Harry Potter - Gamer Neighbour
Summary: The new neighbour over the street at Privet Drive number five seems pretty normal, but not Privet Drive normal. But is anyone with the power of the gamer ever even remotely normal? No fucking way.
Disclaimer: I do own some shit, but not any recognizable characters, places or settings in this particular fanfiction.
Chapter 7:
"I need sustenance, feed me!" Tonks cried out as she Apparated into the main ground room of Nick's house, causing Violet to nearly leap out of the loveseat in the reading corner, where she was working her way through the book on Occlumency. Nick looked up from the big metal bowl he had been staring intently into while whisking away in the kitchen area.
"Nice to see you too, Tonks." he offered before returning his attention to the contents of the bowl as Tonks stepped out of her combat boots, leaving them in a shoe stand at the front door, well aware of Nicks aversion to wearing shoes indoors.
She usually cared little for that sort of stuff, but you did not annoy the person who prepared or served your food unless you wanted it seasoned with spit or in the case with Nick, laced with laxatives or stuffed with chili. She had not experienced the laxatives herself, but well recalled him once saying he'd done that to an old mate of his as a revenge prank. She was also very used to letting herself into his apartment in search of something edible, only to find that whatever microwaveable box she'd snatched from his fridge or plate of leftovers from the refrigerator had an unexpected kick of chili heat to it. After the first couple of times he'd arrived back home only to find Tonks sweating profusely in his kitchen, he'd started marking especially spicy leftovers. She was fine with a bit of kick, but some of the stuff Nick made for his own consumption were damn well nearly unbearable. But she would not be surprised if he'd sneak her something devilishly spicy if she managed to truly annoy him. Hence, getting out of her boots without a word of protest.
"Sheesh, Tonks! Give a girl a bit of warning in the future, please! I nearly both pissed and shat myself!" Violet protested, a hand held over her chest as her heartbeat slowly went back towards normal after the unexpected interruption to the peace and quiet she had enjoyed for a bit up until the excitable Auror arrived. The only sound besides the occasional turn of a page or Nick working in the kitchen, was a wireless speaker playing classic rock music in the background.
Tonks merely smirked at Violet, then directed her attention towards Nick.
"Kitchen slave, I require sustenance!" she insisted, while making big puppy-dog eyes at the meal provider of the house.
And when a Metamorphmagus as talented as Tonks made big puppy-dog eyes at someone, they truly were big puppy-dog eyes indeed.
"There's beer, ale and cider in the refrigerator, help yourself. Potato fondants with curried roast chicken and veggies will be out of the oven in fifteen minutes or so." Nick calmly responded, not phased at all about her demands to be fed.
He knew from prior experience that when Tonks turned up, chances were that she would either have skipped supper and thus turned up hungry or would have gorged herself on greasy fast food prior to coming over and thus turned up with a hankering for something sweet. It appeared that she had turned up hungry.
He didn't mind, he liked cooking and he liked seeing people enjoy what he made. So it was no skin off his back if he had to feed one tomboy or two tomboys. He always made sure to make plenty of food anyway, worst case scenario was that there would be some leftovers around to snack on in the future or transform into part of a future meal.
Besides, he felt like he owed Tonks a lot. Spending time around her had led to more returned memories then anything else since he first became aware of himself. Not only was she his neighbour at his old apartment, but according to what he could recall, one of few actual close friends he had. He wasn't her best friend, but if he was completely honest with himself, she was probably his.
Or he assumed so at least.
He certainly couldn't recall many other close friends. He was on friendly terms with a few of Tonks friends, but they were more friends of a friend then they were his own friends. He had some memories of other people he'd met or grown up with, but like pretty much everything he'd managed to recall from before the time he became aware while waiting for the realtor, it felt kind of off. He couldn't quite describe it, but they felt 'weaker' then memories he'd amassed since he became aware. He remembered things, but it felt like implanted memories, as if they weren't truly his own. He could see himself in them, see his image mirrored back from windows, mirrors and the like, but it didn't feel like it was actually him in those memories.
So much of the world and people around him just didn't truly register as 'real', at least not until he'd spent more time around them. Perhaps that was why he hadn't had any problems planning, plotting and scheming things that could lead to serious injuries and even deaths for a great amount of people. The sense of disassociation he felt towards almost everything made it pretty easy to casually plot out and start preparing a course of action that might lead to the death of other humans with zero guilt about it.
In fact, he probably felt worse over not feeling any guilt rather then his plans themselves and the probable lethality rates some of them had. Heck, what he had in mind for the Quidditch World Cup he felt more satisfaction and eager anticipation about rather then any sort of guilt or shame.
It had been the same with Violet before he started to get to know her. He'd been annoyed at the sub quest when he first saw it and couldn't drop it, but that had more to do with the fact that he detested being forced into shit then any real concern over what the quest entailed. So after failing to drop it and getting that nasty sense of doom when he just thought about deliberately failing it, he'd mostly just shrugged and started planning to go ahead with it without feeling a single shred of guilt. If he hadn't had both his Main and that Sub Quest regarding her, he would likely not care more about her then some random speck of dirt on the ground.
But now, when he had gotten to know Violet a bit and had the same sense of 'Hey, this is a real person!' as he felt for Tonks, he'd lost the ability to treat it as something relatively unimportant which didn't really personally affect him.
But if his best friend was Tonks, it certainly explained why it hadn't taken very long for him to grow fond of Violet. The two of them had a similar energy and spunk to them, which was something he liked a lot.
Apparently, he had something of a weakness and fondness for fierce snarky fun-loving tomboys.
Meh, there were worse things in the world.
"Oooh, I guess I can wait for a bit." she magnanimously declared and darted off, soon enough having a cold bottle of dry cider in her hand as she slumped down next to Violet, throwing her feet up on the foot rest in front of her. She leaned over and glanced down at Violets book for a few moments, then nodding approvingly. "Excellent. Even if you ignore the benefits of keeping creeps out of your head, Occlumency is pretty nifty. You think faster, remember shit better and can react quicker. Should make you even better at flying and Quidditch then you already are. Helps a lot if you ever go into Duelling as well."
Violet jerked in her seat. The start of the book had mentioned the reaction speed, but she hadn't realized that it would affect her flying as well. Her small size, dexterous body, slim build, quick reactions and deceptively strong muscles already made her one heck of a monster on the Quidditch pitch. Several professional players from various teams and the general manager of the Holyhead Harpies had come to Hogwarts in order to watch some of her matches. No offers had been forthcoming yet, but most people tended to see it as a done deal already.
She wasn't quite clear if it was a career she'd actually want to go for, but there was a certain amount of appeal in the thought of flying with the freaking Harpies!
And Occlumency would make her even better at it?
She felt even more eager to learn now, a wide almost evil grin slowly forming on her lips.
"I'm pants at Legimency, so I can't test you once you've started building a defence. But I am good at Occlumency, so just holler if you have a question or want me to explain something." the older woman offered, then took a long drink from her cider. "My mom is decent at it. She can test you if you feel more comfortable having a woman test your defences once you have them."
Violet blinked and looked up from her book.
"Huh? I just assumed Nick would do it." she responded with a confused expression, while Tonks almost leered at her with a bemused expression for some reason.
"I could." Nick spoke up from over at the kitchen before Tonks could say whatever she had been about to unleash on poor Violet. "But testing your defences basically means that I am trying to get into your mind. If your shields aren't up to snuff, which they likely won't be the first couple of times we try, I'll get inside your head. It will mean that I'll be able to see what you're pondering, possibly some other recent thoughts, as well as strong memories and intense experiences from earlier in your life. It's not a bad idea to have another woman do it. Besides, no matter what sort of embarrassing stuff you've got rattling about in that food-obsessed head of yours, I'm willing to bet that it doesn't hold a candle to what Tonks had. It's a miracle that her mother is still sane if she got a peek inside Tonks head during her teenaged years."
"She named me Nymphadora, so she wasn't sane to begin with." Tonks snorted and shook her head. "But yeah, if the Kitchen Slave tests your defences, he'll probably get a decent peek at some pretty embarrassing stuff. Your first period, the last time you wet your bed, most recent time you cried, that guy or gal that really gets your engine running, that one naughty kink you never dared to even breathe a word about to anyone else and stuff like that."
Violet blushed furiously but eventually shrugged, it'd take a while before she had any sort of defences up, so it wasn't like she had to settle on something right now. But yeah, she'd hold off on letting anyone test her defences until she was confident in them!
Instead, she and Tonks chatted while Nick busied himself with cooking and what appeared to be baking. It turned out that Tonks had also played Quidditch, though she had stepped down to become a reserve player in her fifth year so she could focus more on her studies as she already knew then that she wanted to become an Auror. She'd been both Chaser and Beater, but had also subbed as Seeker. She also played a few pick-up games from time to time, but they were few and far between these days. She'd also been somewhat of a tomboy growing up and Violet found herself listening intently as Tonk regaled her with stories of playing football, basket and wrestling with the boys. They also seemed to share somewhat of a temper issue, though Tonks admitted to having mellowed out significantly over the years, as long as people avoided using her first name. But she'd both taken and given quite a few hits when she was younger, revealing that she was responsible for more then a few teeth having been knocked out during her youthful scuffles.
Violet couldn't really offer up much of a response when Tonks spoke of music, movies and experiences in the Muggle World since she'd barely ever left the local area while growing up and wasn't allowed music and movies while the Dursleys were at home, but she did listen to what Tonks had to say about it.
Tonks ability to completely change her appearance and being a fair hand at mimicking voices as well as Transfigure her clothes certainly added quite a bit to her stories, as she could actually make herself look and sound like the people she spoke about, show what her first crush looked like or how a hot actor appeared in a movie she liked. She had seen Governor Schwarzenegger on TV sometimes when Vernon watched the news, but after Tonks had shown her how he had appeared in the first two Terminator movies as a much younger man, she did kind of want to look at those movies now even if they were older then dirt to her fifteen years old mind. According to Tonks, the later movies were nowhere near as good as the two first.
Supper was pretty damn fun as well, with Tonks sporting an evil smirk as she told stories of Nick. Like how he'd drunkenly hit on and successfully in spite of his booze-addled mind managed to convince what he thought was a hot babe to find some 'privacy' in one of the bathrooms of the club he and Tonks had been in. Only to hobble-run screaming from the bathroom with his pants around his ankles as 'the babe' turned out to be a man in drag. Both Tonks and Violet howled with laughter as Nick fumed angrily.
Then he countered with a story of how a drunken Tonks had spilled red wine all over her dress during a date with a Muggle, then just conjured a dress in the bathroom once it was clear that there was no fixing the old one as she was too tipsy to do it properly. Unfortunately, she was also a bit too drunk to manage a decent long-lasting conjuration, so the dress had just vanished mid-date a little later, leaving Tonks in just her undies and screaming in panic as she ran to a nearby park and apparated home once she had some privacy, leaving a confused Muggle man standing alone on a street wondering just where the hell his date went and why her dress had suddenly vanished. Nick had apparently witnessed her semi-naked arrival back at her home, as he had let himself in to make some snacks for Tonks and her date to nibble on in case her date had went well and she brought the Muggle home to her snack-deprived apartment. He had later managed to get the full story of why she appeared in just sexy undies and a purse out of the embarrassed Metamorphmagus.
After that, the two of them shared multiple embarrassing stories about each other, one after another. Most of them had Violet snorting and howling with laughter.
It seemed neither of them knew when to stop drinking, as many of the stories began along the lines of 'Oh, yeah? Do you remember the time you were so drunk that...' and featured some truly monumentally stupid but incredibly amusing decisions. All in all, it was probably the funniest supper in her entire life and provided plenty of teasing and blackmail material on the two of them, should she ever require it.
Dear lord, it seemed like pretty much a miracle that none of them were in jail at the moment considering all the disorderly conduct, public indecency, property destruction and general mayhem the two were responsible for! And Tonks was now an Auror!
The stories that didn't involve being extremely drunk, seemed to feature a great deal of dares to do stupid or outright illegal shit or food of dubious quality purchased from iffy vendors causing messy accidents.
But while spitefully revealing each others less stellar moments and numerous fuckups in an incredibly embarrassing game of one-upmanship, it was pretty evident that there was a deep friendship involved too.
Violet smiled wistfully, wondering if she and Hermione would be the same way somewhere down the line.
Probably not.
She had a hard time imagining Hermione guzzling down a bottle of vodka, yelling 'NAKED SING-ALONG!', climb up on a bar counter and then proceed to strip naked while singing. Or taking a shit on the hood of a police car, then frantically run from the angry bobbies while trying to hold up her pants with one hand and holding a beer in the other. Yeah, she had a feeling that Hermione's embarrassing stories would be milder then the ones these two told.
But hey, while Violet didn't think that she herself could bring herself to strip nude in public, some of the other stuff did sound like something she might consider while under the influence.
Besides, what she couldn't see herself doing, might be stuff that Ron could be talked into doing, so both she and Hermione could tell silly stories about his antics instead of each others stupid shit? Yeah, she had a feeling that a lot of what she'd heard these two reveal, were things that Ron probably could be talked into or possibly drunkenly do on his own without their help.
She asked if the two of them had met in Hogwarts, only to blink in surprise as Nick revealed that he'd never attended Hogwarts. He'd attended his first three years of magic school in Sweden of all places, then two years in Malta, one year in Australia and his last year in the United States. His parents had moved around a lot, dragging him and his younger siblings around the world a lot from the sound of things. Probably explained why she couldn't quite place his accent and why he'd sometimes use sayings, words and terms she didn't usually hear from others. So no, they had only known each other for three years, but they'd certainly packed a lot of funny mayhem into those three years.
"How are your burns?" Tonks suddenly asked when they were mid-dessert, both she and Tonks on their second serving of a blueberry crumble with a creamy citrus-vanilla custard.
"Starting to act up again, but not as bad as yesterday evening or this morning." Violet replied after a few moments of consideration. "But it feels like they are building up to it."
"You need me to have a chat with the underage people at the DMLE or were the Healers so stunned at you being there that they didn't report your magic use?" Tonks inquired. "I'm just a newbie Junior Auror, but I can probably make something up and get the charges dropped if there are any."
"Ahhh... We didn't go to St Mungos." Violet admitted with a faint blush.
"Oh, that explains why I hadn't heard any rumours in the office about you having underage magic issues. ... Oh! ... Oh-hohohoho!" Tonks exclaimed with a widening grin, looking between the blushing Violet and the neutral looking Nick. She carefully looked Violet up and down. "Just how extensive are those Burns anyway? Going into any... Exciting areas?" she leered and Violet blushed even more. "Aha, they do! Do I perhaps need to chat with a different set people at the DMLE dealing with 'underage crimes'?" she finished, the last two words accompanied by wiggling eyebrows and suggestive hand motions.
It appeared that Tonks didn't truly care about any possible law violation that may have occurred between the two of them, other then as teasing material judging by her joking tone of voice, wagging eyebrows and the wide leer gracing her lips.
"Degenerate!" Violet squeaked and pointed accusingly at Tonks.
"Well, I know he is a raging degenerate. After all, this is the same guy who nearly had his Little John Thomas up another guy who was dressed as a woman!" Tonks responded with a loud laugh, ignoring the fact that it was her Violet had pointed at.
"He was very attractive and it's not little." Nick groused. "How the hell was I supposed to know?!"
"You're a perceptive bloke, usually even when drunk. You're telling me you missed his Adam's Apple? Pull the other one, degenerate." Tonks snorted.
"Wasn't exactly focusing on his neck, but even if I had, he was wearing a wide leather choker." Nick sighed and shook his head while Tonks leered and snickered at both him and Violet.
"So? You're still fifteen for a bit longer, right?" Tonks asked with a raised eyebrow. "Do I need to bring this pervert in?"
"No!" Violet squeaked, just barely managing to get that single word out. She shook her head and took a deep breath. "Nothing like that. It got pretty bad after you left, he just gave me a massage. I did my own naughty bits!" she insisted, neglecting to mention that he did do one particular super-naughty bit and that she let him lay his mitts on her breasts this morning.
"Your confidence in me is heart-warming, truly." Nick groused with a glare at Tonks. "Have you ever known me to go for the young ones?"
"Well, that's true. Men, MILFs, men, the top-heavy ones, men, pierced and tattooed ones, men and that amazon-looking woman who looked strong enough to flip a car over. I've seen you go for a lot of different types, but no underaged ones." Tonks admitted. "And I guess if you can hold yourself back from this..." she indicated herself with both hands gesturing all over her face and torso. "... when you got your degenerate paws on it, I suppose you might be able to hold yourself back from jumping this one too." she continued and jerked a thumb in Violets direction. "All you ever did when I've gotten a massage was slap my arse when it was over. Hestia had no complaints either when her shoulder was acting up and you gave her a massage." she mused.
"You are both degenerate perverts." Violet snorted, her blush slowly fading.
Then blinked.
She turned her head completely in Tonks direction for a few moments, looking her up and down in an extremely scrutinizing manner as the older woman looked back at her with a somewhat bemused expression as Violet's gaze darted back and forth across the other woman s curves and features.
Violet blinked again after her almost invasive close once-over of Tonks, then turned to face Nick.
"You're telling me that you 'accidentally' dragged a man off into a bathroom for a quickie, but when you had Tonks moaning naked underneath your hands, you didn't go for the Metamorphmagus who could turn into whatever your perverted little mind can imagine?" she asked with a disbelieving expression. "Are you sure that you didn't notice it was a guy beforehand and deliberately hit on him, because I have to say, I'm seriously questioning your sexuality now?"
Nick was silent for a few moments, then burst out into loud laughter.
"Oh, dear lord! I should have thrown Tonks out the front door the moment she arrived or at least forced her to take a wow of silence!" he managed to get out between laughs and chuckles.
"Well, she has a point, weirdo." Tonks interjected. "Not saying you would have had a chance, but you didn't even try to go for this!" she said and used both hands to gesture up and down her body again, her chest expanding outwards until Violet feared for the structural integrity of Tonks AC/DC t-shirt, as it now clearly strained to hold back what was without a doubt the biggest set of boobs Violet had ever seen.
Nick smiled secretively, his lips slowly widening into a huge grin.
"You may have forgotten the circumstances behind the two full massages you've gotten from me, but I remember them well. Number one was the day after you crashed that motorcycle into a dung heap and twisted your left shoulder. You didn't smell any longer, but the memory of you covered in horse shit was still pretty vivid in my mind at the time. The second massage was when your spine was hurting after you tried to tackle that nude 'recreational Potions' dealer you busted while he was mid-coitus with a hag prostitute, but tripped and pushed both him and the hag over and onto your back and legs. I saw when you came back to your apartment after that, covered in dirt, sexual fluids and that blue hallucinogenic Potion. That memory was also pretty vivid in my mind even after you'd had a shower and got the massage." he revealed and this time it was Tonks who blushed a bit, but it vanished almost as soon as it appeared and her massively outrageous breasts swiftly shrunk until they were back at what seemed like their natural state.
Being a Metamorphmagus was really unfair! Violet wished that she could just shift away her blushes too! And shrink her breasts for Quidditch and expand them when she wanted some attention. That sort of incredible convenience was pretty damn unfair!
"So if you want me to ravish you during or after a massage, ask for one when I haven't just seen you covered in horse shit, drug dealer pre-cum and hag juices." Nick finished.
"How come someone hasn't already put the both of you into an insane asylum by now? Even as crazy as most Wizards and Witches are, surely they must have noticed that the two of you are in a league of your own and utter menaces to society?" Violet laughed.
"So, I guess you're the man with the plan, pervert degenerate that you are." Tonks announced once all three of them had eaten and were now seated in the larger sofa that used to be placed in front of the TV that was no longer there after the events of yesterday. "How will the three of us go about doing all you spoke of yesterday?" she asked, taking a sip from a bottle of cider Nick had put into her hands before he took one of the seats. He and Violet also had a bottle each, something which the younger girl was pleased as punch about. She would have preferred a butterbeer, but the cider was nice indeed and she hadn't even needed to ask for it. He'd just brought along three bottles and handed both girls one without breaking his stride.
"Well, I'm not sure when the international papers will drop the interview with Grindewald or if the Prophet will carry it as well on day one, but I imagine Dumbledore will become aware of it pretty much the minute after the story is out. People all over the world will want to speak with him and ask him some questions he would likely want them not to ask him." Nick started and scratched the back of his head. "I imagine he will also be called upon to answer questions in front of both the Wizengamot and the ICW shortly after that as well, which will take up even more of his time. There's also several meetings for the Tri-Wizarding tournament scheduled, one of them was actually held in Hogwarts yesterday. Dumbledore has been stonewalling some changes the other schools want to make to it and my hope is that he will be too busy and distracted to keep on doing that, so the changes will go through. I'll give that three or four days, then send some free copies of my book to various reporters and authority figures and release the book to the general public. That will lead to even more questions and possibly also some legal ramifications that will further increase his workload. He should be called to yet another little session at the ICW to explain some of his actions and that would be an ideal time to call an emergency session of the Wizengamot to hold a trial for Sirius. Dumbledore would be at the ICW and way too busy to deal with that."
Tonks mused and pondered matters for a few moments, taking another sip from her cider.
"The mysterious and paragraph-riddled ways of the Wizengamot isn't exactly my strong suit." she admitted. "But I imagine it's not possible for just anyone to call an emergency session with little to no notice? Wouldn't we need someone to do it for us? Like the Minister of Magic or Madame Bones or someone like them?"
"Indeed. Only the Queen, the Minister and Dumbledore himself as Chief Warlock can call for Emergency-emergency meetings of the Wizengamot. Anyone with a Seat can call for an 'Emergency' session, but those still give everyone at least one day of heads up before the actual meeting. But the three I mentioned can call for one with just one hour notice. There's also several special rules and regulations that come into play for those, since chances are that it would be a meeting without enough Seats represented to actually vote for anything with such a short notice. But with those regulations in place, a simple majority among those present is enough for a vote, judgement or ruling to go through." Nick explained.
"Dumbledore wouldn't call for one he couldn't attend and the Minister is a windbag full of bullshit, so you're getting the Queen to do it somehow?" Violet asked with an extremely dubious expression.
"I've met some cool people over the years, but the Queen is sadly not one of them." Nick replied and shook his head. "No, I thought we'd get the Minister of Magic to do it for us."
"That pompous asshole Fudge wouldn't even scratch his own nose without a significant bribe or one of his 'patrons' telling him to unless there was something else in it for him." Tonks snorted, then narrowed her eyes. "You're going to bribe the Minister of Magic?!" she exclaimed with a shocked expression.
"I do have some money, but I'm no Richie Rich. Not sure what it would take to bribe him into doing something like that, but it would likely eat up more of my money then I'd care to part with for something like that." Nick replied with a wry expression. "Nah, I figured I'd just blackmail him into doing it."
"'Just blackmail'." Tonks groaned and palmed her eyes with her left hand, then took a deep drag from the cider in her right hand. "You DO know that I'm an Auror, right? This is the kind of shit I should try and prevent and most assuredly something I should report to my superiors!" she moaned out. "You're going to be the death of me! I'm going to be out of a job and I've just barely started it! I'll kill you if you get me fired!"
"Menaces to society indeed." Violet chuckled and shook her head. "How did I start keeping such bad company? Where did I go wrong?"
Tonks theatrically reached up and grabbed a handful of her hair, pulling it out while shifting it longer until she soon held it a full arms length away from where she had started, then released it and shrunk the extended handful of hair back to its former size.
"All right, fine. Assume you actually manage to get the Minister of freaking Magic, my ultimate boss, to call that meeting with your highly illegal blackmail scheme. What then? What makes you sure sure that the trial will work out? Guilty men have walked and the innocent been convicted before." Tonks asked, a note of frustration in her voice.
"There are ICW observers already in the country as I mentioned yesterday. I'll ensure they find out about the emergency session and turn up for it, with them present and observing, there'll be a pretty big incentive for everyone involved to keep things on the up and up. Hopefully I can also get some international reporters to attend on short notice. Once we know roughly when we want that session to be held, I'll send an invite to certain Lords and Ladies of the Wizengamot to attend a little meeting in Gringotts. I have some very nice Rune Assemblies and some pretty appealing Potions to present that represents significant potential profit for anyone I partner up with. The people I plan to invite are the more light-sided and neutral Lords and Ladies of the Wizengamot as well as those that are sticklers for protocol and correct procedure. That gets them close to the Ministry for the emergency session, hopefully putting the more corrupt part of the Wizengamot in a minority for it. Especially since I plan to invite that more corrupt part of the Wizengamot to a similar meeting, only that meeting will be in Germany and hosted by an associate of mine from Durmstrang. So my hope is that the people who actually turn up for the emergency session are mostly the kind of people who will want to see a fair trial and not be susceptible to bribery or other tomfoolery." Nick explained and was met with silence for a couple of seconds.
"Fuck, you're scary. I'm glad you're on my side." Violet suddenly announced and Tonks mutely nodded her agreement.
Nick raised his cider bottle in a silent toast, then took a small swig from it.
"I'm starting to think that you could probably do this shit all on your own. Do the two of us even have something to do?" Tonks asked helplessly.
"This part? I could probably mostly do it on my own. The rest that lies ahead of us? Hardly." Nick protested. "The biggest hurdle at the moment, is Sirius Black. I've got no clue where he is at the moment and without him, it'll be pretty hard to get him his day in court. I'm hoping he'll contact shorty here, because if not, I'll probably be asking for some of your blood to do some Scrying. Divination is not my strongest suit, but a bit of Scrying with some blood from a relative should be something I could do unless he's underneath some pretty massive Wards. It's just another sign of just how little common sense most people in this world have. They could have found him pretty much instantly after he broke out of Azkaban if they'd just asked you, Andromeda, Narcissa or Draco for some blood or taken some from Bellatrix in Azkaban, then used basic Divination skills to Scry for him. Heck, even shorty here might work, though her blood connection to him is a bit weaker."
Violet blinked and looked over at Tonks.
"We're related?" she asked.
"Pretty distantly, but yeah." Tonks agreed. "Heck, most of the Wizarding World here in England is to one degree or other." she continued, then appeared to notice that Violet was staring pretty intently at her and appeared oddly emotional. "Uhm... My mothers mothers father was your fathers mothers brother or some such, I think. My mom was kind of kicked out of the Black family for eloping with my dad, but I've seen a copy of the family tree my mother keeps." she offered somewhat hesitantly.
Violet sniffed, then wrapped her arms around Tonks who seemed surprised and faintly embarrassed by the sudden hug.
"Cousin Tonks!" Violet squeaked out. "I have a relative who's not a jackass! I have a cool relative!" she blurted out and sniffed to hold back some tears.
"That you do, cool is basically my middle name! Heck, I'd change my first name to that if I could! Cool Tonks, that has a nice ring to it!" Tonks agreed wholeheartedly, returning the hug now that she knew what was up. Then she noted the smirking face of Nick out of the corner of her eyes. She slowly turned her head around to face him and her face shifted into a suspicious frown. "What? What are you plotting now, you bastard?" she demanded to know.
"Oh, nothing. Just sitting here enjoying some light girl-on-girl action and wondering if those underage people you mentioned earlier might need a talk with you as well if things progress from here." he grinned and took a sip from his cider. Though the grin quickly vanished when Violet managed to kick him in the shin without looking in his direction or releasing Tonks from her hug. A second kick from Tonks struck him once Violets foot had withdrawn.
"Go hit on a drag queen instead of bothering us, you ruddy tosser." Tonks snorted and shook her head in wry dismay as he put his kicked leg over his other leg and rubbed the recently kicked area.
"Nah, I'm happy here. Who knows, clothes might be coming off in the near future. I wouldn t want to miss out on that." he replied with a big leer.
"Keep dreaming." Tonks huffed as Violet finally released the hug and moved off, leaning back against the backrest, but now sitting closer to Tonks then before. Tonks took a sip from her cider, then got her mind back on track again. "Finding Sirius, yeah. Sure, you can have some blood. I'm pants at Divination or I'd do it myself. Heck, pretty sure the entire DMLE are, none of the people working there are the kind of airheads who would have taken Divination as an elective." she agreed.
"That's the most time-sensitive thing, so the blood is highly appreciated." Nick stated with a grateful nod. "I gave shorty some options before on how to deal with the Dursleys, depending on what she decides to go with, someone in Muggle law enforcement could be useful. So that is also something you can help out with. If that is what shorty wants, we'd probably want to hold off on that until Dumbledore is busy though, to minimize the chances of him interfering. As for short stuff herself, well, learning Occlumency is the most important thing at the moment."
Or at least the most important out of what he could tell them at the moment. If things kept on going in a similar direction as he figured they would, Violet would become one of the Tri-Wizard Champions, so there were a few other things that might actually be more important then Occlumency to focus on. As long as she learned enough to identify when someone was trying to read her mind, she could just break eye contact. But unless he wanted to chance them finding out that he had somewhat of a mental cheat sheet for future events, he would have to settle for Violet studying Occlumency and whatever else he could sneak into her daily routine before Hogwarts started.
"Considering how much shit goes down at Hogwarts each year, I'd also like access to the school over the course of the year, but that's a bit of a tough nut to crack. They need a Defence teacher pretty much like every year for the last couple of decades, but I don't think my Defence grades are enough to get me that job and my age would likely also put me the bottom of the application pile. I've learned a lot since I graduated, but I don't have any sort of documentation for it. I'm hoping to convince one of the Champions to take me on as a private tutor for the tournament, but that that depends on my ability to convince them that I would be a good choice for that and their willingness to even get a tutor in the first place. I figure the Hogwarts Champion might, but both Durmstrang and Beauxbaton have pretty decent Professors in all their offered subjects, so they're unlikely to want one. I could try and go for a position on the Board of Directors, but that would only give me sporadic opportunities to visit the school. Better then nothing, but..." he finished.
There was that Sub Quest about the Board too, but unlike the Sex Slave one, getting onto the Board of Directors with a bonus if he took Malfoys seat was something he wouldn't truly mind or have to feel guilty about.
Violet looked oddly at him and soon enough, his hand was on top of her head as he figured out why she was looking at him like that.
"Yeah, yeah. I'm not abandoning you just because you sod off to Hogwarts. I'll still want to keep an eye out for you. You're not getting rid of me that easily." he assured her.
"I'm not a cat..." she protested at his continued pats and rubs, but it was a pretty weak protest and she made no attempt to actually move out of the way or push his hand off.
"Worst case, I'll slap a Runic Tattoo on you or etch some Runes onto a bracelet or something for you so I'll know if shit is going down and can hop onto a broom and burst in wand blazing if needed." he said and shrugged his shoulders.
"All right, you're talking about fighting your way into Hogwarts, enough cider for you!" Tonks abruptly declared and Nick suddenly found his hand sans cider bottle. Before he could reach out and reclaim it, Tonks drained it and grinned unrepentedly at his angry accusing glare.
Teasing and joking around was one thing, stealing booze was another thing entirely.
Revenge was a dish best served cold. She'd come to regret snatching his drink out of his hands!
"Am I getting used to this?" Violet asked herself and shook her head in confused disbelief as she squirmed naked on top of the toilet as a jet of water shot up her bum.
It's not that it was painful or even uncomfortable, but it was just such a novel sensation that she found hard to describe. The ultra-modern toilets Nick had in all three bathrooms had a little panel on the side with all sort of buttons on them that had confused the hell out of her at first.
The heated seats were glorious and the first thing she'd learned to appreciate the hell out of. The bidet function she'd noted and ignored until this morning before her massage, when she'd braved it first. With another massage on the way, she'd decided to brave it again as she had once again neglected a shower before the massage, intending to take one after it.
She didn't know if it was the jet of water itself or the thought that Nick would soon have his hands where the water currently splashed up against her, but she did feel a kind of pleasant tingle down below. Much to her consternation, she could also feel another part of her body growing warm and moistening up in a way that had nothing to do with pressurized water shooting up at her bum.
"I've never even touched myself back there other then for cleaning before, why the hell am I getting off on this?" she hissed. "Stop it!" she added and slapped down a palm over her cunny, hoping to force it to behave. It was starting to get a chore to bend her arm and it protested in a painful manner during her half-hearted slap downstairs.
Hermione had called earlier and they'd had a nice chat, once Nick had shown her how to answer Hermione's call. While she was on the phone, Tonks had donated a bit of blood and Nick had set up a Scrying bowl that would be used to track down Sirius using that blood. Shortly after her phone call was over, Tonks had left for her own apartment, as she yet again had a fairly early morning at work tomorrow, a few hours off around lunch which she'd spend with friends, then a long evening shift ahead of her. She'd said that the two of them would have to deal without her tomorrow, as she'd likely just crash in bed after she got off work.
Of course, her announcement that she'd be busy the entire day which meant the two of them would be on their own, had also been accompanied by various teasing, suggestive gesturing and waggling eyebrows.
And now it would soon be time for yet another massage. With her arms too stiff to do her own breasts, largely because she like this morning hadn't bothered with a shower to relieve her stiffness. She would deny to her dying day that she skipped it because she was partly looking forward to having his hands on her chest and partly because she didn't want the hazzle of taking one shower before and one after the massage. Which was the bigger part she wasn't sure of.
What she was sure of was that her face was stark red as she sat there, water squirting up her rear while she got increasingly hornier.
"I'm such a sodding slag." she murmured, disappointed in her self-control while at the same time eagerly anticipating the embarrassing and pleasurable massage.
Nick paused mid-step for a split second, a wry smile on his lips as he could faintly hear Violet in what no doubt was a bout of self-pleasuring through the bathroom door. He directed a fond glance at the door, then continued onwards.
He may have underestimated just how effective the aphrodisiac would be. It was one of those recipes he'd gotten as a drop during his dungeon grinding, so it wasn't a Wizarding drug with plenty of documentation to read up on it from. This was something that as far as he know he was the only one who could actually make, since it required some ingredients only found during his dungeon crawling. So all he had to go on was the description found when looking at the drop information on his status screen.
If this is what happened with the reduced effect from being absorbed through the skin, he wondered just how much more powerful it would be if consumed as intended.
Of course, this time Violet had started out the massage clearly aroused beforehand instead of becoming aroused during the massage, so he supposed it was fairly natural that she'd be geared up as hell after it. But he'd overheard her both this morning and yesterday evening too, so it had that effect on her even without starting already somewhat primed.
Granted, she was a bit on the young side with a still developing body. The potent mix of hormones already slushing around inside of her might just take particularly well to the Potion compared to someone older and more settled in their own bodies. Since it was a magic Potion and she had such vast amounts of magic, it might also work especially well with her. Or it could be a combination of all of the above.
He certainly felt the effects too after their massages, even if the Potion only came into contact with his hands. But he did absorb a bit of it as well, which helped to explain the semi he was still sporting. He'd been hard as a rock right after each of their massages, but thankfully Violet had been too embarrassed and concerned about her own state to notice his. A discreet weak wandless notice-me-not at this crotch before wrapping their massages up had likely also helped with that. He'd thankfully softened since, but he could tell that his nethers were in a kind of starting position, ready to rush into action the moment the signal was given. Based on the last two massages, he'd be in a similar state for another couple of hours.
He took a deep breath and centred himself, trying to ignore his body demanding that he'd put his nethers to good use. The Mind Arts he'd mastered helped, but with the aphrodisiac still being processed by his system, he couldn't entirely ignore it.
He took another deep breath as he slipped into his shoes and headed outside, lighting up a cigarette the moment the front door behind him was closed.
He could still somewhat smell the Potion on the hand he held the cigarette with, apparently he hadn't done a thorough enough job washing his hands after the massage was over. He wasn't sure if it was just his imagination or not, but he also thought he could smell a faint hint of Violet's unique and distinct scent as well.
He opened his status screen and tried to abandon the sex slave quest again, but it refused to be dropped. He tried once again for good measure, but shut down the status screen in disgust after yet another failure to drop the quest.
He exhaled, carefully controlling his expression to keep from looking like a frustrated thunderstorm in case any of the neighbours spotted him.
Okay, fine. No dropping that quest, obviously.
He sure wished he could though. He liked Violet, liked her a lot.
"Well, it's not like I've got lots of crazy humiliation and pain fetishes or the like. It's not like I'll mistreat her." he muttered under his breath, then took another drag from his fag, feeling the smoke crawling down his throat and into his lungs, before he slowly exhaled. "Or like she needs to be a slave 24/7, come to think of it. Is acting as one once enough to complete her part of the quest?" he continued in a muted whisper to himself.
He truly did like her. If one single instance of him being dominant while she was submissive for a bit of slave play was enough, that'd be good.
And if not, he'd fucking ensure that she was happy. Slave in the bedroom, happy strong confident young woman out of it.
Very young.
"Fuck." he muttered.
He was the first to admit that his sense of morality was a bit on the flexible side and that he considered many laws to be more along the lines of suggestions rather then iron-clad absolutes. It felt pretty genuine and comfortable to think like that, so he assumed that he'd felt like that and had a personality like that for a long time, most likely years. Thoughts of blackmailing the Minister of Magic certainly hadn't phased him in the slightest, once he had come up with the idea, he'd simply ran with it with no regrets and few concerns, as it felt like a simple and convenient solution to an annoying problem. The sense of disassociation he generally felt towards most of the world likely also helped with that. He'd never met the Minister and didn't know him, so he felt more like a character from a book or movie rather then a real actual human being.
With his flexible morals and disrespect for laws that unnecessarily infringed upon free will, Violet's age didn't really bother him from a legal perspective. He didn't give two shits that she was underage until the end of the month. As far as he was concerned, nobody else other then the people involved in something sexual had any say about what they got up to. If everyone involved consented to whatever was going on, hey, let people get up to whatever the fuck they want as long as it didn't inconvenience others and everyone involved were capable of actually giving their consent. So that wasn't why it mattered that Violet was a tad young.
It was more a matter of personal taste and preference, she truly was a little younger then he'd usually find appealing. She was attractive, even had a kind of sexy charm to her and he did like her spunky fiery personality. But she hadn't quite yet grown out of her coltish teenaged look and assumed more adult features.
In other words, he had yet to see her final form.
He smiled for a few seconds despite the generally depressing direction his thoughts had drifted into, even in his own head he couldn't resist making bad puns, silly references and whatnot.
But yeah as he'd noted earlier, that was a passing phase. Once she developed a bit more, he could very well see her turn into the kind of woman who turned heads and had the potential to cause traffic accidents if she casually strolled along a city street. Give it a year or three and she'd have him drooling over her, of that he had no doubt. In the meantime, well, just because she was a bit outside his normal strike zone didn't mean that he didn't find her cute and attractive now.
He was a patient man, he could enjoy the heck out of a good starter while waiting eagerly for the impressive and mouth-watering main dish.
He just wished that he was a less caring man, because at the moment, it didn't quite feel as if he liked her as a woman he was attracted to. No, at the moment it felt more as if he had come to care about her, even loved her, in the way he assumed a father would feel about his daughter.
He shuddered.
That train of thought made even his admittedly flexible morality sit up and take notice, wondering what the hell he was up to.
"Not my daughter. Get that thought out of your head. You are not her father." he grunted and put out his cigarette, then shoved the burned-out end into an upturned flowerpot with a hole in the top resting on top of a big clay saucer. He got another cigarette out and lit that one up as well. With the way his mind was currently wandering in depressing and faux-incestual territory, smoking back-to-back felt like the thing to do. He needed to break out of the currently fairly depressing guilt-riddled direction his mind had wandered into and looked about for anything else to focus on, to grab his attention for a bit.
His gaze fell upon number four across the street and his thoughts did indeed switch gears.
Come to think of it, hadn't he seen regular fucking appliances in there when he got Violets stuff?
His own place was distinctly free of Wards because he really liked the Internet, his state-of-the-art kitchen, television, hot tub and Muggle music blasting from a speaker while he settled down to do some writing or reading. If he wanted to continue to enjoy all his Muggle technology, there wasn't much in the way of Wards he could put up. Fireproofing and possibly a very weak Muggle-aversion Ward was probably the limit, anything more then that and he'd start to see interference between the Wards and anything electrical. Instead he used Charms and Runes to compensate a little bit, but it wasn't as good or permanent as proper Wards.
He'd layered fire-proofing Charms on the house and garage, which worked pretty well as a substitute for a fire-proofing Ward, but he had to renew them every third day. There were a few notice-me-nots to hide his owl flap, owl perch and to keep the neighbours from noticing that his pool would be heated even in the midst of the coldest winter. Those also had to be renewed on a regular basis. Insect repelling Runes etched into little wooden spatulas here and there all over the yard. They would last longer, but he probably would need to replace them every other year or so. Another set of Runes on spatulas which kept birds away from his fruit trees and berry bushes. Rat and mouse repelling Runes.
But number four supposedly had Wards powerful enough to protect Violet from all sort of external threats, if they were the same as the one around the Harry Potter he had memories of. They had certainly been powerful enough that he could sense them without even really trying during the few times he'd actually crossed them or just walked near the edge of number four.
And yet regular appliances worked?
He switched on his Mage Sight and stared across the street at number four.
Yeah, the entire property was covered with a dome of magic that shimmered with a fair amount of magic. Ridiculous amount of magic, certainly more then enough that Muggle technology should just go 'NOT JUST NO, BUT HELL NO!' and explode in a shower of sparks. But they obviously hadn't.
There was a thick band of magic stretching out from the dome over the street and into his house behind him, no doubt connected to Violet in the bathroom. He could also see two much thinner ones going off to the west, likely towards Petunia and Dudley on the cruise ship or wherever they currently were. Another one went off to the north. He whipped out his cell phone and looked at a map, eventually guestimating that it was likely going towards Hogwarts for some reason.
Because Violet spent so much time there? Some sort of leftover connection from the years she had spent there?
He frowned.
That didn't seem right.
Because Dumbledore had attached something to whatever the fuck protected number four to keep an eye on it, to keep an eye on Violet?
That seemed more likely.
He now hesitated to call whatever it was a Ward. It had some similarities to one, but it was obviously something quite different then what he was used to.
There was another line stretching out from the dome, also heading in a western direction but a bit more to the south then the two he assumed were connected to Petunia and her human medicine ball of a son. A bit thicker than the ones that likely went to the two Dursleys, but thinner then the one that went to Violet. This one was hazy and shimmered, seeming less 'real', less 'solid', then the others. He looked down at his phone again and after briefly using the built-in compass to align it properly, started tracing the likely direction of that line. He eventually wound up in the Atlantic outside Cornwall, without having spotted anything of real interest on that route.
He scratched his head, looking off in that direction.
What the hell was that line and where did it lead? He saw some Muggle towns and cities when he traced the likely route on the phone, but nothing really sprung to mind.
Okay, what about the Wizarding World? What was located in that direction?
Ottery St Catchpole was likely pretty near to where that line streaked across the country, but not directly on it from what he could recall. So it wasn't some sort of lingering energy from Violet having visited the Weasley family.
He blinked.
Godric's Hollow. That was a pretty tiny little shithole, so it likely didn't show up on his phone unless he zoomed in to a pretty ridiculous degree, but that should be in that direction. He went back to his phone and used his rapidly depleting cigarette to light a third one as he searched for Godric's Hollow. After finding the little shitstain of a semi-village, he started zooming out, taking careful note of where it was in relation to more notable locations nearby.
He then aligned his phone again and preformed the same trace, following the lines route in a south-western direction, stopping once he noted the locations near Godric's Hollow he'd just been so careful to remember. That line passed pretty close to Godric's Hollow, maybe even directly over it.
He zoomed in again, looking carefully at the map.
According to his phone, there was a church, a post office, a pub and three small shops there around a village square, the rest of the village was all private residences.
He let the screen on his phone fade to black and slowly put it away as he puffed away on his third cigarette, looking over at number four.
"Huh. How interesting." he mused quietly.
Perhaps Violet would like to visit the village where she lived until Mister I-am-scared-of-death came along and made a mess of things for her and her parents?
He sure would like to see it at any rate. Something fishy was going on and he wanted to know what.
He also now knew where he'd spent any points he acquired during his dungeon crawling before going to bed. He'd taken five points in both Blood Magic and Wards before, but now he wanted to master them or at least get as close to it as he could. He wasn't sure that what number four had was an actual Ward, but perhaps he'd be able to figure it out if he knew more about Blood Magic and Wards.