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XXXVII. Dungeon

Few things set the villainous mood quite like a dungeon. A subterranean portion of your base can do a lot more than just hold prisoners, though- it can serve as a storehouse or area for riskier experiments… Let's just hope you don't need to use it as your final defensive bastion. Installing traps could be fun, though.

A little crow flew around the isolated peaks of the Himalayas. While it wasn't quite strong enough to attempt flying over, it could flit between the great slopes…

And it didn't find much, at least in the immediate vicinity of Everest, but in one particularly silent valley, it landed, and after looking around a little to make sure it wasn't being observed, it shifted into a man.

Harry Potter then began to carve a divot into a nearby mountainside, before linking it up with Doggerland back home- it would be useful to have some that weren't all at sea, after all. He wanted to come back later- maybe when the sunlight reflecting off the snow was less likely to fry him- he still wanted to poke around a bit. Look for Shangri-La or Shambhala or whatever it was.

The underground portion of Doggerland wasn't really that popular for anyone except the vampires and their sole goblin. People liked sunlight, after all.

Still, there were uses for all that underground space: a few vaults in the Gringotts style, a few storerooms, a space for the werewolves, and some labs. In a way that was similar to Hogwarts, there was a rather significant room in the dungeons devoted to the art of potion production, although it was on a larger scale… However, as far as Harry knew, Hogwarts didn't have an alchemy lab.

He couldn't make heads or tails of that strange magical quasi-science, but they seemed to be doing well- they hadn't quite managed transforming lead into gold quite yet, but it wasn't like they were really in need of it. At the moment most transformations were pretty mild- transforming one type of (non-valuable) stone into another.

Still, it was a start, and it got Harry thinking that they might eventually need more room underground. For the spiders, for the labs, potentially for vaults...

Cornwall was another one of those places entangled with the Arthurian mythos- and Harry felt obligated to poke around there a bit, although not necessarily for the Treasures of Britain, this time around.

There were the typical quaint fishing villages and lovely coastline, but Harry's interest today was particularly in the mines. They had mostly been closed up now, but Harry was looking for their inhabitants. He certainly hoped nobody had gotten left in the mines- his concern was more about the supernatural creatures that resided within them.

Breaking into one of the mines was fairly easy- locks or barriers weren't much to a wizard- but the stone tunnels put Harry a little on edge, unlike the ones back home. They were choking and claustrophobic, held up by wooden supports that seemed to creak and sway as Harry walked by.

The mine Harry picked was old- he figured that his chances were better in a mine with some history. He also didn't particularly feel like taking a misstep and stumbling down a hole in a shaft mine.

He also kept a bezoar on his hip- he had heard that miners frequently worked with delightful chemicals like arsenic, and to make a bad problem worse they frequently inhaled the dust. Harry tried not to touch the walls.

While exploring, Harry was primed to Apparate away at any second- and he nearly did when he heard a knocking in the solid stone walls. But that knocking was exactly what he was looking for, at least according to Kreacher.

Following the sound, Harry nearly bowled over a little creature- and his first impression was that he had (quite literally) run into a house elf. He was a short little fellow, with his great, oversized eyes roughly on level with Harry's knees, and he was in miner's garb.

"Hello." Harry greeted the little creature- a knocker, or tommyknocker, if you pleased.

It let out a sigh of disappointment, saying something that sounded like "Sowsnegore" before switching to recognizable, if accented English. "Who're you?" It grumbled.

"I'm Harry Potter- and I'd like to offer you a job." He crouched so he was a little closer to eye level with the little guy.

"You've a mine for me?"

"A mine, and all the food you could want." Harry pulled out something Kreacher had cooked for just this moment- a meat pasty. Cornish miners had given theirs to tommyknockers in hopes of appeasing them, Harry would do the same.

"Supposin' my mine isn't reopened… I'll take it." Harry handed the food over, and soon enough the creature was rushing to keep up with Harry's strides.

"You have any other friends that need a new mine?" Harry asked hopefully.

The tommyknocker rolled its oversized eyes, creating a slightly disorienting effect. "What, do ya think I can just hop over to the next mine for a quick chat?"

"Maybe?"

"All the neighbors left- for Botany Bay, New York, Vancouver and Rio de Janeiro…" It frowned. "I'm the last one around. The last to leave."

"Well, before we go, can I get your name?"

"Bligh." For a moment, Harry thought the tommyknocker had just spit very aggressively, but no, it was a name.

Before they had even gotten back to Doggerland Harry had received a fascinating history of the Cornish diaspora and a brief introduction to the language as well. Bligh found the idea of speaking to his boss in English- or 'Sowsnek'- quite vexing, so tried to teach him the language.

Thankfully, Bligh couldn't attempt to hammer the intricacies of the Cornish language into Harry's skull when he was actually busy hammering away at rock, or guiding others through the process.

Whatever the case, Bligh seemed happy to help as long as he got his fair share of pasty each day, and Kreacher was happy to help supply it. Harry could have sworn he had spotted them chatting while on the job sometimes, and Harry wondered if they were somehow both offshoots of the same species, or possibly even different breeds. Could tommyknockers and house elves interbreed, like wolves and dogs? Or maybe Harry was just trying to apply muggle science to magical creatures again…

They were also starting to find valuables while mining. No huge veins of gold or silver, but slightly more useful metals like copper and tin instead- Harry had to wonder if that was just good luck, or some inherent ability of the tommyknockers, to guide miners to metal or possibly even shift deposits around?

Whatever the case, it meant the alchemists got more feedstock for their experiments, and the potioneers never had to worry about running out of cauldrons ever again.

There was a lot of ocean where Kumari Kandam was supposed to have been- hundreds, if not thousands of square miles of land under the drink- and that made searching for any remnant of it rather difficult.

Eventually, Harry got something. It wasn't the result of some complex tracking spell or anything, but more a feeling of magic and wards. He had gotten better at 'feeling out' ward schemes and the like… and though it was faint, he decided to trust his gut.

Diving deep into the sea, they searched in areas that were hidden under a couple of kilometers of water- past about a kilometer, the sea was inky black, dark in a way that even the longest night could never be. At least during night, there was the eventual promise of daylight, while down deep in the sea, the only light was made by living beings- whether the glowing bait of anglerfish or some similar creature, or the powerful magical light Harry brought down with him.

It wasn't as if he was completely unfamiliar with the darkness of the depths of the sea, even if some of the other wrecks he 'salvaged' were in fairly dark water… Maybe it was the magic. The further down they went, the more certain Harry grew that there was something big down there; however, Harry had a sinking feeling (no pun intended) that there might have been some sort of security system attached to the place, and Harry had a feeling it wasn't just your basic key and lock assembly. Hell, even that could have posed a problem if for whatever reason he couldn't open it...

So he kept a keen eye on their surroundings. Well, as keen as an eye as he could keep on their surroundings, given the whole immersed in a dark abyss thing they had going on. The ghosts were a touch more relaxed about the whole situation- they had survived a sinking before, while Harry had most definitely not. Still, some of them were attached enough to Harry to worry a little.

Most of them didn't seem to jump at every little creak and groan coming from the ship's sides, and while Harry had faith in his spellwork, it still made him jump. Of course, those scares were nothing compared to when Harry looked out of the porthole and saw lights.

For a stretched out moment, he was transfixed on the lights- what started as a small little collection of dots became a long line, spiralling and curving as it grew closer. Of course, Harry quickly realized the problem inherent in a series of lights growing closer- and started shouting orders.

Harry nearly stumbled when something brushed into the ship from below, with a sound almost like sandpaper. Well, there went the paint job. Looking out of the window, Harry caught a glimpse of an eye reflecting the light from inside of the ship, an eye with a slit pupil and a terrible glare. Immediately afterwards followed the creature's body, lit by dozens of pale blue luminescent spots on its sides.

The scraping sound was continuous, the rough skin of the snake tearing and wearing away at anything not protected by charms work- and then it began to constrict, great coils tightening around the body of the ship.

Harry's first thought, seeing that it was some sort of snake, was negotiation. Shouting at the sides of the ship didn't work- obviously- and he faced a similar issue when he ran up to the front of the ship and tried to shout at the snake's head. Even a Sonorus charm accomplished little other than giving him a headache.

Still, he wasn't just going to give up on communication… so he tried something different. He rested his head and hands against the ship's sides, ignoring the way the snake seemed to be putting the supposedly Unbreakable ship through her paces. Admittedly, Harry had never tried something like this before… but no time like the present! The worst thing that could happen was him dying. With that comforting thought, he began to will the ship to vibrate.

And it vibrated in exactly the right way to act like a giant speaker, filling the entire craft with the sound of hissing, a sound that a Parselmouth would have recognized as "Would you please stop constricting my boat?"

After a moment, Harry heard a faint reply through the groaning steel. "Not a chance, trespasser."

Well, if the thing wanted to play that way… Harry pulled out his staff, stepped back from the walls, and began to chant. The air around him began to thin, a cautionary measure that he hoped would protect him from heat as he began to warm the hull. Perhaps warm was not strong enough of a word- soon enough, Harry could feel the heat radiating from it several feet away.

He imagined that the issue was much worse for the snake wrapped tightly around the length of the ship- he was genuinely sent to the floor by the creature's pained thrashing, but he kept on heating and heating, until he could see bubbles pouring past the portholes. The heat didn't seem to be doing anything flattering to the glass… but glass could be repaired if the ship survived.

Admittedly, Harry kept the hull hot for a lot longer than he would have needed to- eventually, the snake would have been cooked if it hadn't already fled- but perhaps unsurprisingly, a steaming hot item underwater was absolute surrounded by bubbles, ones that sent the ship jerking and twitching in a way that Harry thought might have been the creature's death throes…

It was probably a good thing that he had made a portal for the Mermen to go home through; otherwise he was fairly sure he might have cooked them too. Still, they were a great help when it came to removing several tons of cooked snake from the outside of the ship. He wasn't entirely sure if he could stomach the idea of eating snake- even a malevolent one- but the Mermen seemed rather chipper about the whole thing.

XXXVIII. Primacy

A villain should be, of course, first among their followers, but you shouldn't stop at that. The first to exploit brand new frontiers, whether magical or physical, and the first to lay claim to any particularly interesting or useful treasures.

Also, it should be stressed that you should use that primacy well- getting your hands on a powerful, perhaps even revolutionary spell is useless if you waste that initial phase of shock and let the other guy catch up. Getting there first is no use if you're too tuckered out to do anything of use.

After disentangling the snake from around the ship and repairing any damage that it caused, he kept on diving deeper down- and sure enough, he found something that the snake might have been guarding. It wasn't particularly notable, at least on a visual level, as opposed to the magical beacon Harry felt, but there was a massive, maw-like cavern, big enough to fit the ship after breaking a few of the more outstanding stalactites and stalagmites.

Inside the cave, they dove even deeper, cautiously passing through dark caverns- Harry had to wonder about the last time that the stone had ever seen light, if it had at all. The quarters were tight, and Harry was getting genuinely worried about how he'd possibly manage to reverse the thing when he saw faint light ahead.

As he got closer, Harry realized that the light's source wasn't just some patch of weird magical algae or something- it seemed like there was a cavern that the water opened up to- either that, or some funky magic had somehow transported them from below to the sea floor to some point near the surface.

When they finally broke the surface and Harry rushed onto the deck- trying not to cringe at what happened to his poor, poor naval gun- and saw that the cavern was of incredible size. Not only that, it was occupied, considering the occasional person that gawked at the boat. In the distance, he could even see faint curls of smoke in the distance, smoke which rose up to a rough that might have looked like the sky at first glance, but as far as Harry could tell, it was stone. The faux-sun that travelled across it definitely provided light, though.

Harry decided that it would probably be best to wait until someone approached him to talk first- just jumping off and barging around might give the wrong impression. Generating a snake, even if to demonstrate his Parseltongue ability was probably a bad idea as well... Although if this was really Kumari Kandam, then he would bet money Parseltongue was his best shot at communication. He couldn't imagine how much the language might have changed compared to modern Tamil...

Eventually, it seemed like the people who were by the water (were they… gathering salt?) dragged some sort of authority figure in his direction. The man looked reasonably old and sort of like a cliche elder- Harry wondered how long his predecessors had ruled this cave for.

"Greetings!" Happily, Harry could understand him. If the village headman (or whatever role the guy played) knew Parseltongue that made things much easier.

"Hello!" Harry cried, getting ready to step off the boat.

Harry was the first visitor these people had gotten in a long time; like, not in the living memory of wizards long, which was saying something. That meant that they also marvelled at the ship- steam ships with iron hulls weren't really a thing until relatively recently, at least when talking history on that sort of scale. Still, they seemed to accept it rather quickly- magic let you do some pretty crazy stuff, and this place was full of it.

If he had to use a single adjective, something like… pastoral might have been best. There were a few huts scattered around, the occasional town square, but large swathes of the cavern were covered in thick woods and lush meadows, where sheep grazed idly.

"How many people live here?" Harry asked- he couldn't exactly imagine what the numbers were like, but there had to be a lot of them just to avoid inbreeding. (Unless magic could avoid that? Eugh…)

"In this cave? A few hundred." The man- Shivraj- answered, shrugging.

Harry gulped. "In this cave?"

"Yes- we don't get many visitors from the others…"

"How many other caves are there?"

"That I've personally seen? A dozen."

That did answer some of Harry's questions about population size, at least. It wasn't just some single hamlet… more of a civilization, hidden away from the world for years and years. That would probably mean some pretty interesting magic… the whole exotic culture isolated from the rest of the world was also interesting.

Fitting the whole slightly bucolic vibe he got from the place, there weren't many major buildings. Sure, there would be a slightly larger house for a large family or a maybe common area of some kind, but it was all kind of vernacular stuff- architecture born of traditions, not some individual auteur architect. Interesting nevertheless, though.

The most notable structures were probably the religious ones which, fittingly enough for a people who spoke Parseltongue natively, were particularly focused on naga, which were half snake, half human creatures. Some naga were just snakes- at least, as Harry understood it- but it seemed rather obvious that a community with such a strong relation to snakes would center on a figure who represented that connection between man and serpent.

He eventually arranged things so he could stay a while- and so the people of Kumari Kandam could take small visits to his island or other parts of the magical world- but even as he was treated to their hospitality, he couldn't help but think of those naga statues… He'd feel a chill sometimes, when he looked at them and started getting into the 'Parseltongue mindset' you needed to talk with non-snake but snake-like things like carvings.

Harry wouldn't go as far to say the feeling he got from those statues was malevolence or anything… more just power, kind of like Quetzalcoatl or the Rainbow Serpent. There were things out there that were bigger than him, and it would be best not to forget it…

Interestingly, Harry found out that female naga were sometimes called nagini. Thankfully, it seemed like the Nagini Harry had run into was something of an exception, as they typically weren't malevolent.

Meanwhile, the Vampire had carried a vampire to the Mediterranean. It was, at least for Mary, a novel experience- the men of the Vampire had sailed in the Mediterranean during the Second World War- and Mary was intent on making the most of her new locale, by talking to the Mermen in the area. Thankfully, it seemed that Mermish was something of a universal language among their people, even if Mary got the impression that she sounded like a bit of a backwater bumpkin.

Still, she was building up evidence- enough that she wanted to say that there was something like Atlantis out there… or at least, there was something in the deep Atlantic that both Mermen cultures- the admittedly sort of ugly looking North Sea sort and the charming Mediterranean type- seemed to recognize that there was something out there. Something that they stayed far away from, even if they disagreed on the specifics.

Both cultures described some sort of disaster in the region- hence her linking it to Atlantis in the first place- that left the land, or rather sea, too dangerous for the Merpeople to tolerate. The North Sea mermen alleged that it was some sort of magical accident, one that gave them their… less than charming appearances, while the Mediterranean myth was a bit more tame.

Considering the shared language and somewhat similar cultures and whatnot, Mary figured that there was probably some grain of truth to those stories- whether or not this Mermish Motherland was actually related to the story of Atlantis was still up in the air, but if the crisis that forced the Mermen out involved something like the collapse of a massive island into the sea, the pieces would fit into place rather neatly...

That did leave the problem of finding a single location in the entirety of the Atlantic- or at least the considerable portion outside of the continental shelf- which was no small feat. It did pose an intriguing problem, though, and the good master did seem to appreciate the occasional challenge.

As time went on, Doggerland got applicants- and more than just werewolves. Admittedly, a lot of them were in some way monster adjacent, whether 'half-breeds' or a relative who couldn't possibly bear to separate with their not quite human sibling or child or lover or whatever… Sure, in a lot of places, things were a lot better than what was going on in Britain, but just because it wasn't Britain didn't mean it was magically good all of a sudden.

Of course, not everyone was willing to pick up their sticks and leave their old- and typically somewhat comfortable, given the whole magic thing- behind for a life in somewhere entirely new. In fact, the vast majority weren't. This was to be expected, but there was the occasional person who was interested. If all the oaths you needed to swear to get citizenship didn't scare any potential immigrants away, there was enough space for them.

It wasn't like you were trapped there once you got in, either- of course, the vampires politely insisted that precautions be taken so you didn't go blabbing about the island's defenses to the next person you saw, like memory charms or yet more oaths…. Some people did go through with it, though. Living in a castle with vampires and werewolves sounded good on paper, but people tended towards being slightly less brave when it was their necks on the line.

Full moons in particular- or at least the thought of them- tended to spook even some of the braver immigrants, as despite valiant efforts and mass scale potions production, there was never quite enough Wolfsbane to meet demand. Many of the werewolves showed solidarity with each other- choosing to shift into a pack, together, as opposed to leaving some of their members high and dry (this conveniently let them stockpile the potion for actual emergencies).

There was a fairly massive room in the basement set aside for this purpose, which would be locked shut every full moon with all of the werewolves- along with several stacks of meat or maybe an unfortunate animal- on the inside. At least for the werewolves, it was something almost approaching a patriotic duty to go in there. After the system was set up, every single werewolf got to the room with an hour to spare, every full moon…

Even if the powerfully enchanted and rather thick door kept the werewolves and whatever noises they made trapped safely inside the room, the thought of a passive pack of werewolves did tend to unnerve. If you weren't quite willing to tolerate that, you could take a look at some of the other 'branches' of Doggerland, maybe fitting in a quick trip to lovely Hokkaido or the shores of Peru...

Attempts to 'dupe' lycanthropy by moving from one side of the world to the other- which was proposed as a potential way to avoid the transformation altogether, maybe solving it- turned out unfortunately. Sure, it technically worked, but everyone figured it might have been a little too good to be true… so they waited it out, and sure enough, there was a catch. The typical sickness and pallor that came over werewolves before the transformation was much worse in those who had tried to get around it, and their transformations were excruciating.

Unfortunately, it seemed that trying to delay the transformation or cheat it would, pardon the pun, come back to bite you. Wolfsbane only seemed to work because it kept the werewolves rational during those stages, as opposed to stopping the process altogether.

On a happy note, it seemed like the werewolf transformation didn't mess with any children carried by werewolf mothers, at least as far as Andromeda's magic and the odd muggle doctor they visited could tell. Sure, Remus had sired Teddy, but he wasn't the one who was carrying him to term...

Andromeda was already dreading what babysitting would be like on full moon nights. She'd press-gang Harry into helping if she needed to…

Harry was fairly busy investigating the myths and legends surrounding the naga of Kumari Kandam, not quite feeling up to attempting to speak to the statues before he knew exactly what their deal was and exactly how badly they could ruin his day, before he decided to talk with them.

Admittedly, his interviews with the people of Kumari Kandam led him to believe there was nothing unusual about the statues. Sure, they might be part of the occasional security system or something, but no one reported the odd feelings Harry got looking at them… and Harry knew enough about magic to recognize that it probably wasn't a good sign.

The first time he tried talking to the statues, he greeted them with a simple "Hello." For a while, there was no response- Harry just stared at the spiral pattern of coils behind the statue's torso, as if trying to remind the statue of its snakiness. It was actually kind of easy to get lost in it, following the pattern of the coils again and again, forgetting about most everything…

He wasn't sure how long he just sat there, staring at the statue like some sort of idiot, but he snapped out of it when the statue gave him a grin- one that bordered on a smirk, even- before winking. Immediately, Harry's mind started racing, that temporary state of peace gone as he panicked a little over the mundane statue moving without being ordered to. He could have sworn it rolled its eyes at him exasperatedly before he got up and decided to contemplate the matter back on board the ship.

After some contemplation that yielded no real results (other than the fairly obvious magic being funky conclusion) he was snapped out of it by one of the vampires, who gave him a letter. It was an invitation to the eighty fourth meeting of the Human-Vampire Coexistence Society, which began by apologizing strenuously for the late meeting (Harry had half hoped that had just stopped or removed him from their mailing list…), which was delayed due to an extremely close call with some vampires in the Savannah area nearly getting caught. Some part of Harry wondered if it was for PDA, but whatever… the meeting would be somewhere new in the Americas, which gave him an excuse to go.