The Three Kings: Strike
Disclaimer (1): Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Studios, and TV Tokyo. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Arthur A. Levine Books, and Warner Bros. Merlin is owned by Julian Jones, Jake Michie, Johnny Capps, Julian Murphy, Shine Television, and BBC One. Please support the official releases.
Disclaimer (2): Coca Cola is produced by the Coca-Cola Company.
Warning: Mentions of minor character death, incest, inbreeding, interspecies marriage, classism, abuse, alcohol, impregnation, misogyny, induced suicide, mass murder, plane crashes, pregnancy, and labour.
Chapter 16: System Failure
"That'll be ten galleons," the man behind the cash tells Natsuki. She gives him a polite smile as she hands over the money- My money, her mind gleefully supplies. She watches as he attaches her letter to the owl's leg and leads it to the window so that it may begin it's long journey east.
"Thank you," Natsuki bows her head.
"It's no problem, ma'am," the man tells her. "Though, if you're planning on sending more letters to Japan, might I recommend that you purchase an owl of your own? It'll save you some gold in the long run."
She bites her lip, "I'll keep that in mind. Have a good day, sir."
Natsuki walks out of the Post Office and onto the bustling streets of Hogsmeade. It's midday and the summer sun shines down on her is warm and comforting. She looks up and sees Hogwarts castle looming in the distant hills, swallowing hard. Her husband and son had both attended that school, and now both were dead before their time. In a few months, Amane would have to step through those doors, and nothing terrifies Natsuki more than losing her baby girl.
She'd walked through those doors herself just this morning and walked out feeling unfulfilled and disappointed, lacking any of the answers that she'd hoped to find.
She wonders down the main road, occasionally pausing to stare through the windows of the passing shops. Natsuki wonders if Ryou had walked this way before on one of his trips through the town, holding hands with Igraine or laughing with Sam. She remembers him mentioning them in his letters home, always speaking of them so fondly.
And then they'd tried to kill him. Natsuki read in the Prophet the other day that Sam and Igraine had finally been released from St. Mungo's. Both were still recovering and spending time with their families before they would be returning to school the next year. Natsuki frowns, Another thing for Amane to deal with.
The Hog's Head Inn is located off the main road and around a corner. The bar smells of stale beer and the windows are so clouded with dirt that Natuki cannot see out of them. A few tables are occupied already. A giant man is getting drunk and playing cards with a hooded figure in a corner, while a witch with a surprisingly deep voice sat at the bar, taking shots of alcohol under her floor-length veil, much to the amusement of the young bartender.
"Natsuki!" Calls Viola Zabini from a table in the center, waving her arm above her head and looking cheerfully out of place in such a dingy room with her bright red robes and her shining smile. Natsuki returns the grin and joins her at the table.
Within seconds, the young wizard behind the bar walks over. He has short black hair, bright purple eyes, and wore a blue neckerchief around his throat, "What can I get you, ladies?"
"A glass of your finest wine," Viola says before turning to Natsuki. Ignoring the bartender's rolling eyes, she asks. "Would you like anything?"
Natsuki thinks of all the times that James would order for her at restaurants and how she'd eat and drink without tasting anything. Once, before they'd moved to England, James had gotten her very drunk because he kept buying her glasses of wine. She'd found out a week or so later that she was pregnant.
"Just a gillywater for me," she says. The bartender nods and walks back to his station.
"So? How'd it go?" Viola asks.
Natsuki shrugs, "McGonagall thinks Amane should study abroad. She said that it would be the best way to protect her from the fallout at Hogwarts."
Viola hums in response, nodding her head, "Well, from her perspective, it would be the better option. Not only does it keep the sister of a known mage safe from those who would harm her, but it also does wonders to keep the bad press at bay. Hogwarts doesn't need any more reporters snooping around than they already do."
Natsuki drums her fingers against the table, staring long and hard at the faded, old wood, "Ryou's attack has been old news for months."
"It's not just going to be about Ryou. Between the Malfoy heir starting school and the possibility that Harry Potter might make his first public appearance ever, the last thing that McGonagall wants in her halls is Amane Andrews."
"You know, if you're trying to help, you're not doing a very good job," Natsuki tells her, scowling.
"I've been dealing with bad press for years," Viola says, leaning back in her seat. "After a while, you start being able to predict what they want out of you."
"So… What would you do?" Natsuki asks hesitantly.
Viola sighs, "It's not about what I'd do. It's about what you want to do. If you want to go home, I'll help you get there. I'll even lend you the money for a Port Key. But if you don't, I'm still going to be in your corner. You know that, right?"
Natsuki closes her eyes, trying to control her breathing. The bartender comes back with their drinks, placing them on the table between them.
Viola takes a sip of her wine and makes a face, "Em! I thought that I asked for your finest bottle."
"And I gave it to you," Em responds cheekily.
"This is practically vinegar."
"It's what I've got until my boss comes back from whatever job his brother's got him doing this time," Em crosses his arms over his chest. "You want the fancy stuff? The Three Broomsticks is around the corner."
Then, without warning, he slams a hand down on the table. Natsuki jumps a foot in the air, her heart hammering against her ribs. It's not James, she tells herself. It's not James. The giant man swears colourfully across the room, spilling his drink down his front.
Em looks at her with an apologetic smile, "Sorry about that. Saw a bug." He showed her the palm of her hand, revealing a large beetle with horned antenna, "Aberforth would kill me if I let them infest the place."
Natsuki looks around the smoky bar skeptically, wondering how Em thought that one tiny beetle was going to make a difference.
The bartender wandered off, shaking the hand that held the bug captive and muttering under his breath. Natsuki thinks that she sees a flash of gold in his eyes he ducks around the corner into the kitchens and out of sight, but she's probably just imagining things.
"I sent a letter to my family back in Japan before I came here today," Natsuki admits. "I haven't spoken to them since I graduated. My parents never approved of James and my brother tried to stop me before I left." She takes a drink of her gillywater, "I told them what happened. Not the truth, but… that my husband was dead."
Viola nods understandingly but lets her speak without interruption.
"I told them that I wasn't ready to go home just yet," Natsuki admits. "And I'm not. But even if I was, I can't leave now because of the investigation. There's no way that they could trace James's death back to me, but just in case…"
"You don't want any reason for the Auror Department to suspect you," Viola finishes. "Smart move."
"You would have experience with the matter," Natsuki says, uncharacteristically brave. She remembers the spell that Viola cast on her arm the day she'd visited, sending letters scrawling up her sleeve that told her of Ryou's death and her husband's involvement.
Viola chuckles and takes another sip of her sour wine, "Would you believe me if I said that I only killed one of my husbands?"
"I'd say that be a huge coincidence," Natsuki raises an eyebrow.
Viola shrugs and finishes her glass. She calls out for Em to grab her another drink, "Something decent, this time!"
"Again. Three Broomsticks. Just down the road," Em shouts from the backroom, laughing through their familiar exchange.
Viola sobers when she turns back to Natsuki, "What do you know about my family?"
"Italian. Old. Very powerful. Very rich. If we were in Italy, you wouldn't be allowed to marry a foreigner ever since their Ministry passed the Pureblood Protection Act," Natsuki answers, remembering her history classes.
Viola hums, smirking dangerously, "You know, for all the fanfare that these pureblood Brits make about being able to trace their family histories back a thousand years, they're not the oldest magical families in the world. Did you know that the earliest records of wizarding magic date back to 50 B.C. at the beginning of the Roman Empire."
"But… that can't be true. The first wizards were the Three Kings, back in Egypt. Everyone knows that," Natsuki frowns. James had written extensively about it in collaboration with Bathilda Bagshot early in his career.
"Everyone is wrong. The oldest wand was found in the tomb of my ancestor, Olcinia Zabini, who died just before the turn of the millennium. My family is as pure as anyone's blood can get," Viola says and thanks Em when he brings her a new drink, something dark that fizzes gently in its glass. When she takes a sip, she blinks and asks him, "Did you get me muggle Cola?"
Em gives her a cheesy grin and two thumbs up. She rolls her eyes at him and continues.
"Pureblooded," Viola laughs, and it's harsh and mocking, sending chills down Natsuki's spine. "Pure. What utter shit ." She takes a sip of her drink. "I am the result of over two thousands years of blood purity, and for what? Am I better at magic than anyone else? No. Am I more fit to be alive than anyone else? Certainly not. Am I more valuable as a human being because of it? Merlin, no.
"But do you know what it does mean?" Viola asks but doesn't wait for Natsuki to respond. "It means that my parents were brother and sister."
Natsuki's shock is palatable, "What?"
"These Brits, they don't realize what their pureblood future is going to look like," Viola sneers. "There are less and less of them with every passing generation because there's only a limited amount of people for them to pair their children off with. I mean, they're already marrying their second and third cousins and it's only been a thousand years. What do they think is going to happen when they run out of those?"
Viola laughs, but it's wet and helpless like she's trying to hold everything back, "Infertility is such a huge problem back home; I was the only girl in a generation to get her period and once I had Blaise, they knew I could have children. So my parents married me to my brother Kaeso. And when the pox took him, they sold me to my other brother. And then to my cousins and my uncle.
"When my mother died, my father petitioned the Ministry to allow him to take me as his next wife, to preserve the Zabini lineage," Viola admits. "So I killed him and ran here."
Natsuki swallows hard, not knowing what to say. Finally, she whispers, "I don't understand."
"Understand what?"
"You have Blaise, a son. Your father had an heir. Why would he…?"
"Blaise is a bastard," Viola says. "His father was a muggle I met when I was fifteen." She chuckles, "I know. Seven husbands and my only child isn't even legitimate? How ironic..."
Natsuki reaches across the table and grasps Viola's wrist, encircling it with her thin fingers, holding her until she could calm herself down. She can't remember the last time she'd had to comfort someone who wasn't one of her own children.
"My nonna was a Black - she snuck in right before the Protection Act was passed. She helped me move back here after she found out what I did. She gave me some money and sent me looking for Em over there," Viola nods her head towards the bartender, who's pouring the veiled witch at the bar another line of shots. "The centuries of inbreeding messes with your body, so he helps me get the potions I need to prevent my organs from shutting down. They're expensive, very illegal, and only prolonging the inevitable. But they work."
"What happened to your grandmother?" Natsuki says and thinks, Merlin, she's dying.
"Went on the run. Led the Ministry on a cross-country chase for two years before they caught her. She was executed by the state last month," Viola raises her glass in solemn salute. "But I'm the fertile heiress of the Zabini family and my son is engaged to marry the daughter of a Department of Mysteries lackey, so between those two things I could get away with murder if I ever go back, as long as I start popping out babies."
Natsuki had always wondered why Viola was still so insistent on Amane and Blaise getting married. But Amane said something different, something about her wanting a daughter…
"But enough about me. You never answered my question," Viola eyes her over her glass.
"Which question?"
"What are you going to do about your daughter?"
Natsuki thinks about lying, about saying that she was going to run off the moment that she got a response back from her parents. But Viola's too smart and will see through that in a minute. So Natsuki finishes her gillywater and says, looking as helpless as she needs to be to get what she wants, "Not all of us are as lucky as you were to have a grandmother who'll help us flee the country. If the Auror Department doesn't get me, my husband's debt will."
It had been a surprise to her when she'd been approached by a series of collectors who'd informed her that they'd loaned him hundreds of galleons to pay for research and travel expenses. Contrary to what he'd told her, the Department of Mysteries had not paid for his many excursions.
"I'll have to sell the house. It'll be enough, to cover it, but…" Natsuki mumbles and waits for Viola to take the hook.
"You can stay with us," Viola offers and Natsuki smirks on the inside.
"That would be lovely. Thank you," Natsuki smiles politely. What are you hiding? She wonders. And what do you want my daughter for?
Ever since she was a little girl, Nurnuk has had a reoccurring dream. In it, she is surrounded by sunlight with the blue sky above her and a sea of white clouds below. Nurnuk flies, filled with wonder and excitement, her eyes full of joy.
She'd asked Nurnok about it once, wondering if they'd had a similar dream. But her sister had frowned and shook her head, saying that she'd only dreamed of the tunnels of Gringotts and the fires of their hearths. It sometimes made Nurnuk wonder if she was the younger sister, allowed to explore the world while her sister stayed in the depths of their home.
I guess we'll never know, Nurnuk things sadly as she stares out the window of the airplane, gripping the arms of her seat until her knuckles turned white.
"This is a terrible idea," she says aloud as the plane shudders again. A thin strap of fabric is pulled across her middle and the human who designed this death trap of a metal tube apparently believed that it would be enough to keep her safe in the case of an emergency.
"It's the least conspicuous way for us to travel," Serenity Wheeler responds from the seat beside her. The blind girl gives her a comforting smile, but all it makes Nurnuk want to do is curl up and hide.
"No goblin is meant to be this high in the air. I miss the earth beneath my feet. I miss the tunnels," Nurnuk squeezes her eyes shut as her stomach threatens to heave. The baby kicks at her ribs, as agitated as its mother. I have a bad feeling about this.
The mage named Strings had placed an illusion on Nurnuk and her entourage after Catherine had managed to secure the tickets, disguising them as human children. The British woman had stayed behind, hugging Strings and giving firm handshakes to the rest of the mages before driving off.
"May I?" Serenity asks, holding out her hand for Nurnuk to take. The goblin queen extracts her long nails from the armrests and grips the girl's hand like a lifeline. She knows that she's signing up for by touching her.
"Could you… tell me about my baby?" Nurnuk asks hesitantly.
Serenity nods, but her brow furrows in a way that makes Nurnok nervous. Then, the girl smiles, "It's healthy if that's what you're wondering."
"Why did you frown?" Nurnuk panics, but Serenity just laughs.
"I forgot for a second that goblin pregnancies are six months instead of nine and was wondering why it had lungs already."
Nurnuk blinks, "It has lungs?"
Serenity nods, "And ears. It can hear you talking to it."
"My baby can hear me…" Nurnuk smiles, feeling the tears welling in her eyes. Oh sister, our baby could hear you singing.
"Do you want to know its gender?" Serenity asks.
Nurnuk shakes her head, "No. I know that it's different with humans, but goblins do not assign gender based on our genitalia. I will ask them later on, once my child has figured that question out for themselves."
"I didn't know that," Serenity says. "It's a good system to have." Then she tilts her head in question, "Do you name your children at birth, too? Or do you wait until later to do that as well?"
"Names are given at birth. When else would they be given?" Nurnuk asks, confused.
"I thought… Oh. Are goblin names unisex?"
"Are human names not?"
Serenity shrugs, "Some are. Some aren't."
"But what happens if you give a child a name that is not in line with their gender?" Nurnuk asks, confused.
"You can change it," Serenity answers.
"You can name yourself? Incredible," The goblin queen says, astounded. Humans have such fascinating traditions.
"Kurnoff and I never really had a chance to talk about our cultural differences in child rearing before we had to go to war," Serenity mentions and Nurnuk remembers that Shaloena was one of the handful humans she knew of to ever marry outside her species.
"There have been half-goblin children before," Nurnuk says. Not many, but some do survive infancy.
The plane shakes again and Nurnuk grabs the armrest.
A mild bleep echoes throughout the cabin and a voice calls out, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We've hit a bit of unexpected turbulence. Please remain in your seats and fasten your seatbelts."
"Is this normal?" Nurnuk asks through gritted teeth. When she looks over at Serenity, the girl isn't facing her. Instead, she's facing the window with her hand pressed against the glass, blind eyes staring out into the world beyond.
"Something is wrong," the girl whispers. She whips her head around, "Your Majesty, I need you to look out the window for me."
Nurnuk swallows and leans across Serenity, squinting out at the darkening skies. Her heart leaps into her chest.
"There's someone outside," Nurnuk gasps.
There's a figure flying alongside the plane, their yellow and black robes flapping in the wind. They're not using a broom, Nurnuk realizes as it starts to get very cold, ice forming in the corners of the window.
The plane starts shaking in earnest and the lights begin to flicker. One of the passengers starts to scream.
Seto and Mai Valentine careen out of their seats and across the aisle, waking Strings, Kuirmet, and Skrags. No one stops them; the nearest flight attendant is crying hysterically at the head of the plane.
"Dementors," Nurnuk says, her voice full of dread. "They've sent Dementors."
She can't see them - only witches and wizards can. And luckily for them, Dementors don't affect goblins as much as they do humans; the goblin hive-mind connection instinctively working to dispel the Dementor's depressive magic across multiple people instead of just one. Nurnouk doesn't envy her human companions, watching as the weight settles in over their shoulders.
"They can't get in, can they?" Mai whispers and the last of the cabin lights go out.
Skrags shakes his head, "They're not ghosts. They can't move through walls."
"How did they find us?" Serenity asks.
"Nurnuk might have said something, maybe by accident," Nurnuk says. "Or the Department has someone inside the airport. Or-"
My baby can hear me sing, she thinks irrationally. I don't want it to listen to this.
People are shouting, panicking in their seats. A human child howls in the back. The plane shakes so hard that those in the aisles can barely stand.
The figure outside veers in close enough that Nurnuk can see that it's a human woman with short auburn hair and coal black eyes. The witch grins, all pearly white teeth, and mouths, "Found you."
The witch shoots off to the front of the plane and Mai grabs her phone, frantically calling someone named Alister as tears roll down her face, begging to hear her daughter's voice. Seto's knees give out and he falls to the floor, violently scratching at his face, screaming something about his father. Strings looks like he's gagging on something, his face a sheet of white. Serenity wavers before tilting to the side and falling unconscious.
And then, once all the mages are incapacitated, Nurnuk finds out why the Department sent Dementors.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry," the pilot's voice flows into the cabin over the intercom. The man is crying. "I'm sorry."
The plane takes a nosedive.
"Protect her!" Kuirmet screams in Gobbledygook at Skrags, launching himself towards the cockpit. Nurnuk feels as he sinks his magic into the metal door and wrenches it off its hinges. One of the pilots is already dead, falling half out of his seat with his skull bashed in, a bloody fire extinguisher hanging from his limp fingers. Kuirmet draws his sword from under Strings' failing illusion and cuts the second pilot down rather than deal with him, pushing his corpse from his chair.
Nurnuk and Skrags race up behind him as Kuirmet fumbles with the controls
"How do you fly this thing?" Skrags shouts.
Maglubiyet, first of the goblins, give me wisdom, Nurnuk prays as her stomach begins to scream and water sloshes out from between her legs. Do not let your children die here.
She grabs blindly at the two handles in front of the pilot's chair, pulling them towards her with all of her strength. The engines roar behind them as the dashboard controls scream wildly. Skrags flings himself towards the second set of handles and does the same.
The plane pulls up slightly, but not enough. Below, Nurnuk can see the ground.
"Your Majesty!" Nurnuk wipes around to see Seto Kaiba stumbling into the cockpit, pale with vomit staining his shirt. His arms are armoured in white scales and his eyes are a wild, electric blue. Behind him, Mai Valentine has transformed into a magnificent harpy and carries a groggy Serenity in her arms. The witch must have called off the Dementors, believing that they were done for. "Your Majesty, we have to leave!"
Skrags throws Nurnuk at Seto before following himself, grabbing onto the Pharaoh with Kuirmet. They abandon the cockpit and run to the exit, where Strings is holding himself up against the airlock.
This is insane, Nurnuk thinks once before the door opens and they're sucked outside.
Seto transforms in midair, wings exploding from his back as they fall. Nurnuk clings to him with all her might, ignoring the terrible cramping in her stomach, the wind rushing past them as the White Dragon takes flight mere feet above the earth's surface, catching Strings and Serenity on his back.
Mai lets out a shriek. Nurnuk whips her head around to see her beak open wide, pulsing waves of sound rushing out toward the witch. It hits the woman point blank, sending her flying backward and out of sight. Strings shrouds them in the clouds and the White Dragon glides upwards towards the city on the horizon.
The plane hits the ground in a gut-wrenching scream of twisting metal and flame. Nurnuk doesn't have time to process what happens when she doubles over in pain, clutching her stomach.
Serenity, barely conscious, moves a hand to Nurnuk's belly. Her eyes widen, "The baby's coming."
"No. No, it's too early!" Skrags cries.
"Seto, we need to get to a hospital!" Serenity screeches over the wind. The White Dragon pumps its wings and hurtles toward San Francisco as fast as he can.
The secure room is white, sterile, and oppressively quiet as Seto sits down beside Skrags. Nurnuk lays sleeping on the bed beside them with a monitor is hooked up to her pulse, beeping softly in the rhythm of her heartbeat.
It had been over a day since Seto had come bursting into the UCSF maternity ward under the cover of Strings' illusion, finding the first mage friendly doctor he could get a hold of, and convincing them to drop everything to help the goblin queen give birth. He'd been told later that they'd had to perform an emergency C-section, but unknown differences in goblin physiology had nearly killed both mother and baby mid-surgery.
"It's going to be alright," Seto says. Skrags looks up from where he'd been staring at the ground between his knees.
"The doctors don't know if… They didn't say…"
"There's a ninety percent survival rate," Seto rationalizes. "I talked with one of the nurses. The fact that the baby has lungs will help-"
"For humans. They don't know anything about goblin babies," Skrags says, sounding close to tears with worry.
"I know that the people here are never going to stop trying. I know the longer your child stays alive, the better its chances are," Seto pauses and takes a breath. "I know that I'll lay down my life to make sure that happens."
Skrags looks at him and swallows, "Thank you." He waits a moment before asking, "Have you ever been a father?"
Seto nods, "Not this cycle, but in others." He smiles softly, "The first time I held my first born, I was so terrified that I'd drop him. Kisara laughed at me, but she wasn't much better. Jono had to teach us how to support his head. He was always so much better with kids that I was."
"Jono the Brave was good with kids?" Skrags says incredulously. "They don't tell that in the legends."
"They don't say a lot of things," Seto smirks.
The goblin lets out a wet, choking laugh, "What am I supposed to do? I'm their guardian, but how am I supposed to protect them from this? I've already lost my other wife because I wasn't fast enough. What if I fail again and lose both Nurnuk and the baby?"
Seto can't answer that. He'd outlived his first son by over a decade.
Nurnuk grunts as her eyes flutter open, a long whine escaping from her throat. Immediately, Skrags is at her side, whispering in rapid-fire Gobbledygook that Seto can only slightly understand, telling her what had happened. Skrags presses a soft kiss to his wife's lips, his hands intertwining with her's.
Seto rises and gives the two of them some privacy.
Kuirmet is waiting for him in the hallway. The goblin warrior tosses Seto a scroll of parchment and his heart skips a beat when he recognizes it as Luggus's treasure, the piece of blackmail that had kept the goblins safe from the Department for centuries.
"Her Majesty ordered me to give you this if something went wrong," Kuirmet tells him.
Seto frowns, "Nurnuk told you to-"
"Not this Nurnuk. The other one. She gave me those orders the morning she died," Kuirmet says. "She said that you'd know what to do with it."
The goblin turns and walks over to where Serenity is, hopping up onto the chair beside her. She takes his hand and they lean together, whispering softly and catching up on the hundreds of years they've spent apart.
His phone rings. Seto puts Mai on speaker, "What did you find out?"
"I got a hold of Leo," she answers. "The other Nurnuk must have said something by accident to tip the Department off because they were watching all non-magical routes out of England." She pauses, "Catherine Arkana didn't check in after we left for the airport. Scotland Yard just found her body in a public bathroom. All signs point to the Department."
"Fuck," Seto hisses.
"What are we going to do now, Seto?" Mai asks.
Seto glances down at the scroll, noting that the protections that he'd once sensed on it had disappeared entirely. It was just a sheet of paper now. He could read it if he wanted to. But he doesn't.
"Atem's plan is going to work. But even if it does," he turns the parchment in his hands, "we need to find a witch named Amane Andrews."
Hello again!
I'd like to thank those who reviewed for the last chapter: Safiruu, Moonfirekitsune, Tz342, dragomira, green lilah, Rita Mu, and Hollow Mashiro. You guys are awesome!
So that was an exciting chapter, wasn't it? But on the bright side, half of the characters are home in San Francisco. We just have to wait for the Cerulean to arrive and then we'll be in the clear. Right?
Nurnok's baby is a micro preemie, meaning that the child was born around the human equivalent of about twenty-nine weeks, about halfway through her pregnancy. Due to the advances in technology, a human child would have a ninety percent chance of survival, but this kid isn't human so they're not out of the woods just yet.
We also get a little background on Viola, which is going to become important quite soon. The grandmother that she's talking about is a canon character: Cassiopeia Black. In canon, Cassiopeia never married, but in the Three Kings, she married into the Italian Zabini family.
Until next time,
AlcatrazOutpatient