Mist of Shadows
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Hogwarts Teacher, Myst Style Part 4
🕑 Added 2023-07-11 07:44:54 +0000 UTCXander glanced up from the standard book of spells that he was reading when someone knocked on the door. "Your turn, I got the last one."
"That barely counts," Myst complained as he glanced over at where Dawn was curled up with a book by the window.
"Cindy tried to talk my ear off, it counts," Xander replied, thinking about the overly friendly witch that had stopped by after breakfast to say hello.
"Fine," Myst muttered as he walked over and opened the door, instantly regretting it as the temperature dropped and he saw two inhumanly tall cloaked figures floating just above the ground.
"Are you the new Defense teacher?" one of the dementors asked in a harsh whisper that sounded wrong to Myst's ears.
Myst glared at the dementors, his mind jumping back to some of his less pleasant memories from various points in his life as the dementor's aura washed over him, completely missing the strangeness about the dementor speaking.
Xander dropped his book and glared at the dementors he could see through the open door, less than happy to have images of his greatest failures dancing through his mind, starting with staking Jesse and moving to Buffy dying, along with vamp Willow and finishing with Anya's death. He felt the despair and fear give way to anger as the wards that Willow had placed over his mind activated and pushed the memories back into their cages.
Myst snapped out of his shock as one of the dementors reached for him, his despair changing to rage as he realized that the dementor was responsible for making him relive memories that he didn't want to deal with. He gestured and used his Hero's Light ability to conjure glowing red chains of light around the dementors. "Die!"
Xander shouted as he gestured and conjured a wall of shadows around the yard, blocking the view so that people wouldn't see the confrontation if they came to investigate the noise. 'At least we're not on the main street.'
Myst started hacking at the closest dementor with his sword of light, doing his best to push it out into the yard so that they'd have enough space to get creative.
Xander watched Myst ineffectively hack at the large wraith for twenty seconds as the chains dragged the dementors into the middle of the yard. 'Yeah, that's not helping.' He cast Relieve Madness on Myst. "Did that help?"
Myst sighed when he realized that his conjured sword wasn't powerful enough to actually destroy a dementor and that he'd been acting like a rage filled idiot. He took a couple of steps away from the dementors. "Do you have any way to get rid of the dementors?"
"I've got a couple of ideas," Xander replied as he created a coffin sized tank using a wall of force. "I'm going to need a minute to set everything up."
"Go for it," Myst replied as he opened his interface for his skill copying ability and focused on one of the dementors, trying to focus on something other than the rage and the memories the dementor was dragging up. 'Soul Consumption, Flight, Cold Aura, Enhanced Durability, and Emotional Consumption.'
He quickly read through the descriptions of the dementor's various abilities as Xander conjured a green liquid in the coffin. 'So much for getting the ability to create fog,' he mused as he started copying the dementor's ability to fly, annoyed that Flight was the only ability worth copying since the Cold Aura was tied to Soul Consumption and the Enhanced Durability was tied to their negative planar nature.
Xander finished filling the tank with acid then cast Essential Acid on the green sludge, changing the sludge from a rather nasty mundane acid to something that was trying to eat the wall of force that contained it. "You might want to back up."
Myst finished creating the skill book that would give someone the ability to fly then walked backwards into the house, keeping the dementors in sight so he could make sure the chains were still holding them. "Do you have a…" he trailed off as Xander gestured and one of the dementors was pulled into the tank of green sludge and started screaming in agony that hurt worse than nails on a chalkboard. "What the fuck?!"
"Essential acid," Xander replied as he held the dementor under the acid using his telekinesis spell. "It eats damned near anything."
"I'm not sure if I should be impressed or disturbed," Myst admitted as he pulled Ravenclaw's diadem out of his inventory and tossed it at the remaining dementor's face then used a chain to hold the diadem in place as it happily started eating Riddle's soul without hesitation, not caring or understanding that its fellow dementor was dead.
"It's disturbingly impressive," Xander agreed as he watched the creature's cloak and flesh dissolve as it thrashed around.
"Yep," Myst agreed as he watched the second dementor eat Riddle's soul like it was puding. 'I probably should have sold his soul to a devil, but then I'd have to make a deal with a devil and this is easier and he's gone.'
Dawn hurriedly munched on a bar of conjured chocolate as she walked over to watch the dementor die screaming, the wards Willow had put in place on her mind blunting the worst of the dementor's aura. "How long…" she trailed off as a ghostly image of Willow appeared in the middle of the room. "Willow?"
"Hey-" Willow spun around when she felt something dark and horrifying behind her projection. She stared at the large shadowy creature wrapped in glowing chains that was pressing a diadem to its mouth. "Is that a Nazgul?"
"Disney knock off, it’s a Dementor," Xander replied as the dementor finished eating Voldemort's soul and released the diadem.
"As in Harry Potter?" Willow blurted.
"Yep," Xander agreed as he gestured and dragged the remaining dementor into the vat of acid, causing it to start screaming and thrashing in agony as he held it under the acid with his telekinesis.
"I thought you couldn't kill them?" Willow complained, wondering if the books had lied about the dementors.
Myst gestured towards Xander. "Xander's good at killing things."
"Magical acid fixes a lot of problems," Xander replied as Dawn handed him a large chunk of chocolate. "Thanks." He took a bite of the chocolate, suddenly feeling better as a wave of warmth seemed to wash over him.
"Huh," Willow muttered. "Why are you fighting dementors?"
“They needed killing,” Myst replied with a shrug.
"They attacked us," Xander explained as he watched the creature dissolve.
“We really should have asked them why, before dissolving them in acid,” Dawn said with a frown.
"Better question, why are you in Harry's world?" Willow asked, wondering if someone had cursed them into a book.
"Dumbledore couldn't find a Defense teacher for Harry's fifth year so he used an ancient ritual to summon a suitable teacher. It grabbed the three of us," Dawn explained.
"It's not even Tuesday," Willow complained, a touch annoyed that the spell hadn't summoned her because teaching magic at Hogwarts sounded like a lot of fun and she could have got so many autographs.
"I know," Dawn agreed.
"Now that I've found you, I should be able to figure out how to get you home," Willow assured them.
Xander shook his head. "Don't worry about it, we got paid in the form of magical abilities and the ritual should send us back once we're done with the school year."
"End of the year? Why…" Willow trailed off as her brain processed what he'd said. "Wait, magical abilities?"
Dawn smiled and turned into her dragon form. "I'm a dragon."
"Awesome!" Willow blurted, wishing she could turn into a dragon. "What did you get?" she asked Xander excitedly, forgetting about the dementors for a second.
"I picked up all of my mage's spells," Xander replied smugly.
"All of your mage's spells?" Willow stared at Xander when she realized which mage Xander was talking about. "How the hell?! Your mage is broken!"
"I'll have you know, my mage is completely legal," Xander teased.
"Only technically, you have wildcard magic as a racial skill which means you don't have to care about prerequisites and you have six ranks of magery, that's like double what you're supposed to have as a player," Willow grumbled.
"Bribing the DM is perfectly legal… according to the DM," Xander replied with a smirk.
Willow scowled as she thought about her sorcerer in Andrew's game and how much trouble he'd given her over the details. "I'm going to turn him into a rat."
Myst shook his head as he walked into the house. "Can you get rid of the acid and the walls of shadow before someone comes to investigate?"
"Sure." Xander gestured at the vat of acid and conjured a base to denature the acid then teleported the sludge into the Forbidden Forest. "We're going to need a decent story."
"We're obviously testing spells for a class demonstration and we didn't have the muffling spells quite right. We'll just give everyone that shows up to complain a bar of chocolate and let them know that we'll be upgrading our muffling spells in the future," Myst suggested as he conjured a bar of chocolate.
"Makes sense, they're wizards," Dawn mused as she watched Myst take a bite of the chocolate and relax.
"Who's your friend?" Willow asked.
"Myst, he got summoned with us," Xander explained as he dispelled the shadow walls, revealing a group of townsfolk.
"What's going on?" one of the shopkeepers demanded.
"We were working on a class demonstration, is there a problem?" Myst asked, doing his best to look innocent.
"We heard screaming!" one of the guys complained.
"Damn it," Xander complained as turned and looked at Myst. "I told you the muffling spells weren't set up right."
"No one complained last night," Myst complained, knowing that people normally stopped looking for answers when they found one. 'Shouldn't they be running if they heard the screaming, that's what normally happens, right?'
"Ah, there were noises…" one of the women trailed off, uncomfortable with the type of noises she'd heard.
"Noises?" Willow asked, wondering what was going on.
"Last night was quiet," one of the women said.
"There were a lot of… noises the night before last," one of the men complained.
"We were testing out a sound generation spell and we didn't have the muffling charms quite right," Dawn lied. "We'll fix it," she assured the townsfolk.
"Can we bribe you with chocolate to ignore the inconvenience?" Xander asked hopefully.
"I like chocolate," one of the other shopkeepers admitted.
"I'll grab the chocolate," Myst replied as he headed towards the kitchen to conjure a bunch of chocolate. 'We're going to need a better way to deal with the dementors, maybe Xander can ward the island so they can't leave.'
Willow listened as Dawn launched into an obviously bullshit spiel about a class demonstration that the locals seemed to eat up as they waited to get their free chocolate. 'This is worse than Sunnydale, at least there, there was a spell causing people to ignore anything weird.'
"Do you want to look over our notes?" Xander asked Willow in a whisper.
"Yes," Willow replied enthusiastically, curious what they were planning on teaching.
0o0o0
Buffy pulled her attention away from Andrew's lecture about trances when she heard Willow's breathing shift. "Did you find them?"
"They're fine," Willow replied as she opened her eyes and uncrossed her legs, feeling like she'd been sitting in the same position for hours. "They got summoned to Hogwarts to help teach a Defense Against the Dark Arts class."
"Funny, where are they?" Buffy asked, not in the mood for jokes.
"I'm not joking," Willow replied with amusement.
"They're in Hogwarts?!" Andrew squealed. "Can you take us there?!"
"Sorry, I don't have anything left in the tank," Willow admitted as she held her hand out. "Can I get some help?"
Buffy glanced down at the circle of salt on the floor that surrounded her friend. "Sorry, you made me promise not to cross the circle."
"Oh, right," Willow muttered as she reached out and broke the circle of salt. "Does that help?"
"Yes," Buffy replied as she reached down and hauled her friend to her feet. "How did they get to Hogwarts?"
"Dumbledore used an ancient summoning ritual when he couldn't find an acceptable teacher," Willow explained.
Buffy stared at Willow. "Why would the ritual summon Dawn and Xander? They're not exactly magic users."
"No clue," Willow admitted, curious if it had something to do with Dawn being the key and a weak spot in dimensions or if it was just random chance. "Xander and Dawn have a lot of magical potential and Xander is a chaos magnet."
"They don't have any training, I would have been a better teacher," Andrew complained, knowing he would have been a better choice.
"I'm sure they'll be fine, the ritual gave them the basics and a couple of magical abilities to make sure they can do the job," Willow explained, ignoring Andrew's whining and pretending she hadn’t done the same herself.
"How long are they going to be gone?" Buffy asked.
"Ten months…" Willow trailed off as she glanced at the clock on the wall of the ritual room and realized that she'd only been gone five minutes. "Is the clock right?"
"Great," Buffy muttered, wondering what she was supposed to do without Xander and Dawn for most of a year.
Andrew glanced at the clock on the wall then down at his watch. "Close enough, you were only out of it for a couple of minutes, why?"
"Because I spent like an hour and a half going over their syllabi for the classes they're going to teach," Willow replied absently as she did some quick math in her head. "The dimensions might be out of sync."
"Meaning?" Buffy asked, hoping that meant what she thought it did.
"Meaning we might get Dawn and Xander back after a couple of weeks," Willow said thoughtfully.
"Good, the mini slayers might revolt without Xander," Buffy admitted, making a mental note to talk to Giles about giving Xander a raise now that they had access to the council's money.
"What magic abilities did they get?" Andrew asked excitedly.
"Dawn picked up the ability to manipulate magic so that spells can last longer and Xander picked up a bunch of spells," Willow admitted, knowing they’d both want to surprise the group with their new abilities when they got back and not wanting to ruin it for them.
0o0o0
Myst glanced up from the third year book of spells when someone knocked on the door. "Can I talk one of you into getting it?"
"I got the last one," Xander replied, not interested in dealing with yet another shopkeeper that wanted to chat.
"And I got the one before that," Dawn spoke up from her spot by the window.
"Fine, but if it’s more soul sucking demons I’m going to be pissed," Myst muttered as he walked over and opened the door, half expecting a group of aurors and dementors or Death Eaters considering his luck. He glanced between the middle aged black man and the red haired young woman in red auror robes. "Can I help you?"
"Auror Shacklebolt, we're investigating the disappearance of ministry officials," he said, studying the man that appeared to be a middle aged muggleborn.
"How can I help?" Myst asked, wondering how much they knew.
"Have you seen Madam Umbridge or Walden Macnair in the last few days?" the man asked.
"Not that I know of, what do they look like?" Myst asked as he used his Upgrade ability on the aurors to check their names. 'Kingsley Shacklebolt and Nymphadora Tonks, someone must have noticed that she was missing.'
"Walden has a large nose and a foul mouth and Umbridge looks like a humanoid toad that wears too much pink," Tonks offered, “if you were around them longer than a minute they’d probably say who they were and implied you were to obey them.”
"Madame Umbridge also has curly hair," Kingsley added, wishing he could disagree about Tonks' description.
Myst shook his head. "I can't say I've seen any mutated toads with curly hair walking around but someone claiming to be with the ministry showed up a couple of days ago looking for a dragon, he apparated in a huff when he didn't find anything. He wasn't polite enough to show any identification or give a name but he was scary enough that I didn't press the issue."
"When was that?" Tonks asked.
Myst shrugged. "Breakfast, the day before yesterday. I would have reported him but I didn't really want to end up with a knife in my back. He seemed the type."
“That’s a positive on Macnair then,” Tonks muttered as she wrote it down in her logbook.
"What brings you to the area?" Kingsley asked.
"Dumbledore, he hired myself and my friends to teach Defense. I think he figured that three people would either be less affected by the curse or harder for it to lock onto," Myst explained as he opened his skill menu and looked at Nymphadora's collection of skills. 'Basic Law, Metamorph and most of the usual wizarding skills.'
"American?" Kingsley asked, having noticed his accent.
"Last I checked," Myst replied with a shrug.
"Have you seen any dementors around?" Kingsley asked, wondering how he'd react.
Myst scowled as he thought about the dementors that had shown up on their doorstep unannounced. "Two of them showed up earlier, we took care of them."
"What do you mean you took care of them?" Tonks asked, wondering where they would have imprisoned them and how they’d managed to conjure stone fast enough to trap them.
"You just chain them up and dissolve them in acid, it's not particularly hard, you just need a decent acid," Myst replied.
"Essential acid works wonders," Xander offered as he walked over.
"Essential acid?" Tonks asked, not recognizing the term.
"It's basically the distilled essence of acid," Xander explained.
"Why didn't you report the dementors?" Kingsley asked.
"Who do you report dementors to? We just figured the same idiot as last time would show up again if we did that and he was a rude prick," Myst complained.
"Did you see anyone with them?" Kingsley asked.
"Not that I noticed, but I didn't sweep for hidden intruders, I just figured they were rogue dementors. That's pretty common here, right?" Myst asked.
"We don't have rogue dementors," Kingsley argued, thinking about Harry's report of being attacked by them, but knowing that Fudge would have his job if he admitted that they had a problem.
"If you don't have rogue dementors, why were they here?" Myst asked.
"Do you have any proof that you killed them?" Tonks asked.
Myst shook his head. "There's not much left when you dissolve them in acid. Best of luck finding your employees and you might want to look into seeing who sent the pair to our door while you're at it.”
Kingsley shook his head. "You don't have any evidence that dementors were here or that they were targeting you. I can file a report, but without any evidence it's all conjecture at this point that you were being targeted."
"You right, I don't have any proof that the dementors were here," Myst admitted with a shrug. "Did you need anything else?"
"Not at this time. Thank you for answering our questions," Kingsley told him, then turned and left.
Myst wandlessly cast the telekinesis spell he'd seen Xander cast earlier and lifted a stray hair off Tonks' robe when she turned to follow Kingsley. 'Nothing like being able to copy spells after seeing them once.' He floated the hair over and pocketed it so he could copy her Metamorph skill then closed the door. 'At least they didn't try to curse me.'
"What do you think?" Kingsley asked once they were out of sight of the house.
"I don't know. He's a Defense teacher, he might have been able to trap the dementors but I'm not sure I believe him about killing the dementors. Surely someone has tried to dissolve them in acid before, right?" Tonks asked.
"I don't know, I'm not sure how hard the ministry tried to kill them once they realized they could use them to guard the prison and save a bunch of gold," Kingsley admitted. "I'm writing this up as no evidence of foul play and needs further investigation."
"The minister isn't going to be happy about it," Tonks complained.
"Fudge isn't happy about a lot of things, including the Daily Prophet running that story about him blackmailing the editor to print lies about Harry, I doubt he has the political capital at the moment to press the issue over Umbridge's disappearance," Kingsley pointed out, hoping they never located Umbridge as that would require dealing with her.
0o0o0
Comments
Mist of Shadows
She vanished. She was grumbling about the new Defense teacher around the office so the Minister stuck her on the list of people to ask about.
Arafel
Wait what hapened to umbrich?
