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disorganizedkitten · 6 months

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This Is The Road To Ruin Chapter 2

Harry Potter | 2022 | 3,862 | Ao3 | Prev | Masterlist | Next

4/11/87

I had a nightmare last night. It was another one about the stone room and the people in masks. I wish I knew what it meant. I wish I understood how my Sight works.

I think the dream has to do with why I’m here, in the muggle world, instead of home, but I still don’t understand it. If I hadn’t met Tansy, I think I would have assumed that my memories of home were imaginary - they fit into fiction ever so well. But Tansy is real, and she has magic, which means my childhood was too.

I just wish I understood it. I wish I remembered what caused the change. Hopefully I will one day.

Hopefully it wasn’t as bad as the nightmares make it seem.

‘

Clemencia is off at a placement, officially, but she came to Aletris’ today Freaking Out. It’s… a lot.

Tansy, Hawthorne, Hana, and Clem all have magic. I’ve mentioned this before, because we’ve had to grow around it. I remember growing up around magic, so I knew that we weren’t… as isolated as it seems, I guess, but I didn’t expect this to be our way in. Back.

Clemencia got accepted to a Magical Secondary School. It’s called Hogwarts - they won’t tell us where it is, but the teacher who came to deliver her letter took her on a tour of what sounds like a magical mall. She’s going to take us there tomorrow; she chose to accept the acceptance/invite.

I’m going to talk to Mrs. Calmiris tonight. Apparently, school starts at eleven, and I remember her asking me about letters around my eleventh birthday. The next year I got Hawthorne. She’s always been very calm about our magic; if she’s like me, or like Clem, I want to know. I know she’s not like Tansy, though.

Speaking of Tansy-

***

Justin hadn’t meant to go school shopping during the apparent pre-school rush. He’d been hoping to beat it, actually, but his summer had taken a sort of nosedive when he got his letter. Not intentionally! It had just been… derailed. They’d had everything scheduled already, from ordering his textbooks to his uniform fitting. All under the impression that Justin would be attending Eton, come fall.

Which was not going to happen.

Instead, a week before his birthday, they’d had a guest over who informed him he’d have to spend the next seven years at a Magic School unless he wanted to become a human bomb.

Which, obviously, he didn’t.

The professor has offered to escort them while shopping, but Justin had been having a slight breakdown at the time, so his mother had gotten directions and gently shooed the professor out. Which lead to now, three months later, exploring the Wizarding World by way of Diagon Alley, in London.

Justin was sure it was going to be super cool, as soon as he could stop hating it for tearing apart his life. If he’d had more warning the change might not have been so jarring.

He had hoped that coming to Diagon Alley would show him something cool, something to make it seem less horrid, but they’d entered through a dingy tavern that gave his parents headaches, had to get help entering the alley and were given condescending looks when they asked, and the they were greeted with less of an alley and more of a mosh pit. A magical mosh pit. Lovely.

Justin knew he was being unfair, but he didn’t particularly care. He had to go to a school where he’d have none of his friends, because of something he had no control over. He was allowed to be bitter.

Professor McGonagall had also failed to inform them that they’d be using an entirely different currency; luckily Dad had noticed while they were in the tavern and before they were actually trying to buy something.

That would be embarrassing. So very embarrassing.

Of course, then they had to hope that the bank, once they found it, offered exchange services. Thankfully, the bank was huge, visible when they entered the Alley (through a brick wall that vanished when it was tapped, which was actually pretty cool, Justin had always wanted a secret room in his closet) and bright white, so it was easy to find. Getting to the bank was another matter, as the alley was crowded, with an air of anticipation, as though they were all waiting for something big to happen. It, alongside the constant thrum of noise, put Justin on edge.

They tried, rather unsuccessfully, to make their way through the masses, until they noticed the crowd shying away from a pair of young adults - who were also heading towards the bank. Justin grabbed his mom’s hand and followed them.

The man called out once they had a direct line of sight, and got an enthusiastic wave back from someone much closer to the bank. The couple seemed to be hunting for friends or children in one of the few places that wasn’t packed beyond belief.

It wasn’t until they reached the open space that he realized there were two yards of white marble steps, on which the rest of the couple’s group seemed to be waiting. And they were the only ones - everyone else seemed to go up and down the steps as fast as they could, or stay off them altogether, as though unwilling to infringe upon bank territory.

The Finch-Fletchleys watched as their unknowing guides met up with a group of younger teenagers and one he couldn’t tell if was an adult or a child. The shortest one’s features changed as he watched, and Justin felt a giddy bit of awe bubble in his chest before his parents herded him the rest of the way into the bank.

Shapeshifting!

The only superpower Justin had wished more for as a child was invisibility. If he could learn to do that, this whole charade would be worth it.

The creatures that ran the bank were a little scary, less so inside than the guards outside were, but his dad treated them just like he would the bankers at home, and the conversion was quick and painless, minus the part where they had to calculate everything in seventeens and twenty-nines, instead of tens and hundreds.

Still, it was easy to move on, until they realized they had no clue where to go for anything. Maybe they should’ve tried to reschedule with Professor McGonagall, or at least asked for a map.

So this wasn’t their best planned trip. It was fine. His mother had immigrated (illegally, not that it was common knowledge) and had to learn Britain and London from the ground up; thus they could too. At least it didn’t look like he’d have to learn a whole new language.

“Perhaps the bookshop?” Justin’s dad offered hesitantly. Flourish and Blotts sounded like a stationery store, but the display was full of books, so that’s where they went.

Thankfully, the bookshop seemed to be more organized and less busy. It also smelled like books, which was a welcome change from the sunlight-and-burnt-sparkplugs of the rest of the alley.

They split up, giving Dad the list to find the required books while Mum and Justin went on the hunt for anything that looked acclimation-y. Cookbooks, history, Mum even grabbed two fiction novels, and they continued on in that manner for a little while. Justin grabbed all three of the etiquette books he found and promptly plopped down to skim them.

He didn’t want to accidentally insult someone’s family line, or ask them to marry him, or call them names. He refused to be engaged before he was sixteen, at the earliest.

“Muggleborn?”

Justin jumped, looking up. There was a translucent person looking over his shoulder. “Um. Yes?”

“Well, I’m glad to see you willing to learn. Have you tried Modesty and Magic, by Harold Sheppner yet?”

Justin shook his head mutely. The… ghost? Astral projection? nodded. “You should, if you get a chance. It was my grandson’s final project for his History of Magic mastery, and while a lot of that’s gone out of style, knowing it can earn you points with some of them prissy purebloods.”

“Yes, sir,” Justin said slowly, pretending he knew what half those words meant. He took note of the title, though, because it did sound useful. “Would I find that here?”

“Yeah, sonny,” the man grinned. “It’s got a gold spine, in the S section. Want me to show you?”

“Yes please.” Justin stood up, closing his current book around a finger. “What’s your name?”

“Geronimo Harvester,” he said with sly grin. “Halfblood, if you were wondering.”

Justin was not, but he’d take note of it anyway.

Harvester turned out to be a great guide; Justin’s earlier guess was right, he was a ghost, and he’d been haunting Flourish and Blotts for around seventy years. He helped customers find their books when they weren’t being rowdy, but he was a bit of an open secret in the shop.

“Necromancy is one of those magics people ain’t that fond of,” Harvester explained, pulling out a book on The Legality Of Tabooed Magics Throughout The 19th and 20th Centuries. “Not that I’m too much necromanced, but we ghosts ain’t supposed to be able to touch stuff. Can’t say I remember the whole reason, but people who die steeped in Dark Magicks tend to have a stronger presence if we stick around. ‘s why they don’t use the Death Penalty in the Magical World.”

That was… slightly horrifying but good to know.

***

Leonie had read through nearly an entire cookbook when she realized she’d lost Justin. He hadn’t wandered too far, and since the crowds outside had stayed outside, he was easy to find. Once she found him and they finalized their haul, they set out to find Caleb

He was at the checkout desk, conveniently finishing at the same time. She leaned forward to kiss her husband and hand him their plethora of extra books.

He hummed into it. “All done?”

“Yeah,” she confirmed. “I do love these baskets.” They had to be enchanted somehow, with how many books she and Justin found, but once the books were inside it didn’t seem like they weighed much more than a single textbook, which, while a lot, wasn’t nearly as much as twenty should weigh. Her shoulders heartily appreciated the lack of strain.

Caleb hummed in agreement, brushing noses, before turning to Justin. “Find anything cool?”

“I found a book on something called blood magic, and the first three chapters look like an overview of various legal, illegal, and once-legal magics and why they’re considered such. It’s partnered with a book detailing the topic for the past two hundred years. It sounds interesting!”

He sounded happy. Leonie smiled proudly at him, some of the guilt from this summer dissipating. She hadn’t helped him accept his fate as a wizard, griping about how many things had to change, and how she’d have to lie to her cousins, and every other thing she could, until their older son came and asked what they’d done to convince Justin he was cursed and should’ve drowned that time at Lake Windermere.

It was a horrifying conversation.

She’d been very careful to be as positive as she could be since, even though many of the obvious enchantments sent her head spinning and the people were rude and it had become very obvious humans were not the only human-adjacent species out there.

That last one was not as much of a surprise, but she would admit she’d mostly blocked out those memories as a child’s overactive imagination and underdeveloped brain.

After the bookshop they went to clothes, which was… a thing. Leonie’s fashion sense consisted of ‘is the texture okay’ and ‘does my daughter laugh at me’, so she was definitely no use there, but it looked halfway similar to their own with flowing regenmantels (robes, probably, but why fix what isn’t broke) thrown over the top, or occasionally worn alone, as she would a dress.

They also seemed to do a lot with embroidery and ‘runic enchantments’ on the clothes themselves, something that she found thrilling. It made them shiny!

Justin laughed at her, but it was fond and he was finally smiling, so she had no regrets.

Of course, then they managed to get dragged down a branch off, first by stepping in as it was another of those places that most of the crowd avoided, and then further when Justin saw a shop called The Cloak and Decoy and practically dashed to it, expecting… well she wasn’t sure, but he must have thought that it sounded very cool.

Leonie felt her heart slow and then speed up again as they ventured deeper into the branch off. It felt distinctly similar to when they had to visit gang controlled areas. Still, they weren’t attacked on their way in, just eyed like prey.

They probably seemed like it, so obviously unsure. Except Justin, because he was eleven and finally enjoying magic and didn’t have the experience Caleb and Leonie had to smell danger.

That was why Leonie didn’t pull him back, as much as she wanted to.

***

Justin pushed open the door to the cloak shop and nearly stepped right back out. Unlike the one they found earlier, where they purchased only what was on the list because they weren’t sure what else would be useful, this shop’s lighting was pale white, giving off a heady, psychedelic feeling of being in-between worlds.

More odd and unsettling, though, was the sudden chill, the smell of frozen metal sharper than that of fresh snowfall.

Despite that, Justin persevered.

His parents followed him in, and he split off to look around. Despite the lighting being dim enough to give him a headache, it illuminated the cloaks rather well. And boy was he glad they hadn’t gotten anything extra earlier. These cloaks were beautiful.

Some of them were made out of materials he couldn’t recognize, thick furs and silvery leather and some fabrics that looked like they were cut out of a star. Dual layers, single layers, reversible, one even could adjust the length, operating as a cloak, a caplet, or a scarf.

This was so cool! How many times had Justin wished he didn’t have to lug around a coat during winter events?

“Mom, come look at this!”

She did. They were discussing it (and the concerning note that said it could be enchanted with a command word if someone needed to be ‘eliminated’) when the door opened again, a familiar gaggle making their way inside.

“Oh, it’s you!”

“As close to in the flesh as I can be,” one of the young women said brightly. Somehow, her presence seemed to make the room’s temperature fluctuate uncomfortably.

Justin wondered if the theory behind keeping Cloak and Decoy so cold was that people would want to buy cloaks, even in the summer heat. If so, it was clever.

"Yes well," the man behind the counter said, turning to duck into the back room. "I know your cloaks haven't worn out already, why the menagerie?"

"But Gordan, we're not animals," said one of the teenagers, the one with blue tips, moving forward to drape herself dramatically over the counter. "We're flowers."

"Of course," he called back indulgently. He was humoring them. "Why bring the greenhouse, then?"

The older half of the group laughed.

"Do you remember last year?” The blond young man asked, darkly amused.

The proprietor reemerged, a mannequin and cloak floating behind him. “I suppose we don’t want a repeat, no.” With a flick of his wrist, and likely the wand held loosely in his hand, the mannequin landed in the middle of an aisle and the cloak settled prettily on top of it.

“Alright, Florine, have at it, I think I’ve figured out the enchantments,” said Gordan.

Florine, (Justin assumed the name went to the one with the most rapport - ad who responded) hummed doubtfully, looking at the seemingly expensive fabric. “You do know it’s going to be destroyed if you’re wrong, right?”

Gordan shrugged. “And if I’m right, it proves I’m using the right materials.”

“Almost,” hummed the other woman, with dark skin, darker eyes, and a ponytail. “It’ll only last one use.”

Florine’s head snapped around so fast Justin thought he’d seen her neck vanish. “Oh really?” The slow, creeping smile that accompanied the words was the most unsettling thing they’d seen yet. Frankly, Justin didn’t hate it.

Magic came with monsters. The question was what kind of monsters they were.

Florine stepped forward, leaning as though she was going to do a flip, and then there was no woman, only an oppressive cloud of smoke. It started from her feet and pulled the rest of her body into nothingness, and whipped out at the cloak so fast mum shrieked beside him. Thankfully, it seemed to be largely drowned out in the cheers of the other kids.

A moment later, the smoke meandered back their way and turned back into a girl.

The mannequin had been reduced to dust, but there were fabric scraps left.

"Holy crap, it survived," muttered one of the younger girls.

"That's impressive," said the boy, moving to inspect it.

Justin stepped closer to the ruins, accidentally falling in line with the shapeshifter.

"Won't stand up against a second go," said Florine from behind them. "But, congratulations, Gordan."

There was a sigh. "You still obliterated the mannequin. That doesn't say good things about the wearer’s chances of survival."

"You can figure out the design once you have a working ward,” said the smoke girl, unconcerned.

“That was awesome,” Justin said, crouching to look closer at the rubble. It felt like leaning into a commercial freezer, so cold it burned. He didn’t touch. “Do they teach that at Hogwarts?”

“No,” said the boy beside him. “Florine’s self taught.”

“You can do that?” If he could be self taught, maybe he could still go to secondary school with his friends.

“It’s not advised,” said Blue Tips, dipping her fingers into the remains of the mannequin. She slid them lightly through the dust before yanking them back with a muttered swear. She pulled them up and made a face. “Ouch. If you’re eligible, everyone wants you at an actual school.” She wiped her fingers off on her pants and then stuck them in her mouth.

“Oh.” Justin’s heart sank. “Why?”

“Something about proper growth of a magical core. Florine’s exempt because hers is pretty damaged.”

“Oh.” Justin paused. He wondered what that meant, what a magical core even was, and if it was rude to call what must be a chronic illness or disability cool. “I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” said the shapeshifter, standing from his crouch but still leaning down. “Anyway. I’m Harry, nice to meet you.”

“Justin,” he returned, taking the chimera handshake-hand-up. “You too.”

“Justin, we’re ready to go, honey!”

He glanced at his mum, who had apparently decided to buy the size-changing cloak. Awesome. “Coming!” He turned to Harry. “See you around?”

“First year starts on September first,” Harry returned with a grin and a peace sign.

Justin’s smile widened. Maybe Hogwarts wouldn’t be so bad.

***

Caleb listened with a soft sense of foreboding as the man behind the counter of the Cloak and Decoy explained how the murder aspect of the cloak they’d just bought their son worked. He chose the code phrase option, and had it ‘keyed’ so it only activated if Justin himself said it. The last thing he wanted or needed was for Justin to accidentally strangle himself with magical tech they didn’t think through.

Caleb had considered asking Mr. Gordan to leave it off. But they didn’t know what awaited their son in his new world, they’d just seen a girl turn into some sort of shadow monster, and Caleb did not doubt in the slightest that Wizards’ very wands were more dangerous than a loaded gun in the hands of someone with a grudge. He didn’t think a switchblade would work in this instance, thus Justin got the assassin cloak.

He’d tell Justin about it when they got home. And inform him to never say “Loki would stab Merlin with excalibur for the fun of it.”

He asked about the legality and how traceable it would be if the cloak did kill someone, and finally saw a glimmer of acceptance in those muddy eyes. They’d definitely walked into the magical version of the black market. Or mafia. Lovely.

When they’d finally ushered themselves out, Justin carrying the folded cloak while Caleb took the books and Leonie held the clothing bags, it was nearly noon.

“What next?” Caleb asked.

“Drop these in the car?” Justin offered. It was a good idea, they wouldn’t be able to carry much more and anyway, lugging around this much shopping was already tiring. Caleb wondered how the wizarding folk stood it - did they levitate everything? He’d certainly seen plenty of floating objects in the main alley.

Leonie stopped at the edge, looking at the crowd that seemed to refuse to so much as brush the side alley they were in. She was still carrying their clothes purchases, in a little themed bag that didn’t seem nearly big enough. Caleb hoped it wasn’t this busy everyday - how many wixen could there be in Britain anyway?

“Aw,” said a voice that sent chills down Caleb’s back. He’d thought they’d done well enough at acting as though they belonged to keep anyone unsavory away. He shifted closer to Justin. “If you don’t want to brave the crowd of big bad wizards you could come join us for a game.”

“I’m afraid we don’t have time, as much as we appreciate the invitation,” murmured his wonderful wife, turning as well.

The old woman with galaxies behind her eye pouted. “I’m sure you could make time.” her other eye was scabbed shut, gray skin stretching over the socket in a hollow way.

“Echo, don’t be an ungracious host.”

Caleb didn’t jump at the extra voice, but it was a close thing. The smoke woman from the Cloak and Decoy walked up, unhurried, but the old woman backed away slightly. “What’s ungracious about inviting them to experience the magical world?”

Smoke didn’t say anything, just tilted her head slightly. Apparently, that was enough of a threat. ‘Echo’ backed away with a side comment about how they’re welcome at any time, should they change their minds.

“Sorry about that,” the shadow witch said, turning a much kinder smile on them. “Are you okay?”

Justin nodded, slipping between him and Leonie. “Yeah, thanks. I’m Justin Finch-Fletchley.”

“Florine Dupont,” she said, shaking the offered hand.

Justin pulled his back a little fast, just enough for Caleb to worry. Still, he and Leonie introduced themselves as well. Caleb quickly learned why Justin’s handshake was too fast - her skin felt like frozen chicken on bare skin. The intrusive thought that flesh was technically raw meat was entirely unwelcome. Still, he smiled at her. “Caleb Finch-Fletchley, it’s nice to meet you.”

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