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SD: CH118 - Nightmare At The World Cup Part 1
🕑 Added 2024-07-01 03:31:43 +0000 UTCDeeper into the woods, Hestia and Emmeline were rushing in as fast as they could at the sounds of the screams that penetrated into the heart of the forest. Emmeline had cast the fog-making charm Nebulus as they ran, making it difficult for anyone to follow them. The anti-apparition and anti-portkey wards were still out there, but they didn’t prevent anyone from physically crossing those wards and walking in. An obvious defect in the planning, which was what probably allowed the werewolves to enter into the World Cup site.
Then she caught it.
It was a wild, fierce smell, something that hit her hindbrain and set the hairs all along her spine up straight. The musk of the creature’s odour, merged with the scent of urine, a little bit of blood and meat, and the faint sweetness of marrow with the rasping dryness of cracked bone.
More importantly, it was a smell she was quite used to, having lived with a werewolf for the better part of three years. The reek hit her as they closed in on the invaders — large, wolfish forms with massive, fur-outlined bodies and gnarled, muscular limbs. Easily six foot and above, their bodies covered with mane and fur with sharp claws that could tear a human body in a single go with just raw power.
The beast noticed her, and came rushing, howling as it leaped towards her, eager to make her its night’s snack, when a concentrated burst of precisely aimed energy smashed into it like a truck hitting a car. The creature’s body went full rag doll, flying back from the impact in an explosive crackling of breaking bone — only to hit against a large old oak standing stolidly in its way.
“Sectumsempra!” Hestia snapped, casting the spell Harry had taught her recently. The dark severing curse struck the fallen werewolf, slicing it into several pieces in one go. The physical remains splattered away, leaving a bloody smear in its wake. The individual pieces twitched for a few seconds, and then went still. The largest portion, the one with the head, let out a death rattle before life vanished from its eyes.
“Dark, dangerous, and dirty,” commented Emmeline. “Where did you learn that spell?”
“Harry taught it to me,” Hestia said, noting the effects of her skill. This was the first time she had used it against a real opponent. “He warned me not to use it unless I wanted to kill the other person, or well, beast, I guess.”
“You’re lucky that werewolves classify as beasts,” said Emmeline. “I’d be oath-bound to take you into custody otherwise.”
“Trust me, before the night is over, you’ll thank Merlin and Morgana and the Four Founders that I knew this spell.”
“And why is that?”
Hestia’s response was to raise her wand up, and say, “ACCIO HARRY’S DAGGERS!”
As always, Magic didn’t care for the specifics very much, and a pair of daggers came flying at her. Emmeline squealed and hastily jumped to her right, just in time to avoid being scratched by one of the daggers that came zooming from behind. Hestia caught the pair, and grinning shamelessly, cast the anti-summoning charm on them.
“The first rule for fighting a werewolf,” said Hestia. “They are stronger than you, faster than you, and can regenerate faster than you can say Stupefy. So if you get the chance, hit them with the nastiest shit you’ve got.”
She held one of the daggers, which Emmeline took reluctantly. “Imbued with necromancy from back then. Even a slight nick should slow them down, if not kill them, so be careful.”
“Aye-aye,” said Emmeline.
Hestia rolled her eyes. “Second rule about fighting werewolves. They’re pack beasts. Where there’s one werewolf…”
“There are more.”
“Right, and chances are they’ll have a common ancestor. In which case, you’re doubly screwed.”
Emmeline blinked.
“Bloody ignorance everywhere,” Hestia muttered. “What are they teaching in the DMLE these days?” At the Obliviator’s raised eyebrow, she explained. “Look, lycanthropy isn’t just a magical condition. It’s an inheritance, that’s why werewolf children are born with lycanthropy ninety percent of the time. And if two werewolves have been bitten by the same werewolf, or are descended from the blood of the same werewolf, then their blood will resonate with each other, heightening their powers. Bottomline, fighting multiple blood-related werewolves is one of the fastest ways of screwing yourself over.”
Emmeline digested all that, and looked at the body of the decapitated werewolf. Then she looked at the dagger she held in her left hand. Then a chorus of howls arose that told them that they were coming their way.
“So, uh, can you show me that wand movement again?”
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“Just give him a chance! Go out on a date with him! Bloody bollocking date with a bloody necromancer, more like!” growled Nymphadora Tonks as she rushed through the grounds, her body transformed into an athletic female form and amplified further with magic, allowing her to rush at speeds that would make even the fastest muggle sprinter green with envy.
“I swear,” she vented. “If that bastard gets Hestia or any of the others killed, I’ll make You-Know-Who look like freaking Mahatma Gandhi compared to what I’ll do with him.”
In hindsight, there was obviously a lot going on that she didn’t know about. Potter’s sudden visit to Bones manor, the Boss Lady choosing to take two days off from work, possibly her first ever leave during all the time she had been DMLE Director, the sudden changes in Auror drills and the shifts in the patrolling, all of that were heralds of something. Emmeline accusing Potter about the explosion suggested prior intel, or at least, inadequate intel, or else the situation wouldn’t have gone FUBAR to this degree.
Still, necromancy? Fire and brimstone; undead corpses; inferi, weird rituals and skeletons rising from the dead? That was the stuff of nightmares. The Boy-Who-Lived was…. Nymphadora couldn’t believe she was really saying this, but Potter was supposed to be this suave motherfucker, getting into the pants of every girl, woman and werewolf that risked falling into his path. With the way Hestia sang praises about his cock and his skill at using it, she had wondered if Lily Evans had succubi blood in her ancestry, which the Boy-Who-Lived had activated by accident or something. It would fit in perfectly with the series of curious events littered across the pages of Harry Potter’s adventures at Hogwarts.
But a necromancer? That made no bloody sense! Nymphadora knew diddly about necromancers, but even she knew that that lot were celibates. No, it was more like they sacrificed their masculinity, or femininity for that matter, and undertook all sorts of weird rituals to help them walk the valley of the dead.
At least, that was what those fiction books at her dad’s place told her.
But Potter—
Her thoughts ceased to a halt, as a loud howl pierced her ears, and Nymphadora reached the outside of the Potter tent, a blasting curse on her lips, and pushed the flaps open and inside was —
SILVERFURSHARPTEETHDARKEYESHUGECLAWSHOWLINGANGRYMADMERLINITWILLKILLME—
“REDUCTO!”
— fired her strongest blasting hex at the silvery werewolf that was approaching her. The beast's eyes widened as it dodged her spell with remarkable ease, its claws tearing through the magical tent like knife through butter, causing part of the tent’s spatial charms to instantly give away and crash at places. For Tonks, it was like being inside an actual house while it was crashing from atop. Theoretically, she knew that the ceiling was nothing but conjuration that would dissipate upon contact with a simple Finite but that didn’t make it feel any less scary.
Especially with a mammoth-sized silver-furred werewolf with claws emanating black fumes similar to the kind she had seen Harry Potter invoke just moments ago in the middle of the burning stadium.
While he was performing Necromancy.
“AAGH! What’s happening —” shrieked Susan from inside, when Nymphadora heard a gruff voice outside shout —
“INCENDIO!”
Tonks cursed her breath, and jumped to her left this time, just in time to avoid the rush of flames that came from behind her.
Really, could things get any worse? The tent was collapsing, Susan was inside, Granger had morphed into a werewolf and lost control of her senses, and some sonofabitch was casting the flame charm at the Potter tent from outside. Her Auror instincts kicking in, she rolled twice to get as further away from the werewolf as possible and cast the glass-shattering jinx.
A tiny, seemingly inconsequential little spell she had learnt back in First-year, and used it to great effect to prove that she was magically unstable and could cause accidental magic — by shattering windows around her. It had been enough to keep the more offensive bullies at bay. Even as an Auror cadet, she had used it so many times as a distraction that casting it silently and wandlessly had become second nature to her.
Right now though, it was the other effect of the spell that came to her aid. Werewolves were faster, stronger, sharper with greater reflexes that witches and wizards could even imagine. And with that came greater sensitivity to external stimuli.
The werewolf — Granger staggered and fell backwards, clutching its ears in agony in response to the ultrasonic sound emanated from Nymphadora’s wand, howling in pain. Nymphadora took that moment to take a breath and look for Susan when —
“BOMBARDA!”
A wave of physical might struck her from behind, landing her spreadeagled on the floor, the pain shooting up her broken spine tearing through her mind. Anybody else would have been paralysed for good, but Nymphadora Tonks wasn’t just an ordinary witch, she was a metamorph. In the middle of the pain, she partially deconstructed her spine, and reconstructed it back. Rolling to one side she yelled —
“CONFRINGO DUO!”
She had aimed to strike the pillar next to her attackers. Unfortunately, her coordination from the sudden resetting of her spine hadn’t been perfect. That and the emotions running rampant within her made what should have been a powerful wall of blasting force to turn into an orb of light purple shooting out of her wand and hitting the Death-Eater closest to her in the ribs, causing his chest to explode.
The man was dead before his body hit the floor.
The second Death-eater was caught completely unaware. And right then, an angry howl alerted Tonks to the other and more dangerous threat in her vicinity and she twisted her wand in hopes to conjure a shield, but the werewolf simply leapt over her and crashed into the remaining Death-Eater, clawing his face off in one go.
The bastard didn’t even get a chance to yell in shock before the light of life escaped his eyes.
“PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!” yelled Nymphadora, but this time, the werewolf snapped its claws, the fumes dissipating her curse before it could have any effect.
“Fo…r… sake, Gahl….” the werewolf growled in confusion.
Nymphadora blinked. It took her a couple of seconds to absorb the impossibility that the werewolf — Hermione Granger — was actually speaking to her. Then she noted that the beast was actually sitting down placidly on its hind legs very much like a human being, tilting its head as it rubbed its injured ears that were slowly healing back.
“...Granger? You’re… you’re in control?”
“Bloody… gering ‘Ell!” growled Hermione the werewolf in annoyance, her ears perking up as she sniffed around. “Of cuss…sss.. I’m! Vy… Tack me?”
“How the hell are you in control?”
“Vell,” said Hermione, her morphed vocal chords giving her a crude, pseudo-Russian accent. “Clean liv’n, right diet,” — grunt — “‘n luck. Hard to say it goo’ or bad luck.”
She growled softly. “Vy attack me?”
“Potter told us there was a chance you’d transform. I heard Susan’s scream and I walked in and thought the worst.”
“I din ‘tack S’san. She’s —”
“What the hell is going on?” came the voice of an annoyed Susan Bones as she rushed in from the other side of the tent. She regarded the two bodies on the floor, then at the tear on the roof that had caused a quarter of the tent to collapse, and then at the growing flames trying to consume the tent from one direction. Then she looked at Tonks, and finally at the werewolf.
“‘Er fault!” growled Hermione Granger, pointing a claw at Tonks.
Susan didn’t look happy at all.
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Witches and wizards, even those that weren’t Albus Dumbledore, were physically a lot more agile and powerful compared to muggles. Hestia proved this effectively by leaping nearly twenty feet into the air straight up, thanks to an Ascending charm, avoiding multiple streams of spells launched at her by the attackers clad in Death Eater attire, before launching an overpowered severing hex at them. It was a display of truly phenomenal agility and flexibility in spellcraft.
Emmeline, ever the efficient soul, chose instead to just duck, letting it go over her head by an inch.
Show-off. The two witches thought of each other at the exact same instant.
“AVADA KEDAVRA!”
Instantly Hestia hurled herself to the ground and took aim at her attacker, unleashing a Fumos hex, surrounding the figure with dense, black fumes, obstructing his vision. A small vengeful smile formed on her lips as she aimed for his groin.
“REDUCTO!”
Emmeline, on the other hand, was flicking her wand in a set of complicated movements, casting the Flagrante curse upon the rubble on the forest floor, before coupling the Ventus and Animatus charms together to hit the werewolves. The moment a single of them made contact, it produced intense white heat, enough to scorch if not outright liquify the organs at the point of exposure. The three Death Eaters supporting the werewolves quickly cast shield charms, but the intense heat added with the momentum of the attack shattered their shields and forced them backwards.
Hestia wasn’t that skilled with Animation, so she just cast a fire-whip and began slashing at the werewolves to keep them at bay.
It wasn’t enough.
More than a dozen attackers came their way, jumping from tree to tree, branch to branch, using both the night and the forest as their cover, and the extreme agility to dodge the best of everything the two witches had to unleash on them. The Death Eaters too had changed tactics. While initially caught by surprise at the sudden resistance, they were quickly shifting to sneak tactics by disillusioning themselves and attacking from the shadows, while letting the werewolves take the lead. Where and how those bastards had learned to keep those werewolves on the leash was anybody’s guess.
“REDUCTO! IMMOBULUS!” screamed Emmeline. “ARRESTO MOMENTUM!”
Another flash of light hit a werewolf, stunning it and hurling it in mid-air, only to freeze like that. A slash from Hestia’s fire-whip relieved it of its head.
“We’re surrounded,” said Emmeline, frowning. “There are too many of them. We can’t deal with them alone. Hestia, we….”
Hestia’s mouth worked and twisted, but no words came out. How could they? Words couldn’t possibly contain the frustration, the rage, the fear that poured out through her. It cut through her weariness, sharp as thorns and barbed wire. It wasn’t fair. Harry Potter had faced Voldemort and his Death Eaters, his summoned demons and everything that madman had brought to destroy this world. He had fought them for years, and now, time-travelled to the past to stop things from going down that path. He was already doing his best, and yet, Destiny, the cold-hearted bitch that it was, was already changing things, making events happen that hadn’t happened before. Malfoy and his ilk were supposed to conduct a little show of power. Instead they had gone ahead with a devastating attack that had all but crippled the DMLE, and Harry, who could have evened the odds for her, was held back in attempting to save Amelia Bones in a last-ditch attempt.
And these werewolves… even if she and Emmeline and the others managed to kill or incapacitate them all, it wouldn’t matter. The werewolves were just pawns, foot soldiers in the war. The real people out there would still survive, and use their political power to influence the Wizengamot to go deeper into their twisted bigotry until they had the nation ready to be served in a nice plate to the Dark Lord post his resurrection.
It wasn’t fair. They were doing everything they could. They had risked everything.
And they had lost.
And now they were going to die.
The realisation, the despair, the loathing, the helpless fury could affect someone badly. It would crumble them like brittle concrete, or melt them like dirty lead, or shatter them like cheap glass. Hestia only knew what it did to her.
It set her on fire.
Fire in her heart, in her thoughts, in her eyes. She burned, burned deep down in her gut, burned in places she hadn’t known she could hurt.
Hestia hadn’t revealed this to Harry Potter, but ever since she had come to know about her natural affinity for the Dark Arts, she had gone through some of the volumes that Harry studied for bettering his warcraft. She had come across one spell, one that could turn the tables, but if she failed, could burn the entire forest down and every single man, woman and child with it.
She remembered reaching out for the pain within her, thinking that if she had to die, then so help her, she could take these murdering, bloodthirsty sons of bitches with her. The anti-apparition and anti-portkey wards would definitely keep people from escaping, and she was sure there were more Death-Eaters further up north.
Emmeline must have sensed something, and stood back to back with her, because the next thing Hestia remembered was thrusting her wand up towards the heavens and yelling —
“BURN YOU BASTARDS! BURN! PROTEGO DIABOLICA!”
She reached for fire. And fire answered her.
A circle of intense, bright, teal flames exploded in blazes around them. The flames leapt up five feet, ten feet, twenty feet, and with a flick of her wand, Hestia sent the flames rushing in every direction, the wind around her roaring around in a gale. Unlike ordinary fire, it did not seem to spread upon contact with the foliage, but whatever came into its contact was incinerated instantly. A werewolf tried leaping off a tall tree branch to bypass the flames, only for the fire to leap up into the air and grab the creature, scorching it in an instant.
The werewolf was reduced to cinders before it crossed the boundary.
“WHAT MAGIC IS THIS?” asked Emmeline from behind.
Hestia didn’t respond. As she stood inside the flaming ring, Hestia’s mind was brilliantly lit with the power coursing through her. It burned her, and some part of her screamed in joy that it did. Her robes flapped and danced in the gale, as the flames grabbed every single werewolf and two of the Death Eaters within its grasp, scorching them for good.
“AVADA KEDAVRA!” yelled another masked figure, but the spell clashed against the roaring flames and was deflected away.
“Alright,” said Hestia slowly. “Apparently the Protego Diabolis can deflect the killing curse. You learn something new everyday.”
The fury within it grew and grew. It swelled and burned and surged out of the flaming barrier, a claw of teal flame, swooping at the Death Eater who had stepped in a little too close. It tore through the hastily raised shield, impaling the person through the chest. The only thing to escape was a scream of agony, before he was incinerated to ash. The others that had managed to escape would forever be scarred and handicapped, and those less fortunate just twitched, while most lay dreadfully, perfectly still.
Dead.
Hestia tightened her grip on the wand, but the flames still rose outward, clashing against her intent to restrain it. The next thing she knew, a wild animalistic roar that was too huge to be classified as sound, rose and expanded into a firestorm, before a massive wild boar, demonic variations of the wild spirits, arose from the flames. It threw its head back, its tusks rising high, and belched out gouts of teal flame into the sky.
“Hestia!” Emmeline yelled. “That’s enough. End your spell right now!”
“Gosh, I’d have never thought of that,” Hestia snarked. “Only problem is that I can’t.”
“Can’t?”
Hestia winced in pain, sweat forming all over her body and face. “This spell is fueled by negative emotions. Pain, rage, helplessness, a desire to protect one’s loved ones no matter what. And there’s a lot of negative emotions running rampant in this area right now, and it’s causing the spell to react —”
As if to confirm her words, a horrifying rush of heat exploded, as the wild boar galloped two massive steps ahead and unleashed a torrent of flame, creating a clearing in the woods.
“...yeah, just like that,” she finished, a bit lamely. “So long as this place is rich with emotions, it’s gonna be a tough nut to crack.”
“So long as there is emotion….” Emmeline paused as it hit her. “Hestia, use Occlumency!”
“What? Weren’t you listening to —”
“Just shut up and do it! Occlude your mind! Silence every single emotion.”
“Yeah that would be great. Only I’d lose control of the spell and let it destroy the entire area.”
“Trying to contain it is guzzling through your reserves anyway, Hestia,” Emmeline argued. “Sooner or later, it’ll drain you dry. Better to let it loose now, and then attempt something else.”
Hestia thought about arguing, but Emmeline was the psychomancy expert. Everything she knew about controlling her mind and manipulating her emotions came from her. “Fine, we do this your way. But I swear if this doesn’t work…”
“If it doesn’t work and we die horribly, you have permission to hate me.”
“...”
“Occlude, girl!”
Hestia shut her eyes, receding into the safety of her mindscape, one that had taken her an inordinate amount of time to build. It wasn’t anything fancy, just an ordinary muggle establishment overlooking the sea. The presence of the sea, its waves clashing against the shore always had a way of making her feel comforted. Emmeline had commented on the irony that Hestia found calmness in the aggression of the waves during the time she was slowly building her mindscape, but she had jutted it down to her idiosyncrasies. Every mind was unique after all.
Only this time, her mindscape wasn’t what she had expected. The establishment had been burned down, as if a viral infection from outside had corrupted it beyond recognition. Where there should have been a nice, elegant hotel with marble floors now lay masses of shattered stone and cold, dead, half-melted scraps of iron.
The waves of pristine, oceanic blue had taken a teal sheen, and were crashing against the building, demolishing it yet again with every single sweep. It would keep doing that, taking away just a little with every sweep, until just a blank void existed.
Until she was nothing.
Like she had always been.
Like she would forever be.
Lies, whispered a gentle voice in her ear. That might have been true before, when there was nothing but emptiness within you. But it isn’t like that anymore.
You are not alone.
No, Hestia thought, or at least the thoughts felt like her own. There’s nothing. I’m nothing. All alone, burning and burning until there is nothing left. Nothing….
She shut her eyes.
“Shutting it away will not unmake the truth, Hestia.”
Her eyes snapped open, and she spun around, her eyes widening as she fumbled, trying to believe what she was seeing. Standing there, wearing a sleeveless shirt and pants, looking ready for some fun time on the beach, was Harry Potter.
“Hey!” He waved.
“You… No, nononono…. This is an illusion. How can you be inside my mindscape? You —”
“Really, Hestia? I told you all about time-travel and being an Incubus and turned you into a Lilim. You digested all of that. But I show up in your mindscape, and that’s when things enter loopy territory?”
Hestia couldn’t help but chuckle at his words. “Yeah, when you put it like that… I guess….”
“But you’re not wrong. I’m not, after all, Harry Potter. Not the one you know anyway.”
Hestia blinked. “Then you —”
“This place isn’t real. Neither are you. Nor am I. The real me out there is…” he trailed off, and Hestia thought she saw a flash of terrifying rage flicker through his features for a split second. “But you are here. And I am here.”
“But… how?”
“You are my Lilim, aren’t I? What kind of Incubus Lord would I be if I didn’t take responsibility?”
“But…” she trailed off. Her mindscape was already in shatters. The Diabolis spell was tearing through her mindscape, corrupting her from inside. “I shouldn’t have used that spell so recklessly.”
“You shouldn’t have.”
“And now I don’t have a mindscape anymore,” she lamented.
“There is no free lunch, Hestia. But everything's not lost.”
“No?” Hestia challenged. “The spell is burning my spirit. It’s corrupting me. You being here, cheering me up, doesn’t help, until the real you —”
“The REAL ME is busy raising the DEAD!” thundered Harry Potter. His voice made her entire body thrum in response,something simple and elemental that didn’t care how long it held her in torment. Her muscles and ligaments from everywhere were at the trembling breaking point. Her own heartbeat was torment. Her face burned.
“HARRY POTTER WAS GIVEN THE POWER OF LIFE! TO PLAY WITH THE FABRIC OF EMOTION, OF MAGIC ITSELF!”
The sandy floor beneath her feet shattered like glass. Like the sound of a cannon's blast, a spiderweb of crevices tore out in all directions.
“INSTEAD HE SEEKS THE COLDNESS OF THE GRAVE!”
He threw his arms upwards at the frozen sky and shouted, utterly furious, and a bolt of scarlet lightning flashed from the seething skies. It smashed into the teal ocean, creating a momentary vacuum before the waves rushed to cover it.
“HE SEEKS TO BECOME THE GATEBREAKER! THE HARBINGER! THE JAWS OF THE END OF THE WORLD!”
The hate coursing through him was a tangible thing, a gravity that strained space around it and couldn’t be ignored. Hestia could only stare at him, and knew that she was standing before a power ancient, alien and utterly, utterly savage, one that could crush her like an insect, a power potent and deeper and more deadly than anything that she had ever known. Beside that power, even the army of werewolves, the Death Eaters, or even the out-of-control Protego Diabolis seemed as frail and fleeting as transient shadows.
That she was still there, unmoving was partly out of her fear, but more importantly, she knew in her heart of hearts that Harry Potter would not hurt her.
And then he looked at her, his gaze meeting her own. Not for the first time, Hestia noted her mesmerising his emerald green eyes were up close.
“You are my Lilim, Hestia Jones. And until your Lord is alive, nothing can touch you. Even if the waves of darkness crash against the frontiers of your mind, it cannot, shall not, penetrate the bastion of your Lord.”
As he spoke those words, Hestia felt an almost magnetic pull to look behind him. And there it was, on a massive plateau that didn’t exist, stood a behemoth of an edifice. To call it majestic would be an insult, for even with both eyes, she couldn’t fully picture the entire thing together. Seven stacked platforms, constantly morphing in ways that defied Euclidean geometry, shapes and sculptures and pillars of varying designs, it constantly changed like the insides of a kaleidoscope that was forever coming into focus, with an exception of a doorway that stood at the bottom of the stairs, a permanency attached to the ever-changing edifice.
“What in the world is that?”
“That, my Lilim,” said the Incubus Lord, “is Lecherous Shrine.”
Comments
Vinccool96
I think it’s that the Shrine of Harry’s own landscape extends to the Lilim’s mindscape
Alatoic
First, so Hermione is a Uber werewolf, EXCELLENT!! if she can control the transformation or do it partially (human with claws, or just the legs to run faster, nose, etc) will be a huge boon. Second, so all the Lilim have the Lecherous Shrine as a backup for mental protection?
Joshua Pounders
Man o man I need updates as quickly as possible. This is amazing!
Vinccool96
Oh god, the Shrine can get to the Lilims’ mindscape
