Between Magic and Mount Justice HP/Young Justice Xover

This forum is for picking apart tricky issues facing any authors in the community. Word choice, action scenes, dialoguing, or plot development. If something isn't working for you, put it up here and see what your fellow community members can make of it. Try to keep examples short and to the point as much as possible.

Re: Between Magic and Mount Justice HP/Young Justice Xover

Unread postby Ristridin » March 3rd, 2014, 4:59 pm

I'm ok with it. One thing:
Padfoot wandered over to Harry and his date, trying not to look like he was aiming directly for them, and he ended up getting waylaid by a trio of First Years.
First Years aren't supposed to have access to Hogsmeade.
Kingdom Hearts: Visions of Destiny Manual
User avatar
Ristridin
 
Posts: 763
Joined: January 23rd, 2011, 12:46 pm

Re: Between Magic and Mount Justice HP/Young Justice Xover

Unread postby MrRigger2 » March 3rd, 2014, 8:22 pm

I'm ok with it. One thing:
Padfoot wandered over to Harry and his date, trying not to look like he was aiming directly for them, and he ended up getting waylaid by a trio of First Years.
First Years aren't supposed to have access to Hogsmeade.
That's true. My goof. Thanks for catching that.

MrRigger
In engineering, the work is only done when there is nothing left to add. In writing, the work is only done when there is nothing left to take away.

Check out Between Magic and Mount Justice
User avatar
MrRigger2
 
Posts: 3329
Joined: January 20th, 2011, 5:14 pm

Re: Between Magic and Mount Justice HP/Young Justice Xover

Unread postby MrRigger2 » April 1st, 2014, 4:05 pm

Part Eighty-Three!
Spoiler: show
“I must say, it’s good to have you back home, Master Harry,” Alfred said as he placed a plate of warm cookies on the table. “The Manor really isn’t the same without you.”

Harry smiled. “You know I’m only home for two weeks, right?” he said around a mouthful of cookie.

“Even so. And don’t talk with your mouth full of food, you know better than that,” Alfred admonished. “I taught you proper manners, I expect you to use them.”

“Sorry Alfred,” Harry mumbled around the cookie. He swallowed and made to take another bite, but thought better of it. “What’s been going on around here?” There, that should buy him a few minutes to eat.

“Master Bruce has acquired another stalker, I’m afraid.” Alfred shook his head at Harry’s questioning eyebrow. “No, no, not a supervillain, this stalker is a Miss Candi. Master Bruce had dinner with her a few weeks ago, and it made the society page. She’s been hounding him ever since. Honestly, you’d think she’d be able to take a hint, but she even showed up at the front door last week. I must say, it took considerable restraint not to tell her precisely what I thought of her behavior. A grown woman behaving like that, it’s abominable.”

Alfred’s feathers were clearly ruffled. Harry grinned. “And Master Dick is hardly any better. He’s taken to dating an actress, which is at least preferable to Master Bruce’s habit of leaving the task of discouraging his suitors after one date to me. I just wish Master Dick had better taste.” Alfred shook his head. “She’s attractive enough, I suppose, but I’ve seen better acting in an elementary school play. She shows no passion for the craft, no feeling for her performance, and if she can play more than one character, I’ve seen no evidence of such ability.”

Harry chuckled, but Alfred harrumphed. “I’m not sure why you’re laughing, young man, Professor McGonagall has kept me apprised as your escapades. Galavanting about the castle at all hours, with any number of girls. You don’t have to emulate Master Bruce in everything he does, you know.”

“I don’t!” Harry protested. “I keep my dates, and more importantly, I’m still on good terms with everyone. No restraining orders necessary.”

“That is both a relief and a dreadfully low standard, Master Harry.”

Harry held up his hands. “I didn’t set the standards, talk to Bruce. Thanks for the cookies, Alfred.”

“Don’t think you can just walk away from this conversation, Master Harry.”

“I don’t see what there is to talk about. I’m thirteen, so it’s not like I’m looking for a soul mate, and even if I was, I’m not likely to find her. I’m having fun, the girls are having fun, and at the end of the day, no one’s getting hurt, so I don’t see the issue. It’s not like we’re doing anything scandalous, unless you talk to the paintings, but most of them were created during a time when showing ankle was cause for a scandal, so they don’t really count.”

Alfred sighed. “Very well, Master Harry, but don’t think this is the final conversation on the topic.”

“If you say so, Alfred, but unless I start dating supervillains, I’d spend my time working on Bruce, if I were you.”

0oOo0

“So, what’s been going on with the Team?” Harrier asked as he and Robin prepared to go in through the open warehouse window. Traditionally, they would drop down through a skylight, but this warehouse didn’t have any. What it did have was a shipment of drugs for Sal Maroni coming through, ready for distribution. They were going to make sure it didn’t get that far.

“The Brain is causing trouble again. He’s got a new Kobra-Venom serum, and he’s testing it on criminals instead of animals this time. Still turning them loose, though. The Team’s been running ragged trying to cover all of them.”

“Jeez, so we’ve got a bunch of Mammoths on our hands?”

“Eh, not quite that bad. It’s been weakened, and it’s not permanent anymore. We think he’s trying to refine it to the point that he can sell superpowers to interested parties.”

“Well, that’s not good.”

“Yeah, we’re not really feelin’ the ‘aster either. We’re still looking for leads on where he’s got his workshop set up. So far, nothing.”

“Ouch. Maybe Zatanna and I can figure out some kind of locator spell.”

Robin shrugged. “She’s already tried one, and didn’t come up with anything.”

Harrier looked confused. “Did she say why it didn’t work?”

“Kinda. The explanation got real technical real fast. Well, not technical, magical. I could have understood technical. You know what I mean. You ready to do this?”

Harrier nodded. “Let’s do it.”

The duo grappled into the warehouse and picked their targets. Robin slammed feet first into the only one carrying a gun, and Harrier dropped the man next to him. Robin cleared the clip and tossed the gun into the shadows as Harrier threw down a flash pellet.

The lenses in his cowl protect Harrier from the flash, but the criminals were blinded, and Harrier and Robin went to work. They weren’t as big or as strong as Batman, and weren’t able to toss crooks around the way he was, but that didn’t mean they weren’t capable.

Robin drew a pair of black escrima sticks and dove towards the group. He struck with little mercy, hitting hands and joints as he spun, his cape disguising his exact position.

Harrier whispered a spell Professor Flitwick had showed him after Dueling Club one night, and his form went blurry. With that magic in place, he was effectively untouchable. A trained opponent could overcome it, easily, but blinded and scared thugs? Not a chance.

One of the crooks threw a sloppy punch at a spot three inches to the left of Harrier’s face. Harrier used the momentum to pull the thug even further off balance, sending him to the ground, breaking his nose and knocking him out as his head hit first.

Half the thugs were unconscious as Harrier slipped behind the one who had managed to find a length of heavy chain. The crook reared back to swing the chain at Robin’s head, but Harrier snatched the end out of mid-air and yanked. With the crook stumbling off balance, Harrier sent a heavy kick into the side of his knee.

One more down, only three to go. Robin’s strike to the temple put another one down, and he followed it up by knocking the wind out of his other opponent. Harrier stopped his last dance partner with a hit to the throat and knee to the face.

Robin straightened up from where he was knocking the last man unconscious and breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, that was fun.”

“It was, wasn’t it?”

Robin smirked. “You missed one,” he chuckled, pointing towards the door.

Sure enough, one of the crooks was running for the door. Harrier groaned and drew his wand. “Stupefy!” he cast, the red jet of light catching the man between the shoulder blades. He collapsed before he took another step.

“Well, that’s certainly efficient,” Robin commented.

“Yeah, but it feels a lot like cheating,” Harrier said, shaking his head. “Not to mention they don’t really get the lesson we’re trying to teach if I knock them out that way.”

“Probably not as satisfying, either.”

“You know, in Dueling Club, it is, but here, not so much. They can’t really fight back against it.” Harrier watched as Robin sent an alert to Gotham PD. The response time for the neighborhood was in the toilet, but the cops would still show up before any of the thugs woke up. “Anything else I should know about the Team before the Christmas party?”

Robin chuckled as he pulled out his grappler. “Beast Boy is a more annoying younger brother than you ever were. Miss M is taking it in stride, but Superboy’s grumpier than ever, believe it or not. Apparently he’s not getting the same quality time he’s become accustomed to. Oh, and if you think Aqualad’s being a little awkward around KF and Artemis, it’s not your imagination. He walked in on them last week.”

“Walked in on them?”

Robin smirked. “In the shower.”

“In the—dammit, those showers are supposed to be for everybody, what the hell were they thinking?”

Robin shot Harrier an evil look. “Well, I don’t know what they were thinking, but I have a pretty good idea of what they were thinking with.”

“You’re a sick man, Robin. I’m not sure I can stand to be around someone with your dirty mind.”

“Like you could keep up.” With that challenge, Robin shot his grappler and disappeared out the open window.

“Oh, it’s on now, Boy Wonder.”
The start of the fight scene was fighting me, appropriately enough. Sorry it took a while.

MrRigger
In engineering, the work is only done when there is nothing left to add. In writing, the work is only done when there is nothing left to take away.

Check out Between Magic and Mount Justice
User avatar
MrRigger2
 
Posts: 3329
Joined: January 20th, 2011, 5:14 pm

Re: Between Magic and Mount Justice HP/Young Justice Xover

Unread postby MrRigger2 » April 9th, 2014, 12:15 pm

Part Eighty-Four!
Spoiler: show
“Ready to go?” Dick asked as he stuck his head in Harry’s bedroom. It was Christmas night, and they’d stayed long enough at Bruce Wayne’s Christmas Extravaganza to be polite, so they were off to the mountain for the Team’s Christmas party.

“Almost,” Harry said as he slid his identity obfuscating sunglasses on. “I forgot to give you this this morning.” He pulled a gift box out of his desk. “I had Dobby wrap it, because, well, you know. Can’t wrap a present to save my life.”

Dick nodded solemnly. “Ah, yes. Your one great flaw. Among all the others, of course.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, just open it.”

Dick unwrapped it quickly and quirked an eyebrow. “Bird-a-rangs? I appreciate it, but you know we’ve got like a hundred of these things down in the cave.”

“Not like these, we don’t. I enchanted them. Nothing fancy, like duplication or bursting into flame or shooting spikes, but I did make them Unbreakable and Ever-Sharp. Shouldn’t need any kind of maintenance outside of cleaning.”

“Hmm, thanks. But I’m not sure how appropriate they’ll be anymore…”

“Dick, what are you talking about? Are you quitting? If you’re getting out of the life, why didn’t you say anything to me before now? Does Bruce know?”

“Harry, Harry, calm down. It’s not what you think. And yes, I’ve talked with Bruce about this. It’s just that I can’t be Robin forever, you know? I can’t be in Batman’s shadow forever, and it’s time for a change.”

“Why? I thought we had a good thing going on here. What’s changed that makes you want to run out on the Bat Clan? Are you and Bruce having problems or something?”

Dick shook his head. “It’s not like that, Harry, and I’m not running out on the Bat Clan. I’m not having problems with Bruce, and even if I was, that wouldn’t make me leave. Jeez, we all may be screwed up, but Bruce has been like to a father to me for years, you know that. I can’t see there ever been something so big the two of us just cut ties.”

“So what is happening?”

“I need to prove that I can do this on my own, that I’m not just Batman’s sidekick. I need to be my own hero.”

“And who is that?”

“I’m still Robin for the rest of the year. But January 1st, get used to calling me Nightwing.”

0oOo0

Harry threw the empty root beer bottle halfway across the Team’s living room, hitting the trash can without touching the rim. “And that’s how the Chasers do it in Hufflepuff!”

Artemis’s bottle came soaring over his head from twenty feet back, also landing in the trash can. “You were saying, short-stuff?”

“Hey! My height is not my fault. I’m going to hit a growth spurt any day now, I just know it.”

Artemis smirked. “Go ahead, keep thinking that, little man.”

“Come on babe, leave him alone,” Wally said, walking up behind his girlfriend and wrapping her in a hug. “It’s not his fault he’s the smallest person on the Team, next to the ten-year-old. Really, it’s pretty impressive that he can still fight crime when he’s roughly the size of a mouse.”

“I’ve still been doing this longer than you, Mister I-Got-My-Powers-From-A-Lab-Accident.”

“It was not a lab accident, it was a carefully reconstructed scientific experiment. Get it right, David Copperfield.”

Harry twisted the cap off another root beer and gestured at Wally with the bottle. “First, David Copperfield is an illusionist, what I do is real magic. Second, you blew up your parent’s garage and put yourself in the hospital, so ‘carefully reconstructed scientific experiment’ is really not the right term.”

Artemis craned her head back and kissed Wally’s cheek. “Sorry babe, it sounds like the little twerp’s right.”

Wally gasped dramatically. “Betrayal! Well, I know where I’m not wanted. Megan’s bound to have some more refreshments ready, I think I’ll go see what she’s been making.” He made it halfway to the door before he looked back. “Artemis, did you, you know, want to come with me?”

Artemis grinned. “You just want to get me under the mistletoe again, don’t you?”

Wally waggled his eyebrows. “You coming?”

Artemis laughed and nodded. As they walked off, Dicked called after them, “Keep it PG you two! Don’t need to give Kaldur flashbacks.”

Kaldur shook his head at Dick’s comment. “Please, do not encourage them. They scarcely need it.”

“That’s what I hear,” Harry said, sipping at his soda. “So, did Robin tell you about his plans? That he’s pulling a Red Arrow and running out on us?”

“For the last time, I’m not running out on you. I’m just trying to figure out who I’m going to be in the future. Besides, I’m not the one who spends most of the year at a magical boarding school.”

“To answer your question, Harrier, yes, Robin did inform me of his plans,” Kaldur said, seeking to stop the brotherly spat before it began. And despite the fact that none of the Team members who weren’t in the loop on Harry and Dick’s secret identities were in the room, he still used their hero names. It was remembering things like that that made him such an effective leader, not just his skills at command.

“Speaking of Red Arrow, when’s the last you heard from him?” Dick asked, looking at Kaldur.

“He told me that he was tracking down a lead on the Light in Central America. He believes he is close to locating one of the Brain’s laboratories.”

Kaldur didn’t look like he believed what he was saying, and Harry said so. Kaldur nodded. “Roy has made some very concerning decisions of late.”

“He’s still looking for the original Speedy?” Harry asked.

Dick nodded. “Nothing anybody says will get him to face the reality that there’s no reason for The Light to have kept him alive all this time. And it’s affecting his work.”

“You never mentioned it,” Harry said.

Kaldur shook his head. “My friend is troubled. Red Arrow left Star City entirely some time ago, to focus his efforts completely on The Light. And while he has provided us several critical pieces of information, I believe he is simply sending us the information he cannot use. It seems his mission of finding the original Roy Harper has supplanted the safety of civilians as the number one priority in his mind.”

Harry groaned. “What happened? How’d he get like that?”

“A lot of little things. He was part of the League, so what he was doing was never really our responsibility. Not to mention all their mission logs are classified.”

Harry shot a skeptical look at Dick. “Like you couldn’t get in if you didn’t want to.”

Dick shrugged. “Never felt the need. Far as we all knew, Roy was doing fine. It’s not like anybody mentioned any problems to us. And if he was skipping downtime get togethers and not returning phone calls, we figured he was just being a jerk about not wanting to be grouped with the sidekicks anymore.”

“Not outside the realm of possibility,” Harry allowed.

“Yeah. He always made such a big deal out of being his own person, a hero in his own right, I think it screwed him up more than anyone realized,” Dick grumbled. “I didn’t tell you, but a month or so ago, Green Arrow found out Roy hadn’t exactly been telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth on his reports. Where he was, what he was doing, whether or not he had anything to do with a Luthor owned fabrication plant that blew up, that kind of thing.”

“The League presented Roy with an ultimatum,” Kaldur said. “Either fix his behavior, or leave the Justice League. As I understand it, Roy’s temper was… explosive.”

“It’s probably not as bad as we’re making it out,” Dick said. “End of the day, he’s still a good guy. He’s still fighting bad guys, and sending us intel on the Light when he can. Even if his reputation is in the toilet right now.”

They fell into an awkward silence. Just as Harry was about to break it by mentioning how depressing that kind of talk was, especially at Christmas, Zatanna called them into the other room. Grateful for the distraction, they all jumped at it.

Harry walked in first, and ran right into Barbara. Batman wasn’t quite as strict about her secret identity remaining secret, so she had foregone any kind of token disguise.

“Oh, sorry about that.”

“No, my fault should have been paying attention.”

Zatanna snickered. “Yeah, you two really should pay attention. Look up.”

They did, and sure enough, there was mistletoe overhead. At least they didn’t have to worry about it growing to enormous size and trying to strangle them. Poison Ivy got vindictive around the holidays.

“You know the rules, you two,” Zatanna heckled.

“You’re blocking the doorway, so either get to kissing or make way for someone who knows what he’s doing,” Dick joked from behind Harry.

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” Harry whispered.

Barbara gave Dick a look Harry couldn’t quite decipher and rolled her eyes. “What, you don’t like me? You’re not getting out of it that easy, Mr. Wizard.”

Then she kissed him.

Slow, lingering, and tasting a little like orange soda. No tongue, but definitely more skilled than the girls Harry had kissed at school. There were benefits to kissing the older woman, Harry decided, or having her kiss him, rather.

Babs stepped back, and Harry knew he was wearing a goofy grin. He also knew he didn’t care. She was a hell of a kisser.
MrRigger
Last edited by MrRigger2 on April 9th, 2014, 6:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
In engineering, the work is only done when there is nothing left to add. In writing, the work is only done when there is nothing left to take away.

Check out Between Magic and Mount Justice
User avatar
MrRigger2
 
Posts: 3329
Joined: January 20th, 2011, 5:14 pm

Re: Between Magic and Mount Justice HP/Young Justice Xover

Unread postby JamestheFox » April 9th, 2014, 2:33 pm

RRRRRRedheads! It runs in the blood, Harry! Submit to your destiny! :secret_laugh:
GM of Kingdom Hearts VD: Visions of Destiny. You never know who you'll run into next. Until your Vision shows you.
Shinobi in Star Wars GM. Kyo's Data here.
Pokewizard Quest GM. Harry's Pokedex here.
User avatar
JamestheFox
 
Posts: 1013
Joined: September 10th, 2011, 4:17 am
Location: A world beyond imagination, but just inside fantasy.

Re: Between Magic and Mount Justice HP/Young Justice Xover

Unread postby MrRigger2 » April 13th, 2014, 6:15 pm

Part Eighty-Five!
Spoiler: show
“Alright, I want to see it.”

“Want to see what?”

“You know full well what I want to see, jerk. I’m going back to school tomorrow, and you still haven’t shown me the Nightwing suit.”

“Oh, the Nightwing suit. I guess I have neglected to show it to you, haven’t I?” Dick said teasingly.

“Yes you have, and I’ll graciously overlook the fact that you’ve been hiding the suit from me for a week now, as long as you show me the suit. Otherwise, I’ll be forced to get Dobby to enact my revenge once I go back to school.”

“Hey now, that’s cheating.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “We’re Bats. Since when do we fight fair?”

Dick sighed. “Just so you know, I’m doing this not because you’re right, but because I don’t want to listen to you complain for the next six months.”

“If that’s what you want to tell yourself, that’s fine. As long as you show me the suit.”

Dick grumbled and stalled for a few more minutes before disappearing to wherever he had hid his new suit. Harry knew it wasn’t in Dick’s room, the costume vault, the garage, the maintenance shed, Bruce’s room, or the trophy room that Bruce swore wasn’t a trophy room, even though there was no reason anybody would ever keep a giant penny except as a trophy.

Dick returned by sneaking up on Harry and tapping him on the shoulder. Harry had to force himself not to flinch before he turned around.

Dick was standing there in the Nightwing suit. Black with a little dark gray and a bird emblem with outstretched wings across his chest in blue. His utility belt was black now, not yellow, and he had a pair of escrima sticks hanging down his right leg. The domino mask was a slightly different shape, but the biggest thing that stuck out was obvious.

“No cape?”

“No cape.”

“Why no cape?”

“The armor’s thicker, so I don’t need the added protection, and it doesn’t really work for me anymore.”

“You’re foregoing the cape because it’s not fashionable.”

“Not…necessarily.”

“Well, you’re an idiot for that, but I admit it looks good on you.”

“Thanks, bro.”

0oOo0

The first few weeks back after winter break saw the professors start to push harder in the lessons. Professor Snape was practically breathing down their necks in Potions, a departure from his usual looming and stinging comments. Professor McGonagall was taking points off for any inconsistency in transformation, and if Professor Flitwick didn’t push them harder in Charms, he made up for it in Dueling Club.

Dueling Club was finally paying dividends, but the diminutive dueling master was making them work for it. Harry was still winning a large majority of his duels, but the other members fought him every step of the way, and he rarely went back to the Hufflepuff dorms completely unharmed. Ron Weasley was the worst for it, which meant Harry sought him out nearly every session. It didn’t do to train against people you knew you could beat.

Ancient Runes took a sharp upturn in difficulty as well, but so did the content. They’d finally started using runes instead of just translating them, though they still did plenty of that. Sure, Harry had done these same projects months ago on his own, but Professor Babbling was able to point out the details and intricacies he’d missed when figuring it out for himself.

Harry had given up on finding information on Sirius Black in the Hogwarts Library before the break, and finally approached Professor Lupin. He knew Professor McGonagall had requested he leave the Defense instructor alone, but this was information he needed.

0oOo0

“No, I’m sorry, Harry, I just don’t think that would be appropriate,” Professor Lupin said.

Harry shook his head. He doubted the direct approach was going to work, but he figured he would try. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. But I was just talking with Professor McGonagall, and she said you knew Black from school. And since she said he and my father were inseparable, I thought you might have known him too.”

“Oh, Harry… Yes, I knew your father. He was one of my best friends, in fact. I was roommates with him, Peter Pettigrew, and unfortunately, Sirius Black.”

Harry didn’t have to act at all to make his voice sound a little hopeful. “Could you tell me about him?”

Professor Lupin nodded and walked over to start a small pot of tea with his wand. For the next hour, he told Harry stories about James Potter, stories he hadn’t heard before, stories Hagrid and Professor McGonagall either didn’t know or were unwilling to share. Considering they were mostly stories about the things they had gotten away with, Harry was willing to bet it was the former. Though some of the stories didn’t quite make sense, like Professor Lupin was leaving something out.

Probably not vital, Harry decided. Details had a way of getting lost with time, and the stories he was telling were nearly twenty years old. And besides, he was learning more about Sirius Black, even with Professor Lupin trying to downplay his involvement in the stories.

Professor Lupin kicked Harry out after an hour of story-telling, citing the need to prepare for his next class, but he promised that Harry was welcome to return.

0oOo0

Harry did return. He ended up going back the next day, and found himself in Professor Lupin’s office at least twice a week for the next month. And while he was grateful to finally have someone who would tell him at least a little bit about the madman who was trying to kill him, it was learning about his mother and father that kept him coming back.

But as January died and chilly February blew in, and the Gryffindors cheered their victory over Ravenclaw, Sirius Black struck again.
Ugh, I hate transitional sections. And the fact that HP canon randomly has entire months where *absolutely* *nothing* *happens*.

MrRigger
In engineering, the work is only done when there is nothing left to add. In writing, the work is only done when there is nothing left to take away.

Check out Between Magic and Mount Justice
User avatar
MrRigger2
 
Posts: 3329
Joined: January 20th, 2011, 5:14 pm

Re: Between Magic and Mount Justice HP/Young Justice Xover

Unread postby JamestheFox » April 13th, 2014, 6:23 pm

You handled this transition very well, in my opinion. It's too bad Harry doesn't have a rouge's gallery around Hogwarts that he can do battle with. Never a dull moment again!
GM of Kingdom Hearts VD: Visions of Destiny. You never know who you'll run into next. Until your Vision shows you.
Shinobi in Star Wars GM. Kyo's Data here.
Pokewizard Quest GM. Harry's Pokedex here.
User avatar
JamestheFox
 
Posts: 1013
Joined: September 10th, 2011, 4:17 am
Location: A world beyond imagination, but just inside fantasy.

Re: Between Magic and Mount Justice HP/Young Justice Xover

Unread postby MrRigger2 » April 13th, 2014, 8:42 pm

Honestly, I'd like to see a Rogue's Gallery at Hogwarts, because you're right, there'd never be a dull moment again, but I can't think of a way to do it and have it make sense. Also, I'm not sure how you'd do it and have recurring villains.
Spoiler: show
That said, Goblet of Fire will have less periods of nothingness, because I'm altering the Triwizard Tournament a bit, if nothing else. I was partially inspired by Jbern's The Lie I Lived, so if he's out there and somehow manages to find this thread, I want to say thank you to him in advance.
MrRigger
In engineering, the work is only done when there is nothing left to add. In writing, the work is only done when there is nothing left to take away.

Check out Between Magic and Mount Justice
User avatar
MrRigger2
 
Posts: 3329
Joined: January 20th, 2011, 5:14 pm

Re: Between Magic and Mount Justice HP/Young Justice Xover

Unread postby MrRigger2 » April 16th, 2014, 12:04 pm

Part Eighty-Six!
Spoiler: show
Apparently, Sirius Black had broken into Gryffindor Tower with a copy of stolen passwords and fled after Ron woke up and saw him. That part everyone agreed on, and if anybody wanted details, all they had to do was stand near Ron for a few minutes, because he was telling the story to anyone who’d listen.

“It was right after the victory party for when we beat Ravenclaw, cause my little sister caught the Snitch from right out under Chang’s nose, her first year on the team, too, she’s gonna be awesome when she’s older. But I guess I was still wired from the party, cause I was sleeping kinda light, and that’s why I caught him.

“There was this ripping sound, like something getting torn, and first, I think it’s just part of a dream or something, but then there’s a draft, and I know something weird is going on. So I roll over, and there he is. Skinny as anything, he looked like a skeleton, except he still had his hair, great bunches of matted, filthy hair, I’m telling you, Snape’s hair looks better than Black’s did. So he’s standing over me, and he’s got this knife, it was huge, had to be twelve inches, at least, probably longer! So I see this knife, which is practically a sword, I swear, and I yell, and he disappears. Runs out of the dorm like he’s being chased by a hungry dragon.”

“I don’t see why he didn’t just kill you,” Draco interrupted as Ron finished telling Hannah and Susan the tale during Dueling Club.

“Nice to see you’re so concerned about my wellbeing, Malfoy,” Ron snapped.

“That’s not what I was getting at, Weasley. Besides, if Black killed you, I wouldn’t get the chance to mop the floor with you in here. I’m just curious as to why he didn’t. He’s killed before, I would expect he’d just kill you and get on with his business.”

“If he was using a knife, then he probably doesn’t have a wand,” Harry said, trying to stop Ron and Draco before they really got going. “Since Ron shouted and woke everybody up, I bet he just didn’t like his chances against the whole House armed with just a knife.”

Professor Flitwick called the meeting to order, and everybody moved off into their own groups, but Harry’s mind was elsewhere. Why did Sirius Black go after Gryffindor Tower again? Why would he risk getting caught like he did? Why not wait until a Hogsmeade weekend, and make his move then? None of this made any sense, and Harry wanted answers.

0oOo0

“You want me to WHAT?” Hermione shrieked, only to flinch and look around for Madam Pince. When she didn’t see the librarian, she repeated herself in a harsh whisper. “You want me to what?”

“I want you to help me get into the Gryffindor Common Room. I’ll handle it from there.” Harry stared at Hermione, and Neville glanced nervously between the two of them.

“No. No, no, no. I can’t let you into Gryffindor Tower, don’t you know how many rules I’d be breaking? We’d end up expelled!”

Harry shook his head. “That’s a bit extreme. We’re looking at a couple detentions, tops, and that’s only if we get caught. And we’re not going to get caught.”

Hermione didn’t look like she believed him. “Why do you even want to get into the Tower? I’m not going to help you prank anybody or break rules like that.”

“I don’t want to prank anybody. I’m looking for something.”

“Well, I’m not going to help you steal anything either.”

“I’m not going to steal anything. At least, I don’t think I am. I want to find whatever it is Sirius Black has in there.”

Hermione sputtered. “What are you talking about? He’s looking for you!”

“That’s what everybody says, but I don’t think so. See, the way I see it, if he was trying to get to me, he wouldn’t be going after me in Gryffindor Tower. He’d either be trying to break into the Hufflepuff Dorms, or more likely, he’d try to grab me during a Hogsmeade weekend.”

“He’s crazy, Harry, he’s not going to make sense.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Hermione. Remember, I live in Gotham City, home of some of the most dangerous criminal madmen in the world. I’ve even seen them get away scot free, personally. They’re crazy, but they’re not stupid, because they wouldn’t be running around. I think it’s the same case with Black. He’s crazy, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

Hermione paused while she thought it over, then started shaking her head. Harry pressed on. “Sirius Black is responsible for taking my parents away from me. I’m never going to see them again because of what he did. So if there’s anything, anything at all that I can do to help bring him to justice, I’m going to do it.”

“B-bring him to justice? Harry, you’re thirteen years old, this is something that you need to let the adults handle—“

“No.”

Hermione stared at Neville. “If you won’t help him, I will, Hermione,” he said in a small voice.

“Neville, do you realize what you’re saying?”

“Harry’s right, Hermione, and if you aren’t going to help him, I am,” he said, a little more confident with every word.

Confusion was plastered all across Hermione’s face, and after a moment, she dragged Neville away from the table to have a whispered conversation by one of the bookshelves. Harry couldn’t hear them, and he’d never gotten the hang of lip reading like Bruce had wanted him to, but he could read their body language. Hermione was apprehensive and trying to get Neville to see reason, but instead of his usual nervousness and reluctance, Neville was standing his ground. He’d made a decision, and Hermione wasn’t going to change his mind. Harry was grateful.

After a minute of harsh whispers, they walked back over to the table. “What do you need us to do?” Neville asked.
MrRigger
In engineering, the work is only done when there is nothing left to add. In writing, the work is only done when there is nothing left to take away.

Check out Between Magic and Mount Justice
User avatar
MrRigger2
 
Posts: 3329
Joined: January 20th, 2011, 5:14 pm

Re: Between Magic and Mount Justice HP/Young Justice Xover

Unread postby MrRigger2 » April 18th, 2014, 11:53 am

Part Eighty-Seven!
Spoiler: show
Neville’s part of the plan was easy. All he had to do was wait outside the library until four o’clock, then make his way to the Gryffindor Common Room.

Harry wasn’t there at four o’clock, but Neville started walking towards the Tower anyways. Harry knew the plan, he was the one who came up with it, and if it didn’t work, they could always try again another day. Unless Sirius Black broke in again and found whatever it was he was looking for so he could kill Harry.

Neville shivered and walked a little slower, giving Harry time to catch up with him, just in case.

Neville was nervous as he walked past the defensive trolls employed to protect the Fat Lady, but in his defense, they were trolls. They were scary. But they just waved him through with their clubs like normal.

He lingered in the opening to the Common Room just a little longer than normal then headed for the Third Year dorm room. He really hoped he was helping Harry, but he just didn’t know how Harry would be getting in, since he hadn’t shown himself to Neville at all. Maybe he should have waited longer at the library? Should he have made sure Harry was there? How was Harry even going to hide himself in the Common Room? He knew he should have asked more questions when Harry was telling him the plan.

Just as Neville started to kick himself even more, Harry was standing in front of him.

0oOo0

Harry pulled off the Invisibility Cloak and watched Neville jump out of his skin. “Thanks, Neville. That was a big help. Watch the door, make sure we aren’t interrupted.”

“What the—Where’d you come from?”

“I followed you up here, just as planned. So much easier than trying to track down a Gryffindor heading up here on my own, so thanks for that.”

An orange blur streaked into the room as Neville closed the door. Harry grabbed the cat before it could pounce and held it away from his body. With the way it was yowling and spitting, he didn’t want to chance getting scratched up. A grey rat squeaked noisily and disappeared under one of the beds. “Chasing after rats, were you?” Harry asked the cat.

“That was probably Ron’s rat, Scabbers,” Neville said. “Come here Crookshanks, you know you can’t eat other people’s pets. Go back to Hermione.” He took the angry feline and dropped him out in the hall, slamming the door shut behind him. “So, what now?”

“You watch the door, I’m going to see what I can find.”

Harry started at Ron’s bed, the one with the Chudley Cannons poster above the headboard. A basic detection didn’t reveal anything out of the ordinary, but Harry didn’t think it would. Assuming Black really had hidden something in here, he would have wanted to make sure no one was going to come across it accidentally.

A loose floorboard turned up a fifteen year old Playboy, which Harry tossed at Neville, who turned beet red. Technically, it could have belonged to Black, but Harry suspected that it wasn’t what he was looking for.

A false rock hid a curved knife, which Harry carefully floated out of the wall. It didn’t seem to be cursed, but Harry wasn’t going to take any chances.

A more thorough search yielded a long forgotten Arithmancy textbook, a little more pornography, and some firewhiskey well hidden in the bathroom.

“I think I’m done here,” Harry said finally. He’d been searching for half an hour, and didn’t want to risk getting caught any longer. “I’m going to take the knife and the Arithmancy book, you can figure out what you want to do with the rest, Neville. Ron said that Black had a knife, so I can’t imagine he was looking for this one, but it might be enchanted or part of a ritual or something, who knows. And I doubt the textbook was his, but I’m going to take a look through it, maybe it was and he left some notes or something. Let’s get out of here.”

0oOo0

The Arithmancy book didn’t have anything in it besides some truly atrocious doodles, and as far as Harry could tell, the knife wasn’t enchanted at all.

Neville was willing to smuggle Harry into Gryffindor Tower a few more times, but Harry’s further searches into the other dorms didn’t turn up anything. At least, not anything that Sirius Black would be looking for. There had been plenty of other interesting finds, including some that were concerning enough that Harry suggested Neville notify Professor McGonagall. He’d do it himself, but that would involve explaining how he knew what was going on in a different House’s dorms.

Frankly, that was more trouble than he felt like dealing with.

Largely because the teachers had decided everybody had wasted enough time, and cracked down on preparing them for exams. Sleepless nights were becoming nearly as common as they were back in Gotham, between exam prep, Animagus study, investigating Sirius Black, and his muggle schoolwork that he was sending back to Alfred. The only saving grace was that at the rate Alfred had been pushing him over the past three years, he’d end up finishing high school by the time he was sixteen.

When he’d pointed that fact out, in an attempt to get Alfred to give him a break, Alfred forgave him the missed assignment, but it was accompanied by a look that filled Harry with such shame and disappointment that he vowed never to do anything that would make Alfred look at him that way again.

Still, when they were allowed to head into Hogsmeade over Easter break, Harry jumped at the opportunity. A stress free break from schoolwork and worrying about Sirius Black was just what the doctor ordered.
Alfred can give the same look to Bruce, and it has much the same effect.

MrRigger
In engineering, the work is only done when there is nothing left to add. In writing, the work is only done when there is nothing left to take away.

Check out Between Magic and Mount Justice
User avatar
MrRigger2
 
Posts: 3329
Joined: January 20th, 2011, 5:14 pm

Re: Between Magic and Mount Justice HP/Young Justice Xover

Unread postby MrRigger2 » April 20th, 2014, 12:06 am

Part Eighty-Eight!
Spoiler: show
Harry sat across from Padma Patil in Madam Puddifoot’s Tea Shop, trying to finish his tea as quickly as could be polite, so he could get out of there and go back to the castle.

The whole day was turning out to be a disaster. Padma may have been one of the best looking girls in Third Year, but she was also cattier than Selina Kyle. Harry was used to dealing with catty women, years of dealing with the Gotham Elite had inured him to it, but Padma had a snide comment for just about everyone they passed.

The visit to the Post Office saw one of the delivery owls relieving itself on the back of Harry’s robes, and Padma laughed at his misfortune as she mailed her letter. That would have been all well and good, if Padma hadn’t gone on to share the story with Lisa Turpin and Mandy Brocklehurst the second she saw them in the street.

Honeydukes was a good time, provided Harry ignored how Padma tried to trick him into eating Cockroach Clusters and an Acid Pop, but the day went downhill from there.

The big black stray Harry had met before found him again, and tried to pet it again, only to have Padma chase it off with a fountain of sparks from her wand. Probably had fleas and parasites, she claimed when Harry confronted her about it, and then dragged him off for a lengthy visit to Scrivenshafts.

Harry had wanted to finish the date with a few butterbeers at the Three Broomsticks, but Padma saw Daphne Greengrass enter the establishment just ahead of them, and after a blow up in Arithmancy, they had moved from speaking terms to hexing terms. It had been all Harry could do to convince her to leave the Slytherin alone.

So they ended up in Madam Puddifoot’s instead. It was obviously intended to be intimate and cozy, but Harry just found it cramped and stifling. And the pastels that covered the walls and tables for Easter clashed horribly with the regular color scheme, and the whole effect ended up giving Harry a headache.

He’d asked Padma out because she was the only person in Ancient Runes other than Hermione who could keep up with him when it came to the practical side of Runes. Obviously, that wasn’t a good enough base for a good date.

“So, what happened between you and Daphne that made you want to hex her?” Harry asked, not that he really wanted to know. They’d exhausted their Runes talk back in Scrivenshafts, but Padma always seemed willing to talk about herself.

“Ugh, don’t get me started on her. We were supposed to arithmetically describe the Cheering Charm, and since it was more complex than the descriptions we had been doing, Vector had us working in pairs. As if I’d need help for something so simple, it’s not like it was anything difficult. I swear, the only thing worse than working with a slag like Greengrass would be working with an arrogant know-it-all like Granger.

“Of course, Greengrass was doing a pretty good imitation of Granger, with how she was trying to correct my calculations. Honestly, she thought she knew more about Arithmancy than me. How to lead a boy on, maybe, but I could be dead and know more about Arithmancy than her.”

“That doesn’t seem like a good reason to want to hex her,” Harry said mildly, trying not to groan at her attitude.

“If it was just that, I wouldn’t have even bothered with her. But she kept trying to correct my work, distracting me, and I wasn’t able to finish before class was over. If she had just let me work, I would have been able to finish and we both would have gotten full credit, but since she spent all class running her stupid mouth, I ended up with a zero for the day and an extra assignment. If Vector hadn’t been in the room, I would have hexed her then and there.”

Harry drained the last of his tea with a desperate gulp and dropped a few Galleons on the table. “Well, I’m sorry to hear about how that happened, but I just remembered an extra assignment I need to do for Potions, so I should probably get going. I’ll see you in Runes on Monday.”

Harry barely heard Padma say goodbye before he was out the door and heading up the street. He was so focused on his escape that he wasn’t paying attention as he ran straight into Neville and knocked the pudgy boy to the ground.

“Oh, sorry about that, Neville, let me give you a hand,” Harry said, pulling Neville to his feet.

“Thanks, Harry. Um, you haven’t seen Hermione, have you? I was supposed to meet her here, but I guess she found something better to do…”

“Crookshanks did not eat your stupid rat, Ron Weasley!”

Harry and Neville both looked up the street to where they heard Hermione’s voice. “I think I found her,” Harry chuckled.

“I found that evil cat’s hair on my bed, right next to the bloodstain it left when it ate Scabbers!” Ron shouted back.

Ron and Hermione were squared off in the middle of the street, glaring at each other. Neither one had drawn their wand yet, but from the looks on their faces, it wouldn’t take much for the spells to start flying.

“Crookshanks isn’t the only cat in the dorms, Ron! It could have been one of them.”

“They’ve never bothered him before, not since I had him, and not when Percy had him either! Your cat’s the one that had it out for him!”

“If you were really so concerned about your rat being eaten, you should have put it in a cage and not let it run around the dorms when there’s half a dozen cats that live there,” Hermione said nastily. Her hand moved to grab her wand, but Ron was faster.

“Slugulus Eructo!” Ron spat, using his favorite opening spell.

“Protego!” Harry cast, getting the shield in front of Hermione in time.

“What the hell are you thinking, Ron?” Neville shouted as he stepped between the two. “There’s rules against hexing people in Hogsmeade, and if Crookshanks did eat Scabbers, it’s not Hermione’s fault. I told you I’d seen Crookshanks trying to get into our room, you should have gotten some kind of cage for your rat or kept him with you! Don’t blame Hermione for something that was your fault!”

Neville was red-faced and panting, and he had his wand out. Harry knew that wouldn’t end well. Neville may have been a better spellcaster than he once was, but he was still no match for Ron, not if spells started flying.

Fortunately, Ron put his wand away. “I see how it is,” he spat. “My pet’s the one that gets eaten, and I’m the bad guy, everybody gangs up on me. Well, I’m not going to stand here and take this, I’m going back to the castle.”

“I can take care of myself, you know,” Hermione snapped as Ron stomped off. “I don’t need you two to protect me.”

“I was just passing by. You’re the one who nearly got hexed,” Harry shot back. “I guess next time I’ll just let you spend the afternoon spitting up slugs.”

With any hope of a good mood ruined for the day, Harry spun on his heel and shook his head. So much for a relaxing day in Hogsmeade.
MrRigger
In engineering, the work is only done when there is nothing left to add. In writing, the work is only done when there is nothing left to take away.

Check out Between Magic and Mount Justice
User avatar
MrRigger2
 
Posts: 3329
Joined: January 20th, 2011, 5:14 pm

Re: Between Magic and Mount Justice HP/Young Justice Xover

Unread postby MrRigger2 » April 21st, 2014, 5:05 pm

Part Eighty-Nine!
Spoiler: show
The exams the professors had spent so much time preparing them for finally arrived, and Harry was happy just to get them over with. Even if his Animagus study hadn’t resulted in anything more than some furry arms and a few embarrassing visits to Madam Pomfrey, learning about the advanced concepts made the written part of the Transfiguration exam a breeze. And if his teapot to tortoise test wasn’t quite as attractive as Hermione’s, Harry took solace in the fact that he did better than Zacharias, whose tortoise was still breathing steam by the time Professor McGonagall checked his work.

After a desperate lunch, it was time for the Charms exam, which was a mild disaster. Harry managed his series of charms well enough for full marks, but when it was Sally’s turn, she ended up flubbing the wand movements for the Cheering Charm. Instead of filling him with a happy, giggly feeling, Harry was filled with affection and lust. He managed to kiss Sally, Hannah, and Hermione before Professor Flitwick noticed what had happened and restrained him.

Tuesday morning brought the Care of Magical Creatures exam, where Harry and Susan, who was still blushing when she looked at him, had to keep a pair of Fire-Breathing Salamanders alive for an hour outside of the fire that birthed them. Hagrid kept the fire burning, so they didn’t have to worry about the salamanders keeling over dead because their birthing fire went out, but they did have to feed the salamanders pepper while avoiding any burns.

The afternoon was devoted to Potions, and Harry was happy with the consistency of his Confusing Concoction, at least until Justin managed to explode his cauldron. Nobody was hurt, but the metal fragments and extra ingredients that landed in his cauldron had Harry’s potion turn from the perplexing purple it was supposed to be to a rather garish green. The sight of it gave Professor Snape no small amount of pleasure as he marked Harry’s grade down accordingly.

The History of Magic exam was a windfall, because it let Harry catch up on the sleep he missed writing out his Astronomy exam the night before. He scribbled down everything he could remember on witch burnings, and then set his head down for a quick nap.

Professor Sprout had them demonstrate the best way to harvest Devil’s Snare while defending their plants from bowtruckles, and when they were done, Harry and the rest of the Hufflepuffs glared nastily at the dancing plants in the Hufflepuff Common Room as they treated their sunburns.

Professor Lupin spared no expense when it came to the Defense Against the Dark Arts exam. First, there was a deep pool that everyone had to swim across while avoiding the grasping hands of the grindylow, followed by squishy potholes infested by Red Caps. Then there was a fog-filled marsh they had to navigate without being fooled by a hinkypunk. Finally, Professor Lupin directed them into a trunk containing a boggart. Harry defeated the faux Scarecrow without much trouble, but Susan refused to even enter the trunk, knowing what was waiting for her inside. Harry wasn’t sure he could blame her.

Harry had Thursday afternoon off while Sally, Justin, and Hannah traipsed up to their Divination exam. He took advantage of the break to cram for his Ancient Runes exam the next morning.

Even with the extra studying, Harry wasn’t happy with his performance. He did fine with the practical exam, which was just to make a runic scheme that made their individual identifying rune light up and say their name when activated. However, the written portion was composed of translating runes and writing out their meanings and uses, and Professor Babbling was being deliberately tricky.

Still, when the exams were over and done with, Harry celebrated alongside everyone else. Granted, those taking Arithmancy and Muggle Studies still had to sit for their exams, so the official celebration couldn’t happen yet, but Harry did manage to find a pickup Quidditch game looking for another Chaser, which was more fun than translating dead languages any day of the week.

Quidditch was a lot of fun, even if Hufflepuff had never even been in the running for the Cup this year, since they never recovered from their embarrassing first match.

The Snitch was magically recalled once night had really fallen and it was apparent that neither Seeker was up to job of catching it before curfew, the game having been played straight through dinner. The rest of the players ran off as soon as the Sixth Year in charge called the game, leaving Harry as the last person available to put the equipment away.

After he finished floating the equipment back into the Quidditch shed, Harry made his way back up to the castle. Dinner was long done, and he was starving, so a trip to kitchens was in order. However, when he entered the Entrance Hall, he was greeted with the sight of Ron Weasley’s butt.

Ron was on his hands and knees, one arm stuffed under a decorative statue, and he was cursing softly.

Harry couldn’t help himself. “Ron, what in the world are you doing?”

Ron jumped, banging his head on the statue. He rubbed his head as he looked back at Harry. “I found him, Harry! Scabbers wasn’t dead after all, and I found him!” He turned back to the statue. “Now I just need to get him out from behind there.”

“And then you’ll have to apologize to Hermione for blaming his disappearance on her cat,” Harry said idly.

Ron scowled. “Yeah, I suppose so. Say, would you mind giving me a hand here? Scabbers is too scared to come to me on his own, probably been traumatized by all the cats in the castle. I just need you to try and spook him over to me. I was going to try and use some fireworks Fred and George gave me, but if you can help, that’ll probably work a lot better.”

Harry shrugged. “I suppose I can.” Catching a rat shouldn’t delay his trip to the kitchens by very long. He walked around to the other side of the statue and counted down from three. Harry’s wand made a bang like a firecracker, and Scabbers squeaked and ran. Ron grabbed the rat and pulled him in close.

“Argh! He bit me!” Ron shouted as he dropped his pet. “Why’d you bite me, Scabbers?”

Scabbers bolted for the still open Entrance Hall door, and with a yowling screech from the shadows, Crookshanks wasn’t far behind.

“Scabbers!” Ron cried, and ran after his rat.

“So much for a quick rat capture,” Harry muttered, but he had said he would help. Just because the job was a little harder than initially described, that was no reason to go back on his word.

Harry dashed after Ron, who was trying to hit Crookshanks with an Impediment Jinx, but between the cloudy night and the small profile of the cat, he wasn’t having much luck.

Ron and Harry chased Crookshanks towards the Whomping Willow, and Ron got lucky and tagged Crookshanks with the jinx as the cat tried to pounce on Scabbers.

“I’ve got you Scabbers!” Ron shouted happily as he grabbed for his pet.

“Ron, watch out!” Harry warned as something darted out of the shadows.

That something was an enormous, jet-black dog, and it bowled into Ron’s side, nearly knocking Scabbers from his grasp yet again, but Ron held onto the rat, even if he did lose his wand.

The black dog, which Harry now recognized as the stray he’d seen in Hogsmeade, clamped down on Ron’s arm and dragged him forward, closer to the Whomping Willow.

Could Sirius Black have enchanted a dog to kidnap a student for him? But why would it go after Ron?

Ron’s flailing slapped against the tree, and the Whomping Willow started to twist and writhe as both he and the dog disappeared down a hole at the bottom of the tree. Harry looked back at the castle. Whether the dog was rabid and attacking randomly or really had been enchanted by Sirius Black, there wasn’t any time to go find help.

Harry set off a trio of cannonblast charms and hoped they wouldn’t just get passed off as end of exam celebrations. He picked up Ron’s wand off the ground and looked at the Whomping Willow.

Just like dodging Poison Ivy’s plants, only with less poisonous spores.

The Whomping Willow thumped its thick branches against the ground, and Harry charged. Leaves and twigs scratched at his face and arms, but he managed to avoid the bone-crushing blows.

Just before he reached the trunk, a glancing blow caught Harry across the shoulder and knocked him the ground, but he rolled with the strike. He charged again, vaulting over one branch and sliding under another as he landed.

The slide took him to the base of the tree, and Harry dropped down the hole hidden amongst the roots. His wandtip lit up as he found himself in a squat tunnel, one he had to bend over double to avoid hitting the ceiling. Harry snuck down the tunnel as fast as he could, but he couldn’t see Ron or the dog.

The tunnel was taking him away from Hogwarts, and Harry wondered where it was taking him. Was this how Black had gotten into the school?

Harry followed the tunnel for well over a mile before it started to incline. He was just glad there hadn’t been any branches or side tunnels to search. The tunnel twisted sharply at the end and Harry exited into a dusty, dirty, damaged room. Paint was peeling off the walls, the furniture had been smashed to bits, and all the windows were boarded up. What looked like bloodstains covered the floor.

Harry bent down and sighed as he saw that the stains were old, very old. If they were bloodstains, they didn’t belong to Ron. Harry peered out of the cracks in boarded up window and saw a moonlit forest.

“The Shrieking Shack…”

A thump and a scuffle from upstairs caught Harry’s attention. He extinguished his wandtip and made his way up the crumbling stairs. It wasn’t hard to know where to go. Only one door was open, and a wide path had been wiped away from the thick dust where Ron had been dragged through it.

Harry took cover at the wall and peeked into the room. Ron was struggling with a dirty, unkempt man, who was so unhealthily thin and pale that he looked like a skeleton. It wasn’t a perfect match to the picture in the newspaper, but Harry recognized him.

Sirius Black.
We're coming in on the home stretch, but circumstances are a bit different. I hope I pull it off to everyone's satisfaction.

MrRigger
In engineering, the work is only done when there is nothing left to add. In writing, the work is only done when there is nothing left to take away.

Check out Between Magic and Mount Justice
User avatar
MrRigger2
 
Posts: 3329
Joined: January 20th, 2011, 5:14 pm

Re: Between Magic and Mount Justice HP/Young Justice Xover

Unread postby MrRigger2 » April 23rd, 2014, 3:05 am

Part Ninety!
Spoiler: show
“Get off him, Black!” Harry snarled, his voice full of rage. He grabbed the murderer by the shoulders and hauled him off Ron, throwing him into the boarded up window, knocking one of the boards loose and dust fell from the ceiling. Black lunged at Ron, but Harry punched him in the jaw, sending him sprawling.

“Get out of here, Ron. I don’t think I’m going to want witnesses for this,” Harry said. His voice promised violence.

“No! Don’t let him leave!” Black howled and crawled towards Ron. Harry stopped him by stomping on his hand. His shoes weren’t as heavy as his Harrier boots, but they worked well enough for this.

“Me?” Ron gulped. “What do you want with me?”

“Not you, him!” Black snarled, pointing a bony finger in Ron’s general direction. Ron spun around, but no one was there.

“You better start making sense, Black,” Harry growled, just like interrogating a Gotham street thug. “What are you talking about?”

“The rat in his hands! He’s why they’re dead, him and me.”

Harry eased the pressure off Black’s hand just a little. “My parents?”

Black snatched his hand back and clutched it to his chest. “Kill me if you want to, Harry, but you need to know the whole story first. And I need to kill the rat.”

“Nobody’s killing anybody tonight, Black. I’m not a murderer, but you killed my parents, and for that, I’ll make you wish you were dead.”

“I already do, Harry, I already do,” Black whispered.

“Then start talking, Black, and don’t lie to me. I’ll know if you’re lying.”

Black laughed, and he sounded unhinged. Harry had experience with that kind of laugh. “I don’t even know where to begin…” he trailed off.

“My parents went into hiding and you betrayed them. Why don’t we start there?” Harry snapped, looming over Black.

“I betrayed them, but not the way you think, Harry. I could never give them to Voldemort.” Ron flinched at the name, but didn’t say anything. “Your father and I were best friends, ever since First Year,” he croaked, trying to work out the words. Harry watched his face, but he wasn’t lying. “Inseparable, him and me, and Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew, all four of us, and everybody knew it. James even had me be his best man when he married your mum, Harry, and god, she was beautiful that day. Like an angel, she was.”

“Focus, Black,” Harry growled.

Black shook his head and his eyes cleared a little bit. “When they went into hiding, they used magic called the Fidelius Charm. It can hide a location completely, but only with someone’s help. The Secret Keeper.”

“And you were the Secret Keeper for my parents, I know. Tell me something new.”

“No! No, I wasn’t their Secret Keeper, everyone just thought I was. I was the obvious choice, the one everyone was supposed to see. Did it all the time in school, show the people what they want and they never pay attention to what’s really going on. So I convinced your father to use Peter Pettigrew instead.”

“And then you killed him.”

“I didn’t! I wanted too, but I didn’t!”

“You’re lying, Black. You killed him and a dozen muggles the morning after my parents were killed. Blew him up.”

“No, he escaped! Cut his finger off and he blew up the street!”

Harry grabbed the front of Black’s robes and slammed him against the window, breaking the boards and hanging him halfway out the new opening. “And just how did he get away with that, that nobody ever caught him?”

“Animagus! He was an unregistered Animagus, we all were. I was a dog, your father was a stag, and Peter was a rat! That rat, right there!” He pointed a crooked finger at Scabbers.

0oOo0

Ron’s mind was reeling. He’d found Scabbers, who he was sure was dead, but then he was kidnapped by a dog, only it wasn’t a dog, it was Sirius Black, and now Scabbers was supposed to be an Animagus too?

And Harry, god, Ron didn’t know what to think. Harry was a good duelist, and a good spellcaster in class, but Ron had never seen this side of him. Harry was…scary. There was no better word for it. The Hufflepuff had always been a good sport in Dueling Club, fought fair and never got mad, not even when he lost. Now he was like a completely different person. It was like he didn’t even care that Black was a violent madman, and he was just a thirteen year old. Harry just came in and attacked Black, didn’t even use his wand, he was just throwing him around, fighting like a muggle. And it was working.

That the crazy murderer wasn’t the scariest person in the room…Ron didn’t know how to react to that.

“Ron!” Harry snapped. Apparently it wasn’t the first time he’d tried to get his attention.

“What?” Ron was stunned.

“Is what he said true? He’s an Animagus, it wasn’t a bewitched or conjured dog that brought you here?”

“Oh, um, yeah, he transformed, just like McGonagall does.”

Harry pulled Black back in the window and threw him on the ground. “Then at least that part of the story is true. Ron, give me the rat.”

“What? He’s not an Animagus, he’s just Scabbers!”

“No he’s not, he’s Peter!” Black raved. “Saw your family’s picture in the paper when Fudge came to Azkaban, and I saw your rat. I’d seen Peter transform a thousand times, I knew it was him. And he’s missing a toe, right where Peter cut off his finger.”

Ron clutched Scabbers tighter to his chest, and Scabbers struggled and squeaked. “He can’t be,” he said, but the words sounded hollow even to his own ears.

“There’s an easy way to test,” Harry interjected. “Give me the rat. There’s a charm to detect transfigurations. It won’t hurt Scabbers if he’s just a rat, but it’ll tell us if he’s really an Animagus in disguise.”

Ron hesitated and stared at Harry’s outstretched hand. After a moment, his own hands trembling, he handed Scabbers to Harry.

Harry pulled Ron’s wand out of his pocket and underhanded it to Ron. He nodded at Black. “If he moves, stun him.”

Ron nodded, but he was looking at Scabbers as Harry began the charm. At first, it looked like nothing was going to happen, but then Scabbers glowed blue. “Does that mean…?”

Harry nodded. “Animagus. Or at least transfigured.” He tried a Finishing Charm. “And if it was a basic transfiguration, that would have worked.”

“The Animagus Reversal Charm, that would force him to revert,” Black said. “I can do it.”

Harry glared at him. Ron flinched, and he wasn’t even the focus of the look. “If you think I’m giving you a wand, you’re crazier than I thought.” He looked at the rat in his hands. “You’re going to transform, or I’m going to start breaking bones. I’ve already broken Black’s fingers, so if you think I’m going to have trouble roughing up a rat, you’ve got another thing coming.”

Scabbers never stopped struggling.

Harry shook him, hard. Ron wanted to yell at him, to stop him from hurting his pet, but with the way Harry was acting, the words just wouldn’t come out.

“Pay attention,” Harry growled. Scabbers stopped struggling and looked up at Harry. “I know what you are, and if Black is telling the truth, I know who you are. If you don’t transform right now, I’m taking you back to Hogwarts and feeding you to Filch’s cat. One piece at a time.”

Ron believed him.

There was a soft pop, and Scabbers began to grow. McGonagall had transformed faster, hadn’t she? Maybe it had been so long, he barely knew how, anymore. Ron could see all the parts of him shift and change, and tried not to gag. He’d let that man sleep in his bed? Ron’s throat burned with bile, but he swallowed it down.

He was a short man, barely as tall as Ron, and balding. What hair he did have looked like it had been turned white out of fright, and he looked like he used to be fat, but now his skin was almost hanging off of him, he was so thin.

“Traitor!” Black snarled, and lunged for the man. Harry turned and stuck his wand in the hollow just under Black’s eye.

“Get back, Black. I’m the one in charge tonight.”

Black raised his hands slowly, but he wasn’t looking at the wand. “I’m going to kill you, Peter, for what you did to them.”

“N-no, Sirius, you’ve got it all wrong,” Pettigrew squeaked. “P-please, Harry, protect me, he’s going to kill me…”

Harry was shorter than Pettigrew, but Ron could barely tell with the way he shrank under Harry’s glare. “Black’s not the one you should be worried about. Innocent men don’t spend twelve years hiding as a rat.”

“I was hiding from him! He was going to escape and come to kill me!” He looked like he was going to continue pleading, but Harry punched him in the nose.

“Stop lying to me, Pettigrew, I can see it written all across your face.”

“You weren’t hiding from me, you were hiding from Voldemort’s other followers, weren’t you, Peter?” Sirius taunted. “I was in there with them, I heard them howling. They blame you, Peter. They think the double-crosser double-crossed them, and led Voldemort to his downfall on purpose. The ones who never made it to Azkaban can’t be too much happier with you, they’re the ones you were hiding from, weren’t you Peter?” His voice rose to a shout.

“No, no! If I was hiding from them, it’s because I put you in Azkaban—Sirius Black, their best spy!” Pettigrew squeaked desperately.

“Me, a spy?” Black barked out a laugh. “I’d die before I gave Voldemort anything! Like you should have.”

Pettigrew glanced around the room fearfully and clutched at Harry’s robes. “You can’t believe him, Harry, he’s lying, he’s lying,” Pettigrew pleaded.

Harry grabbed Pettigrew’s throat and forced his chin up until he made eye contact. “Don’t try to fight me. I can do this whether you’re conscious or not. Legilimens!”

Ron watched as Harry stared deep into Pettigrew’s eyes. Black stepped towards the pair, and Ron pointed his wand at him. “Don’t get any closer! Stay right there!” Ron noticed his wand was shaking. He tried to hold it still, but his hand didn’t seem to be listening.

Black wrapped his arms around himself, like he was cold. Was it getting colder? It was summer, it shouldn’t be getting colder. “I’m sorry about the bite, but I had to get to Peter,” Black said, and he hardly sounded crazy at all. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

Ron glanced at his arm. It was a little bloody, and there were a couple puncture marks that were still oozing. He hadn’t even noticed them, with everything that was going on. “I’m okay.”

“You’re bleeding,” Black pointed out, but didn’t say anything more about it. “I didn’t mean to draw you into this. It was just supposed to be me and Peter.”

“Oh yeah? You’d kill him, and then what?” Ron wasn’t sure he really wanted to know, but if Black was talking, he wasn’t attacking.

Black looked dumbstruck. “Hah! Never really got that far. I was always the doer, James was the planner.” He looked at Harry and Pettigrew. “Are you two friends?”

Ron shrugged, but kept his wand pointed at Black. “I dunno. I know him from Dueling Club, mostly. We’ve got some classes together, but he usually works with the other Hufflepuffs.”

Black shook his head. “Hufflepuff, I don’t know how that happened. James and Lily were Gryffindors, through and through. Certainly brave enough, following me here without even going to a teacher.”

“He works harder than anybody else in the year. Guess the Sorting Hat saw that in him,” Ron reasoned. Movement caught his eye, but it wasn’t Black.

Harry brought his other hand to Pettigrew’s neck, and he started to squeeze. “You got them killed. You got other people killed. All to save your own skin.”

Black’s attention snapped to Harry. “Don’t kill him, Harry, don’t do it. I couldn’t face your father knowing I let you become a murderer.”

Harry didn’t look away from Pettigrew. “I’m not going to kill him,” he said, even as he kept choking Pettigrew. “He probably deserves it, but I won’t kill him. I’m not even sure how many people died because of the information he passed, but it was definitely more than just my parents. Too many deaths.” Harry released Pettigrew violently, throwing him back. “But one more tonight won’t solve anything. He’s going to clear your name, and then the Ministry can feed him to the Dementors, for all I care. Stupefy.”

Harry added a Body Bind and some ropes, as well as what looked like a Confundus Charm as he spoke. “Voldemort got to him early. Hurt him, threatened to hurt his family. Loyalty from fear, it started out as, but he changed. Hurting other people, it felt like power to him, and he liked having power. He saw Voldemort as the winning side, and made his choice. Then Voldemort was defeated, and he didn’t have anywhere to go. He’d betrayed his friends, the Death Eaters thought he’d betrayed them, he was already running when you tracked him down, Black. Then he faked his death, and if you never broke out of Azkaban, he would have spent the rest of his life as a rat than face up to what he did.”

Black spit on the Stunned Pettigrew, and sat on the bed, clutching himself and shivering. “He never could take responsibility, he’d let us take the fall if he could. I didn’t mind, I liked the attention…” Black drifted off, and Ron could see a wispy outline of his breath. Ron hugged himself, feeling the cold too.

Harry noticed something, Ron wasn’t sure what, and rushed to the broken out window. “The Dementors are coming,” he warned urgently.

“They patrol Hogsmeade at night…” Black muttered. “Had to stick to the caves…”

“And they’re attracted to strong emotions,” Harry continued. “So much anger and fear here tonight, we were like a beacon leading them straight here. We need to get back to Hogwarts.” He flicked his wand and Pettigrew levitated. “Back through the tunnel. Move, now!”

Ron was the first out of the room, but he could see the black cloak of a Dementor through the window already. How could they escape when the Dementors were already so close?

A Stinging Hex flared across his leg and Ron looked back. “Keep moving Weasley, no time for breaks!” Harry roared as he floated Pettigrew and half-supported Black.

Ron noticed he had stalled when he clutched the banister and nodded. “Right, keep moving.”

They made it to the tunnel, but Ron could still feel the presence of the Dementors. They didn’t feel like they were getting any further away. Were they following them down the tunnel?

“Harry, I don’t know if we can do this,” he panted as he half-crawled through the tunnel.

“Of course we can. You know why?” Harry grunted. There was a soft pop, and Black was that big dog again. “Cause tonight, we’re the good guys, and the good guys always win.”

Ron didn’t say anything, but it sounded to him like Harry was trying to convince himself of that fact.

They made it to the end of the tunnel, and Ron could hear the Whomping Willow creaking above them. “What do we do now?” There was no way they could get past the branches, the tree would kill them, and if they waited, the Dementors coming down the tunnel would get them.

Harry stuck his head out of the hole and shined his wand light around.

“There’s a knot on the trunk.” Black was human again. When had that happened? “Press it, and it’ll freeze the tree.”

Harry shook his head. “No good. The Dementors have crossed onto the grounds again. They aren’t right by the hole, but there’s no way all of us could make it to the castle before they caught us.”

“So what do we do?” Ron asked again. Was that frost on the tunnel walls? He wasn’t sure.

“Do you still have those fireworks you mentioned?” Harry asked.

Ron was confused for a moment, but then he searched his pockets. “Yeah, here you go. How are fireworks going to help us?”

“They’re going to be a signal. Engorgio,” Harry cast. He pulled off his amulet and set it on Pettigrew’s face. “That’s our way out of here. Everybody make sure you’re touching it.”

Harry stuck his head up through the hole again and carved a strange symbol into the Whomping Willow’s trunk with his wand. “Get ready, cause we’re going!” He set off the fireworks, and the enlarged fireworks shot into the sky as the Whomping Willow went mad.

Then Harry was back in the tunnel, and there was a hook behind Ron’s navel, and then they were gone.
I didn't mean for this part to be so much longer than the regular sized update, but I couldn't find a good stopping point. Oh well.

MrRigger
Last edited by MrRigger2 on April 23rd, 2014, 7:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
In engineering, the work is only done when there is nothing left to add. In writing, the work is only done when there is nothing left to take away.

Check out Between Magic and Mount Justice
User avatar
MrRigger2
 
Posts: 3329
Joined: January 20th, 2011, 5:14 pm

Re: Between Magic and Mount Justice HP/Young Justice Xover

Unread postby JamestheFox » April 23rd, 2014, 4:50 pm

Well, that... changes a lot.

Also, because I can...
Spoiler: show
"I-I didn't mean to-" Pettigrew cried. "I w-was always J-James' friend, and deep down I-"

"It's not who you are underneath that matters, but what you do that defines you!" Harry replied in a gravelly, nigh-uncomprehensible snarl, slamming Peter into the wall.

"Oh god! Let me go, let me go, and I swear to Merlin-"

"SWEAR TO MEEEEEE!!!"
I'm not sorry. Cause I'm Baaaaatmaaaannnnnnnnn.
GM of Kingdom Hearts VD: Visions of Destiny. You never know who you'll run into next. Until your Vision shows you.
Shinobi in Star Wars GM. Kyo's Data here.
Pokewizard Quest GM. Harry's Pokedex here.
User avatar
JamestheFox
 
Posts: 1013
Joined: September 10th, 2011, 4:17 am
Location: A world beyond imagination, but just inside fantasy.

Re: Between Magic and Mount Justice HP/Young Justice Xover

Unread postby Ristridin » April 23rd, 2014, 6:29 pm

Guess Lupin didn't get the Map this time... Also Sirius pleading to Harry for Peter's life; funny that. I don't remember about the amulet/portkey; when did Harry get that? It didn't seem pass-phrase triggered (not sure whether that's canonically possible in any case; the wiki only suggests Portkeys that activate at a specific time, or Portkeys that activate upon being touched), so why/how did it activate when it did?

You have two parts Eighty-Nine by the way.
Kingdom Hearts: Visions of Destiny Manual
User avatar
Ristridin
 
Posts: 763
Joined: January 23rd, 2011, 12:46 pm

Re: Between Magic and Mount Justice HP/Young Justice Xover

Unread postby MrRigger2 » April 23rd, 2014, 7:29 pm

Well, that... changes a lot.

Also, because I can...
Spoiler: show
"I-I didn't mean to-" Pettigrew cried. "I w-was always J-James' friend, and deep down I-"

"It's not who you are underneath that matters, but what you do that defines you!" Harry replied in a gravelly, nigh-uncomprehensible snarl, slamming Peter into the wall.

"Oh god! Let me go, let me go, and I swear to Merlin-"

"SWEAR TO MEEEEEE!!!"
I'm not sorry. Cause I'm Baaaaatmaaaannnnnnnnn.
You should not feel sorry. I am perfectly okay with this.
Guess Lupin didn't get the Map this time... Also Sirius pleading to Harry for Peter's life; funny that. I don't remember about the amulet/portkey; when did Harry get that? It didn't seem pass-phrase triggered (not sure whether that's canonically possible in any case; the wiki only suggests Portkeys that activate at a specific time, or Portkeys that activate upon being touched), so why/how did it activate when it did?
Lupin did not get the Map this time, because the Twins never gave it to Harry. Since Harry didn't have the Map, Lupin couldn't confiscate it from him. Thus, he never saw Peter on the Map, and he didn't leave to chase after everybody. Instead, he had a relatively peaceful night as a Wolfsbane'd up Werewolf.

Sirius wasn't really pleading with Harry to let Pettigrew live, cause he's more than willing to see Peter six feet under. However, he was telling the truth, he didn't want to have to deal with letting Harry become a murderer at thirteen, that's just not something he's willing to let happen. He's got enough on his conscience at the moment.

The Portkey they used was Harry's emergency escape Portkey, that was arranged for his use way back when his attending Hogwarts was first being discussed. He used it during Year One, when all the adults disappeared, if you remember that little plotline. He also uses it to go home during Christmas Break, rather than ride the Hogwarts Express and fly home on a plane. No need to spend the money if you don't have to.

As for the other part of your concern, I admit, I hadn't actually looked up the mechanics of Portkeys. Thought I knew. In this particular case, I don't think I'm going to change it, because I've already used it a couple times, and altering it would require reworking the story a little bit, though I may revise it should I ever make an official post of this, rather than just a forum thread.

The way I see Harry's emergency Portkey working, it only works between Hogwarts and Wayne Manor, and only between those places. So, if Harry is in Hogsmeade, he has to go back to Hogwarts if he wants to bug out. He actually did just this, in Year One, when the events of Misplaced occurred. There is an activation phrase to get it to work, "There's no place like home", but Ron was feeling a bit overwhelmed at that particular moment, and wasn't really paying attention.
You have two parts Eighty-Nine by the way.
I did, but it's fixed now. Thank you for catching that.

MrRigger
In engineering, the work is only done when there is nothing left to add. In writing, the work is only done when there is nothing left to take away.

Check out Between Magic and Mount Justice
User avatar
MrRigger2
 
Posts: 3329
Joined: January 20th, 2011, 5:14 pm

Re: Between Magic and Mount Justice HP/Young Justice Xover

Unread postby MrRigger2 » May 5th, 2014, 7:23 pm

Part Ninety-One!
Spoiler: show
They landed on fresh green grass, warm under the summer sun, and Harry snapped another stunner at Pettigrew. Multiple stunners weren’t really healthy in a short period of time, but Harry didn’t want to chance Pettigrew waking up, and he didn’t know how Portkeys interacted with other magic. “Everybody okay?”

Ron groaned. “I think so.” Then he rolled over and threw up in the grass.

Black was dry-heaving. “Where are we?”

Harry gestured up to the top of the hill. “Welcome to stately Wayne Manor. We should be safe here, at least until we figure out what to do.”

“What is Master Harry Potter sir doing here?” Dobby squeaked as he appeared by Harry’s elbow. “Sir should be in school, Dobby was not ready—“

“It’s fine, Dobby, it’s fine. I need you to go tell Alfred to call Doctor Thompkins. I think we’re going to need her. And the four of us are going to need a ride up to the Manor.”

“At once, Master Harry Potter sir!”

“No, do them one at a time.”

Dobby saluted and disappeared. Harry looked over and saw Ron was still painting the lawn with his dinner. Apparently feasts and international Portkeys didn’t mix too well. Harry wasn’t feeling too good himself, and was glad he’d missed dinner.

Alfred showed up about ten minutes later driving the golf cart that Harry still wasn’t allowed to use, not after the jousting incident. “Oh my, Master Harry, you do look a sight. I trust there’s a story behind this?”

Harry groaned as he pushed himself up. “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you later, Alfred. Bruce’ll need to hear it too.”

“I’m sure he’ll be delighted to hear it. Might I ask who your visitors are?”

Harry was pretty sure Alfred was mocking him, but he could never be sure. Especially not with the way his head was spinning. He pointed at Black. “That’s Sirius Black, one of my dad’s best friends, who spent twelve years in jail for betraying my parents to Voldemort and killing Peter Pettigrew.” He shifted his finger. “And that’s Peter Pettigrew. Like I said, it’s a long story.”

Alfred gave him a look that said he was forgetting his manners. “And that’s Ron Weasley. He kind of got caught up in all this, and I swear I’ll tell you the story as soon as my head stops throbbing.”

Harry flicked his wand and levitated Pettigrew. He flopped onto the seat next to Alfred, leaving the rear facing caddy seats for Ron and Sirius, who were still looking distinctly green around the gills. “Everybody on. Alfred, you’re gonna want to drive slow, cause I don’t know how much Ron has left in the tank, and I don’t feel like finding out.”

0oOo0

“I don’t know why I still put up with this kind of madness, Mister Potter,” Doctor Thompkins said as she swabbed his cuts.

“You know you love us, Doc,” Dick chuckled. “Besides life would be boring without us around to spice things up.”

“I run a free clinic in Park Row, and I have since before Crime Alley got the name, young man. I could stand to do with a little boring.”

Considering how uneventful the majority of the year was at Hogwarts, Harry had to personally disagree, even if going for a bite to eat did end up with him finding the man who betrayed his parents, uncovering a secret kept for more than a decade, and fleeing the country.

“Are the others going to be alright?” Harry asked after his moment of introspection. “Ron and Black, at least. As long as he’s not about to die, I don’t really care about Pettigrew at the moment.”

Doctor Thompkins sighed. “Nobody’s in immediate danger, as far as I can tell. Mr. Weasley and Mr. Black have concussions, but I don’t foresee any complications at the moment. I cleaned Mr. Weasley’s cuts and scraps and told him to get some rest. Seemed emotionally exhausted, in my professional opinion. Mr. Black is another case entirely. He’s very malnourished, and has been for quite some time. Physically, he’s suffering a concussion, as I mentioned earlier, but he’s also got some bruised ribs and various lacerations, a good number of which are infected, and that’s without getting into the psychological trauma he’s suffered. I’m not a psychologist, but even in the brief talk I had with Mr. Black, it’s clear he’s got a tough road ahead of him.”

Harry nodded. “Is there anything else?”

“I haven’t gotten the chance to examine Mr. Pettigrew yet, but Mr. Black does appear to have a case of fleas that he’ll want to get rid of as soon as possible.”

“Oh, Alfred’s gonna be happy about that,” Dick muttered. “I’ll go tell him, try and pre-empt any freak-out over fleas in the manor.”

“Like he’d ever let us see him as anything less than unflappable,” Harry said as Doctor Thompkins pronounced him done. “I’m going to go talk to Bruce. I need to figure out what the next step from here is.”

0oOo0

Albus Dumbledore popped a lemon drop into his mouth as he awaited the Arthur and Molly’s arrival. No doubt they’d be arriving shortly, as Minerva had gone to explain the situation thirty minutes ago.

Not that Albus fully understood the situation himself. Fawkes had alerted him when the Dementors first breached the wards, and he was still notifying the Professors and getting ready to drive them off when a series of explosions attracted the attention of the entire castle.

Scattering the Dementors and forcing them back from the grounds was difficult, especially since they weren’t concentrated in one spot like their last intrusion. He’d have to have words with Cornelius about their removal, since it was clear the Azkaban handlers that were on loan couldn’t keep them corralled properly.

Once he’d dealt with the Dementors, he’d had to deal with the Whomping Willow, which was still smoldering in places. Honestly, he wasn’t Bartemius Crouch, he didn’t speak Tree, so how was he supposed to tell it to stop flailing around and let them extinguish the flames? It settled down after Albus managed soak most of the branches and put out the largest fires, but Pomona was likely going to be soothing it all summer long to get it back in treetop shape.

Of course, that wasn’t the end of it. After the Whomping Willow had calmed down, Pomona had noticed a rune burned into the base of the trunk. A closer inspection and a consultation with Bathsheda revealed that it was Mister Potter’s identifying rune, the same rune he’d marked his classwork with.

That pointed Mister Potter being the culprit behind the fireworks, and a quick check of the wards showed that his emergency Portkey had indeed been triggered. Given the circumstances, Albus ordered all the students back to their dorms for the night, and requested the Heads of House to make sure Mister Potter was the only one missing from the grounds.

He wasn’t. Whatever had happened to Mister Potter, the youngest Mister Weasley was caught up in it as well.

The knock Albus was expecting finally came. “Come in, Minerva,” he called.

The Weasleys followed Minerva into his office with Molly red-faced and breathing hard, while Arthur seemed to be holding onto a sense of calm, for his wife, if nothing else. “Where’s my son?” Molly asked without preamble. “Minerva said he’d been attacked by Dementors!”

Minerva gave him a slight shake of her head from her position behind Molly. Molly was a lovely woman, but she could become rather hysterical when her children were involved, not that Albus blamed her.

“The exact course of events is still unclear at the moment, Molly. However, the Dementors did trespass onto Hogwarts grounds, and Ron has not yet been located. Even so, I believe your son will be returned to you safe and sound.”

“How? We don’t even know where he is right now!” Molly wailed.

Arthur put a comforting arm around his wife. “Headmaster, if the Dementors came onto the grounds, doesn’t that mean they were chasing Sirius Black?”

Molly gasped. Albus held up a hand before she could say anything. “There wasn’t any sign of Sirius Black tonight, and there hasn’t been a confirmed sighting in quite some time. Furthermore, I suspect I know where Ron is, I just haven’t had an opportunity to confirm my suspicions just yet.”

Almost as if on cue, a house elf appeared to the left of Albus’s desk. “Master Harry Potter told Dobby to deliver this message to Professor Dumbledore, sir, so here is the letter,” Dobby said in a rush, holding up an envelope.

Albus took the envelope and slit it open with the ornate letter opener Griselda Marchbanks sent him when he was promoted from Transfiguration Professor to Headmaster. He quickly scanned the contents and the letter fell from his hands.

“Oh dear.”
MrRigger
In engineering, the work is only done when there is nothing left to add. In writing, the work is only done when there is nothing left to take away.

Check out Between Magic and Mount Justice
User avatar
MrRigger2
 
Posts: 3329
Joined: January 20th, 2011, 5:14 pm

Re: Between Magic and Mount Justice HP/Young Justice Xover

Unread postby jgkitarel » May 6th, 2014, 5:06 pm

"Oh dear."

Well, that's an understated way of saying a major political and legal shitstorm is brewing. On the other hand, congrats, Ron, you've just visited another country, without having to pay a knut for it.

Yeah, things are about to get messy for several people, as now that Black as successfully escaped to the USA, which tends to take a very dim view of certain miscarriages of justice, like not bothering with a trial. Regardless of whether he was guilty or not, you need the formality of a trial in order to make it all nice and legally tight.
Also, I have to punch you, jgkitarel, because I spent a lot of time on the nanoha wiki trying to locate information on mages being trained due to being above a certain rank, only to remember and confirm that you were the one that came up with that. - Phht
Don't forget: Mass Effect is powered by magic space rocks. Evangelion is powered by Your Mom.
From his new fic Long Night of the Harvest

My current project on FFN, Mystic Knight Online
User avatar
jgkitarel
 
Posts: 2534
Joined: January 20th, 2011, 5:14 pm
Location: D.C - Baltimore Area

Re: Between Magic and Mount Justice HP/Young Justice Xover

Unread postby MrRigger2 » May 8th, 2014, 12:16 pm

Part Ninety-Two!
Spoiler: show
“I can’t believe we’re in the States,” Ron said. “Isn’t it supposed to be nothing but savages and dark wizards over here?”

“Since I’m neither a savage nor a dark wizard, I’m going to go ahead and say no,” Harry said as he led Ron through the Manor. He didn’t seem like one for exploration, but it wasn’t worth taking a chance on him discovering the Batcave. “I haven’t really gotten involved with the local Wizarding Culture, but I don’t think you can just tar everybody with the same brush like that. Especially since the Salem Witches Institute has won awards for their academic programs.”

“I guess,” Ron shrugged. “So you live like a Muggle whenever you’re not at Hogwarts? How do you stand not using magic?”

Harry chuckled. “Magic isn’t as regulated in America. They don’t scan for underage magic over here, since they have more pressing matters to deal with.”

“That’s so unfair,” Ron grumbled.

“That’s life. France doesn’t monitor underage magic either, but in their case, I think it’s because they underestimate muggles. I mean, they send out Obliviators, which I still think is a terrible idea, if magic is performed right in front of muggles, but otherwise, they don’t care who casts magic or where.”

“And I have to de-gnome the garden by hand.”

“Like I said. That’s life.” Harry turned the corner and opened the door. “Welcome to the entertainment room.”

“Is that a tellyvision?” Ron furrowed his brow. “It doesn’t look like the one Dad plays around with in his garage.”

“Yeah, I bet it doesn’t, but I bet you’ll like this one. Let me show you how to work the remote…”

0oOo0

“So, you took in Harry?” Sirius asked, trying to break the silence.

“Of course,” Bruce said easily, browsing through the liquor cabinet. “It started out as a temporary situation after what happened to his relatives. But by the time we discovered that there wasn’t anyone else that was looking to take him in, well, he and Dick were already good friends, so we made it a permanent arrangement.”

Bruce turned back to Sirius, who was already looking better, simply having experienced a thorough scrubbing and change of clothes. Actually getting better would be a longer road, but it wouldn’t do to undersell the effects a hot bath and clean clothes could have on a person.

Sirius nodded. “You did a good job,” he said, staring at his glass of juice. Alcohol wasn’t on the Doctor Thompkins Recovery Diet, even if he really felt like he could use a drink. “It was like seeing James again. He tried to do the right thing, even if it was dangerous. Maybe even especially if it was dangerous.” Sirius rubbed his jaw. “Just wish Harry hadn’t hit me quite so hard.”

“He can be a bit rambunctious,” Bruce admitted. “I’m just glad no one was seriously hurt. Can you imagine?”

Sirius laughed weakly. He was fairly certain he could. Bruce continued. “So, once all this is over and done with, what do you plan to do?”

Sirius shook his head. “I never thought I’d get this far. I’d offer to let Harry come stay with me, I’m his godfather, you know…” He trailed off, looking around the opulent sitting room. “But I can’t offer him anything like this. I haven’t even tried to get into my old family home yet, and even if I can, there’s nothing there but bad memories.”

“Well, it’s not like I’m anxious to get rid of Harry, and you’re coming out of a bad situation. Why don’t you head down to Aruba for a few weeks, get your head together?” Bruce said as he finally sat down, drink in hand. “A little time on the beach and some girls in bikinis always helps me de-stress.”

Sirius thought about that for a moment. A beach vacation would be fun, and it might be just what the doctor ordered. And if not, the girls in bikinis certainly wouldn’t hurt anything.

“No, I can’t do that,” he said after another minute of thought. “I’ve abandoned Harry too many times, I can’t just leave him again. Even if he doesn’t need me, I think I need to be there for him. Or at least try to.”

Bruce smiled and took a long drink from his glass. “Sounds like you’ve got your head on straight already,” he said happily. “But are you really sure you’re ready for a teenager? Not to be crass, but you’re still technically a fugitive.”

“I’ll figure it out, somehow,” Sirius said, but his voice wavered just a little.

Bruce looked thoughtful. “Well, why don’t we ease it into it? I like to think I’ve done a good job with Harry so far, and you’re going to need some time to recover from your ordeal. You can stay at my penthouse in the city, I don’t use it that often, and I can hire a private nurse to help you recover. Harry can visit you as often as he likes, but he doesn’t have to get used to living in a new place with someone he’s just met. Everybody wins.”

Sirius snorted. “Are you sure you’re not related to the Potters? You’re a bit broad in the shoulders, but otherwise you’ve got the look, and James’s father offered to put me up after my mother kicked me out. Yes, your idea will probably work best.” Sirius drained the last of his juice and yawned. “Assuming Fudge doesn’t just send a bunch of Aurors to drag me back kicking and screaming after that letter we sent them.”

0oOo0

“Asylum!” Fudge slammed the letter onto his desk. “Sirius Black seeking asylum? Does he think we’re mad? He’s a murderer.”

“Read on, Cornelius,” Dumbledore said. “I doubt you’ll like rest of the letter much better.”

Fudge scanned the rest of the paper and sank back into his chair. “You’ve read this, Amelia?” he confirmed, gesturing weakly at her. “What are our options?”

“I did have a chance to read it, while we were waiting for you to get back from lunch,” Amelia Bones said, somewhat irritated. “Given the claims in the letter, our options are limited.”

“Well, we can’t let him walk free,” Fudge insisted. “Black killed over a dozen people that we know of, and he’s You-Know-Who’s right hand man!”

“You think I don’t know that, Minister? I am the Head of Magical Law Enforcement, I am aware of just who Sirius Black is and what he’s done. Now, if he’d had a trial back when he was first captured, this would be somewhat easier. Since he was permanently detained as a terrorist, however, things become stickier.”

Bones narrowed her eyes and frowned. “Now, unless you want to trespass on foreign soil and bring him back by force—“

“Which, as a representative from the International Council of Wizards, I strongly advise against doing,” Dumbledore interjected.

Fudged waved his hand, motioning for them to go on. “Let’s save that for a last resort.”

“Then our best option is to cooperate with the Americans to get Black back in our custody,” Bones said. “Peter Pettigrew is dead, so his claims should be easy to prove false, at which point we will graciously take him off the hands of the American Marshalls and throw him back into Azkaban.”

“Fine,” Fudge agreed, clearly displeased with the whole situation. “How soon can we do this? I know the Americans can barely get a wand to work, much less a government, but having that madman back behind bars will mean nothing but good press.”

“I have a few friends over there I can speak to,” Bones said. “I’ll make sure they don’t drag their feet.”

“Two of my students are potentially in danger,” Dumbledore said. “I will exert pressure where I can to make sure everything happens as smoothly as possible. Though I suspect this is not going to be nearly as simple as we all expect.”
I know I had Sprout talk a little bit about the state of Magical America at the end of Year One (Part Forty-Five, Page Six of this thread), but I'm finally going to get to show a little bit more of what it's like. I'm not really a fan of the fanon version of Magical America, where everything is so much better than Magical Britain, and they don't have prejudice based on blood, and they're so much more enlightened so underaged wizards can use magic, and it's basically Magical Utopia. So I'm trying something different, something I don't think I've actually seen in a fic before, not that means anything in a fandom of this size.

MrRigger
In engineering, the work is only done when there is nothing left to add. In writing, the work is only done when there is nothing left to take away.

Check out Between Magic and Mount Justice
User avatar
MrRigger2
 
Posts: 3329
Joined: January 20th, 2011, 5:14 pm

Re: Between Magic and Mount Justice HP/Young Justice Xover

Unread postby jgkitarel » May 8th, 2014, 3:25 pm

Yup, political shitstorm at its finest, and Albus doesn't realize that the one ones in danger will be those sent after Sirius. Or Sirius, if he gets too rambunctious. I wonder what will happen when the Americans trot out Pettigrew along with some sworn statements, legalese and general "You've all done screwed up". Much international mockery will then commence.

Also, as for Magical America: Utopia? In the US?! Yeah, right, suuuurrrre. We're capable of a lot of things, but we're not capable of that and would be bored with it in a week if we were. Give us our double standard filled, hypocrisy run, crapsaccharine whatevertopia any day. At least then we have something to work on trying to fix, make worse, play around with, self deprecatingly (or not) mock, and self-righteously complain about.
Also, I have to punch you, jgkitarel, because I spent a lot of time on the nanoha wiki trying to locate information on mages being trained due to being above a certain rank, only to remember and confirm that you were the one that came up with that. - Phht
Don't forget: Mass Effect is powered by magic space rocks. Evangelion is powered by Your Mom.
From his new fic Long Night of the Harvest

My current project on FFN, Mystic Knight Online
User avatar
jgkitarel
 
Posts: 2534
Joined: January 20th, 2011, 5:14 pm
Location: D.C - Baltimore Area

Re: Between Magic and Mount Justice HP/Young Justice Xover

Unread postby MrRigger2 » May 8th, 2014, 6:21 pm

Perhaps not Magical Utopia, but it certainly seems like that from the stories I've read that deal with Magical America. At the very least, they seem to laugh at how backward and ineffectual Magical Britain is, and exist to point out "Haha, we're so much better."

I'm not doing that. If Magical Britain is stuck in the Victorian Age, Magical America is the Wild West.

MrRigger
In engineering, the work is only done when there is nothing left to add. In writing, the work is only done when there is nothing left to take away.

Check out Between Magic and Mount Justice
User avatar
MrRigger2
 
Posts: 3329
Joined: January 20th, 2011, 5:14 pm

Re: Between Magic and Mount Justice HP/Young Justice Xover

Unread postby jgkitarel » May 8th, 2014, 8:16 pm

Sounds fun.
Also, I have to punch you, jgkitarel, because I spent a lot of time on the nanoha wiki trying to locate information on mages being trained due to being above a certain rank, only to remember and confirm that you were the one that came up with that. - Phht
Don't forget: Mass Effect is powered by magic space rocks. Evangelion is powered by Your Mom.
From his new fic Long Night of the Harvest

My current project on FFN, Mystic Knight Online
User avatar
jgkitarel
 
Posts: 2534
Joined: January 20th, 2011, 5:14 pm
Location: D.C - Baltimore Area

Re: Between Magic and Mount Justice HP/Young Justice Xover

Unread postby JamestheFox » May 8th, 2014, 8:21 pm

Oohhh, I like this idea. Now, how can we run with it? What periods are the OTHER Magical Communities stuck in?
GM of Kingdom Hearts VD: Visions of Destiny. You never know who you'll run into next. Until your Vision shows you.
Shinobi in Star Wars GM. Kyo's Data here.
Pokewizard Quest GM. Harry's Pokedex here.
User avatar
JamestheFox
 
Posts: 1013
Joined: September 10th, 2011, 4:17 am
Location: A world beyond imagination, but just inside fantasy.

Re: Between Magic and Mount Justice HP/Young Justice Xover

Unread postby jgkitarel » May 9th, 2014, 10:40 pm

The period where wizards thought that muggles were a nice protein supplement to their diet, of course. After all, they're humanitarians at heart.
Also, I have to punch you, jgkitarel, because I spent a lot of time on the nanoha wiki trying to locate information on mages being trained due to being above a certain rank, only to remember and confirm that you were the one that came up with that. - Phht
Don't forget: Mass Effect is powered by magic space rocks. Evangelion is powered by Your Mom.
From his new fic Long Night of the Harvest

My current project on FFN, Mystic Knight Online
User avatar
jgkitarel
 
Posts: 2534
Joined: January 20th, 2011, 5:14 pm
Location: D.C - Baltimore Area

Re: Between Magic and Mount Justice HP/Young Justice Xover

Unread postby MrRigger2 » May 12th, 2014, 11:04 pm

Part Ninety-Three!
Spoiler: show
Marshal Mark McCain floated his stunned prisoner into the cell and let him drop to the bed. Son of a bitch had been running up and down the coast, Obliviating muggles after he’d had his way with them.

“Drippy!” he called. A female house elf appeared next to him. “Make sure Mister Waverly doesn’t get any visitors until Judge Mattock gets here next week.”

Drippy nodded quickly. McCain winced and rubbed his ribs. “And get me the First Aid Kit. Bastard put up a hell of a fight.”

The house elf popped away and McCain flopped into his chair. Drippy returned before he could hardly shut his eyes. “Any messages while I was out?”

“No sir, no messages, except for Meester Stoopidvisor. He said you need to call him right away.”

“Thank you, Drippy.” The house elf disappeared as McCain drank a Bone Knitting Potion from the First Aid Kit and rubbed a Numbing Salve directly onto his skin.

“Drippy! Do we have any chicken left?”

Drippy peered around the corner. “Yes sir, you told me to save it so I saved it.”

“Good, I’m getting hungry. Heat that up while I put a call in to Washington. Shouldn’t take too long.”

Drippy nodded and McCain walked over to the fireplace. Drippy kept it burning every hour of every day, no matter that it was June and made the whole building feel like a sauna when the temperature control charms failed. McCain tossed in a handful of Floo Powder and stuck his head in the flames.

“Director Montgomery! Director Montgomery!”

“He’s not here, dear.” Rosie, the Director’s secretary, turned around in her chair. “Missed him by twenty minutes.”

McCain shook his head ruefully. “He called me earlier, but I just got back to the office. Any idea when he’ll be back?”

“Oh, there’s no telling, Marshal. That necromancer finally showed his head, so he and the boys went out to round him up.”

McCain grimaced. Necromancers were nasty pieces of work. “In that case, do you know what he needed to tell me?”

“Let me check…” Rosie shuffled through the papers on her desk. “Here it is. There’s a fugitive from England in your neighborhood that’s turning himself in, and someone senior needs to oversee the process to make sure it’s all above board. Can’t have a bunch of foreigners coming in and taking whoever they want, can we?”

“I suppose not. Give me the details, I’ll see what I can do.”

0oOo0

Harry mopped up the last of his egg with a bit of toast and popped it in his mouth. “Hey, Alfred, have you seen Ron? I’ve never seen him miss a meal at Hogwarts.”

“I believe he fell asleep watching the television last night. He was still there when I attempted to wake him this morning.”

“What was he watching?” Harry asked.

“The Muppet Show was playing when I checked on him this morning. I’ve set aside a plate for when he wakes up, whenever that may be.” Alfred cleared his throat. “He threw a pillow at me when I tried to call him for breakfast.”

“I’ll, uh, I’ll say something to him about that. No problems with Pettigrew?”

“Still unconscious, Master Harry, as expected. The nutrient drip is working perfectly, and the sedative mix has been freshly changed, so he won’t be waking up any time soon.”

“Good riddance, I say,” Sirius grumbled. “Any word from the Ministry of Magic?”

“No, but Marshal McCain’s letter said that he’ll be here at noon tomorrow to deal with the particulars. Didn’t expand on what the particulars are, so we’ll have to be ready for anything, including the British Ministry showing up in force.”

“And wouldn’t that be fun?”

“A giant mess, more like it.”

0oOo0

“All you’re doing is planning a mess, Minister, and a mess that I shall be no part of,” Dumbledore said with a sense of finality. “You know my feelings on Dementors, and I will not subject anyone to their presence unnecessarily.”

“And it is the opinion of this Ministry that a detail of Dementors is necessary to ensure proper protection. There’s no telling what sort of Dark Magic Black knows!” Fudge shot back

“It’s your opinion, Minister, not the opinion of the Ministry, don’t try to confuse the matter,” Bones accused. “Black’s escaped the Dementors twice now, that we know of, and considering the circumstances, I’d rather not show up to what should be a routine prisoner exchange with some of the Darkest Creatures in the world in tow.”

“And speaking as the Supreme Mugwump, I would like to remind you that transporting Dementors across international borders is not a practice that we like to encourage, and there could be some repercussions from the ICW if you decide to do so against our advice.”

Fudge scowled. “Well, what would you have me do? Go there without any sort of protection?”

“Minister, I suggest no such thing. According to the communication, Sirius Black is looking to cooperate with us, and I believe that to be the truth. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have contacted us, he would have done his best to stay hidden, as he has done for the past year. However, if this is a trap, I will be present, and I believe we can agree that I do have some small measure of experience when it comes to neutralizing Dark Wizards.”

“And while they can’t manage to run a country to save their lives, the Americans do have experience fighting Dark Wizards,” Bones said. “They’ve certainly seen enough since the first ships went over.”

“Very well,” Fudge agreed unhappily. “We won’t bring any Dementors, no matter how reasonable a safety precaution they may be, but I expect there to be some of our best Aurors. I don’t care how many Dark Wizards the Americans have faced, I don’t trust them.”
MrRigger
In engineering, the work is only done when there is nothing left to add. In writing, the work is only done when there is nothing left to take away.

Check out Between Magic and Mount Justice
User avatar
MrRigger2
 
Posts: 3329
Joined: January 20th, 2011, 5:14 pm


Return to “%s” Writer Workshop

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users

cron