Chapter 5
Harry turned to the other two, stopping Ron from moving when he went to leave the protection of the cloak. “They didn’t know we were here, and I don’t want to risk them knowing before we’re ready. We need to stay under the cloak and probably in the room until he leaves the room again.” Hermione and Ron looked back at him, serious and apparently agreeing with him because he heard no argument.
“What was that?” Ron whispered.
“I have so many questions to ask him!” Hermione gushed. “I still want to know everything about this brownie thing he was talking about, too.”
“I doubt he’ll tell you, Hermione,” Harry said.
“Why not?!”
“Didn’t you hear him? He promised not to tell ‘man or wizard’ about it,” Ron replied.
“But I’m female and a witch,” Hermione said logically.
“Somehow, I think that he really meant mankind or people with magic,” Ron said drily.
“Ron!” Hermione exclaimed in frustration. “I-”
“Moving on from that,” Harry interjected, “did you see the sword he pulled out of that bag? The sword was definitely not normal, and that bag isn’t either if the way he pulled the sword out of it, and the books before that, out of it.”
“It’s probably just an undetectable extension charm on the bag,” Hermione said.
“When would he have time to pick one up? He’s new to this whole place,” Harry said. “Besides, he had it when he came here in the first place, remember?”
“We did get separated from him for a while. He could have been anywhere. And he’s definitely not new to magic, even if he is new to our world,” Ron answered.
“More than the sword and bag,” Hermione said crisply, still smarting from being unable to have her questions answered, “what was the whole Watcher thing with souls and ‘the wall’?”
“I dunno,” Ron said.
“We definitely need to watch him more closely,” Harry agreed. “Breathing fire isn’t exactly a normal thing either.”
The three were so caught up in their discussion that they failed to notice the movement of the person they were talking about. Alex had fallen asleep, but the flickering of magic in the corner pulsing more rapidly had caught at his sense of danger and woken him up. He stealthily crept towards the corner, reached out a hand, and grabbed for whatever was in the corner. His hand landed on fabric, and Alex yanked it off of whatever was there. Three stock-still and shocked frames greeted him. The cloak drifted to the floor, unnoticed by all four of them.
“How did you know we were here?” Ron sputtered. “We put silencing charms on the cloak and everything!”
“What are you doing here?” Alex asked evenly.
“How did you know we were here?” Harry asked, pressing the question.
“And what is a brownie?” Hermione added, hoping to distract him from his own question. Unfortunately for her, Alex was not going to set aside being spied on to appease some fifteen year olds, despite his own apparent age.
“What are you doing in my room at night? You knew I was here and were apparently watching me while I was sleeping just now.”
“We had to make sure you weren’t a threat. If you were, we needed to know not to trust you. Now, how did you know we were here? What are brownies? How did you do the fire stuff?” Harry asked.
“Ah, I see. You have yet to extend the barest hint of trust towards me, going so far as to spy on me on my first night in a completely new place without knowing a single person here, yet you expect me to fully trust you without question. I understand now,” Alex finished bitterly.
“No - I - we -” Ron sputtered into silence.
“I have been kidnapped from the adults I am supposed to be able to trust not once, but twice today. I have lost all respect for the adults here, found a no-good relative, and now cannot even attempt trusting my schoolmates. Frankly, I’m tired. I have a whole new world to acclimate myself to without a single person I like in sight. Swear a wizard’s oath to me that you will not discuss this event with each other or anyone or thing else, and I won’t go to the effort of changing your memory.” Alex would prefer to avoid memory modification at all costs, but allowing these three to just wander off and spill his secrets, even accidentally by being overheard, could not be allowed to happen for both his own safety and the safety of all those he held knowledge about.
“You’re crazy!” Harry almost shouted.
“Memory modification is impossible. You could take the evening from our memory, but we’d remember we were supposed to be here and be suspicious anyway,” Hermione said practically.
“Swearing on magic isn’t exactly well practiced now. It’s considered Dark because it was sometimes used to trick people into losing their own magic,” Ron said, “so I won’t be swearing any oaths today.”
“You’ll just have to let us go,” Harry said triumphantly.
Alex facepalmed. “And here I thought you three might actually have a brain cell between you. You just saw me perform magic without a wand, which all three of you have apparently been told is impossible despite performing accidental magic wandlessly as children, and you aren’t concerned about what I might be able to do other than that? However, I cannot allow you to endanger my own life and the lives of countless other beings here and elsewhere because you are unable to keep your curiosity to yourself or your mouths shut. I’m sorry.”
Alex bound them in place before they could object, question, or express the anger they felt over being called brainless. He floated some water out of a water skin taken from his bag and moved it to touch his temples and the temples of the other three to work as a conductor so that he would wipe all of their memories at once. Alex closed his eyes and entered the surface mind of the teenagers simultaneously. He ignored all of the thoughts other than those of the past couple of hours, changing the memory and accompanying thoughts to those of him reading and taking notes on his bed before leaving to go to the bathroom. In the new memory, the three took that opportunity to escape back into their own rooms, where they promptly went to bed. Alex’s magic ensured that they would accept the memory and fabricate reasonable thought based off of it before he put them to sleep, catching them with his magic before they could fall and injure themselves.
Alex settled each of the other teens into their beds and returned into his own room. The sleep that they’d entered should fuzz out the memory a bit to make it seem more normal, and it would, more importantly, prevent any brain damage from the meddling. Though he was definitely annoyed with their lack of boundaries and slightly impressed by their guts, Alex didn’t want to scramble their brains. He walked back over to the corner of his room and picked the cloak up from the ground. He’d return it before dawn, but Alex wanted to study it so that he could recognize the different magics on it in an instant. If he was followed by someone wearing this cloak or silencing charms, Alex wanted to be able to know it instantly.
Alex slipped the cloak back into Harry and Ron’s room, draping it messily in the trunk like it had just been shoved there, and carefully made his way back to his own room down the hall long before pre-dawn light tinged the sky. The magic of the cloak had been surprisingly difficult to understand. Alex couldn’t find the thing’s magic at all, though he knew it had to have some. The only thing he’d gotten from it was a faint sense that it was somehow connected to something like the wall, but that was highly improbable though possible. The silencing magic, on the other hand, had been easily understood and further unstabilized so that the next person who used the cloak would be easily overheard if the occupant wasn’t careful enough. Alex knew he’d be able to spot one and dismantle it if necessary within moments of it being used. Mind tired and emotions even more strained, Alex decided that a couple hours of sleep were actually necessary. He’d wake up to any more unusual magic or the door opening, and he really wanted to sleep right then. He could study in the morning.
Alex woke up to knocking on his door, still dressed in the previous day’s clothes. He sleepily opened the door, rubbing his eyes, and thanked the girl - probably named Ginny - for telling him that breakfast was ready. He closed the door, got changed, and opened the door to face the world while not in wrinkled clothing, setting the clothing to be cleaned in the washroom he’d added to his bag. A geeb dinged into existence before he could though, and Alex took the message. It simply read ‘BLUE’, and Alex sent back a simple note saying ‘Understood. Talk tonight at 11?’ after he paid the geed for both messages. Mr. Roberts would have to duck out of the tavern for a few minutes, but Alex doubted that trying to talk to the man earlier would be any better for either of them. He pulled the door open and walked down the stairs to the kitchen.
Alex walked through the door to find the trio talking about his book choice. He distinctly heard ‘not a threat’ and ‘just nervous and angry’ before the three noticed his presence and clammed up. Because that was definitely not going to make him curious at all. Alex decided to sit next to Ginny and struck up a casual conversation with her, asking her how she’d slept. Ginny seemed delighted to actually have someone outside of her family talking to her for once and spent a while talking to the new guy. He actually wasn’t too bad, even if the flow of conversation was sometimes a little awkward. Ginny was surprised, though, when he asked for her help in understanding something he’d read the night before.
“Wouldn’t you rather have Hermione help you?” she asked somewhat bitterly. This was the moment where the nice and rather attractive tall boy was going to abandon her for the Golden Trio, just like so many others had.
“Why would I?” Alex asked, apparently bewildered.
“She’s the top student in your year,” Ginny responded dejectedly. “I’m sure she could answer your questions better than I could.”
“Nonsense. You learned all of this too,” Alex said.
Ginny perked up a bit before deflating again. “I can’t help you with the fourth year stuff. I haven’t taken that year yet.”
“That means that you can help me with the first three years, then? I’d love to have your help,” Alex said sincerely.
“Are you sure?” Ginny asked.
“Yep!”
“I’ll help you the best I can then,” Ginny replied determinedly.
“Does right after breakfast work for you? I wrote down my questions while I was reading so that I could remember them.”
“Sure!” Ginny said.
They went back to making small talk through breakfast, and the twins jumped into their conversation sometimes with random little things like if Alex thought a desert that could turn someone into a bird would be a fun prank. The four of them had talked about that for a while, and they’d decided that the effects should last no longer than half a minute to make sure that it wasn’t cruel or too scary for the person affected. Alex washed his dishes after people started getting up from the table and met Ginny up at his room once she’d finished washing hers.
“I have no clue where the library in this house is,” Alex said sheepishly.
“Oh! It’s actually not too far from your room,” Ginny said, leading them to the library and then to the comfiest chairs in it.
“Why are some ingredients prepared in certain ways? Does it really make such a difference in the potion?” Alex asked.
“Well,” Ginny said, “yes. The different amount of area exposed changes the reaction times, and some ingredients are magical and will actually do different things based on how slowly they dissolve…”
Ginny turned out to be a really good teacher, and Alex was glad he’d asked her to help. He wanted to learn, not be interrogated under the guise of learning, and Ginny was really helping him. Ginny had surprised herself with how much she knew and could explain. She was also impressed with Alex for the depth of his questions and that he seemed to understand what she was trying to say even when her tongue tripped over itself.
“Thank you,” Alex said sincerely as they walked back to his room to drop the books and notes off before heading down to lunch.
“No problem!” Ginny replied, flushing a bit. This boy’s attention was focused solely on her, and he obviously thought she was smart enough to ask for help from, not to mention that he was taller than her and nicely muscled and exactly her type.
“Wanna do this again tomorrow morning once I’ve read some more then? You’re a really good teacher, and you helped me understand everything in a way that made sense to me.”
“Thank you! You’re a really good student too though, so I can’t take all the credit. Tomorrow morning sounds perfect,” Ginny said, fully blushing now.
“I have to say,” Alex said as they walked down the stairs, “I’m really glad to not have to clean this place.”
“It’s horrible.” Ginny shuddered. “Thank you for saving me from it!”
The two arrived in the kitchen laughing, which earned Alex an odd dirty look from Harry that he was almost tempted to call jealousy despite having absolutely no evidence of that, and they sat by the twins again. The four of them ended up chatting about a whole bunch of random things and a whole lot of ideas for prank products the twins were interested in creating. The conversation paused for a moment, and Hermione saw her opportunity and pounced.
“What are brownies? Why do you keep calling House Elves brownies?”
Alex honestly hadn’t expected her to surprise him at lunch like this, though maybe he should have. “I mistook them for something else that I’d read about in a book. Were there non-House Elves once?” he asked, directing his question to the adults at the table.
“There are whispers of creatures called High Elves, but they aren’t actually related to House Elves at all, to my knowledge” Remus responded.
“Then where did House Elves come from?” Alex asked. He wanted to know what the general population thought of as the origin story, not just what the authors of his books said.
“No one really knows, I’m afraid,” Remus said. “A few people published theories about that very question, but no one yet has figured it out. All of those theories were disproven after a closer look at history and the nature of our magic and the magic of the House Elves, though, so maybe they really are those creatures from your book!” Remus joked.
“I’d like to read that book. Can I?” Hermioned asked.
“It was just something I picked up in a library once and thought was an interesting story. I can’t remember the title, but I remember that there was magic and dragons in it. I didn’t think that magic was real at the time, so I wondered if the other things in that book were real too when I found out about magic. Do you have dragons, or are those an actual myth?” Alex asked. He didn’t enjoy lying to these people, but he had actually read about brownies in a book from a library, albeit Salinor’s library. He’d also been quite into the fantasy genre before his first adventure, so the story of reading a book with magic and dragons in it before he knew magic was real was true too. Those two books just weren’t the same book.
“Shame,” Hermione said, looking put-out. “I would have enjoyed comparing that book with one on magical creatures to see if any other creatures in it were real.”
“Dragons do exist,” Sirius said. “They live mostly on preserves now, and there are a lot of different types, but dragons are real. I’d offer to take you to a preserve, but those are dangerous. I also can’t really leave the house, so…”
Alex was still angry at the man, but he did appreciate having an actual answer to his question.
“Our brother Charlie is a Dragon Tamer in Romania,” Fred said.
“Yeah, he works on a preserve and could probably tell you all about them, if you want to owl him,” George added.
Lunch ended on the topic of dragons, and Alex walked up to his room to do some more reading. He’d learned that the dragons here were more like lizards with wings who could breathe fire instead of the magical sentient beings they were in the known lands, if he was going to trust the word of these people. He’d have to meet one himself to actually be able to tell if that was true though, considering their current track rate with the magical beings he’d met. The dragons here were generally no longer than a bus from snout tip to tail, while Alex’s own dragon form and most other mature dragons’ were about twice that in the known lands, though there was variation in size based on color, magical strength, and specialty. Alex also learned that Ginny, Fred, and George were likely to become good friends of his. Remus was willing to answer questions and seemed to know a lot about history, despite having that oddly feral and repressed looking wild magic, and Sirius was blunt and didn’t waste any time. Alex’s assessment of needing to be careful about the trio who would be in his year held strong though, so he felt let down by that.
Alex had been reading for maybe ten minutes when the ring on his necklace burned. Hurriedly, he locked his door to hopefully prevent anyone from coming in for the next four hours and tapped his clothes to turn them into tougher material. He grabbed his bag, whispered the word ‘Gringotts’ with his fist clenched tightly around the ring the goblins had given him, and held on for dear life as he was pulled through time and space navel first, oddly enough. Luckily, Alex felt the magic slowing as he got close to his destination, and he wrapped a bit of magic around himself carefully to make sure he didn’t go sprawling once the ring was done doing its thing.
A goblin lackey was waiting for him when Alex arrived and looked disappointed that he hadn’t splattered onto the ground upon arrival. The creature wordlessly led Alex through the maze of halls and back into the cave system he’d been in the day previous. Alex walked into a large cavern, a different one than the one he’d been taken to while knocked out, and found the crowned goblin and the ones with staffs gathered in a circle around an object on the floor. Alex stepped forward to see the object and took in a shocked breath.
“Last night, this thing activated somehow and started attacking the vault it was in. We’ve been trying to destroy it and have yet to succeed. Perhaps your strength will come in handy,” the crowned goblin said with a twisted smile. It had overtaken the goblin that had touched it and should do nicely to get rid of the inhumanly strong possible-wizard they were giving money to.
“As my act of assistance this calendar month according to human timekeeping, I will destroy this cup completely,” Alex said. He did not want the goblins to be able to call him again that month for not clarifying that this was the help they’d asked for, or argue that he’d been legally called according to a goblin month, or anything in that vein. “Step back.”
The goblins did so, curious at what this human was going to try to do. None of them really expected him to succeed, and when he failed, they could take the pouch and ring from his dead body. It was a win-win situation. If they were lucky, whatever was in the thing on the ground might even destroy his body too.
Alex knew that the goblins were probably hoping he would fail and be killed. Unfortunately for them, he had no intentions of letting that happen. Alex would try just stabbing the thing with Moon Slayer first. His sword had killed the soul shard last night, and if he poured enough magic into his sword, it would probably purify the thing in front of him when he stabbed it. The goblins hadn’t requested he purify the dark magic in the places this thing had touched, nor had they requested him to keep it in reasonable condition. Alex felt justified in absolutely destroying the item in front of him.
Moon Slayer worked exactly as he wished it to. He’d poured magic into the sword after he pulled it out of his bag and kept pouring dragon magic into it until he felt the shard’s blackness fade into nothing and the soul itself cross the wall, ignoring the awed gazes of the goblins as they saw magical white flames race up and down the blade. A moment later, he felt the thing cross over and weave into the soul pieces on the other side of the wall, so Alex pulled his sword out of the floor of the cavern. He wiped it down with a cloth from his bag mostly for show, sheathed it, and put the sword back into the bag. There was absolutely nothing left of the golden cup emblazoned with an ‘H’ other than a deep crack in the stone where his sword had been. Alex turned back to the stunned goblins.
“That satisfies my act of assistance for the month, and I will be leaving now.”
“Wait!” one of the staff goblins cried desperately. “You haven’t cleansed the darkness the thing left behind, and we would like to examine your sword.”
“Cleansing the darkness left behind was not part of the requested assistance. I have destroyed the object completely, as stated. You will not be examining my sword at this time or any other, and I will refuse to show it to you if requested as my next monthly task. I will wear the ring the next time I appear in public and keep it on after that. Good day,” Alex said. He clenched the ring in his hand, whispered ‘My Room’, and pulled himself back to Grimmauld Place by tracing the pathway his body had left twenty minutes ago. The sound of grinding teeth was music to his ears as his navel was hooked and pulled away, taking the rest of him with it.
Alex made it back to his room in time to study for about an hour before dinner. He was starting to see why his O’Gash had cautioned him about these people. He’d known them for almost 36 hours and had been repeatedly interrogated, kidnapped and almost killed, and encountered two very dark objects that he hadn’t even known were possible to create. On top of all that, Alex needed to lie to these peoples’ faces continuously to protect the known lands from whatever was going down here and catch up on four years of magic school in less than two and a half weeks. He was almost to the point of just calling it quits and opening a portal into the known lands to leave. He’d started cleansing the dark artifacts though, and he’d promised his aid. Alex would not go back on his word.
Dinner went without mishap, though the trio kept shooting him glances Alex was sure they thought were subtle. Maybe they passed for that in the greater culture of this society, but he was not willfully oblivious. He headed back to his room and started reading and note-taking again, keeping an eye out for the not-magic of the cloak and the silencing spell attached clumsily to it. Alex hadn’t spotted anything out of whatever was ordinary for these people that he knew of, but he kept his magic wrapped protectively around his brain and his dragon magic shielding his heart to prevent any tampering. About 10 minutes before 10, a quiet knock sounded on his door. Alex, hoping it was Ginny but thinking it probably wasn’t, got up and reluctantly opened it. Sure enough, a trio of fifteen year olds pushed past him into his room, not even bothering to wait to be invited.
“Look, we’ve come to get some answers. Answer our questions, and we’ll leave you in peace,” Harry stated.
“For example, why did you ask Ginny for help instead of me? I’m in your year and can teach you everything you’ve missed,” Hermione asked.
“Ginny has respected my boundaries and been polite. She hasn’t pushed her nose into my business and demanded that I answer her questions,” Alex said honestly. “I thought I would do better to have her teach me than try to learn from you while constantly being asked questions about this or that.”
Hermione huffed angrily and opened her mouth to respond.
Ron, sensing that this would not actually help matters, cut her off. “Why did you pull a knife on Ollivander?”
Alex’s eyebrows rose. He genuinely hadn’t expected that question, but it was probably best to play dumb. “I’m sorry?”
“Ollivader startled you, and your immediate reaction was to pull out a knife. Why?”
“I’d like to point out that I still don’t trust a single person I’ve met that’s part of this world other than maybe Ginny, Fred, and George,” Alex retorted, avoiding the question as best he could.
“You can trust us, mate,” Ron said, Harry nodding beside him.
“I don’t know you. I know some of what you’ve done from some stories I’ve heard, but most of those centered on Harry and are only a few events that may or may not have been relayed accurately. As for you two -” Alex pointed to Ron and Hermione “- most of what I know about you two is that you are Harry Potter’s best friends. That title doesn’t mean a lot to me. I don’t know you, so trusting you and answering a whole bunch of intrusive questions about myself doesn’t really appeal to me. Now, it’s getting late, and I’d like to get to bed at a reasonable hour. If you really want me to trust you, start by offering some trust yourself and don’t actively interrogate or investigate me.”
Alex pushed them out of the room, ignoring their complaints, and shut the door firmly behind him. He locked it and ignored the loud protests and knocks that ensued. Eventually, his would-be stalkers gave up and left him in peace. Alex glanced over at the book on his bed before shaking his head and entering his bag. He finally sorted the piled-up packages in the library into categories of clothing, books by the year they were assigned to have been read, and the miscellaneous books he’d thought looked interesting. For the time being, he just left them in their neat piles on the floor and stood up. Alex checked the time and headed for the forge. He had a while before he needed to call Mr. Roberts, and pounding his aggression out on hot metal sounded like the best way to go.