theBlackStaffAndNightMarE

ACT4CH31 - Massacre Part 1

Night had fallen, starless and cold, and Walden Macnair strode across the rooftop without fear.

Or so he’d have told anyone who asked, and indeed, he did not appear to be afraid. But there were hints as to his true emotional state, for those who knew what to look for. The biggest was the weapon, of course, his cursed battle axe that had devoured the blood of countless magical beasts, witches, wizards and muggles alike. The weapon could be summoned instantaneously from his rob...

ACT4CH30 - Azkaban

The island of Azkaban had been part of the Ministry of Magic since the early fourteenth century after the capture and execution of the Dark Lord Emeric the Evil. When the Ministry’s forces raided Emeric’s base, they found something so deranged and horrible and twisted that Minister Damocles Rowle, using the help of an emergency Wizengamot session held in secret, found it relevant enough to sweep it all under the Official Secrets Act. Every single Auror that had been part of the mission ha...

ACT4CH29 - Violent Redemption

“SIRIUS!” Harry yelled. The moment his godfather had vanished, the purple mist restraining him dissipated, dropping him down to the floor with an unceremonious thud. Harry pushed himself up, nearly slipped on the bloodied remains on the floor, looking around for his godfather. Everything around him became muffled, replaced by the deafening roar of his own heartbeat, and the silent cries of his soul. 

SIRIUS!” He yelled. “SIRIUS!

His breath was coming in searing gasps....

ACT4CH28 - Sacrifice

“FINITE INCANTATEM!” snarled an angry Sirius Black, a deluge of raw magic erupting out of his wand and crashing against the chain and manacles restraining Harry’s right arm..

He might as well have tried scolding it, for all the good it did.

Not willing to give up, he unleashed yet another volley of spells — severing hexes, blasting curses, disintegration curses, elemental charms, transfiguration, the entire list. At one point he had even cast a patronus and sent it crashin...

ACT4CH27 - Prometheus

Working with magic was a way of comprehending, understanding and applying the rules that governed matter and reality in the universe. One could approach it from a lot of different angles, applying a lot of different theories and mental models to it. You could get to the same place through a lot of different lines of theory and reasoning, kind of like really advanced mathematics. There was no truly right or wrong way to get there, either—there are just different ways, some more or less usefu...

ACT4CH26 - Prophecy

From the very moment Harry Potter had an absolute stranger get down on her knees, grab his hands and thank him profusely the very moment Hagrid introduced him by his name, Harry knew that something was off. Knowing the name Voldemort as well as Harry’s own moniker, the  Boy-Who-Lived had both indicated that there was more going on than him being a survivor to an evil man’s wrath.

Bugger, even Ollivander had all but outlined the connection between them, claiming that Ha...

Delay Notice

Apologies for the Delay. Yes, there were multiple missed dates this month but we will be making up for them right away. Next Chapter gets posted tomorrow.

Enjoy!

ACT4CH25 - Conspiracies In Action Part 5

Sirius shuddered as he climbed up the stairs that led to the fourth floor and stopped, his skin crawling. “This… this feels wrong. It’s like the air is screaming."

He ignored the growing unease in his gut, and let the canine form fortify his mind. He was no Harry Potter or gifted with special ocular technique, but he was confident that the spell active here was draining the hostages. Not their magic, for the ritual had access to power far more than it could possibly need. No, it w...

ACT4CH24 - Conspiracies in Action Part 4

“Auror Squad One, to the fourteenth street,” cried Proudfoot. “I need the entire area vacated. We cannot let the Obscurus escape out of it. I need a mage blockade formation three blocks from ground zero.”

The Obscurus, now unleashed in the form of a titanic, smoky cloud with flaky tendrils of deceptive strength despite its etherealness, shrugged its way through the front of Zonko’s, and pulled out from the other side, taking the entirety of the building’s frontage with it. I...

ACT4CH23 - Conspiracies In Action Part 3

"As much as it pains me to admit it," said Sirius Black. "You’re a danger magnet, and things will just keep happening to you, no matter how much I want to wrap you up in cotton wool and lock you up in a property under Fidelius. So if we’re going to do this, you’re going to follow my rules. One, touch nothing unless I tell you to. Two, if I tell you to do something you do it instantly, or quickly explain your reasoning. And three…” He paused for a moment. “Well, I’ll just think o...

THE PLAINS OF FORGET

The fourth installment of Stranger Than Fiction Book Series, featuring the adventures of Lukas Aguilar, is now available on Amazon and Audible for Pre-order.

Check it out on this link.

ACT4CH22 - Conspiracies In Action Part 2

Narcissa had seen some pretty impressive pieces of architecture in her entire life. From the haunting and foreboding edifice that was the original Raven’s Isle in Transylvania, the seat of the Blacks before Phineas Nigellus’s time, to the enchanting and mesmerising grandeur of Hogwarts, the glass-like ethereal beauty of Beauxbatons, and the utterly bewitching ambience of Devil’s Tor, she had seen it all. Compared to that, the Hall of Prophecy was nothing but a very tall and very, very l...

FIMBULWINTER RELEASED!

The third installment of our original novel Stranger Than Fiction - Fimbulwinter: A LitRPG Adventure, is available on Amazon and Audible. If you love our work, kindly consider purchasing and leaving a review. Your criticism and praise means a lot to us.

Thank you.

To go to our Amazon book page, click this link.

Delay Notice

Apologies for the recent delay in updates and inconsistent posting schedules and missing updates. We have finally caught on to things and should be moving smoothly from now on. Thank you.

ACT4CH21 - Conspiracies In Action Part 1

“How does it look?”

Albus Dumbledore didn’t bother to glance back at Dawlish. He was too enraptured with trying to stabilise and deconstruct the massive floating enchantment that encircled St. Mungo’s from above, while the ward-breakers kept attempting to tear openings into the barrier. It had already been five minutes since Harry Potter and Sirius Black had gotten through the barrier, and neither had established contact or sent any signal, direct or otherwise.

Meanwhile, ...

ACT4CH20 - The Crucible

The front facing of the building was just gone, as if some unimaginably huge axe had sliced straight through it. One could see the floors and interiors from outside, alongside the multitude of people trapped inside amidst the dust, smoke and rubble. Dead, mutilated bodies hung by the rafters from the sides, hacked off when the massive spell had activated. Broken glass and brick lay everywhere. The air itself had gone acrid, thick with the stench of burnt material that was never meant to feed ...

ACT4CH19 - Borrowed Time

Percy’s office was very much like Percy, neat and business-like. The predominant colours were black, white and grey, and charcoal drawings adorned the white walls. It could have been the office of a muggle lawyer in any part of the world, and stood in stark contrast to the abundance of overwhelming colours down on Diagon Alley. Thanks to excellent silencing charms, the hustle and bustle of the alley couldn’t even be heard up here.

“Mr. Potter,” said Percy, wearing crisp grey rob...

ACT4CH18 - Hate

The shattered vase that lay fallen on the floor was gifted by the Ethiopian Foreign Minister of Magic during a convocation back in ‘88. It was exquisitely carved and drenched in a special concoction prepared using bluebell fairy eggs. Supposed to bring financial windfall to the owner, the vase had always sat on Cornelius Fudge’s desk, inside the office of the Minister of Magic.

That little bit of trivia didn’t stop Cornelius from hurling it at the wall with all the force he could ...

ACT4CH17 - Accord

It had been a very, very long time since the Immortal Alchemist felt this strongly about someone that he had only recently met and knew little about.

He had not been joking when he claimed that the Wardens to the Sunken Vault were part of an exclusive fraternity — Trismegistus, Ekrizdis, Wenlock, and of course, Nicholas’s own teacher Myrddin Emrys himself, all of them either became heralds of great progress or harbingers of cataclysmic destruction, and thus, reshaped the world in th...

ACT4CH16 - Sedition

Emmeline Vance didn’t get paid enough to do her job.

On regular days, it was bad enough, being forced to search through piles of reports about witches and wizards muggle baiting and tracking down hapless muggles that saw something impossible. A century or so ago, this might’ve made a lot of sense, especially with the Christian Church attacking anything supernatural like an obnoxious guard dog, but the times had changed. 

Today’s muggles reacted a little differently upon...

ACT4CH15 - A Deal With The Devil

Harry was speechless.

Seeing that blood-red shard in front of him sent him reeling down memory lane. Seeing himself in the mirror of Erised, with a similar crystal in his hands, only for it to appear in his pocket had been one of the most magical moments of his life. Even to his undeveloped senses, he had felt the strangeness of the object, and even in his pubescent mind, it had called out to him.

And now, years later, he had the stone’s creator offer it to him. 

“G...

ACT4CH14 - Morty

Surprisingly perhaps, things didn’t degrade down to open chaos after Albus Dumbledore left Harry Potter in the Flamel Mansion.

Despite the poisonous aura that Perenelle Flamel gave off, it soon became clear that she had no intention of hurting him. Perhaps manipulating and using him horribly in all kinds of schemes, but he wasn’t in any danger of being quartered like a pig for dinner. Instead, she was genuinely interested in conversing over a wide range of topics — Transfiguration...

ACT4CH13 - Perenelle Flamel

“My congratulations, my boy,” said Dumbledore, as he and Harry appeared with a pop of displaced air, with the latter somehow managing to remain standing on his feet and not tumble forward and smashing his face against the wrought iron gate that stood there exactly for that purpose. “It is not often one manages to maintain poise after an international portkey, much less an apparition.”

“I had a strong incentive,” said Harry, thinking back to Snape’s training regimen. Having...