riddleofthebelow

PFSB

The next time Tom enters the bar, he turns round to the portal painting first thing. When he steps away, the rabbits playing poker look much more like proper rabbits instead of rabbit-shaped former canines. He steps back, regarding it, and nods his head. Much better.

Then he takes his stack of research with him to a table and orders a scotch. While Wei Wuxian indeed broke the ward on the mysterious scroll, and Tom was able to translate it, it still makes no sense. He has old maps of London Above to scour for clues today, because the existence of scroll is still bothering him. He doesn't think it's malevolent, but he's even more convinced that there is no logical reason to have found it in the Underside.

Not that the Underside is very logical. You know what he means.

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"It sounds like an economical system. Elegant, even."

One that is much, much better than what the Wizarding World does to house elves.

Edited 2020-09-09 03:20 (UTC)

She smiles behind her veil; it does show in her pitch-black eyes. "I'm glad you think so. To tell the truth, I was been primed to expect much more hostility from non- or pre-necromantic worlds."

Mostly from Gideon's comic books.

"I was making a joke about using your abilities on the First House, but I am intrigued by the possibility of portal magics. I have been studying one approach to such things and would be interesting in knowing how other thalergenic magicians enact it."

“You might find it elsewhere, but not from me,” he assures her.

Door is definitely going to say no to raising a skeleton army to serve the House of Arch. She’s really no fun at all, sometimes.

“As for discussing portal magics, please go ahead. I was born into the Wizarding world before I became an Opener of the Underside.”

It’s a two for one bargain!

"A world of wizards? Interesting."

She brings her polymer box of makeup to his table and takes a seat gracefully.

"Well, in short, I am intrigued by the portal that brought me here. In my experience such a thing cannot be done without obelisks and a stele to navigate between them."

"Moiraine Sedai has shown me her method for opening one, but it is outside of my capabilities at present, as it uses magic rooted in life force, rather than the energies of death."

“I’m well acquainted with Moiraine; she’s a magical expert I trust a great deal. How does your portal activate?”

"The one that leads here? It is simply a door that one can walked through. Unlike most of the more interesting doors in Canaan House, it is not even locked."

"I have taken some steps to ensure my fellow heirs do not notice it," she adds. "I am no longer sure that this space is an intended part of the process we have come to Canaan House to learn, but I have come to prize its privacy."

“I see, then it sounds like it is a quirk of Milliways, your portal. I can’t begin to explain that effect, but I can share how I might arrive here. As an Opener, I can place my palm on a surface, look for a door to a destination I need, and open it. As a wizard, I can apparate, which is actually much the same in process. I channel magic through my wand, visualize where I wish to be, and the energy transference takes place, propelling me to my destination. The farther one goes, the more strength and power one needs. There are other methods, portkeys and Floo powder, that create predetermined pathways that anyone in the Wizarding world can access, but I’ve not known either to work for traveling here.”

"And what is the power source for these methods?" she asks. Power sources are very much on her mind right now.

“That’s an excellent question, and I’m not sure I can answer it as directly as I‘d like. For the Wizarding world, magic is an energy force that only individuals with a proclivity to manipulate it can access. In the Underside, magic is wild and unpredictable, and I’m honestly not sure how the knack of Opening connects with it. I do know that the powers came to me via blood ritual.”

"Hm."

As he speaks, Harrow produces a leather-clad journal from within her robe and flips to a blank page; she takes out an ink pen and begins to hastily jot notes in her own private code.

(Tom, of all people, is probably well-suited to recognize leather made from human skin.)

"Necromancy is also only accessible to some people, but uses the forces of life and death present in all organic life. It's much more accessible on a planet primed for necromancy, however. Was your wizarding world prepared or transformed to facilitate wizardry at any point?"

“It’s like the chicken or the egg, isn’t it? Which came first, I mean. With the Underside, there had to be a city first, before there was an under city in which people and places slipped through the cracks and were forgotten. But was the magic there, waiting, or did it come with the people who populated London Below? I’m not sure, and I’m even less so in regards to the Wizarding world.”

And yes, he certainly recognizes how the book is bound. It makes him uneasy to be in its presence, but that has little to do with Ninth and her society and more with the sadistic extremes to which some in his own societies will go.

“But no, as far as I’ve learned, there was no specific precipitating event.”

For Harrow's world it is more like the chicken and the maggots; there is no question which came first. But she does not say so.

"Ah, London. I've met someone from there--indeed, he gave me a 'London Underground' badge which was enchanted for protection. Related, perhaps?"

“It sounds like someone from London Above. The worlds nestle together but they don’t interact, really. There is the typical London of non-magical citizens who make up the majority. They can’t see those of us in the Underside; we don’t really exist to them. And they rarely see evidence of the Wizarding world because it is purposefully hidden from them and not a part of the Underside. So there we all are in one city, parallel lives to parallel lives, and life somehow moves on for all of us.”

She frowns about this. "And each of them has their own magic? How very odd."

"What is the reason for this secrecy?"

“Protection. Power. Control. For the Wizarding world, at any rate. The Underside is ignored, and typical London has no magic of its own.”

"Hm." All of those sound like good reasons to her, but she's not sure how secrecy enables them. It doesn't help that she has no real concept of what life in a 'typical' universe would look like.

She cracks open the top of her box and scans the makeup the Bar has given her. Everything seems to be there. "And you chose to leave this wizarding world to leave in the Underside?"

"I did. I came here, and found the Underside suits me much better."

"Incredible," she says. "You left behind your very reality?"

"I was helped along my way," he says with a wry smile. "But it worked out for the best."

"You seem to have done well for yourself in your new context," she observes. "I cannot imagine... I will likely never see the Ninth again. But to leave the reality entirely seems a sacrifice I could not make."

"I never imagined it could happen. I certainly never expected to find myself incarnated in a place like this. As I said, I was helped along. A -"

He pauses for the briefest of moments. While he doubts the Ninth would be either dismayed or repelled by the explanation of a Horcrux, it is... rather difficult to explain in a first conversation.

"- spell went awry. It sent me out of my timeline, and I couldn't go back. And then I didn't want to go back."

"I cannot imagine," she repeats. "I have duties--to the Ninth, to the Tomb, to the Emperor, to my cavalier. I cannot stay here, although I have stolen a respite. But if I had no choice..." She looks oddly wistful.

"I don't know how I would cope with it," she says.

"In that case, I hope you're never forced to. But I assure you, if it happened, you'd find your way here. I've seen this happen time and again with people who've found themselves here."

"I just don't know. If I could exist like that."

(Look upon me as a Harrowhark who was handed the first genuine choice of our lives; the only choice ever given where we had free will to say, No, and free will to say, Yes.)

She shakes her head, and her eyes clear, smiling above the veil. "I shouldn't let myself be distracted by alternate futures, I suppose."

(Accept that in this instance I have chosen to say, No.)

Your miles may indeed vary when it comes to being distracted by alternate futures.

"That may be for the best. No need to worry about something that may never be."

Take your own advice, Riddle.

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