Lovely Lie

At some point, HK-47 manages to involve itself in a basic conversation in English with variously accented people.

The residents throw a party for its achievement.

HK-47 laments that the party does not involve shooting people.

Harry obliges it by shooting it with a makeshift hand-catapult with small stones as the ammunition.

The robot-head whinges for him to stop, and it feels most awesome, nearly on par with the completion of the spell a team has been working on all this while, the news of which is delivered to him at the same time by the team members themselves.

He does stop, though. He is not a bully.

“If you behaved, I might try to find you a body,” he throws in after it has witnessed him testing the spell, by summoning any lost coins lying round the townhouse that the American man – Ewan Grady – and his family have been keeping for House Potter, which is nestled in another trunk alongside any “loose” properties that are relatively “small”, and watching as various notes and coins appear on the spot of floor his wand has tapped, as if growing and reproducing from that central area.

The fervent, abject plea the conditional promise nets him makes him pause from admiring the haul along with Ewan and the other members of the spell-making team and stare at the robot-head. Because this reaction is far more intense than HK-47’s attempts to get itself a weapon.

But then, is it really surprising? Being so helpless, under the total mercy of unknown people with barely known powers….

He purses his lips and nods to himself. `Later, if it does behave.`

And, with that, he goes on to planning out any real summoning with the team, then with the representatives of his people at large. Because, given the fact that he is far below a thousands-level and planet-wide city in a futuristic galaxy, not just in a – surprisingly – modestly sized home, they must carefully prepare all the parameters he’ll need to put into the spell, and a good spot to focus the summoning on, and any additional spells they will need to both protect them and mask the activity from any outside observer. It won’t do to reach too far and drain himself, after all, or bury himself alive under so many items, or summon dangerous things that none of them knows how to handle safely, or atract any attention during the summoning with all the appearing and clattering and have it spread out to individuals who would like to exploit them, or have the more delicate things crushed by oncoming heavy ones.

Yup, lots to consider, and debate, and plan for, and execute.

In the end, what they end up doing are: The Black farm’s ward specialist – and it’s just like the Blacks to have a ward specialist retained to maintain the borders of a farm! – wards the space surrounding the tent area, a hundred metres to the left and a hundred metres to the right as well as all the involved ceiling and floor space to be safe, for silence and general disinterest. Another “ward bubble” is set just outside of it to house Nada, who is entrusted with the pack that contains, among others, the tent and all the trunks in it, with all the protections, and with the silencing part – and only that – linked to the far-larger bubble. Her task in this venture is to keep the pack and herself safe, to take care of the latter should the venture prove fatal to everyone within the other ward bubble, and to be a lookout in case of oncoming trouble. And, to complete the arrangement, Harry has entrusted Teddy personally to Ewan’s family before the tent was packed up, given that Teddy enjoys their company and his godfather needs to pay full attention on a very risky summoning in the meantime.

And then a team of house-elves – that many never knew were there! – gleefully attack the corridor within the ward bubble with banishing charms and cleaning spells: banishing the things encrusting the floor and walls and ceiling first, to a space on the far side of the bubble, then cleaning all the revealed space. Then, as they have their well-deserved rest in the expanded trunk they came from, which Harry then shrinks and slips into a pocket of the pack in Nada’s keeping, it’s time for the summoning team to take their positions and prepare themselves – and it’s a team, indeed, as everyone has unanimously voted against Harry doing this by himself, which still baffles him until now, but… eh.

Aleksei the ward specialist stands nearest where Nada is, keeping an eye on both ward bubbles. Harry, with HK-47 perched and stuck to a high stool someone donated for this venture beside him, takes his position on the spot that so recently housed the tent, inside the convenient nook that turns out to have held a door, if now a warped as well as welded-and-rusted-shut one. Four more witches and wizards stand at each an angle from each other, tasked to help with the immediate sorting for their respective quadrans if necessary, and otherwise to funnel the finds on their respective quadrans to the expanded bags each of them holds. And two more casters familiar with this spell that are used to casting powerful spells stand ready at the far end of the ward bubble, ready to help either Harry or the four sorters. HK-47 itself is there to spot for unfamiliar troubles before the said troubles could trouble the magical beings, such as a vial of dubious content, an active but discarded bomb, or – worse – a half-baked one.

And then they begin. With Harry summoning money that is not counterfit. With increasingly large summoning area, when the four sorters indicate that they can still handle the load and HK-47 indicate no trouble to be had from the various forms of currency that are forming a larger and larger and larger hill on the middle of the corridor in front of him.

Harry has to swap roles with one of the backup casters, then, has he needs to catch his breath and regain some of his energy via a rejuvenating potion, one of three that are in unbreakable vials in his pocket for just this eventuality, same as the other casters and sorters and their single warder.

The new caster – Celine, from the Potter Vineyard that used to be in France – now casts for gems, jewels and jewellery, based on her own jewel-making hobby, which she argued could tell the viewer from which era or culture those come from. The bonus is: They can probably sell these to add to their collective funds for just in case their own stores and fresh produces run out some time, as it’s turned out that they need to feed more than a thousand beings from the hundred or so big and small Black and Potter properties that used to sprawl all over the world. A pod of sea-farm-tending merfolk, a few troops of house-elves that used to tend various homes, a flock of veelas, and two packs of werewolves – from the Potter farm, those – included.

The last caster, Abdul, one of the workers in a desert farm owned by the Blacks that used to be in Egypt, is a very avid reader and reminds Harry bittersweetly of Hermione. And Aleksei must carefully but insistently wrestle him away for a breather when he refuses to stop the flow of magic into the latest area parameter of summoning, after seeing the many books, rolls and loose pieces of various makes piling up in front of him, which is the third category they all agreed to summon, in hope of finding a clue to how they can get out of this place.

Harry huffs to that and glares reprovingly at the tired and disgruntled bookworm. But time is a-ticking, so he proceeds with his next items to be summoned, which could potentially be dangerous, namely precious metals. Such metals could be radioactive, after all, or perhaps they could easily evaporate – who knows? – or… not a few other variables, in this galaxy where space travel is expected, and where they are all standing in a planet-spanning city that has been the central hub and melting pot of the said galaxy for thousands of years. So he relies heavily on HK-47 to spot for him, and just filters through his magic for the summoning, hence creating a smaller trickle of various coins and bars and ingots and powders and nuggets and… pipes?

Anyway, thankfully, HK-47 says nothing but to advise on how best to store the powders and smaller nuggets.

And then it is Celine’s turn again, and she summons intact clothes and accessories, “To go with ze zhems, Lord Potter, and zomeone could imitate the patterning for our future outzide clozhes.”

Well, at least some of the results of her summoning are interesting? And she gracefully bows out when she is too tired to continue?

Aleksei determines that Abdul is not recovered enough to go on, though, for the latter’s next round of summonings. So, by consensus of the rest of the team, he takes up the role and summons through a pre-written meticulous list of commonly used potion ingredients, in search of possible replacements if not perfect matches, but only those are still living and uncontaminated. Again, in case they run out some time, or suddenly have a need for large quantities of potions for any reason. Better safe than sorry, after all. Besides, they curretnly only have one farm for magical plants and animals meant for potion ingredients, which must supply all of them.

And, surprisingly, the summonings net not a few magical plants, seeds and seedlings, also a few small magical animals, although some of the load are recognised by the magic as replacement ingredients instead of perfect matches.

This way, they also find the hard way that summoning in a very large area is as exhausting as if each summoning nets a big amount of items. Fortunately Aleksei is also more reasonable than Abdul about stopping, and he has nicked the vial of rejuvenating potion from the latter that was indeed meant for this round, for he then bows out and quickly downs the potion.

And then it’s Harry’s last turn for this session, and he could choose to summon any of the previous item categories or a similar one.

He’s been missing Teddy sorely for the last round or so, though, so he chooses neither and comes up with a new category entirely. A risky one, admittedly, but he has the feeling that this will end up a good thing somehow, so he explains it to his teammates, and all of them brace for unexpected outcomes.

“Things outside of the ones already within this ward bubble that beings who lost or had to discard or abandon them sorely loved” is a rather vague, general term, after all, and the results will no doubt match it.

But they are all curious, morbidly so.

And, yes, the results are indeed quite varied. And few for such a draw on his core. And he has to stop before he ends up like Abdul.

And all ten of them end up staring mutely at the… things… lying on the crumbling-concrete floor of the corridor: a possible spiral hairtie that is in truth only a fragile-looking spiral-shaped wire by now, a shockingly intact… battle axe?… with a large, suspicious stain on its tarnished metal blade and wooden handle, a chopped-up someone that is not human even through… all that… arriving with the axe and a… very old, very large wooden chest stained the same colour as the axe and the… body parts, a large leather pouch with unknown contents, a very crumbled cloth, and an intact skeleton that is still clad in armour from head to toe that is totally unlike anything on earth, but which, after a pause, HK-47 bemusedly but surely identifies as a “Mandalorian”.

“Lord Potter.” Aleksei’s voice is overly loud and odd after HK-47’s blunt pronouncement, after all the clanking and clattering of… these. “Vhat did you tink ov vhen you summoned… this?”

And the addressee can only stiffen up and swallow air past his dry, dry mouth and down his dry, dry throat, at first.

And then, `I wanted Teddy, badly,` he acknowledges it to himself. But only after a few more reflexive swallows that just net him even-dryer mouth and throat is he able to voice it to his teammates. And now his heart is churning with embarrassment mixed with horror and sick realisation.

Because, if what Aleksei has implied is true, he has inadvertently added another variable to the summoning, which managed to alter it during the process so that he got… these. And these seem to have a “family” theme given that variable, namely longing thoughts of cuddling and playing with Teddy again. Even the axe and its probable victim so near the box could be interpreted as someone stuffing a loved one inside the box to hide the latter and dying to the axe in the process. And he is familiar indeed with this sad, gruesome story, although not to this level of gore and violence. It’s how his parents and godfather died, after all.

And now he is morbidly curious and frightened of what might be inside that large box… or that large pouch, for that matter.

Well, he is apparently not the only one feeling so, for Aleksei then offers to check on the wooden chest and the leather pouch to see what they contain, in a tone that is all at once tense, worried and flummoxed.

When Harry gives the ward specialist his approval, Aleksei directs everyone to stand as far away as possible from the two items in concern, taking the rest of the macabre and otherwise depressing finds with them. And then the man isolates the box and the pouch in each its own ward bubble that doesn’t overlap with the other, this time geared more towards containment of those inside and protection for those outside.

He goes for the pouch, first, with a slew of detection spells that makes Harry determined to learn them as soon as possible, given how useful it is for something like this, especially when the last spell causes a ghostly image of what’s inside to appear atop the pouch and hover there for a moment. Then he proclaims, “It is save. No spells on it. No interaction vit de detection spells. No bad or harmvul substances as vell. It has only precious metals and stones inside. De top ov de pouch seem to be cut ov, so dis probably vell dovn when de carrier had to run.”

`And a family long, long ago probably suffered for the lack of this pouch, either way, and we can’t help them from here,` Harry continues for himself, grimacing. `Yup. It’s a bad, bad, bad decision to nose into the past like this. Better do something much more impersonal, next… if there is a next we all can agree on, though.`

The grimace deepens. Because he can see very well how shaken his teammates are, and it’s not just because of the physical exertion they have been undergoing this… `…Oh, how many hours has it been? Does anybody keep the time? Oh, no, I hope Teddy isn’t making trouble for the Gradies.`

Sighing, he watches as Aleksei dismisses the ward bubble round the pouch and physically goes over to pick it up and pass it to one of the sorters. Too tired to do it magically, he reckons. And really, he doesn’t feel good, himself, after spending so much magic and drinking three rejuvenating potions in just one continuous event.

Still, there is the matter of the bodies, the axe and the box to resolve, as the maybe hairtie and the maybe blanket don’t have any significance in comparison.

But the paints on the “Mandalorian”’s armour are too faded to see any details of, by now, and the colours themselves are only blobs or streaks of different shades of dirty. All they can say is that the metal of the armour pieces is somehow different from the one in the pieces attached to the probable victim of the axe, and all HK-47 can say about the identity of the poor chopped-up being is that they seem to have belonged to a species called “taung”.

Also, Aleksei has somehow managed to trace a detection spell from the stain on the wooden chest to the “taung” and the axe, and this just cements Harry’s theory of what might be inside the container.

It makes him even sicker, too, and wish to see what’s protected so zealously even more, which in turn makes him feel horrible for his morbid nosiness, trespassing on something so sacred.

And, judging by how Aleksei is now raiding Abdul’s third rejuvenating potion and gulping it down before approaching the box with such a complicated look on his face, Harry is not alone feeling this.

It’s a cold, cold comfort.

Which evaporates completely when, after a few first detection spells that seem somewhat different from those used for the pouch, Aleksei quietly proclaims that the wooden chest is a rudimentary stasis box, which has been surrounded and permeated by a blood ritual, and its occupants are still alive.

Celine bursts into tears.

Nada throws up.

Abdul faints.

And Harry himself sways on his feet, feeling suddenly chilled and increasingly far, far away. In fact, those three reactions of his teammates are the only things he catches before he barely hears anything and can’t see even what’s before him.

And then there’s an increasingly sharp smell bothering him in his floatiness, and there’s something – no, more than just one thing – squeezing him, and… someone?… seems to be calling him, so he drags himself the best he can out of the floaty, clammy sensation.

And he finds himself slumped and squeezed tight, sandwiched upright in-between two of the sorters – `Alina and… oh, Novi.` – who seem to have been calling his name alongside the others for… some time, with the third – Rangga – holding the smelling salt up against his nose.

`Oh, it wouldn’t do, would it? Can’t burden them more!`

So, “I’m sorry,” is the first thing he says – well, slurs – and straightening up – or trying to, rather – is the first thing he does.

And all he gets for the effort are entreaties for him to stay still and recover, an offer to continue this some other time… and Aleksei’s offer to continue now so that he will not be haunted by this throughout his recovery period, which nets the poor but helpful man some strong words indeed.

In the end, he bargains that he will rest – truly rest – after this, if Aleksei would continue, please?

And, “No!” the usually composed and quiet, even timid Nada squawks in response, her accent now thicker than ever and her English far less impeccable than before. “No. You say blood ritual. What – how to break blood ritual? Please no Lord Potter if you want break blood ritual!”

Well, she’s spot on about his intention… and, judging by how silent Aleksei is, the answer of what it takes to influence the blood ritual in any way is not good, or at least not so good.

Still, there are living beings trapped in stasis inside that box for however many centuries or even millennia it’s been!

And then Aleksei offers to check if there’s a special locking magic or mechanism or a combination of both keeping the box shut, what keeps the stasis going and how to disrupt it and if it’s wise, and also what’s inside by magic if possible, so they could see if it is worth trying to influence or even nullify the blood ritual or not. And the team agrees. And the spell is cast. And… “Oh, hell,” Harry whispers.

Because the ghostly image portrayed above the box is that of a handful of eggs, each as big or perhaps bigger than his head, stacked on top of one another, with other things tucked in-between to provide support and buffering for each of them, and a child – or perhaps a small being – is curled up small on one corner of it instead of an egg.

Well, but being not much larger than one of the eggs, curled up like that, rather suggests that the form is that of a child indeed instead of a small adult.

A child. A living child. In stasis.

“Oh, hell!”