Like the label says, I need a name for it, so any suggestions would be welcome.
Title
(*This is where the line of separation goes. This is where the line of separation goes.*)
Disclaimer: I don’t own this series or any other series. I am just floating an idea. I am making no money, nor plan to, off this venture. If you think of suing me over this, then grow up.
(*This is where the line of separation goes. This is where the line of separation goes.*)
Qrow Branwen sat at the table of the home of his nieces, staring at the scroll before him, the same compiled footage playing in a loop.
Lederer had been a somewhat prosperous small town deep within Vale. The town had been fortunate to be founded by smart people, meaning they put up a decent amount of defenses against both the possibility of Grimm and the certainty of bandits.
Or perhaps the other way around... In the interior, the likelihood of both was almost truly a certainty.
But something had happened to either attract the Grimm … or send a mass of them towards the town, two years ago. And while the town had managed to get a call for help out, with the size of the invading Grimm army, it would have never arrived in time.
“But it did,” Qrow muttered, focusing on the videos still, trying to discern something from them. He doubted such could happen, given that not only had Ozpin spent the last two years going over it, but undoubtedly that Ironwood and the assholes of Atlas.
And who knew what other resources that the Council had used, trying to locate the person and creature in the video.
The … creature could be heard roaring once again as the video restarted; showing a scene as the beast first appeared, slamming a Nevermore down onto the ground … from the sky. At first, he would almost have said the damned thing was another Grimm.
But there was no mask; just a black lizard head, horns and spikes covering its body with a bronze color, and leathery wings. Its claws and mouth ripped into the Nevermore, before it leaned back, and spat … fire. It continued to burn the Grimm until it decayed, before roaring once more, taking off into the sky.
The video compilation would show it several more times, each scene showing it viciously attacking the aerial Grimm, or simply lancing the lines of invading Grimm on the ground with its fire.
A dragon, an honest to Maiden dragon! That was the most that the researchers the Council had hired could come up with. Before it had appeared, that title was only thought to indicate the Grimm that had been designated such.
Now, Qrow wouldn’t be surprised if someone was trying to change that label … assuming some idiot –cough, Atlas, cough—wasn’t trying to locate more of them. If they all had such a hatred for Grimm…
But then the odd boy came into the picture.
If one looked carefully at the first scene, they could have spotted him, somehow … riding the dragon.
But between one frame and the next, he disappeared. Though it could have been concluded he fell off, that certainly wasn’t the case. There had been a slight … popping sound as he disappeared before impact.
And in the compiled footage, somehow, he appeared on the other side of town, attacking the Grimm with … a stick … that shot out balls of light?
But the balls had real world effects. Depending on the color, they seemed to throw the Grimm away, tie them up, cut them…
At one point, there were balls of green light, the same color as the boy’s eyes from what they had been able to determine, that when they struck a Grimm … simply killed it.
A lone Goliath had been the first victim. One moment, it had been charging through the town. The next, the green light hit it in the mask … and it froze before dissolving.
No contact.
No physical strike.
Just … one and done to a Grimm the majority of Hunters out there would have a tough time dealing with.
I bet those idiots in Atlas are drooling over learning that one, Qrow snorted, taking another sip of his drink.
And that wasn’t even the one spell—Ozpin told him that was what they were—that was the most impressive.
When it looked like that even the help of the … dragon—still felt weird to call it that—and the spell user would not be enough, the teen headed for the center of town, where a spire had been erected. And though he found it hard to believe, the analysis team had insisted the boy had … hissed something …very loudly.
And the dragon came.
A new video showed the kid pulling some … rocks out of his pocket, tossing them at the spire … where they floated and circled about.
And then he hissed again.
And the dragon breathed fire at the spire.
But the fire didn’t consume the statue. It seemed to … be absorbed by the stones, containing the energy, glowing into the darkness of the attack.
Then there was another popping sound, the teen disappeared in one frame, reappearing in the next, on top of the spire.
And for the first time, you didn’t need special equipment to hear the teen speak. He raised his stick in the air, holding with both hands, and called out two words.
“Expecto Patronum!”
And then the sound of the video—the sounds of the battles across the town, the dying, the screaming, the rage of fights—went still.
Then a hum arose, a hum that grew in power, intensity, spreading out even to him now, watching the video.
The Grimm seemed to sense something, and if they had been human, the looks on the faces in the video would have shown one thing: fear.
As one, they all turned, trying to flee the town they had attacked.
But they wouldn’t get the chance.
A light, the purest white he had ever seen, blossomed from the spire, rising into the air. It quickly took form, almost resembling a dragon Grimm. It released … something between a hiss and a bird’s cry, its wings slamming open. And as the call reached a crescendo, it released a bubble of energy that spread out across the town.
When that bubble came into contact with a Grimm, the Grimm were … erased was the best word they could come up with. It wasn’t like his niece’s or her mother’s petal trick, or how Grimm normally dissolved in death.
It was like the bubble was wiping them out completely.
When it passed over people, they seemed fine. Reports revealed they all said the same thing, hunters and civilians. It was like the fear Grimm created was wiped away, leaving a feeling of joy, safety, happiness.
In that moment, the Grimm inside the town up to a mile away were destroyed, every single one of them, no matter the power level or toughness. The land itself seemed to even change. Every bit of Dust in that town was changed to what was now called Holy Dust, as white as the specter, as powerful as it too.
There was a black market for it now, and the citizens of Lederer guarded it fiercely, believing it was why no Grimm could ever approach their town. Teams that left the town carried few rounds of it, but always a necklace containing the stuff, which they said ensured a Grimm could never attack them mentally. And what rounds they carried containing Holy Dust were said to pierce any Grimm’s hide or mask.
Several agents from governments—foreign and domestic, as well as terrorist groups like the White Fang had been caught trying to purloin it.
Death was a mercy for those caught. What little they allowed out had been bought at high prices from the governments, and Lederer was far more secure now than it had ever been before.
But that wasn’t why he was watching the video, or where the video had ended.
After the specter faded away, the kid had nearly fallen to his death from the tall spire, only to be caught by the dragon.
It looked at him carefully, and a few analysts had mentioned that it appeared the dragon was … judging the boy somehow.
It found what it was apparently looking for, as it gently put the boy on its head, flapped its wings to gain lift, and took off into the night.
Holy Dust and the spells, the dragon itself, all seemed to be connected to the boy. And for two years, everyone had been looking for them.
You would think a giant fire-breathing lizard and a human with a lightning bolt scar on his forehead, green eyes, and capable of casting massive amounts of magic, wouldn’t be that hard to find.
Two years later, no news. It was as if the duo had disappeared into the ether. In all likelihood, they were somewhere in the wilds, the areas where humans or Faunus had yet to tread, places the Grimm ran unimpeded.
Such duos were unlikely to be killed by the wild.
“UNCLE QROW!”
“Oof!” he cried out, his attention so focused on the scroll, he hadn’t heard the arrival of his youngest niece.
“And you killed him, Ruby,” sighed his other niece, closing the door.
“I did not!” Ruby posted, as the two got off the floor. “I was just … really excited to see him.”
Sighing, Qrow put his hand on her head, rubbing it. “Good to see you too. How’s school?”
“Oh, it’s so great!” Ruby gushed. “I started making my weapon, and I am going for a scythe and I’m working on attaching a rifle to it and—”
“Ruby, breathe!” called out Yang called out, entering the dining area of the small home, before waving at her uncle.
“Breathe?! Right, yeah, breathe, air is good, air is my friend … my only friend…”
“What was that?” Qrow asked.
“Nothing!” Ruby called out nervously.
“Little sis is having some trouble making friends at Signal,” Yang said, leaning against a column.
“I am not,” Ruby said quietly. “It is just that weapons are easier to talk to.”
Shaking his head, he looked up as his blood niece. “And you?”
“Oh you know, plenty of friends, having fun,” she continued, throwing some punches, “totally kicking ass in class.”
Qrow nodded, before he blinked. “Isn’t it a little early for you two to be getting back today?” he asked.
“We don’t have classes today, Uncle Qrow,” Ruby piped up, seeing a shot to get some teasing in on her elder sister. “Yang was stalking some guy.”
“I was not stalking him!” Yang said with an affronted look.
“Then what do you call it?” Ruby asked.
“I call it doing reconnaissance,” Yang stated with a smile. “You know, find out his likes, dislikes, if he has a girlfriend already.”
“Oh?” Qrow asked with a teasing voice, placing an arm around Ruby’s shoulders, making them both look at Yang. “Is this something I need to talk to your father about?”
“What!? No!” Yang sputtered out.
“I think she doth protest too much,” Qrow nodded.
“Oh yeah, she’s even got a notebook filled with—MMRPH!” Ruby spoke before being cut off … by Yang’s hand over her mouth.
“A notebook, eh?”
“Nothing!” Yang called out nervously. “I … I am just putting the awesome skills I homed at school to practical use.”
“And what have those ‘awesome skills’ of yours, found out about him?” Qrow asked.
“Well, he sells a lot of Dust to the stores in town, so he’s competing with the Schnee for that,” Yang offered.
“And its pretty good quality,” Ruby nodded. She’d gotten some to practice with at Signal to work on her marksmanship. “Even sells some rare types, like ice, lava, storm, and … I’ll stop talking now,” she quieted down.
“That’s okay, Ruby,” Qrow said. “We can talk about it later.” He quickly seemed to teleport to the other side of the room, putting a hand on the shoulder of the niece that had been trying to escape. “But right now, we are learning about Yang’s boyfriend.”
“He’s not my boyfriend!” Yang called out defensively, grumbling that her sister’s tendency to talk about weapons and such hadn’t been a big enough distraction to escape.
“And what is Mr. Not-My-Boyfriend’s name?” Qrow asked.
“Harry,” Ruby offered.
“Traitor,” Yang sighed, before sticking out her tongue.
“Harry who?” asked Qrow.
“…”
“She doesn’t know,” Ruby offered again.
“And how old is Harry?” Qrow asked.
“…”
“She doesn’t know that either,” Ruby stated.
Qrow just blinked. “So … all you have is a first name and that he sells Dust in town?”
“…”
“Where does he live?”
“…”
Qrow just blinked. “So … let me get this straight.
“You’ve been stalking this boy…”
“Not stalking!” Yang countered. “I have been investigating him.”
“For how long?”
“…”
He turned to his other niece.
“About a year now,” Ruby offered.
Yang glared at her. Oh, she was so hiding all the cookies for this!
Qrow could only shake his head. “After a year, that’s all you know.”
“Well, he buys farm animals that no one ever sees him picking up, food, gives a bunch to the poor,” Yang offered.
“And have you even talked to him?”
“…”
His eyes wide, Qrow whistled at that. Yang was so outgoing, and for her to be so shy around … anyone, really, was just unheard of.
Shaking his head—as well as figuring he had teased his niece enough, he decided to drop it for now. “You two go get cleaned up, I’ll make some lunch.”
“Will you be staying for a while, Uncle Qrow?” Ruby asked; her eyes wide and begging.
“For a bit,” he said. “I have to talk to your father about a few things I’m working on.”
“And training?” Ruby continued.
“Sure.”
“And can I see your weapon!?” Ruby begged on.
“Sure, but no taking it apart.”
“Ahh,” Ruby whined.
As the two girls left the table, Qrow shook his head, casting one last glance at his scroll, and the mysterious boy on it.
“I am so hiding your cookies,” he heard Yang say.
“Noooo! Not the precious!”
“For a week.”
“That’s mean!” Ruby whined. “Besides, it isn’t like Uncle Qrow didn’t know anyway.”
“Huh?”
“Yeah, he’s got the boy’s picture on his scroll.”
“… WHAT!?” yelled Qrow and Yang at the same time.
(*This is where the line of separation goes. This is where the line of separation goes.*)
Harry Potter, The Boy-Who-Lived, the Hater-Of-Hyphens, this displaced holder of the Fourth Spot of the Tri-Wizard Tournament, slowly came to alertness, the small rays of sunlight breeching his curtains and illuminating the room enough to disturb him and bring him out of the Land of Nod.
“I need to transfigure those into something thicker,” he muttered, yawning as he sat up, rubbing his face.
Slowly edging out of his bed, he strode across the floor, grabbing his glasses and quickly attaching his wand holster to his wrist.
Both of them.
The world—this one especially—was a dangerous place. And he wasn’t about to tempt Fate, Destiny, or whatever forces played with the lives of men, by going anywhere unarmed … or even lightly armed.
This was especially true in the Sanctuary he had created.
As Harry took care of his morning rituals—non-magical, just going to the bathroom and washing his face—he returned to the kitchen and began to prepare his breakfast.
It was hard not to let his mind drift. He’d been on this world for two years … give or take … hours? Days? He wasn’t really certain if Remnant had the same cycle as Earth, even after all this time. He didn’t exactly have a watch to compare how they measured time, and the charm that would tell him time only gave him the local time, not the time of where he wanted to be.
“Hope Dumbledore got those asses,” he spat, as he flipped his eggs.
He heard someone—Moody, maybe—yelled out it was a Condensing Sphere. He got the idea as the barrier surrounded him and the dragon, closing in and vaporizing … or erasing everything it touched.
“And we had been having such a good conversation too,” he muttered, before palming his face. “I really need to work on getting an inner dialog again.” It had been a while since he had any company that wasn’t of the fire-breathing reptile type or single talking haberdashery. And his excursions across to Patch didn’t count, as he tried to be in and out as quickly as possible, before people got suspicious.
Turning back to the stove, he continued to bounce between making his food and recalling the incident that shot him away from Hogwarts, Earth, and perhaps his own universe, to a planet filled with Dementor wannabes and a moon that looked like it had caught the bad side of an asteroid.
He chuckled a bit, recalling the looks of shock and worry on a few of the faces of those who were sustaining the bubble. Apparently, no one had ever countered it by casting a constant stream of space-expansion charms. The Sphere could only destroy so much space in a moment, and Harry slowed it down a bunch by creating more space for it to eat.
Of course, he had to get an angry Hungarian Horntail to stop freaking out first, and move itself and its clutch into his moleskin pouch. The last thing he needed was the worried mother getting in his way, or taking precious space they didn’t have available.
“Quit dawdling, Potter.”
“Oh.”
The Sorting Hat—or the backup—just glared at him from the kitchen table.
Blinking, Harry turned, sighing. “I just woke up!”
“And you got a lot to do today,” the Hat replied.
“I know,” Harry sighed.
“We also lost a few more golems,” the Hat said, tied into the wards Harry had set up.
The teen blinked. “Already?” he asked, setting his plate down at the table.
The Hat nodded. “They have Dust lines running through them.”
Harry shook his head. Golems: great for protecting your property and digging stuff out of the ground around an extinct super volcano—oh, he hoped him using the massive convergence of ley lines one created, didn’t reactivate it.
Downside was that after a while, the Golems seemed to develop Dust lines running through them.
Normally, this wasn’t so bad, as it allowed them to use said Dust as attack focuses.
Well, as long as they weren’t near massive deposits of Dust. If they were, it depended on if it was Dust like they had in them, or something else.
‘Something else’ tended to end in explosions, the size depending on how opposed to the elements were.
If the Dust was the same, it would keep changing them until they were more Dust than golem, and the magic keeping them animated—but more importantly, controlled—would fail. The worst case wasn’t that they simply stopped working, but that they also exploded after they went berserk.
He had more than a few ponds to fill in until he understood that point.
A lot of things on this planet tended to explode when you didn’t want them to.
Probably explains the moon, he thought. “So, I need to make a few golems and tie them into the wards, send the corrupted ones into the woods for intruders and stupid Grimm who get anywhere near the barrier…”
“Shrink these ones and take them with you,” the Hat stated. “Use them in case you get in trouble.”
Harry blinked at that. “But I’d have to rework their runes to work off ambient magic in the air or their Dust instead of the wards.” That was going to be more work!
The Hat raised an eyebrow … or its equivalent. “You should have those rune schemes already developed.”
Harry rolled his eyes as he dug into his meal. “Yeah, because I’ve been so lazy,” he said sarcastically. “I’ve only had to carve a massive ward scheme, add in Patronus to it to keep out those Grimm, create dozens of golems, figure out how to purify Dust to something I can sell…”
A loud roar was heard in the background.
“Oh yeah, make sure several baby dragons don’t wreck everything, as well as get them food to eat that doesn’t turn this area into a wildlife dead zone.”
“Yes, yes,” drawled The Hat. “And all the studying you have been doing…
“Welcome to adulthood, Potter,” it spoke. “When I was first made, brats like you would already be out of school and working on spitting out some spawn, or out in some stupid war.”
“… I figured it out.”
“Oh? How to walk and talk at the same time?”
“No,” Harry said, stabbing his eggs with his fork. “You weren’t put in that shelter to be a backup; they knew your attitude beforehand and shoved you in there to forget you existed.”
The Hat snorted, before deciding to simply stare at the youth he was essentially marooned with.
“I’ll work on it when I get back,” Harry sighed. It was lucky he had that library to research this sort of stuff. “I have to run a Dust shipment and some crops to Patch for some money, as well as pick up some more livestock before the dragons start picking off the guys in the nearby woods. The last thing we want is someone noticing our little home.”
The Hat gave a non-committal grunt.
Smiling a bit at the small victory over the thing, he finished his meal and took his dishes to the sink. A quick couple of household charms started everything cleaning, before he returned to the table and put the hat on his head.
“Oh?” it asked. “I get to come too?”
“If you can control yourself,” Harry said, making his way to the door. “It is an hour’s flight to Patch, might as well have some company.”
“You mean you need me to help you work on the rune scheme for the corrupted golems.”
Harry’s eye twitched. “If Dobby was here, I’d so put you on his head again.”
“Don’t even joke about that stuff, Potter,” the Hat growled. “Thought processes are different for every species—well, maybe not Faunus and humans—but definitely between humans and house elves. The pain I felt…” it toned off.
Harry sighed, shaking his head lightly.
“I don’t need your pity, Potter; but your understanding isn’t asking much.”
Rolling his eyes, Harry opened the front door, preparing to step out and—
He flinched as the bad breath and loud roar of a small dragon greeted him.
“A coat, Potter,” the Hat growled out. “Make this one into a coat.”
Releasing his wand and waving it a few times to apply several decent cleaning charms upon his flem covered form, Harry opened his eyes, staring into the self-satisfied grin of one of the young hatchlings. “Really?” he asked the creature.
“~We’re out of pigs~,” it growled at him.
“The wonders of your little ritual, Potter,” the Hat grumbled out. “You can understand dragon and have proven beyond any shadow of a doubt … that they are just as greedy and as inconsiderate as wizards.
“Huzzah.”
The dragon growled, not understanding the human tongue the thing used, but understanding the tone.
“Enough!” Harry yelled out. “Hat, hold your tongue until we leave.
“~Adia, stop doing that before I inform your Ylla about your newest little habit~,” Harry hissed out.
The small Horntail paled somewhat at the threat to tell its mother, before it turned. “~Bring me some pigs and we won’t have problems.~”
As it lumbered away, Harry palmed his face. Unlike parseltongue, the ritual that allows Harry to modify his speech enough to communicate with dragons, did not allow him to control them as easily as snakes. In fact, it only seemed to prove that they were just as fickle as Muggle fiction had portrayed them as.
The fact that Ylla—the Horntail he had been paired against for the First Task—was even somewhat cordial to Harry at all was a minor miracle.
Didn’t mean he hadn’t practiced in secret to avoid a dragon’s flame until he could launch an overpowered stunner down its throat, just as the Bombarda Maxima did to a screaming troll in a girls’ bathroom.
He was on good terms with Ylla.
Her clutch? Depends on the dragon, really.
“Let’s just go,” Harry sighed, walking out of his home and towards where the golems had stacked the food and Dust. Even storing it all in his mokeskin bags, it would still take an hour on broom to get across the waters to Patch, more if he had to avoid any flying Grimm or anything else that might see through his disillusion spell.
Title
(*This is where the line of separation goes. This is where the line of separation goes.*)
Disclaimer: I don’t own this series or any other series. I am just floating an idea. I am making no money, nor plan to, off this venture. If you think of suing me over this, then grow up.
(*This is where the line of separation goes. This is where the line of separation goes.*)
Qrow Branwen sat at the table of the home of his nieces, staring at the scroll before him, the same compiled footage playing in a loop.
Lederer had been a somewhat prosperous small town deep within Vale. The town had been fortunate to be founded by smart people, meaning they put up a decent amount of defenses against both the possibility of Grimm and the certainty of bandits.
Or perhaps the other way around... In the interior, the likelihood of both was almost truly a certainty.
But something had happened to either attract the Grimm … or send a mass of them towards the town, two years ago. And while the town had managed to get a call for help out, with the size of the invading Grimm army, it would have never arrived in time.
“But it did,” Qrow muttered, focusing on the videos still, trying to discern something from them. He doubted such could happen, given that not only had Ozpin spent the last two years going over it, but undoubtedly that Ironwood and the assholes of Atlas.
And who knew what other resources that the Council had used, trying to locate the person and creature in the video.
The … creature could be heard roaring once again as the video restarted; showing a scene as the beast first appeared, slamming a Nevermore down onto the ground … from the sky. At first, he would almost have said the damned thing was another Grimm.
But there was no mask; just a black lizard head, horns and spikes covering its body with a bronze color, and leathery wings. Its claws and mouth ripped into the Nevermore, before it leaned back, and spat … fire. It continued to burn the Grimm until it decayed, before roaring once more, taking off into the sky.
The video compilation would show it several more times, each scene showing it viciously attacking the aerial Grimm, or simply lancing the lines of invading Grimm on the ground with its fire.
A dragon, an honest to Maiden dragon! That was the most that the researchers the Council had hired could come up with. Before it had appeared, that title was only thought to indicate the Grimm that had been designated such.
Now, Qrow wouldn’t be surprised if someone was trying to change that label … assuming some idiot –cough, Atlas, cough—wasn’t trying to locate more of them. If they all had such a hatred for Grimm…
But then the odd boy came into the picture.
If one looked carefully at the first scene, they could have spotted him, somehow … riding the dragon.
But between one frame and the next, he disappeared. Though it could have been concluded he fell off, that certainly wasn’t the case. There had been a slight … popping sound as he disappeared before impact.
And in the compiled footage, somehow, he appeared on the other side of town, attacking the Grimm with … a stick … that shot out balls of light?
But the balls had real world effects. Depending on the color, they seemed to throw the Grimm away, tie them up, cut them…
At one point, there were balls of green light, the same color as the boy’s eyes from what they had been able to determine, that when they struck a Grimm … simply killed it.
A lone Goliath had been the first victim. One moment, it had been charging through the town. The next, the green light hit it in the mask … and it froze before dissolving.
No contact.
No physical strike.
Just … one and done to a Grimm the majority of Hunters out there would have a tough time dealing with.
I bet those idiots in Atlas are drooling over learning that one, Qrow snorted, taking another sip of his drink.
And that wasn’t even the one spell—Ozpin told him that was what they were—that was the most impressive.
When it looked like that even the help of the … dragon—still felt weird to call it that—and the spell user would not be enough, the teen headed for the center of town, where a spire had been erected. And though he found it hard to believe, the analysis team had insisted the boy had … hissed something …very loudly.
And the dragon came.
A new video showed the kid pulling some … rocks out of his pocket, tossing them at the spire … where they floated and circled about.
And then he hissed again.
And the dragon breathed fire at the spire.
But the fire didn’t consume the statue. It seemed to … be absorbed by the stones, containing the energy, glowing into the darkness of the attack.
Then there was another popping sound, the teen disappeared in one frame, reappearing in the next, on top of the spire.
And for the first time, you didn’t need special equipment to hear the teen speak. He raised his stick in the air, holding with both hands, and called out two words.
“Expecto Patronum!”
And then the sound of the video—the sounds of the battles across the town, the dying, the screaming, the rage of fights—went still.
Then a hum arose, a hum that grew in power, intensity, spreading out even to him now, watching the video.
The Grimm seemed to sense something, and if they had been human, the looks on the faces in the video would have shown one thing: fear.
As one, they all turned, trying to flee the town they had attacked.
But they wouldn’t get the chance.
A light, the purest white he had ever seen, blossomed from the spire, rising into the air. It quickly took form, almost resembling a dragon Grimm. It released … something between a hiss and a bird’s cry, its wings slamming open. And as the call reached a crescendo, it released a bubble of energy that spread out across the town.
When that bubble came into contact with a Grimm, the Grimm were … erased was the best word they could come up with. It wasn’t like his niece’s or her mother’s petal trick, or how Grimm normally dissolved in death.
It was like the bubble was wiping them out completely.
When it passed over people, they seemed fine. Reports revealed they all said the same thing, hunters and civilians. It was like the fear Grimm created was wiped away, leaving a feeling of joy, safety, happiness.
In that moment, the Grimm inside the town up to a mile away were destroyed, every single one of them, no matter the power level or toughness. The land itself seemed to even change. Every bit of Dust in that town was changed to what was now called Holy Dust, as white as the specter, as powerful as it too.
There was a black market for it now, and the citizens of Lederer guarded it fiercely, believing it was why no Grimm could ever approach their town. Teams that left the town carried few rounds of it, but always a necklace containing the stuff, which they said ensured a Grimm could never attack them mentally. And what rounds they carried containing Holy Dust were said to pierce any Grimm’s hide or mask.
Several agents from governments—foreign and domestic, as well as terrorist groups like the White Fang had been caught trying to purloin it.
Death was a mercy for those caught. What little they allowed out had been bought at high prices from the governments, and Lederer was far more secure now than it had ever been before.
But that wasn’t why he was watching the video, or where the video had ended.
After the specter faded away, the kid had nearly fallen to his death from the tall spire, only to be caught by the dragon.
It looked at him carefully, and a few analysts had mentioned that it appeared the dragon was … judging the boy somehow.
It found what it was apparently looking for, as it gently put the boy on its head, flapped its wings to gain lift, and took off into the night.
Holy Dust and the spells, the dragon itself, all seemed to be connected to the boy. And for two years, everyone had been looking for them.
You would think a giant fire-breathing lizard and a human with a lightning bolt scar on his forehead, green eyes, and capable of casting massive amounts of magic, wouldn’t be that hard to find.
Two years later, no news. It was as if the duo had disappeared into the ether. In all likelihood, they were somewhere in the wilds, the areas where humans or Faunus had yet to tread, places the Grimm ran unimpeded.
Such duos were unlikely to be killed by the wild.
“UNCLE QROW!”
“Oof!” he cried out, his attention so focused on the scroll, he hadn’t heard the arrival of his youngest niece.
“And you killed him, Ruby,” sighed his other niece, closing the door.
“I did not!” Ruby posted, as the two got off the floor. “I was just … really excited to see him.”
Sighing, Qrow put his hand on her head, rubbing it. “Good to see you too. How’s school?”
“Oh, it’s so great!” Ruby gushed. “I started making my weapon, and I am going for a scythe and I’m working on attaching a rifle to it and—”
“Ruby, breathe!” called out Yang called out, entering the dining area of the small home, before waving at her uncle.
“Breathe?! Right, yeah, breathe, air is good, air is my friend … my only friend…”
“What was that?” Qrow asked.
“Nothing!” Ruby called out nervously.
“Little sis is having some trouble making friends at Signal,” Yang said, leaning against a column.
“I am not,” Ruby said quietly. “It is just that weapons are easier to talk to.”
Shaking his head, he looked up as his blood niece. “And you?”
“Oh you know, plenty of friends, having fun,” she continued, throwing some punches, “totally kicking ass in class.”
Qrow nodded, before he blinked. “Isn’t it a little early for you two to be getting back today?” he asked.
“We don’t have classes today, Uncle Qrow,” Ruby piped up, seeing a shot to get some teasing in on her elder sister. “Yang was stalking some guy.”
“I was not stalking him!” Yang said with an affronted look.
“Then what do you call it?” Ruby asked.
“I call it doing reconnaissance,” Yang stated with a smile. “You know, find out his likes, dislikes, if he has a girlfriend already.”
“Oh?” Qrow asked with a teasing voice, placing an arm around Ruby’s shoulders, making them both look at Yang. “Is this something I need to talk to your father about?”
“What!? No!” Yang sputtered out.
“I think she doth protest too much,” Qrow nodded.
“Oh yeah, she’s even got a notebook filled with—MMRPH!” Ruby spoke before being cut off … by Yang’s hand over her mouth.
“A notebook, eh?”
“Nothing!” Yang called out nervously. “I … I am just putting the awesome skills I homed at school to practical use.”
“And what have those ‘awesome skills’ of yours, found out about him?” Qrow asked.
“Well, he sells a lot of Dust to the stores in town, so he’s competing with the Schnee for that,” Yang offered.
“And its pretty good quality,” Ruby nodded. She’d gotten some to practice with at Signal to work on her marksmanship. “Even sells some rare types, like ice, lava, storm, and … I’ll stop talking now,” she quieted down.
“That’s okay, Ruby,” Qrow said. “We can talk about it later.” He quickly seemed to teleport to the other side of the room, putting a hand on the shoulder of the niece that had been trying to escape. “But right now, we are learning about Yang’s boyfriend.”
“He’s not my boyfriend!” Yang called out defensively, grumbling that her sister’s tendency to talk about weapons and such hadn’t been a big enough distraction to escape.
“And what is Mr. Not-My-Boyfriend’s name?” Qrow asked.
“Harry,” Ruby offered.
“Traitor,” Yang sighed, before sticking out her tongue.
“Harry who?” asked Qrow.
“…”
“She doesn’t know,” Ruby offered again.
“And how old is Harry?” Qrow asked.
“…”
“She doesn’t know that either,” Ruby stated.
Qrow just blinked. “So … all you have is a first name and that he sells Dust in town?”
“…”
“Where does he live?”
“…”
Qrow just blinked. “So … let me get this straight.
“You’ve been stalking this boy…”
“Not stalking!” Yang countered. “I have been investigating him.”
“For how long?”
“…”
He turned to his other niece.
“About a year now,” Ruby offered.
Yang glared at her. Oh, she was so hiding all the cookies for this!
Qrow could only shake his head. “After a year, that’s all you know.”
“Well, he buys farm animals that no one ever sees him picking up, food, gives a bunch to the poor,” Yang offered.
“And have you even talked to him?”
“…”
His eyes wide, Qrow whistled at that. Yang was so outgoing, and for her to be so shy around … anyone, really, was just unheard of.
Shaking his head—as well as figuring he had teased his niece enough, he decided to drop it for now. “You two go get cleaned up, I’ll make some lunch.”
“Will you be staying for a while, Uncle Qrow?” Ruby asked; her eyes wide and begging.
“For a bit,” he said. “I have to talk to your father about a few things I’m working on.”
“And training?” Ruby continued.
“Sure.”
“And can I see your weapon!?” Ruby begged on.
“Sure, but no taking it apart.”
“Ahh,” Ruby whined.
As the two girls left the table, Qrow shook his head, casting one last glance at his scroll, and the mysterious boy on it.
“I am so hiding your cookies,” he heard Yang say.
“Noooo! Not the precious!”
“For a week.”
“That’s mean!” Ruby whined. “Besides, it isn’t like Uncle Qrow didn’t know anyway.”
“Huh?”
“Yeah, he’s got the boy’s picture on his scroll.”
“… WHAT!?” yelled Qrow and Yang at the same time.
(*This is where the line of separation goes. This is where the line of separation goes.*)
Harry Potter, The Boy-Who-Lived, the Hater-Of-Hyphens, this displaced holder of the Fourth Spot of the Tri-Wizard Tournament, slowly came to alertness, the small rays of sunlight breeching his curtains and illuminating the room enough to disturb him and bring him out of the Land of Nod.
“I need to transfigure those into something thicker,” he muttered, yawning as he sat up, rubbing his face.
Slowly edging out of his bed, he strode across the floor, grabbing his glasses and quickly attaching his wand holster to his wrist.
Both of them.
The world—this one especially—was a dangerous place. And he wasn’t about to tempt Fate, Destiny, or whatever forces played with the lives of men, by going anywhere unarmed … or even lightly armed.
This was especially true in the Sanctuary he had created.
As Harry took care of his morning rituals—non-magical, just going to the bathroom and washing his face—he returned to the kitchen and began to prepare his breakfast.
It was hard not to let his mind drift. He’d been on this world for two years … give or take … hours? Days? He wasn’t really certain if Remnant had the same cycle as Earth, even after all this time. He didn’t exactly have a watch to compare how they measured time, and the charm that would tell him time only gave him the local time, not the time of where he wanted to be.
“Hope Dumbledore got those asses,” he spat, as he flipped his eggs.
He heard someone—Moody, maybe—yelled out it was a Condensing Sphere. He got the idea as the barrier surrounded him and the dragon, closing in and vaporizing … or erasing everything it touched.
“And we had been having such a good conversation too,” he muttered, before palming his face. “I really need to work on getting an inner dialog again.” It had been a while since he had any company that wasn’t of the fire-breathing reptile type or single talking haberdashery. And his excursions across to Patch didn’t count, as he tried to be in and out as quickly as possible, before people got suspicious.
Turning back to the stove, he continued to bounce between making his food and recalling the incident that shot him away from Hogwarts, Earth, and perhaps his own universe, to a planet filled with Dementor wannabes and a moon that looked like it had caught the bad side of an asteroid.
He chuckled a bit, recalling the looks of shock and worry on a few of the faces of those who were sustaining the bubble. Apparently, no one had ever countered it by casting a constant stream of space-expansion charms. The Sphere could only destroy so much space in a moment, and Harry slowed it down a bunch by creating more space for it to eat.
Of course, he had to get an angry Hungarian Horntail to stop freaking out first, and move itself and its clutch into his moleskin pouch. The last thing he needed was the worried mother getting in his way, or taking precious space they didn’t have available.
“Quit dawdling, Potter.”
“Oh.”
The Sorting Hat—or the backup—just glared at him from the kitchen table.
Blinking, Harry turned, sighing. “I just woke up!”
“And you got a lot to do today,” the Hat replied.
“I know,” Harry sighed.
“We also lost a few more golems,” the Hat said, tied into the wards Harry had set up.
The teen blinked. “Already?” he asked, setting his plate down at the table.
The Hat nodded. “They have Dust lines running through them.”
Harry shook his head. Golems: great for protecting your property and digging stuff out of the ground around an extinct super volcano—oh, he hoped him using the massive convergence of ley lines one created, didn’t reactivate it.
Downside was that after a while, the Golems seemed to develop Dust lines running through them.
Normally, this wasn’t so bad, as it allowed them to use said Dust as attack focuses.
Well, as long as they weren’t near massive deposits of Dust. If they were, it depended on if it was Dust like they had in them, or something else.
‘Something else’ tended to end in explosions, the size depending on how opposed to the elements were.
If the Dust was the same, it would keep changing them until they were more Dust than golem, and the magic keeping them animated—but more importantly, controlled—would fail. The worst case wasn’t that they simply stopped working, but that they also exploded after they went berserk.
He had more than a few ponds to fill in until he understood that point.
A lot of things on this planet tended to explode when you didn’t want them to.
Probably explains the moon, he thought. “So, I need to make a few golems and tie them into the wards, send the corrupted ones into the woods for intruders and stupid Grimm who get anywhere near the barrier…”
“Shrink these ones and take them with you,” the Hat stated. “Use them in case you get in trouble.”
Harry blinked at that. “But I’d have to rework their runes to work off ambient magic in the air or their Dust instead of the wards.” That was going to be more work!
The Hat raised an eyebrow … or its equivalent. “You should have those rune schemes already developed.”
Harry rolled his eyes as he dug into his meal. “Yeah, because I’ve been so lazy,” he said sarcastically. “I’ve only had to carve a massive ward scheme, add in Patronus to it to keep out those Grimm, create dozens of golems, figure out how to purify Dust to something I can sell…”
A loud roar was heard in the background.
“Oh yeah, make sure several baby dragons don’t wreck everything, as well as get them food to eat that doesn’t turn this area into a wildlife dead zone.”
“Yes, yes,” drawled The Hat. “And all the studying you have been doing…
“Welcome to adulthood, Potter,” it spoke. “When I was first made, brats like you would already be out of school and working on spitting out some spawn, or out in some stupid war.”
“… I figured it out.”
“Oh? How to walk and talk at the same time?”
“No,” Harry said, stabbing his eggs with his fork. “You weren’t put in that shelter to be a backup; they knew your attitude beforehand and shoved you in there to forget you existed.”
The Hat snorted, before deciding to simply stare at the youth he was essentially marooned with.
“I’ll work on it when I get back,” Harry sighed. It was lucky he had that library to research this sort of stuff. “I have to run a Dust shipment and some crops to Patch for some money, as well as pick up some more livestock before the dragons start picking off the guys in the nearby woods. The last thing we want is someone noticing our little home.”
The Hat gave a non-committal grunt.
Smiling a bit at the small victory over the thing, he finished his meal and took his dishes to the sink. A quick couple of household charms started everything cleaning, before he returned to the table and put the hat on his head.
“Oh?” it asked. “I get to come too?”
“If you can control yourself,” Harry said, making his way to the door. “It is an hour’s flight to Patch, might as well have some company.”
“You mean you need me to help you work on the rune scheme for the corrupted golems.”
Harry’s eye twitched. “If Dobby was here, I’d so put you on his head again.”
“Don’t even joke about that stuff, Potter,” the Hat growled. “Thought processes are different for every species—well, maybe not Faunus and humans—but definitely between humans and house elves. The pain I felt…” it toned off.
Harry sighed, shaking his head lightly.
“I don’t need your pity, Potter; but your understanding isn’t asking much.”
Rolling his eyes, Harry opened the front door, preparing to step out and—
He flinched as the bad breath and loud roar of a small dragon greeted him.
“A coat, Potter,” the Hat growled out. “Make this one into a coat.”
Releasing his wand and waving it a few times to apply several decent cleaning charms upon his flem covered form, Harry opened his eyes, staring into the self-satisfied grin of one of the young hatchlings. “Really?” he asked the creature.
“~We’re out of pigs~,” it growled at him.
“The wonders of your little ritual, Potter,” the Hat grumbled out. “You can understand dragon and have proven beyond any shadow of a doubt … that they are just as greedy and as inconsiderate as wizards.
“Huzzah.”
The dragon growled, not understanding the human tongue the thing used, but understanding the tone.
“Enough!” Harry yelled out. “Hat, hold your tongue until we leave.
“~Adia, stop doing that before I inform your Ylla about your newest little habit~,” Harry hissed out.
The small Horntail paled somewhat at the threat to tell its mother, before it turned. “~Bring me some pigs and we won’t have problems.~”
As it lumbered away, Harry palmed his face. Unlike parseltongue, the ritual that allows Harry to modify his speech enough to communicate with dragons, did not allow him to control them as easily as snakes. In fact, it only seemed to prove that they were just as fickle as Muggle fiction had portrayed them as.
The fact that Ylla—the Horntail he had been paired against for the First Task—was even somewhat cordial to Harry at all was a minor miracle.
Didn’t mean he hadn’t practiced in secret to avoid a dragon’s flame until he could launch an overpowered stunner down its throat, just as the Bombarda Maxima did to a screaming troll in a girls’ bathroom.
He was on good terms with Ylla.
Her clutch? Depends on the dragon, really.
“Let’s just go,” Harry sighed, walking out of his home and towards where the golems had stacked the food and Dust. Even storing it all in his mokeskin bags, it would still take an hour on broom to get across the waters to Patch, more if he had to avoid any flying Grimm or anything else that might see through his disillusion spell.
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