Harry Potter and the Twisted Game Part 2 (Patreon)

Taylor had a moment of disorientation as she went from running towards the Endbringer shelter with her mother to being sprawled on a narrow bed looking up at the ceiling of the airship they were taking to get to London and went from looking up at the ceiling wondering what her cousins would be like to wondering if she was losing her mind. 'Great, I've either lost my mind because I've been stuck on a ship for a week or I'm currently having a bad trip because Leet hit us with something to save us.'

Taylor stared up at the ceiling for a couple of seconds as she tried to figure out which version of her life was true and which version was a hallucination. 'Science, computers that can do more than write notes, print pages and read files off the network, parahuman powers? Is that less believable than magic and dungeons?'

'Name? Taylor, Taylor… Anne Hebert in both. Profession? Highschool student, thief and warrior, never mind that I've never stolen so much as a pack of gum and yet, I've stolen plenty of things from dungeons and the annoying assholes at school and from friends as a joke, who the hell does that?' Taylor asked herself, even though she already knew the answer. 'Why the hell didn't I just burn Winslow to the ground?'

'Hive of scum and villainy and the only school in the Bay that taught rogue skills,' Taylor reminded herself, glad that her mother had insisted on her going to Arcadia. 'Of course, my Winslow probably didn't have magic thieves, just gang members. If you're hallucinating, can you pull off your magic tricks? Do you have parahuman powers?'

Taylor reached out with her magic and felt the mana swirling around and through the ship thanks to the mana engines. 'Okay, point for the local version being the real Taylor.' She glanced down at her breasts which were larger than her Earth Bet memories knew they should be but normal enough for her other memories. 'Two points for the local version. Chemistry? That's close enough to alchemy and poison craft, not sure that really counts and I don't have a laptop or phone. How many stories, video games or movies do I remember?'

Taylor spent a minute mentally reviewing some of the movies and video games she remembered, fairly sure that a hallucination wouldn't contain all of the details she could remember. "And a bunch of points for Earth Bet. Let's assume I'm not crazy," she grinned as she recalled stealing Sophia's dress off her in the middle of prom without getting caught because the lunatic had been bragging about how she was the best thief in the entire town.

'Okay, let's assume I'm not any worse than I used to be.' She walked herself through some of the enchanting basics to make sure that she wasn't mistaken about her magic skills. 'Everything seems legit, which means I've got memories from two lives. Did I pick up anything useful? A couple of chemistry recipes that might be useful and a hell of a lot of general knowledge.'

Taylor turned to look at the door when someone knocked on it. "Yes?"

"Just me," Annette said as she opened the door. "We're almost there, looking forward to running around?"

"I might be going a bit crazy, do you know who Leet is?" Taylor asked as she studied her mother, fairly sure everything lined up with her memories on both sides other than a few less lines and her mother's ears, which were pointy and elf-like, just like they were supposed to be according to her local memories.

Annette laughed as she walked over and sat down on the other bunk. "So much for it being a hallucination. Does Earth Bet mean anything to you?"

"Endbringers?" Taylor asked, figuring that summed everything up.

"As much as I'm going to miss teaching folklore, I'm glad that we don't have to deal with the Endbringers anymore," Annette replied, not sure how to feel about having memories of losing Danny in two different worlds but appreciating the perspective of having lived in two different worlds.

"You could always talk to the college about starting a class when you get back," Taylor pointed out.

Annette shook her head. "It's hard to separate myth from fact in this world and I'd rather not deal with the various factions that are quite happy to kill people over minor disagreements."

"How useful do you think Chemistry is going to be?" Taylor asked thoughtfully.

"Considering alchemists can trade recipes and get decent results, it's worth running some tests," Annette replied with a grin, looking forward to improving her alchemy.

"I'll probably do the same with enchanting, I can think of a couple of ways to," Taylor paused when she heard a sound like a pipe organ coming out of the small brass tube in the ceiling, letting them know that they were ten minutes away from the station, "improve things."

"No harm in trying," Annette replied with a smile, fairly sure Lily would be able to help them run some tests as she was an expert when it came to alchemy and enchanting.

0o0o0

'37% chance to steal that woman's panties, 57% chance to steal her dress without her noticing,' Harry mused as he read the percentages on his heads up display that had appeared when they'd walked past a fat man waving around a coin purse around while arguing with the clerk about his flight and how he was extremely important because he was rich. 'He's worse than the Dursleys, at least they care about making a scene in public.'

"Where's my fucking coin purse!" the fat man shouted as he tried to figure out where he'd misplaced his coin purse.

'Idiot,' Dawn thought as she opened her inventory and checked the man's coin purse. 'Nice, thirty seven gold coins and fifteen silver.'

'Note to self, never take my coins out of my inventory.' Harry frowned when he glanced at a locked door to a staff room and saw '97%' in glowing letters floating next to the lock. 'I wonder if there are children's books on the interface.' He glanced over at Hermione, wondering if she was seeing the same thing. 'I'll have to ask her later.'

'I need to find a library," Hermione mused when she saw a cheerful looking seven or eight year old girl that was walking six inches off the ground next to a twenty something woman in an expensive looking crimson silk dress that clung to her body. 'Enchanted shoes that glow every step or some type of levitation power?' She smiled when her heads up display brought up a floating window with a picture of the shoes and a description. 'Glowing Shoes of Float, levitates the user six inches above the ground and the soles glow a random color every time they take a step, increasing the radius that monsters notice you.'

"How much do you think the floating shoes are?" Dawn asked thoughtfully.

Lily glanced up at the gate number. "Nine to ten gold, they're a rare drop off the first chest in the magus dungeon. They'd have a hard time keeping them on the shelves if they didn't glow and increase the range that monsters detect you."

"Can't you just put them on and take them off when you don't need them?" Dawn asked.

"Most people don't like swapping boots in the middle of a dungeon and potions of floating are decently cheap," Lily explained as they headed for the ninth gate.

Dawn frowned slightly when they walked past a man wearing an expensive suit with a rather full looking coin purse hanging from his belt and noticed her chance of successfully stealing his purse without being noticed was 7%. 'Yeah, fuck that.'

Harry stared when he saw an older looking man with a leash on a teenage girl's neck that looked decidedly unhappy with trying to push the man's baggage-filled cart.

"Keep moving or I'll sell you to the butcher," the man snarled at the girl.

Harry wasn't sure what possessed him to reach out and steal the man's crystal bracelet, most likely the fact that the man reminded him of Lucius Malfoy and it was either that or he was going to do something that was going to kill the idiot or get himself into trouble or both.

"What's your damage!" Hermione demanded, glaring at the man, unable to keep her mouth shut.

"She's slow, now shut your mouth and don't talk to your betters elf," the man said with a French accent as he glared at Hermione in a way that one might look at a disgusting mess.

Harry scowled as his heads up display swapped to showing him hit locations and notes on extra damage. 'It's almost like the system wants him dead or maybe there's just a mental component.'

"You're in London, you might want to have a care asshole," a topless brown haired elf wearing a red and green kilt and a tophat suggested as she pushed off against the pillar she'd been leaning against and stalked towards the man.

Lily winced when she noticed her friend's smirk, mostly because it usually resulted in paperwork.

"What are you going to do about it elf?" the man asked with a sneer, not really noticing or caring when the crowd scattered to get away from the confrontation.

"I'm going to remind you that insulting a noble means they can legally challenge you to a duel, now fuck off and go home you racist piece of shit unless you want to challenge me to a duel for the girl?" the 'young' woman said with a smirk.

"I accept your duel…" the man trailed off as a sword appeared in the lady's right hand and his head fell off his shoulders.

"Snicker-snack," she said coldly as she returned her blade to her inventory.

Hermione stared at the woman that had straight up executed the man. 'Shit, I barely saw her move.'

"Alice, you're supposed to let them finish agreeing to the duel," Lily protested halfheartedly, not particularly bothered about the man's death but knowing that her friend would leave her to clean up the mess.

"Legally, he accepted," Alice replied as she stuffed the man's corpse in her inventory and started looting his luggage. "Besides, the girl has magic, I need a new apprentice."

Lily glanced at the naked teenager with brown hair. "What happened to your last one?"

Alice scowled as she thought about her ex-apprentice. "He talked Neville into sneaking into the Magus dungeon with him."

"Is he okay?" Hermione asked warily.

"No, he got torn to pieces…" Alice trailed off when she noticed the look of horror on Hermione's face. "Oh you mean Neville, yeah, he's fine. He's a bit worse for wear watching his temporary team get blasted apart but he'll survive."

"That's a relief," Hermione replied, wondering how the hell she was so calm about losing an apprentice.

"I told Max that he wasn't ready and that you can't sneak past the miniboss while invisible but his friend had a map," Alice said the last part sarcastically as she finished looting the man's luggage.

"Did Neville get anything decent?" Dawn asked, fairly sure the map had been yet another scam by someone in the thieves' guild.

"A couple of potions, a halfway decent starting sword, a slightly charred wooden shield and some boots that reduce sound," Alice replied as she studied the girl with a leash. "Do you want to learn magic?"

"Yes please," the girl replied.

"In that case, let's get the leash off and get you something to eat." Alice smiled as she walked over and took the girl's leash off, happy that she had a new apprentice and that the idiot was dead. She gestured at the pool of blood and cleaned it up with a spell then teleported back home with the girl, eager to run some tests and get started teaching the girl magic.

Lily sighed when she noticed the station guards running around the corner. "Can you pick up Taylor and Annette while I talk to the guards?" she asked Harry.

"Sure," Harry replied as he started walking towards the gate, figuring the less he had to talk to the guards the better. "Let's go."

Dawn grinned when she spotted a girl about her age with long dark hair that matched the elven woman standing next to her. "I think we have a winner."

Harry mentally compared the picture that his mother had shown them with the people Dawn was pointing at. "Looks like it."

Taylor smiled when she saw Harry, Dawn and Hermione walking over, recognizing them from the family photo her mother had shown her. "Potters?" she asked when they walked over.

"Last I checked," Dawn replied with a grin. "You're Taylor and Annette, right?"

"Hebert," Annette offered. "Where's your folks?"

"Dad got called into work and Mom had to talk to the guards about someone dying in a duel," Dawn explained.

"Anyone important?" Annette asked.

"Not particularly," Dawn replied as she scanned Taylor. "Magic immunity and three types of elemental immunities, we're going to have to recruit you for our dungeon run," she said in a whisper.

"That's one of the reasons we're here," Taylor replied with a grin, looking forward to picking up some decent magic gear to go with the rest of her gear.

"Excellent," Dawn replied as she rubbed her hands together.

Harry glanced at Dawn then looked at Hermione. "I'm fairly sure she's the evil twin."

"Spank me," Dawn teased. "Speaking of spanking things, what do you bring to the adventuring table talent wise?"

"Enchanting, stealth, trap breaking, herb lore, exceptional strength and the ability to run for hours," Taylor replied, skipping the more impressive parts of her skill set and gear until they were behind wards.

"Nice," Dawn replied, happy to have a meatshield.

"We should probably save the specifics until we're behind wards," Annette suggested quietly, knowing a lot of people would happily kill Taylor and a small country for the family sword.

"Probably a good idea," Lily replied as she walked over. "It's nice to see you again."

"Thanks for inviting us," Annette replied as she stepped forward and pulled Lily into a hug.

"You're welcome. Let's swing by the card shop and pick up Willow and Xander then we'll try to figure out the best dungeons to start with," Lily suggested.

"Sounds good," Annette replied as she let go of Lily, looking forward to seeing how much the dungeon had grown over the last ten years.

"Do you play Avatar?" Dawn asked Taylor as they headed for the exit.

"I've played," Taylor replied, thinking about the collection of cards in her inventory that she'd 'stolen' from the idiots at school through various means both fair and foul. 'I wonder if there's a 12 step program for stealing cards from assholes? Nah, I'd have to want to stop.'

Annette laughed. "I'd avoid betting anything you don't want to lose."

"If you're looking for a game, I know a couple of guys with more coins and cards than brains," Dawn said innocently.

Harry focused on the bracelet in his inventory that he'd stolen off the dead guy. 'Generates a force field that gives twenty points of armor to every part of the body. I'm going to have to scan a bunch of armor and weapons to have a better idea if that's actually impressive.'

Lily shook her head. "If you're looking for trouble, take Xander, he can usually talk his way out of it."

"I'm not looking for trouble," Dawn promised, fairly sure none of her current targets would knife her over a game.

Lily shook her head. "You're worse than Harry and Hermione put together."

Dawn glanced at Hermione. "Unless we're in a library, I think she's up to twenty seven cursed books."

"Over years and the only one that was a real problem was the one that started screaming," Lily pointed out.

"What about the one that summoned a tentacle monster?" Dawn asked, remembering her sister coming back from that particular trip looking annoyed.

'What the hell is wrong with this world?' Hermione asked herself, not sure if Dawn was joking or being serious.

"The librarian got therapy," Lily replied with a shrug, not particularly concerned with the librarian's mental health because she was an annoying old lady that didn't like children and acted snide when you asked her to actually do her job and find something.

"Second chest from the dungeon?" Annette asked with a smile, thinking about the cursed books that had helped pay for college.

"Probably," Lily agreed.

Dawn glanced between her mother and Annette. "Is this why you don't want us to run the dungeon without supervision?"

Lily shook her head. "Not really, we've lost friends over the years. It's hard to recover a body if you fall into the lava and there is always a chance that the dungeon decides to toss a curve ball and creates a unique monster or a mage with wind magic or earth magic when it resets for the day."

"I can see the problem with earth magic considering it's mostly elemental and kinetic damage but shouldn't air spells fall apart?" Dawn asked.

"If they hit you? Sure. If they hit your clothes just right or something that isn't touching you, not enough to matter. Most of the mages are smart enough to swap elements or toss objects at anyone that shrugs off their first spell," Lily pointed out.

Annette nodded. "All it takes is falling off the ledge and you could hit your head or get stuck somewhere in the lava that you can't get out of. Just because we're immune to magic doesn't mean it's not dangerous, it just means it's not a complete death trap. We lost a teammate to a group of undead that a necromancer had summoned, he had a decent collection of defensive gear so the necromancer had them tackle him off the ledge. It wouldn't have worked except the zombies weren't immune to magic and his air blast spell tossed them over the ledge."

"That was one of the reasons we stopped doing more than the first couple of chests when we're bored," Lily admitted. "Without immunity to fire, most of the defensive gear tends to melt and then you die."

Dawn held her hands up. "Point made, no sneaking into the dungeon without you."

"Good," Lily replied. "I'll be a lot less worried about you exploring the dungeon once you get some decent defensive items and some method of flight or at least a way to float over the lava."

"Like the shoes?" Hermione asked.

Lily glanced at Hermione. "I'd prefer something that isn't quite as noticeable and is a bit more fire resistant but it's a good start."

0o0o0

"Look, I don't control the enchantment," the clerk argued as Harry walked into the card shop. "If your special snowflake of a kid didn't get an impressive rating, it means he's been lying about his skills or his abilities. I've been selling these cards for twenty years, they all work the same way, you push magic into them and they generate a card based on your abilities and talents."

"He's a battlemage, it gave him a combat rating of two," she complained.

"I was going to say that's not my fault but I could sneeze better magic," the clerk replied, done with being polite. He grinned when he spotted Harry's group. "Look, I'll prove it." He waved Harry over. "Push a bit of magic through this and we'll see if it's working," the clerk suggested as he handed Harry the card.

Harry glanced at Dawn. "What do you think?"

"I could use another defensive magic user," Dawn replied with a grin, fairly sure the clerk wasn't going to get the result he thought he was going to get.

Harry pushed some magic in the card, causing the card to shimmer and an image of Harry with a rather familiar cloak appeared. "Attack power of 5, defense 4, stealth… What does sideways hourglass mean?"

The clerk stared at the card in disbelief. "That's an infinity sign, this stack might be suspect, you're listed as an enchanter with a," he blinked a couple of times as he looked at the rating. "How the fuck did you get a nine as a teenager?"

"Just lucky?" Harry asked, not sure why his card had the stats it had.

"You've got a nine in enchanting, insane luck. I don't suppose you'll let me keep," he clerk sighed when Dawn swiped the card out of his hands. "Yeah, I didn't think so. So, this package might be faulty."

Dawn pulled several silver coins out of her inventory and held them out towards the lady. "Tell you what, on the off chance that there's something wrong with the cards, I'll buy the rest of them off you."

"If there's a mistake…" the clerk trailed off as the woman took the coins and handed Dawn the rest of the deck of blank cards then promptly stalked out of the store. "I don't suppose you'll let me run some tests on the deck?"

"Would you?" Dawn asked with a smirk.

"No," the clerk admitted, wishing he'd looked at the rest of the card's abilities. "I might have to tell people that your cards are suspect."

Dawn grumbled as she handed the clerk a blank card to check, mostly because she didn't want to get banned from playing, that was how she made most of her spending money. "Fine, you can check the card."

Hermione shook her head and turned her attention towards the rest of the teenagers and young adults that were playing cards or arguing over miniatures and battlemats. 'They seem normal enough, maybe we just got unlucky with the idiots.'