Chapter 2: An Expanding Universe
Getting used to my new form was… strange to say the least. I was already used to my massive fuck off baslisk form. Hell, slithering around wasn't that hard to get used to. However, now having legs and wings as well as horns, was difficult to adapt to. My center of mass shifted by A LOT, so learning to walk again was wack, if not entertaining. Even my own human form had some changes. These were a bit more welcome however. I had long since been able to transform individual body parts to gain basilisk-like properties. I could make my scales appear on my skin, leaving me invulnerable to most spells. I say most because I haven't tested the 'unforgivables'. Call me a coward but I didn't really want to test my invulnerability with the killing curse or the torture curse. I wasn't too big a fan of unspeakable pain or instant death. With my new dragon form I could now sprout my black feathery wings in my human form. I also had claws that dripped my basilisk venom at will. I haven't tested if I could breathe fire yet. Seeing that my base form was a basilisk I wasn't too confident that I'd be able to. Still the wings were a great advantage and helped me get around much faster than trains and boat. Now, if only they didn't make me look like some fallen angel, then they'd have been perfect.
Lumbering around as a big serpentine dragon had some perks. Mainly because dangerous beasts and other unique magic creatures tended to steer clear of the dragon that could kill with a single glance. Once I was acclimated to my newest form I only took it when I was bored or if I could sense danger nearby. I didn't really want people starting rumors about a dragon roaming around. I already had enough trouble as is with a following of religious fanatics that had seen my wings while I was in human form by accident.
I had landed in an alleyway thinking that I was alone but there had been a priest taking a piss in said alleyway that saw me. He had blustered on something about me being a messenger of god despite my denial. It only took him three days to get a cult to form around me. Didn't really know how or why but I didn't want to ask questions. A part of me said that knowing the truth would be far more disturbing than anything I could possibly come up with.
[Scene Break]
November 14, 1893
Castle Dracula, Transylvania
"For fucks sake Vlad, I told you to lay low."
"I apologize my friend, b- but this Wilhelmina… she is the splitting image of my dear Mirena."
"You could have just spoken to her Vlad, you didn't need to go kidnapping her fiancée or antagonize Van Helsing."
Vlad winced when I reminded him of his actions. I had found my way into Romania a few hundred years ago hearing stories about a lost Prince that had 'made a deal with the devil'. When I met the man I was reminded of the strange world I was now a part of. At first I was relieved that it was only a Harry Potter world. Then I met Vlad fucking Tepes, aka Dracula. Vampires were a thing in Harry Potter so I would have written it off as an unspoken piece of canon. Unfortunately the man looked an awful lot like Luke Evans. He also told me about how he really got his powers and I couldn't help but curse at whoever stuffed me into this crossover madness. Not only was I in a Harry Potter world, but Dracula Untold was also a part of this universe. Which only made me wonder what else lurked around in the world.
"It was in the heat of the moment?"
"You don't even sound sure of yourself! Vlad, they're going to come for you."
"You can-
I sighed, "Of course I'll help you, we swore an oath after all."
"You no longer need to bind yourself to me, I-
"Vlad, I swear to fuck if you let yourself get killed by an idiot in a stupid hat, I will literally ressurrect you just so I can kill you myself."
"What?! I will do no such thing."
"So you weren't thinking about some convoluted plan that would lead Van Helsing here with his merry band of idiots in order to 'cure' Wilhelmina so you could 'fight' them before letting the dumbass with the big knife 'kill' you?"
"I- I don't know what you are talking about."
"Um hmm, sure you don't…"
Vlad sighed, "How do you know these things?"
"Three bottles of vodka, sexual frustration, and a botched ritual."
"What?"
"Never mind that. You need a better plan."
"What do I do then? They are already on their way here, my spies have told me as much."
"Stay indoors, let me do the talking."
"Talking? You plan to speak with them?"
"I'm somewhat of a negotiator myself."
"Y- you are a strange man Slytherin."
"Don't say it like that, it sounds weird when you say it."
"Wh- what?"
"Never mind, go disappear for a few hours. Let me deal with Van Helsing and his posse."
Vlad reluctantly nodded and retreated deeper into the castle. Palming the handle of my sword I sighed and looked out of the window at the slowly brightening sky. Dawn was only a few hours away, I could already hear the fighting coming up the road to the castle. I had set up a decoy coffin with some gypsies knowing that Vlad was planning something dumb. I stepped out of the castle's front gate and waited. I didn't have to wait too long as moments later John Seward and the Bowie knife wielding dude came into view. The duo were fighting a pair of Romani men wielding daggers.
I could also 'smell' Van Helsing and Mina sneaking around close by. Harker and Holmwood were in the river following the carriage with the decoy coffin.
Why was I doing all this you ask?
Well it goes back to that 'oath' I made with Vlad. Knowing that the Charles Dance Vampire was after him I had elected to stick around and help him with staying alive. After a few years of saving his ass from angry villagers and religious fanatics we decided to become blood brothers.
Now it should already be pretty obvious that I don't have a very good habit of thinking things through. What motivated me to become blood brothers with a literal vampire, I will never know. All I know is that once we cut our palms and clasped hands that our lives became tied together. He gained some magical traits, like immunity to the sun and faster regeneration and I got some nifty vampire powers. Who wouldn't want to be able to move ridiculously fast or shapeshift into clouds of bats or other 'dark' creatures. All for the low payment of needing to drink a bit of blood. It was well worth it to be able to expand my magical arsenal.
I didn't even know what I really was anymore. Was I a man, was I a basilisk, a serpentine dragon, or was I something more? Clearly whatever magical bullshit that regulated abilities and traits must have been taking a vacation when it came to me because I just adapted continuously to whatever strange mix of creatures I was exposed to. A basilisk, a dragon, and now a vampire. In the end it was more power that let me do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted so I wasn't really going to complain.
The carriage came to a stop, the fighting raged on with Seward falling over and nearly getting skewered by a gypsy. Bowie Knife man got punched in the face when he tried to open the decoy coffin. The Romani fighters retreated to my side when I whistled. Some had a few superficial cuts but overall they were relatively unscathed.
"Well, I'd like to say it's a pleasure to meet you but I'd be lying. Who are you people and why are you here?"
Bowie Knife spat at my feet and glared, "I have no words for you servant of Dracula."
I hummed and turned to the other man. "You, what is your name?" I knew their names of course, it was just funnier for me to refer to them with anything but their names.
The man also glared at me, I shook my head in annoyance and called out to the old man trying to sneak over the wall.
"Professor Van Helsing, if you're going to sneak into my brother's castle please don't wear the most ridiculously loud outfit you can find."
"Brother?!" Bowie Knife man exclaimed.
"Yes brother, now are we going to talk or are we going to fight? I'm quite hungry so let's make this quick yeah?"
Bowie Knife man roared and charged at me. Fighting the urge to roll my eyes I drew my sword and blocked a slash meant to cut my throat.
"Go! I'll keep him busy. Kill Dracula an- urk."
I stabbed him through the chest before he could finish his sentence. Yanking my sword free I turned to the remaining party. They had looks of horror and rage on their faces.
"Like I said, are we going to talk this out or do I have to kill all of you. I'm not the bad guy but if you're just going to attack me without hearing me out I won't hesitate to stab you."
"I- fine we will speak monster." Van Helsing snapped.
"Oo ouch, never heard that before… that's sarcasm by the way."
I cleaned my sword off on one of the Romanis shirts much to the man's dismay before sheathing it at my side. Drawing my wand I conjured a few chairs and a table with a flick.
"Witch!" Van Helsing pointed a finger at me.
This time I actually did roll my eyes.
"Old Creep!" I matched his tone while pointing at him.
Mina looked uncomfortable as a man who I assumed was Jonathan Harker, tried to comfort her. Everyone eyed the seats that I conjured warily making me want to roll my eyes again. Taking a seat, I took out a pot of tea from my hammerspace and poured myself a cup. Everyone looked at it with wide eyes.
"Now, let's get down to why you're here."
"We're here to kill Dracula and free Mina from his evil clutches." Harker nearly shouted.
"Hmm, try that again."
"What?"
"Try again."
"We're here to kill Dracu-
"Nope try again."
"We came here to free Wilhelmina from Dracula's thralldom." Van Helsing bit out.
"Saying the same shit in different words is still saying the same shit. Try again old man."
"Enough of this farce!" The man who came with Harker shouted.
He pulled out a revolver and pointed it at me. Raising an eyebrow at the man I smirked.
"These are blessed bullets beast. One round will kill you, I wouldn't be smiling as you are now."
"Blessed bullets? Really… go ahead, shoot me. I won't even stop you."
"Wha- what?"
"What? Give your balls a tug and fucking shoot me or are you scared?"
The man pulled the trigger, the bullet crashed into my chest and was promptly stopped by the scales I sprouted there. They looked at me as if expecting me to burst into flames.
"That tickled…"
The man pulled the trigger again, or at least he tried to. Only I had cut off his hand before he could. His hand landed on the table with a thump making Mina scream and Harker throw up. Van Helsing took out a stake from somewhere and held it in front of himself.
"Back foul creature!"
"Holy shit, you guys are actually stupid. How did you even make it this fa- never mind, Vlad probably had something to do with it. Fucking emo bastard. Anyways, speaking time is over. You have two choices. Run or die right now."
"We'll never run from yo-
A head flew over their… heads, Mina screamed again.
"Oh for fucks sake, someone shut her up!"
Romani grabbed her despite Jonathan and the others trying to fight them. I sheath my sword again and looked at the remaining survivors as the gypsies dragged Mina to the castle.
"Right, here's a brief run down of what happened. Vlad, my blood brother, who you know as Dracula is was the Prince of Wallacia. Or at least he was a few hundred years ago. To fight of a scourge of Turks he made a shitty deal with a vampire in a cave. That didn't turn out very good for him as you can see. He had a wife at that time. Princess Mirena. Who, you guessed it, Mina is a splitting image of. Now I'm saying she is, but there is a very good chance that Wilhelmina is a reincarnation of Mirena Tepes. Vlad saw her and thought with his smaller head and a few rash decisions later here we are."
"Th- the history books don't lie! They never mention that."
"No shit they don't mention it, history is written by the victor after all. In this case, history was written by a bunch of stuffy old men in a church."
"Blasphemy!"
"Oh fuck off Van Helsing, go back to being a professor. Vampire hunting doesn't suit you. And Harker, let Mina go. She's… well she's hot as hell and you're just so boring. I've taken dumps more interesting than you."
"You killed our friends, we aren't going to leave here without our vengeance."
I unfolded my wings from my back making the group jump back. I tried to maintain a cold look on my face but I was restraining myself from laughing so it came out as a constipated look.
"Leave here, my patience wears thin."
"Bu- but you- you're an Angel?"
'You really fucking owe me for this Vlad.' "I am Rageul, the archangel of justice, fairness, harmony, vengeance, and redemption. Vlad Tepes is under my protection. Leave this place mortals lest ye be laid low with mine blade." I cringed internally at the ridiculously Chuni title I gave myself.
To emphasize my 'seriousness' I drew my sword and with a careful bit of wandless magic, made it appear as if the blade was on fire.
Van Helsing grabbed Harker and dragged him away. The other survivors ran after them and I dispelled the illusion on my sword. Tucking my wings back in I waited for them to disappear before finally cracking up. The Romani chuckled along with me.
"The fuck are you laughing at, clean this shit up." I snapped pointing towards the two dead bodies.
Still chuckling they went about doing the task I set for them. Shaking my head I sheath my sword and sighed. I really didn't want to have to kill the two men but they had already made up their minds to kill Vlad and anyone else that stood in their way. It didn't take a legilimency master to see that the two had been a bit psychotic. I mean who the hell comes to fight a vampire with a Bowie knife and literally nothing else.
I walked back into the castle and found Vlad casually having a conversation with Mina.
"Are they gone?" Mina asked.
"You're awfully calm."
"I remember everything now."
I looked towards Vlad who shrugged. "I gave her some of my blood. It seems it unlocked her memories from her past life."
"Whatever, you owe me Vlad."
"For what?"
"Aside from saving your ass from getting yourself killed and driving the rest away by pretending to be an Angel?"
"Wait, did you actually?"
I smirked, "Yes, you should have seen the look on their faces."
"Thank you, it seems though that Mina and I must make ourselves scarce for the time being."
"Why?"
"Van Helsing knows where my castle is, it won't be long before more of his kind find me. Also I wish to get to know my wife's reincarnation better."
"You could just say you want to fuck like rabbits."
Mina blushed while Vlad looked away. "No need to be so crass."
"Where will you go?" I asked Vlad.
"I do not know yet, I leave this castle to you. Do with it as you please."
"Fine, I accept your generous gift. I needed a vacation home anyways."
Vlad smiles and takes Mina's hand. They walk off together to god knows where and I'm left alone in the slightly drafty castle.
'Maybe I'll head back to the US… and maybe England, it's been a few hundred years since my last visit. Wonder how everything is going.'
{Time Skip}
December 11, 1938
Hogwarts Castle, Scotland
Turns out other than the slight industrial boom, absolutely nothing exciting happened in America during the early 1900s. I really didn't want to take part in the world wars so I returned back to England. In reality I had missed Hogwarts and getting into the school unnoticed was laughably easy considering that the founders had 'written' me into the castle wards. Centuries later and nothing had changed, the whole castle still relied on torches and candles. I shouldn't have been surprised really. It's brought up a lot in the series that the wizarding world was stuck in the medieval era.
Observing the students unnoticed was a whole other beast. With the amount of portraits, ghosts, and house elves wandering around I'd get caught instantly. So I spent a lot of time with Freya in the Chamber of Secrets. She had grown much larger since I last saw her in the 1300s. A quick scan of the castle wards told me that Tom Riddle was currently in his first year. Dumbledore was also apparently already on to him from what I could tell. The snot nosed brat was already forming his band of cultists. I didn't know when he took a step into the deep end and it took every bit of my willpower to not just gank him then and there.
Freya told me that he was already poking around the entrance to the Chamber. Dumbledore knew and didn't do anything. That particular fact cemented my idea that old Dumbles wasn't exactly a 'light wizard'. I had about three to six years before Dumbledore's duel with Grindelwald. Who, according to the papers, was still trapezing across Europe. The manipulative bastard had also already voluntold Scamander into dealing with his alleged former lover.
'Should I derail canon some more? Ehh, fuck it. I'm not letting Dumblecunt get a hold of the Elder Wand.'
Now I know I made a whole big deal about not interfering with the timeline before, but that was when I thought that this was a normal world. Not some expanded universe where multiple stories that used to be fiction for me were interwoven. Harry Potter, Dracula, I shuddered trying to think about the other potential 'verses' this world was tied to.
'Research time.'
§Freya, I'll be back shortly I have some errands I need to run.§
§Watch your back brother, the two legs have grown much more violent as of late.§
§I know, you take care as well. Remember to execute Plan Whiskey Tango should TOM manage to find his way in here.§
Freya tapped my shoulder with her tail before retreating back to her den. I put out the braziers and shut the doors behind me. Once I was in the cavern that led to the Chamber I apparated out of Hogwarts.
Apparating was a dead useful skill that wasn't nearly utilized enough. It had also been around for a long time since the founders knew how to do it and I had been personally taught by Salazar. His version differed from the normal version as I didn't need to twist or stand still. He had somehow formulated a way to apparate while moving. Salazar had even figured out how to do so silently. It helped me get around when I didn't want to fly. With my inhuman magical reserves I could apparate across the world effortlessly. Not that I was going to tell anybody.
Looking around at my new surroundings, I stepped over a ruined wall. I only vaguely remembered the Fantastic Beasts movies so I was guessing at where Grindelwald would be. Currently I was scouting out a ruined fortress I had recalled from my memories that looked like what I had seen in the movies. It was quiet and I was about to call it a bust before I saw an man that looked like Johnny Depp look out of a window in one of the more 'pristine' towers.
'Gotcha bitch.'
I took out a coin from my pocket and flipped it. Heads I'd crush the castle in my serpentine dragon form and tails I'd try my hand at playing archangel again. The coin slapped into my palm and I looked at the results.
"Tails… fuck, I'm definitely getting sent to hell for this."
I took my sword out of my hammerspace and belted it on. I also took out some armor I had forged for me out of a titanium alloy. Runes covered the inside of the breastplate, each rune a different enchantment. The armor would basically give off an annoyingly bright white glow while also negating most spells. Slots were cut out in the back to make room for my wings. Only the chest plate was enchanted. Everything else was made out of normal steel. I may have had inhuman strength but I was also not stupid enough to weigh myself down with armor when my skin was spell and damage resistant enough.
Drawing my sword I activated the new runes I had etched on it causing it to erupt into golden flames. My armor started glowing and my wings burst from my back. Shouts came from the ruined castle as I took to the sky. My armor acted like a flare as I lit up the darkening sky.
Spells whizzed past me as I flew towards the castle. Adrenaline pumped through my veins when I drew closer. A few braver wizards stormed out of the battlements and started throwing multicolored spells at me. Batting a few away with my sword I composed myself getting ready to put on a performance. Casting an overpowered wandless Sonorus spell on myself I called out to Grindelwald.
"Gellert Grindelwald, for your crimes against heaven and humanity as a whole I have come for your head."
The castle shook a bit with the power I put behind the spell. Johnny Depp came out from behind his men and sneered at me.
"I answer to no one but myself! Go back from whence you came I have no quarrel with the heavens."
"Impudent mortal, you do not command me. Only my father has that right. Die now."
Internally cringing I charged at the wizard. My speed made me a blur to them yet somehow Grindelwald managed to dodge my first swing. His dickriders however, were not as lucky. The four wizards he had with him were bisected from the waist down. Their torsos fell to the ground, their wounds cauterized by my flaming sword. Grindelwald screamed in rage and shot a familiar green spell that I was too late to dodge.
My worry was for naught though since the spell washed over my face harmlessly. Grindelwald looked at me in shock then at the wand he was holding.
"But how? This is the Elder Wand, it's the most powerful wand in the- ARGHHHH!!!"
I cut him off by literally cutting his hand off. The hand holding the wand fell to the ground with the Stick of Destiny clattering to the floor. Grindelwald clutched at his cauterized stump and backed away in fear. Deciding to end it then and there I transformed my eye into my basilisk eyes before glaring at Grindelwald. The wizard froze on the spot before falling over backwards. I put out my sword and sheathed it. Crouching next to Grindelwald I put a finger to his rapidly cooling body to check for a pulse. I found none.
My eyes trailed over to the infamous wand and I grinned. Picking up the gnarled wand I held it for a moment before a spike of pain shot through my body.
It felt like my blood was boiling and freezing at the same time. Gritting my teeth through the pain I struggled to my feet only to fall back down on my knees when a voice rang out in my head.
Henry Everett, the will of the Heavenly Father lives on through you. Carry on the name Raguel in honor, strike vengeance on those who bring injustice. You are the scale of balance, the redeeming grace of humanity. This is the task heaven charges you with.
The booming voice was a pressure on my head that made it feel like a watermelon being crushed. The Elder Wand grew blistering hot in my hand. The pain fled my body just as the wand flashed golden. It got so bright that I was forced to close my eyes. When I opened them again I found that the wand had disappeared and in its place was a glowing golden spear.
'What the fuck…'