." Hannah gathered up her stuff and
strode out of the Common Room like a woman with a purpose.
"She went down one of Hogwarts' trick corridors," Hermione said idly, not
looking up from her book. "It turned into a slide and she came out right into
the lake. If not for the giant squid, I think we'd all be doing it on hot days.
And that was a mean thing you just did."
"What, asking her how she got laked? I can't figure how you could put any
malicious intent into that."
"Until you did right in front of me, neither could I," Hermione said, turning a
page.
"Should I go find her and apologize?"
"No. Absolutely not. Believe me, in this case, it's better to feign ignorance."
"People are weird," Milo said under his breath, staring out the window. Being
the middle of winter in Northern Scotland, what he saw was mostly white. He
could only see a few yards because snowstorms give a -1 to Spot every 2.5 feet.
Milo resisted (barely) the urge to say, 'I'm sure everything's all white.'
"You know," Milo said idly. "If I could take the covers off all the books in the
library and stitched them together" (Hermione looked up at him in horror) "then
I could read the whole lot with a single Scholar's Touch."
"I think Madam Pince would have the books rebound with your skin as a warning to
the rest of us," Hermione said. "And I'd be right there holding you down while
she did. Don't"
"Touch your books, yeah, I remember."
"Why don't you go make some more magic doodads or something?" Hermione asked
testily.
"Can't," Milo said. "You can only work on a Magic Item up to eight hours a day."
"Where on Earth did you find eight hours already today? We only got out of class
an hour ago!"
"Well, what do you do in History of Magic?"
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"I take notes, of course!"
"That's what Mordenkainen's for," Milo grinned.
"You trust your rat," Hermione said, aghast, "to listen in class for you?"
"'Course. He wasn't doing anything else at the time."
"How can your rat write?"
"Easy. He can speak to me in a sort of unique little language. The rules clearly
state that 'A literate character (anyone but a Barbarian who has not spent skill
points to become literate) can read and write any language she speaks. Each
language has an alphabet, though sometimes several spoken languages share a
single alphabet.' Mordenkainen is, obviously, not a Barbarian; he can therefore
write in an undecipherable code that only I can read, which, incidentally, looks
a lot like Elvish."
Hermione frowned.
"That's a pretty shaky read of the rules, andwait, what rules?"
Milo snorted.
"When you people are taught to count," Milo said, "we're taught to abuse poorly
thought-out rules."
"You were in lessons as a child to abuse rules?" Hermione was horrified.
"Nah, skipped 'em all to fight kobolds in the sewers. Myra
(cityoflight!cityofmagic!) city law states that 'children under the age of
twelve must attend school,' but it never said they had to 'attend school' more
than once."
Hermione's mouth moved, but no words came out.
"It's funny, I got an A in my Munchkinry course without ever showing up past the
first lesson. All the students that showed up failed."
"Out!" Hermione said, throwing a cushion at him. "Just let me read in peace!"
She reached for another cushion.
Milo, despite having faced down an Acromantula, a Troll, dozens of Skeletons,
and Kobolds and Goblins beyond measure, was disinclined to face a wrathful
Hermione, and promptly utilized a strategic manoeuvre to leave the Common Room.
"I'm bored," Milo declared proudly as he exited the portal.
"That's nice," said the Fat Lady. "You should try hanging on a wall for several
hundred years."
Boredom was a state so rare for an adventurer that decided to savour it for as
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long as he could. Being boredom, of course, this only lasted for about a
microsecond before he was dying for something to do.
"Hey," Milo said suddenly. "You know about this world's quaint little culture,
right?"
"I know anything and everything that can be discovered by hanging on a wall,
watching students walk past, and pretending not to hide a secret passageway. So,
yes."
"This Christmas thing," Milo said. "I'm led to understand that people give each
other presents."
"Correct," said the Fat Lady.
"Now, when they say 'people'"
"that includes you, yes."
"Crap."
"Indeed."
"And if, say, someone were to hypothetically upset a friend of theirs in the
days leading up to this gift-giving holiday, and were, for some reason,
recommended against direct apology"
"Is this friend female?"
"Yes."
"Then the gift had better be damn special."
"Crap."
"Indeed."
"I have, what, eight days?"
"Seven."
"I'd best get started, then."
"Correct."
oooo
The vast majority of Hogwarts' students went home over the holidays, and for
those who remained, the two week break was a time to lie around in their
respective Common Rooms, playing Exploding Snap and (for the less
danger-inclined) wizarding chess.
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Not so for Milo, who spent day and night working on Christmas presents,
researching spells, and 'resting,' (really, planning and setting traps for the
arrival of the dreaded Santa Claws) each in exactly 8 hour increments per day.
When Christmas Eve rolled around, Ron and Harry were surprised to see Milo,
weary and exhausted, trudge zombie-like into their dormitory.
"Blimey," said Ron, who was staying at the castle because his parents went to
visit his brother Charlie in Romania, "we thought you'd gone home for the
holidays."
"Where have you been?" Harry asked. "Nobody's seen you at mealtimes, in the
Common Room, or even in bed."
"Christmas," Milo slurred.
"When was the last time you slept?" asked Harry, looking equal parts concerned
and amused.
"Over a hundred thousand, eight hundred rounds ago," Milo said. People, from
where he was from, were very good at telling timebut only in rounds, a unit of
six seconds.
"What are you carrying, there?" Ron asked, pointing at a heavy bag Milo had
slung over his shoulder.
"Christmas," Milo repeated, and slipped into unconsciousness in his four-poster
bed.
"Nutter," Ron said. "But at least he's on our side."
The residents of Gryffindor Tower awoke to an unpleasant surprise on Christmas
morning.
"Glitterdust! Obscuring Mist! Summon 1d4+1 Celestial Giant Fire Beetles!"
"Ah! Gerroff!"
"I've gone blind!"
"He was here! Father Christmas was here! While I slept! Oh, why did I sleep? Who
let me sleep? We didn't post any sentries! Grease!" Milo was standing in the
middle of the dorm, casting offensive spells at random. The room was full of
dense fog, concealing everything except for blindingly bright sparkling gold
particles of magic and the red, glowing eyes of four giant beetles that were
skittering about, clicking loudly. "We'll all be killed!"
Fortunately, Milo ran out of spells in about a minute, and the protesting
struggles of Ron and Harry managed to convince him that Santa "Claws" wasn't
about to jump out from under a bed and kill him.
"And that," said Ron, "is why you need to sleep more than once every eight
nights. Happy Christmas, by the way."
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"I've got some presents!" Harry said in surprise, the small pile of wrapped
gifts visible now that the dust had cleared and the noise had stopped.
"What were you expe" Ron began, but Milo cut him off.
"You don't normally get presents?" Milo asked.
"Nah," said Harry. "This is the first time!"
"So... so... they're not mandatory? I didn't have to get you anything?"
"Blimey," said Ron, "I don't think you've quite grasped the meaning of
Christmas."
Harry groaned.
"If anyone suggests we go on an adventure to discover the true meaning of
Christmas," he said, "I'm going to have to put my foot down."
"An adventure, eh?" Milo asked, his eyes alight.
"No. No. No adventures," insisted Ron firmly. "We open presents. We have
Christmas Dinner. We play games. We have fun with friends and family. That's
it."
"Oh," said Milo, looking downcast.
The first package opened was by Harry from his aunt and uncle. It contained
something Milo had never seen before, something... unnatural.
"What is it?" Milo asked, looking fascinated.
"I dunno," said Ron. "Look at the shape!"
"It's a fifty-pence piece," Harry said, biting down laughter.
"Well, where's the rest of it?" Milo asked.
"That's all they sent."
"So, if this is a piece of the Fifty Pence," Milo said thoughtfully, "what
happens when we combine all seven shardsthere are seven, right? It's usually
either seven or threedo we become masters of the Fifty Pence?"
Harry doubled over with laughter.
"No, mate, I heard my dad talking about this once," Ron said in hushed tones.
"It's what Muggles use for money!"
"What, this?" Milo asked. "It's not made of gold, platinum, silver, or even
copper! How do they know how much it's worth?"
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"My dad couldn't figure it out, either," Ron said. "He theorizes that Muggles
have a sense that wizards lack that tells them how much their money is worth,
and my dad's a professional."
"I guess they'd have to have something to balance out their lack of magic," Milo
mused.
Harry was in real danger of dying due to lack of air, he was laughing so hard.
"I don't trust it," Ron said. "If it's not made of precious metals, what's to
stop people from just Transfiguring more of it?"
Milo gasped.
"They don't have any magic at all! They can't just Transmute or Transfigure
money!" Milo was amazed.
"Whoa," said Ron. "That's mindblowing. They can use anything as money, then. I
should write my dad about this."
In the end, Harry let Ron keep the coin to show Mr Weasley, and turned to his
other presents.
"You got me new spectacles, Milo?" Harry asked when he opened Milo's gift.
"They... look exactly my current ones."
"So nobody will know the difference," Milo said, tapping the side of his nose in
a conspiratorial way.
"Er... thank you? I suppose a spare will come in handy," Harry said dubiously.
"Put them on," Milo insisted. Harry, obligingly, slipped off his current pair
and put on Milo's new ones.
"Blimey!" Harry gasped.
"They look like ordinary specs," Milo said, "but they're really Eyes of the
Eagle. They give +5 to Spotthat means you can see things fifty feet away with
the same level of detail as you could see something right in front of your nose
without themand, because they're enchanted using my form of magic, none of your
wizards can tell that they're anything out of the ordinary."
Harry stared at Milo for a moment, then his face broke into a wide grin.
"So I can wear them during Quidditch without breaking any rules!" he said. "Or
at least, without getting caught. Thanks, Milo! These are awesome."
"You'll have to get a proper eye doctor to have the lenses done in your
prescription, though," said Milo, who had asked Hermione earlier about how
glasses worked. "Until then, the -2 penalty you incur will counter out some of
the bonus."
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"Shouldn't be too much of a problem," Harry said.
"Hope you like them," Milo said. "You did pay for them, after all."
Ron, who was staring at Harry's gift enviously, sifted through his (rather
large; he has a big family) pile of presents to find Milo's. Unwrapping it
revealed an ordinary looking quill.
"What's it do?" Ron asked eagerly.
"It writes words," Milo said.
"That's all?" Ron asked, sounding disappointed.
"Yeah... but it does it all by itself. I made this one custom, it's my own
invention. See, what you do is, you just tap it to a piece of paper or parchment
or whatever to activate it. It'll immediately start copying whatever you were
looking at when it started, and won't stop till it's done or after 2,500 words,
whichever comes first. I figure it'll come in dead handy when you're copying
Hermione's notes," Milo explained. "It'll even turn the page and keep going on
the next one when necessary."
"Blimey," Ron gasped, holding the quill like it was a long-lost family member.
"That's bloody brilliant."
"Only works once a day, though, so keep it away from parchment so you don't
trigger it by accident. I call it the Pen of Plagiarism +5."
"Plus five what?" Ron asked.
"Nothing," Milo said unabashedly, "but where I come from, you can charge
exponentially more for stuff if it's plus something."
Milo turned to his presents, which, as it turned out, were (as far as he was
concerned) even better than minor magic items. Each of Neville, Harry, Ron, and
Hermione had decided independently to get him a huge package of Every Flavoured
Beans.
"I think," Milo said around a huge mouthful of the bizarre sweets, "that I like
this whole Christmas thing. A lot of work, though."
Harry (wearing an emerald sweater knitted by Mrs Weasley) opened his last
package. A silvery-grey, gossamer cloth floated out of it and fell to the floor.
Ron gasped.
"Huh," Harry said. "Looks like a cloak."
"Put it on," Ron urged. "If it's what I think it is... well, there's only one
way to find out."
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"You," Harry said pointedly, "have been spending too much time with Hermione."
Nevertheless, did, and promptly vanished.
Milo and Ron both gasped.
"It's an Invisibility Cloak!" Ron said, while Milo said "It's a Cloak of
Invisibility!"
Harry pulled it off.
"Why do they call it that?" he asked.
"'Cause it makes you invisible," said Ron.
"Duh," added Milo.
"I didn't feel invisible," Harry said skeptically. "Here, you put it on," he
passed it to Ron, who held it reverently. True to form, Ron vanished as soon as
he put it on.
"Huh," said Harry. "Don't see that every day."
"I do, actually," Milo pointed out. He usually prepared Invisibility once a day.
"Oh! I've been meaning to test something, actually. Harry, put it on again."
When Harry complied, Milo cast See Invisibility. Harry appeared in front of him
as a translucent shape.
"Excellent," Milo said. "Score one for my magic, for once." Must be because of
the vague wording of See Invisibility, Milo thought. It just says "reveals any
objects or creatures that are invisible," not "creatures that are affected by
Invisibility."
"Did it come with a card?" Ron asked curiously. "Those things are really
expensive; I wonder who would spend that much on you?"
Harry rooted about on the ground for a moment, then produced a small note with a
handwritten message.
Your father left this in my possession before
he died. It is time it was returned to you.
Use it well.
A Very Merry Christmas to you.
"That," Milo said, "is singularly unhelpful. Put it on the list."

Harry was looking at the note strangely.
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"What's the matter?" Ron asked.
"Nothing," Harry said. Milo shrugged, and began preparing spells for the day.
Fortunately, his ... episode ... in the morning had come from yesterday's
spells. Harry and Ron settled down to play a game of Exploding Snap.
"Hey," Milo said suddenly, having finished renewing his allotment of spells.
"Anyone know if Hannah's staying for the holidays?"
"Uh," said Ron. "Yeah, I think I saw her at dinner the other day, with Lavender
Brown."
"Cool. Bye," Milo said, leaving the dorm abruptly. On his way out, he passed
Fred and George, wearing matching Weasley jumpers.
"and then we'll say 'we know we're called Gred and Forge,'" Fred was saying in
a low voice.
"Oh, hey Milo," George said as Milo passed.
"Hey," Milo said, barely giving them a glance. "Wait," he said, and turned.
"Have either of you seen Hannah Abbot around?"
"Yeah," said Fred. "Last I saw, she was heading out of the Common Room."
"Oh," George added. "She was wearing a coat and scarf, so she was probably going
outside."
"What, in that?" Milo asked, gesturing at the window. The snow was really
picking up. "Didn't you try and stop her?"
"Yeah, but she ignored us. Don't worry, I'm sure she'll be"
"all white."
Milo groaned, and not just because of the terrible pun. He was going to have to
go out and find her to deliver her mandatory apology present. Milo hustled out
of the Common Room and down the stairs to the Great Hall, pulling on parts of
his Cold Weather Outfit from his Belt of Hidden Pouches as he went. On the way,
he decided that his next project would be to make his uniform Shiftweave as
well, which allowed it to transform into other outfits instantly.
Milo opened the massive Great Hall doors to find snow piled up to his head.
"I am not walking in that," Milo said. "Fly," he cast, and suddenly felt himself
become weightless. "Locate ObjectHannah's Robes," he cast, and felt a light tug
to his right. Milo effortlessly floated up off the ground and through the heavy
snow.
Shouldn't she have left tracks? Milo wondered, looking around. Of course, it was
possible that the snow had filled them in already... but really, with snow that
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deep, she'd have to dig a tunnel to get around.
Something felt very wrong about this whole situation. The wind was picking up,
and the cold began to bite effortlessly through Milo's robes (Milo decided an
Endure Elements enchantment was in order as well). You'd have to be suicidal to
willingly venture out here, Milo thought. And she went alone? Highly suspect.
As Milo flew, skimming a few feet above the ground, he felt his Locate Object
spell abruptly end.
Okay... Milo thought, his teeth chattering. Either she entered an area warded
against Divination, she's surrounded by lead, someone dispelled my spell, or
she's out of range.
Let's assume the first one is out, because there isn't much interaction between
my magic and the local strain. It's possible their wards against detection would
work, but improbable. My spell can't have been dispelled, because I'd have
noticed when I made the opposed Caster Level check... unless the local
equivalent doesn't allow a check.
Milo groaned. He really had no idea what happened.
Only one thing for it.
"Circle Dance," Milo cast quietly, swapping out Summon Monster III. Circle Dance
is an obscure spell that locates the direction from you to a creature (much like
Locate Object or Locate Creature) except that it had no range limit. However, it
takes a minute to cast, burns a 3rd-level spell slot, and only has an
instantaneous effectif the target moves, you won't have any idea. On the plus
side, it gives a vague impression of the target's physical and emotional
condition.
Milo spun in a circle with his eyes closed until he finished casting the spell,
which left him feeling dizzy. He opened his eyes, pointing in the direction she
was in, and knowing she was unharmed and, emotionally, perfectly content (which
was concerning, but not the most concerning thing).
Milo groaned.
He was looking directly at the Forbidden Forest.
Really, he wondered, why did I ever think this little trip wouldn't end up with
me in mortal danger?
With a sigh and a longing glance at the comfortable Gryffindor tower, now only a
speck of light in the whiteout, Milo sped off towards the forest.
Milo had just gotten past the edge of the forest when Fly ran out of duration,
and he fell heavily in the snow.
"Should have known," he said, his teeth chattering, "that, if foul weather is
mentioned, I'd soon be out slogging in it. The c-c-castle is making me
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c-c-complacent."
With difficulty, Milo cast another Locate Object on Hannah's clothing (swapping
out the previously prepared Invisibility). To his surprise, she was somewhere
behind him.
At the start of a combat, all characters involved have to make an Initiative
roll with a bonus based off of their Dexterity and a few other things. This
determines the order in which combatants actpeople who rolled higher on
Initiative, due to luck or by virtue of possessing quick reflexes, act before
those who rolled lower. This makes Nerveskitter (a 1st level spell which grants
+5 to Initiative rolls) an extremely unusual spell, as it must be cast while
rolling Initiative, or, in other words, after a character is aware that there is
trouble but before his muscles have had time to respond to his commands. For
someone such as you or I, this is patently impossible. A Wizard, however, is
somehow capable of both speaking the verbal components and waving his hands
about in a complicated gesture to cast the spell before he is physically capable
of doing either.
"Nerveskitter," Milo cast, speaking every syllable simultaneously and in
harmony, in blatant violation of the laws of common sense. He was surrounded by
a brief blue glow, and rolled to the side just as a glowing red bolt of magic
flew past the space he had previously occupied. The bolt hit a tree, pieces of
bark flying away from the contact point.
"Mirror Image," he cast, and a pair of illusory Milo duplicates appeared next to
him. The real Milo lay down flat in the snow, minimizing his visibility.
Another red bolt of light hit one solidly in the torso, causing the image to
fall to the ground, motionless.
Milo quickly ran through his options. He had no idea what the location or
identity of his attacker was, which precluded the used of Grease, Glitterdust,
or, in fact, any offensive spell.
"Summon Hippogriff," Milo cast. Hippogriffs could track by scent, so didn't
strictly require vision. Milo grinned, happy that he had learned Summon Monster
III after his battle with the Troll.
The proud horse/eagle hybrid appeared in front of Milo with a shriek and ran
forwards. It got about ten feet before Milo saw a green flash, and the summoned
monster keeled over, dead.
Holy crap, Milo thought. They're using the Killing Curse.
And Milo was running low on spells.
Okay, he thought in a panic. Okay. It's not so bad. They clearly can't see you,
either, right? Or you'd be dead already.
A few more curses flew over Milo's head and hit some evergreen trees, which
promptly turned brown and withered, dropping needles.
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And they can cast more than one per round. Or there's three of them, ganging up
on me.
A desperate plan came to Milo's mind. None of his prepared spells would help
him, as far as he could tell, so he had to use something he could cast without
prior preparationa Divination. Most casters believed Divination to be a soft
school, but Milo knew better.
Divinations could kill.
"True Strike," he cast, granting his next attack a +20 to hit, which would be
enough to hit an unusually petite fly at a distance from about here to Jupiter.
More curses flew over his head.
"Guided Shot," he cast, which allowed his next attack to ignore cover and
concealment. Neither of these would help him target a Grease or Glitterdust, or
even a Fireball if he knew how to cast it, as those were all area attacks. They
would only help him with a direct attack, the kind of which required
accuracyalso known as the type of spell Milo avoided like the plague.
So, instead of casting a spell at all, he drew his (so far, never used) Cold
Iron dagger and threw it in a completely random direction. Milo's plan was to
then cast Locate Object on the dagger, which did a paltry 1d4-1 damage
(practically nonlethal against the targets Milo was used to), which would let
him identify the location of his foe, so he could follow up with an arcane
barrage.
It was only after the dagger left his fingers, and he had confirmed a critical
hit for double damage, that he realized his mistake.
The dagger, guided by Milo's magic, had flown in exactly the same direction as
his previous cast of Locate Object, which was still active, told him Hannah was
standing.
Milo heard a sickening thud, and the curses abruptly stopped flying.
Chapter 18: Red Christmas
Author's Notes: I just realized that, while D&D convention italicizes the names
of Spells, it doesn't italicize Magic Items. I'll start from here on writing
them without italics, and maybe go back and change previous chapters if I have
time. However, as always, writing new chapters takes priority over messing with
the formatting on old ones.
Also, I realized today that I'd been doing something this whole time that I
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hadn't actually said anywhere I actually roll Milo's hit points every level.
It's much more fun for me, that way.
P.S. There will be a bonus chapter on either Sunday or Monday.
EDIT: Confirming that there will be a bonus chapter tomorrow (Sunday), which
should make up for the relative shortness of this chapter.
ooooooo
"H-Hannah?" Milo asked, stunned. Gods, what have I done?
There was no response.
She can't be dead. It was only one attack, he thought to himself
It was a critical hit, said a tiny voice in his head.
A critical hit on a dagger, the Milo insisted.
She might only be level one, wheedled the tiny voice.
That's six damage, tops! Milo protested. It's physically impossible for six
damage to kill anything.
Maybe back home... but have you seen any indication at all that these people
only die at -10 hit points?
Everything dies at -10. Fact of the universe.
Your universe. Remember how surprised Madam Pomfrey always is at your
physiology? You can't take anything for granted.
She can't be dead.
Then why are you so afraid go to check on her?
Milo couldn't think of any suitable response to that.
"Okay," Milo said, out loud. "I'll go find her, and she'll be fine. Just...
fine. You'll see."
Milo stood up from his prone position, shaking off snow. He waded through the
deep snow to where Locate Object told him Hannah lay.
Or is standing, Milo thought stubbornly. She could be standing there, happy as a
clam. A happy clam. Not like one of those sad clams.
"Hannah?" Milo called again, yet was again unanswered.
Abruptly, the snow stopped blocking Milo's vision. He realized vaguely that he
was standing under the canopy of a tree. A nice, old-growth tree. Milo thought
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it might be a willow, but then wondered idly if this world even had willows.
There was no reason to think they did, after all, everything else seemed to be
so completely different. Elves working in kitchens. No limit on spells per day.
Gradual learning instead of discrete increments. Goblins running banks. Dragons
slaughtered to make gloves.
An, apparently, completely different damage/wound system.
Hannah Abbot lay against the tree, slouched into a half-sitting position. Her
wand was held loosely in her right hand, her left was clutching the hilt of
Milo's dagger, sticking out of her stomach. It was difficult to tell her
school uniform was black, after all but there was a lot of blood. A scary
amount of blood. Her head was lolled to the side, and she wasn't moving.
"Oh gods. Oh gods," Milo said. Milo was far from a religious person, but if ever
there was a time for divine intervention, that time was now.
Hannah stirred feebly.
Holy crap. Pelor, I owe you one! I'll slay some vampires for you when I get
home.
She reached for her wand.
Milo blinked. Maybe she knows some healing spell?
"A... a..." Hannah said weakly.
"Hey, Hannah," Milo said gently. "You'll be okay, okay? I've... I've got a
Healer's Kit and +1 from Wisdom, so I can do first-aid, okay? So just... don't
move." Milo slowly reached into his Belt of Hidden Pouches for the kit.
"Av..." Hannah said again.
"Tell me back at the castle, when you explain just what you were doing out here,
kay?"
"Avada Kedavra."
A brilliant green bolt shot out of the tip of Hannah's wand, but her shaking
hand fouled her aim. A bush behind Milo burst into flame.
Milo instinctively ducked behind a nearby tree as curses started flying again.
"Okay," Milo said. "She's clearly possessed or something, and whatever's doing
it is trying to kill me." As if to emphasize the point, a curse slammed into the
other side of the tree Milo was using as cover, and dead leaves rained down,
thinning out the canopy and allowing snow to start falling back onto Milo's
head.
Carefully, Milo (very slowly) peeked around the side of the tree. Hannah was
still slumped on the ground, looking deathly pale. Milo pulled his head back
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just as a Killing Curse flew by close enough that he could feel the heat
radiating from it, and the tip of his nose burned as if it had been exposed to
the sun for hours.
How am I supposed to help a person who's bleeding to death if they're trying to
kill me? Milo wondered. If I go over to her to try and stabilize her or, for
that matter, de-possess her with Protection From Evil (which requires physical
contact) I'll end up like this tree.
Milo heard Hannah coughing weakly. It was a wet, gurgling sound. Oh, that so
cannot be good.
I can blind her with Glitterdust ... but really, I have no idea what that would
do to her in her state. If a single dagger can do this, I shouldn't really take
any chances. For all I know, Glitterdust could kill her outright.
On the other hand, doing nothing will kill her.
"I'm really sorry about this!" Milo said around the corner. "Glitterdust!"
Hundreds of thousands of golden sparks flew out of Milo's spread hand,
illuminating the thick white snow like twinkling faerie lights.
Her silence was uncanny. Normally, when people are blinded by Glitterdust, they
scream and complain and flail around, but Hannah... if she had any response,
Milo couldn't tell.
Maybe she made her Will save? Milo thought. And she can see just fine, and if I
stick my head out again the last thing I'll see will be green... well, at least
it's holiday appropriate.
Had Hannah been carrying a gun, or had Milo been from this universe to begin
with, he likely would have slowly stuck a hand out to determine if his attacker
would re-open fire. At worst, by that logic, your hand will be injured. However,
in Milo's form of magic, the location on the body that the spell hits is
irrelevant: if Disintegrate hits even your baby toe, you're powder. As far as
Milo knew, and he didn't even question that this wasn't the case, if Avada
Kedavra so much as glances the tip of your finger, you're waking up in your
Alignment-appropriate Outer Planar afterlife.
Milo stepped out from around his safety, praying to his often-forgotten deities
that whatever was possessing Hannah had been blinded.
The thing about snow, especially thick snow, is that it's impossible to walk
through it without making a distinctive crunching sound. As soon as Milo had
taken a single step, her unseeing, bloodshot eyes whipped towards his general
direction, wand raised.
A red curse of some sort flew out of Hannah's wand, but missed him by several
yards and hit impacted the snow harmlessly, causing a cloud of steam to erupt as
the snow flash melted.
Milo felt like an idiot. They need wands to cast, he thought. That little stick
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really should have been my first target.
"Grease!" Milo cast, not on the ground underneath Hannah, or even on Hannah
herself, but on her wand. Hannah remained expressionless, but Milo imagined
(perhaps, somewhat fancifully) that her possessor at least blinked in surprise
as her only weapon slipped harmlessly out of her hands, landing lightly in the
soft snow. In some detached part of his brain, Milo realized this was the first
battle he'd ever won in which he really didn't care about the XP earned.
Milo heaved a sigh of relief and walked over to his injured friend.
"Master's Touch," Milo cast, granting him +4 to Heal, which, combined with his
naturally high Wisdom and Healer's Kit, would allow him to easily make the check
to stabilize Hannah. Sudden insight flooded his brain about human anatomy and
emergency medical procedures.
"Okay, I'd best leave the dagger in," he said quietly. "Because I could do more
damage just taking it out." Hannah stared at him blankly, her eyes still wide
open. Milo winced human reflex, when looking at an exceptionally bright light
(such as a laser or, in this case, Glitterdust) is to close one's eyes
immediately to prevent damage. Whatever was controlling Hannah had evidently
overridden that instinct, leaving her eyes red and bloodshot, glittering gold
like the rest of her. Unfortunately, there was nothing Milo could do to end the
spell once it had started.
As Milo got to work cleaning the injury and trying to stop the bleeding, Hannah
stirred again.
"What, you're not still trying to kill me, are you?" Milo asked, surprised. As a
precaution, he dismissed the Grease spell on the wand and stashed it in his Belt
of Hidden Pouches.
Despite her injuries, Hannah moved like lightning, ignoring the pain entirely.
One moment, her hands were by her sides; the next, they were pulling the dagger
out of her own injury. Milo blinked, then snorted.
What's she going to do, he thought, stab me? Unlike her, I have twelve hit
points. That's three good stabs before I even notice it, minimum.
Hannah lunged at Milo, nicking his arm for a paltry two damage.
"Better safe than sorry," Milo said, mostly to himself. "Protection from Evil."
He tapped Hannah on the forehead and a glowing gold cylinder briefly appeared
around Hannah before, leaving her protected from mental control for the duration
of the spell (seven minutes with the help of his Arcanist's Gloves).
"Gah!" Hannah shrieked in pain, rubbing at her eyes frantically. This only had
the effect of smearing blood into them.
"Hey, Hannah, it's okay," Milo said in what he hoped was a soothing tone. "Your
vision will return in a few seconds. I know it's hard, but I need you to stop
moving while I try to deal with the bleeding, okay? Can you do that for me?"
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Mutely, Hannah nodded, tears starting to flow from her eyes.
Mordy climbed out of Milo's belt and helped him hold a bandage in place while
Milo tied it off. The rat knew, without any form of communication necessary,
exactly where to be and what to do to help Milo the most a combination of
their long partnership, empathic link, and the fact that Mordy benefited from
Milo's Master's Touch spell just as much as he did.
"I'm..." Hannah started to say. A brief memory of when he first encountered her
out here, and she struggled to say the words to curse him came to mind.
"Don't say anything," Milo said.
"I'm s-sorry," Hannah said weakly.
"It's fine, I'm here, I have magic, I can get you to safety," Milo said. How the
Hells am I going to pull that off? He wondered. All I have left are Benign
Transposition, Feather Fall, a pair of Prestidigitations, Dancing Lights, and
Mage Hand.
Not for the first, or last, time, Milo wished he were a Cleric.
Why, oh why didn't I buy that Healing Belt back in Myra
(cityoflight!cityofmagic!)when I had the chance? He thought bitterly. Or at
least a few Potions of Cure Light Wounds.
"Uhm," Milo said. "I don't mean to shake your confidence in my abilities or
anything," he said cautiously, "but I don't suppose you know any healing
spells?"
"Sorry..." she said. "I'm... useless."
"Untrue," Milo lied. "Dancing Lights," he cast, in a vain hope that someone
would see it and come to their rescue. In the current weather, however, it
seemed all but impossible.
I flew here in a more-or-less straight line at 120 feet per round for five
minutes, sans one minute to cast circle dance... that's 4800 feet, or almost a
mile. Normally I can hustle on foot at 60 feet per round, but carrying Hannah
will cut that down to 40, and the snow will take it down to 20...
Milo managed to conceal a groan. It would take, assuming everything went well
(which, in his experience, was rare to the point of impossibility), twenty-four
minutes to hike Hannah back to the castle. Twenty-four freezing minutes through
snow deeper than he was tall. Twenty-four minutes at maximum carrying capacity.
Milo glanced at Hannah, who was shivering in a somewhat concerning manner. He
really wasn't sure if she'd make it that far. Milo figured his best bet was to
rig up some form of shelter, then return to the castle to get help.
Fortunately, being an experienced adventurer, he was absolutely loaded with gear
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to help in the first part of that plan.
"So," Milo said in a conversational tone. "I'm going to make a tent, keep the
snow off of you, alright?" A thought struck him. "But first, here." He reached a
hand into one of the pockets of his belt and fished out a heavy, thick fur
Winter Blanket and placed it over her shivering body. Milo, like any decent
Wizard, tried to be prepared for anything.
"Th-thanks," she murmured. As an afterthought, he passed her his Bedroll as
well.
Pulling fine silk rope (made by Elves, of course) and thick canvas sheets out of
his magic belt, he immediately got down to work. He tied the rope between a four
nearby trees in an X shape and used the canvas sheets (of which he had five) to
create walls, and a ceiling. Looking critically at the result (which was most
certainly not up to any code you could name), Milo realized the whole thing
would fall apart if a decent-sized twig fell on it from one of the overhanging
trees. To remedy this, he strung up a large fishing net about four feet over the
'tent' to catch falling objects. Lastly, Milo cut a small hole in the centre of
the roof to allow smoke out, and started hunting for decent-sized sticks to use
as firewood. He had his obligatory Wizard staff, of course, and his 11-foot
pole, but the idea of burning either of those things was too horrible to
contemplate. After finding a few moderately dry twigs, Milo gave up and decided
to use a bucket as kindling (yes, he carried a wooden bucket in his
extradimensional belt. You never know when a bucket might come in handy; just
because it never has doesn't mean it never will).
The whole process took about ten minutes. Milo was just stepping back to briefly
admire his (crude) handiwork when he realized he should have been keeping better
track of time: Protection from Evil only lasted seven minutes. Hannah could have
been repossessed for quite some time while he was wasting time breaking a bucket
into pieces.
"Uh," Milo asked nervously, sticking his head into the covered area. "I don't
mean to be, you know, insensitive or anything..."
"Hmmm?" Hannah asked.
"You don't feel, you know, Evil or anything?"
"Nope," she said.
"Good, good..." Milo said dubiously. Well, what would she do if she were,
anyways? Spit at me? "Well, if you start feeling an overwhelming urge to murder
me, let me know, would you?"
Hannah simply nodded weakly.
Milo briefly considered Manacling her, but quickly decided against it. If
anything, that would give her possessing spirit/ghost/demon/whatever (assuming
it was still in her) a heavy metal improvised bludgeon.
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Milo glanced at the pile of firewood he'd created out of his bucket (one of his
ever-dwindling physical ties to his old world) and sighed. He could light it
with Prestidigitation, of course, but he was already running precariously low on
magic and didn't think wasting it on something so frivolous would be a good
idea.
Grumbling to himself, Milo employed the decidedly mundane method of Flint and
Steel.
"You carry all this stuff around with you?" Hannah asked. It was the longest
sentence he'd yet heard her say since her... accident.
"Yeah," Milo said, clicking away ineffectually at the flint. A few pathetic
sparks appeared, but nothing ignited. "Saved me from the Troll... well, sort of.
I mean, I got thrown through the window anyways. But it helped. A bit. Maybe."
"If you give me my wand," Hannah said, "I can light that for you."
Milo, grateful, had his hand halfway to the appropriate belt pocket when his
eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"No thanks," he said. "I love doing this by hand. Very zen." He also had
Tindertwigs, of course, but he preferred to save those for a situation in which
he really needed fire as a Standard Action.
It took awhile, but eventually, Milo got his pitifully small fire going.
"Okay," Milo said. "Now, look. I'm going to go and get help," he said gently.
"You just stay here, all right?"
"You're leaving me alone?" Hannah asked him.
"Uh... no. You'll have Mordy to protect you." With a flash of COLD, UNHAPPY,
SLEEP, Milo pulled his protesting familiar from his warm home in the belt. "Now,
I know he doesn't look like much, but trust me. He's a badass."
Hannah gave him a peculiar look when, over the crackling of the flames, they
heard a loud crunch from the snow outside.
"Stay here," Milo commanded unnecessarily. He hesitated for a moment, then dived
out of the tent as fast as he could, hoping to take whatever was out there by
surprise.
Standing outside, looking somewhat surprised, was the most horrible little
creature that Milo had seen in a long, long time. It looked a little like a
Goblin, with thick, leathery green skin, red eyes, and long, sharp nails. It was
wearing crudely-tanned leather breeches, but was naked from the waist up (Milo
shuddered to think how cold that would be). As the creature recovered from its
surprise, it grinned at him. Its teeth, of which it had several rows, had at
some point been filed to needle-sharp points. In one hand was a short, crude,
wickedly curved, needlessly hooked, serrated sword. Its most distinctive
feature, by far, was its bright, unevenly-dyed blood red hat.
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"HolycrapRedcap!" Milo gasped in surprise. He'd hoped that the psychotic,
mass-murdering evil little Fey didn't have an alternate-universe version in this
world. Milo wasn't sure whether the thing had been attracted by the smoke from
the fire, commanded here by whatever had possessed Hannah, or was simply
attracted by the girl's blood.
Unfortunately for Milo, who had already burned his one Nerveskitter for the day,
the Redcap had a +5 Initiative bonus. The weird little creature (which are
easily repelled by a variety of simple Charms and Hexes, none of which Milo knew
or was, in any case, able to cast) charged at him and let out a screeching,
high-pitched, ululating wail.
The Redcap brought its blade down in a high overhead chop which Milo caught,
frantically, on the arm of his enchanted robe as he raised his hands in panic.
"Acid Splash!" Milo cast desperately. A thick green glob of acid hit the Redcap
full in the face, causing it to take a step backwards, clutching at its head.
Milo knew that proper Redcaps had upwards of 22 hit points, depending on how
many sentient creatures they've slain, although he had no idea what it would
take to faze this world's equivalent.
The Redcap, its face now red and raw, again charged Milo, who put his 14
Dexterity to good use and sidestepped, just barely avoiding the wickedly sharp
steel weapon. Milo, now out of spells, pulled his least favourite backup plan
out of his belt.
Every Wizard has a staff. They come standard-issue. Some are gnarled and rough,
some are covered in glowing arcane runes, while some are plain and practical.
Many staffs are magical, although a smart Wizard realizes that, by and large,
magical staffs are overpriced and distinctly use-impaired. Nevertheless, as has
already been stated, every Wizard has a staff. A staff, for a Wizard, is like
his robe or pointy hat. A Wizard without one of these three things would be as
lacking as a political career without scandal or a trip to the dentist without
an unpleasant aftertaste. Everyone knows this. Hells, even Muggles know this. A
staff is a symbol of a Wizard's power, of the triumph of knowledge and reason
over chaos and insanity (note that Sorcerers, by the way, generally prefer
spears, although this is certainly coincidence), and as a warning to others: Do
Not Meddle, For I Am Subtle And Quick To Anger. Also, For Reality Is My
Plaything.
What most people tend to forget is that, in addition to all of these things, a
staff is also a large, heavy, wooden stick.
A stick which Milo brought down on the head of the enraged Redcap.
Hard.
While the Redcap staggered in pain, Mordenkainen crept up behind it.
The Redcap took another swing, enraged beyond reason, but its quarry vanished
just before the blade struck home. There was a quiet popping sound, and a small,
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spotted rat sat in the ground in front of it, staring upwards with unblinking
eyes.
" Transposition," Milo finished casting, standing, now, where Mordy had been
lurking just a moment earlier. With a meaty thud, Milo whacked the Redcap again,
this time on the back of its hard skull. Redcaps back at Milo's home (Milo still
thought of them as 'real Redcaps,' although the one standing in front of him
looked and smelled pretty damn real) could only be hurt by Cold Iron.
However, from what Milo could tell, this world didn't even have Cold Iron, so
these Redcaps (in the interests of fairness and balance) must, by Milo's
somewhat screwy meta-logic, therefore be without damage reduction. It was a risk
Milo figured he had no choice but to take, as the staff did slightly more damage
than the dagger and Milo badly needed all the killing power he could get.
"This is so unfair," Milo said, narrowly catching a poorly-aimed blow with his
staff. "Clerics get the same number of spells as I do, but they also have a good
Base Attack Bonus and Armour Proficiencies." The Redcap gave no sign of
understanding him, and continued to flail wildly at him. Milo blocked a
surprisingly amateurish high attack with his staff. "And even if that's not
enough, they can just command armies of undead to go in first."
The Redcap, taking advantage of Milo's now raised staff, slashed him expertly in
the stomach through the somewhat unreliable Robe of Arcane Might (leaving Milo
with 6 HP).
"And Druids!" Milo said, jabbing the Redcap in the solar plexus with the butt of
his staff. "Don't even get me started on Druids. Armour? Hit Points? Good Base
Attack Bonus? Full casting?"
The Redcap made another feint, which Milo, now that he'd cottoned on to the
Fey's trickery, failed to fall for.
"And failing that, they can have a wolf backing them up!"
Milo swung, but the Redcap rolled to its right with surprising agility for
something to wrinkled and ugly.
"And failing that," Milo continued his rant uninterrupted, swinging his staff
horizontally like a baseball bat and taking the Redcap dead on in the side of
the head with a satisfying thwak, "they can just turn into a godsdamned grizzly
bear!"
The Redcap, realizing that Milo had overextended himself, slapped him hard on
the wrist with the edge of his blade. Milo dropped the staff as his hand,
ignoring frantic orders from his brain, released the polished Darkwood weapon,
which the Fey contemptuously kicked off into the snow.
Milo staggered backwards, drawing his dagger with his left hand (by our
standards, Milo was more-or-less ambidextrous; although to him the word
Ambidexterity meant something completely different) and eyed up the Redcap. By
his calculations (assuming this beastie was anything like those he was familiar
with), the Redcap had somewhere in the vicinity of three hit points remaining.
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Milo's dagger, propelled by his scrawny frame, was capable of doing exactly that
much damage, assuming he hit.
Well, it was risky... but it just might work.
Milo took a deep breath, and, on the exhale, released the dagger in a powerful
overhand throw. It spun once, twice, three times, and buried itself to the
hilt... in a tree about ten feet from the Redcap.
Unfortunately for Milo, while his 'physics' did run on a number of different
story conventions, poor rolls can, and do, happen regardless of dramatic
necessity.
The Redcap messily ran Milo through the stomach with his serrated sword.
"Gah!" Milo gasped, suddenly tasting blood. He fell into the deep snow, and
tried to scurry away, backards, from his attacker. He got a respectable distance
away, leaving a trail of blood, before bumping into a most inconveniently-placed
tree.
Milo glanced back at the Redcap, who was, to Milo's disgust, licking Milo's own
blood off the edge of his weapon with a long, almost prehensile tongue, making
horrible little sounds of delight, as if tasting, for the first time, fine
Belgian chocolate.
Milo coughed weakly, spitting blood. He only had one hit point remaining,
meaning his wounds weren't exactly physically debilitating they just hurt like
hell.
The Redcap, finally finished with its little snack, looked at Milo with a hungry
expression. Throwing his sword to the side carelessly, it ran up to Milo on its
stubby little legs. Mordy, hanging onto the creature's legs, bit the Redcap
repeatedly on the ankles. Despite himself, Milo grinned. A rat's bite deals a
pathetic 1d3 - 4 damage, which, as simple math will tell you, is a maximum of
negative one.
However, the minimum damage any attack can deal is 1, meaning Mordy was
steadily, slowly, from regular attacks and Attacks of Opportunity, gnawing that
Redcap's heel to death.
The Redcap's collision with Milo was almost meteoric, and Milo found himself
pinned against the tree, the Redcap holding both of his arms down with deceptive
wiry strength.
To Milo's revulsion, the Redcap bent down to Milo's stomach and started licking
at his open wound with its long, slimy tongue. Milo, who had never really
understood the Grapple rules, struggled in vain against the Fey's superior
strength.
Any adventurer, other than a Monk, is essentially worthless at unarmed combat.
Unarmed Strikes get a massive penalty to hit, deal nonlethal damage (and barely
any, at that) and provoke an Attack of Opportunity. Fortunately, from what Milo
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could tell, nobody had taught the locals about AoO's (which was reasonable
enough, as they were bloody confusing). Further, Unarmed Strikes have one thing
going for them: they can be made with virtually any part of the body.
Milo's arms and legs were pinned underneath the grotesque little abomination,
but his head wasn't.
THWAK. Milo headbutted the freak with colossal effort, his skull colliding with
the Redcap's hard, leathery head and leaving him seeing stars. The damage was,
frankly, negligible; however it was, thanks to Mordy's repeated bites, combined
with the beating Milo had given it earlier, enough.
The Redcap toppled over onto the ground, unconscious.
Milo slumped against the tree wearily, his forehead damp with blood from the
Redcap's eponymous bloodstained cap, and started laughing weakly. He couldn't
help himself.
"And what do Wizards get?" he asked nobody in particular. "A heavy wooden stick,
a rat, and phenomenal cosmic power beyond that with which mortal man was meant
to tamper. And sometimes, that's enough."
Milo stood up, brushed himself off, and, with a cast of Mage Hand and a casual
gesture, pulled his dagger out of the tree. It floated into his hand, as he
stumbled over to the Redcap and administered a coup de grace (adventurers are
not known for their mercy, especially to things that look like Goblins) and
staggered into the makeshift tent.
Hannah gasped when she saw him.
"What happened out there?" she asked. "I was so worried! I thought maybe I
should help, but I didn't have my wand, so I couldn't see what I could possibly
do. There were shouts, and a weird scream, and sounds of fighting "
"Redcap," Milo muttered, falling down onto the ground wearily.
"Oh, that's all?" Hannah asked, looking visibly relieved. "Did you drive it off
with "
"Nope," said Milo.
"Well, how about "
"No dice," Milo said with a groan. "Different magic, remember?"
"Oh. Well, what do you usually do to get rid of Redcaps?"
"Carpet bombing with Fireballs from eight hundred feet away, then toss their
teeth that's all that they leave behind, where I'm from into the Elemental
Plane of Fire to prevent anyone from Raising them. This one, I just used my
head."
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Hannah gasped.
"You're injured! Pass me my wand, I'll cast Episkey "
Milo froze. His suspicions were confirmed.
"So you're still in there," Milo said grimly. Hannah stared at him, confused.
"Hannah doesn't know any healing Charms."
Hannah, or whatever was controlling her, froze for a moment.
"Ah," she said finally, and glanced frantically around the shelter like a
cornered bobcat.
"So, here's what's going to happen now," Milo said firmly. "I don't care who you
are, but I will find out. And when I do, whether you're Snape, Lucius, the ghost
of Salazar Slytherin, or bloody Voldemort himself" (Hannah winced at Milo's use
of the name, confirming it wasn't the Dark Lord) "I will find you. And I will
kill you." Hannah's eyes widened. "This is nonnegotiable."
Hannah stared at Milo briefly, then spoke.
"You foolish, ignorant boy," she said in a cold, low voice. "Just because you
can defeat a handful of Death Eaters and a Red Cap doesn't mean you're capable
of "
"You have no idea what I'm capable of," Milo spat. "There are depths to which I
will stoop, if necessary, depths which you've never even dreamed of. Tell me,"
Milo said, his voice low, "have you ever heard of a Candle of Invocation?"
Despite herself, Hannah shook her head.
Milo grinned.
"Pray that you never do, for there lies the path of darkness and Extreme
Munchkinry." A Candle of Invocation is a minor Magic Item that helps Clerics
concentrate when preparing spells. Its other use allows it to summon extraplanar
beings via the Gate spell, including Efreeti, which, while under the summoner's
control, can be ordered to grant three Wishes say, for a permanent +1
Intelligence boost, 25,000 gp, and another Candle of Invocation. The Candles
were prohibited items of Dark Magic in the Azel Empire, and trafficking them was
seen as worse than trafficking in human souls. The Empire had an entire task
force of high-level Wizards whose sole job was to prevent their use not that
it was necessary, as the gods themselves would step in and simply delete the
soul of anyone who attempted to create them before completion. It was one of the
few things they all agreed on.
But there was no Azel Empire in this world, and, judging by the lack of Divine
Magic, no deities at least, no active ones.
"With one Candle, I can challenge the gods. So here's the deal," Milo said,
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feeling somewhat numb from loss of blood, "if you leave my friend now, and I
mean within twelve seconds of when I finish speaking, I won't kill you... until
I'm strong enough to do it fairly. If I ever so much as get a hint that you even
touch her again, I'll sell my Alignment to the Demon Prince of the Lower Aerial
Kingdoms" (Milo was careful not to say his name, for Bad Things could happen)
"for a Candle before you can say 'Moral Outrage.' And then I will find you
there's magic that will let me do it instantly and then I will kill you.
Slowly. And then I will rip out your soul and trap it in a shiny rock, which I
will then hide on a moon which moon, orbiting which planet, orbiting which
star, in which galaxy, I will leave to your imagination so you can never be
brought back." Greater Teleport had no range limitations at all.
Hannah opened her mouth briefly, but Milo cut her off.
"And before you ask, the Demon Prince only answers the summons of Good
characters. So that rules you out." And me, Milo conveniently forgot to add,
because I'm True Neutral.
Milo stared at Hannah directly in the eyes, and she stared back.
"I've finished talking. You have twelve seconds. One," Milo counted, and Hannah
stared coldly at him.
"Two," said Milo, but Hannah's expression remained unchanged.
"Three." Hannah's gaze intensified, her normally sweet, happy expression twisted
into one of contempt.
"Four." Milo briefly wondered if he was going to have to go through with it in
the end, and whether Pazuzu was interested in branching out and tempting the
souls of Neutrals.
"Five." The flame in the middle of the tent crackled and snapped, tiny glowing
embers flying out like a mundane Glitterdust.
"Six." Milo readied an action to say 'Pazuzu' three times if he didn't get any
sign that Hannah was released from her enslavement within the next round. He was
committed now.
"Seven." Hannah's expression wavered slightly for a brief, almost-imperceptible
moment.
"Eight." Hannah blinked. Milo suppressed a smile, sure he'd won.
"Nine." Abruptly, Hannah broke into a wicked cackle, made all the more
disconcerting because of it was still made with her voice.
"Ten," Milo continued, trying to pretend he was unfazed.
"Eleven." Ohcrapohcrapohcrapohcrap, I'm going to summon a Demon Prince into this
universe... worst Readied Action ever, what was I thinking?
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"Twe" Abruptly, Hannah collapsed from her rigid posture and fell to the ground.
Milo heaved a sigh of relief.
"Hannah?" he asked.
"Y-yeah," she said weakly. "It's me again."
"Any chance you can, I dunno, prove it? Maybe?" Milo asked hopefully.
"I d-d-don't think so, but you have to believe me... I'm so sorry..."
Eh, so much for that idea.
"What the Hells is happening?" he asked.
"Dunno... it's like I could hear this voice, giving me these suggestions... and
they seemed like such a good idea at the time and it made me so happy to follow
them..." she shuddered. "I'm so sorry, I tried to kill you." She started crying.
"What? No you didn't," Milo said. "That's absurd. You were possessed, obviously.
Otherwise, Protection from Evil wouldn't have helped."
"Wh-what?" she asked.
"Just trust me on this one. I'd bet you didn't even know how to cast those
curses you were sending at me, right?"
"N-no..."
"There you have it. We're safe, caloo calay," Milo collapsed back to the ground.
He hadn't even noticed when it had happened, but at some point during the
staring contest he'd gone to a crouching position (standing up would be all but
impossible in the confines of Milo's crude shelter).
"A-are you alright?" Hannah asked. "You look kind of... drenched in blood."
"You should see the other guy," Milo muttered, his eyes closed.
"But seriously," she said, her voice starting to come back to her. "You need
help at least as much as I do... what are we going to do?" she asked, panic
evidently rising.
Milo laughed.
"Me? I'll be fine. I can just sleep off anything short of death, trust me. Which
is more than I can say for that Redcap outside."
"There's a wait, what was it you said earlier? I wasn't really... all there.
There was something about a Red Cap."
"Uh. Yeah, I think it smelled your blood... erm. Sorry about that, by the way, I
didn't know it was you."
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"The Red Cap," Hannah pressed, "did you... I mean, is it... did you kill it?"
"Uh. Yeah, I made pretty sure of that."
"And it's right outside?"
"Yeah, but trust me, it's not going anywhere."
"Bury it!"
"Oh, come on, it's just some random monster "
"Don't you ever listen in Defence? They're attracted by spilled blood!"
"Yeah, I know that. But I don't see... oh."
"Get out there and bury it before it attracts more!"
"Don't have to tell me twice... er, three times," Milo said, getting to his feet
with a wince, and crawled out of the improvised tent.
He stumbled over to the dead Redcap, grabbing his fallen quarterstaff on the
way. He groaned, using it as an improvised shovel.
"This is the worst," he muttered to the Redcap. "The absolute worst. I mean,
you're dead, but you've got it lucky," he said between jabs with his staff to
loosen up the snow. "It's like, practically Frostfell conditions out here, and I
decided to make my bloody robes resistant to bloody heat. And now I've got to
dig a great, bloody big hole in the ground for you, and believe me, the less
time I spend around you the better." After every good dig with his staff, he
reached down and pulled out handfuls of snow.
"And you know what the worst part is?" he asked the corpse. "No, I guess you
don't, 'cause you're dead. The absolute worst part is that, right now, you know
what would actually help? The damn bucket." Milo scooped another handful of the
freezing snow out of the quickly-growing pit. "Been carrying it around in my
pocket for three years and when, for once, I actually need it, it's in bloody
Chateau Canvas keeping someone else warm while I'm out here digging a big hole
in the ground, and did I mention how cold it is?"
Fortunately, the ex-Redcap wasn't very large, and snow is much easier to dig in
than dirt. It took him about an hour to finish, but when he had, Milo
unceremoniously pushed the little monstrosity into the pit face-first. As an
afterthought, he threw the thing's weird little sword in after it, then piled in
several feet of snow.
"And good riddance, too," he muttered. "Ain't nobody gets to lick me and walk
away from it." With that, he trudged back into the (what could charitably be
called a) tent.
Milo stumbled back inside again, and fell face down, immediately drifting off
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into sleep.
He wasn't quite sure how long he was out for, but when he woke up, the fire had
burned low and the sun had gone down. At some point, someone had either Animated
his Winter Blanket, or Hannah had put it on him.
"Happy Christmas, Hannah," he said wearily.
"Happy Christmas, Milo," Hannah replied, sounding just as tired. Her stomach
rumbled. "Hey, I don't suppose you still have any of those Everlasting Rations?"
"Nah, they ran out weeks ago," Milo responded automatically.
"What, really?"
Milo sighed and passed the blue bag over to her, trying very hard not to roll
his eyes.
Hannah took a bite.
"It's... completely tasteless," she said. "That's so weird."
"It's all I've got," he confessed. "Unless you want five pounds of garlic
powder."
Milo frowned. Something Ron had said was coming back to him.
"What's Christmas Dinner?" he asked curiously, stoking the fire in an
unsuccessful attempt to get it to pick up a bit.
Hannah explained in great detail, lovingly describing the wonders of roast beef,
mashed potatoes thickly covered in gravy with carrots and peas on the side and a
salad for dad, 'cause of his Cholesterol. Her eyes glazed over somewhat, and
Milo was briefly worried that she'd again come, again, under the effects of the
Possessor.
"Pass that back for a second," Milo said, gesturing at the Everlasting Rations.
Hannah, looking surprised, complied.
Milo has, in the past, gone on at length about the uses and abuses of
Prestidigitation, which, despite the fact that it's used by novice arcanists for
practice, he firmly believed ought to be renamed 'Least Wish.' Among its many
uses, which have saved Our Hero's hide a number of times, are the ability to
soil or clean a large area (which comes in very handy during Milo's many
detentions spent cleaning the thousands of Hogwarts statues and armour), move
about a pound of material, recolour objects (or, of course, potions), create
flimsy little objects or change something's taste for up to one hour.
"Prestidigitation," Milo cast. It was his last, best spell.
He passed the Rations back to Hannah, who looked confused.
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"Try it now," he urged.
Hannah took a bite of the granola-like rations, and her eyes widened.
"It tastes just like..." she paused mid-sentence to take another bite. "Like..."
Hannah said again, but seemed at a loss for words.
"Christmas Dinner?" Milo suggested.
"Exactly," Hannah voiced her agreement.
"Beautiful. Now pass some here, I'm starving."
Chapter 19: Visitors
Author's Notes: As promised, Bonus Chapter!

EDIT: A helpful reviewer pointed out that in Britain, people say "anyway"
instead of "anyways," something of which I had no idea. There's no way I'm going
to be able to get all of the local slang and things right, but nevertheless, I
went back and edited as many instances of those which I could find. Milo, coming
from another world (which the fates have decided, extremely conveniently it
would seem, speaks Canadian English) still says adds the "s." If I make any
dialect-related slipups like that in the future, feel free to PM me (or drop it
in a review, of course, but PM's are somewhat less embarrassing).
It's just another thing like Wizard/wizard and Red Cap/Redcap that distinguishes
Milo from the locals.
ooooooo
Deciding that saying something 'tastes like Christmas Dinner' would be
categorically impossible for a Dark Wizard utilizing their titular Dark Powers
to mentally control an injured eleven-year-old girl, Milo had relented and
returned Hannah's wand in order for her to magic up some fire to warm their
freezing tent.
It was lateMilo wasn't sure how late, because his nap of unknown length had
thrown his perception even of passing rounds and the sun went down very early
this far north in the dead of winterwhen they heard yet another audible crunch
in the snow outside, waking Milo up from a deep sleep he hadn't quite realized
he'd ever started.
Milo cursed (figuratively speakingnot a literal Curse. Milo briefly wondered if
that was the reason the locals seemed to use the word 'cuss') under his breath,
and not only because there was a decent probability that the Redcap's (or "Red
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Cap" as the locals called them) buddies had come to finish what the first one
had started (or, perhaps, to finish off the first one, yum). He required eight
hours of continuous, uninterrupted rest to prepare new spells and regain hit
points, so his injuries (which would have certainly killed someone from Hannah's
world) were exactly as painful and sore as they were however long ago it had
been since they'd been inflicted.
Milo glanced over at Hannah, whose eyes were wide and alert.
Well, we're screwed, he thought.
Milo, as stealthily as he could (which is not, admittedly, particularly stealthy
without any ranks in Hide or Move Silently), pulled his quarterstaff out of his
Belt of Hidden Pouches and raised the tent flap very slightly. Unfortunately, he
couldn't see anything but snow from his narrow window.
"Stay here," Milo said quietly to Hannah. "I'll go see what's outside."
Hannah, her face pale and ashen, became determined.
"No," she whispered. "I've got a wand, and I can do magic, which is more than I
can say for you."
"But" Milo said, a hundred protests coming to mind. You're not a PC. Your
injuries are debilitating, mine are not. You're lower level. The spells you know
are not combat optimized.
But despite everything, the practical part of his mind agreed she did have a
point. Hannah, despite being a novice at magic, had no limit on spells per day
and even the simple Jinxes and Hexes that Hogwarts students used on each other
to settle heated disagreements would be more effective than a quarterstaff
wielded at a measly +2 BAB and a -1 Strength Penaltyat least, when used in the
number that Hannah was capable of, which was infinite.
"Fine, we'll go together," he said at last. "On three, we leap out of the tent
and catch them by surprisetry to stay behind me, my robes are enchanted to
protect me. I'll club anything that gets close, you hex anything that moves."
Milo couldn't believe he was volunteering to tank damage so someone else could
cast. It was just so, so wrong.
"Okay," Hannah said, fear and excitement battling evident in almost equal parts
in her voice.
"And rememberyou're braver than you think."
"I'm braver than I think. I'm braver than I think," Hannah said, constantly
repeating the words under her breath as she did in the Sorting Ceremony.
"One... Two..." Milo took a deep breath. "Three!"
The two heavily injured spellcasters did not so much charge out of the tent,
which would have been, perhaps, more dramatically appropriate, as they did
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stagger out painfully. They were a pretty pathetic sight, and the only foes they
would have intimidated would be those who were both squeamish about blood and
who were in possession of excellent night vision.
To the heroes in question, however, it felt as if they were leading the charge
in the Battle of Vienna, with the might of tens of thousands of heavily armed
and armoured elite cavaliers at their back, all thirsting for blood.
"WAAAAAAAGH!"
"Wha' in the ruddy hell?" came a surprised, thickly accented voice from the
chill darkness.
"Mister Hagrid?" Hannah asked, stunned.
"Dancing Lights," Milo cast, while Hannah cast Lumos. Four glowing white spheres
of light shot out of Milo's hands, flying in a search pattern around their
immediate vicinity while Hannah's wand tip glowed brightly. Hagrid's huge body
came into clear view, holding his crossbow in one hand and Fang's leash in
another.
"Wha' are you lot doin' out here?" Hagrid asked. "And is tha'is tha' blood?"
Milo narrowed his eyes.
"How do I know you're really Hagrid?" he asked suspiciously, leaning heavily on
his quarterstaff.
"Wha' kinda question is tha'?" Hagrid asked. "Yeh know another bloke o' my size
who jus' happens ter have a crossbow an' a dog?"
"I think," Hannah said quietly to Milo, "that we'd best trust him. He's kind of
our only hope."
Milo still stared at him suspiciously, trying to decide what he would do if he
had the ability to simply possess peoplesomething he didn't, as he'd forsworn
the Enchantment school altogether when he specialized in Conjuration.
Presumably, powerful wizards and witches had some form of defence against mental
intrusionotherwise, Dumbledore would long since have been turned into a puppet
of some Dark Wizard and used to rule the world. Likely, that ruled McGonagall,
Snape, Flitwick, and Quirrell out as well as potential puppets (although, not as
suspects necessarily. Milo needed another glance at his Plot flowchart just to
remind himself who was currently trying to kill him). Hagrid, who apparently had
no magical power of his own at all, was therefore an obvious choice to
possess... at least, at first glance. If Milo were behind this, he'd simply
choose another student. Obviously, the possessor was able to force his puppets
to use spells the puppets would normally be unable to, which essentially bumped
up any possessed student to Dark Master level of threat.
So, assuming his possessor had, in fact, any brains at all (and Milo's numerous
assumptions were correct), Hagrid was probably just Hagrid.
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"Okay," Milo said. "But be careful."
"Now, can someone explain wha' the ruddy hell is goin' on? Actually, nevermind
tha'," Hagrid said, looking closer at the extent of Hannah's and Milo's
injuries. "We gotta get yeh up ter the hospital wing. Can yeh walk? Ah,
nevermind, I'll jus' carry yeh. Yeh can explain on the way."
Hagrid hung his crossbow from a strap on his shoulder, and held out a big, meaty
hand to Hannah and Milo. Neither he nor Hannah had the same level of friendship
with Hagrid that Harry (and, to a lesser extent, Ron and Hermione) had
developed, and the pair of them hesitated for a moment.
Milo shrugged and climbed aboard, Hannah soon following suit.
Hagrid carried the pair of them in a surprisingly gentle manner, given his
somewhat brutish appearance. On the way, Milo decided he might as well tell
Hagrid what happened. Hannah, however, was being unusually silent.
"This morning, I heard that Hannah went out into the snow"
"Are yeh mad, girl?" Hagrid asked Hannah.
"Sorry," Hannah said in a quiet voice.
"Hang on Hagrid, it wasn't her idea. I went out after her"
"Why didn' yeh jus' tell Dumbledore? Or McGongall?" Hagrid asked.
"Er..." Milo said. Why hadn't he told anyone? In hindsight, what he'd done
seemed remarkably stupid. "Anyways, I tracked her down with magic, eventually,
but she tried to hex me."
"Why would yeh do tha'?" Hagrid asked. "Ruddy bad manners, if yeh ask me."
"Wasn't her choice, Hagrid," Milo said again, patiently. "she was being
controlled by magic, or something."
"What?" Hagrid asked, and stopped moving. "Are yeh sure?"
"Oh, pretty sure alright," Milo said, Hannah's horrible, uncaring expression
coming back to mind.
"We have ter tell Dumbledore," Hagrid said, and started moving again, this time
at a greatly increased pace. Milo carried on, explaining about the encounter
with the Redcap.
"Why didn' yer jus' use" Hagrid began.
"Uh," Milo interrupted, not wanting to go into details about how he was a
different sort of wizard. "Never quite got a hang of that spell."
"Well, wha' abou'"
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"Nope, nor that one."
"Yeh really gotta do more practicin'," Hagrid urged. "Them's ruddy simple
spells."
"Yeah... I'll do that."
"An' the Redcap's wha' hurt Hannah?" Hagrid asked, wading through the snow as if
it wasn't there.
Milo fell silent for a moment, at a loss for words. The terrible fear he'd felt
when he'd first realized who his attacker was returned like a defeated Dark
Wizard with access to the Clone spell.
"Yes," Hannah said. "Used Milo's knife on me. Fortunately Milo knows a bit of
Muggle medicine, or..." she trailed off, and fell back into silence.
"Firs' sensible thing yeh did all day," Hagrid said critically. "An' I'll be
havin' a word with Flitwick. Healin' Charms ought ter be on the curriculum;
ruddy useful, they are. Er. Not tha' I know firsthand, o' course."
"So," Milo said, wanting to press through this next awkward bit as quickly as
possible, "I, er, killed the Redcap."
"Though' yeh said yeh didn' have yer wand?"
"I used a big stick."
"The other Red Caps aren' gonna like tha'," Hagrid said, concerned. "Bu' it
explains Fang."
"Oh?" Milo asked, curious.
"Bou' a half hour ago, he made a righ' racket, so I let him out. Must've smelled
its bloodRed Caps have a very distinct scent, yeh know. Led me righ' ter yeh.
Migh' a' saved yer lives."
"That's... very convenient," Milo said, looking at the dog. Suspicions started
to grow in his mind, but he shook them offsurely he was just being paranoid,
seeing puppeteering behind every shadow. Besides, he thought, why would the Dark
Wizard have possessed the dog to help save me? Whoever it was clearly wanted me
dead.
Unless...
Milo's brow furrowed, lost deep in thought despite the freezing cold and
rumblings from Hagrid, who was still chastising them for being reckless.
Could it have been reconnaissance? Milo wondered. Did someone attack me just to
find out how I'd fight back? Hannah did open up with Stunners, I thinkalthough,
why they're called Stunners, I have no idea, as they leave the target
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Unconscious, not merely Stunnedalthough she did fire off a number of Killing
Curses as well...
And in any case, if someone wants to find out how I fight, it can only be
because they plan on fighting me themselves. Meaning they want me dead. Meaning
they would have just left me to, hopefully, expire in the cold.
Something still felt wrong, though, although Milo couldn't quite figure out what
it was.
Regardless of their intentions, Milo thought, I may have revealed my hand. They
saw Glitterdust, Grease, and Summon Monster III. They'll probably have worked
out a counter to them by the time they challenge me in personand they know
about my last-ditch contingency plan... Milo cursed himself. Which can easily be
countered by preventing me from speaking. And in any case, Gating in enough
Efreeti to Wish myself into omnipotence would take minutes or hours, so is
effectively impossible in the middle of a combat.
So, Milo thought as Hagrid carried him and Hannah to safety, what would I do to
kill me, given what I'd know about myself and the local magic?
The answer was surprisingly simple.
Surprise attack with an Avada Kedavra loaded with as many Attack Bonus-boosting
buffs possible.
To which the only defence was... what? To anticipate the attack? To not be there
to begin with? Death Ward would counter the Killing Curse, but it was a Cleric
spell. Nerveskitter would help him win on Initiative, but that wouldn't do much
if the attacker had a Surprise Round.
Milo needed to have a good, long look at his spellbooks to determine what, if
anything, he could do to counter such an attack.
A loud creak broke Milo out of his train of thought. With a start, Milo realized
that they were already at the castle, and Hagrid had just pushed the main door
open with his shoulder. Hagrid wasted no time carrying them up the stairs to the
hospital wing, which Milo was starting to think of as a second home.
The giant groundskeeper rapped hard on the doors until Pomfrey, still in her
dressing gown, opened it sleepily. She took one look at the children and sighed.
"What did he do this time?" she asked (Milo resented, somewhat, the implied
accusation that it had been his faultuntil he remembered that Hannah's injuries
actually had been by his hand), but despite the exasperation evident in her
tone, she had them lying down on the firm cots and checked over in record
timeafter shooing out Hagrid, that is, who didn't mind as he was leaving
anyways to go find Dumbledore.
She gasped when she saw the extent of their injuries.
"What happened to you?" she asked Hannah. Then, after thinking a moment, added
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"No, nevermind. Dumbledore will sort that out later; don't say anything." A few
Healing Charms later and Hannah was out of the worst of it, albeit still
exhausted and sore.
"And as for you," she said, turning back to Milo, "I think all you need is
bandages, a Cleaning Charm to stave off infection, and prolonged bedrest, based
on your rather numerous prior visits to my hospital wing." The truth was, though
she didn't say anything, that she was afraid to do anything elseshe lay awake
at night in a cold sweat caused by wondering what the hell the reason was behind
his physiology, especially his apparent super healing powers.
"But" Milo protested.
"No buts. Now if you excuse me, I believe I'm shortly going to have to fend off
the Headmaster, and it always helps to have a certain measure of mental
preparation before attempting so daunting a task. You two just try and get some
sleep."
The strict little mediwitch bustled off, muttering under her breath about how
people never seem to require emergency medical attention at a reasonable hour,
showing no consideration whatsoever. That left Milo and Hannah alone in the dark
hospital wing (with the exception of the gently snoring Neville Longbottom, who
had broken several ribs when Peeves had dropped a bust of some old, long
forgotten headmaster on him. As it turned out, Peeves had actually, as far as
anyone could tell, dropped it by accident. Go figure.)
"So," Milo started saying to break the awkward silence. "How about that local
sports te"
"Why did you go looking for me?" Hannah asked. Then she paused for a moment. "I
mean, before you knew I was out in the snow. Agh, you know what I mean."
"Right!" said Milo, who felt sort of dumb. "What time is it?" There was a clock
on the wall, but he still couldn't make heads or tails of all the numbers.
"Uh," Hannah said, momentarily thrown. "It's, uh, 11:54. But what does"
"So, it's still Christmas?" he asked.
"Yeah, for sixno, wait, make that five minutes."
"Awesome," Milo said, visibly relieved. "Okay, hang on a second, I need to find
something." Sifting through the many pockets of his Belt of Hidden Pouches
(technically, he could just hold his hand over it and order the belt to spit out
whichever item inside that he wanted, but he wanted to stay out of the habit of
doing things that way to prevent from announcing to the world what he was about
to draw), he eventually found the small package he was looking for.
"I had a lot of difficulty with this," Milo admitted. "See, where I'm from, we
don't really give presents very frequently. People, well, Adventurers are least,
tend to hoard their money and treasure and wouldn't dream of parting with it for
anything. When we get presents, it's usually for, I dunno, rescuing the Prince's
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sister from bandits or clearing out a cave of Orcs. We tend to ignore holidays,
and, frankly, I don't know what the NPCs do during them. So I'm kind of new to
this whole Christmas thing; it's... bizarre. So I asked around, and from what I
understand, most people buy something from shopkeepers that they think the
recipient would enjoy. I tried that, at first, but ran into a number of
difficultiesanything I wanted, I'd have to owl order, obviously, because there
aren't any shops in Hogwarts. But also... this world is strange. I don't
understand what any of the local wizarding stuff is or does, most of the time,
so I wouldn't know what to buy or even where to look for what to buy. Back in
Azel, there's strict price and production controls and everybody knows exactly
what's for sale everywhere and that a bucket will always go for five Silver
Pieces. They're posted in the Equipment Lists. And don't even get me started on
the Muggle stuff; it's more foreign to me than Psionics."
Hannah stared at him oddly, apparently not understanding some of the terminology
but, generally speaking, getting the gist.
"You didn't have to... I mean, you shouldn't have worried about it."
"I was led to believe it was important," he shrugged. "Anyways, I came to the
conclusion fairly quickly that if I was going to get you a present, I'd have to
make it myself. The thing is, mundane stuffer, non-magical, that iscan, from
what I can tell, be made by Muggles better and faster than anything I could pull
off, even if I used magic to help. But what I can make, and I'm pretty good at
it, is Magic Items."
"But, that sounds really expensive..."
"Eh," Milo shrugged. "I've got ways of making money fast, if I need to. That
wasn't the big problem."
"What was the big problem?" Hannah asked riveted.
"Every single Magic Itemand I mean every Magic Item that has ever been
designedis for killing, or in some manner facilitating the killing of, Goblins
and Dragons and things. That, or for carrying their stuff away afterwards. Any
other use is largely the result of happy accident or complete afterthought. And
killing Goblins isn't something that you seem particularly interested in," Milo
said, as if the notion was both unthinkable and unpleasant, "so I had to see if
I could twist the purpose of already existing Magic Items for more... civilian"
(Milo was about to say 'NPC,' but stopped himself at the last second) "purposes.
And there were a few that could do thatI mean, this Belt of Hidden Pouches I
have would be handy for anyone, right? Same with a Magic Bedroll or maybe a bag
of Everlasting Rations." Milo paused for a moment. "Something with Endure
Elements, now that I think about it, probably would have been a good idea. But
anyways, everything I found, even then, required spells only available to
Clerics or Druids or whatever. Wizards are usually... a bit more on the
offensive side of things."
"Look, it's totally fine if you didn't get me anything," Hannah said quietly. "I
wouldn't have minded."
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"So, the list of already designed Magic Items exhausted, I realized I had to
design something from scratch, so I turned to the spells I did know to see what
I could do. I had... similar problems. To a somewhat lesser extent, a Wizard's
spells are almost all designed for combat; even the utility ones are mostly to
help a Wizard get toor, knowing Wizards, away fromcombat. There was nothing
that seemed particularly... fun," Milo said the last word as if it were from an
unfamiliar foreign language. "So, I said, 'screw it!'" (Milo's actual wording,
which he wisely decided not to repeat to Hannah, was somewhat different from
this) "'I'll do what an Adventurer does best and combine spells that were never
designed to be combined, gosh darn it!' And this, your present, is the result.
But before I give it to you, I need an answer to a very important question."
"What's that?" Hannah asked, looking somewhat surprised.
"What's your favourite animal?" Milo asked.
Hannah thought about it for a moment.
"Hamsters," she said. "Definitely hamsters."
"Okay," Milo said. "Cool. Just one second." Milo had left, literally, one second
in the Magic Item crafting process unfinished when he'd originally made the item
right before Christmas Eve. The result was the he could, at this point, still
change any of the variables that had to be decided 'during item creation.' "Now,
here you are, Hannah Abbot," Milo passed her the present, wrapped in
festive-looking holiday paper. "Happy Christmas."
"Thank you," she said, accepting the package and, not being one of those fussy
people who simply remove the tape and leave the paper unblemished, tore the
wrapping paper to pieces from the middle outwards in about a third of a second.
Then she gasped. Inside, in a tiny box, was a tiny, fine (admittedly, somewhat
lopsided looking) fragile-looking silver lily that could be attached to clothes
by means of a minute pin on the back of the stem. An actual silversmith would
shudder at the sight of Milo's somewhat crude handiwork, but, all told, it was
pretty well done given that Milo didn't actually have in ranks in any form of
Craft.
"I made it by heating up a Sickle until it was malleable enough to sculpt," Milo
said. "Couldn't have done it without those dragonhide gloves we have for
Herbology and Potions."
"It's beautiful," Hannah said, somewhat breathless. No doubt her perceptions
were somewhat addled by her traumatic day, sleep deprivation, and whatever was
in the potions that Pomfrey had prescribed for her, as the silver lily was could
only be described as beautiful when using the loosest possible sense of the
word.
Milo shrugged, somewhat embarrassed.
"That's not really the point," he admitted. In truth, he'd made it out of silver
so it could be used as an improvised weapon against Devils if necessary (it
never hurts to be prepared, after all) but Milo decided, for some reason,
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against saying so at that precise moment. "If you tap it and say 'I'm bored,'
it'llactually, just tap it and say that you're bored and you'll see."
Looking at Milo curiously, Hannah complied.
"I'm bored," she said, tapping the silver pin.
Nothing happened.
"Oh, right, you have to be wearing it first," Milo said. "Forgot about that
part."
Hannah, looking extremely curious, pinned the lily to the front of her robes.
"I'm bored," she repeated, with another tap. Suddenly, a small, fluffy,
impossibly cutein fact, almost sickeningly sobrown and white hamster appeared
in her hands. "It's so cute!" Hannah squealed in the manner of little girls
everywhere as the hamster scurried up her arm, chirping in a manner that would
make real hamsters feel like they had to go and watch Die Hard while doing
one-handed push-ups just to counter the sheer adorability. The hamster didn't
have fat so much as it had pudge, fur so much as it had fluff, or eyes so much
as it had big, glassy, shiny windows to your very soul. Simply seeing it
required a Will save, or you were compelled to want to hug it (okay, not really,
but it may as well have).
Milo was particularly proud about his little invention, which was simply a
tricked-out Wondrous Item of Unseen Servant and Minor Image (both of which he
had had to research specifically for this task) and a little Detect Thoughts.
The Servant, which was a formless, invisible blob capable of moving around and
exerting a limited amount of force, was surrounded with an illusory body of an
animal chosen during item creation (in this case, a hamster), the specifics of
which were chosen by using a brief Detect Thoughts-like effect on the pin's
first user to find the form that user would find to be maximally cute. The
Servant was then ordered to play with the user until dismissed, unless otherwise
commanded.
"This," Hannah said, the hamster running up her arm to the shoulder, "is the
best Christmas present ever."
"Thank you! Er, or you're welcome. I'm not actually sure which is applicable
here," he admitted.
"I believe both are perfectly acceptable," Hannah said, stifling a laugh.
"You just tap the pin and say 'Bye' and it'll go away until you reactive it,"
Milo explained. "It can do other stuff, if you tell it to, like carry or clean
things."
"Things like Hogwarts statues?" Hannah asked eagerly.
"Things exactly like Hogwarts statues," Milo said.
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"Thank you," Hannah said again. "Really. I mean it, you clearly put a lot of
effort into this. I was just going to get you a big pack of Every Flavoured
Beans, 'cause of how much you enjoyed them on Hallowe'en, but now"
"Every Flavoured Beans?!" Milo's face broke into a huge smile. "I love those
things."
Hannah hesitated for a second.
"Okay, then I'll still get you a big pack of Every Flavoured Beans. I've got
them up in the girls' dorm... I didn't give them to you already, because, er...
well. It doesn't matter now, actually." She must mean the week or so she wasn't
talking to me 'cause I asked her about the lake, Milo thought. People are
strange. "You can have them in the morning."
"Sweet," Milo said.
"No pun intended?" Hannah asked.
Milo groaned.
"Bye, hamster," Hannah said, tapping the pin, and the impossible cute critter
vanished. Hannah hesitated for a moment, then said "I'd go over and give you a
hug, or something," she looked somewhat embarrassed, "except that I don't think
my legs really want to respond."
"That's okay," Milo said, feeling somewhat awkward. "I'll take a rain cheque."
"Good, good," Hannah said, and an awkward silence, punctured only by Neville's
calm and consistent snoring, descended for a beat or three as Milo decided there
was absolutely nothing more fascinating than his fingernails and Hannah examined
the pin.
"So, how about" Milo said, while Hannah said "I think we should" at the same
time. They both, then, paused for the other to continue.
"You go first," they said simultaneously. They both looked around the room, for
a while, waiting for the other to continue.
"I was going to say we should maybe go to sleep," Hannah said.
"Same," agreed Milo.
"Okay, goodnight!" she said, and rolled over to face away from him.
"Goodnight."
People are weird, Milo thought againand not for the last time, at thatand
rolled over to do the same.
oooo
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"So, you have defeated my minions!" Thamior the Thaumaturge spat, reaching for
his pouch of fell spell components. "Butdo you really think you can challenge
me? You fools! For it is I, the Dread Ma"
"WaitThamior?" Milo said as his companions reached for their weapons, "I'm
confused."
"That is only natural, seeing as how you are a fool, fool!"
"It's just that I thought Thamior was a male name," Milo said, his tone kept
carefully neutral.
"Which is fitting, seeing as how I am, in fact, male," Thamior said, slightly
confusedand evidently irritated at being interrupted in the middle of his
monologue.
"But you're an Elf," Milo said.
"You have a talent for stating the obvious, fool! Unfortunately, it won't help
you avoid joining my Legion of the Da"
"But I thought there weren't any Elf males?"
"You will pay for your insolence!" the purple-cloaked Thamior shouted, his eyes
glowing red. "When I am god-emperor of all the multiverse, I will wait, what's
going on?"
Milo felt a strange tingling sensation somewhere in his midriff, gradually
growing to encompass his torso. In a panic, he looked down to find that, where
his stomach should be, there was a slowly growing sphere of darkness,
occasionally crackling with what looked like green lightning.
"Gah!" Milo said, the sphere growing to reach his neck. "What did youhow didI
won Initiative, damnit! This isn't fair!" but Thamior looked just as surprised
as Milo felt, and was backing away slowly from him.
There was a brief flash of blindingly bright light, and Milo suddenly felt cold
all over. His lungs strained painfully, trying futilely to find air, and his
brain screamed at him that things were very, very wrong. Gravity seemed to tug
at him inconsistently in every direction, before finally agreeing to pull him
backwards. He struggled, swinging his arms wildly to try and find something
solid, anything, until...
Thud
Milo sat bolt upright clutching his side where just a moment before, the sphere
of blackness had begun to grow. To his surprise, he realized both his hands were
wrapped around his Belt of Hidden Pouches.
He looked around, expecting danger, but saw instead only the depressingly
familiar sights of the Hogwarts hospital wing. He blinked, realizing it was only
a dream... and a weirdly vivid one, at that. Milo couldn't, this time, speak
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from experience, but from what he'd heard from other Adventurers, dreams that
were more like flashbacks were always important to the plot. The only thing was,
in this case, he couldn't figure for the life of him how this could be so.
Milo wasn't sure how long he was staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out
what the Hells was going on, what had brought him here, and just what the
significance of his dream was when he realized he wasn't alone. (Well, he knew
he wasn't aloneNeville's rumbling snores, unfortunately, made sure of that.
Also, Hannah. Okay, he obviously wasn't alone. What Milo meant to think was that
there was someone else, awake, in the hospital wing with him. You could consider
cutting him some slack, of course, seeing as how he just woke up).
"Professor?" Milo asked curiously.
"M-Milo," Professor Quirrell, standing by the door, stammered. "I w-was just
checking in on y-y-you, to s-s-see if you would b-be up for the D-Duelling
C-Club on Sunday."
"That's..." Milo did some rapid arithmetic. "Four days from now? Definitely.
I'll be up and about by tomorrow."
"I-indeed?" Quirrell asked, surprised. "Y-your injuries l-look m-m-most severe.
I s-s-see the good M-Madam P-P-Pomfrey has opted n-not to use m-magic on you?"
Milo shrugged painfully.
"I can heal anything short of death in about a day, if I have help. I think
Pomfrey's afraid of how your magic will interact with my... well, with me, I
guess."
"W-well," Quirrell said, glancing at the clock. "I'm afraid that I h-have to
r-r-run; the D-Doxies in the d-d-dungeon won't ch-chase themselves out. I w-wish
you a speedy r-r-recovery, and, to that end, left y-you a present," Quirrell
gestured at a box of Chocolate Frogs on Milo's bedside table. "G-goodbye."
"Erm. Bye! Thanks," Milo said. The DADA professor walked out of the room at
about a half-step faster than normal walking speed, presumably to avoid a
lecture from Pomfrey. Milo waited for the door to close behind him, then turned
to the frogs.
"Detect Poison," he cast, just in case. When they turned out to be clean, he
stashed them in his Belt for later. Milo glanced at the heavy mechanical clock
on the wall, noting that, while he could tell that the little hand was pointed
at just past the six and the big hand was pointing at the three, he had no idea
what that was supposed to mean. Deciding it didn't really matter one way or the
other, Milo figured he ought to just go back to sleep.
Only a few minutes passed before Milo heard the door creak open.
"Back, Professor?" Milo asked, sitting up despite his protesting muscles and
various grievous wounds.
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"Front, Student?" came an aged, grandfatherly voice.
"Headmaster?" Milo asked, genuinely surprised, as Dumbledore walked calmly up to
his bed, dressed in his signature purple robes and half-moon spectacles. "I
thought Madam Pomfrey"
"What the good mediwitch said to me was, in fact, and I quote, 'you won't be
bothering any of my patients tonight, Headmaster, Supreme Mugwump or no.' As it
is, in fact, now the morning and not, in fact, the night, her prohibition is no
longer in effect." Dumbledore paused for a moment. "But, ah, it is entirely
possible that she would not, in fact, see eye-to-eye on my interpretation of her
command, so if you would be so good as to keep your voice down...?"
"Sure," Milo responded quietly. "What brings you here? And, more importantly,
why did you say 'Front, Student?'"
"I was taking, as it were, a shot in the dark at what I had guessedincorrectly,
as it would appearmight be a social custom from your homeland. You see, you
said, 'Back, Professor,' so I thought that, perhaps, the correct response was
to, as is the custom among a small tribe of Merfolk living in a pond in Kashmir,
to say the precise opposite. Alas, as is so often the case when one ventures
into the murky grounds of speculation, I was incorrect. And as to your first
question, I am here, as you can surely guess, to question you about the events
of yesterday."
"Oh, that. It's fairly straightforward," Milo said, and gave Dumbledore a rather
more accurate version of the story than the one he gave Hagrid (lying to
Dumbledore's face seemed, to Milo, about on par with kicking a Lantern Archon).
To his credit, Dumbledore sat patiently, listening to the entire story through
until the end before asking questions.
"and then Fang led Hagrid to us, and he carried us back to the castle," Milo
finished. "Speaking of which, I'm going to need to go back at some point to get
my rope and stuff. Made by Elves, you know." Or at least the sign had said so.
In truth, it was hard to find rope anywhere that wasn't claimed to have been
made by Elves.
"By Elves? One day, when we both are free from the constant pressings of urgent
business, I would greatly enjoy listening to you tell me all about the strange
land from which you hail. But, until then, some much briefer answers to more
specific questions will have to suffice. First, could you explain to me exactly
what the effects are of the Charm you cast on Hannah to free her from the
effects of her mental control?"
"Sure," Milo said. "Protection From Evil. Right now, it lasts up to five
minutes, but I can push that to seven with these gloves," Milo held up his
gloved hands, wiggling his fingers somewhat, "and for the duration, the target
can't be affected by any form of mental control. When the spell ends, the
control starts up again. Also, they can't be touched by summoned non-Good
monsters."
"Fascinating," Dumledore said. "That little spell of yours would have saved the
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Ministry a great deal of trouble over the years."
"May I counter with a question of my own?" Milo asked.
"Of course you may," Dumbledore said, "but whether I shall answer or not is, I
am afraid, another matter entirely. I can promise this: everything I say shall
be the unblemished truth."
"Can you tell me how Hannah was being controlled, who did it, where they live,
and how well protected they are?"
Dumbledore laughed softly.
"That was four questions, you realize, and I am afraid that I am only able to
answer the first. I cannot be sure until I question Miss Abbot directly, of
course, but I am quite certain that she was the unfortunate victim of one of the
darkest forms of magic known. You already have, unfortunately, witnessed the use
of the most terrible of the three Unforgivable Curses, the Killing Curse." Milo
nodded. It was the first spell he'd seen cast by the wizards of this world, in
fact. "The curses are so-called because the use of one on a human being is
enough to warrant a life's sentence in Azkaban, the wizard prison. Normally, the
specifics of the Unforgivables are not learned until a student's Sixth Year, but
in your case, I fear you may well be in danger without being forewarned. Along
with the Killing Curse are the Cruciatus Curse, which causes extreme pain in its
victim, and the Imperius Curse. This last one, despite being the most pleasant
for the unfortunate victim, has caused more disasters, deaths, and crises than
the other two put together, directly or indirectly. The Imperius curse allows
direct mental control over the target for, if necessary, years at a time. Used
by a skilled wizard or witch, is almost impossible to detect and even harder to
resist."
"You mean, it doesn't allow a Will Save?" Milo asked, incredulous. Such a spell
was too powerful to exist.
"I'm afraid I don't altogether understand the question," Dumbledore admitted.
"Who is Will, and why does he need saving?"
"Uh," Milo said. "I mean, it can't be fought off with strength of will alone?"
"Oh, it is possible," Dumbledore conceded, "but only a handful of exceptionally
strong-willed individuals are able to do so."
"You're kidding, right?" Milo asked. These wizards were insanely broken. A spell
that killed on a touch attack without a save was bad enoughat least you had to
be hit. But add in a spell that lets you Dominate someone indefinitely and had,
apparently, an incredibly large bonus to its DC? Milo was briefly surprised that
the whole Ministry wasn't run by Dark Wizards, before remembering how many pies
Lucius Malfoy had his fingers in.
Well, he thought, that would explain why people don't seem to realize how
obviously evil he is. Anyone with any power is probably his thrall already.
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A frightening image came to Milo's mind of a thin, pale spider sitting in a
large, dark room, surrounded by thousands of silken spider webs, from each of
which dangled a major Ministry official like puppets. Milo realized he was badly
mixing his metaphors, but, under the circumstances, had other things to worry
about.
"So... what do you do about it?" Milo asked. "What's the counter-strategy?"
"There isn't much," Dumbledore admitted. "Keeping a close eye on one's
associates and friends to see if they begin acting strangely, occasionally
checking if they still remember past events, that sort of thing. It is, at best,
only moderately effective."
Milo paled.
"And now, you see why it is that knowledge of these curses is kept to the upper
year students," Dumbledore said. "But now, I have another question for you."
"Hit me," Milo said, trying to keep his mind from the horrifying implications of
the Imperius.
"I think I will refrain from doing so," Dumbledore said, "as corporal punishment
has generally more frowned upon now than it was in the days of Emeric the Evil.
Why did you go out in search of Miss Hannah Abbot yesterday morning?"
"Oh," Milo said. "I thought I mentioned. I had to give her her Christmas
present."
"Fascinating as that is, that is not precisely the answer I was looking for, as
I think you know. To clarify: why, after you discovered that Miss Abbot had left
the building, did you head out in search of her?"
Milo sighed.
"I thought something seemed wrong," Milo said, "and that she might be in
trouble. And before you ask, no, it never occurred to me to ask a teacher for
help."
"And why is that?" Dumbledore pressed.
"Same reason as with the 'Troll,'" Milo explained, as if it were obvious. "It's
what I do."
"I rather think not," Dumbledore said. "After Hallowe'en, you explained to
meand I have reason to believe you were telling the truththat you challenged
the Troll rather than doing the sensible thing and running away because fighting
monsters was, as you say, what you do. You said, when I asked you then whether
it was to protect innocent lives, that that was not the case and doing so was
only a... a 'perk' was, I believe, the word you used."
"What's your point?" Milo asked, not used to prolonged conversations with NPCs
and not fully realizing that he was being rude.
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"Did you have any inkling, when you left, that a monster or Dark Wizard was
involved in Hannah Abbot's mysterious exit?"
Milo thought about it.
"No," he admitted.
"Did you suspect, at that point, that she was being forced against her will?"
Milo scratched at his itchy bandages, playing for time. Eventually, he was
forced to admit that he hadn't suspected anything of the sort.
"So, as far as you knew, she had simply been exceptionally foolish and wandered
out into the snow in harsh winds and subzero temperatures?"
"I hadn't really thought about it," Milo admitted, "but if someone had asked me
right then why I thought she was outside, that's probably how I would have
answered."
"And you went looking for her."
"Of course," Milo said, still not entirely sure where this was going.
"Not to fight monsters."
"Nope," Milo agreed.
"But to protect an innocent life?" Dumbledore asked.
"I... suppose so? To protect Hannah, mostly."
"It's a start," Dumbledore said. "And you didn't do it because, from a cold,
mechanical perspective, she would be of some use to you? Perhaps, in your
crusade against Evil?"
"No," Milo said. "I can't see how she would be. Her talents lie in other
directions," Milo said, feeling, for some reason, a bit defensive about her.
"Not everyone has to be good at fighting to be worth saving, Headmaster."
"I feel, and feel free to correct me if I am wrong, that that may not have been
the answer you gave me when we first met."
Milo shrugged.
"She's my friend," Milo said. "I've always protected my..." he trailed off. He
had been about to say 'I've always protected my friends,' but, now that he
thought about it, he'd never really had friends. He protected his partymembers,
of course, but that came with the job description, like fighting monsters.
Hannah... Milo was, for once, unsure of her PC/NPC status, but was fairly sure
that she wasn't, exactly, in the party. But didn't that make her, by definition,
an NPC? Milo went cold. He'd risked his life to save an NPC without any hint or
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hope of a reward. He'd spent days, thousands of Gold Pieces, and hundreds of XP
working on a Magic Item to simply give to an NPC because he'd hurt her feelings.
He actually cared about what an NPC felt. What the Hells was happening to him?
Milo felt queasy. I didn't even loot the corpse! He was stunned. He'd simply
thrown away the Redcap's sword, which could have probably got him at least 10
gp, assuming it counted as a Short Sword. And who knows what else the grotesque
abomination had been carrying? Milo was disgusted with himself. He'd let his
emotions run away with him, getting in the way of good old pragmatic greed.
"I think," said Dumbledore, "what you are feeling, right now, and it may be that
you are experiencing it for the first time and, as such, it is confusing you, is
an aspect of a form of magic more ancient and powerful than any that Voldemort
himself possesses."
"What?" Milo gasped. "Detect Magic," he cast, but nothing happened. For a brief,
horrible moment he wondered if this mysterious magic that had apparently so
addled his brain had also disabled his spellcasting. Then he realized he was
simply out of spells, even Cantrips, until he could prepare new ones. "What kind
of magic? Dispel me! Dispel me, Dumbledore!"
Dumbledore chuckled.
"Even if I could," he said, "no power on Earth could compel me to do so."
"Do you mean to say that you're behind this insanity?"
"No, Milo, the power of which I speak, the power that Voldemort so casually
disregards, the power which was his undoing eleven years ago, the power which
is, currently, already drawing you under its influence and subtly altering your
perception of the world and your actions, is, you will find, quite beyond the
reach of any mortal magic."
"So you do have deities around here!"
"The power of which I speak, young Milo, is love."
Milo stared at him in utter silence, his jaw hanging open, trying to work, but
no sound came out. In the end, Milo had to make a Concentration check simply to
focus the necessary thought to activate his vocal cords.
"Bull. Sh"
"I think," said Dumbledore, "that I will so rudely head you off before you
finish that thought."
"Love." Milo said flatly. "You-Know-Who was brought down by the Power of Love.
Maybe instead of learning magic, we should be putting flowers in our hair and
frolicking in the forest like those pointy-eared pansies and singing around
campfires. Voldy would be powerless to resist our Flower Power."
"If that stretches your credulity, perhaps, I could more clearly state that it
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was love which triggered ancient and powerful protective magic," Dumbledore said
calmly.
"Oh, well why didn't you say so in the first place?" asked Milo. "Ha! I'd love
to have seen the expression on He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's face when a throwaway,
poorly thought-out rule from an obscure splatbook that he never even bothered to
read blew up in his face."
"Why do you say it was poorly thought out?" Dumbledore asked curiously.
"It allowed an infant to defeat the most powerful Dark Wizard that ever lived,"
Milo said, as if the reason were obvious. "That's got to be the most broken rule
in existence. I gotta get me some of that. What, exactly, happened to trigger
it?"
"Normally, I would leave this for Harry himself to tell you, but in this case,
the story is quite well-known. You see, Voldemort was defeated because Harry's
mother sacrificed her life to protect her son out of love, which placed a
protection upon Harry that Voldemort was unable to overcome."
Milo paused, the implications of this dawning on him.
"How on the Prime Material did You-Know-Who ever get to be that powerful in the
first place, then?"
"I'm not sure I completely understand your question. Voldemort used a
combination of subterfuge, cruelty, devoted followers, and powerful magic to"
"No, I mean... I'm obviously no expert on the subject, but do mothers here not
care about their children?" Milo asked, still perplexed.
"Of course they do," Dumbledore said. "I should think that the story I just told
you was proof of that."
"Do Dark Wizards not kill infants, then?"
"Unfortunately, innocent children are no safer from their evil than fully
trained wizards."
"Then how, in the name of the Eternal Library of Boccob, did You-Know-Whoand
Grindelwald, and all the other Dark Wizards that ever livedmanage to rise to
power without, at some point, attempting to kill a child that their mother died
to protect? I mean, how many mothers wouldn't die to protect their children?
Especially if they lived in a world where doing so made their child literally
invincible to dark magic." Milo was idly wondering if he could work something
like it into his backstory, which would neatly solve his problem of dealing with
the Killing Curse.
Dumbledore opened his mouth as if to answer, but, before he could, the door
slammed open.
"Out!" shrieked an irate Madam Pomfrey. "I won't have you bothering my patients!
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They need to rest in peacewait, poor choice of wording... they need peaceful
rest, not to be bothered by constant questions!" Ironically, while Dumbledore
was speaking quietly and softly, it was Pomfrey's tirade that woke up the
sleeping Hannah and Neville.
"Blast," said Dumbledore quietly. "Rumbled, it would seem." He stood up, and
walked slowly towards the mediwitch, hands outstretched in a calming gesture.
"Ah, my dear Madam Pomfrey, just the witch I was hoping to see. Did I ever tell
you how exceptional I've always found your work?" He put an arm on her shoulder
as he walked to the door, evidently hoping that she'd be taken in and follow him
out. She looked briefly mollified, then her eyes hardened again and she brushed
his arm off.
"No! I'm on to your tricks, Headmaster! Don't think you can silver-tongue your
way out of things this time!"
"Alas," Dumbledore sighed. "Foiled again. Might we, at least, continue what I'm
certain will be a most pleasant discussion outside, so as not to disturb your
patients further?"
Pomfrey threw a quick, surprised glance at Hannah and Neville, who were looking
around blearily to find out where the war had started and whether they ought to
go and find helmets and a foxhole.
"Perhaps that would be, er, for the best," Pomfrey said in a much quieter voice,
and followed the Headmaster out, having lost the initiative. Dumbledore glanced
over his shoulder and winked at Milo, then walked out with the somewhat
bemused-looking healer.
"Why was Doreumble... Dormble... Dumbledore here?" Hannah asked, fighting down a
yawn.
"He wanted to ask me about yesterday," Milo explained. "He'll probably come back
later to talk to you about it."
"Oh," said Hannah, who, if truth be told, would be just as happy forgetting it
had ever happened. Then she shrugged, and went back to sleep.
Milo, whose brain was wracked with too many unanswered questionsDumbledore,
Milo had noticed, had an unfortunate habit of answering a question in a way that
provoked twelve morestarted memorizing spells simply to clear his head.
Unfortunately, the arcane sigils in his book kept blurring together and dancing
in front of his vision for him to make much progress there, and he grudgingly
set aside his spellbook for later. He hadn't had trouble preparing spells since
he was apprentice level.
So, I've been bewitched, have I? Enchanted by powerful and ancient magic that's
compromising my ability to think logically. There must be some cure... Break
Enchantment probably wouldn't even do it, as it only works on spells of fifth
level or lower. This love magic business sounds closer to ninth level. Assuming
magic here even has levels, of course. Maybe there's some cure to be found in
the local magic... Dumbledore said there wasn't, but not even he can know
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everything, right? Maybe if I
"Hey," Neville said abruptly.
"Uh, hi, Nev," Milo responded. "What's up?"
"Well, you looked busy earlier, but now that you're not studying anymore, I
thought I'd ask what happened. You and Hannah look pretty beaten up, I mean. Did
Peeves do something?"
"No, I got gutted by a Redcap with a sword."
"Oh," said Neville. "Wow. Why didn't you just pull out your wand and cast"
"Didn't have time," Milo lied.
"Shame, 'cause it's a dead easy spell. Even I can do it, and I'm rubbish at,
well everything."
"We should probably be quiet," Milo said. "Hannah's trying to sleep. Damnit, I
did it again!"
"Did what?" Neville asked.
"Uh. Nothing," Milo said, having forgotten that NPCs could hear you when you
weren't speaking directly to them.
"You're right, though, of course," Neville said. "You can tell me all about it
later."
Milo lay back, cursing his confused brain. Everything had seemed so simple a few
months ago. PCs help you defeat monsters and get treasure, NPCs give you
treasure for defeating monsters. Everything was becoming so tangled lately.
And his combat skills must be going rusty as well; that Redcap, judging by the
XP he earned, was only CR 2. He'd nearly died fighting it, which was completely
unacceptable. The problem, looking at it in hindsight, was obvious: Milo's spell
list was carefully optimized for what he had previously considered to be a
typical combat. As a Wizard, his job was to neutralize as many enemies as
possible in the first few rounds of combat so that his partymembers with knives
and pointy sticks could move in and do the actual damage unimpeded. To that end,
he preferred spells that could make as many enemies as possible as useless as
possible as quickly as possiblethus, Grease and Glitterdust. But lately, he'd
been involved in a lot of solo encounters, and Milo just wasn't capable of
dishing out the kind of damage necessary to finish off an enemywhich is why
he'd had so much trouble with the Troll and the Redcap. It meant he had to burn
a much larger number of spells per enemy than he normally would, and, as a
result, ran out of ammo precipitously fast.
"I should stop going out alone," he realized. "I need backup. That and the
capability to rain down fiery doom, just in case." Milo briefly considered
Fireball, but realized that at his current level, the much more toned down
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Kelgore's Fire Bolt would deal the same amount of damage without the same
possibility for collateral damage. Also, being a Conjuration spell, he would get
a few bonuses from his specialty school. Fireball would take longer to research,
being a 3rd level spell (Kelgore's little toy was only 1st level) so Milo opted
to begin research on Kelgore's Fire Bolt now and get Fireball afterwardsand
maybe Scorching or Seeking Ray after that.
Thinking about spells, tactics, and general optimization had put Milo back into
his more usual mindset, and he opted to continue memorizing spells.
A few minutes after the requisite hour had passed, the door opened again to
reveal yet more visitors.
Harry and Ron walked in. Ron looked part worried and part excited, while Harry
just looked distracted. Ron, to Milo's delight, was carrying a platter laden
with toast, butter, and tea.
"Blimey!" said Ron. "What happened? We were worried when you didn't come back at
night, but figured you'd just gone off to work on something mad like you usually
do. Next morning, Dumbledore himself walks into the Common Room and asks us to
take breakfast up to you and Hannahhi, Hannah" (Hannah had woken up when they
entered, and was staring at the food with undisguised greed) "and blimey you
look terrible." Ron was, however, carrying food, so Milo decided to let him
livethis time.
"Yeah," Harry said distractedly.
Milo shrugged, and for the third time told the story again, glossing over the
part where he'd accidentally knifed the girl now sitting a few feet away from
him.
"I reckon you couldn't have just driven the Red Cap off with"
"No," Milo sighed, resolving to punch the next person who suggested using one of
the local wizards' simple anti-Redcap spells. "I can't cast those, remember?
Anyways, what's up with you two?"
"What do you mean?" Ron asked.
"Harry's off in his own little world," Milo said.
"Is he?" Ron asked, looking over his shoulder at the Boy-Who-Lived, who had been
staring absently at one of Milo's bed fixtures. "You're right," Ron said,
surprised. "He is. Oi! Potter! What's going on in there?"
"I saw my parents last night," Harry said reluctantly.
"What, like in a dream?" Milo asked. "'Cause they seem to be going around."
"No," Harry said. "In a mirror."
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Chapter 20: The Mirror of Erised
Author's Notes: Sorry for the short chapter this week (a mere 7 pages instead of
the usual 10). I'm out of town with the family, so next week's chapter will
either be short as well or delayed a few days (Monday most likely, Tuesday at
the very latest). Also, as a result, this chapter hasn't been edited for grammar
and spelling as thoroughly as they usually are, but I'll come back and clean it
up later. Hopefully it's not too bad. Sorry about all that! Hopefully all the
bonus chapters last week and the week before make up for it.
Anyways, on with the story!
EDIT: Most of the typoes and things seem to have been caught now. Thanks to
everyone who helped point them out!
ooooooo
"Look, I know people always say you look just like your dad, but with your mum's
eyes " Ron said.
"No, that's not what I meant. I actually saw my parents in this mirror. And
their parents, and their brothers and sisters, and a whole family." Harry told
them how, the night before, he'd gone exploring under his Cloak of Invisibility
and discovered the magical mirror in an unused classroom.
"Wow," said Ron, clearly impressed. "That must be some mirror."
"Show me," said Milo.
"Wait!" said Hannah. "You can't just go gallivanting off! You're supposed to
have complete bed rest, remember?"
"You sound just like Hermione," Ron muttered.
"Someone has to," said Hannah defensively.
Milo cursed. She was actually right if he got out of bed, he'd have to come
back and stay a whole 'nother day to get back to full hit points.
"I think I'll have to chance it," Milo said. With luck (something he very rarely
seemed to have) he wouldn't be needing all of his hit points for at least
another day or so. Harry's mirror, however, might not be there tomorrow at all,
and frankly, it seemed fairly plot-relevant.
"Let's go find it," Milo said, ignoring Hannah's protests. "But first, Harry
put it on your list. That, the Power of Love, and the Imperius Curse."
Harry shrugged, pulling the small stack of parchment which held The List (Milo
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made a note to make a few backups of it with Amanuensis or the Pen of Plagiarism
+5, just in case) out of his school bag and diligently wrote them down.
Milo uncomfortably pulled his filthy Robe of Arcane Might over his pajamas. The
way things were going recently, he didn't want to waste a Prestidigitation to
clean it off there was no telling when he was going to be ambushed next.
"All right," he said. "Lead on."
Harry, Ron, and Milo strode out of the hospital wing
"We should hide under the cloak," Harry suggested when they were out of earshot
of the other patients.
"Oh, come on," Milo scoffed. "Three people can't wear one magic item. It just
can't be done. I know I like to bend the rules sometimes, but seriously. Three
people under one cloak? That's a stretch."
"Really?" Harry asked. "That's somewhat surprising. It seems large enough to
cover all of us; I mean, it was made for an adult, right?"
"Trust me," Milo said authoritatively. "It's patently impossible. It'd be like
trying to cast a spell in the same turn as running, or drinking two potions in a
six-second period. Can't be done. End of story."
"Huh," said Harry. "Go figure. Okay, well you should wear it, then, because
you're supposed to still be in the hospital wing."
"Good plan," Milo said, pulling the cloak over his dirty, bloodstained magic
robes. "All right, let's go."
Harry led them through some unfamiliar Hogwarts corridors (always a rather risky
prospect), past a door pretending to be a wall (and once, embarrassingly,
directly into a wall pretending to be a door), down a staircase that turns into
a ramp if you don't ask it nicely not to, and, finally, into an old, abandoned
classroom. The Cloak of Invisibility turned out to be unnecessary, as the only
person they encountered (if the word 'person' could even be applied here) was
the Bloody Baron, who, as usual, ignored them entirely. In the classroom were
cobwebs and a thick coating of dust on most of the desks and chairs, except for
a wide corridor down the middle where a number of them had been pushed to the
side presumably to allow persons unknown to carry in Harry's mirror, which sat
at the front of the room, where the Professor would stand to lecture the class.
Milo let out a low whistle.
"Now that," he said, "is one Hell of a magicky-looking item." The mirror was,
for one, huge. It's top nearly touched the ceiling, and Milo couldn't figure out
how anyone could possibly have gotten it through the door. The frame was of
intricately worked gold, and if that didn't scream Magic, nothing did.
"That the technical term, you figure?" Ron asked wryly.
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"Come on," Harry said impatiently. "Sit in front of it and look, it's my mum and
dad."
"Whoa, hold on there," Milo said. "If there's one thing you learn as an
Adventurer it's that you don't just go looking in random magic mirrors before
finding out exactly what they do."
"But I know what this one does," Harry protested. "It shows my parents."
"Maybe," Milo said cautiously. "I've seen mirrors that create evil copies of
anyone who looks at them, mirrors that suck you in and trap you, mirrors that
blast you forwards in time, mirrors that switch your mind with the owner's,
mirrors that make Suggestions you can't refuse "
"My mirror does that!" Ron interrupted. "Tells me whether my shirt's untucked,
my laces are undone, or there's something in my teeth! And when you ignore it,
blimey, does it make a fuss."
"But this mirror doesn't do anything like that!" Harry protested again. "I
looked into it, and I'm fine!"
Milo looked at him suspiciously.
"How do we know that?" he asked. "Seems awfully suspicious, doesn't it? I mean,
if you were possessed by some evil being who placed the mirror here, the first
thing you'd do is try to convince others to look at it, too, wouldn't you?"
"But I'm not I'm fine, really. You're just paranoid 'cause of Hannah."
"Use Protection From Weevils," Ron suggested. "Remember, the thing you did on
Hannah that made her Hannah again?"
"Good thinking. Protection From Evil," Milo cast on Harry. The Boy-Who-Lived was
surrounded by a brief glow which faded in a fraction of a second. "Feel any
different now?"
"No," Harry said with an audible edge in his voice. "Because I wasn't possessed.
Can we look at the mirror now, or do you want to throw me in the water and see
if I float first?"
"Why would I "
"Ah, nevermind. Just look at the bloody thing."
"Fine," Milo said. "Ron, you go first." If the mirror did launch some form of
attack, Milo figured that, of the three of them, he would be the best equipped
to deal with it and therefore couldn't afford to be neutralized on the first
round. That was his story, and he was sticking to it. Eagerly, Ron stepped
forwards and stared at the mirror.
Ron gasped, and Milo nearly started raining arcane doom everywhere before he
started speaking again.
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"Blimey! I'm I'm head boy!" Ron said, astonished. "And I'm holding the
Quidditch Cup! I wow, it looks like I'm captain of the team!"
"What?" Harry asked. "Let me see that!" Giving Ron a little shove, he positioned
himself right in front of the mirror. "No, look, see? It's my mum and dad!
They're right there in front of us!"
"Maybe," Ron said slowly, "it's different for everyone?" Then his eyes widened.
"Do you reckon it shows the future?"
"How can it?" Harry asked. "All my family are dead, remember?"
"That doesn't really mean anything," Milo said. "There's no reason, beyond the
fact that it would be highly improbable, that Ron couldn't become both head boy
and Quidditch captain."
"But "
"And as for your parents, well, there's dozens of ways for my kind of magic to
bring back the dead," Milo said slowly.
"Right," Harry said in an odd voice. "I'd forgotten about that." Perhaps it was
an unusually high Sense Motive roll for once, or Milo's recent ... confused
state, but something told him that Harry was lying and hadn't, in fact,
forgotten for a moment that Milo could, one day, Limited Wish Harry's parents
back to life.
"Well," Milo said eventually, screwing up his courage. "I think, maybe, I should
have a go at the mirror."
With a fair amount of trepidation, Milo stepped up in front of the ornate mirror
while trying to avoid thinking of all the various kinds of horrible, trapped
mirrors out there. Now that he thought about it, he couldn't recall a single
magical mirror that didn't have some form of vicious curse. His eyes were still
carefully averted, staring at the toes of his adventurer's boots.
Why, oh why did I use my only Protection From Evil on Harry? Milo berated
himself.
Steadying himself with deep, calming breaths, Milo forced his eyes to stare
directly at the polished silver surface.
The universe unveiled itself in front of him, and, while, conceptually at least,
Milo knew from Wizards experimenting with Divinations and Greater Teleport that
the distance between stars was inconceivably far and that the distance between
galaxies made even that colossal distance seem completely negligible, Milo could
see, clearly, pinpoints of light unfolding before him in numbers so large that
they didn't have names. Many of those stars had planets, and many of those
planets had moons, and a rare few of those planets and moons had life. Milo saw
stout, bearded dwarves bustling about in their mines and forges, not knowing
that with every greedy swing of their pick they unwittingly brought themselves
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one step closer to their own inexorable demise as they approached the horrors
which lay beneath their underground cities. Milo saw proud elves, comfortable in
the fact that they'd been toying with the very fabric of the universe and living
in shining cities and soaring towers while the lesser races had yet to discover
fire; blind, in their arrogance, to their ever-waning power, numbers, and
relevance to the world outside of their sequestered paradises. Milo saw humans
beyond number, living their lives, tilling soil, and always expanding outwards,
propelled by their adventurous spirit and search for excitement, not knowing
what was in store for them when they found there nowhere else to discover. Milo
saw ankhegs, centaurs, chimera, dragons, gnomes, halflings, half-elves, aquatic
elves, wood elves, dark elves, high elves, gray elves, wild elves, wood elves,
orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears, half-orcs, magmin, barghests, blink dogs,
dinosaurs, dire animals, ghosts, ghouls, ogres, oozes, mephits, medusae,
merfolk, sahuagin, sprites, lamias, wyverns, will-o-wisps, and wraiths. Milo saw
the entirety of the Prime Material as if he were examining every object,
creature, and wisp of smoke with intense scrutiny. Milo saw the Great Wheel of
the Outer Planes, the sixteen infinitely large planes of Celestia, Bytopia,
Elysium, the Beastlands, Arborea, Ysgard, Limbo, Pandemonium, the Abyss,
Carceri, Hades, Gehenna, Baator, Acheron, Mechanus, and Arcadia arranged
clockwise around the barren Outlands, which, from its heart, rose the impossibly
tall Spire, ringed at its peak by Sigil, The City of Doors. Milo saw the Lower
Planes ripped apart by the never ending Blood War and the uncaring laughter of
their thirsting gods. Milo saw the Inner Planes of Air, Fire, Earth, Water, and
Positive and Negative energy from which the Multiverse itself was made. Milo saw
the Astral, Ethereal, Shadow, and elusive Mirror Transitive planes, and the
madness of the Far Realm. Milo saw the Multiverse in its entirety, and it was
all his.
Milo saw himself, with an infinitely high level in every Class and Prestige
Class, with every feat worth taking and a good many that aren't, with infinite
ranks in infinite skills, with infinite ability scores and infinite ability
modifiers, with infinite hit points, with infinite spells per day and every
spell known, lounging on what, at first glance, appeared to be an intricately
carved throne of every precious metal, expensive special material, and gemstone
Milo had ever heard of (and several others, as well) but upon closer inspection
were, in fact, Epic Magic Items and Artifacts. Milo saw a backrest composed of
dozens of Staffs of the Magi sitting on piles of Rings of Universal Energy
Immunity and Bracers of Relentless Might. One armrest was simply the Axe of the
Dwarvish Lords while the other appeared to be the great battleaxe of Heironeous
Himself, sitting on a pile of the six weapons of his archenemy, Hextor. Milo,
the most powerful character conceivable, lounged on his terrible throne, staring
at His gauntleted hand (in some detached part of his brain, Milo realized it was
nothing less than the Iron Gauntlet of War), an expression of detached ennui on
his blank face. In his other hand, he idly spun the Gold Dragon Orb around his
fingers, one of the most powerful artifacts in creation reduced to a mere stress
ball. Who has any need of an Orb of Dragonkind, even the most powerful one, when
Milo could simply rewrite reality to create a breed of better dragons, forced to
bow to his every will?
Milo had no enemies, for they had all long since been defeated. He had no
adventures to undertake, for there were none of an appropriate Encounter Level.
He had no friends, for he needed none. He had no dungeons to raid, for he had
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the Multiverse in his inventory. He had no familiar, for they could be traded
for more powerful alternate class features. He had no partymembers, because in
the impossible event that he would need allies, what could be more powerful than
Simulacra of himself?
The Milo in the mirror had everything he'd ever wanted, everything he'd ever
seen, everything he'd ever heard of, everything he'd ever only conceived of.
Milo the real Milo wasn't sure when he'd started screaming. He felt hands
(the detached part of his brain that kept noticing minute details even in
impossible situations noted that it must have been Ron and Harry, not that the
rest of him cared) struggling to pull him away from the mirror, but even as they
dragged him away from it he couldn't summon the willpower to tear his eyes from
the horrible visage. Eventually, one of them wrapped the Cloak of Invisibility
around the artifact, and the visions stopped but the memories remained.
"What the bloody hell was that?" Ron asked, his face pale and bloodless.
"I... I saw everything," Milo said weakly. He tasted blood in his mouth, he must
have bit his tongue at some point. "And ... and it was mine. I had everything
... everything except a reason to..." he trailed off, his brain still not fully
functioning.
"Reason to what, mate?" Ron asked nervously in an odd, falsely cheerful voice.
"Anything," Milo said. "No reason to anything."
"Look on the bright side," Ron said. "If that's the future, it means we beat
You-Know-Who."
"You-Know-Who?" Milo asked, his voice full of scorn. "The me in the mirror could
have vaporized You-Know-Who with a Silent Stilled Heightened Maximized Empowered
Intensified Twinned Explosive Quickened Cantrip just by willing it to be so."
"But that's good, isn't it?"
"I'd imagine it would get dull after a few eons," Milo said, still trying to
shake the horrifying images the mirror had shown him. Had it really shown him
the future? What were the rules that governed it? "I'll need to take another
look," Milo said eventually, staggering to his feet. He spat blood on the floor
of the classroom, and wiped at his mouth with his even grimier robe.
"No," Harry said firmly. "Absolutely not."
"I need to know how it works," Milo said. "I need to know if that's really the
future."
"You're not going anywhere near that thing," Harry insisted.
"Fine," Milo said sharply. "Then one of you two give it a close examination and
tell me if you see anything weird. Look at the frame, and try not to get sucked
in." Not even Milo was sure if he meant that last bit literally or figuratively.
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"I'll even close my eyes. See? 'Cause I don't. On account of my eyes being
closed."
"I'm not taking the Invisibility Cloak off until you're out of the room or
blindfolded," Harry said stubbornly.
With growing irritation brought on by his numerous injuries and conflicted
feelings about his vision in the mirror, Milo muttered a few choice oaths as he
fished a scarf out of his Belt of Hidden Pouches and obligingly tied it around
his face.
"Can we get on with it now?" he snapped. Then he took a deep breath and tried to
calm himself down. "Sorry," he said eventually, picturing their hurt
expressions. "I'm still kind of in shock from the... mirror thing. And
yesterday's thing." Then he realized what he was doing, and his breath caught.
"Damnit! I shouldn't have to care about your feelings! Argh, let's just examine
this mirror and get it over with already."
Milo heard a rustling of cloth as, presumably, the mirror's Cloak was lifted.
There was silence as Ron and Harry were (hopefully) diligently examining the
mirror's border and not being absorbed by its eldritch powers.
"Oi, Harry, look at this," Ron said.
"Yeah, I saw that," Harry said. "Just looked like a load of Gobbledegook to me."
"Nah, doesn't look anything remotely like Gobbledegook."
"Could one of you tell me, pray, what it is that you are speaking of?" Milo
asked.
"There's some writing on the mirror," Harry said. "But it's nonsense."
There were a number of ways Milo had available to transmute nonsensical writing
into its sensical variant, but all of them required that he be able to actually
see the words in front of him.
"Write it down on some parchment," Milo said. "Make sure you get it exactly
right does it use the Common alphabet?"
"Uh..."
"English. The English alphabet."
"Oh, yeah, definitely."
"Fortuitous. Shouldn't
school bag and hurried
placed into his hands.
mirror and removed his
Harry's scrawl,
be too hard, then." Milo heard the unbuttoning of a

scratching of a quill before a piece of parchment was
Milo very carefully turned so he was facing away from the
blindfold. Written on a small scrap of parchment was, in
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Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi.
Milo stared at it for a moment, but concluded it wasn't in any language he
recognized.
"Comprehend Languages," he cast, a spell which allowed him to understand any
written and spoken language. To his faint surprise, the writing remained
completely nonsensical the only conclusion was that it had to be in code of
some form.
"I'll have to do this the good old fashioned way," Milo muttered. He'd been
habitually placing skill ranks in Decipher Script every level because it was
Intelligence-based and understanding ancient runes seemed the sort of thing a
Wizard ought to be able to do, but he hadn't actually had a chance to use them
before. Nevertheless, inconsequential problems such as never having tried to
decipher anything before did nothing to prevent the fact that, by any standard,
Milo was very nearly an expert cryptoanalyst. Milo was a little excited to
finally have the opportunity to put his Skills to use, testing them against the
no doubt formidable defences of the accursed mirror. He cracked his knuckles and
stretched, pulling out a few sheets of parchment and his quill. It was time for
some serious, heavy-duty Script Deciphering.
"It's backwards," he said, sounding somewhat disappointed. "I show not your face
but your hearts [sic] desire."
"Your heartsick desire, eh?" said Ron skeptically. "That sounds sort of ...
racy, to be honest."
"No "
"Maybe it was confused," Harry mused. "Because we haven't got any heartsick
desires, so it just showed us whatever we wanted to see?"
"But "
"So, you reckon the mirror just shows you whatever you want?" Ron asked,
impressed. "Clever, Harry."
Milo simply groaned and seriously contemplated applying his forehead directly to
a very inviting-looking hewn stone wall when a thought struck him.
The mirror shows you your heart's desire, he thought. Even if you don't already
know what it looks like like Harry's parents or my, well, my entire Multiverse.
Milo's face broke into a wide grin. He saw an exploit.
All I have to do is figure out how to change my heart's desire, he realized, and
I can see whatever I want.
Ron, however, was developing an increasingly worried look.
"There's something my dad always says," he said, "How did it go? Oh, right:
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Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps
its brain. Mind, I've gotten some right peculiar looks from his Ford Anglia now
and again, and it seems perfectly friendly."
Infinite power might be my long-term goal, Milo thought, although, to be fair,
I'm starting to seriously reconsider that. Well, within reason, anyways. But
what I really want, right now, more than anything else, is to find out what
Voldemort's up to. Yup, honest. That's what I want.
"Now show me, mirror," Milo said quietly, and turned around. As a precaution, he
readied an action: look away if it shows me anything other than information on
You-Know-Who. You can't back down from readied actions.
He winced in almost physical pain as he was given another infinitesimally short
view of the Multiverse and his own horrible fate again.
"What are you doing?" Harry asked. "Don't look at the thing!"
"No, trust me," Milo said, clutching his aching forehead. "I know what I'm
doing. Sort of."
Okay, so maybe I really don't care that much about the Dark Lord after all. How
about something a little smaller... I want, more than anything, to see what
Kelgore's Fire Bolt looks like written out in a spellbook. That was sort of
true, in fact he had just decided, after all, that it would be his next
research project. If he could somehow finagle the mirror into showing him what
to write in his spellbook, he could save a week's work and a thousand gold
pieces.
When Milo turned around again, it was with enough presage to fill a Type II Bag
of Holding. Unfortunately, the mirror once again saw through his mental tricks,
and he was treated to a view of Mirror-Milo killing time by covering every
square inch of the Prime Material in Arcane Marks.
"I'm getting away from this thing," he said, flinching and attempting to look
anywhere other than at the nightmare being played out in the glass. "The mirror,
it's... it's... agh, nevermind. I'm going back to bed."
He'd been about to say 'the mirror, it's Evil,' but it clearly wasn't. It was
absolutely, brutally, horribly Neutral. It showed you what your heart desired,
but sometimes, what you desire isn't the same as what you desire you'd desire...
As Milo walked back to the hospital wing, his head off in space, he suddenly had
another idea.
"I wonder if someone here can bewitch me to desire nothing more than the
spellbook entry for Kelgore's Fire Bolt?" he mused aloud. "Or other spells, for
that matter. Mordy, remind me to ask Hermione, okay? Thanks."
Milo's familiar poked its furry head out of his extradimensional belt and
nodded.
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Maybe it was simply an unusually good roll, or maybe it was the +2 bonus to Spot
and Listen granted from his bond with Mordy, but Milo suddenly felt as if a
White Dragon was breathing down the back of his neck. Mordy's ears perked up,
suddenly alert.
Milo knew not to look around stupidly and say 'Hello? Ron, is that you? Harry?
This isn't funny, guys!,' followed by the inevitable 'Aaaaargh!' as whatever it
was that was hiding out there ate his face. Instead, our gallant hero simply
licked his suddenly-dry lips and walked forwards as casually as he could manage.
Cursing himself for leaving the Cloak of Invisibility with Harry and Ron, Milo
reckoned his best chance was to wait...
Harry and Ron.
Patting his pockets as if he had forgotten something, Milo cursed in a somewhat
overdramatic fashion (not having any ranks in Disguise or Bluff, Milo was a
terrible actor) and started to return to the room with the mirror. Whatever it
was that had triggered Milo's Spot check (if that was, indeed, what it had been)
had easy access to those two, who, still being relative novices at this plane's
peculiar branch of magic, were nearly defenceless. Equally importantly, Milo
didn't particularly want to face it alone in his current state.
While turning around and searching his pockets, Milo had a chance to look around
the corridor, which remained empty save for the obligatory suits of armour and
statuary. Mio considered casting See Invisibility, but remembered how that had
seemed to have no effect, oddly, on whatever it was Snape had used to hide
himself in his office before the Quidditch match.
"Detect Thoughts," Milo muttered under his breath. Mere Invisibility would be of
no use against the spell, which revealed the presence and, if he concentrated
on it long enough, the number of intelligent, conscious creatures in a cone
emanating from Milo.
The spell immediately alerted him that he was right something intelligent was
standing within sixty feet of him. Milo forced himself not to look around
nervously, waiting for the spell to cough up how many people or bloodsucking
monsters there were skulking around him.
When it finally did, Milo was so surprised that it almost broke his
concentration on the spell. He'd thought there would be one, or two at the most,
sneaky persons and/or bloodsucking monstrosities for him to Glitterdust and run
away from.
Within the fairly narrow conical field that Detect Thoughts covers, Milo
detected in the seemingly-empty corridor no less than twelve sentient creatures.
Chapter 21: Bewitched

Page 272
Author's Notes: Sorry for the lateness (and, again, shortness) of this chapter!
I'm still flat-footed from my trip. Since Term is starting, I'll be switching to
Sundays for updates (thus giving me Saturdays to write). Once again, this
chapter was only briefly edited, so please forgive any errors! I'll try to fix
things over the course of the week. Things should be back to normal in terms of
length and grammar for the next chapter.
Also, an extremely helpful fan has shown me a workaround for a problem I've been
having with myth-weavers, so I might be able to post chapterly character sheet
updates. We'll see how things go.
ooooooo
"You reckon we should go after him?" Harry asked.
"In a minute," Ron said absently, still staring at the Mirror.
"It's just ..." Harry said. "I dunno, he seemed a bit, well, off."
"I'm sure he's fine," Ron said, making a vague gesture.
"Looking into a mirror that shows your heart's desire and screaming your head
off doesn't seem particularly fine to me," Harry said with growing certainty.
"And, I mean, he's injured and all."
"Hey," Ron said, suddenly alert. "What do you reckon Hermione would see in here?
Herself with a load of the world's dullest books probably ... still, we should
probably show her when she gets back. And what about Fred and George?"
Harry looked at Ron, his eyes narrowing.
"So you think we should show a bunch of people?" Harry asked neutrally.
"Dunno," Ron shrugged. "Just wondering what they'd see is all. What about
Neville? Bet it'd be himself with no bandages holding a Remembrall that's
completely dim, eh? Or an 'O' in Transfiguration."
No way, Harry thought. Could Milo have been right about the Mirror?
"I think," Harry said slowly, "that we should go talk to Dumbledore or
McGonagall."
"What, really?" Ron asked, as if Harry had just suggested they jump into a pit
of venomous snakes.
"Yeah," said Harry. "I reckon the Mirror, it's, well, it's like Milo said, it's
making you want to go and get other people to show it to." The last several
words spilled out all at once.
"What?" Ron sputtered. "Need I remind you that he also nicked the contents of
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everyone's trunks because he thought they were, and I quote, treasure chests?
He's off his rocker."
"But when I saw the mirror the next thing I did was to go get you two, and now
you want to go get other people! It's just like he said!"
"I was just wondering what they'd see is all," Ron said defensively. "And
anyway, it's not like it's a crime, is it? It's a fun mirror, I mean. But it's
not like I was seriously considering it."
"That so? Or is the Mirror making you say that?"
"If I was being possessed," Ron said firmly. "I'd know about it."
"I didn't know when it made me show it to you!"
Ron rolled his eyes.
"Look, say you're right and it's this big dirty evil magic Mirror that's
controlling me with its big dirty evil magic Mirror powers," Ron said patiently.
"If that were true and it isn't, but if it were then we wouldn't be having
this dumb conversation because you'd be controlled by its big dirty evil magic
Mirror powers also."
Harry frowned for a moment, then a thought struck him.
"No," he said excitedly, "because he used Protection From Evil on me, remember?
The Mirror can't influence me but we have to find a teacher before it wears
off! Can you remember how long it lasts? I can't."
"This is mad," Ron said exasperatedly. "We're just getting jumpy 'cause of
Hannah and convinced everyone's possessed whenever they do anything. This time
tomorrow someone will suggest we go get breakfast and everyone will be all 'He's
possessed! Let's go run to Dumbledore!' or 'He said he was going to the loo! He
must be possessed!'"
"That's what you would say if the Mirror were controlling you," Harry insisted.
"It's also what I'd say if I thought you were becoming an increasingly
annoyingly paranoid git," Ron said, losing his patience. "Just saying."
"Let's just go find him and go to McGonagall, okay? I mean, what's the worst
that could happen?"
"That we all get eaten by spiders in the hallway, obviously," Ron said. "But
fine, let's go if it's the only thing that'll shut you up about this. Now,
where do you reckon he is?"
"Where who is?" asked a new voice. Harry and Ron turned, shocked, to find Milo
leaning calmly against the doorframe to the classroom.
"You," Harry said while Ron said "What are you doing here?"
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"What are you lot fighting about?" he asked, ignoring Ron's question entirely.
"Sir Paranoid here reckons we've both been bewitched," Ron said, "and wants to
take us to McGonagall."
Milo snorted dismissively.
"Lead on, then," he said. "Not that it will accomplish much; that's practically
impossible to detect."
"One second," Harry said. "Just going to grab the Cloak."
Milo raised an eyebrow briefly as Harry shoved his Invisibility Cloak into his
schoolbag, but said nothing.
"Right, let's go," Harry said, shouldering his bag and heading to the door. "And
both of you stay in front of me," he added, "just in case."
As they walked to McGonagall's office, Harry kept a firm grip on his wand he
wasn't sure just how much power (if any) the Mirror had over them, but decided
not to take any chances.
"Er, mate," Ron said anxiously as they rounded one of the last corners to their
destination, "not really sure how to tell you this, but your magic belt thingy
seems to be acting up." Ron gestured at Milo's belt, which, now that he was
looking closely, Harry noticed did, indeed, seem to be 'acting up.' One of the
ten small pouches was wiggling around, as if something inside was trying to get
out.
"It does that sometimes," Milo said with a shrug. "It's nothing that need worry
you."
"Oh," said Ron. "It's just I never noticed it before."
"Isn't that where you keep your rat?" Harry asked shrewdly. He'd seen the furry
little animal poking it's head out of the belt occasionally to look around. In
fact, he didn't think he'd ever seen the buckle on that particular pouch done up
before...
"Nope," Milo said blithely.
"Oh, okay," Harry said as if it were nothing. Something weird's definitely going
on, he thought. Best get to McGonagall as quickly as possible.
"Still can't believe I'm voluntarily walking to McGonagall's office," Ron
muttered. "Again. What would Fred and George say?"
Harry expected Milo to make a quip about just how 'voluntary' (or rather,
involuntary) Ron's trip to the Deputy Headmistress's office really was, but Milo
remained silent, staring straight ahead with his shoulders set.
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It felt like it took ages, but in reality, it was only a four minute walk or so
from the abandoned classroom to their destination. Harry rapped quickly on the
door three times, not taking his eyes off of Milo.
"Come in," Harry heard.
"Right," Harry said, gesturing with his wand (although, in truth, he didn't know
any spells off-hand that he would use on them anyways). "You two go in first,
and leave the talking to me."
"You're mad, mate," Ron muttered, and pushed the door open.
"Misters Potter, Weasley, and Amastacia-Liadon," McGonagall said, rising from
her chair. "What seems to be the mat why are you holding your wand? And you,
shouldn't you be in the hospital wing?"
"I think these two have been bewitched "Harry started.
"Oh, come now," McGonagall said in a pacifying tone. "Why would "
" by a magic Mirror. And so have I."
"Mirror?" McGonagall asked sharply, suddenly alert. "Explain everything on the
way. Let's go."
"Where are we going?" Ron asked as McGonagall stepped around her desk to the
door.
"To see the Headmaster, of course. This nonsense about bewitchment aside, I need
to talk to him about just leaving a certain powerful magical artifact where just
anyone can bump into it."
Despite the fact that she had dismissed Harry's concerns about mental control
off-hand, Harry noticed that McGonagall, who usually liked to stay at the front
of any particular group, stayed a half-step behind Harry, Ron and Milo on the
way up to Dumbledore's hidden office a fact which made it somewhat awkward for
him to recount the events surrounding the mirror.
McGonagall guided them down Hogwarts' ever-shifting halls, through false walls,
up some stairs, down some stairs, up some more stairs, took what Harry swore
were three left turns at one point and still ended up somewhere different, until
they eventually stopped in front of an ominous-looking gargoyle statue. While
Harry hadn't ever been to this particular statue, he was fairly sure McGonagall
had taken a deliberately circuitous route.
Harry saw McGonagall's lips move, but a sudden ringing in his ears prevented him
from hearing whatever it was she said. Just as abruptly as it started, the
ringing stopped, and the gargoyle seemed to rotate upwards into a spiral
staircase. Something about the way it moved seemed subtly wrong to Harry, but
he'd seen enough magic to know not to analyze things too closely.
"Up you go," McGonagall said, and they trotted up the stone staircase to a heavy
Page 276

wooden door. McGonagall knocked politely on the door and waited.
"Shouldn't we just go in?" Harry asked, impatient. He didn't know how much
longer Protection From Evil would last, or if it had already run out. "This is
urgent."
"Neither the Minister for Magic, Nicolas Flamel, nor even
He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named would dare enter the Headmaster's office without
permission. So we wait."
Harry waited several uncomfortable seconds, tapping his foot impatiently against
the ancient stone floor. Eventually, the door simply swung open to let them in.
Dumbledore sat behind a heavy oak desk, wearing a particularly eye-watering
multi-hued robe and his trademark half-moon spectacles.
"Why, Minerva, what an unexpected surprise!" he said, looking genuinely pleased.
"And I see you've brought guests! Is it tea time already?"
"No, it's not, it's "
"My colleague Professor Sinistra assures me that, due to the rotation of the
earth beneath our feet hurtling through space around the great, smiling face in
the sky that we call the sun, it is always tea time. Somewhere, at least."
"Er, well, be that as it may, I have a matter of some importance to discuss with
you," McGonagall said, desperately trying to regain the initiative. "It's about
the Mirror, and ... something else as well."
"I see," Dumbledore said gravely, all appearances of a foolish old man suddenly
gone. Harry had never seen the Headmaster look so serious before. "Go on."
"Perhaps it would be best if Mister Potter explained," the Deputy Headmistress
said.
"Very well. What's happened, Harry?" Dumbledore asked.
As Harry nervously told his story, he noticed that Milo appeared to be sweating
nervously.
"So, in short, you think you're all being influenced by the Mirror of Erised?"
Dumbledore asked.
"Is that what it's called?" Harry asked.
"It is, indeed," Dumbledore said. "And, it appears, I shall have to have it
moved from its temporary home. If it will put your mind at rest, the Mirror,
while extremely powerful, does not have the ability to directly control the
actions of those who gaze upon it not to say that having their heart's desires
revealed to them isn't a form of influence in itself."
"Oh," Harry said, greatly relieved.
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"Still," Dumbledore said, "you can't be too careful, I suppose. If you would be
so good as to wait here a moment?" Without waiting for a reply, the Headmaster
stood up from his desk to walk over to one of his shelves of ticking silver
devices on the wall.
"Ah," he said after rummaging about for a moment or two, "here we are. I've
always been meaning to try this one out." Blowing what seemed to be generations
of accumulated dust off of a complicated-looking spindly silver thing that Harry
could only, in all honesty, accurately describe as a 'gizmo,' Dumbledore
returned to his desk and sat down heavily. He placed the gizmo on the polished
wooden surface where it made an ominous thud that seemed much louder than an
object of its apparent mass would make. It had spiky protrusions. It had bits
that whirled around for no apparent reason. It had twists and turns and knobs
and dials. It had what looked uncomfortably like a dentist's drill only more,
well, eldritch.
"But, Headmaster " McGonagall began, looking astonished.
"Not now, Minerva," Dumbledore said, brushing aside whatever her protest was.
"This," he said to Harry, Ron, and Milo with a dramatic flourish, "is the, De
... bewitcher of, er, Destiny."
"I'm sorry, the " McGonagall began.
"Yes, the Debewitcher of Destiny. It's for, near as I can figure, revealing the
presence of any form of magic that allows mental control, up to and including a
certain Unforgivable curse."
"But detecting the Imperius Curse is all but impossible," Milo protested.
"Indeed, without the Debewitcher of Doom, it is impossible," Dumbledore agreed.
"Wasn't it called the Debewitcher of Destiny?" Ron asked.
"It's very versatile," Dumledore shrugged. "Now, who shall I use it on first?"
As he spoke, he adjusted several knobs and dials on the device, which made its
drill extension whir in an ominous fashion.
"I'm not going near that thing," Ron said stubbornly. "What would it do if we
were, you know, bewitched? Not that we are, of course."
"Well," Dumbledore said, scratching his beard as he thought. "To be honest, I'm
not completely certain. To the best of my knowledge, this dial here controls the
severity of the Debewitcher's effect," he said, gesturing at a particularly
large, unmarked dial. "It goes anywhere from simply revealing the identity of
the guilty party to having the earth itself rise up and swallow the culprit
whole."
Ron gave a low whistle.
"The only problem is, the dial is unmarked. Now, of course, the normal
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convention is for dials to turn them to the left for their lowest setting , but,
as I'm sure you can tell, the designer of this particular device was quite
clearly bonkers. So, just to be safe, I'm turning it all the way to the right."
As he did so, the whirring of the drill-end increased to a frightening pace, and
parts of the machine were pumping up and down now at a rate that was shaking the
floor. "Ah," Dumbledore said. "See? Perfectly safe."
Harry swallowed nervously. Ron's face was white, and Milo licked his
suddenly-dry lips.
"I-I'll go first," Harry said. He'd rather
that deathtrap of a machine, but he had to
him. Also, it set a good precedent for Ron
it and (hopefully) survived, they couldn't
do almost anything other than go near

know if the Mirror was controlling
and particularly Milo. Once he'd done
very well back out.
"Then, if you would just place your palm here," Dumbledore said, pointing at a
flat disc on one of the Debewitcher's spindly arms. Harry complied, taking care
not to go anywhere near the more dangerous-looking appendages. There was a tense
second or two as Harry waited for the results. The machine didn't, as far as
Harry could tell, give any sort of feedback, but eventually Dumbledore broke the
silence. "Well," he said, "it seems that you are, fortunately, no less or
more, for that matter yourself than you usually are." Harry sighed with
relief, collapsing into a nearby chair. "Now, Mister Weasley," Dumbledore said,
turning to Ron. "If you would ...?"
Ron gulped audibly, but put his now-heavily-sweating palm on the disc. To his
relief, nothing happened.
"See?" he said to Harry, pulling his hand away from the machine. "I'm fine, just
like I said."
"And Mister Amastacia-Liadon," Dumbledore said, turning to Milo. "It's your
turn."
"But I'm not possessed," he said stubbornly.
"I'm sure you're not," Dumbledore replied. "But, nevertheless, your two friends
were brave enough to try it. Surely you as, by your own admission, a hero
would be willing to do the same?"
"This is pointless," he muttered. "I'm sure we all have much more important
things to be doing especially you, headmaster, as Supreme Mugwump on top of
being Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot than entertaining a boy's delusions. I
mean, you yourself said the Mirror can't "
"You got his titles right," Harry said suddenly.
"Sorry, what?" Milo asked coolly.
"You get everything's name wrong," Harry said, backing away slowly.
"I don't "
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"You once called him the Supreme Muggle instead of Mugwump, and called the
Chudley Cannons Cuddly. I've never heard you get two polysyllabic names right in
the same sentence before."
"Well, maybe I thought it was funny then, but now things are impor"
"You trapped Mordy in your Belt."
"He was being unruly," Milo said defensively. "He bit me. See?" Milo peeled off
one of his weird blue gloves to show a small bite mark between his thumb and
index finger.
"Maybe," Harry said skeptically. "He bit you because you're bewitched after
all."
"I'm not "
"Then put your hand in the machine and prove it," Harry said.
"Fine," Milo snapped, and stepped towards Dumbledore's desk. He reached slowly
towards the machine with four sets of eyes boring into him slowly. Just as he
was about to place his hand on the disc, he spun around. "Summon Hipp"
"No," Dumbledore said quietly. There was no threat, no malice, and no particular
volume to his words. He wasn't even holding his wand. Nevertheless, Milo blinked
in amazement as his spell fizzled out in front of him.
"How did you " he began, then noticed the large number of wands pointed at him.
"Ah," he said. "I see."
oooo
"Enervate," Milo heard a voice say. In a panic, he rolled to the side and tried
to stumble to his feet.
"Don't you dare," he said, feeling dizzy. The whole Material Plane seemed to be
spinning in a somewhat concerning manner, and everything more than a few feet
away was an indistinct blur. He didn't envy his chances of succeeding the
requisite Concentration check to cast a spell given his current status.
"I was just " the voice said again.
"Enervation, eh?" Milo asked, trying to hide just how dazed he was. "You can
keep your 1d4 negative levels, if you please, and tell me what the Hells is
going on. Or... or else," he finished lamely.
"I think we've got him back," someone else said.
"Blimey, you reckon?" a third voice said sarcastically.
"If 'onety-four' is a number," a female voice said sternly, "then I shall eat my
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hat. I believe the word you were searching for was fourteen."
"Everyone, stop trying to be witty," Milo said, his vision growing somewhat
clearer, "and give me a straight answer."
"You were controlled by the Imperius curse for an unknown duration by an unknown
party," a grandfatherly voice that Milo recognized instantly as Dumbledore's
said. "But were discovered by your good friend Harry Potter who, in a notably
rare act of sensibility for a Gryffindor, immediately did the sensible thing and
told the good Deputy Headmistress. Thirty points for Gryffindor, Harry, by the
way. In, what if I dare say was a characteristic fit of quick thinking, I then
managed to convince you and, more importantly, whomever was controlling you
that I could reveal the identity of your controller with this
fifteen-hundred-year-old magical juicer. You were presumably ordered to attack
us, and Minerva, regrettably, was forced to subdue you."
"Oh," said Milo, as the memory came back to him. The room was starting to
stabilize, but Milo decided he'd be perfectly happy staying on blessedly solid
the floor for a while nonetheless. "Then why did you try to cast Enervation on
me?"
"Enervate, Milo, not Enervation," Dumbledore corrected.
"Demons and Tanar'ri," Milo shrugged. "Same thing."
"While I have lived for quite some time and accumulated no small amount of
knowledge of magic, I do not know of this Enervation spell of which you speak
fittingly, since I presume it is from your world. Enervate, however, is a
harmless, yet rather unfortunately named spell to wake up those rendered asleep
or unconscious by magic."
"Then why did they call it a word that means to suck energy out of something?"
Milo asked curiously.
"Everyone makes mistakes," Dumbledore said with the slightest of shrugs. "I'm
led to believe that some people at the ministry are working on a functionally
identical spell with a more appropriate name. But I digress. I don't suppose
there's any chance that you can identify the culprit?"
"Sorry," Milo said. His vision had cleared to the point where he could clearly
make out Dumbledore, Harry, Ron, and Professor McGongall's faces. "I was in the
hallway near the Mirror when I thought I thought I noticed something, so I cast
a spell that detects minds. It told me there were twelve sentient minds nearby,
although I couldn't see any of them. Before I could find out more, I heard
someone whisper 'Imperio', and then, well, you know the rest. Oh, speaking of,"
he said, unbuttoning the pouch that Mordy was trapped in. "Sorry, little guy,"
he said to his friend. "It's okay, now."
"The minds that the spell detected," Dumbledore pressed. "Are you quite sure
they were sentient? As in, human-level intelligence?"
"Er," Milo said, trying to remember the spell description. "Anything living
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that's as smart or smarter than a newt."
"Could it have simply been the wall portraits?" Dumbledore asked. "I daresay,
the one that guards Ravenclaw tower is a good deal smarter than a newt."
"No," Milo said. "Those are probably Constructs er, magically animated objects
and therefore immune to the spell. So whatever they were, they were
invisible."
"In fact, that is most unlikely," Dumbledore said. "The ability to become truly
invisible, at least in our world, is extremely rare. It is more likely that
these twelve persons or creatures unknown were hidden with, say, a remarkably
good Disillusionment Charm." Oh, Milo thought. So that's why See Invisibility
only worked on the Cloak. Go figure.
"One last question," Milo asked. "Actually, make that two questions."
"Very well," Dumbledore said. "I will answer to within the confines of our
earlier agreement."
"The first: how did you interrupt my spell? I'd assumed our different types of
magic were basically incompatible."
"Oh, it was quite simple, really," Dumbledore admitted. "I simply used magic of
a different sort. I reasoned that, since you once told me that you had worked
and studied for your magic rather than, say, being born into it that it
required a certain degree of mental fortitude and concentration to use, much
like our magic."
"So you just..."
"Over the years, I've acquired something of
undeserved, of course and I've found that
dark wizards, seem to believe me capable of
commanded you to stop, and you, believing I
complied."
a reputation for myself most of it

a certain type of wizard, especially
almost anything. So, I simply
actually had the power to do so,
"What would you have done if that hadn't worked?" Milo asked.
"Ah," Dumbledore said with a slight twinkle in his eye. "In that case, I would
have done nothing."
"Nothing?" Milo asked, shocked. "Then the Hippogriff would have torn you to
pieces."
"I daresay not," Dumbledore said. "Minerva would have Stunned you well before
you finished casting your spell. Now, as to your second question...?"
"Right," Milo said. "What the Hells was that Mirror?"
"Ah, the Mirror of Erised," Dumbledore said. "It shows the heart's deepest, and
sometimes, unfortunately, darkest desire. Nothing more, and nothing less. I
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strongly urge you to put it out of your minds, for men have wasted away
obsessing over it. Needless to say, it shall be moved to a more safe location as
soon as possible."
"Good idea," Milo said, remembering the disturbing images the Mirror had shown
him. "Now, if someone will help me to the hospital wing, I'm going to stay there
until I've made an amulet of Protection From Evil for everyone and their
cousin."
Chapter 22: The Chessmaster
Author's Notes: Thank everyone for the increasingly positive flood of reviews!
Hope you enjoy reading this next chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Also, I'm going to experiment with chapterly-updated character sheets now that I
can copy-paste them. Here's this one (replace the asterisks with periods):
myth-weavers*com/sheetview*php?sheetid=444154
EDIT: Wow, there were about a million embarrassingly obvious typos, grammatical
errors, and repeated sentences in the first version. Sorry, guys! I think I
caught most of them. Yikes.
ooooooo
The remainder of the week was, for Milo, blissfully uneventful. Classes resumed,
and with them the hustle and bustle of several hundred Hogwarts students
returning from their vacation. Pleading illness (and who was qualified to
disagree with him?), Milo, true to his word, sequestered himself in the hospital
wing with Neville (Hannah, after a few days of rest and dozens of different
healing Charms and potions, was deemed fit to return to school) frantically
crafting Amulets of Protection From Evil and researching Kelgore's Fire Bolt.
It was here that Milo ran into a small problem of mathematics: it took two days,
hundreds of Galleons of owl-ordered supplies (Milo found he could affray these
costs somewhat by supplies nicked from Potions), and eighty Experience Points to
make each amulet. Milo really didn't know much about the demographics of this
plane (all he'd seen was a bit of Hogsmeade, Platform Nine and Three-Quarters,
and, of course, Hogwarts) but there were probably several thousand wizards and
witches out there. Even ruling out protecting the entire population and
focussing on those who posed an imminent threat to Milo anyone nearby who
possessed a wand, had a drop of magical blood, could see lightning and hear
thunder the number of Amulets required was insanely unrealistic.
"This is just so backwards," Milo muttered after, upon reaching the end of the
week, completing only his third Amulet of Protection From Evil. The problem was
that an Imperius'd wizard or witch was more of a threat to those around them
than to themselves, so Milo, in order to protect himself, had to equip anyone
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and everyone around him with expensive amulets. The problem, however, was that
Magic Item crafting benefited from no economy of scale whatsoever: if it took
two thousand gold pieces and two days to make one Amulet of Protection From
Evil, it would take two hundred thousand gold pieces and two hundred days to
make a hundred of them. While Harry was rich, Milo doubted he was quite that
rich. At some point, Milo was going to have to start paying him back for the
(rather enormous) loan.
"What's backwards?" a familiar voice said. Milo turned to the door to see
Hermione standing there, a tray of steaming hot soup in her hands.
"Hey!" Milo said. "I was wondering when you'd drop by."
"Sorry," Hermione said apologetically. "I was going to come earlier, but, well,
it's the first week back and I didn't want to get behind I mean, I only had
time over the break to reread A History of Magic, Magical Drafts and Potions,
One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, and Magical Theory! I'm dangerously behind
in The Standard Book of Spells and A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration!"
Hermione pulled herself together with visible effort. "But, my responsibility as
a friend outweighs even academic concerns," she said officiously. "Well, at
least, in an emergency. And except in exam period."
"Well, thanks," Milo said. "Just set the soup down on the bedside table."
"So," Hermione said after doing just that, "just how badly were you injured,
anyway? I remember after the Troll you were on your feet in no time, and, well,
you were in pretty bad shape that time, so... I mean, are you all right?"
"Yeah, totally fine," Milo shrugged. "But if Pomfrey asks, I need another day of
complete bed rest to, and make sure you get this right, 'regenerate my
recuperative and restorative healing abilities and realign my ki power pool or
die.'"
"You could die?"
"Nope," Milo said. "I made all that stuff up."
"You're... you're skiving!" Hermione accused, aghast.
"Well, duh. But it's for a good cause which reminds me..." Milo fished out the
three Amulets of Protection From Evil from his magic belt. "Arcane Mark, Arcane
Mark, Arcane Mark, Arcane Mark, Arcane Mark, Arcane Mark," he cast repeatedly,
placing a pair of unique symbols on each amulet for later identification. One
symbol on each amulet was a faintly glowing rune which was, using Milo's magic
anyways, virtually impossible for anyone else to duplicate. The local magic was
largely one giant unknown, however, so Milo also put an invisible version of the
mark on each amulet as a backup one that only Milo could see, and even then,
only when he cast See Invisibility first. If someone out there (*cough* Snape
*cough*) tried to switch the amulets for forgeries, and they somehow managed to
duplicate the decoy mark, they wouldn't even know about the invisible one.
"What was that all about?" Hermione asked.
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"For later identification," Milo said. "I mark all my stuff that way, comes in
handy more than you'd think. Here, put this on," Milo handed her one of the
amulets.
"Er, it's, um, pretty?" Hermione tried, desperately, to sound delighted, but the
fact was that the amulets were little more than small silver discs on a thin,
but sturdy, steel chain.
"Is it?" Milo asked. "Aesthetics were never my strong suit, to be honest.
Appearances aside, that right there's what we in the business call a Magic
Item."
"What's magic about it?" Hermione asked, examining it curiously.
"Makes you immune to the Imperius Curse," Milo said nonchalantly.
"Sorry," Hermione said. "Could you say that again? See, here I thought you said
that this little necklace is supposed to protect you against one of the darkest,
most powerful Curses in existence."
"Yeah," Milo said. "And any other mind-affecting magic, also. Just make sure you
keep it on at all times, and give this other one to Harry. I'll have Ron's done
sometime tomorrow."
Hermione stared at Milo, evidently trying to decide if he was joking or not.
"You're serious, aren't you?" she asked. "I mean, I'd heard from Ron that you
had a spell that did something like that temporarily, but this... This is big,
do you understand? Really big."
"Well, I guess? I mean, it's pretty trivial magic where I'm from."
"Blocking the Imperius Curse is trivial?" Hermione exclaimed. "From what I've
read, during the last war, the other side managed to infiltrate the Ministry at
every level, and we're still not sure who was bewitched and who was a volunteer.
It was utter chaos, and You-Know-Who nearly toppled the entire government that
way. It takes exceptional willpower as in, one person in hundreds or years
of training to resist. How could preventing something like that possibly be
trivial?"
"I figure it's something like Transfiguration. Using Arcane magic my magic,
that is turning a matchstick into a pin requires an extremely powerful spell.
And healing injuries like Pomfrey can do with a wave and a word is nigh
impossible. On the other hand, I can see right through Harry's super-rare and
expensive Invisibility Cloak without much difficulty because, well, for us, mere
Invisibility is an everyday sort of thing. Ironically, it's the inferior
Disillusionment Charm that I can't beat. Which actually reminds me of something,
Hermione, that I was going to ask you," Milo said.
"Oh?"
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"Do you know of any spells that can change someone's heart's desire, if only
temporarily?"
"What does that have to do with the Disillusionment Charm?" Hermione asked,
perplexed.
"Long story. But can it be done?"
"Let's see..." Hermione scratched her chin, deep in thought. "I presume you're
talking about the Mirror? It really depends on what, exactly, 'heart's desire'
means. With a decent Confundus Charm or maybe even after being Obliviated,
which leaves the target in a highly suggestive state you can definitely force
someone to want something. Whether that counts as your new 'heart's desire,'
however, I think is a matter of interpretation."
"Ah," Milo was crushed by disappointment. He'd hoped to trick the Mirror of
Erised into showing him whatever he needed to see, but he was pretty sure that
he'd destroyed his chances of getting a favourable outcome in any 'matter of
interpretation' when he tried to use Spontaneous Divination to mimic a Cleric
spell.
"However," Hermione said, looking thoughtful. "It's possible unlikely, mind,
but possible that a sufficiently powerful Love potion might have the desired
effect."
"A Love potion." Milo said flatly.
"It basically comes down to how, well, fluffy one interprets the meaning of
'heart's desire' to be. Will someone who is madly in love, but drugged by a
potion into loving someone else see their 'one true love,' or the person who is
pressing on their minds at that very moment? The answer to that, I really
couldn't tell you. Seems more up Professor Dumbledore's alley, to be honest.
It's all academic, in any case. Harry said he was going to move the Mirror, I
doubt we'll ever see it again."
"Of course we will!" Milo said. "It's on the List. If it wasn't going to pop up
again later for something important, why would we have seen it after Christmas?
It would have been a complete waste of everyone's time."
"You have a very unusual view of the world," Hermione said, her tone making it
perfectly clear how she felt about that.
"It's never led me astray yet," Milo said defensively.
"Now that is a matter of some debate," she said. "Oh, also, McGonagall told us
that Dumbledore officially pardoned the Gryffindor house for assaulting the
Slytherins in Potions. Apparently we've fallen precipitously behind even
Hufflepuff, not that there's anything wrong with them, in our courses because of
all the detentions."
"Well, that's a relief," Milo said. "I badly need that time for spell research.
There just aren't enough hours in the day."
Page 286

"Tell me about it," Hermione said sympathetically. "I don't see how I'm going to
fit all the courses I want onto my schedule in third year," she said. "Which
reminds me I really need to get back to studying."
After she left, Milo returned to work on Ron's Amulet. He'd have to spend most
of the rest of today and tomorrow on it, but Sunday...
...Sunday was saved for Quirrell's Duelling Club.
oooo
"S-s-some of you are p-p-probably wondering w-why the D-D-Defence P-Professor
would start a D-Duelling Club," Quirrell stammered to the assembled students.
Roughly one-third of the entire student body had signed up for his Club, from
first-years to seventh-years, and stood assembled in the Great Hall. "B-because
whatever you c-could learn in this c-club, surely, I c-could teach you in y-your
regular c-c-course?" Milo blinked. He hadn't been wondering that at all; he'd
mostly been wondering how much longer he had to wait before magically
curbstomping some local 'wizards.' "Well, the d-d-difference between D-Defence
Against the D-Dark Arts and D-D-Duelling lies in y-your opponent. C-can anyone
t-tell me what a Red C-Cap, a Werewolf, a Dementor, a D-Doxie, a B-Boggart, and
even a V-V-V-Vampire have in c-common?"
Students shuffled their feet, glancing at one another, trying to determine any
similarity between these extremely disparate creatures.
"What's the answer to this one?" Ron whispered hopefully to Hermione.
"I don't know!" she whispered back, her eyes looking somewhat wild. "It's not in
any of our textbooks, and most of those creatures aren't covered until third
year or higher!"
Somewhere near the front, an NPC raised his hand.
"Yes, C-C-Cedric?" Quirrell asked the boy.
"They're not human," he said simply. "And they all have some sort of weakness to
memorize, or a vulnerability to a particular Charm or Curse."
"C-correct," Quirrell stammered, "and ten p-points for Hufflepuff." There was
some astonished murmuring from the ranks a Hufflepuff (not that there's
anything wrong with them, great people, by the way) answered a question about
Defence and got it right? Who was this boy? "In short," Quirrell continued, "as
l-l-long as you're prepared and r-r-reasonably alert, most m-magical creatures
pose l-little threat to a q-qualified wizard or w-witch. Now, who c-can tell me
how fighting another w-wizard or w-w-witch is different?"
Again, it was Cedric who raised his hand first.
"Because, in theory, a wizard fighting another wizard is a fair fight," the
handsome Hufflepuff explained. "They both have access to the same spells, and
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since every spell Unforgivables aside, of course can be countered in some
fashion, it comes down to the differences between the individual witches or
wizards in question."
"C-correct again," Quirrell said. "A-and another t-ten points for Hufflepuff.
N-now, to the c-c-crux of the m-matter, what is the f-factor that will
d-determine which w-wizard will prevail?"
This time, nearly every student in the hall raised their hand.
"Yes, Mister M-Malfoy?" Quirrell asked Draco, who was standing near the front,
surrounded by a gaggle of Slytherins, as always.
"Blood purity and raw magical power," Draco said simply.
"I-interesting," Quirrell said. "And what s-say you, Miss G-Granger?"
"Practicing the most advanced spells," Hermione answered, "so that they can be
cast reliably and effectively even under stressful circumstances."
"And y-you again, M-Mister D-Diggory?"
"Having friends and allies you can trust," Cedric said. "Something that Dark
Wizards always lack, which is why they are always defeated."
"A t-true H-Hufflepuff answer," Quirrell said. "I'm s-sure H-Helga h-herself
w-would agree w-with you wholeheartedly."
Milo realized that, while Quirrell seemed to be choosing people from the crowd
completely at random, a suspiciously large number of them that is to say, all
of them seemed to be PCs or major NPCs.
"Put Cedric on the List," Milo whispered to Harry. "We'll be seeing more of him,
count on it."
"M-Mister P-P-Potter," Quirrell said, "the only w-wizard here to s-survive an
encounter w-with Y-Y-You-Know-Who. W-what w-would you say is the s-s-secret to
your s-success?"
Harry, almost alone among the Hogwarts students, hadn't raised his hand.
"Um," he said. "Well, I mean, I don't really know. So... I would have to say
luck. A million factors that neither wizard really knows about come into play,
and could result in, well, like you said. Me surviving against You-Know-Who."
"A-and what about you, M-Mister M-Milo of the lengthy last name?" Quirrell
asked. "What determines the victor?" Hmm, Milo thought. Good question. Most
people would say the highest level wizard wins, but that's not always true, now
is it? A high-level Wizard optimized for basketweaving and lute-playing would be
crushed by a properly-optimized lower-level Wizard.
"The wizard who memorizes and casts the most appropriate spells wins," Milo
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said. "Unless, like Harry said, the other one rolls a well-timed twenty. Er,
that is, gets in an exceptionally lucky shot. But you can't count on that."
"Indeed you c-cannot," Quirrell said, "which b-brings me to the m-most important
f-factor in a d-d-duel," he paused dramatically, letting everyone wonder what he
was going to was going to say. "Strategy. As any spell w-with the obvious
exceptions, of c-c-course c-can be c-countered, the d-duel goes t-to whichever
wizard that d-doesn't m-make the f-first mistake. C-Curses, H-Hexes, Charms, and
their c-counters can all be t-taught, learned, and p-p-practised in a
straightforward m-manner which we w-will g-get to, in g-g-good t-time but
g-good strategy, and thinking q-quickly on your f-f-feet cannot be w-without
m-much difficulty. S-so th-that is where we w-will start." Quirrell gave his
wand a complicated little wave and the Great Hall tables rolled into the centre
of the room from their resting places at the edges. "And there is no better way
to develop strategy than with chess." Sitting on the tables were hundreds of
neatly-placed wizard chess sets with a pair of small red tags sitting next to
each. "Everyone g-grab a p-partner and a tag," Quirrell said. "The w-winner of
the m-match t-t-takes the loser's t-tag and challenges s-someone with a l-like
number of t-tags. The l-losers will k-keep playing a-against other l-losers
until they r-realize their m-mistake. W-we w-will continue until w-we find the
b-best strategist, and therefore d-duellist, a-among you."
The Hogwarts students stared up at Quirrell in a stunned silence.
"Chess," Malfoy said flatly. "We're going to play chess. Why are we listening to
this stuttering idiot, anyways? He's afraid of his own shadow."
"H-have you ever entered a n-nest of v-vampires, M-Mister M-M-Malfoy," Quirrell
asked, "and s-survived w-with only a st-st-stutter to show f-for it?"
"Well "
"N-no," Quirrell interrupted. "You h-have not. Y-you will either p-pick a
p-partner, Mister M-Malfoy, or y-you will l-leave and w-w-wonder for the n-next
t-twenty years why you are the w-w-worst d-duellist of your g-generation."
"Why twenty years?" Draco asked despite himself.
"An optimistic estimate of your l-lifespan should you ch-choose to f-forgo these
l-lessons."
Malfoy paled and sat down across from Goyle, clipping a red tag to his lapel.
"This is ridiculous," Milo muttered to Hermione, his chess partner. "Skill Ranks
in Profession (Chessmaster) have no bearing on one's ability to stomp squishy
wizards."
"See, the thing is," Hermione said, "I know what all of those words mean in and
of themselves, but the way you string them together... it's like someone handed
a book of Mad Libs to a Confunded Troll."
"I'm a Confunded Troll, am I?" Milo asked with a slight edge in his voice. "Well
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you're blind to the story unfolding before your very eyes."
"Blind?" Hermione asked, a dangerous glint entering her eyes. "No, you're just
convinced this is some storybook fairytale land where everything happens for a
reason. And not a good reason, mind, but a stupid, trite, clichd reason."
"Not a story," Milo said, placing his pieces on the board, "an adventure.
Completely different school of magic."
"Real life does not have adventures!" Hermione said, her voice growing louder.
"It has rules, responsible adults, homework, and grades!"
"I think we've more or less exhausted the possibilities of this conversation,"
Milo said coolly. "Roll for Initiative, bookworm."
Hermione, playing white, naturally won Initiative. She sent one of her Commoners
forwards, breaking their naturally defensive spear-wall and leaving her
Aristocrats vulnerable to a cavalry charge from Milo's flanking Knights.
"My left and right Clerics cast Wall of Stone and Flame Strike, respectively,"
Milo declared, "while the Commoners garrison these towers and ready an action to
provide covering fire should any white soldiers enter range of their crossbows.
The Knights run up to this position," he placed the two horses near Hermione's
Clerics to Attack of Opportunity them should they try to cast anything, "and my
Aristocrats take a full defence action."
"Er," Hermione said. "You can only move one piece on your turn."
"Oh, we're tracking individual Initiatives? Okay. In that case, Flame Strike.
Let's see some Reflex Saves, now, shall we?"
"Why me?" Hermione asked the air dramatically. "Why? What did I ever do to
deserve this? You know what? Here. Just take my tag, I forfeit. It's just not
worth it. I'll go play with Neville in the corner." Hermione stalked off as Milo
clipped Hermione's tag to his robes under his own.
"One down," he smirked. "Four hundred to go."
"Blimey," said one of Milo's Clerics. "I don't think you quite understand how
this works, do you?"
"Holy Crap! You can talk?"
oooo
It didn't take long for Ron to win a small hoard of victory tags (crushing Milo
mercilessly in the process), leaving him with only one opponent in his level:
Cedric Diggory, the Uber-Hufflepuff.
The hundreds of defeated students gathered around, causing such a disturbance
that Milo conjured up a massive illusory chess set in the air that mimicked
Ron's and Cedric's moves. The game progressed largely in silence, save for the
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occasional "check" from either player, as the two masters stared at the board in
deep concentration.
The game had already lasted longer than the rest of the tournament put together,
with the two of them sometimes taking up to fifteen minutes to make a single
move. It was Cedric's turn, and, after what seemed like years of careful
consideration, he moved his remaining bishop forwards.
"Check," he said, finally.
Ron moved like lightening, slamming his rook into place.
"Check mate, mate," Ron exclaimed exuberantly.
"Ah, shame," Cedric said, but it was with a smile that he passed over his
original tag. "Good game though, eh?"
"Best I've ever played," Ron said sincerely.
"And th-th-there you have it," Quirrell stammered to the crowd. "The most
b-b-brilliant master st-strategist, and, I'm s-sure, a-accomplished
d-d-duellist, of the st-student b-b-body is none other than M-M-Mister
R-R-Ronald Weasley."
"Weasley?" Malfoy scoffed. "Brilliant? Hufflepuff will win the House Cup before
Weasley learns to tie his shoes properly."
"C-c-class dismissed," Quirrell said with a wave. "W-W-Weasley, can I t-t-talk
to you f-for a m-moment?"
"Uh," Ron said, looking somewhat panicked. "Sure, I guess."
"N-n-next time," Quirrell said to everyone, "w-we're learning E-Expelliarmus."
oooo
Milo followed Harry and Hermione back to the Common Room, where he sat in the
corner working on Hannah's Amulet. I need to find a faster way of making these,
he thought impatiently, etching a minute arcane rune onto a Sickle destined for
melting into the final medallion.
"Well," Harry said, putting aside his History of Magic textbook, "that was sort
of unexpected, don't you think?"
"What, Quirrell's club?" Hermione asked.
"Yeah," Harry said. "That man's off his rocker, I swear. Still... if it helps me
learn to fight, well, I suppose it'll be worth it."
"I agree," Milo said. "Whatever happened to him over the summer's definitely
unhinged him. And this 'chess' is hardly an adequate simulation of realistic
battlefield conditions I mean, why in the Hells can the heavy cavalry only
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move in right angles? It makes no sense!"
"You're just sore because the rules can't be gamed," Hermione smirked. "Which,
incidentally, is why it's so popular. You have to use actual strategy and
tactics."
"Strategy is gaming the rules," Milo responded. "It's analyzing the situation
and seizing any and every possible advantage, even if it's completely ridiculous
on the surface. Why, I once met this Half-Ogre who managed to defeat an entire
Legion of the Tharllian Empire's best troops with a Spiked Chain because "
"I'm sorry," Hermione said, looking sick. "Did you say Half-Ogre?"
Before Milo could answer, Ron entered the Common Room through the portal with a
chess set in his hands.
"Oi!" Harry said. "What did Quirrell want?"
"To play chess," Ron answered happily. "Weird, eh? He said he wants to test his
skills against a worthy opponent, so every other day I make a move against him
and every other other day he makes one against me. He gave me this chess set,"
Ron held up his new set, "which is linked to the one in his office. If I make a
move here, he sees it there, and vice-versa. Cool, eh?"
"Why so slow?" Hermione asked. "If he wanted to test your duelling aptitude,
shouldn't you be playing speed chess?"
"Or using actual magic?" Milo added.
"He said that this way, I'll have as much time as I need to think out my move
and make sure I make the right one," Ron shrugged. "He says it's more
interesting that way. He implied that he hadn't had a decent sparring partner in
years."
"Seems a bit late in the plot for him to suddenly develop such a major character
trait as 'chess grand-master,'" Milo mused. "I wonder what he's up to?"
Hermione glanced at Ron and rotated her finger slowly around her ear in the
universally-accepted sign for 'crazy.'
"Maybe he just really likes chess?" Harry suggested. "I mean, it's not like we
would have had a chance to see it in action before, right?"
"I suppose... but, even so. Harry: add 'chess' to the List, and Ron: win that
game against Quirrell."
"Why?" Ron asked. "Well, I mean, I was planning to anyway, but why is it
important?"
"I don't know exactly," Milo said. "I just have a gut feeling that something
important is riding on that match," he said, "and, as a rule of thumb, winning
always leads to the more desirable outcome and with it, the best swag."
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"Okay, well, I'll do my best," Ron said.
"And I'd best get to Quidditch practice," Harry said, rising from his armchair.
"We're playing Hufflepuff on Saturday, and Wood's gone into mad slavemaster mode
again."
"This was nice," Hermione said, relaxing in her chair.
"What was?" Milo asked.
"A whole weekend went by and nobody was hospitalized," she said.
"Except Neville, of course," Milo said.
"Right, except Neville. Sad business, that. I had no idea a bishop could do that
to a person. Still, be nice if every weekend was like this, but, I suppose
that'd just be wishful thinking."
Despite Hermione's complacent attitude, Milo still felt something was wrong.
This whole Duelling Club business smelled somewhat off to him, and he still
didn't know who the Dark Wizard who Imperius'd him and Hannah was, or what he
wanted. Was it Snape, trying to kill Milo to remove an obstacle between him and
the Stone? Or Lucius, stepping out from the shadows and getting his hands dirty
personally? And why had Milo been Imperius'd in the hallways whoever had done
it didn't seem to get much out of it. The whole attack seemed, in hindsight,
remarkably poorly-planned... it was almost like they didn't want to succeed
or, alternatively, their goals were so obscure that Milo simply couldn't figure
them out.
Unless...
Milo frowned. Once he'd been possessed, it didn't seem like his controller knew
quite what to do with him. His orders had been vague and, seemingly, without
purpose. Had it been one of the servants of the Dark Lord, surely, he'd be
ordered to kill Harry or steal the Stone? If it was Lucius or Snape for that
matter you'd think he'd be ordered to do something incriminating and be
expelled (or, failing that, simply walk out of the school grounds to be
captured). And what of those other eleven minds he'd detected?
On the whole, if that were some sort of strike against Milo or his allies, it
had been a rather clumsy attempt. The more Milo thought about it, the more he
was certain that he was looking at things backwards.
Suddenly, Milo felt as if a Wight had an icy hand around his heart.
"Hermione," Milo said slowly. "What were the methods you suggested for changing
someone's heart's desire?"
"Are you still on that?" she asked, racking her memory. "Love potions, the
Confundus Charm, or a Memory Charm. Why?"
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"What, exactly, is a Memory Charm?" Milo asked, but he was sure he knew the
answer already. Back on Hallowe'en, when Milo touched the Remembrall...
"It's an advanced spell that wipes someone's memory of a duration of time," she
explained. "A skilled user can replace them with false memories altogether. I
wouldn't worry about it, though," she said reassuringly.
"Why not?" Milo asked, feeling somewhat mollified.
"We don't have to learn them until Seventh Year," she said happily.
Milo cursed sulfurously and nearly ran for the exit.
"Wait!" Hermione called. "Where are you going?"
"To see Neville," Milo said.
Chapter 23: The Duelling Club
Today's character sheet: myth-weavers com/sheetview php?sheetid=447028 (Replace

the spaces with periods)
(Extra Long) Author's Notes (feel free to skip them, there's nothing
particularly important): This weekend, I decided that now might be a good time
to go back and reread some of my earlier chapters and make sure I didn't have
any plot threads I'd left hanging. While I was at it, I thought, I could make
improvements to the start of the story using what I'd writing the rest of it.
This proved to be a colossal mistake. A number of wiser and better writers than
me tell me that it is universal among writers to be embarrassed by anything
they've ever written, but I never really believed it until now. The first
chapter of this story is terrible. It is shamefully bad. I can't imagine how any
of you managed to stand it (but I'm glad you did).
I got three pages in and closed the lid of my laptop by reflex as a defence
mechanism to get the horror away. That said, I managed to change a sentence in
which I used Milo's name twice (pronouns FTW) and posted the edit, so that's
something.
/Horrified Rant.
On a completely different topic, I've had a large number of reviews and messages
asking me similar questions, so I think I'll make an official sort of FAQ
statement now:
Q: Does D&D (the tabletop game) exist in the world of Harry Potter and the
Natural 20?
Page 294

A: No, it does not, and neither do its descendent spin-off RPGs. In any case,
the story is set in the early nineties, and 3e wasn't released until 2000.
Q: Will [insert HP character here] gain D&D class levels or powers? (Or,
alternatively, will Milo gain HP wizard magic?)
A: No. Milo and [insert HP character] are an entirely different kind of human
that follow an entirely different set of laws of the universe. Milo is closer to
a Muggle or Squib than a wizard, and HP-world characters do not gain experience
points.
Q: Why doesn't Milo invent a spell (or feat) that does X?
A: I'm avoiding having Milo invent new spells (or feats, PrCs, etc.) altogether
(that is, spells not present in any of the D&D core or splatbooks) because
homebrew material involves a lot of DM discretion which to a certain extent
negates the point (and fun) of min-maxing. Imagine Milo's world is run by a
hardline Rules-As-Written DM who gets wrathful when anyone tries to push
anything too far.
Q: Have you ever heard of/will you update to Pathfinder or 4e?
A: Pathfinder is a fantastic improvement of the 3.5 rules that I highly
recommend to anyone and everyone; I'm not a fan of 4th edition for a number of
reasons, but lots of people like it so I suppose it can't be all bad. That said,
I'm staying strictly within the 3.5 rules because a) they're what I'm most
familiar with, b) I'd feel bad about poking fun at a smaller company like Paizo
(WOTC is fair game, though), and c) I feel that updating the rules partway
through would detract from the story, screw with any readers that aren't major
D&D fans, and necessitate a lot of jokes and fun-poking at the differences
between 3.5 and 4 or 3.5 and Pathfinder, and generally detract from the jokes
and fun-poking at the differences between Harry Potter and D&D3.5.
Q: Will you do the whole series?
A: That's the plan.
Q: What splatbook is Myra (City of Light! City of Magic!) and the Azel Empire
from?
A: None of them. The names are pulled from campaigns I've DM'd over the years,
but are otherwise completely original (or rather, completely unoriginal, seeing
as how the Azel Empire is a deliberate cariciture of most campaign settings).
The "City of Light! City of Magic!" line is a reference to The Elder Scrolls:
Morrowind, in which the Mournhold city guards spout the line endlessly.
Q: Is Milo (at least, at the start of the fic) an example of how you play D&D?
A: Only when I hate the DM.
ooooooo
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"I think it's about time we had a little chat," Milo said, closing the office
door behind him. "About what really happened in the Forbidden Forest in
September."
Quirrell slid his office chair backwards slightly, covering the motion of his
hand as he covertly drew his wand.
"W-what about it?" he asked, his voice kept carefully neutral.
"There were always a few facts about that night that never quite added up to
me," Milo said, ignoring the Professor. "For example how did I get poisoned?
The Acromantula never had a chance. How did the Acromantula die? The log I
dropped on it wasn't nearly enough to do the deed."
"It l-looked quite heavy t-to m-m-me," Quirrell stammered.
"It should have shrugged the log off and eaten me on the spot," Milo told him.
"And it's body had no signs of prior injury, so it isn't like the log was enough
to push it over the edge into negative hit points. No, something else killed
that Acromantula. Something that kills its target without leaving a trace."
Quirrell tightened the grip on his wand beneath the desk.
"I-I don't "
"Oh, I think you do," Milo said. "There's only one spell that could do that,
and, Hells, you used it against Fluffy. You're a hero for it, after all. The
Killing Curse."
"W-what "
"But the Curse is hardly stealthy, it has a signature bright green flash. The
spider was right in front of me and it was pitch dark there's no possible way
I could have missed it."
"Y-you m-must have," Quirrell said. "Or r-rather, the Acromantula d-died s-some
other "
"No," Milo cut him off. "Don't you see? I saw the spider killed. A wizard did it
right before my very eyes. He just walked right up, killed the Acromantula, and
left. He cut off one of the spider's fangs Acromantula venom is potent even
after death, after all and stabbed me in the stomach with it. I saw
everything."
"Then w-why d-d-didn't you s-say so earlier?"
Milo reached into his robes, and Quirrell, surprised, nearly killed him on the
spot. It was only the knowledge that Milo had no need of a wand to use magic
that stayed his hands.
Of all things, it was a Remembrall that Milo withdrew from his pocket.
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A Remembrall which shone like the sun.
"I was Memory Charmed."
"Th-that's hardly proof," Quirrell pointed out. "P-perhaps you s-simply
f-f-forgot to b-brush your t-t-teeth l-last night?"
"I, like any self-respecting Arcanist, use Prestidigitation, which is quite
beside the point. I can prove to you that it was no inconsequential memory that
I've forgotten," Milo said calmly. "Describe the Remembrall for me, Professor."
"I d-d-don't understand," Quirrell said.
"It's quite simple. Just... a quick description of this ball will suffice."
Quirrell shrugged. What's this boy's game?
"It's a t-tennis b-ball s-s-sized c-clear g-g-glass ball f-full of smoke,"
Quirell said. "I-it t-turns red when the h-h-holder f-forgets something and
c-clear when it is r-r-remembered."
"That's an awful lot of adjectives, Professor," Milo said with a slight grin.
"At least four."
"S-so what?"
"And it first turned up months ago in a seemingly inconsequential manner
something unimportant about Harry joining the Quidditch team and again on
Hallowe'en, when it broke. Fortunately, one of Neville's supporting characters
sent him a replacement. That makes this the third time it's turned up,
Professor."
"This m-matters how?"
"Rule of Three. This here, judging by the amount of attention it's gathered, is
a very significant plot device. Why, it'd simply be a waste of time if it didn't
turn out to be important."
"That's your proof?"
"I've seen men hanged for less in Myra City of Light, City of Magic!"
"Even a-assuming this is t-t-true," Quirrell said, watching the boy closely,
"w-who would d-do such a thing?"
"I think we both know the answer to that question, Professor."
Quirrell tensed, ready to strike.
"It was, of course," Milo said, leaning forwards slightly, "none other than
Professor Snape."
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"S-Snape?" Quirrell asked. "H-how d-do you know?"
"Honestly, who else would it be?" Milo asked. "You can't shake a staff in this
castle without finding an evil plot Snape's behind. I'm starting to think he's
only still a teacher because of how dull things would be without him."
"W-why wouldn't he j-just l-let the A-Acromantula k-kill you?" Quirrell asked.
"That's the bit I can't figure out," Milo admitted. "But I'm sure he'll be good
enough to explain it in his villain monologue at the end."
"W-why are you t-telling me this?"
"Oh, simple. Snape can pull memories from my head, so I figure I should
disseminate important information to trustworthy NPCs as a sort of backup.
Also, and I hate to say this, I'm starting to think I'll need all the help I can
get. This situation is becoming... complicated, for a number of reasons. Gods,
what I wouldn't give for a straightforward sidequest or monster hunt. In any
event, I don't suppose you know of any way to cure Memory Charms?"
"S-sorry," Quirrell apologised. "I-I'm afraid they're g-generally q-quite
permanent."
"Hells," Milo cursed. "And Protection From Evil won't do a thing against them,
either, based on Hermione's description, which means I'll need to think of
something clever. Well, I suppose it can't be used on me as long as I've got
my..." Milo trailed off for a second. "That's it!" he exclaimed, and headed back
for the door.
"W-wait!" Quirrell called, but Milo, frustratingly, seemed suddenly oblivious to
his existence.
oooo
"It was like an Attack of Opportunity," Milo explained to his party (and
Hannah). "His plan wasn't to Imperius me to further his elaborate scheme; he
Imperius'd me because I was there."
"Why?" Harry asked. Milo was standing in front of them in the Gryffindor Common
Room, a revised version of The Plot hovering in the air, shimmering slightly.
"To prevent me from finding out what he was up to with his eleven Disillusioned
friends," Milo answered. "He didn't know or care about the Mirror. He just
wanted me gone before I figured out what he was up to. It worked, too."
"So why not simply Stun you?" Hermione asked.
"Or even better, just finish you off for good?" Ron added.
"Or, even better, Memory Charm you like you said he did after the
Acromantula."
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"I can't say for sure," Milo said, "but I think it's because he was hoping
nobody would notice. A perfect crime, so to speak. Snape doesn't seem to be
skilled enough at Memory Charms to replace the target's memories with false ones
at least, I hope he isn't, or we're all screwed so I'd wake up wondering
where the last several minutes went. Something which Mordy here would be all too
happy to fill me in on. As for why he didn't kill me... well, he doesn't seem to
want me dead anymore, for some reason except when he does. He's very
inconsistent, in fact."
"What do you mean?" Hannah asked.
"Well," Milo explained, "one day he wants me expelled and the next he's
possessing you to kill me."
"Sorry about that," Hannah said quietly.
"It wasn't your fault," Milo said. "Just keep your amulet on, and you'll be
fine." Milo had decided on impulse to give Hannah the Amulet of Protection From
Evil that he'd reserved for himself, meaning he'd have to wait another two days
for his. He still wasn't quite sure why he'd done it.
"I'm starting to wonder if something more complicated isn't going on," Milo
said.
"Even more complicated than that?" Ron groaned, pointing at The Plot.
"Snape's erratic attempts just aren't lining up anymore. If he really wanted me
resting in Boccob's uncaring embrace, why did Hannah open up with Stunners?"
"I thought you said she used Unforgivables," Hermione said.
"She switched when I ducked for cover," Milo explained. "Unless there's some
rule or class feature I'm unaware of, Hannah's strategy made no sense."
"Hey," Hannah said.
"Sorry, I mean, Snape's strategy made no sense."
"Well," Hermione mused, "maybe he doesn't want you dead at all?"
"Then why did Hannah use Killing Curses at all?" Milo asked. "It's completely
nonsensical."
"Then one of your assumptions is wrong," Hermione said bluntly. "Personally, I
don't think it's Snape at all."
"But we know it's him," Milo protested. "He was out meeting Lucius in the forest
and everything. Use your eyes, Hermione! He's so obviously villainous."
"And yet," Hermione said coolly, "Dumbledore the brightest mind of his
generation and the most powerful wizard alive lets him teach here regardless.
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What do we know about Snape?"
"That he's a smarmy git?" Ron suggested helpfully.
"And that he's allergic to shampoo?" Harry added.
"No," Hermione said firmly. "We know that he met Lucius in the forest and Lucius
ordered him to have you expelled, Milo. Expelled. Not murdered."
"Well, maybe he's upped the ante since then "
"See, I don't think he has. Assuming he was behind the attack on Harry in the
Quidditch match, and the test to show you can't make potions, that's two
completely non-lethal attempts to expel you."
"Then why would he release a Troll on Hallowe'en, stab me with an Acromantula
fang, possess Hannah to kill me, and have the Drow in the kitchen poison my
treacle tart?" Milo asked.
"Why indeed?" Hermione smiled. "What if he didn't do any of those things?"
"What," Milo scoffed, "are you suggesting the treacle tart poisoned itself on
its own accord?"
"No," Hermione continued, "I'm suggesting there's another agent at play here.
Could you adjust the display for a moment? Place Snape and Mister Malfoy off to
the side with the various attempts to expel you, and Draco to a different side
with his fumbled Quidditch plots."
"If it makes you happy," Milo said, adjusting his illusion. "But that leaves a
big hole here, though, with the various assassination attempts."
"Indeed it does," agreed Hermione.
"So... who fills the gap?" Ron asked.
"That's the question we should be asking."
"You aren't seriously suggesting that there's three entirely separate camps of
villains working against us?" Milo asked. "That'd just be a huge mess. They'd
spend half their time tripping over themselves."
"Why shouldn't there be?" Hermione asked. "Sometimes, real life is just a huge
mess."
"Otiluke's Razor suggests otherwise," Milo countered.
Hermione paused.
"Don't you mean Occam's Razor?" she asked tentatively. "'The simplest solution
is usually the best one?'"
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"Psht! What nonsense is that?" Milo said dismissively. "No, it's, 'the most
dramatically appropriate solution is usually the best one.' In this case, it's
clearly that You-Know-Who is pulling all the strings behind the scenes." Milo
rearranged The Plot to demonstrate, "Except that there's some unknown factor
thrown in there as well probably a betrayal by someone close to us, I'm
thinking Neville which will only be revealed by the villain's final rant. And,
as the time-tested Tenser's Theorem states, 'any attempt to discover a shocking
twist before the end of an adventure will be doomed to failure, so focus on the
job in front of you.' Ergo: defeating 'Puffs in Quidditch."
"I ... don't follow," Hermione admitted.
"Remember when Harry stomped the Slytherins?" Milo asked. "It was a big deal.
The Daily Prophet had a field day about... well, about something to do with
broomsticks, anyways."
"That both the Nimbus and the prototype Firebolts seemed to suffer from a
similar flaw and went haywire," Ron said. "And that the Boy-Who-Lived is quote,
unquote 'in addition to being top student in his year, also the best Seeker
Hogwarts has seen in many a year '"
"But I'm not the " Harry protested.
"Hold up, I haven't even got to the part where it talks about how supremely
handsome you are," Ron snickered. "Malfoy wasn't mentioned at all, by the way."
"You see?" Milo said. "There's obviously some kind of subplot or sidequest
involving Quidditch. I can only assume that we'll get bonus XP or Magic Items if
we win the Cup. So: we'll win."
"But that match against Slytherin was hardly fair," Harry said. "There were
plots within bloody plots. I've only been in one real game, what if Hufflepuff
wins?"
"Well," Milo said conspiratorially, "I think I can help you a bit, there..."
oooo
"Mount your brooms, please," Milo heard Madam Hooch say from his seat up in the
stands. The Hufflepuffs had arrived with banners bearing a variety of fairly
unoriginal slogans (and occasional trash-talk, but Milo suspected that was from
the Slytherins, who, strangely, had come out to the witch and wizard to root on
the Hufflepuffs) to which Milo had responded with a Silent Image of a fifty-foot
tall Crimson-and-Gold Gryffindor lion devouring a Hufflepuff badger. When he
added Ghost Sound (which accurately mimicked, in both pitch and volume, the roar
of an enraged Dire Tiger, amplified by the voices of the actual students of
House Gryffindor and more than a few Ravenclaws), McGonagall awarded him five
points for amazing spellwork and then banned all form of banner, magical or
otherwise, from the rest of the match.
When Hooch gave a loud blast of her whistle, the signal to start the game, the
players blasted off into the air but Harry was much, much faster than the
Page 301

rest. This was due to a combination of two factors: Harry's vastly superior
Nimbus broomstick, and the fact that he was currently under the effects of
Levitate, making him effectively weightless.
"Locate Object Golden Snitch," Milo muttered under his breath. "Message:
Harry, it's thirty-three degrees to my right and eighteen degrees upwards." Milo
had carefully chosen the seat closest to dead-centre in the auditorium that he
could manage, which put him (unfortunately) almost directly next to Snape.
As Milo continued to mutter instructions under his breath, he noticed something
surprising. Quirrell, sitting nearby, had one eyebrow cocked quizzically.
Probably thinks I'm praying or something, Milo thought. He can't know what I'm
up to, though, can he? Idly, Milo wondered if there was a rule against him
pointing the Snitch out to Harry. In any case, what could they do? Milo thought,
it's not like you can award a penalty against the audience.
The Hufflepuffs, to be fair, did fairly well for themselves they managed to
seize possession of the Quaffle early on, and the three Chasers, passing the
ball between themselves rapidly, were quickly boring down on Wood, defending the
goals not that it helped them much, in the end. Roughly forty seconds
(forty-two to be precise, or exactly seven rounds) after the start of the match,
Lee Jordan's magically amplified voice rang out over the pitch.
"POTTER HAS THE SNITCH! POTTER HAS THE SNITCH! HA HA, TAKE THAT YOU DUMB, DIRTY,
HUFFLEPUFF B"
"JORDAN!" McGonagall shouted sharply.
"Broomstick flyers, Professor. I was going to say broomstick flyers honest."
The score was 150-0. The Hufflepuffs were too stunned to process their defeat,
much less respond, while close to one-third of the audience erupted into
thunderous applause.
"Blimey," said Fred, who sat nearby.
"We're going to need to raid Honeydukes again," said George.
It was, as Lee pointed out happily, the second shortest Quidditch match in
Hogwarts History (the shortest, in 1412, ended before the whistle was finished
blowing; the Snitch had flown directly down a Hufflepuff Chaser's throat. The
Hufflepuff died, tragically, but there was much rejoicing nonetheless it had
been Hufflepuff's first win in over three centuries.)
oooo
"N-now that y-you know the b-b-basics of D-Disarming," Quirrell stammered to the
Duelling Club that Sunday (which had shrunk somewhat since their first,
chess-oriented meeting), "p-p-please p-p-pick a p-partner and p-practice."
They'd spent all morning learning Expelliarmus or, rather, everyone else spent
all morning learning Expelliarmus; Milo had been alone in the corner working out
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some of the kinks in his Fireball spell research. Quirrell's call to grab
partners caught Milo somewhat by surprise, and he wound up partnered off to a
first-year Ravenclaw NPC.
"I w-will c-count to three," Quirrell said, "and y-you will both t-try to
d-disarm your p-partner. Only d-disarm, M-Mister C-Crabbe, I s-saw that l-look."
Milo looked up and down the lines of students. To the upper years, of course,
Expelliarmus was old hat but, in Quirrell's words, they could always be
'b-b-better.'
"Aren't you going to draw?" the Ravenclaw asked him nervously.
"What do I look like, a sketch artist?" Milo snorted derisively.
"No, your wand," the boy hissed. Milo blinked. Oh, right, he thought, and pulled
his shiny, barely-used wand from his pocket. He could still smell the varnish
that Ollivander (Milo shuddered, repressing the horrible memories) used.
"One," Quirrell counted. The Ravenclaw's wand hand shook. Milo wondered vaguely
if a local wizard could accidentally trigger a Silent Spell just by making the
right wand motions.
"T-two." Milo whistled casually, staring at the Great Hall's amazing ceiling.
"T-Three," Quirrell finished. A great cry of "Expelliarmus!" rose up from the
upper-years, and wands flew in every direction. The first- and second-years,
however, were not generally quite so lucky. Most of their spells fizzled out
feebly, hardly having any impact whatsoever on their target's wands. Hermione
managed to get Ron to drop his wand, but Ron later confessed (out of earshot of
Hermione, of course) that he dropped it because his hand was sweaty.
Without a doubt, the worst student off in the hall was Milo's poor Ravenclaw
target, who found himself pinned to the ground by a Hippogriff that had not
existed a moment before. Several nearby first-years turned and ran in horror,
their screams echoing throughout the hall.
"Fetch, Rary!" Milo called to his summoned monster. The Hippogriff grabbed the
Ravenclaw's wand from his feebly protesting hand and trotted over to Milo,
dropping it at his feet. "Good girl! Now, go back to the Upper Planes from
whence you came!" Milo waved his hand, and the Hippogriff vanished as suddenly
as it had arrived.
Students nearby those who hadn't run off backed away from Milo slowly. The
Ravenclaw lay sobbing on the ground.
"It was horrible!" he moaned to himself. "With the talons and the beak and the
eyes! Merlin, the eyes! The cold, uncaring eyes!"
"I think I won," Milo said over the screams and tears. "You're disarmed." The
fact that nonlethal combat and stage fights only award less than half XP
regardless, Milo had almost paid off a week of item crafting with a single
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spell.
Eyes looked towards Quirrell expectantly, the Hogwarts students presumably
waiting for him to either tell Milo off or deduct House Points for traumatizing
children. The Defence Professor, however, did nothing more than watch Milo with
unreadable eyes.
If I get 75XP for every first year I defeat in a duel, Milo mused, I wonder how
much I could earn practicing against a second year or, for that matter, a
seventh year.
As a couple of students carted off the gibbering Ravenclaw, Milo found himself
face-to-face with Harry Potter.
"Look," Milo said to his bespectacled partymember. "We're an unbalanced party
right now, and I'm higher level than you. That's just fact, it's not a bad
thing, necessarily. Everyone started at level one at some point. You'll get up
to my level one day, but until then, don't feel bad when you lose. It's really
not your fault, I'm a wildly inappropriate CR for you."
"One," Quirrell counted.
"Don't worry," Harry said quietly, "I won't."
"Two."
"Glad to hear "
"Won't lose, that is."
Milo simply chuckled softly.
"Th-three."
"Expelliarmus!" Milo stared in horror at his suddenly-empty gloved hand. His
useless wand had been tossed halfway across the Great Hall, in plain view of
dozens of witnesses. By a level one. In a fair fight.
"How did you do that?" Milo exclaimed. "Half your year can't even cast the
spell, much less on their first try after winning Initiative!"
"I dunno," Harry admitted. "The spell just, sort of, came naturally to me."
"Rematch?" Milo asked.
"Sure," Harry agreed. Without needing to be asked, Mordy dropped out of his
pocket and scurried across the floor to retrieve Milo's wand. "Whoever's wand
hits the floor first loses."
"Expelliarmus!" Harry cast again as soon as Quirrell finished counting.
Milo's wand flew out of his hand, but abruptly stopped in midair a few feet
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behind him and floated back into his hand.
"How did you "
"Cast Mage Hand when you weren't looking. Also, Grease." The wand in Harry's
hand suddenly slipped through the fingers of his right hand, but, with reflexes
only a Seeker could match, he caught it adroitly with his left.
"Expelliarmus!"
"Hells!" Milo cursed as the wand flew from his fingers again. He'd had to break
concentration on Mage Hand in order to cast Grease, which he'd been certain
would end the duel.
"Rematch?" Harry suggested cheerily.
"Count on it," Milo answered, and waited for Quirrell to start counting again.
I'll have to stop underestimating him, Milo decided. He must have Improved
Initiative and a high Dexterity score makes sense, considering his Quidditch
skills.
"Three," Quirrell finished.
"Nerveskitter! Grease!" Milo called, while Harry shouted "Expelliarmus!"
simultaneously. Both their wands dropped to the floor with a clatter.
Milo picked up his wand and twirled it about his fingers idly. A few nearby
students gave him an askance glance if any of them started spinning a wand
like it were a pencil, something was likely to catch fire.
"That... was impressive," Milo admitted grudgingly. If I'm level five and
Harry's level one (is Harry still level one?) then he just got enough XP from me
to level up about a dozen times. Could Harry level up? Do these local yokels
even have levels, in the conventional sense? And if so, do they gain XP? The
idea seemed farfetched to him, but it wasn't impossible Redcaps, for example,
increased in level by dipping their caps into the blood of dead sentient
creatures. At least, his Redcaps did.
"Thank you," Harry said, sounding genuinely pleased. "Not like it'll do any good
in a real battle, of course."
"Are you kidding?" Milo asked. "A no-save auto-disarm spell? Against enemies
incapable of using magic without a wand in their hand? What you've got there,
buddy, is a game changer. Sure, the other side seems awfully fond of Killing
Curses but really, when it comes down to it, they're tactically almost
identical. A wandless wizard and a dead wizard are different only in time
elapsed."
"I suppose," Harry said, his brow furrowed. "Shall we call it a draw, then?"
Milo managed to disarm another three NPCs in first- and second-years before
running out of disarm-capable magic, at which point he became target practice.
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"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up," Milo muttered, picking up his wand for the dozenth
time in a row after some snotty punk of a Ravenclaw disarmed him (odd how the
more he lost, the snottier and punkier his opponents seemed to become).
"A-and I think that's all for t-t-today," Quirrell said, dismissing the club.
Almost everybody turned to leave, but a large number of students (including, to
Milo's satisfaction, a certain young Malfoy heir) had to root around to find
their wands first. As people filed towards the exits, the turbaned professor
walked over to where Milo was grumbling. "I h-have to ask," Quirrell said
softly, "why are y-you in this c-club? It's n-not like you c-can learn anything
I h-have to t-t-teach."
"Are you kidding?" Milo asked. "I got two hundred and twenty-five Experience
Points today. Not a patch on what I got from that Redcap over the holidays, but
it's a respectable amount nonetheless."
"Indeed?" Quirrell said, and suddenly smiled. "W-well, I'm g-glad to hear it."
The strange thing was, he really did seem happy on Milo's behalf. Great, Milo
thought irritably. For once I succeed a Sense Motive check, and that's what I
learn? Why do I even bother?
"Thanks," Milo muttered.
"S-something you s-said last w-w-week stuck in my m-mind," Quirrell said. "About
s-sidequests and s-subplots."
"Oh?"
"I th-think I h-h-have one s-such opportunity," Quirrell said quietly. "B-but it
m-m-must stay b-between us. C-can you agree t-t-to that?"
"Of course," Milo said. He knew a plot hook when he saw it; he'd say just about
anything to get the conversation to the 'quest offer' point.
"S-something is s-still preying on unicorns," Quirrell said conspiratorially.
"Is the Troll back?" Milo said. "I heard it ran off pretty quick last time."
"N-no," Quirrell said. "At least, n-not to my knowledge. No, I b-believe
s-something else is hunting the p-p-poor, d-defenceless, innocent unicorns."
"Really?" Milo asked, intrigued. "So, the Troll was innocent the whole time?
This complicates things even further," he mused.
"N-now, it's e-extremely d-d-dangerous," Quirrell said, "a-and I'd q-quite
understand if you "
"I'm in," Milo interrupted. Adventurers, as a rule, didn't go around not doing
extremely dangerous things. "What's the job?"
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If Quirrell was thrown by Milo's sudden agreement to help, he didn't show it.
"There is a c-c-cave deep within the F-Forbidden F-F-Forest," Quirrell
explained. "So d-deep it's n-nearly on the f-far border."
"Caves are good," Milo said fervently. Gods, what he'd do for a decent dungeon
crawl.
"N-not this c-cave, I f-fear. It's unlikely, b-but I f-f-fear it's p-previous
... occupants ... have r-returned."
"And they're killing the unicorns for blood?"
"They d-do seem the t-type," Quirrell admitted, "b-being V-V-V-Vampires."
Milo gave a low whistle. He knew he hadn't been carrying around five pounds of
garlic powder all these years in vain. "Why do you need my help?" Milo asked.
Quirrell glanced from side to side nervously. "T-to t-tell the truth," he said,
"I'm t-t-terrified. It's m-my d-d-duty as D-Defence Professor to investigate,
but... V-V-V-V-V"
"Vampires"
"Yes, thank you, V-V-V... bloodsuckers t-terrify me. I w-wouldn't be asking for
help if I d-didn't know you h-had so m-much experience w-with th-them."
"When do we leave?" Milo asked.
"Friday," Quirrell said. "J-just after d-dark."
Milo was so fixated on his conversation with Quirrell that he completely failed
to notice that Draco Malfoy, despite having long since found his wand, had yet
to leave the room...
Chapter 24: Nick of Time
Author's Notes: For those who don't know, the Far Realm is basically the
Elemental Plane of Cthulhu. Also, Liquid Sunlight can be found on page 110 of
Complete Scoundrel and is useful for literally any character.
Minor Rules Note: I only realized today that 3.0 and 3.5 have different XP
reward rules. I never did get the 3.5 DMG and the SRD doesn't have the XP chart,
so who knew? Because it's what I'm more familiar with, I, as DM, rule that Harry
Potter and the Natural 20 uses 3.0's system for that alone. Anyways, on with the
story!
ORWELLIAN EDIT: Fixed a number of typos and some weird tense problems.
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EDIT2: To clarify, I'm using 3.0's Experience Point rules, but
everything else. The difference is that 3.0 awards XP based on
level (so the PCs all get the same amount), whereas 3.5 awards
character's individual level (so lower-level PCs get more than
from the same fight).
3.5 rules
the average party
it by the
higher-level ones
ooooooo
Milo had heard it said that a Wizard, given time to prepare, could defeat any
obstacle in existence. To be fair, most of these times had been from Milo's own
mouth. Also, the saying assumed the Wizard had access to Magic Item dealers and
a way to purchase spells. And, for that matter, three to four meatshields. That
said, walking down the dirt path to the Forbidden Forest at 8:00PM on Friday
evening, Milo felt ready for anything.
He had a holy symbol of Boccob around his neck with his Amulet of Protection
From Evil, a holy symbol of Pelor wrapped around his left wrist like a bracelet
and a holy symbol of Heironeous around his right even Mordy, sitting on his
shoulder, had a compact symbol of the local variety (just a pair of lines
intersecting at a right angle; how boring could you get?) held prominently in
his hand. The symbols were all of silver and polished till they shone like
mirrors for optimum effect. He'd whittled twelve wooden stakes, six of which he
kept in his Belt and six scattered about his person. That morning, he'd poured
several pounds of fine garlic powder into the water supply before showering; the
other Gryffindors had not been amused, but, Milo was pretty sure, neither would
any vamps who tried to suck his blood.
Somewhat more significantly, Milo had finally finished the Headband of Intellect
+4 that he'd been putting off for months (in actuality, it was a small, discreet
silver hairclip that would be all but impossible to notice in his tangled hair
local wizards, from what Milo could tell, rarely, if ever, wore the headbands
that were all the rage back in Myra (city oflight!cityofmagic!), but Milo still
thought of it as a headband). In addition to making him marginally better at
crossword puzzles, the Headband significantly increased the number of spells
Milo could prepare every morning. Spells which Milo had finally gotten around to
researching and he was dying to test out, ideally on some unsuspecting
bloodsuckers.
And this time, if only for the novelty of it, Milo had decided to actually make
sure that local vampires were anything like the vampire's back home. Quirrell
had given him permission to read books from the restricted section on the
subject, and, fortunately, they seemed more or less the same as what he was
familiar with. Pale skin? Check. Inexplicably heavy accents? Check.
Vulnerability to sunlight, running water, garlic, and mirrors? Check. Fangs? You
betcha.
What had surprised Milo, however, was their apparent acceptance in wizard
society. From what he could tell, they were persecuted, sure, but were still
allowed to walk down the street in broad daylight (so to speak). Fred and George
said that Honeydukes even sold blood-flavoured lollypops, although he wasn't
sure how far he could believe anything they told him. Throughout the Azel
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empire, being publically known as a vampire was a death sentence. Werewolves
seemed to be similarly treated, which, once again, it made Milo wonder why,
exactly, everyone claimed there were werewolves living in the Forbidden Forest
when there seemed nothing illegal with them simply renting a flat in Cardiff.
Ah, well, Milo thought, best not draw too much attention to it. It was a
well-known fact that the universe generally responded poorly to any attempt to
draw attention to its numerous flaws.
As to these particular vampires, Milo assumed they were either criminals or
ex-followers of Voldemort on the run. Either way, Milo thought grimly, they
picked the wrong forest to haunt.
"Y-you're late," Quirrell said calmly as he approached the Defence Professor
standing on the snowy path, silhouetted by light from the castle.
"A Wizard is never late," Milo intoned, as if quoting an ancient saying.
"Most t-timepieces would d-d-disagree with you," Quirrell said. "Irregardless,"
(Milo winced) "we m-must p-press on."
"Oh," Milo said suddenly. "Before I forget, you'd best take this." Milo fished
out a small necklace from his belt and held it out for Quirrell.
"W-what is it?" Quirrell asked curiously.
"Amulet of Protection From Evil," Milo explained. "In case they try to Dominate
"
Quirrell dropped the Amulet as if it were a Stone of Weight.
"I th-think," Quirrell stammered, "that it w-w-would interfere w-w-with my...
p-protective Charms. Y-y-you t-t-take it."
Milo blinked. Quirrell was lying. He'd actually made a Sense Motive check for
once.
"Sure," Milo said, keeping his voice neutral. "Mordy can wear it." Why would he
refuse protection? Milo wondered. He could only think of three reasons: either
Quirrell wanted to be possessed by something, he was already Imperius'd and his
controller ordered him to drop it, or he had a different magical amulet on
already wearing two at once prevented either from working reliably. Milo
dismissed the first as patently ridiculous, and as for the third ... there was
no reason, as far as Milo could tell, for Quirrell to lie about that. So.
Quirrell was already controlled by the enigmatic ... whoever.
Unless I failed my Sense Motive check so badly I registered a false positive,
Milo thought. No, wait ... that's impossible, isn't it? Because a Sense Motive
check wouldn't even be called unless he was Bluffing. I think. Milo had never
paid all that much attention to the NPC interaction rules that's what Bards
were for. Well, it was biting him now. Next time I'm home, I'm buying a rulebook
and I'm going to Autohypnosis the entire thing, no matter how long it takes.
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Regardless, Milo didn't see that he had much choice. If Quirrell was possessed,
he'd very likely just kill Milo if he tried to flee. If Quirrell wasn't
possessed, then there'd be no reason to flee, anyways.
"Okay, let's go," Milo said, his voice steady with confidence he no longer felt.
Quirrell gave a barely perceptible nod and headed off to the forest. "What's the
plan?" Milo asked, falling into step with the professor.
"W-we go in, w-we s-send them b-b-back to their f-f-foul m-master, w-we g-go
home."
"Fair enough. Does the Killing Curse work on vampires?"
"It w-works on anything," Quirrell smiled. "Except f-for D-Dementors." Milo bit
his lip to keep from blurting out that he had a pretty good idea of something
else the Killing Curse wouldn't work against. I should probably keep that little
gem close to my chest until I find out why Quirrell is lying to me. However, it
did imply that the local vampires were somewhat different from what Milo could
not help but consider 'normal' ones.
"This Plane is so weird," Milo said under his breath. "I wonder if I didn't
accidentally fall into the Far Realm somehow." Milo harboured brief thoughts of
having, maybe, gone beyond the Far Realm, but cut that line off quickly; madness
lay in that direction. "Any idea of their numbers?"
"N-No."
"Well, you, sir, are just full of useful information today, aren't you?"
"These ... Experience P-Points" Quirrell's mouth twisted with obvious distaste
"of w-which you sp-speak... w-will y-you earn them if I d-defeat the v-v-v...
the c-creatures of d-darkness?" Quirrell said it as if he were simply making
conversation.
"Yup," Milo said cheerfully, "just so long as I help in some way."
The Forbidden Forest, unusual among forests of the world, had a very clear and
obvious boundary. On one side of an invisible line lay grassy areas where
students were allowed and Hagrid lived; on the other, dense, dark, deep,
dangerous woodland. Whether this was due to concerted effort on Hagrid's part,
some powerful anti-growth Charm, or just one of nature's quirks, the result was
a veritable wall of trees. Quirrell simply walked calmly down the path into the
cavernous woods, but Milo paused at the border.
"Just because every trip you've made into this place has ended in disaster
doesn't mean this one will," he said quietly to himself. "Besides, it's just
trees." Wizards and forests, historically, do not get along well. Wizards
generally prefer to live either in massive metropolises surrounded by other
Wizards, or, alternatively, in precariously crooked towers on the edge of sheer
cliffs or floating in the centre of a volcano. Forests, on the other hand, were
strictly the domain of Druids (and the odd Cleric of Obad-Hai, god of nature,
but Milo generally thought of those as wannabe Druids). Druids and Wizards got
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along like orange juice and toothpaste. "I am a master of the arcane powers that
make the cosmic forces of the universe my plaything nineteen times per day," he
said to himself, "and there ain't no fur-wearing treehugger that's going to stop
me from going where I please."
If he said it firmly enough, he reasoned to himself, he might actually believe
it.
Without further delay, he hustled into the woods after Quirrell.
"Lumos," Quirrell cast, and the tip of his wand began to glow like a torch. Milo
winced as his eyes re-adjusted to the light and realised that, if he were ever
separated from the Defence Professor or Quirrell dismissed the spell, Milo would
be all but blind in the darkness. Milo could, if he wanted to, cast Dancing
Lights to create lights of his own, but they only lasted for a minute and he
could only do it once.
Instead, he fished out his liquid sunlight from his Belt of Hidden Pouches. The
small glass sphere held a glowing golden liquid that was originally intended as
a grenadelike weapon to mildly irritate light-sensitive creatures (or do
negligible damage to vampires, for that matter), however, it proved universally
more popular pressed into service as a torch that could never go out and all
for much less gold than an Everburning Torch.
Passing the glowing sphere up to his familiar to carry, Milo eyed the sides of
the path with caution. The last time he'd been down this way, he'd been with
Hagrid to collect the rope and canvas he'd used the time before the last time
he'd been here. And that time...
Milo's shiver had nothing to do with the icy wind.
"When we get to the vampire nest," Milo said, "We should try to get them all in
a group. I'll immobilize the lot, then you pick them off one by one." By far the
most effective use of Arcane Magic in combat was at disabling large numbers of
enemies simultaneously, generally for the Big Stupid Fighters to move in and
finish the job. Milo had one Kelgore's Fire Bolt prepared just in case, but
Quirrell would be infinitely more effective at single-target killing than Milo
ever would be.
Assuming he's not possessed by Lucius or Voldemort or someone...
Well, if it came to that, Milo was prepared. He would bet his life in fact,
that's exactly what he was betting that he'd found a way around the Killing
Curse. To a certain extent. For a few seconds. With luck.
As long as he won Initiative, that is.
Not for the first or the last time he wished he were a Cleric and could just
cast Death Ward.
"Be silent," Quirrell hissed. Milo hadn't realized that he was still repeating
'I am a master of the arcane powers that make the cosmic forces of the universe
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my plaything. I am a master of the arcane powers that make the cosmic forces of
the universe my plaything...' over and over under his breath. Around him, dark
bushes and creepers, almost black in the darkness, seemed to be reaching towards
him hungrily.
"Sorry," Milo muttered.
"Foliage," Quirrell whispered. "Three O'Clock."
The instant of warning was all Milo needed to avoid being taken by surprise as
the monstrous spider Acromantula, he reminded himself leapt from nearby
undergrowth at him.
"Kelgore's Fire Bolt." The spider erupted into flame in midair and came crashing
into the earth with a heavy thud, where it lay still. "I don't understand," Milo
said. "Everything I've read said these bugs were smart almost as smart as
humans, actually. Supposedly, they can even talk."
"C-correct," Quirrell said.
"So... why do they keep rushing me like this?" Milo wondered. "They can shoot
webs. They can think for themselves. Hells, they're even supposed to ..." Milo's
voice trailed off somewhat as realized what he was about to say. They hunt in
packs. "Glitterdust!"
Shining golden particles no matter how many times he cast the spell, Milo was
always struck by how pretty they were (not that he'd ever admit to thinking
that; it'd be undignified in a Wizard) exploded around them. Milo generally
used the spell to blind his enemies, but, in this case, it's other function to
reveal targets served just as well.
What Milo had taken to be a cluster of particularly evil-looking shrubbery
revealed it's sinister nature as a writhing, dark sea of chitin.
"Aw, Hells," Milo said. "Run?"
"R-run," Quirrell agreed. The forest exploded all around them as they bolted
down the path, the spiders' hard carapace making angry chittering sounds as they
rubbed against each other.
"Why do the spiders hate me so much?" Milo asked as he practically flew down the
path. "I mean, what did I do to them? Except kill their nephew."
He risked a glance over his shoulder and was surprised to see barely a speck of
golden light. At first, he thought that maybe he'd managed to lose his pursuers
then the more pragmatic, less wildly optimistic part of his brain added,
helpfully, that no, he hadn't lost them; the Glitterdusted Acromantulas were
simply being blocked by the swarming masses of their non-glowing brethren.
Not only am I going to be eaten, Milo thought grimly, but I've already garnished
myself up for it. He was practically sweating garlic. While Milo knew,
academically, that Acromantulas were not the Monstrous Spiders of home, they
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seemed closely related; Monstrous Spiders, no matter how large, moved at the
same speed as an unencumbered human. The Acromantulas, if they were gaining on
him at all, were doing it slowly.
What they did have that he didn't was endurance. Why the Hells did I dump
Constitution for Charisma? That has to be the stupidest thing done by a Wizard
since the dawn of time.
Boccob, god of magic, has a higher Charisma than Constitution, part of his brain
added in defence. Milo's breaths were becoming increasingly laboured, and his
legs burned with effort. Quirrell, running very slightly ahead of him, seemed to
be doing just fine.
YouarenotBoccob, the other part of his brain added vehemently.
Everybody's a critic.
"I don't suppose," Milo said between beleaguered breaths, "that you can do some
magic on them?"
"Against one? M-maybe. B-but on f-fifty?"
"Screw this," Milo muttered. "Time for plan B. Web!" Layers of sticky strands,
stronger than steel, shot out of his hands and created a near-solid wall of
silky webs between the trees on either side of the trail.
Web is one of those beautiful, beautiful spells in which, even if the victims
make their saving throws, they're still pretty much screwed.
"How's that for delicious irony, eh? Eh? Think twice before you try to eat a
Wizard, next time!" Milo shouted at the trapped spiders, who were angrily
clawing at his webs. "Now you kill one or two," Milo added to Quirrell. Even as
he spoke, he saw that no less than three spiders had nearly managed to free
themselves from his webs; doubtless, several others further back were trying to
find a way around.
"Avada Kedavra, Avada Kedavra," Quirrell cast the Unforgivable Curses (that is,
Unforgivable when used on a human) as dispassionately as one would swat a fly.
With a pair of eye-searing green flashes, two trapped spiders abruptly stopped
struggling. "B-but I d-don't see... ah," Quirrell suddenly realized. The
spiders' those that still lived struggling had taken on a very different
form.
"'When you're being chased by an Owlbear in the woods,'" Milo quoted, "'you
don't need to run faster than the Owlbear just faster than the delicious,
juicy Halfling.' Still, we'd best move along."
Despite the grisly carnage behind him, Milo grinned. Just like that, he'd
covered one-third of the distance to level six. As he cautiously walked down the
snowy path with Quirrell and ran the numbers on the Experience Points, his smile
started to slip.
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"Together we killed three spiders," Milo said quietly. "and I got 450 XP each. I
got 600 from the one back in September, but I was lower level then..." he
frowned. "...which is exactly how much I would have gotten if it were CR 6 and I
had help from..." Abruptly, Milo stopped moving. If he had help from a CR 12
ally each time.
"W-what was that?" Quirrell asked. "W-we really ought to p-press on. The
A-Acromantulas will g-get through eventually."
"It was you," Milo said quietly.
"E-excuse me?"
"It was you, the whole time I've been an idiot! You killed the Acromantula."
"Just c-calm down and " without warning, Quirrell shouted "Oblivia"
"Nerveskitter! Grease!" Quirrell's wand slid from his hands and buried itself in
the snow. "You didn't think I'd say something like that without a Readied Action
to back it up, would you? Mage Hand." Quirrell's wand flew into Milo's grasp.
Thank you, Harry, for making me learn that trick.
"This is all just a b-big m-misunder "
"You lost any chance of convincing me of that when you tried to erase my memory
just now. So, who do you really work for? Lucius? Fudge?" Quirrell's mouth
twitched slightly.
"I w-w-work for D-Dumbledore and the M-M-Minist"
"Yeah, and I'm Pun-Pun the Kobold. Mordy get the manacles." Milo kept a set of
heavy steel manacles with one of the best locks on the market to avoid the
infamous Prisoner's Dilemma (that is, what do Good adventurers do with captured
Orcs?). Mordy dragged the manacles onto the ground at Quirrell's feet, then
scurried back to Milo's shoulder. "Cuff yourself, and don't try anything funny
if you want to avoid becoming a greasy stain on the ground." Milo was lying
through his teeth the magic he had available with the most killing potential
was Acid Splash.
"This is m-m-madness," Quirrell said, but complied. "Y-you don't understand"
"What I understand is that you've clearly been lying to me for some time and
you took my memories. I want to know why. And, Professor make me believe it."
oooo
"Anybody seen Milo anywhere?" Ron asked. "His version of Wizard's Chess is
surprisingly addictive."
"Nope, sorry," Hermione said, lying back in one of the Common Room's overstuffed
armchairs.
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"He had that mysterious assignment with Quirrell, remember?" Harry said.
"Oh, right," Hermione remembered. "The one he refused to talk about."
"He's going to the Forbidden Forest with Quirrell," Hannah said calmly. "They're
going to hunt vampires."
"There aren't any vampires in the Forbidden Forest," Ron snorted. "The
werewolves wouldn't put up with them. They hate each other so much it's
proverbial."
"How did you know that, Hannah?" Hermione asked, ignoring Ron.
"He's a terrible liar," Hannah explained. "And whenever I asked him about it,
he'd glance towards the forest. Also, he stayed up late sharpening stakes in the
Common Room and said 'I'm going to the Forbidden Forest with Quirrell to hunt
vampires,' but I don't think he realized I was there. He often doesn't."
"Oh," Hermione said. "So that's why none of the tables have got any legs."
"He's doing what?" Harry asked. "We have to go after him!"
"Into the Forest, mate? You're mad. There's giant spiders in the Forest." Ron
looked like he'd rather kiss Snape than do what Harry suggested.
"Don't you remember what happened the last time he went into the Forbidden
Forest with Quirrell?" Harry pressed.
"Was it that they found buried Galleons? Can it please be that they found buried
Galleons?"
"He almost died, Ron."
"Oh, come on. Milo almost dies four times before getting out of bed every
morning. He'll be fine."
Hermione frowned, and set aside her homework.
"I think Harry might be right," she said. "But so is Ron. Look at it like this,
though: he's almost died, what, three times? Four?"
"Or thereabouts," Harry said.
"And why hasn't he? Died, I mean."
"Hermione!" Hannah sounded scandalized.
"No, I don't mean I want him to, I'm just asking how he always survives."
"Because..." Harry mused. "Well, he gets rescued a lot."
"Grab your Cloak," Hermione said, her tone allowing no possibility of dissent.
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She then glanced out the window. As much as Milo drove her crazy sometimes, they
were friends. "And a scarf, it looks chilly."
oooo
"Fool," Quirrell said. "You have no idea of the f-forces with w-w-which you are
m-meddling."
"I tend to hear that a lot," Milo shrugged. On his shoulder, his familiar
mimicked the expression. "How about you just tell me, though? If you don't, I'm
going to have to assume you're an enemy."
"I-is that s-supposed to be a th-threat?" Quirrell sneered contemptuously.
"Fine, don't tell me. Presumably, you're after the Stone? Eternal life does
sound like a pretty sweet deal although, if I leave you here for the vampires
to find you, you might just wind up with eternal unlife. Assuming there even are
any vampires, that is, and you didn't lie about that, too."
"Oh, the v-vampires are r-real, b-boy," Quirrell said. "And a-alone? B-by
yourself? Th-they'll never let you leave the F-Forest alive."
"Detect Thoughts. Whatever you do, don't think about your boss." To Milo's
surprise, he picked up, not one, but two sapient minds in front of him. "What
the Hells "
Without warning, the forest exploded into varicoloured light.
"Expelliarmus!" Quirrell's wand flew from Milo's grasp. "Petrificus Totalus!"
Milo's hands suddenly flew to his sides and stayed there. All of his muscles
stopped responding to movement, except, oddly, his eyes he could look around
unimpeded.
Half a dozen Death Eaters, masks and all, stepped out from the trees in a loose
circle around Milo and Quirrell.
"It appears my son does not disappoint for once," said an oily voice from
behind one of the masks. "When he said you'd be leaving the castle with only a
single teacher of dubious competence to protect you, I thought it was too good
to be true. Fortune, it would seem, favours the patient."
Milo struggled to speak, but his jaw remained clamped firmly shut. Quirrell was
looking at the Death Eaters with a dangerous glint in his eyes.
"R-release me, L-Lucius," Quirrell said. "And y-you will be r-r-rewarded
b-beyond your "
"Rewarded by you?" Lucius sneered. "What could I, the wealthiest wizard in
magical England, have to gain by freeing you? Who even are you? I see no reason
why I should not simply kill you on the spot."
"Y-you will f-face my w-wrath if you d-do this thing, Malfoy. F-for I am
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L-Lord" Quirrell broke off, screaming in anguish. Lucius looked around at his
Death Eaters.
"Did one of you...?" he left the question hanging. They all shook their heads,
seeming equally perplexed at the cause of the Defence Professor's sudden pain.
"F-forgive me," Quirrell stammered. "P-perhaps it is b-better to say that I
h-h-have the e-ear of one that e-even y-you, L-Lucius, w-would n-not long
r-regret d-displeasing."
"Would not long regret..." Malfoy frowned.
"Because you'd be dead, boss," one of the masked wizards added helpfully.
"Yeah, you'd be departed, boss," said another.
"Yes, I got that, Crabbe. Goyle. Now be silent." Had the spell preventing him
from moving allowed, Milo would have grinned. Like father, like son...
"I believe you're bluffing," Malfoy said finally. "Nobody with friends that
powerful would settle at being a schoolteacher."
"N-no! L-Lucius, you f-fool, you d-don't under "
"Stupefy," Malfoy cast, and Quirrell sagged against the tree. Lucius Malfoy bent
over the unconscious teacher and softly whispered "Obliviate."
oooo
"Blimey," Ron said shakily. "What happened to all these spiders?" Through the
folds of the Invisibility Cloak Milo had been wrong, it had worked for
multiple people at once they could clearly see piles of dead Acromantulas
surrounding a thick web.
"It looks like they... turned on each other," Hermione sounded sick. "Although
several of them look, well, just fine."
"Except that they're stone cold dead," Harry added.
"I think we should keep going," Hannah said. "It's safe to assume that Milo had
some hand in this. He can't go thirty minutes without needing someone to pull
him out of the fire." Despite her words, she fingered a crude-looking flower at
her lapel with a fond expression.
"Right," said Harry, feeling slightly embarrassed. "On we go."
"Er," said Ron, "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there's a big dirty
web in front of us."
"Milo once told me that magical webs burn quickly," Hannah said.
"Brilliant," Ron said. "But where are we going to get any fire?"
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Hermione gave him an incredulous look.
"Where are we going to Are you a wizard or aren't you?"
"Oh, right," Ron said, looking sheepish. "Incendio!"
oooo
"You, boy, have given me no end of trouble," Lucius sneered, his eyes narrowing
through the holes in his mask. "That ritual was hardly supposed to summon an
eleven-year-old abomination like you, but you'll have to suffice."
Milo suddenly saw the reason for the Still and Silent Spell metamagic feats.
Without the ability to speak or move his hands, he was completely helpless.
"Crabbe! Goyle! Carry him. We must move beyond the wards."
They're taking me beyond the wards? Milo wondered. So, they mean to Disapparate.
If they did that, Milo could very well wind up imprisoned in a cavern somewhere
in the Earth's crust, for all he knew. It could take him centuries to earn
enough XP to be able to Teleport out of that without monsters to fight. Assuming
they don't just kill me, of course.
Rough hands grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and half-carried, half-dragged
him through the dark forest.
Well, he thought, I am royally screwed. At least I know Quirrell's up to
something, for all the good that does me.
oooo
"Quiet!"Hermione suddenly hissed.
"What?" Ron asked.
"Don't you hear that? Someone's talking up ahead."
"I think I can see light," Harry said, squinting through his sight-augmenting
glasses.
As quietly as they could, the four of them crept along the narrow, winding path
towards the tiny points of light up ahead.
"Looks like four or five wands lit up," Harry said as they approached.
"But Quirrell and Milo only have two between them," Ron said.
"And Milo's doesn't even count," Hermione added.
"He could have used his Dancing Lights spell," Hannah said, peering through the
trees. "It would look sort of like that." She sounded somewhat skeptical,
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though.
"Could be," Harry said dubiously.
"I think we should assume it isn't them," Hermione said. "And that they aren't
friendly."
"Good plan," Harry said. He tried to sound confident, but, really... what could
they possibly do against a group of fully-trained wizards? He'd only learned how
to disarm less than a week ago.
Moving was awkward with four bodies under the Cloak, but they slowly gained
ground on the party ahead of them.
Ron's voice caught as they came close enough to see their masks.
"Death Eaters," he hissed. "Followers of You-Know-Who."
"Oh, Merlin," Hermione said softly. "We should go back and tell Dumbledore. We
should have told Dumbledore right at the start."
"Yeah, well, he's a bit hard to reach," Ron said, "living in a
password-protected secret office and all."
"Quiet, both of you," Harry snapped. "Those two, the ones built like gorillas
you see? They've got Milo. He... he's not moving."
"Is he oh, Merlin. Can you tell if he's... is he breathing?" Hannah asked.
"No," Harry said without thinking. "I mean, I can't tell. Not... not the other
thing."
"They're carrying him deeper into the Forest," Hermione mused. "They must mean
to get outside the wards and Disapparate."
"Then we have to hurry!" Harry urged.
"And do what?" Hermione asked. "No, seriously. What do we do if we catch them?
They'll kill the lot of us."
"We have to try," Hannah said. "He saved my life, once. He saved Neville's, too.
He wouldn't even think twice."
"If we take them by surprise," Harry mused, "we can disarm the four not holding
Milo simultaneously. As soon as the two big ones drop him and go for their
wands, we do the same to them."
"Then what do we do?" Hermione asked.
"Whatever we want, really," Harry said. "We'll have wands and they won't."
Hermione chewed on her lip.
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"Fine," she said finally. "But if we don't get them all all of them on the
first volley, we run. They won't be casting to disarm, or even to stun."
"Deal," Harry said reluctantly. Filled with equal parts reassurance in having a
plan and abject terror in the face of near-certain death, he led his three
classmates towards a larger group of hardened killers.
"Okay," he said finally, ducking behind a tree about twenty paces from the Death
Eaters. "We're in range. Everyone get ready, and remember practice. It's no
different from the Duelling Club."
"In the club, Neville won't slay me if I mess up the spell," Ron muttered.
"We go on three, okay? One. Two. Th"
There was a short series of loud popping noises, like small firecrackers, and
the Death Eaters vanished.
"We're too late," Hannah said in a dead tone. "I can't... I mean, what... we...
we're too late."
Chapter 25: Roll for Initiative
Author's Notes: Something I've been doing this whole time, which I only just
realized I haven't mentioned, is that I actually do roll for Milo's hit points.
He is... not overly blessed with luck.
Today's character sheet can be found here: www myth-weavers com/sheetview
php?sheetid=452348 (replace spaces with periods, as usual). Note: I just
realized that it was set to "Private" view, and not "Public;" you should all be
able to see the character sheet now. Sorry!
The whole chapter is posted. Once again, sorry for the wait! I'm doing my best.
There's a pretty good chance next week's chapter will be late as well, but after
that things should be normal again.
Also, I threw in a non-canonical AU sidestory I wrote in a particularly dull
European History class last week. It has moderate spoilers for Robert Jordan's
The Wheel of Time, so don't read it unless you're caught up. And if you're not
caught up, read the series. It's awesome.
SAD NOTE: Due to Prismatic Dragon-levels of homework, there will, tragically,
not be an update of Harry Potter and the Natural 20 on (the Canadian)
Thanksgiving weekend. (That's this weekend).
ooooooo
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Milo stared up at the dark, dank masonry ceiling, following the patterns of the
stone above him, shaking his head in disgust something he regretted instantly
as his vision swam blurrily. At some point he couldn't remember when, which,
all things considered, was concerning he'd been searched for anything even
vaguely magical-looking. His Belt of Hidden Pouches, his Amulet of Protection
From Evil, his anti-vampire paraphernalia, and, amusingly enough, his wand were
all missing.
All that left him with were his magic robes, 'Headband' of Intellect, and
Arcanist's Gloves, and whatever spells he still had memorized which was to
say, most of his best stuff.
Except for his spellbook, which, if he didn't get it back soon, would leave him
only capable of preparing the 0th-level spell Read Magic and... Milo frowned.
He felt oddly like there were a pair of other spells he should know already but
somehow... didn't. Like something was missing. He dismissed the notion that he'd
been memory charmed; the now-familiar feeling he had could only mean one thing:
he'd levelled up.
Must have happened when I disarmed Quirrell, Milo mused. Even including the
steep XP reduction for nonlethal combat, the Defence Professor had given him
more than enough to level up.
"Parchment," Milo said suddenly. "I need parchment now."
When a Wizard increases in level, they learn two new spells for free. This is
supposed to be an instantaneous thing in fact, it is generally assumed that
the spells learned were from ongoing research the Wizard was doing before
levelling. This doesn't change the fact that if a Wizard goes through an
incredibly violent day and, say, increases in level three times an unusual,
but not impossible feat he can somehow perform months of spell research, not
in the space of that one day, but in the weeks leading up to it.
Right that moment, Milo's brain was packed full of roughly three hundred and
thirty-six hours of retroactive potential spell research. The fact that this was
blatantly impossible didn't mean that it wasn't happening.
His hands twitched. His head felt like it might well explode if he didn't get
these spells on paper soon. Looking around the dimly lit room a single
flickering lamp provided what could generously be called light he noticed that
his considerate hosts had failed to furnish his cell with a stationary kit.
Milo rolled up the left sleeve of his magically-augmented Hogwarts uniform,
cursing like a level 10 Half-Orc Dread Pirate.
"I can't believe I'm reduced to this," he muttered (after heavy censorship, that
is). Little-used rules allow a Wizard's forearm and upper arm to be used as
three pages of spellbook each more than enough for his purposes. The long-term
thinker in him was screaming in protest at the wastefulness, both in terms of
time and money, of his plans, but cold pragmatism ruled here: he still had all
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of his 3rd-level spell slots filled, but he'd used the lion's share of his 1stand 2nd-level spells in the battle with the Acromantulas (or was it
Acromantulae? Milo could never tell).
He had his paper analogue, but he still needed ink. With one last, choice curse
(it was Orc, and it wouldn't translate, so don't ask) he bit deeply into the
skin of his right index finger.
How long had he been unconscious? Eight hours? More? Wincing with pain, he
frantically scrawled the mystic words of power that were the keys to Benign
Transposition and Shatter on his arm. The blood ran and spread, but it would do
for now. It would have to.
As for his feat... Craft Magic Weapons and Armour was all but useless to him for
now, but he'd need it, soon. He could always retrain it later.
Some time later how long, Milo wasn't sure in the dark he heard footsteps,
ringing out loudly on the cold stone floor. He quickly doused the nearby lamp
and turned to face the door, Readying himself.
The doorknob turned slowly, and eventually, the heavy wooden door opened. A
masked, robed figure who Milo recognized by his stature as either Crabbe or
Goyle senior entered, his wand out and its tip glowing.
"Shatter." A thunderously loud ring erupted from the thin wooden stick as if a
heavily optimized Hulking Hurler had thrown a boulder at a gong the size of a
small barn. The light went out as the wand fragmented into splinters, leaving
the two of them in near-total darkness.
In most circumstances, a young boy trapped in a dark room with a grown man built
along the same lines as the USS Iowa would hardly be thought to have the
advantage.
This was not most circumstances.
"Silent Image." The words were barely more than the ghost of a whisper, but in
the hands of a Wizard, whispered words could be more dangerous than a rampaging
Wyrm.
What Crabbe (or Goyle?) Senior saw made the illusions Milo had used on Peeves
and Ollivander look like a toddler's crayon drawing.
After a moment, the man screamed.
"Take it away," he whimpered through the mask. "Please, just just take it
away."
"It's out of my hands," Milo lied. "I brought them, but they'll only leave when
they're... appeased. You wouldn't want to know what they eat." Goyle (or
Crabbe?) made an incoherent wordless sound. "Although..."
Milo would have bet his spellbook that, had he possessed darkvision and had
Page 322

the Death Eater not been wearing a mask he would have seen a manic glimmer of
hope in the man's eyes.
"I suppose there's another way. I might be able to... intercede, on your behalf,
if I had reason to."
"Yes! Anything!" An interesting quirk of the way Illusions work is that the only
way to determine their true nature without magic (or by having them pointed out)
is to succeed on a Will Saving Throw. A viewer is only allowed a Save against
Illusions after either physical interaction or by studying them carefully. Milo
doubted Crabbe (or Goyle) was blessed with a high Will save bonus, but even a
1st-level Commoner could roll a twenty. So long as Milo kept the image from
actually touching the Death Eater and kept him distracted then Bigby himself
couldn't tell the difference. In short: Illusions are like movie monsters. With
a little care, even the staunchest audience will believe in them completely
until they appear on screen in clear lighting.
"Tell me where I am, where my gear was taken, and why I was brought here."
"You're in M-M-Malfoy's M-Manor." Milo was reminded briefly of the treacherous
Defence Professor's stammer. "Y-your w-wand is in a st-storeroom down the hall,
and you're here for the Ritual." Something about the way he said it implied a
Capital Letter.
"One last thing. Give me the key."
"Key?" Of course, he thought. Wizards here wouldn't use keys; they'd just use
Alohomora to open locks and Colloportus to close them again. Great. Now what
do I do with him? Seeing as how he was without his standard-issue fifty feet of
hemp rope a cardinal sin among Adventurers and he couldn't just lock his
captive in the room, he was in something of a dilemma. Eh, what the Hells. He
could sit here moralizing over what to do with captured enemies, or he could act
and hope for the best. "Don't even think about moving, or I'll let them have
you." Without bothering to wait for a response, he walked over to the Death
Eater and tore off strips of the man's robes to bind his arms and legs. Milo
didn't have any Skill Ranks in Use Rope (because, seriously, who trains Use
Rope?) but he hoped his crude knots would do. As an afterthought, he shoved the
horrid mask into the man's mouth as a gag. Milo turned to leave, but paused in
the doorframe. "I put a Contingent Curse on those knots," he said simply. "If
they ever come undone, you'll die."
A Silent Image could last as long as Milo concentrated, so he changed the
Illusion from the writhing mass of Indescribably Awful Unspeakable Horrors to a
tiny, dull grey ball that orbited his wrist slowly. Normally, he wouldn't bother
going through such measures to save spells, but without his Spellbook, they were
going at something of a premium.
Closing the heavy door behind him, Milo stepped out into a dimly lit hallway. He
was somewhat surprised to find it free of guards, but it made a sort of sense
this mad society was entirely populated by wizards, and wizards, by-and-large,
had better things to do than guard prisoners. Not that a couple of low-level
Muggles with pointy sticks could stop him if he really wanted out, if it came to
Page 323

that.
To his right was a narrow, slightly crooked staircase; to his left, a thick door
like the one behind him. Didn't take a Genius Loci to figure out which way led
to the storeroom. The door was, unsurprisingly, locked.
Shatter could destroy any nonmagical object of up to sixty pounds. The thickly
Reinforced door weighed well more than that, but, when it came to it, what,
exactly, was an object? A door? A plank? certainly. Part of a door? No, that was
part of an object. But one of several planks making up a door? If they weren't
an object, then neither was the door by the same logic, the door couldn't be
destroyed because it was part of the house, and the house because it was part of
the planet.
"Shatter." Regrettably, he had to dismiss his Silent Image. The thick chunk of
mahogany connected to the polished brass hinges holding up the door exploded
away from Milo's outstretched palm. The rest of the door teetered precariously
for a moment before falling to the ground with a deafening clatter that could
likely be heard from the top of Mount Celestia. Well, stealth has never been my
strong suit in any case. Zook assuming he was still alive would be ashamed
of him. Are any of them alive? Am I the last one?
Stepping over the ruins of the once-fine door, Milo entered a surprisingly
comfortable-feeling ten-by-ten stone room. All it needs now is an orc guarding a
chest, he thought wryly. Dusty boxes were scattered about the floor space
haphazardly.
"Locate Object My Belt of Hidden Pouches." Heaving a sigh of relief, he
allowed the gentle tug of his Divination to lead him to a box seemingly
indistinguishable from the others, the lid of which came off easily. Neatly
stored inside were his various magical doodads. Milo was about to reach for
them, but hesitated.
This is far too easy, he thought. Overconfidence was pretty well standard-issue
among archvillains, but this was ridiculous. They left him a Wizard alone in
a room? He hadn't even been bound, blindfolded, and gagged (not that any of
those would be a guarantee; Still and Silent Spell existed for a reason, after
all). And putting his Magic Items in a room right next to his cell was simply
insane. Frankly, he should have been executed, looted, and left in a ditch by
the road somewhere.
Milo had made too many mistakes by rushing in blindly and ignoring the signs
around him. He needed to stop and examine this from every angle before he got
himself killed. It was time for an Intelligence Check. Time to Take Twenty, in
fact. What did Milo know?
Fact: the Death Eater had said he was needed for a ritual. Presumably, they
needed him alive, or they wouldn't have gone through all the effort of capturing
him when it would have been much, much easier to kill him before he knew they
were attacking him. He reckoned it wasn't unreasonable to assume that this
ritual had something to do with the one that had summoned him here in the first
place, if only because it was the only other time the words 'ritual' and 'Malfoy
Page 324

Manner' had coincided in this particular story arc. So... what was the goal? To
send him back? Somehow, Milo doubted that a group of villains who could,
apparently, 'eat death' would take pains to see him home safely.
Fact: Lucius had taken grossly inadequate measures to keep him imprisoned once
captured. This either implied a serious lack of knowledge about Milo's magical
capabilities something he doubted Lucius had, seeing as how Snape, presumably
acting on Lucius's orders, had nearly had Milo thrown out of Hogwarts by
exploiting the differences in their respective magical abilities or that he
wanted Milo to escape. But that was stupidity. Why capture Milo only to give him
what amounted to a key, a bagged lunch, and a map out of his cell? Was Lucius
looking for some sort of climactic showdown? Surely not. Milo knew little of
Voldemort's lieutenant, but among the list of things he did know,
'self-destructive flair for dramatics' was conspicuously absent.
Fact: all of Lucius's actions known against Milo to date had been with the end
goal of capturing him alive. To do that, Milo would need to be taken outside of
the grounds, where the faculty and wards would be unable to protect him.
"None of this answers the question of how I escaped so easily," Milo muttered.
Maybe... could he have had help from inside Lucius's camp? It was far too
tenuous to be listed among his 'facts' (many of which, Milo was sure, were
tenuous enough to make any respectable logician shudder), yet it seemed the only
reasonable conclusion. The only other reason Milo could think of would be some
sort of trap, but he couldn't see any reason for the Lucius and the Death Eaters
(a part of Milo's brain idly noted that 'Lucius and the Death Eaters' sounded
like the name for a group of travelling Chaotic Evil Bards) to lay a trap for
him while he was unconscious and in their hands.
If the good guys really had a mole, he had to be someone with enough
decision-making power to oversee the placement of Milo's stuff, but not enough
to simply leave it with him in prison. So. One of Lucius's right-hand men was a
traitor.
Regardless, the room was unlikely to explode if he touched his Belt, so he
suited up.
Fact: when Milo had been Imperiused, his controller had made no effort to order
him outside of the Hogwarts grounds. Therefore, Lucius and by extension, Snape
and Draco had not been responsible for having him Imperiused after Christmas.
Fact: he had, however, been ordered to investigate the Mirror.
Fact: Quirrell was a traitor, yet not in league with Lucius. Thinking back to
The Plot, Milo realized he'd made a serious error: he'd assumed that the evil
would be monolithic; one giant, shadowy organization out to get him. This was
evidently not the case.
Fact: the Philosopher's Stone was obviously hidden on the forbidden third-floor
corridor in Hogwarts.
Fact: the day the Troll was released, both Quirrell and Snape had immediately
Page 325

gone to that corridor.
Fact: Quirrell had killed what was at least one of the guardians of the Stone.
Fact: the Philosopher's Stone was one way for Voldemort to return.
Fact: Quirrell had uncharacteristically volunteered to lead the investigation to
find whoever was killing unicorns in the Forbidden Forest.
Fact: Unicorn blood was another way for Voldemort to return.
Milo's pulse quickened.
Fact: Milo had been a blind idiot to believe the Troll was responsible for
killing the unicorns.
But that wasn't the end of it.
Fact: Milo himself was another way for Voldemort to return.
Fact: Quirrell knew this, and also knew that Milo required more Experience
Points to do the same.
Fact: Quirrell had taken an unusual interest in Milo, and had asked several
questions about how he levelled up.
What was it the Professor had said? You, Milo, are a prize greater than any
Philosopher's Stone.
Milo felt chilled to his spine, and it had nothing to do with temperature.
Conclusion: Quirrell was trying to bring Lord Voldemort back from the dead.
No, wait. That's wrong. He already has unicorn blood.
Conclusion, Revised: Quirrell has already brought Lord Voldemort back from the
dead.
Milo's knees turned to jelly, and it wasn't because of the Jelly
breathing accelerated into a staccato beat of shallow gasps; the
vision began to darken. I told him everything he asked. I may as
up to the Dark Lord Voldemort and handed him a copy of the Rules
Legs Hex. His

edges of his
well have gone
on a platter.
And he called himself a Wizard. One of the Wise. He wasn't worth his pointy hat.
What had he accomplished? He'd as good as told Voldemort Godsdamned Voldemort
about the secret workings of Arcane Magic and the D20 System. Milo had almost
killed one of his best friends. With a dagger. Reality was his plaything, and
he'd resorted to throwing a block of sharpened metal.
With effort, he steadied his breathing enough to speak. He felt a sharp,
metallic tang of metal in his mouth.
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And he called himself an Adventurer. A Hero. An Optimizer.
I dumped Constitution. What kind of Optimizer am I?
"Pazuzu." The walls of the room seemed to distort slightly, but it could have
been a trick of the flickering light. The slight tremors could well have been
muscle spasms.
"Pazuzu." The lights what few there were in this basement went out. He
thought he could hear quiet laughter.
"Pa " He yelped at a sudden, sharp pain in his hand. The light returned as if
nothing had happened.
"What the Hells are you doing? Are you trying to get us killed?" The voice was
small, but it seemed to fill the whole room. A small, slightly overweight,
white-and-brown rat was hanging onto Milo's right hand, his fingernails dug into
the fine fabric of Milo's Arcanist's Gloves.
"Mordy?" Milo asked in astonishment. "I thought you'd still be in the Forbidden
Forest."
"One of the first things a familiar learns is how to disappear when not needed."
Mordy took on a dry, lecturing tone. "And when Save-Or-Dies start flying is the
first sign a familiar isn't needed. I ducked into my Belt as soon as you got
paralyzed."
"I think you mean my belt," Milo said indignantly. "And where do you get off
biting me?"
Mordenkainen snorted, a slightly incongruous sound for a rat.
"Look at it this way. What happens to you if I die?"
"I lose a bunch of Experience Points," Milo shuddered.
"And what happens to me if you die?"
Milo frowned.
"I have no idea," he confessed. "I could look it up when we get home "
"Don't bother," the rat interrupted. "There's no mention of it anywhere.
Centuries ago, when the ancestors of modern researches first began testing the
laws of the universe to determine the rules, they didn't bother investigating
it. That hasn't changed since. Nobody knows what happens to a familiar whose
Wizard dies. Let's keep it that way, shall we? I don't fancy waking up as an
ordinary rat again. Your fool stunt could have killed us both. Trying to summon
a Demon Prince? What were you thinking?"
"Look"
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"My Intelligence is less than half yours though you wouldn't know by looking
and even I know that's a terrible idea."
"It was the only way"
"You're True Neutral. He'd have no obligation to enter negotiations with you.
Once summoned, he could have gutted you like a fish and gone on to do Gods know
what to this Plane."
Milo paused.
"You're right. I'm sorry."
"Did you did you just admit a mistake?"
"Mistake? I've made nothing but mistakes. Quirrell is working for
He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Now that he knows I'm on to him, he's probably killing
my friends."
"This isn't like you. What's wrong with you?"
"Like you don't already know," Milo said sullenly. "You can read my mind,
remember?"
"It's an empathic link, not a telepathic link. Moron." Despite his words, Milo
felt a flash of concern through the bond.
"Whatever."
Mordy's expression such as he had, being a rat hardened.
"Oh, look at you, summoning Demon Princes and moping and making rules errors.
You know what you remind me of?" The familiar's words were positively dripping
with contempt an effect undermined slightly by the emotions drifting through
their bond. Worry. Concern. Love.
"Don't say it." But it was hopeless, Milo knew exactly what Mordenkainen was
going to say possibly because, in a manner of speaking, they were two sides of
the same person.
"An Apprentice-Level hack NPC, that's what. Are you a set piece, or are you a
Player Character?"
"Says the glorified Class Feature."
"Hey, at least this Class Feature knows why he's here."
"And why, pray tell, is that?"
"I'm here because you're here. I'd follow you into Orcus's Throne Room. And,
more the fool I am, I'd trust you to get us back out again. But I've only got
the Intelligence of an average NPC Half-Orc. Now, what are we going to do?"
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"You know, you suck at giving pep talks."
"I work with what I'm given. We share Skill Ranks, and it's hardly my fault if
you find better uses for them than Perform (Orator). Now. What are we going to
do?"
Milo paused, his mind racing.
"We're going to find Quirrell and stop him. But to do that, we're going to need
to get out of this manor. Again."
"And why are we going to do that?" Mordenkainen pressed.
"Because..." Images flashed into Milo's head. Images of Voldemort, all cloaked
in black with glowing red eyes, torturing Harry and Ron and Hermione. And... and
Hannah. "Because..." Of Voldemort, walking unopposed into the Potters' house
eleven years ago and murdering Harry's parents. Of him committing acts so foul
that, not only did nobody mention them to this day, but that caused fully
trained, battle-hardened wizards to fear to even speak his name. Quirrell wanted
to unleash him again on this absurd, pathetic, broken, confused, third-party,
inconsistent, beautiful Plane. "Because he'll hurt my friends. Because it's the
right thing to do." It should have felt more profound, more impressive, changing
one's alignment. Milo felt vaguely cheated.
"Go forth and kick ass, my master."
oooo
It was the smell, of all things, that first clued Macnair in that something was
awry. It started faint, and he simply ignored it. In a few seconds, it became
overpowering. A dank, musty, earthy scent which reminded him of a crypt.
Frowning beneath his mask, the executioner drew his wand and stuck his head into
the hallway to see what was going on. Snape, relaying Malfoy's orders, had told
him to keep an eye on the corridor while the others prepared for the Ritual. The
oily Potions Master had been very specific; Macnair was to stand just out of
sight of Crabbe. He said it was to optimize sightlines, whatever that meant.
A rat scurried between his feet this was unusual; Dobby would likely be
punished severely for his negligence but, otherwise, there seemed nothing
unusual.
"Goyle?" Macnair called out softly. Crabbe had been sent to Stun the prisoner
again in case he came close to waking, but Crabbe should have been just around
the corner. Idiot must have wandered off. He was about to return to his post
when he noticed, just in sight at the end of the hall, what looked like a pair
of feet sticking around the corner. With a sudden lurch, they were gone.
"What the H"
"Benign Transposition." Macnair heard a tiny crack, like a mouse Disapparating,
and suddenly the crypt smell was strong enough to make him want to gag. Macnair
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whirled, and found himself face-to-face with a walking, waking, nightmare. Empty
sockets in a huge, misshapen skull stared at him, its jaw grinning grotesquely.
The... thing, whatever it was, had to hunch over to fit in the cavernous
hallways of Malfoy's manor, and its disproportionately long, skeletal arms ended
in sharp, serrated claws. Bleached bone thudded against the polished mahogany
wood as it walked calmly towards him. Macnair didn't know what it was, and
wasn't about to wait to find out.
"Avada Kedavra!" A green bolt of hate-fuelled death flew at the monster and
exploded harmlessly on its ribcage. Macnair stared at it in absolute amazement.
"Avada Kedavra! Avada Kedavra!" Again and again, he fired the most powerful
spell he knew, the spell that killed without fail, but the abomination simply
ignored him and maintained its sedate pace.
With sudden, lightning speed belying its utter lack of visible musculature, the
nightmare leapt. Briefly there was pain, and then darkness.
oooo
"Shatter." The aged, expensive, polished, exquisitely-crafted wooden door fell
inwards, revealing a familiar dining room.
Lucius Malfoy stared at Milo in utter astonishment for a split second, but
quickly schooled his face to calmness.
"So," the elder Malfoy said. "I see you've bested Crabbe and Goyle. No more than
I'd expected. I suppose you wonder why we've brought you here?"
"Some," Milo said neutrally. There were twelve other Death Eaters in the room,
all anonymous beneath their masks. One of them, at least, was probably a mole;
the rest could be anyone. Despite his promise to never jump through a window
again, he figured his best way out was the same as last time. This time,
however, he could summon Skeletal Trolls being mindless and Undead, they were
immune to all three of the Unforgivable Curses, and, for some reason, Summon
Undead III was Conjuration (as opposed to Necromancy, one of Milo's forbidden
schools) so he could cast it without problem.
"Well, I think you will find that, if you will but listen for a moment, our aims
are much the same," Lucius explained. Despite himself, Milo was intrigued.
"Go on," he said skeptically. If worse came to worst, he could always fight his
way out.
"You were brought here quite by accident," Lucius said, "and I swear this by
the Most Noble and Ancient House of Malfoy we are preparing a ritual that will
send you back."
Milo gaped with genuine astonishment. This was completely out of left field.
"You do realize that I'm not naturally predisposed to trust someone wearing a
skull mask, right?"
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"What, these?" Lucius pulled off his mask, revealing his long, platinum blond
hair and politely smiling face.
"And this... this ritual of yours," Milo said, "it won't, by any chance, return
me home dead or horribly dismembered?"
"Not to my knowledge, no. So, what say you?"
"I... have to ask. Why?"
"The ritual we... mistakenly used to bring you here cost us something," he said
reluctantly, "something which can only be regained if you are returned. It is no
concern of yours, however. I'm sure you have your own problems to deal with,
where you came from."
Well, there was the matter of resurrecting his almost-certainly-dead
teammates...
It was tempting. It was really, really tempting. He could go home, back to a
world that ran on sensible, predictable rules, a world where he didn't have to
re-invent the wheel every time he wanted to learn a new spell, a world where not
every single citizen had access to At-Will No Save Death Spells. He could see
his home; Myra, City of Light! City of Magic! more than lived up to its name. He
could show Thamior the Unimaginably Horrid who was boss. He could fight Orcs
again. Gods, I miss fighting Orcs. And yet...
"Sorry," Milo said finally. "I still have work to do."
"I'm sorry to hear that. Things would go... easier, for both of us, if you were
alive for the ritual, but, alas..."
Milo could practically feel the Initiative Die rolling in his head as he
unleashed his Readied Action.
ooooooo
Also: BONUS OMAKE! (Warning: SPOILERS AHEAD)
Q: What if Milo were transported to Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time instead of
the Harry Potter universe?
A: The Eye of the World would look like this:
The wolf-headed Trolloc reached at him with its horrid, barbed catchpole in an
attempt to pull him from his Mount.
"Glitterdust!" Milo shouted, and the surrounded Shadowspawn recoiled, blinded by
the sudden light. "Ha!" he said exuberantly, "and that's why you don't send a
horde of mooks to catch a caster! Fear my Arcane sparkles, Shadowspawn!"
In an instant less than a Standard Action, for certain Milo found himself
pulled from his horse and slammed into the hard earth. Lan's curved blade was
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held against his neck, his foot pressed down Milo's chest. Milo's companions
were staring at him in horror.
"Male channeler," he heard somebody whisper, while another added "The Dark One
and all the Forsaken are bound in Shayol Ghul, bound by the Creator at the
moment of creation," and trailed off. Moirane stared at him, an unreadable
expression on her face.
"He is shielded," she said quietly. "But to gentle him, here, would light a
beacon for halfmen leagues in every direction." Lan gave her a brief,
questioning look. Moirane shook her head, and he withdrew his blade. "The Wheel
weaves as the Wheel wills," she murmured. "There was no forseeing this. He is a
part of the Pattern, now."
Several Thousand Pages Later:
"Graendel did it," Milo said. "I just used a Limited Wish to Speak With Dead."
Even More Thousands of Pages Later:
The Gholam, immune to the Power and capable of recovering from any injury,
charged at Mat and Milo.
"Light!" Mat said, barely avoiding the Gholam's boneless grasp.
"Disintegrate," Milo muttered. The assassin crumbled into dust.
"Blood and bloody ashes, what was that?" Mat asked.
"Dunno," Milo shrugged. "Don't care. Locate Object Bowl of the Winds. We turn
left, now."
Circa The Gathering Storm :
"Widened Fireball," Milo cast, and hordes of Shadowspawn Trollocs, Draghkar,
and Myrdraal alike fell to his fire. "Cloudkill," he said, and hundreds more
died. He only had to hold the line for a few more rounds the Lord Dragon had
promised. Help was coming right?
Milo felt, rather than heard, the Fade behind him. The Conjurer whirled, ready
to send the Halfman back to its master, when its black blade was abruptly
sheared in half as was most of the unfortunate Myrdraal, as well. Rand stepped
out of the Gateway, staring at Milo with his steely gaze.
"What you have wrought here was not saidin," he said simply.
"That's what I've been trying to say this whole time," Milo said, wasting a Fist
of Trollocs with a Silent Fireball. "But nobody here ever listens to anyone!"
"I have only met one channeler who did not use saidin," Rand continued,
oblivious to Milo's words. "Forsaken."
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"What? Wai"
Rand channeled balefire without a second thought.
Chapter 26: Bluff Checks
Author's Notes: last chapter's Wheel of Time joke-section (it's not meant to be
taken seriously) was rather a lot of fun, and fairly well received, so I might
do more in the future. We'll see how things turn out. Sorry for the long delay,
but it should be the last missed weekend for a whileI haven't got any
assignments worth mentioning due until mid-November. Updates might become
erratic around then. Apologies in advance.
Update Nov 3rd: Hello all you HP:MOR readers! It just came to my attention that
Eliezer Yudkowsky/Less Wrong recommended me on his blog on Thursday and a number
of new readers have arrived because of that. Which is awesome. Enjoy! Although I
think "Rationalist Fanfic" is somewhat of an exaggeration (albeit one that makes
me happy) and that "Rationalist-inspired Fanfic" is more accurate because, well,
anyone who's met Milo likely won't be immediately struck by how rational he is.
Is Irrationalist Fanfic a thing? /ramble.
In other news, there won't be an update tomorrow because of an essay due Monday,
but I think with some re-shuffling we can avoid the Great Schedule Slip of
October from re-occurring. I tend to leave my homework for weekends, which is
also when I do my writing. So. As an experiment, I am going to try switching the
update day to Thursdays. That way, if I can't find time in the weekend to write,
I won't just give up on the update altogether. Whether there will be one this
Thursday is only 50-50, because of Good Reasons I Swear, and Why Are You Looking
At Me Like That? Stop! I'm Trying Real Hard And The Next Chapter Will Be Real
Soon Now.
Update November 26th: Okay, so here's the deal. I'm starting to think I have the
mythical Writer's Block. I know what's going to happen nextit's all been
planned out for ages. From the beginning, basically. But, when I'm actually
staring at the screen and keyboard, every sentence I write has to be forced out
with far more effort than it should take. I'm writing this fic for fun, after
all, and every draft of Chapter 27 has been, well, atrocious.
So. I don't know when the next update will be, and I'm so sorry. It will happen
at some point, and that's a promise, Mister Frodo. Probably in January between
terms, but I can't know for certain. I haven't had to deal with this before, and
this is a decidedly inconvenient time for it to strike what with all the new
readers coming and all. But. I'm sure most of you know this, but if you hit
"subscribe" then you'll be the first to know when my block is gone and I stop
rolling 1's on Craft (Epic Fanfic) checks.
To re-iterate: I'm so sorry. I'm doing my best. But the more I worry about the
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late update, the more the update feels like work, and I worry about it more and
want to do it less and vicious cycles suck. So I need to do some other stuff for
a while and avoid thinking about my beloved story, then come back with gusto.
And when I do, it'll be epic. I have Very Cool Plans.
ooooooo
He was being chased. He couldn't see it, or hear it, but he knew. He wasn't sure
what it was. The forest was full of nothing but silence, not even the rustle of
leaves caused by a bird or squirrel. That was his first clue.
"Professor? Are you... all right?" The villagersMuggles, all of themspoke
fearfully, when they'd had too much to drink, of... something in the woods. When
pressed, they'd laugh it off as silly superstition and change the subject. But a
slight hesitation in their laughter, a tightness around their eyes...the fear
was real. The...thing might be imaginary, but the fear was real.
He could help them. He'd known it. It had been a chance to prove himself, to get
some real field experience. Lessons and books were all very well, but he'd been
ready for something more. He'd thought it was vampires, in the woods. After all,
what could be more frightening than vampires? It would explain the Muggles'
reactions.
"Why is he handcuffed? Alohomora." And now, he was being chased. And it was
gaining on him. It wasn't a vampire. He thought...he might know what it was.
"I think he needs help; we should bring him back to the castle."
He'd forgotten. They'd all forgotten, wizards and witches everywhere had buried
their memories. Because there was something worse than vampires. Worse than
Dementors. They'd tricked themselves into thinking it was gone. That he was
gone. But now, Quirrell knew better.
"And how do you reckon we do that? You have a cart hidden under your robes,
Hermione?"
Worse, he knew a way to be free. But he couldn't even allow himself to think
about it, because it...because he was always listening. Always. So he had to be
careful. He would bide his time.
"Professor Quirrell?"
The use of his name jerked him back into the present. He sat up, and his hand
immediately went to his head as the world spun. Quirrell opened his eyes and
stared at a worried face. A worried, bespectacled face.
A worried, lightning-scarred face.
He recoiled instinctively, a sudden, unreasoning hatred filling him to the core.
Quirrell steadied himself with effort; he was used to the mood swings now, had
learned to recognize which emotions were his and which came from...him.
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"M-mister P-P-Potter," he stammered with his accursed stutter. It had been an
act, once, to reduce suspicion. But his act had slipped once too many times, and
he had seen to it that it was no longer an act. Quirrell shuddered at the
memory. "W-where am I?" That was unusual. The last he had remembered, he'd been
planning to take the boy to dispatch some of his tame vampires. He still had
several connections in dark places; the filthy creatures in their cave likely
still thought he was bringing them the child as blood tribute.
The smirk died on his lips when he realized what must have happened. Suddenly
finding himself in an unknown location with no memory of how he got there? There
were two possibilities. One, he'd been Memory Charmed. Possible, but unless one
of these half-trained children was secretly a Metamorphmagus Auroror maybe a
Polyjuiced Death Eaterhe doubted they had the power. The other...he must have
taken direct control. There could be no telling what he had done.
"We're...not sure, to be honest, Professor," Potter said. Again, another
man'scould he still be called a man?rage filled him. "We thought you might be
able to tell us."
"W-what has h-happened?" Quirrell was, frankly, surprised. Had he taken over, he
was sure the first thing he'd have done was finished off his mortal enemy.
The four children all began a disjointed story, each starting at different
places and clamouring over each other, but Quirrell managed to piece together
what, more or less, they were trying to say regardless.
"S-so you s-say D-Death E-Eaters t-took him?" Quirrell frowned. Death Eaters?
That hadn't been part of the plan. Had he changed it, without telling him? There
was no way for him to tell, their peculiar bond was very much one-sided.
"But I don't see how," Granger said somewhat petulantly. "You can't Apparate or
Disapparate within the Hogwarts wards."
"W-we m-m-must be outside them," Quirrell said. "They d-d-don't q-quite cover
the f-far edges of the F-Forest."
"We should tell Dumbledore right away," Granger insisted. "He'll know what to
do."
"Good thinking," Potter agreed. "Professor, can you walk?" At the mention of the
Headmaster's name, he felt a sudden spike of fear through the bond. It always
surprised Quirrell that even one such as he could feel something so human as
fear.
"N-no," Quirrell said hurriedly. How was he going to talk his way out of this
one? He wondered when the last time he'd said something completely true was.
"W-we can't t-tell the H-Headmaster j-just yet. D-Dumbledore, f-for all his
v-virtues, is overly trusting. H-he will c-certainly t-tell Snape, and your
P-P-Potions M-Master will g-go running to his r-r-real master."
"See?" Weasley said. "I told you he was up to no good." Granger coloured
slightly, but said nothing.
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"We can't just do nothing!" Potter said. "He's in danger." Abbot nodded
fervently in agreement.
"I d-don't p-propose we d-do nothing," Quirrell said. "j-just let m-me handle
it. D-don't talk to D-Dumbledore. In f-fact, d-don't let anyone know you w-were
out h-here at all." He was feeling increasingly impatient, and it did not do to
keep him waiting. "W-well, if we're r-really outside the w-wards, we'd b-best
start h-heading back. It c-could q-quite s-some time." Time they certainly
didn't have. If the Death Eaters were brazen enough to abduct Milo this close to
Dumbledore's seat of power, they really were active again. So Lucius is taking a
hand in events again. It had to be him. No-one else had the power and drive to
unite his followers who had managed to keep out of Azkaban. Quirrell was
somewhat surprised that they had been able to manage even this; he had
understood that the best and brightest of his followers lay rotting on the
island. Where, he was quick to remind himself, he was certain to go if his true
nature was revealed. But...why would they bother? Was it to bring him back? But
the boy couldn't even manage that, yet.
Or so he said, anyway.
On the way back to the castle, they passed a large group of dead Acromantulas,
of all things. It only took Quirrell a glance to determine what had happened.
Something had caused the horrid beasts to turn on each other, but, judging by
the pristine corpses lying above the mangled ones, one or more wizards had
finished off the lot with the Killing Curse. Must have been Lucius and his
cronies.
By the time they reached the castle, it was well past curfew, and after sending
the children to their Common Room, Quirrell's footsteps echoed ominously in the
hallway alone. He had long since grown out of fearing the dark, but all the
same... he couldn't shake the feeling that he was being hunted. Worse, now that
he was finally aloneas alone as he could ever be, nowhe could speak.
"You lost the boy... were overpowered by an eleven year old..." That was enough
to trigger the memories. The Memory Charm that had been placed upon him was a
weak one, from someone whose talents clearly lay in other directions.
A dozen excuses came to mind in an instant: that the boy had powerful magic was
the reason they were interested in him, that he would have simply told the Death
Eaters he was as good as being the Dark Lord before he had prevented him, that
there were six of them and only one of himbut he had learned, painfully, that
he did not accept excuses. You simply waited, and hoped he would forgive your
failures.
"I-I'm sorry, m-my l-lord. Y-you know w-what happened, I h-have n-no excuse."
"No, you don't... but you will have this opportunity to redeem yourself... am I
not merciful?"
Quirrell felt a rush of relief that was wholly his own.
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"Y-yes, my l-lord." He explained to him his plan as Quirrell hustled to
Dumbledore's office, listening carefully. It was a daring move; much could go
wrongand he would be the one to have to modify it on the fly as circumstances
changed. No plan lasted much longer than the first contact with the enemy. He
could take over histheirbody directly, but only for brief periods of time.
"Sherbet Lemon," he said to the gargoyle statue.
Dumbledoreagain, that sudden rush of hate, spiked with fearsat behind his
great wooden desk on a comfortable-looking chintz armchair. As Quirrell entered,
a glowing silver doe patronus he had never seen before was leaving, presumably
having delivered a message of some sort. He glanced at it briefly, frowning.
Quirrell himself had been unable to produce one since... he had arrived. Could
it be coincidence, the doe arriving on the same night Lucius made his move? It
must be. Surely, someone as powerful as the Headmaster received messages of all
sorts at every hour of the day.
"Why, Quirinus," Dumbledore said, sounding genuinely pleased to see him.
Quirrell tried to fight down his borrowed emotions with limited success. "What
brings you here at this hour?"
It was vital that the Headmaster not discover what Lucius had done, because he
was still unsure about the possibly-former Death Eater's loyalties. He might
still be useful in the future, but not if he were rotting in Azkaban.
"Milo is g-gone," Quirrell said simply. "V-vampires t-took him."
oooo
Lucius Malfoy frantically rubbed the blinding particles out of his eyes as he
surveyed the carnage that had been wrought in the dining hall of his country
manor. Some form of skeletal abomination held Nott by the neck with a single
overly long arm, and was closing in on the Carrow siblings with a speed that
belied its appearance. Crabbe, Goyle, and Macnair were still nowhere to be
found. Gibbon and Avery were trapped in some form of giant web, of all things,
which had appeared from thin air near the centre of the room. Lucius had worked
too long and too hard to unite those servants who remained free to lose them to
this boy. It was time to finish this; the fight had gone on long enough. The
situation demanded itnobody would argue with him on that.
"Avada Kedavra!" The boy, who was flying around in circles dodging curses,
whirled around with an expression of genuine fear as the Killing Curse flew
towards him. The fear was just as swiftly replaced by a grin as he muttered
something under his breath; without any form of show or sign of magic, he was
gone. The skeletal nightmare stoodor rather, floatedin his place, and simply
dropped out of the air. The foolishly-named "Unforgivable" Curse, impossibly,
exploded against its ribcage harmlessly.
How...? No time to think. The monster crashed into Jugson, who crumpled with a
scream underneath its bony bulk. The boy re-appeared where the skeleton had
earlier stood, with a surprised Nott on one side and Amycus and Alecto Carrow on
the other. All three lowered their wands at him.
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They would have to handle the boy, Lucius had other concerns. The boy's tame pet
defenestrated Jugson's body with, if it had had a face, he was sure would have
been contemptand came loping straight at him. Between the thick webs, the ruins
of his centuries-old table, and the writhing trapped Death Eaters, Lucius
struggled to get a clear shot. He heard a pair of loud booms, six seconds apart
with almost musical precision, from the other side of the room. The skeleton
leaped, and Lucius realized he only had time for one last Killing Curse. He
would have to give it everything he had if it could so contemptuously ignore the
earlier one. He began the practiced motionsdespite its power, the Killing Curse
required only fairly simple wandworkbut stopped. There was no guarantee a
second Unforgivable would have any more effect.
"Petrificus Totalus!" The nightmare struggled vainly as its arms and legs
snapped to its sides, and it crashed into his polished mahogany floor, scoring
it with deep gouges that would cost a small fortune to repair. He spun around to
find the Carrows and Nott in a tight cluster, cowering before Milo's
outstretched left hand. Somehow, they'd all managed to lose their wandsno.
Nott's was at his feet, but the Carrows' wand hands were bleeding from
toothpick-sized-splinters; Lucius was willing to bet galleons to knuts that
those were all that remained of their most prized possessions. If we survive
this, he decided, we're all going to start carrying two or three spares.
Ollivander rarely made two of the same wand, but with the right application of
pressure... well, everyone had a limit.
"Give it up," Lucius said. "It's over." He would still try to escapeMilo, from
what he had seen, was nothing if not tenaciousand Lucius would kill him in the
attempt.
"Is it?" Milo replied, his voice nothing but confidence. Merlin, the boy didn't
even look tired! "I could have shattered their heads as easily as their wands. I
still can. Drop it, Malfoy, and I'll let you live."
Can he? Lucius wondered. He'd seen the boy do the impossiblehe can fly, he
thought with amazementbut if he could simply kill them all... why hadn't he?
What's more, why hadn't he already destroyed Lucius' eighteen-inch elm wand like
he'd done the Carrows'? And Nott. His wand was still fine. It seemed absurd, but
if Lucius had to guess, he'd say... well, the boy was out of magic. As if such a
thing could happen. The boy was bluffing! Lucius cursed himself inwardly. The
situation could still be salvaged, however, as long as nobody else realized.
Other masked Death Eaters were moving to surround him, wands drawn. A slightly
wild look about the eyes was the only sign that Milo's confidence was cracking.
"The moment you try," Lucius said slowly, "we'll kill you. There are seven of
us," No use counting the de-wanded Carrows, "and one of you." Nott, who had
grabbed his wand as soon as Milo's back was turned, and the six remaining
active, armed, and unimpeded Death Eaters moved to surround him. Most had been
hiding around the edges of the room, as if to escape the notice of this child.
Cowards. All he had were the dregs; the bestwell, all but the very best, of
coursehad gone to Azkaban. The best, and in many ways, the most foolish. He had
little more than contempt for those who confessed to the Wizengamot.
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"Yeah, well, there were thirteen of you a moment ago," the boy spat. "And none
of you can come back from the dead." He addressed Lucius's followers, now. "How
many of you do you think I can kill before I go down? How many of you are
wondering what happened to your three guards, in the halls?" The fool's
desperate bravado was playing right into his hands.
"Be that as it may," Lucius said, raising his wand. "I think I will be doing the
world a favour in k"
"Stupefy." A red Stunner hit the eleven-year-old's chest, and he crumpled to the
floor with an expression of faint surprise frozen on his face. Lucius was
aghast. He rounded on the fool who had cast, fighting down fury.
"You idiot!" he shouted. "What were you thinking!" Lucius paused. He'd nearly
given away his plan. "He could have killed all of us!"
"If he could have," Snape's oily voice replied from beneath his mask, "he would
have." Lucius fought down his anger, the true reason for his rage could never be
known. With a cool confidence he did not feel, he gave the necessary orders.
There was much work to do to perform the ritual.
oooo
Quirrell ducked into a side-room to make the necessary preparations, and also to
catch his breath. He'd never had much of a talent for Apparition, and the
distance from forest outside Hogwarts to Malfoy's manor had pushed his limit.
His eyes barely registered the priceless Persian rug or the painted masterpieces
hanging from the walls as he began casting. He had been very specific in his
instructions when he'd taught him how to perform these spells. The price of
failureor of telling anyone the secretswould be heavy. Too heavy.
Quirrell glanced at a polished silver mirror hanging on the wall as he began.
One spell to turn his eyes red, another to shroud him in darkness. One to change
his facehe gasped as his nose turned to slits, like a snake'sanother to change
his voice, and a third to alter his robes. He suppressed a shudder, looking at
the mirror, as he saw a near-perfect replica of the Dark Lord staring back at
him. Wonderingly, he touched his now-unfamiliar face.
Somehow, Quirrell knew that these were not the spells the Dark Lord had used to
appear like this. He hoped to never learn the truth of the matter. He had given
him permission, in this one instance, to pose as his master. It was necessary.
The fools who called themselves Death Eaters would fall in line immediately and
turn over the boy they captured; Merlin knew why they'd done it.
A pale, bony hand turned the brass doorknobhis hand, for nowas he stepped out
into the hallway, wand in hand. Quirrell strode confidently down the hallway,
past an unmoving Death Eater's bodydead or unconscious, he neither knew nor
particularly caredand, briefly, past a window. It was then that he heard the
unmistakable crack! of a Disapparating wizard. Close to twenty of them, like an
erratic staccato beat, followed by, of all things, the hoot of a barn owl. He
looked outside and saw uniformed Aurors appearing all around the field, eyes
wary for danger and wands held at the ready. But it wasn't the Aurors that
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caught his eye.
Dumbledore led them, a brilliant phoenix riding his shoulder. A mad rush of
terror swept through him, making his knees turn weak and his hand tremble. How
did he know to come here? He wondered. He'd been certain the Headmaster had
bought his story hook, line, and sinker.
"Dismiss the spells! Hide!" He said. Quirrell did not need to be told twice.
"Finite!" he cast. "Finite! Finite! Finite! Finite Incantatem!" One by one, the
spells disguising his appearance ended, and Quirrell wrapped his purple turban
back around his head with quick, practiced motions.
oooo
"It didn't work," Amycus said flatly. Lucius was stunned. After everything he'd
gone through to avoid the ritual being performed with a living subject, he'd
finally resigned himself to defeat only to be faced with... this. It was
unexpected.
"Perhaps," Alecto mused, "she doesn't want to return?" They'd done everything
right, he was sure of it. He knew that a single misspoken word could result in
disaster, but when they'd completed the ritual the change should have been
unmade. Instead...this. Milo stirred feebly on the table.
"I somehow doubt we need their permission," Lucius drawled. "Or we never would
have been able to summon him in the first place." He tried to keep the elation
out of his tone. Like most in the magical world, he was hardly a religious man,
but now more than ever he was certain that if there really were a God out there,
he was on Lucius's side. He'd been given another chance to make his plan work.
"In fact" he cut off as he heard the hoot of a barn owl. The elaborate system
of wards around his manor had, of course, nothing on Hogwartsbut it did tell
him when someone Apparated onto the grounds. "It appears members of the law
enforcement community have decided to pay a call. Gibbon, Averyguard the
prisoner and keep your heads down. The rest of you know what to do." With a
series of cracks, the other Death Eaters vanished into thin air. This wasn't the
first time the DMLE had decided to raid his manor, but they wouldn't find any
more than they ever did. Oh, he always left a few minor illicit trinkets and
dark objects around, anything else would be suspiciousbut in the end, it would
amount to nothing more than a slap on the wrist.
Lucius stepped out of the ritual chamber in his basement and tapped the door
behind him with his wand. Wooden boards, curled up around the entrance, unfurled
with a groan to cover the door. The gap in the wall was seamless; a Malfoy in
the distant past had found an apprentice to the master wizard who had hidden
Diagon Alley to do the job. Not even Lucius knew what had happened to his body,
after he was done. None but his inner circle knew of this hidden chamber, and
nobody still living knew the trick to opening it. Lucius transfigured his mask
into oil (which he poured into a lamp nearby, he doubted anyone would ever find
that when the spell wore off) and went out to greet Amelia Bones like a friend
coming over for tea. He felt tremors in the floor along the way, but ignored
them.
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oooo
Quirrell knew the plan needed changing. It always came to this; he'd gotten
quite good at thinking on his feet. Despite what looked to him like half the
Ministry's magical might knocking down the doors, he would settle for no less
than complete victory. Quirrell cast a Disillusionment charm and shuddered as
the icy feeling came over him. Before meeting him in the forests of Albania,
he'd never had a knack for combat magic, but he'd always been good at these.
Hiding was something of a specialty for him.
Strolling down the corridors of the richly-appointed house, he quickly found the
small service staircase. The house rocked suddenly, but Quirrell had more
pressing matters than the inevitable conflict between the Aurors and Death
Eaters around. What the purpose of a staircase for servants in a wizard's house
was, Quirrell had no idea (House Elves could simply snap their fingers and
Apparate). The stairs led him through narrow corridors winding about in plain
backrooms and servant's chambers (maybe the house had belonged to Muggles at
some point, although it seemed out of Lucius's character to live anywhere that
their touch had sullied) until he came to the otherwise unremarkable stretch of
wall that he had directed him to. Quirrell tapped the wall with his wand, and
was astonished to find a hidden doorway revealed.
"Alohomora." The door behind popped open, and even his usual control broke.
"Merlin's beard!"
oooo
"As you can see," Lucius said to Amelia Bones, the head of the DMLE, while the
two strode through the hallways of his mansion near his front entrance, "once
again, my home has been attacked by the most brazen thieves I have ever seen.
Fortunately, the timely intervention of the Ministry's finest has apparently
frightened them off. I am, of course, eternally in your debt." Bones eyed him
skeptically. He knew the aged witch had strong suspicions of him, but he also
knew that she would never act on them without definite proof. Which was why
menand, of course, womenof principles always lost to those like him, who were
free of such... constraints. Dumbledore, who had no official ministry standing,
contented himself by waiting outsidefor now.
Lucius led her towards his sitting room. "I'll have Dobby bring us some tea
while your men search the house for the other thieves," he said, opening the
door. "Though I doubt you'll find" shooting up through the centre of his
luxurious room was a great oak tree. The floorboards were bent and buckled
around it, as was the ceiling. "Merlin!" he gasped. He couldn't help himself.
Even Bones, who was rumoured to chew iron ore and spit nails, widened her eyes.
Tangled among the branches were Gibbon and Avery, struggling vainly to escape.
Both were still wearing their masks.
Bones stared at the vista before her, shocked beyond belief. He knew he had to
act quickly, or things could quickly become...embarrassing.
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Lucius hesitated only seconds.
"Death Eater scum!" he gasped. "Call in your Aurors!"
oooo
Milo picked himself out from among the leaves and branches and climbed onto the
Malfoy manor' tiled roof. Note to self: never again use a Tree Token as an
elevator. Being slammed facefirst into four stories of old, hard wood was not
his idea of fun. He looked over the edge and sighed.
"At least I'm not jumping through glass this time. Feather Fall."
Omake: HP:MoMunchkinality
Author's Notes: Hey, y'all! Two things were recently discovered, one by me, and
one by you. By me: my creativity isn't broke! And by you: I'm not dead!
Thanks to all of the encouraging PM's you lot have sent. Seriously, I have the
best fans ever. By way of thank you, I give you, Sir Poley's Essay
Procrastination Project! (Now in Technicolour(TM)). Or, in other words, what
if... Milo was sucked into a slightly different Harry Potter universe? I
present, in all of its 535-word, 45-minutes-of-typing-glory, Harry Potter and
the Methods of Munchkinality.
The next HP:N20 chapter will come out Real Soon Now.
EDIT: Just to clarify: This chapter has no bearing on the plot of Harry Potter
and the Natural 20. It's a non-canonical sidestory.
ooooooo
"So tell me, Harry, what's all this physics nonsense that you keep going on
about?" Milo asked.
Harry was... unusual, even in this world where the unusual was commonplace. He
seemed, at times, almost like someone from Milo's own worldhe was, for example,
more than capable of predicting what would happen next based on convention and
the patterns of story, but... sometimes, he was beyond alien. The strange little
boy's insistence on the fundamental rules of the universe was simply baffling.
Couldn't he feel the dice rolling? Couldn't he see that time was divided into
discrete, six-second intervals?
"Oh, well, it's simple, really. You see..." Harry spun an amazingly elaborate
web of rules and laws and equations, talking about Force (how a damage type
could be measured in units other than Hit Points, or have anything to do with
mass was simply insane), Power, Friction, and Energy. Most confusing of all was
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this business of conservation. Conservation of momentum, conservation of energy.
How could he stand there, insisting that mass must be conserved when a Wizard
could wave his hand and create thousands of pounds of stone wall?
"And thishonestly, you have to swear that you're not pulling my leg hereis
seriously how this Plane works?"
"Pretty much," he shrugged. "It's a good deal more complicated than that, but we
have to start somewhere."
"Because, well, I'm pretty sure I can get around that," Milo said.
"Around what?" Harry was curious.
"All of it."
Three weeks later...
"Looks like you were right. Even a Horcrux can't take being Polymorphed into
positrons. Shame about what happened to the rest of the island, though."
Another three weeks later...
"Okay, you can be the Supreme Muggle" Milo conceded, lounging on his golden
throne.
"Mugwump," Harry interjected.
"Whatever. And you can be the Minister for Magic. But, I get to lead the Outer
Planes Expeditionary Force, with first right to any magic items seized therein."
"Don't you think we should focus on the Inner Planes, first? We'll need those
Earth Elementals. I mean, somebody needs to rebuild Scotland." Harry shuddered.
The collateral damage of their last experiment had been... unanticipated.
"Though I don't think we should abandon the Commoner Railgun Project
altogether."
"Psht. Once we finish overthrowing the gods, I'll Candle of Invocation us up
some Lyres of Building. It's not even a thing."
"As for the terraforming of Mars, have you had any thoughts on how to keep a
Gate to the Plane of Water open long enough to fill the" Harry cut off as the
telephone rang. He gave a lazy wave, and a hulking Shield Guardian handed him
the handset then discreetly bowed and walked back to his place by the wall.
Harry listened for a moment, then said, "Speaking. Yeah? Uh-huh? Yes, that's
fine. That would be perfectly acceptable. No, don't worry, we'll come to you.
Yes, we know where to find you." He hung up and tossed the phone back at the
Construct, who caught it with mechanical precision.
"Who was that?" Milo asked. He was still having a hard time getting used to all
this Muggle technology.
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"The UN," Harry answered. "They've decided to comply with our demands."
ooooooo
To clarify for the confused some of the in-jokes:
The Commoner Railgun: this takes advantage of a quirk in the D&D rules that any
decent DM wouldn't allow, but is still hilarious. The idea is that, in a six
second round, everyone gets to act. Theoretically they're acting simultaneously,
but they actually go in turns. On your turn, you can pass an object to someone
standing next to you... before they get to act. They can then pass that same
thing to someone standing next to them, etc.. So, in six seconds, an object can
be passed 5N feet, where N is the number of people (in most examples, starving
commoners) passing the object, which, therefore, moves at a velocity of 5N/6
feet-per-second. With enough commoners lined up, you can launch something at
relativistic speeds. (Weirdly, this means the object gets held by each commoner
for up to six seconds, despite being passed by thousands of people in a
six-second period. Aaaaagh, my aching head.) This could be used to, say, launch
something into space on the cheap. It's limited only by what the commoners can
lift.
The Polymorph Bomb: Polymorph Any Object is a high level spell that turns 1
cubic foot/caster level of something into something else, with a duration based
on the similarity of the original and end materials. It has a lot of fun uses,
but my personal favourite involves mixing my cursory knowledge of real-world
physics and magic - positrons. From what I know, positrons are like electrons,
but antimatter. So they all repel each other, because of their positive charge,
but when they collide with matter (in this case, a large island), the two are
annihilated and explode. I think. Again, I'm a Classical Studies Major. The
point is, big boom. Probably earth-shattering.
Lyre of Building: this is just a magical stringed instrument that, when you play
it, stuff gets magically built, like, really fast.
Chapter 27: Enchanter's End Game
Some time before 7 AM, the villagers of Hogsmeade were surprised to find a
dirty, bloodied, half-dead (or rather, four-thirteenths, to be precise, since
you asked) young boy stumble into their village.
Again.
But, today, the boy didn't look exhausted. He didn't look lost, or confused, or
afraid, or even hungry (making him practically unique among eleven-year-olds
everywhere).
He just looked determined.
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"Someone tell Dumbledore," he said to a random NPC. "I need help."
"I'm right here in front of you," the NPC replied sullenly.
The boy blinked, and, his mask of determination briefly broken, evidently
decided to reconcile the apparent impossibility in front of him by ignoring it.
Just as quickly as he appeared, the NPC, as far as the boy was concerned, was
deleted from existence, as was all non-plot-relevant information in the town.
Shops, taverns, and potential bolt-holes were taken in with a glance and
carefully categorized and noted for future use. Houses, paving stones, magical
streetlights, owls, and trashbins were summarily dismissed as irrelevant, never
even making it to his conscious brain.
"Well," the boy said aloud. "I suppose there's nothing else for it." Without a
glance backwards, as if Hogsmeade had no further use for him, the boy strode out
of the town and towards the castle.
"Nobody ever wants to send for me," Aberforth said, sounding slightly
disappointed.
oooo
Harry was surprised to find Professor Quirrell tapping his feet impatiently by
the Fat Lady when he stumbled through the portal, bleary-eyed and ready for
breakfast. He'd hardly gotten any sleep the night before; he, Ron, and Hermione
had stayed awake worrying about Milo. The only thing that held him back from
charging off to rescue his friend headfirst was the simple fact that none of
them had any idea where the Death Eaters had apparated to. Hannah had vanished
into the girls' dormitories early in the evening to be by herself.
"Professor?" Harry asked, bouncing with anticipation. "Have you found him?"
There was no need to mention who he was talking about.
"Y-yes," Quirrell said grimly, then softened slightly. "I-I'm s-sorry, H-Harry.
I know he was a friend of yours."
Icy tendrils gripped Harry's heart.
"You don'tyou can't meanhe isn't..." he trailed off lamely.
"N-not yet," the Professor said. "B-but at this p-point, it's really only a
matter of t-time. He was hit by a powerful curse. I'm s-sorry, Harry."
He couldn't believe it. It was impossible. The strange boy had, despite his
oddities, quickly become one of Harry's best friends. Milo had once faced down a
Troll and very nearly not gotten thrown out a window. He couldn't believe it
would end like this; it felt wrong. Unfair. Like he'd been cheated out of
something.
"Isn't there anything that can be done?" Harry insisted. "We have all this
weird, wondrous, crazy magic. There must be somethinghave you taken him to
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Madam Pomfrey? Or Saint Mungo's? Where is hecan I see him?"
"He's at Saint M-M-Mungo's," Quirrell explained. "But he's unconscious; their
b-b-best healers are w-w-working on him. Unfortunately, they d-d-don't know
where to b-b-begin, his physiology is s-so different from ours. He's slipping
f-fast. I'm s-sorry to be the one to t-t-tell you."
No. Harry refused to let this happen.
"We can save him," Harry insisted.
"I know y-you're d-distraught" Quirrell began, but Harry was in no mood for
condescension. He didn't feel distraught, oddlyhe just felt determined. There
was something that had to be done, and he would do it.
"There's something in this castle that can cure any illness," Harry said slowly.
"It can save him. I'm sure of it."
Quirrell looked stunned.
"Surely, you d-d-don't mean..."
"Yes. We need the Philosopher's Stone."
oooo
Milo Amastacia-Liadon slammed open the Hogwarts front gates, casting an
embarrassingly short shadow (an eleven-year-old's stature does not generally
lend itself to appropriate levels of drama) down the front hallway; the rising
sun blazing a brilliant orange behind him.
"Oh, has the ickle-wickle firstie snuck out again?" came a taunting, mocking
voice from the air above him. Casually sidestepping a dropped bucket of
whitewashhonestly, warning him before attacking? Fastest way to waste a
Surprise Round against Flat-Footed AC he knew ofMilo glanced at the
poltergeist. Just glanced. It had taken him the better part of a day to walk to
Hogsmeade from the Malfoy Manoragainnot including the night he spent in the
wilderness to regain his spells. He'd come too far, there was too much at stake,
for him to be distracted by an undead clown with poor fashion sense. He couldn't
see his own expression, of course, but whatever it was made Peeves's pale (to
the extent that a poltergeist is able to, that is) and bolt clear through the
wall.
Striding up the stairs to Dumbledore's secret officeHermione thought having the
Headmaster's office password-protected and isolated from the students
contributed to an atmosphere of fear and suspicion, but Milo thought it was
simply practicaleven though he knew the headmaster wouldn't be there. He didn't
know where Dumbledore would be, or what the Headmaster was doing, but one thing
was for sure: the Otyugh was about to hit the Blade Barrier, and, for that to
happen, all powerful, friendly NPCs must go.
That said, Milo's Plot-sense had been wrong before, so he at least had to go
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through the motions.
"Sherbet Lemon," he said, and the gargoyle corkscrewed upwards.
CautiouslyQuirrell must know Milo would drop by Dumbledore's office before
heading for him; there was always the possibility of a traphe climbed the
stairs and peered into the perennially buzzing, clicking, and whirring room.
No Dumbledore. No Fawkes, even.
"Nerull's knees!" Milo cursed. Sometimes, he hated being right. Milo turned
around, intending to head to the fateful third-floor corridor. He always knew it
would come to this.
"Wait!" It was Mordy's voice. He stopped reflexively; the familiar hadn't yet
led him astray.
"Why?" Milo asked. "For all we know, he's already got the Stone and is halfway
to his master."
"Remember what we decided about going alone?" The rat, sitting on Milo's
shoulder, asked. "And, for example, what a terrible idea it is? No Class is a
Party."
"They're not ready," Milo objected. "They could die." Hannah could die.
"Then we'll tip the Cleric. Worse things have happened, and can we really afford
to pick and choose? We'll need them. Can't you feel it?"
The worst part of it was that he could. Just as he knew he had to first go to
Dumbledore, he knew, in his heart of hearts, that he'd need backupeven
low-level backup.
"All right."
Milo had to force himself not to sprint down the winding, ever-shifting
corridors to the Gryffindor Common Roomany time gained by running would likely
be lost being harassed by Filch, who viewed any student running as an excuse to
chase. He was assuming they were in the Common Room. He hoped they were. He
could use magic to find them, of course, but he needed to save his spells for
what was to come next.
"Well, well, well," a particularly grating voice taunted. "What have we here?
Little freak, all by himself?"
"Draco," Milo said to the pale, blonde-haired boy with false cheerfulness.
Crabbe and Goyle were flanking him, standing exactly half a step behind him like
the rear wheels of a tricycle. They probably drilled the formation. "I met your
dad last night. Kicked his ass, too."
"Why, you lit" Milo didn't even wait for the Slytherin to finish his trite,
clichd comeback. With a smooth motion, he pulled his darkwood quarterstaff from
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his belt and gave Draco a good, solid whack to the stomach. The expression of
surprise on the spoiled boy's face was worth a fortuneokay, well, maybe a few
hundred gp, tops. Milo wasn't willing to invest a significant amount of his
allotted Wealth-By-Level in anything involving what amounted to a schoolyard
bully. Of course, the WBL system had been shot to Pandemonium by Harry's massive
inheritance. The sentiment still stands.
Crabbe and Goyle, torn between wanting to help their master and take vengeance
from Milo's hide, hesitated one crucial second.
Milo's combat skills, especially his Base Attack Bonus, were pitifulby the
standards of another Class of equivalent Level. However, from what he could
tell, the local wizards (inexplicably) didn't seem to improve in hand-to-hand
combat at all unless they deliberately trained in it. While this made no sense
to Miloeveryone knew that sufficient practice in anything that grants
Experience Points improves all aspects of one's Characterhe had no qualms
taking advantage of it. Crabbe and Goyle were moderately competent fighters (for
eleven-year-olds), but Milo had them lying on their backs in twelve seconds,
flat.
With a needlessly showy twirl, he sheathed his quarterstaff back into his
extradimensional space and continued on toward his destination, not bothering to
look back.
Malfoy and his cronies would be back later, Milo was sure. Recurring villains
were like pimples on a teenager in that sense. The harder you tried to finish
them off, the more likely they were to show up the night of the Hallowe'en dance
when you're trying to impress Lisa Sanders from Home Ec. One day, with a few
more Levels under their belts, they'd likely be a genuine threat. But until that
day... they could talk to the stick.
Milo left them, shocked and gasping for breath, on the hallway floor. A few
minutes later, he rounded the final corner and arrived at a familiar portrait.
"Squeak," Milo answered impatiently, and the portrait obligingly swung open.
"Milo!" Hermione and Ron, who were (conveniently, Milo noted) evidently just
about to leave Gryffindor Tower for breakfast and class, stared at him in
surprise.
"How did you escape?" Ron was stunned. "The last we saw of you, you were being
carried away by"
"Hold up," Hermione said, cutting him off. "How do we know you're really you
this time? For all we know, you're another doppelganger."
"Another Doppelganger?" Milo gasped. "I didn't realize you had those here, as
well. And I won't be able to cast True Seeing for, like, five levels!"
"Okay, nevermind," Hermione said with relief. "It's really you. How'd you get
Page 348

away?"
"No time," Milo said. He'd tell them later, in the Post-Adventure
Between-Session Downtime Assumed Debrief. Nobody ever had time to waste telling
people what happened when they weren't there for adventures for one reason or
another. Instead, they'd handle it in the time between scenes, like sleeping or
item crafting.
"Where's Harry?" Milo asked. The plot here clearly revolved around the
Boy-Who-Lived, and Milo wasn't about to embark on a potentially
campaign-changing adventure without him. Besides, Milo had seen his Expelliarmus
in action (and been on the receiving end on more than one occasion).
"No idea," Ron said. "He left ages ago to get breakfast; haven't seen him
since."
Milo sighed. "And you didn't think to check up on that? No, I know, it's not
your fault, you didn't know. By the way, Quirrell's our guy. He's been evil all
along."
"Wh"
"No time, I'll explain along the way. Let's move."
"Where are we going?" Hermione asked curiously.
"Where else?" Milo asked. "The forbidden third-floor corridor. It was always
going to end there, one way or another."
"So, about Quirrell. I can't believe he's really" Hermione began skeptically.
oooo
"he's really evil. I can't believe it," she said, stunned, as they approached
the forbidden door and Milo finished his boring, off-screen exposition. "We
should tell Dumbledore."
"Can't," Milo said. "Believe it or not, I tried that already"
"You did what? I mean, Quirrell was surprising enough, but you? Going to a
legitimate authority figure in a time of crisis? I mean, what is the world
coming to?"
"and he wasn't in his office, obviously."
"What do you mean, obviously?" Ron asked, his forehead wrinkled.
Milo was about to launch into an explanation of how the powerful NPC ally had to
be out of the way to move the plot forwardMilo suspected an explanation would
be forthcoming eventually about how he had important paperwork to do in East
Nowhere or somethingbut, surprisingly, Hermione beat him to it.
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"No, it makes perfect sense. I mean, think about it," she said. "Quirrell
wouldn't make his move for the Stone if Dumbledore was actually in the castle.
That would be like trying to, I don't know, hold up a police station or kidnap
an auror: suicide. So he waited this long to make his move."
"...Right," Milo added. "What she said. Excellent deduction, grasshopper."
"Grass" she sputtered indignantly.
"Team! Focus! Big wooden door to get past, boy wizard to save," Ron said with
exasperation.
"Oh, right," Hermione said. "Aloho"
"Wait!" Milo cried.
"What?" she asked testily. "I was just about to unlock it."
"No, you weren't. Do you think they'd lock the Philosopher's Stone behind a door
that could be opened by a first-year studenteven a brilliant first-year
studentin a school for magic? The door is likely trapped. Dumbles even warned
us: 'the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds for anyone
who does not want to die a horrible and painful death.' It's trapped with
something gnarly. Probably the wanded wizard equivalent of a Fire Trap or
something."
"Good point," Hermione said, looking somewhat pale.
"How did you remember his exact wording like that?" Ron asked. "You can't
remember anything. Remember the Cuddly Cannons?"
"No, I don't. I just used Autohypnosis to memorize the Plot last time I had a
chance to see it. Took a while with, er..." he was going to say 'with my low
Wisdom,' but at the last minute changed it to "the primordial forces Arcane
being as they were. The ley lines were all a-flux," Milo had once heard a Bard
futilely try to make a Spellcraft check, and quoted him mercilessly, "and there
was a fae disturbance in the realms of spirit, beyond the veil."
"So, what do you suggest we do, exactly?" Hermione asked.
Milo shrugged. His usual plan was to send the Rogue in, tied to a rope (thus
making it easier to retrieve the body, and all her ill-gotten loot). "Torch the
door."
"What?" Hermione looked at him as if he had just suggested she sell her mother
to Goblin slavers. "Why?"
"We know this isn't the only layer of defencethere used to be a giant
three-headed dog on the other side of this wall, and presumably there's more
beyond. This door is to keep out thieves, not a frontal assault. That comes
later. Dumbledore probably assumed that anyone crazy enough to try to destroy a
door in the middle of a public hallway would be caught by passerbys."
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"Passersby," Hermione corrected idly, obviously thinking hard. "And I think
you're wrong. Dumbledore doesn't think nearly as twisty as you do, and he
wouldn't put a trapped door in the middle of what was, as you pointed out, a
public hallway. He's more the type to say the door led to certain death, but,
really, still give the person sneaking through more than one chance to escape
with their life. That dog you mentioned was chained downout of reach of the
doorway. So someone accidentally breaking in could see the dog and, if they have
any sense, which by the way we seem not to have, flee. The door is only locked."
"You might be right," Milo conceded, "except on one point. Dumledore's mind is
twistier than mine could ever be."
"Alohomora," Hermione cast as Milo discreetly moved to stand behind Ron, just in
case.
The lock clicked open.
"Right,"
Quirrell
He could
grinned,
Milo said. "We have no idea what's on the other side of this door.
killed the dog already, passing it off as necessary to save Hermione.
have replaced it with anything. Trolls, Giants," he glanced at Ron and
"Giant Trolls, Dragons, whatever."
"What's your point?" Ron asked. "We're going in anyway. We both know it."
"What I'm saying is: be ready for anything." Milo calmly drew his staff and
traded his knife from his extradimensional Belt pocket to a more-easily-reached
sheath, then checked his Magic Items to be certain. Robe, Belt, Amulet, Gloves,
Headband, check. He took a deep breath. "All right, party. It's taken us long
enough. Let's do this thing," and pushed the door open with his gloved hand.
ooooooo
Author's Notes: I'm Back.
AKA "We now return you to your regularly-scheduled fantastic fan fiction."
AAKA If you don't get the reference in the chapter title, go read anything by
David (and Leigh) Eddings. You won't regret it.
AAAKA Merry Christmas, Internet.
(But seriously, short updates suck but better short than never. I decided to
stop being a perfectionist and just release it, warts and all. Fixing of typos
and whatnot will come later. If this keeps up, I'll have your next update
Thursday or Friday of next week.)
Chapter 28: Grappling with the Rules

Page 351
Author's Notes: Another short chapter but at least I'm on time! This will
continue until I get back into the swing of things.
ooooooo
The locked door swung open without making a sound. Inside was a familiar, large,
dark room.
"Some lights all 'round, yeah?" Milo asked quietly. He'd do it himself, but he
had to conserve his magiceven the cantripsuntil the final confrontation. With
no discernible limit (as far as he could tell) on the number of spells they
could cast each day, Milo needed to rely on them to get him to Quirrell.
But that was the proper state of affairs. It felt right to him. All that solo
adventuring? That was unnatural. Wizards, while hardly social creatures, do
operate best in groups of less-arcane, more-giant-sword-wielding,
possessor-of-the-mighty-thews, slayer-of-many-a-fell-beast, meat shields. Or,
failing that, friendsMilo still couldn't believe he was using that term and
meant itwith magic.
It was like being in a party again. Even if it was a party entirely composed of
squishy wizards.
"Lumos," Hermione and Ron muttered, and the tips of their wands began to glow
like torches.
"Blimey," Ron said.
"Merlin," Hermione said in a whisper.
"Indeed," Milo agreed, staring into the room. This was most unexpected.
The room was empty.
"Well," Milo said. "That was most unexpected. I suppose they haven't gotten
around to replacing the dog, after all. Shall we?" He gestured to the trap door
that lay beneath where Fluffy once sat.
"You know," Ron said idly, "I seem to remember this room being, well, bigger
last time we were here."
"Now that you mention it," Milo said, "I think you're right. I mean, it is big"
"but not that big, you know?" Ron said.
"Yeah. Weird."
"It is not weird," Hermione said. "Honestly, haven't any of you ever read
Hogwarts: A History?"
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"I have, actually," Milo said. He'd Scholar's Touch'd it a while back, but
remembering things read in a flash like that was tricky, much like having a
photograph shoved in front of your face, only to be yanked away again a second
later. Sure, you saw the picture, but it doesn't quite sink in the same way as
if you had carefully perused it.
"Space is somewhat... flexible in the castle, because of the sheer concentrated
magic of the place" she explained. "Makes it easy to resize certain rooms with a
powerful enough Enlargement Charm. They must have done so to fit the dog inI
mean, there's no earthly reason a school would have a random room big enough to
hold a Cerberus, right?"
"Oh, I dunno," Ron said dreamily. "I can think of one or two."
"Let me guess," she asked. "Slytherin disposal chute?"
"Actually, I was thinking, 'know-it-all containment chamber,' but your way
works, too." After that, Ron fell silent and stared at the trapdoor. Their
unimportant conversation was simply to put off the inevitable, and they all knew
it. None of them knew what lay beyond that trap door, but one thing was for
certain: there wouldn't be any more freebies like this room had been.
Milo grabbed
with an oily
trapdoor lay
a pale white
the heavy wrought-iron ring of the trapdoor and pulled. It opened

squeak which rang through the oversized, silent room. Through the
a deep, dark shaft. Ron reached down with his lit wand, which cast
light on the walls of the shaft.
There was no bottom in sight.

"Light," Milo muttered, fetching a Knut from his pocket. The coin lit up, and
with a sigh (Milo hated throwing money away, even other people's money) tossed
it into the pit. They all leaned over and watched the bronze coin fall for what
seemed like ages, before finally it ceased moving at what looked like miles
underground. Of course, it was probably only extremely far down, and not quite
as ridiculously far as it appeared, but one never knew when wizards were
involved.
A second later the coin went dark.
"Spell doesn't last very long, eh?" Ron asked.
"No," Milo said slowly. "It lasts for hours."
"So, what happened? Some sort of counterspell?" Ron asked, looking meaningfully
at Hermione.
"Don't look at me like I know the answer," she huffed indignantly. "If there's
one thing we've learned, it's that none of us have any idea what to expect when
Milo's magic encounters our own. I don't even know if a counterspell would
work."
As she spoke, Milo noticed a brief glimmer of light from the bottom of the pit.
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"It's still on down there," he said. "It's just... covered by something."
"Something moving, it would appear," Hermione agreed.
"You don't think... you don't think it might be spiders, do you, mate?" Ron
asked shakily.
"Nah," Milo said. "Can't be spiders."
"Well, that's good," Ron said. "But, er, why can't it be?"
"Because we've already fought spiders too many times this campaign. I bet it's
scorpions." Milo paused, thinking. He had fifty feet of silk rope (of course),
but that hole as far deeper than fifty feet. Maybe, if they all jumped close
enough together, he could Feather Fall them before the end? But what if there
was something dangerous on the ground? Perhaps if they were Feather Fall-ing,
one of them could hammer a piton into the wall near the bottom of the pillar and
use it to
"Right then," Ron said, and jumped in without hesitation.
There was a moment of crystalline silence, where Milo and Hermione stared at
each other in absolute shock.
"Well, what are we waiting for?" she asked, her voice sounding somewhat
strained. "We have to go after him!"
Milo swallowed, and they jumped in together. They were in complete darkness,
save for the light of Hermione's wand and that of Ron's far below them, tumbling
down an impressively deep pit. Milo, despite himself, lost track of how many
increments of ten feet (and thus, how much damage he'd take upon landing)
somewhere distressingly close to terminal velocity. Gritting his teeth, he shook
his hands free of his sleeves and readied an action.
"Feather Fall!" he shouted, and the two of them slowed to a gentle drift barely
a few feet before touching the ground.
"Ron!" Hermione shouted. "Ron, are you alall right?" Milo had a sneaking
suspicion of what Hermione was going to ask before she caught herself.
"Nah, I'm fine," came his cheerful voice. "There's this soft plant thing I
landed on, it's lucky, really." Milo realized embarrassedly that he'd been so
distracted thinking about Ron that he hadn't properly taken stock of his
surroundings. Ron was lying on the ground nearby on a thick, green carpet of
slender vines. The lit Knut was nowhere to be seen. "Dumbledore must have had
this thing planted to keep people falling from being hurt. Mind, a mattress
would have done, too."
"No..." Milo said, thinking. That seemed wrong to him.
Suddenly, Hermione shrieked. Snaklelike tendrils of vine, moving with deceptive
Page 354

speed, wrapped themselves around her legs to the knee. "It's Devil's Snare!" She
shouted.
"Sorry, is that supposed to mean something to meMerlin's Beard!" Tendrils
pounced like a cat, and suddenly Ron was gone.
"Crap, crap crapcrapcrap!" Milo swore, trying to avoid the vines. Despite his
efforts, he found his muscles refusing to respond and his feet remained firmly
planted (so to speak) to the ground. He fought down a groan. He had no idea what
to do or how to movehe'd never understood the Grapple rules. Nobody understood
the Grapple rules!
The vines managed to grab hold of Hermione's wand hand, and, while it looked
like she was struggling to say something, they were covering her mouth as well.
Oddly, they seemed to be largely ignoring Milo, who was still locked up with
immobility. He frowned and tried to ignore Hermione and Ron's muffled screams as
he focused on what the page(s) describing the rules looked in like in the
Rulebook. If he could remember that, maybe he could remember what they said. He
remembered a distinct lack of pictures or explanatory illustrations (that would
require the initial writers of the Rulebook to understand the Grapple rules,
and, of course, they did not). He knew his Grapple bonus was +2, but only
because that was on his character sheet. He didn't know how that was calculated
or even what it was used for. Maybe if he...
"Ah, screw it. Levitate." He cast the spell, not at himself, but at Hermione.
His magic effortlessly pulled her out of the tangled vines (one thing he could
remember was that, while grappling, you 'can't move normally,' but being
Levitated could hardly be considered normal, now could it?). However, the Snare
seemed to have finally taken note of him, and a cluster of twisting tendrils
jumped at him. Milo snorted and clubbed one of the approaching vines with his
staff. To his surprise, the rest seemed to recoil in what seemed like pain and
avoided him for now. "Hermione!" Milo shouted at his newly liberated friend.
"Do something smartAaaagh!" The vines jumped him in force, and Milo, for the
first time in his life, wished he'd taken the Combat Reflexes feat. He was dimly
aware that initiating a Grapple attempt provoked an Attack of Opportunity (AoO)
from the defender, which, if it hit, negated the attempt. Evidently, this vine
was capable of multiple attacks per round, but Milo could only make one AoO.
Still unable to resist (he didn't even know what check to make to begin to do
so), the vines effortlessly lifted him from the floor bodily and pinned him up
against the wall. Cold, damp darkness coated him, shutting out most of the
light.
Somehow, Hermione had managed to maintain a firm grip on her wand while being
pinned. Hermione muttered a spellMilo didn't catch the name of itand a jet of
pale blue fire launched out of her wand in a carefully controlled burst. Milo
felt the vines immediately loosen from around him, and with relief he sagged to
the ground. They retreated to the sides of the room and remained perfectly
still, as if they were a normal, non-animated plant. He heard the ringing clink
of a coin dropping, and his lit Knut illuminated the room. Ron was gasping for
breath on the floor, but was otherwise all right.
It was only then that Milo got a clear view of the Devil's Snare. Weirdly, the
Page 355

vines were streaked with a sickly, pale yellow and brown. Judging by the thick
mat on the ground, they'd been shedding leaves for some time now, and dead
tendrils coated the floor.
"Weird," he muttered. Why use a plant-based trap if you weren't going to take
proper care of it?
"How did you know?" Hermione asked, looking at him.
"What?"
"That the Devil's Snare is attracted to movement! The harder you struggle, the
more it fights. I can't believe I forgot that, I feel like such an idiot."
"Right. Yes, that's exactly why I wasn't moving. The very reason indeed." That
must have been why the Devil's Snare only jumped him when he cast a spellthe
movement had attracted it. "Why did it run away like that?"
"Fire," Hermione said. "It's scared of firewe learned that in Herbology,
remember? Actually, I'm amazed you forgot that and remembered how it senses
prey, because that's far more obscure..."
"Just slipped my mind for a minute," Milo lied. "Let's push ahead, eh? Villain
to defeat, hero to save, all that."
Chapter 29: Check Mate, Mate
"Well, crap," Milo muttered. "That right there is a Hell of a lot of keys."
There were thousands of tiny golden, silver, and brass keys fluttering about the
chamber, somewhat reminiscent of Golden Snitchesif the semi-sentient sporting
equipment were somehow integral to solving the plot and defeating a powerful
dark wizard. (Psh).
"So... what," Ron mused, "we have to find the right one? That's like looking for
a, well, a key in a stack of keys. Moving keys. Blimey, this will take the rest
of our lives."
"Assuming we could even grab them," Hermione added. "They're pretty high up
there. Or, you know, I could save the lot of us a lifetime of searching, and
just Alohomora the lock."
"Brilliant!" Ron exclaimed.
Hermione raised her wand and aimed it at the door, but stopped abruptly.
"Unless, of course, someone wants to interrupt my spell to vent his or her
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paranoid delusions about how the door is clearly trapped," she said to no-one in
particular. Milo felt his cheeks growing hot. "Or some crackpot, circuitous
theory about Dumbledore's real, secret plan."
"Just open the damn door,
that, if they had a charm
here and not on the first
brilliant headmaster that
eleven-year-olds."
Hermione," Milo growled. "There's no sensible reason

or whatever that could stop Alohomora, they'd use it
door. Clearly, it slipped the vaunted brain of our
Flickwick was handing out magical lockpicks to
"Very well, if you insist. Alohomora!" Nothing happened. Hermione frowned.

"Alohomora!"
"Isn't it Alo-ho-more-ah?" Ron teased.
"Oh, shut up, Ron. Anyone have another idea?"
"My Merlin-like powers of deduction suggest we try to find the key," said Ron.
"Or, maybe Milo can use some kind of hitherto-unforseen door-opening spell?"
I could always Fly up there, Milo mused, but I wouldn't even know where to begin
to find the right key much less actually catch it. Besides, I need to preserve
my magic for the BBEG.
"Stands to reason we should be able to get through without resorting to that,"
he said. "Quirrell and Harry obviously managed to get through here, right? They
only had wanded magic."
"Good name," Hermione said idly. Her forehead was creased with thought, staring
up at the keys.
"Thanks. I figured some sort of differentiation was necessary. Ron, take a look
around the room and see if you can find anything helpfula clue, or maybe a
piece of equipment."
"Right," he said, and started wandering around the labyrinthine room. Thick,
heavy pillars broke up sightlines at irregular intervals, necessitating a manual
search of the room.
"Hermione, I need you to make a Knowledge check."
"Pardon?" she asked.
"Just sit and think about the room you're in. Does anything about this ring any
bells? Do flying keys appear prominently in any local lore or children's
legends?"
Hermione blinked, then frowned, as if trying to remember something said in a
conversation from a fortnight prior that only barely registered.
"The Flying Keys were a pair of brothers who were famous pilots decades ago,"
she said, "but I doubt that has any bearing here." Milo, to whom a pilot was
Page 357

someone who navigated a boat into or out of dangerous harbours in foul weather,
was unable to fathom how they earned such a nickname. He chose, however, not to
inform Hermione to this particular fact. "Other than that... no. I've got
nothing. However, we can probably assume the key was made to match the lock,
correct?"
"Hmm. That depends. If the builder wanted to keep us out, the key would have no
obvious identifying features whatsoever, and only be determinable by, say, a
custom spell. No, scratch that. If he or she really wanted to keep everyone out,
there wouldn't be a door. You don't build doors to keep people outthat's what
walls are for. The door could be some sort of trick... maybe it's a con. A shell
game. None of the keys fit. This room was created to delay intruders until a
crack team of Aurors can arrive."
"Can't be," Hermione countered. "Quirrell and Harry got through ahead of us, so
there must be some way through. Maybe it's a test?" she suggested. "You can only
pass if you can figure out the puzzle?"
"But why?" Milo asked. "I see two possibilities: this dungeon is either some
sort of test of worthiness, or it's designed to keep anyone out who doesn't know
the trick to entering. In the first case... why bother? If they wanted to give
the Stone to someone worthy, Dumbledore and Flamel could just work together and
pick someone, avoiding this hassle. In the second case, and it's designed for
only a select group of people to entersay, Dumbledore, Flamel, maybe
McGonagallthen why have any clues at all? Everyone in the group knows the
trick. Anything and everything observable in the dungeon, therefore, is designed
to throw intruders off the trail to it. It's just as likely that none of the
keys work, and there's a secret password or leveror a hidden door."
"My point still stands. Quirrell figured it out, remember?"
"Unless..." Milo used a dramatic pause as cover to reach into his Belt.
"Gotcha!" he shouted, flinging a handful of garlic powder directly behind him.
"Crap," he sighed.
"Let me guess," the corners of her lips twitched slightly. "You assumed he was
hiding under the effects of a Disillusionment Charm, waiting for us to open the
door so he, being a dastardly villain, could follow us through?"
"...Maybe. But it was a perfectly reasonable guess, and if you say one word
otherwise, please be reminded that I know where you live."
"There's one more thing we haven't considered," Hermione said slowly. "Maybe
Quirrell is one of this alleged group, and knows the trick?"
"I... crap." It made sense. Quirrell was the DADA Professor, after all. If they
were going to build a big dungeon to keep out dark wizards in their castle, who
else would you ask for help? Of course Quirrell knew the way through this room.
"Blimey!" Ron shouted from across the room. "You'll never guess what I've
found?"
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"A secret door?" Hermione asked.
"Treasure?" Milo said at the same time.
"Neither!" Ron said. "three Comet Two-Sixties!"
"Crap. Crap. Crap." Milo was still unable to get a broomstick to respond to his
presence at all, and Hermione was hardly any better. A quick glance at
Hermione's face revealed she didn't relish the thought of flight any more than
he did.
"And they've been slashed to pieces!" Ron added.
"Oh, thank God," Hermione said explosively, releasing a long-held breath.
"So, what were you two talking about? Figure out what we're supposed to do,
yet?" Ron asked.
"Uh..." Milo said. "Sort of. We determined the door is trapped, and that none of
the keys fit it... and that it's probably a fake and we have to beat a con man
at a shell game, or... something. It got kind of complicated."
"So... I take it we're still clueless."
"Ah, screw it. Kelgore's Fire Bolt." An obsidian-black shard of stone glowing
red with heat burst from Milo's opened palm and flew towards the door at just
under the speed of sound, arcane energy crackling around it like a comet's tail.
As soon as the tip of the stone touched the ancient oak door, it exploded into a
searing red ball precisely five feet across, leaving their vision flecked with
purple specks. The door splintered, and charred chunks of wood scattered about
the room.
"Merlin's left foot!" Ron cursed, rubbing at his eyes.
Hermione stared at the door, her face a mask of abject terror.
"We are going to get in so much trouble," she quailed.
"Whatever. We'll do the paperwork, update our character sheets, and face the
consequences of our actions latermaybe. It's the adventurer's way. In the
meantime, there's a dungeon to crawl."
Ron cautiously poked a large chunk of ex-door with the remains of a Comet-Two
Sixty. The solid-looking wood crumbled into ash at the gentle contact,
scattering in the gentle draft created by the fluttering wings above.
"Blimey," he said almost reverently.
"Evocation is generally underpowered," Milo said, "but, on occasion, it can have
its uses."
The next chamber was lit only by the glow of the room before entering through
Page 359

the smoldering doorway. Milo could barely make out large, towering armoured
figures with a vaguely humanoid shape standing in front of him, lined up like a
phalanx. He took a hesitant step forward, and the instant that his foot touched
the ground in the new room, his vision flooded white. His eyes took a few
seconds to adjust to the vision in front of him.
What Milo had taken to be armoured soldiers were, instead, giant black chessmen
(although, as an experienced adventurer, he refused to rule out the possibility
that they were Animated). They were carved to resemble armoured soldiers,
weapons and all except for their faces. Some of the pieces wore helmets, but
the rest had blank, expressionless smooth surfaces in their place. As someone
who had never seen a mannequin before, he found the sight distinctly unnerving.
"I'm an idiot," Ron said quietly.
"Sorry, what?" Milo asked. He was missing something.
"You'll see. I'd bet my magic that we have to play our way across."
"Before jumping to any conclusions," Hermione suggested, "how about we test
that? Wingardium Leviosa." She levitated a large chunk of door across the
oversized chessboard. The black players seemed to ignore it, but as it reached
the white line, a pale pawn leapt forwards at a diagonal and ran it through with
his spear. Milo winced. He knew that stone weaponry took a -2 penalty to attack
and damage, but, looking at the razor-sharp edges of the nearby black soldiers'
gear, he doubted that applied here. The white pawn stepped back into his
original position, looking no different than before save for a light dusting of
ash. "Okay," Hermione admitted. "we have to play our way across."
"Fortunately," Ron said with a slightly shaky grin, "I have something of an
advantage here."
"Why's that?" Milo asked, "because you happened to put maximum ranks in
Profession (Chess Player)? And here I thought those were wasted."
"Just watch. Milo, do me a favour and take the place of the left bishop? That's
the one with the pointy hat and mace. Hermione, take the third pawn from the
right."
"But" Milo protested.
"Just trust me."
"He is the best chess player in the school, remember?" Hermione pointed out
lightly. "We had that tournament and everything. Still..." she stepped into the
place of the designated pawn. "This does seem awfully specific."
It suddenly struck Milo that he'd completely forgotten that 'chess' was on the
Plot. Cursing himself, he reluctantly took the place of the bishop, who mutely
stepped off the board to make way for him. Of course chess would come up here,
at the end. The sheer number of times it had been mentioned would be
mind-bogglingly pointless had there not been some sort of chess-related puzzle.
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"What about you?" Hermione asked Ron.
"I'm the king, of course. Just do what I say, and we'll be fine. I promise."
Reluctantly, Milo and Hermione agreed.
After they had taken their places, a white pawn slid forward towards their side.
Ron ordered one of his pawns forward, looking not quite as confident as he
sounded. Milo noticed a somewhat wild look to his eyes, but, after seeing the
white side's response (another pawn), he let out a deep breath and smiled, as if
the white side had fallen for some sort of trap. After that, Ron began to below
orders at a shocking pace. He barely waited for each piece to finish moving
before moving his next one. The white pieces, driven by silent orders, responded
immediately to each move.
Milo was surprised, to say the least. He knew Ron was good, but this... it was
as if Ron were reading off of a script, knowing in advance what he would say
each turn well before he spoke. The sheer amount of information he must be
processing to give commands that quickly... either Ron had been holding out on a
Headband of Intellect +10, or he had no idea what he was doing and simply giving
orders at random.
Milo swallowed nervously as it came time to act. Despite Ron's confidence, they
were losing pieces. A lot of pieces. There were only two pawns, aside from
Hermione, still standing on their side. They'd lost their other bishop early on
to what had to have been a sheer blunder though Ron's confident, almost bored,
expression never changed.
Still, Ron was a better player than he had ever been. Milo walked diagonally
across the board, standing uncomfortably close to a white knight. The knight
completely ignored his presence, sitting atop his pale horse, long white blade
in hand. While he was fully aware that the knight could only move in a weird,
L-shape (suddenly, the Cleric spell Knight's Move made a lot more sense to him),
and that he was perfectly safe where he was standing, the sword still sent
shivers down Milo's spine.
The rules of chess were clear: when a piece took another piece, the taken piece
didn't have a hope of fighting back, even a mighty queen against a lowly pawn.
So Milo wondered what would happen if he was hit by that sword and survived.
Would the knight simply repeatedly stab him until satisfied? Or would the game
carry on, ignoring his presence completely, as he bled out on the floor?
Hermione, meanwhile, was tapping her foot impatiently. She'd been almost
completely ignored by Ron, only moving up to allow another piece to pass early
on.
A black castle stepped up and smashed the white knight off of his horse with a
heavy, flanged mace. The knight's horse dragged its rider off the board, and
then there was silence.
"Check..." Ron said quietly. Then he drew a deep breath, letting it out
Page 361

explosively. "Mate."
The remaining white pieces (the ones that could still stand, anyway) walked to
the edges of the board and bowed slightly.
"How did you do that?" Hermione asked, throwing her arms around him in a hug.
"That was incredible!"
Milo was beginning to have suspicions at that point.
Ron simply shrugged, looking a little embarrassed at Hermione's outcry. "I'd
played the same game before."
"You... what?" Hermione asked, stepping back from him. Several pieces clicked in
Milo's head so loudly he was surprised nobody noticed.
"When I played against Quirrell, I was really playing the castle."
"He used his little tournament to find which of us were good at chess," Milo
said with realization. "The wily bastard."
"I knew chess had nothing to do with Defence!" Hermione exclaimed.
"Right. So every time I made a move, he'd go down here and make the same move
against the castle, then use its move against me. Quirrell's likely rubbish at
chess."
"But the white side's just a spell," Milo murmured. "It doesn't have any
creativity of its own, just an elaborate set of premade responses. So when you
made the exact same moves against it..."
"...It made the same moves against me," Ron finished. "It was the hardest game
I'd ever playedbut I'd already done it and knew how it ended."
"You put all that together just by seeing the chess game down here?" Hermione
asked. Her eyes were a little wide. Milo was having to make some revisions in
his mind, as well. There might be more to Ron than he had previously thought.
ooooooo
Author's Notes: When I came up with the chess trick Quirrell played on the
party, I was so proud of myself. I went around congratulating myself all day for
my own cleverness and ingenuity. Within five minutes of posting the chess
chapter, however, a reader PM'd me, guessing exactly what had happened. I
suppose some metagamers out there flagged any mention of 'chess' as suspicious,
considering the dungeon crawl at the end.
Now I'm curious. Was Quirrell's trick really brilliant, or was it transparent?
Leave a review saying if you'd called it in advance or were caught by surprise.
Page 362
Chapter 30: Troll Wanted: Dead or Alive
Milo opened the door a crack and peeked through. The room was pitch dark, but
his sense of smell confirmed his suspicions.
Crap.
He, ever so quietly, closed the door and looked back at his companions.
"Right," he whispered. "So, there's a Troll on the other side of this door."
His companions stared at him blankly for a few seconds, then cursed sulfurously.
"The same one as before?" Ron asked after venting for a moment. "If we're lucky,
it'll be so scared of Hermione here that it'll lie down and play dead when we
enter."
"Could be," Milo said, "But I wouldn't count our lives on that. Frankly... I'm
not sure we can take him." The last encounter he had had with a Troll had proved
definitely, dreadfully, defenestratively disastrous. He looked at his comrades,
whose faces were ashen. They'd thrown everything they'd had at it, and it had
still gotten away. Hermione and he had been seriously injured.
"Wait!" Ron said, his face brightening suddenly. "Milo can just blast it like he
did that door!"
"Yeah..." Milo said, "about that. That was kind of a one-off. Sorry, guys. What
else have we got?" Maybe they should have tried to solve the last puzzle after
allthe fickle being that ran the universe appeared to be punishing him for his
brute force approach.
"If we had a large quantity of dust, I suppose I could use Ventus again,"
Hermione mused. "But even that didn't finish off the last one."
"How about a Hippogriff?" Ron suggested. "Like back at the Duelling Club. That
Hufflepuff was in the hospital wing for three daysmind, I reckon he was just
trying to skive classes."
"Didn't prepare Summon Monster," Milo admitted, "but I have something that's
almost as good for this. I only give it even odds of winning, though, so I
suggest we run past it while it's distracted. Sound good?"
"Not particularly," Hermione confessed, "But I don't see that we have any other
option."
"Great. This spell takes six seconds to cast, so open the door for me at the
count of five, okay?" Ron nodded, and moved to stand by the heavy, iron-studded
wooden door. Milo rolled up his sleeves, adjusted his Arcanist's Gloves
slightly, and began casting. Ron swallowed nervously, his hand on the doorknob.
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"Summon Skeletal Troll!" The door flew open, and a towering nightmare of a
figure appeared before them. Without pausing to look closer, Milo and the others
bolted through the door, an almost-physical wall of putrid stench assaulting
their noses. In the darkness, he heard someone gag, but kept running until he
hit the far wall. Undead had Darkvision out to 60 feet, so Milo wasn't worried
about his summoned monster. If anything, the undead Troll likely had the
advantage over the living one in this lighting. Milo felt around at the wall
that he was touching, searching for an exit.
Then he encountered a problem.
"Where in the Infinite Layers of the Abyss is the thrice-damned door?" he hissed
quietly. It was so dark that he could barely see the blue-and-gold of his own
gloves.
"Lumos," Ron cast, and his wand glowed, clearly illuminating the doorand them.
"No!" Hermione shrieked, staring at the lit wand. She covered her mouth in
horror, looking around nervously for the Troll. Milo prepared to launch a salvo
of magic at the Troll that he was sure was about to fall on them like a
landslide.
Nevertheless, nothing happened.
"I thought you said there was a Troll," Hermione whispered accusingly.
"I smelled a Troll," Milo said. "I just assumed there was one, too. I mean, it
makes sense, right? This dungeon was probably made by the top Hogwarts teachers,
each one making a single roomProfessor Sprout did the Devil's Snare,
probablyand Quirrell has this whole Troll thing going on, so I figured"
"Found him," Ron said, the light of his wand revealing the unmistakable cadaver
of an ex-Troll. "Big ol' bugger's dead already. Ruddy convenient, that is."
"Perhaps Quirrell killed him on the way in?" Hermione suggested. Milo shrugged,
dismissing his skeleton with a casual wave.
"Looks like."
The next room simply had a large table with seven mismatched bottles arranged on
a thick tablecloth. As soon as they entered the room, purple flames appeared
behind them, blocking their escape. Black flames guarded the door on the other
side of the room.
"Bugger," Ron muttered. "This has 'Snape' written all over it. We should have
brought shampoo; any fire made by that git would probably bugger off in fright
after one whiff of it."
"Look!" Hermione pointed at a small roll of parchment on the table. "Wingardium
Leviosa." The roll floated over to her.
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"Why not just pick it up?" Milo asked.
"All this talks of traps must be making me paranoid," Hermione confessed. "I
felt I couldn't be too carefulespecially if Professor Snape" (she shot a look
at Ron) "had anything to do with it."
"You're learning, young grasshopper," Milo said sagely.
"I'm actually older than you are," Hermione pointed out. "I'm twelve, after all.
You're only eleven."
"Ish," Milo corrected. "Eleven-ish. Birth date still unknown. Anyways, what's on
the paper?"
"It's a puzzle!" she said, a smile growing on her face. "One of the potions will
let us through, I just need to figure out which. It's brillianta lot of wizards
haven't got an ounce of logic, they'd be stuck in here forever."
"You don't say?" Milo asked. So wanded magic wasn't Intelligence-based after
all. Interesting. Very interesting.
"The only catch is, three of the bottles are poisonthe rest are wine, except
for one that lets the drinker go back, of courseso it's important I figure out
which is which. Now just give me a second. Let's see..." Hermione looked at each
bottle closely, and re-read the parchment several times. "I've got it!"
"We drink from the little one," Ron said.
"we drink the smallest one!" Hermione finished. "Oh. How did you figure?"
"Quirrell must have drunk one when he went through earlier," Ron said. "Harry
too, for that matter. The small one is clean and the others have all got dust
on."
"...I see."
"But don't worry about ita lot of the greatest wizards couldn't notice what's
right under their noses, either," Ron said teasingly.
Interesting. It's not Wisdom-based, either. Could it be... (Milo shuddered at
the thought) ...Charisma? It would explain why Grabbe and Coyle were failing
most of their courses, and why Voldemort was simultaneously the greatest dark
wizard alive (or possibly undead, Milo thought, fingering a wooden stake in his
belt) and had an impressive cult following. Dumbledore, too, for that matter
(except for the 'dark' part). Fortunately, PCs were explicitly immune to the
effects of high-powered Diplomancy.
"We... have a slight problem," Hermione said in a small voice.
"Oh?"
"There's only enough for one of us," she said. "Hardly even that." She was
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rightthe bottle was tiny.
Tiny... but full.
"The potion must replenish itself," Milo pointed out. "Assuming Quirrell and
Harry came through hereand everything we've seen suggests that they havethey
both had to have drunk from that bottle, which is nevertheless full to the cork.
So all we have to do is go through one at a time. The only question is..."
"Which order do we go in?" Hermione asked.
"I was going to say, 'how long does it take to refill,' but yours is valid. The
only two questions are: which order do we go in, and how long does it take to
refill?"
"That, and 'what's on the other side, and does it want to eat our faces,'" Ron
added.
"Right. Our three questions are: which order do we go in, how long does it take
to refill, and what's on the other side, and does it want to eat our faces? Oh,
and, how about, 'did Hermione pick the right bottle, or will the first drinker
turn blue and die?' So our four questions are: which order, how long, what's on
the other side"
"and does it want to eat our faces off" cut in Ron.
"Right, and does it want to eat our faces off, and did Hermione pick the right
bottle."
"Wait," Hermione said. "Didn't you say your robes made you fire proof? You had
me set you on fire and everything."
"Fire resistant," Milo corrected in a pained voice. "And it's only rated against
regular fire. Against fancy black fire? It depends: how much does the DM hate
me? The answer? Probably a lot." Milo could still remember the disastrous 'Use
Spontaneous Divination to get Cleric Spells' fiasco.
"DM?" Ron asked in a puzzled voice.
"Disgruntled Mechanics. If you push the rules... sometimes, the rules push
back."
"O-kay. Let's pretend I never asked, and I'll pretend you're not completely
daft."
"Fair enough. How about you two play Fighter, Rogue, Wide-Mouth-Spiked-Pit-Trap
to determine which of you goes first, and I'll chance the fire. The other one
waits for the potion to refill and charges in to save us from whatever horrific
fate we've found ourselves in. I'm thinking the giant squid that lives in the
lake will figure in here somehow."
"I hesitate to ask, but... Fighter, Rogue, Wide-Mouth-Spiked-Pit-Trap?" Hermione
Page 366

asked.
"Sure. The Fighter Power Attacks the Rogue for quintuple the Rogue's HP, the
Rogue uses Trap Sense and discovers and disarms the Wide-Mouth-Spiked-Pit-Trap,
the Fighter has no skill ranks or good abilities other than Strength and
Constitution and falls into the Wide-Mouth-Spiked-Pit-Trap. It's abstract, I
knowfor example, it assumes the theoretically possible but, in practice,
impossible event of a Fighter engaging a competent Rogue in a fair combatbut
really, when it comes down to it, it's just common sense."
"Oh, so just like Rock, Paper, Scissors, then," Hermione said.
"What is this Rock, Paper, Scissors of which you speak?"
"Well, rock bends the scissors, the scissors cut the paper, and the paper...
well, I guess it wraps around the rock," Ron explained.
"I'd always assumed the paper was too flexible to be beaten by the rock,"
Hermione said. "Which is why it 'wins.'"
"Psht," Milo muttered. "The paper is probably a scroll of Rock to Mud. It's the
only explanation that makes any sense."
"Regardless," Hermione cut in, "let's play, shall we? Milo, count us off."
"Three... Two... One..."
"Paper!" Hermione said, at the same time that Ron said
"Wide-Mouth-Spiked-Pit-Trap!"
"Hooboy..." Milo muttered.
Eventually, Ron won out with rock ("I assumed you'd think I was the sort of
person who always chose rock, so while I was going to trick you by choosing
scissors, I realized, you might have guessed that I'd use my cunning ploy and
that what I should really be using is paper, but then I remembered your scores
in History of Magic so, taking into account the fact that you were a brainiac, I
one-upped you again, which put me right back to rock. Bloody brilliant, I say.")
against Hermione's scissors ("I assigned each move a numberpaper was one, rock
was two, scissors was threeand divided the third line of Snape's riddle by
three, because three there are three of us (if it came out to four, it would
wrap around and would count as 'paper,' of course, and five would be rock) to
simulate a random move, which would thus be impossible to guess.")
"Ha!" Ron exclaimed. "I win! Who's clever now?"
"You were lucky," Hermione stressed. "There's a difference. Just because you
were right doesn't mean it was the smart decision."
"Right," Milo said. "Drink up, and let's go rescue Harry."
Ron's grin vanished immediately.
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"Ah, bugger. I forgot the prize was 'almost-certain grievous injury, with a side
of dismemberment.' I should have lost."
"Who's clever now," Hermione muttered under her breath. Milo didn't think that
he was supposed to hear it.
Milo walked over to the flickering black fire, feeling the heat rolling off of
it. This was, oddly, reassuringit was a weak implication that the fire did,
well, Fire damage as opposed to something eviller, like Cold or Negative Energy.
Or (Milo shuddered at the possibility) Level Drain. All things being equal,
death was generally preferable to level loss. At least it was only a temporary
inconvenience.
Beside him, Ron chugged the tiny bottle and shivered.
"It's like drinking ice water," he said, and passed the empty bottle to
Hermione.
"I'll follow as soon as it refills," she promised. "Be careful, will you? If
your theory is right, and each of the Heads of Houses and Quirrell made a
room... well, this was the last one. Good luck." She looked like she wanted to
say more, but decided against it and stepped back.
"Best take it at a run, you think?" Ron suggested.
"Agreed. Ready?" Milo asked, backing up a bit so he could Run through the fire.
"Ready."
ooooooo
Author's Notes: When organizing a D&D game, make sure to tell everyone to be
there half an hour early. That way, you can get the obligatory incessant Monty
Python quoting out of the way and still pick the lock on the ten-by-ten room
containing an orc guarding a chest without running overtime. At least half an
hour. Maybe an hour. A good hour.
The way I picture it, in Milo's universe, this behaviour results in PCs
reflexively referencing Monty Python (and the Princess Bride, Lord of the Rings,
etc.) without really understanding why. Milo is cut off from his Player, but the
behaviour is deeply ingrained in him nonetheless.
Chapter 31: The Man With Two Faces
Author's Notes: For added realism, I rolled every die for this chapter.
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oooo
"T-try harder! L-l-look at the M-Mirror and th-think about the g-g-good and
h-h-healing you c-c-could do with it! Your f-f-friend is c-counting on y-you!"
"I'm trying, Professor! I can see myself using the Stone to cure Milo, but
nothing else is happening! Are you sure this is how it works?"
Milo landed with a roll on the far side of the fire, feeling his hit points drop
by one. Just his luck that the firewhich turned out to be rather ordinary,
after allrolled a six for damage. Smooth darkwood in his left hand, right hand
ready for casting, Milo quickly took stock of the room in the way that only an
Adventurer could. Fine details were simultaneously ignored and calculated for
gold piece value, plot-relevant details were filed away for future reference,
and threats were evaluated immediately.
The sum value of all unattended items in the stark room was a paltry 37gp, 4sp,
and 7cpnot counting a rather familiar mirror that he deliberately avoided
looking straight at. Standing in front of the Mirror of Erised was a surprised
looking Harry, who was staring at the newcomers in astonishment.
In a flash, Quirrell had his wand out and was standing directly behind the
still-amazed Harry.
Not good, Milo thought. Quirrell could kill all three of them before Milo could
get a single spell off, most likely. Best get him talking. Every villain worth
his black robes and skull necklace likes to monologue.
"So, you've been trying to get at the Stone this whole time, have you?" Milo
asked. "I asked around. You've been teaching Muggle Studies at Hogwarts for four
years before you got the Defence job. Were you just waiting, gaining the trust
of everyone around you?" The specific words were unimportant to his plan all
that mattered was that he got Quirrell talking.
"Y-you fool!" Good start. When they start calling people fools, it generally
means they're working their way up to a magnificent rant. "You th-think you have
any inkling of m-my plan?"
"Well..." It was all Milo could do not to smile. "Since you're going to kill us
anyways... could you at least tell me what the deal was with the Acromantula in
the Forbidden Forest back in the fall?" Milo had been dying to figure out what
that was all about. Harry stood with his hands up, Quirrell's wand pointed at
his temples.
"You were s-s-supposed to die!" Quirrell said. "You knew t-too much! You even
t-t-told mesaid it was obvious to anyone with a brainthat you, your
f-f-friends, and D-D-Dumbledore had f-f-figured it out! So kind of you t-to
b-bring them h-here, b-by the way. Everyone except that G-G-Granger g-girl,
anyway." Milo blinked. Figured what out? He could barely remember that
conversation having taken place, much less the subject matter. "S-so I l-l-let
that h-halfbreed oaf f-find out I w-was k-k-killing the unicorns in the
f-f-forest to g-get you out in the f-f-forest alone. It w-was p-p-perfect... the
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spider would k-kill you and m-make it l-l-look like an accident. V-very
t-tragic, I'd s-say... what a p-promising student you were..."
Quirrell was killing the unicorns? And now he's trying to get the Stone... What
was it Milo had said? That there were likely followers of Voldemort out there,
each competing to bring their master back? So... Quirrell wasn't just trying to
get the Stone for himself. He was a Death Eater as well.
"...But you didn't count on me to kill it?" Milo asked. Except he hadn't killed
it. Investigation had shown that the injuries he'd dealt it weren't nearly
severe enough to finish the monster off. Everything pointed to a Killing Curse.
"You think you k-k-killed it? Fool! It was m-me!" Quirrell hesitated for a
second. "I'd s-sworn n-n-never to mention this again, b-but... s-seeing as how
I'm g-g-going to k-kill you anyways..." Milo couldn't help himself; he leaned in
a little closer. "I t-tripped." Quirrell paused, and Milo heard Ron fighting
down a laugh. "I w-was watching, under the c-cloak of a Disillusionment s-spell,
w-when I s-slipped. The g-g-ground was unnaturally s-slippery" Milo grinned,
despite himself. He'd cast a Grease spell, but hadn't imagined that he'd managed
to get the end boss with it. "And the A-Acromantula h-heard me. I h-had n-no
choice b-but to abort the p-plan, k-kill the spider, and Obliviate y-you."
"But you had plenty of opportunities to try again," Milo pointed out. "Why
didn't... Oh. I see. After I told you how my magic works, you realized that I
could be used to revive Volde "
"D-don't s-speak his n-name!" Quirrell shouted.
"You-Know-Who, then. So, you changed gears... the Duelling Club. The Vampires.
They weren't to kill me, they were to get me XP." That was so backwards, it
almost hurt Milo's head. "You wanted me to level up, to turn me into a
Philosopher's Stone!"
"It w-was one p-plan of m-many," Quirrell shrugged, though Milo noticed his wand
remained pointed directly at Harry's head. "It n-never h-hurts to m-make...
backups."
"So..." Milo could practically hear the gears whirring inside his head. It was
like a scaled-down Mechanus in there. "You're also the one who possessed Hannah
and me, I take it?" He asked in a deceptively cool voice.
"I"
"For a Death Eater, you seem awfully afraid of your own master. You flinch every
time anyone says Voldemort."
"You think I am a D-Death Eater?" Quirrell said incredulously. "You h-haven't
realized anything yet!"
"One follower of Voldy is much like another," Milo shrugged. "I don't know, and,
frankly, don't care if you have some sort of internal naming scheme or
hierarchy. You're all just XP waiting to be collected, when it comes down to
Page 370

it." While Milo was speaking, Quirrell reached up with his off-hand and began
unwrapping his turban. Milo was unconcernedit wasn't until the Professor's wand
hand began moving that he had anything to worry about. At worst, he was trying
to activate some sort of magic item, and from what Milo had seen, the local
magic items were mainly to aid in household activities. At worst, all potatoes
in a sixty-foot radius would magically peel themselves.
"I am s-so much m-more than a m-mere D-Death Eater," Quirrell sneered, the
turban falling to the floor. Harry cried out in pain suddenly, his hand going to
his forehead. It came away bloody. "I am the a-avatar of the D-Dark L-Lord
h-himself!"
A horrible, hissing voice that seemed to come from Quirrellthough his mouth
never movedspoke suddenly.
"Kill the newcomers... we only need the boy..."
Quirrell's wand came up, but Milo was faster.
"Nerveskitter," Milo said in harmony with himself as time bended around him,
speeding his reflexes up slightly. Though a minor difference, all things
considered, it was enough. "So, you're Lord Voldemort, eh?" Milo's raised his
right hand, palm outspread and ready to cast. "They say you once murdered an
entire family of Muggles. The entire familycousins, cousins-in-law,
grandparents, nieces, nephews. Everyone bearing the same surname. They say you
did it just because a twenty-year-old and his new wife had a witcha
mudbloodfor a daughter. They say you're more demon than man, that you sold your
soul for dark powers. Some say you never had a soul to begin with. They say that
merely saying your name aloud is enough to call your attention." Milo stared at
the man standing in front of him, the man he had once trusted. Maybe he really
was part demon, but templates came at the cost of all-important caster levels.
"But, you know? People say a lot of foolish things. Once, I heard a Bard reason
that, since wearing heavy armour reduced his Hide bonus, going absolutely naked
would render him invisible." To an outside observer, it would seem remarkable
that Voldemort would wait for Milo to continue before completing his spell.
However, said outside observer was likely unaware that talking is a Free Action,
and Milo could have recited The Raven in its entirety before allowing anyone
else to act. "Really, when it comes down to it, your vaunted 'Dark Magic' is
about as useful as a Fallen Paladin without your wand," Milo said. "It would be
a shame if it were to, unexpectedly, say... Shatter."
A noise like an elder wyrm roaring echoed through the room, and Quirrell's alder
wand exploded into splinters. Harry, taking advantage of the confusion, dashed
away from the Mirror to join Ron and Milo.
"W-w-well," Quirrell stammered. Something felt wrong. Very wrong. "It w-would
appear that I h-have b-been beaten..."
Milo blinked, then realized what it was: he hadn't got any XP. Quirrell wasn't
defeated.
Then he remembered what happened after the first time he'd seen the Mirror of
Page 371

Erised...
Twelve sapient creatures. Quirrell counts as two, leaving ten unaccounted for.
"Glitterdust!" Milo cast the spell, not at Quirrell, but directly to his right.
Milo's primary usage of the spell was generally to blind everyone in the area,
but this time, he wanted it for its other purpose: revealing invisible
creatures. Sparkly arcane doom rained down, revealing five small, heavily armed
creatures that Milo was all-too familiar with...
...Redcaps.
Invisible Redcaps.
Crap.
The golden particles outlined the invisible creatures, each carrying a heavy
sword like the one in the Forbidden Forest had. Milo guessedthough he doubted
he could push Quirrell into another rant to confirm itthat that one had been
sent by the Professorno, by Voldemortas part of his 'Level-Grind the PC plan.'
"The outlined ones will only be visible for 42 seconds!" Milo shouted to Ron and
Harry. "Stun as many as you canI'll deal with the other five!"
"Right!" Ron said. "Stun them with what, exactly?"
"I don't know! Stupefy or something!"
"But that's fourth-year"
"JUST FIGURE SOMETHING OUT!" Three of the five glowing Redcaps had been blinded
by the golden light, but the other two were advancing rapidly towards them. Milo
could only guess what the other five were up to, but, fortunately, this was the
fight he was made for. Enough of that one-on-one insanity. Battlefield control
was a Conjurer's specialty.
"Web!" Thick, sticky webs appeared in the area that Milo guessed the
still-invisible Redcaps were standing. The beauty of the Web spell is that even
if the targets manage to make their Reflex saves, it doesn't really help them
all that much. They still get a host of penalties, and requires an extremely
difficult Strength check to move at alland even then, extremely slowly. That,
and at Milo's level, it lasts for over an hour. It is generally considered the
pinnacle of the Conjuration schooland on top of all of that it's only a Second
Level spell.
Milo could hear screams of frustration from the trapped Redcapsbut that was no
guarantee that he'd caught all five.
"Can you smell any others?" Milo asked his familiar. Rats have a keen sense of
smell, which is one of the reasons that he had picked Mordy as his companion.
Mordy sniffed the air for a second, then nodded.
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"Eleven o'clock, 20 feet. One straggler."
"Grease." The thud and metal-on-stone clatter confirmed the hit. Grease would
only delay the Redcap, not trap it entirely like Web had. Milo glanced around to
see how his companions were faring.
"Expelliarmus!" Harry shouted, and one of the Redcaps' sword went flying behind
him.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" Ron cast immediately afterwards, catching the sword in
midair and lifting it up over another's head, dropping (hilt-first) from five
feet up. The Redcap moved to dodge, but was too slow and went down like a
Sorcerer hit by a Greatclub. With one Redcap disarmed, another unconscious, and
the other three still blind, there didn't seem to be any immediate threats, but
Milo doubted that would last.
"Mirror Image," he cast, and six doppelgangers appeared around him. The unarmed
Redcap didn't seem to know when it was beaten, and lunged at Ron, his golden
hands clenching around the redheaded boy's throat.
"Crap!" Milo was out of attack spells except for Acid Splash, and he didn't even
want to know what kinds of penalties could be incurred by shooting into a
Grapple. He started running through a list of Divinations he could cast
spontaneously that might be helpful, but Harry was faster.
"Expelliarmus!" Ron went flying out of the Redcap's hands. Brilliant, Milo
thought. Expelliarmus knocks away whatever the target his holding, not just
wands. Harry was already starting to think like a Munchkin; Milo would never
admit it, but he felt somewhat proud of his party member. Glitterdust didn't
provide enough detail for Milo to be sure, but he imagined a look of dumbfounded
astonishment on the ugly Fey's face.
It was then that Milo had an Idea.
"Hey ugly!" Milo shouted at the unarmed Redcap. "Worried about your lack of
weapon? A real Redcap doesn't need oneafter all, I killed your buddy unarmed
back in the Forbidden Forest." Milo couldn't tell if the Fey understood a word
he said, but it lunged at him nevertheless. The darkwood staff whirled, and
smashed into the creature's temple with as much force as Milo could manage (so,
not a lot, when it comes down to it). The creature recovered, and attempted
futilely to punch Milo through the protection of his Robe of Arcane Might. The
bony fist slid off of the magically-augmented uniform and Milo attacked again.
Milo's bet paid off. He'd gambled that the Redcap hadn't taken the Improved
Unarmed Strike featHells, nobody takes Improved Unarmed Strikeand, therefore,
would give Milo a free attack every time he tried to do the same. Despite Milo's
slender build and lousy BAB, with a pair of attacks for every punch from the
Redcapcombined with his high AC and miss chance from Mirror Imagethe Fey
didn't stand a chance.
As the Redcap fell to Milo's sixth blow, Mordy spoke again.
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"Alert! Enemy approaching at six o'clock!"
Gods damnit! Milo thought, whirling around. It must be the one that I Greased.
He'd completely forgotten about it when he'd gone in to play Big Stupid Fighter
with the other one.
One of Milo's doubles flickered and vanished as, presumably, the invisible
Redcap slashed at it with his wickedly curved sword. Ron and Harry each cast a
Disarming Charm, but, without knowing exactly where the Redcap stood, they went
wide. This was becoming far too hairy for a Wizard as squishy as he. For a
second, Milo considered using Fly to reach the safety of the ceiling, but
realized that that would leave Harry and Ronwho lacked his (by this world's
standards) preternatural healing abilities and resiliencevulnerable. Instead,
Milo decided that he'd be better to leave the battle in the hands of a
specialist.
"Summon Skele" halfway through the spell, the Redcap swung again, this time
guessing the correct target. Milo tried to dodge, but only succeeded in
mitigating the attack somewhat. The sword penetrated the spell-enhanced robes
and drew a thick red line along Milo's chest, inflicting a hefty ten damage. He
screamed in pain, and, falling to his knees, his concentration shattered.
The spell failed.
Milo spat blood and looked around the room hazily. Harry and Ron were still
futilely shooting Disarming Charms around the room, trying to catch the
invisible Redcap. Quirrell was standing by the Mirror counting silently, of all
things. Milo narrowed his eyes, and realized what was happening.
Thirty-Nine... Forty... Forty-One...
"Forty-Two," Milo breathed, terror rising. The magic sustaining the golden
particles surrounding the five Redcaps vanished, and they vanished. Two were
unconscious, but the other three...
Normally, Milo would simply spontaneously cast See Invisibility and Fly, then
proceed to rain blows upon the Redcaps' heads from above. However, despite
having only two hit points left, he was still the best-defended of his group.
Further, from what Milo had noticed, the Disillusionment Charm didn't make the
wearer technically invisible, merely extremely well-concealed. As such, See
Invisibility would be useless.
It was then that Milo noticed a glimmer of movement near the black fire of the
doorway. This was unusual, as the Redcaps were all invisible, and both Ron and
Harry were nowhere nearby...
"Incendio," he heard a feminine whisper. A barely-noticeable jet of bluebell
fire, the same hue as what had been used against the Devil's Snare, hit a
distant corner of Milo's Web.
Of course. Hermione. She was creeping along the side of the room near the door,
with the Web spell between her and most of the Redcapsand Quirrellblocking
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vision.
"Duck!" Milo shouted. Harry and Ron, too surprised to do anything but comply,
hit the ground immediately. The webs began to burn quicklymagical webs, unlike
mundane webs, are highly inflammable. As the violet-blue flames spread
throughout the faux-spidersilk, Milo heard Hermione's voice again.
"VENTUS!" A colossal gust of searing-hot air slammed into Milo bodily, knocking
him onto his back. This was shortly followed by a raging-hot bluebell inferno as
strands of inexplicably-inflammable webs were sucked up by the whirlwind and,
suddenly oxygenated, exploded into fire. "Ventus! Ventus! Ventus!" Hermione,
through clever use of controlled bursts of air, managed to direct the flame to a
certain extent, causing it to avoid Harry and Ron. Milo's magic robes protected
him (and Mordy, with Improved Evasion, had little to worry about), but the
Redcaps had no such luck. As the fires began to die out, Hermione threw both
glass bottles of wine from the potions riddle into the middle of it, the alcohol
spilling out as the containers shattered. Redcaps screamed in agony as their
clothes and hair burned in the suddenly refuelled inferno.
"Merlin's beard," Ron breathed as the fires died down. Invisible burning figures
were sprinting around the room, trying to put out themselves out. One by one
they began to drop.
Milo did some rapid counting.
"She only got five!" he shouted. "There's three more still conscious!"
Ron whirled as he heard the sudden cracking of broken glass behind him caused by
the heavy bronze-studded boots the Redcaps favoured crushing the remains of a
bottle.
"ExpelliArgh!" Ron went down as the Fey clubbed him over the head with,
fortunately, the hilt of his invisible sword.
"You fools thought y-you c-could d-defeat us?" Quirrell laughed. There was
something in his voiceMilo cursed his low Sense Motive bonus yet againthat
seemed a little... off. Like he wasn't quite sincere, maybe. "We are"
Frankly, Milo didn't give a damn what Quirrell was going to say. "Fly," he
muttered, ripping the Amulet of Protection from Evil from around his neck.
Behind him, he saw Hermione spin in surprise and start casting something, but
the wand was knocked from her hand by an unseen attacker. She started to back
up, but was pushed to the ground, struggling.
"WAAAAAAAGH!" Milo roared and flew towards Quirrell, knocking the Professor from
his feet into the Mirror of Erised, which was made of sterner stuff than it
looked. The man-sized mirror fell to the ground with a crash, and Milo and
Quirrell came tumbling down on top of it. As they struggled, Milo noticed with
revulsion that there was another face on Quirrell's head, normally hidden by his
turban. A face with snakelike eyes and slits for a nose...
Mind on the task, he reminded himself, trying to pin Quirrell to the ground.
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This next task would take all of his mental ability and concentration:
Grappling. First an Attack of Opportunitywhich Quirrell was denied, being
caught Flat-Footed by Milo's sudden attack (though Milo was fairly sure that the
local wizards hadn't ever heard of AoO's, anyways). Then... what was it? A touch
attack? Milo clumsily grabbed the downed wizard, an easy taskQuirrell was
unarmoured and not particularly agile, while Milo had his (again, by the low
standards of his competition) superior melee talents, augmented by the +2 bonus
for charging. Then (Milo wracked his brain to try to remember the ridiculously
complicated rules) there was, what, an opposed Grapple check? He struggled to
wrap the Amulet around Quirrell's neck as the fully-grown man resisted with
vastly superior strength and size, albeit inferior skill.
"Ha!" Milo gasped. "I got a 16!" His fingers struggled to work the clasp on the
steel chain (the clasp which was specifically designed to be difficult to do and
undo) and almost felt it click into place when Quirrell threw him off. Milo
landed in a heap, astonished, as Quirrell calmly climbed to his feet.
Quirrell was holding his wand. Milo blinked, trying to process the image in
front of him.
Quirrellno, Voldemort was holding his wand. Thirteen inches, chestnut wood,
dragon heartstring core...
"...Good for curses," Quirrell murmured to himself, testing the wand.
"Pelor above and Nerull below," Milo cursed. Trying to use the amulet to cut
Voldemort's influence on Quirrell was Milo's last plan...
Well, his second-last plan.
"True Strike," he muttered reaching into his extra-dimensional belt for his
knife. He'd avoided thishorrific memories of his last use of the dagger flooded
into his mindbut now, he had no choice. Milo threw the masterwork, cold iron
dagger in an overhand arc, aimed right for Quirrell's throat.
The image of Hannah's crumpled body entered his mind's eye, but he dismissed it.
It had been Voldemort's fault that Hannah had been possessed, Voldemort's fault
that Milo had almost killed her with this very dagger, and Voldemort's fault
that Milo was in this position once again. Dice rolled in Milo's head as he
channelled all of his rage and anguish into this final, desperate throw. Twenty.
Milo marvelled; even the DM seemed to be with him for once. Quirrell, and
therefore Voldemort, suffered from the same weakness that Hannah had: a
remarkably frail physical body. He wouldn't stand a chance.
The dagger spun gracefully in the air once, twice, thrice, guided by the unseen
force of the famed True Strike spell.
Quirrell's wand arm shot upwards without even looking.
"No," the horrible face on the back of Quirrell's head murmured, and the dagger
stopped in midair halfway between Milo and his target. It hovered there for a
moment, then crumpled and fell.
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"No..." Milo whispered weakly, his voice barely carrying to his own ears.
"That's not fair... I call shenanigans..." Still, he wasn't done yet. He still
had two hit points, an active Fly spell, and a belt full of tricks. Quaal, don't
fail me now. All Milo had to do was fly over to Quirrell, drop the feather, and
watch as the purple-clad Professor was crushed between the ceiling and a rapidly
growing oak tree. He grabbed the feather-shaped token in his gloved hand and
launched himself into the air, aiming for the space over the Defence Professor's
head.
"Petrificus Totalus," Quirrell muttered.
Milo fell like a stone, landing painfully next to Harry, who, like Hermione, had
been pinned by invisible hands.
Quirrell turned to face themthat is, he looked directly away from Harry, Milo,
and Hermione, treating them with a full view of the horror on the back of his
headand began casting with game-breaking speed, Milo's amulet still clutched in
his left hand.
"Petrificus Totalus, Petrificus Totalus," Harry and Hermione suddenly stopped
fighting against their invisible attackers. "Finite Incantatem," all ten
Redcapsfive of them critically injured from burns, two unconscious, two
grappling Hermione and one grappling Harrysuddenly became visible. They looked
around in surprise, clearly not counting on this unexpected turn of events. Then
they began to die.
"Avada Kedavra, Avada Kedavra, Avada Kedavra..." One by one,
QuirrellVoldemortmethodically shot and killed the Fey, all the while his
expression remaining neutral, almost bored. "Horrible creatures," the voice said
in a strained, snakelike hiss. "Still, not quite as useless as some of the...
servants... I have had to... deal with... recently..." Milo was unsure if the
weird pauses in his dialogue were a dramatic affectation, or a result of his
unnatural half-life. "Disappointingly, I have... guessed incorrectly... about
the nature of this Mirror..." Voldemort waved his wand lazily, and the Mirror of
Erised turned to dust, scattering about the room. "It being a puzzle created by
that... sentimental fool... I assumed one such as him," Quirrell glanced at
Harry, and for once the glimmer of emotion was visible in his snakelike eyes. In
all, Milo was happier before knowing what the Dark Lord looked like when filled
with barely controllable rage. "would be able to crack it... some sort of frame
of mind, perhaps benevolence... or a desire to do good... Alas... but fortune...
favours me again..." Voldemort paused to gasp for air. Milo wondered, briefly,
how the internals, so to speak, of Quirrell and Voldemort's setup workedwhere
the esophagus went, and suchbefore deciding he didn't want to know. "It...
seems that my... so-called downfall... has been delivered directly into my
hands..." The tips of Voldemort's mouth bent upwards into a horrific semblance
of a grin, and Milo decided that he preferred wrath to pleasure on that horrific
face. "Blood of the enemy..." he murmured, though Milo wasn't sure what he meant
by that. "Oh, and... Crucio." Harry screamed, straining against the bonds of his
Full-Body-Bind curse. His scar started bleeding as his body was wracked with the
worst pain magic could produce. Milo had once been the target of a Power Word:
Pain spell, but this looked significantly worse.
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"And now... young Milo... I no longer have need... of your... specialized
abilities... Avada Keda"
Click. As soon as Voldemort started casting with his right hand, Quirrell's left
hand reached around his neck and snapped the Amulet of Protection from Evil into
place. There was a brief moment of silence, and then Voldemortor
Quirrelcollapsed to the ground. The magical bonds trapping Milo and the others
vanished.
"Did..." Harry said. "Did Voldemort just finish himself off?" Hermione,
meanwhile, rushed over to check on Ron, who was blearily regaining
consciousness.
"Bit anticlimactic, if you ask me," Milo said. "Still, could be some sort of
trick..."
"Yeah," Harry said, climbing to his feet shakily. "Trick us into thinking that
he's tricking us into thinking he's dead by offing himself. Brilliant, that is.
Well, we saw through his cunning ploy. Go team."
"Mage Hand." Milo floated his wand away from Quirrell, then quickly drew his
11-foot pole (sometimes, you just need that extra foot) and prodded the body
gently. There was no response. "Huh. Well, looks like we got him. Time to loot
the corpses." His companions looked at him, a mix of shock and revulsion on his
faces, as he patted down the Redcaps for loose change. Not finding any, he
settled for pocketing their swords in his Belt of Hidden Pouches, and proceeded
to the real prize: the boss.
"I think this went rather well," Milo said happily, walking over to Quirrell.
"We stopped the Philosopher's Stone from being stolen, defeated the Dark Lord
Voldemort once and for allsort of? Maybe?rescued the princess," (Milo nodded
at Harry, ignoring his 'Hey!') "and we don't even need to shell out for a single
True Resurrection. Not bad, all things considered. All that remains is to divvy
up the lootHolycraphe'sbreathing!"
Quirrell, it appeared, was merely unconsciousbut of the face on the back of his
head, there was no sign, merely a normal (but shaved) scalp. Milo reached for
the amulet around Quirrell's neck, but decided against it. For all he knew, it
was the only thing keeping Voldemort at bay. Still, he patted down Quirrell's
pockets nevertheless. Not much, really, when it came down to itjust a few
sickles, some garlic, a holy symbol... and a tattered old book.
"Hello!" Milo exclaimed, turning over the shabby, leather-bound diary. There was
a faded date on the cover (Milo did some arithmetic and figured it was just over
fifty years old). "What have we here? Book of evil plans? Tome of Clear Thought?
Book of spells? Let's find out... Scholar's Touch." Milo paused for a second
while the spell read the book in its entirety. "...Huh. It's empty. That's...
unexpected. As far as treasure goes, this kind of sucks." Behind him, Ron
blearily stood up.
"Maybe it really is just an old book?" Hermione suggested. "We can ask Quirrell
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when he wakes up. No, just wait, Ronyou really shouldn't be moving around yet."
"Can I see it?" Ron asked groggily.
"Sure," Milo said, and tossed it over to him.
Ron flipped through a few pages. "Anyone know who "T. M. Riddle is?" Seeing them
all shaking their heads, Ron pocketed the book. "What?" he asked defensively.
"Ginny will be starting school next year; she'll need a notebook." Ron was
always very self-conscious of his family's wealth (or lack thereof) and
parchment was kind of expensive (by non-PC standards, anyway), so Milo let the
issue drop.
"We should probably grab the Professor and work our way backwards through the
challenges," Harry suggested. "We should really tell Dumbledore about all this."
Hermione paled. "We are in so much trouble," she said. "We broke into the
expressly-forbidden third-floor corridor!" she paused for a second. "And then
nearly killed the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor!"
"We have an even bigger problem than that," Milo said. "How in the Nine Hells do
we get out?" The black fire was still guarding the door.
They all looked at him. Milo sighed. "Fine." He proceeded to wade through the
flames, grab the little black bottle, carry it out, have someone drink it and
walk back, wait for it to replenish, then wade through fire again. Rinse and
repeat for his three companions and Quirrell, who was still unconscious (they
had to pour the bottle down his throat and hope for the best, though, to be
honest, none of them much cared if he was trapped down there or not). Then again
for the purple flames. The whole process took more than an hour, but, blessedly,
was timeskipped.
Milo was far too distracted thinking up what to do with his new level.
ooooooo
Author's Notes: And so, the Epic Boss Fight of Climacticity +5 comes to an end.
As I mentioned above, I rolled all the attack, damage, saving throw, initiative,
etc. dice for this battle (using modified Redcap stats from the MMIII and Super
Secret stats for Quirrellmort). I must say, I cackled somewhat at Milo's Crit,
and the feeble attempts of the unarmed Redcap trying to defeat Milo's
multi-layered defences.
See you next chapter for the dnouement! (Fear not, true believersBook 2 is
already in the works)
Chapter 32: Dumble-dnouement

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"Tell me again why you carry a grappling hook at all times, mate?" Ron asked,
giving Milo's silk rope a hefty tug. He had an ugly bruise on his temple, and
likely an assortment of minor injuries, but was otherwise okay. "And a rope, for
that matter."
"Came in handy, didn't it?" Milo pointed between pulls. "Every adventurer has at
least fifty feet of rope. Some carry hundreds."
Getting back up the shaft that led to the Devil's Snare seemed, at first, an
insurmountable problemuntil Milo remembered he still had rope in his belt.
Hermione levitated it up to the surface and latched the grappling hook onto the
heavy cast iron ring the trapdoor used as a handle. Climbing up wasn't
exceptionally difficult (a rope with a wall to brace against was a mere DC 5
with a 10 point reduction for having a wall to brace against. A paraplegic
triple-amputee could make the check). No, the hard part was getting the
still-unconscious Professor Quirrell to the top. In the end, they simply tied
the rope around his waist and shoulders and decided to pull him up.
"Reckon we should have just left him there," Harry muttered. He still looked
pale and shaky from Quirrell's torture spell, but hadn't mentioned it. The
others decided to drop it, though Hermione gave him occasional concerned looks.
"He's a Hogwarts Professor!" Hermione sounded scandalized. "We can't just leave
him!"
"We could have told McGonagall or Dumbledore, and they would have gone down and
got him. Besides, he did try to kill us all."
Hermione made a hmph! sound, but dropped the issue. It took several more
minutes, but they eventually got Quirrell's limp body up to the room where
Fluffy once stood.
"You know," Ron mused as he grabbed the Professor by the shoulders and dragged
him onto the floor, "We likely could have just levitated him, like Hermione did
the rope."
"He's far too heavy," Hermione pointed out.
"For all three of us at once?" Ron asked. "It wouldn't have taken a moment."
Harry, Hermione, and Milo stared at him for a few seconds in total silence.
Hermione opened her mouth like she was going to speak, then fell silent.
"Why me?" she asked nobody in particular.
"I, for one,
the doorway.
gained three
Acid Splash,
can think of no witch more suited for the task," someone said from
Milo, keenly aware he had only five hit points remaining (he'd
upon levelling up), not to mention no spells more powerful than
warily turned to the door.
"Professor!" Harry said in relief. In the doorway was none other than Professor
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Dumbledore, still dressed in the same purple robes he'd worn to Lucius's Manor.
"Indeed, that is my chosen vocation. Quick, as always, Mister Potter. Now, could
somebody please illuminate me as to what in Merlin's name is going on in my
school?"
Everyone spoke at once.
"Voldemort"
"Lucius"
"Please don't tell my mum"
"Oh, I know you said we weren't to enter the forbidden corridor, but"
Dumbledore simply waited patiently while they all told the story, as they saw
it, beginning at different times and, frequently, in backwards, frontwards, and,
occasionally sidewards order.
"So, you mean to say that Quirinuswhile under the sway of Voldemortled young
Milo out into the forest where a group of masked men led by Lucius Malfoy
intercepted them, inadvertently foiling the plans of their incognito master,
captured Milo, Disapparated back to their manor, only to have Milo escape and
return to Hogwarts while the Defence Professor took Harry under the false
pretenses of needing his help to rescue Milowho needed no help, it appears,
after allto find the Philosopher's Stone, assuming that Harry would be able to
breach whatever defences I had placed, only to be foiled by Milo, Ron, and
Hermione?"
"Was... was that all one sentence, Professor?" Milo asked in awepartly by the
feat of linguistics, but mainly that the Headmaster had managed to listen to all
four of them simultaneously. Probably comes from a supernaturally-extended
lifetime of teaching teenagers. "Also, yes. That's pretty much how it happened."
"Very well," Dumbledore sighed, and gestured for them to follow him. "I think,
perhaps, it would be best if we returned to my office to discuss this matter
further."
"Where were you?" Harry asked en route. There was a faint accusatory note in his
voice.
"The Ministry," Dumbledore said. "The reasons for which should become clear once
we reach my office." The mild rebuke was enough to make Harry look at his feet
and remain silent for the rest of the short, winding walk.
Upon entering the office, Dumbledore sat down on his customary chintz armchair,
and, his fingers forming a steeple in front of him, spoke.
"I assume you have questions," he said. "I will, if at all possible, answer to
within the best of my ability. But first, to answer Harry's: I was at the
Ministry. After I was tipped off by a certain... trusted source that Milo was
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held within one of the Malfoy's estates, I wasted no time in informing friends
within the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and assisting in what is, I
believe, generally called a raid. Incidentally, this was also my first clue as
to Professor Quirrell's deceptionhe came to me with his story that Milo was
held by vampires. I did not, however, realize the full extent of the situation
until well later. By that point, I was bogged down with what I daresay was a
tremendous quantity of paperwork. It appears that deploying Aurors without
warning against one of the more well-respected members of the wizarding
community of Magical Britain is not without cost."
"So they caught Malfoy, then?" Milo was surprised. He hadn't thought that their
scuffle in the manor would be the last they'd see of him. There were too many
unanswered questions for that.
"Alas, no," Dumbledore sighed. "Officially, a pair of deranged wizards
attempting to revive the criminal organization known as the Death Eaters broke
into Malfoy's residence in an attempt to punish him for his betrayal at the end
of the war. Their actions were, it appears, independent and without support from
others."
"But that's not true!" Harry insisted. "He was one of them! You have to believe
us!"
"Oh, I do, dear boy. But that doesn't change the fact that it will take more
substantial evidence for the Ministry to mobilize in full. In the meantime, be
comforted in knowing that there are those within the Ministry who are working
diligentlyand, unfortunately, secretlyto uncover the truth of the matter."
Harry didn't look particularly happy, but let the matter rest.
"I have a question, Headmaster," Ron interjected. "How did You-Know-Who get to
be on the back of another bloke's head?"
"Unicorn's blood," Dumbledore said sadly. "It can be used to prolong one's life
almost indefinitely, but at the cost of being doomed to living an unnatural
half-life."
"Unnatural is bloody right," Ron muttered. "Er, sorry Professor."
"Not to worry," the Professor said, "I was momentarily distracted by a
delightful passing bluebird, and seem to have missed everything you said just
then."
"Er. Right."
"So," Harry said slowly, "Is he gone, then? Voldemort?"
"I'm afraid not," Dumbledore said gravely. "I don't know if it will be a year or
ten, but I can be certain that he will return."
"How could you know?" Milo asked. "There's no telling the crazy results when our
forms of magic interact. Mind, he's obviously not goneit's the only thing that
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makes sense, he has to be the final boss, and this was hardly finalbut still.
By you people's standards of logic, the Amulet may well have finished him off."
"While that may be a possibility," Dumbledore admitted, "Harbouring it would
reduce our vigilance for his return. In general, I have found that, when it
comes to dealing with Voldemort, it is best to hope for the best, prepare for
the worst, and, when it comes to it, expect even worse."
"But"
"Also, young Milo, I have access to certain sources that you do not."
"Fair enough," Milo admitted. "Now, what happens to the Defence Professor?"
"That depends," Dumbledore admitted. "I will have to talk to him when he awakes.
The question to determine is to what amount he was a willing supporter of
Voldemort, and what amount he was a slave. Based on your stories, it appears
that he deliberately took action to expel Voldemort's spirit from his body,
which implies it was some of the former. I can scarcely imagine living a life
such as that."
"Oh?" Harry asked, curious.
"To my limited understanding of the process, Professor Quirrell's resident, so
to speak, had the power to read the Professor's mind directly. Any plan that
Professor Quirrell developed could be immediately detected by Voldemort, who
couldand, knowing him, wouldpunish his servant severely."
"Are you suggesting that Quirrell had to develop and execute his plan without,
at any step along the way, consciously thinking about it?" Milo asked
incredulously.
"Is that even possible?" Hermione was stunned.
"I will need to speak to him to be certain, but it would appear to be so,"
Dumbledore responded. "It is entirely possible that he set up the entire chain
of events that led to him getting his hands on Milo's amulet deliberately. Or,
perhaps more likely, he seized on the opportunity provided by his master's
distracted state, caused by the brave young Mister Potter here. Whatever the
case, it still remains to be determined whether or not he was, well..."
"...Evil?" Harry suggested.
"In essence. If so, I shall turn him over to the Ministry without delay. But if
not... I might consider offering him a teaching position. There is, however, one
thing I can say for certain."
"And what's that?" Milo asked.
"Come next term, he will no longer be the Defence Professor."
"How do you know?" Hermione asked.
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"Call it an old man's intuition," Dumbledore smiled.
"I have a question, Professor," Hermione said. "What will you do with the
Philosopher's Stone now? And, for that matterwhere is it?"
"Ah," Dumbledore said with a mischievous grin. "It was in the Mirror all along.
However, I had bewitched it only to give it to someone who wanted the Stonebut
not to use it."
"So he was right!" Milo exclaimed. "You had set the Mirror up as some kind of
elaborate test of character!"
"And I failed?" Harry asked. "Wait..." he looked at the Headmaster for a second,
then suddenly laughed. "He sabotaged himself!"
"Excuse me?" Hermione asked.
"He guessed it was a test of character, but he told me that he needed the Stone
to save Milo," Harry explained. "So..."
"So you wanted to use it," Milo said, grinning. "You were desperate to."
"Indeed," Dumbledore said. "And as for the Stone... it is not fully my decision
to make. I'll send word to Nicolas Flamel, and together we will decide what is
best. However, I think that, for now, it would be best if you all went to see
Poppy in the Hospital Wing." As they all turned to leave, he added, "Except for
you, Mister Amastacia-Liadon."
Milo sat down as the others left, feeling somewhat concerned. "What's up?" he
asked.
"I believe it has come time for us to discuss what to do about you."
"Oh?" Milo asked apprehensively.
"Well, the simple fact of the matter is that, forgive me, you don't fully fit in
here," Dumbledore said, "your form of magic being all but completely
incompatible with that which is taught in this school. I can think of any number
of wizarding families that would be happy to have you stay with them until such
a time as we can figure how to return you to your home."
"Are... are you kicking me out?" Milo was floored. Sure, the magic was
differentand he was failing Transfiguration and Potionsbut he'd never imagined
that he'd be thrown out like this. "Because, quite frankly Professor, you're
mistaken."
"Oh? On which issue?"
"Hogwarts is my home," Milo said firmly. "And I've never felt that way about
anywhere else."
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"Very well," Dumbledore said slowly. "I must confess, I had thought you wanted
nothing more than to leave. But, seeing as that is not the case, you might want
to look to your studies. Minerva is your Head of House, and she is well within
her power to expel you for your grades, which, I am told, are somewhat less than
doughty."
"But I'm doing my best!" Milo protested. "I can't actually do your magic! How am
I supposed to pass?"
"You seem to have managed in at least four courses," Dumbledore pointed out.
"Two of which have no magic involved whatsoever," Milo countered, "and in
Charms, I just got lucky. One of my spells is similar to the Hovering Charm,
which is basically the only actual spell Flitwick taught us. The rest was
theory. Thank the gods above and below that he didn't ask me to Hover anything
sideways, or I'd have been up the Styx without a paddle." Levitate could only
move things vertically.
"I understand, dear boy, I dobut I'm not, quite frankly, certain what I can do
about it. You see, currently, I am the only member of the faculty aware of the
nature of your powersthough Minerva knows some of it, and Poppy is developing
suspicions that you are, in fact, an 'Eldritch Horror from Beyond Time Come to
Sow Destruction.' I could inform them, but it would come at the risk of letting
your secret get out to the wider world."
"I see the problem," Milo said reluctantly. "I mightmightbe able to fake my
way through Transfiguration." He'd need a week to plan at least, and likely a
month of spell research. "The other courses are, so far, not much
problemthough, I suspect, at higher levels DADA will become less theory and
more application, in which case I will be in trouble. But, in Potions, there's
nothing I can do." Even if he took the suboptimal Brew Potion feat, he could
still only make his kindthat is to say, ArcanePotions, which were very
specific in their nature, effect, and brewing process.
"Then there is, happily, no problem," Dumbledore said broadly. "Graduation with
a T in Potions is perfectly acceptable, though not, of course, strictly
encouraged. In fact, I can pass word around that you were strongly traumatized
from a young age by certain potions, and, as a result, have a severe
psychological handicap to overcome. It might make things somewhat easier for
you."
"You wouldn't even be lying," Milo added happily. "I'm severely traumatized by
Potions every time I go into Snape's classroom."
"Very well, I believe this matter is settled," Dumbledore said with a glint in
his eye. Milo was reminded once more that he was speaking to someone
considerably wilier than himself, and wondered whether or not this had been the
intended outcome of the conversation. "Now, I have just one more question for
you," Dumbledore said slowly.
"Yes, Professor?"
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"What was your mother's name?"
"Ley Amastacia."
answered without
dropped. "Pelor,
said it, he knew
face.
The question caught him completely by surprise, and Milo

thinking. He stared at Dumbledore for a moment before the knut
Nerull and Kord!" he exclaimed. "My backstory!" The moment he
that his mother's name was Ley, and could almost picture her
Dumbledore simply smiled. "I think, if you move alacritously, you may be able to
catch your friends before they reach the hospital wing. If you do see them,
could you tell them that all four of you earned fifty house points each? Ohand,
if you could ask Harry to come visit sometime this evening, it would be much
appreciated."
"Th-thank you, Professor," Milo stammered. He was still too surprised by his
sudden discovery to fully process what was going on. His backstory was working
againbut it seemed somewhat different from before. Back then, the answers
simply appeared as necessary, but now... it was as if Milo had been the one to
will them into existence. This warranted further thought and experimentationbut
for now, he would just enjoy what had happened. He had to level up, sooner or
later he'd have to deal with the consequences of beating Malfoy and his mooks
senseless, and figure out a plan to turn a matchstick into a pin, but that could
(hopefully) be done another day.
As Milo turned the doorknob, Dumbledore spoke once more.
"Ohand Milo? I'm proud of you."
ooooooo
Author's Notes: Fear not! Harry Potter and the Natural 20 is not over yet! Next
week's chapter will be mini-epilogues (a couple of largely disjointed short
stories covering a few things left to wrap up) which will then be followed by
year two, maybe after a week or two of planning, Harry Potter and the Confirmed
Critical. For simplicity's sake, as far as Fanfiction is concerned they'll be
the same fic (The first chapter of book two will be Chapter 34 of Harry Potter
and the Natural 20). That way, you don't need to worry about finding and
subscribing to a new fic.
Epilogue
Author's Notes: Sorry for the lateness (as usual). Term ends tomorrow, and then
there's exams, but after that I'll have a lot more time to make sure updates are
regular-ish, like last Spring/Summer.
In other news, my fic so far (including the two omakes, but not the author's
notes) clocks in at 265 pages, font-size 11, single-spaced. It's roughly double
Page 386

the length of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
In other other news, the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Confirmed
Critical will likely be ready in two weeks. Maybe three. I want to plan ahead a
little bit more in advance this time.
In other other other news, Less Wrong gave an extremely favourable review of
Harry Potter and the Natural 20 on his website ( /notes/progress-13-04-01/),
which I am strongly considering framing.
Milo does some fairly obscure and convoluted, but not particularly plot-relevant
munchkinry in this chapter. I glossed over it in the prose, but, if you're
interested, the details can be seen at the end of the epilogue.
ooooooo
Epilogue One: Rebuilding
"Honestly, Milo, you should be revising for History of Magic," Hermione chided
as Milo stumbled into the Great Hall for breakfast. The exam was less than a
fortnight away, but he'd hardly even glanced at his notes. The Hall was full of
students, with the usual comforting white noise of hundreds of conversations
going on in the background. For a time, the only topic of conversation was
Professor Quirrell's sudden absence, which continued well after Dumbledore's
announcement that he had suffered a nervous breakdown and was recuperating at
St. Mungo'swhich, as far as Milo could tell, was true. Dumbledore had been as
close-mouthed and mysterious about it as he was about everything, however.
Eventually, the Hogwarts students had found other topics to amuse
themselvesQuidditch (Gryffindor had surprised everyone as the clear leader,
with Ravenclaw and Slytherin competing neck-to-neck for second), the upcoming
exams, Fred and George's latest hijinks (Hogwarts had awoken to find one of the
legs of every chair in every classroom was shortened by a quarter of an inch;
nobody could figure out how they'd done it), various Ministry scandals, the
illustrious deeds of Gilderoy Lockhart, and, most recently, the death of some
Death Eater bigshot at Azkaban. In short, as far as Milo was concerned, nothing
of relevance.
"No time," Milo said sleepily. "It's almost done." He'd barely slept for weeks.
There was too much to do: spell research, item crafting, andmost recentlya
major feat of munchkinry. He'd discovered that there simply wasn't enough time
in a day to do everything that had to be done, and that the only way for him to
carry on without keeling over dead was with some magical assistance by way of a
Dedicated Wright. These creatures, a form of Homunculus, were cat-sized magical
automata created by spellcasters to help them craft items, both magical and
mundane. Milo still had to provide the spells, and raw materials worth half the
value of the finished product, but the Wright would do the actual crafting. This
would free up eight hours a day from Milo's packed schedule for frivolous
luxuries, such as sleep and adventuring. However, Milo lacked some of the
prerequisites for creating the Wright, and so had to, through convoluted means,
retrain a number of his class levels to Artificer from Wizard, then back again.
While he was at it, he made a few modifications to his current build. Many of
his abilities had been chosen under duress and with very specific needs in
Page 387

mindneeds that no longer existedand he was in dire need of some streamlining.
"What is?" Neville asked, pouring an (un)healthy amount of salt onto his dinner.
He seemed distracted, even by his usual standards.
"Careful with that!" Milo said. "Do you have any idea what that's worth?"
Neville stared at him blankly, utter incomprehension evident on his round face.
"Uh... sorry? What what's worth?"
"The salt! It's worth its weight in silver!" Milo was aghast that anyone would
just pour it onto their food like some sort of condiment.
"I'm pretty sure you're wrong about that," Neville said, giving him a look that
Hogwarts students reserved for Milo when he exclaimed 'Natural Twenty!' after a
Chaser made a particularly impressive goal. "Salt's just... well, it's salt. You
can get it anywhere, it's on everything, they give it out for free in tiny paper
packages at restaurants. It's salt."
"Wait, you're serious?" Milo asked. "They just give it away?"
"'Course. It's just salt."
Milo blinked. Crafting magic items required a specific value of unspecified
materials, so, really, anything valuable could work as long as Milo 'used it up'
in the production of his gear. However, this price was measured as a gold piece
value, not a galleon or Muggle currency value. Salt had a fixed price of five
gold pieces per pound as far as his magic was concerned, but if the local
conditions meant that he could get it for a small fraction of that...
"Ha...ha...MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
ooooooo
Epilogue Two: Charms Final
"Abbot, Hannah!" Flitwick called from the front of the room. Hannah shot Milo,
Harry, Ron, and Hermione a nervous look and walked to the front of the room,
wand clenched with white knuckles. Harry and Ron, on Milo's left, looked
somewhat pale and shaky, while Hermione, on his right, was rocking back and
forth in her chair, her mouth moving soundlessly at a tremendous speed.
Of them, only Milo was unconcerned. Pretty much the only spell that they'd
actually learned in Charms was the Hover Charm, which was, fortunately, one of
the few spells that he could actually mimic. More or less. More pressing was the
debate of which, if any, prestige classes Milo should adopt.
Up at the front of the room, Hannah stuttered slightly but managed, in the end,
to lift the heavy textbook from the desk and hover it in the air for a few
seconds before lowering it to the table. Flitwick, at the front, looked pleased,
and Hannah scurried off through one of the side doors. Milo hardly noticed.
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Paragnostic Apostle has dead easy requirements, Milo mused, but the benefits are
so-so.
"Amastacia-Liadon, Milo!"
I'd have to be a member of the 'Paragnostic Assembly,' which doesn't exist
hereor back in Azel, for that matterbut, when it comes down to it, I could
probably just paint a sign on the door of my dorm that says 'WELCOME TO THE
PARAGNOSTIC ASSEMBLY, NEW MEMBERS WELCOME' and ordain Mordy as the 'Exalted
Philosopher of Paragnostic Truths'... fluff requirements are so irritating...
"Er... Milo?"
Master Specialist isn't bad, but the benefits don't really help me all that
much. Besides, it takes Spell Focus (Conjuration). Milo had been planning to
swap that out. The locals almost never failed to fail a save as it stoodit was
almost as if they didn't even have Will save bonuses!
Flitwick coughed expectantly.
"Oh, right!" Milo said absentmindedly, and tried to walk out of the aisle of
students.
I might just stay as a full Wizard, then, Milo decided. Mordy would chew me out
if I dipped into a PrC that didn't advance Familiars, anyway. He could swap some
of his bonus feats for the Domain Granted Power ability.
"Just hover the textbook," Flitwick urged gently.
"Sure, yeah, whatever." Milo lazily drew his wand and waved it around
more-or-less at random. Not that the feats wouldn't come in handy, what with all
the item crafting I've been doing. He still couldn't believe that he was
willingly sacrificing his experience points for anything. "Wing Guardian
Levitate-iosa," he said.
With all the close-quarters combat that's been happening, maybe I should take
some levels of Eldritch Knight...
Milo fought down a chuckle. Theoretically, Eldritch Knight only held back
spellcasting by one levelnot including the level in a martial class needed to
meet the prerequisites. However, this remained strictly in the hypothetical, as
nobody had yet taken two levels in Eldritch Knight and lived to talk about it.
The last adventurer who came close was slain by a kitten in a fair fight.
"That," Flitwick said sternly, "was the worst Hover Charm I have ever seen. Your
wandworkand footwork!was sloppy in the extreme. Your incantation was
thoroughly botched, and...and...put me down this instant!"
On the other hand... there really has been a lot of fighting. He'd have to see
if there were any magic items he could make, or spells to research, to increase
his combat skills without sacrificing magic.
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"Right, sorry," Milo said, and dismissed Levitate. Professor Flitwick, who Milo
had inadvertently lifted eight feet off the ground, fell with a crash. The
textbook remained on the table, completely unmoved.
"In all my years teaching at Hogwarts, I've only twice seen such... such..."
Milo winced as Flitwick drew himself up to his full (but still tiny) height,
brushing dust off of his shoulders. "such an audacious display of magic from a
first year student at Hogwarts!" Flitwick stretched up to Milo's ear and
whispered in a conspiratorial manner, "I shouldn't be surprised, if I were you,
to find that you'd received an Outstanding mark, if you catch my drift."
ooooooo
For those interested, here's how Milo made the Dedicated Wright (ECS 285):
The Dedicated Wright requires five things to create: the Craft Construct feat,
Arcane Eye, Fabricate, a DC 14 Craft (Pottery) check, and a body composed of
"clay, glazed with a mixture of arcane unguents and the creator's blood, and
fired in a kiln."
The Craft (Pottery) check was easy, seeing as how it was DC 14 and Milo already
possesses a +6 modifier to Craft from Intelligence (not even including a bonus
from tools and the various spells he could have used)
The materials for the body are easy: much of anything found at Hogwarts and
Diagon Alley can count as "arcane unguents." Milo used powdered mistletoe berry,
belladonna, and garlic, with the reasoning that there was no reason why his
Homunculus shouldn't be a remedy for Lycanthropy, a Divine Spell Focus for
Druids, and immune to vampires. To make up the 100 gp cost requirement, he used
Craft (Engraving) to carve a the homunculus into a work of art, resembling tiny
little dwarf with the eye of Boccob on his forehead (incidentally making the
Homunculus into a holy symboljust in case). The Wright is, obviously, riddled
in invisible Arcane Marks.
The tricky bit comes from the Craft Construct feat and Fabricate. The only way
to get around this is retraining. Using the Philosopher's Stone dungeon as his
Rebuild quest (see PHBII, 197-199), Milo swaps out his 7 of his 8 Wizard levels
for Artificer. However, each dungeon run only allows him to swap 1/5 of his
levels, so he simply goes back to Fluffy's room and does it again three times.
He needs one level of WizardI'm not sure what would happen to Mordenkainen if
Milo ceased being a Wizard altogether, and neither is Milo. Nothing good, to be
sure. Completing the dungeon run again is no problem, as he knows which potion
to drink, knows the weakness of the Devil's Snare, and can use the same set of
moves as Ron did to beat the chess game every time.
As an Artificer, Milo can craft magic items without knowing the requisite
spells. Fabricate is a mere third-level spell for the Trapsmith class (from
Dungeonscape), so it can be easily copied. Arcane Eye, likewise.
Milo can likewise retrain one of his feats for Craft Construct
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After the Wright is finished, Milo can rebuild his character back to Wizard.
This all has to be finished in a short timeframe, as the Philosopher's Stone run
will presumably be dismantled and lose its dungeon-status after the Stone is
moved.
CC 1: Dynamic Entry
Author's Notes: Well, here it is, as promisedthe sequel. Here's Milo's latest
character sheet: ?sheetid=553596
However, Milo's build is undergoing some substantial behind-the-scenes
modifications, and it's not quite done yet. Nothing mentioned in the chapter
will be altered, but his stats, feats, spells, and gear are subject to change
without warning. I decided it would be ridiculous to hold back the next chapter
after I'd finished writing it just because I hadn't finished picking spells and
sorting through Milo's skills. Also, for those of you wondering about Milo's
choice of PrC, I have one answer to you: text trumps table. I couldn't believe
it either.
Chapter One: Dynamic Entry
"Gah!" Milo said, the sphere growing to reach his neck. "What did youhow didI
won Initiative, damnit! This isn't fair!"
Wellby watched, horrified, as a sphere of darkness flickering with green
lightning spread to envelop his young companion. What in Yondolla's cornucopia
was that? Ironically, Milo was the only one in the party with any significant
ranks in Spellcraft but he was far too busy being swallowed by the mysterious
void to identify the unknown spell. As a Rogue, Wellby had far more important
things to do with his Skill Ranks, plentiful as they were.
"You... you... " Wellby was speechless. Sure, sometimes PCs were killedor
worseby villains, but... in the surprise round? That broke the code.
"No, I didn't" Thamior the Thaumaturge protested, backing away in fear from the
ball of darkness. Milo was now nowhere to be seen.
Wellby glanced at Gerard, their heavily armed-and-armoured Fighter, who nodded
silently.
"Have at thee, thou villain!" Gerard shouted, brandishing his greatsword, and
charged Thamior, who still seemed too surpriseda careful act, no doubtto act.
If Gerard could land the swing, the fight would be effectively over. At third
level, there were few forces more feared than an 18 Strength, Power Attacking
Fighter armed with a Masterwork Greatsword making an unimpeded chargeespecially
to a target as squishy as Thamior, who, despite his title, seemed to be a
Wizard.
Page 391

Mid-swing, a brilliant green flash temporarily blinded Wellby, who was setting
himself up for a flank attack behind Thamior. If by poor rolls or unexpected
circumstance modifiers Gerard failed to finish off the Wizard that killed Milo,
Wellby would be perfectly positioned to make a Sneak Attack with each of his
swords for, frankly, ludicrous damage.
When Wellby's vision returned, Gerard lay on the ground, unmoving. A quick Spot
check confirmed the worst: somehow, on his own turn, Gerard was killed.
"Save-or-Die!" Zook, their gnome Cleric, shouted from the back of the room.
Wellby went cold with fear. The majority of instant death spells out there, to
his knowledge, targeted Fortitude, which was Gerard's highest save. If he
couldn't make the DC, Wellby wouldn't have a lantern archon's chance in Ba'ator
if he were hit as well.
Thamior, evidently making a similar conclusion, stepped back and raised a
black-gloved hand. "Dark Way!" he shouted. Thamior had used this spell before.
Dark Way was supposedly invented for bridging gaps, but the unbreakable magical
bridge saw far more use employed as an ad hoc wall. A night-black, steeply
slanted wall of magic appeared between Thamior and the dark sphere, which had
finally stopped growing, with a diameter around seven feet across. Though thin,
the wall was impenetrable to anyone without about a tonne of weight to drop on
it or the ability to cast Dispel Magic.
Wellby dived behind the body of his fallen comrade, Gerard, and put his massive
Hide bonus to good usehis high Dexterity, skill ranks, and Halfling size bonus
made him all but invisible. "Nightshield," he heard Zook cast across the room.
Wellby's position prevented him from being able to see his Cleric companion, but
he had a clear view of Thamior, who appeared to be focussing his attention on
the dark sphere.
"Avada Kedavra!" Another green flash appeared. Wellby clearly saw a green bolt
of magic fly through the Dark Way wallimpossible as that wasand collide with
Thamior in the chest. Their recurring villain slumped to the floor, landing with
a soft thud. He was facing Wellby, who was presented with a clear view of his
blank, dead eyes.
Wellby dropped his swords and began throwing daggers into the void as quickly as
he couldwhich, for a Two-Weapon-Fighting Rogue, is pretty quick. He didn't know
what lay at the centre of the thing, but enough Sneak Attack-augmented daggers
would kill most anythingexcept for Undead, Constructs, Oozes, Plants,
Elementals...
"Protego." A pair of daggers collided with a solid, invisible obstacle and fell
to the ground.
Abruptly, the sphere vanished, revealing, not as Wellby has assumed, an eldritch
Abomination from the Far Lands, but a woman. Her long, wild black hair was
tangled about her head, and her ragged black robes hung loosely on her emaciated
frame. Wherever she'd come from, it hadn't treated her well. She held a slender
walnut wand just over a foot long loosely in her right hand, twirling it about
Page 392
idly. Wellby
heavy-lidded
dull boredom
bloodlust he

attempted a Sense Motive, and immediately regretted it. Her
eyes seemed to flash between emotions seemingly at random, with
being replaced by excitement, rage, sadness, and a degree of
usually associated with Barbarians without any apparent impetus.
"Avada Kedavra." There was another brilliant flash, and Wellby heard a heavy
metal-on-stone clank. He didn't have to be able to see Zook to know what had
happened.
A primary caster with the ability to spam high-DC Save-or-Die spells? Wellby
thought rapidly. Two options: either she's well beyond our ECL, or she's
min-maxed to the Outer Planes and back. If so, she probably doesn't have the Hit
Points or Base Attack Bonus to back up that kind of magic. Either option
shattered conventionNPCs were not traditionally optimized, and it was
practically unheard-of for one high enough level to cast that many death spells
in a day to interfere with a third-level party. Either way, Wellby's best chance
lay in closing the distance and engaging in melee. He might be able to break her
concentration with Attacks of Opportunitymaybe. If he could last a few rounds,
he mightmightbe able to finish her off. Gerard could likely do it, but without
surprise or an ally to flank with, Wellby was unable to Sneak Attack, making him
barely more powerful than a caster of his level.
Nothing for it. Wellby eased his twin swords out of their sheathes, took a deep
breath, and leapt out from over Gerard's body. The woman let out a mad scream of
laughter, simultaneously condescending and contemptuous.
"Imperio."
oooo
Eleven months later, Milo lay on his back in the grass outside the Burrow
enjoying a cool breeze. His modified Hogwarts uniform could protect him from the
heat of a burning building, meaning that even the normally-blistering July heat
passed him by completely. Mordy, Milo's rat familiar, was putting his modest
swim speed to good use splashing about in a nearby pond. A few of the Weasley's
resident gnomes had thought Mordy might make a decent light brunch a few days
before. The familiar remained evasive as to what, exactly, went down, but nobody
had seen nor heard from the gnomesor any gnome, for that mattersince.
Without a home to return to, Milo had tried to convince Dumbledore to allow him
to stay at Hogwarts over the summer. In addition to the obvious perksfree food
and solid stone wallsit would give him ample time to explore and discover some
of the castle's secrets before his next adventure. Also, though Milo was
somewhat hesitant to admit it even to himself, he'd been increasingly thinking
of the school as his new home. He must have failed his Diplomacy check pretty
severely, because the normally lenient Headmaster put his foot down. Apparently,
it was standard procedure to refuse students' requests to stay over the summer,
as Harry had also been sent home. Milo tried not to feel bitter about the whole
matter and make the most of his between-adventure downtime. Right now, though it
didn't look like it, Milo was actually (in a manner of speaking) hard at work
crafting magical gear.
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In a relatively unused part of the Burrow's grounds, Cog was putting the
finishing touches on an Anklet of Translocation. The Dedicated Wright was, with
the single-minded focus only found in Constructs and undergrads during finals,
busy grinding salt next to his miniature forge. The tiny clay automaton was
tasked with creating Milo's magic items eight hours every day, and spending the
other sixteen hammering out mastercraft-quality mundane equipment. By the forge
was a veritable mountain of road salt, purchased with British pounds from
Gringotts. Despite the fact that the Gringotts exchange rate appeared to have
been last updated in 1867, Milo was still getting an enormously superior amount
of gold piece value this way than using Harry's galleons and sickles directly.
He had to get Hermione to handle the Muggle end of the business (Muggles were
clueless as to why they were paid to dump tonnes of salt at the end of a
seemingly abandoned road), but for 3 pounds sterling and some change per 10
kilos of road salt (Milo still couldn't believe that they poured the stuff on
their roads in winter when it would be vastly cheaper to animate an army of
skeletons to shovel snow manually), Milo was making 110 gp. Considering that
Gringotts offered 5 pounds per galleon and that a galleon weighed in at around 6
and a third gp, Milo was using his borrowed money approximately 3000% more
efficiently than last year. He drooled a little at the thought. And that was
just the beginning. Hermione seemed to think that the exchange rate offered by
Gringotts was deeply exploitative, and was, according to a recent owl letter,
currently investigating the value of the precious metal weight of wizarding
currency in pounds sterling and the possibility of bypassing the goblin bank
altogether. This baffled Milo (and Mister Weasley, an expert in the field of all
things Muggle-related), who grew up in a world where the value of currency was
the weight of the metals it was stamped from. Assuming Milo maintained his rate
of experience-point gathering next year, it wouldpossiblybecome viable for him
to start selling his world's magic items to local wizards (in extremely limited
quantities, of course). He'd had Cog crank out a few Amulets of Protection from
Evil for that very purpose.
As Milo lay thinking about all the money he was saving and the exorbitant rates
he could charge for a simple charm that would provide 100% protection against
the (debatably) second-most feared curse in this world and idly watching the
Weasley kids play Quidditch, he realized something disconcerting.
He was bored.
Milo had been bored in the pastoccasionally. It was a rare occurrence, and
nothing particularly concerning on its own. More worryingly, however, was that
at some point he'd dropped out of a timeskip. Milo's awareness of the weather
confirmed it. There were only two reasons for such an occurrence: flavour and
drama. Were the first option the case, the timeskip immediately would have
resumed after some humorous or character-establishing moment, followed by
anothersay, at dinner, where the NPCs would discuss foreshadowing. But Milo was
still experiencing time at a one-to-one ratio, barring this from being the case.
Something was awry.
He glanced at Fred, George, Ron, and Ginny in the sky on their broomsticks.
Ginny, as usual, had the Quaffle (confusingly, the term for this appeared to be
'in possession,' a phrase that made Milo itch to cast Protection from Evil)
Page 394

while Ron was desperately trying to defend the yew trees they were using as a
stand-in for hoops. In short, everything seemed to check out. Milo pinched his
own right thigha prearranged signal to Mordy via empathic bond meaning
'possible danger, cause unknown'and, with an exaggerated false yawn, got to his
feet. His familiar, meanwhile, hopped out of the water and into the
once-gnome-infested tall grass to scout.
Milo fought down his recently-acquired instinct to reach for a weaponhis new
Lesser Crystal of Return, which allowed him to draw one in the blink of an eye
made that unnecessaryand, trying to watch everything simultaneously, entered
the Burrow itself. Mordy would be most effective checking the grounds, but in
the house, his Scent ability would be hindered by the aroma of Molly Weasley's
famed home cooking.
"Detect Thoughts," Milo muttered under his breath. Of all the different
Divination spells to detect another creature's presence, this one had proven the
most reliable so far. Ironically, See Invisibility was only effective on Harry's
Invisibility Cloak, as it was the only local magic he'd yet seen capable of
rendering its wearer perfectly invisible. While there were dozens of ways of
concealing one's appearance, preventing oneself from thinking altogether was
much more difficultalthough, like everything else, even Detect Thoughts could
be fooled. Milo was all too aware of the unpredictable nature of the
interactions between his magic and the denizens of this world.
His Divination registered one sapient mind, though that did not rule out
creatures of animal-level intelligence, or creatures immune to mind-affecting
spells. As he walked through the living room towards the kitchen, he activated
the Augment Crystal. Out of one of the pockets of his Belt of Hidden Pouches
flew a sword into Milo's ready hand.
As you may have surmised, Milo being an adventurerand a PC on topthis was no
ordinary sword. Adventurers after a certain level, regardless of class, are
never content to simply write 'long sword' on their character sheets and leave
it at that. This sword was magical. This sword was three feet long and shone
like a mirror. This sword was slender in much the same way that the hope of a
one-armed man hanging from a tuft of grass on the edge of a cliff was slender.
This sword had a twisted, gold-decorated basket hilt wrapped around a crystal
the colour of a cloudless sky. Four purple glass eyes of Boccob encircled the
pommel, each facing in a different direction. Sometimes, in the flickering light
of a dying candle or summer rain, it almost seemed as if they were watching
youwhich was perfectly sensible, because that's exactly what they were doing.
This sword was, for the technically inclined, a +1 Elven Thinblade of Warning,
and it was never meant to be used. As long as Milo held it, he was granted a +5
bonus to Initiative that stacked with Nerveskitter and Improved Initiative. Milo
had realized that, despite his best efforts, he frequently found himself thrown
directly into the fray without bigger, stronger allies to cover him. He'd also
realized that, despite being pathetic by the standards he was accustomed to,
he'd somehow become superior to most wanded wizards in melee combat. So he'd
adapted, and made the sword before retraining Craft Magic Arms and Armour out
for Uncanny Forethought. He was still a Wizard through and through, and
therefore incalculably more useless in hand-to-hand than he was with magic, but
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he had absolutely no intention of being trounced by a Redcap again.
This sword was one-half of that intention made manifest. Nevertheless, it was
strictly a last resort, to be used primarily for its bonus to Initiative.
Milo carefully pushed open the door to the kitchen with his left hand and
listened.
Chop. Chop. Chop-chop-chop.
Images of a demon butcher, Weasley blood dripping down his already bloodstained
apron and wielding a bloodstained cleaver filled Milo's imagination.
"WAAAAAAAAGH!" he shouted, charging into the room.
"Oh!" Molly Weasley gasped in surprise, stepping back from the door and setting
down her kitchen knife. A small pile of chopped carrots lay on the table.
"Frightened me half to death! What did I tell you boys about playing indoors?
Especially with toys like thatyou could poke somebody's eye out!"
Milo groaned, and dismissed Detect Thoughts.
"Sorry, Miss Weasley," he said, feeling slightly ashamed. "It won't happen
again."
"Oh, I don't blame you, dear. I'm sure it was Fred or George that put you up to
it."
Milo felt his face heat up, and slowly tried to back his way out of the kitchen.
"I'll just be leaving, now"
"Don't think you'll get away that easily!" she scolded. Milo froze.
"I, er"
Milo had thought that his draw speed with his Crystal of Return was fast, but he
had nothing on Molly Weasley. In a flashalmost literallyhis weapon was on the
table, and there was a plate piled high with carrots, thick, buttered toast, and
potatoes. At first, he thought she'd used magicexcept that her wand lay on the
kitchen table beside his sword. As the stack of food rose to almost touch the
tip of his nose, she seemed apparently satisfied.
Somehow, Milo's thin builda symptom of his poor Strength and Constitution, as
well as how the dice rolled for his height and weight, something which he had no
control overmade Molly almost personally offended. The redheaded whirlwind of a
woman seemed to believe, somehow, that there was a correlation between eating
habits and weight (a fact consistently disproven by the Coastal Collegiate of
Theoretical Arcanists, Azel's main academic body that experimented with the laws
of the universe in order to update the Rules periodically for accuracy).
As Milo stumbled out of the kitchen, still slightly unsure of what, exactly,
Page 396

just happened, he became aware of just how hungry he was. Eating was still
something that was relatively new to himuntil fairly recently, he'd eaten the
required 'about a pound' of food per day from his Everlasting Rations and
ignored the matter entirely. It was not until he'd been practically forced to
eat a handful of Every-Flavoured Beans that he'd realized what he'd been
missing.
Milo sat down on the steps outside of the Burrow and began munching on his toast
while he waited for Mordy to return and report. Almost as an afterthought, he
activated the Crystal of Return once more, and the sword re-appeared in Milo's
hand in an instant. He'd had to pay extra for that featureit had come out to
almost 9 pounds worth of saltbut, knowing the universe's DM (Diabolical
Meddling), he figured it might come up. Knowing the way things went last year,
I'll probably end up hanging upside down in a Yeti's cave or something and out
of magic, with my sword lying on the floor just out of reach and horrible
growling growing ever louder...
Milo's experiences as a first year student had honed the paranoid instincts he'd
learned as an adventurer to a razor's edge.
Milo was contemplating casting a barrage of defensive spells when Mordy came
scurrying up to him.
"Nothing out there," his familiar said in their secret language. "Though, we
both know my scouting abilitiesand yours, without magicwill become
increasingly ineffective as our ECL increases. So, I didn't smell anything, but
that doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't an invisible Hezrou about to rip
your face off."
"Right," Milo said. Once again, he found himself missing his party, and
wondering what Wellby, Zook, and Gerard were up toespecially Wellby, who had
the highest Spot and Listen modifiers. Scouting was usually his job. On the
other hand, maybe there really was nothing wrong. Maybe the entire encounter
with Molly was simply for flavour (Milo resisted making a pun involving the
deliciousness of the homemade toast he was munching onbarely).
But... it felt wrong. If that were the case, why was he still here, thinking
about it? The timeskip should have resumed.
Setting his plate aside, Milo strode over to the makeshift Quidditch pitch.
"Oi!" he shouted up at the players.
"What's up?" Ron shouted back down, from atop his broomstick. Ginny, seizing the
opportunity provided by his momentary distraction, scored a goal.
"Something's awry! Get down here." One by one, Ron, his younger sister, and the
twins descended to the grass.
"What's going on?" Ron asked. "And what's with the sword?"
"I've got a bad feeling," Milo admitted. "It's hard to explainbut before you
Page 397

ask, yes, it's reliable."
"Nah, I wasn't going to," Ron shrugged. "You've got me confused with Hermione.
Can you get any specifics?"
"It's sort of vague, but..." Milo struggled to come up with words to explain his
position. "You see, from where I'm from, people sometimes get a... sense... that
something significant is about to happen."
"And you're getting it right now?" Fred asked.
"Yeah. Only, it doesn't look like anything that important is happening."
"I dunno about that," Ginny said. "Me and George were stomping those two by
eight-nothing."
Ron coloured slightly. "I think," he said, "that we should try to focus on the
matter at hand. So you think there's something 'significant' happening to you?"
"Yeah, see" Milo paused. No, it didn't mean something significant was happening
to him. Now that he thought about it, time could slow in this manner if anyone
in the party was in an encounter. And the party was split halfway across the
country... "It could also be Harry or Hermione."
"You don't think"
"Yeah. I do." Harry was the obvious first choice, being the PC with the most
connection to the main plotand the one that Voldemort's goons had the most
incentive to target. Any old Death Eater or Death Eater-wannabe could score
major points with the Dark Lord by bagging the Boy-Who-Lived. "I think Harry's
in danger."
"Right," George said. "I'll get the car, and"
"Ginny," Fred continued seamlessly, "you"
"Run interference," Ginny said, rolling her eyes. "Got it. I'll tell mum you lot
are chasing gnomes, trying to test out Lockhart's new, 'improved' methods." Milo
didn't think he'd ever heard anyone pour quite so much sarcasm into a single
word before.
"Wait, Georgea carriage or chariot?" Milo asked. He couldn't see how either of
those would help very muchsurely, broomstick travel would be faster, especially
in the hilly terrain.
"Oh, you'll see," George winked, striding off to an old shed.
oooo
"Boccob, Lord of All Magic, Archmage of the Gods, hear my prayer and reach Your
Uncaring hand from the Concordant Domain of the Outlands and save Your faithful
servant" Milo muttered frantically, hanging on for dear life in the back of the
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Ford Anglia as it soared with the grace of a cinderblock across Great Britain.
While he knew, rationally speaking, that this death trap was held up by
magiceven if he couldn't detect itit was beyond unnerving. Further, he knew
that if he fell out, he could simply Feather Fall or Fly to the surface safely.
It was, however, somewhat more difficult to convince his hindbrain that he was
perfectly safe being held up in the sky by what appeared to be a non-magical
horseless carriagethat he couldn't see. He couldn't even see his own hands. For
the sake of science, however, Milo knew what he must do. There was, really, only
one option.
"Detect Invisibility," he muttered, managing to scrape past the Concentration
DCbarely. Nothing happened, however. Another point for their magic, he thought
sourly, and dismissed the spell.
"Where'd he go?" George, who was driving, asked suddenly, causing Milo to dive
into another bout of prayer. Not, of course, that he really expected Boccob to
do anythingdeities tended to act through their Clerics, Paladins, and Favoured
Souls (of which, Boccob had none, save for the occasional Mystic Theurge. They
didn't call him the 'Uncaring One' for nothing). It just seemed vaguely
appropriate to Milo, who was still new to this whole 'roleplaying' thing.
"Little to the left," Ron said over the roar of the engine.
Seeing as how none of them actually knew where Harry's house was, they'd, at
Ginny's suggestion, released their owl Errol with a letter addressed for Harry
and followed it. Wanded wizards' owl familiars, or whatever they were called,
seemed to have magically-enhanced locating skills. They could find just about
anyone, anywhere in the world.
The problem, of course, was that Errol and Scabbers were in many ways a matched
set. The elderly owl seemed to fall asleep occasionally mid-flight, plummeting
to the earth for a few seconds, before waking up and continuing his flight,
often mere inches from the roof of a house or the tip of a tree.
"Wait!" Fred said. "Is that the one?"
Errol had made a sudden divenot uncommon, but this one seemed slightly more
deliberate than the previous ones.
"Nah," George said, "Harry wouldn't be caught dead in a place like that."
Number Four, Privet Drive fell neatly into the uncanny valley of houses. Its
gardens were too perfectly laid-out, its grass too green, its whitewashed fence
too cleanit simply didn't look real. It was like an Illusion of a house cast by
someone who had only read about them. It was the abstract ideal of a house. It
had never been lived ineither literally or figuratively, Milo couldn't tell.
Anyone who did live in that house very clearly had no life at all worth speaking
of.
"It's the place," Ron said, and Milo was compelled to agree. Harry rarely spoke
of his adopted familythey were usually referred to as 'the Muggles,' who were
'horrible,' and left at that. But, the tiny amount of information Milo knew
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about Harry's life outside of Hogwarts fit this place to a T. Little Whinging,
Milo decided, is where souls come to die.
"Right," Milo said, pulling himself together with effort. This could be an
encounter, he reminded himself. The only fear you can feel is from a Fear
effect. "Everyone know their places?"
"I'll be round front, ready to drive the getaway car in case of emergency,"
George said.
"And I'll be with Ron, searching the upper storeys for Harry," Fred said.
"What about you?" Ron asked.
Milo smiled. "Dynamic entry."
oooo
"And you?" said Uncle Vernon viciously to Harry.
"I'll be in my room, making no noise and pretending I'm not there," he said.
"Too right you will," said Uncle Vernon forcefully. "The Masons don't know
anything about you and it's going to stay that way. When dinner's over, you take
Mrs Mason back to the lounge for coffee, Petunia, and I'll bring the subject
round to drills..."
Harry zoned out as Uncle Vernon went over the plan again. They'd been through
this seven times. While the Dursleys had locked up Hedwig, he was still
receiving occasional mail from the wizarding worldand could always send a
return letter using the same owl. The truth was, his bedroom was exactly where
he wanted to be. He had no desire whatsoever to meet the Masons, or to spend any
more time around the Dursleys than was strictly necessary. Who knows, if I'm
lucky, there could be a birthday letter from Ron in there, waiting for me. Post
from Hermione was more problematic, as she didn't have an owl and had to rely on
Muggle post. The Dursleys, who specialized in making Harry's life as miserable
as possible, threw any letters they could find addressed to him into the oven
(Uncle Vernon tried the fireplace first, before Aunt Petunia reminded him that
it was boarded up). Still, Harry managed to snatch the odd letter from her
before the Dursleys could burn them. Hermione had mitigated the problem somewhat
by sending each letter in triplicate on different days, increasing Harry's
chance to get at least one.
"They're here!" Dudley shouted in grotesque excitement from the window.
Harry didn't wait to be told off, and bolted up the stairs. The trouble he would
get in if the Masons learned of his existence would outweigh any fleeting
enjoyment he would feel for causing problems for them.
"May I take your coats, Mr and Mrs Mason?" Harry heard from the floor below as
he closed the door on his new bedroom behind him. The Dursleys had given him the
spare bedroom in the vain hope that Hogwarts' letters (which were addressed to
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'the Cupboard under the Stairs') would be unable to find him. Harry, who rather
enjoyed his upgraded quarters, had no intention of disabusing them of this
notion.
Harry's spirits fell somewhat as he noticed the distinct lack of cards and
presents by the window. He'd even left it open, with a small bowl of owl feed
nearby, for that very purpose.
It was then that he heard the crash.
oooo
Milo dived from the Anglia into the clouds. In midair, he readied an action.
He'd discovered from overhearing conversations between the Weasley's about
Quidditch that, in this plane of existence, people had a hard time hitting
moving targets for some reasonthe faster the target, the harder the shot. Milo
had no such restriction (in fact, it was significantly easier to hit a running
target), which did not stop him from exploiting this quirk of the local rules.
While falling, he adopted an aerodynamic posture to maximise his velocity.
As he came within an inch of the roof, his Readied Action triggered.
"Dimension Door." Milo's view of the Dursleys' roof was suddenly replaced by a
view of the Dursleys' tasteless dining room and Petunia's tasteless cooking.
Like all Teleportation spells, Dimension Door placed the target on the nearest
solid surface, in this case, the dining room table. Dimension Door, however,
does not modify the target's momentum.
"Feather Fall," Milo cast the instantliterallyhe re-appeared, sword in hand,
standing on the tablestill moving at terminal velocity. Feather Fall, contrary
to popular opinion, did more than simply slow a falling creature, because if it
did, the sudden deceleration would kill anyone targeted by it. In addition, it
explicitly made the target immune to falling damage. It is this effect that Milo
required. Milo appeared on the table loaded with an enormous amount of momentum,
but, thanks to Feather Fall, the sudden impact had no effect on him. The table,
not being a target of Feather Fall, had no such magical protection, and had to
deal with Milo's sudden change of velocity in a manner more in line with the
laws of physics, as if he had crashed into it at a high speed.
The table exploded the moment Milo's feet touched it, filling the room with
splinters, while Milonow immune to falling damage, thanks to Feather
Fallslowly floated down to touch the floor. Wizards one, physics zero, Milo
thought smugly amid the devastation.
Chunks of table and fine china had smashed through the Dursleys' front window,
shattering it and covering the floor with glass shards. Petunia threw herself
over Dudley protectively, knocking them both to the floor, while Vernon's chair
was knocked backwards. The Masons, who were sitting next to Vernon, were both
blasted to the floor as well.
Milo didn't really know, or much care, who these people were. He knew that Harry
was very probably in danger, and that any or all of the apparent Muggles
Page 401

surrounding him could be dark wizards in disguise, or, more likely, under the
effects of the Imperius curse.
"Right," Milo said authoritatively. "Where's Harry?"
CC 2: Nicked
Author's Notes: It appears that last chapter's Author's Notes got misplaced
before posting, somehow. Peculiar. Well, it's back up, with the link to the
character sheet. Milo's build still isn't quite finalized (mainly I just need to
pick a few more spells for Spell Mastery and clean up his skills) but that won't
affect the story noticeably. Enjoy!
Today's Character Sheet: myth-weavers com/sheetview php?sheetid=553596
Chapter Two: Nicked
"WHAT THE EFF IS GOING ON HERE?" Vernon roared, climbing to his feet and
brushing dust and crme brulee out of his impressive mustache. "WHO THE"
"Nope," Milo said, using his magically-enhanced fencing ability to slice off the
left half of Vernon's exceptional mustache.
"Who is this 'Harry?'" asked Mrs Mason, who seemed to be taking the situation
remarkably well, all things considered. "There's no Harry here; I'm afraid you
have the wrong house."
"Harry Potter," Milo clarified. Pelor, but these people are dim. "He does live
here, does he not?"
"He's... our nephew," Vernon said, glancing hesitantly at the Masons. "Left in
our care after his criminal parents died. He's very disturbed, but we do what we
can"
"So he is here," Milo grinned. "Now hand him over before things get ugly."
Vernon turned back to Milo and drew himself up to his full height, brushing
splinters from the shoulder of his ruined jacket. He seemed to be two completely
different people, depending on who he was talking toingratiating to the NPC
couple, brash and boisterous to Milo. Peculiar.
"Do I look like the sort of man who can be intimidated?" he asked, his face
growing even redder. Milo looked him up and down. Well, yesif I had ranks in
Intimidate. But, seeing as how I do not...
"I was thinking less 'intimidation' and more 'business arrangement.' You give me
Harry, and I give you a house."
Page 402

"Aa house?" Petunia perked up from the corner.
"Well, following the principle that a silver piece saved is a silver piece
earned, if I refrain from levelling this pitiful excuse for a house around you
with magic, you are, in effect, gaining a house."
Vernon seemed to be debating his optionson the one hand, he wanted nothing more
than a convenient excuse to be rid of his troublesome nephew, but on the other
hand, he didn't want to be seen backing down in front of his wife and son (and,
more importantly, potential business partners)while, in the corner, Mrs Mason
was fiddling with some sort of doodad on the wall. It didn't seem to be a weapon
or wand of any sort, so Milo ignored it. If one of the Muggles was a wizard in
disguise and did try a curse, Milo could always cast Greater Mirror Image. If
they pulled a dagger or sword, well... Milo would introduce them to the meaning
of 'Linear Fighter/Quadratic Wizard.'
He heard a muffled crash and what could possibly be voices from upstairs, though
it was hard to make out what they were saying. If everything went well, Ron and
Fred had found Harry upstairs and were ferrying him out the window to the
Anglia, which was parked out frontjust out of view of the remains of the
Dursleys' window. Milo only had to maintain his distraction for a little while
longer before bailing out. That meant he had to change the topic.
"So, Mr Derby," Milo said to Vernon in his most menacing voice, "I hear you've
been treating my friend Harry a mite... poorly."
"What?" Vernon exclaimed in exaggerated offence. "We give him three meals a day
and put a roof over his head! And what does he do"
"Saved your lot's measly lives, if I remember things correctly," Milo said.
"Defeated a dark wizard hells-bent on causing havoc for you Muggles."
"No, we're the Masons, not the Muggles," Mr Mason said. His eyes were
unfocussed, and he appeared to be in some form of shock.
"Now," Milo said in what he hoped was a tone of deadly quiet, "We're going to
talk about what you and your family can do to improve things for my friend
Harry..."
oooo
"I hesitate to ask," Harry said, passing Hedwig's cage carefully through the
open window to Ron, who was waiting on broomstick to take his luggage. "But is
there any chance that this was Milo's plan?"
"Yup," Ron said cheerfully. "But from what I've heard, it sounds like no more
than those Muggles deserve."
"Well... true," Harry agreed, pushing his school trunk out the window. He hadn't
bothered to unpack it after returning from Hogwarts. "Still, I can't help but
think this plan will end in disaster."
Page 403

"Nah," Ron said optimistically. "You're just saying that because they always
do."
oooo
"And I will guarantee that he eats the same food that we do..." Milo said.
"And I will guarantee that he eats the same food that we do," Vernon repeated
impatiently.
"And I will give him his fair share of the loot," Milo continued.
"And I will give him his fair share of the loot," Vernon said. He'd long since
given up questioning some of Milo's more exotic terms. Petunia, in the corner,
looked more and more horrified with each swordpoint concession.
"Where 'fair share' is defined as 'one over the number of people involved.'"
"Where 'fair share' is defined as 'one over the number of people involved.'"
"And I will pay any and all gold necessary to Clerics to cure Harry in the event
of injury or death..."
oooo
"Yes, Ron," Harry sighed. "That's exactly why I said it."
"Well, I think it's brilliant," Fred said, helping Harry onto his broomstick.
"Milo can use magic over the summer, and it's not like we have to worry about
the Muggles finding outthat lot already knows about us."
"I suppose," Harry said doubtfully, pulling his Invisibility Cloak over them as
they flew the short distance from the window to the car. "Wait," he said
suddenly, his hand on the door. "Did anyone actually tell Milo that we have to
keep magic secret from the other Muggles?"
It was then that he saw the police cruiser fly around the corner at well past
the speed limit.
oooo
"...And I will actively prevent glass cannons from achieving a flank position on
Harry through appropriate deployment of tanks and battlefield control," Vernon
said, bored.
"POLICE!"
Little Whinging, being an idyllic, upper-middle-class suburb with an extremely
low crime rate, had a police response time second to nonean unfamiliar concept
to Milo, who was used to a city watch response of roughly 1d6 rounds (if the PC
did it) or 1d100 hours at best (if it was anyone else).
Page 404

A blue-uniformed, tanned man with close-cropped blond hair kicked entered
through the unlocked front door, club in hand. His cap and reflective sunglasses
hid most of his face, but his expression was grim.
"Drop the weapon!" he shouted.
Unarmoured man with a club? Milo thought contemptuously, this must be the
militia. Clearly, no threat whatsoever. Just as clearly, however, the situation
was rapidly getting out of control. He could fight his way out, but then he'd
get reported to the local magistrate, and might have to deal with a more
competent response. Untrained, level one Commoners had a more easily exploitable
weakness, however.
"How does three gold pieces sound?" Milo asked. That was roughly a month's wages
for the Myra (cityoflight!cityofmagic!) city watch.
"Just put down the weapon," he insisted, "and we can talk after." The guard took
another step towards Milo.
"Twenty gold," Milo said. No, wait, the Muggles don't use gold as currency. But
I haven't got any pounds on me. "Five hundred pounds of salt?" The Player's
Handbook does state that commoditieswhich includes saltare often usable as
currency.
The city guardsman gave Milo an odd look.
"Is this a hoax?" he asked the adults.
"No!" Petunia shrieked. "Arrest him! He's deranged and dangerous!"
"Right," he said, turning back to Milo. "Put the weapon down, and come with me.
Now."
Milo sighed. It looked like it was going to be one of those situations.
"Evard's Black Tentacles." Hundreds of thick, sticky black appendages burst out
of the floor, ceiling, and walls to grab the guardsman. The spell was too large
to fit into the dining room without also grabbing Milo, so it spilled out into
the front hall and lawn.
oooo
"Oh bollocks," Ron muttered.
"Should we help him?" Harry asked.
"Nah," said Fred. "We can't do magic without getting expelledhe can."
"So we'd best wait in the car and be ready to gun it," George finished.
oooo
Page 405

Miss Figg knew this day would come, though she'd hoped it wouldn't. Peering out
of the front window, she saw black tentaclesdark magic, if she'd ever seen
itattack the poor Muggle policeman. It was clear what was happening: despite
Dumbledore's assurances, the Death Eaters were making an attempt on the
Boy-Who-Lived's life.
She grabbed a pen and quill and hurriedly began to write. As a squib, she
couldn't simply Apparate to the Ministry, or otherwise use magic to communicate.
She just hoped that her owl was fast enough that the DMLE could get a team of
hit-wizards there in time...
oooo
Milo debated his options briefly. Obviously, he couldn't kill a member of the
city watch. As it stood, he could do what most PCs didevade the law until he
could convince the local mayor or lord of his innocence, generally by killing
his resident Evil Vizier in the main hall of the palace. On the other hand, if
he could prevent this guardsman from reporting, it would simplify the issue
greatly. But, without access to Enchantments or an incredibly high Diplomacy
bonus, that was a nearly impossible task without resorting to murder.
Milo heard a sudden, muffled squeak of wood from behind him, and spun around to
see yet another club-wielding member of the watch, who, aside from gender,
looked much the same as the first. She had shoulder-length brown hair, a slight
build, and a set to her jaw that told Milo (who had finally invested a few ranks
into Sense Motive) that she meant business. If she was surprised to see her
partner being wrestled to the floor by magical tentacles, she hid it well.
"Look" he began. In no mood for discussion, the officer, with deceptive
strength, grabbed Milo's sword arm at the wrist and roughly shoved him to the
ground. The weapon clattered to the ground, and she kicked it away across the
room. Milo heard the characteristic click of handcuffs clasping around his
wrists as she pressed him against the ground with a knee.
Well, I'm an idiot, he thought to himself. How did I see a warrior without
armour or weapon to speak of and not immediately think 'Monk'? Stupid, stupid,
stupid.
"Right," she said. "I don't know what the hell is going on here, but listen to
me very carefully: call off the whatever-that-is right now." She spoke in an
accent that, like McGonagall's, reminded Milo of the dwarves back home.
With his hands literally tied behind his back, Milo's options were limited. Most
of his spells had Somatic components, meaning they required intricate hand
gesturesdifficult in armour, impossible in handcuffs. He could Benign
Transposition to switch places with Mordy, but he'd still be cuffed.
Unfortunately, the handcuffs now counted as part of his gear, meaning they'd go
with him wherever he teleported. Still, he'd get a pretty decent head
startmaybe enough to make it to the Anglia and escape with the Weasleys and,
hopefully, Harry.
Page 406

"Okay, okay!" Milo said as his familiar slipped out of his pocket. The tentacles
abruptly vanished, dropping the grappled constable to the ground. With wide eyes
and a pale face, he stumbled backwards into the wall, where he sagged to the
ground shaking.
"Don't trust him!" Vernon urged, stepping forwards menacingly.
"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to stand back," the officer pinning him said
to Vernon, pulling Milo to his feet. "Evandammit, Evan! Pull yourself together
and call this in!"
"Benign Transposition!" Milo spat, his face pressed up against the floor.
Despite managing to get the Verbal Components out properly, his Concentration
fizzled outcasting a spell while Pinned was harder than it looked. Fortunately,
thanks to a seriously overpowered Feat, Uncanny Forethought, Milo could give the
spell another shot. Uncanny Forethought allowed Milo to leave some of his spell
slots reserved while preparing them in the morning, and, on the fly, cast a
spell mastered with Spell Mastery in its placeof which Benign Transposition was
one. Alternatively, Milo could spend his whole turn (meaning he couldn't also
move) and cast any spell in his spellbook from a reserved slot at -2 caster
level (a trivial decrease in spell power). In short, Milo had most of the best
aspects of being a Sorcerer while maintaining the versatility of the wide spell
selection available to Wizards.
"Benign Transposition," Milo cast again, and reappeared in the hall just outside
the door. Unfortunately, Benign Transposition required direct line-of-sight and
line-of-effect to the target, meaning that Milo had to have an unhindered path
from himself to Mordy in order for them to switch places. This severely limited
the practical range of the spell indoors.
"Dammit," the policewoman cursed, falling to the floor as the boy she was
pinning down was replaced by a rat. Milo awkwardly stumbled to his feet and
hobbled towards the exterior door. "Oi! He's making a runner!" she shouted,
though her partnerEvanseemed to be in a state akin to a Barbarian hit by a Ray
of Stupidity, sitting against the wall with his head in his hands.
Milo had almost reached the front door when the policewoman hit him like a
truck. He tumbled down the front steps and was dragged to his feet again.
"Right," she said again, "Where was I? You're under arrest for breaking and
entering, hostage taking, carrying of an offensive weapon, and resisting arrest.
You have the right to remain silent, but anything you do say will be taken down
and may be used in evidence."
oooo
"If it's all the same to you," Ron said as the bars slammed shut on them, "could
we maybe, you know, forget to mention this to Hermione?"
"What," Fred asked, "that we got nicked by the Muggle please-men?"
"Yeah. That."
Page 407

"What should we do?" Harry asked. He looked panicked. "The Muggles will all find
out about magic!"
"Sorry, what?" Milo asked. "You mean they don't know about magic?"
The Weasley boys and Harry stared at him in silence for a few seconds.
"You mean you don't know?" Ron asked. "Everybody knows!"
"We have to keep magic a secret," Fred explained. "If the Muggles found out,
it'd be a disaster. There are two camps on the matterthe first says that we'd
get no sleep because Muggles would constantly be bothering us for magical
answers to their problems"
"which is fine by us, because we could make sacks of galleons helping them, for
a small fee"
"and those that think they'd try to burn us."
"What," Milo asked. "Seriously? Burn you? Is that idiomatic in your local
dialect of Common?""
"No," Fred answered. "They mean, literally burn us. It's happened before. All
the real wizards and witches were fine, of course, because they had magic to
protect them. But a fair number of Muggles they mistook as us weren't so lucky.
You'll learn about it in History of Magic."
"Weird," Milo said. From what he could tell, Muggles were some sort of
nonmagical subrace of human with, if that policewoman was any indication,
superior physical stats to make up for their clearly deficient mental processes.
You'd have to be as dumb as an Orc to try and set fire to someone you thought
was a Wizard, he mused. "Well, so much for that. This lot are bound to tell the
rest. Sorry about blowing your secret world."
"Nah," George said. "This happens all the time. Before you know it, the Ministry
will send a team down here and Obliviate everyone, and likely send us off with a
warning." Milo noted that George seemed surprisingly unconcerned. He wondered
if, perhaps, the Weasley prankster was speaking from experience.
"Oh, happy birthday, Harry," Ron added.
"Don't mention it."
oooo
"Now, PS Smythe, would you tell me why the bloody hell there are four kids in
Hallowe'en costumes in the bin?" Inspector Hannigan asked angrily.
Hooboy, Fiona thought. This will be hard to explain...
"Well, three of them were driving well underage in a Ford Anglia"
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"What, all three? One for each pedal and another on the wheel?"
"No, sir; only one of them was at the wheel."
The inspector groaned audibly. "Have we alerted their parents?"
"I've been unable to determine their identities," she admitted.
"And the remaining boy?"
"He... was somewhat different," she admitted. "He had a weapon."
"Did he now?" the inspector was surprised. "Kids lately... regardless. What was
ita knife, or a gun?"
Fiona swallowed uncomfortably. "Well, it was sort of like a knife, only a bit
larger..."
"A machete?" The inspector's eyes widened. "I'm glad no-one was hurt."
Ah, close enough. Somehow, she didn't think that 'he came at me with a prop from
The Princess Bride' would particularly enhance the credibility of her story.
"Which brings me to the matter of why Constable Travis has requested a meeting
with psych. What exactly happened to Evan in Little Whinging, sergeant?"
Well, best get this over with as quickly and simply as possible. Fiona
straightened her back and set her feet before taking a deep breath.
"Magic, sir."
"Magic."
"Yes, sir. Magic."
"You mean PCP?" The department tried to keep ahead of kids' drug slang.
"No, sir. I mean sorcery. Enchantments. Witchcraft. Like in the books."
The inspector leaned back in his padded leather chair. It had been in the office
for over a century, and he liked to believe that, no matter how shocking or
horrifying the report that came across his desk, some inspector in the past had
seen worse and dealt with it. It lent a sense of weight and responsibility to
the office, a tradition to uphold.
Somehow, he doubted many of them had had to deal with magic. Of course, on this,
he was incorrecthe himself had seen similar reports before, not that he had any
way of knowing this.
"You're putting me on." It was not a question.
"No, sir. Tentacles reached out of the walls and attacked my partner, and the
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boy himself changed places with a rat."
"A rat."
"Yes, siror possibly a mouse. But it was still magic."
The inspector began to see a glimmer of hope. "You realize, sergeant, that the
Witchcraft Act of 1735 was repealed in 1951?" He wasn't sure why, but he had
vague recollections of researching this in the past. "There's no law against a
little conjuration here and there, meaning, if you understand me, that it can be
left out of your report." As far as he was concerned, the sergeant's apparent
belief in the impossible only became a problem if committed to writing and
viewed by his superiors.
"Understood, sir."
"Stick with the machete and the underage driving. We can let the other two go
with a warning once we find their parents."
"Yes, sir."
"Oh, and Sergeantyou're dealing with this mess. I expect a full reporta proper
one. On The Machine, no less."
"Yes, sir."
Inspector Harrigan hesitated. Fiona had always
her shoulders, though she sometimes had a hard
Behaviour like this was decidedly... odd. "And
think you and PC Travis should have your blood
exposed to something... odd... at the scene."
seemed to have a solid head on

time picking up on hints.
I'll be giving medical a call. I
tested, just in case you were
"Yes, sir." Inwardly, Fiona groanedshe hated needles.

'The Machine' as it was called, or, more often, 'that Damn Machine' referred to
the shiny new Compaq running Windows 3.1. It was the first computer in the
Surrey Police, and one of the first in the force nationwide. It had arrived a
few weeks ago as an experiment before being employed by the police force on a
wider basis, but, despite being called the 'way of the future,' they all knew it
would never catch on. Being forced to file a report on the Machine, which was
held in a cupboard labelled 'Computer Lab,' was considered a minor, unofficial
reprimand.
While waiting for the Machine to boot up through MS-DOSa process which
generally took within the vicinity of a quarter hourFiona mentally planned out
her report. Let's see... on the 31st of July, 1992, a 999-Emergency was called
in by one Mrs Mason... suspect was a minor carrying a large edged weapon...
suspect employed methods of a supernatural nature (which, by itself is perfectly
legal after the Witchcraft Act was repealed) to assist in resisting arrest...
field of ten-foot rubbery tentacles... sounds about right. Says everything that
happened while pointing out that it was not the magic that was illegal.
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She had just saved the document to a floppy when the Obliviators Apparated into
the room. Fiona leapt to her feet as a half-dozen robed witches and wizards
appeared with staccato popping noises, wishing briefly that she was armed. She
doubted aikido would be much good against what were, quite plainly, wizards.
"Who the ruddy"
"Obliviate!" Arnold Peasegood shouted, then turned to his men as she sagged back
into the chair. "Gumboil, check on her boss; Harley, go find her partner. And
someone, go find Arthur Weasley." Three Obliviators vanished with loud pops, and
Arnold took a look at the computer on the table. "Anyone know what the hell that
is?"
"My aunt's a Muggle," Milton said. "Saw one when I was a kidthat's an eclectic
typewriter. It's used for writing."
"A typewriter? Are you sure?" Arnold was surprised. He'd seen them before, but
they'd looked very different then. Muggles astounded him more every day.
"Yeah, you can tell because they all say Qwerty on themthat's the name of the
Muggle who invented 'em."
"Peculiar name," he mused, staring at the machine.
"He was French."
"Ah. Any chance she wrote about what happened?"
"Could be," Milton mused. "No real way to know."
"Can't be too careful," Arnold said, picking up Fiona's nightstick. With a heavy
swing, he smashed the computer's monitor straight to hardware heaven. "That
ought to do it. We'll have to work this into their memory somehowa fight with a
dangerous criminal, maybe. Now let's go find those boys."
CC 3: Too Quiet
Author's Notes: I'm on TV Tropes! Everything I've ever wanted.

Chapter Three: Too Quiet...
"So, anything interesting happen over the summer?" Hermione asked curiously. "I
mostly just readI read Gadding with Ghouls, Break with a Banshee, and Travels
with Trolls four times and Year with the Yeti five, but I only had enough time
to read Voyages with Vampires twice! Hopefully I can get in another round of
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each before September."
Vampires, eh? Milo thought to himself, wondering whatever happened to
Quirrell'sno, Voldemort'svampires from the year before. As far as he knew,
they were still out in the Forbidden Forest, lurking.
The four of themHarry, Ron, Hermione, and Milowere waiting outside Madam
Malkin's while Ginny got her school uniform. It was the first time they'd seen
Hermione since June.
"Nope," Milo said quickly.
"What, nothing?" Hermione asked.
"Nothing at all," Ron added, avoiding eye contact. "We were well-behaved."
"Well, that's a reliefsince you've done your readings, maybe this year you can
do your own homework." Hermione paused. "You have done the readings, haven't
you?"
"Look over there!" Ron gasped. "It's the Grim!" In truth, they didn't even have
their textbooks yet. Acquiring them was one of the objectives of their current
sidequest.
"Sorry, where?" Hermione turned around, surprised, to where Ron was pointing.
However, instead of a pernicious prognostication, there was merely
Ollivander'sor Ollivanders'?wand shop, which, in Milo's mind, was only
marginally better.
"Must have been my imagination," Ron said quickly. "Shall we, er, go see Quality
Quidditch Supplies? Oh, but you two don't like broomsticks. Have fun
doingerthing!" Grabbing the surprised Harry Potter by his shirtsleeve, Ron
practically bolted away through the crowded alley, dragging the bemused
Boy-Who-Lived behind him.
"What was that all about?" Hermione asked suspiciously.
"No idea," Milo lied, cursing his friends for abandoning him. He'd have to rely
on his Bluff skill. Come on, nat twenty, don't fail me now... "Because he
certainly wasn't fleeing to avoid telling you about a disasterwhich, and I
can't stress this enoughcertainly didn't happen in late July."
Hermione stared at him for a second or two, her expression unreadable. "I see."
She totally bought it! You've still got it, Milo. "Because I thought he was
making a runner because he hadn't actually done any advance reading and didn't
want to fess up about it."
"Oh, yes, that's much more believable. Let's go with that. Which reminds me: I
should probably go get this year's reading list. And I need to send a letter.
Want to come with?"
"Well, seeing as how the others have fled my presence, I don't see any
Page 412

particular reason why not. What letter?" Hermione asked curiously.
"My Amulets of Protection from Evilnow that I can make them cheaply, I'm
planning to offer them to Ministry."
"That's
largest
who was
counter
a really good idea," Hermione approved. "From what I've read, one of the
problems they had there in the last war was being unable to determine
under the effects of the Imperius curse, or, even if they could, to
it. They're still trying to sort out who may have been compromised."
"Exactly. That, and the fact that I can charge whatever I want for them." If the
Ministry was interested, he could finally pay Harry back for the small fortune
he borrowed from him last year. Material costs aside, he still had to pay the XP
cost, meaning he couldn't just give them awayeven if he had the time to.
"We can go to the Owl Post Office, and by the time we're done, likely Harry and
Ron will have forgotten why they ran off in the first place," Hermione
suggested.
The Owl Post Office, as it turned out, was exactly what it sounds like.
OwlsMilo still couldn't understand why these wizards relied on owls for post,
especially when there were not one but two forms of teleportation (Apparating
and Floo powder) availablefluttered in and out through the largely open roof to
the floor, where frantic postal workers tied fresh parchment to their legs and
beleaguered janitors used magic and enchanted mops in a futile attempt to keep
the room clean. And that wasn't even getting to the noise. The screech of owls
and massed flutter of wings was nearly deafening.
"Morgana's ghost!" Hermione gasped. "It smells like a dung bomb went off in
here!"
Milo, choking, wrapped a black silk filter mask from his belt around his face,
covering it from the eyes down. While he doubted the smell was poor enough to
force him to make a Fortitude save, he wasn't taking any chances.
"How do the employees tolerate it?" Milo asked. Unfortunately, his newfound
appreciation for taste had the side-effect of drastically increasing his
perception of non-plot-relevant scents. In addition to being a minor hindrance
to his plot sense, it could also be extremely annoying.
"Bubble-Head Charm?" she suggested. "Although you'd think that long-term
reliance on a small volume of recycled air would weaken the immune system..."
"I think they get enough contact with unsanitary material through other means to
make up for that," Milo pointed out. After... certain events last year, he'd
decided to spend some time over the summer researching basic medical theory in
this worldenough that there wouldn't, hopefully, be a repeat of last Christmas
but not enough that he was forced to invest skill ranks cross-class in Heal.
"I'd be more worried about what happens to wizards and witches with bad breath."
An obviously-stressed young wizard was sitting behind the counter. His
fingernails had all been chewed to the quick, his hair was in disarray, his lips
Page 413

were cracked and his eyes were a bloodshot redthe latter two likely a result of
his face being continuously surrounded in dry air for eight hours every day. The
source of his problems was evident, as there were scratch-and-peck-marks up and
down both arms, layered over scars of earlier ones.
"Are we being robbed? Oh Merlin, we're being robbed!" the post-wizard exclaimed,
taking note of Milo's masked face before bolting into a back room, followed by a
muffled "Colloportus!"
"Er..." Hermione said. "Is there someone else we can talk to?" she asked the
room. Eventually, a post-witch showed up, gave them a lecture about scaring
their elders, took Milo's letter (and silver) and shooed them out.
"Well, that was decidedly odd," Hermione murmured as they left.
"Agreed," Milo said. "Let us never speak of this place again."
They found Harry and Ron leaving whatever the broomstick shop was calledMilo
honestly couldn't care lessand they headed to the bookstore. Milo noticed that
Ron and Harry conspicuously kept him between them and Hermione.
The bookstore, as it turned out, was largely empty. Books lined the tall, narrow
shelves (in Milo's experience, you could always tell the quality of a bookstore
by how cramped the aisles were. By that metric, this one was pure mithril),
although most of the textbooks, the store's major draw in August, were already
gone. A few posters hung from the walls, each depicting the same handsome man's
smiling face.
"Who's he?" Milo asked.
"Gilderoy Lockhart," Ron shrugged. "He's supposed to be this big, famous dark
wizard hunter, but his book on dealing with household pests is pretty rubbish."
"That's probably because he's too busy fighting werewolves and vampires to brush
up on his dealings with doxies and pixies," Hermione said defensively, browsing
through a stack of Miranda Goshawk's The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Two .
"Which would be obvious if any of you had actually read your textbooks."
"Hold up," Ron said. "How did you get a hold of them so early? This is the first
time you've been to Diagon Alley all summer, right? Or you'd have your other
supplies, too."
"You have heard about owl order, haven't you?" she said, although she turned
slightly pink.
"Then how come you didn't get the Book of Spells, too?" Harry asked innocently.
Hermione muttered something about a "standing pre-order," shot them an acid
look, and went to the counter.
"So, this Gorilla Lockout guy," Milo said thoughtfully. "He's a dark
wizard-hunter-type?"
Page 414

"Pretty much," Ron said. "But if you ask me, he's just famous because the
witches, and not a few wizards, all fancy him."
"And he wrote our entire booklist?" Milo pressed.
"Looks likeexcept for the one by Goshawk," Harry said, scanning over his letter
from Hogwarts.
"And he was mentioned earlier this adventure?"
"Er..." Harry said, giving Milo the usual look.
"Dammit," Milo muttered. "Another DADA professor. Now, the question remainswill
he prove to be secretly treacherous, like Quirrell, or will he break the
expectation created by the precedence of the last professor to be, in fact,
secretly good despite our suspicions?"
"Your suspicions, mate," Harry said.
"The poster says he was going to be here yesterday doing a book signing," Ron
said. "We would have met him if we hadn't been... delayed."
"The important thing is we were let off with a warning," Harry said, "and we can
put that entire ordeal behind us. Permanently."
"What ordeal?" Hermione asked, returning with her newly-purchased textbook.
"Ordeal? What ordeal?" Ron asked.
"He meant to say ore deal," Milo lied. "We're discussing the acquisition of
certain metals of arcane significance for my... magicking." Milo sighed
inwardlyyou get what you pay for, and he hadn't invested any ranks in Bluff.
"Right," Hermione said skeptically. "Are you three just going to stand around
talking, or will you actually get the books you came here for?"
Milo and Ron coughed and discreetly stepped towards the 'used' section. Milo had
been sent a sum of money from Hogwarts' Destitute Orphans' Fund this summer that
was so modest it was practically bashful. Even used, there was no way he would
be able to cover the extensive Lockhart booklist without dipping into the money
Harry had lent him for spell research and item crafting.
"What say you we go half-half," Milo suggested quietly to Ron, "then put the Pen
of Plagiarism +5 to work?"
"Won't work," Ron said, "all Flourish and Blotts' books are protected against
Copying Cha..." Ron drifted off as the penny dropped. Milo's magic would,
likely, be able to bypass that protectionalthough the results could sometimes
be unpredictable when the two types of magic interacted.
Ron simply grinned.
Page 415

"Well, well, well," an unfortunately familiar voice drawled. "If it isn't three
jailbirds and their pet moleoh wait, is that Granger behind those horrid
teeth?"
"Malfoy," Harry said through clenched teeth. Draco Malfoy stood leaning against
a shelf near the entrance. None of them had seen him enter.
"I'm surprised you'd dare show your faces in public," the blond Slytherin boy
continued. "I hear Weasley's father had to use his last remaining favour in the
Ministry to get you three off the hookand himself, for that matter. What was it
he said? That that car was simply for experimenting, and not for using? Rather
slim excuse, if you ask me, but it pales in comparison to what you did. Tell me,
where there many rats in the Muggle prison? Aside from you and your... pets."
"Frankly, I thought you'd learned your lesson last time," Harry said, "as I
believe Milo here knocked your teeth in."
"Check your facts, Potter," Malfoy sneered. "I only lost one tooth! And don't
think you won't pay for thatand what you did to my house."
"A mistake I'm all too ready to remedy," Milo said, putting down Gadding with
Ghouls in case he needed his hands for a fight. "And that time, you had the
Crabbegoyles with you. Now, the numbers are somewhat stacked against you."
"I wouldn't sully these pureblood fists with your face, freak, even if I was
here to fight," Malfoy said contemptuously. "I was simply so surprised to see
your faces in public after your little ordeal that curiosity simply required me
to determine that it was you, and not some illusion or charmthough I needn't
have worried. Charm is not something any of you has in abundance."
"Ooh, a Slytherin with a sharp wit," Ron said with feigned awe. "Someone take it
away before he cuts himself with it."
Malfoy gave Ron a look as if he were something sticky he scraped off the bottom
of his shoe, and turned to leave. Not being one to allow anyone else to have the
last word, he spun around dramatically before leaving the store. "I'll be seeing
you at Hogwarts, I presumethough when you discover what's going to happen this
year, perhaps you'll wish you'd stayed home with your mothers. Except you,
Harry."
Draco slammed the door shut behind him.
"Anyone want to bet that he doesn't yet have a plan and he's, right this second,
frantically trying to come up with one to match his boast?" Harry said after a
second.
"I feel like I'll regret this, but... you're on," Ron said. "Wonder how he found
out about" Ron froze, and turned to stare at Hermione in horror.
"You were arrested? By the police? The Muggle police?" Hermione gasped.
Page 416

"Milo thought I was in danger," Harry explained.
"He had bloody convincing reasoning, too," Ron added. "A very solid argument.
I'm not sure what it was, mind; you'll have to ask him yourself."
"And what reason... never mind. Obviously the dastardly threat to Harry was
Milo's impending rescue," Hermione said.
"I think there's something funny with your logic there," Milo said, as he tried
to imagine whether it was possible that he could have dropped out of a timeskip
due to himself being the threat, in which case he had only dropped out of the
timeskip because of what he was about to do after dropping out of the timeskip,
which would make for some kind of self-fulfilling, loopy causality. Even
thinking about it was beginning to give him a headache, and so he let it rest.
"Now my logic is funny?" Hermione remarked wryly.
"To be fair," interjected Harry, grinning, "Being jailed by the Muggles was a
lot more fun than being jailed by the Dursleys. I'd say it was a pretty
top-notch rescue."
oooo
What remained of the summer holidays flew past at the rate of just a few scant
words of description per week, with Harry and the Weasleys (which sounded to
Milo like a pretty good name for a Bardic troupe) spending most of their time
playing Quidditcha game which, while he approved of it from the dramatic
standpoint of making only the PCs and their actions matter, Milo disdained
because it involved physical exertion and the ability to ride broomstickswhile
Milo tried to keep a low profile. His recent glimpses of the Muggle world had
shaken him to a degree that surprised him. They seemed to be able to accomplish
the impossible without magiclike cars, for instance. Milo could think of a few
means of moving a wheeled vehicle without animal power: the wheels or the whole
vehicle could be animated, it could be sail-powered with a permanent Gust of
Wind, it could be a tiny, mobile stronghold, or, most cost-effectively, it could
be moved by controllable poltergeist spirits via Animate Dead and Hauntshift.
However, all of Milo's plans were either prohibitively expensive in terms of
gold, XP, or moralsand, of course, required magic. The more Milo thought about
it, magic was really the limiting factor. Magic, save for some trickery relying
on extreme Munchkinry, came hand-in-hand with exponentialand fixedtime, gold,
and XP costs. Mundane crafting had none of these concerns, with the time being
largely based on the creator's skill, tools, and assistants and the cost
fluctuating with circumstance and quality. From what he'd seen, the Muggles here
nearly all had cars. It boggled the mind. An ordinary peasant from Myra (City of
Light! City of Magic!) would have to spend nearly three years' wages to buy a
good horse and wagon, and all of Milo's proposed self-propelled machines would
cost hundreds of times moreexcept possibly for the last, depending on the
availability of relatively intact, low-HD corpses.
He'd owled Hermione, who had gone back to live with her parents until September,
to ask how the Muggles managed to make so much stuff. She'd asked her mother,
and sent back what amounted to a short essay detailing mining, machinery,
Page 417

smelting, and, the production line. Milo had scoffed at the idea of 1st level
non-caster NPCs working together to create goods en masseuntil he did the math.
Ninety-nine unskilled Commoners, and one with 4 ranks and Skill Focus in the
proper Craft skill, with one set of Masterwork Tools, all using Aid Another
(which would give each a 50% chance to add +2) would have a colossal +108 Craft
bonus. Using Quick Crafting, higher bonuses would lead to exponential returns.
This group could make around thirteen thousand silver pieces worth of goods in a
weekcompared to the seven silver piece weekly wage they could expect working
alone. With other bonuses, such as those from feats, better tools, or a decent
Intelligence bonus, that number would increase dramatically. Sure, a Wizard
could simply cast Fabricate and turn any raw material into any finished product,
but Fabricate required a 9th-level Wizard, and how many thousands of level one
Commoners were there per 9th-level Wizard?
That led Milo down another track. A horrifying track. It came to him when he
tried to explain the differences between the Muggles here and those in Myra
(City of Light! City of Magic!). He didn't know anything about the state of
Muggles outside of Englandor, to be honest, outside of Little Whingingso
generalizations were risky. But, even assuming that England was the wealthiest,
most powerful empire on this plane, when compared to the Azel Empire, of which
Myra (City of Light! City of Magic!) was capital, there were horrifying
conclusions. Azel was one of the wealthiest human empires from his world.
Nevertheless, its average citizensthe NPC commonerslived in a near-perpetual
state of poverty and fear. They had to rely on the happenstance of a passing
party of adventurers for protection, and could hardly afford food, much less
shelter, as a simple one-room wooden cottage went for 1,000gp (10,000 days'
wage) anywhere in the realm. Most people lived in lean-tos built out of
quarterstaffs and clubs, thatched with holly and mistletoe, and the other few
free items in the book. Their only options for escape were to become another
random encounterthat is, banditryor adventuring. Both options offered the
chance at a fortune, but came at the cost of having a terrible retirement plan
(the business end of a passing Paladin's longsword or a Red Dragon's stomach,
respectively). But the Muggles here, in England, had food, safety, and homes.
They had a competent city watch. It was then that Milo realized the reason for
it: magic. The wizards here kept their magic a secret for reasons that seemed
entirely selfish: the Muggles would never stop bothering them, because they
would want magical solutions to all of their problems. In Milo's world, magic
was no secret. It was available, it was open. There was a magical solution to
any problemfor a price. There was no need to develop a superior plow when you
could hire a Druid to cast Plant Growth. The reason was clear, and it would keep
Milo awake at night: magic throttled innovation. In History of Magic, Milo had
learned that this world had passed through an era that roughly resembled his
world. But the medieval era, as it was called, came and went in a few hundred
years. A few hundred years was a blink. It was window-dressing. It was a
rounding error. Adventurers routinely investigated ruins of civilizations
hundreds of thousands of years old that had access to comparableor even, if
their traps were any indication, superiormundane technology. Hells, Malbutorius
the Dark, an epic-level Lich with a soul blacker than the sun isn't, had been a
thorn in the side of humanoid civilization since the dawn of time. Even the
Elves couldn't remember a time when he didn't exist. Milo's world was locked in
stasis, and the only reasonable explanation for it was magic.
Page 418

"Are you coming, or what?" Ron asked him, waving a hand in front of his face.
"Sorry," Milo apologised. "I was..." he was going to say 'in an internal
monologue,' but he doubted they had those here. "thinking how we could get back
at Malfoy." They were standing in front of Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, and
the others had all gone through already. Well, nothing for it... Milo ran at the
wall, not even having the scant comfort of having luggage ahead of him, in case
the barrier unexpectedly turned solidMilo kept all of his possessions, save for
his mountain of salt, in his Belt of Many Pouches.
Despite his concern, he came through the solid-looking wall without problem,
followed shortly by Ron.
"Do any of you have a... funny feeling?" Milo asked the group.
"Not another one," Hermione groaned.
"What do you mean?" Harry asked.
"Well, it's like... remember what I told you last year?"
"Er..."
"About how everything we'd see in the early days of the adventure would be
important for later," Milo clarified.
"Right, that," Harry said. "What about it?"
"It might be too early to say, but... well, things just haven't been ominous
enough," Milo said. "Before you say anything, I know it's a ridiculous thing to
complain about. But, frankly, as it is, I have no idea what to expect this year.
Have any of you heard any, I don't know, whispered conversations that broke off
abruptly when you came near? Or had any foreboding dreams?"
"Nope," Ron admitted.
"Sorry," Harry said. "None of those."
"Maybe it'll be a normal year," Hermione said wistfully, "and we'll be able to
focus on our studies and futures."
"Yeah... maybe..." Milo couldn't help but feel as if he was missing something
critical as he boarded the train.
On the far side of the platform, Ginny pulled out her new quill (really a
hand-me-down from Charlie) and dipped it into her new inkpot (really a
hand-me-down from Bill) to hurriedly write in her new leather-bound diary
(really fifty years old, but it was, unlike all of her other possessions, so far
unused). September 7th, 1992, she began. Dear diary, I am about to step on the
famous Hogwarts Express (!) for the first time, and I'm very
excited-and-sort-of-nervous, though Harry Potter hasn't even noticed me, yet...
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ooooooo
D&D Tip: The filter mask is an extremely under-appreciated piece of gear.
Available for a measly 1gp from Sandstorm (p.99-100), it grants a +2 against
gas-based effects (think traps, Stinking Cloud, maybe even Cloudkill) as well as
significant situational bonuses against sandstorms. Also a necessary fashion
choice for anyone who wants to play FFI's Red Mage or a ninja of one variety or
another. From a purely mechanical standpoint, there's no reason why anyone
wouldn't wear one. Besides, who doesn't like keeping track of more conditional
modifiers?
D&D Tip #2: The crafting trick really works. If wages become tricky to handle,
use undead. The problem is that there's a maximum number of skeleton HD you can
control that way, based on your level. Make a magic item of Animate Dead 1/day,
and pay random commoners to use it for you, and order the resulting abominations
to follow your orders. The skeletons don't have to be humans, in fact, I believe
it's funniest if they're squirrels. Undead have the advantage of not requiring
sleep, so they can work 24 hours per day instead of the usual 8, tripling their
effectiveness. With Int -, they have a +0 crafting bonus, so roughly half of
them can successfully aid another. They can aid you, or, if you're out
adventuring, just aid a regular skeleton. The silver piece value they can make
in a week is around, depending on what you craft, 3*((10+skill bonus)^2).
If you have trouble justifying to your DM that nonintelligent squirrel skeletons
could make masterwork swords (or whatever), describe it as less of a workshop
and more of a production line. Each skeleton does something minor, like move a
certain tool or object in a specific way ad infinitum. Each squirrel does one
step (a single hammer blow, a single scrape with a whetstone) and passes it to
the next squirrel.
That's just the tip of the iceberg. If raw material cost (1/3rd of the finished
product) becomes a problem, use Walls of Iron. 50gp raw materials and 660gp of
casting fees produces a lot more than 710gp of iron, which is 1sp/lb. A CL 11
Wall of Iron produces 11*5*5*(1/6)=45.833 cubic feet of iron, which is
22,527lbs, which is 11,263.5gp in raw materials. But double-check that, math is
not my strong suit.
Or you could skip the skeletons and just sell raw iron. As a commodity, its
value isn't halved for sale. Cha-ching!
(Don't actually do this)
CC 4: Railroading

Chapter Four: Railroading
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The northern England countryside sped past them at a phenomenal speed as the
Hogwarts Express once again vindicated Milo's growing feelings of the inadequacy
of magic. Sure, it couldn't beat a Phantom Horse, but how many Phantom Horses
would it take to carry this many students?
They were missing something. Something important. Milo could feel it in his
bones.
oo
Considering Fiona's typical lack of tact and headstrong approach to policing, it
was little wonder that, once the replacement monitor arrived five weeks after a
junkie smashed up the last one, she was once again writing a report on the
Machine. Now that she'd figured out how to disable caps lock (she was the first
in the station to do so; it had been on since it first arrived in June), she was
considering herself quite computer literate. She'd developed a few other tricks
as well, such
as the discovery that WordStar did not need to be re-installed with every use,
and using the
control key to copy and paste text. This saved her a significant amount of time,
as the police reports re-used quite a lot of the same content, such as headers,
footers, signatures, etc.
It was during one such minor act of self-plagiarism that Fiona noticed something
disturbing. While altering the body of the text of last week's report to apply
to her most recent incident (involving a minor and Illegal Possession of
Indelible Markers), she realized that her old report had a few inconsistencies
with her memory. There were a few hints here and theremisplaced commas,
different sentence constructions, and, of course, the fact that it was, when you
really got down to it, completely different and physically impossible.
"What the bloody hell!?"
oo
"Tell me everything you know about Gilded Roy Law Cart," Milo said.
"Well," Harry said, "Hermione here could go on at length about the subject, or
you could just do your trick on his books."
"Oh, right." He fished out his half of the reading list from his Belt, and
borrowed the other half from Ron (the Pen of Plagiarism +5 was still working
quietly in the corner on copying the rest). "Scholar's Touch." He tapped each of
the seven assigned Lockhart books in quick succession, rapidly absorbing their
content. Milo paused as he processed the data.
"Well?" Ron pressed. "Anything?"
"Hmmm..." Harry and Ron leaned in, and Hermione, despite herself, began to look
Page 421

somewhat interested. "Interesting. In Wandering with Werewolves, he says that
his ideal birthday present would be harmony between all magic and non-magic
peoples..."
"And?" Ron asked.
"Nothing," Milo shrugged. "Pet project."
"Oh. Anything else?"
"Hard to say," Milo said. "There's a lot of rubbish in here."
"Hey!" Hermione interjected. "Gilderoy Lockhart is considered one of the
greatest, and most courageous, wizards of our time!"
"Curious," Milo mused. "Considering he was in Ravenclaw."
"A person can be both intelligent and brave!" Hermione was indignant. "Being in
one house doesn't mean a person can't also have characteristics associated with
one or more of the others."
"Relax, Hermione," Harry said. "We all know that's true. You're living proof."
Hermione looked mollifiedsomewhat, anyway.
"What I meant is that it's odd," Milo clarified, "that a person who is now
renowned largely for their bravery would have been sorted into a house that
takes those who explicitly value intelligence over bravery."
Hermione shrugged. "It's probably just because action and adventure makes a
better story than, say, cutting-edge research, no matter how earthshaking, so
that's what we hear about."
"Could be..." Milo felt as though they'd almost hit something key, but barely
missed it. "Okay, so maybe old Kilroy is largely irrelevant. What else have we
got?"
oo
Fiona had just re-read the bit about the rubbery tentacles for the seventh time,
then, because seven was a magic number, read it again. Couldn't be too careful.
At first, she'd suspected some kind of prank. Maybe one of the other officers
had messed around with her files.
But it couldn't have been that. She was the first to handle the computer since
the new monitor was put inexcept for the tech people, of course. But they
didn't have the password to actually use the Machine, which theoretically kept
personal information about officers and suspects not generally available to the
public (of course, nobody actually used the Machine, so there was little of such
information, and in any case, the password was "PASSWORD").
Page 422

Aside from that, it felt right. Fiona hated trusting her gut feeling over facts,
but there was something... familiar about the report. It was almost as if she
could remember remembering the events, but couldn't remember the events
themselves. Every time she tried, she found herself inexplicably remembering an
urgent appointment with the Inspector.
Indeed, she suddenly found herself halfway to the hallway, just going to meet
him about... something.
oo
"Anyone hear of any other new faculty?" No-one had. "Mysterious prison
breakouts? Ominous noises at night? Dark rumours? Inexplicable deaths?"
Similarly, nothing.
"Maybe we really will have a normal year," Harry said. "Maybe everything will be
okay."
oo
Lucius Malfoy was in the dangerous position of a man who had everything. And a
man who has everything has nowhere left to go but down.
"I still don't see why we didn't just nab him over the summer,
and switch them. It's been a year; she must've had enough time
Carrow said. "The primary objective was a failure, but there's
think the secondary won't be a success." Lucius marked him for
unpleasant duty that came up.
bring him here

by now," Amycus
no reason to
the next
"We've been over this," Lucius sighed. "The Order had him well protected."
"Well, I for one am not afraid of a stay-at-home mom, her moronic husband, and a
bunch of schoolteachers," said Alecto Carrow irritably. "We could have taken
them."
"And then what?" Lucius said wearily. "Need I remind you that, the last time you
met, the subject in question managed to destroy your wand? In any case, it would
have blown our cover. That idiot Fudge doesn't, and can't, know that we're still
operating as a group."
"But we aren't, are we?" Amycus Carrow pressed. "Operating. What have we
actually done? That boy ran off, and we've just been sitting on our thumbs for
six months. And now he's in Dumbledore's grasp once more."
"He'd never left it, Amycus. Trust me; Dumbledore had that boy under lock and
key, even if it didn't look it."
"Was he, now? So, how, if he was under Dumbledore's lock and key, he ended up in
the hands of the Muggles?" Alecto had the look of a person who had planned this
conversation out in advance. Lucius realized he was treading on dangerous
ground.
Page 423

"There is a difference between keeping a person in and keeping people out"
"Is there?" Amycus interjected. "Because it seems to me as though the Muggles
managed to do by accident what you're so afraid of."
Everyone went silent.
"What are you suggesting,
used the movement to hide
the wand he had hidden up
back of his neck, and one
Amycus?" Lucius asked coldly. He leaned forward, and

the fact that he loosened his sleeve, ready to draw
it. He had another like it on his left, one down the
strapped to each leg. He'd learned his lesson.
The necessity of subtlety entirely seemed to escape their grasp. Of course even
the Muggles could pull off a simple abduction. But to do so without stirring
suspicion requires all the delicacy and tact of plucking the sole egg from a
Hippogriff's nest.
"Nothing, Lucius," Amycus said, backing down somewhat. "Just frustration caused
by the heat." Lucius decided not to point out the fact that it was, in fact,
quite cool in his council chamber. Despite the late summer heat, there were
charms keeping temperature fluctuations to a minimum. Amycus deliberately chose
a thin excuse, and the others would notice it. Still, Lucius's position was
tenuous enough as it was. He needed to give them something to do other than
fight him, or worse: discover his secret. He didn't want the Dark Lord to
return. Things were better now.
It frustrated him to no end that they failed to see what he did. They'd already
wonor, at least, the Malfoys had won. There was hardly a department, bureau, or
branch of the Ministry that wasn't under his control to one extent or another.
He had had influence in every major economic institution and guild, save
Gringotts. But then, nobody had any influence over Gringotts. That was the
point. Cornelius Fudge may be the Minister for Magic, and Dumbledore may be the
Supreme Mugwump and Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, but he, Lucius Malfoy, was
really in charge of Magical Britain. But they couldn't get over the fact that
the Dark Lord was dead, and that mudbloods roamed freely. Lucius hated
Muggleborns as much as the next manwell, generally more than the next man,
except in this particular companybut couldn't they see that they were going
about it the wrong way? The solution wasn't torture and murder. It was much more
insidious.
The solution, of course, was bureaucracy. Lucius couldgenerallyblock the
hiring and promotions of mudbloods and their sympathizers. On average. Arthur
Weasley was evidence of that. Give him ten years, and there wouldn't be a single
mudblood heading any department, and simple nepotism would do the rest. In fifty
years there wouldn't be one in the Ministry. In a hundred, they'd all be living
in ghettoesnot because they were ordered to, but because they couldn't afford
anything better. Another generation and they wouldn't be able to afford wands.
And he could do what the Dark Lord never couldensure a successor. The Dark
Lord's movement died with him, but there would be a Malfoy guiding British
politics and economics for generations.
But people like the Carrows and the Lestranges could never think that way, and,
Page 424

as much as Lucius hated it, he needed these people to maintain his position. He
was backed into a corner.
Powerful men backed into a corner did dangerous things.
Lucius told them what to do.
Even the Carrows were surprised.
oo
Fiona wrapped her arms around herself, shaking gently. She'd been the one to
write the report, and she'd somehow forgotten about itno. She hadn't just
forgotten about it, another memory had replaced it. Her memories for that exact
date and time were different and incompatible. That didn't necessarily mean that
what she'd written was the truth, and that she'd apprehended a dangerous and
violent child armed with supernatural forces, however.
But if she was wrong... why was her memory altered? Who would do that? Who could
do that? MI5?
She hadn't been druggedshe'd taken a blood test that very day. Her memories
told her it was to make sure she hadn't come into contact with anything
dangerous in the drug den she'd raided, but her report said it was to see if the
entire event hadn't been brought about by a hallucinogen. Worrisomely, her being
sent to the medicand the fact that she'd written the report on the
Machineimplied that she'd told the Inspector, who hadn't liked it. Was his
memory altered too? Or was he the one who'd done it?
Either way, the test had cleared her... maybe. Assuming she'd actually taken it,
and the medic's report hadn't been tampered with.
One thing she knewthe more people she told about this, the greater the chance
that whoever had done this would come back and do it again. Last time they'd
tried to destroy the computer evidencethe monitor had been smashed apart that
day. It had always seemed weird to her that the violent criminal resisting
arrest had somehow made his way into the computer lab. They'd mistaken the
monitor for the entire computer. It was an easy mistake to makeHollywood did it
all the time, and in any case, who knew anything about computers?
Anything she did, anyone she spoke to, could trigger whoever had done this to
come back and do it again. She'd have to take precautions.
"It isn't paranoia if there really is a conspiracy," Fiona muttered to herself.
oo
"Here's something," Milo said. "Harrywhat exactly were you doing when I came to
rescue you last month? No, wait... what were you doing several hours before." He
had to find out what had triggered his drop out of the timeskip.
"Dunno... Vernon was shouting at me because of Hedwig, who had woken up and was
Page 425

making noise."
"Wait, wait, wait," Milo interrupted. "Who the hell is Hedwig?"
Harry blinked.
"My best and first friend," Harry said. "My pet owl that I got at Diagon Alley?
She was a gift from Hagrid. I've told you about her before."
"No, I don't think you have. It would have been in the plot somewhere."
"I have."
"Well, excuse me if I don't remember the name and backstory of every familiar in
the party."
"Anyway... the Muggles were being rude, so I said, 'you forgot the magic word'
when my aunt asked me to pass something, then they shouted at me more, then..."
"Let me guessyour mind started wandering, longing for school and adventure and
friends? Mixed with a bit of recap of what happened last year?"
"Well, yeah. I was bored."
"Dammit," Milo muttered. "It was just the adventure introduction. By the DM."
"DM?" Hermione asked.
"Descriptive Monologue."
"Ah."
oo
"Right, Crabbe, Goyle," Draco Malfoy said to his... friends? Henchmen? Minions?
Minions. "This year, we need to take revenge on Milo for last year."
"You mean when he floored the lot of us, boss?"
"Yeah, you mean when he knocked our teeth in, boss?"
"Tooth! There was only one tooth kicked in!" Draco said, indignantly. "And
yesfor that humiliation." When Draco had confronted them in Diagon Alley, he'd
been bluffing. He had no plan.
But that was three weeks ago.
"So what's the plan, boss?"
"Yeah, what's the scheme, boss?"
"Well, we've learned the impracticality of what one might call the direct
Page 426

approach"
"Because we'll get the rest of our teeth kicked in, boss?"
"Yeah, because we'll die of internal bleeding, boss?"
"Yes, now shut up. But. He has weak spots, points of vulnerability"
"What's the difference between a weak spot and a point of vulnerability, boss?"
"Yeah, what's"
"Shut. Up. Only one of you needs to ask the question! And there's no difference!
I was employing a rhetorical device! Repeating the same thing slightly
differently was the only way anything would penetrate your thick skull! Anyway"
"So which weak spot do we clobber, boss?"
"Yeah, boss, the kneecaps or"
"Do not finish that sentence, Crabbe." Draco sighed. His father didn't have
difficulty dealing with minions. He just told them what to do, and they did it.
He'd best just cut to the Snitch, then, and skip the patter. "I'm saying we go
for the damn rat."
oo
"Well, that solves the Mystery of the Timeskip," Milo said. "Unfortunately,
solving mysteries is just making the matter worse."
"How so?" Hermione asked.
"We should be opening possible plotlines, not closing them!" Milo was sweating.
"Hooks! We need hooks!"
"Just relax," Hermione said. "You don't know there's something malicious
happening."
"Yes I do!"
"How?"
"There always is!" Milo insisted, becoming increasingly aggravated. Failure to
catch the foreshadowing now would inevitably make things much difficult later
on.
"No, there isn't," Hermione reasoned. "We went six months without problem.
Remember? You even aced the Transfiguration final."
"Still wondering how you did that," Ron muttered. "You never did tell us."
"I skipped through six months without problem!" Couldn't they see? There was
Page 427

always a plot to kill him, to frame him, to capture him, to kill the king, to
kidnap the princess, to destroy the world, to achieve immortality, to summon
fell demons from the Abyss... always. That wasn't paranoia, that was factif
there wasn't something horrible going on, he'd simply timeskip through it.
He wasn't timeskipping now. On the other hand... on the other hand, he'd been
wrong in July. Maybe he was wrong this time, to... maybe he wasn't in a timeskip
simply to establish character?
If so... Milo's Optimizer hindbrain started revving up. If so, there is a
distinct and tangible way that I can capitalize on this time.
"Have I ever told any of you how I was picked on by the other kids?"
Inwardly, Milo grinned. Roleplaying XP. Easy money.
oooo
Snape set down the owl letter, thinking very carefully. It wasn't every day that
Lucius Malfoy asked him to brew a potion, but then, it wasn't exactly rare,
either. The Potions Master's talents were hardly a secret, and he did
occasionally get requests from wizards and witches for particularly a difficult
brew.
But this situation was different. In those cases, Snape could always refuse,
saying that the potion was too dangerous, or even illegal (or simply that
brewing it would get in the way of teaching). But with the Malfoys... without
blowing his cover as a Death Eater, he'd have no choice but to comply.
Normally this wasn't a problem, and he'd have a bottle of, say, Veritaserum or
an antidote in the mail as soon as it could be brewed. Normally, the uses of
such a potion in the hands of Lucius Malfoy would be relatively harmless, or, at
least, harmless enough to warrant complying to maintain his cover. But this
particular potion, and in such a volume...
Half a gallon of Polyjuice, at maximum potency, was enough to keep someone
continuously disguised for a little over a month. There was little doubt that
this was part of a larger plot, and, more than likely, it wouldn't be to
blackmail some minor government official. This was something sinisterand Snape
suspected it was no coincidence that the letter arrived on the first day of
term.
Snape hurriedly composed a letter to Dumbledore.
oooo
"...and that's how I first learned magic, and managed to become a Wizard despite
being several years under the minimum starting age."
"Clever," Harry said.
"Indeed," said Hermione. "That was a brilliant workaround, I must say."
Page 428

"I was always rather proud of it," said Milo, which was true, though he was more
proud of the 400 XP he'd just earned. He wondered if he could always earn
roleplaying XP offstage during a timeskip, because, if so, he could be suplexing
Kord, the god of strength, before the year was outassuming he did nothing but
talk about his feelings.
"Oh, there's the castle," Ron said, glancing out the window. "We should probably
change into our robes before we get there."
"Best hurry," Harry suggested. "We left it late because of Milo's gripping
tale."
"Speaking of our robes," Milo said, "I've got something for you guys."
"Oh?" Hermione asked curiously.
"We seem to get into trouble of a rather... physical nature fairly frequently."
"That's one way to put it," said Ron. "I've still got the scars."
"Right. To mitigate this problem somewhat, I've made four sets of robes similar
to mine."
"We're wearing uniforms, mate," Ron said. "Of course they're similar to yours."
"I meant magically similar."
"Oh. That makes much more sense."
"Anyway," Milo said, passing out the robes he was keeping in his belt. "They're
like a scaled-back version of my robes. You obviously wouldn't benefit from the
bonus mine gives me to Conjuration spells, so I just made ones with the armour
bonus. Now, I'm not really sure how an AC bonus will affect you three, because
I'm not completely certain you have an AC. However it works, though, your
uniforms are now the defensive equivalent of a solid steel plate. Won't do
anything against magic, of course, but it'll do wonders against pointy things."
When it came down to it, they were just Bracers of Armour +4, but took the torso
body slot instead.
"Brilliant," Ron said. "With one of these, I can finally tell Malfoy what I
really think of him... with my fists."
"That last bit was implied," Hermione said. "You really didn't need to clarify."
"And it'll help in case I get caught by a stray bludger!" added Harry. "For a
while, anyway." Harry was keenly aware that his ankles were already starting to
peek out from under his usual uniform.
"Oh, like all magic gear, it'll resize to fit," said Milo. "Theoretically, it'll
last forever. As an added perk, they've got holy symbols of nearly every deity I
could think of stitched on themin black. They may be invisible, but they're
Page 429

still there. Any vampires that come near are in for a nasty shock." He'd
retrofitted his own robes with them, as well. Making something count as a holy
symbol came with multiple perks and no downsides, so there was little reason not
to.
Hermione frowned.
"If they're not as good as the one you're wearing," she said slowly, "why did
you make four? There's only three of us."
"Oh, you know... just in case," he said evasively.
"Right," Hermione said skeptically. She looked like she was going to say more,
but was cut off by the train's horn and the screech of brakes as the Hogwarts
Express came to a stop at its destination.
It was with some trepidation that Milo stood to exit their vehicle. This wasn't
the first time he'd entered a potentially dangerous situation without any idea
what to expect, but he had a... well, a feeling. A sense of dread. It was hard
to explain, as it lay outside of his two usual methods of predictionmagic and
metagaming. They were comfortable, reliable. They could be analyzed.
This was... fluff. Fluff implied interference from the DM (the Destiny
Manipulator). Despite the best attempts of gods and PCs, it was the DM that had
the final say.
As Milo took his first step on the worn stone platform of the Hogwarts Express's
final and only station, he hoped fervently that any perceived symbolism was
purely coincidental.
ooooooo
Author's Notes: Hilariously, considering Fiona's first section, I just edited
out a number of weird formatting issues caused by copy-pasting.
D&D Tip: Complete Scoundrel's Nimble Charge skill trick (CS 83,87) allows you to
charge or run over "a difficult surface" without needing to make a Balance check
once per encounter. Consult your DM for the limits of that ability, but by a
strict (ie, unrealistic) reading of the rule, it lets you run across clouds (DC
120) once a combat at level 2.
Under more realistic interpretations, you can still do really, really cool
things with 100% reliability, such as charge across ropes, rigging, and (with
Tumble) the weapons of your enemies. Combine with a Grapple-Firing Crossbow for
extreme awesome.
Happy gaming, folks!
Page 430

CC 5: How Could This Go Wrong?
Author's Notes: Milo's character sheet for this year is finally finalized. Sorry
for the short (and late) chapter; I've had wisdom teeth-related issues and also
got distracted by another project. As such, this chapter and the next one will
sort of blend together into one slightly-larger-than-normal chapter in a lot of
ways.
Chapter Five: How Could This Go Wrong?
"Why in the Hells is there a Half-Fiend Horse strapped to that carriage?!"
Silence.
"Does it think it can fool us? Is it simply pretending to be a regular horse?"
Silence.
"Maybe it's trying to lure us in, and then... neigh at us. Evilly."
Silence.
"Foolish evil extraplanar equine Erinyes-extraction! For I can see your true
form! Fear my arcane mi"
"Er," Ron interrupted, "Before you get all worked up and turn that carriage into
a smoking crater, mate... what horse are we talking about?"
"The one pulling the carriage," Milo said, gesturing at the bony, black,
batwing-sporting horselike-creature. "I mean, just look at it. It has fangs, for
gods' sakes! That thing is evil incarnate."
"Yeah... about that," Harry said. "There's nothing there."
"Except for the carriage, which, by the way, is horseless," Hermione added
helpfully.
Milo gave Harry, Ron, and Hermione a skeptical look that was only matched by the
skeptical look that Harry, Ron, and Hermione were giving him.
"You mean you can't see it?" he said. They gave their murmured assents, still
giving him the look people reserved for situations like these. "So, the question
is: is it a phantasm, or is it selectively invisible?"
"A phantasm?" Ron asked.
"An illusion," Hermione responded.
"More specifically," Milo clarified, "An illusion that only certain individuals
Page 431

can perceive. There's only one way to find out..."
Hermione gave a look of sudden, horrified clarity and whipped her face around to
look Milo dead in the eye.
"No!" she cried.
"Glitterdust!"
oooo
Snape paced around Dumbledore's office slowly, his face a careful mask. Only one
who knew him very well would have been able to tell just how nervous he was.
"Calm down, Severus," Dumbledore said, though in truth, he didn't feel much
better. "No situation is without answer. Once, you see, I was asked, given the
choice, if I were to be stranded on a desert island with nothing more than a
Caucasian leopard and a ball of cotton twine"
"He will be expecting a reply, Albus," Snape said coolly. "In fact, he will
already be questioning the reason for my delay."
Dumbledore sighed.
"It appears, I am afraid, that we have little choice in the matter. You must
brew him the potion."
"Need I remind you that there is no surefire method to discover if someone is
utilizing Polyjuice?"
"Perhaps. However, in my experience, actors that exceptionally skilled are few
and far between. And you are hardly the only person capable of this task that he
can call upon. If you refuse, he will simply call upon another."
"But not one so skilled as I." He wasn't boasting; it was simply the truth.
Snape was one of the best potion makers in the world; certainly the best in
magical Britain. The duration of the effects of the Polyjuice potion increased
with the skill of the maker. At maximum potency, he could brew a Polyjuice that
lasted a little over twelve hours. He knew he was fighting a losing battle,
however. He wasn't even sure why he was fighting it. What did he care about
Lucius's plotting?
"You know as well as I that it would be a simple matter for an infiltrator to
contrive an excuse to repeatedly drink some innocuous liquidunder the guise of
medicine, perhaps, or a favourite tea."
"Very well, Albus," Snape said. "I shall do as you asklet us both hope that we
do not regret it."
"Indeed. Now, if you will excuse me, I have a Sorting Ceremony to attend t"
Dumbledore paused as he heard the characteristic grinding sound of
stone-on-stone that signalled the arrival of a visitor. For all the
Page 432

inconvenience of having a secret, password-protected office, it did provide
enough warning to fix one's hair and tuck in one's shirt.
The door slammed open, revealing a beleaguered Professor McGonagall.
"Albus," she gasped. "Come quickly!"
"What's happened, Minerva?" Dumbledore said, leaping to his feet. "Have Death
Eaters attacked? Is it another goblin uprising? Have the Cannons won a match?"
"No," she said. "It's much worse than that."
"Allow me to hazard a guess," Snape said. "Milo?"
"Milo."
oooo
"You know, it really could have been worse," Ron said.
"Can't see how," said Harry.
"Well," Ron said, "at least the bloodshed was kept to a minimum."
The wreckage of dozens of carriages lay scattered across the path. One was on
fire; Harry couldn't imagine how it had been lit on fire, but it had. A lone
wheel rolled past him, down the shallow slope, and into the lake. A pair of
colossal tentacles lashed out of the water, and seized it, never to be seen
again. Hogwarts students, second-through seventh year, were standing around,
shocked. Some were nursing minor injuries.
"Honestly, Milo, I'd thought you'd have remembered what happened at the Potions
Incident!" Hermione said testily. "Someone could have been killed! You could
still be expelled!"
"I think we're missing the key point," Milo said defensively. "The point is that
we all learned a valuable lesson, didn't we?"
"I should hope so," Hermione said.
"It's that when someone claims to see something that nobody else can, you take
them seriously. There really was a Half-Fiend Horse." The Glitterdust had shown
that; in addition to blinding its unfortunate victims, it also revealed
invisible ones.
"Mate, there wasn't anything even half friendly about them," Ron said.
"Half-Fiend, not half-friend," Hermione clarified. "Honestly, they don't even
sound similar. How could you possibly confuse the two?"
Ron shrugged. He opened his mouth to defend himself, but then saw something out
of the corner of his eye. "Neville!" he gasped.
Page 433

Milo followed Ron's gaze to see Neville Longbottom trapped beneath the ruins of
a carriage. He then broke into a sprint.
"Are you okay?" he gasped. He could just see Neville's round face sticking out
from underneath the shattered wreckage.
"Oh, I'm fine," he said. "It's not as bad as it looks. I'm just a little...
stuck. Anyone know what caused the thestrals to bolt?"
"Erm..." Milo said awkwardly.
"Thestrals?" Hermione asked curiously.
"Yeah, the things that pull the carriage. You know, the winged horses."
"Hah!" Milo said, pumping his fist into the air.
"Now, I don't mean to be a bother, but could one of you get this carriage off of
me before my ribs finally cave?"
"Levitate," Milo cast, and the carriage gently floated up and off of Neville.
"Mister Amestacia-Liadon!" The voice was out of Milo's second- or third-worst
nightmares. It was the kind of voice that could cut across any noisefrom unruly
fifth-graders to the din of battleand still be perfectly audible. It was the
kind of voice that registered less as sound in your ears and more as a chill in
your spine.
It was the voice of Professor McGonagall.
And she was angry.
"Explain."
Milo hesitated for a moment while he considered whether or not to use Bluff,
before dismissing it as foolhardy. If anyone had whatever the local equivalent
of ranks in Sense Motive was, it would be McGonagall.
"I was surprised by what appeared to be a demon horse, ma'am. However, due to
reasons unknown, it was invisible to all other observersexcept Neville. I
targeted it with a non-damaging spell that marks invisible creatures to others
in order that one of my comrades may be able to identify it and respond
accordingly." Nothing but the truth. "The creaturewhich I am now told is a
thestralresponded aggressively, as did a few others, as you can see."
McGonagall sighed. "Why me? Why is it alwaysme? Ten points from Gryffindor. Next
time, find a professor before you leap to conclusions. These animals have been
carrying students from the train station to the castle for three centuries
without incident. Now, however, it appears we will have to begin counting anew."
Hermione coughed politely. "Erm, excuse me Professor"
Page 434

"Yes, what is it, Ms. Granger?"
"Well, seeing as how the sorting hasn't happened, and as such, term hasn't
actually started... well, you can't actually takeor givehouse points yet."
"Ha. Good point. No points off, then."
"Brilliant!" Ron said, clapping Milo on the back.
"But I'll be letting Hagrid oversee your detention, seeing as how it was his
thestrals you disturbed, and his carriages you destroyed."
"Ah, well, better luck next time, then," Ron said consolingly.
McGonagall turned to the crowd of students, many of whom were still filing off
the train, staring at the disaster scene in confusion. "I'm sorry to say that
due to... technical difficulties, you will all have to proceed to the castle on
foot. Prefects, please gather the students of your house, then follow me."
Milo sighed and went to find Percy, wondering what torment Hagrid would have in
store for him. He'd only had occasional contact with the groundskeeper, though,
as he was a friend of Harry's, maybe he'd go easy on Milo. That said, Milo
shuddered as he remembered his last detention with him.
He found Percy in short order. Ron's older brother had a knack for organization,
and without even knowing it, the Gryffindors found themselves marching in order
of year and height while the Hufflepuffs were still mucking about.
It was only while slogging through the deep mud and constant drizzle up the path
to the castle that Milo realized how uncomfortable it was to have wet feet.
Somehow, despite having lived in Scotland for the better part of a year (not to
mention the exotic locales adventuring had led him to back home), he'd never
really noticed it. It was one of the more unpleasant feelings he'd yet faced,
and he'd once been swallowed whole by a Tendriculos.
"Prestidigitation," he muttered, cleaning and drying his socks. He briefly
calculated the cost of creating magical socks that kept themselves dry, before
discarding it as exorbitant. In any case, the local wizards probably have some
for sale. They're much bigger on creature comforts than ours.
Eventually, they made their way to the gates. With one look at the faces of the
studentsand McGonagallnot even the gargoyles that guarded the doors caused any
problems. By the time that they finally reached the warmth and comfort of the
Great Hall, nearly everyone was soaked, shivering, and sniffling.
Suffice to say that the first years, who had already been enjoying the roaring
fire and pumpkin juice, were not popular among the older students just then.
Milo considered himself lucky that only a very, very small number of them knew
that he was held responsiblethough personally, he felt that it was wildly
irresponsible of the school to use demonic monstrosities as a means of transport
Page 435

without giving fair warning first.
"Hey, Nev," Milo said as they sat down at the Gryffindor table. "How come only
we could see them?"
"Um..." Neville said slowly. "You have to, um, have seen death."
"What, like, Nerull? No, wait, you lot call him the Reaper. Pretty sure I'd know
if I saw him. Unless he was in disguise; Nerull has, like, 29 Charisma and ten
levels in Rogue... now there's a thought to keep a person up at night."
"No, as in, you have to see something die."
"Oh." Milo blinked. "Hey, everyone," he said. Harry, Hermione, Ron, and a few
other startled Gryffindor NPCs turned to look at him. Milo reached out and
slammed his mug down on a passing ant. "You should all thank me. You can see
thestrals now."
There was an awkward silence before conversation resumed, and everyone
collectively adopted their default 'Respond-To-Milo' protocol; that is, they
pretended neither to have seen nor heard him. Milo tended to get that a lot.
"I don't think that's how it works," Neville said. "Pretty sure it has to be,
you know, a person." He hesitated for a moment. "I'm sorry. About whoever it
was."
"Hm? Oh, don't even worry about it." As an adventurer, Milo had seen dozens of
bandits, scores of orcs, and kobolds beyond number meet violent ends. "I guess
that'd be proof that You-Know-Who's still around, if we still needed it."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, well, if he really died when he tried to kill Harry as a baby, then Harry
would be able to see thestrals."
"What about his, you know..." Neville's voice dropped into a whisper, "...his
parents?"
"Well, they didn't necessarily die in line-of-sight of him," Milo responded in a
whisper, following Neville's lead. "Could have been in a different room
altogether, or he could have been looking the other way."
Neville thought for a moment. "Then he might not have been looking at
You-Know-Who either. Maybe he was, I dunno, held up by the scruff of his neck."
"Fair point." Despite Neville's reasoning, Milo felt pretty sure that Voldemort
would want to stare into the eyes of his prophesised foe. It was the sort of
thing Thamior the Repulsively Repugnant Reprobate would do. Milo found himself
wistfully missing his days fighting against the evil Wizard; while dangerous, at
least he was straightforward. This world seemed to be full of twists and turns
and red herrings and unexpected reveals...
Page 436

The doors to the Great Hall slammed open.
Milo whipped his head around to see what would, no doubt, be, finally, some clue
as to what to expect in this adventure.
Gilderoy Lockhart entered, somehow managing to, despite being soaked and covered
in mud, look merely roguishly dishevelled. He was followed by Hagrid, who looked
anything but.
"So sorry," Lockhart said, flashing them all a perfect smile, "I was delayed
slightly showing old Hagrid here a few tricks for rounding up thestralsnot that
he needed it, of course. Don't be getting the idea that, simply because I once
taught a Dementor the true meaning of Christmas, I'm in any way better than your
stout groundskeeper."
Hagrid's typically-cheerful face resembled a stepped-on cat, but he kept his
mouth shut. It took obvious effort.
"I told you Githyanki Lawnart would be our new DADA teacher," Milo said, feeling
very smug. It was about time he was right about something.
"Oh, I thought it was obvious from the reading list," said one of the Weasley
twins, overhearing him in a lull in conversation.
"That's what I said, George, but this lot" Milo nodded to Harry and the others,
"said I was being paranoid."
"Fred, actually. And what does Lockhart have to do with being paranoid?"
"Nothing..." Milo drifted off as he was struck by an idea. Everyone was in the
Great Hall. "Cover for me, George. Invisibility." Milo always found it
disconcerting seeing his hands vanish. Odd, now that he thought about it, that
he could still close his eyes to prevent himself from seeing...
"It's Fred!" he protested.
Milo slipped out, deciding to take advantage of having complete run of the
castle.
ooooooo
D&D Tip: You know how Elmer Fudd feels when he's chasing Bugs off a cliff and
keeps running for awhile until Bugs hands him a book explaining gravity and he
falls? Turns out that's how D&D works, too. Check this out:
Monks are not actually proficient with unarmed strike.
Now that you know, you can't unlearn it.
Happy gaming!
Page 437
CC 6: Whitewashed Secrets
Author's Notes: I noticed today that fanfiction lets you make a cover image for
your story, so I made one in about 30 seconds on the gimp. It's not very good.
If anyone wants to make a better one (really, almost anything would be better)
just let me know.
There's some stuff happening next week, so the next chapter will be short and/or
late.
Chapter Six: Whitewashed Secrets
Milo slipped through the doors to Lockhart's office, aware that he would be
largely helpless if the famous wizard had left any magical traps in case of
intruders. While Milo's instincts told him this was unlikelymost magical traps
he could name took hours or days to set up, and Lockhart had only just arrived
at the schoolhe reminded himself that wanded magic could at times be
unpredictable. Not that there was really much he could do about it.
He wasn't certain what he expected to find, which, in his experience, was
generally a good enough reason to investigate something.
While Lockhart appeared to have only been in this office long enough to drop off
his luggage (or, more likely, had a fan or house elf carry it for him), there
was already a pile of mail in the centre of the floor that reached Milo's
shoulders. No wonder the employees at the owl post office looked so stressed,
Milo thought. Probably half the mail in magical Britain goes to Lockhart.
"Scholar's Touch," Milo muttered, tapping eight letters more-or-less at random.
All eight were fan mail with no discernible secret code (of which Milo was
something of an expert, considering all of his Ranks in the
frustratingly-underused Decipher Script skill. He hadn't yet found anything
worth deciphering since he brilliantly deduced that 'Erised' was 'Desire'
written back-to-front). Still, that wasn't to say that there wasn't something
incriminating in there somewhere. However, it would take all of Milo's magic for
weeks to Scholar's Touch the whole pilenot to mention all the library books he
still had to read.
This was not to say that Milo was out of tricks, however.
"Spontaneous Search, Master's Touch." The two spells together allowed him to
thoroughly search Lockhart's entire office in the blink of an eye, much as he
had done to help Neville find his toad the first time he'd boarded the Hogwarts'
Express.
This time, instead of discovering a toad, Milo was presented with a catalogue of
Page 438

all of the Defence Professor's worldly possessions; unfortunately, nothing was
terribly suspicious except for the staggering number of mirrors and pictures of
himself that the professor had brought with him. All that confirmed, however,
was that Lockhart was unlikely to be a vampire (unless, of course, this was a
piece of cunning misinformation). Perhaps Mordy could have smelled something,
but Milo had left him in the Great Hall to keep an eye on the Sorting for him.
"Dammit!" Milo muttered. He was so sure that he was on to something, sneaking
here. He was beyond desperation at this point. He had to know what was happening
or it would drive him mad. "Detect Weaponry, Treasure Scent, Locate Water,
Locate City, Detect Ship." He knew he was stretching probability there towards
the end, but after each successive lack of suspicious results, he cast every
type of spell he could think of that could tell him anything. All he succeeded
in, however, was discovering that the silver frames of Lockhart's portraits were
false and that Flitwick, whose office was nearby, was the proud owner of a model
man-of-war.
It was then that the door opened.
Milo, his heart racing, pressed himself as flatly up against the wall as he
could, counting on his Invisibility to hide him.
Milo felt his breath catch as the Potions Master skulked into the office. The
Potions Master peered around suspiciously, then closed the door behind him. He
took a quick look around, his eyes lingering on the pile of fan correspondence
and his mouth twisted into a sneer of contempt.
Once he appeared convinced that nobody was present, he drew his wand. Milo
tensed up, readying himself (but not Readying; he'd learned his lesson) to react
quickly and decisively, if necessary. He'd had enough unfortunate encounters
with the professor as it stood.
Snape muttered the incantation to a spell that Milo couldn't catch, aiming his
wand at the pile of Lockhart's luggage. The bags and cases unbuttoned, unzipped,
and unlatched themselves (as appropriate), and their contents floated up into
the air, all clearly visible. Snape ran his eyes over the clothes, paintings,
various hair products, and booksmostly copies of his autobiography, Magical
Mebefore shoving them back into the cases with magic. While they had been quite
neatly sorted and folded initially, Snape's spell left them a jumbled mess. The
bags and cases buttoned, zipped, and latched themselves (as appropriate) before
returning to their approximate locations. Evidently disappointed, Snape turned
and left, his black cloak trailing behind him.
"Phew," Milo said, releasing his breath. "That was close." He waited for about a
minute, then left as well. With his handle on the door, Milo gave the room one
last look, knowing it was largely futile. Anything hiding in there that had
escaped his Divinations would have to have been hidden by an individual of
unrivalled skill, if not the gods themselves.
oo
A few minutes after he heard Milo leave, George strolled out of Lockhart's
Page 439

office casually. Shortly after, a large number of dungbombs detonated
simultaneously.
oooo
Judging by the crowds leaving the Great Hall, Milo had missed the Sorting
Ceremony altogether. While his stomach disagreed, Milo considered it a price
well worth paying. He hadn't discovered much about Lockhartexcept that Snape
also considered him suspect. Milo gathered that Snape had had similar thoughts
about Quirrell, and, despite all evidence practically proving his evilness, had
Dumbledore's trust. Could Dumbledore have asked Snape to investigate Lockhart?
Or was Snape simply paranoid as a matter of course?
Still, it was shaky. Milo needed something concrete, something obvious...
A shrill scream echoed through the Hogwarts hallways.
Perfect!
Milo broke into a sprint. He didn't know what had happened, who had done it, or
who it had happened to, but one thing was for sure: it was a hook. And maybe
someone was in danger. Either way, he had to get there fast. He considered using
Dimension Door to teleport to general area the from which scream had originated,
but he'd used so many spells searching Lockhart's office, not to mention
multiple castings of Invisibility, that he thought he ought to save them in case
of trouble. He was moving at such a breakneck pace that when he rounded a corner
and stepped in some sort of liquid, he lost his balance and fell, sliding
several feet before hitting a wall.
Surprisinglyhe'd been expecting bloodhe was lying in a pool of whitewash.
It was then that he realized he'd been had.
"Gods dammit, Peeves!" he roared. He could hardly remember being so frustrated
in his life. He sat up, hitting his head on something unexpected and hard.
Milo looked up after the flash of pain subsided, and was surprised to see a
bucket. He was even more surprised to see the holder of the bucket, once full of
the whitewash that was now covering Milo's robes. Unsurprisingly, it was Peeves,
but he appeared, well... stiff. Immobile. It was jarring. Peeves, as a
poltergeist, was a being of chaoshe embodied unpredictability, movement,
change.
"The hell?" Milo muttered, looking closer, ready in case this was some sort of
elaborate prank. It only took a single look at Peeves' face to see that it
wasn't. His unmoving features were locked in an expression of pure terror.
Milo waved a hand back and forth in front of Peeves, but there was no response.
He narrowed his eyes.
Interesting, Milo thought. As a spirit, I'd just assumed Peeves was immune to
most status effects. If he ever wakes up from whatever-this-is, and drops
Page 440

feathers on me again...
It was perhaps due to fate, the will of the gods, or simply poor luck that Milo
was discovered by a group of Slytherin first years, fresh from Sorting, coated
in white paint and cackling like a lunatic over what appeared to be a terrified,
unmoving little man dressed as a clown.
Worse, perhaps, was the foot-high writing in blood on the wall behind him that
he'd completely failed to notice, having focussed so much on the Petrified
poltergeist.
THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED.
ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.
"Ah, crap," Milo muttered.
oooo
"September 7th, 1992," Fiona said to the recorder. "I have become aware that my
memory may have been tampered with, and it might not be the first time..." She
went on to detail the events of her insane day. Whoever had messed with her head
(who she'd privately termed 'Loki'), she'd realized, clearly had only a scanty
knowledge at best of technology. They'd confused the computer monitor with the
computer itselfadmittedly, a difference she herself had only come to be aware
of as a result of Loki's botched intervention. As such, she'd decided to keep
records on tape wherever possible rather than on paper. She'd considered getting
a computer for herself, but a single look at the prices had disabused her of
that notion; a sergeant's pay could only go so far.
She didn't know who or what Loki was. That had frightened her, at first. The
idea of a shady, covert being out there with the power to alter another's
memories was, frankly, terrifying. For all she knew, she'd already been affected
by his/her/their/its abilities dozens or hundreds of times. Loki could be in the
room with her right now, altering her memories in real time.
That's what she'd thought at first. The mistake with the Machine proved that
Loki wasn't infallible, and she could exploit that.
She had to. It was her duty; she'd sworn an oath. For the Queen, for the people
of England, for the residents of Surrey, and for herself. Nobody damn well
messes with my head and walks.
And so she'd made a plan.
oooo
Lkoturo was in the comfortable position of a man who had everything. And a man
who has everything could go wherever he pleased.
Lkoturo threw one last look in the mirror. True, his meeting with the aging
emperor was supposed to have started three minutes ago, but it never hurt to
Page 441

remind him who was really in charge. Excellent, he thought. He'd decided to
indulge a little and broke out his best goatee wax. It was expensivemermaid
scales don't come cheapbut worth every gold piece. Because, Lkoturo reminded
himself, he was worth it.
Zuzu, his familiar, fluttered up beside him, his dull purple scales shining in
the candlelight.
"Master," the imp hissed. "The Watch has caught another team of self-proclaimed
heroes in the act. A charge of Illegal Vigilante Justice, Wealth Grossly
Exceeding Official WBL Mandate, Grand Theft Arcana, and Resisting Arrest for
each."
"Excellent," Lkoturo said happily. Everything really was coming up his way, for
once. "And how's the bandit situation?"
"They're still operating in the countryside largely unhindered," Zuzu said. "The
Watch has its hands full keeping the adventurers in check. They simply can't
spare the men to hunt them down."
"Perfect," Lkoturo practically purred, admiring his goatee once more. The
mermaid wax gave it a shine that other types simply couldn't compete with.
Despite what the Druids claimed, it was harvested in a completely humane
methodthe mermaids weren't using those scales, anyway; the dark reaver powder
saw to that. "And the sewers?"
"We're having a bit more trouble with that," Zuzu said. "Keeping the kobold
population high enough to remain a threat is difficult; they keep being killed
by the rats."
"Well, you can't win them all. At least the rats are gaining experience, I
presume?"
"Indeed. Some even appear to be adopting PC classes."
"Fascinating. Keep me updated."
"As always, my lord."
"And now, I suppose, I must go see the emperor." Lkoturo walked down the short
corridor leading from his chambers to the royal ones. Of course, in the
tradition of most viziers, he had a number of more... discreet entrances to the
emperor's rooms. How else would he spy on, enchant, and, when necessary, poison
the reigning monarch? That said, he preferred to use the regular hallways
whenever possible, just to keep up the illusion of requiring them. He paused in
front of the emperor's doorway and adjusted his cloak. A pair of guards in
immaculately polished full plate carrying halberds guarded the door, but he
didn't care what they sawthey were so full of Enchantments that they were
essentially very pretty, menacing pieces of furniture.
He moved his hand slightly, and the guards threw open the doors to the emperor's
'private' study (Lkoturo had no less than six wall paintings with the eyes cut
Page 442

out that he could peer through for when he didn't want to waste a Clairaudience
or Scry spell). The emperor sat behind his desk, staring through a window at
Myra absently. Like the palace guards, the emperor hadn't had an independent
thought in years.
"You summoned me, sire?" Lkoturo said in his oiliest voice, bowing so low his
hat almost touched the ground. It was only when the doors closed behind him that
he realized they weren't alone. A thin, almost starved-looking woman with a
tangle of black hair stood near the window. A quick Knowledge check identified
her as human, not that that was any indicator of threat. Her Class and Level
were completely unknown. He recovered from his surprise quickly. "And who might
you be?" Lkoturo was hardly defencelesslike any good Grand Vizier, he had a
number of Contingent spells in case of emergency, most of which were designed to
fake his own death while Teleporting him to safety, or, if he did in fact die,
level the building as an act of revenge while he safely awoke in a Cloned body
in a secure location. That said, he didn't have an adventurer's assurance of
only fighting level-appropriate encounters. She could be anyone from a poor
homeless woman to an epic Sorceress to the avatar of Vecna.
"And who might you be," she said in a mocking tone.
It took Lkoturo the duration of a blink to make his decision. "Guards!" he
shouted."Guards!"
"Guards, guards," the woman said in the same tone. "Look at him; ordering the
poor Muggles about as if they were still his. Guards, guards."
"I don't know who you are, but if you're willing to talk, I'm sure we can come
to some sort of mutual underDisintegr"
A wand appeared in the woman's hand as if it had Teleported there. "Silencio."
Lkoturo's mouth moved, but no sound came out. The spell failed. He couldn't
believe itusing Silence to counter a spell was common enough, but his
Spellcraft told him that that wasn't a spell. The woman clearly had no idea how
to use a wand, but even if she had it wouldn't have helped; the stick she was
holding was just thata stick. No matter.
Silent Flesh to St
The woman flicked her wand with a carefully practiced-looking manoeuvre and
suddenly Lkoturo found himself pressed against the wall by unseen forcesonce
again, no magic to be seen.
"You people are all so predictable," she said, suddenly deadly serious. The
rapid change of expression was unnerving, all the more so because he was pretty
certain her facial features hadn't really moved, they'd just... changed in
meaning somehow. Looking at her made him regret taking ranks in Sense Motive;
she was very clearly insane. "The first thing you do after being silenced is to
cast a nonverbal spell of some variety; never to flee."
Good idea, Lkoturo thought. Silent Dimension Do
Page 443

"And another thing; you always start casting every six seconds exactly. Like
clockwork. Imperio."
oooo
The screaming Slytherins had, of course, attracted attention. Professors Snape,
Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Lockhart gathered around Peeves and the writing. A
crowd of students clustered around behind them, some frightened but most simply
curious.
"Well," said Snape, "I can't say it's any great loss."
"Oh, he'll be fine," McGonagall said, somewhat bitterly. "Poltergeists are quite
indestructiblebelieve me; I know. What I am more concerned about is..." she
gestured at the writing on the wall.
"This is exactly like what happened once in a village near Thiruvananthapuram,"
Lockhart interjected. "Of course, I'm sure you've read all about it in Magical
Me, but it turned out to be nothing more than a disgruntled hag and a pair of
goblins. Fascinating story, you know, they nearly dunked me head-first in
Screaming Snakes Hair Potion, but, cleverly, I flashed the hag my best smile and
she fell for me at once. Getting away from her, as it turned out, was almost as
difficult..."
"Really?" said Professor McGonagall. "Because that doesn't sound terribly
similar at all, Gilderoy."
"Well, when I say exactly, I mean it has certain resemblances that appear once
you scratch the surface," Lockhart replied, completely unfazed. "For example,
both encounters prominently feature a small man in a clown costume, but
admittedly, the one which I encountered was revealed, in a stunning twist, to be
five gnomes standing on each other's heads."
"If only a similar discovery could be made about Peeves," Snape said. "In the
mean time, I believe it would be prudent to send these students on their way and
have this mess cleaned up?"
"Indeed, Severus," Dumbledore said absently. "Minerva? If you would be so kind?"
"Of course, Albus," McGonagall said, then turned to the students. "You heard the
Headmaster, everyone! Back to your common roomsthat means you, Mister Weasley!"
"I'm George!"
"I never said otherwise." McGonagall narrowed her eyes, and the students
scattered. Once again, Milo found himself forced to respect the Transfiguration
Professor's abilities of Intimidation.
oooo
Gilderoy Lockhart had always prided himself on his neatness and attention to
detail; both, indeed, were a requirement for his line of work. So, when he
Page 444
Harry Potter and

entered his office that evening, he
wasn't just the smell of dungbombs.
was jealous of his success and good
suitcase, all in complete disarray.
the Natural 20 - Sir Poley

immediately knew something was awry, and it
He'd expected thatlikely some young wizard
looks. No, it was the contents of his
A thorough search (after, of course, using a powerful Air-Purifying Charm to

deal with the smell) revealed that nothing had been stolen, so someone had
merely... searched his belongings? Who? Why? Could someone know his secret? Or
did they merely suspect?
He'd expected this to be a soft, easy gig, but it appeared that he would have to
keep his guard up.
oooo
With her shift over, Fiona, now in plainclothes, approached what appeared to be
the most soulless residence she'd ever seen. She expected it to seem eerily
familiar, as if she'd seen it once in a dream, but it didn't. It just looked,
well, ordinary. Oppressively so, in fact; it was as if whoever resided there
(she hesitated to use the word "lived," for there was clearly no life to be had
in this house) desperately wanted to blend in.
That was the first thing that made her suspicious.
She knocked. Once.
Before her knuckles touched the door the second time, it opened.
"Yes? Hello? What do you want?" said a short, overweight man with a noticeable
lack of manners, style, or neck.
"Sergeant Fiona Smythe, Surrey Police," she said coolly. Just because this
wasn't exactly an official visit didn't mean that she couldn't introduce herself
as a police officer. As far as she knew. She was a police officer.
The man's mannerisms changed almost at once. "Oh, of course, officer," he said
in an oily manner, "what can I do for you?"
"Vernon Dursley?" Fiona took the man's mute fear as an affirmative. "I'm here
following up on the disturbance that occurred here on the 31st of July."
Vernon froze.
That was the second thing that made her suspicious.
"Which disturbance was that, exactly?"
"I understood an armed, extremely disturbed minor entered your house and damaged
some of your property?"
"You must be mistaken," Vernon said through clenched teeth. "We certainly have
no disturbed minors on this premises. Oh, no. None at all. Never have, in fact."
Page 445

"I see. Then I must have been mistaken. Thank you for your time."
Vernon slammed the door shut in her face.
Well, well, well... she thought. Vernon clearly remembered what had happened; he
was a terrible liar. And it just as clearly had happenedthe paint on the window
pane in front of the dining room was fresh.
That was the third thing that made her suspicious.
So either Mr. Dursley here was involved, or intimidated somehow. There was only
one thing to do now, and that was go door-to-door. Maybe one of the neighbours
had seen something.
ooooooo
D&D Tip #1: You know how Milo can Shatter wands and render wizards helpless? You
can do that in D&D, too! If you destroy or steal (say by Shatter, Sunder, or
Sleight of Hand) a Cleric's Holy Symbol, a Wizard's Spell Component Pouch, or a
Druid's Holly and Mistletoe, that caster is now an Expert, Commoner, or Grizzly
Bear, respectively.
D&D Tip #2: Speaking of Sleight of Hand, it's a DC 20 check to swipe something
from another character. This is a fixed DC. That means that pick-pocketing Pelor
is just as easy as pick-pocketing the city watch (caveat the first: the higher
the target's level, the harder it is to get away with that without getting
caught. So if you pick pocket Pelor, hope you have your smite-resistant pants
on). You can take a -20 penalty to make a pick pocket attempt as a free action.
You can do infinite free actions per round, so, if you can make a DC 40 Sleight
of Hand check (even if it's only on a 20) then you can brute force every single
item off of your mark on your turn. Curiously, this doesn't include 'sheathed
weapons,' which have an insane DC of 50 (70 as a free action). You also can't
steal held items, which takes a Disarm attempt. However, you can probably steal:
-Clothes, armour, etc.
-Wands, potions, etc.
-Many, many coins
-Holy symbols, spell component pouches, and the like
-Artifacts of Doom
(caveat the second: don't actually use this trick. It breaks the game in an
un-fun way, and in any case, the 'infinite free actions' thing is kind of a
myththe rule is that you have a 'reasonable' number of free actions.)
Page 446

CC 7: A Head Full of Hot Heir
Author's Notes: Individual or individuals unknown are using every variant of

"SirPoley," "Sir Poley," "Sir_Poley," " ," etc. as an Xbox Live gamer tag. I'm
"The Sir Poley" as a result, but I'm not thrilled about it. If you see one of
these elusive "Sir Poley" imitators out there on Halo or Call of Duty, show 'em
what I think about doppelgangers. Even if they're on your team.
Grumblegrumblegrumble.
Chapter Seven: A Head Full of Hot Heir
"Right," Milo said. He, Harry, Ron, and Hermione had pushed several desks
together in an abandoned classroom to form an ad-hoc war room. A few snacks and
drinks, liberated from the leftovers of the Sorting Feast, were scattered across
the table. "I trust yesterday's incident has put to rest any speculation that
this would be an ordinary school year?"
Everyone nodded.
"Excellent. I believe it is time for us to update the Plot." Once again, he had
cast Silent Image ahead of time, so it simply appeared with a magic-y looking
wave of his hand. "The way I see it, we have a very definite Evil Plot going on
right under our noses. I've already taken the liberty of drawing up a list of
suspects. There are a limited number of creatures that are capable of causing
Petrificationin my world, in any case."
"Petrification?" Harry asked.
"Being frozen," Hermione explained. "All of your muscles lock up and you are put
in a comatose state."
"For how long?"
"Permanently. Your body is in complete lockdown, and doesn't age or get hungry
or thirsty or anything. With some magical protection against the elements, you
could stay that way for centuries. There's only one known cure, and that's a
potion made from mandrake roots."
"Which brings me to my second point. Petrification in this world more closely
resembles Paralysis or heavy Dexterity drain in my world. Where I'm from,
Petrification means getting turned completely to stone. This means that, once
again, my knowledge will be partially correct at best. I can't take anything for
granted. That's where you come in."
"How so?" Hermione asked.
"I'll list off the most common creatures from my world which can cause
Petrification, and you'll tell me what they do here, if they even exist. Of
course, none of this is ruling out Dark Magic."
Page 447

"Fair enough."
"Medusa?"
"She writes an advice column for the Daily Prophet," Ron said. "But she's a
witch, not a monster."
"There was also a Gorgon named Medusa," Hermione added. "But that was thousands
of years ago. She was said to be the most beautiful woman who ever lived, but,
now that I think about it, there are a lot of 'most beautiful women who ever
lived' in legends."
"A beautiful Gorgon?" Milo was aghast. "Who could ever find an eight-foot
wrought-iron cow beautiful? Except a Rust Monster..."
"No, Gorgons are beautiful women with snakes for hair who can turn anyone who
looks at them into stone," Hermione clarified.
"Hold up," Ron said thoughtfully. "If you get turned to stone when you look at
them, how does anyone know that they're beautiful?"
"Magic," Hermione shrugged.
"Ugh," Milo said. "This is more complicated than I thought it would be. For some
reason, your world calls Medusas Gorgons. What do you call your two-ton,
eight-foot wrought-iron cows then? Pixies?"
"Dolores Umbridge," Hermione answered, completely straight-faced.
"Well played. What about Basilisks?"
"What's a Basilisk?" Harry asked.
"A six-legged giant lizard thing that turns you to stone."
"We haven't got any of those, either," Hermione said.
"Anything else you have that Petrifies people?"
"Nothing I can name off the top of my head," Hermione said. "But I'll have to do
more research to say for sure."
"What can you tell me about the Chamber of Secrets, then?"
"Not a lot. It's briefly mentioned in Hogwarts: A History, thoughbut I thought
you would know that, seeing as how you've read every book in the library?"
"Still working my way through the Q's, actually," Milo said defensively. "You'd
be surprised how prolific a writer Quinta Quirinia Quirrellia was, and reading
with Comprehend Languages is such a pain. I had no idea that it didn't translate
idiomsturns out everyone in my world uses the same ones. Incidentally, I think
Page 448

Quirrell might be the last scion to an ancient noble family. Who knew? In any
case, I read it before I had ranks in Autohypnosis."
"Whatever happened to Quirrell, anyway?" Harry asked.
"Still in St. Mungo's," Ron answered. "Apparently he's in some sort of coma."
"Shame," Harry said. "I bet he knows all about whatever Voldemort's planning.
Where were we?"
"Chamber of Secrets," Hermione replied. "Apparently there was some disagreement
between the four founders about what kind of students should be allowed to
attend Hogwarts. Salazar Slytherin believed that only purebloods should be
allowed to attend their school"
"He would," Ron muttered.
"and he got into an argument with Godric Gryffindor about it. It ended with
Salazar leaving Hogwarts"
"Probably through the Astronomy Tower window," Ron snickered.
"never to return. Legend has it that Slytherin built a secret room somewhere in
the castle with a horror trapped inside that could only be opened by his heir."
Hermione paused.
"Is that it?" Milo asked.
"No," she said. "I was just waiting to see if Ron had any more delightful
commentary."
"Actually," Ron said. "I was working on something brilliant involving Slytherins
all being full of hot heir. Pure gold, eh?"
"Probably one of your best yet," Hermione said.
"Thanks!" Ron beamed.
"That wasn't a compliment. Anyway, the horror is supposed to purge Hogwarts of
those Salazar Slytherin doesn't deem... fit to learn."
"Hmm," Milo said. "Well, that confirms that Slytherin House has been evil right
from the start, which, admittedly, is hardly a surprise. It also explains why
the Chamber went after Peeves."
"Oh?"
"Could you imagine anything less worthy in someone like Salazar Slytherin's eyes
than a creature that exists only to give people wedgies?"
"The Chamber could also be a distraction," Harry noted.
Page 449

"Yeah," agreed Ron. "Someone found something that could finally get Peeves what
he deserved, and, in order to avoid getting caughtnot that anyone would try too
hard to find him, mindhe says the Chamber of Secrets did it."
"Which brings up another question," Harry added. "What could a secret room
possibly do to someone?"
"Clearly, Petrify them," Milo said. "You saw Peeves. Maybe it's Animated? Though
it'd be a bit conspicuous if a big old ancient mysterious room was seen slinking
down the second floor hallway after lunch. Maybe if it had a cunning disguise...
a hat and false mustache, perhaps..."
"No, no," Hermione said. "It's a monster. There's a monster in the Chamber."
"Oh, well, obviously," Milo said quickly. "I certainly never seriously
entertained the notion that the Chamber tried to disguise itself as a student.
Besides, how could a room buy a false mustache? Hah hah, heh heh, hah..."
Everyone stared at him for a long moment.
"Anyway. It's all just rumour, in any case," Hermione reminded them. "There have
been countless thorough searches over the centuries for it, none of which had
any success."
"Yeah," Ron said. "But... here's the thing. If it was just a rumour, right, why
would there be, you know, countless thorough searches?"
"Sorry?"
"I mean, wouldn't, you know, some Headmaster who was a little, well, weird go
look for it once or twice, but... if nobody thought it was real, why did so many
people look?"
"Maybe for the same reason Muggles look for Bigfoot in North America?" Hermione
suggested.
"They're still wasting their time looking for Bigfoot?" Ron snorted. "Hah!
Muggles.
"Well, most of them don't really think they'll find him. I think it's more of an
excuse to go out camping."
"I should say they wouldn't," Ron said, still laughing. "He works for the
Ministry."
Harry nearly choked on his pumpkin juice.
"Well, yes, anyways," Milo said, desperately trying to keep the conversation on
topic. "Thank you, Hermione, for that wonderful bit of exposition."
"You're welcome," Hermione said happily. "Would you believe I almost left my
copy of Hogwarts: A History at home?"
Page 450

"Honestly?" Milo said, "No. So it's definitely a monster then?"
"Or a decoy," Harry added.
"Right. A monster or a decoy. Now, how do we figure out which is which?"
"A stakeout?" Ron suggested. "I'm sure if we asked, we'd find loads of
volunteers willing to keep sentry duty. We are in the house of courage."
"Great idea, except that pretty much every monster Milo and Hermione mentioned
Petrifies when you see it," Harry countered. "So all we'd be doing is giving it
easy access to victims."
"So we'll ask first-years to do it," Ron shrugged.
"Ron!" Hermione said, aghast. "We do not use first-years as bait!"
"Calm down, Hermione, I meant Slytherin first-years. We could disguise ourselves
as Slytherins, follow them to their Common Roomwhich would be useful for
pranking purposes in the future in any caseand tell them that, in the name of
Slytherin, they have to track down this monster in order to, I dunno, help it or
something."
"Perfect!" Milo said. "And then all we have to do is follow the trail of
Petrified Slytherins to its lair!"
"If we're lucky," Harry said dreamily, "it'll make an exception and eat Malfoy."
"No," Hermione said sharply.
"But"
"Just no."
"Fine, then," Milo said. "What do you suggest we do?"
"We let Professor Dumbledore, the most powerful wizard of his generation, handle
it. If we discover any information, we give it to him or Professor McGonagall."
"How does that result in Malfoy being eaten?" Ron asked.
Hermione sighed.
"Here's an idea," Milo said slowly. He could practically feel the gears whirring
in his mind, like the Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus. "The Chamber can only be
opened by the heir of Slytherin, right?"
"According to what I feel I must remind you is legend," Hermione said.
"Pft. When have you ever heard of a legend that wasn't true? Case in point:
Bigfoot." Hermione muttered something under her breath, but it seemed somehow
Page 451

insincere to Milo. He began to wonder if she wasn't simply playing Pit Fiend's
Advocate because she felt expected to. "So, under the assumption that the legend
is true, only the heir of Slytherin can open the Chamber of Secrets and unleash
the monster living inside. Correct?"
"Correct."
"It's probably also safe to assume that there isn't an heir of Slytherin just
kicking around in Hogwarts, not opening the Chamber of Secrets. Also correct?"
"Reasonable enough," Hermione said. "It would seem fairly improbable. Although,
if you consider how many descendents he could have had in a thousand years and
compare it to how many pureblooded wizards there really are in Magical Britain,
it's entirely possible that Ron here is the heir of Slytherinor at least, one
of several thousand. Unless they mean his literal heir, in which case, I'll have
to do more research, but I'm pretty sure hereditary in that medieval England was
by-and-large primogeniture, which narrows it down to non-muggleborn males."
"Don't you mean pureblooded?" Harry asked.
"No, I realized while speaking that not all of Slytherin's descendents over the
centuries necessarily shared his prejudices."
"Could have been a muggleborn," Ron said, "if some Slytherin down the line had a
squib for a daughter and that squib married a muggle bloke, had all-muggle kids,
and a few generations later, one of them had a muggleborn wizard for a son."
"It gets worse," Harry said. "We don't know it doesn't refer to his, you know,
legal heir. If one of Slytherin's heirs left everything he hadincluding the
ability to open the Chamberto someone he wasn't related to by blood, like say
someone he adopted..."
"So basically," Hermione said, "it could be anyone at all. Well, except Milo.
He's from another universe."
"So we've got nothing?" Harry asked.
"No," Milo said. "We've got something. I can cast a spell called Scrying that
will let me spy on someone that I have at least secondhand knowledge of. I don't
need to know their name. Normally this is useful to find out what that person is
up to, but, in this case, I can just target the 'heir of Slytherin' and see what
heor shelooks like."
"Well," Ron said. "If you could do that, why didn't you already?"
"Well, it takes an hour," Milo said, "and it's not guaranteed to work. Also, I
need a big expensive mirror."
"How expensive?" Harry asked.
"A thousand gold piecesor, via salt, thirty-seven galleons, seven sickles, and
eighteen knuts."
Page 452

Harry made a dismissive noise and shrugged. "I thought this was supposed to be a
problem."
Milo grinned. At the rate they were going, they'd have this adventure completed
in a week.
oooo
Peasegood sighed upon entering his office, staring at the mountain of reports on
his desk. The funny thing about his desk was that, while the hardwood surface
was always covered in urgent reports, empty coffee mugs, quills, and, in
general, looked as if it was used as frequently as the head of any understaffed
government organization's desk the world over, every single piece of parchment
was oriented upside-downfacing the door instead of the chair. The chair, in
fact, was pristine. Its leather surface shone in a cheaply expensive way that
only a brand-new faux-ancient leather office chair could. Peasegood had never
sat in that chair since he'd inherited the post after his predecessor snapped
from the pressure. In fact, as far as he knew, nobody had ever sat in that
chair. It was even possible that it really was an eighty-year-old leather chair
in mint condition rather than the fake most people assumed it was.
Peasegood set down his most recent empty mug on top of the others, adding to a
precarious pyramid nearly as high he as he was, grabbed the top stack of urgent
reports, and left his office the way he'd come in. A trail of sorts had been
worn down the centre of the carpet up to the desk and back to the door; the rest
was covered in a thin layer of dust.
"Let's see," he said to himself, flipping through the thick stack of parchment.
"A 'muggle with a red hat' saw the Abbots Apparating to their friend's home up
in Rutland... Pixies loose in Cardiff... Ugh. Another one from Mad-Eye." He'd
been pestering them to do everyone on the top 100 bestsellers in fantasy ever
since the Fiction Crisis of 1990, when one of them somehow figured out about
Hogwarts. He said it was the only way to be sure.
Behind him, Peasegood heard the characteristic pop! of a Disapparating wizard.
Peasegood turned around to see Milton standing in the hallway, his robes
tattered and soaked through. There was a time when Peasegood would have asked
what happened, but that time had passed.
"Take these ones," Peasegood said, shoving half the stack into Milton's hands.
"I'll do the rest."
Milton sighed wearily and looked at the reports. "A muggle policewoman
reverted?" he asked, looking at the one from Miss Figg. "I hate having to do the
same job twice. Ah, well. An Obliviator's work is never done." With another pop,
he vanished.
oooo
Lockhart lounged in a comfortable armchair in the Headmaster's office. The
Headmaster had assembled the four Heads of Houses and himself to his office. He
Page 453

didn't actually feel comfortableto the contrary, he was decidedly anxiousbut
he'd been in the business long enough to know how to fake it.
"The question remains," McGonagall said, "was this some variety of hoax, or is
it real?"
"Perhaps it is neither," Flitwick added. "It could be an attack by Dark
Wizards."
"In some ways it makes no difference," Snape said. "If we are not careful, they
could close the school."
"You can't be serious," Lockhart said. "This is the oldest wizarding school in
the world. They wouldn't close it over a poltergeist."
"Hogwarts... does not always get the best PR," Flitwick said diplomatically.
"It's The Prophet," McGonagall said contemptuously. "They've had it out for the
Headmaster since day one."
"Have they?" Dumbledore asked, for all the world sounding like someone who had
been told the governments of the world had been overthrown by ants. "But I was
at their first public appearance. It was, as I recall, in a diner that made what
were, perhaps, the most memorable banana pancakes of my careeryou wouldn't
believe what they tried to pass off as maple syrup. But I rather thought they
took a shine to me when I gave their saxophonist a few pointers and he said to
me, 'Albus, baby, you're one hep cat with supermurgitroid chops and zoot
threads. Boys, I think we've got ourselves a hot plate in the mix.' Though I
never was quite certain what he meant. Ah, well, I suppose one never can win
them all..."
McGonagall coughed pointedly. "No, The Daily Prophet."
"Not the Louisiana-based Rhythm and Blues group?"
"No, the newspaper."
"Why, that rag's had it in for me since day one."
"Well, if it's The Prophet that's your problem," Lockhart said, seizing his
opportunity. "I might be able to help you out a bit there. You see, there's a
lovely young witch I happen to be acquainted with who writes for that particular
reporting establishment. If we act quickly enough, we might be able to...
present this issue in a rather different light." Lockhart knew that a legitimate
success here, mixed with his numerous false ones, would reinforce his position
of being one of the group, something which he saw no reason not to do.
Dumbledore frowned for a moment, thinking. "Very well," he said finally. "But on
the condition that the article is, in fact, true. I will not have lies spread to
the public on my behalf."
"Why, of course," Lockhart said. "I wouldn't dream of having it any other way."
Page 454

"The larger matter, of course, is how we will deal with this issuenot how it
appears to the wider world," Dumbledore said. "I would gladly give my reputation
and position to protect the students of Hogwarts, or, indeed, most any other.
So. We must discover if, in fact, this is a hoax, an attack, or legitimate, and
then proceed to take proper action. I want everyone to keep their ears, eyes,
and noses to the ground, peeled, and unstuffed, respectively. Until we have more
information, I fear, our other options are limited. However, it is critical that
we all do our best to prevent panic from breaking out among the students. In
addition to stamping out rumours as they are found, I want the student clubs and
organizations in full swing as quickly as possibleincluding, of course,
Quidditch. Which reminds me; Gilderoy, your... predecessor began a Duelling Club
last year that, due to his health concerns, was cancelled abruptly. Would youif
you have the time, of coursebe so good as to continue where he left off?"
"Would you believe I was just about to suggest that very same idea?" Lockhart
said. Truth be told, he had been meaning to start a Duelling Club. "Teaching the
students to defend themselves is of upmost importance, especially considering
recent events." It was also just the sort of thing that a legendary hero would
do.
"Very well," Dumbledore said. "And that, I believe concludes this week's staff
meeting."
oooo
"I still think Hagrid would win," Seamus Finnigan protested.
"Not a chance," Dean Thomas insisted. "But it's a fight I'd love to see." The
two were walking by Hagrid's hut in the middle of an animated argument over the
ins-and-outs of giant-on-giant combat.
"I dunno. Has it got any sports in it?"
"Are you kidding? Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases,
escapes, true love, miracles..."
Seamus looked about to respond, but was interrupted by a shrill scream from the
forest. The two blinked and hesitated for only a moment before their
inner-Gryffindors took over. Wands out, they bravely entered the forest to see
if anyone was in need of their help.
oo
A few minutes later, Hagridwho had heard the scream, too, but had to finish
feeding the still-jumpy thestrals (it was not considered wise to leave thestrals
half-fed)arrived to investigate, crossbow in hand and Fang in tow.
"Show yerself," he called into the forest.
"Just us," Seamus called back. "We heard the scream, too, but didn't find anyone
out here."
Page 455

"Yeh alright?"
"Yup," Dean said.
"Glad ter hear it, but that was ruddy dangerous. Head back ter the castle
sharpish; I'll look abou' just ter be sure."
The two Gryffindors nodded and hurried up to Hogwarts. Students these days,
Hagrid thought to himself. No sense whatsoever. At least they're alright...
ooooooo
D&D Tip: Launch Bolt (SpC 130) is 0th-level Sorc/Wiz spell that fires a bolt as
if it had been launched from a light crossbow. Simple enough, right? Maybe
useful in an emergency, but even then, what are the odds you have bolts and this
spell prepared but no crossbow? However, the spell has hidden uses. The bolt can
be substituted for a larger boltsay a Gargantuan (8sp each, 4d6 damage) or
Colossal one (16sp each, 6d6 damage) to create an ad hoc siege engine, albeit
one with only an 80 ft range increment. Your DM would be well within his rights
to disallow this particular trick, as always, though it's somewhat balanced by
the need to carry a wagonload of siege ammo around with you.
Enter Eschew Materials. The bolt fired is a Material Component of the spell, and
as such is unneeded with the feat. Even without the above trick, this makes
Launch Bolt the most damaging cantrip I've found at 1d8 (not exactly an
impressive achievement, to be fair), but combined with the above trick, it
becomes pretty much insane at low levels. Eschew Materials lets you ignore any
material component worth 1gp or less, so the biggest you can fire is Gargantuan
(8sp). But don't let that limit your creativity. The bolt can have any special
properties you can come up with, as long as it's worth equal to or less than
1gp. That includes special materials (though you're barred from most Core
materials, as even silver costs +2gp. So you pretty much only get Cold Iron).
Happy gaming!
EDIT: The Pratchett reference was not supposed to be about his Alzheimer's at
all, but the fact that it is occasionally suggested that Discworld's Unseen
University is based off of Hogwarts, despite appearing in Discworld books
several years before Harry Potter was published. The joke I was making was that
Pratchett really did discover the "real" Hogwarts and base the UU off of it, but
that his memory was modified afterward. The connection to his disease, however,
never crossed my mind. Now that it's been pointed out, I realize that the joke
was in poor taste, and removed it. I'm so sorry about that.
CC 8: Gilderoy Lockhart
Page 456

Author's Notes: Good news, everyone! Harry Potter and the Natural 20 has
inspired its first story, a Dune/D&D crossover by DalkonCledwin! It's only in
its first chapter, but The Won Initiative and the Kwisatz Haderach can be found
here on fanfiction (links are blocked, but you can find it with a quick search).
It has a very promising beginning, so you should all check it out and show
DalkonCledwin some support.
Here's the blurb: While traveling on a Spelljammer, our Hero Argylle suddenly
gets transported to a far off land where things quickly start to stop making
sense to his years of expertise. All the while the people of this new world are
continuously baffled by his seemingly superior combat skills and his ability to
charm some of the most dangerous creatures their world has to offer...
Update: So my wisdom teeth came out this week, which is getting in the way of my
writing somewhat. This week's chapter will probably be late by a couple of days.
Chapter Eight: Gilderoy Lockhart
Fiona awoke in her bed with a strange feeling well-known to anyone who has ever
been jolted awake by dream-tripping on the dream-sidewalk. She spent a few
seconds taking deep breaths to calm her racing heart.
"Bloody hate those," she muttered to herself, then checked her alarm clock:
6:33.
"Shit!" She was three minutes behind schedule. She had her entire morning, every
morning, planned out to the minuteenough time to put kettle on, throw bread in
toaster, hop in shower, get dressed, start tea steeping, feed Sprocket, get
toast out of toaster, butter and then eat toast for breakfast, put now-steeped
tea in vacuum flask, throw dishes in sink, put shoes on, grab walkman, open
door, go out door, close door, lock door, listen to Rolling Stones, jog to
station, arrive at station at precisely seven o'clock, start work. She briefly
debated which to sacrifice between her morning shower, breakfast, and tea, but
was already in the shower with the kettle on before realizing she'd made her
decision.
Sprockether enormously fat calico catwas vocally unhappy with this decision,
as she usually unabashedly ate any and all crumbs Fiona left behind after
breakfast, but sometimes sacrifices had to be made.
Once she was on the street, she, while moving, put her headphones on and pressed
play. Rather than Ruby Tuesday, the song she had listened to every morning on
the way to work (and on morning jogs on weekends and holidays) for the last four
years, she heard her own voice in the recorder.
"If you know why you're hearing yourself speak, hold fast-forward for thirty
seconds. No? Still here? Damn, they got you again. Well, anyway, here's what's
going on..."
Strangely enough, it was the knowledge that if she stopped to freak out then
she'd be late for work that allowed her to, more or less, keep her cool. She
Page 457

listened to herself list out events, locations where she'd stashed notes and
journals, and reassurances that this was, unfortunately, not a joke. She
realized she was shaking, and it wasn't with fear. How dare they? She didn't
know who was behind this, but what gave them the right? Her memories were her
own, damn it. They were her life. Taking away someone's memory was murder. The
Fiona Smythe who had left this message for her was no less dead just because
there was still a Fiona Smythe to listen to it. And this had happened before, no
less.
A homeless man approached her, likely to ask for money, but after one look at
her face, he just kept on walking.
The tape ended with two very explicit instructions: figure out exactly what
you'd done the day before and rewind this cassette.
"No kidding," she muttered, pressing rewind.
oooo
"Has anybody
front of the
Gryffindors,
class of the
seen Harry?" Hermione asked, looking around. They were standing in

Herbology greenhouses with most of the second-year Hufflepuffs and
waiting for Sprout to arrive and teach them their first Herbology
year.
"He was just with us," Ron said, looking around.

Milo frowned. Had Harry somehow been lured away from the group and been
Petrified by Slytherin's monster? Had Malfoy finally settled on a plan for
revenge and enacted it? Was Harry being lowered slowly into a vat of electric
eels? The more he thought about it, the more he was certain the Boy-Who-Lived
was once again in mortal peril and needed rescu
"No, wait, there he is," Ron said.
"Sorry, guys," Harry said. "Would you believe a first-year with a camera tried
to get a signed photo of me?"
"A signed photo?" Ron said disgustedly. "You can't let Draco hear about that."
"Believe me, I know."
"Hmm..." Milo said thoughtfully.
"No," Harry said. "I don't know what idea you just had, but I know I won't like
it."
"I keep forgetting you're a celebrity here," Milo said. "We could capitalize on
that. Harry Potter signed photos, Harry Potter action figures, Harry Potter
lunchboxes..."
"Who would want a Harry Potter lunchbox?" Harry scoffed.
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"What's more, we should really see if we can get a knut for every Harry Potter
Chocolate Frog Card..."
"No. Absolutely not. As if I didn't have enough problems as it is. You wouldn't
believe what Lockhart said to me earlier"
Harry was interrupted by the arrival of Professor Sprout and most of the rest of
the Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors.
"We're in Greenhouse Three today," Sprout said cheerfully. "Which means I want
everyone on their best behaviour. I haven't had anyone seriously injured in
Herbology for more than four years, and that's a streak I don't mean to break."
There was an excited murmur among the studentsGreenhouse Three held much more
dangerous (and, to twelve-year-olds, therefore more interesting) plants than
Greenhouse One, which was the only one they had yet entered. "I want everybody
in groups of four!" Sprout instructed, which led to a mad dash. Everyone rushed
to be with their friends, people in friend circles of five or more raced to not
be the odd-man out, and everyoneeveryonetried to discreetly avoid being in
Neville's group. They knew who was going to break Sprout's streak if anyone
would, and that there might well be collateral damage when he did.
In this whirlwind, Seamus and Dean snatched up Ron and Harry to a distant table,
while Milo, who had been distracted, wound up at a table with Hermione, Neville
(Milo was glad he was wearing fire-resistant robes) and...
"Hi," Hannah said. "I haven't seen much of you yet. You vanished at the Sorting
before I could say hello."
"Hi," Milo said awkwardly. Out of Hannah's line-of-sight, he saw Hermione making
mock-gagging motions, followed by exaggeratedly mouthing how was your summer.
"How was your summer?" Milo asked. Hermione gave him a thumbs up.
"Oh, you know, the usual. Well, actually, I guess you don't know. Weird. I
pretty much spent the summer reading books in my backyard; nothing terribly
interesting."
"Well that sounds boring..." Hermione frantically waved her arms in front of her
and mouthed No! Bad! "...to boring people," Milo finished. Hermione gave him a
hesitant thumbs-up. "I love reading books on the backyard. Just love it. In
fact, it's all I ever do..." Hermione gave him a vigorous thumbs-down.
"...except when I don't."
"Are you okay?" she asked. "You seem... odd."
"I"
"We'll be re-potting Mandrakes today," Sprout declared, and all conversation
ceased. Sprout was a sweet and cheerful person, but she came down like a dire
badger on anyone who talked while she was teaching. "Now, who can tell me the
properties of a Mandrake?"
To nobody's surprise, Hermione's hand shot into the air. To everybody's
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surprise, so did Ron's.
"Very well," said Professor Sprout, slightly taken aback. "Mister Weasley?"
"Mandrakes are the only known cure for Petrification," Ron said proudly.
"Correct," Sprout said. "Ten points for Gryffindor." Milo saw Harry and Ron
high-five over at their table. "Mandrake roots can return those who have been
transfiguredwhich includes Petrificationto their original state. As such, it
is a vital component to many forms of antidotes. It is also extremely rarewe
are quite fortunate to have them here at all. I want everyone to be very careful
with them, because in addition to being rare, they are also quite dangerous. Can
anyone tell me why?"
Hermione's hand shot up so fast it practically quivered.
"The cry of the Mandrake is fatal to anyone who hears it," she said.
"Precisely. Another ten points for Gryffindor," said Professor Sprout. "Now,
these Mandrakes are very young, so their cry won't kill youit will only knock
you out for most of a day. Still, I doubt any of you would want to miss your
first day of classes, or that your teachers would be particularly happy with me
if you did." Sprout handed out heavy-duty earmuffs to the class, telling them
that she would give a thumbs-down when they were allowed to take them off.
Something went 'click' in Milo's brain, but he wasn't sure what it was. It
wasn't the obvious thingthat the teachers had realized that more Petrifications
were on the way and wanted a remedy in advance. There was also a nagging fear
that he'd been mishearing 'mandrake' this entire time, because, after allthe
cry of the mandrake? How did a harmless plant cry? Had they been saying
'Man-Drake' this whole time, and there was really some variety of young
half-dragon living in this greenhouse? But that was aside from what Milo's
hindbrainfor once, he was fairly sure it was not his plot-sensespicked up.
Something about young Mandrakes knocking people out...
"Earmuffs on, everybody!" Sprout said happily. Milo didn't need to be told
twice. What Sprout pulled out of her pot resembled less the harmless, vaguely
humanoid-shaped root that Milo was familiar with, and more a Druid's bogun. It
had pale green, mottled skin and judging by the movements of its mouth, it was
screaming for all it was worth.
"Boccob," Milo muttered under his breath, not that anyone could hear him. This
world continued to surprise him.
When it came time for them to plant their Mandrakes, Milo was glad for his
dragonhide gloves. The little plant-things fought for all they were worth not to
be put back in their pots. For what Milo was certain would not be the last time,
he wished he was a Druid. Then he'd walk out of here with an army of
instant-death-causing plant people who lived to do his bidding. Unfortunately,
he was not a Druid. He was a Wizard. And sometimes being a Wizard meant getting
your hands dirty and not getting any class features.
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By the end of the class, everyone was covered in mud, sweat, and, in some cases,
Mandrake spit. Sprout assured them it wasn't poisonous, but Neville was starting
to develop a concerning-looking rash. Worse, the class had run overtime while
they chased down the last Mandrake, who had made a run for his life. They were
already late for Transfigurations.
"Prestidigitation," Milo muttered, cleaning himself off.
Transfigurations was predictably dreadful. McGonagall was extremely disappointed
that, despite his impressive showing for the Transfiguration examhe had no
intention of telling her how he'd managed to get an 'O' on thathe was unable to
transform a beetle into a button. Because the beetle was a living creature, he
was unable even to use his Prestidigitation trick. In the end, she'd discreetly
suggested he recommence his remedial Transfiguration classes with her on
Thursdays after class.
"I don't understand why you don't just tell her," Hannah said afterwards, during
their lunch break. "It's the worst-kept secret in school that you're not a
normal wizard."
"The way I see it, it's sort of a... polite fiction, you know? As long as it
isn't officially acknowledged, there won't be any official action.
Transfiguration is a mandatory course until our OWLs, in any case, so it'd look
suspicious if I was pulled out. And if McGonagall did find out... I mean, the
only other optionaside from dropping the course, that isis that she'd, you
know, help me cheat. Does that seem like something McGonagall would do?"
"No," Hannah said. "But I also don't think she'd support torturing a student who
was physically unable to perform even simple Transfigurations this way."
"I still think I can do it," Milo insisted. "I just have to be more creative."
"Why don't you do what you did for the exam?" she asked. "By the way, what did
you do for that exam?"
Milo chewed his lip. On the one hand, more people in the loop meant a larger
chance of the authorities finding out, but on the other hand, it was pure
genius.
"Promise not to tell anyone?" he asked.
"Of course."
"Well," he said conspiratorially, "you see, I"
It was then that Harry and Ron arrived.
"Oh, hey Milo, Hannah," Harry said. "What's up?"
"Oh, Milo was just about to tell meOw!" Milo stepped on her toe. "About, er,
you know, the Goblin Uprisings of 1216."
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"Wasn't it the Goblin Uprisings of 1612?" Harry asked curiously.
"Well, you know goblins," Milo said with a fake laugh. "They sure do love to
rise up, am I right?"
"Well, yeah," Ron agreed. "They do tend to do that a lot."
"So," Milo said, desperately casting about for a change in subject. "How about
that, er, Herbology?"
"It was dreadful," Hannah said. "I felt like I was burying little babies alive.
Babies that fought like tigers."
"Oh, I dunno," Ron shrugged. "It wasn't so bad for us. Turns out Dean and
Seamus"
"That's how you say his name?" Milo gasped. "That's unfair! They are not allowed
to be Seamus and Dean. They can be See-mus and Deen or Shay-mus and Dayne, but
they can't have it both ways."
"...Anyway," Ron continued. "They're much better at Herbology than you'd have
thought. They really shoved those Mandrakes into those pots like it was nobody's
business."
"Very efficient," Harry commented. "No-nonsense whatsoever."
"Huh. I wouldn't have guessed by looking at them," Milo said. "I suppose it's a
common enough NPC trait, however."
Ron shrugged. "So what was it Milo was going to tell you?" he asked Hannah
curiously.
"What I thought about Golden Boy Stop-Heart," Milo interjected. "And how we'll
finally be able to get the measure of him in his class. Which we have now."
"What? We've still got like ten minutes."
"Exactly! We have a new professor, so we can arrive early and, er, make a good
impression."
Ron paused. "Who are you and what did Hermione do with the real Milo?"
"I am the real Milo. Now are you coming, or not?"
"Nah," Ron said. "I'll catch up later. In for a game of Wizard's Chess, Harry?"
"Sure," Harry answered, "but we play by Milo's rules. You only won the last one
because your pawn rolled nothing but twenties against my knight."
"Fine," Ron agreed. "But you owe me a round of normal Wizard's Chess later.
"I'll go," Hannah said.
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And that was how Milo wound up sitting front-and-centre at Lockhart's first
class, wedged between Hermione and Hannah. The classroom was designed to hold a
much larger class than the eleven Gryffindor second-years currently present, as
some Defence Professors had preferred to teach two or even all four houses
simultaneously. As such, there were dozens of empty chairs, so the Gryffindors,
as students are wont to do, dispersed to fill all available space equally,
rather like a gas. In this case, a lighter-than-air gas, as there were four
empty rows behind the three of them before reaching the first outliers higher up
the steps.
It was then that Lockhart entered. As always, his hair, smile, and clothes were
perfect. This was obvious even to Milo's outsider's perspective.
It occurred to Milo that few people were ever perpetually calm, cheerful, and
confidentexcept for some NPCs, particularly minor ones with little personality.
From this he could conclude that Lockhart was either an exceptional actor or a
flat character. Time would tell which was true; largely by the amount of detail
his character warranted and how much time was spent on him.
It was then that Milo began counting adjectives.
"Me," Lockhart said, pointing at his own smiling portrait on the covers of their
textbooks. "Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of
the Dark Force Defence League and five times winner of Witch Weekly's
Most-Charming-Smile awardbut I don't talk about that. I didn't get rid of the
Bandon Banshee by smiling at her!"
There were a few scattered laughs from the audience. Milo was simply floored.
He'd had his suspicions about Lockhart, of courseespecially considering what
happened with the last Defence Professor. But he'd never thought that the first
words out of the man's mouth that were directed to their class would be a simple
list of facts describing himself. In valuable time that a Professor could be
using for expositionmuch like Sprout had, for exampleLockhart did nothing but
draw attention to his own talents. It was not the most subtle thing he had ever
seen the DM (Detail Magnet) point out to him before. Milo began taking notes
frantically.
"I see you've all bought a complete set of my bookswell done. I thought we'd
start today with a little quiz. Nothing to worry aboutjust to check how well
you've read them, how much you've taken in..."
While Lockhart handed out test papers, Milo surreptitiously reached into his
backpack.
"Scholar's Touch," he muttered, tapping Lockhart's various textbooks (half of
which were plagiarized bootleg copies he'd made from Ron's). Hermione shot him a
disapproving look, but Hannah just chuckled.
"You have thirty minutes. Startnow!"
Milo looked at the sheet, and was glad he'd refreshed his memory. The quiz was
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full of the most minute trivia: What is Gilderoy Lockhart's secret ambition?
What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favourite breed of cat? What is Gilderoy Lockhart's
favourite dance? In your experience, how has Gilderoy Lockhart most changed your
life? Who is Gilderoy Lockhart's role model? Despite having already read the
books with Scholar's Touch before, he'd never have remembered this many details.
Milo quickly realized Gilderoy Lockhart had more backstory than the rest of this
setting combined. Gilderoy Lockhart was a more well-rounded, fleshed-out
character than he was.
Gilderoy Lockhart was capital-'I' Important.
Half an hour later, Lockhart collected the tests, reading through them and
pointing out common errorshis favourite dance was the foxtrot, and his role
model was, of course, himself. Then he paused.
"Well, well, well," he said delightedly. "It appears that not one but two of you
managed to get a perfect score! Ten points for Gryffindor for each of my devoted
admirers. Well done, Mister Amastacia-Liadon and Miss Granger!"
Hermione turned a violent shade of pink, and Milo realized he may have
accidentally drawn attention to himself. The chortles from the back row had
nothing to do with his embarrassmentat least, he firmly believed that if he
told himself that frequently enough, it might become true.
Lockhart then placed a large cage covered in a white sheet on the table. Milo,
already somewhat on edge, sat up a little straighter and shook his sleeves clear
of his hands. He'd had bad experiences with Defence Professors bringing live
monsters to class before.
"I must ask you not to scream," Lockhart said in a stage whisper. "It might
provoke them."
It was then that Lockhart released the pixies. Electric blue, slightly over half
a foot tall, with voices so shrill that they forced a Will save to avoid
becoming severely irritated. As soon as the cage door flipped open, they made a
run for it.
"Have no fear!" Lockhart said, drawing his wand. "Peskipiski Pesternomi!" If the
spell did anything, however, it was not apparent. The pixies escaped the cage
and flew towards the classof which, Milo was front-and-centre.
Milo's battle-honed instinctive responses took over immediately. As soon as the
pixies were released and his Initiative came up, he leapt to his feet, hands
making complicated arcane gestures.
"Shadow Conjuration," he cast. Shadow Conjuration was a phenomenally-versatile
Illusion spell could mimic any Conjuration spell of up to 3rd level. This made
it perfect for casting any one of hundreds of possible spells so circumstantial
(Milo liked to think of them as 'use-impaired') that nobody would ever bother
preparing themin this case, Malevolent Miasma.
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Ten thin tendrils of grey fog streaked with dark, nauseating patches burst out
of Milo's outstretched fingers, splitting up in mid-air into ever-smaller
branches that flew down the Pixies' throats. The pixies began choking and fell
to the ground, one gasping out a feeble "Crivens!" before succumbing to the
effects of the spell. In seconds, they all lay still on the ground, unconscious.
There were many, many more effective spells than Malevolent Miasma, but this one
was the first he thought of which had everything he neededit was nonlethal,
affected a small area (he had no intention of ending up in detention for
knocking out a Professor on his first day of classes), and fairly long-lasting.
Gods, Milo thought to himself. I am such an idiot. Really, you'd think he'd have
learned after the Glitterdust Incident last September. And I'd just beaten
myself up for drawing attention to myself... Now I'm going to get the whole
Gryffindor House in detention again or something.
If Lockhart was surprised, he hid it well.
"Well done!" he exclaimed. "Young Mister Anastasia-Llewin here passed the test!
For, as I'm sure you can now divine, I was testing your responses when faced
with danger after an authority figure failed to protect you. Twenty points for
Gryffindor!"
Lockhart enlisted a few volunteers to re-cage the pixies, and the rest of the
class mostly consisted of Lockhart discussing his various exploits.
"Well," Milo said afterwards. "That was... unexpected."
"The pixies being released?" Ron asked. "Because that was ridiculous. What kind
of person releases magical creatures into a group of unsuspecting students?"
"No, I meant Grimlock's clear central importance to the Plot. Also, that I
burned a fourth-level spell on those things. With my luck, I'll be ambushed by
Acromantula-riding Redcaps later today and run out of spells because of it."
"I think it was clever," Hermione said. "Testing our responses under pressure.
Exactly what a good Defence Professor should do. Certainly got my heart racing,
that's for sure."
"Pretty sure it was his smile that did that," Ron muttered sotto voce, but Milo
didn't think Hermione heard it. All things considered, this was probably
fortunate for Ron's ambitions of surviving to adulthood.
"If you ask me, he was completely clueless," Harry said. "I think he expected
that spell to work."
"But that doesn't make any sense," Hermione countered. "It's simple logic. Why
would he publically rely on a spell he hadn't practiced in advance if he wanted
it to work? Besides, I don't think it's even a real spell. It had to have been
an act."
"I wonder..." Milo said, "I'm seeing a lot of parallels between him and Fudge.
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Ambiguously incompetent individuals in positions of extreme fame and power,
respectively, who may or may not be putting on an act. Perhaps... perhaps he's
Fudge's secret apprentice? Or long-lost child? Maybe he is Fudge, keeping an eye
on the school in disguise..."
They continued their debate all the way to Gryffindor Common Room without
reaching a consensus. Hermione maintained that he must be a great and powerful
wizardafter all, his books said so, and if you can't trust books, who can you
trust? Ron and Harry became gradually more certain that Lockhart was a fraud who
had somehow bluffed his way into fame, and Milo... Milo was uncertain. There was
definitely more to their Defence Professor than appeared on the surface, but the
concerning thing was that there was so much surface information. He knew
Lockhart's birthday. He didn't even know his own birthday.
Although...
It occurred to Milo that he might be able to do something about that, if he put
his mind to it. Like he had with his mother in Dumbledore's office last year.
Not yet, he thought. Part of it was simple pragmatismit might just happen,
someday, that it would be beneficial for him for his birthday to lie on a
certain day, and he wouldn't be able to change it once he'd declared it. But
there was more than that. It was hard to pin down. Maybe one day, but not today.
CC 9: I Scry With My Little Eye
Chapter Nine: I Scry With My Little Eye

It took four days after Harry's mirror came in the owl post for Milo to realize
his error in relying on brute-force Scrying. Harry had ordered the mirror from a
specialty furniture shop; it turned out it was more difficult than Milo would
have expected to find a mirror that was of 'finely wrought and highly polished
silver at least 2 feet by 4 feet' that only cost thirty-seven galleons and some
change. As a fourth-level spell, Milo could cast up to four Scrying's per day.
With knowledge of the 'Heir of Slytherin' sketchy enough that it didn't even
qualify as secondhand, the unknown Heir received a +10 bonus on Will saves to
resist the effects. Assuming the Heir had no Wisdom worth mentioning and had a
small base save bonus from class (assuming local wizards even had classes,
Wisdom, or saving throw bonuses), the Heir had a fifty-percent chance to cause
Scrying to fail. Milo very much doubted that the Heir had such a poor Will save
bonus. Still, the problem was not insurmountablethere was a five-percent chance
for anyone to fail a save, no matter the difficulty. Well, almost anyone. There
were a few ways to get around that particular hurdle: Swordsages, for example,
could replace some saving throws with Concentration skill checks, which did not
have that particular disadvantage. Still, Milo was reasonably confident that,
with enough Divinations sent his or her way, eventually the Heir would fail a
save.
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The problem, however, lay in that 'enough Divinations' part of the plan.
Scrying, as it turned out, took a solid hour to cast. While Milo's Dedicated
Wright, Cog, shaved off a lot of time Milo would have spent in Item Creation
(the little Homunculus was currently working his way through a stack of Amulets
of Protection from Evil for the Ministry, in case they ever decided to reply to
his letter), there were still the more mundane problems of getting enough sleep
to recover spells, doing his homework, and bluffing his way through his classes
to worry about.
He'd had to completely suspend all spell research, but not before finishing off
Translocation Trick, which allowed him to switch placesand appearanceswith
someone else. The spell couldn't have been designed better to get him through
Potions. He simply followed all of Snape's instructions for the majority of the
class, chopping crocodile heart and grinding cockroaches and whatnot as per
specifications, then used Translocation Trick to switch places with Ron (who was
more than happy to help pull a fast one over Snape) and pretend to reread the
instructions for a few seconds while Ron, magically disguised as Milo, stirred
the potion as per directions. There a few drawbacks to this plan, however, which
was why Milo still spent a fair amount of time brainstorming an improved method.
The spell in no way allowed them to sound like the other person, so both he and
Ron had to remain perfectly silent for the duration. Further, when the spell
ended, they switched back to their original appearances, but not their original
locations. Milo originally considered using the simple and low-level Benign
Transposition to switch them back, but realized this wouldn't workthey'd still
look like each other. Translocation Trick couldn't simply be dismissed like many
spells; instead, he had to wait over an hour for it to wear off. As such, Milo
was forced to burn not one but two fourth-level spells every Potions class (one
to switch places with Ron, another to switch back), which severely hampered his
attempts to discover the Heir of Slytherin with magic. Milo smiled ruefully when
he remembered Snape's plan last year to oust him for Lucius as a fake wizard by
making him brew a potion in front of the Minister for Magic, thinking about how
easily he could have foiled the plan if he'd been able to cast fourth-level
spells then.
Ironically, since Milo was, when necessary, a meticulous person with a great eye
for detail, and the majority of the work was simply chopping and measuring, he
turned out to be rather good at potion-making. Snape, to say the least, was
growing increasingly suspicious of his sudden abilities, but so far didn't seem
to have caught on.
By way of more mundane methods of catching the Heiror Slytherin's monsterin
action, Milo had Mordy patrol the halls at night. Operating under the assumption
that the monster Petrified with a gaze attackmost Petrification effects in both
Milo's world and this one were gaze attacksMordy was the ideal choice, as the
rat familiar could operate by sense of smell alone. Mordenkainen, predictably,
was not happy with this particular state of affairsless because he might run
into Slytherin's monster and more because he might run into Mrs. Norris, the
groundskeeper's cat.
And yet in spite of all the trouble, Scrying was failing, and there were several
possible reasons for it. The two most likely, as far as Milo could tell, were
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that either a) the Heir's Will save was high enough that he was regularly
passing his saving throws or b) there were multiple Heirs of Slytherin out
there, and he wasn't providing Scrying with enough information to unambiguously
define the target. Milo hadn't put any ranks in Profession (Statistician) but he
could tell that it would take a lot of scrying attempts to determine beyond
reasonable doubt that the spell wasn't failing because the target was making his
saves. Unless he could change the odds...
"We need to find and dig up Salazar Slytherin," Milo said, as it turned out,
aloud.
"Say again, mate?" Ron said in surprise. A few inconsequential NPCs turned to
look briefly, then shrugged when they realized it was just Milo doing something
weird again.
"No, that wouldn't work at all, nevermind. We're not trying to scry on Salazar,
we're scrying on his heir..."
"Well, I'm glad that settled that," Ron said, looking somewhat bemused.
"So instead we need something of Salazar's; it should work too. By definition
it's owned by his Heir now."
"Sorry mate, what who where when and why?" Ron asked.
"If we have something the target owns, it's much easier for me to find him. I
don't suppose you know anything around here that belongs to Slytherin?"
"Shame we won the House Cup last year," Ron said boastfully. "Or it would have
belonged to Slytherin."
"No, not the house, the founder."
"Oh. Ah, no, sorry. But if he did, you can pretty much guarantee that it'd be in
his Chamber."
"Well, that's... not very helpful."
"You sure this will help us find the Heir?" Ron asked him doubtfully.
"Pretty sure, yeah," Milo said. "Or at least tell us that we need a new strategy
altogether."
It didn't take them long to conclude that, in order to find something once owned
by Salazar, they'd need Hermione's help, which meant going to the library. Milo
put his +2 Dexterity to the test in an attempt to sneak past the librarian,
Madam Pince (Milo suspected she was this universe's version of an Inevitable,
although instead of punishing those who transgressed on oaths or cheated death,
she came down like an avalanche on those who damaged or misplaced books). Their
relations had been... frosty ever since Milo had checked out the majority of the
library last year. Due to surprisingly lax rules on the matter, he'd simply
taken to repeatedly renewing as-yet unread books by owl communication rather
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than appear in person. It was while in the library that Milo overheard whispers.
Immediately, he grabbed Ron by the shoulder and pulled him behind a stack of
shelves.
"Ow!" Ron said.
"Quiet!" Milo hissed. "I heard something!" Ron didn't need to be told twice, and
didn't make another sound.
"Well?" someone hissed. "Did you find it?"
"Obviously not," someone else replied. "Or I would have said, 'hey, guess what,
I found it, let's get out of this dive' as soon as I saw you, wouldn't I have?"
"Well then where the hell is it?"
"If I knew that"
"It was a rhetorical question. Could you have missed it?"
"No. I tore the place apart from floor to ceiling. It wasn't there. And before
you asked, yes, I used a variant of the Packing Charm to put everything back
again."
"Maybe he doesn't have it? Maybe... maybe this is all a set up?"
"It's possible, but... can we really take that chance? What if he does have it?"
Milo's curiosity was beginning to get the better of him. He briefly wished he
had Harry's cloak on him so he could sneak in and get a view of the whisperers,
but chided himself for stupidity almost immediately, because a) he could just
cast Invisibility if he wanted to, and b) he was a Wizard, dammit, not some
skillmonkey scout with more recklessness than hit points. He didn't need to
sneak. Not personally, anyway.
"Chain of Eyes," Milo muttered as Mordy climbed out of his Belt and dropped
silently to the floor. Milo fought a brief wave of disorientation as he saw
through his familiar's eyes. Chain of Eyes, which allowed the caster to see from
the eyes of another creature, was an inferior Divination in most respects, but
others with similar effectssuch as Clairvoyance and Arcane Eyetook ten minutes
to cast. A hundred rounds. Might as well be a lifetime as far as Milo was
concerned.
"Did you hear something?" one of the voices asked.
"Just your incessant mouthbreathing," the other snapped.
The identity of the speakers was not what Milo was expecting (i.e., Lockhart or
Snape), to say the least. He was surprised to find that the conspirators were
none other than Gryffindor NPCs, Dean and Seamus.
"If he does have it," Dean said, "maybe he hid it somewhere?"
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"Surely he wouldn't leave something like that out of his sight for so long,"
Seamus scoffed. "No-one would be so... well. Maybe he would. He is just a kid,
after all."
"So, what do we do?"
"We keep looking; it's all we can do. And we'd better hope we find it. For both
our sakes." With that, Seamus and Dean stood and left the library.
"Who was it?" Milo heard Ron ask, several shelves away. It was weird to see
through the eyes of a different body than you heard from.
"Sean and Deamus," Milo said.
"Huh," Ron said. "Wonder what they're up to?"
"I... I have no idea," Milo said. "They're looking for something. But what? And
why all the sneaking and whispering?"
"Well, mate, they're talking in a library, so whispering is sorta, you know,
expected."
"Yeah... maybe." A subplot involving two completely random NPCs? And their
roommates, no less. Whose stuff had they gone through? What were they looking
for? Who was this 'kid' of which they spoke? Milo would have to remind Harry to
add it to the Plot when he next saw him.
Hermione, as was her habit, was sitting on an overstuffed armchair near a
windowalthough 'sitting' was perhaps a generous word for what she was doing.
She was sort of half-sprawled, half-lying on the chair in an upside-down manner
that only a serious lover of reading could understand.
"Oh, hey Ron, Milo," Hermione said as she saw them, turning a page of Dragons of
the World, a thick tome that was lightly-charred around the edges. "What's up?"
"We were wondering if you knew where anything that belonged to Salazar Slytherin
was lying?" Ron asked.
"Hmm," she asked distractedly. "Why?"
"It'll help me find his Heir," Milo said, explaining the Scrying trick.
"Not necessarily," Hermione said. "Your math is faulty. If the spell is failing
because the Heir's bonus is too high, there's every chance it'll still be too
high for your spell. If I understand things correctly, there won't be any way
for you to tell the difference between that and it failing for another reason,
like that she's protected by a Charm or there's as many Heirs of Slytherin as
there are of Charlemagne."
"Yes, I know that. But it still"
Page 470

"If it's also as random as you say it is, it could never happen, regardless of
the odds."
"I'm well aware"
"I'm just making sure you've considered the possibility that this won't work and
that it won't prevent you from coming up with a backup plan."
"Fair enough," Milo conceded. "Now, what do you know?"
"I'm not quite done yet."
"Gods, you're worse than the elves! If you ask them for advice, they just say
both 'yes' and 'no.' You say 'yes, but first hear these important
disclaimers...'"
"I prefer to think of it as 'yes, but you're asking the wrong question.' Or
rather, 'you're not asking the question you think you're asking.' The last bit
is that there's a chance, and I'd guess it's greater than fifty percent simply
because of how wishy-washy all this 'Heir' business really is, that the
legendary Heir of Slytherin, if she even exists, isn't the same as his legal
Heir. We really have no idea how this works. So if you do get a belonging of
Salazar's, it probably won't even help you."
"All right, all right, now will you help me?"
"Of course," Hermione said happily, sitting up straight and setting her book
down. "Now, just to be certain: your magic is more about the wording of the
spell than the meaning, correct?"
"Correct," Milo said, intrigued.
"Now, what exactly does the spell say that you need?"
"A possession or garment," Milo said.
"Perfect," Hermione said in a satisfied manner. "Now, I could list a variety of
Slytherin's famous artifacts and you could go on a lengthy and difficult hunt
for them from across the ends of the earth... but I won't do that. You already
have what you need; you're standing in it."
"The library?"
She smiled. "Yes and no. Hogwarts."
"Explain."
"The three founders, after Slytherin left, wrote into their respective wills
that Hogwarts would belong to 'all magical peoples of Britannia.' It's in
Hogwarts: A History. So assuming the Heir is British..."
Milo blinked. He'd always considered himself something of a munchkinit was a
Page 471

point of pride, in factbut somehow all of his accomplishments paled in
comparison to the scope of what Hermione was suggesting. If it worked, the
precedent it would set would revolutionize Divination magic.
"Oh, and in case that doesn't work, I had another plan, too," Hermione said.
"Here, look at this," she pulled the scrap of parchment she'd been using as a
bookmark out of her bag as well as a quill, and quickly wrote I, Hermione
Granger, do hereby affirm that I legally give the parchment bearing this
writing, of which I purchased a dozen for a knut from Flourish and Blotts, to
the rightful heir of Salazar Slytherin. Hermione Granger. And then she handed
it to Milo with an impious grin.
"I..." Milo didn't even know what to say. She'd just effectively rewritten the
rules of a core spell twice without even pausing to think. "I just... thank you.
How did you even think that up? Either of them. I mean, they're so... so..."
"Brilliant?"
"Broken."
"I guess I'll take that as a compliment," she said dubiously. "Sometimes all it
takes is an outsider's perspective."
"I..."
"Best not stand around with your jaw hanging open. A bug will fly into it. I
take it you two are going to Lockhart's Duelling Club? We're almost late."
oooo
"Today," Draco Malfoy said grandly, "is a very special day for the both of you."
Crabbe and Goyle stared at him expectantly. Crabbe was practically drooling.
Goyle was drooling.
"You had both best prepare yourselves to witness grandeur and an acumen for
machinations that befits my bent for brilliance, my inclination for inspiration,
and, indeed, my propensity for perspicacity."
Crabbe frowned. "You saying you sweat a lot?"
"Shuttup Goyle, I'm on a roll," Draco snapped. He'd had to check a thesaurus out
of the library to work out that 'perspicacity' bit. "Listen carefully, for I am
about to finally reveal my secret plan for revenge that I've been hiding for
weeks." He'd come up with a few nights before in his sleep. "We," he said,
pausing dramatically, "are going to steal Milo's wand."
"Won't he just get another?" Crabbe asked.
"Yeah, boss, won't he just buy a new one?" Goyle added. Draco still hadn't
managed to force them to kick that annoying habit.
Page 472

"No," Draco said. "Because I haven't got to the brilliant bit, yet. We're going
to steal Milo's wand... and replace it with this!" With a flourish, Draco drew a
wand. "Thirteen inches of chestnut wood," he declared proudly.
"Oh," Goyle said. "That's awfully nice of you. Then he won't have to spend any
money."
"Yeah, then he won't be, you know, inconvenienced." Crabbe looked at him
expectantly, and Draco sighed before passing over a chocolate frog. He'd taken
to encouraging their use of multi-syllabic words with sweets.
"No, it's not very nice," he said from between clenched teeth, "because this
wand isn't real." He'd had to spend a lot of Father's money to get it made on
such short notice.
"But I can see it," Grabbe said.
"Yeah, boss," Goyle said, giving the wand a poke. "I can touch it."
"What I mean is it's not a real wand, not that it isn't a real object. It's just
a stick of wood. Watch." He pointed it at Goyle and waved it about. "Avada
Kedavra."
Goyle dropped to the floor stiffly and curled up into a ball, but aside from
that, nothing happened.
"See? It's harmless. Oh, get up."
It took a bit of coaxing and another chocolate frog, but eventually Goyle
stopped cowering and stood up.
"The plan gets even more cunning," Draco said conspiratorially. "We'll switch
their wandsright before Lockhart's Duelling Club!"
Crabbe and Goyle stared at him blankly.
"And then I'll duel him!"
They still stared at him.
"And he'll lose, because his wand is fake!"
"But boss," Crabbe said slowly. "I thought you said that wand was real?"
Malfoy considered reacting, but just sighed instead. Dealing with those two all
day every day was tiring, but Father said it was good practice. He'd be dealing
with incompetent fools his entire life, Father had said, so he'd best get used
to it early. Few have regretted underestimating the competence of those loyal to
them, he liked to say, but thousands have fallen overestimating it. He said his
own father had told him the same thing. But Father always added a warning: the
reverse is true for those whose loyalty is uncertain.
Page 473

Lockhart's club was in an hour, which Draco largely spent doing Crabbe and
Goyle's homework. Honestly, sometimes he considered just letting them fail out
and be done with it, but they were useful. Sometimes. On occasion. Well, maybe
one day they'd be useful, especially after Father hired them a hand-to-hand
combat instructor over the summer. They were still useless at magicmaybe
Lockhart's club would improve that, but Malfoy had doubtsbut, hopefully, the
humiliating defeat they suffered at Milo's hands last year wouldn't be repeated.
Hopefully.
Draco and a cluster of SlytherinsBlaise Zabini, Millicent Bulstrode, Pansy
Parkinsonas well as a few other of the more eager students waited outside the
entrance to the Great Hall. Crabbe and Goyle were doing their best to appear to
be waiting casually at the nearest intersection in either direction. For his
plan to succeed, he needed to be there a little in advance of his target
He waited, engaging in small talk with his classmates for a few minutes before
Goyle gave him the signal (a loud fit of heavily over-acted fake coughing).
"I'd best go check on him," Draco said to the group, then hurried over to where
Goyle was standing. Peering around the corner, Draco saw his mark approaching.
He ducked behind the wall and waited for a few seconds, then sprung out from
behind the corner, colliding directly into Milo, his second-least-favourite
Gryffindor. They both tumbled to the ground in a heap.
"Malfoy!" Weasley shouted in surprise, fumbling for his wand.
"Watch where you're going!" Draco said with as much righteous anger as he could
muster, climbing to his feet and brushing nonexistent dust from his robes.
Peculiarly, Milo seemed to wait for Draco to step away from him before climbing
to his feet, as if the act of doing so made him temporarily vulnerable.
"I always look where I'm going," Milo muttered. "It'd be damn hard to look
anywhere else."
"You'll pay for this, mudblood!" Draco hissed to Milo. He wasn't actually
certain of Milo's blood status, but if he wasn't muggleborn, he had very poor
choice of company.
"What, are we doing this again?" Milo said. "Fine, fine, make some
vaguely-defined threat or whatever. I'll even pretend to care this time."
"Ill-defined? I think not!" Draco narrowed his eyes. "I demand satisfaction!
Wizard's duel."
Milo's lips quirked into a smile. "Wizard's duel, eh?" he said. "How does that
work? You and me, magic only?"
"No weapons other than wands, no direct contact." Draco had seen what Milo could
do with a staff.
"To the death?" Milo asked, somewhat eagerly. That kid freaked Draco out
Page 474

sometimes.
"No. You win either by seizing the other wizard's wand, or by incapacitating
themunconsciousness or sleep, usually."
"I accept." Milo looked like he'd just woken up to discover that it was not only
his birthday, but Christmas also. Draco was looking forward to wiping that smile
off his smug face. "Where and when?"
"Excellent. During Lockhart's club if he lets us... practice on each other like
Quirrell."
"And if not?"
"Merlin, you ask a lot of questions. I don't know, we'll meet in the forest or
something, all right? I'll send an owl."
"But what if"
"No more questions. You accepted already. See you in the club." With that, Draco
spun about on one heel and, flanked by Goyle, returned to wait outside the
doors.
"Did you get it, boss?" Goyle asked.
"Yeah, did you grab it, boss?" Crabbe asked.
Draco grinned, slipping Milo's wand into his school bag. This was going to be an
interesting duel...
oooo
It had taken some timelying low slowed everything down to a crawlbut Fiona had
mapped out what were, as far as she could tell, the other Fiona's (and it was
another Fiona, and a dead Fiona at that) exact steps on September the Seventh.
It was actually fairly simple, as it turned out, because the other her had kept
detailed notes. The tricky bit was in convincing Loki that the magic had worked,
and she'd completely forgotten the entire incident. At first, she'd worried
about how closely they were watching her, but then she'd thought about it, and
really... not that closely, when it came down to it. They clearly hadn't noticed
the other Fiona making her audio recording, just as they hadn't noticed her
digital records on the Machine, or they would have destroyed those. Well, they'd
certainly tried with the Machine, so maybe she couldn't be too certain about
that.
More to the point, they hadn't even tried to destroy her cassette, meaning they
weren't watching her home (at one point in the recording, Sprocket's plaintive
cries for food were audible, so the recording must have been done in her flat).
It was possible they were watching the station, however, as that had been where
they'd got the first Fiona. Well, what she hoped was the first Fiona; she had no
idea how many iterations of this crime there had been.
Page 475
If they weren't
dealing with an
She was leaning
underestimating

watching her home, their surveillance was sloppy. She was either
amateur or someone who simply deigned her beneath their notice.
towards the second option, simply because she'd never remembered
the enigmatic Loki.
It was clear what the other Fiona must have done, because the other Fiona had
the same lead she had: a name.
Dursley.
She itched to tug at that lead like a mosquito bite, but she knew she couldn't.
Not yet. Doing that was what ended the other Fiona. This whole situation getting
beyond hershe had only limited experience with conducting a full-blown
investigation. She was only a sergeant, what could she do by herself? She needed
allies, she needed resources, she needed a warrantbut she knew that nobody
would believe her story.
And that was why Fiona, for the first time in her life, committed a premeditated
criminal act. With no known means of contacting Loki directly, she was forced to
rely on something rather more blunt.
She gave the spray can three shakes with one hand, held up the stencil she'd cut
out ahead of time with her other, and with the press of a button defaced the
pristine white picket fence.
Inspector Hannigan Surrey PD knows about the magic.
And just like that, her trap was set.
oooooo
Author's Notes: Turns out having my Teeth of Wisdom +2 out was much less
conducive to writing than I'd imagined. Sorry for the delay, but in return, I
present my favourite chapter title so far. Alternate titles: I Scry With My
Arcane Eye, Scry Versus Scry, Scry Versus Spy, For Scrying Out Loud, Scry Kids.
(I apologize for nothing. If you really hated puns, you never would have made it
through an entire book of something I wrote).
CC 10: The Duel
Today's Character Sheet: ?sheetid=628437

I'm keeping track of Milo's XP offline because it often changes several times a
chapter and would be a hassle to update the character sheet that frequently.
Chapter Ten: The Duel
Page 476

With most of the students of Hogwarts (especially those of Gryffindor and
Slytherin houses) assembled in the Great Hall, Lockhart was clearly in his
element. Mordy, sitting on Milo's shoulder, was frantically transcribing
everything the flamboyant Defence Professor said for future reference. The rat
drew a few strange looks from some of the older students who were less familiar
with Milo's Familiar, especially the Muggleborns. While most of those raised by
wizards hadn't seen a rat writing by dipping its paws into an inkwell, they'd
seen enough peculiarity in their lives to take such things in stride.
"...and, after defeatingor charming, as the case may behis cronies, I duelled
him and his giants into submission, thus freeing the townsfolk from their
terrible curse. You can read all about it in Gilderoy Lockhart and the Night of
the Octopus, an upcoming novella by Angelita Shaw. Be warned that her account is
somewhat fictionalizedAngelita, unfortunately, was forced by her editors to
tone down some of the action to make the story sound more believable. Alas, but
the truth is often stranger than fiction. You can always drop by my office if
you want the real story, of course. Where was I? Ah, yesduelling. As I'm sure
you can tell by now, duelling is an important skill that is often sadly
neglected in this modern world. "
Milo was aware that wanded wizards followed a different mechanic for increasing
in level than he did, but if it was even remotely similar, Lockhart must be one
of the most powerful wizards alive. The sheer number of encounters he'd won
boggled the mind.
The crowd around Milo jostled a bit as someone tried to duck and weave through
the throng of students. Milo turned to see Harry, covered almost head-to-toe in
mud and soaked through, push his way between a pair of third-year Ravenclaws.
"Sorry I'm late," he said to Milo, Ron, and Hermione, gasping for breath.
"What happened, mate?" Ron asked.
"Wood got me out of bed early for surprise Quidditch practice," Harry said
miserably. "It was dreadful."
"But look at the weather!" Hermione gestured to the Great Hall ceiling. Ominous
dark grey clouds hid the sky, pouring rain as if Obad-Hai himself had cast
Create Water.
"My point precisely," Harry said sourly.
"Prestidigitation," Milo muttered, and, one cubic foot at a time, Harry's robes
cleaned themselves.
"Thanks. What'd I miss?" Harry asked.
"Lockhart bragging about his past accomplishments," Ron said. "Some of which
might even have happened. Also, Malfoy challenged Milo here to a duel."
"Pft," Harry said contemptuously. "That should be fun to watch. Just make sure
to leave enough of him for the rest of us to have our turn."
Page 477

"No promises," Milo grinned.
oooo
Fiona paced outside the inspector's office somewhat nervously. This conversation
had to be handled carefully, which was hardly her forte. She'd been waiting
there for fifteen minutes for Hannigan to return from a meeting of some variety.
Maybe I should wait until tomorrow, she thought to herself. Or come back with
something more substantial. Yeah. I'll just walk back to my desk as if I was
never
"PS Smythe?" It was Inspector Hannigan.
"Shit," Fiona muttered.
"Excuse me, Sergeant?"
"Shit, sir!" Fiona replied snappily, breaking into a panic. "I mean, wait," Oh
my god, I just swore in front of the inspector. "Dammit!" Shit! I did it again!
What the hell was I thinking?
"Do you... perhaps need a moment?" Hannigan asked curiously.
"Ah... um. No. Can I talk to you?"
"Well, I rather think that's what we're already doing, sergeant. I gather from
your... well, from you, that what you mean is, can you talk to me in my office?
In which case, the answer is yes, but I've only got five minutes before a
meeting with the Force Improvement Team."
Fiona nodded, not quite trusting her mouth. Honestly, swearing because you
swore... pull yourself together.
"Um. Perhaps you'd best sit down," she suggested.
Hannigan shrugged. "I'll only be here a moment, I might as well stand; the wife
says it's good for the back."
Fiona took a deep breath. Best get this over with as fast as possible. Like
ripping off a bandage. "Inspector, there's no easy way to say this, but you've
had your memory altered by magic."
Hannigan stared at her blankly for a second, looking for all the world like an
English student trying to parse 'Jabberwocky' for the first time.
"Look, as I told you, I'm quite busy," he said irritably. "So if you don't have
anything important to say, I suggest you go on your way and we forget about this
little joke. Some office prank or dare, I presume? No matter."
"I'm dead serious, inspector."
Page 478

"Magic," the inspector said flatly.
"Yes, sir. Magic."
"You mean PCP?"
"No, sir. I mean sorcery. Enchantments. Witchcraft. Like in the books."
"You're putting me on." It was not a question.
"No, sir." Fiona pulled her tape recorder from her pocket and placed it on the
desk.
"I don't suppose you have any proof of this ... this... well, whatever this is!"
Fiona pressed play.
"Excuse me, sir," she heard her own voice say. "Could you do me a quick favour?"
"Well, I suppose, sergeant. What can I do for you?" It was the inspector.
"If you don't mind, I'm going to press record, here, and then say a bunch of
stuff that you're not really going to understand, and all I want is for you to
listen and then confirm at the end that you heard it."
The inspector stared at Fiona peculiarly, then looked down at the tape, an
unspoken question on his lips. Instead of saying anything, however, he just
listened to the recording.
"What's this for?"
"A surprise. You'll see, sir."
"I'm not going to regret this, am I?"
There was a short period of silence.
"No-one can know the future, sir."
"Hmph. Very well, get on with it."
"Magic is real, sir, near as I can tell. Someone's been using it to alter the
memory of the police in this station to forget as soon as we discover it, and
someone used it to assault me and my partner, PC Evan Travis, at Number 4,
Privet Drive in Little Whinging on July 31st, and then to facilitate a jailbreak
from this station. During this event, the display on the Machine was destroyed,
and the memories of several officers, ourselves included, was replaced with a
fictitious series of events. Allegedly, a junkie that was brought to the station
got loose and smashed up some property before being detained and transferred.
However, I've checked, and there's no proper documentation for any of this."
"What, really? I'll be having a word with some people over that. Oh, right,
Page 479

sorry, I'm not to interrupt."
"No, that's quite all right; I'm about done anyway. There's more, but I can tell
you after. So, sir, can you please confirm what you heard?"
"A fascinating tale about magic and memory modification and such."
"And what is the date today?"
"Ahthe eighteenth of September, I believe."
"And would you agree that, theoretically speaking, if tomorrow you hear this
recording and don't remember it, that you'll accept what I said as true?"
Inspector Hannigan looked up at Fiona, a strange look on his face.
"Well, yes, I suppose that would follow. Unless I'm sloshed, of course. Now,
what was all this about?"
"Surprise, sir."
Fiona stopped the recording.
"Well." The inspector sat down heavily on his old, worn leather chair with a
slightly dazed expression. "That's that, then."
"Sir? Believe me, I know it can be a lot"
"The chair's seen something new. So. Magic?"
"Magic, sir."
"Shit."
"Yes, sir."
"Tell me everything, sergeant. Start from the beginning."
"Your meeting, sir?"
"Bugger the meeting."
So she told him everything, starting from the beginning.
oooo
It wasn't long before Lockhart had them all pair off and try to disarm each
other, much as Quirrellwell, Voldemort, reallyhad. Unlike
He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, Lockhart apparently hadn't felt that padded mats were
a necessary precaution. Harry wound up with Hermione, Ron with Neville, Hannah
with Lavender, and Milo, of course, with Draco.
Page 480

"Afraid yet, freak?" Draco sneered at him.
"Oh, wake up, Malfoy," Milo shrugged. "My rat Mordenkainen could duel you
one-handed."
Draco did a double-take. "Your ratwho?"
"Mordenkainen," Milo said. "My rat." He gestured to the back of the room, where
Milo's Familiar was lurking, waiting to take notes on various Slytherins'
fighting styles and generally level of competency. Milo raised his left hand.
"One-handed."
"Agh! Never mind! Draw your wand, freak, and prepare to see what a pureblooded
wizard is capable of!"
"What, like your dad and his friends?" Milo said dismissively, drawing his wand.
"Eh."
Malfoy snapped. "You'll pay for your insolence!" he shouted, his face mottled
with fury. "Everte Statum!"
Milo was lifted off his feet and thrown bodily against the wall behind him.
"Feather Fall!" he cast, surprised, and slowed to the ground. "Grease!" Milo
targeted the area that Draco was standing on.
Draco almost lost his balance, but reacted quickly. "What! How? Colloshoo," he
cast at his own feet, sticking him to the ground. "Expelliarmus!"
"Greater Mirror Image." Four identical Milo's appeared around him, all still
floating in the air as Milo descended. One was hit by Expelliarmus, and burst
into tiny fragments of magic. Milo wasn't worredthe images from the improved
version of the spell regenerated in time. He was certain he could end this duel
any moment he wanted to, but decided to take advantage of his school-sanctioned
chance to get a couple of free hits off on Draco. "Glitterdust." The area around
Draco exploded into thousands of tiny motes of brilliant golden light.
"Scourgify," Draco cast, and the area around his eyes cleared up, allowing him
to see. Milo was surprisednobody else he'd used Glitterdust on had thought of
that. On the other hand, Draco might be one of the only wanded wizards he'd
fought who had seen him fight before... "Oppugno!" Draco shouted. The
Glitterdust flew off of him and directly at Milo, with a menace. Come on, Will
save, don't fail me now... Milo had a +8 bonus and the DC was 18, so he had
around a 55% chance to succeed. Anything over ten would do...
Four. Crap.
"Gah!" Milo said, the light blinding him. "Who fails a save against their own
spell? Mordy!" Milo's familiar scrambled from his position and onto Milo's
shoulder. "Chain of Eyes." Milo couldn't believe he'd actually cast that spell
twice nowmost Wizards lived and died (or achieved godhood) without even
learning it. It was approaching time to finish this charade. He'd have to
investigate more efficient means of fighting while blind, preferably ones that
Page 481

didn't require a second-level spell slot and an action in combat.
Through Mordenkainen's eyes, Milo saw Draco grin, and realized what had
happened: by commanding his familiar to come to him, Milo had given away which
of his identical clonesthere were five, nowwas really him.
"Serpensortia," Draco whispered. A long, night-black snake shot out of his wand
and shot towards Milo. He briefly considered using Tongues to mimic a
Parselmouth's ability, but dismissed the idea. The last thing he wanted was
people to think that he was the Heir of Slytherin. As the snake approached, Milo
drew his darkwood eleven-foot pole, wielding it in both hands as an improvised
reach weapon while simultaneously readying a spell. The snake leapt through the
air, and, as it entered within Milo's reach, provoked an attack of opportunity.
Rather than attempt to strike the snake, which wouldn't have a hope of success
with the mountain of penalties Milo would incur, he used Evasive Reflexes to
sidestep away from the snake. Milo let the pole fall to the ground, and called
his Elven thinblade to hand just as the snake soared past him and through his
now-threatened area. Milo's pirouetted, sword flashing.
There were two meaty thuds behind him before the now-dead magical snake
vanished, the magic holding it together gone.
Milo spun, towards Draco, releasing his readied spell. "Evard's Black
Tentacles."
Hundreds of black tentacles burst from the floor around Draco, grabbing his arms
and pulling him awkwardlyhis feet were still glued to the floorto the ground.
"Mordy," Milo nodded, sheathing his sword in his Belt of Hidden Pouches. The
familiar scurried from Milo's shoulder towards the struggling Draco and, with a
casual flick of its paw, grabbed the Slytherin boy's wand before doing a little
bow. Milo dismissed the tentacles and Grease.
"Youyou cheated!" Draco shouted, climbing to his feet. "And give me that back!"
Mordy shrugged, dropped the wand, and returned to Milo.
"Cheated?" Milo asked, thinking back over the rules. "Huh. I guess I did." He'd
forgotten that no other weapons than wands were allowed.
It was then that Milo realized they had an audience.
The rest of the Club had, at some point, abandoned any pretense of practicing on
each other in favour of watching their battle.
Ah, crap. There was no way he was going to walk away from this without some
ridiculous detention. Milo wondered if he should start researching a means of
getting Simulacrum early so he could send an identical copy of himself to do
punishments for him. That would also get him out of McGonagall's ridiculous
remedial Transfigurations.
"Well, I daresay," Lockhart said, breaking the silence. "I've never seen a duel
quite like thatthat didn't include me in it, of course. A remarkable show from
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both of you. Five points for Slytherin, ten points for Hufflepuff!" Lockhart
hesitated for a second. "I did say 'disarm-only,' however, so if anyone tries
something like that again, I'll have to take rather sterner measures."
"Butbut I'm in Gryffindor!" Milo protested, but nobody heard him over the
sudden thunderous applause. They should have identifying markings on our robes,
Milo thought. Colour-coordinated trim or badges or something.
As the applause died down, Milo heard some bitter muttering from the Slytherin
section, though he didn't catch who was speaking.
"...probably showing off for Lockhart..."
"...they say he scored perfect on that ridiculous quiz..."
"...they also say he Petrified Peeves..."
Any attempt at eavesdropping was cut off by a crowd of students from his own
house.
"Spectacular!" Fred Weasley said.
"Brilliant!" added his twin.
"The expression on Malfoy's face when you used those tentacle thingiesperfect!"
Ron said, a dreamy expression on his face. "I just wish someone had taken a
photograph..."
"I thought he almost had you with the snake," Harry said. "I was this close
to..." he lowered his voice, "you know, to telling it to stop, but... with all
the people around... well, I thought you could probably handle it."
"I just thought I should say that was extremely dangerous and I'm amazed nobody
was hurtDraco could have thrown you clear out the windowand that I strongly
disapprove, but..." Hermione's face cracked into a smile. "Congratulations
nevertheless. He had that coming, the git."
"That thing with the swordthat was so cool!" Hannah said. "How did you do
that?"
"Magic," Milo grinned. "I've got a pin enchanted with a spellMirror Movethat
lets me learn how to do pretty much anything that I see someone else do, and a
spellHeroicsthat lets me temporarily teach someone else how to do things, so I
just grabbed Ron over the summer, pumped him full of magic and" but nobody was
really listening to him; they were too busy excitedly recounting the details of
the duel.
"I thought he had you when he used your glittered dust against you," he heard
Neville say. "Showed him. Killed the snake blind... amazing. Just bloody
amazing."
"Shame Dean and Seamus weren't here," Harry said. "They'd have loved that."
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"Yeah..." Milo frowned, looking aroundGlitterdust had worn off, but he was
still using Mordy's vision to get a little extra height (his familiar had moved
to the top of his head) to see over the other students. Probably
sixty-to-seventy percent of Hogwarts' students were at the club. That left most
of the school completely unwatched... "Mordy," Milo muttered in their secret
language. "Go check on Seamus and Dean, would you?"
"Sometimes I feel like I do everything around here," the rat muttered, climbing
down Milo's robes and scurrying out of the hall.
"Right, calm down, everybody," Lockhart said, his voice magically augmented to
carry over the crowd. "Pick your partners, and let's try it again. Try to stick
to Expelliarmus this time..."
Milo, already critically short on spells, decided to sit this one out. Besides,
he'd already earned more XP than his weekly loss from item crafting. Instead, he
picked a place on the sidelines and watched the fights progress.
He barely noticed the first instancehe'd been watching Hannah's match with
Lavenderand dismissed the second as chance, but by the third time, it was
clear. Neville was improving, fast. Out of five rounds, Ron had only managed to
disarm him once. Milo recalled in Quirrell's class that Neville had seemed to
have a hard time learning the Disarming Charm, but now that he had it... well.
Milo was hardly an expert in the local magic, but his latest theory was that it
was skill-based. In order to cast a spell, a skill check had to be made with a
DC based on the complexity of the spell. Neville was making that check almost
every time. He wasn't the fastest at it, and he wasn't the most confident, but
he did seem to be having more reliable success than most other students, save
for those of higher years.
The other surprising battle was between Harry and Hermione. The surprise was
that Harry was winning. Hermione was a bookworm with near-eidetic memory in a
world where knowledge was quite literally power, and Milo would have bet money
on her against any wizard or witch of the same level. Harry, it seemed, had been
practicing this spell in particularthough Milo hadn't ever seen him do it. As
for the others, while they didn't stand out in quite the same way that Harry and
Neville were, they'd clearly advanced at a rate that simply dwarfed their
abilities even at the end of last term. Still nothing like what the
sixth-and-seventh-years at the far side of the Great Hall were doing, but
nevertheless impressive.
Milo wondered if he could try to help Harry and the others progress at an even
faster rate. The only thing better than a highly-optimized character was a party
of highly-optimized characters.
Milo's chain of thought was broken by an empathic sending by Mordy. Success,
alarm, surprise. Using the still-active Chain of Eyes to switch back to his
familiar's vision, he saw the familiar sight of the second-year dormitory in
Gryffindor Towerthough from the peculiar view of a rat only a few inches tall.
Irritatingly, he couldn't hear anything (the spell was called Chain of Eyes, not
Chain of Ears) but he could see just fine.
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Dean and Seamus were going through his stuff, as well as Harry's, Neville's, and
Ron's. Not that he actually had any stuff, of course; he kept everything he
owned in his Belt of Hidden Pouches (except for his Dedicated Wright, Cog, and
his mountain of salt, but those were at the Burrow) by using owl post to send
partially completed items back and forth, Milo could provide the necessary
spells and XP while Cog provided the time and effort. Upon finding all of Milo's
drawers, as well as the space under and even over his four-poster bed, they
moved onto the other occupants of the dorm.
So... they were talking about me in the library? But what could I possibly have
that they want?
Milo heard a commotion, and flicked his vision back to his own eyes. The Club
was over, and people were filing out of the Great Hall's doors. His party
members were waiting around him.
"Coming, Milo?" Hermione asked him.
"Hmm? Right, yeah." He got to his feet.
"Whoa, what?" Harry said suddenly, reaching for his wand.
"Ah... what's up, Harry?" Ron asked cautiously.
"The voice!" Harry said.
"What... what voice?"
"Youyou didn't hear it?"
"Um. Nope."
"Hang on," Milo said. "What did it say?"
"Um," Harry said nervously. "Something weird. About ripping, tearing, and
killing. Ah. Me, specifically."
"Are you certain?" Hermione asked Harry, who nodded. "Did you, you know hear
itwith your ears, that is? Or, in your head?"
"Not sure I'd know the difference," Harry said. "I don't exactly hear voices in
my head regularly."
"Lesser Telepathic Bond," Milo cast. It would sound like this, he thought
towards Harry.
"Whoa. Nope. Not like that."
"Not like what?" Hermione asked.
"The, ah, voice I just heard... in my head..." Harry explained unhelpfully. Ron
Page 485

and Hermione stared at him blankly. "Look, Milo did it."
"Ah," they said together, as if that explained everything.
"So could it be something invisible, do you think?" Hermione asked.
"Detect Invisibility," Milo cast, scanning around. "I don't see anything
invisible, but that doesn't count for much in these parts."
"Maybe it was some kinda prank," Ron suggested. "Like a trick from Malfoy, to
freak you out."
"Possible," Hermione said. "I can think of loads of ways to do it with pretty
common spells. Still, if it happens again, we should tell a teacher."
"I dunno, Hermione," Ron said. "Hearing voices isn't usually seen as a good
sign, even in the wizarding world. I'm not saying you're crazy, mate, but, well,
it could look that way to people. Best keep it between us."
Milo switched his vision back to Mordy's, but Dean and Seamus were gone. The
room was pristine once moreas with their earlier conversation, they must have
used the Packing Charm to put things back where they were. Was his room the same
as the one that Dean had already searched? Why would they come back? Perhaps
Seamus hadn't trusted the job Dean had done? Milo needed more information.
oooo
Draco sat down in an emerald-green armchair in the Slytherin Common Room,
looking at Milo's wand.
"Lumos," he muttered. The wand tip glowed feebly and sputtered out a few seconds
later. "Impossible," he muttered. This wand was realit resisted working for
him, but there was no doubt that this was a wizard's wand. And yet, the freak
had managed to use magic anyway.
Had Milo used another wand in the duel? It wasn't impossible that he had a
spare, although Ollivander charged a small fortune for a copy wand. Apparently,
it was much more difficult to make a wand identical to a previous wand rather
than simply create them all differently. But Draco had seen Milo draw his wand
from the same pocket that Draco had put the fake one into, and there had been
only one there. So how...?
Could it be that... no, that would be impossible. Unless...
Draco frowned.
"Crabbe! Goyle!" he shouted, and the two came rushing out of their dorm.
"What do you need, boss?" Crabbe asked.
"Yeah boss, what do you find equineccessary, boss?" Goyle asked, holding out his
hand.
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"That word doesn't mean what you think it does," Draco muttered idly. "So no
chocolate for you." He looked up at the two of them. "Milo could use magic in
that duel," he said quietly, "so he had to have had a proper wand. That means
that he must have switched wands with me before I switched them with him, then
switched back during the duel. He probably had that weird rat of his do it."
"But... what?" Crabbe asked. Clearly it had gone beyond him.
Goyle scratched his head. "Had to have... had..." he said to himself, slowly.
"What I'm saying is he must have known what my plan was!" Draco shouted. "So"
he froze, suddenly. So one of them must have told him. But neither Crabbe nor
Goyle would have done so, so...
Maybe...
At least one of them wasn't Crabbe or Goyleand were therefore the last people
he should be voicing his suspicions to.
"Agh!" Draco shouted dramatically. "He's outsmarted me again!"
Of course, he hadn't been outsmarted; nobody outsmarts Draco Malfoy. But they
seemed convinced, and made feeble attempts at consoling him.
So... Polyjuice? Draco thought. What was it they'd learned in Herbology?
Mandrake root restored people who had been Transfigured. Fortunately, he knew
just where to get some.
oooo
"Did they say anything?" Milo asked Mordy in the Common Room. He wasn't afraid
of being overheard; their secret language was, by definition, uncrackable.
"Not much," the familiar replied. "Just a lot of swearing and blaming each other
for failure."
"Odd," Milo said. "I've never really paid them much attention, but Dean and
Seamus seemed like pretty good friends."
"About that," Mordy said. "I wasn't sure before, but now I am. That wasn't Dean
and Seamus."
"What?" Milo asked. "How could you tell?"
"By the smell. They smell... different. Not completely different, but somewhat
different. A bit like... like two people mixed into one. In Seamus's case, I
think one of those people is female."
"How come you didn't notice this earlier? We sleep in the same room as them!"
"You and I have the same skills, and Scent is Survival-based! What Wizard has
Page 487

ever put ranks in Survival?"
"Ah... fair point," Milo conceded. "I forgot about that."
"Of course you did. Who reads the Scent rules? Not Wizards, that's for sure."
"I'll make you teensy little goggles or something that boost Survival. They'll
be adorable."
Mordy's eyes narrowed.
"I mean badass. They'll be badass. Easy words to mistake."
"You do realize that, seeing as how we're empathically bonded, it's completely
impossible for you to lie to me, don't you?"
"Yeswhich is why I wouldn't possibly have tried to lie. And if anything makes
you think otherwise, you must be mistaken."
Mordy just shook his head. "So what do you think it is? Possession? The Imperius
curse?"
"I'm not sure," Milo said. "But we have ways of finding out."
oooooo
Roleplaying Tip: This one's more roleplay-y than 'over-the-top munchkinry' like
many of my D&D Tips, but I've found that nothing helps you get into character
and stay there like drawing your character. Once, someone playing an illiterate
barbarian in my party drew all of his items on his character sheet, rather than
writing them. You don't have to go that far, however. Even if you don't have any
artistic talent at all, you can use something like Heromachine (a web app
designed for creating superheroes, but works for D&Dand other rpgstoo) to do
the work for you. Having an illustration of your character somewhere on your
character sheet helps remind you that your character is an independent entity
with a personality and goals that may not be the same as your 'meta-goals'
(become the best wizard ever, get sweet magic loot, etc.). Ideally, these should
not be in conflict with each other (a holy paladin on a crusade for justice and
goodness wouldn't be doing his job right if he didn't seize every opportunity to
be more effective at what he does), but it's nice to be reminded that they're
separate, and that your character might want things in addition to what is
strictly pragmatic. Optimization is a blast, roleplaying is a blast, but the
best by far is when you do both simultaneously. There's a weird idea that
they're mutually exclusive, which I think is untrue. Some people might
prioritize one or the other, or be naturally inclined one way or the other, but
that's separate from being unable to do them both.
Wow, that devolved into a tangent quickly. Sorry about thatbut I think I'll let
it stand. In return, I'll give a more typical tip as well. This one doesn't
devolve into theoretical optimization, so you can actually use it around the
table.
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D&D Tip: You can make attacks with more than just your two hands, for example,
an unarmed strike can be with any part of the body. Similarly, armour spike
attacks, which don't require their own feat to be effective, can be delivered
via a spiky knee to the stomach or a body slam. Why does this matter? Because it
leaves your hands free. There are many reasons one would need their hands for
something elsefor example, when using a ranged weapon. If you're a ranged
combatant in a class with martial weapon proficiency, such as a Ranger, you can
still threaten squares, flank, and make attacks of opportunity with armour
spikes and other unconventional weapons (Complete Scoundrel adds some weapons
like boot daggers, but they have a -2 to attack, so I recommend armour spikes).
Even if you have a terrible strength score, I recommend such a weapon strongly,
if only for the flanking benefits you can provide your teammates. Even if you
never intend to fight in melee, at some point, someone will try to fight you.
Your rogue will thank you, at the very least.
For some kinds of melee fighters, armour spikes are even more important. For
example, say you use a reach weapon like a Glaive. These come with the downside
of not being able to attack, or threaten, enemies adjacent to you, which can be
a serious problem. However, with armour spikes, you never have to drop your
polearm and switch to a backup weaponthe backup weapon is built in, and you
can't be disarmed of it. This allows you to threaten a much larger area, making
you more effective overall at whatever you do.
In addition to weapons with reach, armour spikes (and unarmed strike, etc.) are
awesome for two-weapon fighting. Both your hands are free, so you can dual wield
a one-handed weapon and the spikes and still leave room for a shield, or, for
ludicrous damage, you can use a weapon like a greatsword in both hands with 1.5x
strength and still make off-hand attacks with armour spikes (with only .5x
strength added). Note that it's generally better to use Power Attack with a
two-handed weapon than to two-weapon fight, but if you're a class that gets a
lot of bonus damage (like a swordsage or sneak attacker) then this is the combo
for you.
Note: Pathfinder developers recently ruled in a FAQ that you can't do this, but
it still works just fine in D&D.
CC 11: Trick or Treat
Chapter Eleven: Trick or Treat

SKITTERskitterskitterSKITTERskitterskitter.
Hannah awoke with a jolt. She was sitting in the Common Room, having fallen
asleep doing History of Magic homework. What the heck was that sound?
SKITTERskitterskitter. It sounded a bit like rain, only heavier and more
infrequentand it was coming from inside the room.
Page 489

Suspicions growing, Hannah reached for her wand. The fires had long since been
reduced to simple glowing embers, but the room was somewhat lit by moonlight
streaking through the tall, wide arched windows. She thought she could see
movement at the foot of the staircase near the boy's dormitories.
SKITTERskitterskitterSKITTERSKITTERSKITTER
Hannah threw herself from her armchair just before a monster from nightmares
(was this a nightmare?) leapt at her, knocking the chair over. A long, thin
something almost thirty feet long collided with the red-and-gold armchair like a
freight train. She could barely make it out in the darkness, save for occasional
glimpses of reflected moonlight.
"St-stube-stupa-Stupefy!" A red bolt flew out of her wand as she sent a Stunner,
which collided with the creature dead-on. They'd just learned them in the
Duelling Club; the advanced spell was almost beyond her. The beast skittered
around awkwardly as its extremities slowly realized their brain was on a lunch
break before coming, finally, to a stop. "Lumos." Her glowing wand tip revealed
a black-and-red centipede comparable in length to a carriage of the Hogwarts
Express with sharp mandibles (or fangs? pincers? Hannah wasn't sure which term
applied) to match. They were at least as long as her forearm, and were wickedly
serrated. Just as suddenly as it appeared, it promptly vanished.
Hannah sighed, catching her breath, and collapsed back into her seat. A few
seconds later, she stood up, and shouted.
"Milo!"
"Well done!" Milo said, suddenly appearing in the middle of the room. "I must
admit, I had my doubts when you immediately went for the most powerful spell you
knewclever application of something more reliably cast is often more
prudentbut then you pulled it off anyway and your aim was perfect. Awesome."
"What the heck was that thing?" Hannah asked, anger slowly rising.
"A huge monstrous centipede from Hell," Milo shrugged. "Or someplace like it."
"LookI know I said I was on board with your whole 'training' thing, but the way
you described it sounded more like, I don't know, Quidditch practice or
studying. You summon a monster and we hit it with spells. I was most decidedly
not expecting to spend the next four weeks on my toes against surprise
sabre-toothed demon weasels, hippogriffs, gorillas, bats the size of horses,
packs of Abyssal octopi in the lake, and humongous monstrous centipedes from
Hell! Especially humongous monstrous centipedes from Hell!"
"Real Abyssal octopi hunt in packs of hundreds," Milo said. "Not trios."
"That's your objectionargh! No, okay. Calm. I am calm," Hannah said. "I agreed
because I wanted to be more useful in an emergency. I didn't sign on for a life
of surprise and paranoia."
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"Well, if you were expecting the surprise, it wouldn't be much of a surprise at
all, would it?"
"That's exactly my point. I could have had a heart attack, and that's assuming
the giant rats didn't eat me alive."
"You were never in any real danger; my summoned monsters were ordered to remain
non-lethal. And in the huge monstrous centipede from Hell's case, not to use his
venom."
"But why can't the others and I learn to fight in a more controlled environment?
Like in the Duelling Club."
"Because if Slytherin's monsteror something sent by You-Know-Whoattacks you,
it won't be in a controlled environment," Milo said seriously. "It'll be a
surprise attack, and it'll be when you least expect it. And you won't even know
what it'll look like when it happens. From what I can tell, and I know it sounds
insane, people here actually learn how to do things by doing exactly that thing.
I mean, look at the courses. You actually learn how to make potions in Potions
class, rather than by killing orcs and giant spiders and saving children and the
like. So I'm teaching you how to fight against surprise monsters."
"That... fine, that actually makes sense," Hannah admitted reluctantly. "But you
should still ask for permission first. It's the polite thing to do."
"Hmm. Good idea; I wonder why I didn't think of that," Milo said without a trace
of irony. "If only so Ron stops glaring at me from across the table. He should
learn not to take a few giant bees in his bed quite so personally. Do I have
your permission to train you to protect yourself against surprise attacks by
launching surprise attacks against you on occasion?" Milo asked.
"Not when I'm sleeping or I'll never close my eyes againand no more
Hellipedes."
"Deal."
Hannah hesitated for a second. "And I think you're wrong," she said. "I think we
learn in much the same way. I think you're confusing gaining knowledge and
gaining power. People tend not to learn much by killing."
Milo gave her a perplexed look. "But knowledge is power."
"Is it, though?" Hannah asked. "There's more to growing up than getting bigger."
She stifled a yawn. "Just something to think about. I'm going to bed."
She climbed the stairs to the girls' dormitories, leaving Milo looking troubled
in the Common Room.
oooo
Draco held the writhing, shrieking mandrake root down with one gloved hand, a
cleaver held high in the other.
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"Why do they have to look so human?" he muttered to himself. The words fell
silently on his muffled ears. He'd been standing for several minutes in the
outskirts of the Forbidden Forest in the dead of night.
He supposed it wasn't too late to back out now. He could sneak back into the
greenhouse and return the freakish plantor, for that matter, just toss it in
the forest. Plants like forest, right? It would be happy there... he cut off
that line of thought before it could go too far. Best not to attribute human
emotions and desires to a root.
But it looks so alive...
Father wouldn't be too weak to chop up a plant, he thought to himself coldly.
Father would destroy whatever or whoever stood in his way, if it benefitted him.
Besides, they're going to be used for potions, anyway.
Draco led out a deep breath and swallowed, feeling a renewed sense of
determination.
With a flash of reflected starlight, the cleaver came down hard, and the
shrieking stopped.
oooo
Snape finished sealing the hardened glass flask for owl transport. The last
thing anyone wanted was a month's worth of Polyjuice potion raining from the sky
because of a poorly sealed or cracked container.
Once more, he wondered what Lucius could possibly want with so much of the
potion. He'd already had to send all that he kept on hand to the elder Malfoy,
as Polyjuice took a lunar cycle to brew. Of course, there were thousands of
potential uses someone like Lucius, who had his fingers in more pies than you
could count, could devise with Polyjuice. Blackmail, spying, and theft, to name
a few. And if that was all he was doing, it was none of Snape's business. He
frankly didn't care one way or the other if Lucius was committing what were, on
the whole, conventional crimes to gain conventional wealth and conventional
power.
But if there was something else afoot... well. Lucius Malfoy was rarely a
predictable man, but there was one clear and obvious candidate for replacement.
Somebody that few knew personally, somebody in a trusted position, somebody few
would miss. Everything pointed at one person. In fact, it was practically
proverbial: "when in doubt, suspect the Defence Professor."
Snape tied the flask to the legs of the owl and sent it on its way.
The amount of damage one man, whom everybody suspected and who had no allies,
could do was limited, even with a disguise as perfect as one created by one of
Snape's potions. So Snape would watch Gilderoy Lockhart.
Page 492

oooo
"Free sweets!" Draco said, smiling, to a cluster of first-year Hufflepuffs. They
turned to look at him, and his tray of handmade sweets, for a long, tense
moment.
Then they screamed and fled.
Draco sighed. This was going to be more difficult than he'd anticipated. He'd
already tried dosing all the Slytherins in the Common Room with his
mandrake-laced treats, but he hadn't made any discoveries except that Marcus
Flint had been transfiguring his face to hide his acne.
Hallowe'en was only a few days away. He'd hoped to get to the bottom of the
Polyjuice mystery before then, so that he could utilize Crabbe and Goyle in some
sort of as-yet unknown Hallowe'en-themed revenge plot against his nemeses in
Gryffindor. While it was true that both Crabbe and Goyle had been unaffected by
the mandrake roothe'd given it to them disguised as sweets to reward them for
expanding their vocabularyhe'd hoped to catch the culprit disguised as them
once more. Since he didn't know much beyond the fact that somebody had
(probably) used Polyjuice to spy on him, there was no way to know how pervasive
the use of the potion was among his enemies.
He'd come to what was, of course, the only reasonable conclusion: that he should
secretly drug the student body at random for a prolonged period of time. At some
point, one of them was bound to take the bait while in disguise. It was the week
leading up to Hallowe'en, so it wasn't as peculiar to be handing out sweets as
it might otherwise have been. Unfortunately, students at Hogwarts seemed to have
some sort of (completely unfounded) superstition against accepting free food
from a member of Slytherin house.
He'd have to alter his plan somewhat if he was to succeed.
oooo
"Explosive Runes," Milo cast, scratching a curious-looking symbol into the hard
bronze of a knut with a chisel before throwing it onto the small pile of
similarly-marked coins. "That should do. Mordy?" The tiny rat scurried up the
table leg in the dusty abandoned classroom and started slipping knuts into a
bandolier he wore across his chest, eyes firmly shut. "Careful with those," Milo
said seriously.
"Don't worry so much, boss," Mordy said. "As long as I don't try and read them,
we don't have anything to worry about." That much was truethe runes were carved
in their secret language, and Milo was immune to his own traps, so theoretically
only Mordy could trigger them. Still, it made Milo nervous to carry that volume
of arcane high explosive on his person.
But Hallowe'en was tomorrow, and he had to be prepared. Last year a Troll nearly
killed him and his friends; what would happen this year? Between his surprise
summoned attacks and Lockhart's club, his party members had significantly
increased in power since last yearand so had he, for that matter. It stood both
Page 493

to reason and convention that their challenges would scale accordingly.
As Milo tried to predict what would be thrown at him tomorrow, Mordy pulled a
pair of tiny, finely-wrought brass-and-crystal goggles over his eyes and tied
thin silk bracers around each wrist. In all, the familiar struck a comical
image, but it would be a fool who underestimated himand in all likelihood, a
dead fool at that, for these seemingly-innocent items wielded great power. Or,
perhaps more precisely, they wielded minor power in a uniquely lethal manner.
oooo
"I give up," said a boy who looked very much like Dean Thomas in a dark,
largely-empty hallway on Hallowe'en morning. "We've been here for a month and we
haven't found anything. This is a school; there are hundreds of old black
leather diaries floating around. I want to go home."
"We can't give up now; we're just starting to make progress," said someone who
looked very much like Seamus Finnigan. "We just need to widen the search. What
if he gave it to another student?"
"Nobody could be that stupid."
"Do you have any better ideas?"
"Every idea is a better idea."
As they walked, arguing, they encountered a small class desk in the hallway with
a sign:
HALLOWE'EN SWEETS,
COURTESY OF
HARMLESS HUFFLEPUFFS
On the desk next to the sign was a tray of orange-and-black wrapped sweets.
Without paying them much attention, the boy who greatly resembled Dean Thomas
tossed a few into his robes' pockets.
"What if he never had it to begin with?" he said, eventually.
"Then why would we have been sentah. To get rid of us." The one who looked like
Seamus frowned. "Let's give it a few more weeks. If nothing turns up in that
time, we'll... resort to the contingency plan."
"Sounds good," said the one who looked like Dean before eating a Sherbet Lemon.
"Although last time, we got ourargh!" He doubled over, his insides twisting and
writhing, his facial features moving, as if made from warm wax. The boy who
greatly resembled Seamus cursed in a most un-childlike manner and pulled him
into a nearby bathroom, safe from prying eyes. Within a few seconds, a man who
had once looked like Dean sat, sagged against a cool tile wall.
Page 494

"Amycus?" said the boy who looked like Seamus. "Amycus, are you okay? Lumos.
Follow my wand." He moved the glowing wand tip slowly back and forth in front of
his dazed eyes.
Amycus Carrow groaned uncomfortably, and looked at his hands. They were big and
calloused; nothing like the small, dextrous hands he'd gotten used to.
"Mandrake root," he spat. "He's on to us; we mustagh!" he tried to stand, but
he misjudged the length of his suddenly-altered legs and tripped.
"Just wait here," said the boy who was increasingly unlikely to be Seamus,
"until you feel a bit better."
"No, we need to hide," he protested. "Someone will find us here."
"In this bathroom? Hah! Nobody's coming in here." The boy who looked like Seamus
hesitated briefly. "So," he said finally, "Shall we use the contingency plan?"
"Lucius said"
"Oh, Lucius said," the boy who looked like Seamus said mockingly. "You think
we're doing this because of what Lucius said? No, we're here for what happens
after. The Dark Lord will honour us above Malfoyabove, even, that mad, dead,
Lestrange witchwhen we are successful. Drink your Polyjuice and let's move.
There's work to do."
ooooooo
Author's Notes: See, I'm not dead! I just have writer's block. As an attempted
fix, I'm going to publish what I do have, i.e., this short chapter you just
read, rather than sit on it until it's up to the usual length. Hopefully, this
might bump me out of my current rut.
D&D Tip: This one's for all the optimizers out there. You won't always be in a
party of players with the same play style as you, and their opinion can
sometimes sour if you steal the show with an overpowered character. For some,
it's a simple matter of making a less powerful character. If that works for you,
then perfect. But if you're like me, you have a really hard time doing that.
Optimization is fun. Trawling through rulebooks for that golden feat or item is
very zen. There are two solutions I have discovered to this problem: the first,
you start a character handicapped, and optimize to your heart's content from
there. You play a lousy class (*cough*CW Samurai*cough*), or a poor class/race
combo (half-orc sorc?), or with deliberately poor ability score allocation, and
then you hit the ground running with the best feats, gear, etc. that you can
find. That way, it's fun for everyoneyou get the experience of playing a
totally unique character that you've never done before (and it might result in
optimization decisions you'd never have previously considered) and you won't
generally outstrip the party too much.
The other solution is to play a buffer. Measure your character's success not in
enemies you defeat, but in those that you help the party defeat. Try playing a
bard and maximizing Inspire Courage, or a Cleric that doesn't use the normal
Page 495

CoDzilla tricks, a Marshal, or another support class. You get to optimize to the
maximum, and your allies get to feel like gods of war. Just be careful not to
fall into the trap of buffing yourself to turn yourself into an undefeatable
killing machine. Also make sure you get a feel of the party's makeup before you
invest too much in one buffing method or another. I tried this with a Bard,
once, not realizing that the rest of the party would be a Psion, a Wizard, and a
Cleric. I wound up being the only one taking advantage of my +5 Inspire Courage
and Haste, and, well, overpowered everyone else more than ever.
D&D Tip #2: Shrink Item + Permanency is freaking cool. The possibilities are
legion, but here's the first that came to mind: you can make your character a
cloak of water that, on command, floods the room
CC 12: Hallowe'en Masks
Chapter Twelve: Hallowe'en Masks

"Why do they call you Longbottom, Longbottom?" Miles Bletchley sneered.
"Yeah, more like Fatbottom," Flint said mockingly.
Neville pressed his back up against the wall, willing himself to just sink into
it and be gone. Gone from this situation, this hallway, this school. No, not
gone from Hogwarts. He loved Hogwarts. It was just some of the people in it that
were the problem.
The thick bottom border of the mirror frame stabbed into his shoulder blades
uncomfortably, but there wasn't much he could do about it; half the Slytherin
Quidditch team was standing between himself and freedom.
"Or, or Dumbottom," Montague said. "Because he's so dumb."
The worst partwell, not the worst part, but one of the many bad partswas that
their insults weren't even clever. Neville would feel much better about himself,
on the whole, if he was made miserable by clever and biting insults, rather than
this rather run-of-the-mill fare. But the truth was that it hurt all the same.
He wished it didn't. He wished he were stronger, like his Gran always said.
Tougher. Harder. Braver. Smarter. More like Harry Potter. Merlin, but she went
on about Harry Potter.
But what would Harry Potter do? Duel three wizards, each more advanced than he,
all at once? He could try it. He might even win; after all, he'd been getting
better in Lockhart's Club. He knew he was. He'd even managed to disarm the
vaunted Harry Potter four times out of ten. But it wasn't always that easy. It
wasn't a question of skill, or of size, or even of numbers. The problem was in
his head, but knowing that just made it worse. The spiral of thoughts locked him
into immobility. Why are they picking on me? Because they know I won't fight
Page 496

back. Why don't I fight back? Because I'm scared. Why am I scared? Because I'm
weak. Why am I weak? Because I'm scared. Rinse and repeat. Weak. Scared.
Useless. Pathetic. An embarrassment to the family name. The insults Neville
created for himself were far worse, and hit far more squarely, than any that
these braindead Slytherins could ever have devised.
He didn't want to fight them; he just wanted them to be gone. To just go away.
"Go away?" Flint said incredulously. "You want me to 'go away?'" he made little
air quotes with his fingers mockingly. Neville felt lightheaded. He couldn't
believe he'd said that out loud. "Did you hear that, boys? What do you
sayshould we go away?" Bletchley and Montague just laughed raucously in
response. Flint drew his wand and held it at Neville's throat. "And how are you
going to make us?"
"II'll duel you," Neville whispered. Oh Merlin, I'm so dead...
"I'm sorry, I couldn't hear that," Flint said. "I couldn't hear you, Fatbottom."
"I said I'll duel you!" Neville practically screamed. "Stupefy! Petrificus
Totalus! Immobulus!" Neville didn't even have a wand out; he just screamed
random curses that popped into his head. He knew he was as good as dead anyway,
so why not?
Neville was through all of the duelling curses and hexes that he knew and was
into the minor jinxes when he realized he was still alive enough to shout. He
opened his eyes. Flint was staring just above his head, completely immobile.
Cautious in case this was some sort of trick, Neville slowly slid down to the
ground. Meeting no resistance, he crawled between their legs to freedom.
Becoming convinced that this was not some peculiar ruse, he looked closer at his
tormentors. Flint, Montague, and Bletchley were all looking into the mirror that
Neville had been pressed up against. What had they seen? He drew his wandmuch
good it had been earlierand held it up to Flint's face, trying to get it to
match the angle of his eyes as best he could. With some difficulty, he managed
to make it stay, wedged between the Slytherin's ear and head.
"Lumos." A thin ray of light shone out of the tip of his wand and was reflected
off of the mirror. Curious, Neville followed it down the hall, where it
rebounded off of a polished statue, followed by a brass candlestick, around the
corner to an iron windowframe, and, finally, coming to an end in the middle of a
completely empty hallway in front of a statue of a lost-looking wizard titled
'Boris the Bewildered.'
"You're not the only one, mate," Neville muttered, then returned to reclaim his
wand. Best tell Dumbledore or McGonagall, he thought. Just as he turned to
leave, a new thought struck him.
But first... he grinned, drawing his wand.
oooo
"So, what are you going to dress up as for the feast this evening?" Hannah asked
Page 497

Milo as they walked past the lake, her breath visible in the chill October air.
Around the lake, other students were enjoying the clear (by the standards of
Scottish autumn) weather. Cedric and some other Hufflepuffs were tossing a
Quaffle around, Lavender Brown and the Patil twins were chatting with a group of
other NPCs about something unimportant, and some upper-year Ravenclaws were
already cramming for their NEWTs, despite the exams being most of a year away.
Ravenclaws could be like that sometimes.
"Haven't given it a moment's thought, to be honest," Milo admitted. "I've been
too busy worrying about what might happen today."
"You mean like when the Troll escaped last year?" Hannah asked.
"Exactly like that. Hallowe'en's too significant for too many reasons for today
to go smoothly."
Hannah shrugged. "I'd say we'll be ready for whatever happens, if anything does.
Between the Duelling Club and your Hellipedes, I've never been more confident
about my magic. I mean, watch this. Look at that fish for a second." She pointed
at a pike swimming near the surface of the dark lake. "Stupefy!" There was a red
flash, and the pike froze, floating to the surface. "See? I've been practicing.
We all have."
"No kidding." Milo was impressed; he hadn't even seen her draw her wand. "Oh,
this reminds me. Here, I've got something for you." Milo rooted about in his
extradimensional belt, then pulled out a standard Hogwarts robe.
"I'm guessing it's not just an extra change of clothes?" Hannah said, looking at
it curiously.
"It's magically enhanced," Milo explained. "Roughly as tough as steel. Should
keep you safe from claws, fangs, and pointy sticksoh, and Redcaps, in case we
see one of those guys againbut it won't do anything against magic."
"That would explain why I saw Ron and Harry wailing at each other with Beaters'
bats, and laughing, then," Hannah said, taking the robes. "I was wondering about
that." She frowned. "I, er, appreciate the present, but these are a size small."
"Don't worry," Milo said. "They resize to the wearer. You could be bigger than
Hagrid and they'd still fit."
Hannah grinned. "You should have said that first, then! With any luck, that will
be the more useful part. I'll never have to go to Madam Malkin's again!"
"Just make sure you wear themand the amuletpretty much all of the time. The
amulet especially."
"Of course; I haven't taken it off since you gave it to me. I remember last
Christmas, too." Hannah frowned. "This is going beyond your usual paranoia.
What's going on?"
"The fact is, I don't know," Milo admitted. "And that scares me. There are
Page 498

people looking for something, but I don't have a single clue about what they're
looking for. Why do they want it? What is it? What will happen if they find it?"
"Could it be the Philosopher's Stone, again?" Hannah suggested.
"Possibly," Milo said. He was surprised he hadn't considered that. "I'm pretty
sure Dumbledore moved it after last year, though. I'd always assumed it was this
adventure's MacGuffin, but I suppose it could be the MacGuffin of the whole
campaign."
"Elaine MacGuffin? The fourth-year Hufflepuff girl?"
"Nah, the magic-artifact-thingy that everybody wants. The origin of its name is
lost in the depths of time. Frankly, I'd assumed it was Harry. You know,
something-something-key-to-defeating-the-Dark-Lord or whatever. Although
Dumbledore did say it had more to do with Harry's mother..." Milo frowned. He
felt as if he might be on to something, but he'd need more time to work it out.
"On top of all that, there's this whole Chamber of Secrets thing with Peeves.
Annoying as he is, why an ancient monster would sneak out of hiding to take out
an NPC who was clearly intended as comic relief is beyond me."
"And you probably want to find a way to get home, right?" Hannah asked.
"Well, yeah, eventually," Milo said vaguely. He hadn't actually thought about
home in quite some time. "But I'm sure they can live without me for a while yet.
I think I'm needed here more."
Hannah grinned. "You, sir, are correct. Whatever would we do if we didn't have
you to overcomplicate things for us?"
"I'm sure you'd find something to do to fill up the time," Milo said. "Quidditch
or infighting or whatnot."
Across the lake, a huffing, puffing Hufflepuff Milo didn't recognize ran up to
the Quidditch players. Whatever he said, it surprised Cedric enough thatfor the
first time Milo had seenhe fumbled the Quaffle when it was passed to him. A few
seconds later, they were running into the castle, followed shortly by Lavender,
the Patils, and the others.
Hannah frowned. "Maybe we should check out what's going on?"
Even a few Ravenclaws pulled themselves away from their studies to follow the
crowd.
"Yeah," Milo said. "Definitely."
They followed the growing throng of students, pushing against each other to be
the first to reach their intended goalwhatever it was. Over the din, Milo
managed to snatch the occasional glimpse of what sounded like relevant
information.
"... entire hallway disappeared..."
Page 499

"... almost the entire Slytherin team..."
"... with me..."
"... ears to cumquats..." Milo frowned. He must have failed a Listen check on
that one. At some point in the push, he lost track of Hannah. As the movement
was starting to slow and the bodies were packed even more tightly together,
someone grabbed Milo's arm roughly.
"I said, come with me!" It was Ron. Surprised, Milo let his feet carry him away
from the crowd and the noise, down a side corridor to the main staircase. Around
the corner, Harry and Hermione were waiting impatiently.
"What's going on?" Milo asked.
"So you finally got him, then?" Harry asked irritably, ignoring his question.
"There were a lot of people," Ron said defensively. "It was hard to pick him
out."
"What's happening?" Milo asked again.
"It's Dean and Seamus," Hermione said. "Ron heard them say they were going to...
kill somebody. We thought we'd best grab you."
"Fair enough," Milo shrugged. "Lead on." Without another word, they hustled to
the entrance to Gryffindor tower.
"Password?" the fat lady asked.
"Friendly Melons," Milo replied, and she swung open. Milo glanced back at his
friends. "Wands out, people."
Inside, things looked fairly normal. The Weasley twins were playing wizard chess
near the window, Neville was reading the Potions textbook on an armchair, and
Dean and Seamus were chatting conspiratorially in the corner.
"Hey, dirtbags!" Milo shouted at the two. "Hope you enjoy a face full of
Glitterd"
"Incarcerous," Fred cast, and Milo's arms were suddenly tied behind his back
with ropes, ruining the spell. More ropes tied his legs together at the ankles.
"What the hell, Fred?" Milo asked angrily. "Yo! Gryffindors! Dean and Seamus
over there are like, seriously bad news!"
"Are we?" Dean asked, standing up. "Are we, really? And why is that, little
boy?"
"Well, there's all the skulking about, the fact that Ron here overheard you
plotting murder, and the 'little boy' you just threw out there didn't help your
Page 500

case any, either."
"He's got a point, Dean," Seamus said. "We do sound likewhat was it? Ah, yes.
'Seriously bad news.'"
"Oh, he has no idea how bad, Seamus," Dean said.
"You're right, Dean. Why don't we show him?" Seamus walked up to Milo, and
stared him in the eye. Then, without warning, his fist caught Milo in the jaw,
knocking him to the ground awkwardly.
"Hey! Hermione, kick their asses!" Milo said, spitting blood on the red-and-gold
carpet. Why wasn't anyone doing anything? "Harry? Ron?" But nobody moved.
"Oh, I've wanted to do that for months, little boy," Seamus muttered.
"Listen to him calling for help, Seamus," Dean said. "He thinks he's surrounded
by friends."
Oh, crap.
Milo's mind raced, but it didn't take him long to guess what happened. Of
course. Whatever it was that happened downstairs had been a big enough
distraction to draw everyone from the Common Room down to take a look. There had
certainly been enough people that Milo would believe every single Hogwarts
student was down there. So, everyone currently in the room with him was some
sort of plant. Now, the question remained: were they his actual friends,
controlled by the Imperius Curse, or were they someone else using a Polyjuice
potion?
Milo felt his lips twitch up into a smile, despite everything. "Well," he said.
"Crap. Looks like you've got me."
"Indeed," not-Seamus said. "Now, tell me, where have you hidden the book?"
Great. Another one of these conversations.
"Somewhere safe," Milo said vaguely. He had no idea what book they were talking
about. "I'm willing to make a deal, but first, you must answer one question."
"Acceptable. Ask your question; but be warned: if we even think you are casting
a spell, you will be dead before you hit the floor."
"I understand. Now, my friendsthe people you're disguised asare they safe?"
"For now."
"Good." So they were disguise as, rather than possessing, his friends. He could
use Divinations to track them down later. In fact, with the exception of Dean
and Seamus, it was more than likely that they were all in the castle, completely
oblivious to the events in the Common Room. These people, whoever they were,
could simply have pulled a hair from their marks' robes or pillows at their
Page 501

leisure to use for a Polyjuice potion. Not only was that what Milo would have
done, it's what he had done; he'd already owled to Cog small paper packets with
hairs taken from, at most recent count, one-third of the Hogwarts student body.
"The wall behind me is an Illusion," Milo said.
The funny thing about Illusions is that, once you know they're not real, they
turn transparent. The most obvious use of this trick is to create a one-way
window from which to spy or snipe, but, in Milo's opinion, that was far from the
only one.
Anyone who heard his declaration would notice, if they were paying very close
attention, the south wall of the Gryffindor Common Room move almost a tenth of a
millimetre as the Illusory Wall flickered away. And even if they weren't paying
attention, they'd notice the massive, garish, magenta-and-cyan glow-in-the-dark
text that was suddenly visible.
THE CHAMBER OF MUNCHKINRY HAS BEEN OPENED.
ENEMIES OF ABSURDLY OVERPOWERED ARCANE MAGIC, BEWARE.
Post Scriptum: this text is exactly twenty five words long, thanks.
"Wh"
A small viper, sepia-toned like an old photograph, leapt out of the wall from a
discreet sigil concealed in the final period of the message. It flew towards
not-Seamus like a bullet before vanishing in a puff of dun smoke in front of his
startled eyes.
As the smoke cleared, a shimmering amber field became visible, surrounding the
immobile not-Seamus. Unless somehow dispelled, he would remain trapped there, in
stasis, for about a week and a half.
"Merlin's beard!" not-Hermione cursed, staring at the frozen not-Seamus.
"Avada" not-Neville began casting.
"No, you fool!" not-Dean shouted. "We need him alive!"
Good to know, Milo noted.
"But he used magic!" not-Neville protested. "He could kill us all!"
"Idiot! That was clearly a premade trapif he could do it to all of us, he would
have. Use your mind! He's powerless."
Milo had to make a formidable Bluff check to bite down laughter. Whoever thought
that a Wizard was powerless simply because he was surrounded by enemies, alone,
unarmed, and tied down in the middle of a room had Bad Things coming in their
near future. Not that a Wizard who could speak was ever really unarmed, of
course.
Page 502

"So, this book," Milo said, "I don't suppose you could describe it for me?"
"Don't get cute with me, boy," not-Dean snapped. "You know very well what book
I'm talking about."
"You're absolutely certain of that?" Milo asked.
"Obviously. Stop stalling for time. You have thirty seconds."
Milo frowned. Maybe he did have this book they wanted. There was only one book
he carried around of any magical significance, and that was his spellbook. Maybe
they thought they could learn Arcane magic from it?
"It won't work for you," Milo said seriously. "It'd be as useful as a notebook
full of scribbles."
"I'll be the judge of that," not-Dean said. "Just hand it over before things
get... unpleasant."
Right, because being sprawled on the floor with my hands tied up isn't
unpleasant at all.
"It will only work for me," Milo repeated. "It's mine."
Not-Dean's eyes widened. "You don't mean that you..."
"Yes! Yes I do!" Milo wasn't quite sure what not-Dean was getting at, but he
seemed to be making progress here. Any attempt to use his spellbook was a fool's
errand.
"Then you'd best come with us," not-Dean said.
Milo laughed. "I'm not going anywhere with you." This conversation was getting
weird, fast.
"Then I'm sure you'll understand my predicament. If you don't back up your claim
by either producing the book or coming with us, I'll use more direct methods to
determine the truth, and I don't think either of us want it to come to that."
What claim? What the Hells was going on?
"Torture won't help you," Milo said, frantically trying to think of a plan.
"Because I'm not Milo. I'm really, uh, that guy." He nodded at not-Neville
completely at random.
"Who, Avery?" not-Dean asked. "What nonsense is this?" not-Dean aimed his wand
steadily at Milo. "I'm done with this. You'll tell us the truth, now."
"Yeah! Avery! We switched by some kind of"
"Crucio," not-Dean cast.
Page 503

"Translocation Trick." Milo muttered. In a rather disorienting manner, he
suddenly found himself looking like Neville and staring at, well, himself from
the other side of the room.
"Wait! Stop!" the unfortunate person (Avery?) disguised as Neville disguised as
Milo gasped between tortured screams. "I'm really Avery! Avery!" Milo tried to
think back to where he'd heard that name before.
"He's lying," Milo said. "I'm Avery!"
"Where is the book?" not-Dean shouted at the writhing Avery.
"How the hell should I know?" Avery shrieked back. "I'm one of you!"
"That is the least believable lie I've ever heard!"
Milo shifted uncomfortably as Avery writhed on the floor, straining against the
ropes that tied him down. Killing orcs was one thing, but this was... wrong.
Torture was explicitly stated to be an Evil act in the rules, and Milo felt it
was a flimsy defence to say that he wasn't the one doing the torture; he had
simply arranged events such that someone else would be tortured while he waited,
doing nothing. The fact that the victim looked exactly like him didn't help
matters any.
"Ready an action, Mordy," Milo whispered to his Familiar. "We'll take them next
turn."
The Translocation Trick hid Milo's extradimensional belt, so anyone looking
closely would see Mordy's head and arms pop out of seemingly-nowhere.
3...2...1...
"Shatter." Not-Dean's wand exploded with a thunderclap, saving Avery from his
torment. Briefly. Mordy, using bracers enchanted with Launch Item, fired a
marked knut into the centre of the room. The rat squinted, using his
goggles-enhanced Spot check to read the tiny rune at a distance.
The coin exploded in a purple-green burst, taking most of the room with it. The
windows shattered outwards, and most of the furniture was reduced to splinters.
People disguised as most of his best friends were sent flying across the room.
"Mercy!" the one disguised as Harry Potter gasped, cradling a clearly broken
arm. "Master, have mercy!"
Death EatersMilo remembered where he'd heard the name 'Avery' beforewere
sprawled around the room, battered and broken. But alive. Another volley from
Mordy would change that. He knew that it was the right decision. If they lived,
they'd go on, serving Malfoy and Voldemort, until they were thrown in Azkaban or
killed. It was the smart choice. Milo looked at the Death Eater disguised as
Ron, whimpering on the floor. He looked at the Death Eater disguised as
Hermione, whose face was covered in blood. He looked at the Death Eater
disguised as Harry, begging for mercy at Milo's feet.
Page 504

He looked at himselfAveryon the floor, unconscious.
"Everybody leave," Milo said quietly. "Just go. If I see any of you again, I'll
probably kill you." Of course, they were in disguise, highlighting the absurdity
of his threat. He didn't know who most of them were, but at this point, he
didn't really care.
"AAccio Broomsticks," the Death Eater who looked like Harry said, and a tightly
wrapped bundle of brooms flew in through the window a few seconds later.
It took some doing to get them all on brooms, but a few minutes later, they were
gone, and Milo was left in a room with his rat, an amber-trapped Death Eater,
and pile of broken furniture.
oooo
Lucius Malfoy sealed the envelope to the Hogwarts board of directors before
tying to an owl's waiting leg. All in all, he'd call the day a victory. Sure,
his Death Eaters had been bloodied and defeated (and, more importantly, had
failed in their mission). But really, he'd expected that. Their mission had
served its purpose; it had distracted them from his lack of desire to bring the
Dark Lord back and given them a new motive: revenge. They were mad enough about
their humiliating defeat that they would question no orders that sent them up
against that unnatural little child. And, now that they had returned home, he
could stop blackmailing potion makers across Britain into making him Polyjuice.
Of course, there was still the matter of what to do with the captured students,
but Lucius was certain that, if they were found, he was removed enough from the
situation that it wouldn't affect him in any real way.
But it was the surprising attack on Slytherin's Quidditch team that had been the
real highlight of the day. Rich, pureblooded families across the country were
crying for blood, and Lucius knew exactly how and where to channel that anger
and fear. There were a not insignificant number of halfbloods and mudbloods,
even those who were usually Lucius's enemies, who were joining the mob.
Power came from seizing opportunities when you found them, not from stubbornly
sticking to outdated plans and causes, and this was an opportunity too good for
Lucius to pass up. Come tomorrow morning, he would not trade places with
Dumbledore for all the gold in Gringotts. Well, maybe he would. With that much
gold, he could bribe his way out of any problem. But the sentiment still stood.
Lucius pulled out another sheet of parchment, this one intended for the Daily
Prophet, and began writing.
As a concerned father and respected community leader, I am outraged at the
flagrant disregard for student safety exhibited by Hogwarts's current
administration...
It was almost too easy.
ooooooo
Page 505

Author's Notes: I'm switching the update days to Fridays to better match my new
schedule. If I don't find that that works, I might push it to Saturday or Sunday
instead. Also, I've decided that the previous chapter's name ("Hallwe'en Masks")
fits this chapter much better. So I've renamed Chapter 11 to "Trick or Treat"
(which is a better name anyway, considering the events of the previous chapter)
and I'm naming Chapter 12 "Hallowe'en Masks." Sorry for the confusion, as this
is one of the problems in writing in a serial format: it can be awkward to go
back and change things when you have a better idea.
D&D Tip: Though this one works equally well for pretty much any RPG. If you're
doing one of those Showdown At High Noon-style walk ten paces, turn, and fire
duels (or a quick-draw Single Stroke Battle), here's what you do for optimum
coolness around the table: have one player count down, and at one, both
contestants simultaneously roll attack, and initiative, and do all the addition
of bonuses, etc., before declaring what happened. Then you roll damage.
This highlights the sudden, tense nature of the duel around the table in a
satisfying way, while still following the rules to the letter.
CC 13: Conspirators
Chapter Thirteen: Conspirators

Sunday mornings, unsurprisingly, were not a traditionally busy time for the
Hog's Head Inn. Most of its clientele tended to be too busy sleeping off
Saturday evening to do much more than (at best) order kippers, eggs, and
prodigious amounts of coffee, pepper-up potion, and the establishment's
signature hangover cure (coffee mixed with pepper-up potion).
This Sunday morning was something of an eccentric iconoclast in the world of
Sunday mornings. Much to the irritation of those upstairs, the Hog's Head was
packed with housecoat-wearing, Daily Prophet-clutching, astonished, and, above
all, talkative early risers, several of whom would be going home that day to
their families, hexed for seven generations to have jaws that clicked by an
irritated hag attempting to sleep in a room directly over the bar.
These people were the worst sort of people that could be found in all the world:
morning people. Today, they inflicted themselves upon humanity by asking each
other inane questions to which they already knew the answer.
"Did you see the paper?" one asked to a table of people, most of whom were
holding said paper.
"Have you heard?" asked another.
"It must be some sort of error," said a third stubbornly, "like when Skeeter ran
Page 506

that hatchet job on him in September."
"You mean
wonderful
situation
world had
when, the next day, she issued a retraction saying that he was a wise,
man who was simply sometimes misunderstood and would have the entire
under control with help from the most talented wizards and witches the
ever seen?" asked a fourth.
"Yes," said the third. "That time."

"That always struck me as a bit fishy," said the fourth. "First time she's ever
written anything nice about anyone."
"My friend Agnes said her cousin Mable saw Rita Skeeter talking with Gilderoy
Lockhart," said a fifth. "In this very room!"
During a lengthy tangent in which the party attempted to locate the seat that
Lockhart had been sitting in (for 'historical purposes') and discussed putting
up a poster, or, perhaps, a plaque above the door ('sitting-place of Gilderoy
Lockhart the Great'), the doors slammed open, causing windows across the
building to rattle noisily in their panes.
"Did you hear?" cried the slippers-and-housecoat-clad young man. "Dumbledore's
been sacked!"
"No," grumbled the barkeep for the thirteenth time that morning, wiping a dirty
mug with an even dirtier cloth. "No, I haven't been. I'm self-employed.
Entrepreneurial-like. Can't be sacked."
"Not you, Aberforth," snapped the recent entrant, his jaws clicking annoyingly.
"The other Dumbledore."
"Oh, him," Aberforth said, as if he could barely remember the existence of the
Dumbledore in question. "Yeah. Yeah, I heard." Then, after a lengthy silence, he
added, "Shame."
oooo
"Everything made ready?" Inspector Hannigan asked. Fiona and Evan nodded. "Doors
locked?"
"Yes, sir," Fiona replied.
"Blinds drawn?"
"Yes, sir."
"Swept for bugs?"
"Yes, sir. Both insect and electronic."
"Hmmm," Hannigan frowned. "What about arachnids?" Fiona hesitated. "A joke. It
was a joke." The three were meeting in a rarely-used subbasement under the old
Page 507

station. Nobody was quite certain what its purpose was, though a decrepit old
chair lying in the corner and some suspicious stains suggested a rather
nefarious history sometime in the city's past. Most people generally avoided it
because of the damp and the rats, though it had become the home of a few large
cardboard boxes full of paperwork. Fiona's partner, Evan Travis, had grudgingly
spent all morning assembling a cheap table and a few chairs from IKEA. This had
gone relatively successfully, which was to say, one of the chairs had (somehow)
been assembled inside-out and the table was precariously slanted. "So," Hannigan
said, leaning forward, "what have we got?"
"As far as we can tell," Fiona began, "everything that's happened so far started
with an encounter at Number 4, Privet Drive, the residence of one Vernon and
Petunia Dursley, as well as their son Dudley." As she mentioned each name, she
pulled a full-sized photograph of each individual from a manila envelope and
placed them on the pine-veneer table surface. Dudley's had been appropriated
from his school, but the pictures of Vernon and Petunia had been taken with a
telephoto lens from afar. "As near as we can tell, there is absolutely nothing
out of the ordinary on any of these individuals. Vernon is employed as a
director at a firm by the name of Grunnings, which makes drills"
"Ruddy useless drills," Travis muttered. He'd given up trying to make the
predrilled dowel holes line up and had tried to make his own. The drillone of
Grunnings' latest modelshad sawn five centimetres of table leg clean off when
it kicked violently in the process.
"Petunia seems to be a stay-at-home mother, while Dudley attends a private
school named Smeltings. Everything seems ordinaryexcept that the Dursleys are
not the only residents of Number 4, Privet Drive." Fiona placed a fourth
photograph on the table, this one of a young boy with messy brown hair,
brilliant green eyes, and a distinctive lightning scar on his forehead. Fiona
nodded to Travis, who had handled this part of the investigation.
"Well, sir," Travis said nervously. He didn't often speak with the inspector
personally. "They appear to have one Harry Potter under their protection,
apparently their nephew. There's, well, there's not much on him on file.
Anywhere. I had to really dig to find any information at all. Seems he attended
a series of private and public schools until last year, when, near as we can
tell, he disappeared completely."
"What do you mean, 'disappeared'?" Hannigan asked.
"He was to attend Stonewall High, but at the last minute before start of term,
the Dursleys called and informed the principal there that Harry would instead be
attending a St. Brutus's Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys."
"Harry a delinquent, then?" Hannigan asked. "Doesn't look much like one."
"No, here's the thing," Travis said. "There is no St. Brutus's Secure Centre for
Incurably Criminal Boys. There isn't even a saint named Brutus. I checked with a
priest to make sure."
"So," Hannigan asked. "What happened to the boy?"
Page 508

"Well, that's the question," Travis said. "Most of the neighbours say they've
never seen nor heard of him, and the Dursleys have never said they had another
child living there. One said she'd seen him on occasion, and assumed he was a
friend of Dudley's from school. Near as I can tell, the Dursleys have been
actively hiding his existence. He's not been seen since."
"Why hasn't Social Services, the Child Protection Unit, or the NSPCC looked into
this?" Hannigan asked.
"Maybe they did," Fiona said. "But were made to forget."
"I had PC O'Hara call Social Services," Travis said. "I didn't tell him why,
don't worry. They say they have no record of him whatsoever."
"Do we know who his parents are?" Hannigan asked. "Or were, for that matter."
Travis nodded to Fiona, who stood up.
"This is a bit tenuous," she admitted. "Seeing as we couldn't find a birth
certificate on Harry anywhere. However... well. Lily Evans. Sister of Petunia
Dursley. Born 1960, last seen in 1981. She's Petunia's only sibling, and we're
fairly certain none of Vernon's had any children. So if Harry really is their
nephew, she is likely to be the mother. We don't know who the father was, and we
don't know where the name 'Potter' came from."
"It rings a bell, somehow. 1981..." he said thoughtfully. "Hmm. Anyway.
Normally, here, I'd bring the Dursleys in on suspicion of child abuse and
possible homicide," Hannigan said, "but I suppose we can't do that, can we?"
Fiona shook her head. "They're being watched closely. Both times that I've had
my memory alteredthat I'm aware ofoccurred after visiting their home."
"Could one of them be our perp, then?" Hannigan asked.
"Could be," Fiona said skeptically. "But based on the report I wrote of the
initial attack on the Dursleys' home, it seemed like the, well, the magic was
being performed by an unknown third youth, and three accomplices, against the
Dursleys."
"I don't suppose we have a name or photograph on any of them?"
"If we had any record, it's been removed."
"So what have we got?"
"A name, a year, a distinctive scar," Fiona said, "and, best of all, a
predictable perp."
"1981..." Hannigan said again. "That was a bad year to be a copper. Before your
time, of course. Homicides and strange disappearances had been on the rise for
years, but they were at their worst then. I was just a constable then, and it
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seemed like every week I was trying to find some new missing person. People were
afraid to go outside in broad daylight, and they blamed us. Said it was our job
to protect them. Well, it was, I suppose, but what could we do? Then it ended,
as suddenly as it began." Hannigan frowned. "Hallowe'en," he said finally. "God.
I haven't thought about this in years. No; not Hallowe'en. It was a day or two
after. There was some kind of convention of weirdos in town. Wearing robes, if
you could believe it. Well, half the force was sent out; we thought they were
partygoers who hadn't quite realized that Hallowe'en had ended the night before
and the time for fancy dress was over. They were scaring people. They don't much
like weirdos up in Little Whinging; not like in London."
"Er, sir..." Fiona said.
"I'm getting to the point, Sergeant. When I said they ought to go back home,
they said, they said 'it's Harry Potter Day and even a mugger like you ought to
be celebrating.' A mugger! It was as if they'd never seen the uniform before."
"Harry Potter Day?" Travis asked. "Never heard of it."
"Doesn't exist," Hannigan said. "I researched it. Mind, Harry Potter is a common
name. And I could be remembering wrong. Memory. Can't always trust it,
especially lately. Still, if you had a group of, what, magicians or something,
what would you expect them to wear? Cloaks and robes. Merlin-style."
"What," Travis said skeptically, "they just wake up, grab their pointy hats and
magic staves, tuck their beards into their belts and walk down the street as if
they were taking a stroll to Bag-End? I think someone might have noticed that by
now."
"They were pretty sloshed," Hannigan shrugged. "And besides, it might be
completely unrelated."
"Also, the popular image of a magician wearing robes and pointy hats has to have
come from somewhere, doesn't it?" Fiona said. "So, sir. What do we do?"
"Right. Travis, report Harry Potter as missing to the Child Protection Unit.
They can investigate that angle for us. Who knows, if they put his face on the
telly, someone might recognize him. Also, the Dursleys might crack if they come
knocking on their door. Could lead us somewhere."
"But, if my name is on the report," Travis protested, "they might hunt me down.
I don't want to forget again."
"Good point. Submit it under the name 'L'Angelo Misterioso.'"
"L'Angelo Misterioso?"
"DI Parsons down there and us in investigations have an understanding of sorts,"
Hannigan said. "Sometimes we encounter, well, situations up their alley," he
explained. "But for one reason or another our evidence is inadmissible, usually
because our paperwork isn't in order"
Page 510

"You mean when you don't have a warrant?" Fiona asked, clearly trying, and
failing, to mask disapproval.
"Yes. Such as, for example, right now. Parsons will know to investigate without
looking too closely at who tipped them off. I don't care if the boy was
disappeared by magic or used magic to disappear. There's fifty-seven million
people living in the United Kingdom, and someone will have seen something."
"Will do, sir," Travis said snappily.
"Now, Fiona," Hannigan said. "I want you to keep looking for the boy's parents.
My gut says there's something significant about 1981. What happened to Lily
Evans? Who was the father? Did they ever marry? Did she ever have a job?
Friends? Where did she go to school? Find someone who knew her and you'll find
her."
"Very well, sir. And if I may ask, what will you be doing?"
Hannigan smiled. "I have a lot of friends who are still very, very sore about
what happened twelve years ago. We need allies. With only the three of us, we're
in a very precarious position. If our perp figures out what we're up to, we
could be made to forgetor simply removed altogether, and their problems would
be solved. Nobody would know what to look for, or even to look. What we need is
a conspiracy. Someone to check up on us, remind us what's happening if we
forget. People with access to more and different information than us."
oooo
Professor McGonagall paced back and forth in Dumbledore'sin her office. She
couldn't believe the situation had spun out of control so fast. One minute she
was enjoying a cool glass of pumpkin juice and reading the paper, and the next,
a horrified Lavender Brown ran into her office to say that half the Slytherin
Quidditch team had been Petrified, and their ears turned into cumquats. They
never did find out what had happened to their ears, but it was quite clear what
had Petrified them: Slytherin's monster. And she'd only just begun to organize
an effort to move them to the hospital wing when a half-crazed Lavender Brown,
who McGonagall had just sent back to her Common Room, pushed her way through the
crowd to say that Milo Amastacia-Liadon had gone mad and destroyed Gryffindor
Tower. Halfway up to the tower, she'd been assaulted by a very persistent owl
from the Ministry carrying a letter that said she had to appear before the
Wizengamot immediately.
It was there that she had been told that the Hogwarts' Board of Directors had
spoken unanimously. Dumbledore was to be removed from his position as Headmaster
immediately, and was to have no further contact with any students of Hogwarts,
present or future. He was to take full responsibility for the Petrifications.
McGonagall was instated as Headmistress, and told that if she didn't end the
'spree' of attacks, she would go the same route as Dumbledore had.
There was a knock at the door.
"Enter," McGonagall called, sitting uncomfortably in Dumbledore's favourite
Page 511

chintz armchair.
Snape, Flitwick, and Sprout entered.
"You sent for us, Minerva?" Flitwick said.
"I'm sure you've all heard what happened," McGonagall said. "I believe we should
come up with a plan to deal with the current crisis."
"Are you referring to my Petrified students?" Snape asked angrily. McGonagall
often forgot that, despite his cool exterior, he could be fiercely protective of
his Slytherins. "Or the sudden removal of the Headmaster?"
"Or the incident up in Gryffindor Tower?" Sprout asked.
"All of those," McGonagall said.
"What about the missing students?" asked Flitwick.
McGonagall frowned. "You mean missing student, surely?" she said. "We will make
every effort to locate Dean Thomas."
"Nobody has seen nor heard from Penelope Clearwater, Luna Lovegood, or Anthony
Goldstein since last evening," Flitwick said gravely. "I've spent the last nine
and a half hours searching for them. I had assumed that was to be the purpose of
this meeting."
"Merlin!" McGonagall said. "We'll organize a search party. Don't worry, Filius,
we'll find your missing Ravenclaws."
"Not only Ravenclaws," Sprout said. "Susan Bones, Zacharias Smith, and Justin
Finch-Fletchley haven't been seen since dinnertime."
McGonagall stared at her. She felt her jaw moving, but couldn't quite make words
form. Seven missing students? She hadn't imagined her first day as Headmistress
to be going quite like this.
"Well," Snape said. "Things do seem to be falling apart."
That was it. McGonagall felt something click inside of her, and, suddenly, she
was giving orders faster than she could think.
"It's Sunday," McGonagall said. "So none of us have to worry about teaching
today. I want every student to stay in their Common Rooms for the time being.
Pomona, you're going to head the search party. Grab Lockhart, even if you have
to drag him out of his office by the scruff of his neck. Filius, contact the
Ministry. Amelia Bones at the DMLE is going to move heaven and earth to find her
niece if it turns out she's not on the grounds, and she'll likely be with the
rest. Severus, about the supposed Chamber of Secrets"
"Believe me," Snape said. "I've looked. It won't do any good; only the Heir can
find it. Unless you happen to have an Heir of Slytherin hiding in your pocket?"
Page 512

"I know that!" McGonagall snapped. "We've all looked for it one time or another.
Forget the Chamber and worry about the monster, Severus. You know more about the
Dark Arts, including its dark creatures, than any of us here, and you know it.
Find out what's hurting our students and how we can kill it."
Snape looked at her for a short moment, then nodded. "Very well," he said. There
was a hint of approval in his voice.
"Also, for the time being, you're Deputy Headmaster," McGonagall said. "I know
it's what Albus would have done. Hopefully we can have him back in charge before
long, but if we can't... well." McGonagall sighed. "Pomona, how long before we
can get those Mandrakes ready?"
"It won't be before early June," she said. "At best."
"Can't we get some sooner than that?"
"Mandrakes must be fully grown for maximum potency," Sprout said. "This is a
labour-intensive process that takes the better part of a year. Mandrakes
themselves are extremely rare and, due to their potentially fatal cry, heavily
restricted by most governments. Their growth requires supervision from
highly-trained professionals, but they are required for literally hundreds of
different common remedies and cures. You would know better than any, Minerva,
that there are always new and exciting transfiguration accidents that require
undoing. In short, there is an exceptionally long wait list."
"But surely, for a condition as serious as Petrification, something can be
done?" McGonagall asked.
"That's exactly the problem," Sprout said. "If someone's teeth are turned to
ice, they need treatment now. But Petrifications... well..."
"Petrified witches and wizards will keep," Snape said. "In fact, they are famous
for it. They require no food, no hydration, and they do not age. They will,
quite simply, not notice the delay one way or another."
"The average wait for a Petrified witch or wizard is fifty-six years," Sprout
said. "Growing them on-site is our only option."
"Very well," McGonagall said. "Well, we have our jobs. Let's get to them. Can
you send in the next one on your way out?"
oooo
"You. In." Snape said to Milo curtly as he walked out of the out of the
Headmaster's office, Sprout and Flitwick trailing behind him.
Milo swallowed, then walked up the spiral staircase. The door was open;
McGonagall was sitting behind Dumbledore's desk.
"So, they really fired him, then?" Milo asked.
Page 513

"Unfortunately," McGonagall said. "Now, sit." Without waiting for him to comply,
she continued. "Explain yourself. What happened in Gryffindor tower last
evening, what is that amber field, and who is inside it disguised as Seamus
Finnigan?"
"How could you tell it wasn't Seamus?"
"I'm the Transfigurations Professor. Also, he's holding the wrong wand. It's not
even one of Ollivander's."
"I was attacked, the field is caused by magic and is entirely harmless, and it's
a Death Eater inside. "
McGonagall stared at him straight in the eye, an unreadable expression on her
face. Milo began preparing arguments, counter-arguments, theories, and evidence
to back up his accusation to combat her inevitable skepticism.
"Merlin. That explains everything. This certainly has the hallmarks of their
interference. Presumably your spell prolongs the effects of Polyjuice, or he
would have reverted. You'll have to tell me where you learned to do that." She
frowned, deep in thought. "Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas are rarely apart, and
if Dean is missing... ah. I'll have to tell them to call off the search; the
missing students are in the hands of the Death Eaters. But how? Under our very
noses?"
Milo could practically hear the wheels of his brain screeching in protest as he
forced them to change direction.
"They could have been lured off the grounds and grabbed," Milo reasoned. "Or
simply Stunnedor killedon the grounds near the forest, then carried out.
Hogwarts' defences are somewhat... specific. No Apparating or Disapparating on
the grounds, but you can show up near them and walk the rest of the way. That's
how they grabbed me, last year."
McGonagall's face betrayed a flicker of surprise. Milo wasn't certain how much
Dumbledore had told her about the events of last year.
"They'd have to be kept alive," she said. "Polyjuice requires fresh material. If
their kidnappers were intelligent, they would still be so. As a bargaining chip,
at the very least. What were they after?"
Milo shrugged. "Couldn't say, really. Some kind of magic book they thought I
had. Could be my spellbook..."
"Your spellbook?" McGonagall asked.
"Ah. Right. Well..." Milo decided that, in this case, perhaps honesty was the
best option. "I'm not a wizard like you, Professor. I don't have a mental block
in Transfigurations; I just can't do your sort of magic."
"So, the story you told when you first arrived really is true?" she asked.
Page 514

"You're from another world?"
"Yup."
Surprisingly, she threw back her head and barked a short, loud laugh. "Believe
it or not, that is not the most surprising thing I've heard today. We'll have to
cancel your remedial Transfigurations classes, I suppose. Albus knew about this,
I presume? Of course he did. Very well. He decided you ought to continue
attending this school, and I will not alter that decision. However, be advised
that I will not be going easy on you in class because of your... differences. I
will not pass a student who cannot meet certain minimum standards. How you meet
those standards are up to you, however."
"Understood," Milo said.
"Now, this... spellbook. What would they want with it? What would happen if they
were to obtain it?"
"Nothing," Milo said. "It's just so much paper to them. Booby trapped paper, at
that. Maybe they wanted something else, though. They weren't terribly clear, to
be honest. High on gloating, low on clarity."
"That sounds like most dark wizards I've had the poor fortune to meet,"
McGonagall said. "So. Death Eaters have kidnapped my students, infiltrated the
school, and launched an attack in my tower?" McGonagall stood up, her knuckles
turning white as she trembled with slowly growing fury. "If they think I'm just
an old schoolteacher who will roll over and let them get away with this, they've
got another thing coming. A very large, very heavy thing, transfigured into
existence, perhaps, directly above their heads." With visible effort, she calmed
herself down. "I believe, Mister Amastacia-Liadon, that the time has come for
you to tell me everything. I presume that, much like last year, you have allowed
curiosity to get the better of yourself and have been looking into this matter
on your own time, against quite literally dozens of school rules and
regulations?"
"Well. Yeah, basically."
"Good lad. Twenty points for Gryffindor. No, make that thirty. Take me to your
Death Eater," she said. "Let's see what we can learn from himor her. Fill me in
along the way."
CC 14: Cacophony in C Sharp
Chapter Fourteen: Cacophony in C Sharp

Hogwarts has always been a notoriously difficult structure to get around in.
Rooms sometimes shuffle about when nobody is looking too closely, corridors
Page 515

appear and disappear based off of the phases of the moon, the day of the week,
the hour of the day, and, in one notable case, the lowest factor of Ravenclaw's
current house points. There were walls pretending to be doorways and doorways
pretending to be walls. Pathways from commonly used room to room were handed
down, year to year, within houses. Secret passages, trick doors, and the
patterns of moving staircases were valuable commodities that could save days of
time over the course of a student's seven-year career. Two rooms close enough to
share a common wall could require several solid kilometers of winding hallways
to reach each other, while two other rooms on the far sides of the castle could
be only a few minutes apart if they shared a direct passageway. To make matters
worse, there had been a rash of disappearing corridors over the past few days.
The result was that the time it took to walk from classroom A to classroom B had
very little to do with their actual geography, and more to do with one's
knowledge of the school's hidden ways and the sheer mental strength it took to
commit them all to memory.
McGonagall walked through the school as if she was born there.
straight through solid-seeming walls, ignored inviting-looking
cryptic phrases at random-seeming statues and suits of armour,
turn around and walk backwards down some stairs for no obvious
She walked
hallways, said
and, once, had to
reason.
It had taken Milo half an hour to walk from the staircase that led up to
Gryffindor Tower to the Headmistress's office.
McGonagall led them back in under a minute.
"and that's how I defeated the Death Eaters and damaged the tower," Milo
explained. "And before you ask, don't worry. The trap will only trigger once; it
won't go off on the other students."
"Make no mistake, Mister Amastacia-Liadon, we are not yet finished with this
subject," McGonagall said archly. "You are not to go leaving booby-traps in this
castle, is that clear? No matter how safe you think they are. The possibility of
accident is far too great."
Milo sighed. "Yes, Professor."
"But for now, I believe, I shall simply say: well done. I can't think of many
grown witches or wizards who would have been able to not only escape from that
situation, but send the Death Eaters packing. However, would it not have been
more expedient to simply capture them? Every Death Eater in Azkaban is a Death
Eater we don't have to worry about."
"Well..." Milo frowned. Why hadn't he captured them? It would have been easy.
They were injured; he could have held them down with Evard's Black Tentacles, or
simply the threat of further Explosive Runes, until help arrived. He hadn't even
considered the idea. Had he simply failed an Intelligence check?
"Still, I can hardly blame you for panicking, all things considered. No matter;
they'll be found." It was a statement that left no room for compromise,
uncertainty, or alternatives. Milo reminded himself of which House it was that
Page 516

McGonagall was the Head.
Mordy sent a wave of alarm through their empathic link.
"Boss! We got incoming!" he said, poking his furry little nose out of the pouch
that was his home. He sniffed at the air a few times with his goggle-enhanced
nose (yes, the goggles improved his sense of smell, because magic). "Whatever it
is, it smells dreadful. Oh, and it's huge."
Milo shook his hands out of his sleeves.
"Professor," he said. "We're not alone."
McGonagall narrowed her eyes and drew her wand. "Explain," she said briskly.
"It's a bit hard," Milo said. How do you go about explaining that you have a
psychic connection with a sapient rat that could smell danger? Oh, right. "I
have a psychic connection with a sapient rat that can smell danger," Milo said.
"And danger is coming."
Something tickled Milo's ears; a soft, gentle sort of caress, like a whisper
without words. Had it not been for his familiar, he doubted he would have heard
it at all. Having the rat within arms' reach created a connection of some kind
that, using both of their eyes and ears, amplified his senses. He wasn't quite
certain how it was supposed to work, as the descriptive fluff for the ability
was scant. Something Harry said once came to mind...
"Tongues," Milo muttered.
"soo... hungry..." came a voice like dry autumn leaves brushed against oiled
silk. "must... feeed..."
"Unless you mean 'must feed me,' I wouldn't try it," Milo shouted back at the
seemingly-empty hallway. McGonagall shot him a sharp, perplexed look. "Or you'll
soon find that an eighth-level Wizard is no easy meat. Back off." If he could
just draw it out somewhere visible...
"You're a Parselmouth?" McGonagall asked.
"No," Milo said. "I can just use magic to talk to anything in its own tongue."
"It's own tongue? That means..."
"...the master? no... this voice lacks the Power... imposter... pretender..."
"Milo! Close your eyes and keep them that way if you value your life!"
McGonagall commanded. With a flick of her wand, torches fell from the walls and
flared up, creating a ring of fire surrounding them. With another movement,
thousands of tiny, horizontal filaments of stone stretching from wall to wall
raised up an inch off the ground from the stone floor and hung there, suspended
tightly from the walls. Milo peered closer, and found that rather than stone,
the threads more closely resembled lute strings of varying key, though he
Page 517

couldn't imagine what for. A third wand movement pulled dozens of razor-sharp,
mirror-bright daggers from the wall that remained floating in front of her,
trembling with power as if straining to be released. "Close your eyes!" She said
again.
"But"
"Obscuro," she said sharply, and Milo found himself with a soft blindfold
wrapped around his face. He struggled and pulled at it as best he could, but it
seemed firmly stuck to his face.
"What the Hells is this?" Milo sputtered. Was this another surprise Polyjuice
attack? He didn't have a trap prepared, this time. Not here, anyway. Maybe he
could
Milo's thought was cut off by the most horrible, screeching cacophony that he
had ever heard. It made the audio havoc of a half-orc War Chanter playing Dirge
of Discord on a rusty Gehennan Morghuth-Iron fiddle with a bandsaw for a bow
sound like a master elven court Bard Inspiring Heroism with a celestial harp
accompanied by a chorus of Astral Devas.
"Got you now," he heard McGonagall say over the din, followed by a series of
tiny thunderclaps and a roar of pain. Milo clutched his hands over his ears. He
was having a serious reversal of opinion about the relative pros and cons of
Familiar-amplified hearing, though it did allow him to catch McGonagall mutter
something about "infinite points from Slytherin if I make it out of this."
Is she winning? Should I help? What's happening? Milo was going crazy with
curiosity, tinged with panic. Clearly, this was Slytherin's monsterbut what was
it? Judging by the fact McGonagall blinded me, it's probably safe to say it
Petrifies by a Gaze attack, Milo thought. So, I can't look at it with my own
eyes. I can't use Chain of Eyes, because the only nearby options are Mordy and
McGonagall, and both would be Petrified if they looked at the monster. I can't
cast Arcane Eye because it takes ten minutes...
It occurred to Milo that he had made a very large, very irritating oversight.
Uncanny Forethought, the feat that allowed him to cast any spell he knew in six
seconds, allowed him to cast any spell he knew in six secondsregardless of the
original spell's casting time. He could have saved literally days in Scrying
over the last month had he paid closer attention to the wording.
"Arcane Eye." An invisible magical sensor winked into existence at Milo's
shoulder, feeding him whatever it saw, and what it saw was carnage.
A roaring inferno billowed smoke into the hallway, obscuring vision and casting
everything in a hellish red glow. McGonagall stood in front of Milo with her
eyes firmly shut, a cloud of daggers hovering in front of her. Through the
fires, Milo could just barely make out some kind of moving shape. As the beast
moved, it made a horrible screeching noise akin to demon claws on a chalkboard.
It took Milo a moment to realize what was happeningthe creature's every
movement was playing a wretched dirge on McGonagall's lute strings. At every
noise, McGonagall made a sharp movement of her wand, firing a handful of daggers
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at the source, each marked by a sharp snap as they flew through the air. More
flew from the walls, ceilings, and floors near her, creating a steady stream of
supersonic blades.
It didn't take long for the monster to cotton on to what was going on. The noise
stopped, and Milo's imagination filled in the blanks: the monster (which, in
Milo's mind, was a spidery, tentacled abomination like you'd find in the Far
Realm, if you were mad enough to go there) was holding itself perfectly still to
conceal its location, waiting for its moment.
McGonagall very clearly had no intention of giving it one. Whenever it so much
as breathed or twitched, the strings wailed in protest, and there was a
satisfying burst of thunderclaps as she attacked the source of the noise.
Curious for a better look, Milo commanded the sensor forwards. It flew unharmed
between the daggers and through the flames, ignoring the heat and smoke
altogether. It breached the flames, and Milo looked up
Yellow eyes.
Darkness.
Milo thought for a moment that the monster had eaten the sensor, or perhaps used
some sort of darkness spell, and tried commanding it to retreat. It was then
that he realized the spell was simply gone. Was it somehow antimagic? Or...
...was the gaze of Slytherin's monster deadly enough to kill a spell?
"Boccob," Milo breathed. Something tickled the back of his mind, something about
the cry of the Mandrake...
Milo dismissed the train of thought from his mind. He'd come back to it later,
after the encounter. Near him, McGonagall was breathing hard and heavily. The
rain of daggers had gone from a rapid staccato to uneven, carefully picked
shots. In a sudden flash of insight, Milo realized what was happening. The
monster was toying with her, wearing her out. Slytherin's monster was preparing
to strike. Milo had to act, fast.
It was time to unleash some asskicking most Arcane.
But to do that, he had to determine what it wasand he was starting to get a
pretty good idea. They'd ruled out the idea before because this creature's form
of Petrification simply paralyzed people instead of turning them to stone, but
the evidence was becoming increasingly conclusive in spite of that. The
Parseltongue, the association with Slytherin, the heraldry of the house.
Everything pointed to one thing: snakes. Maybe its gaze wasn't turning people to
stone, but Milo had long since learned not to rely heavily on preconceptions
carried over from his universe.
"I know your name, monster," Milo whispered to himself, drawing a mirror from
his Belt. He'd been carrying it around for years, intended to ward off vampires.
It was also handy for looking around corners without risking a headshot. But
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here, Milo thought it would have an even more potent effect. "Arcane Eye," he
muttered to himself. Another sensor appeared at Milo's side, this one carefully
positioned to avoid looking directly at the fires and the beast that lurked
behind. There was only one snake that could kill with a glance, the Queen of
Serpents herself. Of course the rumours of her death had been greatly
exaggerated. They generally were, in Milo's experience. "Mage Hand." The small
steel mirror floated away from his gloved hands, using the sensor to guide it.
The steel mirror crossed the line of fire, blackened by smoke and heat around
the edges slightly.
Despite everything, Milo felt himself grinning. It wasn't every day that you got
to kill a being of myth and legend with nought but a Cantrip and a pair of
Divinations. He held the mirror in the air for a moment, pivoting it around to
cover every angle.
"Eat reflective payback, Medusa!" Milo snarled. He dismissed the Mage Hand to
follow it up with overwhelming fire and explosions. It was the only way to be
sure. The mirror fell to the ground, but Milo didn't realize his error until it
had already touched the ground.
The mirror triggered the lute strings. Milo heard McGonagall intake her breath
in a hiss, and refocused her attention on an area several yards to the left of
where the Medusa lurked, firing off another burst of daggers. It would only take
a moment for her to realize the error, but if the monster was quick enough, a
moment was all it would need. Still, Milo reminded himself, that left the flames
to protect them.
...unless, of course, Slytherin's monster proved willing to get a little singed.
"No!" Milo cried.
Something leapt from beyond the flames. Something scaly and dark. Something
almost, but not entirely, unlike a Medusa. Before he could either avert his gaze
or get a clear look, he lost connection with his second Arcane Eye. He heard
McGonagall let out a sudden, sharp cry of pain, then fall silent. The blindfold
around his eyes loosened, no longer glued to his face with magic. Milo pressed
his back even further up against the wall, trying to make himself as small as
possible, while he listened for the monster. However, even with his
familiar-enhanced ears, now that the monster was outside of the string-covered
area, he couldn't hear so much as a whisper of scale against scale.
Not that, when it really came down to it, it mattered.
The beautiful thing about magicwell, one of the beautiful things about magic,
after the versatility, power, style, and mystiquewas how indiscriminate it was.
He didn't need to aim.
"Glitterdust!" For once, being blindfolded was something of an advantage, as
Milo was not subjected to the blinding light of his own spell. "Evard's Black
Tentacles!"
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It took Milo a moment to realize that he wasn't yet dead. Had he managed to
disable the monster with the tentacles, or was it simply waiting for him to take
a peek?
"Detect Thoughts." Milo had no intention of attempting to listen to the
creature's dark designs, but at the very least the spell would tell him if it,
or any other mind capable of thought, was still nearby.
Aside from Mordy, the spell found no matches. Milo breathed a sigh of relief,
sagging to the floor. He was going to live to see level nine. He was going to
McGonagall.
She'd beenshould have beenin the spell's area.
Milo tore the blindfold from his face, dismissing the tentacles as he did so.
The Headmistress lay on the floor, mirror clutched in one outstretched arm, the
other soaked in blood. She was deathly still.
"Boccob, Fharlanghn and Pelor," Milo cursed, running up to her.
Milo didn't have any actual skill ranks invested in Heal, but with assistance
from Mordy and the Healer's Kit he kept on hand, he could get by at some simple
tasks. He'd made a point over the last year to do some research on basic human
anatomy of the residents of these parts, whose physiology seemed to operate
under bizarre and overly complicated and seemingly contradictory rules far
inferior to his own streamlined and logical Hit Points system. After all, how
did it make sense that two injuries that dealt the same amount of damage would
have result in different severities of injury just because one was Bludgeoning
and one was Piercing? This universe's blatantly unbalanced favour of edged
weaponry was part of what convinced him to pull the Mirror Move trick to become
proficient with his sword.
The point was that, thanks to his diligent research, keen perception and
instincts, finely honed mind, assistance from a supernaturally intelligent rat
as a nurse, and finely crafted first aid kit, Milo was able to hazard a guess
that the oozing, swollen, inflamed bite on the Headmistress's blood-soaked wand
arm was Very Probably Bad News.
"Can you walk?" he asked her, to no response. He frowned, and checked her pulse.
He didn't get one, but wasn't certain if that was because there wasn't one to
find, or if he'd failed a check. To see if she was breathing, he reached for the
mirror to hold it over her mouth. It wouldn't budge, she was holding on to it so
tightly. Words like 'death grip' came to mind, but with effort he dismissed
them. Panicking would do neither of them any good at this point.
He gave the injury another look. It didn't seem to be bleeding, which was odd.
From what he'd seen of the localsimages of Hannah, bleeding helplessly in the
snow flooded his imaginationthey tended to bleed like crazy from injuries of
this magnitude. To Milo's kind, blood was largely cosmetic. It was a sign that
said, depending on one's perspective, 'I'm injured, heal me!' or 'I'm injured,
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finish me off!' It served to enhance drama and tension. Blood in this world,
near as Milo could tell, served a more direct purpose in keeping bodies
functioning. Blood loss wasn't a sign of a problem so much as it was the
problem.
And McGonagall wasn't losing any. And she wasn't breathing. And she wasn't
moving.
Milo could practically hear the copper piece drop. Slytherin's monsterMilo
didn't know what it was, but he was now pretty sure that it wasn't a Medusahad
bitten her on the wand arm. Judging by the whole snake-motif-thing and the
nature of the wound, it was likely highly venomous. Milo didn't know if that
meant it would have killed her in hours or minutes or seconds, but McGonagall
had clearly deemed it life-threatening.
So she'd grabbed the mirror, and looked into the reflected image of the monster,
Petrifying herself. Petrified people didn't eat, didn't breathe, didn't age,
and, Milo was willing to bet, wouldn't succumb to poison or disease.
"Clever," Milo whispered in admiration. I guess you don't get to be the Deputy
Headmistress in a world-renowned school of witchcraft and wizardry by collecting
bottle caps, he thought to himself. "Levitate." McGonagall floated a few feet
off the ground, completely unmoving.
Milo walked behind her to the Hospital Wing, gently pushing her as he went. I
spend altogether too much time Levitating people to the Hospital Wing, he
reflected. Then he frowned. Reflected.
Why had McGonagall bothered with the mirror? All things considered, it would
have been far easier in the time she had available for her to simply look up and
meet the gaze of the monster.
He was beginning to get the feeling that they'd been operating under a
fundamental misunderstanding of the creature's capabilities.
Hermione had been diligently researching the creature for weeks, without
success. Nothing Milo had read in his Scholar's Touch-fuelled-speed-run through
the library seemed to match, either. This creature, whatever it was, was
powerful enough to kill a spell with a look, was venomous enough that
McGonagall, likely the most skilled transfigurer alive, was forced to
deliberately send herself into stasis rather than, say, transfiguring the venom
inside of her into water.
Perhaps they'd been searching using the wrong criteria. The most prominent
feature of Slytherin's monster was that anyone who saw it was Petrified, and
both he and Hermione had been searching first for a list of magical creatures
with that ability, then trying to determine which of them the monster was.
But what if Slytherin's monster couldn't Petrify with a gaze? If that was all it
took, McGonagall wouldn't have bothered with the mirror.
As Milo hurried down the hallway pushing the injured McGonagall, he became
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increasingly certain that he was right. The Petrification was a distraction.
What else do I have to work with? Milo's mind raced. It speaks Parseltongue, so
it's either a snake, or it, like me, has certain Polyglot talents. It's
venomous, fitting with the whole snake thing, so that's a start. Unfortunately,
there were thousands of completely nonmagical venomous snakes Milo could think
of, much less magical ones. Venom was kind of what snakes were famous for. Milo
glanced at McGonagall's wounded arm. Venom.
Milo threw open the doors to the hospital wing.
"What is the meaning of" Pomfrey demanded, then froze when she saw McGonagall.
"Oh, Minerva," she sighed. "Just, er, float her over to this bed, will you?"
"It bit her," Milo said rapidly. "So don't wake her up before you can figure out
what to do about that. Gotta run, bye!"
"Wait, boy!" Pomfrey shouted, but Milo had already broken into a dead sprint to
the library.
He might not know what the monster was (yet), but that didn't mean he couldn't
find out where it lurked. And Slytherin's monster had given him a way to do just
thatbut he needed to make some preparations first. He'd learned (the hard way)
that, sometimes, rushing in blind and unprepared was the exact opposite of what
one did when one desired to survive to be able to cast ninth-level spells.
He was just rounding the last corner when a hill giant threw a boulder at his
chest. Milo lost balance and fell painfully to the ground with a curse. A huge,
tawny owl Milo had never seen before stood on his chest, a roll of parchment
tied to one leg.
"Just what I needed," he muttered. "More complications." Milo untied the roll,
looking at it carefully. It was on thick, white, expensive parchment and sealed
with green wax bearing an unfamiliar sigil with a familiar name:
DEPARTMENT OF MAGICAL LAW ENFORCEMENT
Underneath, written by hand in similar-coloured emerald ink:
URGENT
CC 15: Not So Subtle
Author's Notes: Essay, Exam, and Holiday Season is finally over, so we can now
go back to our regularly-scheduled fanfiction.
Chapter Fifteen: Not So Subtle
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"Did you see that?" PC Travis asked, peering through the binoculars into the
sky.
"See what?" Fiona asked distractedly, focussing her attention on the Dursley's
front porch.
"An owl," Travis said. "Don't often see them places with this many people, and
in broad daylight no less."
"Would you focus?" Fiona asked. "We're only posing as birdwatchers."
"Speak for yourself," Travis said defensively. "I've been a member of the BBC
for five years."
Fiona couldn't help herself. She lowered her binoculars and stared at him in the
face.
"The BBC? Next you'll say you voice the Daleks." She raised her binoculars
again. "What does that even mean, anyway?" she added, mostly to herself. "Being
a member of the BBC. They're not a club, you know."
"No, it's"
"Still, make sure you put in a good word for me with Tom Baker next time you see
him." Fiona couldn't see Travis's face because she was staring through her
binoculars, but she was fairly certain he was rolling his eyes.
"It stands for the British Birdwatching Community," Travis said through clenched
teeth. "And Tom Baker hasn't been the Doctor since 1981."
Fiona grinned. "He'll always be my Doctor."
They'd been doing this for the better part of a month, now. Sometimes they were
birdwatchers, sometimes they were a young couple looking to buy or rent a home,
sometimes (when they were on duty) they just drove past in their patrol car
trying to look casual. Well, as casual as you can look driving a police car in a
neighbourhood like Little Whinging. They had to work this around their regular
duty schedule, which made things even more difficult. And then there was the
nagging fear that they had found what they were looking for, but had been made
to forget...
"Hold up," Travis said slowly, peering through his binoculars. "I don't believe
it!"
"What?" Fiona asked. Had they finally made their breakthrough? "What do you
see?"
"That's a Guatemalan Pygmy Owl!" he said. "They're terribly rareeven in
Guatemala! I wonder how it got to Little Whinging?"
"Hey. Focus," Fiona urged. "We're looking for clues, not owls."
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"Clues as in articles and goings on of a suspicious nature?" Travis asked in a
strange voice. He still hadn't moved his binoculars from above the house across
from the Dursleys'. "Possibly related to undertakings criminal and, in our case,
potentially arcane?"
"Yes, which you bloody well know," Fiona said irritably.
"Then maybe you'll be interested to hear that this particular owl has a
newspaper tied to its leg."
Travis and Fiona lowered their binoculars and looked at each other for a moment,
then were in their cara beat-up, lime green loaner from PC Harrisand gone in
seconds.
A few minutes, a change of outfit, and a phone call later, they pulled up in
front of Mrs. Figg's house in their patrol car.
Fiona knocked on the door.
"She won't answer," Travis said. "She's not home. We saw her leave not half an
hour ago."
"I know that," Fiona said. "And you know that. And all the nosey neighbours of
Little Whinging know that," she said with a pointed glance at Petunia Dursley,
who was peering at them from over her just-painted white fence (some dastardly
individual, it appeared, had defaced it with cryptic writing in the dead of
night), "but they don't know that we know that. So we knock, first."
After waiting what Fiona judged an appropriate amount of time, they opened the
door and walked in.
"Aren't we breaking the law?" Travis whispered. "I feel like, maybe, we aren't
supposed to do that. We're sort of supposed to do the opposite of that."
"Nope," Fiona said. "Because not five minutes ago the police received an
anonymous tip-off of that a suspicious person had illegally trespassed into this
residence intent on committing criminal acts. As the closest available officers
of the peace, it's our duty to investigate. Make sure we search thoroughly; he
could be hiding anywhere."
"We did?" Travis asked. "That's rather convenient, wouldn't you say? Did we get
a description?"
"Suspect has a black waxed moustache, a black domino mask, a black top hat and a
bag with a green pound sign stitched on it."
"Ah," Travis said. "One of those anonymous tip-offs. Just goes to show that you
should always lock your door when you leave."
Fiona grinned. "If you don't, anyone might wander in."
The first thing Fiona noticedas well as the second, third, fourth, and fifth
Page 525

thingwas the cats. There was a tabby on the dresser, a calico on the table, a
pair of white ones on the rug, and an enormously fat grey one on the mantle.
Every single one was staring at them silently with large, unblinking eyes.
"Well thank God that's not too creepy or anything," Fiona muttered.
"Maybe we shouldn't be here," Travis said, eyeing the cats nervously.
Fiona shook her head. "We have a job to do, Constable. If this is the house of
our perpor someone who can lead us to him or herwe need to risk it. Besides,
Hannigan knows we're here. In case anything... well, just in case." In case
anything happens to us, she'd been about to say. They both had a pretty good
idea of what 'anything' that would be.
Fiona had expected, going in, that they'd have to search the house top to bottom
to find something suspicious. She'd expected it to be well hidden, innocuous at
first glance but sinister on closer inspection. In all honesty, she'd secretly
expected a bookcase to open a secret door. Something, you know, magic-y.
She hadn't expected it to be sitting on the top of the morning mail.
"Bloody hell!" She exclaimed when she saw it, recoiling.
"What?" Travis asked, then followed her eyes. He stared at it silently for a
moment, then shrieked.
"Stand back," Fiona said, then drew her billy club and poked it gently. Nothing
happened. With a nervous swallow, she drew her white latex gloves from her belt
(she'd never tell any of her co-workers, but she always thought of it as her
utility belt) and picked it up. She half expected it to explode or speak or hex
her or something.
"What..." Travis stammered. "What do we do with it?"
"It's evidence," Fiona said. "Hard evidence." With this, they'd have little
trouble convincing anyone of what was really going on.
In her hands was a broadsheet, printed on stiff, slightly yellowed paper. The
lettering was ever-so-slightly uneven and blotchy, but otherwise, it looked
remarkably normal, if old-fashioned. It reminded her a little of the
commemorative Armistice Day edition of The Times that her great-grandfather had
framed in his little flat up north.
But this paper wasn't The Times. The large-print header declared itself The
Daily Prophet. The front-page headline read: HOGWARTS' CHILDREN MISSING, with
the subtitle, LOCKHART ON THE CASE. Tucked away in one corner was an article
saying DUMBLEDORE SACKED, subtitled, HEADMASTER DENIES ACCUSATIONS OF GROSS
INCOMPETENCE.
All of that was a little bit odd, but the weird bitthe really weird bitwere
the pictures. There were large headshots of the eight missing children on the
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front page staring up at her. Literally staring. The pictures actually moved to
follow her, as if someone had managed to turn the paper into a tiny television
set. All except for the one captioned Luna Lovegood, that is, which was running
around in heritslittle picture with a net, as if chasing something no-one else
could see. They looked almost alive.
A frightening thought struck Fiona.
"Hhello?" she said to the paper hesitantly. Blessedly, none of them reacted to
her voice. The implications of that would be significant, to say the least.
It wasn't long after the shock wore off that the anger crept in.
"FionaSergeantare you feeling quite all right?" She dimly heard Travis ask.
Loki wasn't a wizard. Loki wasn't a family of wizards.
Loki was a community of wizards.
Wizards that had children.
And they'd lost them.
"They have magic," she whispered. "Magic, Constable. And what do they do with
it? Do they solve world hunger? Do they cure AIDS? Cancer?"
"To be fair, we don't really know if they can do those things," Travis countered
in a reasonable voice. But Fiona didn't want reasonable. She wanted justice.
"But we sure as Hell know they can erase memories. How many wars could you solve
just by making some warlords forget their reasons for fighting? By making people
forget their hatred?"
"But didn't you say just last week that tampering with memories was akin to
murder?" Travis pointed out quietly. Fiona chose to ignore him.
"They could just wave their hands and, poof, solve the world's problems. Some,
at least. But what do they do? They break into houses and mess with our heads to
cover their tracks and they lose children." Fiona took a deep breath, trying to
calm down. Her gloved hands were clenched to fists. She tossed Travis the paper
before she wrinkled or tore it in anger.
It was all so stupid. The paper said the children had already been missing for
over a day, now. Most missing persons, if they weren't found in the first
forty-eight hours, were never seen again.
"They could have come to us," she muttered to herself. Finding lost children
was, in part, what the force was for. And, over the years, they'd gotten very,
very good at it.
"We'll catch them, Fiona," Travis said.
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Fiona's mind was already racing.
"Yes," she said. "Yes, we will. Get in touch with your friends at the BBC. We
have work to do."
oooo
As it turned out, if you knew what you were looking for and had several hundred
local birdwatching wackos (Fiona called them 'enthusiasts' on the rare occasion
she found herself within earshot of them) at your disposal, witch hunts were
surprisingly easy. Fiona shuddered to think what the Spanish Inquisition,
expected or no, could have gotten up to if they'd been given a pair of
binoculars and a floppy tan hat.
The Daily Prophet was, as its name suggested, delivered by owl (Owl!) every day
to at least several dozen homes in the Surrey area, but probably several more.
After asking around, Travis found that they were not the first to discover these
messenger owls, who had first been seen in numbers in 1981. There was that year
again. 1981. Between the wizards and the Doctor, it was a bad year all around.
Something significant had happened then, but Fiona was at a loss as to what.
The owls weren't just used to deliver the paper, either. Owls had been spotted
all across Britain carrying perfectly normal-looking postage. This, like most
things surrounding these wizards, irritated Fiona. Regular, non-magical people
had gone through great efforts to set up a perfectly functional national postal
system, but apparently that just wasn't good enough for wizards. No, they
disdained the delivery network of the common masses and used their own private
owl-based system. In any case, how the Hell did the owls know where to go? It
made no sense.
Confusing as it was, it was also an enormous weakness. You don't have to be a
hardened outlaw or covert operative to know that, when trying to maintain a low
profile, daily avian post drops could be something of a hindrance.
"If they have papers," Inspector Hannigan said upon seeing the Daily Prophet,
"they have a society. And if they have a society, they have morons. And if they
have morons, then we have a way in."
"By finding those morons and getting answers out of them, sir?" Fiona asked.
"No, Sergeant. Not by finding the morons."
It was then that Hannigan told Fiona his plan.
She liked it immediately.
The Daily Prophet, like most newspapers, had a letters-to-the-editor page where
readers could send short letters, mostly to complain about being referred to as
'wackos' instead of 'enthusiasts.' In small print at bottom of the page was an
address to send those letters to:
777 DIAGON ALLEY
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LONDON
UNITED KINGDOM
That wasn't the only place 'Diagon Alley' was mentioned in the newspaper. There
were ads for shops, which sold everything from ice cream to cauldrons to
'magical' pets. Magical. Pets.
She loved Sprocket well enough, but if she could replace him with a magical
talking version that could open tins for himself, she'd do so in a heartbeat.
There was no record, and never had been, of a street named 'Diagon Alley' in
Londonor anywhere else in the country, for that matter. The alley was
invisible, unknown. A ghost.
The only way to find it would be to ask someone who knew.
It took them three days to put together everything they needed, and another two
weeks for their wackos to find them a satisfactory mark. They didn't tell the
birdwatchers why they were looking for owls in the middle of the largest
metropolitan area in the country, of course, but that didn't stop them from
helping. They just subtly encouraged the idea, which was already floating about,
that they were the descendents of secret messenger owls used carry secure
information in WW2. People will sometimes resort to the most desperate of
excuses to avoid facing the truth in front of them: that magic is real.
And it is weird.
From there, it was simply a matter of going door-to-door. Nobody answered until
the fifth onenot terribly unusual, considering it was the middle of the working
day.
"Hello?" came a quiet, sleepy sort of voice, followed by a loud sneeze. The door
opened a crack.
"Mister... Fortescue?" Fiona asked. If they were right in their theory, this man
had the information they needed. However, he would also have access to
mysterious and largely unknown powers. Fiona couldn't help but hope, just a
little bit, that they were wrong.
"Aye," he said, then sniffed. "Who wants to know?"
"We three seem to be, ah, lost," she said. "Could you perhaps point us in the
direction of," she swallowed, "Diagon Alley?"
An immediate change came over Fortescue. He opened the door the whole way and
smiled. He was a middle-aged man with a large black beard, dressed in a
housecoat and fuzzy slippers.
He looked the three of themFiona, Travis, and Hanniganup and down for a
moment.
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"A bit foreign, are you?" he said. "I'd be there myself, if not for this nasty
cold. Just head right a few blockscareful crossing the street, the Muggle
drivers are madmen, all of them and turn left on Charing Cross, then keep
walking until you see the Leaky Cauldron. If you're a squibare you a squib?"
"I beg your pardon?" Hannigan asked.
Fiona hesitated. What on God's green earth was a squib? She doubted he was
referring to the explosive.
"No matter, terribly rude of me even to ask. Anyway, if you're a squib, you
might not be able to see it at first, but its right between a Muggle book shop
and a record place. You can ask Tom how to get in from there."
They thanked him and said their goodbyes, all but running back down to the
street.
"Well, that was easy," Travis said after they were well out of earshot.
"Too easy," Fiona grumbled.
"When you have as much experience as I have in the force and in life, Sergeant,"
Hannigan said, "you'll learn that it is impossible for something to be too
easy."
They followed his directionsearning more than a few peculiar glances from
passersbyand immediately encountered a problem.
Quinto Bookshop and the record shop shared a wall. It was quite impossible for
there to be a pub between them.
"Do you think it was a trick?" Travis asked. "Maybe to get rid of us while he
calls for reinforcements?"
"If so, he's a very good liar," Hannigan said. "My gut says he's on the level."
"He said we might not be able to see it," Fiona said. "Guess he was right."
"Maybe we have to do a spell to get through?" Travis said.
"He would have told us," Hannigan said.
"Not if he thought it was obvious."
Fiona scratched her chin, thinking. There didn't seem to be anything unusual
about where the buildings joined, but on the other hand, there wouldn't be,
would there? Whatever had bewitched the Leaky Cauldron had kept the ordinary
citizens of London out this long.
"We could stake the place out until someone else goes through," Hannigan
suggested. "And see how that person does it, then follow."
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"Maybe there's a door, but it's just hidden?" Fiona suggested. They were so
close. She didn't want to wait for another lengthy stakeout. She wanted in now.
"Wouldn't help if it was bloody invisible," Travis said. "There's no room for
it. It's impossible."
"Says the man who's trying to find a magic door," Fiona said. "Right. So let's
just assume for a moment that nothing is impossible, and that there really is a
door here. We just can't see it. So how about we just..." Fiona closed her eyes
and took a step forward, into what her brain said should be a solid wall. She
collided with somethingbut it wasn't a wall. It felt like heavy, solid wood.
She reached around at waist level until her hands grasped a heavy brass knob,
and turned it. Then she took a step forwards and opened her eyes.
The place was old. Like, really old. Fiona had been to actual ruins that looked
newer than the Leaky Cauldron. The walls were crumbling old plaster, a heavy
chandelier hung from the ceiling, its candles giving off dim light. There wasn't
even a hint of anything electrical to be seen. Mismatched wooden tables were
scattered throughout the room seemingly at random, with chairs all of different
heights, styles, and centuries of origin set around them. The pub was largely
empty, save for the tall, pale, hunched man with pointy ears behind the counter
and a grimy, robed figure hunched over a mug, which, upon close inspection, had
actual mist pouring out of it.
Hannigan and Travis followed her after a short delay.
"...makes no geometrical sense!" Travis said, before opening his eyes and
looking around. "Oh," was all he managed to say.
"Shall we go talk to Nosferatu over there, then?" Fiona asked quietly.
"Count Orlock," Hannigan muttered. "Nosferatu was the name of the film."
"Good morning!" the barkeeper said in a surprisingly cheerful tone of voice.
Fiona and Travis had spent days on their disguises. They only had a few scant
pictures from the Daily Prophet to go by, and had to make up the rest largely
with guesswork based on the theory that the folklore about wizards and witches
was a distant reflection of the actual, real-life wizards and witcheswhich
seemed plausible, but by no means certain. Fiona had gone full Granny
Weatherwax: heavy black boots and pants, long black, tattered dress and a pointy
black hat, with large brass buckles strewn about more or less at random. In one
hand she held her broomstickwell, almost a broomstick. Sprocket had coughed up
a hairball on her actual broom just that morning, but what she had was probably
close enough. She hoped.
Travis, on the other hand, had gone for a more Merlin-inspired look: long purple
robes and a purple hat, all with golden stars and moons poorly stitched on. He
was carrying a magicky-sort of book in one hand, which was really an
Encyclopedia Britannica with the cover filed off.
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Fiona and Travis had had to take time off of work sewing, stitching, and hunting
down costume supplies. But Hannigan... well. Hannigan had thrown his together
quite quickly. Suspiciously quickly, in fact.
It was almost as if he already had his costume, and had been just waiting for an
excuse to wear it.
"What do you mean?" he asked from behind a bushy, fake white beard. "Do you wish
me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not;
or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?"
The Count Orlock-lookalike blinked his huge, dark eyes and stared at Hannigan
for a moment, taking in his worn grey robes, his wide-brimmed grey hat, and his
gnarled wooden staff.
"I meant, did you want a bloody coffee, a brandy, or a beer?" Orlock said
irritably.
"Er," Fiona interjected. "None for us, thank you. We were actually just on our
way to, ah, Diagon Alley."
"Oh, why didn't you say so? It's just out the back." He pointed at a crooked,
worn back door.
The three cops said their thanks and left through the door.
"Oh, bloody hell. Not another one of these," Hannigan muttered.
Behind the door was a solid brick wall.
"Pft," Travis said dismissively. "We know how to deal with these now." He closed
his eyes and confidently strode into the wall, purple robes flowing billowing
behind him dramatically. He then promptly bashed his forehead into the wall and
reeled backwards, clutching his head. "Uh," he said. "Does anyone have a
plan-B?"
Hannigan shrugged. "Same way crooks get into apartment buildings. Everyone tie
their shoes."
Sure enough, after only a few minutes, another patron of the Leaky Cauldron
walked through, gave them a passing glance, and stood before the wall. He tapped
the bricks a few times in several places, and the wall vanished.
"Excuse me!" Hannigan said, leaping up and sticking his hand through the open
space. "Yes, thank you. Sorry." The stranger walked through the doorway and left
them.
The three of them looked at each other for a moment.
"I half expected you to look at the wall and say mellon, Gandalf," Fiona
grinned.
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"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards," Hannigan said in a booming voice.
"For they are subtle, and quick to anger."
"Half right ain't bad," Fiona countered.
And just like that, they were in.
CC 16: Equivalent Exchange
Chapter Sixteen: Equivalent ExchangeTheir meeting wasn't exactly a secret, but

then, they didn't exactly want anyone to find out about it, either.
Milo sat behind a small table in a dusty, long-unused office on the third floor,
just around the corner from where a Troll had thrown him through a window a year
earlier. The enormous oak tree he'd created was still there, blocking most of
the hallway. To get to the room they were in, you had to squeeze between the
rough bark and the still-damaged stone wall. It was as close to private as you
could get in Hogwarts without resorting to one of the secret passages, of which
Milo was still largely in the dark about, or without revealing certain tricks he
had pulled with Illusory Wall.
Besides, he had his most trusted thug
Milo felt a surge of irritation through the bond.
His most favoured minio
The irritation increased.
His trusted, loyal companion through the years, who had never left his side in
danger (except for that one time with the Acromantula), who had always come
through for him, and who had recently been armed with magical high explosives,
though, verily, he could deter threats with his bare fangs, stood watch outside
the door.
Mordy seemed to have no problem with that description.
Across the table from him were a witch and a wizard. The first had a square jaw,
close-cropped gray hair, a monocle, and a serious expression. The second was in
his mid-thirties and looked like he had experienced as much stress in his life
as a man five times his age. His robes were wrinkled as if he'd slept in them,
but, judging by the dark bags under his eyes, that had been several days ago.
His dark brown hair was prematurely streaked with silver, and he was drumming
his fingers impatiently against the table.
"Are these precautions really necessary?" he asked irritably. "We're in a
school, not a hostile nation."
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Milo looked him in the eye. "Yes. They are," he said. "The new headmaster hates
me. Hates me. He wouldn't care that what we're doing here could save lives, and
he certainly doesn't care about your positions in the Ministry. He'd throw you
out and give me another month's detention, regardless of the consequences. He's
got Lucius on his side, which"
"Which makes him untouchable, yes, we know," the witch said impatiently. "I'll
be honest with you, boy. I'm only here because Albus Dumbledore called in a
favour." She turned to face the wizard she'd brought with her. "And that means,
Peasegood, that we follow his recommendations."
"Then why did you refuse my initial plan?" Milo asked.
The head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Amelia Bones, sniffed.
"Because sneaking in by concealing ourselves in the back of a hay wagon hardly
seemed appropriate," she said.
"It's always worked for me," Milo said. "But to each his own."
"Can we get on with this?" Peasegood asked, checking a pocket watch. "I have a
wedding to get to in Wales."
"Oh?" Bones asked. "Whose?"
"A Muggle lad and a werewolf's," Peasegood said. "It was messy. Nearly a hundred
witnesses."
"Well then, boy," Bones said to Milo. "As you can see, we are on a schedule. If
you could bring out the alleged amulets?"
Milo pulled off his own Amulet of Protection from Evil and placed it on the
table. Like most magic items, its physical appearance was generally unimportant,
but this particular amulet took the form of a tiny kite shield of alternating
silver-and-copper dangling from a solid steel chain. The last thing he wanted
was something yanking it off in a scuffle. It was engraved with the Eye of
Boccob, because anything in Milo's possession that couldn't double as a holy
symbol in a pinch simply wasn't worth carrying. He was still keenly aware that
Quirrell's vampires had yet to make an appearance.
"This is an Amulet of Protection," Milo said. He decided to drop the 'from evil'
on recommendation from Hannah, as it sounded a tad melodramatic for most
governments. "It will never tarnish or age, the chain will resize to fit the
neck of any wearerand I do mean any wearerit provides minor defences against
physical and magical attacks from, well, from bad people and creatures, makes
the wearer untouchable by creatures summoned into existence by magic," Milo
wished he'd remembered that in his duel with Draco, who seemed awfully fond of
summoning snakes. "And, last, and most importantly, provides continuous and
complete protection against all forms of magic that exercise mental control over
the wearer." Milo was aware that he was handing a potentially extremely powerful
tool over to the Ministry, but he didn't see that he had much choice. He
Page 534

desperately needed the money; spell research was hardly cheap, and he was deeply
in debt with Harry. The ability to easily block an Unforgivable Curse was
probably his greatest advantage on the local wizards, and, as such, he could
sell it for the greatest profit. Besides, the Ministry seemed to, basically, be
the good guys. They were sometimes obtuse and obstructive, sure, but he doubted
they'd ever actually be actively hostile to him. He'd considered putting a back
door into the amulets he sold to the ministrya simple matter of deliberately
making each amulet a cursed item with the Dependent drawback (such as 'the item
only works whenever nobody within 30 feet has said "Krund the Barbarian Teaches
Spelling" in the last sixty seconds'), but he'd decided against it. Too many
Ministry officials were powerful wizards or witches, and too many powerful
wizards and witches could apparently read minds. He doubted they would respond
positively to deception of that variety.
Amelia Bones' mouth cracked into a brief smile, but Peasegood actually laughed.
"We've wasted our time here," Peasegood said, and stood to leave.
"Hold on," Bones said. "We've come this far. We should at least see this farce
to its natural conclusion." Peasegood rolled his eyes and sat down, and Bones
turned to look at Milo. "Do you know why I've brought Peasegood with me?" she
asked.
Milo shrugged. "I figured it had something to do with interdepartmental
politics," he said.
"No," Amelia Bones said. "It's because he's the best wizard I know when it comes
to mental magic. He's our top Obliviator because of it, and with good reason."
She reached down, picked up the amulet, and looked at it closely. Then she
shrugged and fastened it about her neck. She looked at Peasegood and nodded.
"Fifteen," he said to her, drawing his wand. "Obliviate," he said with a quick
flourish of his wand that seemed to be done entirely by muscle memory. "What
number did I just tell you?"
"Fifteen," Bones answered. "Try again."
"Elephant. Obliviate. What animal"
"Elephant."
"1492. Obliviate. What"
"1492."
On and on it went. Peasegood listed dozens of names of places and historical
figures, of animals and vegetables and minerals, and of dates and numbers and
colours. After the first ten or so, he frowned and cast each spell with more
effort, more concentration, and more precision. After another twenty, he
insisted Bones turn over her wand, close her eyes, and face the wall. Nothing he
tried made any difference.
Page 535

"Well," he said eventually. "I'll bite. What did you do to my wand?"
"Nothing," Bones said with a frown. "Still, all this proves is the amulet is
protected with an extremely powerful Shield Charm. Difficult, but hardly
earthshaking. Still, this is very impressive, especially for a second-year
student. Come back when you're of age, and we'll see what you can do then."
"Ms. Bones," Milo said with a touch of smugness, "when I said the amulet
protects against continuous and complete protection against all forms of mental
magic, I meant it. That amulet can go quite a bit further than Memory Charms."
Bones sighed. "Boy, I know what you're hinting at, and I can assure you that is
quite impossible."
"We should test it," Peasegood said. Even he seemed surprised by his words.
"I've neverneverseen a Shield Charm so handily defeat my magic before. Never.
We should see how far this goes."
Bones sighed. "Very well." Then she removed the amulet.
"Won't you need that?" Milo asked.
"Boy," she said, "Bellatrix Lestrange herself couldn't get me with the Imperius
Curse. Peasegood is good, butno offencehe's not Bellatrix, God rest her soul."
Milo was surprised; most of the wizards and witches in this world (and in his
own) avoided religion the way that optimizers avoided Endurance and Run.
"No offence taken," Peasegood said. "I think the whole world gave a collective
sigh of relief when she died last year."
"My point, boy, is that the only way for this amulet's alleged ability to block
what I remind you is a theoretically unblockable curse is for us to cast it on
you. Do you consent?"
Milo nodded, fastening the amulet around his neck.
"Very well. Arnold Peasegood, as head of the DMLE, I sanction the use of the
Imperius Curse under the Responsible Use clause of the 1980 War Statute for the
purposes of training and experimentation. I am legally obliged to remind you
that misuse or abuse of this permission warrants an immediate life sentence in
Azkaban. Do you understand?"
"I understand."
"Very well. Begin. Make him stand up and nothing else."
Peasegood looked at Milo and licked his lips nervously. "I'd hoped never to have
to use this except against a fully trained wizard or witch." He took a deep
breath. "Imperio."
Milo yawned somewhat theatrically.
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Peasegood stared down at his wand in astonishment.
"Did he resist?" she asked.
"No," Peasegood said. He swallowed. "He didn't have to."
Bones stared at him in astonishment, then up at Milo, then back at Peasegood.
As Bones came to grips with what had just happened, Milo calmly reached into his
Belt of Hidden Pouches and drew a large, heavy canvas sack, which he upturned on
the table.
Thirty identical amulets poured onto the table.
"I think," she said slowly, "that we should keep this quietfor the moment. If
Lucius knew what these were for, he could block the purchase. Besides," she
grinned. "I want the next dark wizard who tries to bewitch an Auror to be taken
by surprise. Just wish I could guarantee I was there to see it..."
What followed was a negotiation. For almost the first time, Milo didn't regret
prioritizing Charisma over Constitution at character creation, as it gave him a
sorely-needed edge against the head of the DMLE, who bargained like a horse
trader. She wanted them by the hundred, to equip every employee of the Ministry
to begin with, and, eventually, the entire wizarding world, but Milo negotiated
her down to a more reasonable number and a better price. Each amulet cost him
two days of magical crafting (although his Homunculus, Cog, put in the actual
hours), ten galleons' worth of salt, and a non-negligible amount of experience
points.
That said, the gods themselves could hardly give him a better bargaining
position. To them, these amulets represented complete protection against one of
the greatest threats in the world. It was revolutionary. Game changing.
To him, it was a first-level spell and a pile of salt.
They were willing to pay a small fortune in gold for the necklaces (although,
unfortunately, gold in this universe seemed to be quite a bit rarer and more
valuable than gold in his). They eventually settled on twelve amulets a month,
which left him enough time to work on items for himself and his party, at a
hefty hundred galleonsequivalent in weight to six hundred and thirty gold
piecesper necklace. It was less than they were worth in his universe in terms
of volume of gold, but factoring in the cheaper raw materials cost, the
irritating and ubiquitous Adventurers-Sell-for-Half-Laws, and the relative value
of gold, Milo figured he was coming out ahead by quite a bit. The first several
months of that, however, would go to paying back Harry's generous loans over the
last year and a bit.
"Did I ever tell you that I had to bail that boy out of Muggle prison this
summer?" Peasegood said to Bones as they left.
"No, I must have missed that one."
Page 537

"Funny story. Fortunately, nothing came of it..."
oooo
Together, Fiona, Travis, and Hannigan had brought six eyes, which seemed about
one one-hundredth as many as they would be needing.
Self-stirring cauldrons. Eel's eyes. Potion bottles. Flying broomsticks (Fiona
started feeling a bit self-conscious about the one in her hand). Wand shops.
And... an ice cream parlour.
It was closed, presumably because Fortescue had a cold. Bit of a let-down,
actually.
"This place looks right out of Tim Burton's fever dream," Travis said.
"With a bit of the pirate base from Hook thrown in," Fiona added.
There were buildings built on top of other buildings, inside other buildings,
and in one notable case, upside-down and underneath another building. Individual
shops and stalls followed no particular theme, having apparently been built up
to several centuries apart. Iron Age huts and red-roofed Roman structures shared
walls with wooden lean-tos and crooked Renaissance-era towers. Diagon Alley
seemed to be as old as London. Older, maybe.
"This place is not up to code," Hannigan grumbled. "Pick a code. Any code. This
place is not up to it. The whole lot ought to be condemned."
"Ah," Travis stammered. He looked a bit pale.
"Yes?" Hannigan asked.
"That little old lady over therethe one outside the Apothecaryshe, uh... The
sign says she's selling dragon liver."
Fiona and Hannigan stared where he pointed in stunned silence.
"It... must be metaphorical," Fiona said. "Flavourful. Probably a local
delicacy. Pub I used to go to in Glasgow had a drink they called Dragon's
Breath. Must be like that." It must be. No way... no way could there be actual
dragons. Magic was one thing, but dragons? Fiona was beginning to feel that they
might be in a little bit over their heads.
"Yes," Hannigan said. "What the Serg er, what the witch civilian said. Let's
carry on with our first objective. I mean errand. Our first errand."
Near as they could tell, Diagon Alley was basically a single (if somewhat
twisty) line without any major intersections or branchesexcept for one, which a
black sign declared in black paint was called 'Knockturn Alley,' which, as
police, they decided to avoid without significant backup. They had a sense for
that sort of thing. In theory, this should have made finding their target777
Diagon Alleya cinch. Just walk forwards as the numbers go up, or turn around if
Page 538

they go down.
Unfortunately, the address numbersthose buildings which had themseemed to be
completely at random. A robes shop numbered '1' was directly adjacent to a wand
shop whose address seemed to be composed of thirteen thirteens.
It was while searching for the Daily Prophet's office, their eyes sideways, up,
and backwards searching for the address, that Fiona bumped into a child. He was
maybe nine or ten years old, and had on a child-size robe with a floppy, wide
hat.
"Excuse me!" Fiona said, and stepped to move around him.
"Whoa!" the boy said. "Nice broomstick! I've never seen one like it! Is it
foreign?"
Fiona looked at the broom substitute she held in her hand. If she got out of
this, she was keeping Sprocket on a dry food ration for a week as punishment.
"Foreign?" Fiona asked in her best Wicked Witch of the West voice. "It's from a
place so far away it would addle your little mind to even begin to attempt to
comprehend where it is!" Okay, so the line sounded way better in her head.
"Bet it's Italian," the boy said. "And it's bewitched to look like a mop, too!"
A middle-aged, anxious-looking witch hurried around a twist in the road.
"Oliver!" she called. "What did I tell you about wandering off? Come here." She
turned to face Fiona. "Sorry, miss. He's always doing that."
"Wait!" Hannigan said as she turned to leave. He fished about in his robe
pockets before producing a photograph. "Have you seen this boy?" he asked. "He
has a distinctive scar, and may be in the company of a woman named Lily Potter."
The witch looked at the picture in disbelief for a moment before rolling her
eyes.
"Yes, ha ha, very funny," she said, and made a face as if Hannigan had made a
joke in particularly poor taste. "Have a nice day, then," and hustled off, her
child in tow.
"That was odd," Hannigan said after she left.
It took half an hour to find the Prophet's office, a rather boring-looking
square building nestled between an owl post office (that's rightowl post
office) and a book store. Along the way, Hannigan accosted random passersby with
his picture of Harry Potter with variations of the same questions. All seven of
them thought it was some kind of joke.
"Wonder if I'm asking the wrong questions?" Hannigan mused. "Ah, well. That was
objective two, in any case. On to objective one." He pushed open the plain glass
and wood door to enter a plain-looking office. There were a few deceptively
Page 539

comfortable-looking chairs along the wall, with a few magazines for bored adults
and some toys for bored children. In short, it was like every office Fiona had
ever been in, which she felt just went to show, although she wasn't quite sure
what it went to show.
A bored-looking witch sat behind the counter with her feet on the desk, reading
a magazine called Witch Weekly. A handsome, blond man on the cover winked at her
when she looked at it.
"God, but that's weird," she muttered to herself.
"I'm sorry?" The witch behind the counter said, although her tone indicated
otherwise. "What did you want, then?"
Hannigan stepped up to her.
"We're here to take out a subscription," he said.
"Right," the woman said, holding out her palm. She hadn't taken her eyes off of
the magazine. "That'll be one knut up front, and another per delivery."
"I'm sorry, did you say a newt?" Hannigan asked. Sure, eyes of newt were
mentioned in Hamlet, but... seriously? If these wizards and witches used actual
newts as currency, Fiona was going home and never leaving. A world where people
used newts to buy newspapers was not a world Fiona wanted to take part in
anymore.
"You deaf, mister?" the woman asked. "Not a newt, a knut. Kah-noot."
"Right," Hannigan said. "I seem to be fresh out of those. I don't suppose you
could direct me to"
"Gringotts is just a few minutes to the left," the lady said, pointing,
unhelpfully, to the right.
"Well, we'll just drop by... Gringotts... and return presently," he said.
By process of deduction, they determined 'Gringotts,' whatever that was, was
probably to the right, not the left, seeing as how that was the way they'd come
from and they hadn't seen it. Probably. You never knew, in this place.
Unlike the Daily Prophet headquarters, Gringotts was quite easy to spot. It was
a white marble, ancient looking building with scarlet-and-gold banners. In
addition to being a very pretty building, it was also obviously designed for a
siege. The windows had steel bars over them, and the burnished bronze doors
looked like they were actual, solid bronze. Fiona didn't doubt that, in addition
to the merely physical defences, the building had its share of magical ones as
well.
As she drew nearer, however, her attention was pulled from the building. In
fact, it became very hard to notice anything at all, save for the small...
individual standing in front of the doors.
Page 540

He (she? it?) was wearing pristine scarlet-and-gold livery, and... well. Fiona
wasn't really looking at its (her? his?) clothes. The... thing... was small.
Like, hobbit-sized small. That was where the resemblance ended. Rather than
furry feet, a plump belly and a cheerful smile, this creature was kelp-green,
covered in little warts and bumps, and below its upturned, pig-like nose was a
scowl worthy of... worthy of... something really good at scowling. The wicked,
hooked teeth definitely helped.
"Jesus Christ," Travis swore. "Is that a... an..."
"Orc?" Hannigan suggested.
"More of a kobold, really," Travis said.
"So, we should be able to take, like, a million of them each, right?" Fiona
said. "I mean, the guys in the book could, and they didn't even have guns."
"Yeah, well," Hannigan said. "Neither do we. Shall we?" With that, Hannigan
walked determinedly over to the creature.
Fiona swallowed and followed. Travis hesitated for a moment, then walked behind
her.
The three of them put on their most important, businesslike looks and walked
confidently through the doors. Behind the bronze doors were another set, this
one made of silver. Fiona marvelled at them. If they were pure silver, and
solid, their value would be... incalculable. It didn't take long, however, for
her instincts to kick in. Nobody had the kind of money to make doors out of
silver and consider it worthwhile. Nobody legitimate, anyway. This, of course,
begged the question: where the heck were these creatures getting their cash
from?
Another pair was standing just behind the silver doors. Probably guards, Fiona
noted, taking into account their stance, their crossed arms, and their
simultaneously suspicious and disregarding expression. They have the look. They
weren't visibly armed, but it wasn't as if that meant anything. They were down
the rabbit hole, now. The locals could have all kinds of weird powers. Heck,
Fiona herself wasn't armed, but that hardly meant she wasn't dangerous, if it
came to that.
Travis let out a low whistle as they entered the next room, and Fiona could see
why. It was huge. Like, St. Paul's cathedral huge. The floors and walls were of
white marble, with a large, misty fountain in the centre of the room. Creatures
literally beyond countshe stopped counting at seventy-eight, and didn't think
she'd accounted for halfscurried about, looking busy. Several had handcarts
piled with what she could only describe as treasure. Gold and silver in any
combination of bullion, coins, jewelry, and ornaments you could name. There were
also precious stones in abundance. Fiona had never seen anything she'd felt
compelled to use the word 'jewel' to describe before she saw one of the little
green fellows holding up a ruby the size of Sprocket's head. There was enough
money in here to buy actual nationsand Fiona doubted this was the extent of it.
Page 541

Everything in this room was in transit from one place to another; massive doors
leading to dark corridors surrounded them. Anything could be down there.
If anything, the security around the place seemed light. Which meant Fiona had
to be doubly on her guardsomething was evidently protecting this place, and it
was clearly enough to deter would-be thieves. Magical thieves, at that.
"Don't gawk," Hannigan said. "We'll only draw attention to ourselves."
They located a small line of ordinary-looking people organized by a velvet rope
in one corner below a sign marked CURRENCY EXCHANGE. Guessing this was their
destination, they formed up at the back of the line.
The people, most of whom were wearing simple street clothes, were handing the
orc-kobold-thing money (mostly pounds, but some had francs or dollars) in
exchange for coins of silver, gold, and bronze.
"Thank goodness nobody told Goldfinger about this place," Travis murmured. "It
makes Fort Knox look like a tin of pennies."
As their turn came up, Hannigan took a half step in front of them.
"Excuse me, ah, sir," he said to the creature behind the counter, "how much for
one knut?"
The creature gave them a flat stare for a moment.
"Serious customers only," it snarled. "Next!" it called.
"Wait!" Hannigan said. The creature stopped and looked at him. Hannigan turned
to Travis and Fiona. "Right, turn out your pockets, lads," he said. Travis
sighed, and they pulled out their wallets. Between them, they had fifty-eight
pounds, forty-four pence, and a Canadian dollar.
"My sister lives in Montreal," Travis shrugged.
"How many can we get for all of this?" Hannigan asked.
The creature's eyes flicked over it for an instant.
"Eleven galleons, ten sickles, and fourteen knutsafter surcharge," he said.
Either it was extremely talented at unit conversions, or it was making the
numbers up completely.
"Sorry, is he selling us a fleet of ships, farm equipment, and lizards?" Travis
whispered to Fiona. The creature, however, evidently heard him. It rolled its
eyes.
"Galleons," it said, holding up a shining gold coin. "Sickles," it held up a
slightly smaller silver coin. "And knuts," it held up a bronze coin.
"Ah, of course," Hannigan said. "But could we get, hmm, three of those sickles
Page 542

in knuts?"
Fiona looked at the coins the creature counted out and thought for a moment.
"So it's, what, about five quid to a galleon?" she asked.
"Yes," said the creature, who was still counting.
"So they're not pure gold, then," she reasoned.
The creature shot her a withering look that made Fiona reflexively shift her
weight into a fighting stance. The thing had malice in its eyes.
"None of your kind has ever seen purer," it snarled. "Or ever will."
Hannigan nudged her with his elbow and made silencing gestures.
"Wait, hang on," she said. "That's way below the value of gold to pounds. So
what's to stop these people from melting the coins down and selling them at
enormous mark-up as raw bullion?"
The creature stared at her as if she was a total imbecile. Its jaws moved as if
it was trying to form words, but could not grasp the monumental stupidity of her
question.
"I would not recommend defacing goblin gold," was all it said. Fiona made a
minor leap of intuition and concluded that if this was a bank stuffed with
goblin gold and little green people, the little green people were probably
goblins.
"Thank you," Fiona said. "Just wondering."
They filled their pockets full of goblin gold, silver, and bronze and hurried
out.
"Oh, I would just love to sic a couple of crown auditors on them," Hannigan
said. "Who wants to bet they're not adhering to the Banking Act? And I bet
they've never paid their taxes."
"No deal. Where'd they get all that gold, I wonder?" Travis asked.
"Probably hauled it out of Moria," Fiona muttered. "What do you reckon they're
going to do with our money? They can't exactly walk down to the financial sector
and invest it."
"You can get pretty far just over the phone these days," Hannigan said. "And
they could always hire a human to do it for them, in any case."
They dropped by the Daily Prophet again and took out a subscription for Fiona's
flat (she was the only one of the three who lived alone, and as such wouldn't
have to explain the avian post to her family/roommates, except Sprocket, who
Fiona thought would have no more objection to daily owl delivery than she would
Page 543

to daily pizza delivery).
"One last thing," Hannigan said to the witch after they'd filled out the forms
(with quills on parchment, not that Fiona was terribly surprised. She doubted
anything could surprise her anymore.)
The witch looked up from her magazine for the first time, stared him dead in the
eye, and blew an enormous pink bubble of gum. It popped, echoing through the
room.
"Yes?" she asked.
"What can you tell me about this boy?" Hannigan held up the photograph.
The witch stared at it, then pointed at the wall behind them. On the wall was a
large poster:
THE BOY WHO LIVED, a FACTUAL and ENTERTAINING biography of HARRY POTTER:
available all places books are sold.
Fiona, Travis, and Hannigan said words then that small children ought not to
hear.
"Book store next?" Hannigan asked. Not waiting for a response, he answered
himself. "Book store next."
Flourish and Botts was, well, a bookshop. Frankly, after the goblin bank, it was
disappointingly mundane. Sure, the subject of the books was extraordinaryand
the books themselves were something to see; many of them were leather bound with
beautifully embossed titlesbut, all in all, it was sort of a letdown.
That handsome man from the magazine cover, apparently named Gilderoy Lockhart,
was on posters all over the place, advertising his autobiography, Magical Me.
"Looks a bit like Kenneth Branagh, don't you think?" Fiona mused, staring at a
life-size portrait of him.
"Nah," Hannigan said. "He must be, what, ten years older than Kenneth Branagh."
They split up to cover the bookstore as quickly as possible. They started with
every book on Harry Potter they could findand there were a surprisingly large
number, for a missing twelve-year-oldthrew in a couple of books on wizarding
history (it was a sign of the things she had seen that day that Fiona did raised
no objections to the apparent existence of the word 'wizarding'), and a
more-or-less random selection of spellbooks. The last was Fiona's idea. If they
could learn what these wizards were capable of, they could more adequately
develop counter-measures. Against the darkness of the unknown, the only light is
knowledge.
Upon tallying the prices, they put back several of the books on Harry Potter,
before leaving with their pockets considerably heavier but decided less clink-y.
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Once outside, Hannigan stopped and took a deep, satisfied breath.
"Savour this moment, lads. Er, lad. And lady. It's not every day that you can
just go to a bookstore and buy critical information in your investigation for
forty quid and change."
"What's next, then?" Fiona asked.
"We head home and do a little homework," Hannigan said.
"But what if we missed something?" Travis said. "There's loads here we haven't
even looked at, yet."
Hannigan grinned broadly. "That's the best part, isn't it?" he said. "We can
just walk right in here. Aside from the magic, do you see any security? Me
neither. And besides," he added, "if anything comes up, Fiona here will be the
first to know. She's on their mailing list."
CC 17: Remedial Divinations
Chapter Seventeen: Remedial Divinations

The door to the Hog's Head Inn slammed shut behind the black-hooded newcomer,
causing icicles to fall from the roof outside. The other patrons gave the
newcomer, ahem, icy glares as the wave of cold air hit them, though the roaring
hearth soon made them forget their climatological worries. The newcomer,
androgynous and unidentifiable beneath the loose, silk robe looked around the
inn, taking in the handful of chilled patrons, the grizzled, aged landlord, the
ancient oak tables and bar. It was impossible to be certain without seeing his
or her face, but something about the newcomer's bearing radiated contempt.
Rapidly-melting snow was brushed away by black-gloved hands, falling to the
floor with not a trace of concern for the innkeeper's floorboards, and the
newcomer sat down at the bar next to another mysterious, black-robed stranger.
The similarities began and ended at the colour of their wardrobes and their
unidentified nature. Where the first robed figure's clothes were immaculate,
tailored, and very, very expensive, the second was shabby. The second's robes
were battered, faded black canvas spotted with poorly sewn-on patches of subtly
different shades and materials from the base cloth, which was hardly visible.
His or her robes were a tattered mess at the hem, as if they had been walked on.
The landlord passed each of them a firewhisky without a word. This sort of
behaviour was not uncommon at the Hog's Head Inn.
"It appears," the first said in a slow, light drawl, "That things are going
rather well for you." The newcomer somehow managed to, without any facial
expression whatsoever, convey a sneer simply with the cadence and delivery.
Page 545

"Well enough," the other said. This one didn't need any fancy oratorical tricks.
The shrug was sufficient.
The newcomer took a sip of firewhisky. A brief flash of long, white-blond hair
was visible as the hood tilted back slightly.
"Rather... impressive, don't you think? Your sudden ascent, that is," the
newcomer pushed. "Almost as if you had... assistance."
"And I suppose we both know who to thank for that 'assistance.'" The stranger
left the firewhisky sitting where the landlord had placed it.
"Yes," the newcomer drawled. "We do, at that." The newcomer left that hanging in
the air for a moment before continuing. "I must say," the newcomer said, "that
I'm rather surprised by you. You appear to be keeping secrets. You know how I
feel about... secrets."
There was a loaded silence for several seconds. Then, something slight but
significant changed in the stranger's posture. A gloved hand shot out from under
the tattered robes, and seized the firewhisky glass. A moment later, it was
slammed down on the table. Empty.
"You mean it wasn't you?" the stranger said, choking slightly.
"It wasn't you?" the newcomer gasped.
The two of them stared at each other from under their hoods for a tense second.
"I have to"
"Questions to ask"
In an instant, their bar stools had tumbled to the ground and both were gone.
"Buggers didn't pay," the landlord grumbled, watching the door slam shut behind
them.
oooo
The scheduling of Quidditch practice times had always been a continual problem
at Hogwarts. It tended to rain more-or-less three seasons a year at Hogwarts,
and those three seasons, unfortunately, corresponded very closely to the school
term. The rare dry day that rolled around every few weeks was highly prized by
Quidditch players of all houses. However, with four teams and only one pitch,
there was invariably something of a squabble for who would be the one to get the
field.
Various headmasters over the years had different solutions to this problem. Most
solutions involved either random chance, such as a flipped sickle (which has the
unexpected problem of being hardly random at all. Keep in mind: actual magic),
or requiring teams to book the field ahead of time on a first-come-first-serve
basis (a practice favoured by Dumbledore), or even by sharing the pitch between
Page 546

multiple opposed teams at once (this 'hardly ever' resulted in 'accidental'
injuries).
The newly-raised Headmaster Snape had his own, original take on the matter. He
solved the problem by means of a rotating schedule in order to guarantee
fairness for everyone.
This announcement caused something of an uproar in the Gryffindor Common Room,
which was starting to smell (Snape had cut off House Elf privileges the week
prior in order to 'build character'), as the Gryffindors had certain objections
to this new organizational scheme.
"Seven seventy-one. What's the problem this time?" Milo asked distractedly from
a couch. He was one of a very few number of Gryffindors who did not care one
whit for Quidditch, nor, consequently, even half a whit for the logistics of its
players' skill grinding. While they fretted about inconsequential matters, Milo
was busy performing magic upon an ordinary-looking bucket.
"Snape," Harry spat through clenched teeth. It said something of the general
morale of House Gryffindor that not even Hermione was willing to call out his
failure to prefix 'Professor' to the Headmaster's name, "has the pitch rotating
between all of the houses."
Milo narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
"Hold your hippogriffs," Harry said. "Fifty-four."
"What's the problem with the rotation?" Milo asked, scratching the Eye of Boccob
onto the cheap tin bucket.
"Well," Harry said, "today, Hufflepuff has the pitch. Tomorrow it's Slytherin.
Next it's Ravenclaw."
"Then Gryffindor?" Milo asked.
"No," Harry said. "Then Slytherin. Then Gryffindor. Then Slytherin again. Then
Ravenclaw. Then Slytherin."
"Ah," Milo said in understanding as he put the finishing touches on the Wavy
Eyebrow of Boccob. "Well, it's a problem easily solved."
"How do you figure?" Harry asked, sitting dejectedly beside him on the sofa.
Milo held the bucket on the ground with both feet and grabbed the handle with
his hands."We break into Snape's office, steal some Polyjuice, kidnap the entire
Slytherin team, and you play in disguise." With a hefty pull, he yanked the
handle clean off the bucket. "Of course," he added, "we'll have to kill them
afterwards, or they'll talk."
"You're kidding, right?" Harry asked, slightly apprehensively.
"'Course," Milo said. "We can just steal their memories after. I know a guy."
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The Memory Charm was yet another example of Arcane Magic and Wanded Magic
diverging. If Milo ever wanted to erase someone's memory, he'd have to first
become a mighty Bard (as if) and even then could only modify up to five minutes
of memory per dayand that was only because he had, for some reason, prioritized
Charisma over Constitution at character creation. Milo was still kicking himself
over that particularly inspired decision.
Those goons at the Ministry, on the other hand, could literally just wave their
wands and magically erase or alter, as far as Milo could tell, any amount of
memory they wanted. Poof, gone.
"Ha," Harry said flatly. "Ha, ha." He glanced at Milo, who was replacing the
handle with a leather strap. "That looks like a Quidditch chinstrap," he said.
"That's hardly surprising," Milo responded, threading one end of the chinstrap
through a hole he'd drilled in the bucket.
Harry frowned. "That is a Quidditch chinstrap."
"Yup," Milo said.
Harry's emerald green eyes narrowed. "That's my Quidditch chinstrap."
"Yup," Milo said. "But don't worry; you won't be needing yours anymore."
"Oh?" Harry asked in a dangerous tone of voice. "And why is that?"
"I overheard Malfoy at breakfast. Snape's going to ban safety gear for future
matches. He says the rate of serious injuries has been so low since the gear was
introduced that it's unnecessary."
"But the rate is only low because we're wearing padding!" Harry said.
"Snape's not entirely unreasonable," Milo said. "He said that any players who
are new to the team this year will still wear padding."
Harry frowned. "That doesn't sound too... Oh." After the Petrification of the
majority of the Slytherin Quidditch team, almost every single player was a new
recruit. Harry punched the scarlet couch in frustration. Slytherin was the only
team with new players this year. "This is ridiculous!"
"Then there's good news," Milo said. "Snape's also going to be introducing a
complaint-and-suggestion box. Have a complaint or suggestion for the
administration, you write it on a slip of parchment and drop it in the box."
Harry blinked. "Seriously?" he asked. "That doesn't sound like Snape at all.
That's actually a good idea." He frowned. "What's the catch?"
"Remember last year when Hannah discovered a secret, slippery passage that dumps
you in the lake?"
"Yeah. First years have been using it as a waterslide."
Page 548

"Guess where the box empties into." Milo wrapped the bucket-with-chinstrap up in
thick brown postal paper. "Mind if I borrow Hedge Witch?"
"Hedwig."
"Is there any other kind?" Milo asked.
"What?"
"Of wig, that is. Any other kind of wig."
"What are you talking about?"
"Well, it's not like you could have a foot wig or a shoulder wig, could you? I
mean, every wig I've ever heard of goes on your head. So calling him"
"Her."
"Head Wig seems a bit redundant." Milo scribbled 'COG, THE BURROW, UNITED
KINGDOM, PRIME MATERIAL PLANE' on the package.
Harry sighed, covering his face with his hands. "Yes," he said. "Yes, you can
borrow Hedwig."
"Cool," Milo said. "Oh, and before I forget" he tossed Harry a heavy sack that
clinked in a deliciously metallic manner. "That's the first quarter. I'll get
you the rest by June."
Harry blinked in genuine surprise and stared at the money.
"How did you no, I suppose I probably don't want to know."
Milo looked around the room suspiciously. Everyone's attention was focused
complaining ineffectually about Snape's latest announcement.
"Meet me in the War Room in twenty," he whispered, tucking the wrapped bucket
into his belt for later. "Spread the word, but don't all leave as one group."
"I know the drill," Harry said.
Twenty-odd minutes later, Harry, Ron, and Hermione filed one by one into the
empty classroom Milo had appropriated behind the tree he'd created last year. In
addition to being concealed and inconvenient to get to, the room had a few
magical defenses Milo had set up. The most powerful defense, the one that would
absolutely guarantee their privacy for the indefinite future, was the
hastily-scrawled sign that hung from the door, reading: REMEDIAL DIVINATIONS.
"Fifteen-thousand, five-hundred and fifty-six," Milo said.
"Zero," Hermione replied.
Page 549

"Fifty-five," Harry said.
Everyone stared at Ron.
"Ah," he said. "A hundred and six? No, wait, um..."
Hermione and Harry moved their hands in the general direction of their wands.
Milo shook his hands out of his sleeves.
"A billion!" Ron said. "I know I haven't used that one yet. It's just hard
keeping track."
Everybody relaxed. Since Death Eaters had used Polyjuice to disguise themselves
as Gryffindors, paranoia had been running highparanoia actively encouraged by
Milo himself. Paranoia was the last and best defence against the DM (Detrimental
Meddler). To that end, they'd created their code: upon meeting another member of
their group, say a number. Any number, as long as it wasn't one you'd already
used. The idea was that any infiltrator listening to them would either think it
was an elaborate code and waste valuable time trying to crack it, or that they
would, in their confusion, reuse a number. It was far from perfect, but it was
the best Milo had been able to think up that would be simple enough for them all
to get right reliably.
"We have a Defence exam tomorrow," Hermione said. "We should all be revising.
Why did you call us here?"
"I think it's been long enough that we can be pretty much certain," Milo said.
"The Heir of Slytherinor, at least the relevant oneis in Lucius' camp. The
only open question is who."
"How do you figure?" Hermione asked.
"Other than that it's blindingly obvious?" Ron scoffed. "The Heir is as
Slytherin is can be, Lucius is as Slytherin as can be. The Heir hates Muggle
borns, Lucius hates Muggle borns. If so, fact-oh."
Hermione chortled under her breath.
"What?" Ron asked defensively.
Harry leaned over to Ron and whispered, "it's ipso facto, Ron."
"But that sounds like a spell," he said. "Is it a spell?" Ron's face paled
slightly. "What if it's a spell of persuasion," he said, "and that's why,
whenever anyone says it, what they said sounds so reasonable!"
"Moving right along," Milo said, trying to regain control of the conversation.
Honestly, it was like herding cats sometimes. "Ron's already laid out the core
of the evidence, but there's a bit more to it. Snape is Lucius's right-hand man
in Hogwarts, and as soon as Snape took over, the attacks miraculously stopped."
Harry frowned. "You mean you don't think the attacks were directed at Muggle
Page 550

borns?"
"Of course they weren't," Milo said. "Slytherin's monster took out basically the
entire Slytherin Quidditch team, and they were pretty much all pure- or
half-blooded, and Muggle-haters to boot. That's not exactly behaviour consistent
with an agenda of ridding the world of Muggle borns, is it?"
"I always sort of figured the monster was going for some Muggle borns, but kept
running into other people instead," Harry said.
"And what," asked Ron, "after Petrifying all witnesses, it just gave up and ran
back into its hole? No, I'm starting to think Milo's right. If the monster
wanted to get Muggle borns, there's not much anyone could do to stop it."
"How long do you think it would stay secret if it did that?" Hermione asked.
"People would discover it pretty quickly if it gave up on stealth altogether."
"Yeah," Ron said, "but then what? I mean, it took McGonagall in a fair fight.
McGonagall!"
Milo coughed involuntarily. He hadn't told them that it was largely his fault
McGonagall had been Petrified, and had no intention of doing so.
"Maybe it just can't tell the difference?" Hermione said. "It could be that all
humans look pretty much the same to it. I mean, if it Petrifies with a look, it
probably hasn't had much in the way of social interaction."
"Could be," Milo said. "But then I doubt Slytherin would have picked it to be
his monster with the specific aim of ridding the school of undesirables. Now,
what is it that Draco always says?"
"'He started it, Professor!'" Ron suggested.
"'When my father hears about this, Potter, he'll'" Harry said, then frowned. "I
don't know what comes next. He always gets cut off somehow. I wonder if he even
knows what his father will do."
"'Father always said that Dumbledore was the worst thing that ever happened to
this place,'" Hermione said.
"In one," Milo said.
"So you think Dumbledore was the target, then?"
"The entire old administration," Milo said. "Lucius couldn't get Dumbledore out
because he had too many friends on the board and in the Ministry. There's too
much respect for him. But by Petrifying an entire group of students right under
Dumbledore's nose, he disgraced him. The fact that the students all had rich,
influential parents likely didn't hurt. The Heir got Dumbledore sacked and
nearly killed McGonagall, leaving Snape in charge, and poof! No more attacks.
How long do you think it'll be till they give him a medal for saving the school?
Order of Murlynd, or whatever. So the Heir of Slytherin is probably Lucius,
Page 551

Snape, Draco, or another Slytherin."
"Or another disguised Death Eater," Harry said. "Or one of the same ones from
before, which you let go."
"Why did you let them go, anyway?" Ron asked.
Milo shrugged uncomfortably. It had seemed to make so much sense at the time.
Clearly, this world was dulling his edge. He blamed homework. "I still haven't
had any luck scrying the Heir of Slytherin, despite Hermione's clever
workaround. We might have to resort to more conventional methods to determine
who it is, precisely."
"What if there is no Heir of Slytherin?" Hermione suggested, at the same time
that Ron said "Bet it's Draco."
"What do you mean, Hermione?" Harry asked. "If there's no heir, then who's
controlling the monster?"
Hermione shrugged. "What if it doesn't have to be Slytherin's actual, literal
heir? What if access to the Chamber of Secrets isn't based off of what you are,
but what you know?"
"A password, then?" Milo suggested. "Handed down the family line?"
"Could be, or even the directions. You don't need a password if nobody else can
even find the place."
"I don't know, Hermione," Ron said. "I think you'd need to do more than just
hide it. Fred and George have found dozens of 'secret' passages and rooms over
the years. Nobody's found the Chamber. It can't just be hidden."
"Point," Hermione acknowledged. "But regardless, what I'm getting at is it
doesn't have to be his actual heir. Just someone who knows what Slytherin knew.
That's why Milo's magic hasn't been able to find him or her. He's been targeting
the Heir of Slytherin specifically."
"So it could be anyone?" Harry said. "Anyone at all?"
Harry's words hung in the air as everyone realized how hopeless the situation
was. They'd come all this way, and they still had seemingly nothing to go on.
"A Parselmouth," Milo said suddenly. "Whoever's controlling the Monster is a
Parselmouth. It spoke to McGonagall and me in Parseltongue. And Harry was the
only one who heard it speak in the Duelling Club last month."
"How'd you know it was Parseltongue?" Ron asked.
"Maaaaagic," Milo said, wiggling his fingers in the air. "It's almost as if we
were all wizards or something."
Hermione coughed.
Page 552

"And witch," Milo added quickly. "Wizards and witch."
"So..." Ron said thoughtfully. "Any way we can sort out who in this school is
secretly a Parselmouth?"
Milo shrugged. "Who cares?" he said. "I think if there's one point Hermione's
made, it's that we're focussing all of our attention on the wrong person. What I
say we do is we find the monster, and hit it with everything we've got. Our
mysterious foe loses his cat's paw, and either gives up or comes out into the
open to do it himself."
"And what have we got, exactly?" Hermione asked. "The three of us can just about
manage Stunners and Shield charms, but I doubt either of those will be much good
against a giant, evil monster that we can presume is resistant to magic."
"Fair point," Milo said.
"That one went a little fast for me," Harry confessed. "Why do we know it's
resistant to magic?"
"Because McGonagall transfigured knives and fired them at it," Hermione said.
"The knives were real, physical objects, and only had to contend with the
monster's physical defenses. If she could have used magic, she would have
Stunned itor killed it outright. The Forbidden Curses are only Forbidden
against humans, after all."
"Reeeeeeally," Milo said thoughtfully.
"No," Hermione said forcefully.
"But"
"No. No mind-slaved armies of unicorns or goblins or acromantulas."
"What I don't understand is why the Ministry hasn't combed this place with hit
wizards or people from the Department of Regulation and Control of Magical
Creatures or something," Harry said.
"Probably Lucius keeping them out," Hermione answered. "Pulling strings at the
Ministry."
Milo snorted. "He should grow a goatee. He's beginning to remind me of someone
back home." He wondered how Myra (City of light! City of Magic!) was faring in
his absence, and realized it had been over a month since he'd thought of home.
He was surprised at how little he missed it. They didn't have anything like
Every Flavoured Beans, there. Just the thought sent his mouth watering.
Idly, he popped an Every-Flavoured Bean into his mouth. He didn't recognize the
sharp, tangy flavourhe hardly ever did, barely knowing the flavour of any real
foods to compare it withbut enjoyed it nonetheless, if only for the novelty.
Page 553

"What do we know about Slytherin's monster?" Harry asked.
"Loads," Milo said. "But somehow, not enough to identify it in any reference
book. Believe me; I've tried. It speaks Parseltongue, so it's probably some kind
of snake; it has fangs and venom, fitting with the snake theme; it's resistant
to magic; it can Petrify with a look, but it's not a Medusa. Oh, and
Mordenkainen assures me it smells terrible. Turns out there aren't many things
that can cause Petrificationyour kind, not mineon a gaze attack around here.
They mostly just kill people, or turn them to stone."
They spent most of the next three hours debating the possible identity of
Slytherin's Monster, all without making any progress. Eventually, fed up with
the futility of it, they gave up and headed to the Great Hall for dinner.
Milo lagged behind the rest of the group, frustrated. He couldn't believe how
little progress they'd made. That he'd made.
It was this place. It had dulled his edge. There was no other explanation.
Between the pointless classes and the delicious food and the soft mattresses,
he'd lost sight of what was important.
He did have one more clue he could follow. He knew that, but he'd felt strangely
resistant to the idea. The feeling was a stranger to him, but, when it came down
to it, so were most.
He left the group and made for the Hospital Wing. He waited outside the door
behind a suit of armour for a few minutes until Madam Pomfrey left for her
evening meal.
Milo crept into the room, surprised to find it absent of one of its most
permanent residents. Even his bags were gone. Neville Longbottom, it seemed, had
managed to make it a whole day without getting some kind of injury.
He found McGonagall where he left her on the hospital bed, his mirror still
clutched in her hand.
Milo gently placed one hand over her injury, and, with the other, drew his other
mirror from his belt. This one, of highly-polished silver, had a far more
specialized purpose than looking around corners without risking a headshot.
"Scry," he whispered, gazing intently into the mirror.
His reflection vanished from the mirror's surface. For an instant, Milo got the
impression of slick green scales in a dark room. A moment later it was gone, the
surface of the mirror broken as if someone had taken a light mace to it.
"Guess I should have expected that," he muttered, remembering what had happened
to his Arcane Eye. "Mending," he muttered, and the cracks were gone as if they
had never been.
It was all so frustrating. This monster seemed to be resistant to Milo's best
methods of magical sleuthing. He hadn't had any luck finding any of the missing
Page 554

students, either. Circle Dance and Scrying had both failed outright, as if
they'd been blocked. It seemed the Death Eaters had found some way to prevent
their victims from being located magically. Maybe Milo really did need remedial
Divinations.
But if you couldn't find someone with magic, how were you supposed to do it?
oooo
"We got one," Hannigan said, slamming the phone into the receiver triumphantly.
"Patrol officer up in London made a positive ID on one 'Amycus Carrow' at a
supermarket. Tailed him back to a residence he seems holed up. He's ours now;
all we have to do is go and get him." It had been a simple, yet time-consuming,
matter to cross-reference the wizard's histories on the 'Wizarding War' with
case files from the '81most of which were dropped under rather suspect
scenariosand come up with a list of twenty-odd suspected murderers. Now that
they had relatively concrete evidence of magic in the form of the Daily
Prophet's moving pictures, Hannigan had been getting a few of his friends still
sore from the 1981 murders on board with the investigation. They'd been
unofficially passing hints on possible positions of the culprits. Their books on
the wizard's history implied that some of them had already been tried in secret
wizard court and sent to a secret wizard prison, but that most of them were
still at large. Apparently the wizards' judicial system was even more porous
than the regular one.
"A supermarket?" Fiona asked. "Really?" She had a hard time imagining an evil
wizard at a place as mundane as a supermarket, but, on the other hand, she
supposed everyone had to eat.
"Was he the one that did the Petersons?" Travis asked, flipping through his
notebook. "And the Lancasters. And the Walkers, too." He gave out a low whistle,
reading the notes he'd made from the wizards' books. "He got a bunch of their
folk, too."
"My counterpart in London wants to go in with a Firearms Unit and arrest him,
but I persuaded him to wait for us. Get your coats on, both of you. You've been
reading up on their abilities," Hannigan said to Fiona as they suited up. "How
would you take him?"
"A high-powered rifle from three streets away," Fiona said seriously.
"Perhaps I should have specified," Hannigan said. "In this hypothetical
scenario, do remember you're a copper."
"Then I'd shoot him and take the fall for it after. They have spells that kill,
spells that control, spells that torture, and spells that protect."
"Even from bullets?" Travis asked as they left the station into the bitter cold
and heavy snow.
"No clue," Fiona said. "The spellbook didn't say. Frankly, I don't think they
even considered it. They don't seem to think of us as much of a threat. Still,
Page 555

we should assume they can."
Hannigan scratched his chin. He hadn't shaved in days, and Fiona doubted he'd
slept more than a few hours a night, either. She couldn't remember the last time
she'd seen him without a mug of cheap, black coffee in hand.
"Don't we have anything going for us?" he asked.
"Some," Fiona said. "They need a wand to do any magic at all, so if we can keep
him from drawing, he's only as dangerous as you or I."
Travis made a derisive snort. "That I doubt," he said. "As dangerous as me,
maybe, but I bet he doesn't know kung-fu."
"Aikido," Fiona corrected him, "and we shouldn't assume he doesn't. Also, he
needs to be able to speak to cast, and it seems to take a few seconds to get a
spell off."
"So it's like a gun and body armour," Travis said, "but a little worse? What's
so scary about that? We get the blue berets to toss a handful of flashbangs
through the window, daze the people inside too much to even think about bloody
witchcraft, batter down the door and cuff everyone in a Hallowe'en costume."
"I'm not finished yet," Fiona said. "They can also teleport."
Hannigan spat coffee onto the snow.
"Like on bleeding Star Trek?" he asked.
"Pretty much," Fiona said. "To them, its equivalent to getting a driver's
license. Worst of all, it didn't say if they needed a wand or not to do it."
"Well that's just bloody great," he said. "How the bloody hell do we bloody
arrest a person who can just bloody teleport out of the bloody station?"
"We can't," Fiona said simply. "Ergo, a high-powered rifle from three streets
away."
"Or we give him an incentive," Travis suggested. "A reason to do what we want
him to do. To not leave."
"What do we have that he wants?" Hannigan asked. "He can just beam himself away
and come back with half a dozen of his guys and make us all forget. Or kill us,
more likely."
"Secrecy," Travis said. "We tell him if he does anything spooky, we send
everything we have to the Guardian. Evil wizard or no, he wouldn't want that."
Fiona gave a low whistle. "Are we really prepared to do that?" she asked. "That
could be big. Like, world-changing big."
"Ethical debate later," Hannigan said as they arrived at his car. "First, we
Page 556

have to nick him."
CC 18: The Boy Who Lived
Author's Notes: Big hand to Estroll, everyone, who's taken it upon himself to
translate Harry Potter and the Natural 20 into Chinese. The URL can be found in
my profile.
Needless to say, this is just about the coolest thing that happened since I
found out I was on TVTropes.
oooooo
Chapter Eighteen: The Boy Who Lived
Gilderoy Lockhart yawned as he walked back to his office, flexing his sore
shoulders. He'd had a long day, between his lengthy correspondences to Rita at
the Prophet, trying to spin Dumbledore's string of fiascos to put himself in a
good light. He'd already half-convinced her that the only reason more students
hadn't gone missing was because he'd personally uncovered and run off their
kidnappers. Then there were the constant messages from the DMLE demanding more
information about the kidnappings, as if he knew anything. Honestly, it would be
so much easier if the kids had just been killed. Then people would stop asking
him to mount a rescue mission...
An idea struck him. A little false evidence here and there, a few altered
memories, and people would come to that conclusion without his needing to
suggest it. And if they did miraculously turn up eventually, Lockhart was
certain enough of his skills that he could take credit for that, too. A nice
footnote to his already glamorous career at best, avoiding a difficult
investigation and potentially hazardous situations at worst.
But all of that could wait until tomorrow. Tonight, nothing would stand between
Lockhart and a cup of hot tea, his stack of fanmail, and a good night's sleep.
Lockhart narrowed his eyes as he reached his office door. He had been about to
turn the knob and enter when he noticed something awry.
Ever since the delinquents that made up this school's student body had begun
leaving stink bombs in Lockhart's office every few weeks, he'd started taking
extra precautions. The students would expect magical countermeasures and perhaps
come up with workarounds, so Lockhart had resorted to a more mundane solution.
Besides, he wasn't certain he was capable of some of the spells required for
long-term, reliable security. Rather, he'd taken to leaving a hair wedged
between the door and the frame when he left.
The hair was on the ground.
Page 557

Lockhart drew his wand, opened the door, and sprang through, hoping to surprise
the crook mid-act.
It was not a student that Lockhart found in his office.
"H-headmaster," Lockhart stammered. This he had not been expecting.
Snape was sitting in Lockhart's chair casually, as if this were his office and
Lockhart was the intruder. He looked Lockhart up and down as if he were
something unpleasant Snape had stepped in.
"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Lockhart asked, recovering, he hoped, smoothly.
With a deft twirl, he sheathed his wand.
"I think you quite know why I'm here," Snape said.
"Oh?" Lockhart raised one eyebrow.
"I'm here to deliver a warning," Snape said. "Your first and your last." Snape
lowered his voice to a deadly whisper. "I know, Lockhart. I know everything."
Lockhart's pulse raced. He could feel his heart beating against his chest as if
it wanted to break free and escape. How had Snape figured it out? He'd been so
careful. So bloody careful! He had to play for time. Maybe he could catch Snape
by surprise and make this problem go away entirely.
"I'm not certain I understand," Lockhart lied.
"Don't bother denying it," Snape snapped.
a grievous mistake the moment you applied
to hide," Snape said in a tone that could
Defence Professor of Hogwarts. It'll come
"The evidence is quite clear. You made

for this job. If you've got something
freeze an inferno, "don't become the
out eventually."
Lockhart moved his hand to his wand as casually as he could, trying to disguise
the motion as a scratch.
"I wouldn't try it," Snape said, raising his arms from below the desk. He'd had
his wand in hand the whole time, trained on Lockhart under the desk. "Let's not
escalate this further. The only reason I haven't revealed your secret yet is
that, frankly, I didn't care. But your continued presence is fast becoming
inconvenient."
"I... see," Lockhart said. "Let's pretend, for a moment, that you were correct.
What is the point in confronting me like this?"
"To tell you to stop. Now. Presently, I'm content to let the past stay that
waythe past. But if there's even one more, I might give the relevant
authorities the hints they need to connect the trail of victims to you. Or I
might come for you myself. I have yet to make up my mind. Are we clear? Yes?
Good. Dismissed."
Page 558

Lockhart had already left before he realized that he'd just been kicked out of
his own office. He wondered where he was supposed to go now.
One thing was for certain, however: it was high time to update his resume.
oooo
The four of themHermione, Milo, Harry, and Ronwalked out of the library
despondently. They'd given up in disgust as, once more, their research efforts
proved fruitless.
Harry scratched at a bandage wrapped around his head.
"I can't believe Snape banned our Quidditch gear," he complained. "A quaffle did
this. A quaffle!"
"Just be glad it wasn't a bludger," Ron said. "At least you're conscious enough
to complain."
Harry had been hit in the head by a carelessly-thrown quaffle in practice that
morning.
"That's my exact point," Harry said. "A quaffle was all it took. Quidditch is
bloody dangerous. Bloody Snape. I hate that oily, arrogant, petty git."
"Did somebody say Draco Malfoy?" said an (unfortunately) familiar voice. Shortly
after, an (unfortunately) familiar boy stepped around the corner, flanked by his
usual cronies.
"Bloody hell," Ron muttered.
"What do you want this time, Malfoy?" Harry asked impatiently.
Draco leaned with his back against the wall, twirling his wand idly between his
fingers.
"Oh, I think you're well aware of why I'm here, Potter," he sneered.
"Yeah, Potter," sneered Crabbe. "You know why we're here."
"Yeah, Potter," sneered Goyle. "You're cognizant of the grounds for which we are
here."
Idly, Draco tossed a brightly wrapped sweet over his shoulder, which Goyle
caught, unwrapped, and swallowed with practiced speed.
Hermione rolled her eyes. "We don't have time to play your little games, Malfoy.
Why don't you run along and make someone else lament your existence? Just this
once?"
"It's too late for that, I'm afraid," Draco said. "You've fallen directly into
my trap!"
Page 559

"What?" Ron asked bluntly.
"I laid a trail of breadcrumbs so subtle and intricate that you followed them,
like a ratpardon the expression, Weasleysniffing out a particularly delicious
bit of cheese, or a shark smelling a drop of blood in the ocean. But you didn't
realize that I'm the shark, now did you? The shark guarding the cheese. Only
there is no cheese. No. Cheese. At. All." Draco narrowed his eyes menacingly.
"Only the shark."
"Mate," Ron said, "you seem a bit confused."
"Should I take him?" Milo asked Ron, Harry, and Hermione. "Or does one of you
want to?"
Draco, not to be stopped by interruptions or badly mixed metaphors, steamrolled
on obliviously. "It was all me!" Draco declared. "And now it's the end for you!"
"It was you?" Milo asked, genuinely shocked. "You're the"
"Of course it was me!" Draco said. "The notes slipped under the door? The clues
in the Prophet? The dust in the footprints? The missing pages from the library?
The Mandrake root in the sweets? All me!"
"Mandrake root..." Harry heard Milo whisper.
The noise of Harry's, Hermione's, Ron's, and Milo's eyes simultaneously closing
and opening in a quadruple blink of surprise was very nearly audible.
"I warned you not to come back to Hogwarts this year," Draco hissed. "I told you
it would go badly for all of you. That the most fiendish plan ever concocted by
any witch or wizard, living or dead, was in motion against you. All of you. And
now here it is!" Draco paused, as if expecting something to happen. His grin
slipped slightly as he waited in silence.
"In the name of the gods above and below," Milo said, "what the hell are you
talking about?"
"Ah..." Draco stammered. Evidently something was supposed to happen, but hadn't.
Harry was hardly surprised; Draco's 'plans' rarely seemed to go as, well,
planned. After several profoundly awkward seconds, he rallied. "You may think
you're some bigshot, Potter, just because people say you killed
He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named as a squealing baby," Draco spat.
"What?" Milo said suddenly. Harry glanced over at Milo, who had a peculiar
expression on his face.
"If no-one minds," Harry said, drawing his wand. He'd had just about enough of
this. "I think I'll handle this one."
"But you're nothing," Draco continued. "Nothing. Everything you are, everything
you're so bloody famous for, was handed to you! You're completely defined by
Page 560

somebody else's achievements! You'd be nothing without the Dark Lord! Just a
normal, stupid-looking kid with messy bloody hair and a knack for sticking your
nose where it's not wanted."
"I'd have parents," Harry said through clenched teeth. "Which, need I remind
you, is all you seem to have. Now run along before I do something you regret."
"Oh, that's it!" Draco snarled. "Crabbe! Goyle!" he barked at his henchmen.
"Stop messing around and do it."
But Crabbe and Goyle didn't answer. In fact, Harry realized, it had been a long
time since either of them had said anything.
"Hey, Milo," Harry whispered, turning to the side. "I think..." But Milo was
gone. Harry frowned, looking around. He was nowhere to be seen. His pet Mordy,
looking slightly confused, was standing in his place.
oooo
Fiona heard the tires screech in protest as Hannigan slammed on the breaks,
bringing the car to a sudden stop in the snow. The seatbelt locked, pulling her
tight against the stiff chair. Hannigan had committed at least seven
misdemeanors, not including the numerous laws of physics that must have been
broken to get them into London so quickly.
"Right," he said. "Everybody out."
Whoever was in charge was clearly taking this seriously. Paddywagons and the new
Armed Response Vehicles were scattered about in the staging area set up nearby
the target, but out of sight. Heavily armed officers dressed head-to-toe in
black milled about, checking their weapons and equipment, or simply pacing about
to keep warm in the icy air. Other units would be cordoning off nearby streets
to keep civilians out of the way before the raid, and there were even a few
ambulances parked nearby, just in case. Fiona couldn't see them, but she knew
that marksmen would be stationed on nearby roofs and in upper-storey rooms.
Hannigan led them to a small cluster of men gathered about some large radios on
light folding tables that served as a makeshift command post.
"Hannigan!" greeted a tall, clean-cut, rail-thin inspector. He was handsome, in
a severe sort of way. His sideburns were trimmed so sharply that Fiona felt they
should be registered as a lethal weapon. "Better late than never, I suppose."
Hannigan shrugged. "Naturally. Knowing your parties, I figured it'd take at
least a few hours for things to move past the
'showing-off-the-new-doilies-and-curtains' phase." He yawned. "Looks like I was
right." His face broke into a sudden grin, which he hid poorly. Despite their
words, it was pretty clear that they were old friends. "Been what, six months,
McTavish?"
"Eleven," McTavish said. "And it was years, not months." He beckoned for them to
follow him a few yards away from the radio crew. "Are we certain this is for
Page 561

real?" he asked, his voice lowered.
"Positive," Hannigan said seriously.
"Right," McTavish said, running one hand through his close-cropped, graying
hair. "I had to hear you say it in person." He made a vague gesture at the men
surrounding them. "They've been told. They didn't believe me at first. I passed
around that... newspaper... your lot found, but a lot of them are still
half-convinced it's some kind of trick. That it isn't real. I don't think they
want to believe it's real." Fiona was pretty sure McTavish's men weren't the
only ones who didn't want this to be real.
"If this goes smoothly," Hannigan said, "then it won't matter."
"I take it you have some sort of plan, then?" McTavish asked.
"Sergeant Smythe here has been studying our perp's... abilities," Hannigan said.
"She'll brief you."
Fiona swallowed. Even after all the time she'd been spending around Hannigan
recently, she still wasn't particularly comfortable speaking with the brass.
She took a deep breath and spoke. McTavish's face became increasingly pale as
Fiona worked her way from a selection of minor hexes and jinxes, up to the three
allegedly 'Unforgivable Curses.' If they're so unforgivable, Fiona wondered to
herself, how come so many of these murderers are still walking free?
To her surprise, McTavish didn't raise a protest at some of the more
extraordinary facts Fiona mentioned. "That actually explains a lot," he said.
"Back in the early 80s, we turned up dozens of bodies with no apparent cause of
death. They were perfectly healthyexcept for the minor inconvenience that they
were stone dead. It also explains how they stayed hidden for so long." He
sighed. "Partly."
"Sir?" Fiona asked. "I'm not certain I follow."
"Say you could just use magic to control a small number of people completely,"
McTavish said. "Either by this... this imperious curse, or by magical
incentivescures for sick relatives, magical blackmail, that kind of thinghow
would you keep thousands, or maybe millions, of people hidden?"
Fiona's eyes widened. "You think they got to the PM?"
"I would," McTavish said. "And some of the people who actually do things in
government, too. It would also explain why all of these 'mysterious deaths' were
so lightly investigated. If I were them, I'd hang on to the Commissioner like a
lifeline." He straightened himself up. "But none of this is directly relevant to
the task at hand. What do you recommend?"
"Shock and awe, sir," she said. "Get in there and get him in custody before he
even realizes what's happening, much less has time to do sorcery."
Page 562

"Then what?" McTavish asked. "Say we bag him. What's to stop him from just
leaving after?"
"Sedatives, sir," Fiona said. They'd come up with this one in the car. "The book
I read said Apparating takes great concentration. Keep him too doped up to try
it."
"You do know we can't just drug people, don't you?" McTavish pointed out. "We do
have to follow some rules, after all."
"We can if we deem him a danger to himself and others, sir," Fiona said. "Which
shouldn't be too hard to swing. After all," Fiona grinned wickedly, "he seems to
think he's a wizard. Clearly delusional, sir. Maybe dangerously so. Then we
explain to himslowly, and in small wordsthat we'll go to the press if he
doesn't co-operate. His own people will string him up if it gets to that."
McTavish smiled, despite himself. "I like your style, Sergeant," he said. "There
may be a bloody knife fight over who gets to keep you, after this is all said
and done. Ever fancy a gig in the big city? Think about it."
"I..." Fiona stammered. She wasn't quite certain what to say.
"No, you don't need to answer just yet. But either way, I want you coming in
with us. You're the only one here with a real idea of his capabilities, and we
might need you."
Fiona hesitated.
"I know it's not exactly by the book," Hannigan said. "But nothing about this
operation is. Are you in?"
"Yes, sir," she said. "Wouldn't miss it."
"Right." McTavish said as if there was no question in his mind as to what her
answer would be. "Best get suited up, then."
oooo
Milo raced through the hallways as fast as he could. It was all so obvious; he
couldn't believe he hadn't put it together before now.
It was the Mandrake root that should have tipped him off, months ago. He'd been
so caught up looking for a creature that could Petrify that he'd forgotten, once
again, that he was in a different world, now. A world with Mandrake roots.
Mandrake roots that killed with a cry... or, with slightly faulty protection,
knocked people unconscious. It had seemed so unnatural at the time, but Milo
hadn't been able to put his finger on the reason why until right now. With the
exception of spells that dealt damage, almost every single magical effect in the
worldin Milo's worldwas all-or-nothing. You're stunned or you're not. You're
trapped or you're not. You're blind or you're not.
But this was a world with failure in degrees. The Mandrake could kill you, or
Page 563

knock you out, or stun you, or just make you uncomfortable, depending on the
degree of exposure.
Slytherin's Monster was the same as the Mandrake root. It could Petrify youbut
that wasn't what it was famous for. Nobody wrote about how it could Petrify,
because that so rarely happened.
If you took Petrification out of the equation, it was obvious. Incredibly
obvious. Resistance to magic? Speaks Parseltongue? Venomous bite?
Slytherin's Monster was a Basilisk.
Despite the danger, despite the urgency of the situation, and despite the pain
in his legs as he ran, pushing the limits of his pitifully poor Constitution,
Milo felt remarkably calm.
"Circle Dance," he cast for the second time, indicating the direction of the
Basilisk and allowing him to triangulate its position. The spell didn't create
an image of the creaturehe didn't need that, now that he already knew what it
looked likeso its Gaze effect wouldn't kill the spell, as it had when he'd
tried to Scry it.
Everything seemed, for the first time in months, crystal clear.
Milo had a monster to slay. He was prepared for this. He was very, very good at
defeating monsters.
As he ran, Milo removed his Hairpin of Intelligence and placed a bucket over his
head, tightening the chinstrap carefully. The bucketactually a Blindhelmhad no
eyeholes, and completely covered his face. However, the magic of the helmet
allowed him to see perfectly, and actually enhanced his senses. He became aware
of everything within five feet of him, whether he could see it or not.
But that wasn't the reason he'd made it. It was his ace in the hole against
Slytherin's Monster: the helmet would prevent him from making any sort of eye
contact with the Basilisk, thus, in theory, making him immune to its gaze
attack. Against a traditional gaze attack, from Milo's world, it only provided
moderate resistance. But all of his research on the vision-based magic of this
world indicated that a selectively-transparent object, such as this helmet,
should do the trick.
This was going to be almost too easy. Without its most powerful weapon, the
Basilisk would basically just be a big snake. Milo would pin it down with
tentacles, blind it with Glitterdust, and summon a couple of skeletal trolls to
finish the job. The Basilisk could wear its fangs down to nubs on them futilely;
he doubted even its venom would be able to kill what was already dead. That
snake wasn't going to stand a chance.
Milo would find it, kill it, and be back before Draco had finished his rant.
The spell led him to the entrance of a girl's washroom. Milo barged in, heedless
of the improprieties of the situation. It was unoccupiedno students or giant
Page 564

snakes in sight.
"Spontaneous Search," Milo cast. A rush of information flooded his mind. He
knew, suddenly, that there were six bathroom stalls (of which all but one were
out of order), six mirrors (which were coated in dust), five hundred and
seventy-four tiles on the floor (of which seventy-seven were cracked), and five
sinks.
Milo frowned. Five sinks? There were clearly six in front of him.
He took a few steps closer, examining the sinks. To test them, he turned the
handles on each. All but one faucet started pouring water.
Milo looked closer at the apparently-broken sink. The faucet had a tiny snake
carved onto it.
Could this be the entrance? Milo was willing to bet, platinum to coppers, that
the way to open it was with Parseltongue, as he and Hermione had worked out.
Milo only knew one Parselmouth, and he wasn't here right now. Fortunately, that
wouldn't be a problem.
"Tongues," Milo muttered. "Open up."
The sink began to move. It sank smoothly, silently into the floor, leaving a
massively oversized pipe in the floor leading into pitch darkness.
"Dancing Lights," he cast, sending four bright pinpoints of light racing ahead
of him.
Milo stopped, on the edge of the pipe. Should he turn back and return with his
friends? On the one hand, he'd learned several times over that teamwork was
essential. But what he was heading into was dangerous. Like, really, really
dangerous. He only had one Blindhelm to protect him from the Basilisk's gaze. A
slight misstep and they could die. And, near as he could tell, if someone from
this world died, they stayed dead.
No. Milo would handle this one alone. He was ready for it.
Milo reached into his Belt of Hidden Pouches and retrieved his rope (fifty feet
of silk, adventurer standard-issue), tied it to an exposed pipe, and lowered
himself into the darkness.
"Major Image," he whispered, sending an exact likeness of himself down the rope
ahead of him. Most predators hunted primarily by scent, which the improved
version of Silent Image he'd learned for Hannah's Christmas present last year
could replicate convincingly.
Despite everything, Milo smiled.
That oversized snake wasn't going to stand a chance.
Page 565

oooo
Draco waved a hand in front of Crabbe's face.
"Hellooooo," he said. "Earth to Crabbe."
Crabbe didn't respond. In fact, he didn't move at all.
A horrifying thought dawned on Harry.
He made eye contact with Hermione. Her eyes were wide and her face pale. That
was all the confirmation he needed.
"Everybody, close your eyes!" he shouted, clamping his shut. "You too, Malfoy!"
"Oh, come now," Draco said scornfully. "You don't seriously expect me to fall
for that, do you?"
Mordenkainen sniffed at the air once, twice, then scurried into a decorative
suit of armour with the sort of speed brought on by pure terror.
"Ssso clossse... ssso warm... ssso tasssty..."
CC 19: The Boy Who Didn't
Chapter 19: The Boy Who Didn't

In 1976, the Who were declared the record holder for the loudest rock band in
the world after a concert in Charlton. They held that record for eight years
until they were barely beaten out by metal band Manowar.
Fiona's mother was at that concert in Charlton and sat right by one of the
speakers. She'd never fully recovered hearing in her left ear, and often claimed
that sometimes, on a silent, windless night, she could still faintly hear "Baba
O'Riley."
If all twenty-seven thousand members of the audience were carrying an active,
gas-powered chainsaw, the combined noise would be almost half as loud as that
heard by Fiona's mother.
If every show ever performed by the Who had been as loud as the one in Charlton,
their combined noise would be one hundred thousand times louder than the level
required to cause nausea. It would be fifty thousand times louder than the point
at which your vision starts to blur. It would be ten thousand times louder than
the point at which your throat is vibrating so hard you can no longer swallow.
It would be one hundred times louder than the point at which glass shatters. The
noise would be so loud that, beyond simply being deafening, it would destabilize
Page 566

the fluids in your ear, inhibiting your balance as if you were on the far side
of a bender worthy of the rock band in question.
It would have been almost as loud as the noise produced by the flashbang grenade
thrown through the window of the grimy, prewar brick house.
And that's not even getting into the flash part of flashbang. Let's just say,
for the sake of brevity, that it was pretty gosh darn bright and leave it at
that.
Klaxons and auto alarms across the neighbourhood blared in protest and lights
flicked on in windows all down the street as the residents were disturbed from
their slumber.
Before their perp would have any chance to recover, nine of London's finest (and
Fiona, bringing up the rear) stormed in, leaving the cheap wooden door hanging
on its splintered hinges. More police were outside, securing the back or
blockading the front to catch runners. Not, of course, that it would help
muchthese wizards could flee without needing doors.
"POLICE!" someone bellowed.
Inside was a single black-robed figure, sprawled out on the floor. Carrow,
presumably.
Every man and woman of the team had already memorized the layout of the
building, so they broke into three prearranged teams to clear the remaining
rooms while Fiona cuffed the one on the ground.
It is a common misconception that police around the world read from the same
script when making an arrest. It had got to the point that there was a
traditional response among Fiona's coworkers in Staines when, in a movie, a
British copper read someone their very-American Miranda rights. That response
was throwing popcorn at the screen followed by humming "God Save the Queen," for
reasons no-one still around could remember.
There was a script they were supposed to follow, however, although Fiona may
have editorialized it somewhat.
"You're under arrest under suspicion of murder, conspiracy to commit murder,
witchcraft, carrying an offensive weapon, having an offensive face, being an
ugly git, being a part of a criminal organization, and for numerous general
counts of being a really obviously bad guy. You have the right to remain silent,
but anything you do saywhat was that?"
The dark wizard groaned inaudibly.
"You say you're resisting arrest?"
The wizard moaned in discomfort, his eyes unfocussed and dazed. His ears were
bleeding slightly.
Page 567

"You say you're a danger to yourself and others? That you need to be sedated for
your own safety? Well, if you insist. How convenient that we all just so
happened to be issued just such a drug in addition to our standard equipment.
Must have been in error. I'm sure the guys in Logistics will sort it out. But in
the meantime..."
Fiona shot Amycus Carrow full of enough juice to down a rhinoceros and called in
the arrest on her radio.
"Some great and powerful dark wizard you were," she added. "Bit disappointing,
really."
oooo
Milo crept along through the Chamber quietly, Thinblade of Warning held tightly
in one hand. His identical, illusory doppelganger walked twenty feet in front of
him, lookingand smellingidentical to him, surrounded by the four glowing
pinpoints of a Dancing Lights spell. He was protected by as many magical
defences as he was capable of, though, as always, he was uncertain of the
practical effects of, say, a high Armour Class in battle with an opponent who
didn't seem to have an Attack Bonus at all.
Stone pillars lined the hallway, carved with hollow-eyed snakes that seemed to
move whenever he looked away. There was a weird, greenish glow in the place with
no discernible source, except for the obvious: magic. Aside from the light and
the serpentine columns, the vaunted Chamber of Secrets seemed to be sort of
plumbing nexus, which suited Milo just fine. He'd first cut his teeth in
adventuring in a sewer full of kobolds, after all. Of course, back then he'd had
a Rogue, a Cleric, and a Fighter backing him up. He sometimes wondered what had
ever happened to Wellby, Gerard, and Zook. What had they done after defeating
Thamior? He knew Wellby, their Rogue, was planning on discovering some
long-forgotten draconic heritage and dipping into Sorcerer, despite Milo's
urgings to the contrary. With the sort of regular adventuring Milo had been
denied in this bizarre world, Wellby was probably well on his way to maxing out
Unseen Seer by now.
If he ever did make it home, Milo would probably have to do some serious
grinding to catch up.
Milo shook his head, focusing on the task at hand. He could daydream about his
home later.
The fact that the Basilisk lived in Hogwarts' sewer system explained the smell
that Mordenkainen had picked up. The snake couldn't simply use Prestidigitation
to maintain perfect hygiene, the way Milo could.
Milo kept walking, hiding in the shadows behind his illusion, when he
encountered a dead end.
This he hadn't been expecting. It was a sheer stone wall behind a hideous statue
of a rail-thin, bearded fellow in robes. Probably Salad Tsar Slytherin himself,
Milo figured. He'd walked the length of the Chamber, but he hadn't found the
Page 568

snake. Could he have missed it somehow? Were there secret, branching corridors?
Maybe he should walk back to that weird door with the snakes and the emerald
eyes. Maybe he'd missed something. (He hadn't missed the emerald eyes
themselves, naturally, which currently sat happily inside his Belt of Hidden
Pouches and would do so until he next found a shop).
"I think it's about time we had a chat, face-to-face, you and I."
Milo whirled around. Behind him, a tall, black-haired boy was leaning casually
against a pillar, idly twirling a wand between his fingers. He was, quite
simply, beyond handsome.
Handsome in the way that nothing that was entirely, good-old-fashioned, vanilla
human could ever be.
His face was perfect. His face was perfectly symmetrical, his hair was perfectly
combed, his skin perfectly clear. Even his robes were perfectly ironed. Perfect,
as if painted by a middling artist. Good enough to look just like a human, but
not good enough to look like a person. The boy looked... unfinished. There
wasn't a freckle, pimple, pore, or any sort of blemish on him.
A middling artist... or a dabbling illusionist.
oooo
Slytherin's Monster was on them.
That much was obvious to Hermione.
She'd heard it slither past just a moment ago, hissing as it went. It had almost
knocked over the decorative suit of armour she was hiding behind, which,
unfortunately, she shared with Draco Malfoy. Mordenkainen the rat sat on her
shoulder.
"What's going on?" Draco whispered.
"Shhh!" Hermione hissed.
Harry and Ron were hiding in an identical alcove just across the hall, or, at
least, had been running there last time Hermione's eyes had been open.
If only she could figure out just what the creature was. It mostly sounded like
a basiliskthe sheer size of the creature, based off the noise it made, backed
that upbut basilisks killed people with a look, they didn't Petrify them. Milo,
who had handled most of the research on the monsters in the first half of the
alphabet, had insisted it couldn't possibly be a basilisk. If only she could
somehow ask McGonagall, she'd seemed to know immediately what it was.
And, for that matter, how was the bloody beast getting around? The monster
sounded enormous. It would be noticed immediately if it just slithered down the
main hallways, so it had to have some alternate route. Of course, Hogwarts was
chock full of secret passages and rooms. For all she knew, it could have its own
Page 569

secret network riddled throughout the school, connected to the Chamber of
Secrets at its heart. Or, actually, maybe the Chamber was a network of secret
tunnels.
She dismissed that train of thought. If the Chamber was so massive and
pervasive, it would have been discovered long since, secret or no. Heck, the
damage done by the Troll last year would probably have revealed it.
More likely the monster was utilizing a more obvious way of sneaking around. A
second set of passages that mirrored Hogwarts' actual hallways, that allowed one
to pass unseen. One that people couldn'tor wouldn't use.
The answer to that question was fairly obvious. Well, obvious to her, at least.
The pipes. There were multiple bathrooms on every floor, and some places, such
as Snape's potion dungeon and the greenhouses, had additional requirements for
water. The monster could be moving unseen through the pipes of the school, where
nobody would think to look.
No, that was ridiculous. There wasn't a chance that a creature as big as this
one could fit through ordinary plumbing. She'd seen the pipes in the walls and
under the floor when her parents had renovated their house three years ago. An
ordinary snake would have trouble fitting through most of those. Could the
monster perhaps shrink?
Unless...
Hogwarts was magic to the core. The lamps and torches on the walls never needed
relighting or replacing. The hinges never needed oiling. The paintings never
faded.
And the toilets never, ever backed up.
Could it
hard. If
rat, why
the pipe
but that
be that the pipes themselves could expand? It wouldn't even be that

a simple Growth Charm in Transfigurations could double the size of a
couldn't one double the width of a pipe? It would have to detect when
was blocked and expand as needed, increasing the complexity slightly,
was hardly beyond the skill of the founders.
Especially if one of them had ulterior motives.

Expanding pipes was only one possibility. Likely the founders had access to
spells with capabilities Hermione had never even heard of.
But the closest bathroom was on the far side of the floor. It didn't explain how
it could get close enough to Petrify Crabbe and Goyle without being spotted by
anyone. Well. Anyone who spotted it would be Petrified or dead, but surely
someone would have seen the bodies by now.
Hermione frowned. Could the monster have another set of secret passages?
There used to be a little-used hallway that ran right from the girl's bathroom
on this floor to the library. It was a handy shortcut she used on long days
Page 570

spent in the library.
But the hallway had been one of several that disappeared in autumn. Flitwick had
still been unable to determine what had happened to them; it was written up as
typical mysterious Hogwarts behaviour.
But what if that hallway was still there? What if it was just... hidden?
A horrible thought struck Hermione.
Milo had used his illusion magic to hide several hallways, hadn't he? It was one
of the precautions he'd taken in securing their War Room.
Where was Milo, anyway?
oooo
"Who the hell are you?" Milo asked, his words muffled somewhat by the magic
bucket on his head. He was well aware that he looked patently ridiculous, but,
in fairness, he hadn't expected to encounter Mr. Charisma down here. He hadn't
exactly dressed for company. Besides, this boy, whoever he was, would make even
high-level, ultra-fashionable Bards and Sorcerers insecure.
"I," the boy said, "am Tom Riddle."
He said it like someone might say 'I am your King,' or even 'the Lord, your
God.'
"Is that supposed to mean anything to me?" Milo asked. "Because I still have no
idea who you are." Or what you are. Still, the name did seem familiar.
"But I know exactly who you are," Riddle said. "Milo Amastacia-Liadon, Wizard
from beyond. The boy with no past, and no dreams beyond power. The Sorting Hat
made a mistake, with you. You would have done very well in my house."
It didn't take a genius to figure out which house that was. "You're the Heir of
Slytherin," Milo said.
Riddle bowed in a manner so elegant it would have shamed the knights of Myra
(City of Light! City of Magic!). "The one and only," he said, then laughed.
"Miss Granger was wrong, you know. There aren't thousands of us. The line of
Slytherin was never a prolific one. There are but seven of us."
"How do you know what Hermione said?" Milo asked.
"I listened in," Riddle admitted. "Terribly rude of me, I know. It's a flaw I
have."
"Are you... a ghost?" Milo asked. It was the only way he could see Riddle
managing to spy on him without getting caught. Ghosts can move through walls,
so, if Riddle was a ghost, he could simply lurk inside the wall, out of sight.
Page 571

"A ghost? No. Not a ghost. A memory. Preserved in a diary for fifty years."
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Milo said.
"No," replied Riddle. "I'm quite serious."
"I would like to register a complaint," Milo said to the ceiling.
"Oh? I'm all ears," Riddle said.
"No, not with you. I'll get to you in a minute." Milo said, still looking up.
"This was poorly foreshadowed! Who the hell is this Riddle character? What
happened fifty years ago? What in the Prime Material plane does it mean to be a
memory of all things? For gods' sakes, at least when I went up against Quirrell,
I knew who the hell he was, at least. Bad form."
"Who are you talking to?" Riddle asked. "You must realize your gods can't help
you here."
"Screw the gods," Milo said to Riddle. "I'm going over their heads. The DM
really fumbled this one."
"DM?"
"Dimensional Maestro. Whatever. Bring out your damn snake so I can kill it,
already."
"My Basilisk isn't here right now," Riddle said.
"Of course it is," Milo said. "I used magic to pinpoint its location. It's in
this room somewhere; there's no use hiding it."
"The Basilisk is on Hogwarts' second floor," Riddle said matter-of-factly. "It's
in the hallway between the old Transfiguration classroom and the library,
killing your friends."
"What?" Milo said. "That's impossible. My Divinations..."
"Lied to you, I'm afraid." Riddle flashed him a smile. "Or rather, I did. I do
that sometimes. It's another flaw of mine."
Milo rolled his eyes. "All right, all right. Out with it."
"Excuse me?"
"You know
than they
monologue
never get
kill you.
sort of."
you want to. You've got that look. Adventurer's can spot them quicker
can spot the Rogue going for their purses. You're just dying to
at me. So out with it. I even promise to say 'you fiend!' and 'you'll
away with this!' at the opportune moments, if you want. Then I get to
See? Something in it for the both of us. We both go home happy. Well,
Page 572

"Why should I... monologue... when you already know what happened?" Riddle
asked.
Milo rolled his eyes. "Fine, fine. We'll do it your way. So your name is Tom
Riddle and you're a memory in a..." Milo finally realized where he'd seen the
name Tom Riddle before. He suddenly felt very small. Very small indeed. Small
and overconfident. "...in a diary."
"Now you're catching on," Riddle said.
"It was that book we found on Quirrell, wasn't it?" Milo asked. "Last year, when
he went after the Philosopher's Stone. He had the diary." It all seemed so
obvious, now. "That's the book the Death Eaters were after. They snuck in,
posing as students, to get you."
Riddle smiled. "Go on," he said, as if talking to a favourite dog. "You're
getting it, now."
"The diary that... that I..."
"Just say it," Riddle said. "The first step, when you have a problem, is
admitting it, I've been told. Or was it the last step? It's the same in the end,
either way."
Milo's voice fell to a whisper. He felt weak, as if the he'd been drained by a
Wight. Somewhere in the unimportant background, his sword clattered to the
ground. "But I was protected!" he said desperately. "I'm wearing an amulet!"
"But you weren't always wearing it, were you?" Riddle asked. "You took it
off..."
"When I freed Quirrel," Milo said. He slid against the wall. Dimly, he was aware
that Riddle seemed to be getting more substantial, more real, as they spoke. "I
clamped my own amulet around his neck to free him of You-Know-Who's influence. I
was vulnerable. I..."
"Yes?"
"I made another amulet!" Milo practically shouted, pulling it out from under his
robes. The Eye of Boccob carved on the amulet seemed to wink at him
reassuringly. "I'm wearing it right now!" Milo pulled himself together and stood
up. He hadn't realized he was on the floor. "Kelgore's Fire Bolt!" he shouted.
He didn't care that it wasn't the most efficient or effective spell. He wanted
that smug, perfect face to burn.
Nothing happened.
Milo blinked. That was weird.
"Glitterdust!" Nothing. "Evard's Black Tentacles!" Nothing. "Summon Skeletal
Troll!" Nothing. He didn't understand. He executed the somatic and verbal
components perfectly. His Dancing Lights were still floating around, so he
Page 573

wasn't in an antimagic field. It was as if he was out of spell slots, but that
was impossible. He'd been keeping track of them rigorously. He had plenty of
spells left for today. Didn't he?
"The funny thing about your abominable brand of magic," Riddle said, "is that
it's based on memory. You memorize your spells in the morning, and you forget
them when you cast. You have to remember what spells you have ready and what you
don't. And of all people, I know best the strength of a memory. The strength...
and the weaknesses." Riddle smiled again. "In particular, memories are all too
easy to... forget."
"The amulet is cursed," Milo realized. He'd had a similar idea when making
amulets for the Ministry. "You made me make a cursed amulet. It works against
everything but you. I did it right after I..."
"Say it."
There was no use denying it any further. Milo knew exactly what had happened.
"I cast Scholar's Touch. I read your book."
"You did more than just read it," Riddle said. "You did what nobody's ever done
before. You read every page. Every page. Every possible page. Everything that I
could ever say, ever do, ever remember. Everything. Every possibility. You
didn't just read me," Riddle said, "you copied me."
"That's impossible," Milo said flatly. "Scholar's Touch specifically has no
effect when reading a magical book. It's right there in the description."
"But I wasn't magical, was I?" Riddle said. "Not in the way the designers of
that spell meant, anyway. Not magical in the way you and your... kind are
concerned."
"But the creators of the spell clearly intended it to prevent this sort of..."
Milo trailed off. He couldn't believe that he of all people just resorted to an
argument that hinged on the intent of the text. It made him feel slightly dirty,
as if he'd betrayed his core principles. In a way, he had.
Milo suddenly remembered something that made this so much worse. "The original,"
he said. "Ron was going to give it to Ginny."
"Just a ratty old book, now," Riddle shrugged. "I checked. Or rather, you did.
One of many things you've since conveniently forgotten. I could tell you why,
but, well, then I'd have to kill you."
"So why not tell me anyway?" Milo asked. "I mean, what have you got to lose?
It's not like I could tell anybody, even if I wanted to." It was the bane of
villains everywhere: they're all just dying to tell you their clever plans. How
else will they get the appreciation they desperately crave?
"Fair point," Riddle said. "But I think the explanation would be quite wasted on
you. It all revolves around souls, of course, and you know less than nothing
Page 574

about those anyway. Believe me, I'd know. I was in your head all year. Let's
just say it takes a... special sort of ritual to split a soul, and you weren't
up to it. So I was transferred, rather than copied."
"So... why?" Milo asked. "You were Petrifying people completely at random. Why
bother? How could that possibly help you?"
"Why, revenge, of course," Riddle said. "As well as planning for the future."
"Ah," Milo said. "Dumbledore."
"Exactly. When it came time for my triumphant return, I would need Dumbledore
out of the way. Dumbledore was always most powerful as a figurehead, a rallying
point. I could simply kill him, of course, but that would just make a martyr out
of him."
"So you disgraced him," Milo said. "Made him seem incompetent. Like he didn't
care about the safety of people's children."
"Naturally. I can always kill him later. Then I had to take out his Deputy,
because, well, she's his puppet, obviously. I wanted Hogwarts under someone
more... amenable to my position. Snape would do nicely. I couldn't simply kill
the undesirables, no matter how much I wanted to, or they'd close down my
school. So I had to Petrify them. You would not believe the lengths I've had to
go through to set that up. It was a fine line to walk, but it's quite beside the
point now."
"That doesn't explain what you meant by revenge," Milo said. "Or why the
Basilisk is upstairs, fighting my friends."
"Killing," Riddle snapped. "Killing your friends."
oooo
There was a crash and a series of tinkles, as if glass had been broken. Then
again, and again. What was going on? What was the monster breaking? The only
thing Harry could think of that was glass nearby were the picture frames, but
why would Slytherin's monster attack them? Where was Milo? Had the monster got
him? Was he enacting a clever plan?
"What do we do?" Ron whispered.
"I could distract it," Harry whispered back, "while you put on my Cloak and run
for help. Try to find Flitwick or Sprout. Or even Lockhart, I guess."
"What," Ron said, "and leave you to get eaten by a giant bloody snake? Not
likely. How about I distract it while you run for help?"
"Stop being such a bloody Gryffindor," Harry said. "I'm a better duellist than
you. It should be me that fights it."
"The snake's resistant to magic and you know it," Ron said. "How about we both
Page 575

slink away under the Cloak?"
"And leave Hermione to the snake? Besides, Milo said magic items only work on
one person."
"Then how about Draco distracts it while all three of us escape under the
Cloak?"
"If only."
"Oh!" Ron said. "Use Parseltongue!"
"You're a Parselmouth! Tell it to go away. Or eat Malfoy, then go away."
"Ron, you're a genius!" Harry couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it earlier.
Of course he should use his snake-controlling ability to control the giant snake
monster. It was blindingly obvious. He fished the Cloak out from his school bag.
"Here, hang on to this," he said, pushing it into Ron's hands.
"Oy!" Harry shouted into the hallway. "Slytherin's Monster! Bugger off!"
"English!" Ron hissed frantically. "That was just English!"
Harry tried to concentratethough he wasn't sure what to concentrate on, he'd
never really been aware of when he was speaking Parseltongue and when he
wasn'tand spoke again.
"Beast of Slytherin!" he tried again. "Begone!"
"Yup," Ron said. "Snake language, that time.
The sound of breaking glass stopped.
"what's this? the master? has the Power... but different..."
"I'm your master, now! Begone!" Harry shouted again. Or at least he thought he
did; he wasn't entirely certain what it sounded like to Ron.
"...come out then, young master..." Slytherin's Monster replied. "...let me see
you... so I will know who to spare..."
"What's happening?" Ron asked.
"It wants me to come out," Harry said.
"Fat chance of that," Ron muttered.
"Yeah..." Harry whispered back. "I have a plan. Run when you get the chance,
right? Right."
Page 576

"What? Hold up!" Ron said.
Harry stood up and drew his wand. The monster was obviously playing a trick on
himit had all the subtlety of a nursery rhyme villainbut he might be able to
buy time enough for the others to get away.
Something hard and heavy hit him in the forehead. It was so surprising that he
couldn't help but flinch.
Harry's eyes snapped open reflexively, if only for a millisecond. It was long
enough, however.
He saw a snake, but not the one he was expecting.
Carved onto the back of the wooden picture frame was a small, neat glyph of a
snake in sepia.
oooo
"Your name isn't Tom Riddle, is it?" Milo asked. "Not anymore."
"No, it isn't," Riddle answered, as if it were the most obvious thing in the
world.
"Voldemort," Milo spat. "You're after Harry because he killed you."
It only lasted for a moment. Under other circumstances, Milo would have
attributed it to a trick of the light, but it was impossible. The light here was
green; there's no way it could have made Riddle's eyes flash red.
"That raving lunatic upstairs said it," Riddle said. "I thought he was mistaken,
so I made you Apparate away"
"Teleport," Milo said. "By means of the Astral Plane. Please, get your facts
right."
"So I made you teleport away and interrogated you. Turns out he was right,
somehow. I'd always assumed it was Dumbledore who put an end to me, the other
me. He's the only one who it made even a lick of sense to have done it."
"Which explains the revenge aspect," Milo said. "That must sting, though.
Finding out you'd been undone by a newborn." Milo knew he was in no position to
talk; he'd been defeated by a book.
"A two-year-old, thank you very much," Riddle bristled.
"Oh, well then. That made all the difference, I'm sure. He must have
over-powered you, with his superior strength and cunning."
"I'd show some respect, if I were you," Riddle snapped, brandishing what Milo
recognized finally as that carried by the Death Eater he had switched places
with.
Page 577

"What have you ever done that deserves respect?" Milo asked. "You were defeated
by an infant."
"You're attempting to goad me into rash action," Riddle said, lowering his wand.
"It won't work. I'm well aware that, for the moment, I need you alive or I will
cease to be."
"For the moment?"
"For the moment. Shortly, the point will be moot. I continue to grow in
strength, and you will fade. In a matter of minutes, young Wizard, you will die,
and I will rise again. It's been very inconvenient, operating through you. You
can't do any magicreal magicwhatsoever, so I've had to rely on your inferior
variety. Then there's that rat you have such an unwholesome relationship with.
That pest was almost my undoing. How would I ever get you alone with it tagging
along? Then you made a blunder."
"The Sorting," Milo realized. "I left him to keep an eye on it while I went to
spy on Lockhart."
"And do certain other things, as it turned out. Favours for me, you could say."
Riddle smiled. "You made your first visit here on that day, before returning. I
implanted the idea in your head to use that rat to patrol the corridors at
night, freeing you for my purposes. From that moment, your soul was mine. I
could implant ideas, and smother others. Didn't you ever wonder why you never
thought to investigate the last opening of the Chamber? That it never led you to
that great oaf Hagrid?" Riddle grinned wickedly. "When was the last time you saw
Hagrid anyway, Milo? The lack of... foreshadowing... you were complaining about
earlier? That was my doing. You're mine now, freak."
"And you used me to... what, take out Peeves? For what possible reason?"
"To test my control of the Basilisk using you as a proxy," Riddle said. "If it
went poorly and the Basilisk got out of control, it wouldn't do enough serious
damage to have the school shut down. Well, likely not. Besides, I despise that
poltergeist. There is no place for it in my new world."
"So, now what? Take out the Boy Who Lived so there will be nothing standing in
the way of your return?"
"Precisely," Riddle said. "And thanks to you, I've even got my very own cell of
Death Eaters, following my every order, heralding my return."
"Oh," Milo said. "Crap. That's why I let them go. You made me do it."
"And as my first act as their new leader," Riddle said, "I will sow the seeds of
death and chaos. I'm afraid the Muggles are in for a bad day. Their first of
many."
oooo
Page 578

The other police filed back into the room, pulling down their intimidating black
balaclavas, and reported. The team leadersMcTavish, Buckley, and Lyndonsaid
they hadn't found anyone else.
"But the kitchen was empty," Lyndon, a tough brunette who might have been pretty
if her nose hadn't been so severely broken, said. "As in, really empty. Bare
shelves. Didn't they say that we found this guy because he was at a
supermarket?"
"Yeah..." Fiona said. "Huh." She frowned. "Did anybody find a wand anywhere? A
plain wooden stick of about a foot or less?"
There was a collection of shrugs.
Fiona patted Carrow down. There was a pocket sewn into his robe that looked like
it might be a wand holster, but it was empty.
What the heck? If she had a little stick that gave her unrivalled supernatural
powers, she'd make certain it was always within easy reach. In fact, she'd
probably get a spare, just in case.
"I think" McTavish said. Fiona never did find out what it was that he thought,
because Baldwin shot him in the head.
The lights flickered out, and there was a short series of loud, popping noises.
The door slammed shut.
Then the dying started.
The world flickered green and black, like a strobe light of death.
The moment the lights went out, Fiona had hit the ground. She knew what was
coming.
Some of the other officers either hadn't taken her warnings seriously, or they
hadn't had the time to act. She saw Buckley and a pair of policemen whose names
she didn't knowa fact she deeply regretted, nowcollapse, limp.
She wasn't sure who started it, but someone panicked and started shooting.
Others joined in soon after. Uneven, staccato bursts of panic fire further lit
up the unnaturally dark room. She cursed whatever idiot was doing itin the mad
lighting and chaos, they were as likely to hit one of their own as... well, as
whoever was doing the magic. Unless they weren't acting under their own will.
She was sure Baldwin, at least, was under their spell.
There was a pounding on the front door, a solid, rhythmic sound. It took her a
moment to realize it was from a police battering ram. She'd never before heard
what that sounded like from this side of the door. But it meant help was coming,
at least.
The pounding continued.
Page 579

Or was it? It had only taken them a single hit to open the door the first time,
and it had been locked. The door was a cheap, faux-wood model. No earthly force
could keep intact under that kind of impact.
She was trapped.
oooo
"You've made a mistake," Milo said. "A critical mistake. Four, actually."
"And what might they be?" Riddle asked.
"Mistake one," Milo said, holding up one finger. "Snakes aren't the only animals
that hunt by smell."
oooo
"Now!" Hermione shouted. She heard a slight whoosh as the rat on her shoulder
fired one of his bracer-launched knuts.
Slytherin's Monster was resistant to magic.
Milo's sort of magic as well as her own, so
Runes scratched onto the knut as if it were
hopelessly futile plan that would, at best,
ate the lot of them.
Hermione had to assume that covered

monster would ignore the Explosive
a light sea breeze. It was a
distract it for a moment before it
But that was why Mordenkainen, who had pinpointed the monster by its distinctive
scent, hadn't fired at the snake itself.
It had fired at the ceiling above it.
Multiple tonnes of ancient stone bricks poured down onto the monster. The dust
and wind from the rock avalanche was enough to make Hermione stagger backwards.
"Did we get it, Mordy?" Hermione asked. "One squeak yes, two squeaks no."
"Squeak."
Hermione let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.
"Squeak squeak!"
She could hear stones rolling over each other, now. If only she could see. She
had no idea what was going on...
A thought struck her.
"Harry!" she said. "Pass me the Cloak!"
"Uh," it was Ron's voice. "It sort of... got Harry."
"What?" Hermione was shocked. When had that happened? Had the monster killed one
Page 580

of her only friends while she cowered behind a suit of armour? "What do you
mean?"
"He's stuck in one of those... one of Milo's amber things," Ron said. "Like the
one in Gryffindor Tower."
"Then we're dead," Hermione said. She could hear more bricks rolling off of each
other. One touched her foot, making her jump. That Cloak had been her only plan.
"Squeak squeak squeak squeak!" Mordy kept insisting.
"He gave it to me," Ron said. "Here..." She heard footsteps as Ron blindly
staggered in her general direction. She reached about with her arms clumsily to
try and find him. It was like playing a morbid game of Marco Polo.
Eventually, her hands brushed his shoulder, and he passed Harry's Invisibility
Cloak into her hands.
"Wingardium Leviosa. I'm going to float this thing over the snake's head. If
it's head is invisible, we don't need to worry about meeting its gaze. So,
Mordy, squeak once if I should go left, twice if I should go right..." Then she
realized, abruptly, how stupid that plan was. Mordy could smell, he couldn't
see. There was no way he would be able to pinpoint the location of the Cloak in
the air that way.
More debris rolled across the floor.
"SQUEAK SQUEAK SQUEAK SQUEAK!"
"Fire another one!"
There was second blast, and stone flew everywhere. The next thing Hermione knew,
a freight train slammed into her.
Hermione was flung from her feet and landed awkwardly on her side before sliding
into something solid and mercilessly unyielding.
oooo
"Mistake two," Milo said. He was lying on the ground. When had that happened?
"Muggles are pretty badass." Milo had already made that particular mistake,
once.
oooo
Fiona hadn't waited for the magic to start before she dropped to the ground. The
visibility was poor, the situation was confusing, the enemy's capabilities were
unknown and friend and foe were mixed haphazardly. It was complete, utter,
merciless, unmitigated chaos.
But there was no reason that that couldn't work for her as well as it did for
these wizards.
Page 581

Nobody was paying any attention to her. There were people dropping left and
right; what was one more harmless Muggle?
The wizards were using mobility and deception as their primary defence. They
were Apparating or Disapparating or whatever whenever one of the surviving
policemen or women aimed at them, and more often than not by the time the
trigger was pulled, the police hit nothing but the wall. It was fast. Anarchic.
They were nigh-unhittable.
But they weren't invincible.
Fiona saw Lyndon make a snap-shot connect with one robed figure's shin before he
could Disapparate. The wizard's leg buckled underneath him, and he fell to the
floor in a cry of pain. Another wizard grabbed the first and winked out of
existence. A moment later, when he returned, it was alone.
The wizard aimed his wand directly at Lyndon's back. She would be dead in
seconds, and she had no idea. There was nothing she could do, even if she knew.
Fortunately, Lyndon wasn't alone. The wizard had made the critical error of
Apparating within a meter of Fiona, presuming her dead.
Fiona kicked the wizard in the knee with everything she had, which was probably
overkill. Knees have to support a lot of weight but also have a wide range of
mobility, and as a result they're extremely vulnerable. The kneecap popped, and
the wizard screamed in agony as he fell to the ground. Fiona grabbed the wand
from his hand and tossed it across the room.
A masked witch noticed Fiona's surprise attack and aimed her wand at her,
already in the process of casting a spell. In desperation, Fiona grabbed the
fallen wizard by the shoulders and rolled him on top of her. The wizard put up a
struggle, but had absolutely no sense of the co-ordination and control needed in
a hand-to-hand struggle like this. There was a green flash, and the wizard went
limp in Fiona's arms.
The momentary distraction was all Lyndon needed. Her gun roared and the witch
crumpled.
Two more wizards and another witch whirled to aim at Lyndon, but she dived
through the door into the next room over. Green pinpricks of light shot through
the open doorway after her.
That left Fiona as the only active officer left in the room. Baldwin was still
standing with his gun in hand, aiming at empty space. He hadn't moved since
killing McTavish. Evidently, the witch or wizard controlling him had other
things on their mind. Cooper lay propped up by the door to the kitchen, bleeding
from a bullet wound to the gut.
Fiona was about to die. That was the long and the short of it. There were now
five cold killers of supernatural power aiming lethal weapons at her, and she
was largely without cover, save for the corpse of their friend lying on top of
Page 582

her. She'd been told, largely from movies, that in such situations time slowed
down. As if she would have the good fortune. Her heart pounded, and she could
taste nothing but adrenaline. Time seemed to be going faster and faster, as if
in a race with her racing heartbeat.
It was an awkward angle, but she could probably draw her handgun from beneath
the dead wizard. Not that it would do much couldshe was a lousy shot. Ordinary
British police generally didn't carry firearms, and the only reason she had one
now was because McTavish had insisted she not be defenceless. If she could just
take out the one that was controlling Baldwin, then he could potentially help.
Or if she got the one keeping the door closed, maybe it would allow the
reinforcements hammering at the door to get in. The only problemwell, aside
from those previously mentionedwas that she had no idea who it was who was
doing that. Come to think of it, she didn't even know if the spell would end if
its caster died.
Screw that, she decided. She had time to do one thing, and that one thing didn't
necessarily need to keep her from dying. All she needed to do was distract them,
and hope that Lyndonif she was still alivecould take it from there.
Fiona ripped a flashbang grenade from her vest and tossed it in the general
direction of the cluster of dark wizards and witches.
The stun grenade would certainly daze the murderers into inaction. They would be
disoriented, blind, and deaf. Using magic or Disapparating would be impossible.
It was the winning move.
The only problem, a teeny little glitch in the overall plan, was that the
grenade had a two-second fuse.
Fiona estimated that it only took about a second, a second and a half tops, to
cast a killing curse.
"Avada Kedav"
A gun roared once, twice, three times.
Here's the thing about gunshots. All loud noises, really. Unless you're used to
themand it's very hard to get used to themit's extremely difficult not to look
around for their source when you hear one. At the very least, its
nigh-impossible not to flinch, even a little. It's a hindbrain response, a gut
instinct. You can't avoid it just by being tough or menacing, you have to be
trained to be used to it.
And Fiona would bet her lifewas betting her life, reallythat not one of these
Ringwraith-wannabes had ever had their headgear slip on the firing range.
A little flinch. But when all you're aiming with is a wand that weighs an ounce
or two at the largest and your hand is already shaking from adrenaline and
panting and two of your comrades had just died in front of you and its dark and
beneath everything you're scared...
Page 583

Well, sometimes a little flinch is all it takes.
"ra!"
Fiona kicked the dead wizard from off of her and dived left, landing in a roll.
She could tell by the fact that she was still alive that the death curses had
missed her.
Fiona had a split-second to remember to slam her eyes shut and cover her ears.
Then the world went white.
oooo
"Mistake three," Milo held up a third finger. He had to use his left hand to
support his right, now. "Hermione Granger."
oooo
"Ron?" Hermione called out tentatively.
Her left arm hurt. It hurt so much that simply saying 'it hurt' seemed laughably
inaccurate. It really, really hurt. The pain in her arm was her whole world. She
suspected she'd been hit by one of the falling rocks.
"Malfoy?" she asked.
"Y-yes?" Draco stammered back.
"How about you run and get help?"
Judging by the footsteps, Draco was gone faster than the snacks at a ten-year
Hufflepuff reunion party. Hermione wanted nothing more than to follow him, but
that would leave Ron and Harry to the creature. Assuming, of course, they were
alive. She only had Milo's increasingly-suspicious word that the Snake Sigil
spell was harmless, and she had no idea what had happened to Ron.
"Mordy?"
"Squeak."
"Do you still know where the Cloak is?"
"Squeak squeak." Curses. It probably wound up buried, or worse, wrapped around a
rock or something. It could take hours to find, if so.
"Do you have any more of those knuts?"
"Squeak squeak."
Page 584

"Figures. You got anything else up your sle"
"SQUEAK SQUEAK SQUEAK!"
The monster moved. Clearly, it had finally freed itself from the mountain of
rubble Mordy had dropped on it.
A creature as big as this one seemedand Hermione really was just guessing here;
she'd obviously never seen itwould likely have a hard time manoeuvring in the
narrow hallway. Its speed wouldn't help it, then. Actually, it might work
against it: there was every possibility it would keep moving past her for a
second or two if she could just avoid its initial charge.
Hermione, panicking, decided to roll to the left, which was sort of a mixed bag
as it turned out. On the one hand, she was still alive, which meant she'd
avoided the monster. On the other hand, she'd placed the weight of her whole
body on her injured limb, which was bad. Really bad.
Hermione screamed and clutched her shoulder reflexively, which just seemed to
make things worse. The rest of the world seemed distant, unimportant, compared
to the agony of her arm.
By the time she'd managed to refocus, she'd already squandered her brief
advantage.
The basiliskshe was pretty certain that's what it was, it being obvious if you
ignored everything Milo had saidwas coming back towards her.
Panicked, she reached about with her good arm for something, anything, with
which to defend herself. It was futile, she knew, but what else could she do?
She could smell the creature, now. A foul stench of death and decay mixed with
an open cesspool that made her want to gag.
She felt a crushing weight on her legs as it slithered on top of her, its hot,
damp breath smelling of rotten meat. It hissed something unintelligible in
Parseltongue, wrapping her up in its coils. She could imagine its hooked, fanged
maw opening up to swallow her like a mouse.
Her hand grasped something cold, round, and heavy. She had no idea what it was,
but she swung with everything she could, putting her whole body into it.
Snickersnack!
Hermione barely felt any resistance at all. The hissing stopped, followed by a
pair of heavy thuds. Hermione shuffled out from under the still snake, finally
daring to open her eyes.
The basilisk was dead. Really, incredibly dead. She doubted, in fact, that
anything could possibly be more dead.
Page 585

Its head was completely severed from its body; scales, flesh, and bone sheared
through like a knife through warm clich.
In her right hand, she held a ridiculously ornate sword. Its golden hilt was
studded with rubies, and its blade shone like silver. It belonged in a museum,
or, frankly, on the Queen's wall. A clinical, investigative part of her brain
noted idly that its handle must have been enchantedit didn't slip despite her
hand being coated in sweat.
She recognized it, of course. There was a picture of the Sword of Godric
Gryffindor in the chapter headings of Hogwarts: A History. She remembered
thinking that it must have been an artist taking liberties; no non-ceremonial
weapon would be so... garish.
Clearly, she'd been wrong. It had cut through the basilisk so cleanly that there
wasn't even any blood on the blade. It was like Slytherin's Monster had only
realized it was dead afterwards.
Where in Merlin's name had it come from?
She tabled that mystery for later, first going to check on Ron and Harry.
Harry was, as Ron said, trapped in the telltale amber force field of Milo's
Sepia Snake Sigil. This meant, horrifyingly, that he would miss the Charms exam
next weekassuming the spell would actually end when Milo said it would. Milo...
she'd deal with him, later.
Ron was sprawled across the floor, an ugly welt on his head. He was
but apparently unconscious. He could have serious internal injuries
fractured skull, but Hermione wasn't certain either how to check or
should do if he did, so decided to wait for Madam Pomfrey to handle
ever actually returned with help.
breathing,
or a
what she
it if Draco
Mordy was sniffing the sword curiously. He was so coated in dust that he looked
gray rather than brown. He looked slightly battered, but otherwise fine.
Hermione wasn't particularly worriedMordenkainen worked like Milo did. As long
as he wasn't actually dead, he'd recover in a few days.
At some point, she'd have to find her wand, the Invisibility Cloak, give the
Sword of Godric Gryffindor to the proper authorities, and explain why there was
a schoolbus-sized dead snake in the hallway, but first, she decided, lying down
seemed very attractive.
oooo
"Mistake four," Milo said. He couldn't even raise his hand, anymore. "Your last
mistake. And it's a big one."
Riddle kicked Milo squarely in the stomach.
"And what could that possibly be?" he asked, his wand pointed at Milo's
forehead. "What mistake could I have possibly made that will save you, now? The
Page 586

process is almost complete. Your soul is mine. All I have to do is finish you
off, and I will be free, and you will be dead. You are alone. You have no
weapons, no magic, no tricks, no power, and no friends. You are completely,
utterly, pathetically helpless."
Milo grinned. "You'll see."
Riddle shrugged. "Crucio."
There is no adequate way to convey what the Cruciatus Curse feels like, because
it doesn't feel like anything. It's easy to describe what a burn feels like
because most people know what it feels like. Anyone who's learned to cook know
the feeling when some boiling hot water or oil flies out of the pot and sears
your arm. Anyone who's fallen on concrete knows what a skinned knee feels like.
Nobody who hasn't experienced the Cruciatus Curse firsthandfortunately, a very
small pool of peoplecan imagine what it feels like.
The Cruciatus Curse isn't, for example, the physical equivalent of being cursed
with the last breath of a dying loved one. It isn't that because it's quite
possible for the human brain to imagine what that feels like with a reasonable
degree of accuracy, extrapolating from past experiences. And it isn't like being
slowly dipped into boiling hot water, or like being lit on fire, because massive
physical trauma will eventually sever nerve connections. At the very least, they
will eventually cease functioning as intended. The Cruciatus Curse will keep
your nerves functioning perfectly for the duration. The Cruciatus Curse causes
the Platonic ideal of pain. All other pains are but imperfect approximations of
what the Cruciatus Curse can cause.
But for all of that, it's only pain, and pain is only a feeling. Pain is a
signal from your nerves to your brain for your benefit. It is to teach you that
what you were doing was stupid, and you shouldn't do it again.
But people knew that, and it doesn't stop them from giving in to pain. People
betray families, ideals, and nations to escape pain. But those are the people of
this world, this plane.
To the people of Milo's world, pain is something else entirely.
Some feelings are real. Fear is real, and it could make or break battles.
Exhaustion is real. Courage is real, and is a Bard's most powerful weapon.
Temperature, hunger, and thirst are real.
But pain? Pain is imaginary. There is no status effect called 'Pain'. One of the
few spells that weaponizes pain, Symbol of Pain, is deadly not for the torment
it causes, but the hefty penalty to attack rolls it imposes. Pain isn't even
fluff. Pain is less than fluff.
Pain is roleplaying.
Milo shut down the part of his character that cared about pain for the moment.
The agony was still there, but it simple ceased to matter. He stopped thrashing
Page 587

around on the ground.
Riddle frowned.
"Crucio," he cast again. "CRUCIO."
Free of the pain, Milo was able to consider his plan. It was a gamble, but if it
worked, it would be Riddle's death blow.
It was memory. This was all about memory. Riddle was a memory, and he was
controlling Milo through his memories. Milo's memories were malleable; they
could, demonstrably, be removed and altered. Riddle could make Milo forget his
memorized spells (or, and Milo found this more likely but less glamorous, make
him repeatedly cast them at the wall until they were gone and then make him
forget).
But there was a part of every adventurer's memories that were sacred, and no
force in the multiverse could affect them. The gods couldn't touch it, and not
even the Destiny Manipulator had any power there.
The greatest weapon of adventurers is not their weapons, or their magic, or
their skills, their feats, their powers, or their class features.
It is their backstory.
There are constraints on a backstory. A backstory cannot grant any information
not represented by the appropriate Knowledge skill, a backstory cannot grant any
possessions beyond starting gold, and a backstory cannot grant followers beyond
those attainable by Leadership.
But a backstory can do pretty much anything else.
As long as it happened before he became an adventurer, Milo could remember
pretty much whatever he wanted.
Riddle was preparing to cast his death curse, but that didn't matter to Milo. If
talking is a free action, then thinking sure as hell is.
Harry Potter defeated the greatest dark wizard that ever lived using his
backstory, and right now, Milo was in a position to do exactly the same thing.
All it would cost him is his mother.
All Milo needed to do was remember that his mother had given her life to save
him from a dark wizard, and he was protected, the same as Harry.
He might even 'remember' that he had a cool, magic scar. Adventurers love cool
scars.
That would be all it took. If Milo did that, he would walk away from this
unscathed, and Voldemort would once more be defeated.
Page 588

"My mother..." Milo said. Or tried to, anyway. His throat felt terribly weak.
All it would cost him was something he didn't really have to begin with. Unless
he specifically remembered doing so, he effectively had no family. It wasn't as
if was sacrificing anything. It wasn't as if he was killing her, was it? For all
intents and purposes, she didn't even exist, yet. Most adventurers were orphans,
or missing at least one parent. It wasn't like Milo would be unusual in that
regard. It was easier, that way. Fewer names to think of for one's backstory.
"What was that?" Riddle asked. "Crying for your mother already, are we? I'm
terribly disappointed. Not surprised, mind. But disappointed." Riddleno,
Voldemortpinned Milo to the ground with his foot and pointed his wand directly
at Milo's forehead. "No matter. Stoic or begging, It's all the same once I kill
you."
Milo knew what he had to do. It was the smart thing to do. The rational thing to
do. The optimal thing to do. What was one semi-existent life in comparison to
the death and destruction that a second Voldemort would wreak? The choice was
obvious, after weighing the pros and cons for even a moment.
Milo cleared his throat. He could taste blood. "My mother is a baker." A baker.
That was good. It explained Milo's newfound obsession with sweets. "Her name is
Ley Amastacia, and she's famed far and wide for her gourmet desserts." He was
new at this. Untested. "She's a retired Wizard, but she refuses to use magic to
assist in her baking. She says she likes it better that way, that using magic
ruins the fun of it. Besides, she wants to be able to say she's the best without
resorting to performance-enhancing spells. It's something I never understood
until right now. But none of that's what's important. The important thing is
she's happy. She misses me, but she's got my dad, my brothers, and my sisters.
She's happy. She's really, incredibly, obnoxiously happy and there's not a damn
thing you can do about that."
"Fascinating," Voldemort said. "Avada Kedavra."
oooooo
Author's Notes: Yes, this is the end of Part Two (saving an Epilogue, coming
soon), but no, it is not the end of Milo's adventures or of Harry Potter and the
Natural 20. Stay tuned for Part Three, tentatively named Harry Potter and the
Save-Or-Die, coming in Summer.
One fundamental flaw with traditional paper novels is that you always know
exactly how close you are to the end of the book, simply by virtue of there
being few pages left. In that sense, it was refreshing to write in a medium such
as this, because the end could be a surprise (especially because HP books
traditionally end in early summer/late spring, not early winter).
I would like to thank everybody for the awesome reviews, kind PMs, suggestions,
and support! You guys are just about the best community of readers an author
could ask for. It was especially fun seeing people's reactions to some of Milo's
more obvious Possession-induced fumbles and their guesses as to why he would be
acting that way. I branched out a little further from canon in this book, adding
Page 589

in a subplot with original characters (always a risk in any fan work), but I
think it worked out overall, so don't be surprised if things diverge a little
further in the future.
tl;dr: You guys are awesome and should feel awesome. Epilogue and sequel coming
soon.
CC Epilogue: Awakenings
Epilogue: AwakeningsHermione realized she'd been staring at the unfamiliar

ceiling for several hours without properly registering it. Or possibly several
seconds. Or maybe she'd dreamed it.
Waking up is like that, sometimes.
It was then that she discovered that quite literally everything hurt.
She made an undignified groan, and realized she was in the hospital wing.
"Good morning to you, too," a voice said brightly. She recognized it
immediately.
"Professor Dumbledore?" Hermione asked. The smiling Headmaster was sitting on a
stool by her cot, an expression on his face that she couldn't quite place. "Wh"
"Ah, first, may I make a correction, and then a request?" Dumbledore said.
"Er. Of course."
"I'm not, strictly speaking, a professor at the moment," Dumbledore said,
"meaning you are perfectly free to call me Albus." Hermione shuddered inwardly.
There was absolutely no way she would ever refer to the Headmaster by his first
name. She'd ignore homework to play Quidditch, first. She felt unclean just
thinking about it. "Secondly, a request: I'm not, ah, shall we say, technically
allowed to be here presently. This is something of an infiltration, as it were.
So I would greatly appreciate it if questions were kept to a minimum. In return,
as I am a strong believer in fair exchange, I shall, likewise, keep my answers
to a minimum."
"Wh"
"Good. I'm glad we can see eye-to-eye on this."
"What happened?" Hermione said.
"Ah. Hm. That's quite a big question. If by 'what happened,' you meant, 'what
happened just now,' the answer would be that we were just engaging in a dialogue
Page 590

refreshingly free of the typical student-teacher formality that has so
characterized our past interactions. If you meant 'what happened' in the broader
meaning of the word, I would say that the Earth is continuing its merry journey
around the Sun, twirling about like a graceful garden gnome on its way. But if
you meant, 'what happened while I was unconscious,' well, it's quite a long
story. And not all of it is good news, I'm afraid."
"Then start with the good news, Profer, Mr. Dumbledore?" Hermione suggested.
"The eight missing children are, blessedly, safe," Dumbledore said. "It seems
our photogenic Defence Professor had been investigating the issue on the side,
located the house they were being kept in, and heroically rescued them himself.
It's all the more impressive considering I was, of course, attempting precisely
the same thing in my newfound spare time. Alas, but it appears I do not have the
makings of an investigator. The Ministry snapped him up shortly after, and he's
now working for them as an Obliviator. A curious position for a man of his
apparent talents, but I'm told he requested it specifically. The important
thing, of course, is that Hogwarts' missing children have been found."
"Fantastic!" Hermione said. "Are they all right?"
"Perfectly fine. They seem to have no memory of anything after being nabbed in
the grounds, mostly near the Forest. They're with their respective families at
the moment, but should be fit to return to school next week. Sadly, so many
students will be absent that Flitwick has had no choice but to cancel his Charms
exam next week. He was quite looking forward to it."
Well, that was three afternoons' worth of studying that Hermione would never get
back. She gritted her teeth and pressed on.
"What about the Sword?" she asked.
"And to which sword would you be referring?"
"The Sword of Godric Gryffindor! What happened to it?"
"Is that what you used to kill Slytherin's Monster?" Dumbledore mused. "Most
impressive. It only appears for a true Gryffindor in times of direst need, you
realize. When Draco Malfoy returned with Acting Headmaster Snape, it was nowhere
to be seen. There was quite a bit of disagreement as to how a Basilisk came to
be so... thoroughly decapitated in the halls of the school. Most impressive. Not
surprising, of coursethe Sorting Hat makes its choices for a reasonbut
extremely impressive nonetheless. Remarkable, in fact."
"What about Ron and Harry?" Hermione asked.
"Both perfectly fine. Mr. Weasley is recovering in the cot just across from you,
in fact. Mr. Potter, on the other hand, is still in the hallway trapped in a
mysterious magical field. Which brings me to the sad part of the story." It was
then that Hermione recognized Dumbledore's expression. It was one that she
hadn't ever seen on him. It was pain.
Page 591

oooo
Fiona realized she'd been staring at the unfamiliar ceiling for several hours
without properly registering it. Or possibly several seconds. Or maybe she'd
dreamed it.
Waking up is like that, sometimes.
She was lying in an uncomfortable bed in a room that reeked of disinfectant. A
hospital, then.
She could hear the rustling of paper on paper.
"Hello?" she asked. Her throat felt dry.
"You're awake!" It was Evan Travis. She rolled her head to the side, and found
him putting down a newspaper. She caught the first two words from front page
headline: LONDON MASSACRE.
Oh, yeah. That.
"What happened?" Fiona asked.
"You were shot."
"What, really?" She asked. "Where?"
"Left leg, just above the knee," Travis answered.
"I never even noticed," she said. "Go figure. Is it bad?"
"You got shot. When is it ever not bad?"
"You know what I mean."
"It didn't hit an artery. Doctors say you'll probably make a full recovery, but
it'll take a while and it'll suck, basically. Best find a cane you like and get
used to it. You'll need to ask a doc for more, they wouldn't tell us no matter
how much Hannigan shouted. Something about not being close family. We've had
someone here keeping an eye on you in case... well, in case one of them came for
you. We figure it's only a matter of time. Hannigan would have been here too,
but... Ah. There's been an inquiry, of sorts. He's being questioned."
An inquiry. Hooboy. They all knew that at some point they'd have to pay for
their repeated and flagrant disregard for the rules, but Fiona had hoped that
when it came to that, they'd at least have a suspect in custody.
"Best hit me with all the bad news, then."
"When you used the stunner, the door suddenly gave. We stormed the place, but
the, ah, suspects got away. Poof, they were gone."
Page 592

So breaking their concentration did end the spell. Fiona filed that bit of
information away for future use.
"What, even Carrow?"
"Hold on, I'll get there. When we finally got Baldwin to pull himself together
and talk, he said he'd just found a side room not on the map and investigated
it. That's where they got him."
"Not on the map? But we had the architectural plans! That's impossible!"
"Funny thing," Travis said, "when he tried to sketch it for us later, he
couldn't."
"What do you mean, he couldn't?"
"He just couldn't. The pen wouldn't draw on the page. We went through a dozen
pens and as many pencils, even a bloody crayon, and none of them worked."
"Is he still... bewitched, then, do you think?"
"Nah. When he described it, none of us could draw it. I think they did something
to the room, somehow, not to us."
"So these wizards were hiding out in the secret room?"
"Not just them," Travis said. "And here's where we get to the good news. Well,
good-ish. They found the kids."
"What kids?"
"The
They
they
them
missing magic kids. They were in Baldwin's magic room. All but one, anyway.
were tied up and blindfolded, but were otherwise in perfect shape. But...
vanished the second we turned our backs on them. We had an armed guard on
and everything, but nobody saw a thing."
"Kidnapped again?" Fiona asked.

"Apparently."
"Dammit!" she said, slamming her elbow into the thin mattress. "One step
forward, two steps back. At least we got Carrow." Fiona narrowed her eyes. "We
did get Carrow, didn't we?"
"Ah. About that..."
"Out with it."
"While we were checking on the kids, he... changed."
"Changed?"
Page 593

"Right before our very eyes. One second he was a stone-cold killer, the next he
was a kid. One of the missing kids, actually. That Finnigan one."
"Where is he now?"
"Vanished with the others."
"So what did we really accomplish?" Fiona asked. "Good men and women died, for
what? No suspects in custody, no real evidence found. No nothing."
Travis shrugged. "I wouldn't say that. We know that despite what the wizarding
books say, they have an explicitly anti-Muggle faction still operating at large.
We know they can be beaten. Besides, there's some good news."
"Oh?"
"Cooper's still in surgery, but prognosis is good, last I heard. And Lyndon made
it out just fine; she was here until about an hour or so ago. She left to go to
the service."
"The service?"
"The memorial. For the others. Nothing big or official, really. There's no good
PR to be had making a big show of this. As far as the public was concerned, this
was the biggest policing fiasco of the decade. Heads are going to roll." Travis
looked uncomfortable.
Fiona knew what he wasn't saying: so you'd best update your resume.
"We knew that was going to be a possibility"
There was a knock on the door. Fiona and Travis traded a look.
The door opened.
In walked a man with golden hair and a pearly smile. It was the sort of smile
that would get a ping! sound effect in a cartoon to highlight just how shiny it
was. He wore an expensive-looking, tailored suit and loafers polished to be
almost as bright as his teeth.
He looked a little like Kenneth Branagh, actually.
"Hello," he said pleasantly. "I'm"
"Gilderoy Lockhart," Fiona said through clenched teeth.
Lockhart smiled happily. "I hadn't realized that my fame had spread quite that
far, but, again, why shouldn't it have? Of course even the Muggles know who I
am. Then you know why I'm here?"
"I have a pretty good idea," Fiona said. "Cleaning up the last of the loose
ends?"
Page 594

"Precisely," Lockhart smiled again, smoothly drawing a wand. "I'm sure you'll be
happy to know that the children are safe. They're going to give me a medal for
rescuing them."
Well, that was something, at least. The children were in the hands of their
government, not their criminals. A minor victory, if lacking in recognition. Not
that, in all likelihood, Fiona was going to remember it.
"How'd you catch us?"
"There's a friendly mediwitch at St Mungo's who told me the other night that a
few of Lucius's old friends checked in with some very peculiar injuries. Anyway,
I have a little more experience with Muggles than some of my comrades, and it
was a simple matter to cross-reference the Muggle-related injuries with the
Obliviator's files on certain highly-persistent... ah, what am I saying? Look at
me gabbing on, terribly rude. It's not as if you'll remember any of this,
anyway. Now, what would you me to replace your memories with?"
"Me kicking Kenneth Branagh posters in their smug faces repeatedly," Fiona spat.
"With steel-toed boots."
Lockhart's smile froze briefly. Then he shrugged.
"Oblivio."
oooo
The official word was that Milo Amastacia-Liadon, an orphan barely in control of
his childhood-style accidental wandless magic, had run off from Hogwarts on his
own accord. After the massive cleanup operation that the battle with the
basilisk necessitated, it was discovered that his bed was made (for the first
time since he'd arrived), and all of his possessions had vanished from their
drawers.
Similarly, the mysterious person of unknown identity disguised as Seamus
Finnigan who had been trapped in the Gryffindor Common Room was also nowhere to
be found. The ensuing manhunt led to nothing but dead ends; no-one was able to
produce any proof of the identity of the mysterious trapped man. In the end, it
was chocked up to general Hogwarts-related-weirdness.
Gilderoy Lockhart received an Order of Merlin, First Class for his daring rescue
of the eight missing Hogwarts children, and, after demonstrating his prodigious
talents with Memory Charms, was put in charge of the Ministry's Obliviators
after their previous leader, Arnold Peasegood, resigned after a stress-induced
nervous breakdown. Some questioned why so illustrious a wizard would settle for
something as mundane as a government job, or why he resigned from Hogwarts
halfway through a school year, but no consistent answer was ever to be had from
Lockhart.
Sketches of the missing boyno photographs, magical or otherwise, could be found
of himwere distributed throughout Magical Britain in newspapers and posters.
Page 595

Aside from that, very little effort was made to find him. He existed on no
public records, he had no known next of kin, and as a result nobody was quite
sure who was responsible for finding him. Everyone simply assumed that, sooner
or later, he'd use his magic and the Ministry would detect him in the same way
that they caught all other users of unauthorized underaged magic.
Missing. That's what the papers said, and it's what the general public believed.
But it's not what Dumbledore said, and it's not what Hermione believed.
Because they had a piece of evidence that the rest of the wizarding world
didn't.
Mordenkainen happily ran in the red plastic wheel of his small rat cage by the
window. He'd long since chewed and struggled his way out of the magical apparel
Milo had made for him. They couldn't let him out of the cage; he tried to make a
run for it, biting anyone who got too close. All evidence suggested he was a
completely ordinary, feral rat picked up from the streets somewhere. Even Ron's
decrepit rat, Scabbers, seemed more intelligent by comparison.
Hermione remembered that, once before, Milo had tried to explain the concept of
a familiar to her. He'd said that, in many ways, a familiar and its master were
the same entity, split into two bodies. As the master grew stronger, so did the
familiar. If the familiar died, the master was greatly weakened.
But he'd also said that nobody really knew what happened to the familiar when
its master died. Nobody had ever cared to find out.
The squeaking of the wheel stopped. Hermione glanced over at Mordy, who was
sitting perfectly still, staring through the white bars of his cage and out the
window into the Hogwarts grounds. It might have just been her imagination, but
it seemed as if he was waiting for someone to come back to him.
oooo
Lucius Malfoy set down his quill and waited for the ink to dry. He was inches
away from having Snape's titleActing Headmastersimplified by one inconvenient
word. All he needed was to exert a hair more pressure on some of the more
moderate members of the Hogwarts Board of Governors.
Once he had the education of the entire future generation of wizards and witches
in his hands, all he would need was time. He could subtly shape their thoughts
and view of the world, and it would be a simple matter to make certain that some
of the new graduates most amenable to the Malfoy way were fast-tracked into
middling-to-powerful positions in the Ministry. By the time any of Dumbledore's
supporters realized what had happened, it would be too late. That was something
that neither Dumbledore nor the late Dark Lord had ever really understood. The
Dark Lord always viewed the Ministry as an enemy to be defeated with force and
deceit, and Dumbledore never paid it much mind to begin with, turning down a
powerful political position in favour being Headmaster. But the system existed,
and it pervaded every aspect of ordinary life in Magical Britain. The one who
controlled the system controlled everything. Time had already shown Lucius to be
Page 596

victor. The Dark Lord was dead, and Hogwarts was no longer in Dumbledore's
hands.
It was only a matter of time.
Lucius neatly folded the parchment, and was just about to stuff it into an
envelope when he heard the distinctive popping sound of an Apparating wizard.
He drew his wand beneath his heavy wooden desk, ready to spring into action, if
necessary. Outright combat wasn't his preferred way of doing things, but if this
mysterious visitor had violence on their minds, they would likely as not never
be seen nor heard from again.
The lights flickered out.
"Who's there?" Lucius asked. "Show yourself."
"Why, Lucius," a voice said smoothly. It was a voice like goblin steel cutting
silk. Soft, clean, and deadly all at the same time. It was a voice that Lucius
Malfoy had hoped to never hear again. "That's no way to greet an old friend, now
is it?"
It was the voice of the Dark Lord Voldemort.
oooo
Fiona awoke in her bed with a strange feeling well-known to anyone who has ever
been jolted awake by dream-tripping on the dream-sidewalk. She spent a few
seconds taking deep breaths to calm her racing heart.
"Bloody hate those," she muttered to herself, then checked her alarm clock:
6:30.
With an irritated grumble, she rolled over to try and go back to sleep. She'd
woken up at 6:30 every day for so long that, now that she no longer had anywhere
in particular to be every morning, she couldn't break the habit.
After an unsuccessful ten minutes of trying to fall back to sleep, she rolled
out of bed painfully and limped to the kitchen. If being on leave messed with
her morning routine, being a cripple destroyed it. It took her more than twice
as long to do even basic tasks with her limp as it had.
By the time she'd showered, had breakfast, fed Sprocket, grabbed her vacuum
flask full of tea, her walkman, and left, it was already 7:30, which, in her
books, was practically afternoon.
Despite being on leaveallegedly for her injury, but really as a reprimand for
the fiasco that was the drug bustshe couldn't help but follow her routine.
She'd been programmed like a robot. She told herself that she was just walking
to the station to get a little fresh air and stretch after being bed-ridden for
so long.
Page 597

She awkwardly put her headphones on, fumbling the unfamiliar cane in one hand
and the walkman, tape, and headphones in the other. She eventually had to lean
the cane, and herself, against the brick wall of her building to manage it.
Fiona started as, rather than that of Mick Jagger, she heard her own voice
through the speakers.
"If you know why you're hearing yourself speak, hold fast-forward for thirty
seconds. No? Still here? Damn, they got you again. Well, anyway, here's what's
going on..."
SD 1: Decease and Desist
HARRY POTTER AND THE SAVE-OR-DIE

Chapter One: Decease and Desist
"Avada Kedavra!"
Milo had just long enough to think, oh dear gods I'm going to die as his eyes
reflexively slammed shut in response to the blinding green blast.
Milo waited for the inevitable.
This is what you get, he thought to himself. This is what you get for splitting
the party. None of this would have happened if you'd just brought Hermione and
Harry and Ron along with you, but nooooo, you had to be a hero. Of course, it
wasn't entirely his fault. Sure, he'd made a few mistakes, but perhaps the fact
that he'd been possessed by the memory of the most evil dark wizard the world
had ever known was excuse enough. Perhaps.
Well, the gig was up now. Now that he knew he had Voldemort's teenaged spirit
living in his noggin, he could take steps. Steps like preparing Protection from
Evil every day, or maybe even steps like checking himself into a prison for the
time being, where the guards could keep an eye on him.
He wondered what Azkaban was like this time of year. Or, really, what Azkaban
was like at all. He'd only ever heard passing remarks to it, usually fearful
whispers.
Milo had been waiting for quite some time before he was struck by a rather
curious thought:
Hey. Shouldn't I be dead now? What gives?
"Oy!" he said. "Let's get this over with, already!"
Page 598

It was the distinct lack of response that clued Milo off to the fact that
something was awry. Potentially extremely awry.
Milo opened his eyes.
"Ahhhh, crap."
Milo saw something worse than Voldemort, worse than the basilisk, worse than the
mad, haunted eyes of Quirrell, worse than a Redcap in the forest, worse even
than the Mirror of Erised. Okay, well maybe not quite worse than the Mirror. But
still pretty bad.
It was the sky.
It was a perfectly ordinary sky, as far as skies go. A few clouds drifted lazily
by, but they were thin and sparse, providing little shelter from the sun beating
down onto the baked earth.
No, that was wrong. What he was lying on was definitely dirt.
But it wasn't remotely Earth.
For one thing, the horizon was wrong. Really, incredibly, weirdly wrong. It took
him a moment, and an Intelligence check, to figure out what exactly was going on
there.
When you live your entire life on what is essentially a giant ball of rock and
water, you get used to a certain convex shape to your horizon. You usually don't
even notice it, unless you're in an enormous prairie or looking out over the
ocean. You get used to it, and treat it as the next best thing to flat.
But this place was flat. Completely flat. The result was an extremely
disorienting, almost-concave sort of effect that made Milo feel a little
nauseated when he looked too closely at it.
That alone was a pretty good clue as to Milo's present location.
The other thing, the thing that Milo was avoiding looking at, was also fairly
definitive. It was the only thing of its kind in existence.
Milo sighed and stood up. He was wearing a plain Hogwarts uniform, but his magic
gear was missing.
Best get this over with.
Milo turned around to face the truth.
Behind him was the Spire, capital 'S'. It was big on an astronomical scale. It
was impossible to determine how far away it was from him, because the Spire was,
near as anyone could figure, infinitely tall. This made it somewhat difficult to
get any real sense of scale. Somewhere near the topand, yes, somehow the
Page 599

infinitely-tall Spire had a 'top'was Sigil, the City of Doors.
The Spire was a lot of things to a lot of people. To explorers, it was a
waypoint, a sort-of compass direction. To the inhabitants of Sigil, it was home.
To those who lived on the ground, it was That Great Big Eyesore Blocking My
Sunrise/Sunset, Dammit.
To Milo, it was a cosmologically-big nail in his coffin.
The Spire was at the centre of the infinite expanse known as the Concordant
Domain of the Outlands, the hub of the Great Wheel, the fulcrum of the Outer
Planes. Surrounding the infinitely-sized disc that is the Outlands are the
various heavens, hells, and in-betweens that make up the Outer Planes, i.e., the
afterlifes. Afterlives? Whatever.
There were only two ways to get here: powerful magic, and...
Well.
You can probably guess what the other way is.
Milo sighed. Which afterlife you wound up in was determined by your beliefs,
your actions in life, and, primarily, your alignment. Clearly, Milo must have
screwed something up pretty badly to end up here in the very-Neutral Outlands
rather than one of the various Good-aligned heavens.
Milo took a good look around. There really wasn't anything in view beyond
rolling fields of yellowed grass, the occasional dry shrub, and, in the
distance, some dead-looking mountains.
When it came down to it, there was really only one place worth going here:
Sigil, City of Doors. It was said that, in Sigil, anything and everything could
be a portal to anywhereand sometimes even anywhenprovided you had the proper
key. Maybe Milo could find a mortal there travelling to his particular Material
Plane to get word to his old party members. If they could scrounge up enough for
a True Resurrection, he could be back in action in no time. From there, he could
get back to Hogwarts... somehow. He'd figure that part out, later.
Milo turned his back on the Spire and walked directly away from it, which was
the fastest way to get to Sigil, ironically. As you walked further from the
centre of the Outlands, you alwaysalwaysencounter a portal town, sooner or
later. From the portal towns, it was a simple enough matter to reach Sigil. So
Milo had read, anyway. He'd never actually been here before, thankfully.
The trick was to avoid encountering any wandering demons roaming a little far
from home along the way. Or any roaming amnesiac immortals, trying to rediscover
their pasts. The Outer Planes could be a little weird that way.
Milo walked on, the hot sun beating down on him as he went. In a way, this was
nice. Peaceful. It had been quite some time since he'd had to cross great
distances like this, except, of course, for those times he'd had to hike,
half-dead, into Hogsmeade.
Page 600

As the minutes turned into hours, Milo realized something: he felt great. No
random aches or sores, no burn from the searing hot sun, no fatigue or
exhaustion. I guess such 'perks' are reserved for the living.
As Milo walked across the cracked dirt, something seemed to loom in the
distance. Specifically, something loomed ahead of himhe still hadn't quite
gotten used to what was looming behind him.
It was hard to tell what it was, exactly, but there wasn't a whole heck of a lot
in this Plane to encounter, so Milo assumed it to be a Portal Town of one sort
or another. Hopefully one of the Good sorts.
It seemed to be miles and miles away, but whenever Milo took his eyes off of it,
it appeared far, far closer, as if he had walked for hours.
Milo narrowed his eyes for a moment, thinking. Then he closed them entirely,
took one step forward and
Stubbed his toe.
He cursed and opened his eyes.
And then he gasped. If he wasn't... living-impaired, he might have forgotten to
breathe. As it was, breathing was largely cosmetic, in any case.
What he'd stubbed his toe on was a staircase. The staircase was the most
impressive he had ever seen, all narrow, crumbly, windy, and decidedly lacking
in common safety features such as railings. On another day, Milo would have
admired the sheer engineering chutzpah it displayed.
But as it was, the staircase got barely a glance.
The staircase led up a tall, sheer hill. At the top was the sort of castle that
was best viewed in the night, lit up by lightning. It was a sprawling mass of
towers, outbuildings, and halls that seemed to have been constructed with no
particular plan in mind, but, when taken all together, and squinted at from just
the right angle, still seemed completely haphazard.
It was decidedly not a Portal Town.
It was, however, very, very familiar.
That said, there wasn't anywhere else to go. Milo resolutely began climbing the
staircase to a castle that could have been Hogwarts' twin brother.
If that twin had the architectural equivalent of a waxed goatee, an eyepatch,
and a wicked scar, that is.
Maybe an hour later, Milo reached the point that he judged was the halfway
marker. The staircase had narrowed to be barely a foot across, and any shorter,
he would start having to make Balance checks to avoid falling to his... what?
Page 601

Doom? He wasn't entirely certain he could take damage.
Milo frowned. He was pretty sure that a staircase like thisespecially this
staircase, if it lead to what he suspectedshouldn't normally be left unguarded.
Milo carried on, more cautiously now.
The outer gates were wide open. Milo recognized the dull grey metal as
adamantine, one of the strongest materials in the multiverse. Carved onto each
of the massive double doors was a tiny pentagon, barely bigger than Milo's palm,
each with an identical, highly stylized eye inscribed in it. The eyes seemed to
watch him suspiciously as he passed.
Milo swallowed.
At least now he had a pretty good idea of why he hadn't wound up on one of the
various heavens. A suspicion of who was responsible, at least.
The gates lead into a colossal 'courtyard' that could have swallowed most cities
that Milo had seen without needing so much as a glass of water. Maybe not the
cities from Harry's world. There was a winding path that led to the castle
proper, and to the side, Milo could see a large lake that, like everything else
here, looked suspiciously familiar. He wondered if this lake had a giant squid,
too.
Milo approached the castle itself. Unlike the outer gates, these appeared to be
of ordinary woodbut Milo doubted that the physical form of the gates was all
that defended this castle. These were closed, but a light tap swung the
perfectly-balanced gate open. The gate made no noise whatsoever as it moved on
its hinges, revealing the castle inside.
The floor tiles inside the castle were all perfectly regular pentagons
thatsomehowtessellated flawlessly. Staring at the join between tiles was
quickly headache-inducing.
Behind him, the doors closed silently.
There was no clear source of light, but the broad, tall hallway was lit at a
continuous, sleepy, just-before-sunset level of light regardless.
Just to test a hypothesis, Milo turned around and pulled on one of the door's
handles. It wouldn't budge.
"Figures," he muttered.
"Shhhh!" a voice hissed. Milo nearly jumped out of his skin, whirling around,
hands free of his sleeves for spellslinging.
Behind him, floating about two inches above the ground, was... a librarian.
Well, an ex-librarian, Milo supposed, but he was really nobody to judge, now
being an ex-Wizard. Judging by the translucency and the monochrome blue-green
look, she was also a ghost, which brought up a whole slew of afterlife-related
Page 602

questions, primarily, how the heck could there be a ghost in the afterlife? What
did it mean to be undead when the people around you were, well, dead? Between
Milo and the ghost, who was more dead?
Oh, also, in addition to the bifocals, the tidy hair bun, and the immaculate
robes, her fingers ended in inch-long claws.
Milo swallowed, and decided that maybe he should follow the scary librarian
lady's request to be quiet.
She beckoned him with her hands, and started floating backwards down the
hallway, never taking her eyes off of him.
On the one hand, she's terrifying, and this place is weird. On the other hand,
I'm already dead, so... ehhh. What could possibly happen?
Milo decided to follow her. She led him through a series of twisty, windy
hallways. Every here and there were doors leading into rooms, both large and
small, piled high with bookshelves. Some of them contained people, and sentient
beings that resembled people, and sentient beings that did not resemble people,
who were diligently researching various topics. Some of the rooms had bronze
plaques with labels written in Draconic, such as "Biography, Gnome, 569th-972nd
Centuries After Glittergold, Prime Material #45967.2/Walnut" or
"Psychometabolism, Commentary, Levels 1 through 4."
Some rooms had no books, but simply a neat, marble pedestal in the centre with
an object of one variety or another. Many held weapons or pieces of armour, but
it wasn't until Milo spotted onea large bowl fashioned from a blue-green
semiprecious stonethat Milo realized what they were. Each of those rooms
contained a single magic item, ranging from the minor (one contained what Milo
recognized as a single Quaal's Feather Token) to the epic (a ring of Univesal
Energy Immunity, worth more than the combined value of Azel's capital city, Myra
(City of light! City of magic!)). Milo itched to ditch the spectral librarian
and make a grab for a Headband of +12 Intelligence, but decided against it when
he realized the decorative suits of armour lining the halls were silently
turning their helmets to watch him.
Well, thank goodness that wasn't too creepy or anything.
Instead, Milo followed the spectral librarian, trying to make as little noise as
possible. Fortunately, that wasn't harddespite being a cavernous hallway of
solid stone, his boots made little to no noise against the tiled floor. Likely
another enchantment, he thought.
Eventually, the spectre led him to an obsidian statue in an alcove. It had
wicked, serrated horns, fangs longer than some of Milo's fingers, from which ran
what looked suspiciously like real blood. The spectre gave the gargoyle statue a
long look, and the statue raised into the ceiling, revealing a spiral staircase.
The entire process, like everything else, was completely silent.
At the top of the staircase was a heavy wooden door. Milo reached up to knock,
but it swung open just before his knuckles touched the wood.
Page 603

"Hello?" Milo asked nervously.
"Come in," said a voice. It was an old voice, but old in the way that a great
oak tree is old. The years added strength and wisdom like rings on a trunk.
Milo was already through the door before the speaker had finished. It wasn't
that he was eager to enter; far from it. He was terrified. It was simply that he
hadn't even considered doing anything but what the voice requested.
The office was simple, but, of course, it would be. The owner had no need of any
physical objects, and, at this point, further decoration would serve no useful
purpose.
It occurred to Milo that, perhaps, the office wasn't free of decoration. In
fact, it could have been full of dancing chimpanzees and fountains of diamonds,
but it would make no difference. He found that he couldn't look at anything in
the room except his own feet.
"Sit down," said the voice.
Milo found himself sitting on a hard, flat chair. He licked his suddenly-dry
lips, wondering what to say.
"You're likely wondering why you're here," the voice said.
"Maybe," Milo said in a small voice. "Well. No, actually. I'm not. I'm here
because you brought me here." Though the why of that is a whole 'nother
question...
"Good." The voice said, Milo thought he could hear the hint of a smile in the
word. "Most, when first in my presence, are too occupied falling prostrate and
begging forgiveness for sins and similar nonsense to actually speak the truth.
But then, you are not most people, now are you?"
"If I may ask"
"You may," the voice said, cutting Milo off. "Of course, I may not answer."
"What do you mean, I'm not most people?"
The voice fell silent for a moment. Not, Milo was sure, because it was
thinkingthe speaker was intelligent beyond words; he didn't need time to think.
Milo would bet that the pause was for his benefit, to convey the idea that the
words that followed were well thought out. "Tell me. What do you know of the
nature of the Player Character and the Non-Player Character?"
Milo swallowed. "Well. Player Characters, more commonly called PCs, are... a
different sort of person from NPCs. They are always sentient, most commonly
humanoids. They appear sporadically throughout history in small groups, and
their lives always change the world. Generally, they go on adventures, working
their way up from defeating bandits to warlords to mythical monsters. NPCs...
Page 604

don't."
"That is only part of the story," the voice said. "The rest is only known to me
and my kind. Tell me, young Wizard, did you know that, until quite recently,
there were always four PCs?"
Milo shook his head.
"They appear always in groups of four," the voice continued. "When one falls, he
or she either ends up here and is resurrected in short order, or disappears from
the multiverse altogether and replaced by another of equivalent power."
"What do you mean by 'disappears from the multiverse?'" Milo asked.
"Poof. Gone, without trace. Bypassing the afterlife entirely. But there's more.
The four PCs alwaysalwayseach follow one of four similar patterns of
behaviour. We watch them quite closely. While sometimes it seems, early on, as
if a set of Player Characters might deviate from the norm, shortly, cracks in
their personas start to show. Either the deviant characters are quickly slain
and replaced, or their behaviour patterns change to fit the mold of one of the
archetypes. Among my kind, these archetypes are called the Valiant, the Mimic,
the Trickster, and the Munchkin."
Milo tried to mentally take notes. It wasn't every day that he was given a dump
of exposition this straight.
"The Valiant lives for action. They see battle, stubbornness, and blind courage
in the face of certain defeat as the solution to any problem. The Mimic, on the
other hand, is less predictable. They fall into the role of a being with the
full spectrum of emotions and drives, and stay that way until they die.
Adventures and heroic deeds are less important than simply living life in
whichever way they so choose. The Trickster is the least predictable of all.
They live," the voice became laced with disapproval, "for their own amusement.
They are the sort who will Fireball a dragon just to see what happens." Sounds
like Gerard, Zook, and Wellby, Milo thought to himself. Which makes me... "The
Munchkin," the voice continued, "I believe needs no explanation."
"So you're saying I'm compelled by some whacked-out meta-cosmic spirit thingy to
number crunch?" Milo asked. "Screw that. I do what I want."
"Which brings us to the crux of the issue," the voice said. "Milo
Amastacia-Liadon. Look at me."
Milo looked up. Sitting at the desk across from him was a bony, weathered old
man. He looked more than a few centuries past his prime, but his hard, angular
face was set with an amount of determination and inner strength that Milo had
only seen once before. He wore a purple robe decorated with golden arcane runes,
and a wide-brimmed, floppy purple hat covered in stars sat on his head. A long,
wispy white beard fell down below the desk, and a simple wooden staff leaned
against the wall within easy reach of his seat. His eyes were a piercing blue,
full of age and wisdomand ice. His stare was so hard and cold, Milo felt like
shivering.
Page 605

He looked, in short, like the platonic ideal of a wizard.
Which was because that was exactly what he was.
He also could have been Dumbledore's twin. Well, his triplet, at least, Milo
thought, remembering Aberforth.
Boccob, God of Magic, looked Milo dead in the eyes. "You are different, young
Wizard. Unique. You are something that has never happened before."
"And what's that?" Milo didn't like the way that Boccob was staring at him, as
if he was peering through a microscope at what was a particularly interesting
beetlebut a beetle, nonetheless.
"You are no longer one of the four Player Characters. You were one of those who
disappeared. You were replaced. The Munchkin has moved on. He is now, I believe,
a Bard of rather surprising talents."
"I..." Milo felt fear grip him. He'd been prepared for a grisly death, for
starvation, exposure to the elements, for injury and danger. Those were things
that went with the job. But this was a fate far, far worse than death. He could
barely even speak his fears aloud. "I'm an NPC?" he said in a very small, very
quiet voice.
"No," Boccob said. "You are the character with no player. We do not have a word
for what you are. And believe you me," Boccob's eyes flashed, "if one existed, I
would know about it."
"Why are you telling me this?" Milo asked.
"As the mysterious old Wizard among mysterious old Wizards," Boccob said,
"exposition is one of my chief responsibilities." The god smiled slightly.
"Also, because I have a deal to offer you."
"Fire away," Milo said, curious.
"Your particular little Prime Material Plane is having some... issues. One who
was never meant for that reality has barged in and caused no end of problems for
the local inhabitants."
"Of course," Milo said. "I did."
"I am not referring to the world of Hogwarts and wanded magic," Boccob said,
"but instead to your own plane. Your home."
Milo blinked. "What?"
"The ritual that brought you into the other reality also brought one known as
Bellatrix Lestrange into yours. She wields powers unfamiliar to those of your
world," Boccob's eyes flashed again, "and she cheats. She does not follow the
pattern."
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"Butbut she's dead," Milo said. "I remember reading about it in the Prophet.
She died in Azkaban. People cheered."
"She was replaced by another, who died in her place," Boccob said. "It's been
done before, and it will be done again."
Milo narrowed his eyes. "Hold up. How do you know about this? Isn't it a little
out of your, ah, jurisdiction?"
"Never forget, young Wizard." Boccob's voice was as still as stopped time, as
hot as a storm of meteors. "I am the God of Magic. All magic."
"Right." Milo swallowed involuntarily. "Sorry. So. What's this deal you wanted
to make?"
"I will send you back into the land of the living," Boccob said, "in return for
one task."
Oh, goody. A quest.
"And what task is that?" Milo asked.
"Bellatrix Lestrange," Boccob said. "Find her. You have three days."
"That's it?" Milo asked. "Just... find her? I could do that with a Divination or
three."
"Then you have no reason not to accept my offer, do you, young Wizard?"
Milo hesitated. "What do you want me to do once I find her?"
Boccob the Uncaring shrugged. "I'll leave that up to you."
"Why do you need me?" Milo asked. "I'm just a mid-level Wizard. You're... well,
you're you."
"Ah," Boccob said. "But I am also an NPC, constrained to act within certain
bounds. And besides," he smiled slightly, but it did not touch his eyes. "As the
old saying goes: it takes a cheat to catch a cheat."
Milo considered the offer. Something seriously cagey was going on. Why the three
day time limit? And why did Boccob want Milo to find Bellatrix? It wasn't as if
Boccob didn't already know where she was. He was a god, after all. Somebody was
being played here, and Milo was pretty sure it wasn't the all-seeing god sitting
across the table from him. This was a setup, in more ways than one.
But on the other hand, it was an honest-to-goodness quest. You don't get to be a
successful adventurer by not doing quests for mysterious old Wizards.
And besides. He was already dead. What was the worst that could happen?
Page 607

"I'll do it."
ooooooo
Here we have it! The long awaited Book Three of Harry Potter and the Natural 20!
To those of you who were concerned about my killing off of the protagonist this
early in, fear not! For the Pearly Gates of Adventurer Heaven are more like
revolving doors, really.
SD 2: Old Friends
HARRY POTTER AND THE SAVE-OR-DIE

Chapter Two: Old Friends
It was the sort of night that would have fit in late autumn: cold, wet, and
dark. It had no place in early summer.
Lucius Malfoy pulled his cloak tighter around him for warmth. All this sneaking
around in the dark was so... trite. And hardly fair. He doubted the members of
the Order of the Phoenix ever had to deal with disastrously upset sleep
schedules caused by these late-night rendezvous. Lucius glanced around to make
sure no-one was watching, then blew his nose in an undignified fashion.
This was just the sort of blunder typical of the new administration. As a
criminal organization, they couldn't just meet at a cafe someplace and talk
about their evil plans, now could they? Ergo, they had to meet in cold, dark,
wet forests on cold, dark, wet nights. Or so the logic went, Lucius supposed.
Because the simple fact of the matter was that they could just meet in a cafe
someplace. Every single member of their select group was a fully capable wizard
or witch. There was absolutely no reason they could not all Apparate to a
gourmet coffee shop at a corner in, say, Luxembourg. Or Kyoto. Or Shanghai.
There were countless places where they could scream, in English, their intention
to commit murder and sow discord and such at the top of their lungs and receive
nothing more than a strange look from the localsall the while enjoying a fine
Chianti, or perhaps a latte.
Some form of furry woodland creatureLucius neither knew nor cared
whichscurried away from him as he walked to the meeting.
He half expected Riddle to appear from a bolt of lightning, or perhaps
descending from the sky.
A black shadowy form appeared in front of him. Despite himself, Lucius smiled.
Briefly.
Page 608

He was the very picture of wholesome youth, well-dressed, clean-cut, with a
serious, sincere expression on his face. Everything about him said: trust me.
I'm intelligent, reliable, and not-at-all a maniac.
Only a born liar could look so honest.
Riddle smiled, wand in hand, sword belted at his hip.
"Greetings, Malfoy," he said.
oooo
Thud.
Milo hit the groundhard.
"You did that on purpose," he muttered accusingly.
He looked around, but there wasn't much to see. Wherever he was, it was cool,
dark, and had a hard stone floor. A very hard stone floor.
"Light," he muttered, but nothing happened. Of coursehe'd died and come back.
He shouldn't have expected his memorized spells to survive the process.
He poked himself, just to check that he was really real. Yup, he thought. Hit
points, skills, feats, abilities, it's all here.
Except for his equipment.
Well. Crap.
Generally speaking, most people assume that Fighters and Paladins and whatnot
are far more dependent on their gear than spellcasters. And for most
spellcasters, that's true. Take away a Druid's scimitar and she can still turn
into a tyrannosaurus rex. Take away a Sorcerer's spear and she probably won't
recognize it, having never seen it since she bought it 'just in case' with her
extra cash at level one.
But take away a Wizard's spellbook, and he's got nothing. Milo had to spend an
hour every morning pouring over his spellbook just to refresh his daily spells,
and without that, he's just a Commoner with a high Will save and a magic
ratsaving, in Milo's case, for the rat.
What do muggles do when they need light? Milo wondered. He'd gotten so used to
everyone around him being a single word and a flick of a stick away from magical
illumination that he'd almost forgotten what it had been like.
Torches. Adventurers always carried torches. Even Milo did, in his Belt of
Hidden Pouches, though he rarely used them. Milo wondered what would become of
that belt, now. It was probably decorating the Chamber of Secrets, along with
the rest of his old gear.
Page 609

And his old body, for that matter.
Now there was a weird thought. He had a new body. It felt the same as the last
one, and Milo knew that, if he had a mirror, it would look the samebut it
wasn't.
Milo felt vaguely resentful of that. It may have been scrawny, and maybe it
looked a little malnourished around the edges, and, he supposed, it had an
interesting collection of scars and old injuries, but it was his body, dammit,
and he was quite attached to it. So to speak.
Milo shook his head, focusing. He was on a time limit, here. An arbitrary and
capricious time limit, sure, but a time limit, nevertheless.
Milo's eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. He was in a large-ish circular room
that seemed slightly familiar, somehow. There were a few lumpy shapes scattered
across the floor. Milo crawled his way over to the nearest one, feeling around
with his hands.
He touched tough leather. He felt around, and found straps and buckles. A
backpack. Milo grinned.
A few minutes later, he was holding a lit torch.
There wasn't a backpack in the whole of Creation that didn't have fifty feet of
rope, a couple of torches, and flint and steel in it.
When Milo saw what the backpack was connected to, he almost dropped the torch.
oooo
Hannah Abbot lay in bed. It wasn't that she couldn't sleep. It was just that she
didn't really see the point.
She idly fingered a crudely made, lopsided, slightly battered silver rose. After
a few minutes, she pinned it to the front of her nightshirt.
"I'm bored," she whispered. It was a lie, but it was the words, not the meaning,
that was important.
"Squeak!"
A brown-and-white hamster appeared in her hands, composed of equal parts fluff
and pudge, appeared in her hands. Milo had once told her that it used magic to
look deep inside her mind and formed its shape to maximize cuteness. She wasn't
sure how true that was, because Milo had once told her that the smallest
possible unit of measurement was five feet and that carbon wasn't a real
element.
But, for one reason or another, it felt hollow, now. Like it was trying too
hard. It didn't seem... real.
Page 610

Maybe the magic was fading. Or maybe it was just her. Cuteness didn't seem to
have the same appeal that it used to.
They'd never found Milo. The Daily Prophet said, in a tiny footnote on the
fourth page of section H, that he'd run off. But when Hannah had asked Hermione
if she knew anything, she'd seen the look on her face.
And that was the last time Hermione had talked to her.
Hermione obviously knew something, but just as obviously wished she didn't.
Was Milo... had something happened to him? Had someone taken him? Or was he...
could he be...
He wasn't dead, was he?
The hamster froze for a moment, staring her dead in the eye. Like it was...
listening for something. It was uncanny; it had never done anything like that
before. It seemed to make some kind of decision, then it did scurried off of her
bed.
But it didn't fall. It just sort of... floated there, looking around. It glanced
back at her, and she got that feeling again, as if it was ruffling through her
thoughts. Then it floated over to her bedside table, pulled open a drawer, and
found a pen. It was a practical, Muggle ball-point design that could write for
ages without running out of ink; being a halfblood had some advantages. She
hated writing with a quill.
It looked around again, then fixed on a poster of a map of the world she kept on
her wall. Without warning, it ripped it off the wall.
"Oi!" she hissed. She didn't want to wake her parents. "Put that back!"
The hamster ignored her, and floated the map down next to her. She noticed that
it wasn't actually touching the map with its paws. The map just... floated.
The pen floated up, searched around for a while, then stabbed down on England
with enough force that it tore clean through the paper. The hamster stared at
her, as if expecting something.
She looked at the map. The pen was pointing at a seemingly-random point in North
Somerset, twenty or so kilometers away from her home in Bristol.
"Okay..." she said.
The hamster flipped the map over. It moved the pen rapidly in a line straight
across the page, lifting it from the paper seemingly at random. Then it moved
down slightly and started it again. And again. And again.
As it continued, she realized it was drawing a map of sorts, although it looked
more like a photograph someone might take from airplane, or possibly broomstick.
Page 611

There was a big 'X' drawn over an innocuous-looking hillock.
Hannah had pulled her school robes over her head and was climbing out the
window, Cleansweep Seven in hand, before the ink was dry.
oooo
It was Gerard.
There wasn't much left of the big Fighter himself, but Milo would recognize the
scale mail and greatsword anywhere. They'd bought it together, years ago, after
Milo had persuaded him that dual-wielding Bastard Swords was lunacy. He'd been
skeptical of the idea until he'd Cleave'd his way through a dozen or so goblins
and a gnoll shaman without breaking a sweat. Then he'd taken to it like an
otyugh to a municipal composting program.
And now he was lying on Thamior's floor.
Dammit.
Milo looked around.
Zook, the gnome cleric, lay on the far side of the room. Well, what was left of
Zook, anyway.
There was one more body. Milo didn't want to look. He didn't want to see Wellby.
How had this happened?
Sure, he'd disappeared in a critical battle, but... seriously. Had Thamior done
this? How had Thamior done this? He was evil, sure, and he had a few levels on
them, but... experience or not, he was such a two-bit villain. He was
cartoonishly evil. Milo couldn't believe that he'd actually won.
Maybe it was that his standards had been altered by his time in the other world.
Pain and darkness there was... well, more darker and more painful. More real. It
wasn't quite so... funny. Maybe he'd taken the new world so seriously that he'd
forgotten that his world could be cruel, too?
He looked at the bodies around him.
Was this his fault? Sure, he hadn't chosen to be summoned away by Lucius and his
cronies, but... if he was honest with himself, he hadn't tried all that hard to
get back, either. He could take the Death Eaters that stayed out of prison. He'd
done it before. He could have gotten the answers out of them, one way or
another.
Sure, for part of that time, he hadn't been completely in control of himself,
but that was just making excuses. He'd barely even thought of returning. He'd
gotten so wrapped up in the new world's
Page 612

Milo's eyes narrowed.
That wasn't Welby's body. Welby was a halfling, three and a half feet tall in
thick-soled boots.
The third skeleton was at least two feet longer.
Milo rushed over to the skeleton, holding the torch over it for close
examination.
It was Thamior.
oooo
"We've been over this before! We agreed you mustn't tell him!"
"I agreed to no such thing! He has a right to know!"
Ron sighed, and tried to distract himself flipping through The Rise and Myriad
Painful Falls of the Chudley Cannons. It wasn't working. His parents had been
fighting on-and-off all week when they thought he and his siblings couldn't
hear.
Any kid can tell you how much that sucks, but this was almost worse.
Because they weren't fighting about him or his brothers, and they weren't
fighting about each other, or about Dad's hidden flying car that he was working
unreasonable hours.
"But Harry's just a boy!" Molly Weasley protested.
There it was. Harry Potter. Sure, he was Ron's best mate, and he wouldn't trade
him for anyone in the world, but... It wasn't always easy, being best mates with
the most famous boy in the world. Not that Ron would trade; nobody would want to
be famous for the reasons Harry was.
"With that lunatic on the loose, nobody can afford to be 'just a boy' any
longer."
Both of Ron's parents were silent for a moment, or at least not talking loudly
enough for Ron to hear through the floor.
"What happened, Arthur?" Molly's voice was quiet. Serious.
"You'll read about it in the morning Prophet," Arthur said. "I'm not supposed
to"
"That's never stopped you before," Molly said.
Arthur sighed. "He's killed again. But it gets worse. He"
oooo
Page 613

"I left the Mark!" Riddle said angrily. Petulantly, even. "Of course it was me!"
He had not taken Lucius's news well.
"Perhaps they don't want to believe you've returned, my lord," Lucius said in a
low, reasonable voice. Dealing with Riddle was always like this. "It's much
easier for them to blame someone more... mundane." Lucius had taken advantage of
this very fact many times in his career. People would believe anything other
than that the Dark Lord, or his followers, were still active.
"Mundane? Mundane?! I'll show them mundane! I'll usher in an era of darkness
like the world has never seen!" Lucius flinched. It was like reasoning with a
viper.
"Of course, my lord," Lucius said. "But perhaps, for now, it is efficacious to
remain outside of the spotlight. After all, what they do not know cannot be
defended against. If they instead believe that Sirius Black"
"Who the Hell is Sirius Black?" Riddle asked. "Was he a Death Eater?"
"No; he was a member of the Order of the Phoenix."
"Then why on Earth would people think he would leave a Dark Mark?"
"We framed him for..." Lucius paused for a moment. Talking about the Dark Lord's
previous defeat was... a tricky subject. "... treachery. And a little murder.
They threw him in Azkaban."
"Azkaban? Azkaban? Then what's he doing out here taking credit for my work?"
"He escaped," Lucius shrugged.
"How?"
"I do not know, my lord." He could have used the same method Lucius had used to
spring Black's deranged cousin, perhaps, though it didn't quite seem to be the
Order's style. Of course, prison could change a man, and he wasn't certain the
Order was even involved in this one. He felt no reason to share this with Riddle
at this time, however.
Riddle thought about this for a moment. Then he had... a Look. As if his eyes
flashed red for a moment. And then all traces of anger and frustration were
gone, and it was back to handsome, honest, trustworthy youth.
"So you're saying that people will jump to blame this... Sirius Black... for
whatever happens in the next few days?"
Lucius realized the danger in that question, but he'd backed himself into a
corner. "Yes, my lord. Within reason."
"Within reason. Of course."
Page 614

And then he was gone.
oooo
An hour and a bit later, Milo left Thamior's tower behind him. He'd given his
comrades the ceremonial adventurer's send-off (a touching ceremony consisting of
rifling through the deceased's pockets for gold and magic items, followed by a
hastily-dug grave, as is tradition).
Milo may not have had his companions.
He may not have had his magic items.
He may not have had his spellbook.
But he didn't need them. He'd prepared for this exact circumstance.
Well. Close enough. With Uncanny Forethought he could cast any of a select few
spellsBenign Transposition, Feather Fall, Shatter, and Shadow Conjurationeven
without a spellbook. He could also spend a little time concentrating to cast any
spell in his spellbook, of course, but he didn't have his spellbookevidently it
didn't count as 'his' if it was in another universe. Or, for all he knew, Riddle
had burnt it after killing him. Of the few available spells he could still count
on using, many would be quite use-impaired here; they were rather highly
specialized for taking down wanded wizards.
He didn't have his spellbook.
But he did have Thamior's. Technically, he couldn't 'prepare' spells from itbut
he wasn't preparing them, was he? He was casting them spontaneously.
It was a technicality, and a flimsy one at that, but it was one he intended to
exploit to its fullest.
"Phantom Steed," he muttered, testing his assumption.
A quasi-real, horselike steed flashed into existence next to Milo, wearing what
looked like a saddle, bit, and bridle. It looked like a horse, but it probably
could have given the Hogwarts Express a run for its galleons.
He'd found the spell in Thamior's book, which, irritatingly, seemed to be
primarily made of spells that seemed sort of 'dark' and 'evil.' In addition to
the questionable practicality of picking abilities based on their aesthetic and
thematic value, most of them were Necromancy and Enchantment, schools forbidden
to Milo. This one, though sort of ghosty looking, was a bog-standard
Conjuration. Milo could have cast it in his sleep.
Milo climbed onto his smoke-coloured mount.
Boccob hadn't chosen him for this task because of his interesting collection of
Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. He had skills that weren't written on a
Page 615

character sheet, and he planned on using them.
ooooooo
Author's Notes: I have a blog now! Fanfiction doesn't like links, but I think
you can figure it out. It's my penname and it's on tumblr. There are .pdf and
.mobi versions of Harry Potter and the Natural 20 and Harry Potter and the
Confirmed Critical for download. I'll also post announcements and things there,
and maybe, if I feel like it, the occasional blog post about DMing or optimizing
or RPGs or whatnot, sort of like when I put D&D tips in my stories. I'm new to
the whole blog thing, so I'm not sure how much I'll end up using it.
I'm changing the release day to Fridays. We're well on schedule for next week's
release.
SD 3: Know Thyself
Chapter Three: Know ThyselfHannah dropped from her broomstick, her robes and
hair soaking wet from condensation and low-flying clouds.
Her heart was racing. That had been the first time she'd ever been on a
broomstick outside of class. She'd been so focussed on getting a good mark from
Madam Hooch (and on not dying) that she hadn't really noticed that flying was
fun.
The hamster floated in front of her in front of a sheer stone face in a large
rock.
"You want me to follow you?" she asked. It nodded. The hamster beckoned, then
floated through the rock.
Some people would find that strange or impossible, but some people hadn't had to
run through a seemingly-solid masonry wall at King's Cross.
She shrugged and walked through the wall. As soon as her hand touched the stone,
it turned... not quite translucent. She could still see the wall, but she could
also see a tunnel behind it. It was like one of those optical illusions;
depending on how you looked it at, it was either a woman with an unfashionable
hat or a bowl of fruit.
Hannah shook her head and walked in.
oooo
Milo sat in the darkest corner of the dark tavern, the Hungry Hungry Hippogriff,
and pulled his hood down so it covered his face, adjusting the several dozen
straps, buckles, and scarves dispersed about his outfit for maximum effect. He
Page 616

was covered head-to-toe, save for a small area around his jaw and neck that his
hood didn't cover, but he'd made sure to paint them in red whorls and twists
like tattoos.
A Monk sat on the floor nearby, probably meditating about inner perfection and
diamond minds and the usual trash that high-Wisdom classes got up to. A couple
of dwarves were talking seriously about the goblins that had overrun their
mines. The barman looked like he had a deep, dark secret that he'd take to his
grave unless someone could make a moderate Diplomacy check to get it out of him.
He'd missed taverns. They'd been such a staple
hadn't really realized how important they were
really ever drank, or talked to people, or ate
Everlasting Rations. That wasn't the important
of his lifelike shoesthat he

until they were gone. Not that he
anything that weren't his
part of a tavern.
No, the important thing, the really, crucially, irreplaceable thing were the
people.
Specifically, the people dressed in strange, faraway clothing sitting in dark
corners.
Milo was only sitting for a few minutes when the doors slammed open. He didn't
look up. That was part of the trick. Instead, he waited for the light to flicker
over him, and glanced up disinterestedlymaybe too disinterestedly?at the
newcomers.
There were only three of them, and that was surprising. There were supposed to
be four.
He recognized two of them, but he knew who the third was.
He hardly had time to blink before they were sitting next to him.
"Greetings, stranger," said one, a gnome.
"There are other tables," Milo said in his lowest, raspiest voice.
"True, true. But we couldn't help but notice you were watching us. And I don't
recognize your clothing. Perhaps you could tell us where you're from?"
"I could. But why should I?" Milo asked, still not looking up.
The newcomer sighed. "Fine, fine. Relkin, your turn."
The one Milo didn't recognize (Relkin, presumably) spoke.
"Where are you from?" she asked.
Whoa. Milo had never been subjected to a Diplomacy check that powerful. He
almost replied 'Myra! City of Light! City of Magic!' reflexively. Instead, he
reminded himself that, technically, Diplomacy only worked on NPCs.
Page 617

"Excuse me!" the Monk from the floor said, standing up and walking over to Milo.
"This is none of your business," Milo growled. It fell flat, though, without any
Intimidate to back it up.
"No, I think I've got something to say," the Monk said angrily. "I've been
waiting here for four hours for a party of adventurers to show up and help me
avenge my dead master. This is my tavern. Who are you to come in here and poach
my adventurers?"
Milo sighed. He hadn't expected this. But then, he'd never been on this side of
the quest-giving experience before.
"Do you really want to do this?" Milo asked, still sitting down.
"If you don't leave," the Monk growled, "I'm going to kick your backside from
the Clockwork Nirvana to the Ever-Changing Chaos. I'm level twelve, you know."
"Try me," Milo said.
"Haaaaaai-yeee!" the Monk shouted, charging at Milo barefisted.
"You might want to rethink that last one," Milo said.
The Monk paused. "Why?"
"You're not proficient with unarmed strikes. Minus four to attack."
"What tripe is this? Of course I'm proficient. I'm a Monk."
"Monks," Milo said in the sing-song voice of one reciting from memory, "are
proficient with club, crossbow (light or heavy), dagger, handaxe, javelin, kama,
nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, shuriken, siangham, and sling," he said. "Unarmed
strike is nowhere on that list."
The Monk frowned. "You're right," he said, finally. "Damn. But I don't need my
fists to beat you into a bloody pulp," the Monk said, breaking a table leg off
of a chair.
"For a Monk, you don't know much about Monks, do you?" Milo said. He hadn't
meant for it to go this far, but the Monk left him no choice. He had to break
out his secret weapon. This battle was about to get existential. "After all, is
it not written, 'know thyself, and thou knowest the best way to beat in
another's face?'" Milo said. "Or something like that, anyway?"
"Of course! True wisdom is in knowing yourselfthyself, whateverand my Wisdom
is through the roof! Haaaaaai-yee"
"Ah, but you don't know yourself, do you?" Milo said, still sitting. "Because it
takes a Knowledge check of ten plus the Hit Dice of a creature to recognize it,
meaning it is a DC 11 check to identify a human." Milo grinned wickedly. "But it
is impossible to make a check higher than ten without training. Tell me, o wise
Page 618

Monk, how many cross-class skill ranks have you invested in Knowledge (Local)?"
The Monk dropped the table leg and stared at his own hand in horror. "What am
I?" he shrieked, looking at himself as if he'd never seen a human beforeand, in
a manner of speaking, he hadn't. As far as he was concerned, humans were unknown
and unknowable. He broke into a cold sweat, and started to shake. Then he fled
through the door, screaming at the top of his lungs.
Milo looked back at the party sitting around him.
"Sorry about that," he said. "Some people never know when to"
"Milo?"
Milo pulled off his hood.
"Hey, guys," he said to Gerard, Zook, and... the new one. "I thought you were
dead."
"We could say the same for you!" Zook said. "But you know how it is; some Wizard
Wished us back to life in exchange for getting his cat familiar down from a
treant, that sort of thing. You wouldn't believe how many times we tried to
contact you with a Sending or bring you back with a True Resurrectionhang on.
If you're here, how is..." Zook turned to look at the Bard. Then back at Milo.
Then he narrowed his eyes.
"True Seeing," he cast.
"No, I'm really me," Milo said. "It took a deus ex machina or two to get me
here, but I'm here."
"So..." Gerard said slowly. "Dost this, perchance, makest thou an NPC?"
"Nope. At least, I don't think so."
"Oh, thank gods," Gerard said. "I hate doing that voice. I can never tell if
it's supposed to be 'thou' or 'thee.'"
Milo glanced at the Bard, Relkin. She was hard to read behind her
presumably-massive Charisma bonus and her feathered, wide-brimmed red hat, but
she seemed to be deep in thought.
"Look, guys," Milo said. "I need your help."
"Of course you do," Zook grinned. "When have we ever met someone in a tavern who
didn't need our help?"
"You're sure you're not an NPC?" Gerard asked.
"Pretty sure. So here's the thing: Boccob sent me back here to hunt someone
down. But I've only got three days, starting about four hours ago, meaning we
Page 619

really have to hustle."
"That's ridiculous," Zook said. "Of course, as a divine being, he's clearly
beyond our understanding," he added quickly, "but why would a god need someone
found? They're practically omniscient. Boccob the Uncaring knows exactly where
your target is."
"That was my thinking too," Milo said. "I think he doesn't actually want her
found. I think he wants to get me and her in the same room together, sixty-eight
hours from now. I already tried locating her with magic, but she seems to be
under the effects of a Nondetection spell or something similar. She's a witch
named Bellatrix"
"Myra," Relkin interjected. "City of Light! City of Magic!" she added
half-heartedly.
"Oh. Is she not hiding, then?"
"Don't know. This is the first I've heard about her. But we've been getting
foreshadowing about shady goings-on in Myra (CityofLight!CityofMagic!) for ages
now. But, since that Wizard who brought these guys back to life was on the other
side of the continent, it's taken us a while to get back. And there were all
these sidequests to do, MacGuffins to find, mysteries to solve, dungeons to
raid... up until last week, when there was nothing. The quests dried up, and
suddenly we were moving like lightning. Until now. You're the first notable NPC
we've met in a week. Coincidence? I think not."
"I'm not an NPC," Milo bristled. "But your reasoning seems sound. Besides,
there's... someone else I have to see in the city."
"Just one question," Relkin said. "What the hells is a witch?"
oooo
Hannah crept deeper into the cave. She wasn't exactly sneaking or anything, but
it seemed almost impossible to walk into a mysterious hidden cave without
creeping. She found herself wishing she'd brought a torch; she had her wand, of
course, but didn't dare use it. Stupid underage magic rules.
Still, if only she could see...
As soon as she thought it, the hamster on her shoulder disappeared, and the
walls and floor of the cave, just barely visible before, were highlighted in a
web of silvery lines.
"Cool," she whispered, walking more confidently now.
The cave opened up into a little square room hewn out of the rock and earth,
supported in places by neatly-sawn timber beams and posts. There was a wooden
table in the centre of the room, an overstuffed armchair in the corner, and the
walls were all lined with shelves and drawers.
Page 620

"Hello." It was Milo's voice. Hannah whipped around, but couldn't see him. Of
course, she couldn't see much of anything in the darkness beyond the silvery
outlines. "If you're hearing this, it means your Christmas present detected you
were thinking I was dead. If this is a ploy and I'm planning a" the voice cut
out briefly, then picked up again with a slightly different cadence. It was a
little like listening to a poorly dubbed Japanese cartoon. "daring comeback,
I'll leave a note on that table explaining everything. However, failing that,
I've made certain contingency plans. Presumably, my death means the world" the
voice cut out again. Hannah frantically ran her hands over the table, trying to
find Milo's note. "the world has fallen to You-Know-Who. Or a housecat got in a
lucky hit. This shelter contains everything you need to run an" there was
another pause, longer this time. "Dammit, I need to speak more concisely.
Twenty-five words is a ridiculously short message to leave, and I've only got
one more Magic Mouth"
There was no note. Still, that didn't mean anything, right? It didn't mean he
was dead. It just meant, as he'd said, that she thought he was dead. Which was
absolutely jumping to conclusions. Right.
He was probably enjoying his summer in... well, in wherever it was he went
during the summer. She wondered where that was.
"Come on, 'twenty-five' is a compound modifier, not two words! Anyway. This
shelter contains everything that Cog could make, or that I could mail" Another
pause. "Or that I could mail-order that might be necessary for whatever the
current emergency situation is. There are spare wands, non-perishables, money,
grappling" Another pause. "Argh. You get the idea. Look around. There's also
an armchair in the corner and a set of wizard chess so you can talk aboutthe
weather and get your spells back. There's also some copies, sans illustrations,
of some school textbooks that I thought might be useful. The hamsterknows where
to find the other twelve identical shelters I built. I know I said your
Christmas present was going to be fun rather thanrather than useful, but I
couldn't resist. You probably also noticed that the hamster can project images
of rooms when you're in the dark, butit only works in places that someone who's
been within 60 feet of the pin have seen, and only you can see the image." There
was a pause. A real one, as if Milo was hesitating before continuing, not one of
the weird ones. "Ifyou're not running for your life, and he didn't go down
fighting or suffer existential failure, please take care of my rat, will you?
HappyChristmas, Hannah Abbot."
And then there was silence.
oooo
"So, what's the plan?" Zook asked.
Milo slid a piece of paper across the table. "We'll need everything on that
list, but I don't have any money." He'd had to tear the sheet out of Thamior's
spellbook just to make the shopping list.
Zook scanned the sheet.
Page 621

"Why do we need five tower shields?" he asked.
"I guess it's only four since Wellby's not here," Milo said. "Where is he, by
the way?"
"He wasn't with us when we were resurrected," Gerard said. "We assumed at first
that he chose to stay in the afterlife, but we've since heard that he might be
in Myra, City of Light! City of Magic! We don't know why, though. He's not
responding to our messages."
Milo and Relkin exchanged a look.
"Bellatrix has access to a... permanent-duration at-will domination spell with
an implausibly-high DC," Milo said. "She got him."
"How do you know that?" Zook asked.
"She didn't kill him when she killed you two," Relkin said. "He was also the
last one alive. She's from another plane, so she'd need a local guide. Rogues
have infamously poor Will saves. He's also in the same city she is, and he's not
returning your messages. He would if he was able."
"So. All we need now is four fast horses to get to
could take another Phantom Steed, but he wanted to
possible. He wasn't really certain what to expect,
anything. And besides, he couldn't fit all four of
horse, magical or not.
the city," Milo said. He

conserve his magic as much as
and wanted to be prepared for
them on the back of a single
"Horses won't get you there in time," Relkin said. "Fortunately, I have better."
oooo
Hannah found a pile of curious foot-long iron rods in one of the shelves
labelled, in that same weird silvery outline, a 'sunrodglows when struck.' She
wondered what struck meant in this case. Was it in the sense of how someone
might strike a match? Or did she have to kick it or something? Or maybe the
sunrods had to engage in collective bargaining and refuse services as a
bargaining ploy? She knew Milo's definition of certain words differed, somewhat,
from the norm.
She decided to go with the first option, and struck one, like a giant match,
against the wooden table. As soon as she did, the tipwhich turned out to be
made of goldbegan to glow brightly, illuminating the room. Wherever the light
touched, the silvery lines disappeared.
She rooted around in the drawers until she produced some blank paper and a
quill, and placed them on the table. Then she looked at the hamster pointedly.
"Right," she said. "I think you'd best draw where the rest of these little
hideaways are."
oooo
Page 622

It was a
and deck
patterns
ROLL FOR
chaotic, gaudy mess in the shape of a sailing shipsans sails. The hull
were carved and painted in a variety of seemingly-random swirly
and shapes. On the side, painted in bright silver, was its name: S.S.
INITIATIVE.
A complicated mechanism resembling a waterwheel was mounted on the rear,

spinning like a Fighter with Combat Reflexes, Improved Trip, and a spiked chain
surrounded by kobolds who had never read page 137 of the PHB.
And the whole thing moved like Hasted lightning.
"What is this monstrosity?" Milo shouted over the wind as they shot down the
river.
"It's a boat," Relkin said.
"What... what makes it go?"
"Zombies," Relkin said with aplomb, steering the ship down the winding river.
Milo choked slightly. "Zombies?"
"And a gaggle of skeletons. There's a couple of zombie crocodiles in the hold
turning a crank," Relkin said. "Good strength-to-HD ratio, and the river is just
lousy with them. Some of the more complicated machinery is actually haunted,
with a couple of skeleton squirrels Hauntshifted in as poltergeists. The
ballistae mounted on the sides self-load the same way, but someone has to
actually aim and fire them. I'm working on that bit, still."
Milo frowned. Theoretically, an undead poltergeist could make simple machinery
move, like making a clock run backwards. But he'd never heard of anyone...
weaponising it. The rule was only there to add a certain flavour to haunted
houses.
"How could you justify spending so much of your wealth-by-level on a method of
transportation?" Milo asked. "Everyone knows that not even a high overland speed
lets you break the one-encounter-per-trip rule."
Theoretically, there were supposed to be random encounters with hostile monsters
every so often while travelling, but nobody, not even the monsters themselves,
had time for that. Random encounters were a waste of time for all involved
parties. However, since they couldn't have travel through dangerous wildernesses
just be safe, a compromise of sorts was reached: any trip through the wild, of
any length, would have exactly one random encounter.
"True," Relkin said. "But I didn't actually spend anything on this. I made it."
"Oh,
into
that
have
please," Milo said. "You don't expect me to believe you put that many ranks
Craft (Shipbuilding), Knowledge (Architecture and Engineering), and, for
matter, Profession (Sailor)? Is this like that time you decided I should
a higher Charisma than Constitution?"
Page 623

"I don't know what you're talking about," Relkin said woodenly. "I had nothing
to do with that decision. And besides," she added in a more normal tone, "I
didn't waste any ranks in any of those skills."
"Then how...?"
"Bardic Knack and Jack-of-all-Trades, combined with some lucky ability rolls. I
have a high skill bonus in every skill. You see the art on the deck?"
"It's... hard to miss."
"Well, artistic crafts like Craft (Woodcarving) and (Abstract Art) let you make
high-value works of art from low-cost raw materials, so when I have some free
time, I throw on another coat of paint. At last count, there's fifteen thousand
gp in masterwork paintings layered on top of each other on this boat for when I
decide to sell it when I learn Teleport. That number is only going up."
"Impressive. I once brewed a magical potion in a completely different magic
system from ours without a feat," Milo said.
"You must be very proud. I once buffed a donkey to the point where it killed a
hill giant without taking any damage."
"Only a hill giant? Hmph. I foiled the plans of an immortal, evil mastermind
with a first-level spell."
"I can add my Charisma to attack," the Bard said. "Three times. And once to
damage."
"I made a headband that gave me seven feats using only a second-level spell."
"Mirror Move? Way ahead of you." Relkin fished an amulet out from her red coat
and dangled it in front of Milo. "In a few levels I'll get access to the whole
Sorcerer/Wizard spell list."
"Oooh, so you'll be almost as good at magic as a Sorcerer? I tremble at the
thought. In seven levels I'll get access to the whole Cleric spell list and the
Wizard listwithout sacrificing any caster levels."
"I can cast spells without preparing them."
"So can I," Milo grinned. "And I'm a Wizard."
"Well, I get better saves and more hit points per level than you."
"Bah! If it comes down to your hit points, you've already lost."
"I can craft any item at one-third price!'
"I can craft magic items at one-sixtieth of their value!"
Page 624

"Lot of good you did with it. You haven't got a single magic item on you. In
fact, aside from that spellbook and those black robes, you don't have anything."
"I have a mother, and that's more than you can say."
Relkin cocked her head sideways slightly and looked at Milo. "So?" she asked.
"If you have to ask" Milo narrowed his eyes, staring at the reflection of the
setting sun in the water ahead. "That's not a reflection."
"You see it, too?" Relkin asked. She reached behind him and pulled on a rope,
ringing an alarm bell deep within the ship. She slammed forward a lever marked
'REVERSE' and drew a weird, crystalline sword from her hip.
Milo dived for cover behind the gunwale as a cloud of superheated steam buffeted
the ship. His Reflex save was garbage; had he been caught in that blast he would
have died for certain. Even if he'd made his save there would have been nothing
left but a pair of smoking boots. Relkin stood behind the wheel looking
unharmed; clearly, she'd managed to munchkin her way into getting Evasion
somehow.
There was a roar that Milo's ears didn't so much hear as suffer through as the
monster surfaced.
Its wide, streamlined shell was covered in jagged, silvery protrusions that
caused the light to dance in a beautiful, mesmerizing way that looked a little
like the reflection of light on the water. A long, snakelike neck reached out of
the water, ending in a scaled, crested head and a mouth lined with several dozen
rows of razor-sharp teeth; still steaming from the breath attack earlier.
The Dragon Turtle slammed into the Roll for Initiative, shattering the mermaid
figurehead and sending splinters flying across the deck.
Its sea-green eyes scanned the deck and looked straight at Milo. Then it opened
its mouth again, ready to send forth another blast of superhot steam.
"Oh, crap."
SD 4: Dragon in a Half-Shell
Chapter Four: Dragon in a Half-ShellAbby Michaels set her quill down and waited
for the ink to dry. Randal was finally starting to come around; they had to
block Lucius's push for Severus Snape to keep his position as headmaster. The
man was a world-class Potions Master, to be sure, and had many other admirable
qualities, but managing teachers and small children were not among them. In
fact, the rumours coming out of that school suggested that, sometimes, his
teaching methods were borderline abusive. Minerva was by far the superior
Page 625

choice; being strict but fair, as well as reasonably well-liked among the
students (at least, the well-behaved ones), and highly respected by the other
teachers. Besides, she was Dumbledore's pick, and that should be enough reason
for anyone.
Honestly, Abby couldn't imagine why anyone would want Severus as headmaster. She
suspected, in fact, that Lucius's methods for persuading some of the others of
the Hogwarts Board of Governors had not been entirely ethical, but obviously had
no proof. Regardless, the Board was favouring Minerva heavily on this
issuesplit 7-5 with Randal on the fenceso she wasn't overly worried.
Just as she was about to tie the letter to the leg of her barn owl, Scratch,
there was a knock on the door.
Abby sighed, put the letter down, and hobbled over to the door. The mediwizards
at St. Mungo's said she should be walking with a cane, but she didn't see the
use in one. She was far too old to start walking with a cane, in any case. She'd
gotten by for eighty-eight years without; she didn't see why she should have to
change now.
She opened the door.
There was a handsome, earnest boy at the door about the age of her grandson.
"Hello? Mrs. Michaels?" The boy asked, smiling politely. He looked vaguely
familiar, though Abby couldn't quite put her finger on where she'd seen him
last.
"Yes?" she asked. "How can I help you?"
"Well, it's a bit complicated," the boy said. "Do you mind if I come in and
explain it to you?"
Something about the way he said it made it sound like such a reasonable request.
Like she should invite him into her house without thinking. After all, it seemed
to say, he's only a boy. And he's such an honest, responsible-looking boy. And
familiar, too.
What could be the harm in letting him come in to talk for a moment or two?
oooo
Ron sat across from Harry, enjoying Florean Fortescue's famous Flaming
Fudge-flavoured ice cream. They'd been about to get their school books when
they'd noticed Fortescue had a buy-one-get-one-free sale, and it was bloody hot,
and, well... their decision had been made before they'd even realized there was
a decision to make.
Hermione was supposed to meet them, but she was a little late. Besides, she
wouldn't approve of them eating ice cream; her parents were some sort of Muggle
tooth-related medicine shamans or something.
Page 626

"Did you have any trouble getting the Muggles to sign the Hogsmeade consent
form?" Ron asked. "Can't imagine they fancy the idea of you having, you know, an
actual good time."
"Nah," Harry said. "I waved it in their faces and they signed it just to get rid
of me. I think Milo really had an impact on them last year. All I have to do is
mention I write him every day, and they largely keep out of my hair. I can't
imagine how I would have done it, otherwise."
Ron hesitated. "You don't reckon Hermione's right about him, do you?"
"Right about what?" It was Hermione, an oversized, empty book bag hanging from
one shoulder, ready to be filled with, judging by the size, half the contents of
Flourish and Blott's book store.
"Nothing," Harry said quickly.
"You're talking about Milo again, aren't you?" Hermione said, pulling up a
chair. "We've been over this."
"But it feels wrong," Harry said.
"Of course it does," Hermione said. "That's why treachery is so vileand
effective. It doesn't work if you don't trust the person doing it."
"But..."
"If you try to look at the facts objectively," Hermione said, "it all adds up.
He appears out of nowheresummoned by Death Eaters, no lesshe exhibits inhuman
healing abilities and strange magic, yet nevertheless is enrolled in an elite
school and seems to pass completely unnoticed. And as soon as he shows up, look
what starts to happen! The Defence Professor was possessed by what he claims to
be You-Know-Who, students start being replaced by undercover dark wizards and
witchesand don't even get me started on the Chamber of Secrets. The Basilisk
was using Milo's secret passages to get around, and almost killed Professor
McGonagall because of him. Then we kill the Basilisk, and poof! Milo disappears
from the face of the earth."
"You don't seriously think he was working with You-Know-Who, do you?" Ron asked
scornfully. "I mean, come on. This is Milo we're talking about here."
"I don't know what his plan was," Hermione said. "But he almost got us all
killed. And I don't think he's human. His magic isn't at all like ours. It
doesn't work on any of the same principles, and the two don't interact
predictably. And you know what that sounds just like?"
"Yes, because you've told us a million"
"House elves. And centaurs. And leprechauns. There are plenty of magical
creatures out there with magic that isn't like oursjust like his."
"If you're so sure he's a traitor, then," Ron said, "how come you're still
Page 627

taking care of his rat?"
"You can hardly blame a pet for the crimes of its master," Hermione said. "And
besides, it's only until I find a new home for him. He bites, and my parents
don't like him. Anyway, I'm just saying we should be on our guard. We need to
look at the facts."
It was no use arguing with her. It was all the more irritating because she had a
point, tooa lot of evidence did point to Milo being the one who opened the
Chamber of Secrets.
They eventually made their way to the book shop. Rather than the usual,
colourful posters advertising the latest hit seller (generally one of Lockhart's
memoirs), the glass walls were plastered with wanted posters for Sirius Black.
"Who is this guy, anyway?" Harry asked. "The Muggles are after him, too."
"A murderer," Ron said. "My parents always hush up whenever they notice I'm
listening, though. I think he was one of You-Know-Who's nuttiest supporters,
back in the war, just after Bellatrix. So they locked him up in Azkaban and
threw away the key."
"And be broke out, did he?" Harry asked. "The Muggle news says he's been killing
people left and right."
"It looks like he's been after Professor Dumbledore's old supporters," Hermione
said. "But I don't think we have anything to worry about. We'll be safe at
Hogwarts, even without Dumbledore there."
That was a chilling thought. Dumbledore had been suddenly sacked last year after
the Basilisk had rampaged through the school, with McGonagall taking over as
Headmistressfor about two minutes, before the Basilisk got her, too. She'd made
a full recovery once the Mandrake root had grown up, and Ron couldn't wait for
her to come back. She was better than Snape, that was for sure, but she was no
Dumbledore.
"Besides," Hermione continued, "they're taking this really seriously. I read the
government's launching a nation-wide manhunt for himboth governments. He
doesn't stand a chance."
"Well, let's hope they catch him," Ron said, opening the door. "But I don't
think it has anything to do with us."
"Hey, Hermione," Harry said as they walked into the store. "How come you have
such a big book bag?"
"Because I'm going to get a lot of text books," she said. There was an implied
'obviously' hanging in the air.
"Yeah, sure," he said. "But how come you're going to get a lot of text books?"
he asked.
Page 628

"No reason," she said quickly.
oooo
"Dark Way!" Milo cast. It had been Thamior's favourite trick. A weightless,
unbreakable, shadowy bridge appeared linking the gunwale to the crow's nest on
the redundant, sail-less mast, blocking the Dragon Turtle's line of sight to
Milo. "Do something!" he shouted at Relkin, who was ducking behind the wheel.
"Inspirational Boost. Working on it!" she called back. Milo could feel a
tip-tap-tippity-tap through the floorboards. "Can you see me from there?"
"Yeah. So?" Milo asked, flinching back from another blast of
instant-death-steam.
"I'm doing some inspiring tap dancing!"
Milo leaned out from behind his cover temporarily. "Glitterdust!" he cast,
blasting the monster full in the face with its blinding, sparkly might.
Not that it seemed to care, ignoring the bright lights altogether.
"It has +9 to Will!" Relkin shouted. "Get your head in the game!"
Milo had almost forgotten that people could make saves against his spells. The
people in the other world almost never did; he suspected they didn't really have
bonuses to saving throws. He was losing his edge.
"Whirling Blade!" Relkin cast, throwing her crystalline sword over her head at
the dragon's face. Propelled forward by magic and vibrating in tune with her
(sigh) inspiring tapdancing, the blade struck the dragon across its face,
leaving a deep gouge, before returning to her outstretched hand.
It was too windy for a Solid Fog, and the dragon was immune to fire, so
Scorching Ray was right out. It was way too big for Evard's Black Tentacles to
have any hope against, and any spell that required a save would be weakened by
his lack of intelligence-boosting headgear. Thamior worked alone, and didn't
have any decent buff spells in his spellbook.
Lacking any half-decent options, Milo fell back on his second-favourite school
of magic: Divination.
"Unluck," Milo cast. Just for an instant, he felt like he could almost hear the
sound of rolling dice. Other than that, nothing seemed to happen.
The Dragon Turtle roared, and its massive head came right at Milo, treating him
to a decidedly unpleasant odour of cooked, rotting fish.
The dragon's bite missed.
By like, ten feet. Milo hadn't even moved. The dragon blinked, confused, as if
wondering how it could possibly have missed a stationary target like that. Milo
Page 629

grinnedhis spell had clearly worked. The dragon would have to make every die
roll twice and take the worse result.
Relkin's sword flew past the dragon's face, again, drawing blood.
The creature roared in pain, and retreated under the water just as Zook and
Gerard arrived on deck.
"What's happening?" Zook asked.
"Dragon Turtle," Milo said. "But it just submerged. So we don't need to worry
about it for now unless it... wait..." Milo tried to recall what the most recent
publications on the monster's abilities had said. Was it the Dragon Turtle that
had the savagely effective capsize ability? "It's going to try to flip the
ship!" Milo shouted.
Relkin's eyes widened. "The Roll for Initiative is only fifty feet long!" she
said. "It gets a..." she frowned for a second, trying to remember exact wording.
"50% chance to knock us into the water," Milo said, "and unless something has
changed, the only one here with ranks in Swim is wearing fifty pounds of steel,"
he said, nodding at Gerard. "Jacks-of-all-trades excluded, of course," he added
to Relkin.
"What do we do?" Zook asked. "I don't want to die again!"
Milo's mind raced. They needed to lengthen the ship by at least ten feet to foil
the turtle's ability. Probably, anyway. But how would they... Milo looked back
up at the mast. It was just sitting there, contributing nothing but drag to the
ship.
"We're going to need a lot of mass at the back of the ship in eighteen seconds,"
Milo said to the party as he ran towards the mast. "Figure it out, I don't care
how."
The mast was basically an entire pine tree sticking out of the middle of the
boat. Milo had no idea why Relkin had decided to include it on her
skeleton-powered ship, but she was going to have to learn to live without it.
Milo sized it up. It was about the right length, give or take five-ish feet. He
reminded himself that what he was doing wasn't cutting it down. Not really,
anyway.
In the other world, the price of various goods was determined by market forces.
Factors like transportation, production, raw materials, taxes, fees, wages, and
demand could cause prices to fluctuate unpredictably. This was the basis of
Milo's salt trickadvances in mining technology and goods transportation had
caused the price of salt to plummet from its historical value.
The value of goods in Milo's world was completely unrelated to the market, but
instead dictated, essentially, by the gods. Everythingeverythinghad a fixed
value that the universe ran on. This determined how an item was affected by
Page 630

certain spells, how long it took to craft, how much it cost to buy in a store,
and approximately what difficulty of monster might be carrying it.
Depending on the complexity of the item, Milo could craft a certain number of
that item, measured by its value in silver pieces, in a given period of time.
The cheaper the item, the faster he could make it.
A mast might be big, heavy, and expensive, but a quarterstaff was free, with
literally zero value. Ergo, Milo could craft one from a certain amount of raw
materialssay, a conveniently located tree trunkin an instant. Scaling up a
weapon increased its value by a percentage based on its size, therefore
increasing crafting time as well.
Quick, what's a thousand percent of zero?
Milo tapped the mast with a finger, and it was instantly severed from the ship.
"Feather Fall," he cast, and it gently descended to the deck. "Levitate,"
said after it touched down, causing it to lift off slightly. He gave it a
push towards the front of the ship, and followed it until just under half
'quarterstaff' was sticking out over the water. Milo nudged the base such
it was just touching the deck of the ship. Then he glanced at the rear to
tree growing from the rear of the ship. Of course Relkin had some Feather
Tokens, he thought. She's me. Sort of. Then he grabbed a nearby length of
ropethere's always rope nearby when you're on a boatand tied it to the
railing, dismissing his spell.
he
gentle
of the
that
see a
Boom, instant boat extension.

The boat rocked violently and yawed perilously as the dragon attacked from
underneath. Water sprayed onto the deckbut it didn't flip.
Zook ran over to the edge of the boat and looked down.
"Hit him with everything you've got!" Milo shouted at the Cleric. "His saves
will be garbage for the next three rounds!"
His holy symbol hanging around his neck flashed as he drew on his divine power
to enhance his spellsspecifically, to allow him to completely get around all
metamagic-based restrictions via the incredibly overpowered Divine Metamagic
feat. Milo was impressed; he didn't think the little Cleric had the head for
that kind of optimization. It wasn't the most effective way of using the feat,
necessarily, but it was a start.
"Empowered Sound Lance!" He called. A barely visible, translucent lance burst
forth from his outstretched hands and into the water. As soon as it touched the
surface, water exploded high into the air around them.
As Milo was hit full in the face with the fallout of the spell, he realized it
wasn't just water that got kicked up by the spell.
"Ewww," he said, wiping dragon blood out of his eyes with his sleeves.
Page 631

Gerard, meanwhile, had been tying a rope around his waist for no discernible
reason. "Hold this," he said, handing one end to Milo.
"Uh, sure," Milo said.
"Thanks!" Gerard said, and, without another word, sprinted to the edge of the
boat.
Milo looked at the rope in his hands, then at the 200lb, 6'7" juggernaut running
away from him. Then he looked back at the rope. Then up at Gerard, who had
disappeared over the edge of the boat, greatsword in hand.
"Oh, sh"
The rope suddenly snapped tight, yanking Milo from his feet and pulling him
bodily across the deck of the ship.
He just had enough time to see the railing moving towards him really, really
fast before everything got painful and sort of confusing.
Milo pulled himself together, then tied his end of the rope to a metal
hook-thingy that seemed to have no particular purpose beyond being a thing to
tie ropes to.
A few seconds later, Gerard came climbing back up the rope, panting and heaving
as if carrying something heavy. He swung back over the deck, a huge grin on his
face, the head of the Dragon Turtle in his hand. It was significantly larger
than he was, and landed on the deck with a meaty thud that rocked the whole
ship.
"And that," Gerard said, "is how it's done."
"Are those... are those tears on its cheeks?" Zook asked, peering at the
dragon's head.
"Dragons don't have tear ducts," Milo said. "They can't cry."
"This one learned," Gerard said, wiping the blood from his sword.
SD 5: City of Light
Chapter Five: City of LightMilo couldn't sleep.

Or rather, he could sleep. Quite easily, in factas with everyone else from his
world, he could fall asleep as easily as he could blink. It wasn't even an
action. He just didn't want to, right now.
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He wasn't sleeping because he was worried, and decided to prioritize, in the way
people do late at night, stressing ineffectually about tomorrow over sleep.
Nobody had told him what happened to Myra (CityofLight!CityofMagic!) while he
was gone. They were very pointedly not talking about it.
Bellatrix Lestrange was loose in the city, and she was certainly up to no good.
Milo had read about what she'd done in the last wizarding war. Apparently she'd
tortured people to insanity with the Cruciatus Curse for no reason other than
that she'd enjoyed it.
Of course, the curse would do her little good hereMilo had demonstrated that to
Tom Riddle in the Chamber of Secretsbut that wasn't her only asset.
Milo was worried because Bellatrix had every advantage here that Milo had had in
the other world. She ran on different rules. Rules that nobody knew about, much
less knew how to counter.
Milo had gone up against Lucius's Death Eaters several times and won, not
because he was a more powerful wizard, but because he was a weirder wizard.
Draco Malfoy, of all people, had shown in the Duelling Club that a wanded wizard
who'd done their homework had a very fair chance of beating him. He'd only lost
because Milo had even more tricks up his sleeve than he'd predicted. Milo had
had to adapt rapidly to the new world, using spells and tricks that would have
gotten him slaughtered here.
But here, Bellatrix was the unknown factor. She had spells and tricks that
nobody here knew about. She could ignore fundamental rules of the universe that
her opponents would take for granted. She could act out of turn order. She could
cast infinite spells every day. She could kill without allowing a saving throw.
Of course, she could be countered in a few simple wayssuch as using Protection
from Evil against her Imperius Curseif you knew how.
If Bellatrix played her cards right, Milo's home town wouldn't have stood a
chance.
And now, thanks, in part, to Tom Riddle, he had people here who he actually
cared about.
And that's why Milo wasn't sleeping.
oooo
Lucius Malfoy stubbed his toe through his leather loafers on an exposed tree
root and cursed like a pirate, thankful that nobody had seen him.
He'd had it up to here with these clandestine forest meetings.
"You're late, Malfoy." Lucius felt his whole body go still. When had he gotten
here? How long had he been watching?
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Lucius turned around, slowly. Tom Riddle was lounging on a low tree branch.
"I was delayed by a meeting that ran behind schedule, my lord," Lucius said
smoothly. "There was no way I could leave and maintain my cover. The fault,
however, is mine."
"The fault lies with me for expecting punctuality from you. However, I can be
forgiven, as your other suggestion is working perfectly. Nobody suspects you had
anything to do with the deaths."
Lucius bristled inside, but kept it from his face. The reason nobody suspected
he had anything to do with the deaths was because he hadn't. And this hadn't
been his plan. When he'd said Sirius would make an excellent scapegoat, he
hadn't expected this. The boy was insane. He had everything that had made the
Dark Lord terrifying with none of the restraint.
"And what is the count now, my lord? Three?"
"Twelve," Riddle said happily. "If I were a gambling man, I wouldn't be placing
any galleons on Minerva returning as headmistress of Hogwarts in September."
Lucius licked his suddenly-dry lips. He'd been on the verge of getting Snape
given the position permanently as it was. Now he'd have to start finding strings
to attach to a whole new group of governors.
"And what of the... last headmaster?" Lucius asked. "Has anyone found
information as to his whereabouts?" Lucius knew full well that no-one had,
because he had eyes-and-ears watching and listening the world over. But he had
no intention of tipping Riddle off to that fact.
Of course, the entire concept of locating the whereabouts of a wizard such as
Dumbledore was ludicrous. When you could Apparate across the world with the snap
of your fingers, could you really be said to have any whereabouts at all?
No, Lucius didn't care where the old headmaster was. He cared what he was up to.
And on that, his sources had been irritatingly silent.
"Dumbledore?" Riddle spat. "The man was older than the bloody Magna Carta even
when I" Riddle hesitated slightly. Someone less perceptive than Lucius wouldn't
have noticed it. "was in school," he finished smoothly. "I doubt we have much
cause to worry about a senile old relic."
"Of course," Lucius said. "I only mention it because he has interfered with your
plans in the past, my lord."
"Regardless. I did not summon you here today to speak of ancient history,"
Riddle said, dropping down from the tree branch with the grace of a cat. "Tell
me of the boy."
"Potter?" Lucius asked. "He's an unremarkable student at best, showing only
moderate aptitude in any field of study. He's headstrong and has little regard
for authority, but also only displaying only limited capacity for planning
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ahead. I doubt we have much to"
"No. The other boy. The one you brought here."
Lucius was genuinely surprised. One of the others at the ritual must have told
him. "Milo? A freak. He wields extremely unusual and unpredictable magic of
great power, but by all accounts appears to be completely insane. He disappeared
midway through last year and has not been seen since. Nobody... official... is
looking for him. I saw to that." Lucius glanced at the sword Riddle wore at his
hip. Milo had had one just like it...
"They won't find him anyway," Riddle said. "He's dead. No, I want to know about
how you summoned him. And why."
"Ah." Lucius hesitated. He hadn't expected this, and wasn't sure how much to
tell the monster standing in front of him. "It was a very old ritual that
Narcissa uncovered," he said eventually. In your things, he didn't add. This
strange new Riddle seemed to be strangely lacking in knowledge that the Dark
Lord had had. "It seems to only have been used oncetwice at the mostin all of
history."
"Yes, yes," Riddle said. "But what did it do?"
"It makes a trade," Lucius said. "Equivalent exchange. Sacrifice someone great,
and get someone great in return. Or so we believed. It didn't work."
"Oh?"
"We tried to summon a great mythical wizard only hinted at in ancient texts
from... the other side. We believed he would have the power to bring you back,
my lord. There was only one viable candidate to create a fair trade. We gave
them our greatest in return for theirs." Getting her out of Azkaban had been the
hardest part of it, by far. "But even though we specified the great wizard by
his name in the ritual, all we got was that freak instead. It seems there is an
unknown factor involved, my lord. The ritual is too dangerous."
"But it did work," Riddle said quietly, largely to himself. "He did bring me
back. But maybe not in the way you had intended." He looked up at Lucius. "But
that wasn't all of it, was it? There was more. A second step."
Lucius frowned. How had he known about that? Lucius was an accomplished
Occlumens, but if he wasn't, he'd have thought Riddle was reading his mind. "We
had... a backup plan. But it is quite impossible, now."
"Tell me of this backup plan, Malfoy."
"Our agent in the other world had an objective," Lucius said. "But with Milo
dead, there is no way to bring her back, now. The point is moot." That wasn't,
strictly speaking, true, but Lucius had no intention of experimenting with the
ritual and other subjects.
"And what was that objective, Lucius?"
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Lucius Malfoy could see no particular danger in telling him. Bellatrix's real
mission, as far as he had been concerned, was to stay as far away from him as he
could manage. She was charismatic, popularwell, among a certain kind of
individual, anywayand frighteningly talented with magic. She had also been the
Dark Lord's favoured lieutenant. She was, in short, a threat to his position.
Lucius had never had any intention of bringing her back.
Of course, he hadn't thought Voldemort would return, either...
Still. As long as the Dark Lord was around, Lucius needed to stay on his good
side. And besides...
Looking into Tom Riddle's eyes, Lucius could absolutely believe that this was
the Dark Lord returned.
So he told him Bellatrix's objective.
oo
In the darkness of the forest, unbeknownst to either of the conversing dark
wizards, an enormous black dog lay among the underbrush with its ears perked
up...
oooo
Newhaven was pretty much your basic thorp. It wasn't much more than a cluster of
one-to-three room cottages built around a combination tavern, livery stable, and
general store.
It was, as adventurers like to say, a one-quest town. Drop in, find the
innkeeper's stolen family heirloom, stock up on trail rations, and leave. It was
the sort of town that might get a passing mention in a sentence such as "you
pass through a few small villages in your travels to the Forest of Shadows..."
While nominally a fishing and farming town, most of the incoming money came from
travellers, especially Player Characters, who happen to be passing through on
their way to more interesting locales.
At least, that was how Milo remembered it. But that had been before someone had
burnt the tavern to the ground and forced the residents to flee. They left, in
fact, in such a hurry that they left some things behind: things like clothes,
tools, and, in some cases, heads.
Milo stared at the ruins from the deck of the Roll for Initiative.
"Garl's Glittering Gold," Zook said in a hushed tone.
"What happened here?" Milo asked.
"We'd heard rumours of this sort of thing. I told you there were hints we ought
to go to the City, didn't I?" Relkin said. "Soldiers have been rounding up
anyone with even a Cantrip of magical talent and taking them away. Sometimes
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people raise an objection or two, and are made examples of." Relkin shrugged.
"Typical evil villain stuff, really. I thought that grand vizier guy was behind
it, but it's looking like it's this Lestrange person instead."
"And where were you through all of this?" Milo asked, trying to keep his voice
as neutral as possible.
"You know. Adventuring," Relkin said.
"Rescuing cats from treants, that sort of thing?" Milo said. "Getting treasure
and Experience Points?"
"With clockwork efficiency," Relkin said. "We went up three levels in the last
year alone."
"And Wellby was a prisoner during this time."
"As far as we can tell, yes," Relkin said.
"So you're saying that you let a hardened killer burn and kidnap her way through
the countryside, with the only other person who might stop her out of action,
while you were busy level grinding?" Milo stopped bothering to keep his voice in
check.
Relkin stiffened. "I don't see why you're angry at me," she said. "Bellatrix was
the one who razed this town."
"Because you had a responsibility to stop her and you didn't even try."
"Milo" Zook began.
"You weren't there," Zook said. "You didn't see her. We wouldn't have stood a
chance the way we were."
"Zook is right," Relkin said. "We needed the levels. Besides, they're only NPCs.
Most of them haven't even been named."
"You really don't get it, do you?" Milo said.
"No. Please, enlighten me." Relkin's voice was completely free of sarcasm, but
Milo suspected her colossally-high Bluff skill might have been part of that.
"Just because we didn't know them doesn't mean they didn't have names," Milo
said. "NPC or not, they were people, just like us."
"Just like you, maybe," Relkin said. "But who are you to talk? I don't see you
coughing up your wealth-by-level to bring them back."
"I don't even have a wealth-by-level anymore," Mio said. "All I've got are the
clothes on my back and a spellbook written on human skin." Zook coughed and
surreptitiously sidled to the far side of the ship.
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"That's an excuse and you know it," Relkin said. "That Belt of Hidden Pouches
you used to have? Five thousand gold pieces. Same as it costs for a Raise Dead.
You could have used that money to bring back, say..." She scanned the horizon
briefly, "that one." She pointed at the body of a gnome or halfling lying in the
street. At least, Milo hoped it was a gnome or halfling. "And if we just so
happen to find a Headband of Intelligence in our travels, I somehow doubt you'll
sell it to bring back, say, him." Relkin pointed at a dwarf lying against a
well, riddled with arrows.
Milo said nothing. The fact that Relkin was right did nothing to improve his
mood.
Together, they watched the village roll past them. Milo was tired. It had been
so much easier when he'd been like Relkin. These sorts of problems never even
occurred to him.
There were all kinds of arguments that Milo could make to defend himself. He
could say that he'd earned his right to expensive magical gear by defeating
monsters. He could say that he needed it to fight evil and protect the innocent.
He could say that it was inherent to the system that heroes gained treasure. He
could say that even Paladins collected expensive magical gear, and their moral
position was unquestionable. After all, if they did wrong, they'd stop being
Paladins. He could have Zook cast Detect Good on him and prove that Milo's
actions were in the right.
But none of that would change the fact that Milo liked being powerful. He loved
being able to magically suplex bad guys. The thrill he got when he worked out
the salt trick had nothing to do with being able to use his new equipment to
defend the innocent from He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
Newhaven disappeared behind a steep hill.
Milo needed to change the subject. Ethical conundrums would get him nowhere.
"How come I'm only a kid?" Milo asked, eventually.
"Sorry?" Relkin blinked.
"The starting age for Wizards is seventeen to twenty-seven," Milo said. "But I
was level three by the time I was eleven."
"I don't know anything about that," Relkin said woodenly.
"Oh, come on. You and I both know you do."
"Fine," Relkin relented. "It's simple age optimization. Look, we're both human,
right? The simple fact of the matter is we don't live for very long. Not
compared to elves and dwarves, anyway. There are ways to extend our lifespan,
but they're generally available only at higher levels and are deeply suboptimal.
I wanted to put that off for as long as possible, so Ier, that is, youstarted
out with a level in Commoner, which has no starting age, and retrained out at
first opportunity."
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"You must know I have no intention of dying of old age," Milo said.
"One should always have plans in place for the event of failure," Relkin said
wryly.
Milo stared out over the burnt wheat fields. He could just barely make out the
pink-white walls of Myra, City of Light! City of Magic! in the distance.
"We're taking her down," he said. "Boccob's task regardless."
"Deal," Relkin said. She stuck a hand out of her burgundy cloak."And that's a
promise."
Milo grasped her hand and looked her in the eye.
She could Bluff circles around Milo's Sense Motive, and Bards were almost
required to be Chaotic, but nevertheless he believed her.
He shook her hand.
oooo
Tom Riddle hovered over the London cityscape, admiring the skyline.
Well. Admiring wasn't quite the right word. Perhaps... analyzing.
So much had changed since he'd killed Myrtle. The last time he'd visited London,
it was a smoking ruin. How he had marvelled at the willingness and the sheer,
stunning capability of Muggles to kill each other. He had only ever paid scant
attention to their news, but he had been so certain that England would soon fall
to the Germans. Not that it would make any difference, in the end.
Their so-called Great War, of course, only lent further evidence for the mastery
of wizards over Muggles. They killed millions of each other, and over what?
Minor differences of race and creed? Material resources and wealth? Wizards had
no care for either. National pride and ethnicity were immaterial concerns
compared to the very real, very powerful difference between the magical and the
non-magical. Wizards and witches had the power. It was their destiny to rule.
Any idiot could see that. And as for fighting over resources? The idea was
laughable! Who needed pig iron and rubber when you could transfigure a house out
of thin air in an afternoon? Hunger, disease, poverty, scarcityeven mortality
itself. Magic could solve any problem. It could solve every problem. It was
being squandered, used only in secret.
The world was tearing itself apart, begging to be drawn into the light. What was
the loss of a few lives along the way? They would thank him, in the end.
For he was Lord Voldemort, and he had conquered death.
Tom Riddle flew away from the city, his captive tied securely across the back of
his Nimbus Two Thousand and One.
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All he had to do now was make sure death stayed conquered.
oooo
The walls were of the fantastical scale that you only really get when the person
designing them earned their position by virtue of heredity, rather than by
holding a degree in Architecture, Military Science, History, or Common Sense.
The towering walls were shining, pinkish-white marble, dotted with frequent
guard towers and roofed with green tiles. Great expense had gone into magically
treating the walls to keep soot and mildew off, with the unexpected side-effect
of causing migraines in those who left their Detect Magic switched on. The
overall effect was quite intimidating: "Watch yourself," the walls said. "We're
so powerful, we don't even understand why we'd need walls for non-decorative
purposes."
Normally, there was a long wait to enter through the gates as the guards checked
visitors for undesirables (read: kobolds) and their wagons for contraband (also,
primarily, kobolds).
Today, there were no other travellers on the long, broad causeway into the city,
though there were twice as many guards stationed at the entrance as was the
norm.
"Halt," one of them said, holding out her mailed hand. "No admittance."
"You take the six on the right, and I'll take the six on the left?" Gerard
whispered loudly to Zook.
"Garl Glittergold teaches of patience and restraint," Zook said sagaciously.
"The one second from the right is a hobgoblin," Gerard said.
"Oh, then bugger restraint. Divine Mi"
"Wait," Relkin said sharply. "I'll talk our way in." Relkin advanced up to the
guards. "Yo," she said, pointing a thumb over her shoulder. "Am-scray."
All twelve guards lowered their halberds at her in one smooth motion.
"They're under some sort of mental control," she said, ignoring them entirely.
"My Diplomacy check result was pushing low orbit."
"May I try?" Milo said.
Relkin shrugged, and stepped back.
Milo advanced to the guards, keenly aware that he had less hit points than a
camel and their pole-arms looked very pointy.
"Aunt Regina!" Milo exclaimed, conveniently remembering her existence. "So good
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to see you! It must have been, what, three years? So long that you didn't
recognize me!" She lowered her halberd uncertainly, blinking as if there was
sand in her eyes.
"Milo?" she said. "What... what am I doing?"
"Uncle Reginald!" Milo said, moving to the next guard in line. "Why, you taught
me my first cantrip! And Second Cousin Reggie! Remember all those long nights in
the woods hunting, er, huntable animals? And, why, if it isn't Adopted Cousin
Regan! What unspecified good times we had!" Pretty soon, they all had their
weapons lowered, and were milling about in confusion.
"What did you do?" Relkin asked in a hushed voice.
"I remembered each and every one of them as a treasured friend or relative from
my backstory," Milo said quietly. "One who would never, ever raise a hand
against me or impede the cause of Justice or the furthering of Good. And who
gets +2 and a reroll against magical orders against their nature." Thank Boccob
that Bellatrix wasn't controlling them directly, he thought. He was pretty sure
that the Imperius Curse had no such convenient clause.
"You can do that?" she choked.
"Evidently," Milo shrugged. He raised a hand. "All Amastacias and Liadons, with
me!" he said, and strolled through the mighty, adamantine-banded gates into
Myra, City of Light! City of Magic!
ooooooo
Author's Notes: For anyone wondering why there was no chapter last week, there's
an explanation on my tumblr, as well as a bonus short story I wrote for class a
while ago one sleep-deprived end-of-term week. Enjoy!
SD 6: City of Magic
Chapter Six: City of MagicMilo was, barring one egregious error in ability score
allocation, a naturally pragmatic person. So much so, in fact, that he was
sometimes said to be almost robotic. Function over form, crunch over fluff,
Grease over Burning Hands. He liked things efficient and cheap, and didn't much
care about how they looked.
But even he had his breath taken by the City of Light. The City was laid out on
a grid with evenly spaced, wide boulevards cutting through on the diagonal. This
tended to wreak havoc on traffic systems and created complicated six-way
intersections, but it had the (deliberate) effect of creating very striking
sightlines clear through the city. Sweeping monuments, palaces, and key civic
buildings were located at the intersections of these diagonal roads, and could
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be seen unimpeded, rising up above the city, every time they were crossed. On a
mighty hill located in the middle of the urban centre was the domed Palace of
the Azel Empire, where grand viziers had ruled with an iron goatee for
centuries.
The only thing more expansive in the City of Light than its roads were the storm
sewers, which housed, at latest estimates, the greatest population of kobolds in
the known world.
The City had changed since Milo had visited last. Gone were the brightly-clothed
guards endlessly touting the City's tagline, and gone were the great throngs of
people scurrying about their business from early in the morning to late in the
night. Signs had been posted on shop windows reading CLOSEDBY ORDER and CURFEW
IN EFFECT: FINAL WARNING.
As he walked down the City's streets, he saw no-one, save, perhaps for the
occasional furtive shadow in back alleys, where the Continual Flames that gave
the city its name did not quite reach.
The party had split up. The others were gathering supplies and information.
Normally, splitting the party is considered a cardinal sin, but Milo wasn't
certain it really applied in this case. After all, hadn't the party been split
since Bellatrix took Wellby?
Milo had a special job to do. He'd dragged Relkin along with him, though he
still wasn't completely certain that the Bard wouldn't mess everything up. On
the other hand, Milo would probably do that anyway. This was not a task he was
well-suited for.
Navigating his way through the familiar streets, he eventually found the house
he was looking for. It was a little place on a side street in a comfortable, but
not exactly wealthy, part of town.
"Are you sure about this?" Relkin asked. She had stopped several paces back, and
was sweating a little. "It's not too late to reconsider. We could get backup.
Zook"
"Has no business here," Milo said. "We do."
"Did I tell you that I once killed a Hill Giant with only a donkey? Yes? Good.
Then believe me when I say that I am a very versatile and resourceful person,
and even I have no idea how we're going to go in there and do this. I'm not
equipped for it. This is out of my league, and it's sure as Hell out of yours."
"I learned a thing or two while I was gone," Milo said. "Trust me. But however
it goes, it's something we have to do. It's our responsibility."
"Yours, maybe," Relkin grumbled.
"And yours. You and I both know it. You couldn't resist, could you? It would
give you first dibs on my loot on the off-chance you recovered my body. And"
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"It gave me roleplaying XP for, essentially, munchkining. Yes, I know. Fine.
Let's just get this over with, shall we?" Relkin fingered the hilt of her sword
nervously.
Milo reached his hand up to the door. He swallowed anxiously.
He knocked gently, three times.
The smell of fresh-baked bread wafted out through the doorway as it opened.
"Yes? Hello?" a woman asked. She had short, dark brown hair, streaked with grey,
and lightly dusted with flour. She wore a similarly flour-ed white apron reading
"MATERIAL PLANE'S GREATEST CHEF." An aging, tiny gray cat lounged on her
shoulders, lazily watching them with too-intelligent eyes.
The woman gasped when she saw them. The cat, however, yawned and went back to
sleep.
Milo tried to speak, but his throat was suddenly dry. As he tried to clear it,
she threw her arms around him.
"Hi, Mom," said Relkin Amastacia-Liadon.
oooo
"Pull up your sleeve," Riddle commanded.
"Y-yes, my lord," Avery stammered, leaning aside his cane and complying.
Riddle couldn't believe the idiot had been foolish enough to get shot by a
Muggle. Of all the ridiculous ways to be injured, being hit by a fast-moving
piece of metal crudely launched by a chemical reaction had to be among the most
unwizardly. And undignified, for that matter. Not to mention those who'd
actually died in that idiotic fiasco...
The Dark Mark was clearly visible on Avery's left forearm, like an angry, red
tattoo.
Riddle grabbed him by the wrist and pressed that idiot boy's wand against the
Mark. Avery whimpered as the Mark burned black, calling his inner circle to join
him.
"Go take your place," Riddle commanded. Avery reached for his cane, but Riddle
kicked it away from him. Anyone stupid enough to come out the worse in a fight
with a Muggle peace officer deserved what they got.
Within minutes, those Death Eaters too cowardly to be in Azkaban and too
intelligent to ignore his summons stood, rank-and-file, in front of him. A stray
dog wandered behind them in the dark forest.
"Greetings, friends," Riddle said, giving them his best smile. "Today, you're
here to finish what you started two years ago." He kicked his hooded ritual
Page 643

offering to the ground and held him there with his foot. "Form a circle," he
barked at his 'family.' "I believe you already know how to do the rest."
oooo
"You're back!" Ley exclaimed, putting out a plate of +5 Chocolate Croissants of
Hazelnut. "And not dead!" she added, looking at Milo.
"You said that already," Relkin said, looking slightly embarrassed. "Three
times."
Milo won initiative and went for the croissant with the most powdered sugar on
top, though he needn't have bothered. Relkin stared at them as if she wasn't
certain what they were for.
"How do you know it's really us?" Milo asked. "You should be more careful;
something's awry in this city."
Ley made a gesture that suggested how much she cared about that idea. "Pfft. I
can tell it's you."
"A mother can always tell?" Relkin suggested wryly.
"Sure. And the battery of Silent, Stilled Divinations I hit you with the moment
I saw you didn't hurt. Now, what brings you back home?"
"Lestrange," Milo and Relkin said simultaneously.
"The psycho up at the palace?" Ley said. "'Bout time someone took her down. I'd
do it myself, but I'm past all that, now, of course."
"Oh, yeah?" Milo said. "Then how did a high-level Wizard like you avoid being
snatched up by Bellatrix's 'recruiters'?"
"Fine, fine," Ley said with a shrug that rained flour down on the table. "So I
lead a little resistance movement from time-to-time. But who doesn't, these
days?" She poured three cups of steaming tea. "So, you're here for help?"
"Not exactly," Milo said. "I..." he glanced at Relkin. "We haven't been home in
a while. A long while." Not since their backstories. "And I in particular might
not get a chance to see you again for a long time." Maybe ever. "So I just
thought, I don't know..."
"It's all right," Ley said. "You don't need a reason to visit your old mother.
And if you did, well, I charge less than an inn. So there's that." Ley gave Milo
a Look that made him feel like she was using Detect Thoughts on him. Not that
she really would, of course. "Was there something else?"
Milo shrugged uncomfortably. Then he looked at Relkin. "Hey, Relkin. Try one of
these croissants."
Relkin shook her head. "I'm sure they're... nice, but I primarily derive
Page 644

sustenance from my bag of Everlasting"
"Just eat one."
"Fine, fine." Relkin eyed the pastry suspiciously, then took a cautious nibble.
Her eyes went wide and unfocused for a few seconds. Then she ate the rest of it
in one or two titan-sized bites.
A few seconds later, she fainted on the table.
"Sensory overload," Milo explained to Ley, who looked surprised. "Nothing to
worry about." The same thing had happened to him a couple of years ago when he'd
first had Every-Flavoured Beans. "She'll be up and about in a few minutes.
Longer if she got one of the dark chocolate ones."
Ley coughed. "So, now that you've so cleverly got me alone..." she looked at him
in the eye with one of those mind-reading parental Looks. "Oh," she said. "Is
this about, you know... your run-in with the mortal coil? That gnome friend of
yours sent us a Sending about it."
Milo nodded mutely.
"It's okay," she said. "It's okay. Dying can be scary. You're allowed to be
scared."
"But it was so scary," Milo said, feeling, perhaps for the first time, his
actual age. He was just a kid. He wanted to elaborate further, but for some
reason his throat was burning. Had his pastry been poisoned, again? Who had let
house elves into the city?
"No-one's around," Ley said, putting a hand on his. "Relkin's out cold, and your
father and the others are out of town until this whole 'Bellatrix' thing blows
over. You don't have anything to prove."
The room got a little blurry for some reason. Definitely poison. "I thought I
would be gone forever," he said in a voice that was barely audible, even to him.
How could his throat be so dry if his eyes were so wet? "I thought, maybe, this
was it. It's over. I'd be trapped in the Outlands forever. That all I was, and
would ever be, was a collection of stats and abilities indistinguishable from
the next."
"It's okay, honey. It's okay."
"I don't want to die, Mom."
"I know, sweetie. But, just in case, your father and I did set aside a not
insignificant amount of diamond dust in case of that very event."
Milo sniffed. "Thanks, Mom." He moved to wipe his nose on his sleeve, but Ley
gave him another Look, this one of Motherly Disapproval. She had a wide array of
Looks. "Prestidigitation," he cast, feeling sheepish. His face and clothes were
instantly surgery-room clean.
Page 645

The two of them sat together in silence for a while, drinking tea. But it was
one of those rare non-awkward, nice silences that you really only get with
family and friends that are as good as family.
Relkin groaned on her chair next to him. "What happened?" she asked. "I feel
like someone hit me with a Mind Fog." She rubbed her forehead and groaned again.
"And I got a natural one."
"You just used your taste buds for the first time since your backstory," Milo
said, clearing his throat.
"It was... intense," Relkin said.
"Backstory? " Ley cocked an eyebrow and stared at her. "Are you both PCs now?"
she asked.
"Erm," Milo said. "Sort of. Maybe. Yeah."
She got a scary-looking glint in her eye.
"Two PCs in the family?" She said with maybe a little too much excitement. "Oh,
those old codgers at the Mage's Guild are going to choke on this," Ley rubbed
her fingers together wickedly. "Well, they will when they stop being possessed,
anyway."
"Speaking of," Relkin said. "I think I had an idea. We might be able to use your
help after all..."
oooo
"How will we know if it's working?" Gerard whispered. "Is there a signal?"
"We arcanists have our ways," Milo said airily.
"Oooh, a communications spell?"
"Well, yes. Broadly speaking."
Relkin rolled her eyes. "When things go boom, we go zoom," she said.
"Are you really certain this trick is going to work?" Zook asked. "It doesn't
seem terribly... reliable."
"Positive," Milo said.
"Couldn't we just... test it out? Just to be safe?"
"Absolutely not," Milo said firmly.
"But... why?"
Page 646

"It'll only work once. After that, I'd bet my spellbook the gods won't allow it
again. Also, this spellbook is pretty gross anyway."
The ground shook, and the sky started flashing technicolour. Bolts of lightning,
balls of fire, and bursts of glittering dust flew out of a tall, twisty tower
visible on the City's skyline that was the home of the Mage's Guild. Thanks,
Mom. A guerilla strike on a building full of angry, imprisoned or Dominated
spellcasters was a Hell of a distraction.
"That's our signal," Milo said. "Shields up, people." Milo lifted the heavy
tower shield with both hands awkwardly. He didn't like shields, and he
especially didn't like tower shields. They got in the way of the delicate
gestures and concentration needed to cast his spells. But, just this once, he
needed one.
His companions, one by one did the same. And then they disappeared from vision.
"Remember that they can still hear you," Milo whispered. "So try to move around
when there's no-one near or when there's already loud noise."
"I don't like all this sneaking about," Gerard said. "It's Rogue business."
"Well, our Rogue is a touch indisposed at the moment," Milo said. "So we'll have
to make do without."
The gates to the palace slammed open, and soldiers started pouring out, running
right past them towards the Mage's Guild.
Milo licked his lips and hoped that his plan would work.
As the soldiers passed him, some of themmostly officers and sergeants, with a
fair number of enlisted as wellslowed, and looked around, blinking in
confusion. Some soldiers ran right into them and fell, causing pileups, while
others stopped to see what was going on.
Some of the confused soldiers started bellowing orders to their men to stop what
they were doing, while others started arguing amongst themselves. Most were
milling around aimlessly, and a small few were staring into space, sobbing.
Not one of them noticed that they had run over a line of Magic Circles against
Evil, but all of them realized they were no longer under the effects of magical
compulsion, either from the Imperius Curse or from an Enchantment spell.
"I just want to mention that that was all of my third-level spells," Zook
whispered. "So if anyone has some, say, serious wounds that need, for example,
curing, you're out of luck."
"We understand," Relkin said. "I can pick up the slack in the healing
department. Let's move."
As the army fought amongst themselves, the party snuck past them, unseen,
through the open gates of the palace.
Page 647

"I can't believe this is really working," Zook whispered.
"The theory was perfectly sound," Milo said, though he wasn't, in truth, as
certain as he was pretending. The theory was, of course, definitely sound. In
fact, until he'd seen it working right in front of him, it had been nothing but
sound.
The rules, however were indisputable. Fact one: tower shields could grant you
cover, the same way that hiding behind a wall could. Fact two: if you have
cover, so does all of your gear, including the tower shield granting you cover.
Fact three: total cover blocked line-of-sight and line-of-effect.
All of this together meant that you could hide behind a tower shield and youand
the shield you were hiding behindcould become both invisible and untargetable
by attacks and many forms of magic.
But it was the kind of trick that would only work once before someone upstairs
cottoned on and changed the very nature of the universe. But until then...
Milo grinned, and he and his invisible comrades began to infiltrate the most
heavily-secured building in the empire.
SD 7: Magnum Opus
Chapter Seven: Magnum OpusCorporal Regina checked range and angle for the fourth
time, and once again found it to be perfect. It was as if the creepy,
self-winding catapult wanted to hit its target.
"Stop fiddling with it," her brother, Reginald, said. "That kid in the red cloak
said all we have to do is pull this lever."
"You mean your niece, Relkin?" Regina said.
"Yeah." Reginald blinked. "My niece."
Regina supposed she was her niece, too. Obviously. She'd always been her niece.
That's how nieces worked. She could even remember holding her as a baby. She was
family. You're supposed to do anything for family, right? That's what people
said. She didn't think most people usually meant treason, though, when they said
it. Did it count as treason if the emperor himself was being mind-controlled?
This was right, wasn't it?
Well, family or no, mentally dominating people was wrong. It was possibleeven
likelythat there would have been a mutiny once the extent of the domination
over the army was uncovered. Regina knew that she, at least, had been mad as
Hell when that boywho was her favourite nephew, she reminded herselfhad broken
Page 648

the spell. Taking someone's life and re-writing it to your own will was black as
night. And now they were taking the fight to the one who had done that to her.
That had to be right.
Regina checked the catapult again, feeling a little uneasy. The firing angle was
still perfect.
Those two kids were family. They'd always been family.
The question that nagged at the corner of her mind, though, was, well...
They were always family. They'd always been family. Always. But had they always
been family yesterday?
oooo
Milo walked into the Palace's grand entrance chamber. Pinkish marble sheathed
the walls, and a small, tasteful fountain cascaded water on either side of the
room. The thick red carpet was covered in muddy bootprints from the soldiers who
had been stationed here.
"Everyone still here?" Milo whispered. The rest of his party wasn't simply
invisible (as that could be countered with magic), they were outright
un-see-able.
There were a series of affirmatives.
Milo felt as if he should give an inspirational speech. Something that would
thank his friends for risking their lives to help him, that would get their
blood pumping, and that would drive them to new heights. Something suitable to
the momentousness of the occasion.
"You all know what to do," Milo said. Screw it. Inspiring people was
un-wizardly. "Let's get to it."
oooo
"Is the package prepared?" Bellatrix asked, pacing impatiently, her silent
bodyguard lurking in the corner.
"Soon, mistress," Lkoturo the Vizier said. Even the Imperius Curse couldn't
quite banish the oil from his voice.
"What's taking so long?"
"There is an affray at the Mage's Guild, mistress" Lkoturo said. "Unenlightened
Wizards"
"Wizards!" Bellatrix snapped. "They are not wizards!"
"Of course, mistress. Unenlightened... users of magic launched a raid in an
attempt to free their comrades. Further, they deployed some sort of... trap
Page 649

against our army. It may take some time to clear up the mess."
"Army," Bellatrix mocked. "Muggles with sharpened sticks. I care not one way or
the other."
"Of course, mistress. But may I remind you that, for the pacification of the
lands surrounding Myra, City of Light! City of Magic! we need"
"For now," Bellatrix cut in. Once the package is prepared, this strange mockery
of a world can burn for all I care. "And I thought I ordered you to stop saying
that."
"Of course, mistress."
"You may leave me."
"Of course, mistress." Lkoturo bowed deeply and walked out, closing the great
spell-wrought wooden doors behind him.
oooo
Most seats of government don't have prison cells in the basement, excluding, of
course, the conference rooms.
Despite ready access to Continual Flame-based lighting, the prison was dark,
smoky, and poorly lit, because some conventions are more powerful than mere
practicality.
Unconscious prison guards lay scattered about the room, of whom roughly half
were suffering from severe injuries.
"Cure Minor Wounds," Zook murmured over one of them. With a gasp, the guard's
eyes shot open, and he reached for a weapon. "Gerard?" Zook gestured.
Gerard, holding a broken table leg, effortlessly thwacked the guard over the
back of the head, knocking him back unconscious.
"Must you?" Relkin asked impatiently.
"These guards are innocent," Zook said. He looked down at the guard Gerard had
just knocked out, who had RSIST AREST tattooed on his knuckles, and a black eye
patch with a skull on it. "Well, given the benefit of the doubt, they could be
innocent. We don't know. So we need to make sure they're unconscious from
nonlethal damage. Otherwise, they'll just bleed out when we leave."
Relkin sighed, but left the issue alone.
Surprisingly, considering the new regime, the cells were largely empty. Milo had
expected more, well, starving political prisoners and the like. Maybe a couple
of loyalist guardsmen or knights willing to help their cause if you put a weapon
in their hand.
Page 650

Though, he supposed, it actually made sense for the place to be empty. Anyone
like that would simply have been brainwashed by Bellatrix or one of her cronies
before being sent back out into the streets to act as a double agent. And
besides, most of the magical prisoners were being kept up at the Mage's Guild,
and since when had a Death Eater ever paid attention to the goings-on of
Muggles?
There was, however, one prisoner: an aging man in filthy tatters that were once
fine robes. Regal, even.
The old man stared up at them with blank eyes.
Milo recognized him immediately. He'd seen his face every time he'd sat down at
an inn, bought new equipment, or looted a treasure chest in a fifteen-foot room
after slaying the orc defending it.
"Your Majesty!" Milo hissed. "We're here to rescue you!"
The Emperor continued to stare at him blankly from the other side of the bars.
Right, Milo realized. He's probably under a whole boatload of mental
compulsions. There was no way to fix that without getting into the prison,
first.
"Oy, skill monkey! I've got a job for you."
Relkin perked up. "Oh?"
Milo gestured at the lock.
Relkin stepped up and took a look at the oversized, rusty lock. Then she
produced a series of fine, complicated-looking tools and probes, and went to
work. In a few seconds, the door swung open.
"Protection from Good," Milo muttered, and tapped the Emperor on the forehead.
He felt weird casting the inverse of his usual spell, but this was all he'd
found in Thamior's creepy spellbook. For these purposes, the results should be
exactly the same.
The old man gasped and looked around as if he'd never seen, well, anything
before.
"You're free," Milo said. "But we need your help. Someone has to take over after
we"
"This is your tube," the old man said in a serious tone. "This is your tube in
ruins."
"Er. What?"
"Any treads?" the man said, dropping to a whisper, and clutching Milo's hands
desperately. "Madness and ages past; that's what really matters. Yea! Fie!
Treads! Treads!" The old man suddenly stopped rambling and stood up straight,
Page 651

adopting a beatific pose. "Neither a borrower nor a treasure be," he said
sagely.
Relkin frowned. "Detect Magic," she cast. "He's clean," she said.
"So, what... what's wrong with him?" Milo asked. "I heard him give a speech a
few years back; he wasn't like this then."
"No man," the emperor said pompously, "is fit to coagulate another that cannot
coagulate himself."
"I think he's been under mental compulsion his whole life," she said. "I don't
think he's... all there. I'm not certain it's something magic can fix."
This posed a problem. It had all seemed so simple on paper: break in, free the
rightful monarch, take out Bellatrix, everyone goes home happy.
"The sample and the plug," the old man rambled, "are alike admired for a
saturated tankand for their transparent pits."
But the emperor was clearly unfit to rule. Milo didn't want to leave the City to
fend for itself after dealing with Lestrange, but what could he do...?
"I've got an idea," Milo said grimly. "But I think some of you may not like it."
Milo told them.
They didn't like it.
oooo
The hallway was empty.
Red plush carpet covered the floor, and the walls were expensive hardwood. Every
here and there was an alcove or sconce with a painting, urn, or other tasteful,
and, more importantly, expensive piece of art. It was, basically, your typical
palatial hallway.
Lkoturo the Grand Vizier strolled down the hallway. He looked confident, in
control, smug, and hardly mind-controlled at all. His long, waxed goatee looked
particularly oily today.
He paused, tilting his head, as if he heard something that he couldn't quite
make out. After a few moments, he gave the minutest of shrugs and continued
walking.
He didn't realize he wasn't alone until after Milo had tapped him on the back
with a Protection from Good and dropped his tower shield.
Lkoturo spun around, eyes sharp on Milo.
"You!" he hissed. "You're supposed to be dead!"
Page 652

It was Milo's turn to be surprised. "You know who I am?"
"You're a PC! What do you take me for? Of course I know who you are! Now, why
did you free me?"
"We want to help you," Milo said. "Actually, let me rephrase that. We're
grudgingly willing to help you."
"To what end? And in exchange for what? And why shouldn't I rid myself of your
meddling presence now, while I have you alone and out-levelled?"
Milo coughed delicately, and there were three thuds as tower shields hit the
floor, revealing Zook, Gerard, and Relkin with mace, greatsword, and longsword
held, respectively, in a generally menacing manner.
Lkoturo paused. "Your case is persuasive," he said finally. "Now, what do you
want?"
"We're here to take down Lestrange," Milo said. "We want you to return the city
to a generally status-quo-sort-of situation afterward. In the meantime, you stay
out of our way."
"How do I know this isn't some sort of trick?" Lkoturo asked. "After all, with
me in charge, sooner or later we'll likely have it out anyway."
"True," Milo said. "But you're the sort of villain PCs are there to handle.
You're capital 'E' Evil, and Bellatrix is lower-case 'e' evil, and I think we've
all seen what's scarier. And besides, I lived in the City under your rule for
eleven years. Bandits and kobolds were problems, but the people never went
hungry and oppression was generally kept to a minimum."
"I pride myself on my modern outlook," Lkoturo said.
"You're this world's problem, and this world can deal with you later. Until
then, someone has to keep the trains running on time. Do we have a deal?"
"Very well," Lkoturo said. "But what is a train?"
"Irrelevant to our conversation. Where is Bellatrix?"
"In my office. Take the stairs two floors up, first door on the left. But you'll
never get in; the doors are heavily protected with magic."
Milo made a dismissive gesture. "Not a problem. Why was she rounding up
spellcasters?"
"For her search," Lkoturo said. "She's completely obsessed, especially in the
last few days. High-level spellcasters possess very potent divination and
transportation spells, allowing them to find and retrieve objects the world
over."
Page 653

"Interesting. But what is she looking for?"
"Philosopher's Stones," Lkoturo said. "She's got dozens of them."
SD 8: Boss Room
Chapter Eight: Boss Room"Was that the signal?" Reginald whispered.

"No," Regina whispered back, peering through her spyglass. "It was just
something from the Mage's Guild." The battle, or whatever was happening, at the
Mage's Guild had largely died down, but every now and then a lightning bolt or
wave of sick-looking fog flew out of an open window. Most of the upper storeys
were on fire, and several load-bearing-looking walls lay in ruins. Knowing
magic, though, the carnage would likely only take a few minutes to clear up, or,
more likely, several months of work by poorly paid servants while the resident
Wizards took the opportunity to do 'critical spell research' on a sunny island
someplace.
"Why are we whispering?" Reginald asked. "We're halfway across the city from the
action."
"How should I know?" Regina asked. "You started it."
"Was that it?"
"No, that was just the sun."
"How about"
"No."
oooo
Lkoturo the Grand Vizier hadn't been wrong.
The aged darkwood doors didn't look particularly formidable. Tall, dark, and
expensive, just like their previous owner. Sure, darkwood was pretty tough
stuff, but it couldn't hold a candle even to steel, and the doors were clearly
only using them because it looked pretty.
Nevertheless, they were nigh-indestructible. The grain was so laced with
defensive spells and traps that Milo was almost surprised it didn't glow.
"I don't have enough Dispel Magics prepared to put a dent in this door," Relkin
said, almost in awe.
"All the Wizards in the world wouldn't have enough," Milo said. It was an
Page 654

exaggeration, but not by as much as one might hope.
"What's the big deal? I've never seen a door that stood up to this little
adamantine master key," Gerard said, patting his sheathed greatsword.
"See those little light flecks in the wood?" Milo asked. "There's one there near
the bottom, and another by the knocker."
"Sure," Gerard shrugged. "What are those, traps?"
"No," Milo said. "Those are the only areas not stained by the amber used to make
a Sepia Snake Sigil."
"Well, actually," Relkin corrected, "it's an unrelated spell heavily based off
of Sepia Snake Sigil that triggers off of the door opening, and probably damage,
but not by reading-"
"Yes, yes," Milo said irritably. "Lies-to-Fighters, remember?"
"I think I can make a Reflex save," Gerard said defensively. "I have a Cloak of
Protection."
"But can you make five thousand, six-hundred and seventy-seven?" Milo asked.
"Besides, that's not even including the Symbol of Insanity scrawled in the
doorjamb, there. Of course, it's only potent when clearly visible, and as such
poses no threatas long as the door remains closed."
"Hmm," Gerard said, backing away carefully from the door. "I begin to see your
point."
"So..." Zook said. "If we can't get in through the door, what do we do?"
"Gerard?" Milo said. "Break that window."
Gerard shrugged and effortless kicked the window clean off of its pane, letting
the rays of early-morning light shine in through the gap. How long did they have
until Boccob's three days were up? Minutes? Seconds?
"I don't know what you have planned," Zook said, "but I am not climbing out the
window on the top floor of a fifteen-storey palace."
"You'll see," Milo said. "But before we do this, we need to be absolutely clear
on something. Everybody listening?"
Relkin, Zook, and Gerard shrugged, nodded, and grunted, respectively.
"In all likelihood, Bellatrix Lestrange is through this door," Milo said.
Gerard cracked his knuckles meaningfully.
"Two of you have seen her fight once before, and she killed both of you without
breaking a sweat. You had what, two, three rounds before you went down? Right.
Page 655

I've been fighting people like her back in the other world for over a year now,
and it's not like combat here. It's messy and chaotic and confused and if they
so much as touch you with their magic, you're dead. No ifs, ands, buts, or
saving throws."
"We understand," Relkin said impatiently.
"No," Milo said. "You don't. When we go in there, you will have no idea what
you're dealing with. She doesn't have hit points. She doesn't have an armour
class. She doesn't even really have a place in the initiative order. You're all
used to encounters that are carefully tailored to your respective levels and
abilities to be a balanced, fair challenge that might prove difficult but is
nonetheless designed for you to win in under a minute." Milo paused to let that
sink in. "Bellatrix won't be like that. She comes from a different world with
different rules and we won't be able to defeat her unless we recognize that."
"We'll be careful," Gerard said.
"You'll be more than that," Milo said seriously. "You'll stay out of it. I'll
handle Bellatrix."
"What?" Relkin said. "That's crazy! You'll fight the BBEG? Alone? Look at you!
No magic items. No familiar. No decent spells. No hit points. You don't stand a
chance."
"Hit points won't matter in this fight," Milo said. "And I won't be able to both
fight her and worry about you."
"So, what do you want us to do?" Zook said. "Just sit around here and polish our
Holy Symbols? You can't seriously expect us to do that."
"No," Milo said. "She'll probably have a trick up her sleeve. An ace in the
hole. While I'm fighting her, I need you three to cover my back against
surprises. I don't know about you guys, but I don't believe for a second that
that Lorcko guy, or whatever his name was, told us everything."
"We'll see," Relkin said. "But if it's going to be as tumultuous as you're
describing, the situation may change in ways you can't predict. I can't promise
I might not step in if it comes to that."
Zook nodded. "Same here."
"Besides," Gerard said. "We can't let you get all the XP."
Milo nodded. That was probably the best he was going to be able to get out of
them. "Dancing Lights." Four pinpoints of red light appeared floating over his
head. "All right, gentlemen. And lady. Shields up."
With a wave of his hand, the lights flew out of the window.
There would be no backing out now.
Page 656

oooo
"Was that it?"
"Yeah," Regina said, lowering the spyglass. "Yeah, I think that was it."
"Well," Reginald said. "Here goes."
He reached down and, without further drama, released the catch. The catapult
kicked into the air as it released the enormous stored energy in its wound sinew
springs.
From her vantage point, Regina couldn't see the eleven other teams positioned
throughout the city. But she didn't need toshe could see their effects.
oooo
It is a common misconception that catapults throw ponderous projectiles in high,
slow arcs with little finesse or accuracy. Your standard siege catapult is
capable of launching a seventy-five kilogram projectile well over three hundred
meters. Catapults were more than capable of stripping battlements from city
walls, and could seriously damage or destroy even hardened military
fortifications with sustained fire. Over the centuries, advancements in catapult
technology necessitated thicker, stronger walls designed with, and to defend
against, the (often literally) bleeding edge of military engineering and
technology.
Of course, none of that actually mattered here. Force, mass, and acceleration
were all merely flavour text, but 6d6 damage was 6d6 damage no matter now you
looked at it, especially when a six inch masonry wall only has 45 hit points per
10 square feet.
Mortar dust rained over their heads as the exterior wall suddenly buckled
inwards. A handful of bricks were knocked loose, but the wall held.
A moment later, the wall exploded inwards as another half-dozen head-sized
stones collided with the civilian architecture almost simultaneously.
A chunk of baroque masonry slammed into Milo's tower shield, which was, through
a strange quirk in the rules, the next best thing to indestructible.
Despite himself, Milo chuckled quietly in the dust. More like baroque-en
masonry...
The dust cleared.
Lkoturo's door was still standing, apparently unscathed.
The wall around it, however, had gone to metamorphic heaven.
In the remains of what had once been a grandiose office, a woman sat behind a
shattered desk, holding a cup of steaming bone china. Her hair was dark and wild
Page 657

beneath the white dust, and she wore a black dress with enough folds, lace, and
patterns that Milo didn't doubt there were multiple places one could hide a
knife without it showing. Over the dress, she had a leather bag slung over her
shoulder.
"Ah," she said, setting down the cracked cup on the crooked table."Heroes." She
stood up, idly brushing dust from her clothes. "I hadn't planned on killing any
of you lot today, but eh," she shrugged, causing powdered stone to rain from
her. "If life gives you lemons..."
Milo dropped his tower shield. He wasn't going to risk a fifty percent spell
failure chance on the untested assumption that his exploit would work against
her.
"Lestrange," he said, shaking his hands free of his sleeves. "You"
"Will never get away with it?" Bellatrix asked.
"No, you"
"Are going down? For justice? The good of mankind? For," she gestured vaguely,
"Chester? Lucy?" She frowned. "Have I killed any Lucys lately?" she said,
apparently to herself.
"What? No, you"
"Fiend?" she suggested. "Ooh, how about, 'you may think you've won, but the real
punishment will be your own conscience?' It's been years since I've heard that
one."
"You don't belong in this world," Milo said.
"Pfft. I was hoping for something new. What did I do, kill your cat or mother or
something? Just once I'd like to kill a hero not out for vengeance. Or
'justice,' for that matter." she made little quotation marks in the air with her
fingers. "How about... boredom. Hardly anybody tries to kill me out of boredom.
Ooh, or for meringues. Nobody's tried that. And believe me, my meringues are to
die for." She frowned. "No, that's my sister's meringues. Mine tended to scream,
which always put people off for some reason." Bellatrix stared at Milo, as if
noticing him for the first time. "So, what's your deal?"
"I was killed by a book and my god returned me to life to find you."
"Wow, that is new. Avada kedavra." She said it like one might say 'Well,
whatever,' or, 'That's public transit for you.' She didn't quick-draw like a
gunslinger, or scream like a barbarian, or even shrug. She just said it, as if
the words were ordinary conversation. Maybe to her, they were.
But Milo had been ready for itliterally. His Readied spell sprung into action
almost before he was really aware that the combat had started.
"Summon Skeletal Troll." A great skeleton of a lanky beast with far too much arm
Page 658

and too little leg appeared directly in the path of the Unforgivable Curse,
which burst harmlessly against its chest.
Bellatrix cocked her head sideways. It was a curiously bird-like gesture. Her
wand, however, remained perfectly still. "I see you know a thing or two."
Milo shrugged. "You're not the first Death Eater I've fought." This was good.
Undead were immune to, near as Milo could tell, all three of the Unforgivable
Curses. Death Eaters never seemed to cast anything else, so as long as he could
keep the Troll between him and Bellatrix, he'd have this.
Bellatrix grinned. It was a terrifying expression in that it was absolutely
genuine. She was, if his ranks in Sense Motive were to be believed, completely
thrilled to be fighting.
"Fascinating!" she said. "I'll have to have somebody here magic the answer to
that little riddle out of your corpse," she said. "But firstDiffindo!"
Bellatrix swiped her wand in a horizontal arc in front of her.
At first, nothing seemed to happen. A moment later, the skeleton seemed to waver
slightly, as if unsteady. Then it collapsed, the top half of its skull sliding
from its head, severed by a single, unimaginably sharp cut. The skeleton
vanished before it hit the ground.
"Oh," Milo said. "Crap."
After that whole lecture to his party, he couldn't believe he'd simply assumed
that Bellatrix LestrangeBellatrix Lestrangewould simply follow the patterns
set by other Death Eaters. The witches and wizards of magical Britain had been
terrified of this woman, and with good reasonnot only was she, from what he'd
heard, completely psychotic, but she evidently possessed a far more frightening
trait: she could change her tactics.
"Glitterdust!" A familiar burst of golden light flew out of Milo's outstretched
hand at the witch.
"Scourgify," Bellatrix cast casually, wiping the dust away. Oh, Hell... Milo
knew what was coming next, and dived behind a convenient pile of rubble.
"Oppugno!" she cast in the same breath.
I guess she and Draco are blood relations, after all...
Milo's golden dust formed into a wispy line and flew back at him, avoiding the
rubble with ease. For once, he was glad that he no longer had his
spell-enhancing equipment, as its lack was the only reason he as able to evade
the spell.
He was dimly aware of the noise of fighting coming from the hallway outside, and
heard Zook's voice shout out "Don't kill them! They don't know what they're
doing!"
Milo resolved to stop messing around and aim for her obvious weak spot. He
Page 659

popped out over the rubble and targeted her wand.
"Shatter!"
Bellatrix's wand exploded in her hand, sending splinters flying across the room.
The witch blinked in surprise at her bleeding hand.
"My mother gave me that wand," she said in a hushed voice.
Milo heaved a sigh of relief. He'd half-expected her to have some devious
countermeasure. Now, it would only be a simple matter of subduing her, maybe
with Evard's Black Tentacles, or perhaps a summoned monster.
Abruptly, she smiled. "Oh, no, I forgot. That was this wand," she said,
producing a seemingly-identical wand from behind her back. With a shrug, she
tossed it away behind her back. "Or maybe this one," she said, drawing yet
another from up her sleeve. "With the Geminio Charm, it's easy to lose track.
Incarcerous."
Dozens of ropes sprung out of the oak wall behind Milo, grabbing him by the
arms, legs, and neck and pinning him to the wall. Milo struggled, but it was
futile. What kind of self-respecting Wizard would put ranks in Escape Artist,
anyway?
Bellatrix clapped her hands together. "Bravo!" she said, apparently genuinely
thrilled. "That was, what, twenty, thirty seconds? That's more entertainment
than I get out of most. You should be proud! I'd cut you down for an encore
performance, but, well, I think I'll just kill you instead."
Behind Bellatrix, Milo saw Relkin stalking silently across the room, sword in
hand. She gave him a wink.
Milo's mind raced. He had to keep Bellatrix talking.
"I wouldn't kill me, if I were you," he said.
"Of course!" Bellatrix said. "I wouldn't kill me if I were me, either. It goes
without saying, really. Flagrate." Milo smelled faint wood smoke as the tip of
her wand lit up into a bright white ember.
"No, I mean, really," Milo stammered. Bellatrix playfully traced her wand
against the wood panelling Milo was pinned against, leaving a scored black mark.
"Aren't you the least bit curious about how I previously encountered Death
Eaters?"
"Honestly? Not really," Bellatrix said, hovering her smoking wand tip just in
front of Milo's left eye.
Just as Relkin approached within the reach of her weapon, Bellatrix snapped her
fingers. A shadowy figure dropped silently from the ceiling, swords poised to
strike.
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Before Milo could cry out, the stranger stranger's weapons flashed. Relkin
whirled about and deftly parried the first with her crystal sword, but was a
hair too slow to catch the second. She screamed and clutched at her shoulder,
blood leaking between her fingers.
"Where was I?" Bellatrix asked. "Oh, of course." Slowly, deliberately, she moved
her smoking wand towards his eye.
Milo wished he could say that he stared her down coolly, but, in truth, he began
to crack. He didn't want to die again, or for his sister to die. He was more
terrified of this strange, quicksilver witch than he had been of almost anyone
beforemore so, even, than of Tom Riddle.
The wand was so close that he could feel his face starting to burn.
I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I DON'T WANT TO
DIE.
"What was that?" Bellatrix asked sweetly.
"I don't want to die!" Milo screamed. He struggled against the ropes and the
wooden wall in vain.
Wait.
The wooden wall.
Milo slammed his palm against the oak behind him. Abruptly he began to slide as
the wall collapsed into dozens upon dozens of narrow wooden quarterstaves. He
collided with Bellatrix's shins, and they both tumbled to the ground, sliding
across the floor in a great wave of walking sticks.
"And people say Craft is underpowered!" Milo said, climbing to his feet. He'd
stopped sliding just next to the huge open dropoff where the external wall had
once been.
Milo looked at the small figure fighting Relkin. At the hooded cloak, the twin
swords...
"Wellby?"
"Avada Kedavra!" A green bolt of light grazed Milo's face, colliding with the
wall behind him. Milo whirled around, Readying another Summon Undead III. He was
fighting too defensively, he knew, but what else was he going to do? If he tried
to take her out and missed, he'd be wide open to a Killing Curse.
Bellatrix was back on her feet, yet another wand in her hand. Her previous one
was lying among the pile of wooden weaponry, still smoking.
"Oh, you're fun," she laughed. "Nobody from this mad, fake world has put up even
half the fight you have! LookExpecto Patronum!" A wispy, translucent white
snake slithered out of her wand, and wrapped itself around her legs.
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"I know the feeling," Milo muttered. He'd fought whole rooms full of Death
Eaters before with less difficulty than this. Of course, he'd had Mordenkainen
then, and his belt full of tricks, but his primary weapon had always been his
spells. Bellatrix seemed to have an answer to all of themand she could cast
much, much faster than he could.
"Avada Kedavra!"
"Summon Zombie Kobolds," Milo cast, aiming for quantity over quality. Four
small, rotting reptilian creatures appeared in a line between him and Bellatrix.
The Killing Curse burst harmlessly against the first one's decaying torso, and
the four disgusting little creatures rushed the witch. With her distracted, Milo
glanced at Relkin, who was losing groundand hit pointsto Wellby's superior,
non-caster combat abilities. She hadn't seemed to have clued in to his identity,
yetmaybe because, technically, she hadn't actually met him before.
"Benign Transposition," he muttered. Suddenly, he was facing his old party mate,
and Relkin was standing by the open wall. "Look, Wellby" Milo was interrupted
by Wellby slashing him across the chest with one of his blades. "Gods dammit,"
Milo cursed. Not for the last time, he wished he'd taken the penalty to Charisma
rather than Constitution. "Fine, be that way. Protection from Good."
Wellby blinked his eyes repeatedly, as if he'd just woken up from a long dream.
"Milo?" he asked.
"Later," Milo said. "We'll deal with Lestrange first."
Wellby's eyes hardened. "Yes," he said. "Yes, we will."
The three of them and the two kobolds still standing surrounded Bellatrix.
"Well," she laughed. "Win some, lose some."
SD 9: The Fourth Mistake
Chapter Nine: The Fourth Mistake"I only joined the Death Eaters in the first
place to get a shot at Bellatrix."
Magical rituals are fickle things.
"Isometimesenjoy Muggle jazz music."
They aren't spells. That's the first thing people get wrong. Spells are simple
and well understood. Use a wand, focus your mind, channel your inner magic
through the wand, say the words, and bam. Magic happens. The more accurately you
Page 662

perform the incantation and the gestures, the more efficient your mind and wand
can channel the magic to get the desired effect. But wands are barely two
thousand years oldnew inventions, in the grand scheme of things. They were the
product of human ingenuity at its finest, creating a simple tool that allows
anyone (well, anyone that mattered, anyway) to perform simple, reliable magic.
The real beauty of a wand is how safe it is. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred,
botching an incantation results in nothing happening at all. When something does
happen, ninety-nine times in a hundred it's harmless magical dischargesparks,
light, noise. Very rarely, there are minor magical side effects, easily
remedied. Still, very rarely, reckless wand usage can result in severe injury or
even death. Nevertheless, they are considered safe enough to be given to
children. But rituals are not like spells.
"My family is deeply in debt because of my gambling problem. My husband hasn't
found out yet."
Rituals are dangerous. One wrong word, one wrong ingredient, and you're lucky if
all that results is death. It's the ones that create life that you have to worry
about.
"I like to kill insects just for the fun of it."
Rituals are not invented, either. That is the second thing that people get
wrong. Spells have inventors, often famous ones, who work to tease out the
shifting, often nonsensical rules of magic and create spells that allow one to
repair glasses, to chop onions, to turn rats into teacups, to speak to a crowd,
or even to kill. It was a field of lore that Lucius Malfoy knew little about,
but that wizards and witches with much more skill and much less ambition than he
could regularly work with to produce hundreds of new spells every day, usable by
anyone in the world with the patience and time to learn (except for Muggles, of
course). But rituals are not invented. They are discovered. Chant a little Old
Aramaic, burn a little sandalwood, sprinkle a powder made from the canine teeth
of a child murdered by his brother over a bowl containing stone from a fallen
star under the light of a crescent moon and, in three days, it will rain
vinegar.
"I still pick my nose."
And nobody knows why. And that terrified Lucius. Who out there was watching,
waiting, to see that someone performed the ritual and had the power to follow up
with the effects? More troublingly, why would they do it? What possible gain
could this shadowy entity get from powdered teeth and space rocks? Or maybe
there was no entity, and it was a fundamental property of the universe that
vinegar would rain in the middle of the lunar month because somebody said the
right words in a dead language? Lucius wasn't sure which was worse.
"I killed my sister's cat with a steak knife after it vomited on my bed.
Everybody thinks he ran away."
Almost more frightening was that rituals were, apparently, timeless. Worse than
the chanting in dead languages was the chanting in languages that hadn't yet
been created. In the early 1600s, Italian explorers discovered an apparently
Page 663

isolated tribe living on an island in the south pacific whose magical population
regularly made use of a rain-causing ritual whose incantation, it was discovered
in 1976, was in perfect, modern Esperanto.
"Ever since my injury, I've had nightmares of that Muggle girl with the metal
wand coming back to finish the job."
All of this brought up the uncomfortable question of who it was who first
figured that out. It can't have been coincidence, or even experimentation. Maybe
there was one Neo-Assyrian dentist with a weird thing for meteorites who
stumbled across the vinegar ritual. But that such an event would have happened
many thousands of times in written history defies imagination.
"I wanted to be a Hufflepuff."
All evidence suggested that wizards and witches across all cultures and
throughout history and pre-history were, on occasion, suddenly inspired to
collect a series of essentially random articles and chant complete gibberish.
Stranger still was how often they felt the desire to pass this information
along. Even supposedly 'secret' rituals still wound up written down and
preserved through fires, Muggle witch hunts, wars, and natural disasters,
despite the self-evident fact that the best way to keep anything secret was to
not write it down in the first placeand, of course, kill or Obliviate any
witnesses. Rituals, it appeared, wanted to be discoveredand, more troubling,
wanted to be shared.
"I haven't loved my wife in years."
All of this is to say that Lucius Malfoy did not generally approve of the use of
ritual magic. In fact, the one timethat the situation had grown desperate enough
that he decided to overcome his natural suspicion of ritual magic, he'd
accidentally set in motion a series of events that culminated in the precise
opposite of his desire. Rather than prevent the Dark Lord's return, he'd brought
it about.
"I wanted to be an Auror, but couldn't get my Transfiguration Owl."
And now here was the final product of that ritual, preparing to perform it
again. Lucius wished he could bring himself to believe it was mere coincidence.
"I'm worried I might be an alcoholic and don't know who to talk to about it."
And now it was Lucius's turn. The ritual required all participants to reveal one
secret that they had never spoken aloud to anyone before. What few others seemed
to realize, however, was that it didn't need to be an important secret.
"I don't have strong feelings either way about American versus English
spelling."
The only one who hadn't spoken was Riddle, their thirteenth. Lucius found
himself strangely curiouswould he fall into the trap of the others, and allow
the drama of the situation to colour their choice of secrets? Would he follow
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Lucius's route, and reveal something meaningless? Would he choose a secret that,
when revealed, would provide some sort of gain?
"Sssthisss kerasshe ssslan ssssshira."
Clever. By speaking in Parseltongue, Riddle could both avoid revealing any
information he desired to keep secret, but also reminded people that yes,
despite his youthful appearance, he really was the Dark Lord. Hardly subtle, but
subtlety was often lost on the other Death Eaters.
Riddle kicked the sacrifice into the middle of the circle. Who had Riddle chosen
as an equivalent exchange for Bellatrix, supposedly the greatest Death Eater who
ever lived? Who was, in Riddle's mind, greater than anyone else present in the
circle? Was it McGonagall? Or perhaps a great Auror, like Moody? The alchemist,
Flamel? Lucius began to worry that, maybe, Riddle decided the best way to find a
close equal would be to choose Bellatrix's own sister, Narcissa Malfoy...
Riddle removed the sheet covering the victim, and Lucius had to strangle a laugh
as their face was revealed.
Riddle's chosen equal for Bellatrix Lestrage, widely considered the greatest
duelist of her generation, killer of an unknown number of wizards, witches, and
Muggles alike, famed for torturing Alice and Frank Longbottom to the point of
insanity and well beyond was none other than Gilderoy Lockhart.
For a moment, Lucius wished the ritual actually worked the way that everyone
assumed. It would make his life so much easier. As it was, this would only serve
to cement Lockhart's reputation. How strange the way the world works
sometimes...
oooo
A bored rat is an unhappy rat, and it's up to you to provide fun and games for
your little guy. Hannah looked up from the pamphlet she'd gotten from the pet
store and watched Mordenkainen. She hadn't ever really realized what a big rat
he was. He'd always seemed so tame and friendly around Milo, but ever since
his... disappearance... Mordy hadn't been the same.
Hermione had been almost too happy to give him up to Hannah. Almost suspiciously
happy, actually. She really should have thought to ask why the bookish girl's
hands were covered in bandages...
Hannah sighed. Her parents were not going to like this.
oooo
A dark, flickering orb slowly grew out of Bellatrix's chest. She didn't appear
particularly perturbed by it.
"I though this might happen," Milo muttered. He glanced outside. He hadn't been
keeping track, but he was willing to bet it was within a few seconds of exactly
three days since Boccob had brought him back. The old Wizard hadn't ever
Page 665

intended for him to beat Bellatrix, all he'd wanted was for Milo to be in this
room at this precise moment.
"What's happening?" Relkin asked. "Is thatoh. Oh." Comprehension dawned on her
face. Shelike Milohad never seen this from the outside, before.
"I don't have a lot of time," Milo said. "Wellby," he said, turning to face the
halfling. "I'm sorry you had to spend so long in her thrall. I wish we had more
time to talk. Look after my sister for me, okay? And tell Gerard and Zook I said
something appropriate."
"You're talking like you're about tohey, wait," Wellby's mouth dropped. "Your
sister? Since when do you have a family?"
Milo turned to Relkin. "Sis..." No, gross. Never again. "Relkin. This world is
in your hands, now. Level up a little, then go after that vizier guy, kay? He's
bad news."
"I know, I know," Relkin said. "He probably has four or five high-level, quirky
underlings for us to work through, first."
"Look after mom," Milo said. The sphere had almost completely enveloped
Bellatrix, now.
"Look after yourself," Relkin said. "I don't think you can count on another deus
ex machina like the one Boccob threw at you." She sighed, and unbuckled her belt
reluctantly. "Take this with you," she said. "You'll need it more than me." Milo
grabbed it. The leather felt familiarit was almost identical to the Belt of
Hidden Pouches that he'd once had.
Milo shook his hands out of his sleeves once again, Readying a spell. He knew
what was coming, this time. The sphere had almost completely enveloped
Bellatrix, now.
Milo sprinted towards the disappearing witch and dived towards her. Just as he
was about to make contact, he shouted, "Feather Fall!"
The world turned dark and cold.
oooo
The circle of candles flared into life, burning dozens of times brighter than
any natural flame could.
Gilderoy Lockhart looked around with his eyes wide, a rag shoved into his mouth
as a gag.
"Bellatrix Lestrange," Tom Riddle spoke. Despite the light, his face was dark as
night, except for his eyes... Lucius shivered. The Parseltongue hadn't been
necessary; one look at his eyes was all that was necessary to prove his
identity. "Bellatrix Lestrange," Riddle said again. A west wind buffeted them,
almost knocking Lucius from his feet. The flames, however, weren't affected at
Page 666

all. "Bellatrix Lestrange," Riddle said for the third and final time. The air
went perfectly still, and, between one second and the next, Lockhart vanished.
Maybe it won't work, Lucius thought. Last time, we specified a great and
powerful wizard by nameby nameand look what happened. Instead of the great
Archmage, the enigmatic Ninth of Eight, supposedly the first wizard that ever
existed, all they got was some half-crazed, semi-human child.
There was a flash of darkness that left Lucius blinking spots out of his eyes,
and Bellatrix appeared a few feet above the ground, covered, for some reason, in
grey dust.
She slammed into the moss as if she'd fallen from a much greater height, and
there was a gristly snap of bones breaking. She lay on the ground, groaning
faintly.
Lucius almost lost his usually iron control. He felt like breaking something.
After all that work he'd gone through to get rid of the woman!
Lucius closed his eyes and focused on his breathing, calming himself down. The
damage was done. The important thing now was to establish his position as
"Glitterdust!" Everything went yellow-white. Oh, no... "Evard's Black
Tentacles!"
oooo
Mordenkainen looked up, directly into Hannah's eyes.
"Squeak?" he said.
Hannah blinked. Sure, rats tend to squeak a lot, but...
Well, they just sort of squeak. They don't really say 'squeak.'
"Mordy?" She said.
The rat nodded impatiently "Squeak!" he insisted.
Hannah tossed the pamphlet away and opened the latch on the top of the cage.
Mordy climbed his way up the bars and brachiated, monkey-like, across the top.
With an acrobatic flourish, he flung himself out of the cage and landed on the
top.
Hannah was barely watching, thoughinstead, she was fishing her broomstick out
from her closet. As an afterthought, she also pulled on the spell-enhanced robe
Milo had given her. She also pocketed her wand, though she knew she wasn't
allowed to use it.
"Coming?" she said, holding a hand out for the rat.
oooo
Page 667

Milo touched the ground gently.
It was a nice change from his usual method of entry to alternate planes of
existence.
Among the writhing mass of glitter-covered, black, rubber tentacles generally
ruining the day of a not-insignificant number of Death Eaters was none other
than Tom Riddle, who was attempting to hack his way out of the mess with a
sword. A tentacle had firmly grabbed his wand hand.
Milo narrowed his eyes.
"Return," he muttered. The sky-coloured crystal in the sword's pommel flashed
briefly, and it appeared in Milo's hand. Riddle blinked in surprise, staring at
his now-empty hand. Then he looked up, and met Milo's eyes. To think, Milo had
gotten a discount when he'd made the item by making the return functionality
only work for capital-W Wizards.
"Fourth mistake, pretty boy," Milo said, bashing the sword's golden hilt into
the Dark Lord's nose with an enormously satisfying cer-UNCH.
Sure, a spell would be more effective, but when would he get the chance to punch
He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in the face again?
Riddle touched his nose. His fingers came away red.
"PCs are never beaten in battle. They can always come back for another go." Milo
sheathed the sword in Relkin's Belt of Hidden Pouches. Without his amulet of
Mirror Move, it was more a liability than an asset. "Now, eat Kelgore's Fire B"
"Stop," Riddle commanded, his eyes flashing red.
Milo blinked. His hand was outstretched, but the spell was gone from his mind.
Riddle smirked, despite his precarious position and broken nose. "I've been
doing magic long before that fool gave me a wand," he said. "Now. Draw." Despite
himself, Milo found himself drawing his sword once more. "Now Kill Yourse"
Something huge and heavy slammed into Milo from the side, knocking him well
clear of the tentacles. An enormous black dog pinned him down against the dewy
grass.
The dog looked him in the eye for a moment, and the next thing Milo knew, he was
being carried through the forest by a gaunt, skeletal man with long, dark hair.
"Idiot," the man said.
"Whatwhowhyno, let's stick with who. Who are you?" Milo asked.
"Hang on," the man said. At first, Milo assumed he meant it as in, 'wait and
I'll tell you,' but he quickly realized the man was speaking literally.
Page 668

A moment later, Milo was hanging on to the back of the giant black dog again,
being carried through the forest at speeds that were, frankly, irresponsible
given the darkness and density of trees. As requested, Milo hung on for dear
life.
A green bolt slammed into the tree in front of them. Brown and red leaves rained
over them as the tree died.
Milo attempted to throw up an Illusory Wall to screen them, but the dog's mad
sprint threw off his concentration.
He'd have to be a little less ambitious with his spell choice if he wanted to be
able to cast with any reliability, he realized. "Dancing Lights," he muttered
quietly, firing a spray of vaguely hostile-looking red bolts behind him,
shouting, "Diddlum's Deadly Death, er, Bolts!" With their pursuer presumably
cowering in fear from his 'attack,' he risked a glance around. A couple of Death
Eatershe couldn't identify them between their hoods and the darknesswere
following on broomstick, weaving between trees. Just to confuse them, he had his
Dancing Lights swoop around again from behind and just barely miss the one in
front, this time green, making a passable imitation of the Killing Curse.
The lead Death Eater veered away from her partner, making a rude gesture with
her hand.
"Can't you, like, Apparate or something?" Milo shouted at the dog as they ran.
The dog didn't reply, which Milo took as a negative. Technically Milo could use
Dimension Door to teleport them away, but its range was pretty limited, and he
wasn't sure he could pull it off from horseer, dog-back. Similarly, he could
summon a Phantom Steed and run significantly faster than this dog, though the
Steed couldn't carry the both of them and he didn't want to leave his rescuer
(?) behind.
Milo did some rapid arithmetic in his head.
"Grease!" he cast again, targeting the broomstick under the rear Death Eater.
The broomstick continued to accelerate, but the Death Eater did not. The results
were fairly predictable.
No, that didn't really help them escapetwo more Death Eaters flew up to take
the place of the one he'd taken outbut it did push him just over the threshold
to level nine.
In addition to getting him to level four of Rainbow Servant, which came with all
kinds of goodies, this allowed him to have been retroactively researching two
spellsand also allowed him to more ranks in Concentration. For his spells, he
snagged the 5th-level Wall of Stone and Teleport, both spells he decidedin the
thirty seconds or so in which he had to consider this decisionwould be useful
in this world.
Not immediately helpful, of course, because he would have to rest for eight
hours in order to prepare any spell slots of their level.
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Well. A lesser Wizard would, anyway.
As this was his ninth level, he was able to choose a feat, in this case,
Versatile Spellcaster. He hadn't been planning on taking this one, but he
couldn't see any other way out of the current situation without it.
Versatile Spellcaster was never intended for Wizards, but Sorcerers.
Technically, however, it only requires one to be able to "spontaneously cast
spells," which Milo could do thanks to his ridiculously powerful Spontaneous
Divination ability.
Outside of a few ridiculously overpowered tricks that Milo wasn't in any
position to utilize, Versatile Spellcaster was a strictly mediocre feat that
allows one to burn two spell slots of a lower level in order to cast one of a
higher level.
"This is going to feel weird," he said to the dog. "But don't fight it if you
want to live." Without waiting for a response, he began casting. This was the
most complicated spell he'd used to date, and the circumstances were hardly
ideal. He'd to bring all of his focus to bear.
"Teleport."
SD 10: The Dogs of War
Chapter Ten: The Dogs of WarThe dog under Milo stumbled slightly as the ground
he was standing on shifted from uneven forest floor to smooth, packed dirt.
Milo hopped off, grateful to finally be standing on solid ground. He wasn't
built for riding animals.
"Light," he said, tapping the wall and causing it to glow. The previously-dark
room lit up instantly, revealing the familiar sights of one of his many
nigh-identical bolt holes. This one, which happened to be closest, was located
in... ah, who am I kidding, Milo thought. I'm not going to pretend I remember
the names of this world's political regions. "It worked," he said, more than a
little surprised. He wondered what, exactly, would happen to his newly-learned
Teleport spell. In order for him to cast it like that, it had to be in his
spellbook. But he didn't have his spellbook... Riddle did, unless it was growing
dusty in the Chamber of Secrets. But he had learned the spelland Wall of Stone,
for that matter. Had the text of the spell simply appeared in the book, wherever
it was? Or...
Milo quickly skimmed through Thamior's really, incredibly gross spellbook. Nope,
not there. Milo shrugged. He was less dependent on his spellbook than most
Wizards; the important thing was that it still existed, wherever it was.
Page 670

On the topic of his old stuff... Milo wondered what had happened to his body. It
was a weird experience, knowing that the body you were in, no matter how
identical it looked, was not the body you were born in. Was it, too, decaying in
the Chamber of Secrets? Or had Riddle taken steps to dispose of the evidence?
Could coming back from the dead in this manner be somehow exploited as some kind
of macabre corpse-generator? Milo was forbidden from using Necromancy, but if he
wasn't, what kind of weird undead could he create using his own body? How could
he get around that no-Necromancy restriction? Now there was a thought...
"Are you even listening to me?"
"Sorry?" Milo said, broken out of his reverie.
"I said something to the extent of, 'you didn't know
dog, who was now a scruffy man again. He looked like
too many Starvation checks in his time. At the sight
immediately thought of Hermione's parents. If anyone
this man.
that would work'?" said the

a man who had made a few
of his teeth, Milo
needed a dentist, it was
"Well, I didn't even know the spell until I took out that Death Eater back
there," Milo said. "And once I did, Teleport only has, at best, a 97% success
rate." The more familiar Milo was with the destination, the more likely it was
that he would arrive on target.
The man-dog-man-person gave Milo a look with which he was fast becoming
familiar. It was sort of halfway between cautious and impressed. Oh, and
wondering if their leg was being pulled. It was a third of the way between
cautious and impressed and wondering if their leg was pulled. And the look
generally reserved for crazy people. It was a quarter of the way between
Well, you get the idea.
"I see," the man said, sitting down on one of the wooden chairs. "Who taught you
to Apparate without a license? And how come the Ministry lets you do magic
underage? Have things really changed so much?"
Milo shrugged. He wasn't sure how much information he should give to this
strange man. "I'm out of their jurisdiction."
The man nodded slowly, as if that meant something. For all Milo knew, maybe it
didhe understood, dimly, that there were other political bodies outside of the
United Kingdom, which had their own Ministries of Magic (or the equivalent). For
all Milo knew, maybe the local Ministry really couldn't tell if foreign children
were performing magic within its borders, and instead an alarm went off halfway
around the world.
"My turn for a question," Milo said. "Who the hells are you?"
oooo
There was a sharp pop as Riddle appeared by the uninhabited stretch of
Page 671

coastline, drawing his wand. He aimed it at an unremarkable-looking patch of
ground and muttered a quick spell incantation. Ghostly shovels appeared, and, in
a manner of minutes, had dug a perfectly rectangular hole, about three feet
across, six longand six deep.
Riddle looked down. It wasn't a pretty sight, but even at this stage in his
career he'd seen worse. Most importantly, it was still there.
Here, all alone and with no witnesses, he let his icy control slip.
"Impossible!" he muttered. How could that half-crazed boy have managed to fake
his own death? And if he had, then who's body was rotting in the ground?
No. It was impossible. Riddle had been inside his mind. There could be no
deception. The death had been real.
So whoor whathad come through the ritual? Could it really be the same person?
Had the boy really learned to cheat death so completely? Or was the ritual
somehow flawed? Did it simply... create these strange, semi-human children as a
byproduct of its use?
No. The boy had said somethingfourth mistake, pretty boy. Hadn't he said, back
in the Chamber, that Riddle had made four mistakes?
It had to be the same boy.
"Madness!" Riddle shrieked. Around him, grass blackened, thin tendrils of smoke
rising from their burnt stalks.
He'd come back, as far as Riddle could tell, at full power and in a matter of
months. How? Even after all the work Riddle had gone through, he'd still lost
the bulk of his memories and it had taken him close to a year living in
another's head. What did the boy know that he didn't? What was his secret?
Riddle didn't know how, but he knew that he would find out, whatever the cost.
But for now, he had more pressing business.
With a wave of his wand, the grave filled itself in again, and Riddle was gone.
oooo
The stranger remained silent, obviously debating how to answer Milo's question.
"I'm Sirius Black," he said, finally. He clearly assumed that would mean
something to Milo, which, of course, it didn't. Last Milo had seen, Harry was
still carrying the Plot around with him. Maybe Sirius was on there, somewhere,
but Milo couldn't remember for the life of him.
"I'm Milo Amastacia-Liadon," Milo said, holding out his hand. "Pleased to meet
you." It was amazing what a difference a few extra ranks in Diplomacy could
mean.
Page 672

The man stared at Milo's hand, as if he wasn't sure what it was for. He blinked,
as if remembering, suddenly, and awkwardly shook it.
"So," Milo said, "what were you doing back there in the forest?"
"Watching," he said. "For some reason, the Death Eaters have gotten into their
heads again that forests are private. And now that... he's back, I decided
someone had to keep an eye on them. Then my supposedly-dead cousin and you
appeared, and I had to act or they'd finish you." He flicked his eyes over Milo
again. "Whoever you are."
"You're Bellatrix's cousin?" Milo was surprised. It was easy to forget that
villains had family, too. He was suddenly keenly aware that he was low on magic,
in a small, enclosed space with a man who could turn into a giant dog.
"Estranged cousin."
Milo resisted the urge to say 'Lestranged Cousin,' and felt just a little
satisfied at his success. If that wasn't Character Development, he didn't know
what was.
"So, what are you, a werewolf or something?" he asked. Everyone was always
saying there were werewolves in the Forbidden Forest; it seemed semi-plausible
that there were some in this one, too. Of course, it was absurd that there were
werewolves living in any forests at all, being bog-standard human 27 days a
month, but that didn't seem to stop them.
"No, thankfully," Sirius said. "I'm an Anima, Gus."
Milo blinked. "A spirit? And I'm Milo."
"No, an Animagus. I can turn into an animal."
"Oh. Like how McGonagall can turn into a cat." Milo was always careful around
shapeshifting magic. While technically it wasn't forbidden, like the Candles of
Invocation were, the gods kept their eyes on those who abused it. Milo didn't
trust himself not toin fact, he wasn't even sure it could be used in a
non-abusive mannerso he'd stayed well clear of Polymorph and its ilk, despite
the phenomenal power those spells offered.
"You've met Minerva?" Sirius glanced at Milo's robes. "You're a student," he
said. "I don't suppose you've met Harry Potter?"
"Loads of times," Milo said. "We share a dorm, and fight evil together, on
occasion."
Sirius chuckled. "Why am I not surprised? Tell me, how is he"
"Hands in the air, dirtbag," said a voice.
Milo almost jumped out of his skin, complying immediately. Had his secret
Page 673

hideouts been compromised? Was it just this one, or all of them? Could the Death
Eaters somehow track his Teleport magic? Or was it Aurors? Had he taken the
blame for the Basilisk attacks in Hogwarts?
Sirius raised his hands, too, looking grim. They both turned to face the door
together, and Milo's jaw dropped open.
It was Hannah Abbot, wand aimed menacingly at Sirius. Mordenkainen was perched
on her shoulder, explosive knut-launcher held at the ready. Milo prayed he
didn't use it; the blast would easily vaporize everyone in the room, including
himself.
"Hannah?" Milo goggled.
"Don't worry," Hannah said. "You can lower your arms." She glared at Sirius as
he began to do so, too. "Not you," she said in a hard voice.
Milo blinked. "I don't even know what question to ask," he said. "Let's start
with 'what' and work our way down through 'why,' take a detour on 'how', and end
off with another 'what,' maybe."
"I'm rescuing you," Hannah said, as if it was obvious.
"Oh. Good."
"From him," Hannah gestured at Sirius.
Milo looked at the scruffy shapechanger. "Um. Why?"
"Don't you know who he is?" Hannah asked. "That's Sirius Black."
"Yeah..." Milo said. "I feel like that's supposed to mean something to me, but
it actually doesn't."
"He's a murderer," Hannah said. "He escaped Azkaban."
The penny dropped. Bellatrix supposedly died in Azkaban, but instead wound up in
Milo's world. Her cousin, also a killer, also escaped Azkaban.
"You got Bellatrix out of Azkaban," Milo said. An idea hit him. "Detect Evil,"
he cast. A minor ability of his Prestige Class, Rainbow Servant, allowed him to
cast the spell at-will. It was supposed to highlight evil creatures and people
with a glow strength depending on their level. Of course, the local people and
creatures didn't seem to have levels, and Milo was uncertain that they even had
Alignments. Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos didn't seem to be as... definite here.
Sirius stubbornly refused to glow, however. Whether that meant that he wasn't
evil or if the spell simply wouldn't work here, Milo wasn't certain.
Unfortunately, he couldn't simply test this by casting Detect Good on Hannah, as
it wasn't a spell Wizards had access to.
"I absolutely did not," Sirius said firmly. "I don't know how Bellatrix escaped,
Page 674

but it's absolutely impossible that she did so the same way that I did."
"Don't listen to him," Hannah said. "He killed twelve Mugglesthat we know of.
He might have done more; he never confessed."
"I never killed any Muggles," he said in a quiet voice. Milo was keenly aware of
the difference between his statement and 'I never killed anyone.' Still, who was
Milo to judge? When it came to stopping bandit raids, Adventurers were not
generally known for taking prisoners.
Besides, there had been a war. Milo didn't doubt there had been blood on both
sides.
Though which side Sirius was on had yet to be established.
"Then I think we need an explanation," Milo said. "Who are you, where did you
come from, how did you get out of Azkaban, and why are you here?"
Sirius sighed. "The other prisoners were acting up," he began. "They were
excited. The guards don't like excitementor rather, they like it a little too
much, so that was rare. Unheard of, actually. It took me a long time to find out
why, and even longer to work up the effort to want to find out." Milo had no
idea what that was supposed to mean, except perhaps that this Sirius fellow
might not be the most proactive tool in the shed. "Of course, they thought I was
one of their own, so eventually one of them told me. An unexpected upshot of
being framed, I suppose." He licked his lips. "It was the Dark Mark," he said.
"It began to burn as brightly as ever; a sign that their master was back."
Hannah gasped.
"Hold up," Milo said. "The Dark Mark?"
"It's a sign that... he... marks his inner circle with." If Sirius was surprised
by the tangent, he didn't show it.
"Like, a literal sign?" Milo asked. He blinked. "Wait. High-ranking Death Eaters
are visibly marked?"
Sirius nodded.
That, of course, struck Milo as sheer idiocy. Tattooing all members of your
very-illegal, subversive, criminal organization was beyond idiotic.
There had to be more to it than that, though. Sure, You-Know-Who seemed to make
several of the more conventional villain missteps, but he could also be
surprisingly devious. Milo would know, having been thoroughly outsmarted and
soundly defeated by him last year.
Milo sat down and thought. He could practically feel the wheels in his head
spinning.
He had to look at this from Voldemort's perspective. Why would you brand your
Page 675

own followers? It practically guaranteed that, on thorough inspection, they
would be imprisoned on capture as a result. There could be no denial of one's
identity as a Death Eater.
"Was it widely known what the Mark meant?" Milo asked.
Sirius shrugged. "To the general populace, not normally. But the Ministry was
well aware of it, as were some of the better-informed members of the public.
That may have changed since."
Milo glanced at Hannah.
"This is the first I've heard of it," she said.
"So the Mark was a sure sign of guilt, and the relevant people knew it," Milo
said. But what if Voldemort put a Dark Mark on an innocent wizard or witch? "Are
there any examples of a person known to have the Mark walking free?" Otherwise,
it would be a trivial matter to frame an otherwise innocent victim and then set
the Aurors on them.
"Several," Sirius said. "But there's three I think you'll be most familiar with.
Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy," he said. "And Severus Snape."
Despite himself, Milo stared. "You're not serious," he said. Snape, a Death
Eater?
Sirius frowned. "Actually, I am Siri"
"I'll just head that one off right there," Hannah interrupted. "Sirius, Milo
meant 'serious,' with an 'e', as in the opposite of 'silly.' Milo, Sirius
mistook you for saying his name."
"Ah," Sirius said. "That happens. Quite a lot, actually. Though most of the
misunderstandings in my life were caused by my last name, not my first."
And just like that, in a rare flash of insight, Milo knew what the Dark Mark was
really for. Voldemort deliberately marked all of his top minions permanently,
knowing full well that it would identify them as criminals. It made sensefrom
the point of view of someone who was already insane, in any case. Voldemort
didn't trust his own people; hardly surprising, considering some of the Death
Eaters Milo had met. Given that simple premise, the real use of the Dark Mark
became obvious.
The Dark Mark's use as a tool of communication for Voldemort to summon his
henchmen was merely an excuse. The real reason his minions were permanently
marked was to ensure their loyalty. If they were captured, and the Mark was
discovered, they could never fully integrate back into normal society. They were
branded. Lucius Malfoy was the perfect exampleas much as he tried to appear as
a perfectly legitimate businessman, everybody knew in the back of their minds,
at least, that he was up to no good. No matter how much he liked to claim that
he had simply been bewitched by Voldemort, Ron had told Milo the very first time
they met the real truth. And if eleven-year-old Ron Weasley had been able to see
Page 676

through Lucius's disguise, it was clear that Voldemort's system was working.
Snape was another perfect exampleno matter how much Dumbledore insisted that
the man had changed, nobody except for the old wizard really trusted him. No
wonder the man's hygiene was so poor; there wasn't really any point, anymore, in
looking respectable.
Milo blinked. Where had that come from? He was certain he was correct, though
the logic was foreign to him. Not a single part of that train of thought relied
on knowledge of story conventions or previous adventuring experience.
"What happened then?" Milo asked. "After you learned that their Dark Marks had
become visible." That had probably been how Bellatrix learned that she was about
to be summoned back, Milo realized. Her own Dark Mark had begun to burn, just
like the prisoners in Azkaban.
"The Azkaban guards, they" Sirius trickled off, as if unableor unwillingto
bring himself to remember.
"they steal your happy thoughts?" Hannah suggested.
Sirius nodded mutely.
Milo shot Hannah a glance. Was this just another one of those things that
everyone here knew, that he had somehow missed? But he'd found it practically
impossible to get anyone to talk about Azkaban, and the books outside of the
Hogwarts restricted section skirted around the topic uncomfortably. It wasn't as
if it was secret, so much as if the authors would rather that they themselves
didn't know, and wouldn't plague the reader with the knowledge as well.
Milo was aware that wanded wizards were able to read thoughts, and even alter
memories (that was a thought that kept Milo awake at night; he'd have to make a
new Amulet of Protection from Evil as soon as physically possible). But
deliberately filtering for happy memories to remove? That just seemed
Well, if the prisoners weren't crazy going in, they'd be crazy coming out.
"Locate ObjectSirius's Wand," Milo cast under his breath, disguising it as a
cough. The spell didn't turn up anything, suggesting at least that Sirius
couldn't use magic on them if he turned violent (possibly explaining his
inability to Apparate earlier, though Milo wasn't actually certain if Apparition
needed a wand or not). Though, of course, there was still the matter of his
ability to transform into a giant, fanged dog.
Sirius shook himself, a curiously canine act, and the haunted look disappeared
from his eyes. "But I knew that, if he ever came back, he'd go for Harry
immediately. That wasn't a happy thought, so they left me with it." He swallowed
again. Wordlessly, Milo handed him an Everfull Mug (Relkin kept hers in the same
pocket that had Milo kept his, reminding Milo of the old saying: that the gods
help those who help themselves). Sirius took it and drank gratefully. "I latched
onto that thought, and I knew I had to get out. I might be the only one who knew
that he was back; the only one that could warn Harry."
Page 677

"But how did you actually do it?" Milo asked. Again, he didn't know what sorts
of defences Azkaban might have, but it was enough to keep the most dangerous
wizards and witches locked up in there for decades. Yesterday, Milo would have
said that that would be an easy enough taskjust take away their wands and put
up similar defensive spells to Hogwarts', keeping would-be rescuers from
Apparating in. But now Riddle had almost killed him without a wand. It seemed
like no matter how much he read about magic in this world, there was always a
new rule or power to be learned in another book.
"It took me six weeks to come up with a plan, and six more to remember it when
the guards took the idea away from me. I had to write it in my own blood,
because the thought of escape was a happy one, and could never stay in my mind.
But the core of it, the driving force that kept me going it was anything but.
That he had returned, and would finish what he'd started, so many years ago.
"It took me months to remember how to use my powers and work up the will to do
so. For weeks at a time, I forgot that's what I was even doing. But then, one
day when the guards opened the cell door to give me food, I slipped past them as
a dog. They don't see the world the way we do, and a dog's emotions were too
simple for them to understand. They were confused. Blind. From there, I swam to
shore, and I've been following him ever since. I can't I don't remember where
Harry lives. They took that, too."
Well, Milo wasn't about to tell him. But something that Sirius said rang alarm
bells in his mind.
"They can't see? Who the hells is guarding this place?"
Sirius shivered slightly, but didn't say anything. Milo glanced at Hannah, whose
face was pale.
"Dementors," she whispered reluctantly, as if it were a vile curse word.
Hm. Well, clearly they had the local wizards and witches terrified, but Milo
wasn't unduly worried. If their main power was draining happy thoughts, they
probably wouldn't affect him, much in the same way that Riddle's Cruciatus curse
hadn't affected him. It would suck, probably, but he doubted it would really
inhibit him in combat. For all he knew, they wouldn't even be able to see him.
"Do you mind waiting here a moment?" Milo asked Sirius. "I need to confer with
my confederate, here. Mordy can keep an eye on you."
Sirius eyed Milo's rat suspiciously, paying close attention to its paws for some
reason, but nodded.
Milo and Hannah walked to the cave entrance.
Once they were out of view, Milo pulled her into a hug.
"I didn't think I'd ever see you again," he said.
"I was about to say the same," Hannah said, giving one of those laughs that a
Page 678

person gives when they want to pretend something is funny, knowing full well
that both people know it isn't, but also knowing that everyone knows that and
won't mention it. People are strange, sometimes. "What happened to you? I
thought Oh, this is going to sound stupid. I thought you were dead."
"I was," Milo said. "Sirius was right about You-Know-Who being back. He, uh he
was, um." Milo briefly debated concealing the fact that he'd been possessed for
about a year, but decided against it. He'd probably done some mighty suspicious
things, and for all he knew, Hannah and the others thought he'd gone evil. Or
maybe that he always had been. "He was sort of living in my head ever since we
fought Quirrell back in First Year. I don't fully understand it, but apparently
he had a part of himself living in a book, which, like an idiot, I kind of
copied into my brain with a spell."
"So you were Slytherin's Heir?"
"Sort of, yeah. He could take over, sometimes, and I'd just wake up after time
had passed. He had me block off secret passages in Hogwarts with Illusory Wall
to let the Basilisk roam freely. At first, he wanted to get Dumbledore fired by
threatening the students. But notice how he never killed anyone? Well, almost
never. I think he didn't want Hogwarts to close. I think I think he liked it
there. And then he targeted McGonagall, getting Snapeone of his own peopleput
in charge."
"What about your amulet?" Hannah asked. "I thought you couldn't be possessed."
"He jumped me when I had it off," Milo said. "I used it to disable
You-Know-Who's possession of Quirrell, causing him to flee. I was vulnerable.
And then, well, he had me make a new one for myself with a back door, and that
was that."
"Wait. You're not still, you know possessed, are you?"
"No, I'm clear. He lured me into the Chamber of Secrets and killed me, giving
him a new body or something. I was pretty out of it, to be honest."
Hannah froze. "You're a ghost?"
Milo laughed. "Oh, thank gods, no." Milo gave Hannah a (highly compressed)
version of his last three days.
"I didn't know you had a sister," Hannah said.
"Neither did I," Milo laughed. "But I'm back now, and I have no intention of
dying again. But back to the topic at hand. Should we trust Sirius?"
"Wait," Hannah said, her eyes widening. "If your amulet had a backdoor"
Milo cocked his head to the side, wondering where she was going with this.
"what about those amulets you made for the Ministry?" she finished.
Page 679
SD 11: No News is Good News
Chapter Eleven: No News Is Good News FERAL CHILD ON THE LOOSE

by Rita Skeeter
Concerning reports were brought to the attention of the Daily Prophet yesterday
about a strange and possibly dangerous child calling himself "Milo
Amastacia-Liadon."
"He's attacked me and my mates several times," says Gregory Goyle, a soon-to-be
third year student. "But no-one ever does anything about it." Goyle declined
further comment, citing fears of what Amastacia-Liadon will do to him if he went
public with the full truth.
There are several eyewitness reports of him performing dangerous magic on other
students without the use of a wand, as some magical children have been known to
do in times of stress and danger. Among other incidents, he is said to have
temporarily blinded an entire first-year Potions class, and thrown Harry Potter,
the Boy Who Lived, from his broomstick during a Quidditch match. He was also
found in the school grounds alone with a critically injured first year girl, who
was unavailable for comment, who appeared to have suffered from serious knife
wounds. On several occasions he has caused major damage to Hogwarts school
property, including causing several broken windows and appears to have been
involved in an elaborate prank to conjure a fully-grown oak tree in the middle
of the school. On one occasion, he attacked the family of the Boy Who Lived,
leading to his arrest by Muggle police officers (Muggles armed with sticks who
enforce laws) last summer. Further, he was among the last to be seen with
Professor Quirrell, former Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, before the
professor's complete nervous breakdown.
He seemed to have disappeared for good midway through his second year at
Hogwarts, immediately after a highly-dangerous magical beast, the Basilisk, was
released into the school. The identity of the culprit, claiming to be the "Heir
of Slytherin," remains unknown, though some have speculated that it is no
coincidence that this wild youth fled the school when the Basilisk was killed.
It is unknown at this time if this child is an orphan or simply a runaway, but
what is known is that despite a history of violence and wild behaviour, he has
been attending Hogwarts for the last two years and there is nothing to suggest
that he will not continue to do so for the term starting next week.
Do not approach Milo under any circumstances. If you have any information
regarding the identity or whereabouts of this child, who was last seen roaming a
park near Bristol, please contact the Ministry immediately, as much for his own
safety as for yours.
Page 680

"We have to find this kid," Amelia Bones said, setting down the Daily Prophet.
The strange necklace she'd taken to wearing the last few months dangled from her
neck.
"Doesn't that sound like a job for the Improper Use of Magic Office?" Kingsley
Shacklebolt suggested lightly. "Besides, we have our hands tied up looking for
Blackwho, I will remind you, is a killer."
"This takes priority," Bones said, firmly. "He's one of Potter's friends."
"I don't see the connection," Shacklebolt confessed.
"He knows where Potter lives," Bones said.
"And the Prophet just told everyone of that fact." Shacklebolt felt his eyes
widen as realization hit him. "Sirius Black."
"We find the kid," Bones said, "and we'll find Black. And Merlin only knows who
else. This isn't the number one priority. This is the only priority."
oooo
"Dangerous, yes, but 'feral' seems a bit much," Milo grumbled, setting down the
Daily Prophet. He felt like twelve miles of bad clichs. He'd run out of
high-level spells, and was therefore unable to muster up another Teleport the
night before, and with Sirius unable to Apparate, they'd both had little choice
but to stay the night in his little hidey-hole. Milo didn't trust Sirius further
than he could Bull Rush him, and didn't fancy the idea of falling asleep in a
confined space with him. As such, he'd had to rely on his least favourite rules
loophole: technically, to get his spells back, he didn't need to sleep for eight
hours, simply rest.
Sitting with your back to the wall staring at a snoring escaped convict counted
as 'rest,' although it was far from being restful. He was also annoyed by having
to once more prepare spells without the benefit of his spellbook, limiting him
to a handful of his chosen spells and those found in Thamior's spellbook. Druids
never had to deal with this kind of arbitrary inconvenience. It would take him
weeks of work and hundreds of pounds of salt to make a new one.
"I can't believe this," Hannah said. She'd dropped by for a quick visit early in
the morning, before her parents woke up. Sirius was still asleep in the corner,
and honestly, he looked like he needed it. "The Prophet makes it sound like
you're a wanted criminal."
"I haven't gotten my Hogwarts letter," Milo said. "Probably because their magic
owls couldn't find me while I was living-impaired."
"The book list is simple enough," Hannah said. "Although the Monster Book of
Monsters is a bit of a pain. It came with a consent form, though."
"A what?" Milo knew what the words 'consent' and 'form' meant, individually, but
he had no idea what they implied when put together like that.
Page 681

"It's a form your parent or guardian is supposed to sign," Hannah said. "It's to
allow you to go to Hogsmeade on weekends."
"That... could be a problem," Milo said. "My parents live in another universe,
and only one of them is even fully-realized. What happens if I can't get it
signed?"
"You don't get to go to Hogsmeade," Hannah said.
"Eh," Milo shrugged. "Suits me fine. Anything I want from town I can owl order.
Besides," he added, "it's not like they could really keep me from going there if
I really wanted to."
"So, what's your plan, then?" Hannah asked curiously.
"Drop by Harry's house, illegally copy his books with Amanuensis, Teleport to
King's Cross, board the Hogwarts Express, and enjoy Snape's surprised look when
I come back from the dead," Milo said. "No big deal."
"Um," Hannah said. "You might not want to see Harry just yet."
"No problem," Milo said. "I'll drop by your house, illegally copy your books
with Amanuensis, Teleport to King's Cross, board the Hogwarts Express, and enjoy
Snape's surprised look when I come back from the dead. Why shouldn't I go see
Harry?"
"Weeeeerrrrlllllll..."
"Yes?" Milo asked.
"Hermione may have gotten it into her head that you were the Heir of Slytherin,"
Hannah said. "And she may or may not have convinced some others of this fact."
"Oh," Milo said. "So you're saying if I unexpectedly drop in on Harry, he might
think it's an ambush and blast me to smithereens with magic?"
"Maybe," Hannah said. "Probably."
Milo leaned back heavily in his chair, rubbing his forehead. "Hermione," he
said, heavily.
"I know, right?" Hannah agreed sympathetically.
"She is too smart for her own good," Milo said. "Or, more accurately, too smart
for my own good."
He reached into Relkin's belt and pulled out his Everfull Mug.
"Prestidigitation," he muttered, waving his hand over the water inside. In an
instant, it was steaming and milky brown, and tasted exactly like elven spiced
tea. He took a sip, savouring the bitter aftertaste. "It never hits, but it
crits."
Page 682

Hannah chuckled. "I should probably be heading back," she said. "I'll drop by
this evening with my school books, and some rat food for Mordy."
"Wait," Milo said, as she got up to leave. "One last thing."
"Oh?" Hannah asked.
"'Hands in the air, dirtbag?'" he asked lightly.
"Oh," Hannah said, her cheeks colouring slightly. "Well, I'd just been watching
a lot of Batman, and, uh, it seemed appropriate..."
"What kind of manservants do they have in this world?" Milo asked.
"What?" Hannah asked.
"A batmanit's a soldier who's assigned to an officer as a servant, right?"
Hannah chuckled. "Forget about it," she said.
After that, they said their goodbyes, and she was off on her broomstick.
"So," a voice behind him said. Milo whirled around, hands at the ready for
spellslinging. It was Sirius Black, who wasn't quite as asleep as he had
appeared. "Looks like we have more in common than I'd thought."
"How do you mean?" Milo asked.
He held the Daily Prophet. "We're both wanted," he said. "And we both annoyed
the same people."
"I don't think I follow," Milo said.
"Do you think it's coincidence that this story broke now, of all times?" Sirius
asked. "Yesterday you didn't even exist."
Milo blinked. "You think this is part of You-Know-Who's plan?" he said. "To turn
the public against me? But it says here to contact the Ministry if I'm found.
That's the last people that..." Milo was barely aware that he'd stopped talking.
If Hannah was right about the amulets being cursed, then he absolutely could not
trust anyone in the Ministry.
"Not his plan," Sirius said. "This has the stink of a Malfoy's touch."
"I am so sick of that family," Milo said. "And with Snape as Headmaster, they'll
basically be running Hogwarts."
"Snivellus?" Sirius's eyebrows climbed up his forehead. "Are you sure you still
want to go there in September? It might not be the most hospitable place for
you."
Page 683

"Wouldn't miss it for the world," Milo grinned. "Only McGonagall can actually
expel me, so they can't keep me out. And all the fun happens at Hogwarts."
Sirius shrugged. "It's your call."
"So," Milo said. "As long as we both have nothing better to do, mind telling me
what's your history with Snape?"
Sirius grinned. "Pull up a chair."
oooo
"Bloody hell," Fiona Smythe said, setting down the Daily Prophet on the pub
table and sliding it over to Evan Travis. "Does this boy look at all familiar to
you?"
The Bring 'em Inn was the sort of pub that was generally full of coppers that
wanted nothing more than a quiet drink, some chips, and to forget for a moment
that they were coppers. Even when the place was packed to the rafters, it was
always quiet, with most of the clientle sitting by themselves, staring into
their mugs and thinking about anything, absolutely anything, other than work.
It was the perfect place for conspiring.
Travis picked up the tabloid and glanced at the picture. "Nope," he said. "But
lots of little boys of a certain age look sort of the same. He probably reminds
you of your nephew."
"Read the article," Fiona pushed.
Travis rolled his eyes in a the-thing-I-put-up-with way, and read through the
article. A few sentences in, and his smirk was wiped off his face.
"Bloody hell," Travis said, putting the paper down. "You don't think..."
"How many wizard children do you think were nicked by coppers in Little Whinging
last year?" Fiona asked. "It's him. I know it."
"So say it is," Travis said. "What are we going to do about it? This isn't our
responsibility anymore."
Fiona knew that when he said 'we' and 'our,' he meant 'you' and 'your.' As it
turns out, telling your therapist during a mandatory psych evaluation that five
constables were killed by magic during a raid on a house full of wizards, and
that you couldn't remember any of it, because, well, magic, doesn't do your
career any favours. Technically, she was still a copper, but 'mandatory
indefinite psych leave' wasn't a thing that your career could really bounce back
from.
Travis had had the good sense to lie through his teeth and a low enough rank
that he'd managed to evade any blame, and had actually been bumped up to fill
Fiona's place as police sergeant in the latest round of promotions.
Page 684

"What do you think I'm doing?" Fiona asked.
Travis sighed. "You're going to Bristol."
"Damn right I'm going to Bristol."
"Fiona, I know you don't want to hear this, but it's important that you keep
going to your therapy sessions. It's the only way you'll get your job back. You
can't just leave."
"Bugger the therapist," Fiona said, standing up.
"Figured you'd say that," Travis said. "Look, I'd come with you, but..."
"I understand." Travis was in a tough position. Between his recent promotion and
the the lingering black mark of his participation in the doomed police raid last
year, there was no way he could take time off now, especially during the manhunt
for Sirius Black. He had everything to prove and, now that Hannigan had
resigned, few friends among the brass. Or anywhere else, for that matter. As
Fiona had found as well, having your life completely turned upside-down by an
experience that you couldn't share with anybody wrought havoc on your personal
life. "Look after Sprocket while I'm gone. The keys will be under the doormat."
"You're going now?" Travis asked.
"Their term starts in a few days, and he'll be out of reach once he's in their
school. There's no time to wait." She grinned, and flashed him a smile. She
hadn't felt this excited and, well, purposeful in almost a year. "The game is
afoot."
SD 12: Hot Fuzz
Chapter Twelve: Hot FuzzSomeone had seen Milo near Bristol, that someone had
recognized him on sight, and had chosen to report it to the Daily Prophet.
Based off of reports from their network of bird watchers, there were three
suspected magical homes in the Bristol area that subscribed to the Daily
Prophet. Or at least, there had been six months ago; most of her fellow
conspirators were now either dead or had moved on with their lives. Of them,
only two had any children. One of those seemed to have lost the genetic lottery
(assuming genes were even involved), and attended an ordinary public school.
That left a single
Abbot. She had the
the boy and report
if the Prophet was
potential classmate of Milo's in the region: one Hannah

means, opportunity, and, if Fiona was right, motive to spot
it. She didn't know how many students were at Hogwarts, but
correct and Milo really had stabbed a girl in his year, it
Page 685

seemed plausible that it had been a friend of hers.
Fiona grinned to herself, putting her files into a bag and disembarking from the
train. All she needed was a quick change of clothes and a payphone to call a
taxi and she'd finally get the breakthrough she'd been looking for all this
time.
oooo
"Dinner!" Hannah's father called.
Hannah hurriedly stuffed her textbooks into her bag (except for the Monster Book
of Monsters, of course, which last she'd seen was still lurking in the shoe
closet). Her parents didn't know that she was sneaking out early in the morning
and late at night to see Milo, and she intended to keep it that way by avoiding
any unnecessary suspicion. They'd never seen her with a textbook in hand during
the summer before, and they weren't going to start now.
The evidence packed away, she headed downstairs for dinner.
As she headed down the stairs, she heard a knock at the door, followed by the
silvery tinkle of the chimes her mother had hung on the door that announced to
the house whenever it was opened.
"Hello?" her mother asked.
Overcome by curiosity, Hannah ducked below the stairwell and listened.
"Ms. Abbot?" said a brisk, businesslike female voice with a faint Scottish
accent.
"Mrs. Abbot, thank you. Can I help you, miss..."
"Eskarina Smith, Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Would you mind sparing a
moment of your time to answer some questions, ma'am?"
"No, not at all," Hannah's mother said, surprise evident in her voice.
"Do you have a son or daughter approximately thirteen years old?"
"Yes, a daughter. Is she in some sort of trouble?"
"No, ma'am. Nothing like that."
Hannah heard footsteps. "What's going on?" her father asked as he walked to the
front door.
"This is Eskarina from the Ministry," her mother said. "She's here because...
actually, why are you here, Ms. Smith?"
"We at the DMLE have reason to believe that your daughter may have information
pertinent to locating a missing person," Eskarina answered.
Page 686

Hannah's heart skipped a beat. How had they found her so quickly? Or at all,
actually?
"Hannah?" her mother asked incredulously. "If the missing person happens to be a
package of Oreo biscuits, maybe."
Hannah bristled. That only happened the one time.
"With your consent, I'd very much like to speak to her."
There was a pause, and Hannah could practically picture the looks her mother and
father were exchanging. "Very well," her mother said, finally. "If we can be
present."
"Of course, ma'am."
"Hannah!" her father called.
Hannah had already crawled most of the way back up the stairs just so she could
convincingly hurry down them from the top.
"Yes?" she asked, rounding the corner to the front hall. Standing there between
her parents was a pint-sized witch with ragged, greasy brown hair, dark bags
under her eyes, and a black, pointy hat with a brass buckle on the front. She
looked like she'd just barely survived some sort of Shampoo Apocalypse, and had
come to warn the world of the dangers of proper hair hygiene. And of sleeping,
for that matter.
"Hannah, this woman wants to speak with you," her father said. "You don't have
to answer her questions if you don't want to, but you do have to be honest. Do
you understand?"
Hannah nodded.
"To confirm," Eskarina said, a Muggle-style notebook and pen in hand. "Are you
Hannah Abbot?"
"Yup," Hannah said. The witch scribbled down her answer.
"Are you a student at Hogwarts?"
"Yup."
"What year are you in at Hogwarts?"
"Starting my third year tomorrow," Hannah said.
"Have you ever seen this boy," she asked, holding up the photograph of Milo from
the Daily Prophet.
"He's a classmate of mine," Hannah said evasively.
Page 687

"Would you describe this boy as a friend of yours?"
Hannah paused. She didn't want to say anything to this woman that would lead her
to the conclusion that she would know anything about where Milo was hiding, but
she also didn't want to lie outright. For all she knew, the woman could use
magic to tell. "He's in my House," she said, and immediately cursed her wording.
"Excuse me?" the woman said, reaching into her pocket, presumably for a wand.
"He's here now?"
"No, no, no," Hannah said hurriedly. "My House at school. House Gryffindor."
"I see," she said, relaxing. "So you take classes together, that sort of thing?"
"Yes."
"Can you positively identify this boy as Milo Amastacia-Liadon?"
Hannah nodded.
"Do you know where he's from?"
Hannah shook her head. "Not exactly. I don't think he's from anywhere in the UK,
though."
Eskarine cocked her head sideways. "And why is that?'
"His accent's different. Could be American, maybe."
"I see," the woman said, scribbling in her notebook. "Would you describe Milo as
'dangerous,' Hannah?"
Hannah paused, and thought about it. Was Milo dangerous? She
Redcap, and about the Troll, and about what he'd done to the
Gryffindor Common Room. On the whole, she thought, yes, he's
but he's on our side. She couldn't very well say that, could
thought about the

Death Eaters in the
very dangerous...
she, though?
"I'd prefer not to answer."

Eskarina's eyes narrowed. "Has this boy ever harmed you or anyone you know?"
"I'd prefer not to answer." Her mother and father shot her sharp looks,
identical, unspoken questions forming on their lips.
"Have you seen this boy at any time in the last seventy-two hours?"
"Do you know where this boy is right now?"
Page 688

Eskarina put her notebook and pen away. "Thank you for your time," she said to
the three of them. "That will be all. Have a nice evening." With that, she
crisply spun about on the heel of one foot, and walked down to the road.
"Wait!" Hannah's mother called. "What's going on?" But the woman either didn't
hear her or chose not to, and quickly walked out of sight. As soon as she was
gone, both parents turned to look at Hannah.
She had to warn Milo that the heat was on, but one look from her parents,
however, told her that that would have to wait until she could effectively shake
them offa daunting proposal, to say the least. They were likely to be full of
questions, now that the woman from the Ministry had implied in front of them
that she'd been attacked by this boy at school (which she had, technically, but
it hadn't really been her at the time, and it was all a misunderstanding,
anyway).
oooo
Fiona practically skipped down the street, shoving the uncomfortable robes and
hat into her satchel as she did. That girl had all but screamed 'I KNOW
SOMETHING' at her. Fiona had expected the girl to send her right to Milo, but
apparently, she'd opted to cover for him instead (which, then, raised the
question: if she hadn't turned him in to the Prophet, who had?). Obviously, she
hadn't said anything that would hold up in a proper investigation, but,
refreshingly, this wasn't a proper investigation. In fact, as far as Fiona could
tell she hadn't even broken any lawsthere was no rule against pretending to be
part of what was, as far as her government was concerned, a fictional,
supernatural, organization to engage in completely consensual conversation. She
did feel somewhat guilty about tricking a child, but the last time she'd
underestimated magical children, Miloshe was sure it was himhad pinned her
partner down with magical tentacles and then called in a crack team to erase her
memory. At least, that's what she'd written down before losing said memory.
The next phase of her plan required a little more preparation, a few phone
calls, and a fair amount of money, but if she'd gauged the situation in the
Abbot household accurately, she reckoned she had two hours at least to
preparewhich was, of course, part of her plan, once she'd established that
Hannah was likely co-operating with Milo.
oooo
Black robes and a black
invisible, save for the
Even the most observant
night. It wasn't magic,
hat against the black night sky were virtually

occasional blotted star or silhouette against a tree.
person didn't have a hope of following a flying witch at
it was simply human biology.
Which was why, when, two hours later, Fiona spotted Hannah climbing out her
bedroom window, she had no intention of trying to track her with her bare eyes
alone.
The AM/NIR-7 was a bulky, military headset from the mid-eighties that flooded
Page 689

the world in fluorescent false-colour magentas and oranges, depending on heat or
radiation or whatever phlebotinum the thing used to work. After some fiddling
with it, she configured it to highlight Hannah in bright white. While very
nifty, the thermal goggles weren't strictly legal, but then, she wasn't strictly
a copper, and anyway, who was counting? Besides, she was out of her own
jurisdiction.
Hannah shot off into the night, and Fiona raced after her on a rented dirtbike.
She'd reckoned that the girl would mostly follow major highways to get to her
destination (assuming it was out of the city centre, as the Prophet had
implied), as she couldn't imagine navigating by broomstick at night would be
easy without frequent landmarks.
Fiona was more than breaking the speed limit, but she knew to avoid most of the
major speed traps and most patrolled routes. She didn't have to directly follow
the flying girl, just make sure she remained in sight at all times. Hannah
stopped to check a map and get her bearing every few minutes, each time allowing
Fiona to close the distance.
Had it been daytime, Fiona was sure she wouldn't have had a prayer of following
the broomstick, which could easily travel at double the bike's speed, and,
further, could completely ignore more mundane considerations such as traffic and
geography. But as it was, Fiona kept within a few kilometres of the flying girl,
until she was abruptly cut off by a speeding lorry, and lost her.
"Dammit," Fiona muttered, pulling over and scanning the skies. Nothing gave off
the telltale white glow. She was just about to call it a failure and head back
to Bristol to come up with an alternate plan, when she spotted a white, vaguely
humanoid shape on the ground. She lifted up the goggles, revealing a scraggly,
seemingly-abandoned field that might have once been farmland.
Abandoning her bike by the side of the road, she easily hopped the low stone
wall and sprinted towards the figure. Well before catching up to her, however,
she simply disappeared.
Fiona lifted the heavy headset again (the thing clocked in at two-thirds of a
kilo... her neck was going to take its sweet revenge on her tomorrow, of that
she was certain), feeling foolish. In front of her was a solid, adult-sized
boulder. Sitting in the middle of a field, as it did, it'd probably caused no
shortage of irritation to the former owners of this field.
Could Hannah really have simply vanished? If wizards and witches were capable of
Star Trek-style teleportation, that did explain how they managed to get around
so easily in their ridiculous robes without arousing suspicion. Had that been
how her police raid had been so handily slaughtered last year? If only she could
remember...
No. If Hannah could simply will herself around, why on Earth would she fly here
on broomstick? She had to still be around somewhere, but was concealed by
trickery or sorcery.
Given that she was hiding nearby, and that she couldn't simply turn invisible
Page 690

(or she would have done so en route to this hideaway), it meant that, somewhere
nearby, there was a hidden entrance, tunnel, or other hiding place. She'd chosen
to land near this rock rather than somewhere else in the field, so it stood to
reason that the rock played some part in the hiding place.
Fiona circled the rock, deep in thought. There was no sign of a false door or
entrance, and the vegetation wasn't overgrown enough to hide a personeven if it
was, she realized, it certainly wouldn't mask their heat signature. Fiona pulled
the bulky headset over her eyes once more and scanned the area.
There wasn't any sign of anyone around her...
...wait.
Something... weird... happened when she looked at the rock face with the headset
on. A section of the rock, just over five feet across, was simply gone. She
pulled the headset off, and stared at it again, this time fishing for her torch.
Sure enough, now that she looked at it in plain light, a large, square chunk of
rock wavered indistinctly in front of her, revealing a passageway beyond.
"Hello..." she murmured to herself, entering the tunnel. She had to stoop to
enter, and for once was grateful that she was, well, somewhat vertically
challenged.
She crept down the tunnel silently, staying to the shadows wherever possible.
Before long, it widened into a small, square room with some crude,
handmade-looking wooden furniture. Lining the walls was enough obsolete weaponry
to give Sauron pause, as well as other simple survival gear (including some
literal torches).
The room, however, seemed to be completely empty of any inhabitants. Just to be
certain, Fiona scanned the area with her thermal goggles, but she didn't spot
anyone. There was, however, a mug of tea on the tableand, judging by the glow
it gave off, it was still hot.
Next to the mug was a copy of yesterday's Daily Prophet, and a map of the world
with a big hole stabbed through the paper roughly over her current position, as
well as a handful of other markings across Britain. Fiona donned on some rubber
gloves from her bag (old habits are hard to break) and held the map up to the
light of her torch. She spotted a few slight deformations in the surface, and
flipped the map over, revealing a hand-sketched area that Fiona realized
corresponded to the surrounding field.
Fiona flipped the map over again, and made a mental note of the locations of the
other X's. What were they? Magical settlements? Other hideouts? Targets of some
kind?
And what was with all the crossbows? For the life of her, Fiona couldn't fathom
why a witch would need a weapon, much less an archaic one.
And where had Hannah and the others gone? There didn't seem to be any more
Page 691

hidden passageways, and they had to have been here recentlythe tea was evidence
enough of that.
Fiona sighed, and, deciding that she must have just missed them, settled in to
do some more rigorous investigation of the little hideout.
oooo
"That was way too close," Hannah muttered as she re-oriented herself after the
Teleport, which was easy enough, considering that the new bolt hole they found
themselves in was largely identical to Milo's previous one.
"Agreed," said Milo. "But how did they know you were with me?"
Sirius shrugged. "Process of elimination. Can't be too many classmates of yours
living in the area."
"But how did they find my hiding place?" Milo asked. "I put so much work into
that!"
"Are you sure they did?" Sirius asked.
Milo nodded. "I had an Alarm spell up. Someone triggered it after Hannah got
in."
"Then she must have been followed," he said. "Difficult, but possible. Most
likely with an invisibility cloak and a broomstick." He grinned wryly. "It's how
I'd have done it. More to the point, though, we need to keep moving."
Milo snorted. "Come, now. That can't be needed. There's no possible way they'll
find us here. We Teleported, we didn't fly."
Sirius shook his head. "Doesn't matterwe left the map behind."
Milo shrugged. "That will only help them if they find their way through the
illusion, which would take an exceptionally strong Will. Back when I cast it, I
was buffed like you wouldn't even believe."
"You don't get into the DMLE by collecting bottle caps," Sirius said. "I
wouldn't count on your magic to keep them out."
"Well, then where can we go?" Hannah asked.
"I think I know a place," Sirius said. "It won't be terribly comfortable, but I
can guarantee, nobody will think to look there."
oooo
Mrs. Abbot was woken up by knocking at her door. She climbed out of bed, pulled
on a housecoat and stepped into some slippers, and went downstairs to see who it
was. Mr. Abbot was not far behind her.
Page 692

"Hello?" she asked, opening the door.
"Mrs. Abbot?" a friendly-looking man in deep purple robes asked.
"Yes, that's me," she said.
"I'm Kingsley Shacklebolt, with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement," he
said. "Would you mind sparing a moment of your time to answer a few questions?"
SD 13: Passing Notes
Chapter Thirteen: Passing Notes"Protection from Good," Milo cast on the silver,
palm-sized Eye of Boccob on the desk in front of him. In his experience, it
never hurt to have a couple of extra holy symbols around for when the vampires
come knocking. This time, just in case, he'd created the amulet while under the
effects of a separate Protection from Good spell. So even if Riddle was somehow
still in his mind, he wasn't exerting any influence over this amulet. He wished
he had his old spellbook back so he could cast the marginally more helpful
Protection from Evil, but he might as well wish for a Candle of Invocation or
the moon. He'd just have to make do with what he had, for now.
"Are you almost done yet?" Hannah asked, her arms wrapped around herself for
warmth. For all that it was late summer, it was also the middle of the night,
and the hovel Sirius had brought them to was far to the north. The thin glass
windows (where they weren't broken) and ancient wooden walls provided little in
the way of insulation.
Milo nodded. "Just finished," he said, clipping the amulet around his neck. The
plot was thickening fast, and he had absolutely no intention of going anywhere
without his customary Amulet of Protectionespecially considering that the
Ministry was after him, and they weren't known to use restraint when it came to
memory modification. Still, he had to be careful crafting items for now, because
he was only a hair over the threshold of level nine, and didn't have any XP to
waste.
"So can we go home, now?"
Sirius shook his head. The cold didn't seem to bother him as he reclined in a
shabby, rat-eaten chair. "I don't recommend it. They'll be watching your house.
Your disappearance will have confirmed for them that you're an accomplice with
Milo, here."
"My parents will be freaking out," Hannah said. "Could I at least get a message
to them?"
Milo scratched his chin. "I don't have any specialized long-range communication
spells, and I've only got enough juice for one more Teleport," he admitted. "And
Page 693

that's if I burn all but one of my fourth-level spells. I could deliver a
message, but I'd be stuck there. Sirius?"
Sirius shrugged. "They took my wand when they threw me in Azkaban," he said.
"You'd have to lend me yours," he said to Hannah. "I don't have a House Elf's
hope of casting a Patronus, so I'd have to Apparate there with a letter." He
sighed. "But..."
"...we'd have no guarantee you wouldn't simply run off with my wand?" Hannah
said.
"Yeah," Sirius said.
"I'd lend you mine," Milo said, "except that a certain dretch-lover has his bony
little hands on it. And most of my other swag."
Hannah shrugged. "Okay," she said, and passed her wand, butt-first, to Sirius.
"Are you insane?" Milo choked.
"Trust me," she said.
Sirius stared at the wand as if she'd just offered him the world. In a way, Milo
supposed, she had.
"Thank you," he said, accepting the wand. To Milo's astonishment, there were
actual tears in his eyes. Hannah scribbled a quick note on a scrap of parchment
from Relkin's Belt of Hidden Pouches. "You won't regret this," he said, taking
the note and Disapparating with a pop.
"I repeat," Milo said, turning to Hannah. "Are you insane?"
"Think about it," Hannah said. "Now we get to test, with a reasonable degree of
certainty, if we can trust him. If he returns the wand, we trust him. If he
makes a run for it, we can't."
"What if he comes back to tie up the loose ends?" Milo asked.
"Have you ever seen a wizard try to cast magic with someone else's wand?" Hannah
asked. "It usually takes a half-dozen tries to get even the simplest of spells
working. If he comes back for us, just blind him with your glittery dust, or
conjure up some tentacles to grab him, or trip him with grease. You knowthe
usual. If you have to, shatter the wand. I can always buy a new one."
Milo's jaw opened and shut involuntarily as he tried to come up with a
counter-argument. "That's actually a pretty clever plan," he conceded
grudgingly. "Reckless," he added. "But clever. So, what'd you tell your
parents?"
"The truth," Hannah said. "Anything else would only complicate the situation
further. But I used language that only they'd know, so if the DMLE finds the
note, it won't mean anything to them. I also asked them to bring my school stuff
Page 694

to King's Cross tomorrow." As she spoke, her stomach rumbled noisily.
"Hungry?" Milo asked, pulling his Everlasting Rations out of his belt. Seeing as
how he probably wasn't going to be able to return it to its original owner any
time soonif everhe decided to stop thinking about it as 'Relkin's Belt.'
"Thanks," Hannah said. "I ran off before I had a chance to eat dinner." She
reached into the bag and pulled out a handful of crunchy, greyish, vaguely round
blobs. "Ah," she said. "These again."
"Sorry," Milo said. "I'm out of Prestidigitations, so I can't do anything about
the taste."
Hannah shrugged. "There's a Charm the Weasley twins were telling me about last
year that makes anything taste like peach cobbler," she said. "They use it
whenever their father cooks. But I don't have my wand, and even if I did, I
can't use magic in the summer."
Milo had heard about that rule, of course, but he hadn't really thought about it
before. "That sucks," he said. He'd already only had to spend less than a week
with reduced spell casting capacity after Voldemort took his spellbook, and it
was already starting to wear on him. He couldn't imagine having to go for two
months without using any magic at all.
"Yeah," Hannah said. "And it's the most surefire way I can think of to keep us
from remembering anything we learned the year before. Before Hogwarts, I went to
Muggle schoolmy parents didn't know if I'd take after my mum or my dad when it
came to magicand it was hard enough remembering, say, maths after the summer.
But even then, I mean, I never did, but theoretically, I could have cracked open
a textbook and brushed up during the summer, right? But with magic, doing a bit
of summer revising is illegal. Which is annoying, because unlike maths, floating
feathers around is actually pretty fun."
Milo could hardly speak. He'd just heard what had to be the most horrifying
thing he'd ever encountered. "You..." he pulled himself together. "You forget
your skills if you don't use them?"
Hannah nodded.
"I mean," Milo continued, "you actually get worse? Not like, maybe getting a bit
rusty and not realizing what the most effective spell to cast in a given
situation is," Milo knew full well that feeling, having been thrown against a
Dragon Turtle shortly after returning to his world, after only fighting wizards
and the occasional Redcap for a year, "but actually forgetting how to cast the
spell?"
"Yeah," Hannah said. "Not just magic, everything. Languages, facts, talents.
Physical stuff, tooif we go without exercise, we get unhealthy. Is it really
not like that for you?"
Milo shook his head. "I've never actually had the opportunity to speak so much
as a whole conversation in Draconic," he said, "but I'm still fluent in the
Page 695

language. And always will be."
Hannah gave a low whistle. "Sometimes, I forget how different you are," she
said.
"And so do the Death Eaters," Milo grinned. "Nobody has yet hatched an evil
scheme that relies on me not perfectly remembering minutiae from years ago, but
one day, someone will. And when they do..."
Milo was planning on finishing that sentence with something machismo-laden like
'bam!' before performing a pantomime punch, but instead, he was cut off by the
distinctive pop! of Apparition, which he supposed worked almost as well.
Milo turned to find Sirius Black standing behind him.
"I left your letter on the kitchen table," he said, returning Hannah's wand. In
his other hand, he held up a large paper bag with a brightly-coloured 'M'
printed on it. "I also brought dinner," he said.
"Detect Poison," Milo muttered under his breath, but the bag came up clean. He
nodded to Hannah, who casually tossed the tasteless Everlasting Rations behind
her and leapt at the paper bag in a manner reminiscent of a Dire Lion taking
down a gazelle.
Milo forced himself to re-evaluate Sirius Black. Maybe, just maybe, he could
trust this strange, fugitive shapeshifter after alla welcome revelation, all
things considered, as until he could clear up this whole 'Heir of Slytherin'
business, his list of allies was remarkably short.
Either way, this whole 'on the run' business was about to come to an end.
Tomorrow, one way or another, he was boarding the Hogwarts Express and going to
school. Hogwarts was where the action was, where the plot happened, and where
the Experience Points lay about just waiting to be claimed. The Death Eaters
wouldn't dare make a move on him therewell, they had last year, now that Milo
thought about it, but it had hardly been easy for them. And if the Ministry
decided to have him arrested, well, they could try. In his experience, there
were two distinct strands of law enforcement, depending on who had been
irritated. The first was sent when a PC made an enemy of someone powerful, and
were generally low-to-mid-level government employees just there for the
paycheck, and could be reliably defeated in droves. If that was the case, Milo
wasn't worried. But the other kind only appeared if a PC had made an enemy of
the DM ('Dispassionate' Moderator), in which case, they would have at least ten
levels of experience on the party, have access to unfeasibly expensive hardware
for a government agency, and come in groups of essentially infinite. And if that
was the case, well, Milo still wasn't worriedthere wouldn't be anything he
could do.
Come to think of it, though, he had been pushing the DM pretty hard of late.
To test a hypothesis, Milo reached out and tapped one of the shack's interior
walls, to see if it would devolve into a pile of hundreds of quarterstaves.
Page 696

Nothing happened.
Milo wondered: was that because the DM (or the gods, for that matter) had
altered the nature of the universe after he had revealed such an
easily-exploitable flaw, was it because of the different nature of this world
versus the other one, or was it, most concerning of all, because this world had
a different DM than the other one? One who made different calls, and with
different motivations?
Milo's food went cold in front of him, untouched, as he drifted among his own
thoughts.
oooo
Fiona woke up, and immediately wished she hadn't.
Her left leg was on fire.
She wasn't supposed to be running on it yet, possibly ever. Hell, she wasn't
even supposed to be walking without a cane. Getting shot is like that,
sometimeshardly ever like in the movies, where Bruce Willis can shrug off
numerous gunshot wounds in one movie and walk in on the beginning of the next
with nothing to show for it but a cool scar, if that. She never did find out how
she'd taken a bullet to the thigh, as those bloody wizards had taken her memory
from that night, but just because she couldn't remember being shot was no reason
she shouldn't remember that she had been shot. She'd just gotten so caught up in
the moment, the hope that she might finally get some answers, that nothing else
seemed to matter.
Her neck was in little better shape, having had to support a ludicrously heavy
piece of military hardware for most of the night before. She wanted nothing more
than to stay in bed for another hour or twelve, as even the thin mattress of the
cheap motel she was staying in felt incredible in her state. She also wanted to
go home, to see Sprocket, and read a good book.
As much as she wanted to, however, she knew she couldn't. Today was the first
day of term for the wizarding world, and every student attending Hogwarts was
going to be at King's Cross station, according to the Daily Prophet and
Hogwarts: A History. It was too good of an opportunity to pass up, much as she'd
like to.
She pulled herself out of bed reluctantly, tucked the disaster that was her hair
into a pony tail, threw some clothes on, grabbed her bag, and left. The sun had
yet to rise, but it was all the same to her. She barely ever slept more than an
hour or two at a time these days, anyway, so all this meant was that the walk to
the train station would be a quiet one.
oooo
"eleport."
King's Cross was the same as ever, albeit with a poster or two up warning
Page 697

passersby that the dangerous criminal, Sirius Black, was on the loose after
having escaped from an unnamed prison.
Milo wondered just how much co-operation there was between the Muggle and
magical governments. Were the people at the top well aware of the magical
world's existence? Was the Muggle ruler a wizard himself? (Or witch herself;
Milo neither knew nor particularly cared who was in charge on the Muggle side of
things). Or had the magical government simply planted some false evidence, and
memories, in front of the right people to make them take the steps they'd
wanted?
All that was quite irrelevant, of course. Milo didn't know what role Sirius
Black was to play in whatever Voldemort's evil scheme was going to be this year
(he always seemed to have one), but it had nothing to do with his problem at the
moment: getting onto the Hogwarts Express, and getting to Hogwarts, despite
being pursued by the DMLE. Why he was being pursued, he wasn't totally clear,
but he very evidently was, which was what mattered in this case.
"Invisibility," he muttered as soon as he arrived, and disappeared from view.
"Hey," Hannah whispered.
"Yeah?" Milo whispered back.
"If you're invisible," Hannah said, "can you see when you close your eyes?"
Milo frowned. "No..." he said, though he couldn't figure out why that would be
the case. If his eyelids were invisible, why couldn't he see with his eyes
closed?
"Weird. I'm going to go find my parents and my luggage. I'll meet you in front
of the train, okay?"
"Sounds like a plan," Milo said.
Hannah turned to leave, but froze. "Do you see that woman over there?" she
asked, covertly pointing at a dishevelled-looking, dark-haired woman in a
wrinkled man's shirt several sizes too large for her, whose sleeves looked like
they'd been rolled up a half-dozen times just so her wrists could poke out. She
had heavy bags under her eyes, and leaned against a pillar surreptitiously
facing Platform Nine and Three-Quarters with a wooden cane within easy reach.
"She was the one who came to talk to my family. She's with the DMLE."
Milo narrowed his eyes and started counting the adjectives. "No, she isn't," he
said. He'd seen her once before, when she'd arrested him in Harry's housebut
she'd been in the uniform of the local city watch, then. What he hadn't ever
seen before, however, was a random mook show up again, having apparently gained
characteristics since then. Whoever this NPC was, she was clearly highly
significant.
"How long do we have until the train leaves?" Milo asked.
Page 698

"Uh..." Hannah consulted her wristwatch. " twenty minutes."
"Save me a seat," Milo said, and strolled towards the mysterious woman.
oooo
Fiona nearly jumped out of her skin when a piece of paper was pressed into her
hand, despite the fact that there was no-one within five meters of her.
She reached into her bag and pulled out her well-worn copy of The Restaurant at
the End of the Universe, and read the note such that the book was hiding it from
viewironic, considering she'd first learned that trick to read the very same
book hidden inside Principles of Maths 11 to keep it out of view of Mrs.
Haversham.
The note was written on a thick, heavy material that Fiona was surprised to find
wasn't paper at all, but some sort of thick, animal skin-based parchment.
Walk slowly towards the corner by the door with the big red glowing EXIT sign.
Come alone.
P.S. that came out more villainous than I'd intended.
Well... that wasn't creepy or anything.
If it hadn't been for the fact that whoever had given her the note had clearly
used magic to do itnobody could sneak up on her like thatshe'd assume that
following the instructions would be walking right into a mugging. Most likely,
whoever it was was simply going to erase her memory again, which was something
Fiona was willing to risk, seeing as how she'd already written the day's events
in a journal, and was wearing a microphone to boot. Nevertheless, it was a
decidedly creepy thing to do, giving someone a note like that out of the blue.
Curiosity overcame common sense, and she decided to follow the note's
directions.
The corner the note mentioned was as good as one could find in such a public
place for a secret meeting. It was out of direct line of sight both of the
entrance and of Platform Nine and 'Three-Quarters,' and one of the lights nearby
seemed to have burnt out, shading it in a modicum of darkness.
She was hardly there for a second before a boy appeared beside her. He was
wearing black robes with a silver trim and an honest-to-goodness leather utility
belt covered with dozens of pouches. A massive brown and white rat sat on his
shoulder, mimicking his expression disconcertingly.
"Milo," Fiona said, nodding. She didn't remember their last encounter, but her
own notes mentioned that she'd managed to handily subdue him with a billy club,
and he didn't have his wand out. She shifted her weight, and her grip on her
cane. She didn't have her billy club this time, but she did have two-and-a-half
feet of solid wood, which was at least as good.
Page 699

"You know my name?" Milo asked. "Who are you?"
Fiona shrugged. "Someone inquisitive," she said.
"That is spectacularly unhelpful," Milo said. "Look, I recognize you from Little
Whinging, unless you have an identical twin, andwait. Do you have an identical
twin? If so, we should probably get that whole misunderstanding out of the way
sooner, rather than later. Dramatic irony is fun and all, but it isn't terribly
productive."
Fiona shook her head, somewhat bewildered. This wasn't how she expected this
meeting to go at all. In her mind, this strange wizard child had always been
something of an evil mastermind, manipulating events behind the scenes. But she
was fast facing the possibility that he really was as mad as the Daily Prophet
had made him out to be. "No, I don't have a twin," she said.
"Great. Anyway, look, I'll just cut to the Initiative roll here: why were you
pretending to be with the Ministry? And what's your interest in Hannah Abbot?"
"Why do you think I'm only pretending to be with the Ministry?" Fiona asked.
"Because you're with the city watch..." Milo frowned. "Unless you're a witch who
was pretending to be a Muggle? I hadn't considered that."
Fiona simply shrugged. She didn't know where this conversation was going, but it
seemed like keeping Milo off-guard would only work in her favour. "Now, I have a
question for you: why did you attack that family in Little Whinging?"
"Who, them?" Milo asked. "Uh... they were being pretty awful to a friend of
mine."
"Harry Potter?" Fiona asked. She'd read a lot about this 'Boy Who Lived' in the
books she'd bought from Diagon Alley. Apparently he was viewed as some sort of
saviour-slash-minor-messiah-type-character by the magical community after he
somehow defeated an improbably-named hardened criminal as a baby.
"Yeah," Milo said. Then his eyes narrowed. "What's your interest in Harry?" The
boy shook his hands free of his sleeves and flexed his fingers in a way not
unlike a gunslinger from a Western. Despite his lack of wand, Fiona recognized
his body language: the boy clearly considered himself armed and dangerous.
"None," Fiona said honestly. "Though if there was some sort of abuse going on,
there are steps I can take."
Milo shrugged. "I already did."
"You mean threatening his aunt and uncle at swordpoint?" Fiona asked.
"Pretty much," he said, not, apparently, much caring that he'd as good as
confessed to a crime. "Detect ObjectWand," the boy muttered under his breath.
Fiona tensed. The boy had said it in the rote, slightly sing-songy way of a
Page 700

memorized, oft-repeated phrase that's meaning was quite devoid of the actual
words said. She was pretty certain, in short, that he'd cast a spellwithout a
wand.
"You're no witch," Milo said. "How did a Muggle like you even find out that the
Department of Magical Law Enforcement exists? What's your angle, watchwoman?"
"I just want answers," Fiona said. "How did the magical government arrange for
the British police to hunt for Sirius Black? Why did those wizards and witches
steal those kids from Hogwarts? Why weren't they arrested by your government? If
they're at large, where are they?"
Milo blinked. "You mean Sean, Dean and Thomas and them?"
"Yeah," Fiona said. "Although I think Dean and Thomas are actually the same
person."
"How do you even know about them?" Milo asked.
"I was part of the police raid that saved them," Fiona said. "Good men and women
died that day." And so did my career.
"Lockhart saved them," Milo said. "He fought the Death Eaters off
single-handedly. It was all over the papers, Hannah said." Hah, Fiona thought. I
knew they were in cahoots.
"Death Eaters," Fiona said. "Was that who they were? Aren't they
what's-his-face's criminal gang?"
"You could call them that," Milo said. "Are you saying that Lockhart lied about
saving them?"
"Was that the golden-haired Kenneth Branagh-lookalike?" Fiona said. "Yeah. He
took the credit, and my memories." She'd had to do a good bit of investigation
to figure that one out; one of the nurses said she saw someone who looked a bit
like Hamlet in the halls, and asked for an autograph. It was the first time
she'd ever seen a suspect sign their real name during the act.
"Do you mean to tell me that you went up against a gaggle of Death Eaters and
won?" Milo asked. "I wish I'd seen Lucius's face when he heard that news," Milo
said dreamily. "No wonder they let the story about Lockhart get out; if
anything, it's less embarrassing that way."
"Lucius?" Fiona asked. "Lucius Malfoy?" He appeared in the Prophet frequently as
a wealthy philanthropist, giving money freely to charitable causesand, now that
Fiona thought about it, probably a certain magical media corporation, as well.
"Yeah, he's basically their leader," Milo shrugged. "Well, he was until
You-Know-Who came back. I imagine that shook things up a bit." The boy glanced
up at the large clock on the wall. "Well, I'm out of time. This conversation was
interesting, but ultimately unhelpful. I was hoping for more, I don't know,
clues. Plot hooks. I guess that Lockhart thing could be relevant. Invisibility."
Page 701

Without any drama or special effects, Milo vanished from sight.
"Wait!" Fiona said. "I don't know who!" But it was to no avail; the boy was
gone.
Lucius Malfoy...
Despite what the strange boy seemed to think, though, this conversation was
highly profitablejust not for him, maybe. Because now she had a name.
oooo
Milo slipped through the solid-seeming wall at Platform Nine and Three-Quarters
just as the Hogwarts Express started... Milo's mind blanked on the technical
terminology. It was doing the thing where it made a lot of noise just before it
started moving. The doors had already shut.
"Dimension Door," Milo muttered, and suddenly he was in the train's central
hallway.
He strolled down the hallways, glancing through the windows into the
compartments, until he found Hannah. The seat next to her was empty, and Neville
sat across from her.
"Hey," Milo said.
Hannah jumped. "Milo! Don't sneak up on people like that!"
"Sorry," Milo said. He'd forgotten he was still invisible, and dismissed the
spell. "Did I miss anything?"
"Nope," Hannah said.
"It's the Hogwarts Express," Neville said. "What could possibly happen?"
Milo nodded his agreement to that, and sat down next to Hannah. "So I take it
you don't think I'm a lunatic feral child?" he asked.
Neville shrugged. "You saved me from poison back in first year," he said.
"You're fine in my books, even if you were raised by wolves."
Milo grinned, and leaned back, ready to enjoy a lengthy and uneventful trip.
As Hannah had saidit was the Hogwarts Express. What could possibly happen?
SD 14: The Hogwarts Express

Page 702

Chapter Fourteen: The Hogwarts Express"H-Hannah?" Milo asked, stunned. Gods,
what have I done?
"Okay," Milo said, out loud. "I'll go find her, and she'll be fine. Just...
fine. You'll see."
Milo stood up from his prone position, shaking off snow. He waded through the
deep snow to where Locate Object told him Hannah lay.
He felt as if he was drowning in cold. The air, the snow, even his own clothing,
felt like ice water.
"Hannah?" Milo called again, yet was again unanswered.
Abruptly, the snow stopped blocking Milo's vision, revealing an old tree that
might have been a willow. Hannah lay against it, slouched into a half-sitting
position. Her wand was held loosely in her right hand; her left was clutching
the hilt of Milo's dagger. It was sticking out of her stomach. It was difficult
to tellher school uniform was black, after allbut there was a lot of blood. A
scary amount of blood. Her head lolled to her the side, and she wasn't moving.
And it was all Milo's fault.
Hannah stirred feebly, and reached for her wand.
"E... e..." she said weakly.
"Hey, Hannah," Milo said gently. "You'll be okay, okay? I've... I've got a
Healer's Kit and +1 from Wisdom, so I can do first-aid, okay? So just... don't
move." Milo tried to reach for his kit, but found that his arms were locked into
place, as if the ice water had frozen completely.
"Ex..."
"Tell me back at the castle, when you explain just what you were doing out here,
'kay?"
"Expecto Patronum!"
"Milo! Milo! Wake up, mate!"
There were lights hanging above him, and he could just barely make out a pink,
round face.
"Neville?" Milo asked. The blizzard was gone, as was the tree, leaving only the
feeling of iceand the guilt. "What... what happened?"
"Still happening, mate," said a familiar voice. Milo blinked, trying to clear
away the blurriness. He felt slow, and weak. Neville's face slowly came into
Page 703

focus, and Milo saw that he looked the way Milo felt. Worse, even, if that were
possible. The normally ever-present, slightly dopey smile was gone, replaced by
a pale grimace.
"Ex... ex... expecto... 'specto..."
They were still on the Hogwarts Express, Milo realized. The last thing he
remembered was drifting off on the train, confident in his safety. Now, he was
lying on the floor of the compartment in a pool of his own sweat. He turned to
face the door, and almost wished he hadn't.
Floating in the doorway was a... thing. The best Milo could describe it was a
three-dimensional shadow that had taken the form of a tattered, black cloak. It
vaguely resembled a Wraith, except that it was exposed to broad daylight from
the train's windows and was still alive.
He couldn't make out the majority of its shape, as Hannah stood between him and
the shade, wand out, shaking like a gelatinous cube in an earthquake. Or like
she was shivering, out in the forest...
A hair-thin tendril of white-grey fog floated between her and the shade, which
seemed reluctant to touch it, but it was fading fast.
Hannah was keeping it at bay, but it wouldn't last. She needed help.
Milo pulled himself to his feet and shook his hands out of his sleeves.
Fortunately for her, he was something of an old hat at fighting things that
could best be described as 'eldritch.'
"Glitterdust!" he shouted.
Nothing happened. Milo frowned. He hadn't failed a Concentration check, like he
had when chased by Death Eaters the other day, so what had happened? He wasn't
in an Antimagic Field, or his Belt of Hidden Pouches would have exploded as the
non-dimensional space inside each pouch became uncomfortably, well, dimensional.
Maybe he should just try another spell?
"Kelgore's Fire Bolt!" Again, nothing happened. It didn't feel like he'd tried
and failed to cast the spell, though, it felt more like...
...like when he'd died. During his sojourn into the Outer Planes, he'd been
similarly unable to perform magic.
But he couldn't be dead, could he? He was still in the Material Plane, implying,
if he had died, he was more of undead persuasion.
He didn't feel undead, though. He still had a Constitution score, for starters,
and his maximum Hit Point count hadn't increased, which was supposed to happen
to undead...
Page 704

Milo froze. It hadn't increased.
It had decreased.
"...specto... patronum..."
The wispy tendril between Hannah and the shade disappeared, and Hannah collapsed
to the floor. Pushing aside the problem of his reduced Hit Point total for
later, he focused on the problem at hand.
"Summon Skeletal Troll," Milo triedand failedto cast, unsure of what else to
do.
The shade rounded on him, reaching out what Milo took to be an arm towards him.
Giving up on magic, Milo reached into his bag of tricks, producing a thin glass
flask of water with a brass sun stamped on it.
Milo flung the flask at the shade in a hefty overhand throw. "Eat holy water,
freak!" he said in a manner he'd intended to be defiant, but it came out a
little closer to 'feeble.'
The flask shattered harmlessly against the revenant's torso, accomplishing
nothing but getting it a little damp.
Milo backed into the corner, almost tripping over Neville, who lay on the floor
with his eyes rolled up into the back of his head.
Driven once again to the absolute last resort of any primary spellcaster, Milo
reached into his Belt of Hidden Pouches and drew the quarterstaff he'd acquired
from his bolt hole's weapon stores.
Milo gripped the staff at one end with both hands and swung it around him with
all the strength he could bring to bear (which, bearing in mind that he was a
Wizard, was next to none) and swung directly at where the shade's head would be,
had it had one.
As he swung, however, he felt his grip slacken and his arms weaken. He heard a
clatter ring through the compartment, and belatedly realized that he'd dropped
the staff, and the only thing keeping him standing was the wall he was leaning
against.
"What are you?" he choked, sliding to the ground.
The shade reached towards him, and its cloak slipped, revealing a pale, rotten
hand that gently gripped Milo by the chin. He hadn't felt this helpless since
Riddle had drained his soul in the Chamber of Secrets.
"Expecto Patronum!" shouted out an unknown male voice.
A silver-white dog burst into the room, slamming bodily against the shade,
pinning it against the wall above Milo. Where the dog's paws and teeth gripped
Page 705

the tattered cloth, steam appeared as if the mere contact of this spectre
burned.
"Sirius?" Milo murmured, feeling half-delusional, but as he examined the animal
more closely, he realized it was a wolf, not a dog.
The shade managed to slip free of the animal's grasp, and fled through window,
scattering shards of glass across the room.
"What was that you said?" asked a man in the hallway. His eyes widened,
presumably as he noticed the full extent of the carnage that had occurred in the
compartment for the first time. "Never mind that. How are you all feeling?"
"Mrggnnnnnnn..." Hannah groaned, pulling herself up into a sitting position.
The man, who looked more worse for wear than anyone Milo had seen alive, bent
over to examine her more closely, careful of the shards of window and holy water
flask on the ground. Milo realized belatedly, as he followed the creature's
progress out the window, that at some point the train had stopped moving. "I'm
sorry, what did you say?" the stranger asked, leaning closer to Hannah.
"I said, 'like my bloody brain got mauled by a bloody bobcat,'" Hannah muttered,
holding her hand against her forehead. "Ow."
"What she said," Neville agreed, sitting up. "What happened? Was that a... a..."
"A Dementor," the stranger said solemnly. "Though why someone decided to let one
loose on a train full of children escapes me. Eat this," he said, breaking off a
piece of chocolate to hand to each of them.
"That's a Dementor?" Milo asked. "What..." he swallowed. "What did it do to me?"
"Nothing that a little chocolate and some time in the sun won't fix," Lupin
said. "Best not to dwell on it. Which one of you produced the Patronus?"
"The mist thingy?" Neville asked. "That was Hannah."
"That was a very advanced spell," the man said. "Fifteen points for... uhm..."
"Gryffindor," Hannah said, taking a bite out of the chocolate bar.
"Fifteen points for Gryffindor, then. I'd best be off," he said, "there's still
many more students to check on."
"Wait," Hannah said as he turned to leave. "Who are you?"
"Ah, of course," the man said. "I'm Professor Remus Lupin, the new Defence
Against the Dark Arts professor. I'll be seeing you all in class tomorrow, I
expect." With that, he hurried off, his worn grey robes trailing behind him.
"How did you know how to cast the expecto-whatsit?" Neville asked Hannah
curiously, munching away on chocolate.
Page 706

"After Milo di..." she swallowed slightly. "After Milo disappeared last year,
and the Basilisk attacked Hermione, Harry, and Ron in the halls, I sort of
thought I should study up on some more advanced defensive magic. That's the
first time I'd actually managed to make the spell work, though," she admitted.
"And barely, at that."
"It probably saved us," Milo said. "Boccob knows I was completely useless," he
added ruefully. "Prestidigitation," he muttered, intending to clean up the glass
on the floor, but again, nothing happened. It was almost as if... "Wait," Milo
said. "Didn't Sir..." he glanced at Neville, "our furry friend say something
about the Azkaban guards draining happy memories?"
Hannah nodded. "Dementors are said to take away your happy thoughts," she
confirmed, "including your memories. The only thing that can stop them is a
Patronus."
"Let me guessthey also make you relive your worst ones?" Milo asked.
"Sometimes," Hannah said. She gave him a curious look, but didn't press the
issue when he changed the subject.
"I think it took my spells," he said. Every morning, he had to memorize the
spells he was intending to cast that day, and if the incantation for Glitterdust
didn't count as a happy memory, then surely nothing did. Though how it had
pulled it off while Milo wore his Amulet of Protection was beyond himhe was
supposed to be immune to all forms of mental attack. "...and my Experience."
Hannah's eyes widened. "How can you be certain?"
Milo shuddered. "I'm weaker, now. Much weaker." He took a bite out of the
chocolate, and it was like (and Milo was embarrassed to even think this,
accurate as it was) taking a bite out of sunshine itself. He swallowed, and felt
warmth spread from his stomach outwards. It didn't return his spells or
Experience Points, however. He estimated that he'd lost at least two thousand
XP, dropping him back down a leveltaking his ability to Teleport with it.
"Thank you," he said to Hannah, and he really meant it. "If you hadn't
intervened, that could have been worse. Much worse."
"Will you... be okay?" Hannah asked.
Milo nodded. "I'll be right as rain as soon as I pound a few monsters' faces
in," he said. "Though I doubt I'll roll maximum HP again when I level up." he
narrowed his eyes. "Actually, if we can trap a Dementor in a controlled
environment, I can use it to repeatedly de-level and level up again in order to
get the highest number of HP each time with minimal XP cost. I'll get two free
new spells each time, too." Despite the warmth from the chocolate, he shivered
slightly at the thought of willingly subjecting himself to the Dementor's attack
again. Some memories were best left in the past. "Though I don't expect I'll
actually do that. You say the only way to fight them is with this spell?"
Hannah nodded. "Nothing elsenot even the Killing Cursehas any effect on them."
Page 707

"Damn," Milo said meaningfully.
He knew he'd been pushing things pretty far lately, but he hadn't realized that
he'd apparently crossed the line enough to make the DM resort to this. Dementors
seemed purpose-built to completely destroy him in particular. They could steal
his most potent abilities, they could permanently take away his hard-won
experience points, and, worst of all, if Hannah was right, he was completely
helpless against them.
Milo leaned back against his seat, trying to devise some sort of strategy to
deal with these Dementors, if and when he encountered them next. Perhaps a spell
like Heroism could counter the happiness-sucking-ness of their attack, but Milo
was unable to cast any spell from the Enchantment schoolwhich ruled out any
spell that had any sort of mind-affecting or morale-based effects. The real
surprise was that they could somehow work around the protection granted from his
amulet. That ruled out possession and mental control as things the Dementor
could have done to him, which really made him wonder what it had done. How was
forcing someone to relive their worst memories while you stole their best ones
not mental control? Did chocolate really counter the Dementor's attack because
of a property unique to chocolatea property that could be exploitedor was it
simply because most people liked chocolate, and that comfort was the counter?
Would a favourite composition, perfume, or painting have a similar effect? Or
was it that chocolate, specifically, had some sort of anti-Dementor property, in
a similar way that garlic did for vampires?
"Hey..." Neville said, breaking Milo out of his reverie. He wasn't sure how long
he'd been musing on the issue for.
"Yeah?" Milo asked.
"How come we haven't started moving, yet?"
Milo narrowed his eyes. The Dementor was long gone, and the lack of screams and
impacts of fainting students hitting the ground meant that there weren't any
more aboard the train.
"Dementors work for the Ministry, right?"
"More or less," Hannah said. "Although they're more like... extremely dangerous
work animals than actual employees."
"Meaning they wouldn't send them out alone without a handler," Milo reasoned.
"Probably not," Hannah agreed.
"Can Dementors communicate with humans?" Milo asked. "Such as to"
The compartment door slammed open, and a wizard and pair of witches entered,
wands held out threateningly. Such as to report that they found a wanted person,
he was going to say.
Page 708

"Milo Amastacia-Liadon," the one in the front said in an authoritative tone,
"You're coming with us."
"Uhm," Milo said. "Why? Other than the fact that you have wands out and I don't,
of course."
"For your own protection," the man said. "I'm Kingsley Shacklebolt, with the
Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and we have reason to believe that you're
being targeted by dangerous felon, Sirius Black."
"That doesn't make any sense," Hannah cut in. "If Sirif Black is after him,
then surely the safest place for Milo is at Hogwarts?"
"This is not a request," Shacklebolt said. "I've been authorized to use force if
needed."
Milo held his hands up. He had no spells, hardly any magic items, and no real
hope of escape. He considered bolting out the window, but it was all open
fieldshe wouldn't get thirty feet before they took him out with a Stunner. One
look at Shacklebolt and the others dispelled any notion of fighting his way out
with physical force. They looked almost as tough as the Muggle police he'd seen.
"I'm coming," he said. Milo stopped, a sudden thought occurring to him. "Hey...
none of you happen to be wearing one of my amulets, do you?"
"What are you talking about?" Shacklebolt asked. "No, and I'd suggest against
any further delays. Get your things and let's get going."
"Yeah, I don't actually own anything, per se," Milo said. All of his possessions
were in his Belt of Hidden Pouchesand scattered throughout bolt holes across
the country, but he had no intention of tipping the Ministry off to their
existence, if they didn't already know. "So that won't be a problem."
Shacklebolt gave him a weird look. "Fine. Let's go." He placed his hand on
Milo's shoulder, and Milo was greeted with a distinctly unpleasant sensation not
unlike being pulled through a Portable Hole backwards as they Disapparated.
oooo
Lucius Malfoy adjusted his robes in front of the mirror. Appearance would be
critical, today. His pawns in the Ministry should be bringing in the freak
momentarily, and he needed to be present. As a member of the Board of Governors,
it was his duty, nay, his privilege to protect his students, and Milo was no
exception. Why, he couldn't imagine a better way to do that than to suggest the
boy be sent to a safehouse in, say, Egypt, or Nepal. Somewhere far, far away
from the 'ruthless criminal,' Sirius Black.
He was interrupted from his thoughts by a knock on his manor door. Dobbie was
out getting some last-minute school supplies for Draco, so Lucius went to answer
the door himself.
"Hello?" he asked curiously, opening the door, but whoever had been there had
Page 709

already left. At his feet, however, was a large manilla envelope addressed to
him stamped with what had to be an unnecessarily large, red 'URGENT'.
Lucius picked it up curiously and examined it, searching for any indication as
to who it was from.
"Who the bloody hell is Inland Revenue?"
oooo
Fiona smiled to herself as she hung up the payphone. Some problems, the
government was content to sit on, moving at the barely perceptible speed of,
well, government, taking little to no action. Other problems were simply
conveniently forgotten about, or shuffled back and forth between departments and
bureaus for so long that they may as well have been. But there was one very
specific kind of problem that launched the government into action at speeds that
would make Einstein sit up and take notice. This, she was quite certain, was one
of those cases.
Lucius Malfoy, she thought, is in for a bad day. She wondered what the interest
was on unpaid property taxes dating to before the Magna Carta, and whether it
came with a prison sentence or not. The important thing, of course, was simply
to get him 'on the books,' so to speak, like the Abbots had been. Running shady
conspiracies is much harder when you're in the public eye.
Fiona flipped through the phone book and fished another couple of coins from her
satchel. She still had a few more phone calls to makethis time, to the first
red top tabloid listed in the phonebook.
SD 15: The Tour Guide
Chapter Fifteen: The Tour GuideIt was a small, dark, room with walls of bare
stone. From somewhere behind him, Milo could hear an irregular drip...
drip-drip... ... ... drip... drip-drip-drip that was wreaking havoc on his
concentration. A single light, simultaneously too bright to be comfortable and
too dim to illuminate the room, hung above him, flickering occasionally. Milo
himself sat in an uncomfortable, nondescript chair behind a simple metal table.
It was the sort of room that governments throughout time and across dimensions
all had, somewhere, but rarely showed to school tour groups. This one was
labelled 'Interview Room H.'
"What do
him. The
stood by
himself,
you know about the escaped fugitive, Sirius Black?" Amelia Bones asked
two witches that had followed Shacklebolt into the compartment earlier
the door with unreadable expressions on their faces. Shacklebolt
however, was conspicuously absent. Drip... drip...
Page 710

Milo shrugged. "That his cousin, Ridiculous Black, is way more fun at parties."
Drip... dripdrip-drip-DRIP... drip.
"He's lying," said Arnold Peasegood, the Obliviator. Drip... ... drip... Milo
hadn't seen either of these two since he'd sold them his flawed Amulets of
Protection.
"Yes, I know he's lying," Bones snapped. She turned back to Milo. "This will be
much easier if you just tell us what you know. It's for your own safety."
"I know I've never been told anything was 'for my own safety' by an authority
figure who was completely on the up-and-up," Milo said. Drip-drip... DRIP. "And
I know that the Amulets you two are wearing"
"Brinks, Wu," Bones snapped. "Leave." If the two witches were surprised by the
order, they didn't show it. They filed out without a word. She aimed her wand at
the closed door. "Colloportus," she muttered, then put the wand away again.
"Things are really falling apart around here, aren't they?" Milo asked. Drip...
DRIP-drip. "People escaping from Azkaban left, right, and centre, Hogwarts
governors being murdered in their homes, supposedly memory-wiped Muggles being a
little too persistent..."
"How do you know about that?" Peasegood snapped. He glanced at Bones, who cocked
an eyebrow. "The situation is completely under control," he said, loosening his
tie slightly. "A handful of Obliviated Muggles seemed to have relapsed last
year. It's happened before."
"We'll discuss this later," Bones said firmly, before looking back at Milo.
"What's this about our amulets?"
"They're flawed," Milo explained. "You-Know-Who will be able to Imperius you
even if you're wearing them. I'm sorry. I'll give you a... partial refund. Say,
fifteen percent?"
"Ridiculous," Peasegood said. "Every amulet has been thoroughly tested against
all manner of threats, up to and including the Imperius Curse. They've performed
flawlessly."
Bones narrowed her eyes. Drip-drop-drip-drip... ... ... DRIP. "The real
question," she said slowly, "is what your vested interest is in having us remove
them."
"What? No, I was just trying to warn"
"Is it so that Sirius Black and his followers will be able to seize control of
the Ministry?"
"That's ridiculous. You people don't even get feats, much less Leadership.
There's no way he could have followers"
"Did you facilitate Sirius's escape from Azkaban?"
Page 711

"I barely even knew Azkaban existed until" Milo cut himself off before he could
say 'until Sirius told me.' "Until the story of Sirius's escape broke."
"What do you know about the disappearance of Gilderoy Lockhart?"
Drip... drip...
"Clocktart? What's he got to do with this?"
"Did Sirius Black kill Lockhart?"
Drip... drip...
"No!"
DRIP.
Everybody froze for a second, and Milo realized he'd made a mistake.
"And what makes you so sure?" Bones asked slowly. "What do you know, Milo?"
"I thought you said 'Do you know if Sirius Black killed Lockhart,' and I said,
'No,' as in, 'No, I don't know'"
"Stop stalling!" Bones slammed her fist down on the table, leaving a small dent
in the cheap metal. "We know you can do things no-one else can. Nobody's ever
broken out of Azkabanjust like how nobody's ever blocked an Unforgivable Curse
before, much less Charmed a piece of cheap jewelry to do it for them."
The horrible steel chair Milo sat in was committing war crimes on his lower
back. "I didn't fare too well against the Dementor you sent to the Hogwarts
Expressreal nice, by the way, turning one of those things loose on a train full
of childrenso I don't see how I could have walked into Azkaban and broken Black
out." He raised his hands up above the table's surface to stretch in an attempt
to work out the kinks in his back.
"Incarcerous!" Bones shouted.
Milo hadn't even seen Bones draw her wand, but thick ropes shot out of it,
pinning Milo against the wall. He was uncomfortably reminded of the time, only a
few days ago, when Bellatrix had him in a similar position.
"Boccob Uncaring!" Milo cursed, fighting against the ropes. "I was just trying
to stretch!"
"We've tried to be polite so far," Bones said. "But you must realize we can get
the truth out of you, one way or another, don't you?"
Milo struggled slightly, but it was to no avail. "I'm shrugging right now," he
said. "I know you can't tell, on account of all the freaking ropes, but that was
a shrug. If you could make me, you would have already."
Page 712

"Peasegood," Bones said, keeping her wand pointed straight at Milo, "get the
Veritaserum."
"Oh, right," Milo said. "That." The Ministry had used it on him back in First
Year, when they'd tried to prove he wasn't human or something. As if his bonus
feat wasn't proof enough of that. "Last time you used that on me, everything I
said was dismissed from evidence as delusional," he reminded them. "What makes
you think this time will be any different? I can't give testimony. I'm insane. I
think I'm from another world, remember?"
From somewhere under the table, Peasegood produced a tiny vial of a clear,
colourless liquid.
"Wait," Bones said. "Diffindo." Milo's Amulet of Protection from Good fell from
his neck as the silver links of its chain were severed.
"That was brand new!" Milo complained.
"You understand we can use magic to force you to drink this if you resist,
correct?" Bones said.
"I would nod if I could move my neck," Milo said. "I'll drink."
"Good. Don't make this more difficult than it needs to be."
Veritaserum was completely tasteless, which would be a perfect opportunity for a
pun if (drip-DRIP drip) Milo wasn't so distracted by the thrice-cursed dripping
noise.
"Let's start off with some test questions, shall we?" Peasegood said. "What is
your name?"
"Milo Amastacia-Liadon."
"How old are you?"
"Uh" Milo said. "I'm not entirely certain. I died, and that complicates the
issue. Next question?"
Peasegood blinked. "Dead?"
"Dead as THAC0, yeah." Just because Milo had to tell the truth didn't mean he
wasn't allowed to mess with his captors. Besides, right this moment, Mordy was
probably out there somewhere organizing a rescue for him. The Familiar could
find him from anywhere within a mile, and it was pretty obvious that he would be
being held in the Ministry somewhere. On the other hand, Milo couldn't feel
anything from his bond with the rat, but that just meant that he was simply
still on his way. Hopefully.
"Peasegood, check his pulse," Bones commanded. "I can't even remember how many
times I told Fudge we ought to have this place consecrated against the undead.
Page 713

But he always claims it would offend our 'metabolically-impaired cousins.'"
Peasegood placed two fingers on Milo's neck for twenty seconds. "He's lying."
"Impossible," Bones said. "Nobody of his age can lie under the effects of
Veritaserum. It's unheard of."
"Like being able to casually block Unforgivable Curses?" Milo added helpfully.
"So far I'm three for three against them."
Bones glanced at Peasegood uncertainly. Milo got the feeling that she wasn't
used to not knowing how to proceed. He was also starting to get the feeling that
not everything was quite as it seemed.
"You claim that you died," Peasegood said. "How did this come about?"
"Well, you asked me about my age, and I"
"I would advise against further facetious responses, boy."
Milo struggled briefly against the ropes once more. "That was supposed to be
another shrug. Fine, have it your way. You-Know-Who offed me in the Chamber of
Secrets last year."
"Pretend, for a moment, that we don't know who."
Milo rolled his eyes. He still had that amount of control, at least.
"He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. But you knew that already."
Peasegood glanced at Bones uncertainly.
"You can drop the act," Milo said. "We both know you two aren't calling the
shots in this conversation."
Amelia Bones simply shrugged in response, but Peasegood's expression went
completely blank, almost as if he'd been switched off. "How did you survive,
boy?"
"I was brought back to life by magic," Milo said.
"Impossible," Bones said. "I am closer than anyone to immortality. You must have
used some form of trick. A fake body, perhaps, controlled from afar with the
Imperius Curse."
"You lived in my head for the better part of a year," Milo said. He didn't often
get the chance to really tick off the campaign's BBEG, and he decided he'd make
the most of it while he could. "You know I'm not like other wizards; I can do
things you've only dreamed of. Death is really no obstacle for me."
"Bellatrix tells me that you don't feel pain," Bones said in a low voice. "She
says the Cruciatus Curse has no impact on you."
Page 714

"You saw that firsthand last year," Milo said. He really wished he could shrug,
it would make the whole 'nonchalant in the face of danger' act much more
convincing. And fun. "Veritaserum makes me tell the truth, but it doesn't make
me answer you. You won't get any useful information out of me. There's not a lot
you can actually do to me short of killing me," Milo said, "so why don't we get
this over with?" His best bet, as far as he could tell, was annoying Riddlewho
he was now completely certain was controlling Bones and Peasegoodto the point
where he slipped up and revealed something.
"Ah," Bones said, "But I don't need to kill you."
Milo frowned. He wasn't sure where this was going, but he didn't like it. She
reached into her robes and pulled out a very large, very still, brown-and-white
rat.
"Mordy," Milo whispered despite himself. "He's not"
"Dead? No. Only Stunnedfor now. Which is how he will remain, unless you answer
my questions."
Milo swallowed. He doubted he could swing another deus ex machina for his
Familiar, and even if he could, he wasn't sure it was possible. It was another
gray area in the rulesdead Familiars could be replaced, but it wasn't clear if
they could be brought back to life. And even if they could, the loss of a
Familiar incurred massive XP damage on the animal's master, and Milo had lost
enough levels for one day.
Beyond that, though, Mordenkainen was his Familiar, dammit. His
responsibilityand his friend.
Drip drip drip
"What do you want to know?" Milo asked.
"Where does Harry Potter live when he's not at Hogwarts?"
Milo sighed. When it came down to it, he was just so tired. He'd already had his
psyche steamrolled by the Dementor; all he wanted now was to go eat some more
chocolate and maybe have a nap. He didn't want to have to pick between his
Familiar and Harry. He had no spells, no plans, no Amulet of Protection from
Evil/Good/Law/Chaos/Megalomaniacal Evil Wizards, and no-one who knew where he
was. His hopes of rescue were dashed with the reveal that the possessed Ministry
goons had taken his rat, too.
At the end of the day, he didn't really have any option. If he didn't tell
Voldemort, then Mordy would dieand, in all likelihood, so would Milo. If he did
spill the beans on Harry's summer home, then Harry would certainly die, while
Milo and Mordy would almost certainly die.
"A conversation I had with my sister the other day got me thinking about
resource allocation. You know, how X amount of money can buy one of Y or twenty
of Z and whatnot. In my adventures, before I came to this world, my companions
Page 715

and I once encountered an isolated tribe eking it out in the ruins of a lost
city; the descendants of an expedition sent to gather a rare form of privet
shrub for perfume. It was terrible perfumethe smell of Number Four Privet
Drives my sister crazy. They could barely scavenge enough food to survive, and
almost every night one of them was picked off by a nearby band of troglodytes,
or robbed by kobolds. They had no magic, barely any shelter, and practically no
weaponsbut the thing that really stood out to me was the socks. The majority of
them went barefoot."
"I do assume that, sooner or later, you will get to the point," Bones said. "If
you do not, your rat will die. Taking, as I understand it, much of your power
with it."
"I'm getting there," Milo said. "You were, what, fifty or sixty when you lost
your body?"
"Sixty-six," Bones said. "A problem that has since been remedied."
"Sure, sure. Now, for this next bit of the story, I need to make a couple of
educated guesses. I don't know much about your world and its history, see. But I
know that, back in Myra (City of Light! City of Magic!), an average person
bought six pairs of socks every year. You can thank the incredible number of
skill ranks I've thrown into various Knowledge skills over the years for that
fact. They weren't stockpiling them, though; those socks were just to replace
their losses."
"You're stalling, now."
"I'm not. You can believe me, because I'm under Veritaserum. Just bear with me
for a moment. I'm guessing, because people are so much richer, that people here
get more socks than the Azelan peasants did. You strike me like a rich kid, so
I'm going to take a wild guess and say you could get replacements for the ones
you lost Under a Staircase whenever you wanted with a Little Whinging, and as
such you went through somewhere around ten pairs of socks a year. That's six
hundred and sixty pairs of socks before you were en-tome-ed, pardon the pun, in
that diary."
Drip drip
"You have twenty seconds before I kill your rat."
"There were only a hundred and twenty-three people in the tribe when I saw them.
I bet they would take better care of their socks than you do, because they
wouldn't be able to replace their losses. They wouldn't lose them at night, they
wouldn't throw them out because they were too lazy to darn them. I bet they
could get a solid year out of a single pair of socks, and they'd get a lot more
enjoyment out of them than you did. They'd be among their most treasured
possessions. Six hundred and sixty pairs of socks could keep that entire tribe's
feet warm for five years. I'm sure there's a place like that in your world,
too."
"Five Four Three."
Page 716

"Here's my point: if your mother had had the decency to strangle you when you
were first born, and the socks you wasted in life were given to the needy,
that's twelve-hundred combined foot-years of warmth added to the world. I know
where I'm going when I die," Milo said. "I've seen it. Remember, I'm under the
effects of Veritaserum, so you can believe that I believe what I'm about to say
is one hundred percent true, you are a gods damn waste of socks, Riddle. You may
as well just kill me again."
Amelia Bones' eyes twitched. She pointed her wand at Mordenkainen, and began to
speak. "Avada Ke"
The door behind her opened quickly, flooding the room with light. A tall,
ancient man wearing horribly-clashing purple and magenta robes stood in the
doorway, his white beard almost reaching his waist. A dozen or so witches and
wizards of various description peered into the room curiously.
"And here we have the famous third lower janitorial closet, considered
enormously significant among janitorial historians due to itsoh, pardon me,"
the man said, peering over his half-moon spectacles. "This isn't the third lower
janitorial closet at all. In fact, unless I am quite mistaken, these are the
long-unused Department of Magical Law Enforcement interrogation cells. Not to be
re-opened except in times of war. Clearly, there has been some
misunderstanding."
"Dumbledore?" Milo choked out. He could hardly believe it. No, scratch thatwhen
it came to Dumbledore, he could believe anything.
"In fact, a number of mistakes seem to have been made," Dumbledore said, looking
at his little visitor's badge. "Not the least that I am, in fact, not a tour
guide. Do forgive me, it's a mistake anyone could have made. Much like
accidentally, and, I'm afraid, quite illegally, interrogating a minor without
just cause or due process."
Bones stared at Dumbledore completely disbelievingly for a moment before
rallying.
"No visitors!" she snapped. "How did you even get in here? The door was locked!"
"Yes, I did quite wonder about that," Dumbledore said, giving Milo a quick wink.
He turned back to his tour group. "The third lower janitorial closet hasn't been
locked sincecan anyone tell me?"
"Since the Goblin Uprisings of 1743," Milo called out, choosing to fully embrace
the surreal. "When they were used as a last refuge by Ministry staff in an
attempt to escape the reprisals."
"Bravo!" Dumbledore said. "Two points for Gryffoh, excuse me. I'm not a
professor anymore, either. I'll have to write Minerva after this tour" he
gasped quite authentically, looking at the tour group as if it was his first
time seeing it. "Dear me, things do seem to be going wrong today!" he exclaimed.
"This isn't a tour group; it's the entire assembled Wizengamot!"
Page 717

"Everybody out!" Peasegood shouted, snapping out of his neutral, switched-off
expression. "This is a restricted area!"
"Indeed it is, young man," Dumbledore said. "Would you believe, however, that
this badge"he pointed at his visitor's badge"says that I'm the Chief Warlock
of the Wizengamot, the highest court in the landspeaking metaphorically, of
course, not geographicallyand that, therefore, in legal matters, I rather
outrank you? Believe me, I'm quite as surprised as you are! I'm sure they'll
sort all this out sooner or later, but in the meantime, I'm going to have to
suspend this illegal interrogation and bring this child to where he belongs. All
in favour?" Dumbledore glanced back at the Wizengamot, most of whom nervously
raised their hands, clearly feeling out of their depth. "Very well, motion
passed." Dumbledore flicked his wand casually, and the ropes holding Milo to the
wall were severed.
Bones looked like she was trying very hard not to murder everyone in
sightwhich, now that Dumbledore was in the room, Milo doubted she would be
capable of, Dark Lord-possession or no. At the very least, with the door now
open, she couldn't guarantee that there would be no witnesses.
"Let's go, Milo," Dumbledore said, holding out his free hand.
"Wait," Milo said. First, he grabbed his broken Amulet and stuffed it in a
pocket. Then he held out his hand to Amelia Bones. He could hear her teeth
grinding from where he was standing as she grudgingly shoved Mordy into Milo's
hands.
"Get out," she hissed, her knuckles clenched to white.
Milo practically skipped out through the doorway with Dumbledore.
"How did you know I was here?" he asked when they were alone.
"A little bird told me," Dumbledore said. "Or, more accurately, a little bird
carrying a letter from an informant I have in the Ministry. I shouldn't go into
further detail, the Ministry is maze-like."
Milo frowned. "Maze-like?"
"Yes, in that it is like maze."
It is like maze? Milo stared at Dumbledore blankly. "I think you're missing a
word that sentence."
"Maize as in corn."
"Oh. That explains absolutely nothing."
Dumbledore sighed. "American corn grows in ears."
The copper piece dropped. "You're saying the walls have ears," he said, feeling
Page 718

a little silly.
"Are you all right?" Dumbledore asked seriously.
"I think so," Milo said. "Bones and Peasegood are being Imperius'd by
You-Know-Who, though." Milo frowned at his broken Amulet. "And so might I be,
for that matter. Make sure I cast a Protection spell on myself when I next
prepare my spells."
"Alas," Dumbledore said, "for I have been sacked, and can't go with you to
Hogwarts. But I can ask Minerva to do so."
"That'll work," Milo said. "We don't want a repeat of what happened last year."
"If I may ask," Dumbledore said, "what did happen last year? For, I must
confess, I believed you to be dead. Wait, no, do not answer me. It is the nadir
of manners to ask personal questions of one under the effects of Veritaserum. We
can discuss this matter later."
"How did you know they drugged me?" Milo asked.
"I do not mean to boast, but one does not get to be the Supreme Mugwump of the
International Confederation of Wizards by collecting bottle caps, Milo. Though I
did, of course, have a modest collection in my office at Hogwarts. I wonder what
Severus has done with it."
"Fair enough," Milo said. "Can we finally go to Hogwarts now? I feel like this
campaign is already half over."
"Of course," Dumbledore said. "Take my hand."
SD 16: Safer Justice Practices
Chapter Sixteen: Safer Justice PracticesLucius Malfoy winced as Tom Riddle

slammed the Muggle tabloid onto the table, scuffing its immaculate surface. They
were in Lucius's dining room, though Riddle had taken Lucius's customary seat at
the head of the table. Bellatrix sat silently in the shadows, twirling her wand
about her fingers. Aside from them, the house was empty.
"How could you let this happen?" Riddle asked. "Explain yourself."
Lucius glanced at the headline. MASSIVE COUNTRY ESTATE HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT.
And, underneath it in slightly smaller font: Weird Tree Found Growing out of
Roof.
"I" Lucius hesitated. How had this happened? The Muggle authorities had never
troubled him before. What changed? "I'm looking into the matter, my lord," he
Page 719

said.
"It made the papers, Lucius," Riddle said. "The papers."
"I can take care of this," Lucius said.
"How?" Riddle said. "You can't Obliviate the entire country." Bellatrix glanced
at Riddle, an unreadable expression on her face.
Lucius bristled, but he fought back his response. He couldn't stop himself from
thinking it, though. Maybe if you hadn't Imperiused the Ministry's head
Obliviator and sent his second-in-command to an alternate world with an ancient
ritual, it never would have gotten this far. That was the problem with most
so-called 'Dark Lords.' They're so blinded by the prospect of absolute power
that they don't stop and think about how much day-to-day minutiae they're
shouldering on themselves after liberating it from the powers that be. Someone
has to keep the floo networks open, pay the owl post office workers' pensions,
and keep the Muggle world from discovering the wizarding one. Driving out the
Mudbloods and obtaining immortality is all well and good, but what's your
ten-year economic plan, Riddle?
"Muggle news isn't like ours, my lord," Lucius said. "Three weeks ago they
reported they saw Bigfoot in downtown London."
Riddle blinked. "That's ridiculous. Everyone knows Bigfoot never leaves Tibet."
"Precisely, my lord. Magical Britain only has one paper of note: the Daily
Prophet." Lucius had gone through great pains to make certain that was the case.
"Wizards and witches have no choice but to believe what the Prophet tells them.
They have no other source of information. To Muggles, this is but one shocking
scandal among many. Until it gets picked up by a reputable paper, no-one will
take this story seriously."
"What's to stop just that from happening?" Riddle asked.
"I'll give them a bigger story." Lucius smiled slightly. "The bigger question,
my lord, is who tipped them off. My home is protected by Charms; Muggles can
only come here if they already know it exists." Other wizards liked to prevent
Muggles from coming altogether, but sometimes Lucius found it useful to exert
some influence on the non-magical who were nevertheless 'clued-in'such as the
parents of magical children, or certain Muggle officialsand there were few
better ways to do impress a person than to show them a house such as this one.
Or rather, there weren't until that bloody boy put that bloody tree through my
roof "One of our enemies has moved against us."
Riddle laughed. "No-one worth concerning ourselves over would attack us with
Muggles."
Lucius was beginning to have deep suspicions about the 'Dark Lord'beginning
with why it was so easy to think of him as Tom Riddle, rather than his title. He
was growing increasingly convinced that Riddle hadn't simply returned with a
teen's body, but a teen's mind, as well.
Page 720

"'The coward in shadows can be more dangerous than the champion in the light,'"
Lucius quoted.
"Wise words," Riddle conceded. "Who said them?"
You did, right after Pettigrew sold out the Potters. "Merlin," Lucius shrugged.
Riddle held his fingers together in a narrow steeple for a minute or two, deep
in thought. "Very well," he said. "You seem to know these Muggles well, Lucius."
He didn't say it with any particular intonation or expression that would hint at
it, but Lucius did not fail to notice the implied insult. "Find their source
when you clean up your mess."
"Yes, my lord," Lucius said, bowing low. When he looked up again, Riddle was
gone.
"For a moment, I thought he was going to off you then and there," Bellatrix
said.
Lucius simply shook his head. "He needs me too much for that."
Bellatrix's eyebrows shot up.
"Why ever would the Dark Lord need you?" She said in a mocking tone, but
hesitated for a moment. Lucius stopped and paid close attention to herhe
couldn't remember ever having seen her show doubt before. "Did you notice
anything a little different about him? Other than his body, of course."
Like the fact that he's got the skills of a legend and the impulse control of a
hormone-addled teenager? "No," Lucius said. This incarnation was infinitely
preferableand more easily manipulatedthan the last. Bellatrix was feared and
respected by the other Death Eaters, so he needed her loyal to Riddle.
Significantly more so than he was. If she began to waver "He does and says
exactly what he means to, as he always did." Lucius wondered idly if there was
any way he could arrange for her to be martyred for the cause.
Bellatrix nodded dubiously. "How much do the taxmen want?"
Lucius told her.
"Is it still three and a quarter pounds to the galleon?"
"No. It's up to five."
"Blimey," Bellatrix said. "Still, wouldn't want to be in your shoes." She
glanced down at his Italian leather loafers. "Shiny though they may be."
As Bellatrix left his office, Lucius realized he wasn't altogether certain he
disagreed with her.
He turned back to the tabloid on his desk.
Page 721

Who would stoop to using Muggles as a weapon?
oooo
Fiona adjusted her robes uncomfortably as she skimmed through the book in the
aisle of Flourish and Blotts. She doubted she'd ever get used to robes. They
were a little too much like dresses, which she never much cared for, eitherfar
too much loose cloth to be grabbed if some street hooligan resisted arrest. She
also wasn't entirely clear on what she was supposed to wear under them. Did
witches wear trousers under their robes? Underskirts of some variety? Tights?
Fiona didn't know and had no real way to find out, so she did wore what she was
sure any sensible person would, given the option: trainers, sweatpants, and
Kevlar.
"and all they found of him was his little finger" Fiona mused. She kept coming
back to that line. Was it rhetorical? Simply added for effect? But she'd seen it
in the other books, too. Still, it was possible that one writer came up with it
to add a little zest to the story, and others cited the first one, and then each
other, until it became established fact.
But, well
Fiona had some mates who'd fought in Kuwait, but even before that, she'd known
that that just wasn't how explosions worked. They didn't just vaporize
peoplenot at the scale of this one, at least. She'd seen enough movies to know
that. The only real 'vaporization' she'd seen had been from Terminator 2, but
that was an atomic blast, and a nightmare besides.
The wizards had passed it off to the Muggle world as an exploding gas line.
Fiona remembered, because her cousin's boyfriend was among the twelve Muggles
killed. (If her cousin was to be believed, he was a bit of a git, mind, so it
was no great loss to the world). The footage from the news showing the
devastation certainly made it look like a more-or-less conventional explosion,
though the wizards could have faked that.
Fiona was tempted to just throw up her hands and say 'it's magic. There's no
reasoning with it.' But all the books she'd found agreed that the spell had made
a bona fide explosion, not some fancy magic-disintegration-blast-thingy or
whatever. And that meant it had to follow some of the rules of a proper
explosion, and simply deleting 99% of Pettigrew's body from existence wasn't
following those rules, especially because the other twelve victims had left,
well, corpse-shaped corpses.
Oh, and this was after Pettigrew shouted that Black had betrayed the Potters to
Voldewhatsitthough how that had entered the public record, Fiona couldn't say,
because everyone present at the time had been promptly blown up. Then, who
should stumble across the scene? None other than the Minister for Magic himself,
who testified that he was standing there, covered in blood, holding Pettigrew's
finger, and laughing.
No, scratch that. He didn't testify, because there hadn't been a trial. Bloody
Page 722

Goering got a bloody trial, but not Black?
So, allegedly, Black killed thirteen people with a single spell in broad
daylight, with twelve of them dead by explosion and one of them dead by
spontaneous existential failure. Then, he was caught bloody-handed (so to speak)
by the Minister showing every symptom of shock before being thrown into a prison
whose guards steal happy memories (such as those of being, for example,
completely innocent) before being given a chance to testify, which was bizarre,
given that he was apparently the only surviving witness to Pettigrew's
accusations of guilt, which did enter the historical record.
And all of this happened on the wizard equivalent of bloody V-E Day, with the
Death Eater leader dead and his followers defeated or dispersed. Nobody was even
close to paying attention to what was happening with Black and Pettigrew (other
than the twelve dead Muggles, who were rather too close). It was little wonder
that nobody noticed the laughably thin case against him.
The question wasn't whether Sirius was framed. It wasn't even who was in on
framing him. It was who wasn't in on it.
Fiona slammed shut the book, A History of the Wizarding War, and roughly
reshelved it.
This wasn't even a bloody miscarriage of bloody justice. It hadn't even had the
chance to get that far. This was a bloody contraception of bloody justice.
Fiona glanced at her watch. She'd debated leaving it behind, being unsure if
witches and wizards wore them, but decided it didn't really mattereven the
magical community must have a few weirdoes. She'd just play it off as something
her 'Muggleborn' friend got her for Christmas. (Did Wizards do Christmas? There
was so much to learn.)
3:43. Damn. She'd missed another of her mandatory therapy sessions. Oh well;
she'd deal with the fallout when this whole thing blew over. She wasn't quite
sure what this 'whole thing' entailed, but it had something to do with Black,
something to do with Malfoy, and something to do with Milo.
Fiona Smythe, Master Detective, she thought ruefully. She was pretty sure she
knew whodunit, though she wasn't entirely clear on what they dun, or why they
dunit. Which was exactly the opposite of the way you're supposed to investigate
a crime.
She turned to leave, and accidentally bumped into an unknown witch and wizard.
They looked vaguely like each other, with similar dark brown hair and heavy
cheekbones. The wizard walked with a cane and had close-cropped black hair and a
slightly surprised expression on his face. The witch was a stocky little woman
with a mean look to her. She'd never seen them before (at least, she didn't
think she had. Having a repeatedly-wiped memory could create all kinds of
doubts.), but something in her gut didn't like them.
"'Scuse me," Fiona murmured, looking down to avoid showing her face and trying
to step around them.
Page 723

"Watch where you're going," the witch snapped, then turned back to the wizard.
"Now, where were we, Amycus?"
Amycus Fiona thought, trying to walk casually out of the store. Why does that
name ring a bell?
"Did that witch look familiar to you, Alecto?" Amycus asked.
Bollocks. Fiona remembered where she'd last heard the names Amycus and Alecto
before. The Carrows. They'd been some of that Volder-fellow's most violent
supporters during the so-called 'Wizarding War' back in the eighties, but had
got off claiming they were bewitched. More recently, Amycus had been the bait
that had led a lot of good people to their deaths in the London Massacre last
year. She picked up the pace, navigating her way through the winding aisles.
"Yeah," Alecto said. "She looks a mite like Ash, doesn't she?"
"Who?"
"You know, our cousin, Ashley." Evidently, Amycus didn't know, because Alecto
felt the need to clarify further. "The fat one." Fiona clenched her teeth
slightly, despite herself. Fat?!
"Oh, Fat Ash!" Amycus said as Fiona reached the door. "No she looked more like
tip of my tongue" Fiona pushed the glass door open, causing the bell hanging
above the door to sound out. She wasn't sure if it was the bell attracting his
attention, or just bad luck, but just as she left the shop, Amycus and Fiona
locked eyes. His narrowed in what Fiona prayed was not recognition. "that
Muggle Auror lady what shot me."
Now that was hardly fair. Fiona had no memory of the events of that disastrous
raid, but it was on the record that her own firearm hadn't been discharged that
night. The only 'Muggle' (Fiona hated that word) lady who had been doing any
shooting had been Lyndon. He'd marked her as the wrong copper.
Fiona flung herself into a roll onto the muddy street as a pair of red bolts of
magic smashed through the storefront's window after her. They went over her head
and took an unsuspecting young witch in the street full in the chest. The witch
went down without a word, unconscious. Well, Fiona hoped she was unconscious.
She'd read that killing spells were supposed to be green, but Fiona wasn't
willing to bet her life that just because a spell wasn't green didn't mean it
wasn't dangerous. Also, for all she knew, wizards and witches just straight-up
saw magic differently. Maybe red magic looked green to them. Or maybe the author
of the spellbook she'd read was colourblind.
She picked herself up off the ground and sprinted down the street as more spells
flew after her. Just when she thought she'd lost them among the panicking crowd,
they just appeared directly in front of her. As in, one moment there was open
space, and the next, bam. Two dark wizards. Or a witch and wizard, to be more
accurate. It was bloody inconvenient not having a short, gender-neutral
collective noun for persons of a magical persuasion.
Page 724

"Shit!" Fiona debated turning around and running away, but she'd never make
itthe street was starting to thin out, and the witchards would have a clear
shot at her. Instead, she did the last thing anyoneincluding herselfwould
expect.
She charged them.
"Waaaaaaaagh!" She screamed. To distract them, of course, and not because she
was terrified. She was a stone-cold fighting machine. Margaret Thatcher
reincarnated in copper form. The Copper Lady. Totally.
Fiona collided bodily with Amycus, whose injured leg crumpled beneath him. She
grabbed him by the hair and robes and rolled him over, to get her between him
and his sister.
"Bloody hell!" Amycus shouted as Fiona wrenched at his hair. "Get her!"
"I can't get a clear shot!" Alecto protested.
Amycus awkwardly threw a punch at her chest, but winced as his knuckles hit her
vest. Fiona seized the opportunity and slammed her forehead into Amycus's nose
with a very satisfying crunch.
"So use a bloody Stunner, you stupid cow!" Amycus shouted at his sister, blood
pouring from both nostrils.
"Right!" Alecto said. "Stupe" Not wanting to risk the chance of getting hit,
Fiona instead worked her feet under Amycus's torso and kicked him off her in
Alecto's general direction. He slammed into Alecto's shins, not quite knocking
her over, but definitely ruining the aim of her spell.
As she was distracted, Fiona reached into her robes, grabbed the tiny can of
not-strictly-legal pepper spray she had concealed there, aimed it at the witch,
and held down the button.
"Merlin's beard!" she screamed, clawing at her eyes. "It burns! She hexed me!
She hexed me! She's a witch! It's the wrong bloody woman!"
"It's a ruddy potion, Alecto!" Amycus shouted, pulling himself to his feet. "She
doesn't have a wand!" Amycus began trying to aim his at Fiona, wiping blood out
of his eyes.
The little pepper spray bottle ran dry, so Fiona whipped it as fast as she could
over her shoulder and released her grip. It hit Amycus square in his
already-broken nose at about mach three. The dark wizard screamed and fell to
his knees, then gasped again as he was reminded, painfully, that he'd recently
been shot in one of them. His wand fell from his hands, and Fiona snatched it
off the ground before it could be used against her again.
"Scourgify," Alecto muttered behind her. Fiona spun, trying to remember what
that was a spell for. Hadn't she seen it in One Thousand and One Household
Page 725

Charms? It was the Scouring Charm. It was harmless. But why would Alecto cast a
cleaning spell now?
A cleaning spell.
Fiona turned to find Alecto's wand held straight at her face. Alecto's eyes were
perfectly clear.
Bloody magic, Fiona grumbled inwardly. It's not bloody fair. She should have
been incapacitated for ten or twelve minutes at least.
"Who the hell are you?" Alecto snarled, her wand hand trembling with anger. "How
did you get here?"
Fiona had to supress an urge to roll her eyes. Alecto was carrying a tool that
could act as a 100%-effective non-lethal incapacitant. There was no reason to
threaten someone with it. Alecto could simply have stunned her, warped her
somewhere dark and quiet using magic, and then threatened or ensorcelled answers
out of her.
Something that had been drilled into Fiona during training was that disarming
someone with a gun pointed at you is extremely risky. Someone shaking, scared,
and amped up on adrenaline can pull the trigger in milliseconds. Technique was
important, as was speed, because you had to do it perfectly on your first try,
or you were probably dead. More important, though, was distraction. You needed
your assailant's brain focussed on something other than you and their gun. Even
something small, like talking or listening, could make a huge difference in
their reaction time at the scales involved.
But wands weren't like guns. Guns, already aimed and loaded, were an instant
away from firing. Fiona was willing to bet that in trained hands, a wand could
be used to cast spells about as quickly as a gun could be accurately aimed and
fired. But all of that time was on the leadup to the attack, with the
incantations and whatnot, whereas, firing a gun, most of the time was after the
bullet was fired, stabilizing the weapon and re-aiming after the recoil. Guns
could even be fired after you'd grabbed it with both hands and still kill you,
as long as the other person's trigger finger was still in place. But wands?
Wands needed fancy gestures and twirls and swishes and the like.
Fiona grabbed Alecto's wrist with her left hand and twisted, forcing her to drop
it. Then she wrenched Alecto's arm behind her back, kicked her legs out from
underneath her, and pinned her to the ground with her knee in the small of her
back. Her right hand instinctively reached for her handcuffs, before remembering
she hadn't had any since she'd been removed from active dutyand they'd be
inaccessible under her robes, even if she was.
Even if she did, she couldn't very well arrest them in Diagon Alleyshe'd never
get them into London proper before the wizard police, or whatever they called
themselves, arrived. Speaking of, Fiona wondered how long she did have before
they got here. On the one hand, lack of phones would slow down communication,
but on the other hand, they could simply beam over here Star Trek-style, which
would more than make up for that. Fiona needed to make herself scarce, fast.
Page 726

Fiona reminded herself that Alecto was a hardened killer who had access to fancy
magical healing besides, then lifted her head up by her hair, and slammed it
into the cobblestones. Unlike in the movies, people don't often conveniently
fall asleep after moderate trauma to the head, so Fiona let her go and, using
both hands, snapped her wand in half.
By this point, Amycus was still whimpering on the ground and clutching his nose,
so Fiona decided to take the better part of valour, and made a run for it.
It wasn't until she'd sped through the Leaky Cauldron, earning a bunch of
startled looks, out onto the busy London street, gotten several blocks away
(almost getting hit by a city bus in the process) and into a crowded shopping
mall that she let herself stop. She sagged against a wall, panting for breath
and trembling as the adrenaline coursed through her system.
"Jesus, Mary and Joseph," she muttered. That was way too close. She hadn't
expected to see a bunch of Death Eaters in the middle of a book store, but, on
thinking about it, why the heck hadn't she? Bad guys needed something to read
now and then, too, and they'd already been exonerated by what passed for the
wizarding world's justice system, so they were free to wander in public. She
hoped nobody'd snapped a photo of her face, though, for all she knew, Alecto
could just use magic to produce lifelike pictures of her from memory.
"Are you all right, ma'am?"
Fiona's eyes jolted open, and she reached reflexively for where her nightclub
would have been hanging in normal circumstances.
A middle-aged woman with a heavy French accent pushing a baby carriage looked at
her in concern. Fiona realized that she was still wearing her robes, and dozens
of people were staring at her. She'd chosen the public place so that the wizards
wouldn't follow her there, but hadn't fully considered how strange she'd look to
the nonmagical residents in the city.
She swallowed, tasting adrenaline, muttered something about a fancy dress party,
and staggered back into the street.
Stupid. She'd been stupid. She should have worn a mask in the raid on London.
She should have a better disguise when she went to Diagon Alley. She shouldn't
have made such a scene when they found her, but instead denied it until the
authorities arrived. She shouldn't have looked back into the bookstore as she'd
left. She should have worn less conspicuous clothing under her robes, so she
could take them off and blend in with the rest of the city. She should have had
a getaway car waiting for her outside the Cauldron.
Fiona tried to hail a cab, hoping that all this wouldn't come back to bite her
later.
oooo
"Then she bloody well broke my bloody wand!" Alecto practically shrieked. "I
Page 727

want her flayed, Malfoy! I want her skin!"
"You're certain it was the same woman?" Lucius asked calmly. "It was dark that
night, in London. There was a lot going on. It would be easy to make mistakes."
"It was her," Amycus said, holding a bloody handkerchief to his nose. "Remember
those fancy kung-fu moves she pulled on Selwyn? She did the same to us."
"This was right before Alecto accidentally killed him, was it?" Lucius asked.
Merlin, but that whole night had been a string of fiascos.
Alecto bristled. "She threw him in the way of my spell. It wasn't my fault."
"So you're saying that an unarmed Muggle woman managed to best both of you, and
get your wands?" Lucius asked. "Were I in your position, I would strongly
consider what you 'remember' happening before telling the Dark Lord. He is not
as merciful as I."
"I was injured," Amycus said. "My leg."
"I was informed that the best healers in the country had given you a clean bill
of health," Lucius said. "There's nothing wrong with your leg, Amycus. Any pain
you feel is purely imaginary."
Amycus scowled, but said nothing.
Lucius leaned back in his chair. "I had believed that Lockhart had taken care of
the Muggles that survived that encounter," he said. He had been as surprised as
anyone to see the Lockhart taking credit for the Muggles' actions, but had
decided to play along with it at the time. "But I now see that I was mistaken
to leave this matter in the hands of one outside of our little family."
"I want her, Malfoy," Alecto said again.
The Ministry made detailed reports of any incident that their personnel were
involved in that resulted in violence, particularly when there were deaths. He
felt certain that the Muggle law enforcement would do similarly. They would be
kept in a reasonably secure location, but that was no matter. A few threats here
and Imperiuses there, and he could get through any amount of security. After
that, it would be a simple matter to find out which Muggle personnel had been
involved in the raid and track them down.
"We'll get her," Lucius said.
SD 17: Stones and Windows
Chapter Seventeen: Stones and WindowsIt was evening, just after the Sorting
Page 728

Ceremony, and Milo lay against a tree by the lake. Milo had arrived at the
tailing end of it, missing most of the actual Sorting, but hearing what passed
for Snape's speech.
Milo heard soft footsteps approaching, making quiet crunching noises in the
frosty earth. He didn't look up; he knew who it was.
"I thought I might find you out here," Hannah said. "Your hidden classroom had
been blown to pieces at some point. I'm guessing it was a surprise left for you
by the other you?"
Milo nodded. At some point last year, Riddle had apparently left Explosive Runes
on the door to the classroom behind the giant tree that Milo usually used when
he needed a secret area. Frankly, with his hit points being the way they were,
Milo was lucky to have survived.
"Mind if I sit down?"
Milo shrugged, fingering a smooth, round stone in his hand.
"Whacha got there?"
Despite his mood, Milo flashed a quick grin. "Halfling skipping rock."
"Ooookay"
"Halfling culture is inexplicably built around throwing rocks," Milo said. "They
get all kinds of random racial bonuses to it, and a handful of race-specific
feats. I bet, if I looked hard enough, I could find a Halfling-only Prestige
Class built entirely around throwing rocks."
Hannah settled into the grass. She'd learned that there was no point
interrupting him when he was doing one of his Milo-y things.
"All of this is to say that when Halflings say that a rock is a good skipping
rock, they know what they're about." Milo held the rock up into the light. "This
one was probably ground down into an aerodynamically-perfect shape by Halfling
children over the course of six months, or something. I found it in my sister's
Belt of Hidden Pouches."
He gave it one last look, then flung it out over the lake at a shallow angle. It
hit the water heavily and sank with an anti-climactic splash.
"Or maybe it was just an ordinary pebble Relkin picked up one day," Milo said.
He coughed awkwardly. "I probably should have checked if that was magical before
I threw it," he said ruefully. "For all I know, that was a Philosopher's Stone."
"Look, Milo," Hannah said. "I know sometimes that when I'm in a lousy mood, I
want nothing more than to sit by myself and throw rocks into a lake. But late as
you were, you heard what Headmaster Snape said at the Sorting Ceremony: we're
not supposed to leave the castle. There's Dementors patrolling the grounds. That
one on the Hogwarts Express did a real number on you. I think it focused on us
Page 729

because" she lowered her voice. "I think they could smell, or whatever him on
us."
"Who says I'm in a lousy mood?" Milo asked, throwing another rock, this time an
ordinary one, into the lake. It didn't skip, either. "And if a Dementor does try
something, I'll kick its shrouded ass from here back to Azkaban. I'm a Wizard.
Not just any Wizarda Conjurer. Of cheap tricks, no less."
"Right," Hannah said. "Because you never compensate for your own insecurities
with reckless bravado."
Milo didn't have much to say to that, so he threw another rock into the lake
instead without any more success than the others.
"Fine," Hannah said. She sat there silently next to him for a few minutes,
watching him ineffectually throw rocks into the water. "You need to give it more
spin," she said, finally.
"What?" Milo asked.
"Spin. Use your index finger to spin it as you throw." She picked up a rock,
seemingly at random, and flung it effortlessly into the lake. It skipped three
times. "I actually like my skipping rocks oval-shaped, because it's easier to
spin them."
Milo shook his head. "Technique won't make any difference for me." He paused.
"Well, that's not true. It's more accurate to say that I can't improve my
technique without fighting and increasing in level. It's just a die roll, my
Dexterity bonus, and half my level."
"Just try it," Hannah said. "Here, use this one." She passed him a muddy,
irregular rock. The ancient Halfling rock-skipping gurus of old would roll in
their graves looking at it.
Milo rolled his eyes, but took it.
"Get down low, close to the water. You want it to hit as close to parallel to
the surface as you can."
"I know, I know," Milo said. "It's not like it's grapple mechanics."
"And spin it," Hannah reminded him.
"I was spinning it," Milo lied. He adjusted his grip the way Hannah showed him,
bent down low, and flung it out over the water.
It skipped once, half-heartedly, then dropped into the water without ceremony.
But it did skip.
Milo could only see one side of Hannah's face, but he felt it safe to
extrapolate, using his arcane knowledge and unparalleled intellect, that she was
Page 730

smirking on the other side, too. "Could have just been that I rolled a 20," Milo
muttered.
"Uh-huh," Hannah said. "So, do you want to talk about it?"
"Talk about what?" Milo asked. "I'm a soulless construct. A collection of
bonuses and penalties. I am without emotion." He skipped another rock. "And
they'd only hold me back, even if I had them."
"You know that's not true," Hannah said. "So I'm not going to dignify the point
with an argument."
Once more, Milo didn't have a heck of a lot to say, so he threw another rock
into the lake. This time, he skipped twice. Hannah did the same, though her rock
didn't so much skip as glide along the surface of the lake for a few meters
before finally sinking.
"They thought I summoned the Basilisk," Milo said eventually. He didn't need to
say who 'they' were.
"Yeah," Hannah said.
"They thought that maybe the Prophet got a few things right."
Hannah simply nodded.
"They think I'm dangerous," Milo said.
Hannah smiled. "All of those things are true, you realize. You did summon the
Basiliskunwillingly. The Prophet was right about a few thingsagain, mostly
things you did unwillingly or accidentally. And you are dangerous." Milo had a
brief memory of blood-red snow, but pushed it away. "You're possibly the most
dangerous person in the worldtop ten, at the leastto the bad guys. To people
that want to destabilize the world, to persecute Muggles, Muggleborns,
half-bloods, and anyone else who gets in their way. To people who hurt innocents
because it's convenient. You're so dangerous, I bet you keep them up at night
with a cold sweat."
"Didn't stop You-Know-Who from killing me," Milo muttered. "After using my power
for evil. Maybe Hermione was right."
"You came back," Hannah said. "You conquered death. Nobody's done that before.
Ever. You-Know-Who tried to do that his entire life, and it didn't work. Not
really. And that probably scares him more than anything. But that's not what
this is about, is it?"
Milo sighed. "They didn't trust me, Hannah. Harry, Ron, Hermione. They didn't
talk to me. They didn't even look at me." He picked up a rock to skip, but set
it back down instead. "It's so stupid. Why should I care? My friends believed
the overwhelming mountain of evidence over I don't know. Their unfounded, vague
feelings of faith in me. Why should I be surprised by that? It's perfectly
rational." He laughed grimly. "Wait till they find out I'm harbouring" he
Page 731

glanced around, remembering Hannah's warning about Dementors. "Well, you know."
He sighed. "Gods, I sound like such a Hufflepuff."
"There's worse things in life than Hufflepuffs," Hannah said. "You want a piece
of advice?"
"Sure," Milo said.
"Don't stew on it. Hermione tends to follow her brain over her gut, and she's
had half a year to convince Harry and Ron. And she can be very persuasive. But
even she'll come around eventually, and they'll follow. You're not a bad person,
and they'll see that."
"You're probably right," Milo agreed, though it would probably take a while for
that to sink in completely.
"Now, we should probably go inside," Hannah said. "Snape's just looking for
excuses to dock points from Gryffindors, and that's not even getting to the fact
that a Dementor could stumble across us at any minute."
"Good idea," Milo agreed. Just as he turned to leave, however, a thought struck
him. "One second," Milo said. He picked up the most ungainly rock he could
findit was almost as big as his head, and lumpier than a troll's nose. It was
probably the least aerodynamically-sound shape possible. "True Strike," he
muttered, then flung it over his shoulder behind him as he walked towards the
castle.
Splash-splash-splash-splash-splash-splash-splash
"Cheater," Hannah laughed, and followed him.
oooo
Fiona couldn't sleep.
She was back in her own flat and out of cheap motels, but somehow, the normality
of her own bed seemed unfamiliar. Sprocket, her enormously fat calico cat, was
cutting off circulation to her lower body and purring like a chainsaw. Sprocket
had no conception of the secret wizarding underground community that flagrantly
flouted the laws of the land, with its secret laws and secret courts and secret
police. And its own secret underground criminal organization of black-robed,
Ringwraith-wannabe, 'dark' wizards and witches. As if the regular,
memory-stealing witches and wizards weren't bad enough.
Her answering machine had been full of messages when she'd returned. The
higher-ups down at the station wanted to talk about her missing her mandatory
counselling. Her mother wanted to know what she'd been up to lately, and why she
hadn't called. Her landlord said her rent was past due.
Fiona rolled over, sending a disgruntled Sprocket rolling onto her back. The cat
shot her a dirty look and sauntered off out of the bedroom, likely in search of
any food Fiona might have left lying around the evening before.
Page 732

None of it made any sense. She wasn't even sure why she was still digging at
this. Once, she might have harboured illusions that she could simply find
whoever was at the top of the little wizard community, cuff them, bring them
round to the station, and be rid of all of this. But there didn't seem to be any
one person who was the lynchpin of the secret underground magical world. It was
systemic. Undefeatable.
Even if she did manage to arrest the people responsible for taking her memories,
she couldn't very well charge them with anything. Nothing that would stand up in
court, anyway. And if it miraculously did, no prison could hold a wizard or
witch, anyway. Even without a wand, there was nothing stopping one of their
mates from just popping in, snatching them, and popping out again with no-one
the wiser. Or mind-controlling the prison guards. Or the judge and jury, for
that matter.
Not that it would ever get that far, because this whole Sirius Black thing
revealed that the Muggle government was co-operating with the wizarding one at
some level. God, she hated that word. Muggle. Why did non-magical people need a
special name? They were just ordinary people.
Fiona rolled over again to try to get comfortable, but only succeeded in
tangling her face in her hair, which was getting way too long. When was the last
time she'd got it cut? For that matter, when was the last time she'd washed it?
A faint creak pulled her out of her reverie, followed by a sort of quiet
mechanical noise that Fiona didn't immediately recognize. She frowned, and
pulled herself out of bed.
"Sprocket?" she murmured.
"certain this is the correct hovel?" asked a voice like silk slick with oil.
Fiona frozesomeone was in her flat. The sound earlier must have been her lock
being jimmied.
(And they called it a hovel. Who the heck does that?)
"Number 36, master. Just as it says in the Muggles' file," said a second voice,
this one low and raspy. Well, that settled any doubt in her mind about who it
might be: wizards. Were they here to take her memories again?
Fiona thought about her options. There were only two ways out of her bedroomthe
door to her little living room-slash-kitchen, and the window to the street,
three storeys below.
"What was that?" said a third voice, this one she did recognize: Alecto Carrow.
The witch who'd spotted her in Diagon Alley earlier.
Meaning these weren't Ministry goons, and they weren't after her memories. Fiona
crept towards the window. She'd only barely got away from these guys last time,
and she didn't want to risk it againespecially not with anyone who they deemed
worth calling 'master.' Probably this Malfoy guy that that kid told me about,
Page 733

she thought to herself. Was this revenge for the taxman thing?
"It was just a cat," said the oily voice.
The faint light shining through the crack in her bedroom door flashed red, and
for a moment, Fiona's blood turned to ice.
Sprocket. She'd gone into the living room.
Red magic means stun, right?
She thought of her stupid, fat, needy cat in the hands of those lunatics turned
her fear into anger.
It'd better mean stun.
"There's a second room," said the one with the oily voice. "She must be in
there. Alecto, stay here and cover the door."
Fiona frantically fiddled with her window's latch, trying to get it to open. The
blasted thing was older than dirt, and had been painted over at some point in
the past.
She heard footsteps approach her door.
Finally, the latch gave, and Fiona shoved the window open. The nighttime chill
cut through her flannel pajamas
"Did you hear that?"
Fiona practically leapt through the open window, grabbing the brick sill with
her cold hands. She'd originally intended to climb down to the street, or even
jump, but one glance downwards put paid to that plan. It was solid concrete
below her (save for a spiky, ironwork-and-brick fence, which was less than
heartening) and, aside from the little decorative brick rim running between the
windows of her flat, there was nothing to grab onto to climb down. Besides, she
wasn't about to leave her cat in the hands of these psychos. Instead, she
shimmied along the crumbly brick sill towards the window in her living room.
Behind her, she heard the door to her bedroom open fully as the two wizards
entered.
She risked a glance up through the window, and saw a robed, masked
witchpresumably Alectoholding a still Sprocket by one paw, poking her with her
wand.
Fiona took a deep breath, shifted her weight entirely onto one quickly-numbing
hand, and knocked once on the window with the other before grabbing the sill
again. She heard a soft thump that she guessed was Sprocket being put down
(Fiona winced internally at her poor choice of words), before realizing that
she'd staked her entire chances of survival on a move inspired by a comic book
she'd read when she was thirteen, and was just contemplating how mind-bogglingly
stupid that was, and if it was too late to risk the fall, when the window
Page 734

opened.
Alecto stuck her head out with her wand held out in front of her, which just
went to show that dark witches didn't read nearly enough Batman as kids.
Fiona shifted her left hand into a more secure position by reaching through the
now-open window and grabbing the ledge on the other side, then yanked Alecto by
the front of her robes with her right hand and pulled as hard as she could,
transferring as much of her weight as she could to the masked witch.
Alecto yelped as she tumbled out the window. Fiona let her dropnot that she had
a lot of choice; if she held on she'd just get pulled down with herand climbed
herself up into her living room.
She sprinted forwards, scooping Sprocket up from where she lay on the floor, and
out into the hall. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a bright green flash,
but seeing as how she didn't immediately die, she ignored it and kept running.
She heard footsteps behind her, but didn't waste time looking around. Either
they'd catch her or they wouldn't, but either way, she had no intention of
slowing down.
On her way to the stairsthere wasn't a snowball's chance that she was going to
wait for a lift with a pair of bloody evil sorcerers after hershe pulled the
fire alarm.
Stale water poured down around her to put out the imaginary fires as she ran
down the spiralling stairs. More importantly for her plans, however, were the
dozens of panicked Muggles (there was that word againit was creeping into her
own mind) who came running out of their rooms in varying states of undress, some
clutching valuables, others still pulling on dressing gowns. Fiona wasn't the
only one with a petone couple was trying to get their confused golden retriever
to follow them outsidethough she was the only one with twenty-five pounds of
soaking wet, catatonic cat clutched to her chest.
By the time Fiona reached the exit, she was already part of a growing mob of
people fleeing the building. Secrecy seemed to be pretty important to these
wizarding types, so she guessed her pursuers wouldn't try to make a move on her
while she was in such a public gathering.
There was no sign of Alecto on the ground outside, so Fiona guessed she'd either
landed in such a way as to be able to walk away, or had used magic somehow to
slow her descent.
From there, it was a simple matter to disappear into the night, cat held tight
to her chest, shivering in her soaked clothes.
oooo
Milo sat by himself in the Gryffindor Common Room with Thamior's disgusting,
bound-in-human-flesh spellbook in front of him. Everyone else had long since
gone to sleep, but Milo still had work to do. Mordy sat across from him on the
table, listening intently.
Page 735

"This is going to be a problem," Milo said. "The spells in this book are, with a
few exceptions, pretty much garbage. And touching it makes my Alignment shiver."
"So why don't you make a new one?" Mordy asked. He already knew the answer, of
course, but he understood that his job right now was as a sounding board
(without sounding bored). This was by far better than most jobs wizards found
for their familiars (which tended to be triggering traps from afar, or
delivering close-range spells to dangerous monsters), so he decided to throw
himself at it wholeheartedly.
Milo shuddered. "It takes a solid twenty-four hours to copy a spell from one
book to another," he said. "And a hundred pieces of gold per spell level. And it
takes weeks to research spells not present in the book. I don't have time for
that."
"But you get two free spells added to your book every time you level up," Mordy
said. "There's always the"
"Ugh," Milo said. "Not the Dementor plan." Keeping a trapped Dementor to bump
Milo down to just below the level up threshold in a controlled environment, so
he could repeatedly level and de-level, was just too dangerous for the payoff.
Not to mention that it would be hellish to experience.
"I don't see what the big problem is," Mordy said. "As long as your old
spellbook still existswhich it does, wherever it isyou can just use your
Uncanny Forethought to cast spells from it spontaneously. And there's always
Spontaneous Divination, which lets you switch any spell you have prepared for a
Divination spell."
"Divination spells won't fight off dark wizards," Milo said. "And Uncanny
Forethought only works a handful of times per day. It's not enough." No villain
Milo had ever before encountered had been low enough to take his spellbook away
from him, so he hadn't really had any precautions in place for this event. It
just wasn't done. "Maybe I should start tattooing spells to my body," Milo said.
"I think there were rules for that somewhere."
"Complete Arcane, if I'm not mistaken," Mordy added helpfully.
"Right," Milo said. What were the rules for that again? He really should have
taken the opportunity to drop by a bookstore in Myra (city of Light! City of
Magic!) to purchase the most recent set of rules available. The great western
coasts near the City were dotted with colleges and towers full of Wizards
working round-the-clock to push back the limits of the known rules of the
universe. One of them, somewhere, was probably working hard to publish an
updated version of the way tower shields, hiding, and cover interacted after
Milo forced the hand of the gods in his raid on the palace.
"But you probably don't want to do that," Mordy cautioned.
"Why not?" Milo asked.
Page 736

"Werrrrrllllll," Mordy said. "Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that
You-Know-Who, having lived in your brain and knowing your weaknesses, chose to
find and destroy your spellbook to keep you from refreshing your spells every
day. If the spells were in a book, well, he'd just burn the book. But if it was
written into your own skin"
"ugh," Milo said. "Consider your point made. Any day in which no-one tries to
flay me is a good day." He sighed. "If only I could figure out how Riddle made
that sentient book thingy. Then I could have a spellbook that could reconfigure
itself into whatever spells I wanted. That would be so cool."
"Might as well wish to be able to do magic with a wand," Mordy said. "I think
you'll just have to live with Thamior's spellbook for now, until you can figure
out a way to locate what he did with your old one."
Milo resisted the urge to bash his forehead against the table. De-levelled and
without a spellbook? "Maybe I had it backwards," he said. "Maybe this is the
afterlife. I died, and I'm in Wizard Hell."
"Cheer up, boss," Mordy said. "Look at the silver lining. You can take this
opportunity to more carefully think about your choices you made when you
levelled up. How many people can say they got to hit Level Nine twice?"
Milo shrugged. "I guess I could probably rethink my choice of Feat," he
admitted.
"and Prestige Class?" Mordy suggested.
"Why would I do that?" Milo asked. "Rainbow Servant is fantastic. No
prerequisites worth noting, no lost caster levelsremember, the text overrides
the table, and it clearly states you get spellcasting every leveland I get a
couple random abilities. Nothing fantastic until tenth level, of course, but
practically anything is better than going straight Wizard. A bonus Item Creation
or Metamagic Feat every five levels does not count as a Class Feature. Wizards
don't get anything else."
Mordy coughed, which was quite a feat in-and-of-itself, seeing as how rats,
generally speaking, can't. "Nothing?"
"Nope," Milo shrugged. "Nothing."
Mordy rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on. Your Familiari.e., megets new abilities
if you level up in Wizard!"
"Pffft," Milo said. "Better armour? If it seriously comes down to that, we're
already dead. And what elseoh, yeah. Spell Resistance. Need I remind you that
I'm the only person in this entire universe that your Spell Resistance would
protect you against? Which conflicts with the only other thing, that being the
ability for me to cast Scrying on you for free now and then."
"Don't forget the ability to talk to other rats," Mordy added.
Page 737

Milo rolled his eyes in a manner eerily similar to how Mordy had done a moment
ago. "The only other rat around here is Scabbers," Milo said. "And I can't
imagine you'd want to hear anything he has to say."
"But"
"Don't make me order you to go patrolling for more hidden Explosive Runes," Milo
threatened. Mordy sighed, and dropped the issue.
oooo
"She got away," Lucius Malfoy said. It wasn't a question.
He surveyed the crowd outside. In a few minutes, the Muggles' authorities would
arrive, and they'd search the building.
"I bloody well know she bloody well bloody got a-bloody-way," Alecto muttered.
"She threw me out the bloody window!"
"She took her cat with her, too," Avery added.
"Shame," Alecto said, hefting an iron poker from the fireplace. "Amycus's
guitar" As she spoke, she smashed a china teapot sitting on the mantle on the
off chance that it was an antique. "needs new strings."
"I think it may be safe to say that we underestimated her," Lucius said.
"Amycus"
"I'm Alecto," Alecto corrected, gathering as many treasured family photos as she
could find and dumping them into the fireplace, which she lit with her wand.
"Actually, I meant to say Avery. My apologies." Lucius said. Why must all of my
followers have names that begin with the same letter? I'd bet Dumbledore never
has this problem. "Would you search this residence for anything that looks
like a diary or notebook?" Lucius frowned. The Ministry would have done that the
last time they'd erased her memory, as would Lockhart. "Actually, instead,
locate any Muggle device that has a purpose you don't recognize and pile it
somewhere out of the water. We'll Apparate it out with us when we're done."
Clearly, the usual tricks to keep her memory erased hadn't worked. She had to
have done something that was beyond the capabilities of the Obliviators to
understand.
"Er of course," Avery said, clearly not understanding, but complying
nevertheless.
Alecto located a filing cabinet full of what she guessed was critically
important, difficult-to-replace documentationthings like tax records, insurance
information, identification, a birth certificateand set that on fire, too.
"Oh, Alecto, do stop that," Lucius said. "It's unprofessional."
"I'm going to skin her alive," Alecto muttered, smashing some sort of martial
Page 738

arts trophy into dust with the iron rod. "Then I'll give her Polyjuice and turn
her back into herself so I can do it again."
"Alecto" Lucius frowned. Did Polyjuice even work that way? He'd have to write
Snape and ask.
"She threw me out a window!" Alecto snarled. "So don't tell me not to have a
little revenge!"
Lucius rolled his eyes. "Alecto, there's no point in destroying her
possessions"
Alecto rounded on Lucius, her teeth clenched.
"because we're burning this place to the ground when we're done," Lucius
finished. There were a few marginally pragmatic reasons for this, such as
covering their tracks and inconveniencing his enemy. But none of those were the
reason why he was doing this.
"Oh," Alecto paused. A series of emotions flashed across her face, not all of
which Lucius recognized, and, of those, some of which he wished he had not.
"Good."
The simple fact of it was that, with Bellatrix around again, he needed the Death
Eaters on his side. An occasional act of arson now and again was a small price
to pay to ensure Alecto's loyalty.
"We'll find her," Lucius said. "But for now, we'll go to the next Muggle on the
list."
SD 18: A Better Story
Chapter Eighteen: A Better StoryA beat-up brown sedan pulled up next to the
glass phonebooth, and Fiona practically leapt at the door. She found herself
unable to manage even the simple mechanism with her numb fingers, however, and
would have screamed in frustration had her chattering teeth not prevented her.
The man inside reached over and opened the door for her, and Fiona crawled
inside, holding the still-unmoving Sprocket close to her chest.
"Jesus, Fiona," Travis said, stifling a yawn. "You look like Hell. What
happened?"
"One m-m-m-minute," Fiona said, closing the door behind her and turning the
car's heater to max. She tried breathing on her hands to warm them up, but
couldn't tell if it was working.
Page 739

"That hasn't worked since the mid-eighties," Travis said, passing her a brown
paper bag and a thermos.
"W-what's this?" Fiona shivered.
"Coffee and a donut," Travis said. He reached over and unscrewed the thermos's
lid for her.
"M-m-marry me," Fiona said, attacking the coffee in a way not unlike a grayscale
Dracula might go after some screaming maiden's neck. She was starting to regain
feeling in her extremities, and almost wished she wasn't. Her bare feet,
especially, were so cold they hurt.
Travis simply chuckled. "So what's going on?" he asked. "And where are we
going?"
"Ringwraiths jumped me in my sleep," she said between sips. "Barely got away.
Not Batman fans. Begged 20p from a homeless woman to use the payphone. Aware of
irony."
"It's finally happening, isn't it?" Travis said. "They're coming after us."
Fiona nodded. "They made me in London this afternoon," she said. Glancing at the
car's clock, she corrected herself. "Yesterday afternoon." She buckled on her
seatbelt. "Swing by my place," she said. "I think they'll have cleared out."
"Why's that?" Travis asked.
"One of them had the police file on the London incident," Fiona said. "I wasn't
the only one who was there that night. I think they're going after the others.
We need to make some calls."
They sat in silence as Travis drove. Fiona absently stroked Sprocket's fur, and
glanced at the rear-view mirrors every few moments. She wasn't sure what she
expected to seeas far as she knew, wizards and witches didn't drivebut it made
her feel better. Marginally.
Sprocket flicked her ears on her own accord, which was encouraging.
It was while Fiona was looking for pursuers that she noticed something odd.
"Hey, Travis"
"I think anyone on the run from supernatural forces with me is allowed to call
me Evan," Travis said.
Fiona rolled her eyes. "It's not my fault you have two first names," she said.
They were partners for three months before she learned Travis wasn't his first
name. It's how she thought of him, and it was far too late to change it.
"Seriously, though. Doesn't something strike you as odd about the tops of those
buildings?" She pointed at the row of closed, single-storey shops they drove
past, silhouetted by a vaguely sooty orange glow.
Page 740

Travis frowned, looking past Fiona out the side window. "Dunno," he said. "Same
as ever."
"Yeah, but" Fiona frowned. "We can see them. We shouldn't be able to; it's past
midnight. It's almost as if" She glanced out the other window; the rooftops
were invisible in the darkness. There was only one thing that Fiona could think
of that would backlight the skyline like that at this time of night.
As they approached her flat, her worst suspicions were realized.
The fire department was already on-site, of courseFiona had pulled the alarm
the better part of an hour ago, after allbut they should have left after they
realized it was a false alarm.
Of course, at the time Fiona had triggered the alarm, there hadn't actually been
a fire.
The street was cordoned off a safe distance in every direction as the firemen
and women desperately tried to put out the inferno. Flames poured out of every
window of what was once Fiona's apartment building, apparently unhindered by the
efforts of the emergency services.
The buildings on either side of hers, which were built right up against it,
were, in defiance of all logic, completely untouched. It may have been Fiona's
imagination, but she thought she saw the occasional green or purple spark among
the fires.
Bloody wizards.
"Fiona, I" Travis said hesitantly. "I'm so sorry."
She'd lived in that flat since she'd first come to Staines as a probationary
constable almost five years ago. It was cramped, the rent was exorbitant, and
the plumbing was unreliable, but it had been the first place that was really
hers.
And now it was gone.
Fiona took a deep breath and tried to still her emotions. She could yell and
scream and cry about this later, but for now, she needed to focus.
"Get us away from here," she said. "We'll go to your place and call Hannigan;
tell him to warn the others. Neither of you were in the actual raid, so I don't
think they'll be coming after you. At least not at first."
"Well, that's bloody reassuring," Travis muttered, putting his car into reverse.
The drive to Travis's home was uneventful. Fiona attempted to bite her nails,
but was greeted with little success; at some point in the last few days, she'd
chewed them to the quick without realizing.
She felt like her mind was running in circles. What was she going to do? She'd
Page 741

lost her home and, likely, her job. Not to mention her ID, birth certificate,
passport, credit cards. She shuddered at the nightmare she would have to go
through to get those back you needed a birth certificate to get a passport, and
you needed ID to get a replacement birth certificate ugh. And, knowing the
wizarding world was out there, she doubted she'd be able to hold down another
one. How were you supposed to work a nine-to-five knowing what she did?
Alsoand this was quite a big 'also'they were trying to kill her. What could
she possibly do to prevent that from happening? She wanted to live, dammit. She
couldn't arrest them; they'd just magic their way out. She couldn't offer them
anything they couldn't just use magic to get for themselves. She couldn't even
go full vigilante and kill themeven if she had it in her, which she
didn'tbecause she wasn't even sure who 'they' were, save that there were a heck
of a lot of them. A fight was out of the question. In London last year, they'd
managed to fight the wizards and witches to a draw, at best, and it had been at
a terrible cost. Almost everyone who was 'in the know' had either sought an
early retirement, like Hannigan, or moved on with their life, like Travis. Or
died fighting, like Buckley, McTavish, Gibson, and Rose.
To Fiona's surprise, Travis pulled up in front of a cute little two-storey house
in Little Whinging.
"Try to keep quiet," Travis said, opening the door and climbing out.
Quiet? Why would oh. Fiona couldn't help it; the corners of her mouth quirked
up involuntarily. "You live with your parents?" She blinked. "No wonder you
always tried to get out of doing the night shift!" she laughed as she closed the
door behind her. "You're on a curfew."
Travis pulled himself up to his full height, and declared in his most dignified
voice, "For your information, it was lifted when I made sergeant."
"Well," Fiona said with a perfectly straight face, following him to the door.
"As the man said: 'With great power, comes great responsibility.' But I'm sure
you're up to it."
Travis rolled his eyes and unlocked the door. Standing just on the other side of
the door, with her hand held out as if she was just about to turn the knob, was
a middle-aged woman wearing a baby blue dressing gown. Travis's mother,
presumably. She peered at the two of them through what were, quite possibly, the
thickest glasses Fiona had ever seen.
"Evan?" she asked. "What"
Travis coughed. "This is Fiona, Mum," he said. "Police Sergeant Fiona Smythe,
that is. Fiona, this is my mum."
Travis's mother gasped. "This is Fiona?" she asked. She gave Travis a
conspiratorial look. "That Fiona?"
Travis's cheeks coloured slightly, and Fiona found herself what, exactly was
entailed in being 'that Fiona.' "I have to make a phone call, Mum," Travis said.
Page 742

"It's urgent."
"Oh, of course, don't mind me," Travis's mother said. "Just try to keep your
voice downyour father is still in bed. I'll just have a chat with Fiona here
while you do." A look of horror dawned on Travis's face at this prospect, but he
evidently chose flight over fight, and, in the blink of an eye, he'd vanished.
"Would you like a cup of tea, dear?" Travis's mother asked, leading her to the
kitchen. "Or, ah, something stronger?"
"Tea would be fantastic" Fiona found herself in the impossible situation
familiar to all early twenty-somethings, and the odd late teen: what on God's
green Earth do you call your friends' parents? As a child, of course, the answer
was obvious: Mr. and Mrs. Last Name, respectively. But now, as an adult, you
were to call a fellow adult by their first name in familiar situations. Did this
count as a familiar situation? Moreover, what was her first name? But it felt
wrong claiming to be on equal terms both with a friend and their parents. And
could she really call Travis's mother by her first name while she habitually
called Travis himself by his last? Fiona took a stab at it, hoping she'd made
the right call. "Mrs. Travis."
"Oh, call me Olive," she replied, fishing out a pair of orange pekoe tea bags
from a cupboard. Damn, Fiona thought. Swing and a miss. "So," Olive said with
exaggerated casualness, "what brings you to our house? I hope I wasn't, ah,
interrupting anything."
Fiona felt her cheeks heat up. "No, no!" she protested. "Nothing like that!"
"Right, sorry, 'course," she said. "It's just that Evan talks about you all the
time, and he's never brought home a lady before, so, I sort of figured"
"Oh, god" Fiona ran her fingers through her hair. "Probably nothing good."
"On the contrary," Olive said. The kettle whistledit must have already been on
before Fiona and Travis had got here. "He says you're the reason he made
sergeant."
"Course," Fiona said. "By getting sacked." As good as, anyway. Olive put a cup
of tea in front of her, and Fiona took a sip, enjoying the feeling as the warmth
from the mug spread through her hands. She was beginning to feel like she might,
one day in the future, possibly feel warm again.
"He says you were his inspiration," Olive said. "He says you're the most
dedicated person he's ever met."
Fiona choked on her tea. "He said what?"
"Mmm-hmmm," Olive said. "And more, besides. But if you're not, you know,
together, then what well"
"What am I doing here in the middle of the night in my jammies?" Fiona
suggested.
Page 743

"Well. Yes."
Fiona took another sip of tea. "My flat burned down," she said. "Just me and my
cat that got out. Traviser, Evanwas kind enough to come pick me up."
Olive gasped. "That's terrible! Do you have anywhere to stay? We have an extra
bedroom, ever since Julie ran off with that Frenchman."
"I thought TrEvan said that his sister lives in Montreal?"
"Aye," Olive said.
"Montreal, where her husband is from."
"Aye."
"Montreal in Quebec."
"Aye."
Fiona dropped the issue. "I'm not staying," she said. She couldn't put this
family at risk any longer. She might already have stayed too long. "I have to go
to London."
"Well, then, at least let me give you some clothes," Olive said. "We can't have
you running around like that. Julie was about your size, anyway."
Despite distantly recalling politely declining Olive's kind offer, Fiona
nevertheless found herself, a few minutes later, in a practical, if
unfashionable, wool sweater and jeans that were only a little oversized. A
moment later, and Sprocket had been fetched from the car, wrapped in warm
towels, and put on a sofa next to an open can of tuna and a bowl of water.
"Is she quite all right?" Olive asked, poking the catatonic (cat-atonic?) cat.
"Just sleeping," Fiona said.
"Of course," Olive said, failing to conceal her skepticism.
Travis returned, having finished his phone call. His face was ashen, and he had
a black backpack slung across his shoulder. "Er, Mum, mind if Fiona and I"
"Say no more, say no more," Olive said, giving Fiona a wink. "I'll just be
heading to bed, then. Got an early morning tomorrow."
As Olive left, Travis sat down at the table across from Fiona. His look said
everything Fiona needed to know.
"It didn't go well," she said.
Travis shook his head. "I managed to reach Hannigan," he said. "And he said he'd
Page 744

keep trying to call the others. But"
"No answer from Lyndon, Baldwin, or Cooper?"
By way of answer, Travis only sighed.
"They could just be asleep," Fiona said.
"Yeah," Travis answered. "I called them each about a dozen times, but it's
possible."
"Or they could have got away, like me," Fiona said.
"Possible," Travis said.
Fiona sighed. "I suppose we'll read about it in the papers tomorrow if not."
Travis nodded.
Fiona stared into her teacup. Could this have been avoided if she'd asked Travis
to start calling the others before coming to pick her up? Or would it already
have been too late? She hadn't been thinking clearly. It felt like it had been
ages since she had been thinking clearly. If she'd let this whole issue alone,
and hadn't ventured into Diagon Alley yesterdaywas it yesterday?would the
London police have been safe?
For that matter, if she'd simply ignored her fantastical digital police report
so many months ago, or written it off as a prank, how many would still be alive?
Travis reached his hand across the table and placed it on hers.
"Hey," he said. "We don't know what happened. We don't know if they're out for
blood, or taking hostages. We don't know if they succeeded. We don't know if
they're even going after the other coppers at all."
"But what if they did?" Fiona asked in a small voice. "I could have just left
this alone. This is all my"
"Hey," Travis said, more firmly. "Do I look like a child to you?"
Fiona blinked. "No," she said. "Of course n"
"What about McTavish?"
"N"
"Did you cuff Lyndon and drag her in with you?"
"Obviously not."
"Everyone who was there in London that day knew the risks," Travis said. "They
knew what they were going up against. They knew that even if it was successful,
Page 745

it could get them sacked. They knew what would happen if they weren't. Hell, the
London blokes were Authorized Firearms Officers. They knew from day one that
there would be danger."
Fiona swirled her tea around. "Nobody knew, really knew, what was going to
happen that night," she said. "Heck, they took our memories. We still don't. So
don't tell me they knew the risks."
"We got the kids back," Travis said. "We know that."
Fiona continued staring into her rapidly-cooling teacup for several silent
minutes.
"So," Travis said, finally. "What do we do now?"
Fiona shrugged. "How should I know?"
"You always know. We've followed your lead, right from the start. I don't intend
to stop now."
"Fat lot of good it did us."
"Don't give me that, Fiona. You already have a plan, and you know it."
Travis was right. She wasn't certain when she'd devised it, but she did have a
planshe'd even told Olive the first step in it.
"It's dangerous," Fiona said.
Travis rolled his eyes. "Tell me something new."
"And I'll have to ask you to do something really hard," Fiona said. "You won't
like it."
"Anything," Travis said without a moment of hesitation.
Fiona took a deep breath. "You need to sit this one out," she said.
"Absolutely not," Travis said. "We're in this together."
"But we're not," Fiona said. "I went into that tenement, not you. They saw me,
not you. They came after me, not you. They know my name, not yours."
Travis recoiled as if she'd slapped him in the face.
"You're out of it for now," Fiona said. "There's no reason not to keep it that
way."
"I can make my own choices," Travis said. "I'm not afraid."
"You live with your family, Travis," Fiona said. "You'd be putting them at risk,
too. Please. I won't let anyone else die because of me."
Page 746

Travis stared intently at the surface of the table, visibly wrestling with
himself.
"Fine," he said. "I won't get involved. Personally. But I'm still helping. This
is non-negotiable."
Fiona blinked.
"Even if it's only manning the phone, or looking after Sprocket, or keeping an
ear to the ground. Here," he said, passing her the black backpack. "I kept this
packed in case I had to leave in a hurry. It's got a first-aid kit, flashlight,
a couple of meal replacement bars apparently made by sadists, and a few other
knick-knacks. Some money. Not a lot. Wizard gold, too. I don't know what you're
planning, but I doubt you can do it without lunch and gas money."
"Thank you," Fiona said, and she meant it. She blinked again. "Gas money? I
don't have a car."
"Keys are in the bag," Travis said. "Bring it back when you're done. Er. And get
a good running start before going up a hill. But be gentle with it otherwise, in
case you need a lot of car in a hurry. And don't try to turn on the radio unless
you have a fire extinguisher on hand."
"Thanks," Fiona said again, slinging the bag over her shoulder. "Best not get
pulled over," she flashed a grin. "My license is likely ash on some bloke's roof
now." She put down the teacup. "I should go," she said, standing up. "Staying
here will only put your family in danger."
Travis nodded, following her to the front door. He opened his mouth as if to say
something, but hesitated. "Good hunting," he said eventually.
"Um," Fiona said, standing awkwardly on the porch. "I'm probably going to get
sacked," she said.
"Nothing is certain," Travis said.
"No, it's fine. I've earned it. The point is" She looked away. She was no good
at this. Joint locks and truncheons were much more her thing. "The point is, we
won't be co-workers. And even if we are, I don't outrank you anymore."
Travis cocked his head sideways, clearly not following where this conversation
was going.
"So, um," she said.
Travis blinked. Bloody useless, Fiona thought to herself.
"So, when I get back do you want to, maybe, I dunno" Just suck it up and do it
already. "Grab a drink sometime?"
"We do that all the time," Travis said. "We did that last Wednesday, actually."
Page 747

"No, I mean" Arghhhhh. Fiona ran her fingers through her hair again. She felt
like a bloody teenager. "You know. You and me."
"Sure," Travis said. "Only next Wednesday I can't; told Mum I'd look after my
nephew."
"Jesus bloody Christ in bloody Heaven," Fiona muttered to herself. She raised
her voice. "Look. I'm, damn well asking you out, you great lout."
Travis' eyes bulged practically out of their sockets. "Out? Like, out-out?"
"Yes, bloody out-out. Life's short and I'll probably be killed by Tim the ruddy
enchanter before then anyway. So what'll it be?"
"Um. Yes. Absolutely."
"Good," Fiona said. She stood there for a minute, feeling awkward. "I'll, um, be
going now."
"Okay," Travis said. He looked like a person whose grip on reality was becoming
increasingly shaky. "Um. Bye, then."
"Bye," Fiona said, and double-timed it to the car. In all the chaos, confusion,
and fear, one thing was for certain: she was never, ever, ever telling another
living soul about how that particular conversation went down. Fortunately, she'd
have a long, solitary drive to London to work out a better story, or at least a
less embarrassing one, in case any of her mates on the force asked.
Page 748

Harry Potter and The Natural 20 - Sir Poley

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Harry Potter and the Natural 20 - Sir Poley

Milo, a genre-savvy D&D Wizard and Adventurer Extraordinaire is forced to attend