Harry Potter and the Child of Tourach

a/n: you know the drill: no reviews = slow updates....

“What?” asked Harry, completely dumb smacked. He had no idea who or what this creature was or why it was talking to him. That he had been able to repeat the sign the creature made only increased his confusion.
“You are not Tourach.” replied it, very slowly as though talking to a child. “But the question is what does that mean?”
“I’ve got absolutely no idea what you are talking about.” replied Harry, slowly getting irritated by the creature’s way of talking. “I really don’t have the time to solve strange riddles, so just tell me who you are and what do you want from me.”

“Very well, my name is Crosis and I came to here to meet a certain person, who hasn’t shown up. However you are much too strong to be an ordinary human and you greeted me in the correct way. No one could have known this sign except for Tourach, me and two others, but you definitely are not him. You look different and you can’t remember me, yet your aura feels slightly similar… I think this question should be answered with the others.”

With these words the creature raised its arms and a pillar of light appeared around him, reaching high into the sky and apparently beaconing something or someone.

“Who are you calling?” asked Harry angrily. “Why did you create this legion of undeads and what the hell do you want? And what are you?”
“Patience, we’ll talk about this soon enough.”, replied the skeletal mage. “What was your name again?”
“I’m Harry Potter and would be more than happy if you could get a move on, my time isn’t unlimited you know.”
“How very witty. Trust me, I’m not happy with this situation either. Everything could be so easy, but no, now I’m in a situation I don’t understand and have got no idea how to get the contest starting again.”

Just as Harry was getting ready to explode, terribly annoyed by the creature’s way of speaking in riddles and that it seemed to have arranged this massacre without a good reason, two other creatures appeared. One was a stunningly beautiful woman with snow-white skin, blood-red lips, long golden hair and matching eyes. Despite her beauty she appeared cold and foreboding and Harry made a mental note to keep an eye on her, knowing that she would be at least as dangerous as Crosis was.

The other creature was a huge humanoid, whose body was divided into two halves. One was made completely out of plants, while the other was made of magma. It had a brutal looking face in which two jet-black eyes were gleaming with the lust for battle. The brute was leering at Crosis and the woman with a look of absolute loathing plastered on his face and Harry wouldn’t be surprised if it lashed out at them any moment.

“May I introduce you?” asked Crosis rhetorically. “The golden haired woman is Shai and the brute over there is Anhur. The young man with the messy black hair and the green eyes is Harry Potter.”
Anhur didn’t react at all to Crosis introduction, except that the scowl on his face deepened even further, while Shai studied Harry curiously.

“That’s all very interesting Crosis.” she said, in a voice as sharp and cold as a crystalline bell. “But I thought you wanted to call us when you’ve found Tourach and I can’t see him anywhere around here.”
“That’s exactly why I called you.” replied the skeleton. “I need you help with this situation, even though Anhur won’t be a great help.”
“Watch your tongue bonehead or I’ll rip you apart limb for limb.” growled Anhur. “Get a move on, I’m really looking forward to some action and after four thousand years I’m eager to finish what we started.”
“As if you were a match for me Anhur. You are just a thug with an abundance of muscles and not enough brain to fill an eggcup. Also I’m the lord of death and you are merely a little nuisance I’ll have to quash.”

“Oh yeah? Well let’s see how well you can think with a cracked skull, oh lord of death.” replied Anhur and swung a quick blow at Crosis head. The skeleton mage summoned a wall of ice, which absorbed the blow but was shattered into a billion pieces by Anhur’s force. Crosis answered by shooting a small, blue-black ball at Anhur, which flew so fast that it was nearly impossible to see let alone to dodge. A split second before it collided with the brute’s face an extremely bright flash blinded everyone around.

For a few moments Harry saw nothing, his vision completely obscured by the white bolt. He could hear screaming around him and caught bits of a heated discussion between the three strange creatures. After a few minutes he regained his ability to see and observed the current situation. Crosis and Anhur were both trapped in large crystals, their bodies completely immobilized by these translucent prisons. Only their heads weren’t cover in crystal and therefore still able to move and talk. Currently they were shouting insults at Shai, who seemed to be responsible for their imprisonment. Suddenly Harry spotted a crystal mirror hovering in the air directly in front of Anhur’s head. Bewildered he searched for anything explaining the item’s function. Then he realized that a part of the canyon twenty feet left from Crosis had collapsed, burying a few zombies in the process. Apparently the mirror had reflected Crosis energy ball and caused it to destroy the canyon wall. Harry shuddered as he imagined what this ball would have done to Anhur or any other living creature.

“After this childish dispute is settled we can now return to the matter at hand.” said Shai evenly. “What do you have to say Crosis and don’t you dare speaking in riddles or you will never leave this crystal again.”
“Once again I am amazed by your manners and graciousness, oh kind lady.” the skeleton replied silkily.
“I don’t think he has learned his lesson yet Shai.” interrupted the brute called Anhur. “Release me and I will teach him his place – at the bottom!”
“As if you with your pea-sized brain could defeat me.” said Crosis laughing. “I always was the strongest of us three and this whole contest is only formal anyway. It’s clear that I’ll be the winner.”

“Sure Crosis and that’s why you are currently trapped in one of me crystals completely at my mercy. You should watch your rotten tongue or you’ll feel the full amount of my wrath.”
For the first time during this encounter Shai looked really angry and Harry wondered what kind of havoc the woman could wreck at the two others and at the world at general.

Just as Crosis opened his mouth to reply, Anhur joined the discussion proclaiming him at the strongest of them and the strongest being in the universe. Shai and Crosis didn’t take this boast too kindly and within seconds a full-blown argument had erupted. Harry watched in disbelief as the three powerful creatures shouted at each other, often underlining their points with spells. The situation was so weird that he wondered if this was all a very strange dream.

The longer the argument lasted, the more Harry became convinced that he was indeed dreaming. This would explain Scrimgeour’s incredibly stupid battle plans and his childish defiance and resentment against Harry. It would explain the existence of the ice-covered zombies, which were much too cunning undeads to be part of the real world. And last but not least it would explain the encounter with the three strange, powerful creatures, which seemed to suffer from over stiff egos. It didn’t explain what they wanted from him, but Harry guessed that they wanted to tell him to wake up and go to work.

However, like so often in life, having answered this question created a new one. Now Harry knew how that this situation was merely a dream (or so he believed), but this caused him to think about why he was dreaming this bizarre dream. Was he ill and the fever caused his mind to create this rubbish? But if this was the case how had he become ill? It was late summer after all and he couldn’t remember any situation during the past weeks which could possible lead to a cold, quite the contrary. It had been very hot during the last weeks, which had caused him to lessen the oppressive heat by taking cold showers together with Ginny. So Harry discarded this possibility and just as he started to consider that someone had built and activated the improbability drive mentioned in The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy his belief of this being a dream was violently shattered.

Apparently the argument between the three creatures had evolved into a full blown skirmish. One of Crosis’ Death Balls crashed into a canyon wall only six feet left from Harry and the explosion knocked him to the ground. Sharp stone shrapnels embedded themselves into his back and the burning pain caused Harry to finally discard the this-is-only-a-dream theory. Gingerly he stood up, grimacing as a new wave of pain assaulted his brain in response to the movement. Muttering a simple but dead useful spell, Harry removed the stone splinters in his back. Then he cast a healing spell Ginny had taught him to stop the bleeding and to close the wounds. Fortunately the injuries were only superficial thanks to the auror robe he was wearing. It was enchanted to absorb blows and magical energy alike. After the healing spell had kicked into effect he was as good as new, but still had to deal with the slight problem of three crazy and much too powerful magical beings.

Looking around he realized that the other aurors had not moved an inch since Crosis appeared. The sight of the three foes battling seemed to have rooted them to the spot. Harry was getting seriously annoyed know. What the hell wanted these creatures from him? It couldn’t be this important or they would be talking with him right now. Deciding to put an end to this encounter or at least to get it moving again, Harry called out.
“Hey, do you still need me or can I go? I’m rather busy, you know.”

His statement caused the battle to halt. Crosis, who was just in the process of firing several three feet wide icicles at Anhur, aborted his attack. Shai dispelled the ten flying balls of light, which had attacked the other two with bolts of lighting and floated back to the ground, having flown throughout the skirmish. Only the impulsive Anhur didn’t stop fighting. He launched a magma jet at Crosis, while spraying Shai with one foot long thorns. However he was no matched for the others combined power. Within seconds he was once again enclosed in a shining crystal, unable to fight any further. No one of the three creatures seemed to be injured or exhausted by their clash, which was astounding due to the high amount of energy they put into their attacks.

“No.” said Crosis, now once again facing Harry. “We still need you. The others may go, this battle was only arranged to get you here anyway.”
“Only to get me here?” asked Harry, after the statement had sunk in. “But why would you…”
“Yeah Crosis.” interrupted Shai. “Why making such a big effort only to get an ordinary human here? I though you were looking for Tourach.”
Harry felt slightly insulted by her, after all he was everything but ordinary and being a human really wasn’t so bad.

The features of the skeleton twisted into a grimaced, which distantly resembled a cocky smile.
“And this is exactly why we are here Shai. I have reasons to believe that this ordinary human is a descendant of Tourach.”

“A descendent from who?” asked Harry, but was interrupted by Shai.
“This is it?” she asked angrily. “You called us to reveal the incredibly small possibility that this human is a child of Tourach?”
“Basically what’s why I called you.” the skeleton replied calmly.
“Crosis I’m not in the mood for any mind games today, so get to the point.” warned the crystal maiden. “Tell us the reasons for your assumption and what this might mean.”
“You wish is my command fair lady.” echoed Crosis, bowing ridiculously low to emphasize his obedience. “According to our plan I built up a small army of ice zombies to lure Tourach out of his hiding place and stored them in this canyon. I placed a few baiting charms on the area and covered the whole thing with a weak illusion to make it appear authentic. Well after a few days this bunch of hooligans showed up (he pointed at the aurors with one of his bony hands) and attacked my troops. They got their ass kicked at first but then this young man called Harry unleashed a gigantic fireball and incinerated most of my little army. Normally a human being shouldn’t be able to channel this huge amount of energy so I decided to show myself and have a look at him. Surprisingly he replied my greeting correctly me with the Tash-De, which he under normal circumstances he couldn’t know!”

Harry’s temper flared during the skeleton’s speech. So the whole battle had only been a scheme arranged to lure this Tourach out of his sanctuary and Crosis was giving a damn about the people who had become hurt or even died during this arranged melee. Memories of the battle flooded Harry’s mind and fuelled his rage. He remembered an ice-covered claw flying at Tonk’s surprised face. He remembered Booker lying on the floor in a bloody mess, cradling his injured arm. And he remembered how exhausting it had been to create the fireball which had ended the battle and how dangerous it had been. All the memories blended into a blur of claws, blood and fire and for a moment Harry was close to attacking the three creatures even though it would have been his certain demise. With an enormous effort he fought down his battle lust and continued listening to Crosis, Anhur and Shai, hoping to find out why this Tourach was so important to them and what they wanted from him.

“What exactly are you implying Crosis?” growled Anhur. “Even if he is a descendent of Tourach why should he be of interest for us? Tourach is free to shag as many girls as he wants to and we shouldn’t bother ourselves with the results of this but with finding him.”
“Ah once again you’re missing a point, oh heartless savage.” replied Crosis smoothly. “I’ve found out that the aura we felt after our awakening was no other’s than Harry’s and not Tourach’s. This leads to the assumption that Tourach is either gone or dead.”

Stunned silence followed his words. His head had started swimming during the conversation. He being the son of a friend of these three creatures? No way! And ever if he were, what exactly would this mean? Apparently it seemed very important to them. Finally Shai broke the silence, her angry voice ringing throughout the canyon.

“That’s completely impossible Crosis and you know that. Tourach is at least as strong as we are, if not stronger and we are still alive. This means that he couldn’t have died of old age and I doubt very much that someone who lives or lived on this planet would have been able to kill him. After all he absorbed his fair share of the energy didn’t he? And why on earth would he be hiding and what for? He knows that we need him to finish the contest and that without him only pointless bloodshed will erupt. He always had a soft spot for the people not involved in out struggle, so why should he consciously endanger them?”

“Ah, Shai, once again your mind is as sharp as one of your beloved crystals.” replied Crosis, once again doing his mocking bow. Harry could see Shai clenching her hands and he wondered how much longer she would ignore the skeleton’s provocations. “However you are forgetting that we were trapped in different planes and in another plane time may move slower or faster. This means that probably only a century passed for us, while more then four thousand years passed here. We don’t know anything about the way Tourach trapped us, but somehow he had to keep us unable to escape. My guess is that he sent us to some pocket planes, these are planes within planes, and kept us only remotely attached to the original plane. This way the remained on the earth, but were affected by the plane we were trapped upon. These planes seemed to have a special field, which prevented us from moving, channelling power and even from thinking, because I don’t have any memories of my imprisonment.”

“So while we were comfortable and safe in out pocket planes, Tourach remained on the earth having to face all the dangers on it, especially time. We don’t know what happened to him, but I guess that old age finally claimed him. However after more than four thousand years, the magic holding us imprisoned wore off and once again we are wandering the earth. We have changed, mind you, I wasn’t that thin before I got imprisoned, but our purpose still is the same. We’ve got to settle this conquest once for all.”

“Even if you are right, which I doubt very much, how will we be able to do this without Tourach’s guidance?” asked Shai. “You know that he is the only one being able to declare a winner and to regulate the battle. Without him we are lost.”
“Of course I am right.” continued Crosis, obviously quite please with himself. “But if you still have doubts, I will be more than happy to dispel them. Let’s assume that Tourach is alive at the moment, why hasn’t he shown himself, not even to you Shai? And why are we unable to feel him, even though he is so powerful that it should be very difficult to mask his aura?”

“I’ll warn you only once Crosis.” snarled the crystal maiden. “Don’t mention Tourach’s and my relationship again or I’ll personally make sure that your death is as painful as possible.”
The two creature’s eyes locked, ice crystal meeting eerily golden orbs. For several minutes they glowered at each other and Harry strongly suspected that a mental battle was going on. Finally Crosis averted his eyes, settling instead on Anhur, who was looking bored, as though the whole situation wasn’t his concern.

“What do you think Anhur, is Tourach alive or not?” asked Crosis, apparently fishing for more support in this issue.
“Doesn’t really matter, does it?” replied the brute in his deep, rumbling voice, which always sounded like a growl. “All we know is that he isn’t here and that we have to deal with this matter on our own. And we should do this fast, because I’m sick of waiting.”

“All right then Crosis.” interrupted Shai, in a completely clam voice. If she really had won a mental battle against Crosis, Harry should never know, but even if she had, she wasn’t showing it. “You wouldn’t have told us this, if you hadn’t already found a possible solution. You’re way too arrogant to admit that you don’t have a clue.”

“Ah once again you are right, fair lady.” replied Crosis, his face once again twisted in his parody of a smile. “Well if I was Tourach and knew that I would die long before we would return, then I would try to preserve the knowledge and the power needed to finish the contest somewhere. As we all know Tourach was fascinated how magic is inherited from the parents to the children and spent lots of time researching this. My guess is that he somehow stored the required power and knowledge in him, so it would pass on to his children and to their children and so on. So the only thing he had to do was to get enough girls laid to ensure the survival of his bloodline. And if I’m not very much mistake Harry over there is his only surviving heir.”

A deafening silence followed his explanation. Harry opened his mouth to say something, but couldn’t think of anything. He closed it again and decided to wait for further details. Personally he thought Crosis’ theory absurd, he surely would know if had any genetic memory about these three creatures and their conflict wouldn’t he? All right so he had greeted the skeleton with this strange movement, but this simply was intuition right? He had memorized Crosis’ greeting instinctively and had simply copied it, hadn’t he? Even to himself his train of thought sounded oddly like lying to himself, but until now he had no reason to truly believe the skeleton.

Finally Shai spoke up again, her voice totally void of emotions.

“Well Crosis this sounds exactly like the crazy thing Tourach would do if he really had to die. Personally I still believe that he is alive, but it seems like we have to settle the score without him. How exactly is this Harry going to help us?”
“Simply, he will take over Tourach’s part as the arbiter and organizer of the contest.” replied the skeleton. “In my opinion we should restart as soon as possible, we have wasted enough time during our imprisonment.”
“Excellent.” interrupted Anhur. “That’s settled then, you two should prepare yourself for losing. When do we start?”

Just as Crosis opened his mouth to reply, Harry decided that it would be prudent to take a more active role in this discussion; after all they were talking about him and he didn’t have a clue what they wanted from him. He had no intentions of getting entangled in some stupid old vendetta between three totally insane entities.

“Hang on, I’ve got on idea what you are talking about and as far as I know I don’t have any specific memories or powers connected to you. I really don’t want to be part of any conflict between the three of you and you really should explain what’s going on, unless you want me to leave.”

“So be it.” replied Crosis, not hesitating for a second. “I shall explain everything to you and I’m pretty sure that this will trigger some memories in you. Anhur, Shai, Tourach and I were Egyptian wizards nearly four thousand years ago. As you may know a high developed magical society existed in Egypt at that time. All us there high priests of different gods and our job was to develop spells which helped us in our daily live and curses to protect the pyramids from intruders.”

“Once a month we met in a cave in the desert, ten miles east of Thebes, to meditate together and to combine our powers to reach higher levels of sorcery. Then on one of these meetings during the last hours of the day, we felt a strange magical aura appearing about half a mile east. Naturally we decided to check what kind of magical being or item radiated such a halo, which was very strong mind you. So we quickly walked to the location, leaving our water flasks and the rest of our gear behind, because the temperature had cooled off very much and found a glowing crystal buried in the sand. It consisted of three peaks, which joined in a flat circle. One peak glowed red and green, one blue and black and one was white. All the colours mixed where the peaks touched, giving the rest of the crystal an indefinable colour. The magic in the crystal beaconed us to touch it and naturally so we did.”

The skeletal paused here for a moment, clearly because it enjoyed the attention and wanted to maximize the dramatic effect of the story. Harry didn’t like the direction this was going a bit, he had learned about the dangerous effect a promise of power could have on person and he already suspected what the end of the story would be. So far Crosis’ story hadn’t triggered any buried memories in Harry, except for a building headache and he took heart in this, thinking his hopes that he wasn’t involved in this confirmed.

“Well, I touched the blue-black peak, Anhur the red-green one and Shai the white one.” continued Crosis. “Tourach, having stood too far away to get hold of one of the peaks, touched the place where they joined. Suddenly a blinding explosion occurred and we were knocked unconsciousness.”

“At the time we regained consciousness the night had passed and it was midday of the next day. We had spent a night and half of a day unprotected in the desert without water and were nearly dehydrated as we woke up. Already a few vultures were circling above us, eager for a good meal. We discovered that the crystal had vanished, leaving no trace of his existence behind and no signs of the explosion could be found. Believing it all having been a hallucination, we returned to our cave and to Thebes, not knowing that our lives had been changed for good.”

“At first we thought nothing had really changed, but after a few months we discovered that we had developed new abilities. Shai was suddenly able to create and to modify crystals; Anhur gained control over plants and fire, while I mastered necromancy and could turn water to ice. Tourach, however, gained all of our abilities, though in a weakened form. All of us stopped ageing, healed faster than we should and slowly gained the gift of levitation.”

“Of course our new powers didn’t go unnoticed. We grew more and more respected and influential. We gained followers and soon we were worshipped instead of the gods we originally represented. Our characters started to change too, growing more conform to the aspect we represented. Anhur grew impulsive, Shai became controlling and ruthless. She believed in a perfect order and everyone who disturbed it had to be severely punished. Tourach became extremely level minded and started to strive for a so-called ‘natural balance’. Some people claim that I grew more arrogant, thirsting for knowledge and cruel, but I know that this is rubbish.”

Crosis pointedly ignore Shai snorts following this statement, clearly believing what he was saying. The skeleton seemed to enjoy his role as a story teller tremendously, because it took an overly long breath, which was a very strange thing to do due to him being undead, to make sure that everyone’s attention was focused on him. Then he continued.

“After a time, conflicts started to brew. I can’t remember who started the war, but suddenly our followers were fighting each other and we were fighting each other as well! A civil war erupted, which lasted nearly five years and nearly destroyed the whole of Thebens. Finally Tourach made a proposal to end the war. He and his followers had only fought to defend themselves during the war, despising the clash and thinking it pointless. On his suggestion we left the city and struck a magical deal in the desert.”

“Since we had to determine who was the strongest of us, we had to fight each other. Tourach had no desire to join the melee and offered to surrender his powers to the strongest of us three. Because he didn’t want further innocents harmed in this conflict, he created a contract. We three had to fight us with our own powers only, without employing any mortals for our gains. He decided to be the arbiter of the contest, who would in the end determine the winner. The one of us, who won, would absorb the other’s powers and became something incredibly powerful, possibly even godlike! We accepted of course and the contest started.”

“For almost a hundred years we fought and still other people suffered in the wake of the contest. As a whole town was destroyed by a volcano eruption caused by Anhur, Tourach visited each of us and imprisoned us for nearly four thousand years, even though I can’t understand why this town was bothering him so much. Well, nearly a week ago we rose again and here we are, ready to continue the fight!”

The headache Harry had felt building for the last half an hour now broke out full force and the throbbing in his head caused his thoughts to flow slowly as syrup. Even though the information Crosis gave him explained why the three creatures were here and why they fighting each other, he still had no idea what his role in this conflict was supposed to be. A shudder rolled down Harry’s spine as he remembered how casually Crosis had taught about a civil wars caused by him and the other leviathans. The three of them seemed to be so hungry for power and so focused on the contest that life had no value for them. The fact that they had forgotten what the original conflict was about only heightened Harry’s repulsion for them. Of course he could simply apparate away, but if they really had arranged the melee just to cause him to show up, then they would employ equal methods to make him come to them again. Not wanting to cause any more bloodshed on this day, Harry decided to stay put and to collect the last bit of information.

“And what has this to do with me?” he asked the skeleton, dreading the answer.
“Well, as you may have noticed Tourach didn’t show up.” replied the skeleton. “When the first awakened from our slumber, we felt a powerful aura, which led us to this country. We believed that it was Tourach’s, but now I’m sure that it was yours. We arrived here, but Tourach was nowhere to be seen. So we decided to arrange a bit of chaos, which should have lured him out of his hiding place. But instead of him you and these clowns showed up. Then you displayed your power with this fireball and I decided to talk to you. You greeted me with the Tash-De, the official greeting of members of the contest. Tourach is not here so you have to fulfil your role as an arbiter and get the whole thing going again!”

“Hang on now.” replied Harry, now really getting annoyed. They were trying to force him into a role, he had no desire to fulfil and couldn’t fulfil, even if he wanted to. He was absolutely sure that he had nothing to do with this Tourach and Crosis’ story had not brought back any memories either. Also he was not going to become the crony of three bloodthirsty, ancient maniacs! “I’m one hundred percent sure that I’m not related to this Tourach and I really don’t want to have anything to do with your melee. You don’t even have a screw of evidence that your old arbiter is dead, so just leave me alone!”

“There’s no reason to get angry now.” said Crosis. “And your opinion on this subject isn’t important anyway.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” snapped Harry.
“It means that you’ve got no choice in the matter.” growled Anhur. “We will continue fighting in two weeks and without an arbiter we will keep on fighting forever. If you want to prevent the death of weaklings, then you should cooperate.”

With a feeling of dread Harry realized that he had indeed no choice. All he had was two weeks.