"I am taking six-two-six into my custody."
"I'm afraid I cannot allow that," said a soft, but firm voice.
Everyone turned to the newcomers.
626, or Stitch as he preferred to be known, took one look at the odd stick in their hand and his hackles raised.
The male seemed to realize the problem first.
"Tina, lower your wand," he said quietly.
The woman lowered the stick? Wand?
"Who are you?" demanded the grand councilwoman.
"My name is Newton Scamander. I'm a Mythozoologist. Tina is my wife and a retired Auror."
"It means I'm a retired cop. We were called in by the local magical council when they started picking up some major accidental magic readings over the past few days that pointed towards a child using entirely too much magic to get out of a life-threatening situation."
The cop part seemed to calm the grand councilwoman down, but it didn't explain why they were there.
"Why are you interfering? This is a galactic council business, not local."
"Because the child you're trying to arrest is technically under our jurisdiction, not yours," said Tina flatly.
"Child?" repeated Gantu in disbelief. "He's an abomination created by that hack scientist!"
"Stitch is not abomination," said Jumba, highly offended. "Is valued assistant! Was trying to figure out why his ability to switch forms stopped working when you arrested me!"
"Switch forms?" said the councilwoman in confusion. "Are you saying you didn't make six-two-six?"
Jumba firmly shook his head.
"Stitch turned into that form one morning while in process of making six-two-five. Designated him six-two-six as a joke, since his blood was used in some of the experiments with permission," said Jumba. "Is highly trustworthy lab assistant, not experiment."
"If I may, I know a way to clear this up in short order," said Tina.
"At this point I'm willing to hear options."
It was clear the woman had a massive headache.
"Animagi Revelio," intoned Tina, casting the spell on Stitch before he had a chance to properly react. Stitch was clearly not happy about being hit, but the damage was done.
His form began to twist and contort, and there was a sudden malfunction of the bracers used to restrain him.
His fur disappeared, his ears shortened and his skin went from blue to a light peach color.
More interesting was the fact he suddenly gained clothes and what was clearly a lab assistant's uniform that was custom made for his smaller size. He looked to be roughly the same age as Lilo actually.
Nani was appalled, not because Stitch suddenly turned into a kid the same age as her sister, but the fact the councilwoman would have been arresting a kid for no other reason than existing.
Stitch, or whatever his actual name was, was not happy.
Jumba flicked the small child's head when he started swearing in what was apparently an alien language.
"Manners! Did not teach you swear words!"
Stitch huffed and petulantly crossed his arms.
The grand councilwoman had a vicious headache now.
"So the trog can turn into one of these apes. He's still under arrest," said Gantu angrily.
"Considering his base form is human and he's apparently developed an unusual animagus form, that makes him our problem, not yours," said Tina, glaring at Gantu.
"Stitch isn't in trouble, is he?" asked Lilo. She thought it was really cool Stitch could become human like that.
"Not at all. There are many provisions in our legal system for those who perform that sort of trick without any training...especially if they are clearly minors. Since he's never had any training, the most that will happen is that someone will come by and explain things properly so he learns how to control it," said Newt. "It's called 'accidental' for a reason."
"So just to be clear, we can leave his sentencing in your hands?" asked the grand councilwoman.
Tina nodded.
"I just know the paperwork for this is going to be horrendous," she muttered. "Those two do not board my ship or leave this particular solar system."
Jumba clearly didn't care he was stuck in this particular part of the galaxy, and Pleakley could only hope that he'd have a better chance to learn more about the fascination creatures he had always wanted to study up close. Especially mosquitoes!
"This was a mess and a half. At least we got here in time," said Tina tiredly.
"It was fortunate we were on vacation when the local magical council reached out to us," said Newt.
"Vacation?" said the tiny girl that the young wizard was staying rather close to.
He had thought there was some possible romantic attraction between them, but closer inspection revealed that the young man had imprinted on her in a more familial role instead. Likely as a sister or something.
"Could someone explain how my little sister's 'dog' turned into a kid?" asked the older woman.
"It's called the animagus transformation," said Tina. "I'm not sure how he ended up so far away from Earth, but it influenced that particular aspect of his power and allowed him to take a form outside the usual kinds that we run into."
Everyone looked at Jumba.
"Don't look at me! He popped into my secret lab one morning. Kept following me around, so I used him as assistant. He picked up the basics rather fast and was quiet, so I let him stay," said Jumba defensively. "I only started using his blood for experiments after six-one-nine."
"Grandpa is it safe to come out yet?" asked a slightly younger male voice.
"It's safe Rolf," said Tina.
It was a man who was slightly younger than Nami or David. However he was staring at Stitch.
"Grandpa, why is Harry Potter sitting there next to a muggleborn?" said Rolf baffled.
"You know who this kid is?" said Tina.
"Of course I know who that is! What I want to know is why he's here and not wherever professor Dumbledore put him for his safety!" said Rolf. "Do you even read the Daily Prophet anymore?"
"I prefer the Quibbler," said Newt with a straight face. Besides, in recent years the Prophet had gone from reporting the news to a gossip rag and Newt had canceled his subscription. He really disliked Skeeter's articles. Then what Rolf said caught up to him. "What you do mean professor Dumbledore? What does the headmaster have to do with this?"
Rolf looked exasperated, but explained.
"Rumor has it that Professor Dumbledore relocated the boy-who-lived to a secure location that he refuses to give up for security reasons, after the kid somehow defeated the Dark Lord that started causing problems after Grindlewald."
Tina and Newt made a face at the last name, but looked at the unhappy child.
"Children do not apparate into other galaxies on a whim. Especially to a destination they couldn't have possibly been to before," said Tina flatly. She knew Newt revered his old teacher, especially after the circumstances of his expulsion, but it looked to her like he had screwed up big time.
"You're not going to take Stitch away too, are you?" asked Lilo.
"Not in the least," Newt assured her. "We just need to sort this out first so that he can settle in properly with your family, since it's clear he's comfortable around you."
A few days later...
Nami had a massive headache, but at least the worst of the paperwork was over with.
As it turned out, Stitch...or rather Harry...had "imprinted" on her and Lilo and had somehow 'adopted' them as part of his family.
According to Newt, who was the most sympathetic to the headache she had, this was somewhat common in very young magical children who had established bloodline gifts. Imprinting was how magical children inherited the family magic from their bloodline and establish strong ties to their name.
Normally that sort of thing stopped by the time the child was three as the connection to their blood parents would have caused it to settle.
However the trauma inflicted during the attack that took his parents away caused it to go active. For some reason he never imprinted on his maternal aunt, but had partially imprinted on Jumba for taking him in.
Once he accepted Lilo and Nami as his "Ohana", his magic had latched on to their much smaller cores and declared them part of the family without any input from him outside of the claiming.
It was a mess and a half, but it meant Stitch wasn't going anywhere now that Nami had officially adopted him the same way she had Lilo.
The social worker that had originally come to take Lilo away looked like he had his own headaches, mostly because of Jumba and Pleakley. He wasn't authorized to deal with magical orphans.
Fortunately due to the fact Lilo was a native of the islands, and Harry had imprinted on them both, Agent Bubbles was able to sign it off to the local magical council to let them deal with that headache while he dealt with the two displaced aliens that were more than happy to settle in the same general area as the oddball family.
There was another bonus to this mess...she wouldn't have to worry about financial problems again. Harry was very rich, and because of the imprinting the bankers had Nami go through a few legal papers that allowed them to get a stipend for his care as his magical/legal guardian.
Apparently their mother had been a witch, which meant Nami and Lilo were half-bloods. Her core had atrophied and it would take more time than she wanted to spend to get it to a point where she could use spells, but Lilo was still young enough to be trained.
Since Harry had basically adopted them into his family as his "sisters", they were given a smaller vault full of gold on top of the stipend.
It was a good thing there were bedrooms on Jumba's ship, because it had taken them a month to rebuild the house after it blew up.
Nami preferred not to think of why Harry had imprinted on Jumba in the first place. That way lead madness and her headache was bad enough as it was.
There was another positive to this mess. Apparently the two who had stopped Stitch from being arrested had opted to stick around, mostly to learn more about the experiments that Jumba had used Harry's blood for.
"It's a mess, isn't it?" said Tina with sympathy.
"Yes, but Lilo's never been happier having a brother she can share things with," said Nami.
Since they were still young, Nami had allowed them to share the same room. But once puberty started kicking in they were getting seperate bedrooms.
"Newt was pretty thrilled to see Lilo and Harry's reaction to that blasted case of his."
Nami shared a pained look with Tina.
Tina tolerated her husband's case because she loved him and the creatures he handled, but hated the fact that it was highly illegal and barely tolerated in the eyes of the law because he helped to deal with any magical creatures that went on a rampage with it.
Newt had cautiously brought out a few of his creatures and Lilo had fallen in love with them immediately. Much to his shock, the inquisitive and highly imaginative child managed to find a way inside with the help of Harry in his "Stitch" form.
Rather than freak out at some of the scarier creatures, Lilo had shown an enthusiasm that rivaled Newt's own.
Newt had been esctatic to find a kindred spirit and the trio were thick as thieves as he cheerfully explained about the many odd and wonderous creatures in his case.
If that girl didn't end up as a Mythozoologist by the time she graduated, Tina would eat her wand. And Harry would be her enthusiastic enabler.
"How is the house going?"
"The last board should be in place later tonight," said Nami tiredly.
"What exactly happened to it?"
"Jumba was trying to retrieve Stitch and he got Lilo caught up in the mess. Stitch rigged one of his weapons to blow, but it destroyed the house in the process. That plus the damage done when he took the car and used it like a baseball bat didn't help at all," said Nami in a pained voice.
Tina gave her a sympathetic pat on the back.
Later that night...
This was it...the last board was in place. Everyone was congratulating each other on a job well done, when Stitch started acting funny.
Without any warning, his eyes glowed white like lanterns and a wave of something passed through the area before settling.
He blinked a few times and shook his head, and appeared no worse for wear. But it didn't change the fact something had happened.
Tina took out her wand to cast diagnosis spells.
"...I think he just put some heavy duty protection wards around the house."
"Is that even possible? I mean the amount of training alone need to lay the higher wards..." said Rolf.
"Well I'm reading some major warding around the house and a bit of the surrounding area. This place was just turned into a magical fortress," said Tina incredulous.
"Is that a good thing?" asked Nami concerned.
"It means that anyone attempting to harm you or your family is going to get hit with some nasty backlash and keeps anyone who lives here safe from spells that would cause harm," said Tina. "Whatever he just did is some of the best warding I've seen outside a goblin-trained team."
Stitch switched back into Harry. He looked a little dizzy, likely from the sheer amount of power required to put up the warning.
Nami scooped him up so he could take a nap for a bit before they had a small party to celebrate their home being rebuilt. He settled against her and nuzzled against Scrump which Lilo left as company for him.