Visitors

Deciding that saying something 'tastes like Christmas Dinner' would be categorically impossible for a Dark Wizard utilizing their titular Dark Powers to mentally control an injured eleven-year-old girl, Milo had relented and returned Hannah's wand in order for her to magic up some fire to warm their freezing tent.

It was late—Milo wasn't sure how late, because his nap of unknown length had thrown his perception even of passing rounds and the sun went down very early this far north in the dead of winter—when they heard yet another audible crunch in the snow outside, waking Milo up from a deep sleep he hadn't quite realized he'd ever started.

Milo cursed (figuratively speaking—not a literal Curse. Milo briefly wondered if that was the reason the locals seemed to use the word 'cuss') under his breath, and not only because there was a decent probability that the Redcap's (or "Red Cap" as the locals called them) buddies had come to finish what the first one had started (or, perhaps, to finish off the first one, yum). He required eight hours of continuous, uninterrupted rest to prepare new spells and regain hit points, so his injuries (which would have certainly killed someone from Hannah's world) were exactly as painful and sore as they were however long ago it had been since they'd been inflicted.

Milo glanced over at Hannah, whose eyes were wide and alert.

Well, we're screwed, he thought.

Milo, as stealthily as he could (which is not, admittedly, particularly stealthy without any ranks in Hide or Move Silently), pulled his quarterstaff out of his Belt of Hidden Pouches and raised the tent flap very slightly. Unfortunately, he couldn't see anything but snow from his narrow window.

"Stay here," Milo said quietly to Hannah. "I'll go see what's outside."

Hannah, her face pale and ashen, became determined.

"No," she whispered. "I've got a wand, and I can do magic, which is more than I can say for you."

"But—" Milo said, a hundred protests coming to mind. You're not a PC. Your injuries are debilitating, mine are not. You're lower level. The spells you know are not combat optimized.

But despite everything, the practical part of his mind agreed she did have a point. Hannah, despite being a novice at magic, had no limit on spells per day and even the simple Jinxes and Hexes that Hogwarts students used on each other to settle heated disagreements would be more effective than a quarterstaff wielded at a measly +2 BAB and a -1 Strength Penalty—at least, when used in the number that Hannah was capable of, which was infinite.

"Fine, we'll go together," he said at last. "On three, we leap out of the tent and catch them by surprise—try to stay behind me, my robes are enchanted to protect me. I'll club anything that gets close, you hex anything that moves." Milo couldn't believe he was volunteering to tank damage so someone else could cast. It was just so, so wrong.

"Okay," Hannah said, fear and excitement battling evident in almost equal parts in her voice.

"And remember—you're braver than you think."

"I'm braver than I think. I'm braver than I think," Hannah said, constantly repeating the words under her breath as she did in the Sorting Ceremony.

"One... Two..." Milo took a deep breath. "Three!"

The two heavily injured spellcasters did not so much charge out of the tent, which would have been, perhaps, more dramatically appropriate, as they did stagger out painfully. They were a pretty pathetic sight, and the only foes they would have intimidated would be those who were both squeamish about blood and who were in possession of excellent night vision.

To the heroes in question, however, it felt as if they were leading the charge in the Battle of Vienna, with the might of tens of thousands of heavily armed and armoured elite cavaliers at their back, all thirsting for blood.

"WAAAAAAAGH!"

"Wha' in the ruddy hell?" came a surprised, thickly accented voice from the chill darkness.

"Mister Hagrid?" Hannah asked, stunned.

"Dancing Lights," Milo cast, while Hannah cast Lumos. Four glowing white spheres of light shot out of Milo's hands, flying in a search pattern around their immediate vicinity while Hannah's wand tip glowed brightly. Hagrid's huge body came into clear view, holding his crossbow in one hand and Fang's leash in another.

"Wha' are you lot doin' out here?" Hagrid asked. "And is tha'—is tha' blood?"

Milo narrowed his eyes.

"How do I know you're really Hagrid?" he asked suspiciously, leaning heavily on his quarterstaff.

"Wha' kinda question is tha'?" Hagrid asked. "Yeh know another bloke o' my size who jus' happens ter have a crossbow an' a dog?"

"I think," Hannah said quietly to Milo, "that we'd best trust him. He's kind of our only hope."

Milo still stared at him suspiciously, trying to decide what he would do if he had the ability to simply possess people—something he didn't, as he'd forsworn the Enchantment school altogether when he specialized in Conjuration. Presumably, powerful wizards and witches had some form of defence against mental intrusion—otherwise, Dumbledore would long since have been turned into a puppet of some Dark Wizard and used to rule the world. Likely, that ruled McGonagall, Snape, Flitwick, and Quirrell out as well as potential puppets (although, not as suspects necessarily. Milo needed another glance at his Plot flowchart just to remind himself who was currently trying to kill him). Hagrid, who apparently had no magical power of his own at all, was therefore an obvious choice to possess... at least, at first glance. If Milo were behind this, he'd simply choose another student. Obviously, the possessor was able to force his puppets to use spells the puppets would normally be unable to, which essentially bumped up any possessed student to Dark Master level of threat.

So, assuming his possessor had, in fact, any brains at all (and Milo's numerous assumptions were correct), Hagrid was probably just Hagrid.

"Okay," Milo said. "But be careful."

"Now, can someone explain wha' the ruddy hell is goin' on? Actually, nevermind tha'," Hagrid said, looking closer at the extent of Hannah's and Milo's injuries. "We gotta get yeh up ter the hospital wing. Can yeh walk? Ah, nevermind, I'll jus' carry yeh. Yeh can explain on the way."

Hagrid hung his crossbow from a strap on his shoulder, and held out a big, meaty hand to Hannah and Milo. Neither he nor Hannah had the same level of friendship with Hagrid that Harry (and, to a lesser extent, Ron and Hermione) had developed, and the pair of them hesitated for a moment.

Milo shrugged and climbed aboard, Hannah soon following suit.

Hagrid carried the pair of them in a surprisingly gentle manner, given his somewhat brutish appearance. On the way, Milo decided he might as well tell Hagrid what happened. Hannah, however, was being unusually silent.

"This morning, I heard that Hannah went out into the snow—"

"Are yeh mad, girl?" Hagrid asked Hannah.

"Sorry," Hannah said in a quiet voice.

"Hang on Hagrid, it wasn't her idea. I went out after her—"

"Why didn' yeh jus' tell Dumbledore? Or McGongall?" Hagrid asked.

"Er..." Milo said. Why hadn't he told anyone? In hindsight, what he'd done seemed remarkably stupid. "Anyways, I tracked her down with magic, eventually, but she tried to hex me."

"Why would yeh do tha'?" Hagrid asked. "Ruddy bad manners, if yeh ask me."

"Wasn't her choice, Hagrid," Milo said again, patiently. "she was being controlled by magic, or something."

"What?" Hagrid asked, and stopped moving. "Are yeh sure?"

"Oh, pretty sure alright," Milo said, Hannah's horrible, uncaring expression coming back to mind.

"We have ter tell Dumbledore," Hagrid said, and started moving again, this time at a greatly increased pace. Milo carried on, explaining about the encounter with the Redcap.

"Why didn' yer jus' use—" Hagrid began.

"Uh," Milo interrupted, not wanting to go into details about how he was a different sort of wizard. "Never quite got a hang of that spell."

"Well, wha' abou'—"

"Nope, nor that one."

"Yeh really gotta do more practicin'," Hagrid urged. "Them's ruddy simple spells."

"Yeah... I'll do that."

"An' the Redcap's wha' hurt Hannah?" Hagrid asked, wading through the snow as if it wasn't there.

Milo fell silent for a moment, at a loss for words. The terrible fear he'd felt when he'd first realized who his attacker was returned like a defeated Dark Wizard with access to the Clone spell.

"Yes," Hannah said. "Used Milo's knife on me. Fortunately Milo knows a bit of Muggle medicine, or..." she trailed off, and fell back into silence.

"Firs' sensible thing yeh did all day," Hagrid said critically. "An' I'll be havin' a word with Flitwick. Healin' Charms ought ter be on the curriculum; ruddy useful, they are. Er. Not tha' I know firsthand, o' course."

"So," Milo said, wanting to press through this next awkward bit as quickly as possible, "I, er, killed the Redcap."

"Though' yeh said yeh didn' have yer wand?"

"I used a big stick."

"The other Red Caps aren' gonna like tha'," Hagrid said, concerned. "Bu' it explains Fang."

"Oh?" Milo asked, curious.

"Bou' a half hour ago, he made a righ' racket, so I let him out. Must've smelled its blood—Red Caps have a very distinct scent, yeh know. Led me righ' ter yeh. Migh' a' saved yer lives."

"That's... very convenient," Milo said, looking at the dog. Suspicions started to grow in his mind, but he shook them off—surely he was just being paranoid, seeing puppeteering behind every shadow. Besides, he thought, why would the Dark Wizard have possessed the dog to help save me? Whoever it was clearly wanted me dead.

Unless...

Milo's brow furrowed, lost deep in thought despite the freezing cold and rumblings from Hagrid, who was still chastising them for being reckless.

Could it have been reconnaissance? Milo wondered. Did someone attack me just to find out how I'd fight back? Hannah did open up with Stunners, I think—although, why they're called Stunners, I have no idea, as they leave the target Unconscious, not merely Stunned—although she did fire off a number of Killing Curses as well...

And in any case, if someone wants to find out how I fight, it can only be because they plan on fighting me themselves. Meaning they want me dead. Meaning they would have just left me to, hopefully, expire in the cold.

Something still felt wrong, though, although Milo couldn't quite figure out what it was.

Regardless of their intentions, Milo thought, I may have revealed my hand. They saw Glitterdust, Grease, and Summon Monster III. They'll probably have worked out a counter to them by the time they challenge me in person—and they know about my last-ditch contingency plan... Milo cursed himself. Which can easily be countered by preventing me from speaking. And in any case, Gating in enough Efreeti to Wish myself into omnipotence would take minutes or hours, so is effectively impossible in the middle of a combat.

So, Milo thought as Hagrid carried him and Hannah to safety, what would I do to kill me, given what I'd know about myself and the local magic?

The answer was surprisingly simple.

Surprise attack with an Avada Kedavra loaded with as many Attack Bonus-boosting buffs possible.

To which the only defence was... what? To anticipate the attack? To not be there to begin with? Death Ward would counter the Killing Curse, but it was a Cleric spell. Nerveskitter would help him win on Initiative, but that wouldn't do much if the attacker had a Surprise Round.

Milo needed to have a good, long look at his spellbooks to determine what, if anything, he could do to counter such an attack.

A loud creak broke Milo out of his train of thought. With a start, Milo realized that they were already at the castle, and Hagrid had just pushed the main door open with his shoulder. Hagrid wasted no time carrying them up the stairs to the hospital wing, which Milo was starting to think of as a second home.

The giant groundskeeper rapped hard on the doors until Pomfrey, still in her dressing gown, opened it sleepily. She took one look at the children and sighed.

"What did he do this time?" she asked (Milo resented, somewhat, the implied accusation that it had been his fault—until he remembered that Hannah's injuries actually had been by his hand), but despite the exasperation evident in her tone, she had them lying down on the firm cots and checked over in record time—after shooing out Hagrid, that is, who didn't mind as he was leaving anyways to go find Dumbledore.

She gasped when she saw the extent of their injuries.

"What happened to you?" she asked Hannah. Then, after thinking a moment, added "No, nevermind. Dumbledore will sort that out later; don't say anything." A few Healing Charms later and Hannah was out of the worst of it, albeit still exhausted and sore.

"And as for you," she said, turning back to Milo, "I think all you need is bandages, a Cleaning Charm to stave off infection, and prolonged bedrest, based on your rather numerous prior visits to my hospital wing." The truth was, though she didn't say anything, that she was afraid to do anything else—she lay awake at night in a cold sweat caused by wondering what the hell the reason was behind his physiology, especially his apparent super healing powers.

"But—" Milo protested.

"No buts. Now if you excuse me, I believe I'm shortly going to have to fend off the Headmaster, and it always helps to have a certain measure of mental preparation before attempting so daunting a task. You two just try and get some sleep."

The strict little mediwitch bustled off, muttering under her breath about how people never seem to require emergency medical attention at a reasonable hour, showing no consideration whatsoever. That left Milo and Hannah alone in the dark hospital wing (with the exception of the gently snoring Neville Longbottom, who had broken several ribs when Peeves had dropped a bust of some old, long forgotten headmaster on him. As it turned out, Peeves had actually, as far as anyone could tell, dropped it by accident. Go figure.)

"So," Milo started saying to break the awkward silence. "How about that local sports te—"

"Why did you go looking for me?" Hannah asked. Then she paused for a moment. "I mean, before you knew I was out in the snow. Agh, you know what I mean."

"Right!" said Milo, who felt sort of dumb. "What time is it?" There was a clock on the wall, but he still couldn't make heads or tails of all the numbers.

"Uh," Hannah said, momentarily thrown. "It's, uh, 11:54. But what does—"

"So, it's still Christmas?" he asked.

"Yeah, for six—no, wait, make that five minutes."

"Awesome," Milo said, visibly relieved. "Okay, hang on a second, I need to find something." Sifting through the many pockets of his Belt of Hidden Pouches (technically, he could just hold his hand over it and order the belt to spit out whichever item inside that he wanted, but he wanted to stay out of the habit of doing things that way to prevent from announcing to the world what he was about to draw), he eventually found the small package he was looking for.

"I had a lot of difficulty with this," Milo admitted. "See, where I'm from, we don't really give presents very frequently. People, well, Adventurers are least, tend to hoard their money and treasure and wouldn't dream of parting with it for anything. When we get presents, it's usually for, I dunno, rescuing the Prince's sister from bandits or clearing out a cave of Orcs. We tend to ignore holidays, and, frankly, I don't know what the NPCs do during them. So I'm kind of new to this whole Christmas thing; it's... bizarre. So I asked around, and from what I understand, most people buy something from shopkeepers that they think the recipient would enjoy. I tried that, at first, but ran into a number of difficulties—anything I wanted, I'd have to owl order, obviously, because there aren't any shops in Hogwarts. But also... this world is strange. I don't understand what any of the local wizarding stuff is or does, most of the time, so I wouldn't know what to buy or even where to look for what to buy. Back in Azel, there's strict price and production controls and everybody knows exactly what's for sale everywhere and that a bucket will always go for five Silver Pieces. They're posted in the Equipment Lists. And don't even get me started on the Muggle stuff; it's more foreign to me than Psionics."

Hannah stared at him oddly, apparently not understanding some of the terminology but, generally speaking, getting the gist.

"You didn't have to... I mean, you shouldn't have worried about it."

"I was led to believe it was important," he shrugged. "Anyways, I came to the conclusion fairly quickly that if I was going to get you a present, I'd have to make it myself. The thing is, mundane stuff—er, non-magical, that is—can, from what I can tell, be made by Muggles better and faster than anything I could pull off, even if I used magic to help. But what I can make, and I'm pretty good at it, is Magic Items."

"But, that sounds really expensive..."

"Eh," Milo shrugged. "I've got ways of making money fast, if I need to. That wasn't the big problem."

"What was the big problem?" Hannah asked riveted.

"Every single Magic Item—and I mean every Magic Item that has ever been designed—is for killing, or in some manner facilitating the killing of, Goblins and Dragons and things. That, or for carrying their stuff away afterwards. Any other use is largely the result of happy accident or complete afterthought. And killing Goblins isn't something that you seem particularly interested in," Milo said, as if the notion was both unthinkable and unpleasant, "so I had to see if I could twist the purpose of already existing Magic Items for more... civilian" (Milo was about to say 'NPC,' but stopped himself at the last second) "purposes. And there were a few that could do that—I mean, this Belt of Hidden Pouches I have would be handy for anyone, right? Same with a Magic Bedroll or maybe a bag of Everlasting Rations." Milo paused for a moment. "Something with Endure Elements, now that I think about it, probably would have been a good idea. But anyways, everything I found, even then, required spells only available to Clerics or Druids or whatever. Wizards are usually... a bit more on the offensive side of things."

"Look, it's totally fine if you didn't get me anything," Hannah said quietly. "I wouldn't have minded."

"So, the list of already designed Magic Items exhausted, I realized I had to design something from scratch, so I turned to the spells I did know to see what I could do. I had... similar problems. To a somewhat lesser extent, a Wizard's spells are almost all designed for combat; even the utility ones are mostly to help a Wizard get to—or, knowing Wizards, away from—combat. There was nothing that seemed particularly... fun," Milo said the last word as if it were from an unfamiliar foreign language. "So, I said, 'screw it!'" (Milo's actual wording, which he wisely decided not to repeat to Hannah, was somewhat different from this) "'I'll do what an Adventurer does best and combine spells that were never designed to be combined, gosh darn it!' And this, your present, is the result. But before I give it to you, I need an answer to a very important question."

"What's that?" Hannah asked, looking somewhat surprised.

"What's your favourite animal?" Milo asked.

Hannah thought about it for a moment.

"Hamsters," she said. "Definitely hamsters."

"Okay," Milo said. "Cool. Just one second." Milo had left, literally, one second in the Magic Item crafting process unfinished when he'd originally made the item right before Christmas Eve. The result was the he could, at this point, still change any of the variables that had to be decided 'during item creation.' "Now, here you are, Hannah Abbot," Milo passed her the present, wrapped in festive-looking holiday paper. "Happy Christmas."

"Thank you," she said, accepting the package and, not being one of those fussy people who simply remove the tape and leave the paper unblemished, tore the wrapping paper to pieces from the middle outwards in about a third of a second. Then she gasped. Inside, in a tiny box, was a tiny, fine (admittedly, somewhat lopsided looking) fragile-looking silver lily that could be attached to clothes by means of a minute pin on the back of the stem. An actual silversmith would shudder at the sight of Milo's somewhat crude handiwork, but, all told, it was pretty well done given that Milo didn't actually have in ranks in any form of Craft.

"I made it by heating up a Sickle until it was malleable enough to sculpt," Milo said. "Couldn't have done it without those dragonhide gloves we have for Herbology and Potions."

"It's beautiful," Hannah said, somewhat breathless. No doubt her perceptions were somewhat addled by her traumatic day, sleep deprivation, and whatever was in the potions that Pomfrey had prescribed for her, as the silver lily was could only be described as beautiful when using the loosest possible sense of the word.

Milo shrugged, somewhat embarrassed.

"That's not really the point," he admitted. In truth, he'd made it out of silver so it could be used as an improvised weapon against Devils if necessary (it never hurts to be prepared, after all) but Milo decided, for some reason, against saying so at that precise moment. "If you tap it and say 'I'm bored,' it'll—actually, just tap it and say that you're bored and you'll see."

Looking at Milo curiously, Hannah complied.

"I'm bored," she said, tapping the silver pin.

Nothing happened.

"Oh, right, you have to be wearing it first," Milo said. "Forgot about that part."

Hannah, looking extremely curious, pinned the lily to the front of her robes.

"I'm bored," she repeated, with another tap. Suddenly, a small, fluffy, impossibly cute—in fact, almost sickeningly so—brown and white hamster appeared in her hands. "It's so cute!" Hannah squealed in the manner of little girls everywhere as the hamster scurried up her arm, chirping in a manner that would make real hamsters feel like they had to go and watch Die Hard while doing one-handed push-ups just to counter the sheer adorability. The hamster didn't have fat so much as it had pudge, fur so much as it had fluff, or eyes so much as it had big, glassy, shiny windows to your very soul. Simply seeing it required a Will save, or you were compelled to want to hug it (okay, not really, but it may as well have).

Milo was particularly proud about his little invention, which was simply a tricked-out Wondrous Item of Unseen Servant and Minor Image (both of which he had had to research specifically for this task) and a little Detect Thoughts. The Servant, which was a formless, invisible blob capable of moving around and exerting a limited amount of force, was surrounded with an illusory body of an animal chosen during item creation (in this case, a hamster), the specifics of which were chosen by using a brief Detect Thoughts-like effect on the pin's first user to find the form that user would find to be maximally cute. The Servant was then ordered to play with the user until dismissed, unless otherwise commanded.

"This," Hannah said, the hamster running up her arm to the shoulder, "is the best Christmas present ever."

"Thank you! Er, or you're welcome. I'm not actually sure which is applicable here," he admitted.

"I believe both are perfectly acceptable," Hannah said, stifling a laugh.

"You just tap the pin and say 'Bye' and it'll go away until you reactive it," Milo explained. "It can do other stuff, if you tell it to, like carry or clean things."

"Things like Hogwarts statues?" Hannah asked eagerly.

"Things exactly like Hogwarts statues," Milo said.

"Thank you," Hannah said again. "Really. I mean it, you clearly put a lot of effort into this. I was just going to get you a big pack of Every Flavoured Beans, 'cause of how much you enjoyed them on Hallowe'en, but now—"

"Every Flavoured Beans?!" Milo's face broke into a huge smile. "I love those things."

Hannah hesitated for a second.

"Okay, then I'll still get you a big pack of Every Flavoured Beans. I've got them up in the girls' dorm... I didn't give them to you already, because, er... well. It doesn't matter now, actually." She must mean the week or so she wasn't talking to me 'cause I asked her about the lake, Milo thought. People are strange. "You can have them in the morning."

"Sweet," Milo said.

"No pun intended?" Hannah asked.

Milo groaned.

"Bye, hamster," Hannah said, tapping the pin, and the impossible cute critter vanished. Hannah hesitated for a moment, then said "I'd go over and give you a hug, or something," she looked somewhat embarrassed, "except that I don't think my legs really want to respond."

"That's okay," Milo said, feeling somewhat awkward. "I'll take a rain cheque."

"Good, good," Hannah said, and an awkward silence, punctured only by Neville's calm and consistent snoring, descended for a beat or three as Milo decided there was absolutely nothing more fascinating than his fingernails and Hannah examined the pin.

"So, how about—" Milo said, while Hannah said "I think we should—" at the same time. They both, then, paused for the other to continue.

"You go first," they said simultaneously. They both looked around the room, for a while, waiting for the other to continue.

"I was going to say we should maybe go to sleep," Hannah said.

"Same," agreed Milo.

"Okay, goodnight!" she said, and rolled over to face away from him.

"Goodnight."

People are weird, Milo thought again—and not for the last time, at that—and rolled over to do the same.

o—o—o—o

"So, you have defeated my minions!" Thamior the Thaumaturge spat, reaching for his pouch of fell spell components. "But—do you really think you can challenge me? You fools! For it is I, the Dread Ma—"

"Wait—Thamior?" Milo said as his companions reached for their weapons, "I'm confused."

"That is only natural, seeing as how you are a fool, fool!"

"It's just that I thought Thamior was a male name," Milo said, his tone kept carefully neutral.

"Which is fitting, seeing as how I am, in fact, male," Thamior said, slightly confused—and evidently irritated at being interrupted in the middle of his monologue.

"But you're an Elf," Milo said.

"You have a talent for stating the obvious, fool! Unfortunately, it won't help you avoid joining my Legion of the Da—"

"But I thought there weren't any Elf males?"

"You will pay for your insolence!" the purple-cloaked Thamior shouted, his eyes glowing red. "When I am god-emperor of all the multiverse, I will – wait, what's going on?"

Milo felt a strange tingling sensation somewhere in his midriff, gradually growing to encompass his torso. In a panic, he looked down to find that, where his stomach should be, there was a slowly growing sphere of darkness, occasionally crackling with what looked like green lightning.

"Gah!" Milo said, the sphere growing to reach his neck. "What did you—how did—I won Initiative, damnit! This isn't fair!" but Thamior looked just as surprised as Milo felt, and was backing away slowly from him.

There was a brief flash of blindingly bright light, and Milo suddenly felt cold all over. His lungs strained painfully, trying futilely to find air, and his brain screamed at him that things were very, very wrong. Gravity seemed to tug at him inconsistently in every direction, before finally agreeing to pull him backwards. He struggled, swinging his arms wildly to try and find something solid, anything, until...

—Thud—

Milo sat bolt upright clutching his side where just a moment before, the sphere of blackness had begun to grow. To his surprise, he realized both his hands were wrapped around his Belt of Hidden Pouches.

He looked around, expecting danger, but saw instead only the depressingly familiar sights of the Hogwarts hospital wing. He blinked, realizing it was only a dream... and a weirdly vivid one, at that. Milo couldn't, this time, speak from experience, but from what he'd heard from other Adventurers, dreams that were more like flashbacks were always important to the plot. The only thing was, in this case, he couldn't figure for the life of him how this could be so.

Milo wasn't sure how long he was staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out what the Hells was going on, what had brought him here, and just what the significance of his dream was when he realized he wasn't alone. (Well, he knew he wasn't alone—Neville's rumbling snores, unfortunately, made sure of that. Also, Hannah. Okay, he obviously wasn't alone. What Milo meant to think was that there was someone else, awake, in the hospital wing with him. You could consider cutting him some slack, of course, seeing as how he just woke up).

"Professor?" Milo asked curiously.

"M-Milo," Professor Quirrell, standing by the door, stammered. "I w-was just checking in on y-y-you, to s-s-see if you would b-be up for the D-Duelling C-Club on Sunday."

"That's..." Milo did some rapid arithmetic. "Four days from now? Definitely. I'll be up and about by tomorrow."

"I-indeed?" Quirrell asked, surprised. "Y-your injuries l-look m-m-most severe. I s-s-see the good M-Madam P-P-Pomfrey has opted n-not to use m-magic on you?"

Milo shrugged painfully.

"I can heal anything short of death in about a day, if I have help. I think Pomfrey's afraid of how your magic will interact with my... well, with me, I guess."

"W-well," Quirrell said, glancing at the clock. "I'm afraid that I h-have to r-r-run; the D-Doxies in the d-d-dungeon won't ch-chase themselves out. I w-wish you a speedy r-r-recovery, and, to that end, left y-you a present," Quirrell gestured at a box of Chocolate Frogs on Milo's bedside table. "G-goodbye."

"Erm. Bye! Thanks," Milo said. The DADA professor walked out of the room at about a half-step faster than normal walking speed, presumably to avoid a lecture from Pomfrey. Milo waited for the door to close behind him, then turned to the frogs.

"Detect Poison," he cast, just in case. When they turned out to be clean, he stashed them in his Belt for later. Milo glanced at the heavy mechanical clock on the wall, noting that, while he could tell that the little hand was pointed at just past the six and the big hand was pointing at the three, he had no idea what that was supposed to mean. Deciding it didn't really matter one way or the other, Milo figured he ought to just go back to sleep.

Only a few minutes passed before Milo heard the door creak open.

"Back, Professor?" Milo asked, sitting up despite his protesting muscles and various grievous wounds.

"Front, Student?" came an aged, grandfatherly voice.

"Headmaster?" Milo asked, genuinely surprised, as Dumbledore walked calmly up to his bed, dressed in his signature purple robes and half-moon spectacles. "I thought Madam Pomfrey—"

"What the good mediwitch said to me was, in fact, and I quote, 'you won't be bothering any of my patients tonight, Headmaster, Supreme Mugwump or no.' As it is, in fact, now the morning and not, in fact, the night, her prohibition is no longer in effect." Dumbledore paused for a moment. "But, ah, it is entirely possible that she would not, in fact, see eye-to-eye on my interpretation of her command, so if you would be so good as to keep your voice down...?"

"Sure," Milo responded quietly. "What brings you here? And, more importantly, why did you say 'Front, Student?'"

"I was taking, as it were, a shot in the dark at what I had guessed—incorrectly, as it would appear—might be a social custom from your homeland. You see, you said, 'Back, Professor,' so I thought that, perhaps, the correct response was to, as is the custom among a small tribe of Merfolk living in a pond in Kashmir, to say the precise opposite. Alas, as is so often the case when one ventures into the murky grounds of speculation, I was incorrect. And as to your first question, I am here, as you can surely guess, to question you about the events of yesterday."

"Oh, that. It's fairly straightforward," Milo said, and gave Dumbledore a rather more accurate version of the story than the one he gave Hagrid (lying to Dumbledore's face seemed, to Milo, about on par with kicking a Lantern Archon). To his credit, Dumbledore sat patiently, listening to the entire story through until the end before asking questions.

"—and then Fang led Hagrid to us, and he carried us back to the castle," Milo finished. "Speaking of which, I'm going to need to go back at some point to get my rope and stuff. Made by Elves, you know." Or at least the sign had said so. In truth, it was hard to find rope anywhere that wasn't claimed to have been made by Elves.

"By Elves? One day, when we both are free from the constant pressings of urgent business, I would greatly enjoy listening to you tell me all about the strange land from which you hail. But, until then, some much briefer answers to more specific questions will have to suffice. First, could you explain to me exactly what the effects are of the Charm you cast on Hannah to free her from the effects of her mental control?"

"Sure," Milo said. "Protection From Evil. Right now, it lasts up to five minutes, but I can push that to seven with these gloves," Milo held up his gloved hands, wiggling his fingers somewhat, "and for the duration, the target can't be affected by any form of mental control. When the spell ends, the control starts up again. Also, they can't be touched by summoned non-Good monsters."

"Fascinating," Dumledore said. "That little spell of yours would have saved the Ministry a great deal of trouble over the years."

"May I counter with a question of my own?" Milo asked.

"Of course you may," Dumbledore said, "but whether I shall answer or not is, I am afraid, another matter entirely. I can promise this: everything I say shall be the unblemished truth."

"Can you tell me how Hannah was being controlled, who did it, where they live, and how well protected they are?"

Dumbledore laughed softly.

"That was four questions, you realize, and I am afraid that I am only able to answer the first. I cannot be sure until I question Miss Abbot directly, of course, but I am quite certain that she was the unfortunate victim of one of the darkest forms of magic known. You already have, unfortunately, witnessed the use of the most terrible of the three Unforgivable Curses, the Killing Curse." Milo nodded. It was the first spell he'd seen cast by the wizards of this world, in fact. "The curses are so-called because the use of one on a human being is enough to warrant a life's sentence in Azkaban, the wizard prison. Normally, the specifics of the Unforgivables are not learned until a student's Sixth Year, but in your case, I fear you may well be in danger without being forewarned. Along with the Killing Curse are the Cruciatus Curse, which causes extreme pain in its victim, and the Imperius Curse. This last one, despite being the most pleasant for the unfortunate victim, has caused more disasters, deaths, and crises than the other two put together, directly or indirectly. The Imperius curse allows direct mental control over the target for, if necessary, years at a time. Used by a skilled wizard or witch, is almost impossible to detect and even harder to resist."

"You mean, it doesn't allow a Will Save?" Milo asked, incredulous. Such a spell was too powerful to exist.

"I'm afraid I don't altogether understand the question," Dumbledore admitted. "Who is Will, and why does he need saving?"

"Uh," Milo said. "I mean, it can't be fought off with strength of will alone?"

"Oh, it is possible," Dumbledore conceded, "but only a handful of exceptionally strong-willed individuals are able to do so."

"You're kidding, right?" Milo asked. These wizards were insanely broken. A spell that killed on a touch attack without a save was bad enough—at least you had to be hit. But add in a spell that lets you Dominate someone indefinitely and had, apparently, an incredibly large bonus to its DC? Milo was briefly surprised that the whole Ministry wasn't run by Dark Wizards, before remembering how many pies Lucius Malfoy had his fingers in.

Well, he thought, that would explain why people don't seem to realize how obviously evil he is. Anyone with any power is probably his thrall already.

A frightening image came to Milo's mind of a thin, pale spider sitting in a large, dark room, surrounded by thousands of silken spider webs, from each of which dangled a major Ministry official like puppets. Milo realized he was badly mixing his metaphors, but, under the circumstances, had other things to worry about.

"So... what do you do about it?" Milo asked. "What's the counter-strategy?"

"There isn't much," Dumbledore admitted. "Keeping a close eye on one's associates and friends to see if they begin acting strangely, occasionally checking if they still remember past events, that sort of thing. It is, at best, only moderately effective."

Milo paled.

"And now, you see why it is that knowledge of these curses is kept to the upper year students," Dumbledore said. "But now, I have another question for you."

"Hit me," Milo said, trying to keep his mind from the horrifying implications of the Imperius.

"I think I will refrain from doing so," Dumbledore said, "as corporal punishment has generally more frowned upon now than it was in the days of Emeric the Evil. Why did you go out in search of Miss Hannah Abbot yesterday morning?"

"Oh," Milo said. "I thought I mentioned. I had to give her her Christmas present."

"Fascinating as that is, that is not precisely the answer I was looking for, as I think you know. To clarify: why, after you discovered that Miss Abbot had left the building, did you head out in search of her?"

Milo sighed.

"I thought something seemed wrong," Milo said, "and that she might be in trouble. And before you ask, no, it never occurred to me to ask a teacher for help."

"And why is that?" Dumbledore pressed.

"Same reason as with the 'Troll,'" Milo explained, as if it were obvious. "It's what I do."

"I rather think not," Dumbledore said. "After Hallowe'en, you explained to me—and I have reason to believe you were telling the truth—that you challenged the Troll rather than doing the sensible thing and running away because fighting monsters was, as you say, what you do. You said, when I asked you then whether it was to protect innocent lives, that that was not the case and doing so was only a... a 'perk' was, I believe, the word you used."

"What's your point?" Milo asked, not used to prolonged conversations with NPCs and not fully realizing that he was being rude.

"Did you have any inkling, when you left, that a monster or Dark Wizard was involved in Hannah Abbot's mysterious exit?"

Milo thought about it.

"No," he admitted.

"Did you suspect, at that point, that she was being forced against her will?"

Milo scratched at his itchy bandages, playing for time. Eventually, he was forced to admit that he hadn't suspected anything of the sort.

"So, as far as you knew, she had simply been exceptionally foolish and wandered out into the snow in harsh winds and subzero temperatures?"

"I hadn't really thought about it," Milo admitted, "but if someone had asked me right then why I thought she was outside, that's probably how I would have answered."

"And you went looking for her."

"Of course," Milo said, still not entirely sure where this was going.

"Not to fight monsters."

"Nope," Milo agreed.

"But to protect an innocent life?" Dumbledore asked.

"I... suppose so? To protect Hannah, mostly."

"It's a start," Dumbledore said. "And you didn't do it because, from a cold, mechanical perspective, she would be of some use to you? Perhaps, in your crusade against Evil?"

"No," Milo said. "I can't see how she would be. Her talents lie in other directions," Milo said, feeling, for some reason, a bit defensive about her. "Not everyone has to be good at fighting to be worth saving, Headmaster."

"I feel, and feel free to correct me if I am wrong, that that may not have been the answer you gave me when we first met."

Milo shrugged.

"She's my friend," Milo said. "I've always protected my..." he trailed off. He had been about to say 'I've always protected my friends,' but, now that he thought about it, he'd never really had friends. He protected his partymembers, of course, but that came with the job description, like fighting monsters. Hannah... Milo was, for once, unsure of her PC/NPC status, but was fairly sure that she wasn't, exactly, in the party. But didn't that make her, by definition, an NPC? Milo went cold. He'd risked his life to save an NPC without any hint or hope of a reward. He'd spent days, thousands of Gold Pieces, and hundreds of XP working on a Magic Item to simply give to an NPC because he'd hurt her feelings. He actually cared about what an NPC felt. What the Hells was happening to him?

Milo felt queasy. I didn't even loot the corpse! He was stunned. He'd simply thrown away the Redcap's sword, which could have probably got him at least 10 gp, assuming it counted as a Short Sword. And who knows what else the grotesque abomination had been carrying? Milo was disgusted with himself. He'd let his emotions run away with him, getting in the way of good old pragmatic greed.

"I think," said Dumbledore, "what you are feeling, right now, and it may be that you are experiencing it for the first time and, as such, it is confusing you, is an aspect of a form of magic more ancient and powerful than any that Voldemort himself possesses."

"What?" Milo gasped. "Detect Magic," he cast, but nothing happened. For a brief, horrible moment he wondered if this mysterious magic that had apparently so addled his brain had also disabled his spellcasting. Then he realized he was simply out of spells, even Cantrips, until he could prepare new ones. "What kind of magic? Dispel me! Dispel me, Dumbledore!"

Dumbledore chuckled.

"Even if I could," he said, "no power on Earth could compel me to do so."

"Do you mean to say that you're behind this insanity?"

"No, Milo, the power of which I speak, the power that Voldemort so casually disregards, the power which was his undoing eleven years ago, the power which is, currently, already drawing you under its influence and subtly altering your perception of the world and your actions, is, you will find, quite beyond the reach of any mortal magic."

"So you do have deities around here!"

"The power of which I speak, young Milo, is love."

Milo stared at him in utter silence, his jaw hanging open, trying to work, but no sound came out. In the end, Milo had to make a Concentration check simply to focus the necessary thought to activate his vocal cords.

"Bull. Sh—"

"I think," said Dumbledore, "that I will so rudely head you off before you finish that thought."

"Love." Milo said flatly. "You-Know-Who was brought down by the Power of Love. Maybe instead of learning magic, we should be putting flowers in our hair and frolicking in the forest like those pointy-eared pansies and singing around campfires. Voldy would be powerless to resist our Flower Power."

"If that stretches your credulity, perhaps, I could more clearly state that it was love which triggered ancient and powerful protective magic," Dumbledore said calmly.

"Oh, well why didn't you say so in the first place?" asked Milo. "Ha! I'd love to have seen the expression on He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's face when a throwaway, poorly thought-out rule from an obscure splatbook that he never even bothered to read blew up in his face."

"Why do you say it was poorly thought out?" Dumbledore asked curiously.

"It allowed an infant to defeat the most powerful Dark Wizard that ever lived," Milo said, as if the reason were obvious. "That's got to be the most broken rule in existence. I gotta get me some of that. What, exactly, happened to trigger it?"

"Normally, I would leave this for Harry himself to tell you, but in this case, the story is quite well-known. You see, Voldemort was defeated because Harry's mother sacrificed her life to protect her son out of love, which placed a protection upon Harry that Voldemort was unable to overcome."

Milo paused, the implications of this dawning on him.

"How on the Prime Material did You-Know-Who ever get to be that powerful in the first place, then?"

"I'm not sure I completely understand your question. Voldemort used a combination of subterfuge, cruelty, devoted followers, and powerful magic to—"

"No, I mean... I'm obviously no expert on the subject, but do mothers here not care about their children?" Milo asked, still perplexed.

"Of course they do," Dumbledore said. "I should think that the story I just told you was proof of that."

"Do Dark Wizards not kill infants, then?"

"Unfortunately, innocent children are no safer from their evil than fully trained wizards."

"Then how, in the name of the Eternal Library of Boccob, did You-Know-Who—and Grindelwald, and all the other Dark Wizards that ever lived—manage to rise to power without, at some point, attempting to kill a child that their mother died to protect? I mean, how many mothers wouldn't die to protect their children? Especially if they lived in a world where doing so made their child literally invincible to dark magic." Milo was idly wondering if he could work something like it into his backstory, which would neatly solve his problem of dealing with the Killing Curse.

Dumbledore opened his mouth as if to answer, but, before he could, the door slammed open.

"Out!" shrieked an irate Madam Pomfrey. "I won't have you bothering my patients! They need to rest in peace—wait, poor choice of wording... they need peaceful rest, not to be bothered by constant questions!" Ironically, while Dumbledore was speaking quietly and softly, it was Pomfrey's tirade that woke up the sleeping Hannah and Neville.

"Blast," said Dumbledore quietly. "Rumbled, it would seem." He stood up, and walked slowly towards the mediwitch, hands outstretched in a calming gesture. "Ah, my dear Madam Pomfrey, just the witch I was hoping to see. Did I ever tell you how exceptional I've always found your work?" He put an arm on her shoulder as he walked to the door, evidently hoping that she'd be taken in and follow him out. She looked briefly mollified, then her eyes hardened again and she brushed his arm off.

"No! I'm on to your tricks, Headmaster! Don't think you can silver-tongue your way out of things this time!"

"Alas," Dumbledore sighed. "Foiled again. Might we, at least, continue what I'm certain will be a most pleasant discussion outside, so as not to disturb your patients further?"

Pomfrey threw a quick, surprised glance at Hannah and Neville, who were looking around blearily to find out where the war had started and whether they ought to go and find helmets and a foxhole.

"Perhaps that would be, er, for the best," Pomfrey said in a much quieter voice, and followed the Headmaster out, having lost the initiative. Dumbledore glanced over his shoulder and winked at Milo, then walked out with the somewhat bemused-looking healer.

"Why was Doreumble... Dormble... Dumbledore here?" Hannah asked, fighting down a yawn.

"He wanted to ask me about yesterday," Milo explained. "He'll probably come back later to talk to you about it."

"Oh," said Hannah, who, if truth be told, would be just as happy forgetting it had ever happened. Then she shrugged, and went back to sleep.

Milo, whose brain was wracked with too many unanswered questions—Dumbledore, Milo had noticed, had an unfortunate habit of answering a question in a way that provoked twelve more—started memorizing spells simply to clear his head. Unfortunately, the arcane sigils in his book kept blurring together and dancing in front of his vision for him to make much progress there, and he grudgingly set aside his spellbook for later. He hadn't had trouble preparing spells since he was apprentice level.

So, I've been bewitched, have I? Enchanted by powerful and ancient magic that's compromising my ability to think logically. There must be some cure... Break Enchantment probably wouldn't even do it, as it only works on spells of fifth level or lower. This love magic business sounds closer to ninth level. Assuming magic here even has levels, of course. Maybe there's some cure to be found in the local magic... Dumbledore said there wasn't, but not even he can know everything, right? Maybe if I—

"Hey," Neville said abruptly.

"Uh, hi, Nev," Milo responded. "What's up?"

"Well, you looked busy earlier, but now that you're not studying anymore, I thought I'd ask what happened. You and Hannah look pretty beaten up, I mean. Did Peeves do something?"

"No, I got gutted by a Redcap with a sword."

"Oh," said Neville. "Wow. Why didn't you just pull out your wand and cast—"

"Didn't have time," Milo lied.

"Shame, 'cause it's a dead easy spell. Even I can do it, and I'm rubbish at, well everything."

"We should probably be quiet," Milo said. "Hannah's trying to sleep. Damnit, I did it again!"

"Did what?" Neville asked.

"Uh. Nothing," Milo said, having forgotten that NPCs could hear you when you weren't speaking directly to them.

"You're right, though, of course," Neville said. "You can tell me all about it later."

Milo lay back, cursing his confused brain. Everything had seemed so simple a few months ago. PCs help you defeat monsters and get treasure, NPCs give you treasure for defeating monsters. Everything was becoming so tangled lately.

And his combat skills must be going rusty as well; that Redcap, judging by the XP he earned, was only CR 2. He'd nearly died fighting it, which was completely unacceptable. The problem, looking at it in hindsight, was obvious: Milo's spell list was carefully optimized for what he had previously considered to be a typical combat. As a Wizard, his job was to neutralize as many enemies as possible in the first few rounds of combat so that his partymembers with knives and pointy sticks could move in and do the actual damage unimpeded. To that end, he preferred spells that could make as many enemies as possible as useless as possible as quickly as possible—thus, Grease and Glitterdust. But lately, he'd been involved in a lot of solo encounters, and Milo just wasn't capable of dishing out the kind of damage necessary to finish off an enemy—which is why he'd had so much trouble with the Troll and the Redcap. It meant he had to burn a much larger number of spells per enemy than he normally would, and, as a result, ran out of ammo precipitously fast.

"I should stop going out alone," he realized. "I need backup. That and the capability to rain down fiery doom, just in case." Milo briefly considered Fireball, but realized that at his current level, the much more toned down Kelgore's Fire Bolt would deal the same amount of damage without the same possibility for collateral damage. Also, being a Conjuration spell, he would get a few bonuses from his specialty school. Fireball would take longer to research, being a 3rd level spell (Kelgore's little toy was only 1st level) so Milo opted to begin research on Kelgore's Fire Bolt now and get Fireball afterwards—and maybe Scorching or Seeking Ray after that.

Thinking about spells, tactics, and general optimization had put Milo back into his more usual mindset, and he opted to continue memorizing spells.

A few minutes after the requisite hour had passed, the door opened again to reveal yet more visitors.

Harry and Ron walked in. Ron looked part worried and part excited, while Harry just looked distracted. Ron, to Milo's delight, was carrying a platter laden with toast, butter, and tea.

"Blimey!" said Ron. "What happened? We were worried when you didn't come back at night, but figured you'd just gone off to work on something mad like you usually do. Next morning, Dumbledore himself walks into the Common Room and asks us to take breakfast up to you and Hannah—hi, Hannah" (Hannah had woken up when they entered, and was staring at the food with undisguised greed) "—and blimey you look terrible." Ron was, however, carrying food, so Milo decided to let him live—this time.

"Yeah," Harry said distractedly.

Milo shrugged, and for the third time told the story again, glossing over the part where he'd accidentally knifed the girl now sitting a few feet away from him.

"I reckon you couldn't have just driven the Red Cap off with—"

"No," Milo sighed, resolving to punch the next person who suggested using one of the local wizards' simple anti-Redcap spells. "I can't cast those, remember? Anyways, what's up with you two?"

"What do you mean?" Ron asked.

"Harry's off in his own little world," Milo said.

"Is he?" Ron asked, looking over his shoulder at the Boy-Who-Lived, who had been staring absently at one of Milo's bed fixtures. "You're right," Ron said, surprised. "He is. Oi! Potter! What's going on in there?"

"I saw my parents last night," Harry said reluctantly.

"What, like in a dream?" Milo asked. "'Cause they seem to be going around."

"No," Harry said. "In a mirror."