Magical Marvel (HP X MCU)
Chapter 57: Thorns

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24th June 1995, Hogwarts

(Rose POV)

Rose watched the start of the Third task with dreaded anticipation. It was bittersweet; she had talked to her sister earlier that day, for the first time in months. She had missed Jasmine terribly and she knew her sister felt the same. She missed her dry humor, her lessons in magic. She had a grasp of magic that she had never seen before, never heard of before. She knew things that she shouldn't have. She read countless tomes and books, some were even centuries old, and she found nothing about what she was talking about. Only speculation and wild theories.

Jasmine spoke with such certainty that Rose knew her sister wasn't lying or making stuff up. And her lessons were real, the magic she taught Rose wasn't mentioned in any book or in any scroll. It was weeks after her first lesson that she realized how special her sister really was. She didn't understand what made her this way, but she is different than any other wizard or witch out there.

Rose remembers once testing her sister by copying some unidentified runes from the library and asking her to translate them. Apparently, they were found somewhere in Asia but couldn't be understood without the alphabet. She showed it to her sister during one of the lessons and she immediately recognized that it was in ancient Sumerian and translated what was written. She then proceeded to teach her a couple of wards using the supposedly unknown language. Although she did mention not seeing that language in a while. That confirmed that her sister knew more than she should.

But what made her sure that her sister was different were her eyes. Jasmine had her mother's eyes, that was true, but they were old. They were eyes that had seen too much, that lived for too long. She had seen eyes like that once when she went to France with her family during summer vacation, two years ago, and met an old wizard that fought in Grindelwald's war. He was very old, he experienced terrible things, but he was one of the kindest men she had ever met. Jasmine's eyes reminded her of that old man. It was what put her at ease with Jasmine and made her trust her sister easily.

When her parents subtly asked her about her lessons with Jasmine, she didn't tell them anything. Jasmine's lessons were private, and they shouldn't intrude. They did not like her saying no to them but respected her decisions. After all, Jasmine not only taught her magic but also how to understand people. She was wiser than she looked, and her stories were always entertaining. Rose kept silent about her suspicions and didn't even voice them to Jasmine.

When her parents went behind her back and forced her to stop spending time with her sister, she was devastated, angry and most of all, she was sad. She stopped speaking to her parents because they didn't even listen to her. Jasmine did once say that if someone doesn't listen to you then they are not worth your words. She stopped speaking to Nathan because he spied on her and Jasmine during her lessons.

She still loved them, don't get her wrong, but they didn't even apologize. They only said that it was for her own good. But after her anger simmered, she was lonely. She hadn't been lonely since last year where people avoided her because her brother was a parselmouth.

She blamed Dumbledore for what happened. Her family used to be wary of the man, but he wormed his way back into their trust and she didn't like it. She knew that having her stop seeing Jasmine was his idea. She didn't understand why a headmaster of a school had so much influence on family matters, but the man was always awfully interested in Nathan.

When she talked to her sister earlier today, it was the best she felt so far. But when Rose looked at Jasmine's eyes, a pit grew in her stomach; her eyes were sad. Which meant that it was probably the last time they will spend together.

So now, while her sister is entering the maze, she wants it to end as fast as possible so that she wouldn't be in danger and to last as long as possible because after the task, her sister will leave her forever. She recalled her sister's last words. She sent them telepathically as she entered the maze, 'Do not trust Alastor Moody'. Rose trusted her sister with all her life, so she took those words seriously.

Rose watched the task with the odd screens that the Americans sent. There was one for every champion and she didn't understand why that wasn't possible for the second task. According to Susan Bones, they just sat there and watched the surface of the water for an hour. She didn't know how they didn't think that would happen.

A couple of minutes in and Rose realized that Jasmine had far more obstacles than the other champions. She was attacked every minute or so but made short work of them. Both Krum and Delacour had somewhat normal obstacles and were attacked regularly but nothing like Jasmine's that seems as if she was targeted. Nathan though hardly fought anything other than some sort of weird golden mist he just blew away with a second year spell. It was clear to anyone with a brain that Jasmine was being targeted and that Nathan was being favored. Probably Dumbledore's decision; he really hated Jasmine for some reason.

Rose was sitting next to her parents right next to the judges of the tournament. Just looking at Dumbledore, who was sitting serenely at few seats right of her father, made her blood boil in anger. She could have convinced Jasmine to stay if she had enough time and that man ruined it.

Everything was going well until her sister feed was cut for a few second but then returned as a view from above, revealing her sister being attacked by a second Dumbledore. Some of what Dumbledore said was very incriminating and very disgusting. He planned on killing Jasmine, he planned on getting Nathan killed as well. He stole her family's cloak, a true family heirloom. He committed blood theft. He wanted Voldemort back, the absolute nutjob.

The Dumbledore in the stands looked exceedingly nervous during the whole affair and it was revealed to be an associate of Dumbledore under Polyjuice potion like the man confessed to it on the feed. Her father recognized the man as Dedalus Diggle and arrested him for illegal use of Polyjuice. Her parents though, looked paler than she had ever seen them be. Her mother was trembling and in tears.

She watched as Dumbledore and Jasmine dueled and while it would be spectacular, if she didn't know her sister. But Rose had dueled Jasmine for a long time and knew that what she was showing wasn't even scratching her abilities; she didn't use any runes or even any powerful elemental magic, hell, she even fell for some traps that she taught Rose, during their dueling lessons. For some reason, Jasmine was putting up a show and she wanted to lose to the headmaster in front of everybody.

Even when not taking things seriously, her sister still hurt Dumbledore and cut off an arm. Although it grew back in a few seconds. As Rose expected, Jasmine lost the duel and even though Rose knew that it probably wasn't true, watching Jasmine getting impaled was heartbreaking. Her mother was sobbing her heart out and even her father was tearing up. As for her, Rose was panting, nauseous, constantly reminding herself that it was fake that her sister wouldn't die in a duel like that. The worst thing was the screen turning blank before she knew what happened. The worst thing was not knowing what happened.

She could barely notice when Krum put Delacour under the torture curse and her brother saving her and stunning them both. She barely noticed when he touched the cup and his feed also turned blank, causing mayhem from the crowd since he should have appeared in front of the spectators.

Her mind was in disarray when she followed her parents who were walking with Moody, to investigate the scene and rescue her if she was still alive, unlikely as it may be. She followed her parents through the maze, remembering Jasmine's last words, 'Don't trust Alastor Moody'. When they were deep enough to the maze, she heard shouts of "Stupefy!" and her parents were hit by beams of red light; Moody had stunned her parents.

When the stunner was fired at her, she was expecting it. She might be a wreck, but she always trusts her sister. Jasmine's advice made her wary of the man and ready to defend herself at a moment's notice. She sprang up a shield made out of hard light that absorbed the spell. She had practiced like Jasmine told her. Even now, Jasmine was saving her hide.

Moody looked surprised at her reaction but kept sending spells at her and like her sister taught her she intercepted each spell with a tendril of hard light. She sent a spike of ice at him, and he couldn't dodge in time and broke his wooden leg. It was still holding itself with magic, but her attacker couldn't move as fast as before. The man glared at her and sent curse after curse. She didn't recognize all of them and kept intercepting them with her hard light but the few she did recognize were very dark ones, her sister had mentioned once in passing.

This wasn't Alastor Moody, the man her parents talked about. He was efficient and wouldn't use the dark arts because he was angry, he would only use them if they were the best way to achieve his goal. He would not send a spell to flay its target alive for no reason, he would just send a piercer to kill them or a stunner to capture them for interrogation. He definitely wouldn't be using the cruciatus against any opponent.

She sends a wall of hard light at him sending him flying towards the hedge. She looked down, making sure that her parents weren't hit by a stray spell. Damn now she has to protect them as well, she had forgotten about them, lost in the duel. It was only luck that they weren't hurt.

"You're not Alastor Moody, who are you really?" She asked her downed attacker.

While the man was down, she sent a rennervate at her parents to make sure they don't stay vulnerable.

Then, before Rose's very eyes, the face of the man on the floor began to change. The scars were disappearing, the skin was becoming smooth; the mangled nose became whole and started to shrink. The long mane of grizzled gray hair was withdrawing into the scalp and turning the color of straw.

Suddenly, with a loud clunk, the wooden leg fell away as a normal leg regrew in its place; next moment, the magical eyeball had popped out of the man's face as a real eye replaced it; it rolled away across the floor and continued to swivel in every direction.

He laughed at her, it was a laugh full of madness and cruelty.

"I am my master's most loyal, and he has returned. He will reward me, his most devout, and he will destroy you all."

"Who is your master?"

"You're about to meet him, girl. Oh, the plans he has for you…" The mystery man giggled. He rolled his sleeves and looked at the jet-black mark of a skull with a snake protruding from its mouth. She knew what that was, this was the dark mark. Her attacker was a death eater.

Just as she was about to stun him, he sneakily caught her with a disarming charm, sending her flying back and her wand too far away from her.

"It's almost time for you to meet my Lord, and my mission will be complete. He was very interested in meeting you." The man continued.

Rose was disarmed and very scared. Her parents hadn't woken up from the stunner, which meant that her attacker overpowered the stunning charm so it will take time for them to wake up. She was sure that she cast the "Rennervate" charm correctly. She only had to delay him.

But she wasn't helpless as she seemed when she was wandless. She could only cast a couple of spells; her sister insisted she did and once more her sister was saving her life. She created a small illusion and made herself invisible, at the same time. While her illusion, stayed where she used to be, trembling in fear, she slowly walked to the side, making sure to make no noise. Thank Merlin, that he didn't have Moody's eye anymore, he would have seen right through it. Damn, her wand was too far away.

"Don't worry, girl. The dark lord is merciful; he will treat you well and he will teach you so much. You will even meet your brother there." The man said to her illusion. "Welcome to your new life, Rose Potter."

He cast another stunning charm at her, and it went through her illusion. She took his confused distraction to create something out of hard light. Long spiked chains emerged from her hands and bound her attacker who groaned in pain as the spikes cut his flesh. He tried to resist but realized that it only brought more pain.

Behind her, her father awoke and got up suddenly. He jumped and looked around, alarmed, only to relax when seeing her unharmed and her attacker bound.

"A little help here, dad." She panted at him. All this wandless magic was taking a lot from her.

Her father focused on her attacker and sent a stunner at him, knocking him out. Rose released her light constructs and walked up to retrieve her wand. Her father checked on the attacker and her mother slowly got up just as distressed as her father, before relaxing when she saw Rose unharmed.

"This is Barty Crouch Junior. He's supposed to be dead, at Azkaban." He father said.

"Mum, Dad. He said that Voldemort has Nathan. He said that he returned and asked him to kidnap me too."

At her parents' terrified look, she knew that they understood the severity of the situation. They decided to split up. Her father went back to the aurors to tell them of the situation and to look for Nathan and her mother and her continued to search in the maze, looking any trace of Jasmine. She now understood why her sister looked so sad. This truly was a horrible day.