The sound behind me went from rushing water to a roar.
I turned just in time to see the wave rolling across the rocks, dragging sand, shells, and half the debris we'd knocked loose during the fight along with it. There wasn't time to do much more than bring my wand around and throw up a Protego between myself and several tons of rapidly approaching seawater.
The wave slammed into the shield hard enough to drive me backward. My bare feet slid across the wet rock as I leaned into the spell, seawater splitting around the barrier and rushing past on either side. Sand and broken shell rattled against it while larger chunks of stone hit hard enough to make the shield flash, forcing me several yards back before the worst of the surge finally passed.
The Karkinos was gone.
Oh, you have got to be kidding me.
Something dark moved beneath the churning water to my left, and I barely managed to turn before the Karkinos erupted from the shallows. It crossed several yards before I could do much more than reinforce the shield already in front of me, slamming one claw into it hard enough to send another shock through my arm. The other claw was already coming around from the side, so I dropped the shield and threw myself forward before it could catch me between them.
I tucked my shoulder and rolled through the shallow water as the claw snapped shut behind me. For a moment, the world became bubbles, sand, and the muted roar of the surf before my feet found the rocks again and I came upright several yards away with my wand still in my hand.
Ha! Barrel roll!
Seriously?
It worked.
Harry's laughter carried over the water from somewhere behind me. "You did it again!"
I grinned but kept my attention on the Karkinos. The injured leg I'd spent so much effort damaging was barely slowing it down now. With the water supporting its weight, the crab practically glided between steps, changing direction faster than something carrying that much shell had any right to.
Its mouth turned toward me, and I moved before the water jet fired. The blast tore through the space beside me and carved another groove through the rocks, while my answering Banishing Charm struck the shallows directly in front of the Karkinos. Water, sand, and loose stone exploded into its face, forcing its irritated eyestalks back into the shell without doing much to stop the rest of it.
XXXX on shore. XXXXX in the water.
Yeah. I see why now.
I needed it out of the water, but forcing the thing toward shore while it could move through the shallows better than I could wasn't happening. So instead of trying to move the Karkinos, I drove my wand downward and caught the rock beneath us.
The shoreline answered with a deep grinding crack.
A broad section of stone buckled upward beneath my feet, seawater pouring from the sides as several tons of shoreline rose out of the shallows. The Karkinos spread its legs and lowered its body as the ground shifted, driving one claw into the stone for purchase while I forced the center higher. The moment the water dropped below its legs, the injury started mattering again.
The Karkinos stumbled when its damaged leg took its full weight, but it recovered quickly and came across the uneven stone toward me. One claw swept low enough that I had to jump over it, and the other followed before I'd properly landed. I twisted away, felt the edge scrape across my shirt, and fired a Cutting Charm into the joint as it passed, scoring the shell without getting through.
I followed with a Reductor Curse against the rock beneath the same side. Stone burst upward and the damaged leg slipped into the hole left behind, tilting the entire Karkinos far enough that I thought it might finally roll over. Instead, it drove its good claw into the ground, ripped itself free, and tore another chunk out of the platform in the process.
Come on. Stay down once in a while.
It probably feels the same way about you.
Another wave hit the side of the raised shoreline before I could answer. The platform shuddered beneath me as water washed across the top, carrying sand and broken shell with it. The moment the water reached the Karkinos's legs, its movements smoothed out again.
That was going to get annoying fast.
The next wave was already coming, so I caught it with my wand and forced the center apart. Water curled away from the platform in two rolling walls before crashing back together farther down the shoreline, leaving the Karkinos standing on exposed rock between them.
For several seconds, it worked beautifully.
Then the Karkinos charged.
I fired a Stunner without releasing the water, and the spell flashed uselessly against its shell. The crab kept coming, forcing me backward while I tried to maintain control of the divided wave. Its good claw snapped toward my chest, and I twisted far enough to avoid getting caught, only for the edge to clip my side and knock me off balance.
My control slipped with me.
Several tons of redirected seawater immediately stopped caring where I wanted it to go. The divided wave collapsed against both sides of the platform, throwing spray high into the air and sending water rushing across the rocks. The Karkinos surged forward with it, suddenly moving at full speed again while I was still trying to get my feet underneath me.
I jumped over the first claw and landed badly enough that the second nearly caught me. With nowhere else to go, I threw myself into another roll, came around on one shoulder, and felt something leave my head as I scrambled upright.
My hat landed in the shallows.
I stared at it for half a second.
Oh, now you're just being an asshole.
Pretty sure the crab didn't do that intentionally.
I'm blaming it anyway.
I blasted the ground between us and sent a spray of loose stone into the Karkinos's face. It pulled its eyes in and turned away from the debris, giving me enough time to put some distance between us and reassess what I'd just learned.
Redirecting the ocean worked just fine.
Redirecting the ocean while something the size of a small car tried to tear me apart was another matter entirely.
Another surge was already coming across the rocks, carrying even more debris than the last. Sand rolled through the water in dirty clouds, mixed with broken shells and the stone we'd spent the fight blasting apart. Some of the fragments were small enough to disappear into the water entirely, while others tumbled visibly through the surge.
Wait.
I raised my wand.
"Glacius Maxima!"
Cold tore across the water, and ice raced through the incoming wave. Sand, pulverized shell, and broken stone froze into the mass as it formed, leaving cloudy streaks and dark fragments trapped throughout it. The larger pieces disappeared inside as well until the front of the wave became a filthy gray-white wall of frozen seawater and battlefield debris.
Freezing it didn't kill its momentum. The mass drove forward several more feet before the strain became too much and cracks raced across its surface. A moment later, the frozen wave broke apart against the raised shoreline, sending enormous slabs of debris-filled ice crashing across the platform.
I jumped clear as one skidded past me and slammed into the Karkinos's legs. It shifted sideways to avoid being pinned, while several more slabs wedged themselves against the platform and filled the area around us with more material than I knew what to do with.
Actually...
I knew exactly what to do with some of it.
I ripped one of the larger pieces free and Transfigured it while it moved. The ice stretched and narrowed into a spear, sand and bits of shell suspended throughout it with a chunk of stone trapped near the center. I Banished it toward the Karkinos, but the crab brought one claw around and caught the weapon against its shell.
The ice shattered across the rocks. The stone core struck hard enough to chip the armor before bouncing away, leaving the Karkinos otherwise unharmed.
Not enough.
It shoved through the fragments and started forward again while I pulled another chunk of frozen seawater into the air. This time, I kept one of the larger pieces of stone centered as I compressed the ice around it. I'd already found one thing that could punch through the Karkinos's shell, and I'd spent enough time practicing combat runes to at least attempt something stupid.
Perforare Scutum.
Not the spell itself.
The principle.
I traced the combat rune along the length of the spear while the Karkinos closed the distance. One line flickered when I had to move with it, but I corrected the shape before finishing the rune and felt the magic settle into the weapon.
The Karkinos lowered itself and charged. I Banished the spear directly at its center mass, forcing the crab to bring one of its claws around to intercept it. The outer layer of dirty ice exploded against the shell, but the reinforced stone core carried the runic magic through the impact and punched several inches into the claw beneath it.
The Karkinos recoiled violently, dragging the damaged limb back against its body. Cracks spread outward from the stone lodged in its claw, but it didn't give me time to admire the result before its mouth snapped in my direction.
Holy shit. It worked.
Celebrate later.
The water jet came at me, and I threw myself sideways into another roll. It passed overhead and bored straight through one of the slabs of frozen seawater behind me, spraying ice fragments across the platform. Several bounced off my back and shoulders as I came upright, but none hit hard enough to do more than sting.
"GET HIM, JOSH!"
Harry's voice carried across the rocks, followed by a cheer when I came back to my feet.
I laughed despite myself. "Working on it!"
The Karkinos came forward behind its undamaged claw, using the limb to protect its face while dragging the injured one closer to its body. I sent two chunks of ice at it from opposite sides, forcing it to turn toward one while the other struck its legs. Neither did much damage, but the movement exposed the injured leg I'd been working over since the beginning.
I fired a Reductor Curse into the stone beneath it.
The platform collapsed under the leg and dropped it several inches into the hole. Before the Karkinos could pull itself free, I hit its opposite side with a Banishing Charm and finally got enough leverage to roll the creature partway onto its side.
For a moment, its underside was exposed.
I snapped off a Cutting Charm.
The spell carved a line across the softer shell before the Karkinos slammed its legs back down and righted itself. One claw crashed against the stone hard enough to send fragments skipping across the platform, and I backed away as it tore its trapped leg free.
There we go.
I'd hurt it.
Actually hurt it. With something other than a battle spell or a trick.
The Karkinos seemed to reach the same conclusion, because it stopped trying to rush me head-on and began circling instead. Its movements were slower on the raised stone, but it kept the damaged claw turned away from me while using the good one to cover its face and the injury along its underside.
That was smarter than I wanted my lunch to be.
I moved with it, keeping enough distance between us that it couldn't simply lunge and catch me. Another water jet came across the platform, but this time I saw the mouth move early enough to put a slab of frozen seawater between us. The jet punched halfway through before losing enough force for me to move clear.
Okay. Your turn.
I pulled another section of ice from the wreckage and began shaping it as I moved. Instead of keeping the sand, shell, and stone trapped inside, I pushed the debris out until a long spear of clearer ice floated beside me with a head made of reinforced glass and stone.
The Karkinos turned to follow, exposing the crater Perforare Scutum had already punched into its main shell. I sent the spear forward, driving it into the fractured armor deeply enough that the Karkinos jerked sideways. Several feet of frozen water remained protruding from the wound as the crab twisted and tried to reach it.
I started preparing another attack before looking at the spear again.
Water.
Frozen, but still water.
A grin spread across my face.
I don't like that look.
You're going to love this.
I pointed my wand and sent a bolt of lightning into the exposed end of the spear.
The effect was immediate. Electricity raced through the ice and into the Karkinos, blue-white arcs crawling across its wet shell before jumping into the seawater pooled around its legs. The creature convulsed hard enough that several limbs left the ground, its claws hammering against the stone while the smell of ozone rolled across the platform.
I cut the spell before the spear shattered. The Karkinos sagged against the rock, legs trembling beneath it, and for several seconds the only sounds were the surf, cracking ice, and Harry absolutely losing his mind behind me.
"THAT WAS AWESOME!"
I glanced back long enough to see him practically bouncing beside Percival.
"Did you see that?!"
Percival gave him a sideways look. "I was standing here, lad."
Harry immediately turned back toward me, grinning from ear to ear. "DO IT AGAIN!"
I laughed. "Hopefully I don't have to!"
Percival looked from me to the battered Karkinos and gave a slow nod. "Not bad, brat."
I grinned.
Then he added, "Though I'm beginning to think I should've been more specific when I said we were having crab."
I looked back at the Karkinos.
One leg was damaged, one claw had a chunk of stone buried through it, its underside had been cut, and an ice spear was sticking out of its back. Scorch marks surrounded the wound, while the shoreline around it looked like we'd been testing artillery.
"It'll still taste the same."
Percival made a doubtful sound.
Before I could defend the condition of our prospective lunch, something scraped against the rocks beyond the platform. Percival's attention shifted past me, and I turned in time to see another Karkinos hauling itself out of the water.
Unlike mine, this one was completely untouched.
Water poured from its shell as it climbed onto the rocks, both claws opening while its eyestalks moved from the injured Karkinos to me. I brought my wand up, but Percival was already moving.
A heavy chain shot across the rocks and wrapped around the second Karkinos's legs before it could properly establish its footing. The crab lurched as the chain crossed beneath its body, wrapped around it again, and cinched tight enough to pull several legs together.
It snapped one claw toward the restraint, but Percival flicked his wand upward and the chain went taut, lifting the entire Karkinos clear of the ground. It swung several feet above the rocks with seawater pouring from its shell, claws opening and closing as its bound legs strained uselessly against the chain. The crab managed to twist its mouth toward us, but Percival rotated the chain and turned the creature away before it could fire.
I stared at the floating Karkinos.
Then I looked at Percival.
Harry looked between us and started laughing before either of us said anything.
Percival lowered the captured Karkinos onto a dry section of rock well away from the water and tightened the restraints around its legs. Once he was satisfied it wasn't going anywhere, he walked over to inspect mine.
His eyes moved across the cracked shell, damaged claw, injured leg, cut underside, scorch marks, and the spear still sticking out of its back.
Then he looked at me.
"Josh."
I already knew I wasn't going to like this.
"The idea was lunch."
I gestured toward the Karkinos. "That's a crab."
Percival pointed toward the one he'd captured.
"That's lunch."
Then he pointed toward mine.
"That's bait."
I looked between the two of them. His Karkinos was intact aside from being extremely angry about its current relationship with several yards of conjured chain. Mine looked like I'd spent the last half hour trying to determine how many different ways magical crab shell could be damaged before somebody stopped me.
"You're being picky."
"I'm being practical. You've cracked the shell, damaged a leg, punched through a claw, cut into the underside, stabbed it through the back, and electrocuted the bloody thing."
"Pre-seasoned."
Harry broke.
His laughter echoed across the rocks while Percival stared at me over his sunglasses. I managed to keep a straight face until Harry had to grab his knees, and then I lost it too.
Percival waited for us to settle down before looking over the battlefield again.
"You know," I said, "you could've done that from the beginning."
"Of course."
I stared at him.
He stared back.
"You watched me fight that thing this entire time."
"You wanted to fight it."
That stopped me.
I looked at the wrecked shoreline, the broken slabs of dirty ice, the Karkinos I'd just spent entirely too much effort beating into submission, and finally toward the shallows where my hat was still floating between two rocks.
Okay.
He had me there.
Percival turned back toward the captured Karkinos. "Go retrieve your hat, brat. I'd rather not spend the rest of the afternoon waiting for you to fight that as well."
I looked toward the shallows.
My hat remained exactly where I'd left it.
I think he's making fun of me.
Only now figuring that out?
I started toward the water.
At least lunch was going to be good.
....
Josh waded into the shallows and retrieved his hat from between the rocks, shaking the water from it before settling it back onto his head. It had survived the fight considerably better than most of the shoreline, though the same couldn't be said for his shirt or the collection of scrapes he'd picked up along the way.
Behind him, Percival finished securing the captured Karkinos and gave the conjured chains another testing pull. The massive crab answered by snapping one claw against the rocks, apparently objecting to its new position in the food chain.
"Since you're still determined to call that one lunch," Percival said, nodding toward the battered Karkinos, "you might as well find us something to go with it."
Josh stepped back onto dry rock. "What did you have in mind?"
"Lemon."
Josh looked toward the trees farther inland. Percival caught the look.
"You'll find some in the forest. Shouldn't have to go particularly far."
"And what am I looking for besides a lemon tree?"
"You'll know it when you see it."
Josh stared at his great-grandfather for a moment. Percival smiled.
"That answer is usually followed by something trying to eat me."
"Not everything on this island is trying to eat you, brat."
The restrained Karkinos snapped its claw against the rock again. Josh glanced toward it.
"Compelling argument."
Harry laughed as Josh started toward the edge of the beach. Percival made no attempt to accompany him. There were dangerous creatures farther inland, but nothing in that part of the island Percival believed Josh couldn't handle, especially once the boy remembered to use the various advantages already available to him.
Josh disappeared between the trees a few moments later. Harry remained near Percival, watching the place where he'd vanished before turning his attention back toward the captured Karkinos. Up close, the creature seemed even larger. Its shell was broad enough to serve as a table, and its claws looked perfectly capable of removing considerably more than a finger if somebody became careless.
"Is he really going by himself?" Harry asked.
"Aye."
"Is it safe?"
Percival considered the question. "Safe enough."
Harry looked toward the forest again.
A deep splash sounded beyond the rocks.
Percival turned toward the ocean, and Harry followed his gaze as something disturbed the surface farther offshore. At first it looked like another wave rolling toward them at the wrong angle. Then the water bulged upward, spilling away from something considerably larger underneath.
A long head broke the surface, and Harry froze as the creature continued rising. Dark scales gleamed beneath the seawater as a serpentine neck emerged, followed by ridged spines running down its back. More of the body remained beneath the surface, large enough that Harry couldn't immediately tell where it ended. Water poured from its jaws as the sea dragon lifted its head and turned toward the beach.
Harry's mouth fell open. The dragon opened its own.
Percival sighed. "No."
He raised his wand, and one spell crossed the distance between them. The sea dragon disappeared from the water.
Harry's head snapped upward as several tons of scales, teeth, and extremely surprised dragon went hurtling backward through the air. It sailed out over the ocean for several seconds before crashing into the sea far beyond the rocks with enough force to throw up a wall of white spray.
Silence returned to the beach as Percival lowered his wand. Harry continued staring at the place where the dragon had landed before slowly looking up at Percival. Percival adjusted his hat, apparently unconcerned with having just thrown several tons of sea monster halfway to the horizon.
"Was that a dragon?" Harry asked, clearly freaking out. "It looked like a mix of the sea serpent and dragon illustrations from those fake adventure books!"
"Aye, lad. That was a proper sea dragon." Percival looked toward the settling water. "Many sailors confused them for sea serpents over the years. You'll often see them along the edges of old maps with the warning, 'Here be monsters.'"
Harry immediately looked back toward the ocean. "Those were real?"
"Some of them."
Before Harry could decide whether that answer made old maps considerably more interesting or considerably more terrifying, the sea dragon chose that moment to surface again. Its head broke through the water well beyond the rocks, followed by the long curve of its neck. It remained there for several seconds, watching the beach while water streamed from its scales.
Percival looked at it, and the sea dragon looked back at Percival. Whatever conclusion it reached was apparently unanimous, because a moment later it turned around and started swimming the other way.
Harry watched the sea dragon disappear into the distance until the last dark curve of its back slipped beneath the water. He stared after it for another few seconds, then looked up at Percival, who had already turned his attention back to the captured Karkinos as though casually throwing a sea dragon halfway across the ocean hadn't been worth mentioning.
Harry grinned.
"Wicked."
...
I brought the machete down through another curtain of vines and pushed through the opening before they could fall back into place.
Going barefoot had lasted all of about three steps into the forest. The first sharp bit of vegetation against the bottom of my foot had been enough to remind me that wandering barefoot through an unfamiliar magical jungle was an excellent way to discover whether magical tetanus existed.
A few broad leaves and some Transfiguration had solved that problem. I'd reshaped the plant matter into a passable pair of boots, complete with thick soles, ankle support, and enough tread to handle the damp ground. They weren't going to survive forever, but they didn't need to. They just needed to keep everything from thorns to venomous insects from getting easy access to my feet.
The machete had been even easier. I'd picked up a straight length of fallen wood, stripped away the smaller branches, and transfigured it into a broad, slightly forward-weighted blade with a simple grip. Nothing fancy. Just a tool meant to hack through vegetation without wasting my wand on every vine that decided the path needed a door.
I cut through another hanging mass of vines and stepped into a section of jungle that looked less like wilderness and more like a place the forest had spent centuries reclaiming without ever quite managing to erase.
The canopy rose higher here, supported by trunks broad enough that three or four people holding hands probably couldn't have reached around them. Palms climbed between them in clusters, their fronds spreading beneath enormous silver-green leaves that caught the sunlight filtering down from above. Flowering vines hung from the branches in curtains of red, violet, and deep blue, while patches of smaller flowers glowed faintly beneath the heavier shade. Somewhere overhead, something with four wings darted between the branches and left a brief trail of golden sparks hanging in the air behind it.
I lowered the machete.
Okay.
A stream wound through the clearing ahead of me, clear enough that I could see brightly colored fish moving between smooth stones along the bottom. It should have continued downhill toward the ocean. Instead, the water disappeared beneath the exposed roots of an enormous tree and emerged from the other side several feet higher than where it had entered, happily continuing along as though gravity had simply been offered a suggestion.
I walked closer and watched a fallen leaf reach the roots, vanish underneath them, and pop back into sight upstream.
That's fucking cool.
The air smelled different this far beneath the canopy. Salt still lingered underneath everything, carried inland by the breeze, but the ocean had given way to damp earth, running water, flowers, and the heavy green smell of vegetation baking in humid air. Every so often another scent drifted through that I couldn't identify at all, sometimes sweet enough to make me think I'd finally found the lemons Percival had sent me after, only for it to disappear beneath everything else a few steps later.
I crossed the stream and nearly walked past the first structure.
Only the straight edge gave it away.
Pale stone curved out from between the roots of two enormous trees, so thoroughly incorporated into them that I initially mistook it for exposed rock. Moss covered most of one wall, and flowering vines had grown across the roof, but the opening in the front was unmistakably a doorway. There were no blocks, mortar lines, or tool marks that I could see. The entire thing looked as though somebody had convinced the stone to grow into the shape they wanted.
I stepped closer without going inside.
A narrow channel had been formed along one side of the wall, carrying water from the stream into a shallow basin before letting it spill through another opening and continue downhill. Whatever magic had shaped the place had either survived whoever built it or the original construction had been clever enough not to need any. There wasn't a door anymore, and I couldn't see furniture or anything else from where I stood that suggested someone currently lived there.
Still, somebody had.
I looked farther uphill and finally noticed the steps.
They were almost invisible beneath the moss and roots, climbing between the trees in a shallow curve before disappearing behind a stand of flowering plants. I followed them, using the machete only where vines had completely swallowed the path. The higher I went, the easier it became to see what I'd missed from below.
There were ruins everywhere.
Not a city. At least, I didn't think it had been one.
A small dwelling farther uphill had been made from living trees bent together until their trunks formed the walls and their branches interlocked overhead. They were still alive. New growth had thickened around the original shape until the building looked more grown than constructed, with flowers blooming from one side of the roof and a fruiting vine crawling around what had once been a window.
Beyond it, a narrow stone bridge stretched between two massive trees twenty feet above the forest floor without any visible supports beneath it. Part of another structure had been carved directly into a cliff face beside a waterfall, while farther away I could make out the remains of something built around the trunk of a tree rather than beside it.
None of it matched.
That was what finally made me stop looking for a pattern.
Different stone. Different construction. Different ways of using magic. Some of it looked grown, some carved, some shaped, and some appeared to have been built by people who had looked at the difference between architecture and landscaping and decided it wasn't particularly important.
This place hadn't belonged to one group.
People had been coming here for a very long time.
And eventually, for whatever reason, they'd stopped.
I stood on the remains of the old path and listened. Water fell somewhere farther uphill. Leaves shifted overhead as something large moved through the canopy, followed by the distant call of an animal I couldn't identify. Insects hummed among the flowers, and every so often a spark drifted down from one of the four-winged birds before fading between the leaves.
The lemon tree was proving harder to find than Percival had made it sound. I'd caught the scent several times since leaving the beach, but every time I thought I had a direction, the breeze shifted or another flowering plant drowned it out. I started uphill again, following the old path where I could and cutting through the heavier growth where roots and vines had swallowed it.
The ruins continued alongside me in pieces. A section of pale wall emerged from a bank of ferns before disappearing beneath the roots of another tree, while farther uphill a series of shallow stone channels carried water between terraces that had long since been reclaimed by flowering plants. Some were dry, but others still worked, diverting thin streams through the vegetation before spilling back toward the forest floor.
I stopped beside one of the terraces when a familiar scent finally cut through the flowers and damp earth.
Lemons.
This time it didn't disappear.
I turned into the breeze and followed it off the path.
Walking through the brush, I noticed the ground starting to open up ahead of me and figured now was probably a good time to put into practice the very thing the System kept harping on me about.
Using my tools.
First, I opened the map.
There are more yellow dots on here than the last time I looked, but the XX and XXX-ranked creatures are both right here. If I'm not mistaken, the lemon smell is coming from the same area as the XXX marker. I should approach this cautiously.
Two for two. Ah, they grow up so fast.
Ass.
You know you love me. That's why you haven't disabled my commentary or adjusted the settings on my personality.
I honestly forgot those were options.
Because they aren't. Now focus.
Whatever. Crab for lunch, and I want some fresh citrus to soak it in.
I checked the map one last time and saw that Percival and Harry had started transporting the Karkinos back toward the area where we'd first arrived. Satisfied they were fine, I closed it and cast Muffliato on myself, followed by a Disillusionment Charm to help me blend into the surrounding vegetation as I cautiously approached the source of the lemon scent.
The brush thinned until I found myself looking into a clearing with a single tree standing directly in the middle of it.
I stopped.
Limes. Oranges. Citrons. Blood oranges and, sure enough, lemons.
The same tree was growing all of them.
Apparently, I'd found option after option for a proper citrus bath for our lunch. Hopefully Percival wouldn't mind too much if I brought back a little variety. Still, grafting at that level was impressive. I wondered how old the tree was. I was fairly certain the modern Meyer lemon used in most of the lemonade I bought was a hybrid that didn't originally occur organically in nature.
My attention returned to the map.
It says the XXX marker is right there. At XXX, it should be big enough to spot immediately. Is this thing a chameleon? Would Homenum Revelio reveal it? Would casting another spell give me away before I'm ready for it?
Before I could finish asking myself even more questions, a small bird flew past one of the branches, swiping at a flying insect.
Fthpppptblat
The bird disappeared in a burst of feathers as the tree swung one of its branches so fast that the poor thing practically exploded on impact.
I stared at the drifting feathers.
"Oh, fuck me... It's just like the Whomping Willow back at Hogwarts."
In case anyone has forgotten, the Willow had been planted at Hogwarts many years ago to protect the entrance to the tunnel leading to the Shrieking Shack, giving Lupin somewhere isolated to transform during the full moon while he was a student. After the other three Marauders gained their Animagus transformations, either Sirius or Peter could dash forward in animal form and hit the trigger knot near the roots, temporarily freezing the tree so the group could travel through the tunnel to Hogsmeade. Lupin was only supposed to use the passage for his transformations, but the Marauders were rather famous for their disdain for school rules.
Why the history lesson for an audience?
It made it easier to classify what I was looking at while I tried to decide how I wanted to proceed. Honestly, I hadn't expected to see a plant behaving anything like the Whomping Willow here, or anywhere else for that matter. A willow and a lemon tree weren't even remotely the same kind of tree, but that didn't mean the magical varieties couldn't be related somehow.
If something like this was growing here, then either everyone on the beach had gotten extremely lucky, or somebody had deliberately placed it here.
Knowing what I did about magical history, however, meant it could somehow be both, which was honestly even more ridiculous.
I was curious about something else, though.
Were its branches as good for wandmaking as the ones from the Whomping Willow?
No. Based on the size of the thing, they might be even better. Too bad trees like that didn't even let Bowtruckles near them.
Wait a second.
There was no reason to reinvent the wheel here.
I can try Cedric's trick with the transfigured dogs. I just need some decently sized stones, and luckily for me, there were some back toward the path.
Carefully making sure not to disturb anything, I began retracing my steps toward the path I'd taken before finding the tree.
A Whomping lemon tree.
This is getting a tad ridiculous. Next, Percival will find some Mooncalves and quickly churn some butter from their milk.
I considered that for another moment.
Actually, knowing him, he may have already done so. There's one thing we agree on, and Irish butter is supreme. I know he has a herd of them back in Ireland, so I wouldn't be surprised if he'd planned ahead.
Clearing my head of the distracting thoughts, I approached several small boulders I'd passed earlier, each roughly the size of a small to medium dog, and began to Transfigure and lightly enchant them.
I wanted to see how the tree reacted to something approaching its base and how it responded to moving magic in its vicinity. There was no reason to get too close if I could trim a branch from a safe distance and levitate it back to myself.
I picked through the boulders until I had eight pieces of stone ranging from something I would've struggled to wrap both arms around to one that wasn't much larger than my fist. The first part was straightforward enough. I'd already Transfigured living shapes plenty of times, and dogs were familiar enough that I didn't need to spend much time deciding what I wanted.
The largest stone stretched beneath my wand, four legs pushing out from the mass as the body lengthened and took shape. A broad chest formed first, followed by thick shoulders, a heavy head, and a tail. By the time I finished, something roughly the size of a Mastiff stood on the path in front of me, except it was still unmistakably made from the same gray stone I'd started with.
I worked my way down from there.
The next became something closer to a German Shepherd, followed by a Labrador, a Beagle, a Jack Russell, and several increasingly smaller mutts until I reached the last stone.
I stared at it for a moment.
Then grinned.
The tiny rock shifted beneath my wand until a stone Chihuahua barely larger than a teacup stood glaring up at me with the disproportionately enormous head and ears that nature had apparently decided were appropriate for something that size.
Perfect.
Making them look like dogs was the easy part. Making them move convincingly enough to test the tree required considerably more work.
Conjuration and Transfiguration both depended heavily on understanding what I was trying to create, but intent mattered just as much. I didn't need these things to actually be dogs. They didn't need organs, blood, bones, or anything else that would make the imitation unnecessarily complicated. I needed them to walk, run, react to obstacles, and keep moving toward a destination unless something physically prevented them from doing so.
That was a much simpler problem.
I started with the Mastiff and carved a small sequence of runes into the stone beneath its chest, tying them into the structure I'd already created through Transfiguration. A few simple Charms handled movement and balance while another gave it enough awareness of the ground ahead to avoid immediately walking face-first into a tree. The Transfiguration gave me the body and joints, the runes provided the framework for the enchantment, and the Charms gave that framework instructions.
Then I pushed intent into the whole thing.
Go where I direct you. Avoid obstacles when you can. If something hits you, keep moving unless you physically can't.
The Mastiff shook itself.
Tiny fragments of stone scattered from its back.
Its head turned toward me.
I smiled.
"Good dog."
I repeated the process with the others, adjusting the enchantments as their bodies became smaller. It took a little experimentation to keep the Chihuahua's legs from moving like four tiny pistons, but eventually all eight stone dogs stood along the path waiting for instructions.
I led them back through the brush until the clearing came into view again, stopping well inside the cover of the vegetation. The citrus tree remained exactly where I'd left it, branches moving gently in the breeze as though it hadn't turned a bird into a cloud of feathers a few minutes earlier.
The map still showed the XXX marker directly on top of it.
All right. Let's see what you actually do.
I directed the Mastiff forward.
The stone dog walked out of the brush and entered the clearing without incident. Twenty feet passed beneath its paws, then thirty. The tree didn't react.
I stayed beneath the Disillusionment Charm and followed well behind it, keeping enough vegetation between myself and the clearing that I could watch without getting anywhere near the dog's path.
The Mastiff reached roughly three quarters of the distance to the tree.
Something moved beneath the ground.
A root erupted from the soil so quickly that I almost missed it.
It punched straight through the Mastiff's side and burst from the opposite shoulder in a spray of stone fragments. The force lifted the dog partially off the ground before the root stopped, leaving the stone body hanging crookedly around it.
I froze.
The Mastiff's legs kept moving.
Its paws scraped uselessly against the ground for a second before the enchantment found enough purchase to push forward again. Stone ground against the root buried through its body as it dragged itself another few inches toward the tree.
The branches overhead twitched.
Interesting.
The root didn't withdraw.
That seemed important.
Another section of earth burst apart and a second root shot upward, punching through the Mastiff from the opposite side. More stone shattered away, but there was still no blood, no flesh, and apparently nothing telling the tree that whatever it had just stabbed should have stopped moving.
The Mastiff kept going.
Slowly.
Painfully.
But still going.
Both roots bent as the enchanted stone dog dragged against them.
Several branches jerked hard enough to shake loose a handful of citrus fruit.
Then a third root exploded from the ground and drove directly through the Mastiff's chest.
The stone dog stopped.
Its legs continued trying to walk, paws scraping shallow trenches through the dirt, but three separate roots had it pinned firmly enough that the enchantment couldn't overcome them.
None of the roots pulled free.
Well, that's useful.
I sent the German Shepherd.
It made it slightly farther before the first root struck. This one came in from the side rather than directly underneath, punching through its abdomen and carrying it several feet before the dog's weight pulled it back toward the ground. The Shepherd continued forward until a second root caught one of its hindquarters and a third drove through its chest, leaving another stone body pinned across the clearing.
The Labrador followed.
Then the Beagle.
Each one produced roughly the same result, but not exactly the same attack.
Sometimes the roots came from directly beneath them. Sometimes something thinner and more flexible snapped down from the canopy or lashed out from beneath the surrounding vegetation. The tree didn't seem committed to a single direction or method. It simply attacked whatever crossed far enough into the clearing, and when the first strike failed to stop the target, it attacked again.
And again.
By the time the Jack Russell went in, several roots and vines were already stuck through the larger stone dogs. None had withdrawn after discovering there wasn't any blood inside them, and the clearing was beginning to look like someone had tried to decorate a citrus orchard with an extremely specific collection of stone kebabs.
The Jack Russell made it farther than any of the others.
A vine snapped around one hind leg and yanked hard enough to spin it around, but the dog regained its footing and resumed walking toward the tree. A root speared through its middle several seconds later. It kept going until another vine wrapped around its neck and pulled in the opposite direction.
The enchantment continued trying anyway.
I watched the tree closely.
You're getting irritated.
Whether that was actually an emotion the tree could experience or merely the result of its attacks failing to produce the expected response, I couldn't tell. The distinction didn't particularly matter yet. Its movements were becoming more aggressive.
I sent the next dog.
It barely crossed the point where the Mastiff had first been attacked before two roots came after it almost simultaneously. One missed when the dog changed direction around a stone. The other punched through its back and pinned it low enough that its front paws continued dragging against the dirt until another vine wrapped around its body and stopped it completely.
That left two.
I looked at the second-smallest dog, then toward the tree.
There was one more thing I wanted to know.
I sent it forward and waited.
The little stone mutt crossed into the clearing. The tree reacted sooner this time, a thin root breaking through the ground and stabbing toward it. The dog changed direction around a shallow depression and the root missed by inches.
I raised my wand.
The next root struck the dog through the rear quarter.
At almost the same moment, I flicked my wand and sent a simple spell streaking through the air several feet above it.
The tree didn't intercept it.
The spell crossed the clearing cleanly and struck the trunk.
Several branches jerked violently at the impact, leaves shaking across the canopy, but nothing had moved to block the magic before it landed.
Okay.
I looked down.
One dog remained.
The tiny stone Chihuahua stared back at me.
"Your turn, little buddy."
I sent it forward.
The Chihuahua marched into the clearing on legs barely longer than my fingers, stepping around bits of broken stone left by the others as it continued toward the tree.
Nothing happened.
It passed the point where the Mastiff had been hit.
Still nothing.
The tiny dog kept walking.
A few more feet.
Then half the canopy moved.
One enormous branch came down so fast that the air cracked.
BOOM!
The Chihuahua vanished beneath it.
Stone fragments exploded across the clearing as the branch smashed completely through the little construct and buried itself hard enough into the ground to leave a crater where the dog had been.
Taking that as the opportunity I'd been waiting for, I brought my wand up and put considerably more power behind the Cutting Charm than I normally would. The branch was thick enough that I wasn't interested in finding out what happened if I only made it halfway through, so I cast with the intent of cutting clean through it and continuing into the ground beneath.
"Yo quiero Taco Bell, pendejo."
The spell hit.
The branch separated from the tree with a sharp crack, the Cutting Charm passing completely through the wood before carving into the ground underneath. Leaves and citrus shook violently as the severed branch dropped, while the rest of the tree immediately began thrashing hard enough to send more fruit raining into the clearing.
I didn't wait around to see what it thought about losing a limb.
"Accio branch!"
The severed branch shot toward me as I backed away in a straight line, keeping my wand trained on the tree in case it found some new and exciting way to express its displeasure. It reached me without incident, and I immediately shoved the entire thing into my Inventory.
Detailed analysis could wait until later, preferably somewhere that wasn't within stabbing distance of the tree.
Besides, the branch had more than enough of everything Percival could possibly need. Lemons, limes, oranges, blood oranges, citrons, and probably enough wood for me to find out whether my wandmaking idea had any merit once I had the time to examine it properly.
The tree continued beating the absolute hell out of the clearing.
Roots tore through the ground around the remains of my stone doggos, while vines and branches lashed through the spaces where the constructs had been moving. Every impact shook more ripe fruit loose, leaving citrus scattered across the grass among broken chunks of enchanted stone.
I watched another lemon bounce twice and roll almost to the edge of the clearing.
Well, it'd be rude to leave all that.
My expanded bag was back at the fire pit with the rest of our things, but that was hardly an actual problem. I cut several broad leaves from the nearby vegetation and Transfigured them into a small satchel, reinforcing the bottom and strap before slinging it across my shoulder.
Collecting the fruit without walking underneath the homicidal tree was even easier.
"Accio lemon."
The nearest one flew into my hand.
I dropped it into the satchel and started working my way around the edge of the clearing, summoning whatever looked intact enough to be worth taking. Lemons came first, since that was technically what I'd been sent here to find, followed by several limes, oranges, blood oranges, and a couple of citrons because there was no reason not to give Percival options after I'd gone through this much trouble.
The tree occasionally took another swing at something as I worked, but I stayed well outside the area where I'd seen it attack. Between the branch in my Inventory and the growing weight of the satchel, I was already coming out well ahead.
A yellow marker moved on the edge of my map.
I stopped reaching for an orange.
The marker was moving toward the clearing.
Right. There were two of you.
Something heavy pushed through the vegetation on the opposite side.
I lowered the fruit into my satchel and kept my wand ready as the brush shook again. Whatever was coming wasn't making any attempt to hide itself. Branches bent aside, something snorted loudly enough for me to hear it from across the clearing, and then an enormous head pushed through the foliage.
A boar stepped out.
Calling it a boar felt slightly inadequate.
The thing was about the size of a Clydesdale.
Its shoulders rose nearly as high as I was tall, covered in coarse dark bristles that grew thicker around its neck and spine. Two tusks curved upward from either side of its snout, each long enough that getting caught by one would make for an extremely unpleasant afternoon. Heavy hooves sank into the soft ground beneath it as the boar lumbered completely into the clearing.
I held still.
The boar sniffed.
Its head turned toward the tree.
Then toward me.
Then down toward the orange lying a few feet in front of it.
The boar ate the orange.
Okay.
It moved to the next piece of fallen fruit and ate that too.
A root erupted from the ground.
I tensed as it slammed directly into the boar's side.
The boar didn't.
The root struck with enough force to make the animal shift half a step, then scraped uselessly across its hide before snapping back. The boar continued chewing.
Another vine came whipping down from above and cracked across its shoulders.
Nothing.
The boar rooted around beneath the grass, found a lime, crunched the entire thing between its teeth, and kept looking.
I slowly lowered my wand a few inches.
The tree attacked again.
A heavier branch swept down and struck the boar across the back with enough force that I heard the impact from where I stood. The animal's legs flexed beneath it, but that was apparently the full extent of its concern. It took another step, found one of the blood oranges the tree had knocked loose, and ate that too.
The tree tried a root next.
Same result.
The boar barely seemed to notice.
I looked from the tree to the enormous animal methodically working its way through the fruit scattered underneath it.
Then back to the tree.
Well, that's convenient.
Whether someone had actually intended it or the two species had simply settled into the arrangement over time, the result was the same. The tree dropped fruit all over the clearing, and the giant boar wandered through afterward eating whatever was left behind. Nothing accumulated beneath the canopy long enough to rot, and the tree's usual method of dealing with anything that approached it was almost completely useless against the animal doing the cleanup.
The boar found another lemon.
Crunch.
Apparently citrus peel wasn't a concern either.
I resumed collecting fruit from around the outside of the clearing while keeping one eye on it. The boar ignored me for the most part, more interested in cleaning up what the tree had scattered than in whatever I was doing. Once my satchel had enough fruit to make carrying much more pointless, I cinched the top closed and started backing toward the path.
The boar stopped eating.
Its nose lifted.
It sniffed in my direction.
I stopped.
The boar took another sniff.
Then its eyes settled on the satchel hanging from my shoulder.
No.
I took a step backward.
The boar took a step forward.
Absolutely not.
I moved another few feet toward the path.
The Clydesdale-sized boar lumbered after me.
I stared at it.
It stared at the satchel.
I shifted the bag behind my hip.
The boar's head followed it.
"Oh, come on."
The boar snorted and continued after me.
The boar slowly approached me, continuing to gulp down each piece of fruit it encountered as it leisurely made its way in my direction. Its tail wagged softly behind it like someone's oversized golden retriever finding snacks conveniently scattered across the floor.
Either I am vastly misjudging the situation, or that thing doesn't give two flips about me.
Taking a slight risk, I opened the map again.
What was very clearly the tree had turned red, indicating that it was hostile. The other marker was definitely the boar, and its color seemed to be hovering somewhere between yellow and green.
Well, I'll be. Maybe it is someone's pet after all.
I lowered my wand toward another piece of fruit on the ground and levitated it into the air, holding it directly in front of the boar.
Its eyes seemed to light up.
The massive animal lumbered closer and plucked the fruit cleanly out of the air, crunching through it before swallowing the whole thing. It lowered its snout again, rooted around through the grass, and then pushed several more pieces of fallen citrus toward me.
I stared at it.
Yep. Golden retriever.
Sighing, I levitated another piece toward it.
That one disappeared just as quickly.
I fed it several more while it happily worked its way through most of the fruit still scattered around the clearing. Eventually, the boar swallowed the last piece I'd offered, lifted its head, and let out a long, clearly contented burp.
Its attention wandered away from me.
I checked the map again.
Green.
"Figures."
I stepped closer carefully and reached out to pat it along the side of its enormous belly. The boar barely acknowledged me beyond another lazy flick of its tail.
Apparently, I'd made a friend.
With the citrus secured and no particular desire to bother the tree any further, I turned back toward the old path and started making my way toward the beach.
.....
The sound of the ocean gradually returned as I worked my way back through the jungle. I followed the same route I'd taken coming in, passing the old ruins and the stream before eventually reaching the thicker vegetation near the edge of the beach. A few minutes later, I pushed through the last curtain of leaves and stepped back out into the sunlight.
Percival looked up from where he was working near the fire pit.
"Find your lemon?"
"Aye."
I walked over and set the satchel down before reaching inside. I'd separated a section from the larger branch before coming back, roughly fourteen inches long and thick enough to give me plenty of material to work with later.
I held it out to him.
Percival looked at the branch.
Then at me.
Then back at the branch.
"That's considerably more than a lemon."
"I found the tree."
"I gathered that."
I handed him the section before opening the satchel and showing him the rest. "Lemons, limes, oranges, blood oranges, citrons. Figured I'd bring options."
Percival reached inside and pulled out one of the lemons, turning it over in his hand.
"Tree had all of them growing on it," I continued. "Same tree. Really impressive grafting, actually. Also tried to murder anything that got too close."
Percival stopped turning the lemon.
His eyes moved to me.
I pointed vaguely back toward the jungle. "Roots, vines, branches. The whole thing. It turned a bird into feathers before I got anywhere near it."
The corner of his mouth started moving.
"I tested it with eight transfigured stone dogs first."
That did it.
Percival started laughing.
"What's so funny?"
He tried to answer and failed, waving one hand while the other still held the lemon. That only seemed to make it worse.
I crossed my arms.
"Glad you're enjoying yourself."
"Aye," he finally managed. "Very much."
"Would you like to share with the rest of the class?"
Percival took a breath and wiped beneath one eye.
"Of all the citrus trees growing along this part of the island, you managed to find the most dangerous bloody one."
I stared at him.
"There were other lemon trees?"
"Aye."
"Normal ones?"
"Relatively."
I continued staring at him.
Percival started laughing again.
"You told me I'd know it when I saw it."
"And you did."
"You knew that thing was there."
"I knew there was a tree there."
"Percival."
His grin widened.
I pointed toward the jungle. "That fucking thing stabbed seven stone dogs and flattened a Chihuahua."
That sent him off again.
I let him enjoy himself while I reached into the satchel and started unloading the rest of the fruit beside the fire pit.
A branch snapped behind me.
Percival's laughter stopped.
I looked over my shoulder.
The enormous boar pushed through the vegetation at the edge of the beach, its Clydesdale-sized body forcing several branches aside before it stepped out onto the sand. It lifted its snout, sniffed once, and immediately started lumbering toward me.
I looked at Percival.
Percival looked at the boar.
Then at me.
His shoulders dropped.
"Oh, for fuck's sake, brat."
"What?"
The boar continued toward us, tail giving one slow wag when it spotted the satchel.
Percival looked past me toward the battered Karkinos.
Then back to the boar.
His expression changed.
"Well," he said, "your bait might serve another purpose after all."
By the time the sun began sinking toward the horizon, there wasn't much left of either Karkinos.
The fire had burned down from the cooking flames Percival had kept going through most of the afternoon into a broad bed of glowing coals, with a smaller fire crackling in the middle of the pit. Broken pieces of shell were piled off to one side, most of them scraped clean, while the remains of the Karkinos I'd spent the morning beating half to death had suffered an even less dignified fate after being promoted from bait to dinner. Between the three of us and the enormous boar currently sleeping behind me, we'd reduced two giant magical crabs to something that looked like the aftermath of an industrial accident at a seafood restaurant.
The boar had contributed enthusiastically. Apparently, the same animal that could casually eat entire citrus fruits also had absolutely no objection to crab meat, cracked shell, or anything else Percival tossed in its direction. It had eaten until its stomach looked noticeably rounder, wandered over behind where I'd been sitting, circled twice, and dropped onto the sand with a grunt that I felt through the ground. Now it was sprawled on its side with its legs stretched out, occasionally twitching in its sleep while its tail gave a lazy flick through the sand.
I leaned back against its belly and discovered that several thousand pounds of magical boar made a surprisingly comfortable backrest. The thing was warm, soft beneath the layer of coarse hair, and apparently didn't care that I'd decided to use it as furniture. Every so often it released a satisfied grunt without opening its eyes, looking for all the world like the happiest pig in shit.
Harry sat on the other side of the fire with his legs stretched toward the warmth, working his way through what had to be his third helping of crab. Percival had done something with butter, garlic, herbs, and several of the lemons I'd brought back that had made me reconsider every complaint I'd had about the amount of effort involved in acquiring lunch. The old bastard had also produced actual Irish butter at some point, which meant my stupid prediction in the jungle had somehow been right.
I hadn't asked where he'd gotten it.
Some questions were better left alone when Percival was involved.
The ocean reflected the dying sunlight in a long band of orange and gold, with the sky above it fading through red and purple toward the deeper blue of approaching night. Waves rolled quietly across the beach, erasing most of the damage we'd done to the sand while leaving the battered rocks farther down the shoreline as evidence that the morning had actually happened.
Harry finally lowered the piece of crab he'd been working on and looked toward the jungle. "Does anybody live here?"
Percival glanced at him across the fire. He'd traded the ridiculous Hawaiian shirt for a light jacket as the temperature dropped, though the cowboy hat remained firmly in place. "On the island?"
Harry nodded. "Josh said there were buildings in there. Old ones."
"Ruins," I corrected. "At least I think they were ruins. Some of them were definitely buildings, but they didn't look like they were all built by the same people. Different stone, different ways of shaping everything, and one of them looked like somebody convinced a bunch of trees to become a house."
Percival stirred the fire with a length of wood before settling back into his chair. "Then you noticed the important part."
I looked at him. "That none of it matched?"
"Aye." Percival rested both hands over the top of his walking stick and looked toward the darkening tree line. "People have been coming to islands like this one for a very long time, brat. Some stayed for a generation. Some stayed for centuries. Others used them as stopping points, sanctuaries, meeting grounds, places of worship, places of study, or simply somewhere far enough from everybody else that they could be left alone. Then they moved on, died out, or were forgotten."
Harry looked between us. "Forgotten by who?"
"Most people." Percival's gaze shifted back to him. "That's something the two of you would do well to remember. The world is considerably larger than the part of it most people know, and being magical doesn't automatically make someone better informed about it."
Harry frowned slightly at that, and Percival smiled before gesturing vaguely in the direction of Britain with one hand. "Think about Hogwarts. A child receives a letter, goes to school, learns spells, learns some history, graduates, and begins living as a witch or wizard. If they're British, most of what they encounter will naturally concern Britain. The Ministry. Hogwarts. British law. British families. British problems. Perhaps they'll travel abroad on holiday or learn enough about another country to conduct business there, but that doesn't mean they understand the whole Wizarding World."
I picked a piece of crab from the shell in my hand. "Same problem No-Majs have."
"Of course it is," Percival said. "Magic doesn't cure ignorance. Sometimes it makes it worse because people become convinced that knowing one secret means they've discovered all of them."
Harry glanced toward the jungle again. The last sunlight caught the uppermost leaves while everything beneath the canopy had already disappeared into shadow. "So there are places like this everywhere?"
"Places like this?" Percival considered the question before shaking his head. "No. This island is unusual even by magical standards. But hidden places? Old places? Communities most people have never heard of? Creatures that don't appear in the little books children are given at school? Aye. Far more than most people realize."
He leaned forward and nudged one of the coals back beneath the fire. Sparks spiraled upward before vanishing into the evening air. "The mistake is thinking the world you know is the world that exists. Wizards make it as readily as Muggles do. A Muggle might live his entire life believing magic is a fairy tale because nothing ever forces him to question it. A wizard can spend his entire life believing the Ministry and Hogwarts represent the natural shape of magical civilization for much the same reason."
Harry was quiet for a few seconds before asking, "They don't?"
"Not everywhere." Percival's answer came without hesitation. "Different peoples developed different traditions because they had different histories, different environments, different dangers, and different relationships with magic. The wand is an extraordinary tool, but it is not the beginning and end of magic. Neither is Hogwarts the beginning and end of magical education, nor is the Ministry the model every magical society in the world followed."
I thought back to the ruins I'd passed in the jungle. Some had been carved from stone, some shaped without any tool marks I could find, while others had been grown from living trees. Seeing them had made the differences obvious in a way reading about different magical traditions never quite managed.
Percival caught my expression. "You saw it today."
"The ruins."
"The ruins," he agreed. "You found several ways of building within walking distance of one another. Whoever made them didn't all approach magic the same way. They may not even have lived here at the same time. What remains is simply what survived long enough for you to stumble across it."
Harry looked toward me. "Did you go inside any of them?"
"No." I shook my head and tossed another empty piece of shell onto the pile. "I was supposed to be finding a lemon, remember? I figured wandering into abandoned magical buildings on an island full of giant murder crabs was how I turned a ten-minute errand into a three-day archaeological expedition."
Percival chuckled. "Good. You've been paying attention."
"I resent how surprised you sound. Greece was as much your fault as it was mine."
The boar grunted behind me and shifted in its sleep, rolling just enough to shove me several inches forward. Harry laughed while I planted a hand in the sand to keep from falling into the fire. I turned and glared at several tons of completely unconcerned pig before settling back against it.
Percival waited until we'd quieted before continuing. "There is another part of it. The world wasn't always as it is now. There was a time when magic was considerably more visible, when creatures and peoples that are rare today were common enough to become part of the stories entire civilizations told about themselves."
Harry's attention sharpened. "Like dragons?"
"Dragons are still here," Percival said. "Hidden, protected, hunted in some places, protected in others, but here. I'm speaking more broadly. Look through enough old stories from enough different cultures and you'll find the world repeatedly described as stranger than the one people know today. Monsters, spirits, heroes capable of impossible things, beings worshipped as gods, enchanted places, impossible journeys. That doesn't mean every old story happened exactly as someone eventually wrote it down. People embellish. Stories change. Victors alter them. Priests alter them. Kings alter them. Grandfathers alter them because the version they heard wasn't interesting enough."
I snorted. "Some things never change."
"Aye. But neither should you make the opposite mistake and assume that because a story became a myth, there was never anything behind it." Percival looked out toward the water as the last edge of the sun touched the horizon. "Magic has ebbed over a very long time. Things that once lived openly withdrew. Some disappeared. Some moved somewhere safer. Some simply became rarer with each passing century until the people who remembered them personally were gone and everyone else was left arguing over stories."
Harry looked toward the ocean where the sea dragon had appeared earlier. "So when sailors drew monsters on maps..."
"Sometimes they were frightened of empty water," Percival said. "Sometimes someone saw a whale badly. Sometimes a sailor drank too much and discovered a remarkable talent for lying."
Harry smiled.
"And sometimes," Percival continued, "there really was a bloody great monster in the water."
Harry's smile widened.
I looked toward the horizon myself. After everything I'd seen since getting my memories back, the idea shouldn't have felt particularly profound. I'd been to another world. I'd met people who shouldn't exist. I had technology in my body from a future that wasn't mine and magic in my hand from a world I'd once known as fiction. Compared to all of that, discovering that Earth itself contained more than its magical population remembered should have been almost mundane.
It wasn't.
Percival looked between Harry and me. "That's what I wanted you both to see today. Not the crab, though watching Josh spend half the morning dismantling one was entertaining."
"Fuck you. That took 20 minutes. 30 tops."
Harry laughed into his dinner, and Percival ignored me with the ease of a man who'd had years of practice. "You can learn spells in a classroom. You can read laws from a book and history from another. Those things matter. But if all you ever see of magic is Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, the Ministry, and whatever little corner of the world your family occupies, eventually you'll begin mistaking familiarity for completeness."
His eyes moved toward the jungle behind us. "This island doesn't care what the Ministry classifies as ordinary. The sea dragon doesn't care what Hogwarts puts in its curriculum. That tree Josh found doesn't care whether anyone remembered to write it into a textbook, and your enormous new friend certainly doesn't care whether some Ministry clerk knows what species he is."
The boar chose that moment to release a deep, rumbling snore behind me.
Harry grinned. "I think he agrees."
"I think he's digesting half a crab. Also, what sea dragon?"
Percival chuckled and settled deeper into his chair as the last piece of the sun disappeared beneath the horizon. "Either way, remember the lesson. The world is bigger than you know. It'll still be bigger after you've spent your entire life trying to understand it, and anyone who tells you they've got all of magic neatly catalogued and explained is either a fool or trying to sell you something."
The fire cracked softly between us while the first stars appeared overhead. Harry stared into the flames for a while, apparently turning that over in his head, while I leaned back against the sleeping boar and looked toward the dark line where the ocean met the sky.
For a day Percival had insisted was supposed to be spent at the beach, we'd somehow ended up exactly where he'd intended us to be.
"No seriously, did I miss a fucking sea dragon?"
........................................................
Authors note:
Did you know that the authors note section at the end has a 500 word limit? I did not before today.
11,666 words prior to the authors note. Yikes.
Whew. That one took more effort than I cared for.
I fully intended to have a beach day episode that made fun of all the beach day tropes you see in so many anime, especially since I've already had several of those anime tropes appear in the story. It fits within the genre, I'm afraid. But I was running up against a time crunch, as I needed sleep, and I have a full-time job that requires me to get a specific amount before work. So, we ended up with two chapters instead of just one.
Since I haven't been to the beach in over a decade myself, I think this one really expresses my need for a vacation. Maybe next year, but alas, I have strayed from the topic again.
I have some big plans for this story, and I've been working on my worldbuilding in the background while trying to make sure that my lore stays consistent. That takes a lot of work.
I might argue that Rowling left a lot of potential untouched, but from the time I've spent playing with writing this, and then actually writing it, I can tone down those thoughts to an extent. She did a lot, and that untouched material allows me and other writers to explore possibilities in the world she presented to us. As such, I don't want to take too many shots at the original work, and I'll try to respect some points in it that I consider key story elements. Many of them are history-related.
Having said that, I'm a huge fan of Marvel's What If...? stories, and my prompt for this story actually started as a what-if. I built my character builder around the premise of rolling dice, and I rolled those dice, but then I needed to answer a question: What is the core element of the world I'm sending this character into?
Then I kept working that premise. I looked at the stories I enjoyed reading the most and tried to find those elements in my own writing.
Anyway, I hope you're enjoying reading this and will continue to engage with the work. It helps encourage me to write more and to make more of a personal effort to provide a good-quality story that I actually wrote, instead of just feeding a prompt into an AI system and posting whatever trash it spits back out at me.
Until next time. Please comment, share, and so on. If you want to further encourage me for more that 1 or 2 chapters a week, power stones don't hurt. This story is not a paid one, but those elements will help to push my story up the rankings and help it get seen by more people and then maybe one day webnovel might actually ask me to write something truly original, and I have an urban fantasy idea that I have been kicking around since 2014, and I have been trying some of those elements here in this story and plan to continue to do so through out. As such, I hope you and yours have a good one. Goodnight/morning/afternoon and I will see you next time.