Chereads / Harry Potter and the Tragic Path / Chapter 49 - Winged Rescue

Chapter 49 - Winged Rescue

"Now note this down, girl." Kali orders Panya as she points down at a green shrug with orange berries sprouting from it. "This is the Hjalton Berrybush from the swamps of Finland, I will warn you once so what you do afterwards is up to you... If you eat any of these berries, you will die. Your body will be sucked dry of moisture and serve as fertiliser for the shrub that sprouts." she states, her glowing slitted yellow eyes glaring the importance of her words into the young African girl's mind.

The seven-year-old gives a shuddering nod while quickly scribbling down the succubus' words into the small notebook she'd been given. "Y-yes mistress."

Kali gives a dismissive hum in response before continuing, "It requires watering once a day, five-hundred millilitres. No more than six hundred, no less than four. Do you understand?"

"M-mistress, how much is a millilitre?" Panya asks as while Kali had explained it to her once, the unfamiliar measurement had escaped her mind not long after.

Kali gives her a fanged smile, displaying her sharp canines, "You have it in your notes, look at them, I told you I will not repeat myself. Understand?"

"Y-yes..."

The succubus continues to explain the details about taking care of the magical plant but abruptly snaps her head towards the sky while resting a hand on her chest. Something odd was happening to her master, she had no idea what, but their bond was... Fluctuating? Straining? Whatever it was, it couldn't be good.

"Girl, go tend to the other plants you are familiar with, we're done for now." she says before waving Panya off.

She rubs her face with a clawed hand and continues to observe her connection with Harry, this lasted for two minutes until she felt that the situation would only get worse, forcing her to make a difficult decision.

"Master... What are you doing..." she sighs, while flexing her wings taut. She gives it one more minute to improve, but after that, she decides to finally take action. She waves her hand across the floor around her, causing a green flame to burst to life around her feet. A flash of light alter and Kali was gone, with only the scorched circle of dirt left behind.

Kali appears in the Northpole not far from where Harry was located. She'd ended up landing right in the middle of a blizzard, but it didn't really matter to her since both the cold and the visibility didn't affect her much. "Let's find you, master, before the other magic users arrive." she mutters, knowing that the use of her magic would attract this world's magic users like flies to faeces.

She followed her bond with Harry through the sheet of white before her, and eventually finds herself standing on an icy plateau overlooking what had previously been a crater was now something else entirely. The blizzard gave way to reveal a truly massive structure, a massive icy palace that shimmered in the light.

It would have been a fantastically beautiful sight... Were the thing not falling apart at the seams, with giant cracks forming all along the structure while allowing huge pieces to slide off and crash heavily onto the ground below.

Kali's hand shoots to her chest as she feels her bond with Harry weaken and tremble like a steadily slowing heartbeat. She launches herself off of the ground with her wings flapping, flying down to the base of the palace before rushing inside the entrance that was closest to where Harry was located.

Inside she found undead of every type, colour, and creed, each wandering around as if the palace wasn't crumbling around them. Some were dropping dead without anything happening to them at all, meaning that the magic that was fueling this place had been lost entirely.

She rushes through many rooms of the palace, once even finding herself inside a huge library... She'd managed to swipe two books that were placed on pedestals before she left, hoping that Harry would like them once she saved him... Which was looking less and less likely with everything that was happening.

Soon enough she finds the throneroom of the palace, the place littered with the remnants of battle. Corpses were strewn across the floor next to huge fissures in the icy ground, and there was a depleted pool that she could tell was once filled with blood judging by the smell alone.

"Master!" she suddenly exclaims, spotting him lying limply as Nanthisk attempts to shield the boy from the crumbling palace with his own bony body.

"M-mistressss! He'sss hurt! We need to go!" the snake hisses, sounding both hopeful and dreadful that his and his master's saviour had arrived.

"I'll deal with you later, snake!" she growls, taking Harry gently up in her arms while grabbing the tip of Nanthisks tail before launching through the air in the same direction she'd originally come.

Unfortunately, unlike last time, the undead roaming the halls took notice, not of her, but of Harry, each of them giving baleful shrieks as they charge toward the trio. Kali flew above most of their heads, but found herself forced to use her magic when a skeletal dragon attempted to snatch her with its jaws out of the sky.

*CRASH!*

She swings Nanthisk at it like as if the snake were a whip, launching the bony reptilian into the skeletal dragon's neck, decapitating it at the expense of Nanthisk, who'd broken many ribs and other bones as a result.

"M-MISTRESS!"

"Quiet snake! This is merely the beginning of the punishments I have planned for you! For your failure to protect our Master!" she angrily shouts while continuing to fly. Nanthisk gives a helpless hiss in response, knowing that his time at home would not be pleasant after this.

Indeed, Kali's temper was flaring due to this whole disastrous situation. Her stupidity in allowing Harry to venture off on his own in search of this Necromancer, her arrogance in thinking that this world could not trouble them. Even her powerlessness against these anti-teleportation wards that were still somehow working despite the Palace disintegrating at the second.

"There will be hell to pay for this!"