Chapter 6: Honeymoon
Notes:
New chapter in the books! Please leave a review if you enjoyed this chapter and want to see more of this work.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Albert Hill awoke with a start.
His body felt heavy, meaning he'd more than likely overslept. It made sense, as the memories of last night's christmas dinner came rushing back. Turkey and ham and his grandmother's wonderful mince pies.
He'd wanted to stay up til late. He'd made plans with Milton and Jarvis to go out into the city, throw rocks at windows and whistle at some girls.
He must have gone up to his room for a 'nap' that turned into a full night's sleep. The boys would definitely give him shit for weeks about it, he wasn't looking forward to that.
His brow furrowed as he looked out the window. The sun was shining bright, high in the sky, and he could see the streets of London, eerily quiet. He'd never seen it like this, completely empty.
Were the Germans going to bomb them? Was everyone already in the shelters? Why hadn't his family woken him up?
As all these things ran through his mind, something else began to dawn on him.
Outside, the grass was much too green. He could see flowers. It looked like spring. Late spring even.
That thought was overtaken by another, a much more terrifying one.
This wasn't the view from his room.
Albert jumped, leaping up from the bed he did not recognize and staring at it with trepidation, expecting the mattress to sprout a giant gaping maw that would try to devour him whole.
He glanced frantically around the room. It was plain and undecorated, with a single desk pushed off to the far corner. There was a door at the end, and Albert felt a sudden surge of terror as he wondered what could be on the other side of that door.
He thought of sneaking out through the window, but he clamped down on that thought. His father had said he needed to get over his childish fears, fears of monsters and creatures of the night. Fears of the supernatural.
Even if strange things tended to happen around him.
Albert gulped as he walked to the door. Reaching it, he hesitated for a moment before he firmly grasped the knob, turning it slowly as he pushed the door open.
He came out onto a narrow hallway, filled with doors similar to his own. He saw a set of stairs at the end, and he slowly made his way over to them. He could feel his heartbeat in his eardrums. His legs felt like jelly. It felt like he was in one of those scary stories he and his friends would tell each other late at night, the ones he would try to shrug off as if they didn't affect him. The ones that left him trembling in his bed hours later.
He made his way down a narrow set of stairs, sweat dripping down his body as his hands clammed up. At this point, he wished something would happen, the suspense itself was going to be the end of him.
He finally caught sight of the landing, and his jaw dropped at what he saw.
There were dozens of children, some older than him but most quite a bit younger. They were running around and playing with each other, reading books, tossing marbles, the works.
And walking amongst them, holding trays of snacks and cradling crying babies, were little green creatures. Creatures with pointy bat-ears and large eyes.
"Ah, you're awake."
Albert startled at the voice. He turned to the sound and saw a beautiful older woman. She was tall and thin, with beautiful curly red hair and kind green eyes.
"Where am I?" Albert gasped out as the woman approached him. She held a hand out and Albert took it, feeling it's warmth as she guided him through the room.
"This is your new home, Mr. Hill. You are the last one of the children to awaken, we were actually beginning to get worried something had gone wrong."
So many questions sprung from her words. Yet one thing was at the front of Albert's mind.
"Where's my family?"
The woman smiled down sweetly at him. "This is your new family, Albert. Those…creatures you grew up with, they were not the same as you. You're finally home."
Outside, the building that had once been Wool's Orphanage, now rechristened The Earthly Garden , glistened under the early June sun.
Spring had long since bloomed, bringing with it new beginnings.
…
It was a beautiful wedding.
Emily looked radiant in her pitch black wedding dress. She wore a black lace choker with a large, round emerald as its centerpiece. From the choker fell thin, silver chains speckled with smaller, teardrop shaped emeralds that rested on her chest, ending just above her breasts. Her earrings glistened in the dim light of twilight, a pair of emerald snakes coiled around large, onyx orbs.
Harry looked dashing in his midnight blue dress robes, woven from acromantula silk and thestral hair and tailored by the legendary Luca Zabini, who'd fitted Harry for the robes at his shop in the Via Monte Napoleone in Milan.
They looked like angels of death that had taken human form.
To say the Gaunt wedding was the event of the century would be an understatement.
It's guest list included the heads of government of all of the world's major countries, ICW higher ups, all extant members of the sacred twenty-eight, many of the prominent families in Europe and some from around the world.
Cygnus was there, of course, along with his younger brother Pollux and his wife Druella.
Horace Slughorn, Armando Dippet, Lord Malfoy, Lord Nott, Lord Selwyn, Lord Potter, all accompanied by family. The Russian Minister, the Dalai Lama, the Doge of Venice and the Japanese Emperor. They all attended the wedding.
Harry greeted and smiled, but his eyes never drifted away from his gorgeous bride.
Emily was a vision of beauty. She was fifteen and looked like she'd been conjured from myth. Her pale skin somehow glowed in all the black, as if the light absorbed by her dress was somehow transferred onto her porcelain flesh.
Harry would surprise her in the marital suite. Her portrait had been finished. A heavily pregnant Emily, completely naked except for a white toga loosely draped over her, reclining on a marble throne.
It would hang there, in their bedroom, until later when they had changed things enough to be able to place it prominently in the Great Hall.
"Our guests will think I've bewitched you." His young wife idled up to him, wrapping her arms around his waist as she rested her head on his shoulder. Emily was tall, and her pregnancy had been a boon to her figure, giving her large, supple breasts and a shapely but proportionate derriere. Each day that passed, she was becoming a goddess walking among mortal women.
"They would be right." He responded, placing a kiss to her lips and another one on her forehead.
"Quite the spectacle, Mr. Gaunt."
The couple turned to meet Marshall Brooks, who was drinking from a flask, ignoring the scores of house elves carrying trays filled with glasses of the finest wine on this earth.
Harry chuckled. When he'd spoken to President Longfellow, the man had also refused any drink offered, excusing himself by saying his healer had forbidden him from drinking for the time being.
Much to Harry's amusement, the man had been wearing silver framed glasses in the same rounded style that Harry had so famously worn in a previous life.
It also amused him that the glasses were charmed to defend against the mind arts. As if he'd needed legilimency to read the barely contained fear in the man's eyes.
It was almost cute how they thought they had a chance. It was also rather pathetic.
"Emily, this is Marshall Brooks, he was quite a help during last year's ordeal."
Emily smiled at the man, holding out a perfectly manicured hand which the man promptly kissed.
"A pleasure, Mr. Brooks."
"The pleasure is all mine. I must say, you look quite stunning. Lord Gaunt is a lucky man."
"Indeed I am." Harry said, placing another kiss on Emily's forehead.
"Is French wine not to your liking, Mr. Brooks?" Emily asked as the man took another swig from his flask.
His eyes hardened, but he was much better at keeping his composure than his president, at least. "I'm afraid I'm suffering from Portkey sickness. There'll be no drink for me for the next few days." None of them brought up the fact that whatever Brooks was drinking certainly smelled of alcohol.
"Your President seems to be having similar issues." Harry mused, "You might want to get those American portkeys fixed up. We can send over one of our enchanters to help your people sort it out."
Brooks let out a humorless snort. "Well, the English weather is certainly not helping things along, dreary seems to be the default."
Harry and Emily both laughed, "You are quite a witty man, Mr. Brooks." The teenage girl said, her black eyes sharpening, sending an involuntary shiver down the hardened man's spine.
Was Gaunt's bride also a threat?
"I do hope you'll share a drink with us when we visit, at least." Harry was smiling gently, not a hint of malice reflected in his eyes.
"You plan to visit the States?" Brooks asked evenly.
"Oh, we certainly do. We're leaving tomorrow, actually, for our honeymoon." Emily said as she placed a hand on Harry's chest.
Brooks couldn't help the stone that dropped into the pit of his stomach. "That is…surprising news. Where to? New York? Salem?"
Harry's grin turned wolfish."We have two weeks to play with, and I do love indulging my bride, so we're planning a little road trip. We'll start in New York and work our way west."
"To San Francisco?"
Emily shook her head. "Not so far west, I'm afraid. Our last stop is…oh I keep forgetting the name!"
"Roswell." Harry provided, earning him a radiant smile from his bride.
"Oh yes! Roswell, New Mexico." Emily turned to Brooks. "We hear the desert is a sight to behold."
Brooks' face had turned crimson. He was now glaring at them openly, his knuckles turning white as he had a death grip on his flask.
"Fantastic. I'll make sure to inform the president. We'll prepare a welcoming party."
"That sounds wonderful!" Harry said cheerfully. "I look forward to a warm reception."
"Believe me, you'll be blown away."
…
"We should relocate! We can set up in the Pacific Northwest."
President Longfellow had not slept since he'd returned from England.
Gaunt knew. Somehow, the bastard knew the location of their research facility.
All those in on the secret were accounted for. No one could have talked, the oath they took would have killed them long before they'd be able to reveal anything.
Gaunt was a seer. That was the only explanation left.
"Mr. President, you know that's not going to happen." Brooks said.
They were coursing through a long, empty hallway lit by fluorescent white lighting. At either side of them, two-way glass created a window into endless rooms where witches and wizards conducted experiments that violated the international accord they had signed a scant few months ago. Experiments that violated laws of nature and magic, of human decency.
In one room, a werewolf and a muggle were being dissected side by side. In another, a muggle let out silent screams of agony as a multicolor snail was forced up his nostril.
A yeti lay on a long metal table, vacuum tubes attached to it's torso as a diesel engine roared away.
"Moving is not a possibility. There is too much sensitive research here. We would be opening ourselves up to attack."
"So what do you suggest, Brooks?" Longfellow was hysterical. Why had he listened to the General? Was it really so bad to live under Gaunt's thumb? At least, if they'd been on his good side, he wouldn't be overwhelmed by the all-encompassing fear he currently felt.
"We defend." Brooks said firmly, a grim look on his face. "Gaunt is arrogant. He thinks he's a god, infallible. He's going to go after us with his incestuous fifteen year old whore and nothing else."
"That whore took down Grindelwald's army." Longfellow said in a shaky voice.
Brooks snorted. "And you believe that? More of Gaunt's machinations. I don't care how much he's taught her, a child is a child." They came up on a control room, where teams of researchers and military men stood at attention upon their arrival.
"What we have here, what we've created, it's never been seen before on this earth, Mr. President. We have built a menagerie of atrocities. Gaunt forced our hands, and now he will see that he is in over his head."
"The ICW-"
"Once we kill Gaunt, the ICW will crumble." That said, Brooks stalked off, joining a group of uniformed men as they conversed in hushed tones, leaving the president alone.
Horatio hoped beyond hope that Brooks was right.
But, just in case he wasn't right, in case Gaunt really was a seer and knew just what Roswell had in store for him…
Horatio would need to bargain with the man. And powerful as he was, Gaunt had weaknesses, exploitable weaknesses Brooks had overlooked.
Regardless of what the man truly was under the layers upon layers of lies he was cloaked in, Longfellow was certain of one thing: Gaunt loved his family.
…
The scorching hot sun baked the earth beneath it as the car rolled around in the scorching heat of the Chihuahuan desert.
The blue and white BMW Roadster was driving down the desert road at high speeds, the sunlight reflecting off the chrome of its rounded headlights.
Emily sat in the passenger's seat, feet kicked up on the dashboard as she pressed down on her wide straw hat.
The car was magically cooled, but the sunlight was still an issue.
She wore a loose white sundress. Next to her, Harry had his eyes on the road, one hand on the steering wheel and the other hand molesting her breasts, which had been peeking out ever since he'd pulled her dress down.
Harry's foot was heavy on the gas. They were zooming through the barren scenery at high speeds, speeds much faster than the car should have been capable of.
"Daddy, we've got company." Emily said as she pointed at a few rapidly approaching dots in the distance.
Harry sighed, giving her breasts one final squeeze before removing his hand. Emily shot him a lustful smile as she grabbed her wand.
The figures drew closer. The sun made it difficult to make them out, but willing a bit of magic to enhance her eyesight and dim the sunlight reaching her eyes did the trick.
It was a trio of hippogriffs, unlike any she'd seen before.
Their usually majestic white wings had been replaced by stiff, sharp metal ones. Their talons glinted in the sun as well, hinting at some sort of titanium replacements. But, by far the most noticeable difference was the long, thin cannon protruding from each hippogriff's now eternally gaping beak.
Almost as soon as Emily saw the cannons, they reared back and fired.
Shells rained down on their car. Harry swerved around the road, explosions tearing through the concrete as Harry was forced off the concrete and onto dirt and rock.
"Aggressive fauna," Harry commented as he continued to maneuver, dodging high velocity shells as if they were bludgers.
"These american hippogriffs are different than the ones back home." Emily said with a frown. "They need to be taught manners."
She fired off beams of crimson light. One of them caught an attacker, but instead of cleaving it in half, the hippogriff absorbed the attack, red sparks flying all over it's body. The animal squawked in pain, but it's eyes began to glow red as it resumed it's assault, shooting off shells at an even more rapid pace.
"Figures." Emily sighed as another shell exploded next to their car. Thankfully, Harry's enchantments had made this vehicle much sturdier than your typical model.
Emily flicked her wand and a large rock face began to fade into dust.
The dust moved in unison, a cloud of yellow that buzzed angrily as it intercepted the shells, making them explode in mid-air.
Emily had conjured the giant rock-face into millions of resilient, angy wasps.
Half of the wasps continued to shield them from the barrage of artillery fire. The rest made for the hippogriffs.
The equines tried to maneuver away, but the wasps were too fast and too numerous. They stung and they jammed themselves into the barrels of their cannons. They entered through their eyes and noses and any other orifice they could find.
Soon, all three hippogriffs were choked out by clouds of devastating insects, falling from the sky, dead or dying as the aggressive wasps stung without mercy.
There were even wasps left over to escort them as Harry got back on the road.
"Are we going to have to use transfiguration the entire time then?" Emily pouted. Transfiguration was fine, but she had a repertoire of nasty curses she'd been wanting to try out.
Harry grinned at his beautiful wife. "You're too cute." He groped around the gap in between their red leather seats before he pulled out a very familiar wand.
"That's-" Emily gasped.
"The Elder Wand." Harry held it out to her. "It's yours."
"But daddy! I couldn't" Emily said with wide eyes.
"Just another wedding gift for my soul-mate." Harry insisted, pushing the wand towards her.
Emily took it gingerly, feeling a rush of power fill her as she held the wand.
"It…it feels perfect. But you're it's master daddy, not me." She said in confusion.
"I am the wand's master, and you and I are one and the same. You command the wand just like I do."
Emily's eyes lit up, a feral grin on her face. "This is going to be so much fun!"
The ground under them collapsed. Thin metal spikes pierced the reinforced body of the Roadster, which was caught in a maelstrom of crumbling concrete as it was torn apart by metal legs and pincers.
Harry had one arm around Emily and the other pointed upward as his conjured umbrella placed them gently on the soft dirt nearby.
"These roads are much more hazardous than advertised. Our rental is wrecked!" Harry exclaimed.
From the rapidly forming crater burst forth dozens of spindly metal legs, attached to the bodies of acromantula, acromantula with eyes made of glass.
"Boring." Harry drawled, sending a blasting curse their way.
The lead spider took the curse head on, and much like the hippogriffs it seemed to have absorbed it, the same red sparks running across it's round body.
Then the sparks turned green and the spider exploded, shedding it's exoskeleton in a shower of blood, guts and diesel fuel.
In its place stood a human-like skeleton, bone white in the center and tapering down to silver at its legs and pincers. The spider began to spin, twirling in place as it accelerated rapidly.
The other acromantula hissed, rearing back with trepidation as some wanted to attack and some wanted to retreat. Harry's spider would not give them time to decide as it finally spun fast enough to lift off the ground and begin tearing through its sisters.
Emily cast some cooling charms on them as they watched the spider-top shred its biomechanical brethren into pieces.
"You don't need the Elder Wand to affect them." Emily noted as Harry smiled cheekily.
"Some of the radiation from the explosion absorbed into me when I grabbed the wand. As you can see, spells don't work as intended, but they do work."
Their spider saucer, finished with it's work, spun over to them, flattening into a solid disk that Harry and Emily hopped onto before it flew off towards their destination.
…
"They've breached the wards! Goddammit! We're fucking screwed!" Longfellow was in hysterics now. Brooks and his men looked at the man with deep frowns.
"Why did I let you talk me into this, Brooks? All we had to do was fall in line! Was that really so bad?"
Brooks nodded towards one of his men, who pulled out his wand and quickly sent a jet of green light towards the president.
Horatio Longfellow could only gape in complete shock as the killing curse hit him head on, ripping his life away in a moment.
The body fell limply to the floor, but no one in the control room paid it any mind, they were too busy preparing for the arrival or the Gaunts.
"Let em have it, boys! Show these tea drinking pansies the power of pure American muscle!" Brooks ordered as his men rushed around, some of them soldiers with wands at the ready and other researchers in lab coats wielding clipboards.
It had come down to this. He would be lying if he said there wasn't a tinge of fear gripping him. They'd all seen what the Gaunts had done to the first wave. From Harry, it was expected, but from his wife…
To think a young girl could wield so much power. What had those two done?
It was too late to turn back now. Things were set in motion.
He needed to trust in his work. They'd spent months, thousands upon thousands of man-hours, several metric tons worth of money and resources.
They needed to hold firm, or else all would be lost.
…
Harry and Emily stood in a circle of corpses as they gazed up at the sprawling facility, made of concrete and painted eggshell white.
Alarms were blaring off. They could almost feel the vibrations from the hundreds of feet shuffling inside, mounting a defense.
Emily took off her hat, grabbing it by the brim and tossing it high up into the air.
"Pulso." She whispered, a silver bullet shooting off to meet the hat. Harry conjured a green bubble that encased the two of them the instant Emily's spell was a few feet above them.
The silver bullet collided with the hat and the hat exploded. The explosion emitted a powerful, warbling pulse that rapidly radiated outward.
Harry's shield rippled as the pulse passed through it.
When the shockwave hit the compound, light fixtures exploded, many of the alarms went silent and the constant hum of electricity died down.
The Electromagnetic pulse had just shut down all power in the building.
Harry let his bubble melt away. The newlyweds strolled confidently up the grounds to the barred steel door that guarded the entrance to the compound.
A turret opened up overhead. A small rocket shot off into the sky. Harry and Emily watched as it exploded up above, raining wisps of flame down in a circular arc.
Wisps that brought with them an inky blackness.
A curtain of darkness fell over the grounds, creating an isolated dome that sunk the entire compound into an endless night.
"Artificial night. They must have a lot of creatures for us to play with." Harry mused.
"Lets not keep them waiting." Emily jabbed her wand forward and an invisible force punched straight through the heavy steel door, sending it crashing down a long stairwell.
Before the door disappeared from view, Emily tagged it with another spell from the Elder Wand.
Harry and Emily made their way slowly down the stairs, with a small white orb lighting their way through the pitch black stairwell. Down in the depths, they heard the ever approaching sounds of witches and wizards screaming in agony as their spellfire did no damage to Emily's creation as it tore them apart.
When they reached the landing, not a single person was left alive. Corpses littered either side of the narrow hallway as Emily's metal lion tore an unlucky wizard's guts out of his stomach while he still lived.
Harry looked at his wife with a raised eyebrow. "A lion?" Harry asked, his lips threatening to curve upwards.
Emily rolled her eyes, "it has more claws than a snake."
"You could have made a tiger or a leopard." Harry pointed out.
"Can you drop it already, daddy?" Her voice held a tinge of irritation that lifted Harry's mood that much further.
"Thank you for that, you've given me a veritable buffet to feast on."
They turned to face the newcomer. He was tall, slim and very pale, with sharp fangs protruding from his slightly open mouth. This was clearly a vampire.
A vampire with half of his cranium missing, replaced by a metal helmet littered with exposed wires and switches that randomly sparked with electricity.
Harry and Emily watched as the blood from the corpses began to flood towards the vampire, who had a malevolent look in his eyes as his body took in gallons upon gallons of human blood.
Harry snapped his fingers and the orb of light they'd been using exploded with a light pop. All of a sudden, the hallway they were in was completely lit up, even while the light fixtures above remained dim.
"Why didn't you use that on me?" The vampire asked as his veins began writhing under his skin. His fangs elongated and his nails visibly sharpened as the metallic dome on his head spluttered to life like an old car engine.
"I assume that's the first weakness they removed from you." Harry said.
The vampire chuckled. "Smart man." He finished absorbing the last drop of blood, leaving dried out husks scattered across the narrow hallway. "But smart won't be enough against me."
Faster than a lightning bolt, the vampire shot off towards them. Emily's lion met its path, but the vampire punched through the steel construct, which twisted and melded around him, trying to constrict him.
The vampire bared his fangs with glee as small cuts on his face healed instantly. The shapeless metal began to corrode rapidly wherever it broke the skin and came into contact with his blood, those wounds knitting themselves as rapidly as the others.
Harry and Emily stood there, wands at their sides, observing.
"Stunned? Are you? What does it feel like to face down death itself?"
The vampire lunged, nails leading the way as he attacked Harry.
Harry dodged, shooting quick curses that inflicted damage, damage that healed itself faster and faster each time.
Emily conjured three small snakes, hissing instructions and watching them slither away before she turned back towards the fight.
Just in time to see the vampire exclaim triumphantly as he caught Harry in the arm with his razor sharp nails.
Harry stumbled, his eyes narrowing as the skin on his arm rapidly turned purple. His vision was already becoming blurry, and he could see the tendrils of venom as they rushed up his arm.
"A poison worse than basilisk venom." The vampire said with glee. "You still have time to cut the arm off-"
He was cut short as he was forced to sidestep a sickly green curse that hit Harry square in the chest. Harry was thrown against a wall by the impact of the curse, falling lifelessly onto his face.
"Using a killing curse on a vampire? Not very smart, are you girl?" The vampire said as he squared up on Emily, who kept her wand at her side and looked completely nonplussed.
"I think we can get this over with, daddy, we've extracted anything worthwhile from him." She said, looking over his shoulder.
The vampire giggled. The girl had clearly gone insane, speaking to her husband's corpse, acting as if she had the upper hand. He would cherish breaking her slowly until she begged for death. He was only disappointed that he wouldn't be able to take his time drinking from her, the poison that now filled his fangs would turn her body to mush in seconds.
"Agreed,"
The hairs on the back of the vampire's neck stood on end, his mechanical brain going into overdrive as he spun around.
Harry was dusting himself off, his arm showing no signs of the deadly poison that had moments ago coursed through it.
Somewhere in Birmingham, a sleeping muggle began to cough violently. His face turned blue as every vein in his body took on a sickly purple hue. His fingers twitched as he writhed in agony before his eyes popped open, letting out one last, wheezing breath before falling back, dead.
"W-what are you?" The vampire hissed.
"They've done a good job with you. A primitive job, but considering their limitations, a good one all the same."
The vampire growled, baring his fangs as he jumped to attack Harry once more. No matter what insane form of immortality the wizard had achieved, he was still unable to keep up with him.
He'd barely taken a step when he was thrown back, clipping his shoulder on the narrow wall before a sudden weight forced him down to his knees.
"Aaaagh!" He screeched in agony as silver shackles were suddenly wrapped around his neck and wrists, connected by chains and burning his skin, which wasn't healing at all.
"I know you're wondering, and you're in luck! I love a monologue while my opponent is dying." Harry said cheerfully.
"It's rubbed off on me too, I'm afraid." Emily said with a sigh as she walked casually by the downed vampire.
The vampire swiped at her leg, managing to slash her ankle.
Emily glared down at him, stomping down hard on his hand.
Her skin broke, but the poison did nothing.
"She's immune to it too now. Anything I gain an immunity to, she does as well." Harry explained. "And now that I've had your venom within me, I understand it completely. I can manipulate it, make it deadlier, make it so it works on you. Thanks for that, by the way, it might have taken me years to devise such a deadly poison."
The vampire wasn't listening, the collar had already eaten through his neck completely, leaving a glassy eyed head on the floor and a bleeding corpse still kneeling.
"Damn it! Worked a bit too quickly." Harry pouted.
"While you were goofing off, daddy, I found our path."
Just as Emily spoke, they began to hear the sounds of burrowing coming from the wall behind them. They turned in time to see a triangle of small holes poke out of our of the wall as Emily's snakes slithered out, melting out onto the floor as they turned into a soft goo.
A moment passed and then the wall itself began to melt away. Harry cast a quick charm to make sure none of it got on their shoes as a river of molten concrete split around them.
A pathway had opened, snaking this way and that, cleaving through rooms and walls and support beams, leading directly to the control room.
Moans, wails and growls could be heard as more of the research facility's abominations shuffled out to meet them.
"No dawdling, dear. Otherwise we'll be here all day." Harry said as the stepped forward.
"I do want to be done with this wretched continent. Promise me we'll have a real honeymoon after this?"
Harry stopped, turning sideways to place a deep kiss on her lips. "Of course, my love."
Emily gave him a loving smile before the two turned, faced with a dementor dragging along an iron lung as it glided towards them.
…
"Sir! We need to evacuate!"
"Way ahead of you!" Brooks yelled as he desperately stuffed documents into a suitcase. He couldn't let these fall into Gaunt's hands.
Thankfully, they still had the dragon to face. Even if he was no longer sure the beast could kill whatever kind of monster Gaunt had become, it would certainly slow them down enough for him to escape.
Something crashed through the ceiling and onto the floor. The men in the room instantly dived away from it, expecting a bomb.
But instead, they heard the dull thud of a large object hitting the floor.
Unbeknownst to them, high above in the sky, a team of twelve owls flew off, having just dropped their payload after having carried it all the way from the east coast. They'd been circling over this general location for twenty minutes when suddenly, through the esoteric magics that guided owls to their destinations, they were able to divine the exact spot where they were supposed to drop off their package.
When nothing exploded, the men slowly began to rise from the ground, dusting themselves off as they glanced at the new delivery.
At first glance, they thought it was an upright coffin, but upon further inspection, they could see that it was…
"A closet?"
"More like a cabinet."
It was large, certainly floor to ceiling in a normal sized room. It looked ancient, made out of a dark brown wood.
The doors began to creak open, and Brooks was the only one with the presence of mind to cover his face and run off towards the emergency exit.
Everyone else just stared dumbly as the doorway opened completely, revealing pitch blackness for a moment before being replaced by a large, yellow eyeball that took up the entire space of the cabinet.
All the men dropped dead instantly.
Brooks ran down a stairwell. He'd tried to apparate and use his emergency portkey. They'd both failed.
At every turn, Gaunt had outsmarted him. When the hell had he had time to put up those anti apparition wards?
"I didn't."
Brooks startled. He was forced to hold on to the railing to stop himself from tumbling down the stairs.
Gaunt and his wife were right there, at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for him.
He deflated.
"My dragon?"
"He was formidable. We would have stood no chance, if we didn't have a wand that drained his power source." Harry said as Emily held out the Elder Wand, which was pulsing with a bright green glow.
"I never stood a chance, did I?" He asked bitterly.
"Through no fault of your own, the deck was stacked against you." Harry assured. He snapped his fingers and produced a pair of glasses halfway filled with a rich, yellow liquid. "You did owe me a drink, didn't you?" Harry asked with a smile.
Brooks laughed, holding his hand out as Harry prepared to levitate his drink over to him.
Emily let out a little huff. "Can we stop it with this sentimentality." She whipped her wand towards the general and he let out a choked squeal as his body twisted in on itself, squeezing into a singular point until the pressure became too much and he exploded.
Harry shot his wife a hard glare, which she returned with an innocent smile.
"You know I'm not going to get many of those moments going forward, dear." Harry said as he summoned the briefcase the man had been carrying. "I didn't even get to explain to him about how the ICW had this place surrounded after thwarting an attack on my home, ordered by his president, no less!"
Emily rolled her eyes. "You men and your need for chivalric rivalries."
Harry tried to maintain his glare, but Emily was just too cute, he finally sighed as he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her firmly on the lips.
He ignored the smug look on her face as they made their way to the exit.
Behind them, the research facility began to burn down. As teams of ICW hitwizards rushed to meet them, Harry shrank the briefcase down until it fit in his pocket.
…
The Americans were crushed.
After the full details of the incident trickled out, the international community was clamoring for blood.
Lord and Lady Gaunt, Innocently enjoying their honeymoon when they were kidnapped by the MACUSA military apparatus.
Thankfully, in what he'd originally described as a fit of paranoia, Lord Gaunt had requested ICW protection for Walburga and his daughters, fearing for their lives.
He'd been proven right when a team of kidnappers had broken into Number Twelve Grimmauld's place, where Walburga and the girls had been staying with Walburga's parents. The hidden squad of hit-wizards had made quick work of the kidnappers, who had not expected to walk into a trap.
When interrogations proved they had been sent by the President of MACUSA himself, the ICW had scrambled to send as many teams as possible to the States.
Lord and Lady Gaunt had managed to escape their bondage and fight off their captors before barely making it out of a magical fire that had consumed the American's hidden base.
The response had been swift. What remained of MACUSA was dismantled, the territory being partitioned by the other world powers.
Lord and Lady Gaunt continued their honeymoon in the French Riviera.
…
The moonlight illuminated the tranquil mediterranean waters with an almost eerie glow. Even with little to no chop, Harry could understand how men of old could stare at these waters late at night and let their imaginations run wild with thoughts of the monster that might lurk just beneath the surface.
Especially since the monsters really did lurk.
Harry was on a patio, reclining on a beach chair facing the vast ocean. The property they were staying at had a strip of beach all to itself. Whether it was private or public, Harry had no idea. None of that mattered now, With all the muggles in a deep slumber, their previous divisions of property became useless. This villa had surely belonged to someone rich and powerful, someone that would be nothing more than a slave when they next opened their eyes.
It was a quiet night, with only the subtle crashing of the waves and the *glurk*glurk*glurk* of Emily bobbing her head on his cock to break the silence.
Harry pulled his young bride's hair aside so he could get a good look at her face as she took his length down her throat, spit coating her cheeks and his shaft in equal amounts from her previous attempts to deepthroat.
Emily was staring up at him with those dark, almost pitch black eyes, a look that was both innocent and sensual.
Despite everything, all the things they'd done to gain power, the darkness she had been exposed to and embraced, Emily was still a fifteen year old girl.
A fifteen year old girl that looked absolutely gorgeous sucking on his cock.
Emily increased the vigor of her bobbing, jerking the base of his cock with her slick hands as her tongue swirled around the head. It was like she could read his mind.
And she could.
When they had finally achieved immortality, Harry had added another aspect to the ritual. It was what had transferred his immunity to the vampire's poison to her.
They were now linked, souls intertwined. Their minds were two halves of a whole.
Harry would have many wives, many women that would belong to him. But there would only ever be one Emily.
She pulled off his cock with a slurp, letting a drip of slobber drop down his head. "Keep thinking like that, and I'll want to milk you dry, Daddy." She said in a throaty voice.
Harry was gazing down at her with lust. They were naked, and she was laying on her stomach between his legs, giving Harry a great view of her milky tits.
"Keep looking like that and Delphi will have a little sister soon." Harry growled.
Emily smiled, her face darkening with lust as she jumped up, her lips crashing onto his own as his cock became trapped against their stomachs.
They kissed wildly as Emily shifted around, willing his cock to slip down from her stomach and, after some wiggling about, press against her entrance.
Harry plunged into her and they began rutting like rabbits. They had been here for four days, and had been fucking uncontrollably the entire time. They had foregone clothing, having not seen a single soul their entire time here, and so they fucked anywhere and everywhere.
In the kitchen, on the stairs, out on the beach, in the streets.
Their lust for each other was endless. Insatiable. Harry slid in and out of her teenage pussy, squeezing her asscheeks with his hands as they never once broke their passionate kiss.
Her cunt was squelching, due to her own juices but also the endless loads he'd continually deposited into her, filling her up at every hour of the day until she began to appear deep into pregnancy just from his cum alone.
They were sweaty and dirty and sticky. Her breasts were leaking milk onto his chest. Harry had taken great pleasure in sucking the milk out of her swollen mammaries throughout their honeymoon, but right now he just focused on kissing his wife with every ounce of passion he had while he pounded her pussy into oblivion.
They came together, and it was a messy affair. Emily flooded his cock with her juices and his backed up cum, which Harry made worse by filling her with a fresh new payload of thick, creamy liquid that found no place to go yet was trapped inside of her sensitive walls.
…
The more they walked around the town, the clearer it was that the place was completely abandoned.
In their lustful haze and their euphoria after having defeated the final enemy, Emily and Harry had gotten sloppy.
Someone had known they were staying here. They'd created a ward, a very subtle ward, that ensured no one else would come into the town.
They'd received a note in the morning. Now they were walking to the meeting point, a tacky looking beach bar.
Emily was in a worse mood than Harry. She hated being outmaneuvered, while Harry found it a novel feeling, especially since whoever these people were, they clearly had no designs on killing them.
They walked down a set of wooden stairs and passed by empty tables, each covered by a different colored umbrella.
"Lord Gaunt, you 'ave made it!" Greeted an angelic voice.
There were four of them, and Harry was able to tell instantly that at least three of them were veela.
Three gorgeous, ethereally beautiful blondes stood beside a table. They were definitely full blooded veela, as their allures assaulted Harry with an intensity that Fleur's had never reached. They all had long, sleek blonde hair that reached their backs, light blue eyes that glinted in the sun and stunning figures that were barely contained by their canary yellow sundresses.
Harry cast aside their allure as he and Emily stopped in front of them.
The fourth person there was the most curious. She was sitting on a wheelchair in front of the three veela. Her body looked dessicated, like a mummified corpse, with sunken-in cheeks and cloudy gray eyes that were unfocused. Her mouth hung open, leaving the impression that the ancient looking woman was braindead.
Her bony, shriveled hands twitched irregularly against the handrest of her wheelchair.
"Please, monsieur, madame 'ave a seet." The tallest of the three women gestured.
Emily and Harry sat at the offered table. The veela approached from the other side, with two of them sitting while the one that had spoken simply pushed the wheelchair forward, remaining standing behind the decrepit old lady.
"You are a difficult man to get a hold of, Monsieur Gaunt." Said the veela on the left, who's hair was styled into a single long braid that was currently resting on her shoulder.
"You've gone a long way to garner our attention." Emily said, glaring as the veela seemed to be ignoring her.
The leader spoke again. "When the survival of your people iz at stake, nozzing must be left to chance."
"Survival of your people?" Harry raised an eyebrow. "What could be threatening the entire veela race that would escape the notice of the ICW?"
A thin smile formed on the woman's face. "You do not know very much about ze veela, do you?"
"I know enough." The truth was, veela were a blind spot for him. Harry knew about as much as any other well-informed wizard, but if there were any intricacies he was not aware of that could affect his plans…
The old lady in the wheelchair began coughing uncontrollably. The veela to her right, the one who hadn't spoken yet, pulled out a handkerchief and covered the lady's mouth with it, putting a hand on her shoulder as she tried to soothe her in murmured french.
"What makes you think I can help you?"
"We visited an oracle, zey said you were ze only one that could save our race." She gave him an appraising look. "Considering who you are, it iz no surprise that our survival depends on you."
"What exactly do you need?" Emily asked, tilting her head to the side.
The lead veela looked pointedly at the old woman, who's coughing fit was finally under control. "This iz our mozzer."
Harry looked at her expectantly, imploring her to continue.
"Veela are not born ze way most creatures are, not full-blooded ones, anyway. We emerge from mozzer," she placed a soothing hand over the old woman's thin gray hair, and Harry noticed that a few strands among that mess looked healthy, shining a silvery-blonde that put her daughters to shame.
"When the time iz right, one of mozzer's hairs loses it's shine, and a veela is born."
"All veela come from her." Harry said, looking at the old woman with new interest.
She nodded, stroking her unresponsive mother's head with her delicate fingers.
"Each one of you that's born takes something away from her. That's why she's like this." Emily gestured towards the catatonic woman.
If the veela took any offense to her words, they did not show it. "We are aspects of mozzer, each and every one of us. When one of us dies, we return to mozzer, we are reforged, and we are later reborn."
"Immortality." The veela to the left interjected.
Emily snorted. "Is it really? Do you remember your previous lives?"
The looks the veela sent her answered her question.
Harry agreed with Emily. What use was an immortality that still destroyed the self, the consciousness? If you were reborn with no memory of your previous self, was this new person even really you?
"And something has happened to put this…cycle in jeopardy?" Harry asked.
"Sharp. Very sharp monsieur Gaunt." The lead veela said with a thin smile. "Paris. When ze muggles desecrated ze city with zeir poison. Ze veela council had been holding a meeting zat night…"
"Two dozen of our seesters were killed." The left veela added.
The rightmost veela began to curse in rapid french.
"Too many. Too many killed at once. And when zey tried to return to mozzer, they could not. The muggle poison… it haz prevented zem from returning."
Harry's eyes filled with understanding.
Nuclear radiation fucked with magic at a fundamental level. Whatever esoteric magic maintained the veela race in this eternal cycle of rebirth had been disturbed when the blast annihilated such a large number of veela, infecting their very souls with it's poison.
"With such a large part of her unable to return, your mother will die, and you will die along with her." Harry finally said.
The lead veela nodded. "All that will remain of our race are halfbreeds, and zeir blood will continue to dilute, until we a nozzing but a memory."
Harry looked at Emily. The two had a silent conversation before he turned back to the veela. "Alright, I'll do it. But you realize-"
"We know exactly what must happen. We are the last three veela left, now that we know you will ensure our survival, we can leave mozzer in your 'ands."
The three women shared a nod, and as one they pulled out daggers, dragging them across their throats, letting out gushers of blood as they fell to the floor.
"I'm starting to believe magic makes everyone inclined to theatrics." Emily said with a shake of her head as the three veela bled out rather quickly. Those daggers must have been enchanted in some way, because it only took a few seconds for all three to die.
There was a small rustling and the wheelchair-bound woman's hair flashed, three new strands of hair beginning to glow brightly.
Harry sighed as he made his way behind her, "Well, let's see what we can do with you, granny." He pushed the wheelchair along as they left the bar.
The three bodies on the floor were rapidly turning to dust, which was already being blown away by the wind.
…
The strip of beach in front of the villa made for a surprisingly good ritual circle. The eerie moonlight now felt appropriate as Emily finished burning the runes onto the sand far enough from the waves to ensure the tide wouldn't sweep them away.
The veela mother was lying in the middle of the circle, quiet and unresponsive as ever as Harry and Emily worked around her. Every few feet, Harry was putting down phoenix feathers.
This was magic at its most primal. There was no set ritual for this, a situation so unique it had surely never happened before and would never be repeated. There was no guidebook, only intuition.
Emily held the Elder Wand, so she would be the one performing the magic. Phoenix feathers tied in to both the veela's own fire as well as the concept of rebirth and renewal.
Their circle complete, Harry stepped back as Emily put the Elder Wand to one of the grooves they'd burnt onto the ground. With a look of concentration on her face, she cast one of the most destructive spells known to wizardkind.
The fiendfyre burst from her wand and instantly surged through the grooves. The gaggle of fiery demons yearned to escape, to spread out onto the beach and consume it completely, but Emily's will was made of iron, and the flames were contained within the runic circle, even as they writhed and struggled to break free.
Soon, the circle was filled with flames, which while unable to go outward, rushed inward, covering the veela mother in their flames.
The white light of the moon seemed to intensify as the wall of flames grew higher and higher. The Elder Wand glowed green, and Harry and Emily could feel their joined hearts drumming against their ears.
Suddenly, a large wave crashed onto the shore, engulfing the flames and snuffing them out as if they were a common campfire.
Harry and Emily stood patiently, and when the waters receded, a loud cry pierced the tomb-like silence.
Where once there had been a decrepit old lady now lay a bawling baby. A baby with silvery blonde hair that shone brightly with its own light, interspersed with strands that were a dark blue.
"Why does she have blue in her hair? Did the wave do something" Emily asked as they walked up to the crying babe. Harry picked her up, and the girl instantly ceased her tears, looking up at him with loving blue eyes.
"Fleur." Harry smiled down at the baby, allowing her to squeeze his finger with her stubby hand.
She cooed at the name, and Harry knew that while the Fleur Delacour of his own time would never be born, he would love his Fleur with every ounce of his being.
…
The Pillars of Creation.
A formality really. Harry's rule was absolute. As he looked at the crowd gathered here, at the narrowest point of the Straights of Gibraltar, they all looked at him as if he were a god.
No one had even batted an eye when he'd shown up wearing St. Edward's Crown.
The pillars, a literal pair of towering stone pillars that completed the European leg of the complex arrays that composed the global Statute of Secrecy.
Simultaneously, all over the world, teams on each continent had finished weaving the final enchantments for the new Statute, the Statute of Supremacy.
Harry stepped up. He alone held the honors of activating the enchantment. When he tapped the central rune on the South Pillar with his wand, the grid would power up worldwide.
Harry looked down into the crowd, sharing a private smile with Emily. He winked, and then he pressed his wand onto the rune.
The pillar began to glow a blinding white, forcing the people below to shield their eyes, none of them saw the hint of green that slipped into the sea of white.
The world was now well and truly his.