NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 77
At least the next TEN chapters (CHAPTER 87) are available on my pat reon. The link is at the bottom of the page.
Thank you to my Hero Patrons Stewart Baird and HectorXX00.
Thank you to my Superhero Patrons, Conradt Moore, Aaron and Khetsun XD. Thank you for all your support.
Thank you to my Legendary Hero Patrons, Caimbeul, Arkay, Bungyy, Firinen and Luis Ortiz. Thank you for your immense support.
Thank you to my Galactic Hero Patrons, TheBerryMan, OettamLass, Milo Farrell, Greatestkhan, Aethergrey314, Parzivel, Joshua Fletcher, jose Martinez, COnnner23244, Salty004, Anton, Will Turner, Endless_life, Warwick Robertson, Prince Acheampong and Evil_Bob for your extraordinary support.
Thank you to my Mystic Hero Patrons Arkhad, Lord Blood-Campione, Poke and Bobless. I can't thank you enough for your support.
Thank you all for your support. I truly appreciate it.
If you wish to become a supporter: "DragonField", on pat reon.
Or use the link at the bottom.
Disclaimer: If you recognise it, surprise, I don't own it.
Chapter 77- The Diadragcrux.
My finger was just only a few inches from touching the Diadem and picking it up when suddenly, the world began to spin around me. No, everything was spinning around me. When the vacuum of air finally disappears, and I could hear the ear-piercing boom, I realised that the world was spinning because I was blasted away by the damn Horcrux. Thankfully, I had realised that getting blasted away was a likely possibility in future fights, so I had come up with a countermeasure for this and for other such situations.
Bringing my wand up, I touch my chest, doing a Leviosa on the material, bringing me to a sudden stop. Of course, inertia and momentum don't like to just suddenly disappear, and they are pissed that I tried to defy them. My bones creak and I can feel my inner organs get all jostled around, not unlike when you are at the peak of a roller coaster and start to descend, just a lot more painful. I will have to check myself over after this is all done with, but for now, I need to focus and get in the zone, because while I was sent spinning through the room, the room was spinning around me.
With me now at a stop and floating down to the ground, gently resetting myself on the floor, I can finally see the world around me. The world in motion. Countless things that have accumulated over the centuries in Hogwarts' come-and-go room are finally being moved for the first time in forever, and I don't like it one bit. The furniture, jewellery, weapons... Everything. It was all swirling around me like a tornado, and all of it was being sucked directly towards the Diadem. It was only my quick thinking in putting up a quick Protego that saved me from the massive cabinet that almost crushed me, it smashing into smithereens around my shield, but even those pieces continued their travel towards the Diadem.
I can only watch, unable to do anything, as the items all congregate together, growing into a dense mass that gets bigger and bigger. I consider fleeing, but the storm of objects is just too much to get through, and when I look around, I realise that all these items getting sucked up hardly even dents the full storage of the room as every direction is covered by things. And I am so deep in right now that I don't even know which way to go to get out, and even if I did, I don't know how long it would take me to escape. Right now, I can only weather the storm.
Except, as I just stand there and brace myself against the barrage, I can't help but watch as the mass of items begins to take shape, the Diadem disappearing beneath the wave of random crap. And the crap starts to neaten out, the items being sucked in beginning to slow as limbs form, made of the objects. Arms with sharp claws made of swords and other weapons. Legs, hind legs that have a lot of pushing power. A thick, robust body. A monstrous snout with sharp teeth made of even more weapons. Massive twirling horns which spear through the air. And deeply sunk eye holes full of darkness except for an eerie blue glow shining in the depth, acting as eyes.
Yeah, I am freaking out. I am pretty sure this never happened in books or movies. I'm sure Harry had picked up the Diadem and moved it around, and nothing ever happened, even when they attacked to try and destroy it. I conjectured that Voldemort assumed only he knew about the room of requirement in his arrogance and didn't bother to put up any defences as he hid it within the maze of garbage. In fact, defensive spells and curses would probably draw attention. And that is why it didn't do anything like the other Horcruxes did. Except it did. So I had to think about what was different, and the only answer was... me.
The only thing this Horcrux did was feed the curse on the DADA position, and that means me. It is connected to me, so I theorise that the only reason it is acting out is that the person it is targeting has identified it and tried to take it. Therefore, it employed its countermeasures and defences and has gone into attack mode. Such a mode will only occur when the person it is being used on draws near, which is why Harry and others could take it, and if I was not the current defence Professor, then I could have as well. But I am the Professor, and this massive metal dragon in front of me wants to destroy me.
Yeah, I should have run even if I didn't know where I was going to be running to. I just ended up wasting time as this thing fully formed, and now I am standing in front of it like an idiot, and I'm not sure my shelf will hold up for long against the monstrosity before me. Well, hindsight is twenty-twenty. Maybe next time a situation like this occurs, I will take the opportunity to gain some distance and express some caution, but for now, that chance is well and truly gone. Well, no reason not to try. Tentatively, I begin to move slowly backwards, my left foot going back a step.
And then I am focusing all my energy on maintaining my Protego shield as a heavy metal claw slams down on it, the shield and metal clashing against each other and creating sparks as they vie for supremacy. Thankfully, the barrier holds, but just barely. As soon as the Horcrux creature lifts its palm, I employ another of the strategies I had thought up on my own. Dispelling my shield, I once more applied levitation charms to my clothes, giving me a bit of lift and then I banished the ground in front of me with a Depulso, pushing me backwards away from the dragon and towards a bunch of miscellaneous objects. When I thought up this move, I hadn't thought about things being in my escape trajectory.
Doing some quick thinking, I waved my wand forth. I let loose a bombarda that destroys the things in my way, but the resulting winds also slow down my momentum. I end up scrambling on the floor once more, and then I am running again. I really hope I didn't just blow up some useful shit, but either way, I wouldn't ever know. Thinking about it now, a Doctor Strange style cape would be really helpful with fleeing as it would let me fly and watch out for me of its own accord.
I quickly resume running, only daring to look back over my shoulder for a brief second, during which I catch a glimpse of the... I'm just going to call it a Dragcrux from now on. The Dragcrux is chasing after me, and it's quite fast as well, quickly gaining on me, and I wish there was something I could do to go faster. If there was some type of spell that enhanced my speed or if I could just get enough time to transfigure an animal that can fly and escape on it. Wait, flight!
Continuing to run, I reached to my side and grabbed hold of my magical pouch of holding and pulled it up, dipping my wand inside of it and envisioning what I wanted. "Accio broom!" I let go of the pouch, it returning to the side of my waist on account of the drawstring holding it there, as a tiny broom shoots out of it into the air, and I quickly snatch it in my hand. Man, am I glad I got those guys to make this for me. They were a bit pissed off with the amount of work I forced on them, but it paid off in the end as it's going to save me so I can come back later and work them even harder to make more money for me.
Right now, the thing in my palm is a tiny broom that looks like a mini figure; hell, I'd say it is about the size a broom would be for a little Lego character. I chuck it up in the air in front of me and jump towards it. The broom is getting bigger and reaching its full time just in time for me to land on it. Just in time too, as darkness encroaches and surrounds me and I realise that the Dragcrux had worked fast and was in the process of capturing me in its jaw, its mouth closing around me. Of course, with the Firebolt ultimate edition, that isn't a problem for me.
As the light fades, the sharp teeth closing around me, I kick my Firebolt broom into high gear and shoot forward, darting between the teeth and escaping the mouth just in time as I hear a massive clang behind me as the Dragcrux's mouth shuts. I try my hardest to keep control of the broom as I blast through the room, finding it difficult to avoid everything in the densely packed room. My thought process was that if it worked for Harry, then it could work for me. After all, Harry managed to escape and best a dragon in the fourth book with just a broom, so why couldn't I?
Well, first of all, while I do have memories of being a Quidditch seeker back in my Hogwarts days, I wasn't the very best at it like Harry was. I didn't have proper experience handling a broom, and the memories were very old, not to mention that the shoddy old broom I used to use was nothing compared to the beast I rode now. So yeah, I was hanging on by the skin of my teeth as I rode through the room of requirement, dodging stack after stack of random crap. And I am not even using the turbo function yet.
That's right, this broom has a turbo. I tricked this bitch out. Seriously, while I downgraded all the stuff that's on the market, I had all the researchers doing their things and making improvements, and this is the most up-to-date broom. The stuff in this... even I wasn't sure just how many things this baby could do. However, I do know that it wouldn't be rapid firing any Bombarda like I asked the think tank to do. That is gonna take a while, but they didn't say it was impossible. Yeah, my Leslie was excellent. That's right, I named her Leslie. Why? I don't know, it just seemed to fit.
I take a quick right turn, the equivalent of a handbrake turn in a car, and shoot in a new direction. The Dragcrux just narrowly swiped the air behind my broom. It would have crushed me if it wasn't on Leslie and riding her as hard as I could go. Yeah, this wasn't sustainable. Either this Dragcrux is going to get lucky and snap me up, or I am just gonna end up being unable to manoeuvre my broom properly and fly into something hard and unforgiving head-on and die straight away... or live long enough to get crushed by a big sharp pointy metal paw. No, I have to do something to avoid such a fate, but what?
I continue to fly, avoiding the dragon by inches, never able to get away and never able to find a way out of this room, which just seems to go on and on, or maybe I am just running around in circles in my panic. Either way, I try various different things to try and make my escape, starting with just blasting the bloody thing and hoping enough battle damage would suck its power dry and end up with the Diadem just falling to the ground, powerless and easy for me to take. But no, every time I used a big damaging spell on it, it would be useless.
A Bombarda would explode it apart, and Expulso would hit it and penetrate deep; Incendio just splashed off of it, and Confringo's would burn some of it away, but none of it mattered. It just kept regenerating. No, maybe that's not the right word for it. It just kept devouring more of the objects in the room, sucking them in and turning them into part of its body, healing any damage done. I think at this point, the only way I can possibly take it down through enough damage is for all of the objects in the room to be entirely destroyed down to their last iota. Otherwise, it is just going to keep regenerating. And I don't think I have enough magic in me to eviscerate everything in the room, and I don't want to either. There is definitely useful shit in here, and my innate greed would never let me forget the loss.
So straight-up fighting would not work; escaping was possible but very unlikely. To be frank, I am the lone morsel of meat caught between a starving lion and a horny hippo; I'm fucked. If I just keep running, then I am just going to run out of steam; if I keep trying my futile attacks on the Dragcrux, then I am just going to run out of steam. And I don't know how much steam I have left. I need to do something, or it's going to do something to me. And I need to stop thinking about this and do my overthinking things and doing those non-sequitur things to prolong my dealing with it. But I can't keep doing that; I have to face this. I have to face the Dragcrux.
Of course, just because I decided on that didn't mean I was about to charge straight in like a meathead and go into an all-or-nothing brawl. I'm not the shounen protagonist type that can pull that off; I'm the neutral, evil, scummy protagonist type that tries to rule the world. This is a life-or-death battle, so of course, I am not going to just throw myself into it. But then again, when you have nothing else left that you can do, what other choice do you have? None. Still, before I threw myself into it, I thought about what I could do and ultimately came to the only thing I could think of, as it was a tried and true method. Even if it might just defeat the purpose of why I came here in the first place, my survival takes priority.
Still being chased by the Dragcrux, I implemented my thought-up-on-the-spot plan, slowing down enough to give the Dragcrux a feeling that it could actually get me this time, and when it lunged to eat me, I sped up into the air and looped around to fly over it's back, going in the opposite direction. I must have been in the zone or something because as I flew over its back, various weapons shot out along its spine, trying to pierce me. Still, somehow, I managed to twist and turn through them, coming out unharmed and zooming off in the opposite direction that the Dragcrux was heading.
This wouldn't allow me to escape, but it would buy me some time. I look back and witness as the Dragcrux screeches to a halt, its legs scrambling against the ground and knocking numerous things around as it tries to turn back around and chase me. I have some time, which I use to fly as far as I can, hoping to see anything I recognise or the exit which I don't, and by this time, the Dragcrux is already running towards me again. Resigning myself to the plan, knowing I have no other option, I touch down on the ground, quickly shrinking and pocketing my broom before waving my wand and banishing everything around me away.
I put a lot of power into that, blasting everything around me as far away as it could possibly go, even the Dragcrux in the distance receiving a bit of the brunt of it and getting stalled for a couple of moments by the intense wind. With that sweep, everything now had at least a one-hundred-meter radius from me, and damn, was this room big because I still couldn't see anything else. But with this, I was at least assured that it would be somewhat controlled and I would be able to not let it spread and possibly destroy everything in the room. I would be doing my damndest to control it, but I had only managed to practice this some before arriving at Hogwarts, after which I didn't dare to in this school full of children.
The Dragcrux is now in my circle, and it is time for my sixty-four palms. Ha. No, it's time for something much worse and destructive than that, and it's the only option I have right now.
"Fiendfyre."
Nothing to say. Random question then, what's your favourite show?
Did you like the interlude? Seeing all of the current Blacks and what they are up to? I should really do more of the often; it's nice to break up the story a bit every once in a while. What do you think?
If you want to discuss this or any other topic further, follow the link to my Discord.
The link to everything you need and my patronage:
https://linktr. ee/dragonfield
(Remover the space between the dot and the ee)
That is all for now. I hope you enjoyed the chapter. I will see you in the next one!
Stay safe, and have fun!