Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Night Flight	By : Massanie Category: Harry Potter > Threesomes/Moresomes Views: 77567 -:- Recommendations : 6 -:- Currently Reading : 30
Disclaimer: Harry Potter does not belong to me and I'm not making any money with this story

Chapter List
- 30
- 31
- 32
CHAPTER 30: Ceadda's Darkness
CHAPTER NOTES:
Here is a tiny little Christmas gift for you. Have fun reading.
Once during Ettore's guardia training their potions master – a small man with a lizard like, thin and wide smile whom everyone had therefore fondly called Lagorio behind his back – had shown his class photos of the repercussions of botched potions in order to install in them the healthy respect one should have when dealing with powerful tinctures.
In between all those grotesque and disturbing images of transformations or injuries on living or sometimes even dead bodies there was the picture of Lagorio's daughter, who, at the tender age of ten, had sneaked into her father's laboratory and stolen a flask of polyjuice potion. In the endeavour to become like her most beloved animal friend and experience the world through its eyes she had added a couple of horse hairs. Before her father, drawn by the silent alarms of his sanctuary being breached, had had a chance to stop her, the girl managed to empty the entire flask. Most impressive, if one considered the ghastly taste.
Still, after the amused laughter of his students had died away Lagorio had solemnly reminded them that a break in into a room stocked with some of the world's most dangerous potions and poisons could have had much more dire consequences for his family and he advised them to always treat their potions and wands with the care and caution they deserved.
Of course, almost five years later little remained of that lesson but the funny memory of horse features transfiguring the pretty face of a sulking child into something long and hairy and outlandish. Not to mention the teeth! Medea, those teeth...
The sight before Ettore now however was not, and never would be, humorous. Even though Zabini and Malfoy definitely looked as if they had added animal components to a polyjuice potion. Like the feather of an entirely unknown bird of prey.
An eagle perhaps with a vulture somewhere down its ancestry. Or a secretary bird.
They were wiry and tall, surely a head taller than he had last seen them, truly towering over the procession of guards leading them through the lavish foyer of the guardia headquarters with stony faces. The mighty wings spreading out from their backs were black, none of the rich copper or white-gold remaining behind and the feathers slid soundlessly against each other like those of owls even though their edges were sharp and deadly looking.
Gleaming talons tapped and scratched harshly against the stone floor as they were ushered forward, their matter hard enough to leave deep furrows in the marble.
That sound alone had Ettore's skin crawl, but it was their faces that made him freeze with the instinctual fear of prey caught in the gaze of a superior predator.
Black eyes with a hint of smoke at the edges like a morione quartz snapped to him, so otherworldly that it was impossible to tell whether they held any emotion at all. Black eyes embedded in sharply pointed features that ended in a metallic lustrous, cruel looking beak.
It wasn't the delicate beak of a falcon, or the strong elegant one of an eagle or even the useful tool of a crow. No, if anything, theirs could be likened to the beak of a vulture, with what seemed to be one large nostril stretching through the horn and bone from one side to the other.
As the young Malfoy heir cocked his head to the side curiously, his beak twitching open, Ettore knew instinctively that the creature could smell him, smell his apprehension. He held his breath while they passed him by, escorted towards the interrogation rooms by Ettore's stony faced colleagues.
On they went, Malfoy keeping Ettore in his sight the entire time until they vanished behind a corner, his head easily turning almost 180 degrees to follow his every movement. Or lack thereof.
Ettore drew a shivering breath as soon as the eerie procession was gone and still reeling looked to his superior.
Comissario Mancini had broken away from the team and was now heading towards where Ettore stood with a small group: his father, the Generale Carraci, Minister Nascimbeni, the minister's secretary, a ministry lawyer Ettore didn't know and the only non-Vykélari-affiliated Vykélari expert that could be found and roused at such an ungodly hour: a historian with the name Oreste Tassi.
"Where is Potter, Mancini?" the minister hissed, trying with little success to not let his voice carry through the opulent entrance hall of the ministry.
But the Comissario only shook his head grimly, a broken movement with sharp edges.
"He wasn't there." He murmured quietly but said no more and after a moment Nascimbeni turned with a terse "My office."
Everyone hastily turned to follow, everyone except Ettore, whose father told him with nothing more than a stern glance and a firm headshake that his position as a mere junior guard didn't warrant him a place in a meeting such as this.
Just as he hadn't been allowed to go on the rescue mission either.
Ettore clenched his jaw, a tendril of bitter resentment curling around his chest. Hadn't he out of anyone a right to know what had happened? It had only been due to his suspicions, his tenacity, that they had even learned of the Lanai's deceit. If not for him the minister wouldn't even have had the right to send out a team to Lanai Manor when Zabini's and Malfoy's alarm had gone off. Because legally the entire affair would still have fallen under Vykélari jurisdiction.
The proper procedure therefore would have been to inform the head of the Vykélari council, namely one Valerio Lanai and ask if the council required the Guardia's assistance. And then, where would they be now?
Ettore cursed under his breath at the terrible injustice of it all. It simply wasn't fair.
When magical governments all around the world agreed upon the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy and moved their seats out of the eyes of muggles - and more often than not underground - the Italian senate had not been willing to leave behind their age-old, opulent government palace. It was a stately building meant to impress, with a large courtyard where wide arches and tall pillars proudly reached for the endless sky, where walls and floors and ceilings were clothed in marble and adorned with colourful, intricate mosaics and frescoes depicting the heroics and tragedies of Italian wizards and witches, magical beings and ferocious beasts.
It was a place that breathed history, a testament to the ancient roots of the wizarding culture in Italy, their noble traditions and strength.
Even the suggestion of abandoning the palace would have equalled blasphemy.
Thus, with a huge exertion of time, magic and money, the government had taken everything along and carefully deconstructed and rebuild the entire palazzo within the Monte Faito. And though it was now situated beneath thousands of tons of rock and earth, the entire construction held the fragile and carefully planned illusion of still being on the surface.
The spacious courtyard that once had been the heart of the palace and a place of assembly where speeches were held and justice dispensed, had now additionally become its gateway. All entries had been relocated to the colonnades framing it, blending cleverly into the arched decor of the inner walls: apparition points, portkey halls and three separate elevators leading to the surface far above.
The entire courtyard was roofed by an enormous domed structure that was spelled to exactly mirror the sky and weather. Equally spelled alcoves surrounded each window and balcony, large enough to lean, or reach, or step outside and never actually notice that it was essentially a cave.
Guests and dignitaries meeting the minister in his office would see behind his desk the stunning view of the city of Pompei sprawling far below and behind it the ever-looming presence of the Vesuvius. In the southern and western wings, the open sea stretched out endlessly and even the lesser departments on the eastern side were gifted with the view of the sparsely forested, sprawling hills and jagged rocks of the Monti Lattari mountain range.
And rather spectacular sunrises for those willing to arrive early every once in a while.
Of course, perhaps even more than a matter of nostalgic patriotism, it was a political statement: even in hiding the magical government sat enthroned with the muggle world at their feet in every sense of the word.
It was a statement of their superiority.
Entering his impressive office now, Minister Onorato Nascimbeni had never felt less superior. The entire situation was sliding out of control, and he needed, he needed to present that submissive to the media come morning, healthy and unmated, or he'd be torn to shreds too small to even feed to the chimera guarding the secret government archives eight storeys below...
Agitated, Nascimbeni whirled around as soon as he heard the subtle click of the door closing, and snapped at Comissario Mancini.
"What happened? Where is Potter? And what by Circe's wand were these..." he searched for a word, shuddering when nothing came to mind that would describe what he had seen in the halls of his, his ministry.
"...these creatures" he finally hissed, more quiet as if the word itself was poisonous and had to be handled with care.
Mancini pursed his lips, his hands curling into fists before he released them with a conscious effort. "Zabini and Malfoy." He answered. "Signore Potter... wasn't there. "
The Comissario paused, shaking his head.
"It was a battlefield, minister!" He spat at last. "The Lanai's country estate was, entirely, burned to the ground. There were human remains, at least six bodies, possibly several more."
The minister was blanching at that, his eyes bulging out of their sockets. When he started pacing the length of his office a moment later, Mancini turned towards the stony face of his superior instead.
"I despatched a team, of course, to secure the crime scene, but I doubt they'll be able to effectively examine it... the land is magically charged, Generale. There is... something is there, in the ground, in the air... And it doesn't react well to magic. I don't know if Zabini and Malfoy caused it or were just cursed alongside the land, but our usual crime scene reconstruction charms can't be employed and we have no witnesses that can, at this point in time, be interrogated."
Generale Carraci frowned "But Zabini and Malfoy..."
"Are incapable of speech or of holding a feather." Mancini shrugged frustratedly. "We tried having Zabini write in the air with his magic, but a hawk, a thrice damned hawk broke forth from his hand instead and immediately attacked us... I don't think they have any control over their magic right now."
The Comissario swallowed drily, remembering the bird, black as tar, that had swooped down on him. It had nimbly evaded his shield charm and he had raised his arms in the nick of time to protect his head, just as it descended on him, scratching him viciously. A screech, inhuman and rough, then Zabini had been there, grabbing the hawk in both of his clawed hands and cradling the wildly fighting and flapping bird against his chest.
While everyone was still staring in shocked silence the thing had gradually calmed down and then it had just sunken into Zabini's chest. It was impossible to say what the man thought, with those black eyes and that cruel looking beak, but he seemed entirely too calm and unperturbed for someone who had just had an aggressive bird of dark magic melt into their body.
Of course the otherness of his features made gleaning his emotions rather difficult.
"If I may hazard a guess..."
Like one, the office's occupants turned towards the brittle voice of Oreste Tassi, the historian and Vykélari expert.
"Yes, signore Tassi?" The minister prompted, when the answer didn't come quickly enough.
"I would suggest Ceadda's darkness, sometimes called Ceadda's curse, though of course it isn't a curse at all, rather the very violent separation of most of a Vykélari's magic under the most distressing circumstances." Tassi shook his head, grim furrows marrying his brow.
"The phenomenon was named after an English submissive, Ceadda. Historian's are unsure of the specifics, but in an attack of his home in the late 8th century by at least two mated pairs, Ceadda's own bond mate was killed and he himself mortally wounded. Desperate to defend his clan, he caused a magical explosion large enough to be seen for many miles. The land was burned and utterly destroyed, as were the attackers, but those that remained of Ceadda's clan at that point survived with no further injury. It is said though, that a darkness resided in them for a long time afterwards. It may have been weeks or even years, for all we know."
Generale Carraci tilted his head, thoughtfully. "You mean to tell us that signore Potter is responsible for this? The destruction of Lanai Manor, the deaths... even Malfoy and Zabini's transformation, the 'darkness' in them?"
Tassi nodded. "You have to understand that whatever happened tonight is a very rare occurrence. After that first documented case it didn't even happen for a couple of centuries, not that we know of at least, for Vykélari were uncommon and attacks on each other even more so. But then Norman invaders, who were sometimes supported by wizards, some of them Vykélari themselves, invented leech daggers. They brought them to England and from there they spread throughout Europe."
"Make it short, signore Tassi if you could." Comissario Mancini interrupted grimly. "A lot of muggles will have witnessed the magic explosion. I already gave orders for our obliviators to be sent out, but whatever we do, it is only a matter of hours until the hacks from the Libri Sibillino will get wind of this. If we don't want them to come up with their own story, we will need to give a press conference beforehand."
Cursing, minister Nascimbeni laid a twitching hand over his chest, grimacing as if beset with heartburn at the very thought of a horde of news hungry journalists.
"Fine then," he said in the historian's direction, "as briefly as you can, signore Tassi, tell us what you think happened."
With an annoyed click of his tongue, the old man continued. "I know that the Lanai family is in possession of several leech daggers. I know that aside from one single exception, every case of Ceadda's darkness was the direct result of a leech dagger. Usually, such a weapon draws magic from the blood of a submissive, too quickly for them to do anything against it. It will incapacitate and ultimately kill the victim, if the dagger is not removed from their body in time. But if a submissive is desperate enough, and significantly stronger than the one who created the dagger, they sometimes manage to overcome it's pull. They do that by hurling their magic away from the dagger, and ultimately out of their body."
Tassi shook his head, his face lined with deep, grim furrows. "You have to understand: a Vykélari's magic is not directed by exact words, or delicate, choreographed wand movements, but by emotions and intent, rather like the accidental magic of children. Imagine being desperate enough to do something you know will kill you, perhaps driven by fear, by grief, a desire for revenge or even some protective instinct. Without the time to rethink your actions or imagine the consequences, seeing your attackers in front of you, what would be your first impulse? What would you wish for in the sanctity of your mind before rationality, or morality had a chance to temper it?"
Tassi paused and let his eyes travel over his small audience, encouraging them to see the dark picture he was painting. He knew that none of them were innocent enough to not imagine the most gruesome nightmares. You didn't reach such high-ranking positions without seeing, and perhaps even committing, the one or the other atrocity.
"Tragically, that single fervent wish, that fracture of a second, causes it to happen and you will never even know, because you will have lost consciousness and soon die of magical exhaustion. There is no taking it back. With your magic and the impulse to attack you also unleash your fear, anger and pain, all great motivators for cruelty."
The secretary swallowed drily, a loud and alien sound in the smothering silence.
"Is Potter alive?" Nascimbeni asked quietly, as if dreading the answer.
"I don't know." Tassi said with a small shrug. "Possibly? If the dominants arrived early enough and knew how to treat him."
"If they indeed used such a leech dagger I assume Potter would have been in no condition to leave on his own. They must have sent him away, and they wouldn't have done so if he was dead." Generale Carraci reasoned. "For now I would operate under the assumption that he is alive."
"Wonderful." Nascimbeni carefully straightened his waistcoat, striving to regain the air of confidence and control that he liked to portray to the world. With a decisive nod and an authoritative look he turned to his secretary. "Call in a press conference for..." he took out his golden pocket watch, "... 8 o'clock. That should still be early enough to prevent any significant leakages and leaves us three hours to come up with a satisfactory story. Try to get in contact with my British colleague..."
The lawyer harrumphed loudly and fixed the secretary with a severe glance. "Be as clumsy about it as you can. We don't need signore Shacklebolt to barge in here until we can actually answer his questions. We just need to have attempted to reach him."
Nascimbeni pursed his lips, choosing to ignore the interjection. As a politician he had learned long ago to let others give those dubious orders that might come back to haunt him later on. Better if there was someone else to take the fall.
Besides, it brought him to the matter of actually finding those answers... "Carraci, I want you to personally interrogate Zabini and Malfoy, and if they have to scratch their answers into clay boards with their damned claws! Our first priority has to be finding out where Potter is and bringing him here. I cannot step in front of those hacks without even knowing whether Britain's war hero is alive or not."
Agitatedly the minister rubbed the fingertips of his left hand together, a relict of his habit to rub his chin in times of great stress. But that had left red streaks behind that took too long to fade and after one particularly annoying journalist had attempted to judge the severity of a situation by the redness of his chin he had finally managed to otherwise occupy his restless fingers.
"And do find out what a respected family like the Lanais did to warrant a death sentence. We cannot possibly portrait Potter as a mindless spree killer..."
"There might be another witness." Mancini interrupted quietly. "We found a young man in the ruins, injured and unconscious, but alive. We didn't dare try to heal him on site with the residual dark magic, so I had him brought to the hospital."
"And his identity?" Generale Carraci asked.
"Unconfirmed as of yet." Mancini answered apologetically.
"How unusual." Tassi murmured. "If he was spared by Ceadda's darkness he might have been a friend or an ally of the submissive. Perhaps even the reason why he went berserk in the first place."
Mancini hummed sceptically. "I think he's Italian; and he seemed familiar somehow. Before hearing your assessment, I was rather certain that he belonged to the Lanais."
"Still," Tassi insisted, "if the submissive had thought him an enemy, he'd have just been another corpse."
Minister Nascimbeni interrupted with another quick glance at his clock. "In any case, Mancini, see to it that he is interrogated as soon as possible. Now gentlemen," he said with the voice of an actor, trained to carry, "We have seen what happens when institutions are self-governed and without any independent control. In this, we are now the most progressive country in Europe, the only one where Mr. Potter's rights are guaranteed. So let us find him and return him to that safety. And we will make sure that no institution in this country will ever be able to misuse their privileges like this!"
With that dismissal, Nascimbeni watched as his lawyer, Generale Carraci and Comissario Mancini hurried out to do his bidding. His secretary followed more slowly, ensuring that signore Tassi accompanied him.
Perhaps the situation was not an entirely unsalvageable disaster. Like his former British colleague Fudge, Nascimbeni had always found non-governmental organisations to be horrible nuisances at best and any chance to restrict their rights was a welcome one.
No matter whether the Potter boy was dead or not, without the Vykélari council's privileges none of this nightmare would have been possible. That angle was easy enough to sell.
If he managed to weather the storm brewing between Italy and Britain, Nascimbeni thought he might even come out of this scandal with a couple political enemies less...
So, I guess you now have some explanations and some new questions :D
The next chapter will be interesting, though I'm far from content with the writing, I'll have to go through it again...
Anyway, I hope you liked this chapter. I have never before been in Southern Italy, I hope I didn't mess up the descriptions too badly, if I did, I'm sorry...
Lastly: Wherever you are and whatever you believe in, enjoy the last days of the year and let's hope the next one will be better!
- 30
- 31
- 32
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Night Flight