Albus wiped the sweat from his brow then started massaging his collar bone. Ahead and to the right, Alastor Moody was doubled over on a small boulder that had gotten lobbed at him just a few minutes prior, trying to catch his breath. A few steps away from him, lying flat on his back and groaning, was Aberforth. Sirius Black and James Potter were both sitting on the ground, leaning against one another and quietly discussing something. Filius was the only person besides himself who didn't look exhausted, but the half-goblin had more or less bowed out of the fight before he risked magical exhaustion. The last of his sparring opponents, who was currently trying to sneak up on Flitwick to bite his hair again, was the only one who had neither suffered a blow nor landed an attack.
Isihlangu the boer goat.
Aberforth was unable to leave a ten-kilometre radius around Quinn's house, so Albus had decided to hold his training session there. His paranoid old friend wasn't happy about having so many strangers around so he refused to leave his house, but Albus had no doubt he was looking through the peephole of his door. The land around them had been transformed and marred from the fighting today, but he could fix it with relative ease since there wasn't much plant life. Large hunks of glass and stone were everywhere, scorch marks painted much of the ground black, and most of the sandy earth had turned to mud.
He was out of practice. That didn't surprise him, but the degree to which he'd fallen did. Although he'd sparred a few times with Hydrus here and there it had always been clear that his apprentice was holding back. He had to if he didn't want to accidentally kill Albus.
Today though, he'd brought on five opponents to test himself. Alastor and Aberforth were the only ones who had taken the gloves off without hesitation, but it didn't take long for the other three to start taking it seriously too. If he had to rank them, Aberforth was probably the weakest, with a large gap between him and the next best in Alastor. James had done rather well for himself, but a large part of his success had been how well he worked with Sirius. On his own he was weaker than Filius. The former dueling champion probably could've taken on the three below him by himself, though James might've made that too challenging.
Then there was Sirius. Albus had never had the pleasure, or misfortune perhaps, of needing to see the Black Sheep at work. It was obvious how the man had earned his reputation and in all three of the bouts they'd had today, he'd been the last one to fall each time. It wasn't just his actual strength either, the man made brilliant use of terrain, timing, and everything else he could to try and topple Albus. The small fracture in the warlock's clavicle was a result of a bone shattering curse that he'd only managed to counter at the last possible microsecond.
"I believe that should be enough for one day," Albus called. "Thank you all so much for coming here."
"Hold on," Sirius said. He 'accidentally' pushed James to the ground as he used him to stand up, eliciting an 'oi!' from his friend. "I wanna go another round."
Albus smiled. If the young man insisted he'd relent, but it was obvious he was just about drained.
"I think you would do well to rest," he said. "Pushing yourself beyond the bounds of—"
"Just stay here for a sec." Sirius pulled out the portkey Albus had given him for the trip and return journey. "I'll be right back."
Albus turned his chin up, wondering where the man was going. Hopefully it wasn't to get Hydrus. Although this meeting was, ostensibly, about training himself to try and fend off Arcturus, it was also so he could get ready to be a bulwark against Hydrus's own potential. To be able to stand in a position worthy of his respect.
The sound of a door slamming startled him from his thoughts. He turned and chuckled at the platter sitting down in front of Quinn's door with several tall glasses of milk. His old friend might've fallen to paranoia, conspiracy, and strange spiritualism, but he still had his hospitality. Albus made his way over, gave a loud 'thank you!', and picked up the tray.
After a few minutes of discussing the finer points of the mock battles with Filius and James, Aberforth was sleeping now and Alastor had left, Sirius returned. He hadn't brought Hydrus, but the two people he did bring surprised Albus even more. Bellatrix and Cygnus Black both looked as confused as Albus was, but when he felt Sirius's magic fluttering ever so slightly in the air, as though he hadn't just spent the better part of this Saturday morning casting spells like his life depended on it, he realised why he'd brought them.
He'd already drained someone else's magic, and these two were to keep him topped off.
"You two stand over there," Sirius said, gesturing over to James and Filius as Albus stepped back up. "Hydrus wants to practise fighting off getting his magic drained, so I need to practise draining it."
"You could've warned us about the heat," Bellatrix carped as she did what she was told. "And you're lucky I agree with this distraction from our work. If I…"
Her complaints became too quiet to hear as she began to mutter under her breath. Cygnus hadn't said anything at all, other than the verbalisations for casting a cooling charm on himself and his daughter. Bellatrix leaned against her father, taking his arm, and began to whisper in his ear.
"Round two, er, four," Sirius said, cracking his neck. "Let's go."
"I'm afraid this round will be a touch different than the others," Albus said. He made a show of changing the wand he wielded, confusing everyone besides Bellatrix who gasped. "Be careful, Sirius. I won't be going easy on you this time."
The elder wand fit strangely in his hand. It wasn't wrong, per se, but even when he'd examined others' wands they still had a purposeful handle. A grip for you to grab, perhaps a small pommel and guard to ensure your hand didn't slip if it was a smooth wood. The elder wand had no such purposeful, man made hold. It felt like the branch one grabbed hold of, just before they fell out of a tall tree to their death. The end flared ever so slightly in one direction, like that same branch had bent… And then snapped.
Albus slowly turned the wand in a circle, and without any visualisation or verbalisation, geysers of flame began to spit from the wand's tip. The fire spread around him, growing larger and floating on the air, consuming nothing but the oxygen and his own magic until it was a doughnut the size of a Gringotts vault door. The heat wafting off of it was distorting everything around, making it impossible for him to see Sirius or vice versa. He pushed the working forward until it stood directly between them, perfectly equidistant.
It was just pageantry, but if he was going to be forced to wield such a vile weapon, then that was what he wanted to use it for above all else.
"Sirius!" Albus called to be heard of the inferno he'd summoned. "The round shall begin when the fire dissipates. When it does, you must fight as if your life depends on it!" As he gripped the elder wand tighter, like it was a snake that might bite him, he tried to bury away his worry. "It very well—!"
A veritable javelin of electric black magic came shooting straight through the wheel of fire, and the duel was on. Taking his own turn to fight dirty, Albus detonated the fire, sending an explosion towards the Black Sheep that was immediately batted away.
As their duel began Albus wondered if he'd been holding the man back by teaming him up with the others. He was much less controlled now, launching spells that carved the earth like a giant's till as they passed. Albus gave back as good as he got though. Everyone always made such grand concerns over his fire, the way it could burn them, but fire was never enough on its own. The flames were pretty to look at, but it was the blades of steel being transfigured up from the ground that would end a man's life.
The elder wand made it all so easy. This would've been a task that required his complete focus and no small amount of exertion to pull off without it. Flames were swirling around in every direction, coming out of nowhere in crimson geysers like there were invisible dragons breathing down their necks. Swords fit for trolls were stabbing through the air like the jaws of an iron maiden. It might have been impossible to also defend himself from everything Sirius threw back if the wand weren't carrying so much of the load.
But it was, and it was transforming the workings too. The blades should've been simple, plain looking things whose only decoration was the cherry-red edges from cutting through the fire. Instead they were wicked and serrated, covered in spots of rust, like the wand itself wanted them to be more lethal. The flames were spewing out noxious plumes of choking smoke that was far more corrosive than his normal fire could've produced. Albus would've already switched back to his own wand were it not for one thing.
Sirius wasn't showing any signs of faltering.
If anything, the man was only picking up steam. The Black Sheep was using some sort of fire repelling charm on himself that allowed him to take the fiery attacks unconcerned, though Albus worried for his lungs. The swords he either dodged or literally destroyed with his own spells, and when he did choose to destroy them, he made sure that whatever working he cast continued on to try and strike at Albus at the same time.
Sirius wasn't using anything illegal yet, but he was pushing the legal boundaries in a way that only an auror knew how. Curses, and charms that had been lobbied to have their classification changed to curses, were flying at him in such a variety that Albus was forced to deflect and shield them all generically, each one too different from another to try and directly counter-curse.
Once more relying on the elder wand to cover for his lack of focus, he turned his attention to the other two Blacks for the briefest of seconds. Cygnus was slumped against the wall of Quinn's house, sitting on the ground and unconscious. Bellatrix had one hand pressed down hard against his shoulder, clearly on the way out herself. He returned his attention to Sirius, the man wouldn't be able to keep this up much lon—
"Exsanguista!"
Albus gasped and dodged backwards, his first actual step since the duel began. Bellatrix Black had attacked him as soon as he looked away, and he knew very well that that spell was illegal. The woman didn't look in the least bit exhausted now, and was grinning an insane smile as she attacked. The only thing that stopped him from genuinely fearing that this was a betrayal was the fact that Sirius's own attacks had only redoubled in the face of her joining in.
'They set me up,' Albus thought, grinning as the duel suddenly became nearly twice as hard. 'Such wonderful students I have.'
Unfortunately for them, this meant Albus was truly no longer holding back.
He kept up the workings, of course — the swords and the fire and the defences — but above them all he began working on something else. Right where the sun shone, where neither one of his opponents would see it, his own sun began to grow.
It was, at its heart, more pageantry. The spell wasn't very efficient or particularly devastating, just bombastic and very, very big. The two cousins were continuing to attack him, never taking their eyes off of him, too wrapped up in their cooling charms to even notice the world growing hotter and hotter around them. Eventually the brightness got to them though, and Sirius finally looked up.
"What the fuck?"
A ball of fire the size of a gluttonous dragon hung in the sky above them. Bellatrix had finally joined her cousin and was looking up at it, mouth open and her face pale despite the redness around it from the light. Albus raised his wand to the sky, directly at the ball.
"Sir, Madame," he said. "I believe we should call it… Here…"
Bellatrix had dropped, and for half a breath he'd thought she'd fainted. Then he'd felt Sirius's power swell.
The Black Sheep turned and hunched over, then like he was drawing the sword on his hip he swung his wand. What must've been all the magic he had left, plus the magic he'd drained from Bellatrix and Cygnus, came flooding out of his wand. It was like a tidal wave of miasmic despair, black as an endless pit, and the unfocused spellwork rose up until it towered over Albus's sun. He tried to bring it down in time, but just like he'd known when he first cast it, it was too slow.
The wave of darkness crashed down, swallowing it up.
And, just like always when Sirius destroyed one of Albus's workings, it kept going.
Genuine fear set in, though whether it was natural or a side effect of the Black magic's nature, Albus couldn't tell. For the first time all day he verbally cast a spell. He stabbed his wand towards the ground in front of him, turned his wrist, then jabbed it upwards.
"Collumigni!"
A pillar of fire shot up from the earth. It was as wide around as the thickest tree he'd ever seen, and impossibly tall. It reached so high into the air that he knew he'd have to check in with the Ministry later to make sure the muggles hadn't noticed. The wave of miasmic power crashed into it, evaporating several metres in either direction of the fire as it harmlessly crashed around him instead of on top of him. Noxious fumes rose up from the sand behind him as the power faded away, and after a few more seconds, the spell he'd cast ended.
There was a perfect circle of black, opalescent glass on the ground where the fire had been. Sirius was kneeling a few yards past that, panting and shoulders heaving up and down as he struggled to stay awake. Albus had to admit he wasn't breathing easy either.
"Well done," he said. "You never cease to impress me, Sirius."
"Shut up," his former student half-groaned. "Fine, you win."
Albus began to chuckle, but then he was knocked over onto his side. He hit the sand with an 'oof ', and when he looked over he saw Isihlangu standing over him.
"Baaaaah!"
His chuckle turned to full blown laughter, and slowly Albus got to his feet. "It would seem we've both lost, Sirius."
"Whatever."
James had gently pulled Bellatrix out of the line of fire when everything was happening and leaned her against her father. Now he was making his way over to Sirius, and it was obvious that he was teasing him. It warmed Albus's heart, as always, to see his two former students get along so well. It always made him happy to see the bonds of his school lasting so long, staying so strong.
"What a monster you are." Albus glanced down to see Fillius approaching him. The short man tapped one of his boots against the other, then began walking on the air like there was a set of stairs in front of him until he stood shoulder to shoulder with Albus. "I can't even begin to imagine what's got you training. Or was this just you wanting to stretch your rediscovered muscles?"
Albus hummed, trying to decide how much he could say. He weighed what Hydrus might get upset over, what the general public could handle knowing, what all was relevant.
"This must remain a secret," he said. "But Castle Nurmengard is empty."
The Charms professor gasped. " What? "
"It's worse than you fear," Albus continued. "Grindelwald did not escape. He was kidnapped by someone even stronger."
Flitwick nearly fell out of the air, catching himself by leaning on Albus's shoulder. Albus wanted to wince at the display. He'd known the man for decades. His half-goblin heritage was his pride, and it shown brightest with how brave he was despite being the head of Ravenclaw. The man was never one to back down from a challenge, not even from Albus himself, but that news had him scared.
"Merlin…"
"It'll be alright," Albus said, trying to assuage his fears. "I'll tell you something else, something much less secretive."
Filius looked at him from the corner of his eye, like he was worried that whatever Albus said wouldn't be enough.
"We've got Hydrus on our side."
The half-goblin rolled his eyes and looked away. That definitely wasn't what he wanted to hear.
"He's strong, Albus. I saw what he did in, and to , that desert." He shook his head. "But the Great War—"
"Does it seem like I'm going to make the same mistakes as last time, my friend?" Albus asked. Filius had finally straightened himself up, so he rested his own hand on his shoulder now. "Do you think I'm not prepared to do what needs doing, this time?"
He definitely wasn't running low on magic, despite all of that, but he didn't want to flare it. Caution was needed in times like these. So instead he just connected his power to Filius, letting the half-gobin feel just how massive his reserves still were despite all of that.
"Hydrus has been hunting for Grindelwald and the one who took him away, and when he finds him." He pulled away. "I will be by his side."
Filius still didn't look convinced. "Alright. I pray that you're successful."
Slowly everyone else left. James and Filius helped the Blacks get home since Bellatrix and Cygnus were still unconscious. Albus spared a glance at Aberforth, who now had a pair of sheep snuggled up to him on either side as he snored, and decided to leave him be. He headed over to Quinn's door and rapped his knuckles against it.
"Alright, we're finished!" he called. "May I—"
The door swung open and Albus's brows shot up when he saw who opened it.
"Mr. Dumbledore!" Giannis slammed into his knees in a hug. "I missed you."
Albus gave a baffled chuckle as he knelt down and picked the boy up. "Giannis, what are you doing here?"
He shut the door behind them, and saw Quinn was leaning against yet another sheep in the corner of the room, a large tome spread open in front of him and a very Giannis-shaped spot beside him. Albus coughed and was forced to let go of Giannis as the boy 'accidentally' elbowed him to hop out of his arms and run back over to the paranoid man.
"I came to see you, but this guy's way better!" Giannis shouted. He grabbed the book they had been looking at and held it up for Albus to see. "He knows about goats."
Albus tried to come up with something to say as Fawkes flew over and landed on his shoulder. The pieces were coming together even as the other two ignored him and got back to the book without answering his question. Giannis had wanted to see him for one reason or another. He'd gotten Fawkes to take him to wherever Albus was. Fawkes had, wisely, chosen to drop the boy off indoors instead of in the middle of the fighting. Then he'd gotten distracted by the rather large and woolly sheep that the two were resting against, no doubt forming an immediate bond and trust with Quinn.
He shook his head and moved over to join them. "Well, I'll need to get back to Hogwarts soon, so what can I do for you?"
"The plans are on the table," Giannis said without looking up, too busy staring in awe at the massive, three headed goat pictured in black and white in front of him. "They'll work. Right?"
"Look there," Quinn said, poking the photographed goat who turned and silently roared at the indignity. "See the mark? That's the symbol for two in their language. That means there was more than one. Perhaps…"
Albus began tuning them out as he moved back to the table and picked up the stack of parchment Giannis must've been talking about. The child must've enlarged then shrunk it, because the writing was far too small to still be so neat. Thousands upon thousands of runes were laid out in an intricate array that left his head spinning. Despite over a century of studying such things, the thought of trying to put together a network this vast was daunting.
When he began to turn the page over, revealing another array that was just as incredible, he saw the backside of the first paper was covered too. He made a quick note of a small section of runes on the edge of one side, and began turning it over back and forth. The two sides weren't two separate rune arrays, they were all one massive, technically three-dimensional network.
"My word," Albus breathed.
"Behhheheheheh!"
"Sorry!" Albus looked up. Giannis had apparently done something to irritate the sheep, and was turned around smothering her in a hug. "Sorry, Miss Sheepy!"
"Her name is Aroha," Quinn chastised. Albus wasn't sure if he was annoyed with the boy for displeasing their backrest or for not paying attention to his lecture on the three-headed goat. "Not Miss Sheepy."
"Sorry, Aroha!"
As the boy continued nuzzling up to 'Aroha', Albus thought of a memory he'd seen in Hydrus's mind. It was a devastated battlefield, one of the few he'd shared with Leorex, or at least Leorex's armies. There had been a pivotal moment in Hydrus's life when the battle was over, while he was recovering the bodies as his forces recovered and regrouped.
Harry had found one of Leorex's golems with half of a corpse hanging out of its massive, stone jaws. The creature looked like it had been some sort of bullfrog and was lying on its side with entrails pooled around the body from where it'd almost finished biting the person in half. Harry had nearly gone into a rage, raising his wand like he was going to destroy the thing entirely as the winds began to swirl.
But then he'd stopped.
He'd stopped, more carefully pried the frog's mouth open with a spell, then delicately removed the corpse from inside. He'd tried keeping as much of the body together as possible, but it was slow and messy work that had made Albus want to be sick even now just thinking about it. It had seemed like he'd remembered at the last second that he wanted to preserve the fallen soldier for a burial.
"Sir," a voice from behind them had said. "Looks like it only suffered a bit of singing that cocked up the runes."
"I'm aware." Harry made a gesture towards the bullfrog. "Have Hermione check that it's not a bomb, then put it with the others."
He'd left the corpse behind. Not paying it any mind whatsoever in comparison to the stone bullfrog. It had been yet another smash of the hammer that forged Harry into the callous warlord he became, that moment when he couldn't even let his temper lose on a defeated foe for fear of wasting the potential prize. Hydrus had said whenever his temper tried to get the better of him, he used to think of the bullfrog.
And now the dark lord who'd made such horrors was just a boy. A boy who'd completely derailed his lecture on whatever that rare species of goat was to ask what the common sheep behind them's favourite colour was. A question that Quinn only seemed to respect the boy more for asking.
Despite Hydrus's paranoia towards Giannis, Albus didn't think it was possible for the boy to become a killer anymore. He had some rough patches to him, sometimes his temper flared, but Sirius had been worse than that when he came to Hogwarts. Hydrus had saved him before it was too late.
That made Albus think about the Voldemort fellow who'd broken Hydrus. Could he have been saved? Could he have been turned off the path of monstrosity? According to Hydrus, Albus had apparently been asking that question in the past timeline too. Looking for some mistake he'd made in the boy's upbringing. It was a futile thing to try and find the answer to, because it didn't matter what the answer was.
It was just something that, no matter who or when he was, rankled Albus's pride.
"It will take me some time to go over all these," Albus said, catching Giannis's attention. "But I promise to look over them as often as I can and let you know. Tell me, what are they for?"
The boy smiled. "They're for Hydrus!"
Hydrus stared down at the pit full of corpses. According to Fenrir, the hole went down as deep as they could dig without passing out from lack of oxygen. It was nearly a dozen metres wide all the way down to the bottom, no significant tapering, and it was filled roughly a third of the way up with bodies.
"Like I said, they basically stopped coming," Fenrir said. "It's been a week since we saw anything, and even that was just a gnome."
"It's not enough."
He was trying to form a ley point. In nature the process happened over decades if not centuries as magical creatures came to areas that were bereft of magic to die, and their bodies slowly eroded into the earth and dispersed their power. He should've been saving the corpses he could've had from the various beings he'd been killing instead of just wiping them from existence, but he hadn't expected the werewolves to so effectively scare off the other creatures.
"What do you wanna do?" the pack leader asked. "I can send the boys hunting—"
"No, just keep it covered for now," Hydrus interrupted with a sigh. "I'll talk with some people smarter than me, and figure out how we can kick start this. Keep on putting anything dead and magical in there." He stopped himself from apparating away. "Except yourselves, of course."
This whole project was such a delicate thing. Not as a whole, or an endgame, but internally. He'd had to bitch slap Fenrir to take control, but he wanted to make sure the populace as a whole felt respected and equal. It was one thing to bury the less sentient magical beings who tried claiming the territory for themselves in a mass grave, it was another to ask the werewolves to do the same if they passed. There was already a spot planned out for a graveyard, there was a spot for everything as far as Hydrus had seen, but no one had needed to make use of it yet.
"Actually…" Fenrir started. "Have you met Bell yet?"
"Bell?"
"Old bitch. Cranky as a fucking cat," Fenrir said. "She showed up and said she ain't leaving. Old blood, I ain't met her before she kicked in the door to the bar."
The bar was the first thing Fenrir had built.
"I haven't," Hydrus said. "Why do you bring her up?"
"She ain't gonna live long." The alpha werewolf shook his head. "I don't know if she's just gonna kick the bucket like anyone else, or if she's gonna piss someone off enough that they rip her in two, but she's gonna die."
"She's still one of you," Hydrus said with a sigh. "Even if you don't like her, you can't just—"
"Kidding me?" Fenrir barked. "Fucking love that salty cunt. She reminds me of my mum." He laughed. "She wants in the hole when she's dead."
Hydrus blinked and looked the man up and down. "What?"
"She said if that's what's gonna keep this place running, then she wants in." Fenrir gave a hard sniff, then hocked up a loogie into the pit. "Most of us was drunk when she said it, but we all agreed. If we die, we go in the hole."
'Damn,' Hydrus thought. He looked down into the pit once more. 'They're really taking this seriously.'
He'd hoped for just that, but seeing it in action was another story. To him the werewolf colony was just something he kept on the back burner, a sign of his affection for his most respected advisor and his disdain for the inequality of the magical world. The more time he spent here though, and as the population grew larger despite the fact that there were only a small handful of buildings to even live in, he was realising how momentous it was for those it was benefiting.
"Hyduh!" A booming voice roared. "Hyduhhhh!"
'Fuck me.'
Grawp was stomping towards him, beaming from ear to ear. The giant was wearing a leather vest that the werewolves had made for him with a massive wolf head patch on the back. The filthy loin cloth he'd had on when Hydrus dropped him off here had been replaced by another one, also made of leather. Hydrus began pumping his whole body with healing magic as the giant picked him up.
"Hyduh," the giant said like it was a new word. "Hyduh!"
"Love you too big guy," Hydrus said, as one of his ribs broke and stabbed into his lung under the weight of the giant's embrace. "Let's put me down, now."
Grawp sat him down then gave him one last squeeze that snapped Hydrus's good arm. "Miss you!"
The bone made another snapping sound as it popped back into place. "I missed you too. You still holding up?"
"Yes!" Grawp nodded. "Good doggies."
"Yes they are," Hydrus agreed. "Keep up the good work."
Grawp saluted him, then wandered off. Fenrir let out an audible sigh of relief as the giant left.
"I hate how much the pups love that fucking idiot," Fenrir griped. "There's no way we can get rid of him now."
Hydrus snorted as he finished healing himself. "Just think of him like your people's mascot."
It was obvious from the giant's new clothes that the werewolves already did. He looked like some sort of caveman biker. Hagrid had come to visit a few times and he'd told Hydrus at the recent party that he was very happy with how happy Grawp was. His friend had said that his half-brother had 'a new lease on life' since coming here.
"Before you go," Fenrir said. "I do have a gift for you."
"Oh?"
He was almost disappointed. Fenrir calling him to the colony just to report that they were coming to a standstill with the future ley point had impressed him; men like him rarely wanted to report their failures. Still, it wasn't like Hydrus could hold it against the werewolf that he was worried about Hydrus's ire.
If anyone deserved to fear it, Fenrir definitely did.
The alpha led him to what turned out to be another hole. This one was a good deal smaller, probably just wide enough for Fenrir to squeeze into, but it seemed to go down a good ways too. There was a grate on top, made of what looked like rune-covered, spellproof steel. Hydrus tried to peer down into it to see what was at the bottom, but it was too dark.
"I know you said not to make it a priority," Fenrir said. "But you know how loyal we are."
No wonder the werewolf had managed to survive in a pureblood supremacist like Voldemort's army for so long. Fenrir was good at kissing ass.
"What is it?" he asked, then his eyes widened. "Wait, did you already find it?"
Fenrir grinned, showing off his massive fangs. "We did."
The werewolf knelt down and with a growl of exertion lifted up the grate. When he did so, there was a rattling sound that made Hydrus frown. Was there an invisible chain? It certainly seemed like there was as Fenrir began 'miming' like he was pulling something out of the hole. After nearly a minute, the creature came into view.
Fenrir was holding onto its back legs as he tore it the rest of the way out of the hole and slammed it on the ground like a prowrestler. It was a mangy looking, aquamarine lion creature with a twisting horn coming out of its forehead and a deep, sapphire mane that might've once been majestic. The thing's spine seemed like it was broken with the way the invisible chain was crushing its waist out of shape. The thought of it having been hanging upside down in that dark hole, paralysed and alone, assuaged some of the anger Hydrus was already beginning to feel.
"So we finally meet, you piece of shit." He slammed his foot into its ribs but regretted it immediately. It felt like he'd kicked a brick wall. "Can it speak?"
The beast began swearing at him in what he was fairly certain was Korean. It wasn't a language he was particularly familiar with, but it wasn't alien to him either. He was paying more attention to the way its body moved; its front half was writhing and it was impossible to miss the heat lines wafting out of its mouth as it spoke, but its back half didn't so much as twitch.
Good.
He slid the translation bracelet Giannis had given him off his wrist and knelt down by the haetae's tail. He slid it down to the base, then stood and nodded at Fenrir.
"Kick it." The werewolf did so with a vicious smile, and unlike when Hydrus had tried, the crack that came told him bones were broken. The haetae shrieked. "Do you understand me now, beast?"
"You—" The haetae froze, no doubt surprised to hear itself speaking English. "I know who you are!" it hissed. "You are fallen! You are a traitor! You—"
Hydrus gave another nod to Fenrir, and once more the werewolf struck the beast before roaring, "Shut up!"
The magical creature was shivering in pain and fear. It was something that Magic's followers had in common, they were all much less confident and brave than Death's. Hydrus knelt down once more, this time in front of the beast's face.
"You tried to have my father killed," he said, beginning to flare magic. "You will suffer for that—"
Suddenly the haetae opened its mouth wide, and a great geyser of azure flame came pouring out. Fenrir moved to protect him but Hydrus dismissed him with a wave. The flames were powerful, but compared to dragon fire, or the sorts of flames Dumbledore could make, or fiendfyre, it was nothing. The blue fire licked away at his skin but left him unharmed.
When it finally died down, he arched an eyebrow at the stunned creature. "Is that all a servant of Magic has to show for itself? How pitiable."
Still, now he knew how he wanted to kill the thing. There was more important work to attend to though.
"Legilimens."
The trip through the beast's mind painted quite a picture. It was a solitary creature whose worship of Magic was almost innate. When it had seen the signs in the stars that Magic had left for him to find, he immediately went to a nearby home of wizards. In exchange for killing Sirius Black, he promised to 'bless' their family. He didn't actually have the ability to do that, but just living there as a freeloader was considered a blessing in their culture.
So the men, none of whom even worshipped Magic, went to kill his father on that day in Diagon Alley when he was with Arcturus Black.
"What a waste," Hydrus said as he pulled out of the lion-creature's mind. "Finally find another apostate, and it's a fucking loser with no friends."
Fenrir grunted. "Sorry."
"Don't be, it's still my enemy." Hydrus glanced back and saw there was still some blue fire burning in the grass. "Go get a stick or something and save some of that fire. I'll give it to Dumbledore as a gift."
The old man loved unique fire. As Fenrir went to do what he was told, Hydrus turned his attention back to the haetae. The lion's horn was chipped, but he could probably still sell it for a pretty penny. Its mane was greasy and more matted than not, but it could be cleaned up into a nice collar. All in all, this thing's corpse would probably go for several hundred if not thousand galleons, at a minimum.
But still, he wanted to burn it.
Hydrus wanted to shove his wand deep down the beast's throat, and burn it from the inside out with fiendfyre. The thing had tried to burn him , so turn about was fair play. The pain would be excruciating, he knew from experience, and most creatures who breathed or otherwise summoned fire found it humiliating to be burned by the substance in turn.
"You wanna do anything else before we kill it?" Fenrir asked, returning with a torch burning blue flame. "Or should I just snap its neck and put it in the hole?"
Hydrus blinked. Right. The hole. He sighed and straightened up, immediately giving up on his plans of immolating the haetae. Fiendfyre would burn it a little too well, and the werewolves deserved the kill for managing to track down the beast despite how little information they had to work with.
"No, just get it over with," he said, trying not to be ashamed at the fact that he'd just said to himself he needed to stop wasting magical corpses. "Where'd you get that chain, anyways?"
Fenrir grunted as, with chilling precision, he delivered a pinpoint kick to the back of the haetae's neck that killed it. "That pup of yours gave it to us."
"What?" Hydrus's brows furrowed. "Do… Do you mean Giannis?"
"Yeah, him." The werewolf gave a grunt as he pulled the invisible 'noose' off of the corpse, then the bracelet Hydrus had put on its tail which he tossed to him. "We're gonna use them for some engineering shit Remus came up with, but that's still a ways off, so I figured no point in letting 'em go to waste."
When the fuck had Giannis come here? When did he even have time to make invisible chains? How had he made invisible chains? None of it made any—
"I helped!" Apophis appeared, head held high and his feather's standing at attention. "It was only thanks to my scales that he was able to achieve such a feat!"
Hydrus opened his mouth but Fenrir began frantically speaking. "D-, Don't worry, Black Saint!
"I swear upon my pack we would never turn your son," Fenrir looked like he was going to have a panic attack. "I assure you we would never betray—"
"Settle down," Hydrus ordered. The werewolf flinched and hunkered back, just like the whipped dog he'd made him into. "I know you'd never be stupid enough to do that to him. It's embarrassing to say, but I don't doubt that you are one of my most loyal followers."
He'd made sure of that when he tortured him. A small part of Hydrus almost regretted doing that, especially when he'd seen Remus's reaction to the memory, but it was hard to feel too bad for Fenrir. The man was a rotten piece of work who kidnapped children, had killed dozens of people, and turned the children he stole into monsters against their will.
Hydrus began to laugh. The man was just like him, when he put it like that.
"Thank you, Black Saint," the werewolf said tentatively, no doubt confused as to why he was still giggling. "I shall dispose of the cat now."
"Yeah, you do that," Hydrus said, wiping away a tear as he put the madness away. "Well done today. Keep up the great work, give my love to your own pups, and be sure to continue striving for your people's betterment."
"Yes, sir," Fenrir said with a nod as he began to leave. "Always."
Bellatrix ran her fingers through Hydrus's hair as he continued to read the report Cygnus had given them. Her father had worked up a few different proposals to meet Hydrus's desire for a unified business front, and now that her future husband had run out of weaklings to kill, he was paying a lot more attention to his less violent goals. She knew he had dozens if not hundreds of feelers out in the world looking for more fools that served Death or Magic, but for now she was enjoying this much more intimate time together.
They were sitting in their bed, Bellatrix had insisted that if Hydrus was going to be missing so much sleep he should at least be physically resting, and Apophis was sleeping between them. It would've been perfect if Giannis were there too to complete the family, but her youngest was busy as always. She hadn't mentioned to Hydrus that she had fought against the old codger this morning, but he didn't need to know about that embarrassing affair.
"I'm surprised," Hydrus said. "I expected you to put up a fuss about this."
"I think you paid way too much for that little newspaper," Bellatrix said. "But I don't think the overall idea is bad. Not that you ever have bad ideas."
That was laying it on thick, even for her, but it made her love chuckle so she didn't care.
"I have a compliment to give you," Hydrus said, shaking his head. "But I think you won't take it as one."
She frowned. "What is it?"
"Before I say, tell me this." He set the papers down and wrapped his arm around her. Bellatrix narrowed her eyes, she knew that he only did that when he was worried she'd grab him first. "You would do anything for me, right? You would do anything to make me happy, anything to make me love you even more than I already do, right?"
"Right." She still didn't like where this was going. "Why are you asking me to state the obvious?"
"Just now. When you sarcastically said I never have bad ideas," he began. "It made me happy to hear you teasing me. You're usually so…" He looked up for a moment. "I don't know. Reverent? And don't get me wrong, I love how much you love me.
"But I think that might be the first time you've genuinely teased me like that." He shrugged, incidentally squeezing her even tighter. "It was cute. I liked it. I wanted to tell you that, but wanted to make sure you didn't get the wrong idea and think you shouldn't do it because I implied you weren't being respectful or some other such nonsense."
Bellatrix frowned, trying to understand what he was saying. "Do you want me to mock you?"
Things were going to get difficult for them if her future husband turned out to be a masochist; that wasn't—
"No." Hydrus shook his head, grinning ruefully. "This is why I was hesitating to say it. I just…" He shrugged. "I don't know. It just made me happy to know you were that comfortable with me. Sometimes it feels like you walk on eggshells around me."
"What?" Bellatrix furrowed her brows even further at that. "I never hesitate to speak my mind around you. I would just never insult you. I wasn't even—"
Hydrus silenced her by kissing her. It was soft and gentle, and made her heart flutter even as he pulled away.
"Bella, I love you to death, but you're going to be my wife; not my servant." He finally let go of her to reach down and scratch at Apophis's feathers as their son seemed to wake up and stretch. "I don't want you to change or stress about the way you do things or treat me. I just wanted to give you a compliment. I love you."
Bellatrix slowly lowered her hackles as Apophis continued to stretch, pressing up against Hydrus's hand to get more scratches as he yawned. His jaw and fangs extended out in what would've been a horrifying display were he not their child.
"You see how his feathers are fluffed out?" Hydrus asked, drawing her attention to the fact that the crimson plumage was indeed a bit poofed out. "That's a sign of the fact that he just woke up. The quills, or rather the holes they grow out of, are relaxed until…"
Apophis shook his head, and the feathers 'danced' back to lying flat against his skull, to standing all the way up straight. They 'bounced' a few times until they settled back into the way he usually wore them.
"And now he's fully awake."
"Mother! Father! " The basilisk turned to them and Bellatrix couldn't help but watch the way his feathers moved. "Good morning!"
"It's still evening, kiddo," Hydrus said. "You just took a short nap."
Again, still watching his feathers, she noticed them fall back a bit. "Does that mean no breakfast?"
Bellatrix laughed. Sometimes the resemblance between their adopted child and Hydrus was uncanny.
"Of course you can have breakfast, dear." She reached out and scratched his chin. "You can have whatever you like."
Apophis gave a loud hiss that the bracelet she wore either couldn't translate properly, or hadn't meant anything at all. She watched their son slither out of the bed from between them, then snuggled in closer to Hydrus.
"Did he say anything at the end there?" she asked. "It just sounded like hissing again."
"No, it was just a happy sound," Hydrus said. "I don't know if you'll ever be able to understand those." Bellatrix began to pout. "That's why I was pointing out things about his feathers. Even if you can't learn all about the non-word hissings, I can at least teach you to read his body language a bit better."
She sighed but nodded. "I know I should just be grateful that I can properly speak to our baby now, but I want even more."
"Yeah, I know you're the type to get an inch and steal a mile," Hydrus said, amused. "Give it time, and I'll keep pointing things like that out."
Bellatrix nodded again, purposefully nuzzling her cheek against his as she did so. "Do you really think I'll be able to learn it all?"
"I… Genuinely don't know, sorry." He'd hesitated with that answer, which worried her further. "Before I lost the tongue for a while, I was really only able to speak with them like you do now. It wasn't until my first bargain that I could read their body language and what not."
Before she could ask for more examples of what sort of body language snakes could have, Kreacher appeared. "Lord Master Hydrus. Mistress Bella. Miss Bones is wishing to see one or both of you."
Hydrus frowned. "Why?"
"Kreacher is not knowing for certain, " the house elf said, like he was hesitating to say this at all. "But Kreacher is thinking maybe it is about Master Apophis. He is making mess."
Hydrus sighed and began to set his papers down but Bellatrix stopped him. "I'll take care of it, dear."
"Okay." He settled back down, frowning. "But come back quick. It's cold without you around."
She giggled and got out of bed, making her way downstairs. Her little water snake had given her enough compliments towards being 'warm' that she'd made sure to have Giannis make their bedroom even cooler, that way he'd be even more inclined to snuggle up to her. It had worked like a charm.
When she got downstairs and saw what had become of the kitchen, she quickly decided not to snap at her future in-law for summoning her. Apophis was swinging around wildly, smacking his head into cupboards and the walls alike. Somehow his jaws were extended even further than when he'd been yawning earlier, and halfway down his mouth was a whole, raw but plucked, chicken.
"Baby," Bellatrix said with a disappointed sigh. "What have I told you about trying to eat things bigger than your head?"
It was difficult to understand what her son was saying as he finally came to a stop and looked at her, but it sounded like, "Push it down!"
"Just hold still." She made her way over and drew her wand. "I'm going to shrink—"
"No!"
Bellatrix gasped as the snake jerked away from her and began flailing once more.
"Yeah, I tried that too." Bellatrix turned to see Bones staring with unamused boredom at the display. "That's when he flipped out."
"I'll get it." Both Bellatrix and Bones turned to see Hydrus had come downstairs, papers still in hand. "Him talking about breakfast made me hungry."
Apophis immediately slithered up to her love. She expected him to do the sensible thing and shrink the bird, but instead he grabbed either side of their son's head, top and bottom. She winced when, with an awful crunching and cracking sound, he closed the snake's mouth and split the chicken in half. Apophis quickly swallowed down the half that remained in his mouth, and began eyeing the other half too.
"Either learn to chew, or learn to stop eating things without any venom," Hydrus hissed. Bellatrix wasn't sure if she could hear the chastising tone he must've been using, or if she was just imagining it, hoping that she might better be able to understand the language. "Why are you out of venom, anyways?"
"It was a necessary sacrifice for my own advancement," the basilisk hissed, and again, Bellatrix tried to read his tone better. Maybe… Maybe bragging? Or was it petulant? "Soon, the queen and I's ritual shall be complete."
"Whatever," Hydrus grumbled as he finally released their son. "I don't even wanna know."
"I want to know," Bellatrix said, frowning. Had Hydrus not been telling her about things like this? "What ritual?"
"A glorious ritual!" Apophis called, raising up and beginning to wrap himself around her waist to climb up on top of her. "You would love the old queen, mother. She's beautiful, just like you, and strong! She has been teaching me much. Soon, I shall bathe in a pool of our blood and venom, under a full moon and in the unending stare of her naked eyes.
"She said that when Grandfather Salazar first performed the ritual on her, he was only able to use a mirror to replicate her gaze, so it'll work even better for me, " he continued on. "According to the old queen, I shall become the strongest serpent to have ever lived."
Bellatrix took it all in, trying to parse it all. If there wasn't any actual spellwork being done, she wasn't exactly sure how the ritual was supposed to do something. She also didn't like all this talk about an older woman looking at her son with 'naked eyes'. Apophis was much too young for some ancient—
"Do I even wanna know?" Bones asked Hydrus.
"Nope." Her fiance sat down a bowl of some kind of batter that he was stirring. "Just Apophis's usual fare. Imagine if I was a caricature of myself, and just as ridiculously pompous and arrogant as I pretend to be to annoy you sometimes. Take that, multiply it by ten, give me the most posh accent imaginable, stuff it in the body of an adolescent basilisk, and you'll pretty much have Apophis down pat."
Bellatrix nearly stopped herself from arguing with him, but then she remembered their earlier talk…
"Don't listen to your father, dear," she said to Apophis. "He's just jealous that he can't do the ritual."
Her love laughed and turned a warm smile on her, and although it did make her smile back at him…
"Bones, let's leave my fiance to his cooking." She began making her way to the other woman. "Apophis, eat the rest of your breakfast. Hydrus, I love you."
"Love you too," he said. He stuck a finger in the batter he was stirring and tasted it, then popped the finger out of his mouth. "Needs more sugar."
Bellatrix looped her arm into Bones' and began pulling her into the den. The other woman seemed reticent to follow, which was wise, but didn't stop her. When they got to the room and sat down, Bones immediately pulled away.
"You promised not to touch me," she muttered. "Remember?"
"I'm reneging on our deal," Bellatrix said, waving it away. "Feel free to tell Sirius all about his providence."
The future head of the DMLE just sighed. "What do you want, Black?"
"I need some advice," Bellatrix said, sticking the back of her thumb between my teeth. "I know you have experience since you're courting my cousin, but I think Hydrus might be a masochist."
"No." Bones stood. "I am not discussing your weird, illegal, incestual sex life with Hydrus."
"Not sex!" Bellatrix hissed, pulling the woman back down on the couch to shut her up before Hydrus overheard. "I would never soil myself before marriage." She huffed. "I'm not some whore."
"I swear I will—"
"No! No, no, no," Bellatrix said quickly, understanding entirely why the woman was offended. "You're not a whore. Sleeping with a Black is the smartest thing you could ever do." She shook her head, silently (but not actually) apologising. "It's Sirius who's a whore."
Bones snorted, and Bellatrix smiled. She knew she'd be able to get along with the plain looking woman eventually. If only Bones' sensibilities could rub off on her annoying cousin.
"Putting aside your assumptions about Sirius," Bones said. "Why do you suddenly think Hydrus is a 'masochist'? And why on earth do you want my help with that knowledge?"
"I don't know how to handle that," Bellatrix said, though that should've been obvious. "He's the future lord of House Black. He shouldn't be pleased when he thinks, incorrectly I might add, that I insulted him."
Bones just stared at her for a while. "What did he say, exactly."
Bellatrix explained, verbatim because she never forgot something Hydrus said to her, all that transpired. Part way through the discussion Apophis joined them and settled on her lap, a second lump of chicken now part way through his body. She rubbed at the lumps, unsure if it would help with digestion but her son seemed to like it either way. When she finished, Bones just shook her head.
"He's not a masochist," she said. "He just wants you to be his friend, instead of only his future wife."
Bellatrix scrunched up her eyebrows. "What?"
"I feel like a damned nurse maid," Bones grumbled. "Bella, you know how you pretend to be nice to people you hate? Because that's what decorum says you're supposed to do, as a lady."
She nodded.
"And you know how, when it's someone you're actually friends with, you don't have to worry so much about being polite?" the other woman continued, still talking in a patronising tone that Bellatrix only allowed because she thought she actually was starting to understand. "He doesn't want you to insult him. He wants to know, that you know, that you don't have to worry about offending him. Like friends wouldn't."
"Oh!" Bellatrix gasped, suddenly remembering something Hydrus had said to her when they first began courting one another. "He did say he wanted to be friends. The second time I climbed into his bed."
Bones' eyes widened. "Like… he said, 'maybe we should just be friends'? Like that?"
"Mhmm," Bellatrix said, nodding. "As if I'd ever settle for such a thing."
"You… You are something, Bellatrix." The other woman looked like she had wanted to say something else, but didn't. "Being friends doesn't preclude you from being more than that. Sirius… Don't tell him I said this, but he's probably my best friend."
Bellatrix frowned. "That's sad. You're not even his best friend."
Bones made to snap at her, but Bellatrix gasped.
"There! Just like that!" She beamed and the madness shown through her. "I said something mean because we're friends. If I didn't like you, then I would've said it in private to one of my sisters later instead."
Bellatrix nodded to herself in relief. There was no way she could've properly satisfied Hydrus's needs if he really was a masochist, though she definitely could've pulled off the clothing. She'd seen some of the magazines Sirius 'hid' when he was a teenager. There was a flash of green light as the floo went off.
"Speak of the bastard," she said as Sirius stepped in. "Where have you… Great."
Sirius hadn't arrived alone, James and Lily Potter stepped out of the floo with him. The couple, technically her future in-laws, didn't look any happier to see her. Or at least her future mother-in-law didn't.
"Hey, Bella," James said. "Hey, Cap'n."
"James," Amelia said. "Lily. Good to see you two."
Bellatrix gave a nod but didn't say anything else. She still wasn't sure what the best way to handle her future relatives was.
"What's that smell?" Sirius asked, sniffing the air. "It smells amazing."
"Hydrus is cooking again," Bellatrix said. "I sometimes wonder why we even bother owning house elves."
James and Sirius didn't even say goodbye, they both immediately left for the food. Lily froze up like a deer in the headlights, realising she'd been left alone with her and Bones. Bellatrix frowned.
"What's her problem?" she asked.
"She doesn't like you, for obvious reasons," Amelia said. "Allow me to take my turn being rude. You're a pureblood supremacist."
Bellatrix cocked her head to the side. "How is that rude?"
"Wow." Lily finally took a seat. "I… Don't even know what to say to that."
"Give Hydrus time," Amelia sighed. "He's working on fixing her."
"I don't need to be fixed ," Bellatrix said, finally realising the woman had been rude to her. She turned to Lily. "If you weren't Hydrus's godmother, I'd—"
Apophis suddenly headbutted her, startling Bellatrix and stopping her words. "Be nice to grandma."
Bellatrix froze. "How do you know that?"
"I was there when father told you," the snake said. "I'm there for all of the important things."
"She can talk to snakes now too?" Lily asked.
"Yes," Bones answered. "Giannis made her a bracelet."
"Don't worry, mother," Apophis said. "If any of my servants ever disrespect you again, I shall eat them myself."
Bellatrix smiled and gave her boy a kiss on his feathers. She'd told him about the rude little stone snake and how it insulted her, and unlike Hydrus, the basilisk had shown the proper amount of anger at hearing it. He'd nearly gone into rage over the lesser creature disrespecting his mother, saying that it was disrespectful to him as the beast's king. Ever since then, her red-crowned prince got protective of her whenever someone mentioned she needed the bracelet to understand him.
Before she could tell her son how much she loved him, there was a pop, and James and Sirius both came crashing down from the ceiling onto the floor. Both men groaned after they landed, and Bellatrix smiled at the pain on their faces.
"Lily," James said as he shoved Sirius to the ground in order to stand up faster. "Help me build a cannon. We're storming that damned kitchen."
Sirius nearly pulled James back to the ground as he pulled himself up using the other man's robes. "Say please, you know she likes it when you do that."
Hydrus was eating his biscuits on the roof. He'd told Kreacher to save some, hidden away, for Bella, but there was no way he was letting those two idiots have any. He'd wanted to tell James to fuck off and get out of his house, but he hadn't seen Sirius so happy in… Probably over a month? The man had been getting strangled by depression as of late, even when Hydrus and Amelia were around, but he'd done an almost complete one-eighty once his best friend was back. Even if Hydrus didn't want James on call for the war efforts, he needed him for Sirius's sake.
As he heard the family, his family, laughing down below, he finally began to feel a bit lonely. He'd left Apophis with Bellatrix, so he didn't even have his favourite 'scarf' to keep him company. After a moment, he said, "Fate?"
The goddess arrived, and once more he found himself amused at how easy it was to summon her. Death had never answered his calls, and Magic ignored him ninety-nine times out of a hundred. At least he knew that once he eventually swore himself to this new deity she'd be around more.
This time the goddess was in the form of a round man with a thick head of woolly hair that completely surrounded her head like some kind of wrapping. She was dressed in brown robes that left the person she was impersonating looking like some kind of dirty cotton ball.
"I'm mad at you," Fate said. Hydrus blinked and pulled back. "You changed the thread."
"What?" he said. "How? When?"
"Aberforth!" Fate sat down beside him with a huff. "You were supposed to kill him. You didn't. Just like I warned you, it changed the future."
"Uh… Sorry?" he said. "What all has changed?"
"None of your business." Fate looked away from him. "I'm mad at you."
"Would a biscuit change your mind?" Hydrus asked, lifting up the plate at her. "They're why I called you down here."
Fate immediately gave her attention back to him. "Really?"
She'd been neutral till now, despite her stating her emotion out loud, but now he could feel excitement pouring off of the goddess.
"Yes." Hydrus patted the tile beside him. "Just wanted company."
"Alright. I'm not mad at you anymore." Fate sat down, waved her hand, and one of the cookies vanished. "I'm not ready to practise eating yet, but it's the thought that counts."
Hydrus waited for a while. Fate was usually talkative when she came to visit, so he'd expected her to fill the silence immediately, but instead it seemed like she was content to just sit with him. He took the time to think about why she would've been mad at him for changing the thread. She hadn't given off any pity or worry, which he could potentially write off as just godly ambivalence. It had seemed more like she was just annoyed at him for something. Had he gotten Lockhart killed somehow? Or was he—
"Yes, you guessed right," she said, interrupting his thoughts. "As of right now, you don't worship me in the end."
Hydrus blinked. That was the idea he was coming too, but he hadn't gotten there yet. "Oh. Sorry?"
"Don't be," Fate said. She was radiating exhaustion. "I do this all the time with you. I get my hopes up over some prophecy, everything lines up perfectly, and then bam." Hydrus shivered as she emphasised her point with deific power that nearly made him puke back up his biscuits. "You go and change everything around again."
"So…" he began. "This happens a lot?"
"Only with you. Why do you think you're my favourite?" Her form changed, and he winced when she turned into Bella yet again. "At least I still have your wifey. She'd never actually worship me, but she listened to what I said about the sand."
"Why do you keep using her body?" Hydrus asked, trying not to look. It felt weirdly infidelious. "At least with that giant guy he had a purpose."
"You changed your fate once, you can do it again," Fate said. "This is the form that you love most in the world, so I'm hoping some of it will rub off on me and you'll like me enough to worship me."
"You should just come up with your own body, a permanent one," Hydrus said. "Something tells me Morgana wasn't born looking like a translucent, opalescent smurf; and Death must've had an actual head when he was born."
"You try—" Fate was embarrassed, then amused. "I suppose you did make a body for yourself. But even you just took pieces from those you respected and put them all together. I'm still trying to find the right pieces."
An idea came to Hydrus but he quickly buried it away. Fate turned to him, suspicion pouring off of her as she vanished away another confectionery. He kept the idea locked up.
"Oh, come on," Fate said, raising the pitch of her voice like she was whining. "Tell me."
"I'm your favourite, right?" he asked.
"Yes!"
"And although you normally can only take the form of your followers, or at least those with a touch for divination," he continued. "You could do something else, like your siblings?"
"…Yes?"
"Even if my younger self and former wife get together in this timeline," he said. "They won't have my daughter. Not my daughter." He stopped hiding the idea and tried to put off as much sincerity as he could. "You have my permission to look like her."
Fate gasped, and Hydrus almost laughed when he felt his own pride in her for pulling off the human gesture so well. Her form flickered for a moment, and then she changed.
Bella's black hair lightened until it was the same, ginger-red shade as one of the Weasley's. Freckles exploded across her face like fireworks. For a moment Hydrus wondered if his daughter only took after her mother, but a pair of glasses with one cracked lens appeared on her nose. She shrunk a good deal, until he was nearly a head taller than her, and he estimated she couldn't have been more than sixteen. Her nails were painted a ruddy shade of rust-brown.
That had been her favourite colour. She'd always hated tents and concrete bunkers and wooden shacks. She said a home was supposed to be made of bricks, 'like the smart pig's house was made of'. Even when she'd outgrown the muggle bedtime story, she still cited that line verbatim, in an attempt to always remind him of what they were fighting for. His daughter was always so brave, so pragmatic, so—
"You little cheat!" his daughter, no, Fate said. "Oh I am so mad at you now!"
Like that, she vanished. Hydrus finally released the whining moan of pain he'd been holding back on. Just like he'd hoped, seeing his original daughter had once more ripped against his bargain. His body was changing and just like it had when Magic first struck and reforged the bargain, and just like in the Australian desert, it fucking hurt . It had taken every bit of pain tolerance he had to hide it from Fate as long as he did, and now he was trying to remember every detail he could to keep the pain going.
He knew his magic was probably doing a number on the world around him, but he couldn't stop. If the bargain didn't break, he'd never be able to stop Arcturus from—
His daughter faded away from his memory, like it was being painted over by a brush. With her went the pain. As much as he wanted to be mad at Fate for leaving so quickly, he'd known when the idea first flashed across his mind that the goddess would never agree to it if she knew what he wanted.
With a sigh, Hydrus reached down for another biscuit, but his fingers scraped against the tray. He looked down to see they were all gone.
"Fair enough," he muttered to Fate. "I'll bake some more later."
Hydrus sat by himself in a lobby within the Ministry of Magic. There were a few other groups of people around him that were waiting for the event to begin, but thus far no one had so much as given him a second look. It seemed the most recent changes to his body had pushed him into being entirely unrecognisable. It was almost disappointing, getting ignored after spending so long building his reputation…
'Better that than the alternative,' he thought. 'Imagine if someone did recognise me...'
Besides, this wasn't a place that pureblood royalty like him was supposed to be in anyways. Unlike other rooms in the Ministry, which seemed to be more form than function by half, this was a simple hall. The walls were undecorated concrete, and the only things to make note of were the benches along the walls and the occasional door between them. The others who were there wore eclectic mixes of robes and muggle clothing, nothing expensive, and pensive, pessimistic, or anxious expressions.
Finally the door he was sitting across from opened, and Hydrus stood. He folded the Weasley Word he'd been reading up and began making his way in along with the rest of the meagre crowd.
The room they entered was just as simple as the hall outside. Up front there was a woman behind a desk, dressed in all black robes and a tall, pointed hat. Eight rows of benches were facing her on either side of the room with just one person sitting down already, in the front row and off to the side. A bored looking auror who was probably once Tonks's classmate stood in front of the woman's desk and looked dangerously close to falling asleep on his feet.
Hydrus along with most of the others moved to take spots on the benches while a few lined up along the wall to the right, the side closest to the auror. He sat down directly beside the person who'd already been there, and the woman shot him a look of annoyance. His smile brought a tinge of red to her cheeks though, and she quickly looked away, returning her attention to the parchment and quill she had in her hands.
"When you hear your name, announce your presence!" the woman behind the desk called. "Carl Duthers?"
"Aye…"
As the woman continued to read off names, Hydrus leaned in closer to his neighbour. "Anyone interesting on the docket today?"
He already knew the answer, but the second name the Ministerial Secretary woman called didn't respond, so this was going to take a while.
"Sir, please do not disturb the staff while we are in session," she said quietly. "You will be asked to leave."
"Does that mean I can 'disturb' you when this is all done with?"
Again the woman blushed, and although she looked away he could see her hiding a smile. He felt gross. While she was looking away though, he quickly read over the parchment she was filling out. It seemed like his mark was fourth up, thankfully. It took another ten minutes just for the man's name to be called.
Another fifty for things to actually begin.
"Carl Duthers, step forward."
A bald man with an odd looking tattoo wrapped around the back of his head came up in front of the woman, just a step in front of the first row of benches. The Ministerial Secretary pulled up a sheet of parchment and adjusted her glasses as she began to read.
"Carl Duthers, you were charged with one count of assault, two counts of assault against Ministry personnel, and one count of possession of illegal alchemical ingredients," the woman said. "You were deemed unfit to stand trial, and as such, were tried in absentia. Do you confirm?"
"Aye."
"Per the agreement reached between Third Barrister Greengrass and your representative, Barrister Kumar, the charges were amended to drop the three assault charges and instead charge you with a single count of magically intoxicated mayhem," the woman continued to drone on. "With a unanimous vote, you were determined to be…"
She unrolled the parchment further.
"Guilty."
"No surprise there," the clerk beside Hydrus whispered, clearly trying to capture his attention again. "Look at that tattoo."
"You will be sentenced to one year in the upper cells of Azkaban." She took up her wand and tapped it against her desk, eliciting a much louder bang than should've been possible from such a small gesture. "Next."
The next two declarations went on just as slow and dull as the first. Despite the fact that the second railroaded criminal didn't even bother showing up, the Ministerial Secretary read off their results in the same monotone voice as before. Throughout it all the clerk sitting next to Hydrus kept trying to talk to him, and her leg was pressed uncomfortably hard against his own.
He hated this fucking body.
"Clint Fletcher, step forward."
Finally. Hydrus straightened up, purposefully bumping the stub of his arm into the woman to try and get her to notice he was missing it and scare her off. The man who stepped up in front of the secretary next bore a passing resemblance to Mundungus Fletcher, though Hydrus hadn't heard a peep about the petty criminal from his past timeline and he wasn't sure how these two would've been related.
"Clint Fletcher, you are charged with one count of illegal potion making and one count of refusal to produce evidence," the woman said. "Given your refusal to stand trial, you were declared guilty without trial. Do you con—"
"Fuck you," Fletcher snapped.
She continued on, unimpeded. "You have been sentenced to six months in the Ministry jail cells, and six months of indentured labour, to be served simultaneously."
Once more she tapped her wand against the desk and called 'next'. Hydrus twitched his finger, and Fletcher began to hop around.
"Ah!" the man shouted. "What the bloody fucking cunt sucking mother—"
The bored auror who'd nearly dropped his wand in surprise had actually managed to get a silent stunner out that dropped Fletcher onto his face. Hydrus would've been impressed at the quick recovery if the idiot didn't look more surprised than anyone at his managing to do it. Hydrus stood and made a show of looking around, like he was trying to find another auror.
"Pardon me," he said, stepping up. "Would you like some assistance in, ah, escorting him out?"
He nodded his head at the unconscious and heavy looking Fletcher and the auror once more did nothing to hide his relief. "Yes, please."
After a bit of positioning so Hydrus could be on his good side, he and the auror got Fletcher vertical and began to drag him out of the room. It almost surprised him that the auror had agreed, but he supposed he shouldn't have been. People always trusted 'him'. To his relief the hall was empty still, and as soon as the door shut he dropped his side. Both the auror and Fletcher fell to the ground, but before the auror could say anything Hydrus stunned him too.
"Alright," Hydrus said. "Rennervate."
Fletcher gasped awake, head snapping back and forth. "What the—"
"Oi." Hydrus kicked the man in his shin, catching his attention. "Legilimens."
He didn't have time to dawdle so he smashed through the man's mind like a bull. After a few seconds, he had the information he needed and pulled out. Since he'd found good news there, he decided to have some mercy on his former soldier's relative and left him conscious as he began striding away.
Hydrus rubbed at his chest as he finally returned home. He'd seen Fletcher hadn't left any traps in his hideout when he raided his mind, but what he hadn't considered was that someone else might booby trap it for Fletcher. An honest to Merlin javelin had shot out of a shoebox and put a hole through his sternum. Still, he'd gotten what he'd wanted, and thus far he'd managed to avoid anyone in his family from seeing him since he fucked with the bargain again. He summoned Kreacher outside their front door.
"Alright, I know you can't do this yourself since it would technically count as hurting one of your masters," Hydrus said. "So I need you to tell me if anyone's awake."
"No, Lord Master Hydrus," Kreacher said. "Mistress Bella is sleeping with Little Master Giannis. Lord Master Sirius and Miss Bones is having finished they's nasty business and is sleeping."
It took him a moment to realise what 'nasty business' must've meant, and he snorted when he did. "Alright, thank you."
He crept inside and made his way up to his father's bedroom. Slowly, making sure not so much as a creak was made, he turned the handle and opened the door. After a pause to observe and make sure both of the occupants were sleeping, he stepped in.
Sirius shot up, wand drawn, madness in his eyes. Hydrus blinked.
'Should've known he'd be a light sleeper.'
It took a moment for his father to settle down and take in the details. Hydrus held up his arm and a dangling sleeve. He could practically read the man going through all the different things that said, despite the completely new and unfamiliar appearance, he was Hydrus.
First was the arm. Then were the rings. Then was the fact that he was even here at all, but there was still suspicion in Sirius's eyes, so Hydrus sent a silent signal to Apophis, telling his familiar to appear. Finally the other man relaxed.
'What are you doing here?' his father mouthed. Hydrus wasn't sure what he mouthed next, but it was probably asking why he looked like a stranger.
Hydrus waved him off and approached his side of the bed. He reached down, then jerked his hand back when Sirius slapped his hand away. The man was giving him an indignant look.
'Stop,' Hydrus mouthed. 'Just let me—!'
Hydrus bowed over slightly, careful not to make a sound, as Sirius thumped him in the stomach. He immediately stood back up and stabbed his finger into the man's ribs. His father tried to grab his wrist, but he yanked it back and pressed his knee down against the man's groping hand, pinning it to the bed. Sirius quietly growled and tried to use his free hand to push Hydrus away, accidentally fishhooking his mouth as he pressed against his face and Hydrus tried to get in close enough to—
"Lumos."
Both Hydrus and Sirius froze as Amelia sat up, eye twitching, and looking at them like she was about to kill them. Her eyes went through the same 'who the hell is this?' check list as she looked over Hydrus, but when she was done they rolled so high he could only see the whites for a moment.
"What the fuck are you two doing wrestling at two in the morning?" she demanded. "And why do you look like the cover model of a quidditch pin up?"
Hydrus grunted and Sirius finally pulled his finger out of his mouth. Before his father could stop him, he reached down and yanked at least a dozen strands of hair off the man's head, eliciting a yelp.
"There." He began to storm out. "You'll figure it out."
He quickly made his way to the guest bathroom, and locked the door behind himself. Trying to avoid looking in the mirror, he knelt down and pulled out the shrunken trunk from his pocket. He tapped it with his wand and it expanded into the size of a hatbox, which he opened to reveal cloth-covered cauldron. It took a minute to get the stupid cover off, but once that was done and Kreacher had handed him an empty vial, he scooped out a serving of Polyjuice Potion.
As soon as he'd seen his reflection, he'd known he'd need the stuff. It was illegal so he went looking for recent arrests that involved it. It would've been a lot simpler if he could just use some of his family's sketchier contacts, but he'd been trying really, really hard to make sure no that he knew saw him looking like this. He didn't want to talk about, answer questions about it, even hear about it.
"Finally," he muttered, dropping one of the strands of hair into the vial. "I don't have to see this fucking face again."
Hydrus stared into the mirror, and an annoyed Tom Riddle stared back. It was like looking at an exact replica of the man whom he'd watched in memories work for an antique store and plot the murder of Hepzibah Smith. He was a touch more muscular than the rising dark lord had been, and his hair was a good deal longer, but the face was an exact replica. A part of him wondered if it was a punishment from Fate for tricking her into letting him damage his bargain even further.
A part of him, the part that had just been wrestling with his father, wanted to take the opportunity to mock himself. To make ugly faces in the mirror, diminish his mortal foe's regality. But it hurt just to look at himself. It made him angry in a pit so deep in his stomach that even the madness couldn't reach it to use against him. It was a primal loathing so deeply entrenched in his psyche that every second he spent staring at the reflection, waiting for the potion to finish 'absorbing' the hair, he risked losing his temper and shattering the mirror.
"Fuck you," he finally whispered. "For ruining my life."
With his last words to Voldemort out, he uncorked the potion and swallowed it down.
BBaRtS
Really trying to get this story done, which might seem ironic with how fluffy this chapter seems. There's a lot of little nuggets throughout that are key points, though. I started writing this chapter less than 48 hours ago, so like I'd said in some other AN, if it seems rushed/any mistakes, my apologies.
