Chapter 45 (Part 1)

June 16th, 2018. Ravenhead.

"Hard to believe that this little thing is the key to eternal life and unlimited wealth." Dora said, turning over the fist-sized, faceted red stone in her hand.

Harry had created a proper Philosopher's Stone after much research and several failed attempts.

"The secret to world domination; time and money." Fleur said with an amused grin, holding it up to her eyes after the metamorphmagus passed it over to her.

"Do you think it can be used to transmute pudding?" Luna asked when it was her turn to handle the alchemical catalyst.

Someone has their priorities straight. Harry thought wryly as he took the Stone back.

"It can, although not easily since pudding is a complex organic compound." He answered. Conjured food could be made to look, taste and smell like real food if you were good enough, but it would provide no sustenance. Transfigured food was even worse, as it was invariably lethal when it changed back inside the body, unless it had been transfigured from other food of course. Transmuted food, on the other hand, was perfectly viable, albeit difficult to make and generally not worth the bother.

"Will you make me some?" Luna asked with wide, hopeful eyes.

Unless of course your girlfriend gave you that look.

"Sure." Harry sighed in fond exasperation. It would be good practice at any rate.

"Yay." Luna cheered.

"We could be making Elixir of Life or any number of other things that most people would kill for, and yet the first thing on the list is pudding ." Dora said, shaking her head.

"What do we need the Elixir of Life for?" Luna asked reasonably. "We're still young."

"Well, that's true." The metamorphmagus conceded. "It's just… it seems almost like sacrilege to use the Philosopher's Stone for something so ridiculous."

"Sacrilege, I like the sound of that." Harry grinned at her lasciviously. "Maybe I'll use it to create superior lube after the pudding."

He could and did already make lube without the aid of a Philosopher's Stone, so any lube made with it would have to be superior.

"Ooh! Make pudding flavored lube." Luna jumped in excitedly.

"I'm not sure if making brown lube is a good idea." Fleur snickered.

"I was thinking mint." Harry offered, struggling not to laugh at the exasperated look on Dora's face. "Slippery, but also fresh and breezy."

"It would certainly be nice to have fresh breath after eating out Nymmie's butthole." Fleur said approvingly, getting in on the joke.

"You say that as if it's dirty." Dora said indignantly. "And nobody says you have to do that in the first place."

"I do when you clench so tightly that Harry can't pull out even if he wanted to." Fleur sniffed.

Instead of taking offense, the metamorphmagus merely looked smug, which made the silver-blonde woman give another disdainful sniff.

Harry knew that Fleur was just a little bit jealous of Dora's ability to morph her body into a perfect fit for any lover. It prickled at her veela pride to be so challenged when it came to sexual prowess, and in such a cheatsy way. To compensate, Fleur often went the extra mile to prove that she was the best.

Of course, Dora was pretty competitive herself, so she couldn't just let that go…

Harry was greatly amused by their friendly competition and had no qualms about enjoying the benefits. He and Luna sometimes egged them on to see what they'd come up with next. Life was good, even with a homicidal maniac out to kill them all.

"Hobby projects aside, I need your opinion on something." He said, steering the conversation back on track.

"Something to do with the Philosopher's Stone?" Dora asked.

"Yes." Harry nodded. "I'm thinking of using the Elixir of Life as a bribe for Adrastia. She'd be an excellent informant, spy, covert operative and possibly assassin for us and she let slip that she was considering vampirism as a means of keeping her youth, but…"

"But it would mean telling her about the Philosopher's Stone." Dora finished, shaking her head. "You already know my opinion. I don't think we can trust her, even if we dangle the Elixir of Life under her nose as incentive."

Harry nodded, having expected that and turned to the two blondes.

Fleur looked pensive for a few moments before shaking her head. "I am with Nymmie on this. However useful it would be to have that woman on our side, she is too much of a wild card."

They all turned to the last of their number.

"She seems lonely." Luna said in the dreamy tones she often used when she was thinking.

"Lonely?" Dora echoed skeptically.

"She offered us drinks when we picked up Rowle and insisted that Harry give her a tour - she wanted to socialise. I don't think anyone she actually respects ever wants to just socialise with her." Luna explained.

"Could it be because she's a known serial killer?"

"Serial killers get lonely too."

The metamorphmagus gaped at Luna's simple wisdom and Harry was little better. Of course Adrastia could get lonely too, if was obvious when you thought about it - she was a person as much as anyone else, as hard as that was to keep in mind with her hobbies.

Still, just because Adrastia could theoretically be lonely and hoping for friendship from them didn't meant she actually was . He did still vividly recall that Luna had said the same thing about Slytherin's basilisk.

And did it even matter? Harry might have accepted that the notorious Black Widow was going to be popping into their lives every so often, but he wasn't terribly eager to befriend her. On the other hand, it would be damn stupid to even consider revealing the Philosopher's Stone to her and then continue keeping her at arm's length. Sharing a secret of that magnitude would mean tying their fortunes together far more firmly than the tentative agreement they had now.

"So are you saying that we should… what, make friends with her?" Dora asked with consternation, staring at Luna with a frown.

"Why not?" Luna asked back guilelessly. "It wouldn't cost us anything."

"That's… true." Harry admitted grundgingly. "Alright, let's say for the sake of argument that we go with the idea of making friends with Adrastia. How would we even go about it?"

It went unsaid that sex was off the table. Without knowing exactly what kind of tricks Adrastia could play with Sex Magic, Harry was not bringing his pecker anywhere near her, no matter how hot she was. That was one branch of magic that didn't subscribe to gender equality and it favored women heavily. Ejaculating into a witch was a willing 'donation' of a man's essence and implicitly gave the witch in question quite a lot to work with if she were so inclined.

Harry had convinced the girls to help him investigate the matter and they came to some rather disturbing conclusions. Obviously, everything that could be done with such a reagent was linked to sex, arousal or procreation, but it was no less powerful than willingly given blood. The sheer number of spells, seals, bindings or curses that could be cast on a man through the use of his willingly given seed were actually quite worrying and that wasn't even going into what the bloodline of Lilith had achieved through Sex Magic.

If Harry didn't trust his girls completely, he'd never be able to fuck them again without fearing what they might do to him afterwards. Not without a condom at any rate.

While he wasn't sure if Adrastia knew any Sex Magic beyond the Joining, he certainly wasn't going to risk it.

"I suppose we could invite her to your birthday party." Fleur suggested equally grudgingly. "It would be a reasonably safe opportunity."

"Whoa, hold on a second." Harry jumped in. "Who said I'm having a birthday party?"

"Don't be ridiculous, of course you're having a birthday party." Fleur said dismissively. "I've already invited almost everyone and I am not letting you dodge another social event."

"Aren't you forgetting what happened last year?" Harry asked irritably. "Voldemort is exactly the type of drama queen to think that making a big return on the same day would be great symbolism."

"We can still be ready while having a party." The veela insisted stubbornly. "I even left out any alcohol."

Harry exhaled grumpily, a bit annoyed that Fleur had organised all of this wouldn't even talking to him first. At least she hadn't sprung a surprise orgy on them. It would have been damn awkward explaining to a gaggle of pouty veela that they had to stay watchful in case Voldemort decided to cause trouble and didn't have time to screw around.

"What do you think, Dora?" He asked, knowing that the metamorphmagus would be the one to put up the most resistance to that kind of plan.

"I really don't want Zabini around, but…" She paused with a sour expression. "… but I guess we might as well keep her close if we have to deal with her anyway."

Harry knew that Dora would prefer to be rid of Adrastia in a permanent fashion, had even suggested that he agree to shag her and strangle her while doing it. The ruthless suggestion had surprised him. He'd considered it himself for the sheer irony of it, but he hadn't expected to hear it from Dora. She had changed a lot from the idealistic Auror she used to be.

Unfortunately, Adrastia still knew enough of his secrets to cause quite a bit of damage if they got out and he wasn't going to assume that she didn't still have plans in place to leak them if something happened to her. Plus, she could be useful.

June 25th, 2018. Ravenhead.

Harry inspected the contraption critically. He could find no flaws in it, but only time would tell for sure.

"What are you doing, Potter?" Dolohov asked resentfully from the small glass enclosure he was currently confined in.

"Getting ready to suck the magic out of you and your friends." Harry replied honestly. There was no need to lie to the man, not when he'd already extracted all the useful information from him.

Dolohov looked horrified and then his face twisted hatefully. "Finishing what the mudbloods started?" He spat.

"Oh, do shut up with the 'mudbloods are stealing our magic' bullshit. It wasn't clever when you came up with it and it isn't clever now." Harry sighed in exasperation. "Besides, it's not like you're going to need your magic anymore. I have better uses for it."

"YOU HAVE NO RIGHT!" Dolohov roared.

Harry blinked owlishly, honestly surprised by the sheer outrage . Then he chuckled. This was just too precious, a Death Eater whining about rights.

"I thought you'd have figured out how this prisoner thing works by now?" He asked rhetorically, still chuckling.

Dolohov just glared back.

Harry activated the device which bore a startling resemblance to a still aside from the Philosopher's Stone embedded in the heart of it. The second Stone he'd made actually. The first one was for screwing around with, while this one was made for this specific task.

Dolohov made a strangled sound and looked around wildly.

"What is it?" Harry asked curiously.

"Turn it off!" The Death Eater shouted, grabbing at his head.

"Fascinating, but could you be more specific?" Harry asked dryly, knowing from experience that his test subjects generally didn't feel too cooperative.

Dolohov made a sound like a wounded animal and threw himself at the glass walls of his prison.

Harry turned off the device after about a minute of this. "Now, what did that feel like?"

"Fuck you!"

"I rather doubt it."

Harry turned the device back on.

"Going to need restraints to prevent self-harm." He determined a few minutes later when Dolohov tried to headbutt the enchanted glass.

June 26th, 2018. Ravenhead.

"Alright, I think we can safely conclude that long-term exposure doesn't do any permanent damage, or if it does it's on a long enough time scale to not matter." Harry said, looking at Dolohov.

The Death Eater was trussed up inside the glass enclosure like Hannibal Lecter, but he still had enough fire in him to glare furiously. That was why he'd been picked for this actually. If this magic distillery of his was going to break people's minds, it would be the most visible on him.

Not that Harry was particularly concerned if their minds broke out of compassion or anything, but mindbroken wizards and witches let off a lot less ambient magic.

June 27th, 2018. Ravenhead.

Harry looked with pride at what he'd constructed over the past day. There were dozens of large glass tubes connected with pipes to the, for lack of a better name, magic still in the center.

It looked eerily similar to the Spellhold ritual chamber from Bladur's Gate 2, which was where Harry got the design idea. Why bother reinventing the wheel after all?

Most of the tubes were empty, an unfortunate consequence of the fact that Harry had nearly exhausted his supply of prisoners with previous experiments, but those that were occupied contained immobilised wizards bearing a variety of expressions ranging from terrified to angry.

"I'll come check back on you guys later." Harry said, switched the thing on and left to go do something else.

June 28th, 2018. Ravenhead.

"Man, this is going to take a while." Harry said with a sigh, looking at the pitiful few drops of liquid magic he'd distilled from his prisoners over the past day.

On the bright side, the power density was way higher than expected. So high, in fact, that Harry found it hard to look directly at the stuff because of how brightly it glowed to his Magesight. Oh, the possibilities…

July 5th, 2018. Ravenhead.

The clack of heels echoed strangely in the stone halls of Ravenhead as Fleur stomped her way towards Harry's laboratory. It was her turn for a one-on-one date with him and he had apparently forgotten in favor of his latest project. That stung her pride.

"Harry…" The veela growled as she found him.

"I'll be ready in five minutes." Harry replied hurriedly, already putting things away. He must have sensed her entering his tower and realised his blunder.

Fleur nodded firmly, a little mollified by his haste. He was lucky that she, Nymmie and Luna had started putting a fifteen minute allowance into any of their plans that called for Harry to be punctual. He was far too absent-minded sometimes.

Feeling a hint of curiousity in spite of her agitation at having any man be late to a date with her, she moved towards his workspace to see what he'd been doing that was so damn interesting.

One item in particular immediately drew her attention to the exclusion of all else, a small crystal phial containing a glowing liquid that sang a siren song to her instincts. She recognised it instantly, it was the liquid magic that Harry was making.

Fleur licked her lips, suddenly feeling desperately thirsty. Harry had told them about this stuff of course, but this was her first time actually seeing it.

The clink of the crystal stopper as she removed it seemed to echo loudly in her ears, but she paid it no mind as she raised the phial to her lips. Someone was shouting, but it was far away and unimportant. The only thing that mattered was drinking the pure magic contained within the tiny phial.

And then someone was there, their fist closing harshly over her hand and crushing her fingers. Her arm was yanked on harshly, pulling her into the man's shoulder and the other hand started prying the phial away from her.

Fleur shrieked in both pain and fury and fought back, recognising Harry and instinctively began to call on her fire to burn him. How dare he hurt her? How dare he try to steal from her? But the fire wouldn't come, blocked by his will, so she tried to push him away with all the strength her thin arms possessed.

She was already transforming by that point and her taloned fingers easily sank into the flesh of his opposing shoulder. His grunt of pain brought her a rush of satisfaction, but the feeling only lasted for a moment as he managed to wrest the phial out of her hand. Fury growing, she raked her now fully formed talons down his left arm with every intention of slicing him to ribbons and get the precious phial back.

Harry hissed in pain through clenched teeth and rammed his shoulder into her chest. The dress and heels she was wearing were perfect attire for an expensive date, but not so great for fighting in. The hit sent her sprawling painfully on the hard stone floor with the wind knocked out of her.

"FLEUR!"

The pain and the shout finally penetrated the thick fog of want and anger and Fleur blinked up at her lover.

"Harry?" She asked, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Her right hand hurt, as did her ribs and bottom, but that was quickly forgotten as she saw the shredded sleeve on his left arm, blood pouring down the limb. "You're hurt!"

"No shit!" He snapped, glaring at her suspiciously. "What the hell came over you?"

"I… don't know." She replied guiltily, recalling her attempts to kill him with a detached sort of horror. It felt almost like a dream.

And the worst part was that she still felt that gnawing want for the phial he was trying to keep out of her sight. She wanted it so desperately, that beneath the horrorified guilt of her attempt to kill the man she loved for it, there was also a festering resentment directed at him for keeping it away from her.

"I need to go." She said quickly and scrambled away without giving him a chance to reply.

Harry watched her go with a furrowed brow, but didn't try to stop her. Only once he felt her presence leave his tower did he relax and look for the crystal stopper, recapped the phial and put it away. It was fortunate that he'd managed to cap the mouth with his thumb so that none of the liquid magic spilled out.

Next he cast a few hurried healing spells at his sliced up arm and went to retrieve the Essence of Dittany that he always kept around. The wounds were fortunately not terribly deep and closed easily enough, though the skin was still raw and achy. They would leave scars without further attention from a proper healer, but Harry had bigger problems than vanity.

Fleur's reaction to just being in the presence of the liquid magic was deeply worrying. Measures would have to be taken to prevent any repeats, but he needed to check on her first.

He found her pacing in their bedroom. She'd taken off her shoes and and jewelry and was wringing her hands nervously, her face flashing through so many emotions that it was hard to identify a single one. Her aura was similarly disturbed and she hadn't even noticed him enter.

"Fleur." He said quietly, drawing a deer-in-the-headlights look from her that he would have found highly amusing in different circumstances.

"Harry." She returned with something that was probably supposed to be a smile but came off as more of a grimace.

"How are your fingers?" He asked softly, stepping forward to gently take hold of her right hand. He'd grabbed them rather harshly in his haste to keep her from drinking the liquid magic.

"Fine." She said, flexing them to prove it. "How is your arm?"

"Fine." He said with a small grin, rolling his shoulder to prove it.

Fleur took another step forward, pressing herself up against him. Harry noticed that she was trembling.

"I'm sorry." She whispered.

"It's alright." He replied and decided to conduct a little test. "But you aren't allowed in my laboratory anymore."

As he had half-expected, Fleur immediately reeled back and glared at him furiously.

"What?" She hissed. Her eyes were black.

"I should have known better than to let you get so close to pure magic." He went on implacably. "It won't happen again."

Fleur tore out of his embrace, growling and glaring. " You… !" She seemed too angry to articulate properly. That was bad.

"Do you have any idea what would happen to you if you'd succeeded in drinking it today?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow.

Fleur blinked and her eyes faded back into blue, outrage derailed by the question. "Well, no, but…"

"Neither do I." He spoke over her. "And I don't care to find out at your expense."

"I would be fine!" She insisted stubbornly, angrily.

Harry was generally quite happy to let the veela do as their instincts demanded. Most saw only their appearances, but to him their true beauty was beneath the skin, in their inhuman, magical nature. This was the first time that he found himself unwilling to indulge his lover's passions and appetites. She represented 25% of everything he genuinely cared about in this world and he didn't want to find out that drinking pure magic would cause a veela's brain to dribble out of her nose or something.

But Fleur was not thinking or listening, too busy wanting .

Harry was unfortunately not that great at dealing with unreasonable people that he couldn't kill or bully into submission and his patience was fraying rapidly.

"You are being selfish." He growled at her.

" I am being selfish?" She asked in angry disbelief. "You are the one refusing to share!"

"Because it's dangerous!" He snapped.

"I would be fine!" She yelled back, gesturing wildly with her arms. Her eyes were black again and she was starting to sprout feathers.

Harry was sorely tempted to slap some sense into her and he wasn't being metaphorical, he genuinely wanted to let fly a meaty smack right on her flawless cheek, the kind reserved for people that are being dumb enough to warrant physical violence as a corrective measure, like Fudge when he heard something that scared him.

Fortunately that was just a first impulse and Harry was more than familiar enough with the quirks of the veela species to come upon an alternative within moments.

He grabbed her wrists.

"Let go of me!" Fleur snarled, trying to wrench her hands away.

Harry ignored the demand. It was clear that talking her down wouldn't work, so that left only forcing her. He twisted her hands behind her back, ignoring her futile struggling against his greater strength, and transferred his grip to one hand. Now having a hand free, he used it to grab her hair, yank her head back and press a demanding kiss to her lips.

She briefly tried to fight, but soon began reciprocating. That was good. If Fleur was willing to let the struggle between them turn sexual then she'd probably be alright. Harry had not been looking forward to the dilemma he'd be presented with if it hadn't worked. Backing down at this point would definitely be perceived as a weakness by the obviously instinct-driven veela, thus making the original problem significantly worse and continuing would have been rape. Good luck choosing the lesser evil there.

He eased up his grip on her hair and released her hands, which impatiently began to fumble with his belt, but Fleur quickly decided that simply ripping his pants off with her still half-formed talons was a better idea. Harry gave the expensive dress that she'd been looking forward to wearing for their date the same treatment. His shirt and and both of their underwear swiftly joined the mess of tattered clothing on the floor. His shoes and socks were nearly blasted off his feet through the use of a spell that he'd created for the exact purpose of quickly removing said items in the event of spontaneus sex.

Now that they were both naked, Harry grabbed his lover by the thighs and lifted her up. Fleur cooperated eagerly and impaled herself on his erect member with an ecstatic moan before he even made it to the bed. The moan turned into a yell as they went horizontal, the momentum ramming him all the way into her. A little wiggling later and they were in the middle of the huge bed.

The Joining had become an instinctual part of their lovemaking by now, but this time it was different. Fleur's instincs were too close to the surface right now. She was still too combative and willful for it to be an expression of love. No, this time it was about dominance. He had to remind her who was in charge.

Figures that a serious lover's spat with a veela would be solved by who could fuck who the hardest.

Harry spent hours plowing Fleur, he went at her with more vigor than a dozen sailors that hadn't seen a woman in months and when his own strength started flagging, he chugged some of Marae's Nectar to get a boost.

There were two reasons for this. The first was based on the logic that if a good fucking would snap her out of whatever instinct driven madness getting so close to the liquid magic had put her in, it was best to fuck her as much as possible to make certain. The second was the simple fear that if it didn't work and she still had enough strength to do anything except fall asleep at the end of it, she was going to use the opportunity to make his life very difficult via the female side of Sex Magic if he did not surrender the liquid magic.

Dora and Luna had walked in on this situation and, after making a few jokes about their clearly aborted date, joined in.

They had been confused by Harry's insistence that they focus their full attention on Fleur, but sensed that there was more to it than first appeared and went along with it.

Only after their veela lover fell unconscious mid-fuck did he explain himself and got their full support.

That had been some time ago. Dora and Luna had agreed to clean Fleur up and remove any sperm she might be able to use later if the madness persisted while he barred the way to Ravenhead.

The last spell was cast on the massive stone door and the key removed from the lock. Since the enchantments had been cast while the key was inside the lock, the Law of Relevance would prevent the door from being altered or opened in any way except by use of that specific key and that specific key would be hidden inside a small Fidelius, with Dora as the Secret Keeper.

He didn't really want to do this, allowing the girls full access to everything had made things wonderfully simple, but none of them were willing to take the chance that Fleur would be overcome by temptation.

Fleur woke up the next morning at sunrise, as always, and smiled at the soreness of her body. Last night had been amazing.

That thought also brought back the incident with the liquid magic and her smile faded. The irrational, primal need to have it was muted now, but not gone. This also brought back the guilt.

I tried to kill Harry. There was no getting around it. Lost in a covetous rage, she'd attacked her lover with lethal intent simply because he wouldn't let her have what she wanted. It had seemed so very important and reasonable then. She just had to have the phial of liquid magic, it had felt as if everything depended on it. Only now that it was over did she see the madness of it. The realisation made her want to hide her head under the pillow in shame. She couldn't even bring herself to get her usual morning snack from Harry.

Of course, she wasn't the only one to wake up with the dawn.

"Fleur?" Harry asked softly.

Fleur didn't reply, merely hiding her face even further.

"It's true what they say." Harry continued with a rather overdone tone of lamentation. "You don't know what you've got until it's gone. How am I supposed to keep going without your morning blowjobs? Alas, woe is me!"

In spite of herself, Fleur felt a smile creeping on her face at his theatrics and she peeked up at his face.

Harry grinned back at her. "There you are. Morning, beautiful."

Fleur gave him another smile before burying her face in his chest and clinging to him like a limpet.

"I'm sorry!" She sobbed, suddenly overcome with emotion.

"It's alright." Harry soothed. "So you went a little crazy, big deal. Could have happened to anyone. I like my women feisty anyway."

"But I nearly killed you!" Fleur wailed.

"Oi, I like to think that I'm a bit harder to get rid of than that." Harry protested jokingly.

Fleur just continued to cry against him and Harry eventually decided to hold her and make comforting noises rather than attempt talking the emotional female out of her funk.

This inevitably woke up the other two occupants of the bed.

Luna heard Fleur crying and moved to spoon the taller blonde before she was even fully awake.

Tonks, on the other hand, was the least morning inclined of the foursome and far more bleary.

"Wha'gon'on?" She articulated unintelligibly around a massive yawn.

Luna was fortunately fluent in mumblespeak and was able to discern her meaning. "Fleur is feeling bad about what happened yesterday."

"Hmm?" Tonks returned uncomprehendingly, faculties still offline.

"Just join the cuddle." Luna directed patiently.

"Kay." The metamorphmagus mumbled and rolled over to spoon Luna, reaching over her to grab hold of one of Fleur's breasts.

Being squished in between her lovers helped Fleur calm down and her sobs eventually trailed off into quiet sniffles.

"That's better." Harry sighed theatrically. "You know how I am about crying women."

That got him a watery laugh from the veela.

"Lemme guess, you were more comfortable with her trying to kill you?" Tonks piped up sarcastically, getting in on the act now that she'd had enough time to wake up a bit.

"Much." Harry nodded firmly. "I even got a new set of cool scars out of that. The only thing I got from the crying was snot on my chest."

"Jerk." Fleur huffed tremulously. The reminder of what she'd tried to do yesterday sent another twinge of guilt through her, but the familiar banter went a long way to keeping her calm.

"Don't mind him, Fleur." Luna said wisely. "Harry's just cranky because you didn't suck on his penis as soon as you woke up."

"I'll have you know that my penis is a very high maintenance piece of equipment." Harry protested pompously.

"I wouldn't want to get snot on it in that case." Fleur retorted sweetly.

Tonks snickered.

"Touché." Harry conceded wryly.

They lapsed into a comfortable silence after that. Tonks started drifting off back to sleep, Harry's morning wood was fully present and poking Fleur in the stomach, which awoke the veela's usual morning cravings.

Then Luna started shifting awkwardly, irritating both the horny Fleur and the sleepy Tonks on either side of her.

"What's with you?" Tonks asked irritably as she was brought out of her drowsiness.

"I need to pee." Luna replied plaintively.

The other three all sighed in unison.

"Hot tub?" Harry suggested, getting a chorus of agreements. It wasn't often that all four of them woke up together after all.

July 31st, 2018. Spellhaven.

Harry doubted he would ever truly like parties or social gatherings of any sort, but he had to admit that this was… not terrible.

Fleur had kept her word and made sure that it didn't get too wild. It was just her and Dora's families, along with a few friends such as Septima, Penny, Bryanna and Tiana. Etal had also showed up again and was currently being cooed over by Fleur's cousins, the silly hedonist. Everyone seemed to be having a good time and Harry himself had been allowed to fade into the background within the first hour, and if that fading into the background was helped along by a little magic then none of his girls commented on it.

They knew he preferred to slip into the role of a passive observer rather than an active participant in this kind of thing. This was really the only way he could enjoy himself at parties given his temperament and introverted inclinations. Just sit back and let the general hum of everyone else's enjoyment fill his subconscious.

Much like the vegetation in the nearby forest formed a singular, diffuse soul represented by Marae, crowds of people had one as well. The ontological manifestation of 'mob mentality' if you will. It was quite diverting, interesting and relaxing for Harry to simply mute his own voice and listen to the ebb and flow of everyone else's.

It was far more relaxed and pleasant than the stiff, formal balls he'd had to endure in the past. If this was what it would be like once the mess with Voldemort was over, he might even learn to enjoy it. Somewhat. In small doses.

Speaking of Voldemort, Harry had become increasingly more certain that he was up to something big and had a nasty feeling that it would happen either this night or the next. The only proof he had of this was Voldemort's penchant for theatrics and his sudden inability to find any more Death Eaters skulking around Europe, which he was well aware was not actual 'proof', but he was on edge nonetheless.

Still, there was nothing to be done about it that hadn't already been done. The Raven Host was warned to be ready in case they needed to spring into action. Their new security chief, Jeremy Kincaid, had also been told and would have made Moody proud with his vigilance over the past month. More personally, Harry and the girls weren't going to be fooling around for half the night. In fact, they weren't going to be fooling around at all, much to Fleur's vocal displeasure.

Harry's thoughts were interrupted by a sinister evil.

"Haw-aw!" Arielle, the daughter he'd sired on Fleur's grandmother and who everyone in the know politely pretended wasn't his for various reasons ranging from safety to convenience, babbled loudly, butchering his name beyond recovery. She toddled over to him in the typical uncoordinated walk of very young children, nearly falling twice but still smiling a big, mostly toothless smile the whole time.

Alright, so it wasn't exactly a sinister evil, objectively speaking. Harry was just being sarcastic in his thoughts because he couldn't muster together the ability to do 'baby talk'.

Aurélie was of course right behind her newest daughter and beaming at him happily. Harry wasn't sure if she'd stopped smiling since the birth.

"Hello." Harry said awkwardly. He still hadn't gotten the hang of interacting with babies.

He briefly lamented that his Notice-Me-Not spell had been so weak, just enough to divert people's attention away from him, but not enough for them to forget that he was here. The girls wouldn't have let him get away with using anything that strong, but this one was too weak to reliably keep people away.

Arielle did not notice his awkwardness at all of course and simply lifted her arms.

"Up!" She demanded as imperiously as an eleven-month-old baby could.

Of course she wanted to be picked up. Fleur and Luna and Dora and actually pretty much fucking everyone took sadistic glee in plopping the little girl into his arms at every opportunity. They claimed that he looked adorable with a baby in his arms, but Harry knew the truth. They were amused by his suffering.

Seeing Fleur, Dora and even Aurélie smirking at him, Harry decided to rebel against the demands of the tiny tyrant and levitated her into the air with magic instead of picking her up with his arms.

As he had hoped, the little veela instantly forgot about her desire to be cuddled and shrieked with laughter as she slowly circled in the air.

"Harry." Aurélie said reproachfully, although it was ruined by her obvious amusement.

"She didn't specify what form of 'up' she wanted." Harry insisted, quite pleased with his cleverness.

But the senior veela was determined to see him squirm and only let her daughter float for a minute or so before grabbing her out of the air and promptly depositing her in his arms.

Arielle looked at him as if he was the most fascinating thing ever .

"Hi." Harry greeted again, feeling supremely awkward.

The miniature veela made happy noises at having his attention.

How the fuck do people handle babies? Harry despaired. Arielle was cute and he would even admit to a certain fondness for her, but he was excruciatingly aware of how little actual emotional connection he felt with her.

Some of that could certainly be atributted to his fairly minor role in her life, but it made him wonder if it would be like this even with any children he had with Fleur, Dora and Luna. It made him dread the day that they started getting that 'give me babies' look in their eye, because he didn't feel like parent material.

But the situation was what it was. The girls had already made it clear that there would be babies eventually and he was far too attached to them now to consider returning to bachelorhood. Flat out refusing to procreate wasn't really an option either. Not only would it upset them, it very well might be pointless as well. Fleur was willful enough to stop using birth control and not tell him until it was too late. Luna was harder to predict but she had a way of getting what she wanted. Dora was really the only one that might respect his wishes… but only if the other two weren't telling her to go for it and that he'd forgive them. Which he would, despite his misgivings.

There was nothing he could learn, no skill he could master that would help him in this. He would just have to hope for the best like some kind of simple-minded optimist.

At least any kids they had would have three mothers, so the situation wouldn't be disastrous even if he did prove to be a bad parent.

But they didn't seem willing to come to his rescue right now, which meant he had to figure out what to do with Arielle on his own. This uncomfortable situation was made even more uncomfortable by the fact that almost everyone around them was now throwing glances and smiles their way. Some of them were even commenting on how cute it was, the bastards.

He resisted the urge to snarl at them to mind their own business. Lashing out due to embarrassment was beneath him.

"Is she that scary?" Aurélie asked mirthfully.

Harry shot her a dirty look. "I just don't know what to do."

"You're doing fine." The senior veela assured gently. "All she wanted was to visit her favorite wizard."

"Right." Harry muttered, returning his gaze to the giggling creature in his arms.

"You want to fly again?" He asked hopefully. Anything was better than standing there like a stump and feeling completely out of his depth.

"Fly!" Arielle cheered, waving her tiny fists around.

"Alright, let's fly." Harry said in relief and started floating the baby veela around again, much to her enjoyment.

"Good job, Harry. One day you will stop being so tense around young children, hopefully." Aurélie patted him on the arm about fifteen minutes later.

"That sure would be nice." Harry replied sardonically, lowering Arielle back into her arms. The mini veela had tired herself out shouting and flailing through the air.

Aurélie's face developed a devious little smirk.

"What is that expression for?" He asked suspiciously.

"Oh, nothing." She replied in a casual way that clearly implied that it was definitely not nothing. "Well, Arielle and I are going to get something to eat now, I think. Say goodbye to Harry, little one."

The baby veela obediently babbled out something that sounded vaguely like a goodbye and they left, leaving a suddenly tired Harry behind.

He suspected that his future was going to involve uncomfortably large numbers of children.

"You're very good with children." Came the absurd statement from behind, as if to mock his woe.

Harry nearly scoffed. He was terrible with children. It was only his ability to read auras and use distractions like that levitation trick that kept him treading water in his interactions with them.

He turned towards the speaker, who happened to be Fleur's little sister, and gave her a sarcastic grin. "I'm just faking it."

"Then you're very good at faking it." Gabrielle replied with her best attempt at an inviting smile as she sat down next to him, her adolescent Allure tickling at his own magic. "You certainly had me fooled."

Harry wanted to sigh. The pre-teen veela was trying so hard and someone had obviously helped her pick out an outfit that showcased her still-developing assets to maximum effect without seeming in poor taste, but it really just made him feel sorry for her and the effort she was wasting.

It wasn't that he was squeamish about her age. No, even aside from the fact that Gabrielle was a veela and played by different rules, Harry had little regard for what others considered to be an appropriate age to start exploring one's sexuality. It might be his own early start on that talking, but he felt that if someone wanted to rush into that kind of thing then they should be free to do so. It would either turn out alright or it wouldn't, but it would be a valuable life experience either way.

It never occured to him to factor in how parents or guardians would feel about it. Not having experienced much in the way of parenting himself, he didn't see what business parents had to dictate their children's lives and that included when they wanted to become sexually active.

Of course, that wasn't an issue with Gabrielle. The issue with her wanting to slip into his bed was that, veela or not, girls that young just didn't do anything for him. Well, not enough at any rate.

She was a very pretty twelve-year-old, but she was still a twelve-year-old. It wouldn't do either of them any favors if he agreed to bed her out of indulgence.

Luna had been gentle and understanding when it became clear that he didn't have the same level of physical attraction for her as he did for Fleur and Dora. She knew that he favored older women, that she'd rushed into things and that it would get better over time, and it had, but nobody was as understanding as Luna. Gabrielle would just be hurt and her confidence damaged if he gave her what she wanted right now, which would in turn upset Fleur.

"I do pride myself on my ability to fake things." Harry drolled. Not enough to risk fucking her though.

Gabrielle giggled. It was a cute, charming sound, but didn't stir his lust like he suspected it was designed to do.

The pubescent veela continued her attempts to seduce him for a good thirty minutes, employing quite a few tricks such as giggling, making various little sighs, pouting, tossing her hair, stretching, leaning into him to give him peeks down her shirt and a few others.

Harry figured that Gabrielle would be offended if she knew that he was clinically dissecting her technique and comparing it to the more refined one of her older sister and the even more polished version employed by their grandmother. It was really quite fascinating, kind of like watching the humble beginnings of a master swordsman or a clumsy young lioness on her first hunt.

Gabrielle eventually moved off, giving him another inviting smile and putting unnecesary amounts of sway into her hips as she walked away.

Harry was about to sigh in relief when he sensed a genuine sinister evil approaching.

"My, my, I was looking at you just now and all I could see was a man drowning in honey." Adrastia chuckled as she sat down in the spot that Gabrielle had just vacated, her rich alto voice as low and mysterious as ever.

Have people just been waiting to pounce on me one after another? Harry wondered with some consternation.

"That particular honey is a bit young for my tastes." He replied, keeping his tone light rather than belligerent as had been his first impulse. They were trying to make friends or at least firm allies with her after all.

He hadn't been sure how inviting Adrastia over for a purely social event would turn out, but the Black Widow had, not particularly surprisingly, hit the ground running as the saying went.

She'd showed up in a flattering white sundress that contrasted beautifully with her dark skin, the most casual clothing he'd ever seen her in, and greeted both him and the girls with hugs and kisses as if they were the very best of friends and her being invited was completely normal and expected before going to mingle with everyone else. She was so smooth about it that he could see even Andromeda, Penny, Narcissa and Septima second-guessing their prior knowledge about her. Scary woman.

Harry himself had kept an eye on her presence as she moved around. If the regular people felt like grass, then she was definitely the snake in it.

To be fair, he and the girls also had presences that didn't easily meld into the group, being simply too strong, but Adrastia was an altogether more subtle sort of predator.

"I could tell." She chuckled some more and looked at him with a sly smile. "It's the more mature ones that tickle your fancy, isn't it? Is that why I was invited, Harry? Are you planning to have your way with me?"

"Not at all." He countered blandly. "My intentions towards you are purely honorable, I assure you."

"A pity." She pouted. "What are these honorable intentions of yours then?

"For this party they are to show our appreciation of the help you've provided us. For the future… well, that's a secret that you'll only be told if we decide that you can be trusted not to betray us."

"Now you are just being cruel, teasing me so." Adrastia gave him a playful look of reproach, bashfully pressing her arms together and coincidentally also giving him quite a view down her cleavage. "You know I can't resist a secret. Won't you give me at least a little hint?"

Harry looked around as if checking for listeners and then beckoned her closer.

Adrastia leaned in, dark eyes glittering with anticipation.

And Harry whispered into her ear. "No."

"For a moment I forgot who I was dealing with." Adrastia huffed after blinking at him in surprise, trying not to let her amusement show. "You're usually a lot more ornery than this."

"Being ornery hasn't chased you off so far, so there isn't any point in keeping it up."

"It didn't work because I knew that, deep down, you actually liked me."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night, Adrastia."

"I can think of a few things you could do for me that would help me sleep at night, Ha~rry."

"I am a fair hand at potion brewing. It's not my best skill by any stretch, but I'm good enough to make a sleeping draught or two."

"I was thinking something a little more… physical."

"Ah, you're talking about a massage? I like to think I'm pretty good at those too, but my massages aren't really designed to put women to sleep."

"What are they designed to do then?"

"Why, to keep them awake of course. Sometimes all night long."

"I would love to experience a massage like that. I've never had someone work me over all night long."

"I thought you wanted to sleep?"

"What woman could sleep at the thought of you pawing at her all night?"

"Nice phrasing." He snorted.

"Thank you, I do my best."

They lapsed into silence and Harry wondered if this was how people made friends. Thinking back on his life, Penny was really the only person he hadn't either alienated or slept with and their relationship had drifted mostly into professionalism because they just didn't walk in the same worlds even though she worked for him.

Was it strange that he was more comfortable talking to an unrepentant serial killer that had once targeted him and Sirius than he was to less monstrous people? Adrastia was dangerous and he felt like he always had to be on guard with her, but that was somehow better than struggling to find something to respect in a person.

"We need wine." Adrastia suddenly said.

"Feel free to get some for yourself, but I need to stay sober as a rock for at least the next week." Harry said, shaking his head.

"Why?" She asked curiously. "Birthdays are perfect times to drink."

Harry brielfy considered lying, but eventually decided to share his suspicion that Voldemort was more likely to make some big play around his birthday than he normally would be. It wasn't as if that bit of information could really do him any harm.

"I see." Adrastia said thoughtfully. "Do you think he would attack you here?"

"No." Harry denied. Voldemort hadn't mounted a direct attack on either Hogwarts or the Ministry during the last war, so he was unlikely to attack Spellhaven directly either. "He's more of a hit-and-run kind of guy, letting fear do most of the work for him."

"Will you share the big secret you were tempting me with earlier if I were to find something out?" Her tone might be teasing, but Harry heard genuine curiousity and even a certain hunger in it. Adrastia hadn't been kidding when she said that she couldn't resist a secret.

"It's a bit late for your methods to find anything out if Voldemort is planning anything around my birthday." He pointed out.

"And what about later on?"

"I would certainly be more inclined to, but like I said, we'd really need to trust you first."

"Trust, hmm? And how am I to gain your trust?"

"Give me your blood." Harry quipped.

Adrastia looked at him in shock for a moment before beginning to chuckle, although it rang false to his ears. She wasn't amused, she was angry.

"Only you, Harry." She said, still chuckling. "Only you would be so brazen as to ask for such a thing. Blood feuds have been started and terrible oaths sworn for lesser insults."

"You asked." Harry shrugged. She was right though. Even Voldemort had never asked such a thing from his followers as far as he knew. He had more insidious means of keeping control of them, but they were less absolute.

Adrastia dropped the playful persona and peered at him with a cool calculation that made Harry instinctively close off his mind even though there was no Legilimency probe.

"So you could not trust me unless you held power over me?" She asked, her tone now much colder.

"Some things are too dangerous to be done without insurance."

"Too dangerous to even say what I would be trading my freedom for?"

"If I told you and you refused, I'd have no choice but to kill you and I'm sure that would end messily."

A small smirk cracked Adrastia's cold expression. "It would indeed."

They lapsed into silence again. Harry was content to enjoy it while Adrastia considered every angle.

"Your young honey is coming back." Adrastia observed after a couple of minutes.

"Huh?" Harry looked to see that Gabrielle was indeed coming back and she was carrying a glass of something with a smile.

"So she is." He sighed. She was trying so hard. Was this how women felt when they gave guys a pity fuck? If it was, then Harry didn't grasp how anyone could look at themselves in the mirror after receiving it. He couldn't possibly take away Gabrielle's pride like that, but it was going to be an awkward few years before she was old enough to succeed in seducing him.

"I will leave you to it." Adrastia said, getting up.

"Alright, I'll see you around then." Harry nodded.

"Perhaps." She replied noncommittally and he knew that she would be giving what they discussed a lot of thought.

August 1st, 2018, very early in the morning. The waters around Spellhaven.

Lord Voldemort looked around himself with a sense of satisfaction, seeing the hundreds of Death Eater garbed wizards and witches ready to do his bidding.

It had been a difficult year. Rookwood had suggested that Harry Potter's quetzalcoatl might be the one tracking them, based on some legends of the creature that the former Unspeakable had researched. The two of them had needed to practically invent a whole new set of secrecy spells to counter that little problem. Fortunately he had some experience with that, seeing as Dumbledore had a phoenix. Not the same, but similar enough.

Furthermore it had taken a great deal of patience, careful planning, restraint and gathering of resources to prepare this assault on Harry Potter's domain, as well as keep it secret, but it was necessary. It was obvious to the Dark Lord that his ambitions would never be realised while his prophesied nemesis yet lived.

Deep down, so deep that he was barely aware of it himself, he was also very afraid. Harry Potter was much stronger than Tom Riddle had been at the same age and Voldemort was quietly terrified of letting him get any stronger. He had to kill him before that happened. That had been the whole point of trying to do it when he was a baby, but that had backfired spectacularly.

"Everything is ready, Master." Bellatrix said eagerly, her mad eyes shining brightly. "Should we attack?"

Voldemort permitted himself a small smile. Keeping Bellatrix on a short leash for the past year had been trying, but there was no faulting her enthusiasm or devotion.

"Not yet, Bella. Let the dementors go first."

The order was given and the wraiths flew forward like a dark cloud. Voldemort and his minions followed a ways behind.

They were still some distance away when they saw a large dome of magic go up around the town of Spellhaven.

"Slamming the door in our face? How rude." He said softly, but his magic carried the words to everyone. "Let's go knock it down, shall we?"

"Yes, Master!" Bella said gleefully, all set to race off and start pummeling the ward.

"Not you, Bella." Voldemort said warningly. "You have a special mission, remember?"

"Of course, Master." The insane witch said contritely. "I apologise, my eagerness to do your will got the better of me."

Voldemort resisted the urge to sigh irritably at her attention span, or lack thereof. Bellatrix made for a decent team leader and marvelous attack dog, but she had a bad habit of getting carried away. At least she was loyal. And amusing.

Around them, hundreds of others streamed forward to batter down the ward.

A distinctive alarm chime sounded throughout the cháteau, causing four sets of eyes to snap open.

Harry and the girls had been in a deep state of meditation, substituting it for sleep so that they could stay alert in case they needed to act quickly.

The chime was unexpected however. It meant that something had triggered the perimeter ward around the island, a lot of somethings given the volume and frequency of the chime.

" What is it, what is going on? " Etal hissed, both curious and annoyed. Unlike them, he had actually been asleep and didn't appreciate being woken up.

Harry stood and walked to the balcony, peering out into the night. The Full Moon had been less than a week ago, so it was still fairly bright, but he couldn't see anything. He didn't need to though, only one thing in this world had that distinctive feeling to it.

"There's a chill in the air, a familiar one." He said grimly, speaking in English to answer both the quetzalcoatl and the girls. His expression quickly turned into a scowl as he remembered telling Adrastia less than twelve hours ago that Voldemort wouldn't mount a direct attack on Spellhaven. He'd been wrong apparently. "We have dementors incoming, gear up."

They had been meditating fully dressed in the expectation of trouble, so it took only moments to throw on their basilisk hide coats.

" Etal, could you go take a look at how many enemies there are? " He hissed. The quetzalcoatl's peculiar wind-based nature would let him slip through the wards as easily as a phoenix flamed through them.

Etal hissed back a confirmation and zipped outside.

The four of them didn't wait for his return and immediately started making their way downstairs. They'd barely made it out of the room when Harry sensed the Broom Disruption Field and the outermost war ward going up. He was glad once again that the girls had convinced him to hire Kincaid. The American former Auror was competent and knew when to wait for orders and when to act on his own initiative.

It wouldn't do any good against the dementors, who could only be blocked by physical barriers, but it would allow them to deal with the soul-devourers without interference.

"You think it will be that bad?" Fleur asked a little later, noticing that they were heading towards the portal mirror that connected to another just like it in Potter Manor, back in Britain. The original idea of evacuating people to Ravenhead had been scrapped ages ago.

"We have to assume that he's throwing everything he has at us if he's come here." Dora answered.

Harry paid the brief conversation no mind as he opened up the curtains that hid the portal mirror. It was a huge and ugly thing, a solid five meters wide, that had both Fleur and Narcissa complaining about aesthetics. They had complained even more when he had insisted on remodeling the front door and entrance hall to be just as massive, but both he and Dora had put their foot down on that one. If they were going to have the portal inside the cháteau, then narrow hallways leading to it were a big no-no.

Speaking of Narcissa, the blonde witch was standing on top of a stairway in her silk night robe and looking more than a little alarmed.

"What's going on?" She asked.

"We're under attack, get dressed." Harry replied curtly. It would be her job to take charge on the other side and keep people from doing anything too stupid.

Narcissa hurried to obey.

By the time that the four of them made it out the front door, the temperature had started dropping noticeably and the beginning of a dark cloud was already forming over the island as the dementors' combined aura did its work on the weather. There was a reason that Azkaban only had two seasons, those being this winter and next winter.

The soul-devourers were fortunately not terribly fast even though they could fly and had not yet reached the residential area, but they were closing in.

Etal zipped back at that point, halting his momentum in mid-air in ways that should be physically impossible.

" How many? " Harry asked.

" Hundreds, all flying on brooms. The strong snake smelling/tasting wizard is also here. " Etal replied shortly.

"Crap." Harry muttered. How the fuck had Voldemort duped so many people into joining up with him in just one year? The outer ward wouldn't hold up for long against that level of assault. Voldemort wouldn't even have to cast a Spellshear at it, meaning that he wouldn't need to expend any of his own strength before their inevitable showdown.

As if to mock his thoughts, the ward began to flare with spell impacts, just a few at first but more and more with every moment until there were hundreds of them.

He cast a variant of the Sonorous Charm on himself, one that was designed to project his voice all over the island instead of just increasing volume.

" Everyone wake up! " He said normally, but his voice boomed loudly and seemingly came from everywhere. " This is Harry Potter speaking. The island is under attack by hostile forces. Non-combatants are to evacuate immediately, take only what you need with you. Combatants are to escort them and keep order. Anyone capable of casting a Patronus should do so immediately. " He repeated his message, just in case anyone had been too out of it by the abrupt wake up call to understand it properly the first time.

The girls had by now cast their own Patroni, sending out a trio of glowing ravens. The forms that their Patroni took was a rather unsubtle indicator of the close relationship between them.

"We should split up for now." Dora said assertively, already floating in the air. "I'll go that way." She said, pointing southwards.

Fleur and Luna voiced their agreement and also rose into the air.

" Please go with Luna and watch out for her. " Harry asked of his scaly friend.

" Very well. " Etal agreed easily. He was fond of Luna as well.

"Be careful." Harry said to them all before they flew off and then focused on making his own Patronus. Even all this time after learning it, that spell remained one of the more problematic ones in his repertoire for the simple reason that it required more than knowledge, skill and willpower from the caster. His disposition was naturally dour and poorly suited for it.

Still, it was definitely easier to cast now than it had once been. He had so much more tethering him to this world now than he did when he first learned it, so much more that he wanted to protect. He focused on the love he felt for his girls, their shared future that he would not allow to be taken away, the home they had built with their own hands that was now under threat.

The Patronus animal was usually real-sized, but Harry made his the size of a skyscrapper. It didn't make it any more powerful, but that wasn't the point. Seeing the giant spectral guardian would give people something to move towards.

And it worked. People were now clearly converging towards a single location and the giant raven Patronus flew circles around the area, scattering any dementors it encountered.

Harry was once again grateful that he hadn't been more stubborn about the island's security. Everyone was moving quick and with as much organisation as could be expected in this situation. Kincaid had insisted on running a few evacuation drills after being put in charge of Spellhaven's defences, something that Harry knew he would have never gotten around to doing. The man could be heard bellowing orders in the distance even now.

Still, not all was well. Even with more than twenty Patroni in the air, it wasn't enough to cover everyone because they were too spread out and aside from those cast by the four of them, none of them were really strong enough to hold back so many dementors. Harry clearly saw them swarm over several groups of people that weren't sufficiently protected and felt their voices go silent. Then things went further sideways.

The ward finally collapsed under the assault, sending out a sort of spiritual shockwave that everyone immediately perceived as a loss of protection. Half a dozen Patroni immediately winked out of existence in response.

Moments later, all of the island's veela and their assorted lovers rushed out of the commune in a single large group. The veela alone numbered nearly a hundred at this point and that much Light attuned magic was completely irresistible to the dementors.

"Shite." Harry grunted to himself and started flying in that direction as well, his huge raven Patronus doing the same. He saw that several among their number were casting Patroni or at least Patronus mist, but they were far too weak to fend off that many dementors.

Halfway there, he felt the next ward going up, once more preventing the Death Eaters from adding to the chaos.

It was a strange sort of blessing that the veela group had young children and pregnant women among their number. They refused to leave anyone behind and moved only as fast as the slowest among them, which kept them huddled close together. Thanks to that, Harry was able to command his raven Patronus to fold its glowing wings around all of them.

Harry had long known that the dementors were only partially physical, as indicated by the fact that you needed magic to even see them. It had been a long time since he had last encountered one of them and his insight into had grown a great deal since then. Now that he was this close to them, his sight breached the darkness of their being and perceived the truth within.

Desensitised to the draining aura of despair they exuded by years of dabbling with the Dark, he strode towards the nearest dementor fearlessly and plunged his hand into its chest.

There were no words to describe the sensation that engulfed his hand. It was like reaching outside of the world. The cold was familiar though. It was the same cold that claimed a place in his own soul, the endless, greedy chill of the Void. His magic began turning Dark due to the direct exposure and his body, linked directly to his magic due to his runes, began to grow cold.

And in the darkness, Harry's grip closed around something that had neither mass nor form, but was undeniably there .

The dementor had once been a wizard, one who had delved too deep into Dark and been lost to it, now he was reduced to an empty husk, a conduit for the Void to sate its hunger. It retained a faded echo of its humanity, but had no true will of its own. Hunger was all it knew and would follow anyone that offered to sate it or bow to the threats of anyone that could deny it.

Harry needed to do neither. Why should he, when he held in his hand the lynchpin of the dementor's existence? The nebulous state of limbo that it existed in might have made the dementor invulnerable to any kind of conventional physical or magical attack - you couldn't close a wound in the world by attacking it after all - but it also left what remained of its original soul completely exposed.

"Hollow vessel in the form of man." He intoned with the finality of a death knell. "Heed the will of your new master."

The dementor did not resist the enslavement. It couldn't have even if it had the will required to do so, not with Harry reaching inside it.

The other dementors froze for a moment and then began to flee. While not truly intelligent and not really valuing their freedom, they retained an instinctual understanding that losing it would mean being unable to sate their endless hunger without permission.

Harry wasn't content to just let them go however. He pulled his arm out of the dementor he'd just taken control of and flew towards the next and then the one after that. He managed to get six of them before they were too scattered to be worth the bother.

The six dementors he'd enslaved waited placidly for instructions.

"Go eat the people attacking the wards. Touch no other." He ordered.

The dementors obeyed instantly. Their higher reasoning might not be anything to write home about and one wizard looked the same as another to them, but they did have an uncanny ability to comprehend the meaning behind words in a similar manner to the way Marae and Etal did. They knew exactly who they had been ordered to eat.

"Harry?"

He turned at the amazed inquiry, finding himself face-to-face with a wide-eyed Aurélie. She was holding her crying daughter and looking awed, disbelieving and even slightly afraid.

Harry felt an irrational urge to kill her, but he shook it off. He was well familiar with what over-exposure to Dark did to him by now.

"You should go." He said simply, taking deep breaths and trying to bring himself back into balance.

Aurélie's face took on a stubborn cast that reminded him a great deal of Fleur and he knew that she was about to do the exact opposite of what he'd suggested.

Sure enough, she handed the wailing Arielle over to Fleur's mother and drew her wand.

"You think I will let you stand alone?" She asked challengingly. "This is our home too."

This spurred another twenty or so veela, nearly a quarter of their total population on Spellhaven, and perhaps fifteen of their human lovers to step forward, either out of shame or pride. Some of them were part of Spellhaven's militia, but not all. He hoped that the ones who weren't had at least some skill with combat magic or else they would be more of a hindrance than a help. Still, they weren't really in a position to turn anyone down.

Something had to be made clear though.

"Alright, but don't hesitate. Fight to kill." The enemy was too numerous for pussyfooting.

"Of course." Aurélie looked at him as if he'd just stated something blindingly obvious.

Fleur, Dora, Luna and Etal flew back in at that point.

"You scared away the dementors, Harry." Luna said over the rapid French conversation Fleur was having with her family.

"Typical." Dora snorted, which made Harry smirk. "Now what are we going to do? That ward won't last much longer and we're seriously outnumbered."

Harry frowned in thought. Things were much improved now that the dementors weren't causing a panic anymore, but the situation was indeed still dire. There were still the sphinxes to consider, but the lion hybrids were anything but stupid. They wouldn't reveal themselves to an airborne enemy that they could do nothing against.

"We need to thin out their numbers and ground them." He determined.

"Any ideas on how we're gonna do that?"

Harry glanced at the dark clouds brewing above them. "One or two…"

Voldemort had been a bit surprised when his minions ran into a Broom Disruption Field. Nobody used that ward anymore, on account of it being nearly useless. The enchantments on brooms were generally too solid to be messed with passively.

Although he had to admit, as he saw several of them fall into the dark waters below, that it was still good against very poor fliers or those with old and beaten up brooms. The others were only slightly slowed and had a little more trouble maneuvering, but that was all.

As the ward went down, Voldemort silently chided his enemy for making it so big. Harry Potter had tried to protect everything and would now be paying for it.

Seeing the second one go up mere seconds after the first fell made him frown. Perhaps his nemesis was more sensible than he'd thought, although that kind of ward layering was very expensive.

Seeing the dementors flee so quickly elicited another frown. Seeing a handful actually come out and begin attacking his followers made him blink in surprise. That was unusual behavior for dementors. If they were driven off they normally just left the area. How had Potter convinced them to switch allegiance in the middle of a battle?

Time enough to ponder that later, right now he had to do something about the fact that they were attacking his forces.

Voldemort couldn't conjure up a Patronus to save his life. He'd never even tried to learn the spell and simple fear of death wasn't enough to cast it anyway, which was the only emotion he had that was even close to suitable for powering it. Having a fractured soul didn't help either.

But there were other ways of handling dementors.

With a twirl of his wand, the Dark Lord bound the six of them in heavy conjured chains, weighed down by an even heavier anchor. Conjuration wasn't his favored branch of magic by a long shot, but he was still better at it than almost anyone.

The dementors sank into the sea the same as anything weighed down by over half a ton of metal. Their draining aura would eventually free them, but not in time for it to matter.

For the next couple of minutes, Voldemort watched his servants batter down the second ward. He could have shattered it easily himself of course, but he enjoyed the thought of Harry Potter cowering under it as it was slowly overwhelmed.

He smiled when it finally went down. Then he scowled as another, smaller and stronger, went up. This was starting to get irritating.

"Can I go now, Master?" Bellatrix asked like an impatient child.

"Yes, now you can go." Voldemort said magnanimously. "And don't forget to burn everything on the way."

"Thank you, Master!" Bella shouted joyously as she sped forward, her high-end broom and significant skill with it allowing her to overcome the Broom Disruption Field easily. Nearly a hundred others followed behind her.

Had Voldemort been slighly more human, he may have felt the urge to roll his eyes. As it was, he just ordered several other teams to advance.

Above them, the dark clouds began to flash with discharges of lightning.

"That's the last one we can sacrifice without a fight." Dora said grimly when the second ward went down. If the third one fell now, they couldn't raise the fourth without cutting off a lot of people from their escape route.

"I know." Harry replied, but did not move or look at her. His focus was entirely on his spellwork.

Harry had been fascinated by lightning from a very young age, when he had seen the flashes of light in the clouds and the boom of thunder as it shook the house at #4 Privet Drive. That fascination was at least partially fuelled by how his obese cousin bawled fearfully in the arms of his mother and how the even more obese Vernon Dursley rushed about the house, frantically unplugging everything. Seeing his abusers so cowed by a force of nature had appealed greatly to the resentful child he'd been at the time and made him look upon storms fondly ever since, the more violent the better.

When he'd learned about his magic, one of the very first things he wanted to do was find a way to control lightning. That proved to be a lot more difficult than he had imagined, but Harry didn't care. It was lightning, it was worth the effort.

It was an ambition that had taken a bit of a backseat over the years, but it was never forgotten. Even when he grew out of the phase where flashy displays were considered the end all and be all of magic, it still lingered in the back of his mind and he eventually returned to it once his general knowledge of the magical arts became deep enough to attempt it again.

In the proccess, Harry had become something of an expert on the topic of lightning and storms as understood by mundane science.

That knowledge was being put to use now as his spells created conditions more favorable for a lightning storm. An invisible air vortex was created to suck in heat energy and water vapor and funnel them up into the clouds. Further spells were cast up at the clouds to agitate the movement of the tiny water and ice particles within, increasing the speed at which the massive electrical charge required for a lightning strike was generated.

Harry was vaguely aware of what was going on around him while he was doing this, but none of it really registered as important. The Raven Host had assembled, the island's militia was organised, the evacuation was proceeding steadily and outside the wards, Spellhaven was burning.

It was only Luna's sound of distress that brought his focus out of the clouds.

"They're burning the forest!" She said in a horrified tone. "We have to go help Marae, she's hurting!"

That startled him enough to bring him back to the here and now. Indeed, Harry could now feel Marae's pain and hear her crying for help.

"Go, but be careful ." He said. "This is almost definitely an attempt to lure us out of the wards. They don't know how strong you are, but don't let them swarm you and don't hold back."

"And what are you doing to do?" Dora asked shrewdly, already rising into the air.

"What else?" He retorted wryly. "Someone has to keep Voldemort busy."

"Harry, you said you wouldn't fight him alone!" She shouted back.

"Etal will be with me and he'll want to talk first anyway. They always want to talk first." Harry knew this because he kind of wanted to talk first too. Maybe it was a failing of powerful wizards everywhere, this ridiculous urge to debate philosophy with one's enemies instead of killing them? At least he could claim that he was doing it to keep Voldemort out of the fight. "Still, I won't turn down help if you finish on your end first."

"Fine, but take your own advice and be careful." The metamorphmagus near-ordered. Then she swooped in pulled him into a kiss. "For luck."

"So cliché." Harry found the time to quip before receiving another two kisses for luck.

" I do not understand how doing that is supposed to increase your luck. " Etal complained as soon as they flew upwards.

" It is meant as a final show of affection between lovers who know that they are going into danger and that one of them may soon die, they only say it is for luck to avoid acknowledging the possibility of death. " Harry explained.

" Humans are so strange. " Etal complained some more.

They had cleared the ward barrier at that point in their upward flight, just in time to see the corkscrewing trail of a Spellshear slamming into it and bringing it down.

Looks like Voldie got impatient. Crap. Harry looked down and quickly assessed the situation.

There were black-robed figures swarming everywhere, throwing fire on everything within reach. Quite a few had already dismounted their brooms, no doubt due to the strong winds generated by the brewing thunderstorm. Many of them were heading towards the column of fleeing people now that the third ward was down, but Harry didn't have time to do anything about it. The Raven Host and the island's militia would have to fend them off on their own despite being significantly outnumbered. Fortunately, he could also see the sphinxes rushing in to flank the Death Eaters, so they wouldn't be alone. The fourth ward would go up as soon as the last of the evacuees were behind the ward line, which should be relatively soon, then it would be just a matter of fighting to run these invaders off.

Harry knew that it was incredibly callous of him to think that even if they were defeated here, he and the girls could easily escape by simply flying away. All the other fighters would die or worse, including Fleur's grandmother and one of her cousins, but they would survive just fine as long as they weren't killed outright.

He put it out of his mind. Voldemort wouldn't be winning this day.

" Come on, we have to hurry now. " He said.

" You are the slow one. " Etal retorted petulantly and flew circles around him just to prove it.

" Not all of us can be one with the wind. " Harry shot back. The quetzalcoatl could fly upwind and not be bothered no matter how strong said upwind was. His reverse engineered flying spell still needed some tweaking before it would be anywhere near as efficient, but he doubted he would ever be as at home in the air as the feathered serpent.

Soon they reached the clouds and Harry plunged in without hesitation while Etal stopped just below. It was freezing cold and the constant booming of thunder was deafeningly loud, but Harry pushed those distractions away.

Magic was a peculiar thing. It always carried the imprint of its caster, which was the reason why enchanted objects sometimes seemed to have a personality and why complex feats of magic worked by more than one caster could mutate strangely.

Harry had noticed this, examined it, studied it and learned to use it deliberately.

He did this now, spreading his magic outwards, weaving it into the storm and giving it a pseudo-sentience. The storm now carried a piece of him within it.

"Creation of my will, listen to the great word; fulfill your purpose and cast your lightning against these invaders!" Harry said firmly, using the words as a vessel for his intent.

Life certainly wasn't lacking in irony. Harry had long ago discarded spell incantations as being unnecessary, only to later discover that there was power in words after all, albeit not in the way that the average wizard thought.

Spell incantations were mostly just a trick to focus the mind on the task at hand and indeed had no power in and of themselves, but there was something more subtle beneath. When a wizard spoke, his intent was brought out of the realm of thought and given presence in the physical world. This happened even when someone with no magic spoke, although their words had no tangible power then. Nobody could lie to Harry since he had realised this. He could hear the falsehood in speech, no matter how good a liar someone was.

This knowledge had come, bizarrely enough, from Harry's study of Parseltongue and his animagus given ability to speak to corvid bird species. He hadn't been content to just use those abilities and leave it at that. No, he wanted to know the how and why of them, so he kept digging and digging until he found the common root.

It wasn't a well defined magical talent like Parseltongue, but it was the gateway and foundation to many similar abilities. He had already learned how to speak to canines, several other bird species and some rodents. One day he hoped to be capable of understanding any human language without needing to actually learn it.

But there was more to it than that. Inanimate objects and natural phenomena could also be spoken to, if you knew how. Wood and stone, wind and water and fire, a wizard could speak to these things. If casting spells was imposing your will on the world, this was asking it for a favor. Far less taxing on the wizard and impossible to dispel precisely because it wasn't a spell.

He was far from having complete mastery of this, but the storm was of his own making and that gave him power over it. It would listen.

And it did. Harry felt the storm regard him for a moment and then turn its attention to those below. He didn't wait for it to begin pelting the Death Eaters with its lightning and plunged downwards again, collecting Etal on the way and making for the powerful presence of Voldemort.

The Dark Lord was placidly hovering in the air, seeming content to observe the battle below without joining in himself. He was alone, which Harry found rather unusual. Had he really sent all of his minions into the attack and left nothing in reserve?

"Harry Potter." Voldemort said in greeting once he came close enough, his soft voice easily carrying over the wind.

"Tom Riddle." Harry returned in the same tone of voice.

Voldemort looked momentarily annoyed at the use of his birth name, but his expression cleared quickly.

"I hope I didn't come at a bad time." He said faux solicitously.

"Not at all, although you really should have called first. We would have prepared a proper welcome for you." Harry replied faux graciously.

The two powerful wizards let the silence between them drag on for a few seconds. The tension between them was so thick that even the rain that had just begun falling seemed to avoid them. Even the near-constant booming of thunder as bolts of lightning arced from the dark clouds above seemed muted, so oppressive was the atmosphere.

Harry noted with some consternation that his enemy had cast a defensive spell over himself that would prevent lightning from striking him, sort of like a very specialised Notice-Me-Not. So much for that vague hope.

"Will you not introduce me to your companion?" Voldemort asked.

Harry raised an eyebrow and then shrugged.

"Voldemort, meet Etalpalli the Quetzalcoatl. Etal, this is the Dark Lord Voldemort, born Tom Marvolo Riddle. " He finished the entirely out of place social ritual in Parseltongue.

" A pleasure to meet one such as yourself. " Voldemort hissed courteously.

" I know. " Etal hissed back aloofly.

"Rather full of himself, isn't he?" Voldemort directed the question to Harry, actually sounding amused.

"I think all the girls cooing over him may have gone to his head." Harry agreed.

Another bolt of lightning interrupted their conversation, as well as Etal's indignant response.

"You seem to be copying me quite a bit, Harry Potter. I could scarce believe it when my servants told me that you were a parselmouth and now I discover that you also copied my flight spell."

"I see magic, I learn magic." Harry shrugged.

"Indeed? But how could you have 'learned' a hereditary ability like Parseltongue?" Voldemort asked.

Harry's smirk was briefly shadowed by a bolt of lightning that struck directly behind him. "It was actually a lot easier than you'd think, but a smart wizard doesn't reveal his secrets."

"Hmm. For someone that has caused me so much trouble, you don't seem terribly eager to fight me, Harry Potter." Voldemort changed the subject. "Are you afraid?"

"Not particularly." Harry shrugged again. "I just can't really summon up much enthusiasm for it. There are so many other things I could be doing right now, yet here I am, having to deal with my home being invaded. Have you ever just sat down to start working on something, only to have your bowels suddenly inform you that you need to go take an urgent shit? That's kind of how I feel about this whole situation."

Voldemort definitely looked annoyed now, unsurprisingly. Another bolt of lightning cut through the sky.

"Why do you even fight me then, when you clearly have no personal stake in it? Stand aside and I will leave you be."

Harry wouldn't have believed that even if he couldn't hear the falsehood in the words themselves.

"You shouldn't make promises you can't keep." He chided. "You're set on taking over the world and the path of conquest is like spinning a burning wheel; you can't stop spinning it or you'll get burned… of course, you'll eventually get burned no matter what. In any case, I have my own plans for the world and you are a variable that I could do without, even if actually getting rid of you is turning out to be a tiresome chore."

" You have plans for the world? Truly?" Voldemort asked skeptically. "You seem more intent on cutting yourself off from it and wasting your time frolicking with your many women on this island of yours."

"It isn't time to enact them yet and frolicking with my women is a pleasant way to pass the years. You should get a few of your own and try it sometime, you might discover that world domination is less appealing after a good fuck."

Voldemort looked annoyed again and opened his mouth to say something, but another bolt of lightning cut him off. Then he got an odd look on his face as he stared at something behind Harry.

Harry, being curious and not particularly concerned that his enemy would take advantage of his inattention to get in a cheap shot, turned around to see what the big deal was.

There was a twisting tower of fire raging in the distance.

"Huh, looks like my girls decided to get serious." He commented idly.

"Then perhaps so should we." Voldemort 'suggested', bringing his wand into a ready position. "Are you ready to die, Harry Potter?"

"I alone will decide when my heart and my voice go silent." Harry replied resolutely, his expression becoming focused as he devoted all of his being to the coming battle. "And it isn't going to be today."

"We shall see." The Dark Lord hissed back.

By unspoken agreement, they both took the next lightning strike as the signal to begin.