Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Harry Potter or Oh My Goddess.
Urd leaned on the counter of her shop as the main door closed with a tinkling of the bell fixed to it. For a shop started by a complete stranger in a somewhat small community, Urd's Elegant Potions was doing very well for itself. Part of that was due to the contract Urd had secured with St Mungo's, which had been followed in short order by a DMLE contract. That had raised the public profile of Urd's skills in brewing significantly, and had led to further contracts with several of the more prominent Quidditch teams. While most teams employed their own potions experts, Urd had managed to offer the right combination of quality, volume and cost to make a contract with her shop the more lucrative offer.
Of course, all this added up to a busy shop. Which in turn mean that Urd had very little spare time, particularly now that she had started teaching Harry the basics of the art of potions.
He's doing fairly well at it too, Urd thought reflectively, he has the patience to take it carefully and knows how to follow instructions properly. All in all a good start for now, but we'll have to find some way of encouraging his creativity at some point.
Urd had discussed this with Belldandy, who had raised the topic with the headmistress of the school Harry was due to start with in September. The staff were now aware of Harry's history with the Dursleys (though no names had been mentioned) and appropriate counselling was being arranged. Belldandy hoped that getting Harry involved in arts and music might help him learn to be more open with his own thoughts and feelings.
I'm no expert in raising children, Urd thought, so I'll defer to Bell's views on this. Still, we've got to get him settled and happy at the school quickly, as we do have the wedding coming up...
Getting the wedding organised was proving to be a challenge and a half, as it was going to take place in Japan in order to allow Keiichi's family and friends to attend. Of course, organising a wedding across the globe like that was just a little tricky. Ultimately Keiichi had delegated most of the responsibility to running the event to his mother, who had in turn delegated some authority to Keiichi's sister Megumi.
With strict orders to keep the Motor Club out of the organising part of things. Father only knows what that lot of lunatics might come up with... Urd considered with a wry grin.
The bell rang again to announce a new visitor, causing Urd to look up. She smiled broadly as she saw Belldandy in the doorway, holding a wrapped box.
"Urd dear, you forgot your lunch again! You must be more mindful of these things." The goddess greeted her elder sister.
Urd rolled her eyes. "You didn't walk here again, did you? You do realise that my shop is connected to the Floo network, as is our house?"
Belldandy walked over and set the boxed lunch on the counter. "It was no bother, I enjoyed getting out in the sunshine. Have you had a busy morning?"
Urd nodded. "Yes, apparently getting named as the chief potion supplier for the Holyhead Harpies has made me the place to go for women wanting quality potions. I've been flat out all morning."
"Well, it is a sign that they recognise your talent. Plus it is good that you have a successful shop." Belldandy said gently.
Urd nodded again. Her shop was her ticket into Britain's magical society; a mechanism by which she could establish herself as a person everybody either knew or knew of. It was important that she could do this before it became known that she was also one of the guardians for a certain Harry James Potter.
Of course, by that stage my reputation as a master potion brewer will be eclipsed by Harry's status, but at least I will already be well known. I won't be thrust into the spotlight as "guardian of the Boy-Who-Lived" from total obscurity, this way I'll have some public image already. Politics is all about image, after all, and this shop will get me a lot of influence with the right people.
The door opened again, attracting the attention of both sisters. They saw a blonde woman perusing the shelves of finished potions, a look of concentration on her face.
Keeping half an eye on the potential customer, Urd turned back to Belldandy. "Have you finished sorting out the wedding arrangements with our side of the family?"
Belldandy blushed. "Yes. Father has not committed one way or the other as yet, and I suspect he will keep us in suspense until the day itself. Mother has already said that she will be there, and Peorth has agreed to be one of the maids of honour."
Urd suppressed a cough at that announcement. Maid of honour? Peorth? She hardly qualifies as a "maid" anymore, but there you go.
"I doubt that anyone from my mother's side of things will attend," Urd said blandly, "but you can bet that she'll turn up at some point. Better have a plan ready for that."
Belldandy looked curious. "She wouldn't try to upset anything, would she?"
Urd sighed. "No, but you know what she's like. She'll create chaos and mayhem just by turning up. She has the knack to do it without even trying."
Belldandy looked pensive for a moment, and was about to say something when she was interrupted by the other occupant of the shop who had evidently given up on trying to find things herself.
"Excuse me, dear, can you help me with a few items? I've asked everywhere else and they haven't been at all helpful, I know you sell potions but perhaps you can assist me with these?" The woman said as she offered a large piece of parchment. Urd took it, and sighed internally as she saw that "a few items" took up most of the sheet.
"Sure. I don't keep ingredients on display, so come out the back. Belldandy, can you please watch the shop for me?"
Belldandy nodded, as Urd escorted her customer out to where she kept her ingredients. The Norn of the Present decided to take the opportunity to clean up a bit, while Urd was careful to keep her shop presentable for the passing trade, there were some corners that only Belldandy ever seemed capable of dusting properly.
Behind the calm exterior, Belldandy was actually enduring the most stress she had faced since Keiichi's wish had been granted. She was juggling a lot of balls simultaneously - looking after Harry, who in spite of his good progress was still a very fragile person. Then she had her relationship with Keiichi, of which the wish contract was now the least of it all. Doing her part to help organise the wedding had added to her workload, on top of running the household, liaising with the architect and construction company for the renovations on the church, keeping a lid on Urd and Skuld's abrasive relationship...
Frankly, she should have been a nervous wreck. But First class goddesses are not given the power just through passing exams. She could handle this, and more. It didn't alter the fact that she had precious little spare time these days. And she was certainly looking forward to the respite that the return trip to Japan for the wedding offered, even if the wedding itself would add a whole new array of problems and issues.
Finally Urd emerged with a happy looking customer, who quickly paid and scurried from the store. Belldandy looked at her sister questioningly.
Urd caught the hint and explained. "She's a spell researcher, and needs a lot of things raw that other shops will only sell processed. Plus she wanted some stuff that normally isn't available in Britain."
"Oh? Such as?" Belldandy asked, curious.
Urd grinned. "Little things, like the extract of mango tree root. Or 3-toed sloth fur. Nothing you can't actually find if you go hunting in shops overseas, but all unavailable here in Britain."
Belldandy looked thoughtful. "Would there be a market in selling just those ingredients?"
Urd shook her head. "No. I'd have to shift to a wholesale market, which would cut me off from the contacts we need. It was strange, though..."
"Yes?" Belldandy asked.
"She wanted two hundred-weight of powdered horn of Crumple-Horned Snorcack. That stuff is useless for anything except acting as a magical sponge, soaking up stray magical energy. Usually putting that stuff in potions kills the magical properties of it. I only keep it around to help clean up any spills."
Belldandy considered it. "Could she use it to help dampen the side-effects of some of the spells she is researching?"
Urd paused as she thought it over. "I suppose so. Treated properly, it could act like a lightning rod, absorbing any out of control magic safely."
Belldandy looked thoughtful as she looked back at the door of the shop. She was just about to make her farewells when Urd spoke up again.
"So, Bell, what's the latest on your wedding plans? Traditional Japanese or something else?"
Belldandy turned back to her sister with a small smile. "Keiichi said that I should plan the wedding I want, as he has no particular ideas as to how the event should go. So I've decided on a traditional wedding."
"What the locals would consider Scandinavian then." Urd said knowingly. "Which will also help with our cover story here." She added with a wink.
Belldandy developed a small blush to go with her smile. "The thought did cross my mind. But I think everybody will be happier this way."
"That's the important bit, Bell." Urd agreed.
"Megumi says that she's found a venue big enough, as the temple just doesn't have the space for all of our friends, family and guests." Belldandy continued, "she's organising caterers now as they tend to be busy over the Christmas and New Year period."
"How about our travel arrangements?" Urd queried.
"We are booked to fly out on the 22nd of December." Belldandy replied. "That way we will arrive in Japan on Saturday, and have Sunday to rest up for Christmas. The wedding itself will take place on the 1st of January, even though it means that everything will be more expensive due to the holiday. We fly back here on the 5th of January, which should give us the weekend to recover before Keiichi has to go back to work."
"What about your honeymoon?" Urd asked in a teasing tone.
Belldandy's blush deepened. "Keiichi and I have agreed that we will have to let our honeymoon wait until he has accumulated more leave. To be honest, I don't think it bothers Keiichi."
Urd grinned playfully. "You know that he's happy when you are, Bell. That's why I think you two are made for each other. Just don't wear him out on the wedding night, OK? Or at least not too much, we'll need him strong enough to carry our bags for the flight home."
Belldandy gave her sister a mock glare. "Urd, please! Have a sense of decorum!"
Urd just laughed. "That'll be the day. At any rate, I have this delicious lunch to attend to before the next wave of customers."
Belldandy nodded as she turned to leave. "I have to get back before Harry's lesson with Sun Wukong finishes. Will you be home at your normal hour?"
Urd waved as her sister departed. "Yes, there's nothing in the diary that should keep me late. See you later!"
Sun Wukong watched Harry work through the latest kata that they had spent the morning on. This was Harry's third time through it without prompts from his sensei, and so far it looked good. Nice and smooth, good execution and no missed steps.
All in all, everything a good sensei wanted to see. Which worried the Monkey King a bit. Normally it took a student several days to work through a kata to a level of familiarity that allowed for such a smooth performance. For Harry to pick things up this quickly...it seemed too good to be true. Past experience had made Sun Wukong wary when that sort of thing happened.
He knew that Harry had no experience in fighting prior to his tutelage under the Monkey King. No experience beyond being the target of a group of larger children, that is. So it was not possible that Harry had previous experience that he was drawing on for his current training.
I guess the boy is a bit of a natural. The real test will be when we finally move from the basics on to sparring. After that we will incorporate magic into the art, which will be another thing altogether. Optimistically, he might be at decent level of competence by the time he's ready to go to that magical school. Get him up to his mastery by the time he's 14 or 15, though he'll have to work hard to get that far.
That's assuming he continues at his present rate. And once he starts at that school Belldandy mentioned, I won't have nearly as much time to train him. I guess I should look at this as a more long-term project, with an aim to bringing him to master level by the time he is 60 years old or thereabouts.
Although...maybe we can jump the gun a bit. Nothing says he can't learn how to do magically enhanced kata alongside his traditional ones.
"OK, Harry, stop for a minute. I want to show you something new." Sun Wukong said suddenly. Harry halted in mid-movement and turned to face his sensei.
"Belldandy says that you're coming along well with your magic lessons. So where are you with that?" The Monkey King inquired.
Harry pondered that for a moment. "I'm good at levitation and summoning objects. Right now Auntie Bell is teaching me how to move objects around from one place to another, as well as very basic transfi- trastf- tranisf- um, changing things."
"Transfiguration, Harry. A very useful skill." Sun Wukong said seriously. "OK. What I want to do now is start to include so very minor magic into your martial arts. Summoning things in the middle of a fight can make a major difference - you could take somebody's weapon away, place an obstacle in their path or bring your own weapon to your hand after losing it. So to start with, we'll place some of these around the training area."
With that, Sun Wukong walked in an even circle around where Harry had been practicing his katas, placing tennis balls at regular intervals.
"Now, I want you to go back to the first kata you learned. Nice and simple. But this time, I want you to summon these balls - one at a time - during the movements. Catch the ball and then throw it to me. Keep doing this until the kata is finished, I'll make sure that you don't run out of balls. OK? Let's start out slow and speed up as your skill improves."
Harry nodded. He focussed on one of the balls for a moment, before it launched from the ground towards him. Instinctively he reached out and caught it. Turning to his sensei, he gently threw the ball.
"Like that, but during the kata. You seem to have the hang of basic martial arts movements as well as simple magical abilities, now we try to combine the two. This requires you to be able to split your efforts between two actions, so don't be surprised if things aren't quite so smooth to begin with. Ready? You may start."
Harry started his kata, and soon the first ball was flying towards him. Harry caught it clumsily and barely managed to throw it in the direction of the Monkey King, before the next ball started to move.
Good start, Sun Wukong mused, now to see how it looks by the end of today's session.
In a residence much larger than the one that Harry Potter called "home", Narcissa Malfoy was carefully brushing her hair with the aid of a mirror. On the surface it looked like she was staring vacantly at her own reflection while her hands were occupied with continuous brushing of her blonde locks. To the trained observer, however, subtle signs were in evidence that Lady Malfoy was engaged in some intense thought.
More than anything else, Narcissa was a daughter of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. From as far back as she could remember, she had been taught to be a member of this powerful family, to serve it and see it prosper. Her marriage to Lucius Malfoy had been a calculated move on the part of her Head of House to further the fortunes of the Black Family. That something akin to love had resulted was a fortunate happenstance.
The last war had not done the family any favours. Even before the family started to lose members in battle, Sirius Black had disgraced himself badly by first being sorted into Gryffindor and then by allying himself closely with the light-aligned Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter. This was the first event in a series of major disruptions that had resulted in the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black coming close to extinction.
In truth, the "defection" of Sirius Black would have been of no consequence had the Black Family not gotten itself so heavily involved in the Dark Lord's crusade. The extended family had taken grievous losses in Death Eater raids, most of them falling in the service of the Dark Lord. The core family itself had been relatively untouched until late in the piece, when Regulus Black (the "loyal" son and favoured heir to be the new Head of House) had died in the service of the Dark Lord. This had been followed shortly by the death of Orion Black, the last official Lord Black. With Sirius unwilling to take up the mantle of the new Head of House (and the rest of the Blacks opposed to him even considering it), a vacuum had been left at the very head of the family.
Narcissa and her sisters had been ineligible to inherit thanks to the discriminatory nature of the rules of succession that prevented women from being the Head of House. Narcissa's father Cygnus had attempted to take control for himself, but had run into a major problem - the continued existence of Sirius. As the eldest son of the previous Lord Black, Sirius was first in the line of succession and could not be supplanted easily. Sirius would have to have been formally cast out of the family (something Orion had never done, apparently in a vain hope that he would one day be reconciled with his wayward son), have actively rejected the position or have died.
Narcissa suspected that Sirius had never officially rejected the role in order to spite the rest of the family. Had Regulus lived, the younger brother might have been able to challenge Sirius for the title but Cygnus was not able to. As Sirius proved remarkably hard to kill (in spite of the best efforts of the Death Eaters, who had specific orders from the Dark Lord to get rid of the light sided impediment) the Black Lordship had remained open.
Things had changed in 1981 when Sirius managed to get himself incarcerated at Azkaban. For one thing it went some way to redeeming his image in the eyes of his mother, who viewed his apparent betrayal of the Potters as evidence that Sirius had been true to the Black Family all along. It also allowed Cygnus to take a more direct role in ruling the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, as there was no chance of Sirius being able to discharge the duties of Lord Black from prison.
Had Sirius actually been convicted, Cygnus could have had himself declared Lord Black within a week of the sentence being handed down. In hindsight, Narcissa realised that the failure of her father to do exactly that was a hint that the incarceration of Sirius Black was not entirely de jure. Of course, hindsight was usually good at spotting details like that.
With Sirius in prison and Cygnus unable to take over, the next person likely to succeed to the position of Lord Black had been Narcissa's son, Draco. He was the eldest male of Black descent left - and in fact the only one that anybody knew of that was not descended from an expelled member. Harry Potter himself might have been in the running had Dorea Black not been cast out of the family for the crime of marrying somebody she had been forbidden from even talking to.
With Draco the most likely person to be the next Lord Black, Narcissa had done her best to raise her son to be worthy of the title. As time had gone on, however, it had appeared that Draco took after his father more than anybody else. Lucius Malfoy was an intelligent man and powerful wizard, but his approach to the political game was heavy handed and vulnerable to exposure. The Blacks had always played a more subtle game, preferring to remain unobtrusive and never showing their hand until success was guaranteed. Lucius, much as Narcissa loved him, would have been considered a liability to the kind of power plays the Blacks were used to.
Even so, Narcissa had worked with her father to try and prepare things for the eventual rise of Draco Malfoy to be the new Lord Black. She had in fact planned for special tutors to be appointed once her son had commenced his formal education at Hogwarts. This was a practice that had once been traditional for powerful families like the Blacks, but which had fallen out of favour after the rise of Grindelwald.
All of her plans were now irrelevant with the release and exoneration of Sirius Black. There was now no way that Draco would ever become Lord Black short of Sirius having a fatal accident. Regardless of his views on his own family, Narcissa knew that Sirius would never allow the Lordship of his own House fall into the hands of Lucius' son. Sirius' hatred of Death Eaters had been well known amongst the Dark Lord's followers, and the man would likely take his place as the new Lord Black simply to spite the up and coming Head of the Noble House of Malfoy.
Narcissa had few illusions about her husband. She knew that his response to an obstacle like Sirius would be direct and heavy handed, in the form of assassination attempts. Narcissa doubted that any of these would ever succeed against somebody who had survived the best the Dark Lord could throw at him.
Thus the matter of the House of Black would be left to Narcissa to salvage. Cygnus' days as the de facto ruler of the Black Family were numbered, though considering his failing health it was a moot point as to whether it would be Sirius or the Grim Reaper who ultimately took power out of her father's hands. Narcissa knew that a newly entitled Lord Sirius Black would certainly restore Andromeda Tonks, nee Black, to the family. Bellatrix would be lucky if she remained on the Family rolls, but Narcissa's status - and that of her son - were more of an open question.
Narcissa sighed as she placed her brush on the table in front of her. She was going to have to swallow a lot of pride and approach Sirius herself, in person. She would not be in a strong position, and she knew that he would have a lot of factors in his favour.
In short, she was going to have to grovel and beg. It was a deeply humiliating prospect to a proud daughter of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. But she would do that - and more - in order to protect the interests of her son.
With so much else in her life sacrificed on the altar of the Dark Lord, Draco was all she had left.
Skuld emerged from her training simulator and wiped the sweat from her forehead. For all that it was a digital training environment, it drained her magic just like casting spells in the real world would.
Once again she found herself regretting her decision to neglect her magical studies in favour of playing with her technomagical inventions. She should have known better - to get anywhere in Asgard, you absolutely had to have good control over your personal magic. Midgard field operations revolved around those skills, for all that she had done her best to fudge things with her "Skuld bombs" and similar devices.
Unfortunately, the success of her early coding work and the enjoyment she derived from her inventions had distracted her quite badly. Then she had decided to chase after Belldandy on Earth (breaking a lot of rules in the process) which had stalled her education and training almost completely. Belldandy had done her best, but one part-time teacher was ultimately not sufficient for the task.
Still, it was worth it just to be with my favourite sister Belldandy. And she needed my help. Skuld thought to herself...until she smacked herself in the forehead.
She couldn't lie to herself that much. She had done the Asgard equivalent of running away from home simply because it looked like her big sister was starting a relationship with a man. A mortal man, even, something that still raised eyebrows in some parts of Asgard. The Norn of the Future had, in essence, broken the rules by travelling to Earth simply to break up a relationship.
This moment of self admission was rather painful for the young goddess, but she knew that ultimately she had to face up to her own faults if she ever wanted to reach the goal she coveted the most - Goddess First class. Getting there would take more than just mastery of her own powers, it would also mean proving herself worthy of the position.
Part of that is that First class goddesses cannot lie. Which is why Urd was rejected, twice. Skuld reflected.
Suddenly her wrist-watch started beeping, alerting her that one of her computer systems needed attention. Calling up her terminal, she inspected the message. It was a notification that the preliminary analysis of the soul fragment extracted from Harry's scar had finished.
Skuld was well on the way to developing the scrying system that would give the locations of the other soul fragments - Urd had called them horcruxes. Tuning it required precise information on the soul being targeted, and the damaged fragment they had required careful analysis. In this case, "careful" also meant "time consuming".
Skuld estimated that she had another two scans to perform, each of which would take at least two weeks. Once the scans were complete, she could load the information into the modified Prophecy code she had written for the scrying system. The soul fragment itself would also be used, housed in a continuous scanner that the scrying system could access at all times. This would allow the system to make a Law of Similarity based divination spell, effectively pin-pointing the precise locations of the other soul fragments.
It was in fact a fairly basic technique for finding lost items from sets - the standard training exercise involved scattering the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle over a large area of Asgard before requiring the trainees to find them using the Law of Similarity. It was, however, tedious and frustrating, as the manual process could only provide a snapshot of the locations that would fade after several seconds. It was like being given a map of the locations that would disappear almost as soon as you had read it.
Skuld's system got around that by continuously casting the scrying spell over and over, providing a real time update. The automated system could cast the spell in a matter of microseconds, whereas doing it by hand took several minutes as the mandala would have to be redrawn every time. The computer could instantaneously pull the mandala out of its permanent memory every time, effectively drawing it in virtual space.
Some deities thought the idea of a computer using a virtual mandala was a magical impossibility and that the results provided were suspect. The counter to that view was the unrivalled success that computerised divination had enjoyed so far.
Skuld walked resolutely to her localised Yggdrasil node that she was using for the scrying system. She had erected some of the strongest firewalls she knew to keep the soul fragment isolated from the main Yggdrasil system, and Belldandy had warded the room that contained the fragment extensively. Even so, Skuld felt nervous when working near the sphere that contained the piece of soul.
It felt evil. Extensive experience with demons such as Mara meant that Skuld's empathy was sensitive enough to pick up on genuinely evil creatures. This soul fragment, however, was different from any other evil creature she had met so far.
Mara always felt like she was being evil because of a personal grudge. Hild usually felt like she was highly amused by the chaos she unleashed, but ultimately did not care as to the outcome. This piece of soul, on the other hand...it had a feeling of horrible, hateful maliciousness on a level that was deeply disturbing.
The sooner we get this system working the better, Skuld thought as she entered the commands for the next scan. I want to get away from this horrible thing.
Monday the 4th of September started like any other day in the Norn household. For Harry, however, it brought a sense of nervous anticipation. Belldandy picked up on this the instant he stepped into the kitchen.
"Good morning, Harry. Just relax, today will be just fine."
Harry nodded jerkily, as he moved to help with preparing breakfast. Urd was the next to pick up on Harry's nervous disposition.
"Hey, relax. You'll do OK." The eldest sister said as she gently ruffled Harry's hair. Skuld nodded.
"Yeah, you have nothing to worry about. It'll be fun!"
Keiichi chimed in with his own advice. "You won't have the trouble here that you did at your last school, Harry. Just be calm and it will work out OK."
In spite of all of this well-meaning guidance, Harry remained nervous. He glanced at the source of his current worry - a packed bag sitting in a corner of the dining room.
Today, he started at his new school. And with that, another plunge into the unknown.
Author's notes: I had originally planned to write a lengthy section that covered Harry's introduction to his new school. The more I worked at it, however, the more I found myself unable to avoid tired old clichés surrounding the "new kid at school" scenario. Hence the cliff-hanger.
Regarding the wedding - for a series that features three goddesses as permanent characters (and many more deities and demons turning up to visit), Oh My Goddess has almost no religion in it. The closest it ever really gets is in the opening section which covers how Keiichi and Belldandy ended up living in a temple (and the plot got rid of the monk in a hurry, too). The structure of the divine world is also a bit confusing - it seems to be heavily based on the old Norse pantheon, but it has major differences. So for this story I have decided to have Belldandy opt for a Scandinavian styled wedding ceremony to match their background story. Keiichi would probably opt for something Buddhist or Shinto if he was forced to make a decision, but it strikes me that he'd be the type to defer to his bride when it came to wedding plans.
Next time: School. And maybe a wedding. It all depends on the nargles.