Piercing the Veil

Summary: Harry swears he’ll bring Sirius back from the Veil, even if he has to go to a new school, learn the dark arts, make deals with other-worldly beings, and raise the dead. He’ll make deals with demons, be stalked by vampires, kidnapped by werewolves, and snubbed by elves. He’ll encounter assassins, stumble upon thieves, find deities, befriend death, and undertake deadly quests for weapons of ancient power. He’d even die if it would do any good. Harry’s determined that no matter what, Sirius will live again; he swore it on his soul.

Warning: Slash, het, sex, mentions of rape, violence, death, gore, torture, pain, necromancy, summoning, blood magic, mythology, multiple belief systems, species discrimination, vampire biting, sex rituals, imprisonment, foreign languages, kidnapping, traitors, revenge, abuse, abandonment, and banishment.
Note: More warnings will be added as the story progresses.

Disclaimer: I don’t own Harry Potter or any of the affiliated people, objects, spells, or inventions included therein. They are being used here for non-profit purposes and purely for fun.

All other spells, people, races, abilities, artifacts, abilities, rituals, and other such objects/ideas that you are not familiar with are most likely inventions of my imagination. Don’t use them without permission. Most of the aforementioned concepts are based on mythology or foreign languages, but may not appear exactly as they are traditionally known. I will be using clichés in somewhat different ways and the clichés do not belong to me.

I’m writing this mostly for myself, because if I don’t get this idea out of my head, I’m going to go insane. My outline is over twenty pages long and still growing. Comments and criticisms are appreciated; flames are not and will be ignored. If you didn’t read the warnings, then it’s on your head.

Inspired by: Bloody Skies by Toki Mirage

==o0o==

Piercing the Veil
Warring Minds, Book 1
By Moirae Ma’at

==o0o==

Chapter 1: Waking from a Dream

The third Saturday of June dawned bright and beautiful as the sun painted the awaiting clouds in shimmering hues of pink and gold. Slivers of sunlight slowly crept over the battlements of Hogwarts and infiltrated the crowded room that housed a small, sleeping boy and piles of books. His cheek was resting on an open books and black hair was spread across the pages, as if he had fallen asleep while still studying. The boy was silently screaming in the grip of a nightmare by the time the sunlight filtered across his eyelids. Harry awoke with a start, his arm outstretched, the image of his godfather falling through the Veil branded before his eyes, and a denial tumbling from his lips.

“No! Sirius!”

His eyes slowly refocused on the world around him and he remembered that he was in the Room of Requirement. He had fled here yesterday morning in order to release some of his anger after Dumbledore had revealed the prophecy to him. His rage at the Wizarding World’s stupidity and his own prophesied fate had driven him to destroy everything around him for almost four hours straight before his grief at Sirius’ death had caught up with him and he had collapsed, sobbing, to the floor.

As he was crying, he had kept picturing Sirius falling through the Veil, until that image had been all he could see. After three or four hours of staring at the scene of his Godfather’s death, he finally noticed that the stone from which the Veil hung seemed to subtly light up as Sirius fell through. Seeing the intricate pattern over the stone had had shocked him out of his grief because he recognized one of the larger symbols on the stone; he had seen it on one of Hermione’s scratch papers last year.

Thinking back to last year he remembered Hermione muttering under her breath about “perfect runes” on the night before he found that piece of scratch paper crumpled into a ball on the common room table.

He had desperately latched onto the idea that Runes could help him free his Godfather from the Veil and had asked the Room of Requirements for any books it had that dealt with Runes. He had almost been buried in the stack of books that appeared at his request, but had quickly gotten to his feet and snatched a book of the top of one of the stacks surrounding him. He approached a chair and table that were suddenly in the corner of the room and frantically began looking through the book.

Harry remembered going through several books on runes before his eyes had begun to slip closed and he had fallen asleep looking at the list of recommended books in The Student Index of Runes. Directing his eyes back to the book he had just been sleeping on, he finished reading the list of recommendations and decided to take a look at Runes and their Uses, but first he had to find the book in the mess surrounding him.

Five minutes later Harry had found the book and had just started to flip through Runes and their Uses when two owls flew into the Room of Requirement and settled on his table. The smaller owl hooted imperiously as he lifted his leg, his large ear tufts and ochre red eyes startling feral against his chocolate and caramel coloring. Harry barely had time to remove the envelope before the owl took off and the larger owl twitched its feathers impatiently. The dark-haired boy turned towards the black and gold owl that was staring at him with piercing orange eyes and reached towards the parchment on his leg slowly. Harry carefully removed the envelope and watched as the second owl flew out the window as well.

Looking down at the letter in his hands, Harry noticed it was from Gringotts and addressed to Heir Apparent Harry James Potter.

Since when was he an Heir Apparent? Harry wondered about the title as he opened the wax seal holding the letter closed and began to read.

.~.~.~.

Heir Apparent Potter,

Gringotts offers apologies for the death of your Godfather Sirius Orion Black. We are writing to inform you that you will need to be present at Gringotts within the next sevenday in order to receive your inheritance according to your Godfather’s Will before the Will becomes invalid due to Ministry regulations.

We await your visit,

Spearback
Head of the Goblin Office of Wills

Bloodburn
Head of the Goblin Inheritance Office

.~.~.~.

Harry blinked back tears at the reminder that his Godfather was probably dead before making a mental note that he needed to go to Gringotts within the next week.

He moved onto the letter the feral-looking owl had delivered, but paused before he touched it. Harry drew his wand and checked the unaddressed parchment for spells before he picking it up and slowly opening it. He watched, dumbfounded, as a thick book fell onto the table, before reading the letter.

.~.~.~.

Prospective Student,
You are hereby invited to attend K’ver, the Magical Academy of the Lost Arts. Enclosed is a book that contains information about the school. If you would like to attend, please remove the last page from the book and follow the directions written there.
- The K’ver Staff

.~.~.~.

Harry looked at the letter skeptically before refolding it, slipping it inside of the book, and putting the book to the side so he could return to researching the Veil. Why would he want to go to another school when he had everything he wanted here at Hogwarts?

Now where was that book he had seen mentioned in Runes and their Uses? Wasn’t it called Olde World Rhunes? Hmmm, it should be around here somewhere…No, not The Runic Compendium, he had already searched there; not Druidic Runes, they didn’t like imprisoning anyone; World of Runes was out, it was too general to be of any help, so was An Introduction to Runes. He didn’t really want to learn about Hindi additions to Celtic Rune work, so Hindi Gods in Runic Writings wasn’t any help and The Ministry of Magic’s Sanctioned Guide to Runes had been edited so thoroughly that it was useless as anything except a door stop.

Ah, there it was! Harry pulled Olde World Rhunes out from under several other books and opened it to the table of contents, which directed him to Chapter 5: Rhunik Kaumbinations. There was a list of books there and several hand written notations in the margins, most of which said something along the lines of Stupidest book I ever read and Time better spent sleeping. Someone had absently written Not worth the money – Morgan recommended Merging the Green Hills and the Ice Fields: Using Norse and Celtic Runes, 1648 besides one of the titles that he was interested in, so Harry was off on a new search to find Merging the Green Hills and the Ice Fields.

He spent the next forty minutes searching through the books around him looking for the book before he found it buried beneath the books he had previously discarded as useless. As the book was lacking a table of contents, Harry opened to the first page and began to read.

.~.~.~.

Merging the Green Hills and the Ice Fields:
Using Norse and Celtic Runes

Norse Runes and Celtic Runes are currently being used together in an experimental practice to form containers and prisons. The most famous application of this experimentation is the prison known as Trichardg, which is talked about in Treasures of the Runic World, and is held up as an example of cutting edge technology and blended magicks, even if modern wizards have not been able to duplicate the successes of their forefathers.

.~.~.~.

So now he had to find Treasures of the Runic World? He’d swear he saw that book just a minute ago; where did it get to? Quickly shifting some of the books on the desk into different piles, Harry relocated Treasures of the Runic World and opened it to Chapter 8: Trichardg.

.~.~.~.

Trichardg:
The Cage of the Northern Skies

The infamous prison of Trichardg is a beautiful blend of magical protections. The outer magical defenses are a combination of runic magic, wards, curses and traps, while the highest security cells in the prison are found within the Veil of the North, which supposedly could only be opened through a combination of runic magic and the forbidden arts. The prison was invaded in 1240 and the British Ministry of Magic appropriated the Veil of the North for further study. It has not been seen since.

The prison wards are still active and have been studied for centuries. They have been added to over time, although the interaction…

.~.~.~.

The Veil of the North had to be the Veil that Sirius fell into! It just had to be. There were no other veils mentioned in any of the texts he had researched and he knew that the Veil was covered in runes. It made sense that the Ministry of Magic would dump the Veil of the North in the Department of Mysteries if they couldn’t figure out how to make it work. It was just like the Ministry to leave dangerous things lying around in unprotected place; after all, they considered it perfectly acceptable to leave life-altering prophecies, mutant brains, and dangerous projects protected so poorly that students could break into the area and hold a fire-fight without alerting the wards. Harry rolled his eyes. It was official, the Ministry of Magic was full of idiots, but the one who took the crown had to be Fudge. He tried a kid in a full court for the equivalent of a misdemeanor and took obvious bribes from a man on trial as Death Eater. The previous minister was pretty stupid too for trusting Barty Crouch and not giving Sirius a trial. Maybe it was a qualification for being Minister of Magic that you had to be stupid? But then Dumbledore wouldn’t have been nominated…

Harry hauled his thoughts back from their tangent on the Ministry of Magic’s stupidity over the years and took another look at the passage in Treasures of the Runic World. It mentioned the forbidden arts, but Harry had no idea what those were, so he asked the Room of Requirements for any materials it had on the forbidden arts.

Harry was disappointed when a single, yellowed piece of parchment appeared on the desk in front of him, but he began to read it anyway.

.~.~.~.

Essay on the Forbidden Arts
By M.J. Douglin
History of Magic, 1876

The forbidden arts, often used as a synonym to the lost arts due to the ban on their practice within the European Wizarding World, are generally considered to include blood magic, necromancy, summoning, thread magic, soul magic, and other similar branches of magic. It is common for those who have talent in the lost arts to apprentice to Masters of the Guilds, although very few would-be apprentices are ever accepted without having already had basic training in the subject.

As of 1250, the lost arts were taught in six schools across the world but by 1532 the only school still teaching the lost arts was Kashien Vershlunt Ergenmier Risuellmptsu. Kashien, often known as K’ver, selects only the best in the world to attend and does not accept applications or transfers.

Most schools stopped offering the forbidden arts in 1389 after one of the students accidentally released a horde of zombies and killed her whole graduating class. This incident…

.~.~.~.

Harry paused and looked back at the word K’ver, knowing he’d seen it somewhere recently. He jerked upright as he realized that it had been on the letter he’d looked at and promptly discarded earlier. Didn’t it say K’ver, Academy of the Lost Arts? He had to find it! Harry immediately began to sort through the stacks surrounding him, his shout echoing around the Room of Requirements.

“Where’s that letter!”