Monster Lord
Chapter 10: Monstrously Heroic
Summary: In which bladder-loosening terror is unleashed upon a superstitious, cowardly lot after they do something very, very stupid.
It really goes without mention that some people are just deeply stupid. Whether it be genetic, and you would find swarms of muggleborns willing to bet that could've been an explanation for the average intelligence of the pureblood population in the United Kingdom, or a result of one's upbringing, which, again, had its fair share of supporters as the cause of the average intelligence of said group of people, there was no denying that some people were just dumb. Not like in a cartoon, where you get the hulking brute barely capable of forming a coherent sentence, not necessarily. They were present, of course, but some times, you have to wonder...
Is that person insane, or is he just so stupid that it looks like he is?
Because Harry could see some demented sense of reason in the man's actions. Some twisted logic to them. However, Harry could also plainly tell you that it didn't take a genius (and he wasn't) to notice that the man used logic to arrive to all the wrong conclusions. Why was Harry musing over such a thing?
Well, it had to do with what was currently the center of attention in Diagon Alley. To be specific, it was a group of men that had currently holed themselves up inside a restaurant, some pink place that Harry was already getting a headache just from looking at it, and were shouting about how Dumbledore was the evilest thing since Voldemort and how he was behind every bad thing that had happened ever.
Now, Harry knew that the headmaster was far from perfect and, in Harry's opinion, less than competent at his job, but the things that these people were blaming Dumbledore for were inane. He was the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, yes, but he didn't have any form of supreme power over it, and he had no power over the DMLE, which was not regulated by the Wizengamot but the Minister himself, so blaming Dumbledore for the Death Eaters getting away with a slap on the wrist was just idiotic.
Dumbledore believed in second chances, that was for sure, and Harry was of the mind that the old man did not think Azkaban was a good thing to put people through. He was probably right, any hope of redemption would be lost if the Dementors drove you nuts before your second month was over. However, Harry very much doubted he'd just let known murderers get away with it.
Moody had said to wait for the Law Enforcement officers to arrive, as this was just a public disturbance that would soon be dealt with. Given the tension that was in the air, the DMLE had been on high alert. Despite the fact that the ministry was firmly maintaining their position of 'Lord Thingy isn't back, no siree!', the DMLE wasn't headed by a complete nincompoop and Amelia Bones had mobilized her subordinates to prepare for the oncoming storm.
The Monster Lord, seeing no reason to get involved in such a trivial thing, decided to abstain from doing so... that is, until she scanned her golden eyes once more over the pink... restaurant? No, it didn't seem to be structured like one. It was like a cross between a pub and once, with private booths (with laughably weak privacy charms).
In the pink place, tied up and on their knees, were several Hogwarts students. Harry knew not the majority of their names, since he... didn't really care all that much. He recognized one, though. A redhead, dusted with freckles, a Weasley. The youngest one, Ginevra. Ginny. She was being held at wandpoint (because of course she had the stereotypical temper and of course the people that held them hostage would triggered it) and had a noticeable cut on her face.
"Calm down, lass, there'll be a unit here soon... these aren't Death Eaters, just crazy people," Moody said, looking at Harry who was now scowling, her eyes piercing through the crowd and homing in on what Moody had wished she wouldn't see. He sighed. "Calm yourself. You're a leaf... a leaf in a calm stream..."
Harry shook her head. "No. No I am not," she informed, primly, before she began to make her way through the crowd.
Moody frowned, but began going after the Monster Lord. He had hoped this could be solved without resorting to violence, violence which could bring attention to his companion and himself. He'd taken great pains to conceal his distinctive features (IE: Wear a full body glamour), and Harry was as of yet a complete unknown. He supposed that Harry stopping a hostage situation would be a good way to introduce her to the masses.
As a hero, if nothing else.
Yeah. That'd work. Maybe keeping her concealed a while longer, at least until it was absolutely necessary to reveal her, would've been a safer option... but risk taking was essential, if one planed to achieve victory. The greater the risk... the greater the victory.
The paranoid ex auror hoped that his gamble wouldn't blow up in his face as he decided not to intervene. He knew Harry was more than capable of dealing with this rabble... the problem was if she went overboard.
Oh, well... Shit was going down.
Ginny Weasley thought that this date was certainly a disaster. It had started off well enough. She'd met her boyfriend last year at the Yule Ball (which she was thankful to Neville for inviting her, as otherwise she couldn't have gone), and they had become friends, despite the year difference, as well as their difference in houses. Michael Corner was a Ravenclaw and she a Gryffindor. He was nearing his sixteenth year of age, she was fifteen. He was a fifth year, she a fourth.
He had seemed like a fun guy, and so she had conceded when he had asked her to be his girlfriend when he sent her a letter, and a week after that, they had convened on a date for a date at Madame Puddifoot's. He'd picked her up at Diagon Alley, and they'd made their way through the crowd. Ginny had thought she saw Harry at some point, having seen the flash of silvery hair, and it was confirmed that Harry was in Diagon Alley when she heard a few people talking about a stunningly beautiful girl, or woman, depending on the speaker, with exotic features that was walking around the alley.
She smiled, knowing how fun it was to think that all those people would, with their next breath, talk about the latest gossip, about how 'crazy' that Potter boy had become, how the fame had gone to his head, and how he was trying to incite panic to raise his own fame. And to think, the same men who were making fun of him were lusting after her.
It was funny to her, though Michael couldn't understand why she laughed at the insults.
The date, all in all, had started off splendidly. He had some wit to himself, though his tongue was nowhere near as sharp as Remus' or Sirius', and so she could enjoy bantering with someone without being totally dominated in the snark fight as she had been when she conversed with either of the remaining marauders, and he had no blackmail material on her, so he couldn't counter with something like that as her brothers could.
And then they'd gotten to Madame Puddifoot's.
She hated the place. Instantly.
Ginny Weasley was many things. A tomboy was one of them. Having grown up with six brothers, and often having to wear her bigger brothers' cast offs, as well as playing the same 'boy' games they played (because the Weasley family couldn't afford to buy dolls for her to play with, and it would've been unfair for her siblings if she was the only one who ever got anything that was solely hers), she had grown up to be, well, pretty much the opposite of a girly girl.
Some girls played at being brides, raised in traditionalist pureblood households. Ginny Weasley had learned to wrestle from Fred and George so she could beat up Ron. Some girls played with dolls that resembled their own children, imitating their mothers. Ginny Weasley would learn how to cheat at Poker from her brother Charlie. Some girls learned household tasks and helped their mothers with them, learning what was expected of them as housewives. Ginny Weasley swore off a housewife's life forever.
Madame Puddifoot's seemed to just glorify the stereotypical image of a girly girl's favorite place. Everything was pink, heart shaped and/or fluffy. The drinks were all sweet, so was the food. There were couples everywhere, some snogging, some talking, a few going further, but all couples. It dawned on her that Michael most likely expected her to put out for him in this date, and she wasn't entirely averse to the idea... Or she hadn't been, that is, until the place soured her mood.
Still, the cake he'd ordered was delicious, and she had rejected the overly sweet tea (what the hell was it, even? It just tasted like liquid sugar!), and asked for strong and bitter coffee. Percy had favored it black himself, and he had gotten her to try it enough times that she used it when she needed a jolt of energy, even if she still thought coffee was mudwater.
It did go great with the overly sweet cake, though, balancing it so it didn't feel like she would get sick just from eating a chunk of it. She wondered how Michael could eat so much sugar without going crazy.
Their topics of conversation had dried up rather quickly. He didn't much like quidditch, and she wasn't overly studious. Talking about school was an exercise in boredom, and killed the mood even worse than her displeasure at the location he'd chosen. She supposed that in school, constant updates kept conversation fresh, and the Tri Wizard Tournament had been a topic that many could comment on. However, if together for a prolonged period of time without anything of the sort to give them a topic, they found that they didn't really have much in common.
Both avoided the Harry Potter topic entirely, as they both knew they stood on opposite sides of the fence.
Ginny would probably lose her patience pretty damn quickly if he made disparaging comments about Harry. There are things you just don't fuck with, and the guy who saved her from a basilisk and nearly died in the process was one of them.
All in all, the date had gone from going swimmingly well to grinding to a halt and then jump off a cliff into the disaster zone. It'd probably kill their friendship, too.
The worst part?
Just as she was about to go for the 'this isn't working out' speech, a bunch of raving lunatics had stormed into the pub and begun throwing jinxes and hexes around. Ginny had pulled her wand to Bat Bogey the closest, but then Michael, probably seeing a chance to perform an heroic feat to impress her, forgot about his Ravenclaw wit and instead pulled out his wand and practically screamed out his stupefy.
Satisfying as it was to shout a spell, it's a terrible tactic when you're dealing with an asshole whom you need the element of surprise to defeat.
The fact that Michael's stunner was weak and slow hadn't helped matters, as despite being surprised, the forewarning allowed the man he'd targetted to snap up a Protego, which reflected the spell and knocked Michael out instead. Ginny sighed, and stored her wand in her sleeve. For a moment, she was glad she was in simple, casual robes with a similarly simple, casual skirt that reached past her knees. It made it so much less uncomfortable and painful for her to kneel on the ground when they tied her up.
Fighting one would've been possible. Bill had taught her a thing or two about how to defend herself from overly affectionate boys, and they could be applied to crazy idiots too, but if they ganged up on her, as they were wont to do, fighting would be futile.
She very much doubted the sheeple that populated the shop would be any help. Almost all of them had surrendered immediately despite the fact that they had their enemies surrounded and outnumbered. Five people against twenty, and they'd taken the whole lot in after stunning just one underage student.
Ginny thought that she herself was a bit pathetic, as she had surrendered just as easily as everyone else, but at least she took comfort in knowing that her attempt at resistance was thwarted by a covert Gryffindor.
Then the men began to rant to everyone who would listen about the evils of the headmaster. Ginny just tuned them out, sighing as she waited for the aurors to drop by, talk these idiots out of their idiocy, and then escort them to the holding cell they'd spend the night in.
And then one of them began to badmouth Harry. Began to talk about how the brat was nothing but a fluke. And Ginny just saw red, beginning to verbally tear into the men that held her hostage, calling them all manner of names and insults, particularly harping on their cowardice, how they could only talk about their opinions when shielding themselves with hostages...
All that until she was hit with a banisher that made her strike the nearest table with her head, causing her to feel somewhat woozy. It wasn't long before she felt a somewhat sticky sustance trickling down her forehead.
Still her anger sustained her, and she continued to remain defiant, trying to reach for her wand, still concealed in her sleeve (what kind of imbecile believes someone when she tells him that she left her wand at home?) to at least get back at that jerk for the banisher with the nastiest curse she could think of (a variation on the Bat Bogey hex that did not prevent the bats from breaking your nose on the way out, and which had the bats actively attack you with claws and teeth, instead of the annoying version she usually used). It was futile, while she doubted these idiots could tie a knot, the Incarcerous spell did, and it was preventing her from doing much of anything.
She'd almost lost hope and gave a quick solution to this mess as a lost cause, when...
"Wowza," was the general sentiment in the pub as a figure she recognized walked in, calmly, almost gliding with a grace and majesty that was simply beyond simple, human women. She knew who it was, only one person was that insanely beautiful and that innately graceful, without even being aware of it. Talk about having her own guardian angel... or guardian monster, as the case might be.
The beauty amongst beauties quickly homed in to Ginny's position and kneeled, cupping her chin and turning her head slightly to look at her wound with a frown. "It looks bad. I'm going to get you out of here in a moment," Harry said, and Ginny smiled in relief, glad that Harry had shown up and knowing that she was completely safe now. It was just a matter of time. These guys couldn't hold a candle to the basilisk that Harry had killed when he was a little human boy. It was hard, at times, to relate the image of the beautiful, female Monster Lord, with the male knight in Shining Armor that had defended her from Tom in her nightmares. "Who did this to you?" she asked, golden eyes focused on the wound.
But at this moment, she couldn't care less. Ginny gestured at the largest man in the pub.
"Hah... these guys are so fucked now," she muttered to herself, as Harry began to walk off to meet said large man, who seemed to grin widely.
"Oi! Lady! Want me to show you a good time?" a large, balding man with a massive beard asked, grinning a toothless grin.
Harry smiled. "Punch yourself in the nuts," she ordered, calmly.
The large man did exactly that, yowling in pain as he looked at the hand that betrayed him.
"Again," Harry ordered, and the man complied. Twice more she repeated it, and the man was in tears, his companions too shocked and surprised to do much of anything about it.
This seemed like the trigger for the others to come back to their senses, and soon they launched a volley of hexes and curses at the woman who had imperius'ed one of their own... to absolutely no effect.
Harry took a step forward, closing the distance between herself and the man who was now moaning with pain and holding his genitals, before she grabbed onto his neck and lifted him up, though his feet were still touching the ground. She applied pressure on his throat, until he was clawing at her hands. "P-P-Please!" the man wheezed out, despite the pressure, "lemme go!" he begged.
Ginny smiled as Harry did.
Harry threw the man aside and he crashed into a wall, sliding down to land in a heap, knocked out due to a combination of asphyxiation and the blow to his head.
The others flinched as they saw the display of physical strength far beyond human ability. The woman looked exotic to the point they could very easily buy she was just a very human-like creature.
Knowing their country's stance on creatures' rights, they felt confident in attacking her with lethal spells. Ginny imagined that they knew that unlike the stint in Azkaban that murder or attempted murder would've landed them, killing a Dark Creature would only have them pay a small fine, and a sentient creature would just be a larger fine with just a few months of Azkaban.
Fear took care of the rest, and they seemed to fear Harry more than Azkaban. Good instincts, Ginny mused.
A variety of curses, a veritable rainbow, hit Harry, who seemed only slightly bemused and annoyed that her clothes were being damaged, before pointing her finger at one of the men. "Freeze," she spoke, clearly, firmly, and the man she'd pointed at, as well as the table he was hiding behind, were encased in a block of ice.
"DAMMIT! JOE!" one screamed, casting a reducto at the table in front of him. He transfigured the pieces of wood that resulted into crude spears and then banished them at Harry, causing Ginny to yelp at the sight.
Her scream was caught in her throat when the spears zoomed by so quick that they blurred, impacting against Harry... and landing harmlessly against her skin.
Harry laughed, then. "Is that your best?" she asked, before sighing and grabbing a single spear from the ground. Ginny saw that it was made from pure metal. It was probably better as a throwing spear if it was heavier. Still, Harry broke it in two with her bare hands, with entirely too much ease. It was somewhat scary to see it, to see how different Harry was from the humans that surrounded her. Then the Monster Lord threw away half of the spear, the one with the blade, and quickly moved forward, so fast that it looked as if she had just disappeared from the spot she was in and reappeared in front of the man who threw the spears, before wacking him in the head with the rod of metal she still held onto. It knocked him out entirely.
"DAVE! Dammit, nothing's hurtin' this broad!" one of the other two yelled. "Damn, damn, damn..."
Harry threw the metal rod at the speaker's face, and connected with his forehead, knocking him out too.
"Shit, Steve!" the last one yelled. "You fucking bitch, imma kill you!" he continued, brandishing his wand like he was holding onto a canon. "FIENDFYRE!"
Harry's eyes widened for a split second as a large... thing made out of fire burst from the man's wand and headed straight for her, crashing onto her.
"NO!" Ginny and, unsurprisingly, quite a few others, yelled, and for a moment, she felt just horrible. Harry had taken Fiendfyre to the face, this shouldn't have happened. They were using lethal attacks, for sure, but Harry had magically resistant skin. She'd be fine, right?
Right?
The fire raged and burned.
Fiendfyre could burn anything. It was supposed to be ridiculously hard to stop, let alone control, and it was held in almost as much disdain as the Unforgivables by the law. But... could it hurt Harry?
Ginny soon got an answer, as the flames were soon dispelled by a strong gust of wind that shook the store, leaving Harry perfectly unharmed.
All of the redhead's blood flooded her face, turning it an almost brilliant red, as she stared unabashed at the image of glory she had seen only a few times. It was incredibly unfair that, despite never making a big deal of them, Harry could make Ginny go green with envy because of her looks, and yet, at the same time, make Ginny be forced to admit that she did, indeed, bat for both teams, so to speak. Maybe it was just Harry, though, and people'd have to understand her.
Every bit of her was perfect. From the soft-looking, flawless skin to the perfectly trimmed nails, the perfectly cut and balanced hair, even the tattoos did nothing but further enhance the image of a primitive tribal goddess, beautiful and enthrancing in a way that normal women just couldn't hope to match. Someone designed to be enticing to the very last detail, her form, her details, her scent... everything.
Of course, as Harry's face morphed from a smirk grown from her confidence and arrogance, certainty in her superiority, to a scowl that marred her beautiful features... Well, Ginny's arousal quickly crashed and burned as the temperature quickly descended, going from typical London weather to an almost tomb-like chill.
Harry Potter, the Monster Lord, stood naked in the middle of Madame Puddifoot's pub, and she did not look happy about it.
"Insignificant scum... You have angered me. You will face the Monster Lord's Cruelty!" Harry yelled, pointing his finger at the man who had, if Ginny had to guess, just emptied his bowels of their contents. Harry's hand opened, and what looked like a wordless, wandless summoning charm brought the terrified man into the grasp of the Monster Lord.
What followed was just too cruel for words, and Ginny thought that nobody would ever sit on that bar stool again. Most likely, the owner of the bar would probably burn it and then vanish the ashes forever.
Ginny wondered if she could find someone to obliviate the memory of it from her brain, but silently took pride in that, unlike a grand majority of the people observing, she didn't faint halfway through, though she did feel phantom pains. She had never thought the human body could adapt THAT much to foreign invasions...
