Pre-Chapter A/N:Bit of a late upload. Had five days in one yesterday, so please accept my apologies. More chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio. Experimenting with two chapters a week, we'll see how long I can keep this up for.
While I had not expected the portkey, that did not mean that I was anywhere close to being caught with my pants down. The second the portkey began to whirl, I braced myself for it to release me. As expected, the man pretending to be Julian Russo had not released me even as we were being hurled through a hole torn in the very fabric of space-time.
That didn't matter, though, because I had a plan. As the spinning began to slow, I played up my natural clumsiness with magical transportation and sent us crashing to the floor on arrival. We rolled to the ground, the portkey tossed aside once its job was finished, and we rolled until he was on top of me. He smiled, a nasty and sharp thing, and his head slammed straight down. I crashed into the ground, jolted backward by the strength of the blow. I didn't need to touch my head to know I was bleeding. But that was fine. I had a free hand now, and we were still. I summoned my wand from my holster with an application of wandless magic.
He brought his head down, but before he could complete the motion, I blew a giant hole straight through his chest. His head fell against me, having lost most of its force. I pushed his body off mine, ignoring how the blood felt on my skin, and finally got the chance to look around the room I'd been dropped in. It was old. The stone I'd laid on gave no room for doubt about it. It was black and slippery, as if water had gathered on it for so long—even though it was presently dry—that it had no choice but to remain slippery.
Of course, the first thing I tried to do once I made it to my feet was Apparate. I could feel the wards pressing down on me even from here, but I could try at least. And… nope. No dice.
"Accio," I murmured, flicking my wrist, only for the cup to sail into my grip and do nothing. It was inert. A one-way portkey then. Wasn't it unfortunate that everyone kept not making that mistake? Okay, I had to get out of here the old-fashioned way. And of course, there wasn't a door in the room. Just four walls, each one made of stone as dark as the ground's. I walked forward, pressing my hand against the wall to feel for wards.
Nothing on the room itself. Nothing I could feel, at least. I aimed my wand at the far end of the wall, the part that I felt was more likely to lead outside, and fired a blasting curse. It blew through the wall, yes, but then there was nothing behind it but more stone.
"I'd advise you not to continue." I spun on my heels, somehow finding a man next to me. When had he gotten in here? How had he done so? Without my notice?
"Is this some sort of illusion?" I asked instantly, clearing my mind again. Nope, he was still there when I opened my eyes. The same blond hair and blue eyes in a suit that would have been more in place in the 1800s. Well, to be fair, he was more a boy than a man. He looked to be in his teenage years. I was beginning to get a very bad feeling.
"No. Nothing so sophisticated, I fear. I am merely a projection. Just here to prevent you from doing anything careless."
"Who are you?"
"A projection, did I not explain that clearly enough?" he asked, turning to the side as if he were addressing someone else in the room.
"I mean, who are you a projection of?" I asked, feeling a vague suspicion build.
"Gellert Grindelwald, at your service." Of fucking course. Things just could not be any worse.
"I see. Well met, Gellert."
"You recognize me," he said, eyes wide.
"What?" I cleared my mind again.
"Don't bother lying. I've been reading people for so long. Why do you recognize my name? What business do I have with a British boy not even past his majority?"
I remained silent, trying to figure out exactly what was going on here.
"I achieved it, didn't I? That's the only way you'd have heard of me so easily. I found the Deathly Hallows and became the Master of Death, didn't I?"
"Indeed," I drawled, turning my attention back to the room.
"You said I shouldn't blast the wall down? Why?"
"Well, because of where you are. Those walls are the only things keeping you safe. They're plenty thick, but you'd blast through with a few more spells with that kind of power," he said.
"That's all I need to know," I replied, turning my wand on the wall again.
"I really would not recommend doing that," he said.
"Okay, I'll bite. Tell me why I shouldn't."
"Because behind that wall, there are monsters."
"Monsters?"
"Magical creatures of some sort. Half-breeds. All sorts of things that someone created and left in here," he said.
"And if I break out, then what will happen? They'll attack me?"
"Most assuredly."
"Why would this idiot bring me here then?" I said, pointing at the body that had been Julian Russo. Since I'd blown his chest open, it had turned into that of a black-haired man with a smile that I could only charitably describe as smarmy. Not really the best expression to have on one's face at death, it seemed.
"Hmm. He must be one of them, then."
"One of who?"
"I fear I might have said overmuch."
"One of who, Gellert? Tell me."
"You would have the truth from me, but you lie to me just as assuredly. Tell me now and tell me the truth. Who are you, and how do you know who I am?" he asked.
"I am Harry Potter of Great Britain. I know who you are because we were taught about you at school. You grow up to become a Dark Lord of some notoriety. You unite Europe against you, and still you fight on, outmatching them all with your brilliant mind and skill with a wand." With every word, he seemed to preen like a peacock strutting before a peahen.
"And then you reached too far. You came for Britain, and a schoolteacher there rose from his seat and challenged you. You fought, and he won," I said, enjoying the way he deflated like a popped balloon. There was little use taking joy in his disappointment, but it did reveal something. Because the word he had used—projection—was a lie. This... this could only be one thing. Gellert Grindelwald had made a Horcrux.
"A schoolteacher? Surely it could not be so. Even in my fifth year, none of those old fogeys at Durmstrang stood a chance."
"Hogwarts was cut from a different cloth, it seems."
"You are a Hogwarts man then, are you?"
"I am."
"So tell me about the teacher that defeated me."
"Nope. I've answered two of yours, now you owe me one. What is this place? And what is going on here?"
"It is a prison, of sorts. Well, more of a lab since I was left here as a projection," I nodded along, not contesting the obvious untruth.
"My original had used this place for a prison, and one of his men, a Chinaman, had used it for experiments on magical creatures. He created all sorts of abominations. And then one day he stopped coming. Perhaps this is when the real me must have been defeated. Anyway, there was no one here for so long that I could not possibly say, and then they came. Another set of Chinamen. They have been doing experiments of their own. I remain out of their sight."
"Why did you show yourself to me and not them, then?"
"You look to be the right sort, you know," he said, gesturing to me.
"You mean white?"
"Gods no. I'm not a racist. Morgana forbid you think me such a man. I just mean that you are a wizard. Fully a wizard. The Chinamen... I don't know what they are, but they are not human. Not completely. Only one of them seems untainted, and even then, it could just be that it is a taint I cannot perceive yet. So I stay away, as a good wizard ought." So he was a different kind of racist then. How beautiful.
"And they are in this place as well. Why don't the creatures do anything to them?"
"The creatures are warded away at this level. That is why I do not recommend leaving this room. In the event you do so, you will find yourself beset by them from all sides. If I were more than a projection, then I would be able to ensure your safe passage with my protection, but alas, I cannot," he said.
"And what makes you think I would not be able to make it out of here on my own?" I asked, quirking my eyebrow at him. He looked to be in his mid-teens. Probably about sixteen or so. Gellert Grindelwald had been one hell of a prodigy, but he hadn't been so strong as to say that I wouldn't give myself good odds if we were to face each other in combat.
"You are what? Fourteen? Fifteen? While I myself am only a few years older, I can tell you that there are no wizards like me out there. Just because I can do something doesn't mean you could," he said with not a small amount of self-assurance. I would enjoy watching that look flee his face.
"Then I guess it'll just be up to me to prove you wrong," I said, and over his protests, I sent two more blasting curses straight at the wall.
"On your head be it then," he said, fading even further until he was little more than an apparition, a distortion in the light that I had to focus to catch. And I couldn't do all that focusing for long when my attention was drawn to a completely different matter. The monsters in the chamber beyond. I heard them before I saw them. The screeches and screams.
There were two options: wait for them in here or go out there and face them. This room was plenty big when it had just been Grindelwald and I talking, but now that we were going to have company, it was far from that. The first creature to make it through was feminine. A woman's face and breasts with a bat's wings and lower body. I smashed it back from whence it came with a bludgeoner so powerful I heard bones crack as it flew. A bat's bones then. That explained the flight, at the very least.
The next half-breed was a man with a snake's tail. Him I tore in half with a cutting curse before turning those halves into javelins that I tossed further into the darkness. With a twist of my wand, a ball of light formed at the tip before I fired it off into the darkness, making a dozen more that I sent all about me to make sure that there was no chance of me getting caught by surprise. I had better night vision than most thanks to the ritual, but that didn't mean I'd be as comfortable fighting in the dark as creatures that had been here basically all their lives. I turned to look at them now that they were revealed.
There were basically four different breeds of creatures. These had once been people, humans. But every pair of eyes I met had nothing in it but a crazed hunger. Looking about the room also told me how they had been surviving here. Cannibalism. Each of these ones had eaten one—most likely, more—of their brethren to survive. They had given in to their inner beasts. There was nothing to do but put them down now.
So, as I was saying: four breeds. The first, the half-bats. They all had wings, but the presentation of their bat features differed beyond that. Some had fully human bodies with bat heads, others had bat limbs but were human-sized, and there was even one who looked especially vicious that was a bat in every respect but the single human head. The head of a human child, at that. That one would die no matter what, I decided. And beyond the bats, there were the half-snakes. They were basically all the same. Human upper bodies with snake tails. The only difference was that some were much larger than the others.
The two other breeds were two sides of the same coin, I felt. One had clearly been an attempt to create Centaurs, but with Abraxans for some reason. They were not pretty. I had never thought of centaurs as pretty, but looking at these ones made me rethink that. And the fourth—
I left describing them for later as one of the snake men sprang at me, seemingly having gotten used to both the light and the savage disposal of his fellows. I was surrounded by them in what was clearly a narrow hallway. That meant I had to be… efficient. I took hold of his body with my magic, warping and crushing him with nothing but an application of pure magic before I banished his remains back from whence they came. Creatures like this only feared one thing: the end of their existence. They were too far gone to fear or care about anything else other than the base, primal instinct to keep living. To continue existing no matter what that required.
The bat with the child's head was next. That was good. I wouldn't have wanted to have to hunt it down. I split it in twain straight down the middle, letting both halves fall past me. And then as the rest of the creatures sprang at me seemingly as one, I breathed and my element bloomed into existence. Not Fiendfyre, these ones did not deserve that, but fire as hot as I could make it surrounded me in a circle. A circle that I expanded further and further.
Any one of them foolish enough to try to assault me died in the fire before making it past. At least, that was the case until one of the man-bats managed to fly through a gap in the flames. I clipped it with a blasting curse, thanking the heavens for quick reflexes, and had to bring those reflexes to bear over and over again as more and more began to find their way through. The creatures were trying to smother the flames with their bodies.
"What the fuck?" I asked myself as I watched them run into the fire one after another with no hesitation.
"They do want to die, you know? Their present existence is little but pain and hunger. They'll brave the former in their desire to end the latter," Grindelwald said from the side, sounding more amused than anything else. I huffed and turned my wand on the first one that made it through the flames.
My blasting curse shot it back in the direction it was coming from. I thought for a second and then stabbed my wand into the ground. Spikes rose in a circle around me that stretched to the edge of the flames. The next one to try rushing me only managed to avoid two of the spikes before impaling itself on the third one. That was good. I could work with this.
I slashed my wand through the air, moving it like I was conducting an orchestra, and animated all the spikes to life. Defense, in this case, was the best offense because it seemed they would all come for me no matter what, so there was no need to hunt them down.
"Watch out," I heard Grindelwald's voice call out, and I barely managed to dodge out of the way of the flying creature that landed in the space I had just occupied. One of the Abraxan hybrids, two spears already buried in its form, had come close to barreling into me. But close was not enough, and as it turned to me, I ended its existence with a piercing curse to the brain. Even my impromptu forest of spikes was being overwhelmed in their rush to get at me.
Thinking for a second, I stabbed my wand into the ground again. The spikes shot out, moving in all directions and mowing down dozens of the creatures.
"Effective, but you have lost most of your defense with that stunt," Grindelwald said by my side, but I paid the teen dark wizard no mind as I called forth my feelings of hatred, my desire to destroy and dominate.
"Fiendfyre," I snarled, not able to keep the disdain from my tone at being pushed to use such a spell.
The fire did not bloom into existence so much as it forced itself on the world. There was nothing natural about the appearance of the flames of hell. I felt their heat dig into my skin even with the distance between us, but I said nothing and kept my Occlumency sharp and focused. Losing focus here would be disastrous. I directed the flames to split in two, each half heading down each side of the corridor.
The one that went left turned into a dragon, while the one that went right turned into a basilisk. Each of them dove through the creatures, turning them into ash, and then fanned about the floor, destroying everything magical they came across. I followed their path until I found myself in front of a set of stairs and was certain everything else in the basement had been destroyed. That much was confirmed by the way the Fiendfyre remained by my side, straining to attack and destroy me for daring to call it forth. Sadly for it, I had an iron will that wouldn't allow it.
Clearing my mind, I forced the fires back to whence they came. The basement was suddenly quiet. Eerily quiet.
"Who are you?" I heard Grindelwald's voice by my side again. I'd wondered where he went.
"I told you already. The name's Harry Potter," I said with a smirk.
A/N: Meet Gellert. Been psyched for this intro for so long now. Next four chapters up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)(same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.