Summary: Auror-turned-Librarian, Noah Sizemore, traded dark wizards for dusty books when the Dark Lord fell. Incognito among American Muggles, his ho-hum life is turned upside-down when an old friend appears with a scrap of parchment telling of a hex which can undo history. Together the two rekindle their Auror ways on a globe-hopping adventure to find this darkest of hexes before it falls into evil hands...
Categories: Post-Hogwarts Characters: None
Warnings: Mild Profanity
Challenges: Series: None
Chapters: 5
Completed: Yes
Word count: 8402
Read: 31500
Published: 05/09/10
Updated: 08/12/10
1. Déjà Vu by RA Westwood
2. Breaking and Entering by RA Westwood
3. The Library and the Crypt by RA Westwood
4. Escape! by RA Westwood
5. Déjà Vu All Over Again by RA Westwood
Author's Notes:
Auror-turned-Librarian, Noah Sizemore, finds his ho-hum life turned upside-down when an old friend appears with a scrap of parchment telling of a hex which can undo history.
The
Oblivion Hexby RA WESTWOOD
Based on the world of Harry Potter,
created by J.K. Rowling
Chapter 1
Déjà VuIn idle moments, Noah Sizemore daydreamt his reference desk was a dinghy bobbing in the stomach of a great Leviathan. Beams supporting the library’s cathedral ceiling were ribs, conditioned air shushed the beast’s snore and hushed conversations pulsed like blood. Massaging the unshaven prickle on his neck, Noah stared at the aisle bisecting reference stacks. Like lungs drawing oxygen it seemed to expand and contract.
Noah lay down the pencil idling between his fingers and plucked an elegant ink pen from the desk. Intricate carvings on its golden head rushed rapids of light as it moved. Forearms to desk, Noah strained for another breath of movement. Shelves and books held steady.
Of course not, he thought.
Not here. Noah stretched to recouple ink pen and base, shaking his head at the silliness which boredom bred.
POP!
It sounded like an enormous bag of potato chips burst open. Frantic voices gushed from nonfiction. Ink pen in fist and name badge squared (Noah Sizemore - Head Archivist), he stalked toward the din. Amidst the photography books he found two teen boys needling a man in a magenta bathrobe. Greasy hair pattered over pimpled foreheads and open books fluttered as they spit a blue streak. The man, however, seemed blissfully disconnected.
“P.J.? Dan? Is there a problem?” Noah’s voice played crumbly sweet like cinnamon toast, jolting electric surprise through the party. The boys jumped about face, chests heaving under acid green hockey sweaters. The bathrobe man smirked and plunged a hand into his robe.
“Wasn’t us this time, it was Captain Bathrobe.” said the teen with glistening black hair.
“Dude appeared out of nowhere and started harassing us!” chirped his lankier mate.
Noah rolled his eyes.”Is this true?” he asked, fixing his gaze to the smiling man. The man returned Noah’s stare, hand twitching over his heart. Noah shook his head.
“Okay, you two” he pointed the butt of his ink pen to each teen in turn, “get out and don’t come back until next month.”
The lankier teen spit disgust on the floor.
“We didn’t do anything this time. We’re just readin’!”
Noah swiped their books with moves so quick they seemed to fly. Both were open to photographs of reclining nudes.
“Somehow I don’t think your interests are academic,” Noah said, restraining a chuckle. “Besides, I know you’ve been tossing your cigarette butts near the Almanacs.”
The short teen glowered.
“You got no proof.”
“Don’t I?” Noah smiled. He flourished the butt of his ink pen at each teen’s chest, golden nib flashing. “If you return before the first of the month, you’ll be leaving in a squad car, got it?”
The shorter snorted, tossing greasy hair.
“How you gonna know if we show up? You ain’t here all the time.”
Noah leaned in close enough to taste salt and vinegar potato chips on the punk’s breath.
“Magic,” he smiled. “Now,” Noah straightened to full height and shooed the teens with a flick of his ink pen, “goodbye.”
Their faces twitching retorts, the teens swiveled and marched toward the exit. Muttered curses echoed behind them, diminishing to naught. It wasn’t until Noah was certain the teens had gone that his face turned to a scowl.
“Asdrubal Crowe,” Noah brandished the butt of his ink pen at the man, “you should have more sense than to Apparate into a Muggle library.”
“First,” Crowe said, rosy satisfaction blooming on his face, “call me ‘Asdrubal’ again and I’ll give you a tail. You know I can’t stand that name. And second, transfiguring your wand to a pen may fool the Muggles, but it’ll snow over the Sahara before you pull a fast one on me. You just used Accio spells, tracking curses and an expulsion hex on those Muggles.”
“Eh,” Noah shrugged, “they had it coming to them.” He turned and walked to his desk, Crowe following.
“I went to your office, mate, but they said you were up here.”
Noah was suddenly glad to be walking ahead. His face flushed to match Crowe’s robe. “Ahh...MaryAnn needed to run to the girl’s room - not feeling well. I volunteered to cover her shift on the Reference Desk.”
Noah heard his companion cluck. “By Merlin, are you still going on with her? An American Muggle - what does your poor mother think?”
“Mum’s quite keen on her, actually. MaryAnn’s a terrific cook.”
Crowe blew a raspberry.
“You know, most people are married or spawning little witches and wizards four years on.”
With a swift pivot Noah circled his desk and fell into its squeaky seat, willing the color to drain from his face.
“Did you jaunt across the pond to inquire after my love life? I thought you were teaching Defense Against Dark Arts.”
Crowe found something fascinating on the carpet. His voice, previously a song as round as his face, sputtered into broken mumbles.
“It seems... I... misrepresented...” He ran a hand over his thinning hair, “Now that You-Know-Who is gone, there are more out of work Aurors than you can shake a stick at…they hired one of Potter’s friends.”
Noah felt sadness like cold water rushing over him. His mouth stretched into a sympathetic frown.
“Well, they passed up on a first-class Auror, Crowe.” Noah stood from his desk, the arms of his chair reluctant to break embrace. “I’m due for a break, what’s say we go down to my office for a proper chat?”
Crowe gave a nod, wedging a smile on an otherwise cloudy face.
The air in Noah’s office was cooler, crisp in the lungs. A heavy desk anchored the far corner, cluttered with photocopies and books. Photographs, framed movie posters and gold-sealed documents peppered taupe walls. Noah ushered Crowe inside and after the door clicked shut, announced,
“Don’t worry, he’s cool.”
The photos, previously static, gave a collective sigh. One particularly rotund man, rosy with a glistening pate, hissed out a breath, stomach rubbing frame. “Couldn’t hold it much longer, son,” he muttered. The others kneaded necks stiff from statue poses and replaced secreted robes and hats. Noah walked to the desk and pulled a chair from behind it. Unlike the aluminum number he’d sat in upstairs, this one was plush red, well worn and inviting. Noah motioned and Crowe sank into the chair with a whoosh, feeling perfectly weightless.
“Have you charmed this chair, Noah? Quite comfortable.”
Noah swung a folding chair from the far corner. “Just something I came up with. My back’s gone rubbish in my dotage.”
With a small chuckle Noah sat opposite Crowe. Behind them a bookcase displayed a menagerie of dusty books. Some looked on the verge of oblivion, leaves magicked to spine. Regal unicorns, six inches from hind to horn, cantered to bookend the collection.
“So,” Noah slapped his thighs, cheeks bouncing a smile. “How’s the textbook business treating you? Discover any groundbreaking new causes for déjà vu?”
Crowe leaned back, swallowed by a cloud of chair. Feigned hurt sharpened his round face.
“Hey! That’s very important work, that.”
“Yes, it’s a better world now that we know to avoid performing memory charms on pachydermal Animagi lest they feel odd.”
“You know how hard it is to find elephant Animagi?” Crowe cried. “I wandered India for months chatting up elephants! We can’t all have the excitement of Librarianship.”
Noah sat up, finger wagging. “I’m an Archivist, not a Librarian. Much more dignified.”
They laughed, and like tying two ends of string together, the years apart dissolved. Crowe’s giggle filled the office to the brim with warm-cocoa cheer. To Noah, incognito among American Muggles, this fraternization was like pulling on a favorite sweater after a hot summer of disuse. Memories ebbed and flowed “ trickling chuckles and rushing guffaws, until finally the last echoes bounced from the room. Crowe leaned from the plush chair, his face keen.
“All seriousness, though “ déjà vu is what brought me.” Crowe plunged into his magenta robe and withdrew a scroll, rolled cigarette small. Muttering, he ran a finger over the seal and unfurled the parchment. A hush fell over the pictures, the absence of their murmur heavy. All eyes were drawn to the yellowed slip of paper between Crowe’s thumb and forefinger. With a nod, Crowe passed it across to Noah.
It was a page torn from a Potions primer, at first glance unremarkable. Noah pulled his eyes from the page and shot a questioning glance to Crowe.
“You want me to brush up on the transitive properties of Moonstone?” he asked.
Crowe, hands wringing against his lap, nodded for Noah to read further.
Noah returned to the page, this second scan revealing its secret. The bottom was dark with notes. Tight script slanted black waves over the margin. The scribble started mid-thought, its seed rooted to some vanished parchment.
“...disappeared and the most curious déjà vu permeated my body. What happened? Performed Prior Incantato. The shadow of four roaches - one large (the patriarch) and three smaller (the spawn) appeared from the wand. The patriarch began to fade from within. As it disappeared, each of the three children in turn vanished. The final (oldest) child disappeared, leaving the father on whom the spell was cast, until at last the father evaporated to nothing! It would seem, that in this case, Oblivion has succeeded. Would serve as fail-safe in case plans do not come to fruition, excepting that test on larger subjects (feline) failed. My notes are woefully incomplete on the matter, must get to The Library at first liberty.”
The note ended with a flourish, its final y meandering fanciful loops under the last line. Crowe’s face was bright red, his knees bouncing under his cloak.
“Aurors found it among a number of papers willed to the Hogwarts Library. LaPorta, you remember him from the old days... breath like the grave, great with memory charms? He knew déjà vu was right up my alley so he passed it to me.”
Noah tried to anchor his skepticism lest it rise to the surface and wash away Crowe’s bubbling excitement.
“I don’t follow,” Noah admitted.
“It’s the Oblivion Hex.” Crowe was beaming.
“I’m sorry?”
“Makes the Killing Curse look like a flatulence jinx. The Oblivion Hex wipes away all traces of the victim’s existence. Everything one does “ the lives they touch, the deeds they do “ The Oblivion Hex wipes it all away.”
“Wow,” Noah’s heart fluttered at the thought. “But how does this Oblivion Hex relate to me?” he asked, handing the parchment back.
Crowe precipitated from the cloud of red fabric and drizzled to and fro across the room. “I did some research on my own and found a Saharan Muggle legend about an Egyptian High Priest named Deximose with magic to undo history, but that’s as far as I got. You see, the note mentions ‘The Library.’” Crowe stopped to face Noah, hands punctuating each word, “ I need to get into… The. Ancient. Library. At. Alexandria.”
“Just requisition for research like every other wizard in the world,” Noah replied, his tone automatic flat.
“I did. They said I’m without any evidence worth investigating.”
“What makes you think,” Noah grumbled, certain Crowe had a rebuttal ready, “I can get you in?”
Crowe shot a hand into his robes and extracted a small vial of glimmering liquid. “I Tracked down Marson in International Magical Cooperation. Three drops of this and he told me all about you. He said you helped build the Muggle library that sits atop the Ancient Library, that you know all the secret passages.”
Noah turned his face to the ceiling as photos tutted disapproval. “I can’t believe you potioned a ministry official,” he groaned.
“It’ll be just like old times!” Crowe pled. “Real Aurors hunting dark magic! We’re not parchment pushers, Noah! All our training has gone to waste since You-Know-Who fell!”
Noah saw hope flickering in Crowe’s eyes, a light he hadn’t seen since their Auror apprenticeship ended years ago. Even though logic told him to keep his face straight, Noah felt a smile warm him.
“I lost count of the Unreadable Curses I’ve lifted from
Anna Karenina. Some Wizard had it out for Tolstoy. Dreadful boring work.”
Crowe leapt forward and clapped his friend on the shoulder, a sly grin twitching on his face.
“Then it’s time we had a little adventure, yes?”
Hot cocoa cheer flooded Noah’s chest.
“Yes.”
Breaking and Entering by RA Westwood
Author's Notes:
Noah Sizemore and Asdrubal Crowe are forced to break into the Muggle Library at Alexandria in search of the darkest hex ever cast, The Oblivion Hex.
The Oblivion Hex
RA WESTWOOD
Based on the world of Harry Potter,
created by J.K. Rowling
Chapter 2
Breaking and Entering
Noah and Crowe stood before the Bibliotheca Alexandria, excitement and evening breath pulling bare skin to gooseflesh. The building looked like a moon rising from the bosom of the Mediterranean. Ancient runes circled its great walls, its roof alight with the last sparks of dusk. Noah’s heart beat proud before the Library he’d helped birth. Crowe”in jeans and a polo lent him by Noah”rubbed the arch of his left foot.
“I don’t see how Muggles can stand it. My toes are bloody balloons.” Apple-redness flowered Crowe’s cheeks.
“We couldn’t just - poof!” Noah jazzed his hands, “apparate in the street. El Nozha Airport’s main terminal was the only place crowded enough for us to pop in without suspicion.”
This explanation deflected from Crowe’s mask of annoyance without effect. He tendered his foot back to the ground, wincing theatrics as heel hit pavement. “Ruddy garbage. No one would have-”
Noah thrust a hand to dam Crowe’s tide of complaints. “Enough with the grousing. Where we can, we’ll follow the rules, ok?”
Crowe discarded his pity performance and nodded agreement. “You’re the boss, mate.” A wry grin uncurled as he raised a salute.
“And don’t you forget it.”
Crowds fizzled as the sun deflated to the sea. A gaunt Muggle appeared inside the front doors as the streetlamps sputtered to life, a key ring jangling in hand. With three swift twists he locked the doors, and after pulling each to ensure the seal, spun into the blackness beyond.
Crowe rubbed his hands together. “Magic time,” he cooed, eyebrows jumping with excitement. He hitched forward, gait unsteady in denim. Noah stifled a laugh, reminded of a cat wobbling on mitten-clad paws.
All mirth evaporated as Crowe, in full Muggle sight, extracted a wand from his trousers. Noah shot forward, arms outstretched.
“Crowe!” he cried. Reflected in the oil dark glass, Crowe thrust his wand to cast the expected spell.
“Alohamoorrr-ow!” Crowe groaned.
Noah dove and swatted the wand away. It spun like a windmill blade as it skidded to concrete.
“What was that for?!” Crowe bellowed, defensive fists tight to chest.
“Please try to show some caution,” Noah hissed, pushing from the ground. A quick survey showed the Muggles thankfully unfazed by their kerfuffle. “You really think we’d safeguard history’s greatest library with a simple lock? Any first-year could ‘Alohamora’ their way in. The Auror on call would have been firing jinxes like bludgers had you finished that spell.’“
Crowe’s face softened with apology. “...Hadn’t thought of that,” He admitted.
Noah crouched to pluck Crowe’s wand from the concrete.
“ ‘S okay,” he sighed, examining the slender wand. “Poplar? I thought you used an Ash wand?”
Crowe swiped the wand and secreted it to the depths of his trouser pockets. “Old one broke,” he mumbled. “Crushed by an elephant near Bombay.”
Noah shook his head, chuckling. “Dangerous business, textbook writing.”
Crowe strained a smile.
“Now,” Noah, careful to keep it blocked from Muggle view, pulled his Rosewood wand from the kangaroo pocket of his sweatshirt. “I’ll show you the proper way to break into the greatest library ever built.”
Noah wagged the tip of his wand. “Aedificium Gelata!” he announced. A gloopy strand of thick water pulsed, coating the library’s glass door. Gel tumbled down the door, catching rainbows of smoldering dusk.
Noah stepped back and, sweeping his arm, gestured Crowe forward. “After you sir.” Crowe studied the watery door, brow furrowed. Only after Noah gave a reassuring nod did Crowe step forward.
Entering the library was unlike anything Crowe had experienced. Traversing solid walls was nothing unfamiliar”Platform 9 3/2 echoed through his head”but this wall was far from solid. It felt like swimming through syrup while standing up. Crowe rushed through the goo, sputtering jelly globules and wiping his nose and eyes. He stumbled inside, jeans saturated stiff. Jelly dripped from his fingers, wriggled down arms and legs like a earthworms.
Noah followed with a sound like the last dregs of milkshake sucked through a straw. He was drenched to match his friend, hair and face shimmering with viscous water. Crowe opened his mouth, but before he could cry even a syllable of disdain, Noah had his wand again wagging like a puppy’s tail, his spell already cast.
“Gelata Evanesco.”
The syrup evaporated from Crowe’s body, wicked from his clothes, combed from his hair. “Some spells there,” he said, giving a low whistle.
“A simple jelly transfiguration applied in a novel way,” Noah replied. “The only way to breech the place without raising half a dozen alarms.”
Behind them opened a cathedral expanse of wood, steel and glass. “May I present to you The Bibliotheca Alexandrina,” Noah announced. Pillars like trees grew from the floor, flowering up to the glass ceiling. Aqua lights breathed living essence into pine and silica. In silence the pair strolled toward the central stair.
“So how do we get to the wizard library? One of these books a portkey?” Crowe’s questions tumbled in quick bursts.
Noah shook his head as they turned down a narrow corridor of oversized books. “Not exactly,” he said. “We couldn’t risk a Muggle chancing on a portkey.”
Crowe let his fingers graze book spines. They were rough like dragon scales under his fingertips.
“So where’s the door, then?” Crowe puffed three tense breaths before Noah answered.
“I’m not sure,” he admitted as they came to a whitewashed brick wall.
Crowe threw his hands in agitation. “How are we supposed to find a passage you don’t know about?” he moaned.
Noah swiveled, face impatient and sharp. “Each floor has two invisible passages couched in out of the way walls. In the entire building, only one leads to the Ancient Library.”
Crowe stepped forward to the blank wall before them. “Well, let’s try this one, then.” Noah stretched a hand to restrain Crowe’s barrel chest but was a moment late. Crowe, arms before him, pushed wrist deep into the wall.
“Confound it, Crowe,” he hissed. “If you don’t know the code, these passages set off…”
Ten yards behind them a firecracker pop! announced the arrival of the Auror on duty. “Who goes there?” warbled a lilting and unsteady voice. Noah and Crowe turned, wands held overhead, to see none other than Fausto Marson, an Ash wand unsteady in his hand. His face bore the cherry scrapes and bruises of a recent scuffle.
“Noah Sizemore?” He puzzled, scratching snow-white hair with the tip of his wand. “What are you doing here, mate?” Eyes shifting from Noah to Crowe, Marson’s wild shrub eyebrows furrowed. His wand shot to dueling position near his hip. “Asdrubal Cr””
Marson stopped short, frozen in a haze of yellow light. For a moment he tottered on the ball of his foot like a glanced tenpin, only to fall, stiff as a board.
“Bloody hell, Crowe!” Noah cried. “You just stunned a Ministry Auror!”
Crowe relaxed his wand arm and turned back to the wall. “Marson barely qualifies as an Auror,” he clucked. “…only got the job ‘cause he’s chummy with the Weasleys.” Sensing Noah still agape at the jinxed Marson, Crowe gave his friend a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Listen “ it would have taken ages to explain it to Marson. He would have drug us back to London for questions and Ministry forms…its easier this way. And besides, he’s just asleep. We’ll get him on the way out and play like it was a practical joke.”
“I…,” Noah turned small steps from the snoring Marson. “I guess so,” Noah forced a smirk. “He was always a bit slow, wasn’t he?”
Careful not to overstep, Noah returned to the blank wall, wand outstretched. A gentle swish tapped the brick before him.
“Are you the wall that is also a door?” Noah asked, each word clear.
Like a mist lifted from clearest sea, the wall shimmered emerald. Green light washed over Noah and Crowe, lifting worries of Marson from beaten backs.
“Guessed right on the first try,” Noah breathed, running a hand through his hair. “We could’ve avoided jinxing Marson had you just waited a second.” He motioned to the pool of verdant light swirling before them. “Age before beauty.”
Crowe ran to the light, Noah close at his heels. The passage was akin to a carnival slide. Warm air whooshed their ears, ancient stone dank in their noses. By the time feet struck flagstone, their spirits were so buoyant they nearly floated back from where they came.
The Library and the Crypt by RA Westwood
Author's Notes:
Noah Sizemore and Asdrubal Crowe search the Ancient Library at Alexandria for the darkest of spells, The Oblivion Hex, only find more than they bargained for.
The Oblivion HexRA WESTWOOD
Based on the world of Harry Potter,
created by J.K. Rowling
Chapter 3
The Library and the Crypt“
Lumos.”
Noah’s wand lit a dazzling sphere of the Ancient Library of Alexandria. Columns shot beyond the light-- easily a hundred feet up--as if keeping the dense and infinite dark from crashing down. Ancient hieroglyphs curled over the marble floor like willow branches. The light from Noah’s wand slipped into the carvings and set them ablaze. The pair stalked the entry through a tunnel of golden statues.
“Who rouses me from my slumber?” a voice boomed from the dark just behind them. Crowe, always quicker to draw, spun with wand brandished, only to face the foe with an incredulous snort. Noah spun and added his chuckle to Crowe’s. A portly statue braced his eyes against the Lumos. He swam in loose billows of a toga, an engraving under sandal-clad feet reading, ‘Socrates.’
“You would be the one to ask all the questions, wouldn’t you?” Noah chided.
The two turned from a grumbling Socrates, and walked through the tunnel of sleeping legends. Past Aesop, Confucius, Pythagoras, Ptolemy, Merlin, Shakespeare, Aesalon and Dumbledore lay the atrium. The lag between footfall and echo suggested a room larger than a Quidditch pitch. Hovering blue torches guarded innumerable arteries and veins which branched from the Library’s heart. A whole history of knowledge lay waiting to be found.
Noah frowned. “It would take years to explore all these paths.”
“Maybe this is daft optimism on my part but...,” Crowe pulled the wand from his pocket and thrust it before him. “
Accio Oblivion Hex!” his voice pulsed into the dark and faded. The hoped scroll didn’t arrive.
“Well,” Crowe mused, “the dark priest’s name was Deximose, so how about…
Reperio Deximose!” As if pulled by marionette strings, his wand pivoted left and quivered toward a passage that looked to be mote on the horizon.
Crowe’s eyebrows arched, pleased with his ingenuity. “I’d wager this is the way.”
“Beats the Dewey Decimal System,” Noah quipped.
“Dewy whatsit?” Crowe’s face melted to confusion.
Noah sighed. “Muggle joke.”
Crowe shrugged and followed his wand. From Noah’s vantage it seemed Crowe was walking an invisible dog. Through rune-laden arches, down a wide staircase they winnowed to and fro, turning and turning and turning until Noah was certain they’d gone about face and were walking back to start. Worse than the tedious distance was the growl of moving walls just behind them as the maze re-arranged.
“How is it You-Know-Who didn’t catch drift of this hex?” Noah felt the urge to speak, to suppress the awful rumble of the maze shifting at their backs. “It seems the kind of thing that was right up his alley.”
Descending yet another staircase, Crowe flashed the mischievous smile he’d worked to near perfection over the thirty-some years he’d been using it.
“The Dark Lord refused to look,” Crowe huffed. “Before it was scribbled into that Potions book five years ago, the Oblivion Hex was just a Muggle story. He wouldn’t have profaned his majestic ears with Muggle filth, would he? The story was happened upon just before his fall by the one lieutenant who wasn’t wont to pass it to him.”
Noah nodded, beaming pride for his friend’s detective work.
“It’s almost a pity, Crowe - you would have been the bane of the Death Eaters.”
Crowe’s eyes shot to the floor. “Yep,” he said.
The pair walked for what felt hours. Feet sore, legs heavy, Noah almost cried when he and Crowe were halted by a dead end. Crowe dug his heels to the floor, hands on hips. Noah stopped behind at the empty room’s entry. The space was a claustrophobic ten by ten, polar opposite to the opulence behind. The walls were jagged, as if earth had resisted the slice through its bosom. A lone candelabra mounted opposite the door waved fingers of light and shadow over the tiny room.
“It’s a dead end,” defeat poisoned Noah’s voice.
Crowe, by contrast, was beaming to rival the sun. His wand had ceased its dance and pointed without quiver to the ground beneath his feet.
“On the contrary,” He stepped aside to give Noah vantage. “I’ve found it.” Crowe then waved Noah away, his eyes locked to the floor. “You’ll want to step back.”
Before Noah was conscious of what his friend was doing, Crowe had swooshed his wand toward the floor, spell shouted loud enough to wake Socrates again.
“
Deprimo!” Crowe bellowed.
The room exploded, shockwave choking the breath from Noah’s lungs. A maelstrom of gravel and dust blotted light to dark. Noah’s weight vanished, arms pulled skyward as the floor evaporated under him. Noah fell only for a moment, until the jolt of ground stung ankles and knees. Unbalanced and disoriented, Noah crumpled face to sand.
“Merlin’s beard!” Noah groaned, pushing himself from the pebbles. “You just demolished part of the Ancient Library of Alexandria!”
Settling debris revealed Crowe unfazed by Noah’s scolds. Already to his feet, Crowe’s attention was undivided to the center of this lower chamber. A muslin-wrapped body lay on a sandstone pedestal. The walls of this crypt had seen countless centuries, pocked with the echoes of spiders and vermin. The back wall, directly under the candelabra, whispered well worn hieroglyphs. Noah circled to the regal ibises and kohl-lined eyes.
“What’s it say?” Crowe asked, staring between Noah and the hieroglyphs with hungry eyes.
“Not sure,” Noah shrugged.
Crowe circled his wand toward Noah, and outward leak of the impatience building within. “You're the librarian “ give it a shot.”
Noah turned back to the glyphs, heavy exhale carrying notes of growing uneasiness.
“In the reign of Pharaoh… somebody (can’t read that symbol)… Two sons were born “ one prince and one slave. By the slave mother’s guile, prince and slave were swapped, unbeknownst to even great and powerful Pharaoh. Pauper was groomed for greatness in the palace, while the prince toiled in squalor, burdensome to the slave mother.
“In time the slave child grew and ascended to Pharaoh. The slave mother, with her dying breaths, whispered her secret to the now-grown prince. By guile gleaned from his surrogate-mother, the prince cheated his way into the palace, becoming High Priest to the Pharaoh. The High Priest’s right hand worked in worship of his god the Pharaoh, while his left schemed the Pharaoh’s death. So the Priest was called, ‘Deximose.’
“In time, Deximose, bargaining with the underworld, became a powerful sorcerer. Whispers carried rumor of a spell to erase history, so to undo that which the slave mother had schemed upon their births. But on the day Deximose had chosen to cast his god the Pharaoh to Oblivion, the Pharaoh, wise beyond Deximose’s esteem, ambushed the dark Priest with an army of able men. So Deximose himself fell to the underworld, thrashing against his assassins until the darkness of Oblivion was all he could see.”
Noah, squatting at the bottom of the wall where the fable ended, turned to see a crimson smile covering Crowe’s face.
“That’s the exact fable the Saharan nomads told me. This is it,” Crowe breathed. “Let’s not risk any counter-hexes. Help me move this geezer Muggle-style.” Crowe stepped forward, arms like fork tines, and wedged his hands under the corpse. AWith a deep inhale, Crowe's nose wrinkled. “Stinks worse than LaPorta's breath, this one."
Noah stayed fast. “This isn’t right.”
With a disgusted tut, Crowe heaved against the body, kicking clouds of debris as he struggled for traction. His sweat splashed craters in the sand, but the mummy wouldn’t budge.
“Enchanted in place,” he huffed, hands to hips.
Noah had seen enough. “Let’s go,” he said. “You can apologize to Marson, I can talk us out of blowing up the floor, but desecrating this crypt will land us in Azkaban.”
Crowe leaned against the pedestal, kneading his brow. “Darkness of Oblivion was all he could see,” he mumbled. Noah crossed to the pedestal and clapped Crowe’s shoulder.
“C'mon. We’ll requisition for a full examination tomorrow.”
Crowe wouldn’t break gaze from the muslin swaddles, repeating, “Darkness of Oblivion was all he could see,” as if it were a mantra. Eyes suddenly wide, he shot forward, hands yearning to the mummy’s face.
“Crowe!” Noah cuffed his friend’s biceps.
“Geroffame!” Crowe shuddered his elbow square to Noah’s jaw. Noah howled, surprise stumbling him to the wall. Stars punched through his vision, painting the small crypt with spheres of floating light. Through the dazzling pain, Noah heard Crowe growling like dog from the center of the room. When the stars burning Noah’s vision supernovaed to blackness, Noah gasped, horror pulling the air from his lungs.
Crowe kneeled astride the mummy, clawing at its face like a hyena. Long ribbons of fabric twisted through the air as they fell to sand. The punch of rotten meat saturated the air. Then, as quickly as it had started, Crowe’s cloudburst of activity dried out. Dainty thumb and forefinger peeled a ribbon from over the mummy’s eyes.
“I have it,” he growled, tense laughter bubbling his face. Eyes glowing red, Crowe shot his wand to the candelabra sputtering above. His lips pulled back in a snarl.
“
Esse Evanesco Totalus!"
A perfect black sphere emerged from the tip of his wand. The crypt’s shadows spiraled to the eye of this hurricane as it shot toward the candelabra. The flames sputtered choking smoke as it approached, fainter and fainter until...
* * *
Noah puzzled over the bare wall above them, head light as if he’d swallowed helium. It seemed darkness had clenched around his sphere of Lumos.
“Did something just…?” Noah couldn’t pluck words to finish his question.
Crowe crouched on the pedestal at center, wand shivering from his outstretched hand.
“The Oblivion Hex...,” Crowe’s breath rasped from his chest. “
Prior Incantato.” The silvery ghost of a candelabra warbled against the wall above them. Crowe raised his arms in celebration.
“I’ve done ahhh”!”
A gurgling scream choked victory from Crowe’s throat. The corpse below him started thrashing like a wild hippogriff. As if shuttling the comforter after a long slumber, the mummy swiped Crowe from the sandstone pedestal. He flew rag doll limp and slammed the wall with a sound like melon cracked open, crumpling limp on the sand. Crowe writhed in pain, groans drooling from his lips.
The High Priest’s corpse jumped from the pedestal, standing over two meters tall. Dried blood crusted over its rotten blue flesh, eyes shriveled and puckered like lemon-sucked lips. Leather eyelids shuddered, trying to force sight into decayed eyes. A jagged aperture of shredded skin revealed a mouth full of teeth like broken glass. To glance at it, Deximose’s mummy looked like an Animagi trapped between man and beast. A slit from cheek to collarbone revealed sinew and bone. The unholy creature advanced on Noah, muslin trailing like pennants.
Noah wasted no time in fleeing, shooting a spectrum of jinxes. The mummy swatted the spells like mosquitoes from its face.
“Crowe!” Noah slid knees to sand before his friend. “Talk to me!”
Crowe rolled onto his back, eyes fluttering white. “Jus’ need a sec - bugger knocked my air out.”
They didn’t have a second. The mummy advanced on them, massive hand recoiled to strike. With a flick of Noah’s wand, Crowe lost his gravity and hovered to the chamber above. His friend safe, Noah spun and blindly cast.
“
Incendio!” Ruby flame jet from his wand as the creature raked Noah’s face. Pain stung electric as blood streamed into his eyes. Vision blotted red, Noah only heard the Mummy’s frantic cry recede. His mind’s eye saw the creature flailing to snuff hungry flames. Like a crab Noah scuttled to the wall. He heard Crowe grumble and stir above.
“Crowe!” he screamed. “He’s hit me! I can’t see! Hover me up!”
“Sorry Noah,” Crowe’s voice slithered down, licking Noah’s ear. “You’ll have to go it alone.”
Noah was certain the blood screaming through his ears had scrambled Crowe’s words. He craned his neck for a better vantage. Through the crimson veil, Noah saw cross-armed Crowe at the precipice.
“Use the Oblivion Hex!” Noah cried.
“Can’t,” Crowe graveled, “The Oblivion Hex would disappear with the mummy.”
Fire’s waning glow and a calmer cry across the crypt told Noah the mummy would soon return.
“Quick! Anything! Please!”
Crowe stepped from the ledge.
“We were meant to be Aurors, Noah. Not writers. Not bloody librarians. I’m going to put history right. It should have been us hunting The Dark Lord. I’m going to the ministry to Hex the brat who pilfered our futures. I’ll make it so The Boy Who Lived was never born. The Dark Lord will return and we’ll ascend as history’s greatest Aurors!”
Crowe stepped from Noah’s vision. “I’d say sorry but I’m not. Even if you die in this crypt, you’ll be reborn to a world that worships us as gods!” Crowe’s voice darkened and died as he entered the shifting maze.
Noah’s heart sank. He was alone, an unstoppable monster eclipsing his bloodied vision.
Author's Notes:
Noah faces off against a powerful mummy, only to be thrust into a much worse situation.
The Oblivion Hex
RA WESTWOOD
Based on the world of Harry Potter,
created by J.K. Rowling
Chapter 4
Escape!
Noah hadn’t time to mourn Crowe's betrayal. The flames which paused the Mummy now smoldered smoke and ash. Acid pain stung his forehead, each throb returning vision by fractions. With the mummy gargantuan in his sight, Noah shot another rope of dazzling fire.
The mummy was prepared. It’s outstretched palm absorbed the flames without even a fizzle. Noah’s spell looked like a candle sealed in a jar, choked to blackness by its own smoky breath. The hieroglyphs heralded Deximose as an unparalleled Dark Priest “ the ease of his counter-jinxes proved the assessment true. Noah was doubtful he knew any magic this beast couldn’t flick with bloody fingers. He also knew he had precious few moments before the creature shifted its infinite store of dark magic from defense to offense.
The mummy bellowed as Noah dodged its fist and scurried to the pedestal at center. Sandstone was a cool oasis against Noah’s skin. Mummies…mummies…Noah searched his mind for any information. Damn Crowe for going turncoat “ his Dark Arts expertise would have snipped the mummy’s Achilles Heel and vanquished it with ease.
Noah felt the pedestal shift at his back, rising like a feather cupped against a summer breeze. He turned and spied the creature beckoning it from the floor with a curling finger. The mummy closed its fist and the sandstone exploded into a firework of pebbles and sand. Noah circled his wand before him as writhing arcs of acid green and deepest black shot at him. The hexes ricocheted from Noah’s shield and exploded onto walls and floor. Debris rained as a curse like summer lightning refracted through Noah’s shield. Heat boiled his thigh as the hex zipped past.
His vision cleared, Noah saw the mummy’s wrappings had burned away. Gashes spotted its body. Deximose’s last breaths among the living had indeed been unhappy, overtaken and murdered by a bloodthirsty mob loyal to their Pharaoh. Black crusts of millennial blood shone like dried ink against blue skin.
Among the smaller wounds, a fist-sized hole in the monster’s bosom gave Noah hope. Inside this rotten cave sat an earthenware box, gilded with hieroglyphs. Noah could have laughed. Joy washed tight fear from his muscles, hope swelling his chest. This clay pot unlocked the tumblers of a lesson years past, lectured during his and Crowe’s apprenticeship before the war.
“The only practical way to kill a proper mummy,” Mad-Eye Moody’s snarl echoed in Noah’s brain. “is to stomp the monster’s heart to oblivion. Y’see - a Mummy’s heart is it’s line to the living world. Usually preserved an’ kept in some golden vase, smash the heart and your mummy drops like slack wire.”
Even with hexes flashing like fireworks, evil heat roasting his face, Noah felt feather light. With a cry he leapt at the beast. Before the monster could react Noah plunged his hand into its leathery chest. Dead muscles and bone fragments nipped flesh from Noah’s knuckles. The beast clawed Noah’s arms and face. His fingers closed around clay as lengths of burning string cinched around Noah’s wrists and neck. With the last threads of strength in his body Noah heaved the pot toward the wall.
Noah saw only a glimpse of the beating heart as it emerged from shattered earthenware polygons. It was deep crimson, coughing spurts of blood-syrup. Noah cast his spell and like a camera flash the heart blossomed in a rose of flame. Instantly immolated, ash like diamonds glittered down to the crypt floor, indistinguishable from sand. The mummy, its bones jelly, fell like a puppet with strings cut. White silence flooded the room, in some ways worse than the screams they replaced. The monster lay like a toddler’s doll discarded in some foreign sandbox.
Waving his wand, Noah’s throbbing pain ebbed to a dull ache. He was no medic, but it would do. At least the bleeding stopped. Crowe had a good head start. Noah shuddered to think what would happen if he didn’t intercept Crowe before Crowe reached Harry Potter. A spell murmured, Noah hovered from the crypt and ran back through the maze as fast as aching feet could manage.
Racing through the maze behind his swiveling wand seemed to dissolve the precarious line separating in- from -finite. Noah imagined some Titan staring over this shifting labyrinth, chuckling to see Noah wind circuits through a sideways eight. His feet burned (even in comfortable Muggle cross-trainers), his arms turned to lead and acid rasped his lungs. This is to say nothing of the hexes lilting through his system where Deximose’s mummy had stung.
CO2 washing his vision black, Noah finally found himself in the yawning cavern of the main atrium. Two rows of glimmering immortals heralded the exit ahead. Allowing himself only a breath to catch oxygen, Noah ran to the statutes. Socrates was still awake, annoyance pinching his face.
“Do you... know of the... Oblivion Hex?” Noah asked between gulping breaths.
Socrates pointed his nose to the unseen ceiling. With a flourish he tossed folds of toga over his shoulder. “Do you not know the great thinker to whom you speak?”
Noah, assuming this to be a Socratic ‘yes,’ fired another question.
“Is there a counter hex? A defense?” It was more command than question, terse and quick.
The golden philosopher discarded his air of self-importance. His face lowered from the heavens, all lines solemn straight. “Which is more abhorrent: the annihilation of self, or the annihilation of another?”
Noah squinted at the statue. “The Oblivion Hex can be reflected back on the caster?”
Socrates bowed his shaking head. “Is this not a near impossibility? To cast another into oblivion without a the smallest grain of hesitation? How dark, indeed is the seed of Deximose’s withered heart?”
Noah’s stomach cramped to hear Socrates confirm his fear. The only defense would be to reflect Oblivion back on Crowe. Murmuring a half-hearted “thanks” as he ran to the exit, Noah wasn’t certain it was an action he could possibly take. To undo any life is abhorrent - who knows how far the web of a single life reaches? How could he possibly cast Crowe to Oblivion? The burden squeezing Noah’s chest only clenched tighter as the thought rolled in his mind.
He sprinted through the emerald door, an invisible hand guiding him to the Muggle world. It would be the first shivers of dawn in London. Noah hoped against hope for a spare moment to avert tragedy. Before his cross-trainers even squeaked the floor, Noah was twisting, that loud pop! flinging him to a decision he wasn’t sure he could make.
Déjà Vu All Over Again by RA Westwood
Author's Notes:
Auror-turned-Librarian Noah Sizemore duels former friend, Asdrubal Crowe,with the deadly Oblivion Hex and the fate of the Wizarding world hanging in the balance.
The Oblivion Hex
RA WESTWOOD
Based on the world of Harry Potter,
created by J.K. Rowling
Chapter 5
Déjà Vu All Over Again
Smell arrives first upon apparition. Equal parts musk and smoke, London’s morning fog welcomed Noah with damp stories of receding night. The next moment, lucent blacks and whites gave way to the Royal City. Purple dawn fluttered behind brick and stone eyelids. Uneven pavers and the broken telephone booth confirmed Noah was in the alley before the Ministry of Magic.
“Don’t move or I do it, mate,” the voice behind Noah was foreign and familiar, Crowe’s sibilant tone in a sinister key. “Don’t even peep.”
Noah raised his arms above his head and turned a solo waltz. It seemed countless ages hung on Crowe’s face. His cheeks were without buoyancy, jowls wobbly like a battered dog. Ghastly skin was splotched with dirt and sand, the light drained from his eyes.
“Wand,” Crowe croaked, his fingers curling ‘gimme gimme.’
Noah decided compliance was best. Even in his prime, he couldn’t out-duel Crowe. Arm like a pendulum, Noah slung his wand. It rolled to a halt at Crowe’s boot.
“Good,” Crowe sighed. “Now spin on your heel and apparate far, far away so I can hex Potter to oblivion.”
Noah set his rubber soles to the coarse pavement. Arms to sides and fists clenched, he stepped forward. “You don’t want to do this.”
“I can’t go back to writing bloody books. I can’t.” Crowe’s wand quivered at Noah’s forehead. “Please don’t make me do it. This hex isn’t meant for you.”
Noah took another step forward.
“You only found that hex because of me. Lose me and lose the Oblivion Hex.”
Crowe drew a forearm across his face, mopping sweat. His eyebrows squeezed with painful thought.
“I’ll find it again.” His voice cracked uncertainty.
Dawn exorcised all but the serpentine fog snaking about Noah’s ankles. London’s dank perfume punching his nose, Noah was trying to slash through the panic running rampant in his mind when it happened. The morning’s drowsy murmur suddenly burst with life. Pop!Pop!Pop! three apparitions hit like chimes of a clock.
In that moment, prescience vibrated through Noah’s body, Legilemency brought on by adrenaline. He saw the inky hex closing around him though Crowe stood still. In the flash before Crowe opened his mouth, Noah thrust his hand before him. Like a gymnast tumbling hand springs, Noah’s Rosewood wand jumped from the pavement and vaulted toward him.
“Esse Evanesco Totalus!” Crowe’s spell warbled as if yelled underwater.
The hex was a black hole, ravenous for light, its surface without gloss or depth. Swift as a snitch, its borders expanded as it approached. The Oblivion Hex looked like a Dragon-sized Dementor, open mouth salivating for a kiss. Blackness crashed over Noah as his wand nestled into his palm. Earth and sky evaporated, negating Noah’s mass and weight.
“No,” he tried to say. The words evaporated in his throat.
Noah jerked backwards as if he’d touched a portkey. The sensation was of innumerable hands clawing him backwards. The air (although air isn’t the right term, for the blackness was without atmosphere) turned to ice as the hands pulled him down their berserk roller coaster.
“No.” Tears dried from ducts before they could leave his eyes.
It looked as if he Noah was flying through outer-space. Shimmering stars punched through the blackness, each one a memory. They played like movies from an ancient projector, flickering scenes both familiar and foreign. Noah looked down and saw his body, like the stars around him, had turned to mercury. One by one quicksilver memories tore from his being and returned to the eternal constellations. His life was being unmade, his soul recycled, until Noah was only a pinprick of light. He saw at last his own birth. Noah reached to grasp the infant only to find his body gone. The man must be father. So young. Mother wept, indefatigable smile warming her newborn.
As the last threads holding his life were torn from their seams, Noah thought of the future being robbed from him.
He thought of MaryAnn.
He thought of his unborn daughter.
“No,” he announced. Life’s flame pulsed hot with desire. The hands ushering Noah to non-being shifted from pull to push. The infant grew in body and mind. Noah’s life returned bit by silver bit, regenerating his body. Hogwarts, his fellow Ravenclaws (although one was already a mere shadow cast against lazy hallways), celebrating the Dark Lord’s fall, trading dark wizards for dusty tomes “ each star returned his strength tenfold. Then he watched, warm hands pushing him forward, as he spilled a sugar dish at the Librarian’s conference. “Sorry miss.” “Its fine.” “I’m Noah.” “MaryAnn.” Noah was a supermassive star, conquering the darkness with blinding light.
The damp breath of London morning welcomed him back. Earth fell under floating sky and Noah’s weight pushed through ankles and heels to pavement. Orange dawn shredded Oblivion’s veil, the hex an ink spill flying from his body.
Crowe’s face bloated surprise to see Oblivion reflected. His wand sparked a rainbow of counter spells, each fizzing useless into the dark. Finally, Crowe dropped his hands to sides and accepted the void. In that final moment, Noah saw Crowe’s mouth open, their eyes locked.
“I’m s””
The Oblivion Hex swallowed Crowe. A discordant symphony screamed as the void collapsed under its own gravity. A shockwave pushed the breath from Noah’s lungs and blackness disappeared with a sound like
* * *
a toppling of books. Spines and covers thumped over the whrrsh of fluttering pages. Noah plucked his ink pen from its gilt holder and thrust his chair from beneath him.
“Lousy miscreants,” he muttered, circling the reference desk to the nonfiction stacks. “This is a library, not a bloody playground.”
Ten rows into the library’s photography collection, Noah found the commotion’s source. He sighed. Just as he expected.
Two teens”one tall and the other stout”crouched over a pile of upended photography volumes, trying to quickly reshelve. Unnoticed, Noah stood with arms crossed as they plucked books from the wreckage and rushed them back to shelves. Wearing lime green hockey sweaters, it seemed the teens played a strange game of book arranging, the rules foreign to Noah.
“Boys,” he finally said. The two teens froze, totem poles planted to carpet, then turned agape to Noah.
“We’re studying,” they chimed.
Noah strode to the pyramid of books on the ground and plucked the topmost. Pages splayed an anthology of Victorian nudes reclining on sepia sofas and sitting prim in wicker chairs.
“I’m sure you were studying,” Noah quipped. “You’ve got ten seconds to leave or I give you both tails.”
The taller teen shook his head.
“That’s not fair! We’re browsing the collection.”
Noah flicked his pen. “Go.”
Eyes vacant, the teens spun and walked in step to the exit. Noah’s brow pinched as he watched their green backs shrink from him. A queasy wash flowed from head to toes, wiggling his spine and twitching his muscles. His stomach tumbled somersaults.
“I saw that, Noah Sizemore.” The voice behind him was a honeyed balm to soothe the uncanny chill in his bones.
Noah turned and saw MaryAnn, rosy cheeks and auburn hair, a cloying smile on her face. “You just magicked P.J. and Dan away.”
Noah, still shivering aftershocks of his odd tingle, flicked his wand to the books. Like soldiers in morning reveille, they hovered from the floor and scrabbled themselves to perfect Dewey order on the shelves.
“Yeah...” Noah said, his voice drowning in a watery daydream.
MaryAnn read the glassy shimmer in Noah’s eyes. “Are you okay, love?” She looked down, rubbing furtive circles over the small bump of her stomach. “Because if there is something wrong, your future wife and child need to know.”
Noah smiled. The thought of his daughter toddling on summer’s verdant bosom evaporated the heaviness which had drenched his bones.
“I’m great,” he beamed, taking MaryAnn’s hand in his. “Just had a bit of déjà vu.”
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.