Chapter 52 (Part 2)

January 10th, 2019, late afternoon. Spellhaven.

Laura was nearly vibrating with excitement as they stepped through the front door of the beautiful cháteau where she would be staying for a while.

The past five days had been pretty amazing. After scoring a journalistic coup the likes of which most reporters could only dream of, her time had suddenly become a hot commodity for everyone that wanted to either have her convey their own questions to Harry or somehow get in on the action. Her career was really going to take off now.

In fact, she'd been so busy taking calls and talking to people that they'd nearly missed their flight to the Azores. Wouldn't that have been a disaster? Fortunately, her favorite camera man and sole crew member for this trip, George, had ensured that they made it, even if she'd found his pestering annoying at the time.

They'd spent barely a few hours on one of the larger islands on the archipelago when Harry arrived to pick them up on a flying carpet. A real flying carpet!

The flight had been incredible, even if she had spent the entire time on her hands and knees, terrified that they'd fall off. She had also tried to keep an eye out for when Spellhaven would appear on the horizon, only to fail. It seemed like it just sort of appeared in her perception between one blink at the next and by then they were already landing. Magic was pretty incredible.

Now here she was, entering the castle of a powerful wizard. It was like something out of a fairy tale.

"Can I take your coat?" Harry offered with a smile.

"Of course, thank you." She said and took the heavy and rather expensive garment off. She'd bought it new specifically for this occasion and had somewhat underestimated how warm it would be in comparison to Britain.

The rest of her outfit was also new and much better suited to the mild Atlantic climate, albeit accidentally. A tight fitting skirt and blouse combination to emphasize and show off her curves, it had been chosen in an effort to appeal to Harry's already admitted attraction to her. Laura was certainly not going to lose out on this opportunity by failing to dress well and to be quite frank, it felt nice to get some male attention. It had been increasingly rare recently, both at work and in private.

To her confusion, Harry held out the coat into the air and then it just disappeared!

"What did you do with it?" She asked in bewilderment.

"I'll explain later, don't worry about it for now." He waved off. "Come on, I'll introduce you to the rest of the household."

Laura quickly put her coat out of mind, eager to meet the people closest to him.

The eagerness took a slight hit when she was led into a room filled with nothing but beautiful women. Four blondes, a black-haired woman and what appeared to be one extremely out of place punk rocker with hair dyed a blazing pink.

"Alright, introductions." Harry said. "Girls, these are Laura Byrne and her camera man, George Puckett."

"Hello." Laura greeted, hiding her slight nervousness.

"Hi." George likewise greeted. She wondered if he was really as composed as he sounded.

"Laura, George, these ladies comprise most of my immediate circle of polite social interaction." Harry said with a slightly joking tone, moving to stand behind and place his hands on the shoulders of the shortest of the women present, a pretty young blonde with a somewhat disconcerting pale blue gaze. "This is Luna Lovegood, my first apprentice in the magical arts, lover and fiancée."

"Hello." The now introduced Luna said with a dreamy tone that made Laura wonder if she was all there.

The revelation that Harry was engaged to be married also made her feel rather foolish and a bit angry on the young girl's behalf. What had he been flirting with her for if he was in a committed relationship already?

Harry moved to the next woman in line, an impossibly beautiful silver-blonde with piercing sky-blue eyes that made Laura feel about as attractive as a leper in comparison.

"This is Fleur Delacour, my second apprentice in the magical arts, lover and fiancée." He said, throwing her nascent sense of outrage into shocked confusion.

" Bonjour ." The egregiously beautiful woman said with a mischievous smile on her perfect lips.

Harry moved on, placing his hands on the shoulders of the punk rocker looking woman.

"And this is Nymphadora Tonks, my third apprentice in the magical arts, lover and fiancée." He said, smiling with amusement at her.

"Wotcher." The pinkette tossed out casually.

Laura was glad that she was not expected to reply in this situation, because it was taking all her attention to keep from doing an impression of a fish. Three wives-to-be and he hadn't even finished introducing everyone. This must be what culture shock feels like.

"These three women are the most powerful witches in the world and rule Spellhaven at my side." Harry continued.

"Flattery won't get you forgiveness or using my first name." Nymphadora - who seemed to dislike her name for some reason - snarked. Much to Laura's further shock, her hair also turned red as she said this.

"As you can see, it's safer to just call her Dora or Nym or Tonks." Harry went on as if sudden changes of hair color were normal.

"The hair…." Laura tried to articulate.

"I'm a metamorphmagus." Nymphadora explained. "A natural born shapeshifter. Watch."

And before Laura's eyes, the woman turned into an exact copy of herself, albeit still dressed like a punk rocker.

" Damn ." George quietly swore next to her.

"Wow." Was all that Laura could say as her double reverted to her previous pink-haired appearance.

"Next we have Narcissa Black." Harry moved on to the next woman, an older blonde of indeterminate age. Laura figured that she could be anything between twenty-five and an extremely well-aged forty, but it was nearly impossible to tell for sure and the woman's cold expression didn't help any. "She is my social secretary and representative to the International Confederation of Wizards. She is also my mistress."

Laura just barely kept herself from blurting out the question burning on her tongue. It was rude to be poking one's nose into other people's personal lives, but damn if she wasn't being sorely tempted.

Harry seemed to know it too, at least if the amused smirk on his face as he moved to the next woman was any indication. Just like the previous one, this one's age was also hard to pin down by sight alone.

"This dark-haired beauty is Septima Vector. She heads the R&D department of my telecommunications mirror business. She, too, is my mistress." Harry said with a grin that could only be called predatory and Laura noticed with considerable shock that the woman was wearing a collar around her neck. "Isn't that right, Septima?"

"Yes, Master." Septima said barely audibly, face nearly aflame with obvious embarrassment.

While Laura was confused and more than a little alarmed by whatever was going on here, the eyerolls from practically every other woman there except Luna, who just smiled happily, did a lot to calm her down. While finding out that Harry was apparently into some kinky stuff was unexpected, it was a lot better than some of the other ideas that had immediately popped into her head.

"Last, but certainly not least, we have Penelope Clearwater." He said, moving to stand behind the final woman, a curly-haired blonde that looked to be in her twenties. "She's the family steward and…."

Laura knew what was coming by this point.

"…. not my mistress."

Alright, maybe she didn't.

"It says a lot about your life when you have to specify that I'm not sleeping with you." Penelope huffed with an exasperated sort of amusement.

"So it does." Harry agreed. "Now let's gets our guests settled and then we can have dinner."

Unlike a live interview, putting together the footage for a properly edited journalistic piece could be spread out over a number of days and edited later for maximum effect.

The first thing they did was the introduction of Luna, Fleur and Dora, as they were too important to be left unmentioned, but the manner of doing so was decided to be somewhat strategic.

They were first introduced as a group in a manner similar to how they were first introduced to Laura and then included individually whenever their presence helped to highlight a particular facet of the magical world.

Dora was present alongside Etalpalli, to better highlight the nature of inheritable magical talents….

"He's gorgeous." Laura said with awe as she looked at the lazily floating quetzalcoatl with his shimmering scales and ostentatious feathers.

"Careful with the compliments, he's also pretty vain." Dora quipped wryly.

Etal gave an offended hiss.

Harry rolled his eyes, gave Dora a look and started hissing back at the feathered serpent.

"You can actually talk to him?" Laura asked in surprise.

"I can't, but Harry can because he's a parselmouth." Dora explained.

"What's a parselmouth?"

"A parselmouth is a witch or wizard with the ability to speak Parseltongue, the language of snakes." Dora elaborated.

"Incredible….but wait, that would mean that snakes would have to be intelligent enough to hold a conversation!" Laura exclaimed.

"That's a bit more woolly." Dora admitted. "Etal is a magical creature and they tend to be more intelligent to start with. Some can even learn human languages once they get old enough and if they spend a lot of time around people, such as acromantula. Those are giant spiders by the way, they can get to be the size of a small house."

"I can barely deal with the small ones." Laura shuddered.

"You are right about regular snakes though." Harry cut in. "They generally aren't intelligent enough to talk to, but the act of a wizard speaking to them as if they were that intelligent seems to have the effect of…..letting them borrow the speaker's intellect, for lack of a better explanation."

"Is this permanent?" Laura asked in amazement.

"Only with long term exposure." Harry explained. "In the short term, they just tend end up being slightly more intelligent."

"That's still pretty amazing." The reporter said. "And this is a genetic trait passed down through families?"

"No, it's a magical trait. Genetics has nothing to do with it. Same as Dora's metamorph talent, my Parseltongue might vanish from my bloodline for generations before suddenly reappearing when the circumstances in one of my descendants are just right for it to become active again. Some talents are rarer than others and have more finicky requirements for appearing, such as metamorphing. Dora is the first metamorphmagus to have been born in over three centuries for example, whereas parselmouths are pretty common within certain family lines. Alternatively, some gifts are always present but require a witch or wizard to find them within themselves and awaken them, new ones can be created by a clever enough magic user and bound to a bloodline and some just pop up randomly for no apparent reason before vanishing again."

"I see." Laura said, but the frown on her face made that a dubious claim.

Fleur was present at the introduction of house elves, all the better to make it clear that one could not apply human thinking to different species of magical beings.

"I'm sure you've been wondering what happened to your coat." Harry said amusedly.

"I have." Laura admitted.

"A house elf took it." He replied mischievously.

Laura looked at him dubiously, not sure if she should believe him.

"Teeny, come here please."

Much to Laura's shock, a small creature in a miniature maid uniform with floppy ears and huge, tennis ball eyes appeared out of thin air.

"What can Teeny do for Master Harry?" The little creature asked eagerly, staring up at the scarred wizard with adoration.

"Nothing right now, Teeny, I just wanted to introduce you to our guest.

"Hi." Laura waved.

Teeny shyly returned the wave and stepped closer to Harry, nearly hiding behind his leg.

"Could you please tell Laura what you do around here, Teeny."

The house elf nodded and looked at the reporter with more resolve.

"Teeny takes care of Master Harry and his missies. I's cook, clean and bring things." She declared proudly.

Laura was starting to put together a picture here and she wasn't sure she liked it.

"Do you get paid for doing these things?" She asked gently.

The look of horrified outrage she received was decidedly unexpected.

"NO!" The house elf nearly shouted. "Teeny is a good elf!"

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to insult you." Laura backpedaled in shocked bafflement, wondering what she had said that was so offensive.

"You can go now, Teeny." Harry spoke up.

The diminutive house elf shot the reporter one last glare before popping away.

"What did I say?" Laura asked in bewilderment.

"The very first thing you should know about house elves is that they are not a natural evolution." Harry began. "A long time ago, a wizard decided that he wanted magical servants and being a clever sort, set out to create them. House elves have come a long way since then, but at their core they are still a servant race. I know that this sounds a lot like slavery and I suppose that in some ways it is, but keep in mind that house elves aren't human, so they don't think like humans either. To them, working for a magical family is their life's purpose and they draw their power from it. A house elf that doesn't work won't live longer than a year or two at the most, and they won't be good years."

"But….can't they change?" Laura asked with a frown. "To become something more than servants?"

"This isn't like me asking you if you could quit being a reporter and become an engineer, this is like asking a lion to become a zebra." Harry answered, shaking his head. "The need to serve is at the core of a house elf's being and they can never be happy doing anything else. It takes truly monstrous treatment for a house elf to even consider leaving the family they serve."

"I'm not sure how to feel about that." Laura admitted.

"I figured it would give you trouble, many first-generation wizards and witches have the same problem." Harry nodded. "That's why Fleur is here, to serve as another example."

"But, how…..?" Laura trailed off, looking at the hitherto silent beauty in confusion.

"Fleur isn't human either, she's a veela." Harry explained with a smile. "You remember what I said about the succubi during our last interview?"

"Of course."

"The veela came into existence during the waning years of the sixteenth century. All succubi after Lilith were sterile and their race was nearly extinct by then because of it. One of the last of them was named Velana, who was thousands of years old by then and a very powerful sorceress. Seeing that her race was facing certain doom, she performed some unknown magic that altered her barren womb and allowed her to give birth to the first veela. She was killed soon after, but not before her legacy became strong enough to have a chance of survival." Harry explained.

"As descendants of the succubi, veela are highly sexual in nature." Fleur smoothly took over. "You humans have sex for pleasure and reproduction, but we need it. A veela that doesn't have sex regularly becomes lethargic, depressed and irritable."

"You could say the same about humans." Laura joked.

"Not in the same way." Fleur shook her head. "We draw power from ingesting sexual fluids, any kinds of sexual fluids. You would call us bisexual, but veela don't think like that. What matters to us is the magic, not the gender of our bed partners. The more powerful the people we have sex with the better. I am the envy of my race for having three such powerful lovers to satisfy my hunger and am constantly asked to share."

"You don't have any male veela?" Laura asked, looking a bit uncomfortable with the topic.

"No, veela are all female." Harry cut in again. "You see, they don't become pregnant from the sperm itself, but from the magic in it. Veela also do not ovulate, menstruate or go through menopause. The only thing that prevents witches from impregnating a veela is their lack of proper equipment to deliver fluids charged by the power of a recent orgasm to their womb. Their daughters are always full veela as well, nothing of the father is passed on, which is why all veela have silver hair, sky-blue eyes and look very closely related. As far as genetics is concerned, they're all something very close to being clones of each other."

"And you must understand that, like house elves, we don't think like humans either, although our way of thinking is admittedly closer to it." Fleur said. "Sex to us is a fun communal activity and the concept of incest simply doesn't exist. Our family events almost always end with orgies and we will happily have sex with all of our acquaintances regardless of relationship status as long as they will have us, which has admittedly caused some problems in the past. We become sexually active the moment we start puberty, mothers send freshly matured daughters to sleep with other young veela as a way to make friends or to older ones for mentoring. Not that long ago I started sleeping with my twelve-year-old sister to teach her about sex and when I have daughters of my own, I will have sex with them as well for the same reasons."

"Oh, that's… wow." Laura stuttered. "I can already hear the hordes of men clamoring for the right to visit."

"They would be disappointed." Harry snickered.

"What do you mean?" Laura asked.

"We are only attracted to those with magic in them, as I mentioned earlier." Fleur explained.

"Non-magical people are kind of like a combination of a carbonated drink that's gone flat and a mule to a veela's senses." Harry cut in, amused. "Without magic, you don't register as any more attractive than furniture to them, nor can you impregnate them, so they have no use for you in the bedroom. Veela exude an Aura of Allure to attract sexual partners, but you can't feel it because you don't have any magic of your own and aren't considered viable as a result."

"And now I can hear the groans of disappointment." Laura said, also amused.

"The lesson to take away from this is that you should never assume that non-human magical beings will have the same thought processes as humans, not matter how similar some might look."

And Luna was present for when they went to see the unicorns because….well, because they ran away from Harry if she wasn't there.

"You're in luck, we've only managed to convince a unicorn herd to settle on Spellhaven recently." Harry was saying as they observed Luna coaxing the equines from out of the tree line.

"They're so beautiful." Laura was nearly in tears from the sight.

"Some of the most beautiful creatures on this world." Harry agreed. "You see the small golden ones over there? Those are the foals, their coats will stay golden until they reach the age of two, at which point it turns silver. Their horns grow in at four and they are considered fully grown at seven, which is when their coats turn white. Their hooves will stay golden their entire lives."

Laura thought that calling it white was grossly insufficient as she observed a magnificent stallion prance around. Even freshly fallen snow would look dirty in comparison.

"How long do they live?" She asked.

"We're not actually sure." Harry admitted. "Keeping track of one can be difficult, and nobody has actually seen one die of old age. For all we know they might be immortal."

"Every little girl in the world is going to want a unicorn instead of a pony now." Laura joked.

"Unicorns are not pets." Harry said sternly. "They suffer in captivity and won't hesitate to gore or stomp anyone that tries to keep them imprisoned."

"They're violent?" The reporter asked in consternation, not wanting to consider that anything so beautiful could be violent.

"Not without cause. If someone was killed by a unicorn, then you can be absolutely sure that they deserved it. They can sense ill-intent better than anyone."

"Do they have any other powers?" She asked with interest.

"Plenty." Harry nodded. "They can run more than three times as fast as a regular horse and navigate even deep forests with an ease you'd never expect from such a large animal. Their presence has been known to soothe troubled minds, their horns have powerful magical properties and are sometimes used in potions, their tail hairs can be used for wand cores and their blood renders anyone who drinks it temporarily immortal."

Laura's jaw dropped in shock. "J-just like that? Drink a little unicorn blood and you're immortal?"

Harry nodded again. "For as long as the effects of the blood lasts, which can be anything from a few hours to a few months depending on the amount ingested, you will survive anything short of having your brain destroyed, including decapitation."

"Amazing…." She trailed off.

"Right now you're probably thinking of how useful being temporarily unkillable would be." Harry noted casually. "Maybe for risky surgeries? Give the patient some unicorn blood and be guaranteed that they will survive no matter what complications happen."

"It has crossed my mind." Laura admitted.

"Then this is the perfect time to inform you that doing harm to a unicorn, being party to it or benefitting from it would curse you with a lifetime of misfortune." An unproven legend, but Harry was more than happy to perpetuate it. "And I don't mean like that walking under a ladder stuff. Your head would be constantly targeted by bird poop, if you dropped your phone then it would definitely end up damaged beyond repair, lost items would stay lost, you'd end up broke if you so much as stepped through the front doors of a casino and walking under a construction site would be just as dangerous as walking into high speed traffic. It would, quite literally, feel as if the world itself was punishing you for harming the purest of its children."

"Oh." Laura said quietly.

"That's not even the worst of it though." He continued. "Drinking the blood of a unicorn carries a curse so terrible that it far outweighs any boon gained from it. Yes, you will be temporarily immortal, but as soon as the blood touches your lips, your body will forever lose the ability to heal itself. Once the power of the blood wore off, your body would start to fail. Bruises would stay forever, a small cut would be fatal, sleep wouldn't grant you any rest, you couldn't absorb nutrients properly, your cells would die without replacing themselves, your organs would rot while still alive and you would feel every excruciating second of it."

"Okay, hurting unicorns is bad, message received." Laura shuddered at the picture he'd painted.

"No, I don't think the message has been properly received yet." Harry countered firmly. "Rhinos are already going extinct because of idiots that think there's something special about their horns, so I expect that unicorn parts will be even more highly prized by greedy poachers. I also expect that there are ambitious scientists or doctors out there that will only hear about the properties of unicorn blood and dismiss my warnings, thinking that they can somehow filter out the curse as if it was a physical thing. I can't stop anyone from being too stubborn to listen to me, but I am letting it be known here and now that if I hear about anyone so much as attempting to capture or do harm to a unicorn I will kill everyone involved in it. I have ways of getting information that you can't imagine and I won't be stopped by distance, borders or politics, nor will I be swayed by bribes or pleas for mercy."

Laura was stunned by the blatant death threat issued against the world and took a long few seconds to recover.

"I'm not sure if that's a smart thing to include in the final product." She said cautiously. Actually, she wasn't sure if her bosses would even allow it to be included.

"It's probably just wasted breath anyway." Harry sighed and looked back at the unicorns. "But you can't tell me that they aren't worth killing to protect."

Raised as she was in a culture that abhorred killing, the thought of unicorns being hunted for the sake of base greed and ambition still forced her to nod in agreement.

They silently watched the magical equines graze for a few seconds more before the reporter asked her next question.

"Um, you said that their horns can be used in potions and their tail hairs in wands. Doesn't that count as hurting them?"

"Plucking out a single tail hair doesn't quite count, especially if you asked nicely first. And they do replace their horns every once in a while, which is how we get them."

"They're sentient?" Laura asked in surprise.

"I think you mean sapient." Harry corrected, unable to help himself. "Any living creature responsive to sensory perception is sentient. The answer to your questions is, as is often the case with magic, a bit woolly. Magical creatures generally tend to get smarter as they grow older, so it isn't outside the realm of possibility that some of the older unicorns are actually smart enough to do calculus. Regardless, they are some of the most intuitive creatures alive and are capable of discerning the intent in speech even if they don't understand the words themselves."

"Then harming them should be a crime anyway." She said firmly.

"I quite agree." Harry said and nodded towards Luna, who was now waving at them. "Looks like Luna is done coaxing them to let you approach. Go ahead and feed them some those carrots I gave you then. They love those just as much as regular horses."

"You're not coming?" She asked.a

Harry smiled. "They don't like men much. It used to be that hunting unicorns was a thing and it was mostly men doing it. They never forgot or forgave. The young ones might let me approach, but the older ones only tolerate women, and even then only those of gentle disposition."

After that, Harry decided that it was time to introduce her to the friendly neighborhood dryad.

"Oh my." Laura breathed, staring up at the towering plant woman.

Harry snickered. "Yeah, that's a common reaction."

Marae was inspecting the strange newcomers curiously. Having never met a non-magical human before, it was clear that the dryad was perplexed.

"What's she doing?" Laura asked nervously as the wooden fingers traced over her face.

"She's just curious." Harry reassured. "Despite her size, she's still basically a baby."

"You almost sound like a proud father." Laura noted with amusement.

"Well, she is technically my daughter." Harry shrugged.

"What?!" Laura exclaimed, causing Marae to jerk back in surprise. "Sorry." The reporter reflexively gave a contrite apology when she saw the startled look the dryad gave her.

"Dora, Luna, Fleur and I performed several fertility rituals on this island back when it was still a barren rock." Harry began explaining. "One day, we noticed that a strange plant pod had appeared in the newly grown forest. A while later, it opened and Marae emerged from it, full grown. We're the closest thing she has to parents since our magic made her. You might have noticed that she's a bit handsy? That's because some of Fleur's intrinsically sexual nature was passed on to her."

Harry paused to wipe a bit of nectar from a leaking nipple and showed the golden excretion to the reporter. "It's also why she keeps leaking all the time. This might look like honey or thin tree sap, but it's actually a liquefied form of a veela's Allure. Makes for an excellent aphrodisiac and energy booster."

Harry quite deliberately licked the nectar off his finger and winked at the reporter, making her blush and stammer briefly before changing the subject.

"Can she talk?" She asked.

"Yes, but not in any way you would understand." Harry nodded. "Her voice is the whisper of wind and the rustle of leaves. A dryad is the soul of her forest and speaks through it."

"That seems like a strange thing for an atheist to say." Laura commented.

"I'm not an atheist." Harry replied amusedly.

"But…"

"There is more to this world than imaginary gods, overblown legends, false prophets and poorly written books of fiction, just as there is more to it than the unbending laws of nature." He continued, answering the obvious question. "I am an animist, I believe that everything has a soul. People, animals, plants, rocks, mountains, lakes, rivers…..everything. But my belief doesn't come from faith, it comes from knowledge."

"Could you explain that?" Laura asked, now curious.

"Not in a concise fashion." He shook his head. "We'd have to set aside a good chunk of time for that discussion if I was to do anything other than confuse you. Maybe some other day, after I've had time to prepare a presentation. For now, let me just say that there might be ten thousand trees in the forest, but it is only one forest and Marae is the physical representation of it."

They went to the sphinxes after that and then to several other critters, as well as going on a brief tour around Spellhaven to get a look at how people lived. For the last stop on the last day before Laura and her camera man left, Harry took them to see Bryanna and Tiana. And the other two, he supposed, but he didn't pay Jade and Isabel much mind these days.

"That looks amazing." Laura was saying as she looked at Fleur, who had agreed to model a few outfits. She was currently wearing an elegant green dress combined with enchanted emerald jewelry that added some sparkling effects around her. "You'll have Hollywood and big name fashion companies beating down your door if this is the kind of work you can do."

"We've already started looking into the possibility of expanding into the non-magical world." Bryanna said, keeping the silly grin off her face with great effort.

"Then I think we can safely say that you'll have more work than you'll know what to do with." Laura joked.

"You're more right than you know." Harry cut in.

"What do you mean?"

"I didn't bring you here just to get some free advertising for my friends, I also did it to highlight a particular facet of the magical world that non-magicals need to understand as soon as possible."

"Oh?" Laura was curious now.

"Everything here was made by hand." Harry gestured all around them. "I'm sure that many people weren't satisfied with my answer to your statement about all the people that magic could help, but we literally cannot help as much as many would probably like to think. Magic can't be automated, so everything has to be done by hand, and with our small numbers in comparison to yours that means that what we could do is barely a drop in the ocean. Moreover, the resources we have available for brewing healing potions and the like are often scarce even for just ourselves. Brewing them to help tens of thousands of times the number of people is beyond impossible."

"I see." The reporter said quietly. "You're right that a lot of people weren't satisfied, but what you're saying makes sense.

"Strictly limited and specialized high value trade is still possible, such as the girls here providing custom order outfits, but they could never hope to make clothing for millions of people. The same goes for any other interaction between the magical and mundane."

"I suppose it just seems like being offered some incredible thing and then having it snatched away." Laura said ruefully.

"Well, I am thinking of something that might help with that a little." Harry admitted, pretending that he hadn't been angling to drop this bit of information the whole time.

"I'm sure you must be sick of hearing this from me by now, but….what do you mean?" She asked humorously.

"I've always wanted there to be more magic in the world and now that the big secret is out, there might be a way for me to do it." He said. "You remember how I told you that non-magical couples that conceive children in locations saturated with magic have a higher chance of having magical children?"

"Of course."

"Well I've been considering the idea of opening up a resort on Spellhaven that would cater to those who would want their children to be magical. Everything in it would be enchanted to an egregious degree and it could act as a honeymoon location or something like that for young couples looking to have children. That way we both get what we want."

Laura's eyes were wide with surprise. "There would definitely be a lot of interest for something like that."

"We'll see. If the response is favorable then I'll see about setting it up."

January 14th, 2019. Pico Island, Azores Archipelago.

"I'll contact you when we're done editing so you can give the final product over your stamp of approval." Laura was saying after Harry had dropped her and George off near the airport.

"I look forward to seeing it." Harry nodded with a smile. "It was nice having you over."

"I had a great time." Laura admitted and held out her hand.

"So did I." Harry's smile became something that belonged in a bedroom as he took her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. "Don't be a stranger."

"I won't." The reporter said with a blush.

Harry smirked as he flew away. There had been no hanky-panky this time, although not for lack of opportunity. Adrastia had emphasized the importance of timing. He could have seduced the reporter already, that was true, but she needed time to wrap her head around his other relationships or she might chicken out.

January 25th, 2019. Somewhere in the Albanian mountains.

With a fleshy squelching sound, the newly reborn Voldemort plopped out of his gestation chamber.

He looked even less human than before, having lost his ears in favor of a more serpentine sensory organ and acquired a set of retractable venomous fangs.

After spending fifteen years helplessly floating around as a formless spirit, he had been determined to make a contingency plan in case he became disembodied again. One of Nagini's eggs, the womb of a young captured muggle and some dark magic and he had put together a way to restore his body in case it was needed.

In the following hours, Voldemort determined that he had lost all his remaining followers in the attack on London. This meant that the only resources he had were his wand, one of many he had stashed here as spares after robbing a wand store, and the clothes on his back. The dementors had abandoned him and what was left of the giants wouldn't fight for him.

Voldemort was not happy about this.

His state of mind had not improved during his flight to Albania and the gestation period. It was now a barely cognizant mess of fear, hate and ego.

He had just enough prudence left in him to make the gestation chamber ready again before acting on his next impulse, which was to show to Harry Potter, the world and most of all to himself that Lord Voldemort was still powerful.

January 27th, 2019. Spellhaven.

The past couple of weeks had been…..okay, relatively speaking.

As expected, his magical baby making resort idea had proven immensely intriguing to a lot of people and it was already in the process of being set up.

His threat against anyone thinking to harm a unicorn had been aired in the end, to mixed results. While the magical populations of the world largely agreed with him that anyone who tried to do harm to a unicorn deserved to die, the non-magicals were a lot less homogenous in their opinions. Many thought that it was too extreme a reaction over a mere animal, even such a magnificent magical one, refusing to believe that something that walked on four legs could be as smart as he claimed.

Harry could only shake his head in despair at how dull those people were. If they couldn't even appreciate a unicorn's majesty then why did they even bother staying alive?

Laura had also dropped by again, to continue the effort of demystifying the magical world somewhat. Their talks seemed to be becoming something of a regular evening feature on television. That would be useful, even if he personally found the constant media attention tiring. He was gladder than ever for the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, spending a few days relaxing or swinging a hammer in between the annoying but necessary things he had to do these days was quite therapeutic.

The effort to start fucking Laura was also proceeding apace. She'd have her personal interests welded to her professional ones soon.

Tensions everywhere continued to be high, especially after information about the past misdeeds and specific abuses of power of wizards against mundanes started trickling in. Harry strongly suspected vampire involvement in that one. That could be a problem, but he had no real way to fight it. The magical world had been acting like dicks and the only documented counter-examples he could give were centuries old. Moreover, this was being done through the internet and the stinking mire of social media, which even he had heard was basically a place where people went to get angry at shit that had nothing to do with them. He couldn't even be sure that it was actually the vampires doing it, since the only thing he had were suspicions about the timing and how something new seemed to pop up just as the outrage over the previous bit of information started dying down a bit.

The ICW had finally stopped panicking, but was still arguing uselessly. Without the Statute of Secrecy to uphold, the entire body was starting to look more than a bit useless and the individual magical governments were showing the first signs of pulling away from it.

Amelia Bones' Ministry especially. The unfortunate woman had been saddled with a nightmare of a situation and had no time for anyone's shit, even with Dumbledore as Supreme Mugwump, for what that was worth. She had inherited the bad reputation left behind by Fudge's government, the legacy of Dolores Umbridge as temporary head of International Magical Cooperation from a few years ago, hordes of pureblood idiots hamstringing her and now had the monumental task of placating her mundane counterpart from a terribly weak position.

The previously mentioned information about past misdeeds leaking into the general consciousness made it even worse for her. She had already been forced to admit to several serious crimes perpetrated by wizards against mundanes, including the theft of the Hogwarts Express. That the non-magical people in these stories were then memory-wiped caused further outrage and there was already a very strong public push to make obliviation strictly illegal. A non-magical nation passing such a law was mostly pointless aside for the few magicals they had in their employ, but the problem was that the public was pressuring them to force the Ministry of Magic to pass such a law.

That was a damn sticky situation, as the Ministry absolutely could not afford to let itself be pushed around like that if it wanted to stay independent. On the other hand, they were also deep in the negative zone as far as political capital was concerned and were having a devil of a time finding a good argument for not making obliviation illegal now that the Statute of Secrecy was a thing of the past.

Bones was currently stalling and trying to find a compromise that wouldn't make them look too weak while simultaneously doing her best to improve the image of wizards and witches, but it was an uphill struggle. Even her attempts to garner good will by offering magical aid in the rebuilding of London never seemed to turn out quite right. There was a lot of resentment towards magic as a whole in all of Britain these days, but within London especially. People wanted to be angry and were looking for any excuse. A few violent altercations had already happened between Bones' people and some Londoners, although with no serious casualties as of yet. He was thinking of sending the new Minister of Magic a gift in the form of a crate full of amulets that would block at least a few bullets. That kind of thing might become necessary field gear soon.

And then there were the people that Harry collectively classified as 'human garbage'. For the sake of brevity and because he didn't feel like being nitpicky, he applied this label to, among others, most everyone living in Africa and the Middle East, as well as anyone that had come out of there and still retained cultural ties to those places. Not very nice, but that wasn't a label he aspired to anyway.

The first such group was London's substantial Muslim population. As he had expected to happen weeks ago, their religious zealotry and backwards culture was serving to exacerbate a bad situation. They were a third facet to the problem, being distinctly angry at magic because it was magic, rather than for the harm it had been used to do, giving them no real common cause with the natives. It was turning the situation into a multi-sided snarl of problems that would likely prove impossible to unravel. Harry would have the sword prepared for when it would be time to cut through it.

In other news about human garbage, the first of the expected horror stories had come in. Some lunatic in Africa had suspected that a child was magical and chopped the young boy up for body parts. Apparently there was a new black market opening up. Lovely.

Still, that kind of thing would just serve to push more people towards him for protection in the future and it wasn't as if a new set of atrocities happening down there were going to be terribly out of place.

Penny walked in then, holding a small folder.

"Another one of those mysterious deliveries." She said and handed it to him.

Harry sighed tiredly and opened it up, wondering what Bjomolf had sent him this time. He had to suppress a reaction between irritation and amusement when he saw a cute chibi version of the ancient Viking giving him a thumbs up from the first page.

The amusement quickly faded as he saw the contents. A small town in Romania destroyed with a Dark Mark left floating above it. Casualties estimated to be in the low hundreds.

'TR location unknown. Will find out and let you know.' was written at the bottom of the report.

Looks like Bjomolf was still trying to play nice, even though Harry knew that having a crazy wizard rampaging everywhere served his plans just fine. Or maybe Voldemort had served his purpose already and needed to be disposed of. Whatever the case, Harry didn't really have much choice at the moment but to accept the help.

A sudden commotion drew his attention. It sounded like a stampeding metamorphmagus. Dora always did have heavy feet.

And it did indeed prove to be so as a frazzled looking Dora barreled into the room.

"Harry, we've got a situation." She blurted out quickly.

"Let me guess." He said dully. "A town in Romania destroyed. Lots of dead people. Dark Mark."

Dora blinked. "Well, err, yes. So are we heading out?"

"You go ahead and see if there's anything worth finding, take the Raven Host with you." Harry said, knowing that there probably wouldn't be but unable to justify sloppiness. "I'm going to go swing a hammer for a few days and/or months/years."

It was starting to become obvious that conventional methods wouldn't work and he felt like he was going to make a breakthrough in an unconventional method soon.

February 3rd, 2019. Ravenhead, Hyperbolic Time Chamber.

Harry Potter, aged somewhere between twenty-five and twenty-six - probably, he'd lost track with all the temporal shenanigans - was standing bare-chested in front of his forge. It was time to make that thing he'd set out to do years ago.

It had taken a lot longer than he'd expected, but his initial estimates had been hopelessly optimistic anyway. The soul of metal did not yield its secrets easily and unlike his previous pursuits, there was no wealth of knowledge gathered by generations of wizards before him to draw and expand upon, nor did mundane science help much. The past few subjective years in this place had been spent touching, smelling, tasting, listening to and shaping metal until he knew it in ways that few could fathom.

With a deep breath, he extended himself outward and linked with the forge. It wasn't like the Joining, but it was similar enough. Every stone and spark of flame became not just an extension of his body, but part of it. And why shouldn't it be? He had made it after all.

Pulling the chain felt like straining a muscle tendon. The emptying of the cauldron was a sensation curiously similar to draining his bladder, if only for lack of anything else to compare it to. The molten metal pouring out of it was like the rush of burning blood in his veins.

Harry breathed deeply and the fires of the forge flared up in response. He knew intuitively when the metal was at the optimal temperature and began swinging the hammer, every strike echoing the beat of his heart.

The hours slipped by without notice, his focus so complete that nothing existed except his breathing, the rise and fall of the hammer and the metal. Over and over he folded it, not to give it strength or cleanse impurities - that wasn't needed since he was working with 100% pure silver - but to layer the many spells he was imbuing into his work. His eyes were closed the whole time. Who needed sight when he could feel every imperfection in the metal? He used no tongs, handling the red-hot metal with his bare skin instead. What did he have to fear from his own fire?

It was incredibly dangerous, what he was doing. It was a ritualistic way of binding the crafter, the tools and the materials into a single entity. The resulting forge-bond drew the whole of his being into the act of creation. It allowed him to sense even the smallest imperfection and work with unsurpassed focus, but such perfect execution of art came with a cost. When heart and lungs became one with hammer and flame, a dropped hammer meant a stopped heart and a hitch in his breathing meant a burned respiratory system. He didn't know if the goblins did things the same way, but if they did then their apprentices had to die in droves trying to learn it. His ridiculously high magical perception was the only reason he'd been able to unravel this technique in years instead of the decades it probably should have taken a novice with no master to guide him. Despite his impatience, he hadn't dared rush any further once he learned of the risks.

Had Dora, Luna and Fleur known how dangerous what he was doing was, they would have been quite upset and insisted that he stop, but Harry had never been one to shy away from dangerous magic. Only boring magic was truly safe.

Fully twelve hours after he started, Harry slowly disentangled his soul from the forge. As soon as it was done, the hammer dropped from his fingers and he nearly collapsed on the anvil, holding himself up on trembling arms that burned with pain and desperately gasping for breath.

That had been a little more taxing than expected. The strain of working his muscles past the point of exhaustion was the least of it. He had invested so much of himself into the act of creation that, had a healer examined him right now, they would be amazed, baffled and horrified at seeing such an extreme case of magical exhaustion. It was well past the point of how far it was possible to go with a wand.

But it was worth it. He thought through the migraine that threatened to split his head open, looking upon his work.

It was nothing particularly intricate, just a silver disc the size of a large dinner plate, thicker in the middle and narrowing towards the edges. Incongruously small in comparison to the amount of metal he had used to make it, but that was part of what the spells weaved into it would do. On command, it would expand to a large platform exactly two meters across.

The designs on it had come out exactly as intended as well. Upon a blue background sat the eight-pointed star of Chaos Undivided done in bronze, inlaid with the circle and tentacle-like flame motif that comprised the Mark of Tzeentch, done in hues of glimmering blue and light purple. Though he had used no colors during the forging, it hadn't been hard to work in the spells to do so.

It was only polite to honor the person or thing one was stealing ideas from after all.

February 6th, 2019.

" This is what we found you collapsed in the hallway for?" Dora asked, unimpressed and disapproving as she looked at the silver disc in his hands. "A Warhammer-themed metal frisbee? I know you think that Chaos is cool, but this is ridiculous even for you."

Harry had not made it to his bed after he was done forging. His body had given out shortly after he'd stumbled through the mirror portal.

The following three days had been spent sleeping, getting fed like a sick child by a trio of upset women and having ointments rubbed into his abused muscles by a small army of veela masseuses. Despite that last part, it had not been a fun three days.

"It doesn't feel like much." Luna noted when it was her turn to handle the disc.

"Look deeper." Harry advised casually, unable to keep a smug smirk off his face. "I didn't enchant that thing, I spellforged it like the goblins do."

He cherished the sight of their shocked faces. Especially Luna, because her large eyes often made her look permanently surprised and she now looked Extra Surprised. It was an adorable look.

"You've figured out the goblin forging method?" Fleur asked with wide eyes, still frozen in place with her hands reaching out to take the disc from Luna.

Their shock was completely justified. The goblins guarded the knowledge of spellforging more jealously than gold, which was saying something.

"I don't know actually." Harry shrugged. "I'm just assuming that they do something similar, although probably more refined since they've had so much longer to work out the kinks."

"What does it do?" Dora asked, now looking much more interested.

"Let me show you." Harry grinned and took the disc back.

He threw it towards the ground, but instead of hitting the earth, it hovered just slightly above it. Then he jumped on it and it expanded to its full size, giving him a large platform to stand on.

"The Disc of Tzeentch is a Chaos Screamer daemon fused with metal and sorcery into a mount for a mortal champion, providing an immense tactical advantage for its rider." Harry began explaining, grinning at the eyerolls from Dora and Fleur. "Fortunately or unfortunately, this reality of ours is boringly devoid of Warp daemons and Chaos Gods - as far as I've been able to determine - so I had to make do with an approximation. It doesn't have the ability to grow blades, tentacles, eyes or to emit mutating flames and psychic screams, but it is fast and completely impervious to damage from any hand except my own."

"How much better can it be than flying on our own?" Dora asked skeptically.

Harry summoned his staff to his hand from where he'd set it down nearby and grinned again. "Why don't you come at me and find out?"

It was far from the first time he'd sparred against all three of them. They did it often in fact. Before, it had always been a challenge to keep from being overwhelmed by their numerical superiority even if he was significantly more powerful than any single one of them. Good practice for all four of them.

But that was before. With the Disc, he didn't need to expend that extra bit of focus to keep himself in the air and barely needed to bother with defense. It was indestructible, so all he needed to do was put it in the way of spells and they would bounce of harmlessly, no matter how powerful they were. Indirect spells were more effective, but also required comparatively less effort to defend against than direct ones. Lastly, it also had windshield spells built into it and perfect inertial dampening, allowing him to pull off speeds and turns that should have blinded him or torn him in half. He could make a ninety degree turn at more than two hundred miles per hour and feel nothing.

"I WANT ONE!" Dora and Fleur shouted in unison once he was done flying rings around them. Luna just nodded her agreement with the sentiment.

"And you'll each get one." Harry said easily, shamelessly soaking up the admiration of his women at his achievement. "After all, it'll take all four of us to utilize the primary feature."

"Eh?"

"I tacked on a lot of extra features to the idea of this baby over the years as they occurred to me and my skill grew, but the original intention was always to make a mobile warding system to trap annoying Dark Lords and their minions that keep running away when things start getting dicey for them." He explained with a grin.

"Ohhhh." Dora and Fleur matched his malicious expression at the thought of finally pinning Voldemort in place like the pest he was.

"We need to start working on a design!" Luna said urgently, her eyes wide.

Harry blinked. What?

"She's right." Dora nodded. "If we leave it up to Harry, he'll put something as stupid and nerdy on our Discs as he did on his own."

"Oi!" Harry protested indignantly. His design was not stupid! It might be a bit nerdy, but it wasn't stupid.

"No kidding." Fleur shuddered, completely ignoring him. "He'd probably want to stick with the theme and represent the other Chaos Gods from that ridiculous franchise."

"That doesn't even make any sense." Harry complained. The Discs of Tzeentch were strictly, as the name implied, Tzeentchian.

"Good point." Dora shuddered as well, ignoring him yet again. "I don't even want to imagine which one of us would get stuck with the Nurgle theme. Talk about ew."

Harry huffed exasperatedly. He knew that they were just taking the piss out of him at this point, but the oooh-ing and aaah-ing phase had passed entirely too quickly in his opinion.

Luna patted him on the arm sympathetically while Fleur and Dora continued to loudly discuss how gross and uncool everything in Warhammer was, the uncultured bitches.

"Why don't you go play with Septima while we decide on what designs we want?" She suggested kindly.

Luna had to be the only person alive that could say something like that without sounding patronizing.

"That's a good idea actually." He nodded, already feeling his blood rushing south at the thought of what he'd do to the subby former Arithmancy professor. A mistress that got off on being dominated was an indispensable way to unwind if you were into that kind of thing.