Mist of Shadows
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Dawn and Reincarnation Part 48
🕑 Added 2021-01-23 10:52:57 +0000 UTC"I'm fairly sure this is cheating," Rose muttered as she watched Xander punch through the door of the Gaunt family shack and take several dark curses that did absolutely nothing to him other than make him grin.
"If you're not cheating, you're not trying," Dawn said cheerfully as she watched the cursed spells try to kill Xander. "You realize this is probably going to kill Snape, right?"
Rose shrugged. "If he wanted to avoid death he should have tried harder to be a decent human being and a better teacher."
"Fair point," Dawn agreed, figuring she could always bring him back to life if it turned out he was actually useful in some fashion. "If you had a button that could resurrect people, who would you bring back?"
"You mean other than my parents?" Rose asked with a touch of sarcasm.
"Yeah, I figured that was a given." Dawn frowned when the entire shack caught flames. "Call me paranoid but I don't think Riddle wanted anyone in there."
"No shit!" Xander called out from inside the inferno as he grabbed the magically warded box that Voldemort had left under the floorboards and dashed out of the flames, not sure how long the enchantments would keep the box from melting. "Hold this." He tossed the box to Dawn then walked back into the flames to absorb the magic before it got out of hand.
Dawn took a couple of steps back then ripped the box open, eating the death curses that lashed out at her. She smiled as she pulled the ring out of the box and put it on, absorbing the death curse that tried to kill her. "Nothing like a bit of death magic in the morning."
Rose shook her head. "You're insane, you know that right?"
"Not really, I'm just immune to magic," Dawn replied with amusement as she used threads of earth and fire to pull the gold away from the black stone. "He really should have just opened a safe deposit box in America, paid for the next fifty years and just never told anyone about it."
"I doubt his ego would let him, he had to prove that he was better than everyone," Rose explained, thinking about her experience in the graveyard. "Where are we going to do the ritual to kill him?"
"I was thinking Godrick's Hollow, it seems appropriate," Dawn explained as she dumped the Resurrection Stone into the palm of her hand. "It's probably just as well Voldemort never realized what he had."
"What do you mean?" Rose asked, looking at the black stone in her hand.
Dawn tossed Rose the stone. "This lets people contact the dead, you can use it to talk to your parents and ask them if they want to come back, just twist it three times."
Rose stared in disbelief at Dawn. "You're telling me I can talk to my parents with this?"
Dawn grinned. "Exactly, which is how we're going to ask them if they want to come back from the dead."
"It can bring back the dead?" Rose asked, staring at the stone in awe.
"No but I can," Dawn assured her. "If you want your parents back, I'll bring them back."
"How much?" Rose asked, knowing there was always a price.
Dawn shook her head. "Nothing, I mean I wouldn't object to seeing you naked with Tara and Hermione if you're feeling generous but I'm not going to charge to bring them back."
"Only if I get to see you with Tara," Rose said with a grin, willing to do a lot if it meant she could get her parents back.
"I'm sure that can be arranged," Tara said from the doorway behind the girls. "Are you done?"
"Just about," Xander said as he walked out of the ruined shack. "Let me grab another pair of shorts then we can get everything set up."
"I don't know, I like the view," Dawn teased.
"I'd rather not offend the ladies," Xander said, glancing between Tara and Rose.
Rose laughed. "I'm not going to object."
"I'm not offended, just because I like looking at girls more doesn't mean I don't like to look," Tara replied with amusement, fairly sure the change was a result of her latest incarnation though it had certainly started with her time as Tara Pond.
"I'll keep that in mind," Xander said thoughtfully. "We're going to need to sit down and actually discuss our messed up relationships at some point aren't we?"
"Eventually but let's deal with the Death Eaters first," Dawn replied, wanting to put things off until everyone had a chance to get their feet under them.
"Sounds good, I need to check with Luna about some ideas anyways," Xander said as he walked through the door.
0o0o0
Ginny glanced between the large metal ring sticking out of the ground and Puck. "If this is a prank, I'm cursing you."
"Fair enough," Puck agreed. "Don't worry, I'll be right behind you."
"Thanks." Ginny stepped through the giant ring and found herself on the receiving end of a full volume rant from her obviously unhinged mother.
Puck waited for the portal to stabilize then followed Ginny through the large ring and blinked when he found himself in a sleazy looking hotel room with a group of six mostly naked teenage witches cowering on the bed while Molly Weasley ranted, "You're no daughter of mine!"
Puck drew his wand and hit Molly in the back with a stunner, dropping her unconscious. He raised his eyebrows when he noticed the various pieces of Girl Scout outfits scattered around the room. "Do I even want to know?"
"No clue," Ginny replied as she glanced between the girls on the bed and the broken video camera lying on the ground.
A young blonde girl that looked a lot like Luna spoke up, "Mrs Weasley went nuts. We were just working on our Girl Scout Nookie ad for Muggle Studies when she apparated in and started ranting about scarlet letters and destroyed the camera, we better not have to pay for that."
"Girl Scout Nookie? Muggle Studies?" Puck asked in amusement, fairly sure he'd at least partially succeeded in twisting the world with his story. He frowned when he heard a bunch of heavy footsteps outside. 'Yeah, that can't be good.' He pulled his wand and tossed up a shield over the door.
"This is the police, we have you surrounded! Come out with your hands up!" someone outside shouted.
"Shit, Mum is going to kill me," the red haired girl complained.
Puck wove an illusion of a glowing blue portal over the exit portal so the girls could see it. "Anyone want to go somewhere where they don't have to worry about morals and ethics?"
"Can we fuck professor Weasley?" one of the girls asked looking at Ginny.
"Probably," Puck replied, fairly sure Ginny wouldn't object as the girl was attractive enough.
"We'll see," Ginny offered, looking at the girl in question. 'She looks a bit like the Twins and Katie Bell, weird.'
"Where does the portal go?" the red haired girl asked as she jumped off the bed.
"To a nudist tropical island with a bunch of magic users," Puck explained.
"Vacation!" the girls chanted as they charged through the portal.
"Great, they're obviously insane," Ginny muttered, turning to look at the door when something hit it from the outside with a loud thump. "Any ideas?"
Puck shrugged. "I'm guessing the ring reacted to your fear of getting caught doing something twisted."
"Like fucking my students?" Ginny asked as she pointed her wand at the broken camera. "Repairo."
Puck shook his head. "You can't take it with you, just people."
"Damn, is there a reason to stay?" Ginny asked.
"I can sense another magic user above us, do you want to check on them?" Puck asked, figuring it was a good chance to recruit another person.
"Might as well," Ginny agreed, looking at the ceiling when she heard singing and music start from the room above them. "How are we getting up there?"
Puck wove a gateway against the wall to the room above them where he could feel more magic users. He raised an eyebrow when he saw a busty naked girl with wild black hair singing her heart out into a microphone, "Wah dein vokul mahfaeraak ahst vaal!"
"What the hell?" an overweight middle aged guy in a Han Shot first T-Shirt and a pair of cargo shorts sputtered when he saw Puck step out of a 'hole' in the wall. "Dude, she's in the middle of a test run. Who the fuck are you?"
"Name's Spike." Puck smiled at the naked girl. "How would you like a job?"
"Playing music?" she asked hopefully.
"Yeah, playing music," he agreed, figuring they could offer her a better deal than the idiot especially since if she didn't leave, she'd fade out of existence.
"You can't just steal my girl," the guy snapped.
"Sure I can," Puck replied with a smirk as he gestured towards the gateway. "Let's get out of here before he starts crying."
The overweight man grabbed his gun out of his back pocket and pointed it at Puck. "You must be slow, I said you can't steal my girl."
"What the hell?" the girl demanded, staring at the manager with wide eyes.
Puck wrapped a thread of air around the trigger to keep it from firing then stepped forward, knocked the gun to the side and punched the man in the neck, causing him to collapse to the ground gasping for breath. "We should probably leave."
The girl ran over and kicked the gasping manager in the face then grabbed her dress and ran through the gateway. "Now where?" she asked, then stared at Ginny. "Shit, I'm so dead, don't tell Mum."
"Portal," Ginny said as she pointed at the portal, figuring they could sort the mess out later.
Puck glanced around the room then stepped through the gateway and let it close behind him. "I don't feel anyone else."
"Open the door! This is the police!" someone shouted from outside.
"Piss off!" Puck called as he guided Ginny towards the portal. 'At least we grabbed seven magic users.' He glanced at the unconscious Molly then stepped through the portal, seeing no reason to bring an insane version back with them, the version they had was unstable enough.
0o0o0
"I sort of want marshmallows," Xander said thoughtfully as he watched the twin streams of green fire coming from the two Sabrinas burn the fragmented ghost that Nick had expelled from Rose's scar and trapped in a pentagram.
"Why the hell didn't anyone tell me I had a fragment of Voldemort's soul in my scar?" Rose grumbled as the small group watched the soul fragment crumble to ash before vanishing completely.
"Probably because solving the issue with wizarding magic required dancing well enough to avoid raindrops in a thunderstorm," Xander offered, less than amused at the idea of letting Voldemort take pop shots at Tara's girlfriend on the off chance that he used the killing curse on her rather than the dozens of other lethal spells he knew that might do some permanent damage before he destroyed the soul fragment.
Rose glanced away from the ritual circle and looked at the ruined house where she'd spent the first fifteen months of her life. "There's something fitting about him dying here for real."
"Does it bother you that you won't get to rub it in Fudge's face that Voldemort was alive?" Sabrina Morningstar asked.
Rose considered the question for a couple of seconds. "No, I'll just be glad that he's dead."
"And his minions," Sabrina Spellman added.
Nick used a pair of tongs to drop the Gaunt Family ring into the pentagram he'd drawn on the ground in front of the old Potter cottage. "You're up."
Both Sabrinas chanted at once, "Similis est similis, cinis et pulvis pulvis et cinis, in signum urere flamma de anathemate."
Rose watched the ring catch fire and melt. "That's it?"
"Don't worry, it's more impressive on the receiving end," Sabrina Morningstar promised, smiling as she saw Dawn and Tara walking over from the direction of town with a man in his early twenties with wild black hair and rumbled and stained clothes and a young woman in an old dress with red hair that was obviously Rose's mother. "I'm surprised she didn't have to wait until Halloween or the solstice to bring them back."
Rose looked up and stared at her parents for a couple of seconds before running towards them, even when she'd called up their ghosts with the stone and asked if they'd wanted to come back, a small part of her hadn't expected Dawn to be able to bring them back, which was why she hadn't wanted to watch Dawn and Tara dig up their graves. "Mum! Dad!"
"Rose!" James and Lily shouted as they rushed forward and pulled their daughter into a hug.
Rose enjoyed the hug for a couple of seconds before she realized they needed a bath and a change of clothes. "You stink."
"Harsh but honest," James replied with amusement, hugging his daughter tighter.
"Too bad," Lily replied with amusement then sighed when she took another look at the cottage and noticed the ruined state. "Would it have killed Albus to weatherproof it?"
"Add it to the list of things to ask him," James said as he let go of Rose.
Lily turned to look at Dawn and Tara. "You promised a shower and change of clothes, everything else can wait."
"Good," Rose teased, making a show of holding her nose.
"We've got so much to catch up on," Lily said, looking forward to hearing about Hogwarts and slapping the shit out of her sister for her behavior.
Tara opened a door to the island, "Sabrina can show you the showers, Dawn and I should check on a friend of ours."
"Thank you for bringing us back," Lily said, barely resisting the urge to hug Dawn, mostly because she knew she'd appreciate it more if she didn't smell like a grave.
"Let's go, I want to talk to some of the witches anyways," Sabrina said as she walked through the doorway.
"Thanks," James said, following the white haired girl. 'Sirius and Remus are going to flip when we tell them we're back.'
"Best of luck with Janna, I need to make sure Luna isn't making anything weird," Xander said, following James through the doorway.
"I'll try," Dawn replied.
0o0o0
Albus looked up from the paperwork he was working on as Severus walked into his office. "Did you have any luck convincing Mr. Malfoy to be reasonable?"
Snape snorted. "I believe I impressed upon him the futility of taking a swing at someone that has the ability to rip trained wizards apart through a shield but I doubt that will stop him from doing something stupid, like trying to poison Mr. Granger or his sister or handing them a cursed object."
"Alas, I fear I won't be able to protect him if he continues to harass people he shouldn't," Albus said thoughtfully.
"Any idea where Granger learned his more disturbing spells?" Snape asked, fairly sure the spells weren't in the restricted section as he'd spent a fair amount of time reading it over the years.
"No," Albus admitted. "There are plenty of curses in the restricted section but nothing like that or at least I don't recall anything quite that effective."
"Shit!" Snape cursed when his dark mark sent a flash of pain up his arm. "That didn't feel like Riddle calling me."
"Maybe he learned of Lucius'-" Albus quickly drew his wand when Snape dropped like a ragdoll and his dark mark ignited with green flames that quickly started consuming his arm. "Finite!" he chanted, trying to put out the flames. He quickly made a slashing motion with his wand and severed Snape's arm when the flames started racing towards his friend's shoulder. "Fawkes!"
Albus ignored Snape's screams and Fawkes grabbing the burning limb and flash teleporting away as he worked on sealing Snape's stump so he wouldn't bleed to death. "That's one way to deal with the Dark Mark," he mused as he finished stabilizing his potions professor. He turned to look at his familiar when Fawkes teleported back to his perch. "No trouble?"
Fawkes gave Albus an unimpressed look, as if to say, 'I'm immune to fire!' before trilling happily, letting his friend know he was fine.
"Doesn't mean I don't worry," Albus pointed out then turned his attention back to his unconscious potion professor. "I might have to send Fudge a thank you card, at least this way I don't have to deal with the fallout of a bunch of dead Death Eaters," he mused as he walked over to the window to look at the lake. He frowned when he noticed the top of the lake seemed to be burning with green fire. "I wonder if I can blame this on the Weasley Twins."
0o0o0
"What type of problem?" Janna asked warily, fairly sure it wasn't going to be good news judging by the look on the alien's face and the general feeling of unease she could feel seeping past his mental shields.
"I don't know why but your memories seem to be merging with two other sets of memories," J'onn explained, not sure how to break the news gently.
"Can you stop it?" Lena asked, trying not to snap at the one person that might be able to save her assistant.
"I wouldn't know where to start," J'onn admitted, fairly sure doing more than a basic reading would cause the young lady to lose bits and pieces of herself.
"Do you have any good news?" Janna asked sarcastically.
"Your memories don't seem to be being overwritten so you'll likely remember everything," J'onn offered, wishing he knew what was causing the merge or how to stop it.
"Is she going to end up turning evil?" Kara asked, fairly sure the answer was yes considering Lex was involved.
"I don't know," J'onn admitted. "I'm not sensing anything hostile but I don't want to push right now considering it could cause memory loss."
"Let's avoid that," Janna grumbled then blinked as she 'remembered' shooting a bow in a strange monastery with a group of girls. "I don't think Lex caused this."
"Why?" Lena asked.
"Because I'm seeing fragments of memories and I don't think Lex would have included memories of shooting magic arrows in a monastery with a bunch of girls," Janna replied, catching another fragmented memory of working on some type of poem in a language she didn't didn't recognize.
"It's Lex," Kara grumbled.
"Kara has a point, my brother might be insane but he's also a genius, at least when it comes to certain fields," Lena said, thinking about some of the complicated schemes he'd come up with over the years.
"Fine, lock me in the mental ward until we're sure..." Janna trailed off as all of her 'missing' memories sorted themselves out and she realized that she wasn't going insane or at least she was reasonably sure that she wasn't going insane. 'Janna Kalderash or Jenny Calendar or Janna, rogue of the Sightless Eye or Janna, Lena's Psi-op and mad scientist bodyguard. At least I've had plenty of practice compartmentalizing things.'
"Who are you?" Kara demanded, having seen Janna's body language shift.
"Janna Kalderash or Jennifer Calender or Janna depending on how you look at things, this wasn't Lex's fault," Janna said, trying to reassure her friend and boss.
"How do you know?" Lena asked, uneasy about the whole turn of events.
"I don't but I've been through this before. I'm linked to a girl that drifts through the multiverse reincarnating. In the first life that I remember, I was Janna Kalderash, a gypsy witch, in the next, I was Janna, Rogue of the Sightless Eye, they're basically an order of demon hunting archers. In this one, I'm Janna, Psi-Operative and bodyguard for Lena."
"You expect us to believe that?" Kara asked.
"No, feel free to have J'onn take a look," Janna offered, bringing to mind the various comics and movies about DC she'd seen over the years.
"This might be a trick, do you have any proof?" Kara demanded, worried that she might be able to hurt J'onn.
Janna held her hand out and conjured a small sphere of ice. "Does that help?"
"Psychic energy?" Kara asked.
"Magic," Janna replied with a grin as she tossed Lena the ball of ice. "My talent for magic was never that impressive but I can pull off a couple of party tricks."
Lena examined the ice that Janna had conjured for a couple of seconds then walked over and dropped it in a beaker, curious about its purity.
"I'll take a look." J'onn stared at Janna as he carefully poked around in her memories. 'Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Barry Allen or Wally West or Hal Jordan or Oliver Queen, comics?' He frowned slightly as he realized she could remember seeing hundreds of comics and reading dozens that involved people he knew or at least versions of them. He caught images of the girl she was linked to as well as a bunch of other girls and Giles before he found himself satisfied that her blackouts weren't the result of Lex leaving traps behind. "I'm inclined to believe her."
"Excellent, let's get back to creating mad science," Janna said, looking forward to getting back to work.
"Are you sure you don't want the rest of the day off?" Lena asked.
Janna shook her head. "I'd rather not spend the day alone trying to figure out where Janna ends and Jennifer begins or where Janna of the Sightless Eye starts."
"What about the girl that you're linked to?" Kara asked, wanting more information about a possible threat.
Janna swung her legs over the side of the examination chair so she could stand up. "She'll find me when she has time or she'll end up fighting a villain and I'll hear about it. I'm not particularly worried about it..." she trailed off as a doorway opened, revealing Dawn and a slightly younger looking Tara standing in front of a beach. "Speak of the devil."
"Bad time?" Tara asked as she glanced between J'onn, Lena and Supergirl.
"Not especially," Janna said, not sure what else there was to say. "This is my boss Lena Luthor, Lena, Tara and Dawn," she gestured towards the girls as she named them. "Trouble?"
"No, we're just collecting people or at least giving everyone an update, we got a bit scattered this time around and didn't want you to worry," Tara assured her.
"Luthor? Any relation to Lex Luthor?" Dawn asked as she worked on scanning the girl dressed like Supergirl. 'Kryptonian, Kryptonian El Clan, Kryptonian Survivor, Kryptonian Student, Journalist and Hero. Weird. Shouldn't I get a scientist pattern from her?'
"Unfortunately, he's my half brother," Lena admitted.
"Don't worry, she's great," Janna assured Dawn.
"Cool, do you want a tour of the island?" Dawn offered as she worked on scanning J'onn.
J'onn frowned. "Do you always scan people without their knowledge or consent?"
"Do you always read people's thoughts without their permission?" Dawn asked defensively, making a mental note to get some type of mental shield.
"Scan people?" Kara asked warily.
"Sorry, I'm a Builder, it's a bad habit," Dawn admitted, making a mental note about being more careful scanning people.
Kara stared at Dawn. "I thought those were a myth."
"What's a Builder?" Lena asked, feeling a bit lost.
"The ones in the legends were wandering crafters that traveled to various locations and built structures that broke or at least bent the laws of physics in strange ways," Kara explained.
"They also build monster filled dungeons," J'onn said, thinking of some of the stories he'd heard of the various Builder's that had visited Mars in the past.
"Monsters?" Lena asked warily.
Dawn shrugged. "Everyone needs a hobby."
"I think we're getting off track," Janna cut in. "Do you want a tour of the island while I catch up with friends?"
"I'd love a tour," Lena said, figuring she could use a couple of hours on a beach to relax and it would give her a chance to keep an eye on Janna to make sure she was stable.
"Can you create more green martians?" J'onn asked, trying not to get his hopes up but wanting to know.
"Maybe? I'm not an expert, I'm just an apprentice Builder but we have a more experienced Builder on the island that could probably help," Dawn offered.
"What about Kryptonians?" Kara asked, hoping she could recreate a fragment of her people.
Dawn sighed. "Even if I wanted to risk hell on Earth, the best I could do would be to create a bunch of Kryptonian survivors or students and hope they could stitch something together that's actually worth resurrecting from what they remember."
"Worth resurrecting?" Kara demanded, glaring at Dawn.
"From what I know of Kryptonians in various dimensions, they had a rigid caste system and were egocentric to a worrying degree. I'm not interested in creating a bunch of people that are the next best thing to gods without running some tests and making damned sure they'll end up like your family rather than Zod or the people that wouldn't believe Jor-El about the damage they were doing to the planet."
"She's not wrong," J'onn cut in before Kara could offend the only people that might be able to help them. "It's worth taking the time to do it right."
"Not to mention you'd need to find a place for them to stay," Janna pointed out.
"Either way, let's find Luna," Dawn said as she started walking towards the stairs and away from the doorway, "she can probably give you a better idea what it would take to save part of your world's culture and history."
"She didn't say no, she just said it would take work," Lena pointed out then followed Janna through the doorway. She paused when she noticed a group of young adults running around in shorts, showing off their arms and chest. 'At least there's plenty of eyecandy.'
Comments
Alex Wierzbicki
Awesome as always
