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.
AN: I'm probably on some sort of watchlist now. What I used google for a section of this chapter probably raised all sort of flags. What I used for that section was by no means the first or the last weird search I did in a very brief amount of time trying to find something super weird, disgusting and still somewhat funny, so yeah, some organisation or other is likely keeping an eye on me now if they weren't already.
Also, those who check my occasional status updates on my bio page are already aware, but as stated there a while back, I'll likely have zero free time and just about zero energy for fanfiction for a bit. I've started building a new house as the one I'm renting is being sold to new owners who will use it themselves instead of renting it out to an old fanfiction writer. Just as well, this big old house was great as a family home, but for a single old geezer, it's far too big. As anyone familiar with multiple teenage girls can attest, having four bathrooms available is pretty darn awesome. But with those girls now out and about on their own, it's just three extra bathrooms mostly collecting dust for me to clean.
Anyway, I had enough energy to spare in order to clean up and publish this chapter, but I wouldn't count on that being the case in the near future. I'll try, but I honestly wouldn't expect any updates during the month of march at least. Weekdays will be mostly work, build new home and collapse in bed on a rinse and repeat pattern for me in the near future. Weekends being build new home and sleep, hoping not to be completely dead for work on Monday.
Chapter 14:
"Not sure I deserved all of that." Sirius muttered with a displeased expression as he stood outside in Nick's backyard while the other man puffed away on a cigarette. He fumbled a bit with his own which he'd asked for, but after having nearly coughed up his own lungs after his first few attempts at smoking, hadn't made another attempt and now just held the smouldering cancer stick while the ember made it's way closer to the filter.
He had smoked occasionally before he wound up in Azkaban, but this was his first smoke in over a decade. Obviously, his body had weaned itself off them at this point. He'd felt like he deserved a smoke after Lily had read him a riot act or two or three, but supposed it was just as well if he didn't pick up that particular habit once more. Getting him to stop smoking may just be the only advantage of his lengthy 'island vacation', so perhaps he shouldn't squander it.
"Probably not." Nick agreed. "There was a lot of frustration and anger puttering away beneath the surface there, so she likely took this chance to let out some steam, even if much of it had nothing to do with you."
Sirius grunted his agreement.
He had been 'gifted' ample time in Azkaban to think about just how much of a mistake it had been to go after Wormtail like he had done. Lily hadn't really brought any new insights to the table and merely rehashed what he'd come to realize on his own. Her death and resurrection certainly hadn't reduced her ability to make him feel like the lowest form of life imaginable however.
He glanced over his shoulder, spotting the two redheads next to each other on a couch through the glass door.
Lily Potter and Violet Potter.
He still found it hard to believe that he'd finally gotten to see Violet again after so long in prison and now there was Lily as well.
Resurrection.
It boggled the mind.
He'd seen some incredible magic over the years, but seeing someone return from the dead? He wasn't sure if it was more comforting, more scary or more unbelievable, but it certainly was all three.
After Lily had given him hell for fucking up, setting his responsibilities towards Violet aside to hunt down Wormtail for revenge, explanations had followed. Thankfully Lily had exhausted herself by ranting at him, so Violet had taken over that bit with a few additions from Nick whenever Violet dumbed down her explanations a little too much.
He grinned, Violet was perhaps not the most patient gal to ever live, but she sure could be pretty funny and had a certain flair for boiling down pretty complex stuff to simple statements. What took her five minutes to explain, would likely have taken Lily fifty minutes or more. Lily was great, but she certainly liked to be thorough with her explanations, even when what she spoke of went completely over his head. He recalled once asking her 'Is this the right Rune?' when she'd helped him with an essay back in Hogwarts.
That simple question had led to a two-hour monologuing explanation, when all he had been looking for was a simple 'yes' or 'no'.
So it had been pretty great to have Violet explain things, since that stripped away all the unnecessary stuff and left him with a simple and easy-to-follow explanation of the most pertinent things. When there was something that got him curious, he posed a question and got a slightly longer explanation, sometimes from Violet, sometimes from Nick.
He observed the quietly smoking younger man for a few moments.
"You seem to have my near future pretty well planned out and it does sound good." Sirius started, but his expression was both apprehensive and somewhat suspicious. "But what's in it for you?"
Nick slowly nodded, seemingly uncaring that he was under suspicion for having dubious or selfish intentions.
"Violet did skip over my motivations earlier." he mused and took another puff from his cigarette. "I've been concerned about the direction that the Wizarding World have been going in for years, not sure I had even gotten into my teens the first time I started becoming worried about the future. Voldemort's Killing Curse bouncing off baby Violet's forehead did in no way stop things from turning to shit, it merely provided a bump in the road and caused much of it to happen more covertly instead of out in the open. I had been planning to get something done about that for a long time, so bumping into Violet just made me change my plans a bit and forced me to start on that earlier then expected." he explained and shrugged.
"Getting to know Violet over the last couple of days provided a bit more personal motivation and made me aware of more issues to deal with then I had originally expected. I certainly wasn't expecting Voldemort to still be around, although I probably should have. I should have figured out that he would still be around when I first found out about Horcruxes. He's certainly the exact kind of asshole who would be interested in ways to prevent himself from being killed." Nick snorted.
"You don't look surprised. Or worried about him." Sirius stated.
"I've had a bit of time to get used to the idea of him still being around. Getting a brief look at the piece of his Soul he left lying around in Violet before she kicked it out probably helped as well." Nick reflected. "It was a pretty pitiful looking piece of Soul. That fucker was desperate enough to start chopping his Soul to pieces because he was terrified of dying and that can't be entirely without consequences. Not sure how much of himself he lost doing that repeatedly, but I'd be a lot more terrified if we were dealing with a sane, reasonable and whole person. To be honest, at the moment I'm a lot more terrified about what the Department of Mysteries will do once they realize that there's a recently resurrected Lily Potter in my house." he finished with a shudder.
The idea to just shove Lily into some hidden underground bunker and away from the rest of society had certainly struck him after her resurrection, but the chance that he'd be able to persuade her to go along with it didn't feel like a particularly big chance, even with how much simpler things would be if he could just somehow keep her a secret from the outside world.
Sirius blinked and mulled that over for a bit. Violet hadn't mentioned anything at all about that, but now when Nick had pointed it out, he supposed that the Unspeakables would be horribly interested in Lily.
"This house is unwarded, isn't it?" Sirius asked and Nick nodded.
"I have some long-lasting Charms and some Rune-work here and there, but no actual Wards. They would mess too much with my Muggle technology." he sighed and looked around the back yard. "I was too tired yesterday to do anything other then collapse in bed, but I need to start working on some sort of defences for this place. Should probably look into covertly buying and Warding some sort of bolthole in case we have to run away from this place too." he added with a pained expression.
He wasn't bankrupt by any stretch of the imagination and the Quidditch World Cup finals should see him earn back what he had invested and then some, but at the moment, he didn't really have enough savings left to buy a decent bolthole. A Wizarding Tent in some out-of-the-way location would work he supposed, but it would be a bitch to Ward.
Sirius winced as he realized something.
"I... I may know of somewhere." he said, extremely reluctantly. He hated that fucking place. "My old family home. It's an old Black property, so it has some pretty extensive Ward-work done on it and if they are brought up to full strength, it'd be extremely nasty."
"Space enough to take those two in, if needed?" Nick asked with a thumb jerked over his shoulder at the two ladies in the house behind him, silently grateful for the suggestion. He'd forgotten about Grimmauld Place and that it wasn't always up to him to come up with solutions to problems, other people could do that as well. He'd always been somewhat reluctant to rely on and impose on others, so he'd gotten used to and trained his mind to solve problems on his own.
"More then enough." Sirius chuckled. "It's a pretty big place. Not the most... Welcoming atmosphere or ambiance, but it's certainly big enough." he continued and after a moment of consideration, decided to give the younger man the benefit of a doubt. "Space enough for you too, if you need to abandon this place."
Nick gave him a small smile and toasted Sirius with what little remained of his cigarette.
"Well, let's hope that won't be necessary, but I appreciate the offer." he said and nodded. "We can check it out later and set up some Portkeys, in case an emergency evacuation from here is ever needed." he continued, then glanced over his shoulder. "But for now, I guess we'd better get back inside before the ladies think we're about to bolt and decide to come get us. I don't think any of us need Lily getting more upset with us and I'd rather avoid raising Violet's ire if I can. Having one temperamental red-head frustrated with me is a scary enough prospect without adding another one."
Sirius grunted his agreement. An angry Lily was indeed bad enough on her own and he'd seen enough of Lily in Violet to realize that having both of them upset at the same time would be pretty darn nasty.
"So... Did you calm down a bit?" Violet asked cautiously after a period of uncomfortable silence which had settled over the room like a heavy blanket after Nick had headed outside for a smoke and Sirius had scurried after him, voicing a desire for a smoke of his own and intention to bum a smoke of Nick. The two of them could be seen through the glass door to the back yard, where Nick was happily puffing away while Sirius seemed to cough and struggle with his own cigarette.
"Yes." Lily shamefacedly agreed. "I may have gone a bit overboard at the end there." she ruefully admitted.
"Perhaps more then just a bit and not just at the end either." Violet countered and grinned. "I missed a few at the start before I noticed the frequency and started keeping track, but I counted to seven times that you threatened to neuter him after I started counting them." she added with a teasing smirk, while Lily mumbled something under her breath and averted her eyes for a few seconds. "I don't blame him." she finished, a bit more seriously.
"He bloody abandoned you! I love Rubeus to bits, don't get me wrong, but leaving him unsupervised with a baby? That alone is bad enough, but then there's all the other crap that one decision led to!" Lily snapped angrily, once again starting to work herself up to a full-blown rage.
"So, because he made one bad decision, he's also responsible for everything bad that happened because of it?" Violet asked as if looking for confirmation and Lily hesitated for a moment, but then nodded.
"Yes! If he'd just taken care of you like he was supposed to, you'd never have to live with Tunia and her horrid walrus!" her mother growled.
"So, because you and dad decided to stick around after finding out the prophecy instead of leaving the country with me, I should blame you two for everything that happened after?" Violet pointedly asked, which stopped Lily dead in her tracks and caused her to pale.
"Pretty shit decision there, not going to lie. But do I blame you for everything that happened after you decided to stay? No. That is on others, not the two of you. Voldie decided to try and kill us all. It was Dumbledore who forced me on Aunt Petunia. It was Petunia and Vernon who thought it was a smashing idea to shove a young girl under the stairs instead of letting her sleep in the unused bedroom. It was Dudley who thought 'Plucking Violet' was a fun game to play with his mates, at least until I kicked him in the nuts and shoved Piers filthy head down the back of Dudders even filthier pants after the two of them tried to yank my hair out. It was the Dursleys who decided that it was fine to leave me alone while they sodded off on a vacation." she continued with a thoughtful expression.
"Was it wrong for Sirius to leave me with Hagrid and then run off in search of revenge? Well, yes, perhaps it was. Do I think that makes him responsible for a bunch of other shit he was in no way involved with? No, not at all." the younger red-head mused.
Lily sighed.
Wasn't it supposed to be the other way around, with the parent telling the kid to adjust their unfair way of thinking and put blame where it belonged?
"Fine. I was being unfair. I'll... Apologise." Lily agreed, very reluctantly.
"And just for your information, Sirius is highly unlikely to ever be in a situation where you'll catch him 'fingering my daughter', so that's one case of neutering you can scratch off your threat watch list." Violet continued and Lily blushed furiously, while Violet arched an eyebrow at her. "Seemed like you had other prior concerns and took them out on Sirius. Something you want to tell me, mom? Ask me, perhaps?" she asked pointedly while Lily squirmed under her daughters gaze for a few moments, before anger, suspicion and frustration pushed aside everything else, allowing her to draw herself up and focus a determined expression on her face.
"Did Nick... Penetrate you... During the massage yesterday?" Lily asked, stuttering a little bit. Apparently there was a bit of shame and embarrassment that hadn't been pushed aside after all.
Violet kept her eyebrow arched and just mutely stared at her mother.
"I mean... With his fingers... It looked as if... Like he... You were beet red!" Lily babbled. "You did have the talk, right? You had it from someone who did it correctly? Oh god, you were lying to me about that, weren't you? You haven't had it?!" she continued, growing increasingly more distraught, flustered and panicked.
Violet leaned back in her seat, pushed down both the comfortable soft trousers and the bright orange panties she was wearing, revealing the goodies to her mother. She looked down and pointed out a few of the Magic Burns in that particular area, showing how they stopped before actually entering truly dangerous territory.
"I've done this area on my own during all other massages. I'm not sure why he did it yesterday, but he was pretty out of it though. I was about to sock him at first, but when I saw how glazed his eyes were I figured that he wasn't really aware of what he was doing and just let him get on with it." Violet firmly stated while Lily bashfully tried to avoid glancing at her daughter s nether regions after first staring in complete and utter shocked surprise for a few moments after the unexpected unveiling.
"P-put that away." she stuttered.
Violet stared intently at her mother for a while, but did pull her panties and trousers back up after a few seconds.
"So... You've got another apology to make, I guess? There's been a fair amount of not-very-hidden resentment going on." Violet hinted and Lily crossed her arms, pouting mulishly.
"I am not apologizing to Nick." she stated firmly.
"He was right then." Violet grunted and crossed her own arms, taking a deep breath of air and exhaling it with a long huff.
Lily arched her own eyebrow in question.
"You dislike him, don't approve of me liking him and any attempt at discussing this seems like it'll lead to a big row." Violet sighed as her mother seemed to be working herself up into a heated monologue before Violet pointed out an upcoming argument.
Lily opened and closed her mouth a few times, then slumped back in her seat and rested her head on the backrest, staring up at the ceiling.
"I hate how perceptive that man can be." she admitted in a voice tinged both with frustration and exhaustion. "He warned me not to bring this up with you."
"Me too." Violet grunted and assumed the same position as her mother, staring up at the ceiling. She wasn't as physically exhausted as Lily, but felt kind of listless. This wasn't a conversation she truly wanted to have at the moment, but it felt warranted. Probably was better to have it while Lily was kind of wiped and too tired to get a good rage going without a bit of an effort. Her own exercise earlier had also left her somewhat less energetic then usual, so there was that. It was probably easier to talk about this if she wasn't quite as full of energy and likely to go off as otherwise. "Seemed to think I wouldn't be able to keep my calm if you started dissing him and the way I feel."
"I do find it hard to come up with a way of saying what I want to say without yelling, cursing and calling you both names." Lily sighed and chuckled helplessly. "I hate how that man just seems to get me and you, predicting my actions so well. Almost makes me wonder if Divination truly is as big a pile of crap as I've always thought it was."
"One of his more annoying traits, for sure." Violet easily agreed. "Along with calling me short all the time, distracting me with head pats, being outright insane and yet being right far to often for comfort." she grumpily continued and laughed helplessly. "But yeah, I don't think I would be able to remain this calm if you started 'yelling, cursing and calling us both names'."
"Truce?" Lily offered.
"Truce." Violet agreed and held out her fist over towards Lily, who merely stared at the clenched fist in her field of vision in confusion. "You clench yours and we bump fists." Violet hinted as the expected fist-bump failed to materialize and Lily smiled, then did as instructed.
"We will have a bit of discussion about it. But yes, it may be best to hold off on that talk for a bit." Lily announced.
"He's writing a stupid no-relationship list. Add your arguments to that. I'll crush both of your objections." Violet offered and Lily chuckled.
"He already asked me to." Lily admitted and Violet laughed out loud.
"It figures! That ruddy cheater! He's bringing in reinforcements because he knows that I'll destroy his case otherwise." Violet groaned. "You'd think I was some old warty hag or something, the way he keeps trying to get me to back off." she snorted with a shake of her head. "If he's so fucking concerned about my age and weak sensibilities, he might want to consider not completely ruining my confidence and self-image by trying so hard to turn me down."
Lily was a bit torn. On one hand, she wanted to reassure her daughter that she was a lovely young woman who could get any man she wanted. But on the other hand, it would be for the best if she didn't keep gunning for the older man.
"I'm too young for this kind of crap. I wasn't planning on having conversations like this until I was closer to my forties." Lily said and palmed her face for a moment. "No, you're not a hag, you're a wonderful young girl. Far too young for that pawing pervert." she declared, deciding on the spot not to count the years she had been six feet under, which meant that she truly was too young for this particular conversation.
"Not sure I'd be willing to take your word for what's perverted or not, since you keep overworking yourself when you know it might lead to the two of us having to snog." Violet argued.
"Fine, fine. Truce it is." Lily quickly responded.
"Truce it is." Violet agreed.
Lily was somewhat impressed, Sirius mostly confused and Violet eagerly anticipatory.
Nick muttered to himself about unhelpful freeloaders just staring at him instead of helping as he lifted the newly delivered flatscreen television up and affixed it to the wall mount he'd already put up.
Lily was familiar enough with televisions, but only had personal experiences with the older models. This shiny sleek flat thing with a ginormous screen compared to what she recalled televisions to be like was something new. She had wanted to get a TV for the Potter cottage, but she and James had never gotten around to it before things turned to shit. Perhaps just as well, if she'd turned into a couch potato and just watched soap operas all day while cooped up in hiding, she might never have spent enough time reading and researching that Violet would have lived through that Halloween.
Sirius had seen TVs as well. He hadn't been terribly familiar with the Muggle world before winding up in Azkaban, but he had seen and been somewhat aware of what a television was. After escaping from Azkaban, he'd also gotten to see what the modern televisions looked like from time to time during his time on the run through the Muggle World. He'd never actually fully watched anything on one of them before other then briefly in passing, but he was aware that they could display a wide variety of things, all the way from news and sporting events to some sort of fictional theatrical productions. But he had no clue why Violet and Nick had been so happy to see the delivery crew come around to deliver it or how big a part of Muggle life it could be.
Violet knew about them, but wasn't all that familiar with them in spite of growing up around them. Vernon and Petunia had a big one downstairs and Dudley had his own in his room. She only really got to watch TV while she had number four to herself, which didn't happen all that often. But she had managed to see a few episodes of television shows, the occasional movie and so it wasn't completely new to her. She was eagerly anticipating perhaps finally being able to see some of the movies and shows that she'd heard some of her Muggleborn friends talk about for herself.
Nick kept on muttering unflattering things about technologically impaired lazy bastards as he connected the cable box, an old Nintendo Wii and a media centre to the television. Thankfully the other devices had survived when the old TV was destroyed since they rested inside a low sturdy cabinet and the speakers for the surround sound system were a bit to the sides from where he'd been launched at the old TV and the subwoofer was to the side of the cabinet. Once everything was hooked up and the power plugged in, he turned everything on and deftly maneuvered through the initial settings. After confirming that everything was hooked up and seemed to be working as intended, he turned around and raised an eyebrow at the three silent observers who hadn't lifted a finger to help him after two delivery men had carried the new TV inside the house.
"Done staring at my well-shaped rear end?" he archly inquired and looked down over his left shoulder for a moment, twisting his body a bit to give himself a better look at it. "I know it's a gorgeous one and all, but really, the three of you have spent nearly five minutes staring at it now." he continued and grinned as the ladies blushed and Sirius merely grinned, too thick-skinned to let such a light tease affect him in the slightest. Violet did look somewhat guilty, so he guessed that she might have indeed been watching his rear from time to time, although he doubted it had been her main focus, as she had seemed pretty eager for the TV to get delivered and anxious to get a crack at it. What really surprised him was that even Lily appeared somewhat guilty.
Had she actually been staring at his rear, was she just feeling guilty about not helping or feeling guilty about something else?
He'd mostly been joking and teasing, he hadn't expected that to have actually been the case, but perhaps some stares had indeed been levelled at his rear while he unpacked, mounted and installed everything.
He grinned. Once Lily didn't get dizzy when moving about and had a bit more energy, he intended to introduce swimming to her workout schedule. All his own swimwear were comfortable and somewhat baggy, but perhaps he should see about investing in something a bit more on the tight side. If she indeed was someone who liked taking a few glances, then hell, he could stand being glanced at and supposed it wouldn't be too much of a hardship to make a bit of a show out of it.
It kind of felt like that he could use any edge he could get when it came to her, her impression of him didn't seem to be the best at the moment. From her perspective, James hadn't been gone for long either, so she'd not really gotten used to being a widow yet. But if staring at his ass could be a way to improve her opinion about him, then hell, she was more then welcome to stare at it to her hearts content.
Not that it'd save her from being teased about it in the future. But for now, there was sadly more urgent business then some amusing and enjoyable teasing.
"Okay, I was reading up on obscure diagnostic charms while waiting for the television to be delivered when I wasn't watching the amusing spectacle of Big Red trying to apologize to the Mangy Mutt without actually straight out saying that she was sorry. In front of me I now have three people who could benefit from being bombarded with diagnostic charms." Nick started and smiled at three now nervous-looking freeloaders.
"For our first contestant we have the Marvellous Moron Mutt who licks food off the street and as a result likely has the bacterial, viral, wormy concoction from hell brewing away inside his body. Our second contestant is Weirdly Wonderful Wondergirl, who spent fifteen years six feet under before returning to the land of the living just yesterday and today spent some time doing more then my carefully planned out rehabilitation workout schedule mandated. Our last and certainly the tiniest contestant is the Vivacious Voracious Violet, who has been stuck at 149 centimetres tall for a full year and who's had zero hair growth for even longer! Who will be the first patient of the Amazingly Awesome Doctor Nick?" he continued in a fake announcer voice.
"I'm good! I've been stuck at this height for a year, I can be short for a while longer!" Violet instantly spoke up, her aversion to being poked and prodded much stronger now then her desire to stop being one of the shortest people in her year.
"He ate trash and garbage! And spent fifteen years in a shoddily run prison!" Lily pointed at Sirius.
"She was dead and buried! And Violet said she overworked herself earlier!" Sirius pointed at Lily.
Lily and Sirius glared at each other, eyes narrowing for a few seconds. Both wordlessly held out their left hands palms up and clenched their right hands above their left.
"First to three?" Sirius suggested.
"You're on." Lily agreed.
"1, 2, 3, Expelliarmus, Stupefy, Diffindo!" both chanted and slammed their right fists down on their palms, a finger pointing at the other like a mock wand.
"Expelliarmus!" Lily cried out.
"Stupefy! Fuck!" Sirius cried out and then instantly mourned as he realized that Lily's Expelliarmus beat his Stupefy.
"What the hell is wrong with rock-paper-scissors?" Nick muttered to himself. "This game doesn't even make sense, if I tried to zap an incoming Diffindo with a Stupefy, I'd loose my hand."
"Oh? Want to try holding up a sheet of paper as protection if I try to pelt you with a rock then?" Violet inquired from where she had sidled up next to him to observe and Nick grunted.
"Fine, both are pretty illogical." he admitted reluctantly as Lily's Diffindo beat the Expelliarmus of Sirius, bringing another curse to leave the former prisoners mouth.
But in spite of the dire situation, Sirius actually managed to come back from the 0-2 game and turn it to a 3-2 game, much to Lily's obvious frustration.
That Sirius proceeded to do a little victory dance and chant out 'My Stupefy beats your Diffindo, my Stupefy beats your Diffindo!' probably didn't help any on the frustration front.
"Ah, no worries Wondergirl. You came up clean this morning, I just want to repeat a few and try some new diagnostic charms I've read up on, but I don't really expect to find anything major considering how well things seemed this morning, all things considered. So it'll probably be pretty quick. You can take some comfort in the fact that it will be fast and that I'll probably have to shove some pretty nasty Potions down the Mutts throat after I've got him under the Wand."
She did seem to perk up a little at that, though the fact that Sirius stopped mid-chant to mouth 'Potions?' in a muted horrified whisper likely also had something to do with that.
"Fine, lets get it over with then." she groused, but was pleasantly surprised by the fact that it was indeed pretty quick. She only had to spend five minutes sitting still in the couch while Nick cast charm after charm on her. She also had a pretty nice distraction in the TV, on which she could see Violet trying to make her way through what was apparently the library stored on Nick's media centre. She was familiar with VHS tapes and while she had no experience with them, recalled that movies had started being released on DVD's instead of VHS tapes before her little unexpected 'vacation' from life. These days DVD's were being phased out and it was apparently more and more common to 'stream' then buying movies on physical mediums.
She had no idea what 'streaming' meant or how it worked, Nick had just offered a very brief explanation when he saw what had caught her interest. How the little electronic box in the cabinet under the TV could hold hundreds of movies and television shows apparently had something to do with 'downloading' and 'The Internet', which were words she had heard before, but couldn't really put into context. Both the Media Centre and the television itself were also apparently capable of this mysterious 'Streaming' he'd briefly mentioned.
She didn't really care at the moment however. Boys with their toys was nothing new to her, even if the toys in question had apparently become a lot more advanced in her absence. It seemed to work and it seemed that Nick had a significant library of movies and shows available based on all the titles she saw scrolling past on the TV, which was enough for her. Most of the names she saw were unfamiliar to her, but she did spot a few old titles that she did recognize.
Sirius tried looking at the TV for a bit, but got bored pretty fast by a lot of titles scrolling past and instead ambled over to Nick's bookshelf in the reading corner, in search of something better and more familiar to amuse and distract himself with.
"Well, as expected, there wasn't really anything new that popped up. But I feel better having double-checked." Nick finally announced as he let the last diagnostic charm fade away. "Your muscles are in the process of breaking down and rebuilding, a bit more break down then I'd like to have seen for the first day, but hopefully nothing other then a bit of exercise pain will come of it."
"I did say that I could handle it." Lily reminded him and he smiled wryly at her.
"You did indeed. I bow to your superior knowledge of your own body." he agreed with a nod while Lily preened as he admitted that she had been right. "Your body isn't producing much magic now, but I'm hoping that it's because it's more focused on rebuilding itself now when it's getting some food to work with. Hopefully that will increase once you've regained a bit of weight and body mass, I can't see anything wrong, it's just not producing much magic. Other then that, things seem to be as well as can be expected. Better then expected even." he stated and wondered if he should take this opportunity to ask about the Protections around number four as there was a bit of odd interaction going on with them he was curious about, but got interrupted before he could.
"Hey! You have porn!" Sirius suddenly exclaimed happily from over by the bookshelf.
"I do? Unless she-who-must-not-be-named has snuck some in there, there shouldn't be." Nick responded dubiously, while Lily stared at him in disapproval and Violet smirked with a bemused shimmer in her eyes as she looked at him instead of the TV.
Sadly, he could very well see Tonks doing just that. He would not be at all surprised if she'd found some porn featuring young-looking red-haired models and snuck them into his bookshelf, just to laugh her ass off if Violet found them before he did.
"There's nekkid ladies in these books!" Sirius approved as he held up two books for inspection. Nick sighed as he spotted the books in question.
"That's 'Shibari Suspensions' by Hina Akira and 'Kinbaku: The Art of Rope Bondage' by Nawashi Murakawa. It's not porn." he protested.
"There's nekkid ladies in these books!" Sirius repeated happily, unwilling to be deterred. "If not porn, then what is it? The art of kidnapping naked women in a sexy way?"
"Some people enjoy tying people up, others enjoy being tied up and some like both. Those are some books explaining how to do that. There's probably another two or three in there somewhere unless they're still in boxes back at my old place." Nick briefly explained with a somewhat uncomfortable expression on his face. Violets grin widened while Lily seemed to be wavering between her earlier disapproval and a sense of amusement at his discomfort.
"So, it's a Muggle way to have kinky sex involving ropes? Got it." Sirius nodded and after a swift additional search through the shelves brought a small pile of books over to the couch, where he sat down and opened one of them. "Might not be porn, but after years in Azkaban, I'll take what I can get."
"Keep your clothes on and if I find those books covered in sticky stuff later on, I'll drag you naked and tied up in the same way those people are to your trial." Nick grunted and shook his head, deciding to ignore whatever Sirius was doing in that corner for a bit. He'd have liked to explain that bondage wasn't necessarily about sex, but if Sirius could keep his attention off the pictures long enough to do some reading, he'd likely find that out for himself.
"And you have several books about that, why?" Violet drawled while wagging her eyebrows as he looked away from Sirius.
"Never you mind that, shorty. Since Sirius is busy, you're up next." he declared vindictively, which caused Violet to gulp and abandon her teasing line of question.
"You have degenerate sex books in your library with my teenaged daughter here?" Lily interrupted with an ice-cold tone of voice and a severely displeased expression on her face, causing Nick to facepalm and sigh as the uncomfortable topic just refused to die.
"I have some books on artistic bondage, yes. There's no sexual acts in them, it's either instructions on how to preform rope bondage or about the history and culture around it." he responded in a neutral tone of voice.
He did somewhat want to open up his status screen in order to check out Lily and her relationship score with him, but the memory of the weird new garbled tab that had suddenly appeared made him highly cautious of anything even remotely connected to the weird Game system. But even if he had been able to bring himself to look, it wasn t as if looking would actually change anything. It was just that he was a bit curious if their relationship had improved or perhaps even worsened over the course of the day.
"This lady has ropes around her baps!" Sirius exclaimed enthusiastically from where he was making his way through one of the books he'd found.
"Yes, Sirius. Thank you for that very helpful statement." Nick groaned and shook his head. "I also have the 'Story of O', 'Emmanuelle', 'Masters of the Shadowlands' and 'Screw the roses, send me the thorns' somewhere in that shelf." Nick continued and carefully noted how Lily blushed a bit as he mentioned 'Story of O' and 'Emmanuelle'. "I see you are familiar with at least two of them." he pointed out and Lily blushed even more, while Violet glanced aside at her mother with a somewhat bemused and confused expression, none of those names meaning anything to her, but inferring from context that her mother apparently wasn't unfamiliar with 'degenerate sex books' herself.
"Yes, well, that is neither here nor there." Lily mumbled evasively.
"We live in the age of easily accessed information now, Big Red." Nick said and pulled out his phone, sitting down next to Lily. Violet looked over as well and saw how he went onto google, which is what he set as the default starting homepage on her phone browser when he had shown her how her own phone worked after she got it.
"Pretty much every Muggle who can afford one of these phones has one and the phones are connected to the Internet, which you can think of as the worlds biggest library. Sadly, it's a library filled with both good stuff, crappy shit and outright lies, so it can sometimes be hard to find accurate information, but there is information about everything, including sex and erotica. Including weird shit I rather doubt any normal person would even think of as having sexual connotations. Look, I'll type in 'sex with Armadillos', that should be obscure and weird enough that I'd bet you'd struggle to find much of anything at all about that in even the biggest physical library in the world." he continued and did indeed type that in, then pressed search.
"Four million and twenty thousand results?!" Lily exclaimed in shock, horror and surprise as she saw one of the first lines of text that appeared.
"'Florida man falls victim to Leprosy after sex with Armadillo'?!" Violet blurted out after spotting one of the first couple of results which popped up.
"I doubt all four million results or even most of them are actually about sex with Armadillos. It checks the three key words I put in, then spits out results based on that, so it can be about Armadillos having sex with other Armadillos or perhaps an article from someone named Peter Armadillo who wrote about something involving purely normal human sex, but I'll bet at least some of these four million results are about humans having sex with Armadillos, some fake, but some real." Nick explained and then pointed out the options to get image and video results. "I'll not be clicking those as I have no desire to get traumatized, but through the Internet, pretty much anyone can find anything at all, no matter how perverted or degenerate."
"This... That... People walk around with those kind of things in their pockets?!" Lily exclaimed in horror.
"Welcome to the information age, Big Red. All sort of information is rarely more then a few movements of your finger away if you are in the Muggle world with a phone in your possession." Nick grinned.
"I now understand why you threatened me with Brussel sprouts if you found me using my phone to look at porn at the dinner table." Violet breathed, still looking at the incredibly disturbing headline she'd spotted earlier. She'd been dimly aware of the Internet, but hadn't really used it a lot. There were a few computers in the school library before she went to Hogwarts and Dudley certainly seemed impressed with the Internet, but she'd never really used computers or had a phone herself before now. But this...
She reached out and took Nicks phone out of his hand, then changed the search after struggling a bit with the touch screen keyboard which was a very unfamiliar beast to the not very tech-savvy young girl.
"'How to get an older boyfriend'?" Lily read out loud, also spotting what was on the screen. "Six hundred and eighty-seven million results?! Violet!" she protested and tore the phone out of her daughter s hands, quickly giving it back to Nick.
She hadn't spent that much time in the Muggle world in the last couple of years before she was killed, but she hadn't remained in complete isolation. She had been aware that mobile phones had become more and more popular and knew that computers could talk to each other all over the world, but she had no idea that they could be used for these kinds of things!
"So, yeah. Me having a few instructional books about artistic bondage and some erotic novels in my bookshelf isn't really making it easier for Violet to find out about that sort of stuff. She can find out about that on her own by using her phone. If she is inclined to find out if she could survive sex with a walrus, I'm betting she could use her phone to find that out after a bit of looking around." Nick continued.
"Throw it away! Throw that filthy bestiality encyclopedia away!" Lily squeaked. "The Internet is evil! It's nasty!"
"On the contrary, Wondergirl. I'm getting you one as well." Nick said with a slightly evil grin. "You can use it to find the movies or television series for 'Story of O' and 'Emmanuelle', learn about rule 34 and all sort of other wonderful things." he added helpfully.
"Kill me! Kill me now! I was better off dead!" Lily whimpered and looked on helplessly as Violet got her own phone out and searched for 'Rule 34'. Lily averted her gaze, having no desire whatsoever to find out what that mysterious rule was all about or what sort of degenerate results that perverted device would show.
She had returned to life only to find out that the world was now a lot scarier and filthier than she remembered!
It wasn't that she was a prude, per say. Nobody who had went to school with or spent any significant amount of time around Pandora, Sirius and a few others in her circle of friends would be capable of staying a prude. But being this open about sex in mixed company just didn't compute for her.
It was one thing to chat with her girlfriends about sex over a butterbeer or a glass of red wine, or hearing Sirius make some incredibly crude remark which she could berate him for, but talk about sex with two men and her daughter present? No, just... No!
"Ah, no worries, Big Red. You'll get used to it soon enough." Nick 'assured' her, still grinning at her discomfort. "But for now, time to be a Healer Nerd again." he sighed and turned to Violet, who was still using her phone to learn about Rule 34. "Put your porn away, Mini Red. Time to get zapped with diagnostic spells."
"Sirius can go first. Tell him to put his porn-not-porn away!" Violet protested, but did put her phone away with a sad sigh and resigned expression.
She was by no means a stranger to having a Healer cast various Charms on her, having spent way more time around Poppy then most other students except possibly Neville, who had a bit of a tendency to require her services after various brewing mishaps in Potions. But she would occasionally help poor Nev to the hospital ward after his mishaps, so she also had experience watching them as a bystander. Some of the more common Charms she recognized and reflected that she'd seen the wand motions and heard the incantations often enough that she could probably half-arse them herself at this point. Granted, she wouldn't necessarily understand the results, but she could probably cast a few of them at least.
The bone revealing one for sure. She'd certainly been exposed to it often enough after that twat Lockheart vanished the bones in her fucking arm and needed to have them regrown that she was intimately familiar with it after how many times Poppy had cast it on her as her new bones grew in.
Nick seemed increasingly disturbed the more Charms he cast, eventually he just walked off to his office, from which he returned with two thick books. He also made a stop in the reading corner, where he picked up another book before returning to the couch.
He plonked himself down next to Lily again and quickly looked through a couple of pages in all three books, then looked up at the results of his Charms again. The moment he attempted to put one book down to find information in another, Lily hastily confiscated the abandoned book in order to check up on what he had been reading, her eyes darting back and forth across pages in search of whatever information Nick had looked up about her daughter. Nick scratched the back of his head, his forehead creased and a severely frustrated expression appeared on his face.
"Okay, what is wrong with me?" Violet finally asked, steeling herself for incoming horrible news.
"Not nearly enough." Nick absently and extremely bluntly replied. "You should be dead, multiple times over."
"Well, there's certainly been a close shave or two over the years." Violet responded archly, well aware of just how fucking weird and dangerous her life had been.
"Your toxicity levels are off the bloody charts. By all fucking rights, you should be killing everyone around you with your evaporated sweat, exhaled breath and farting, but this obviously isn't happening. Your breath should be toxic enough that your mother should have died by sharing a bed with you, but she survived that just fine." he started with a frustrated expression. "Just as there's enough poison inside of you to kill off a significant portion of the continent, there's also a powerful rejuvenating component that almost perfectly balances out the poison, rendering it harmless and making it possible for you to walk about without becoming a mass murderer."
"Basilisk Venom and Phoenix Tears, yes. Second year." Violet nodded to herself and absently fingered the scar she still had from the Basilisk fang.
"By all rights, the venom should have turned your entire body to mulch shortly after you were bitten. It's incredibly corrosive as well as dangerous in other ways. This amount inside a human, should have left you just a bubbling mess of fluids and evaporating gasses shortly after your heart stopped, lungs collapsed, brain melted and bones turned to dust. Instead it seems like your body adapted to it almost perfectly, I believe you may even be producing your own venom/tear mix somehow. There is something organ-like that shouldn't be there next to one of your kidneys which has a high concentration of both venom and the rejuvenating component, so either you produce your own or somehow store some of what's already inside you there. That you are still alive with two such foreign substances inside you is pretty darn incredible." he breathed and shook his head, a faint note of awe in his voice.
"If you ever find yourself short on funds, you could probably make a fortune out of anonymously selling your blood, spit, sweat and urine to researchers." he added, causing Violet to make a horrified and disgusted expression. "I'd do something about it if I could, but I'm not sure where to even begin and since you don't seem to be suffering from it, well... See no evil, hear no evil and all that jazz. So for the moment, I'll just try to ignore that and move on until I can come up with something that can fix it."
"Perhaps a blood transfusion? Lower the concentration by diluting the foreign elements in her blood?" Lily suggested, getting back into the conversation now when it was no longer embarrassing the hell out of her.
"Adding new blood to her system might dilute the mix a little bit, yes. Doing it multiple times over an extended amount of time might eventually bring it down to just merely being toxic on an individual level instead of civilization-ending-levels, but it's a long-term project. If as I suspect her body is producing more of it, she'll never be completely free of it as long as that process isn't stopped. As long as the venom is kept in check by the tears, there's thankfully no imminent danger. Doesn't seem to do her or her surroundings any direct harm and judging from just how free her veins and arteries are from blockage, it may even be good for her long-term health. It should certainly make her pretty much immune to a lot of heart-related issues later in life." Nick mused after a few moments of consideration.
"I also strongly suspect that she's pretty much immune to many if not all Muggle diseases, illnesses and drugs. Potions and magical drugs probably work just fine, maybe even better then otherwise since her blood and entire body is more magical then normal, even for an extremely magically powerful witch. I probably should run some experiments on that, so her body doesn't unexpectedly explode in a fountain of blood if she gets a Blood Replenishment Potion at some point and it produces barrels of blood instead of more manageable amounts. I'm also tempted to feed her a bottle of vodka or two and see if she gets drunk off it or not." he continued with an intrigued expression.
"You know, it's probably a good thing that you're self-employed." Violet responded after a few moments of silence, in which she'd had multiple pretty unpleasant images flash through her mind. "You certainly wouldn't be able to work as a Healer with this atrocious a bed-side manner and blunt way of speaking. Or after stating outright that you want to try and get a teenaged girl drunk on hard liquor."
Lily nodded firmly.
"Heh, perhaps." Nick grinned unapologetically. "Anyway, I don't recommend ever letting someone at the Ministry, St Mungos or the like get hold of your blood or run you through a barrage of diagnostic spells like I just did. You'd probably be classed as a Magical Beast or Dark Creature if someone got a closer look at you and reported what they discovered. If someone figures out how to separate the Tears and Venom from each other, you also run the risk of getting kidnapped and being periodically drained of your blood for very expensive Potion supplies. It was probably a VERY good thing that you didn't want to go to St Mungos for your burns."
Violet swallowed and nodded stiffly. Lily looked a bit more dubious about how good an idea not going to St Mungos was, but eventually nodded as well.
"One other extremely concerning future thing about your new blood and body makeup, is just how alien your entire body is to foreign substances." Nick said and his expression turned more serious, his tone of voice more neutral. "I strongly suspect that you can't get pregnant by a Muggle. Sperm without a magical component to it, will likely find your eggs too strange to work with, if the sperm can even survive inside your body long enough to get to the egg. I also strongly suspect that it will be hard to get pregnant with a magical donor as well, as magic tends to dissipate pretty quickly, especially in as weird and alien environment as your body is to outside influences. It could be possible, but I can't really say for sure."
Violet looked completely stumped, not knowing even how to start feeling about that particular piece of news. Lily looked extremely torn about what to think, but at least acted without a single shred of hesitation, quickly wrapping her arms around a mostly unresponsive daughter.
"I'm... Barren?" Violet asked from her mothers arms after a while of stunned silence, voice heavy with confusion.
"I am sorry, but I can't say for sure. I suspect that it will be hard to get pregnant, but not entirely impossible. Once you do get pregnant, you should be able to carry the baby to term normally as your eggs should provide the adapted physicality needed to survive in your womb. The child shouldn't be in any more danger then with a more normal pregnancy, but there's a high likelihood that you will pass on your unique traits, at least to some degree." Nick replied after a few moments.
Violet blinked and sat silently for nearly half a minute, then shrugged.
"Well, not like I was planning on getting preggers anytime soon anyway." she flippantly responded, while reflecting that perhaps it wasn't that bad a thing that she was 'emotionally impaired', as Hermione had described her once. It wasn't that she couldn't see that this could be a huge major fucking issue at some future point, but the key part of that was the 'future' bit. She lived in the now, future concerns were mostly just that, something for her future self to worry about. "You think something can be done about it?" she asked.
"Not sure how to go about getting the tears and venom out of your body in a way that wouldn't be extremely slow or dangerous to you, but when you do start thinking about children, I'm pretty certain there are workable ways around the problems." Nick replied. "The technique I used to concentrate magic into my blood for Wondergirls Magical Infusions is something anyone decently familiar with the Mind Arts can learn and there's a bit of history of certain Pure-blood families concentrating magic into sperm because it was once believed that it increased the likelihood of magical progeny. There were no proven effects however, so it fell out of style, but it is possible to use the same technique I used for sperm instead of blood. As long as your future partner takes a few months to read up on the Mind Arts and learn how to do it, it should help. I also think I could come up with a Potion or two to make your lady bits less of a hostile environment for a day or two. The donor taking a Pepper-up or two beforehand to further add a bit of magic to their 'donation' might help as well."
"So, could be a problem, but there are work-arounds and you might be able to think of something to permanently fix it." Violet mused and nodded. "Alright, good enough for me. I won't worry about it for now." she declared, causing both Lily and Nick to look dubiously at her.
Lily looked incredulously at Nick, who had nothing to offer other then a helpless expression. He had certainly noted that Violet was a bit all over the place on the emotional spectrum. Anger and rage were quick to materialize when something irked her, but it was just as quick to disappear if she got distracted by something or had an opportunity to vent. He had seen her worried or concerned, but those seemed to vanish or be buried deeply pretty fast as well. But to just dismiss something along the lines of this just felt... Wrong.
He didn't know what to do about that or how to fix it though. Lily certainly seemed short on ideas too, not to mention pretty darn stunned and surprised over how seemingly uncaring and callous her daughter could be about what likely seemed like a pretty darn huge issue to Lily. For someone who had apparently believed that she herself was barren and yet had somehow managed to both get pregnant and carry Violet to term from what he'd been told earlier, this must seem like pretty horrible news. The research he'd done earlier this summer had not mentioned those bits about Lily suffering from that, but from what little Lily had said earlier, he guessed that she was now indeed incredibly concerned over her daughter possibly having similar problems.
He could certainly relate. If some bastard had informed him that he was possibly sterile or had a low sperm count or something of the sort, he'd probably be pretty darn upset, even if he had zero plans on any sort of offspring for the foreseeable future.
He took a deep breath and decided that it was another problem that had no immediate solution and thus, he had no choice but to put it aside for now. But he'd see about possibly getting a one-on-one talk with Hermione about Violet at some point in the future. He'd also invest in some more books on psychology, emotions and human behaviour. He wasn't completely unfamiliar with that, it had indeed been something he'd studied quite a bit of as he got into the Mind Arts, but he felt very much out of his depth now.
"I am a Rune nerd. I am a Rune nerd." he muttered under his breath, as he realized that he was not only being buried in Healing projects but apparently now also a Psychological and/or emotional one. "Fuck it." he suddenly exclaimed, then refocused on Violet. "Fine, I'll keep looking into it, but we'll let sleeping dogs lie for the moment. Now then, your hair and height impairment." he shifted topics and scratched the back of his head.
"Your follicles have actually changed, you will keep having both red, white and blue hair. But if you want your original hair colour back, there's both Charms and Potions that can recolour your hair or even permanently change your follicles again. As for not growing, the weird way your hair behaves likely has to do with accidental magic at a pretty young age. At first I thought you might be a partial Metamorphmagus, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Your hair is actually growing pretty normally, but it is self-trimming and I believe also incredibly fast-growing when needed." Nick went ahead and Violet nodded.
"Aunt Petunia gave me a pretty nasty hair-cut once, but everything was back to normal the morning after. The other girls in Gryffindor have tried to cut my hair sometimes and the same thing happens then, everything is back to the way it was when I wake up in the morning. Same thing if I try to cut it myself, both with magic and in purely Muggle ways." Violet admitted.
"You probably disliked the nasty hair-cut and wanted things back to normal, then your magic provided, but perhaps in a more permanent way they you intended." Nick sighed. "If you'd gotten help quickly right after that, it may have been possible to fix. It may have taken quite a few Wizards and Witches or an incredibly powerful one, since you must have put an incredible amount of juice into whatever you did, but it may have been fixable. At this point though, I'm not sure. You've had this over you for years, more and more magic being pushed into that effect over those years. Your hair likely counts as some sort of Magical Artifact at this point." he chuckled and shook his head.
"Same thing there, if you ever find yourself lacking funds, cut off some hair and sell it. I bet there are researchers out there that would pay and arm and a leg for a bit of your hair. A full team of Curse Breakers MAY be able to do something about it, as long as they have some real powerhouses amongst them, but it's far beyond my power levels to even attempt to do something about it at the moment. It might be possible to somehow drain enough magic from this weird effect that it can be broken, but I'm afraid that would be another pretty lengthy project and involve a fair bit of experimentation." he explained and looked carefully at that unruly head of hair.
Violet slumped a bit. She would have liked to have the occasional hair cut and image change, but it seemed as if she would have to live with constantly having her hair at this length. The news that she now had permanently tri-coloured hair was more welcome though, the more often she saw herself in the mirror, the more she liked it.
And what the hell was up with Nick constantly suggesting that she sell off pieces of her own body? Like she fucking needed to go that far if she ever ran out of money. Based on how eager Seamus had been to get into the girl changing rooms to ogle her and the three Gryffindor chasers, she could just set up a camera, snap a decently revealing but mostly modest picture and sell copies of that shit.
Heck, based on how enthusiastic some store owners had been at her presence when she lived in Diagon Alley last summer after the incident with Aunt Marge, she could probably make a mint with advertising and endorsements. Why the hell would she sell off hair, blood or urine if there was a less embarrassing way to earn some quick money?
"Okay, shame about not being able to get a haircut. But I do like having more colours to play with, so I can live with that. No need to involve a team of curse breakers." she declared and Nick slowly nodded.
"It is quite striking." Lily admitted with a note of approval. She pulled her hand through Violet's hair and looked more closely at it. "Can't see a single split end either, the self-trimming component must get rid of them as soon as they can appear. Or perhaps it's some sort of side effect from the Phoenix Tears in your system."
"It's quite cool, yeah. Very pretty." Nick agreed happily and Violet smiled widely at his verbal approval. He had told her that she was fun, liked having her around and similar things, but rarely anything that hinted that he found her beautiful, although she did recall him approving of her hair right after it had changed. She was self-aware and confident enough not to need somebody else telling her that she was attractive, but it was very nice to hear none the less.
"As for your height, well. Similar situation there, I thought it might be some Metamorphmagus bullshittery you just hadn't learned to control at first, but it's to do with the Basilisk Venom and Phoenix Tears in your system. Your bones aren't growing because the venom corrodes most new bone growth before it can set and the tears negates normal wear and tear on already grown bones. It's an incredible balancing act. The venom keeps you from growing taller, or at least makes it an incredibly slow process. The tears keep you from shrinking as you would from normal wear and tear with this tiny amount of new growth." he continued, awe once again creeping into his voice.
"So... I'll be short forever?!" Violet asked with a note of horror in her voice.
"I believe we can work around it." Nick hastily reassured her. "You are actually growing still, just incredibly slowly when it comes to height. That hair grows normally on other parts of your body and that your... Uhm... Lady bits..." Nick trailed off with a faintly embarrassed gesture at Violets breasts. He normally wouldn't even bat an eye at commenting on a woman s chest, but with Lily probably prepared to start glaring daggers at him, it was far more uncomfortable than it otherwise would be.
"Anyway, the other parts of your body have an easier time actually growing because they have a higher concentration of tears in them then your bones have. In your bones, the tear component of your system is noticeably lower then elsewhere, so they're growing incredibly slowly. Small doses of Skele-Gro mixed with Phoenix Tears should see you growing properly again. It would be in short faster spurts after taking a dose rather then a slow permanent more normal growth cycle, but you will not be short forever. I have plenty of Skele-Gro and while I don't have much Phoenix Tears, I do have some. It's enough that you can actually get a dose before going to bed." he declared.
"That should see you reaching or even overtaking 150 centimetres when you wake up tomorrow. Each dose should give you somewhere around one to three centimetres of growth in a day or two, so you can just keep on taking one or two a month to get some time to recover between doses until you've reached a height you're happy with or your body actually does stop trying to grow taller. Heck, I can't be sure, but it may be possible to separate the Tears already present in your blood from a sample, discard the rest, then reintroduce the Tears to your system with some Skele-Gro, which would reduce the cost by quite a lot." he explained and Violet just stared mutely at him for several incredibly quiet seconds.
"Mom. You may want to close your eyes and cover your ears now." Violet suddenly declared. Her lack of growth over the last year had been something that had seriously concerned her, especially as she hadn't been the tallest girl around even before she stopped growing entirely. This piece of incredibly good news deserved, nay fucking REQUIRED, a very particular response.
"Oh, for crying out loud. Violet! No!" Lily protested, seemingly realizing what was about to happen.
Nick blinked in confusion.
Violet surged out of her seat and shot at him in a semi-leap over her mothers legs, slamming his back against the armrest on his side of the couch, while Lily suddenly found her daughters legs on her lap.
"Mmmghlf!" Nick protested as Violet gave him as thorough a snogging as she could, while Lily cursed and tried to yank her back away from him by the scruff of her neck.
"No! I will not have it! Not on my watch! Wait for the list!" Lily demanded, but couldn't in her weakened state muster up enough strength to actually pull her athletic daughter away from Nick.
"Ooooh, a live show!" Sirius approved from over by the reading corner.
"Mglf!" Nick interjected, his lips covered by Violets and her tongue in his mouth.
"Violet! Get off him! Stop this nonsense!" Lily cried out.
"Uhmmm... Hi! ... Is this a bad time?" came a confused voice from the door to the back yard.