Demons and Botched Rituals (Patreon)

An: I don't own any of the Harry Potter characters. 

Hermione Granger was ripped out of her fitful slumber by a thousand shrieking voices crying out in anguish. She opened her eyes and stared in disbelief and horror at the rainbow colored storm wrecked sea of twisted toddler-like creatures that were ripping each other apart with black talons or mouths filled with monstrous teeth. She’d barely processed the fact that she’d obviously screwed up the ritual that was supposed to give Harry a fighting chance against Voldemort when several green toddler-like creatures jumped at her, causing her to stumble and apparate, trying to get away from them.

She felt her heart lurch as she was yanked backwards the second she reappeared, pulling her through a field of flames so cold they burned and dropping her on the ground in a torchlit stone chamber. She had just enough time to catch several words she didn’t recognize and realize that she wasn’t in pain before the singing stopped. 

Hermione skittered backwards when she saw two giants standing on the other side of an inch wide silver circle set into the stone ground, one was wearing high quality black robes while the other was a red haired busty teenage girl without a stitch of clothing.

“Congratulations on summoning your familiar Selena,” the giant said as he pulled his hood back, revealing a human looking face with a nicely trimmed black beard.

Hermione was just about to demand to know where she was and why the girl was naked when she glanced down and saw her tiny purple child-like hands. ‘Crap,’ she thought to herself as she wiggled her fingers, fairly sure she’d royally screwed up the ritual that was supposed to help Harry.

“Thank you Professor Grimbane,” Selena replied formally after bowing respectfully.

“Now you just have to make it through the dungeon without being killed,” the professor said as he gestured toward the glowing blue doorway behind Hermione.

“Dungeon?” Hermione asked warily as she turned to look at what the man was talking about.

“Any advice?” Selena asked as she studied the strangely cute purple skinned demon she’d summoned, happy that it could already speak. ‘Messy blue hair, pointy ears and black fingernails, she’d almost pass as human if it wasn’t for her skin and ears, probably just as well considering how jumpy some people are about familiars.’ 

“Don’t be afraid to use your familiar as a meat shield, you can always resummon it now that you’ve done the initial binding,” the professor said cheerfully. “Now run along, I have a dozen acolytes that need familiars, mostly idiots with a second class, which means they’ll expect instant results.”

“What is going on?” Hermione demanded.

“Let’s go,” Selena said as she reached down and picked Hermione up by her armpits, stepped on the silver summoning circle and hustled through the portal that led to the dungeon before her familiar could get her in trouble with the summoning trainer.

Hermione shivered as she was carried through a wall of blue energy and out into a torchlit stone hallway. “What is going on?”

“Sorry about that,” Selena offered as she set Hermione on the ground. “I’d rather not waste the summoning trainer’s time and annoying the professors always results in increased training fees or annoying quests. Let’s start with the basics, Pet Status.”

Hermione blinked as a translucent blue window appeared floating in the air in front of them that looked a lot like a character sheet for a video game, complete with stats, equipment slots and a picture of a purple skinned, pointed eared toddler wearing a white loincloth. “Strength 3, Agility 12, Vitality 15, Magic 107…” she trailed off when she noticed the girl staring at her in disbelief. “What?”

“I only have 24 points of magic,” Selena complained, a bit surprised that the starting demon had over four times as much magic as she did.

“Is that good?” Hermione asked as she glanced over her skill and ability lists. “Wand Specialty, Libromancy, and a Synthesis ability?”

Selena tapped the Wand Specialty skill. “Proficiency in all wands: 5% increased damage with wands per level, sweet! I’ll have to get you a wand.”

“That would be nice,” Hermione said, feeling a bit vulnerable without a wand. She reached out and tapped her Libromancy skill with her index finger. “Libromancy?”

“Sweet!” Selena squealed as she read the description for a skill she’d never even heard of before. “Damn, as long as you damage a monster they have a small chance to drop a skill book when they die.”

“Is that good?” Hermione asked, wishing she had a guidebook for this strange world.

“More like amazing…” Selena trailed off as she selected Hermione’s Synthesis ability and read the description. “How the hell?!” she blurted out, quickly reading it a second time to make sure she hadn’t misread anything.

Hermione read over the strange ability, “Synthesis: This ability allows the creation of skills by combining multiple skills into a new skill. Does that mean I could combine my wand skill with my Libromancy skill?”

“No clue, I’ve never heard of anyone being able to create new skills without months or even years of research,” Selena explained, excited about the possibilities.

Hermione focused on her new ability and stared when she saw a crafting window open. “Skills on the left and a catalyst box on the right.”

“Which probably means you need creature parts or something expensive dropped in the box.” Selena pulled her attention off Hermione’s crafting page and glanced at her empty spell list. “Hopefully we can find some weapons before we run into anything too dangerous.”

“Like what?” Hermione asked warily.

“No idea,” Selena admitted. “The dungeon is random and scales based on the group’s average level and gear, which is why the Guild sends people in without anything.”

“How many people has the Guild lost?” Hermione demanded.

Selena shrugged. “I’m not sure they’ve bothered to keep track of the actual numbers, but it’s been estimated to be about 20%.”

“Twenty percent!” Hermione blurted, shocked that anyone would consider a 20% death rate acceptable. “Why the hell would you take that risk?!”

“The dungeon occasionally drops interesting and rare skills, skills that can turn a fumbling warlock into a legend with enough work,” Selena explained as she walked down the hallway toward a door she could just barely make out. “Most of the people that have died were either idiots or people with more than a couple of levels under their belt. I’ve been careful to train my skills without training my level, we should be fine.”

“I’m not exactly an expert when it comes to unarmed combat,” Hermione admitted as she followed her new ‘friend’.

“Don’t worry, there are trainers for that,” Selena assured her as she opened the door, revealing three large glass cases in the middle of the torchlit stone room, as well as a sledgehammer sitting on the ground, a couple of feet from the door. “The dungeon normally gives people weapons before tossing monsters at them, normally,” she muttered the last part as she stepped into the room.

“Choose your path!” a loud deep voice said as a mannequin appeared in each case. “Use the hammer to break one of the cases and choose your reward, only then will you be able to open the door.”

“Sweet, free combat skills,” Selena squealed as she glanced over the gear the mannequins were wearing. “We can probably ignore the one with the chainmail and the mace considering your horrible strength score and my unwillingness to get into melee combat if I don’t have to.”

“Which leaves the archer or the witch,” Hermione said thoughtfully.

“As much as having archery skills would be fun, we might as well grab the staff and robes,” Selena said as she walked over to the hammer.

“Are you saying we’ll get skills from the weapons?” Hermione asked as she studied the cases, wondering if there was a better way to deal with the challenge than breaking the cases.

“Maybe?” Selena offered. “The dungeon is random but it’s not uncommon to find weapons that unlock basic combat skills.”

“What do you think would happen if we could steal the gear without breaking the cases?” Hermione asked, figuring the challenge couldn’t be as simple as breaking one of the cases with a hammer.

Selena gestured and tossed a ball of condensed shadows at the case that held the witch’s gear, completely unsurprised when her spell washed over the ‘glass’ without leaving a mark. “Best of luck. If it was that easy to cheat…” she trailed off as her familiar vanished with a pop and reappeared inside the case with the witch’s gear. “Neat!”

Hermione quickly reached up and grabbed the mannequin’s black witch hat as well as the simple robes and wooden staff then apparated back out. “You were saying?” she asked as she handed the gear to Selena.

“Nice job. Do you want to grab the chainmail or test the gear first?” Selena asked, wishing she had a skill for identifying magical items.

“How long can we stay in the dungeon?” Hermione asked, curious if there was a time limit.

“Most people finish the dungeon in a couple of hours, but there isn’t a time limit beyond the fact that we don’t have any supplies.”

“I’ll grab the armor.” Hermione apparated into the case with the chainmail then sighed as she tried to remove it from the mannequin and failed spectacularly because of her size and lack of strength. ‘I better not be stuck like this,’ she thought as she reached up and grabbed the armor with both hands then apparated back to Selena, concentrating on taking it with her.

Selena reached out and caught the suit of armor before it could crush her familiar. “Your strength should improve as you level up,” she encouraged the obviously upset demon.

“Good.” Hermione apparated back into the case and grabbed the large mace with both hands then apparated back out and quickly set the heavy mace on the ground. “Do you want me to steal the archer’s gear or do you want to break the case?”

“We might as well just break the case but I want to test the gear first.” Selena dropped the witch’s hat on Hermione’s head. “Anything?” she asked as the hat shrunk down enough that it was only a touch loose on her head.

“It gives me a temporary Bumbling Witch class…” Hermione trailed off as she glanced down at her skill list. “Collateral Damage? Warped Alchemy?”

“Those sound a bit questionable,” Selena said, knowing most people got really unhappy when they were hit with random spells.

Hermione selected the new skill. “This passive skill increases the chance to miss with spells by 5% per level but increases the damage by 10% per level… You’d have to be insane to use that,” she complained as she looked at the Warped Alchemy skill.

“Just a bit,” Selena said, less than impressed with the skill. “What about Warped Alchemy?”

“It reduces the crafting time by 5% per level, increases the chance to create warped potions by 2% per level.”

“Hellfire!” Selena squealed. “That’s awesome!”

“How is that a good thing?” Hermione asked, not sure why Selena was cheering.

“Potions can take anywhere from minutes to months or even years for some of the higher end elixirs, you get crafting experience when you finish a potion, which means that having an absolute time reduction skill would let you level alchemy at an insane rate.”

Hermione shook her head, not quite used to people treating things as a video game. “With a 40% chance for something to go horribly wrong at level 20.”

“Alchemists have the ability to identify potions, which means we won’t be poisoning anyone. Worst case, we’d just risk losing ingredients and there are a number of hard to craft potions that sell for at least ten times the cost of their ingredients and that isn’t even touching the elven elixirs that take centuries to make, but have mostly reasonable ingredients,” Selena explained excitedly.

“That sounds interesting,” Hermione agreed, not sure how to feel about cutting corners with a questionable skill. It felt a bit cheap, but on the other hand, she was currently in the body of a demonic toddler so she couldn’t afford to be all that picky, especially as she didn’t know what had happened to Harry when the ritual failed. “I’m fairly sure the robe won’t fit.”

“Some of them resize,” Selena offered as she handed Hermione the robe.

Hermione did her best to put on the robe, feeling like a small child trying to wear a tent. “Not enough.”

Selena snickered, thinking about trying on her father’s old robes when she was a small child. “Anything?”

Hermione skimmed her character sheet. “Mad Alchemist? This entire set is a bit dodgy.”

“Any useful skills?” Selena asked hopefully.

“Alchemy, Conjure Makeshift Lab and Suspect Substitution,” Hermione replied as she read the description of the skill that let her conjure an alchemy lab.

“Nice, that should keep the guilds from taking 20% of the profit,” Selena grumbled as she picked up the mace. “Ogre’s Blunt Mastery?”

“What does that do?” Hermione asked as she finished reading the description for the Suspect Substitution skill.

“It improves your damage with blunt weapons while decreasing accuracy,” Selena grumbled as she set the mace back on the ground.

“That sounds like a perfect test for my Synthesis ability,” Hermione said, not seeing a point in using a skill that made it harder to hit.

“Point, what does the Suspect Substitution skill do?” Selena asked as she dropped the chainmail in her equipment slot, saving her the trouble of trying to figure out how to put it on properly.

“It basically lets you use questionable material for alchemy, but increases your chance of failure by 60% and reduces the effectiveness by half when using dodgy ingredients.”

“That’s better than having it explode or turn to sludge,” Selena mused. “Especially if we can source some of the ingredients for cheap.”

”What happens if we lose the class items?” Hermione asked warily.

“Then we lose the classes and the skills. On the upside, if I can hit level 25, I can teach you the class with my Mentor skill, which would let you permanently keep it.”

“I don’t suppose anyone wrote a guidebook for classes and skills?” Hermione asked hopefully.

“Most of the guilds have some leveling and class guides that might help.” Selena pointed her staff at the glass case of the archer and activated it, causing a stream of fire to pour out of the top of the staff. “That should help if we run into any giant rats.”

“Are giant rats a common problem?” Hermione asked, feeling about as lost as the first time she’d walked into Diagon Alley.

“Only if you’re crazy enough to go into basements or sewers,” Selena replied as she grabbed the sledgehammer and broke the ‘glass’ on the archer case, causing the entire case to break into tiny fragments and drop to the ground.

“Your path is set, your archery gear will vanish in twenty four hours or as soon as you leave the dungeon,” the deep booming voice announced.

Hermione sighed in relief as their ‘stolen’ gear didn’t vanish when the warrior and witch mannequins vanished. “I’m glad we looted everything first.”

“Same,” Selena said as she reached over and grabbed the tag on the glowing bow. “Bow of Shattered Dreams, S-class damage and speed…” she trailed off as she read the stats on the legendary bow that she wouldn’t get to keep, feeling like someone had just shown her the ultimate prize then laughed in her face about the fact that she couldn’t keep it. “I’m suddenly glad I didn’t pick the witch, it’s probably better off not knowing what type of amazing gear it would have taunted us with.”

“Probably,” Hermione agreed, knowing she would have felt horrible if she’d gotten a magical book or some sorcerous artifact for a limited amount of time.

Selena reached over and grabbed the tag on the backpack. “It’s a decent sized backpack of holding, that should make things easier.” She quickly pulled the pack off the mannequin then grabbed the belt pouch and looked inside, happy to see a set of glowing thieves’ tools with a tag. “Sweet.” She tossed Hermione the lockpicks then worked on grabbing the mannequin’s quiver. “They’ll give you a decent bonus and let you pick magical locks. There are rogues that would kill for these.”

“I’m fairly sure there are rogues that would kill you for a copper coin,” Hermione muttered as she made her way over to the door and started working on the lock.

Selena looked at the tag on the quiver. “Damn, this comes with a skill for conjuring permanent high end arrows, pity we don’t get to keep it.”

“Maybe you can learn it before it vanishes,” Hermione suggested, fairly sure it wouldn’t be that easy.

0o0o0

“Next time, we should test things on Malfoy first,” Harry Potter muttered as he watched the demon children tear each other apart from the ‘safety’ of his ledge while he tried to figure out how he was going to get himself out of the mess Hermione’s failed empowerment ritual had dropped him into. 

He blinked as he saw a blue haired purple skinned demon appear out of thin air in the middle of the large cavern only to get sucked into a black oval a second later. “It wasn’t screaming, so that’s probably my way out.” He turned his attention toward a pack of green skinned monsters that were ripping a blue skinned demon apart. “It’s better than sticking around here and letting the rest of the monsters eat me.”

Harry was just glad it only took a couple of minutes for the next black oval to appear hovering over a different section of the cavern, as he wasn’t looking forward to trying to sleep here. He jumped off the ledge and apparated next to the black oval that he was really hoping was a way out. He grinned as he fell through the portal and found himself in a stone chamber rather than in oblivion or a lake of fire, both destinations he’d considered possible considering where he was. He glanced between the tall, almost Hagrid sized man in robes and the ferret faced young man standing in front of him in expensive looking black robes decorated with silver runes that reminded him of Malfoy, but with less perfect hair.

Grimbane studied Harry, slightly unnerved by the amount of magic the baby demon possessed. “We should…” he trailed off as the young man reached forward and grabbed the demon child by his wild black hair. ‘Yeah, it’s a good thing you’ve already paid.’

“You’re my demon, you’ll obey, do you understand?” Ralph demanded, seeing no reason to be polite to a demon he was going to get rid of as soon as he finished the dungeon.

Harry sighed as he realized that something wouldn’t let him lash out and punch the asshole in the crotch or set him on fire. “I understand,” he replied, ‘that I’ll be kicking your arse as soon as I figure out what magic is keeping me from doing so right now.’

“The dungeon is that way,” Grimbane said, wondering how long the idiot would last in the dungeon.

Ralph dragged Harry into the dungeon then looked around the stone hallway. “Let’s see how pathetic you are, Pet Status.”

Harry stared as a character sheet like something from one of Duddley’s video games appeared in front of him. ‘Harry Potter, Daemon Paragon: Strength 10, Agility 22, Vitality 30, Magic… 237?’

“How the fuck do you have two hundred points more magic than I do?!” Ralph demanded, seriously pissed off that his familiar completely outclassed him when it came to sheer power.

“I’m a demon?” Harry asked sarcastically as he quickly glanced over the rest of the sheet. ‘No gear to speak of, no wand, and I’m stuck with an idiot.’ He glanced down at his Wayfinder and Shadow Home abilities then glanced down at his skills list. ‘Two abilities and an Inventory skill, could be worse I guess.’

“Why do you only have one skill?” Ralph demanded. “They gave me a defective demon.”

“Probably because I’m a baby demon,” Harry replied dryly, seeing no reason to be all that helpful to the local Draco.

“Fine,” Ralph snapped. “You’re the meatshield, walk in front.”

“Of course,” Harry said as he walked down the torchlit hallway. “Are you going to give me a weapon?”

“You don’t need a weapon, you’re just here to give me enough warning to kill things, I suspect that you’ll die more than a few times,” Ralph said snidely.

‘And you wonder why you don’t have any friends,’ Harry thought sarcastically as he reached the end of the wallway and opened the door, revealing a well lit circular room with a vaulted ceiling. He glanced between the three Hagrid sized stone statues holding nasty looking metal swords and the three rather impressive treasure chests bound in a dark metal. ‘Yeah, it’s like they’re not even trying to conceal the fact that the statues are cursed or maybe there is something else to this trap.’

“Don’t open a door unless I tell you to,” Ralph ordered as he brought his wand up. “Walk through the door.”

Harry walked into the circular room and took a quick look around, wanting to make sure no one was lurking in the room. “It looks-” he cut off when he realized he couldn’t say it looked safe, probably because he’d ordered him not to lie, “interesting.”

“Open the nearest chest and kill the statue if it animates,” Ralph called out from the hallway.

“Are you going to give me a weapon?” Harry asked again, wanting him annoyed and not thinking about practical orders as it gave him more chances to find a way to break free.

“No, this is more entertaining,” Ralph said smugly, figuring he’d just summon his familiar back after he got splattered.

“Yeah, I need a union,” Harry grumbled as he walked over to the first chest and touched it, ready to jump backwards if he had to. He jumped back as the statue animated and the door to the hallway slammed shut.

Harry felt a shiver of unease when the statue froze in place. He stared at the statues for a couple of seconds then backed away a couple more steps in case the statue was faking. ‘I don’t have to kill something that isn’t alive.’ He touched his inventory skill and smiled when a description appeared in another window. ‘I have five slots in my inventory.’ He glanced up at the statues. ‘Nah, I’d probably have to be able to pick the statues up to stick them in my inventory.’

He gestured at the chest. “Wingardium Leviosa… Wingardium Leviosa? Levitate…” he trailed off, slightly annoyed that he couldn’t get his spell to work without a wand. “Fucking float?” he asked hopefully. 

Harry wasn’t terribly surprised when nothing happened, though he was certainly disappointed that he hadn’t put any effort into learning how to cast spells without a wand. ‘Yeah, I’m going to have to fix that when I get a chance.’

He focused on his inventory and grinned when a translucent window with five boxes appeared floating in the air in front of him. ‘Now I just need to move an impossibly heavy chest into my inventory, no pressure.’

“I don’t hear enough dying!” Ralph shouted.

Harry plugged his ears so that he couldn’t hear Ralph in case he called out any more idiotic orders. ‘Okay, if I angle the inventory menu and trick the statue into hitting it, I can probably get it into my inventory... probably.’