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
- 7
- 8
- 9
Bloody Skies
oOo
Chapter Eight:
oOo
“Three? What could you possibly want with three wands, kid?”
Cyrus was currently standing across from the non-human wand-maker who had seemed the most qualified out of all the ones he’d ran to looking for feathers. And she was the only one who actually had a store. He bit his lip and glared. “I need a phoenix feather wand custom-made.”
The lady behind the counter raised an incredulous eyebrow. “And since when are you an expert on wand cores, huh? There’s a reason I’m getting paid to do this and you’re not.”
Cyrus felt his eye twitch. “My first wand was destroyed. It was a phoenix feather.”
She raised an eyebrow. “What wood? How long?”
He blinked. “Er, holly. I think it was around 12 inches.”
“Hmm… a Light-based wand in its entirety. Your magic isn’t very Light anymore, kid. More Grey. How did you manage to get the wand to work for you?”
“Well, I haven’t used it for five months. So I don’t know.”
She nodded. “And what wand have you been using in the meantime?”
Cyrus pulled out his wand and felt his death magic stir under his core. Shit. Quickly, he placed it on the counter.
Her eyebrows rose as she ran a hand over its length. “A ridiculously long wand with dementor’s blood for a core? You must do heavy death magic.”
Cyrus shoved his hands in his pockets. “That’s the problem. Every time I pick it up my death magic…”
“Aaah, I see. You need a wand that has just as strong an affinity to your natural magic for balance.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Well, your last wand may have been a phoenix feather, but that doesn’t mean that these new feathers or even your old one will work for you. A phoenix is a creature born of Light magic.”
Cyrus’s eyes narrowed. “I know someone with a yew and phoenix feather wand that casts Avada Kedavera more times than he takes a piss, and you’re saying my old one doesn’t suit me anymore?”
She shook her head. “You misunderstand. The combination of holly and phoenix feather doesn’t allow for much Dark magic at all.”
“Then you can just change the wood.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Who’s the wand maker, kid? I know what I’m talking about. Just changing the wood won’t necessarily mean that the wand will be a match for you anymore.” She turned to her stock with a curious look on her face. A flick of her hand had multiple boxes floating down onto the counter. “Put your death wand away. I want you to try some of my wands before I waste those phoenix feathers you’ve got there.”
Sighing, Cyrus did as instructed. Fifty wands later, he’d blown a hole in her roof and lit her flowerpot on fire.
The lady’s singed white eyebrows crawled into her hairline. “Well. You’re a finicky beast, aren’t you. Give me the feathers.”
Cyrus pulled out three separate tubes and placed them on the counter. Some wandless maneuvering on her part had the feathers laid out on a silk cloth in seconds. “Give me your wand hand,” she commanded, floating a hand over the feathers. Cyrus gave her his right, as his left channeled the death stick, and watched with curious eyes as her white hair began to glow and the whites of her eyes absorbed her irises and pupils. What was she, anyway?
A couple moments later, she released his hand and closed her eyes. “None of these feathers will sustain the connection you need. They’ll burn out in days, and will probably explode and permanently damage you or someone else. As a wand-maker, I can’t in good conscience make these for you.”
Cyrus swore under his breath. “What am I supposed to do then?”
She opened her eyes and they were back to normal. “I can try to make a custom wand that will work for you, but I can’t guarantee it. Follow me.”
She led him into a back room, just as Ollivander did, and asked him to close his eyes and ‘feel’ for the ingredients.
He felt a twitch, but it was nowhere near the calling he had felt with the dementor’s blood. It led him to a long silver hair and a light brown stick. He called the wand-maker back into the room and showed her what’s he’d chosen.
Her eyebrows rose. “Hair of a Siberian lion. You are an expensive customer. They’re nearly extinct, you know. Muggles don’t even know they exist because they’re protected by the ministries of the countries they live in.” She held out her hands and he gave her the pieces. She held on to his right hand with one hand and the ingredients with the other. “No, not quite,” she muttered under her breath. “But maybe…” She wandered back to the front of her shop and repeated the same exercise with both a phoenix feather and the hair.
“Bingo,” she exclaimed, grinning. “This one might work. It’s not a strong connection, but it’s good enough that I’ll make it for you. Just be careful how much power you pump through it at a time, okay? I know you powerhouses like showing off your fancy spells, but if you’re not careful even this wand will blow up in your face.” She took the second phoenix feather, wrapped the hair around the shaft of the feather, and then jabbed them into the wood.
Cyrus raised an eyebrow. “I thought you couldn’t use magic to carve a wand?”
She gave him the look. “Me? Wand-maker. You? Customer. I’m a fey, kid. We’re a close relative of the faerie. Because we have close ties to death, our magic is different than humans, so it doesn’t interrupt the flow of energy in a wand when we use it to carve the wood and put the core inside. Only humans and werewolves and stuff have that problem. Now, if you let me keep these two phoenix feathers, I’ll only charge you 14 galleons for the wand.”
He gaped. “What? Those feathers cost me 100 galleons!”
She raised an eyebrow. “And that wand would have cost you 130 galleons, kid. Siberian lion hairs are rare, and I’m not cheap.”
Grumbling, he forked over the metal. She counted the money and handed him his wand, levitating the feathers to the back of her store for storage. When he picked up the wand, white sparks shot out of the end, and warmth spread through him. It wasn’t the same feeling of contentment he’d had with his old wand, but it was the first wand he’d felt any level of connection with besides his death stick. Cautiously, he cast some of the spells he’d been managing wandless for the past couple months. When they worked, he grinned. Finally! Now he’d be able to catch up in Dark Arts and Their Defense. There were only so many spells you could manage wandless, and he’d been getting behind in the last couple weeks as they moved into highly complex dark arts and defensive spells.
“Thanks.” Cyrus smiled and slipped the wand into his pocket. He’d need to go dig up the arm holster he’d bought from Ollivander later.
She grinned. “No prob, kid.”
He apparated back to Shikaan.
oOo
“I want everyone to write a two foot essay on James Danish for next class. Focus on his development as a necromancer, and the events leading up to his death. Dismissed.”
Cyrus waited for the class to leave the graveyard, but some of the students didn’t have classes and were being slow. Letting out a breath, he walked towards Yankovich, book bag slung over his shoulder. “Professor?” He flinched slightly as the cold blue eyes settled on him.
“Yes, Obsidian?”
Cyrus licked his lips. “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to participate more in class these past few weeks. I’ve been trying to find a proper wand for my natural magic, but it’s been… difficult.” The demon said nothing. “I-I’ve recently found a wand that might work, and I was wondering if I could join the rest of the class.”
Yankovich held out his hand, and Cyrus pulled the wand from its hostler. Placing it on the demon’s palm, he watched the cold features for any sign of… anything, really. Yankovich had been getting more and more short with him as the weeks passed by. With every class Cyrus’s fear of failing increased. The marked papers he had gotten back were all above acceptable, but the practical held more weight in this course.
The demon’s face gave nothing away. “Have you tried casting spells with this?”
Cyrus nodded. “But I haven’t gone into the powerful one yet, and it won’t let me cast Dark spells.”
Yankovich nodded and handed it back. “I’d like to observe. Cast a simple spell, first.”
When Yankovich’s hand came to rest on Cyrus’s shoulder, he shivered at the sensation of feeling magical arms that spread through his body. His body remembered the last time this had happened, and to his horror, he found blood rushing to his extremities. Glad that Yankovich was behind him and couldn’t see the blush on his face, Cyrus cast a simple levitation charm at a vase of flowers that had been left next to a gravestone. His magic didn’t respond as smoothly as it did with his death stick, but the spell still worked fine.
“Now, cast Avada Kedavra.”
Obeying, Cyrus cast the spell at the vase of flowers. Nothing happened. The wand let out a few angry sparks, but didn’t cast the spell.
“Cast the most powerful defensive spell you know.”
The movements for the bubble spell he had used at the beginning of the year were short and simple, and soon they were surrounded by a gently glowing blue light. Cyrus frowned. It should have been stronger than that.
“Release it and cast the spell wandlessly. Don’t adjust your wandless magic in result to the spell you just cast, just let it out the way you normally do.”
Sheathing his wand, he called the spell into existence around them without any movements of his hand. He hadn’t been able to do that before he’d stopped using his death stick. One upside to the whole fiasco. He smiled when the spell was strong, not gently glowing but solid. It was still translucent, but it was obviously much more powerful than when he’d used the wand.
“Interesting,” Yankovich said, removing his hand.
Cyrus turned around, brows furrowed. “What’s interesting?”
Yankovich raised a cool eyebrow. “That you spent so much time finding this wand, and yet it is still not good enough.”
Cyrus felt like he’d been slapped. What had crawled up the demon’s ass and died? It wasn’t his fault he couldn’t find a new bloody wand that worked!
“Why haven’t you found your old core? I was under the impression that you were going to locate it and have a new wand made from it.”
Cyrus bit his lip. How could he explain what had happened, without Yankovich figuring out who he was?
When he was silent for two long, the demon snapped out, “Well?”
The human sighed. “I… I will do my best to find it this weekend, sir.”
Yankovich nodded sharply. “You had better. If you don’t find it within a week, you will be removed from my class and I will place a seal on your death magic. Have I made myself clear?”
Cyrus grit his teeth. “Yes sir. Perfectly clear.”
Yankovich nodded and disapparated. Cyrus stood in the graveyard for a few moments, trying to swallow his anger. He knew that he couldn’t expect to pass the class if he couldn’t use his death magic, but Yankovich was going to get rid of him? And seal his death magic? That… that pissed him off. But what bothered him even more was the fact that it was his own fault he was in this situation. He hadn’t checked the ashes for his wand. He’d let his grief blind him, and now he was paying the price.
Letting out a sigh, he apparated back to his rooms. There was no point in going to his Animagus class. It was Friday and he had a school to burglarize.
oOo
“You’re goin’ tonight?”
Cyrus shot Xanthir an annoyed look as he shrunk all his runes references and put them in a mini bookcase so he could still see all the titles. It would be stupid of him to waste time looking for a book when he could just organize them all. And he still didn’t know how long he’d have to find his feather after breaking the wards. Actually, he wasn’t sure of much, and that hit a nerve.
“Yeah, so?”
Xanthir was staring at him with a dumb look on his face. “W-well, don’t ya have to prepare or somethin’? I mean, if someone stole it from ya, they must have protections on it or somethin’.”
Cyrus let out a frustrated breath. “I’m well aware of that, Xanthir. There’s not much I can do at this point. Yankovich is going to pull me from his class and seal my death magic if I don’t get this wand in a week. I’m out of time.”
The werewolf watched him as he tore into his trunk again looking for any other books he might need.
“D’you have a plan?” Xanthir called down after him.
“No! You know what? I have no fucking idea how I’m going to get this feather, and I’d really not have you harassing me right now because I need to be focused in two hours!”
Xanthir made a face as he watched Cyrus climb back out of his trunk. “Why two hours?”
“Because that’s when they’ll be having dinner.”
The werewolf blinked. “They? They who? There’s more than one?”
Cyrus glared at him. “The person I’m stealing this from works at a school, okay? And he’s probably got a billion different wards on his office, the door, his desk, and every other possible thing you can think of, alright?! And I’m going to be winging the whole thing!”
Xanthir grinned. “Well, at least you won’t have a master plan to go sour.”
Cyrus gave him a suffering look.
“Sounds like you could use an expert. How come you don’t just hire a wards master? Seems like you got the money,” Tara said from where she had appeared on his bed. He had no idea how she managed to get into his rooms every time without tripping a single spell, but it never ceased to irritate him. “Speaking of old family money, Obsidian isn’t on the list. Which means your last name isn’t really Obsidian.”
Cyrus stared at her incredulously. “I have things to worry about right now, and satisfying your curiosity isn’t one of them.”
She actually pouted at him. “Fine. Be that way. But you didn’t answer my other question. Why don’t you just hire someone to do the job?”
“Personal reasons.”
She rolled her eyes. “See if I try to help you ever again,” she muttered, and the next time he looked, she was gone.
Xanthir had a grin on his face, but Cyrus could see the worry in his eyes. “So, when’ll you be back?”
“I don’t know.”
Two eyebrows rose. “Dude. You can’t just leave school like that. The teachers are gonna wonder if you miss too many classes. Do you have a back up plan? Or someone to pull yer ass outa the fire?”
Cyrus pursed his lips. “Well… maybe.” He pulled out a slip of paper and wrote a quick message on it.
S.
I need to go to the potions store for some ingredients. Phoenix tears are so hard to come by these days. Sorry if I don’t make it back on time. I’ll do my best not to get delayed, but you might have to save me from that hag behind the counter. She has a really hard time letting go of rare products.
C.
He folded the note and wrote ‘Severus Snape’ on another slip. He handed both to Xanthir. “If I’m not back by Monday, owl that to this person, okay?”
“Mkay.” And then Xanthir shamelessly opened it and read, with Cyrus standing right there.
The human glared. “I didn’t say you could read it.”
The werewolf hummed noncommittally, a bizarre look on his face by the time he got to the end. “Not that it makes a lick a’ sense.”
Cyrus glared. “That’s not the point, Xanthir. You should have asked. I wouldn’t have had a problem with it.”
The werewolf gave him a funny look. “You humans don’t make sense. You’re mad that I read it, but you aren’t mad I read it?”
The human rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Just, ask next time.”
Xanthir shrugged and slipped the papers into a pocket. “I’ll make sure to send it then. If you don’t get back on time. Where are you going, anyway? What country?”
Cyrus paused. “What does it matter?”
The werewolf shrugged again. “I was just gonna say, if you’re headin’ to the British Isles, be careful. Rumour is some weirdo wizard has been shish kabobin’ people over there.”
Blond eyebrows rose. Voldemort? He hadn’t heard of any activity, but he hadn’t actively been looking for information, either. Guilt made his stomach churn, but he pushed the feeling away. The snake did nothing all summer, and as soon as school came around he started raiding? Cyrus mentally shook his head. ‘Then again, since when do psychos need to follow a logical schedule?’ “I’ll be careful. Thanks for the heads up.”
Xanthir nodded and watched as Cyrus double-checked that everything was in place on his person. Mini-book case secured? Check. Healing and nutrient potions in boot? Check. Broom he’d borrowed from Xanthir? Check. Snake?
He walked into the kitchen where he’d put the snake on a magically heated rock. He’d decided yesterday that the kitchen was the place it was least likely to be disturbed by the comings and goings of his two… friends?
And the last thing on his list. Wands. His new wand was just where he left it, and the death stick was secured in the thigh hostler he’d had built into his basilisk armour. He frowned as his hand traced over the wand. If he were to go into Hogwarts in disguise, it would probably be best not to carry two wands around. Especially with one of them being so dangerous. With a sigh, he jumped into his trunk and hid the wand behind some books. What was the point of wanting to bring it, anyway? It wasn’t like he could use it. Yankovich would kill him… He winced at the thought.
Feeling a couple pounds heavier, he climbed out of the trunk. He was pretty sure there was nothing else he needed.
“See you Monday, Xanthir,” he said before closing the trunk and apparating away.
oOo
The Forbidden Forest was dark when he appeared near the outside entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. It had never been rich with animal activity, but given his circumstances the silence was eerie. With a shrug, he removed the snake from where she was wrapped around his waist and put her gently on the ground.
This is a good forest, she hissed. I shall remember your scent, speaker and smeller. Thank you for my snakelings.
He hissed her good wishes and watched as she slithered away. From his estimation, he was around 15 feet from the entrance. He and Snape had found it after they harvested the basilisk skin from the dead snake in September. It was outside the wards, so it was the only logical route to take. Remembering the spell Snape had used to hide Cyrus’s magical signature from the wards when they came here before, he cast it on himself dubiously and sighed in relief when the spell settled around his shoulders. At least one thing was going right so far.
Looking around for the entrance of the Chamber, he spotted a familiar group of bushes and walked towards them. After picking his way through the brambles, he grinned as he caught sight of silver under dirt and grass. The entrance was much like a muggle manhole, not that he’d ever tell Slytherin that to his face. The only difference between the entrance and the muggle equivalent was that whereas the muggles had ladders leading downwards, this entrance had a steep incline not unlike a slide. It had been built for a basilisk, after all. Suddenly, the image of basilisks roaming free in the London Underground made him chuckle quietly under his breath.
Jumping on the lid, he waited for it to swivel on its axis. Snakes didn’t have hands, after all, so all he needed to do was make it turn.
It didn’t move.
Swearing under his breath, he racked his memory for a spell that would increase his weight. He didn’t find one. When the hell would he have needed to increase his weight?
‘Now, obviously, you retard.’ Sighing to himself, he vowed to never underestimate the usefulness of a spell ever again. Wandless magic did have its limits, after all. He needed to know what the spell was in order to cast it. Even if he didn’t say the incantation or do the motions, his brain still associated certain magical reactions with the memories of them. Spells existed because simply trying to exert your will on the world didn’t make magic respond unfailingly. Sure, a bought of anger could make your magic lash out, but there was no directing that kind of power because it behaved wildly and unexpectedly.
He took a calming breath and sat down on top of the lid, casting a perimeter spell to warn him of any approaching object or being. It would be so very tragic for him to get mauled by a wolf while he was out here.
Damnit, he needed to focus. Taking out his new wand, he cast all the spells he knew that could move an object, but nothing worked. Had Slytherin charmed the thing to resist magic or what? Growling softly to himself, he sheathed the wand and thought up ways to increase his weight. The immediate solution his mind turned to was runes, but he wasn’t entirely sure he could construct a spell from scratch yet. Sure, they were building theoretical spells in class, but Rivehn had told them that they couldn’t sign up for spell crafting until they had finished second year runes, so they had never gone through all the steps of creating a spell and executing it.
Besides, he was on a clock. He couldn’t just spend the next three hours mentally constructing a spell and expect it to work. Because if it didn’t work, he would be back to square one and three hours shorter. ‘I guess I’ll just have to get creative. What’s the most backwards way to move something?’ Then it hit him, and he smacked himself in the forehead. Duh. He’d been focusing on moving the door instead of thinking what could he move onto it to make it move!
Grinning, he stepped off the giant disk and conjured a small boulder. Timing it just right, he managed to sneak in after the boulder before the lid closed again. Waving his hand, he made it disappear before it could get stuck in the piping.
He grinned. He was in.
oOo
A hissed ‘open’ and the circular stone door swung open on its hinges. Cyrus brushed dust off his shoulders as the vibrations of the moving door shook particles loose. As he stepped out into the main chamber, he made a face at the smell of death. The snakeskin had probably prevented most critters from feasting on the carcass of the dead basilisk, but to be honest he was surprised it hadn’t composed more already. Perhaps the venom kept all but the most tenacious bugs from composting it?
Shrugging, he walked by the body and made his way towards the partially caved in entrance. It took him a few minutes to get there, but once he had he waved most of the remaining rocks out of his way. He didn’t particularly feel like crawling over them and breaking an ankle. This early in the game, he wouldn’t chance it.
Just before reaching the slide, he remembered his plan to disguise himself. If he got caught and discovered as Harry Potter, his current blond-haired and tan-skinned disguise would no longer be safe. And as that was the face Shikaan knew him by, he couldn’t exactly change it if he blew his cover. Pulling out his wand, he cast the spells that Snape and Remus had taught him before he left Britain, except this time he was changing his hair to brown, his skin to pale white, and his eyes to brown. With a grim set to his lips, he walked over to the slide.
It was as gooey as he remembered. Making a face, he enlarged the broomstick he had borrowed from Xanthir, glad the werewolf had decent taste. A Nimbus 2000 sat in his hand. It was an older make than what was currently available, but it reminded him of his first broom and that brought a warm smile to his face. He still felt a hole in his chest at the thought of his burned Firebolt, however. And Sirius. Shaking the morose thoughts away, he mounted the broom and carefully flew up the long tubing, careful not to scrape the sides on his way up.
When he’d reached the top, he paused. Normally nobody was in this bathroom, but if a student was and alerted a teacher to his presence, he wasn’t going to get very far. Humming quietly to himself, he wracked his brain for a spell that could reveal life or heat signatures.
Once again, nothing. Scowling to himself, he vowed to learn some more useful spells. He’d been studying far too many offensive and defensive ones, completely ignoring anything else that might come in handy.
Getting an idea, he closed his eyes and let his rune sight take over. He’d stumbled across the name of it in a rune text about a month back. Apparently there hadn’t been someone born with the ability in the last five hundred years. He didn’t care about breaking the record. He just knew that if students were around, it would let him see them via the spells on their clothes, or on their books.
He saw nothing.
Shrugging, he hissed ‘open’, keeping his ears open for frightened noises that could belong to a student.
Aside from the grating of the sinks as they moved, there was silence. Letting out a breath, he flew out of the hole and landed on familiar floors. Smiling at the sight of the school he had considered home for five years, he cast an invisibility spell on himself and hissed at the sinks to close again. He waited until they had stopped moving before leaving the bathroom.
Casting a silencing spell on his feet and clothes, Cyrus slipped into the hallway. He had to get all the way up to the seventh floor in order to get to Dumbledore’s office, which meant he had to use the staircases. Biting his lip, he set out for them, hoping they wouldn’t change too many times and screw up his destination, or that a portrait would discover him.
As it turned out, the school was on his side because he only had to wait on two staircases for them to move back to where he needed them, and the portraits hadn’t noticed a thing.
Walking down the hallway to Dumbledore’s office, he came across the first student. Resisting the urge to swear, he sidled up against the wall as she made her way by. What was she doing on the seventh floor during dinnertime? Shaking his head, he continued down the hall until he came to the gargoyle.
Biting his lip, he renewed the silencing spell and invisibility spells on his person and sat between a flowerpot and a suit of armour on the floor across from the office entrance. Closing his eyes, he let his rune sight take over his vision again. Might as well see how much he could sift through this far away. If he could put off breaking into Dumbledore’s office until he absolutely needed to, his chances of being discovered would lessen.
The sheer amount of magic in this area of the castle nearly blinded him at first. He could see the enchantment on the gargoyle, he could see the spell that allowed the stairs beyond it to rotate, he could see a plethora of spells on the door so thick he could barely see between the runes, and beyond that in the coot’s office was a ball of light so intense he could barely distinguish between spells. He cursed mentally. Why oh why did the old man have to keep so many enchanted objects in his office? Cyrus could remember destroying quite a few of them in his fifth year, but obviously they had been replaced.
Taking a deep breath to still the panic building in his throat, Cyrus reached into his bag and pulled out a pad of paper and pencil. He started tediously jotting down every spelled object as he analyzed them, so he would know for sure that his phoenix feather wasn’t one of them.
Every time he finished with one object, he would focus on ignoring it and the light would slowly dim until it was a dull glow. Being able to ‘move’ his eye around helped immensely as well. He got dizzy the first time he tried it, but after that he found it a lot easier to ‘feel’ around the spells and dismiss the ones that weren’t important.
He had finished cataloguing half of the smaller balls of spells when he heard footsteps down the hall. Quickly, he pocketed his notebook and raced in the other direction. He didn’t know if it was Dumbledore, but he did not want to find out. He would continue his search later that night, when there was little chance of being tripped over by a wayward student, or the coot himself.
He made it back to the Chamber with some creative dodging and much use of secret passageways. The journey back took him five times as long. He took his time, though, carefully dodging around students as they made their way through the halls. After all, if it got around that someone had bumped into an ‘invisible person’, the first conclusion on Dumbledore’s mind might be Harry Potter.
And Cyrus really didn’t need that on his first day back.
oOo
It was midnight when Cyrus returned to the seventh floor, confident nobody would be wandering about. He’d taken a nap in the Chamber to conserve his energy, and now he was raring to go. He finished the rest of the trinkets in the office in another two hours, and had his eye trained on something that looked suspiciously like what Cyrus was looking for. He didn’t want to get his hopes up, though, so he moved on to the wards now that he had a record of every object.
He studied the door for ten minutes before he started getting a headache. There were too many runes that he was unfamiliar with. With the enchantments he’d been able to get the ‘gist’ of the spells, but with the wards he didn’t want to take any chances. Catching himself before he growled under his breath, he pulled out his mini bookcase and plucked out the fattest tomb. His dictionary.
A tiny floating light illuminated the text, and he renewed the invisibility spell to hide the light it produced. Turning to a new page in his notebook, he started copying down the sequences.
It was going to be a long night.
oOo
It was halfway through the next night, Saturday night (or was that Sunday morning?), that Cyrus gave up on trying to understand the runes as he wrote them down, and just started copying as quickly as he could. The runes on the door he had finished earlier that night, but the wards they were linked to, which encapsulated the entire office and subsequently linked to Dumbledore’s rooms, were just as complicated and large. He managed to finish the copying of all the wards in the office, as well as the curious smaller ward in the office itself, before breakfast. But just barely. He’d had to hide behind the gigantic flowerpot when Dumbledore had come out of his office. Remembering the time the old wizard had seen through his invisibility cloak, he prayed to Hogwarts the old coot wouldn’t find him.
But Dumbledore just walked right past, whistling a little tune, completely oblivious to how close he’d been to finding ‘Potter’.
Dead tired, Cyrus closed his notebook and put it in his bag, making his way down the hallways and to the Chamber. Close call.
“Really, Ron. You shouldn’t have slept in so late! It isn’t my job to get you out of bed for your Quidditch practices!”
Cyrus’s heart froze in his chest.
“Stop being so dramatic, Hermione! I’ve got enough time to eat and get to the pitch.”
The female voice scoffed. “Really, now? Well next time I won’t wake you up, and then you can explain to your team why they all had to get up early on a Sunday while their captain was sleeping peacefully in bed!”
“Hermiiioneee,” Ron whined just as Cyrus saw them come around the corner. He jumped to the side, just barely avoiding running into the redhead. In his panicked hurry to avoid collision, however, he knocked over a suit of armour. It took all his willpower to not swear out loud. The silencing charm wouldn’t cover his voice.
“Ron! You are so clumsy,” Hermione scolded, and Cyrus couldn’t help but stare at her familiar face even as he stumbled away from the suit he’d run into. They looked just as he remembered them. He wondered if they were angry with him for forgetting them. A stab of guilt joined the roiling pot of anxiety in his stomach.
“It wasn’t me, honest!”
She rolled her eyes, obviously not believing him. “Of course, Ron.” She waved her wand at the suit and it reconstructed itself before their eyes.
“Wow, Hermione. You really do know a spell for everything.”
She blushed and put her wand back in her pocket. “Nonsense, Ron. If you read books too, you would have known that spell.”
Cyrus couldn’t see their faces anymore as they walked away, but he could imagine the scrunched freckles of Ron’s nose. “I prefer Quidditch.”
She hooked her arm into his and smiled the smile of a normal person indulging the retarded. “I know you do.”
He watched them go, unsure of the feelings churning in his stomach. Did he miss them? Somewhat. Did he miss them enough to do something about it? He wasn’t sure. He felt guilty for forgetting them in the rush of learning at Shikaan, but he wasn’t sure how he felt about the situation he currently found himself in. They didn’t look like they missed him. ‘Don’t be stupid, Obsidian. Just because they’re smiling doesn’t mean they don’t miss you,’ a reasonable voice that sounded like Tara interjected in his mind. He smiled softly at the memory of his new friends. They weren’t conventional by any means, but he had enjoyed their company (for the most part) during the past few months. Friends like Hermione and Ron didn’t exist in the new world he was living in.
Letting out a soft sigh, he turned away from the distant bickering pair and returned to the chamber. He needed sleep, and then he needed to start analyzing the wards he had copied. He needed to make his move tonight. Technically he had until Friday by Yankovich’s clock to get the feather, but he didn’t want to miss any more classes than necessary. He was already behind in DATD, and nearly colossally screwed in Necromancy.
Pushing the negative thoughts out of his mind, he flew back into the Chamber and closed it behind him.
Sleep, first. Worrying later.
oOo
Six hours of sleep and four hours of hair-pulling later, Cyrus had a pretty good grasp on the wards he wanted to slip through. The office door was going to be the most difficult. The wards had a ‘tamper alert’ sub-spell written into them. If they were disabled in any way, an alarm would immediately be set off. Cyrus figured, since the anchor wasn’t connected to the ‘tamper alert’ spell, he could shift the spell onto another object instead of the door. Almost like what he did with the shield spell in Weapons and Battle earlier that week.
After that were the wards on the office itself, which would alert Dumbledore to somebody or something at the window, or would tell him if someone was in the room casting spells left and right. He wouldn’t be able to shift the focus of this spell, as it wasn’t set on one object like the door. No, it was set right into the foundations of the room, with multiple anchors to hold it in place. Scowling down at the sheet of paper in front of him, Cyrus tapped the eraser against the desk he’d conjured in the Chamber. The office ward would probably not cause him any problems unless he tried casting a spell. Interfering with existing spells, however, probably wouldn’t affect it. At least, that was what his reading of the runes told him.
He hoped he was right.
And lastly, there was the smaller ward on an object in the room. The ward itself prevented the object from being seen to his eye, but he was pretty sure it was his feather. What else would Dumbledore be hiding up there? Once he had his feather, he had every intention of getting out of Hogwarts and never coming back.
And then the memory of Hermione and Ron dropped a ball of anxiety into his stomach. Was he ever going to see them again? Did he want to?
He still wasn’t sure.
oOo
Cyrus stood in front of the gargoyle Sunday night and cast a silencing spell around himself. He didn’t want the paintings to hear him naming every single candy he could think of. He figured he could have done a runic analysis of the gargoyle as well, but was pretty sure guessing candies would be easier.
He was on the twelfth muggle candy he knew when the gargoyle jumped aside. He wasn’t sure how much time he would have until Dumbledore got there, but hopefully the dinner would keep him delayed until Harry had what he wanted.
He ran up the rotating stairs, not bothering to wait until they took him up. The hallway before the door to Dumbledore’s office was just as he remembered it. Wandlessly, he conjured a door to lie against the wall beside him, putting enough magic into it to keep it in existence for at least a day. Closing his eyes, he activated his rune sight and looked at the real door. Reaching out to get a hold of the anchoring sequence of runes, he gently shifted which door the ward was supposed to be locked onto. It latched onto its new target without mishaps, and Cyrus let out a relieved breath. While the door wards were attached to the office wards, their physical location didn’t much matter in the scheme of things, which allowed Cyrus to open the door without a fuss.
He grinned. He was in! Glancing around the office, he froze when he caught sight of Fawkes’s empty perch. It had been stupid of him to forget about the bird. Sighing in relief that the phoenix wasn’t there, he flashed back and forth between his sights to locate the small ward that he was sure held his phoenix feather. He raised an eyebrow when he saw the ward was inside one of Dumbledore’s drawers. Did the man think his desk was safe? Probably. He grinned and wondered if anybody had ever stolen into this office before.
Shaking his head, he focused. He had a job to do, and he was almost done. Reaching for the drawer, he checked for any nasty surprises before pulling it open. A box sat inside. Cyrus frowned. That couldn’t be his phoenix feather. It was too small. He resisted the urge to swear. He was sure one of the office portraits had already reported an intruder to Dumbledore, so he wasn’t sure how much time he had left.
Closing his eyes, he quickly transferred the anchor to a quill on Dumbledore’s desk. Reaching into the drawer, he pulled the box out and opened it inside his cloak.
A ring sat inside. A ring. With a stone that was cracked down the center. Raising an incredulous eyebrow, he checked the ring for spells. Nothing. Shrugging, he stuck it on his finger and transfigured another quill into a copy. Sticking it in the box, he moved the ward back onto it and closed the drawer. All the while, anger sizzled in his stomach.
Where the fuck was his feather.
He hadn’t caught sight of any other warded objects in the room, so maybe the feather hadn’t been warded? Fear and anger making his stomach churn, he started rifling through the desk in search of his objective.
A minute later he still hadn’t found it.
His eyes tearing across the room, he looked for anything that could hide a feather and came up with nothing. Aside from the desk, all there was in this office was books, books, and trinkets. Swearing under his breath, he reluctantly decided to cut his losses and made a break for the door. Hastily, he moved the wards back onto their proper door and banished the copy from the hallway. Just as he made his way to the stairs, however, he heard a whoosh of fire behind him.
Shit. Impulsively, he took the ring off his finger and swallowed it. If he was getting caught, he was at least keeping the stupid object that Dumbledore had cast such a powerful ward on. Grabbing Xanthir’s broom, he jumped on it and raced down the steps and out the gargoyle.
“Accio broomstick!”
Cyrus’s eyes widened as he felt the wood between his legs snap through the air in order to go to the caster of the spell. Using his wandless magic, he tried to throw the spell to no effect. Wide eyed, panic rose from his stomach like heartburn (or maybe it was the metal he’d swallowed?), wrenching sense from his mind. He was caught. Oh god Dumbledore had caught him. He didn’t want to go back didn’t want to go back! With a mighty shove of magic, he threw off the accio spell.
Just in time to get hit with a stupefy.
The last thing Cyrus knew before he hit the ground was the sight of Dumbledore’s swirling robes.
-Toki Mirage-
Now, before you all send assassins after me, I must defend this evil cliffhanger. Chapter nine is almost completely planned, so the writing won’t take as long as my usual 3 months-between updates. So please don’t send the assassins. (puppy dog eyes)
And besides, you’re all lucky this update came out so early. What’s it been, a week? Two? Yeesh. I never do this much writing. :)
Hope you liked the chapter! Lots of shit going down in the next one. Many of your questions about what’s going on in the wizarding world and with Ron and Hermione will be answered. Have no fear. (evil grin) My muse and I pounded out the skeleton for this chapter in two hours. Since we’ve figured out most of the plot holes already, things should hopefully go smoothly.
Thanks for reading!
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Bloody Skies