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[therakeisnogentleman-blog]

Supernatural Snippets; Part 2

So when I started writing this, it was supposed to be a short one shot based on this crazy idea I had. But, as is often the case, when I sat down to write, it just grew and grew. Long story short, this is probably going to be a long running series of short drabbles all tied into a common theme. Hope you like it!

The Brothers

The front door to the house on the old road opens with a shriek that wakes the roosting birds hiding in its eaves and echoes in the deep and forgotten places below its rotting foundations. The hinges are caked in rust from the years of neglect, they do not give up their hold easily. But they are no match for the shoulder of one Dean Winchester. Dean wants to get inside, he is tired of the rain and no damned old door is going to stop him, his words. The door does not burst open under the force of the blow, but creams slowly open as if drawn from the inside.

“Well that’s not creepy at all,” Dean comments. His salt loaded shotgun is in his hands as he nudges the door the rest of the way. “Yo, Casper, you home?”

His call goes unanswered, though the house does not approve of its new nickname. Still, Dean is undaunted. He steps over the threshold, his thick soled black boots crushing flakes of rust into the threadbare carpet. The treads leave wet marks in the built up dust. Sam is more cautious. He carries a handgun, silver framed and loaded with bullets forged of cold iron. In his other hand he carries a raggedy duffel bag over his shoulder. Sam is a firm believer in being prepared. He sniffs the air.

“No sulphur, guess we can rule out demons.” He covers the left while his brother covers the right. They move like a well oiled machine, the long years putting the easy flow of good practice into their movements. “Ghosts it is.” He slings the bag into a creaky wooden rocking chair and rummages through it with searching hands. His eyes are up, though, always scanning. He finds what he is looking for quickly, it is exactly where he left it. The EMF detector is a small black box put together out of whatever electronics the Winchesters can assemble without arousing suspicion. Sam flips it on with flick of his thumb. The device crackles faintly, an action that drawers a crinkle of surprise from the taller brother.

“I woulda though we’d be seeing more than that from a ghost this nasty,” Dean says, reading his brother’s expression.

“Yeah, me too.” Sam leaves the bag open on the chair and takes up his pistol again. He waves the detector around like a divinimg rod, hoping to pick up a signal. He does. The lights atop the small box light in sequence, the needle twitches, and it emits a wavering, keening note. It rises and falls, point g the way. Sam follows, he is glad to have direction again. He is not happy about where that direction leads him.

“You gotta be kidding me,” Dean grouses. The open door to the flooded basement yawns open below them. A wet, musty smell emits from the opening, the morning breath of a man who eats only wood chips and mould. At the edge of the light, a good foot of water covers the ground. “Why is it always in the creepy basement? Can’t we hunt a dead psycho who his the corpse in his finished attic for once?”

“Perks of the job,” Sam answers dubiously. “Wish I’d brought my waders.”

“Waders aren’t going to do anything for the smell,” Dean replies. He descends the stairs regardless. If he was the type to be daunted by a bad smell and the threat of rot, he’d have left this line of work a long time ago. Sam follows. He is less keen, but he is not one to be outshone by his older brother. The EMF detector cries out in its steady wail, a sound that only grows stronger as they splash down into the musty water. The basement is labyrinthine, crooked, cramped and uneven. Water laps at every wall, more running down as the storm outside seeps into the foundations. But the boys have their faithful gadget, which leads them unerringly through the close rabbit warren until they stand before a closed iron door.

“What is this, some kind of coal bunker? Boiler room?” Dean asks. His hand is already reaching for the wide vertical handle.

“Kind of out of the way.” Sam adds. “Perfect place to hide a body.” The two shrug at each other and ready their weapons. Dean tugs hard, the door squeals but slides open on two runners.

“What the…?!”

[therakeisnogentleman-blog]

Easiest thing you’ll do tonight

1) go to gofccyourself.com

2) click on “+ Express”

3) fill in your name, email and mailing addresses, and copy and paste this message into the comment box:

“I’m writing to express my disapproval that the FCC is trying to kill net neutrality and the strong Title II oversight of Internet Service Providers. Preserving an open internet is crucial for fair and equal access to the resources and information available on it.”

4) Click the blue button to go to the review page

5) Check it over and click the final submit button

[therakeisnogentleman-blog]

Supernatural Snippets

The House

There is a house on the old road that even the bravest of the locals do not dare to enter. It is an old house, the gables have fallen in in some places, exposing the aged wooden bones of the building to the moonlight that seeps through the strangling boughs of the surrounding woods. The road is older still. It winds, serpentlike through the grey barked trees across the miles that separate the nearby town of Tudor Mills from any kind of civilization.

The house is a sad, ramshackle affair. Once a pleasant example of Appalachian Americana, it is now a rotting husk, an old man awaiting the end as he stoops over the forgotten oxbow driveway that leads to his front door. The house is two stories, though the stairs are long gone and the second floor sags dangerously under the weight of years. There are the jagged renains of a front porch that reach out to touch the drive. It leaks in the rain. The whole house leaks in the rain. It moans in the strong mountain winds. The locals say it is an unquiet spirit. They are not entirely wrong.

There are many stories told of the house on the old road in Tudor Mills. Some swear that they have seen faces behind the moldering remains of moth-eaten curtain that hang in the broken glassed windows. Some say a beast haunts the always wet basement, eager to drag misbehaving youth to a watery demise. Still others talk of the last owner, the murderer whose last victim was his own daughter before he died of a sudden heart attack. His name is not spoken in the town, though all of the elders remember it and cross their hearts at the chill that passes with such remembrance. It is this story that has drawn interest back to the long neglected home. Two men with stern faces have driven their black vintage automobile to the dark portal that marks the remains of a broken doorway.

"This is the place," says Sam. He steps from the car and turns his collar against the constant drizzle.

"Yeah, if I was a spooky ghost, this is definitely were I'd be hanging out." His brother replies. He is already moving for the weapons he keeps locked in the trunk. A trusty shotgun loaded with rock salt will put paid to any disgruntled spectre, of that he is sure of. Dean Winchester is a shoot first man, his faith is in his weapons and in his own two hands. "So, anything in the more that says where our two friends might have been buried?"

"None," Sam furrows his brow. While he's not afraid to take action, he is a man of words. He is not often failed by his research. He is unsteady now without the written word to point the way. "What's our play?"

"Easy," Dean smirks and racks his first shell. "We go in."

[therakeisnogentleman-blog]

One Act of Kindness: Part 2

Harry watched the oars of the small rowboat dip in and out of the water with an expression of rapt wonder. It wasn’t that he’d never seen oars in action before; he’d gotten a pretty good look at their operation the night before when a half manic Uncle Vernon had hauled them across a stormy sea. What held his attention on this bright July morning was that the oars were moving on their own. More magic. Hagrid had set the twin planks spinning with a tap of his umbrella and a sly wink. Now he was sitting at the head of the boat reading a large newspaper that had been delivered by owl. The front cover was studded with more of the moving pictures. Apparently all wizarding photographs moved. A small selfish spark inside Harry had rebelled at that revelation. Secretly he’d always hoped that his Magic Photo had been something unique. But that had been then. Now he was watching magic being performed right before his eyes and he was content. He breathed in the salty sea air and leaned back against the side of the boat to enjoy his birthday morning. He snuck a peek inside his tin, running his hands over the photo and the letter held within.

“Hagrid, what were my parents like when they were in school?” he asked without thinking. Hagrid looked at him over the top of his newspaper with an expression of deep thought etched on his forehead. Harry felt kind of silly for asking, but now that he’d said it he felt like it was the most important question in the world.

“Your parents,” Hagrid began. “Well, they went to Hogwarts after my time, o’ course. But everyone who met them always said the same thing. Your dad was a thumpin’ good wizard, head boy in his last year, if you’ll believe it. Won an award for his trans’figgeration, I think. Got into all kinds of trouble with that pack of friends he hung about with. Played a bit of quidditch, if I recall right. Now yer mum was a brilliant witch, better than your dad I reckon, not that he’d ever admit it.” Hagrid chuckled at his own joke. “Weren’t a charm nor potion she couldn’t master if she set ‘er will to it, an’ she had plenty will to spare. Patience of a saint yer mum had, but when she got it in her head there was an unfairness afoot, there weren’t nothin’ that could stop her. Some say they made her head girl jus’ to rein in yer dad an’ stop it goin’ to his head. Codswallop in my opinion, anyone deserved the honour, it was her.” Hagrid smiled as he recalled what sounded like distant but pleasant memories. Harry smiled along, the words painting a picture in his mind.

“They sound amazing,” Harry said. “I only wish I could be half as good at magic as either of them. I’m afraid I might be no good.” Harry stared off into the distance, suddenly aware of the cavernously large shoes he’d soon be stepping into.

“Nah,” Hagrid said. “Don’t you worry yerself, ‘Arry. Yer jus’ eleven. No one expects you to be Merlin right out t’gate. You put yer work in tho’, an’ I’m sure you’ll not be thought less of. Ah, here we are.” The small boat butted against the algae gripped stones of a harbor wall. Hagrid leaned over, almost capsizing the tiny vessel, and grabbed hold of an iron ring set in the side of seawall. The giant swung the boat around until it ground against a set of shallow steps that climbed the wall. “Well, there you go. Watch yer’ step now.”

Harry swarmed out of the boat and climbed the steps, which turned out to be quite slippery with thick growing seaweed and puddles of saltwater. Never the less, Harry gained the top of the cliff quickly, spilling out onto the sleepy street above none the worse for wear. This early in the morning, the little seaside town they’d left the night before was still barely rising from bed. Very few people walked the streets in the stiff sea breeze that was blowing into shore. Those that did were staring in Harry’s direction. Harry looked around nervously. Had they seen something? Did they know? Hagrid had said there were laws against revealing magic to the world. Had he, Harry Potter, already broken those laws not one day after learning they existed? “You al’right, Harry?” Hagrid asked very close behind him. Harry jumped, then immediately felt incredibly foolish. Hagrid, who towered over Harry’s short form, was also at least twice as tall as the adults who were now watching slightly slack jawed.

“Yeah. I’m fine Hagrid.” Harry stepped out of the way as the giant man climbed the last few steps. With a jab of his oversize pink umbrella, he sent the boat scudding away across the sea under its own power. “Hagrid, how exactly are we getting to London?” Harry tried to imagine the enormous man squeezing into a car or climbing onto a bus Or perhaps, as he’d revealed earlier that morning, Hagrid flying through the air like Mary Poppins, Harry squeezed into one of his coat’s many pockets like an oversized kangaroo.

“We’ll take the train, o’course.” Hagrid said excitedly. He patted one of his pockets. “Got a ticket ‘ere somewhere. Got it from Dumbledore, I did, never did get a handle on muggle money me self.” And with that, they were off to the town’s local train station. Harry almost had to jog to keep up with the long strides of Hagrid, who walked down the street in good cheer, pointing out various objects like bike racks and a painted blue police box and making comments like “The things these muggles come up with.” Harry smiled awkwardly at the so-called muggles as they passed. They tended to give Hagrid a wide berth, but Harry they eyed with curious looks. It was much the same aboard the train. Harry sat beside Hagrid, who had pulled from his coat a ball of wool and two needles that could have doubled as small spears and started to knit.

Harry watched the countryside outside turn into the cityscape of London as morning crawled slowly towards midday. The men and women who got on and off the train began to wear suits as opposed to plain clothes and fewer and fewer cast looks in Hagrid’s direction, preferring to disappear behind newspapers of their own. By the time the train pulled into Victoria Station, no one seemed to bat an eye at the odd pair. Harry rose with a yawn and a stretch, shaking off the sleepy weight of a late night and a quiet ride. The platform around him was bustling with people. Harry shamelessly gawped around. He’d never been to London, and the high, glass ceilinged gallery festooned with lines of Union Flags served as a grandiose introduction to the city. That introduction was reinforced as Harry reached the street. The station that rose up behind them was made up all in red brick. Lines of iconic red double decker buses stood ready to fill with passengers along bays that lead out into the road, which was thick with more cars than Harry had ever seen in one place. People thronged the stone shod pavement in streams.

Hagrid parted the sea of humanity like an island moving against the tide. Harry hurried behind in his wake, his unfolded letter clutched in one hand. His brow was creased with confusion as he read through the shopping list provided on the second sheet. He queried Hagrid. “One wand? Hagrid, where in London are we going to find some of these, is there really a shop that sells wands and cauldrons and spell books?”

“Well, not all in one shop,” Hagrid said with a chuckle. “But there is a shop that carries spell books, an’ one with cauldrons an’ potions ingredients, and even one where you can get yer’ wand. You jus’ have to know where to look.” The giant laid a thick finger aside his wide nose in a knowing look. “Not far now.” They continued along the bustling city streets, turning onto Charing Cross and marching along until Hagrid came to a stop outside a shabby little building that peeked from between a bookshop on one side and a record store on the other. Harry waited for his companion to continue on, but instead Hagrid turned and stepped towards the dingy black and gold painted façade. By the looks of the faded sign that hung out front, this was the Leaky Cauldron, and it was a pub. Hagrid made to open the door with its grime darkened door, but had second thoughts and turned back to Harry.

“Well, let’s, um, let’s go in then.” A hand at Harry’s back led him towards the door. “Now I mus’ warn you Harry, you’re kind of famous in the wizarding world. Folks might act a little funny ‘round you.” With no further warning, Hagrid pushed him gently through the front door. The room was dark as Harry stepped across the threshold. Smoke swirled in dizzying patterns as men in bright cloaks bent heads close together in conversation. Harry walked confidently among the tables. If he was famous, as Hagrid had told him, he shouldn’t have any trouble in this bar. And then, all of a sudden, something odd happened. The scar on his forehead, the one he had been told he had received in the car crash that had claimed his parent’s lives, prickled slightly. He reached up and brushed the hair that covered it aside to scratch at it. The effect on the barroom was instantaneous. Voices hushed and then died down. Everyone in the room appeared transfixed by the thin lightning bolt shape on his forehead. A voice inside him told him to run and hide, to escape the unasked for attention. Then he thought of his Photo, of his parents standing together and waving happily. They couldn’t have been that much older than he was now. Harry took a deep breath and tried to imagine himself smiling as confidently as they had. He looked up at Hagrid, who gave him a slight wink and motioned for him to keep going. Harry stepped forward, a move that at once seemed to break the spell that held the room silent. From seemingly every corner of the room witches and wizards came forth to either shake his hand or offer him thanks. He accepted the attention with the warmest smile he could manage; he was still unnerved by the sudden press of bodies. It was more people than he had spoken to in his whole life and none of them had an unkind word for him. It was a nice change of pace, he decided.

The old barman greeted Hagrid with a hearty “The usual then, Hagrid?” Hagrid politely declined. “Can’t Tom, Hogwarts business you know.” He motioned towards Harry.

“Harry Potter, bless my soul. I should have known it were someone like you caused all that commotion.” Harry followed Hagrid past a turban clad man towards the back door. His scar gave one last prickle before the door closed behind them and they were faced with and alley empty but for a pair of miserable looking dustbins.

“Hagrid…” Harry began, but before he could finish the huge man had tapped out a pattern in the dirty bricks. Before Harry’s eyes bricks seemed to move and revolve until they formed a great archway onto a cobblestone street. Harry was battered almost immediately with a veritable barrage of new sights, sounds, and smells. Shops lined a narrow road that twisted back and forth, each storefront a unique mix of strange and wonderful. Harry goggled at barrels full of curious looking plants, windows lined with wide bottomed copper pots and thick stout iron basins. He saw a skinny three story building that leaned out over the street. It’s brightly painted sign claimed that it held flying broomsticks within. The riotous street ended at the steps of a great white marble edifice marked with golden letters a foot high; Gringotts Wizarding Bank. Hagrid followed his eyes and smiled.

“That’ll be our firs’ stop, Gringotts. Thas’ were your gold’s kept. T’aint no safer place to keep sommat’ than in Gringotts, ‘cept maybe Hogwarts that is.” Together they moved towards the bank, Hagrid cutting a path through the crowd as he had done in London and Harry following. Harry made sure to cover his scar back up with his hair, no reason to cause a scene out in public. Not that it would have mattered, as it turned out. Everyone in Diagon Alley was bustling about. Harry watched as a half dozen women dressed in long dresses that looked like something out of the Victorian era descend upon a display of faintly glowing fruit. Atop a spindly looking ladder, a shopkeeper levitated a spray of potted flowers to the top of his storefront with a wave of a small wooden stick and adhered them to the wood with a few jabs. Owls soared thick overhead, shrieking and hooting as they flew in and out of some of the buildings.

All around him, magic was thick in the air. Harry felt something, something that he couldn’t quite put into words. Something about this place just felt right. It was as if it was the final, definitive proof that everything he had dreamed of for as long as he could remember was all true. And now it surrounded him. Harry breathed it all in and felt as if he was filling with magic. He smiled broadly as Hagrid led on. Soon enough they were at the great golden doors of Gringott’s bank.

“’Ere we go, ‘Arry,” Hagrid mumbled. “Now watch yerself. Goblins aren’t exactly the most friendly of beasts.” The giant placed a massive hand on the door and pushed it open.

The door opened on an ornate marble lobby. Everywhere gold glittered in statuary, chandeliers, and even in thin veins within the walls themselves. Suddenly, Harry felt very out of place in his baggy hand me down clothes and broken glasses. A great arch inscribed in a language Harry couldn’t read led to a hall somehow even grander. Short, ugly creatures sat at the high tables that lined the hall. They all seemed very busy either counting coins or writing in massive ledgers.

“Are these goblins?” Harry asked under his breath. Hagrid only nodded. At the end of the hall sat an especially old looking goblin busy reading from a long roll of parchment. Hagrid approached the desk and cleared his throat. The goblin didn’t look up.

“Do you have business here?” he enquired in a raspy voice that sounded unpleasantly as if he was being strangled.

“I’m here to bring Mr. Harry Potter to his vault.” Hagrid said.

“And does Mr. Harry Potter have his key?” the old goblin asked. Hagrid patted around his pockets, emptying out their contents to the increasing distaste of the goblin teller. Finally, he pulled a tiny golden key on a string from one of the smaller pockets that lined his back. There was a little back and forth between the two as Harry looked around distractedly. He got the sense that this place would be ungodly hard to break into. But that would be a good thing wouldn’t it? He was brought back to present matters as a younger goblin approached.

“Griphook here is goin’ to take you to your vault, Harry.” Hagrid said with a smile. He quickly stuffed a handful of dog treats and a fat green caterpillar back into his pockets. The three of them walked through the set of double doors in the back of the room. They led to a narrow hallway that then gave way to a rough hewn tunnel. This tunnel opened out into what looked like a miniature train station. A strange golden cart stood on suspended rails.

“Sit, please.” The goblin, Griphook, spoke in short, curt sentences. The cart was in motion almost as soon as they had all taken seats. It moved along its rails at breakneck speeds, the tunnel wall flashed past Harry in a blur of grey rock, occasionally punctuated by dimly lit alcoves that ended in round iron doors. Harry gasped as the cart began a sudden decent into an open cavern.

“Gringotts goes deep underground, Harry,” Hagrid must have seen Harry’s shocked expression, “Deeper even than the Ministry of Magic.” Harry looked over to ask a question about what exactly the Ministry of Magic was, but noticed that the ride through the cavern was making Hagrid appear rather green around the gills. Harry himself felt rather ill as the cart plunged ever deeper into the network of crisscrossing caves and tunnels. Looking over the side of the cart, he felt his heart hitch in his chest for a brief moment. He quickly snapped his eyes straight forward and tried to ignore the large and active butterflies currently inhabiting his stomach.

“Vault number 687.” Griphook stated simply before hopping out of the cart. Harry and Hagrid were both quite glad to follow, Hagrid leaning heavily on a column. “Key, please.”

The goblin accepted the tiny golden key from Harry’s outstretched hand and placed it in the iron door’s lock. It clicked into place and the sound of a number of latches unlocking could be faintly heard through the thick metal. The door swung open with a whoosh of released air. The sight that met Harry almost knocked him over. Although covered in dust, the unmistakable glint of gold shone in the dim light of the vault. Harry found himself trying to calculate just how much gold this was but the stacks defied counting.

And it was all his. The goblin beside him passed him a leather pouch without a word.

“Didn’t think your parents would leave you with nuthin’ now did you ‘arry.” Hagrid had caught up with them and had reclaimed most of his usual ruddy colour. “Let me take that for you.” He tugged the pouch lightly from Harry’s hands and tossed a few handfuls of gold, silver, and bronze coins into it before passing it back. “That should get you yer school things an’ leave a little left over.”

After closing and locking the door, it was back on the cart. Rather than taking them back to the surface as Harry had hoped, it spiraled even deeper into the vaults. Harry could have sworn he has seen gouts of flame coming from some of the deeper tunnels. At long last they stopped at a vault marked “713.” The vault sat on the edge of a narrow ledge.

“I’ll just stay in the cart, alright?” Harry was trying very hard not to look down.

“Can’ say I blame yer Harry. I won’t be two winks.” And with that he stepped from the cart along with the goblin. When he returned he was patting one of his front pockets furtively. The ride back up to the surface was mercifully smooth.

Harry thanked Griphook as the goblin led him out into the brightly lit lobby. The goblin merely looked back at him dispassionately. The walk to the golden front doors passed silently, until Harry stepped forward into the sunshine. He drew the school equipment list from the pocket of his jeans.

“So Hagrid, what do you think we should get first?”

“Well, yer gonna want yer wand o’ course, and then maybe some school robes. An’ if it’s alright with you, I’m gonna have to take meself off to the old pub for a little pick me up.”

“Yeah,” Harry agreed, “Yeah I can look after myself for a while.” Hagrid looked at him with gratitude.

“Jus’ don’ go wanderin’ off now.” The giant said before he hurried away into the crowds of witches and wizards. Harry found himself alone in front of the imposing bank building. From where he stood he could see a plain looking old shop with “Olivanders” written above the door in skinny gold letters. A single wand sat in a display case in the window. Harry made that his first destination.

The bell above the door tinkled as Harry pushed open the door. He was immediately met with a medley of woody smells masked by musty cardboard and an oddly spicy smell that Harry assumed was part of the wand making process. Narrow boxes stood stacked on every flat surface save the cramped counter.

“Hello?” Harry called.

“Good afternoon.” Harry spun to find the voice. A bespectacled man stood watching him from behind a stack of especially old looking boxes. “I was wondering when I might be seeing you, Harry Potter.” Harry reached for his forehead. “Yes, I know who you are Mr. Potter. You look much like your father when he first came in here to purchase his wand, although you have your dear mother’s eyes.” The man said with a wistful look on his face.

“You sold my parents their wands?” Harry asked.

“Why of course, I have been selling wands for a very long time, Mr. Potter, a very long time. Now, let’s try to find one that suits you. Here, try this one.” He had drawn a long box from the pile in front of him as he approached the counter. He pulled out a pale stick of wood, roughly a foot in length my Harry’s approximation. Harry took the wand when it was proffered by Olivander. It sat inert in his hand. “Perhaps not.” Olivander said kindly.

Over the next few minutes, Harry tried wand after wand. He wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen, but Olivander ended up pulling each wand from his hand as soon as he had gotten a good hold of it. He tried a wand similar to his mother’s, his father’s, and eventually, Olivander stood before him with a box of deepest black.

“Perhaps…” He seemed to cradle the box slightly. “Try this one, holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches. Nice and supple.” Harry took the wand. At first there was nothing. Then, as if a fire had run up his arm, Harry was filled with a comfortable feeling warmth. A strong breeze in the still room ruffled his hair and a spray of red sparks shot from the end of the holly wand. “Curious… very curious.”

“What’s curious?”

Olivander offered him an off-kilter smile and whisked Harry away towards the archaic register that perched atop the box crowded front counter. With a swish of paper and the clink of coin, Harry was the owner of his very own magic wand. Olivander got very close to him and spoke in little more than a whisper. “They say, Mr. Potter, that the wand chooses the wizard. That this wand chose you, that is curious. For it just happens that the phoenix that gave the feather in this wand, gave one other. And that wand, well that wand chose the wizard that gave you that scar.”

Harry felt his eyes go wide as he absorbed the old wandmaker’s words. He looked down at the wand in his hand while the other went up to feel the familiar line that marked his forehead. He held the wand gingerly, as if it would snap at him where he not careful. Olivander chuckled slightly.

“I wouldn’t worry about this wand, Mr. Potter. It has chosen you, not your enemy. Treat it well and you’ll find it to be the most loyal of allies. I think that you are destined to great things. See to it that they are not so terrible as the owner of this wand’s twin. Now off you, go.” He gently pushed Harry towards the door.

Harry was deep in thought as he wandered out into the thin sunshine. A lot of the things the strange wandmaker had said didn’t make a lot of sense. He’d have to ask Hagrid about it when the two reunited. As for the wand… Harry looked down at it as he turned up the alley towards a storefront stacked with great piles of books. He carried the thin stick of holly with the feather of a phoenix clutched tightly to his chest as if it were made of pure gold. He felt no menace emanating from within, despite what Olivander had said about its brother. Harry supposed that you didn’t get to pick your family, even if you were a wand. The Dursleys were ample proof of that. No, Harry thought he and his wand were going to get along fine. In fact, the two of them almost buzzed with excitement at the chance to unleash a little magic into the world. Speaking of which…

The brassy bell rung on the door to Flourish and Blott’s, fine purveyors of spellbooks since 1454, according to the spidery lettering above the doorway. After the close and musty wand shop the bookstore was open and brightly lit. Everywhere he looked there were shelves of books. In relatively neat rows on the sales floor, tucked into odd corners and even marching across the ceiling in one place, as if the books were held to the roof by some strange trick of gravity. A number of adults and a great deal of children about his age were moving about the store. Harry took out his shopping list and read down to the first assigned textbook.

The Standard Book of Spells, Grade One.

That sounded simple enough. Harry spent what felt like an hour amongst the stacks, pulling books at random and flipping through them. Harry was struck with just how much he didn’t know about magic and in that moment he pledged to learn everything he could about this world he’d finally been let into. No one would keep secrets from him again the way the Dursleys had, especially not these leather bound tomes. Harry grabbed one of everything on his list, plus a few others that struck his interest.

Hagrid had said that his parents had excelled in Transfiguration and Potions. Harry was determined that he would do them proud in both subjects. This determination was tested as he walked down the transfiguration aisle. All of the books here looked thick and heavy and the few that Harry pulled of the shelf were packed full of complex diagrams and tiny scrawling text. Even Transfiguration for Beginners, his assigned reading for his first year, looked worse than even his most loathed maths text. He grabbed both Transfiguration for Beginners and Transformative Fundamentals, a book an inviting blue cover decorated with swirling shapes that seemed to move on their own.

Potions was another story. All of the books on the shelves looked interesting and as Harry read he discovered that there seemed to be a potion for almost every conceivable application. He was tempted to grab an entire armful of the tomes, but settled for the assigned Magical Draughts and Potions, and One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi. At the end of the aisle he found a thin, tall book adorned with imprints of gently bubbling cauldrons. The Potions Primer, the book proudly proclaimed itself. Harry couldn’t resist slipping it between the other two potions book. If he was going to excel at potions, he might as well go in as prepared as possible. To these he added the rest of his textbooks, capping off the pile with Defensive Magical Theory by Wilbert Slinkhard. That last one wasn’t actually part of the list, but its cover promised an in depth and thorough solution to all his self-defense needs. Harry had hovered over the book for what had felt like ages, of two minds over the glossy, pale-blue, almost childish cover. On the one hand, it looked like something full of more fairy stories than fearsome fighting magic. On the other hand, the plain text spiraling across the back promised to tell everything that needed to be said on the subject of protecting yourself. And as the news that his parents hadn’t died in a car crash, the sad, sidelong looks Hagrid gave him when he thought Harry wasn’t looking, and the hush that had fallen about the denizens of the Leaky Cauldron all percolated through Harry’s young mind, he thought that he might want to know a thing or two about defending against the dark arts. Eventually it was fatigue that ended his waffling.

Already his arms were beginning to ache under the weight of the pile of heavy books, so Harry hauled them off to the front counter. He let them fall with a heavy thud, shocking the drowsy looking clerk to wakefulness. Harry left the store with a lighter coin pouch and more books than he had owned in his entire life. He was almost tempted to prop one open and begin reading there on the spot, though as his eyes fell on the robe shop across the narrow avenue, he thought better of it. Standing there, his face pressed up to the glass while two enormous ice creams dripped onto the cobbles as they melted, stood Hagrid. Harry felt a twinge of guilt as he shuffled up to the gentle giant. The man had asked him not to wander off, and though he’s likely been expecting Harry to go down the shopping list in order, but the lure of until now forbidden knowledge had been too strong.

“Looking for me?” Harry tried to put as much innocent playfulness into his voice as he could manage, but it did little to placate the huge man.

“’arry, what did I tell you about runnin’ off? What would ‘appen if some dark wizard dragged you off, hmm?” Harry at first rankled at being treated like a child, but thought better of it. The expression on Hagrid’s face was more worry than anger.

“I’m sorry Hagrid, it’s just I wanted to make sure I had all my books before I went buying other things, and look, I got my wand.” He drew the holly rod from his pocket.

“Jus’ don’t do it again, alright?” Hagrid seemed to deflate under his bushy beard. He passed the less melted ice cream cone to Harry. “I thought you might like somet’ on yer birthday.” They enjoyed what was left of the ice cream in silence outside the robe shop. After they had finished licking the left of the cream from their fingers, they went in to buy a full set of Hogwarts robes.

The rest of the morning passed quickly in a flurry of storefronts and packages. Harry bought a set of scales, a cauldron, ink, quills, and parchment, and after a visit to the apothecary that used up all but a few silver coins, he stood outside Eyelop’s Owl Emporium. Hagrid had mentioned that it would be incredibly useful to have his own post owl, but with the distinct lack of weight in his money pouch and another trip into Gringotts out of the question, he sadly turned to leave the magical avenue. On his way out beside Hagrid, they passed what looked from the outside like a sports shop. While Harry had no real interest in sports, magical or otherwise, the excitedly chattering crowd drew his attention. They seemed to have been drawn to a Nimbus 2000 racing broom, which Harry supposed was ridden in a game called “Quidditch” from what he overheard.

[therakeisnogentleman-blog]

One Act of Kindness: Part 1

Harry Potter, aged eleven, was once again locked in his cupboard under the stairs of Number Four, Privet Drive. A horribly unfair predicament in his opinion, it certainly wasn’t his fault that his enormously fat cousin, Dudley Dursley, had fallen through solid glass and into the snake enclosure at the zoo during his birthday trip to see the rare animals that were larger than he was. As Harry himself had said when his Uncle Vernon had forcefully pulled him aside for an explanation, it had just happened, as if by magic. That had done it. The m-word. Harry stewed as he lay back on the mattress he called a bed and flicked on the uncovered lightbulb that served as his only light. It had seemed a tremendously funny thing to say at the time. Now he was regretting not keeping his mouth shut.

“There’s no such thing as magic!” Uncle Vernon had roared as he’d shoved his nephew under the stairs and drawn the bolt. But he had been wrong. Or he’d lied, Harry was never sure which. What he did know was that Vernon Dursley, and by extension his wife Petunia and his son Dudley, was deathly afraid of the merest mention of magic. But Harry also knew something else, magic was real, this he knew with every fibre of his being. And what was more, Harry Potter, eleven years old, could do that magic. And not tricks or party games, two things expressly forbidden in the Dursley house, but real magic. Harry flopped over onto his stomach and reached under the lumpy mattress, feeling around until he found the dented biscuit tin that contained his most precious and deeply hidden secret. He knew if Uncle Vernon or Aunt Petunia ever found out about its contents, a locked door would be the least of his worries. He brushed the ever-present spiders that were his only real friends in the house and delicately popped the painted metal lid from the scratched body of the tin. Carefully, almost reverently, he reached in with shaking fingers to stroke the glossy, crumpled paper within. He unfolded the photograph, for photograph it was, and allowed a smile to turn the unhappy frown of his face to match the happy faces of those crowded into the picture. He mimicked a wave to the crowded people and they waved back.

This was Harry Potter’s most precious position, his lifeline in the dreary years spent under the stairs at Number Four. His Magic Picture. He’d memorized every crease, every detail, every face, but still he would spend entire nights after the Dursley’s had gone to bed staying awake and gazing at it. He often pondered the meaning of the gathered boys and girls in their strange black robes. What could the inscription written on the back in flowing letters, “Hogwarts, Gryffindor, 78” mean. He’d puzzled at that one ever since he’d learned to read. Back then, of course, the smiling faces hadn’t moved. That hadn’t happened until just a few years ago, on his seventh birthday. While at first it had been a nasty shock, it had also been undeniable truth that despite what the Dursley’s said when they were certain none of the neighbors could hear, he wasn’t a freak, and he wasn’t crazy. He was just Harry. Magical Harry. Even if he didn’t have the picture, Harry thought, he would have at least suspected. Strange things happened around him, things that filled people like his Aunt and Uncle with fear and dread. On top of that, Harry had wild, jet black hair that resisted any and all attempts to tame it, even being completely shaven off, which had happened more than once when Aunt Petunia had demanded he not look like a ‘scruffy vagabond’ on school picture day. He also had a thin scar that slashed across his forehead, shaped like a lightning bolt. It was Harry’s favourite thing about himself. Other than the fact that he could do magic, of course.

He traced his fingers across the glossy surface, careful not to smudge the ink, not to flake away the singed edge at the top of the picture. It had been that way for as long as he could remember; another mystery of his Magic Picture. Finally, as they did without fail, his eyes came to rest on the two standing at the very front of the frame. On the left, a boy, his hair dark and unruly, his face open and carefree as he occasionally wrestled with the long haired boy beside him or playfully ribbed the sandy haired boy with the worn down robes in the row above him. On the right, a girl, dark red hair alight in the pictures eternal early summer sunshine, bright green eyes  set in a smiling face as she whispered to a girl at her right or grasped the hand of the boy to her left. Harry had a name and a personality that he’d made up for everyone in the photograph, from Richard for the lion-haired boy on the topmost row, to Ratface, who hovered over the shoulder of the Raggedy Boy. But he’d never been able to bring himself to name those front two. Something about them just felt too real, too close. Maybe it was all the similarities he’d begun to see between that boy and girl and himself. On his more hopeful nights, he even allowed himself to daydream that those two might be his parents.

“Boy, get out here now!” Uncle Vernon roared in a voice that declared despite his wrongful imprisonment, he’d still be expected to cook dinner. Harry hurriedly placed his Magic Picture back in its tin and hid it beneath his mattress. He just had time to hop back onto the bed when the bolt withdrew and the door was pulled open.

“Coming, Uncle Vernon,” he said dully. Under his Uncle’s watchful eye, Harry trudged towards the kitchen where the hot stove and a night’s worth of pots and pans awaited his attention. Much to Uncle Vernon’s obvious and very smug satisfaction, he did not mention magic. Because of course, outside his safe haven pressed within that glossy sheet of paper, magic didn’t exist. At least, not while the Dursleys were watching.

Xxx

It was almost the end of June. Or at least, that was what the calendar pinned to Harry’s wall with half a broken paperclip said. It was getting hard to tell, because Harry was still confined to his cupboard barring being let out for meals and trips to the toilet ever since the incident on Dudley’s birthday almost a month before. It was becoming distressingly routine, though Harry supposed as he awoke one morning to the thundering of his obese pig of a cousin running down the stairs that since nearly everything he held dear was within arm’s reach from where he lay it was no great loss. If there was anything he did miss, it was the chance to get outside and as far away from Privet Drive as possible for an unattended eleven year old. Preferably somewhere uphill to discourage pursuit by his cousin. In the past, he’d often spent his rare free days in the local parks and amongst the thin, pruned trees that tried to pass for ‘the woodlands,’ partly as an effort to get away from Dudley’s gang, but also for the thrill of exploration and discovery. And, though he would never admit it, he had a secret hope that one day he’d recognize one of the faces from his Magic Picture.

“Get up, Potter, it’s time for breakfast!” Dudley bellowed raucously as he ran up and down the stairs above Harry’s head. It was a time honoured tradition in the Dursley household. Harry sighed and wiped his glasses, planting them on his face and running a hand through his unruly hair. Harry had learned early on that it was best to wait before leaving his cupboard, usually until Dudley grew tired of running up and down the stairs and waddled off to the kitchen. Admittedly it didn’t take very long these days, which was good because Harry knew that if he waited too long his cousin would be replaced by his much less pleasant and much angrier uncle. Harry counted the seconds. He hadn’t been counting for long when the clomping above his head stopped, followed quickly by a desultory rattle of his cupboard door as an increasingly irritated Dudley made one last attempt to get a reaction from his trapped cousin. At the slamming of the kitchen door, Harry slipped from the dusty confines of his prison and readied himself to cook another meal for his ungrateful hosts. (Bacon and eggs for the Dursleys, dried toast and as many scraps as he could carry off for Harry.)

At that moment, the post dropped through the letterbox, landing loudly atop the folded issue of the Daily Mail. Briefly Harry considered leaving it there on the rug, but he soon thought better of it. If he showed up without it he’d only be sent out for it later. And it would be harder to hide the three strips of bacon he planned to be smuggling back to his cupboard with his hands full of postcards and letters anyway. He trudged down the hall, one eye fixed on the kitchen door. He stooped to pick up the pile, taking his time to flip through the letters. He was not a particularly nosy boy, but he did have a natural curiosity that life with the Dursleys had not quite been able to stomp out. Today it looked like his curiosity was going to go unsated; the top of the pile was frightfully dull. Bill. Bill. Postcard. Bill. Advertisement for a new brand of toothpaste… And a letter addressed to Harry. That last one stopped the boy in his tracks, just as he crossed the threshold into the Dursleys’ kitchen. There it was, his name written in neat script, marked in bright green ink.

Mr. H. Potter

The Cupboard Under the Stairs

4 Privet Drive

Little Whinging

Surrey

Harry’s heart beat fiercely in his chest as he turned the letter over. The back was sealed with wax, a coat of arms adorned with a lion, an eagle, a snake, and a badger. And above them all the words Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Hogwarts. Just like his Picture. Harry had always had his suspicions. With its uniforms and its ordered rows, his Picture was undeniably a school picture of some kind. That it was a school of magic followed from that. Magical school picture, magical school. But to have it proven to him before his very own eyes was almost too much for young Harry to bear. He suppressed a shudder of joy.

“What’s that you’ve got there, boy?” His uncle’s voice pierced the bubble of happiness that had swelled about him as the prospect of leaving the Dursleys’ to learn real magic at a real magic school filled his head. Harry landed from his place amongst the clouds so fast it nearly sent his head spinning. Too late he realized that he should have hidden this precious thing. Tucked it under his mattress to discover under the safety of torchlight. Briefly he considered running for it anyway, hiding in his cupboard and reading the letter before it could be snatched away from him. But he saw that Uncle Vernon had already seen something in his hands. The man’s eyes narrowed, the gears of suspicion already turning in his head. If Harry ran now he’d only be chased, and with nowhere but the cupboard to go, he’d be caught. Then Uncle Vernon would find the letter. He might even find the Picture. Harry felt his shoulders slump under the realization. He held out the letter with trembling fingers, offering it to his bellicose relatives. Uncle Vernon snatched it away and held it away from him to get a good look at it. As his piggy eyes fell on the neat green script something dawned behind them. Over his shoulder, Aunt Petunia and Dudley saw it two. Dudley only looked on, blankly confused. But his Aunt and Uncle blanched. They recognized the words and for the first time Harry saw a strange new thing in their eyes. Harry saw the glint of what could only be fear.

“What a load of nonsense,” his Aunt said stiffly. She plucked the letter from her husband’s hands and tore it neatly to small, unreadable pieces before throwing them in the bin. “Really bad taste, these advertisers.” She sniffed and turned up her nose as she gathered up the bin bag.

“Yes,” Vernon agreed, “someone’s idea of a good joke,” he said hurriedly and in a tone that he thought it a particularly poor joke. “No doubt selling brain rotting fairy stories to dull children. I’ll have none of it, not in my house, no sir.” He looked back to Harry. “Well, don’t just stand there, boy. Fix the breakfast things and go back to your cupboard.”

“Yes, Uncle Vernon.” Harry gritted his teeth and started up the stove. His mind was not on the eggs and bacon, however. All he could think about was the letter. Behind him he heard his Aunt open the door and saw her walk to the curb with the bin bag in hand; something Harry couldn’t recall her ever doing for herself. Outside, a large brown owl perched atop the white painted fence post, watching her make the walk up the narrow path that led between Number Four and Number Six. Harry flipped the hissing bacon as he tried to come up with a plan to search the bin before the trucks came to take it away, but came up blank. By the time he served the slightly overcooked food onto four plates and retreated with the smallest of them to the cupboard under the stairs, he still hadn’t come up with anything workable. He had to sit in the dark as the sound of hissing brakes and squeaking wheels rolled up outside accompanied by the laughter of the bin men. He took out the folded Picture and looked at it again, letting loose a small defeated sigh. His Uncle’s words repeated in his head. What if it had been a cruel joke? He read the words on the back again. The letter had definitely said Hogwarts, he was sure of it. Harry slipped the Picture back into its tin so that it wouldn’t be ruining by the tears that threatened to spill past screwed closed eyelids. Harry rarely cried, not when he was punished for outperforming his cousin, not when he was kept in the house when the weather was nice and sent out when it was raining, not even when Dudley’s gang cornered him at school. But now the unfairness of the situation was simply too much to bear. Harry wiped his eyes defiantly, refusing to let the tears fall. He was going to find out what was in that letter whether the Dursleys wanted him to know or not. He just wasn’t sure how to go about it. He fell asleep to the sound of owls hooting softly outside, his head filled with half-formed plans and schemes.

Xxx

The arrival of the mysterious letter caused quite a stir in the Dursley household, much to Harry’s confusion. One the one side, his Aunt and Uncle were treating him far more unpleasantly than usual. Uncle Vernon especially was growing increasingly agitated around his nephew, especially in the mornings or when they had the ill fortune of meeting anywhere in the vicinity of the letterbox, which the piggish man watched like a hawk every minute of the day. On the other hand, Harry’s confinement had been broken, and on top of that he had been moved to Dudley’s spare bedroom upstairs. His guardians had muttered something about “needing the cupboard for storage,” but Harry didn’t buy it for a second. Aside from his healthy skepticism about anything his Aunt and Uncle told him, their excuse had the fatal flaw of Dudley’s spare bedroom being used for nothing but storage, at least of a sort. The upstairs room that Harry now found himself in was dominated by a ramshackle collection of all the old toys that Dudley had broken, grown bored of, or required any sort of physical excursion. Harry now shared a room with a half dozen old yo-yos, half a skateboard, and other assorted bric-a-brak. But still, it was a step up from a dusty cupboard full of spiders. He had been surprised with the move the morning after his letter had arrived at Number Four, dragged from his bed by a dressing gowned Uncle Vernon and given scant minutes to gather up a few armfuls of his things, thankfully including the battered biscuit tin. That had been the first thing he’d picked up, careful to keep it out of sight of his relatives as he ascended the stairs with it nestled in a bundle of castoff clothes. Now it was safely hidden deep within the writing desk that had seen neither paper nor pen during Dudley’s ownership.

Right now, Harry was sitting at the desk, slowly striking out potential plans for getting his hands on a copy of the letter from Hogwarts. He’d let the matter drop since the day he’d been moved out from under the stairs, resigned to preparing to attend Stonewall High come September. That is, until by chance he had spotted the pile left by the postman on Wednesday morning. It had contained no fewer than five of the emerald inked envelopes. Uncle Vernon had quickly gathered them up before he could grab one, but just seeing one had been enough to reignite Harry’s need to see what was inside. At first he had been elated that he hadn’t missed his one chance. Then he had been angry that more letters had been arriving and that they were being hidden from him. Now he had settled on determined. He struck a line through sneaking out in the morning before his Uncle was awake and getting the letter directly from the postman himself. He’d tried that yesterday, only to step on a sleeping and very cross Uncle Vernon who’d been lying in front of the door. Harry leaned back into his chair. Downstairs he heard the sound of a drill running. Curious, he padded over to the room’s door and peeked out. Down the stairs, he could see Uncle Vernon crouched down in front of the letter box, his prized electric screwdriver in his hand. He was muttering to himself as the thing whirred noisily in his hand. He looked up onto the landing with a strange look on his face and nodded to Harry as he withdrew from the door. To his dismay, Harry saw a slat of wood haphazardly affixed across the brass letterbox. Uncle Vernon grinned widely as if immensely proud of himself, whistling as he spun the screwdriver by its cord. Harry closed the door on the sight of the boarded up portal and slouched over to his desk. He crumpled up the list he’d been working on and pulled out a fresh sheet of paper.

“Plan G,” he muttered to himself as he began to scrawl across the page.

Xxx

Harry shivered miserably. Plan G hadn’t worked. Neither had plans H and I. Not that it would have mattered in the end anyway. Harry was quite convinced that his uncle had gone mad, and by the looks plastered across the faces of both his aunt and cousin, he wasn’t alone in that conviction. Uncle Vernon muttered darkly as he hauled on the oars of the small rowboat that he’d forced them all onto. His face was manic, his bristly mustache askew in the whipping winds and icy salt sea spray that battered the boat. Stuffed amongst the haphazardly packed suitcases that filled the prow of the rowboat was a long, thin package wrapped in brown paper along with a fresh bundle of nearly a hundred green inked envelopes that had been waiting at the front desk of the small hotel they’d stayed the previous night. Harry’s uncle caught the line of his gaze and smiled a wicked grin. Very deliberately, he grabbed handfuls of the Hogwarts letters and pitched them overboard. Harry watched forlornly as the paper slipped below the pitch black waves in flurries and drifts. He resisted the urge to reach out and pluck one of them from the water, lest he join them in their trip to the bottom of the Channel.

Harry pulled his thin plaid shirt around himself and shivered again as a fresh wave of icy water spilled over the edge of the boat. By now the entire family had become soaked through and there was still no sight of their destination. Harry peered out into the gathering darkness of the sunset but could see nothing in the rain lashed plain of the open sea. It was a surprise to all but Uncle Vernon when the boat ran aground with an ugly gnashing sound.

“Aha, it looks like we’re here,” Vernon said, almost giddily. In the dim light, Harry could almost make out the low outline of a rocky island. For a moment, lightning flashed in the sky and peals of thunder crashed. The sky lit up, silhouetting a rickety one-story hut slumped over in the center of the humped landmass. Harry’s shoulders slumped. He hadn’t thought that the week could have gotten any worse, but here he was. Uncle Vernon hopped from the small boat and was marching up to the hut on the rock, a spring in his step, leaving Petunia and Dudley to haul up the cases. Harry followed them morosely, for once left without the bulk of the chores. Still, he felt the blame of his relatives falling on him. As if it was his fault that Uncle Vernon had hauled them out into the middle of nowhere. He could have just handed over the first letter. Or one of the set that came after. Or any of the dozens that had flooded Number Four the day before. He brooded all the way up to the threshold of the hut. The inside was lit by a single bare lightbulb which swung gently from the ceiling, casting light and shadow around the room. Harry pulled the door closed behind him. The door was ill-fitting in the doorframe and continued to let in a draft. Outside the rain continued to beat against the thin roof with a dull roar.

His Aunt and Uncle were crouched down in front of a narrow chimney grate across the room, their lowered voices agitatedly snapping back and forth between them. Dudley had retreated to the corner, where the rustling of crisp packets and gnashing jaws revealed that he had found his way into the paltry fare that his father had bought from a roadside petrol station. Harry felt his spirits fall even further as he surveyed the room. The only furniture was a musty looking and moth eaten sofa and a thin rug on the floor before the fireplace. An open door revealed another room, smaller than the first. A lumpy bed was just about visible there. The whole shack was filled with the wet, sour smell of seaweed and the damp air had a salty aftertaste. The fireplace emitted a sad cough of dirty black smoke as Uncle Vernon tried and failed to light the empty crisp packets and banana skins that were the remains of their lunch and dinner. Apparently when Vernon had somehow managed to find the owner of this place to rent, he hadn’t inquired as to whether it had any heating. Or was even stocked with firewood. Harry found a spot on the ground and sat down, pressing his back to a reasonably dry patch of wall as his Aunt and Uncle’s argument grew louder and snappier.

After about an hour of failing to get any kind of warmth out of the fire grate, Uncle Vernon threw up his hands and declared he was going to bed. He and his wife tucked their overweight son into the sofa and threw Harry a blanket and a dirty look before disappearing into the other room with a slammed door. Dudley offered him a look of malevolent glee before rolling over and promptly falling to sleep. His loud, porcine snores filled the hut as the rain continued to fall. Harry picked up the blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders. Quietly, he got up and shuffled over to the small bag he’d been allowed to take with him when he’d been dragged from the house. He returned to his place on the floor and untied the repurposed shoelaces holding his bag closed. Out spilled a few bundles of fresh socks, a brown paper bag, and the faded biscuit tin. Harry quickly concealed the latter under his blanket and unrolled the bag. Inside was a particularly dry sandwich and a handful of miniature satsumas. It wasn’t much, but it was all that he had been able to smuggle out of the kitchen in preparation for the trip. Harry tucked into the sandwich with the relish of a starving man. He left the satsumas, he had no idea how long he’d be stuck out here.

Xxx

Harry was still awake as the numerals that glowed on Dudley’s new digital watch approached midnight. His food was now safely hidden in the folds of his thread bare blanket, and he had taken out his Photograph. He watched the smiling faces and cheerful waves of the neat rows of students with a dull ache somewhere in his chest. What he would give to join them, just for a day. Perhaps tomorrow, that would be the greatest gift Harry could ever imagine. Tomorrow it would be July 31st, Harry birthday. Harry looked over at the watch that hung around his cousin’s hammy wrist. 11:59. Harry let out a long, dispirited sigh and lifted up the photo until it covered up the room. Just for a minute, he pretended that he was there with them. He was standing behind an old timey camera, the kind with a big wooden box and a cloth hood. He smiled as he directed them to settle down, to smile. Unbidden, the memory of Uncle Vernon tearing up his Hogwarts letter smashed the happy fantasy. Harry’s good mood soured and he lowered the picture carefully. He murmured into the darkness, voicing a silent wish that had been bubbling up inside of him for the entire week.

“I should have just opened that first letter when I found it. If I could just get my hands on another one…” Harry felt foolish even before the words had escaped his lips. Looking at where he was, what Uncle Vernon was willing to do to stay ahead of the flurries of owl delivered envelopes. Realistically, Harry was never going to be able to read whatever was in that letter.

Something creaked loudly outside. Harry’s eyes snapped to the rickety door.

BOOM… BOOM… BOOM…

The door shook on its frame as something knocked with enough force to shift the hut’s foundations. In his moth-eaten sofa, Dudley sprang awake with a frightened squeal, his piggy eyes fixed on the door. In the other room, something thumped loudly against the stone floor. The something outside knocked again. This time, it was simply too much for the hut’s tortured hinges. The door fell to the ground with a slam revealing the thing in the doorway. Lightning crashed again, illuminating a great, hairy face beneath a massive thatch of hair. The giant stepped through the open portal, water streaming from his tangled beard. There was something oddly familiar about the man, his dark eyes struck a chord of memory somewhere deep in Harry’s mind. The giant looked around the room, wrinkled his nose, and turned to pick the door up as if it weighed nothing. He slammed it back into place and shook off a massive pink umbrella that seemed out of place beside the fur overcoat he wore.

“Sorry about that,” the massive man boomed. His voice was warm and friendly, despite his great size. At that moment, Uncle Vernon burst from the adjoining room with something held out in front of him. Harry gaped, his mouth open in shock. His uncle was holding a rifle and pointing it at the giant. Not the intruder seemed at all intimidated by the weapon. Instead he walked confidently into the room, tossing his maned head about. “I don’t suppose you could fix me up a cuppa tea do y’? Only it’s been a bit o’ a rough journey.” Silence filled the shack. “No? Well at least you’ve got a seat. Budge up yer great lump.” He said to Dudley. Harry’s cousin scurried away from the giant to join his parents. The interloper sank down into the much abused couch, crushing it until it bowed in the middle until it almost touched the floor. “And here’s Harry.” The giant looked right into Harry’s eyes and his face split into a wide smile.

Harry swallowed hard and rose from his position on the floor. “H… hello,” he managed to squeak. “How, how did you know my name?” Harry searched the giant’s face, looking for what it was that was so familiar about the man. Hazy images of a great hairy man with his beard wet with tears and feelings of flying echoed back to him from some of his earliest remembered dreams.

“Did y’ think I wouldn’t recognize that Potter hair of yers? And of course you’ve got yer mum’s eyes. Ain’t no one you could be who weren’t the son of Lily and James. O’ course, you probably don’ remember me. You were jus’ a baby when I last saw you. Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of the Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts.”

“When I was just a baby? Hogwarts?” Harry asked. The images were sliding into place behind his eyes. Harry looked back towards the rumpled pile that was his blanket. “Did you…” Harry rushed back to the blanket and threw it aside to reveal the crumpled biscuit tin. He picked it up with shaking hands and held it closely to his chest. He realized when he turned around that the Dursleys would discover his deepest and longest held secret, but in the presence of the giant, he didn’t care anymore. He could almost feel how close he was to getting the answers to questions he had held for so long. “Did you give this to me?” He popped open the dented lid and pulled out the delicate folded paper, carefully flattening out the creases. He held it out in front of him, drawing gasps from the Dursleys and another brilliant smile from the giant.

“Yer kept it after all these years?” The man boomed, his voice suddenly thick with emotion. His eyes glittered slightly with the seeds of happy tears. “Yes, Harry, I gave you that picture. Jus’ thought it would be nice to give you sommat’ to remember them by, yer’ know.” He pulled a massive polka dotted handkerchief from the inside of his coat and daubed at his eyes. He beckoned for Harry to come closer with a hand that looked like it could wrap around Harry twice, patting the sofa beside him. Harry approached, the photo held back to his chest. He dropped down onto the lumpy seat. The man pointed at the two in the front row with a thick finger. “Look, there they are. James an’ Lily. Those are your parents, ‘Arry.”

A feeling erupted in Harry’s chest. A curious mixture of manic happiness, sadness, emotions he didn’t even have a word for coiled inside him all at once as he looked down at the faces of his parents. He’d always had this feeling that this was who they were, but to know it for a fact was overwhelming in a way that he never would have thought possible. Harry felt a broad smile turn the corners of his mouth and his vision blurred slightly. He rubbed away the wetness with the cuff of his sleeve. Of course, as it often did in Harry’s life, the world decided to butt in on his small moment of happiness. Its chosen instrument, as per usual; Harry’s Aunt.

“Where did you get that?” She hissed angrily, like a cat with a trodden tail. “We took that away from you when we took you in. I threw it away myself!” Her voice rose as her eyes locked onto the small folded piece of paper. She clutched at her husband’s arm. “You saw me do it, Vernon, remember?”

Whether Vernon remembered or not was not revealed. Before the man could respond to his wife, Hagrid spoke up. His voice was quiet, but dangerous. “You tried to throw it away? Throw it away?” He repeated.

Aunt Petunia apparently missed the edge to the giant’s question, because she replied with an angry screech. “Of course we tried to throw it away! How could we not? Just another reminder of that school, that school for freaks. Freaks like my sister! I wasn’t going to have any of that in our house, not after what happened to…” She stopped with a choking sound. At ‘school for freaks,’ Hagrid had risen from the sofa and rounded on the scrawny, horse faced woman. A storm cloud of anger gathered between his thick caterpillar brows.

“Don’ you finish that, don’ you dare.” He pointed a meaty finger at her face; his other hand was clasped about the massive pink umbrella as if it were a sword. “An’ don’ you listen to ‘em ‘Arry. Ain’t nothing freakish about doin’ magic. Not that I’d expect a bunch of great muggles like these would know anything about that. No, you can do magic, an’ that makes you a wizard. And on top of that yer’ gonna be learning magic at Hogwarts, from Albus Dumbledore ‘imself!” His voice was still rising, cutting off an attempted retort from Uncle Vernon. “An’ there’s nothing you can do tha’s gonna stop it.” Hagrid sat back down heavily, apparently exhausted from his tirade. Its impact had made itself felt, however, as the Dursleys stood still and stunned. Quavering under Hagrid’s continued glowering, Petunia tugged at her husband’s sleeve. Vernon cast his head around angrily, unwilling to back down from such an open threat to his authority. But even Vernon was pigheaded enough to pick a fight with the strange giant who had knocked down his front door tonight. Instead he set his jaw, puffed out his chest, and pulled the rest of his family with him as he retreated into the other room. The door slammed on Harry and Hagrid, shaking the shack. Harry blinked owlishly and looked back at the man who was turning out to be his favourite person in the whole world.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” Hagrid said, shaking his head and running a hand the size of a hubcap through his tangled hair. “I don’t often blow up like tha’. Dumbledore says I’ll be judged by my temper, given… Never mind that now.”

Harry shook his own head. “Don’t be sorry. That was amazing!” His face split in a wide grin as he looked back towards the door behind which his Uncle, Aunt, and Cousin cowered. His face was beginning to ache (he’d never had much practice smiling) but he didn’t care. “I’ve never seen the Dursleys so scared before. So, I’m… a wizard?” He almost whispered the word. It was just too good to be true.

“Ye are indeed,” Hagrid said, his jolly demeanor back with the swiftness of flipping a switch. “An’ I’ll tell you a secret, I am too.” He put a thick finger to his lips and jabbed the pink umbrella at the empty fire grate and muttered under his breath. Harry’s face lit up with delight as the umbrella gave a rattling cough and spat out a stream of little flame balls. The flames burst upon the grate and within seconds there was a cheerily roaring fire in the place of the sad jumble of blackened crisp packets. Hagrid rubbed his hands together and warmed them by the blaze. He fixed Harry with a meaningful glance and muttered. “You’ll… you’ll want to keep that a secret between us. Only I’m not really supposed to do magic in front of the muggles. Tha’s non-magic folk to you an’ me.”

Harry nodded emphatically. He wasn’t about to tell on the man who had scared the Dursleys into behaving. “So Hogwarts is a school for magical children then?” He asked, probing for more confirmations of his long held hopes.

“A school?” Hagrid guffawed. “’Arry, Hogwarts is the school for magical children. And its headmaster is Albus Dumbledore, the finest wizard of our age. It’s where yer mum an’ dad learned magic too. O’ course, yer Aunt would have already tol’ you all about tha’. No?” The giant seemed taken aback by Harry’s sad shake of the head. He growled something that sounded suspiciously like ‘Dursley!’ under his breath. “Hav’ they not tol’ you nothin’ about what y’are, who y’are?”

“Aunt Petunia doesn’t like magic very much,” Harry said honestly. He looked down at his shoes as they drew little circles in the dust. “She said that me and my parents were freaks, and that I was dumped on the Dursleys when mum and dad died in a car crash.” He trailed off as Hagrid shuddered beside him.

“Lily an’ James Potter weren’t killed in no car crash,” the giant said after composing himself. “They were… well, it’s not really something you’d want to talk about on yer’ birthday, is it? Now don’ you worry, I’ll tell you what I can later. But for now, I think I have somethin’ you’ve been interested in getting’ your hands on.” Hagrid reached into his coat and pulled out a thick envelope marked with ink as green as his eyes.

Harry took it with shaking hands and carefully, almost reverently, peeled back the sturdy paper so that it wouldn’t tear. Inside, a folded sheaf of parchment paper lay nestled. Harry took it out and unfolded the first sheet. Across the header was a wide coat of arms decorated with a lion, a snake, an eagle, and a badger. Beneath that, the words Dear Mr. Potter. Harry wiped a spot of water from the letter, probably from the leaky roof. He wiped a sleeve across his eyes and continued to read. He was going to Hogwarts in September, but they needed his owl (his owl?) by the thirty-first of July. But that was today. He looked up at Hagrid, who shook his head, apparently divining his concerns.

“Don’ you worry ‘Arry. When we go into London, you can send your return owl. London’s where you’ll be getting’ yer school things.” He said matter of factly. Harry wondered where in London he was supposed to buy the things written on the enclosed list, things like school robes, a magic wand, and a set of cauldrons. Hagrid seemed quite sure that they would find them there though, so Harry didn’t question him further. He quickly scanned the rest of the letter before carefully folding it back up and slipping it back into its envelope. He placed the envelope and his Photo into the biscuit tin and popped the lid on. Hagrid cleared his throat.

“I.. uh, I made this for you as well. ‘fraid I might have sat on it a bit, but it should still be good. Here.” The giant held out a very squashed cardboard box. Inside was a round, slightly flattened chocolate cake. Happy Birthday Harry was misspelled in brightly coloured icing on the top. Harry’s face lit up. He took the cake carefully in his hands. It was the first time he’d ever gotten a cake for his birthday. In fact, it was the first time he’d ever had a sweet to himself that wasn’t a third helping that Dudley didn’t want to finish, or the cheapest item in the shop bought to assuage what the Dursleys called ‘bloody busybodies.’ Harry’s empty belly rumbled noisily and his mouth watered. Hagrid smiled and made a motion, encouraging him to take a bite.

“Would you like some too, Hagrid?” Harry asked, still not taking any. Despite the preciousness of the gift, it still felt greedy not to share. Hagrid made protesting noises, but Harry persevered. “Please, it’s too much cake to eat all by myself, and I’ve never had anyone to share a treat with.” Or a treat to share with anyone, he kept to himself. At this, Hagrid buckled and took the crumpled box. With a dexterity that belied his great frame, he tore the box’s lid off to make a second container and split the cake in two. He did take the smaller piece, but Harry didn’t complain. The two of them sat in compensable silence, eating the sweet dessert with their fingers. Hagrid chuckled as Harry tucked in greedily. He’d never enjoyed food so much in his life. After the two of them had finished eating and licked the last of the frosting from their sticky fingers, Hagrid let loose an enormous yawn.

“Blimey, ‘Arry, is that the time?” He said, looking at a pocket watch large enough to have served as a dinner plate in a pinch. “I know you must have a few more questions, but we must be up early in the morning if we want to get to Diagon Alley. Much ter do, much ter do. I hope you don’t mind if I take the sofa.” Harry had more than a few questions, but between the late hour and the full stomach he was having trouble keeping his eyes open.

“I don’t mind,” Harry replied, motioning toward the crumpled blanket in the corner. Hagrid looked at it dubiously.

“Here, take my coat. It might wriggle a bit, mind, but it’ll keep yer warm.” The giant swept his furry brown overcoat from his shoulders and draped it over the boy wizard before he could protest. The garment swamped Harry completely. Had he a few poles and some string, he was half convinced he could make himself a quite roomy tent to sleep in. But it was warm and surprisingly comfortable and before long Harry found himself sinking to the floor right where he stood as he let the weight of the coat bear down on him. He curled up under its many folds and pockets and was soon fast asleep.

[therakeisnogentleman-blog]

Dungeonpunk!

The Brothers Thunderbrew: Serial 1 Issue 1

Waves crashed against the arrow shaped prow of the galley as it slashed through the warm waters of the Southern Ocean. Kurnos Thunderbrew wiped a hand across his wild and salt crusted beard. The dwarven druid grumbled under his breath, not for the first ti.e since boarding the boat bound to the mysterious island on his map. It would be good to feel a proper, solid piece of ground under his feet again after so long at sea. But then again…

Kurnos looked out over the railing that he’d recently been bent over and glowered at the target of his quest. The low slung twin peaks of the mist shrouded isle loomed on the horizon ahead, cloaked in a dark and mysterious purpose. Kurnos spat to show it what he thought of it.

“And here I thought you druids were supposed to love all forms of nature,” a high, clear voice called from over the surprised dwarf’s shoulder. Had it belonged to any other person, Kurnos might have shown them how he thought of them in a similar manner. As it was, he simply grunted in reply.

“And I thought all you fairy tale creatures were supposed to be quiet and keep yourselves hidden. What do you want, Nim?”

Nissa Waywocket Timbers Ningle Nim was a diminutive coil of tough muscle and tightly wound sinew. Large inquisitive eyes peered from beneath a severely tied bun, but her face wore the side smile she reserved only for her dwarven companion. “Sailing master says we should make landfall come the next dawn. Are you ready for this?”

“Ready or not ready, d'nae make a difference. I’ll do my duty or ‘al die trying.” He said with a stern look. “Come morning, I’ll see this through.”

“That’s why I like you,” Nissa countered with a smile. “You’re always so cheery.” Before Kurnos could launch into the well worn and familiar conversation, a crate shifted on the deck behind them. Both adventurers whirled in an instant. Kurnos’ hand was alight with druidic magic, Nissa’s was filled with a cocked hand crossbow. Nothing moved but the flapping sails in the stiff crossbreeze. The offending crate stood still. Nissa shifted ever so slightly towards it, the smile gone, the inquisitive eyes sharp.

A fat grey rat rolled from its hiding place in a coil of rope beside the piled crates. Both Kurnos and Nissa eased up. The dwarf chuckled, his dourness temporarily dispelled.

“Aye, ain’t nought but a rat.” He grumbled. “Could'ae sworn someone were watchin’ us.”

“You’re paranoid, old man.” Nissa holstered her crossbow with short precise motions that belied long practice. “Of course, were we’re going, that will serve us well.”

“I’ve heard fell things about this place, aye,” Kurnos fixed his eye once again on the darkness of the horizon. “Fell things indeed. Have you seen my useless lump of a brother t'day?”

“Thought I saw him near the galley, said he wanted to talk to the quartermaster about the cargo held in the hold. You think we should go find him before he gets us all in trouble?”

“That might be best, yes.” Kurnos replied. The two fell into an easy lockstep, walking off towards the stern of the ship. Behind them the suspicious crate shifted again. The lid raised ever so slightly, revealing a pair of watching eyes. The eyes followed the two adventurers as they left. A snicker rose from the depths of the chest.

“Soon, Thunderbrew. Soon.” The lid lowered.

[therakeisnogentleman-blog]

Cogito Ergo, Dean: Chapter 2

Waking up was a stone bitch. The world around Dean Winchester was a blurry mixed up mess as he began to come to. Nothing seemed to make sense, not up, not down. It was like someone had scrambled the channels in his brain and was trying to put in a straight line with a garden rake. Slowly, things started to shake into some sort of order, though the picture coming in from his eyes was still hazy and full of shadows. He was in Bobby’s junkyard; that much was sure. The stacks of junked cars made pillars around him. He tried to turn his head but found his vision spinning, too fast to match his movements. Something was very wrong, something he couldn’t quite put into words. Must be one hell of a hangover, he quipped to himself. The words echoed with strange weight. Dean tried to press his palms to his temples to block out the loudness of his thoughts. His eyes told him that his arms were moving, but there was no feeling, no weight. His hands were cupped around his head, but they left no pressure.

That was when he found the words for what was wrong. He didn’t feel anything. He couldn’t feel the ground pushing up against his feet, though he could see two booted feet pressing lightly into the sodden ground. He felt like he was floating, weightless. Like his body wasn’t there. Am I… A question too terrible to ask rattled around the space close to his head, the words as heavy as bricks. Dean closed his eyes until the dreadful racket went away. When he opened them again, he wasn’t alone. The world had a little more color now, a little more shape. Enough for the older Winchester to pick out the form of his younger brother. The long haired, lanky man sat cross legged in the dirt, apparently blind to the mud seeping into his clothes. His stormy brow was knit in intense concentration above a face that looked like it hadn’t been shaved for a week. Sam’s eyes were closed tight.

“Sammy?” Dean spoke. Or at least he thought he did. The words didn’t weave and flitter around him like a flock of angry birds, but at the same time Sam made no sign of stirring. Dean spoke again, this time concentrating on moving his lips and breathing out to form words. Some sensation had returned, but he still felt weightless and unbalanced, like his body had been put together out of smoke. “Sammy!”

Sam’s eyes snapped open. His face was still screwed up tight, but the barest trace of a victorious smile quirked his lips. “Dean.” The name hung in the still, damp air. As it reached Dean’s ears, it seemed to pass through him and change him as it went. He felt more solid than before.

“Sam, am I a ghost?” Dean tried not to let the rising panic take control of his voice. He had to be strong. He set his jaw defiantly, as if telling the world that he wasn’t scared would make it true. “The last thing I can remember…” He trailed off. He couldn’t remember. At least, he couldn’t remember how he got here. He remembered Pennsylvania, the blur of walking back from the bar, the gun, the noise. It all added up to a dead Dean. But here he was. Or was he?

“You’re not a ghost, Dean,” Sam answered. His voice was tired. Idly, Dean wondered when his brother had last gotten some sleep. “Don’t worry, you’re not haunting me.”

Relief bloomed, though it was tempered by confusion. “Great. That’s just great, Sam. Thought I’d died on you there for a second. Worried I’d formed a bad habit.” Sadness twisted Sam’s exhausted face. Uh oh. “I… am alive, right? ‘Cos let me tell you, I just felt really funky back there and I don’t think Bobby’s cooking could have caused all of it. Where is old beer guts and misery anyhow? Is something burning? I think I smell something burning.” The questions came one after another. Trying to stave off the inevitable, a voice whispered in the back of his mind.

“Bobby’s inside,” Sam answered. There was something he wanted to say, something he couldn’t say.

“Sam, you’re starting to spook me here. And seriously, what is that smell? You might want to go check on Bobby. I think he’s about to burn his house down trying to make sausages surprise.”

“Bobby’s not going to burn down the house, Dean,” Sam said sadly. “The fire’s all burnt out. For a while now. A funeral fire. Your funeral fire.” He announced the last three words with a voice soaked in dread. Dean felt his world come apart with the pronouncement. Suddenly, it wasn’t like his body was put together out of smoke, it was like he was made out of a swarm of angry bees. The colors of the world flowed together before his eyes as a sensation of falling, moving, dissolving, overcame him. He would have fallen to his knees, had gravity still had a firm hold of him. As it was, he just felt himself spinning. “Woah woah woah!” Sam held his hands out as if that would calm his brother. “Concentrate on just being here. You’re going to tear yourself apart!”

“What the hell, Sammy!” Dean roared in a voice that didn’t quite come from his throat as much as it pulsed from somewhere near where his head should be. “You said that I wasn’t dead! This feels pretty dead to me!”

“I said you weren’t a ghost,” his brother replied sheepishly. His sincerity sapped some of the fire from Dean’s boiler. Already he felt himself cooling off. The spinning slowed and then stopped. His body took upon a little more weight, the ground pressed up on his feet at last. He gripped his head until the buzzing bees feeling subsided and we was ready to talk again. He very carefully formed words.

“What did you do to me, Sam? Is this some kind of witchcraft? Did you voodoo me back?” He tried to take a step forwards, advancing on his brother. It wasn’t that he stumbled, not exactly. He just failed to move forward. All of his limbs seemed to be the wrong size.

“I didn’t do anything to you,” Sam admitted, his emphasis telling. “You died, Dean. Like, really died. You got shot with the Colt.”

“What? What do you mean I got shot with the Colt. Isn’t that supposed to, I don’t know, kill me dead for real? If I got shot with the Colt, how am I still here right now? Shouldn’t I be trucking my way right to Nonexistenceville?” Dean carefully tried to take another step. He desperately needed to pace right now. This was a situation that called for pacing. He managed to gain some traction, but it was like trying to walk on ice. Dean paced regardless, if cautiously. “I mean, if I was shot by the Colt, there would be nothing left of me to bring back. So how the hell am I still here?”

Sam looked studiously at his shoes. He picked a fleck of drying mud from his ruined jeans as the eyes of his lost brother burned into him. “Do you… do you remember that case we worked in Texas. The Hell house those kids had mocked up as a prank?”

Realization slowly came upon Dean as memories slowly floated to the surface like fish in a murky pond. “Yeah, that Mordechai weirdo with the noose. Except he wasn’t a guy at all, or even a ghost. He was one of those, what do you call them… a…” He searched for the word. “A tulpa, yeah. Tibetan symbols and everything. Not a ghost at all…” He stopped. The feeling of flying apart threatened to overwhelm him again, but he fought it down. He had to keep it together. “Sam, please tell me I’m not…” Sam looked up at then, then looked past him with pointed eyes. Dean slowly forced himself to turn in place. Behind him stood the silent form of his Baby, his black 1967 Chevrolet Impala. The usually glossy paint was stained in the rain, making it seem dull and matte in the early morning light. Dean’s eyes boggled as they fell on the machine’s expansive hood. Symbols had been daubed atop the paint that he’d applied himself, in wide sweeping lines of a chalky grey paint or other paste. Dean recognized the curves and whorls. Dean reached out his hand.

“Don’t… don’t touch it. It’s not dry yet. I don’t know what disrupting the symbols will do.” Sam called. He quickly walked between his brother and the marked up car.

“You didn’t…” Dean said in disbelief. “You painted this on the car?”

Sam was taken aback, rendered momentarily speechless. “That’s what you’re mad about? The car? Nothing else here?”

“Hell no, I’m mad about all the other stuff too, but did you have to paint it on my Baby? What even is this stuff anyway? Doesn’t look like auto paint, I can tell you that right now.”

“It’s kind of… your ashes.” Sam admitted.

“My wha… For fu… Sam, do you have any idea what ashes will do to the paintjob? Do you even know?” Dean was beside himself, the anger at his brother’s witchcraft momentarily forgotten. “If this starts to peel, I swear I will haunt your ass, Colt or no Colt. I’ll find a way, you hear me?” Slowly he calmed down. He looked forlornly at the ash inscribed symbol on the front of his trusty steed. “How in the hell did you get this thing to work, anyway? I thought you needed a whole bunch of people thinking about it all at once to make the tulpa… you know… tulparate.”

“Yeah, if you’re just harnessing the power of thought alone,” Sam answered, dropping almost without pause into the mode of research geek. “I mean, if you don’t know what you’re doing, or your subjects aren’t acting with intent. The tulpa we fought needed a bunch of people on the internet because none of them were actually trying to summon it. The old monks, and the newer magicians, they can could just summon up a tulpa at will. Now I’m not as strong as them, but I… connected the symbol to what I was trying to summon. That’s why it had to be the car.”

“And why it had to be my ashes, right? I mean, how much closer a connection to me can you get?”

“Exactly!” Sam rejoined, nodding enthusiastically. “After that it was just a matter of getting the meditation techniques down and… Wow, you’re totally here. I did it!”

“You know, it’s kind of creepy how excited you are about all of this.” Dean groused. He stopped trying to get around his brother and kicked at a rock. There was a significant lag between his toe hitting the stone and the stone rocketing off into the yard.

Before Sam could respond, a yell cut across the yard. Both brothers whirled on the noise. Bobby stood in the open doorway to his house, his knitted brow a storm cloud above eyes that flashed like lightening. “Just what in the hell is going on here!?”

Xxx

Bobby sat in his favorite chair. It was small comfort given the circumstances, but a petty luxury that the old man desperately needed right now. He glowered across the cramped study at the younger Winchester, who for his part looked appropriately admonished. His lanky hair fell about his downcast head, hiding his face from the stare of his mentor.  Between them, the spectral form of Dean stood with arms crossed. Sooner or later, one of them was going to have to talk.

“Well. Looks like you’ve gone and done it now, boy.” It looked like Bobby would break the deadlock. “Just what in the hell were you thinking? And right after I just got done telling you…”

“This is different, Bobby,” Sam said through gritted teeth. “There’s no dark magic or necromancy going on here. I just needed…”

“You needed what, Sam? You needed Dean back?” Bobby’s words cut deep, his tone was acid. “For Christ’s sake, boy, you think we all haven’t lost someone in this fight? You’ve been lucky in the past, real lucky to have had both of you last this long, but everyone’s luck runs out eventually. That’s just the nature of this job. It’s the risk everybody takes when they find out that there are things that go bump in the night and decide to start bumping back. The risk that everybody doesn’t take is to start fooling around with magic, or demons, or angels. But you can’t seem to keep yourself away from that, can you? How can you be so damn selfish!?”

Somewhere mid tirade, Bobby had stood from his chair. He was much shorter than the target of his ire, but with Sam slouched so far into the couch that he nearly disappeared into the stuffing, the older hunter towered over him red faced.

“I told you, it’s not dark magic. I made a tulpa.” Sam answered. He still hadn’t stopped contemplating his shoes. “It’s grey at worst. I know what I’m doing.”

“A tulpa? Sam, you should know better than summoning a tulpa. After all the trouble that one in Texas gave you? And you go and whip one up in my house? I got enough things around here that want to kill me without adding another, especially one wearing your brother’s face.” Bobby wiped sweat from his face angrily. “You know the lore; these things always turn on their creators. That’s why real sorcerers burn through them so fast.  Summon them up, throw ‘em away. You do know how to dismiss it, don’t you?”

“I’m not going to need to dismiss him. He’s Dean!” Sam reacted. He looked up and locked eyes on his mentor. He bolted from his seat, the difference in height between the two immediately becoming apparent. Bobby did not back down, but the outburst seemed to put him on the back foot.

“That thing is not Dean!” Bobby hissed through clenched teeth. “It’s some kind of spirit that you’ve pressed through a Dean shaped mold. It’s dangerous and you should get rid of it before it decides to get rid of you.”

The door slammed at the front of the house, drawing the attention of both arguing hunters. Sam fixed the older man with a sharp, accusatory look and rushed for the exit. “Dean!” he called after his brother. “Dean, stop!” By the time he reached the front door, Dean was nowhere to be found. He called out again, to no avail. Behind him, Bobby was hurrying to follow. Before the older man could stop him, Sam ripped the door open and stormed out into the yard. The midday sun was obscured by clouds. The day threatened to be another rainy one. Darkness on the horizon gave tell to another burgeoning storm. Already the wind was picking up, whistling through the stacked bodies of broken cars. The rusted metal became a mournful orchestra. Sam scanned the untimely twilight, desperately searching for his brother. Then, he saw him. Dean was emerging from the toolshed, an axe held in his hands and his face set in a scowl of determination. Sam stopped, momentarily confused. Then he saw which direction Dean was moving in. The Impala. Sam took off after him.

Dean looked down on the swirling lines. Painted on the hood of his car in his own ashes. Or in Dean’s ashes, he supposed. Dean was dead, he was just an imposter. And a dangerous one. He wasn’t going to let that put his brother in danger. Or put Sam in danger. The tulpa shook his head to clear it, but it only made things worse. God damn it, Sam. Why’d you have to go and make things complicated. Why couldn’t you just have let me go. The axe was heavy in his hands. Everything was more solid now, despite the earth shaking revelations. He could feel the grain of the wooden handle under his thumb, the way the weighty metal head pushed it more into one hand than the other. Solid. He raised the solid axe over his head, his eyes still boring into the Tibetan spirit sigil. All he had to do was punch a hole in it and it would be done. Sam would be safe, he wouldn’t have to life this fake half-life, and Bobby wouldn’t have to disown his only remaining surrogate son. The tulpa froze up, a lump forming in his throat. The cloud dappled light glinted dully off the black paint of the car. He took a hand off the axe to run it along the cool dark metal. It was smooth beneath rough, callused fingers. The touch sent a chill up his spine. “I hate to do this to you, Baby, but I gotta. I hope you understand. This is the way it’s got to be.” Still, he found himself unable to begin his downward swing.

“Dean, please. Don’t do it!” Sam skated into the small clearing with his hands outstretched. Dean sighed and straightened up, resting the axe on his shoulder.

“I’m not your brother, Sammy. Just some thing you whipped up on your little vision quest there. You heard what Bobby said. I’m going to turn on you. Then we’d both be dead.” The wind picked up as he made his pronouncement, kicking litter across the dirt lot.

“It doesn’t matter…” Sam began, but he was interrupted.

“Of course it matters.” Dean barked. “You think Dean would be happy with me just taking his place if he knew that one day I might just up and try to brain you with this?” He hefted the axe for emphasis. “I don’t think so. So I’m going to put this little science experiment back in the box. Don’t worry, Sammy. You’re going to do just fine without me.” He tried to ignore the mournful look on Sam’s face, the eyes that begged him silently to put down the axe. He had to turn away. He raised the axe solemnly over his head and prepared to mar the painted symbol and consign himself to oblivion. That was when something hit him from the side.

Dean was bowled over as someone football tackled him to the ground, pinning the axe against his sternum. “Dean!” Sam cried as whatever it was snarled at his brother. It pounded on him, raising its fist again and again to rain blows on the stunned tulpa. Sam loped over to try and push it off of him. The thing looked up with a frenzied look in its eyes. Its pale flesh was scalded red and as Sam watched he could see it peel under the light of the cloud covered sun. As he got closer, it gnashed its teeth, revealing a nest of sharply pointed fangs that jutted from its split lips. A vampire. Sam stopped short. He didn’t have a blade on him; he wasn’t even carrying a gun. His pause proved ill timed. The vampire lashed out at him with a booted foot, catching him low in the gut and knocking the air from his lungs. Sam was thrown back against a stack of cars by the savagery of the blow. Before he could recover, the vampire drew back and then plunged his fanged maw into Dean’s throat. Gore cascaded out through the serrated teeth as the vamp began to saw back and forth across his neck.

Finally, he let the limp form go. The interloping fang gave a broad toothy grin. “Mother Eve will be pleased,” he said, licking his lips. “But not as pleased as I. I knew I was destined for great things. Killing a Winchester.” The fang raked dirty fingernails through his long unwashed hair, dragging blood into the filthy mat. “Or two Winchesters. Your like has made my kind miserable for years. But not any longer. No.” The vamp stalked forwards, ignoring the painful effect of the sun. With a sudden durst of speed, his hand was around Sam’s neck. The vamp lifted, dragging his back up against the rusted metal of the car. “I will enjoy this.”

“Not as much as I will,” a rough voice said from over the vampire’s shoulder. Surprise barely had time to make its way across the beast’s grimy face before there was a whistling sound terminating in a meaty thud. A shining metal axehead sprouted from the monster’s jugular. Sam clamped his mouth shut against the splatter of blood. The grip on his throat lessened and he felt himself collapse against the car as the vampire backed away, slowly crumpling towards the ground. Dean was standing behind him, seemingly unaffected by the livid red bite mark marching across his neck. The axe was in his hands, and he raised it high in the air. Sam flinched, but the blow fell not on him but on the vampire again. Dean struck it again and again, until the head rolled away from a ruined stump of a neck. Dean threw the axe down on its still corpse in disgust and looked up and Sam. Silence hung in the air between the two brothers.

“Must be getting rusty,” he grunted. “Never would have let a greasy looking fang like this sneak up on me before.”

“Thank you,” Sam grated out, clutching his abused throat.

“Yeah well, what else was I going to do?” Dean asked with a noncommittal shrug of the shoulders. He winced as he reached up to touch the ragged hole at his neck. Already the mark was beginning to fade, like ink being rinsed from a page. “Huh, well that’s different.”

“Tulpas run off of belief,” Sam answered. “Guess I never quite believed that a vamp could take you down.” He smiled wanly and accepted his brothers hand as he dragged himself back to his feet. “That’s why I’m not worried about you turning on me. I believe that’s a possibility.”

“Now don’t get all sappy on me, Sammy,” Dean shot back. “Maybe you’re right, maybe I can stick around for a while.” He looked back at the Impala, then up at the iron gray sky. “Looks like it’s about to rain, aren’t you worried it’ll wash me away?”

“It might. If you’re sticking around, maybe we should throw a top coat over that thing. Like a fresh coat of paint or something. I don’t think it needs to be visible to work.”

“Or,” Dean said slowly, turning towards his brother with a familiar smirk across his face. “You could go grab your nail polish. Bitch.” He slugged his brother on the arm and jogged off towards the car.

“You jerk.” Sam rejoined, slipping easily into the old rituals. A smile creased his face for the first time since Fairview.

[therakeisnogentleman-blog]

One Act of Kindness: Prologue

It was a dark night that saw the arrival of Rubeus Hagrid to Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey. An unremarkable night to the uneducated eye, as unportentious to the common muggle as any other Halloween night in recent memory. But to the Keeper of the Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, it was a night of great importance. It was also a night of furious and turbulent emotion, victory and loss. Hagrid’s teary eyes stung as he streaked across the sky atop Sirius Black’s enormous flying motorcycle. Voldemort, dead. The Potters, dead. It broke his giant heart that the two had to be so closely interwoven. And, he noted to himself as he looked down to the precious cargo swaddled against his broad chest, caught in the middle of it all a small child. He smiled despite his tears as he looked down at the sleeping face of Harry Potter, only one year old and already the vanquisher of a foe beyond his understanding. And now bound for his Aunt and Uncle’s before the bodies of his parents had even cooled. It struck the half-giant as monstrously unfair, but Dumbledore’s orders where Dumbledore’s orders.

Great man, Dumbledore. Hagrid nodded in agreement almost by reflex. If there was one thing he could be certain of, it was that when Dumbledore came up with a plan, it could be assured that it had borne the full weight of his considerable wisdom, even if on the surface it first appeared a little mad. For instance, to outsiders the Headmaster’s decision to let Hagrid himself keep his wand, even after the unpleasantness back in his schooldays, and even to go as far as to ensure him a job as groundskeeper, must have seemed mad. But Dumbledore had done it anyway, and for that he’d earned Hagrid’s undying loyalty. Still though… Hagrid looked down at the baby Harry again. The infant stirred slightly in his fitful sleep, revealing the lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead. Hagrid carefully took a hand of the handlebars and reached into one of his man, many coat pockets, retrieving the carefully folded sheet of glossy paper held within. He gave it one more look, holding back further tears that threatened to leak out into his great beard and wiped his nose on the coat’s sleeve before carefully folding it back up. With thick fingers, he took the utmost care at slipping the tiny parcel in between the folds in Harry’s swaddling blanket.

“Summet’ to remember ‘em by,” He said softly. Harry stirred slightly, wrapping the folded paper in a diminutive arm. Hagrid smiled again and looked out over the repeated, identical houses of muggle Britain. Below, he saw a single darkened street amongst the brightly glaring streetlamps of Surrey. Somewhere down there in that dark street, Dumbledore would be waiting. Hagrid gently guided the roaring motorbike down towards shadowy Privet Drive, coming to a slightly less than gentle landing. Before him, their heads bent together in what looked like whispered yet heated discussion were two figures. Tall, dressed in flowing robes and wearing tall, pointed hats. “Professor Dumbledore, Sir. Professor McGonagall.” Hagrid greeted them as he stepped down from the idling bike. He took extra care to keep Harry stable. Bless the tyke, he was still asleep.

“Ah, Hagrid,” Dumbledore greeted him. The wizard looked worn out to Hagrid, a weariness he rarely saw in Hogwart’s usually exuberant Headmaster, even during the worst days of the war. “You had a safe trip, I hope?” He stepped forward, his long beard almost glowing in the moonlight while his half-moon spectacles flashed.

Hagrid nodded. “I did, sir. Sirius lent me ‘is motorbike, sir. Little ‘arry ‘ere fell asleep jus’ as we wa passing o’er London.” The Headmaster smiled tiredly and held out his arms. Hagrid unslung his charge and passed the baby boy carefully to his Headmaster. Dumbledore took Harry and turned towards the house marked Number Four in plain, uniform, silver letters. He did not see Hagrid’s gift to the boy. Hagrid blew his nose loudly on an enormous spotted red handkerchief. The tears had come again as Dumbledore carried Harry Potter up to the door of the Dursleys’ Little Whinging home. The other Professor, the usually stern and collected McGonagall uttered some whispered final protest, but the wizened headmaster shook his head and placed the boy on the step accompanied by a yellowing envelope of parchment marked with vibrant green ink. Hagrid shuffled backwards towards the Black motorcycle, suddenly feeling very out of place in the middle of the very muggle street. By the time he climbed atop the metal flying machine and took off into the night, he had almost forgotten about the gift he had given the young Harry Potter. His final thoughts were on the small pool of light cast by an opened door, the silhouettes of a tall thin woman and a wide man with very little neck, and the ten years until he’d see the boy again.

[therakeisnogentleman-blog]

Two Fisted Tales

Here Comes Commander Valentine: Issue 1

In the Swamps of Venus

The violet-green sky of Venus was reflected in the water that filled Commander Valentine's boot print. The woman grimaced as she withdrew the insulted article of footwear from the Venusian swamp muck. She hated the swamp. The way it sucked at her boots, the way the humidity of Venus pressed down on her like a sodden blanket, and she especially hated the man-sized mosquitoes that buzzed lazily on the planet's moisture ridden air currents.

"Black cats, but it's hot!" She groused as she picked better footing. The swamp squelched below her regardless, accepting her spacesuit clad leg up to the knee and staining the spotless white a murky green-brown. At least she had tried.

"Not far now, ma'am," her ghoulish batman proclaimed from up ahead where he cut through the thick underbrush with his handy electro machete. Digby was a survivor of the old Radiation Wars, and bore the scars on his time shriveled face. He would be turning 200 this month. Commander Valentine made a note to buy him a gift. "Almost back to the rocket!"

How Digby maintained his good cheer in this sopping wet environment, Valentine would never know. When pressed, the radman would utter 'Stiff upper lip' and that would be that. Which always confused Valentine, as the wars had long ago robbed her batman of any kind of upper lip. She supposed it didn't matter right now. All that mattered was completing the mission.

And for that, all she'd have to do was make it back to her rocket. Then she'd be able to return the Venusian Protectorate's lost idol and it would be zip, pow, back to Earth Command for some much deserved R and R. Or so she thought. Because Commander Robin Valentine, Earth Force, didn't know that she was being watched...

[therakeisnogentleman-blog]

Cogito Ergo, Dean: Chapter 1

The sound of the gun filled the alleyway behind Fairview’s Motel 12. It roared, bellowed in the still Pennsylvania night like the heavy handed hammer of an angry god. Fire blossomed from the end of the hexagonal barrel of the intricately carved antique revolver to form a deadly flower that bloomed almost as if in slow motion. A bead of black perforated the delicate fiery blossom. A bullet, as decoratively scrimshawed as the weapon that fired it, spun from the chamber with deadly purpose. It didn’t have far to travel before colliding with its target. Metal met meat and the imprisoned magics of a long dead gun maker set about their grim task of unmaking the unfortunate recipient.

It doesn’t really hurt. The dark haired man with the brooding face and scruffy green jacket thought as a light began to shine from the red ringed hole that spread rapidly of his grungy shirt. Hell, I’ve felt worse. Survived worse. His body bucked under a sudden surge of red hot magical energy, his bravado shattered like glass. Thoughts were momentarily driven from his mind as the tidal forces within the bullet wound drove him to his knees. When he came back to himself, his thoughts turned outwards. He looked up at the shaking man before him, who still held the Colt revolver in a limp, shaking grip. No, not a man, but a boy. Some kid. The dying man chuckled as blood slipped from between clenched teeth. He’d killed monsters, devils, angels, and small gods. And here he was. He was going to be taken out by some two-bit thief who’d made a bad call on whose room he was going to turn over tonight. A thought came unbidden to his dying mind and played across his pained grimace. Took a Colt to kill a Winchester.

Another torrent of energy coiled in his chest, driving thought away once again and replacing it with a blinding whiteness. The Colt dropped to the ground in front of him as the kid bolted. The dying man considered reaching for it, putting all of his last energies into taking a shot at the boy who’d taken him out. He would have, too, if his arms hadn’t refused to obey him. He slipped forwards, landing on his elbows. Blood leaked slowly onto the gravel road. Somewhere far off, someone was yelling out. To the dying man’s ears, it was nothing but a dull roar behind another duller roar. His body bucked again, his back arching and his teeth grinding together. He refused to cry out. Light seared from behind his eyes brightly enough to illuminate the space between the motel and the adjacent diner, then went out for good. The man was dead.

“Dean!” the other man cried. He was tall, lanky and long haired. He dressed similarly to the dying man, emulated him, though he would never admit it. He ran across the gravel that crunched just a little too loud in the silence that followed the gunshot. He moved fast, but not fast enough, his brother was in the last of his death throws by the time he skated to a stop and dropped to his knees in a spray of stone chips. The crushed rock tore at his already blood flecked jeans and cut his knees, but he paid it no mind. His attention was on the slumped form in front of him. “Dean?” His voice was hoarse, ragged as he laid a hand on the fallen form. Dean was still. Too still. No breath stirred his chest. “No.” The tall man couldn’t believe, he just couldn’t. He saw the weapon lying in the gravel mere feet from him, noted the smoke emanating from that banded barrel, and dread rose up in his chest. It clawed at his innards, turning his legs and arms to water as he reached over and clutched at Colt’s masterpiece. The chamber was warm. Three cartridges lay nestled in its clustered chambers. But four had been there when they’d stashed it in the locked safe. “Damn it, Dean, no! Why’d you have to run off!?” He shook the man, the corpse, his brother. But Dead could not respond.

In the distance, sirens blared. The entire police force of Fairview, Pennsylvania would be down here any minute. The tall man looked around, searched for his brother’s killer, but found nothing but the unlit night on all sides. Hastily, he tucked the murderous revolver into his belt and struggled to lift his burly older sibling. Boots and knees and elbows scrabbled in the sharp gravel as he gained his footing. The fatigue of the long day and his fresh injuries weighed heavily on him as he stumbled around the front of the motel building. In the distance, someone was screaming. He’d have to change the plates once he crossed the boundaries of the small township. He’d have to call… someone. Bobby, maybe. The cranky old hunter would know what to do. The tall man made plans, anything to distract him from the weight he carried on his shoulders as he reached the low, crouching, animal form of Dean’s Baby. The Chevrolet Impala, all black with silver fittings, lay still and silent as its owner. The tall man yanked open the passenger door and gently lay the body down in the back seat. The sirens were getting closer, but the tall man added no extra urgency. He made sure that Dean’s head wasn’t jammed uncomfortably against the far door, propped his knees up to keep him from rolling out of the seat, and threw a dusty old blanket over him.

He had to run across the driver’s side door as red and blue lights began to flicker on the far side of the motel. The door jarred close as he shut it with just a little too much force. The throaty sound of the car’s powerful engine filled his ears and shook his fingertips as he turned the key in the ignition. More gravel crunched under the tires and he was away. He spun out onto the road and put his foot down all the way to the floor. The motor roared and the car charged down the road that led to the interstate. He had made it. No one had seen him, by the time the police made the trip around the building he’d be long gone and out of sight. He allowed himself to relax, just a little. He leaned back into the leather seat and ran a hand through sweat matted hair. He addressed the air, a question on his lips that would go unanswered. “Okay, Sam. Now what?”

Xxx

Rain lashed against the tar paper shingles and raked the windows of the house that lay nestled between stacks of junked cars in a lot just off the road in South Dakota. The unseasonal storm beat at the wooden siding and caused the whole building to creak as if in pain. Inside, the two occupants shared a different, but no less severe pain. Sam sat leaned forwards in the lumpy, beaten old sofa and stared into the lit fireplace that banished most, but not all, of the rain’s chill. A forgotten tumbler half full of something that burned on the way down dangled precariously from his fingertips and swayed slightly with the unrestrained emotion that shook his body. Sam ran his free hand through the long hair that hung limply about his ears and let out a hollow, mournful sound before finding his tumbler once again and pressing it to his lips. The dark liquid felt like oil on his tongue as it slipped from the glass and into his gullet. He swallowed, suppressing a splutter. He wished for the drink to ease some of the wracking guilt that even now ate away at him. All it did was turn his stomach into a pit full of snakes.

“Tell me again how it happened,” a gruff voice shook the distraught Winchester brother from his reverie. There was a man standing in the open doorway. Concern twisted the short beard that graced his well-worn, experienced face, but his eyes were hard, shrewd. He had a drink in his own hand, one of many he’d downed already that night. Every night since he’d gotten the phone call that one of his boys had fallen on the field of battle. Only this time, he wouldn’t be getting up again. Not even Dean Winchester could shrug off Death forever. “Sam…”

“Damn it, Bobby!” Sam shook with a sudden violent outburst. “What difference does it make? You said it yourself, Dean’s dead. Not coming back.” He knocked back another slug of his drink, enough to drain the glass completely. He held it out towards the older hunter. He could still feel, that meant that he wasn’t done drinking.

“The difference it makes is that you haven’t told me what you two idjits were doing all the way out in Fairview, Pennsylvania in the first place. The difference is I need to know what you found out there, if it’s still alive and kicking, and if I need to round up a posse to make that kicking stop. And most of all, the difference is that I don’t know why in the Hell you needed to drag the Colt out there. The Colt, Sam.” Bobby knocked back his own drink. The sternness of his face softened a little as he watched the younger man shake on his couch. “Look, I know what it means to lose family. Hurts like Hell and worse. But there’s a whole world of people out there. We can both do our mournin’ when the job is done.” He came around the dilapidated couch and let himself drop heavily into its overstuffed confines. He plunked the bottle of his finest booze down with a dull thunk upon the rickety table. Sam reached for it, but he slid it away.

“Bobby…”

“Drink later, talk now.” Bobby’s face was set, resolute. It was not the face of a man about to change his mind. Sam sighed heavily and sank back into the sofa. His eyes were glassy as he slowly opened them, but he spoke steadily and without stumbling.

“Alright. I’ll talk.” He stopped for a second to gather his thoughts. The empty tumbler still swung in his hands. Outside, the first peals of distant thunder rolled across the South Dakota country side. The rain redoubled against the roof and against the junked cars outside until it played a symphony of percussion to underline Sam Winchester’s words. “We had a case. A nasty one. A monster called…

Xxx

…Khazrak the One Eye?” Dean snorted with derision. “How’d he get that name, doya think?” The engine of the Impala thrummed as he gunned it through the open Pennsylvania farmland. This was always his favorite part of the job. The road was empty, the windows were down, and the radio was turned all the way up. Dean sang along to a snippet of the song playing on the current station. “…place is a madhouse, feels like being cloned!”

“Well the lore says… he only has one eye…” Sam answered awkwardly, trying to compete with the thumping drums of whatever noise his brother had selected for this afternoon’s driving. He finally stopped trying to raise his voice and reached for the dial. Dean slapped the grasping hand away.

“Hey, never touch another man’s radio,” he growled, though there was no threat in his voice. This was, in fact, a time honored tradition between the two.

Sam fixed his brother with an aggravated stare. “Come on, Dean. This is serious.”

“Alright, alright.” Dean twisted the knob and brought the music back below ear splitting levels. “So, what’s the deal with ol’ Kazgraz? And why’s he only got one eye? You taking us to fight some kind of cyclops?”

“Khazrak. And it says here that it got shot away,” Sam rejoined as he thumbed through the ancient and creaky leather bound journal. “Yes, here’s the passage. And I looked upon mine foe at last. The One who walks in the woods and steals our sons and daughters. He was terrifying to me, his visage bestial to behold. Like that of a great horned goat who walked on his hind legs. His cloven hooves were like that of a cart horse and his hands were great claws that grasped his crude weapon. His hooded head bore a great curving horn of a ram; the other horn was broken in our last encounter. His eyes gleamed malevolently beneath that hood. I raised my flintlock to deliver my final justice. I sparked the flame, and lo did I see his right eye plucked from its socket by my bullet of silver. An eye for an eye, the Book says. I have taken his eye, as he has taken mine. The beast is still now. I will bury it in woods that it used to stalk. It seems… seemly. The job is done.”

“Yeah but if the job was done, why are we heading up there right now?” Dean asked. He absent mindedly scratched at his chest. “Sounds to me like our buddy the Pilgrim hunter took him out.”

“Well, at least he thought he did. That wasn’t the last entry in the journal. Looks like the killings he describes started up again a while after. He never found Khazrak again, but he was sure that he hadn’t killed it.” Sam flipped through the book again. “They tailed off just before the author died. He fought the beast must have died of old age but…” He carefully closed the age ravaged tome and set it aside, instead reaching for the stack of computer print-outs. “These are some of the latest missing persons reports from the area. Matches One Eye’s M.O. Late night disappearances, all around the same patch of woods. And then there’s the cattle mutilations.”

“Cattle mutilations? What, the guy can’t stop in for a hamburger like the rest of us?” Dean chuckled at his own joke.

“He… uh.. takes liberties with the livestock,” Sam answered with a grimace. “They don’t generally survive.”

Dean’s face twisted in a look of disgust. “Okay, so looks like we’ve got us a horny goatman to kill. Why do we need the Colt with us?” He patted the oilcloth wrapped revolver that lay on the seat between the two brothers.

“Guy who hunted it before tried a little bit of everything and couldn’t make it stick,” Sam said. “Silver, cold iron, wood from local trees, holy water, unholy water, the works. He made it his life’s work to hunt down and kill this thing, and it looks like it’s still up and walking. I figure, better safe than sorry.” He put the print-outs down and patted the journal. “I figure he deserves a little closure. Plus, I don’t like the idea of an unkillable monster loping around the Northeast with Eve on the loose.”

“Yeah, don’t want the purple people eater finding his way back to mommy. So, what’s the deal? We roll up to this town, run off into the woods, and hope we don’t get mistaken for a pair of sexy cows?”

“It’s going to be a little more complicated than that,” Sam responded, intentionally ignoring his brother’s comment. “Looks like the attacks are centered around this one patch of trees that backs onto a whole bunch of farms in the area. Only one hasn’t been hit yet, the… um… Strutemyer property. We stake out that farm tonight, odds are good we’ll catch this thing out.”

“So what’s our play? F.B.I.? Sherriff’s Department? Aww, come on!” Dean’s face fell as he saw the badges his brother held up. “FDA? We never get to be anyone fun anymore.”

Xxx

“So, did you get him? This One Eyed monster?” Bobby asked cautiously. Sam had stopped in the middle of his tale to stare forlornly into the fire. The rain still beat at the windows, driven by a rising wind that rattled the panes as it drove in across the lot. The taller man sipped slowly from the drink that his mentor had poured while he was talking.

“Yeah. Yeah, we got him. Wasn’t easy, had to burn down the forest to drive the thing out, but Dean shot him in the head and he went down hard. Salted the corpse and scattered the ashes just to be sure.” He gulped, a deep swallow burning his throat and adding fire to his words. “That was when we… when Dean, he…” Sam stopped abruptly and put his head in his hands. “He wanted to celebrate.”

“Let me guess, a tour of all the bars in town?”

“Turns out there was just the one bar,” Sam answered ruefully. “We stowed the Colt at the motel, found our way into the local dive, spent a couple hours. We didn’t realize that our room was being watched.” He finished his glass and dropped it down on the table. He scrubbed at his red-rimmed eyes with his palms and resisted the wave of fresh, raw emotion that threatened to boil up inside. It was like holding close the valve of a steam engine with his bare hands. He hunched over, a solitary sob escaping confinement.

“One of Eve’s monsters?” Bobby asked with evident concern.

“No.” Sam answered. “That might have made some sense….”

Xxx

Sam swayed slightly as he walked beside his exultant brother. The two leaned into each other to hide their inebriation, but the joy of victory was flush above both their faces in a way that was impossible to disguise. The younger Winchester wiped absent mindedly at the smudge of soot on his brown jacket. The older brother sang a snatch of something out of tune and finished off a half forgotten line with a hearty guffaw.

“Sammy, we might just be the best hunters on the face of this God damned earth.” He studiously put one foot in front of the other as they turned the corner onto the main street, passing the darkened windows of the small butcher’s shop.

“Yeah, or the luckiest. If you hadn’t tripped when you did, that thing would have taken your head right off!”

Dean made a dismissive noise. “Pssssh. If you’re referring to my genius tactical maneuver, then you should know it was all skill. All skill.” He stumbled slightly. Sam caught him by his elbow before he could pitch face first into the asphalt of the road.

“Yeah, Dean, alright. Why don’t you just go and spell ‘maneuver’ for me. If you’re such a genius.” He gave his older brother a friendly jab in the ribs as the two ducked into the alleyway that separated the butcher from the motel complex.

“Lessee. M… a... n… um, uvver. Look, Sammy, point is we just killed the unkillable. And I’ll tell you what, that bitch mom of all monsters is going to be next. Jus’ a matter of time until you and Bobby put your nerd heads together and figure something out.”

“Whatever you say, Dea…” Sam stopped mid-word, struck silent by the sight before him. Their motel room door was ajar, the flimsy cheap lock broken. A thin bootprint marked the spot that someone had kicked in the door. Sam clamped a hand over Dean’s mouth to block his impatient prompt for his brother to finish his sentence. “Shhhhhh.” He hissed.

Dean yanked the hand off his face, but his next question was a whisper. “What?”

Sam pointed to the door and went for the concealed handgun in his waistband. Dean’s face sharpened, the signs of inebriation flushed in an instant by a cold rush of adrenaline. Someone or something was in their room. In their room with the Colt. He drew his own weapon, his thumb brushing over the well-worn safety catch as if it were a lover. He motioned forwards with a jerk of his head. The two brothers moved silently over the gravel of the parking lot, their boots barely crunching on the loose rock chips. Sam reached the door first and pressed his shoulder into the frame. No sound emenated from the darkened interior of the room. He gestured the all clear to Dean. The older brother whipped around to the other side of the open doorway and covered the visible sliver of the inside with his pistol. Nothing moved, all was still.

Dean slipped inside. The room was lit only by the half full moon outside the windows, but what little light did shine in revealed a sight that made his stomach drop. The room had been searched thoroughly. Drawers and doors hung open, their contents spread on the cheap blue carpet. The mattresses of both beds had been flipped over and slit open. Sheets lay jumbled in a corner where they had been tossed in haste. Dean’s eyes searched imploringly for the dark green duffle bag and found nothing. Then his eyes found the room’s small safe. It looked like someone had knocked in the combination lock with a hammer, leaving the door hanging open to reveal an empty compartment. Dean’s blood ran cold. He tried to swallow on a suddenly dry throat. “Sammy…”

“I see it.” Sam rushed to the safe, taking a knee and yanking open the door. “Dean, it’s gone.”

“God damn it!” Dean roared. He lashed out at a nearby end table with a booted foot, sending it crashing over. He ran a hand through his short brown hair and shook his head. “I told you we should have kept it in the car!” He turned around and just managed to catch a glimpse of someone in the uncovered outside window. A startled looking kid, dressed in a grey hooded sweatshirt and dark jeans. In his hands, the long barreled shape of a revolver. “Hey!”

The kid bolted. Dean saw red and charged after him, the devastation of his motel room forgotten.

“Dean, wait!” Sam called after him. There was no answer but the sound of leather on stone as the chase went on. Sam shook his head and began to walk after his brother. Then the gunshot came. “Dean!”

Xxx

The fire was little more than dull embers in a smoldering hearth. The empty bottle sat on the table between the two men. Bobby’s mustache twitched as he grunted softly as the younger man finished his tale. “Hmm. So, that’s it then.” Resignation was threaded through his words. “The end of Dean Winchester. Shot for his gun in Fairview, Pennsylvania. At least he went down at the end of a successful hunt.”

“I just wish…”

“Don’t,” Bobby cut him off sternly. “What you were about to say. You wish you could have done something. There weren’t a damn thing you could have done short of tacklin’ your brother down to the ground to stop him runnin’ off. And that would have lost you the Colt besides. No, ain’t nothing you could have done. Though I get the feeling you’ve already gone above and beyond on Dean’s account. Unless you’re trying to tell me it took you a week to drive the body back here.”

Sam looked away guiltily. He studiously avoided Bobby’s inquisitively raised eyebrow. Finally, he spoke, his words slightly slurred. “They couldn’t bring him back.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve. “Not Heaven or Hell. ‘Nothing to bring back’ they both said. ‘Utterly destroyed.’” He hiccoughed. “Took some extra pleasure to rub that one in I bet. Had to look for something else. Find an alternative. I just don’t want to believe…”

“Aww Hell, Sam. You shouldn’t have put yourself through that. God knows you’ve been through that too many times already. And as for believing, well… Facts don’t care what you believe.” The older man grumbled as he propelled himself out of the sofa to go throw another log on the fire. “Why, I…” He stopped, half turned towards his surviving protégé. The guttering flames cast his grizzled face in partial shadow. “What kind of alternative?” He asked suspiciously. The look of guilt on Sam’s face intensified. He nudged a ragged bag behind the seat, failing to fully conceal the dusty tome within. “Sam, what is that? What have you brought into my house?”

With two quick steps he was across the room. The younger man tried to stop him. On a better day, he would have succeeded, but not today. Bobby was an old hand at working through the bottle while Sam’s actions were fumbling, clumsy. Thick fingers grasped the book and pulled hard. The book in the bag slipped out. Silver lettering, etched in Greek shone in the firelight as a fresh peal of thunder shook the windows. “No.”

“Bobby, I…”

“Necromancy, Sam? Have you lost your God damned mind!?” Bobby roared. The sympathy that had lined his face was gone. “What? You thought it would be okay to raise Dean’s corpse from the dead like a puppet?”

“I need my brother.” Sam said in little more than a whisper.

“I don’t care how much you think you need him. What this book’ll give you ain’t him. A freaking zombie. You may as well invite a demon to come in and ride him around like a meat suit. How could you be so stupid, boy? ‘sides, even if you bring something back that walks and talks and hunts like Dean, you think it’s going to stay that way? You’ve seen what messing with this stuff does before. And that’s not even counting what all the other hunters might think of your little bit of casual necromancy.”

“I don’t care what the others think.” Sam spat miserably, though the look of defeat was already in his eyes. He sank in on the couch and into himself as Bobby proceeded to hurl the book of black magic into the other room.

“Well it’s just as well you’ve got someone looking out for you what does. Now, I’m going to pretend I didn’t see that little touch of madness, and you are going to help me give Dean the funeral he deserves. A proper, Hunter’s funeral. Now.”

There was nothing to do but agree. Sam slogged out into the rain and the wind behind his mentor and helped stack the wood for a funeral pyre. He tried not to look at the black Impala, the impromptu hearse that had carried his brother’s body for far too long. He tried to ignore the sting of the gasoline in his nostrils as he helped Bobby liberally douse the pile and the cloth wrapped form of Dean. He looked away when the match was thrown and the salt was sprinkled. He blocked out the incantation in Latin as the body began to burn, its burnt meat stink rising above the fumes. He didn’t feel the rain as it splattered over his face or the wind as it tugged at his hair and clothes. He just stood, staring into the firelight. He stood there all night, even after bobby had left to spread the ill tidings. It was early morning when the last embers finally went out in the spreading pile of ashes.

Sam knelt in the sodden dirt of the junker’s yard. Before him, the rain had made a thick mud of the funeral ash. His mind was numb, empty but for a pair of phrases that kept repeating themselves around and around in his brain. I just don’t want to believe. Don’t care what you believe.

Believe.

An idea dawned in the back of his mind as dimly at first as the dawn that seeped over the wooded landscape of Sioux Falls. It was stitched together of memory and half-forgotten lore, of fierce hope and bitter desperation.

Believe. I believe.

Before Sam new what he was doing, he had scooped up a handful of the wet ash. It was cold as ice in his hands as he loped over to where the Impala loomed silently.

I believe.

Sam knelt before the hood and clung to the thoughts that raced around his brain. Then, in the dim light of the morning, he began to paint.