Pre-Chapter A/N: Finally managed to get an upload in on time. Small wins! 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.
"Who are you?" I asked, not making any movement to check the stone in my pocket or anything like that that would confirm his suspicions.
"A person interested in the philosopher's stone for his own reasons. I had a deal with Russo, and now that you have eliminated him, it falls to you to give me what is mine."
"Yours? I have no idea what you are even talking about," I tried, dropping my wand into a ready position and waiting for what I knew would be combat. There was no other way for this to end.
"I think you have a better idea than most just what exactly I am talking about. Did he offer you an apprenticeship? With how skilled you are, I'd be surprised if he didn't."
"Who?"
"This attempt to play ignorant is really beginning to get on my nerves, Harry Potter. Can we be honest with ourselves here? There is no need for you to cooperate with me if you do not want to, but could you at least try to avoid lying to my face in ways that are bold and obvious?"
"That's rich from someone that hasn't even had the manners to introduce himself properly."
"Do you want to know who I am for truth? Are you certain? Because once you have that information, there would be no stepping back. There is still time for you to hand me the stone. I will see to it that you are returned to your Guardian, and we can part ways. We need not be enemies. But the second you know who I am, then it will not be in my interests for you to leave here with that knowledge."
"If you want the stone, you'll have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands either way, so you might as well just say who the hell you are. That way there's a name I can write on the tombstone when I inevitably have to bury you," I said.
"Of course, of course. That is an inventive threat. I shall be sure to add it to my catalogue. My name is Ojin, Prince of the Empire of Japan," he said.
Prince? A fucking Prince of Japan? This was sure to end well, I thought to myself. I shot a dark look in Gellert's direction, not even surprised to note that the bastard had somehow disappeared.
"I am Harry Potter, not a Prince, but I hope you don't mind the lack of a bow. These knees of mine don't bend so easily, I fear," I said, not bothering to even incline my head. Something told me that any display of anything that even looked like weakness to this one would be noted down to be used against me at some point.
"No, I don't mind much. Not really the one to care about such things. My brother, on the other hand? Well, if you meet my older brother, I'd advise you teach your knees to bend if you like having them still attached to your body. I assume you like having them attached. If you don't, then my brother would be more than happy to separate them from you."
"Sounds like a real piece of work, this brother of yours, then."
"Between you and me, Harry Potter, I agree. He's a real piece of work."
"So what brings a Prince of Japan here?" I asked.
"I've told you that already. I want what is mine."
"The stone—if such a thing exists—would be the property of Nicholas Flamel," I said.
"Nicholas Flamel owes me a debt. The stone is repayment," he said with the kind of confidence that told me he truly believed what he was saying. Of course, that didn't mean it was still not bullshit being shovelled. Believing the bullshit didn't make it any better than what it already was.
"If so, take it up with him. I'm sure he'd love to talk about coming up with a repayment plan or whatever. Either way, I'll be having the necklace and leaving now," I said.
"Oh. What business does Harry Potter have with Gellert Grindelwald's soul receptacle?" he asked.
"A private debt, if you would. You know, the kind of thing you can't really go around broadcasting. Would love to tell you, you know, but it's one of those things."
"I am sure. You know what, let us have a wager."
"A bet?"
"Yeah, a wager."
"Terms?"
"You beat my daughter in a duel and I hand the necklace over to you. You lose to her, and you hand over the stone."
"Daughter? What daughter?" I asked.
"Oh. Suiko..." he said in a singsong voice. That brought my mind to another strange thing about this man. The black hair that fell down to his back, the sharp chin, and the slender features said he was as Japanese as they came, but the way he spoke... there was something irrefutably European about it.
"Father," a girl said, walking out of a side door. She shared little with her father beyond the colour of her hair and her skin. Her features were softer by some margin. She also walked with an irresistible grace, like she was an apex predator stalking the jungle. Everything about her spoke danger.
"This is Harry Potter. Korosenai mono," he said, pointing over to me.
"Yes, Father," she said, saying nothing else.
"Harry Potter, this is my daughter Suiko. She is one of my greatest creations. While I watched you outduel your peers from the rest of the world, I could not help but wonder how you would fare against Japan's best and brightest," he said, spreading his hands out wide.
"So I just have to beat her and you'll hand it over, yes?" I asked, beginning to stretch.
"Indeed. Now, I'd advise you not to hold back. If you do that, you may die here. And that is something none of us would want, would it? To accidentally kill Koresanai mono here. Oh, no one would allow me to hear the end of it," he said, and then his daughter walked past his throne, standing in front of me.
She was a few centimetres taller than I was. Probably three inches or so. She wasn't massive, per se, but she was larger than most women close in age to us. She wore robes just as I did, but the Japanese robes were cut in a different style. And while they were silk as well, they were not Acromantula silk, lacking the telltale deep sheen and shine.
"Begin when ready," he said, and then I had to bend backwards at the waist to avoid a jet of light that almost nailed me straight between the eyeballs. I spun to the side, avoiding the two follow-up spells. One was doing something to the ground while the other dissipated once it hit, doing nothing else.
I brought my magic to bear, firing two piercing curses at her so quickly they nearly blurred through the air. She did not move, feet remaining stationary as she deflected both spells with the same movement. Each one flew in a different direction. I took the second's reprieve to press the attack. My blasting curse met a shield. With narrowed eyes, she dropped it a second later, allowing my shield breaker to hit her straight on before lifting the shield again to block a bludgeoner. She stepped forward now, slashing her wand through the air.
I countered with a series of spells of my own. Our spells hit each other mid-air, flying into numerous directions. I could feel my blood begin to sing as I heard the sound of drums in my ear. I was being pushed for what felt like the first time with my life truly on the line, and I loved it. My body was reacting faster than ever.
When she sent a spell, I was responding before my brain could even truly process it. There was no time for greater thought here. It was all about instinct in the end. I pointed my wand at the ground and shot myself backwards to avoid the jet of acid she began spewing from her wand. She pointed it at my new position, but I countered with a gust of hurricane-force winds that scattered the jet, sending acid flying all over the room. The floor melted beneath our feet even as the stones on the wall began to liquefy. She ended the spell and then, before she could try another, I gathered the sludge that formed from the liquefied stone, transfiguring it into a statue that wielded a blade as long as I was tall. It stepped in front of me, blocking her view.
She moved quickly, not keen on giving me the time to transfigure myself an army. Even whilst I was busy turning some loose stones into massive snakes, she destroyed my knight before it had even made three steps towards her. I twisted away from a bright pink spell that did… something to the air as it passed.
I pushed out with my wand, sending a gust of wind her way. She arced her wand through the air, casting a sticking charm on her feet with half of the movement and conjuring a wall right in front of her with the other.
I snapped the wall into a million pieces with a blasting curse right as two of her dove from beneath it. They moved identically. I cleared my mind. There were still two of them.
A light illusion then, not a mental one. I could try to charm my eyes to see in a different wavelength, but what was the point in risking that?
Glacius Duo, I mentally intoned, sending two blasts of cooling power across the space between me and both versions of her. They dove together, becoming one for a brief moment and shielded the attack before returning fire with two blasts.
I stepped forward, deflecting one to the side and sending the other right back at her. She separated into two again, both of them avoiding the spell. How interesting. I pushed out with my wand, sending another gust of wind—this one aimed closer to the ground so it carried the loose dust and stones right at her.
Both versions moved to form shields at the same time, but the stones flew through one with no resistance while stopping against the other's shield. That was the original then.
I sent two Romanian Impalement Curses her way. Each one missed as she dove towards the clone again. They merged and then split around my next spell. What an annoying tactic. She twisted her wand, each version sending a spell my way. One was an illusion and one a real spell. I spun my wand and shielded both. Annoyingly enough, they both hit at the same time, so it was impossible to tell which was the illusion and which wasn't.
For good measure, they jumped at each other and merged again. I twisted my wand, casting an engorgement charm on the snakes I'd created earlier, making them even more massive. I banished both of them in either direction, waiting for her to separate into the original and the clone. This time she didn't.
She went straight for the jugular. I ducked underneath an arc of black magic that went straight through the wall behind me with no resistance, and then spun out of the way of the next two spells.
I fired off a piercing curse that hit her next spell, but shockingly enough, her spell seemed to eat mine, getting even bigger as it came at me next. I hopped off to the side. "You are annoyingly good," I said to her.
She didn't reply with words, sending another spell my way. I deflected it right back at her and added two piercing curses of my own to the mix. All three were swallowed by her shield with no sign that they'd even done anything to it.
"Attack," I hissed in Parseltongue, accepting that she was not going to separate into two with the snakes lurking and waiting for her to do so. Both of them shot at her, one from each direction.
She ignored them for as long as she could, forced to keep her attention on me and my constant barrage of spells. When they were too close to ignore, she flourished her wand and then spun it this way and that. There was a blast of cold air from her wand, and both snakes were frozen solid—along with the ground for half the dining hall. That wasn't the notable bit though.
The notable bit was her skin. Her pale skin was no longer pale as snow. Now it was a bright blue. The blue of ice.
"What are you?" I found myself asking, more out of shock than anything else. She did not seem pleased with that question, though, and pointed her wand straight at me.
Fire bloomed in my very being, and I incinerated the icicles she sent my way. For good measure, I fed even more of my magic to the flames, sending it into the field of ice she had created around herself.
Normally, my fire was easy to control, few things could contest it, and it got the job done. Only one of those proved to be true in this case. Even with feeding more and more power to my fire, it still died out. Slowly, surely. Dwindling until there were only sparks left. I could have fought it, maintained the fire for longer—burned my magic as fuel for it—but it would have been impossible. That wasn't the goal here, though. The goal was to win.
So I turned my magic to something else. The tables on either end of the hall sprang into motion under the influence of my magic. I transfigured them into giant baseball bats with a twist of my magic even as I kept the last embers of my flames alive. And so focused on killing my fire, my opponent did not notice until one had slammed into her from the side, sending her right into the path of the other. Not feeling very merciful, I had the other bat slam her straight into the ground.
With a twist of my wand, I transfigured the ground around her into mud that held her limbs despite her struggles. Both of those hits had been hard enough to break bone, and neither had done much to affect her. How interesting.
"I take that as my win," I said, and then the mud I'd trapped her in froze into a sea of ice.
"Enough, Suiko. Let's give the man his win," the Prince said.
She broke out of the mud, stepping out looking immaculate, like nothing had happened. She dusted off her robes and then with a breath, the ice receded, the cold in the room rushing back towards her as her complexion returned to its normal pale white.
"A deal is a deal," the Prince said, reaching to his neck and unclasping the necklace before he tossed it in my direction. I caught it, seeker's reflexes kicking in.
"It was nice doing business with you," I said, taking steps backwards, having my draugr step in front of me as I did so. I didn't turn around—showing your back to the enemy was one way to get an unmarked, shallow grave with your name on it.
"Indeed. But our deal said nothing about you leaving here. I still need that stone, Harry Potter."
"I'm afraid I can't do that," I said.
"I feared you would say that. Apologies, Mr. Potter. This might hurt a bit," he said, and then he moved.
My draugr was wrenched in two different directions with a flick of his wand, entrails flying all over the place, splattering blood over me. I fired off the Fulgur I'd been charging up since the duel ended. He seemed to react like the lightning moved in slow motion. He twisted his wand and the lightning parted in two streams, each of them moving past him. And then my hand was wrenched upwards with a flick of his.
"Fuck!" I could not withhold the curse as all the bones in my left hand crushed themselves in one motion. My wand fell to the floor.
"Apologies for the pain once again," he said, and I was unable to move as he walked over, standing in front of me.
"Such an interesting specimen. So skilled, and so young. Oh, I would love to study you, Harry Potter. Think of the things I could make of you. My brother would be oh-so-jealous. But then Father would kill me for turning Dumbledore's attention on us. It could be worth it though," he said, sounding like he was having a debate with himself. A debate that my interests were losing in.
"Father," his daughter called, snapping him back to reality.
"Yes, you are right, Suiko. Albus Dumbledore will die one day. When he does, feel free to seek me out, Harry Potter. I will give you the power to avenge your parents. Oh, that upstart Riddle will be nothing to you once I am finished," he practically hissed the words into my ears before he began to feel into my pockets.
I hoped the anti-theft enchantments would do something, but they just parted under his attention like a dao curse cutting through flesh. He came out with the philosopher's stone held in his grip.
"Now, I do hope you make it out of here, Harry Potter. Impress me," he said, and the hearths on either end of the hall roared to life with bright blue flames. He turned to his daughter, stretching a hand, and in a whisper of space and none of the usual noise, they were gone.
A/N: Now I think this has come out an altogether much stronger chapter than if I had left the original draft in. We get to see that Harry for all his power is far from the true upper echelons of this world. And yes, this encounter is going to be one hell of a motivator. 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.