Troll: 24. Legacy of Steel (Patreon)

Chapter 24: Legacy of Steel 

Clara Warren
Hogwarts, Great Britain

“How’s art club going?” Monica asked as she plopped down next to me on the couch. She kicked off her shoes and placed her feet on my lap.

“Really?”

“My feet are sore. I mean, why do we have to climb five flights of stairs just to get to our common room anyway?” she whined. She was my best friend, but by god, she could be annoying.

I let out an exasperated sigh but began massaging her feet anyway. “It’s not that bad.”

“You’re tall! I’m short, with stubby little legs! You don’t understand my pain!” she said, making a walking motion with her index and middle fingers to emphasize the point.

I ignored her complaining. This was routine by now. “Art club was fine. We’ve gotten a few new firsties, though how many will stick around is up in the air. You could join, you know.”

“Even my stickmen look disfigured.”

“That’s why the club exists, to learn.”

“No thanks, I have enough on my plate trying for NEWTs in arithmancy and runes.”

“You picked those classes. You don’t get to whine about them.”

“Of course I do. I can’t become a wardmaker if I don’t have them but they’re so hard, Clara. Distract me. I need my besties to take my mind off things.” I eyed the petite girl with fond annoyance. I reached into my pocket, pulled out a quill, and jabbed the point into her sole. “Hehehe! C-Clara! Stop!”

For a girl of nineteen, Monica was tiny, shorter than most first years. She hadn’t gained an inch since she was twelve from what she’d said. Locking down her legs while I tickled her into submission was literal child’s play.

“Are you going to stop whining?”

“Hahaha! Okay, okay! I give!”

“Hmm… You don’t sound repentant.”

“S-Seriously! I’m going to pee myself!”

“Alright, fine,” I acquiesced. I let her go and she quickly sat up straight, pulling her feet away from my quill.

“You’re such a bitch, Clara.”

“Of course.” Then, I had a thought. “Say, you know a lot about muggle culture, right?”

“Umm, yes? I mean, I’m a halfie, but mom’s a muggle, not a witch. I guess I know more about the muggle world than most but probably not as much as you?”

I pulled out Zabini’s charcoal drawing from my bookbag. It was easily the most interesting thing a firstie’s ever given me. I handed it to Monica. “What do you make of this?”

“Oh! I recognize this! It’s the Terminator!”

“That sounds familiar.”

“You know, like the movie.”

“Oh! Yeah, now that you mention it…”

“It’s got Arnold what’shisface. My cousin loves those movies.”

“Huh… Wait… Hahahaha,” I started laughing. This was a movie, as in, completely fictional.

“Why? Why are you laughing?”

“Okay, so get this: You know Zabini, right? The firstie seer?”

“How can I not? He’s taken over the rumor mill lately. Did he make this? I thought he was a pureblood. Does he even know what this is?” she asked.

“He did. He said he’s been getting these little dreams accompanied by a foreboding feeling. I caught him sketching this in the clubroom on Sunday, said he wanted to put his visions to paper.”

“Huh, that’s interesting… Wait, so he doesn’t know?”

I giggled. “No! That’s the best part! He’s been obsessing over some kind of muggle machinery that doesn’t actually exist!”

“Hah, that is pretty funny. His own power’s messing with him.”

“Yup.”

Then a devious glint entered my best friend’s eyes. The twins were the preeminent pranksters in Hogwarts, but sometimes, I wondered if that was because Monica didn’t care enough to take the crown from them. 

“Say, Clara, you know what would be hilarious?”

“I know that look.”

“What if we played a little prank on him?”

“This is a bad idea.”

“You haven’t even heard it!”

“Monica, the last time you had this look, you bought Professor Flitwick a pair of stilts. You’re lucky he has a sense of humor,” I said patiently.

“I got him those because he has a sense of humor. You know he loves me.”

“For some inexplicable reason, yes, he does.”

“Come on, Clara, just a teensy prank?”

“Against my better judgment, fine. Lay it on me.”

“It’s barely a prank, promise,” Monica winked. “What if you just… went along with it?”

“You want me to… act like the Terminator is real? What? Tell him that there is some kind of muggle superweapon that’s half man and half machine?”

“Yes! Imagine, all the purebloods will think there is some great muggle conspiracy! It’ll be hilarious!”

“Or, they’ll all think muggles are nuttier than they already do.” I found myself smiling despite myself. That would be funny, and I could set the record straight whenever, maybe even drag him to the movies over summer to prove it if he freaks out too much. “Well, Zabini does take himself a little too seriously sometimes…”

“Exactly! And anything that bugs the purebloods can’t be a bad thing. Like, what if we tell him that it’s an enchanting experiment gone wrong? Don’t tell him it’s fake, or that it’s a movie, if he even knows what those are. Just tell him that it’s an urban legend or something and you had no idea it was real until he drew a picture of it. Then act all freaked out and let him come to his own conclusions.”

“You’re a terrible person. What if he really believes there’s a muggleborn dark lord or something turning muggles into mechanized inferi?”

“We’ll get a good laugh out of this?”

“I… You know what? Fine, but I’m going to tell him the truth if he gets too stressed. I don’t want to get chewed out for bullying a firstie.”

“Sure, sure. Maybe it’ll be a good lesson for him to not jump to conclusions, especially because he’s a seer.”

I rolled my eyes as Monica told me all about the Terminator movie. It sounded interesting enough. I mentally apologized to Zabini. He probably didn’t deserve this, but it did seem like fun.

What could go wrong?

X

Blaise Zabini

The twins did not pay, of course they wouldn’t. I knew that even before going into negotiations. Their willingness to part with the Marauder’s Map was something I’d looked into long ago. Hell, even without the Sight, I would have come to the same conclusion. The map was just too important for their future endeavors.

Right now, they dominated a small corner of the Hogwarts black market, if it could be called that. They tested joke products in hidden corners of the castle and smuggled in contraband from Hogsmeade for money. Once in a while, they might use their pranking talents for others, for a fee of course. It was all for the sake of their dream, to open a joke shop of their own.

No, if I had them pegged right, and I liked to think I did, they’d run their own investigation using the map. Not only was this a way they could be good brothers to Ronald while preserving their treasure, this was their chance to prove they could outwit the seer.

That, and they were Gryffindors. I'd dangled bait, the promise of adventure and mystery both. I'd be more worried if they didn't bite.

Let them go on their wild goose chase. They’d waste time looking for a “distant admirer” that didn’t exist while I took care of one of the series’ major problems. They wouldn’t know until much later on, but this was to be my little prank on the twins.

Which brought me to the next part of my little scheme. It was the riskiest in the sense that I genuinely had no idea if I could pull this off. Sure, I was reasonably confident, but I was dealing with an alien mind here. Getting a prideful owl like Hedwig to do me a solid was legitimately the trickiest part of this plan.

I found myself eating supper in the owlery as I often did. However, unlike other times, the owlery was the site of a heated negotiation.

In front of me was a plate full of premium owl treats, the best my considerable allowance could buy. Next to it was a small, wooden box that had been charmed unbreakable. In it was, of course, the rat.

“Please, oh great and merciful Hedwig! This unworthy soul begs for your assistance,” I beseeched. I clapped my hands over my head and bowed at the waist, as near to kneeling as I'd ever get.

“Hoot!” she sniffed. I didn’t know owls could do that, but mail owls were practically their own breed, closer to pokemon than normal animals as far as I was concerned.

“Please, you just have to deliver this rat to Professor Dumbledore.”

“Hoot! Hoot!” She glanced from me to my owl, the queen of this roost.

“Minerva?”

“Hoot.”

I looked to the side to see my oversized owl. She was pouting. I didn’t know how she was doing it with a beak, but she managed. “Don’t worry, Minerva knows that this package must be delivered by you.”

“Hoot?”

“Bwap,” Minerva said, pecking my shoulder irritatedly.

“You know why. I know people will connect the dots, but it's about keeping up appearances. I don’t want anyone to have any evidence of my involvement and you’re too magnificent. Everyone knows you’re my owl,” I told her. She refused to look at me and hopped away when I tried to scratch her neck. “Don't be like that, Minerva. You did a splendid job guarding the rat.”

“Bwap.”

“I'm serious. Would it help if I promised you a full box of owl treats to yourself?”

“Bwap.”

“Look, the only reason I'm having Hedwig deliver the rat is because this rat is actually a human like me. It would be poetic irony if his animagus form was brought in by Violet's owl.”

“Bwap,” she continued to sulk. I did promise that she'd be the only owl I used. Still, I saw her tilt her head in curiosity despite herself.

“Yeah, really.” Perhaps I'd gone a bit dotty but talking to the owls like this was comfortable. It felt right somehow. “Have I told you that Violet’s parents are dead?”

“Bwap?”

“Well, they are, and this rat did it. He's why she's such a lonely little owlet, and why she's living with her horrible relatives.”

That was a mistake. Hedwig was already quite attached to Violet, to the point that I sometimes wondered who was the mistress and who was the familiar.

Hedwig screeched before lunging with murderous intent at the box.

A not insignificant part of me was sorely tempted to let her rip Pettigrew apart, but I couldn't, not right now. I snatched the box out of the way. “No, Hedwig! If you really care about your human, he needs to be delivered alive!”

“Hoot!” She made to peck me, but Minerva held out a much larger wing to shield her human.

“I know, but she needs him alive for human things. I promise he will die, but humans have our own way of doing things. Violet deserves to have her revenge, right?”

“Hoot…?”

“Do I promise he will die?” She nodded. The raw malice in her eyes would not have been out of place on a serial killer. Then again, that was exactly what owls were: feathered assassins. “Yes, I will personally ensure it. Him dying will make everyone a lot safer, but not right now.”

Hedwig studied me carefully before letting out a dissatisfied hoot. She held out her foot. It took me a moment to realize she wanted me to shake it. I didn’t know where she picked up the human custom, but I obliged her anyway.

I grasped it and winced as she squeezed harder than strictly necessary, a reminder that her claws were very sharp. If Pettigrew lived longer than strictly necessary, I knew she’d make her displeasure known.

The snowy owl held my gaze, her glare as frigid as the winter. Then, slowly, she let me go. Little lines of red dripped from my hand. The pact was sealed in blood. “Hoot.”

I laughed nervously. My very first murder and it would be because I’d have a feathered missile after me if I didn’t. Somehow, I doubted that excuse would hold up in court. 

“Thank you, Hedwig. You won't regret this.”

She let out one final hoot before digging into the feast I'd prepared for her.

Having her deliver Pettigrew wasn't just for a spot of irony. The more detached I could remain, the safer I would be. If something went wrong, if anyone else looked into matters or Pettigrew somehow escaped in the future, I wanted as little linking back to me as possible.

The Gryffindors would know nothing save a “distant admirer.” The house elves were seldom questioned. The post owls couldn’t talk. And now, if anyone ever tracked this box, they would find that it was delivered by Violet Potter’s owl, not mine.

X

Having set that little pebble rolling down the hill, I headed to my room to do some studying. I had a sizable collection of books, some from my family library and others from Flourish & Blotts; it seemed like a pity to not read them, especially considering how little use the actual divination textbook was in comparison.

I opened up my copy of Divination through the Ages and began to read. This book was easily my favorite in my collection. Though it only provided two or three examples, if that, of actually usable divination spells from each culture and century, the breadth of material covered couldn’t be matched by any other tome I owned.

“I once met an Armenian witch in Croatia. She was a gypsy, traveling amongst a muggle band of performers and using her magic to add a smidge of mystical flair to their shows while hiding in plain sight,” the author wrote. I’d found the man to be a rather morally flexible individual by the name of Pierre Dupond. “She would often use a ritual to look for valuable pieces of muggle and magical history in whichever town she visited, only to sell the wares back to interested parties at extremely profitable prices.

“What was most curious about this little ritual was that it seemed to bypass anti-scrying measures set up by the magical community. The ritual’s scope included areas of the towns that were warded by magicals. Though I will not incriminate myself with the means, I was able to convince her to part with the ritual.

“According to her, it did not directly scry into the present, and therefore the warded areas. Rather, it read the ‘memories of the land’ to acquire pertinent information.

“I’d heard similar notions throughout my travels of course, that the world was alive. Usually, it was a philosophical concept taught to children to emphasize the value and interconnectedness of nature and human society. However, this was the first time I’d encountered a magic that specifically hinted at such a thing being more than a mere moral statement. Whether the land truly had a memory or the gypsy misunderstood her own ritual, I opted to record it for posterity.”

I sat up straight at that. Scrying, the art of looking into far away places using magic, was one of the few subfields of divination that was considered reliable. Not many people attributed it to divination, but their ignorance was irrelevant.

It was relatively simple to accomplish and could be done using a variety of mediums. Hell, it was so common that James Potter and Sirius Black used it during their Hogwarts years in the form of a two-way mirror. Sirius speaking with Harry through the fireplace was another example of such.

However, this widespread usage also meant there were wards that blocked this kind of magic. They tended to be fairly all-purpose, rendering most mediums worthless. Even with my crystal ball, I couldn’t scry the philosopher’s stone.

I’d tried several times since my conversation with Quirrell. I wanted to be certain that the philosopher’s stone was in the third floor corridor because there was a common fan theory that Dumbledore used a fake as bait to lure Voldemort in.

Given that the tests were simple enough for first years to bypass, it wasn’t an unreasonable assumption to make. Sure, Voldemort would have failed the trial with the Mirror of Erised under the rules presented, but hinging Voldemort’s return on a single enchanted artifact, no matter how potent, was obviously risky.

Was the stone fake all along? Or was this just a quirk of JKR’s inexperience as a writer? Perhaps she never expected to write more than the first book. Maybe the plot contrivance that allowed Harry, Ron, and Hermione to bypass the trials was never meant to be expanded upon because it was supposed to be a children’s story, not the beginning of a seven-part epic.

The fan theory had been a neat thought at the time, but now that I was living in this world, the distinction became crucial. It would influence how I approached the problem at the end of the year. Hell, if the stone was fake, there was zero need for me to even bother and I’d steer Violet away from it altogether.

Unfortunately the corridor was warded quite thoroughly against scrying. But even that wasn't an indication of the stone’s authenticity. If I were Dumbledore, I would naturally want to protect the fake as if it was the genuine article to prevent Voldemort from doing this exact thing. 

So, I read. If there was an easy way to get around the anti-scrying wards, I wanted to know about it.

“The ritual was conducted thusly: First, on a night of the full moon, she proceeded to burn an even mix of frankincense and myrrh, enough to fill a single handful. Atop the fragrant flame, she tossed four pieces of ivory, each as long as her index finger. The ivory had to have come from four separate elephants, one for each cardinal direction.

“Then, as the smoke began to waft, she breathed it in and sank into a deep meditation. She was then permitted three questions. She would begin broadly and narrow down on a target. The ritual, the land itself by her estimation, would then provide her with information concerning the most magically or historically significant detail within the scope of the question. Location, person, or object, it mattered not.”

What followed was the tale of several objects she’d “appropriated.” Most were mundane items, such as watches or paintings that had belonged to prominent members of the town’s history, but she did occasionally luck out with magical artifacts. If she could not find the owners or the owners’ descendants to sell to, she would carry them with her to the next town.

It was fascinating to read about, but I unfortunately could not replicate the ritual right away. For one, I didn’t have four ivory pieces from four different elephants. There was something about elephants being symbolically tied to wisdom and long memories.

The college librarian in me filled with random trivia recalled the “elephant graveyards” that certain herds returned to regularly when their eldest members were near death. They could also hear vibrations along the earth through spongy pads on their feet so maybe they really were tied to the land on a more conceptual level. If I remembered correctly, the Hindu god Ganesha was both the god of wisdom and good fortune, and symbolized by an elephant.

I had a sneaking suspicion that the ivory pieces were relevant on multiple levels.

As for the moon, that was self-explanatory. I wondered why the frankincense and myrrh were necessary. As far as I knew, the two came up in the story of Jesus Christ. The three wisemen offered these gifts to Christ in the manger. Wizards didn’t tend to be religious so I doubted that was the relation.

Unfortunately, I didn’t know enough about herbology to guess an alternative explanation. That would require a bit more research. All in all, this seemed like a ritual I could attempt, perhaps over winter break.

Author's Note

Yes, Ravenclaws are nerds. No, that doesn’t make them especially wise. Then again, if Blaise wasn’t an isekai protagonist, the ruse would probably work.

By the same token, yes, Blaise is a seer. No, that doesn’t make him especially cunning either. Is this the best way to get rid of Pettigrew? No, probably not. But it made me chuckle and the idea wouldn’t leave my head so here it is.

If the gypsy’s spell sounded familiar to any of you, that’s because the book is describing Legend Lore, a D&D spell from the divination school.

Have one more elephant fact: Elephant penises are not only massive, they’re also prehensile. Bulls use it sometimes to scratch their underbellies or swat away flies.

Does Corbin/Blaise know this? I’d like to think he does for the same reason I do: supreme boredom.