Crossover of DOOM
Title: Mischeviously Yours
Fandoms: Harry Potter/Bewitched
Characters/Pairing: Rita Skeeter/Endora
Rating: PG
Summary: Rita Skeeter does some investigative reporting, and very much meets her match.
A/N: I credit the 'punch line' of this story entirely to minerva_fan, and one of her icons. I simply couldn't resist, it was so perfect.
In the oldest books on the dustiest shelves, in the most restricted parts of Hogwarts library, information can be found about ‘the purest of purebloods’, witches and wizards that existed as part of our society in the Ancient World, before and during the time of the Roman Empire. It was a time of great political upheaval for muggle and wizard alike, and a faction of pureblood wizards and witches claimed to foresee horrors vested upon those with magical abilities by those without. The rest of the wizarding world would not listen to their claims, so the two uneven halves broke apart - the faction disappearing into oblivion to make their lives and teach their craft elsewhere. The rest of society, as our history documents, for a time continued to mingle and interbreed with muggles, making no secret of their existence. Then came the Dark Ages, and witch burnings, and the separation of muggle and wizard society. According to scholars, those years were crucial for our difference. Muggles have shorter lifespans, and in mixing our gene pool with theirs, wizards of our society have ensured their own mortality at the same time as maintaining genetic diversity. The wizarding world as we understand it now has no contact with the individuals who were once part of this faction, but they are believed to have prospered, and created a society of their own that exists in parallel to ours. In secrecy, like ours. Because of the narrowness of their gene pool, it is believed that they have evolved vastly longer lifespans than wizards of our world, and have become very close to a different species, believing themselves inhuman, and referring to muggles as ‘mortals’.
Do these ‘purest of purebloods’ exist? Are they really pure? How long do they live? Is their quality of life or the power of their magic any greater or weaker than ours? Answering such questions seems a monumental task, for they are a secretive lot, but if there is one thing this reporter is good at, it is uncovering truths that people wish to keep hidden.
Rita Skeeter reports.
They thought the muggles fools, these witches. They seemed to believe muggle eyes didn’t see. Seemed to have forgotten they were not the only magical folk in the world, as they materialised on a crowded Parisian street like they had been there all along. They thought no one had noticed.
But Rita had. She watched them weave through the crowd, the blonde and the redhead, and one hand smoothed red satin over her hip. She smiled, slid backward into a boutique door, and a moment later someone swatted at a beetle as is flitted past on the summer breeze.
They strolled along the waterfront, and, closer, she fell from a dip in the air current into her human form in the blink of an eye. Hit the ground walking, heels clicking on pavement. Though she professed a fondness for shimmering fabrics and gleaming nails, it was much, much easier to concentrate on the job at hand when she was not being distracted by shiny lights and the sweet smells of decaying plant matter. Hunting suited her human form so much better.
Sun shimmered on the water. Rita’s eyes met those of a passing stranger, and for a moment they shared a flirtatious smile. She tossed head and immaculate curls to watch him watch her as he passed, and winked, but she would not allow herself to be distracted. Her eyes were back on them, following as they headed for the shimmering glass pyramid that stood before the Louvre.
Close now, close enough to hear them speak.
“One simply cannot go through one’s life without having seen the Mona Lisa, my darling.”
“But they say the crowds are always so large.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that.”
The redhead flicked a hand. A moment later, a mass of tourists came pouring out the doors as though they had just decided they had so many other things they would rather see. Rita observed the redhead turn and smile gleefully at her younger companion.
“Now, my dear, shall we go?” She extended her elbow, and the blonde curled an arm through it.
They passed people on their way though the gallery, but the room that held the Mona Lisa was completely deserted. Footsteps echoed loudly on tiles. Rita paused outside the door, calculating. Was it worth her presence being discovered to enter like this? She could feel the quill vibrating in her purse with excitement. It wanted the story as much as she did. Tossing caution to the wind, she slipped into the room in their wake.
“You’ve been following us for quite some time.”
The voice was directly behind her. She whirled on one heel and came face to face with the redhead. Blue eyes highlighted with even bluer eye-shadow peered at her in a calculating way. One eyebrow arched in challenge. There was none of the playful frivolity of moments ago, only a fierce sort of power.
If she’d been a lesser woman, Rita might have panicked. Instead, she blinked, her lips twitch just slightly into a smile, and apparated across the room with a crack. In an instant she had her wand drawn and held out before her.
The blonde was between them, alarm on her face, eyes flicking between Rita and her companion. The redhead took a step forward.
“Tabitha, leave now.”
“But Gramama…” A wary glance in Rita’s direction.
“I said go, Tabitha!” A note of anger and panic in the older woman’s voice.
The one called Tabitha’s eyes widened in surprise, like this was a side of her grandmother she’d never seen before. With no further argument, she disapparated silently.
Eyes locked together. The redhead flexed manicured fingers, stepped forward. Rita lifted her wand. The redhead arched a brow.
“Who are you and what are you doing here? Why are you waving that stick at me?”
Rita’s eyes narrowed, assessing. Taking in her subject, or opponent. Hair piled in elaborate curls, swathed in purple - floating transparently around wrists and arms but darkening across chest to preserve modesty. Simple black slacks, diamonds at the ears and throat. Untroubled by the warmth of the day. Everything spoke to her of confidence and lack of fear, someone comfortable with her own power.
Rita glanced at her hand, then back at the woman, but did not lower her defensive stance. “It’s my wand.”
The redhead stepped closer and Rita stepped back, to one side, determined to keep some distance between them.
“Your wand?” For a moment, she seemed not to understand, then realisation dawned in her eyes, and she tipped her head back a little as if to get a better view of Rita. “You’re one of them, aren’t you? The ones they whisper about. Wand waving, cauldron stirring, broomstick flying witches that mortals make fun of on Halloween.”
A defensive Slytherin hiss. “Muggles don’t know the first thing about us!”
Bubbling laughter. “Is that what you call them? What a ridiculous word. You still haven’t answered my question. Who are you and what are you doing here?”
Rita rolled a shoulder. “I’m a reporter. I’m collecting information for a story.”
The redhead took another step forward. Rita did not retreat. “On me?”
“Perhaps.”
She was eying Rita’s wand again, a glint in her eye. “So, that wand. Is that how you channel your magic?” She arched a brow, cocked her head to one side. “I’m intrigued.”
Her words were cautious, but she knew sometimes you had to give a little to get a little. “Yes, it is.”
“Then, if someone was to take it from you, wouldn’t that make you…” She twitched her fingers, and Rita’s wand vanished in her fingers and reappeared in the other woman’s hand. “…Completely helpless?”
Rita took a step back. Any good story needed dramatic tension, and it in this particular narrative it was right about the moment she admitted that her heart had started to pound with something that might have been fear.
The woman gave the wand an experimental wave, and a shower of sparks erupted from the end. She chuckled in delight, but Rita stepped back. Perhaps she could… Back muscles twitched as if to grow wings, but the woman stepped forward again, this time with the wand pointed at Rita, and any part of her that had started to think like a beetle fled at the sight of a powerful witch with a wand she did not know how to use. She tried to take another step away from the danger, but came up hard against the railing that kept tourists away from the painting. The wand pressed into her belly, then trailed up over black fabric to rest over Rita’s heart, pressed in the valley between her breasts. She leaned away, eyes on the spot where the wand’s point pressed against her, arms sliding out and fingers wrapping around the wooden railing to keep balance.
“Now,” the woman’s voice made Rita look up, and their eyes met again. A sly smile played upon the other woman’s features. “What did you say your name was?”
“I…” Breath hitched in her throat for a moment as she became suddenly, powerfully aware of the scent of this woman - soft evening flowers - and of the fact that up close, the fabric of her top was not so opaque after all. “Rita Skeeter.”
“Good, Rita.” A musical note in her voice to match the amused gleam in her eyes. “You may call me Endora. I love interviews.”
And she turned away, leaving Rita hanging off the railing for a moment waiting for her legs to regain their solidity.
Well, that was interesting.
“I don’t think this is really the place for it, though, do you?” She turned back to face Rita, threw her arms wide above her head. The wand was still in her right hand, and Rita winced, but nothing happened. She twisted her arms, and the room melted around them like a spoiled painting.
The next thing Rita knew, they were in what appeared to be a library. A few dark wooden tables were lit by tall candelabras, but there was no wax on the floor, and the flames did not flicker with the movement of air as they arrived. On Rita’s left was a blank wall, on her right, and both behind and in front of her, walls of bookshelves stretched as high as the ceiling, and away down aisles until they were engulfed in darkness. It could have been Hogwarts, except that it wasn’t.
“There now,” Endora smiled. “This is a bit more intimate.” She twirled the wand in her fingers again, and in a breath Rita had closed the distance she had been so determined to keep between them, and caught Endora’s wrist in her hand.
“Don’t do that.” Her voice came out low and quiet, though she hadn’t planned it that way.
It was Endora’s turn to look unsettled, perhaps unsure how Rita had moved so fast, but she smiled a little and eyed Rita slyly from beneath her eyelashes. “And why not?”
“Because,” Rita murmured in that unplanned caress of a voice, sliding her hand over the other woman’s to pull the wand from her grip, “You don’t know how to use it.”
Rita slid the wand back into her sleeve, but did not move away.
“Who needs a wand?” Endora’s voice sounded distinctly like a pur, “When you have hands?”
Through the most thorough exploration, I have come to the conclusion that the witches and wizards to whom I refer in this article as ‘the purest of purebloods’ do indeed live vastly longer lives than us. Indeed, even those that have been alive for more than a thousand years are still imbued with youthful vigour and stamina.
Although they do not use wands, and are instead rather gifted with their hands, this does not necessarily make them more powerful than us.
Their power, while vast, is harder to direct, and in performing complex spells they must whisper complicated incantations that are time consuming and can be difficult to remember, especially in moments of distraction.
They can be seen as being more pure than us, in many ways, though many of them have no objections to intimate relations with races other than their own.
In conclusion, I believe we have nothing to fear from these ‘purest of purebloods’, despite their formidable appearances. Although they claim that they are not human, certain of their actions and responses are very human, indeed.