Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Bloody Skies	By : TokiMirage Category: Harry Potter AU/AR > Slash - Male/Male Views: 44832 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: JKRowling owns Harry Potter. Everything else is mine. I do not make any money writing this fic.

Chapter List
- 25
- 26
- 27
Bloody Skies
oOo
Chapter Twenty-Six:
oOo
That was it. Cyrus hated this stupid Runes project. He'd taken one look at his original idea – creating a new ward – and had promptly abandoned it when he realized exactly how far he was out of his depth. The second idea wasn't much better. Cussing, he leaned back against his chair with an explosive sigh and tossed the runes book onto the library table with disgust, ignoring the disapproving and annoyed looks sent in his direction. What was it with thousand-year-old fogies writing in the most boring style imaginable? Half of this crap he couldn't understand because he had to look shit up in reference books. And then he had to look up shit in the reference books.
How was he supposed to write a somewhat-intelligent essay when the best source he could find was written by some guy who didn't even have a vowel in his name. Who the hell had a vowel-less name? Apparently Blrvchmvk had been from a culture of miniature dwarves that had been wiped out in a Realm War more than a millennium ago. And then there was the fact that whoever had translated the book really didn't have a good grasp of English. It was worse than trying to decode Ron's handwriting.
Crossing his arms on the table, he let his head fall forward to rest on them, trying to get his brain back into gear. What was so hard about self-floatation? Brooms could fly, you could levitate people into the bloody air, and yet no one had figured out how to fly themselves around yet? Maybe they were satisfied with the creation of brooms. Well, Cyrus could understand Wizarding society being satisfied with that, but Other Realm too? Maybe with all the beings that could fly around with wings no one particularly cared.
Apparently no one else had flying dreams as kid. Or the dream didn't last long enough for them to choose a career path where they could figure out how, and because of that, Cyrus only had a series of badly-translated journals to work with. Then there was the fact that Blrvchmvk had been a magical physicist when not much was actually known about physics. Why had no one pursued the idea of self-flotation? He'd probably have better luck learning every levitation charm in existence, casting them with his rune sight activated, and then picking them apart until he figured out how they ticked.
Actually… that wasn't a bad idea.
Bursting out of his chair, Cyrus packed up all his stuff and apparated directly to his room, finally motivated now that he'd figured out where to start. Half of the marks for the project came from writing a journal with all your ideas, thoughts, obstacles, and work in it, after all. Even if he failed to make a spell to float a person, he'd get the points for doing all the work and deepening his understanding of the spell framework, which was the point of the project in the first place.
Grabbing one of his large, canvas-sized notebooks from the space between his bookcase and wall, he put it on the table and summoned a bottle of ink from his backpack. With a flick of his wrist, his phoenix feather wand was in his hand, and he silently cast the simplest levitation spell he knew.
It caught the fruit bowl on the table in its grasp and lifted it up into the air. Opening the bottle of ink with an absent wave of his left hand, he cast a spell that was closely related to the enchantments cast on things like the quick-quotes quill. A Runes Master around a hundred years ago had invented it when he got sick of transcribing every single ward he had to break by hand. The spell was directly connected to the will of the user, just like any piece of magic really, except it interpreted the users thoughts even more specifically than say, the accio spell. And while Rita Skeeter's favorite quill was useful, it was limited to voice activation and transcription of spoken language, and the problem with Runes was that it was only a written language. Sure, some of the structures had names to describe what they were, but the individual runes didn't have special names, only meanings, because giving them a name was pointless.
Dumping the bottle of ink over the paper, he watched as the spell caught the liquid and made it float above the surface. Seeing that it was working properly, he ignored it and started reading through the levitation charm in front of him. As his brain acknowledged and 'read' each rune, the spell on the paper moved the ink to match. It was an interesting process of which he didn't completely understand the intricacies, but he was happy enough with it just working for him.
It took him five minutes to read through the entire levitation charm and then double check that he hadn't missed anything. Maneuvering the fruit bowl back onto the counter, he deactivated his rune sight and glanced over the large paper in front of him.
The ink was still floating, formed into an exact replica of the levitation charm he'd just finished examining. Smiling triumphantly, he cast the second half of the spell that let the ink settle into the paper and admired his handiwork. Glad that he'd had the foresight to learn the spell before he actually needed it for something, he wandlessly tore the large sheet of paper from the book and settled it on the floor beside him.
It was nearly two hours later when he'd finished casting every single mobility charm, spell, or curse that he knew of. Happy with the pool of spells from which he could extrapolate ideas and draw comparisons, he rolled up the spell sheets and tucked them away into his trunk, where he knew no one would be able to get at them. He had other homework to do, but he felt a lot better now that he'd actually made some headway on the project he'd been procrastinating.
Unfortunately, twenty minutes into his Healing homework he got a call. Letting out an irritated sigh, he checked the number and frowned when he didn't recognize it. Who was calling him?
"Hello?" he spoke into the receiver after he'd flipped it open and accepted the call.
"Obsidian? It's Caylor."
Cyrus's eyelids fell closed and he slouched in his seat. Great. "Hey." When had the werewolf gotten his magi-com number? Maybe Remus had given it to them. It made sense that they wouldn't always have the time to get Xanthir to find Cyrus and bring him over.
"We have a bit of a situation over here. I need you to come immediately."
Alphas and their demanding nature. "What are the injuries?" he asked, already up on his feet and getting some stuff together. He'd put a healing kit together when it occurred to him that it might be a smart idea to have supplies, and he added bits to it every time he went shopping. In fact, later on that week he had to go pick up some supplies for Svea that he'd ordered on Monday, and while he was at it he was planning to pick up some more healing materials.
He grabbed the duffel bag from underneath the foot of his bed.
"We have a few poisonings and… an inferius bite."
Cyrus cussed under his breath. Shit. Those had to be dealt with quickly. Since his own unfortunate experience with a zombie bite (which Svea told him he'd been very lucky to survive), he'd done some research and asked the Healer some questions on how to properly heal the bites. Apparently there were more ways than one. "I'll have to deal with the zombie bite first. Are they in the usual healing room?"
There was a moment of silence, and then Caylor grunted. "Yes."
Cyrus nodded, then remembered the werewolf couldn't exactly see him. "Right. I'll be there in a few seconds." He hung up and disapparated.
The room he arrived in was chaotic, to say the least. A few seconds after they all realized he was there, however, they clamored for his attention. Cyrus narrowed his eyes. "Calm the hell down!" he barked, getting a headache from all their yammering and agitated magic. Ever since he'd come back from that week with Gyrdrich, he'd noticed he was far more sensitive to those kinds of things. "Where's the zombie bite? I need to deal with that first."
Thankfully, one of the men in the room had the common sense to snap out of his headless chicken behavior and lead him over to a patient that wasn't looking very good in the least. Cursing, Cyrus placed his bag down and pulled the blankets away from the open and blackened wound. This… did not look good. A flick of his wrist opened the duffel bag and another brought a bottle of disinfectant to his hand. The muggle method of disinfecting was actually a lot more efficient than magically, because magic didn't see germs in the same way that humans did. The spells they did have weren't all that efficient, either.
After cleaning his hands thoroughly, he summoned the bottle of peroxide and wandlessly opened it and maneuvered the liquid into the air. It was easier for him to do everything wandlessly, as he wouldn't have to keep disinfecting his hands every time he touched something. Moving quickly, he cast a restraining spell on the woman and dumped the peroxide on the open wound before the werewolf knew what hit her.
She screamed, and Cyrus ignored it. The great thing about peroxide and zombie bites was that the muggle disinfectant actually helped lift the hold the death magic had on the flesh. Cyrus had no idea why, as he'd basically blanked out when Svea started talking about chemistry and weird compound-whatsits, but as far as he was concerned, if it worked who cared why? That was for people like Hermione and Svea to figure out.
After he'd thoroughly cleaned the wound, he put the bottle back in his duffel bag and started the painfully annoying process of yanking the death magic from the wound and forcing it back into nature. Svea himself neutralized the death magic with a special kind of healing magic that was its direct opposite, but Cyrus hadn't really had the time to spend four months learning how to produce it himself, so he settled for the other viable options. One, he could 'eat' the death magic, or two, he could cycle it back into the earth like he'd learned from Gyrdrich. The second option was better because he could manipulate the flow of death energies outside himself without having to completely change which core he was working with. It was impossible to heal when he had death magic flowing through his channels. When Gyrdrich had first discovered the way Cyrus's body dealt with its large quantities of magic, he found it fascinating. According to the little fire demon, most people could access both cores whenever they wished with no problems.
Just one more thing that made Cyrus weird, he supposed.
Drawing the death magic out of the wound, he cycled it back into nature before it could act up and get pissy with him at being pulled from its food. One of the behaviors of death magic was that it absolutely loved to eat living things. If it had living energy, death magic in its natural form would consume it without a pause. That was why zombie bites were so dangerous. If it 'ate' enough living energy in you, you basically turned into something worse than a corpse.
Once he'd finished ripping the stubborn death magic from the woman's arm, he focused on bringing as much life energy back to the dead flesh as possible by doing a mix of cycling blood through the wound and nudging the cells in the right direction with his magic. One of the things he'd learned about magic, life, and healing during his time at Shikaan was that as long as the soul was still in the body, a shit load of things could be fixed, no matter how mangled the body. If the soul left, you had a corpse on your hands, but if you caught before then, a team of healers could pull somebody back from the brink. Cyrus's brain had nearly exploded when he first learned that this was possible and Svea had taught it to them in class to help increase the life expectancy of their patients.
Having finished bringing life back to the dead flesh, he knitted the ravaged bite back together, reconnecting the broken capillaries as he went. A few minutes later, the wound was completely healed, though Cyrus wrapped it with a bandage anyway and told the sweating woman to be careful with it for a few days until the flesh set and didn't rip back open.
Letting out a sigh, already feeling a little tired from the healing, Cyrus pulled himself out of the chair and went to find the next patient. He spent the next four hours healing people, and by the time he was allowed to leave, it was nearly midnight and he was not a happy camper. One of the poisoned pack members had died because he wouldn't let Cyrus heal him before taking care of his daughter.
Letting out a tired sigh, he dumped his duffel bag at the foot of his bed and stripped, crawling under the covers in only his suit. He didn't even want to think about the homework that hadn't gotten done that night.
oOo
"TARA!"
Cyrus snapped awake in moments, dazed and confused as to why Xanthir was pitching a fit in his bedroom on a Wednesday morning. Then he saw Tara underneath the covers with him. Groaning, he rolled over. "Take it outside!" he snapped, wanting to get a little more sleep before facing reality that morning.
"Aw, is little Cy-Cy tuckered out from a long, steamy night of-"
"He was with the pack last night, Tara!" Xanthir shouted again, irritation rising to new heights.
"Oooh, gang bang?"
Cyrus removed the troublesome vampire from his bed with a well-aimed foot. Unfortunately, she took his blanket with her. Cold, annoyed, and not in the mood for crap, he blew up his table with a wandless Reducto. Xanthir had to drop to the floor to avoid the shrapnel, but unfortunately Tara was already protected by his bed. In the ensuing silence, Cyrus sat up with a glare on his face. "Now. What the hell are the two of you doing making a racket in my bedroom, at-" he checked the time, "5 in the morning."
Xanthir looked like a kicked puppy. "Tara super glued my ass cheeks together."
Cyrus stared at him for a whole ten seconds of disbelief before turning to Tara, who had peaked her head up from behind his bed with a grin. "Seriously?" he asked her, beginning to wonder why he still questioned her bouts of insani- er, immaturity.
She just cackled quietly, ominously, and vanished into the shadow on the floor. Xanthir cursed in at least five different languages before he ran out the door and tried to find her again.
As soon as he was well and truly gone, Tara reappeared from the shadow of his bed and plopped back onto his mattress, yanking the blanket up and over her with a happy sigh. "He won't be back for a while," she said, snickering to herself.
Cyrus gave her a Look.
Her expression was one of pure innocence. He didn't believe it for a second. "So Cyrus, how are things? You have a good time last night?" her smile morphed into a fanged grin.
Cyrus snorted. "If you call healing for five hours straight a 'good time'."
Her eyebrows rose. "Really? Five hours? Ouch. That must have sucked. What happened?"
The human shrugged. "I dunno. They never tell me that stuff. There was one zombie bite and more poisonings."
"Aaah. The Dorcas poison. Anyone die?"
"Yeah."
"That blows. On the bright side, did you know that they finally caught the bastard supplying it?"
Cyrus took in a startled breath and choked on his own spit. Using magic, he flushed the liquid out of his trachea. "Are you serious? How- when the hell did that happen?"
She grinned. "Late last night. I wanted to tell you then, actually, but you were knocked out."
"So, what happened?" he prodded when she paused dramatically.
She pouted. "Can't a woman tell a story at her own pace? Yeesh. I shouldn't even be telling you, technically, but we all went to Dorcas's together and you deserve to know as much as anyone. He's in the custody of the Bast clan, and we're trying to get information out of him. So far the interrogators have nothing, but they're hopeful they can crack him. If we nip this in the bud, we'll also have the werewolves owing us one."
Cyrus made a thoughtful sound. "So, how does that work exactly? How can an entire species be in the debt of another?"
Tara shrugged. "I have no fuckin' clue how it works. Usually the High Priests and Lady Bast deal with that shit, though. I just know about this 'cause my aunt's an attorney and pretty important."
Cyrus hummed. It wasn't often that Tara shared anything about herself with him. It wasn't much, but now he knew that her aunt had some political clout in the clan. Why Tara didn't herself, though… that was something he hadn't figured out yet.
Sighing, he pushed himself into a sitting position. Damnit. He was wide-awake now. No point in trying to go back to sleep.
oOo
He got a call halfway through Runes class from Remus, and had to cast a silencing ward around him so he could answer it. Rivehn gave him a Look, but Cyrus knew that Remus wouldn't call him during a class unless it was important. The werewolf had his schedule.
"Uh, Remus?"
"Oh good, you picked up. Severus and I won't be at Spinner's End anymore, just so you know."
Cyrus blinked. "Huh? What happened?"
"Dumbledore paid us a visit. When we wouldn't tell him where you were, we had to make a quick getaway through the shadows. He- there's something he wants to tell you about. Said it was important. He threatened us when we wouldn't give him any information."
"Shit. What kind of information?"
"I don't know, but I could smell the fear on him. Either he's telling you the truth and he has some important information to give you, or he's just trying to catch you."
"How did he even find Spi- your house?"
"I don't know. Severus is looking into it. In the meantime, we're somewhere safe."
Cyrus's eyes widened, and he stared at the desk in front of him unseeingly. "How safe?" he asked, wondering where the hell they were.
"Safe enough. It's one of my werewolves' houses."
Cyrus floundered for a second before his brain kicked into overdrive. "There are some Potter properties that I haven't had the time to look at yet. Do you want to stay there instead? From what I saw of the papers, some have decent wards."
Remus hummed thoughtfully. "That may be a good idea. Where can I meet you?"
"Gringotts, at…" he did a mental check. "One."
"Alright. I'll see you then." He hung up.
Cyrus quickly hung up himself and slipped his magi-com back into his pocket, ignoring the glances at him and the way Rivehn was giving him looks. What was the point of making a ruckus by running out of the room when he could just slap up a silencing ward.
He loved magic.
oOo
Later that afternoon, once classes were done for the day, Cyrus grabbed everything he needed for a visit to Diagon Alley. He had some other errands to run for Svea besides the stuff that he'd had to order, and he figured he might as well do it at the same time he visited Remus.
Hopping into his trunk, he slowed his fall with a bit of magic and landed in a crouch. Going to the back of the bookshelf-filled room, he pulled open the wardrobe that he usually ignored, for the most part. On the far left side hung all his wizard clothes, while the right was stuffed full of clothes that Tara had 'picked up' for him from time to time (read: party clothes). The outfit he'd worn to his first date with Ashawyn was in there somewhere, along with a couple other things he'd worn. Most of them, however, had never seen the light of day.
What had she been thinking when she'd bought him a leather harness and g-string, anyway?
Digging through the left side of the wardrobe, he tried to find a high collared robe with full sleeves to hide his suit. Skin-tight clothing wasn't exactly approved in wizarding society, after all. Which was completely different than the half-naked faes that he'd seen at his school.
Finally, he found a robe that was mostly black with a couple of maroon accents. He slipped into the ensemble easily enough, feeling awkward with the bloody cape hanging off his shoulders and the tightness in his chest. Had he really buffed up that much since he bought the thing? He'd gotten it large, too! Sighing, he transfigured the buckle in the front to be longer so it wouldn't pull so much. The dress shirt underneath, which was supposed to have been loose as well, clung to his muscles.
Oh well, wasn't like he was going to take the cloak off.
Attaching his utility belt on the outside of his new clothes, he double-checked that he had everything he needed before wandering into the bathroom to change his face. Brown hair, brown eyes… that should be about right. He didn't look like Harry Potter at all without the glasses and longer hair, after all. He'd been keeping it somewhat short to keep the mess to a minimum.
Triple checking that he had everything he needed, he disapparated to Diagon Alley.
It was busy and loud when he popped in, so he quickly moved from the apparition point to make room for the next person. Slipping through the crowd, he tried to avoid bumping into too many people as he made his way to Gringotts.
Considering Voldemort was on the loose and had attacked the Ministry, everyone seemed chipper enough. He'd probably been laying low for the last while. Cyrus read the Daily Prophet at Shikaan every once in a while, along with a few other newspapers, and there hadn't been any news of raids or Dark Mark sightings.
Exactly what had Voldemort been up to for the past year, anyway? He couldn't have been doing nothing. That wouldn't be Dark Lordly. At least, whatever he'd been doing hadn't hit the papers. Sure, a few raids here and there, and one attempt on the Ministry, but other than that he'd been positively behaving himself.
It made Cyrus suspicious.
"Oh, excuse me, but do you happen to know where I can find some obsidian rock in Diagon Alley? No one else seems to."
Cyrus turned to the woman who had spoken to him and his eyes widened slightly. Remus? He'd disguised himself as a woman? That took dedication right there. He'd nailed the quiet, soft-spoken type perfectly, too. "Have you tried the goblins? Perhaps they own some land with obsidian mines on it."
The woman smiled, and they started walking up the stairs of Gringotts together. "You look like you might still be in school. Don't you have classes?"
Cyrus blinked before remembering that he hadn't told Remus about him getting kicked out of Necromancy. "Well, I don't have any more classes this afternoon because my teacher kicked me out of that class."
Light blue eyes widened in surprise. "Really? How did that happen?"
Cyrus shrugged. "Apparently I was a danger to the other students. I've got a private instructor now, though, so hopefully I'll still be able to take the test at the end of the year. It's either that or repeat it." Which was something he definitely didn't want to do.
"That's too bad," she said, a sympathetic expression on her face.
They waited in line for a short while, as it was after lunch and most of the rush had gone back to work. When they finally got up to a goblin, Cyrus pulled his key out and laid it on the counter.
The goblin gave him a close once-over and sneered. "Which vault today, sir?"
How he had managed to make 'sir' sounds so insulting Cyrus would never know. "All of them, thank you," he said politely, keeping his face smooth in spite of the goblin's irritability. Thankfully, the banker did nothing more than summon another goblin to take them to Cyrus's vault.
The ride was rough, as per usual. Cyrus took a moment to refill his pouch with money from his trust fund before they continued deeper into the bank, where his family vaults were. Remembering where the trunk of properties was from their last trip, it didn't take them long to find it again. Once they did, they started sorting them into piles of 'definitely not' and 'maybe'. It was distinctly odd interacting with a female Remus for a while, but eventually he got used to it.
"So, how'd you know it was me?" he asked, tossing another file in the 'definitely not' pile.
Remus smiled. "I could smell you."
Oh, right. Cyrus would have to be more careful to disguise his scent in the future. It was quite easy to forget when you yourself didn't have such a strong sense of smell.
"Oooh, this sounds heavenly," Remus said suddenly. "Can you imagine living in Italy at a summer vacation home? Severus wouldn't like the sun, but it would be a gorgeous-"
Cyrus plucked the file out of his hand and looked it over for a moment before grinning, conjuring a piece of twine to keep the papers from falling out, and slipping it into a bottomless bag. "I've always wanted a vacation home," he said with a grin before going back to the sorting.
Remus just laughed.
As it turned out, the Potters were a lot richer than Cyrus had first thought. Well, in land at least. Most of the properties had returned to the Potter family as their branches of the bloodline died out and there was no one else to inherit them. As a result, the Potter estate had accumulated quite a few wizarding homes all over the place. Once Remus picked which one they wanted, they'd be set.
Hell, Cyrus would probably just give it to them. It wasn't like he needed it, after all.
When Remus had finally decided on a house that appealed to his needs, they went back into the caverns where their ride was waiting not-so-patiently. It was even bumpier on the way back up, if that was even possible, and even Cyrus, who was usually quite eager to test out new rides, was glad to get off.
He and Remus said their goodbyes at the doors of Gringotts, as Cyrus had more errands to do and Remus had a property to get warded. Just when he was walking by Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes, he was stopped by one of the twins.
"Hey, you sir! You seem like the kind of wizard who enjoys a good prank. We're having a special today! What say you to a little fun at other people's expense?" he called out jovially.
Cyrus blinked and looked over. "Ah, sorry, but I have errands to run today."
"Now, now, you don't seem to be in such a hurry. Come take a look! We've got 15% off all store merchandise!" When Cyrus paused and seemed to consider, the twin grinned and walked out to take him by the arm and lead him inside. "The fireworks are particularly crackin' today, good sir. We've got dragons, unicorns, trolls-"
The door clicked shut behind them, and Cyrus immediately felt magic in the door activate. Before he could think of a reason for that, however, he found spells racing at him from twin wands. Cursing under his breath, he rolled to the side and cast his full body shield. Luckily, in this situation he didn't need to worry about dodging inhumanly powerful punches or sharp blades. A stupefy bounced off his hastily-cast shield and hit the closer twin in the face, knocking him unconscious. The other twin, however, used the counter as a shield and kept casting spell upon spell from behind it. Running forward, he avoided most of the spells except for a few that broke upon his shield and parted around him like water. Unused to combat, the twin froze in shock when he saw Cyrus jumping over the counter at him. Before the twin could use his head, Cyrus had grabbed it and used his momentum to crack his skull against the wall. It certainly wasn't the typical wizard's way of knocking out assailants, but Shikaan taught you adaptability, creativity, and gave you hands-on experience, which was more than could be said for any Hogwarts student.
Letting out a sigh, he looked back and forth between the two redheads. This was going to be highly unpleasant, awkward, and frustrating. He could tell already. Cussing under his breath, he moved the 'open' sign to 'closed' with a flick of his wrist and locked the door. He supposed if it came down to it Snape or Remus could obliviate them. He had no experience with that spell himself.
Grabbing the two bodies, he disapparated with them to a small and little-known graveyard in Other Realm. After all, it was unlikely that they had ever been across the dimensional break, and therefore they wouldn't know how to get back to Human Realm.
It was only after he had removed their wands, their back-up wands, and any other items on their bodies that could be a portkey or a prank, and restrained them with at least four spells each that he finally woke the twins up. It took them a moment to shake off their grogginess, but when they noticed Cyrus sitting on a headstone across from them, their expressions darkened. It didn't help that he'd tied them up, of course. He could see the moment when they tried to disapparate, too, because their eyes widened, and the magic discharged from the failed attempt brushed against his skin.
"Blimey! Did you have to hit my head so hard?" the twin on the right complained.
Without a word, Cyrus went over and pulled his chin upward to check for a concussion. Seeing that his pupils looked okay, he put his other hand on the bump and healed it, ignoring the insults and questions sent his way. When he finished, he moved back to his headstone and sat down.
The twins were watching him suspiciously.
"So, Harry. Why don't you-"
"-take off that glamour? No point-"
"-in wearing it anymore, right?"
Cyrus said nothing. Yes, he was in a glamour that was neither Cyrus Obsidian nor Harry Potter, but he saw no point in changing his appearance again. It would take concentration that he was currently focusing solely on the problem that sat before him. Or rather, problems, as there were two of them.
When they started twitching and trading looks again, he knew his silence had unnerved them.
"So… you gonna kill us, Harry?"
Cyrus tilted his head and watched them, assessing. Really, he had no idea what he was going to do with them yet. But he did want to know how they knew it was him. "Why'd you attack me?" he asked calmly, emotionlessly. Maybe he could get them to second-guess themselves.
"Enough with the crap, we saw you-"
"-on the map, so we know it's you."
Cyrus made sure to show nothing on his face. "And what map is this?"
"Like the marauders' map, but for-"
"-Diagon Alley. We made it a month-"
"-ago, hoping to catch Death Eaters, but-"
"-we didn't expect our net to catch-"
"-the Harry Potter." They glared at him. "You killed Ron."
Cyrus resisted the urge to sigh. "Ron's death was an accident, and Dumbledore hardly told you the entire story. Since when does he share anything more than that grandfatherly twinkle? I doubt you have gotten any more information from him than the little you've managed to pilfer with your extendable ears." Yes, he was blowing his cover, but if it came down to it he could knock them out again, tie them up, and get Snape to wipe this whole thing from their memories. Back up plans were nice.
"So you admit that Ron's death-"
"-was your fault!"
Cyrus wanted to smack the Gryffindors' heads together.
"Why did you leave a giant snake-"
"-running loose in Hogwarts?"
"Why did you abandon the Wizarding World?"
"Where have you been for the past year?"
Cyrus was getting a headache. "SILENCE!" he barked, using his best 'I'm the Healer in this pack and you had better shut the fuck up right now before I castrate you and reattach your junk upside down' voice. Thankfully, they shut up. Unfortunately, they were now looking at him like he was some psycho, mass-murdering baby-eater. "Are you going to listen to what I have to say or run off the mouth without any proof of anything like typical Gryffindors?"
They glared, but didn't say anything.
"Your brother died because he was going to kill a friend of mine with the Aveda Kedavra curse," Cyrus explained slowly and carefully, not a hundred percent sure that he was doing the right thing in telling them. "But only after he had sufficiently tortured them with the Cruciatus curse."
The twins stared at him for a second before glaring. "That's a load of crock right there-"
"-Ron would never use the Unforgiveables."
Cyrus told himself to have patience before he started blowing things up. "Yes, just like Dumbledore wouldn't capture and restrain me in the dungeons of Hogwarts," he drawled sarcastically. "Just like Dumbledore wouldn't put a serf compulsion on me when I was little more than a child to make sure I'd be willing to take care of the Dark Lord problem that he had a hand in creating in the first place. Yes, these people are just too Light to do anything horrible."
They glared at him. "We're not believing this-"
"-rubbish without some proof!"
Cyrus raised an eyebrow. "How about I go get a pensieve then." When they said nothing, he disapparated to his rooms, grabbed the stone basin, and then apparated back to the graveyard. Conjuring a table with a wave of his hand, he set the pensieve on it and pulled out his wand. Holding the white oak wand to his forehead, he focused on his time in the dungeon, with both Dumbledore and Ron.
Once the long string of milky memory was removed, he dropped it into the bowl and sheathed his wand again. The twins were watching him with wide eyes. "Now, do you care to learn the truth of it or are you going to continue to stubbornly believe that every Light person in this world is a good person."
The twins bumped their heads together and seemed to watch him thoughtfully for a while. Were they communicating telepathically or something because they were magical twins? It would make sense.
"Get us out of these bonds-"
"-and we will look at this memory."
Having already disarmed them and put their wands in his pocket, Cyrus merely nodded and waved his hand at the ropes. They disappeared, and the twins didn't try anything. One of them put their head in the bowl while the other stood guard and watched him suspiciously, and it only confirmed Cyrus's thought that their minds had to be connected in some way.
Ten minutes later, the twin pulled his head out of the bowl and shared a sad glance with one another. "So we see that Ron wasn't-"
"-as good a brother as he should've been-"
"-but what's this about a serf bond? Dumbledore's-"
"-not some medieval Lord who needs you to-"
"-groom the fields for him."
Cyrus sat back down on his headstone. "I did some research on it once an accomplished Occlumens explained to me what it is that was wrong with my mind." Which was true. He had researched it at Shikaan a while ago during his free time, and Severus was an Occlumens. "It was used back in feudal days when the Lords wanted to ensure their serfs' fidelity. The serf compulsion allowed them control of that. I don't know how old I was when Dumbledore cast it on me, but it was before I came to Hogwarts. A teacher of mine believes that it may have happened when I was a baby." Which was also true, since Rivehn had told him that his state as a fractus mens might have been caused or aggravated by the compulsions.
"Dumbledore did that to you?" When Cyrus nodded, they traded a long look. "Alright, we're sorry for-"
"-jumping you like that, Harry."
"It's just, with Bill missing and-"
"-Dumbledore not willing to do anything-"
"-we've been rather high strung lately-"
"-and when we saw you on the Diagon map-"
"-we just sort of…"
"Lost it." They nodded at each other and sent him apologetic looks.
Cyrus let out a relieved breath and slumped in his chair before the thing with Bill clicked in and he tensed again. "Wait, what? Bill's missing?"
They nodded gravely. "Been missing since the beginning of March."
Cyrus stared. "And Dumbledore's done nothing to find him?" They nodded gravely. "And no one knows where he is or who took him?"
"Well, everyone thinks it's U-no-poo-"
"-but there's no evidence-"
"-no Dark Mark above his and-"
"-Fleur's house in France."
"Some other people went missing-"
"-the same night, but the only connection-"
"-is that they've all worked together before-"
"-on Egyptian curse breaking."
Curse breaking? Egypt? What the hell would Voldemort need curse breakers for? If it was even him. Like the twins had said, there was no evidence. "What are you guys going to do about it?" he asked, seeing the fire in their eyes.
"We've been doing some digging-"
"-and we think we might have someone-"
"-who saw them in Egypt at a tomb-"
"-a while back, and we think if we're lucky-"
"-we can catch them the next time-"
"-they go to it and save Bill."
Cyrus stared at them. They hadn't even graduated from Hogwarts – not that he had a lot of respect for that curriculum – and they were hoping to take on kidnappers and save their brother? That took a lot of guts. "And what's your plan for when you find out where they are?"
They shrugged. "Don't have a plan yet, but-"
"-now that you're here we were-"
"-planning on asking you." They stared at him with pleading expressions.
Cyrus ran a hand through his hair. "Look, guys-"
"Please, Harry. With the recent losses-"
"-in the Order, Dumbledore might do nothing."
"He's our brother."
Cyrus let out a breath and thought about it. "You guys aren't going to go running back to Dumbledore and tell him I've been here, are you?" he asked. Not that they had any information on him, or Remus.
"Merlin, no. He wouldn't even-"
"-look for Bill. Said it was a waste of-"
"-resources, the old bastard. Your-"
"-secret's safe with us."
"Marauder's honor," they said, crossing their arms over their chests.
Cyrus smiled. "Thanks. Be careful of Dumbledore, okay? He can read minds."
The twins just grinned. "How do you think-"
"-we got away with so many pranks-"
"-with Snape around, eh?"
The Shikaan student blinked for a second before laughing slightly. "You guys are Occlumens?"
"Yep."
"That must have pissed Snape off quite a bit." Cyrus laughed for a moment before trailing back off into thought. If it were his family, he'd do anything to save them, and just because Ron had turned on him didn't mean that the rest of the Weasleys deserved to suffer for it. "I can't make any commitments," he began, ignoring the grins that spread across their faces, "but when you find out where he is, get in contact with Remus. He'll be able to forward the message to me."
"How do we get a hold of Professor Lupin?"
"One second." Cyrus pulled out his magi-com and speed-dialed 3. It rang twice before Remus picked up. "Hey Remus. I need a way for some friends in the area to get in contact with you to get a message through to me. Is there an easy way to go about that?"
"They could owl me. I'm assuming these friends are in magical Britain?"
"Yeah. Fred and George."
"…"
"Look, it wasn't expected, but I explained a few things, and I think they're willing to . So, can they owl you?"
"Is it time sensitive?"
Cyrus blinked. "This whole thing's rather time sensitive, right? I mean, you get confirmation, and you're out of here." When they nodded, he said "Yes" into the receiver.
"Very well. I'll give them a two-way mirror."
"Thanks, Remus."
"You just be careful, alright?"
Cyrus rolled his eyes. "I'm always careful, Remus, it's the world that's not careful."
The werewolf snorted. "I'll see you later, Cyrus."
"See you." He hung up.
The twins were looking at him with wide eyes. "Where can we get one of those?" they asked at the same time.
Cyrus laughed. "I'm afraid there aren't any suppliers in Britain. Tough luck."
They pouted for a minute before turning serious again. "So, we're owling Remus?"
"No. He's going to bring you a two-way mirror. Just keep in mind that I'm rather busy, and if I'm swamped with shit when I get your message, I may not be able to help."
They nodded. "Thanks, Harry."
Cyrus grabbed the memories from the pensieve and dissolved them. It was easier to do that than try to put them back in his head, as they were only copies and not actually the original memory. Shrinking the pensieve, he put it in his bottomless bag.
"Keep in touch, eh?"
Cyrus nodded and tossed them their wands. They fumbled to catch them. "I have to take you back to Diagon Alley, now," he said, holding out his hands.
They stared at him. "We can get there ourselves, thanks."
"Just take down the anti-apparition wards."
Cyrus shook his head. Explain that Other Realm was another dimension and apparating across the gap took practice? Nah. "It's a little more complicated than an anti-apparition ward, and I have no control over it." There, he wasn't lying. "Now come on, before you splinch yourselves."
They traded looks before grabbed his hands, and Cyrus took them back to their shop.
He still had to pick up that crap for Svea.
oOo
The rest of the week went by okay. Yalmireth and he had some tutoring sessions, and Cyrus learned some interesting things about how demon culture worked. For the most part, all he was learning was how to identify the different classes, as it required a lot of background information in order to decipher.
On Saturday morning, however, he found himself on edge in anticipation of Ashawyn's project that afternoon. Instead of snapping at his friends, though, he settled for sleeping in, eating a small breakfast in his room, and then heading to one of the larger training centers on campus with the hope of finding someone to spar against. He needed to burn off some energy.
As it turned out, there weren't a lot of people there on a Saturday morning. All the people really anal about their usual workout schedules were usually there earlier, and anyone sleeping in didn't show up until before or after lunch, so Cyrus found himself stuck in one of the dead periods. Sure it was nice to have the facilities to himself, but he'd come here to spar with someone.
Sighing, he went over to the corner with the mats and started stretching. Once he'd finished stretching and had run around the track a couple times to get his heart pumping, he slowly and methodically worked his way through all the forms of martial arts that he knew before moving on to the sword. He'd only gotten it yesterday, as Ouragan had finally decided that their class was ready enough to begin handling practice weapons. Some of the students already knew how to handle weapons, but Ouragan didn't let them stay with that weapon in his class. As far as he was concerned, if you had the teacher there anyway, you might as well take advantage of it and learn another weapon.
Working through the single form that he'd been shown on Friday, he tried to remember all the things that the sword instructor had shouted out. Each weapon had its own private teacher, as Ouragan couldn't teach that many students more than ten different weapons in one class. He'd picked the sword because 1) Xanthir could wield it, so if Cyrus had questions he could just ask him, and 2) it was one of the most popular and basic weapons, so it would be beneficial to have some level of competency with it.
"Your form is terrible."
Cyrus blinked and stopped, turning to see a guy standing there with a dark look on his face. What was his problem? Usually no one bothered him when he came here to practice. Normally he preferred one of the smaller gyms, but he'd never been approached and insulted before. Most students were content to mind their own business unless they were trying to start shit. Cyrus for the most part had been able to avoid such conflicts.
Maybe his lucky streak was over. "Really? I'm not surprised," he said as genially as he could, suppressing his annoyance at the interruption, "we just started on weapons yesterday."
The guy tilted his head to the side, eyeing Cyrus up and down in a way that made the human feel slightly uncomfortable. He didn't say anything, though, just kept watching Cyrus in that creepy kind of way.
"Is there… something you wanted?"
Mr. Creepy stared at him for a little longer before falling into a fighting stance without a word. Cyrus stared back for a moment before wandlessly sending his wooden practice sword over to where his bag sat protected by proximity alarms. Most students were smart enough not to steal shit at Shikaan, but that didn't mean it never happened.
"What kind of spar?"
"No magic, no special abilities. Just physical combat."
Shrugging, Cyrus nodded and slipped into a fighting stance, wondering exactly how this battle would turn out. "First blood?" he asked.
Mr. Creepy shook his head. "We fight until a standstill, or when you want to stop. It is only a spar, not a duel."
Well, wasn't that a relief. After he got into that fight with Top Asshole, he wasn't particularly interested in dueling anyone for a while. Or at least, not unless they had a better fucking reason than 'people think you're better than me, so I'm going to prove them wrong.' It had been a stupid excuse to start a fight in the first place, but Guylan's way of handling the duel had been underhanded, with that ritual. Asshole.
Mr. Creepy attacked without warning but didn't bring out any special or mind-blowing moves that would knock Cyrus out in five seconds. Instead, the human found himself dodging a few punches and kicks that seemed just a bit slow. After a few minutes of awkward sparring – they weren't used to each other yet, and spars never went as seamlessly as the choreographed fight scenes he'd seen in a couple movies at the Dursleys' – they slowly fell into a rhythm and Cyrus began to enjoy himself. Mr. Creepy wasn't here to kill him, they were just-
Cyrus froze up for a moment, remembering the assassin that had been after him for a while now. It couldn't… but that would be too obvious. Out in the open. So far his would-be killer hadn't shown Cyrus his (or her?) face, and had mostly used poison or necromancy to try to off him.
Focusing on his magical senses, he searched for death magic in his vicinity.
Nothing. Well, that was a relief. It wasn't Mr. Creepy then.
Unfortunately, Cyrus's lack of focus was just the opening the guy needed to knock him on his back.
"Your form is pretty solid, but you should be more careful with leaving openings. If I were here to kill you, I could have done so many times." But the way he said it, accompanied by the hand offered to help him up, softened the words somewhat. It helped that Mr. Creepy, despite being very good – Cyrus would have to be an idiot to not have noticed that – wasn't cocky and didn't ridicule him for his lack of experience and training.
But it didn't change the fact that Cyrus still needed to work harder. Shit. Focusing his attention back on the spar, he tried to keep his defense solid. Each fighter had their own style, and with Cyrus's purchase of the suit he'd learned to pick and choose what hits to let through his guard in order to save stamina or keep himself from being open to a more lethal attack. By adopting this style, he'd also started to use that new wandless shield that they'd been learning in Catchpool's class. The cool thing about that particular shield was that, since you had to control it manually, you could manipulate it to only protect your arm as you batted away a blade, for instance. It demanded a lot of control and concentration, but Cyrus was hoping with time he'd be able to make it a subconscious reaction to attacks.
The downside of incorporating that into his style, however, was that he'd become complacent with the purely physical aspects of fighting.
A fist came at his face. Yanked from his thoughts, he dodged. But not fast enough. At the last minute, he expelled magic from his face to protect him from the graze. The force of the punch moved his head to the side, but the magic cushioned the blow enough that it didn't hurt. Taking quick steps back, he found himself on the defensive. Punch, step to the side, block, kick, trip, roll back to the feet, repeat. Finally, the guy got him with a move he'd never seen before that had him face planting on the ground with Mr. Creepy on his back, keeping him immobile with an arm lock.
"Do you yield?"
Cyrus grunted. "Yeah."
The guy got off him without another word, and Cyrus pulled himself to his feet. Damn he was sore. Quickly healing some of the deeper bruises, he stepped away and got back into stance. The human immediately noticed that Mr. Creepy had changed into a form he didn't recognize. Sending out his senses, he stopped focusing so much on his vision and distributed some of his attention to the other senses. Part of his training with Gyrdrich had resulted in him being able to sense beings around him much more easily. He couldn't tell who was what species, but he was beginning to recognize familiar magical signatures. Since the guy had been getting continuously faster as their spar continued, he focused his senses on detecting the guy move.
A fist came from the right. Shit, how had Mr. Creepy moved that fast? He made a grab for the arm, hoping to toss the guy. No such luck. Instead, he found his feet knocked out from underneath him as the guy slipped inside his guard. Unable to catch his balance, he got caught in a locked hold before he knew it, with Mr. Creepy on top of him. Breathing heavily, he just lay there for a second to try to catch his breath.
Unfortunately, doing so made him acutely aware of the warm body sitting on top of him wearing nothing but shorts and a tunic. He wasn't even wearing shoes. Not to mention the fact that, since the guy's forearm was under his chin and holding his head in place, he could see a shapely bicep out of the corner of his eye and smell their collective sweat.
Damnit. He needed to focus. Was he really this bad? It must be his magical senses. Since they were open, the roiling body of magic on top of him felt far more attractive than it should have.
"Unless you are good at grappling, which you are not, I would suggest you avoid letting your opponent inside your guard. You must fight in a style that suits you. Your instincts are quick, but your body still does not quite know what to do with them." The guy released him from the hold and Cyrus let out a relieved breath.
"Again?"
Cyrus pulled himself off the ground and got into stance, telling his nerves to stop tingling like they'd just been groped.
They continued to fight for another hour before Cyrus got too tired (and horny) and had to call it quits. Mr. Creepy (who wasn't all that creepy anymore, really) went through a cool down routine with him, talking about different fighting techniques and styles, as well as things Cyrus needed to work on. The human was grateful for his advice, but he didn't quite understand why Tallish-Dark-and-Handsome was going out of his way.
So, after he had picked up his bag and they began to walk through one of the lesser-used corridors to the Main Hall, he decided to ask.
"Why?" his schoolmate asked with a small, amused smile, his dark eyes glinting with subdued good humor. He'd warmed up considerably as the fighting continued and they got more comfortable with one another, but he wasn't exactly rambunctious like Xanthir. "I have been looking for a new sparring partner. My last one died in some fighting tournament that apparently runs about this time every year."
Cyrus tilted his head and wiped some of the sweat from his face. His suit, even though it breathed, always got really hot when he worked out, even with the cooling charms he cast on himself. It needed a good washing today. "Really? Why would he compete in a tournament like that?"
The black-haired guy shrugged. "Maybe he felt the need to prove his strength to himself. Maybe he just liked the adrenaline rush. I do not know, really."
And that got Cyrus wondering. If this guy's old sparring partner was good enough to participate in a fighting competition, then why in the world had he wanted to spar with Cyrus? The human wasn't any good, really. "You're pretty good at martial arts, right?" he asked. His schoolmate nodded. "Why did you pick me for a spar, then? There were a couple other people in the room that you could have picked. I'm only a first year, and from what everyone's seen at that fight with Troy Guylan, I'm not that good either."
The guy just watched him for a moment before laughing. It wasn't a full out laugh like Xanthir's, but a bit more subdued. "Guylan is hardly a measuring stick for any level of ability."
Cyrus frowned. What? "But I heard he's the most powerful human student at Shikaan…"
His fellow student just shook his head. "Hardly. He is the most obvious human of any level of ability at Shikaan, but not the most powerful. For example, those who are interested in going into a career in espionage, or other related fields, would not be stupid enough to put themselves in the spotlight like Guylan. You should never judge another species by the one person who likes to show off." Here his eyes intensified, and Cyrus felt his body tense in anticipation. "Often it is those who do not flaunt their power who are more powerful."
Cyrus returned the guy's stare. "But you didn't answer my question."
The guy took a few steps closer, and suddenly Cyrus found himself backed up against a wall without his realizing it. How had- the guy had been completely non-threatening one second and now Cyrus felt like he was being stalked like prey.
A small smile quirked the other student's lips. "I see that I will have to be blunt with you." Cyrus felt just a little insulted at that, but he'd get over it if the guy just told him what the heck all this grand standing was for. "Due to my future career plans, I do not find it worth while to show off my abilities." From this close, Cyrus could see that the dark, nearly-black eyes were in fact a very rich, murky blue. "And as for why I wished to spar with you… You are a first year student with a lot of potential, from what I have seen, and I believe that we may be able to assist each other in the future."
Cyrus stared. This guy was proposing that they become allies. Sure, Tara had flaunted her connections to him in the past, but he'd never had it happen to him before. Most of Shikaan seemed content to just watch. "Why do you want to become allies with a human?" Now he just needed to know the guy's motive.
But his fellow student just smiled slightly, eyes still focused on Cyrus intently. "Those who are blinded by prejudice are easily fooled," he said dismissively. "I am hardly one to follow such a path, especially considering that I am human myself… Mostly."
Cyrus stared. And this guy could move that fast during their spar? Damn. He'd thought he was fighting a werewolf or something. Instead, he'd been fighting with a 'mostly' human who for some reason wanted to become allies with him.
"I can see you will need some time to think it over. As a sign of goodwill, I will leave you with some information." He leaned closer, putting his mouth right beside Cyrus's ear, setting the human's nerves on fire with a mix of fear and arousal at their close proximity. He could feel the heat and magic radiating from the student's body. Damnit. "Avoid eating your meals at the Hall for the next while, unless you want to die from another case of poisoning. You are very lucky that Pyralis Asteras is well versed in poisons and happened to be in your debt."
Cyrus froze shock still. "And how do you know that?" he asked breathily.
"It is common sense, really. You may not have noticed but he has been slipping you small quantities of poison for the past week. He had to raise the dosage when you proved surprisingly resilient."
"He? Do you know who it is?"
"No, I do not. He is surprisingly good at hiding his tracks, and as I still have not graduated I have not had the chance to take any intensive magic-tracking courses. I simply referred to them as 'he' to prevent confusion, really."
Cyrus made a vague sound of interest, still hyper aware of exactly how close the guy's body was to his own. The schoolmate pulled back, but not far enough. From such a close vantage, Cyrus could see the slivers of black in the guy's dark blue irises.
"Is it true that you are a magic sensitive?" he asked, head tilted slightly to the side as his eyes seemed to peel back layer after layer to see what lay beneath.
Cyrus choked slightly and tensed at the unexpected question. What did his being magic sensitive have to do with anything? And why the hell was the guy so close? Couldn't he give Cyrus some space? The constant staring was beginning to creep him out!
"I have always been curious… do you feel it when I do this?"
The sexual tension that had been building inside him for hours exploded as tendrils of magic raked up Cyrus's body, just nicking his fading arousal on the way up and hitting his nipples. Jesus fucking Christ. Even when Yankovich had sent his magic inside of Cyrus to find his death magic, it hadn't felt like this. No, it felt like that one time he'd tried a cock ring, experimented with the wizard version of Viagra, and had been out of his mind unable to come for ten hours except ten times worse and he had no idea why and his magic just exploded out of his body in agitation and reaction to the stimulation.
The dark-haired student groaned under the onslaught and increased his magical attack. Cyrus's dick hardened even further, if that was possible, as magical jolts of electricity raced through his channels like prostate stimulation, and Cyrus couldn't suppress the low groan that escaped him or stop himself from collapsing back against the wall as his muscles failed him under the onslaught of sensation. A leg caught him between his legs and held him upright even as two large, warm hands came to his hips and held him in place. The thigh grinding against his crotch was torture as the protective cup kept his aching dick from getting any real stimulation. Fuck. His logical brain was screaming in the back of his mind at him – what the hell was he thinking! – but each touch of magic sent another wave of sensation wreaking having on his nervous system and another wave of blood to his dick until that little voice was asphyxiated from lack of blood to his brain.
Two hands slipped up his sides to capture his hands, which were currently pressed weakly to the other student's chest from when he'd still had the cognizance to realize that he was in a public hallway where anyone could see him at any moment, and pulled them away to pin his wrists against the wall above his head. Unable to make a word of protest, white lights exploding across his vision and fireworks messing with the synapses in his brain, he could only moan softly as a set of lips descended upon his own and began to suck the air out of his lungs with sheer skill of tongue.
Another wave of magic licking up his sides and down his channels had him unintentionally keening and writhing against the wall and the hot, solid body pressed against his front. There was just so much magic and he couldn't- couldn't focus, couldn't get his arms to pull away, couldn't stop himself from moaning- just too much magic- too much stimulation and he could feel the impending orgasm and couldn't do anything to stop it because this was way worse than the time he'd seen Rivehn and Yankovich basically have sex in their clothes in front of him and-
A ragged moan tore itself from his throat and was promptly swallowed by the raven-haired adolescent's mouth as tendrils of magic surrounded his arousal through his pants and began to move. Hands flexing and body collapsing, he couldn't seem to gather the strength to move as his body began to coil in anticipation, muscles in his core tensing and releasing as the energy built and built until one last, quick jerk sent him over the edge and into orgasm, a moan wrenching itself from his chest as his entire body clenched under the assault for a suspended moment of electrifying pleasure before it ended too soon and he was crashing over the edge. Body twitching and spasming under the assault and force of his orgasm, Cyrus let his body fall limp like it wanted to, held up only by a knee between his legs and an arm holding his wrists above his head while the other hand clenched in the hair at the nape of his neck and teased his scalp.
And gods, the kiss. It was still going, except instead of tongue-fucking him with the same intensity devoted to their spar earlier, it had turned languid and relaxed… exploratory. Finally, when the last of his tremors had ceased, the black-haired adolescent pulled away with a small, hesitant smile, eyes searching his own for… something.
What it was, Cyrus had no idea. Fuck, he had no clue about anything. He'd just broken up with a fae because Ashawyn had been cheating on him and only thought about sex, and now here he was rutting up against some 'mostly'-human he had only known for three hours. He wasn't sure whether to be embarrassed, angry, or… frightened at how he had just taken control of the situation – of Cyrus – like that. Had turned him into putty because of his magic sensitivity. And most of all, how much Cyrus had… liked it at the time. How much it had turned him on once his brain was suffocated from lack of blood and he'd been unable to fight-
What the fuck was wrong with him?
"Can you stand?"
Cyrus nodded slowly, getting back on his feet by his own strength. His limbs were slightly shaky, but he managed it okay. Staring at the other student, he wondered what was going to happen next.
They stared at each other for a moment, and Cyrus felt his cheeks warm under the scrutiny. This was… awkward.
"My name is Zackary." When Cyrus said nothing, blue eyes seemed to darken and a slight frown pinched his brow. "I… apologize if that was too forward of me. It was not my intention at first to… initiate anything, but I found our sparring to be very… stimulating." An absent wave of his hand in front of his crotch wouldn't have caught Cyrus's attention under normal circumstances, but in the context of the situation he realized that Zackary was cleaning the cum out of his pants with a wandless spell.
Well, at least he appeared somewhat uncomfortable. If he'd smiled smugly at his 'skills', Cyrus probably would have punched the guy. "Why'd you do that?" he asked instead, still unable to understand why the hell the other human had… well.
Zackary seemed the slightest bit amused. "Will I have to explain this to you bluntly as well?" he asked, slowly regaining his previous cool. The lack of arrogance, however, kept Cyrus from cursing his dick off. Instead, the guy somehow managed to be… endearing, even after the surprise orgasm he'd pulled out of Cyrus. "Anyone who cares at Shikaan knows that you are gay since you dated Ashawyn. I have to admit, however, that I was not interested until I fought against you."
Cyrus couldn't keep the 'what the fuck?' look off his face. "But I sucked!"
Zackary just smiled slightly and shook his head. "It is not your current ability that decides who will be a better warrior, but the drive to improve and the resources available to you. It also helps that your magic, when you are in the heat of battle, expands outside your body." His eyes searched Cyrus's own. "Do you have any idea how arousing it is to walk into a magical field of your potency?"
Cyrus felt heat rush to his face. So what, now he was a walking sex magnet? Great. "So are you saying that you did that just now because my magic tickled you pink?" he asked somewhat snappishly.
Zackary watched him with that blank expression that Cyrus was beginning to associate with his 'thinking face'. "Do people not find partnership by physical appearance and chemistry? Is it so hard to believe that your magic can be the same?"
The green-eyed wizard's eyes narrowed. "So all you're attracted to is my power?"
For the first time, Zackary sighed. "No, that is not what I am trying to convey. Perhaps I shall make this simpler. I find you attractive. You find me attractive – do not deny it, I could see it in every line of your body while we fought and even afterwards. I acted on it – perhaps somewhat foolishly, as I came to you looking for an ally and not a bed partner; I can admit that at the very least. However, I realize now that I should not have acted on my attraction so boldly, as it has made you uncomfortable and caused you some alarm. I should not have assumed that you would be as willing to act on a mutual attraction merely because you have dated a fae for a month or two. My apologies."
And Cyrus watched in absolute bafflement as his fellow human bowed slightly at the waist with a somber expression on his face.
"I hope that you may look past my oversight and still consider my proposition to become allies." When Cyrus said nothing for a while, just stared at Zackary blankly – disbelievingly – the other student continued. "Perhaps it is best I leave you to think it over." Zackary bowed again (were the martial arts traditions that deeply ingrained?) and left with the distinctive pop of disapparition.
Cyrus stood alone in the hallway, staring at the empty space where Zackary used to be.
This had to be the most bizarre post-sex scenario ever.
A beep sounded from his pocket and Cyrus frowned as he pulled it out. He felt like he was forgetting something.
Hey Cy! I'm at your room
but you're not here. Are
you ready for the big day?
Me, I'm kind of nervous.
Hope you get back soon,
Ash
Cyrus's eyes bugged out as he let out a string of curses and disapparated to his room. Shit! He'd forgotten all about that!
Appearing in his room, Cyrus stripped out of his suit with no warning or care for the fae standing in front of him. Using a thorough cleaning spell that had to be cast when the garment was off, he got rid of the sweat and grime that had made the suit rather uncomfortable to wear for the past hour. It kept him well-protected, but damn was that shit uncomfortable. He didn't even want to imagine what wearing something like metal in the old days would have been like.
After that had been taken care of, he cast a thorough cleaning charm on himself (there were different charms for live beings, dead things, and animate objects. His suit happened to fall under the last category) and pulled the suit back on again.
Ashawyn, who had been standing there enjoying the view, whistled. "That didn't take long. Who's the lucky guy?"
Cyrus glared and reached under his bed for the bag he'd already packed full of salt, blood, texts, and his emergency bottomless bag. If there was anything he'd learned about zombies, it was 'come prepared for anything because if you can think of that shit going wrong, it will go wrong. Along with some shit you didn't think of.'
Suffice to say, he was about as prepared as he could be.
"Do you have to tell anyone where you're going before you leave?" Ashawyn asked thoughtfully.
Cyrus sighed, shrinking his bag and sticking it in one of the pouches on his utility belt as he went to the kitchen to grab a snack for the road. "I told Tara I was going to be with you this weekend." And Yankovich and Gyrdrich already knew, too. Well, not the details, but he'd had to go to Yankovich to get a message to Gyrdrich saying that he had something important that he'd forgotten about to do that weekend. He would have gone to Gyrdrich himself, but he had neither the Other Realm equivalent of a passport to get into that zone nor someone to ferry him in and vouch for him. As it was, the only pass he had allowed him into Caylor's pack's zone, as Shikaan and other neutral zones didn't require passes of any kind, and sneaking past the magical borders was nigh impossible.
Shoving the energy bar into his mouth, he did another mental check that he had everything before nodding to Ashawyn and holding out his arm for transport. The fae gripped his forearm with two hands, and then they were off with a burst of icy magic.
The graveyard that Ashawyn brought him to wasn't actually a graveyard but a tomb. A huge underground tomb filled with hundreds of the dead crammed into a very small space. Cyrus had never been claustrophobic after having been locked in a cupboard for the first ten years of his life at the Dursleys', but that didn't stop even him from feeling creeped out at the depressing atmosphere and the freaky blue mage lights that floated around and distinctly reminded him of the souls in that horror movie Dudley had forced him to watch one time.
"You're almost late, Ashawyn," Mikhail's familiar voice carried easily to them in the enclosed, echoing space.
Cyrus twitched. "That was my fault, sorry," he said, covering for Ashawyn. "I lost track of the time." Which was totally true.
Unfortunately, admitting that turned Mikhail's cool gaze on him. After a short staring contest, the elf looked away and motioned Cyrus to follow him. "You may sit over here, if you like. Ashawyn will need the space clear for his work."
The human followed him to a rather tall tomb and had to apparate to get on top of it, whereas Mikhail just jumped. He sat down as far as he could from the elf and watched Ashawyn with curious eyes as the fae worked. "So, what is he doing exactly?" he asked, his curiosity outweighing any past warnings Yankovich might have given him.
The elf made an interested hum. "It is a complicated process. He has been working on the array for quite some time, and only recently did I deem it good enough to work."
Cyrus frowned. "Array?"
"In the higher levels of necromancy, arrays, symbols, and rituals are necessary to keep the death magic under control and channeled correctly. If you have some experience with runes, rituals, or arithmancy, then it will be useful if you plan to get a mastery level."
Ah, right. Cyrus had heard about that kind of stuff vaguely in the books he'd read. Now that he was reminded, that essay he wrote about failed necromancers was beginning to come back to him. It seemed that it was a trend for necromancers to die when attempting higher-level workings of death magic, but that was hardly a surprise. He just hoped that Ashawyn hadn't fucked anything up.
Apparently most of the work had been done that morning before Ashawyn even came to get Cyrus, but that didn't mean that he wasn't left waiting as Ashawyn finished up the more time-sensitive portions of the array. From what he could see, the fae had drawn the designs in blood on the stone floor, and the walls of the tomb had been lined with salt. Not feeling completely safe about the whole thing, he asked Mikhail if he could put a salt circle around himself. The elf just shrugged and told him to not touch the lines of blood.
Cyrus waited patiently enough as Ashawyn started doing some weird things with his death magic. He was kind of intrigued, now, and vowed to ask the fae more about the ritual after it was over. When he was finally told to create a channel to send Ashawyn the death magic, he did so without a word. Ever since he'd spent that week with Gyrdrich, his death magic was so much easier to control. He still occasionally fed it into nature after sneaking deep into Shikaan's forest to protect the students, but it wasn't quite as ready to explode at any minute as it had two weeks ago.
Getting bored with just sitting there and pumping magic into Ashawyn, Cyrus opened his senses to the world to try to figure out what Ashawyn was doing. After watching for a few minutes, he frowned. There was something odd… he couldn't put his finger on it, but there was something odd about the flow of death magics. It almost seemed as if some of the energy was being leeched off, but he couldn't see what it was being leeched to. It was times like these he wished he could use his death magic and natural magic at the same time. If he could, he would have activated his rune sight to see if he could figure it out.
As it was, he had to stand there and watch as the death magic began to build to a peak, not knowing enough necromancy to know whether or not the ritual was going well or he should prepare to get the hell out of there.
And in a moment it no longer mattered.
Cyrus gasped as he felt a surge of death magic activate under his feet. What the- it wasn't coming from the blood array, it was coming from lower. Sending his senses into the ground, his eyes widened when he felt another array at least ten feet into the ground. Stone ground. What the hell? Had Mikhail chosen a tomb where another necromancer used to work and hadn't noticed the giant fucking array built into the floor, walls, and ceiling?
He collapsed to the ground when a large surge of death magic was sucked out of him and into the tomb's array. He couldn't feel Ashawyn anymore, as death magic was flying all over the place, but he hoped the fae was alright. Unless he wanted something worse to potentially happen, he couldn't even move from this damn spot!
As the death magic piloted by the tomb's array began to build to a climax, Cyrus found his vision starting to spin and darken as all the death magic in his core was sucked out of it. For one suspended moment, there was no magic of any kind inside his body, until his magic exploded from its core with a vengeance and created a cocoon around his body. Without any death magic in his body, the turbulent energies around him could have easily killed him.
Unfortunately, he wasn't conscious for much longer to think about that.
oOo
His head fucking ached like that one time Tara had taken him for a night on the town and got him totally and utterly shit-faced. He hadn't gone drinking with her since, so why was he passed out on a stone floor, freezing his ass off, and his head wouldn't stop spinning in circles?
"You are awake."
Cyrus frowned and blearily blinked his eyes open, rolling over to find the voice. It was Mikhail. Why was Mikhail there?
"Wha' 'appen?" he slurred, sending magic to his head to try to clear up some of the damage. When had he bashed his head and gotten a concussion? Fortunately, the healing worked and he was able to think more clearly.
Mikhail was glaring at him. Wha…? "You happened," he snapped, looking extremely pissed now that Cyrus could actually see again. "I have never had any trouble with this array in the two hundred years I have used it, and then you come and manage to short circuit one of the conduits and throw me hours behind schedule."
Cyrus stared. What?
"Do you have any idea how long it takes to have a two-inch thick blood gold array built? Do you have any idea how much trouble it was to put into the stone of this mausoleum? I have been working on fixing the damage for four hours now, and I am still not halfway done. If you had more control of your death magic this never would have happened. Instead, you let it all loose at once instead of holding onto it like you were supposed to and destroyed my best work!"
The human continued to stare. What the fuck was Mikhail on? "What are you talking about? What the hell is this array for?"
The hatred on Mikhail's face had Cyrus recoiling, and only then did he notice that he was actually chained to the ground. "Your intelligence is far inferior to that of Ashawyn," he commented snidely, looking down on Cyrus as if he were dirt beneath his pristine shoes. "Ten minutes after waking he had figured it out." At Cyrus's blank expression, he sneered. "The array is designed to steal your core, stupid child. However, your extreme lack of ability damaged it."
"So… you miscalculated." Cyrus snorted derisively. "It's not my fault you didn't account for my awesomeness." It got him a kick to the stomach, but it was worth it to see the furious look on Mikhail's face. Death-magic-stealing ASSHOLE!
The elf stormed off in a tizzy after that (well, the elf version of a tizzy), so Cyrus started testing his bonds since the bastard's attention was elsewhere. He'd always had a weird feeling about Mikhail. Felt creeped out by him without warning or reason, at times. And now he knew why.
He was so trusting his gut from now on. It was usually right.
Some tinkering with the chains proved them to be magic-suppressing (which wasn't all that surprising), and his death magic was so tapped out that it didn't even matter if the chains could keep that energy suppressed as well. Fuck. Why did he always get the psycho killers after his ass? Exactly how many people had he done this to over the years? Why did he even do this? Power? He liked the thrill?
Unfortunately, with only half his natural core at his disposal he still wasn't able to do anything to the cuffs keeping him trapped, and his rune sight didn't betray anything useful to him. Some death magics were ordered magic, and therefore had runes keeping them organized and easy to decipher, but since this was array-based magic, he couldn't see anything. Arrays were designed through arithmancy, which was basically numbers and weird mathematical equations that made no sense to Cyrus but apparently worked in helping order magic.
All of his belongings had been taken, too, so he couldn't even fill his irritable stomach. Bastard.
Letting out an angry sigh, he shifted in the restraints so he could lay out as flat as possible, as his leg was starting to fall asleep. What the hell was he supposed to do now? He'd never thought he would be in a situation where he'd have the death sucked out of him. Damnit. He needed to figure some way to get out of these chains. If he could get out of them, then he'd be able to disapparate. Er, find Ashawyn first, save his ass too, and then disapparate. From what Mikhail had said earlier, the fae was probably still alive.
Closing his eyes, he focused on his magic and tried to find a way out of the restraints. Thankfully, they weren't the kind that cut off his connection to his magic; they just kept it contained in his own body. Pulling his magic from his core and flooding his channels, he tried to create so much backpressure that they would explode like the cap off a can of soda.
Unfortunately, when he finally cracked the seal a foot came and kicked him right in the face, sending his whole body backwards until the chains pulled taut and yanked him back to earth. He hit the stone with a grunt and groan of pain, bringing his arms up to protect his face. Unfortunately, this opened his stomach up to assault. His suit absorbed some of the force, but only enough to reduce the blows to that of human strength instead of elven. Fuck but the bastard could kick.
"And what do you hope to accomplish with this pathetic display of tenacity?" Mikhail snapped. Finally, he withdrew.
Hesitantly, Cyrus opened his arms partway so he could see Mikhail's face. The elf was pissed. "Oh I dunno, stay alive maybe?"
Mikhail scoffed. "Those chains have subdued more than enough wizards, fae, demons, and elves in my time, human. They will hardly break under your pathetic attempts for freedom."
Cyrus glared at him. "When I get free from here I'm going to gut you," he bit out. Just how many people had this psycho killed over the years?
Mikhail laughed. "Hardly." Gray eyes hardened. "Now stop distracting me from my work or I will begin removing body parts from your person." He swished away, cloak billowing not unlike Snape's would have.
Cyrus watched him go, fuming. Like he was going to just stop, asshole. After waiting until the elf was back out of sight, he focused all his magic into his left arm and tried to blow off the cracked band. It cracked cleanly down the side, and Cyrus opened the hinged joint easily. Adrenaline pumping through his veins, he quickly repeated the same thing with his right wrist. This one took two attempts before the band cracked and opened. Cyrus grinned. 200 years of repeated abuse against captives knowing they were going to die would weaken any set of magic-suppressing cuffs.
Unfortunately, something alerted Mikhail, because the elf was on him in a second, sending a cutting curse at his legs. You kind of needed those to run, after all. Jerking to the right, he managed to avoid a direct hit, but it still sliced one of his legs with a spray of blood. Eyes wide, panicking at the sight of so much blood and the lack of pain (which was usually a bad thing), he lost his tight grip on the magic thrumming through his body trying to escape.
The shackles on his ankles didn't crack cleanly and let him escape. No, Cyrus didn't know exactly what happened, if it was the blood or his panic or if Mikhail's spell had fucked something up, but the shackles literally exploded and sent shrapnel in all directions. While thankfully the force of the magic sent the shrapnel away from his ankles, it didn't stop the pieces from ricocheting off the ground and blowing into his body. Letting out a cry of pain, he forced himself into movement to avoid Mikhail's next spell. The elf was cussing loudly as he pulled out a few pieces of shrapnel as well. Too bad one hadn't lodged itself in his eye, gone into his brain, and saved Cyrus a bunch of trouble.
Hiding behind a tomb, he quickly used his magic to pull the shrapnel out of his body and do a quick patch on his wounds to stop them from bleeding out. He didn't have time for surgery, after all. He had recovered some death magic while he was unconscious, but his magic stores had also suffered a loss from blowing up the shackles.
Sensing an attack heading his way, he disapparated as silently as possible to another part of the underground mausoleum. He needed to find Ashawyn before the bastard did them both in. Sending out his energy, he tried to 'feel' where he was.
The tombstone behind him exploded in a spray of rock and bones. Cyrus disapparated again. How the hell had Mikhail found him so easily? Sending out his senses for the elf again, his eyes widened when a tombstone nearby exploded again. How the hell- But he hadn't hit the right tomb- could Mikhail feel his sensing or something?
Disapparating again, he kept his senses to himself and was rewarded a few minutes later with a frustrated yell. So, he could feel when Cyrus spread out his senses. But how?
"You cannot leave here, Obsidian!" Mikhail shouted, the sound echoing in the mausoleum. "There is a ward on this entire structure that prevents any sort of magical transportation. There is no way for you to escape! Surrender now and I will not torture you to the point of death before ending your pitiful existence!"
Cyrus's eyebrows rose. Wow, not only was he a power-hungry psycho, he apparently enjoyed torturing people. Great master you got there, Ashawyn. Taking a moment to heal a few more of his wounds, he tried to think of a game plan. If he couldn't escape from here, maybe he should try to find someway to call for help. But… Mikhail probably had all of his shit and weapons on his person. He wouldn't be stupid enough to leave them lying about.
So how else did he call for help?
"Found you."
Cyrus's eyes widened, but he didn't have enough time to react before he was sent flying into a tombstone and connected with a crack. Using a pulse of magic in his panic, he sent a shockwave blasting in all directions away from him. Hearing a grunt and a crash, he disapparated again. If he couldn't get a message out, then maybe he could delay the ritual by destroying more of the array. Sending his magic into the ground with a destructive force, he set to destroying the blood metal.
Unfortunately, Mikhail caught him before he managed to destroy much. Throwing the most damaging curses he could think of at the elf, he tried to stall a bit longer. He still needed to find Asha-
Something punched him in the chest and sent Cyrus flying backwards and sliding across the ground. For a moment, all he could do was lay there stunned. Slowly, a burning sensation began to spread through his chest, and he noticed it hurt to breath. Craning his head, he looked down at his chest and stared at the metal shard poking out of the right side of his chest. Absently, he noticed he was going into shock. The suit had saved him from the worst of the damage, but a little magic told him that it had pierced his lung and that was why he couldn't seem to get a full breath of air because blood was pouring into his lungs and he needed to get it out-
With a flash of light, consciousness was stolen from him.
oOo
Pain pulled him slowly out of the darkness with each breath he took, and he just barely stopped himself from groaning at the pain lighting a bonfire in his chest. What had- oh right. He'd been stabbed. With a piece of shrapnel from the array he'd tried to destroy.
Fuck.
Shifting his other body parts to make sure he was still functional, he mentally cussed when the tell-tale jingle of chains told him he'd been tied up again.
"Cyrus? Are you awake?"
The human blinked slowly, clearing his vision of spots. "Ashawyn?" he rasped.
"Oh thank god you're alive. He fixed your collapsed lung, but refused to heal the wound in your chest since it didn't hit anything vital. I tried to bandage it up a bit, but that suit of yours closed over it once we removed the… shrapnel. I hoped you wouldn't bleed out," he said with a shaky smile.
Cyrus grunted and 'felt' the wound with his senses. "No, it's…" He frowned. "Ash, how long has it been since I got stabbed?"
The fae blinked before checking the watch on his wrist, which apparently Mikhail had let him keep. "You've been out for eight hours. He's almost done fixing the damage that you caused."
'He's almost ready to kill us' went unsaid.
"Why is Mast… why is Mikhail doing this?" Ashawyn asked quietly. "He refuses to speak to me."
Cyrus didn't hear the question, his mind still stuck on the wound in his chest. It had only been eight hours, and the wound was mostly closed. Eight hours. No one healed that fast.
No human.
"Cyrus?"
The necromancer snapped out of his thoughts. "Uh, yeah?" If this was what a mostly-healed chest wound felt like, he was glad he'd been unconscious for the rest of it.
"You didn't answer my question. Why is Mikhail doing this?"
Cyrus sighed and let his head fall back to rest against the ground. "He wants to steal our death magic, and he's been doing this for around two hundred years."
Ashawyn's eyes widened. "T-two hundred? Are you serious? B-but that's- that's crazy! How come he hasn't gotten caught? How did-" He paled even more, and a bunch of foreign words spilled from his mouth for a moment before he switched back to English. "That's what happened to all his apprentices. Half of them have been dying for the past… the only one's who didn't die were the weak ones that couldn't even get as far as a masters."
Cyrus closed his eyes and focused his healing magic to finish off his chest wound so he could breath deeply again without it hurting like a bitch. "Calm down. Panicking isn't going to save our asses. Do you have any way of getting in contact with someone outside of this hole?"
Ashawyn shut up and looked to be in a panicked state of thought for a moment before shaking his head. "No, he took my magi-com."
"And there's no freaky fae way of getting in contact with other people? Like, telepathy or something?"
Ashawyn shook his head. "Not at this range. We're in the middle of the mountains some thousand kilometers from civilization. This mausoleum is from some old culture of dwarves that used to live here a thousand years ago."
Huh. That sounded familiar. "The culture with the name that is impossible to pronounce?"
Ashawyn cracked a small, tense smile. "Yeah, that'd be them. They had different vocal chords than we do."
Oh, that explained a lot. But it still didn't give them any way of getting out of this hole. Fuck.
And then Cyrus felt death magic being poured into the array under their feet, and he paled. "No…" It was too late. The only reason he could even feel it now was because the death magic was overflowing and beating against his skin. By the widening of Ashawyn's eyes, he could feel it too. They stared at each other in fear for a moment before Ashawyn doubled over, gripping his chest and screaming. Cyrus could only stare at him for a moment before he felt the same pain in his chest and screamed himself.
Pure agony ripped through his core, worse than the chest wound he had just received and definitely worse than a Cruciatus. Curling into a ball on the ground, his body trying to 'protect' whatever it was that hurt, Cyrus screamed. It felt like… like someone was trying to tear his core out of his chest. Stubbornly grabbing a hold of it, he tried to form a protective barrier of magic around his cores to protect them, but the tendrils of death magic currently sunk in his chest just batted away the energy like child's play.
His magic rose. His body revolted. He could taste the vomit as his stomach forcefully ejected its contents, and his magic began cycling rapidly through his body. Heat spread through his veins like liquid fire, burning him from the inside out. Unfortunately, he was conscious at the moment when the strands of power pulled.
Screaming, his body arched against the stone floors as the world exploded in fire.
-Toki Mirage-
I don't usually do cliffhangers, but I figured it's been a while, so one was long over due. Mweheheh Also – I have a policy of everything-up-to-frottage for my ff account, since they're not actually getting nekkid or touching each other and that falls under R, not NC-17 in my books. So if you don't like it, don't read a gay fic, and read my warnings list!
And since I'm probably going to have to explain this all over again, I might as well say it now: Fanfictiondotnet has a no-porn policy. Their rating of M is the equivalent of R, not NC-17. It is stated somewhere in their Terms of Use that anything of a higher rating must be put on adultfanfictiondotnet, and that anything beyond the rating of M can be reported and removed from the site. This is why my porn is on aff and livejournal. I do not want my story deleted because of one random prude. All it takes is that one person.
Just to make things clear. And yes, I realize that people ignore it and post porn anyway; however, I am not one of those people.
Damn this thing took a long time to edit. -_-
Thanks for reading
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