Chapter 44
"Marco, my friend!"
Marco only barely flinched as Harry slid from the shadows and clapped him on the shoulder. He sighed. "Do I even want to know how you got in? And the reason you can never just use the door?"
Harry smiled. "How do you know I didn't use the door?"
"I believe you once told me that doors are for the weak."
"Then you already know why I didn't use the door!" Harry matched Marco's pace, his footsteps silent against the mansion's carpeted floor. "Anyway, I'm here for a reason."
Marco glanced him up and down. "I guessed that from the blood splatters."
"That's not the reason. I was just doing you a favour. And it makes me look cool and intimidating."
"A favour?"
"Yes, I just killed the Malacetti family's heir."
Marco paused. "What?"
"I just killed the Malacetti family's heir. I thought you'd be pleased, what with all of your mobster rivalry."
"But why did you kill him?"
"Well, it's a long story." Harry paused. "It's not actually that long, to be honest. I was looking for a book in their library—"
"You broke into their heavily guarded mansion to look for a single book in their library?"
"Are you honestly surprised? That sounds like exactly the kind of thing I would do. Except it would be more humorous. But it wasn't. Largely because most people don't find it funny when I kill people. Anyway, I was looking for a book—a one of a kind book—and Mario Malacetti wanders in. You can probably guess what happened next."
"You killed him and burnt the house down, wiping out the rest of the Malcetti family in the process?"
Harry frowned at him. "No, of course not. If I killed all of them, you'd have no one to compete against and might get bored. That's what happened to me, and everyone's quite lucky I haven't begun a mago-nuclear apocalypse yet. I am, however, thinking of starting a new religion, to find myself."
"The others aren't fun enough for you, I suppose?"
"No, whilst I'm a big fan of the smitings, and so on, most religions have gotten ever so dull since they stopped practising the fun bits."
"Do I want to know what the fun bits were?"
"Honour killings, crusades, witch burnings, persecuting people of other religions—you know, the fun stuff," Harry said. "Anyway, as I was saying before I went off on a tangent, I was looking for a book."
"What kind of book?" came a female voice from the other side of the room.
"Believe it or not, Maria, I was about to elaborate on that, before you so rudely interrupted," Harry said, and then lapsed into silence.
Maria blinked. "I thought you said you were going to elaborate."
"I was going to but I get obnoxious when I'm offended."
Marco rolled his eyes. "You're always obnoxious."
"Only when I'm around you. Your mere presence offends me, you filthy criminal."
"Your disapproval cuts me to the very bone. I will cry myself to sleep tonight."
"First of all, you're nowhere near as funny or good at sarcasm as me. Second of all, you probably do that whenever I'm not there to hold you close." Harry turned his gaze to Maria as she laughed. "You laugh to hide your pain. I know your heart aches for me, mainly because everyone who has ever met me's heart aches for me. I'm beginning to think I'm some kind of male Veela. Or a sex vampire. Or a sex alien." He frowned. "Oddly enough, that brings me back to what I was talking about."
Marco arched an eyebrow. "You were searching for a book about sex vampires in the Malacetti family's library?"
"No, I was searching for books about magical creatures in the library, and sex vampires are magical creatures."
"I'm not sure that sex vampires exist."
"That's what they want you to think," Harry said, tapping his temple. "A while ago, I came upon a rumour surrounding the origins of Parseltongue—you know, speaking to snakes."
"We're not complete idiots."
"Sorry, assuming that everyone else is retarded makes me feel better about myself. Anyway, as far as most know, Salazar Slytherin was the origin of the language. These rumours indicate otherwise. That Salazar inherited his ability." Harry paused dramatically.
Marco sighed. "Do I need to ask who he inherited it from?"
"Yes."
"Who did he inherit it from?"
"Dragons."
Maria gaped. "Dragons?"
"Dragons."
"But how?"
"Dragons."
"Is that all you're going to say?"
"Dragons," Harry said. "Dragons and volcanoes."
"How do volcanoes relate to this in any way?"
"The furthest back I could trace Slytherin's line is to a dragon and Vesuvius."
"When you say Vesuvius—"
Harry interrupted Marco before he could finish his question. "Yes, I do mean the volcano."
"How does a dragon—"
"—have sex with a volcano? With great prowess, I assume, from the way that the volcano's orgasm destroyed Pompeii."
Marco scratched his chin. "Was there a spirit occupying the volcano or something?"
"I don't know the specifics. I just know that they somehow had descendants and the sex was presumably very kinky and hot." Harry chuckled to himself.
Maria stepped forward "I think a better line of questioning to pursue would be how dragons were…" She hesitated. "How dragons were mating with humans."
Marco smiled. "You can discuss your sexual fantasies with Harry later. I'm more eager to know why Parselmouths can't speak to dragons if they're apparently descended from a dragon."
"It was a different race of dragon."
"I assume that race of dragon is now extinct, because of its habit of mating with volcanoes."
"Yep, I think they all either died, or flew back to their own planet."
Marco nodded. "Of course."
"Wait," said Maria. "Their own planet?"
Harry frowned. "Didn't I mention they were space dragons? Or maybe they were space dragons. That's why I was looking for books chronicling them. I thought that the Malacettis might have one, what with their relationship with Pompeii. But alas, it was not to be. "
"So what's the favour you came to me for?" asked Marco.
"Oh, I need a book on wards."
Maria blinked. "What?"
Harry stood from where he had sat and made his way for another corridor, that he knew led to the Aureliuses' library. "I need a book on wards."
"But what about the dragons?"
With a laugh, Harry turned to Marco. "Has she always been this gullible and I didn't notice or is this a new development?"
"I'm worried that if I say yes you'll start visiting me more."
Harry turned back to Maria. "Unfortunately, the alien sex dragons don't exist. I just made that all up in an attempt to make the voice in my head laugh. You see, he's been giving me the silent treatment because I keep procrastinating on our plan to use a magic alien stone to create a worldwide ward which will detect alien invasions." He smiled. "And that brings us back to why I'm here!"
With that, he spun on his heel and made off towards the library again.
Marco fell in step beside him. "I'm not sure you're going to find a book about making alien wards in our library."
"Of course not—I checked yesterday. But I'm going to find your hidden room, in which you contain your safe, in which you contain all of your secret black market contacts. I'm hoping to find out the location of a certain trader who your friend Mario told me bought Ye Olde Booke Ofe Wardse."
Marco raised an eyebrow. "Sure they still have it? Traders don't tend to keep their goods."
Harry smiled. "Don't worry—luck is my best trait."
'Will you talk to me now, Loki?'
'I'll consider it.'
'Thanks.'
'You're welcome.'
Harry glanced around. 'How the hell am I supposed to find a vampire in a city this large?'
'With great skill.'
'Or I could just ask the first person I see whether they know of any hot vampires who happen to be nearby.'
'You could indeed do that.'
Whistling, Harry wandered over to a couple talking to each other in Italian about something irrelevant. "Hello," he interrupted in Italian. "Have you seen any vampires around?"
Both of them looked confused.
Harry sighed and walked away. 'She's obviously used her sex vampire powers to wipe their minds of her presence.'
'When did she evolve into a sex vampire?'
'Have we ever met a vampire who isn't sexy?'
'I think you just killed all the ones who aren't sexy.'
'Survival of the fittest, my friend. I am Darwin's scythe.'
Ambling along the street, Harry glanced at the falling sun. It would be night soon. "Perhaps we should've just arranged a meeting with her."
A man shot him an odd look as he went past.
Loki's illusion materialised and fell into step beside him. "You're far too impatient for that."
"And we need to surprise the vampire."
"Is that why you're wandering around asking people about vampires and seemingly talking to yourself?"
Harry frowned. "I didn't say anything about not drawing any attention to myself—I'm too much of an attention-seeker for that. I'm just tricking the vampire into thinking I'm a rubbish vampire hunter, when I am in fact a competent everything hunter."
"Which you've just announced to the world."
Harry waved his hand dismissively. "It's a double bluff."
"And now a triple bluff. Or quadruple. I've lost count."
"Are you out there, sexy vampire? Because I promise not to kill you."
"I'm not sure that's ever worked."
"There's a first time for everything," Harry said. "That said, I think we should probably set up a trap."
"Indeed," Loki said. "But maybe, during the processing of planning the trap, you should not continue speaking to yourself?"
"What a ridiculous idea. Who plans things these days?"
A few hours later, Harry found himself sitting in a spinny chair, slowly turning back and forth in the absolute darkness. He pulled a sheet of paper from the desk and briefly skimmed over it before adding it to the ever-growing pile on the floor.
"Why are none of these pieces of paper books about wards?" Harry asked, opening a drawer.
'The font would probably be too small,' Loki said. 'Maybe try going over to the bookshelf again.'
Harry had tried earlier but found that the spinny chair he was sitting on had difficulty mounting the rug that sat in his way. Then he'd decided that it was probably hidden somewhere else and that to stand up would be wasted effort. He could just wait for the vampire to come home. Luckily the inverse to vampires not being able to enter people's homes uninvited did not apply.
"I can hear you out there, by the way!" he yelled to the darkness.
Movement flickered in the corridor and then a figure stood frozen in the doorway, trapped by the ward Harry had set up. It had its mouth wide open, baring bright, white fangs. Combined with its wide open arms and flashing claws, it looked like a taxidermied bear. Less furry, though. Perhaps a tad more murderous.
"Hi, friend. I'd tell you I'm sorry for the intrusion but I can't really remember being sorry for anything ever and someone told me people would like me more if I was honest more often."
The vampire remained silent, probably due to the fact that she was frozen. She had quite a lot to say, judging by her frantically moving eyes. Her feline pupils darted about looking for any escape. Or blood—vampires were easily distracted.
"What you're probably thinking is something along the lines of, 'Why are you in my house? Why have you turned my chair into a spinny chair?'" He stood up and wandered over to her. "There's a simple answer to both of those questions: I'm Harry Potter."
The vampire probably would have clapped if it could have.
"I realise that that doesn't actually really tell you anything, but isn't being suspenseful fun? More fun than being suspended in mid-air at least!" He laughed to himself.
The vampire, suspended in mid-air, didn't seem as amused.
"Anyway, I understand that you have the extremely valuable book Aedificare Murum written by Ronald Tuba," he said. "Not ring a bell? Talks about building a ward scheme big enough to cover a country—or maybe even a planet—to keep out illegal aliens? Nod with your eyes if you know what I'm talking about."
To Harry's disappointment, the vampire didn't nod.
"This means we're going to have to do the things the hard way, and you're not going to like the hard way."
'You haven't decided what the hard way is yet, have you?' Loki said.
Harry ignored him. He waved his hand and the bookshelf on the wall slid to the side, revealing the safe behind it. He clicked his fingers and the vampire collapsed to the floor. Immediately it tried to turn and dash from the room, but bounced off an invisible wall.
As it turned, snarling, Harry waved his wand. "Fiendfyre!"
A dark fire came raging from his wand, blooming up and splashing against the ceiling. It turned and raced towards the floor before suddenly halting, and slowly retreating until it was a large fireball, with dark shapes writhing just under the surface.
"Are you crazy?" the vampire hissed. "You'll kill us both."
"That's right!" exclaimed a grinning Harry, his arm shaking slightly. "I'm actually pretty trash at this spell and if I don't cancel it in the next twenty seconds it's going to break free."
"You won't." She didn't look so confident.
"You'll find out for sure if you don't open the safe and get me the book."
"It's not here."
"Then I guess we're all going to burn. That's a shame. I always imagined myself dying in a cold, dark alleyway with some hobos or politicians or prostitutes. This is far too classy for my tastes." He shrugged. "Well, we can't always get what we want."
The vampire seemed to realise she was defeated and rushed over to the safe. A moment's magic and it was unlocked and she was thrusting a hefty tome into Harry's hands. It floated up in front of him and magic flickered through the pages.
'Looks legitimate,' Harry said.
'You've never seen this book before. How would you know?'
'I'm really smart, you know. It smells old. Why would it smell old if it wasn't old? And the book we're looking for is old.' Harry flipped the book closed. 'It also says the title on the front.'
"Can you stop the fiendfyre now?"
Harry glanced at her. "Oh, right." He looked at the raging inferno at the tip of his wand. "I can't really do that."
"What?!"
"Well fiendfyre really conflicts with my calm, icy nature, so bringing it back in doesn't ever really go well. It, like, explodes everything." He shrugged. "That's just life I guess." He wiggled the fire around a bit. "You could make me a Portkey to the North Pole, I suppose?"
The runic ward scheme lay sprawled across the floor in front of Harry. He frowned at it. "It just occurred to me—why are we trusting some ancient magic that we aren't even sure work?"
Loki's visage shrugged. "I suppose anything written in Latin just seems trustworthy."
"But shouldn't new magic, like, build on old magic and be better?"
"If magic made sense, it wouldn't be magic."
Harry snorted. "Alright, Professor Dumbledore," he said. "Come to think of it, we should probably ask Dumbledore about the possible negative side effects of this."
"That would probably be the smart thing—"
Harry slotted the Tesseract into its place in the centre. Blue light rushed from it, flowing down the lines painted on the floor. The air hummed with power and the light swelled, pulsing more and more rapidly. Then it receded to only a slight glow and all was calm.
Harry frowned. "I was hoping it would explode. Then I'd have something to do."
"Since it works you do have something to do: track down and eradicate all threats to the Earth. The alien and magical ones at least. I don't think your world-saver ward will detect global warming—though you could probably just fight that by not releasing fiendfyre in the North Pole."
"What, and let the polar bears live on to continue stealing humanity's fish?"
"Perhaps you should tell Fury to get his satellites to spy on them, to ensure they aren't planning anything nefarious."
Harry hummed. "Nah, I'll just get him to get America to stop stopping climate change."
"What could possibly go wrong?"
A/N: Sorry guys, forgot to update last week.
