Outside Interference

Chapter 31

After the 'incident' at the school, things settled down reasonably fast. The students not directly involved, and any non-magical adults, were given a plausible cover-story.

As for the magical side of things, Fern was sitting across from Amelia. There were several stacks of parchment on the desk. Amelia picked a page up from her desk, and gave a hidden hand-signal.

Someone was listening in.

"The kidnapper is swearing blind that he was 'rescuing' Violet from 'savage muggles and half-breeds'." She scoffed, as she replaced the page. "Auror Rockwood wants you and Mizuchi arrested for teaching magic to under-aged witches."

"Did you explain to them that they're dragons, not witches, and they're required to learn how to control their innate magic from the moment it manifests?" asked Fern. "He should be glad they only used shielding spells, and chose to use summoned weapons to subdue the perpetrator."

"He grumbled about it a lot," Amelia replied. She lowered her voice. "There is also a rumour going around that Dorea had the Sword of Gryffindor in her hands."

"The only way that could be possible is if Dorea is descended from Godric Gryffindor," replied Fern.

"Well... Salazar Slytherin fathered a child with a Lamia..." Amelia commented.

They both smirked at the sound of someone trying to quietly sneak away.

===/===

Fudge was just sitting down for lunch in the cafe near the Ministry's entrance, when he spotted the head of the DMLE and a guest enter. He was about to invite them to sit with him, when he realised who Madam Bones' companion was. She was with the Dryad who Regulus Black fathered a child with.

He knew Dwllphyrn was a potentially beneficial political ally. She practically ran the organisation 'bringing civilisation to the near-human intelligence magical creatures' as he worded it to the Pure-blood wizard families he 'associated' with. Unfortunately, the fact she wasn't human would make it political suicide for him to (openly) associate with her.

He watched, as the pair ignored the mix of hostile glares and awed stares coming from the other patrons, and took their seats.

Dwllphyrn does look impressive in that beige and black uniform, he admitted to himself.

**hem, hem**

...and with that, Fudge's pleasant lunch was no longer so pleasant...

===/===

(Another time-skip)

Narcissa was looking at the scene in front of her with bemusement.

Renata, Galadriel and Ventris were trying their hardest not to laugh at what was happening to their husband.

Gemini Alpha had found Hiroshi's stash of 'old' (i.e. from the 21st Century) Avengers comics, and she and her sister spent the next half hour trying to convince their CO in authorising 'upgrades' to match Iron Man and War Machine.

% "Even Rescue would be good." % Gemini Beta commented, % "I'd love to have curves again." %

To think that her past-self would never imagine herself having a Lamia as a best friend, let alone watching a pair of cybermen attempting to 'flirt' with a technomancer, trying to convince him that something from a set of muggle children's stories was something they really wanted.

"They know they're children's stories, don't they?" Narcissa asked. "Then again," she looked towards their spaceship, "you based her construction off a set of story books." My ideas of 'normal' have changed so much in the past few months.

A giant shadow passed overhead.

Annnd thinking of normal, she thought. When did I start thinking of a fifty-foot dragon flying overhead not being a threat as something normal?

The frost dragon dropped something on the ground, and transformed itself back into the six-foot-tall woman Narcissa was used to seeing. She was splattered with bloodstains, and picked up the something her dragon-form had dropped. She then dragged it over to her brother with a proud look on her face.

"I've brought back dinner!" Mizuchi happily exclaimed.

"Why does this remind me of when my cat brought me a dead mouse?" Narcissa whispered to Renata.

"Probably because it's so damn similar," she whispered back. "We haven't been going on hunts with her lately, so her mothering instincts are kicking in. Intellectually, she knows we can just buy food from the market, or order something from the fish and chip shop in Ottery St Catchpole, but her instincts still cause her to bring her 'weak squishy brother' food, to make up for his 'inability to catch prey'."

"It's why we usually go on hunts with her on a regular basis," Ventris quietly joined in. "If we didn't, she's be bringing us 'presents' too."

"What is that, anyway?" Narcissa asked.

Ventris scuttled sideways to get a better look. "Ooh! A sharktopus! Those are good eating! Pinky!"

One of the mansion's house-elves appeared. "What can Pinky do for Mistress Ventris?"

"My sister-in-law has been hunting," said Ventris

Pinky's eyes gleamed with excitement. Her master's sister going hunting meant that she and the other house-elves that worked in the kitchen were about to receive another exotic ingredient to challenge them with. It also meant...

"Is Miss Dorea coming for dinner, then?" she not-so-innocently asked. It was no big secret that a number of house-elves working in Sturmdrachen Manor were the surviving former-Potter family house-elves.

Galadriel crouched down, to look her in the eyes. Fae-elf to house-elf. "I'll talk to Hiroshi. I'm pretty certain Mizuchi has caught more than one of those. We just need to convince Cassiopeia's sister to bring it here to cook."

"It's already in the kitchen," said Shizu's quiet voice behind her. "The kids are all with Mr Lupin, near the lake. He's only just noticed the difference between Dorea's and Violet's spell arrays."

"There's a difference?" Narcissa asked. "I could swear they're the exact same shade of pink."

Renata chuckled. "They are. The runes are different. Violet's are Celtic, like Fern's are, and Dorea's are Nordic. She must have had a Rune-priest in her ancestry."

"Speaking of kids," Galadriel commented, while pointedly looking towards the dirt road that led towards the knoll. There was a young blonde girl, somewhere around Venus' age, staring with her mouth open.

===/===

Luna's was following the wrackspurts. Daddy was following up a lead for the Quibbler, Mummy was busy with a potion, and she wanted to explore.

She was finding all sorts of interesting things, from interesting rocks to pretty flowers. She even found a large black-tipped white feather. It was as long as her arm!

"Daddy will find this interesting." She placed the feather in a safe spot near the bridge that crossed the stream, and skipped along the pathway that didn't lead to Ginny's place. She heard there was a centaur village nearby.

She followed the path for a few minutes, picking up 'treasures' as she skipped along. It wasn't long before she heard voices. The wrackspurts suddenly scattered, as a shadow passed overhead. She looked up.

"A dragon," she whispered in awe.

It was carrying something in its claws. She followed its flight as best as she could. Daddy would be so proud, if she could show him a dragon's nest. It was so close to home too! She followed it for a while, but then lost sight of it near a knoll. She decided to keep walking along the path. Maybe she could catch sight of it again.

She pushed aside an overgrown bush, and saw a sight that caused her to drop all of her rocks. There was a spider-centaur! She didn't even know you could get centaurs that weren't the 'regular' kind. There was also a woman who was a snake from the waist down, a fae, a familiar-looking woman with two-toned hair, and a pretty woman in a black dress with a white apron.

They were all laughing at a red-haired man, who just had a strange sea-creature, just as big as he was, dropped in front of him by a pleased-looking red-haired woman. She had wings on her back the same colour as the dragon she followed.

Luna frowned a bit, as the wrackspurts tried to draw her attention to something, but she was distracted by the muggles walking up the driveway.

"Is that little Luna?" the vaguely-familiar woman asked, heading towards her. "What are you doing so far from home, sweetie?"

"I'm exploring," Luna replied. "Did you know there's a dragon nearby? Shouldn't we be hiding everyone from the muggles?"

"There are four dragons nearby at the moment," said the spider-centaur. "Three of them are only a little older than you."

"Why would we need to hide?" asked the snake-woman. "They're only coming to pick their kids up from their classes."

Four? Luna thought. Three of them are still babies? Daddy will be so happy to take pictures of a net for the Quibbler. ...wait... kids?

Luna then heard the sounds of children coming from the path to her right. She turned to see. There were boys and girls of different ages heading towards them. There were also non-human children among the group. This was confusing. Mummy and Daddy always said that muggles were dangerous, and would attack magical creatures on sight. This clearly wasn't happening.

Among the humans, she recognised Draco Malfoy. Oh! The familiar-looking woman was the one her Daddy introduced to her as 'Aunt Cissa' a couple of years ago.

...and Ginny's twin brothers. They were holding hands with twin mini spider-centaurs. She and Ginny were only giggling about Fred and George having girlfriends yesterday. She still couldn't understand why Ginny's Mummy wasn't happy about it. They look so happy. Maybe it was because they hadn't started Hogwarts yet.

The redhead, still smelling of fish, skipped up to the group. "Seafood for dinner!" she grinned.

"I see Mum's a happy dragon today," said a winged redhead girl, with pretty red feathers. She was arm-in-wing with a girl, that had wings instead of 'normal' arms. A harpy, the wrackspurts supplied. Her feathers matched the one she found earlier.

"Is that"

"little Luna?"

"What are"

"you doing"

"so far"

"from home?" Fred and George asked.

Luna looked over at the twins. They really did look cute holding hands with their girlfriends. "I was exploring," she replied. "Did you know? The spider lady said there are four dragons nearby?"

"Did you"

"hear that,"

"Dorea-chan?"

"There are"

"dragons"

"nearby."

Luna tried not to laugh. Fred's and George's girlfriends do the same 'bouncing speech' thing as they do.

The fish-smelling redhead crouched down to look at Luna. "Are you interested in dragons, Luna?"

"My Daddy owns the Quibbler," Luna replied. "If I can find the dragons the spider lady said were near here, Daddy might stay here for a few weeks to study their nest."

"Sorry, sweetie," said the redhead. "The only dragons that live nearby are the dragonewts in the neighbouring village."

"But I saw..."

"You saw me, sweetie," said the woman. "I don't live in a nest."

"Aunt Mizuchi's"

"books would"

"get wet"

"if she"

"lived in"

"a nest."

"I suppose that make sense," conceded Luna. "I wouldn't like wet books either." Her stomach grumbled.

A look of concern appeared on Mizuchi's face. "When did you last eat?"

"Breakfast," Luna replied. "Just before I went exploring."

The adults frowned, and gave each other odd looks. Mizuchi looked back at Luna. "Did you tell your Mummy or Daddy you were exploring?"

"Daddy is away. He had a lead on the Crumple-horned Snorkack. Mummy was working on a potion, and I didn't want to disturb her."

"At least eight hours, by herself," whispered the snake-woman.

"We'll get you something to eat," Mizuchi told Luna. "Then one of us will take you home."

===/===

"Sorry Luna, sweetie. Mummy lost track of time," Pandora had just finished packing away her equipment, when she heard a knock at the door. Who could that be? It's already dark.

CRACK! Pandora jumped back in surprise, as a thin layer of frost formed on the door.

She cautiously opened the door, to find a tall red-haired woman with a dragon-scale cloak at the front gate. Luna was holding her hand, and had her usual 'daydream' expression, and was holding a very long white feather. There was a halberd in the woman's other hand. Tiny snowflakes were still coalescing around its blade. She looked down at the stairs that led up to the door, and tried not to scream. There was a cloaked and masked figure sprawled in an awkward position. His wand arm appeared to be covered in a thick layer of ice.

"Your wards need fixing," the woman said, as if doing whatever it was she did to the masked wizard was nothing more than a minor hex. "At the very least they should be alerting you if someone is entering your property." She then looked pointedly towards Luna. "Or leaving it." She then looked back towards the masked wizard. Pandora could swear one of the woman's eyes changed colour.

Luna let go of the woman's hand and ran up to he Mummy. "Look! I found a harpy feather! I met her on the other side of the woods!"

"You met a harpy?" Pandora asked her daughter. That feather is rather large.

"Fucking son of a [translation unavailable]" swore the woman.

Luna and Pandora gasped at the language. "Mrs Kobayashi! You shouldn't say the f-word," Luna chastised the redhead.

"In this case, it's warranted," Kobayashi raised her head. Pandora saw her eyes change back to matching colours again. "This kusatta kappa kuso was going to use the puppet-master spell to make you have a potions 'accident' and then his employer was going take in poor 'orphaned' Luna."

"Puppet master?" Pandora asked, confused.

"Different spell names. I keep forgetting," Kobayashi replied. "You call it Imperius."

"Xeno!" Pandora gasped. "They're going after Xeno!"

A chime sounded from the ornate bracelet on Kobayashi's wrist, and a series of glowing runes appeared a few inches above her arm. "Luna mentioned her father worked as a wildlife photographer. The ICEP office near Dublin just sent me a report. It seems some of this guy's friends were stupid enough to try and attack your husband while he was near a harpy village." As she wiggled her fingers, the runes seemed to move. "All the noise they made caught the village's attention."

"Thank Merlin, he's okay," Pandora whispered in relief. She then saw three Aurors apparate near her front gate.

Kobayashi gave the masked wizard a bit of a kick, causing him to groan. "Dammit, still alive. If you guys can figure out who he works for, charge them with either attempted bride-theft, or attempted line-theft."

One of the Aurors placed a hand on Kobayashi's shoulder. "Mizuchi Kobayashi, you're under arrest for using unauthorised Legillimancy on a wizard." He lowered his voice to a whisper. "I'm sorry. If you were in uniform, I could have gotten around this."