Myrddin Manor Grounds
4:30 A.M.
Fog was rolling across the land as Josh, Harry, and Percival made their way toward the border of the Manor's ward lines. Normal Apparition and Portkeys worked just fine inside the Manor grounds for those who had been added to the wards, but for any jump greater than within the boundaries of Great Britain, we would need to travel outside of them.
That alone made Josh suspicious about where they were going.
The previous summer, we had made a similar transition via Portkey to Greece to go looking for an island that had multiple species of pegasi on it, protected and mostly untouched since the time of Ancient Greece, when stories of heroes were more common than flies.
Those who read the books would likely be familiar with Abraxans, the pegasi that pulled the carriage for Beauxbatons School of Magic. Giant winged horses with a taste for single malt.
Amongst all of the magical creatures that Greece was famous for, we went looking for winged horses.
We found a chimera.
Enough on that for now. I doubt that we're going back there. Percival found his horse island, after all.
See, why bring that up if you are just going to gloss over the details every single time? At least talk more about the different breeds of pegasi or something.
No, I don't think I will.
Moving on.
Percival, true to form, was wearing what could be found on pretty much any No-Maj his age vacationing on a tropical island. A pair of swim trunks, a Hawaiian shirt, sunglasses, toe-thong sandals, his jewelry, and a towel over his shoulder, which at the moment covered his Undetectably Expanded shoulder bag.
What set him apart, however, was his cowboy hat.
I assumed he also had his wand holster on his arm, enchanted to be hidden, much like mine was now. It made things a lot more convenient.
Honestly, the bags were one of the best bits of everyday bougie that magic could bring about. Sure, I had an inventory, but the bag made things extra convenient. No need to pretend that something was just around the corner or had been in my pocket all along.
Nope.
Just a bag charmed to only open at my hand.
Harry was dressed much like Percival. Shorts, a Hawaiian shirt that was clearly too large for him, and sandals. On his face, however, was a brand-new, square-framed pair of glasses that Percival had enchanted to adjust based on the light in the area, allowing Harry to see better in bright or dim environments.
Fairly basic by his standards, but it was a good start for Harry.
Completing his look, however, was a nylon bucket hat that had been enchanted to match his shirt.
There is no accounting for taste amongst the very young, but if it makes him happy...
At least he'll be easy to find.
Finally, we come to me.
Proper ankle-height boots that had been enchanted to help with stability, as well as protect against punctures. They also kept my feet nice and dry while letting them breathe. Tube socks that came halfway up my calves to avoid anything getting too close to my lower legs.
Long cargo shorts. The closest I could get to a good pair of tac pants without actually wearing tac pants. The pockets on these bad boys had pockets, and they were mildly enchanted so they wouldn't bulge or get too heavy if I weighed them down.
A fitted cotton T-shirt and, to complete it, a button-down overshirt that wouldn't have been out of place in a military surplus store.
I had on my enchanted shades and, like Percival, my ridiculous allotment of jewelry, my watch, my wand holster, my shoulder bag, and my hat.
Between the three of us, I still thought Harry looked the most ridiculous.
"You know, you are dressed rather strangely for a day full of sand and swimming," Harry said, still not used to the fact that I wanted to be prepared for every contingency I could think of around one of Percival's trips.
"The boy is right," Percival piled on as well, shaking his head as he looked at my chosen wardrobe. "You're going to sink like a stone wearing all of that."
"Sure, old man. Just like the pegasi were on the next island," I shot back, while internally adding, and not a damn chimera.
"You're still caught up on that? The chimera was perfectly civil the entire time we were on that island," Percival said with a sigh, shaking his head. "The pegasi were on the next island from that point, and you know it."
"Both of those things are technically true..."
"The best kind!" Harry rushed to say.
"BUT!" I cut back into the conversation. "That was after it saw us beat down that group of gorgons while looking right at them!"
Percival rolled his eyes as we continued across the field. "We were wearing enchanted lenses, brat."
"Yeah, we knew that," I replied. "The chimera didn't."
Harry laughed beside me, only for the sound to catch when a shiver ran through him. He pulled his arms closer to his body, rubbing his hands over his bare forearms as we walked. The Hawaiian shirt probably wasn't helping much.
Shivering in a June. I doubt I'll truly appreciate that, but man, I hope I get there one day.
Back home, weather like we got this morning was more of a spring tradition than a summer one. Some spring days, we'd find ourselves up before the sun, wander outside, and promptly get blinded by the sheer amount of fog waiting for us.
My hometown was wet.
Now, for those familiar with Southern nomenclature, I don't mean that they sold alcohol on Sundays. Not until around 2012, at any rate. I mean there was so much water in the environment that it stayed humid year-round, and the wetness seeped into damn near everything.
Way back when, long before man settled down in those lands, if science is to be believed, much of what would eventually become Alabama spent a good portion of its geological history underneath a great big ol' ocean. Time passed, land shifted, seas advanced and receded, and eventually we ended up with the place I called home.
Underneath a large portion of the state was limestone. Great big ol' deposits of porous rock that water could work its way through, carving out caves, feeding springs, disappearing underground, and generally contributing to the ridiculous amount of water that seemed to be fucking everywhere.
Again, if you're believing the scientists.
I digress, though, as I seem to have lost my point somewhere along the way.
And that is why we don't wax poetic about Southern history.
Yes, that's why. No other reason.
Fuck you. You know that is NOT what I meant.
Point for me.
Alabama is fucking wet.
Sure, some parts are drier than others, but across huge portions of the state you've got creeks, lakes, ponds, rivers, swamplands, wetlands, or a damn ocean. You name it, and there is a decent chance you're within five to twenty minutes of a body of water big enough to submerge yourself in.
Where am I going with this?
Easy.
Summer.
June specifically?
This was the last decent part of the day before Satan started spitting down your back and trying to lube up your back door to the point where you feared a fart because you couldn't tell if you'd just blown off the accumulated sweat or shit your pants.
As such, a nice chill first thing in the morning?
Fuck yeah, I could get used to this.
Luckily, we didn't need a central heat and air unit at the Manor like we did back home.
Harry shivered again beside me, dragging my attention back from thoughts of Alabama summers and the many creative ways they tried to kill you. He had tucked his hands beneath his arms at some point, shoulders hunched slightly as another patch of dew-heavy grass brushed across his bare ankles.
Right.
I might've been enjoying the weather, but the kid dressed like a miniature tourist certainly wasn't.
"You alright?" I asked, looking over at him.
"I'm fine," Harry replied, with all the confidence of someone whose body immediately betrayed him with another shiver. He glanced down when his sandal disappeared into another patch of wet grass. "I'll be better when we get there."
"Could've worn shoes."
Harry looked pointedly at my boots, then slowly worked his way up through the cargo shorts, shirt, overshirt, vest, shoulder bag, jewelry, shades, and hat before meeting my eyes again. "You look like you're going hiking."
"Thank you."
"That wasn't a compliment."
"Still taking it."
Harry shook his head, but I caught the smile before he looked forward again. "You really don't trust him, do you?"
"With my life? Yes. Education? Yes. Finances? A thousand percent. To not try to surprise me with every single one of his 'planned' trips? Never." I glanced toward the old man walking ahead of us. "Honestly, it's not a surprise at this point. This makes number four, after all. The first time was during Yule break my first year at Hogwarts, and he brought me..."
"We're almost there, lads," Percival called back, taking the opportunity to interrupt me as he reached the crest of the hill ahead of us.
Must be his version of a family tradition.
That'll only work if Harry doesn't decide to stay at the school over the holiday.
By the time Harry and I caught up, the fog had begun to lighten around the top of the hill where Percival had stopped to wait for us. If we hadn't just climbed higher than most of the surrounding land, I might've been suspicious.
Fog usually got thicker in a holler.
Harry laughed again as he looked out over the ocean of fog surrounding us, and this time I joined him.
Starting down the opposite side of the hill, the fog began to thicken again, collecting across the lower parts of the grounds in long, pale sheets. It wasn't dense enough to hide Harry or Percival from me, but anything more than a few dozen yards away had begun losing definition. Trees became dark shapes before fading entirely into shifting walls of grey, and when I glanced back, the Manor itself was nowhere to be seen.
There hadn't been any dramatic moment where it disappeared. We'd simply walked far enough that the house had faded a little more with every glance back until the fog swallowed it completely.
The world around us had become wet grass, cool air, and sound.
Our footsteps seemed strangely close in the fog, each pass through the dew-heavy grass producing a soft rustle beneath the occasional slap of Percival's sandals against his heels. Somewhere beyond what I could see, a bird called from one of the trees. Another answered farther away, followed a few moments later by the rough cry of what sounded like a crow.
The smells were just as familiar as the sight of it all. Damp earth, wet grass, and that heavy green scent that came from vegetation covered in enough moisture to leave everything dripping. Every few steps, one of us disturbed the grass enough to release another fresh wave of it into the cool morning air.
Harry rubbed his arms again. "You know, you could've mentioned we'd have to walk this far."
"I just said that we're almost there," Percival replied, glancing back at him.
"That's what people say when they don't want to tell you how much farther you have to walk," Harry said.
I looked over at him, and Harry caught the look almost immediately. "What?"
"Nothing," I replied. "I'm just proud."
"For what?" Harry asked.
"You're learning."
Percival snorted. "Don't teach him your bad habits, brat."
"Little late for that," I replied.
Harry grinned. "I thought it was a good point."
"Of course you did," Percival muttered.
We continued for another minute or so before Percival finally slowed, then came to a stop in the middle of what, to my eyes, looked like an entirely unremarkable patch of wet grass.
"At any rate, we're here."
Harry looked around.
I looked around.
There wasn't much to look at.
The fog had closed in around us again after coming down the hill, leaving maybe a few dozen yards of visibility in any direction. There were no fences, standing stones, glowing runes, or convenient signs informing us that we had officially reached the edge of the Manor's protections. Just the same rolling field we'd been walking through for the better part of the morning.
"Here?" Harry asked.
"Here," Percival confirmed.
Harry looked around once more before turning back to him. "What's here?"
"The edge of the wards," I answered, before Percival could.
The old man gave me a small nod. "Near enough. We're comfortably beyond the transportation boundaries I was concerned with."
That explained why we'd walked all the way out here, but apparently didn't make the destination any more impressive to Harry. He stared into the fog for another moment before looking back toward Percival.
"So what happens now?"
"Now," Percival said, reaching beneath the towel and into the expanded bag hanging from his shoulder, "we take a Portkey."
Harry's expression immediately changed.
"A what?"
I glanced over at him.
Right.
He'd never used one.
Percival seemed to arrive at the same realization as he paused with one hand still inside his bag. "You've traveled by Apparition once already, lad. That's how we brought you back to the Manor after Little Whinging."
Harry's face scrunched slightly as he thought about it. "Was that the one where everything squeezed?"
"That's the one," Percival replied, amusement slipping into his voice as he pulled the object he intended to use from his bag. "Portkey travel is different. Not necessarily better, mind you, but different."
"How different?" Harry asked, eyeing the object in Percival's hand.
"Best I explain it before you experience it."
Percival pulled a length of rope from his bag.
Percival shifted the rope in his hand so Harry could see it more clearly before drawing his wand. "The basic principle is simple enough. I cast the spell and give the Portkey a timed trigger. Once it's enchanted, that trigger essentially acts as a clock, counting down until the time I've designated."
"And when it reaches zero?" Harry asked.
"It activates," Percival answered. "Anyone actively touching the Portkey at that moment gets taken along with it. You'll feel it hook you just behind the navel and pull."
Harry's eyes immediately dropped toward his stomach. "Hook?"
"Feels like a hook," I clarified. "There's not actually anything sticking into you."
"Ah."
Percival gave me a brief look before returning his attention to Harry. "Direct contact is important. For living beings, that's the only normal way to travel by Portkey. If you're not touching it when the trigger goes off, you're staying exactly where you are."
Harry nodded, looking back at the object. "What if you let go?"
"During the trip?" Percival asked.
Harry nodded again.
"Don't."
Harry waited for more.
Percival didn't give him any.
"Good lesson," I said.
"It covers everything he needs to know."
"Fair."
"There is one exception to the contact rule," Percival continued. He tapped the side of the expanded bag hanging from his shoulder. "Someone inside a magically expanded space being carried by a witch or wizard can travel with them without touching the Portkey directly."
Harry looked at the bag.
Then at Percival.
"No," Percival said.
"I didn't ask anything."
"You were going to."
Harry frowned. "I was just wondering if someone could ride inside one."
"Which is precisely why I said no." Percival adjusted the strap over his shoulder. "It can be done, but never travel that way unless you know the person responsible for the expanded space was a master of their field."
That wiped some of the amusement from Harry's face. "Why?"
"Because magical transportation can destabilize poorly constructed enchantments. Apparition, Portkeys, certain forms of long-distance magical travel, they all place stresses on an expanded space that aren't necessarily present during ordinary use."
Harry glanced back toward the bag. "What happens if it destabilizes?"
Percival was quiet for just long enough that I knew exactly where this was going.
"It can explode."
Harry stared at him.
"Violently," Percival added.
There it was.
"People actually used that during the World Wars," Percival continued, his tone shifting slightly as the impromptu lesson wandered into history. "Intentionally unstable expanded spaces could be sent along with enemy forces or supplies. Trigger the right kind of magical transportation afterward and..."
He opened one hand.
Harry's eyes widened slightly as he got the implication.
"That," Percival said, "is one of the reasons Ministries around the world began controlling access to the Portkey spell. The monetary side of it came later."
Huh.
Newt's suitcase would've been a hell of a lot more complicated to get away with nowadays.
Don't.
Don't what?
You are about to spend the next ten minutes thinking about international regulations for magically expanded luggage.
I wasn't.
Bullshit.
...
Maybe five minutes.
Percival, blissfully unaware of that particular conversation, brought his wand toward the object in his hand. "For today, none of that matters. All you need to remember is this: when I tell you to, put your hand on the Portkey and keep it there. When it activates, you'll feel the hook behind your navel. Hold on through the pull. Once you feel yourself beginning to drop at the other end, get your feet underneath you."
Harry considered that for a moment. "Touch it. Don't let go. Don't fight the hook. Get ready to land."
"Exactly."
"And don't travel inside badly enchanted bags."
Percival smiled. "That too."
Harry looked considerably more satisfied with that explanation, though he was now giving Percival's shoulder bag the occasional suspicious glance.
I couldn't blame him.
Percival raised his wand.
Percival raised his wand and touched the tip to the length of rope. "Portus."
The rope glowed blue for a moment before settling back into its previous, entirely unimpressive state. Percival checked his watch. "There we are. Hands on."
Harry reached down first, wrapping one hand around the rope. I took hold beside him, with Percival doing the same a moment later.
Nothing happened.
Harry looked at Percival, who merely checked his watch again. "How long?"
"Few seconds."
Harry's fingers tightened around the rope.
"Relax, lad," Percival said. "You'll be fine."
I glanced over at Harry as the seconds ticked down, mentally running through Percival's instructions one last time.
Touch it. Don't let go. Don't fight the pull. Get your feet underneath you.
...
I looked at Percival. "You forgot something."
Percival frowned. "What?"
I turned toward Harry. "Deep breath. Hold it."
Harry's eyes widened. "Why?"
"Now."
Harry sucked in a breath.
The Portkey activated.
The familiar hook caught behind my navel, and the fog-covered field disappeared as all three of us were ripped away from the Manor grounds. There was no ground anymore. No up or down worth a damn, either. Just the pull of the Portkey carrying us along with the rope seemingly fixed somewhere ahead, our bodies trailing behind it through a rush of motion that made normal ideas about distance feel increasingly irrelevant.
The transfer tunnel whorled around us, colors stretching and blending together until trying to focus on any one thing for more than a second started to make my eyes hurt. It was like watching the world fly past at a speed my brain had never been designed to process, except every once in a while something recognizable managed to resolve itself out of the blur.
Green and brown streaked beneath us before giving way to blue.
A lot of blue.
Ocean.
I barely had time to register that before it was gone. Two blinks later, the blue had vanished beneath an expanse of white stretching farther than I could make out through the distortion.
Oh, he really wants me to guess.
I looked around, trying to pick out anything else useful from the colors whipping past us.
Harry was still holding on.
Good lad.
The white continued beneath us for long enough that I started mentally sorting through what little geography I could pull from the trip. We'd crossed an ocean. That narrowed things down approximately fuck-all when magic was involved, but the massive stretch of white was considerably more interesting.
Snow?
Ice?
Clouds?
The distortion made it impossible to tell, and before I could settle on one, color began bleeding back into the tunnel.
White gave way to blue again.
Then green.
What the fuck?
I tried looking back, which accomplished absolutely nothing except making the colors smear together in a way that immediately convinced my stomach that forward was the superior direction.
Fine.
Ocean. A whole shitload of white. Ocean again.
Percival was absolutely doing this shit on purpose.
Then came the change.
I felt it before I could see anything. The pull shifted, that familiar sensation of the Portkey beginning to give us back to gravity.
Percival released.
I let go a fraction of a second later.
My boots hit solid ground, momentum carrying me several steps forward before I caught myself. Behind me came a considerably less graceful series of events.
"WHOA, SHI-"
Thump.
Scrape.
I turned around.
Harry was sprawled across the ground several yards behind us, one sandal missing, his bucket hat nowhere near his head, his Hawaiian shirt twisted halfway around his torso, and his glasses sitting crooked across his face. The rope had landed nearby.
Percival looked down at him.
I looked down at him.
Harry remained exactly where he was.
"Get your feet underneath you," Harry repeated into the ground.
Percival cleared his throat. "You'll get the hang of it."
Harry slowly raised his head.
The look he gave him was fucking magnificent.
"You know, it just occurred to me that we could have made two jumps instead of taking that long walk this morning," I said, letting Harry pick himself up.
"We could have," Percival replied as he bent down to collect the rope. "But there was no need to. We had plenty of time, and walking did the boy some good before his first Portkey."
Harry had found his missing sandal and was busy knocking dirt from it before slipping it back onto his foot. "I think the Portkey undid whatever good the walk did."
"You'll get used to them," Percival assured him as he coiled the rope and returned it to his bag. "Your first trip is usually the worst."
Harry retrieved his bucket hat next, brushing it off before putting it back on his head. His glasses took a little more work, having been knocked crooked during his landing, but they didn't appear to be damaged. When I asked if anything was broken, he took a moment to move his arms and legs around experimentally before deciding that no, he didn't think so.
Good enough for me.
With Harry apparently intact, I finally took the time to pay attention to where we'd landed, and the first thing that really registered was how dramatically the temperature had changed. The cool, damp air of the Manor grounds was gone, replaced by warmth and enough humidity that I could already feel it against my skin. It wasn't oppressively hot, thankfully, but wherever Percival had brought us was a hell of a lot warmer than Britain had been a few minutes ago.
The smell of salt came next, carried on a breeze that finally made me notice the steady sound of waves beneath everything else. I turned toward it and found blue water stretching out beyond a wide expanse of sand, sunlight reflecting from its surface while the vegetation farther inland looked considerably greener and more tropical than anything we'd left behind.
I stared at it for a few seconds.
It was a beach.
An actual fucking beach.
After everything Percival had done to make me suspicious, after the long walk through the fog, the ridiculous Portkey trip, an ocean, an enormous expanse of white, another stretch of ocean, and whatever the hell else had gone screaming past us, the old bastard had actually brought us to a beach.
You know, Percival might not actually be trying to make you suspicious. It's entirely possible that he just wanted to take you and Harry to the beach.
I... I mean, yeah, that's possible, but this isn't like him. Yes, the long-distance trips are nothing new, him keeping his cards close to the vest is nothing new, and him being adamant that things are exactly what he says they are is par for the course, but I'm honestly surprised by this beach.
And it was one hell of a beach.
White sand stretched out in both directions, bordering water that shifted between blue and turquoise depending on the depth and how the sunlight struck it. The water close to shore was clear enough that I could make out the sand beneath the surface before it gradually darkened farther out. Small waves rolled in with enough regularity to leave a darker band of wet sand behind before retreating again, their steady rush considerably louder now that I was actually paying attention to it.
Farther back from the water, things started getting weird.
Palm trees I could understand. Date bushes weren't exactly breaking my suspension of disbelief either, and there were enough other fruit-bearing plants scattered around that I could've written most of it off as someone deliberately cultivating the island.
Then I started recognizing what some of them actually were.
This island is impossible.
I stared toward one particular section of vegetation.
Is that seriously an orange tree next to an apple tree? In this climate? Next to an ocean?
There were more fruit trees beyond those, some familiar enough that I thought I recognized them and others that I didn't have a fucking clue about. Worse, none of the plants seemed to give a damn that several of their neighbors had very different opinions about what kind of climate they were supposed to be growing in.
Percival, apparently unconcerned by the botanical crimes occurring around us, started walking and motioned for Harry to follow.
I trailed after them while continuing to look around.
The section of beach he led us toward had clearly been used before. A fire pit had been established well above the high-water line, with several improvised seats arranged around it. They weren't anything fancy, but years of use had worn parts of their surfaces smooth in much the same way old stone steps changed beneath generations of passing feet. Whether that was actually age, magic preserving them, or a combination of both, I couldn't tell.
Someone had already stacked firewood nearby. A brick grill stood off to one side, and another section had clearly been set aside for cleaning cookware and dishes. Nothing about the place looked abandoned. If anything, it looked maintained, just without anyone currently around to do the maintaining.
I looked over the setup again.
Huh.
If I didn't know any better, I might've started thinking about some of the other tropes associated with beach episodes.
All we were missing was a fucking watermelon.
My eyes moved toward the cooking area.
There was a fucking watermelon.
...
Did he seriously take us to Japan?!
~Stop looking at this like you're being invaded by anime. It is entirely possible that anime has simply been here the whole time.~
The power of God and anime...
SNAP out of it. It's a well-used beach spot and a watermelon.
Says you. Every one of those beach-day training episodes starts out similar to this. I swear he's going to have me fighting a tengu, a kappa, and an oni at the same fucking time.
I narrowed my eyes at the tree line.
Nothing moved.
That somehow made it worse.
Behind me, Harry had apparently decided that the mystery of our location ranked considerably lower on his list of priorities than the fact that there was an entire ocean sitting in front of him. He'd wandered several steps closer to the water and was staring out across it, whatever lingering resentment he'd held toward Portkey travel rapidly losing ground to everything else around us.
Percival, meanwhile, had started unpacking.
No ominous instructions. No warning about something living in the forest. No sudden announcement that I had thirty minutes to accomplish some ridiculous task.
The man was taking things out of his bag and setting up for a day at the beach.
Which left me standing there in boots, cargo shorts, and enough equipment to survive a small expedition while Harry and Percival were dressed exactly for what Percival had told us we were doing.
...
Son of a bitch.
What?
What if he actually wasn't fucking with me?
.....
Turn Back IslandLocal Time: 10:05 A.M.
Josh stepped out of the changing booth Percival had created with a quick bit of Transfiguration. He could've done it himself, but Percival had gotten his wand out first.
Old man can't even let me deal with it myself. SMDH...
I'd changed into a pair of swim trunks and a shirt that actually belonged on a beach, leaving the boots, cargo shorts, and most of the rest of my miniature expedition kit packed away for the moment.
"So, you old fart, are you ready to tell us where we are and how the hell this," I started, gesturing toward the plants that obviously didn't belong in this climate, "is growing here?"
"Turn Back. Magic. There, I answered your questions. Now let's enjoy the beach," Percival replied.
He was applying a healthy amount of sunscreen to his face, having already finished with every other visible bit of skin. Once he was satisfied, he tossed the bottle over to me so I could also avoid lobsterification.
Say what you will about it, but with how easily we burned in sunlight, you'd think the Irish were all descended from vampires.
I caught the bottle and started on my arms while looking around again.
"Turn Back?" I asked.
"Turn Back Island," Percival clarified.
That wasn't exactly an answer that inspired confidence.
"Who the hell names a tropical island Turn Back?"
"People who wanted others to turn back."
I stopped rubbing sunscreen into my arm and looked at him.
Percival continued applying sunscreen to the bridge of his nose like he hadn't just said something incredibly fucking ominous.
Harry, meanwhile, had taken his shirt off and was waiting for his turn with the bottle, apparently far less concerned with the implications of the island's name than I was.
"That's it?" I asked.
"For the moment," Percival replied. "We're here for the beach, brat. Not a geography lesson."
And there it was again.
No challenge. No surprise training exercise. No monster crashing out of the tree line. The old man had brought us halfway across God only knew where, to a tropical island named Turn Back, surrounded by plants that had apparently decided climate was optional...
And he genuinely seemed more concerned about sunscreen.
Harry eventually got his turn with the sunscreen once I was finished, and Percival supervised just enough to make sure he didn't miss anything obvious before returning the bottle to his bag. With that handled, the three of us were finally dressed, protected from the sun, and standing on a beach with nothing particularly urgent demanding our attention.
That was a surprisingly unfamiliar feeling.
Harry seemed to adapt to it faster than I did.
The moment Percival told him he could go, he took off toward the water at a run. Sand kicked up behind his feet until he hit the darker strip near the shore, where the first wave rolled across his ankles and immediately changed his pace. He stumbled, caught himself, then kept going until the water reached his knees.
I watched him bend down and drag one hand through the clear water before another wave came in and splashed higher against him.
"Cold?" I called.
Harry looked back toward me. "No!"
Well, that was all the endorsement I needed.
I took off my hat and set it with the rest of our things before starting after him. The sand was hot beneath my feet farther from the water, but each step closer to the ocean cooled it until I finally reached the edge and let the next wave wash over my ankles.
Warm.
Not bathwater warm, but a hell of a lot warmer than anything I'd willingly swim in around Britain.
Harry had already made it out to his waist by the time I caught up with him. He'd turned sideways to watch one of the larger waves coming in, apparently trying to decide whether he should jump over it or let it hit him.
He chose poorly.
The wave caught him square in the chest and nearly took him off his feet.
Harry came back up sputtering, shoved his wet hair out of his face, and immediately started laughing.
I couldn't help joining him.
Behind us, Percival was still near the fire pit, organizing whatever he'd brought along for later. Every so often he glanced our way before returning to what he was doing, apparently content to let us enjoy ourselves while he finished setting everything up.
For the first time that morning, I stopped trying to figure anything out.
Turn Back could wait. The impossible fruit trees could wait. Whatever Percival knew about the place wasn't going anywhere.
There was an ocean in front of me, Harry was already trying to figure out how far he could jump over the incoming waves, and I hadn't traveled halfway across God only knew where to stand around asking questions all morning.
I dove beneath the next one.
The water closed over my head, warm and clear enough that opening my eyes gave me a surprisingly good view of the sand beneath us. Sunlight broke across the bottom in shifting patterns as the wave passed overhead, accompanied by the muffled rush of water and the strange quiet that came from having the rest of the world suddenly muted.
I pushed forward beneath the surface for several yards before angling upward and breaking through again. Salt water ran down my face as I wiped it from my eyes, taking a moment to orient myself before looking back toward shore.
Harry was still closer in, thoroughly occupied with the waves. He'd apparently figured out that jumping just before they reached him would carry him upward, and was currently testing exactly how far he could push that discovery before one of them knocked him on his ass again.
I left him to it and turned back toward the open water.
A few more steps carried me deeper until the bottom began to fall away, forcing me to swim properly for a short distance. Then, almost as quickly as it had disappeared beneath me, the seafloor began rising again. My feet touched sand, and within several more steps the water had dropped from my chest to somewhere around my waist.
I stopped.
Looked down.
Then back toward shore.
Sandbar.
Oh, fuck yes.
Some habits apparently survived reincarnation.
I walked farther along the shallow rise until I found a good spot and turned to face the open ocean. Out here, there wasn't anything between me and the incoming waves. They rolled toward the island in long swells, growing as the water beneath them became shallower before finally beginning to curl and break.
Back home, whenever I managed to get down to the Gulf, this was inevitably how I ended up spending at least part of the trip. Find the sandbar, plant my feet, face the open water, and engage in the ancient and time-honored Southern tradition of challenging a force of nature to fucking do something about it.
I spread my feet in the sand as the next swell approached.
"COME ON, POSEIDON!" I shouted toward the open water, throwing my arms wide. "THAT ALL YOU FUCKING GOT?!"
The wave hit me square in the chest.
Water exploded around my shoulders and rushed past hard enough to make me shift one foot backward, but I stayed upright. The water pulled at my legs as it continued toward shore, leaving me standing there with a grin spreading across my face.
"THAT WAS WEAK!"
Another swell was already building behind it.
I reset my footing.
"COME ON! KNOCK ME DOWN!"
The second wave came in higher than the first. I bent my knees slightly before it hit, taking the impact across my chest and shoulders as several hundred pounds of seawater tried to convince me that antagonizing the ocean was a poor life choice.
I slid backward through the sand.
Still standing.
"HA!"
A distant voice carried across the water behind me.
"Josh!"
I glanced back toward shore.
Harry was staring at me.
"What are you doing?" Harry called.
"Challenging Poseidon!"
Harry stood there for a moment, apparently processing that answer.
"Why?"
I turned back toward the ocean as another swell began rolling toward me.
"BECAUSE HE HASN'T WON YET!"
Whether that actually answered Harry's question was considerably less important than the wall of water currently approaching.
I planted my feet.
This one looked promising.
Bracing my body, I jumped into the wave.... and did a barrel roll. Landing back on the sand bar in roughly the same place I'd been in before jumping.
I've done this before.... last time after the barrel roll, there was a baby shark.
Doot doot doo...
ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY NOT!
System +1.
A nearby shark sensed danger coming from the sandbar and chose to swim in the opposite direction.
The shark, wherever the fuck it was, could continue making good life choices.
I straightened up on the sandbar and looked through the water around my legs anyway. The memory was funny now, but the original experience had involved me coming out of a barrel roll, looking down through clear Gulf water, and seeing what looked suspiciously like a baby mako swimming nearby.
I had gotten the fuck out of the ocean.
There had been no investigation. No attempt to determine whether I'd identified the species correctly. No consideration for the fact that it was small.
Shark-shaped was enough.
I don't fuck with sharks.
You were just screaming challenges at Poseidon.
Poseidon can catch these hands. Sharks have home-field advantage.
That may be the stupidest distinction you've made today.
And yet, I'm still right.
The next wave rolled over the sandbar before breaking against me, considerably less dramatic than the one I'd just jumped through. I let it carry me backward a step before turning toward shore.
Harry had moved farther out while I'd been busy fighting the Mediterranean pantheon and was now swimming toward me, though the deeper section between the beach and the sandbar was making the trip considerably more work for him than it had been for me.
I stepped off the rise and swam out to meet him rather than making him cross the whole thing himself.
"Was that a spell?" Harry asked once I was close enough that he didn't have to shout.
"What?"
"That thing you did through the wave."
I thought back to the barrel roll.
"Nope."
Harry looked past me toward the sandbar and then back at me. "Can you do it again?"
I grinned.
"Absolutely."
That was how, less than half an hour after arriving on a magical tropical island at the ass end of God only knew where, I found myself teaching Harry Potter how to throw himself through an ocean wave.
Harry's first attempt went about as well as I expected.
He waited until the wave was nearly on top of him, jumped too early, tried to twist halfway through, and promptly got caught by the breaking water before he'd made it anywhere close to completing the roll. For a moment, all I could see was a flash of Hawaiian swim trunks and feet before he disappeared into the foam.
I reached toward him on instinct, but Harry's head broke the surface a second later. He came up coughing and laughing at the same time, wiping water from his face while trying to get his feet underneath him.
"That wasn't it," Harry said once he'd managed to stand.
"No shit."
"You made it look easy."
"I've also done it before." I moved back onto the sandbar and waited for him to follow. "Don't try to jump over the wave. You're going through it. Let it do some of the work."
Harry looked back toward the open water, where another set was already making its way toward us. The first wasn't large enough to bother with, rolling past at barely more than waist height before continuing toward shore.
The second had more promise.
"That one," I said.
Harry planted his feet beside me.
"Wait for it."
The swell climbed as it approached the sandbar, the clear blue-green water rising high enough that Harry started bending his knees in anticipation.
"Not yet."
It came closer.
"Not yet."
Harry glanced at me.
"Now!"
We jumped.
I tucked forward as I entered the face of the wave, letting its momentum carry me through the rotation instead of trying to muscle my way around. For a moment, the world became bubbles, sunlight, and rushing water before my feet found the sand again.
Harry landed beside me.
Not on his feet, mind you.
But beside me.
He came out of the water on his hands and knees, coughing once before immediately twisting around to look back at the wave we'd just passed through.
"I did it!"
"About three quarters of it."
Harry pushed himself upright. "That counts."
"Sure."
"It does!"
"I agreed with you."
"You said it like it didn't."
I shrugged and turned toward the next wave.
Harry moved into position beside me without needing to be told.
The next attempt was better.
The one after that was better still.
By the fifth or sixth, he'd figured out enough of the timing that the wave wasn't simply beating his ass every time he tried. His rolls were still sloppy, and he had a habit of untucking too early whenever he felt his feet getting close to the bottom, but he was getting around.
More importantly, he was having fun.
So was I.
We spent the next several minutes throwing ourselves through whatever waves looked interesting, sometimes rolling through them, sometimes diving underneath, and occasionally abandoning technique entirely when one arrived at exactly the right height to jump into like a pair of idiots.
Eventually, even Percival joined us.
I spotted him walking out from shore after he'd apparently finished whatever he'd been doing around the fire pit. His cowboy hat and sunglasses had been left behind with ours, but the old bastard still somehow managed to look entirely too dignified while wading chest-deep into the ocean.
Harry noticed him a moment later.
"Percival!"
"What are you two doing?" Percival asked as he swam across the deeper stretch toward the sandbar.
"Josh is teaching me how to go through the waves!"
Percival reached shallow enough water to stand and looked at me.
I shrugged. "Important life skill."
"Naturally."
A wave rolled harmlessly around his waist as he joined us, and Harry immediately started explaining the process as though he'd become an expert sometime in the last ten minutes.
I let him.
The beach wasn't going anywhere, lunch was still hours away, and for the moment, none of us had anywhere else we needed to be.
Beach day was going pretty fucking well.
Percival listened patiently while Harry explained the process, occasionally nodding along as though the ten-year-old beside him were passing down some great secret of ocean survival rather than instructions I'd given him less than fifteen minutes ago. Harry even demonstrated the stance, planting his feet in the sand and bending his knees slightly while keeping his attention fixed on the approaching waves.
"And then you wait until Josh says now," Harry finished.
Percival looked toward me. "Ah. The most important part."
"For him right now? Pretty much," I replied. "His timing's getting better."
Harry looked pleased with that assessment, right up until a wave rolled into the back of his legs while he wasn't paying attention and forced him to take two quick steps forward to keep his balance.
Percival chuckled. "Clearly."
Harry shot him a look before turning back toward the water. Another set was already approaching, the first few swells small enough that none of us bothered doing more than letting them pass around us. Farther out, however, one was beginning to build as it moved toward the shallower water surrounding the sandbar.
Harry spotted it about the same time I did.
"That one?"
"That one."
This time, Percival joined us.
The three of us spread out enough that nobody was going to catch a stray foot to the face, and I watched the wave approach while Harry shifted impatiently beside me. Percival, meanwhile, looked entirely too relaxed for someone who had just received barrel-rolling lessons from a ten-year-old.
"Wait for it," I said as the swell rose in front of us.
Harry crouched slightly.
"Not yet."
The face of the wave climbed higher.
"Now!"
We jumped.
Water swallowed the three of us in a rush of bubbles and muted sound. I tucked into the rotation, felt the wave carry me through, and planted my feet back onto the sand as it passed.
Harry surfaced a moment later, upright this time, throwing wet hair out of his face with a grin.
Percival came up beside him.
Standing.
Without having rolled at all.
Harry stared at him. "You didn't do it."
"I went through the wave."
"You're supposed to roll."
"You said Josh taught you how to go through the waves."
"By rolling!"
Percival looked toward me for support.
I shook my head. "He's got you there, old man."
Percival sighed, wiping water from his face as he looked back toward the open ocean. "Very well."
Harry immediately began searching for another wave.
I couldn't help smiling.
Apparently, we were doing this now.
Percival got his chance less than a minute later.
The next few waves weren't worth much, but Harry remained focused on the horizon until another larger swell began forming farther out. By then, he'd apparently decided his role had changed from student to instructor, because he started giving Percival the same directions I'd given him.
"Wait for it," Harry said as the wave approached.
Percival bent his knees.
"Not yet."
I stood a few yards away and watched the whole thing unfold, making absolutely no attempt to interfere.
"Not yet..."
The wave climbed as it reached the sandbar.
"Now!"
Percival jumped.
To his credit, the old man committed.
He tucked forward into the face of the wave, disappeared beneath the water, and came around considerably cleaner than Harry had on his first several attempts. His feet hit the sand beneath him, but the water caught him before he could fully straighten and forced him to stagger two steps sideways.
Harry threw both arms into the air.
"You did it!"
Percival surfaced properly, pushing his hair back from his face. "Of course I did."
"You nearly fell over," I pointed out.
"Nearly."
"Still counts," Harry said.
Percival looked toward him. "I thought you were on my side."
"I am."
"He's learning nuance," I said.
Percival splashed me.
I splashed him back.
Harry, standing directly between two grown wizards who had just independently decided to act their respective shoe sizes instead of their ages, received most of both.
There was a moment of silence as water ran down his face.
I looked at Percival.
Percival looked at me.
Harry wiped his glasses.
"Oh, shit."
Harry launched himself at Percival first.
The old man barely got an arm up before Harry hit him around the waist, and whatever dignity Percival had managed to preserve disappeared when the two of them toppled sideways into the water. I started laughing right up until Harry resurfaced, took one look at me, and apparently decided I was next.
He came charging through waist-deep water.
I had several advantages in that situation.
Height.
Weight.
Reach.
A frankly ridiculous amount of magically enhanced physical ability.
What I did not have was any intention of using them against a ten-year-old in a water fight.
So when Harry hit me, I made the executive decision to die dramatically.
"ARGH!"
I threw myself backward into the water with enough commitment to send up a splash considerably larger than anything Harry had managed on his own.
When I surfaced again, he was laughing so hard he could barely stand.
Worth it.
Percival came up behind him a second later and swept an arm through the water.
Harry took the splash directly across the side of his head.
"Traitor!" Harry shouted, spinning toward him.
"All's fair in war, lad."
That was apparently the wrong thing to say.
The next several minutes stopped having anything resembling rules.
There were splashes. There was tackling. At one point Harry climbed onto my back in what I could only assume was an attempt to gain the high ground, only for Percival to send enough water over both of us that I temporarily lost the ability to see.
Nobody kept score.
Nobody needed to.
By the time things finally settled down, Harry was hanging onto my shoulders from behind while I stood chest-deep off the edge of the sandbar, and Percival was floating on his back a few yards away with his eyes closed.
Harry rested his chin against the top of my head.
I reached up and moved his face to the side.
"Personal space."
He laughed and tightened his arms around my shoulders anyway.
Yeah.
I could get used to this.
We stayed out there for a while longer, though eventually the water fight ran its course. Harry climbed down from my back, Percival abandoned his attempt to imitate a corpse floating out to sea, and the three of us started making our way toward shore.
By the time we crossed the deeper stretch between the sandbar and the beach, I was getting hungry. Swimming had always done that to me. It didn't seem to matter how much I'd eaten beforehand. Give me enough time in the water and I'd come back out ready for another meal.
Apparently, Harry worked the same way. His stomach growled as we reached the shallows, loud enough to carry over the water around us. Harry glanced down at himself while I looked over at him, and Percival chuckled from a few steps ahead.
"Getting hungry, lad?" Percival asked.
"A little," Harry admitted.
"Good. We should start getting lunch together soon."
That sounded pretty damn good to me.
We made our way out of the water and back across the beach toward our things. I pulled my wand and, with a quick Aguamenti, rinsed the salt off Harry and myself before grabbing my towel and starting to dry off. Harry did the same, the three of us settling down after the better part of an hour spent swimming, getting knocked around by waves, and generally acting like idiots.
I felt good. There wasn't anything particularly complicated about it. The weather was nice, the water was warm, Harry had spent most of the morning laughing, and Percival had managed to deliver exactly what he'd promised.
A beach day.
Huh.
What?
I'm having a pretty damn good time.
You sound surprised.
I kinda am.
I finished drying my hair and draped the towel across my shoulders before looking over at Percival. He had started sorting through the things we'd brought, apparently deciding what needed to be dealt with before lunch.
"So, what's the plan for food?" I asked.
"Not quite time for that yet," Percival replied. "Thought we'd take a walk first."
Harry finished rubbing the towel over his hair and looked up at him. "Where?"
Percival nodded farther down the beach. "There's something I want to show the two of you."
I followed his gaze along the shoreline. From where we stood, there wasn't much to distinguish that end of the beach from any other. White sand continued along the water before curving around the island, broken here and there by darker patches of rock exposed by the tide.
"How far?" I asked.
"Not far."
Percival retrieved his hat and settled it back onto his head before starting down the beach. Harry tossed his towel over his shoulders and followed, leaving me to grab my own hat before catching up with them.
The sand changed as we walked. The broad stretch of white gradually narrowed, giving way to more of the dark rock I'd noticed from farther away. Shallow pools had formed anywhere the retreating tide left depressions behind, some barely deep enough to cover my ankles while others disappeared between cracks in the stone.
There was plenty of life in them. Small fish darted through the clearer pools, shells clung to the rocks, and things I couldn't immediately identify disappeared into crevices whenever our shadows passed overhead. Harry had started slowing down to look into every other pool when Percival stopped ahead of us.
"Careful around here," Percival said. "Watch where you put your hands."
That got Harry's attention. "Why?"
Percival pointed toward a broad section of rock near the water. At first, I didn't see what he was indicating. The rocks were dark, wet from the tide, and covered in enough shells and marine growth to make picking out any one thing difficult.
Then part of the rock moved.
A leg unfolded from beneath it, followed by another. The crab pulled itself free from the crevice and rose high enough that what I'd taken for a large section of stone became its shell. Even without anything beside it for scale, the thing was enormous. Its body was broad enough that I would've struggled to get both arms around the shell, while its legs spread several feet to either side as it hauled itself across the rocks.
One claw opened.
Harry took a step backward.
I leaned forward.
Now that was interesting.
"That, lads, is lunch," Percival said with a grin.
I looked at him, then back toward the crab.
"Karkinos," Percival continued. "That's the proper name for the species, though you'll hear them called Giant Snow Stone King Crabs often enough. Mostly because no one could decide which kind of crab the bloody things looked like, so apparently someone decided to name all three."
Harry looked back toward the enormous shell slowly moving across the rocks. "Karkinos?"
"Old name. Greek," Percival said. "Same as the Karkinos from the legend of Heracles and the Hydra. The story says Hera sent a giant crab to attack him while he fought the Hydra."
"And this is the same kind?" I asked.
"Supposedly. Magical naturalists have argued about that for centuries. What they do agree on is that the crab represented by the constellation Cancer was a Karkinos. Whether it was the Karkinos from the story or simply one of the species that became attached to the legend depends entirely on which historian you ask."
That tracked surprisingly well for the Wizarding World.
"So what do they call them here?" I asked.
"Rookie Crushers," Percival replied.
Harry looked at the crab again.
I did too.
"Why?"
Percival's grin widened. "Because if you can't beat one of them, turning back might already be too late."
That explained at least one thing about the island.
Percival motioned for Harry to stay where he was before turning his attention back toward the Karkinos. "Inland, they're classified XXX. Along the shore, XXXX. In the water, XXXXX. They've got spell resistance comparable to a mountain troll, roughly the strength of one, and they can fire highly pressurized jets of water from their mouths strong enough to cut through stone and steel."
I studied the Karkinos a little more carefully.
"Oh, and they're wicked fast," Percival added.
Looks like my day at the beach was going to be more than just sand and surf after all. At least with this, I can fully earn lunch today.
I grinned as I pulled my wand. "In that case, I think that one should be plenty for the three of us," I said, already putting together the opening spells I wanted to use.
At least make sure it's by itself first.
Fucking shit. I know that. Can I not prepare a spell chain at the same time?
You didn't even know that one was there until Percival pointed it out. What's the point of having a map if you're never going to use it?
Just because I don't stay glued to my interface doesn't mean I never use the tools at my disposal.
Sure.
Hush. I want crab legs for lunch.
Still, the System had a point. Visually scanning the rocks wasn't getting me anywhere. The damn thing had been sitting almost directly in front of us and I'd mistaken it for part of the landscape until Percival pointed it out. If there were two or three more tucked into the rocks nearby, staring harder wasn't suddenly going to make me better at finding them.
So I stopped relying on my eyes and pulled up the map. The immediate area expanded across my interface, covering the rocks around us, the beach behind us, and enough of the shallows to make sure nothing was sitting just beneath the waterline.
Because one giant magical crab was lunch.
Five of 'em was catering.
Checking the map, I could see that the Karkinos was the only thing nearby worth worrying about. Its yellow marker sat ahead of me with four skulls beside it, while two more yellow dots showed farther out, one carrying two skulls and the other three. Both were roughly half a kilometer away and, more importantly, neither seemed interested in us.
Kilometer... shame, shame. The Brits are rubbing off on you.
Not that it matters, but the official measurement of a mile relates back to a kilometer. Besides, it's easier to talk to them if I adopt some of their choices. When in Rome...
My guy, you have been bringing America to the Isles ever since you arrived.
LA LA LA LA... LUNCH TIME.
I turned my attention back to the Karkinos and started putting together my opening chain. Since this was a magical creature instead of a wizard, the Duelist's Hello wasn't going to work quite the same way. There wasn't a wand to knock out of its hand, but the rest of the idea was still sound. A shield breaker was designed to pierce magical defenses, and looking at the shell on that thing, I was curious whether it would do the same to magical armor.
Later. For now, I wanted to know what I was dealing with.
Stunner. Conjunctivitis Curse. Impediment Jinx.
Hit it with the Stunner and see how much of that spell resistance Percival was talking about. Go after the eyes with the Conjunctivitis Curse. Then put the Impediment Jinx behind it to keep the damn thing from reaching the water. XXX inland, XXXX here, XXXXX in the water.
Yeah. It could stay right the fuck where it was.
I raised my wand. Point casting and silent casting at the same time had been standard for Auror trainees before the last Wizarding War, at least according to the older books I'd read. Nowadays, I thought they were happy if trainees could reliably manage one or the other.
I'd practiced both.
My wand snapped toward the Karkinos, sending the Stunner directly beneath its eyestalks. Before it had even finished flashing against the shell, my wand shifted and the Conjunctivitis Curse followed. The third cast went past it, the Impediment Jinx striking the rocks behind the Karkinos and spreading across the path between it and the water.
The Stunner hadn't done shit, but the Conjunctivitis Curse had. Its eyestalks snapped inward, and for the briefest moment, I thought I had time to see how well it had worked.
Then the Karkinos moved.
Holy shit.
One moment it was sitting there with its eyes withdrawing into its shell. The next, the entire fucking crab had twisted toward me, its mouth already lining up with my chest.
I moved.
A jet of water tore through the space I'd occupied a moment earlier and struck the rocks behind me hard enough to send fragments flying. I landed, caught my balance, and immediately had to move again as the Karkinos tracked me.
Fuck me. Percival wasn't kidding.
The second jet cut across my path close enough that I felt the spray against my arm. There wasn't time to stand around thinking about how close that had been, either. The damn thing was already turning with me.
Luckily, the HMS group battles had given me plenty of practice casting while moving and avoiding incoming spells. A magical crab shooting water hard enough to cut stone wasn't exactly the same thing, but the basic principle translated well enough.
Don't be where the attack lands, and keep casting.
I swept my wand toward the loose stones scattered around the rocks, pulling them into the air before sending the whole collection hurtling toward the Karkinos. Stone hammered against its shell, claws, and face. Most shattered or bounced away without doing anything meaningful, but that wasn't what I was after.
Several pieces struck around the already irritated eyestalks, and the Karkinos finally pulled them completely inside its shell.
Now.
I recalled the surviving stones before they could scatter too far, reversing their direction through the air and gathering them together as I caught them with Transfiguration. The stones stretched and narrowed, rough edges smoothing away as their ends sharpened into points.
Scientists could argue that crabs were the ultimate life-form when it came to evolution all they wanted. All I knew for sure was that they were neat and delicious. Considering most seafood turned my stomach, I'd take what I could get.
The last of the stones finished transforming into spikes as I leveled my wand toward the Karkinos.
Now I just needed to figure out where to stick them.
Unfortunately, the Karkinos made that decision for me.
Before I could launch the spikes, it jumped sideways, moving every bit as fast as it had when it spun around. It landed several yards away and immediately snapped its mouth toward me, another jet of water tearing across the rocks directly at my chest. I twisted out of the way, the stream passing close enough to throw spray across my shirt before carving another line through the stone behind me. Am I wearing a target? That's the third time it's gone for my fucking heart. At this point, either the thing knew where my important organs were or center mass was simply the easiest target.
Use a sound-based attack against it.
Good idea.
"Sonus Explosio!" The spell detonated against the front of the Karkinos in a concussive blast of sound. I followed it immediately with a Muffliato on myself before snapping my wand toward the ground in the direction the crab was already moving and finishing the chain with Spongify. The rock softened just before several of its legs came down, giving beneath its weight where there had been solid footing a moment earlier. One side of the massive crab dipped unexpectedly, two legs sinking farther than the others and throwing it off balance. Not enough to put it down, but enough to interrupt its advance.
Sonus Explosio, for those not versed in Latin, roughly translated to sonic explosion. Point casting it directly at the Karkinos's head, my intent wasn't really to hurt the thing. Assuming it sensed the world anything like a normal crab, fucking with its ability to detect sound and vibrations should take away another one of its senses after already going after its sight. Better yet, a spell acting through the sound it produced might get around some of that ridiculous spell resistance. The Spongify worked on the same principle from another direction. I didn't need to overpower the Karkinos itself if I could keep fucking with everything it depended on.
PLFFFFFFFFTTTTTT
...
Did the Karkinos just rip ass, or was that the sound of air being forced out of its gills? The crab jerked violently, claws scraping against the softened stone as it hauled itself free. Who cares? I think I pissed it off. Its eyestalks started forcing their way back out despite the Conjunctivitis Curse, and the Karkinos planted its legs firmly beneath itself again. "Avis Fors!" I summoned a small flock of fast-moving birds to harass its eyes, following them with a high-powered Cutting Charm aimed into the ground to throw another spray of stone fragments around its face and legs.
At the rate this was going, I was either going to have to start conjuring or break out the elemental spells. The Karkinos came forward through the birds instead of retreating, one claw sweeping through the flock while its legs hammered against the rocks beneath it. I sent the spikes forward at the joints where the shell met its legs, forcing it to adjust its advance instead of simply letting them shatter against the broad armor of its body. Two broke apart, another glanced off, but one struck deeply enough into a joint to make the leg jerk sideways. The Karkinos stumbled for half a step before recovering and snapping a claw toward me, forcing me back before I could take advantage of it. Another water jet followed the claw, cutting through the space between us as I shifted farther along the rocks.
Then it started giving ground. The Karkinos backed toward the ocean in a rapid sideways scuttle, keeping its armored front toward me while steadily putting distance between us. I followed, keeping enough space between us that those claws couldn't reach me while preparing another chain. Its retreat picked up speed as it neared the water, and considering Percival had already told me exactly how bad an idea letting it get wet would be, I wasn't interested in finding out what XXXXX looked like from this side of the classification. I snapped my wand across its path and sent a line of fire racing over the rocks, building it into a wall between the Karkinos and the shoreline. The crab stopped hard, legs scraping against stone as the flames cut off the route ahead of it.
It turned back toward me so quickly that for a moment I thought the fire had worked exactly as intended. Then the Karkinos surged forward, and I realized that the retreat hadn't been nearly as desperate as I'd thought. The damned thing had gotten me to follow it, closed the distance between me and the water, and now had a wall of fire behind it encouraging the exact charge it apparently wanted to make. Both claws opened as it lunged, its entire armored body coming across the rocks with enough speed that dodging sideways was my only real option. I threw myself clear of the first claw as it snapped shut, only for one of its legs to catch my trailing foot and turn the dodge into an uncontrolled roll. My shoulder hit first, then my back, and I kept rolling until I could get my legs underneath me again.
Fuck you.
I fired the remaining stone spikes before I'd completely regained my footing, sending them underneath the Karkinos instead of trying to punch through the top of its shell. Most shattered or skittered away, but the attack forced it to shift its weight and bought me enough room to get upright before the next claw swept through where I'd been. One of its legs was dragging now, not enough to stop it, but enough that its movements weren't quite as smooth as they had been at the start. The birds were still harassing its eyes, the Conjunctivitis Curse was clearly bothering it, and whatever Sonus Explosio had done seemed to have made its water jets less accurate. I wasn't winning yet, but the Karkinos wasn't getting everything its own way either.
Good.
Now I just needed to figure out how to turn hurting it into killing it.
"Perforare Scutum!"
With this thing's spell resistance, I cast the spell aloud, reinforcing the modified shield-piercing spell I'd discovered in the Black family grimoire. Much like the notes in the Half-Blood Prince's old Potions textbook, someone had gone through the grimoire and modified several spells specifically for use against enemies.
This one wasn't inherently Dark like Sectumsempra. It was, however, absolutely a killing spell.
Perforare Scutum had been designed to punch through the strongest magical shields an enemy could put between themselves and the caster, concentrating the spell into a piercing strike instead of trying to overwhelm the entire defense. Judging by the notes surrounding it, the modification dated back to a period when the Blacks had been fighting people who occasionally brought actual armor to a magical fight.
Right now, I was staring at several hundred pounds of naturally armored magical crab.
Close enough.
The spell struck the Karkinos squarely in the shell.
Unlike the Stunner, Perforare Scutum didn't splash uselessly across its natural resistance. The spell concentrated against a single point before punching into the armor with a sharp CRACK. Fractures spread outward from the impact, leaving a divot punched into the thick shell.
Oh.
That worked.
"Josh!"
Harry's voice pulled my attention away for half a second. He was still back where Percival had told him to stay, though he'd apparently forgotten about keeping quite as much distance between himself and the fight.
"You cracked it!"
"I noticed!"
Harry looked from me to the Karkinos, then back again. "This is still more believable than those books!"
I almost missed my next step.
"What?!"
"You're thirteen!"
A water jet tore across the rocks between us, which felt like a fairly compelling argument against continuing this conversation.
"Harry!"
Percival caught him by the shoulder and pulled him several steps farther back.
"What?" Harry protested. "He is!"
You know what? The brat has a point.
Please concentrate on the giant crab trying to kill you.
I can do two things at once.
The Karkinos lowered itself against the rocks, spreading its legs wide as its claws dug into whatever purchase they could find.
...Why is it doing that?
Then I heard the water rushing across the rocks behind me.
Oh, fuck me.