"Mummy, it's a superhero! A real superhero!" only to be held back by their wide-eyed mother.
"What the hell are you all looking at?" Gajeel growled. "You never seen a mage before?"
...
Dead silence met his question and Gajeel's eyes widened when he realised… no, they hadn't. They'd never seen anything even remotely like him before.
Again, the question sprang up in his mind - where the hell was he?
He glanced back towards the bank and saw about a dozen people watching him through the massive hole he'd torn in it with his breath attack. Nobody moved to congratulate him. Nobody even seemed to want to move lest they drew attention to themselves.
"Looks like I've overstayed my welcome here," Gajeel muttered. "Well… at least that bank thing is still standing… just about. And at least I got myself a meal."
He tore several strips of metal off the robber's car with his bare hands and tucked them under one arm for later. Then, without a backwards glance, he turned and legged it, dashing away until he was out of the town and heading back into the wilderness.
Kingsley Shacklebolt sighed to himself as he tried hard not to pace back and forth. Thus far, it seemed that there was very little reason for him to actually be here. He and several of his fellow Aurors, but the order of Rufus Scrimgeour, had been stationed out in this farmer's field for a whole night. It was already well into the next morning by now and as of yet, there seemed to be very little reason for the Aurors to actually be there.
The sphere just sat there in the middle of the field, partially buried in the ground and no matter what the members of the Department of Mysteries had done - all these little experiments they'd been performing that Kingsley couldn't even begin to make sense of - they couldn't seem to make heads or tails of it. At least not that Kingsley could see.
All the Aurors could do was patrol around it and make sure that the charms they'd set up repel Muggles and keep them from noticing they were there stayed in place. Because the sphere itself seemed to be very little threat.
Although, having said that, Kingsley had gone right up to the edge of the Sphere and peered in through the translucent wall. And although he couldn't make much out, he could tell there was something inside it. Two somethings actually if he wasn't mistaken.
"Sir!" called out an Auror from the edge of camp. "That Curse Breaker that you asked for has arrived."
"Thank you, Dawlish. Send him over," Kingsley nodded, his deep bass voice almost seeming to instil a calm in everyone around him. He had to suppress a smile when he saw Bill Weasley trudging across the campsite, being escorted by none other than Tonks.
"Wotcha, Kingsley?" Tonks winked, totally ignoring the fact that he was her superior and she was supposed to address him accordingly. She glanced at the sphere and murmured, "Jeez, is that the thing you're guarding. It really is weird."
"Weird doesn't begin to describe it, Nymphadora," Kingsley replied.
"Don't call me that!"
"We don't have the faintest idea what this thing could even be," Kingsley went on, ignoring her objection. "And the fact that it apparently fell from the sky just adds another mystery to the pile of ever-growing puzzles. And you…" he turned to Bill. "You must be William Weasley, I assume."
"Call me Bill, sir," Bill extended a hand and Kingsley shook it firmly. Of course the two of them were already acquainted what with being members of the Order of the Phoenix, but they had to be careful about appearances. After all the Ministry were always on the lookout for people who might be 'conspiring' with Dumbledore, so they had to keep up a pretence that they didn't know one another.
"Tonks here says that you're one of the best at what you do," Kingsley replied, keeping the act up.
"Well, I would hardly say that, sir. There's lots of great Curse Breakers out there."
"He's just being modest, Kingsley," Tonks grinned. "We were at Hogwarts together though, so I know what I'm talking about. He was a whiz at Ancient Runes and stuff like that."
"Good to know," Kingsley nodded. "I know your father reasonably well. Very nice man, so its a pleasure to be working with you. But tell me, Bill. If you're so good with runes, do you have any idea what that thing on the side of our mysterious orb might be?"
He pointed over towards the sphere in question, specifically at the glowing symbol that blazed proudly on the side. An image that looked vaguely like a cross between a bird and a comma, a pointed head like section at the top left with several wavy upward spikes extending out towards the top left and a single, long tail like projection sticking diagonally downwards from right to left.
Bill stared, non-plussed, at the Fairy Tail symbol. "I've never seen anything like that one before, though I have seen a few strange things in my time in tombs. Can I get access to it?"
"Of course," Kingsley nodded. "Just let me get these Department of Mysteries goons out of the way so you can have unimpeded access.
After that, Bill spent a good half hour walking around the sphere, examining it at seemingly every possible angle, flicking out his wand and murmuring several spells under his breath with seemingly no visible results. He spent a particular amount of time staring at the symbol, flicking through a large tome of Ancient Runes in an attempt to track down its origin but he, of course, found absolutely nothing.
Eventually he stood up and nodded for the other two to come over. "Well?" Kingsley asked hopefully.
"It's like nothing I've ever encountered before, sir," Bill shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "Usually when it comes to strange magical phenomenons like this there are small chinks in the magical barrier, tiny little avenues which a Curse Breaker or anyone that knows how can exploit to find a way to undo the spell. But with this, there is nothing. It is, quite simply, a flawless shield against anything and everything that seeks to force its way inside. And its strong too - I can feel its sheer power."
"Is it dangerous?" Kingsley asked.
"Oh no, I wouldn't say so. I believe its perfectly harmless. But I also bet that if we were to summon one thousand wizards to perform a blasting curse at this sphere at the same time it would remain totally unaffected. It puts the basic Shield Charm utterly to shame. I bet… that this would even be able to block the Killing Curse."
Kingsley's eyes widened. The Avada Kedavra Curse was notorious for being one of the few curses that remained utterly unaffected by even a Protego Maxima. But if what Bill said was true and this could… oh if only they could harness its power for their own. All the Aurors that would be saved from Dark Wizards haphazardly throwing Killing Curses around with something like that… it would be nothing short of amazing.
"But, if this is something like a Shield Charm…" Tonk stepped up to the side and squinted in through the wall. "Then what's it shielding? Isn't there something in there?"
"We believe so, but we cannot really make them out. Can you see them, Tonks?" Kingsley replied.
"I can see… something," Tonks murmured. "Looks like… a person of some kind. No, wait… two people. Yeah it definitely looks like two people, though one of them's really large and the other's quite small in comparison. Lot shorter and slimmer. I can't work out if they're boys of girls but I'm sure there's people in there. They aren't moving though. It's like they're… frozen stiff or something."
Bill stepped over to peer in as well. "Looks like there's definitely something in there," he agreed. "But I don't think I can break into this. What do you think you'll do with the sphere?"
"I suppose the proper course of action would be to take it back to the Ministry and hold it within the Department of Mysteries until we can make some more sense of it," Kingsley grimaced. "We certainly cannot leave it here out in the open. Though how exactly we're going to move it is anybody's guess…"
"Sir!" Dawlish suddenly scrambled over, waving a note in his hand. "We've got an urgent message from Scrimgeour. It looks like there was some kind of magical attack on a Muggle Bank up in Scotland. Some village named Portree on the Isle of Skye."
"The Isle of Skye?" Kingsley looked alarmed, his eyes unconsciously meeting with Tonks and Bill's. They were all of them thinking the exact same thing.
The Isle of Skye was not far away from Hogwarts School.
"Dora, you're with me. Mister Weasley, it was a pleasure to meet you but if you don't feel that you can work on this case any further then please feel free to leave. But I thank you for your co-operation."
"I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help," Bill replied, but he got Kingsley's silent message - go and tell the Order about this immediately.
"Everyone else stay here until we return," Kingsley replied, and he and Tonks immediately whirled around to disappear with a cracking noise, Disapparating into thin air.
...
if you want to support me or just to read ahead of the public release, you can join my p@treon :
p atreon/Moonhorse