/* AN: And I'm back! Short note this time, so we cut back to the action */
/* AN2: Re-edited for a few things, then re-uploaded. Not a whole lot of differences, mostly cosmetic stuff.
*/
LAST TIME, ON MARAUDER'S JOURNEY!
Cowl was chanting, his body arching with tension. While the dark power swirled overhead, the vortex danced over Cowl's lips, and let out a final shout of "I SUMMON THEE, THANATOS GOD OF DEATH!"
* Insert opening credits to build suspense *
* Cut to commercial to build even more suspense *
"FOOL! YOU DARE STRIKE THE GOD THANATOS! CHILD, YOU SHALL DIE! I'LL RIP YOU APART YOU LITTLE BITCH! Hey wait, aren't you Harry Potter?"
"Oh shiii, wait what? Yeah I am, but keep it down will ya? I go by the name Mr. Funktastic here, keeps the locals off my back."
"OHMYGOD I'M SUCH A HUGE FAN OF YOURS! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE I HAVE TO GET YOUR AUTOGRAPH BEFORE I KILL YOU!"
"Umm, okay. You have a pen and something for me to sign? Hey, this is one of Colin Creevy's photos, how on Earth did you get this?"
"Hmm? Some lady's Chihuahua died choking on it, so it came to me in the afterlife. But that's not what's important now. SIGN!"
Harry did, and handed back the now signed picture and the Sharpie Thanatos had produced from...somewhere.
Thanatos gave an exceptionally unmanly squeal, bouncing around like a four-year old girl on a sugar high. He started wandering away, huge grin on his face. Suddenly, he stopped and made his way back toward Harry.
"WAIT, WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE FIGHTING! Although I will admit that was a pretty sweet distraction, well done Potter. NOW DIE SCREAMING, YOU INSUFFERABLE CUNT!"
With a yelped "Oh fuck!" from Harry, he started dodging the waves of black energy spewing forth from Thanatos' hands like so much bullshit from the puffy hypocrite he'd heard on the radio named Rush Limburger or something like that. Pushing aside thoughts of the few minutes of the geopolitical sewage he'd heard before giving up in disgust and turning off the radio, he continued dodging.
"Well Thanatos, I don't know what this spell is gonna do, Luna only told me to try using it when shit was really goin' down and I needed to kick some deity-level ass, and lo and behold, I need to kick some deity's ass, and there's some real shit happening right here and right now, so here goes. UT FEMINA BARBARI SPATIUM PROPIUM TUUM INVIDANT!" (AN: Spell roughly translated from 'May female barbarians invade your personal space' Thank you Google Translate)
Thanatos' eyes widened in fear, dimly recognizing the spell from the annals of goddom. All at once, a half-dozen massive Amazon-looking women appeared, all naked and all wearing massive strap-ons. With loud shouts of "SNU SNU" they leapt at Thanatos, apparently intending to kill him by means of sex, and not the kind of sex most males wish to have with women.
Thanatos gave another effeminate squeak as the Amazons surrounded him, and turned and put his hands up to his head, releasing a massive blast of energy, exploding his own head rather than indulge in less-than-fun (for him) exploration of butt-play with the massive women after him.
As soon as Thanatos crumpled, the Amazons disappeared for whatever reson, not that Harry was complaining. He thought about the Amazons for a quick second before shuddering, dismissing it from his mind with a muttered "Good. Homie don't play that shit" to himself before he wandered off to check on Ramirez and Dresden. The two were only knocked out and had superficial wounds, nothing that couldn't be healed up within a few days.
He quickly looted Thanatos' corpse, hoping the Sharpie he'd just given back was still in a pocket somewhere, and not banished back to whatever hellish dimension Thanatos had summoned it from. He found it, and drew a fake handlebar mustache on Ramirez and a fake Fu Man Chu on Dresden before throwing the two in the back of the 'Stang.
When he got back to the building the children and surviving Wardens were in, he was pleased to see that everyone except Kowalski had made it. Yoshimo had broken her arm, Molly had scratches all over her arms and legs, and Morgan had taken a bullet in the kneecap from one of the children picking up a gun and accidentally shooting him after he'd killed the last of the zombies attacking them.
"Figures, make it through the whole battle without getting a scratch, just for some brat to pick up Kowalski's' gun and pop me in the leg. This is gonna take months to heal. Just fuckin' great. And now Dresden's never gonna let me hear the end of it too."
Morgan's running rant was broken up by Harry's arrival, followed shortly by the arrival of an elderly Native American wizard and a solid half-dozen nurse-looking type witches. As it turned out, that's exactly what they were, they were led by the man, Listens-to-Wind "Call me Injun Joe" as a medic force to mop up after the battle.
Morgan was left in their tender care, since Ramirez and Dresden had come to and had refused to go back to Edinburg when the group of healers and Morgan left. Yoshimo, citing a need to get back to the council, also left with them. Ramirez and Dresden, joined by Harry and Molly, all hopped in the Mustang that Harry was totally gonna keep, and headed back to Dresden's apartment, letting Injun Joe and the healers deal with the children.
When they got there, Harry did some quick transfiguration and conjuring to magically expand the inside of Dresden's flat, giving him another couple of bedrooms. He also took the liberty to drop some runes on the water heater, since he was decidedly not about taking cold showers. The two remaining Wardens crashed quickly, leaving Harry to help Molly rub in the cream Injun Joe had given her for her scratches.
He sat her down on the sofa, lit a fire to see what he was doing, and slowly pulled off her shirt and pants to access the scratches. He took a moment to take in the sight of her in a pair of black lacy panties and matching black sports bra, before kneeling in front of her and starting to rub in the cream. As he went, it slowly turned from rubbing in cream for medicinal purposes to just caressing her silky skin. Without a word, she got up, grabbed his hand, and led him into one of the new bedrooms he'd created, shedding the last of her clothing on the way.
The next morning found Harry in an increasingly familiar position: with a woman sleeping on his chest, her leg thrown across him. He extricated himself from her grasp and went to take a shower, patting himself on the back for remembering to pack the shrunken trunk containing his clothes into his pants the day before.
After reveling in the warm shower and throwing on a pair of sports shorts, he forewent a shirt for the time being and left his unshrunken trunk in the room he'd slept in and headed for the kitchen.
When he got there, he found Ramirez and Dresden talking to a good-looking pale man that Dresden introduced as his brother Thomas sitting at the table eating. However, the real surprise came when he saw Sirius and Remus in the kitchen, apparently trying to find Harry. Harry walked in, grabbed a plate of food on the table and sat down, greeting the Marauders.
"Chuckles, Gaylord, good to see you guys! What happened yesterday? I figured you'd catch me up, but you never did."
"Hey kiddo, good to see you too. We were on our way to the museum when we ran into this hella-tall bro that gave off a real menacing aura, and we both lost ourselves to our inner animals. The rest of the night is kind of a blur after I pulled a Moony and Chuckles here went all Padfoot on us."
Dresden butted in. "You must have run into the Erlking. He's kinda like the Lord of the Hunt. I'd summoned him earlier in the night to keep him away from the Darkhallow, and he kinda got away from me."
Remus continued. "Anyways, when we came back to this morning, we were passed out in the middle of Soldier Field next to Thomas here, who said his brother might know how to get in touch with you or something. So, here we are. And here you are. I guess it all worked out."
Any further conversation was interrupted when Molly wandered into the kitchen, wearing a pair of Harry's boxers, showing off her impossibly long, smooth legs, and the Quidditch jersey he'd stashed in his trunk.
While Harry was busy drinking in her form and smirking at the knowing (Sirius and Remus), envious (Ramirez), and disapproving (Dresden) looks shot his way, she made her way to his lap, where she parked herself and started eating his bacon. She dutifully ignored his weak protests about eating his bacon, and asked the motley trio when they had planned on leaving Chicago.
"Our only real plan, time-wise, is to be in Denver for the full moon in a few days for Moony's transformation. Me and Chuckles are gonna go all animagus on his ass and run with him, just like my dad did with the two when they were in school. Other than that, we got nothing. Why?"
Molly started to say she was just curious, though the wriggle she gave in Harry's lap gave a different story, before Dresden cut her off. "I was thinking about taking you in as a quasi-apprentice and trying to teach you some things, try and pick some things up from you, but if you're only going to be here for that little time"
Sirius butted in and explained Thor's Cradle, to which the three Wardens were dutifully impressed, thinking about its application in training young wizards and Wardens. Dresden didn't hesitate to offer his apartment for the remaining days till the full moon if they set up the Cradle. Ramirez agreed to stay for the duration of the two month's extended training he'd get while in extended time. Luccio would apparently stay too, since she was still passed out on Dresden's bed, recovering from her stab wound.
Sirius shooed Harry and Molly out of the apartment while he set up the Cradle, and Harry asked her where she'd gotten the dragon tattoo on her back, intending to get some ink of his own to commemorate the epic battle of the night before. She led him to the shop where she'd gotten her tattoo, along with her nose and navel piercings, and it took only a short time before walked out, sporting his new ink.
In deference to his opponent the night before, Harry got the symbol of Thanatos, an inverted cross with an omega symbol overlaid on it halfway up the cross, above a skull Molly called a "Punisher skull" on his right calf. He watched carefully and interestedly as Molly got her nipples pierced, but declined a piercing himself, for the time being. As they walked out, Harry dropped mild healing spells on his new tattoo and Molly's new piercings.
They spent the next two months in a near-constant state of work. Harry learned some neat tips and tricks from the Wardens and the Wardens and Molly learned a bunch of spells from the British trio. The most important thing Harry learned over the time training was how to layer spells into jewelry, much like Dresden's shield bracelet or kinetic force rings.
He wound up layering translation spells onto the Potter ring and a pair of diamond studs he'd picked out on the second day of real time when they went out to reset Thor's Cradle before their second month. This way, he could understand and speak a dozen or so human languages and a few magical ones without having to learn them. He didn't know it, but the Fallen angel inside Dresden threw a couple dozen or so other ancient and/or obscure languages, both magical and mundane, into the spells just for the lols when he went to Dresden for help on the project.
He also gave Molly the slip when they were out for the day and picked out a beautiful silver necklace that he layered a fuck-ton of shield spells onto and planned to give her before they left. Since the two has spent the whole two months working and sleeping together, they'd become close, and neither was looking forward to their upcoming separation.
So, when the inevitable separation came, neither was happy, but they understood it would have happened sooner or later. Harry received and extended passionate kiss for the necklace before they exchanged phone numbers, promising to keep in touch. Then, Sirius, Remus and he were gone, having apparated to Denver, for the next stop on their summer-long journey of fun, females, and fermented beverages.
/* Fin! I was moderately surprised this chapter was as long as it turned out to be, I figured it be a dinky little thing, given most of it is training and I refuse to show extended training scenes. But I'm not complaining, I doubt you are, so it is what it is and we move along nicely. Till next time!
*/