History of the World Volume I Chapter 1 The Maturation of Turpin – The Roman Years
Many amateur historians do not realize that Emperor Turpin was actually the bastard son of a Roman general. His mother was his first instructor in the art of magic. He was an apt pupil. Delia, a witch born in the murky waters of the Nile taught him the eastern magics, while his father, Eldon son of Faston, taught him war and government. By combining the best of his father's world with his mother's, Turpin was eventually able to craft the society under which we now live...
Pulling his cloak close, Derek tried imagining that he was somewhere warm and tropical. It was hard with freezing rain pelting down from above, soaking through his shoddily enchanted rainwear. He should have mastered waterproofing with the amount of times he had attempted to fix his cloak. Maybe water elemental spells would never be one of his fortes, but he knew at least a dozen good fireballs incantations. A fistful of enchanted flame always took the chill out. Unfortunately, enchanted flame wasn't allowed on super-secret Dog Pack missions. With a wistful grimace, he resumed his attempt to think warm.
The shrill howl of a dog pierced the evening air. Derek flinched and moved toward the rendezvous with his partner, Shelia. The rain was getting harder now, thick freezing drops of rain converging into confluent frigid sheets of water. Derek spotted her under the trees. Shelia's wild brown hair was plastered flat against her rather nicely shaped head. Derek felt his heart flutter when she smiled mischievously at him. She played at flirting with him like every other man that crossed her path. Derek didn't kid himself that her flirting was anything but friendly, although he had long term plans to someday flirt back and maybe change that situation. Not tonight though. Tonight there were more important things at hand.
"Time to change," Shelia said. With the hint of a whisper and an almost imperceptible glimmer, she became a sleek feline with dramatic white whiskers.
Derek followed suit and assumed his alternate form of a snow hare. Shelia licked Derek's head in a companionable gesture and nudged him forward. This was an old ruse for them. The hare led the way while the cougar pretend-stalked in his wake. Derek began hopping through the slushy mud anxious as only a mission could make him. He chanted in his head, "Careful, quick, safe, careful, quick, safe." His internal chant rolled in perfect rhythm with his steady hops, successfully calming his raw nerves enough that he could function.
Not so far away, the owner of the howl that summoned the rest of the team forward stalked his own prey. A caravan of slow-moving Muggles with a small band of wizard overseers trudged along the heavily worn forest path, baskets of rare herbs and minerals on their backs. More valuable than gold or silver, those ingredients were headed for the cauldrons of the regime to be brewed into strengthening solutions, deadly poisons, and healing elixirs. If Sirius had anything to do with it, those ingredients would be headed for a different set of cauldrons, healing rebel wounds and strengthening rebel soldiers.
Shifting amongst the shadows, Sirius could see his soldiers in their alternate forms lurking along the path. The caravan was almost in position now. With a shrill howl, Sirius initiated the second stage of their raid. He shifted back to his human form, as did most of the rest of the team. The distraction would come next. A small white hare darted out of the woods and charged straight through the circle of six hooded wizards. The caravan might hardly have paused if a roaring cougar hadn't followed closely on the hare's fuzzy cotton tail. In the confusion that followed, Sirius's team vanished the ingredients in the Muggles' back-baskets shifting them away into the woods to safe dry spots for later retrieval.
While most of the team worked vanishing spells, Sirius watched the wizards, ready to block any aggressive spells they managed to try on Shelia or Derek. The other times they'd run this scenario, the guard barely managed to muster shields. Occasionally they'd even Disapparated rather than deal with Shelia in cougar form. Today was different. The six hooded wizards spun in near synchrony, unphased by the cat in their midst. Dark spells hurled so quickly from them that Sirius's attempt to shield his soldiers was only partially effective. A strangled roar of agony erupted from Shelia and she staggered back into the underbrush where she fell. Sirius had no time to consider whether his soldiers had survived the deadly curses that had been hurled at them. The hooded wizards were looking for the shielding wizard who had protected the animals, and they were staring directly toward his patch of shadow.
One of the wizards threw back his hood and screamed a blood curdling battle cry into the dark. Through the near blinding sheets of rain Sirius saw the glint of a red eye glowing. He changed back into his dog form and howled a retreat. At least one of his soldiers was down, and there were Reapers down there. The rest of the team knew not to leave Derek or Shelia behind, but someone needed to distract those killers long enough for the rest of the team to help them.
Sirius shifted back to his human form now that the retreat had been called, feeling winded and exhausted from all the rapid shape-shifting. He strode out of the shadows and cast a pair of Impediment jinxes that ricocheted harmlessly off the shields of the Reapers. The grin that curled across the one unhooded Reaper's face hinted at the madness within that creature. Sirius ran, not because of the fear speeding his heart. He ran, attempting to draw the Reapers away from his wounded kids.
Follow me, Sirius commanded silently. Follow me.
All he could hear was his heart thudding and his feet splashing through the rutted forest road. A curse slipped past his ear, searing wisps of his hair with an incendiary spell that came too close for comfort. Sirius dropped low and spun, casting three quick curses. "Impedimenta. Expelliarimus. Silencio." By casting the spells low, he was attempting to slide through where shielding wards were usually weakest.
The Reaper's laughter wasn't comforting. "Petty little wizard. Surrender to Gluto and die painlessly or fight and suffer till your end."
Sirius didn't recognize the foreign accent of the calm, cocky wizard standing ahead of him. Dumbledore had warned him to strike with deadly force against this creature, that it wasn't human. Sirius focused on the red eye and the black river it swam in... not human. If he didn't act quickly and surprise this thing, he was dead.
The creature seemed to read all the response he needed in the set of Sirius's jaw. With a casual flick of his wand he began casting curses. "Crucio. Crucio. Crucio."
Sirius's reflexes were the only things that saved him. Instead of running or rolling to one side, Sirius charged forward under the barrage of dark magic. Like a Muggle in a brawl, Sirius tackled his foe, the most damaging of the dark curses on his lips. "Avada Kedavra!"
He tumbled to the ground with Gluto, but the man didn't struggle. The death curse had done its job. By moving close quickly he had hoped to elude any attempts to shield, and he cast the spell with all the aggression and anger he could muster. Sirius disentangled himself from the Reaper. He was just a balding middle-aged man with dark swarthy skin and newly dead eyes. If this was a Reaper, they weren't nearly as mythical as he had assumed they'd be.
Sirius didn't have time to contemplate a fallen bogeyman. His attempt at a distraction only drew one Reaper out? He rose to his feet and took a couple of hesitant steps toward the original fray and his kids. Not kids, soldiers, Sirius corrected himself. They were well-trained soldiers that did their job and were most likely waiting for him at camp now. If he went charging back down there, he'd just be picking another unnecessary fight.
Sirius switched back to his canine form and with a worried whine, loped off into the woods.
Shelia was seriously hurt, Victor was wounded and Derek was...Edgar turned away from the unmoving bit of furry corpse he could see from his vantage point. After months of efficient missions, something had to go wrong eventually. Someone was bound to be wounded, but he had fooled himself into thinking that no one was ever really going to get killed. They were too careful. They were too good. The commander planned everything.
"Hey Edgar, you're in charge until Commander Black comes back, right?" a girl asked.
It was a testament to how completely off kilter he was that it took him a good minute to place the name of the willowy blond girl at his elbow. "Yes, Alice?"
"Well, shouldn't someone get Shelia and Victor to the infirmary tent, now? She's hurt pretty bad. I can go with them," Alice offered. "Edgar?"
"Go then," Edgar said. "Bring Derek with you too, okay?"
Alice didn't say anything about the fact that the healers at the infirmary would have little luck with the dead rabbit she would be bringing them. But maybe they'd be able to return him to his human form for a proper burial. The reverting spell they'd tried had had no effect on the dead form. Of course they'd never tried to work the spell on a dead transformed animagus.
"Give him here!" Shelia shouted.
Edgar turned toward the screeching that had erupted from the deathly wounded girl. She was straining toward the motionless form of her friend. The rest of the soldiers were staring transfixed, unsure what to do. Alice and a couple of others held Shelia back from crawling to Derek. Edgar realized how close to tears he was when his vision clouded, and he strode over to the limp rabbit. Scooping the corpse up, he crouched next to Shelia and let her see him, let her touch him. She pulled Derek into her arms, cradled him to her chest like a baby, and began to rock rhythmically. "Oh no," she keened. "Oh no."
While he wasn't a healer, Edgar still didn't like the way Shelia was breathing, gasping. She was too pale, almost blue. He should have got her to the infirmary the moment they made it back to camp. "Quick, we have to move her to the infirmary now. Alice, help me."
Technically, Edgar knew he should wait with the rest of the soldiers until Sirius returned. This was a task he should delegate, but he didn't want to stand around with those scared men and women. He was in charge technically, and they might expect him to say something, to do something. Well, helping levitate Shelia was active; it was doing something.
"Where the Hell's Edgar?" Sirius stormed into camp looking for his wounded soldiers and his second in command with a sweeping gaze. He approached one of his newer recruits, a scrawny young man with large brown eyes and water-slicked blondish hair. "Walter, I need a head count and a report. Where's Edgar? Is everyone okay?"
"Shelia and Victor are wounded. Edgar and Alice escorted them to the infirmary. Derek, he died. Everyone else is back and fine." Walter didn't meet his commander's eyes while he reported, instead focusing somewhere over his shoulder into the dark woods. "We haven't checked on the supplies we were trying to steal yet, sir."
Sirius didn't say anything for a long moment. A dozen eyes were boring into him. His other soldiers, the men and women who entrusted their lives to his judgment, were waiting for their explanation. They were owed something. His cute game of robbing the regime had gone horribly wrong for the first time. Sirius felt his breaths coming painfully like his chest was filled with concrete.
"What now, sir?" Walter asked.
Looking around the camp at the freezing, soggy, exhausted men and women, Sirius felt his chest loosen. He didn't have the option of falling apart right now. When he accepted this command from Moody, he knew what he was getting in to. It was time to face up and pay the piper. This wasn't a game. It never had been. "Now we do our jobs. Those things out there that looked like wizards were Reapers. Emperor Turpin himself sent those things to exterminate us because we're annoying him. Well, I only counted six of them. I killed one tonight. We'll just see who gets exterminated." Sirius met the gaze of his soldiers and recognized his own lust for revenge staring back at him. "Get the goods we secured into camp and off to where they're needed. I expect a complete report when I get back."
Sirius walked away briskly, his mind working feverishly at the problem the Reapers posed to his Dog Pack. Losing soldiers wasn't acceptable. They were going to have to be a lot more careful, and as distasteful as it was, they needed to be ready to kill their enemies.
The infirmary smelled antiseptic and herbal. The smooth taste of chamomile practically drenched the air, filling Sirius's mouth and nose. He'd avoided this moment as long as he could. Shelia met her commander's eyes from her hospital bed. He almost questioned if she had managed a complete human transformation. Those angry eyes belonged on a ferocious cougar, not a critically wounded woman.
"Is he still a rabbit?" Shelia asked. Propped up in her hospital bed, she was partially wrapped in bandages. "The healers managed to put him right, didn't they? I mean he's a human corpse now?"
Sirius didn't flinch at the raw bitterness in Shelia's tone. She had a right to her grief. He had seen the two of them together, and he knew how close they were. "Derek isn't a rabbit anymore. I sent an owl to his parents."
"Good." Shelia's glare didn't waiver. The commander was supposed to have shielded them from curses. He was supposed to have protected Derek. No matter that the best shield in the world wasn't very effective against six simultaneous Avada Kedavra curses. Never mind that she and Derek both knew the risks they were taking. "Could you leave me alone, Commander? I'm very tired."
"Of course you are," Sirius said. "I'll let you rest now." Walking through the infirmary, Sirius brushed past the healers without a word and none of them dared attempt talking to the grim-faced commander. Sirius wasn't headed back to his corner of camp yet. He needed a moment. He needed a friend. James had to be in camp. Sirius needed a friend who understood what it felt like to cast Avada Kedavra, a friend who had lost soldiers under his command, a friend to share a firewhiskey and tell him that he'd done the right thing
And if James wasn't in camp...he could at least still have the firewhiskey.
"List the top twelve words of power for igniting ordinary flame in Arabic, Latin, and Greek," Harry read. "Let's take it around in a circle."
More than half a dozen of the first year students were gathered together in one of the school's study rooms sitting in an arc around the fire. Everyone had their Spell Crafting notes open and they were actively cramming for Professor Dover's first exam. Hermione closed her eyes and looked heavenward, her mouth working silently for several seconds before she spoke. "Incendia, Ignis, Flamma, Fire," she said.
"Exuro, Extermino, Aduro, Exussum, Ardeo," Valerie Gunther said. She grinned and turned to Ron.
Yeah, you grin, Ron thought. The girls had named all but four of the Latin words and he couldn't think of them. Thumbing through his scrolls of parchment, he tried to find the page with the stupid terms on it.
"Coniecto, Ustulo, Ustilo, Ustulo," Draco said in a bored tone. He made a point of not looking at his notes and yawning at Ron.
"Latin down. Who wants to start the Greek?" Harry asked.
"I'm going to bed," Hannah Abbot said. She tucked her long red hair behind her ears and gathered her notes to her chest.
"Yeah," Ron grumbled. He tossed a disgusted look at Draco and folded his own notes together. "If I don't get a little rest I won't remember anything anyway."
The group fell apart rapidly, everyone saying their goodnights. Harry lingered behind with Hermione because she wasn't packing up her things. "You going to sleep tonight?" Harry asked.
"No, I don't think I will. There's too much to do that I haven't done," Hermione said. There was a touch of desperation in her voice. "I'm going to fail everything."
"You're too smart to fail everything," Harry said. He wasn't lying to make her feel better either. Hermione was smart. Just keeping her head above water with the limited preparation she'd had for school was impressive. He wasn't cruising through things and he'd been in preparatory school for six years. She'd only been reading for a year. "You have to sleep the night before a test or your brain won't work tomorrow."
"I don't have to do anything, Harry. Go to bed," Hermione snapped. "I'll see you tomorrow."
The next morning Harry found Hermione dozing in her chair, notes scattered about her feet. Soft snores filled the otherwise empty study room. Ron pushed past him and grimaced. "She really did stay out here all night. It almost seems cruel to wake her up to go to the test."
"It would be crueller to let her sleep," Harry said.
Hermione stirred and blinked at the two boys in the doorway. With a pained wince she rotated one shoulder then the other. "What time is it?"
"Test time," Ron said. "Ready?"
"Drink this," Harry said. He shoved a glass of strong smelling black liquid under her nose and Hermione recoiled. "It's called coffee."
"Where'd you get coffee?" Ron asked. "That stuff is bloody expensive. I've never even smelled it." He sniffed as though he'd love to try the odiferous concoction.
"I snuck it out of the staff lounge," Harry said. "Not worth the risk on your average day but Hermione is going to need every bit of stimulant I can find. Unfortunately, we're not ready to brew a rise and shine potion. I looked it up; it's complicated."
Hermione snatched the cup out of Harry's hand and sniffed it delicately herself. "This will wake me up?"
"Absolutely," Harry said.
Not needing any more assurance, Hermione gulped the bitter beverage down in five seconds flat. "Ugh, that's, ugh."
"Ready?" Ron asked. "We're going to be late."
For once, the first year students would be meeting a class as a whole. Professor Dover's test would be a group bonding experience. Harry took the open seat next to Draco, while Ron and Hermione took the last pair of seats on the other side of the room. The late bell rang moments after they had settled into their spots.
Elspeth Dover gestured with her crooked knobby wand and scrolls of parchment appeared on the desks around the room. "I don't have to tell you not to cheat. You have three hours starting now."
Harry looked down at the first question and took up his quill.
1. When casting elemental magic and the word of power exists in both masculine and feminine forms, which should be employed in which instances for greatest effect?
"Maybe I didn't fail," Hermione murmured. She stirred at her bowl of meaty stew absently without taking a bite. The aggravated desperation was gone from her voice, replaced by a resigned depression. "What do they do with you when you fail?"
"You aren't going to fail," Ron said. "You study more than any three of the rest of us." He shoved a roll in his mouth, ending his attempts at conversation for a few seconds.
Hermione didn't answer Ron's reassurances. She had done all she could. She just wished she felt better about the test. Hermione gazed down the table at her classmates and frowned. The test wasn't the only thing that had her worried. Harry hadn't joined them at lunch today. He was sitting farther down the table, between Draco and Terry Boot. Hermione understood that he needed to preserve the delicate sort-of-friendship he had managed with his partner, but she didn't like Malfoy and she wasn't buying his sudden willingness to get along. Getting your face marked and losing a shot at the third tier had to be traumatic. But that was still the boy who had insulted them all on the first day. He was still the boy who threatened to sabotage them and get them all declassified.
Ron followed her gaze and mirrored her frown. "Think he's going to keep inviting the git to study group?"
"Of course he is," Hermione said quietly. "Harry trusts people, even when it's stupid to."
Author's Note:
I guess the biggest thing I need to address in here, is blocking killing curses. JK Rowling is very clear that you can't block them, but this is an AU and for the purpose of this fic, all spells can be blocked at least to a mitigating degree if not completely.