"I have to talk to Rey before we leave, because I know I'm not leaving Professor Wilde's super cool castle when we get there." Eddie exclaimed briskly, throwing the suitcase to Chavo, who barely managed to catch it without being crushed. "Leave that by the door and don't touch anything, hombre."
"But couldn't you have put it down? And what Luchereus did you put in here? He weighs as much as our cousin Juanita when she was ten!" Chavo cursed in Sothoryos for a few seconds, struggling to move the suitcase the two meters needed to get it near the door.
"I packed a lot of very important stuff, homes, like my cape+, seven packs of candy for the trip, a few packets of pipe weed, my door-opening gadgets… you know, the usual stuff." Eddie had actually left out most of the suitcase's contents because he didn't want to tell Chavo. And the surprise effect was more fun. "You wait here, keep an eye on the bags, ese."
"Are you going to look for the centaur?" Emily appeared in front of the door, and Eddie let out a tiny scream (it was quite loud).
"For Luchereus' sake, what are you doing here?" the young man from Sothoryos clutched his chest. Sooner or later, he was going to have a heart attack because of the gothic witch in front of him.
That day, Emily was wearing a really short, black, green, and black tulle miniskirt with a black leather overlay, laced up at the sides, black thigh-high stockings held up by black leather belts, and knee-high boots with countless buckles and lime-green holographic flame prints, as well as black plush gaiters over the sides of the boots. Over that, she wore a tight black sweatshirt with green zombie patches and, of course, black and green gloves. She also wore spiderweb earrings and her usual dark, gothic makeup. Her hair, however, was in a long, loose ponytail with two loose locks near her bangs to protect her ears from the winter chill of the winter castle. A stark contrast to the Sothoryosan, who that day was wearing light, slightly tight-fitting but not too tight jeans and a black T-shirt with "Eddie Guerrero is my favorite wizard warrior" written in red and yellow in a vaguely gothic font.
"Mmm, I'll save you from doing stupid things." Emily smiled, her usual ominous aura all around her. "The centaur's being followed by at least three of Melisandre's spies…you don't want him to know you went to his study, do you?"
"Oh well, mami, we're all grounded already." Eddie shrugged, but the dark girl's eyes flashed a furious red, and he found himself forced back, crashing into the wall behind him.
"Listen to me, sweetie, I don't want to risk it because someone can't wait until they're in Skagos. Do you really think the red-faced woman is enough for a punishment? Why do you think she wanted to keep you in the castle?" The girl seemed to regain her grace, but her eyes remained cold and terrifying. Eddie trembled and shook his head. But what did he know? "Anyway, you'll talk to him when no one's around, okay?"
"O-okay." The boy from Sothoryos nodded, swallowing, trying to calm himself. The thought of the mess and the Bolton bastard's lair from the night before made him jump.
"Oh, hello, Chavo! Thanks for the tequila last night!" Emily greeted the boy with a smile, who was watching them a few meters away in amazement. "That really made the party so sloppy!"
"I don't understand this story that we have to go on a trip now. For a game? But why all the way to Skagos, aren't there any other stadiums?" Jon sighed, packing his bags with his usual long face. His suitcase was full of clothes as black as his mood. Something was wrong, Jon would never have thought of going to Skagos again in his life, it was only for the privileged and for his brothers who always left him waiting at Winterfell with that bloke Hodor, but Jon felt that something was wrong.
"Well, but Skagos has the biggest stadium, the coolest, the most lit, the most…togo!" Batista the Bartender exclaimed, slapping Jon on the shoulder.
John Cena and his other huge friend had been hanging around him for days now, it was practically as if they had adopted him, and Jon didn't feel like complaining to those two beasts, but by now he couldn't feel his back anymore and probably a rib had broken. Then, as if the brusque ways of the two bodybuilders weren't enough, every now and then that guy from the cafeteria, The Rock, would join in. Jon didn't know what his real name was, and he would force him to taste every single Intercontinental Team-themed thing he cooked and would start talking (screaming) for at least twenty minutes about how he was the people's chef, of the people, the soul of Winter Hogwarts. Jon would have liked to tell him that he was actually a pastry chef, but in the end the alternative was to go back to listening to Sam's rants about the Nephilim or whatever that damn nerd was talking about.
"Fuck yeah, now I'll give you a nice freestyle, bro!" John Cena exclaimed euphorically. Jon was convinced that he was the most normal of his new friends, but then he had started to proclaim himself a talented rapper and every so often he would start rhyming and trying to make a beatbox base together at the same time.
"In the summer uncha everyone goes to Skagos because psssk, everyone likes uncha… except you! psssk Everyone likes this stadium how it is gruntssk that everyone goes there… except you! chah The life you dream of is a mess pnsk like in the books, your business, ntz it's like virginity all of a sudden pssk first you lose it and then you want it back! clap" John Cena swayed with his hands, making his chain around his neck dance as he stuffed a long row of Team jerseys into his suitcase with silver edges and a huge S symbol drawn in bars on it. Batista laughed loudly, applauding. Jon sighed. I wonder if he would at least have a chance to talk to Misterio during the trip.
"Punishing the Royces would be up to me, since I'm the head of Ravenclaw." Professor Wilde continued, taking a step forward towards Melisandre. "But there's no evidence that they caused any damage to the school. Who are the Hufflepuffs who told you?"
Frankie Wilde's eyes narrowed, blue and now bright, as he was probably casting a spell to read Melisandre's mind, who backed away as if the red-haired man was burning.
"Why did you activate a spell that blocks mind reading? I was just trying to talk to you. You know I'm deaf, and I read minds and lips to understand what is being said to me." the Ravenclaw professor went on the attack this time, giving her a crooked smile and knowing that the woman had secrets.
"Because I didn't know anything about this trip?" asked Roose Bolton, piercing Stannis Baratheon with his disturbing ice-blue eyes. "I do not intend to sacrifice my best students and my niece, the daughter of my beloved twin sister, by sending her to Castle Black." he concluded.
"If it is a problem and you want to punish them, then do not host them in Skagos Winter Hogwarts. I will host them, in my own private castle."
In reality, the Little Castle of Frankie Wilde, the largest and most important and powerful and richest DJ wizard in the entire wizarding world, was perhaps larger than Winter Hogwarts itself, and had its own disco, where he often performed and from which myriads of wizards from all over Planetos flocked.
The boys wanted to debut, but, telepathically, the professor ordered them to appear opposed to the proposal, and all the boys pretended to become all morose, crossing their arms over their chests and muttering.
"I think it's a very good idea, Wilde." Roose Bolton agreed with him, and they were probably talking telepathically at the same time. "I give my Slytherin boys permission to spend their detention in your castle."
Stannis sighed, not knowing what else to say. Melisandre was focused, perhaps protecting her mind with a powerful Asshai charm to prevent Professor DJ from reading her mind.
In a whirlwind of red skirts and red hair, the Red woman turned on her heel and almost ran inside. Stannis, his brow furrowed, nodded to Roose Bolton and Frankie Wilde.
"Sounds fair." and walked away.
The boys, who had been on edge until then, burst into infectious laughter, and even Pallina, who had woken up from the noise, began to make happy noises while Ken stroked the feathers behind her beak crest.
Frankie and Roose looked at each other, then at the boys. "Get ready, we're off to Skagos!"
I refuse to elaborate any further but I'll let you know there's a fanfic in which Pier Paolo is a Lord in a fantasy world (Westeros but cooler and magical!)and he's also a wizard and also a vampire and he's 10000 years old and im also in this fic and im a witch dinosaur (a dinosaur that studies magic at the University of Magic) and I accidentally (on purpose) brought him back to life with the Necrofiler Stone that i invented because i have mineral powers because I'm a magic geologist 👍
"Why?" Jeff asked, close to Emily's side, as he felt the negative vibes the girl was giving off. "Do you want to keep us away from school?" asked the gothic girl with long black hair and green streaks, flaying the professor alive with her icy ice-colored eyes, surrounded by heavy eyeliner and a layer of deep black eyeshadow that shimmered an eerie green.
"The camp is no longer usable. There have been problems." Melisandre chimed in, quick as a peregrine falcon.
"The camp?! I've just been there, everything was fine!" Ken interrupted, overshadowing even the very tall red woman, who had to raise her head even just to look at his face. "Well, it's not anymore. What were you doing here? A Lys potion? Aren't foreign potions made inside the school illegal? You work for the school, you should know what the rules are for staying and working here." she glared at him, and Ken had to go back to sit next to her younger sister, while Pallina crouched against the school with her large head tucked under her feathered wing.
"But it was just to make them feel better-" the big blond boy tried to justify himself, but Melisandre once again attacked poor Ken, who had never been particularly good with words. "And then, keeping such a large beast within the Castle walls is extremely dangerous, as dangerous as your sister Aston's eagle, who enjoys bullying and injuring important students of the Night's Watch! And the smallest… some Hufflepuffs said that it was you, Dennis, who set off a cold fire bomb on the pitch, together with your friends Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Maybe we should punish you, and not send you on a trip to Skagos."
"But it wasn't us!" Dennis shouted in his annoying little voice, even higher pitched in such a tense moment. "I didn't move from here! I went to Omega Mart and then we stayed here playing in the snow! It's not fair!!"
At the mere mention of Hufflepuff, Theon paled, as if something had suddenly occurred to him, and dropped the bottle of butterbeer that he had hidden when he saw the professors approaching. Melisandre didn't miss the opportunity. "And you're drinking alcohol too! Stannis, I suggest a suitable punishment for this group of boys… why don't we send them to Castle Black? Shireen, Aegon and Eddie can stay here to serve their punishment. They are useful to us.. . in good shape. Even the zombie boy… the pale boy could be useful."
The boys jumped. Except Beric, who didn't know what happened to Castle Black because he had died around that time and couldn't remember a thing.
Sheamus leaned down and spoke in his ear. "The Night's Watch moved here because something dangerous happened to their Castle. And then Dennis and Aegon overheard that there's something really dangerous there, we risk our lives if they send us there!"
Beric let out an astonished expression at the thought that someone would endanger his beloved Aston, and placed his hand on the sword at his side, ready to set the sword on fire and fight the now furious Red Woman fire with fire.
"Who told you that you could decide for our students?" came a mournful voice from behind them.
Stannis and Melisandre turned to find themselves facing the head professors of Slytherin and Ravenclaw houses, respectively the Gothic professor of magical anatomy and head of Slytherin Roose Bolton, and the professor of mind reading and non-verbal magical languages and head of Ravenclaw Frankie Wilde, both definitely annoyed.
Roose Bolton wore a suit jacket and trousers, pale pink with several rubies and red spinels in the shape of drops of blood sewn onto them, the stitching on the suit jacket was blood red silk, the color of the shirt he wore under the suit. A black leather jacket that reached down to his knees covered his shoulders, covered in silver and green embroidery the color of his house depicting skinned men, from which also hung several small chains, in silver and green metal.
Frankie Wilde, next to Roose, was not so elegant. He had an army green parka lined with thick black and white fur from the Giant Carnivorous Badger, an extremely dangerous animal voracious for wizard meat that Frankie himself had decapitated after a hard fight. Under the parka, the only thing covering his bare, athletic chest were several necklaces with the most disparate pendants, most of them runestones for powerful magic and talismans. His designer ripped jeans went down to his knees, and he wore his usual flip-flops, probably more expensive than Stannis Baratheon's entire wardrobe alone.
All of a sudden… a fiery red flying Ferrari descended from the sky, slowly, kicking up the snow the boys were playing in.
The garden was large and the boys often trained there with the flying broom, but no one ever parked the flying car!
From the brand new and flaming red car, as expected, the Red Woman Melisandre got out, shooting a look full of hatred towards the boys, before running into the castle, the snow seeming to melt under her steps, as if she was not only colored with fire, but was also made of embers.
"Oh no." Ken muttered. "When teachers move so quickly, it doesn't mean anything good."
"Oh no!" Christian and Edge made their debut together. "They won't cancel the Intercontinental team's match!!"
All of a sudden, professors started talking loudly, walking down the halls, and Thorne, a professor at Castle Black, even ran so quickly that he fell, cursed, and got up again, clutching freshly copied sheets of paper in his arms.
"Or, perhaps, it's something much worse." Emily giggled, covering her sadistic smile with her hands, her nails long and black like claws colored with neon green pentacles.
Dennis, who until a few seconds earlier had been all brash, ran into Aston's arms again, this time not to be part of a magic potion, but out of fear - the tension was palpable, it could be felt in the freezing winter air .
When Stannis Baratheon and Melisandre the red woman approached them with a military and aggressive step, the boys were ready for whatever news awaited them.
Stannis Baratheon's gaze was cold, his expression was even colder than usual, almost funereal, as he stood in front of the boys, Melisandre at his side.
Melisandre wore a sheath dress made of shiny dark red leather, which flared out into a mermaid-tail skirt from the knees down, and she crawled on the ground for several feet without getting dirty, probably thanks to a curse from Asshai. The sheath dress was covered in lighter red lace, the embroidery in the shapes of fires and men strung on pikes. Around the red woman's neck, the ruby almost vibrated with brightness.
Melisandre fixed her red gaze first on Emily, and then on Eddie, a gaze full of anger and knowledge. Did she know that the two of them had entered her office? That they had found out something about her plans?
“You must have noticed the commotion that just happened.” Stannis began, his gaze only softening when it passed over her daughter, just as scared as the other kids there in the garden. "Unfortunately Winter Hogwarts will no longer be able to host the Intercontinental Team match."
"Holy filly!! Nooo! I said so!!" Edge let out, more of a moan from a dying deer that had just been shot than a complaint. Stannis glared at him with his cold blue eyes, but ignored him, completely expressionless except for that flash of anger in his eyes.
"The match will take place in Skagos, and you will be transferred to the Skagos branch of Winter Hogwarts for several days."
Skagos was the wizards' private island. It was located on the northeastern coast of the continent of Westeros, not far from the border that divided the North from the wilds beyond the Wall. The climate was very cold, equal only in glacial cold to the glaciers of Ib or the fjords of Nothoryos, with which it was more or less at the same height, and the same cold currents of the Northern Ocean lapped them. However, Skagos (whose initial S is silent in pronunciation) was famous because it was known by Muggles as a cold, uninhabited and sterile island, covered by glaciers kilometers thick, but in reality it was an island made warm and fertile by the magic of centuries and millennia of magicians who used it as a tourist attraction for all the magicians of Planetos.
Skagos, on its rolling hills in the centre-north of the enormous island on which palm trees, banana trees and maritime pines grow, is home to a small castle where every now and then the kids from Winter Hogwarts spend unforgettable trips. The venue is called Skagos Winter Hogwarts, and is connected by magical cable cars (carrying flying brooms) to the sandy plain to the south-west, where the most exclusive nightclubs in the wizarding world are located, a gigantic stadium where many concerts are played and the largest sporting events played, pubs and bars, luxury villas and very warm, sunny beaches. A paradise of the magical world, made so by the magic itself, and by the gigantic, kilometer-large crystal of white obsidian that is planted in the exact middle of the island, which gives it an extraordinary magic.
The footsteps of a gigantic beast answered her. Appearing from who knows where, an enormous creature resembling a huge turkey nine meters long entered the garden, with a huge cauldron in its beak. It was Pallina the Gigantoraptor of the Jogos Nai steppe, the pet of Aston and Dennis' equally enormous older brother, Ken, who followed her around. Ken was wearing his usual gray cap that had belonged to his grandfather from Lys, and one of his many jackets which, worn by him, seemed of normal size, and then abandoned on a chair where he often left them they looked like the size of circus tents . He wore shorts even in the harsh Northern winter weather, and sneakers even in the snow, but he didn't even seem to notice the cold. Perhaps he was too big even for the cold of the True Winter.
"Hi guys, Aston told me you need me!" Ken said brightly, with a pair of cups in his big arms, the ones fixed with Aston cup cement.
Pallina - so called because, Ken says, when she hatched from the egg she was just a little ball of feathers, but that had been at least twenty years earlier, when Ken was a baby and Aston and Dennis hadn't even been born yet. The Ravenclaw Quidditch coach placed the large cauldron on the ground, and Cesaro and Emily, who loved magical potions, did their utmost to help Ken prepare that mysterious potion.
"It's called 'prodigious tears of the Goddess of Lys', it's a potion widely used in Lys, where our mother comes from." Ken explained, as he explained to Cesaro the order of the ingredients, and to Emily the dose of them to put in the pot, and he calmly mixed. "This potion helps a lot with headaches and hangovers, and I think after yesterday's evening it will help you! You drank a lot, eh? But it was fun."
"Why, were you there too?" muttered one of the Hardy brothers, the one who could at least talk.
"Yes, I crashed. It's my specialty."
"How do you sneak in and not be noticed, big as you are?"
Ken shrugged.
Aston passed Dennis's hair to her older brother and he threw it into the mixture which was bubbling on its own, without fire, from the strength of the ingredients within it. After a few minutes of mixing, instead of the slop there was now a nice light blue transparent liquid, with the inviting scent of deodorant.
With the three cups that he had brought with him, he filled the cups and passed them to the boys, but not before taking a sip of his own from the first cup. "Just one sip!"
Rhea, who came from Ulthos like Riddle, helped him take a sip, because the poor boy couldn't even lift his head. As soon as his lips touched the rim of the cup and he sipped the inside of his mouth, he jumped up fresh as a daisy and tossed his slippers, laughing happily and energetically as ever.
Theon did without. "We in the Iron Islands are used to drinking so much, we don't need these potions." he said, all proud of himself. Chavo took two sips, though he had been told to take only one, and belched so loudly that blue smoke came out of his mouth and everyone laughed, much louder this time.
Chavo passed Eddie the cup, but he didn't take it. He was staring into space, his gaze very strangely worried and focused on some thought of his. Since when Eddie thought about anything serious???
"For bad thoughts, better if you take two sips." the kind Ken advised him, patting him on the back - but his hand was so big that it almost made Eddie fall down the stairs where he was sitting. Ken passed him a cup, and Eddie drank. He felt much, much better after that blueberry gatorade-like stuff, except it didn't taste like blueberry but like sweet deodorant. It was good, but strange. Thoughts about Rey and what was written in the Red Witch's book slowly dissipated, replaced by how beautiful Emily's birthday party had been, and how exciting the thought of witnessing the Intercontinental Team's battle and match was!
Now all the Slytherin and Ravenclaw boys were lively and noisy again, and some of them started throwing snowballs at each other.
Dennis, still aching for his precious hair, tried to throw a large magical snowball at his sister, but not only did Aston, with impressive speed, draw her magical sword and cut the snowball in half, but she also succeeded to throw a bigger one right in his face, making Dennis' makeup drip everywhere. Aegon and Rhea laughed at him.
There was no snow in Sothoryos and Ulthos, so Chavo and Riddle enjoyed building impressive snowmen in the shape of monsters that inhabited the forest of Sothoryos and the desert hinterland of Ulthos.
"We should give Randy some too." Sheamus said as he looked at the liquid left in the cup he had just drunk. "He's been very ill lately, no one understands what's wrong with him, and he doesn't even want to tell us anything…"
In the remote far-east (the opposite of the far west) of Essos, beyond the Bones (a very high mountain range and impossible to pass without magic or using the convenient highvelocitytraineros, built by the ancient Valyrians with their magic of contracts rigged in their favor, which flowed quickly in a tunnel in the middle of the mountains, guarded by the mountain harpies who did not allow the passage of the planes or even the quetzalcoatluses, given that the harpies were paid by the Valyrians and due to conflict of interests it was better if only the highvelocitytraineros worked as the only means of transport) and past the large sea of sand immediately after and the tundra plains of the Jogos Nhai, once you reach the Bloody Sea, turn right and you will find yourself in front of the Five Forts.
Five gigantic and majestic fortified castles, each individually larger than Harrenhal of Westeros, lined up between the Bleeding Sea to the northwest and the Mountains of Mourn to the southeast.
Built of black granite directly taken from the mysterious Mountains of Mourn in the Shadowlands and of highly polished dark marble from the evil mines of Ulthos, and covered in magic so ancient and powerful as to be practically impregnable, together they formed the polytechnic of the University of the Five Forts, the most prestigious magic university on the entire Planetos!
If in Westeros the Winter Hogwarts high school was seen as the forerunner of the high schools of magic, a fundamental step for every young and willing magic apprentice who wanted to undertake the art of the eso&teric, the Five Forts University (so called in common language) was the obligatory stop to enter the paragnostic life of the Magical Planetos, among the big boys. In fact, just to enter the Five Forts you had to be recommended by someone who was famous and important, in addition to the fundamental requirement of having obtained a high school diploma from one of the most important magical high schools in Pianetos (such as Winter Hogwarts, the R'hllorini of Asshai/Torinus by the Shadows, the Underwater and Nautical school of Teramos between Molisovy and the Thousand Islands, or the school of Aggravated Violence in Bronxeros, in NewJerseros) and to the slightly more classist one of having to come from a Noble House of famous and powerful wizards, whose magic was special and individual, or being very special individuals with prophecies written specifically for them at least half a century before, or simply recommended and relatives of the teaching body.
The 7am highvelocitytraineros, which left Calgaryfell in Northeros and passed through Westeros and Essos until it reached the central station of Arpergamo, had just crossed the Bones after a convoy of Dothraki had attempted to approach the train and loot it, but without knowing that the train was traveling at the speed of sound (which corresponded to 343.1 m/s or 1 235.16 km/h) so they were badly mowed down by the wall of compressed air around the vehicle. It was a very funny sight for the students on top of the high-speed train, who watched as horse blood splattered everywhere! And this time it wasn't interactive blood for profit!
The train magically levitated above the canyon called the Great Sand Sea, which in reality everyone called the Great Shit Sea because it was really boring and very large, and circumnavigated the Shrinking Sea, which was once called the Great Sea, but an evil wizard-doctor millennia ago casted his minimization spell on that sea and now it was shrinking by a millimeter every day, which doesn't seem like much, but considering that it's been millennia, it's a lot.
Passing over the blood-filled waters (so they weren't waters but bloods instead) of the Bleeding Sea to the south, the highvelocitytraineros landed safely at the Fort #1 stop, in an enormous station built entirely of dark marble with red veins continually dripping blood, and engraved in the polished marble were drawings of dark, unknown beasts and ancient evil gods.
A flood of students from every corner of the Known World and even the Unknown converged off the train, laughing and clutching the cages containing their magical guide animals, suitcases and magic wands/swords, in an unbearable normie chatter.
Our protagonist wasn't among them, because he wasn't a normie and a preppy like everyone else.
He was metal and special.
The cases, all black and covered with studs and pins, floated in the air surrounded by a very powerful psychic aura behind him, as he descended with small and somewhat stiff steps down the train ladder, from the first carriage, the one that had the seats reserved for holders of magisabilities.
But our protagonist doesn't need to have a perfect body, on the contrary: that curse on his body, slow and weak, was the result of great pride for (drumroll) Timothy Weyd, heir to the throne of the resort island of Skagos, nephew of the powerful wizard warrior deaf DJ Professor Frankie Weyd!
Timothy, who we can also call Timmy from here on, had long, pale red hair, very greasy and shaved on the right side of his immense head, swollen due to his curse, revealing his right eye with an iris as blue as the skies above Skagos, on which the iridescent metallic golden symbol of the Weyd stood out, which was also shown on the coat of arms of their ancient and very powerful house: the eye of Horuseros, an ancient God remembered only on the wild and transgressive island of Skagos.
That golden tattoo, which in reality was not a tattoo but actually a symbol onhis skin that every Weyd was born with, meant great power in him, but unfortunately it had the downside of coming with the price of remaining magisabled (magically disabled) for life.
Timmy was wearing a black t-shirt from a metal band (he's a metalhead) with an incomprehensible gothic writing and interactive blood splatters on the cheap black material of the t-shirt, a strange necklace around his neck with five gems half covered by others more plasticky and clunky but decidedly edgier necklaces, a black studded belt, some slightly old black leather trousers and some heavy useless boots with metal tip which, given hia magisability, he had great difficulty dragging along, but it didn't matter: style above all, was one of Skagos' mottos.
Since he didn't have to carry his suitcases, which were floating behind him thanks to his innate psychic abilities of his psycho/steel elemental soul, in his right hand he held the blood-red staff of his SKAGGOX, the typical axe of Skagos, that doubled as a magic wand and an axe and a walking cane all at once, while on his left hand he tugged at a metal chain that came out directly from his wrist covered with many studded bracelets, the result of his steel magic: at the other end, a deformed and ugly beast. It was a walking lizard, enormous and very dangerous beasts from the dangerous continent of Sothoryos, only this one was a little crooked and did not hold its head, mounted on top of a long mangy neck, and dragged it behind it and every now and then by accident he stepped on his own neck and falling to the ground.
And in fact the beast stomped-strangled itself by mistake and rolled in a very funny way down the train steps, ending up with its ass on the basalt platform.
Timmy sighed and hurriedly picked up his companion animal, making sure he was okay and stroking his ugly brown feathers.
It was a little ugly, but not small, and he still had many years to grow. It had long and clawed legs but they were unable to keep him up (if he had managed to stand at the withers, or at the side, he would perhaps have reached the elbow of Timmy, who was one meter and 90cm tall), a long tail with a pygostyle ending that gave the tail a fan of feathers, but even that was a little mangy and greyish. The long front legs covered in brown feathers ended in three enormous curved claws that he practically never used and always kept attached to the body, and a hump along the entire back, covered in somewhat greasy-looking feathers, just like the hair of the its owner!
Girls who looked like gyaru giggled at the sight, pointing at him.
Timothy looked up, golden pupil pointing at them, a look of pure anger on his pale, freckled face. In a few moments, the girls stopped laughing and collapsed on the ground, gripped by an excruciating headache so powerful that it made them completely stupid.
“I ssssssssuspected it wasssssssssss you!” a familiar voice hissed behind Timothy. The boy turned, looking at the very familiar man who was approaching him, and smiled with his crooked teeth.
In fact, the one walking towards him was not a man: it was a basiliskid!
He was very tall and wiry, with dark hair beautifully combed with holographic reflections and acid green eyes, a perfect face but with skin so smooth and perfect that it looked like plastic, but it was only the result of an accurate skin routine on reptilian skin.
He was dressed to the nines, in a very elegant black holo suit, and had designer shoes so shiny that every time the pale sun from the remote east of Essos reflected on them, it created a reflection so powerful it blinded whoever had the misfortune to look in that direction.
He smiled at Timothy, revealing sharp fangs and other pointed teeth, and helped the boy up.
"You know I hate bimbos, Slssslslslslslsy. I can't stand brainless people with big tits." Timothy replied vaguely hinting at the future (spoiler), without opening his mouth: in fact, to speak, Timmy used telepathy and mind reading, taught to him by his uncle Frankie. That's why the text is in italics and another colour, because he only tele-said it instead of saying it aloud.
Sssslslslslslsy hugged Timmy once he was standing, a really kawaii and cute hug. Sslslsslslslsy was a helper of the Weyd house, and what one might call Lord Frankie Weyd's romantic companion, if basiliskids had feelings like humans. He had known Timothy practically since he was born, and it was Slslslssssslssly himself who had given him his trusty animal companion as a gift, since Ssslsslslslsy came from the Basilisk Islands, in Sothoryos.
Sslslssslssy, colloquially known as Bob, broke away from the embrace and smiled warmly at the boy, but there was a bit of the transgressive in his smile. "In fact, I wasssssn't sssssssaying you were wrong. You did well, you know how I feel about it."
“Ultraviolence is okay, I know.” Timmy tele-replied with a slightly less edgy smile, following Bob who had started walking in the same direction he had come from, but he had walked so silently that no one knew where he was coming from.
It would have been class time, but none of the kids were in class having some boring magic lesson. They were all lying in the garden, or locked in their common rooms. That day was a festive one, because the Intercontinental team would be performing that afternoon!
The big party in the Slytherin common room the previous night, however, had left its effects on the boys who had taken part.
Dennis, Aegon, Shireen, Rhea and Loras, with large shopping bags from Omega Mart in their hands, had just landed their flying brooms in the garden, in front of the large group of friends of which they were part, and of which they were the younger members.
Aston, dark circles under her eyes visible even under her dark blue sunglasses and a hand pressed to her pale forehead, had sent the three Ravenclaws and the two Slytherins on a bizarre shopping spree: bottled deodorant with the essence of whale vocal cords, extra virgin water without hydrogen dioxide, a whole pack of copper buttons, and they even had to stop by Undertaker's creepy shack to get some root he grew, embarrassingly big and bulbous and disgusting.
“What the fuck did you make us bring this crap here for?” Dennis began, very angry. It was cold that day, and he had to steal a long blue jacket with idiotic diamonds from his older brother, but it was so big that it trailed on the ground like a cloak over his shoulders. His shirt with holes in it and his trousers, with tears so wide that he had to wear a pair of tights underneath him so as not to appear to be in his underwear, did not hold up well to the cold of the Northern winter of Winter Hogwarts. But they were very fashionable!
Aston almost smiled at him, sitting on the outside window sill of Yi Ti's Astrology classroom, along with just a few of her group of friends - Seamus with his purple face and split nose, Cesaro with his glitter jacket on backwards, the Hardy brothers with bruises everywhere, Edge and Christian leaning on each other very tired, Emily who looked just a little less fresh than ever and, worst of all, Eddie and Riddle.
Eddie seemed more upset emotionally than physically, and Riddle the opposite. He was hunched over, his hands in his long blond hair and his gaze on the ground. Beric was by Aston's side as always but he didn't seem to have suffered anything from the previous night, probably because he hadn't been there.
Theon still had a bottle of butterbeer in his hand, and Renly had turned in disgust to see Theon still wanting to drink alcohol after getting too drunk the previous night, his braid all in disarray as if he hadn't even let his hair down and combed it- strange for him, who loved her long black hair so much.
Rhea, who was the strongest of the group of third and fourth years sent to refuel, was carrying two bags full of rubbish, and she also seemed the most nervous. "This stuff stinks." the Ulthos girl said angrily, wrinkling her nose and making a face with her black lipstick. Loras, impeccably dressed as usual with well-combed, soft light brown hair and a coat embroidered with golden roses that reached down to his knees, almost threw the bag towards the group, but no one caught it. She ended up in the snow, at Aston's feet. "Don't throw things! What if she ran into Aston? She would get hurt!" Beric shouted stiffly and annoyed at Loras, while Aston mimed giving him a slap. "Shut up, or I'll bury you upside down and ass up like Undertaker's chickens." she growled.
"Now you'll find out, right Aston?" Cesaro replied, sunny as always but with a crooked and tired smile. He had a cut on his bald head caused by a fall the day before, and he was holding a take-away coffee from Batista's Bar, which had been empty for some time now.
The four boys unloaded the stuff they had bought with Aston's money in front of the feet of the red-haired girl, who was wearing a short holographic diamond-patterned jacket trimmed with fur and heavy black jeans with a holographic border on the side as well, and boots with holographic diamonds like the jacket. It was strangely cold in Winter Hogwarts that day.
Aston grabbed her younger brother by the wrist, dragging him towards him.
"I'll explain it to you now, Denny, come here." and she violently made him sit on her legs, even though he seemed really against the matter. "You've grown up, huh?" said Aston, strangely condescending to her younger brother, with whom she almost always teased. Dennis, in fact, was not convinced. “What the fuck do you want from me?” he muttered unsurely.
Aston ruffled his hair, which had been dyed an annoyingly bright red that day, and before Dennis knew anything was wrong, she pulled out a lock of his hair. The boy jumped up screaming, both in pain and in fright.
"Your dye is based on Realgar, and is used in the potion." The older sister continued, as a very low-energy laugh arose from the hungover group.
"What potion?" Shireen asked, curious. She was a nerd, so as soon as we talked about new potions or magic that she didn't know, she forgot all the shyness that usually characterized her and became a little intrusive, even if in a tender way.
The red woman's office was located on the third floor underground of the Winter Hogwarts dungeons. If the rest of the building was dark and dark, that entire corridor was simply terrifying, crossed by torches with blood-red light that reached up to the ceiling, creating shapes among the almost demonic shadows. A few minutes earlier there had been a loud noise coming from the main hall, and from under the invisibility cloak + the two Slytherins had seen the red woman coming out of her office escorted by Stannis Baratheon with his usual long face.
"See? I told you the rune would work…" Emily giggled in amusement, then opened the office door with the simple touch of her hand. Eddie was too shocked to say a word.
Inside the office it was full of junk, almost all red, including various ancient armor probably belonging to some fallen soldier of the Lucha, the legendary warriors of Sothoryos who fought one of the first magical wars. On the desk in the center of the room, which upon closer inspection looked more like an altar, stood a book with the writing "Notes on the Apocalypse".
"In my opinion it's a trap." said Eddie, who knew something about traps, but by now Emily had taken the book and opened it.
It was a trap, in fact from the book a face materialized and contorted in an inhuman scream, but Emily gave him "ssh, sssh", a red light in her eyes, and immediately the book calmed down.
The red woman's handwriting was almost illegible, so much so that for a moment they suspected that she didn't really know how to write, but with varying difficulty she could make out a few sentences.
"Robert Baratheon, black hair… no this has nothing to do with it, let's see… The last of the seals of the Apocalypse… it was the horse beyond the barrier, and who cares… we were attacked by of the Winter King's henchmen, and oh well… wait, here he is: we have found the prophet of the Lord of Lucha… he is a young centaur named Rey Mysterio… he must have been transformed as the chosen one… He must be our long-awaited savior."
In no time at all they were in the men's room in Slytherin tower, where Ramsay used to spend his time in the darkness dealing a drug obtained from the processing of some Omega Mart products which he himself had called "skinfucker", because apparently taking too much caused every single layer of skin to fall off. Once they entered the bathroom, Emily reached the back wall and pushed two tiles, which magically made the entire wall open, revealing a dark, damp tunnel with an uneven floor. Water seemed to drip from the narrow ceiling of the tunnel, only redder and more viscous. In fact, it was blood. Eddie instinctively clung to the goth Slytherin girl's arm, scared.
"I was making you a little braver, with the fame you have…" Emily giggled amusedly.
"Look, first of all what I deal is natural and good for you, I'm not that big of a criminal. And then I've never seen a ceiling that bleeds, holy Luchereus!" Eddie didn't pray often, but when he did he was referring to the legendary Luchereus, a Sothoryosian hero who was rumored by many to be his ancestor. Not that he believed it.
A passage opened in front of them that took them into a dark and damp room, in which huge quantities of smoke hovered. He was blasting fast, violent music at a high volume. Around the room, decorated with torture scenes on the walls and various posters of magical horror films such as "A Notherian Movie" or "Westeros Saw", several mysterious-looking boys sat on the various peeling black leather sofas. Immediately everyone turned to look at them, their eyes bloodshot.
"Emily Bolton Way Blackwood…" a boy with dirty platinum blonde hair muttered with a sneer. He was wearing a significant amount of earrings, a chain around his neck, a T-shirt with a symbol of a heart with horns, ultra-tight latex pants and a leather jacket with a piece of fabric with embroidered on it safety pins attached to the back. a flayed man. A twisted whip was attached to his studded belt. "How nice to see you in our little den."
"Damon…where's my cousin?" Emily replied with a smile on her doll face.
Damon blew a piercing whistle, and from a heavy wooden door inlaid with rusty iron appeared the man, the legend of the slums: Ramsay Bolton.
He was a senior, which he probably had to repeat several times, with the same icy eyes as his cousin, also made up with a fair amount of eyeliner. One of the two was swollen and purple, because apparently one of his favorite pastimes was fighting random people and sometimes even wild boars in the forest. He was pale and his hair looked dirty and pitch black, and like his friend he was wearing a black leather jacket with the same symbol of his house on the back. His shirt, however, was shocking pink, with various blood and grease stains on it. He was also wearing black trousers covered in buckles, two pairs of belts and crumpled black boots with thick soles studded with metal plates. There was blood on his toes. She greeted them by burping, then crumpled a can of beer in her hands and threw it onto the floor with a loud crash, and glaring at the Sothoryos boy with a furious look.
“Cousin, you brought me some fresh meat.” she grinned with her crooked teeth. Eddie clung to the goth girl's arm again.
"Oh no, this is my friend, he's fine." Emily smiled toothily. She could feel tension in the air.
"What a shame, he has a nice face." Ramsay got dangerously close to the Sothoryos boy's face, which nearly slipped under his enhanced cloak.
"I found you something more fun to do, don't worry. I need you to make a mess somewhere and distract more or less the entire faculty, especially the red hen. Can you do that?" Emily asked, crossing her arms. A strange red light lit up in her icy eyes.
"And why would I do that?" Ramsay grunted as he lit a dope cigarette. "Let's do this, you leave me this nice little toy and I'll go make a mess."
"Your father asked me, though…" Emily put a hand before her lips, innocently.
"Daddy?! You could have fucking told me right away. People, come on, we're going to fuck shit up!" the infamous criminal shouted loudly, and in no time the whole gang was gathered on their death-black brooms, except Ramsay's which had the neon pink straw, and immediately they were out at the speed of light with the roar of the engine of their souped-up brooms.
Emily Bolton Way Blackwood was waiting for him outside the door, an innocent smile on her lips. That evening she was dressed to the nines, in a dark black velvet dress that opened into a dark spiderweb at her neckline, with wide, long sleeves, and around her waist it was girded by a black leather corset. She was wearing two pairs of stockings: black tights broken in various holes and stairs (as she called them "stairs to hell") and medium mesh fishnet stockings over them. Her pitch black boots had multiple buckles and long, pointed studs on each one, and her thick soles had skull-shaped metal plates on them. On her wrists he wore small chains that ran almost all the way down her arm and ended up connected to rings on her pale fingers, and around her neck he wore a large studded collar that seemed to sting quite a bit. Her cold eyes were lined with black makeup, much of her eyeliner had run lightly, and her lips were covered in lipstick as red as her darker, thicker blood. Eddie clearly shuddered, and Emily tilted her head slightly.
"Y-yeah. I was actually going…I have a date! With a hot mamacita, you know? I can't keep her waiting!" Eddie laughed nervously, trying to get away.
"Liar." Emily said coldly. "Go to Lady Melisandre's office…"
“H-how do you…” Eddie gasped, clutching the cloak close to him.
"Oh, I know a lot of things." Emily smiled playfully, bringing a hand with long black nails to her lips. "I want to come, too."
“Why would you ever want to come?” Eddie looked at her fearfully. Emily snorted. For someone who had a reputation as a criminal burglar and child of danger, she was all too easily impressionable.
"Because I can't sleep at night and I'm bored." Emily urged him to follow her. "Besides, now that our groups have joined together we're friends, right? I want to help you…"
"Look, I can handle myself, mamacita!" Eddie snorted but followed her anyway, finding himself in his own gothic stone room. "The exit is on the other side."
"Let me do it. Give me the cloak. I know that the Red Woman sees under it too…" She took out from the black ebony chest of drawers in the night with Gothic carvings a needle and an acid green thread that seemed to light up. He took the cloak from the Sothoryos boy's hand and sat on his bed, magically lighting with his thoughts a green candle on the wall, and began to embroider.
"What are you doing?!" Eddie tried to stop her, alarmed, but a cold look made him freeze in place.
"You're not very smart, are you? I thought so…" Emily sighed. "I'm embroidering the rune of invisibility on it, I'm strengthening it for you."
"How…how do you know about the Red Woman…" Eddie sat cross-legged on the stone floor.
"I know many things, Guerrero…for example, I know about visions." Emily looked him straight in the eyes, a smile on her doll-like face. "About the centaur, Rey, about the fight with that gorilla friend of yours…You can read these things on your face."
He fell silent, Emily embroidering the magical rune with precision and skill and Eddie looking around anxiously. The room was dark, despite the green light that softly illuminated it, and in the darkness of the darkest corners you could often glimpse pale faces floating, disappearing into the most mysterious ravines as soon as they were noticed. The walls were decorated with tapestries depicting bloody and bloody scenes, taken from various fantasy books or historical battles that Emily was an expert on. Besides that she was also an expert on vampires and everything related to them, videos of broom accidents and ghost videos that she often watched until late on her phone with the green and black cover. Too bad most of them were fake.
"I'm done, shall we go?" Emily smiled, handing him the power cloak. "I'm kidding you anyway. You told everything out loud earlier, when you were drunk."
Emily was having a blast, especially seeing the other man's eyes fill with embarrassment. Her plan still included a fundamental stage, because although her powers were different and mysterious she had no intention of getting expelled from Winter Hogwarts for having searched the Red Woman's office. That damned hen, despite spending her days getting paid by blowing through straws, used magic that not even Emily understood, for example she had once seen her perform a very intricate spell that had called to her little men of black smoke just to take a jar from an Omega Mart shelf. Emily had watched the scene sitting next to Stone Cold Steve Austin near the register as she used to do on the dullest days (Stone Cold Steve Austin was a very funny man in her opinion), and they both agreed that they should at the very least fire her from the staff of the school due to waste of resources. So Emily had seen fit to ask for help from her cousin Ramsay Bolton, who when it came to creating havoc and doing illegal things was always ready together with her 20 good men, or as everyone called them "the clique".
From inside we could hear the chorus of "drink it all, it all, it all!" intoned by far too many voices.
"The one with the huge tattoo on his belly that says 'Mexican'…?" Eddie asked hopefully, and Chavo's eyes lit up.
"Ah, but yes, Rey! I saw him this afternoon and tried to say hello but he ran away!" Chavo had said, applauding himself for his excellent memory. "Do you know that I didn't notice that he had become a centaur? Now that I think about it, he seemed to have grown up a little too much, ese!"
From inside came the chant of "fi-fi-fi-let's finish it!", the famous song of the Hogsmeade group for when the last dose of pipe weed was lit.
"Wait a minute…Rey?" Eddie had looked at him confused. "But yes, hombre, don't you remember him? We went there together in elementary school. The little one, he also always came to the barbecues, his grandfather invited him - that is, actually grandfather invited his uncle Rey Mysterio Senior, but there 'it was him too, he was the one obsessed with Quidditch who wanted at all costs to buy the broom lacquered in gold and with diamond harnesses… but yes, come on, the one who at 9 years old hadn't taken off his shirt in front of his his for entire months because he had a black, purple and green heart tattooed on his shoulder for the team… don't you remember?" Chavo looked at him like he was stupid, and Eddie froze.
Suddenly, hundreds of images from his childhood had flashed before his eyes: the tiny child with the perpetually shining eyes who for some reason always wanted to beat up the older ones and ended up being used as a Quidditch stick on the school pitch, the who he had seen at endless family barbecues, the child who walked around with gold chains around his neck and posed to try not to get hit, the child who played the flute like shit - and it was still him, and now he had a name : Rey Mysterio Jr. Of course, Rey! Rey Rey Rey! His name echoed in her head, loud and clear, like a mantra he couldn't escape.
Eddie rested his head in his hands – now it all made more sense.
Slowly the alcohol had gone to everyone's heads, and as the hours passed, more or less everyone ended up on the floor sleeping, exhausted and tired from the long day. But Eddie couldn't sleep, the thought of Rey inexplicably becoming a centaur gripped him, he couldn't find peace. How was it possible that that tiny child who was denied in many things was now there in the form of a centaur?
Eddie got up from the floor where he had been lying badly, between Cristiano, who was sleeping blissfully, and Chavo, who had passed out some time before. It was late, true, but he had no intention of sitting there idle: he had to investigate and he had to do it immediately. Surely he would find something in the Red Woman's office, after all it was apparently she who wanted to talk to Rey, and if that wasn't enough he would go all the way to the principal's office. He deftly stepped over the various people sleeping on the floor and reached his bed in the next room. From under the mattress he pulled out his trusty invisibility cloak. He sincerely hoped not to meet Melisandre, because he had no desire to be caught, especially after the big evening he had had. Little did he know that in the darkness a pair of blue eyes like two dirty splinters of ice were already staring at him.
