Nick Kane
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Gateway 13
🕑 Added 2024-11-14 14:26:53 +0000 UTC
Apparition was incredibly interesting.
It didn’t conform to any of the magical theories I’d been exposed to previously. Xeno freely admitted that barring ‘Unspeakables’, almost everyone who used it had no idea how it worked. By the melancholic look he had when he said it, I figured his wife was involved with that particular discovery, he only really looked like that when something related to her came up.
This raised some flags in my mind, as the books on Arithmancy and Ancient Runes Luna got for her 3rd year coupled with the standard theory in the spellbooks themselves clearly lend themselves to the comprehension of the mechanics of how spells work, with Xeno even adding that spell creation wasn’t unheard of for the more brilliant 4th-year students.
So, if even those who were crafting spells at 14 and went on to become masters in spell creation couldn’t figure it out, what was the ‘mystery’ the Department of Mysteries had uncovered?
My thoughts were derailed by another question I had since I arrived in this world: where does magic come from?
Because back home the source of magic always came back to the Gods in one way or another, even if it was just by copying them and/or Campione.
But here? Magicals here don’t even believe Gods exist, they have one fairy tale that connects what may be a God to them, but the rest is all about other magicals and magical creatures, and when I looked it up, the Gods that I’m used to mostly only have their myths told by non-magicals while the magicals say that they were only magicals pretending to be Gods.
I shake those thoughts off and go back to the task at hand: apparition.
After I finished my whining the day before, I talked about how I could feel Xeno and Severus apparating, which is what brought the mini-lecture Xeno gave on the subject this morning and led me to the outside of The Rook to try my hand at it.
I focused on ‘the three D’s’ as Xeno put it: Destination, Determination, and Deliberation, I turned on the spot and felt the micro-Gateway open and suck me in.
___
My arrival with a ‘pop’ a few meters away was met with applause from Xeno and Luna, but I didn’t pay attention to that.
Because the connection I felt with other people’s disapparitions held no candle to my own.
If I were to describe the feeling, it was like my Authority was singing, as if a missing part had finally been found.
And wasn’t that an interesting thought? The fact that Campione got incomplete Authorities isn’t new, as full Authorities were too much of a reward for killing a God. But the expectation is that the only way to unlock its full potential is by killing the same God again, not to find it randomly being used by magicians who don’t even know what they have.
‘The question now is: Are Gods the source of their power or are they breaching the realm of Gods by themselves?’
I was broken out of my reverie by Luna tackle hugging me.
I went with her movement, making sure to fall in a way she couldn’t get hurt.
“You did it! You did it! You did it!” She kept exclaiming.
“Did you doubt me?” I said, hugging her back.
“I did NOT!” She said, letting go of the hug to hit my chest with her fists.
Ever since the World Cup, Luna had been getting increasingly more affectionate. At first, I thought it was only about the trauma, but as the days went on I realized that soon enough she was going to Hogwarts and I’d be going back home, with chances being we’d only see each other again in a year.
She was making the most out of the time we had left together this year, and after realizing that so did I.
After Luna finished her (fake) tantrum, I raised my head to see Xeno, still sitting down a little ways away with a smile on his face.
I started to stand up, bringing Luna up with me as she decided to ‘let’ me carry her.
As I made to move, I had an idea.
“Hey, Luna, wanna see something cool?” I asked her.
“Sure!” She said, looking up at me with a smile.
“Then hold on,” I said, focusing on apparating with my Authority instead of the normal way.
I took a step forward, and we were in front of Xeno. I still felt the micro-Gateway form on both sides, but instead of being sucked into it my Authority simply connected to the destination and brought us there, with no need to traverse the space in between.
I let Luna get down and turned to smirk at Xeno, who was more confused than anything at what I did.
“My Authority lets me skip the ‘being sucked through a straw’ part of apparition,” I said, my smirk turning into a smug smile. “So it’s as comfortable and risky as walking the distance, and silent too!”
Although it was not nearly as instantaneous as I hoped, but nothing a lot of training won’t fix.
Xeno snorted a shook his head with a smile, while Luna clapped once and motioned me to carry her again.
As I grabbed her, Xeno put a hand on my shoulder.
“How about you bring us back home then? I want to see what it’s like too!” He said.
“Sure!” I answered with a smile, and with a step we were gone.
___
When Severus came around in the afternoon to see me ‘apparating’ around every time I needed to move more than a few steps.
It wasn’t faster than just walking, but that’s why I was doing it in the first place.
I could feel it getting a little bit easier, although if it was from training or just because I knew the house well enough to not need as much focus would only be revealed when I trained somewhere I didn’t know as well.
One thing that stumped me was how it wasn’t an all-around upgrade, it was more flexible in location than the other methods, but I don’t think it’ll ever be as fast as using my mental door or as strong as using a physical anchor.
“I gather your apparition class was a success?” He said, sarcasm dripping from his voice.
“You could say that,” I agreed with a nod.
With a snort, he pulled a small pouch from one of his pockets and started taking books out of it.
“These are the textbooks you are missing to complete the Hogwarts curriculum.” He said, pilling more than 20 books on the coffee table. “And the ones Miss Lovegood can’t let you borrow for the year.”
“Thanks, Severus,” I said, staring at the mountain of books he just gave me. “But don’t you think this is a little bit much?”
“You already completed 3 years of education in less than a month.” He said with a roll of his eyes. “I doubt this will last you 6 months, much less a year.”
“That’s just because that’s the only thing I did for the month,” I said in exasperation. “Back home I actually have stuff to do so I won’t have nearly the time to go through all of this.”
“Then I’ll increase the timeframe to one year, and I do expect you to have finished by the time you come to bring me over during the next break.” He said, getting into full teacher mode to dare me into saying no.
I didn’t, of course, he has been a teacher for over 10 years now. If he thinks I can do it then I can at least try. I also don’t want to let him down, the dude is throwing his lot with me, I want him to know that I take his advice seriously in the small things so he can trust me to take it seriously with the big things.
“Fine!” I whine sarcastically in agreement.
“Good,” He said, already turning to the front door so he could get to the ‘training grounds’ we have been using.
___
By the next day, both Severus and Xeno decided to halt Luna’s training, as her slipping attention due to the looming school year made it a waste of time.
Of course, the fact she cajoled the men into playing board games with us for the entire afternoon had nothing to do with it.
Meanwhile, we used the books Severus gave me to make a list of spells to learn before September 1st, which wasn’t easy considering how useful most of them were.
Severus still came around, but now he spent most of his time hanging out with Xeno and sometimes helping me and Luna with a particularly tricky spell.
Luna and I still spent every night hanging out in the pillow fort until we fell asleep. Thankfully Xeno had enough stock for me to be able to make hot chocolate every night, otherwise, I’m pretty sure Luna would have led a mutiny.
___
Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and so it did when September 1st arrived.
We had spent the last day doing all of Luna’s favorite activities, and even Severus indulged her by playing some board games with us.
But it was time, and as we entered King’s Cross station the fact that I wouldn’t be seeing her for another year suddenly became real.
And it was obvious she felt the same if the way she latched onto my arm was any indication.
As we moved through the throngs of people toward the magical platform that’d take her to Hogwarts, I put my arm around her shoulders and let her hug my midsection instead.
Once we sighted platform 9, I felt her steps slow as she started dragging her feet.
“Hey, relax! It’s just one year, you’ll be so distracted with school and your friends that you won’t even notice!” I said, trying to cheer her up.
That seemed to be the wrong thing to say, as she almost came to a complete stop by it.
“Cheer up Pumpkin! There’ll be a surprise this year for students and, even if there wasn’t, I very much doubt Severus will let you use your free time to mope when you could be training!” Xeno, noticing we were lagging behind, said.
That was effective, as she started to regain some of her enthusiasm.
We quickly approached the barrier dividing platforms 10 and 9 and, without breaking stride, walked through it.
The first thing I noticed was the scarlet steam engine stopped at the station, the second was how crowded the station itself was.
As we moved towards the train, everyone around us was frantic about something or other: forgotten items, forgotten pets, and in one case a harried blonde mother seemed to have forgotten one of her children, although looking at the two kids she did have with her I couldn’t help but feel that was planned.
When we reached the train, we helped Luna get her things inside before she launched herself at Xeno, hugging him for all he was worth.
After a few moments, they separated and she did the same thing to me.
“I’ll miss you!” She said with her tone on the verge of tears.
“I’ll miss you too, Luna,” I replied. “But don’t fret too much about it, in no time I’ll be back here to fetch you for summer break.”
“You promise?” She asked.
“Of course I promise! You and Xeno can even come with Severus to visit my world!” I said.
She laughed at that even as she kept hugging me.
Hearing the train whistle, she finally let go to board it.
“Until next year, Alex!” She said, waving at me as she got in.
“Until next year, Luna!” I said, doing the same.
And as the whistle sounded again, the train started to move, taking Luna with it for the next year.
___
A/N: And that’s that of Luna for the next little while.
Y’all have no idea how much time I spent to make sure apparition didn’t invalidate current and future powers, although that was a massive help in cementing the specifics of those future powers.
Onto good irl news: Thanks to y’all I finally have a computer table! I seriously can’t stress enough how thankful I am to not have to write while balancing the keyboard on my thighs anymore. Again, thank you all for that!
Next Time: Home at Last!
Comments
Nick Kane
Good catch! I always get confused with the Northern Hemisphere's school year 😅 Yeah, if everything goes according to plan there'll be an Interlude after the next chapter to explore everyone's reaction to Alex and Xeno's article, Snape's interactions with Luna will play a big role in it. And thanks! It had been a long with since I had one, it's pretty neat!
Zerak
I think “around 10 years” would be more fitting for how long Snape taught. Harry is 14 now, and his parents died when he was 1, so realistic even if Snape started working right away that is 13 years. Snape will likely clamp down hard on anyone bullying Luna. Because he learned that Campione are unreasonable, and that Alex is friends with Luna, and he doesn’t know if Alex would be willing to burn the school down for allowing Luna to be bullied. Glad you were able to get a table 😊
