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littlemisspascal · 3 years

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Death and an Angel part 13

Death!Din x Cupid F!Reader

Summary: Ahsoka takes Din on a journey through the past.

“You should know though, you might not like what you see.”

Din shakes his head, dismissing the warning. “What’s one more nightmare?”

Rating: T

Word Count: 5,958

Warnings: angst, swearing, character death (canonical, but with my own twist), made up planet name that is ridiculous, dialogue heavy, plot plot plot, backstory

Author Note: Good lord this is soooo late coming out. To anyone who sent me an encouraging message I am beyond grateful because I really needed the encouragement to finish this segment. I hope more than anything this segment gives more answers than it raises questions (although reading your theories is both awesome and entertaining so keep them coming too!)

Links to Part 1 and Part 12 and Part 14

Cross-posted on AO3.

Photo Inspiration:

“Who the fuck is Moff Gideon?”

Ahsoka looks at Din, her brow furrowed deeply. He’s seen the expression on her face enough times to recognize its meaning: this is the face she makes when she is about to reveal a message directly from the universe itself. As an Oracle, she is the only immortal who can glimpse details of the past, present, and future. She has a soft spot for mortals, sharing the few precious snippets the universe allows her to with them in the forms of riddles and vague prophecies that never fail to give Din a migraine with their crypticness when he hears them.

“Moff Gideon is a Seraph who grew discontent with his position amongst immortals,” she says at last.

“Is he the one responsible for keeping my soulmate from me?” he asks, voice as harsh and unforgiving as the environment surrounding them.

“He is responsible for many sins.”

“I don’t have time for your vague answers,” he growls, hands twisting into fists. “You tell me not to kill this Seraph, then in the next breath claim he’s a threat. I am not a mortal who will be entertained by riddles, Ahsoka. You summoned me here to talk, so start talking. Tell me what you know.”

The Oracle’s mouth purses into a thin line. Nearly a full minute passes before she speaks again. When she does, the calmness is no longer natural, but forced. “Telling you what I know would be impossible.”

“Ahsoka—”

“But,” she pitches her voice higher than his protest while narrowing her eyes disapprovingly, “I am capable of showing you. You should know though, you might not like what you see.”

Din shakes his head, dismissing the warning. “What’s one more nightmare?”

She reaches forward, pressing her index and middle fingers to the center of his visor. If not for his helmet, she’d be touching the space directly between his eyes and instinct tells him the positioning isn’t random.

“We’ll start at the beginning,” she says, but her voice has changed from its usual cadence. It is ancient and youthful, a harsh scream and a hushed whisper all at once.

Din has only the slightest of seconds to process this in addition to the way her facial markings start to glow and her eyes flash white before he finds himself standing in the midst of a crisis.

There is mass hysteria every direction he turns. People screaming in terror, pushing each other and tripping over those who have fallen in their haste to flee an unseen threat; whole buildings are crumbling, sending flaming debris and shards of glass raining down upon the streets as smoke billows into the sky. The edges of his field of view are blurred, like he’s looking at everything through someone’s glasses, and it creates an ache behind his eyeballs. Fuck, is this what it’s like for Ahsoka when she experiences visions?

‘You remember the Fall of Mandalore, don’t you, Death?’ Ahsoka’s voice resonates from deep inside his brain, as if she’s fused her consciousness with his.

His jaw tightens when he says, “Of course.”

‘Oh, look. There you are.’

Sure enough, when Din looks forward he sees himself moving swiftly through the crowd, unaffected by the chaos as he stoops to reap the soul of a woman who’s had her skull caved in by the stampede of frantic civilians. He wonders how many others can say they’ve had an out-of-body-experience such as what he’s dealing with right now: reliving a traumatic event all over again while observing himself the same way a stranger would from a distance.

“Why are you showing me this?”

‘Because it’s important,’ Ahsoka answers, and the image of her frowning face enters his mind unbiddenly. ‘The universe has a plethora of endings imagined for every civilization, but it is the individual choices of the community that act as stepping stones bringing them closer to a specific fate.’

“Mandalore was always meant to fall apart. It was just a matter of how, not when,” he surmises, voice devoid of emotion. His words are punctuated by another fiery blast from a nearby complex, followed by an ear-piercing wall of a terrified child.

‘Precisely. But the same cannot be said for an individual’s lifespan. There are consequences if someone perishes before their time has come. You should know that better than anyone.’ There is a hint of accusation thinly veiled in her tone that has his body tensing reflexively.

His location shifts, shapes and colors mixing together without warning before another scene gradually comes into focus. It’s a large chamber with sparse furnishings, but its beauty is tarnished by the copious amounts of glass littering the room as every single one of the ornately designed windows have been shattered from the force of the explosions outside. Din knows before he even lays eyes on the throne he’s inside the royal palace because he first sees the familiar face of his most trusted reaper standing next to a blond-haired woman. Both women have such strikingly similar facial features nobody who sees them side by side can have any doubt they are related.

Whereas Bo-Katan dons gray-and-blue armor with a jetpack strapped to her back and two blaster pistols holstered at her sides, her sister, Satine, wears a garnet colored dress with a gold belt wrapped around her slender waist. In this moment, the sisters differ from each other as much as night and day; one a military leader, the other a pacifistic duchess.

“You need someone here to protect you. We don’t know who or what we’re dealing with and it isn’t safe for you to be alone,” Bo-Katan argues, crossing her arms over her chest as if to intimidate her sister into submitting.

“Our people are scared and defenseless, Bo. They need your protection during this crisis more than I currently do,” Satine says, voice soft but firm in a way only those deeply involved in politics can master.

Bo-Katan glances out the broken windows at the burning city, stubborn loyalty to protect her sister warring with her duty to protect her people. “Then at least send a message to Obi-Wan to come here.”

Satine shakes her head. “Bo—”

“I know things are strained between you two right now—”

“That’s a glaring understatement.”

“—but he’s one of our best and most loyal guards. He’s proven more than a dozen times he’ll fight anyone who’s a threat to you.”

“I don’t need the reminder of what he’s done for me.”

Bo-Katan places a hand on the blonde’s shoulder and squeezes it when she says, “He’s the only one other than myself I trust to protect you if you were to encounter danger.”

“Just because I’m committed to peace does not mean I am incapable of looking after myself.” Satine reaches behind herself to detach a weapon that had been clipped to the back of her belt. She clicks a button on its hilt, emitting a white blade shining brightly like a beacon amongst the dark clouds of smoke tainting the air.

Din’s breath catches in his throat. “Is that…?”

‘The Lightsaber of Mandalore,’ Ahsoka confirms. ‘Made by the Armorer herself.’

The Armorer is deeply respected by both mortals and immortals alike. As the goddess of metalworking and blacksmiths, there is nothing she cannot forge and infuse with grand powers. However, she is exceedingly cautious about choosing who is a recipient of her creations.

Din is one such recipient, having been given his armor of pure beskar when the Armorer realized how dangerous his touch was to mortals. He remains eternally grateful for the gift not only because it prohibits unwanted physical contact, but also because it is invulnerable to damage or rust like other types of armor. Ahsoka’s dual sabers were also made in the Armorer’s forge, specifically designed for the Oracle’s grip alone and meant to protect her during her journeys throughout the galaxy, but in contrast to the white blade of the Lightsaber, the blades of Ahsoka’s weapons matched the same blue coloring as the stripes on her lekku and montrals.

According to the legends Din’s heard, the Armorer created the Lightsaber for the first ruler of Mandalore because she was impressed with their culture and strong military, and it was passed on to each new heir to the throne over the centuries. When wielded in battle, the Lightsaber made the user invincible against enemy attacks as it siphoned off energy from the souls of those it sliced through.

Throughout the long history of Mandalore, Satine was distinguished as the only ruler to avoid warfare as she sincerely believed negotiations and treaties could solve any problem quicker than bloodshed.

As such, Din isn’t surprised when Bo-Katan raises a judgmental eyebrow. “Did you forget who you’re talking to? I know you wouldn’t use the Lightsaber even to cut a piece of fruit.”

Satine sighs through her nose, sheathing the weapon once more. “Fine. I’ll contact Obi the second you’re gone.”

“You better.” Bo-Katan leans forward, pressing her forehead against her sister’s. A gesture of affection within their culture. “I’ll see you soon.”

And then she’s gone, flying out the nearby window and diving straight into the fray. As a mortal and as a reaper, the redhead is fearless in the face of danger. Some might consider the behavior reckless, but Din’s always been impressed by her dogged tenacity to achieve victory no matter the difficulty of her mission.

Din looks back at Satine. Now that she is alone in the room, she is able to freely express her distress at the unfolding situation, looking as if she’s aged ten years within the blink of an eye. She fiddles with the comlink around her wrist, seeming hesitant to call this Obi-Wan fellow like she agreed to.

‘They haven’t realized it, but they’re soulmates, ’ Ahsoka murmurs, low and melancholic. Hearing it makes Din’s chest constrict with unease. ‘They fought recently and parted ways upset with each other. Unfortunately, she dies before they can resolve their miscommunication.’

The next sequence of events play out startlingly quick, as if Ahsoka has chosen to suddenly jump forward in time. His eyes struggle to absorb the fleeting details—the doors to the throne room being blown open; a Seraph in black armor emerging from the smoke; his voice is unique, velvety and thorny at the same time, as he addresses the duchess by her full name Satine Kryze; Satine attempting to stall as she subtly taps at her comlink, only for the tactic to fail as the foe teleports closer, eliminating the space between them.

“You have something I want,” he tells her, seizing hold of her throat. “You may think you have some idea of what you have in your possession, but you do not.”

One of Satine’s hands claws at his face, attempting to gouge out his eyeballs with her nails, while the other reaches for the Lightsaber. Her fingertips brush against its metal hilt just as he throws her to the floor. The impact knocks the breath out of her lungs, eliciting a strangled gasp, and shards of glass dig into her exposed skin, dotting the pale flesh with beads of blood.

Gideon—Din doesn’t need Ahsoka’s input to know this, for who else could the Seraph be but him?—places the heel of his boot over Satine’s neck. He doesn’t apply pressure yet, but the action in itself has the duchess squirming with panic, hitting at his leg futilely. There is a red light on the comlink flashing insistently, indicating someone on the other end is speaking but they’ve been muted.

“Give me the asset I seek.”

Through clenched teeth, Satine wheezes, “It belongs to Mandalore.”

“I thought you might say that,” Gideon replies, feigning disappointment. “However, in case you haven’t noticed Duchess,” he gestures towards the windows, “Mandalore is dead. My accomplices have made sure of that.”

“You’re a coward for hiding behind others. You don’t deserve the Lightsaber.”

There is a sudden change in the atmosphere, air turning impossibly frigid and crisp.

“I deserve it more than anyone,” Gideon says, angry enough he is trembling. The Seraph’s stance shifts, and although Din has witnessed every type of brutal death imaginable, he flinches at the sound of Satine’s neck snapping beneath his heel.

Gideon rolls her lifeless body over and rips the Lightsaber off her belt, a satisfied smirk on his face. He disappears as quickly as he arrived, reward in hand, and an eerie silence envelops the room. It’s almost as if the palace itself is stunned by the loss of its ruler, struggling to make sense of the merciless act of violence.

Time skips forward again, showing a young bearded-man dressed in military armor clutching at Satine’s body, pressing his forehead against hers as he weeps. Over and over he keeps murmuring apologies for not being quicker, for failing to be there when she needed him, for never saying he loved her.

“How do you know Satine and Obi-Wan are soulmates if they never matched?” Din asks, feeling like he’s intruding on a private moment despite not actually being there.

He thinks of a similarly phrased question he’d asked his angel on their way to Sorgan what feels like entire lifetimes ago: how will I know it’s my soulmate? Her eloquent response remains embedded deep in his memory, safely stored away along with every other moment they’ve spent together. Longing twists like a knife in his side as he allows himself a second of weakness to look at the soulmate marking on his palm.

‘I saw the life they were going to share,’ Ahsoka tells him. ‘Satine Kryze was not meant to die here. She and Obi-Wan should have both survived the Fall of Mandalore, settling down happily with each other elsewhere in the galaxy. Gideon’s greed altered their destinies.’

The palace fades away to reveal a much older Obi-Wan, gray-haired and wrinkled. He’s in Mos Eisley; Din recognizes the crowded spaceport instantly having taken his ship there for repairs numerous times over the years.

‘The universe puts a lot of effort into making sure soulmates match with each other at a very precise moment. Even if the match is rejected, the individuals still had an important impact on each other’s lives. Timing is the most important factor for a soulmate pairing, and if it’s off then the universe will attempt to fix it.’

Obi-Wan stops to help a woman who’s accidentally dropped her shopping bag, contents spilling out onto the sandy ground. She thanks him as he offers her a polite smile, both of their attentions on each other’s faces and not their hands. More specifically: their marked hands. There is the barest brush of their fingertips as they reach for the same item before an invisible blast of energy erupts from their touch, splitting them apart and sending every person and thing surrounding them flying in all directions.

The shock on Obi-Wan’s face matches Din’s own beneath his helmet. He remembers his angel telling him after the failed match with Omera what happened on Sorgan wasn’t the first time an event like that occurred, but she hadn’t been privy to the details. Her superior had told her she wasn’t high enough ranking which Din had thought sounded like a load of bantha shit at the time.

“Ahsoka, what is the meaning of this?” Din asks the questions quietly, but there’s an audible coating of frustration that he knows she won’t miss. “Satine’s dead.”

‘You didn’t reap her soul,’ Ahsoka says. It’s said as a gentle reminder, but it nevertheless has Din feeling like the ground has disappeared beneath his feet as realization dawns.

“I...didn’t.”

A quiet sigh echoes through his head. ‘I forgot how ignorant you can be. You can’t reap a mortal soul that transforms into a new entity.’

“She’s a Cupid,” Din murmurs. Either that or a reaper, but he knows each of his reapers like the back of his hand and Satine isn’t nor has she ever been one. He shakes his head, thinking of Obi-Wan finding Satine’s body in the throne room. “That doesn’t make any sense. Obi-Wan clearly loved her.”

‘Rejection can sometimes stem from a misunderstanding. Satine’s last living encounter with Obi-Wan was him saying so long as he was part of the royal guard they had no future together. She perceived this as him denying he cared about her, not knowing he had made plans to retire in order to ask for her hand.’

In front of Din, Obi-Wan rubs at his soulmate marking while staring at the mess around him, lines of unease and confusion creasing his forehead.

‘You asked, what is the meaning of this moment?’ Ahsoka continues. ‘It’s one of the universe’s attempts to reconnect Obi-Wan and Satine so they experience their matching as they were intended to.’

“But they’re of different statuses,” he points out needlessly. “She’ll outlive him.”

‘Yes, but the matching of soulmates not only influences the lives of the pair, but the lives of other people as well in ways both obvious and invisible. Think of it as a ripple effect.’

“Did the universe’s attempt work?” Din wonders. “Were they ever reunited?”

‘When Satine awoke as a Cupid, it was a surprise to both her and Gideon. Rather than kill her a second time, the Seraph chose to inflict a worse fate. She became the first of her kind to have her memories erased. However, he’d never previously used his ability on another immortal before, resulting in him nearly wiping her entire mind clean. The universe is capable of many miracles, big and small, but every attempt of reuniting the pair failed. It remains the universe’s most profound regret which is ultimately the reason why the universe brought you to Trinomliaxeros without your armor so that history wouldn’t repeat itself.’

There is a strange, heavy feeling that suddenly inflates within the confines of Din’s chest like a balloon. It’s different from the rampant anger he can still detect simmering beneath the skin of his human façade. He tries to shake it off, focusing on his breathing and the desert heat emanating from the twin suns overhead, only to slowly realize that what he’s feeling is fear.

Within his memory he can recall just one other distinct moment in his existence where he felt this spine-chilling emotion, and that moment was experienced on Trinomliaxeros.

“What did you just say?” His voice sounds shaky even to his own ears, but he can’t find any energy within himself to care.

A long stretch of silence fills his head; it’s the fragile kind, too, preventing him from snapping at Ahsoka to answer lest she become angry at him and yank him out the vision entirely.

‘Twice the timing of a soulmate match has been disturbed. The first pair affected was Obi-Wan and Satine. And the second pair was...’

“Ahsoka,” he says when she hesitates to continue, but any additional words he can think of saying catch in the back of his throat.

‘The second pair was you and your angel.’ Another pause of silence, shorter but no less meaningful. ‘Only fifty years ago, she wasn’t an angel.’

This is what Din remembers from Trinomliaxeros: feeling a pull so forceful, impatient and unanticipated it drags him across the galaxy in his civilian clothes, arriving to find the planet engulfed in smoke, unable to see his hand in front of his face, even without his gloves on. Finding skeletal remains burnt to blackened crisps with the souls inside shaking and traumatized, practically leaping into his outstretched hand, knowing either the afterlife or damnation would be better destinations than lingering there even a second longer. Explosions in the distance, bursts of flames as intense and hot as the sun, greedily consuming everything in their radius.

Out of the smoke and darkness, a survivor. A girl, covered in soot and sweat, colliding with his chest. The dead are calling out to him, pleading for him to reap them, to save them. Their voices swirl around his head, clawing at his brain and pounding against his skull. Shoving the girl aside, one foot in front of the other, letting his powers guide him to the next soul. Her voice cuts across the distance, a plasma bolt striking him in the back. We’re soulmates, she says.

His breath stills in his lungs. Fear spreads like a virus through his bloodstream, slipping beneath his defenses, turning him into a stranger within his own body. The declaration is a lie, an impossibility, a delusion. He has no match, hands unmarked, flesh poisonous and lethal. His words, too, are weapons themselves. Sharp, ruthless, desiring to wound her as she’s wounded him. You could never be my soulmate.

And then he’d left her.

This is what Din remembers. But, he thinks, squeezing his eyes shut so tightly it hurts, I’ve remembered everything all wrong.

Phantom hands gently press against the sides of his helmet, offering comfort without caring about the dried blood. He keeps his eyes shut, knowing it��s just a manifestation crafted by Ahsoka in his head. ‘Don’t blame yourself. This was the only viable outcome the universe could produce to ensure the bad timing would be remedied in the future,’ she says, but it does little to lessen the weight on his chest. ‘Your rejection saved her life. It granted you both a second chance of a first meeting.’

“How did—” Din struggles to string words together, to fucking breathe. “She—She knew. What we were. How…?”

The Oracle puts him out of his misery. ‘She found out the way all soulmates do: through touch.’

Din’s eyes fly open at that, and he has to blink a few times to bring everything into focus because there’s him and his angel right in front of him, frozen mid-collision. She’s grasping the sleeves of his coat to keep her balance, the palm of her marked hand touching his wrist. He stares at the point of contact for a moment, then barks out a laugh, hysterical and strangled sounding.

“That’s not possible.”

‘Soulmates can’t kill each other. She’s always been meant to withstand your touch.’

Din swallows thickly, staring at his angel’s face. He hates the question forming on his tongue, but it will haunt him the rest of his life if he doesn’t ask it. “In your visions, when I meet her at the right time, what happens?”

'You’re different by then, less broody and more accepting of the notion you could be loved. You have a soulmate marking,’ Ahsoka tells him. ‘You fall for her hard, even before your hands brush. You love her throughout the entirety of her lifetime.’

“And...when she dies?” The words taste like blood in his mouth.

‘Don’t torture yourself, Death. That timeline doesn’t exist anymore.’

For one brief, fleeting second Din is actually grateful Gideon altered their destinies. However, in the next, he’s trying not to let the fear gnawing at the back of his mind increase as it belatedly occurs to him that the universe is not as infallible as he’s always believed it was.

He wishes he could see Ahsoka, if only so he could glare at her directly. “Everything you’ve shown me has only further convinced me Gideon deserves death. Why have you asked me to promise not to kill him?”

'Do you remember what happens after this moment on Trinomliaxeros?’

Din frowns at the change of subject. “I continued to reap souls.”

'Yes. And then?’

He huffs a frustrated breath through his nose. This is Ahsoka, he thinks, at her most annoying. But, as much he loathes admitting it, this is also the most helpfully transparent she’s ever been. Today may be the only time she trusts him enough to share her visions. He owes it to her to be as open as she’s being with him.

That being said, he’s still wary of the memories he’s kept in the distant, shadowy corners of his mind being pulled into the spotlight. “Tell me we’re not gonna talk about the kid.”

‘We talked about the universe’s biggest regret. It’s only fair we talk about yours too.’ Ahsoka has found the crack in his armor he’s tried so long to conceal, peeling it open without remorse.

She doesn’t spare him time to argue. All he does is blink and he’s looking at his past self locked in a staring contest with a little green-skinned child who is propped up inside a floating, orb-shaped pram.

Of all the buildings and homes on the planet, only its temple had remained untouched by the destruction. Din didn’t know if it had been the structure’s own holy foundation keeping it standing or if it was the personal choice of the mastermind behind the attack, but he’d been drawn to it regardless, finding souls there to reap whose hosts had differed from other victims in that their throats had been slit. The walls of the temple were adorned with intricate murals depicting immortal figures and religious events of ancient history, but before he could observe the artwork closer, a quiet coo had stopped him in his tracks.

When he opened the pram, he hadn’t anticipated finding a baby of all creatures. When their eyes connected, every background noise abruptly ceased. Even the voices of the dead fell silent. Rather than rouse his suspicions, Din had felt only a sense of peace he usually only experienced in the midst of hyperspace travel where the stars were his voiceless companions.

An unspoken conversation transpired between the two of them, one Din still can’t translate into words all these years later, but it concluded with him knowing he would take the child with him.

Din had reached for him unthinkingly, the child lifting his arms up in eagerness to be held, but self-awareness kicked in right before contact and Din retracted his hands away so fast it startled the child into crying, brown eyes filling with tears. Panicked, he surveyed the room, looking for something to put an end to the wailing, before looking down at his own coat, experiencing a lightbulb moment.

“Alright, kid, it’s okay. You’re okay.” Watching his past self shrug off the coat, Din remembers it had been his favorite of his civilian clothes, well worth the cost for its soft fabric and length. He managed to successfully swaddle the child, ensuring his arms were safely tucked away to prevent him endangering his life, and Din exhaled a quiet breath of relief when the tears dried up almost immediately.

However, the ensuing silence wasn’t as peaceful as the previous one. Both past and present Din turn at the sound of distant shuffling echoing off the temple walls from another room.

“Ignore it,” Din tells his past self. “Just take the kid and leave.”

But his plea goes unheard and the past remains unchanged. Ahsoka is silent inside his head, either because she knows he won’t accept any more comforting words or because she thinks he’s undeserving of them for choosing to leave the child behind in his pram, closing it when he starts to whine again, so Din can go investigate the noise.

Din exhales a quiet breath, fingers twitching restlessly at his sides as he watches himself stalk through the temple halls, checking each room he comes across. It’s strange, seeing himself from this perspective. The distanced viewpoint allows Din to glimpse new details he hadn’t been capable of noticing back then.

Such as the reappearance of a familiar Seraph emerging from the shadows to stab him in the back.

Here’s one of the perks about being Death: he can’t be killed. That fact doesn’t mean there haven’t been attempts though. As Death, people sometimes look at his armor as a challenge. Like if they can fire a shot or throw a knife at just the right angle, it’ll wound him and allow them to live longer. Simply put, all those people are idiots.

When he looks like a regular, unintimidating civilian, he’s also been involved in violent predicaments where someone’s attempted to mug him or where he’s tried to save someone else from a similarly sticky situation.

Armor or no armor though, he’s always walked away from these encounters completely unscathed.

Well. With the sole exception of Trinomliaxeros where he was mostly unscathed.

It wasn’t the first time Din had been stabbed before. Usually knife wounds felt like a mild pinch. More irritating than painful, similar to a splinter stuck in one’s thumb. Once the weapon was removed, the damage healed within seconds, leaving behind no scar or proof he was ever attacked.

Usually, is the keyword to note here.

Ahsoka freezes time right when the blade of the Lightsaber is driven straight through the center of Din’s body, bone and flesh as easy to slice through as melted butter. His agonized expression—eyes screwed shut and lips open in a silent scream—would be comical if Din didn’t remember the exact emotions he was feeling in that moment.

Instead of a pinch, it’d felt as if thousands of invisible hands were pulling and scratching at him, attempting to strip apart his human exterior layer by layer—peeling off skin, scraping away muscle and bone marrow, seeking to reach the core of himself where his powers resided.

‘Looks like it hurts,’ Ahsoka says. The return of her naturally calm and neutral tone of voice seems almost cruel given the frozen, graphic display.

Din again wishes he could glare at her. “Is this funny to you?”

‘The transformation of the Lightsaber into the Darksaber is anything but funny.’

Lost in recollection, he failed to notice until now how the blade of the Lightsaber has changed in color from white to black. It’s the same inky hue that absorbs the brown in his eyes, that had dyed his veins during the execution of Hess.

‘The Armorer specifically instructed the Lightsaber only be used against enemies. As a neutral entity, you are, by definition, no one’s ally or adversary. By stabbing you, the saber became corrupted. It is a consequence Gideon still has yet to fully realize the monumental repercussions of.’

Time resumes, Din’s past self collapsing onto the floor, pressing a hand to the throbbing hole in his chest, attention too consumed by the franticness of his powers struggling to repair the trauma to notice Gideon lingering behind him. The Seraph’s stunned look of shock lasts barely ten seconds, morphing into one of deep contemplation as his gaze flicked between the weapon and Din, before he vanished.

When Din recovered enough to stand, he teleported back to the child’s location at once. He needs to get the little guy as far away from here as possible, somewhere peaceful and safe. His planning came to an abrupt halt upon finding the pram open and empty, his coat shredded and scattered about the floor in pieces.

“Gideon took him.” It isn’t a question.

‘Yes,’ she confirms. ‘The child was the intended target of this siege.’

“Why?”

‘He’s...very special.’ There is something about how her voice hitches when she says ‘special’ that has Din’s instincts prickling with alertness, but he holds his tongue. ‘Gideon considers him a tool he can take advantage of.’

The ugly, tight mass of anger swells inside of him and presses against his lungs, resulting in a low growl slipping out of his mouth. He curses his own ineptitude. If he’d paid more attention, hadn’t allowed himself to be wounded, he could have subdued Gideon and spared both his angel and the child from being captured.

“I warned you once upon a time, there would be consequences if you released your darkness,” Ahsoka says, her voice no longer emitting from inside his head. The vision fades back into reality the same sudden, jarring way one wakes up from dreaming. It takes all of Din’s self-restraint not to perform a full-body shake. “Your control is slipping as your rage increases. It’s making you not think clearly which is exactly what Gideon wants. That is the reason I am asking you to promise you will not kill him.”

Put like that, Din no longer thinks her request sounds quite so outlandish, even though he does still remain in the dark as to what consequences exactly will unfold. Ahsoka has remained stubbornly tight-lipped about the topic from their very first encounter, claiming the universe is adamant she can only share the details with one other person and it isn’t him.

“He deserves to die for all he’s done,” Din says quietly, but he’s self-aware to know his resistance is beginning to crumble.

“Between you and me, I think so, too,” she admits in the same low tone. Her ocean eyes are dark and stormy, reflecting her internal turmoil. “But rules are made for a reason and we would be fools to carelessly overlook the consequences of breaking them.”

The accusatory note from earlier has returned with a vengeance. He’s not surprised—of course the universe would utilize the Oracle to express its disapproval—but aggravation still thrums through his veins.

“Hess played a hand in my soulmate’s fate. He called her a whore.” Din’s upper lip twitches with the urge to snarl. “I don’t regret what I did to him.”

Ahsoka sighs. “I was afraid you’d say that. When you swore your creed, you promised the universe you’d only reap a soul when their host’s time has reached its destined end. By killing Hess, you not only broke a sacred rule, you also broke your creed.”

Din recoils, feeling like he’s been stabbed with the Lightsaber all over again.

“...What?” The anger is gone, extinguished by the weight of the revelation. Confusion and wariness are quick to fill the void. “What does that mean?”

She looks away then, but not quick enough to hide her troubled expression. “I...don’t know.”

He blinks, mind scrambling to understand the implications. “Isn’t that your purpose? To know everything?”

“For the very first time, the future’s unclear to me,” she murmurs, eyes briefly turning cloudy as if she’s trying to take a peek at the potential timelines right then and there. She shakes her head a beat later, frowning. “There are many choices left to be made, each one capable of influencing the fate of the galaxy. It is not possible at this time for me to predict our upcoming reality, let alone your consequences. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Din says, because it’s the truth and he doesn’t like seeing her crestfallen expression. Fuck, he might actually consider her a friend after all.

Whatever happens, he thinks to himself, it can’t be any worse to deal with than being separated from his soulmate. If he can survive this, he can survive anything.

“The last promise I made was broken.” He bites back a wince at the memory of his angel’s pinky promise. “But if making another one is the only way you’ll take me to my soulmate, then you have my word. I won’t kill him.”

A ghost of a smile pulls at her lips before she grabs hold of one of his vambraces. “Take me to your ship. I will guide you to her location.”

“You don’t trust me to go alone?” he asks, unsure whether to be amused or indignant.

“No,” Ahsoka replies bluntly.

Din huffs. “Fine.”

“I may not be able to see much at the moment, but I know it’s never wise to turn down support. You’re going to need us.”

“Us?”

“It’s Bo-Katan’s choice to make, but you and I both know she’s never been one to back down from a fight. Especially once she learns Gideon is her sister’s murderer.”

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Permanent Tag List: @promiscuoussatan, @vintagesaph, @sylphene, @over300books, @aerynwrites, @softly-sad, @chibi-yuki, @theocatkov, @oh-no-a-whovian, @freeshavocadoooo, @you-and-i-deserve-the-world, @lin-djarin, @happiestsparkleofall, @randomness501, @gallowsjoker, @rogertaylorsfalsettogivesmehives, @captain-jebi, @leilei-draws, @coaaster, @stilllivindue2spite, @pointy-sharp, @melobee, @artsymaddie

#din djarin x you #din x you #my fic #death and an angel #mandalorian x reader #Din Djarin #Pedro Pascal #pedro pascal character fanfiction #din djarin x reader #din x reader

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metvmorqhoses · 3 years

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i have a headcannon that voldemort never really “punishes” bella when she does something wrong, but his punishments to other death eaters are way way worse & so she’s obligated to act as if vold has given her a worse punishment than he actually has. not that she does a lot of things wrong as his “most faithful” though. i’m talking about the occasional slip up like the department of mysteries thing. had that been someone else, he probably would’ve harmed them more, let alone wouldn’t save then from some witch statue holding them down.

this is very true, anon. so true, in fact, i actually consider this much more a canon fact than mere speculation.

sorry if this is very long, but for every thousand of anti-bellamort idiots there must be a very precise bellamort’s defense attorney lol

correct me if i am wrong, but to my knowledge not once in the books a physical punishment coming from voldemort is ever mentioned in relation to bellatrix - and even if, let's be real, after his "rebirth" she became involved in literally the majority of the most crucial errors, the worst happenings ever, that ultimately brought to no less than his very downfall.

and yet, still, she came out of it all not only unscathed, but treated very specially.

even to a lazy reader, this should at least come across as peculiar.

let’s take the primary example of what i am saying, the battle of the department of mysteries.

just freed from azkaban and after being showered in honors and recognition, the first pivotal mission bellatrix was entrusted with was a damning fiasco.

true, it was not entirely her fault, lucius was in fact “in charge” of it, but let’s be real, do you really think voldemort sent his literal general with that malfoy dandy, his pupil, his most trusted and powerful lieutenant, just for company? just as a henchman? as i have always interpreted it, bellatrix was there to keep an eye on lucius, whose silver tongue was famously more apt to political plotting than to field missions.

voldemort wasn’t trusting lucius with the prophecy that had literally already meant almost death to him once, it would have been madness to. you can say anything about voldemort, but certainly not that he was an idiot.

i actually don’t think he ever trusted lucius at all. lucius had renounced him after his fall and didn’t manage to paint the fact as pragmatically as snape did, the cowardly aftertaste of his betrayal blatant and thoroughly disgusting on voldemort’s tongue. lucius’ status, family name, relations and wealth were just very useful for the movement and likely the only things that kept him in the high ranks of the regime (or alive at all) even before the fiasco, along with his marriage to bellatrix’s sister.

i am positive voldemort was in fact trusting bella to see the prophecy retrieved.

he probably didn’t officially put her in charge because she was still recovering from azkaban and therefore not completely stable or/and already with child (even if i tend to exclude the latter option, since she would have been still entirely too weak for a pregnancy to even take).

still, she was the one with the highest military rank there, not to mention the highest degree of closeness to voldemort, so you can bet she was the one that bore also the highest degree of moral obligation in that delicate situation. and she failed.

knowing voldemort, you would have expected to see killing curses flying left and right. had bellatrix been literally anyone else, she could have easily returned home to a murdered family and a pending death penalty.

instead, you see a voldemort that walks into the ministry of magic. you see a voldemort that, even already knowing the prophecy lost forever, renounces his every advantage and reveals himself once again to the wizarding world, moreover having to fight at the same time his very nemesis (nemesis that the mission should have helped him understand better and therefore defeat), dumbledore (the greatest wizard alive besides him) and soon the entirety of the aurors of britain.

what was exactly the reason that compelled him to enter such a nest of vipers, when he had been unwilling to do so in secrecy and surely in a highest degree of safety before and to retrieve the prophecy himself? to kill harry potter?

the very reason of the mission tells us he wasn’t sure about what to do with his potter dilemma and had therefore decided to have a more cautious, academical approach regarding the matter. he wanted to know the whole prophecy before trying again. he was frustrated and puzzled about harry’s absurd invincibility and insolent luck. do you really think he had decided to go for the hardest battle of his life unprepared and with dumbledore present of all people (whom he didn’t even directly kill afterwards) and possibly hundreds more on the way?

had voldemort suddenly turned from cold strategist to hotheaded kamikaze?

the only plausible answer is that voldemort had purposefully entered the ministry, risking capture and possibly his very life (or at least his newly created body, since at this point the horcruxes are still intact and a secret) and not knowing what exactly was there waiting for him, as a rather valiant rescue attempt and quite an unexpected one too.

bellatrix herself just moments before had laughed at the absurdity of the possibility of voldemort ever entering the place in response to harry’s questioning:

“Get it himself?” shrieked Bellatrix on a cackle of mad laughter. “The Dark Lord, walk into the Ministry of Magic, when they are so sweetly ignoring his return? The Dark Lord, reveal himself to the Aurors, when at the moment they are wasting their time on my dear cousin?”

bellatrix herself believed it an impossible and ludicrous thought and yet, less than half an hour later and her life in jeopardy, there voldemort surely appeared.

you could speculate he wanted to save his most valuable, just freed death eaters and then couldn’t, but there’s no evidence of it in the chapter whatsoever. the only evidence points out to the fact he was focused only on saving bellatrix.

this is in fact what lucius tells his hunting party while harry and co are trying to escape the ambush:

Harry put his ear close to the door to listen and heard Lucius Malfoy roar: “Leave Nott, leave him, I say, the Dark Lord will not care for Nott’s injuries as much as losing that prophecy — Jugson, come back here, we need to organize! We’ll split into pairs and search, and don’t forget, be gentle with Potter until we’ve got the prophecy, you can kill the others if necessary — Bellatrix, Rodolphus, you take the left, Crabbe, Rabastan, go right — Jugson, Dolohov, the door straight ahead — Macnair and Avery, through here — Rookwood, over there — Mulciber, come with me!”

so, la crème de la crème of his high ranks is there and everyone is positive the only thing that voldemort would care about is the prophecy, even above captures and fatalities.

rabastan and rodolphus are also there and yet he doesn’t go for them.

he appeared when harry told bellatrix the prophecy was gone, specifically when bellatrix began to have a manic fit because of it, alone in the ministry’s atrium with harry.

“Potter, I am going to give you one chance!” shouted Bellatrix. “Give me the prophecy — roll it out toward me now — and I may spare your life!”

“Well, you’re going to have to kill me, because it’s gone!” Harry roared — and as he shouted it, pain seared across his forehead. His scar was on fire again, and he felt a surge of fury that was quite unconnected with his own rage.

“And he knows!” said Harry with a mad laugh to match Bellatrix’s own. “Your dear old mate Voldemort knows it’s gone! He’s not going to be happy with you, is he?”

“What? What do you mean?” she cried, and for the first time there was fear in her voice.

“The prophecy smashed when I was trying to get Neville up the steps! What do you think Voldemort’ll say about that, then?”

His scar seared and burned. . . . The pain of it was making his eyes stream. . . .

“LIAR!” she shrieked, but he could hear the terror behind the anger now. “YOU’VE GOT IT, POTTER, AND YOU WILL GIVE IT TO ME — Accio Prophecy! ACCIO PROPHECY !”

Harry laughed again because he knew it would incense her, the pain building in his head so badly he thought his skull might burst. He waved his empty hand from behind the one-eared goblin and withdrew it quickly as she sent another jet of green light flying at him. “Nothing there!” he shouted. “Nothing to summon! It smashed and nobody heard what it said, tell your boss that —”

“No!” she screamed. “It isn’t true, you’re lying — MASTER, I TRIED, I TRIED — DO NOT PUNISH ME —”

“Don’t waste your breath!” yelled Harry, his eyes screwed up against the pain in his scar, now more terrible than ever.

“He can’t hear you from here!”

“Can’t I, Potter?” said a high, cold voice.

specifically, he appears behind bella when she starts to maniacally invoke him, almost as if they had a special mean of communication with each other even from considerable distance.

(here bella is afraid voldemort would punish her and i find the manner of it very interesting, we will come back to it later on)

voldemort was obviously furious the prophecy was lost, but again why risking his own life on top of it? was he perhaps concerned of bella’s mental state now that she knew she had failed and therefore her ability to flee/fight his very nemesis, dumbledore and the aurors?

normally, we would have expected voldemort to stay away and deal with the surviving death eaters later, leaving them to their deserved destiny (as he did with literally everyone else who was there).

instead we have:

“So you smashed my prophecy?” said Voldemort softly, staring at Harry with those pitiless red eyes. “No, Bella, he is not lying. . . . I see the truth looking at me from within his worthless mind. . . . Months of preparation, months of effort . . . and my Death Eaters have let Harry Potter thwart me again. . . .”

“Master, I am sorry, I knew not, I was fighting the Animagus Black!” sobbed Bellatrix, flinging herself down at Voldemort’s feet as he paced slowly nearer.

“Master, you should know —”

“Be quiet, Bella,” said Voldemort dangerously. “I shall deal with you in a moment. Do you think I have entered the Ministry of Magic to hear your sniveling apologies?”

“But Master — he is here — he is below —”

Voldemort paid no attention.

“I have nothing more to say to you, Potter,” he said quietly. “You have irked me too often, for too long. AVADA KEDAVRA!”

even when she literally has just lost his one mean to achieve his every goal of a lifetime, she is “bella”. even when we would expect him to tear her to pieces then and there, he had come to stand between her and harry.

the only reprimand she receives is a scowling “be quiet bella, i shall deal with you in a moment”, as you would speak in public with someone who is very close to you and you are very mad at, who shouldn’t let that closeness slip in public, especially now that she’s making you risk a lot to save her sorry ass.

i find this scene very comic, on top of everything else. voldemort is clearly so done and yet there he is, come to save his sobbing mess nevertheless.

the scene proceeds with dumbledore’s arrival, the duel and bellatrix trapped under the statue. during the duel and just after having trapped bella, we see a really curious exchange:

“You do not seek to kill me, Dumbledore?” called Voldemort, his scarlet eyes narrowed over the top of the shield. “Above such brutality, are you?”

“We both know that there are other ways of destroying a man, Tom,”

Dumbledore said calmly, continuing to walk toward Voldemort as though he had not a fear in the world, as though nothing had happened to interrupt his stroll up the hall. “Merely taking your life would not satisfy me, I admit —”

“There is nothing worse than death, Dumbledore!” snarled Voldemort.

“You are quite wrong,” said Dumbledore, still closing in upon Voldemort and speaking as lightly as though they were discussing the matter over drinks.

(...)

"Indeed, your failure to understand that there are things much worse than death has always been your greatest weakness —”

what is this fate “worse than death”, these “other ways to destroy a man” that dumbledore wants for voldemort? we know how it all ended - with voldemort’s literal death, his very disintegration (after bellatrix’s very own). what was this all about then? this one i’ll let you decide for yourself. it’s certainly peculiar, considered the context.

voldemort doesn’t respond to this, he in fact seems very provoked and sends a killing curse at him.

at the end of the duel he disappears and everyone thinks he fled, bellatrix included, who cries out his name sobbing from under the statue.

he in fact, at that, goes straight to possess harry.

And then Harry’s scar burst open. He knew he was dead: it was pain beyond imagining, pain past endurance —

He was gone from the hall, he was locked in the coils of a creature with red eyes, so tightly bound that Harry did not know where his body ended and the creature’s began. They were fused together, bound by pain, and there was no escape — And when the creature spoke, it used Harry’s mouth, so that in his agony he felt his jaw move. . . .

“Kill me now, Dumbledore. . . .” Blinded and dying, every part of him screaming for release, Harry felt the creature use him again. . . .

“If death is nothing, Dumbledore, kill the boy. . . .”

Let the pain stop, thought Harry.

Let him kill us. . . . End it, Dumbledore. . . . Death is nothing compared to this. . . .

And as Harry’s heart filled with emotion, the creature’s coils loosened, the pain was gone, Harry was lying facedown on the floor, his glasses gone, shivering as though he lay upon ice, not wood. . . .

And there were voices echoing through the hall, more voices than there should have been (...)

“...where’s Voldemort, where — who are all these — what’s —”

The Atrium was full of people. The floor was reflecting emerald- green flames that had burst into life in all the fireplaces along one wall, and a stream of witches and wizards was emerging from them. As Dumbledore pulled him back to his feet, Harry saw the tiny gold statues of the house-elf and the goblin leading a stunned-looking Cornelius Fudge forward.

“He was there!” shouted a scarlet-robed man with a ponytail, who was pointing at a pile of golden rubble on the other side of the hall, where Bellatrix had lain trapped moments before. “I saw him, Mr. Fudge, I swear, it was You-Know-Who, he grabbed a woman and Disapparated!”

“I know, Williamson, I know, I saw him too!”

this passage is ever so interesting to me, because dumbledore’s words appear to have somehow made voldemort “emotional”. they provoked him somehow. he didn’t laugh at them. he linked them to the worst pain imaginable and almost killed harry with it, posing a philosophical dilemma - if such pain is worse than death, if my life is worse than death, why don’t you put this boy out of his misery?

there’s no doubt in my mind “that pain” is voldemort’s pain. a pain intrinsically love-related. voldemort’s problems to accept/understand/feel love are the crux of the saga, his every villainy and pain. it’s so interesting that in this whole scene the train of events and thought have ultimately reached this topic (even in the movie love is mentioned here, harry literally fights the possession telling him he shall never have it).

voldemort was furious with bellatrix, feared for his plans and life and went to save her anyway. he is enraged beyond belief but puts himself between her and harry and dumbledore. while they duel, dumbledore traps bellatrix and lectures him about “other ways to destroy a man” and “worse things than death”. he absolutely hits a nerve. voldemort completely feels what he’s meaning, so much he wants to retaliate and mercilessly - he never wants to be forced to face such things, such emotions. i don’t think he’s trying to kill harry there, he’s trying to prove a point, to make them both understand how it feels to be him, how the whole concept of love feels to him. and the matter is addressed in a scene entirely built around bellatrix. in fact, finally he then grabs her, leaving everyone else to fend for themselves, and flees. he effectively saves her and her only.

to me this whole passage is directly linked to the famous scream at bellatrix’s death, and to the way the events leading to voldemort’s own death unfolded. that scream might very well be that “fate worse than death”. jkr loves parallels and to me this one is perhaps the most beautiful of the series.

this really proves, in my opinion, at what depth their relationship stands, absurdly perhaps much more abysmal on voldemort’s part than on bella’s.

anyways, i took the time to analyze this particular episode because it’s emblematic of their relationship and his way to deal with her disasters.

lucius would carry on his face the signs of this fiasco literally for the rest of the entire series. the malfoys would fall from grace because of it, probably alive only because of bella’s intercession. half of the death eaters who were present at the ministry would end up back in azkaban.

voldemort would end up defeated, furious and destined to die.

bellatrix would come out of it not only physically unscathed, but with voldemort’s child.

even when she again loses the trio at malfoy’s manor (along with the sword), everyone ends up physically tortured but her. she says she fears for her life if voldemort was to know she lost the sword, but it seems more a metaphor than an actual possibility. when the cup is stolen from her vault, he makes her leave the room before murdering everyone in it. she’s not present at dumbledore’s assasination, and that’s because she wasn’t disposable.

i don’t think physical punishments are involved in their relationship, or if they are they are very rare, and i don’t think voldemort’s reactions to her transgressions/wrongdoings are in tune with the way he reacts to everyone else’s.

bella can more than anyone with him and never really loses this status of utter closeness, no matter what she does.

this obviously doesn’t mean that voldemort is a saint with her or that he doesn’t occasionally punish her. this doesn’t mean she isn’t rightfully afraid of him.

yet, the main way i see him actually hurting bella is psychological torture and silent treatment.

and here we come back at what bella was sobbing at the ministry, her desperate “MASTER, I TRIED, I TRIED — DO NOT PUNISH ME —”.

i don’t think a warrior, a general, a woman who remarkably survived 14 years at azkaban, would ever react this way to the mere fear of physical punishment, no matter how cruciatus curses hurt. i think she would have taken it as stoically as possible. thought she deserved it, even.

no, voldemort’s punishments must be unbearable to her, impossible to even fathom, because they involve falling from his graces, from the closeness she lives for. voldemort can serve bellatrix the cold, silent, disappointed treatment of a mentor and a lover, and have bellatrix literally rotting away because of it.

this is truly the worst thing he can do to her and the thing that had her sobbing and having a fit before harry at the mere idea of it.

this is also somehow confirmed when hermione, transformed in bellatrix, meets a death eater (i don’t remember who he was) before entering the gringott. he wasn’t surprised to see bella, well, alive and physically well, he was surprised to see her out of malfoy manor, where she was supposed to be confined.

so yes, definitely the way voldemort deals with bellatrix regarding punishments is special. everything regarding his way of treating bellatrix is, to be honest.

their relationship is written in such a subtle, beautifully twisted way. i adore it. the only problem is that because of it virtually no one ever connects the dots.

#i'm sorry for yet another essay #it just... happened lol #bellamort is based on hints and symbols so here i am in the dead of night psychoanalysing my client to the bone lol #bellamort #lord voldemort #bellatrix black #bellatrix lestrange #asks/replies #hp #one and one thousand stories lis told #anon

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ofbloodandbullets · 3 years

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So it’s recently come to my attention that not everyone in the world has actually watched The Old Guard (WHO KNEW?!) so I’m going to try and do some info dumps about the world, the general canon and Andy’s history, personality, powers etc. This will ... probably get kinda lengthy.

Also: MAJOR MAJOR SPOILERS FOR COMICS & MOVIE.

The first thing you need to know is that for the main part, the history and the world that TOG takes place in is the exact same one as the real history of the world. It’s set in modern day, though the plot points stretch back to 7k+ years ago. It’s also important to note that there is a lot of historical inaccuracies and some things in canon that conflict themselves so it’s best to just take it all with a grain of salt and just go with what works best for your particular preferences etc.

The main difference between reality and TOG is that in TOG there are a very minute like .00000000002% of the population that are immortals. Now, it’s important to note that these people can die but they resurrect pretty close to immediately after they die no matter the amount of damage done. Now it can take some time to fully heal or reform, depending on how extensive the trauma (being blown to bits or burned etc. will take longer to fix but there’s no amount of damage that we know of that can actually keep them dead).

There are times when, for reasons unknown to the characters in character (or to us as readers of the comics / viewers of the movie etc) that the immortality just stops. There’ll just be a time that they suffer injuries that just don’t heal, and they die. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to this, be it age, number of times they’ve died, whatever. Now, I have my own entirely headcanon and personal preference based theory which you can find HERE but it’s totally just a random idea that I had that I liked to explain the loss of Andy’s immortality in the movie (that doesn’t happen in the comics) and lets me say that she regains her immortality post canon so that I can nudge things back in the direction of the comics for post movie plots and so on.

Andy is, as far as we know, and as far as she knows, the oldest (human) immortal, coming in at around 7,000 years old. She was born into a tribe, the Scythia (hence what she’s generally called: Andromache the Scythian). A nomadic warrior tribe that I headcanon to be a matriarchy, Andy was betrayed by the ‘queen mother’ when she was sixteen and killed in battle because the leader feared that Andy posed a danger to her continuing rule. This person was practically a mother to Andy and it was a horrific betrayal. What was almost as shocking to Andy was the fact that she got back up again after being literally stabbed in the back and killed.

In the vein of trying to thwart prophecies making them happen, Andy killed the matriarch and took her placce ruling the tribe, eventually becoming a God King to her people and ruling over them for hundreds of years until her loneliness absolutely overwhelmed her and one day she just vanished.

At some point after this, she began to dream of a woman, feeling a pull towards this stranger that she couldn’t begin to explain. After dozens, maybe hundreds of years, she managed to track down the woman in question (Noriko in the comics, Quynh in the movie) and realized that they’d been dreaming of each other. (In the comics she meets Lykon before Quynh/Noriko, whom she had also been dreaming of).

Now, the connection between these immortals isn’t explained in canon, and for a long time, Andy, Lykon, Noriko (and eventually Joe, Nicky, Book) thought they were the only ones but there is a scene in the second set of comics that implies that there are other ‘packs’ of immortals. I headcanon that it’s a ‘like calls to like’ / kind of Sense8 simpatico type thing - like minded souls drawn to each other, which is why Andy and the others didn’t know about the other immortals, but again, that’s just entirely my thoughts on the matter.

Lykon is the first to succumb to the loss of immortality, a short couple hundreds years after he and Andy find each other. He dies on a battlefield, one that he and Quynh/Noriko and Andy fought on like a hundred/thousand before, champions for the abused etc. Skip forward a couple hundred years again and enter Joe & Nicky, a Knight and a Muslim warrior who kill each other on the battlefield only to both wake up and spend (an unspecified amount of time) hunting and killing each other before eventually Andy & Quynh/Noriko find them. In time, Joe & Nicky realize that they love each other. (Important to note that Quynh/Noriko and Andy were also lovers). In the movie, when the first major surge of witch hunts began, Quynh/Noriko and Andy go to help the women that stood accused, only to be captured and accused of witchcraft themselves. After being hung, drowned, burned at the stake and coming back to life every time, the witch hunters settled on locking Quynh into an iron coffin and dropping her into the ocean. (In the comics, Noriko is lost at sea during a massive storm that had thrown their ship entirely off course with Andy having no clue where they actually were at the time.)

Joe & Nicky arrive in time to rescue Andy, but Noriko is already gone and despite spending decades tracking down every person even remotely involved in the so called ‘investigation’ into the women’s inquisition and punishment, Andy wasn’t able to find anything about where Quynh could be.

Cue angst & depression & guilt for ages after.

The trio still steps in over the following decades, trying to help prevent the worst of atrocities, but Andy quickly begins to spiral into an, at best apathetic, at worst, entirely distant and withdrawn mindset and steadily begins to lose hope that they’re actually making any difference at all.

Skip ahead a century or two and enter Book; a Russian conscript who had been forced into the fight after being convicted of forgery. Hung for desertion, Book spend days dying over and over again as he hung there, unable to attempt an escape until the troops finally packed up and moved on. He and Andy, Nicky and Joe meet up and Book kinda reluctantly joins their little group. It’s revealed that Book dreams, still, of Noriko/Quynh and while he can’t tell where hse is, dreams of her still dying, drowning on the floor of the ocean over and over and over like she had been for the last hundred or two years.

Book returns at some point to his mortal family which ended in disaster when his last remaining son was dying of cancer, cursing and screaming at Book for ‘choosing not to save him’ by making him immortal too, even though it’s something Book had no ability to transfer or make happen. Between his nightmares, losing his son and a number of other factors, Book decides he wants to end it all but no matter what he tries, doesn’t die and stay dead.

Eventually he’s approached by a pharmaceutical company that has figured out what he is and wants to run tests on him to see if they can unlock his healing / immortality for other people. Merrick’s company works in league with an ex CIA agent whose wife died of a horrific terminal disease who hopes that they can find a way to keep anyone else from dying if they don’t have to. Initially it was just supposed to be him, but he’d set up a display to stream for proof of what he was / they were and the corp decided they wanted all of the immortals. Book ends up betraying the team, and he and the others end up locked up and tested on / killed / experimented on etc.

There’s another character introduced in the meantime, the first new immortals in centuries, an American soldier named Niles. There’s a lot more that goes on here, but the main point is that in the movie, Andy stops healing from her wounds shortly after she tracks down Nile and is put into incredible amounts of danger when Merrick (the leader of the pharmaceutical company) captures Andy, Joe, Book, Nicky. Book is devastated, Nicky and Joe are furious, Andy’s just tired.

Eventually, Andy and the others break free with Niles’ help, destroy the lab they were originally held in etc and set out to try and hunt down any other proof, lab results, anything that Merrick got his hands on during the tests.

The group meets and settles on a hundred year exile for Booker (which I think is one of the stupidest things - like, the man’s clearly desperate and depressed and lonely and mentally unstable so by all means let’s isolate him for a fully century) and at the end of the movie we see him stumbling home to his apartment six months later to find Quynh standing in his apartment, pouring and drinking a glass of water which is a whole power move considering how many millions of times she died by drowning.

In the comics, Quynh/Noriko was driven entirely mad and to the point of wanting vengeance against Andy for abandoning her and spends a while gaslighting Andy and torturing her physically and emotionally and what not until she manages to isolate Andy from the other immortals and scoops in to ‘rescue’ Andy. IDK what they’re going to adapt this to in the second movie,

Again, via the link posted above, my Andy slowly begins to regain her immortality (again, IDK what they’re going to do with the next movie).

Uhhhh yeah. So I .. think that’s the majority of what you need to know for canon info about Andy. THIS is also an important PSA regarding my Andy’s history & her longest lasting relationship that has nothing to do with canon at all but that is part of Andy’s bg in every verse, even if it never comes into play.

#CHARACTER INFO.#BIO.#HEADCANON. ( do not reblog. )

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tiramisiyu · 3 years

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【恋与制作人】 MLQC: Chapter 35 “The Final Answer” Summary

Translation Masterlist

Summarized Chapters: [to be updated]

Spoiler alert: Please note that all content in this post is content that has not yet been released in the global server.

35-1

Rainstorm, lightning, hurricanes, earthquakes…

An increase in extreme weather and natural disasters resulted in a prophecy that started circulating in the dark –

“Two daughters of the world

One will lead towards the light, one will be corrupted from the dark.

The left hand of the angel wields a sword to puncture through all deception and lies.”

Right now, everyone desires to return to a peaceful life, but the footsteps that have stopped still must go forth, until…

The moment “that” draws near.

There’s been an increase in extreme weather and natural disasters for the past month, such that it’s been a long time since the sun has been seen

MC thinks about how Victor has been out of contact for a month

As MC and Kiki wait for Minor to drive up, they witness a tree topple, then a young man uses his Evol to stop it before it hits a kid. The parents of the kid run over to grab their child and look at the Evolver in disgust. Other passersby also say some mean things.

Apparently, similar things (where people disdain of Evolvers) have been frequent

MC sees that the young man is No.93; he expresses surprise that she’s still alive

Minor drives up, so MC offers to send 93 off, but he says he has elsewhere to be and rushes off. MC notices that he’s desperately clutching onto a black card

On the car’s TV, the news host says that the increase in abnormal phenomena is proportionate to the increase in Evolvers

MC wonders about Black Queen’s words, “Soon, you will understand that I am the person who will save this world” and what it means

Minor steps on the brakes, seeing someone suddenly appear in front of the car –

MC thought Shaw was unconscious, but he is able to speak weakly and gives something to MC before passing out again

They take him to the hospital

STF and LFG delegations are meeting up, including Gavin and Goldman (who is representing Victor)

Lucien walks in with key researchers from Ultima Bioresearch

Helios appears on the room screen, with several people behind him

35-3

MC waits outside the emergency room, confirming what Shaw gave her was the original copy of her dad’s notebook

Suddenly, a young man hands a black card to MC, saying that the address on it will get rid of their Evols and that the card is an indication that they were selected. MC remembers that 93 also had that card

There’s the letter “A” on the card, and MC realizes it’s her other self/Black Queen

The emergency door room opens, and the doctor says that the wounds are dealt with and him falling unconscious is due to Evol overuse

MC asks what happened to him; Shaw says it’s not important, and he got the notebook back because he caused her to lose it

Shaw then says there’s no particular secret to the notebook, and in MC’s hands, it’s just a normal notebook

Shaw notices the black card, says it was made by “her”, and it has an attached Evol that affects those who touch it – this makes people believe that Evolvers are responsible for all disasters and they need to get rid of Evols to end the disasters

Shaw’s Evol has been heavily damaged by her, so can’t touch the card

MC guesses that Black Queen’s Evol is de-evolution of Evols, as Shaw confirms – the more de-evolutions she does, the more power she gets, so MC should stop her ASAP

MC asks about what side he’s on –

Shaw: I study archaeology. Aren’t you curious about why? Those who walk through history have no position. Because those who walk will not stop, we will not stand on any side. The only thing I want to do is discover truth, and then push forward the discovery of truth. The moment that walking stops, this means that this world is headed to the end. Though I’ve always had my doubts, now I can somewhat believe that you just might be able to protect this world.

MC: I definitely will!

35-4

After the hospital, they head to an emergency relief centre for Evolvers with no homes, to drop off supplies

(After Leto’s disappearance, rather than getting better, things got worse between Evolvers and normal people)

The person in charge thanks MC for her efforts in providing supplies and with Miracle Finder, then asks if she knows what the black card that Evolvers have been getting is, and notes that people who got it have been weird

MC advises the person in charge to have them thrown away if anyone gets another one

MC and Minor head to the sanatorium noted on the card; the two are planning to sneak in while disguised

A man dressed in grey suddenly walks out from behind a column, startling both, then takes them inside when MC displays the black card. He says that “she” is here today, so they’re pretty lucky, and that “she” is the world’s savior

MC and Minor’s act involves pretending that Minor is a normal guy whose little sister, MC, suddenly got an Evol

The man takes them to the room with lots of people seeking de-evolution, though MC does not find 93 among them

Suddenly, someone addresses MC and Minor

35-6

The person is Gavin, disguised in casualwear and looking dangerously angry

MC says they’re here for de-evolution; Gavin says that he’s doing the same. MC realizes they have the same target after seeing the black card in Gavin’s hand

Someone comes to take MC and Minor, as it’s they’re turn; Gavin says to let him go first, the person suggests for them to come together.

MC says to let Minor stay out (since he’s not an Evolver), hinting at him to escape when possible

They’re taken to a dark path where “she” is at the end

When MC asks the person why “she” is helping them, he says that “evolution” is just a complete lie and than everyone will soon know that de-evolution is the only way to get the single opportunity to live. MC feels that he’s already lost all reason

MC and Gavin walk hand-in-hand down the dark path, realizing that this path is much too long for the size of the sanatorium

They finally arrive at a wall, carved with some symbols

With the sound of an explosion, a heatwave surges over, lighting up the whole path; Gavin tackles MC down as the corridor collapses

35-7

After the collapsing, the two confirm if either have injuries

They’re completely blocked off on both ends on the path

MC thinks that it’s because her disguising wasn’t complete enough, attracting their suspicions; Gavin says it’s fine, as he came to confirm something and they’re giving him this chance

Using his phone, Gavin realizes that there’s no signal here and… time has stopped

The two search for any places with special characteristics; MC finds a little path with the sound of water

Down the path, they’re blocked again, and Gavin uses his Evol to break it down – behind this wall is a scene of clear skies and a waterfall, which MC recognizes as the waterfall in the north. Gavin confirms that they’ve been taken into this space, though this time there’s no need to leave it around

MC: Can this place be destroyed?

Gavin: Yes. The STF already has a preliminary grasp on the whereabouts of the person behind this, so this place is already useless. Before we make our moves this time, I will not leave them a single path to back out with.

Using his Evol, Gavin destroys that space and they jump down from there to the waterfall scene, the wind carrying them to the ground

They meet up with an STF squad with Eli there, who says their guess was right, which Gavin proceeds to explain

Gavin: Actually, in the past month, more than one “de-evolution points” have appeared in Loveland. These “de-evolution points” have no connection between them and they’re very far apart. The person behind has appeared simultaneously at multiple places. So we theorized that these “de-evolution points” will use some method to lead these people to one location. And the place that’s most likely to be used for this is this place.

MC wonders, if Evols are bringing disaster and since everyone will die at the end, why does she need to bother with Evol de-evolution?

They suddenly get a citywide warning for everyone to be on high alert; soon after, MC feels an earthquake coming on

35-9

Leaving behind an STF squad, they rush to the city, hearing that there was an earthquake in the neighbouring city and the shockwaves reached Loveland, causing panic and damaged buildings

MC wonders if all this really is due to Evolvers

Gavin: MC, don’t waver in your judgement. Everyone has the right to live. If they feel fear due to the unknown, you can get rid of the unknown. You’ve always helped more people understand Evolvers, starting from the first episode of Miracle Finder… I don’t know what to do, but if there really is doomsday… I will face it with you.

On the road they’re on, the cars suddenly stop and Gavin heads off to check it, as a throng of people attempt to surround the STF

MC starts recording this, and notices that these people are holding the black cards

STF members can only defend from the crowd, as they can’t actively harm them; Gavin ends up forming a wind barrier to barricade off the throng of people

Using his wind, Gavin pulls the black cards away from the people into the air and cuts them into pieces, making the people regain their senses

Gavin: Evolvers will always exist beside everyone. They have had nothing to do with the disasters in the past, and they will have nothing to do with them from now on. No one has the right to deprive others of fair existence, and attacking Evolvers is as despicable as it gets! The disasters are the enemy that everyone should be confronting, not Evolvers.

Gavin gives the command to STF to prepare to set off, then goes to MC and gives her permission to use her footage

Gavin heads off after MC convinces him that there’s no need to send her back, as both realize that they need to deal with Black Queen ASAP to handle the disasters

35-11

MC and her staff are working on reporting how the disasters affected Evolvers at a plaza where citizens were evacuated to

MC is also getting a ton of notifications from the video she took earlier, with comments in approval of Gavin’s words; the clouds have also dispersed, revealing the moon and stars

Lucien calls; when MC asks about if he knows about what happened with Black Queen, he says that he got a few of the cards, did some analysis on them, and got some clues

Lucien has MC look at the brightest star in the sky, then close her eyes and walk according to his directions

She arrives at a place where there’s a deep crevice between tall buildings. Behind her is Lucien

Lucien: Were you afraid that I was tricking you again?

MC: I don’t think you were tricking me. Plus, even if you tricked me over here, I haven’t suffered any damages.

Lucien: You’re right. Do you trust me this much?

MC: Yes. This is the last time I will answer this question. This time, are you going to tell me to not trust you that much?

Lucien: This time, I won’t. In the future, you must continue to trust me.

Lucien then says that he created this crevice, then pushes MC into it; MC seems to see him mouth “Don’t be scared”

35-12

After a fall, MC finds herself in Lucien’s arms, finding themselves in an “unfamiliar yet familiar wilderness”

Following Lucien’s gaze, MC then sees Black Queen sitting in a large room within a crevice at their feet, wearing half a mask

MC wants to escape, but Lucien hints to her that he will explain to her soon

In the room, 93 appears, taking out a black card and looking somewhat vacantly, asking for de-evolution, and Black Queen obliges

Lucien: Do you want to stop this?

MC nods

Lucien: What if he truly does want to de-evolve?

MC: He can make his decision when under no external influences, rather than now.

Lucien: MC, right now I need you to cooperate in verifying something.

Lucien suddenly gets very close to MC, making her heart skip a beat

35-14

A white light comes from MC, and a black whirlpool from Black Queen

MC sees that Black Queen is telling 93 that she’s tired, and he can come tomorrow, and he leaves

Black Queen says that she’s been noticed, and if so, she can’t leave her (presumably MC) for too long, then seems to look at MC in declaration of war

Lucien says that this place is an independent existence, and Black Queen can’t see them

Lucien takes them out of the place, his eyes covering MC’s eyes, and MC is able to see through between his fingers that he pressed his lips to the back of his hand

They return to under the clear starry skies, the crevice gone

Lucien makes a call, saying that “The first test can end now”. When MC asks about this “test” –

Lucien: Do you still remember the space-folding experiment?

MC: But don’t you not have an Evol now?

Lucien: Technology is the best copying power itself. This experiment has been in progress for a long time, and just hasn’t been used before.

MC then expresses concerns about whether Lucien has rested, but Lucien suggests stargazing instead

MC asks if de-evolution is a scam of hers

Lucien: If it’s just de-evolution, then it’s not a scam. But her plan comes entirely from a lie. It’s not to save the world, nor is it to save Evolvers. Because she is your shadow to begin with. The stronger your power, the stronger hers is. Your Evol is “evolution”, while hers is “de-evolution”. After you awakened, changes happened with the relation between you two.

Lucien: So just now, I did a test to prove that this conclusion is correct. Just now, when your Evol was pushed to the peak by emotion, she momentarily lost the power of de-evolution. [This means] Your power can light up this darkness – more accurately, only you can do this. On one worldline, only one of the same person can exist.

MC realizes that the existence of Black Queen comes from all the worldlines being combined into one, except for a single omitted line

Lucien confirms this, but reminds that it is just his guess, that Black Queen aims to get power to destroy MC and join the two worlds together

MC: How will that affect the world right now?

Lucien: Perhaps it will accelerate the collapse of this world, or perhaps it won’t.

MC decides that she will find Black Queen and end everything

Just when Lucien offers to send MC home, they suddenly hear a clamor far away on the plaza and head over to see

35-15

Two groups are fighting with a group of children between; one group is complaining that the kids are Evolvers that will bring trouble; the others, Evolvers themselves, say that there’s no reason for Evolvers to not be there and everyone is trying to avoid the disasters

MC and Lucien realize that it’s the orphanage kids and director

MC sees a vacant-eyed man with a black card coming at her when she tries to use a loudspeaker, and decides to use her light attack to disperse the crowd

Lucien blocks her from the man, and notes that it’s about to rain

The crowd continues fighting as Lucien raises his hand

A light gathers at Lucien’s fingertips, dispersing towards the sky

People gradually regain reason under the rain that’s become light droplets, shaking hands and making peace

Lucien: If this were my true Evol, would you like it? This way, you should be able to have a good dream.

MC: Why do you…

Lucien: Because I felt that you needed it.

Lucien: That was a lie. MC, hold out your hand. I just remembered that I have something to give to you.

Lucien hands a little light ball to MC

Lucien: Now, do you hear what I haven’t said aloud?

> I felt it – a strong colour, sweet and warm, with a faint bitterness. Like an autumn cornfield, like a single rose on barren soil, like a rainbow that occupied the entire sky. Unrestrained, unconcealed, and in my hand right now.

35-17

The camp on the plaza has calmed down

MC flips through her dad’s notebook, remembering what Lucien said before leaving

Lucien: Since she knows that her weakness has been exposed, she will begin the next step in her actions very soon. But we don’t need to be anxious… The biggest connection between you and her is your pasts. Perhaps someone has told you the answer early on.

MC picks up a call from Shaw

Shaw: Just now, her plan changed. Tomorrow, she’s preparing to become this world’s Queen for real. If only one of you can exist in this world, she’s determined to win.

At BS’s old site, Black Queen strokes a grey throne, saying that “It’s time”, looking at a row of 10 people below

Helios: We have already prepared for the coronation of the Black Swan Queen.

#mlqc #mr love queen's choice #mr love victor #mr love lucien #mr love kiro #mr love gavin #mr love shaw #mlqc translation #love and producer #there isn't one of those preview images with the chapter title and the boys #so no header pic rip

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carewyncromwell · 3 years

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[Ficlet] Gonna Hit Rewind

Hi guys! So this is a little drabble inspired by a prompt by my friend @drinkyoursoupbitch, where I show what my MC, Carewyn Cromwell, was up to during a certain scene in the Harry Potter series!

Before we begin, just a couple of notes --

Post-Hogwarts, Carewyn becomes a lawyer for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement -- you can read more about her life as an adult here, if you’d like! When it comes to the Order of the Phoenix, Carey-Bear doesn’t formally join, instead providing covert assistance while staying autonomous from Dumbledore (who she doesn’t really like as a person) and looking “subservient” to Fudge’s wishes. Later on, this becomes very useful after the Death Eaters take over the Ministry in 1997: when the Battle of Hogwarts begins, Carewyn actually helps take back the Ministry by placing Umbridge under citizen’s arrest and temporarily taking charge until Kingsley Shacklebolt is officially appointed Minister. Carewyn’s outfit in the sketch enclosed below is inspired by this design. Musical accompaniment for this ficlet were “Leave Me Alone” by Michael Jackson (for Carewyn’s conversation with that...certain family member in the aforementioned sketch) and “Turn Back Time” by Derivakat (which inspired the title of this drabble!). And in regards to Carewyn’s negative attitude toward Time Turners...that is 110% my mother talking. When we read Harry Potter and the Cursed Child together, she absolutely hated that it involved time travel, as she found the whole idea ridiculously confusing and illogical. (The whole climax of Prisoner of Azkaban was even her least favorite aspect of the original Potter books. 😂)

Hope you enjoy -- and much love, Soup dear! xoxo

x~x~x~x

“Down here, down here,” panted Mr. Weasley, taking two steps at a time. “The lift doesn’t even come down this far…why they’re doing it there…”

They reached the bottom of the steps and ran along yet another corridor, which bore a great resemblance to that which led to Snape’s dungeon at Hogwarts, with rough stone walls and torches in brackets. The doors they passed here were heavy wooden ones with iron bolts and keyholes.

“Courtroom…Ten…I think…we’re nearly … yes.”

As Arthur Weasley rushed down the hall toward Courtroom Ten, he was unaware that in Courtroom Seven, the door of which was left slightly ajar, Carewyn Cromwell was speaking to her estranged uncle, the new head of the Cromwell Clan, at that very moment, nor that their conversation would ultimately determine Harry’s fate in that courtroom happening just three doors down.

“You’re not supposed to be here, Blaise, and you know that full well.”

“I merely wished to speak with the Minister, little Winnie -- you are aware of how much our family still supports the Ministry and, by extension, your career, are you not?”

Carewyn fixed Blaise with a very cold blue eye. “And I suppose Lucius Malfoy speaking with the Minister down here mere moments ago had nothing to do with you making an unscheduled visit?”

Blaise cocked his eyebrows, his identically colored and shaped eyes narrowing under them.

“I can sense you trying to enter my mind, Winnie,” he said very softly, his eyes rippling like light blue flames despite the hardness of his face. “It won’t work. You couldn’t reach my thoughts when you were a girl, and you can’t reach them now.”

His voice became cooler, to the point of sounding condescending.

“Whatever questions you have, you know your uncle would be more than willing to answer them, if you merely ask nicely.”

‘Answer’ -- ha! Carewyn thought to herself scornfully. Lie your face off, more like. But even so...if I’m going to get what I need, I need to keep him talking...

Carewyn went very quiet, considering Blaise carefully and her next words even more so.

“...Are you or are you not associating with Lucius Malfoy?” she asked softly.

“You might recall that he and Father were business associates back in the day.”

“Of course I do. That’s why I’m asking. Or have you forgotten where Grandfather’s activities sentenced him -- where they sentenced you, until you were able to bribe the Minister to reduce the rest of your family’s sentences?”

“Our family, little Winnie,” Blaise corrected her, a notable, fiery edge to his voice.

You all may be related to me by blood, but you are not my family, Carewyn thought fiercely, but she once again bit her tongue. If she provoked his temper the way she was tempted to, he’d be less likely to talk to her.

When she didn’t respond, Blaise continued.

“Lucius Malfoy has always had a working relationship with the Cromwell Clan. It’s only natural that we speak from time to time, as two patriarchs of prominent magical families.”

“Magical families with certain reputations, you mean,” Carewyn said very coolly.

“Cornelius Fudge thinks very highly of Lucius Malfoy.”

“And of you, thanks to your impressive acting. But that doesn’t extend to everyone else, and you know it.”

“Of course,” said Blaise with a very cool smirk. “That’s something we have in common, isn’t it, Winnie? Putting on a charming face to get what we want, and not caring who hates us for it?”

Carewyn didn’t care enough to argue this point -- she’d already had this sort of discussion with Rakepick several times back in the day, and she knew that it meant Blaise was not only trying to divert the conversation, but also was absolutely full of it.

You’re acting like this fact makes us just as bad as each other, Blaise, but it doesn’t. Even if we have some similarities in our methods, that does not make us the same. I’ve never terrorized people to try to advance myself. I’ve never manipulated or forced anyone to join a criminal organization. I’ve never masqueraded as my nephew in order to try to manipulate my niece into selling her soul and her freedom just to save him. However much I’m not perfect, I’m head-and-shoulders above you, when it comes to the moral high ground.

But honestly, there was no point in arguing with people like Blaise. It wasn’t like she’d ever convince him that everything he thought was wrong -- that Muggles weren’t inferior, Charles Cromwell was an abusive monster, and everything he and the Cromwell Clan did to try to get Carewyn, Jacob, and Lane back under their control was reprehensible rather than justified -- and she didn’t feel enough passion to try. Especially not when there were more important things happening at that very moment...

Harry would be in the courtroom by now. She had to hurry.

Although Carewyn tried to keep her face stoic, her brain was working very fast. Her eyes drifted away, off toward the far wall of the courtroom where the Wizengamot benches were lined up.

“...Look,” she said slowly, her voice becoming a little softer, “my Legilimency has become very sensitive, in this line of work. It allows me to read people’s intentions and feelings very quickly, even when I’m not actively trying to. And Lucius Malfoy...he doesn’t see you as an equal, but as a pawn.”

Blaise’s eyebrows came down over his eyes, but he didn’t respond.

“You and the rest of the Cromwell Clan only got out of Azkaban because you were able to appeal to Fudge,” said Carewyn, “but if you’re associating with the wrong people, that could very quickly sour. Your position will become uncertain again, and you won’t be able to protect them -- especially if Fudge gets the kind of control over the Wizengamot that he wants...where charges and judgments are laid down based on favoritism more than legality. We’re already seeing it with how Fudge is now treating Dumbledore and Potter, after how much he always sucked up to them. End up outside of Fudge’s good graces, as they did, and the same might befall you. I realize that you and Malfoy...”

Are Muggle-hating bigots.

“...have similar politics,” she said at last very stiffly, “...but Lucius Malfoy’s politics are far more extreme than yours, and although the courts decided there wasn’t enough evidence to prove his methods were also...we both know that’s also true. If he falls, he will drag you down with him -- and if you take the fall for his actions, he won’t lift a finger to help you.”

Carewyn forced herself to look Blaise in the eye.

“Grandfather’s dealings with R got you all in enough trouble. You bought yourself and the rest of...our family a second chance -- something many others did not get. Are you sure you want to endanger that?”

Blaise considered Carewyn very carefully as she spoke, his blue eyes boring into hers critically. By the end, they’d actually widened.

“...Are you actually expressing concern for us, Winnie?” he asked very lowly.

Carewyn scoffed. “Don’t misunderstand me, Blaise -- I don’t really think you all deserved a second chance in the first place, after everything you’ve pulled.”

Her blue eyes became a bit more solemn.

“But truthfully...I’m not that upset that you were released from Azkaban. Dementors...they’re wretched creatures. I’ve seen what they can do to people.”

Her expression darkened.

“...I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, however terrible they are.”

Something confused and almost disgusted rippled over Blaise’s face, making his nose wrinkle.

“Ugh -- and here I’d thought you’d actually weeded out that weakness in your heart...”

Carewyn’s red lips came together tightly, but she didn’t reply. The two stared each other down for a moment, before Blaise finally exhaled.

“Very well, Winnie -- you want to know why I’m down here?”

He reached into his scarlet robes and pulled out a gold chain, on the end of which dangled a tiny gold hourglass.

A Time Turner.

Carewyn’s eyes narrowed upon it.

“Lucius Malfoy has expressed quite a bit of interest in my old department, when we’ve spoken,” murmured Blaise. “One sub-section in particular -- one where records of magical predictions are kept.”

Carewyn’s eyebrows furrowed. “Prophecies?”

“They are truly a fascinating thing,” said Blaise, his voice sounding rather airy. “So much value is placed on them -- too much, one could argue...just as one puts too much value on all attempts at ‘future sight.’ Alas, the section of my old department that Malfoy was interested in was not my area of expertise -- my area was in the study of Time, specifically backwards-facing. We did occasionally dip into the study of forward-facing time magic, but more in the sphere of inevitabilities -- things that evolve naturally in nature, every season -- not human affairs. Unfortunately when I was there, there was an employee monitoring the perimeter of the section I meant to enter -- I couldn’t have explored further even if I’d wanted to.”

“So Malfoy wanted you to stop by your old desk and pick up something that might help him or someone else enter the Department of Mysteries?” Carewyn asked. “Why?”

Blaise shrugged. “He didn’t say.”

“And yet you have a suspicion as to why?”

Blaise’s eyes narrowed upon Carewyn’s face, not angrily, but almost darkly.

“I may no longer work for the Department of Mysteries, Winnie, but I cannot discuss the more classified branches of their work too deeply. That is part of the Vow I made when I first joined the Department -- it forces me to speak in hypotheticals and vague descriptions more than specific details. But I fear no random stooge using this tool to try to enter my old department, whether Malfoy or otherwise. In fact,” he added with a smirk, “I would frankly love to see them try.”

He ignored Carewyn’s critical, confused expression and pressed on more seriously.

“You’re not a stupid girl, Winnie. I know you know what’s really going on, under the surface. Me offering assistance to Lucius Malfoy early on is merely how I intend to earn enough favor to keep my family safe, should the worst happen.”

“And what is that?” asked Carewyn.

Blaise cocked his eyebrows again. “Ask your mother. She remembers the First Wizarding War just as well as I do -- how it all started before.”

He turned on his heel and headed for the door.

“Blaise.”

Carewyn speaking his name and sharply grabbing his arm holding the Time Turner made him stop.

“If you wish to provide Lucius Malfoy useful information,” she said lowly, “you can tell him that that employee was not there by accident.”

Blaise looked back over his shoulder, startled. Carewyn closed her eyes tight, trying to block out the intense nausea rippling over her.

“He’s there to make sure Malfoy’s superior can’t reach what he wants,” she murmured. “There are many more, just like him, all with the same goal. It doesn’t matter when you go there -- there will always be someone there who will keep him away from what he wants.”

Blaise stared at Carewyn, his eyes narrowing in bewilderment.

“...Why are you telling me this?” he whispered.

Carewyn swallowed back the lump in her throat.

“I haven’t worked with time magic like you have...but people aren’t supposed to be in two places at once. That I do know. A lot of problems have been caused by people trying to mess with time. Mum told me that once in the 19th century, a whole bunch of people’s lives were erased out of existence, all because someone messed around with a Time Turner...”

“Ah, yes, Eloise Mintumble,” said Blaise, sounding as darkly amused as a bully might upon seeing one of their usual targets wearing a particularly obnoxious dress. “Tried to go back more than a few hours and ended up changing things so dramatically that she both erased 25 people out of existence and aged her body five centuries and died upon return trip. A rather fascinating case study.”

“You’re disgusting,” Carewyn said coldly. But she got back to the task at hand, her voice hardening. “Even if Malfoy couldn’t get what his master wants from the Department of Mysteries with that Time Turner, he could still do irreparable damage with it. If all Malfoy needs is assistance, to believe that you’re helping him and for you to earn enough esteem that the Cromwell Clan stays safe...then give him the intelligence I’ve given you. Don’t give him that Time Turner.”

Blaise raised an eyebrow, his lips spreading into a rather condescending smirk. “Why? Because it’s wrong, little Winnie? Because it’s illegal and immoral, and ‘not the right thing to do?’”

“I’m not foolish enough to appeal to you with morality, Blaise -- I know you don’t have any,” spat Carewyn. “I’m asking you not to do it for your own self-preservation. For the Clan’s. ...For your family’s.”

Blaise’s smirk actually slid off his face. Carewyn held his gaze as best as she could, even with how ill she felt.

“I may not be one of those who takes turns standing watch in your old department,” Carewyn said very softly, “but Jacob is.”

Blaise’s face went rather white, and Carewyn knew she’d struck a cord. For as cruel, selfish, and immoral of a person as Blaise was, he still saw his family -- all of it -- like his personal belongings. And he “took care” of his belongings. He wanted complete control over them and, like Charles before him, he never respected them as people, nurtured them, or gave them any freedom...but Blaise didn’t want anyone touching “his things.”

The older man’s jaw clenched as a rather dark glint flashed through his eyes.

“...I see.”

His teeth still bared, he extended the hand holding the Time Turner’s gold chain and, very slowly, lowered it into Carewyn’s hand.

Carewyn’s eyes softened in relief.

“Thank you.”

Blaise exhaled heatedly through his nose.

“Jacob always was a fool,” he growled, his voice full of resentment. “Risking his life for people like that Muggle filth who abandoned you and your mother -- ”

“Better than selling his soul and freedom to serve the person who locked my mother and all of you up like prisoners,” Carewyn shot back rather coolly.

Blaise’s eyes flashed angrily. “You will not speak ill of your grandfather, Winnie! Everything he ever did in his life was for us, including you, your brother, and your mother, and I will not have you forgetting that!”

“Crow that lie as much as you want -- it won’t ever make it true.”

Blaise seethed as Carewyn pocketed the Time Turner in her robes. Slowly, his temper cooled enough that his lips spread back out into a rather vindictive smirk.

“For the record, Winnie...Time moves in a loop. If Lucius Malfoy were to use the Time Turner after I give it to him a half-hour from now, the effects would’ve already been felt by us by now. We would have heard about someone having broken into the Department of Mysteries before our conversation even started. The fact that we are not hearing that means that he never receives the Time Turner from me. So, in fact, it was already clear that I would give you the Time Turner before I actually did -- ”

“Oh, shut your trap,” Carewyn said tiredly. Just listening to Blaise wax on was giving her a headache. “I don’t even want to try unpacking all that time travel rubbish. All I care about is that Malfoy and his ilk can’t try to mess with time, now or ever.”

She turned on her heel and strode for the slightly ajar door. Pushing it further open, she then looked back over her shoulder at Blaise.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some business to take care of. Stay out of trouble, or I will not hesitate to prosecute you.”

Blaise’s eyes were very cold even around his smirk. “If there’s anyone who should be warned to stay out of trouble, it’s you, Winnie. I’m not the only one who’s aligned themselves with people who could drag them down, if they fall.”

“Perhaps,” said Carewyn mildly. “But my friends will catch me if I fall, just as they have before. Just like I always catch them. That makes all the difference.”

She walked away, her heels clapping against the black tiled floor as she strode to the end of the hall, listening at the door of Courtroom Ten. She could hear several voices talking inside -- after a moment, she recognized two as Amelia Bones and Cornelius Fudge.

“...certainly described the effects of a dementor attack very accurately. And I can’t imagine why she would say they were there if they weren’t -- ”

“But dementors wandering into a Muggle suburb and just happening to come across a wizard! The odds on that must be very, very long, even Bagman wouldn’t have bet -- ”

“Oh, I don’t think any of us believe the dementors were there by coincidence,” said a very misty, serene voice from inside the Courtroom.

Carewyn’s shoulders relaxed, even as her eyes rolled up toward the ceiling.

Dumbledore. He’d made it in time.

Exhaling heavily, Carewyn quickly turned back around and walked briskly back down the hallway, back upstairs toward her office. On the way, she walked by Blaise, who was now deep in quiet conversation with Lucius Malfoy, and Carewyn and Malfoy coldly stared each other down as she passed.

x~x~x~x

Carewyn hated keeping the Time Turner in her desk. She wanted to be rid of the thing immediately, but she knew she had to be patient.

Around 11:00, just before lunchtime, Carewyn asked to borrow a Dungbomb from Tonks and covertly dropped off it just outside the Auror Department on her way back to her tiny office. The resulting smell resulted in the entire floor clearing out, until someone could deal with the smell. Carewyn herself, however, stayed in her office and powered through, spraying some Muggle air freshener to try to mask the smell.

I forgot how much I hate Dungbombs, Carewyn thought dully. Oh well...desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess.

Keeping the files on a case she was working on open on either side of her, Carewyn read through them every-so-often as she pecked away at a letter she had to write. This letter had to be concise and to the point, if its recipient was going to know it was safe and exactly what she had to do, to help keep Harry Potter from getting unjustly expelled.

Right on time, three hours after Harry’s hearing, Carewyn’s Legilimency picked up the feeling that someone was approaching her office. A moment later, there was a knock on her door.

The ginger-haired lawyer exhaled heavily, her eyebrows knitting together.

“Come in,” she said.

Although she kept her voice level, she already felt a headache coming on. She knew who was on the other side of that door -- and sure enough, when it opened, in came tall, silver-bearded Albus Dumbledore, dressed in long midnight-blue robes.

Carewyn’s eyes hardened as the Hogwarts Headmaster closed the door behind him.

“Hello, Carewyn,” Dumbledore said pleasantly.

“You got my message from Tonks, then?” Carewyn asked.

“To come straight to your office as soon as I arrived, but to not let anyone see me entering? Yes. Though I daresay the evacuation of this floor thanks to the smell of Dungbombs helped with that considerably,” said Dumbledore, and his light blue eyes twinkled. “I presume it has something to do with why some members of the Wizengamot were asking what I was doing back here so soon, and why Cornelius looked even more sour at my presence than usual.”

Carewyn’s face was twisted in a deep frown as she finally took the Time Turner out of the drawer and put it on top of her desk.

“The time and place of Harry’s hearing was changed three hours ago, with no notice,” she said stridently. “The hearing originally scheduled for 11 o’clock instead was moved to 8 o’clock at 7:58 this morning. The letter was sent by owl to Privet Drive at 7:59, right before a second letter informing Harry that because he didn’t show up for his hearing, he was presumed guilty and therefore expelled from Hogwarts. Both letters arrived at 8:52. The Order wasn’t informed of the change until a little after 9, but was also informed by Arthur Weasley that you’d had the matter well in hand and had arrived miraculously early.”

“And so they felt no need to send me any post regarding the matter,” presumed Dumbledore with a dewy smile. “But in order for all of that to have happened, I will have to go back and ensure it does happen -- isn’t that so?”

Carewyn nodded curtly as she handed the Time Turner and a sealed envelope to Dumbledore.

“Three turns back should be enough -- you don’t want to risk changing too much, by arriving too early, and I have a closed-door meeting with Chester Davies prior to that. Give this letter to me as soon as you arrive in the past. As soon as she...escorts you out, head straight for Courtroom Ten. You should arrive just after Harry does -- it shouldn’t raise as much suspicion if you make it to the courtroom after Harry, since he was already in Arthur’s office when he first received word of the change...”

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled with some mischief. “Clever as always, Carewyn, my dear. You do the Order very proud.”

Carewyn’s eyes flashed. “I’m not doing this for you or your ‘Order,’ Dumbledore, as you know full well. Jacob was completely at R’s mercy after he was expelled from Hogwarts, and I don’t want to even think about where Potter might end up, if the same thing happened to him. And if Jacob’s guarding something in the Department of Mysteries, I don’t want to make it any easier for You-Know-Who and his goons to get the drop on him.”

Dumbledore’s calm didn’t shift, though his eyes did turn a bit more solemn. “And as always, Carewyn, your cleverness is only rivaled by your caring for others.”

Rising to his feet, the Headmaster tucked the envelope inside his robes and then picked up the Time Turner.

“I’ll be seeing you,” he said cheerily, “or, should I say, ‘I will have seen you?’”

And with three turns, he’d disappeared.

Carewyn gave an exhausted, groan-like sigh.

“I hate Time Turners,” she muttered to herself.

x~x~x~x

When Dumbledore appeared in Carewyn’s office out of the blue at 8 o’clock that morning, the ginger-haired lawyer reacted with a lot of irritation and suspicion. Those feelings weren’t helped when Dumbledore handed her the letter addressed to her, and yet written in a hand identical to hers.

Carewyn,

First of all, yes, I know you recognize this handwriting. This isn’t a trick -- it’s just the work of a Time Turner: specifically the one Dumbledore’s holding. On that note, ask him to hand it over and then smash it. We have more than enough problems in the here and now: no sense in adding more time travel rubbish to the pile.

Now that that’s been taken care of, let’s get to business --

The time and place of Harry’s hearing was moved just a minute ago. It now starts at 8 o’clock in the morning in Courtroom Ten. Don’t worry, Arthur’s already been notified and is ferrying Harry as we speak, but Dumbledore needs to get down there right now. Kick him out of your office, nice and loudly -- there are people outside who could overhear, and you don’t want anyone to think you and Dumbledore are on good terms. Which, fortunately, you’re not.

Now that Dumbledore’s out of your hair, let’s go over what you need to do --

Blaise has sneaked into the Ministry, specifically the bottommost floor near the Department of Mysteries, on Lucius Malfoy’s direction. No, Blaise isn’t a Death Eater -- just short-sighted and self-serving as ever. The point is that he has a Time Turner on his person, which he cannot be allowed to walk away with, under any circumstances. You’ll be able to catch him leaving the Department of Mysteries if you go downstairs in the next fifteen minutes. He’ll be meeting Lucius Malfoy around 8:30, in the middle of Harry’s hearing, so don’t let him walk away without getting that Time Turner away from him. Don’t come at the issue straight-on, though -- you can appeal to Blaise to give it to you willingly. Just keep him talking. Once you have the Time Turner, you can hold onto it until Dumbledore arrives in your office at the time that was originally scheduled for Harry’s hearing, so he can use it to go back far enough to arrive at Harry’s hearing on time.

I know, this Time Travel stuff is absolutely bloody ridiculous. But at least this way Malfoy won’t be able to use the Time Turner Blaise stole to cause even more havoc.

Burn this letter as soon as you’re done reading it. We don’t want anyone coming across it.

Good luck.

As for Dumbledore himself, he arrived at Harry’s hearing right on time, all according to plan.

“Ah,” said Fudge, who looked thoroughly disconcerted. “Dumbledore. Yes. You --er -- got our -- er -- message that the time and -- er -- place of the hearing had been changed, then?”

“I must have missed it,” said Dumbledore cheerfully. “However, due to a lucky mistake I arrived at the Ministry three hours early, so no harm done.”

#hphm #hogwarts mystery #my writing #harry potter #fanfiction #carewyn cromwell #albus dumbledore #cornelius fudge #amelia bones #blaise cromwell #lucius malfoy #time turners #AHHHHHH #YES IT ALL COMES TOGETHER #this took a while to write but it was worth it #but yeah my mum loathes time travel stories #she's a scientist at heart so the illogicality of them just drives her crazy #jacob honestly doesn't like working with dumbledore any more than carewyn does but he does see 'the greater good' of it #so he ends up being a guard not just for the prophecy but also later on for people escaping the death eaters #he likewise just barely evades ministry scrutiny enough to be able to hide people during the War #yes carewyn's choice ultimately does lead to negative fall-out like bode getting imperiused and arthur getting attacked by nagini #which of course carey-bear deeply regrets #but at the same time how much more damage might she have prevented? we'll never know #sometimes in war you have to make bad choices to try to mitigate even worse consequences :(

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brave-heroes-of-light · 3 years

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Bravely Third theories I had immediately after first finishing Bravely Second

Sylvie is extremely suspicious. She's either protagonist or villain.

Egil keeps coming back and is in training to be a knight. He's around the same age as Sylvie so perhaps they'll be protagonists together.

The Bravely Second team were half old, half new. If this continues again, Yew and Magnolia would continue to be protagonists alongside two new ones (Egil and Sylvie?).

Sage Yulyana is in space. Whatever's going on with Ringabel and the Planeswardens is in space. Magnolia's home is up to something in space... We're going to space.

Can't believe Magnolia sent her spaceship back to the moon without her. Now she's stranded on earth and she's going to regret it when they need to find a way into space.

Space seems to be the way between different worlds/realms. Altair came to Luxendarc from the Celestial Realm via space. It isn't just regular starry sky either. Space turned up in the path through the great chasm and inside the mountain of Musa (sealing chamber) ((which I strongly believe to be the same place in different times)) - stars turn up wherever the boundaries are weakest, not just where we're used to them.

Denys isn't dead yet. He speaks during the final boss fight. The screen cracks again before showing him which implies a different realm. He went to space with the space-time compass to fight Diamanté, but do you really think the moon people/planeswardens are just going to leave the compass? Or maybe they'll recruit Denys and confiscate the compass for whatever they're doing with the demon sword...

Sage Yulyana was specifically mentioned repeatedly in Bravely Second, but never seen. Edea and Tiz never explained who he is to Yew and Magnolia (even when they specifically asked what this mysterious sage might be like - Edea and Tiz going along with "yeah,,, I wonder....." and making the others confused). Which means it's likely Yew and Magnolia will encounter him in the next game and not know who he is.

This was based on absolutely nothing, but I figured it was about time there was a good fairy in this series... and for no particular reason, I decided she would have bright blue wings with black edges as well as pastel blue gloves with a gradient to black at the hands as well as star-like specks........ Please understand how Shocked I was when Bravely Default II did exactly that.

The two little girls who found shiny crystals (when time broke) are the new vestals of earth and fire (one was in Eternia/Gathelatio, the other was in Eisenberg/the old fishing house). Sylvie chose them (the crystals were discovered floating to shore in the ocean and she has scary prophecy powers). Potentially the crystals were like Agnès' pendant? (wasn't it the core of the earth crystal or something? from which the earth crystal could grow back?)

Edea is in trouble according to Sylvie... I bet it has something to do with what Ringabel's up to. But Edea has to... become a villain...? Something about tell her friends what she's up too, then make herself a villain, then she'll be okay again when Grandship takes to the skies once more??? Someone's in danger so Edea and Ringabel do not so good things until the danger is gone and they can help make things right again???

Ringabel wrote in the journal a line about Alternis Dim having concealed his identity in order to serve Braev.... which would be why he never took his helmet off. Now that Ringabel's face has been revealed, the people he was hiding from have found him. The people of the moon. Possibly a reason he's in trouble and Edea is forced to become a villain??

Magnolia knows whatever it is Ringabel is up to with the demon sword / Sword of the Brave. Which the moon is behind. I don't like that... (I still can't get over the fact she was the one forcing Ringabel not to tell anyone what he's been doing).

Something about the fallen angel Yulyana spoke of or the Agnès who encouraged everyone to keep going after being defeated. Agnès going through time. (I know they could easily be Agnès from other worlds, but see my next point).

In the Bravely Second demo, Magnolia was there and she already had the flower in her hair (which she gave Yew) and she sure seemed to know who Yew was (and was confident enough to flirt with him- which she wasn't when they first met in the game)... And then the moon was connected with the SP hourglass and time itself PLUS they know about the spacetime compass.... I think Magnolia (or the whole team) is going to travel through time? As I said earlier, the moon people are going to recover the space-time compass and Magnolia is in on whatever their secret mission is......... Incidentally, the demo mission she hijacked involved anomalies. I don't quite remember... but there was something Yew, Janne, and Nikolai were sent (by Agnès) to investigate.... The most important part, however, was that Yew and the others all had her erased from their memories when she left. Yew lent her his handkerchief and she left him her flower. Yet when the main game started, Yew still had his handkerchief (which was specifically brought up right at the start -and I'm certain it was to bring attention to the demo).

#bravely default 2 spoilers #bravely default ii spoilers #Bravely Default Spoilers #Bravely Second spoilers #bravely third

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jennycalendar · 3 years

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Wait ok now i wanna know. Which teenager do you think was closest to jenny and why? Also do you wanna talk a little about willow and jenny?

OH boy okay. so i think that the way i view jenny in canon is twofold, because there are two ways to view jenny in canon -- the literal interpretation of what we are shown, and the more abstract fanon interpretation that involves ignoring the fact that jenny was literally written as a sexy lamp & approaching canon as though she was actually treated as a valid scooby at any point in time.

THAT SAID, i think that willow is definitely CLOSEST to jenny when compared to the other scoobies, but we get maybe three interactions between them in jenny's run? and they're:

willow noticing that jenny is allowed to contribute to scooby discussions in prophecy girl, and responding to this with an indignant "how come she's in the club?"

willow agreeing to come and help jenny out on a saturday for extra credit (and tbh It's Willow. she doesn't need extra credit. that is pretty damn adorable and i will give canon that.)

willow being placed in charge of jenny's class for the day, asking a lot of clarifying questions, and responding to buffy's arrival with "sorry. i have to talk to her."

and of course after jenny's death the latter half of season two spends a whole bunch of time going "oh, jenny <3 this beloved member of our crew who we all treasure and miss and are gutted by losing," but i really don't think that counts, because for the last few episodes of her being alive, the scoobies RAKED HER THROUGH THE COALS. so them doing a huge heel-turn as soon as she's dead and suddenly talking about how kind and incredible she was has always left a rotten taste in my mouth, because it's really abundantly clear that jenny's yet again being used in a way that is narratively convenient + to tug at heartstrings. she was literally never THAT important to anyone besides giles in canon. after she and giles start dating, she nEVER has a one-on-one convo with ANY of the kids that does not in some way involve giles! horrifying!

ANYWAY. point is: willow, by virtue of being someone who shares common interests with jenny, is likely the scooby who was closest to jenny, but it is by suuuuch a small margin if we're interpreting what we are literally given in canon! because canonically NO ONE BUT GILES cares about jenny UNTIL SHE DIES, and even after her death we have stuff like xander WEAPONIZING jenny's death to guilt giles and buffy about not killing angel.

(i do wanna say here that i don't think the narrative actually intended to have xander weaponize jenny's death against buffy and giles! i think that the intended narrative beat was for xander to be angry on behalf of a teacher he loved. but the thing is, canon doesn't actually ever SHOW any connection between xander and jenny that would justify such violent, furious rage on xander's part -- which is again a byproduct of canon not registering jenny as a person! so this is a bad look for xander, but it wouldn't BE a bad look for xander if canon hadn't just totally dropped the ball wrt jenny.)

but the thing is, all of this so does not mesh with what we know about the scoobies! the way they treat jenny comes directly from the fact that jenny is an underwritten sexy lamp, and doesn't actually reflect what the narrative might have done had it registered her as a person. (and then sometimes people just uncritically consume canon's treatment of jenny and assume she really WASN'T that important or good. but i digress.)

we have SEEN the way the scoobies treat their own, and it just seems utterly implausible that these wonderful kiddos would not appreciate jenny's company. so had jenny been written with more intent and less "let's throw giles's girlfriend into some random situation to create dramatic tension," i lean towards her

empathizing HUGELY with buffy -- the duty/destiny thing at a very young age would resonate on a big level -- but having trouble communicating that empathy and trying to illustrate it by being extra supportive of buffy's Normal Girl Activities. before the angelus mess, i think they'd have kind of a weird, sweet dynamic -- y'know, daughter + dad's new girlfriend.

having limited patience for xander but sort of awkwardly trying to find common ground sometimes. this reading comes very specifically from the fact that jenny is a LOT like giles -- she is a weird cynical nerd who does not always have the patience for teenage boy shenanigans. she's better at kiddos than giles in that she's not, like, a dick to xander, but his disinterest in her vocation and his lackluster work in her class does grate a tiny bit.

gently mentoring willow! i can definitely see willow having a baby gay crush on jenny. i also think that jenny would be very impressed by willow in a way that would really feed willow's ego, because this is a bab who grew up with parents that have just totally checked out.

#asks #meta #midnightdemonhunter #jenny calendar #ugh im just. many thoughts always thinking

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bunnyinthestars · 4 years

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Adrien is definitely gonna take Emilie’s place in a coma (A Theory)

Yeah so I mean the title of this is exactly what I’m pretty sure is gonna happen. This is because there has been a huge load of foreshadowing and some other subtler reasons I will be going over in this post. Of course, there’s always a chance it won’t happen, but if it didn’t I think I’d be pretty surprised considering just the amount of evidence thats going into this.

(Also sorry ahead of time for the structure of this, I tried to structure this based on my specific reasons for this theory but I kind of went off on tangents in some places and in others I use ideas that I assume come with the theory and don’t necessarily fit into any specific reason (like Emilie coming back to life and what would happen there, why Adrien and not Nathalie, and loosely how theyd get Adrien out of the coma), although I mosty stick to the structure I still want to add this disclaimer just so you’re aware that I wrote this in one go at midnight (also wait right now its 12:10am it is now ten minutes into my birthday??? ok ignoring that))

I dont know man. Just consider what I have to say. Or dont. I will be listing my reasons starting now.

1. Imagery of Adrien being in comatose state/ in a coffin-like thing.

This is surprisingly common??? Off the top of my head I can think of Style Queen and Riposte (I believe) which involve this. In Style Queen, Audrey in the form of her akumatized self had essentially kidnapped Adrien and put him in this gold/glass coffin thing that disintegrated the longer it remained untouched. The other one is Riposte, where Ladybug hides Adrien in that big sarcophogus in the Louvre (he didn’t stay in it but still the imagery is there.)

I also just remembered in Chameleon when Lila took Adrien’s form he was asleep/in a comatose state in that locker and Plagg was like “aw man am I gonna have to kiss him.....” but then Adrien wakes up because Lila stole someone else’s form

EDIT: another instance of Adrien/Chat Noir being shoved into a sarcophagus (besides Riposte) is in Pharaoh in season 1

So yes there is definitely a good number of foreshadowing for this. I might take this further and say if Adrien were to go comatose and be in the coffin Emilie was in then Felix might replace him for some amount of time?? Like impersonate him amd stuff?? Just because there’s lots of stuff in the show with impersonation I feel like it could work aNYWAY BACK TO THE EVIDENCE I KNOW ITS A TANGENT

2. Possible evidence foreshadowing Emilie *inadvertantly* killing (not killing but making comatose you get it) Adrien

This one is not as strong as the first but its worth considering. I was googling the word “mayura” just out of curiosity a while back and basically its a peacock in Hindu stories (like peacocks are a kinda revered animal) and I just initially found a couple websites that said that the mayura has been depicted eating a snake as a symbol of the cycle of time (you dont have to read this part in parenthesis, its just kind of a tangent: the cycle of time as known in Hinduism is another aspect of Hinduism directly referenced in the show: the horse/space miraculous kwami Kaalki’s name is a reference to the prophecied tenth avatar/reincarnation of the god Vishnu, and he is referenced in the Kalachakra tantra which is basically a Hindu book about the cycle of time. Keep in mind I got all this from wikipedia and other internet websites, I do not practice Hinduism and I dont directly know anybody who does, so if any of this is wrong pls lmk because there is surprisingly not a lot of information on the internet about it from what I could tell)

So anyways yes peacock (mayura) eating snake representing the cycle of time. Both Luka and Adrien are represented in the show as the snake, but ultimately I think the snake here represents Adrien just because it makes more sense (Snake Noir, future Alix’s tattoo depicts a snake to be Adrien and is meant to represent Adrinette, Adrien just has some shifty stuff going on with the snake in general etc) and thus, if Gabriel manages to actually get the ladybug and black cat miraculouses and make the wish to bring Emilie to life, then this “mayura” analogy (assuming Emilie as the mayura in this scenario) would make sense if her life brought upon Adrien losing his.

The reason I dont think it would refer to Nathalie even though her official name is Mayura is for pretty much two sub-reasons. The first is that I think she is going to die before this wish happens. I know, its a kids show, whatever, but consider it. The Agreste/Graham de Vanily family has a trend of having opposite names [I am so sorry I literally first heard this from a tumblr user but I cannot remember who I just remember they had made a string of theories on why Emilie Agreste will not be who she seems to be so credit to them I did not discover that] for example the name Gabriel means hero/angel, Felix means happy/fortunate, Adrien means dark, etc, and Nathalie Sancoeur means “birthday (of Christ)” and “heartless” respectively. We already know she is not heartless but rather full of heart because she has fallen in love with Gabriel. So then,,,,,,,,,, the opposite of birth is death. She’s already shown to be pretty sick too despite the peacock miraculous having been “fixed” (as of the New York special being the most recent piece of content). I’m sorry guys I do not make the rules

stop why his face look like that though

The second part of why I think this is a little stupid but. The original art released by Jeremy Zag for Mayura does not look like Nathalie. Plus this art was only released under the name of “the Peacock” (originally Le Paon in French) so it might not actually be the Mayura we know as of now. Now, theoretically, it could be that they had made this art before they knew they wanted Nathalie to be Mayura or just as art depicting what Emilie would have been like as the peacock miraculous holder, and it could literally just be Nathalie. When you compare the images, though, the original Mayura art looks far more like Emilie and a lot less like Nathalie. Yes I am aware this is stupid just know this is only a minor point

I dont know man those faces do not look the same to me and the original Mayura definitely had Emilie’s eye shape and face shape in mind. They might’ve changed it after making the concept art but my point still stands

Ok next reasoning

Again not a very strong point but sometimes dialogue just implies things in Miraculous and I can think of a very specific quote that would fit this happening, and there are probably more that I just dont know to look for since I dont have this whole show memorized

So the quote is from Startrain after Gabriel loses control of the akuma then learns about the Startrain having been akumatized with Adrien on board, and he says “hoping that my enemies will save my son..... how ironic.” When I first heard this quote I really, really felt like it was foreshadowing something just based on his tone and the way this new idea was being introduced of him having to be on the same side as Ladynug and Chat Noir for once, even if it was just temporary. This quote absolutely is indicative to me of a future event in which he’ll have to work with his “enemies” to save his son. A situation in which Adrien is in comatose would perfectly align with this. At least for how I would predict the show would make it, Gabriel would have to turn away from Emilie (who represents the past for him, and this action would therefore represent moving on) and join forces with Ladybug/Marinette, his “enemy”, to save Adrien.

Onto the last reason!

Emilie is probably definitely coming back. Which means someone’s going into a coma in her place.

I mean come on it would be so anticlimactic if they just caught Gabe before he fulfilled his wish. Plus with the way they are outlining Emilie to be this perfect golden being is definitely because its going to far contrast with how she will actually turn out. This doesnt really support the Adrien thing in particular but honestly it would also be anticlimactic of the coma was for anyone else. If it was Nathalie, then yeah itd suck for Adrien I guess but like???? Doesn’t really connect the plots as much. Whereas if its Adrien, that brings Marinette into it, that gives her a powerful as heck conflict. Im guessing they would also somehow resolve his coma with “the power of love” mentioned in the theme song, just because of the foreshadowing with like waking someone up with a true love’s kiss (think Plagg in Chameleon, I guess the rose in Style Queen, maybe Alya’s story to Manom in Stormy Weather if we’re strecthing it....)

TL;DR: Adrien is probably gonna go comatose (like Emilie did) at some point because its been pretty foreshadowed (think Style Queen, Riposte, and even Chameleon), because of the legend surrounding the Hindu “mayura” peacock eating a snake representing time (wow that was not a sentence ok then), because Gabriel has previously foreshadowed having to work with his enemies to save his son, and also just because it would be super awesome and allow each character involved to have a pretty fulfilling conflict and arc.

(all images from the miraculous ladybug wiki excluding the piece of art depicting the mayura which is from murugan.org)

I hope however took the time to read this post enjoyed this theory, sometimes I have really random yet detailed theories regarding this show and I wanted to share this one because if I’m right then this will be proof I had predicted it, also you guys could possibly elaborate on it. I’m all for friendly discussions folks fr

If this doesn’t end up happening the theory is still awesome and they should have done it, and if it does my ego will probably expand and hopefully they will make it as awesome as it seems like it would be. Sorry if the structure of this post is not great, but thank you for reading. I appreciate you, have a wonderful week :)

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incorrect-ikevamp-quotes · 4 years

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pls scream about Leo a lil bit cause my love for that man is neverending and i live for you guys' blog,,, and ur comte love fuels me??? head empty except for those two pureblood clowns

HNGNGNG I hope that both you and everyone that reads my shenanigans knows how utterly understood I feel when I see anyone stan Comte, if not both of those idiot purebloods bc good lord...I live for two tired fossil men that just want DOMESTIC BLISS. Literally they have no brain cells beyond respect women and we love that for us, it’s spectacular!!

Under a cut bc I went off and is long:

That being said I’d be happy to yell abt Leo!! Where do I even begin, this man was the reason I got into Ikevamp in the first place, and I’ve read just about every single one of his events at this point. He just makes me so TENDER!!!!!! For whatever reason the first thing that came to mind was this one time he lies about being jealous and MC is lolol u a fool if you think I can’t tell when you lie to me. And he’s so fuckiNG SHOOK?????? It’s even funnier because she’s internally like [I’m not 100% sure but for a second there he almost looked mad...time to test this theory even if it’s just A GAME T H E O R Y] And he’s so fucking pikachu meme that shit sends me. I can’t handle the fact that he’s so used to people just assuming he’s fine, that he can handle himself. That he’s lived for so long without really anyone noticing at all. (Comte absolutely notices and will lightly roast him, but doesn’t really push him about it or wants to overstep). And so when MC just actively pays attention and is so gentle with him he’s just floored???

God I’m crying now, but I will just never forget the funeral scene in his fucking rt. This asshole, this absolute moron, straight up tries to come at us with “yOu GeT uSeD tO iT aFtEr HaLf A mIlLeNiUm, i’M nOt SaD”. Like are you serious. Come here and let me hold you before I throttle you. Absolute clown. He’s just always trying so hard to get by on his own and it breaks my heart. How long...how long has he lived just getting by, nursing his own wounds and dragging himself up all by himself. HE LEFT HOME AT LIKE 14 (whatever the fuCK SOME TOO YOUNG AGE) AND RAN STRAIGHT INTO THE HANDS OF PEOPLE THAT HATED HIM FOR HIS TALENT. HE REMEMBERS HIS MENTORS DESTROYING HIS UTENSILS WHILE TRYING TO ESCAPE PARENTS THAT WHOLEHEARTEDLY REJECTED ANY EXPRESSION OF LOVE OR COMPASSION FOR HUMANITY THAT HE CHERISHED SO DEEPLY. I DON’T NEED SLEEP I NEED TO HUG HIM IMMEDIATELY FUCKING HELL.

Like.........there’s just........I don’t know how to explain it, but I once saw it explained so well in a post. It was basically talking about Castlevania, and how in that show Dracula sees humanity’s folly and develops so much hatred he just goes straight to murder rage. And while in some ways I understand that, I understand even more deeply Trevor’s response to humanity’s fear and violence. He says that he knows they’re short-sighted, that maybe we all just don’t deserve saving...but that he’s going to do it anyway. Leonardo just so much gives me that energy of knowing there’s so much pain in the world, but all we can do is keep walking--keep trying, even if we have to claw our way forward. Because if you only see the awfulness in front of you, you forget the way that strangers make silly faces at babies to make them laugh on the train, how a friend will put everything down to race over to someone and comfort them with some ice cream--do anything they can to distract them from the hurt. How the sight of a child crying will prompt careful cooing from a stranger as to their bravery, an offering of cool water, the gentle placement of a bandaid. How a pair of teenagers will spot a lost child in milliseconds and help them seek out their parents protectively. There is so much wretchedness, but also so much beauty in it all, and the older I get the more I see myself wanting to believe in the latter. I want to be hopeful, and easily impressed, and full of love. To be bitter and jaded accomplishes nothing, and only becomes a worsening self-fulfilling prophecy. The more you seek negativity, the more you will find it; and worse, create it.

I also scream a little bit bc like. I’ve gone on and on about how Comte is very obviously in love with MC all the time, and sure that may be true. But...I really don’t think Leo is exempt from that either if I’m honest lmfao. Only because what does Leonardo do when it isn’t his route? He almost never shows up. Once in a while he might appear for a split second in a scene, but he almost never converses with MC beyond those short moments. While Comte is the one to pine openly, I’d wager Leo is the opposite. He pines in absolute silence, because he knows that if he gets any closer--he’s going to fall. He’s going to enjoy it too much, going to keep seeking out more before he can stop himself. And losing another person he loves...he just can’t do it anymore. In his first meeting story he talks about seeing MC’s eyes and feeling like he’d known them all his life, and even in his MS he speaks to just being completely fascinated by and enamored of her. She doesn’t hesitate, always does her best, meets people head-on and without much hesitation. After a lifetime of people that are probably just immediately interested in him for his talents, or always seeking out his company for the novelty, this is someone that doesn’t give a single fuck if he’s Leonardo da Vinci. Sure she’s aware, and sure she’s impressed to some extent, but her respect--her attraction and admiration--is something that has to be earned.

There’s something so refreshing about how their love was written. Sure it’s the whole fake marriage to a real relationship, but it’s also a kind of subtle enemies to lovers pulled off masterfully. MC is 100% minding her own business, just wants to do what she must in order to get home, tries to focus on her work to keep from thinking about how much she misses her old life. She doesn’t rely on anyone, doesn’t talk about how hard it is or how scary it is or how confusing. And even Leonardo forgets in his curiosity, is just chillin and also just trying to do the bare minimum to keep from getting too attached--figures he can admire her from a distance. And then he sees her staring at the hourglass. And suddenly, he can’t just watch her do that herself. Just wait for the hard times to pass, just sit with her own loneliness--that hollowing silence. There’s something so moving about it because he reaches out precisely because he knows that feeling to his fucking marrow, and literally just cannot watch somebody else do that to themselves. Sure he’s been dealing with it for three hundred years, BUT THIS GOOD BABIE CHILD DOES NOT DESERVE THIS. SHE WORKS HARD AND DESERVES NICE THINGS!!!!!!!! And so he drives her crazy as he races ahead of her, intercepting any attempt for her to preserve that silence and hide. She doesn’t see any pattern to it, and that’s just how he likes it--he doesn’t want her to worry about the how or why.

Like I fully remembering playing in Japanese and being like oh my fucking god this is hilarious, this man is just a wild fucker and I love this. I was enjoying myself, mostly laughing and shaking my head. But then it just gets so, so serious. I was having so much fun that I, like a fool, forgot the anime effect. If you’re having fun, it’s going to come crashing down without mercy soon enough. And it does. He helps a little girl without any hope play her violin again, and maybe I’m just too English major but I was fucking FLOORED when I realized I didn’t see that that was straight foreshadowing. That little girl without hope? That was MC (and by extension depending on how you play, us). Though the metaphor isn’t quite so easily mapped without a physical space, the connection is clear when you think about it. With his careful social awareness, he makes a place for MC to exist in the mansion so naturally--as though she was meant to be there from the start, crafts a positive impression of her presence with each of the residents. And he does it with zero expectation of anything in return; he’s just happy to see her not stressing herself out anymore or trying to do everything alone. MC doesn’t fall in love with him despite their differences, she falls in love with him because they are the same in a singular and all-encompassing way that matters; they both care about other people so deeply, to the point where they will forego any personal needs in order to make that person’s life easier. Whether it be muting their own hardship, or working to involve another person in a new space (or opening up to the point of self-destruction to keep a person from feeling alone), they go above and beyond what anybody asks of them--perhaps strong to the point of their own detriment, in some cases.

It’s why I always laugh when he says to Sebastian “That cara mia, she has a good heart.” Of course she does, Leonardo; it certainly takes one to know one.

And because I literally have no brain cells beyond being in fucking love with Leonardo THE LAKE SCENE IS AN AFFRONT TO MY DIGNITY AND SELF-CONTROL. HOW DARE YOU, SIGNORE. HOW DARE YOU ASK ME TO SIT THERE AND WATCH YOU OPEN YOUR HEART TO ME AND NOT BAWL MY EYES OUT AND TRY TO KISS YOU ALL AT THE SAME TIME. SIGNORE “hAhA yOu’Re So SmAlL yOu LoOk LiKe YoU’rE DrOwNiNg In My CoAt.” I WOULD DROWN AND DIE HAPPY--BITCH I TELL YOU THAT.

Like. I can’t think of another route I’ve ever done where I spent a good amount of time like “lmfao this guy is so wild im gonna punch him” to just be in a whirlpool of my own tears, regretting my entire fucking LIFE days later. Like Leonardo’s cultural impact???? Fucking immeasurable, I wish every white man disaster I ever met had a hidden heart of gold in all of his boyish dumbassery, an ICONIC himbo of our time.

Also because I remembered it before posting and I am Dying^TM. The event where MC was a pureblood and he was human. That entire fucking event. I literally can’t think about it without screaming and crying. Her just so flustered at his reaction to her like “oh look, free real estate” as he plops her in his lap, absolutely no fear, treating her like a princess because of her noble title despite NO NECESSITY BEYOND PLAYFULNESS BUT ALSO STILL MEANING IT IN AN EARNEST WAY, being charming to no END just to see her laugh or look away shyly.

WHEN HE SAID. WHEN HE SAID “...Can’t leave you alone, or you might go off someplace I can’t follow.” I. CONGRATULATIONS, YOU STRIPPED DEVOTION DOWN TO ITS BARE ESSENTIALS!!!!!! GAH HOW MC HERSELF SAYS “I would tell him the truth but...he’s much too generous for a human. I know he would offer his life without a moment’s hesitation.” How Leo describes the aftermath of her biting him: “Lucky for you, I’m a true gentleman, Unlike my principessa, who took me like a storm” HELLO??????? H E L L O ???????????????????????? ARE WE JUST GOING TO SLEEP ON THE FACT THAT HE LOST HIS ENTIRE SOUL WHEN SHE BIT HIM???? I--

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

(Also as much as I love him the cigarillos have got to go at some point, boy do you have any idea the shit secondhand smoke does good lordt)

#asks #ikevamp #ikemen vampire #ikevamp leonardo #ikevamp comte #can you feel me going through 800 different emotions in the course of writing this #fucking hell #he absolutely kills me i love him so much #would do ANYTHING for him #if you listen v closely you can hear the soft sound of me grabbing tissues #god i was just rewatching some of his events and i just #THE SHEER WARMTH OF HIS PRESENCE HOW IT WASHES OVER YOU WHILE READING #IM SHAKING AND CRYING I LOVE HIM SO MUCH #SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#like leo is just one of those routes where its like 'my life was before and after this moment'#otome is honestly destroying my standards OTL #he just makes me feel So Much my coherence disappears #brain cells???? don't know her only Leo tiddy #in conclusion: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

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uniasus · 3 years

Text

While technically a very delayed day 12 for summer of whump, the ‘reliving your death’ part turned into something much bigger.

BBC Merlin, Mordred POV. Read here or the whole 2K on Ao3.

-----

Mordred remembered it all. They all do, obviously, even if the memories didn’t kick back into place until they all sat around the new round table. He could tell by how the other knights – could he even call himself a knight? - shot him shy glances.

The worse was the small looks Leon or Guinevere gave him. Every time their eyes slide his way Mordred remembered locking eyes with Arthur and sliding his sword through the king's gut. Arthur had been too stunned to see him he hadn't brought up his sword to defend. And Mordred, too stunned at actually running his old liege lord through, had similarly put up no defense with Arthur returned the favor.

Arthur might acknowledge the complicated situation that led them to Camlann, saw the path that led Morgana there, Mordred there, Arthur and all the knights, but it was Mordred that essentially prevented Arthur’s Golden Age. Worse, as Mordred watched Merlin serve them all lemonade, saw his flinch, learned that the other man had the same justification for violence as Mordred and didn't take it, Mordred knew he could have chosen not to wield that dragon-forged sword.

Even knighted, he was still a child, wasn't he? Acting on impulses, putting his needs and wants first despite the oath he'd taken. Once, he had sat at Arthur's Round Table. Had been so proud to be among such renowned men. Now, he felt ashamed. Unworthy.

Arthur sat tall in his seat, a man more understanding and compassionate than Mordred could ever be, completely unbothered by sharing a table with his killer.

And worse, behind him stood Merlin, Emrys, the man Mordred had wanted to impress above all others, the man who had faced the same trials and chose the opposite choice every single time.

I shouldn't be here, Mordred ran a finger along the edge of this new, modern table. Yet, he didn't know where else to go.

Mordred stayed close to the group, but out of the way for the rest of the day. The new knight, or new to him would be a better term for Lancelot, and Mordred absorbed the stories the other told, completing each other's histories. In explaining Camlann to Lancelot and Elyan, Arthur made no effort to hide the fact that he died on Mordred's sword. But the king – ex-king? – glossed over the event and Leon took over, explaining how an aggressive Essetir had forced the druids into Camelot, Camelot's alliance with the druids, and the ensuing war that united Essetir and Camelot into a single kingdom.

Leon spoke of Merlin fighting with the knights, of marrying Guinevere, and Percival took up the tale of Merlin's kingship and how Camelot flowered.

Guinevere, by that point, had disappeared, but Mordred could tell Arthur wished desperately to find her.

Mordred, for his part, sat silently on the floor of the room and listened to what sounded like a truly Golden Age for Albion. A sorcerer-king. Magic helping the kingdom grow. Acceptance, or progress toward it.

It wasn’t anything like the prophecies had led him to believe it would be like.

It was better.

He hated himself so much for having missed it and dreamed of how it could have been with the Once and Future King at the helm.

Mordred woke with the sun, the magic of the Earth waking in the light and stirring his own mind. He blinked, not understanding the ceiling above him before his memories caught up.

Arthur’s knights, Mordred included, had risen again to aid with an unknown threat.

Groaning, he sat up. His sleep hadn’t been peaceful between thoughts and dreams and the unfamiliar bed, but he was up and there was nothing for it. Might as well go outside and enjoy a bit of peace.

Merlin’s house was larger, a castle in its own right, though it seemed to be made of less sturdy material. No stone here, but he appreciated the smoothness of the walls and floor.

Downstairs, he wondered trying to find the door that opened to the garden with the table in it. Thankfully, the first floor was smaller than the second one. He found the strange clear door that let outside, but he found his attention caught by Merlin.

He stood in the strange modern kitchen, leaning against the center island and looking out the window into the nearby woods. His fingers played with a coin and it was obvious he wasn’t thinking about what he was doing, yet items move through the kitchen guided by his magic.

On the counter beside Merlin, a large bag of herbs was tipped into a small metal strainer. The strainer then gently inserted itself into the mouth of a teapot, which itself silently floated out of a cabinet to land on the center island.

It was such an effortless use of magic, maintaining several spells at once, and Merlin – no, Emrys, he really was Emrys in this moment – didn't seem to know he was doing it. How had he looked in Camelot, as its sorcerer-king? Even as Mordred thought it, a stray sunbeam brushed Merlin’s brow through the window, making his skin glow to match the steady glow in his eyes.

Instantly, Mordred dropped to his knee. The desire was instinctual, automatic. Before him was a warlock in command of more power than anyone else would have, who ruled Camelot for forty years. This man, with his sharp face, wise eyes, and deep magic, could rule the world if he wanted. And because he didn’t, people had loved and trusted him.

“I’m sorry,” Mordred choked out.

Emrys started, turning to see Mordred kneeling on the floor, kitchen items frozen where they were. Mordred couldn’t see his face, eyes on the floor.

“What are you sorry for?”

“For killing your king.”

“Are you really sorry for that? Would you have done anything different that day?” Emrys’s voice was dry, flat.

Mordred cast his mind back and found the answer. Yet even as he did, he knew it wouldn’t make a difference. For him, the murder of Arthur had been days ago. For Emrys, over a thousand years had passed.

Emrys seemed to think the same. He gave a deep sigh and Mordred looked up at him. He looked tired, worn. The pressure of figuring out what had called the knights back? The return of knights? The glances Arthur had sent his way all last night, watching Gwen and Emrys interact? Did he even sleep last night?

“You can stand, Mordred. You never did anything else in Camelot anyway, no need to change it. I was going to have tea outside. Join me?” As he said it, the magic in the room faded and the royal aura that had filled the kitchen drained away. Merlin physically moved around the space, pulling out mugs to place on a tray along with several other items. Mordred watched, the man before him now no more than a physician's assistant or servant preparing something for his master. It grated in a way seeing the same thing in Camelot never did.

Probably because, Mordred thought, he now knew how high Merlin could climb.

Mordred hurried to open the door to the back garden. Merlin nodded in thanks as he led the way, heading not to the large stone table he’d anchored his spell to but a small table surrounded by a bountiful herb garden. He took one chair, Mordred the other, and Mordred hurried to pour the tea before Merlin could. Merlin rolled his eyes, but let him.

“The answer is no, isn’t it?” Merlin asked, stirring honey in his mug.

“Yes. I... am sorry. I’m sorry I never got to see the Golden Age. I’m sorry things happened the way they did. But if I was thrust back to that day, I think I would still do it. I don’t... I don’t understand why you didn’t.”

“Didn’t do what?”

“Kill him yourself. Arthur killed Kara. And he killed someone you love too.”

Merlin stared into his tea, face blank. He’d been fairly easy to read in Camelot, but Mordred had also seen him pretend nothing was a miss more than once. His years as king must have given him a lot of opportunities to practice controlling his emotions and how to display them.

“Arthur was involved in the death of several people I loved, but as I love him too and understood his choices, I couldn’t hurt him in return. I was made aware of the prophecies soon after my arrival to Camelot, and it didn’t take me long to learn how strong those prophecies are.”

He sighed and locked eyes with Mordred. “I tried to stop several prophecies and failed each time. They can perhaps be delayed, but they will happen. I came to terms long ago that Camlann was supposed to happen, that nothing I could have done would have stopped that. You can’t apologize for that, Mordred. You would have always done it, whether you wanted to or not. Destiny is not something you can escape. Weirdly enough, that has given me a sense of comfort.”

"Because they said you’d see Arthur again,” Mordred guessed.

“Yes. While it didn’t happen the way anyone expected, Arthur shepherded in the Golden Age. He had stopped prosecuting magic, he’d set Camelot on the path to accept it again. He had allies, shaped Gwen and Leon and me into who we needed to be. We built Camelot with Arthur in mind, always imagining what he would want, what he would say or do. And -” here Merlin winced, “I don’t think that Golden Age would have happened if Arthur had lived. There are things Gwen and I did he would have not.

“I’m not offering you forgiveness, Mordred, if that’s what you’re looking for. This morning. But I don’t think I can blame you either, any more than I blame Arthur for a number of things. Especially considering you’re here. You hate it.”

Mordred grimaced. He did hate it. Hated knowing what he missed, knowing that Arthur had thought highly of him up to the end, hated that he didn’t deserve any of what the two kings of Camelot offered yet desired all the same.

“There are no prophecies now though,” Merlin continued. “I have heard nothing spoken of since before Camlann, and crystals or pools that might give me a vision have not. Do you know what that means?”

Mordred shook his head.

“It means Destiny is not guiding our actions. Your path might have been pre-ordained in Camelot, but they’re not in Britain. I will a hundred percent blame, judge, and punish you for things that happen from here on out."

“I understand, Emrys.”

“Good.”

“And Arthur?”

“What about him?”

“If Arthur was destined to die at Camlann, if he was never supposed to helm the Golden Age of his kingdom, never be a champion of magic, you can’t fully blame him for his actions then. But now that he knows things? Knows better? Are you going to hold him accountable?”

Merlin froze, mug an inch from his mouth, before setting it down on the table between them. “I’ll teach him, I suspect I won’t be the only one. But I’m not going to judge him until he makes a choice. I can’t hold him accountable for the past, Mordred. But yes, like you, his fresh start began yesterday.”

Mordred frowned, thinking of what he learned in Camelot, what he learned last night. “I can’t follow him, not like he used to. Maybe it was Destiny, maybe it wasn’t, but it still hurts. But Merlin, Emrys, knowing what you have done, knowing what you can do -”

“Arthur’s the Once and Future King, Mordred.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s why he rose.”

His tone was final, but Mordred had never heard the actual words of the prophecy. Had Arthur risen because of Albion’s need? Or had something else triggered Merlin’s spell? Was the one who rose the Once and Future King, or was that title separate from Arthur’s destiny? Was now even the ‘future’ of the Once and Future King? Maybe in another five hundred years, Merlin would wear another crown.

In his past life, Mordred had followed Arthur because of the hope he stood for, because he had Emrys at his back. In this life, why not follow Emrys himself? He had the track record Arthur lacked.

#bbc merlin #fic rec #summerofwhump #summerofwhump12 #death #add a seat to the table #my fanfiction #mordred #merlin emrys

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halothenthehorns · 3 years

Text

TLTNL- BEYOND THE VEIL

James weighed the book uncertainly in his hand, though watching Harry was infinitely heavier. Harry was very clearly trying his hardest to push out for all of them that now Sirius wasn't there, everything should be okay, but not a one of them were fooled. He would not sit down, pacing anxiously along the length of the couch now that he had the room to stretch, but still hovering near Sirius more than was called for with what his own words said. The new voice that had just arrived did not feel like a good thing, not many people called Harry by his last name.

Shadows appeared all around them, Ginny gave a gasp of horror when she saw they were all wearing masks with wands pointed at their hearts.

So did they, but James couldn't bring himself to believe it until he said.

Malfoy repeated that Potter give that to him.

"Death Eaters!" Sirius spat. How was it even possible by this point the day would continue to grow worse by the second.

Though none of them had been fool enough to think at least some of Voldemort's minions wouldn't accompany him on whatever this was, the fact that the kids hadn't walked into some roaring battle left them with just a second of hope whatever had happened with Sirius had already been resolved. Now they became all to aware of that ambush.

"How did this even happen?" James demanded of nothing. He was far past his means for normal thought for the day, he still didn't even know if Sirius was okay for being in Voldemort's presence for how many hours!

"I can see it," Remus muttered uneasily, though his dry throat made it hard to keep going with his own thoughts. "Snape would have told what Harry said, the Order would have reacted getting in and out as fast as possible. We'd of course be weary and suspicious as hell-"

"That's a lot of if's and maybe's," Sirius hissed. "We still don't even know the Order found me-"

"Shut up Sirius," they all said at once.

Sirius scowled at the lot of them. He didn't like to think of the alternative either, but them pretending it hadn't happened wasn't going to make it better.

Lily pulled at the only spot of good she could find in Remus' idea, "so that means the Order may still be nearby."

James didn't see how that was making her feel any better, as he forced himself to keep going with his stomach turned into such a tight knot he was confident it wasn't ever going to come loose.

Harry's insides plummeted sickeningly. They were trapped, and outnumbered two to one.

"How many were there?" Remus rasped. He'd stupidly been envisioning just Malfoy, maybe one or two others that could go in and out of the Ministry, but that meant there were at least a dozen!

When Harry whispered as much, nobody wanted to believe him. Moments before they'd been sure they were fixing to hear about Sirius dying in this black abyss of a place, now they were wondering how Harry had gotten out! If all of his friends had...

"Keep going James!" Lily hissed, smacking him on the arm hard.

"Right, yeah," he muttered, having to forcefully drag his eyes back to the print, his heart still thudding so hard in his chest he'd blame that on the reason for his stuttering words.

Harry instead demanded where Sirius was, and a harsh female voice laughed loudly, mocking him the Dark Lord always knows!

"That's not an answer," Lily said venomously.

"They aren't gloating they still have him," Remus clutched to this idea like a lifeline. "They're just screwing with Harry."

Malfoy echoed always.*

"No, he doesn't," James countered at once, all the times his son had beaten Voldemort hovering right in his mind's eye now, he'd find a way out of this for everyone.

Then he again repeated Potter give him that prophecy.

"Prophecy's," Sirius whispered, causing Harry to shake worse than ever as they all looked to him. "I knew I remembered something about those. My Aunt's mentioned them, the one who said she was a Seer. She told me about Prophecy's at the Ministry..."

"What do those have to do with anything?" Remus demanded faintly, he'd certainly never had a care for these types of things before one nearly ruined Sirius' life.

"She ah, went into rather great detail," Sirius struggled to explain while keeping a casual tone, growing harder by the word as chills were emanating from Harry more every second. "About, how they look, and the Ministry puts the initials on them of the Seer and who the Prophecy was spoken to, who it's for-"

"So this Prophecy was made for Dumbledore from, okay that could be anyone." Lily muttered as she remembered those initials.

"What makes you say Dumbledore?!" James put his hands up in frustration they were all talking around him and he just wanted to hear of Harry being out of there, to find out where Sirius was now!

"The initials," Lily repeated them. "Those are the initials to his full name, that's how he'd even know about this weapon Voldemort wants."

"Well those aren't Voldemort's real initials," Sirius pointed out for the other one, "and I wonder why there's a question mark on before Harry's name."

"No, but it's about Voldemort," Remus agreed. "If someone like your Aunt was the person who put it in there, I'm not surprised they referred to him as Dark Lord. Why's it lit up though, when others were darkened out?" Remus asked, deciding now it was relevant he may as well interrogate Sirius for all this.

"Best guess, those that have happened go dark, and those that have yet to, stay lit," Sirius offered, screwing his face up to think back to that nine year old chatting with spooky old Aunt Misapinoa who always wore a shroud around her face.

Lily wasn't aware her heart could go numb until the sensation coiled around her chest, the only thing really helping her understand the words, "so, what? This, thing, what kind of weapon is it? A Prophecy about Voldemort and Harry, and it was made before he was even born." She didn't regret putting her infant away from all this, but suddenly she wanted him right back in her arms now, wondering if Dumbledore knew this existed now, did you have to be there for a Prophecy to be put in the Department of Mysteries? Voldemort had known about it before that Death Eater that worked in there had given details. Was there someone in the Order watching it that even they didn't know about?

"This is insane," Sirius huffed, even the one who'd believed in Seer magic all his life was having a hard time wrapping his mind around this. "The last one we heard didn't exactly have a wealth of information, bloody hell it wasn't even talking about the person I thought it was. What does Voldemort think he's going to get out of this?"

"This is all fascinating," James said, still too high strung to really make himself sound like that as he told Sirius, "but you're pulling shit out of your arse, and I'd rather just hear about it away from there by now!"

Sirius huffed, he was only trying to help, but didn't stop James as he tried to keep going.**

Harry ignored this and snapped he wanted to know where Sirius was!

The same female mocked these words back at him.

Sirius blinked slowly, he had not heard mockery like that in many long years already...

The Death Eaters were so close now Harry's group couldn't have stuck a wand between them as the woman kept going in a mock baby voice that poor wittle Potter had been fwightened by a dweam he thought was tuoo.

James wasn't doing a very good job on that mocking voice, he'd never be able to mock his child for something like this, but even still, his voice didn't particularly come out like his own at the end.

"Does she really get some kind of glory from mocking him?" Remus tried to say in some kind of disgust, but it didn't come out quite right.

Lily couldn't speak, the ghastly pallor of her skin promised nothing coherent anyways.

Harry couldn't feel his own mouth, it was as if something else was speaking through him, "Hermione was right-"

"No she wasn't," Remus hissed, his eyes too bright. "It's not possible, Voldemort couldn't- he didn't know- how could she- how could anyone-"

"Moony-" Sirius tried to say, a look of dawning horror pushing fear for his own future into an even more unstable regards seeing as now he had no clue what was even real anymore.

"Later," James snarled at the both of them. His whole body was still shaking from the pounding of his heart, and whatever was the truth would have to be just that, later, he had to hear about his son living through this first.

Ron moved just slightly, but Harry softly warned him not yet.

This caused the woman to scream with mirthless laughter, demanding they all watch as Potter gave instructions to these children, as if they were actually going to fight.

"Damn straight." Sirius said with absolution. Whatever was going on here, Harry wasn't going to take that lying down, at least that was one solid thing he could get his head around.

Malfoy wasn't as amused as her, saying Bellatrix didn't know Potter as he did, he had a weakness for heroics, which the Dark Lord understood about him.

"Probably from the last time where he beat him in front of all of them!" Lily stated, trying to shift her weight into her own fighting stance and having to forcefully remember there were no Death Eaters in her living room now, threatening her family. She'd saved her son last time, but it had been Harry that had brought her and James there, he'd find a way out from this too.

Malfoy again demanded the Prophecy.

James gave not a second to spare that Sirius may have been right on what these things were, he didn't care about anything anymore unless it involved his son and friends running back out of there.

Harry ignored that again and insisted he knew Sirius was here, they had him!

The Death Eaters just laughed again, the woman hardest of all.

Malfoy insisted this was the real world, no dream of his, and if he didn't hand over that prophecy they were going to start using wands.

Harry egged them to do it, while ignoring his own mounting panic that he'd led his friends to their death for nothing.

"No Harry," Lily said at once, hating to cut James off now more than ever, but she wouldn't let him think this for a second. "You were only doing what you thought was right at the time, no one would ever-"

Harry couldn't hear the rest. He was sure there was more, but the moment she stopped he gave a jerky nod in whatever agreement that was supposed to be just so his dad would keep going.

Lily was not at all appeased, she knew by the fact his face didn't change one bit he hadn't heard her, but there would be time for him to hear here after he was out of there.

The Death Eaters did not move though, Malfoy still insisting it be handed over.

Harry just laughed, mocking back that he would and they'd let them all just skip off home then?

"Maybe even give you some pocket money for the journey," James sneered under his breath, unable to stop his own sharp tongue responding to such ludicrousy.

Bellatrix lost her patience and tried to summon it to her, but Harry blocked it with the Protego charm.

Angered, Bellatrix began another curse, but Malfoy stopped her, telling her not to smash it!

"They just gave an advantage," Remus said quietly, low under his breath like he was only trying to speak to those around him. Adrenaline was telling all of them to get ready for a right.

Harry hardly heard them, his mind racing fast for a way out of this, to make sure none of his friends paid a price for his stupidity.

Sirius leaned in protectively close to Harry, the urge burning to tell him just how not stupid this was, none of this was his fault, but Harry was still thinking of the more important issue at hand, keeping his wits, they could handle this issue later.

The woman removed her mask then, and Harry saw that Azkaban had hollowed out Bellatrix Lestrange's features, but her eyes were still alive with a fanatic glow.

Sirius snarled fiercely, as if all his hair would go on end if it could. He suddenly couldn't decide if it would even be better for that pathetic rat to be there instead, but that deranged being around his godson actually felt worse.

"That's one of the vermin who tormented Frank and Alice," Lily shrieked in outrage.

James muttered a desperate plea as if in prayer before managing to keep going no matter how much it strained his voice. His eyes burned so much it was a miracle he could still see the words, he couldn't believe it had somehow all come back to Harry being near that twisted being.

Her chest was heaving with anticipation as she tried the new tactic of suggesting they start torturing others instead until Potter gave that up, they'd start with the little girl, she'd do it herself.

"No!" Harry said that with such force, James actually stopped for a moment just to glance at him in concern. The flat, sharp word had promised death to the first person who so much as looked at Ginny the wrong way now, which James could honestly appreciate as he felt the same towards Lily, though he was sure it wasn't the exact same for Harry.

Harry stepped sideways so he was right in front of Ginny, the others too blocking her from sight and wands held up to their chest, the prophecy now the center of all them.

Remus shifted his weight restlessly even as he felt Harry was to be congratulated for putting himself in their line of fire. He had the object they so wanted, and was least likely to be killed of all those kids.

Harry tried stalling instead, asking what was so important about this thing? He couldn't think of anything else, he hoped the others were thinking of a way out of this, his mind was still blank with panic.

"Better than screaming panic," Lily assured, that was still half of her mind.

Bellatrix asked if he was jesting?

"Not really, no," Remus muttered, though even his own mouth wasn't registering to his own ears.

Harry said he wasn't, he wanted to know why Voldemort wanted this.

This caused the most outrage from the Death Eaters, Bellatrix shrieking he dare say that name with his half-blood's tongue!

"So is she saying pure-bloods could?" Sirius tried for a bland tone of voice in mocking back, though he'd never more felt the urge to simply slam a door shut on some member of his family's face.

He was ignored by James anyways, they'd never less cared about the taboo on Voldemort's name most people carried, especially his own followers. James wished Harry wouldn't choose now to provoke these Death Eaters even as he commended it on further keeping them off guard.

Harry recklessly shouted back Voldemort was just as much a half-blood.

"Are you mad!" Lily shrieked, watching her son and expecting him to drop dead any second now. "To tell that to them now!"

"I don't blame him," James frowned heavily at that even while wanting to clap him on the shoulder. "Piss them off well enough, they'll stop thinking, kids can make a run for it."

"Go big or go home," Remus said faintly, thinking of all the times for Harry to let his own mouth get away from him.

Harry told what he knew to taunt them, how his father had been a Muggle-

Bellatrix tried to shout Stupefy at him-

"You're lucky that's the curse she sent!" Sirius screeched in Harry's ear. He remembered his own times when he had showed even a little rebellion in questioning what Voldemort was doing, what his family would do to punish him for that. It was an actual miracle none had tried to draw Harry's blood for that comment alone.

Harry had winced and rubbed at his ear as he looked to Sirius, his right hand still trying to curl around nothing, like he had the prophecy clasped there now.

Malfoy blocked the spell for him though, bawling in her ear not to hit that prophecy!

Her spell went wild, and two little glass orbs fell from the shelves instead. The glass shattered, and foggy little figures appeared where the remnants still were, and began to speak.

"Well I guess we figured out how to work them," Sirius said faintly.

However, in the din of the two Death Eater's shouting at each other, not a word was heard from either of them, and then they vanished without a trace.

"Wonder if you even could repair that," Remus muttered, though honestly thinking not, these were such heavily magical objects he couldn't even begin to guess at, they seemed beyond such normal means of fixing as that charm. It would not at all surprise him if in fact those were now gone forever.

This gave Harry an idea, so that when Malfoy turned his attention back to Harry, he began again why this prophecy was so important, while moving as slowly as possible to find someone's foot with his own.

Malfoy told him to stop playing around, and Harry insisted he wasn't just as he found Hermione's toes, as a sharp gasp informed him.

Malfoy sneered that Dumbledore had never told Potter the reason he bore his scar was hidden in the bowels of the Department of Mysteries?

James' mouth opened with some new disturbing noise making an appearance, and he'd thought he was all out of those. They'd all known Dumbledore was holding back answers from Harry, he'd said so himself at the end of his first year. So this was somehow the most insulting thing Malfoy could have said, that he knew more about Harry than them!

Harry was so distracted by this, he at first forgot his plan as he demanded of Malfoy what of his scar?

Hermione insisted on keeping his attention though, and while Malfoy laughed in surprised delight, Harry hardly breathed the words smash shelves.

"That'll cause plenty of distraction," Remus said, so distracted himself they were right on the edge of that answer it had almost for a moment made him forget who was giving it.

Malfoy stated this explained why Potter hadn't come for this himself now, the Dark Lord had thought it's mere existence would draw him here.

Harry finished whispering to Hermione to wait for his signal and pass it along before quickly engaging Malfoy to keep his attention why he had to be the one to come get it, why not himself?

Malfoy looked incredulously delighted as he stated only those whom prophecies were about could retrieve them, something the Dark Lord had learned by trying to use others already.

Lily could feel it, the swills at the edge of her mind as an explanation for the madness of this year lay somewhere in there, if only she could think past her own harsh breaths for her son still being in this danger.

When asked why they even wanted a prophecy about him, Malfoy corrected about him and the Dark Lord, hadn't Potter ever wondered why Voldemort tried to kill him as a child?

'Every damn day since this started,' James felt the passing thought, honestly wishing now more than ever for that answer if it would somehow stop all this from happening...

Harry gazed at the slitted eye holes with something he'd never felt before, his hand tightening around the glass spun ball harder than ever, were those answers really in the palm of his hand?

James couldn't help but look to Harry desperately in that moment, like he was hoping his son would suddenly start telling them what had been inside, that all of this really hadn't been one humongous heart attack with nothing to show for it.

Harry was having a hard time looking at him though, he only felt like he was a burden of a reminder to them now more than ever. If he hadn't been born, this prophecy wouldn't have been made, they'd still be alive.

Still, as he felt Hermione show more than tell the others his plan, he asked why didn't Voldemort just come get it himself?

Bellatrix found this idea ridiculous, considering the Ministry was too busy chasing after her dear cousin, there was no need to bring to their attention of the Dark Lord's presence.

"Then why's she there?" Sirius spat hatefully, he couldn't believe Bellatrix would bring this up now. "It's no more implausible!" He wasn't going to let anyone insult Harry's intelligence, especially because they'd all been thinking the same thing.

"That is a relatively good question," Remus agreed in disgust, wondering at the planning to all this, how the Death Eaters had managed to infiltrate the Ministry and leave the area so clear for Harry and his friends to come. "Just not important right now Pads."

Sirius grumbled even as he agreed, several curses still flipping through his mind for the start of a fight he wasn't involved in.

Harry now understood this was just dirty work then, like Sturgis and Bode had failed to do.

"It is remarkable how fast you put that together," Lily praised even as she stayed trained on the book, on the answer of how badly this had gone wrong before he'd come here.

Malfoy began to congratulate that at least he wasn't unintelli-

Harry shouted now, and as one all six of them shouted reducto, and all spells managed to hit shelves and bring down the isles around them. Harry seized a handful of the nearest persons robes, dragging them along as he shouted to run while mayhem rained down.

Harry could feel that pulsing adrenaline thudding through him now, how even as his hand wanted to remain fastened tight around his wand he still wanted to grab the nearest person and make a run for it in all the chaos, his hand still around nothing though apparently convinced he was holding that precious spun glass now. It was helping nothing he had no good way to work that out of his system.

At least one Death Eater lunged forward to try and stop them, but Harry elbowed him in the face as Ginny, Ron, and Luna ran past, Harry keeping hold of Hermione who was in turn yelling at Neville to keep up through ever more glass shattering around them.

A hand caught him on the shoulder-

Lily inhaled so sharply it hurt her own throat, but that wouldn't have stopped the curse exploding half the living room if James hadn't kept going on the same breath.

but Hermione shouted Stupefy at the same instant and Harry was released. The other three were no longer in sight, but they turned right and ran ahead to the door they'd entered, blinking and finding themselves back in the time room. Hermione tuned on the spot and shouted Colloportus, and the door made an odd squelching noise as it sealed itself.

"I can't believe they got out of that," Remus sagged against the back of his seat, honestly needing the support as he couldn't make his own limbs stop shaking.

Harry hardly noticed, he was looking wildly around for the others, but Ginny, Ron, and Luna weren't in here as he'd thought.

"No," Harry gasped, the word not nearly enough to cover the terror pumping through him now.

James was honestly seized with that exact same fear for a moment. He had no true connection to the Weasley kids, had only known of Luna's existence because of his son, but he couldn't imagine anything happening to them either without wanting to shed an honest tear. These were just a bunch of kids with Death Eaters hounding them!

"Harry," Sirius said desperately, as his breaths had been coming out in sharp little gasps of pain. "Harry, they're going to be fine, all of them, you trained them!"

Harry looked to him in mostly disbelief, and a little hope. "You think I'm so good a teacher, I taught them enough to get away from Death Eaters!" His voice was very near shouting at the end, wanting Sirius to hear clearly how stupid he was being for this idea.

"They've gotten this far," Sirius reminded, his eyes wide and pleading, "so have you. No need to go hurting yourself if you've got confidence," he tried to actually end with a smile.

Harry still found his godfather insane, but for now he stopped pushing at his memories no matter how hard it was. At least he had Sirius with him now, as some consolation for not knowing his future. He didn't have Ron though, Ginny or Luna in his sights, some claim their lives weren't affected by him except these harrowing memories. He had to trust Sirius though, he had to let his dad keep going, he'd be no good to anyone if he died now simply trying to remember who lived.

Hermione squeaked they must have gone the wrong way, but Neville hissed at them to listen. Not moments later, something heavy slammed against the door, and heard Malfoy's voice telling Nott to leave him, the Dark Lord cared nothing for their injuries if they lost that prophecy.

"Really puts into perspective how much they all care for each other," Lily whispered, still wide eyed with far more fear for this than actual care for one of the monsters who'd caused the problem.

Then Malfoy began organizing them, telling them all to be gentle with Potter until they had that prophecy, but kill whomever else they could.

James's voice hitched for an extra moment. He hadn't been delusional in thinking otherwise, but the words sounded so careless he couldn't believe he'd let them pass his lips!

Bellatrix, Rodolphus, were to go left;

"So, go anywhere but left," Sirius hissed, still refusing to think of Harry anywhere near those two in particular.

Crabbe and Rabastan were to go right, Jugson and Dolohov straight go around, Macnair and Avery through this door here, Rookwood that way, and Mulciber was to come with him.

"So we now have a definite amount," Remus muttered, keeping a head count. "I doubt any are still hiding Malfoy doesn't know about."

"Eleven," James agreed, "where's Goyle?"

"Probably the one Nott was trying to rouse, likely knocked out," Lily murmured.

"Lets just hope he hasn't gone for backup," Sirius said dangerously, none of them able to quite grasp the emotion of relief one in particular wasn't there, they wouldn't know how to handle that feeling right now.

Hermione was trembling from head to foot as she asked what were they to do?

Hermione's question felt like a wet blanket smothering them all. They all wanted to scream what the right thing to do was, but that was impossible, there was no right answer here. They weren't there for Harry, all they could do was listen to what had been done.

Harry said first of all they weren't going to just stand around.

"Good a start as any," Remus muttered.

Harry made to go back to the door he was sure would lead back to the black anti-room, but then from behind the two Death Eater's continued trying to knock down the door. One had the idea to use the Alohomora charm, and the three only just had time to duck under some desks.

One Death Eater suggested they'd already run through this room, but the other said they were still to check under the desks.

Lily worried heavily at her lip, still trying to envision what the right move was, to run or ambush. As of now, they outnumbered the Death Eaters, so this was likely the best strategy, but it was all the more frustrating she couldn't offer the advice, she'd never felt more useless just sitting here and knowing it had already happened.

Harry watched the boots coming closer, ducking down under each desk, and waited until one was right in front of him before shouting Stupefy.

The red light had him falling backwards right towards the grandfather clock and knocking it over.

"That won't keep him down long, be sure you at least take his wand away before you keep going," Sirius couldn't help but caution, thinking the Order had better show up soon!

The second was turning towards Harry, but saw Hermione scrambling out from under her's first and began to shout Avada-

James almost couldn't get the spell out, more from shock than anything it was really going so far already, but then Harry was trying to jump to his feet in true alarm and Sirius had to rope his arm around him to keep him in place and hiss in his ear to listen for James to finish to know that didn't happen.

Harry tackled the man to the ground, causing the spell to go awry.

Harry could still hardly breathe for a moment, still fighting back the impulse to do the same in here with nothing to show for it, he was going to drive himself mad and was half tempted to ask someone to take his wand away in fear he'd curse one of them by mistake if this kept up!

None of the others seemed worried of this fact, Sirius loosened his hold on Harry even as they all still felt the same urge they were having to beat back. None of them had ever sat idle in a fight and this felt near as bad as doing just that.

Neville overturned his desk in his anxiety to help, and shouted Expelliarmus at the struggling two.

"That'll do some good!" Remus yelped, though he'd jerked hard in surprise of that spell coming out, not recommended as it would send both targets wands flying! He just couldn't find it in him to scold Neville either, at least he was still reacting and thinking on his feet.

Both wands went flying, and both wizards scrambled after them. Neville, horror struck at what he'd done, came forward and tried to repair his mistake telling Harry to get out of the way. Harry dodged to the side as Neville shouted stupefy.

James made a noise of approval even while he couldn't stop again, to know who got there first, at least Neville was correcting his mistake, he'd learn his way around a fight yet even if he'd still wish the poor kid never to be in one like this anymore than his own child.

The spell collided above rather than on the Death Eater, knocking over a glass-fronted cabinet and spilling it all forward, everything flying around and giving the Death Eater time to grab his wand.

His mask had slipped sideways during his and Harry's struggle so he couldn't see,

"A use for those I never thought of," Sirius spared the breath for Harry even as his every attention was still trained more on his past than his present.

and he ripped that free before beginning to shout stu-

Hermione got there first, her jet of red light catching him dead center.

"I'd have let Neville have another go," Remus said with disdain even as he was finally thankful Hermione was there as well.

"Which Death Eater was that?" James barked at Harry, hoping his son would recognize the scum that had actually tried to kill Hermione.

"Best guess, Crabbe, err, senior," Harry admitted, not having recognized him exactly, but the facial similarities had been there, though he had a distinct feeling they wouldn't remain for long...

He fell back suspended in his own body towards the bell jar, his wand falling as well back among the mess.

Sirius realized his advice before hadn't crossed Harry's mind either time, and it was something very twisted to him this was the first real scrum Harry had been in regarding the war, and he had no foreseeable backup!

Harry expected him to simply thunk against the glass and slide down, but instead his head went right through as if there were nothing in the way, everything above his shoulders now mixed in with the glittering wind.

"Err," Lily said without a touch of concern but some honest confusion.

"I could have said don't stick your face in that, but I guess he wasn't going to hear," Sirius said as he eyed that curiously.

"Don't care," James muttered, thinking whatever magic was in there could do whatever it pleased to that Death Eater and continuing more loudly still.

Hermione summoned Harry's wand and handed it back to him, but before they could do anything else Neville shouted a warning cry still staring at the bell jar.

"The stunner wouldn't have worn off that fast," Remus yelped.

"Who knows what kind of magic is in that thing, maybe it negated it," Sirius muttered uneasily.

Except the Death Eater was not rearing up for another attack, instead his head was deaging. His hair was retracting into him, his face smoothing out and while leaving the rest of his bodies proportions untouched, soon there was a tiny baby head in place.

"Oh, my, word." Lily managed to say as she sat back in her seat, just the thought of this happening to someone had her wanting to back away in surprise.

"There's karma somewhere in there," James muttered as he furiously flipped the page, his intrigue more than smothered by still wanting to haul his son out of there rather than investigating this thing.

Like the chicken before, even as they watched it began again, his head starting to grow back correctly, but as he tried to sit up and shake off the effects it started up again just as fast.

They were distracted from watching the progress by a crash in an adjacent room, and Harry at once shouted for his three missing friends.

The Death Eater managed to get his head free of the jar then, but his appearance was left bizarre, a bawling babies head atop the thick man body. His fists were waving about without intent, and Harry ducked to avoid a blow.

James was finding it harder and harder to brush past something so utterly disturbing to him, though he wasn't sure if he'd find it in himself to stick the Death Eater's head back in to repair it before knocking him out more effectively...

Harry raised his wand at the stumbling form, but Hermione seized him and told him he couldn't curse a baby.

"I, don't-" That was all Remus could get out. Somewhere in there was a fascinating turn of conversation, but honestly too much else was going on for him to get into it. James still had a twisted look on his face even as he kept going, maybe he could bring it up later with Harry.

Harry didn't argue, there were footsteps headed towards them, and Harry realized to late he should not have shouted and given away their position.

Harry was vaguely surprised no one had blamed him for that in here, but honestly it seemed because they would have done the same. Despite his own internal warning, nothing could stop someone for shouting now in all this mayhem.

Deciding to leave the baby-headed Death Eater for now,

Sirius still had his mouth half open, the urge to question how on earth that was a functioning moving thing still present, but James just didn't want to hear it from any of them. All he was really thinking was, two down.

they tried to hurry away, but two more Death Eaters were already coming in the door behind them, and instead they ducked into the nearest door holding what appeared to be nothing more than a cluttered office and slammed the door.

Hermione tried to use the colloportus spell again, but the door was thrown back before she had a chance and with a cry of triumph, both Death Eaters shouted Impedimenta.

Lily cursed heavily, knowing both of those using the spell at once would do far more damage than just temporarily slowing her child.

All three of them were thrown heavily off their feet, Neville flipping right over a desk, Hermione smashing into a bookcase which tipped all of its contents right over on her,

Sirius still had it somewhere in him to note irony in that even if he had no ability to laugh at it.

and Harry fell back into the stone wall with little lights bursting into his eyes, leaving him dizzy.

"Those idiots, they could have smashed the prophecy," Remus sneered through his own mounting worry they were going to make Harry lose his only advantage.

"Priorities Moony," Sirius grumbled, clearly misunderstanding, "I want to hear that too, but let's focus on Harry getting out first."

Remus didn't bother to correct his point.

One yelled for all to hear they'd caught them, but Hermione gathered herself first and shouted Silencio at him. The second Death Eater pushed him aside, but he could do no more before Harry shouted Petrificus Totalus at him and he fell back stiff as a board.

The first Death Eater wasn't done. Though still struck dumb, he made a slashing movement at Hermione, and a streak of purple flame went right through her chest.

Sirius choked, his arm fell fully away in surprise-

Hermione gave an oh of surprise before she crumpled to the floor.

"Cultrohexia-" Remus tried to begin explaining, recognizing that look on Harry's face and hoping to stop him panicking for just one second she wasn't dead, but too late.

"No!" Harry tore from his seat, but instead of their fears, he fled to the kitchen. They found him trying not to apprate, but kicking furiously at the table as he glared with fury up at the ceiling.

"Harry-"

"I have to go back!" Harry roared, not looking at any of them. "I can't, they can't- I have to get back there!"

"Harry listen to yourself!" Lily insisted as she tried darting around in front of him, but she may as well not have been there. "This happened to you when you were fifteen, you're older now, whatever happened you can't help them with that now-"

"Something was happening to them right- argh!"

"Harry! Oh, Harry-" Lily pleaded, kneeling down with him as he began sinking to the floor, holding his head again.

"We can't keep doing this," James said as he watched him curling into himself in pain while kneeling down on his other side and glaring at the book hatefully for causing all this. They never should have started these things, there had to be an easier way for Harry to regain his memories. "He's going to kill himself trying to remember what happened to them-"

"Then we'll stop him," Sirius snapped, striding over to get the potion and force him to relax again.

"Sirius."

The high note, pleading voice forced him to hesitate and glance back at him for a second.

The only thing stopping the thick fog from clearing Harry's mind and leaving the rest of his body in a state of pain that wasn't bearable, was somehow still his godfather. He still wanted more than anything the assurance his friends had survived this day, but Sirius was still here with him now, and no matter how much Harry had been pretending otherwise, there was something more pressing than memories he couldn't grasp. This was ridiculous, Sirius wasn't even there, how could he still be more worried about his godfather at this time? It wouldn't shake off though, clinging like a shield he'd had no intentions of putting up. One memory at a time, he had to know what happened to him first.

He couldn't breathe, this made no sense, so the instant Sirius was at his side with the vial, he took it gratefully, clinging to the numbness it brought even if it only lasted a few moments before he was brought back to his surroundings and forced to realize what he was doing to those around him.

"I'm sorry, I wish there was more we could do for you back then," Lily told him as she watched his green eyes flit back to any semblance of normal remembering all this could allow.

'Or, anything!' James mentally yelled, but kept that one to himself. Instead he helped him back to his feet, and it worried them all greatly Harry was still shaking. He wasn't finding any relief in here, with them, like he had when Voldemort had returned. As if his subconscious was still warning him there would be no relief, no savoir from his parents.

It did them no good to try anything else though but to keep going no matter how much they'd rather do anything else, at this point they knew they couldn't have stopped. They needed to know Hermione was okay just as much as Harry. For all of her, annoyances, she was Harry's friend as much as Sirius was theirs. They couldn't imagine anything happening to her now anymore than their own kid, it should have been to dismal for even this future to handle.

Harry fell to his knees beside her, screaming her name as Neville crawled out from behind his desk to see. The Death Eater kicked out at him, breaking his wand and connecting with his foot with the same blow and Neville backed out of sight again with a howl of pain.

Lily covered half of her face to smother her gasp of surprise, all to easily picturing that happening to Alice even more than Neville and the poor mothers reaction.

Harry twisted around and saw the Death Eater ripping off his mask, and Harry recognized him as Antonin Dolohov, the man who'd killed the Prewetts.

Harry let out a snarl of outrage, even as he kept tight to Sirius' side he couldn't help but glance uneasily around the room, that feeling like hot lava warning theirs would not be the only death the man was responsible for. 'Please, let it not be Hermione's!' He pleaded with everything he could.

Still keeping his wand trained on Harry now, he pointed at the prophecy, then himself, then Hermione, the meaning couldn't have been more plane.

"Oh good, Harry understands silent language far better than Sirius ever did," Remus babbled uneasily.

Harry snapped he'd be dead the moment he did so! He was all white panic, clinging to Hermione's shoulder which was still warm, so she wasn't dead yet! His voice mentally pleaded with her not to be dead, it would be his fault if she was!

"No, it's not!" Remus snapped. He hated watching Harry blame himself for these things, likely because he had too much practice with this himself if anything remotely went wrong around him. "That's a bloody dangerous spell, pure dark magic that'll leave your innards like they were plunged with a knife, but the spell doesn't leave any mark. If he hadn't been silenced, it would have been even more dangerous, but since it's a verbal only spell, half the damage was done. So long as she gets treated, she'll be fine!"

"And if she doesn't get help in time?" Harry whispered.

Remus had no answer, he didn't want to tell Harry that even the verbal spell wasn't instantaneous death because it left one slowly dying on the inside even as they were able to move around for a few minutes more while the spell took affect. Instead, he only said what they were all hoping, "she will."

Harry breathed slowly as he heard that, willing that feeling to be true more than just a simple hope.

Neville rose to his feet, broken wand in hand with blood pouring down his face as he shouted at Harry 'don'd gib it to him!'

James's face puckered in agitation for trying to talk like that, and under normal circumstances he would have reveled in plugging his nose, trying to mimic this as best he could. He'd hope it would go on long enough Sirius would try his hand at it, and the two could see who could mimic this speech the best. Now all he could think was, one against eight, considering he still had no clue where the last three kids were.

Neville tried to shoot a spell, but nothing was happening from his broken wand. Then there was a crash behind them as the baby-headed Death Eater came stumbling in, his wails still echoing all around, and Harry took Dolohov's distraction in watching to shout Petrificus Totalus. The spell hit, he toppled face forward unable to move an inch.

Seven, James mentally corrected, though the slowly dwindling number wasn't helping anyone to breathe any easier, they were all keeping the same count and even against one the numbers would never feel bearable no matter how good Harry was. He was only using the minimum spells of defense, there was no more force to this than he'd be using against a DA member, and that was going to bite him in the arse later when these spells simply wore off...

Harry at once turned attention back to Hermione, trying to get her to wake up, until Neville crawled forward and told him he could feel a pulse, he was sure of it, through his broken nose.

James felt his limbs go weak, actually closing his eyes for a moment for the simple thanks he felt for that!

Harry asked if he was sure, and Neville said he thought so.

Not remotely the most reassuring answer Neville could have given, but Harry finally stopped the feeling he was going to keel over himself as the image repainted before his eyes, her eyes closed almost peacefully, but he just couldn't tell if it was sleep or...

There was a pause as Harry listened for anymore noise, but all they could hear was the blunderings of the still standing baby-headed Death Eater crashing around.

"That's a thing now," Lily shook her head, not even remotely distracted from the real matter of what her son was living through.

Harry turned to Neville and asked if he could make his way out with Hermione, try to find help, but Neville refused, saying he was staying with Harry until they found everyone. Harry tried to protest, but Neville picked up Hermione's wand and said he'd carry her.

"No," Remus couldn't help but protest no matter how much he admired Neville for this. "He really should take off with her, he's only another target now following behind like that!"

"What if he does run into more Death Eater's though, then he won't have any way to defend himself, he needs to stick close to Harry," Sirius disagreed.

There was just no point in predicting the future, certainly no one ever would have seen this coming, so both mutually decided not to let the argument continue.

Harry only hesitated a moment before helping to lift Hermione over his shoulder and the two began to leave. Neville gave the broken remnants of his wand one look as he passed, whispering his Gran was going to kill him, that was his dad's old wand.

James made such a small little noise he wasn't even aware he had anymore than the others. He couldn't help it though, his mind immediately launched off with the idea, of what had happened to his wand, and Lily's, had Remus or Sirius ever come across them and still had them after all these years? He still had his parents wands stored in his Gringotts vault, mementos of them Harry still never had from his own!

Lily shook her head slowly for this though, whispering, "I'm positive the woman will just be more thankful her only grandchild's alive." She knew she could never give enough thanks for that hearing all he'd done without her in his life.

Harry cautiously stuck his head back into the Time room, watching the baby-head Death Eater still destroying the room while screaming,

"Please stop mentioning that, it gets more disturbing the longer I think about it," Remus huffed, though honestly he just wanted all of this to stop being mentioned already. After the year Harry had there, he couldn't believe he'd still rather hear of him back at Hogwarts.

while the glass-fronted cabinet that Harry now suspected had contained Time-Turners continued to fall, shatter and repair itself on the wall behind them.

"Err," Sirius muttered, his brows shooting up in shock.

"Wonder what on earth magic could be used to fix that," James agreed with surprise.

No one else in sight though, they finally made it to the dark anti-room where the door swung shut behind them and once again the whirl of doors started, except now when they stopped Hermione's x's had faded.

Harry began to ask which they should choose, but before they could make a decision, one on their right sprang open and three people fell out.

Lily felt a scream building up in her own throat. Despite having just soothed Harry from doing this, she was finding it harder every second not to be wailing her own head off with worry for all of this happening.

Harry at once darted to the Weasley siblings in relief, asking if they were alright.

"Oh bloody thank goodness," James moaned, feeling finally something had gone right, though he kept reading with heavy worry Luna hadn't been mentioned!

Ron seized him while giggling, lurching forward as he did so with his eyes unfocused.

"What's wrong with Ron?" Sirius hissed, feeling as territorial of all these kids at this point as if they were all his pup.

Even while giggling, his face was extremely white, and something dark was leaking out the side of his mouth. Then his knees gave out, and still holding onto Harry, he pulled him into a kind of half bow as he fell to the floor.

"What did they do to him?" Lily demanded venomously, her wand still griped furiously in her hand and aching to turn that on someone any moment for hurting these kids!

He tried to ask Ginny what had happened, but she was just as pale as she slid down to the floor, though she was holding her ankle in silent pain.

"Ginny," Harry whispered, leaning forward in concern like he was trying to catch her before she fell. He couldn't believe this was happening around him, the panic was gripping him so tight he couldn't breathe!

Luna, who alone seemed unscathed, said she thought Ginny's ankle had been broken,

"Oh thank Merlin!" James breathed, not having meant to say Luna's name extra loud but now at least they were all alive, and could get out of there!

four of them had chased them into some room full of planets-

Ron interrupted with a feeble snicker that they'd seen Uranus up close!

"A joke's never as funny the second time," Remus said flatly, trying to give Sirius an obvious look, but both were too worried about the state Ron was in to pay attention to even their own picking.

Then a bubble of blood came out the side of his mouth.

Harry hadn't thought it possible, but he was somehow all the more worried no one around him was trying to comfort him this was going to be okay anymore. No one had a suggestion what was wrong with Ron, or that the exit could be right behind them now that all six were together.

Luna kept talking Ginny had used the Reductor curse on Pluto right in a Death Eater's face,

"Hope it killed him," Lily spluttered in surprise for using that spell in anyone's face, but she wouldn't deny the effectiveness of anything right now.

but one had grabbed her ankle and she'd heard a snap, finishing with a hopeless wave at Ginny who was breathing shallowly.

Harry asked fearfully for Ron's status, who was still hanging from Harry's front.

It didn't feel possible, as James kept ushering out words practically faster than the others could follow, that it really was just Harry and Luna in able fighting condition against seven Death Eaters! Now their worry for Ron and Hermione were still rival, maybe even a little more than Harry as they could at least look at him and know he was alive and fine!

Luna didn't know, she'd never heard the curse used on him, but he was acting funny and she'd barely gotten him along.

Harry had heard all he needed. He asked Luna to help Ginny along, and though the blonde ducked down to assist,

Remus tried to breathe easier for just a second, trying to console himself Ginny could still fight even if she'd be far more off balance, this wasn't impossible to get out of.

Ginny snapped she could do it herself and pushed herself up the wall, though immediately collapsed again and had to hold Luna for support.

"Now's not the time to be proud," Lily snapped, wanting to shove the Gryffindor streak up Ginny's nose and get those kids moving no matter how much she may have acted the same.

Harry pulled Ron's arm over his shoulder just as, so many months ago, he had pulled Dudley's.

James could hardly think of anything else right now, let alone something like a dementor attack which would feel like a walk in the park after this nightmare, at least Harry could get himself out of that no problem, this still felt more like he was reading about someone's funeral any second. Yet at the same time, he understood it, found how much more precious and dangerous this was to Harry. He may feel it for a time if something had happened to Dudley, but now, Ron was the first family he'd had, he could not lose him any more than Sirius.

Then he looked desperately at the dozen of doors for the way out, but without taking a step three Death Eaters came pouring out of the door across from them led by Bellatrix Lestrange.

Sirius made a series of thunderous growling noises that kept starting and stopping, clearly his terror kept trying to break off how much he wanted to take her head off with or without a wand.

She shrieked what they'd found, back Harry backed his group into the nearest door and shouted colloportus.

A smash meant he'd done it in time, but then a man's voice shouted it didn't matter, there were other ways in.

James could feel his breaths stuttering out in sharp gasps, 'they're pinned down, they don't have a chance to run anymore-' his mind all to happily informed him.

'Shut up,' he fought hard not to shout out loud.

Harry began darting around to all available doors and repeating the spell, encouraging Luna to help, but they only made it half way through when she filled the room with a cry of pain.

James couldn't quite scream that as he could all to easily envision Luna, his voice was getting quieter the more this somehow continued to grow worse, fighting back the urge to vomit again the more his vision blurred from worry and still pushing past just to keep going.

Harry turned to see her smashing through a desk and colliding with a wall head first.

Bellatrix came sprinting in, shouting at all of them to get Potter. Harry tried to run out of the room, the prophecy held high over his head, his only thought to keep them away from the others.

Remus hated that was by all technicalities a good plan, Harry being the target because they could look at him and know he was okay, but putting himself in danger like that could never not stop all the air around him, and it's not like he knew that at the time so Harry was still going to hear about this later!

He found himself in the brain room, and Ron came tottering up to his side, still drunkenly laughing about how there were brains in here, and then he summoned one to him.

Lily made a squealing noise that was as much disgust as it was concern for this. "Luna didn't take away his wand!"

James ignored her no matter how much he agreed.

The scene seemed momentarily frozen. Harry, Ginny and Neville and each of the Death Eaters turned in spite of themselves,

"Yes, do please keep being idiots," Remus muttered, his own eyes feeling swollen from widening too much recently.

to watch a brain burst from the green liquid and come shooting right at Ron, ribbons appearing all around it to wrap around Ron who at first kept laughing, as Harry shouted at him to move while darting towards him.

James didn't need to ask why Harry had involuntarily shouted the same thing in here, why he was vibrating all over again in fear for his brother as much as he had been for his sister moments ago. They could all just feel it, this was not going to be a good thing.

Harry didn't know what would happen when that touched Ron, but he didn't want to find out, and didn't get the choice. The brain wrapped all along his forearm with the nasty dripping vines,

Harry tried to dart forward again, to tear the book away because his father wasn't going fast enough and he had to know right now what that thing was doing to Ron, but Sirius intervened faster this time. He caught Harry around the chest and held him fast, fearing if Harry stopped listening and tried to do this himself he'd hurt himself irreparably.

James had hardly hesitated upon Harry's movement, too involved in this himself.

and Ron at once began screaming in pain for it to stop. Harry tried to cut it away with the Diffendo spell, but it had no affect, and the tentacles kept spiraling farther up Ron's arm.

Ginny screamed that would suffocate him, but a stunner caught her in the chest and she fell to the floor unconscious.

Harry made a desperate noise, still struggling to get away from Sirius, but to where even he didn't know. It was too much, it all felt like a nightmare that wasn't ending, and still the worst hadn't happened, he could feel how hot his face was and how painful everything in him burned saying something terrible was going to happen, something that wasn't going to be just a spell.

Neville tried, waving his wand around and shouting stuebfy, but nothing happened.

Remus had never actually wanted to know what would happen if you try to use a stunning spell without pronouncing it correctly!

One of the Death Eaters tried stunning him, but Neville ducked by inches. Now it was only the two of them, against the five Death Eaters. One tried shooting a white blast at Harry that instead left a crater behind him when he ducked.

"Gah, how is that helping them not break the thing!" Sirius was feeling so incoherent he wasn't even sure if that was spoken in English.

Harry ran for it. His only thought in mind to get these Death Eaters away from his friends, he only hoped Neville would stay behind and help Ron as he finally darted out of the room with the prophecy clearly in sight and only held slight relief he could hear them all chasing him. Then his feet weren't below him anymore.

He was crashing down, hitting every steep stone step until he found himself sprawled below the dais in the stone arch room.

Harry placed his hand on his abused rib cage, still feeling the echo of that pain as it was vividly reminded to him, but that was nothing in comparison to the torment just behind his eyes. He had known from the moment he'd first been in this room it would not mean anything good for him, now he was standing more alone than ever. That should have been a good thing, there was no one in there to get hurt but him.

Hearing approach, he at once got to his feet and backed up so that he was now standing right in front of the veil as the Death Eaters circled below him, one bleeding rather badly, and Harry saw Dolohov had been freed of his Body-Bind Curse.

Lily bit back yet more curses for the fact they just had to be right about that, and yet she still found it in her to plead it wasn't important for Harry to learn a lesson there, she was hardly holding herself together listening to this, afterwards the worst thing she could stand to hear of him in again was Crookshanks attacking him.

Malfoy stepped forward, pulling off his mask to speak to Harry's face this race was done, now be a good boy and hand over that prophecy.

"Whoever said he wanted to be a good boy?" Sirius said distractedly, though James felt himself breathe easier just for a second at Sirius still managing to say his stupid jokes even in the face of all that. It was just a little easier picturing Sirius saying that to Lucius than ten wands pointed on his lone child.

Harry desperately bargained to let the others ago and he'd do just that.

Lucius just laughed, telling him he was not in the position to be making demands being surrounded as he was and all alone.

From above came the shout he wasn't alone!

Neville came racing down the steps from the brain room, still trying to use Hermione's wand to stun someone.

"I mean, credit to the kid, but I'm about to knock his lights out for not doing the smart thing and staying where he's useful! Ron needed him more than Harry did!" Remus half shouted half whispered, the unbearable scenario going through his head the Order had long since vanished and wouldn't realize something was wrong until it was too late...

Harry couldn't really be mad though, he was as touched as he was worried now, though he wouldn't have believed that possible moments ago.

Harry tried to shout at him to go back, but he was caught before he could do any such thing. Several Death Eaters laughed as he struggled to get away, Malfoy jeering at least Longbottom's grandmother would not find his death a shock, she was used to losing family to their cause.

It didn't feel real, James saying that with such anger he well could have murdered someone on the spot, but at the same time speaking as if about Neville. Sometimes Lily still couldn't believe there was anyone out there who would really do something like this no matter how many times she'd seen evidence herself of it happening.

Bellatrix perked up at his last name, mentioning she'd had the pleasure of meeting his parents.

"How dare she mock him for that!" Lily said, fury nearly beyond the words.

Neville shouted back he was aware, and then Bellatrix used Crucio on him.

James whispered, feeling as close to tears as if that were Sirius again, or Harry, or anyone he cared about. He could see Alice and Franks face, know their pain as one who'd been forced to hear his own child through that torment, and it killed something inside of him to force this upon yet another, to even hear about this!

Malfoy told Potter he'd let her continue until he gave up that prophecy, and despite Neville shouting at him not to, Harry made to step forward to do just that when another door swung open, and Kingsley, Tonks, Moody, Lupin, and Sirius came charging in.***

James only felt an instant of relief before Harry started screaming anew.

"No!" Harry hissed, his eyes burning with something they'd only seen once before. "No, no, no! Sirius isn't supposed to be there, he was only there because I was!"

Remus felt such a wave of vertigo he nearly fell right over. He couldn't help it, he remembered Harry screaming those exact words days ago when he'd thought Sirius was going to be Kissed.

Now, there was no Patronus charm to save him, only a luck and skill that would be tarnished after what he'd been through...

"Don't be stupid Harry," Sirius scoffed at such a reaction. "I can take care of myself just fine, did you really think I'd sit back if even for a second I heard what you'd gotten yourself up to!"

"But-"

"No," Sirius snapped with just as much force as Harry just had. "Don't want to hear it! You went out there for me, now I'm doing the same for you, you don't get to tell me what's right or wrong about that under any circumstances."

Harry could feel it, that hot burn telling him Hermione was right, he should have listened to her, because something unforgivable was going to happen now!

James, honestly agreed with Harry. They still didn't even know how Sirius was, how much damage Voldemort had done to him before he'd gotten away, now he was barreling right back into a fight! The idiot was going to get himself killed, as if they hadn't feared that enough recently! Yet at the same time he'd never been more grateful to his brother, he certainly understood why he was doing it for the exact same reason he would right now.

Distracted at once by the Orders arrival, Neville managed to get himself away and Harry ducked down beside him as duels erupted all around them. Harry asked how Ron was, and Neville only said he was still fighting that brain thing when he'd left.

"That's not remotely a helpful answer," Lily said faintly, far more concerned with that lot than her boys who she was well aware could take care of themselves. She could still picture Ron suffocating by the time Harry got back to him, Hermione dying from internal bleeding, who knew if something worse was happening to Ginny and Luna while no one was looking out for them!

The stone floor gained a crater inches beside them, chunks flying everywhere, and before either could duck away from more, an arm seized Harry by the throat and demanded the prophecy from him.

Through watering eyes Harry watched Sirius dueling with a Death Eater ten feet away, their wands not even visible from the speed of their spells,

James tried to find some comfort in that even as he shifted anxiously a bit more. Sirius was up and fighting, his ordeal with Voldemort hadn't seemed to leave any lasting harm if he was already dueling with the skill James knew so well, but perhaps he still would have been better suited to be getting Harry out of there! Then again, he probably wouldn't have even recognized Sirius if he heard he was trying to avoid a fight for even a second.

Kingsley was fighting two at once; Tonks, still halfway up the tiered seats, was firing spells down at Bellatrix - none seemed to realize Harry was slowly dying.

James nearly ripped the page out in frustration, this was so much worse than if he could have just been seeing this! He didn't understand why Harry hadn't mentioned Remus just now! It was of course possible he was just behind somewhere Harry couldn't see, but James was convinced he wasn't going to breathe again until he could finally leave this place altogether!

So Neville lunged forward and shoved Hermione's wand through the eye hole.

"There's thinking on your feet!" Remus said faintly.

Harry was released, and whirled around to use stupefy.

The Death Eater had only the time to remove his face and be recognized as Macnair with one eye swollen shut before he fell over.

"Hope he has to have that bloody removed," Sirius got out through gritted teeth, honestly wishing some things couldn't be magically fixed right now.

Harry thanked Neville as he kept watching Sirius still in the heat of his fight,

Sirius nodded in approval, still shifting restlessly as hearing it wasn't fighting off the urge he needed to be doing that now, but at least it seemed to put his friends at ease for a moment, hearing him still on his feet and dueling made it clear he wasn't irreparably injured from his ordeal.

then Harry's foot slipped and he nearly crashed to the ground from slipping on Moody's magical eye.

Lily did scream then, she couldn't help it. There weren't words anymore, only curses she couldn't hope to use, and pent up emotion she needed some way to vent.

Its owner was lying on his side, bleeding from the head,

James couldn't blame his wife, he was fighting off the urge to scream all this as well though it kept coming out more as a whisper. Not Moody! If he was already down, how well was that supposed to spell out for the others, now both of his brothers and his son were all in there!

and the one who'd done it, Dolohov, turned his attention on the two boys and shouted Tarantellgra.

Neville at once fell over, his feet doing a frenzied, uncontrolled movement.

Remus managed to find that a curse and a blessing, at least they were still only trying to immobilize the kids, he'd feared now that the Order had arrived they'd be trying more than ever to get that way from Harry by any means!

He turned on Harry and began the same slashing movement he'd used on Hermione,

James's heart stopped, it took every last drop of his willpower and forcing himself not to hear the other's cry of shock as he told;

but Harry was one second faster and managed Protego before the bright flame went for his face. He felt as if a blunt knife knocked him off his feet and he was thrown across Neville's jerking legs, but his Shield Charm had fielded the worst effects.

Harry wanted to breathe easier, now that he knew the spell could be blocked by something like a shield charm he felt Hermione's chances for survival went up, though he kept brushing his fingers against his face where he was sure he'd just escaped death again.

Dolohov instead tried to summon the prophecy to him, but then Sirius was there, ramming his shoulder into the Death Eater and knocking him off even as he kept his own duel up.

Lily was fighting back so many impulses in these moments, to cling her child to her, both his infant self and the adult, she wanted them both under her arms where she could secure their future right now. To stop James from continuing while also taking that and finishing this herself. To send a stream of curses and constantly reminding herself it would do no good. Now she wanted Remus and Sirius right behind her! She didn't care how good a fighters they were, there was no telling what condition both were in, and neither would consider themselves when jumping in front of those spells for those kids.

Dolohov tried to turn on Sirius's now unprotected back, bringing his wand up for the slashing spell another time,

"He really needs to stop with that!" Sirius snarled in disgust, his not so subtle rumbling growls growing louder every second as he wanted to rip this one's whole arm off for continuously trying to use that on his loved ones, even if he had no regrets taking this instead of Harry.

Harry was still faster though, using Petrificus Totalus on him again, and again the man's limbs all snapped together and he fell to the floor at the same time Sirius finally took his own down with a stunner.

Sirius turned to Harry, sparing the moment to congratulate him before telling him to- they both ducked at a green light passing over Sirius's head.

James couldn't help snarling in outrage, that flash of green suddenly all he could see for a moment, the light in Lily's eyes fading, the same color to take away Sirius by a breath!

Across the room, Tonks was falling limply down the stone steps while Bellatrix was laughing triumphantly.

Harry made a ragged noise as yet more people went down around him, because of him, and he tried to cling even tighter to Sirius now, his grip turning bruising as he held onto his arm.

Sirius only gave him an absent pat, shifting his weight so restlessly Harry could hardly keep a grip on him even as he acted like his life depended on it.

Sirius told Harry to take the prophecy, grab Neville and run while darting forward to meet Bellatrix.

Remus closed his eyes tight, hating to hear the echo of James' final words to his wife in that moment as surely that was just a coincidence, everything was going to be fine! He quickly snapped them back open to focus on Sirius and James, his friends, nothing was going to happen to them now.

Harry didn't see what happened next as Kingsley darted in the way fighting Rookwood, so he turned back to Neville and ducked yet another green blast.

The only thing stopping Lily from vomiting at the image was that it hadn't connected, it never would again, because this time she hadn't been there to stop it, so Harry would be safe from this.

Had Neville though? The Order? It would be an honest miracle if everyone came out of this unscathed...

Harry asked if Neville could stand, but his uncontrollable legs wouldn't allow this, so Harry instead told Neville to put his arm around Harry.

Sirius dislodged Harry from him again by running his hands through his hair frantically, he couldn't believe no one had ever taught Harry 'Finite' or that he was forgetting about the spell right now!

Neville did so, but it did nothing to help them get back up the steps, while out of nowhere someone tackled Harry from behind and jabbed their wand into his back demanding the prophecy from him.

'He's not going to get hurt, nothing happened to him' James kept chanting in his head, the only mantra he could use to make words keep coming out.

Harry recognized Malfoy's voice, so chose to toss the prophecy to Neville instead who only just caught it. While he'd been distracted watching it's progress, Harry turned his wand over his shoulder and shouted Impedimenta, and Malfoy was off of him again. When he turned to see, Sirius and Bellatrix were now on top of the dais dueling.

That wasn't working so well whenever James had to flip focus to one of his friends. Sirius finally got so agitated he jumped to his feet, moving swiftly across the room as if he were in a duel now, his body finally unable to remain immobile while Harry did the opposite. Now that Sirius was out of reach, he froze over, as if he could no longer hear or feel anything around him, he couldn't understand why Sirius had left him right now...

Malfoy had recovered and turned his wand back on Harry, but Lupin jumped between them first.

James couldn't help a pitiful noise of relief for just a moment, Remus hadn't been mentioned since he'd come storming in and in the back of his mind where Sirius and Harry weren't struggling to fight he'd feared something had happened to Moony the moment he'd come in. How soon was it to a full moon, had one just ended? He had no answer for the state he was fighting in anymore than Sirius, but he tried to give his mind an instant of relief Remus may have darted off to check on the other kids before running into this fray.

He shouted over his shoulder for Harry to round up the others and go,

"They're clearly trying!" Lily told him in a 'you're not helping voice!'

Remus looked terrified for a new kind of reason, like Lily was going to curse him next if he didn't do something useful soon.

before engaging Malfoy in a duel, and Harry did try.

He stuffed the prophecy into Neville's robes so they'd both have their arms to try and heave up the steep steps, but they only made it up two with heaving effort when Neville's robes ripped, the little glass ball fell free, and smashed back down below.

James made such a powerful noise his throat actually hurt, but he still didn't stop. He'd care about that later, they'd find some other way to hear that thing, he had to keep his priority and hear of his son out of there first!

Even as they watched a spectral figure floated out, unrecognizable in its astral form, but amidst the curses around them, not a word was heard before it too dissolved.

Sirius stamped his foot so hard in frustration he worried for a moment it was going to sink right through the floor, but it didn't stop his movement. He was thinking the exact same as the others, they'd just have to hunt down this Seer who'd given the prophecy, Merlin he'd go and hunt down his Aunt Misapinoa, speak to anyone in his family again for even the inkling of a clue on where to hear this thing, but that was later. They'd worry about that when Harry was safe again.

Neville began apologizing, but Harry said it didn't matter how, they still had to-

Neville's face suddenly looked transported as he shouted over Harry's shoulder, Dubbledore.

"Oh!" James felt such a head rush he nearly fell over in surprise.

"Thank Merlin, or Dumbledore or-" Remus cut himself off with a near hysterical giggle, their shaking of fright from before now more relieved than anything, those Death Eaters stood no chance now! Here they'd all been worried Voldemort might pop back in any moment, now the opposite had happened!

Their sincerity of everything was going to be okay now was so much, none noticed Harry wasn't joining in. Sirius least of all as he was now jumping around with excitement more than anything he could haul Harry out of there and finally something could go right.

Harry asked what?

"Broken nose or not, there's not a lot of translations for that word," Lily said, still high off her relief that her voice came out as wobbly as if she'd really started crying that everything was going to be okay now.

He turned and saw Dumbledore standing in the doorway, an electric energy seemed to pulse around him, and Harry at once knew they were saved.

Harry didn't feel that now. He searched for it, in the recesses of his memories, but there was no trace of such a powerful feeling except the numbing cold that was sapping everything from him, all his mind could focus on was watching Sirius, moving around with such excitement he looked like he was going to start dancing in here like he had been in such a more deadly situation all those years ago.

With one wave of his wand he seemed to catch all the Death Eater's as if in a giant fishing net, drawing them all tightly yet invisibly bound together, the only two left still fighting were Sirius and Bellatrix up on the dais; Sirius was laughing at her.

"I'm going to kill Dumbledore," Lily said with indulgent exasperation. He should have grabbed Bellatrix first if his goal was simply to round up these Death Eater's, why let Sirius continue goofing off as he clearly was now when he was the one who needed to get out of there the most before anyone else showed up.

He taunted she could do better than that as he ducked a red blast of light.

"Taunts to your last breath, I swear," Remus huffed, scowling lightly at the book and him alternatively. He hadn't personally ever dueled Bellatrix, but she wasn't one to be trifled with no matter how good Sirius was, she'd proved that in the few seconds she'd been around Harry and his friends.

She responded by managing to hit him in the chest with her next, and the laughter hadn't quite died from his face as his eyes widened with shock.

Sirius' expression was mocking that in here, Remus noticed as his head whipped to him so fast there was an uncomfortable snapping noise. Sirius was covering his chest and looking genuinely offended he'd been struck while that pompous smile was still in place.

James only half glanced up at him, his throat still raw and sore from all this frustration he had not the heart for telling his brother what a cocky idiot he was for getting caught. It bothered him most of all Harry hadn't noted what color that flash of light was that hit him, but the first he'd dodged had simply been a stunner, so likely it was just that again.

Harry released Neville and ran forward, watching as it seemed to take Sirius ages to fall backwards through the veil.

James froze, the whole room went still as four pairs of eyes just watched this act take place. It was eerie, Sirius found himself thinking as he went rigid, that animation finally ceasing in him as James kept going with a heavy twitch that Sirius wanted to brush off but couldn't find the words for.

Sirius did not reappear.

James's voice was taking on a rather hard edge, his eyes flat with disbelief. Of course he hadn't, his mind reasoned, he was stunned when he fell into that, someone just had to pull him back out!

Harry shouted for Sirius as he ran for the steps, but then Lupin caught him, holding him back.

Sirius started shaking then, so powerfully his wand fell from his limp fingers and his whole body went an unnatural color from shock. He didn't like that reaction! Why would Remus stop Harry instead of helping him!?

No matter how hard Harry fought to get away, how loudly he shouted, Lupin didn't let go, telling Harry Sirius was gone.

As if in slow motion, Harry's life tumbled from his hands and was left upon the ground while James moved.

For just a second, Harry watched it in real time. Sirius' knees buckled, and he fell back, but in that moment, James was there, catching him before he hit the ground.

"No..."

HPHPHPHP

* Take that Snape! You weren't the first Death Eater to say that! ...I don't know why I cracked up laughing rereading the series and coming across this line, just thought I'd share the moment so you wouldn't hate me for one second.

** I know I'm calling for a bit of suspension of disbelief here with his Prophecy knowledge, which is rude of me considering I try to make sense of this story and now I'm doing the opposite, so putting this kind of information on Sirius is a bit of a long shot; but I can't help myself, I need some way to explain all this in fic, and Dumbledore does a meh job of it, and Sirius is the only one with any connections that could also claim to even just vaguely know about these things. Take heart I refused to do this for other things like the Horcruxes? Those'll be much more fun to watch them struggle along to understand, but the prophecies just tie back too well with the third book for me to pass up.

***I'll admit it here guys, the movie really had a much more bamf entrance for this. Sirius punching Lucius in the face really is an iconic moment.

#The LIfe that Never LIved #Harry Potter #fanfiction #reading the books #OotP #Marauders #Sirius black #James Potter #Remus lupin #Lily Potter #jilly

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haec-est-fides · 4 years

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“What have you done?” : Why Riordan’s Handling of Triumvirate Holdings Sucks

I put my thoughts under a cut to make it easier to avoid spoilers and to save you all from a long post,,,like a really long post.

Basically, I think it was inevitable that Riordan fumble Triumvirate Holdings. He simply designed a villain network too powerful and too extensive to ever be handled properly by the heroes. He did try to address,,,some of it, but in the end I think he just made it worse.

I. Let’s talk about Triumvirate Holdings.

The way that Riordan established the origins of the Triumvirate and the extent of their power made it too big to handle from the beginning. The emperors have been around for centuries. It’s mentioned countless times how much property they own, how much money they have, and how many businesses are actually under their control. Rachel says it well in Hidden Oracle: “They make my dad’s company look like a kid’s lemonade stand.” Nero brings it up again in Tower of Nero: “What you don’t seem to realize, Apollo, is that you can’t destroy bank accounts with a bow and arrows. All my assets, all the power I’ve built up for centuries -- it’s all safe.” Think of what Caligula did to Piper and her dad, how deep that ran and how many people were involved. Think of how the Triumvirate funded both Luke and Octavian. All of this goes to show how deeply rooted Triumvirate Holdings is, especially -- unlike other villains -- in the mortal world.

This never really gets taken into account. For instance, Apollo does wonder if Meg will inherit Nero’s tower, but it seems as if she doesn’t, nor do any of the other imperials who go with her to Palm Springs. They live off of the Sibyl’s tarot card business, which strongly implies that they took nothing from the tower -- or the company -- at all.

Apollo also mentions Camp Half-Blood getting the weapons and Greek fire from Nero’s tower, but that is so poorly thought out that I want to scream. Nero had designed special holding tanks for the Greek fire, tanks that Rachel pointed out could be mistaken for a water-treatment facility. And we’re transferring it to a summer camp? Yikes.

Beyond the question of the material, there’s the question of personnel. Mortals, demigods / legacies, monsters, Germani, etc. were all involved with Triumvirate Holdings. I’ll address the Germani in a moment, but the sheer numbers involved make the fall of the company either impossible or devastating. It is conceivable that the mortals, business people and mercenaries alike, could move on and the Mist would do its work. Still, that’s thousands of people jobless. The unemployment rate just skyrocketed. Further, the monsters once under Triumvirate control are now presumably free to cause havoc as well.

Before moving on entirely, multiply all of that by three. Commodus and Caligula employed mortals and monsters as well, and who knows what happened to their material possessions. (Besides the fifty yachts in San Francisco Bay, ofc. Millions of dollars, minimum, at the bottom of the ocean.)

What I’m most concerned about, however, are the demigods / legacies, especially those raised by or who spent considerable time with the Triumvirate. An experience like that shapes people, and not for the better.

II. Let’s talk about the Imperial Households.

Starting with Nero’s household, I think it’s clear that Riordan brushed over the imperials to have his wholesome ending, which is entirely understandable. Even so, he creates such a conflicting view of them that his “they all moved to Aeithales and Healed” bit is so shallow. Apollo’s views in particular cause this problem.

Initially, the fact that the imperials are enemies puts them in this strange category where they’re minors and people (like Meg) but them being harmed or even killed,,,isn’t a bad thing? Chiron, directing new campers during the Greek attack on the tower, yells, “Try not to kill enemy demigods or mortals! Okay, well, from now on, then!” It’s given the weight of a throw-away line. Apollo later goes so far as to think, “I wondered where the other three missing adoptees had gone -- if they’d been captured or had fallen in battle to Camp Half-Blood. I tried not to feel any satisfaction at the thought, but it was difficult.” (Emphasis mine. Oh, and if anyone is interested, this is almost an exact parallel to what Apollo says in Tyrant’s Tomb about Octavian’s death.) I’m not saying that Apollo hasn’t really changed or that heroes have to value the lives of their enemies, but this isn’t the best foot to start on.

In Nero’s throne room, when Meg gets her imperial siblings under control, Apollo comments on how close they are to siding with Nero: “[Meg] reminded me of one of Hades’s dog trainers working with a pack of new hellhounds. ...any sign of weakness from her, any change in the temperature of the battle, and they might break ranks and slaughter everyone in sight.” Even after Nero’s death, the imperials break down. Raging, sobbing, catatonic -- whatever the case, not exactly the best candidates for a smooth adjustment to ordinary life.

Apollo and Meg briefly chat about how the household will need support to heal, but Apollo still notes, with some real hesitancy, “There were no guarantees. The imperial demigods had dealt with so much for so long, some of them might never be able to come back from the darkness.” A short while later, at Aeithales, Apollo observes that the imperials “seemed determined to garden, as if their sanity depended on it, which perhaps it did.” While Cassius, at the very least, seems to be adjusting well, who’s to say that the others are? They can’t garden forever. I just can’t picture this ending as well as Riordan leaves it.

All of that is bad enough, but we know that Nero’s “household” is larger than just the twelve demigods he adopted, and it’s likely that Commodus and Caligula had similar households. Remember Marcus, Meg’s escort in Dark Prophecy? Whether he was one of Nero’s twelve (and got replaced) or not, his existence is evidence that there are far more demigods / legacies involved than the series’ focus would make us think at first glance. We do see members of Commodus’ household in Dark Prophecy, in the stands of the stadium and in the battle against the Waystation -- “a few dozen” even. Interestingly, Caligula is the only triumvir who doesn’t seem to have a household at all, as they’re never mentioned aboard his yachts. That may be exactly as it seems, with him preferring not to have a household out of paranoia. However, I still think it’d be more reasonable to assume that he had some kind of household than to assume otherwise.

Nero’s household appears to have been the most imperial and the most like a family, but that doesn’t mean we can brush off the other households as a non-issue. Considering the lack on information on the subject, it’s entirely possible that the other two emperors did adopt kids. In any case, we can’t judge the loyalty of these unknown demigods / legacies, and they certainly seem to have fallen through the cracks. It’s doubtful that Nero’s children will be able to “heal” even with Meg’s help and a place totally removed from their old life. If the others don’t have any kind of support system? If they’re left to their own devices? That’s a recipe for disaster. They’re likely to cling to the system they know in whatever ways they can.

As a bit of a thought experiment to drive this home, consider: what would Octavian do if he were part of Triumvirate Holdings when the news arrived that the emperors were all dead? I think it’s clear than the answer is not “go live a normal life and pretend the Triumvirate never existed.” It would be naive to think that not a single person in the Triumvirate’s sphere is willing to step up and take over.

III. Let’s talk about the Germani.

Riordan actually explained this well, but then proceeded to fuck up.

I had questioned why the Germani -- ordinary legacies / humans -- could be turned to “monster” dust once resurrected and put in an emperor’s service. What kind of afterlife did that mean they had? Thankfully, Riordan touched on this! As @triumvirateds pointed out on my older post, the Germani -- like most ordinary monsters -- did come back in a day or two after being killed. This apparent immortality, we find, is tied to the Triumvirate’s power, symbolized by each emperor’s fasces. When the Germani were revived, however the Triumvirate accomplished that, they became removed from any usual afterlife until released from the Triumvirate’s service and made “regular people” again.

(This does raise some technical questions. Were each group of Germani tied to a specific emperor? Meaning that the troops on the West coast were “released” when Commodus’ and Caligula’s fasces were destroyed? I’m fairly certain that they still turned to dust during the final confrontation with New Rome. That would imply that their loyalty was tied to the Triumvirate as a whole, and their bond transferred to Nero’s fasces with the power of the other two emperors.)

However, I can’t believe Riordan decided that the Germani would simply be regular people after Nero’s death. Throughout the series, Apollo often remarks that the Germani are a threat because of their loyalty. Remember when the Germani were described as “sensitive about insults to the Imperial person” and nearly killed Apollo for looking at Nero wrong? Well, now Apollo says, “I supposed none of them loved the idea of staying loyal to the cause of a dead emperor.” I’m reminded of when, after Commodus and Caligula were defeated in New Rome, the army ran away and was never mentioned again. In both cases, the Germani are brushed off as disloyal / uncaring and no thought is given as to how they’re supposed to integrate into modern society.

“But wait,” you might argue, “They’re mercenaries. Many of them, like Luguselwa, probably don’t care about the emperors.” Sure. There’s definitely a long history of mercenary troops not being the most loyal, especially when there isn’t a clear leader. However, I have to bring up the fact that when Nero died (in actual history) the German guard was disbanded by one of the following emperors due to their perceived loyalty to Nero, even in death. (Also, because the guard was disbanded for their loyalty, which was a major insult, the entire tribe revolted.) That’s a bit of an oversimplification of ancient history, but with the constant reminders we have in the series about the Germani’s loyalty, this ending just seems like a cheap move by Riordan. He might as well have had them all turn to dust one last time with the dissolution of the Triumvirate’s power. Also, if you even entertain the possibility that someone could step forward to take control of Triumvirate Holdings, I feel that the Germani would serve whoever that was.

On the purely practical side of things, please try to imagine thousands of (possibly illiterate) barbarians adjusting to modern life with zero help. I’m not saying it’s impossible, considering the amount of time they’ve been around (and how they seem to legally exist, as evidenced by Luguselwa being Meg’s legal guardian), but it’s still a stretch of the imagination with how Riordan characterized them throughout the series.

TL;DR

To wrap it up, you just can’t make villainy this pervasive, throw out some guesses as to how things will work out fine, and pretend the world can just move on. Triumvirate Holdings isn’t a snake that dies when you cut its head off; it’s a hydra. The life that almost everyone involved in Triumvirate Holdings lived makes them who they are. Not everyone will end up like Meg, especially considering the sheer number of people impacted. I know that all of this isn’t really Riordan’s concern, that he couldn’t have covered even half of this if he wanted to, but gods does it bother me.

#trials of apollo #toa #tower of nero #tower of nero spoilers #triumvirate holdings #long post #filodox!#I'm sorry for going off about this but I had to #I'm not trying to be cynical #I just really love Triumvirate Holdings #I'm the kid who won't let the company die #I'm suing CHB for property damage #I apologize for the quality of my writing btw #I gave up trying to edit bc I would never be happy with it

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retroateez · 3 years

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Prophecy - Chapter Sixteen

words; 2729

prophecy masterlist

tag list; @hewwo-from-the-other-side

"What are you doing?"

The book crashes heavily onto the stone floor, your arms darting out in a panicked effort to catch it. Hopelessly, you watch as it clatters loudly, though as it hits the ground, it falls shut, not allowing the intruder to see the contents of the page.

"Iris? What are you doing down here?"

You peek upwards, and you see the confused figure of San standing before you, bewildered.

But you can't answer him, all too consumed by the fizzling feeling darting through your body. The burning from before simmering to a halt like a cauldron taken away from roaring flames. Your breathing becomes erratic and heavy, a weight pressing down on your chest rendering you in tears.

"Oh gods," San mumbles and rushes to your figure, mimicing your own position of sitting on your knees. "Oh gods, oh gods."

You kneel, trembling and yet somehow completely motionless opposite San.

"Iris?" he calls to you gently. "Can I touch you?"

You don't register the movement, but you assume you must've nodded, as San slowly reaches out and places both of his palms on your cheeks, lifting your head up and forcing your streaming eyes to look into the concerned, inky wells of his own.

"Breathe slowly, okay? Slowly... There you go." San slows his own breathing down, allowing you to match the rhythm and soothe the manic pace your lungs were working at.

A few minutes pass, and your breathing returns to it's original pace. San is still sat across from you, his hands in his lap as he waits for you to explain what on earth just happened.

"I'm so tired of feeling useless..." you frown, and pull your knees up to your chest, hugging them tightly to your body. "It's my fault everybody is involved in this mess, and they only let me help when they need it.

"I thought maybe... maybe if I learnt something useful and showed them that I am capable then they would be forced to listen to me." Sniffling, you wipe the tears from your eyes with the sleeve of your shirt.

"I know how you feel." San sighs, and you study his frown. His cold, defensive demeanour from the last few weeks melting away and being replaced with a sadder, vulnerable version of him.

"I know that I'm the court jester," he continues. "But I'm more than just jokes and silly costumes. I can do much more than that, and... and I wish people would let me prove that to them."

"It isn't fair." You whine.

"Life isn't fair." San agrees.

"You won't... tell anyone about this, will you?" You ask timidly after a few moments silence.

"Were you doing anything bad?" He asks.

You shake your head. "Just studying." You weren't technically lying. Just concealing the truth.

"Alright," San nods. "I won't say anything. But I better not catch you doing it again."

He stands up and brushes the dirt from his knees, then extends a rough palm out towards you. Gratefully, you take it, quickly bundling up Yunho's book and clutching it to your chest to conceal it from San's view.

"I hope you're prepared for the ball tomorrow," San says suddenly. "If your dancing is as shocking as it was the other day then there's zero hope for you."

"I'll be fine. Wooyoung'll teach me how to dance."

San rolls his eyes and shrugs, telling you that he'll see you around and that you should go to bed before somebody else catches you. You watch him leave, peering at his raven black hair bouncing as he walks until he was finally out of view.

It's not until you hear the distance clunk of the door closing that you release a breath you didn't know you were holding. You grip slackens on the book and your arm muscles sigh in relief. Letting go of the book, you study your right hand curiously, turning it over to examine your palm and fingers, trying to remember the fizzing feeling in your blood.

The tingling had stopped now, only the tiniest remnant of power was left in your body, slowly dissipating until it disappeared entirely. Never in your life had you expected to feel something like that, something so exciting and yet so dangerous. Staring down at your outstretched hand, you imagined red hot trails of angry, bubbling lava, slowly seeping into the crevices between your fingers and wrapping down your wrist, crawling down the expanse of your forearm.

It felt... good.

But nobody else can know, you remind yourself. If Yunho found out you stole his book, he'd kill you. If Yeosang found out you were learning magic, he'd kill you. You didn't want to think about what Wooyoung would do.

You figured that anybody detecting magic from the castle wouldn't be a problem, concluding that there's no way you'll be able to produce any substantial power that could be detected. Yeosang had told you that anybody could do magic, but only certain people could wield the chaos enough to do any damage. There was no way you would be able to do that. Besides, you were teaching yourself, so there's definitely no chance of anyone being able to rat you out.

You tuck the book under your arm, and start the quiet creeping back to your room.

Nobody will catch you. You won't let them.

-----

"I really don't- Ow! I really don't see why I have to wear this ghastly thing." You grunt in pain as the poor woman behind you tugs harshly at your outfit.

She's got a foot on your lower back and she yanks at the strings of the corset that is built into your - admittedly, very beautiful - dress. It is an incredibly elegant, sky blue silk gown that grazes the wooden floor beneath you. Complete with flowing sleeves that end past your fingertips, made of a crystal blue, sheer material that makes you feel like a princess of a fairy kingdom in a land very, very far from Ateez.

The sheer fabric also lays atop the baby blue silk of the skirt, with small, rose pink butterflies sewn into them at various points. The bodice is tightly laced both at the front and the back, luckily the neckline doesn't sweep too low, only showing your collarbones.

"Because, His Majesty says you have to." The woman, named Callonetta, tells you. "Besides, you look wonderful in this dress."

She's right too. You do look amazing in the gown, but you frown at yourself as you catch your own gaze in the mirror ahead of you. Inspecting your right arm, clad in ocean blue sleeve, and admiring how serene your blood feels compared to the way it was angrily boiling not even a whole day ago. Your gaze falls onto one of the light pink butterflies stitched to the bodice, the way it's wings have been poised make it look like its about to take flight, rip its tiny little legs free of its string prison and soar out the open window.

But of course, it can't. Because it isn't real, it's fake body pinned down to the bodice and you imagine it wriggling and writhing in pain as the seamstress pushes her needle into its frail wings. Such pain caused only to look beautiful. Totally restricted, unable to live life the way it was intended to be; free, happy, uncontrolled.

Another sharp jerk of the bodice strings from behind snaps your attention back to the mirror, allowing you to survey yourself properly.

Your hair, braided tightly and pinned back to form a crown around the base of your skull, with small curls pulled out to frame the sides of your face. Tied together with a sparkling silver circlet, the sides hidden under the expanse of hair, the metal twisting together to form a intricate design that presses against your forehead. In the center, encased in silver, is a single, circular sapphire that glitters in the candlelight everytime you move. Small, yet detailed silver leaves surround the gorgeous gem, and you even notice tiny, metal roses trailing up the sides of the circlet and disappearing underneath your hair.

You wonder if the late Queen had a tiara or crown as impressively beautiful as your circlet.

"The circlet belonged to Her Majesty," Callonetta informs you suddenly, as if she could read your thoughts. "This was the one she wore when she and the King announced the birth of King Hongjoong."

You could imagine how graceful Hongjoong's mother had looked. Radiant from the miracle of childbirth, tired yet still regal and proud of her newborn son. Sapphire circlet glistening in the rainbow coloured light of the main hall.

"What about this dress?" You whisper.

Somehow, you couldn't picture the Queen wearing a gown such as this. Sure, it was stunning, but for a Queen, much too simple. And yet you couldn't ignore the definitive lack of women in the castle, Callonetta and the cook being the only two you had met thus far.

"Heavens no," Callonetta scoffs, throwing her messy, ginger plait over her shoulder as she refocuses her attention on tying your bodice, "This dress was made for you specifcally. His Majesty has a personal tailor, he will refuse to wear anything made by anyone else."

Your face flushes at that, an embarrasing, startling shade of pink that puts the butterflies on your dress to shame.

"The tailor is renowned for his work," she continues, "All his garments have his printed emblem inside the back of the neckline, a small, roaring bear. Nobody knows why he chose a bear of all things, but it certainly is striking."

Your mind is cast back to the bear at the inn you and Yeosang stayed at on the journey to Wooyoung's. It all seemed so long ago now.

“Did you hear that?” you whisper to Yeosang.

“It’s just a bear.” He mumbles in response, making you jump slightly because you thought he was still asleep.

"A bear?” you hiss.

“I know,” he says sarcastically. “Un-bear-lieveable.”

You retrieve one of your pillows and launch it at his figure, smirking triumphantly when he grunts in surprise.

“That was a terrible joke.” you complain and bury yourself back into your improvised bed.

“Whatever,” Yeosang yawns. “just go to sleep, we’ll be meeting the astrologer tomorrow so you need to rest.”

Finally deciding to listen to the mage, you squeeze your eyes shut tightly in hopes you’ll fall asleep quickly. Luckily, you do just that, sleeping peacefully and dreaming about the bear in the forest outside. He’s wounded, bleeding heavily from a nasty gash on his neck and panting in pain. You reach out to help him, but of course it’s just a dream; he’ll be okay. You hope.

You think about that bear more often that you'd like to admit, imagining his large, brown eyes, watery with pain and the wounded yelping haunted your dreams.

A final, squeezing tug of the laces and Callonetta sighs in relief. She tells you that you're ready for the ball, and that you should wait in the dressing room until somebody comes to get you. Before you can ask who, or when, she hurries out of the door and you hear her shuffling quickly down the stone hallway.

Once again, you stare miserably at yourself in the mirror, wishing that you could attend the ball in your typical white shirt and plain black breeches.

Maybe Wooyoung is right though, perhaps the ball will bring some enjoyment into your life, away from all the secrets and worrying and death.

You suspect that nobody will be coming to get you for quite some time, so you perch yourself at the window seat opposite the mirror. Reaching under the cushions, you retrieve Yunho's book, which you expertly hid before Callonetta arrived.

Flicking through the pages, you spot the spell you learnt yesterday and your heart freezes between your ribs. Holding your breath, you decide to ignore that one, and flip the pages eagerly. Eventually, you come across a double page spread that piques your interest. You can't decipher Yunho's messy drawing of the hand movements this time (perhaps for the best), but you can make out his scrawled handwriting of 'circular' just below it.

"Aevon bleidd." you whisper aloud, the language feeling foreign on your tongue.

After repeating the phrase multiple times, you realise you must have nailed the pronounciation as there's a dull pounding in your skull, and your fingertips are turning a concerning shade of blue. From your nails all the way down to the tip of your elbow, you feel a travelling freezing feeling flowing through your veins like a great and powerful river. Your veins pulsate a vivid blue, much like the way Yeosang's thundered with lightening the first time you met him.

“I’m a mage,” he had told you suddenly over porridge one morning. He clenched his large palms into equally large fists and laid his forearm upon the table, facing upwards towards the canopy of jade leaves above your heads. “You see those blue lines? They’re called veins, and our blood runs through these.”

You nodded silently, unsure of what his point was.

“In mine, flows blood as well as chaos,” he explained. “Almost anybody can do basic magic, provided you’re taught by the right people.”

Using his other hand, he ran a gentle finger down the stripe of his prominent veins, and the cerulean bumps bubbled and boiled into a startling shade of sunlight. You squinted in awe; you swore you could see a lightning storm rattling around inside of his arm.

“But only those born into chaos possess the abilities to truly wield it.” Yeosang snapped his fingers, and the bolts of lightning in his veins returned to the cool, sea blue they were before.

Snapping the book shut abruptly, you clutch your forearm to your chest and squeeze your eyes tightly shut. This is wrong, you think. Everything about this is wrong. Is magic supposed to feel this way? Make your insides wriggle and writhe and struggle in a desperate attempt to become your outsides? Yeosang had said only certain people had the ability to properly wield chaos into magic, did this mean that you were one of those people?

Ordinary peoples veins didn't stream like rivers.

Ordinary peoples blood didn't burn like fire.

Stuffing the book back between the cushions, you stare out of the window at the castle gardens below. Despite spending the majority of your time amoungst the flowers, it is only from up in the window you notice the penstemons - beardtongues, representative of bravery - arranged to spell 'HJ'.

It was surreal, your life, when you truly sat down to think about it. How barely a handful of months ago you were just a poor, lowly thief stealing bread to make it through the day, and now here you were, sitting in a dressing room within the castle of the most powerful kingdom on the planet, wearing a dress and jewels so expensive you felt dizzy at the thought.

Surrounded by elves, mages, kings, bards, magic and with all of those came danger.

A light tapping on the door, then the creaking of the door slowly opening catches your attention, and you look over to see a very proud looking kingsguard.

"I must say little thief," Seonghwa glides towards you with a small smile on his perfect face, watching you attentively through his narrow eye, the other eye obstructed by his hair. "You do scrub up incredibly well."

Hopping off the window seat, you offer Seonghwa a grin of your own. His hair, as always, is not a single bit out of place, shiny black and hanging over his left eye. Uniform pristine and blacker than the night sky, with various medals and badges pinned to each breast.

"I could say the same about you, sire." You mockingly sweep down into a curtsey, and Seonghwa scoffs.

"Enough joking around," he says seriously. "Are you ready to go? His Majesty is just finishing his preparations, you must take your seat at the head table before he arrives."

Your blood runs cold, sudden panic sprinting through your body, and you're not sure whether this feeling is worse than the spells or not.

You nod, ignoring the anxieties, trusting Wooyoung's words and making a silent pact with yourself to have a good time.

"Excellent." Seonghwa holds his arm out to you, and with a final smirk leads you towards the door.

"Your elven prince awaits, m'lady."

hi! sorry this took so long to get out, things have been very busy lately! thank u for reading and i hope u enjoyed! once again, the language for the spell is taken from the witcher 3′s elder speech!

#hongjoong #seonghwa #yeosang #san #wooyoung #mingi #jongho #yunho #retroateez #medieval!ateez #ateez #kpop #ateez au #ateez x reader

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