Harry Potter and the Physical Adept
Chapter 12: Nothing of the Sort
"You're seeing this, right?" Hermione asked, gesturing towards the carriage.
"What about it?" Neville asked, undisturbed.
"It's got… creatures… attached to the harnesses," she said.
"What are you talking about?" Fay asked. "I don't see anything."
"Black, skeletal, kind of like winged horses?" Harry asked.
"Yes, that!" Hermione agreed.
"I don't see anything," Fay said.
"I do," the blonde chimed in blithely.
In the distance, the Keeper of Keys and Grounds called for the first year students to join him away from the other students.
Neither Dia nor Liv seemed to pay the big, hairy lunk any mind.
"Liv, you're supposed to go over there," Hermione said, pointing towards the group of young students amassing near the groundskeeper.
"Why? I was here last semester."
"Not as a student!"
"Don't bother," Harry said. "You'll end up at the feast, just like everybody else anyways. Except for me, I mean; I'm not going to waste my time with off-key singing, food I won't eat and a dog and pony show that exists just to create feuds."
"I like dogs and ponies," Draws in Alcoves said.
"Who doesn't?" Fay asked.
"Why do I have to go?" the dragon protested.
"Did I mention there's a lot of food?" Harry asked.
"I'm hungry," Neville announced, "and I'm out of snacks."
"Fine then, I'll go, but I expect meat afterwards."
"You've just been promised lots of food, and you want more?" Hermione asked, incredulous.
"I like to eat," Liv said with a shrug. "And meat goes in a different stomach. Like cake."
"Do you see the horsies?" Dia asked the dragon-in-a-girl's-body.
"They don't look like they'd be good," she said, food obviously still on her mind. "Way too bony, not enough flesh. I'd try it, though. Maybe barbecued? Sauce or brine would probably help."
Hermione turned towards Harry with an expression pleading for help.
"All right, kids, let's get in," Harry said, opening the door to the coach and climbing inside.
"It looks cramp," Liv remarked, peering inside. "I think I'll ride on top."
"What?" Hermione ejaculated in surprise.
The dragon-in-a-girl's-body was already on the move, taking two steps back before getting a running start and using the carriage step as a launching pad, planting one hand onto the roof of the vehicle and flipping into the air, doing a full rotation and landing lightly on her feet.
"Ooh, me too!" Dia said, reaching up with both hands.
"Here, let me give you a leg up," Harry said, kneeling and cupping his hands together, lacing his fingers together.
"Thanks!" said the blonde, putting her foot on the offered boost and reaching up; with the help of the Boy-Who-Lived and dragon-in-girl's-form, she quickly found herself at the top of the coach and looked around. "Love the view!"
"I know, right?" Liv said before leaning over the edge of the roof and peering into the carriage. "You sure you don't want to come up, Bear?"
"Is it because he's huggable?" asked Draws in Alcoves.
"Is that why Emily called you that?"
Harry shrugged, even as the Ravenclaw and the two Gryffindors boarded. He couldn't answer for somebody who wasn't there, and he certainly wasn't a mind-reader.
"You two might want to hold onto something," said the Hufflepuff, as the coach began to move.
"Wilco," the dragon called back, disappearing back over the edge of the roof. To Dia, she offered an arm. "Milady."
"Thank you," said the blonde, wrapping both arms around the offered limb and leaning against Liv's shoulder.
Only Harry seemed to notice the ceiling of the carriage slowly dent, then tear, as the dragon dug her fingers through it to secure her place on the roof; to Hermione, Neville and Fay, he passed out two-way radios.
"We're going to be using these to stay in touch while we're at Hogwarts, so we're not running around looking for one another," the Hermetic mage announced. "You remember the instructions on how to use these, right? We'll meet up every day for fresh batteries."
The other second-year students nodded, and they were in business.
~ooOoo~
"Olivia Baldursdottir!"
"Olivia Baldursdóttir!" the dragon shouted back, correcting the professor's pronunciation as she slowly rose off the bench where she had taken a seat next to Hermione with the Ravenclaws.
The stern professor glared at the dragon-in-a-girl's-body, and Liv ignored her, sauntering up to the stool with the hat on it, all eyes on her, the hall abuzz with whispers.
"That's Harry Potter's daughter?"
"I wonder if she's anything like Potter."
Taking a seat on the chair, Liv waved at Draws in Alcoves, who was sitting next to Hermione, and the blonde waved back cheerfully.
Then, the hat was placed on her head.
Let's see what we have here, said a disemboweled voice in her head as soon as the hat touched her skin. Wait, you're a…
"Dra…"
The hat started to speak, and in that moment, Liv realized it was about to blow her cover; instantly, Astral power flooded through her, and she forcefully shredded every bit of magic that held the hat together, like how she had seen Harry dispel the magic the strange creature had used to blockade the barrier to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, albeit on a much larger scale and with much more power behind her intent.
The hat never finished its thought; in fact, it simply went limp, and the dragon-in-girl's-form felt something hard hit the top of her head, even as she heard cloth rip apart.
"I don't think 'dra' is one of the houses," Liv said flatly, as gasps filled the hall and the hat toppled off her head. "Also, I think your hat is broken."
It was only then that she noticed the sword sticking through the hat; it must have been the pommel that she had felt.
"Miss Baldursdottir, what have you done?" the stern professor demanded.
"Me? Nothing," lied the dragon, as she stood up. "I'm going to go. Over there. To Hufflepuff. Where Bear is."
The hall erupted into an uproar, particularly the Hufflepuff table.
"There's a bear?!"
"Where? Where?!"
"Run!"
Amidst the panic, Dia sat with a serene smile, eyes distant.
"Shut it!" the dragon roared, loud enough to rattle the windows and chandeliers, instantly quelling the students into silence. "There's no real bear here; that's just what I call my dad. Now sit your arses down so we can get this over with and to the food I was promised."
"Miss Baldursdottir, a student does not get to choose their House!" called the stern professor as Liv walked away from the stool.
"I just did," the dragon said defiantly without looking back. "What are you going to do about it, expel me? You didn't expel dad, and he flunked Charms, Transfiguration and Flying."
The murmurs grew even louder at that revelation.
The stern professor started to say something but was stopped by the beardy man in the tall hat and garish robes, who raised a hand as he stood up, quelling the murmuring among the students.
"Miss Baldurdottir, you may join Hufflepuff," he announced, plainly trying to regain some measure of control over the proceedings.
"I wasn't asking permission," Liv countered, and the whispers returned in increased volume.
"We'll continue the Sorting after the feast," the beardy man continued.
"Screw that!" shouted one of the first year students. "I'm going to Gryffindor!"
With that, the orderly queue of youngsters awaiting their turn at the stool fragmented as the students dispersed, deciding for themselves where they wanted to go.
Pausing at the Ravenclaw table, Liv offered Dia her arm. "If Milady would care to join me."
"Of course," said the blonde serenely, standing up and wrapping both of her own around the dragon-in-girl's-form's arm. "Milord."
Together, the two went to the Hufflepuff table and sat down, while other first year students found their own seats, completely ignoring the bearded wizard still trying to gain some measure of control, even as the stragglers found places for themselves.
The beardy man said a bunch of things, but the dragon wasn't paying attention to him; instead, she was focused on the girl draped around her arm, her head resting on her shoulder.
It felt nice.
Then, the table was suddenly full of food, and she was shoveling it onto her plate, en route to her mouth.
~ooOoo~
"Get out!"
Roger Malone was taken aback at the appearance of the girls at the door of the room he shared with Harry Potter, particularly the girl who was Harry's daughter demanding he leave.
"But, this is my room!" Roger protested.
"And Bear is my dad," Liv argued. "And I'm going to stay with my dad."
"I'm sorry, she can be a bit of a brat," Harry said, not really apologizing.
"But this is the boys' dormitory!" Roger continued, ignoring the non-apology.
Harry placed a hand on Roger's shoulder.
"Don't worry, I'll go," said the Boy-Who-Lived. "You're already half unpacked, and it's not like there aren't a bunch of unused rooms down here."
"But… this is the boys' dormitory!" Roger reiterated.
"If they didn't want girls in here, they'd have put up the same charms that stop boys going into the girl's dormitories," Harry reasoned.
"Besides, you'll have a room to yourself," the Boy-Who-Lived continued. Then, to Liv and Dia, "Let's see if we can't find a place to stay."
It took the trio less than ten minutes to find accommodations, a fully-furnished two-bed unit with an en suite bath.
"You girls take the beds, I'll sleep on the floor," Harry said, as the door closed behind them.
"We could put the beds together and make one giant bed," Dia suggested.
"Full disclosure, I sleep naked," Harry said.
"Me too," Draws in Alcoves said. "How about that?"
"Yeah, let's do that," Liv agreed, single-handedly picking up the furniture and moving it without help from either the boy or the girl.
Within a few minutes, the room had been rearranged, the headboards of the beds pushed together against the wall furthest from the door, dressers and desks on either side of the sleeping arrangement in a symmetrical design.
"I'm going to get comfy," the dragon-in-a-girl's-body announced, before promptly shedding her robe-like duster, unbuttoning her cardigan with one hand while she loosened her necktie with her other, tossing it into a heap with the duster. Besides her, the blonde did the same, and in just a matter of a few short moments, the rest of Liv's clothes had joined the pile on the floor, as had Dia's.
"Tickle fight!" announced blonde promptly, tackling Liv onto the bed; within a moment of impact, though, the dragon-in-girl's-form had the girl pinned face down to the mattress, one arm twisted behind her back, forcing her hand towards her neck in a vicious hammerlock and making her squeal in pain as the dragon torqued her shoulder.
"Remember, she's only human," Harry said.
"Right," the dragon said, letting go of the girl's arm. "I'm sorry, I tend to forget people are squishy."
"You're not just a girl, are you?" Dia asked, massaging her shoulder. "And you can use magic, can't you, Tolliver?"
"Are you sticking around?" he asked, and the blonde nodded vigorously. "Well, then, I guess you're going to find out one way or another."
"Might as well tell her, right?" Liv said. "It's not like we can hide it forever, and she doesn't have a treacherous bone in her body, so we can trust her."
"How would you know that?" the Hermetic mage asked.
"Read her mind," Liv said matter-of-factly.
Sitting next to her on the bed, Dia's remained serene, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"How do you even know how to do that?" the boy asked.
"The beardy man in the weird clothes was doing it to students; I just copied what I saw," answered the dragon-in-girl's-form.
"Well, don't ever do that to a friend without permission," Harry said. "It's an invasion of privacy; how would you like if a friend started rooting in your thoughts and memories without asking first?"
"I wouldn't like it at all," Liv said, understanding the point Harry was making. "But she wasn't a friend at the time."
"That's a fair point, actually," Harry admitted. "Just don't do it to friends without asking first?"
"Okay, I'll ask for permission," the dragon agreed.
"Good," said the Boy-Who-Lived, before turning towards Dia. "You know what a 'blood oath' is?" he asked.
"It's an oath that involves blood?" Dia guessed. "Like an Unbreakable Vow?"
"I don't know what that is," the Hermetic mage said. "It's something normal people used to do in ancient times to create pacts that bind."
"That sounds interesting," Draws in Alcoves said, nodding sagely. "I'll make a blood oath with you; just show me how."
"Knife?" Liv requested, and Harry took his switchblade out his pocket, tossing it to the dragon, who caught it. "Hands?"
Harry extended a hand, face up, and the blonde did likewise; flipping open the knife, Liv ran the blade across their palms, drawing blood, before taking and pressing together.
"Swear you'll keep our secrets," the dragon-in-girl's-form told the blonde.
"I swear I'll keep all your secrets," Dia said solemnly. Then, she asked brightly, "What are your secrets?"
"I'm a Hermetic mage," Harry said, forming the prana mudra before incanting, "Creo corporem."
Quickly, the cuts across the palms of the two children healed over.
"I'm a dragon," Liv added. "A Norwegian Ridgeback."
"That makes sense," Dia said without missing a beat. Then, a grin broke across her lips and she tackled the dragon onto the bed again. "Tickle fight!"
Liv broke into giggles as the blonde lightly ran her fingers up her sides, then shrieked involuntarily as Dia's fingers grazed her armpits. Without relenting, Draws in Alcoves continued her assault until the dragon was squirming and laughing uncontrollably.
"That's it, now you've done it!" the dragon gasped, as the blonde broke from her assault for a moment to lazily stroke Liv's belly, giving her the instant she needed to recover.
Hooking one of Dia's arms, Liv rolled her over and wrestled her to the mattress, once again putting her in a hammerlock, though not as tightly as before. With her free hand, the dragon ran a finger over the blonde's spine, making her squirm, then began to lightly tickle her sides, filling the air with giggles.
Meanwhile, Harry was unpacking Liv's satchel, filling one of the dressers with her clothes and organizing the rest of her things, particularly her electronics, on a ready-to-assemble shelf he had put together while the girls were tickling each other, making sure to plug each item into a surge protector he wired into a petrol-fueled power generator in the back corner of the room.
As the boy began to etch runes and symbols into the generator with a diamond-tipped stylus, Liv and Dia lazed around in the bed, luxuriating the afterglow of their tickling party, covered in a thin sheen of sweat.
"What are you doing?" asked Draws in Alcoves, watching Harry with interest.
"A petrol-fueled generator produces fumes that are dangerous to breathe," Harry explained. "The one in the kitchen's already been enchanted with purification runes, but I haven't had time to do this one until now."
"I bet you'd be great at Ancient Runes," the blonde said, stretching languidly like a cat.
There was an instant of silence; then, Harry said to the blonde girl trying to sneak up to him, "Touch me, and I'll break your fingers."
"I'm all sweaty, so I'm going to take a shower," Liv announced, sitting up.
"Me too!" Dia said, scampering back over to the Norwegian Ridgeback ..
Hand-in-hand, the dragon and the girl skipped to the bathroom; a moment later, the sound of running water and laughter echoed, and it was then that the Hermetic mage realized they hadn't closed the door behind them, and would likely fill the bedroom with steam.
~ooOoo~
"Something smells yummy," Dia commented as she and Liv came out of the bathroom to the plates and plates of food laid out on the bed, toweling their hair dry.
"Itadakimasu," Liv said, picking up a skewer from a plate and tearing into the food on the bamboo with her teeth. "You've been busy, I see."
"What is this?" the blonde asked, picking up a skewer herself.
"Ika geso karaage," the Hermetic mage and the dragon answered at the same time.
"Of course it is," said Draws in Alcove, taking a big bite out of the skewer. "It's good."
"You don't know what that is, do you?" the dragon asked.
"It's yummy," Dia said, happily eating another bite from the skewer.
"They're deep fried squid tentacles," Harry said.
"They're delicious," reiterated the girl, picking up a breaded and fried piece from a different plate and popping it into her mouth. "This is yummy too."
Liv was busy stuffing her mouth, taking different snacks from various plates and gobbling them up eagerly.
"Slow down, there's plenty to go around," the boy said, gesturing at the plates piled high with food—some fried, some grilled and some raw—that covered the two beds pushed together.
"What's this?" Dia asked, picking up a thin, flimsy brown strip that had a layer white inside it.
"Lo shui ju yee," Harry answered, even as the girl took a bite out of it. "Pig's ear in braised Chinese master sauce."
"It's crunchy," said the blonde with a smile, before eating a piece of chicken karaage. "Is this chicken?"
"Chicken karaage," Liv agreed.
"If you eat like this every day, I'm going to love living here," Dia said with a content smile, as she ate a piece of fried, breaded meat. "Pork?"
"Tonkatsu."
"It's super yummy."
"Bear's the best," the dragon remarked, clearing another plate into her mouth.
Noticing Harry hadn't touched any of the food but was working on something else, Dia asked, "Whatcha doin'?"
"Well, people don't know we're living here now, so I thought I'd make a sign for our names," said the Hermetic mage, showing the piece of white chipboard he had been writing on. "Just need your name for it."
"Sure, give it to me," said the girl, and the boy complied, handing her the paper and a permanent marker.
She wrote her name in large, loopy letters, then handed both the card and pen back to Harry. "There you go, Amadeus."
"It's a pleasure," the Hermetic mage said, and the girl shook his hand for the first time. "I'm going to go tape this up on the door."
"You do that," said the girl, as she picked up another piece of chicken karaage.
Letting himself out of the room without opening the door too wide, Harry pulled a roll of duct tape out of his haversack and affixed the namecard to the door at eye level, making sure it was straight and centered before he taped all four sides of the placard to the wood of the door, burnishing it down with his sleeve and the heel of his palm.
~ooOoo~
The new Hufflepuff prefect strolled down the boys' dormitory hall in the first of what he expected would be a nightly walkthrough. It was only the first night, so he did not expect any excitement, just students settling into their rooms.
He almost missed the placard, attached to the door with some kind of silvery-gray tape, and he hurried over towards it; after all, the room wasn't supposed to be occupied, but he could hear the faint sound of talking and laughter coming from behind it.
When he got close enough to read what was written on what was clearly a nameplate, he felt his stomach drop and the beginnings of a headache form as his brain slowly comprehended what his eyes saw on the placard, the last line of which was written in a loopy, girly hand:
Harry Potter
Olivia Baldursdóttir
Luna Lovegood
It was going to be a long year.
Author's Notes: It's got to be hard, for Hermione to be seeing the thestrals so young into her life, but she did see a troll get burned to death and Quirrell get dusted.
Things tend to get physically destroyed in this story; I can't help it, it's just way more fun and interesting when something signature and seemingly significant goes the way to "I done a whoopsy."
Teaching a dragon magic was always a dangerous gambit; teaching her how to take apart magic makes her even more dangerous. If anything, Liv may already be one of the most powerful magical entities in existence by virtue of her ability to observe magic and then repeat it back in a variety of forms and power levels. If anything, Harry raising Liv is not unlike a human child trying to raise a newborn god, teaching them about people, and Harry is kind of raising Liv into a violent, vengeful god, which wasn't his plan.
I honestly don't know where the Sword of Gryffindor is normally stored; I just remember it being pulled out of the Sorting Hat in the original version of the story, and for that reason, my brain kind of just assumed the Sorting Hat also kind of doubles as some sort of Bag of Holding, so I thought it'd be an interesting visual to have it just kind of all out of the hat immediately after its magic was rent asunder.
Liv has the same kind of contemptuous attitude towards authority as Harry, except she also has the confidence of knowing she absolutely has the firepower, physical and magical, required to back up her intentions.
I figured, once the first-year students saw one student pick a house for themselves, it would be completely within the realm of reason for them to decide they want to pick their own houses too; it's kind of a snowball effect, started by Liv, and then the first-year Gryffindor making their choice kind of that sealed the deal of first-year students just deciding where they want to go, completely ignoring what a sorting might be, and once the students decide for themselves where they want to go, with only a limited amount of staff and no Sorting Hat, the staff would be hard-pressed to justify the time and resources required for sitting down to interview them all one-by-one, especially if the students themselves picked houses that suit them.
Poor Roger. First, he was Harry's errand boy, and now he's got a dragon trying to kick him out of his own dorm room. Lucky for him, it's a giant castle, so of course it'd stand to reason there would be abandoned bedrooms just like there are abandoned classrooms.
Harry not really caring about a stranger stripping buck naked in his room is pretty on par for the cyberpunk genre and his love of it, along with his own lack of understanding regarding certain social conventions; in Cyberpunk 2020, one of the fashion choices a character can randomly roll for their character is nude. It might weird others out, but for him, it's not big deal. Plus, as he's constantly reminding Hermione, he's seen "more and better".
In my original outline for the series, Luna Lovegood was not intended to be a major character; hell, I had originally wanted to just skip over the character because I didn't like the non-sequitur manner which she is often written. However, as I wrote more of Hermetic Arts and Physical Adept, I came to realize this version of Harry is absolutely a horrible role model and parental figure, and Liv needs a more "human" element in her life, and so, instead of having Harry foist her off onto Colin as I had originally intended, I brought in Luna Lovegood as a primary character, but rather than go with the wacky version popular in so many other stories, I chose instead to focus on her acceptance of things as they are, her ability to just go with the flow, her unflappable serenity and her artsy interests, and paired her with the dragon as a way to show Liv what exactly a more "normal" human childhood is like, since Harry's version wasn't exactly normal. Some things that have happened thus far may seem off-kilter for the character (or any child), but I do think I have things set up down the line that will illuminate why certain things are the way they are for her.
That said, her identity wasn't meant to be a mystery; it's just, her real name never came up, since Harry is completely fine with calling people by names they make up themselves, and Liv takes a lot of her cues from her adopted father. This speaks to Harry's willingness to accept people for who they want to present themselves as, as long as they're not trying to hurt him, because personal identity is one of the themes of cyberpunk, so it stands to reason he'd respect that.
Once again, many, many thanks to my long-suffering editor, Romantically Distant, for all their hard work. And now you've read this chapter, feel free to leave a review or just PM me.