Mist of Shadows
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Myst in DC Part 43
🕑 Added 2020-02-11 07:16:10 +0000 UTCHarry groaned when he opened his eyes and saw an unfamiliar ceiling and several floating translucent blue squares obscuring part of his vision that reminded him of some of Dudley’s video games. “That sucked,” he muttered as he sat up and saw the robed stranger pacing back and forth while Sirius drank a cup of tea, looking twenty years younger.
“How’s your head?” Sirius asked, wanting to make sure Harry wasn’t in need of medical attention.
“Fine,” Harry lied as he glanced back and forth between Sirius and the stranger, doing his best to ignore the pain in his scar. “Why do you look twenty years younger?”
“Twenty years younger?” Sirius asked in surprise as he glanced between Harry and Myst. “What was in the cupcake?”
“Magic,” Myst replied with amusement. “It’s basically a cupcake of youth. It resets your physical age to early twenties if you’re older. Did the glove do anything interesting?”
“Merlin!” Sirius exclaimed, shocked that the man had just given it away.
“It gave me a skill list and a graphical equipment page and a list of attributes, Strength, Agility, Vitality and Magic…” he trailed off as he realized he could sense how much health, mana and stamina he had. “Strength 14, Agility 39, Vitality 55 and Magic…” Harry trailed off as he realized that his magical stat wasn’t even close to the rest of his stats. “217?”
“What did you expect?” Myst asked with amusement as Sirius pulled out his wand and conjured a hand mirror so that he could see his face.
“Something closer to the rest of my stats?” Harry asked as he studied the buttons on his glove, trying to figure out if there was a button to close the various windows.
“I need to shave,” Sirius muttered as he studied his reflection, trying to get used to the lack of various stress lines and the fact that the bags under his eyes were gone.
Myst shrugged. “You’re about normal in strength for an active teenage male, your agility is remarkably good considering you haven’t had all that much in the way of training and you’re insanely durable all things considered, probably because of your magic.”
Harry snorted. “You’ve obviously never met Oliver Wood.”
“Most Quidditch captains get a bit crazy about training,” Sirius said as he let the mirror vanish.
“Any idea how to close the windows?” Harry asked.
“Is there a button at the top of the windows?” Myst asked as he continued pacing, not sure exactly how the glove worked. “Or maybe the bottom?”
“Ah, there’s an X at the top of the right side of the page,” Harry said as he reached up and carefully tapped the X on the stat page, grinning when it closed. “Thanks. I don’t suppose you know what the numbers mean for skills?”
Myst shook his head. “Not a clue. Do you have a defense skill? It’s probably one of your better skills, or maybe cooking or flight... or quidditch?”
Sirius smiled as he remembered some of James’ games from school. “James was a natural on a broom.”
Harry sighed as he realized that the rest of his skills other than brooms and quidditch sort of sucked compared to his defense and cooking skills. “Brooms, quidditch, cooking and defense are my highest skills, the rest need a bit of work.”
“If it makes you feel better, you should be able to increase your skills fairly quickly with the glove.” Myst stopped pacing and turned his attention toward Harry. “While I’m working on upgrades, do you want me to fix your eyes so that you don’t need glasses?”
“Why would anyone...?” Harry shook his head. “I’d rather not have to deal with my glasses.”
“In that case, you should probably take your glasses off.” Myst waited until Harry took his glasses off then upgraded his vision up to 20/10. “That should let you see details at twenty feet that most people have to be within ten feet to see.”
“Holy shit…” Harry trailed off as he looked around the dusty room and realized he could see the dirt on the walls and the dust on the drapes and everything. “When is the last time you did any cleaning?”
“It’s a work in progress,” Sirius replied, unconcerned with the state of the house.
Myst laughed as he glanced around. “Right. Actually, it’s probably just as well that he hasn’t cleaned or repaired the house, it’s a decent training opportunity. Everything from cleaning and repair charms to expansion charms and curse breaking experience. Toss in some transfiguration and you could have the place looking rather impressive.”
“I don’t suppose you have an idea for dealing with my mother’s portrait?” Sirius asked.
Myst grinned. “I’m perfectly willing to cut the painting out of the frame if she won’t tell us how to take it off the wall. Either that or Harry can use it to practice his spells.”
Sirius shook his head. “The portrait is charmed against everything I can think of that wouldn’t destroy the house and against mundane methods of destruction. Not to mention she’ll start screaming as soon as she hears anyone in the hallway, which is really annoying.”
“That just means you need to grab some earplugs,” Myst replied with amusement. “Check your charms skill then toss a couple of scouring charms at the walls and see if your skill increases.”
Sirius shrugged. “Go for it, there are enough wards up that the ministry won’t notice anything.”
Harry checked his Charms experience then waved his wand at the wall and said, “Scourgify.”
Myst watched as a chest sized patch of dust and grime vanished from a section of the wall. “Not bad, did you get any experience towards charms?”
“Maybe five percent,” Harry replied after checking his skill.
“In other words, you might as well hit everything you can with cleaning spells and fix anything broken to increase your skill while I grab your trunk from Privet Drive,” Myst suggested as he used his X-ray vision to look inside Harry’s glove, trying to figure out how to duplicate it or at least partially duplicate it as he didn’t see a point in making more intelligent magical artifacts.
“There should be some books on decursing things in the library, I’ll be right back,” Sirius said as he left the room.
“Any other suggestions?” Harry asked absently as he looked at his cursed scar entry. ‘A cursed scar that connects you with Tom Riddle, great.’ He looked up at Myst. “Like how to get rid of the cursed scar I have?”
Myst conjured a chocolate chip cookie and held it out towards Harry. “This should make you immune to various status effects, including curses and poison which should help deal with your scar and everything in the library.”
“I don’t suppose I can just pay you to kill Voldemort?” Harry asked hopefully as he took the cookie.
“Tell you what, if you let me study your glove for a couple of hours and actually ask Hermione out on a real date, I’ll help with Riddle’s Horcruxes and his followers as long as you put a decent amount of effort into training,” Myst replied as Harry ate the cookie.
“Horcru-” Harry cut off with a scream and lurch as it felt like something had just stabbed a red hot poker into his scar and twisted.
Myst flinched as Harry’s scar broke open and black goo exploded everywhere as a fragment of Voldemort’s fractured soul fled out of Harry’s scar. “That was messy.”
Harry stared in horror at the dark fragment as it burned up and vanished. “What was that?” he demanded.
“That was a bit of Voldemort’s soul, it got lodged in your scar when he failed to kill you as a toddler,” Myst explained as he used a cleaning spell to remove the black goo, easily overpowering the magic in the goo and causing the entire mess to vanish.
“That fucking hurt,” Harry complained as he steadied himself. “Did you know that was going to happen?”
“I was hoping the cookie would deal with your scar but no, I didn’t know it was going to burst open and splatter me with goo. If I’d known that, I would have jumped backwards,” Myst replied with a grin.
Harry snorted and checked his status sheet. “Immunity to status effects, lightning, fire and cold?”
“It’s a nice cookie, do you want one for magical flight?” Myst asked with amusement.
“Yes,” Harry replied as he held out his hand, not sure why anyone wouldn’t want the ability to fly. “So, what is a horcrux?”
Myst conjured a flight cookie and handed it to him. “Certain insane dark wizards found a way to rip their souls apart and use the fragments to anchor themselves to the mortal realm. Horcruxes are the containers that keep the fragments from escaping to the underworld.”
“Is that why Voldemort is insane?” Harry asked after finishing the second cookie.
“I doubt it helped but no, he was nuts before he made his first horcrux.”
“Why do you want me to ask Hermione on a date?” Harry asked suspiciously.
“Because you two make a decent couple and Ron would drive her insane,” Myst replied as he gestured toward the wall. “Either way, get cleaning, I’ll be back with your stuff.”
“Thanks,” Harry replied as he turned and pointed his wand at the wall. “Scourgify.”
Myst teleported to Harry’s room and walked through the portal back to the shrine. He glanced at the line of childcare droids taking sleeping babies through the vanishing cabinet back to the ship then glanced over at Sabrina as she walked out of the back room. “At least we’re off to a decent start.”
“We’ll probably need a couple more knock-off belts and crowns when we find a permanent spot for the school but we’re off to a good start,” Sabrina replied as she walked over and pulled him into a hug. “You’re not supposed to play with portals without me.”
“One of my gacha items decided that it wanted to fuse to my arm,” Myst replied as he bought the Book wheel.
“Yeah, I can’t blame you for tossing it,” Sabrina said as she looked at the portal over his shoulder. “Where does the portal go and why haven’t you closed it?”
“Number 4 Pivet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, England,” Myst said with amusement.
“As in Harry Potter?” Sabrina asked in surprise as she let him go and stepped back so that she could look at his face. “Does that mean we can use the vanishing cabinets?”
“No idea, I haven’t tested them and yeah, I haven’t closed it because I’m not finished dealing with the Ministry and helping make sure Harry can deal with the Death Eaters and Voldemort. Speaking of, do you have a copy of the spell Constantine used to torch the Death Eaters?” Myst asked hopefully as he watched a group of droids walk out of the cabinet and head toward the back room.
“No but I can ritually tamper with his entire network of dark marks if we capture a Death Eater which should cause his failsafes to activate.”
“Which should kill everyone in his network,” Myst said thoughtfully. “It shouldn’t be all that hard to track down Malfoy or Snape.”
Sabrina nodded. “We should probably start with Snape, I want his potion books and journals.”
“Same. We should probably tell Dawn how to find us if something comes up.” Myst reached up and caught the book from his gacha wheel. He glanced at the leather bound bible with his upgrade ability. “Huh, that’s almost useful or at least it would be if it wasn’t cursed.”
“What does it do?” Sabrina asked as she looked at the heavy looking book..
He stuck the book in his inventory then bought the 10,000 mana Musical Instrument wheel. “It basically decreases the amount of time it takes you to learn the material in the book by five and and increases your retention of the information. Sadly, it also drives you more insane the longer you read or listen to someone read the book thanks to the curse on it.”
“That just means you need to move the useful bits to something else, right?” Sabrina asked hopefully, looking forward to eating a copy of the book that wasn’t cursed so that she could speed up everyone’s ability to learn spells from her.
“Pretty much, I’ll see what I can figure out after I drop Harry’s stuff off and take a look at the Ministry of Magic.”
“Killing Fudge and Umbridge?” Sabrina asked, curious what he was planning.
“Nope,” Myst replied with a grin. “Why go for death when you can go for the pain? He did his best to trash Harry’s reputation because he’s a coward and tossed Hagrid into Azkaban so he could be seen as doing something. That’s reason enough to get him fired and ruin his reputation.”
“How are you going to ruin his reputation?” Sabrina asked.
“The OTP mirror should let us ruin his marriage and frame him for various crimes, which means that no one will think twice when he resigns.”
Sabrina wasn’t sure if his wife deserved the mental trauma. “You should probably make sure his wife is guilty before you drag his marriage into things. What type of crimes were you thinking?”
“Fair point about his wife. I was thinking bribery and murder and a bit of blackmail on Umbridge’s part. Basically, Umbridge bribes him with sex for the position at Hogwarts then she tries to extort him and he kills her then destroys the body. It shouldn’t be that hard to record the entire scene.”
Sabrina shook her head. “The big problem with that is you’d have to watch it at least once to make sure the mirror is showing you the correct movie.”
Myst winced as he realized that was a decent flaw in his plan. “I’m fairly sure we could talk Remus into doing it or Sirius.”
“The Remus in the books is a bit too honest,” Sabrina pointed out.
“This is Umbridge and Fudge, she wrote a bunch of anti-werewolf laws and Fudge has been smearing Harry’s name, he’d probably make an exception,” Myst argued. “Besides, even if we can’t nail him for criminal behavior, it shouldn’t be that hard to empty his accounts unless the goblins have better security than the books even hint at. Worst case, we just stun him and drop him on the Kazon world we set up.”
“What are you going to do with Umbridge?” Sabrina asked.
“That depends on if she’s guilty of sending the dementors after Harry. If she’s guilty then I’m going to snap her wand and leave her in Star Trek with Fudge after turning her into a werewolf so she can lose control and hunt small fuzzy creatures during the full moon.”
Sabrina shook her head. “No, as ironic as that would be, we don’t need werewolf Kazon.”
Myst grinned. “Fine, we can just show her a clip with the OTP of her changing into a werewolf after stunning her on the full moon.”
Sabrina shook her head. “I think this is the point where I’m supposed to hit you with a newspaper but yeah, the entire Ministry is rather corrupt in the books and worse back home, so yeah, I’ll grab Snape if you want to deal with the Ministry.”
“Sure. How are you planning on dealing with Snape?” Myst asked, knowing she was only heavily resistant to magic rather than immune.
“I’m planning on teleporting a stun grenade behind him then phasing in and hitting him with a stunner a couple of times after the grenade explodes just to make sure he’s out,” Sabrina replied as she watched his prize wheel slow down.
“That’s my girl, no such thing as overkill,” Myst replied then leaned in and gave her a quick kiss then reached up and caught the fiddle and bow that dropped from his gacha wheel.
“Anything good?” Sabrina asked, curious about the exceptionally well crafted fiddle.
Myst looked at the fiddle with his upgrade ability. “Not remotely, it gives you the ability to play like a grandmaster but after ten years a devil will come to drag you to hell. If you can avoid the devil until the next day or beat it in a contest of skill, you get to keep your musical skill free and clear, if you die first, you’ll end up in hell.”
Sabrina shook her head. “Yeah, I can’t see that being worth it.”
“Ten years of being exceptional is a hell of a draw if you’ve got nothing.”.
“Except we have plenty of reasons not to do anything that stupid,” Sabrina argued.
“Of course not, but we could give it to Psimon,” Myst said thoughtfully.
Sabrina sighed dramatically. “This is why you’re support staff.”
“It’s not like he doesn’t already have a one way ticket to hell for all the crap he pulled before he lost his memories. Besides, I doubt one soul is worth sending a devil to Star Wars to collect and even if they do, we have ten years to work on improving our demon slaying weapons to the point where we could kill greater demons with a scratch. Not to mention, we could just stick him on a ship and send him off world as soon as the day in question starts.”
“Could the devil come after the children?” Sabrina asked in concern.
“I doubt it. Besides, I’m reasonably sure anything from DC would have trouble getting here considering we can’t use the original vanishing cabinets to get back. I doubt they’d bother and even if they did, killing the devils in question is completely legit.”
“I guess it doesn’t hurt to ask if he wants to use it,” Sabrina offered as she held out her hands for the fiddle and the bow.
“That’s fair,” he replied as he handed her the fiddle and the bow. “Do you want to tell Dawn about the HP stuff or should I?”
“I’ll do it, she’d probably end up trying to toss the entire Ministry through the vanishing cabinet if she went with you.” Sabrina had a feeling Myst was going to end up doing a bit more house cleaning than he really wanted to.
“I can’t say I blame her, stay safe.” Myst flashed Sabrina a smile then focused on Fudge, getting a mental image of him in his office with Lucius Malfoy. ‘That’s convenient, it’s almost like the world hates him.’ He activated his phasing ring then teleported to Fudge’s office.
“What I need is a way to discredit him,” Fudge complained.
“Don’t worry, I’ll keep leaning on the editor, we’ll have his best friends turning on him by Christmas and no one will believe his lies,” Lucius lied, fairly sure that Harry’s friends were actually more loyal than that but he’d take what he could get.
Myst rifled through Fudge’s memories with his telepathy, looking for account information and secrets as well as information about how much his wife knew about his various crimes. ‘A vault under the stairs, no real protections, just pull the candlestick, yeah, that’s just begging to be robbed.’ He frowned as he found a section of memories of telling his wife about Lucius’s generous donations and his wife’s grin as it meant she could afford another fur coat she didn’t need. ‘Yeah, you’re guilty as hell.’
“What about Dumbledore?” Fudge asked warily.
“He’s been fired from his position in the Wizengamot and the IWC, he’s just the headmaster until you can find evidence that he’s training an army to lead a revolt,” Lucius lied, trying to keep Fudge pointed in the right direction without pushing Dumbledore far enough that he went on the warpath. He was quite content to let Dumbledore hide in his ivory tower and keep Voldemort from attacking Hogwarts while Draco was there.
Myst lifted a memory of Fudge’s Gringotts vault from his mind and frowned when he caught a recent memory of Fudge making an offhand comment to Umbridge about framing Harry by having someone use magic near his house. ‘You’re a twisted piece of shit Fudge, you actually believe Dumbledore about Voldemort being back, you just don’t want to deal with it. So much for playing nice.’
“I should let you get back to work, it was nice talking with you,” Lucius lied, finding the man tiresome and barely worth the bribes most of the time.
“Of course, of course, I need to meet with Delores soon anyways,” Fudge said cheerfully.
Myst checked on Delores with his clairvoyance ability. ‘She’s almost here, screw it, might as well grab them now.’ He raised his hands and hit each of the wizards with stunners, dropping them unconscious. ‘You should have spent some of your gold on personal defenses rather than bribing people.’
He walked over, grabbed Lucius and stuffed him in his inventory then turned to look at Fudge. ‘This would be easier if you were actually reasonable.’ He pulled out a notebook and started making notes as he rifled through Fudge’s memories, looking for blackmail material on his cronies and the rest of the Wizengamot. He wasn’t terribly surprised to find some, though the extent of corruption made him want to burn the place to the ground.
Delores walked in after knocking twice then stopped and stared at Fudge’s unconscious body. “Minister?”
Myst slipped around behind the pink toad in human form and stunned her as she approached Fudge. He took a quick look through her mind and started adding additional names to his growing list of corrupt government officials.
