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
- 6
- 7
- 8
Bloody Skies
oOo
Chapter Seven:
oOo
“Everybody put your hand on this rope. Class is taking place elsewhere, today.”
Cyrus did as instructed, curious as to what Yankovich had up his sleeve. They’d been learning how to access their death magic for the past month now, along with studying the history of its use throughout the ages. They’d had a few surprise classes where Yankovich had let them try to animate a recently dead corpse, but they’d never actually left Shikaan by portkey before.
Cyrus hated portkeys.
The cemetery they appeared in was cold, making Cyrus cast a warming charm as soon as he hit the ground. He was still incapable of keeping his feet using this mode of transportation, but he felt moderately better when he wasn’t the only sitting in the dirt. Pushing himself to his feet, he followed as the small class of twelve students started moving, not knowing exactly where they were going.
When they came to a stop in front of a headstone, Yankovich began to speak. “Today everyone is going to try to raise a body from the ground. By now you should all be able to, even if you can’t maintain your connection to the body for very long. Who would like to go first?”
A vampire near the front raised his hand without deliberation.
“Mr. Zirala. Do you have your salt?” When the vampire nodded, he pointed to a headstone nearby. “That person has been dead for 10 years,” he said, and he never even looked at the writing on the stone. It made Cyrus wonder if he had been to this cemetery before, or if he just knew. “Raise it and try to keep the connection for five minutes. Keep your salt ready just incase.”
Cyrus watched as the vampire centered himself, reaching for his death magic. Cyrus had placed himself near the back of the group, not wanting to be in the immediate line of fire if the zombie went bat shit and started trying to eat people. That was what the salt was for. A trained necromancer could put the undead to rest without the use of salt, but those learning didn’t always have the skill to do so. Depending on how much death magic you had to pour into the body to make it rise, and how good you were at pulling it back out again, the undead could break its connection to you, keep the magic, and move under its own questionable logic. Mainly, start eating people.
Not wanting to be attacked, he put himself at the back of the group. He didn’t have faith in his own classmates to care if he died, after all. And a bite from a cadaver was the most grotesque in existence. The amount of bacteria in them nearly guaranteed you would get an infection, and because of the death magic in the body, it was very difficult to heal. If such a wound wasn’t healed within days of being inflicted, the death magic would get a grip on your flesh or your magic itself and slowly kill you.
Not a pleasant way to go by any means.
Turning his attention outward again, he watched as the ground parted to allow the corpse to be pulled into the light of day. Or whatever light there was, with the weather being terrible and it being fall.
“Very good. Now, keep the connection until I tell you to put it back in the ground. Keep your salt ready.”
Cyrus flashed his attention between Yankovich and the undead for the next five painful minutes. The demon looked entirely unconcerned, but Cyrus wasn’t sure if that was because he had faith in Zirala’s abilities or his own. He also wasn’t sure whether the demon would take control of the zombie before it attacked someone or not. Knowing Yankovich’s odd sense of humour, he’d probably use the experience to ‘teach them a lesson’.
Cyrus’s turn was last. The entire class so far had managed to raise a body, though they had varying degrees of success once it was out of the ground, without too many mishaps. One werewolf Yankovich had to escort to Healer Svea from when his zombie got out of control and bit him, but other than that there were no serious injuries or casualties.
And Cyrus hoped it would stay that way. The class was almost over, but now it was his turn, and he wasn’t all that confident he’d be able to raise it. He’d failed all previous attempts. One of the many reasons he stood at the back of the class.
“Class is over in a couple minutes, so if you have somewhere else to be you may leave. Obsidian, come over here,” Yankovich ordered even as the entire class popped away one by one. Cyrus felt relieved that they didn’t care enough to see him fail. Again.
Nervously, he moved to stand in front of the headstone. He could sense it was around 10 to 30 years dead, but he wasn’t good at doing much else. Sensing only took a fraction of death magic, and that was the problem. All he could manage to drudge up at a time was a small fraction, a small sliver of death magic. Yankovich had said he had ‘quite the lid’ on his death magic in the first class, but no amount of meditation allowed him to pull out more than a sliver.
It was quite frustrating, especially as Yankovich had ordered them not to use death magic outside of class, and that if they did he would know.
It left very little time for practicing.
Standing in front of the headstone, he pulled his death magic out as quickly as he could, which is to say, at the pace of a dead snail. It took him five minutes of wondering whether Yankovich would get tired of waiting before he thought he had enough to attempt to snare the dead. Throwing the magic outside his body like a net, he aimed for the corpse he could feel in the dirt under his feet. It reached the corpse, but it was only enough for the dead flesh to twitch slightly in the earth before becoming motionless again. Letting out a frustrated sigh, he opened his eyes and stubbornly stared at the headstone. He didn’t want to see the expression on his professor’s face.
“What class do you have next?”
Cyrus blinked in surprise. “Animagus.”
“And after that?”
“Nothing.”
“And how well are you doing in Animagus? Are you behind?”
“No.” Cyrus turned to look at Yankovich in his confusion. He was one of the first in his class to see parts of his animagus form. Most of the other students were still meditating. “Why?”
“Because you’re falling behind in my class, and it’s about time we did something about it.” Cyrus shifted uneasily when intent sapphire eyes studied his face. “I had hoped you’d be able to break past the lid on your death magic yourself, but I haven’t seen any improvement in your output for a month. Follow me.”
Blinking in confusion, Cyrus followed the demon as he led them away from the headstones to a small field of grass. Looking around himself for the first time, he realized that they were probably in a muggle cemetery somewhere. It wasn’t well cared for, but Cyrus could determine by the bodies he sensed in the ground it was still being used.
Yankovich sank gracefully to the ground, legs crossed, using his wings to slow the motion enough that he didn’t hit the earth with an ungraceful ‘plop’. He kept them extended and curved slightly, as he would be unable to close them properly on his back while sitting down like this. Again, Cyrus wondered if he’d had wings his entire life, and if they were as useful as often as they got in the way.
“Hold out your hands.”
Cyrus dropped onto the ground in front of him, not nearly as gracefully as the demon, and set his hands gently in the demon’s own. Long, pale fingers closed, careful of the nails. Cyrus wondered if they were as strong as they looked.
Two tendrils extended up his arms, making Cyrus start in surprise. Oh, he remembered now, the feeling of Yankovich in the first class when the demon had tried to find his death magic. It was as… odd… as he remembered.
“I want you to draw your death magic out as you did before. Try to pull out as much as you can.”
Cyrus closed his eyes and focused, searching for the place deep beneath his core that housed his other magic. It was getting easier to find it, but not any easier to use it. Pulling at the magic, he was frustrated once again when all he managed was a small thread.
A tendril of other joined him just under his core, right where the death magic sat stubbornly silent. He watched as Yankovich started pulling with him, and didn’t have much luck either. It was like playing tug-o-war with a very recalcitrant dog.
Yankovich stopped pulling abruptly, and so did Cyrus. He watched as the demon seemed to gather his strength about him and then give the ‘door’ a solid whack.
pain
it was dark
it was so dark and he was drowning drowning drowning-
safe place he needed a safe place where was his safe place-
sunken mind flying by reaching for it hiding
magic magic magic
it was everywhere he couldn’t stop the flow it was burning and drowning-
Everything stopped.
oOo
His vision was black. He thought he could hear a banging sound somewhere, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t drowning in the fire anymore, and that was all he cared about.
The sound got louder, and he told it to be quiet. It stopped for a moment before getting even louder, and finally, growling, he reconnected with his body and opened his mind to tell them to fuck off-
Sapphire eyes stared down at him in concern.
He blinked, disoriented as he returned to his body. He felt like someone had pounded him with a sledgehammer. Where was he? He tried to ask, but his throat just croaked miserably. Frowning, he cleared it and tried again. “Where…?”
The sapphire globes looked relieved. “Cyrus? Are you alright?”
Blinking hard to clear his vision of spots, the human took stock of his surroundings. He was in a graveyard? “What happened?”
A pale hand moved to his forehead. “Where is your mind? I must make sure there is no damage.”
Cyrus frowned. “Buried. Why…?”
“You must unbury it, Cyrus. I must check for damage.” When the human shook his head, Yankovich looked even more persistent. “Now, Obsidian. I am quite serious.”
“Too much work…”
A strong hand gripped his chin, forcing him to look into sapphire eyes. They were furious. “I. Don’t. Care. You annoying little human. Let me check that the death magic hasn’t broken your mind!”
Cyrus frowned. “Promise you won’t go rifling through my memories?”
The demon looked pissed. “YES! You stubborn little cretin! Now let me make sure my foolishness hasn’t damaged your questionable intelligence already! Or I’ll kill you myself and bind your soul to a stuffed animal for the rest of your miserable existence!”
Cowed, Cyrus turned himself inward and searched for the sunken ball – wherever it had floated to. He found it in the farthest reaches of his magic and yanked it towards him. With nervous energy, he pulled himself and the ball out of his magic and to where his mind used to be. After glancing around at the large empty space, he hit the ‘clasp’ that released the compression and watched as the web sprung free to fill the space. Feeling a tickle, he flew between the webs to find the foreign energy prodding around. He called the cemetery into existence around them.
The world was as gray and dreary as he remembered, and he found the demon professor looking around himself with a closed expression. When he caught sight of Cyrus, he raised an eyebrow. “What happened to the web?”
He shrugged. “I’ve never tried to talk to someone in the web before. Didn’t know if it was possible, so I brought us here.” He turned to a headstone and gave it a kick. He felt the pain as the image wavered in front of him like a bad TV signal. “Don’t blow anything up. It hurts like a bitch.”
Yankovich’s expression was curiously blank. “You know this how?”
Cyrus plunked himself down onto the headstone, knowing it would support his ‘weight’ even though it technically didn’t exist. “Experience.”
“Has your mind always been like this? A web that can turn into a cemetery?”
Cyrus shrugged. “My Occlumency teacher was the one to bring me to this mindscape for the first time. I like to think of it as a visual representation of my mind itself, so that other people can understand it. When I found my mind under my own power for the first time, it was like you saw before. A web.” Cyrus bit his lip, hoping the Necromancer wouldn’t ask for any more. He was scary when pissed, but Cyrus didn’t like sharing his personal information with anybody. And the manipulations of Dumbledore were high on his ‘lock-away-and-eat-the-key’ list.
“Was the scarring already present?”
Cyrus blinked. “You can see it?”
Yankovich nodded, and for the first time the human got the impression he was disturbed. “Yes. It’s not fresh, but the damage… What is it from?”
Cyrus glared. Great. Just what he needed – his teacher seeing him as ‘damaged’. Stupid fucking meddlesome old- “None of your bloody business. Now can you finish whatever it is that you’re doing and get out of my mind?”
The next thing he knew he was slammed against a tree, feeling the pain on two fronts. In his body and in the tree. He winced as Yankovich’s eyes burned into his own.
“You ungrateful little brat,” the low baritone growled. “I didn’t have to save you from blowing up half of Switzerland, but I did. And it certainly wasn’t because I was obligated to.” He leaned even closer to Cyrus’s face. This close Cyrus could smell cinnamon, musk, and bad breath. “I could have just left you here to die and told Kyranes you had a little ‘accident’. But I didn’t. Why is that, Obsidian?”
Cyrus kept his mouth shut, eyes wide with fear.
Yankovich pulled away, releasing his hold. Cyrus collapsed in a heap at the base of the tree. “Now. I understand you don’t want to share your stupid little traumatic secrets, but next time show some goddamned respect. You’re just a human, boy, and it wouldn’t take much for me to break you in half.”
And with that said, the demon vanished from his mind. Blinking, Cyrus let the mindscape fade around him and returned to the web. It took him a bit of prodding, but he got it compressed again and sank it once again into his magic. When he returned to the real world, Yankovich was sitting across from him, eyes closed in anger? Meditation? Sleep? Cyrus had no idea. He seemed to notice when the human had awoken, however, as his eyes opened once more.
The two stared at each other for a moment before Cyrus finally got up the nerve to speak. “I’m… I’m sorry, Professor.”
The demon didn’t say anything, but his eyes seemed to defrost slightly and his tail stopped twitching.
Cyrus bit his lip nervously. “So… what happened, exactly?”
“The lid on your death magic was strong, and apparently, for a reason. I doubt you would have been able to control the power as a child, so you’re lucky in a way. No so fortunate in others. When the lid was removed, your death magic exploded from where it has been bottled up and got in a fight with your normal magic. I siphoned off most of the magic into myself. I’ll have to release it slowly over the next couple of days.” He smirked, and Cyrus felt a little relief. At least the demon was starting to act normal again. “I have to thank you, really. I’ve been wanting to perform an experiment for a while now but haven’t been able to find anyone willing to part with their death magic. Now I can do it myself.”
Cyrus frowned. “What kind of project?”
Yankovich grinned. “Just a little revenge.”
Cyrus wasn’t sure he wanted to know the details.
“Now, on to business. You need to balance your magics. I’m not entirely sure how you’re going to do it, but that wand of yours is just going to make things worse. Without a focus that’s as strongly connected to your natural magic as your current wand is to death, every time you use it your death magic will rebel against its confines. It will use your wand to control you.” He frowned. “I’m not sure how you want to deal with that.”
Fuck.
He remembered when he’d bought the wand from Ollivander. The man had said his wand might control him one day if he didn’t get a handle on his death magic, but Cyrus hadn’t thought… “What can I do?”
Yankovich actually ran a hand over his face, sapphire eyes deep in thought. “You must find a wand, or another focus, that is in tune with your natural magic. Have you had the death stick your entire life?”
Cyrus shook his head, looking down at his hands sadly. His phoenix wand… “No. It’s a recent replacement.”
Yankovich frowned. “What happened to your old one?”
“It was destroyed.” Cyrus rubbed his face with frustrated hands. “Well, the phoenix feather survived, but it’s either lost or someone stole it from me.”
“Phoenix feather, you say?”
Cyrus nodded.
“Do you know where it is? Could you find it if you tried?”
“I don’t know. Well, I have a guess, but the wards on his- well, they’re too powerful for me to handle.”
Yankovich frowned. “You need to find this feather that you’ve already bonded with. Until you do, don’t cast any spells with your death wand. And if you ever feel like your death magic is bursting at the seams, find me. I won’t have you killing half the school by accident. Understand?”
Cyrus’s eyes widened. “Yes, sir.”
Yankovich nodded. “Good. Now return to Shikaan, we’re done for the day. I have to soak up the residue of our little… accident.”
Cyrus nodded and apparated past the wards.
oOo
“GET YOUR LAZY ASSES MOVING!!”
Cyrus cursed under his breath as he dodged another colourful curse sent his way. Weapons and Battle was certainly not his favourite class, but it was necessary if he was to be in fighting shape. Or at least that’s what he tried to convince himself as Welkins shouted some more. Of all the W&B teachers, Welkins was his least favourite. He much preferred Ouragan, the hand-to-hand combat instructor.
Each year was separated depending on the student’s physical capabilities coupled with their skill. Usually the humans were grouped together at the bottom of the class. This relieved Cyrus, to be honest, because he saw the vampires and werewolves fighting each other on the other side of the courtyard, and he did not want to be the one being smashed repeatedly into trees.
It made him wonder if humans could ever physically survive an encounter with a werewolf or a vampire. Basilisk skin armour could only do so much, after all.
Today they were going through an obstacle course. They had to make their way through various physical hurdles while having the co-ordination and awareness to dodge multiple curses, and the curses wouldn’t be removed until you had left the course, since the class was banned from using their wands. Not that Cyrus could have used his bloody wand either way.
It had been a week since that class in Switzerland. Yankovich had banned him from raising the dead until he had his phoenix wand, so he was getting farther and farther behind in the course. And Cyrus still had no idea how he was going to locate his feather and extricate it from Dumbledore’s office. Every time he tried to think up a plan, he couldn’t help but worry over everything that could possibly go wrong. He wasn’t nearly qualified enough to take down Dumbledore’s wards, the security on Hogwarts had probably been increased, he didn’t want to get anywhere near the senile old-
Cyrus swore under his breath as a curse singed the hair on the back of his head. The only advantage he had in this class was his wandless magic, as he’d been using it for months now and even more intensively for the past week. He’d been trying to conserve his magic as much as possible lately, since wandless magic took a toll on his reserves after a while, but sometimes his body was physically incapable of getting through Welkin’s hellish training regime, and he had to give himself an extra ‘boost’.
He knew there would be a couple humans that couldn’t make it out before the end of class, but he wasn’t going to be one of them. He wasn’t going to fall behind in another course.
“Shit!”
Cyrus glanced up in surprise, just in time to see a body falling towards him. Before he could react, the body had knocked him from his grip on the wall and they were both tumbling towards the ground.
And he’d almost been at the top, too!
They hit the ground with a thump, and Cyrus could feel a couple things break from the extra weight landing on top of him. Groaning, he pushed the heavier body off him. “What the hell!”
“Sorry,” a soft tenor said, making the teenager almost sound boyish.
“Watch where you’re falling next time,” Cyrus grumbled, using his magic to assess the damage to his body as he’d been taught in Healing class. Thank goodness he had that class right after this. He’d probably be able to get Healer Svea to check over his patch job. Locating the two broken ribs, he was relieved to find that they hadn’t punctured anything. Focusing his magic, he shifted them back into place with a wince and set his magic to healing the fractures.
“Are you okay?”
Finishing up his healing, Cyrus sat up and looked at the guy who had nearly crushed him. Green eyes met the oddest pair he had ever seen. They were steel-grey, with pupils slit like a cat.
Weird.
He raised an eyebrow at the grey-skinned demon, glancing at the wings on said demon’s back. “How did you fall off when you have wings?”
The demon’s cheeks darkened. Cyrus assumed it was a blush. “I couldn’t open them before I hit you. And flying over the wall makes Welkins curse-happy.”
Standing up, Cyrus glanced around to assure himself there was no other threat around. Meaning, no more threat of him being crushed again. “Well, be more careful next time,” he grumbled under his breath before jumping back on the stone wall. The bright side of having already climbed it was that he knew where all the best footholds were. He made it up about a third of the way before the demon caught up with him. He tried to ignore the curious amber eyes on his face. What was so curious about a human, anyway.
Having ignored the demon, Cyrus was surprised to see him crouching next to him when he arrived at the top. He was still being watched curiously. It irked him.
Careful to not fall off the sides, he made his way across the top of the magically created ‘cliff’. With his luck, there’d be some sort of booby trap ready to spring on him. When it finally did, he had to weave his way through geysers of fire, suddenly very grateful for his basilisk armour. He would have been singed a couple times already if he didn’t have it.
He had to walk across a thin metal beam next, in order to make it to the end. All the students who had already finished the course were of course standing below it with varying degrees of perverse enjoyment. Some had already started throwing curses.
Swearing under his breath, he watched as the curses were repelled around the beam, leaving it perfectly intact. Humming thoughtfully to himself, he stretched out his senses to feel the beam. He could put up a shield that would (hopefully) last until he got across the beam… but the downside of some shields was that powerful spells could physically push the caster around, which would make him lose his balance. The other option was to copy the spell already on the beam.
“There’s no way to get across that with so many students. We’re nearly the last to finish.”
Cyrus turned to look beside him. It was that demon from earlier. He was still there. “Why are you at the end of the race? Aren’t you a demon or something?” he snapped, rather annoyed with the student’s dreary and negative outlook.
The demon twitched. “I broke my leg early in the course.”
Cyrus’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “And you haven’t healed it yet?”
The demon shrugged. “It’ll heal on its own eventually.”
Cyrus could only shake his head in bewilderment. Didn’t he know that if you didn’t let a bone set properly, it could heal improperly? What was he doing walking on the thing? “Sit down,” he ordered, feeling like he was channeling Healer Svea.
The demon just stared at him.
“NOW!”
Steel eyes wide, he obeyed. Grumbling under his breath, Cyrus ran a probing hand over the demon’s legs, searching for the broken bone. It was mostly healed, but it had set on a slight angle that Cyrus knew from Healing class would give the demon trouble later in life. “I have to break it again,” he told the demon, thrusting his magic to obey him before the demon could protest. A strangled sound broke from the student’s throat, but otherwise he was silent. Ignoring the intent eyes on his face, he sent his magic to work, weaving the fragment of bone back together, double-checking that it set straight.
“There,” he said, withdrawing his magic. “It would have been worse if you’d let it heal that way. Take a bloody Healing course, already.” Grumbling under his breath about stupid people not taking care of his health, he turned back to the course in time for Instructor Welkins to impersonate an army drill sergeant again.
“WHAT’S KEEPIN’ YOU LAZY BUMS! STOP STARIN’ AND START WALKIN’!”
Rolling his eyes, Cyrus decided to try the option C that had been floating around in his mind before the demon had distracted him. Focusing, he closed his lids and let the world disappear into runes around him. He didn’t want the demon to see the glow of his eyes, after all.
The spell on the beam was rather complex. Cyrus could literally see as the other spells, knots of runes, were deflected easily around the netting that coated the metal. Well, he couldn’t see the metal, but he knew it was there because of how the runes clung to it. ‘Reaching’ for the spell, as he’d been practicing with slow progress for the past two months whenever he could find the time, he found the set of anchoring runes holding the spell down. Adding a couple of runes to it, he included himself as ‘something to be anchored’, and the spell spread up to wrap around him.
“It’s nearly impossible to get across,” the demon said as Cyrus opened his eyes again. Of course, the demon hadn’t seen him manipulating the ward.
The human looked back at him with a contemplative look.
Making the decision, he held out his hand. “C’mon. I already healed your leg once. No point in letting you break it again. Or get roasted.”
The grey demon gave him an odd look. “What are you talking about?”
Cyrus rolled his eyes. “I’m getting us both across in piece. Do you want to survive the next two minutes or not?” He raised an annoyed eyebrow.
Slowly, the demon stretched out his hand. Cyrus grasped it and closed his eyes again to shift the spell to ‘share’ them. He had to drag the demon onto the beam at first, but once he realized that the spells weren’t hitting them, the demon calmed down.
When they reached the other side the bell rang, and Cyrus let out a sigh of relief. “Finally done the obstacle course from hell,” he grumbled under his breath and walked towards his next class, leaving the demon behind him to stare at him silently.
oOo
After he finished all his classes for the day, Cyrus buried himself in the runes section of the Library again. He was cruising at the top of his class in Runes right now because of all his self-study. And he was cruising closer to an F with every Necromancy class. The looks the other students gave him made him want to curse their eyeballs out of their sockets, and the blank look Yankovich gave him every time Cyrus had to sit on the bench during a trip to the cemetery had the human’s insides squirming for a reason he couldn’t quite describe.
“Hey Cyrus!”
The human started when a warm lycan body jumped on his back, nearly knocking his face into the table. “Hey Xanthir,” he mumbled into the woodwork.
Xanthir frowned and slid of Cyrus’s back. When the human looked up curiously, amber eyes were watching him with concern. “What’s up?” Cyrus raised an incredulous eyebrow. “You haven’t been yourself for a week now, Cyrus. C’mon. Share with the class. I’ll even put up a silencin’ ward.” The werewolf waved his wand and the ward slipped into place.
Biting his lip, Cyrus stared down at the Runes text in front of him. He wasn’t sure he wanted to share his problems with his… ‘friend’ yet. Then again, maybe he needed a fresh pair of eyes. He’d been working this problem over for the past week with no results. Reluctantly, he cast three other wards in silent succession over top of Xanthir’s. The Were’s eyebrows rose.
“I… I have a bit of a problem.”
Xanthir plopped himself down in the seat across from Cyrus. “What kinda problem?”
Cyrus wondered how much he should tell him. “I need to find my old wand.”
An orange eyebrow rose. “Why? Something happen to your 15-inch wonder?”
Cyrus shook his head. “No, the new wand is actually the problem…” He sighed. “You know I’m taking Necromancy, right? Well, my death magic is going out of control and my new wand has dementor’s blood in it. So I can’t use it, or it’ll speed up the process. I’m either going to fail the course in the next month or blow up half the school.” He scowled. “Or both.”
Both of Xanthir’s eyebrows crawled into his hairline. The wolf whistled. “So you need a wand that won’t aggravate your death magic.”
Cyrus nodded. “Yes. Exactly.”
“Why dontcha just buy a new one?”
“Because my old phoenix feather from my old wand survived, but someone stole it from me.”
Xanthir stared at him, and then repeated himself slowly. “Why. Don’t. You. Just buy a new. One. Find another phoenix feather wand.”
Cyrus scowled. “Do you know how many wands I went through in order to find my first wand, let a lone my second? Close to three hundred.”
Xanthir raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “Yeah, well, that’s if you go to the human wand makers. I’m sure you can find a phoenix feather that suits you from another wand dealer. Or you can go hunt down the bird that gave your original. The point is, you can’t just throw an idea away without even trying it.”
But Cyrus had stopped listening. Fawkes. How could he have missed that? Sure, it wouldn’t be his original wand, but it would be from the same phoenix, so that meant that it could be a match, right? He still had to get into Hogwarts and into Dumbledore’s office, but asking a bird for a new feather would be infinitely more simple than searching for a needle in a haystack of dumblewards.
“Hellooo. Shikaan to Cyyyyyrus. Anybody in there?”
Cyrus came out of his thoughts to see an unshaven face centimeters from his own. Acting on instinct, his magic slammed into the body in his personal space and sent it careening into a bookshelf.
“CYRUS OBSIDIAN!!”
Cyrus’s eyes snapped between the bookshelf falling over and the sight of Tara in all her righteous fury stomping towards him. Wide-eyed, he reached out with his magic to the bookshelf and managed to stop it before it hit another bookshelf and started a domino effect. Unfortunately, he forgot about all the books on the tilted side that fell off their shelves and landed on the floor. Swearing under his breath, he turned back to Tara just in time to duck a blow that could have taken off his head.
“I’m sorry! Careful, damnit!”
“You’re not the one that has to reshelve all those books, you clumsy wand-waving monkey!!”
“Technically, he didn’t use a wand,” Xanthir interjected from where he was standing upright. The carefree grin on his face reassured Cyrus that there were no hard feelings.
“YOU! SHUT YOUR RABIES-INFECTED PIE-HOLE!”
Xanthir ‘eeped’ and hid behind a bookshelf.
Tara turned back to Cyrus. “And you! You owe me a double donation this cycle, you clumsy meat-sack! It’s going to take me hours to get them all in the right order.” When he didn’t say anything at first, she hissed angrily. Eyes wide, he nodded emphatically. “Good. I’ll take that payment tonight when I come by to your library.”
Xanthir, who had inched out from behind the bookshelf, whistled a catcall. “You spending the nights now, Tara?” he taunted with a grin.
She hissed, flashing her cute little fangs that could likely rip out your jugular. “I’m on a nocturnal sleep cycle right now, you moron!”
The werewolf just snickered.
Cyrus couldn’t stop his lip from twitching at the familiar scene. He swore those two could be siblings with how much they bickered.
“Hey Xanthir, could I get the names and locations of those places you were talking about earlier?”
It took a second for the werewolf to remember what he was talking about, but eventually the light bulb went off. “Oh right! Sure thing, Cy.” He reached for his bag on the ground and rifled through it.
Tara raised an eyebrow. “What are you two cookin’ up?”
Cyrus shook his head. “Nothing. I’m looking to get a new wand, and Xanthir mentioned some places besides human wand-makers to get one.”
“Aaah. Show me the list when he’s done. I probably know more than him.”
He smiled. “Thanks.”
She grinned, flashing her cute little fangs. “What are you thanking me for? I’m taking extra tonight.”
Cyrus rolled his eyes.
oOo
He stared at the run-down shack incredulously, glancing between the sheet in his hands and the number half-falling off its door. Did a wand-maker really live here?
His hand inched towards his wand before he reminded himself that he couldn’t use the bloody thing. Swearing under his breath, he climbed carefully over the partially-collapsed deck and made his way to the door. He knocked.
And waited.
After getting no response, he knocked harder and startled when the door was knocked open by the force. Jeez. He hadn’t been knocking that hard. Preparing a wandless stunning charm, he let it float under the skin of his hand as he entered the house.
“Hello? Anybody there?”
A crash and curse sounded from downstairs, and Cyrus looked around for a staircase. Except there wasn’t one.
With a crack, a rather filthy-looking teenager popped into existence in front of him. He made a face. “The fuck you want, human?”
Cyrus’s eyes narrowed. “I heard from a friend that you sell wands or supplies for them. I’m looking for a phoenix feather.”
The kid snorted. “Ain’t givin’ you one a’ those. Very hard to find. Now fuck off.”
The sound that came out of Cyrus’s throat sounded so much like a growl, the kid actually paused to give him a weird look. He’d been to ten different places looking for a phoenix feather, and if this stupid little cock-sucking brat wasn’t willing to part with one, he had another thing coming!
“If you have a phoenix feather, I want it,” Cyrus growled, taking a step farther into the wrecked shack.
The kid crossed his arms. “Dude. Fuck off. I said I’m not givin’ it up, so I’m not givin’ it up.”
Cyrus narrowed his eyes. “I’m willing to pay you a substantial amount of gold to part with it.”
“So what? I don’t need your gold.”
Cyrus’s eyebrows rose incredulously, and he took another look around him.
The kid snorted. “It may not be pigs and ponies, but this place suits my needs. I don’t need some rich lil’ brat like you tellin’ me I need your stinkin’ money.”
“Then what do you need?”
The kid grinned. His eyes lowered and slowly rose, making Cyrus squirm. Surely the kid wasn’t-
“Haven’t been laid in a while. N’ you’re pretty hot.” The look of disgust on his face must have shown, because the kid scowled darkly. “What? Is it cuz I’m a guy, you homophobic human prick?”
“What? Jesus, when was the last time you showered? This has nothing to do with you being a guy.” Well, that’s what Cyrus wanted to think. He wasn’t sure he knew what gender he liked, but this kid certainly didn’t do anything for him. He had a limited experience with women, and no experience with men, so even if he was going to have sex with someone, it definitely wasn’t going to be this narcissistic, filthy-
“Well, if you’re not puttin’ out, neither am I. Now get the fuck off my property.” The kid glared.
Cyrus wanted to punch his face in. “There has to be something besides sex that you’re willing to barter with.”
The kid snorted. “Unless you’re a magic sensitive, sex is the only trade, man.”
Cyrus frowned. Magic sensitive? “What do you mean by sensitive?”
He got an ‘are-you-stupid?’ look for his effort. “Dude. Magic sensitive? As in, people who have a natural affinity for magic?”
Cyrus could remember something vaguely from his first Necromancy class, but it was too long ago for him to be sure. “How do you know if you’re magic sensitive?”
The kid let out an angry breath and strode towards Cyrus. The human took a step back as he got his first good look at the amber eyes sunk in the kid’s unhealthy face. “If you wanna know, stop lookin’ at me like that, prick.” He grabbed Cyrus’s wrist, and it took all the human’s control to not let the stunner loose. The kid’s eyebrows rose. “Wandless pre-cast. Impressive. Not many people your age can do that. Absorb the stunner, and I’ll show you.”
Warily, Cyrus did as instructed. He could smell the kid’s horrible breath this close. Before he could contemplate the smell much longer, however, he felt a lightning-fast tendril of magic shoot up his arm and start writhing inside his channels. The unexpected pleasure sent him crashing to his knees.
The kid whistled. “Oooh, very sensitive it looks.” He let go of Cyrus’s wrist and the human let out a shuddering breath. Holy shit. “I’ll deal. Follow me.” He started walking to the back of the shack, and it took a couple seconds for Cyrus to pull himself together and stand. Not before he readjusted himself in his pants, though. Fuck.
The kid led him to a set of stairs that looked as if they had been carved out of stone. Cyrus wasn’t sure he wanted to follow the kid into the pit, but he couldn’t sense any anti-apparition wards, and he was fairly confident in his wandless casting. And if he needed to, he could always blast the kid with his wand.
“Whatcha need a phoenix feather for, anyway?” The kid’s voice echoed in the staircase.
“Wand.”
“Well, duh. Whatcha need a new wand for? Y’already got one.”
Cyrus frowned. “How could you tell?”
“I make wands. Idiot.”
Cyrus decided he really didn’t like conversation with this prick. “And what exactly do you need a magic sensitive for?”
The kid grumbled under his breath. “I have a recent acquisition that is being… difficult to manage. Rumour has it they like sensitives, though I don’t know why. I was hopin’ you could talk sense into the thing.”
Cyrus’s eyebrows rose as they finally came to the end of the stairs. “I take it it’s an animal?”
“See for yourself.” He pointed to a cage in a corner of the room. Cyrus’s eyes widened. “She doesn’t even like parselmouths. I already tried that. She won’t give me one of her fangs for a wand, no matter what I do. It’s gettin’ real frustratin’. If she’d give me the ruddy fang, I’d a’ let her go already. Stupid beast.”
You’re the ssstupid beassst, flea-bitten mutt.
Cyrus choked on a laugh, getting a weird look from the wand-maker.
“Well, if you can get a fang, I’ll give you the phoenix feather. I don’t normally work with light-magic stuff anyway. I just happened to find this one a month ago.”
I wouldn’t give you a fang if you gave me twenty hatchlingsss, you- oooh. I sssmell… a sssmeller. Come clossser, sssmeller.
Cyrus conjured a light and made his way towards the snake. She was huge. He bet one of her fangs would be as long as his hand.
Yesss… you may pet me, sssmeller.
Cyrus tentatively reached his hand between the bars and pet the head of the snake. He heard a gasp behind him, but ignored it.
Sssmell me, sssmeller. It hasss been too long sssince I have ssseen your kind. Will you help my hatchlingsss?
Cyrus blinked. Hatchlings? What was the snake talking about?
Pleassse? It hissed, and Cyrus could swear it almost sounded wistful.
How can I help your hatchlingsss, beautiful one? Cyrus hissed softly to it.
“A sensitive and a speaker.” He could hear the grin in the wolf’s voice. “I picked gooood.”
Cyrus ignored him.
Sssmell them. They are inssside, but will not be born for many yearsss. If you sssmell them, they will wake up and be born.
Cyrus didn’t think snake hatching worked this way, but who was he to know? Putting his hand on the snake’s head, he carefully reached his magic into it and was surprised at how much he could feel. He knew that there were three baby snake eggs inside that were fully developed, but they were just waiting, like the snake had said. Reaching his magic towards them, he let it touch them. He gasped as they came alive under his touch, wiggling in their eggs.
Thank you, ssspeaker and sssmeller. I will give you the fang if you take me to the foressst.
Cyrus pulled his hand out of the cage and turned to the werewolf grinning behind him. “She says she’ll give you the fang if I can take her to the forest.”
He nodded. “You get the fang, I’ll get the feather.” And then disappeared with a crack.
Shrugging, Cyrus turned back to the snake. He agrees.
Pull the fang. You will find it already loossse.
The snake opened her mouth and Cyrus reached inside the cage and pulled ever-so-gently. The fang came free with a soft snick.
The werewolf reappeared with a crack, a tube in his hand. “The feather’s inside.” He pulled the lid off and flashed the contents before closing it again. “Now, the fang.” He grinned greedily, eyeing the silver in Cyrus’s hands.
“Let the snake go, first. I’m taking her to the forest.”
The wolf nodded impatiently. “Yes, yes, take her.” He waved a wand at the cage and the lock fell off. Holding out the tube, his eyes were all over the fang.
Cyrus handed it over, taking his tube and double checking on the feather inside. He pulled it out and felt a warmth spread through him, but not the same as his original wand. Damnit. Slipping the feather back into the case and closing it, he turned to the snake and opened the door to its cage.
Climb onto my arm. I’m taking you home with me, then I’m going to take you to the only foressst I know.
Isss it niccce?
Apparently. The centaursss think ssso.
The snake hissed in contentment as he wrapped her around his waist and pulled the shirt down. Ssstay hidden, and don’t bite me, okay?
Yesss.
He disappeared with a crack as soon as the snake was secured, wanting to get away from the wolf behind him as soon as possible.
oOo
Cyrus appeared in his room with a crack and let out a sigh. Well, if his plans of going to Hogwarts had only been hesitant before, now he had to go. Bugger.
He nearly jumped out of his skin when a body jumped on his back. “Hey Cyr—OH GOD!”
Cyrus dearly wanted to hex the werewolf for jumping on him, but currently had both hands wrapped around the snake that was trying to get at Xanthir.
Stupid mutt!
Calm down! He didn’t mean to surprise you, he didn’t know you were there, he tried to consol the furious serpent.
Xanthir was staring at him with wide eyes. “You’re a parselmouth?”
Cyrus swore and glared. “Yes. Thanks for pissing off the 7-foot snake, Xanthir.”
The wolf held up two hands defensively. “S-sorry, I didn’t even notice. Where the heck did you get it from?”
“One of the wand-makers.”
Xanthir grinned. “Oh right! So, how’d the hunting go?” Xanthir asked, collapsing into one of Cyrus’s crappy chairs and putting his feet up on the table. Cyrus itched to hex him purple, but didn’t want to miss and risk staining the furniture. Or freak out the giant snake currently rewrapping itself around his waist.
“Shitty. I found three phoenix feathers and spent a lot of money. Not everyone is as willing to part with a phoenix feather as Ollivander.”
Tara raised an eyebrow, glancing up from where she sat on his bed, reading a book. He suppressed another surprised flinch. Had she been there the whole time? And since when had these two gotten so comfortable in his rooms? He needed to find better locking charms… “Nice scales,” she commented, turning back to her book. “Surely one of the feathers fits?”
Cyrus bit his lip. “They’re not the same as my original. I don’t feel the same kind of… connection with them.”
She snorted. “Sounds like you’re fucked then. In the meantime, get those feathers made into wands and see if they work at all before you just toss them. They may hold you over until you find your old one.”
Running a hand through his hair, he made his way into the small student kitchen built in the corner of the room and pulled a butterbeer out of the cold box. “I guess,” he grumbled, twisting the lid off and taking a few gulps.
Tara turned a page. “Why do you need your old wand so desperately, anyway?”
“He’s gonna blow up the school if he doesn’t get it,” Xanthir replied blithely, either missing or purposely ignoring the look Cyrus shot him.
Tara actually looked up from her book. “You’re kidding. Why?”
Xanthir started snacking on a bag of chips he’d pulled out of nowhere. “Something to do with necromancy and his 15-inch wonder.”
She raised an eyebrow at Cyrus, and the human sighed and caved. “My death magic really likes when I use my wand because it has dementor’s blood in it. Unfortunately, I need another wand just as powerful linked to my natural magic, or I could blow up the school.”
Tara whistled. “Damn, kid. Good luck with that.” She turned back to her book, making Cyrus roll his eyes.
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out, Cyrus,” Xanthir said.
Cyrus was sure that was meant to be comforting, but it didn’t really do the job. Because he was back to square one if these wands didn’t work. He had to find his original phoenix feather or get a new feather from the same bird, and both were located in the last place he ever wanted to be. The place that he had to take this snake to, as he’d promised.
Hogwarts.
-Toki Mirage-
Well, that took forbloodyever. Sorry guys. Had exams and all that, and my muse was extra busy.
And thanks to Roos, for musing this chapter and all my others :) As always, a third of the material results from her awesomeness! ;P Love you Roos!
Edit 09/07/09 – changed Yalmireth’s eyes
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