Pre-Chapter A/N:Hey everyone, I am so sorry about the sudden hiatus. I realise now that I never did post on here about why I was going on hiatus. So I had my final exams last week and since you can see this, you can tell that I survived. Happy to be back and hopefully better than ever. If you haven't already, I recommend turning on notifications for my stuff so you can see when new stuff drops right as it drops. More chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio
'At least it's no longer freezing cold,' I thought to myself as I stepped out of the portal. Instead of being buffeted by winds from all angles as snow piled on top of me, I was now subject to a light breeze as I stood in the middle of a field. The sun's rays were soft as they washed across my skin. It was a simple pleasure, but a great one nonetheless.
Nicholas, on the other hand, didn't seem to feel much desire to enjoy the change in weather as he began walking again.
"You can speak somewhat more freely here," he said.
"I thought Japan had taken over China. Shouldn't we be more careful than ever here?"
"We're in a part of China where I would be shocked to find if even a single Japanese citizen has ever visited," he said as he continued his walk.
"And what are we looking for here?"
"An old friend."
"Another friend?"
"Not as abrasive as the Old Woman, don't fear. Not as terrifying either," he said as we kept walking.
"Alright then. And when we meet this friend?"
"We will ask her to put us on one of her ships. She runs the largest smuggling ring in Asia. If someone has the means to get the two of us as close to the island as possible, then it would be her," he said.
"Close to the island as possible? If she's such a good smuggler, why doesn't she just get us in directly?" I asked.
"When we steal the stone and the branch from the Yggdrasil, I have no doubts that everything about our operation will be looked into by Ojin. There is no need for us to do things in a way that gives him the means to do what he wants and feels like to my friends after I leave," he said, and I nodded. That did make some sense.
"But he won't be able to notice us using one of her boats to get to the barrier?" I asked.
"He'd have a much harder time if all we do is use the boat to get within range of Japan's island wards before dismounting and covering the rest of the distance by other means. Besides that, I doubt the boat she will greenlight for our use will be one easily traced back to her," he said, and I nodded. If he was so sure, then I had no reason to doubt him in this.
"Nicholas!" was the first sound other than the whistling of the wind that I heard in a while. And I turned around in the knee-high grass, struggling to place where it had come from.
"Bogron!" Nicholas's voice came next, and his master, instead of looking around like he did, reached into the grass itself and came out holding a very small human. A dwarf, I corrected instantly. A dwarf. 'We'd come here looking for dwarves,' I realized with a sigh.
"What brings you here again? The last time you came you said you would not be stepping foot in China for another millennium," the dwarf said, his voice surprisingly deep and loud considering the small frame it was coming from.
"Well, needs must. I have need to go to Japan, and this is one of the only ways still open to me," he said.
"You came to see her," the dwarf said with a tone of realization.
"Yes, I did. Is she around?"
"Aye, but her mood's worse than ever. Enforcers have been eating into her profits," he said.
"Is that so? I would have expected the opposite with the sudden decision for expansion. Shouldn't they have less time to focus on the border with a war going on and whatnot?" Nicholas asked, now hoisting the dwarf onto his shoulder. Bogron, the dwarf in question, seemed to mind little as he continued to chatter on and on while we walked.
"Yes, yes, that was how it was at first, and then some moons ago they just changed. The guards at the border tripled and they're less keen to accept bribes now than ever. So it takes more to bribe them, and sometimes you bribe them and they still arrest you. Of course, the business is still worth doing, or she'd have stopped already, knowing her, but she's still got to be upset about it," he said.
"It's getting to you, old friend? Her mood?" Nicholas asked.
"Well, it's annoying isn't it? She's still making a good amount of gold, just annoyed that it's not as much as it used to be. Not like she's using the gold for anything more than sitting on it. We're not damn goblins."
"Hmm," Nicholas said.
"You see it, don't you? We have more than enough. Enough food for our children and a warm fire to huddle around in the winter. What else could she want? Unless she's using the gold as a distraction to avoid me, you know?"
"Well, old friend, how did you say she grew up again?" Nicholas asked. The dwarf looked down at Nicholas with a questioning look.
"Are you sure you are well, Nicholas? You never forget anything," he said.
"Just remind me, my friend. You know what old age can do to a person," Nicholas replied.
"Her family didn't have a lot. Not like mine did. I met her when she was trying to steal some meat from us in the winter, if you would imagine. Oh, those were good times. I'd sneak out to give her some meat. I didn't need to sneak, of course; Ma and Pa would not have minded giving some away to a family that did not have enough. You know we dwarves are prideful people, so we'd rather die in our holes than beg for help from another family," he said. Nicholas nodded.
"Hmmm. So she didn't have enough when she was growing up. She only knew hunger and the need for more, yes?" he asked.
"Yes, Nicholas."
"So what if she does not understand that she has enough? What if she still lives in fear of not having enough meat to eat in winter and is focused on getting more and more gold to make sure something like that never happens again?" he asked, and the dwarf focused, before putting one hand to his bearded face and beginning to stroke it as he thought about Nicholas's words.
"So what you are saying is that she might not have the necessary context to understand what it means to have enough because she has lived her entire life with a scarcity mindset and will have a harder time shifting to the abundance mindset I grew up with," he said with a level of discernment that I hadn't actually expected.
"Exactly, Bogron. So what are you going to do about that?"
"I'll have to make her confront just how much we have and how much we have stored away. When she realizes that we have more than enough to survive even if we live thrice as long as regular dwarves, then she should be fine with winding things down a bit so we can spend more time together and all that," he said.
"Excellent, Bogron, that sounds like a good plan," Nicholas said.
We walked as the two kept talking about different things before I began to sense magic in the air. It felt like a powerful set of wards. When we reached the crescendo, Bogron leapt down from Nicholas's shoulders and to the floor. His hands waved through the air like he was a conductor directing an orchestra.
Right before us, the continuous fields began to flicker until a set of curtains revealed themselves in the middle of the air. Bogron parted the curtains open and waved Nicholas and me in ahead of him. We walked in and for the third time that day, space folded around me in a way I didn't completely understand. All that I knew was that we had left a field of knee-high grass to a cavern of some sorts. A massive cavern that was practically bursting with movement. Dwarves moved from place to place.
"Welcome to Bogron's Hole," Bogron said grandiosely as he stepped between Nicholas and me and began to lead us towards our destination.
"Bogron's Hole?" I mouthed at my master. This was a hole in the same way the earth was a rock. Technically true, but far from reasonable when one considered the sheer scale of things. The cavern was at least big enough that it could have fit all of Hogwarts in it and still had space for more. And there were so many dwarves. I had to be careful not to step on anyone as I followed Bogron through. This didn't feel like a hole, much less something owned by someone.
"Bogron is a dwarfish lord," Nicholas said in a whisper. Of course he was. He acted nothing like I would have expected nobility to act, but all my context was for humans, not dwarves, so was it any bit a surprise that I would read him so completely wrong?
Bogron's House was a house in much the same way his hole was a hole. Which was to say that it was technically an accurate description but one that, despite its technical accuracy, thoroughly failed to capture the extent of what was being spoken about. To put it succinctly, Bogron's House was more like a castle than anything else.
From the outside, it was a massive structure that stretched to the roof of the cavern to the point where it was almost like the cavern itself was the castle's roof in some places. And I did mean in some places. Where humans built with things like symmetry and order in mind, it was like the dwarves had learned to build from the Weasley School of Architecture and building design.
There were at least three different types of stone used in the castle's construction, and that would have been strange enough, but then stone was one of three materials. There were good amounts of wood and steel being put to good use in parts of it with seemingly no rhyme or reason as to why one material was being used over the others.
"Don't ask why. If you do, he'll explain it to you," Nicholas warned in a whisper, noticing how my gaze was focused on the various oddities.
"And I don't want him to explain it to me? Why?"
"Are you familiar with the Curse of Incomprehensibility?" he asked.
"No. Never heard of it. What's that?" I asked. It was strange hearing about dark magic I wasn't familiar with. Especially considering all the studying I'd done on the field. I hadn't been able to keep up with it as much as I would have liked thanks to Nicholas's general aversion to the darker arts, but the level I'd reached even before the tournament should have made me one of the best masters in Europe. That said more about the state of things in Europe than it did about my skill, but such was life.
"Well, let's give you a practical lesson then. Don't say I never taught you anything," he said before pushing me forward.
"Bogron, Harry here is curious about your house," he said.
Bogron seemed to straighten like he had been waiting for someone to ask all his life. His voice came to life in a way it hadn't since, and he began to speak with such enthusiasm that made all my reservations about the curse Nicholas had mentioned disappear.
"Oh, she's a beauty, ain't she? Let me tell you all about her. You see, she is the greatest joint project the world will ever see. For three thousand years, father has passed her down to son with only a single charge from generation to generation—remove nothing, add something. She is the product of that charge for generations. Every Bogron adds something to the house, but no one removes so the legacy of the family remains wrought in stone, wood, and iron. And when it comes to—"
"Back with us, Harry?" Nicholas asked. I felt the world snap into focus like I had been underwater—or even worse, unconscious—and then now I was back in reality. I looked around, finding myself in an office of some sort. There was a desk that was several feet long, but at the same time so low that it was about knee level. The chairs were much the same. This was not a room built for me or anyone my size and I felt like a giant within it, but that was not the source of my confusion or consternation.
'How had I gotten here?' Someone had messed with my wand. I drew my wand, turning to Bogron. Nicholas laughed off to the side. 'When had he gotten here? Had he always been here? Maybe he was.' He stepped between Bogron and me. The dwarf seemed to be paying me little attention, poring over a series of sketches on his desk.
"What is this?" I hissed at him, clearing my mind twice for good measure. There was nothing there, but I was beginning to learn that I was far from the scariest monster out there when the mind arts were concerned.
"Remember what I said about the Curse of Incomprehensibility?" Nicholas asked.
I racked my mind. Yes. He had said something about that before he had asked Bogron about his castle—his house. 'What did that have to do with anything? Had I been cursed? If so, how?'
"I'm sure you're confused. Just put your wand down. You are fine, and you are among friends."
"Friends do not mess with each other's minds," I hissed, feeling the wand respond to my will. He was not pleased either. Somehow I knew that any curse I cast now would be worlds more potent than what I was ordinarily capable of—if one could ever dare describe my curses as ordinary.
"Well, I did not mess with your mind. None of us did," he said in a pacifying tone that did everything but that where I was concerned. I would not be manipulated.
"And yet there is clearly a gap in my memory," I hissed back and slashed my wand through the air. If I expected to scare Nicholas with the motion, I would have been sorely disappointed. My Tempus showed I had lost an hour of time. A whole hour. So many things could have happened to me in that time. 'What had they done?' I cleared my mind again, scanning it for the wound—the scar—that an obligation would leave behind. Nothing. Just a gap. One second, Nicholas asks Bogron the question, the next I find myself here. The dwarf had done this somehow.
"Do you recall this?" Nicholas asked, pulling up his sleeve, showing a circlet of runes wrapped around his forearm.
"Of course," I said. It was his master's mark. A physical representation of the oath that bound us.
"So you know I cannot willfully mislead you. Neither can I harm you myself," he said.
"We both know there are workarounds. You could simply think wiping the last hour from my brain would be for my own good, or you could stand aside and let someone else do the deed for you," I said, nodding towards the dwarf, but not turning my attention away from Nicholas.
"Fair enough. But now know that I swear that the next words to leave my mouth will be completely true," he said, and the runes around his arm flashed to show they had accepted the oath.
"None of us messed with your mind in any way. It was the curse," he said, and where I expected his runes to activate and punish him for lying, nothing of the sort happened. He was telling the truth then.
"The Curse of Incomprehensibility?" I asked.
"Indeed. One of Bogron's ancestors decided that his addition to the house would be more magical than physical. He executed hundreds of Muggles and used their blood and pain to power a curse on the house itself. Bogron is the only one who can truly understand the place. Even servants that have lived here for decades still regularly get lost," he said.
"So when Bogron explained the house to me, the curse stepped in and took the memories of the event so I would not understand the house?" I asked.
"Exactly."
I made to speak before we were cut off. "Now are the two of you quite done? My wife wants to see you," he said.
I snapped my attention to him, noticing that he had rolled several scrolls under his arm, and looked quite out of patience with the whole thing.
"Of course, Bogron. Lead the way," Nicholas said.
"He gets like this whenever he explains the house to someone and they forget a few minutes later. He's quite proud of the work his ancestors have done and doesn't much like that he can't share it with anyone," Nicholas said to me in a whisper as we followed after the dwarf who was moving quite a bit faster than he'd been outside. I nodded to show I understood and that was it.
That was some curse though. Probably the fact that it had been powered by what was a ludicrous amount of lives was what made it so effective.
"You brought him back," was the first sentence we were greeted with as we entered the woman's solar. Where the previous room had everything dwarf-sized other than the ceiling, this one was much more regular in terms of its proportions. The woman at the end of it was definitely anything but regularly proportioned to say things lightly. There was no doubting her dwarfish heritage, that's for sure. The height, the hair, the ears, and a million other things marked her for what she was.
"He came back by himself. The Mountain Witch sent him," Bogron said to his wife and she straightened up instantly.
"Does she want anything?"
"No. We are not here representing her interests. We simply seek a ride to the edge of Japan's wards over sea," Nicholas cut into the conversation.
"I see. And I assume my husband has pledged our help?" she asked with a sigh.
"He did," Nicholas agreed. She sighed.
"Of course he did."
A/N: And that's chapter two of the journey to Japan arc. Next four chapters up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) (same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.