#it's time travel and the first wizarding war two of my favourite vices

[tommarvoloriddlesdiary]

Dust and debris spread like a fine mist through the air.

Visibility was unsurprisingly low, given how thick the smoke clouds were. Rushing bodies, wicked spellfire, and large chunks of rubble were the only things that disrupted it. And the chunks, Harry realised, weren’t coming from nearby buildings like he had first blindly thought. He watched, brows raised, at the sight of cracking stone tearing straight from the ground, shooting out and away at harrowing speeds, their mass used as projectiles.

Impressive, Harry thought. The magical strength required to do that must have been great, but it lacked any refinement or skill. The wavering, rotating masses that flung wildly and in any direction they could reach spoke of desperation and fear. Well, Harry couldn’t blame them.

He was feeling pretty desperate and… maybe not fearful… but definitely confused, too.

Waking up in the middle of an ongoing fight was what Harry had been expecting; what he hadn’t been expecting was waking up in the middle of what looked like Diagon Alley if he squinted a bit and turned his head to the left.

He dusted himself off rather pointlessly and gave his Auror robes a quick pat down. He was working with no wand and just his wits. He supposed things could have been worse. Thankfully, he wasn’t very out of practice with his wandless spell work. It did, however, vastly limit what he could do to lend a hand.

And he’d have to lend a hand and get out of here as quickly as possible. He and Ron were still taking care of some rogue wizards reaping havoc on a small wizarding community in Alfriston, and Harry was definitely a long way from there. What had happened, anyway? What did that wizard throw at him?

Maybe he should be paying more attention to what wizards are currently throwing at him. One of those large pieces of rubble abruptly interrupted Harry’s train of thought and sightline. He gathered whatever magic he could and prepared to apparate away from its path but startled at the grating sensation of anti-apparition wards. His breath caught as it fully dawned on him that something was very wrong.

His eyes widened, and he ducked and rolled out of the way further into the street. Vertigo hit him all too suddenly, forcing him to catch his breath. Whatever means of travel he’d taken to get here did not agree with him at all. In fact, Harry had just realised he couldn’t hear anything. Only a low, high-pitched noise that echoed around in his head. He felt nearly delirious.

Mindlessly stepping back and out of the way of a nasty-looking violet spell, he took a moment to assess his body more carefully. He had all his fingers and toes, all his limbs, his head was on straight, his joints were bending the right way—he seemed perfectly fine. And even though he felt no injuries, he forced a despairingly weak healing charm from within - out. Unfortunately, Harry didn’t have too much wandless practice with those, so it didn’t quite ease the onslaught of nausea, but it did fix his hearing.

And the world was much louder than Harry had prepared for. Screams shouted out like banshee cries, and the sound of whizzing spells and explosions echoed all throughout. He cringed against the relentless noises, hands coming up to cover his ears until he could adjust. It took some time and a few more close calls with ugly spellfire, but when Harry finally got his bearings, he jumped into the fray.

He magicked away most of the debris in the air, and his head whipped back and forth, taking stock of the newly visible surroundings. Harry was unsure where to begin and whom to ask for an explanation of what was even happening. He couldn’t spot any familiar Aurors, but there were definitely people dressed in uniforms…

Harry nearly paused at that. Yes, there were definitely people dressed in uniforms. Ones that were dark and black and flowing like ink and looked eerily familiar, and others that looked strikingly like Sirius’s old Auror robes from—

“HELP!”

Harry’s eyes caught sight of a young woman clutching a child for dear life. Their backs were pinned up against the broken remains of a shop, and her body hid the kid to the best of her ability while a wizard in dark robes stood before them, wand raised and ready to cast. Harry caught the unmistakable glimmer of silver reflecting off the sunlight in the Alley from the side of the wizard’s face, but he refused to linger on the stomach-swooping horror of recognition its shine caused.

It’s a good thing Harry had always been fast on his feet, quick on the draw. It’s also a good thing his wandless stupefy was still in top form.

The body crumpled to the ground, and Harry’s assist went unnoticed in all the chaos. But the woman had seen him and quickly found Harry’s eyes. She peered up at him, relieved and overwhelmingly grateful, but stared for a beat too long, and Harry, being used to it, gave her no mind. He quickly came over to help escort her and the child somewhere safer. She muttered something as he lifted the kid in a secure grip, one arm by the bend of their knee and the other firmly on their back.

“What was that?” Harry asked, releasing his hold on the kid’s back after they had adjusted to the position, arms wrapped tightly around his neck. Harry tried to take a gentle but resolute hold on the clearly in shock woman to help guide her out of the direct fire. And when she repeated herself, it was with more confidence, even though she was shaking violently.

“I didn’t know you had become an Auror, James. Didn’t you only graduate this summer?”

For a moment, all of Harry’s battle-hardened instincts fell away. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. She didn’t look anywhere close to his parents’ age had they still been alive. Really, she looked much closer to Harry’s age, maybe a few years older. They had probably gone to Hogwarts together for a short while. So then, why—

Why did she think he was his father? His father, who had apparently only graduated this year?

Shock, Harry could excuse this as, and he sorely wanted to, but that feeling of wrongness was rearing its ugly head once again.

So Harry stayed quiet and focused. He stunned anyone suspicious they came across and brought them both to a mostly unharmed shop out of the way with a blessedly working floo connection. He watched them leave and exited the building, confident that from here, just around this corner, should be Twilit and Tattings. But when he arrived at the distinct shop front, still standing on what Harry could only guess was pure rich-pureblood spite, the store looked nothing like a clothing shop.

Unsettled but willing to take a gamble, Harry stuck to the edges of the alley and made his way further up Diagon, closer to Horizont. He avoided bouncing spells and crumpled bodies and cast when he could all the way until he saw the familiar sign of Ollivanders.

With all his hesitance and the churning in his stomach, Harry tried something with no small amount of hysteria. He held his hand up, right before the shattered glass of Ollivanders’ main window and said:

“Accio Harry Potter’s wand.”

For a breathtaking moment, nothing happened, and Harry was so viciously relieved that he couldn’t help the short laughter that fell out of him. Shock, he reminded himself, she was just in shock.

Shaking his head clear of whatever madness had temporarily held him, he readied to shoulder open the door and commandeer a temporary wand. Even something poorly matched would be better than nothing if he were to continue lending assistance to the Aurors on the scene.

But before he could even take a step, something was flying straight at his head.

“Whoa!” Harry ducked and turned to watch as a wand took an arching turn and bound straight towards him again. But this time, Harry was ready; he caught it with a smart thwack to the flat of his palm.

The warmth and pure magic from this wand that flooded his veins were unlike any other— but that was a lie. It was exactly like one other. One other wand from when he was eleven. His very first wand.

Looking at the fine holly wood in his hand, feeling the blazing heat of what was no doubt a phoenix feather core, and the familiar curves and juts of its crafted exterior, Harry felt no happiness at seeing an old friend. He felt dread take hold of his very being, leaving him cold and wrung dry.

“Tempus,” Harry muttered, and like delicate clockwork, the spell cast flawlessly and more naturally than any spell Harry had cast in ages. The time of day and month was troubling enough, but the year really caused its own upending.

1978.

Harry took a deep, steady breath in. He locked all the terrible and awful and horrible things he was feeling away in a small corner of his mind, shoving it all into a cupboard under the stairs. And released his breath. He nodded once to himself and held his wand in a proper grip. Logic and Auror instinct, but more prevalent, war instinct, sunk their familiar claws into the still-healing scars of his mind.

He left Ollivanders and made his way carefully up Diagon Alley once more, distantly acknowledging that he may not have done as good a job as he was hoping at concealing his anxieties. His casting was accurate and decidedly not as innocent as it had been. Stupefies traded for spells that might have leant a little darker than an Auror should really be using.

He couldn’t say he had the element of surprise on his side. Still, the terrorists attacking the alley weren’t exactly looking out for an Auror dressed like Harry was, so he had the first few moments of them treating him like a civilian before realising their grave error.

But by then, they were blasted halfway across the alley, laid face down on the cobblestones, or missing a limb or two. The ah-ha moment of ‘civilians don’t normally fight like that’ only echoed in the quiet of their unconscious minds.

And the closer Harry got to the heart of the battle, picking off black-robed wizards one by one and gathering appreciative and perplexed looks from Aurors, he should have realised that faces may start gaining an awful familiarity. He should have realised that he knew of an unfortunate amount of wizards and witches who fought in the First War. He had heard numerous stories of their bravery and seen photographs of their faces, after all, and Harry really should have realised that seeing them would be inevitable, even now— even when he wasn’t ready.

But he had never travelled this far back in time, so could anyone blame him for being caught by surprise?

Because there she was. Fresh out of Hogwarts. Classes must’ve only ended a month or so ago. And she was standing at the heart of the battle. The August sun lent an unfairly clear day to the gruesome attack and shinned on the brilliant auburn of her hair tied back and away from her face like a flaming whip.

Harry was shocked still at the sight of Lily Potter.

And he paid for it with a gnarly gash to the side of his ribs.

Quickly breaking from his trance and cursing his inability to stay focused, Harry fired back with his own cutting spell. Of course, the much nastier sectumsempra wouldn’t be nearly as easy to bounce back from, but Harry couldn’t find it in himself to give a fuck at the moment.

He created jagged spikes of transfigured rock from the ruined pathways all around them until the war zone that was once Diagon Alley had become impractical and claustrophobic. Startled cries came from every direction; no one was spared from his sudden attack and aggression. No one except for Lily Potter, who stood in a small circle of safety, the spikes around her lending shelter. Her arms were comically raised like Harry was a muggle robber, and this was all just a hold-up. And he felt the urge to laugh die as quickly as it came.

Not a soul moved, but Harry wasn’t one for inaction. He cast a sonorus and spoke, “If you are a follower of,” Harry mindfully avoided His name, unaware of when exactly the taboo had been enacted, “the Dark Lord, I believe you’ve caused well enough damage today. Leave.”

There was silence; then there was the sharp break of the anti-apparition wards shattering, and with it, the sounds of loud pop-pop-pops from Death Eaters tucking tails and running away. Harry was a little shocked that simply demanding they leave worked. Then again, turning all of Diagon Alley’s streets into some giant’s version of an Iron Maiden in the heat of his anger was probably something to be wary of. When all was quiet once more, Harry transfigured the cobblestone back, again marvelling at the easy control with his holly wand.

It dawned on Harry then that, now that the battle was cleared up as best he could manage, he had no way of returning to his time and nothing to immediately keep that thought from taking hold and consuming him whole. He stood paralysed and in deep thought through the multiple hesitant thanks, thank you so much, you saved us directed his way. And he could really do without the reminder of how irreparably fucked he’d just made the timeline, but, you’re welcome, he supposed.

Then two gentle hands on his arm pulled him out of the dark.

“Excuse me?” Harry looked up at green, sage and fresh like a vegetable garden, like summer’s grass on a quidditch field, like sprigs of thyme on holiday roasts with family; he looked up at the eyes of Lily Potter and startled at the sound of her voice.

“So young…” Harry had mindlessly replied. Lily Potter’s answering frown was enough to leave him sorry for the rest of his miserable life.

She turned her careful attention to Harry’s bleeding shoulder, and he realised she was trying to heal him, “Speak for yourself, firecracker. You look about my age and handled yourself better than any of these Aurors.”

Firecracker? Harry muttered soundlessly. Bewildered at the idea of his mother giving him a nickname like that. Something screaming and rotting and twisting in his soul mourned the loss of it until now.

“This doesn’t look as bad as I’d thought. Do you feel any extreme pain?” She asked.

Harry shook his head slowly and in a daze. She hummed, doubtful, “Well, even if it doesn’t hurt too badly, let’s get you to St Mungo’s and patch you up—“

Before she could finish, Harry stepped back out of her gentle hands, shaking his head with much more clarity. “No. No doctors. I can heal it myself well enough.”

Her eyes widened, and something about him must’ve given away that he was planning on making his great escape because she suddenly grabbed his wrist tight enough to bruise, “Wait! I’ll listen! I won’t force you to see a healer; but please,” she held on even tighter, “we haven’t had a- a victory like this- in a long, long time. Don’t go.”

And Harry could only stare, horrified, at his own mother standing before him, young and alive and begging him not to go.

They are interrupted by a loud shout, “LILS,” and a man full-on tackling Lily Potter with force strong enough to pull Harry with them. But, madly, all Harry could think was that his mother had quite the grip.

And with Harry’s much closer proximity, he quickly deduced who the new link to their growing chain was. James Potter.

Harry’s eyes blinked slowly; a bone-weary exhaustion took staunch hold of him as he listened to his father ask after his mother’s wellbeing. Finally, Lily spoke over him, firm and unyielding, “James. I am fine. Where on earth have you been?”

“I was dealing with some Death Eaters towards the mouth of Knockturn—but that doesn’t matter! What matters is that you promised to stay by me, and in less than two shakes of a fairy’s wings, you were nowhere to be seen.”

Lily scoffed, “I cannot believe you are blaming me right now when you are clearly the one who wandered off first! We agreed to stay near the centre, and, would you look at that—that’s exactly where you found me, isn’t it?”

Harry could not believe he was watching his parents have their first domestic argument, and he wasn’t even technically born yet. This seemed cruel and unusual.

“Okay, agree to disagree. We are both at fault,” James’ eyes strayed towards Harry. He looked long and hard at Harry’s face and landed on the tight grip of Lily’s hand. “Who’s tall, pale, and ready to be sick standing beside you here?”

“What?” Lily asked, and her eyes fell on Harry too. Her mouth fell open in a horror Harry felt immensely, “Oh my god! I’m so sorry; I promise I didn’t forget about you—it’s just James is so distracting—and oh my god, I haven’t even introduced myself—“

“Lily, take a deep breath, and maybe let the man go?”

“James, you have no idea what happened, but you would if you’d have been here.”

Harry cleared his throat, “Um,” James and Lily both turned and gave him their full attention. It was awful. “Um… I’m Harry.”

“Harry,” James and Lily said together. Lily’s eyes were wide, but her smile was wider, and James looked extremely confused and put out. His brows furrowed until they were almost touching, and he commented, “My grandfather’s name was Harry,” he frowned and corrected himself, “well, his name was Henry. But we all called him Harry.”

Maybe Harry should have given them a fake name.

“James…” Lily murmured. She wasn’t quiet enough for Harry not to catch her following words, “He looks a bit like he could be your brother, doesn’t he?” James just silently and slowly nodded his head.

“What did you say your surname was again, Harry?” James asked like he was trying to be slick.

And Harry, no stranger to risky bets, replied, “I didn’t. But it’s Potter. Harry Potter.”

The silence that followed was very loud.

Until, “Lily. You’ve got a good grip on him, yeah?”

“Of course,” she nodded like it was obvious.

James grinned, “Hold on tighter, then.”

And the sudden gathering of magic in the air had Harry’s hair standing on end. When he caught sight of James’ wand out, he knew it was too late.

They apparated out of Diagon Alley.

[alchemisland]

The Moors Mutt - II

https://www.wattpad.com/676844776-the-moors-mutt-ii

II. Limbo

Rising early, if rising it was and not merely stirring from a wakened restive state, I walked a barren stretch. At pale dawn birds like Aztec idols flighted at my stirring. Cold light stained the pasture either side. Sleepshod, the road to Cairn Cottage found me quiet company. Even the tinkers were not yet to the road in their triskeled wagons.

When the machine architect of our world was in infancy, men of old, men of renown, used more than sight in their primitive observations of our world. Already we, we as mankind, had realized what appeared as reality was deeper yet than simple tangibility. Further back towards the chaotic and infinite churn of the burning epoch, when mankind had not language to manifest destiny and lived subordinate to Echidna's descendants still fearsome on the plain, parts of the brain which one day became memory centers first stirred to life, elongating the possibility of human memory. Scent still is brother to memory.

The air was heavy with scent when I relinquished vision, only for a short time, and let wind corral me. The breeze carried faint lavender.

A pebbled stretch I crossed stirred a memory of my late father and a codex of heroic tales he purchased, whose high adventure stirred me like nothing prior. At six, maybe seven years old, tales of old Arabia appealed greatly. Fabulous kingdoms wrought of yellow stone against a tangerine haze, swirling tarot sun bemused of countenance, scorpions armoured like chargers sending rodents to their redoubt, the cloying madness of it all. I visited them in dreams, jumping from the path of unruly camels, watching the impenetrable waves humbly part in the wake of Royal palanquins.

Their heroes were unlike our knights. More often broody boys who preferred quill to falchion. Brooding teenagehood made me relish the stranger stories, tales without lessons existing solely to unnerve, speaking on the bleak lives of Tartarian wizards. Older, into adulthood, I came to enjoy Greek tales most. The tragedy of Ajax in his lover's plate leaking on the golden sand moved me. Waves, caressing the moored fleet in passing, bursting against the shale where the pyre burned. Since, when I hear crunching pebbles, I think of soldiers marching on the beach at Troy.

I heard the crunch of a trap and waited hopeful until the crude plume fixed atop the horses head appeared like the mantle of some deposed pagan lord. Ixion's disc four times divided had been fixed to bear this chariot. Its trundle ground debris to powder. I hailed the man, a being of wind, every strand of hair or cloth lank enough to lift stood in disarray. A peak stole his brow, but a smile waved me aboard. He never spoke, though carried me within shouting distance of the manse.

Inside chaos reigned. Lady Sizemore's estate was measured first in paper, not coin. Hundreds, thousands of jaundiced sheets, all in disorder busying every surface. Before a single coin changed hands, a great many hours I spent hauling boxes, within which were more boxes where spiders large as potatoes spun temporary wonders above the invoices.

I wonder what effect prolonged tedium has. Such thoughts are entertained in the avoidance of work that should never be given lucid credence. An entire day dedicated solely to translating letters in incomprehensible cursive, it felt ridiculous. My mind, perhaps reflecting its surroundings, felt dulled, unfocused. So long I stared, when I pried my eyes I found feint margins plastered across reality.

The previous night's visitations I had pondered, ultimately chalking to anxiety. Nothing substantially portentous. Unfortunately, another day was required before I indulged my cryptozooligcal fancies.

*

Darkness in ravenfeather arrived prematurely. I gathered my belongings, wondering where the time went, then ran to the track and the sounds of the the last husbandmen bound for Sperrin. I found easy passage. Too easy perhaps; I was cursed to endure indignity on a wagon halfheartedly scraped of its stinking contents; with my legs lolling over the side, I was soaked in every splash. I arrived back mud-caked, a shambling golem. Lar tended bar. I wondered had he stirred in my absence. Anticipating my thirst, two mugs were set.

I dropped my satchel, enjoying relief akin to weightlessness by contrast, and we drained tankards like soon-to-war Saxons, speaking of weather. I asked had anyone noteworthy visited, mostly from politeness. When asked had the room served, I replied it had done so more than adequately. Again, politeness.

Not wishing to seem overeager, I spared him my dream. If the tale was relayed to me, I should say how convenient the very man hoping to find the beast would experience a vision.

Besides, in the unlikely event we found a mangy badger after I'd described a prehistoric horror.. perish the thought.

'Do we depart tomorrow?' Lar grunted, pretending to clean.

'Short delay actually. I'd have said from the doorway, only for the ale calling. Alas, labour remains. My charges lust for satisfaction. They are at Rome's gates! Distant cousins write in droves. By air, land and sea their letters come, squeezing through grates, shimmying down chimneys. Forget the beast, if they find me I'm dead.'

'We sank tankards enough last night. I've seen folks pale on the dizzy morning after the night before. If this delay is to spite me, let me allay concerns, I'm the man for this job. We're the men for this job.' He shot a glance at Fergus, a pale lance cleaving his brow.

I looked to my empty cup then longingly at his selection. Lar fingered a cask, but reached further back and took another instead.

'My god, man. Boil a pot and toss it down your trousers. No such notions occurred to me. We're expedition mates! I didn't make a dent in the work, really.' I raised a silencing finger to hear the splash of ale. 'There you have it. Mystery solved. If the mystery of the beast is this easy, we're laughing.' I inhaled its aroma. Fruity, potent, sickly almost. 'This expedition diary I mean to publish, any thoughts?'

Lar's measured tone returned. Careful as a tiptoeing sinner, he asked 'You good?'

I smiled. 'Only Ben Adhem saw the book, ask him.'

Lar stove the ashen helm crowning his cigarette, plunging the embers into the cold bronze bowl. 'At writing.'

'You should say! I tease, I tease. To answer your question, yes is the answer. Humbly, in my hand, the pen is like the master mason's chisel, from whence grand cathedrals spring forth from their less divine constituent parts.' Lar was fumbling for his tobacco already and I thought what small use that vice would be in peril.

'I'm convinced.' Lar spoke quickly, stumbling over the words to get them out. I took no offence at his zeal to change the subject. 'Do you have a manuscript at hand?'

'Not with me, unfortunately.' He stifled a sigh of relief. 'Upon returning home one story heavier, I'll ensure you receive signed copies of every one. I'll sing them My favourite tub of Lar. Yours literately, Beastman. That way you'll know it's me.'

Lar's ale, a home brew, was a swift agent, promising to travel from your mouth to the toilet's in twenty minutes. I joked he might patent it for a medicine. Call it the Midas touch. Everything it touched turns to gold: toilet seat, floor, shoes if you weren't careful.

I spied Fergus. His thumb led a blunt edge across the ribbed bark of a sprig, from which he had carved two lidded eyes and a pursed mouth.

Lar lit a cigarette from the flared end of the last, then discarded it on the ashen pyre.

Lar had to raise the hatch spoiling any hope of a dramatic exit, but I hovered over the stool while I spoke. 'Departure two days hence, on the strict proviso no unpleasant libel suit comes once the story hits print. Rest assured, I'll include nothing untoward, but I reserve the right to artistic licence. Print the myth.'

'Libel is a city crime.' Anticipating my desire, Lar walked while he spoke. I mirrored his step, slipping through the open portcullis to sleep, perchance to scream.

*

Lying in bed, I wondered what to include in my chronicle; exciting details only, or every charged exchange? Nobody asked how the shipwright felt constructing thousands of ships without prior notice. They only wanted Achilles. The reader will concede, I have included much of the mundane.

Well-oiled, I slept easily. Set like a star I saw things past, dark present and murky future, useless without chronology, stifling their prophetic nature. The beast came again, shaking the ground.

Waking, it seemed I fell to the mattress from a height. Not far enough to endanger, but enough to worry the springs. I lurched, took my journal from the bedside locker, levered its purple tongue to split its leather cuirass and let it whip to a clean page.

One mark on the opposite face demanded attention. A black circle, subtle as a bearded chin, formed by the swift fury of a graceless wrist, its blackness total.

How strangely the lines blended. One moment a nest of fastened rat tails, one mark indistinguishable from another, the next a clear set of growing rings. In its swirling centre around the maelstrom's eye, the paper tore with the fury of the quill.

I found the pockmark on every page. Someone strained greatly to make an impression so indelible. First I thought Fergus with his ham hands, unknowingly forcing the nib through the page. When he had the chance, or the notion? It seemed unlikely. Throughout the workday it was with me, resting once for a moment unattended on the desk.

Despite concerns, I knew no progress could be made at this hour. For now it seemed safe to be about my duties without much extra precaution. I returned the journal, pulled the duvet across my shoulders and turned to sleep, when suddenly a violent jolt racked the shutters so fiercely they juddered back into place with a great thunk.

I winced toward the disturbance and found mocking empty blackness. As my head sank back into the pillow, a shuddering pulse shook the building. A rippling seismic attack. Unlike quakes from within, which sally in waves, this was a single detonation, like a dying star; one magnificent shockwave that stirred everything in the world at once, only for a moment. I stemmed panic, falling to courageous platitudes that would embarrass the most shameless Kipling-mimic. Without panic, I deduced more likely my head sharply turning had disturbed my equilibrium, giving the walls the appearance of motion. As if in answer to my doubt, dust sprinkled from the rafters.

Nothing else came. I waited, steeled. I pretended to be brave and at some indeterminate point, felt into a brave slumber.

*

Lar, blackbird that he was, rose early. He emerged from the fugue state that best pleased his constitution and stretched, his wingspan filling the alcove.

He found me in my linen cell, bewhaled as Jonah.

'Terrible day.' He drew the shutters. I pulled the sheets down over my face to the sight of Lar's stocky silhouette in the dirty light. Tapping his pipe twice on the sill, he plonked one cheek on the ledge and struck a match. 'Anything you want from town? I'm going to get supplies. I should be away most of the day. There won't be a return trip before we go. Speak now or forever hold your peace.'

'Ambulo in pace.' I tapped my journal, 'I have everything.'

'Do you have a mac?' The rain beat harder.

'No, we're English, some Irish. Although I heard tell that a distant branch traded their roses for thistle stalks.'

Lar shuddered, ill-humoured before midday, despite protestations he needed no proper rest. 'I mean a waterproof.'

'Oh give me credit. That's humour.'

'We in the smiling countryside call it idiocy. There's a time for revels. Unless you've been up all night, dawn isn't it.'

'I don't have one and I'd like a loan if that's what you're asking, thank you. I didn't sleep well now you mention it' I tossed my feet onto the cold ground and felt for a sock.

Lar watched the rain spilling in romantic sheets. 'You'll need an ark to get back. It's like a bog when it rains. No one will be able to get you. Not me, not the constabulary, nor anyone else. If the weather worsens, make sure you get back in time. Otherwise, everything will be closed until further boatice.'

'Boatice?' I said.

'Now that is humour. Rain, boats, further notice. Get it?' Lar left more spritely than when he entered.

[alchemisland]

Moors Mutt - II

Prefer Wattpad?

Rising early, if rising it was and not merely stirring from a wakened restive state, I left the tavern in secret and walked a barren stretch. At pale dawn birds like Aztec idols flighted at my stirring. Cold light stained the pasture either side. Sleepshod, the road to Cairn Cottage found me quiet company. Even the tinkers were not yet to the road in their triskeled wagons.

The air was heavy with lavender. A pebbled stretch stirred a reverie of my late father and a codex of heroic tales he had purchased for me, whose chronicles of high adventure stirred me like nothing prior. At six years old, tales of old Arabia appealed most. Kingdoms wrought of sunstones stark against a tangerine haze, swirling tarot star ever-visible, scorpions armoured like chargers; the sheer cloying madness of it all. I visited them in dreams, jumped from the paths of unruly camels, watced the impenetrable waves humbly part in the wake of royal palanquins.

Their heroes were unlike our knights. More often sulky boys preferring quill to falchion. Brooding teenagehood made me relish the stranger entries, tales without lessons existing solely to unnerve, speaking on the bleak lives of Tartarian wizards.

Into adulthood, I came to enjoy Greek tales best of all. The tragedy of Ajax in his lover's plate leaking on the golden sand. Waves, caressing the moored fleet in passing, bursting against the shale where his pyre burned. Always when I hear crunching pebbles, I think of soldiers marching on the strand near Troy.

Before long, a trap could be heard from the middle distance, the first in a network of wagons due to arrive at Cairn Cottage to transport the priceless contents of Lady Sizemore’s library back to Sperrin, where they would be carefully parcelled and carried by train to the Royal Academy Library. I waited astride the ditch until the crude plume atop the horses head appeared like the mantle of some deposed pagan lord. Ixion's disc four times divided had been fixed to bear this chariot. Its heavy trundle ground debris to powder. I hailed the driver, a wind being, every strand of hair or cloth lank enough to lift stood disarrayed. A peak stole his brow but a smile waved me aboard.

The driver never spoke. There was a sense of grim penitence about all I had met thus far. Their lines of deep regret boldened every jowl and furrowed brow. Each bore the weight of his forebears in full. A place without time and silent, where happiness and sadness could last all of forever. So silent were they, matched only by monks in their solemnity, I christened this ham the abbodrice of Sperrin.

Inside chaos reigned. Lady Sizemore's estate was measured first in paper above coin. Hundreds, thousands, of jaundiced sheets all in disorder busied every surface. Before a single penny changed hands, a great many hours I spent hauling boxes, within which were more boxes where spiders large as potatoes spun temporary wonders above the invoices.

I wonder what effect prolonged tedium has. Such thoughts are entertained in avoidance of work as should never be given lucid credence. An entire day dedicated solely to translating letters in incomprehensible cursive, it felt ridiculous. My mind, perhaps reflecting its surroundings, felt dulled, unfocused. So long I stared, when I pried my eyes I found feint margins plastered across reality.

The previous night's visitations I had pondered, ultimately chalking to anxiety. Nothing substantially portentous. Unfortunately, another day I required before I indulged  cryptozooligcal fancies.

Darkness in ravenfeather arrived premature. I ran to the track where the last impatient husbandman sat in stasis. 'Bound for Sperrin?' I called, already halfway inside.

I arrived at Lar's fiercely humoured. Tired, thirsty and caked in mud golemlike, my gladness at journey's end was quickly consumed by the fury of indignity, having endured the return trip atop a sewagesucker's swine van. Lar tended bar. I wondered had he stirred in my absence. Anticipating a thirst, two mugs were set.

I dropped my satchel and enjoyed relief akin to weightlessness by contrast. We drained tankards like soon-to-war Saxons, spoke of weather, I asked had anyone noteworthy visited, mostly from politeness. When asked had the room served, I replied it had done so more than adequately. Again, politeness.

Not wishing to appear overeager, I spared him details of my dream. If the tale was relayed to me, I should say how convenient the very man hoping to find the beast would experience a vision. Besides, in the unlikely event we found a mangy badger after I'd described a prehistoric horror.. perish the thought.

'Do we depart tomorrow?' Lar grunted as he pretended to dust.

'Short delay as it happens. I'd have said from the door, only for the ale calling. Alas, labour remains. My charges lust for satisfaction. They are at Rome's gates! Distant cousins write in droves. By air, land and sea their letters come, squeezing through grates, shimmying down chimneys. Forget the beast, if they find me I'm dead.' I said, picking at a heel of bread.

'We sank tankards enough last night. I've seen plenty pale on the dizzy morning after the night before. If this delay is to spite me, let me allay concerns, I'm the man for this job. We're the men for this job.' Lar shot a glance at Fergus. A pale lance cleft his brow through the slitted shutters.

I looked to my empty cup then longingly at his selection. Lar fingered a bottle, but reached further back and took another instead.

'My god, man. Boil a pot and toss it down your trousers. No such notions occurred to me. We're expedition mates! I didn't make a dent in the work, really.' I raised a silencing finger to hear the ale splash. 'There you have it. Mystery solved. If the mystery of the beast is this easy, we're laughing.' I inhaled its aroma. 'Listen, chap. There's something else I wanted to talk about before we go. I mean to publish an expedition diary. A chronicle of our adventures. Part scientific tome, part roaring adventure book. Your pub will be the busiest spot in the weald after this. Would you object to such?'

Lar's measured tone returned. Careful as a tiptoeing sinner, he asked 'You good?'

I smiled. 'Only Ben Adhem saw the book, ask him.'

Lar stove the ashen helm crowning his cigarette, plunging the embers into the cold bronze bowl. 'At writing.'

'You should say! I tease, I tease. To answer your question, yes. Humbly, in my hand the pen is like the master mason's chisel, from whence grand cathedrals spring forth from their less divine constituent parts.' Lar was fumbling for his tobacco already and I thought what small use that vice would be in peril.

'I'm convinced.' Lar spoke quickly, stumbling over the words to get them out. I took no offence at his zeal to change the subject. 'Do you have a manuscript at hand?' he asked.

'Not with me, unfortunately.' He stifled a sigh of relief. 'Upon returning home one story heavier, I'll ensure you receive signed copies of every one. I'll sing them My favourite tub of Lar. Yours literately, Beastman. That way you'll know it's me.'

Lar's ale, a home brew, was a swift agent, promising to travel from your mouth to the toilet's in twenty minutes. I joked he might patent it for a medicine. Call it the Midas touch. Everything it touched turns to gold: toilet seat, floor, shoes if you weren't careful.

I spied Fergus. His thumb led a blunt edge across the ribbed bark of a sprig, from which he had carved two lidded eyes and a pursed mouth.

Lar lit a cigarette from the flared end of another, then discarded it on the ashen pyre.

Lar had to raise the hatch for me, which spoiled any hope of a dramatic exit. 'Departure two days hence, on the strict proviso no unpleasant libel suit comes once my story hits print. Rest assured, I'll include nothing untoward, but I reserve the right to artistic licence. Print the myth.'

'Libel is a city crime.' Anticipating my desire, Lar walked while he spoke. I mirrored and slipped through the open portcullis to sleep, perchance to scream.

*

Lying in bed, I wondered what to include in my chronicle; exciting details only, or every charged exchange? Nobody asked how the shipwright felt constructing thousands of ships without prior notice. They only wanted Achilles. The reader will concede, I have included much of the mundane.

Well-oiled, I slept easily. Set like a star I saw things from the blind past, dark present and murky future, useless without chronology, stifling their prophetic nature. The beast came again, shaking the ground where it trod.

*

Lar, blackbird that he was, rose early. He emerged from the fugue state that best pleased his constitution and stretched, his wingspan filling the alcove. He found me in my linen cell, bewhaled as Jonah.

'Terrible day.' He drew the shutters. Groggily, I pulled the sheets down over my face to the sight of Lar's stocky silhouette in the dirty light. Tapping a cigarette loose on the sill, he plonked one cheek on the ledge and struck a match. 'Anything you want from town? I'm going to get supplies. I should be away most of the day. There won't be a return trip before we go. Speak now or forever hold your peace.'

'Ambulo in pace.' I tapped my journal, 'I have everything.'

'Do you have a mac?' he asked. The rain beat down harder.

'No, we're English, some Irish. Although I heard tell that a distant branch traded their roses for thistle stalks.' I smirked.

Lar shuddered, ill-humoured before midday despite protestations he needed no proper rest. 'I mean a waterproof.'

'Oh give me credit. That's humour.'

'We in the smiling countryside call it idiocy. There's a time for revels. Unless you've been up all night, dawn isn't it.' he said somewhat angrily.

'I don't have one and I'd like a loan if that's what you're asking, thank you. I didn't sleep well now you mention it' I tossed my feet onto the cold ground and felt for a sock.

Lar watched the rain spilling in romantic sheets. 'You'll need an ark to get back. It's like a bog when it rains. No one will be able to get you. Not me, not the constabulary, nor anyone else. If the weather worsens, make sure you get back in time. Otherwise, everything will be closed until further boatice.'

'Boatice?' I said.

'Now that is humour. Rain, boats, further notice. Get it?' Lar left, more spritely than when he entered.