The Strangeness of the Fae
1. The Train
The train chugs along between the low hills like a black snake, belching smoke and steam. Steely clouds scud low across the heavy sky and a small breeze blusters about the wooded dells dotting the valleys.
The air smells bright and sharp with an impending storm.
Within one of copses, a gathered cluster of horses shift and stamp while the riders blow on their hands, trying to stay warm. Their directives were rather firm: no spellwork whilst they wait, lest their quarry senses any of their magic.
The Commander sits hunched over his horse at the front of the small cavalry unit, staring at the train winding its way ever closer. His fur lined red cloak sits open, draped across his shoulders, steaming slightly in the cool air, a faint glimmer of purple light hovering and streaking around him.
The Aurors grumble amongst themselves, resentment slowly building. ‘Fae freak,’ one mutters. ‘Unnatural,’ another one grouses.
Suddenly, the Commander sits up straight, reins creaking under his tight grip as he kicks his horse into a gallop. The rest of the unit spurs into action, following him in a thundering sprint towards the train, all thought of their resentments left behind in the woods.
No matter any discomfort with the Commander’s peculiarities, they have each been hand selected for this unit and they’ll follow him into any situation. Despite their discomforts, they trust the Commander with their lives.
2. Bodies
The railcar is full of bodies, stacked two to three deep in some places, strewn about the car where they fell, twisted and torn.
The air burns with sharp copper.
She sighs, flicking blood from her hands.
It wasn’t supposed to have been such a bloody mission, it was only meant to be a recovery, just a quick trip through the moors; but now she’s here wiping sweat from her brow and blood from her hands.
She stares morosely out the open car door.
The countryside whips by, a smear of brown and grey.
Suddenly, a flash of purple catches her attention and she squints through the roar of wind rushing by. There’s something in the brush—a glimpse of charging animals, red cloaks, and a gleaming purple light: pursuant riders atop horseback!
The light is familiar, but it just can’t be him! What it will mean if it is? He will be quite mad with it, surely?
The chasing horsemen start firing suddenly, and she's pulled from her shock as instinct takes over, rolling aside, dodging the spellfire. Stray spells rip into the side of the railcar, punching holes in the sheet metal as a mass of purple webbing weaves across the car doors, trapping her in.
Overwhelmed—all shouted words, roaring wind, and clanking railcar.
Dodge, dodge, dodge!
Growling in frustration, anger takes over, boiling out into pale flames flowing from her hands. She hurls white fireballs at her pursuers but they splash impotently against the purple netting.
Fury pricks hotter behind her shoulder blades.
Dodging the next round of spellfire, she slowly reaches for their magic, feeling for their intent, a feral grin pulling across her face. With a shout, she yanks their magic out from under them and half of the calvary falls behind as their spells misfire, splashing out at one another, or backfiring upon the caster theirself.
The netting can’t stop real magic and she laughs, giddy at the result. But the effort of the sabotage also leaves her panting and she braces herself upright, sagging against the wall.
The rest of the riders fall back away from the open car door, clearly shaken by her subversion of their spells.
The leader, the man trailing purple light, however, pulls closer and with a guttural shout throws himself from his horse, leaping into the train. He passes through the netting with no issue and lands softly in a low crouch right in front of her.
She stares at him.
It is him. How... startling.
She shifts from her slump into a nonchalant lean, crossing her arms and raising her chin.
“I wasn’t expecting you, Potter.”
“What a warm greeting. And it’s Commander Potter, now.”
Then he looks pointedly at the dead bodies.
“They were like this when I got here,” she says, flatly.
“Right."
The air is charged, small purple lights start to streak towards the man, only moving about in their peripherals.
“Stop that.”
“It’s not exactly something I can control.”
She snorts. “You did leave in the middle of our lessons.”
“Again, not exactly something I could control.”
“Right,” she mimics.
A heavy pause hangs in between them, before they both whirl into action, purple streaks meeting white flames, wands flashing, spells clashing in midair and splashing off of translucent shields. They spin across the narrow space, their feet sliding amid the blood and gore from all the corpses, their steps precise and practised, indicative of hours upon hours of training.
In a suspension of action they stand apart, breathing heavy.
He grins.
She glowers. “You still favour your right side.”
With a bark of laughter, he flings back into action, feinting right before sending a wave of spellfire from his left side.
She grins. “Nice try.”
“You still forget, creativity is the best weapon.” With a yank of his wand, seven of the corpses jerk upright, stuttering in a lolling lunge towards her, their wet hands grabbing at her arms.
She shouts.
White flames ripple like feathers down her arms, bursting from her back like angelic wings—and the inferi burst apart into hot ash.
A flash of green light speeds towards her, faster than she can react. She freezes in that imperceptible moment, too shocked, taken aback. He’s trying to kill her!
But the curse splashes weakly against her chest.
They pull apart again, anger quickly displacing her shock.
“Well,” he says, straightening and stowing his wand back up his sleeve, “I never was able to find any disgust about you, much less hate.”
Scowling, she growls, “that doesn’t excuse you from trying.”
“Oh please, we both know I can’t kill you.”
“Do we?” she retorts, anger twisting her words into derision.
A shout interrupts their conversation drawing their attention outside. The small rolling hills drop off into a steep cliff as the train heads out onto a long spanning bridge, but before the ground can fully fall off, one of the Aurors (in a somewhat heroic move) copies her commander and flings herself into the train car as well. The woman lands with a roll and comes up firing, hurling spells towards Gabrielle.
Potter takes a single step towards his Auror and in a quick motion and a curt syllable, he cuts her neck and she collapses to the ground, falling into a pile of dead bodies.
He swears, running his hand through his hair angrily, kicking one of the corpses behind him. “She would have though; she would have killed you. I’ve taught them. Hatred. You know how it is.”
She stares at him.
“Where is this train going?”
“You didn’t have to kill her.”
“Gabrielle,” he says, urgently, “where are you taking this train?”
“You could have just stunned her.”
“Gabrielle!”
She huffs, folding her arms. “It isn’t so much about where it’s going, as to what it was carrying.”
“Ah,” he looks around, “I suppose they didn’t want you to have it.”
She shrugs. “I suppose.”
“Did you get it?”
She shrugs again.
He lets out a short laugh. “Right. Well, let’s go.” He snaps his wand in two and throws the pieces to the floor then turns and holds his hand out to Gabrielle.
“What the hell! Now they’re going to think I killed her!”
“Well, I can’t have them assuming that I killed her, can I? Look, you already killed all of these…” he gestures around, tightly, “these poor souls. What’s one more body to tack on?”
“She’s an Auror, they’ll never stop hunting me now!”
“Who do you think was guarding this train? They were all Aurors too.”
She curses. “And I suppose kidnapping Harry Potter is just another mark I'll have against me?”
Like the entire prat he is, he just smirks.
“I’ve really missed you, Potter,” she snaps, sarcasm burning through.
He has the actual gall to laugh, loudly.
3. A Trace of Magic
The bridge runs out below them, the train churning inevitably closer to the far side of the gorge.
“Look, the rest of my unit will be waiting on the other side. They will stop the train and storm on board. I have the feeling you don’t want to get caught—”
She cracks away, apparating off of the moving train.
He swears.
Tracking an apparation through the official path isn’t easy. It takes hours of paperwork, levels of red-taped bureaucracy, and the approval of Chadwick Bast, the grumpiest department head in the Ministry. And then, even after all of that, he would have to pour over detailed notes and graphs that are compiled across the entirety of Britain, tracking each and every apparation criss-crossed around the country.
But the Fae taught him a few useful things…
Magic leaves traces, the greater the act the more of a disturbance is left behind.
Apparation isn’t a subtle bit of magic. The apparator, through intense magical concentration, tears their way through space to move from one location to another. The tunnel they essentially create during their travel is trackable, but not through human methods.
Fae magic doesn’t work entirely as well as it should in the human world. As wild and unstructured as their magic is, it doesn’t follow the rules and logic the human universe operates under. But it can still be used. As Gabrielle had used it to shatter the spells earlier, he can now use it to follow through the fading tunnel her apparation left behind.
Fae magic is adept at unravelling the structure of human magic, but it can also be used in ways contrary to the laws of magic.
Harry closes his eyes.
There’s a roiling, foetid pit of anger and hatred that exists deep and hidden inside of him—most times he ignores it and pushes away all the feelings, denying them and their existence. But in moments like this, he’s able to remember those early days in the Fae, during his first hunt. He remembers the wild white eyes of the prey, the smell of their fear, and the heady power each killing blow brought.
This feeling is virulent. Infectious.
Fae magic exists external to the body, a wellspring deep in the earth.
His senses expand, the scent of ash and char overwhelms the coppery scent of blood, and he dives headfirst into her apparation tunnel.
4. Impotence
The ground is soft and loamy, deep brown and rich green under the heavy rainfall.
She’s waiting for him underneath a small shrub-like tree, rain streaming down the sides of her repellant spell.
He strides over wiping water from his face and eyes and regards her with a wary expression on his face. But she just smiles up at him sweetly, unperturbed.
“I knew you had it in you, Potter.”
He glowers.
“I don’t like using Fae magic,” he huffs.
“And yet,” she says, gesturing at the purple light flashing and blinking around the edges of her vision.
He actually growls at her. “I can’t control that.”
“Ah, I’ve heard that can be a common problem for some men, no need to feel so down about it.” She can’t hold back her smirk.
He glares at her so hard she can practically hear his teeth grinding in frustration.
She snickers, daintily .
The rain pours down, hissing across the moor, the stream of water down the impervious charm warbles the landscape. They stand in quiet scrutiny wrapped up in their standoff.
“You look well,” he says abruptly, relaxing from his glower into a contemplative stare.
She rolls her eyes. “I look like a bloody Fae. They’ve tangled me up. All knotted and grotesque. Your eyes are fucked.”
“I haven’t seen you in… twelve years? That’s a long time.”
She shrugs. “That has nothing to do with how I look.”
“Why are you always so obtuse? Do you have to be difficult?”
“I told you: knotted and all.”
“You seem to be functioning quite alright to me…”
“I don’t think you can be a reliable benchmark for a normal functioning person.”
“See! You’re difficult.”
“I prefer ‘pernicious.’”
“That’s a whole lot worse than just difficult…”
She shrugs again. “If the shoe fits.”
“I’m not sure if I’m okay with your deprecating attitude.”
“I’m not sure you have any right to have an opinion on my attitudes.”
“As much as I enjoy this… shouldn’t we get somewhere else? Safer?”
“ We should do nothing. I’m leaving. You can do whatever you want. I have to go back to the Fae. They need this.” She pulls the strange box out of her pocket, tossing it carelessly up and down.
“Where’s the door?” he asks, and looks around as if he’ll spot it just sitting ajar behind him.
She’s been rolling her eyes at him quite a lot, and he calls her obtuse. “Like you’d be able to spot it. I’ve got to go.” She starts to turn, about to apparate away but pauses. “I guess I may not see you again, you know how it is. I’d say it was nice to see you after all this time, but that’s not quite true. But I’m glad you’re not dead.”
“Gee, thanks, I’m glad you’re not dead as well, Gabrielle.”
Now she does apparate away, leaving Harry behind to get soaked as her impervious charm cancels. She grins at the thought.
5. A Decision
He gets fucking soaked as soon as she cracks away and the umbrella charm disappears with her. The rain is freezing, and for a moment, he allows his ire to spike and simmer until he fumes with a faint purple glow and the rain steams in a cloud around him, evaporating from the heat of his anger.
He really dislikes using Fae magic, but he’s far too cross at the moment to care or stop or really do much of anything but stalk angrily across the peatbog moor. His feet sink depressingly into the heather and sedge, steaming footprints trail behind him in between the soggy hummocks.
It’s only when his cloak starts to smoke and char, that he pulls out his backup wand and casts his own impervious charm above his head, releasing the chokehold his anger had upon him.
He stops with his indignant pacing and as his feet slowly sink into the bog he takes deep, calming breaths.
Maybe he should get back to his Aurors. Try to think up a cover story. But he had behaved quite rashly, impulsively killing Fawley… Maybe he shouldn’t return. He’s already set up the scene for his disappearance.
And that box really drags on his curiosity.
Regardless of what she says, he’s spent the past decade mapping out the different doorways and he can see them.
He pulls out the seeing stone.
Time to go back.
Back to the Fae.
6. Back
It’d been well over a decade since they last parted. So much has changed since then. He’s changed since then. She definitely has. The last he’d seen of her, she’d been a tiny child sitting astride one of the dark Fae horses, small arms wrapped around Him as they were led on their first hunt.
Now she is grown, a whole adult, no longer the timid girl he’d first met in his fourth year.
In the short time Harry had lived among the Fae he’d been profoundly and deeply changed. And this entire time she’s been stuck there (a whole decade!), he can’t imagine what it’s done to her. Her cruelty is to be expected, he supposes, the Fae couldn’t have been an easy place to grow up.
But how can everything have gone so wrong?
So many dead.
He has always liked Fawley, she is, was , a good Auror, and now she lies back in that train car with all the others.
Death has always been a part of Harry’s life. Ever since he was a child, he’s been haunted by its spectre. At Hogwarts, he’d learned all of the ways death could touch the world, getting first hand experience too many times. And with the Fae, he’d been taught how to hunt, how to hate. You can’t kill without hate, and if you want to kill something, you’d better hate it, fully.
The Fae took perverse pleasure in watching as Gabrielle and he learned how to kill without remorse, as they’d learned how to let the hatred well within them, to take over and grow until they were festering, deep and dark and dangerous, blights taken form.
Deciding to go back isn’t an easy decision. In fact, he regrets it almost immediately.
He’s forgotten the complete strangeness of the Fae. It leaks slowly out of mind the longer he’s been away.
But now, it all comes rushing back.