A/N- Hey guys. Right on time! Expect the next update on Wednesday next week and know you could skip the wait and read the next two chapters as well as continuous updates on Pa-treon right now. Since I now qualify as an unemployed member of society, all subscribers on my pa-treon are much appreciated. If you enjoy my writing, then please don't hesitate to support it if you can. For Pa Treon, you can remove the hyphen between Pa and Treon and Google it, then search for my username—Oghenevwogaga. Or you could copy the link in my bio and remove the spaces before pasting it in your address bar.
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Harry Potter would have frozen and then been saved by a fantastically unlikely sequence of events a la Ford Anglia appearing in the middle of the Forest to rescue him from the Acromantula two years ago. Tom Riddle would have turned his wand upon the Centaurs that dared to threaten him and then ultimately lost because these were not creatures easily faced in such numbers. Victor Von Doom, phD, would have opened his mouth and weaved a tale that would have so thoroughly confused the waiting Centaurs that they would have ended up allowing him to leave, and maybe even given him a ride out of the forest themselves. Of course, this unholy combination of all three did neither.
I pulled on my magic, took a deep breath and jumped straight backwards into the gorge. Flying for a few seconds, I waved my wand silently chanting 'carpe retractum', and pointed it at one of the sturdier trees on the other end of the gorge. I heard the sound of arrow whistling by me as I pulled on my magic and used the seize and pull charm to drag me towards to the tree. Heading there, I deactivated the charm and turned towards the flying arrows. A silent ventus tossed the arrows flying at me in every direction except mine and I used the force of that wind to carry me the rest of the way towards the other side. Turning back around, '_arresto momentum' _ brought my speed to a crawl and I easily landed on my feet, none the worse for wear.
Looking over to the Centaurs found them whispering furiously among themselves. And then they reared back and began to ready their hooves to jump the gorge. Spotting my opportunity, I dropped to one knee and stabbed my wand into the ground as they began their approach.
"Unda proluvie" I vocalised at a volume just lower than a shout as I pulled on my magic to take control of the water flowing in the gorge between us. When the first few of them made to jump, the water snatched them all from the air in one wave of force and sent them flying down the creek. A few had managed to stop their run before jumping and instead glared at me in rage.
I met their eyes, not backing down. Quite the opposite, in fact. "I dare you," I said, knowing full well that heir senses were developed enough to pick up my threat across the distance. Almost as one, they harrumphed and began to trot in the direction their fellows had just been taking. All but one of them, it seemed.
"That was a mistake, Harry Potter" Firenze said, still standing next to the wolf he had killed.
"I don't like being threatened. It was self defence" I replied.
"Bane would have never attacked you without prompting. In doing what you have done now, you have made an enemy of all Centaur-kind. Flee this forest, Harry Potter. Never return, for even I will hunt you if you do" He said, before reaching down to grab the wolf carcass and toss it over his shoulder. He left in a slow canter.
Fuck. He ached to curse the Centaur for the words it had just spoken, but the thought of dealing with an enemy who had their back turned to him rubbed him all the wrong way. It was not in the nature of Doom to attack like a coward. It was also not in the nature of Doom to let an insult go unanswered. He consoled himself with the knowledge that he would return to this forest one day or the other, and then he and the Centaurs could answer the question of what shined brighter-mars or his rage.
At least Firenze had confirmed that the dragons were in the forest. That was good. Superb. They were probably under some powerful wards that prevented him from running into them. He briefly considered a visit to Hagrid to see if he could get the half giant to take him to see the dragons themselves, but ruled it out as a waste of time. He already knew what was coming. What would then be the point in wasting time to go see it when he could instead spend the time preparing himself for facing it. Tom Riddle knew of the conjucvitis curse. It had, in fact, been a favourite of the Slytherin upper years when he had first come into the castle, and he'd even been on the receiving end of the curse a few times for his 'mud-blood' roots, so he knew the counter curse at the very least.
Just to learn the main thing that remained. His thoughts on that, he continued the journey to the Chamber of Secrets almost halfheartedly. Inwardly, he tried to guess at the incantation and wand movements for the curse. Both times, he'd been cursed from behind, but he knew a lot about dark magic, and even spell theory so he could make a few guesses. The wand movement was the easier bit to figure out. A sharp downward slash was most probable. The spell made a sharp cut down the middle of the victim's eyeball. The counter-curse began with an upward swoosh so it would also made sense. The incantation? "Oculus with a suffix" he murmured to himself assuredly. Every spell that affected the eyes had at least that much in common. The suffix. Probably something to do with cutting. Cutting? Could be cleaving, more literally to describe the effect of the eyeball being literally torn open in two halves.
The incantation for the counter curse would probably not be much use. It used the standard 'finite maledictus' suffix with the 'oculus' prefix brought the spell together. It was a generic counter-curse incantation and would probably work for all sorts of ocular curses when paired with different wand movements. Useful, but also meant that he was nowhere closer to getting the incantation.
He knew he fucked up when he realised that the entire forest had gone silent at some point during his internal debate. Looking from left to right, he was sure that his feet had kept him along the route. He looked upwards then, and the scream that sounded out made his bones vibrate.
"Ahhh" the creature screamed as it fell down at hum with mouth wide open.
Acromantula, he instantly recognised, and his body was moving before he had finished the thought.
"Ignis inhaere" I muttered as I pointed my wand right at the creature. The fire cutter split the thing in two, neatly cauterising both halves and forcing it to land to either side of me and not on my person. Those reflexes. They had been all Potter, I realised. Tom Riddle knew the dark arts, Doom had the creativity to bring magic to bear to tremendous effect, and Potter just had sheer fighting talent. The instincts brought from being confronted with bullying from a young age and being forced to get himself out of life threatening situation after life threatening situation.
It was those instincts he leaned on now. "Welcome to Javokhir's grove, human. It shall be your final resting place" An acromantula even large than his memories of Aragog spoke out from further in the treelike. Whatever apprehension he felt was buried under the realisation that he was going to have to fight himself out of this on his own. There would be no talking, and there would be no help incoming. As if Doom would ever need help.
He leaned out of the way of a spurt of webbing, and jabbed his wand at the spider that sent it. His stunning spell splashed against the creatures carcass and did little. He remembered his study then.
_"Acromantula. Powerful creatures of the dark. Said to be the offspring of Echidna herself, their webs are strong and nigh indestructible while their hide enjoys a large degree of magical resistance. Their venom is deadly to all but the most resilient of creatures. Class Four. Recommended for teams of Four or more hunters when found in colonies of up to 12. A useful rule of thumb would be 3 Acromantula per Professional Hunter for dealing with infestations."_ He quoted 'Profitable Beasts and Where to Hunt them', a book tom Riddle had devoured beginning to end to himself while gathering his bearings.
There sure were more than 12 of the things surrounding him here, and he doubted he qualified as a Professional Hunter or anything of the sort, but that did not mean he was lacking for tricks. Besides, he had more than his fair share of frustration to work out. The group that skittered to him from in front was banished with a subvocalised "Arania Exime" as the blast of blue light sent them flying backwards.
"Ignis Flagellum" He mentally incanted to form the semi-famous fire whip curse as he took stock of the ones still coming. He moved his wand in deliberate movements, weaving the whip like an expert to cut through half a dozen of the damn things before they were content to remaining at a watching distance for the time being. He smiled at the effect. He had no idea how to use a whip in real life, but that did not matter for this one. It was made of his magic and channelled through his wand. The fire whip moved in ways that violated gravity, inertia, and common sense to carry out his will.
The sound of skittering echoed through the forest, and then they began to slowly approach from all directions at the same time. Of fucking course.
Keeping his eyes in front of him, he started with the most apparent problem. A sweep of his wand sent a rush of fire right at his front. The spiders skittered backwards in a rush to avoid it. I took advantage of the lull to turn to the right. There were three of them. One on a three, and two running across the ground. The one on tree took a piercing curse to one of its eyes and fell to the floor dead, while the two along the ground were foolish enough to run at the same speed. A wide angled Chinese cutting spell cleaved them in twain. Them and some of the trees close by.
A gust of wind from my wand blew the falling trees to land to my right, and block off the angle of the ones that had been approaching from that angle. Something screamed at me to drop to the floor, and that was all that saved me from a spider that had decided to jump over the flames and get me on that angle. A sharp left facing slash bled into an upward swoosh that formed a purple blast of energy that hit the spider dead on.
I couldn't stay still to watch the effect of my entrails-expelling curse and instead used a banishing charm to push all the spiders that had been rushing at me from behind backwards. Of course, a second later, I had to turn around and use a fire whip to disable two coming in the opposite direction. The fact that I could already feel my reserves waning was not a good sign. Powerful wizard or not, dozens of acromantula were not a doable task in the middle of the fucking forest. I whirled around the forest for a bit, searching about the path I took and praised Doom's superior spatial awareness when I found it.
I just had to double back through the line that had the most spiders along with Javokhir himself.
Calling up a large amount of magic to the surface and funnelling it through my wand, I intoned "arborium locomotor" and moved my wand in what could charitably be described as a silly little dance. A downward swoosh into a slash into a wave into a jab. Of course, the silly wand motion aside, the spell that I called forth was anything but. It didn't hang around in the same weight class as spells like aqua eructo or even fiendfyre, but it was still a powerful piece of nature magic. It also sapped me just like a powerful piece of nature magic.
The trees around me all came to life with deadly alacrity. First, they began my moving their branches to strangle and crush any acromantula too slow to move in time and then began to bludgeon those who did manage to move. I couldn't keep the spell going forever so I dove right into the treeline and began to make a run for it.
It was an accident that did me in in the end. One of the tress whacked an acromantula like a baseball and sent it right into my fleeing form. It sent me into the ground, and before I knew it, the damned thing had my wand arm in its fucking mouth.
"Confringo" I screamed in pain. A terrible idea in hindsight as quite a lot of the spider guts ended up in my mouth.
I choked, coughed, and gagged as I tried avoid swallowing any of it even as I knew that I'd already failed the mission. I spat out as much of it as I could as I stumbled and staggered to push myself to my feet. Once I did, I placed a hand on one of the trees, grimacing as I noted that the magic in the animation spell on the trees had begun to run out. I used the tree to push myself to take one step after the other and cross the distance that led me to the Chamber of Secrets' forest entrance.
A/N; Cliffhanger? If you're really excited about this, then you can skip all the waiting and read the next two chapters of this up on my pa-treon right now. And if you come from any of my other stories, please do me the favour of commenting which story that is.
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