If you want to read ahead, you can check out my Patreón @
[ https://www.patreón.com/fictiononlyreader ]
The link is also in the synopsis.
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"Let's start with a simple question," said Quinn. "What is your name?"
Damon stared at Quinn and his hands as he(Quinn) put on black leather gloves. Damon's brows furrowed as his body language turned defensive.
Quinn looked up, stretching the gloves to adjust the fit. "Hmm? Not answering, or was my question not clear enough? Is Damon your real name, or just something you made up from the top of your head?
Silence? Well, we do have the entire night," said Quinn, seeing that Damon wasn't answering his questions. "But, I do not appreciate this silence, so let me put another question on the table."
His voice turned deeper as he asked, "Why is your last name West?"
The effect was immediate. Damon's facial expression turned into one of shock, with wide eyes and eyebrows shooting up to his hairline after his body stiffened immediately.
"Oh?" a smirk appeared on Quinn's face. "It seems I was not wrong."
Recon seemed to be working correctly.
It wouldn't have mattered if there was another West in Hogwarts, but as Quinn knew, there wasn't any other West in Hogwarts; there wasn't even another West family in the British Isles as it was a rare late family name for a magical family and the West family had only been producing one heir per generation for many generations— Lia and Quinn being an outlier case in the family.
". . . How did you know?" asked Damon.
"I wasn't sure, but thank you for confirming," said Quinn, making Damon flinch.
"Now, if I assume you are indeed named Damon, making you Damon West, the question arises if you're the same West as my family and I. Which given the balance of probability, I am sure you're the same West as I am," said Quinn. "Which leads me to ask, what's your origin, Damon?"
There was another response of silence to Quinn's question. Damon didn't open his mouth, which was pressed into a line, and only stared at Quinn with a blank face.
'Occlumency,' Quinn noticed the lack of emotion. 'I wonder how long that would last.'
"Come on, don't be shy—"
Damon raised his hands, and two rings, one on each ring finger, glowed with sharp burning yellow glare. He jutted his hands forward, and zaps of orange magic flew towards Quinn.
A magical bluish-white shield appeared in front of Quinn and met the brunt of Damon's spells. Slice. Quinn blinked in surprise as a tear appeared on his shield when the jet of magic started to split his magic.
'What is this magic?' thought Quinn. He hadn't seen this kind of severing spell if he could even call it that. It wasn't strong or heavily loaded with magic, but it was still cutting through a shield cast with much stronger spells in mind.
Quinn raised his hand, and a thrumming orb of bright magic manifested over his palm. He aimed it towards the incoming spell and let the orb shoot out a thick beam of magic that swallowed Damon's spell along with his own shields, then proceeded to barrel towards Damon with a ferocious charge.
Damon's rings again glowed. Quinn's spell suddenly came to a screeching halt halfway, exploding into what seemed to be an invisible barrier, until the magic in Quinn's attack was extinguished.
Quinn lowered his hands and stared at Damon. "Hey, are those ring-type magical foci? I have seen those a few times, but I haven't seen anyone use two at the same time. And what was the spell you used to bisect my shields; I haven't seen anything like that in my studies. You're becoming more and more fascinating every second, Damon. I must know what's the deal with you."
Damon's face twitched as his eyes narrowed. He shifted his body to face the side and placed one of his hands on the yellow barrier that blocked his path. The rings glowed again, and the barrier started to tremble and shriek violently.
"Uh-uh, I'm not letting you go so easily," said Quinn. He spread his palm for a glowing-red colored chain made from Empyrean with a weight on end to sprout out from the middle of the palm and rattled towards Damon.
To Quinn's surprise, the ring-user released a bullet made from a familiar red magical malleable material and shot down the weight to another side.
'He used Empyrean,' thought Quinn. 'But the color was darker than mine. Was his spell a different version from mine?'
Damon, who wasn't privy to Quinn's thoughts, stepped up for the offense. Dozens of blades made from the darker Empyrean appeared manifested around Damon. Quinn's eyes widened when he saw what looked like red zaps of electric arcs dancing around every blade.
'He has reached the level of adding elemental properties to Empyrean,' thought Quinn, his eyes moving between Damon and his magical constructs in surprise.
Empyrean was a magical material, capable of assuming a range of physical properties— only limited by the caster's skill and knowledge. However, achieving a wide range of those physical properties was a tricky task while using Empyrean. Empyrean could assume solid, liquid, and gaseous states. It could become flexible, rigid, semi-solids, or any form of similar properties. However, that was only one level. Above that level, additional properties like adding electric charge, making Emyrean burn, or an ice attribute that could freeze objects at contact, among other similar properties.
The red arcs around the blades were clearly a lightning attribute added to Empyrean.
"Alright, so that's how we are going to do it, huh," said Quinn to Damon. "Time for the kiddy gloves to come off."
Damon didn't reply, and the dozens of Empyrean blades shot towards Quinn with lightning dancing around them.
Suddenly, the temperature in the hallway between the two yellow barriers dropped, and the blades ripping towards Quinn slowed down as if the energy had been sucked out of them, and before long, they came to a freezing halt in the air.
Quinn and Damon's breathing turned to white mist.
Damon's rings glowed brighter, and the Empyrean blades started to chirp with lightning arcs and vibrating as he pushed in more magic to make them move. However, his eyes grew wider as he saw that not only did the blades not move, a deposit of ice started to build on the blades.
". . . Ice," muttered Damon. "That's . . . ."
Quinn's raised his arm and clenched his fist for Damon's Empyrean blades to shatter into red and cold shards.
This time, Quinn didn't speak to Damon. He let the magic flow through his body, reaching his every muscle, and shot towards Damon like a cheetah.
"Fast!" Damon exclaimed. His magic thrummed, and the marble tiling beneath, between Quinn and him, broke away, and the floor started to shake and split, aiming to throw Quinn off balance.
Quinn didn't blink, flinch, or slow down. He kicked the floor and took a body magic-powered leap above; Quinn didn't stop and immediately cast wind magic to push him up and ahead. He thrust his hands forward, and wind blades flew out from his body and sheered towards Damon.
Damon, though surprised, didn't lose the focus of the fight and immediately countered with wind magic that surprised Quinn as his wind attacks were canceled out. Damon didn't stop, and the broken tiles transfigured into metal chakras and shot up towards the mid-flight Quinn.
Quinn didn't give the metal chakras a glance and directly simul-cast two magics. The metal discs coming towards groaned and crumbled into balls while a war hammer with a long handle made from Empyrean manifested in his hands cocked above his head, ready to be brought down directly on Damon.
Damon's pupils dilated. He raised his hands above his head, and the twin rings glowed brightly as a shield manifested above his head.
Bang! The war hammer cracked down on Damon's shield. The shield flickered, its glow dimming as Quinn's hammer did damage to its integrity.
Quinn didn't stop for the shield blocking him away from Damon to disappear and landed on the ground. Two spells charged up in his palm and shot them towards Damon the very second the shield collapsed.
'This will hurt,' thought Quinn as he jumped back a few steps.
The next moment, a deep purple shield appeared in front of Damon, again blocking Quinn's attack from reaching Damon. Quinn didn't skip a beat and let the spells fizzle out; instead, he cast another magic, many times more potent than the previous attack. He again let the magic assault into the purple shield, and an explosion boomed on impact.
When the magic settled, Damon stood behind the shield, staring at Quinn.
"It's not going to work," said Damon with a complicated in his eyes.
Quinn, wide-eyed, stared at the unfazed shield. There wasn't even a single speck of damage on it. Without a single word, Quinn charged his magic and cast a more powerful explosive offense magic onto the shield, sending more louder and brighter explosions, only contained by the yellow barriers that Quinn had cast.
"Don't waste your energy," said Damon, looking down his neckline at the soft glow underneath his clothes. "The shield is not going to break."
Quinn didn't stop and started the barrage of successively stronger magic at the shield until he couldn't cast a stronger magic that wouldn't Hogwarts structural integrity.
He stared at the shield and Damon for a while before sitting down on the floor. "You must be powerful for you to be able to cast a shield that I can't even put a scratch on," he said.
"It's a magical item," said Damon as he watched Quinn cast magic on the floor, restoring it to the pre-fight stage.
"So, who are you," asked Quinn. "Are you grandfather's secret child that he kept hidden from the family? Or are you my late father's illegitimate child that he had with a woman other than my mother?"
Damon didn't reply, though there was something in his eyes that Quinn couldn't put a finger upon.
"You can tell me, I don't really mind if there's another West out there," said Quinn. "Moreover, if you are family, I would like to know more about you— and seeing that you were in the AID office, it seems you know about me, so it is only fair that you share something about yourself."
"I . . . I, listen—" Damon sighed. He went silent for a moment and stared at Quinn through the purple shield. After a few moments of silence, he reached into his clothes and grabbed the neck chain, and a ring glow later, the purple shield was gone.
"Listen, I am not saying this for just avoiding answering, but I can't really tell you—"
Damon's eyes widened when he saw a smile on Quinn's face. The next moment, ice rose from the floor, and before he could blink, he was covered in a block of ice till the neck. His eye jumped down, trying to look at his hands, but he could only feel it as the rings on his hands were twisted out from his fingers and taken away from him.
Quinn stood up from the floor and walked towards the frozen Damon and stretched his hand as the rings encased in pockets of water flew out of ice and landed into his hands.
"Give those back!"
Quinn picked up the ring and raised it to his eye line to observe it.
"You shouldn't trust your opponent so easily," said Quinn. "I mean, even if you're a West, I don't know you, so yeah . . . it is your fault."
Damon growled as he glared at Quinn with anger, betrayal flashing in his eyes.
"I will check them out later," Quinn pocketed the rings and looked at Damon. "For now, I would like to get my answers; from the looks of it, you aren't going to get them from your mouth, so we are going to use the magical route."
He stepped closer to Damon and spoke, "If you would look into my eyes and relax, everything will be over before you know it."
Damon's eyes widened, realizing what would happen, and he couldn't close them as magic held them open. "No, wait! Stop!"
"Oh my, I couldn't see it in this light, but you have heterochromia. That's neat— well, at least one of them is stone-grey."
"Stop! Please, you don't want to do this!"
Quinn reached out with Legilimency into Damon's mind with a calm smile. The smile froze and died down as Damon tried to struggle out of the freezing bind.
He couldn't feel a mind where a mind should be. His Legilemency couldn't find the presence of a mind inside Damon. It was something that had never happened— everyone had a mind, no matter if they were unprotected as a newborn baby or as protected as Alan D. Baddeley's.
"Damon . . . where is your mind?"
Quinn frowned when he didn't hear anything from Damon, not even sounds of him struggling. He focused out and on his face to see that Damon's wide eyes were staring behind him.
"Where are you looking at?"
He turned and suddenly came across a man dressed in a suit standing behind him, staring at him with eyes that he had only seen on two other people.
Before he could speak or make a move, his entire body froze. Every muscle in his body betrayed him and refused to obey his command.
"I would like to have my son released."
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Quinn West - MC - Yeah, I don't care about fairness.
Damon - West??? - Naive? Or is there a reason?
FictionOnlyReader - Author - Well? How about that!
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If you have any ideas regarding the magic you want to see in this fiction or want to offer some ideas regarding the progression. Move onto the DISCORD Server and blast those ideas.
The link is in the synopsis!
Just like always,
Review, comment, add to the library, and share this fic.
Thx
If you want to read ahead, you can check out my Patreón @
[ https://www.patreón.com/fictiononlyreader ]
The link is also in the synopsis.
.
-*-*-*-*-*-
.
"I would like to have my son released."
Quinn, with his eyes blown wide open, stared at the man; it was all he could do when his body was under the influence of binding magic, something that, no matter how much Quinn resisted with no amounts of magic or spells, didn't budge one bit.
The man looked to be in his late twenties, which in magical human lifespan meant the man was at least inching towards sixty. But that fact only lingered in the back of Quinn's chain of thoughts as his mind was dominated by the man's stone-grey eyes and jet black hair. He had only seen those features on three people — himself, George, and Lia.
"Are you Adam West?" Quinn asked. He had seen photographs of his later father, and he could definitely see similarities.
The man glanced at him before turning back to Damon. The ice that bound Damon poofed into a white mist that was blown away with a gust of wind, all under the command of the man with stone-grey eyes.
"D-Dad," said Damon with his head bowed, not daring to look at his father.
"Damon," said the man, "you are a massive imbecile."
Damon flinched at the choice of words, and his head lowered even further, his eyes not fixed on his feet.
"I won't usually say this to you, but when you ignore basic common sense and mess with something that you're not aware of or even remotely knowledgable about, I have no choice but to wonder if my image of you as a bright young man needs to be re-evaluated," said Damon's father. "I'm actively contemplating if I should punish you here and now, and the only reason I am of two minds about it is that this is not the time and place to do so . . . .
Damon cowered in the face of the cutting words from his father as the man spoke in a grave, no-nonsense tone without a speck of humor or light-heartedness in them. Damon could only imagine what expression was there on his father's face, only that it wasn't going to be the one he usually sported— and that frightened him enough to not look at him while he was talking.
". . . . So before we return home and we have a serious discussion about your actions today and the chain of dire consequences that it could've set forth— I suggest that you take the time and think long and hard about what you have done today because even if I was, hypothetically, not to reprimand you, which believe me I'm definitely going to do— your mother would have no such mercy."
Damon quivered as his father finished speaking and could no longer look more pitiful.
Damon's father's eyes went to his son's clenched hands. "Where are your rings, Damon?"
". . . He took them," said Damon in a feeble voice.
The man turned his eyes to Quinn, who felt his pockets open up, and soon two metallic rings flew out and into the man's hands. He raised one ring to his eye level and observed them before repeating the process with the other one.
After he was done, the father turned to his son and showed him the magical rings. "I'm keeping them with me until we return home, and I will let your mother decide when you'll get them back."
"You can't do that; that's not fair!"
"You're in no position to say or tell me what is fair and what is not."
His father's stern voice made Damon back down to only show his frustration through gritted teeth, blazing eyes, and clenched fists.
Quinn, who had been listening to the father and son conversation, finally took the chance to speak up when the conversation fell into a strained lull. "Hey, I'm not one to interfere in family time, but can you unbind me? It is getting uncomfortable here."
The man stared at Quinn for a while before he slightly bent his elbow up and flicked his wrist up.
"Woah!" Quinn exclaimed when his feet left the floor, and he was raised into the air, without even given a choice to awkwardly flail around with his body bound tight. "Hey, let me down! I can walk and am willing to cooperate."
The man ignored Quinn and glanced at Damon, "Follow me," before turning away to walk with Damon following on foot with Quinn gliding in the air.
Damon snickered as he walked past Quinn to just behind his father, making Quinn glare at him.
"Hey, hey, you're not allowed in there," said Quinn when he realized where the man was leading them.
The man once again ignored Quinn and opened the door of the AID office with a look, and walked inside. After taking a step in, the man stopped and looked around the office for a good while in silence— his eye moved from the office desk in the front to the glass wall on the side and moved over all the decor and knick-knacks that adorned the room.
"Damon, go and wait in the workshop while I clean this mess up," said the man and waved his hand for the workshop door's locking mechanism to click open.
Damon stared at his father and Quinn for a second before slipping into the workshop, leaving Quinn and his father alone.
The man snapped his finger, and Quinn dropped down on the floor with his bindings also coming off.
Quinn got control of himself just in time to remain standing, albeit with a slight stumble. If it was another situation, Quinn would've resorted to magic to fight or flight, but in the current situation, where the man had fully incapacitated him without breaking a sweat— the better strategy here was to see what the man wanted.
'He hasn't harmed me till now . . . .'
The man walked to the chair behind the office table. He stopped and stared at the comfy chair with cushions and actual back support that Astoria had brought in to replace Quinn's barebones barstool. As the man stared at the chair, it warped and creaked to turn into a barstool for the man to take a seat.
"Sit down," said the man, motioning with his hand for a customer chair to place it opposite to him.
Quinn sat down in the customer seat, something he felt a bit uncomfortable doing. In his tenure, he had been on the opposite side of the table where the unknown was sitting.
"Sorry for all this mess," said the man, "I didn't believe my son would make such a mess out of things."
Quinn observed the man for a moment. His tone seemed to be genuinely apologetic even though his facials weren't reflecting the said tone. He shrugged, "Other than breaking and entering, your son didn't do much damage, though, in these times, those petty crimes can be serious, especially in Hogwarts."
"Ah yes, breaking into Hogwarts is supposedly a big deal."
"Yes, that is what everyone says," Quinn chuckled, recalling the fact there had been notable break-ins into the castle.
"And to think Death Eaters would invade the castle soon," said the man.
"Yeah . . . . . . what?" Quinn's eyes got locked onto the man, who sat nonchalantly as if he hadn't said anything of importance. "What did you say?"
"Hmm? I said Death Eater in Hogwarts."
". . . How do you know that? Do you have an in with the Death Eater?" asked Quinn, emotion draining from his face. "Wait a minute, you still haven't told me who you are. Are you grandfather's illegitimate child or something?"
The man chuckled, "It's quite amusing to me that you can't recognize me. Sure it has been ages, but I don't think I have changed in looks that much."
Quinn frowned. He couldn't comprehend what the man was talking about. "What do you mean— . . . . ."
The realization was sudden, heavy, and cut through the confusion like a sharp blade.
Quinn leaned forward in his chair and spoke in a sombre voice, "Prove it."
"Proof, huh. Well, how about you let the voice in your head take over; I am interested in talking to that version."
"Don't even joke about it!" Quinn glared, his magic flaring as things rattled in the office. "And that's not enough proof— that secret is not strong enough," after all, the strongest secret was one where only a single person knew about it. "If you're who you say you're, then you know what qualifies as proof."
"Well, how about that fact that you moonlight as a brutal invisible vigilante."
"Don't skirt around it!"
"I don't like to bring that up. It's not part of my life anymore. Unlike you, I have moved on," the older man sighed and massaged his temple.
Quinn showed no reaction and kept his gaze trained on
"But if you do insist, then I shall bring it up once," said the man. He looked at Quinn and spoke softly, "This world is supposedly one from a piece of fiction, and you're an outsider. We overtook at age four, and well, I think that's enough.
Happy now?"
"Not one bit," said Quinn snapping back immediately. This time he was the one to rub his temple, but unlike his relaxed companion, he was feeling a headache coming up. "I can believe I would be meeting my older self. How am I supposed to react to this?"
"How about with a greeting," said future-Quinn with a relaxed grin. "Hello, Quinn. I am Quinn."
"You!" Quinn stared at the man incredulously. "How can you be so nonchalant about this?!"
"What do you mean?"
"What do you mean, 'What do you mean?' You are NOT supposed to be here!!!"
"You don't think I know that," said future-Quinn. "Why do you think I'm here? To have a leisure trip? No. I'm here to clean the mess up."
"You speak like this is not your problem," scoffed Quinn. "You're the main reason behind this whole problem."
"Excuse me? I haven't done anything wrong here."
"Yeah, right," Quinn scoffed again. He pointed at the closed workshop door. "There's no way that guy capable of creating a device like time-turner that could allow the user to travel back decades— much less, cast temporal magic with similar effects."
"Hey. That's my son you're talking about," said future-Quinn. "My son is the most talented of his age. If I was to compare, Damon is on the same level as Dumbledore and Riddle when they were his age."
"Good for him. But that doesn't change the fact that when even I haven't made a fraction of progress, that would be required for this TYPE and LEVEL of time travel. If I can't do it, forget about Dumbledore, the Dark Lord, or even Grindelwald— and so I doubt Damon would be able to accomplish that.
And honestly, the only other way I see this is happening is that YOU were careless and YOU messed up, making this all YOUR fault."
"I don't like the tone you're taking, kid," said future-Quinn. "You might want to reign that in."
"I am just pointing fault where it lies, old man," said Quinn. "Has your skin thinned with old age? What a tragedy; I hope I don't turn up like you."
"Was I always this annoying?" said future-Quinn. "Nope, don't think so. You've got that annoying quality of being irritating."
The present and future (past and present) stared at each other with upturned noses, looking down on each other.
"Alright, enough of this," said Quinn, "I hope you have a way to fix this mess because both you and I know how things can turn out when temporal laws are messed with."
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Quinn West - MC(Present) - I hope I don't turn like him.
Quinn West - MC(Future) - Man, this kid sure is annoying.
Damon West - Future West - Has his ear on the wall, trying to listen.
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-*-*-*-*-*-
.
If you have any ideas regarding the magic you want to see in this fiction or want to offer some ideas regarding the progression. Move onto the DISCORD Server and blast those ideas.
The link is in the synopsis
Just like always,
Review, comment, add to the library, and share this fic.
Thx
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