Harry Potter and the Physical Adept
Chapter 19: Shadows of War
Harry couldn't remember much of the dream, only that, in it, Hermione was in his personal space and not much else, softly whispering words in his ears that he couldn't quite comprehend in a sultry voice closer to Grace's than her own, her fingers lightly caressing his skin.
Then, he awoke, tumescent, a sticky puddle on his belly.
He rushed to the shower to clean himself off, but the cold water did little to make the swelling go away; in the end, he had to relieve himself twice more before it finally returned to normal.
He didn't have any romantic feelings towards his best friend; in fact, he didn't have much in the way of feelings at all. What he appreciated the most about her wasn't her appearance, even though he would freely admit he found her physically attractive in a nerdy librarian kind of way, but as he had told her repeatedly, he had seen more and better, especially now that Liv alone gave him an eyeful every single day.
What he appreciated the most about her was her intelligence and inquisitive mind, even if she never seemed to want to do more with what she learned than keep it in a neatly categorized little box in the library of her mind.
But that wasn't the context in which he had dreamed about her, and that left him bewildered.
~ooOoo~
Harry hadn't expected to see Hermione until Friday for Shadowrun, so when she showed to Bourne's Comics and Games Thursday morning, he had not exactly prepared himself to face her for the first time since having a wet dream about her.
"I wrote alumni like you suggested," announced the Ravenclaw as she sat down at the table opposite the Boy-Who-Lived. "It took me nearly fifty letters, but I think I found out when the Chamber of Secrets was last opened."
"Yeah, when was that?" asked the Hufflepuff, distractedly.
"In Forty-Two," Hermione said, before stopping and studying the boy for a moment. Then, she suddenly snapped her fingers in front of his face, making him start in surprise.
"Yeah, I'm listening," he said.
"What's the matter?" the Ravenclaw demanded. "Am I boring you?"
"It's not like that," Harry said.
"It certainly looks that way," Hermione huffed.
"Really, it's not like that," insisted the Hermetic mage.
"Then what is it like?" asked the bushy-haired girl.
"You really don't want to know."
"No, I do. I want to hear your excuses."
"I had a dream about you the other night," Harry said softly.
"You had a dream about me?" Hermione asked, and Harry nodded. "What was I doing in that dream?"
"It was, uh, an erotic dream," mutter the Hermetic mage.
"Oh," said the girl, before blushing furiously when she fully comprehended what he meant. "Oh! And I was…?"
"Very."
"Did I…?"
"A little bit, yeah…"
"And did you…?"
"Oh yeah."
A really awkward silence descended upon the pair, the girl bright red and the boy shifting uncomfortably in his seat.
Finally, the Hermetic mage decided there had been enough silence and asked, "So, what'd you find out about the Chamber of Secrets?"
"What about my Chamber of Secrets?" asked the Ravenclaw, flustered.
"The Chamber of Secrets," corrected the Hufflepuff. "What did you find out about it?"
"Oh, that!" Hermione said, flushing an even deeper shade of red. "According to a few of the people who wrote back, many students were petrified during the forty-two/forty-three school year, with a single fatality in Myrtle Warren; they didn't mention the Chamber of Secrets, but the petrification of the students matches the petrification of the cat and the girl who was with Colin."
"Did they ever catch a perpetrator?" Harry asked.
"A few of the answers named Rubeus Hagrid as being expelled for hiding an acromantula," said the Ravenclaw, frowning, "but I've never read anything about acromantulas being able to petrify their victims."
"Sounds like a stitch up, then," said the Hermetic mage. "If I was covering up a series of almost-murders, that's what I'd do, find a berk to take the fall while I got away with it, and the trog sounds like the perfect fall guy if he was stupid enough to try to hide a giant magic spider on Hogwarts grounds."
"I couldn't find anything else about the Chamber of Secrets or the Beast of Slytherin," Hermione said, consulting her notes. "I tried asking Madam Pince for help, but she told me she was forbidden to assist any kind of research on those subjects."
"So, nothing new there," Harry said, and Hermione nodded. "If that's the case, I'd begin by looking at the final victim, Myrtle Warren, and then work my way back through the timeline of the attacks. Maybe that'll give a clue as to where the Chamber is."
"I think there's a ghost named Moaning Myrtle who haunts the second-floor girl bathroom," the Ravenclaw remarked. "Maybe that's related, maybe it's not, but that's where I think I'll start."
"You do that," said the Hermetic mage, as he checked his watch. "I've got a meeting I need to be at."
~ooOoo~
"Hey kid, are you lost?"
Meeting on the waterfront had been Harry's idea; it had given him clear lines of sight to the rendezvous to scout from, and when he was certain his contact was arriving without a tail, he went to meet him, leaving Liv in overwatch with an assault rifle.
"Do you still have that Glock I asked you to get rid of?" Harry asked.
"I held onto it; I thought I might need some leverage."
"Well, it's useless as that; there are no bodies that'll match it, not unless you've used it since."
"You look different."
"It's amazing what a good wig and some silicone prosthetics can do."
"You have the money?"
"You got the goods?"
"Twenty Claymore mines, twenty-five pounds of Semtex, a hundred feet of detcord, two dozen detonators and blasting caps, an MSG90, a Barrett M82, a half-dozen Glock 19s and a couple Walther PPKs, and sound suppressors, flash hiders, scopes, tripods and five hundred rounds of ammunition to match."
"Let's see them."
The German arms dealer opened up the back of the panel van he had arrived in, and Harry took the time to examine every item before he tossed him a small bag of coins.
"We agreed on thirty-five thousand pounds," Karl said.
"That's forty-five thousand pounds, in gold so it can't be traced, for your troubles," said the boy.
"In that case, it's a pleasure doing business with you."
"Likewise."
"Tell me, though, are you planning to go hunting a tank with that stuff?"
"Something like that, but not even close. Just keep in touch, since I might need to make another order somewhere down the line."
"Will do. You might be a kid, but I'm serious when I say this: you're my favorite customer."
"Yeah? How's that?"
"Deals with you always go smooth, and you always pay me extra."
"It's good to keep your friends happy."
~ooOoo~
Harry was nodding along to "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang", from the album The Chronic that Shaun had given him for Christmas, cleaning the safe house kitchen with industrial-strength degreaser, when the phone rang, and he paused his Discman, meaning to pick up the phone, but Liv got to it before he did.
"Bear, phone!" the dragon called from the living room, and Harry put down the scrubber he had been using on the countertop, taking off his rubber gloves and leaving them on the sink before carefully washing his hands and going to the living room to pick up the telephone.
"Speaking," said the Hermetic mage.
"Uh, Harry, mother found out about the tattoo, and now she's really angry and demanding to speak with your guardians," said the voice on the other end of the phone
"I'm sorry, who's this?" Harry asked.
"Oh, right, it's me, Miles."
"Okay, Miles," said the Hermetic mage. "Why don't we all meet at the Soykaf Source tomorrow morning before the train back to Hogwarts? It's right across the street from the Leaky Cauldron, about a thirty-minute walk or a ten-minute cab ride away from King's Cross and Platform Nine and Three Quarters."
There was a muffled conversation away from the telephone, before Myla returned to the other end of the call. "Mother says she'll be there to give you a piece of her mind."
"Well, then, I'd rather get it all out of the way at once, so I'll try to organize it so everybody will be there at the same time. Seven-thirty work for her?"
The conversation away from the phone restarted, before the Slytherin said, "She says yes."
"All right then, I'll see her then."
It took Harry another half-hour to finish arranging the next morning's meetings with his circle and their parents, and only then did he make one last call.
"Hey, Pace, it's me, Harry."
"Oh, hey, Harry. What can I do for you?"
"Are you busy tomorrow morning? I kind of need a favor."
"You saved my life, so I'll always be there whenever you need me."
"I need you tomorrow morning, starting at six; will that get in the way of your job in construction?"
"I quit that job mid-November, and I've been doing what you suggested since. I get to make my own hours, and it pays way better too."
"What about the danger and illegal aspects?"
"I don't have a problem with illegal, just immoral and unethical."
"But you're smuggling for, well, people of ill repute."
"I'm very selective about my clients, and through them, I'm finding ways to help take out the scum of the Earth wherever I find them."
"That makes it sound like you might need my help one of these days."
"I might. So, tomorrow morning at six?"
"Yeah. Liv and I'll meet you at the station, and we can work out the plan from there."
"All right, I'll see you tomorrow."
~ooOoo~
Soykaf wasn't Harry's invention; in fact, in Shadowrun, it was the drink of choice for the masses who couldn't afford real coffee but still wanted their daily caffeine, and in the real, with soybean prices at a low and caffeine being ridiculously cheap due to the amount available from the decaffeination of coffee beans to make decaffeinated coffee, the Soykaf Source was starting to market and sell soykaf as a cheaper and healthier alternative to coffee, even if it tasted like various flavors of soy milk ranging from plain to sweetened to artificially-added vanilla, banana, chocolate or even coffee flavors.
As the owner of the Soykaf Source, Harry felt like he should at least push the house drink where possible, and thus, he had ordered a round of coffee-flavored soykaf for the gathered parents, many who looked ready to give him a piece of their mind.
That meant he had to take the offensive.
"You really should get up off your daughter," Harry said to the man with long blonde hair who had both his hands on Luna, his face extremely close to her head. "If people didn't know better, they'd think you have a complex about her."
If looks could kill, the Hermetic mage would have been in pure self-defense mode, but as it couldn't, he simply held the blonde's glare with a dead-eyed stare of his own until the man finally removed himself from the Hufflepuff girl's personal space.
"Where's Liv?" Luna asked, looking around.
"She's running a small errand for me," the second-year Hufflepuff explained, sitting back in his seat and taking a sip from the cup of water in front of him. "All right, let's hear all of your complaints."
"How dare you give my daughter a tattoo!" said the woman who was Myla's mother indignantly. "And to let her hack her hair off like that too!"
Fay's father had a similar grievance.
Harry considered the girls from the rival houses; both had cut their hair short since he had last seen them at Grace's studio, with Fay sporting a swept-sideways pixie cut with the sides of her head cropped close to her skin, all dyed a light pastel purple, and Myla wearing her jet black hair in a cheek-length layered bob, though when she brushed her hair behind her ear, he could see most of the side of her head was shaved close to her skin.
"First off, I didn't give your children tattoos; I hired a licensed tattoo artist for that," said the Hermetic mage. "Second, I simply gave them the information and the opportunity; they could have refused, and they made the decision on their own."
"My Luna is too young!" cried her father. "You had no right…!"
The Hermetic mage was already tired of long-haired man's hysterics.
*beep*
"Rook? Whip. Send it. Out."
There was a crack, the sound of breaking glass as a hole formed in the cafe's glass storefront, a line of blood across the blond man's cheek and a smoking crater in the table.
Luna's father reached up to touch the open wound on his face, then yelped in surprise.
As the adults at the table looked around in shock, trying to figure out what had happened, Harry reached into his haversack and pulled out his Beretta, setting it down flat on the table and leaving his hand on it, index finger just off the trigger.
"The next one goes inside you."
"I am not your hero," said the Hermetic mage, his voice harsh with implied violence. "I am not your savior, and if you're expecting the Boy-Who-Lived to be some kind of knightly protector, you're going to have a bad couple of years. I'm a shadowrunner, a soldier in the secret war that is already here and still yet to come, and I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure those with me make it to the end, but this is a war, so there will be casualties, and I have no problems starting here and now if you're going to get in my way.
"I told your children what I knew, gave them an opportunity to make a choice, and they made it themselves, without outside interference," the self-styled shadowrunner continued. "You may not like it, but they had the right to know about it and to get ready for what's just over the horizon, because they, like me, will be caught up in it whether they like it or not."
"What are you talking about?" asked Myla's father, eyes still fixed on the Beretta 92FS the boy was tapping the side of.
"You-Know-Who? He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named? He's coming, and when he arrives, there will be a reckoning," Harry said calmly.
"That's impossible," said Fay's father. "You defeated him!"
"And yet, they never found a body," said the Hermetic mage. "Last year, he was at Hogwarts, possessing the Defense professor."
"I can confirm that," Hermione said. "I was there and saw it with my own eyes."
"But Hogwarts is the safest place in the whole world!" Hermione's mother protested in dismay. "Professor McGonagall assured us of it herself! Surely the Ministry would do something!"
"There is no way something like that could happen under Dumbledore's watch!" Luna's father agreed.
Myla's mother scoffed. "Dumbledore only cares about his petty little fiefdom and holding the moral high ground," she said contemptuously. "As for the Ministry, it's positions of power have long been held by blood purists and their intricate networks of marriage-alliances; there's no help to be had there."
"This year, we've had the Chamber of Secrets opened, and a cat, a student and a ghost petrified," the shadowrunner continued, and the parents around the table look horrified. "From your reactions, I'm guessing you were never informed of this, or the fact there likely could have been many more victims had Liv not started producing Ribbons, magical items which protect their wearers to various status ailments, including petrification. One of my assets survived an encounter with the creature causing the petrification, but when he reported it to Dumbledore, he was told he was delusional, that he didn't know what he saw, and was then threatened with expulsion from Hogwarts, even though he had a polaroid photo of the creature, which Dumbledore actually tore up; a second survivor also tried to report his encounter to the headmaster and got the same response."
"Slytherin's beast is loose?" gasped the woman who was Myla's mother, sharing a look of concern with her husband. "We must pull our daughter out of Hogwarts until it is safe again."
"With the tattoo, which has the same effects as a Ribbon, she's perfectly safe," Harry said. "Besides, if you pull her out now, you'll blow her carefully crafted cover in Slytherin."
"That's it? Is that all she is to you, a spy in Slytherin?" Myla's father demanded, rising out of his seat before suddenly sitting down as a second bullet whizzed by his ear and added another tiny smoking crater to the table.
"Miles is my friend, and she volunteered for the task," said the shadowrunner; when her parents looked at her, the Slytherin girl nodded in confirmation. "You raised her well and she has a good head on her shoulders, but she understood, once I told her the full story, what was at stake, she chose to become my eyes and ears in Slytherin."
"You're sending her to her death!" protested the former Miss Crouch. "If the Death Eaters were to find out…"
"What I'm sending her to is the program this coming summer," Harry said. "It's a training camp in the States that teaches all the necessary skills of a covert agent, which I have already underwent this summer past. Miles will need a passport, but if she pays attention and absorbs everything Jack has to teach her, she'll be more than qualified when the time comes.
"Miles' isn't playing spy; she will be a fully-trained covert operative, because that's what she'll need to be. This is not a game, it's life or death, and I'm going to make sure I do everything I can to ensure the best chances of survival for those with me."
"You said there were students who survived encounters with the Beast of Slytherin?" asked Neville's grandmother calmly, and the shadowrunner nodded. "What did they say it looked like?"
"A humongous slottin' snake," Harry said shortly.
"It can't be," whispered Fay's father.
"It must be," said Myla's mother.
"It's a basilisk, isn't it?" Luna's father said.
The Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw shared a glance, and Hermione scribbled something in her memo pad.
"What's a basilisk?" asked the Ravenclaw's mother.
"The basilisk is a great serpent, commonly known as the 'King of Serpents'," Neville's grandmother calmly explained. "It's commonly bred by dark wizards, but only a Parselmouth can control one, and looking a basilisk in the eye results in immediate death."
"That would explain Myrtle Warren," Harry said flatly.
"But a basilisk can't petrify their victims!" Fay's father protested.
"Think about it, though," the oldest woman present said, oddly calm. "Salazar Slytherin was a Parselmouth and had such an affinity for snakes and serpents that he made them the symbol of his house; what would be more fitting to guard his secret chambers than the King of Serpents?"
"Well, then, that's settled," said the shadowrunner. "All we need to know now is where the Chamber of Secrets is."
"Why would you need to know that?" Luna's father asked.
"To seal the blighter, obviously," said the Hermetic mage. "Dumbledore obviously isn't going to be doing anything about it, the way he's neck-deep in denial like it's the river, so somebody else is going to have to do something about it."
"And that somebody is you?" asked Neville's grandmother.
"It certainly doesn't seem like anybody else wants to do anything about it," said the shadowrunner with a shrug. "All right, does anybody else have any complaints?"
"The tattoo!" said Luna's father. "I demand to speak with your guardians!"
"My parents are dead, as you well know, my aunt and uncle are in the wind, plus, I'm an emancipated minor," Harry said calmly. "Anything you want to say, you'll have to say to me."
"You had no right!" Luna's father said. "You've ruined my beautiful baby girl!"
"It's a tattoo," said the Hermetic mage, pulling up the left sleeve of his shirt to reveal the sleeve on the skin underneath. "She just has an anklet; I've got a full sleeve, yet nobody is suggesting I've been ruined. Ain't that some drek?"
Luna's father started to rise out of his seat when Luna stopped him. "Daddy, if you make a scene here, I'll never speak to you ever again," she said sweetly. "And I'll get all kinds of tattoos and show all of the boys my super-special, secret, private places."
"If you show everybody, it's not a secret," Hermione reasoned.
"And you're not showing any of the boys," Fay added. "Except Harry, I don't think you even know boys exist."
"There's Neville over there," Luna said innocently before waving. "Hi, Neville! Would you like to see my Chamber of Secrets?"
"Don't drag me into this," said the chubby Gryffindor boy. "You're just going to ruin my high."
"You mustn't show anyone but daddy your super-special, secret private places!"
That caused a scene.
Within an instant, numerous adults had dogpiled onto the man with the long blond hair, pinning him to the ground as his daughter only looked on dreamily with a smile sweet as cotton candy.
"That's your own daughter, you filthy beast," snarled Myla's mother, seizing the restrained wizard's wand.
"I didn't do that," Harry said.
The other children at the table only nodded as the police were called.
~ooOoo~
Detective Price must have been demoted following her undercover operation falling apart because Harry immediately recognized her when she responded to the disturbance at the Soykaf Source in uniform.
The boy waited patiently until she came to take his statement, preparing his approach.
"Describe in your own words what happened here," said the woman, focused on her notebook.
"Can we talk somewhere more private, Detective Price?" Harry asked.
"It's just Officer Price," Evangeline said. "We can use the back room, if you'd like."
"I'd like that," said the shadowrunner.
"Right this way, then, Mister…"
"Whiplash," Harry said, as he followed the detective.
"So, what did you want to speak with me about in private?" asked Officer Price, as Harry shut the back room door behind them.
"Creo ignem," said the Hermetic mage, without forming any mudra or kuji-in.
"You!" said the police officer, eyes widening in recognition of the phrase. "But you were… How did…? How are you even…?"
"Sit down and shut up," Harry said, but the former detective refused. "What I'm about to tell you will either make your career, or get you sectioned."
"You already ruined my career!" Evangeline shouted back. "Why should I even believe you?!"
"Because you are about to either make a very big case and get your career back on track, or you're not going to remember this conversation," said the boy.
"Are you threatening me?"
"No, I'm telling you how things are."
"Fine," huffed the former detective. "How are things?"
"Magic is real, and magical people exist all around you in secret," Harry said. When the detective scoffed, he held his cane aloft in the air, passing Astral power through it before releasing his hold on it, leaving it floating in the air.
"That could be just a trick," said the former detective dismissively.
"Fine then," Harry said, flushing the Astral power from his cane and catching it as it dropped out of the air before passing Astral power through one of the shield knot tattoos on his forearm.
Instantly, one transparent black disc appeared, and the Hermetic mage swung it around, slicing its zero-thickness disc of pure magical force through a vase on the table between him and the police officer, sending the top tumbling to the tabletop as it was cut clean through.
"Bloody hell!" Evangeline ejaculated, jumping backwards. "Is that…?"
"Magic? Yes."
The police officer slumped into the offered seat. "Is that how you set the Gentle Touch on fire?"
"I can neither confirm or deny whether I was involved in the incident in question," said the shadowrunner.
"Fine," Evangeline huffed. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Magicals, they believe themselves above the law of normal society," the Hermetic mage said. "The paedophile who's been abusing his daughter? He's one of them, and when they find out you have him, they'll sweep in and free him, all while erasing all of your memories that this even happened."
"They can do that?" asked the former detective in a panic.
"Yes, and once he disappears, they'll put him back with his daughter, so the abuse will just continue, on and on," Harry said.
"That's horrible," said the detective. "Why are you telling me this?"
"There's not going to be any justice for the little girl, unless you do something about it."
"I'm a police officer! I can't just take the law into my own hands."
"You helped me back at the Gentle Touch."
"You had me at gunpoint!"
"And you're okay with a paedophile being allowed to continue abusing his daughter?"
"What are you suggesting?"
"The magicals are afraid he'll spill the beans, but if he's dead, they'll think there's nothing to worry about."
"You're asking me to commit murder! I could arrest you for that!"
"I haven't solicited you for anything; all you have is me telling you how things will happen, and if you even report this, you'll most likely get sectioned."
"Then what are you suggesting?"
"If something were to happen to the CCTV in the holding facilities, and then something were to happen to the paedophile, nobody would shed any tears."
"I won't kill him."
"I'm not asking you to."
"What are you asking me to do, exactly?"
The shadowrunner took a business card out of his pocket. "This is a contact of mine, an arms dealer, though he does his business in England legally," he said. "If something were to happen to the cameras and justice was then somehow served, I'm certain he'd be happy to supply you with names of those illegally trafficking arms into London. Just tell him Whiplash sent you."
"I have to think about this."
"No, you don't. You already know what you're going to do, and it's not going to be to let that paedophile go back to abusing his daughter. You can't just tell me you won't do it because you think if you do, you'll be falling down a slippery slope into being a bent cop; the moral implications of letting somebody you know is a paedophile loose into the world to abuse more children isn't something I believe you can live with."
"But if you do this, then you're no different than them, and you're magical too."
"There's the moral, the ethical, and the legal, and sometimes, they don't intersect the way we'd like them to, and if we're given the opportunity, we can and should do something about it. That's something you'll have to live with, because either the paedophile doesn't see daylight, or he gets to go home and abuse his daughter some more, and you won't even remember it enough to do anything about it."
~ooOoo~
The shadowrunner plopped down in the seat across from the redhead nose deep in a copy of The Guardian.
"How do you feel about paedophiles?" he asked.
"If you mean 'pedophiles', I hope they all die and burn in hell," spat the woman, folding her newspaper close to reveal the daywalker. "What Luna's father's done to her, I hope he dies horribly in prison."
"He won't go to prison," Harry said. "They'll make him disappear from whatever cell they try holding him in and put him back with Dia, then make the cops forget it ever happened, so I've got to ask… how do you feel about killing people?"
"It's not my favorite thing to do, but if it's necessary…"
"Well, if you were to follow him to whatever facility they decide to hold him at and something were to happen to him if the CCTV were to stop working, I'm sure nobody would really shed a tear."
"Are you saying what I think you're saying?"
"Probably."
"Oh, I'm so going to enjoy this," said the daywalker, fading into the shadows.
Harry sat alone at the table for a few minutes, enjoying a cup of sweetened, unflavored soy milk, before Neville's grandmother sat down across from him.
"These children bury a few dead, and they think they know what war is," said the elderly woman. "We haven't been properly introduced; I'm Augusta Longbottom, Neville's grandmother."
"I'd say it's a pleasure, but we both know that's not true," said the shadowrunner. "Let's cut the pleasantries and get to the point: what is it that you want?"
"You said you were a soldier," said the elderly Longbottom. "What kind of soldier are you?"
"The kind who, if my commanding officer told me to hurry back, I'd have put the Germans in the ground without a second thought."
"That isn't very gentlemanly."
"I'm not a gentleman; I'm a soldier. I get things done."
"You know, I like you," Augusta Longbottom said.
"I don't need your approval," Harry answered.
"That's what I like about you," the Longbottom matriarch said. "When the world was at war the second time, I was with the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. We did what we had to to win.
"If the war's coming like you think it is, I wouldn't want my Neville following the fools in the Ministry, or, Merlin forbid, Albus Dumbledore; you're exactly the type of leader this war is going to need, and I'm glad he's chosen to side with you, because you're the type who is going to win no matter what."
"Whatever it takes, no matter the cost," the shadowrunner intoned grimly.
"No matter the cost," agreed the elderly woman.
Author's Notes: And already blowback. Why an erotic dream? Thurisaz (ᚦ), in addition to its defensive denotation, also represents male sexuality and fertilization, so while it also serves as a protective rune within the context of the sleeve, it'd only make sense it'd also slowly start affecting him in this other manner as well.
Then there's always that awkward interaction you have after you've had an erotic dream about somebody you know.
Keep your friends rich, your enemies rich and wait to see which is which.
While there's certainly truth in what Harry's telling the gathered parents and guardians, he's also couched omissions and deceptions within the facts, because he is, after all, a manipulative bastard.
Remember that, in the '90s, body modification was fairly uncommon, unlike today, where you could probably see nose rings and tattoos on every main street; it was also a time when men who got tattoos were "tough", but women who got tattoos were considered... not in the best light. It was a very sexist time, those '90s.
Sometimes, you see something and it just sticks with you; in my case, it was a picture of Luna's father being all up in her personal space that I found on the Fandom wiki when I was doing research for Physical Adept. Once I saw it, I just couldn't shake it, until I found myself asking, "In what kind of situation would that be a thing?", and then took it to a very cynical conclusion.
And yes, Luna knew exactly what she was doing in that instant; she's not nearly as scattered as she may pretend to be.
The return of Evangeline Price. Good call by those who thought she'd return; she is meant to be a recurring character that explores the crossover between the normal and the magical, and how sometimes magicals can let things get away from thems because they might not be thinking about how certain things play out with normals.
Harry putting out a hit on a paedophile to protect the victim is completely in-character for him when you consider the fact he has always sympathized with victims, particularly those powerless to defend themselves, be it in Vegas with the pimp selling underaged hookers or in the massage parlor with the sex workers held hostage due to their legal documents being locked away. Involving Patience was just a plus; it gave Harry a chance to see what he could use her for, after spending so much time and effort building that relationship with essentially an intelligent apex predator.
The conversation with Augusta Longbottom isn't a throwaway.
Once again, many, many thanks to my long-suffering editor, Romantically Distant, for all their efforts in reading and proofing my writing. And now you've read this chapter, feel free to leave a review or just PM me, and, with the WARS pandemic still on-going, stay safe.