I don't own any part of Harry Potter or Oh My Goddess.
Life for Harry and his new family settled into a new routine during their second week together. The weekend was spent mostly on recreational activities, which primarily revolved around Harry working out the fine art of riding a bicycle. Keiichi had purchased an additional four bicycles in order to make Harry's lessons more of a family activity, but both Urd and Skuld had begged off. Urd was busy establishing the basic stock for her new shop while Skuld was working flat out on her increasingly more elaborate workshop in the backyard.
In the end, Harry had gone for a gentle ride around the local neighbourhood with Belldandy and Keiichi. By the end of it he was fairly confident on his bicycle, and he had managed to familiarise himself with the local street layout. He had suffered one or two falls, as beginners often do, but between Belldandy's first aid skills and Keiichi's ability to repair any damage that the bicycle might have suffered the tumbles passed with relatively little incident.
When he was not riding his bicycle, Harry found himself assisting Keiichi in fitting a sidecar to his motorbike. The young engineer had managed to acquire a Watsonian GP Classic sidecar that would fit his Triumph Bonneville, but it took a little work to get it attached the first time. Harry was only too happy to help, and had a fun couple of hours getting covered in grease.
His lessons on the use of magic with Belldandy continued over the weekend, but she had been firm and insisted that weekends would only be spent practicing what they had covered in the preceding week. Even so, a few hours of rolling marbles around with his magic had been quite fun, especially when Belldandy added mazes to the activity.
Monday morning heralded the first of Sun Wukong's regular lessons with Harry. Belldandy elected to supervise the sessions, on the basis that she would be the only person at home. There was also the fact that the Norn of the Present would be a far greater calming influence on the Monkey King. Sun Wukong continued with the slow but steady introduction he had started the previous week, focussing on building Harry's stamina and general physical fitness while establishing a solid martial arts foundation that was built on basic katas.
In addition to the self defence lessons, Harry got to grips with the home tutoring schedule that Belldandy had drawn up. She was determined that Harry would be in an excellent position to continue his education when the next school year began, and ran Harry through a variety of subjects.
One thing that Harry had never had the opportunity for in his previous school was learning foreign languages. Belldandy had started him out with Japanese lessons, but had quickly added French and Norwegian. Harry was demonstrating a knack for languages that Belldandy was quick to pick up. She was already moving ahead with the language lessons at a faster rate than she had originally planned for. At the rate of progress he had demonstrated in the first week, he would easily be fluent within a few years. The challenge now was to maintain that momentum, something that Harry was eager to do after seeing how delighted Belldandy was at his rapid progress.
Urd had informed Harry that she would teach him the fine art of creating potions at some point, but for the moment she was unable to do so thanks to her shop. Until Urd had spare time again, Belldandy had used the time allocated to potions lessons to teach Harry the basics of ingredient preparation and identification as well as working on learning the reaction tables that would help to avoid explosive results. These lessons threatened to be very boring, as the fun part of using the ingredients to create potions was left out, but Belldandy made up for it by taking frequent short breaks to practice his magic.
Overall, things were going well and Harry could not remember having ever been happier. Which made it all that much harder when his past caught up with him a fortnight after he had left Little Whinging.
Keiichi felt disoriented. He had woken up for some reason, but the root cause eluded him. As awareness started to creep in, he cast a bleary glance at the digital display of his alarm clock.
Why am I awake at 1:37 in the morning? Was the first thought that struck him as he registered what the display was showing. He looked around the rest of the room in search of what had disturbed his sleep, before he noticed that he was alone.
A year before that would not have caused him to rouse from his slumber, but by now he was used to sleeping with another person in his bed. A cursory examination of the empty space to his left revealed that not only had his fiancée vacated the bed, but she had done so in a bit of a hurry.
What the heck is going on? Keiichi pondered as he levered himself upright. He found his slippers by feel more than anything else, though his dressing gown took a little more effort to locate. Suitably garbed, he softly walked out of his room in search of Belldandy.
He did not have to go far. The door to Harry's room was wide open, and Keiichi heard what sounded like muffled sobs coming from the room. He sped up a little as he approached the door, but paused as he arrived and saw what was going on inside.
Belldandy had Harry cradled in her arms, his face pressed into her shoulder. Harry was crying with great heaving sobs as Belldandy gently rubbed his back and head. She looked over as Keiichi approached, and gently shook her head. Keiichi got the message and withdrew slightly, but stayed within range in case Belldandy needed any help.
Not that I'd know what to do. Keiichi thought to himself. I'm just wondering what brought this on.
Keiichi thought back to his own childhood. He had been fortunate in that his sleep had rarely been interrupted by nightmares, but he did recall a few that had scared him senseless. His mother had been an incredible source of comfort on those rare occasions, but his memories were not entirely clear thanks to the passage of time.
One thing did come to him. With a small nod to himself, he turned and headed towards the kitchen. Time to see if I can get some warm milk without burning it first.
As he busied himself in the kitchen, Keiichi thought about the situation upstairs. It actually made sense, now that he was more fully awake to consider the issue.
By all accounts, Harry was badly abused by his relatives. It makes sense that he'll have some bad memories that will haunt his dreams for a while. Sadly there isn't much we can do to help him.
Keiichi carefully noted the milk's temperature with a thermometer Urd had purchased for frothing milk for her cappuccinos.
Well, there is something we can do. Belldandy is doing it right now. With enough care and love, plus the passage of time, Harry just might be able to leave those monsters behind him.
With the milk at the right temperature - he hoped - Keiichi poured it into a glass and took it upstairs. Time to see if he was actually ready to be a father.
When morning came, Harry had risen early and had gone directly to the kitchen to start cooking breakfast. Belldandy had managed to intercept him on the way, having been alerted by her monitoring wards. She discovered that the half-conscious boy had somehow slipped back into old habits and was on his way to cook up Dudley's usual fry-up. Belldandy promptly ushered Harry into the dining room and had him sit down while she prepared something a lot healthier. Harry looked a little upset, but a quick hug and reassurance from Belldandy had eliminated the stress. Keiichi turned up shortly to offer Belldandy assistance in the kitchen, having woken up when Belldandy left their bed.
Belldandy's sisters arrived to see three of the five members of the household looking a little worse for wear. Harry and Keiichi both looked like they needed at least another six hours of sleep, while Belldandy had a vague sense of stress about her. Urd noted the rather strained atmosphere and elected to remain quiet. Skuld quickly caught on and emulated her eldest sister.
Once Harry had left for his morning ablutions, Urd finally broke the silence.
"Problems last night?" She asked mildly. Belldandy nodded in agreement.
"The monitoring charms I placed in Harry's room alerted me to the fact that he was having a bad nightmare last night. It took Keiichi and I an hour to calm him down again."
Urd scowled. "Let me guess. Baggage from the Dursleys."
"Yes." Belldandy said with a sigh. "I'm surprised that it took this long for the damage to show, but then again he has been going to bed very tired ever since we removed him from that place. Now that he's getting used to the routine, he isn't quite so exhausted when he goes off to sleep. I'm guessing that was the trigger - his mind is finally processing everything and the old fears are still there."
Urd shook her head. Sometimes she wished she could visit some real justice on the Dursleys, but she knew that adequate punishment was not within her purview. Somebody else will deal with that lot in good time, we all just have to be patient.
"Well, we did expect this kind of thing would happen eventually. You've already got things well in hand though, so there isn't much else we can do." Urd stated.
Skuld looked up. "What about a potion to give him dreamless sleep? Would that help?"
Urd shook her head. "That would help in the short term, but it would only be addressing the symptoms. The root problem would remain. Unfortunately the only thing we can do is allow Harry to work through the demons in his mind, and give him as much support as we can. And to be honest I think Belldandy is the best person on the planet to help him."
Skuld nodded and returned to her breakfast. It was obvious from her expression that she was entertaining similar thoughts as Urd's regarding the Dursleys.
Urd decided to change the topic. "I have enough of a stockpile built up that I can start to make sales pitches. St Mungo's today, the Aurors on Monday. Useless bureaucrats don't work on weekends..."
"Will St Mungo's be open today? It is Saturday." Skuld asked.
"It's a hospital, kid, they don't close the doors on any day of the year. I made an appointment for this and they chose this morning, so I'm going to assume that it is fine with them. I'll see you all later." With that, Urd rose from the table and headed for their newly established Floo connection. A brief burst of flame and she was gone.
Skuld finished her tea before she stood. "I'm in the final stage of building my lab, if I can get the last bits wired up today I can install the simulator gear by Monday. See you later!"
Now that he was alone with Belldandy, Keiichi turned to his fiancée with a concerned look. "I take it we can expect more of what happened last night?"
Belldandy nodded sadly. "Harry is young and resilient, but he will take some time to heal the wounds of the past. I am sorry about disturbing you last night, I hope you aren't upset."
Keiichi waved her off. "I'm only upset because Harry has been treated badly enough that he has this happening to him. It isn't his fault and it certainly isn't yours. If I'm going to blame anybody I'll keep it for the monsters who abused him in the first place."
Belldandy hugged her fiancé before she returned to cleaning up the kitchen. Keiichi smiled before he started to help.
Skuld was sweating when she made the last connections to her equipment. This was more a result of nervousness than it was about the physical effort involved - she had robots to do the heavy lifting, but design and prototyping was down to her.
Satisfied that everything was in place, she stepped back from her handiwork and inspected it. Everything is in place. The GIS, cables, protection and control, fire detection and suppression...now all I need to do is switch it all on and see if it works.
Carefully opening up circuit breakers, she hit the switch and watched as the results of her hard work slowly came to life.
Pressure is OK, rotational speed is good, now engage the generator...
From a vantage point behind a desk, Sigel was monitoring the system on several computer displays. She looked up at her creator. "Everything is within acceptable levels, mistress."
Skuld nodded. "Now we have to connect it all to the house. We'll leave the valves closed and the breakers open for now, I'll just open the isolators and attach some earths. We should get this all done by lunch time."
Harry looked a little pensive as he helped Belldandy get the table set up for his lesson on magic. Belldandy noticed and moved next to the young boy.
"What's the problem, Harry?" The Norn of the Present asked.
Harry hesitated, before he spoke in quiet tone. "About last night..."
"Yes, Harry dear?" Belldandy said warmly.
"I didn't meant to disturb anyone..." Harry began, before Belldandy interrupted him with a hug.
"I know, Harry. It wasn't your fault. Do not worry about waking me up like that, you needed somebody and I was happy to be there for you. Now let's have some fun!"
Harry smiled weakly, before he turned to the table where a marble was waiting.
Urd watched as the Chief Healer of St Mungo's inspected the Skelegrow potion she had brought along as an example. She knew that it was far superior to anything that the magical world had at the moment, simply because she had developed a method of brewing that allowed for the inclusion of an analgesic to the potion. Normally this would result in a mix that would react violently with the standard metal cauldrons used to brew most potions, but by using Pyrex beakers and an analgesic not found in Europe Urd had managed something considered impossible.
Painless Skelegrow. Well, almost painless. The pain level was now roughly comparable to a mild ache, which was a considerable improvement over the regular potion.
"Remarkable." The Chief Healer said as he straightened up from his examination. "If this is the quality we can expect from you, Miss Odinsdotter, then I am obliged to try and acquire as much of your stock as possible."
His attention, and Urd's, now shifted to the Administrator of St Mungo's. While the Chief Healer was responsible for maintaining the standard of care that the hospital was famous for, the Administrator controlled the purse strings. After a moment, the middle aged woman nodded.
"What kind of price structure can we expect?" The bureaucrat asked.
Urd silently held out a piece of parchment that contained a complete list of all the potions she was offering, along with the pricing.
The Administrator took the parchment and looked through it. Then she raised her eyebrows and looked up at Urd.
"This is considerably cheaper than I had expected. Are you sure that this pricing is sustainable?"
Urd smirked. "Yes, but bear in mind that you are looking at my bulk supply prices. To guarantee no price increases beyond the ordinary rate of inflation, I must have a one year contract. At the very least. "
The Administrator nodded, before returning to the list. After a moment, she set it down on the desk.
"I believe we can make a deal, Miss Odinsdotter. Please take a seat while I get the standard contract."
"I'll get back to my rounds." The Chief Healer said as he departed.
Urd smiled broadly as she seated herself. With this contract, Urd's Elegant Potions would be a household word across magical Europe within a fortnight.
Keiichi and Belldandy had been puzzled when Skuld had asked for the electricity supply to the house and church to be turned off. This had forced Belldandy to move Harry's magical lesson outside, accompanied by Keiichi who decided to work on another English textbook in the shade of a tree. Now Skuld had summoned the three to her new laboratory.
"As you know, the simulation gear I received for my further education is a bit power intensive. As such, I have incorporated a power generation system into my new laboratory." Skuld explained.
Keiichi blinked. "I take it you hooked up the house and church as well?"
Skuld nodded. "Yes, that's why I had the power off earlier. Come downstairs and I'll show you the system."
Skuld's laboratory had two underground levels that had not been a feature of the original garden shed that had been on the site originally. Harry guessed that Banpei was quite good with a shovel.
"I couldn't use conventional generation systems, as the fuel requirements would have been very expensive and might have attracted attention from some authorities. As such, I was forced to look for a renewable energy source that could be implemented in a relatively small space. And here it is!"
With that, Skuld flipped on the lights of the lowest level of her lab. Keiichi, Harry and Belldandy looked at a confusing array of pipes, unidentified machines and what appeared to be water tanks.
"Er, what is it?" Harry asked.
Skuld beamed. "This is a geothermal power station! I built my own system to create the 20 kilometre deep boreholes, Mr Driller." She pointed at a lump covered by a tarpaulin in the corner. "He's on standby if I ever need more. I then installed four heat exchange pipes, to give the system redundancy in case one fails. These take water down to a level where I had Mr Driller install a high-tech heat exchanger that super-heats the steam to 600 degrees centigrade. This steam is brought up to the four turbines over there." She pointed at four small pipe shaped objects. Keiichi thought that they looked far too small to be real steam turbines. "They each have a generator attached. One generator is enough to run my lab by itself, but with two operating I can also power the house and church as well. With all four we have a redundant system."
Skuld walked through a door into a new room. "Once the steam has gone through the turbines, it is cooled using a heat exchanger in this room. This creates hot water that I have plumbed into the house's central heating system and bathrooms, so we should save gas in the future. This next room contains the switchgear."
Another door was opened, revealing a room full of what appeared to be metal cabinets.
"This is a gas insulated switchgear system that directs the power from the generators. There are two breakers each for the house and church, the rest are for my lab and the generators. The sulphur hexafluoride gas is non-flammable and I have detectors in place to pick up any leaks. I also have a complete fire detection and suppression system that will utilise carbon dioxide extinguishers automatically in case anything catches fire."
Skuld turned to her guests dramatically. "Any questions?"
There was a moment of silence, before Keiichi spoke up. "So you've built a complete geothermal power station in our garden? And it powers the entire property, as well as giving us free hot water?"
Skuld nodded happily. "Yes!"
Keiichi paused, before he shook his head. "Only you, Skuld. Well done for all of this, it should cut our power and gas bills a lot. How much did this cost?"
Skuld shook her head. "Nothing. I did all the work with Sigel and Banpei, including fabricating all the parts. I got the raw materials from a private supplier I know who was willing to part with it for free provided I moved it myself." This was code for 'I got it from Asgard'. "Now to bring everything online!"
With that, Skuld moved to a computer terminal and entered a few commands. There was a series of heavy thunks from the switchgear.
"There! The house should have power again. We're still hooked up to the mains, but we shouldn't ever need it from now on."
"Well done, Skuld! Now how about we go to lunch?" Belldandy said cheerfully. Keiichi walked out muttering under his breath, while Harry looked at the equipment with interest.
Well, she did build those robots...
Amelia Bones, Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, was feeling remarkably chipper considering the mountain of paperwork she was dealing with. All things considered, things were going well.
The Black Scandal (as the Daily Prophet had promptly named the mismanagement of Sirius Black's case) was still a hot topic but the immediate repercussions had almost fully played out. Barty Crouch was safely sidelined in his new role, the previous Chief Auror had retired to his family property in Wales and the public didn't seem to be in the mood to demand any more heads on the chopping block.
Yet. Amelia thought with a grim smile. Bagnold hasn't woken up to it, but this will ultimately force her out of office. The Wizengamot was already losing faith in her, after this little debacle even her most die-hard supports are becoming disillusioned. She's got another 12 months in office, if that.
Not that this was of any great concern. Ministers came and Ministers went. The system carried on regardless. It was only during times of crisis that an empty Minister's office could prove to be a major problem.
Of course, Amelia had discovered the price that she was going to have to pay for this mess. Hence the pile of paperwork in front of her. It was all very well to sack some useless idiots, promote others sideways and order a major restructure of how the DMLE handled prosecutions...but ultimately all of those actions generated paperwork. A lot of which ended up on the Director's desk.
Still, it was a price worth paying for what she had received in return - heightened respect in the community at large, a great deal more leeway when it came to doing her job and a Chief Auror who was willing to look past her chest. The previous Chief had been rather old-fashioned in his views towards the role of witches in society, which had caused no end of friction.
Amelia paused as she reviewed the next file. It was a report from the Aurors' chief healer, bringing attention to the fact that St Mungo's had recently awarded a large contract to a new potions shop that had recently opened in Diagon Alley. The Aurors were now interested in trying to jump on the bandwagon and be added to the contract.
It was standard practice, really. The Aurors had a staff of potions brewers themselves, but they spent most of their time maintaining the supply of veritaserum (which had a limited shelf life) and providing battlefield potions. For everything else, the DMLE depended on external suppliers. Due to the quantities required, the DMLE tended to make large orders and had found that working with St Mungo's allowed for contracts that provided substantial discounts due to the sheer volume involved.
It was odd for St Mungo's to have made their own contract without consulting the DMLE first, but it wasn't unheard of. Obviously the famous hospital had been offered a deal that was attractive enough to persuade the Administrator that forming a joint contract with the DMLE wasn't necessary.
Let's see here, what kind of prices are they talking about... Amelia's thought process trailed off as she saw the name of the new supplier of potions.
Urd's Elegant Potions. It cannot be a coincidence. The Director thought to herself. I believe I will have to ask someone to look into this Urd.
Urd returned home with a satisfied smile. Not only had she secured a contract with St Mungo's, but she had opened her shop for the first time just after lunch. The novelty value alone had drawn visitors to come and look, most of whom had made the transition from "visitor" to "customer" fairly quickly.
There's a lot to be said for attractive packaging and a well designed layout. Urd thought smugly as she entered the living room. There she found Skuld and Harry engaged in a life or death struggle in some two player video game, while Keiichi watched from one side.
"Hello. Have a good day?" Urd greeted the room in general.
"Hello Urd. Yes, I think we did. Skuld has her workshop up and running and we made progress on Harry's bicycle training." Keiichi replied. Skuld appeared to be far too engrossed in the game to look up, but Harry turned around briefly.
"Hello Aunty Urd!" He said cheerfully before he turned his attention back to the screen. Apparently his distraction had not given Skuld any advantage at all, which the young Norn found quite annoying.
"Good. I'll just have a chat with Belldandy." Urd replied, walking in the general direction of the kitchen.
"Hello Urd," Belldandy said cheerfully as her sister entered the kitchen, "did you have a good day?"
That's my line, Urd thought to herself. "Hi Bell. Yes I did, actually, it looks like my little shop is off to a successful start. Now I just have to maintain the momentum."
"Will you be opening again tomorrow then?" Belldandy asked. Urd shook her head.
"Nothing on Diagon Alley opens on a Sunday, apart from the pub and Gringotts. Opening my shop would be a waste of time as there will be nobody around looking to purchase anything. It would also raise suspicions we don't need."
"Oh, OK." Belldandy said. She was used to a society in which shops strived to be open for as long as possible.
"How is Harry?" Urd asked. That was the more pressing concern.
Belldandy pursed her lips. "He seems to be OK. He was a little withdrawn this morning but our magical lesson helped. That seemed to draw him out of his shell. This afternoon we went out to ride our bicycles together for a while, after that we mostly played some board games as a group. Until Skuld decided that she wanted to play video games, that is. The test will be to see what happens tonight."
Urd nodded. "There isn't much we can do about that. I'm afraid that you and Keiichi will just have to endure more interruptions to your sleep."
Belldandy smiled gently. "I'm sure we can manage. Can you please set the table? Dinner will be ready shortly."
"Sure thing, sis." Urd said as she moved to gather up cutlery. I know you can manage, Bell. There's no way known that you could fail to help somebody like Harry. All the more reason to have another chat with Keiichi tomorrow, I think we need to discuss your impending marriage.
Author's notes: This one took longer than usual because of work commitments. That and I got distracted by the new Shogun 2 expansion.
Thanks to everyone at Caer Azkaban who provided feedback and proof-reading for this. You all know who you are.
Regarding Skuld's geothermal power plant. Yes, I know what she has done is technically impossible to do. But this is a person who has developed two robots who have AI's so advanced that they are capable of falling in love. She also built a WW2 super-gun as a side-project. Frankly, a little generator like this is child's play to her.
Next time: why does Urd want to talk to Keiichi about his upcoming marriage? What will Skuld do with the horcrux? Why am I asking you when I'm the one who will write it all?