"It's almost too easy," I heard a voice mutter.
I woke suddenly, but experience told me to keep quiet and pretend to still be unconscious. I tried to reach out and see through any insects nearby, but there was a horrible emptiness where those senses had been.
I struggled to remember what had happened; we were fighting Scion, and then the sounds of two shots and then nothingness.
"Killing muggleborns before they get their letters," the voice continued. "Why didn't anybody else ever think of doing this?"
"Because Hogwarts keeps the book locked up tighter than a Gringotts bank vault. Even our man inside only got a look at a few names, or we'd be making a clean sweep this year."
There was silence for a moment, and the sound of a shoe kicking soft flesh.
"Won't this alert the Dark Lord's enemies?"
"A few muggle deaths? Muggles die all the time; they murder each other, hit each other with cars... it's a wonder that they haven't all killed themselves off already."
"Nobody is that lucky," the other man muttered.
"Besides, we've got people in the muggle police department who will swear that this is the result of ordinary muggle crime."
"Police?"
"Like aurors, but stupider."
I could hear the sounds of the two men moving around.
"Well, we've got three more to take care of tonight, and then we'll call it for the evening. You want to go get a cruller in Hogsmeade?"
"Sounds good."
A moment later there was a strange popping sound, one that repeated itself a moment later.
I knew better than to simply assume that they were gone; I waited five more minutes before I cautiously opened my eyes.
I was in a dingy alley that wouldn't have been out of place in Brockton Bay. There were two people lying on the ground less than ten feet from me; their faces had expression of pain and terror. I grimaced as I stood up. It wasn't until I pushed myself up that I realized that I had both of my arms.
Looking down, there wasn't the stump that I had expected. Instead there were thin, twig like arms that had none of the toned muscle I was used to; hard earned by my years first as a super villain and then as a super hero.
"What the hell?" I muttered.
My voice was high pitched and childish, and it didn't sound at all like my own. I walked over to the woman and dug through her purse. I found a compact soon enough and flipping it open, I grimaced.
I didn't recognize the face that stared back at me. I was still a brunette, but that was as far as it went. My new face was actually better looking than my old one, although whether that would survive puberty was anyone's guess.
Somehow I was in the body of a child.
The last thing I remembered was killing Scion and then the sound of two gunshots, followed by blinding pain to the back of my head.
I reached back, and there were no injuries, not in this body.
Was I actually a child who had fantasized a life as a super hero? I certainly couldn't feel any of the insects around me, and the one thing I'd learned in my former life was that there were always insects everywhere.
It didn't matter.
People had tried to kill me, and they claimed to have people in the police force, who would presumably be watching if they made any mistakes and missed anyone.
I dug through the woman's bag after rolling the man over with some difficulty and pulling out his wallet.
The couple was Nigel and Camilla Scrivner. They were the right age to be the parents of this body; younger than my Dad, and handsome and good looking respectively. I could even see a resemblance between them and the face I'd seen in the mirror.
Neither had a cell phone.
I rifled their wallets for money, and all I found were pound notes. A check of their addresses showed addresses in Great Britain.
A quick check and I found that they had four hundred pounds between the two of them. I pulled the rings off the woman's fingers and the earrings out of her ears. It was ghoulish, but without my powers I didn't have a lot in the way of assets to help me survive in this new world.
I was assuming this was a new world because the dates on the driver's licenses were wrong. These people were far too young to be born in the nineteen sixties, so either I'd gone back in time, or I was somewhere that hadn't quite caught up to the twenty tens.
Taking the man's keys, I cautiously made my way to the alleyway. It was nighttime, but there weren't many people around. There were only a couple of cars on the street, and checking showed me that the key fit into one of them.
It was a Volkswagon Rabbit, a tiny car, and the steering wheel was on the wrong side.
There weren't any cell phones in the car, but there was a map. Looking at the addresses on the people's driver's licenses, I checked the street signs and tried to figure out a route. If the map was right, we were in London, and it looked like we lived five miles away.
I could walk that; in training I'd done that all the time. However, that had been in my old body, with weapons, and with my powers. I had none of that, and a nine or ten year old child walking through the city in the middle of the night was a good way for me to get killed... again.
Grimacing, I slipped into the driver's seat, and I put the key in the ignition. The car turned over just fine, but my feet barely reached the pedals, and only if I scooted forward to the end of the seat. It was awkward as hell, and as I shifted the car into gear, I had to remind myself to drive on the wrong side of the street.
I was careful to avoid major highways, and yet by the time I reached the apparent location of our home, I was drenched with sweat.
We apparently lived in a first floor flat. The keys worked just fine, and I let myself in.
I ransacked the place. As much as I was tempted to stay here, it would only be a matter of time before the people who had attacked this bodies family would realized that only two bodies had been found. They'd come looking here first, and then they'd check child services.
Child services wasn't really meant to prevent assassinations.
This was going to be hellishly difficult.
In my old life, even at the beginning of my career I'd been fifteen. I'd been old enough that I could get an under the table job, and I'd been able to move around without raising a lot of questions.
Here, I wouldn't be able to rent a hotel room, use most services and if it was part of the school year, I'd have to watch out for truant officer. I wasn't sure how much four hundred pounds was, but I suspected that it wasn't that much.
In some ways it was worse that I was in London than in Brockton Bay. Brockton Bay had been full of abandoned warehouses, and other spots where it was easy to find places to sleep. London was a lot more financially successful, which meant fewer places to hide.
I needed to somehow find out who was coming after me, and what they wanted. Why were they murdering children, and what were muggles?
Was I in the past of my own world?
Newspapers piled up by the door suggested that either it was some time in August 1991 or these people were terrible housekeepers. I couldn't find anything in the house dated after that time, so my working theory was that I was some time in the past.
There were no references to parahumans in any of the newspapers either. There should have been; Scion had first been seen in 1982. Parahumans had been a major fixture of life since that time, and I couldn't remember ever seeing a newspaper that didn't have at least one story about them.
Here, even with a week of newspapers there was nothing.
So I loaded up the biggest backpack I could find; it was a hiking backpack apparently owned by the father. It had a sleeping bag, and other things that I thought I might need.
In some ways, this was going to be the hardest thing I'd ever done. No powers, no allies, only a little money and a few pieces of equipment. Of course, I'd faced the biggest monsters my world had to offer, and I'd come out on top.
I set out into the night.
It had been a long night.
Finding a place to sleep and hole up had been my first priority, but it hadn't been easy. The girl's parents had lived in a strictly middle class area, and I'd had to drive around for a while before I found a neighborhood that had parks that were overgrown and not well maintained.
I'd have to ditch the car soon; while I had the credit cards from the wallets, I didn't know whatever pass codes they used, and it didn't look like very many gas stations let you pay at the pump.
I spent three hours searching the area before I found an abandoned storm drain. It looked as though the drain hadn't seen any water in a long time, and the back of it was blocked off. The grate in front of it was loose, and I managed to pry it off with my tools, enough to make my way inside so I could set up my camp and sleep.
This wouldn't be a good place to stay once the weather got cold; I'd have to find some place more secure by then. But it was the best I could do for the moment.
It was an uncomfortable night, and I had nightmares about the fight against Scion.
I woke to feel something crawling on my hand. It was a ladybug.
Staring at it, I couldn't feel a sense of loss at the thought that I would never be able to feel the swarm again. I'd been the master of insects, and now my mind felt empty.
I focused; it was a fantasy, but part of me hoped that I could somehow will my power back into being.
For two minutes I strained, but despite all my efforts, I couldn't feel anything. It was like trying to lift something with an arm I no longer had.
The ironic thing was that I would have rather kept my power and not had the arm. I felt a moment of crushing depression.
If I really was in another world, and in another body, the odds were that I would never see anyone I had ever known again. I wouldn't see Rachel or Lisa or Dinah or Brian again. I'd be forced to relive life from the time I was a child, and until I found out who had killed me, I wouldn't ever be able to rest of relax.
I let myself stare at the metal sides of the culvert blankly for ten minutes. However, my stomach growled, and I realized that ruminating over things I couldn't control wasn't going to help me.
Peeing behind a bush wasn't ideal; if I was going to do this for long, I needed to find a better solution. For the moment it was all I could think of.
Next was breakfast.
I couldn't risk cooking anything; people's senses of smell weren't good, but they could detect fire easily enough. Fortunately I'd brought food with me.
It had taken a couple of trips from the car to carry what I'd brought from the flat; it didn't amount to much. It was just canned foods that I could eat without heating. I'd brought a hand can opener too. Opening the can, I tipped the beans into my mouth and grimaced.
Bottled water wasn't all that good warm, but I had known better than to bring milk or anything that could spoil. Finishing the can, I gulped down half a bottle of water, and then I carefully slipped out of the storm drain.
I checked the outside carefully before I slipped out. The sun was high in the sky already. I moved underbrush behind me, and I slipped the grate back into position. From here no one could see any of my stuff.
Half my money I kept on my person, and the other half was hidden in the backpack. That way if I was mugged, or if the pack was found I wouldn't lose everything.
I was carrying a Swiss army knife. I'd have preferred a switchblade, but there hadn't been any that I could find in the dead people's flat. I hadn't found any mace or pepper spray either, and I wasn't even sure whether they'd been invented yet, or whether they were even legal on this side of the pond.
It was summertime, which meant I probably didn't have to worry much about truant officers. The one advantage I had was that this wasn't 2013. It was 1991, and if Dad was to be believed, parents had been more lenient about letting their children out to play alone.
In my day, no parent would have allowed their kids out until they were at least a teenager. Of course, given that the streets of Brockton bay were filled with murderous gangs that made a lot of sense. But in most places in the United States parents pulled their kids in and didn't let them out.
This was an earlier, more innocent time, and I could use that to my advantage.
I had no idea how to find the people who were trying to kill me. They'd used some unfamiliar terms, talking about muggles, aurors and Hogsmeade. I couldn't be certain whether these were Britishisms that I didn't know, or whether they were something more sinister.
My best bet would be to hit the library. There probably wasn't an Internet I could check, but if there was, maybe I could find something there.
I'd seen a hotel nearby, and a library. Their proximity had been part of the reason I'd settled here.
It was too late to get breakfast at the hotel, but tomorrow morning, I'd try to slip in and mingle with the groups of tourists getting the free continental breakfast, or whatever it was called over here. No one would expect a child to be homeless, and they wouldn't notice me slipping food into my pack for later. Even if it was just cereal it would help to extend my food.
It was farther to the library than I'd realized while I was driving. One of the first things I was going to have to do was figure out some method to transport myself around the city. Walking would take up all my time and it would expose me to more danger. Even something as small as a skateboard might help, but I really needed a bicycle.
I slipped inside the library, and to my relief there were other children there. I blended in quickly, and I quickly found the British dictionaries.
There were no mentions of mudbloods, or Hogwarts or Hogsmeade. The latter two sounded more like places than names.
"Miss," I began, talking to a librarian.
"An American?" she asked.
Apparently my accent hadn't changed with my body. I don't know why I thought it might.
"My parents are visiting here from Boston," I said. "And I heard somebody talking about a couple of towns...Hogsmeade and Hogwarts. Have you ever heard of them?"
She frowned. "No, I haven't."
What followed was thirty minutes of frustration as we searched through maps and reference books. In the Internet age it was a search that could have been done with a few clicks of a keyboard. Ultimately we found nothing.
"I'm sorry dear. Someone must have been having you on, or maybe you misheard them."
"That must be it," I said. "I must have misheard them."
Either I really had misheard, or these places were secrets. Where was I going to get more information? I didn't have anything to go on.
They had people in the police department, but I had no idea whether those people were coroners, beat cops, or the police chief... or maybe all three. I hadn't gotten a look at either of the two men, and they hadn't dropped any convenient clues.
I was at a dead end.
My next step would be survival. I'd need a way to make money; something that wouldn't seem out of place for a ten year old to do.
Transportation was next. I had vague recollection that London had a subway system...possibly called the Tube, and I knew they had those weird three story buses. Public transportation was supposedly better in Europe than in the states. I needed to learn my way around that system, and I needed something portable that I could use to travel in the spaces in between.
Finding free food would be a bonus too, but I could hardly ask a librarian. For one thing, she would likely call Child Services, and for another thing I would likely have to use this library again in the future. It had a real bathroom that I could use to do a sponge bath in, and it was nice to use the restroom without having to hide behind a bush.
It suddenly occurred to me that there might be one avenue of investigation. The men had planned on killing three other families. If I could watch the news for the next few days, I might be able to figure out some sort of common factor in the deaths.
I stole a newspaper from an old man on my way out, and I headed south. I'd seen a bulletin board for a car boot sale. When I'd asked the librarian about it, she'd told me that it was something like a flea market, an informal gathering of people in a field where they brought things in their cars that they wanted to sell.
It sounded ideal for me. I had two hundred pounds on me, and it might be enough to get me items I might need to survive.
There hadn't been any bicycles in the flat, or I'd have tried to take one. It was probably too much to hope that someone might have a good deal on one now, but it wasn't like I had much else to do.
It was a two hour trip.
I was already tired by the time I reached the place. I was going to have to take up jogging again; this body was in worse condition than my original one before I'd gained my powers. It was thinner, without the small pot belly, but it had a lot less muscle tone.
Without video games or computer screens, how had this girl gotten so flabby?
The flea market was larger than I would have thought from the librarian's description. It covered the space of maybe half an acre. It made me a little nostalgic for the Lord's Market back at home.
I wandered around, looking carefully for anything I could use. Back home at events like this there always seemed to be someone selling knives and swords. There was nothing like that here. Was it illegal, or was there some other reason?
There weren't any guns either, but I knew those were illegal.
Even back home I wouldn't have been able to buy either one as a ten year old.
A bicycle was at one stand; it was bright and pink, which wasn't ideal when you were trying to hide it, but it was cheap; just thirty pounds. As near as I could tell, a British pound in 1992 seemed to be worth anywhere between three or four dollars in 2013. I didn't like spending that much money, but while I could have stolen a bicycle from another kid, it would have possibly gotten police attention that I couldn't afford.
I was leaving the swap meet when I noticed a large, heavyset man following me.
Was he with the people who had attacked me, or was he another sort of predator. I couldn't be sure. The swap meet was on muddy, grassy ground, and I hadn't ridden a bicycle in a while. If I tried to ride on this kind of terrain I wasn't sure whether I would be any faster than he was.
I knew how to fight, but this body was weak, and I wasn't sure how well it would stand up to a man who was four times my current weight. Pepper spray would have been ideal, but there hadn't been any at the swap meet.
There were people around still, although many of them were beginning to pack up and move out. I could call out for help, but that would raise questions about where my parents were. I could lie and say that I lived nearby; that might be the wisest course.
The one advantage to being a ten year old girl was that people would look out for you. They would try to help. The only question was whether I wanted that sort of help.
In this situation, the bicycle was as much a hindrance as a help. It was an older bicycle, and heavy.
I saw an artist who was using spray paints on an old vanity.
"Hey, lady," I said. "Could I pay you to help me?"
"What?"
"I just bought this bike, but I don't like the color. I'd be willing to pay you to help me."
The woman smiled and we dickered for a little bit. I kept an eye on the man, who was pretending to look at some cheap art in the corner. She spent the next hour working on the bike, and I paid her ten pounds. She was happy to offer me something to drink, and we sat and chatted.
Apparently it would be another thirty minutes before the pain dried enough to touch, and one or two hours before it was dry enough to handle... and a full day before it was fully dry.
I simply needed it to not be a bright pink, and I needed an excuse for the man to go away.
The woman agreed to hold my bike for me for a couple of hours, and I slipped away. The man began following me again, and I ducked away.
I spent the next thirty minutes trying to lose him, but the swap meet wasn't that large, and I wasn't that hard to find. I was crouched behind a table staring at him as he walked by a trash bin.
There were bees flying around the bin; apparently one of the stands was selling lemonade, and people had been throwing the leftovers inside. The bees had been attracted by the smell of the sugar.
If I'd had my powers this would have been easy. I would have sent the bees directly at the man, and he wouldn't have even remembered that he was after me.
I could almost imagine the bees stinging him right in the eyes. That would keep him from following me.
A bee swooped in, and a moment later the man was screaming.
I stared, my mouth wide. Had I done that?
It hadn't felt like my usual swarm sense, but I'd felt... something. People were gathering around the man, and I quickly moved away. I returned to the woman, took possession of my bicycle, and I left.
She'd painted it in a camouflage pattern. With luck I'd be able to hide it in the grass and it wouldn't be noticed. If not I'd have to hide it in the bushes.
It took me a little time to get used to riding a bicycle again; I hadn't done it in years. But what had taken me two hours of walking was an easy thirty minutes of riding, and I knew that once I got used to it, things would probably go even faster. The bicycle had a basket on it, too, which meant that I might be able to carry things from the grocery store, assuming that I could find one.
I spent the rest of the day exploring the neighborhood.
Finding a Little Caesar's was a bonus; I'd heard they'd pulled out of Britain in my world. Here, either it hadn't happened yet, or it wasn't going to happen at all. I bought an entire medium pizza for the cost of a McDonald's meal, and I ate as much as I could before giving the other half to a homeless guy on a street corner. I had no way to preserve it, and there was no reason for it to go to waste.
I hid the bicycle under the bush, and as I went to sleep in the culvert that night, I stared at the beetle that had decided to take up residence with me.
After an hour of trying, I finally made it stand up, and begin to dance.
It was horribly clumsy; nothing like the refined elegance of the powers that I'd once had. I couldn't control more than a single bug at a time, and whatever feedback I was getting from the bug was even worse than it's limited senses would suggest.
It was like trying to use your arm when it was numb because you slept on it. It was clumsy and would barely follow your commands, but you could still do some things with it.
I felt much more optimistic.
I was up earlier the next morning, in time to reach the hotel and pretend to be one of the children of the guests. I ate a hot meal, and I looked over a newspaper that someone had left.
There were headlines screaming about three murdered families.
Part of me felt guilty; could I have helped them in some way? Most of me was more pragmatic; I knew better. In this body, with no powers and no weapons, I'd have just been murdered again.
I couldn't even have warned them.
There were addresses, and I'd bought a map at the Swap meet. I'd just have to check out the sites of the murders so I could find out if there were any clues to the people who had murdered me.
1616ShayneTMar 2, 2019View discussion
Threadmarks Aurors
View contentShayneTMar 4, 2019
#305
I'd taken classes in lockpicking while I worked for the Protectorate, but I'd never thought I'd need them. It had always been so much easier to simply send a swarm up under the door to open it from the other side, or to use the bugs that were already in the room.
Because of that, I was more than rusty, and picking the lock in the back garden of the first house took me more than forty five minutes. Even this, the third house was taking me twenty minutes. It was frustrating; even though I could now control a single bug that wasn't nearly good enough to get through the door.
His vision and other senses weren't good enough for me to simply use him to remotely scout the place out either. In my former life I would have used thousands of bugs, my vision and other senses a composite of all of their senses. Bugs' vision wasn't particularly good anyway, and my new connection was tenuous.
Eventually I felt the lock click under my hand, the pieces of wire I'd found finally doing the job. I grimaced, and looking around I slipped into the house.
There wasn't any blood. That didn't surprise me. These people had supposedly died in a car accident along with their ten year old child. They hadn't even been on my radar, but I'd noticed the story about the accident and I'd drawn my own conclusions.
A single murder or even two could go under the radar; three would be a pattern.
The newspapers had thought it strange that two other young families had been dying of natural causes. What I was looking for was a reason why they were being targeted. If there was a common thread between the three of them, it would go a long way to helping me to determine where the others might strike next.
This was the third house, and the other two had been a bust. They'd all seemed like ordinary people; family pictures on the wall, toys and other things. If I'd slipped a few more valuables in my pack, who could blame me? It wasn't likely to do them much good, and even the food in their pantries was likely to go to waste by the time the police finished their investigations.
So I drank their milk and I ate the cheese in their refrigerators; luxuries that I wouldn't get in my little culvert. I checked bank books and passports, looked through records; everything I could to see any single clue that would give me the hook that I needed to lead me to the next step.
There had been clothes at one house that fit me. I hadn't taken as many with me as I should when I'd left my flat. I'd even risked a quick shower.
I slipped any jewelry or valuables I could into my pack; I still wasn't sure how I was going to pawn them, but I had a few ideas. The four hundred pounds I'd gotten from my parents wouldn't last forever, and it wasn't like I could get a job.
It was humiliating; I'd been a super hero and before that a crime lord. Now I was reduced to being a grave robber and a burglar.
I was checking their mail, when I heard the front door open. I froze, and then I carefully began to move. There was a large picture window leading out to the back garden, with floor length curtains, and I slipped behind those, careful that my feet didn't stick out. I slipped my pack behind the other side of the curtains.
It was helpful that I was small and thin.
"The muggles haven't checked here yet?" I heard one voice.
"They were busy with the other two; the muggles here just died in a car crash, so going through everything wasn't a top priority."
"It seems suspicious, three sets of Hogwarts kids dead in one night, and another missing. Muggles die all the time, but I don't like it."
"You think somebody is targeting them? The other side likes to pretend they don't know anything about muggle life, but they know enough to fake a death or two."
"Well, they'd stick out, wouldn't they? Purebloods like to pretend that they don't understand muggles, so much that they intentionally dress like they've never seen one. There's been some complaints by the Obliviators about the problems it's causing."
"It's not like half of them don't live right in the middle of the muggles; not everybody can live in Hogsmeade," the second voice said. "They just don't want their pureblood friends to know that they've rubbed elbows with them."
"Well, the older ones still remember how muggles used to dress, and they think none of it changes. It's not like muggle fashions don't change every twenty years or so."
"I think it's more like every ten years they change," the second voice said.
"Hell, you can get all kinds of things cheaper from the muggles; you know some of those rich bastards are tighter than a goblin on tax day. They've got to be getting some cheap muggle crap on the sly."
"Well, it's a little over our pay grade. We're just here to make sure there isn't anything incriminating for the muggles to find. The last thing we need is for some muggle auror to find an acceptance letter."
"I thought the boy hadn't gotten his letter yet."
"That's the funny thing; all of these kids have birthdays in August. They're the last lot to get their letters, and it was the professors who alerted us about what to look for when they noticed the letters not being sent out."
"Aren't these supposed to be hand delivered anyway?"
"They can't deliver to the dead."
"So why bother here?"
"This one knew a half-blood. They aren't supposed to, but sometimes kids share toys, chocolate frogs, cards... the usual things. What do you think a muggle auror would do if he saw a chocolate frog jumping around?"
"Investigate?"
"He'd give the obliviators even more work. It's best to head these things off before they become problems."
"You put the muggle repelling charms up, right?"
"What do I look like, an incompetent? Just get to searching."
For the next several minutes I stood as still as I possibly could, worried that one of them would notice that the drapes were moving in a way they shouldn't. The time stretched out, although it couldn't have been more than thirty minutes.
Eventually, the two men met back at the bottom of the stairs.
"Find anything?"
"No. It looks like it's clean."
I closed my eyes and tried to reach out to any bugs in the area. My senses still weren't that good but I finally locked into a housefly.
Houseflies were nearsighted and they couldn't focus, but I didn't dare even try to peek out from behind the curtains, and I wanted a look at these guys. I still regretted not getting even a peek at the men who had killed the Scriveners and the other.
Now, I'd never know who they were even if they walked up to me; not until I heard their voices.
I strained, and felt myself making the connection. It took a moment for me to force the fly to move, and then it took a moment for me to realize what I was seeing through the poor vision of the fly. Luckily I'd had years of experience in seeing through the eyes of insects and I was able to make a reasonable guess at what I was seeing.
It looked like two white men wearing long coats... most likely trench coats of some kind. When I'd been in control of the swarm, I'd been able to compensate by using different kinds of insects to compensate for each others visual weaknesses, but here I only had a single bug, and mostly everything was a blur.
I forced the fly to get closer to them. I might be able to identify his face, but it was like looking at someone's face without my glasses on and squinting. There were no guarantees that I would recognize him.
Part of me wanted to peek out from behind the curtain. Even a single glimpse might be enough to recognize both of them later. But if I was able to see them, they'd be able to see me, and the human eye was designed to see movement. I didn't dare move.
I kept my breathing slow and shallow, not wanting to alert either of them to the fact that I was here.
"Want to have a drink at the Leaky Cauldron? I hear that Tom's got some of the new stuff from France."
"I've got to file a report, but I'll meet you later."
"Fine."
Then there was a sudden explosion, and it looked like the man further away simply vanished. A moment later, the one the fly was close to did as well, and the fly was pulled inevitably toward the place where the man had vanished, its body tumbling uncontrollably as the second crack sounded.
I flinched as I heard the sounds; they reminded me a little of twin pistol shots, which given that I'd been shot in the back of my head twice in my last life was understandable.
What... the... hell?
There weren't any parahumans in this world, not that were talked about. I'd been looking, both in the library and in the newspaper. It was possible that I had missed something without the Internet, but even if it was true, what were the odds of there being two teleporters in the same place?
By definition, parahuman abilities tended to be unique. The Entities that had granted them were interested in seeing what we would do with them, and they hadn't seemed to like to repeat themselves, not exactly. No two parahumans had exactly the same power, although some were very similar.
Worse, the way they were talking, there was an entire community, and some of them were engaged in working to keep the secret. I didn't know what obliviators, but it sounded like they had people who made problems and probably people disappear.
That there were at least two sides wasn't a comfort when it was possible that neither side was actually good people. Just because the Empire 88 weren't quite as bad as the Slaughterhouse Nine didn't make them heroes. They were still Nazis.
Would the other side want to kill me to cover up the murder of my family? Making me disappear would be a good way of keeping me from talking, especially as I had already disappeared myself.
Moving out of the country might be my only option, and even that depended on how large their organization was. It couldn't be that large; the more people you were trying to keep secret, the harder it got.
They'd used terms that I didn't understand. Muggle seemed to refer to the larger community... and it didn't seem complimentary. There was a certain casual racism about it that suggested that these people kept themselves separate from the rest of the world, even if the two men had said that almost all of them lived among us.
How that could have been accomplished I wasn't sure, but there had always been groups that had tried it...the Amish, certain Jewish groups... others. Usually it tended to be related to religion.
The last thing I needed was to deal with a cult of parahumans. On my world the Fallen had been some of the worst... Endbringer worshipers and fanatics. Religious fanatics couldn't be reasoned with; they did crazy things like suicide bombing and kamikaze attacks.
What was a chocolate frog anyway? Some kind of rare species that they were keeping hidden? Why would that arouse suspicion with the authorities? Police officers weren't zoologists. They'd look at a brown frog and think it was weird, but they'd move on pretty quickly.
They kept talking about pure-bloods and half bloods, and muggle borns. It almost sounded like powers were genetic here, passed down from generation to generation. Scion had only appeared in 1982, which was hardly enough time for bloodlines to have appeared.
So these people had powers that didn't come from Scion or his wife? What did that mean?
Were they mutants, like in my Dad's old comics from before real superheroes had put the publishers out of business?
There were too many unanswered questions, and while this had filled in a few blanks, it had created ten questions for every one it answered. It hadn't gotten me any closer to finding out the things I needed to know.
Who was trying to kill me, and why were they targeting children who were born to ordinary people? It sounded like an ethnic cleansing but for that to be true there had to be actual ethnicities involved.
They'd mentioned some places... The Leaky Cauldron was apparently a bar or a pub. Hogsmeade was a place where no normal people lived, which was probably why it wasn't on the map. How did you hide an entire city, though? I'd never heard of a Stranger power strong enough to cloak an entire village.
Maybe they used a different name around other people and simply didn't let "muggles" buy in? Even so, there would be ordinary people driving through all the time on the way to somewhere else. The way they were talking it didn't sound like one of those creepy religious compounds.
This was the second group that mentioned letters. Were these some kinds of Death Notes? Was killing people before they received their letters a form of cheating?
I had so many questions, and very few things that I could act on to get more information. The one thing I couldn't do was let the second group know I was around, or they'd send their obliviators to deal with me.
The one thing that might be useful was that they'd suggested that members of this group, whatever it was didn't fit in. There would be deliberate oddities in how they dressed, and that would be something I could watch out for. I couldn't depend on it, of course.
If some of them were in the police department, that meant that some of them were able to fit in reasonably well.
I waited ten minutes behind the curtain, my fly buzzing around the whole time. I had no guarantee after all that they had actually teleported. What if they'd simply gone invisible with a weird side effect? I'd seen weirder on my own world after all.
It probably wasn't a problem. This species of housefly had excellent hearing, and I could hear my own breathing just fine. Still, Stranger abilities were by definition strange. People who could become invisible might be able to become inaudible too.
Nightmare images of slipping around the curtains only to face a psychotic murderer on the other side went through my head. I carefully slipped my knife open before I slipped around the corner.
I really needed to find out what weapons were legal to carry in this country... not that it bothered me a lot to carry something that wasn't legal, but because the legal weapons would be easier to get a hold of. It would also let me know what to expect from the enemy.
Getting out of the house was easy; I didn't even steal any more food other than a jar of pickles on the way out. I'd parked my bicycle down the street, and as I slipped through the back gate, I kept an eye for any watchers.
I felt imaginary eyes on me on my way home; I tried using every trick I knew to lose a trail; doubling back, making quick course changes... none of it was very good on a girl's bicycle. There were no crowds for me to get lost in, and little I could do about my lack of speed.
Taking up jogging again would be useful for my endurance, but I was struggling to keep enough food as it was. In situations where food was scarce, calories count.
Still, I got home shortly after dark, and I spent the rest of the evening practicing my bug skills. I finally managed to control two of them at once, even if it was still like juggling instead of easy like it had once been.
If I'd used the bugs to fly around outside looking for people trying to sneak up on me, no one could blame me.
The only thing I could do now was to keep my eye out for people and things that didn't look right. These people deliberately set themselves apart from normal people, possibly so they could identify each other. I could use that.
That night my dreams were twisted and distorted.
I saw Scion destroying the entire world, all worlds once again, and this time I wasn't there to stop him. Instead I was being stalked by teleporting men in brown trench coats.
1609ShayneTMar 4, 2019View discussion
Threadmarks Pass
View contentShayneTMar 6, 2019
#497
The homeless man I'd shared pizza with two days before handed me the travel pass. I handed him back a five pound note.
"Any problems?" I asked.
He shook his head.
I looked at the pass. It was a season pass that would let me use the buses and the tube. The cost made me wince, but it would give me the kind of freedom that my bicycle alone wouldn't. I'd found a tube entrance in the opposite direction from the library. It wasn't far from my culvert.
London had the kind of public transportation system that Brockton Bay never had, even in it's glory days, and with it, the entire city was open to me. That meant more opportunities to seek out places to get free food, but also to find places for entertainment.
As it turned out, the hardest thing about being homeless was sheer boredom. There was only so much time you could spend in the library, especially since I couldn't check any books out. I couldn't even speak in front of anyone who was a police officer, because they'd probably ask for my passport.
I'd been trying to fake a British accent, but Nigel the homeless guy thought it sounded terrible.
Apparently I sounded like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins.
In my previous life I'd gained many skills. I'd learned how to fight, and to move silently. I'd learned how to intimidate people, although when you were backed by a swarm of millions of stinging insects, that wasn't all that hard.
I'd never had to use other accents, and I wasn't really sure how to go about it. My best bet was simply to listen to people, keep my mouth shut and try to talk like they did.
"You ready for the next part?"
It worried me, trusting Nigel even this much. I'd spun a story about how my poor mum was in the hospital and I was on the run from an abusive stepdad. I wasn't sure how much of it he believed. The only important thing was that he not go to the police, and that he help me.
He nodded.
I handed him a couple of pieces of jewelry that I had stolen, and together we walked to a pawn shop. Nigel had has ID, and I made sure only to give him pieces from my original family's jewelry box. Hopefully if we got caught I'd be able to argue that it was part of my inheritance, and within my rights to take it.
He came back out with two hundred pounds thirty minutes later. It was possible that the pieces might have been worth more, but I doubted it. The other Undersiders had fenced jewelry before, and you never got anything close to their value when you did.
He handed the money over without question though, and he seemed grateful to have it.
I slipped it into a fanny pack that I wore under my shirt. It was another thing I'd stolen from the second house I'd been in. It was wide enough that it could fit a book, but far too shallow. It was perfect to put money in, and since I didn't have a wallet and it fit in the front I was less likely to get pickpocketed.
My biggest risk was that someone would grab my backpack, which had some of the jewelry I'd stolen stuffed in it. I had it stuffed under some clothing and other crap, hoping that no one would notice.
"I might be able to get more later," I said. "Well have to use another shop, though, so as not to arouse suspicion."
"You are a strange little girl," Nigel rumbled. He had a deep, rich voice and he was black with a beard that was speckled with gray. I wondered what had led him to be out on the streets, but I didn't ask.
We got another pizza and split it, and then Nigel showed me how to make a hobo stove. It was made using a tin can, or cans up to the size of a paint can, although he warned me not to use anything that had toxic chemicals in it.
We parted amicably, and I felt a lot better, especially once I'd retrieved my other goods from the half dozen hiding spots I'd put them in.
I quickly found that life was a lot easier with the Travel Pass. Buses and subways really did reach a lot of the city, and there were now places I could access that I never would have before.
There was a Sikh temple that offered free food to anyone. I didn't dare go there too often because they would likely call child services if they thought I didn't have anyone. It was nice to have a free meal though.
Museums were easy; they weren't part of my overall plan so much as they were a way to help fill the endless days.
I went to the market and would buy foods that were just about to expire; usually these were cheaper. The problem was that they usually were in batches larger than I could eat before the insects got to them.
For three days I explored the city, and then I started to notice them.
It started with a woman who was wearing her dress backwards. She looked as though she'd rather be anywhere than where she was, but she was buying things at a shop.
Then there was a man who looked like he belonged in the nineteen fifties. His clothes were outdated and he didn't even seem to be wearing them ironically.
I tried to follow these people, but they always vanished shortly after I did.
Once I became aware of it, I saw more and more people like that. There were a surprising number of them on the Tube. They all looked like they were tourists from the way they looked around and whispered to each other, but they all had British accents.
It felt very strange and discomfiting.
The funny thing was that the people around me didn't seem to notice a thing. Either these people were so common that no one noticed anymore, or there was something else going on.
My control over insects grew. After three days I was up to sixteen insects at a time. It was still a minuscule number, but it made tracking people a lot easier. I could follow two sets of them without looking as though I was following them.
I was in the West End looking through bookstores. While the proprietors kept giving me suspicious looks, no one stopped me as I leafed through books that no ten year old would have bothered with. I was hoping to find something... anything about the people who I was trying to follow. Surely with as many of them as there were someone would know something?
Had their obliviators murdered everyone? Even that would have been noticed; people went missing every day, but usually it was for understandable reasons. They were being followed by an abusive boyfriend, they had a drug habit, they were unstable.
I stepped out onto Charing Cross road, and I noticed another couple walking by. Their clothes were just as outlandish as the others I had seen, but again no one seemed to be taking notice. It was almost as though there was some kind of stranger effect, one that no one was able to see through but me.
Was it because I had powers?
I sent a small swarm of insects to follow them, while keeping a few to watch behind and around me. I followed them at the edge of my range, which was more than a block away.
They moved into a building, and I cautiously approached it, my heart skipping a beat as I saw it.
It was nestled between a bookstore and a record store. It looked old and strange compared to the more modern buildings around it, almost like it was something from another century. Considering that London itself was full of buildings like that, it wouldn't be a surprise, except that this one looked much, much older.
It was a tiny, dingy looking pub. There was something strange about the way people looked at it; their eyes slid away from it, as though they couldn't see it at all.
It didn't have a sign out front. I felt reluctant to step inside; I was a minor after all, and going into a bar would draw attention that I didn't need.
Yet this was the first lead I'd had in three days. I felt for my knife in my pocket.
It was definitely illegal to carry around in Britain. I'd found that out on my last visit to the library. They didn't allow mace or pepper sprays either. Not allowing people the tools they needed to defend themselves was hard to comprehend from an American viewpoint.
Taking a deep breath, I slipped inside the pub.
It was dark and shabby, but the moment I stepped inside I knew I was in the right place. The people here were all dressed in ways that were subtly wrong, with some actually wearing black robes. There were old women wearing outrageous hats, and men who were playing a kind of chess. It took me a moment to realize that the figurines on the chessboard were actually moving by themselves.
The man behind the bar looked at me. He was bald, with dark skin and he didn't have any teeth.
"Just got your letter, did you? There's still been a few stragglers."
My face froze, and I clutched my knife in my pocket harder.
"Where's your parents?" he asked.
"They thought I could handle it myself," I said, shrugging. While I wasn't much at acting, I'd learned how to bluff with the best of them.
He scowled. "That's not smart. The Alley is safe enough most times, but the big rush is over with and there aren't so many kids there now. You'll be fine as long as you stay out of Knockturn Alley. That's not for the likes of you."
Gesturing, he stepped out from the back of the bar.
"You'll need help to get through until you get your wand, then you can do it on your own. If you've got muggle money, take it to Gringotts and they'll change it for you."
At my expression, he looked around and leaned toward me.
"Having muggle money isn't something to be ashamed of. People don't like to talk about it much, but I'm guessing you're a half blood from the way you're dressed, and because you aren't with one of the tour groups the professors sponsor for the muggleborns."
I nodded as though I knew what he was talking about.
He led me to the back of the bar, and I tensed. I had two bees hiding on the nape of my neck, ready to attack and at least try to sting his eyes out, but it might not be enough.
He paused, and then turned to me.
"This is important to remember; once you get your wand I don't want you to come back and keep asking. It's the third brick up, and the second across."
The bricks were low enough that I could reach them. He tapped one three times and the wall opened out into another world. It didn't open in a mechanical way; the brick quivered as though it was alive, and then a hole appeared in it that grew larger and larger.
The large archway led out to a cobbled street that twisted and turned out of sight.
I forced myself to look unimpressed and stepped through, and the hole vanished behind me. There was a stack of large metal pots... cauldrons according to the sign in the nearest shop.
One shop had a sign advertising dragon livers, but I couldn't understand the prices. Another sold owls. Why owls instead of other kinds of birds I had no idea. There were shops selling broomsticks, and telescopes, bat wings and newt eyes.
It was all a little overwhelming. It was like Salem Massachusetts had taken witch mania to heart and had a shopping district entirely dedicated to stereotypical witches. It was a little tacky as far as I was concerned.
Yet the people here didn't look like they were humoring their children. They didn't look like they were shopping ironically. There were adults unaccompanied by children; most of them in fact, and they seemed deadly serious in the things they were buying.
Furthermore, there were signs that things weren't as they seemed. I could see a little boy gesturing at a toy broomstick that was floating behind him without any obvious strings. There were things in windows that were moving that should not have moved.
Everyone here had that distinctive look about them, and there were a lot of people wearing black robes. There was something about their expressions, though, that was worrying. Everyone seemed tense, as though they were looking over their shoulder. When I'd been a villain in Brockton Bay it wouldn't have registered with me at all. In a city ruled by gangs everybody looked like that.
But I'd been a hero in Chicago for two years, and I'd seen how people looked who didn't live in a war zone. These people were tense, and I wasn't sure why.
Eventually I reached a large white building with a guard standing out in front. In my world he would have been defined as a Case 53, a parahuman whose powers had warped his body into something inhuman. Here those supposedly didn't exist.
He was shorter than me, swarthy, and with inhumanly long hands and feet. He stared at me rudely as I looked at the inscription on the doors, warning against thieves.
"Is this Gringotts?" I ventured a guess.
I'd heard the aurors talking about goblins and money, and the bartender had told me to get money changed here.
He grunted and nodded.
With my bugs keeping a careful eye on him, I walked past him, slipping inside the building. It was taller and more magnificent than any of the other buildings, and the inside had a lot of marble. I'd seen places as nice in Chicago, but never in Brockton Bay, which had been on the decline for decades.
There were a huge number of tellers, possibly a hundred, all of whom seemed like they were hard at work. All of them were goblins, if that was what the guard outside was. That made it clearer that he wasn't just some kind of strange Case 53 anomaly. Like parahumans, no Case 53 had the same deformities.
Yet all of these people seemed to be formed from the same cloth. They were all small, they all had basically the same skin tone, and they all had hands that were outside of the human norm. Their feet were presumably the same, but I couldn't see them behind the counter.
I cleared my throat and spoke to the first goblin that didn't have a line.
"I'm here to change my money," I said.
He sneered at me and pointed at the stall at the end. "Talk to Gorlok. Last goblin against the south wall."
I saw goblins weighing out gemstones the size of glowing coals. The value of just one of those gems was mind boggling, and I wondered if they were real or some kind of replica. If they were real, then each gem was worth at least a million dollars, and that was if their quality was low. He had a stack of them that he was weighing, which probably represented enough money to get my dying city back on its feet.
How much money did these goblins control?
"I'm here to change muggle money," I said. I didn't say into what, because I didn't know.
The goblin stared at me for a moment, then gestured for me to take a seat. Not knowing how much I would need, I slid two hundred pounds across the counter. Hopefully this wasn't a huge mistake.
He handed me back a stack of coins.
"Can you explain the exchange rate?" I asked.
He was obviously used to this question, even though his eyes narrowed at me. "Knuts are the smallest denomination," he said. "Twenty nine knuts makes a sickle. Seventeen sickles make a galleon."
"And how many galleons to a British pound?" I asked.
"Five pounds to the galleon currently," he said. "The number changes sometimes."
He'd given me thirty nine galleons, fifteen sickles and fifty eight knuts.
I hesitated. "Do you buy muggle jewelry?"
His eyes almost seemed to gleam, and he nodded. I felt uncomfortable, but I pulled my backpack around. I looked around.
"Is there somewhere else we can do this? I'd rather people not see what I've got."
He grunted. "First witch with sense I've seen in a while."
Flipping a sign up onto his post, he stepped down and around the bar they were all sitting at . He gestured for me to follow him, and he led me through one of the many doors.
"Witch has jewelry to sell," he said to an older goblin. There were goblin guards in the room, and the goblin had a jewelers' glass on his eye. He looked up and glared at me.
"You saw the sign out front," he said. "Trying to trick us is the same as trying to steal from us... and no one steals from Gringotts and lives."
"It's possible that some of it might be costume jewelry," I said. I looked at him. "But if I find out that you've cheated me... well, I've got a long memory too."
He grunted.
At his gesture, I handed him my backpack. Half my jewelry was buried behind the bush near my culvert; leaving it inside the culvert had seemed foolish.
"I can give you a third of what a muggle jeweler would charge you," he said. "Muggles like to overcharge, and they don;t like to buy back, but we've got some use for it."
I nodded. It was nothing less than I'd expected. If he'd told me he was giving me full value, I'd know he was lying. The fact that he didn't ask where I'd gotten it was worrying. He didn't seem to care whether I'd stolen it or not.
"I'll give you six hundred galleons for the lot," he said.
I stared at him for a moment, trying to do the math in my head. Six hundred galleons would be the same as three thousand pounds. That wasn't bad, all things considered.
"I'll take it," I said.
I could always transfer the money back to British money if I didn't find things to buy, and I still had the other half buried.
Taking the money, I was now six hundred and forty galleons richer than I'd been earlier today, whatever that meant. I wouldn't know how rich that made me until I actually went out and shopped.
1721ShayneTMar 6, 2019View discussion
Threadmarks Shopping
View contentShayneTMar 8, 2019
#691
"I'll take two."
The old man stared at me as though he hadn't heard what I'd said.
He'd just led me through a whole involved process of trying out different wands, and I had to admit that there was a certain thrill when I felt... something moving through me with this one. I still didn't even know what these were for, but the bartender had said I'd need one to get back here, and so here I was.
The fact that every person on the street carried one suggested that it was more than just a key. At eight galleons it was cheap even if that was all it was. I certainly wasn't going to let a possible tool go to waste.
"The wand chooses the wielder," he said again. "You can't simply..."
"Take two?" I asked. "Why not?"
"Wands develop an affinity for their owner. As you grow in your powers, the wand grows with you. Switching wands on a whim would stunt that growth."
"And when mine gets broken?"
"Broken?"
"I'm a child. Things get broken. Even if it's not me doing the breaking..."
Memories of my mother's flute flashed though my mind. I'd been stupid, taking it to school when I was being bullied, but I'd never expected them to defile it the way they had.
Living out in the open the way I did, there were no guarantees. I could be mugged, attacked by dogs, or simply be unlucky and trip, and the wand would snap like the piece of wood that it was.
Ollivander looked shocked. "A witch does not break her wand."
"I believe in being prepared," I said. "So I'd like a spare. I won't use it unless something happens to my main wand."
He looked at me darkly, then sighed. "Paranoid, I'd call you, but the way things are going for muggleborns these days perhaps you aren't being foolish."
"Oh?" I asked him.
"I haven't seen as many muggleborns heading for Hogwarts this year as usual," he said. "And it makes me question why. There are whispers that you-know-who is back."
"Who?"
"I shouldn't say anything," he said hurriedly. He looked toward the front of the shop, as though he expected someone there to be listening. I knew there wasn't, because I had bugs on the front and back entrances watching. I could hardly tell him that, of course.
"If it's dangerous, that's all the more reason you should tell me," I said. "otherwise, how will I defend myself?"
He hesitated, then said, "There are ugly aspects to our society that people don't like to talk about. There are people who don't care for muggleborns, and ten years ago there was a war among our kind about just that issue."
"Who won?" I asked.
"You wouldn't be allowed a wand if the other side had won," he said. "But they never really went away. They simply went quiet."
"And they aren't so quiet now?"
"There have been rumors," he said. "No one really knows. But no one really wants to risk bringing the bad times back by asking."
He must have seen that I understood from my expression, because he stepped back and hustled to get me another copy of my wand.
As he bustled around, I looked outside the window at people shopping. I still wasn't sure I should even be here, but the wands were cheap enough that it was worth it just for that.
"Blackthorn, ten inches with a dragon heartstring, very flexible. That will be twenty one galleons."
"I thought that they were seven galleons apiece," I said.
"The first one is subsidized by Hogwarts," he said. "Fourteen is the true price."
I'd heard the name Hogwarts bandied around a few times, but I still hadn't found out what it was. I hadn't dared to ask, because that might reveal that I wasn't supposed to be here.
"Fine," I said. I handed over the money.
I slid one wand into my backpack, and the other into belt. It wouldn't fit into my pocket, and my arms were too short to hide it up my sleeves. Maybe some kind of holster?
Without saying anything else, I left Ollivanders. The old man had creeped me out, given his tendency to stare just a little too long and to make cryptic pronouncements. I wasn't sure what to make of his assertion that wands were semi-sentient. I hoped that it was just a marketing ploy, because if it wasn't, then was owning one a little like slavery?
Wandering around, I saw a lot of products that I couldn't ever see a need for. Why would I buy a cauldron, or the parts to dozens of disgusting animals?
I was heading for the nearest bookstore when I stopped.
Gambol and Japes seemed to be a joke store. While it was possible that I wouldn't find anything useful, it wasn't impossible that these people might be stupid enough to actually sell things that could be used as weapons.
Stepping inside, I looked around. One thing I'd noticed about these people was that it seemed like they had a lot of tinkers. On my world, parahumans with the power to build technology were considered some of the most dangerous capes around.
Here, there were products of whatever power these people used everywhere. There were floating broomsticks and moving chess pieces. There were a thousand different products, all scattered around without any seeming rhyme or reason.
I looked carefully through the products. A lot of it really did seem to be useless; what was I going to do with artificial poop that turned back into rubber with a command word? With a telescope that gave the user a black eye?
Some of the pranks seemed to be mean spirited, and all I could think was that my bullies would have loved a store like this back when I was in Winslow. They'd been forced to limit themselves to the usual pushes and shoves and spilled food... at least until they'd shoved me into a locker filled with two week old tampons and other medical waste.
I could see that sort of escalation in some of the pranks this place sold, and it didn't give me a good feeling about these people that the shop seemed to be very successful.
Who would buy something like this unless they were bullying people? It didn't say good things that business was so good with such a presumably small population.
After five minutes of browsing, I froze as I found one that seemed really interesting.
"Peruvian instant darkness powder?" I asked the proprietor. It looked like a black rock, not like a powder at all.
"Throw it, and it will shroud your target in darkness."
"How dark?"
"Impenetrably dark," the man said. He was younger than the wand maker, maybe my Dad's age. "He won't be able to see his hand in front of his face. I have to advise against using it at the top of stairs or in other dangerous places."
It was almost as though he was telling me exactly how to murder someone. Was he an idiot, or was he actually promoting using his product for killing.
"How much is it?"
"Ten galleons," he said.
At my look, he said, "We have to import it from Peru. It lasts a while too; depending on prevailing winds and the like up to fifteen minutes."
"I'll take three," I said. "And these marbles work to trip anyone, even on unlevel ground?"
"They're enchanted to seek out the person who steps on them and to make them flail around comically before falling down. We used to sell banana peels that did the same thing, but there were issues with quality control."
"I'll take three sets of those, and some of these firecrackers. Are they legal to use in London?"
"Not for children, so you'll have to stay out of muggle areas when you use them."
Carefully, I picked out the fireworks that looked like they were the most dangerous. They reminded me a little of my Dad's reminiscences of the good old days when fireworks were strong enough to blow people's hands off.
Hopefully these tinkertech fireworks would be just as dangerous. Even if they weren't, I could probably use them as a distraction. I had enough control over my insects that I could probably use them to light one while I was somewhere else.
I nodded, and I stuffed my purchases in my backpack.
The clerk looked uneasy as he handed me my receipt. "You aren't planning to do anything illegal are you?"
"I'm just a kid," I said, smiling. It didn't reach my eyes.
He didn't looked convinced. If anything, he looked even more anxious. He staggered back as I moved around him toward the door.
"Watch your step," I said as I left, waving.
As I passed through a number of other stores, I didn't see anything I would need. Robes might help me fit in here, but where would I keep them? Buying a cat or a snake or even an owl would be irresponsible when I was living out in the wild.
The bookstore was where I really needed to go, but I stopped into a shop called Barons.
It was here that I really found myself getting excited. It was a shop filled with chests and containers of all kinds. Some weren't enchanted at all, while others were larger on the inside. They sold wizarding tents too, some of which had indoor plumbing and showers.
I really, really wanted one of those, but there was no way I'd be able to set one up in the middle of London without someone noticing and coming to investigate. Even if I could, the cheapest tent would cost more than half of my original stash.
They had chests that expanded on the inside too, including some deluxe models that expanded on the inside to the size of a rather largish house. Unfortunately, they also came with a price tag that was as much as a house. Even if that wasn't true, I still didn't have a place to put it.
It occurred to me that what I really needed to do was to find a warehouse that I could break into. If I could do that, I could set up a Wizarding tent inside and no one would notice. There was no point in buying anything here until I could find a place for it though.
Still, the thought of plumbing and showers whenever I wanted was almost enough to make me pony up the money immediately.
The woman saw the look of disappointment on my face, and she looked down at the fanny pack at my waist. From the expression on people's faces I'd learned not to call it a fanny pack. I still wasn't sure what I should actually call it.
"I don't suppose you know of any stores that sells stuff like this secondhand?" I asked.
She frowned. "There's a couple of stores in Knockturn Alley... but it's not safe for someone like you to go there."
Could everyone tell I was a muggleborn just by looking at me? Did I look like a tourist? I was going to have to work on my act.
"It's just... I really need something like this, but these prices are a little steeper than I can afford," I said. I looked up at her. "I may have to risk it."
"You shouldn't... you really shouldn't," she said.
Her saying it made me want to visit it even more. It sounded like it was what the bad parts of every town were. The place where pawnshops and petty crooks were found. However, there was an undertone to her voice. If this was where the genocidal wizards were congregating, it might not be wise for me to go there, at least until I was able to increase the size of my swarm.
She must have seen something in my expression that she didn't like. The woman bit her lip, and then looked around. There was no one else in the store.
"I could enchant that for you," she said. "I'm really not supposed to; the Ministry regulates these things, but there's a workaround that helps avoid breaking the Secrecy rules."
"Oh?"
"Your bag will be able to hold up to six hundred pounds," she said. "But to muggles it will appear to be empty. I can even throw in a charm so that whatever you ask for is always at the top of the pile."
"How much will it weigh?" I asked. I struggled to keep the growing excitement off my face. This was something that would be a game changer for me, but if I let her know how badly I wanted it, she'd overcharge me.
Telling me that it was semi-illegal was most likely a marketing ploy to drive up the price. Still, if I could afford it, I was going to buy it. I couldn't afford not to.
"Nothing," she said. "Not more than the bag itself anyway."
"Should I have it done to my backpack instead?"
"That thing will be a lot more convenient than the bigger bag, and a lot less likely to get stolen, especially if you hide it under your shirt."
"You won't be able to fit anything larger than the mouth of the pack inside, but you can always carry with with you. The things inside are protected from each other; they don't jumble together or break. You can even keep your wand inside."
"Can living things survive inside?"
"As long as the air holds out," she said. She looked at me curiously. "Are you planning to put a cat or Kneazel in there?"
I shook my head. "I was just curious."
I'd never weighed any of my swarms, but I had a feeling that six hundred pounds of bugs would be a fearsome amount. If this worked out, I'd probably be back for a couple of more.
"How much?"
"Seventy galleons."
At the rate I was going I was going to be out of money by the end of the day. It didn't matter, though. I still had the rest of it buried in the bush, and this would make my life so much easier. I'd be able to keep all the food inside, and all my other goods except for my backpack.
"How long would it take?"
"Three hours," she said.
"Done."
I handed over even more money, and I was out, feeling lighter than I had in a while It wasn't a Wizarding tent, but it would solve a lot of my problems, and if I could find a place to put it, I could get one of those too.
It would be like getting my life back. While I could stand living outdoors, I hated feeling unsafe. When winter came, I was going to be in trouble, and the Wizarding tents were climate controlled.
These people seemed to believe that they were wizards and witches. I couldn't argue that they seemed to have powers, but magic didn't exist. More likely these were just parahuman powers channeled through a set of backward beliefs.
It might even be that these people weren't powered by passengers like I had been, but were some kind of mutation. There were a lot of them, and they all seemed to have similar powers, so that seemed the most reasonable explanation.
They'd cloaked their powers with a lot of myth and legend, which suggested that these people had had them for a while. Hopefully, whatever I found at the bookstore would answer questions that I was having without my having to arouse suspicion.
Reaching the bookstore, I slipped inside.
"Looking for your Hogwarts books?" the teenage witch behind the counter asked. "We've still got a few stacks left. First year books are on the far end. We've got the whole set."
I followed her directions to a table where the books were stacked up in groups.
Standard book of spells... I doubted that would do me much good, considering that I was a parahuman and not actually a witch. A history of magic sounded like exactly the book I wanted, though. Magical theory might be all right. The books on herbs and potions didn't sound like anything I'd ever use.
The books on fantastic beasts might be useful; I'd seen enough strange creatures to be curious about them. Had they been created by the wizards like the animated chess pieces and flying brooms? We'd had bio-tinkers at home, but they'd typically used their powers to create things far worse than dragons and unicorns.
Maybe the goblins were bio-tinkered by the wizard too. The history of magic might clear some of that up.
It was probably best to buy the whole set so as not to arouse suspicion. My fanny pack had a mouth large enough to slide the books into.
"I'm going to look around for a bit if you don't mind," I said.
I stayed for several hours, but realized that I needed to get my pack before that store closed. I returned, and spent more money than I had to on books, shoving them into the fanny pack as fast as I could go. I them emptied out my backpack into the fanny pack, and shoved the backpack in there too.
By the end of the day I was exhausted. I barely caught the last bus home, and the walk back to my culvert seemed to take forever. I didn't have a tenth of the endurance I'd had in my adult body, and the thought of sleeping back in a hole when I'd seen Wizarding tents was dispiriting.
I froze as I turned around a corner and saw a tall man leaning down and staring into my culvert. He was thin, with sallow skin. He had shoulder length, greasy hair.
They'd found me!
I reached into my fanny pack, and began to pull out the things I was going to need.