PR: You Kiss Your Mother With That Hellmouth?
Date: 13 February 2005, late night
Character(s): Julian, his forge, and some Mojomagic.
Location: The Forge, at Bronze and E
Status: Private
Summary: When left with no other alternatives for a solution, one generally falls back on what they know best. In Julian's case... well, it's best not to know what he knows best.
Completion: Complete... chaos
Cinnamomum camphora. Camphor. A wood whose resin the Chinese call 'Dragon's Brain Perfume'. Medicinal, magical, even revered by the Japanese.
Dragon heartstring. Well, the name said it all, really. Ollivander had said this particular core was rather old. It had been fussy about the wood in which it would reside. Clearly, it knew what it wanted and had a will of its own.
Twelve inches. A potent magical number, regardless of your religious affiliation.
Dragon's Breath was a powerful wand. It was fashioned beautifully, and along what seemed to be a particular motif. Fire, a force also beautiful and powerful, and potentially deadly. But like any weapon, it could be used as a tool if handled properly. Fear, ignorance and a lack of proper respect were often the cause for devastation by this tool.
There were other tools that many misjudged, based on uninformed loathing.
Julian Avery stood before his recently-completed forge. The last steps in preparation for the ritual were done. The wards on the forge and the rest of the facility had been strengthened. It was time to test Dragon's Breath's mettle, and his own. This time, they wouldn't be conjuring any simple, magical flame. Julian had tried that with limited success. It wasn't that the typical fire spell didn't create an efficient flame. The problem was he aimed to do much more than merely heat the metal to malleability.
Julian wanted to change the very properties of it.
It was one thing to live in Muggle houses, use their utilities, wear their leftover clothes. They were Wizards, however, and were meant to live as such. Julian knew there'd always be a Muggle taint to Stoatshead Hill, long after they had remade the town as their own. But rebuilding began with the basics, such as nails, screws, girders, hinges, door knobs, and so on. If a shoddy foundation was laid, all would crumble. This applied not just in the figurative sense of laying down the roots of magic in this barren soil, but also literally. Julian had been studying Muggle construction. There was no way in the Nine Hells those materials could stand up to the demands of Wizarding architecture. What the town needed was metal products with magical properties. The trouble was magical metal was in short supply. Julian also lacked the revenue to purchase ingots. What he did have in abundance, however, were great piles of Muggle scrap.
When was Muggle metal not Muggle? When you could burn away the impurities and infuse it with magic.
In the back of his mind, Julian had known a simple Incendio or bluebell flames wouldn't be enough. He needed something far more potent, more primal.
He needed older, more powerful tools.
One of the tomes he'd taken from the Avery safehouse had been in the family for many generations. Before that, the spell book's contents had been transcribed and translated from older texts. In short, it was a book on the Old Artes. An intelligent being would recognise that Old didn't necessarily mean Dark, although Julian had no delusions about the nature of the magic he sought to conjure. As he had told Willis indirectly, Dark Magic was still a field of interest for him. Oh, he didn't go out of his way to study and practice It. He had been raised, however, to respect all magic and use it with purpose, clarity, and impunity. After all, there was the promise of Darkness in even the most innocuous of charms. What separated Light from Dark was a thin line called Intent.
Julian had his purpose, his tools, and knew exactly what he needed to do. He was set to quite literally open a gate into Hell.
The first step in the ritual was to cast the binding runes. As dramatic as it all sounded, what Julian was doing wasn't all that grand or uncommon. This portal - or hellmouth, as they were once called - was to be a mere fissure in the boundary between realms. It would go only deep enough to tap into the intense, magical heat of hellfire. The binding runes would see to it that the hellmouth grew no wider than that. The forge itself had been made with materials either charmed or magical in origin, so Julian was confident it could withstand the intense heat. Additional wards around it would contain the resulting flames, as well as safeguard against typical magical fire hazards such as ashwinders. Containment and control were two different things, of course. For that, Julian also had a plan.
A blood bond, which would enforce his will upon the flame and make it subservient to him. Even inanimate objects had a mind of their own in the Magical World.
The runes were cast easily enough. One of the things he'd done prior to the forge's construction was scan the area for lines of power. He tapped into them now, surrounding the forge in the energy of the other elements. The balance would create a net that kept the energy of the fire circulating, just as airflow kept a Muggle fire alive. As he wove with his wand the last rune - drawing a connection with the nearby river - Julian felt a hum in the air. So far, it was working.
Next, he began the incantation to open the mouth. As this was an old spell, the components needed had been easy enough to obtain. They were quite basic, really, which made sense with elemental magic. Asphodel powder, camphor incense, and other 'ingredients' were placed in the forge. The incense was lit and as it smouldered, Julian pulled out a small vial of oak sap. To it he added the last component, via a controlled, silent Sectumsempra to his palm. At the first drop of blood, he felt a slight quickening in pulse. He took even breaths to steady himself as a calm, iron will was vitally important in the next stage. The vial was silently levitated over the incense as it finally caught fire to the powder. It continued to hover until the solution inside began to boil. Julian then waved his hand as he continued the incantation. The vial was banished and its contents dropped into the fire. He expected the resulting explosion, but the crack, the flash of light, the shudder in the ground still took his breath away.
He'd forgotten how exhilarating, awe-inspiring, and fearsome Dark Magic could be.
As a fount of intense, bright flames surged forward to collide with the wards, Julian snapped back to his senses. Quickly he initiated the blood bond, putting as much feeling as he could behind the words. He forced himself to stare into the heart of the blaze as he chanted. He saw the flames begin to shrink back. His entire body began thrumming to the rhythm of his pulse. Liquid heat churned in his heart and poured out into his veins. It was the most powerful, the most alive Julian had felt in a long time. To have control over something so fundamental, so raw... Well, it staggered the mind.
Perhaps it was during that brief moment of wonderment that everything started going horribly pear-shaped.
It happened so suddenly, Julian didn't have time to puzzle over things. One moment he felt like the God of Fire himself, the next he seemed more like His wayward apprentice. There was another booming crack, quickly followed by a surge of energy and a deafening roar. The flames shot out at him, colliding once more with the wards. Catching his breath, Julian redoubled his chanting but the flame only crawled up the invisible barrier. He concentrated harder, shouting out each syllable as clearly and forcefully as possible. The fire seemed to pause, then twist back onto itself, only to rise and beat at the wards again. Julian didn't dare check if they were holding. He couldn't drop his concentration for a moment. It was even possible they were no longer there, as his body was consumed with the amplified racing of his heart and the burning of his blood.
Blood. The bond. It and sheer will alone were his only means of controlling this.
There was no thinking, only gut instinct. Still yelling his throat raw, Julian ripped off the handkerchief he'd pressed to his palm wound. There was pain and something done with his wand, then he was casting anew with it, waving it wildly and sending crimson drops into the flames. Where they hit, the fire hissed and pulled back. He threw more at it. He threw everything at it. All his determination, all his passions, all his fears. The worries over the past week, the past months, the years of strife and anxiety and single-minded determination to life long enough to be a living hell to his enemies. The pain of forcing himself into a shape, a role, that hadn't fit him. The anger he had deliberately fed himself to keep going, keep fighting, killing, to keep doing something he knew was wrong, wrong, wrong.
The unrequited feelings for people who never felt as strongly as he did, if they were capable of feeling at all. A father that didn't know love, a sister who hated it, other sisters who were victims of its absence, lovers who wanted his money or his influence or simply his body but never the heart or soul he offered them.
His mistakes, so bloody many of them, he could fuel far more fires than Hell was throwing him now, especially now that the fire was retreating and Gods he had to dam up that hole, either the hellmouth in his forge or the one in his heart because it was killing him and he still had enemies to piss off and mistakes to fix, and he had to find Carolyn and apologise, and love Gilderoy more and introduce him to reality, and perhaps tell Severus to get that gigantic stick out of his ass if he ever hoped to breathe, what with his head up there too...
The world began to grow dark and Julian collapsed to his knees. He could barely speak and his head swam, but he continued the incantation. The flames appeared to be retreating. He had energy left for one last bit of magic. With one last gulp of breath, he cast to end the spell, to shut the mouth.
He then finished collapsing to the floor. In the deafening silence, he felt drained. Of magic, of blood, of wits and emotion. If this was his trial by fire, then the jury must have found him guilty, as oblivion quickly overcame him.
Due to the problematic nature of Unconsciousness, Julian never noticed the fire that sat peacefully within the forge.
And he missed when it first opened its eyes.
Character(s): Julian, his forge, and some Mojomagic.
Location: The Forge, at Bronze and E
Status: Private
Summary: When left with no other alternatives for a solution, one generally falls back on what they know best. In Julian's case... well, it's best not to know what he knows best.
Completion: Complete... chaos
Cinnamomum camphora. Camphor. A wood whose resin the Chinese call 'Dragon's Brain Perfume'. Medicinal, magical, even revered by the Japanese.
Dragon heartstring. Well, the name said it all, really. Ollivander had said this particular core was rather old. It had been fussy about the wood in which it would reside. Clearly, it knew what it wanted and had a will of its own.
Twelve inches. A potent magical number, regardless of your religious affiliation.
Dragon's Breath was a powerful wand. It was fashioned beautifully, and along what seemed to be a particular motif. Fire, a force also beautiful and powerful, and potentially deadly. But like any weapon, it could be used as a tool if handled properly. Fear, ignorance and a lack of proper respect were often the cause for devastation by this tool.
There were other tools that many misjudged, based on uninformed loathing.
Julian Avery stood before his recently-completed forge. The last steps in preparation for the ritual were done. The wards on the forge and the rest of the facility had been strengthened. It was time to test Dragon's Breath's mettle, and his own. This time, they wouldn't be conjuring any simple, magical flame. Julian had tried that with limited success. It wasn't that the typical fire spell didn't create an efficient flame. The problem was he aimed to do much more than merely heat the metal to malleability.
Julian wanted to change the very properties of it.
It was one thing to live in Muggle houses, use their utilities, wear their leftover clothes. They were Wizards, however, and were meant to live as such. Julian knew there'd always be a Muggle taint to Stoatshead Hill, long after they had remade the town as their own. But rebuilding began with the basics, such as nails, screws, girders, hinges, door knobs, and so on. If a shoddy foundation was laid, all would crumble. This applied not just in the figurative sense of laying down the roots of magic in this barren soil, but also literally. Julian had been studying Muggle construction. There was no way in the Nine Hells those materials could stand up to the demands of Wizarding architecture. What the town needed was metal products with magical properties. The trouble was magical metal was in short supply. Julian also lacked the revenue to purchase ingots. What he did have in abundance, however, were great piles of Muggle scrap.
When was Muggle metal not Muggle? When you could burn away the impurities and infuse it with magic.
In the back of his mind, Julian had known a simple Incendio or bluebell flames wouldn't be enough. He needed something far more potent, more primal.
He needed older, more powerful tools.
One of the tomes he'd taken from the Avery safehouse had been in the family for many generations. Before that, the spell book's contents had been transcribed and translated from older texts. In short, it was a book on the Old Artes. An intelligent being would recognise that Old didn't necessarily mean Dark, although Julian had no delusions about the nature of the magic he sought to conjure. As he had told Willis indirectly, Dark Magic was still a field of interest for him. Oh, he didn't go out of his way to study and practice It. He had been raised, however, to respect all magic and use it with purpose, clarity, and impunity. After all, there was the promise of Darkness in even the most innocuous of charms. What separated Light from Dark was a thin line called Intent.
Julian had his purpose, his tools, and knew exactly what he needed to do. He was set to quite literally open a gate into Hell.
The first step in the ritual was to cast the binding runes. As dramatic as it all sounded, what Julian was doing wasn't all that grand or uncommon. This portal - or hellmouth, as they were once called - was to be a mere fissure in the boundary between realms. It would go only deep enough to tap into the intense, magical heat of hellfire. The binding runes would see to it that the hellmouth grew no wider than that. The forge itself had been made with materials either charmed or magical in origin, so Julian was confident it could withstand the intense heat. Additional wards around it would contain the resulting flames, as well as safeguard against typical magical fire hazards such as ashwinders. Containment and control were two different things, of course. For that, Julian also had a plan.
A blood bond, which would enforce his will upon the flame and make it subservient to him. Even inanimate objects had a mind of their own in the Magical World.
The runes were cast easily enough. One of the things he'd done prior to the forge's construction was scan the area for lines of power. He tapped into them now, surrounding the forge in the energy of the other elements. The balance would create a net that kept the energy of the fire circulating, just as airflow kept a Muggle fire alive. As he wove with his wand the last rune - drawing a connection with the nearby river - Julian felt a hum in the air. So far, it was working.
Next, he began the incantation to open the mouth. As this was an old spell, the components needed had been easy enough to obtain. They were quite basic, really, which made sense with elemental magic. Asphodel powder, camphor incense, and other 'ingredients' were placed in the forge. The incense was lit and as it smouldered, Julian pulled out a small vial of oak sap. To it he added the last component, via a controlled, silent Sectumsempra to his palm. At the first drop of blood, he felt a slight quickening in pulse. He took even breaths to steady himself as a calm, iron will was vitally important in the next stage. The vial was silently levitated over the incense as it finally caught fire to the powder. It continued to hover until the solution inside began to boil. Julian then waved his hand as he continued the incantation. The vial was banished and its contents dropped into the fire. He expected the resulting explosion, but the crack, the flash of light, the shudder in the ground still took his breath away.
He'd forgotten how exhilarating, awe-inspiring, and fearsome Dark Magic could be.
As a fount of intense, bright flames surged forward to collide with the wards, Julian snapped back to his senses. Quickly he initiated the blood bond, putting as much feeling as he could behind the words. He forced himself to stare into the heart of the blaze as he chanted. He saw the flames begin to shrink back. His entire body began thrumming to the rhythm of his pulse. Liquid heat churned in his heart and poured out into his veins. It was the most powerful, the most alive Julian had felt in a long time. To have control over something so fundamental, so raw... Well, it staggered the mind.
Perhaps it was during that brief moment of wonderment that everything started going horribly pear-shaped.
It happened so suddenly, Julian didn't have time to puzzle over things. One moment he felt like the God of Fire himself, the next he seemed more like His wayward apprentice. There was another booming crack, quickly followed by a surge of energy and a deafening roar. The flames shot out at him, colliding once more with the wards. Catching his breath, Julian redoubled his chanting but the flame only crawled up the invisible barrier. He concentrated harder, shouting out each syllable as clearly and forcefully as possible. The fire seemed to pause, then twist back onto itself, only to rise and beat at the wards again. Julian didn't dare check if they were holding. He couldn't drop his concentration for a moment. It was even possible they were no longer there, as his body was consumed with the amplified racing of his heart and the burning of his blood.
Blood. The bond. It and sheer will alone were his only means of controlling this.
There was no thinking, only gut instinct. Still yelling his throat raw, Julian ripped off the handkerchief he'd pressed to his palm wound. There was pain and something done with his wand, then he was casting anew with it, waving it wildly and sending crimson drops into the flames. Where they hit, the fire hissed and pulled back. He threw more at it. He threw everything at it. All his determination, all his passions, all his fears. The worries over the past week, the past months, the years of strife and anxiety and single-minded determination to life long enough to be a living hell to his enemies. The pain of forcing himself into a shape, a role, that hadn't fit him. The anger he had deliberately fed himself to keep going, keep fighting, killing, to keep doing something he knew was wrong, wrong, wrong.
The unrequited feelings for people who never felt as strongly as he did, if they were capable of feeling at all. A father that didn't know love, a sister who hated it, other sisters who were victims of its absence, lovers who wanted his money or his influence or simply his body but never the heart or soul he offered them.
His mistakes, so bloody many of them, he could fuel far more fires than Hell was throwing him now, especially now that the fire was retreating and Gods he had to dam up that hole, either the hellmouth in his forge or the one in his heart because it was killing him and he still had enemies to piss off and mistakes to fix, and he had to find Carolyn and apologise, and love Gilderoy more and introduce him to reality, and perhaps tell Severus to get that gigantic stick out of his ass if he ever hoped to breathe, what with his head up there too...
The world began to grow dark and Julian collapsed to his knees. He could barely speak and his head swam, but he continued the incantation. The flames appeared to be retreating. He had energy left for one last bit of magic. With one last gulp of breath, he cast to end the spell, to shut the mouth.
He then finished collapsing to the floor. In the deafening silence, he felt drained. Of magic, of blood, of wits and emotion. If this was his trial by fire, then the jury must have found him guilty, as oblivion quickly overcame him.
Due to the problematic nature of Unconsciousness, Julian never noticed the fire that sat peacefully within the forge.
And he missed when it first opened its eyes.