Chapter Text
They had been looking for a solution for hours now. Harry and Hermione were sitting in the library, Harry with a book in front of him, and Hermione with five along with a few pages of handwritten notes. Normally, Harry would have left the library by now, but finding a way out of the Triwizard Tournament was of the utmost importance.
Still, he was starting to get tired, even if he wanted to keep going. Harry let his face fall onto the book open in front of him. “Hermione, I think this is the hardest I’ve studied for anything. Maybe we should just try to prepare me for the Tournament instead?”
Hermione looked up from her own book. “There must be a better way. I’m sure of it.”
“You sound like you’ve already got something in mind. What are you thinking of?” Harry asked, raising an eyebrow.
Hermione looked away. “It’s just a thought, but…”
“Please, Hermione, anything is better than nothing.”
“Alright, alright. I found this book on conjuration magic in the Restricted Section the other day for light reading.” By light reading, Harry knew that it was probably a massive textbook. Leave it to Hermione to somehow persuade a teacher to let her into the Restricted Section and consider whatever gory magic was there to be light reading .
“Okay, so what’s the plan?”
“Technically, you could summon someone to help you. It would be your magic, so you would still be competing by the Goblet of Fire’s rules.”
“Then I’ll just summon you and Ron to help me. Merlin, I bet Ron would love a chance to compete.” Then Harry narrowed his eyes. “What’s the catch? No way a teleportation spell would be in the Restricted Section.”
Hermione cleared her throat. “Yes, well, I wasn’t talking about summoning a person .” She lifted an expectedly large book out of her bag. Harry was convinced she’d bought one of those bags which were bigger on the inside and charmed to be lighter. Either that, or Hermione must be really strong.
“This book is about summoning demons called Daedra.” She tapped the book’s cover. Harry glanced at it. It was purple and worn, with a glyph that looked somewhat like an upside down U with a dot on the inside. Underneath the glyph, it read Conjuration of Oblivion . It looked quite ominous, Harry thought.
“You want me to summon demons .”
“That’s why I didn’t want to mention it,” Hermione huffed.
Harry hesitated. On one hand, demon summoning sounded pretty dangerous and the exact kind of thing that would prove Snape’s insults about his supposed impulsivity to be true. On the other, the Triwizard Tournament was pretty much a death sentence. Might as well get his impending doom over with.
“I trust you to not mess this up,” Harry said. “Let’s do it. What do we need?”
Hermione flipped the book open. “There’s a lot of different spells, but I’m thinking we summon a thrall so you don’t have to do a complicated conjuration during the challenge itself. That way, you can just teleport the demon into the challenge.” Harry nodded. “Flame atronachs are easy, but we don’t want to set anything on fire. Dremora are too temperamental and scamps aren’t smart enough… This spell should suffice.” Hermione turned the book over to him. The page read in large letters at the top, Summoning Warriors . Harry didn’t bother reading the whole thing, only skimming it, because he knew he wasn’t going to understand this in the slightest. There was a whole paragraph about channeling magicka flow and large blocks of Latin text. It seemed that the hardest part would be remembering such a long incantation.
“It sounds doable, I guess. We might as well give it a try.”
“Excellent!” Hermione said brightly. Harry suspected she just wanted to summon a demon and only needed an excuse to do so. “We’ll do it closer to the task itself, I think, and of course, you’ll have to do the summoning ritual because it needs to be your magic. This is going to be such fun!” Yep, Hermione was insane.
~~~
Khissa was having a rough day. Bandits and thieves and wild animals were all over the roads, the snow was too cold, and who could forget the literal dragons trying to murder her at every opportunity?
She was riding on her horse, Frost. The one she had gotten… less than legally. But she did a lot of things less than legally, and that human who had hired her had been so annoying .
Also, she just really hated Maven Black-Briar.
Mountains rose on either side of her. The air was crisp and cool, and smelled of pines. The sky above was brilliantly blue and almost cloudless. But no amount of soft Khajiiti fur would make her warm. Her armor would have to do, she supposed.
Suddenly, she heard it- a roar so loud it made her flinch. A shadow blotted out the sun. Khissa leapt off of Frost and drew her dual swords in one quick motion. Her ears instinctively flicked back and she had to force herself to keep her claws sheathed. It would only hinder her fighting to have her claws out; she had learned that real fast during her time as a guard in Elsweyr.
The dragon roared again, and this time, having spotted her, it was more of a war cry. It swooped closer. An amateur mistake; now Khissa could easily bring it down.
A dragon would be no match for her, after all, she was the Dragonborn.
Khissa waited until the dragon had stopped in front of her. She could see it draw in a breath, most likely to Shout fire at her. But she was quicker.
“ Joor Zah Frul !” A bright blue light came from her lips. The dragon screamed in agony when the Shout hit its chest, an even brighter light flashing through the air. It attempted to land, but it was more of a crash. The dragon struggled to get to its feet. Khissa grinned and walked toward it.
“Hail, dovah. Come meet your death.” The dragon looked at her, and Khissa was pleased to see what she was pretty sure was fear. Dragonrend had that effect on dragons. It might have also had something to do with her weapons and armor being made of the bones of the dragon’s kin.
Khissa was about to raise her swords and strike down the dragon, when another glow enveloped her, this one dark purple. Great, the last thing she needed was some stupid conjuration mage getting in her way. Couldn’t they see that she was busy here?
The dark purple light wasn’t seeming to go away, strangely. By now, some sort of Daedra or familiar would have been summoned and she would have had to gut it. Instead, it seemed almost as if the world was… fading? But that couldn’t be right.
She could almost hear some sort of words being spoken, like when she was next to a word wall and could hear the voices of the Tongues that came before her.
“ Voco bellator defendo .”
Khissa felt herself panicking and tried to take a few breaths. Dragonrend would surely wear off soon and if she didn’t get herself under control, the dragon ahead of her would certainly roast the fur off of her.
“ Dovahkiin, vocare te ! Dovahkiin, advenio !” There was a roaring in Khissa’s ears.
Luckily, the purple began to gently wash away from her. The pressure in her ears faded, and she realized just how much it had built up. Khissa expected to hear the flaps of the dragon begin to rise in the air and maybe the warcry of whoever had decided attacking a Khajiiti Dragonborn in the middle of a rather lopsided fight with a dragon was a good idea. Instead, she found herself in a room with articles of clothing strewn around and a number of beds with red and gold hangings. What in Oblivion?
Khissa blinked a few times to get the purple out of her vision. There were two people in front of her, humans of some sort. Khissa could never tell the difference between the different kinds of humans. They all looked the exact same, with their furless bodies and tiny ears and dull claws. At least with the Khajiit it was easy– there were different furstocks, yes (though it was incredibly easy to tell apart an Alfiq, from, say, a Cathay), but Khajiit were just Khajiit. Humans were weird.
The two humans in front of her were young, she thought, not yet adults. They were wearing some sort of black mage robes emblazoned with a red and gold lion. Necromancers, maybe? Or part of an exiled cult? They were holding sticks out at her. Pathetic.
Khissa got to her feet, taking a quick inventory. She wasn’t harmed and she still had her armor and swords, though the helmet had been taken off. She spotted it lying next to her. This was well and good, but her backpack was gone. Her backpack, with her food, spare weapon, and what some people would call a hoard of gold and Khissa would call her purse. There was a mirror by one of the beds, and she could just barely see her appearance. Tan fur with streaks and whorls of darker brown, green slitted eyes, dark brown hair with what passed for bangs tied back in a ponytail. She looked like she could use a bath, but traveling in Skyrim’s wilderness would do that to you.
“What in Alkosh’s name is Khajiit doing here,” she growled. Then she cursed herself, because she’d accidentally let her accent slip. She knew that she shouldn’t change who she was, but humans treated her better , like she was a person and not just a somewhat intelligent cat, when she used first person pronouns. Khissa had grown up on the border of Elsweyr and Cyrodiil, so she’d forgone the usual Khajiiti way of speaking for most of her life, but it still tended to slip out when she got mad or panicky, to her annoyance.
Whatever, what was done was done. And she didn’t have any respect for mages who had somehow summoned her to… wherever this was.
The girl cleared her throat and spoke up. “Hi, uh, Khajiit-”
“My name is not Khajiit. Don’t be a racist.”
The girl frowned. “Sorry, sorry! What was your name?”
“Why should I tell you? You kidnapped me . Now tell me where we are, so help me gods, before this one shows you how capable she is with a sword.”
The girl’s companion looked at her and then to Khissa. “My name is Harry Potter, and this is Hermione Granger. We summoned you to help us. You’re a Daedra, right?”
Khissa’s jaw dropped. In between the shock and anger, she noted with some satisfaction how their faces paled when they saw her very sharp fangs.
“This- I am not a Daedra! Are you stupid? What kind of idiot conjuration mages do you think you are?”
“Well, the books said Daedra looked like humanoid monsters-”
“Racists. What, you’ve never seen a Khajiit? Foolish mages.” Khissa tried to shove past them to the door, but found she couldn’t move more than a few inches. She looked down. Beneath her was a faintly glowing summoning circle. So they had tried to summon her like a Daedra.
Meanwhile, Harry and Hermione were looking at each other. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of the Khajiit,” Hermione said slowly. Khissa didn’t like the look on her face, like Khissa was some sort of scientific marvel.
“How have you never heard of the cat-folk of Elsweyr? The sneak-thieves and skooma addicts, not even allowed inside Skyrim’s fair cities,” she said, not bothering to hide the sarcasm. Her tail lashed in frustration. “But I’m not here to educate you, am I? So why don’t you send me back? You can summon a familiar, because I assure you, based on the results of whatever spell you messed up to get me , you certainly aren’t capable of much more, and I’ll be on my merry way.”
The humans looked at each other again. Khissa was starting to get even more annoyed at this. “That’s the thing,” Hermione said. “We can’t send you back to Oblivion until you’ve completed your task.”
“Dark moons,” Khissa snapped. “I’m not a Daedra! What’s stopping me from just killing you?” Khissa didn’t know much about conjuration magic, but atronachs tended to vanish after they’d been summoned once the mage had been killed.
“This is not a simple conjuration spell,” Hermione sniffed. “We did our research.”
“What Hermione means to say is that you’re bound here until you’ve finished the terms of the summoning, even if we die,” Harry interrupted.
“Fine,” Khissa hissed. She was quickly trying and failing to come up with a solution to this. “I suppose I have to do whatever it is you’ve bound me to. So let’s hear it.”
“I’ve been entered into the Triwizard Tournament, a tournament for adult wizards,” Harry said. “You can see the problem.”
“Yes, you’re no adult. So sad. Just drop out of the Tournament, skeever brain.”
“I can’t. If I do, I’ll lose my magic, and there’s a Dark Lord trying to kill me, so that would be very bad.”
Khissa shrugged. “Then show up, do the bare minimum, and leave.”
Harry threw his hands up. “Oh yeah? I bet you didn’t know that people have died in this tournament, huh? Do you really think that getting a demon wasn’t a last resort? We didn’t go through all this trouble for fun .” For some reason, Hermione blushed. “But you’re an adult, and the spell summoned a warrior, which you obviously are. All you need to do is finish the challenges for us.”
“We are sorry about this,” Hermione added. “I don’t know why it summoned you instead of a Daedra.”
“Why don’t you let me out of this circle so I can see your stupid spell? Don’t worry,” she said, grinning, “I won’t slice your throats open.”
“Are you sure she’s not a demon? Sure acts like one,” Harry muttered to Hermione, who shrugged. Harry waved his stick (wand?) and Khissa felt something wash over her. She stepped out of the summoning circle and Hermione handed her a large textbook. It didn’t take long for Khissa to notice the problem with the spell.
“It says very clearly at the top of the page that this summons a warrior . Not a Daedra.”
“We figured it was a Daedric warrior.”
“I suppose I can understand why,” Khissa said grouchily, reading the rest of the page. Then she gasped. “This spell, it’s to summon a very specific kind of warrior. See that word there, dovahkiin ? That is the dragon word for the Dragonborn.” Khissa braced herself for the inevitable fawning over her.
“I take it that’s you,” Harry said. His tone was matter-of-fact, and it seemed almost like the mages didn’t know what a Dragonborn was at all. No wonder their spell went so wrong.
“Not me specifically. A Dragonborn is a mortal with a dragon soul,” Khissa said slowly. “But I am the last Dragonborn, the only one alive as far as I know.”
The door opened, and Harry and Hermione jumped in front of Khissa. A boy with hair redder than Khissa knew was possible on a human walked over the threshold. He, too, was wearing the silly lion conjuration mage robes.
“Bloody hell, why is there a giant cat in our dorm room?” he asked.
“Hey, Ron,” Harry said weakly. “Remember how Hermione and I were trying to find a way to get me out of the Tournament? Well, she found a way.”
“And that way is a giant armored cat ?”
“We summoned her from Oblivion-”
“Nirn. I am not a Daedra .”
“Right, Nirn, and she’s going to fight for me so I don’t have to die horribly.”
Ron ran a hand through his hair. “You know, mate, I know I said I didn’t believe that you didn’t put your name in the Goblet of Fire. But summoning a giant cat to get out of the Tournament is so insane that I can’t not believe you.” He looked away, his ears turning red. Another thing Khissa
didn’t know humans could do.
“So you’ve finally decided that just maybe I’m not a liar? And all it took was summoning a literal demon!” Harry said coldly. Khissa wished she could be anywhere but here. The tension was uncomfortably thick.
The redhead sighed. “Look, mate, I’m sorry I got so upset, and I know you hate your fame–”
“It’s okay, Ron, no need for an apology. You were my first friend. My best friend,” Harry said. Ron patted him on the back, and just like that, the pressure was gone. Khissa had no idea what just happened between them.
“Good. So, does anyone want to fill me in on what Nirn, Oblivion, and Daedra are?”
Hermione started to go on a rant about planes of existence and demons. Khissa had to jump in to explain that Nirn was, in fact, completely separate from Oblivion.
“I take it this isn’t Nirn, then,” she said wearily, which started another Hermione rant about what Earth was and about the Wizarding World and how Harry Potter was somehow a celebrity for killing some evil wizard. Khissa suspected rants like these were a normal thing for her. She flopped on one of the beds, not caring whose it was.
“There is, of course, the Statute of Secrecy, which works to separate the Muggles from the wizards, so if you want to go out, we’ll have to glamor you, since we don’t have Khajiit here. Oh, what was your name by the way? I didn’t catch it. Since you were too busy insulting us.”
“Oh, right. I am Khissa. Well met, but I suppose not actually, since I am still pretty angry about being here. And you deserved those insults, you kidnapping dull-clawed milk-drinker.” Khissa was quite proud of her multicultural vocabulary of insults. She had learned a lot from drunk, vulgar Nords. “You probably didn’t even know that I was busy on Nirn. I have my own evil to smite.”
“And we’ll return you to it!” Hermione said brightly. “For now, we should tell you what we know about the Tournament you’ll be competing in. There’s three competitors–”
“Obviously.”
Hermione sighed. “Harry was entered in as a fourth champion. There are three tasks, the first of which is the day after next. We will help you, of course, within reason.”
“Good to know that you aren’t just throwing me in there. So what am I going up against?”
“Dragons,” Harry said grimly. Khissa could help but laugh. “I don’t see what’s so funny.”
“Ah, but you see, friend, you are talking to Skyrim’s, and probably Tamriel’s, finest dragon slayer. This armor and blade are made from their bones.”
“Merlin,” muttered Ron.
“Now then,” Khissa said, walking to the door, and sheathing her swords at her side, “I am going to find some food.” To her surprise, the annoying mages flanked her. “What? Is this one not free to do as she pleases?”
“Well…” Hermione frowned. “You don’t know where you’re going. We should at least put that glamor on you.” Before Khissa could object, Hermione flicked her wand in a series of flourishing motions, along with words in some language Khissa didn’t know. In the mirror, her appearance changed to an armored human, her fur replaced with tan skin, eyes with brown irises and round pupils, and her ears and tail completely gone. Yet she could still feel them both.
“Be sure to keep your tail out of the way,” Hermione said casually. Khissa put her tail in her hands, and found that it wasn’t quite invisible, it just mimicked the background, like some kind of strange window. But Khissa decided she probably shouldn’t complain; her invisibility spells only worked about a third of the time. Actually, most of the spells she knew hardly worked, except for the basics. Khissa had made sure to master the flame spell as fast as she could since it was so useful. Needless to say, Khissa was not a mage.
The mages led Khissa out of the room into one that was even more obnoxiously red, if that was possible. It looked comfortable, actually, filled with plush chairs the likes of which she hadn’t used in years and a cheery fire. The view out the window startled her when she realized she couldn’t even see land. Khissa stepped out of their formation and looked out, and then down.
She was in a tower. Cliche, but unexpected. And it looked like this was just one tower. Was she in a castle? Clearly, her original estimation of being in some sort of large house or maybe fort was dead wrong.
“Isn’t Hogwarts pretty?” Harry said reverently from behind her. Khissa jumped.
“I suppose. I have not seen enough to decide.”
“That’s a yes,” Ron snorted. He climbed out of a strange hole in the wall, which on the other side, was the space behind a portrait. Khissa stared up at the large human.
“Hello, dear! I’m not sure I saw you come in,” the painting said. Khissa yelped a loud meow, hand on the hilt of one of her blades. The mage trio turned around to look at her.
“The painting! It talked to Khajiit! The Skooma Cat has cursed Khissa!” She put her hands on her invisible ears.
“Of course it did,” Ron said, confused.
Hermione shook her head. “It’s magic. Do you have magic in Nirn?”
“Of course. That does not explain this , though!” she said, waving her hands at the painting. The human in the painting looked torn between angry and sympathetic. Better do something about it. “Ah, look, friend, I did not mean to offend you.”
The human shook her head. “Think nothing of it. It happens all the time with the Muggleborn first years.”
“Thank you. Lead on, humans,” she said, trying not to think about the talking painting, or what kind of revenge it could take on her.
“You know, you really do sound like a demon when you say things like that,” Harry said, taking the lead. He consulted some sort of parchment as he walked.
“You are humans, no?”
Hermione sidled up next to Khissa. “Are there more than just humans and Khajiit on Nirn, then?”
“Are there elves and Argonians here?”
“No, but I have some questions about Nirn.” Ron cleared his throat and shot a look at Hermione. “If you wouldn’t mind, of course.”
Khissa looked to the ceiling. “By the moons, what did I do to deserve this? Fine, what do you want to know?”
By the time they got to another large painting, this one of a bowl of fruit, Khissa thoroughly regretted her decision.
“Listen, I am not the one who should tell you how the Argonian connection to the Hist works,” she said tiredly.
“Surely you know a little about it-”
“The map just says to tickle the pear,” Harry interrupted. Ron immediately reached up to do so, and to Khissa’s astonishment, the pear laughed and turned into a door handle.
“What in Alkosh’s name,” she murmured. The door led to a large kitchen filled with tiny creatures that looked like a cross between what Khissa imagined a baby Falmer looked like and a goblin. She instinctively gripped her right sword’s hilt.
As soon as they stepped into the room, the tiny creatures began offering them various dishes. One shoved a platter of hors d'oeuvres into her face.
“I can’t accept this. I don’t have any money,” Khissa said. The goblin-Falmer hybrid burst into tears.
“I- uh- It looks delicious! Really, I do not have anything to give in return.”
“House-elves don’t like payment. It’s an insult,” Ron hissed from next to her.
“They’re just conditioned that way! If they understood how their treatment could be better, then they’d certainly want to be paid,” Hermione exclaimed.
“And she’s off.”
Khissa, for her part, felt mostly confused. Elves? Wanting to serve? Refusing money? If one of the Thalmor heard her ever mention this, she’d get a second chance at the executioner’s block.
“Dobby will take care of you,” another elf said, ushering the sobbing one away. The hors d'oeuvres were beginning to get drenched in tears.
“Dobby is here?” Harry asked, surprised.
“Harry Potter! Harry Potter, sir!” An elf wearing a knit hat with holes for the ears and tacky, colorful socks tackled Harry, who almost fell to the ground.
“ Dobby ? What are you doing here?” The mer (Khissa supposed it counted as one) was also crying. Why were they all crying? What had Khissa and the mages done wrong?
While Dobby and Harry had what Khissa guessed was some sort of strange reunion, she walked toward the countertops where another group of house-elves were cooking.
“Does the large cat want food?” one of them asked. This one was wearing what looked like a towel with a crest on it. Actually, almost all of them were wearing towels. And here Khissa had thought Dobby’s fashion style was a bit odd.
“You know about that?”
The elf snorted. “Of course Doiley does. Doiley can see through your illusion.”
“Huh. Well, if you would not mind, I would like some food, please.” Doiley shook her head and led Khissa to a table. A few elves scurried up to her and put in front of her a large sandwich, a plate of cookies, and a fresh cup of tea.
“Thank you,” Khissa said, overwhelmed. The elves shot her a weird look. Khissa was still mulling over the strangeness of Earth’s elves when she was rejoined by Dobby, the mages, and another house-elf who was wearing dirty clothes. The elves who had served Khissa immediately brought Harry, Ron, and Hermione sandwiches.
“Your elves are unusual,” Khissa said, sipping her tea. Even though she had dumped half the sugar in her cup, it was still not as sweet as moon sugar.
“Really? Why?” Hermione asked brightly.
“Well, the elves enslaved the humans. And then the humans enslaved the elves. And the elves enslaved the elves too… What I mean is that Nirn does not have anything like this . Gods, if an Altmer ever served me a sandwich for free, I would think I was high on skooma.” Not that Khissa would ever touch a bottle of skooma. Not after… No, she wasn’t going to think about that right now.
“Fascinating! And it proves that the house-elves truly are being brainwashed to be the slaves of wizards!”
“They aren’t brainwashed, Hermione, they like it ,” Ron interrupted.
“Which is what society tells you to think-”
“Look at the elves around you!”
“By the moons! Can we just agree that slavery is bad?” Khissa snapped. “Now that I’ve eaten I do not want to be around the creepy elves any longer. Let’s get out of here. I want to find somewhere to spend the night that isn’t a boy’s dormitory.”
The mages looked at each other. “We could set you up in a classroom?” Ron suggested.
“I was thinking the common room would be better,” Harry said.
“Dobby has an idea,” the house-elf piped up, idling by the table. Khissa was impressed that she had forgotten he was there, what with his neon apparel.
“What are you thinking, Dobby?” Harry asked.
“Dobby will tell you, Harry Potter, sir… if the cat tells Dobby about the Altmer elves.”
Khissa laughed. “What is there to say, friend?” Dobby made a squeaking noise. “The High Elves are tall, very tall, with golden skin. But between you and me? Their eugenics made them more yellow than anything, ha! The Altmer pride themselves on their magic, started a war with the Empire, and then retreated back to their little isles. Now they especially annoy me because their little stunt with the Empire caused a civil war and I have to be stuck in Skyrim dealing with their pompousness.”
Dobby looked up at Khissa, clearly holding onto every word. “Do… Do they get paid for their work? Do they wear colorful socks?”
Khissa shrugged. “Of course they get paid. As for the socks… Most don’t wear them, but their dresses are quite colorful I suppose.”
“Then Dobby must be an Altmer,” he said, nodding. Khissa decided not to break the news that most of the Altmer she knew were awful people.
She finished the remains of her sandwich. “I have upheld my end of our bargain. It is time for you to fulfill yours.”
Dobby leaned forward. “The elves tell of a special room. The Come and Go Room.”