Haylan expected to be woken up by a lot of things. Maybe the Spanish Monarchy deciding to finally pursue the coup they kept threatening. Or Sirius playing a prank to be annoying. Or in his dreams, he was woken up by Blaise sending him a courting gift finally to declare his intentions.
None of these things woke him up today.
Instead, he woke up to a man disillusioned and trying to assassinate him in his own bed.
What the fuck?
Haylan was going to be grumpy for the rest of the day.
He used his magic to nonverbally and wandlessly tie up and reveal his attacker before casting a tempus to see the time.
"Really? You are going to try to kill me at 4:18 in the morning? What the hell happened to assassinations at a reasonable hour? How hard is that?" Haylan ranted, standing in his black satin sleep pants and no shirt on. His long hair was tied up in a messy bun.
Haylan sounded the alarm just in case there were more assassins in his castle.
He didn't normally sleep at the castle but meetings had gone late last night and he didn't feel like apparating home to his villa. So he had to wonder how the assassin or assassins knew he would be in the castle or was it just luck?
Sirius rushed into Haylan's room, battle robes on, wand at the ready, and not looking at all like he had just been woken up.
Sirius had to pause and blink at the scene in front of him though. There on the floor was a man dressed head to toe in black but hogtied presumably by Haylan's magic. Standing over the hogtied man was Haylan only half-dressed with hands on his hips looking sleepy and pissed.
"I've never seen anyone look so threatening in only sleep pants pup, but you do it well." Sirius couldn't help but comment.
Haylan glared at Sirius so he wouldn't say anything further.
"Check in with the others and do a full sweep of the castle and the grounds. I have locked down all of the wards so if anyone else is here they won't be escaping. I will be taking this imbecile down to the dungeons. Join me when you can positively say there is no one else here." Haylan ordered as he levitated his silent captive. Sirius nodded and quickly took off. Haylan was not in the mood for any antics or jokes.
An hour later Narciss and Sirius walked into the dungeons to see Haylan sitting on the dirty dungeon floor spinning his captive in the air.
"My Emperor, there is no one else on the grounds or in the castle. He seems to be alone. Suicide mission perhaps?" Narcissa reported and asked, not even blinking at the strange way Haylan was treating his prisoner.
"Hmm, I guess the only way we will find out is if this one will talk. I don't recognize him, do either of you?" Haylan mused.
"He isn't a part of the death eaters, or at least no one I have seen," Narcissa said.
"Not part of Dumbledore's order either unless he has been recruiting," Sirius commented as he leaned against one of the dungeon walls.
Haylan stood up and stopped spinning the man, which was probably good because he looked rather green and on the verge of throwing up. Haylan then stuck the man to one of the walls with his magic, no need for manacles when his magic would work better.
"So feeling up to divulging the information I want?" Haylan drawled in a tone that would have made Snape proud.
The unremarkable-looking man sneered and spit on Haylan's face. Inwardly Haylan was grossed out and wanted a shower immediately. Outwardly he vanished the spit and didn't let his expression change.
"You have about three hours to tell me everything I want to know. If you make me cancel my date with my boyfriend because I am busy interrogating you, I will make your death slow and painful." Haylan threatened causing Narcissa to smirk. She knew Haylan would resort to some dark torture techniques just so he didn't have to cancel his breakfast date with Blaise.
"I suggest you start talking, he is quite serious about keeping his boyfriend happy." Sirius grinned.
But the man remained stubbornly silently.
Haylan sighed heavily like this was a great burden.
"Torture it is then."
Blaise also expected a lot of things when he woke up that morning to get ready for his date.
He didn't expect to find his boyfriend's head in the fire looking apologetic.
"What's wrong Haylan?" Blaise asked concerned, the worst automatically going through his thoughts.
"I need to move our date to later in the day, something has unfortunately come up." Haylan mournfully said, and then suddenly there was a blood-curdling scream that came from Haylan's side causing Blaise to raise an eyebrow.
"Something or someone?" Blaise questioned.
"He will be a thing by the time I am done with him," Haylan growled, and Blaise suddenly saw what looked suspiciously like blood splatter on his boyfriend's face. Blaise was also getting hard again. It shouldn't turn him on that his boyfriend might be torturing someone, but it did, it really, really turned him on.
"Ah yeah no problem, just let me know what time works for you Haylan," Blaise reassured and there was another scream.
"Thank you, darling, I will message you when we are done." Haylan smiled and left the fire.
Blaise slid to the floor, hard as a rock and blushing. Which is where his mother found him several minutes later still sitting in front of the floo.
"What is wrong my son? I thought you would have left for your date by now." Viviana was clearly confused about why her son was sitting on the floor looking stunned.
"Haylan is busy torturing someone and he called me darling." Blaise's tone was as stunned and dazed as the look on his face.
Viviana had to restrain herself from laughing.
"Do you know why he is torturing someone or were you too busy fretting over him calling you a pet name?"
"No idea, he didn't say and I didn't have time to ask. He is going to let me know when he is done so we can still go on a date."
"Well then I suggest you get off the floor and continue getting ready so he doesn't have to wait on you when he is ready."
"Good idea Mother." Blaise finally got off the floor and shuffled back to his bedroom to get ready and maybe take care of a certain issue before his date.
Haylan finally sent word to Blaise via house elf at half past eleven letting him know he could floo over to the castle once he was ready.
Blaise had been presentable for hours and impatiently pacing. Checking himself over in the mirror one last time he floo'd over to Caliban Castle.
The receiving room was empty and there were no sounds of screams either so Blaise figured that was a good sign.
He wasn't sure where he should go or if he should wait here for Haylan. As he shifted from foot to foot trying to make a decision a house elf popped in.
"Follow me to master." the elf said simply so Blaise followed.
He looked around as they walked, there was nothing indicating that Haylan had spent the last several hours torturing someone but he supposed most people wouldn't leave blood and gore around the house even if they had.
The elf led Blaise out into a huge conservatory that was filled with plants and trees that Blaise had never seen before. It was beautiful.
"Blaise!" Haylan called happily, sitting at a table under the shade of some purple and pink trees. He looked perfectly normal in his causal dress clothes, hair done up in braids, and face free of any blood from earlier.
"Haylan, you look amazing as usual." Blaise complimented once he was standing in front of the emperor, close enough he could see a light blush on the other man's face.
"Flatterer. You look handsome as well. Please take a seat. I have the house elves delivering a filling lunch shortly." Haylan directed Blaise to the seat in front of him and he took it gladly. At least if he got hard again Haylan wouldn't be able to see it.
"So uh, what happened this morning?" Blaise asked a little hesitantly as he made up his cup of tea.
Haylan immediately huffed in frustration. "Someone decided to try to assassinate me at an ungodly hour this morning."
Blaise had to blink and take a moment to process that statement.
"Like…tried to kill you? Why? Are you okay?" He asked worriedly, looking over Haylan for any sign of injury.
"I am quite fine. The would-be assassin is less fine now. He is currently being shipped home in pieces to the ones who had hired him. He was quite stubborn though and it took me a while to get the names of those who had hired him so that is why I had to delay our date." Haylan smiled reassuringly.
"Don't worry about that, you almost being killed is much more important. Who hired the assassin?" Blaise wondered.
"Queen Joanna of Spain. Not sanctioned by her husband or the rest of the government supposedly, but still it is going to put a damper on my already strained relations with the Spanish monarchy." Haylan rolled his eyes.
"Why are they fighting your rule so adamantly?" Blaise inquired. He knew nothing about this level of politics but it seemed to be out of the norm the way the Spanish monarchy was flouncing around like they had any power or say.
"That is a complicated history lesson." Haylan sighed heavily looking into his tea.
"Well I have time and I love to listen to you talk," Blaise admitted causing Haylan to brighten a little.
"Ah fine, but I did warn you. Where to begin? I guess we have to go back to when my family was in control last prior to Grindlewald trying to kill them all. This is also before the House of Black was founded with the disownment of Bartlome Caliban. Our family line is a mixture of old Romanian and Spanish purebloods. So we have always gone back and forth between the countries.
Besides a brief uprising from Vlad the Conqueror, Romania has always left its main governmental duties up to someone within the Caliban line. It was usually whoever was heir so they got the feel of running the empire but on a much smaller scale. Once the Caliban line disappeared Romania had to scramble to put together a proper government from the ruins.
Spain on the other hand has had a Monarchy for a very long time and both the muggle and magical Monarchy were very much intertwined in the old days. Neither the muggle nor the magical Monarchy took well to the House of Caliban being declared the head of all magical government by Merlin, but they weren't powerful enough to do anything about it back then. There have been several attempts at coups by the Spanish Monarchy due to their pride chafing at not being at the top of the totem pole.
Obviously, none were successful, until they gave aid to one Gellert Grindelwald to get rid of us once and for all. Unfortunately for them, Gellert was defeated before he could follow through on giving them the power he had promised them to rule over the countries Gellert didn't want to deal with.
So they have been slowly climbing the political ladder within the ICW and other coalitions to put themselves prominently in control. Their biggest obstacle was of course the power Albus Dumbledore had from defeating Grindelwald which gave more power to Britain and its international standing. But Dumbledore has been distracted by dealing with another Dark Lord uprising, Voldemort, who conveniently has also been funded privately by the Spanish Monarchy.
And then I show up on the scene to resurrect the House of Caliban and our control over Europe and the wider wixen world.
So they are pissed that the name Caliban has once again 'stolen' what they think is rightfully theirs." Haylan took several sips of his tea while Blaise thought over what Haylan told him.
"So… they are just power hungry and stupid?" Blaise asked causing Haylan to burst out laughing.
"Yes. What a way to summarize centuries of power plays but ultimately yes."
Blaise couldn't help but worry over how the Spanish Monarchy might escalate now that one assassination attempt had failed.
Hopefully, they would realize it was a lost cause before Haylan decided to just be rid of Spain.