Black_Paladyn
patreon
Last of The Fae Chapter 35:
🕑 Added 2024-09-01 19:03:40 +0000 UTC“What did you just do?!” Harry shouted as he stared at ethereal silver robes draped across Thane’s shoulders.
“I laid claim to my heritage,” Thane replied as he adjusted his new garment though the robes fit perfectly without needing any tailoring, “How you got your hands on it is beyond me.”
“It was a gift, give it back!” Harry demanded as he took a step forward and held out his hand.
“Or else what?” Thane asked with a raised eyebrow as his aura flared threateningly and he stared Harry down, “I assure you, that this is not a fight you’ll win.”
Harry grimaced but didn’t back down entirely, “Or else I’ll go to the teachers, tell them you stole it from me!”
“Afraid that won’t work either,” Thane replied confidently, “Wizard law says that all magical artifacts belong to the most eligible inheritor. And clear in this circumstance that is me. Though if you wanted to contest my claim you could call for a trial that would be overseen by the Wizard’s council, though with my signet ring my claim is set in stone, yours is the cloak was a christmas gift. Who do you think they’ll support?”
Harry’s grimace turned into an outright right frow, “Why are you doing this?”
“Because I don’t need your pity Harry.” Thane replied as he sat back down in the leather chair, “You only feel guilty because now you know about my tragic past and sob story. But here’s the thing, I survived fifteen years of abuse. I can sure as hell take a little social ostracization and whatever snide comments you and the rest of the school wants to throw at me. In the beginning I thought things could be different but I guess it’ll always just be me, myself and I.”
“So that’s it, you’re just going to be an asshole and a big scary villain like everyone says you are?” Harry asked as he stared Thane down.
“Not really I just want to be left alone, I have bigger things to deal with,” Thane replied as he crossed his legs, “But I do feel a bit bad about taking your cloak.”
“You know what Thane….fuck you,” Harry replied before he turned around and left the slytherin common room.
Watching Harry leave Thane let out a sigh, “Burning bridges left and right aren’t I?”
Shaking his head Thane waved his hand and his grimoire floated into the air in front of him before opening to a new page, “At least I finally got myself some answers, time to see what Merlin had to say about rituals.”
---
Four hours later the sun had risen signaling, which Thane could only tell by the slight change in tint from the water outside the common room. He hadn’t moved from his chair the entire night, as Thane had spent every waking moment trying to dissect Merlin’s work.
The first issue was the ancient English the books were written in, which was so convoluted that Thane wondered if he was looking at the earliest record of the written language. Only after referencing several other books to get the slightest grasp on translating the broken dialect that Thane managed to make it past the first page. From there things improved for a moment only to rapidly unravel leaving Thane more frustrated than he had ever been before.
‘He talks about magic like it’s a different thing entirely,’ Thane thought to himself as he pinched the bridge of his nose trying to prevent the headache he felt building up behind his eyes, “There’s no talk about incantations, or spells of any kind for that matter. Just a bunch of nonsense about interacting with the ambient mana…which doesn’t exist unless a spell has been cast!”
While hitting another roadblock was becoming the bane of Thane’s existence it was even more proof that the magic system as a whole had undergone a dramatic change some time ago. But for the life of him Thane couldn’t find any concrete evidence that talks about the shift in context or even the slightest hint of it.
“Ugh, I just need something, one tiny detail that pieces this all together for the love of god!” Thane shouted as he looked up at the ceiling for help.
At that moment a ripple passed through the ceiling as if something was burrowing just beneath the surface and Thane followed it all the way down until a section of the wall suddenly opened revealing yet another stone passageway.
Standing up Thane stared at the tunnel for a long moment before a smile broke out across his face, “I guess that will do.”
---
Stepping out of the tunnel Thane entered a massive underground chamber that was filled to the brim with towers of junk ranging from books, furniture, chests and every other item that had ever been created by humanity. Some of the towers were so tall that Thane couldn’t see the tops of them, “Someone needs to clean up in here.”
The moment Thane muttered the sentence the towers of junk vanished in the blink of an eye leaving Thane in an open room so large that there wasn’t an end in sight. Feeling a mix of curiosity and caution Thane slowly walked further into the room, his footsteps echoing against the stone tile floor, “Hello is anyone there?”
Thane asked into the silence only for his own voice to answer in an echo, “Wish this place had a guide or something?”
There was a thud behind Thane and he spun around spellblade at the ready only to find a heavy tome resting on the floor behind him titled, ‘Guide to the Room of Requirements.’
After hesitating for a moment Thane put his spellblade away and knelt down to pick up the book instinctually trying to add it to his grimoire only to feel the magic being blocked. Frowning again Thane flipped to the first page and began to read.
---
“This can’t be real,” Thane muttered as he finished reading the short but detailed explanation, “Magic on this scale and complexity…I’ve haven’t heard of anything like this, a room capable of automatic transfiguration and conjuration.”
Closing the book Thane pictured a sunday roast in his mind, and nodded when nothing appeared out of air, “So the room is still bound by Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration, but that’s to be expected. But the question still remains…why did you bring me here?”
After a moment of no response Thane frowned, but it didn’t sway his belief that the Room of Requirement or perhaps Hogwarts Castle itself was alive,”Gotta figure it out for myself huh?”
Thane asked the room, “You’ve helped me out on multiple occasions before, either out of the kindness of your heart or for a future favor. In both scenarios you clearly have some sort of preference for me which I can only assume means you know who and what I am.”
More silence.
“Then you brought me here…after I asked for help with rituals.” Thane paused as he suddenly had an idea, “Room…show me a ritual.”
As soon as Thane uttered the words the ground in front him flashed with a bright blue light as lines started to appear on the floor. The bright blue beams started to configure themselves into several geometrical shapes stacked atop each other and. By the time the lines stopped drawing themselves Thane was staring at a circle around five feet in diameter with a series of progressively shrinking squares inside with each square rotated slightly from its predecessor creating an intricate spiral when the ritual was viewed as a whole.
But only a few seconds after the circle appeared the glowing formation started to flicker like a dying lightbulb as fragments of the lines started to chip and flake away. When they did Thane’s eyes widened as he felt ambient mana ripple through the air.
Then without thinking Thane knelt on the ground and placed his bare hands on the ritual.
