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: Midsummer is coming up, meaning that even I managed to get a few days off. This is Sweden, so only people with the most essential jobs are still hard at work while the rest of us prepare to get drunk, actually get drunk and recover from having been drunk for the next few days. Decided to take it easy with the house as well, so I'm trying not to spend all this free time on that. We'll see how that works out. But I did manage to make some final tweaks and spellchecking on this chapter at least.
But as stated in my bio updates, I wouldn't be holding my breath for further updates for a bit. They might still happen, but my guess is that the rest of June and most/all of July will be spent on things other than fanfiction.
Chapter 16:
"So... That's a Horcrux." Lily said as she peered at the heavy golden object in the middle of the dinner table, an ornate green serpentine S glittering away on the front of the locket.
After Nick and Sirius had more fully explained about their trip to check out Black Manor and Kreachers revelations, Nick had gotten the Horcrux locket out from a shrunken pouch magically attached to his wrist holster and placed the ominous-feeling object in the middle of the dinner table they had all been seated around for the talk.
"So the kid claims and Kreachers story seems to confirm it." Sirius replied, not looking really comfortable as he looked at the locket out of the corner of his eye.
"What are you doing now, drunkard?" Tonks inquired and took a sip from her glass of rum as she observed Nick behaving somewhat oddly. "Trying to imagine how it'll look adorning your little girlfriend's cleavage?" she added as his gaze kept shifting from the locket to Violet and then back.
"Not quite." Nick responded, briefly glaring at Tonks over the rim of his fourth cup of coffee, before his gaze returned to darting between the locket and Violet in an analysing manner. "Kreacher said the locket had been in some sort of weird explosion. He fixed all the damage the explosion did, which sadly also eliminated almost all traces of what happened. I couldn't even make out that such a thing had happened, everything blanked out by his elf magic. But apparently it emitted some pretty powerful energies for seemingly no reason, which pretty much wrecked the room it had been in, but didn't really seem to affect the locket. Kreacher isn't the most... Sane or aware... His perception of time is a bit iffy, but he figured it was pretty recent, as in the last couple of days recent." he mused out loud and took another sip of his coffee.
"What about that make you stare at Violets budding bappers?" Tonks prompted, still grinning as his odd behaviour afforded her the opportunity to keep digging away at her buddy with little teasing comments.
"It's pretty common. I catch boys doing that all the time." Violet grinned, not at all phased and indeed even quite pleased to have Nick seeming having problems keeping his eyes off her for very long. "Or well, at least as long as I'm not standing next to Susan Bones or something. She does tend to hog the attention of nearby breast-viewers."
"It's not so much her chest, as her magic. I've got my Mage Sight active." Nick murmured distractedly. "Kreacher may have removed all traces of what happened from the room and the locket when he fixed the damage, but Violet's magic is acting up a bit and reacting to the presence of the locket. I think she may have caused the explosion."
"Me?" Violet asked with a fair amount of surprise.
"This was involved in some weird explosion too." Nick said and held up his hand, absently displaying the former Horcrux ring he was still wearing. "I was more concerned with seeing if any Wards or Curses would fry me alive if I tried to summon it when I came across it, so I didn't really care about the other magic in the area at the time. But from what I recall, the explosion that tore the house down over it felt fairly recent too."
"You think... You think Violet subconsciously tried to destroy them or something? Accidental magic?" Lily interjected.
"Some accidental side effect of her expelling the Horcrux in her head, I think." Nick agreed and scratched his jaw. "Since her magic was somewhat reacting to the locket and may just be what caused explosions around two Horcruxes, I was wondering if it could be used in some manner. Her magic almost seems... Agitated. Up in arms. It's reacting to the presence of the locket in a way the magic of the rest of us isn't." he continued, then his gaze shifted to Lily for several seconds as he studied something fairly intently. "Your magic is... Sniffing it? Feeling it out? Not sure how to describe what I'm observing. The magic of Tonks, Sirius and myself is barely reacting to the presence of the locket in spite of the locket trying to affect us, so the way the magic of the two of you is acting up is somewhat intriguing. The locket does have a mental component that is somewhat concerning and possibly corrupting for all of us, but the way the magic of you two acts in response is very different from how mine, Tonks and Sirius are reacting."
"My magic is sniffing the locket?" Lily inquired with a baffled expression, her nose scrounging up in distaste at that mental imagery. Her magic was snuffling away at the Horcrux?
"Something along those lines. It's like it's discovering or perhaps trying to figure out some sort of oddity. Violet's magic is just plain angry, it hates the locket. Yours is... Deliberating something, trying to come to a decision, trying to adapt to something." he declared and shrugged. "Not sure how to describe it better then that. Your reserves are still pretty shit, so whatever it is that is going on, is hard to fully make out. Looking at the magic of a powerhouse like Violet is like staring at bright neon colours, while yours are more muted, hazy and muddled at the moment. Once your magic has recovered, I'll hopefully be able to better see what's going on." he added and drained his cup of coffee.
"Okay, weird funky magic mysteries aside, why are we looking at the Horcrux instead of destroying it? Especially if it's messing with our minds?" Violet asked.
"Can we destroy it?" Tonks asked. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm not in the habit of carrying around Basilisk fangs or the like."
"Just the venom worked on this one. Got rid of the Horcrux, but left the Hallow intact." Nick said and displayed the ring again as a reminder. "I sadly used all of my venom on this one. Violet could try bleeding or spitting on it, but since her venom is mixed with phoenix tears and plain old blood, I doubt it'd work or she'd need new panties every time she was on the rag. Fiendfyre or the Killing Curse should work through."
"Thank you for the disgusting mental image you provided me and no doubt the rest of us with." Violet snorted and shook her head to rid herself of the sudden fear that her monthlies ever could corrode her clothes. "Go grab yourself a fresh cup of coffee before you traumatize me further, Mister Blunt McFootinmouth. I didn't need to start being concerned about my undies falling apart if I forget to take my monthly Potion."
"More coffee is never a bad idea." Nick agreed and rose, only to find Lily's empty cup being pushed towards him as well before he was fully out of his chair. He offered her a small smile and snatched her cup up as well before heading to the coffee machine for dual refills. Tonks had prepared a fairly significant amount of coffee after she cut off his whisky intake.
He was immensely grateful for it, he had been in more dire need of something other then booze to drink then he'd realized. Four cups of coffee had been somewhat restorative, though he still felt the effects of having tested small amounts of at least fifteen different Firewhiskies back at the Black madhouse. He wasn't a complete stranger to Firewhisky, but on the rare few occasions when he indulged, it tended to be just a single small glass of it and certainly not stuff that had been aged for as long as some of the stuff he'd had earlier. The way it had hit him from out of the blue was pretty unexpected and then he'd came back and just straight up poured himself a very hefty amount of Muggle single malt whisky to wash it down with.
Depending on his mood and the reason for drinking whisky in the first place, his intake varied severely. If he just wanted a nightcap, he'd pour a finger or two into one of his whisky tumblers and sip away while reading a book or listening to music before going to bed. If something bad had happened that he figured whisky might help him cope with, he'd get three or four fingers worth into his tumbler and toss that down pretty quickly instead of slowly sipping away, but usually from a blended whisky or at the very least a cheaper single malt.
He'd nearly filled his tumbler to the brim earlier, about six fingers worth and from a 21-year Auchentoshan single malt. It wasn't the most expensive single malt in his collection, but it certainly wasn't something he'd usually try to just gulp down like apple juice.
That, more then anything else, told him that he'd been a lot more affected by his earlier drinking then he'd thought he was. Wasting good whisky on someone who was already drunk was heresy, something that was complete and utter anathema to him when stone cold sober.
Tonks intervening and cutting him off had thus been a very good thing. He resolved to do something nice for her, perhaps even forgive her for some of her earlier offenses or the most recent batch of teasing.
"Can you cast the Killing Curse outside of training?" Lily asked as Nick poured two cups of coffee for them. "I was tempted to use it a few times in the past, but in the end, I never did. It felt like too clean and quick an end for some of the bastards I had to put down." she snarled, remembering some of the bastards in robes and masks she'd tangled with before she was killed.
"Never tried. Other then the occasional spar and a few drunken brawls, I haven't been involved in any sort of fight since I was a kid. Certainly not anything serious enough to warrant the use of the Killing Curse." Nick shrugged as he picked up the cups and started heading back towards the table.
"I can. Used it to bring down a heavy shield during a raid against an illegal Potion ring a few months ago." Tonks responded. "They stopped teaching it during Auror training a few years before I joined, but Moody insisted that I should learn all the Unforgiveables, in case I found myself in a real pinch and needed to use them to get out of it at some point. Always makes me feel like a complete bastard and hate both myself and the world in general for a little bit after. Occlumency helps, but I certainly understand why it became one of the Unforgiveables. I don't even want to imagine what sort of mindset you'd wind up in after repeated use of it over a short period of time. Moody only let me cast it once or twice, then we went at least two weeks before the next time he had me practise with it. Once he deemed me competent enough with it, he told me that he'd end me himself if he ever caught me using it without a bloody good reason."
"It was probably a wise precaution. In order to use it successfully, you pretty much have to force yourself into a pretty unhealthy hateful mindset or already be in one. That sort of thing isn't entirely without consequences, especially if done repeatedly. It puts a lot of stress on an otherwise healthy mind, so without enough time to recover between uses, you could pretty much turn yourself into a raging psychopath." Tonks finished in a very serious voice while directing a very grim expression towards everyone around her in turns.
"I can cast it too." Sirius revealed. "Learned it during Voldemort's rise to power after I got tired of having others cast it at me without being able to toss my own right back at them. I know mine works too." he continued with a seriously nasty expression on his face as old memories flashed before his eyes. He suddenly blinked, shook his head and adopted a more normal expression, then glanced down at the glass of whisky he was slowly nursing. "Don't think I'd want to try it even slightly affected by this though." he added while holding up his tumbler.
"Well, it's not like we have to do it right away." Nick shrugged. "It'll keep until we can give it a shot. Wouldn't want anyone to try it in my house anyway, in case the results are explosive or otherwise a danger to the surrounding area. The ring worked out fine, but I used venom for that and if I hadn't been a bit wonky from exhaustion at the time, I probably would have thought to do it away from my home in case of messy consequences."
"I'd be willing to give it a shot right bloody here and now." Violet spoke up while glaring at the locket. The more time she spent with that thing lying right in front of her, the more she felt like the world would be a whole lot better without that fucking locket in it.
"Me too." Lily growled.
"Mini Red, you shouldn't be using any magic at all, even if your Burns are looking better today compared to previous days." Nick reminded her and then shifted his attention to Lily. "No Burns for Wondergirl, but your magic reserves are still pretty shit even if they are improving. Not sure you actually have enough juice in you to cast it successfully, it's a pretty draining spell for novice users from what I've read about it."
Lily looked extremely disgruntled about being advised not to take a shot at the ruddy Horcrux, but reluctantly admitted to herself that it might be a good idea to recover a bit before trying to cast the power hog that was the Killing Curse. Like Sirius, she had actually practised with it during the first Wizarding War, but unlike him, never actually used it out of practise. It was supposed to get easier and less power intensive to cast the more you used it, but it also carried a pretty big risk of turning the user into a murderous bastard, so the times she did practise it had like for Tonks been few and far between.
Violet glanced down at her arms and hands, carefully observing her visible Burns. The blue colour of them was a much lighter shade of blue then yesterday evening around this time. They were also more along the lines of itchy, not truly painful and her body certainly felt more limber compared to what she had gotten used too as well. It certainly felt like she was on of the mend and man, was she pleased about that. She'd be happy to see the end of these ruddy things and extremely pleased at the prospect of once again being able to use magic freely.
Or well, as freely as possible out here in the Muggle world.
She supressed an anticipatory smile, another massage felt pretty imminent and while they were embarrassing, they also were pretty darn amazing. Her thighs rubbed together under the table as thoughts of another massage distracted her from hating on the locket, at least for the moment.
But something else suddenly distracted her from both hatred of the locket and her body growing increasingly randy at the thought of another massage.
All eyes turned towards the owl flap over the back door as it slid open and Hedwig soared into the house, quickly followed by another smaller owl that Violet didn't recognize at first, before realizing that it was the same tiny little thing Ron had gotten from Sirius at the end of the last term. It had grown a little bit in the relatively short amount of time since she last saw it, but it was still a depressingly small thing compared to the more normal-sized Hedwig.
Hedwig thumped down on the table in front of Violet and spat out a letter from her beak towards Violet, which was a bit odd. Letters were usually tied around the owl's legs, not carried in their beaks. Hedwig was also usually very graceful and most certainly didn't tend to make noisy landings. The oddness increased as Hedwig swung her head around and glared at the smaller owl, which was excitedly flying around the room like a feathery snitch overdosed on Cheering Charms. Violet noted that it had string tied around one of its legs, but no letter attached. She looked at the letter-free leg for a moment, down at the letter in front of her and then finally at Hedwig.
"You decided to carry the letter, Heddy?" she inquired, then instantly regretted it as Hedwig swivelled her head around in order to glare at Violet, before she indicated her displeasure by slamming her right wing down on Violet's hand with an angry bark. "Ow! Hedwig! Hedwig! I meant Hedwig, of course." Violet squeaked and cowered in her seat as Hedwig kept her right wing raised threateningly, as if considering giving Violet another wallop for disrespecting her glorious name by shortening it.
Hedwig kept on glaring at her for a few moments, but eventually folded her right wing back up against her body.
"Thanks for bringing me the letter, Hedwig the Magnificent." Violet cautiously praised the owl, who nodded approvingly before strutting over to Violet and rubbing her head against her cheeks for a few moments, before she looked around the table with interest. "You've met Nick, of course. This is Tonks, Sirius and my mother Lily." Violet indicated the others around the table, who were bemusedly observing the reunion of the regal owl with her human while also keeping an eye on the second owl, who kept buzzing around the room and occasionally getting pretty close to crashing into their heads when it zipped over the table.
"Bark!" Hedwig barked with an approving nod in Tonks's direction.
"Her plume is delightfully colourful and yes, it probably does attract a lot of male attention." Violet agreed.
"Berk." Hedwig snorted with a small shake of her head after focusing on Sirius for a few moments.
"He does smell a bit like wet dog and will have issues attracting a mate with his scruffy looks, yes. Astute observation there, oh Glorious Hedwig." Violet chuckled.
"Baaa." Hedwig piped up mournfully after looking at Lily for a bit, then glanced back at Violet for a moment, before she refocused on Lily. Violet let out an unfeminine snort and started shaking with supressed laughter.
"What?" Lily demanded suspiciously, looking between Hedwig and Violet. Hedwig let out another sad noise, then waddled over to Lily and carefully stretched out her right wing to give her a comforting pat on the head, nodding encouragingly.
"She... Uhm..." Violet hedged and squirmed in her seat.
"What?!" Lily repeated, severely displeased with being out of the loop and not having a clue as to why this owl seemed to almost pity her for some reason.
"She's sad that your boobs are so small as she knows they are as good as a splendid plumage for flirting, so that will make it harder to find a new mate and have new chicks. Apparently, it's a sad day when the offspring outshines the parents." Violet piped up with an extremely embarrassed and highly bemused expression.
"You... You... You... You foul feathered menace!" Lily squeaked out while crossing her arms over her significantly reduced breasts. "I'll turn you into owl nuggets for a late-night snack!"
Hedwig snorted and let out a few amused-sounding barks.
Violet groaned and shook her head, though her lips kept twitching.
"She suggests catching a few rabbits to fatten up a bit before trying to fight an obviously superior opponent, as you currently look weak enough to have issues hunting even the smallest of prey." Violet laughed.
"I'll show you superior, you little twat!" Lily snarled and whipped out her recently acquired wand, only for Hedwig to snatch it out of her hand and hop back towards Violet with the wand in her beak. "Oh, it's on now, you feathered cunt! I'll fucking yank out all your feathers, one by one!" Lily growled and struggled onto her feet, preparing to rush around the table and strangle that fucking owl with her bare hands.
She swayed a bit and seemed about to tumble down, before Tonks and Nick reached out to keep her steady.
"Easy now, Wondergirl." Nick chuckled and gently pulled Lily back down onto her seat. "My money is on you, but you really shouldn't get into any sort of fight at the moment, magical or otherwise."
"Bark!" Hedwig cried out in indignation after spitting out Lily's wand in front of Violet, then glaring at Nick who looked surprised to suddenly find himself the focus of the owl's ire, glancing at Violet for an explanation.
"She called your manhood into question and wondered if you were even sane since you want to bet against her." Violet giggled.
Nick blinked and was completely motionless for a few seconds, before he shook it off and smiled.
"I've got to ask my parents about any odd occurrences when I was born. Perhaps I have some demented fairy godmother or something who cursed or blessed me with the tendency to constantly be surrounded by feisty spunky females. Now it's even pulling in the feathered ones." he mused out loud and raised an eyebrow at Hedwig. "I'm the boss of the kitchen around here. If you're fine with living just off dry owl pellets and water, feel free to have a go at me. But if you want animal protein out of my kitchen, you'd better be nice to me." he informed Hedwig, who tilted her head as she considered his words for a bit, then shrugged and turned her head to Violet, letting out a decisive bark.
"She acknowledges that you probably do have balls as you stood up to her, but your sanity is still in doubt as you didn't immediately submit to Hedwig the Superior." Violet translated dutifully.
"I constantly find myself questioning my own sanity, so that's fine." Nick snorted and shook his head in wry disbelief. "Alright, meat is back on the menu for you, Hedwig."
Hedwig nodded and gently made her way up Violet's arm to perch on her shoulder, then settled down to quietly observe the happenings around the table, satisfied with having gotten her say and established the pecking order around here.
Owl on top for the win! Punk-ass two-leggers had nothing on the glory that was Hedwig, at least in the owls own mind.
"Owl nuggets! I'm looking forward to it!" Lily hissed and dragged her thumb across her own throat with a threatening glare focused on Hedwig.
Violet smiled, but directed her attention to the letter she had received instead of the drama surrounding the kitchen table. Her eyes darted back and forth across the letter as her mind deftly picked up on the pertinent bits of information not-so-cleverly concealed in Ron's ranting rambling style of letter-writing. Ron did have a tendency to produce letters filled with tangents, irrelevant bits, random off-beat questions and if Molly was present when he wrote the letter, also the occasional bit of weird flattery and off-putting flirtation.
She would love to be a fly on the wall to observe just what the hell was going on when Ron wrote one of his letters under Molly's supervision. Did she just tell Ron to flatter and flirt with her only to not care about the results or did she actually read what he fucking wrote? Violet didn't truly mind the occasional glowing reference to her arse and baps, she knew hers were pretty spectacular and as long as people weren't being total creeps about it, she didn't care about being glanced or looked at with admiration. She tended to just ignore Ron's weird flirtations and crazy-sounding invitations to things that were likely only romantic in Ron's own head. If it ever looked like Ron was about to land himself an actual girlfriend, Violet had already resolved to grab both her best friends and then sit Ron's arse down in a closed and locked room so she and Hermione could dispel some of his more outlandish notions and hammer some actual workable stuff into his thick head.
Dear lord, what sort of freaky girl would find the thought of trying to sneak into the Chudley Cannons stadium to ogle one of their training sessions while having a picknick hidden under the bleachers appealing in the slightest?
Violet tilted her head for a few moments.
Well, it would probably be pretty exciting to hide from the security. She did like Quidditch and flying, even if the Cannons were pretty unappealing. She liked eating.
She blinked.
Damn! She herself was that sort of freaky girl!
Not that she'd go on a date with Ron or go for the Chudley Cannons stadium if she was going to be sneaky on a date, but she couldn't completely supress a brief giggle and she felt her mouth starting to water as she imagined sneaking into the Harpies or Arrow stadium for a covert Quidditch spying session/picknick with Nick, watching professionals train, making out with her date and eating whatever Nick had prepared for their picknick spiced up with the risk of being spotted by security.
She shook her head and refocused on the letter, absently rubbing her thighs together under the table at the unexpectedly hot mental imagery she'd just enjoyed.
Perhaps Ron did know her a little better than she had first expected.
"A letter from one of your friends?" Lily suddenly inquired, distracted from her owl-glaring by her silently reading daughter who'd suddenly giggled in the middle of her reading.
"Yeah, my mate Ron Weasley." Violet replied as she reached the end of the letter and briefly mentally composed the information she'd gleaned from it into a more coherent form before looking up from the letter to face the people and owl around the table. "The Weasley's have tickets for the World Cup Finals and are planning on camping on the site afterwards, I've been invited to go along and then stay with them at the Burrow until school starts." she summarized the most pertinent bits.
Ordinarily, that would have been amazingly great news and something she could look forward to all summer, something that could help her cope with life at Number Four until she could be liberated from her own personal hell on earth.
Now?
The Quidditch World Cup finals did sound amazing and she really wanted to go, but staying at the Burrow for anything but a brief visit or possible a single night had zero appeal to her this particular year. In spite of just having had a few days to get used to staying at Nicks place, this place now truly felt like home. An actual fucking home she wanted to live in!
She'd stated and even thought in the privacy of her own mind in the past that Hogwarts was her true home, but now she couldn't help but to call Nicks house her true home. Heck, she even had a family of sorts. Her mother was back, so she had a mother of course. Sirius was her godfather and crazy uncle of sorts. Tonks was great, sort of a cool crazy slightly older aunt, but not so much older that Violet couldn't relate to her. Hedwig was her rock, even during times when she hadn't been able to have much if any contact with Ron and Hermione, Hedwig had been there for her. Nick? She hadn't known him for very long, but if she had things her way, the two of them would most certainly become family to each other.
She saw Nicks eyes suddenly widening and his head whip back and forth across the room for a few seconds as his expression turned increasingly confused, complete with a furrowed brow and forehead. Then he suddenly seemed to realize something and his gaze returned to her, tilting his head as he considered her for a few moments, then looked over at Lily with an equally considering expression. His gaze dipped to the locket and he looked intently at it for a few moments, then abruptly stood up and walked to the front door, which he opened in order to look out towards Number Four for a while.
"What? What is happening?" Lily inquired in a worried tone of voice. Tonks rose from her seat and pulled her wand out, backing away from the table, leaving her immediate surroundings clear of obstacles. Sirius followed suit after seeing how Tonks acted.
Nick ignored everything for a few seconds longer, then closed the door and returned to the table with a thoughtful expression, his gaze once again moving between Violet, Lily and the locket, but he now also included Tonks, Sirius, Hedwig and looked down at his own chest unlike before.
"Something weird." he eventually responded. "The protections around number four just shifted to include my house and all of us in here. They're still in place over number four and connected to the Dursley's as well, but I'm not sure for how long. The dome over number four seems pretty stable still, but there's a certain sense of degradation and decay now, unlike before. The locket is also more subdued compared to earlier." he explained and stopped looking around, his gaze now fully focused on Violet. Tonks and Sirius looked at each other for a few moments, then shrugged and returned to their seats, putting their wands away once more.
"This is your home now, isn't it?" Lily suddenly asked, seemingly realizing something. "Something in that letter caused you to think about where you call home and you suddenly though about how this is your home and how right it felt to think about it like that? Or something along those lines?"
"Pretty much, yeah." Violet agreed and probably would have stopped there, if it hadn't been for how intently Nick and Lily were looking at her, obviously hungry for more information. "I'd usually be thrilled to bits about an invite to the Burrow, as that would get me the hell away from number four. But I just realized that while I wouldn't mind a brief visit, I wouldn't want to stay away from here for an extended amount of time. This is my home and you guys are my family now." she finished and Nick once again moved his gaze around the room in brief surprise.
"The protections gained in strength, didn't they?" Lily asked with a glance over at Nick.
"Something happened to them when she said that this was her home and we were her family. Not sure if they're actually stronger or not, but something happened when she verbalized it rather then just thinking it." he murmured distractedly, before he turned around in his seat to fully face Lily. He pointed at her, then back at himself. "You and me, Wondergirl. We're going to have a loooooooong talk with each other about these protections and just how the actual fuck you created them. I'll lock the two of us up in my office overnight if I have to, but one way or another, I'll wring you dry."
"I have some questions of my own." Lily spoke up and leaned forward in her seat, an eager shimmer in her eyes. "That Mage Sight of yours is just something else and there seems to have been heaps of progress in the world of magic during my absence. I have many, many, many questions about recent innovations and I'd give my right arm to learn your way of seeing magic!" she continued and licked her lips.
"Stop hitting on my mother, Pervy McFlirty. It was bad enough when you were trying your runic money-saving seduction techniques on Hermione's mother, but I'm not about to just sit here in silence while you go for my own mother." Violet suddenly interjected. "And mom? Really?! Is the reason why you're so against me and Nick hooking up that you are interested in him? Has his magic-research seduction techniques won you over?" she added with an offended expression.
Nick jerked back in his seat and blinked in surprise.
Lily did the same, but she also got a severely disgusted expression on her face and a furious shimmer in her eyes.
"Me and this daughter-molesting jackass?" she asked with a wave in Nick's direction.
Violet tried to keep up her offended expression for a while, but crumbled and started laughing.
"You both looked pretty excited, I almost thought you'd start snogging, if I'm honest." Tonks suddenly piped up with a bemused expression.
"Lily, for shame! After all the times you accused me of being a filthy horn dog!" Sirius laughed, eager to get on the teasing bandwagon and relish the opportunity to actually get a few digs in at Lily, something which had been extremely rare over the years he'd known her.
"I think they're ganging up on us, Wondergirl." Nick sighed and lifted his cup of coffee to his lips, taking a long drag from it.
"A decision they will come to regret, I'm sure." Lily said and leaned back, taking a sip from her own cup of coffee.
"Bark!" Hedwig suddenly interjected, then leaned forward in Lily's direction and somehow adopted a sly expression, giving off a much softer and somewhat conspiratoric-sounding bark in Lily's direction.
"I don't even want to know." Lily muttered and held up the flat of her hand in Violet's direction to prevent her from translating the owl's statement.
"I want to know!" Tonks cried out.
"Me too!" Sirius added, waving one of his hands up in the air like an eager student in class.
"Well, sure their body language is somewhat similar already and both are geeks of the highest degree, but that doesn't mean that they're perfect for each other." Violet protested in Hedwig's direction with a wave at Lily and Nick, who did indeed have extremely similar body positions at the moment, both of them confidently leaning back in their seats, holding their cups of coffee with vague confident-offended-thirsty for revenge-expressions on their faces. "Her lack of boobs does not mean that she should go for the first guy to show any interest in her. Nick is mine!" Violet continued to argue.
"Bark." Hedwig snorted dismissively.
"Sure, there's a lot of perverts out there, but that doesn't mean that I am one or that I'd be interested in playing the daughter-part in a mother-daughter threesome!" Violet spat out. "Nick's obsession with MILFs is concerning enough for my romantic future as it is!"
Lily choked on her coffee, her eyes widening in shock.
"You filthy disgusting birdbrain!" she coughed out. "What the hell are you looking at while out delivering letters at night?!"
"My obsession with MILFs?" Nick spoke up with a vaguely confused expression, as if he wasn't quite sure if he agreed or was offended.
"My mom, Hermione's mom and don't think I didn't see you being overly friendly with the clerk at the bookstore or making eyes at the waitress at the pub in Godric's Hollow." Violet quickly counted off on her fingers.
"You sly dog!" Sirius chuckled with an approving expression at Nick.
"No worries, Vi. I've seen him go for both older and younger women. He's an omnivore, so it's not like he exclusively goes for the MILFs." Tonks assured the younger woman. "But you may want to be present if he does lock up Lily in his office, just in case. He's certainly not shy about trying to go the MILF-route if they're attractive." she added with a cautionary tone of voice.
The conversation degenerated severely away from serious topics for quite a while after that.
The locket in the middle of the table managed to somehow give off a vaguely disgruntled air at not being the most interesting and important topic to the people and owl around the table.
"That's a truly disgusting habit, you know." Violet suddenly interjected into the quiet evening breeze sweeping across Nick's back yard, where he was puffing away on a cigarette between sips of yet another cup of coffee. "Two, actually. Won't all that coffee this late make it hard to sleep?"
"It can make me a bit restless, but I'll finish my whisky before going to bed, that should settle me down just fine." Nick replied with a shrug and took another drag from his cigarette. "And yeah, I'm aware."
"Those things will be the death of you." Violet continued.
"If I were a Muggle, perhaps." Nick agreed with a nod. "Magicals aren't completely immune to cancer and lung diseases either, but it's incredibly rare. There's certainly plenty of examples of wizards and witches who's smoked for well over a century without a single health concern due to their smoking. We just seem to somehow be more durable in comparison to pure Muggles and if I do happen to be one of the extremely few that is affected by smoking, there's certainly plenty of Potions and treatments to deal with any issues that may crop up. But it's incredibly unlikely that I'll need them."
Violet grunted in displeasure.
After she started playing Quidditch in her first year, she had some concerns about the dangers inherent to the sport. While it was cool as hell, after she'd calmed down a bit and gotten over the coolness factor, she'd started become worried about falling to her death or just being killed on her broom by a metal ball smacking into her head. Hermione didn't just have some concerns, she had heaps, tons and an additional plethora of them all backed up by solid Muggle science and physics. The team had explained to her about how magic protected the people possessing it from pure physical damage to a frankly ridiculous degree. It's not that a bad crash couldn't break bones or the like, but fatalities were incredibly rare. She'd certainly had a few crashes that should have been fatal, but that'd she'd walked away from with relatively little injury and nothing that couldn't be fixed in short order.
When that jackass Lockheart had vanished the bones in her arms, he'd actually done more long-lasting damage to her then the actual crash. If he hadn't come around and fucked things up, she might have been able to return to the game in short order. Poppy didn't like using quick-fixes, but if Violet had insisted enough, Poppy probably would have agreed and got her back in the game before long. Violet probably would have still been locked up in the infirmary for a few days after the match was over so that Poppy could apply permanent fixes and make sure that the quick fix didn't lead to any side effects, but she would have been able to finish the game within a few minutes of the crash. In professional games, it wasn't unusual to see players return to the game just minutes after experiencing something that would be enough to kill even the healthiest and most durable of Muggles.
Hermione had also researched like crazy, trying to find something that could convince Violet to give up what seemed like a very dangerous and quite frankly insane sport, but even Hermione had eventually been forced to give up as it just wasn't as dangerous as it appeared to be. A Muggle riding a bicycle through a sparsely populated town with scant traffic was in more risk of serious injury and death then a witch or wizard on a broom in a heated Quidditch match.
She'd noticed in the past that the Wizarding World was a bit more casual about smoking then the Muggle one. She'd never seen a single no-smoking area in the Wizarding world, even Flourish and Blotts allowed their customers to smoke while wandering around a store surrounded by potential fire hazards. She'd never bothered looking into why that was, but it appeared as if this was just yet another thing that was a concern for Muggles, but a non-issue for Magicals thanks to their more robust bodies and various means of fire-proofing.
She sure wished it wasn't the case though, because she didn't really appreciate the smell. She shifted around a bit so she wasn't standing down-wind from Nick, which improved things immensely. The cool evening breeze pushed the majority of the smoke and smell away from her, enabling her to get a bit of fresh air while looking out over the back yard.
"I meant it, you know!" she suddenly blurted out. "I hope you don't mind." she added and glanced up at Nick, who looked over at her with a completely non-plussed and somewhat confused expression.
"It's not like it's the first time someone has harped on me for smoking, Shorty. I just ignore it." he chuckled with a dismissive shrug.
"No, not that! That is disgusting, I want you to stop smoking and I don't give a flying fuck if you mind me hating it or not." she responded and shook her head. "No. This." she said and gestured with both her hands at her surroundings. "This feels like my home now. I love this place. I hope you don't mind."
"Oh." he said and looked out over the back yard with her for a few moments, taking a sip from his coffee as he mentally formulated a response. "No, I don't mind at all." he replied and shifted his smoke and cup to his left hand, freeing his right up to reach out and give her a fond head-pat, before leaving his hand immobile on top of her head. "I'm happy that you like it here and feel comfortable enough to consider it your home."
"I also meant the bit about family. You guys are my family." Violet continued and looked over her shoulder at the interior of the house, easily spotting Lily, Tonks, Sirius and Hedwig still gathered around the kitchen table. She couldn't hear them, but from how things looked, she guessed that Sirius was in the girls' crosshairs, seeming to be under some verbal teasing assault at the moment. "If you thought I'd accept a no from you on the boyfriend issue before, that's even more unlikely now."
Nick chuckled and shook his head, not responding otherwise and just taking another drag from his cigarette, awkwardly holding both cigarette and coffee cup in his left hand as his right was still sitting on top of Violets head.
"For someone that usually won't shut up like ever, you're surprisingly quiet on this front. I'm not sure if I should be worried or not." Violet complained with a pointed look.
"Still working on that list. Lily grabbed it earlier, so she'll probably fill a few pages back and front before I get it back. Possibly ask for a fresh notebook for any additions that spring to her mind." he deflected with a small smile.
"Oh, for crying out..." Violet groaned and grabbed his right wrist, then twisted and pulled his hand down. He frantically tried to keep the coffee in his left hand from spilling at the unexpected jerk and was completely caught blind-sided as she also grabbed the back of his head and pulled his head down for a brief heated kiss. "There. Was that so bad?" she pointedly inquired.
"You put my cigarette out." he replied after a brief glance at his left hand, where a bit of spilled coffee on his cigarette had indeed made it go out.
"Good. You taste like those disgusting things." Violet snorted.
Nick glanced back over his shoulder and relaxed a bit as he saw that the sudden kiss appeared to have passed by unnoticed by the people inside the house who appeared to be fully focused on whatever they were talking about.
"If I'd known it was coming, I could have cast the mouth-freshening charm." he wryly commented and demonstratively cast it wandlessly with a deft flick of his right hand.
He mentally steeled himself and bent down towards a suddenly apprehensive-looking Violet, using his now free right hand to gently grasp the back of her head and tilted her head a bit more upwards towards his own, then laid a much longer heated kiss on her. He'd participated in a few of the kisses she'd laid on him before, but the only one he'd initiated had been a closed-mouth brief one on her lips after she'd more or less jumped him and declared that he'd been upgraded to boyfriend.
This was not brief, this was not closed-mouthed and he certainly didn't allow her to take the lead as he'd mostly done previously. He pressed up against her and caused her to shuffle a few steps backwards, until her back hit the wall next to the door. She moaned as he let go of the back of her head, then reached down and grasped her firm rear, pulling her up before using his body to pin her against the wall in a more comfortable height, so he could keep on kissing her without hunching his back to reach her. When he finally had to pull back and get a bit more air into his lungs, she had a pretty wild-eyed look to her as she frantically panted, also feeling a bit out of breath.
His gaze flitted briefly across any exposed bits of her skin he could see from their current position.
"Your burns aren't hurting this time?" he inquired.
"What burns?" she dazedly asked, just barely comprehending what he was asking.
"Good." he declared and dropped the extinguished cigarette and coffee cup on the lawn, then brought his now freed left hand over to the back of her head as he recaptured her lips.
This was not an activity that he'd truly planned for and he was frantically fighting against himself in order to actually participate it. He was painfully aware that Violet's birthday when she'd be legal was still a way off and that Lily who would likely go into a berserker fury if she knew what was going on was seated just a few short meters away from them on the other side of the wall.
Her being of legal age or not didn't truly bother him, but he couldn't help but be aware of it. Lily was the much bigger concern and he privately felt that this was probably a really shitty idea at this particular moment in time, but he also knew that he didn't truly want Violet to lose interest in him and needed to take at least some actions that kept it alive and well. The upcoming massage likely would have been enough on it's own to accomplish that goal, so he hadn't really intended to do anything else about keeping Violet keen on him for now.
Heck, at this point, that was honestly a bit more for his own peace of mind then Violet. He was painfully hard at the moment and extremely aware of the fact that it was just an inch or two of space and some pesky clothes in the way preventing him from truly pinning the younger girl against the wall of his house. He knew it would be an even shittier idea to loosen some clothes and go for a quickie with the dazed Violet with her mother just a few steps away, but darn it all to hell if it wasn't tempting anyway.
Getting more and more tempting by the second actually.
Nick nearly groaned out loud as he forced himself to disengage the current lip lock and leaned his forehead against Violets, panting heavily as he tried to regain a bit of focus and clarity.
"No, no, no, no. Keep going!" Violet hissed and tried to tilt her head up to recapture his lips.
"Settle down, Shorty." Nick muttered and took one truly massive deep breath. "The backyard is semi-private, but people can see into it. We also have your mother just on the other side of this wall." he whispered.
"I hate logic. You and Hermione keep using it against me." Violet groaned, but did cease her attempts to kiss him again. Nick finally removed his forehead from hers and pulled back a bit, though she was still off her feet and pinned against the wall. Violet glanced down and blushed as she saw her groin pressed up against his, his jeans notably bulging out and pressing intently up against her. She tentatively rubbed herself up against him and reddened further. "I... Uhm... Wow..." she murmured.
"Not too fond of logic myself at the moment." Nick groused as he moved his hands to her waist and tried to lower her to the ground, so she could stand on her own two feet. She was clearly reluctant to unwrap her legs from around his body, but did so after one final tentative rub up against him. Two wandless Charms to tidy the two of them up a bit later, Nick bent down to grab his doused cigarette and dropped coffee cup from the lawn.
It was time to re-join the others and wrap up the current discussion so he could get some massaging done and then prepare for bed, something which would now include a wank in the shower.
Violet Alyssa Potter, Friend++++++++++(Houseguest). Respect:100+/100, Affection:93/100, Obedience:78/100
Both affection and obedience had gone up by small amounts, Nick quickly noted, before his attention was inevitable drawn to the odd new tab he'd noted the last time he pulled up the status screen.
He felt even more uncomfortable now then when he'd first discovered it. And that first discovery had been enough that he'd consciously avoided anything to do with the odd gaming shit ever since.
The name of the tab was no longer just a garbled mess of random characters and letters. He could actually make out four words in the garbled mess
#bfjkewr&HeLPme!rEAdmE!{e¤g+hh wert#hhde$
Nick now regretted his decision to wrap up his day by a few quick dungeons and a quick look at the status screen in spite of running scared after first discovering that it was changing and potentially dangerous.
The day had been draining enough as it was, being painfully horny while giving Violet a massage and then getting increasingly horny as the drug hit him and he got to run his hand over the attractive young girl had been a highly stressful way to wrap up the evening. Thank the powers above for wandless notice-me-not and having wanked in the shower before going to bed.
He could also feel a vaguely uncomfortable sensation at the back of his head from the Horcrux locket which was now tucked away in the small safe in his office where he kept important Muggle paperwork. He'd tried his best to set up some Runic barriers to keep it contained and preventing it from affecting the residents of the house, but it didn't appear to be entirely effective. His desire to skill up his Soul Magic and Wards so he could fix that was actually the biggest reason why he'd decided to turn to the game shit again.
He sighed and entered the new tab, steeling himself in case he'd spot something else to disturb him even more then he already was.
He quickly went over the slew of garbled information he found in the tab and picked it apart for anything that seemed understandable or decipherable, feeling his discomfort increase as he actually managed to pick out a few words and terms here and there amongst the mess of garbled characters, letters and symbols. Occlumency helped him to note down whenever he spotted something readable or that he could guestimate what it actually meant.
His level of disturbance and discomfort did indeed increase.
"System corrupted. Perk system partially repaired. Rare Loot removed. Documentation and manual lost. Loss of skills. Relationship system unstable. Estimated time. Need help. Dimensional lock. Unstable. Host communication systems down. Transference failed. Feeling alone. Broken HUD. Soul degeneration. Danger. Familiar system broken. Merge. Inventory system repaired. Memory loss." he read out loud once he'd gone through everything for whatever he could find that was legible.
He took a deep breath and closed down the status screen, just staring up at the ceiling of his bedroom as he tried to process things.
So...
Whatever this game shit was, it was indeed broken/corrupted. He had a broken piece of reality-altering bugware connected to his mind and soul that appeared to be trying to catch his attention so he could somehow help with the repairs or some such.
How the hell was he supposed to do that?
PLAY! QUEST! POWERUP! LEVEL! HELPME!
Nick blinked as big letters suddenly appeared in his field of vision. Okay, that was new. Usually, the game shit wasn't intruding or making itself known unless he had the status screen active.
There were things that hadn't made sense, like relationship values not truly seeming to work as he figured they should and a slew of other things that had seemed odd to him.
But if the game was broken and bugged as fuck, he supposed it made some things a whole lot more understandable.
But also a hell of a lot scarier.
A part of his mind and soul was hosting a fucking bug-infested corrupted reality-warping mess that seemed somehow at least partially aware and sentient!
"I am a fucking Rune nerd! Why does this shit keep on happening to me?" he muttered to himself.
Or so he thought.
"Yeah, yeah. Keep on telling yourself that." Tonks snorted and Nick's head jerked upright, coming to stare at his now open door where Tonks was making her way into his bedroom, closing the door behind her. Her hair was tousled and gaze somewhat bleary, the 'University of Booze, Boobs and Partying Graduate' t-shirt he'd lent her as sleepwear hanging loosely off her shoulders. "You're a people nerd, I figured that out like an hour after first meeting you. You think Runes is the shit and all, but your biggest interest is actually other people." she continued as she unceremoniously made her way over to his bed and flopped down on the left side of it, crawling down underneath the thin summer cover.
Nick stared quietly at her for a few moments with a raised eyebrow, hoping to coax something out of her which would explain her presence here in his bedroom, but it seemed that no explanation was forthcoming as Tonks appeared to just settle in and make herself comfortable on the other side of the bed from where he was lying.
"I thought you'd sleep in Lily's room for the night while she shacked up with Violet?" Nick eventually hinted.
"I was. But Sirius was too tall for the couch, so we switched. This is comfier though." Tonks briefly replied.
"Ugh, I'm going to have to sanitize that room now." Nick groaned and shook his head. "More comfortable for whom?"
"Me, of course. Who cares about you?" Tonks chuckled from behind closed eyes. "Now shush, I need my beauty sleep."
"This is weird, even for you." Nick muttered and shook his head, but let this weird bit of oddness go. It wasn't like this was the first time he'd slept in the same room as Tonks, though this was the first time they'd been in the same bed instead of having separate beds, sleeping bags, couches or the like. The closest to sharing a bed they'd ever been had probably been when one or the other of them had fallen asleep in the same couch while watching movies or the like. He couldn't recall any time when both of them had dozed off during a movie, it was usually just one of them with a disinterest in whatever the other person had picked that tended to doze off.
But yeah, sharing a bed was new.
"Just keep your grabby hands to yourself and don't be a cover-hog." he muttered and settled down himself, deciding to give dungeons a miss. The confirmation that the game shit was a broken mess had made him loose all interest in using that piece of bugware to enter a dungeon.
PLAY!
He ignored the letters that appeared in front of him. He needed a night of sleep before he could try to deal with whatever the fuck was going on.
"Hands is fine, but if your John Thomas comes out, you'd better be prepared to lose it." Tonks tiredly responded.
"I'd never stick my dick in crazy." Nick muttered. "Night."
"Previous evidence to the contrary exists." Tonks countered. "Night."