A/N: Chap 8 review responses are in my forums like normal. Thanks to everyone for reading and reviewing, I do appreciate it!
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Chapter Nine: Honeymoon's End
On August 9th, ten days after Luna walked into Number 4 Privet Drive in Little Whinging, Surrey, the initial bonding period ended.
Of course, having literally switched countries, undergone a life-threatening battle and been briefly tortured by one of his friends' dad, Harry did not realize why he woke up dragging so badly. He and Luna shared a room on the southern end of the trailer, one of five in the expanded, luxuriously appointed interior. The bed they were given was a Queen size and amply large enough for them.
When he woke that morning, it was to find himself alone. Luna's side of the bed was cold; Harry dragged himself out after turning off the alarm and stumbled to the shower, struggling to understand why he felt so tired and sore.
He finally made it out of the bathroom and out into the back porch. Despite the nice, cool interior Ollivander seemed to take delight in being outside, and with charms over the spacious patio, Harry did not blame him. Already breakfast platters were laid out on the patio table. Luna and Esmeralda's daughter, Mary, were having an in-depth discussion of how American mainline education worked. Mainly, this consisted of Mary talking about her classes and teachers while she ate eggs and chorizo wrapped in a flour tortilla.
Mary was far too young to realize it, but to Harry's eyes Luna looked awful—dark circles hung under her eyes and her hair hung limply about her drooped shoulders. He sat down and rubbed his face, feeling exhausted himself.
Ollivander sat at the end of the table and looked wisely at the two teens. Eventually, Esmeralda came back out and chased her daughter out to make it to the bus stop in time. When they were gone, Ollivander said, "So, happy ten-day anniversary, you two."
Harry blinked, struggling for a moment to realize what the old wizard meant. Luna, of course, already knew. Then it hit him—the initial bonding was over. The emotional rush of the bond was gone, and… "So that's why I feel like I drank too much Firewhisky last night?"
"Indeed," Ollivander said. "The two of you have been on a magically induced, emotional-high for the past ten days. It is always hard to come down from that high. Just remember—both of you are feeling it. Just as both of you were responsible for bonding in the first place. Do not be harsh with each other. Rather, I would suggest you simply give each other some space for the next few days until you feel better. Then, you'll be able to get to know each other under normal circumstances."
"Does it get better?" Harry asked.
Ollivander shrugged. "It depends on how close the two of you become, Mr Potter. In my mind, bonds were always manipulative. I know magically and biologically why they form, of course. An evolutionary throw-back to when it took a bond like that for a witch to hold any wizard down long enough to procreate and raise children. Still, it seems artificial and thus unsatisfactory to me. Better, I believe, to develop true feelings for your beloved with time and mutual interest. Hopefully, as mutual aethers, the two of you will find many common interests to pursue."
"Like wandmaking?" Harry asked, trying to force a smile.
Luna tried to match it, but both teens failed.
"We'll see," Ollivander said.
After two long, painful days spent working on wands, and two nights spent in separate beds, Harry thought he was going to go mad. It came almost as a relief when the Eastern Confederation attacked.
It happened in broad daylight, while Harry, Luna and the old wand maker stood in the back yard at the man's work table. They were not making wands; rather he was teaching them how to identify which cores would go best with which types of wood. Harry was astounded, even shocked, at the sheer number of woods available for wandmaking. Fortunately, Ollivander gave him the tools to gauge wood by their characteristics rather than forcing him to memorize every single kind.
"That is a skill that takes more time to learn than we have, Mr Potter," Ollivander said. "Witches apprentice for thirty years before they are allowed to make wands on their own. Even with an ordering potion, it would take too long."
Harry gulped and nodded his acceptance of that fact. He definitely did not have thirty years.
So, over the first week and a half of their stay Ollivander walked him and Luna through the process of making wands. They practised using false cores, since the real cores were far too valuable to waste on practice. The wooden blanks, though, were real enough. The shaping of the blanks was not actually that difficult, at least not for Harry. He found he had a mild talent in shaping the blanks with the small metal tools Ollivander used, since one could not use magic during the manufacture of a wand.
Luna's shaped blanks, however, tended to be…unusual. In fact, her first effort looked suspiciously…"What's the word for something that looks like a man's willy?" Harry finally asked.
Ollivander, who was looking at Luna's blank with wide eyes, chuckled and said, "Phallic, Mr Potter. Your young wife's first attempt is rather phallic in appearance."
Luna, looking as always slightly surprised, stared at the wandmaker and shrugged. "I'm not sure why I made it like this," she admitted.
"In the ancient days of the Norsemen, before they spread out into England and the world, wands were solely the purview of women," Ollivander explained. "In fact, it was rather sinful for men to even touch a wand, and any who did were killed. But then, it is said, the wise God Odin handled magic with a wand, making it allowable for wizards. That was when the witches of the Norselanders discovered what wands did to wizards, and how those wands changed the nature of magical bonding. It was less than a century later that Rowena the Saxon brought wands into the court of Vortigern and started the revolution that would change the world. Given your complexion, you are undoubtedly of Saxon blood, so perhaps it was a magical memory."
"What does that have to do with Luna's Willy-Wand?" Harry asked.
"All Norse wands from before they allowed men to use them were shaped like that," Ollivander said, nodding to the object in Luna's hand. "They are powerful, yes, but wholly unusable by wizards. Regardless of how she imbibed it, or what core she used in it, it would still not willingly serve a man. I'm afraid, my dear, that you would make a good wandmaker for witches, but in the task at hand you will find limited success."
"Oh, bother," Luna said. "Still, I rather like it. Can I keep it?"
"Luna!" Harry said, burning red.
Luna stared frankly at him. "It's not as if we're sharing a bed any more, Harry."
Harry stuttered—the statement sounded to him both angry and hurtful, something he never imagined from her before. Meanwhile, Ollivander was laughing at her earlier joke. "Mr Potter," the old wizard said, "why ever do you think the witches of old shaped their wands like that in the first place? Sex has always had a role in magic; being embarrassed of it is a Christian trait. Now, moving on…"
The worst part of the process was imbibing the blank, as Ollivander called it. They used old urine samples from some of Morgan Murchison's wizard-warriors and soaked the wood thoroughly, using Muggle latex gloves. "Before latex, we used acromantula silk gloves," Ollivander said. "It is best not to touch the blank during the imbibing process."
"Because it's gross?" Harry asked.
"Because it muddles the magic," Ollivander said, smiling. "And, yes, it is quite disgusting. I often wonder if it is the Hufflepuff witches who insist on keeping it secret."
"How do you…imbibe a blank with…faeces." It took Harry a moment to think of the proper word.
"Very carefully," Ollivander said. Luna giggled—the old wizard actually reminded Harry a great deal of Luna in the way his default expression was an absent smile, even if he was not feeling well. "It is best to mix it with water, which is a closely aligned element. However, truly the most difficult of the humours to work with is phlegm."
Harry thought about it and shrugged. "Doesn't seem to be worse than urine or faeces."
"The problem is getting enough out of a wizard or witch to actually complete the process, Mr Potter," Ollivander said. "Quite often we have to resort to a potion that stimulates mucus and saliva excretion, and even then it may take a day or two to extract enough to get the job done. Now, we store these overnight to let them soak through, and tomorrow we can work on core insertion, and what cores work best with which woods. What the devil…?"
Harry heard it then as well—the distant hum of motors. Like Ollivander, Harry looked up to see a large, twin-propeller plane flying almost directly over the trailer, inching across the clear blue sky in seemingly slow motion, though Harry knew it was going faster than the fastest broom could fly.
While he was staring at the plane, he saw shapes falling out of it, one after the other in quick succession. The shapes fell freely for a few beats of a heart before they began moving in tandem, falling into a V-shaped formation.
Broom riders.
They came with a loud battle cry of "Morgana!" and immediately started casting powerful explosive curses at the trailer. The air above the magically-expanded single-wide house exploded in a vast rainbow of scintillating colours as wards repelled the attack. As they grew closer, Harry was able to spot at least fifty witches and possibly even more than that.
While several witches stayed in the air pelting the wards of Ollivander's home with curses, three squads of three witches each alit on the ground at three evenly spaced points around the ward perimeter. Harry watched as each trio of black-robed witches removed a metal rod from a pack one carried. It looked odd for one witch to pull a six-foot long rod out of the foot-deep back pack of the witch in front of her. The rods were topped with large red crystals and ended in a sharp point on the other end. Each trio stabbed the rod into the ground, and almost immediately magic began to arc between the shields and the crystals.
"Hmmm, those are new," Ollivander said with a detached curiosity that did not alleviate Harry's or Luna's fears at all. "Ward sappers, by the looks. I also find it interesting they have given up on Portkeys. Morgan's Portkey wardline must be working."
Still talking, mainly to himself, the old wizard walked casually up to the ward line and stared intently at the rod from just feet away. "I say, are those rune crystals you're using?" he asked one of the attacking witches as if he were asking a stranger for the time.
"You're going to die, Apostate!" she shouted back at him in a distinctly Eastern American accent.
"Well, yes, I suppose eventually I will," Ollivander continued pleasantly enough, "but in the meantime would you mind telling me what type of crystal you're using?"
"Shut up!"
As scared as he was, Harry could see in the eyes of the attacking witches that the wandmaker's casual attitude toward the attack was worrying them. And then Harry saw why.
The wards seemed to blink, and then suddenly duplicated, with a second dome of warding energy shooting out from the first until it encompassed all the witches on the ground and in the air. Suddenly the grounds around Ollivander's property exploded with motion. Witches and wizards in Muggle military-style uniforms jumped up out of concealed holes or from the centre of carefully concealed blinds, at least a hundred in all. Seventy immediately launched into the air, most of whom were witches themselves with only a sprinkling of wizards.
Those on the ground, though…Harry stared in shock as a large, balding black man wielded a staff taller than Harry himself. The man pointed the staff from the waist, shouted a spell, and a blinding bolt of electricity arced from the twenty feet that separated him from the witch who shouted at Ollivander.
She did not even have time to scream. The bolt struck her chest and her body vaporized into a cloud so fast Harry barely had time to see her magic energy shoot straight up into the cloudless sky. Her two companions launched killing curses—Harry expected the staff-wielder to transfigure a barrier, but instead he ducked and rolled away while two of his wand-wielding companions erected an earthen barrier. He regained his feet, positioned the bulky staff, and shouted another spell. Another witch exploded.
Overhead, witches on brooms engaged in a vicious aerial battle, flinging lethal curses about without hesitation. From a purely professional eye, the flying was not that impressive, but then again Harry didn't have to fly while shooting curses at people trying to kill him, either.
Eventually, Harry calmed down enough to begin to think clearly. The fighting was completely lopsided. "This was a trap, then?" Harry asked when Ollivander walked back to him and Luna, and sank down at the patio table.
"Of course, my boy," Ollivander said. "Of course. It is the nature of wizarding warfare. The primary object of any magical force is to limit the mobility of your enemy. If you can stop Portkeys and apparition, you then have a chance to actually engage them in a stand-up fight. And as you can see, Morgan has some powerfully effective fighters."
"I've never heard of anyone using a staff before," Luna said.
"That's because they're not actually very useful outside of certain types of combat," Ollivander said. "Sergeant White there can throw around lighting, fire, wind and water with astounding power wielding that staff. Ask him to transfigure a needle or charm a teapot, and he'll laugh at you. Staves are too broad and blunt of a focus to be useful as anything but heavy artillery in large scale magical warfare, since they are so specialized they leave the wizard open to counter-attack. And even then they can only be employed by unreduced wizards."
"Unreduced?" Harry asked.
"Like yourself, Mr Potter—a wizard who has not had his magic drained by magical bonds. In Sergeant White's case—he wields one of my first wands since I came here, and so has not suffered from a reduction of magic when he bonded with his lovely wife. Think about it—we are one half of a nation, and the least populated half at that, and yet we have managed to hold off attacks from a good portion of the world. We have been attacked by forces as far away as France, Brazil and even England, and yet we still stand. Why do you think that is?"
"Male wands," Harry realized.
"Indeed. During the worst of Voldemort's reign, he had his wizards kill each other's bonded wives to free their power. That is the reason there are so few women in his organization—that and he has a deep hatred for witches in general. But it is ultimately a self-defeating tactic. Even he realized that without witches, there would be no next generation for him to rule. That's why he came after me. But even realizing their need, the man still has a deep-rooted hatred for the feminine."
"I know," Harry said sombrely. Even five years later, he grieved for Charity Burbage's death.
Ollivander, having heard Harry's tale, nodded. "Quite so, Mr Potter, quite so. But as you can see, nature has compensated for our lack of numbers by imbuing the typical wizard with a great deal more magical energy. Few learn to truly use it, of course, but those that do are impressive."
Ollivander paused and shook his head said. "So to your question, Mr Potter, yes, this was a trap. I have been bait before—there is a reason I live on this exact spot; it is a confluence of ley lines and a sacrificial site. When Morgan was helping me pick a place to live, we found this place by its residual magic. The Anasazi who lived here so long ago made at least some human sacrifice, at least of their witch-born. Hence this small house has wards as powerful as those of Hogwarts, which itself was built on the sacrifice of one child for each founder."
"That's not in Hogwarts: A History," Luna noted, wide-eyed.
"Perhaps not, but it is not entirely a secret," Ollivander said. He winced as Sergeant White finished off the last witch on the ground and started firing into the sky. Two witches stood on either side to protect him from counter attack. "You two of all people should know the power of blood wards. It is why Hogwarts has never fallen to a forcible conquest before."
Of the fifty or so attacking witches, fifteen flew off beyond the anti-apparition wards and disappeared with a series of cascading pops. When they were gone, voices immediately started calling out, "Medics! We need medics here!"
Mesmerized, Harry left the old wizard and Luna and walked to the edge of the wardline. The trailer was positioned North-to-South on the side of a low mountain littered with sage and creosote bushes. Spread in uneven intervals through the bushes he saw bodies, both those attacking witches in black robes, and those in the mottled fatigues of the Western forces. In the harsh, unrelenting sun of the New Mexico desert, Harry could clearly see blood on the rocky soil scattered around the fallen, horribly abused bodies.
"Does this happen very often?" Harry asked in a suddenly subdued voice.
Ollivander walked up beside him, and said softly, "No, thank Merlin, but it happens enough to be tragic. This is a significant battle, Harry. We are few enough that a fight with over a hundred combatants is considered a true battle, and this one we most definitely won, but there is always a price to be paid for fighting. You should learn it well, my boy, because I have no doubt you and your young wife will be fighting battles not so dissimilar from this in the near future. Come, we must offer what help we can."
Harry swallowed in a dry throat—he did not like wizard warfare at all.
Ollivander, having himself, Harry and Luna keyed to the wards, walked through the line easily enough. He moved to the first fallen witch—one in black robes—and checked her pulse. "She'll live," he said absently. "Mr Potter, would you be so good as to summon her arm?"
"Accio arm!" Harry called without hesitation.
Instantly the woman's severed limb came flying from a nearby bush. Harry handed it to the other wizard who placed preserving charms on it, and then the unconscious woman's stump, before placing the arm across her chest.
"Why are we helping them if they're the enemy?" Harry asked.
Ollivander looked up from his work for a moment and studied Harry intently. "Mr Potter, just as we are so few that this is a significant battle, so true is it that we are so few every life is precious. I help this young woman in the hope that someday we may be reconciled as a nation, and she will remember this. I help her because she is in need, and I am able to help her. I do it because it is right."
Gulping, Harry nodded. "Yes, sir."
He and Luna made runs into the house for towels and bandages for those whose curses belayed field healing. He watched as the Western soldier wizards and witches levitated the bodies into a pile. Though most wore black robes, Harry saw with a lump in his throat that at least ten wore the mottled fatigues of the Western forces. "So many lost," he whispered aloud.
"And that was with surprise and overwhelming numbers on our side," a deep voice said behind where Harry knelt pressing a towel against a cursed witch's thigh.
Harry looked up in surprise to see Sergeant White standing behind him, holding the staff like a crutch. The right side of his shirt was matted against his skin with blood and he looked pale, though his magic shone brightly from his dark eyes—fiery, Gryffindor magic.
"Did they…" Harry forced a swallow. "This wasn't for me, was it, sir?"
"Sir? Boy, I work for a living. Call me Sarge. And no, this wasn't for you. We're at war, Potter. Been at war for over a century. We used you as bait to lure in an attack, and then pounded them. This wasn't for you."
Harry wasn't entirely sure why that made him feel better, but it did. "The staff, sir, is it really better?"
Sarge shrugged. "It's a tool, Potter, just like your wand. It can do some things well, and is useless at others. It's also illegal in every ICW-aligned country. As far as I know, only we and Japan employ them. And I only use it occasionally, in large engagements like this. In a one-on-one fight, this thing would get me killed if I didn't take out my opponent with my first curse."
The witch Harry was trying to help groaned—she was another Easterner in black robes, and her magic was distinctly Slytherin. Harry leaned down and gently flooded the freezing, constricted icy core with his own magic. The icy core melted, and the woman relaxed and slipped into a deep sleep. Sarge arched one brow but said nothing.
"Sarge, how's that curse?" a new voice said.
"Ollivander healed it, L.T.," he said after snapping off a quick salute.
L.T. proved to be a witch in those middling years that made it almost impossible to identify her exact age. She had a head of auburn hair bunched up in the back of her head with a long face. She had a long, lanky build to her. "Potter, you should be behind the wardline."
To Sarge, Harry whispered, "Do I call her 'sir'?"
"If you want your balls cursed off," Sarge whispered back with a wink and a grin. "Call her ma'am if you're smart."
Harry nodded. "Sorry, ma'am. I came out with Ollivander to help with the wounded."
"Right," the lieutenant said. She walked up to the fallen witch and cast a diagnostic spell with the same skill Madam Pomfrey showed. "Hmmm, she's been hit with a sleeping spell."
"That was Potter, L.T.," Sarge said. "Used some of that spooky Aether stuff."
The woman shook her head. "Right," She touched her wand to her throat. "Listen up, Fifth! I want all bodies evacuated in ten, full clean up." She turned to Harry and cocked one brow up. "Mr Potter, my name is Arlene Vance. You may know my cousin Emmaline, who chose to remain in England. I'll ask you to return to the wardline for now—we will contact you again soon regarding your security measures."
"Yes, ma'am," Harry said, instantly responding to the absolute tone of command in the woman's voice. She spoke with more authority than even McGonagall did, and his very magic wanted him to obey.
Five minutes later, all evidence of the battle was gone and Ollivander had them go back to making wand blanks as if nothing happened. Esmeralda never even realized a battle occurred. When Mary got home a few hours later, no one mentioned the vicious battle that occurred right around their home.
That night, Harry left his empty bed and stepped out under the half-light of the moon onto the back porch. Somehow, he was not surprised to find Luna sitting at the table staring up at the moon herself.
"Hello, Harry," she said softly, so as not to wake any others.
"Hello, Luna."
"Not sleeping well?"
"No, not really."
Luna nodded and said nothing else. "I find the moon to be quite beautiful. It seems larger here, though I know that it is just my imagination. It is the same moon whether over Britain or here. But it seems larger here regardless."
"Yeah." Harry sat beside her and fought hard not to look at her. She wore plain cotton pyjamas, and against the warm, soothing air of the night, he could see the tips of her nipples pushing against the fabric. "Luna, when are you going to come back?"
She shivered and hugged her knees to her chin. "I don't know. I need time. It wasn't really my idea for us to bond, you know. And I can't help but think we did it while too young. I just…need some time, please."
Thought it pained him, Harry nodded. "I miss you," he finally admitted.
She turned for the first time that night and stared at him with her large, silver-blue eyes. "Do you?" she asked, genuinely curious.
"Yes," Harry said.
"Well, I suppose that's something then." She stood, learned down to kiss his hair, and finally left. "Good night."
~~Firebird~~
~~Firebird~~
Two days later, Sergeant White appeared at the front door. Esmeralda let him in without comment, and the large wizard walked through the house to the back where Harry was struggling with his third failed blank of the morning. The art of threading the core into the blank was frustratingly difficult.
"Potter!" White shouted.
Harry threw the blank down, jumped out of his chair and pulled his own wand in a shaking hand.
"Not bad," White said with a tight grin. "Not good, but not bad. You have good instinct; you just need it trained into you for a bit."
"Sarge?"
"Morgan has decided your education has been lacking," Sarge said. "Welcome to the army, Potter. You've been enrolled in the Junior Mage Officer Corps!"
Harry swallowed in a suddenly dry throat. "The what?"
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Author's Note: Very special thanks as always to Teufel1987, JR and Miles for beta reading. If there are any major faux-pas, they are entirely of my own doing.