877XLIX. Subterfuge
A villain should- depending on their Judgment- exercise subterfuge, as mentioned in the Secrecy section, although with more of a strategic goal than a tactical one. A spell kept secret will win you a fight, a horcrux kept secret will save your life, but a movement kept secret? That will set the world on fire. (Literally? Figuratively? Your choice, friend.)
Before your glorious rise to power- as expanded upon earlier- you will have to manage your pride and stay under the radar. I know, I know, it is vexing to hide like a rat, to hold court in the house of whatever groupie you can guilt/threaten/charm into letting you stay (if you have not acquired a base, a disturbingly frequent occurrence for villains, as I'm told). However, a bit of that is necessary to keep your plans running smoothly. Whatever you're thinking of, do it quietly.
Smuggling to raise funds? Quiet. Gathering followers? Quiet.
A coup? You'd damn well better be practicing subterfuge.
It was a warm summer day, and Ron Weasley was carrying an unreasonably hot cup of coffee. Not for himself, but for Hermione- she was always so busy with paperwork. Frankly, he was glad to have gotten out of the Ministry, especially considering the things he had heard about the budget cuts to the Aurors given the fall in crime recently…
Sure, Ron thought Hermione had drawn the short end of the stick occupation wise, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to help her through it.
He was met with a mumbled "thanks" when he passed the coffee off to her. She was responsive, which was a good sign.
Knowing that Hermione wouldn't do it, he got the papers. The Prophet was still a rag, but Hermione kept on reading it. The excuse Hermione gave was that it gave her "the average wizard's point of view" (if any wizard could be average) although some part of Ron felt that it fuelled her, in some strange way. Every headline that made her blood boil filled her with resolve…. He could always hope that the headlines were normal though.
Ron was suddenly very glad he had already passed the coffee to Hermione- he was certain that he would have spilled it if he had read the headline. Atlantis. Blimey. Harry sure was keeping busy, wasn't he? The Quibbler covered something similar- with more photos- although with a lot more speculation about what might have become of the Atlantean people. Mermaids? Really?
"You're not going to believe what's in the papers." Hermione raised a questioning eyebrow as she continued drinking her coffee, as if asking Ron to elaborate. Wary of a spit take, he waited until she had taken a brief respite from guzzling her coffee to pass the papers over.
"Thank you, Ron…." Hermione's eyes widened, her jaw slackening. "Maybe I should stop being surprised by things like this."
"Feels kind of unreal, doesn't it?"
"I suppose it does." Hermione grinned and sipped her coffee. "One thing after the other… I suppose it's part and parcel for magic, and all that."
"This is weird for magicians too, you know."
Hermione's hummed for a moment, in thought. "Do you think we could go visit? It's been a while, and those Atlantean Mermen sound interesting."
Ron recognized that sort of funny gleam in her eye. Did she really need another project right now? Regardless of what he thought, Hermione already seemed set on it. He almost chuckled. Some things never changed, did they?
As summer drew to a close, there was the matter of preparing for the next year at Hogwarts, crowds descending upon Diagon Alley to acquire whatever they might need. A need that was fulfilled, in no small part, by the Weasleys, and their growing enterprise.
The jokes were the most fun to sell, but they certainly weren't the only thing they offered now: cauldrons (made with Doggerland pewter), basic brewing kits, all those other sundries a new wizard needed… Other than making handsome sums of money, it was a bright introduction to the magical world. Perhaps not as austere and intimidating as Gringotts, but perhaps that made it even more welcoming.
The shopkeep and his (quite literally) foxy lover were quick to crack a joke or offer a helping hand- while informing shoppers of the wide range of useful items they sold. If nothing else, they could appreciate how unwelcoming wizarding society could be, on a bad day.
Then there was, of course, the bookstore. (They had just gotten their feet in the door when it came to publishing, but they were certainly planning on getting their cut of the profits… eventually.)
Harry Potter's famous guide to learning Parseltongue wasn't a required text, but from the way it was selling you might think otherwise. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there has been a recent rise in interest in magical snakes…
Booksellers were eagerly anticipating the next book to come out of Doggerland, and hints of a book about Atlantis got them excited. Vague hints and implications of a biography in the works by Lovegood had them drooling.
(Luna insisted she was just 'building up hype' for a possible release. She hadn't done much more than interview him so far, and while he had mixed feelings about such a project, she didn't pry about his upbringing at the Dursleys. She told him that people were more interested in the founding of his island than anything else…)
The great canyon of glass which separated Atlantis was quite easy to cross- you could literally just swim over- so as various folks from Doggerland poked around, examining the magical crystals, Harry explored the city further.
While poking around the housing was interesting in its own sort of way, unveiling the mundane lives of a people lost to time, Harry wanted something a bit more interesting. And sure enough, he eventually stumbled into something intriguing.
At what seemed to be the center of the city, a temple complex stood. Bingo. Four structures towered, half invisible in the gloom, raised above the rest of the city on great platforms of cut stone.
It was almost like the pyramids he had seen back in Mexico, with a sort of steplike pattern. Admittedly, pyramids weren't exactly the heights of engineering- any kid stacking blocks could stumble upon that particular engineering breakthrough- but the way they curved to fit the streets was intriguing. They were really dead set on avoiding straight lines, apparently.
Of the four temples (or what was left of them), Harry picked the closest of them, which seemed to be one of a slightly larger pair. Devoted to a more important deity, perhaps?
Finding an entrance wasn't too hard- in fact, there were several major spillways which opened out to the roads of the city, giving Harry all the room he would need to swim inside the halls.
The spiral motif was impossible not to notice on the inside of the temple, where everything, from the layout of the halls themselves to the turquoise and lapis lazuli inlays spun in on themselves, forming delicate fractal patterns, contrasted against the reds of jasper and agate.
Harry passed through a number of rooms on the way there, some significantly more concerning than others. The store rooms and dormitories- for acolytes or what have you- were understandable. The room with a curving drainage trench down the middle in a worrying shade of red, along with a number of knives.. eugh.
Still, he seemed to be working his way through rooms of increasing importance, the decor growing even finer and the chambers grander in scale. Occasionally, he'd find some little oceanic bottom feeder poking around, scavenging in those once sacred halls. Harry had to wonder if the universe had some sense of dramatic irony as he entered what he figured was the main room.
The centerpiece of this most central room was a circular mosaic- unsurprisingly- with the smallest tiles Harry had seen yet. At the center, the patterns were large, but the further towards the edge you went, the more delicate the work got, thinning into dozens of tiny little lines, vivid red and blue tracing between dozens of delicately cut white and gray stones like veins.
There was something vaguely familiar about it that Harry didn't quite grasp until he saw the odd shapes near the center. They looked, vaguely, like the temple complex Harry had just entered… in fact, it looked rather like a map. The four temples at the center, roads spreading out from them, the heart of the city.
Admittedly, it hadn't been updated to account for the… unplanned geological reorganization the city had undergone, but it was still a treasure trove of information.
Around the perimeter of the room- perfectly circular- there were a number of symbols on the walls. They seemed like runes, although of a design Harry had never seen out of Atlantis. (Obviously.) Upon closer examination, they looked to be made of the same crystal-glass he found in the canyon…
Poking around didn't reveal much else. Sure, Harry wasn't expecting perfect documentation or whatever, but not having any evidence for the purpose of the room frustrated him. He could feel that this place was some sort of magical epicenter of the city- a city that seemed designed around this point- he was had to figure out what teh
And Harry suddenly felt as if he was being side-along Apparated, the world tightening around him like a vice…
There was a small base camp near the canyon, where the crystals- and other Atlantis artifacts- were analyzed. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these things were unpredictable, and they had to be approached with caution; it would be rather unfortunate to discover that the Atlanteans had made, whether purposely or accidentally, magical explosive.
Of course, there were certainly other things to be found in Atlantis- if you were really lucky you could find mosaic or carved inscriptions- although they were all wildly hard to decipher. Not helped by the fact that all the actual books and codices had long since rotted away in the ocean. It wasn't quite the incredible cache of knowledge they had imagined… but there were still things to be learned.
But their focus was the crystals- which seemed to have some interesting magical properties that might make them good for staves or wands…
You couldn't exactly stick a crystal in the middle of a twig and expect it to work- even if capping a staff with crystal showed some promise- but there had been good results with testing the crystals and using them in place of more typical wand cores.
As one particularly enterprising researcher considered the potential commercial applications of such an innovation, they crushed some crystals with a mortar and pestle. They nearly jumped out of their skin when the crystal- half crushed- began to glow a warm orange…
Oh Merlin and Morgana they were about to get blown sky high-
The glow faded, the crystal and dust feeling uncomfortably cool. And now everyone else was shouting. It was probably widespread then. Wonderful. But they still had their hands, at least. Attached to their body and not smeared across the wall.
Harry gasped for breath as he tried to figure out what the hell just happened. The water around him was still cold, but it was nowhere near as dark- bright enough to temporarily disorient him.
Above him, he could spot a narrow shaft of sunlight, immediately confirming that he was far away from Atlantis, wherever he was now. It seemed like that he had been Apparated- or some clumsy predecessor to it- somewhere else. At the very least he had been moved the distance to the surface, if not much more.
Looking around didn't reveal much of any interest, although being in water while actually being capable of seeing more than a few feet ahead of him was nice. Admittedly, realizing he had been teleported directly above a massive pile of junk was slightly less nice. Pale bones, long since cleaned by the ocean, sat next to the worn out knives that might have cleaned them once, years ago. Occasionally, light glinted on flint or metal… Harry took note of the pile, but decided to follow the light.
Orienting himself, he began to swim towards what he presumed to be the surface, noticing the way the water churned beneath it. Great. Even better, it was enclosed by walls of… was that ice? Oh, he was closed in by ice from above. Remarkable.
Thankfully, there was a gap in the ice where the light came through, which he quickly swam under. Looking up, he saw a great shaft of ice opened up to the surface, a waterfall shooting down through the open space. Sunlight, reflected off the icy walls and shining through the falling water was dazzling compared to the abyssal depths he had been in minutes previously.
Getting himself up there was a bit of a trick. He was a wizard, of course, so it wasn't impossible, but it was inconvenient. Eventually, he sort of hovered himself up without getting too wet, although it wasn't exactly as smooth as Voldemort's flight trick. (How did that work? Harry would have to look into it…)
Rising out of the hole revealed great vistas of ice in every direction, ice which served to create some intense glare. Blinking, Harry looked around. Ice, ice, more ice… one of the only things breaking the monotony was the roar of the icy waterfall behind him.
He figured he had to be on a glacier somewhere, considering how tall that shaft-thing was, the question was where. (Or would it be when? Harry certainly hoped not, he did not need any more time travel bullshit in his life.) Anyways, it was sunny, so he probably wasn't in Antarctica. Wherever he was, it was certainly far from home…
Harry had pulled off the occasional feat of Apparition- even if he tended to travel in significantly different style now- but all the way to the reaches of… wherever was a touch far. Admittedly, he felt like he has been getting better at magic recently, but he didn't really think he did anything- it felt more like getting dragged along, than anything else.
In fact, it felt quite similar to Side-Along apparition… Was Apparition a recent thing? Ugh, he'd drive himself in circles asking questions about magical history like this… Thankfully, his wandering in a vaguely southerly direction- courtesy of the Point Me spell (used on his wand, not his staff, for obvious reasons)- did eventually lead to a precipice.
Far below him, the frothy sea crashed against the glacier, white sea foam on white glacier, punctuated by the roar of the ocean. Harry made a mental note to work on setting up a base somewhere remote like this. Somewhere to get away from absolutely everything- society, expectations, reasonable temperatures- sounded good.
He supposed that the last time he tried to retreat from society he accidentally made a new one, but whatever. Technically speaking, Harry wasn't even alone up here, in this icy waste.
Far below him, on the sea, a tiny little craft bobbed. Vaguely, he pick out oars, but rowboats just weren't supposed to move like that, dancing between crests and going altogether too fast. A magician?
Admittedly, Harry knew wizards and witches could be… jumpy, but he decided to get closer. Why not while he was here, right?
"Hello! Hello?" Harry shouted out, his voice amplified by magic. It seemed as if the boater noticed him- giving him a brief glance- before returning to rowing.
Well, that was all well and good, but he couldn't exactly hold a conversation like this, could he? Harry figured he could get down…
Harry lowered himself down in what might have been called- generously- a sort of dignified hover. But he didn't accidentally dunk himself, which was good enough for now. Some more details were visible now, a bent figure under a coat, pushing away at the oars.
After catching the boater's attention, Harry was almost tempted to stick his thumb out like he was hitchhiking, but figured that that particular piece of body language hadn't made it all the way up here. Instead, he made a collection of gestures which he hoped indicated his peaceful intent before the boater beckoned him closer.
Honestly, it seemed like a miracle this person's boat had survived the waves, because as far as Harry could tell, it wasn't made of wood, but rather some sort of hide. Hoping to do the person a favor, Harry tried to calm the weather a little, only to be met with a frown and a shake of the head from the boater. Maybe it was a matter of pride?
It didn't make sense. Even with Harry hitching a ride, they kept on rowing just like before, cutting through the waves with a power their thin, aged figure belied. Their hands were clenched tight around the oars, only highlighting the rings of scar tissue at each of their knuckles.
That was… unusual. Magical injuries could be wacky- Harry had suffered no shortage of injuries that would give a muggle doctor fits- and while there could be some mundane explanation, it seemed… off. Neat, regular scars, aligned tidily with the knuckles. Self mutilation, maybe? There were some rituals that required that sort of thing…
Figuring that intensely staring at the stranger's hands might get a touch awkward, Harry looked into the sea that surrounded them and realized they were surrounded. Not by magical monsters- although considering the feeble skin boat he was sitting in, the massive pod of whales seemed pretty intimidating regardless.
They got so close Harry could run a hand against their sides- he imagined Hagrid would love this sort of thing, if he didn't accidentally collapse the boat under him. Were they familiars of some kind? Like owls? Well, Harry certainly didn't know of any owls big enough to push a boat…
Unfortunately, Harry couldn't ask, but he made a sort of questioning glance towards the whales, which was answered with what he thought was a happy nod- and a gentle rubbing of the scars. There was a gentle smile on their face as a whale just slid up under the boat and carried it along.
Eventually, the boat slunk back into the depths as they approached a sort of bay of some kind- and some beautiful, non-icy ground. Faintly, in the distance, he saw signs of what might have been civilization. That was a good sign, if nothing else.
Well, he wasn't on an ice sheet anymore, and he could probably arrange some sort of transport- the idea of calling up a ride on his ghost ship sounded kind of funny- as long as he could… Harry blinked, and reached the obvious conclusion. "Kreacher!" When the elf appeared in front of him, Harry was relieved to see that he looked like he did the last time Harry saw him. Which was… He wasn't entirely sure. Woops.
Margaret was, of course, quite relieved to hear that Harry was alright (and unsplinched) after his little adventure. Such news was, of course, a relief, but it also reminded her that perhaps it would be best to take more aggressive steps to acquire an heir?
Well, she'd have to see if the problem wouldn't solve itself soon enough- as it turned out, Harry going missing and then returning led to, to put it mildly, an outpouring of understandable- it was hard to put into words what he was for some of these people. If nothing else, he was the one in charge. Hopefully, an outpouring of emotion that produced one heir, if not several.
There were other people who were quite relieved to see Harry back in a slightly different sense- Andromeda, for one. Thankfully. (Admittedly, Margaret or any one of the other vampires couldn't exactly go throwing stones when it came to age differences in any potential relationship.) She supposed the relationship between Andromeda Tonks and Harry Potter was a curious one, more… familial.
The poor woman needed some company and thankfully, Doggerland provided that in spades- Margaret remembered a certain statement about needing a village to raise a child. If nothing else, they'd be very good at providing homeschooling… Harry could, on a good day, be quite the fatherly figure to Teddy.
On worse days? Margaret assumed Andromeda Tonks felt as though she was handling two children instead of just the one.
Dudley didn't really have an eye for magic, or anything like that, but when he saw something odd he always had the magical answer to jump to. Not that he always voiced it- it would be rather embarrassing if it wasn't magic…- but the knowledge was always there.
He knew the owl that hung around him was magic even if the average person didn't. Sure, Mum and Dad knew… but most everyone else just assumed he and the bird just somehow got along. If nothing else, it made him very popular with birdwatchers.
Still, an owl following him around was really conspicuous, especially if you knew how magic mail worked. Leading to some thoroughly unpleasant nightmares of those nutcases Harry fought coming to kill him. Unrealistic? He certainly hoped so, but horrifyingly possible. Perhaps that was part of the reason his Mum and Dad were so terrified by magic in the first place, or perhaps this was a neurosis about magic unique to Dudley.
So he decided to write to Harry, asking for a meeting- just to discuss this sort of thing in person, maybe. To make sure that some wizarding lunatic didn't hurt him, or maybe whatever family he might have… (A quiet little voice in his head reminded him that Aunt Lily and her husband must have had magical security, and how well did that serve them?)
Sure enough, his letter did eventually get to Harry, even if it was slightly crumpled… (not that Dudley knew that.) So Harry decided to make a visit.
Dudley wasn't really sure what the roles of thumb for meeting with wizards were, but figured that Harry could probably show up in a public place without embarrassing himself. Wizards could certainly look like fools…
Thankfully, Harry didn't barge into the pub wearing shimmering robes or a stupid hat- Dudley actually had to do a bit of a double take when he saw him. He certainly looked healthier and happier than the last time they met, and he was dressed in much nicer clothes than Dudley was used to seeing him in.
They were pretty slick looking, even if Dudley couldn't tell what fabric they were- was it some modern artificial thing?- and Dudley suddenly wondered if he made them himself. He supposed that wasn't really important, nor were the… tinted glasses? Huh.
"... Hullo Harry." Dudley greeted his cousin as he sat down across from him and did some complex wavey thing with his wand that seemed to make the entire place quiet down.
"Dudley. It's been a while, hasn't it?"
"Yeah…" there was a space of uncomfortable silence after that, letting Dudley take a closer look at Harry. There was… there was something up with his eyes. They were a bit too bright for the dark corner they were sitting in, something a little odd about the shape…
It was a lot harder to form words when Harry was sitting across the table from him, but Dudley eventually spoke up. "So, I was wondering if you knew any magic for, like, protecting places…"
Harry nodded. "Yeah, tons. I suppose that once you move into a house you'll want me to stop by and-"
"Yes please." Dudley said, relief spreading across his face. "Would I need to pay you? I mean, I assume you're busy…"
"I don't need money." Harry immediately answered, off-hand.
"You don't?" Well, his clothes were looking a lot nicer…
"Despite some… issues with my previous bankers, I'm sitting pretty."
"What sort of issues?"
"If you'd believe it, the bank doesn't like it when you rob them."
Dudley blinked. "... What?" Dudley hadn't heard about any bank robberies recently- although he supposed a wizard could hide his trail well- but was it possible Harry robbed a magical one? "Like, a wizard bank?"
"Well, a goblin bank, but they're not the nicest. They especially don't like me."
Okay, apparently there were goblins? And they ran a bank? And there was history between Harry and the goblins? Dudley decided to change the subject. "Are you sure I couldn't do anything to help you? I mean, you've got better things to do than ward my house…"
"Oh, the stuff you'd need to keep the average wizard or muggle away is child's play." Harry snorted. "I could do some really complex stuff, but I suppose you don't want your houseguests turning into snakes?"
"Wait, you can-"
Harry chuckled. "Yeah. I'm something of a dab hand when it comes to snakes…"
"Like that time at the zoo?"
"Oh, that was accidental magic- but I did talk to the snake."
Dudley wasn't as surprised by that as he probably should have been. "Wait a sec, does that mean snakes are…"
"Intelligent? Yeah. Oh, that reminds me…" he whispered into his sleeve for a second before holding his hand over the table. A snake dropped out and exchanged a few hisses with Harry before nodding. With a tap of a wand, the snake disappeared.
"What was that?"
"Oh, he's supposed to go out there and make ties with the British snake community or some such." Harry shrugged. "Not my plan."
Then whose plan was it? Dudley almost asked, but decided- barely- to refrain. They were here for a purpose, after all. "But there are wards which are a bit more reasonable than turning people into snakes, right?"
"Of course. Now I'm assuming you still want people to see your house…"
Meeting Dudley had been… something. Maybe some part of the reason Harry was trying to get along with him was because he was the nearest relative Harry had who was remotely tolerable and willing to try. And yeah, blood wasn't everything- the Weasleys were a better family to him than the Dursleys had ever been- but maybe Harry just hoped to make some silver lining from that mess. It also helped that the sort of wards needed to protect a house were a lot easier than the process to make his own Room of Requirement.
He tried not to get too angry about the Dursleys. Oh, he was absolutely positive that he could work himself into a good, one hundred percent justified, furor about it all, but he wasn't sure he should, now. Frankly, he didn't want to imagine what too much stress or anger might do to him, considering certain correlations between his emotions and weather. The last thing he wanted was to accidentally undo the Netherlands after a particularly bad day or something.
(Keeping this in mind was perhaps responsible for a slightly cooler head, on top of the whole governing a country thing.)
On a related note, a number of people and organizations took the time to keep track of the weather on the Dogger Banks. It was- in some cases, quite literally- a barometer for Harry Potter's moods. Certainly not a perfect method, but it gave some vague sense into what he did, where he was. Admittedly, you couldn't exactly think that Harry Potter was responsible for every bizarre weather pattern on Earth… right?
Omake: Spies Who Slither
It was one of the vampire's ideas. Most of them knew Parseltongue- you tended to pick it up pretty quick, with the number of snakes that hung around in certain parts of the castle- and while they knew a growing portion of wizards worldwide could speak the language, it wasn't like all of them could, and there were almost no muggles, barring the occasional person from Kumari Kandam, who could speak it. They were looking into other languages- preferably long dead ones- to increase their operational security… but there were unique aspects to Parseltongue.
Namely, the whole talking to snakes bit. They were intelligent little creatures- although how they got that way was another one of those delightfully headache-provoking magical questions- and knowing that, you could tell them to do things. To gather information, to report anything interesting… perhaps even to poison. Who would think to exterminate every snake in a country? (Old church lessons about Saint Patrick came to the vampire's mind, but she swiftly pushed them out.)
So, thinking logically, if she could talk to the snakes… there was no reason she couldn't teach them. Convince them to throw in their lot with Doggerland- and teach them to be persuasive enough to get other snakes on board. If nothing else, she could teach the little things to be a bit safer around humans- less likely to get killed that way.
It was about three days into classes when Margaret stopped by. "How goes it, dear?"
"Well, ma'am- I think it'll work. I'm not sure how well it will work in the cities, but there are plenty of snakes in the countryside, right?"
"It occurs to me that you have not explained how the snakes would give such information to you…"
She gulped. "Well, you see…"
Margaret sighed. "No plan then? The idea is not, by itself, displeasing…"
Stay safe out there, everyone, and I hope you're enjoying the story. For real though I'm really sorry about the wait. Sorry for the wait everyone- I just have so many WIPs/plot bunnies it's not funny. Part of the lateness might just be a drought of ideas for this fic tho… as much as I love this fic, and as much as I wish that Make a Wish could have gone on forever… I think I've got a conclusion in mind. Wouldn't mind making a community or collating omakes tho…
Anyways, if you'd like to chew me out for my lateness personally, I am now on a Discord called the Emerald Library- I've got a channel and everything, if you want to talk story details. You can find it through a quick google, considering 's hatred of links.
Read as much Stargate into the Atlantis bit as you'd like. The boater's wounds are intended to be reminiscent of the Sedna myth. How are they related to the deity? Who knows
Consider this chappie a gift to y'all. I know the deal is that you're supposed to receive gifts on your birthday, but whatever… reviews are gift enough, or something. Frankly, I'm not too sure about this chapter… but it's long overdue. Got to keep on moving.