Pre-Chapter A/N: If you haven't already, I recommend turning on notifications for my stuff so you can see when new stuff drops right as it drops. More chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio (And this is a good time to join on there as we've got a nice 15% Black Friday discount thingy going on)
"And you're sure you have everything?" he asked for what felt like the tenth time today.
"Yes, mom," I replied cheekily. His narrowed eyes told me he didn't quite appreciate the joke. Pah, he'd get over it before I returned at the very worst.
"Just making sure you don't go freeze your arse off in Nepal or get your head chopped off in Japan or worse, don't mind me," he said testily.
"What could possibly be worse than getting my head chopped off?" I tilted my head, ignoring his tone entirely. He froze then, and without dropping the ball replied.
"Getting your balls fried, I guess."
"Yeah, I could see how that would be a worse situation," I said.
"Are you two quite done?" Nicholas called from the side.
"What's the rush? Japan's not going anywhere," Sirius said as we walked over.
"Well, this portkey is the only way into Nepal right now with the wards covering it. It leaves in one minute whether we are attached to it or not. And if it leaves without us, we'd need to find another way into Asia. Do you happen to know any, Sirius?" Nicholas asked.
"No."
"So I guess Japan is going somewhere then," he said with a smirk.
I chuckled before stepping over to the portkey, a piece of rope in Nicholas' hands.
"Good luck, Harry," Sirius said.
"See you soon, Sirius," I said, and then I felt the portkey stick to my hand, signaling that the portkey was about to activate.
"I love you, Perry," Nicholas said.
"Come back, Nicky," she said back, and then I felt the hook around my navel take hold of me. The feeling was both familiar and not.
I'd taken a portkey before, but never across such a long distance. It was usually over in a matter of seconds, but this time it felt never-ending. When I finally hit the ground, it was with a palpable sense of relief.
The winds beat along my body, and that was the first feeling that drew me back to reality. To the here and now, away from the relief I felt at no longer being forced to spin at speeds at which no human should ever have been subjected to.
"Where are we?" I managed to gasp out as the wind tried to snatch the breath from me the moment I opened my mouth.
"The Himalayas," he said without looking even vaguely bothered by the conditions. I nodded, before casting a warming charm on myself. Okay, that made things a tiny bit better.
"How are we getting to China again?" I asked. This part of the plan, Nicholas had been remarkably close to his chest about. I knew that from China, we were going to fly over the sea to Japan. That was what the brooms were for. But beyond that, I had no idea what we were actually doing.
"I swore vows," he said, whispering the words like they were poison.
"What? You swore vows?" I asked. He nodded.
"Unbreakable vows?" He nodded again.
"With who?"
"Can't say. Just follow me. Keep your mouth shut, and your wand about you. If you ever get tempted to use it on something, ask me first. If I tell you to run, you start running and you never look back. If I tell you to jump, you don't even ask how high, you just do the best you can and leave the rest to me," he said, and I never got to ask any follow-up questions as he turned and began to walk down towards the bottom of the mountain.
I sighed and followed. He kept a punishing pace, but it was nothing I could not follow. Maybe before our training when I had learned how to take my own magic and use it to strengthen and enhance my body I would have been challenged by this. Maybe I would even have proven unable to keep up to that challenge in that situation.
When we reached the bottom of the mountain, we turned and began to scale the next one. That was the thing about being on a mountain range. Almost every road led to some other mountain to climb. And so we climbed, descended and climbed over and over again. Every once in a while, he would stop for a second or two to attempt a spell of some sort. None of the attempts he made seemed to work, but where I would have expected frustration or even some disappointment with each failed attempt, there was nothing but resolute acceptance.
That at least told me that things were proceeding somewhat accordingly to plan. Was it worrying that the plan seemed to involve just wandering about the mountains at random? Slightly. But then it would be even more worrying to actually be lost.
"Wait. If you're looking for something, can't we just use the compass?" I asked when we began to backtrack.
"This is one of two things in the world that compass can't find. Now, mouth shut," he said, and then continued the trek.
We kept going for twenty more minutes. We passed the mountain we started on and kept going further and further, until we reached one peak, and when Nicholas slashed his wand through the air, a long line of sparks followed it. Finally. Instead of smiling, he just turned back to me, making the gesture for silence before he began to weave his wand through the air.
It seemed like some sort of puzzle. He had to draw runes in the air to match the runes that appeared every time he moved. It was a long process, taking things step by step until finally the entire runic sequence appeared in a flash of burning orange sparks. The sparks turned blue, and from the ground rose a door. Nicholas wasted no time in pushing the door open. He gestured for me to follow him and I did so.
Inside was dark, and tempted to cast a lumos, I remembered Nicholas' words. No magic without his permission. And considering his insistence on keeping silent, I figured that he wouldn't much appreciate me asking if I could give us some light. If he thought light was prudent or necessary then he would have given us some. He hadn't, so I continued in the darkness, making sure I followed Nicholas' every step.
It took five minutes of walking as I was sure we had climbed down the mountain from inside already. Every few steps, Nicholas would stop, slash his wand through the air in some pattern, and then proceed. When we arrived at the final door, I expected there to be some final test, but for this one, Nicholas just spat straight at it and the door swung open.
We were practically assaulted by light as we stepped into the cavern.
"Nicholas Flamel," a raspy voice seemed to force out.
"My lady," he said, not using a name. I took note of that.
"And here with company, eh? What are the rules regarding company, Nicholas Flamel?" her voice rasped out again. The cavern we had stepped into was so brightly lit that I could barely even make anything out in the room with the light blasting me from all directions.
"He is my Apprentice and has taken all required oaths. I can vouch for his discretion."
"Indeed? And what, pray tell, is your apprentice's name?" she asked next.
"I don't see why this—" Nicholas began speaking but he cut himself off. I was barely able to stop myself from blasting the woman's head off her shoulders as she appeared in my personal space so quickly I hadn't even seen the direction she had come in from.
"Harry Potter, hmm. How interesting," she said. How had she known my name? Legilimency? Not possible. My mind was a steel trap.
"Put that away before you hurt yourself, boy," she said, her eyes meeting mine for the first time. Her face was impossible to place. She was tall. Taller than I was for sure, and her skin was wrinkled, hair grey, and frame so thin it looked like a strong breeze would have a good chance of blowing her away. Her eyes though, were a deep blue that glowed in the light of the cavern.
Eyes that she kept fixed on me until I did as she said and placed my wand back in its holster.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"A woman that time has forgotten, and who wishes this old man here would do the same and allow her to finally have some damn rest," she said, turning away from me and turning her attention to Nicholas.
"That is one disadvantage of immortality, is it not? I do rarely forget the things that the world would rather," he said. She scoffed.
"What brings you to my mountain on this day? And where did you even find a portkey? I was certain that the last one you used was the last one that existed," she said.
"A friend's friend did a thing or two. You know how it goes," he said, not even pretending to answer her question. If she minded, she did not show it as she turned away and began walking backwards. Her tall frame meant that she covered the distance between us and the wall extremely quickly and when she did so, the lights that shone upon us dimmed themselves to the point where I could actually look around without feeling like I was going to burn my retinas off.
"Of course they did. What do you want, Nicholas?"
"I could not have come just to see an old friend. You haven't come over for dinner in centuries after all," he said. Centuries? Was she another immortal? That went a long way in explaining just how they knew each other to be sure.
"I have never come over for dinner," she said with a sniff.
"Exactly. And think about how long we've known each other for. Isn't that just a shame?" he asked with a smile on his face.
She just sighed.
"Are you going to say what you want, or am I going to have to force it out of you?" she asked, turning towards a staff that was propped up against the wall. It was like it had not been there until she turned her attention to it. Or rather, I had not been able to notice it until she did so. How interesting. I cleared my mind, but could find no trace of foreign influence.
Maybe an illusion that relied on pure light manipulation? That would be….impressive. The amount of magic that would be necessary to pull something like that off, even on such a small scale would be staggering. Especially if it was a passive effect rather than an active one.
"Or I can mess with your mind in ways you just can't notice," I heard the voice in my head and flinched backwards. She was still where she had been, just smiling at me. I cleared my mind. Nothing. Still nothing. How the hell had she gotten in without me noticing. She just smiled in my face before turning to look at Nicholas now.
"Can you not traumatize my apprentice, please?"
"Why not? This one is oh so fun. Remind me of the name of the last one I got to see again?" she asked, smiling wildly.
"Ojin," Nicholas said with a sigh.
"Ah yes, Ojin. The man whose brother now terrorises the country I call home and has sent hundreds wandering into my mountains with his cruelty. That Ojin." The smile I thought was a sign of fondness shifted to become something more sinister.
"If I had known what he— what they would become, I would have put an end to the royal line myself when I had the chance," Nicholas said with a sigh.
"You still do. I assume you are here because you want me to let you into China. And then from there you plan to go to Japan. I know they have your stone."
"Wait—" he started.
"No, Nicholas, I will not be waiting. You will kill Ojin, and the Emperor, and that son of his that can't tell when enough is enough," she said with a harsh tone.
"You have to be joking. The emperor? If you didn't want me to visit anymore, you could just say so," Nicholas said with a scoff.
"I've asked you to stop visiting no less than half a dozen times," she said.
"You didn't mean it those times. But asking me to kill the Emperor? In the heart of Kyoto which he never leaves? You might as well ask me to remove my own head."
"And yet I somehow feel you would succeed," she said, turning away from him to look at me. Nicholas followed her gaze before scoffing.
"No. Absolutely not. He is many things, but he is no assassin."
"Is he not? I can smell death around his waist. If he wanted to, I doubt any defenses in the palace would have a chance of stopping him," she said. I froze at her words. The invisibility cloak was wrapped around my waist underneath my robe. The deathly hallow. How the hell had she been able to sense it.
"No, my friend. I will not. My days of causing deaths are over," he said.
"No, you only order them these days," she scoffed.
"A more efficient means, I assure you," he said to rolled eyes from her.
"You'd have to take something else for your payment, my friend. Because that, that I will not do," he said.
"Inside the treasury, there is a cutting from Yggdrasil. The Emperor was just barely able to get it ahead of me some months ago. While I was planning on making my own trip to liberate him of it, why not have an old friend handle that," she said.
"You had no intention of making us kill the emperor, did you?" Nicholas asked, shaking his head.
"Of course I did. I knew the chances of you saying yes were low, but they were never zero. And if the chances were not zero, then what did I lose by asking? Either you said yes and I finally would have to stop dealing with his madness bleeding on over across the continent thanks to his insatiable greed and hunger for more, or you said no and then you would be more or less bound to accept my next request. A win-win," she said with a sharp smirk.
Nicholas just sighed. "Fine, my apprentice will steal your cutting for you," he said.
"Now we shall vow," she said, stretching out her hand and waiting for his to join hers.
I didn't hear the words they spoke. Probably some kind of privacy ward that kept their words to them. Something that resisted the cheeky finite I attempted as well. Sound returned to the room with a pop.
"Let's get going, Harry," Nicholas said.
"What?" I asked as he began walking towards me.
"She'll open the route to China when we arrive at it," he said, saying nothing else and giving me a look that told me to say nothing else. So I didn't. I followed as we left the mountain through the same route we had used to arrive. And then Nicholas began to climb down the mountain from the peak again.
"Wait, what's going on? Where are we going? I thought she was going to give us the way to China or something. I didn't see her hand anything to you," I said.
"Oh but she did," he said, tapping his head.
"Can you actually explain what is going on instead of leaving me to flounder? Who was that? How are we going to get to China? Why did you sign me up to steal something?" I asked, shooting the questions in rapid succession.
"Fine, fine. First of all, just call her the Old woman or my friend. There is a taboo on her name. If I use it, she will know and she will not be pleased," he said.
"You're scared of her," I accused.
"I am. You should be as well. She is one of the most dangerous people in this world. Both in terms of the power she possesses as well as the sheer cruelty she can be capable of. That woman feels no empathy or pity for us. She has been alive, and living in relative isolation for so long that she views us as little more than cattle," he said.
"And yet you are friends with her," I pointed out.
"Do you know how annoying immortality can be?" he asked with a sigh.
"For the longest time, Perenelle and I were alone in the world. We had to fake death dozens of times and never stay in one place for too long, else suspicions would rise. Why else do you think we created the personalities of Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel in the end and publicized the existence of the stone? It was because even if it did draw a large amount of attention, it meant we could stay in the same place for longer than twenty or so odd years. We could set roots and begin to live with others and love them and whatnot," he continued.
"So you're friends because she's the only other person that understands it," I surmised.
"Exactly," Nicholas said before coming to a stop. We were halfway up the next peak before he stopped. As he did so, he began to speak in a language I could only vaguely identify as Old Norse before sparks appeared in the air and then coalesced into a portal.
"Shall we, Harry?" he asked.
"And so the abyss beckons," I muttered as I followed him straight into the portal.
A/N: And that's chapter one of the journey to Japan arc. Next four chapters up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) (same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early– 15% discount for a limited time.