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XXV. A Place in the Sun

A villain of sufficient status will eventually wish for more- it's human nature, or at least the nature of men who rise to the status of villainhood. Demand what you deserve- get your own place in the sun, and if need be, throw others into the shade.

Actually finding the treasure was a bit of a trick, eventually requiring Harry to summon Kreacher to pass a note back to the island, requesting any spells that might help him find gold. It took a bit, but he eventually got his spells- Harry resolved himself to get a communication mirror like the one Sirius gave him or something- and they went to work.

Even then, it wasn't easy- there was a lot of mountain to cover and the weather was less than ideal. If he has to actually manually dig up the treasure with a spade or something, with no magic, he would have frozen to death. Thankfully, he was a wizard, so the process of excavation was significantly easier. It wasn't quite as much as Harry had expected- or maybe he was just spoiled on insane hoards- but two crates of gold was a princely sum.

Of course, the gold wouldn't do any good for Mizuno's relatives until it was actually in their hands, and Japan was by no stretch of the imagination a small country.

"So where do they live?"

"Shibukawa, I think?"

Shibukawa was no Tokyo, thankfully, so it wasn't like they were searching in the midst of hundreds of thousands of people. It was just tens of thousands.

Harry sent more notes back home and eventually got a response that he wanted- a spell that let a person find their relatives. He passed his wand to Mizuno for the spell, not noticing the slightly shocked expression on her face. With that, they were off.

In theory, the most noticeably magical thing about them would have been the slight chill that accompanied Mizuno everywhere she went, but they still found themselves as the center of attention. Unsurprisingly, in one of the most homogenous nations on the planet, British teenager Harry Potter stuck out quite a bit- especially considering he was accompanied by the sort of traditional Japanese beauty that you'd write home about. Their clothing only exacerbated the issue- Harry was dressed in practical, mundane clothing, while Mizuno sported a delicate, well made kimono.

The crates were shrunk and made lightweight with magic, for rather obvious reasons, and they only approached the house of the other Mizunos invisibly- under a cloak for Mizuno, under disillusionment for Harry.

After depositing it on their doorstep, Harry pulled out a pen and scrawled out note explaining that this was the treasure.

Mizuno laughed next to him, cold air brushing his neck. "Your calligraphy is truly remarkable, Mr. Potter- let me." She took the pen and began to write- not that her handwriting looked much better than Harry's.

He smirked at her, and she huffed. "I'm just used to writing with a brush, that's all." Harry pulled out his wand and quickly transformed the pen.

Sure enough, her calligraphy was remarkable with a brush. The letter read (as far as Harry could tell): This is the treasure of Mount Akagi, a gift from your relative up on the mountain. Something to that effect, at least.

Afterwards, they temporarily separated. Harry wanted to see more of the country, while Mizuno would go and gather more Yuki Onna which she suspected would be interested in visiting Harry's place. He was already making plans for several floors that would be extremely chilled, for their comfort.

Harry then rushed towards Tokyo- he wanted to see the city itself, of course, and he was also more than a little interested in the magical people of Japan. The Onmyouji were just waiting there for him, potentially ready to share their magic with him!

The bullet train was certainly very neat, as was the bustling metropolitan center of Tokyo- the great swarms of people at Shibuya Crossing, the fashion of Harajuku, all the neat muggle tech and culture at Akihabara… Harry didn't have much need for household appliances, for rather obvious reasons, but he took note of all the TVs and such. The vampires had a fondness for movies, when he took them out to London, (Harry avoided vampire films altogether- he recognized a bad idea when one appeared) and he was certain it would be a hit. There were those hot new DVD things as well…

But of course, if he wanted technology, he could have just gone to London. He was here for the magic, after all (and souvenirs, of course) and eventually, he found it. He was passing by a number of little, hole in the wall restaurants when he spotted an entrance- a quite literal hole in the wall, one that most people just seemed not to notice. Of course, Harry slipped inside.

As Harry walked through the alley like structure, the buildings got much older, very quickly, cement and steel quickly being replaced by wood and plaster, outcroppings slowly covering up the sky. A thin little line of sunlight filtered down between the roofs overhead, the light enhanced by lanterns that hung all over the place, or even just floated in air.

It was all very pretty, but he could immediately tell that something was up- there was nowhere near the amount of activity Harry had come to expect from Tokyo, even if it was the magical quarter. In fact, there didn't seem to be a single person outside… well, that was ominous, nearly as ominous as the tremendous black cloud of smoke that seemed to be hanging over one of the public areas of the magical quarter.

His attempts to use a minor weather magic to disperse the cloud failed- it was malignant. It stuck, kept in the area by something. Harry kept his staff gripped tightly in his hands as he approached whatever it was. The cloud seemed thickest and darkest over an open space centered on a beautiful shrine, decorated in vivid reds and golds.

On the roof of the shrine sat one of the oddest creatures Harry had seen in a long time. The face was like a monkey, but definitely not the cute sort, considering the rotted, but still sharp teeth in its snarling mouth. The body was strong and muscled, covered in stripes, rather like a tiger. Harry's eyes were naturally drawn towards the tail, which was an honest to goodness snake, like it was some sort of wacky chimera...

Before Harry could even try to strike up a conversation with the tail-snake, the creature noticed him, growled, and leapt. Harry leapt to the side to avoid the lunge, but not quite far enough to dodge the fluid movements of the snake, its mouth dripping with vile poison. If someone else was in his shoes, they might have met the same bitter end of many would-be slayers of the beast… but as the snake reared, Harry shouted "Stop!"

For a single moment, the snake froze, more confused than anything, before it bent to the will of the body it was attached to. Unfortunately for the snake, that was all the time Harry needed to use his staff to perform a wildly overpowered Sectumsempra- cutting the beast in half. The black clouds immediately began to clear, dispersing until the sun shone down beautifully on the shrine.

It was roughly at that moment that dozens of men and women rushed into the area, some of them carrying wands, while others carried… great reams of paper? Harry wasn't sure, other than the fact that they seemed like magical Japan's equivalent of aurors.

"Hello there, officers!"

As it turned out, killing a monster that was terrorizing magical Tokyo and that had a non-zero chance of going rogue and risking the Statue of Secrecy did earn him some friends in Japan. He honestly thought the Japanese seemed more than ready to handle the situation before he showed up, but he supposed he couldn't complain if he prevented anyone from dying against the creature- apparently called a nue.

He would probably have to meet with their wizarding government eventually (with no offense intended, ugh) but in the short term that meant people were more than happy to inform him about the specifics of Japanese magic. The Japanese had their own series of magical schools, for that peculiar art called Onmyodo, and happily enough they invited Harry to take some classes there. He couldn't exactly sign up for a full year of education, but Harry could take a peak at a few of the more basic classes.

One of their more peculiar magical styles involved things called Shikigami. They required some skill to summon, and there was a fair chance of the whole thing blowing up in a ln unprepared summoner's face, but they seemed quite useful. They were… spirit-like things, which were sometimes bound to little paper dolls.

He managed to get his way into a lecture on the subject. Admittedly, it was a little embarrassing, being the oldest person in the room by a significant margin, but thankfully the fact that the class was intended for younger students meant he could follow it slightly easier. In theory, all he needed to start with was good quality paper- in practice, it needed to be cut well, stored well, and required a certain mental willpower to keep the spirits who possessed the dolls from going wild.

You could do all sorts of things with them: make them do things that were too risky for a normal person, like scouting; they could be used to direct curses other people's way; and they could just straight up swarm people. Harry managed to make some passable ones- he was almost tempted to lodge them in his pocket in case of an emergency, but that might crumple them… well, Harry could possibly just enchant the pocket to be larger?

Meeting with the bloke from the Japanese government- not their Minister equivalent, apparently, but someone fairly important- was kind of boring. Sure, they meant well, but Harry had been through this song and dance before: "debt of gratitude" this and "service to the nation" that.

He supposed that as Prince of Doggerland, he should have been more excited about securing an alliance, or at the very least amicable relations, with a foreign nation. Eventually, the man rambled his way around to that subject as well. "Have you considered establishing an embassy, Prince Potter?"

Harry binked. He had not. Considering the number of people on his island, he didn't really think embassies were a priority. Who would even run them? But Harry did have magic overall, to the point where he could reasonably attach the embassy to the main island at Doggerland. For all intents and purposes, it would be the same building… just a foreign branch.

"That sounds workable. Do you have a location in mind? I'm not sure you've got much room here in Tokyo…"

The island that Harry rose from the sea this time was a little different from home, the main difference being the volcano. He used magic to make sure it wouldn't get active or anything like that… but if the island was rich with hot springs, who would ever complain about that? Harry wasn't quite bold enough to slap an island down right outside of Tokyo bay though, instead preferring a stretch of sea north of Hokkaido, itself the northernmost major island of Japan.

He started with a shack. Just enough to keep any sunlight from leaking in (that habit stuck, especially when it came to something as important as keeping the vampires safe) before linking back home. Everyone was a little surprised to see that he returned so soon, but no one was complaining about more rooms and an exotic locale. Or hot springs, obviously.

Harry would have to work on installing something- maybe kind of like one of those submarine pens the Germans used during WW2?- to move the boat around from place to place. The hangar or whatever would need to be massive, but allowing the ship to travel from the Dogger Banks to Hokkaido in mere minutes instead of weeks of sailing… Well, it would be extremely useful even though Harry's plans currently involved sailing by China and Taiwan before spending some time in South East Asia.

Honestly, Harry figured that the new… branch? Extension? Base? Whatever it was, Harry figured that it would be appropriate to build it in Japanese style. A style he had seen a fair amount of recently, but something that he figured could be replicated better by actual Japanese people- and conveniently enough, it was almost time for him to meet with Mizuno and company.

Thankfully, they weren't meeting somewhere public. If they were, the gaggle of Yuki Onna, all of them supernaturally beautiful, would have drawn way too much attention. That wasn't to mention the foxes- several of them had multiple tails.

"You found more volunteers than I expected."

Mizuno shrugged. "It's something to do." Harry supposed that living on the same mountain for ages could get pretty boring.

"And what about the foxes?" Harry knelt down, reaching out to touch one of the creatures… before it began to transform. It was a bit like an animagus transformation, although the tails stayed constant, and the end result was a beautiful, notably fox-like woman with a warm, if playful smile, and most interestingly, fox ears in addition to her human ones.

As Harry looked at her ears, one of them twitched slightly. They were real. He desperately, desperately fought the urge to reach out and pat the fox ears which sat atop the woman's head.

Oh, they were definitely apparating. Harry had vaguely considered the idea of maybe taking the train… but a party of what seemed to be more than a dozen, including women with actual fox ears? That was an actual threat to the Statute.

They were pretty cute though.

XXVI. Health

The importance of health cannot be overstated. It is somewhat related to the previously mentioned survivability, but there is more to it than that. It doesn't matter if you're unbeatable in a duel if a medical condition or lingering disease kills you. You're dead either way- and very few things disrupt ambitions and shatter plans quite like the death of the head honcho. Even if you've managed to get your grubby mits on a Philosopher's Stone or Horcrux of your own, that isn't a guarantee. Keep an eye on your health… and your succession.

Honestly, it was a bit of a surprise that it hadn't happened earlier. Travelling all around the world, visiting exotic locales and rubbing shoulders with strangers from every corner of the world… it was inevitable that Harry would eventually come down with something. Thankfully, it didn't seem to be a major condition like Dragon Pox- especially considering that the disease seemed to originate from Peruvian Vipertooths- but rather something a lot less offensive, more of a magical flu than anything else.

In other circumstances, Harry may have attempted to just struggle through it through nothing but sheer stubbornness… but now he had a lot of people that were beholden to him. Harry probably could have pulled out the Prince card and just forced his way through so he could go back to exploring, but at the same time, that meant attracting the potential ire of vampires, werewolves, and Yuki-Onna, all for the sake of an experience that would probably just be pretty miserable overall.

So Harry decided to stay at the island for a bit- sure, he couldn't keep an eye on Teddy because of the whole sickness thing, but it wasn't like the island was completely miserable to live on, even if Harry was fond of taking trips away from it. The hot springs in their Japanese… extension? Portion? In the Japanese portion of the base were a delightful improvement.

The issue Harry had was with all of the doting. Kreacher was kind of to be expected, as were the vampires who didn't have anything better to do with their time (read: Margaret), but the visits from the Veela and Yuki Onna were a bit more surprising. Not unappreciated… just surprising. The chilled hands of the Yuki Onna were a remarkable balm for fevers, even if they seemed a bit too touchy feely.

At the very least, he certainly wasn't bored. Someone was almost always there, if he wanted conversation, and he definitely wasn't lacking in books to read. One of the vampires would even occasionally come by with a radio- but that definitely wasn't the most interesting thing going on in the castle at the moment.

Some part of him was actually pretty glad that he was in bed at the moment, as the fox women, apparently called kitsune, were raising all sorts of hell. They didn't put anyone in (serious) danger and seemed wise enough to not target pranks at Teddy and Andromeda, but were otherwise more than happy to cause a mischief. This led to a sort of unfortunate feedback loop- they rubbed Margaret just the wrong way through their hijinks, so Margaret acted colder towards them, leading to more pranks in reprisal…

When George came by to visit, he exchanged pranking techniques with the kitsune- Harry imagined some interesting products would be introduced at Wizarding Wheezes soon- although it wasn't entirely bad. One of the kitsune got along swimmingly with George- perhaps a bit too swimmingly, actually…

Harry wouldn't judge, of course. Hell, technically speaking, if things went well, Harry could probably officiate a wedding. He was Prince of Doggerland, so he could basically give himself that right, right? He imagined the ministry would probably frown on marriages with creatures like kitsune, considering their recent policies.

Margaret proved mysteriously evasive whenever he brought up the subject of marriage law, though...

Harry found himself travelling in the direction of the Greengrass Manor once his own sickness had cleared up. Arranging an appropriate time to make an appointment with Astoria had proven difficult, and of course her relatives wanted to be there as well, so it couldn't just be a checkup at Hogwarts.

He met Astoria's father- Mr. Greengrass himself- in roughly the same place Harry had met his daughter. The man seemed to have practice schooling his expression, but Harry could just tell, almost on instinct, that Greengrass didn't like him very much.

"Mr. Potter." He did some sort of… complex gesture thing before waving Harry inside. Harry didn't die a horrific death when he crossed the precipice, so there was that.

The Greengrass Manor was… nice. Sure, it wasn't the size of Harry's castle, even if it had a bit more land to sprawl over, but it had that sort of classic country house look, with all the defenses of generations of wards.

After being led through lush gardens of both the decorative and functional variety, tended by a staff of house elves. While Harry couldn't pin a name on most of the plants, he was pretty sure that most of the useful ones were being grown, in some capacity, back home.

Mr. Greengrass escorted Harry inside the house, leading him past a number of closed (and Harry presumed locked) doors before reaching a parlor where the remainder of the man's family waited. Mrs. Greengrass looked stern and quite proud, and her daughters had definitely taken after her in the looks department. Daphne seemed quite dour, while Astoria sprung to her feet to greet him.

"Hello, Harry!"

"Hello, Astoria. You're speaking very well."

"Why thank you…"

"Now let's start talking in English again before your father bursts a blood vessel." All three of the other Greengrasses had rather unhappy expressions, more than a little upset that they weren't being included in the conversation.

"My apologies," Harry said, "but your daughter is such a remarkable speaker already."

"All thanks to your book, Mr. Potter," Mr. Greengrass said, seeming quite hesitant to acknowledge that particular fact. "But that doesn't mean your so-called Parselmagic will do a thing."

"Well, I'd certainly like to try. None of you are afraid of snakes, right?" Before any of them could come up with an answer, his king snake slithered out of his sleeve.

"Mr. Potter!" Mrs. Greengrass exclaimed, taking a step back.

"Calm down, he's not even poisonous," he said, switching to Parseltongue with the ease of a natural born user. "right, bud? You're not poisonous, are you?" The snake shook its head no.

"Did you really need to carry it in your sleeve?"

"Snakes typically are a requirement for Parselmagic." Harry said, before launching straight into the magic- there was no point in delaying, after all.

Some of the Greengrasses' doubt vanished when Harry began to chant, his eyes glowing a pale green- the same pale green that surrounded the snake. Harry looked them all over, but spent the most time staring- rather intensely, in fact- at Astoria.

His eyes dimmed to their normal, non-glowing shade, and he immediately pulled out a paper and began to scratch down notes, comparing them to another sheaf of paper he seemingly pulled from nowhere.

"Did it work, Potter?"

"Yes, I definitely saw something there, I'm checking my notes now…" he paused for a second before continuing, "Oh, by the way Mr. Greengrass, have you noticed any difficulties in breathing lately? Shortness of breath?"

The patriarch of the family blinked. "How did you…?"

"You've got a tumor about the size of a Sickle in your left lung." Harry answered matter-of-factly.

The man's eyes widened considerably- it wasn't necessarily a death sentence for a wizard, but that Harry could tell at a glance…

"I can fix it, if you'd like." Harry offered.

"You can?"

"I can- just give me a moment." With a quietly muttered Serpensortia, a different snake wrapping around one his arms. "This might feel… odd." Harry warned, before beginning to chant.

Mr. Greengrass did in fact feel odd- as best as he could describe it, there was an almost ticklish feeling against his throat, which descended down to his lungs, before the briefest touch of pain on his left side. Suddenly, his breath came a little easier.

"How did you…?"

"I killed the tumor." Harry said, deciding not to mention any parallels to muggle chemotherapy. At least not yet- he wasn't sure how the man would react to muggle medicine.

The whole family seemed a bit more open now- not completely trusting, obviously, but it was a start. "And do you think you could cure Astoria?"

"I think so," Harry said, pulling out a piece of paper covered in dense writing, front and back. "Now I've got an entire page of countercurses I'd like to try…"

Unfortunately, none of them seemed to work, even if Harry did get to flex his Parselmagic skills a little. Of course, this wasn't exactly stellar for everyone's mood.

"Was that all?" Mr. Greengrass asked, his voice resigned.

"Not to get your hopes up, but I have a few more ideas…" Harry said. "Well, I figure if it's a blood borne curse, we should be able to treat it with muggle methods, or at least ones quite like them."

They all seemed a little wary, but Harry knew it would always be a hard sell. "How so?"

"Transplants." Harry said. "Now, stop me if this is sounding taboo or something. If the curse is actually carried in Astoria's blood, then it might be possible to use someone else's blood."

There wasn't quite an explosive reaction, but the Greengrasses let a bit of shock leak through their masks. Astoria's eyes were wide.

"But where would you get the blood from, Mr. Potter?" Mrs. Greengrass asked.

"Myself." Harry said, thinking the answer was kind of obvious. "I've been reliably informed I'm O negative." The vampires apparently had a taste for that sort of thing, but he took a test just in case.

"O negative?" Daphne asked, baffled, having kept up with the conversation until now.

"Muggle classification of blood- I can donate blood to basically anyone." Harry said.

"Muggles have blood status?"

Harry sighed. "Not quite like wizards do. It's just a medical thing- lots of muggles don't know their own type."

"And you have all this blood on hand?"

"I will remind you of the existence of Blood-Replenishing potions, which have allowed me to build up a stockpile."

"A stockpile…?"

"I'm sure you've read the papers. You know who I'm giving that blood to." There were a few moments of awkward silence.

"And if that doesn't work?"

"I suppose a marrow transplant is possible?"

"Marrow?"

"Where do you think blood comes from?" Harry really tried not to let any disappointment leak into his voice.

"Assuming muggles are correct about this, where would you even get the marrow from?"

"I'm not positive about marrow, and I think I'd need to get some muggles to do testing, but donation is possible. Daphne is probably the best shot, but I don't know…"

As it turned out, there was something of a pureblood taboo about letting other people handle your blood. This made the process of getting a test more difficult for a number of reasons. Herding Astoria and her father (who had to come along, to make sure Harry didn't do anything nefarious with the samples) through even sparsely populated muggle areas was a pain.

Then they had to liberally use confundus on a doctor to get him to do the tests (Harry mentally apologized to anyone he was inconveniencing by doing that… before casting a few subtle charms to make the place run more smoothly). Thankfully, it turned out that Daphne was a workable donor, and Harry was hopeful that Skele-Gro would provide all the marrow they needed, hopefully without the excruciating pain on Daphne's part.

Of course, it wasn't like this surgery/transfusion they were planning was some small scale operation. There was a complex bouquet of spells and charms Harry needed to know forwards and backwards before anyone (including himself) was remotely comfortable with the idea. Not only would he want spells to replace blood and marrow with other samples of blood marrow, which weren't exactly common by themselves, they might need some sort of stasis to keep Astoria alive through the process…

Suffice it to say that a significant part of the castle was being refitted into a medical facility. Ideally, it wouldn't see much use after fixing up Astoria, but it would probably be good to keep around.