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Jul. 15th, 2011 10:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gala_applesPart Two
It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise when Harry walks in on Hermione and Ron. It’s not like the three of them haven’t been inseparable since they hacked the alien to bits. It’s difficult to not be friends with someone, after saving their life. Hermione, for her part, seemed grateful, though she did take an hour to read every possible bit of data about the Olliwn and then relate it to them.
Still, he’s been firm with himself about not letting himself imagine Ron touching him less than casually. For the first time in his life he has a friend, he’s not messing that up with craving more. Besides, it’s probably just that; displaced feelings of friendly affection. Probably whoever was the first person to be nice to him he would have developed a crush on. So seeing Ron’s naked ass is a bit of a slap in the face to his willpower.
Harry stares for entirely too long. Long enough that Ron notices there’s someone else in the room, and nearly falls on the floor in his attempt to grab the discarded blanket. For a moment after they separate, Harry can see Hermione’s breasts, Ron’s cock. Sight can be a cruel thing.
“Sorry,” he manages to croak as he turns to go. He doesn’t know where, exactly. But even the alien pillow room has to be better than this, seeing things he can never have. Standing here is like serving Dudley, only a thousand times worse. At least then he had someone to hate for his lacking. He can’t hate Ron or Hermione.
“You don’t have to leave.”
“What?” Of course he has to leave. What kind of stupid statement is that?
“What?” Ron repeats.
Hermione looks calm under the hastily grabbed blanket, though her face is still flushed from exertion. “I’m just saying, two weeks ago I thought I was going to be a concubine for some species I couldn’t even imagine the composition of. Compared to that your roommate watching us isn’t a thing.”
Ron looks gobsmacked, but Harry doesn’t have the bandwidth to feel sorry for him. He doesn’t know how to even begin explaining that he doesn’t want to watch, that it’ll just make everything worse.
Sodding Hermione though, somehow she knows. “You don’t want to watch though, do you. Would you join us?”
The lie is on his tongue. He knows it will be better if he says it, but he can’t make it come.
Ron is crimson as he speaks up. “I’m not sure I want you to fuck me, or anything. But I’ll budge over if you want to watch.”
It would be better if he didn’t. Harry’s not stupid, he can tell they’re in love. Intruding in on that isn’t fair to them. He’s not a strong enough man to turn away though. He wants to know what Ron’s lips taste like. The last meal they had was breakfast, does he still taste like toast? Or will it be more primal, spit and pheromones and sex? He strips off his shirt and jeans and as Ron tosses the blanket back onto the floor lies on his back beside Hermione.
“You should put a condom on if you’re going to do more than touch,” she murmurs to him.
“Where did you-?”
“Oh, there are a ton in Godric’s bedroom. Seamus and Parvati basically consider it their duty to sneak in and pass them around.” Ron answers. “They’ve never given any to you?”
Harry shrugs. It’s quite likely he’s the only passenger on the ship that hasn’t been having sex. All that is about to change though. There are multiple shades of skin in front of him, and he wants to feel them all.
*
“Harry, Hermione, I think we have a problem.”
Harry frowns as Hermione looks at him, question in her eyes. It took an awkward conversation or two, but they’d figured out who was comfortable doing what to whom. They’d also revealed themselves as a triad to the rest of the ship, who’s primary reaction was utter indifference. Apparently Angelina and Katie in love, Angelina and Alicia screwing, and Katie and Alicia screwing made for a far more interesting relationship story. As far as he knows, there isn’t any problem between the three of them.
Ron sees the look and shakes his head, almost frantically. “Not we we, all of us we. I need to tell everyone. I don’t know why I’m not telling everyone. Only you two seem calm, and Harry just started attacking that squid thing-”
“Olliwn,” Hermione interrupts.
“Olliwn like it was a brilliant plan, and I guess you two seem like the right people to tell. Fred and George and Lee would only make things worse. Cause a riot or something.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I think Godric’s a slave dealer too.” he says, exhaling heavily.
“What?”
“You must be wrong. That giant-” Harry hears Hermione correct him with Jlookot but doesn’t repeat it “squashed Vernon and Petunia and Dudley. The Sorter wouldn’t dare be a slave dealer, and he sent us to Godric.”
It can’t be true. This is the first safe place Harry’s ever had. It can’t be tainted with slavery.
Ron’s arms are crossed, hands grabbing his elbows hard enough that the skin surrounding them is whitening. “I heard Quirrell talking about being able to replace part of the shipment the Privet had. Correct me if I’m wrong Harry, but that’s your dad’s ship, and he didn’t have any cargo, did he?”
“He’s not my fucking dad! But no, nothing else.”
“Then it’s us. Quirrell is reclaiming us, and Godric is letting him.”
“How did you hear this?” Hermione questions. It’s a good question, and Harry latches onto it for hope. Maybe it was some ridiculous a friend of a friend of a friend thing, and the message is just completely scrambled.
“Fred and George dared me to sneak onto his ship. They figured the concentrated smell would make me vomit. They were almost right, his ship is fucking rancid. But he was on it, on his radio. I left and I don’t even remember what I told them, but I know it wasn’t this, if it was the entire ship would be up in arms already. I just wanted to tell you to. What the fuck do we do?”
The words are out of his mouth before he knows what he’s saying. “We’ll find him, and we’ll stop this.”
“How?”
His voice comes out hard in his response to Hermione. “If we need to feed them to the aliens we will. Or at least threaten to. None of us actually know how to pilot a ship. We can’t destroy Godric until we land somewhere safe.”
“Do you think the other three ships are doing the same thing?”
“Not if we stop Quirrell now.”
When you’re on a spaceship, it’s not as though you can go for a quick walk around the block and be just missed by someone calling for you. Still, it takes uncomfortably long to find Quirrell, knowing that each minute that slips by is another minute the possibly in cohoots Godric flies them closer to a trading planet, or if not, another minute for the pirate ship to get closer to them. It’s Ron that first spots his back far up a corridor, though after he points him out it’s impossible to see anything other than the spot of lurid purple in the distance.
Harry wants nothing more than to strangle him. It’s funny how freedom doesn’t mean anything until you finally have it and someone tries to take it away. With some difficulty he holds back from sprinting down the hall and wrapping his hands around his throat. He’s not entirely sure he has the upper body strength to get the job done, and this has to work the first time. There’s no question that Quirrell will have a weapon. If they don’t act quickly he’ll take them out.
Hermione’s the first to recognise the door Quirrell goes through. A hand on both their shoulders halts them before they can storm the room. “I did some research-”
“When you do not do research?” Ron snorts. As far as levity it’s pretty artificial, but it’s better than nothing.
“They’re bred as guards, for their vicious nature. But they have a major weakness, they can be lulled into placidity with music. No doubt Quirrell knows that too, he wouldn’t dare go in if he didn’t have a plan. It’s important that even as you take him down you keep humming.”
The problem is there’s nothing to take down. Harry hums mindlessly, a dull counterpoint to the dirty song Ron’s singing, undoubtedly a creation of Fred and George’s, and wonders how the hell Quirrell got away. Then he sees it. In the corner of the room is a small square in the floor, just wide enough to accept a thin person. Dudley wouldn’t have gotten more than a leg in. It’s the only other way out of the tiny alien filled room.
When Harry jumps down he’s expecting to land rough, that he’ll probably sprain an ankle. He doesn’t really care. It’s far more important to catch Quirrell than it is to make it out a hundred percent safely. He doesn’t land hard though. He doesn’t land at all. Instead something catches him, sagging slightly beneath him before whisking him off to the side. It’s a good thing as Hermione jumps down a moment later, feet landing where Harry’s head would have been.
“This is disgusting,” Ron complains. There’s very little light, but Harry can tell the difference between Hermione bitching and Ron bitching even in pitch black. “It’s like someone jizzed on my face. What the hell?”
Harry doesn’t agree, but knows better than to interrupt Ron when he’s complaining. Especially with intelligent facts, like whatever the hell is beneath them is at least an inch thick, the width of a dozen strings of come. And while it’s sticky and slightly scented, it’s clingy. Hell, the ropes of it are holding him up off the ground. No human ejaculate could do that. Of course there are aliens, but Harry feels sorry for any alien that mates with someone with come like this, and isn’t going to inquire for details from Hermione.
He shifts, trying to dislodge himself. It doesn’t much work, and from the frustrated grunts Ron is making it doesn’t work for him either. “Ugh, this is disgusting. What the hell is it even?”
“It’s what the Caddakadies eat,” Hermione explains calmly.
“What?”
“The aliens upstairs.”
“The pillows?”
“What?”
“Okay,” Ron interrupts, “how does that help us?”
“Spit on it.”
“What?”
“The ecosystem of the Caddakady world is delicate. There are enzymes in human spit that should kill the plant.”
It sounds stupid, but Hermione knows her stuff. Harry’s never known her to be wrong yet, so he scrapes his tongue on the roof of his mouth to gather any wetness. It’s not enough, but sucking on the insides of his cheeks produces more. He spits and the part of the plant directly under his face shrivels, but it’s not enough to weaken the entire series of vines under him so he sucks his cheeks again.
Eventually the network of sticky ropes weaken enough that Hermione tumbles to the floor, Harry can feel some of his vines give way, ostensibly the longer ones that held her too. Ron is already down, bitching about being covered in that shit, irritated enough that Hermione’s the first to notice. He can hear her pointing something out to him, but he can’t see what it is. Finally he drops beyond the canopy of vines to the floor and comes to stand behind them. They’re both staring at a heap of flesh; a dispatched Olliwn. Quirrell didn’t kill the creature with extensive amputation, instead he burned it to black crispness. It’s easy to feel sorry for it, before he remembers that one tried to kill his girlfriend.
“Where do we go now?”
“Find the door, I guess. That’s where Quirrell would have gone.”
No one asks what they’ll do if there’s more than one door. None of them have been on this level of the ship before. They all knew it was there, of course. Following Godric onto his ship led them all to an elevator, and each bunch of people went up. Harry’s never seen as much as a flight of stairs leading down, and he’s heard Fred and George’s report that the elevator was locked after everyone boarded. If there is more than one door they’re pretty screwed, it’ll be impossible to hypothesise where Quirrell would have gone.
The room is pretty large, and covered in the viney trees of the Caddakady world, but there’s only so much wall and the silver doorknob stands out in the dankness of the rest of the room. The three of them pass through, Harry hoping there won’t be a live Olliwn they’ll have to battle.
There’s not. There are however two very noticeable things in the room. The first is that the gravity is turned off. The second is there’s an expanse of glittering objects over their heads. Harry suspects they’re there for a reason, but ignores them in favor of trying to cross the room to the door. It’s more difficult than he would have thought. There’s no gravity to keep him anchored, each step kicks him a little further into the air. By the time he’s across the room he’s high in the air and needs to use the wall to crawl back down to be on level with the door. It doesn’t open, of course. Nothing is ever that easy.
Harry turns to ask if Hermione can come over to lockpick the door, only to see they’re both missing. It’s only when he looks up that he spots them. They’ve both propelled themselves high into the air, floating easily near the cloud of objects. Before he has the chance to ask Hermione shouts down “It’s all keys!” Which, yeah, completely answers the ‘why isn’t the door opening’ question. “But there’s hundreds, how are we supposed to know which one opens the door? It could take hours.”
“Maybe we should go back? I mean he can’t go anywhere down here. There’s nothing here.”
Harry shakes his head, then realises how ineffective the movement is when the person he’s disagreeing with is so high above him he probably can’t even see the gesture. “We’ve never been on this level, we don’t know what’s down here. What if it’s the engine level, and he shuts something off or breaks something and we’re stranded in space until his partners come? Or what if he thinks that’s what he’s doing, but he’s as smart as Dudley ever was and blows something up? We still need to do this now, before he has the chance to do whatever he’s doing.”
“Okay, fine. But it’s still gonna take hours, unless we think of a way to narrow this down. What kind of key should we be looking for?”
He takes another look at the door. “The handle is gold, so probably a gold key. And it’s got little squiggly waves on it.”
“I think I might- Oww! Motherfucker!” Harry doesn’t really notice it himself; his feet were already on the ground. Hermione and Ron on the other hand plummet down when the gravity suddenly switches back on. A rain of keys crash on top of them, a chorus of tinkling noises as they hit the floor. Ron stands and the keys that landed on him slide off, leaving just the one in his hand. “Gold with squiggles. Try it.”
The key fits the lock, turning it makes the knob turn. But as he’s turning it the gravity shuts off again, and he goes flying up, Hermione and Ron not doing much better behind him.
“Right, so if we can all sort of swim at the door?” He’s never had any experience with anti-gravity, it always made Petunia nauseous, and they never carried cargo delicate enough to need it. But it makes sense that a swimming motion would work. The only other option is waiting for the gravity to turn back on, and who knows how long that will take, what the gravity cycle for this room is.
The next room has more aliens, but the chances of them being eaten are extremely low, so Harry’s not much worried. He hasn’t had any dealings with them, they're not a species that uses slavery. He’s only heard of them because Dudley thinks they’re stupid. The Imbuers spend their whole life crafting an item. At their first death they then enter the object and bring it to life, and spend the entirety of their second life as that item. Dudley always thought they were stupid for not cheating the system by making a Frankenstein of body parts of other Imbuers and living a true life. Harry never bothered to attempt to explain that would go against their personal belief system. Trying to tell Dudley anything was always a lost cause. From what he knows of them, they spend their second lives without co-mingling. So seeing what must be thirty Imbuers in one room comes as a bit of a surprise. Harry wouldn’t mind knowing how Godric talked such a large group into coming onto his ship, and he knows Hermione wants to ask them all the questions in the world. That isn’t in the cards though, not when Quirrell is somewhere beyond this room, potentially about to destroy the engine of the ship.
Harry weaves his way through the aliens and wistfully glancing behind her Hermione does the same. Before he has the chance to open the door one of the tallest sculptures swings down a staff to block him. “You must play.”
He’s about to tell the Imbuer he has no idea what it’s talking about when Ron speaks. “It’s chess. Look at the floor!”
He looks at the floor. It’s painted in squares of black and white, and there’s a sculpture on each square surrounding the edge. It doesn’t mean anything to him though. “What’s chess?”
“Really? You’ve never played?” Ron’s face darkens a bit as he adds “it’s one of the things I remember from home. I remembered chess, and this sweet tasting green drink, and a lady with white hair.”
“Do you think Dudley was the kind of person to let me play games?”
“Right. Well, I think we have to be pieces. Hermione, see that one on the far left with the flat top? Tell it you’ll replace it. And Harry you can be the one with the pointy top a few over. I’ll be the horse.”
Harry’s got no idea what he’s doing, but he moves where Ron tells him to when Ron tells him to, and on occasion a sculpture crashes to the ground before rolling itself off the checkered paint. The game only stops when the tall one with the staff falls to the ground. Harry stays where he is until Ron jerks his head at the doorway. “We won, come on.”
The next room is empty of aliens. Nor does it have what it’s supposed to, namely, a door. He’d been concerned about what would happen if there were two doors, he never thought to worry about if there were none. After the last few rooms Harry is smart enough to check the floor and the ceiling, but there’s still nothing. The only thing that’s in the entire room is the same style of vending machine they have in multiple places upstairs; three buttons with an image of what each serves jutting out no more than an inch from the wall. This machine is a bit different, it’s got nine buttons.
Out of frustration Harry slams the wall. A can comes out of a small hole as a larger one opens in the wall and a mechanical voice calls out “please deposit.”
It wouldn’t be anything different than any other time he’s gotten thirsty, except he thinks he can see the shadow of a person in the hole instead of gleaming metal. Harry’s hesitant to put his arm in, upstairs at least it’s where the empty cans are supposed to be thrown in so they can be crushed and recycled. He likes his arm, he doesn’t want anything to crush it. If he can just figure out a way to prop the hole open and stretch it just a few inches he thinks he can squirm through. It doesn’t make sense that that’s the answer; Quirrell is far bigger than him, and he made it through. But it’s the only thing Harry can think of.
He puts the can on the floor and jams the heel of his hand against another rectangle button. He slips off his shoe and jams it in the hole as it repeats please deposit and tries to figure out if he can fit his shoulders through. He’s heard somewhere that your shoulders are the widest part of your body, if you can get them through something you can get your entire body through. It doesn’t look quite wide enough though, so he hits a third button at random. If hitting a button makes it go from closed to open, hitting a button when it’s open should make it open more, right?
“Harry, stop, that’s not helping.”
He jams his hands into his pockets as he turns around. “Well, what do you suggest then, Hermione? Because I can see him beyond the hole, and fuck only knows what he’s doing, but each second we can’t figure this out things get more dangerous.”
“Maybe we should do what the machine says. Deposit the cans like a fare, and it’ll open?”
Ron grabs the one that’s at his feet, and gestures. “Pass the other ones. Fred and George bet on chugging contests with me and Lee all the time, I’ve got this.”
Hermione looks hesitant with the purple can in her hand. “They say Fun In A Can brand. I think that means they’re laced. We should probably each have one instead of you drinking them all. It’s impossible to say what would happen if you took three all with different effects.”
Ron shrugs and cracks his. “Bottoms up.”
Harry doesn’t look at them, just snaps the top of his bright red can and tilts his head backward, swallowing the liquid as fast as it can pour into his mouth. He splutters a few times, but doesn’t let that stop him, would rather have trickles of soda pouring down the side of his mouth than waste the time to drink slower.
The effect comes on nearly immediately. His entire body heats and he can’t stop himself from punching the wall five times because it feels good to hit. It’s pretty obvious the purple and white cans have entirely different effects. Ron is rubbing his jeans with one hand, rubbing the floor with the other, seemingly fascinated with the textures if his open mouthed smile is any indicator. Hermione’s hands are preoccupied in a completely different way, one finger tracing her lips, the other shoved down the front of her pants. Harry wouldn’t mind joining either one of them, especially if they’ll let him smack them around a bit first -they’ve never tried spanking before, and all of a sudden Harry really really wants to- but he needs to take care of business first. He throws his red can in the deposit hole, then takes his partners discarded cans and tosses them too. The moment the white one swishes through the hole expands to an oval the size of a bed.
It’s not entirely surprising that Ron and Hermione don’t follow him through. In all honesty they’d probably be liabilities; Hermione would try to fuck Quirrell and Ron would just be happy at how beautiful his turban felt. That doesn’t mean Harry doesn’t swallow hard when Quirrell turns around. He can see beyond him, recognises the pedestal for what it is. It makes sense, a portal is the perfect way to deliver twenty plus slaves in one smooth motion. It also makes him reevaluate Ron’s charge. If Godric went to all the trouble of hiding the portal beyond seven stops he’s probably not in cohoots with Quirrell about transporting slaves through it.
For his part, Quirrell doesn’t seem surprised at seeing him. “So you followed me, just like you used to follow Dudley around. I’m sure your mom and dad would be proud.”
Between the words coming from such a bastard and the soda coiling it’s way though his body Harry wants to bash his brains out against the wall. “They’re not my mom and dad!”
“Close enough, really. Aunt and Uncle.” Quirrell looks at him. “Oh, you didn’t know. How delightful. Yes, Harry, they really were. After your parents died you were easy prey. I think you were their first, if I remember correctly. Not that I was a close friend of the Dursleys, merely a business partner.”
The knowledge makes Harry sick to his stomach, but only for a second. Family is people that give a shit without benefiting from it with something like sex or money, like Fred and George and Lee and Ron. Regardless of blood relation Vernon and Petunia have never done that. “Screw you, they’re not my family.”
Quirrell smirks. “Trust me, you’ll wish they were still around when you get where you’re going. At least the Dursleys never wanted to resell you.”
Harry doesn’t want this anymore. He thought he wanted an explanation, Why someone would do this to someone else. How you could look at a free person and think they would be better enslaved, as long as you got a profit. All the questions he never dared ask Vernon and Petunia. He’s sure now that everything from this man’s lips would be bile, and he doesn’t want to hear a single word more.
Harry is grateful for past mistakes. They allow him to put his hand on the silver ball and yank up as he shouts “Callisto!”
Quirrell doesn’t have much time to react. His eyes widen and then Harry shoves him as hard as he can with his free right hand. Harry can see the slick greyness past the sphere, the humanoid stumbling towards it. As soon as his entire body is through the ball rapidly shrinks to it’s original size. Harry attempts to touch it, just to see. Try as he might, his hand can’t get closer than half an inch away. Godric was right, you really don’t get a second use.
For all intents and purposes Harry has just killed a man. It should bother him more than it does. It does, a little. It might seem uglier later. Now he mostly just wants to get back to the vending machine room and join his girlfriend and boyfriend. When Vernon would drink his lime Fun In A Can his effects lasted for hours. Harry’s sure they’ve already thought to use each other, Ron petting Hermione, Hermione pulling down his pants and riding him. He wants to get in on that. He can worry about all the rest of it later.
art
It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise when Harry walks in on Hermione and Ron. It’s not like the three of them haven’t been inseparable since they hacked the alien to bits. It’s difficult to not be friends with someone, after saving their life. Hermione, for her part, seemed grateful, though she did take an hour to read every possible bit of data about the Olliwn and then relate it to them.
Still, he’s been firm with himself about not letting himself imagine Ron touching him less than casually. For the first time in his life he has a friend, he’s not messing that up with craving more. Besides, it’s probably just that; displaced feelings of friendly affection. Probably whoever was the first person to be nice to him he would have developed a crush on. So seeing Ron’s naked ass is a bit of a slap in the face to his willpower.
Harry stares for entirely too long. Long enough that Ron notices there’s someone else in the room, and nearly falls on the floor in his attempt to grab the discarded blanket. For a moment after they separate, Harry can see Hermione’s breasts, Ron’s cock. Sight can be a cruel thing.
“Sorry,” he manages to croak as he turns to go. He doesn’t know where, exactly. But even the alien pillow room has to be better than this, seeing things he can never have. Standing here is like serving Dudley, only a thousand times worse. At least then he had someone to hate for his lacking. He can’t hate Ron or Hermione.
“You don’t have to leave.”
“What?” Of course he has to leave. What kind of stupid statement is that?
“What?” Ron repeats.
Hermione looks calm under the hastily grabbed blanket, though her face is still flushed from exertion. “I’m just saying, two weeks ago I thought I was going to be a concubine for some species I couldn’t even imagine the composition of. Compared to that your roommate watching us isn’t a thing.”
Ron looks gobsmacked, but Harry doesn’t have the bandwidth to feel sorry for him. He doesn’t know how to even begin explaining that he doesn’t want to watch, that it’ll just make everything worse.
Sodding Hermione though, somehow she knows. “You don’t want to watch though, do you. Would you join us?”
The lie is on his tongue. He knows it will be better if he says it, but he can’t make it come.
Ron is crimson as he speaks up. “I’m not sure I want you to fuck me, or anything. But I’ll budge over if you want to watch.”
It would be better if he didn’t. Harry’s not stupid, he can tell they’re in love. Intruding in on that isn’t fair to them. He’s not a strong enough man to turn away though. He wants to know what Ron’s lips taste like. The last meal they had was breakfast, does he still taste like toast? Or will it be more primal, spit and pheromones and sex? He strips off his shirt and jeans and as Ron tosses the blanket back onto the floor lies on his back beside Hermione.
“You should put a condom on if you’re going to do more than touch,” she murmurs to him.
“Where did you-?”
“Oh, there are a ton in Godric’s bedroom. Seamus and Parvati basically consider it their duty to sneak in and pass them around.” Ron answers. “They’ve never given any to you?”
Harry shrugs. It’s quite likely he’s the only passenger on the ship that hasn’t been having sex. All that is about to change though. There are multiple shades of skin in front of him, and he wants to feel them all.
*
“Harry, Hermione, I think we have a problem.”
Harry frowns as Hermione looks at him, question in her eyes. It took an awkward conversation or two, but they’d figured out who was comfortable doing what to whom. They’d also revealed themselves as a triad to the rest of the ship, who’s primary reaction was utter indifference. Apparently Angelina and Katie in love, Angelina and Alicia screwing, and Katie and Alicia screwing made for a far more interesting relationship story. As far as he knows, there isn’t any problem between the three of them.
Ron sees the look and shakes his head, almost frantically. “Not we we, all of us we. I need to tell everyone. I don’t know why I’m not telling everyone. Only you two seem calm, and Harry just started attacking that squid thing-”
“Olliwn,” Hermione interrupts.
“Olliwn like it was a brilliant plan, and I guess you two seem like the right people to tell. Fred and George and Lee would only make things worse. Cause a riot or something.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I think Godric’s a slave dealer too.” he says, exhaling heavily.
“What?”
“You must be wrong. That giant-” Harry hears Hermione correct him with Jlookot but doesn’t repeat it “squashed Vernon and Petunia and Dudley. The Sorter wouldn’t dare be a slave dealer, and he sent us to Godric.”
It can’t be true. This is the first safe place Harry’s ever had. It can’t be tainted with slavery.
Ron’s arms are crossed, hands grabbing his elbows hard enough that the skin surrounding them is whitening. “I heard Quirrell talking about being able to replace part of the shipment the Privet had. Correct me if I’m wrong Harry, but that’s your dad’s ship, and he didn’t have any cargo, did he?”
“He’s not my fucking dad! But no, nothing else.”
“Then it’s us. Quirrell is reclaiming us, and Godric is letting him.”
“How did you hear this?” Hermione questions. It’s a good question, and Harry latches onto it for hope. Maybe it was some ridiculous a friend of a friend of a friend thing, and the message is just completely scrambled.
“Fred and George dared me to sneak onto his ship. They figured the concentrated smell would make me vomit. They were almost right, his ship is fucking rancid. But he was on it, on his radio. I left and I don’t even remember what I told them, but I know it wasn’t this, if it was the entire ship would be up in arms already. I just wanted to tell you to. What the fuck do we do?”
The words are out of his mouth before he knows what he’s saying. “We’ll find him, and we’ll stop this.”
“How?”
His voice comes out hard in his response to Hermione. “If we need to feed them to the aliens we will. Or at least threaten to. None of us actually know how to pilot a ship. We can’t destroy Godric until we land somewhere safe.”
“Do you think the other three ships are doing the same thing?”
“Not if we stop Quirrell now.”
When you’re on a spaceship, it’s not as though you can go for a quick walk around the block and be just missed by someone calling for you. Still, it takes uncomfortably long to find Quirrell, knowing that each minute that slips by is another minute the possibly in cohoots Godric flies them closer to a trading planet, or if not, another minute for the pirate ship to get closer to them. It’s Ron that first spots his back far up a corridor, though after he points him out it’s impossible to see anything other than the spot of lurid purple in the distance.
Harry wants nothing more than to strangle him. It’s funny how freedom doesn’t mean anything until you finally have it and someone tries to take it away. With some difficulty he holds back from sprinting down the hall and wrapping his hands around his throat. He’s not entirely sure he has the upper body strength to get the job done, and this has to work the first time. There’s no question that Quirrell will have a weapon. If they don’t act quickly he’ll take them out.
Hermione’s the first to recognise the door Quirrell goes through. A hand on both their shoulders halts them before they can storm the room. “I did some research-”
“When you do not do research?” Ron snorts. As far as levity it’s pretty artificial, but it’s better than nothing.
“They’re bred as guards, for their vicious nature. But they have a major weakness, they can be lulled into placidity with music. No doubt Quirrell knows that too, he wouldn’t dare go in if he didn’t have a plan. It’s important that even as you take him down you keep humming.”
The problem is there’s nothing to take down. Harry hums mindlessly, a dull counterpoint to the dirty song Ron’s singing, undoubtedly a creation of Fred and George’s, and wonders how the hell Quirrell got away. Then he sees it. In the corner of the room is a small square in the floor, just wide enough to accept a thin person. Dudley wouldn’t have gotten more than a leg in. It’s the only other way out of the tiny alien filled room.
When Harry jumps down he’s expecting to land rough, that he’ll probably sprain an ankle. He doesn’t really care. It’s far more important to catch Quirrell than it is to make it out a hundred percent safely. He doesn’t land hard though. He doesn’t land at all. Instead something catches him, sagging slightly beneath him before whisking him off to the side. It’s a good thing as Hermione jumps down a moment later, feet landing where Harry’s head would have been.
“This is disgusting,” Ron complains. There’s very little light, but Harry can tell the difference between Hermione bitching and Ron bitching even in pitch black. “It’s like someone jizzed on my face. What the hell?”
Harry doesn’t agree, but knows better than to interrupt Ron when he’s complaining. Especially with intelligent facts, like whatever the hell is beneath them is at least an inch thick, the width of a dozen strings of come. And while it’s sticky and slightly scented, it’s clingy. Hell, the ropes of it are holding him up off the ground. No human ejaculate could do that. Of course there are aliens, but Harry feels sorry for any alien that mates with someone with come like this, and isn’t going to inquire for details from Hermione.
He shifts, trying to dislodge himself. It doesn’t much work, and from the frustrated grunts Ron is making it doesn’t work for him either. “Ugh, this is disgusting. What the hell is it even?”
“It’s what the Caddakadies eat,” Hermione explains calmly.
“What?”
“The aliens upstairs.”
“The pillows?”
“What?”
“Okay,” Ron interrupts, “how does that help us?”
“Spit on it.”
“What?”
“The ecosystem of the Caddakady world is delicate. There are enzymes in human spit that should kill the plant.”
It sounds stupid, but Hermione knows her stuff. Harry’s never known her to be wrong yet, so he scrapes his tongue on the roof of his mouth to gather any wetness. It’s not enough, but sucking on the insides of his cheeks produces more. He spits and the part of the plant directly under his face shrivels, but it’s not enough to weaken the entire series of vines under him so he sucks his cheeks again.
Eventually the network of sticky ropes weaken enough that Hermione tumbles to the floor, Harry can feel some of his vines give way, ostensibly the longer ones that held her too. Ron is already down, bitching about being covered in that shit, irritated enough that Hermione’s the first to notice. He can hear her pointing something out to him, but he can’t see what it is. Finally he drops beyond the canopy of vines to the floor and comes to stand behind them. They’re both staring at a heap of flesh; a dispatched Olliwn. Quirrell didn’t kill the creature with extensive amputation, instead he burned it to black crispness. It’s easy to feel sorry for it, before he remembers that one tried to kill his girlfriend.
“Where do we go now?”
“Find the door, I guess. That’s where Quirrell would have gone.”
No one asks what they’ll do if there’s more than one door. None of them have been on this level of the ship before. They all knew it was there, of course. Following Godric onto his ship led them all to an elevator, and each bunch of people went up. Harry’s never seen as much as a flight of stairs leading down, and he’s heard Fred and George’s report that the elevator was locked after everyone boarded. If there is more than one door they’re pretty screwed, it’ll be impossible to hypothesise where Quirrell would have gone.
The room is pretty large, and covered in the viney trees of the Caddakady world, but there’s only so much wall and the silver doorknob stands out in the dankness of the rest of the room. The three of them pass through, Harry hoping there won’t be a live Olliwn they’ll have to battle.
There’s not. There are however two very noticeable things in the room. The first is that the gravity is turned off. The second is there’s an expanse of glittering objects over their heads. Harry suspects they’re there for a reason, but ignores them in favor of trying to cross the room to the door. It’s more difficult than he would have thought. There’s no gravity to keep him anchored, each step kicks him a little further into the air. By the time he’s across the room he’s high in the air and needs to use the wall to crawl back down to be on level with the door. It doesn’t open, of course. Nothing is ever that easy.
Harry turns to ask if Hermione can come over to lockpick the door, only to see they’re both missing. It’s only when he looks up that he spots them. They’ve both propelled themselves high into the air, floating easily near the cloud of objects. Before he has the chance to ask Hermione shouts down “It’s all keys!” Which, yeah, completely answers the ‘why isn’t the door opening’ question. “But there’s hundreds, how are we supposed to know which one opens the door? It could take hours.”
“Maybe we should go back? I mean he can’t go anywhere down here. There’s nothing here.”
Harry shakes his head, then realises how ineffective the movement is when the person he’s disagreeing with is so high above him he probably can’t even see the gesture. “We’ve never been on this level, we don’t know what’s down here. What if it’s the engine level, and he shuts something off or breaks something and we’re stranded in space until his partners come? Or what if he thinks that’s what he’s doing, but he’s as smart as Dudley ever was and blows something up? We still need to do this now, before he has the chance to do whatever he’s doing.”
“Okay, fine. But it’s still gonna take hours, unless we think of a way to narrow this down. What kind of key should we be looking for?”
He takes another look at the door. “The handle is gold, so probably a gold key. And it’s got little squiggly waves on it.”
“I think I might- Oww! Motherfucker!” Harry doesn’t really notice it himself; his feet were already on the ground. Hermione and Ron on the other hand plummet down when the gravity suddenly switches back on. A rain of keys crash on top of them, a chorus of tinkling noises as they hit the floor. Ron stands and the keys that landed on him slide off, leaving just the one in his hand. “Gold with squiggles. Try it.”
The key fits the lock, turning it makes the knob turn. But as he’s turning it the gravity shuts off again, and he goes flying up, Hermione and Ron not doing much better behind him.
“Right, so if we can all sort of swim at the door?” He’s never had any experience with anti-gravity, it always made Petunia nauseous, and they never carried cargo delicate enough to need it. But it makes sense that a swimming motion would work. The only other option is waiting for the gravity to turn back on, and who knows how long that will take, what the gravity cycle for this room is.
The next room has more aliens, but the chances of them being eaten are extremely low, so Harry’s not much worried. He hasn’t had any dealings with them, they're not a species that uses slavery. He’s only heard of them because Dudley thinks they’re stupid. The Imbuers spend their whole life crafting an item. At their first death they then enter the object and bring it to life, and spend the entirety of their second life as that item. Dudley always thought they were stupid for not cheating the system by making a Frankenstein of body parts of other Imbuers and living a true life. Harry never bothered to attempt to explain that would go against their personal belief system. Trying to tell Dudley anything was always a lost cause. From what he knows of them, they spend their second lives without co-mingling. So seeing what must be thirty Imbuers in one room comes as a bit of a surprise. Harry wouldn’t mind knowing how Godric talked such a large group into coming onto his ship, and he knows Hermione wants to ask them all the questions in the world. That isn’t in the cards though, not when Quirrell is somewhere beyond this room, potentially about to destroy the engine of the ship.
Harry weaves his way through the aliens and wistfully glancing behind her Hermione does the same. Before he has the chance to open the door one of the tallest sculptures swings down a staff to block him. “You must play.”
He’s about to tell the Imbuer he has no idea what it’s talking about when Ron speaks. “It’s chess. Look at the floor!”
He looks at the floor. It’s painted in squares of black and white, and there’s a sculpture on each square surrounding the edge. It doesn’t mean anything to him though. “What’s chess?”
“Really? You’ve never played?” Ron’s face darkens a bit as he adds “it’s one of the things I remember from home. I remembered chess, and this sweet tasting green drink, and a lady with white hair.”
“Do you think Dudley was the kind of person to let me play games?”
“Right. Well, I think we have to be pieces. Hermione, see that one on the far left with the flat top? Tell it you’ll replace it. And Harry you can be the one with the pointy top a few over. I’ll be the horse.”
Harry’s got no idea what he’s doing, but he moves where Ron tells him to when Ron tells him to, and on occasion a sculpture crashes to the ground before rolling itself off the checkered paint. The game only stops when the tall one with the staff falls to the ground. Harry stays where he is until Ron jerks his head at the doorway. “We won, come on.”
The next room is empty of aliens. Nor does it have what it’s supposed to, namely, a door. He’d been concerned about what would happen if there were two doors, he never thought to worry about if there were none. After the last few rooms Harry is smart enough to check the floor and the ceiling, but there’s still nothing. The only thing that’s in the entire room is the same style of vending machine they have in multiple places upstairs; three buttons with an image of what each serves jutting out no more than an inch from the wall. This machine is a bit different, it’s got nine buttons.
Out of frustration Harry slams the wall. A can comes out of a small hole as a larger one opens in the wall and a mechanical voice calls out “please deposit.”
It wouldn’t be anything different than any other time he’s gotten thirsty, except he thinks he can see the shadow of a person in the hole instead of gleaming metal. Harry’s hesitant to put his arm in, upstairs at least it’s where the empty cans are supposed to be thrown in so they can be crushed and recycled. He likes his arm, he doesn’t want anything to crush it. If he can just figure out a way to prop the hole open and stretch it just a few inches he thinks he can squirm through. It doesn’t make sense that that’s the answer; Quirrell is far bigger than him, and he made it through. But it’s the only thing Harry can think of.
He puts the can on the floor and jams the heel of his hand against another rectangle button. He slips off his shoe and jams it in the hole as it repeats please deposit and tries to figure out if he can fit his shoulders through. He’s heard somewhere that your shoulders are the widest part of your body, if you can get them through something you can get your entire body through. It doesn’t look quite wide enough though, so he hits a third button at random. If hitting a button makes it go from closed to open, hitting a button when it’s open should make it open more, right?
“Harry, stop, that’s not helping.”
He jams his hands into his pockets as he turns around. “Well, what do you suggest then, Hermione? Because I can see him beyond the hole, and fuck only knows what he’s doing, but each second we can’t figure this out things get more dangerous.”
“Maybe we should do what the machine says. Deposit the cans like a fare, and it’ll open?”
Ron grabs the one that’s at his feet, and gestures. “Pass the other ones. Fred and George bet on chugging contests with me and Lee all the time, I’ve got this.”
Hermione looks hesitant with the purple can in her hand. “They say Fun In A Can brand. I think that means they’re laced. We should probably each have one instead of you drinking them all. It’s impossible to say what would happen if you took three all with different effects.”
Ron shrugs and cracks his. “Bottoms up.”
Harry doesn’t look at them, just snaps the top of his bright red can and tilts his head backward, swallowing the liquid as fast as it can pour into his mouth. He splutters a few times, but doesn’t let that stop him, would rather have trickles of soda pouring down the side of his mouth than waste the time to drink slower.
The effect comes on nearly immediately. His entire body heats and he can’t stop himself from punching the wall five times because it feels good to hit. It’s pretty obvious the purple and white cans have entirely different effects. Ron is rubbing his jeans with one hand, rubbing the floor with the other, seemingly fascinated with the textures if his open mouthed smile is any indicator. Hermione’s hands are preoccupied in a completely different way, one finger tracing her lips, the other shoved down the front of her pants. Harry wouldn’t mind joining either one of them, especially if they’ll let him smack them around a bit first -they’ve never tried spanking before, and all of a sudden Harry really really wants to- but he needs to take care of business first. He throws his red can in the deposit hole, then takes his partners discarded cans and tosses them too. The moment the white one swishes through the hole expands to an oval the size of a bed.
It’s not entirely surprising that Ron and Hermione don’t follow him through. In all honesty they’d probably be liabilities; Hermione would try to fuck Quirrell and Ron would just be happy at how beautiful his turban felt. That doesn’t mean Harry doesn’t swallow hard when Quirrell turns around. He can see beyond him, recognises the pedestal for what it is. It makes sense, a portal is the perfect way to deliver twenty plus slaves in one smooth motion. It also makes him reevaluate Ron’s charge. If Godric went to all the trouble of hiding the portal beyond seven stops he’s probably not in cohoots with Quirrell about transporting slaves through it.
For his part, Quirrell doesn’t seem surprised at seeing him. “So you followed me, just like you used to follow Dudley around. I’m sure your mom and dad would be proud.”
Between the words coming from such a bastard and the soda coiling it’s way though his body Harry wants to bash his brains out against the wall. “They’re not my mom and dad!”
“Close enough, really. Aunt and Uncle.” Quirrell looks at him. “Oh, you didn’t know. How delightful. Yes, Harry, they really were. After your parents died you were easy prey. I think you were their first, if I remember correctly. Not that I was a close friend of the Dursleys, merely a business partner.”
The knowledge makes Harry sick to his stomach, but only for a second. Family is people that give a shit without benefiting from it with something like sex or money, like Fred and George and Lee and Ron. Regardless of blood relation Vernon and Petunia have never done that. “Screw you, they’re not my family.”
Quirrell smirks. “Trust me, you’ll wish they were still around when you get where you’re going. At least the Dursleys never wanted to resell you.”
Harry doesn’t want this anymore. He thought he wanted an explanation, Why someone would do this to someone else. How you could look at a free person and think they would be better enslaved, as long as you got a profit. All the questions he never dared ask Vernon and Petunia. He’s sure now that everything from this man’s lips would be bile, and he doesn’t want to hear a single word more.
Harry is grateful for past mistakes. They allow him to put his hand on the silver ball and yank up as he shouts “Callisto!”
Quirrell doesn’t have much time to react. His eyes widen and then Harry shoves him as hard as he can with his free right hand. Harry can see the slick greyness past the sphere, the humanoid stumbling towards it. As soon as his entire body is through the ball rapidly shrinks to it’s original size. Harry attempts to touch it, just to see. Try as he might, his hand can’t get closer than half an inch away. Godric was right, you really don’t get a second use.
For all intents and purposes Harry has just killed a man. It should bother him more than it does. It does, a little. It might seem uglier later. Now he mostly just wants to get back to the vending machine room and join his girlfriend and boyfriend. When Vernon would drink his lime Fun In A Can his effects lasted for hours. Harry’s sure they’ve already thought to use each other, Ron petting Hermione, Hermione pulling down his pants and riding him. He wants to get in on that. He can worry about all the rest of it later.
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Date: 2011-07-17 09:30 pm (UTC)It’s funny how freedom doesn’t mean anything until you finally have it and someone tries to take it away. <— FAVE