I do not own Harry Potter or any other of the various Urban Fantasy works alluded in this fic. More's the pity.
It had been a long night and Father Anghelscu was exhausted.
London had always been a hotly contended point between the powers-that-be in the Moonlit World, the cold war of Wizards and Monsters as always, a sword stroke away from open conflict. The superiority complex of the Wizard in their power to shape reality made them proud and the sheer number of what men called Monsters made placating them an exercise in diplomacy. Between it all, on the line between one or the other laid the third power.
The Church. Having existed for time immemorial, its resources were vast and its agents varied from the Assembly of the Eighth Sacrament of which he himself was a member, to the more militant enforcers, laid up for Doomsday and the Hell that would follow. As he locked the door behind him to his small living quarters, he stepped lightly to his kitchen sink and turning it on, began to wash his hands and splash his face.
The long war had ended.
The civil war between wizarding factions had finally been decided but the real work was just beginning. It was a time to rebuild, to shore up old breaks and fix that which allowed this situation to happen in the first place. Someone such as Lord Voldemort should not have gained the followers he had, nor the power he obtained. The true irony in all this he supposed, was the fact that Voldemort did more to unite the Moonlit community than most others before. And in doing so, illustrated a danger the Church would not allow to occur again. His cell phone rang and drying his hands, he picked it up.
The voice that spoke was sultry, the purr of a woman who knew what she wanted as she spoke.
"This is Velvet Angel, here to reward you for your services-."
He interrupted. A single word, exasperated but with an underlying tone of fondness.
"Mara."
Mara laughed, replying back in a more brisk, normal tone.
"So serious. Just calling to make sure you came back alive. Trocar came through for us then?"
"And more. His position between worlds gives him a certain amount of credibility among his kind and I'm confident there won't be any moves in that direction. That said?" He flopped onto the only comfortable chair in his place, one hand reaching for an inner pocket to unpeel a blood pop as he considered before speaking his mind.
"I guarantee a few years later if nothing is learned, we'll be back in the same situation."
He could almost hear the shrug Mara made in return.
"Not our problem. And anything that keeps both sides weakened is more than enough for us, right? Means they focus more on licking their wounds and less on each others throats. No offense meant."
"None taken." He grunted, spinning the wizard candy between his fingers idly. Callous as Mara was, it was true. The situation lasted only insofar as all factions concerned promised to behave. Like a line in the sand, with two massive folks taunting and daring the other to cross. Then push comes to shove, and suddenly it's violence and they're required to come and break it up. The neutral third party, despised by both but too powerful to ignore.
"So what happened, exactly? Details are still confused and no one's been particularly forthcoming."
Mara laughed uproariously on her end, prompting him to hold the phone slightly away before she spoke.
"Take your pick. I particularly love the version where an infant pile drives the dark lord out the window."
"You made that up just now." He said flatly.
A scoff was her reply to his insight before she replied more somberly.
"No one really knows. Big, bad dark lord waltzes into a home that should have been protected, kills James and Lily Potter with the Killing Curse and then tries to do the same to the kid. Whatever happened after, it tore open a huge hole in the nursery and the world is now minus one Dark Lord. His followers are rounded up, his allies distancing themselves and us picking up the pieces."
He was quiet for a moment, sucking on the blood pop with a thoughtful expression as Mara spoke cautiously.
"I can practically see your face now. Its wizard business now bossman. Leave it be. Nothing good comes from meddling in the affairs of wizards."
"Our whole job description is one, big 'meddling with the affairs of wizards." He stretched out and frowned as he counted the cracks on his ceiling before he spoke.
"Call it a gut feeling. Right now, I'm going to need your help. If this boy is in any way special, what kind of protection would the wizards give him?"
"Safehouse in Prague, protected twenty four-seven by Golems, Aurors and the kitchen sink with the best wards the Ministry could whip up. Private tutors to ensure he grows up with the right mindset, carefully screened via veritiserum and legimens." She drawled in a manner that screamed bored.
Father Anghelscu suckled on the blood pop, his eyes narrowed before he popped the candy out and spoke.
"And if Dumbledore got to him first?"
Silence replied before Mara replied coyly.
"Well, well...A challenge it is. Call you back bossman."
She hung up.
He sighed, resigned himself to a sleepless night and rose up to get dressed for an outing, pausing only long enough to send a text before walking out his door.
A banging noise like a gun and a screech of tires later, he was gone.
The Leaky Cauldron. Not really a place he enjoyed personally but it was accorded neutral territory. Used by everyone, served the same by Tom it was an unofficial sanctuary for those denizens who called the shadowy nations beneath the Mundane surface home. Tonight, it would serve that self-same purpose as he stumbled slightly from the purple, double-decker that vanished with a crack of displaced air.
Father Anghelscu was a tall man, Roma in blood. His outfit when going out on a job that of a Catholic priest, the white collar prominent and the rosary beads wrapped around his left hand, a silver cross dangling. Over all this he wore an Inverness coat which obscured his figure and a wide-brimmed black hat, the overall look reminiscent of a cinematic gunslinger, which actually wasn't far from the truth. Beneath the brim, his eyes glowed a faint red as he dropped the glamour. There was no need to hide here, and he would need all the advantage he could take. He walked to the door with heavy tread and the subtle clink of metal, and pushed open the door.
Even expecting it, he was almost made deaf from the noise. The Leaky Cauldron was in full celebration, the sheer aura of mingled relief and joy at being alive, at surviving hitting him with the force of a sledgehammer. He elbowed his way through the crowd, ignoring the press of folks, the smell of liquor and the ever-constant bang of wands as wizards and witches cast spells like Mundanes with fireworks. The Ministry would have their hands full at making any sense out of this chaos and in that brief time between pandemonium and order, he would doubt even Dumbledore to notice him and this little meeting. Or so he hoped.
He moved his way upstairs, glancing briefly at Tom serving swiftly with the aid of a house elf before he was out of sight. It was quieter now, the common room noise dulled to a low thump. The silence spells strained no doubt, but enough to be a welcome respite. If he allowed himself to notice, he could sense celebrations of a different sort up here. Passion and heat, the sort that made one glad to be alive. A new generation may very well be birthed here and the thought made him smile as he glided down the corridor, seeking out room fifteen.
As he knocked and the door opened, his smile vanished swiftly, replaced by a cooler expression as he stared into the barrel of a gun. Slowly, he looked up at its owner.
It was rare that he had to look up to anyone, yet this troll was massive enough to demand it. More interesting, unlike the usual stereotypical image of trolls, this one was clad in an immaculate tailored suit. Silver cufflinks gleamed and when the troll smiled, a gold tooth shone from its jaws before he lowered the enlarged smith and wesson revolver. Giving a little courteous nod, the troll didn't move so much as loom to the side as he growled.
"Sorry Father. Da orders from Sin was to scare away everyone."
"And if you couldn't?"
"Den I shoot em."
"You do remember that most wizards won't even know what a gun is, right?"
Back returned the golden grin, one craggy hand moving up to thump its palm gently against the head in a fashion best described as 'oh lawdy me oh my'. It fooled neither of them. It was a reminder for Father Anghelscu just what he was dealing with in coming here.
"Bless me Father, you so sharp like a cutty thing! I forget dat, soon forget me own head I reckon." He made a gesture to come in further.
When the door closed behind Father Anghelscu, it took all his mental fortitude not to interpret the closing of the door as a trap. Besides, it didn't fit her style and walked into the main room, he stared at the following.
She was an ethereal beauty, gorgeous to behold. Clad in a silk bathrobe, she sat in one of the armchairs in a way to best display herself to tasteful satisfaction. Her hair was flowing, silvery and shimmering. Her face, heart shaped and lovely with green eyes twinkling merrily. Raising a hand, she crooked a single finger with more seduction in it than a cabaret of dancing girls.
All it did to him was make him scowl.
"Stop that." He said irritably. She gave a small shrug and the mental pressure vanished, the Veela stretching prettily as she spoke with a pout, her French accent barely discernible with her English.
"You can't blame a woman for trying. Really Lucy, the least you can do is indulge me my little games. Especially after dragging me from my party."
He twitched briefly on that nickname, moving around to sit opposite her as he belatedly remembered her own methods.
"And how was the party when you left?"
"Horribly gauche." She admitted with a smile, leaning forward as she rested her chin on her palm. He felt a smile returning himself and barely squashed it. To his chagrin, she noted though she made no comment on it, save to smile wider. Sin had always been that way though and shaking his head, he spoke.
"My condolences. I thought Corsican parties were usually more exciting." She beamed and wagged a finger in admonishment.
"Now, now Lucy. That sort of slander I won't tolerate. No such thing as the Corsican, we're just old money families interested in our British allies across the channel." He gave a snort and removed his hat, placing it on his arm rest as he scowled and ran a hand through his hair in consternation.
"I needed someone I could trust for this. God knows why, but I trust you Sin."
Now she was really interested, her smile fading in favor of curiosity as she cocked her head to the side, but allowed him to continue. He took a deep breath and looked her in the eye, red meeting green.
"It's about the boy. The Potter boy." Sin grimaced, leaning back in her chair as she waved a hand in dismissal. "Lucy, dear Lucy...I can see where you are going with this and my answer is no. You're not that cute."
"This squabble almost erupted into a full global conflict, had Voldemort accomplished his aims. Armed with the British factions, it would have been enough to establish him as a world power before moving for the rest of the world. France? Germany? You and I know what happens when a wizard turns megalomaniac." He continued on stubbornly, willing her to hear his words as he spoke.
"He's gone, but his followers are many and already are vanishing in their own way. His old allies will wait and the Wizards will foul things, lost in their own history and blinded by their magic."
"None of which is my concern." She emphasized with a toss of her head, looking away. As the topic turned more serious, so did she, revealing the head of the Wizarding Corsican that she was.
"We're currently tied up cleaning house and any reveal of our hand, one way or another will simply let our enemies know that we support them. You think you are not the only one, who are asking us? Even now, gold is exchanging hands between our favored clients and our own 'departments' seeking to erase their past. They have money- You on the other hand, are trying to appeal to my sense of right and wrong. What does Britain matter to me? To Stone?" She gestured to the troll bodyguard, who was silent and had a thoughtful grimace on his face. She sighed, shook her head and leaned back in her seat.
"...What do you want us to do, exactly?"
"I need resources that won't have a paper trail show up on either Ministry nor Vatican records." Father Anghelscu replied promptly. Revealing a bit more, he added; "I have my own sources sifting, trying to find where the boy will be. Skilled a wizard as Dumbledore is, its his track record I'm not especially impressed by and his mindset more. You've seen it in wizards. Their...Magic. It defines them. They eat, breath and anything contrary to it can only be wrong. He's not bad as a whole." He admitted as he shook his head again.
"But I stood aside on orders and watched a lot of good men and women die when I could have done something. I plan to be more preemptive this time around. When- Not if Voldemort returns, we won't have to rely on merely Wizards facing him. Nor will the boy be wholly unprepared."
Sin stared at him, her brow furrowed before she spoke.
"Stone? What do you think?"
The troll rumbled, clearing his throat before speaking what it had been thinking all this time.
"Wizards are groolhag- They think we stupid and train us like animals. And dey right, lot o' da time. But dey be a walk in da park, compared to you-know-who. Lot o' my cousins and kin dead 'cause of him. 'Cause he use us an' we let him. Anything dat lets us bash him before he bash us, good in mah paper-thingy. Whats it called? Dem thing wit all da thin paper…."
"It's a book, Stone darling." Sin said with a smile. Stone brightened and thumped a closed fist in his palm.
"Yeah! Dats da bunny."
Sin sighed and turned to look at Father Anghelscu with a frown.
"I'm going to regret this, aren't I?" She asked rhetorically as she looked him in the eye.
"Most likely."
She huffed out and finally rose to her feet, waving a hand in dismissal. Father Angelscu rose, about to grab his hat before Sin's hand snatched it before him. Waving it at him mockingly, she walked up close and set it on him herself, adjusting it with a rakish air as she grinned into his face.
"Text me the details. I'll do what I can and you, o' monster mine owe me a favor...Again."
He sighed with vexation, but when he smiled at her, this time he didn't bother to hide it.
"So. How was it, visiting the ex?"
Walking down the streets of London, he scowled and spoke in reflex. "Sin's just the same as she ever was. That should be enough of an answer. She is helping us though, but I need the information. What do you got for me Mara?"
"Eh, not much. I scoured pretty much my entire database, for magic that might match up to what Dumbledore might use but it's a fair bet that he'll rely on love." He frowned in confusion and asked cautiously.
"I'm sorry, what?"
"You know, bossman. Love. Parents sacrifice themselves for their kid- James and Lily were fighters, cornered and their son's life was on the line. Even if they didn't stand a chance, something like that has power of its own unless you buy into the theory that the Potter boy had something extra. Thankfully for you because I'm so awesome, I also looked into his family tree. Good thing wizards set such store by genealogy. Now a lot of wizarding families would jump at the chance to raise him- I mean, imagine the street cred that would come with that. Unfortunately, it means also that some of the darker families might leap at that chance too. So he'd wanna avoid that."
He listened on, finding a bench to rest on as he let her talk. She was always good at finding patterns and her insight had aided him more than once, on his various cases.
"So we look at the Mundane side and what do I find, but a family in Little Whinging. Petunia Dursley, sister of Lily. House wife, husband has some kind of Drill company or whatever. Seems like the kind of place nobody would expect Wizard Jesus to be hanging."
"That does sound like Dumbledore." He admitted aloud. Sneaky, magically sensible and as always, underhanded for the greater good. He never did like that term, it always implied the tolerance of lesser evils in its wake and was a rallying cry for more than one dictator in history.
"You did great Mara. Could you give me the address?"
She did.
And a few days later, in Little Whinging a new priest came to the parish.
Authors Note
Well, first fanfiction. Based loosely on an Urban Fantasy mashup RPG setting, but reduced for the sake of the story. The majority will be focused on the HP side of things, but if you read certain familiar terms, methods and characters? That's intentional and may have some effect on the story.
Read and review. If there's any interest in this, I'll keep writing.