Chapter 20, Mad About You!
Hydra Black had grown up never interested in romance. As a child, she frequently promised her daddies, to their unabashed joy, that she would forever remain single. Loughness's girl obsession combined with the obsessive relationship of her parents that often left them too busy with one another for their own children at times made Hydra disinterested in what she felt lust or romantic love did to a person's mental makeup. When all that changed it was with a suddenness that shook her to the core. As it turned out, that old adage about love striking when you weren't looking was absolutely, one hundred percent true!
She and Loughness were home for the summer for nearly a month when IT happened. They kept themselves busy reading and helping the grandparents to de clutter the attic. Ghosts could only manage so much decluttering when they couldn't really move objects. Though the Stripper Potion was loosed into the water system, things did not change over night. Until things settled, the daddies insisted the entire family lay low and keep out of sight. They did not wish any of them to be associated with any sudden unwanted changes. With the entire family shut away in #12 Grimmauld Place, no one could know that they hadn't been sick with the magical plague just like most everyone else, after all.
As a result, they had to depend on Kereston for reports on how things were progressing. She caught them up nightly when she came home from work at the Ministry. She didn't take over as Minister right away lest things appear too planned. Instead, those who stood with her and Griphook had to wait about and scramble to keep each department running while dozens of both high and low ranking Ministry employees missed work due to a strange and frightening malady that felt like the flu and stripped one of their magic.
Everyone hoped this was temporary as the healers at St. Mungos could find no direct cause, thus no direct solution. Then those healers fell sick as well. Some may have found it difficult not to feel sympathy for the panic rocking British wizarding society, but Hydra knew well that most of those people would not feel sympathy for enslaved elves or suppressed goblins. Those who did would eventually regain their magic, so no harm was truly done. After a few days of a flagging Ministry due to it hardly having any workers, Kereston was elected Minister by everyone remaining healthy and magical.
This was of course arranged in advance with a few other people also putting themselves forward and Kereston winning the vote. She moved quickly to put her new team into place once elected. The newly appointed Head Auror was Guillermo's older brother Romeo. He moved from Spain to take the job, and Guillermo was thrilled to be seeing more of his brother on a regular basis.
Gellert was now Kereston's chief adviser, which had him basically on call as needed, so free to remain at his shop most of the time. Any trust-worthy Aurors who remained from the old guard as it were, worked alongside the new goblin, elf and Acromantula Aurors that Kereston brought on. As she was quoted as saying in the Daily Prophet, "We need all the willing magical help we can get right now,and this presents a wonderful opportunity for various magical races to work together to survive this crisis."
The human Aurors trained the new goblins, elves and spiders, and from what Kereston said, they were integrating wonderfully. That was indeed heartening news. It meant that this may all actually work out. It meant that a better stronger wizarding society was in reach, and without having to bother going up against the Muggles as Grindelwald or even Voldemort had thought to do for reasons. Hydra even believed that, in time, magical folk could even roam the world freely without having to hide from Muggles. Not by coming out to them as it were, but by developing better masking charms so that the Muggles simply saw and noticed what they expected to and nothing more.
Perhaps this could be a project for her once she graduated. Being a part of changing the magical world for the better was an exciting prospect, after all. If all magical folk could move freely among Muggles, Muggles would no longer be a threat, thus no longer an issue. Though the concept was an exciting one, Hydra knew that the world needed to adjust to the new current change before reaching for more. This wouldn't stop her from exploring the options academically of how to bring such a thing into being, though. Excited by the concept of combining elf and human magics to craft ways to cast spells around Muggles that they would never notice, Hydra eagerly shared her thoughts with Loughness and the grandparents.
For the past week, the four had spent many long hours in the attic, decluttering and rearranging. Loughness and Hydra decluttered and rearranged while Walburga and Orion gave them instructions between long, rather amusing bouts of ghostly bickering. The bickering ranged from whose stupid idea it had been to keep this or buy that to whose great aunt it had once belonged. The grandparents bickered about the silliest things, but they both seemed to enjoy it and Hydra and Loughness always found it amusing.
When the twins settled onto a few dusty antique chairs for a rest as evening fell, Hydra shared her thoughts on working with others to devise masking spells and charms that could free magic users from the fear of Muggles without needing to rule over said Muggles to do so. "Because Kereston is right," she concluded her explanation. "There are far too many Muggles and their tech is disturbing. They can do a lot of damage with their... nuclear weapons, I believe it is called. We can't allow them to ruin the world, and trust me, they are stupid enough not to mind doing so in the slightest."
Everyone was silent for several seconds as each processed what she'd said. "Sounds wise," Loughness said at last. "I'm down to help you. We can work with Wolfy and Graven too. I bet her goblin magic would be useful. And we can bring Gornuk in too."
Hydra nodded, certain that Griphook's nephew would help if for no other reason than Muggle resentment. "You are such a brilliant child. Wiser than most," Walburga said warmly and Orion nodded.
"Indeed so," he agreed. "There is no need for Dark Lords to save us from the Muggles if we simply apply ourselves."
"Yeah, but I'm still gonna be a Dark Lord some day anyway," Loughness insisted. "Just because I can."
Orion chuckled. "That's fine."
"Let's finish up that corner where all the worst furniture is piled, and we'll be finished," Walburga said.
Bored with the attic for the time being, Hydra jumped eagerly to her feet. The faster they got this done, the faster they could go downstairs. She wanted to start making notes. She was already having thoughts on some spell combinations that would do well to mask visual signs of apparating. That was one of the things one could never risk around Muggles.
If they sorted how to do that, wizards would have far more freedom, and consequently, less resentment. For the next hour or so, Hydra and Loughness lifted piled furniture with feather charms, cleaned what the grandparents wanted to keep and carefully incinerated anything that Walburga or Orion felt had to go.
Incinerating unwanted furniture and other bits meant there was no trash for Stormy and co to have to deal with, after all. As they worked, Hydra's mind was on her future plans for hiding magic from Muggles so that wizards could still practice freely. Feeling inspired was exciting. It made her realize that she hadn't felt nearly so inspired in quite some time. Not since that project she'd done last year for extra credit on wand cores that involved the use of vampire fangs. Of course actually getting a vampire fang for a wand core was such a difficult prospect that her enthusiasm had quickly dampened, but the research on Dark wand cores that led to the intriguing properties of vampire fangs had been quite fascinating. As Hydra, Loughness and the grandparents approached the parlor, Hydra was eager to share her thoughts on how to get round the Muggles for the improvement of wizarding society with her parents.
"Okay, we're finished with the attic," she called out as she rushed into the room. Her parents weren't alone. Kereston's pet Acromantula, Reynaldo, was there, which was nothing new, but the goblin and elf were definitely knew. This didn't mean that Hydra did not recognize them, however. "Hi, new people," she added brightly.
Some weeks back, Daddy Regulus's maker, Dora, had agreed to turn a goblin and an elf into vampires for reasons. Her blood was stronger than that of Daddy Regulus or Daddy Kreacher because she was several thousand years older than both, so she was the clear choice for such an undertaking. Both goblins and elves were stronger magic users than any humans. Having at least one of each also possessing the mind reading, speed and strength of vampires could serve to protect this new wizarding society in many unique ways.
Such vampires could move fast to stop opposition as well as literally seeing it in the minds of detractors before anything came of it if they were vigilant. Of course they couldn't be everywhere all the time, but there were a few main key places that were important, and all of those places, The Ministry, Hogsmeade and the Alleys were small enough to be easily swept by patrolling vampires on the hunt for anyone causing trouble. As it happened, when Griphook asked the goblins as well as those free elves standing with the cause if any wanted to become a vampire for The Greater Good, only one of each was willing. Hydra hadn't given that news much thought after the Daddies had shared it, but now both the goblin and the elf sat in her parlor.
The goblin wore a slightly rumpled suit and the elf wore a tunic crusted in drying blood. That blood encrusted tunic was what clued Hydra into the fact that these two were *THE* goblin and elf vampires. The elf looked... tough. She'd never seen an elf who looked particularly tough. She supposed to those who did not know or love him, Daddy Kreacher may seem scary as hell, but this elf... This elf looked tough. His right eye drooped some and a scar ran across it. He held himself like a fighter who never fully relaxed.
For some reason the goblin found Hydra's greeting amusing, for he laughed. "That is precisely what the spider said," he observed.
"Hm," Hydra said thoughtfully. "Well, we do hang out a lot." True enough. They'd grown up riding on the Acromantula's back like he was a horse. Reynaldo was a beloved family friend, having come to live at #12 Grimmauld when Kereston did. Back then he was just a baby and Hydra and Loughness weren't even born.
"We got rid of a ton of things," Loughness informed. His hands were busy wiping attic dust from his shoulder-length black hair and clothes as he entered the room. He behaved casually, quite as if the most fascinating elf in the world wasn't sitting, covered in blood in their library.
"Hydra and Loughness, this is Greok and Ballan," Daddy Kreacher introduced. "Greok and Ballan, these are our twins." Greok was the goblin so Ballan was the tough looking fascinating intriguing elf, Hydra silently noted.
"But how did two blokes," Greok asked, speaking as best he could around his own mouth that hung open in astonishment at sight of the twins who clearly looked very much like Regulus and very much like Kreacher. Kreacher proudly explained the process while Hydra openly stared at Ballan.
As she stared, she found her tongue darting across dry lips. He was... he was unlike anything she'd ever seen before. Loughness was talking, and the Grandparents, but she didn't take any of it in. He was so... so beautiful. And he didn't even notice her. She attempted to catch his eye once and when he continued to look at Daddy Regulus who happened to be speaking at that moment, Hydra gave up. She felt her cheeks flushing, and hastily dropped her gaze to the thick mossy green carpet at her feet. She was unable to keep her gaze there for long, though. Ballan's intriguing form was just too tempting, and soon she was devouring him with her eyes once again.