Myst in DC Part 19 (Patreon)

“Alohomora!” Harry gestured at the gate dramatically.

Hermione blinked when the gate leading to the grounds swung open. “That shouldn’t have worked.”

“Why not?” Connor asked as he studied the twenty foot stone wall that enclosed the school’s grounds.

“He didn’t use his wand and the gate should be warded against such simple spells,” Hermione explained, mildly annoyed that the gates weren’t warded against a spell they’d learned back in first year.

“We’re not really dealing with Hogwarts, we’re dealing with a replica,” Raven pointed out as she walked through the open gateway and looked around. “I have a feeling a lot of the magic won’t be as impressive.”

“At least not until Myst upgrades things,” Artemis said as the group followed Raven through the gates.

Myst shook her head. “I don’t need the replica to be an exact duplicate, I’m perfectly happy letting Zatanna or Raven rip the magic out of any of the idiotic enchantments wizards like to use if they want to make the school safer. I wouldn’t mind using it as an actual school at some point, which means I don’t need people breaking their ankles or falling off moving staircases that don’t have any handrails.”

“Like escalators?” Beast Boy asked.

“Nah, more like a cursed haunted house in that rooms and stairs change when you’re not looking or on different days,” Harry assured everyone.

“Unless you count the swivelling staircase or the staircase that leads to Dumbledore’s office,” Hermione mused.

Connor gestured toward the Quidditch stadium. “I’m going to check the stadium unless there’s a reason I shouldn’t?”

“I can’t think of one, just don’t let any of the equipment loose,” Harry warned him, not sure what was lying around.

‘The stairs sound more like the books than the movies, which is probably for the best,’ Myst thought as Connor flew off toward the stadium.

“I’ll help,” Megan said cheerfully as she flew after Connor.

‘I’m so glad I’m not in charge of the group, herding cats would be simple in comparison,’ Myst thought as they continued up the path toward the castle.

Artemis couldn’t help the sense of childlike wonder that filled her as she studied the ancient looking castle. “What was it like going to school in a castle?”

“Much the same as any boarding school except for the ghosts, homicidal teachers, dangerous monsters, and lack of decent temperature control,” Harry explained as they walked down the winding path toward the castle. “Which is one of the reasons we wore layers.”

“I know a couple of spells to control the temperature in a room that could probably be adapted for various sections of the castle,” Sabrina offered.

“That would certainly make it more comfortable depending on the weather.” Myst frowned slightly as Harry’s comment about monsters reminded him of the pipes under Hogwarts. “Speaking of checking on things, we should probably check the quality of the water before we drink any.”

“Quality of the water?” Hermione asked.

“The castle looks more than old enough to have lead pipes and Harry mentioned that the wizarding world was more than a little insane; lead poisoning would explain a lot.” Myst wasn’t sure if they used magic for the water like wizarding tents or if they actually ran pipes but figured it was worth checking.

Hermione twitched when she realized that some of the symptoms of lead poisoning would explain a lot of the behavior in the wizarding world. “We’re going to have to check that,” she agreed, trying not to freak out about the fact that the water she’d been brushing her teeth with for the last four years might have been contaminated.

Harry looked at Myst with raised eyebrows. “If they’re poisoning everyone how come we’re not more insane? I mean, I think we behaved pretty reasonably for the situation.”

“You never killed Malfoy then transfigured his body into a stick and tossed it in the fireplace,” Hermione mused.

“Why would that be reasonable?” Beast Boy asked in surprise.

Hermione scowled. “He’s basically a blood purist that doesn’t like the idea of anyone other than old families having magic and his parents supported a lunatic dark wizard in an attempt to take over the Ministry and eventually the world. Not to mention his treatment of Dobby was cruel.”

“Dobby?” Kara asked.

“His family’s house elf,” Harry explained. “They’re basically a subspecies of fae known as brownies that work for wizarding families.”

“Work implies they’re paid,” Hermione muttered. “There’s also the fact that all four of our Defense teachers were suspect and yet each year we entertained an unrealistic amount of hope that they might be different.”

Harry turned to look at Hermione. “How was Remus suspect?”

“You’ve seen his mustache,” Hermione argued, trying not to smile. “I’m not saying it’s proof that he’s a monster, but he did turn out to be a werewolf.”

“One of your teachers was a werewolf?” Buffy asked, thinking about Oz.

“He locked himself up during the full moon and drank a potion that let him keep his mind while transformed so it wasn’t that bad.” Harry turned to look at Myst. “Do you think you could pull the same trick with wolfsbane potion as the Re’em’s blood?”

“I can certainly take a look,” Myst agreed, fairly sure that she could mitigate some of the side effects and increase the duration so that werewolves wouldn’t have to take it as often.

“Looking back at suspect choices, why didn’t we look for multiple points of view on the wizarding world?” Hermione looked at Harry. “Neville would have been a much better choice than asking Ron considering Ron’s bias against anything Slytherin, muggle, or remotely intelligent...”

“I’m going to blame the Dursleys though we might have been drugged or poisoned,” Harry admitted. “Of course, the one time I asked Neville something first, Ron got bent out of shape.”

Karen turned her attention toward the castle and used her X-ray vision to search for interesting rooms and lead pipes.

Xander pulled his attention off the large garden and old fashioned cabin to the left of the path and looked at Harry. “Don’t take this the wrong way but your friend sounds like an asshole.”

“Xander!” Willow scolded.

Harry shrugged. “More like a jealous prick. I mean, don’t get me wrong, he had some good points but his older brothers were rather exceptional in their chosen fields which left him with an inferiority complex.”

“Huh, none of the pipes are lead, they’re bronze,” Karen said.

“That’s a relief,” Hermione said as they continued walking toward the castle.

Harry his head. “That’s probably just the replica because while I’m not an expert when it comes to metal even I can tell the difference between dull grey metal and bronze and what I saw of the pipes down in the chamber was not bronze.”

“Shit, I just figured they were using leadless pewter in the cauldrons but that’s probably giving them too much credit,” Hermione admitted, mentally deciding to blame lead for all of her personally suspect decisions while at Hogwarts, if anyone asked.

“You were banking on wizards being proactive and sane, not to mention accepting muggle information?” Harry teased, trying to cover his growing horror with humor.

“None of the books mentioned what the pipes were made out of,” she grumbled then sighed when he looked at her like she was being crazy. “I realize that books can be wrong but it wasn’t like I could ask Snape all of the questions I wanted answers to, he just glared at everyone whenever anyone tried to ask a question.”

“Did anyone actually try?” Myst asked as they walked along, curious how evil this world’s version of Snape was.

“Once or twice, but they were rather stupid questions,” Hermione said thinking about some of the questions Seamus and the Slytherins had asked that had probably confirmed Snape’s opinion of their class being particularly stupid.

“Sometimes you need to give people a bit of an attitude adjustment before they’ll do their job properly. Did anyone try to set him on fire?” Myst asked, knowing full well that Hermione had set him on fire in the books.

“Hermione did back in first year,” Harry said, wishing that he’d actually seen the look on Snape’s face when he realized his robe was on fire.

“You set a teacher on fire,” Beast Boy said in disbelief.

“And got away with it,” Harry said proudly.

“He sort of deserved it,” Hermione defended herself.

“For trying to save my life?” Harry joked, knowing that she’d done it because she thought he’d been trying to kill Harry.

“To be fair, I thought he was trying to kill you,” Hermione replied.

Beast Boy shook his head. “And suddenly my teachers don’t sound that bad.”

“Yeah, I’m fairly sure my old teacher would have thought setting someone on fire was a perfectly valid tactic,” Artemis said, thinking of her father.

“Earth has some weird schools,” Kara muttered, happy that she’d went to school on Krypton even if it occasionally meant that she didn’t understand bits of Earth culture.

“How many times did you try to set him on fire?” Myst teased.

“Just the once,” Hermione admitted.

“Did his behavior improve?” Myst asked.

“Marginally,” Hermione said after a few seconds thought.

“And yet you never thought to repeat the process or have Dobby poison him?” Myst asked with amusement.

Hermione shook her head. “I wouldn’t do that to Dobby.”

“I thought about it,” Harry admitted. “I just decided that it wasn’t worth the risk. Not to mention teaching is sort of his hell.”

“Are you sure you’re heroes?” Beast Boy asked.

“I’m Constantine’s apprentice, were you expecting a saint?” Harry asked with amusement. “Or as Constantine likes to say ‘Save the day, I’m your man. Put up with your shite? Not a feckin’ chance.”

“That’s actually decent advice for the wizarding world,” Hermione agreed. “So, what are we going to do about the lead at Hogwarts?”

“We don’t know that the pipes at Hogwarts are actually lead. Even if they are, I didn’t see any permanent damage when I looked at your upgrade possibilities so you can probably relax at least until you have a chance to send the headmaster or deputy headmaster a letter.” Myst glanced at the well maintained grass then looked over at Hagrid’s hut. “Does the groundskeeper keep the lawn mowed?”

Harry shook his head. “Not that I know of or at least Hagrid never mentioned it.”

“The house elves probably keep it trimmed with magic.” Hermione blinked in surprise when she looked around and noticed the Whomping Willow had been replaced with a huge apple tree. “That’s different.”

Myst turned to look where Hermione was looking and realized she could sense curiosity coming from the tree. “What’s different?”

“Hogwarts has a Whomping Willow, not a fruit tree,” Hermione said as she studied the large tree that looked like an ancient apple tree.

“Whomping Willow?” Willow asked, curious about the name.

“Whomping Willows are magical willow trees that hit anything that gets too close,” Hermione explained as she started walking toward the tree.

“I’m fairly sure the tree is sentient as I can feel curiosity from it,” Myst said as followed Hermione, planning to stop well outside of range.

“Just be careful, even if it isn’t a Whomping Willow, it might be dangerous,” Harry warned as he followed Myst toward the unknown tree.

“I wish I could call Professor Sprout,” Hermione said as she followed Harry.

“Hopefully we don’t have to kill it,” Buffy muttered.

“I should hope not,” the tree replied in a cheerful bubbly sounding feminine voice. “You’re not supposed to hurt nice girls.”

“You’re a girl?” Xander asked, staring at the talking tree in surprise.

“Of course,” replied a curvy gorgeous woman in her early twenties as she stepped out of the trunk of the tree.

Xander smiled at the gorgeous naked woman with apple red hair and pointed ears. “You’re a dryad, aren’t you?”

The woman tapped her nose. “Ding!” She reached up as a branch bent down and picked an apple off the branch. “Just for that, have an apple.” She playfully tossed the apple to Xander.

Xander caught the red almost purple apple. “Thanks.”

Myst glanced at the apple Xander was holding with his upgrade ability to make sure it was just an apple. “Looks delicious.”

“Of course,” the dryad replied proudly.

Xander took a bite of the apple, fairly sure that Myst would have said something if it wasn’t safe.

“What should we call you?” Kara asked, figuring she’d ask if no one else was going to.

“Crisp,” the dryad replied.

Xander finished chewing his bite of apple and swallowed it. “That fits, your apples are certainly crisp and delicious.”

“Hush, you’ll make a girl blush,” Crisp teased, obviously enjoying the praise.

“So, how did you end up at Hogwarts?” Myst asked, trying to figure out why they had a dryad rather than an angry whomping willow.

“There was a forest fire and a nice adventurer with a magic ring, I wished to be somewhere safe and ended up here. It’s nice, there aren’t any monsters but I haven’t had a lot of visitors either.”

“What happened to the adventurer?” Raven asked.

“I don’t know what he wished did after I vanished but I’m sure he’s alright he had plenty of time to leave before the fire reached my old grove,” Crisp replied with a shiver. “On the upside, I haven’t seen anything dangerous yet though I’ve seen a unicorn, they’re pretty friendly as long as you’re not mean.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll try to avoid being mean,” Zatanna assured her.

Harry pulled his gaze off the dryad’s generous breasts and looked at her face. “Are you guarding a secret passage to the Shrieking shack?”

“Yep! Do you need to use the secret passage?” Crisp asked.

“Not currently, but it’s good to know that it’s being guarded,” Myst assured her.

“Feel free to come back when you want to use the secret passage, you just have to touch me in the right spot,” Crisp teased with a smirk before she turned and walked back into her tree, flesh sinking into the tree with barely a ripple.

“Shrieking Shack?” Willow asked, wondering what else they’d find in the strange replica.

“It’s just a house where our old teacher used to spend the full moon when he was going to school, people thought it was haunted because of the howls and scratching noises,” Hermione explained as she started walking toward Hogwarts.

“Wouldn’t they have realized that the screaming and clawing sounds only happened on the full moon?” Buffy asked.

“You’d think,” Hermione muttered.

“To be fair, Dumbledore might have asked a couple of house elves to make noises at random times to confuse the issue,” Harry offered, not sure how else everyone in Hogsmeade wouldn’t have instantly assumed werewolf rather than ghost, considering the timing and the howling.

“Of course, most wizards aren’t all that bright,” Hermione muttered, thinking about the lies the Daily Prophet had been spewing all summer.

Kara used her X-ray vision to look through the greenhouses. “I don’t recognize any of the plants in the greenhouse.”

“There should be some books in the library,” Hermione said.

“I’m fairly sure the library is empty, I noticed a bunch of empty bookshelves when I was looking for lead in the pipes.” Karen glanced over at the broomshed to the right of the path and used her X-ray vision to look over the brooms. “The brooms in the shed look like they’re on their last bristles.”

Hermione sighed as she realized she wouldn’t be able to make some copies for her own use of selected portions of the Restricted section, though it really wasn’t that surprising as had been pointed out this was a replica and not the original.

Harry shrugged. “I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the school brooms are older than any two or maybe three of us put together. Speaking of brooms, how hard would it be to create a decent knock-off?”

Myst glanced at the broomshed as they continued walking toward the castle. “I’d probably have to move some enchantments around to get something worth upgrading but that shouldn’t be too hard, why?”

“I can’t really justify buying the Gryffindor quidditch team new brooms but I’m willing to toss some gold your way if you’re willing to make knock-offs of my top of the line racing broom,” Harry offered.

Hermione laughed, thinking about the look on Malfoy’s face when he realized Harry had given the entire team brooms that he couldn’t afford to match.

Xander swallowed his bite of apple. “Nice of you to support your old team.”

Harry grinned. “Just because I can’t go back to school doesn’t mean I don’t want them to win the cup.”

“I know a couple of woodworking spells that will make creating broomsticks easy,” Sabrina piped up.

“Never let it be said that I’m unwilling to help my friends crush their enemies,” Myst joked as she ran up the cobblestone ramp that stopped in front of the castle’s doors. She tried to open the doors and shook her head when she found them locked. She gestured and copied Harry’s earlier spell, attempting to open the doors with magic, but they stayed locked. “Okay, Plan B.”

“Plan B?” Zatanna asked as the group walked up the ramp at a more leisurely pace.

Harry studied the magic bound to the lock. “There’s more magic on the door than the gate.”

“Yep, plan B.” Myst used her sunglasses to look through the door then used her telekinesis to open the door from the inside. “A little bit of telekinesis goes a long ways.”

“That’s cheating,” Zatanna teased.

“If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying or you’re playing a game with friends,” Myst said as she walked into the castle and looked around the entrance hall. “You’re the experts, where do you want to go first?”

“I’d say the library but it’s empty,” Hermione muttered.

“I wouldn’t mind checking to see if the Chamber of Secrets exists,” Harry mused. “It’s a large chamber under the school and part of the lake with a bunch of snake statues.”

“Wait!” Hermione said urgently. “You probably shouldn’t try to look for the chamber until we can figure out if there’s a basilisk down there.”

“Yeah, that would be bad. Let me check.” Myst reached out with her empathy and checked the castle, not sure if she should be relieved or unnerved when she couldn’t sense anything alive in the castle. “I can’t feel anything alive in the castle other than us, feel free to check.”

“On it,” Kara said as she started looking for hidden chambers.

Hermione sighed as she thought about the empty library. “If the library is empty, I wouldn’t mind checking the potions labs to see if there are any ingredients in the cabinets.”

“We should probably check the kitchen while we’re thinking about it. I’d hate to let stuff rot because we didn’t maintain the stasis spells or freezing charms.” Myst walked into the great hall far enough that she could look around. She blinked when she noticed a feather duster dusting one of the tables without anyone around to move it. “Weird.”

“Invisible servants?” Raven asked, wondering if she could duplicate the spell for cleaning her room.

Myst focused on the duster then tilted her head slightly as her upgrade ability showed that it was just a feather duster without any charms or enchantments on it. She turned her attention to the area around the cleaning tool and grinned when her ability locked onto the invisible and mostly intangible magical cleaning drone. “I wasn’t aware the wizarding world had a spell to create an unseen servant.”

“We don’t or at least I’ve never heard of one,” Hermione said as she stepped into the great hall and looked at the feather duster that was busy dusting off the Hufflepuff table. “They normally just charm the feather duster.”

“As in the Dungeons and Dragons spell?” Xander asked as he pulled his attention off the ceiling of the great hall that showed a clear blue sky.

“More or less, it doesn’t seem intelligent and it’s just a bit of spellwork and some basic instructions with a bit of magical force tossed in,” Myst said as she looked at the conjured creature’s stats and abilities.

“You might not be able to see the chamber, it’s called ‘of secrets’ for a reason,” Harry told Karen. “If it is, then start at the girl’s bathroom on the second floor and see where the pipes lead.”

“Third floor if you’re American,” Harry cut in, having run into that problem getting directions while running around the States with Constantine.

“Why would they put a secret passage in a bathroom?” Kara asked, having already found a suspiciously snake themed Chamber and traced it to a bathroom on the third floor.

“If I ever find a spell to contact the dead, I’ll ask him.” Harry turned to look at Hermione. “What do you think, Gryffindor tower or the potions lab first?”

Karen said, “I found a room in the dungeons with some cauldrons and gas burners, but there aren’t any ingredients or books.”

“And the ice chests in the kitchen are also empty,” Kara added after taking a quick look at the kitchen.

“At least we don’t have to worry about anything rotting,” Myst said, not terribly upset about the food not being copied.

“On that note, let’s head to the Gryffindor dorm, we can have some lunch and Hermione can show us her room,” Harry suggested, figuring it would be a good time to use the Re’em’s blood enhanced Coke and see what else Myst would upgrade now that he had extra mana.

Buffy looked at Harry. “You’ve never seen her room?”

“Only from the window, the stairs on the girl’s dorm are charmed to turn into a slide if boys try to use them,” Harry admitted as he started walking towards the stairs that led to the Tower.

“And I’m suddenly glad that I didn’t go to a boarding school,” Xander said as they followed Harry.

“Thankfully, the reverse isn’t true,” Hermione said. “Of course, there are some logistical issues when you’re screwing your friend’s younger sister, right?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “I warned Ron not to open the curtains on my bed if they were closed, it’s his own fault.”

Buffy snickered. “I don’t know, if I had a younger sister and I walked in on Xander or Willow fucking her, I’d just watch.”

Beast Boy stared at Buffy, his mind sort of blue screening, as he tried to process her statement.

“That’s because you’re a kinky girl,” Xander said with amusement as he gave Buffy a light swat on her behind with the hand that wasn’t holding the half eaten apple.

“Damned straight,” Buffy replied playfully.

“You know, we have that twin spell we need to test,” Sabrina teased.

“I’m game if you are,” Buffy offered.

Zatanna gestured at Beast Boy and levitated him into the air so he wasn’t left behind. ‘It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine...’