Story Downloaded from Open Scrolls Archive (https://www.openscrolls.net)

Title: An American Wizard (#4073)
Author: Ottis413
Chapters: 3

Archive: Harry Potter
Category: Bookverse
Description: A Wizard story from the other side of the pond.
Published: 24 Jun 2009
Updated: 24 Jun 2009
Warnings: Needs Betaed
Type: Action/adventure
Characters: The Rebo family


Chapter 1 - Chapter 1, The night of the skulls.

An American Wizard.

Adapted from a si-fi story by William Dietz, as well as others. and of course, J.K.Rowling.

When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse, Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look, but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown, the dream is gone.

Pink Floyd
Comfortably Numb




Ch 1, The night of the skulls.

Oct 31, 1981, A small town in North America

The attack had came without warning, and ended just as quickly. The Pegasus-drawn coach had been under way for only a few minutes sense the end of the attack, having left the town of neatly shingled roofs, and miles of roads for the earth bound muggle cars far below. The magical animals strained at their harnesses as they rose into the night sky, the driver's long, supple whip cracked loud but harmlessly over their proud heads as they pulled the four-wheeled vehicle's entire weight upward at a steep angle. The Pegasus' expressed their unhappiness at being rushed via snorts, grunts, and occasional bursts of flatulence as the town fell away, and they pulled the coach up through the low hanging clouds. But the driver was accustomed to such displays, and his passengers were largely unaware of how the normally contented creatures felt, since two of the three were asleep within the boxy cab.

The town was hidden from view now, along with the smoke rising form a burning house, and the flashing red and blue lights of the muggle emergency vehicles.

The only one awake was Lonni Rebo, who sat facing the front of the coach with little Jak Rebo resting on her lap. Her right leg was going to sleep, but because of what had just happened she couldn't bring herself to move the boy and thereby break the sleep spell. Little Jak was now temporarily at peace. He had been ever since their departure from the small mountain town now somewhere behind them.

Lonni had been trained to sense things that other Witches and Wizards could not. So even as the burned Auror who was lying unconscious on the seat across from her continued to softly mumble, and Little Jak flinched as if in response to a dream, the young woman knew that conflict lay ahead. It was as unavoidable as the sunrise.

Later.

The windows were open, which meant Lonni caught a brief glimpse of the starry night above as the coach lurched over a cloud and began its long descent. In contrast to the soft clouds the coach had passed earlier in the evening, a rocky mountain surrounded by dense forest awaited them below. The interlocking foliage stretched down the sloops for as far as the eye could see. A road had now become visible, and, judging from the occasional glint of reflected moonlight, was mostly covered in light snow.

Jak Rebos’ father mumbled something in his spell induced sleep, and Lonni Rebo smiled tenderly as she ran her fingers through the little Jaks’ thick black hair. His features were much like his fathers, but a bit too serious to be described as an average, “happy-go-lucky” child of three.

In spite of the fact that women generally found him to be attractive. Her relationship with Jak Rebo Sr. had been part of a long journey that had begun at school, and subsequently taken them to all corners of the Earth. What had began as a childhood alliance had gradually evolved into a friendship, and then a career fighting the Death Eaters. Only then did the relationship blossom into romance and marriage.

He would survive his injuries, a person with her gifts could tell.

Such were Lonni Rebo's thoughts as the coach descended toward the mountain side forest, bounced along its way by wind gusts, and was soon embraced by an army of leafy trees. Their trunks were four to five feet in circumference, and their massive branches came together to form a dense canopy overhead. Snow lay deep in the road they now followed.

But the chill that Lonni Rebo felt was not entirely physical. Other senses had come into play too, senses that most Witches and Wizards possess, but rarely were able to take full advantage of. What one of them might have experienced as a vague uneasiness, Lonni saw as a roiling blackness, and knew the sensation for what it was: dark magical energy being broadcast by a group of hostile minds. The Witch put her hand protectively across little Jaks’ shoulders. Something was wrong.

But the warning came too late. One of the Pegasus uttered a bloodcurdling scream as a enchanted arrow sank into its haunch, and hobnailed boots made thumping sounds as Death Eaters landed on the roof. That noise was followed by a flash of blue green light as the driver cast his spells and sent one of the intruders into the snow beside the road. But that did nothing to protect the coachman from the rope spell cast by the other, a noose appeared and began to tighten around his throat. He lost his grip on the reins as well as his wand in a desperate effort to restore his air supply.

Lonni aimed her wand at the unconscious and bandaged man across from her. "Awake! Death-Eaters! On the roof!" She exclaimed, as her husband awoke.

Like all his profession, Big Jak Rebo had a body hardened by a life of fighting. That meant he was strong, so strong that he could smash a fist up through the thin roof, and grab the Death Eaters’ ankle. That was sufficient to startle the would-be attacker, who was forced to take his concentration from the rope spell, while he attempted to pry the Aurtors’ fingers off his ankle. And that's what he was doing when Rebo drew his wand with the other hand, pointed the tip up toward the ceiling, and cast a burning spell through the roof. It struck the brigand in the legs and set his robes afire. The coach rocked slightly as Rebo let go; the flaming Death Eater bounced into the air and fell past the coach window.

The driver had control of the reins by then, but no amount of swearing could make the wounded Pegasus move faster, and that slowed the rest. All of this was surely part of the plan to stop the coach.

What the attackers didn't expect were the wands that emerged from the carriage windows blazing all manner of spells, some legal and some not. The death Eaters quickly found that the passengers were clearly more formidable than the wounded family they had expected, they had little choice but to hurl themselves backward as the volley of spells blazed past them.

And so it was that having lost fully half his small band in a matter of minutes, and with a badly burnt left thigh, the group's leader issued a shrill whistle. Grabbing his broom from the ground, his feet lifted clear of the snow as he and the other Death Eaters flew off into the safety of the woods. All the attackers were gone within seconds, leaving the two battle dazed Aurors in sole possession of the small battlefield.

"Well, that was an unpleasant surprise," Big Jak said calmly as he slipped his wand back into the cross-draw holster in his cloak. He gingerly felt the bandages on his face, he ground his teeth. "Let's get out of here before they regroup."

Lonni tried to separate the nervous apprehension she felt from the feelings coming from her highly specialized senses, but that was hard to do. So, with no assurance that they wouldn't be attacked again, all they could do was to keep their eyes peeled and look forward to the moment when they put the forest behind them.

Eventually, after an hour of suspense, that moment came, as the driver turned into what looked like dense forest. A road that no Muggle and few of Wizardkind would be able to see appeared between two trees. It was well past midnight by then, the moon had set and Big Jak wondered how many more days he would witness before he and his companions saw the end of the war that had started that very night. The coach slowed slightly as it encountered a rise and entered a tunnel into the mountain side, the driver had lost his whip, but the Pegasus pulled harder anyway. The Pegasus were well loved by the driver, and knew what was needed of them.

The undercarriage rattled, darkness gathered, they exited the tunnel into a dead volcano crater. A lake surrounded by the Wizarding city of Lud, and above them stars lay like white dust on the black velvet sky.

It was near morning now, and the two Aurors had been sitting in the forward seat with Little Jak sleeping between them, horror overcame them as they looked out at the city, flames rose above the government buildings as well as the school. Almost at the same instant a frantic Wizard ran up to the coach; “Voldemort is DEAD! They killed him in England! The Death Eaters are on the RUN! He who must not be named is DEAD! IT’S OVER”

The frazzled Wizard ran on down the cobblestone street shouting at the top of his lungs. Lonni found that she did not feel relief at the news. Something was still wrong.


Chapter 2 - Chapter 2, Eight years later. The Wizard City of Lud

Eight years later. Rocksworth School of Magic, The Wizard City of Lud.

The sun was little more than a dimly seen presence beyond the layers of fog that hung over the early morning city of Lud. Not much had changed during the eight years since the followers of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had wrecked havoc in the city.

None of this held any interest for the Headless man as he walked toward the entrance of Rocksworth, the once magnificent school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and made his way up the front steps. The long, filthy robe hung loosely over his thin and scared body, crude sandles made scraping sounds as he climbed the stairs. The students moved to get out of his way. The Headless were directed only by their handler at the local Ministry of Magic, everyone knew that, and there would be trouble if one was delayed or threatened. That meant it was a good idea to leave the Headless alone in spite of the tattoo on their forearms, and the feelings that these provoked.

This Headless man, like all the others, had a chunk of a roughly hued wooden board atop his neck, seemingly held in place by a large rusty screw at its center. The only other thing apparent was a tarnished brass tag nailed on the front, reading; “Willam Ditz, Convicted Death Eater, 1981.” His slow and steady pace remained unchanged as he crossed the broad entryway of the school.
Like most of the buildings around it, the school still had marks from the fierce fighting that had taken place eight years before.

But this hardly mattered to the few students and teachers who remained here, or the Headless man as he climbed five flights of stairs, pulled open a door still showing signs of fire, and entered the Administration level of the school. Space was not a problem on this floor, which meant that many of the offices were empty, even many of the picture frames lining the walls were deserted.

So it wasn't surprising that only a few eyes tracked the ragged figure as it followed the seeming endless hallway, paused at one of the intersections, and took a judicious right. And since the Headless mans progress was unheralded, Alern Dyson and his assistant nearly jumped out of their seats as they looked up at the fore-shortened figure looming in the doorway.

Holey Sh,,, crap! Alern slapped his hand over his eyes for a moment, “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to those things skulking around!” He let his hand fall to the desk, rattling the ink-wells. “What is it now?!” he asked. The Headless man shuffled (loudly now) over to the desk and dropped an envelope in front of Alern, then turned and left without (of course) a word.

His assistant, a young wizard named Hule, was working hard to hide his amusement at Alerns discomfort, he nodded toward the envelope laying on the desk.

“What is it? Might be something important.” By this he meant “interesting”, Admissions was not the most exciting job at Rocksworth.

Alern gently probed the envelope with his wand, as if he thought it might bite him. It had happened before.

When the envelope showed no signs of bearing teeth and leaping at his face, he leaned forward and read the return address.
“It’s from Auror Rebo, I wonder what he wants, must have a kid turning eleven...”

“That nut? Why didn’t he just send it by owl?” Hule was leaning across his desk on his elbows. “I didn’t know he had a kid.”

Alern glanced sideways at his assistant, “He doesn’t trust Owls, he doesn’t trust the flu network, hel,, heck, he doesn’t trust anything that I can think of.

He was gingerly opening the heavy envelope, when suddenly a small glass eye with wings popped out of the opening and started flitting around the room.

HOLEY SHIT! Alren shouted as the flying eyeball made a pass around the room looking in corners and under the desks. No sooner had the words left his lips then a small dark cloud with bright red lips appeared over his head.

“THERE WILL BE NO USE OF CURSE WORDS OR CRUDE LANGUAGE IN THIS SCHOOL! That goes for the STAFF AS WELL!!”

The small dark cloud seemed on the verge of saying more, but instead a small flash of lightning burned part of Arlens’ right eyebrow off.


Chapter 3 - Little Jak Rebo turns 11

Denver, USA.
Aug. 1989

There was a sharp rat-a-tat on his bedroom door.

“Time to get up, Jacky.” and after a short pause, “Happy birthday!”

His grandmother didn't bother coming in to check that Jak got up. Jak always got up when called. He was a good kid.

He climbed out of bed, took off his night-shirt, and went to look at himself in the mirror. It had become part of his morning ritual.

He blinked to clear the sleep from his eyes, shivering slightly as an image left over from the dream flashed briefly and threateningly in the depths of his memory.

Jak wasn’t sure how long he had been having the dreams. He thought the dreams had started sometime when he was three or four, after the house fire that had nearly killed his parents, and left his father so scared. The dreams had faded almost immediately upon awaking in the past. Crazy dreams, people flying, doing magical things. Impossible things.

Jak had been told that he hadn’t been home when the fire broke out, he had been visiting his grandmother at the time and had ended up living with her.

Sometimes he thought he remembered the fire, like he had been there, but that had to be a dream too, didn’t it?

Maybe he had always dreamed, but had only recently come by the ability to remember his dreams. On the other hand, perhaps the remembering of his dreams had also been the beginning of the end of his sanity.

He often wondered how he had managed not to give himself away in the past few months. After he first began to remember his dreams clearly and had started seeing strange things even when awake, things that made him feel sure his mind was slipping. Any anomalies in his behavior must have been written off to his age. His grandmother was always telling him how lucky he was to be eleven, he wasn’t sure just why she thought this, but now he was in a position to agree with her. At eleven, it was entirely appropriate to be a little bit inquisitive and more than a little odd. It was even possible to get away with being a little too clever by half, as long as he didn't overdo it.

It was difficult to be sure, because he didn't want to interrogate his grandmother too explicitly, but he had figured out that his parents must have been working for the government, it must be the government, even at the time of the fire. They was always traveling and many times strangely dressed people were with them when they returned.

He looked at himself closely in the mirror as he put on his cloths, looking for signs of maturity, as well as his slipping sanity. What did crazy people look like anyway? He also kept an eye on the street outside his bedroom window, his parents never missed his birthday.

Straightening up from tying his shoes he spotted his mother and father coming down the sidewalk, his fathers limp was unmistakable, her grace impeccable. They was alone, and had no bags, his father had promised him a special surprise for his eleventh birthday.

As Jak raised his bedroom window to greet them, and another of the events that had made him doubt his sanity occurred. An owl with a letter clamped firmly in its beak flew through the window, surprising him so badly that he fell to the floor.
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