Chapter 21
Harry Potter, now dead to the wizarding world and demon hunter extraordinaire, stared at the glowing blue screen in front of him.
"Um...well...Er..."
"Well go on!" The female brunette next to him urged, "Just walk into the light."
The younger teen ran his hand through his wild, black hair. If he recalled correctly, he was much more confident the first time he walked into a lit fireplace to floo. And we all know how that ended up.
"Yes, please, by all means, walk into the light."
Harry turned on the very amused hanyou behind him.
"You shut the hell up. Go downstairs."
Inuyasha continued to laugh at his apprentice and stood his ground. Shiva scowled at Harry and rushed over to Inuyasha's side; her hands immediately flying to his ears.
"Don't yell at him. He's too cute!" she scolded as she traced rhythmic patters over the fuzzy tips with her fingers. Inuyasha grinned lazily at him, knowing very well how smitten Shiva was with him.
"Yeah, I'm too cute."
Harry made a disgusted face at the pair, deciding he'd rather get lost somewhere in the internet than watch his former screw-buddy coo over his mentor, and took an uncaring stepped into the computer. Suddenly he was jerked forward—flying through a white tunnel, sequences of ones and zeros surrounding him. He could compare it to flying without a broom. Just as he was starting to enjoy the sensation it ended, leaving him in an uncomfortable position on a linoleum floor.
"She didn't warn you about the landing did she?"
Harry looked up from the ground to see Tai chilling in one of the comfortable looking chairs surrounding a long, rectangular table in the middle of the room. Looking around he noticed that the entire wall behind him consisted of what appeared to be a giant computer screen—one that he could only assume he just came out of. He lifted himself with a tender groan.
"Nope."
Once on his feet, he looked Tai over again. And then suddenly became aware of the tension the two might hold between them due to a certain promiscuous half demon.
"Where's Shiva?" Tai asked, standing from his chair. Harry shrugged.
"Still with Inuyasha I suppose."
"Hmm..." Tai said and appeared to be thinking on something, "And how goes the situation in the wizarding world? Sorry we haven't been in touch lately, we've been a bit...occupied."
Harry smiled and nodded, "I know, Shiva filled me in earlier. The wizarding world is enjoying its brief, peaceful respite for the time being. They seemed to have gotten over my "death" quick enough anyhow and have a new minister of magic."
Tai grinned optimistically.
"Well good! And after we take care of this little barrier problem we can all have a little vaca!"
The good humor was shattered by a wailing cry in the background. Tai's face fell comically.
"Or not..."
It was then Harry remembered the baby.
"Oh yeah, um..."
"Chelsea."
"Chelsea, right. Shiva mentioned something about that before."
"Alright, come on."
Tai motioned for Harry to follow him as he made his way to his daughter's room. He flicked on the light switch of the darkened nursery and walked over to the crib.
"Hi there, beautiful!" he cooed, reaching into the crib and lifting the hissy infant from her bed. He bounced her and shushed her and soon the child was quieted.
Harry could only stare. Tai wasn't even eighteen yet. He just went from a diplomat of another world to a loving, teen father in seconds.
"This is Harry. Can you say Harry?"
Harry watched bemused as a bubble of spit dribbled forth from her mouth as she attempted to say his name.
"How old is she?" Harry asked, making small talk. He held out a finger to her, which she immediately grasped in one pudgy hand.
"Almost six months." Tai replied, pulling his daughter away from him and holding her towards Harry. Harry almost took a step backwards out of what he would call shock—though others may go as far as to call it fear.
"What? Oh no. I couldn't—" he tried to reason, wanting to ward off the offered child.
But Chelsea had made up her mind right then and stretched her arms to embrace the young wizard.
"Go on. She doesn't bite—much." As if to worsen things, Chelsea gave an open-mouthed smile at the statement, revealing her two tiny fangs.
"Er—ok..." Harry said as he accepted the child somewhat awkwardly. For god's sake, he dealt with full grown demons on a daily basis. He had nothing to fear from a baby...unless it pissed on him.
"See? That's not so bad now is it?" Tai asked, grinning benignly. Chelsea stuck a thumb in her mouth and looked up at Harry with large, brown eyes.
"No..." Harry trailed off. He had never held a baby before in his life, and, though he wouldn't admit it to anyone, he rather liked the added weight in his arms. The crinkled bumps beneath the back of her shirt did not escape him.
"Aww...so he can interact with children!" Shiva said from the doorway in a sickly sweet voice. Harry scoffed and immediately handed Chelsea off to Shiva.
"Mama!" the child exclaimed upon setting her eyes on the half-demon.
Harry stared at Shiva, who rolled her eyes and mouthed 'don't ask'.
"What took you so long?" Tai asked. Shiva shrugged, shifting Chelsea to her other hip.
"Inuyasha just wanted to ask me what was going on around here. You know...how Chelsea was doing, how you are in bed...the usual things he asks. Like I'd pass up an opportunity to chat with that hunk! Oh Tai, she's hungry."
Chelsea had latched onto her shoulder with her fangs and was soaking the cloth of her shirt with saliva. Harry grimaced.
"Alright. You feed her; I'll take Harry around to the gates and explain the situation more thoroughly." Shiva nodded and Tai motioned for the wizard to follow him.
"So what has Shiva told you so far about our situation?" Tai asked as they exited the coliseum.
"Next to nothing, really. She said you were having problems with the barrier separating this world from the human one."
"Well, yeah, in a nut shell. I believe it has something to do with the war in with wizarding world. You said the dementors were running rampant...?"
"They were, but the ministry has been cleaning that up last I heard."
"Right. From what I've gathered, while your war was going on, and the dementors were all over the place, they began eating through the barrier that separates the real world from this one. There are gaping holes all thorough the barrier—which could be fixed easy enough if those damn things weren't always trying to kill me."
"How do you know if they are dementors?"
"Josh told us. Well—he told Griff, who told us. That's who were going to see right now. He'll help us since he's a wizard too."
"Josh...?" Harry prompted, thinking maybe he might have heard of him. Tai looked at him a bit strangely.
"He's one of Inuyasha's kids."
"What!" Harry said, stopping. Was there anywhere that didn't have one of his spawns running around?
"Yeah," Tai replied easily stopping as well, "Don't you know him? You live with Inuyasha now don't you?"
"You think I've met all his kids?" Harry exclaimed exasperated, "I've only met...like...eight of them."
Tai blinked. He resumed his walking and Harry followed.
"What will happen if these holes remain?"
"Remember El Niño?"
"Yeah...?"
"Worse than that."
"Oh."
0o0o0o0o
0o0o0o0o
"He was here and you didn't introduce him to me?" Angela cried out to the girl sitting opposite the table of her, currently feeding Chelsea as she ate lunch.
"He did come here to work you know..." Shiva reprimanded. Angela pouted.
"But I never got to meet him before. All I have are your crazy stories."
"And where were you when he was here?" Shiva asked knowingly. Angela had the decency to blush briefly and then resumed her pouting.
"But its' still not fair..."
"You got to defile Ace's room...again! Be satisfied with that."
Angela gave a silly giggle as she reminisced her latest moments with her boyfriend.
"Where is the boy anyway?" Shiva asked. She took a bite of her sandwich as she watched Chelsea gnaw on an apple slice.
Angela sighed airily.
"Resting."
Silence reigned in the kitchen. Shiva's sandwich was finished and she began to clear the mess off of Chelsea's eating area.
"So what's going on with the famous triangle?" Angela asked seemingly out of nowhere. Shiva nearly dropped the plates in here hands. Instead she placed them in the sink and turned to give Angela a slow, incredulous look.
"What?"
"Oh you know what I mean? There's you and Harry and your little fling thing. And I may have been otherwise engaged for the last few hours but there's something going on something going on with you and Tai."
Shiva's face reddened, "I—uh...don't know what you're talking about..."
She grabbed a wet washcloth and began to wipe the sticky apple juice from Chelsea's face.
"Awww, come oooon," Angela whined, stretching her upper body across the table, "I'll find out eventually!"
Shiva sighed and straitened, looking at her friend who was half sprawled all over the dining area in her pathetic state, "Harry and I were friends with benefits. Nothing more. And it's ended so it doesn't matter."
She seemed to be talking to herself at this point. Her eyes were fixed on a spot on the floor, squinted as she mulled something over in her head.
"And you won't be going back to the benefits...?" Angela prompted.
"No." Shiva answered softly. She walked back to the sink to rinse out the washcloth. Angela seemed to be getting more excited.
"Because you and Tai are finally together...?"
Shiva swallowed and knew what was coming.
"...yes."
"AHHHHHHH!"
Shiva cringed and jerked back from the shrill cry of the blonde. Angela had sprung from the table and enveloped the other girl in the tight hug.
"I knew it! I knew it! It was only a matter of time! God! You guys took forever!"
She continued to bounce while latched onto the brunette. Chelsea watched all of this from her high chair with wide, bewildered eyes.
"Angela! You're such a girl! Calm down!"
"I can't! I can't!" Angela changed, squeezing her friend tighter. Shiva couldn't stop the smile that slowly spread across her face. One born from both the love of her best friend, and the love of the man she finally won over. Angela finally calmed down enough to release the girl.
"So does this mean you're boyfriend and girlfriend? For real?"
"Yep."
"And are you going to be Chelsea's mother?"
Shiva looked over at the baby, seemed giddy with all the excitement in the air.
"He asked me to be."
"That is so sweet!" Angela said, truly happy for her friend. "I can't wait for my little Griff!"
Shiva's head snapped back to her and sharply asked, "What?"
"Years later, hun, years."
Shiva let out a sigh of relief.
"Thank god. Because one baby is enough for the four of us."
0o0o0o0o
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"Ah. So you're dad's prodigy boy." Joshua Black stated as he circled the younger man. Harry was too busy staring at Inuyasha's son to care. The short silver hair hung chaotically in his face, nearly covering the piercing cerulean eyes that—along with the pointed ears—all but screamed demon. His attitude was not much like Inuyasha's, he noted in the short time he was in Josh's presence. The man seemed more standoffish than his father, but not in a cold way like Sesshomaru.
"He's talked about me?" Harry inquired. Tai had led him to a meadow not far from the coliseum, where he met the other wizard.
"Are you kidding? I think he loves you more than his own children." It was said lightly as not to be taken as a bitter statement. But Harry shifted uncomfortably nonetheless, a red tinge on his cheeks. Tai smiled at his bashfulness and decided to intervene.
"Griff said you had another boy with you...Lou?"
"Yeah, he left." Josh waved him off airily. "There isn't much for him to do here."
"Well in that case I guess we should get started!" Tai said cheerfully. "This may take all day...or more than one day, depending on how strong your patronus are."
"So what's the plan?" Harry asked.
"I know all the places where there are tears in the barrier," he didn't bother to mention how he knew, for it was an instinctual thing that he couldn't even begin to put into words, "Fortunately the problem lies generally in the area equivalent to England, most likely since that was where the war was. I'll transport each of you to an area where there are rips. I'll leave the dementor-ridding to you guys since I'm out of my league there."
"Sounds good."
"Okay, each of you hold onto one of my arms tight, and no matter what you feel do not let go. I don't need random matter floating around the internet."
"Did you just call us random matter?" Josh asked vacantly as he gripped one of his arms, Harry doing the same with the other.
Tai ignored him and said, "Here we go!"
And suddenly the ground beneath their feet was gone and Harry's stomach leapt high into his throat. He tightened his hold on Tai's arm as they free fell into a blue abyss. After what seemed like a minute but was in fact no more than a second, they slowed, hanging in mid air before zipping forwards. The change of direction nearly tore Harry off of his travel guide. He looked over Tai's head to see Josh looking as dazed as he felt. A shining white light ahead of them caught his attention. They were speeding towards it even faster, allowing it to consume them. Harry could already feel the hollow feeling that came with the presence of a dementor leaking through. And then there was ground beneath his feet again. But this time it wasn't green and alive. It was soil. Harry looked around him to see miles upon miles of dead trees and blackened earth. The foreboding chill that dominated the atmosphere reminded him all too much of a forced opening to hell. It made sense, seeing as that was where dementors were spawned from.
Tai shivered a bit a rubbed his arms.
"Do either of you see them?" he asked.
Neither of the wizards needed to look far to find a dementor. There were dozens of them on the horizon—gliding along the dying grounds, wailing their tales of sorrow.
"Yeah," Josh said softly, "They're everywhere. It won't be long before they detect us and go in for the kill."
Harry grunted in agreement.
Tai let out a frosty breath of air, hating the bleakness that was steadily consuming him.
"One of you will take care of this area, and I'll take the other to the next one. Then I'll come back, wait till you're finished and patch the holes. It will keep going like that until everything's wrapped up, clear?"
The other two nodded.
"I'll take this area." Josh volunteered, his wand already pressed to his palm.
"Excellent." Tai said, attempting to be cheerful and failing miserably. He held out his arm to Harry as he would if he were escorting a date, "Shall we?"
The bespectacled boy rolled his eyes and took the offered appendage.
"Expecto Patronum!"
Harry saw a large, sleek silver puma burst from Josh's wand before he felt the ground disappear once more.
0o0o0o
0o0o0o
Tai stared at the black, negated space in the sky. It was almost bruise like. They were the bruises of the digital world.
"There are no dementors up there..." Harry said over his shoulder as he directed his stag patronus towards another cluster of apparitions. The air around them was already starting to warm.
"No..." Tai said evenly, "You can't see them can you?"
"What?" Harry asked, turning to fully face him.
"The breaks in the code...the holes in the barrier."
"Oh." Harry replied. "No. Is that what you're looking at?"
"I can feel them," Tai said. He lifted a hand to his chest and absently rubbed it. "It hurts."
Harry stared at Tai, who looked so sad at the moment. He couldn't understand the connection he held with the digital world, and he wouldn't try to.
"You'll be able to fix it soon," Harry said readily. It was much easier to be optimistic with the significant dent in the dementor army. Tai blinked and looked away from the tear.
"Oh yeah. I should go back to Josh and move him onto another area."
"Don't worry. I'll take care of this," Harry grinned. Tai smiled appreciatively and disappeared in the short flash of blue light. Seconds later he was besides Josh, who jumped at his sudden appearance. It was so much fast traveling through the system when he was by himself.
"Hey!" Tai grinned. The air was warm and the clouds had completely dissipated, allowing the sun to shine down of them. "We all good to go?"
Josh nodded. "Yep. They're all gone."
Tai made short work of taking Josh to a new location before returning to the recently cleared one. While the atmosphere was a whole lot more welcoming, he was still saddened by the death the frost had done to the environment. He looked around to see three distinct holes in the barrier. He walked to the closest, feeling cold dead air hit his face as black abyss stared back at him. He raised both his hands and placed them lightly on the edges of the tear. Concentrating, he built the codes up around the faded areas, stitching them back together. Though his eyes were closed in meditation, he could feel the rift getting smaller and smaller until closing completely. The code was whole once more.
He could feel a small weight was lifted from his chest. He smiled.
0o0o0o
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It was not until late into the night that Tai and Harry stumbled back into the coliseum, drained and dirty. Josh had already gone back to his home in New York, feeling the effects of the constant exposure to dementors and the repetitive release of high powered magic. But all three men were extremely please—no one more so than Tai. He had successfully managed to pinpoint and close every gap in the barrier, and he could feel it within himself. He felt whole again. For the first time since Moira's death he felt completely content.
"We're back!" He called into the darkened room. He could see a light on in the room ahead and knew the others had waited up to hear the news. Sure enough, Shiva came bounding forth from the lit room and happily latched herself onto his mouth. They broke apart a bit flushed. Tai gazed down at Shiva who was positively glowing. He then gave a sideways glance had Harry. Shiva followed his line of vision.
"Um..." she blushed.
Harry waved them off and smiled. He had already known.
"So this is the British boy! He's a cutie."
Angela had entered, heading strait for their guest.
"I'm Angela," she introduced herself holding out a hand that Harry accepted.
"Harry. But I'm sure you've already heard enough from this one," he replied as he jerked his head towards Shiva. Angela giggled and leaned over to Shiva as Griff introduced himself.
"Love the accent," she murmured. Shiva grinned knowingly.
"So what's the verdict?" Griff asked the million dollar question. Angela and Shiva sprang to attention.
Tai and Harry shared a look, careful to school their features to remain neutral.
"Well!" Shiva prompted.
Tai took a breath and the three other guardians seemed to lean forwards in anticipation.
"Unfortunately..."
Their shoulders sagged.
"...It's done!" Tai said happily, "The barrier's whole again. I think we can trust the Ministry of Magic to prevent the dementors from further free reign?" He directed the last part towards Harry.
"I would think so;" Harry said just as merrily, "The new minister seems to be much more competent."
Both boys suddenly found themselves in a world of pain with two steaming females standing over them, fists raised.
"DON'T DO THAT, DAMNIT!"
"ARE YOU TRYING TO GIVE ME GREY HAIRS?"
Harry and Tai pouted from their places on the ground, nursing the bumps on their heads. Griff, no pleased with being strung on like that, felt no pity for them.
"In that case...I'm going to bed." He declared. Angela ran after him, naughty ideas racing through her head.
"Bed does sound good," Tai said. The clock on the overhead wall said that it was nearing one in the morning, "Let's get you back home."
Harry grinned and stood, rubbing his battered head once more.
They walked to Ace's room. The giant computer sprang to life as they entered.
"Well, I would say it was a pleasure working with you but..." Tai trailed off sheepishly.
"...It wasn't all that much fun," Harry finished with a smirk.
"Thanks," Tai said, holding out his hand. Harry gripped it back with a firm shake.
"No problem."
"Bye Harry," Shiva stepped up and gave him a hug. There was nothing sexual about it, which had to have been a first for Shiva, "Take care of yourself, okay?"
"Yeah."
Harry pulled away from her.
"So...I just...walk into the light. Right?"
Shiva laughed.
"Yes," Tai said. Harry bid them one last goodbye before he stepped out of the digital world.
Shiva looked at Tai, who looked back at her. Nothing needed to be said between them. Tai wrapped and arm around her shoulders and she put an arm around his waist and the two made their way back to their bedroom.
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Yay! The day is saved! Surprise, surprise. This story is just about done. I'll have an epilogue, don't worry. Thanks for the reviews peepers; I know I'm really slow at getting these out. But hey, I'm actually dedicating myself to school...somewhat.
Anyhoo, hit that review button. Right there on the bottom. It says 'go'. Ya can't miss it.