Beyond the Tapestry - Chapter 2 (Patreon)

So as you may have noticed, I'm really bad at working on what I'm supposed to be working on! November was supposed to be all about WWDtS, I had a vote for it and everything, but I've had...minimal success with that project 😭.

Still, I haven't done no writing and I do want to give you guys something! This is the project that has captured my limited writing attention this past month or so. Not sure its going to go anywhere yet, but I've really enjoyed working on it so far.

Beyond the Tapestry is sort of a non-quest revamp of Harvesting the Multiverse, a story I wrote a lot of at the start of this year. That story has developed a lot of cracks and ended up being terribly unbalanced, but I did really enjoy the initial concept and wanted to iterate on it. Its a Harry Potter/Magic: the Gathering/Multicross fic following an OC Black character (as in the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black). The magic system is heavily revamped and based loosely on elements I've loved in other stories, and I've also changed a lot of the mechanics found it HtM to fix some of the problems that I ran into there.

Anyway, I think that's more than enough Author's Note. This is chapter 2/6 that will be coming out in 15 minute increments. Let me know what you think!

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It took an annoyingly long time to track down an appropriate muggle. It would have been trivial to just grab a random one off the street, but that was a bad idea for a number of reasons. Foremost among them, she was already planning to commit a number of minor crimes tonight and adding a potential breach of the Secrecy to the list was a very bad idea. The ICW had entire teams of Oracles whose one and only job was searching for potential breaches and getting caught by one of those would be both catastrophic and terribly embarrassing.

And anyway, not just any muggle would do. She needed the right muggle or else things wouldn’t work nearly as well as she needed. Thankfully, muggles bred like rabbits. It took some extremely painful scrying and some help from Tipsey, but soon enough she found one that fit her criteria.

The ritual she was going to attempt looked simple enough in principle, but it wasn’t something she’d tried before so it was best to remove as many confounding variables as possible. Since she didn’t have an identical twin she particularly despised, nor was she interested in targeting someone of consequence, she needed to find a muggle as physically similar to herself as possible. To avoid the risk of breaking Secrecy, she also needed a muggle that was isolated and wouldn’t be immediately missed.

It was a good thing she wasn’t actually trying to do what the ritual had been designed for, because she doubted she’d be able to pull it off properly on her first attempt, or maybe even her tenth. Thankfully, she was after one of the rituals' secondary and tertiary benefits, and she was pretty sure she’d be able to manage that much. 

She’d never tried to subsume a living soul before, but she hadn’t had too much trouble doing so to the life-essence of the animals she’d experimented with, and even a deer once under the supervision of one of her great aunts. She doubted a muggle would be much harder than that. 

Spiritual subsumption was supposedly more difficult than physical subsumption, but she was doubtful that it would be all that much harder. Cousin Castor was only a few years older than her and he’d managed to learn a number of oriental tongues by subsuming the knowledge from the minds of foreign muggles. If Castor could do that, and she knew she’d performed better in their lessons on witchcraft than he had, she could certainly manage this.

In the end, she’d been forced to travel a fair distance outside muggles Vienna. There were simply too many muggles out and about within the city limits, tens-of-thousands of the wretched things swarming like ants. As much as it pained her to depend on a house elf for aid, she was glad Tipsey had been able to bring her where she needed to go. The trip had been deeply unpleasant—house elf magic was not meant to transport mages—but her other options had been worse. Apparating in her current condition was probably unwise to say the least.

The muggle she’d eventually selected was not perfect, but it would have to do. It was already getting late, and both the ritual and her recovery from it would take time she was rapidly running out of. She didn’t need everything to be perfect—good enough was fine.

The muggle was a little older than she was, and a tad too tall, but otherwise it looked shockingly similar to Dorea herself. Dorea did not like that. Dorea did not like that one bit. As much as she’d intended to track down a muggle that looked like her, actually seeing it in the flesh was disconcerting and vaguely nauseating. A twisted, rotten reflection with matter hair, too-thin limbs, and rough skin.

Dorea wrinkled her nose as she looked around the hovel Tipsey had brought her too. It was a wretched place—tiny, dark, filthy, and much too hot—unfit even for the indentured masses that toiled on her family’s lands. Like its home, the muggle too was dirty and unkempt, but it looked healthy enough for her purposes. Its breathing was even, its heartbeat strong, and its mind—fluttering softly in the realm of dreams—seemed free of defects.

The muggle had been asleep when they arrived, and a single spell from Dorea ensured she would stay that way till the end. She cast with her off-hand, but the act still sent renewed waves of hot and cold agony all up and down her arm and radiating up into her chest and skull. She was forced to spend several long minutes leaning heavily against one soot-stained wall trying to collect herself and gather her strength while Tipsey eyed her worriedly from the corner of the room.

Dorea had planned to perform the ritual in the muggle’s home—another reason not to just snatch someone off the street—but that just wouldn’t be possible in its current state. Mages were naturally more resistant to rot and illness than the animals they regrettably resembled, their magic burning away the infection before it could take hold, but it was still best not to tempt fate. 

Dorea grimaced. Leaving such obvious traces of her presence here was regrettable, but needs musts. “Tipsey, clear the floor for me.” 

The elf jumped to obey. A snap of her fingers sent the room’s rickety furniture flying, settling gently stacked against one wall in precarious yet perfectly balanced spires. A handful more snaps vanished layer after layer of accumulated grime that stained the floor until it was as clean as it could get. 

Tipsey glared at the poorly shaped floorboards, then looked up at Dorea. “Is good? Tipsey not know carpentry, but Tipsey can get Lipser.” 

Dorea sank painfully down onto her knees, brushing her fingers across the ground. For a moment she considered Tipsey’s offer. She didn’t recognize the name precisely, but she expected that Lipser was one of the male elves who maintained the Black’s many properties and estates in England and beyond. 

She shook her head. “It’s fine.” It was already getting much too late and, as fast as magical travel could be, it would take Tipsey a while to get back to England, find the right elf, and then come back. 

The house elf already looked rather tired—they could transport humans when necessary, but it was difficult and wore them out quickly, not to mention her trip to England and back earlier in the evening—and she might still need Tipsey to bring her back to her room. The ritual should help her deal with her over channeling, but she wasn’t sure if it was an instantaneous effect or something that would take time to settle. “Keep an eye out for anyone approaching.”

“Tipsey do that.” There was a soft pop and Tipsey vanished, leaving behind a tingle of awareness that prickled along the back of Dorea’s neck. Even if she couldn’t see her, Dorea knew the elf was watching her in that strange way house elves could.

Dorea looked at the floor and grimaced. Unfortunately this next part was something Tipsey couldn’t help her with, and she really wasn’t looking forward to it. 

She laid the blue-covered journal down on the ground beside her and opened it to the page she’d marked earlier, the yellowing parchment covered in her many-times great-grandmother’s neat, slightly cramped lettering. The journal wasn’t written in English of course, but Dorea could read the ancient Brythonic language Cassiopeia had used as easily as any of her modern text books. Most of the family’s journals, grimours, and records were written in that same language and they’d long since worked out a method of ritually transferring the requisite knowledge to the next generation. 

She scanned the page, then flipped to the next one. Instead of text, both pages were covered in a large, carefully illustrated ritual diagram done in three different colors of ink representing different sections of the ritual. She made to draw her wand, then realized she was getting ahead of herself. One step at a time. Just because she was in a rush didn’t mean it was okay to rush. That was the very first rule of witchcraft she’d had pounded into her head since she was old enough to learn. Don’t cut corners, don’t try to speed things along, don’t get lax. Witchcraft was powerful and dangerous. Rushing was how even old witches died.

She set the book aside for the moment and drew her athame from within the sleeve of her robe. It was a simple looking thing—a short, brightly polished blade fixed to an unadorned black handle that fit perfectly into her hand.

Despite its visual simplicity, it was a much finer instrument than the fancy, rune-covered blades sold to aspiring witches at exorbitant cost. The blade was goblin silver, the hilt ancient ash stained a light-drinking black by blood and magic.

The athame had been her coming of age gift just a few months past, and it had not left her side a single time since. So far, she’d mostly used it in potions class and for the occasional minor ritual. This would be her first time doing something truly worthy of it.

She took a firm grip of the handle—or as firms as she could manage at the moment—and set the tip of the blade against the floor, applying just the slightest bit of pressure. The goblin silver slid effortlessly into the wood. 

Dorea grinned despite the pain. That was never going to get old. So much better than the borrowed bronze blades she’d used for most of her life. She shook herself to clear her head, took a deep breath for focus, and got to work.

The first step of any safe, properly done witchcraft was limiting extraneous factors. Depending on the precise nature of the magic, even a small amount of foreign influence could be disastrous. There was a reason high-quality potioneering equipment had to be purified between every use and that selling contaminated ingredients was a very serious crime. 

Since Dorea was conducting this ritual in a muggle hovel and not a prepared ritual room or ground, her first step was isolating the ritual area from the surrounding environment. Who knew what had happened in this spot over the past thousand years. She certainly didn’t, and didn’t want any of that history affecting her ritual.

She crawled across the floor, cutting a large, even circle into the wood while focusing on the idea of a barrier. A tiny trickle of magic flowed through her arm into the handle of the blade, sending tingling pins and needles through her muscles. Thankfully the draw was much, much weaker than even a basic spell would be, and she carved with her less damaged left arm. 

There was a static buzz when she finally closed the circle, enclosing the area in a thin film of magic. It wouldn’t stop someone from walking through it and even a first year could pop it like a soap bubble with a single jinx, but it would keep the ambient magic in the environment from passing through it.

She paused to catch her breath, then dug a small silver cauldron out of the bag she’d brought with her. It wasn’t the perfect tool for the job, but she hadn’t thought to ask Tipsey to retrieve anything other than the book she needed  and most stores were closed at this hour, so she had to make do with the contents of her travel potions kit. She was lucky to even have a silver cauldron with her at all!

Setting it down in the center of the enclosed area, she used her athame to cut several herbs (also from her potion’s kit) into thin strips and arranged them within the cauldron. Then she used a fire stone to light the contents, sparks falling until the flames finally took.

The dry herbs smoldered for a moment, then began to burn in earnest, filling the circle with sharp-smelling smoke. She hurriedly scooted away from the cauldron before she could inhale more than a single breath of smoke until she was fully out of the circle, the smoke swirling around the edges of the circle she’d created but not moving beyond it.

While she waited for the herbs to burn up and the smoke to clear, Dorea picked up the journal and reread the half-dozen pages associated with the ritual for the fifth time of the night. She flipped back and forth between the diagram of the ritual and the descriptions, carefully fixing the information in her mind. What the practitioner was focusing on while carving runes was just as important, if not more so, as the runes themselves. After all, a rune was just a shape. The meaning associated with that shape and imbued into it during its creation was what gave it power. 

For a ritual like this one, each section would need to be carved in a single sitting with no room for error and she needed to maintain her focus throughout the entire process. As wretched as she was feeling, that was going to be a lot more difficult than it usually would be. 

Oh gods this was going to suck. The ritual bloody well needed to work or else she was completely screwed. And not just screwed. Screwed by Charlus bloody Potter. Just the thought of his paws on her skin or his lips against hers or—it didn’t bear thinking about—made her skin crawl and her chest ache in a way that had nothing to do with the foreign magic in her body clashing against her own.

At least this time she wouldn’t need to pour any magic into the runes directly like she had with the circle so her arm wasn’t going to get even worse. The magic would come later. She just needed to carve an elaborate, three-part rune scheme she’d never touched before into low-quality wood with unsteady hands on her first try. No pressure.

When the smoke had finally cleared, she moved the still-warm cauldron to the edge of the circle, then used a spell to create an illusionary, scaled-up copy of the diagram from the book on the wooden floor. She cast with her right arm, the pain sending her to the ground shivering but only after the spell was complete. That arm would be completely useless for the rest of the night, but she couldn’t risk any more damage to her carving arm right now.

She worked feverishly, moving as quickly as she dared and so much slower than she wished she could. She was doubly glad she had her athame in hand. There was no way she could have worked half as fast with a chisel, and the athame was a far superior channel for her will. 

The magic within the circle felt smooth and cool against her skin. The sprigs of moly and other herbs she’d burnt had cleared away most of the foreign influences lingering in the local ambient magic and left it just the slightest bit light aligned. It didn’t actually help her recover from the dark magic toxicity any faster, but it did feel soothing and she’d take any small comforts she could get right about now.

She wasn’t sure how long it took to carve the runic scripts. Two-thirds of the way through, the illusion she’d created broke into motes of multi-colored light and faded away, but she’d burned that diagram into her mind and didn’t even need to stop to consult the journal. When she was finished, she realized suddenly that the magic in the circle had changed, though she couldn’t pinpoint a time when that had happened. Instead of the utter stillness imposed by the circle, it flowed and swirled round and round, following the paths outlined by her carvings. 

Now that was a very good sign.

She briefly checked her work against the book, took a drink of water, and returned to her preparations. She really should have checked her work properly, following every line and curl and comparing the meaning in them against the notes, but she had neither the time nor the energy to do so. It looked and felt fine, even the part she’d done freehand. Druella or one of her other elders could yell at her later when they inevitably found out what Dorea had done. Right now she needed to keep moving. The hardest part (of the preparations) was behind her, but there was still more work to do.

She grabbed a few more things from her bag and stepped back into the circle. She emptied the ashes from the cauldron into a vial, then washed it out with spring water and set it in one corner of the ritual diagram. The triangular silver amulet she always wore under her robes went into the next corner, then her wand into the third. Her athame she kept sheathed and within easy reach for the time being, but eventually it would fill the fourth and final spot across from the amulet 

Then it was time for the messy steps. It took several starts and stops, but eventually she managed to drag the dead-weight muggle into the circle. She stripped it out of its bed clothes, her athame cutting through fabric with the same ease as it had wood, and carefully arranged its limbs, head, and hair. 

For once, she was thankful for the haze of pain and exhaustion clouding the edges of her mind. As disgusting an animal as it was, the muggle peasant did look rather like her, and Dorea knew she was a beauty beyond all but a rare few. Even in a dirty mirror and dressed in sackcloth she would be stunning. If she’d been in her right mind, its looks would have been an unwelcome distraction, but as it was she managed to disregard it and work with cool dissipation. Well, mostly. 

Once it was arranged properly, she cut a thin gash in its arm and collected its blood in a small glass bowl. Her arm was so numb that she couldn’t feel the matching gash she made in it, and she ended up cutting slightly deeper than she should have. Crimson welled up from beneath her pale skin, rapidly filling the bowl and threatening to overflow onto the floor before she hastily wrapped the wound. It continued to bleed slowly, but she could take care of it when she was done.

She sped up. Mixing the blood together with the tip of her finger, she drew out a trio of rough symbols on the muggle’s forehead, chest, and belly. Those weren’t wholly necessary, but they’d provide a convenient bridge for the magic and make things easier. She dipped her finger back into the blood and drew a vertical line down the middle of her face from forehead to chin, the smell filling her nose and tingling against her lips. The rest of the blood went into the cauldron and she tossed the glass bowl back into her bag without stepping out of the circle. Something else she’d deal with later.

She stripped herself with little more care than she had the muggle. Her robes came off easily, but she had to cut away her underthings, unable to deal with clasps and laces in her current state. Discarded bits of fabric littered the ground outside the circle, more evidence of her presence she’d need to take care of later.

And then it was time. Dorea closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and unleashed her magic. 

It hurt. Tears gathered in her eyes and her athame nearly slipped from her fingers as knives and picks and teeth bit at the flesh of her arms and shoulders and gnawed at her bones. The dark magic inside her that had been mostly contained by her own magic thrashed against weakened barriers, the heat feeling like it was baking her alive from the inside out.

She ignored it. It was just pain, and not even cursed pain. She’d been in the room with her cousin when she’d given birth to her first child, listened to her curse and scream and claim that she was never going to go through that again, only to get pregnant again just a few short months later. Pain would pass, would be just a memory in a few short hours. Results were what mattered, what stayed with you for the rest of your life.

She wrapped her magic around the muggle, cocooning it in heavy layers like a swaddled baby. Her power sank into its body, permeating every inch of meat and bone and then moving deeper and deeper still. Had it been a magical creature or another mage, Dorea might not have had enough power to fully subdue its own magic and saturate it. She was a Black, and unusually powerful for her age already from countless hours of practice and hard work, but this was a ritual designed with much older, more powerful practitioners in mind.

But Dorea’s victim was just a muggle. An unfortunate creature born with barely enough magic to give rise to  consciousness and not enough to perform even the most simplistic of elementary witchcraft. 

The magic at the edges of Dorea’s control tried to escape, but it was as trapped by the circle as the ambient magic outside. It filled the area, an invisible hazy of gold and opalescent black.

‘Me,’ Dorea declared silently, and her magic quivered. Dorea was her magic and her magic was her. 

She could feel the muggle’s life, a pounding heartbeat held tightly in her magic’s grasp. It was bigger than a rat’s, bigger than a deer’s, but her own heartbeat all but drowned it out. 

She could take it, add it to her own. It could be hers, healing her body and nourishing her life force, but that was not what she was looking for now.

She looked deeper. Past the beating of her heart, past the sweet magic filling the air, past the muggle’s shell of stained and ill-kept meat, until she finally found that glimmering star that separated superior beings from the most base of animals.

The muggle’s soul was a wispy, shapeless thing, with no true mass or depth. It reminded Dorea of the result of a failed patronus charm, something that was but should be more. For a moment Dorea sneered at it, appalled that something so pitfalls could exist in a form so close to her own, but she quickly refocused herself. That was the wrong mindset for the task at hand.

She wrapped it gently in her magic, light pressing shape, her shape, upon formless mist. ‘This is how you should look,’ she told it. ‘Remember your true shape,’ she lied sweetly.

Slowly but surely it resolved into a shadow of her own soul. Still wispy and lacking weight or depth, but nudged into a more perfect form by a firm yet gentle grip; a father’s hand guiding a child’s first steps, a mother’s grip showing the right way to hold a knife, a mentor’s gentle touch adjusting a stance.

Without opening her eyes, her hand rose and her athame fell, opening the muggle’s throat and splattering hot blood across her bare skin. 

The muggle’s soul tried to flee, dissolving back into mist and rushing away even as its life force began to dribble into nothingness. Dorea’s magic held it firm, locked into the form she’d told it was its own.

Subsumption worked differently for light witches than it did for those of the dark. Despite popular belief, it was possible. There were very few magics that could not be achieved from either end of the spectrum. It was simply a matter of difficulty. Some things were easier with light magic—healing, elemental spells, and shields to name a few. Others were easier with dark magic—curses, transfiguration, and crafting potions. 

It was much easier to subsume with dark magic. Dark magic loved to take and take and take until there was nothing left. With light magic, you had to be a little more circumspect. You weren’t stealing anything, because it was already a part of you and how can you steal something that is and has always been yours? 

‘Me,’ she declared to the world. Not mine, me. She was not stealing something, not lusting greedily for a soul that wasn’t hers. This was her soul. It had always been her soul. Separated from the greater whole, but no less a part of it.

The world protested. An immense pressure descended upon her, the weight of the sky threatening to squash her flat against the earth. There was a waver in the air, a sharp smell of anger and lies. Her arms cried out, her skin was on fire, and the amount of magic she’d used was leaving her feeling light headed.

Dorea squashed it all. She was Dorea Andromeda Black. This was her soul. Her blood, her body, her life, her magic. Hers, and no one else’s. Not now, not before, not ever.

‘Me,’ she declared again, and this time she added depth to her words. ‘Look,’ she told the magic. ‘Does not this soul seen like mine? Is not this blood the same that flows through my veins? Does not this flesh resemble my own?’ With each question, magic pulsed, listening and judging.

Dorea continued undaunted. ‘Are we not both filled with the same magic? I am simply reclaiming what has always been a part of me.’

The protest faded slightly, anger replaced with soft doubt. 

Dorea grasped blindly at what little life force was left in the muggle. Her grip on the muggle’s soul slackened slightly and a few particles vanished into nothingness, but she fixed her hold before it could fully slip away.

“Me,” she declared one last time, her voice echoing her thoughts. Her mind was cold and clear, no emotion but utter certainty allowed to exist. In that moment, she believed her own words, knew that the blood on her face and hands was her own and the cooling corpse between her knees was just as much Dorea Black as her own yet living flesh.

The world sighed, a soft breeze rustling their hair. ‘You,’ the magic agreed.

In an instant, the pressure bearing down on her vanished, and Dorea’s muscles could no longer hold her weight. She tipped forward, her athame clattering onto the floor, and then her forehead crashed painfully against a very similar, rapidly-cooling forehead.

If she’d had the strength, she would have cursed or cried out, but her body was completely limp and her muscles as weak as a baby’s. And yet, in that instant she felt good, amazing, absolutely incredibly…incredible. 

The pain she’d been pushing through was gone, only an echo of its presence lingering within her. She could still feel the caustic dark magic in her chest, but it was so far away and so very tiny.

She felt…more. It was exhilarating. Intoxicating. Like she’d regained a part of her she’d never quite noticed was missing.

A laugh bubbled up inside her chest and spilled out from between her lips. Exactly like that actually. This muggle animal had somehow stolen something from her, and now she’d taken it back. 

Something about that thought nagged her, a little spike of discomfort cutting through the bliss in her head. She shook her head and pushed it aside. It was probably nothing, and she was in a hurry.

She gestured behind her and her wand shot into her hand. There was a twinge of discomfort, but no real pain, and her wandless summoning charm had been smoother and faster than she’d ever managed before. 

A silent charm told her it was right about three in the morning. Later than she would have liked, but plenty early still. The ritual itself had only taken a few minutes, but the preparations had dragged on for hours. She needed to clean up and get out of here. 

“Tipsey,” she called.

The elf appeared beside her, peering up at her curiously. “Mistress Dorea be doing better,” it told her after a moment. “Tipsey be feeling it.” 

Dorea grinned. “Much better,” she agreed. She stretched her arms out above her head, then slowly lowered them out to the sides and wiggled her fingers, her wand balanced on her palm.

Tipsey nodded severely. “Tipsey be glad. Tipsey not like it when Mistress be hurting.”

Dorea couldn’t help but laugh again, giggles transitioning into peals that echoed off the walls. “Me too, Tipsey, me too.” She clapped her hands together sharply. “Now, let’s get this cleaned up and get out of here. Darius said he’d keep people from bothering me, but Bones has always been a nosy bitch and I don’t want anyone walking in on us here either. You deal with the mess, I’ll take care of the thief.”

“Tipsey be doing that!” The elf agreed, raising her hand to snap. Then she paused and looked back at Dorea. “Mistress Dorea be cleaning herself before she be putting on Mistress’s robe.” 

Dorea looked down at herself, seeing for the first time the partially blackened blood all over her hands, chest, and splattered a little just about everywhere else. Now that she was thinking about it, the line she’d drawn on her face felt like it had frozen solid and was rapidly heading north of pleasantly cool against her flushed skin. 

She grimaced. Blood used in ritual magic had the unfortunate tendency of being highly resistant to certain types of magic, like say, cleaning charms. She’d ruined a number of robes that way over the years and, while the House covered her basic expenses, replacing her rather expensive dueling uniform—the outfit that had been closest to her bed—would come out of her allowance. At least her underthings had just been regular bed clothes, she had plenty of extras. 

“Good catch,” she admitted grudgingly. 

This time it was Tipsey who grinned, a rather strange expression to see on an elf’s face. It was not something their kind did naturally, but rather a convention some elves picked up from their masters. “Tipsey just not be wanting to hear Mistress Dorea complaining.”

Stupid snarky house elf…