Chapter 28

"Merry Christmas, Bratan."

Harry was far too stunned to reply or even notice that the vampire was grinning at him widely, obviously enjoying the effect of his words.

His mind was cast back to several years ago, when he had gotten bitched out for posting pieces of Arithmancy problems online. That conversation had nagged at him with many unanswered questions, but he'd never expected to actually have them answered.

"You…" He finally managed, not really sure where to begin or what to say.

"No, actually not me." Bjomolf admitted. "The one you spoke to was a subordinate, but I was informed of your conversation."

"And you've been, what? Keeping an eye on me all this time?" Harry demanded.

"Once again, no. I had no idea that it was you that my man spoke with and had in fact waved the event off as a precocious newblood thinking they were being clever. It wasn't until you reacted to the code phrase just now that I was able to confirm it."

Harry took a deep breath and used his hard won skill with Occlumency to master himself. He needed his wits about him here. "Code phrase?"

"Any time that one of us speaks to a person of interest a code phrase is inserted into the conversation. Something difficult to forget but also unobtrusive, which is why we are meeting on Christmas. The man you spoke to isn't even Russian."

"I see." Harry said, his mind working at a furious pace. He'd apparently stumbled into something big. Big and secret. Adrastia had no doubt been sharing what she knew about him as well, making it easier for these people to identify him. Her knowledge of his runes combined with the fragments that could be gleaned from the arithmancy equations he'd posted online would be enough. "You said 'us'?"

Bjomolf smiled at him. "As you may have surmised, we are a group of those who do not particularly fit in with either the magical world or the mundane one."

Hadn't Adrastia mentioned something like this once? "Like Adrastia?"

"Indeed."

"And she suggested that I would fit in with you?" There had certainly been enough hints on the topic that only now made sense.

"That's why you're here."

"And if I don't want to?"

"We will not try to kill you if that is your concern. You are both too high profile and too potentially useful for that."

Ah, so they weren't averse to killing people to maintain secrecy. Not really much of a surprise, but it didn't make Harry feel very safe either. He would like to say that he could fight his way out of this if he had to, but he was in enemy territory and surrounded by people whose abilities he didn't know, not a good situation for anyone.

"What does this group of yours even do?" He asked suspiciously.

Bjomolf gave a lopsided smirk. "Survive."

Harry blinked. "What?"

The vampire sighed and rose from his chair, walking over to the window overlooking the city.

"The world is a different place than it was when I was still human, so very different." He said wistfully.

"When was that anyway?" Harry interjected curiously.

Bjomolf turned around and grinned a bit, the almost sadly philosophical air around him dissipating for a moment. "I was a Viking raider when Eric Weatherhat was King at Uppsala."

Harry's eyebrows shot up in surprise. He'd figured something Norse due to the name, but that was a bit further back than he'd expected. Eric Weatherhat was known to be a wizard, though not in the modern sense of the word. He'd come across a few mentions of him while researching historical magic users that hadn't been trained in a school like Hogwarts. "Late 9th century Sweden?"

"Those were the days." Bjomolf said nostalgically. "I was technically royalty myself, you know? A grandson to King Björn Ironside through a bastard daughter."

"Never heard of you." Harry said bluntly.

The vampire deflated a bit even as he chuckled. "You wouldn't have, not after the ignoble end I had."

Harry raised an inquiring eyebrow.

Bjomolf seemed almost eager to share as he launched into the story. "It was my first raid. I was to lead an attack on a small coastal town to prove myself capable. My men and I decided to attack at night for maximum surprise and easily overwhelmed the understrength guards, the town was ours for the taking."

"What went wrong?" Harry asked when the vampire paused, seemingly lost in thought.

Bjomolf smiled wryly. "A vampiress happened to be living there at the time and didn't appreciate having her little feeding ground pillaged. My raiding party was hunted down to the last man before the Sun came up and I was taken captive. Let me tell you, there is nothing quite so humbling as being used as a portable blood bag for a few years."

Harry snorted in amusement. Yes, that did sound humbling.

"I tried to escape of course, but Larentia was much older and more clever than the hotheaded warrior I used to be. I eventually became so attached to her that I didn't even want to leave anymore, Stockholm Syndrome they would call it these days. Seven years into this, she offered to Turn me and I accepted."

Harry thought about that for a moment and wondered what was involved in the Turning of a wizard or witch into a vampire. He dismissed the notion that a non-magical could be Turned out of hand. Lycanthropy needed magic too and this aura couldn't come without innate magic.

He wanted to ask what the Turning entailed, but knew better than to think he would get an answer. There were other questions that he might get an answer too though.

"Can you still do magic?" The books said no, that vampires were magical creatures with their own set of abilities, but books were written by people and people were full of crap.

"I never even knew I had the potential for it when I was human." Bjomolf admitted.

"That wasn't what I asked."

"I know."

That probably meant that the answer was more complicated than a simple yes or no. Given what he knew about the Dark and the general working of magic…

"You regain it temporarily after drinking magical blood, don't you?" The Dark would drain the magic out of them over time, which also meant that vampires needed magical blood to survive.

Bjomolf gave him an appraising look. "You are a clever one, aren't you? But I suppose I shouldn't have expected anything else from a Brother in Darkness."

That rattled Harry's composure. "Brother in Darkness?"

"There is no need to hide it." Bjomolf smiled and for the first time, Harry glimpsed the dangerous thing hidden beneath the civilized and charismatic veneer. "I see the runes carved into your flesh and sense the Dark in your soul."

"Ah." Was all Harry could say. He'd never considered that Arhain might be less than effective against a vampire.

"When I heard from Adrastia what you've done to yourself, I wasn't sure whether to be impressed by your determination, astounded by your recklessness or baffled by your survival. Everything I know tells me that you should be dead or worse."

"Why?"

"People have made offerings to Light and Dark for thousands of years, most often in the guise of religion. Always there were gods of light and darkness, or spirits and demons at least, with which ancient magi made pacts and drew power from. We know better now, we know that there are no gods, but Light and Dark are very real. To my knowledge, no one has ever made pacts with both and lived, especially not in the blind, blundering way that you did it. Either there is something very special about you, or you have the most absurd luck in existence."

Harry immediately thought back to the soul fragment that had been stuck in his head. He was reasonably sure that the dementors had attacked him that day on the train because of it. With the benefit of greater knowledge and retrospect, he knew that the killing of Pettigrew had counted as a sacrifice to the Dark and opened the metaphorical gates. What would have happened to him if he had been unable to dislodge that soul fragment and let the Dark have it?

Then again, it could actually have been sheer dumb luck that he'd survived. Harry supposed that he would never know for sure.

"I always wondered about those gods." He said instead of commenting on his unlikely survival. "A shame they got displaced, even if they're not real. At least they weren't completely useless like the Bible God."

"You think the rise of Christianity was happenstance?" Bjomolf laughed. "Silly cults just like it cropped up like weeds back in those days, practically every time that someone with magical potential figured out how to do a few tricks to impress the gullible. Most of them vanished without fanfare, so what made Christianity so special? Nothing at all… expect for the vampire agents that helped spread it and whispered a suggestion into Emperor Constantine's and later Emperor Theodosius' ears that maybe they should make it the official religion of the Roman Empire."

"But why?!" Harry burst out, genuinely angered by that juicy bit of information. The gods of the ancient world might not have been real, but the One God of the Abrahamic religions was utterly hollow and worthless.

Bjomolf didn't take offense at his tone and merely sat back down into the chair he'd vacated earlier.

"Because, Harry, the worshippers of the solar deities were a problem for us. Drunk on the power they drew from the Sun, they had no tolerance for any darkness and were dangerous to us. From the wizard-priests of Apollo and Ra to the warmages of Rome's Sol Invictus, the Order of the Unconquered Sun, they were our greatest enemies across all of history. A few tweaks to make Christianity villify magic and we had a good way to get rid of them, though I doubt anyone expected it to get as out of hand as it did."

Harry rubbed his forehead and let out an unhappy sigh. He understood the logic, but to think that the diverse mythology of yore had been replaced by cross-toting imbeciles because the vampires wanted to cripple their enemies…

"What about Judaism and Islam?" He asked.

"I don't know." Bjomolf admitted. "Much was lost over the centuries, I only know what I do because Larentia was a Roman involved in promoting Christianity. Judaism went through enough changes and contains enough suspect material that there might have been one or more of us manipulating things, but it's impossible to say one way or another. Islam was almost certainly free of direct vampiric manipulation though."

"Why's that?" Harry asked curiously.

"Because of its location. There hasn't been any vampire presence in the space between Egypt and India since long before Islam showed up."

"Why?"

"You sure do ask 'why?' a lot." Bjomolf noted with amusement.

"I don't like unanswered questions." Harry replied simply.

"Well the answer to this question is a bit of a history lesson. Would you like the short version or the long version?"

"Long version please."

"You're lucky that I enjoy telling stories." The vampire smirked. "You have a veela friend, yes?"

"Yes…" Harry nodded cautiously, already having a suspicion on where this was going.

"Do you know the origin of the species?"

"Lilith and her succubi daughters."

"Very good. Have you perhaps researched Lilith's mythological importance?"

Harry had indeed done that. He'd managed to pinpoint several deities and demons in the Mesopotamian area that might have been references to Lilith, though the most prominent by far were the mentions of her in the Old Testament. Disregarding all the religious tripe and mentions of God, there were some very interesting mentions of her as a demonic seductress that killed men with sex. Shockingly accurate for a religious text, though he did wonder why they left out the 'killing women with sex' part. Ancient homophobia? Or maybe they just assumed that it only worked if there was penetration going on. Probably the latter. There was also something in there about her killing infants with sex, but Harry was dubious about that one. Stealing magical infants to kill them with sex once they grew up he could believe, but he was pretty sure that a succubus' 'life and magic drain through sex' thing wouldn't work on babies.

"I have, but what does this have to do with Islam being free of vampiric manipulation?"

"Lilith was not the only powerful magic user active in that time or place."

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose as things started becoming clear to him. "Let me guess, the first vampire?"

"Yes, his name was Cain, or that's what he came to be known as at any rate."

Harry rolled his eyes with a snort. He wasn't even surprised that the progenitor of the vampires would end up a religious figure.

Bjomolf ignored his exasperation and continued. "We don't know if they were both still human at the same time period or what the nature of the relationship between them was, that was lost over the years, but we do know that Lilith was active in the Mesopotamian region for approximately one thousand years before her death at the hands of Gilgamesh. Cain was almost certainly born there somewhere in that time period as well."

"So Mesopotamia was now home to two different species of magical predator that both preyed on magical humans." Harry stated with a sigh.

"I see you grasp the problem. Vampires and succubi were enemies almost from the start, but too wary of each other to engage in more than the occasional one on one battle when they chose the same victim, the supply of which dwindled over time. Cain, Lilith and many of their children were killed but it was magical starvation that truly forced them to leave the area and spread out across the world. A lesson had been learned and both species adopted more restrained methods of hunting for prey after that, but the Middle East never truly recovered its magical population. The Jews and then the Muslims showing up with their intolerant views on magic made sure that it was nothing short of a miracle for the rare magic capable child to reach adulthood, but not enough of one to bring magic back to the area. And that is why Islam is almost certainly free of direct vampiric manipulation - we would have starved if we tried to operate there. It is entirely possible - likely even - that they absorbed a few of our additions from Christianity though."

"Well… that's just shit." Harry said after a long few moments. The thought of all that land being a magical dead zone was depressing to him in ways that few things could hope to be.

"It is." Bjomolf agreed. "Magic was said to have thrived in Sumer, Akkad, Babylonia and Assyria. Who knows how diffeent the world might have been if wizards and witches had not been hunted to extinction there? We've veered very far off topic though."

Harry actually had to rewind the conversation in his head to recall what exactly they had been talking about before they'd diverged into this interesting little history lesson. There had been that thing with the vampires using Christianity as a weapon, and the 'Brother in Darkness' bit before that, and Bjomolf being a thousand year old Viking vampire before that… ah, now he remembered.

"Right, you were going to tell me what you mean when you said that the goal of this secret club of yours is to survive."

"As I said, the world is different from what it once was. With our puppet religion in place and pushing out the Sun sorcerers that were causing us so much trouble and discouraging magic in general, life was good for us vampires in Christian held lands. Feeding on the untrained - or the rarer trained if one was feeling adveturous - magicals was simple enough. But then Hogwarts was built and other magic schools on its heels, leading to a dearth of easy prey. With the rise of the Ministries of Magic, we vampires suddenly found ourselves in a very difficult situation. The prey was no longer untrained and scattered, but had a full fledged society. We did not, do not and cannot have the numbers to win an open conflict against an organised force, as the succubi learned to their detriment, so we had to resort to cunning. Just as wizards and witches hid their society from mundane eyes, so did we vampires hide our own from theirs, ironically within the mundane world that they came to shun. We approached wizards and witches in difficult situations and offered them deals, we would help them and they would agree to be fed upon. The whole thing has evolved a great deal since then of course, but the core idea is of cooperation for the sake of survival."

"I don't need you to survive though." Harry pointed out after chewing on that for a minute. He wondered how many muggleborns had been offered this bargain.

"There are other deals we might make, other benefits you might have from an association with us." Bjomolf said, undaunted.

"Such as?"

"The past century has been a great boon to us with its technological advancement. Our web spans the world now and you could call on allies almost anywhere if you needed them."

"And what would you want in return?"

"Nothing too onerous I assure you. Someone of your talents could help us with many things, but merely sharing your powerful blood would most likely be sufficient payment for just about anything. There are other ways you might help us if that makes you squeamish."

Harry considered it very carefully. He wasn't squeamish, so letting a vampire nibble on him in exchange for help seemed a small thing, as long as none of his blood was left lying around somewhere. He also wasn't blind to the fact that this was a rather similar arrangement to what he already had with Adrastia, which he now realised was probably a deliberate move on the manipulative woman's part to subtly influence him to accept what was being offered here.

And on that note… "Was this whole chat of ours designed to put me at ease so that I'd be more likely to accept?"

Bjomolf smiled at him widely. "Perhaps."

Harry had figured as much. For all that the vampire had told him many interesting things, all of them were entirely inconsequential to the here and now.

"Why are you trying so hard to get me on board? I don't imagine that you put in this much effort with just anyone."

"But you are not just anyone, Harry Potter." Bjomolf said with a small grin.

Harry supposed that was true.

"I understand your reluctance, this has come out of nowhere for you after all." Bjomolf continued, getting up and walking over to the desk. He opened a drawer and pulled out a small nondescript booklet. "Here, take this."

Harry did so and opened it, frowning at the empty booklet. "There's nothing in here."

"The Black Book contains contact information for all the master vampires in the world."

As soon as the words were spoken, the previously blank pages filled up with names, locations and contact instructions. Curiously, each was written in a different hand, as if every entry had been made by the vampire in question.

"Fidelius?" Harry asked.

"Yes."

"Tricky bit of magic." A secret hidden inside the soul. Those who hadn't been told literally couldn't hold the information inside their minds. Even once told, the secret remained in a nebulous state of being known and unknown at the same time, preventing it from being shared any further. Only the Secret Keeper knew it completely. He hadn't known that a vampire could be a Secret Keeper.

"Very tricky." Bjomolf agreed.

"You'd just give me this, even without my agreement to join your secret club?" Harry asked skeptically.

"I can see that you are wary and I don't want you to think that I am trying to trap you into an unfavorable deal. As of yet, you don't know anything truly harmful to us and Adrastia has assured me that you can keep a secret. Take the Black Book and contact us if you ever find yourself in need of help."

Harry wasn't sure what to think of that. That he wasn't being told everything was a given, but Bjomolf seemed to be going out of his way to make him feel comfortable. He could literally just pretend that this never happened and have nothing more to do with the vampires and their shadowy organisation.

"Alright, thank you." He finally said, standing up.

"It was a pleasure meeting you, Harry Potter." Bjomolf said with a fangy grin.

"How did it go?" Zuzanna asked her sire as soon as they were alone.

"He is sensibly suspicious of everything, but seems willing to keep an open mind." Bjomolf replied.

"I'm still not sure if it was wise to rush meeting him like this, despite Adrastia's assurances. You know that the others will be upset with you for going through with it over their objections. You were barely able to convince them to even consider someone so high profile."

"No doubt." The older vampire agreed. "But the opportunity was too good to pass up and we are running out of time to play it safe."

"But to give him a Black Book on the first meeting…" Zuzanna said worriedly.

"It is unorthodox, I know, but I could not treat him like an ordinary wizard and there is little risk of exposure given the amount of overlapping Fidelius Charms on it anyway. He is wary enough already and I do not want him deciding that we are more trouble than we are worth."

"But is he worth it?"

"For good or ill and often regardless of their wishes, wizards like Harry Potter tend to impact the course of history. I would be deeply surprised if he is not the subject of a prophecy, but that doesn't matter. We have moved through the steps of this careful dance for a long time now, but every dance must end and I already hear the music fading. I would rather not have a sorcerer that powerful sowing chaos with every footstep if we might co-opt him instead."

"I hope you had an interesting time." Adrastia said as they appeared back in her home.

Harry made a non-committal grunt in response, his mind still fixed on the things he'd learned tonight.

Not the ancient history things, those were interesting but irrelevant. Rather, it was the possible motivations of the sneaky vampires that he mulled on. He could believe that they wanted to survive, but there surely had to be more to it.

Thanks to both Da'Roir and his ceaseless Occlumency practice, his memory was exceptional and he could recall that long ago internet conversation in detail. Correlating it with what he had just heard from Bjomolf, Harry guessed that they must be worried about the threat of the garden variety non-magical humans. That would make sense, they must be well practiced at staying beneath the notice of the various Ministries of Magic, especially since those tended to ignore the mundane world for the most part, but it would be harder to stay completely unnoticed in the world that they actually lived in. Especially with how bureaucratically regulated everything was these days.

He could also guess that they were perhaps snatching away magical children from places like China and Russia since there were no magical communities there anymore. The guy he'd spoken to back then had said something about taking newbloods away from those areas, though there had been no mention of vampires of course.

"Come now, Harry, don't be like that." Adrastia chided, breaking him oout of his thoughts. "It took a lot of convincing on my part to get you a meeting with Bjomolf so quickly."

"And sharing things you agreed to keep secret?" Harry glowered.

"I told only Bjomolf and Zuzanna." She waved off.

"The agreement was that you wouldn't tell anyone ."

"They would have sensed it either way." Adrastia gave him a mysterious smile. "Would you have prefered that they decide you were a threat to be removed?"

Harry blew air out of his nose with a grumble. She had an answer for everything, didn't she?

He wanted to point out that she could have just let them stay unaware of each other, but that would be silly. He would have encountered the vampires eventually even without her help, that was a near certainty.

"What do you get out of this?" He asked suspiciously.

"Well that's not really any of your business, now is it? Suffice to say that keeping an eye out for promising people is part of what I do."

"How did you get involved with them then?"

"I was approached soon after I gained my current reputation. It has been a most beneficial partnership."

"Right." Harry grunted, seeing the hint for what it was.

"You are welcome to stay the night if you wish." Adrastia offered, abruptly changing the subject. "I didn't think to tell my elves to prepare the fireplaces in any of the other rooms, but I'm sure we can both squeeze into my bed."

"I promised Fleur and Luna I'd come back as soon as I could." Harry replied blandly. It was true, but he wouldn't have accepted even without that. Adrastia was as beautiful as ever, but also seemed more dangerous now that he knew who she hung out with. The transient pleasure of fucking her wasn't worth the potential trouble it would get him into and he wasn't even in the mood anyway.

"A pity." She sighed. "I will see you some other day then."

Yes, Harry had the feeling that they would be seeing more of each other in the future. No doubt it would portend more trouble when it happened.

Harry had expected to find the manor dark and quiet when he came home considering the late hour. To his bemusement however, he found the warm orange glow of firelight spilling into the hallway from the sitting room.

The reason for this quickly became clear. Fleur and Luna were there, both fast asleep on the largest couch. Fleur was in what had to be an uncomfortably upright position with a book next to her and Luna's head in her lap. Both of them were dressed in their rarely used silk pajamas and had clearly been waiting for him to return.

Shaking his head in exasperation, he put the book on the closest table and went to wake his veela lover up with a kiss, knowing that she liked that.

Fleur sleepily returned the kiss at first, but then broke it off with a wince and a groan of pain, rubbing her sore neck.

"I told you not to wait for me." Harry said, amused by the stream of whispered French curses that issued from her lips. He had availed himself of that language learning magic that the Ministry offered for several languages already, French included. The new head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation had been so pleased that the Harry Potter had come talk to him about it that he'd gotten that service for a pittance and there had been no need to hold back.

"Luna insisted and I did not want 'er to be alone." Fleur explained. Her accent had thinned considerably over the past few months, softening mostly into a background purr, though she did still have a little trouble with words that started with an 'H'.

"Ah." Harry nodded in understanding. Fleur had gone to spend a few hours with her parents in France and had taken Luna with her so that she wouldn't be alone in the manor, but he knew that the younger blonde had wanted to spend the day with him. Adrastia had showed up late in the afternoon, after sundown already, but it had still been a disruption to a day that he knew Luna considered to be for family. "Let's get up to bed then."

" Oui. "

Harry could have used magic to carry Luna to the master bedroom, but he elected not to. It wasn't like she was heavy and the way that she curled up into him was cute.

"'Ow was it?" Fleur asked once he had put Luna to bed and started undressing.

Harry let out a long sigh. How to answer that? "Not what I expected."

"Oh?"

"I'll tell you about it in the morning, you look like you're going to fall back asleep any second now." He chuckled. They'd be able to keep the vampire thing a secret, so he wasn't worried about telling them. He'd keep it from Penny and Sirius for now though.

Fleur was too tired to do anything but nod with a yawn and press her nude body up against his. Even feeling his manhood stirring at the physical contact wasn't sufficiently enticing to make her put sleep off any further.

Trapped between a sexy naked veela and a somewhat less sexy pajama-clad almost-fifteen-year-old, Harry sighed. Now he was horny and not really all that tired yet. It was a good thing that he'd taken up meditation years ago or this would have been a real problem.

January 6th.

To Harry's great surprise and pleasure, finding a suitable material for his communication mirror project did not take long at all. Petrified wood was apparently a thing and acquired easily enough in this day and age. Wizards didn't know of it because few if any ever bothered with geology and none had apparently bothered with the stuff even if they did know of it. Penny had been able to order multiple different samples of it online and it was delivered to her parents' doorstep without issue. His assistant had certainly been happy that the task had turned out to be so simple.

Of course, while Harry might have gotten his hands on the proper material to start working on, there were still problems. For one, it took him a couple of weeks to determine that the ones with high carbon content(conveniently also among the most common) were the best at holding an enchantment while still funneling the magic properly. He didn't quite know how that worked since petrified wood had no organic matter remaining, but he was eventually forced to guess that the wood-turned-stone retained an imprint of what it used to be. Or something.

Once that was done came the problematic task of making an enchantment stick to the stuff. It didn't take a good magic user to slap an amateurish enchantment on stone or metal. It would fade away in time, but it would stick long enough. Wood could be magically reshaped or have runes etched into it to control how it flowed, but would shrug off even the most skillfully applied enchantment within days. That was why brooms had metal bits attached to them, to hold the magic.

Petrified wood was predictably somewhere in the middle. It would not accept an amateurish enchantment and would eventually shrug off anything but a perfectly applied one.

This was a problem, because what Harry had in mind was very complex.

"Any day now, Harry." Sirius said, his jaw clenched, eyes and wand staying fixed on the slab of blackish fossil that had consumed his godson's attention recently.

"Shut up and focus." Harry said back, his own face tense and focused. "Just a little longer…"

With the benefit of his non-magical upbringing, he had noticed that higher level enchanting bore some superficial similarities to computer programming. That made a strange sort of sense to him since he was essentially programming an object to act in a certain way.

Of course, the difference was that the rules weren't always the same, he couldn't test to see if it worked and there was no way to edit once the enchantment was cast. By far the worst thing was that the whole thing had to be applied all at once though, Harry having determined over the course of several failures that the magic tended to mutate if one tried to apply it in chunks. Petrified wood was simply not as stable as stone or metal.

Fortunately, that was not a problem unique to this new material and a workaround for it had been discovered long ago. More than one person could do the enchanting by means of splitting complex enchantments into stable chunks and allowing the assisting magic users to hold them while the primary enchanter worked on the next part. That was why he currently had Sirius, Fleur, Luna and Penny here.

"Alright, I'm ready." Harry said. "Easy now…"

All five of them carefully brought the enchantment together into a cohesive whole and then warily stepped back. Their first attempt had been mildly explosive.

"So far so good." Sirius said jauntily.

"We'll see." Harry grunted cynically. They'd gotten to this point before. "Can you pass me the mirrors, Fleur."

The veela did so, handing him the four mirrors that had been chosen for this experiment.

Linking them to the newly made Nexus went off without a hitch. "Alright, let's try this out. Calling Luna."

His mirror showed the face of his friend.

"Hello, Harry." She said into it, smiling widely.

"Yes, hello." He replied dryly. "Alright, Fleur. Your turn."

"Calling Sirius." Fleur said and that was where things went wrong. The second magical connection intruded into the first and made the whole thing collapse.

"Damn." Harry muttered.

"At least the Nexus didn't explode this time." Penny offered. "Maybe you just need to refine the enchantment a little bit more?"

"No, I don't think that's it." Harry disagreed unhappily. "It's the enchantments on the mirrors, they're all the master side of the Proten Charm and keep trying to take priority. They're ignoring the secondary pathways worked into the Nexus enchantment."

"So it will not work?" Fleur asked, also unhappy.

"Not like this." Harry said with a shake of his head. "I do have an alternative idea, but…"

"But?" Everyone else prompted.

"But nothing just yet, I'll need to do some tests." He said dismissively and walked off.

Fleur, Luna, Penny and Sirius looked at each other and shrugged, also walking off. Harry was in one of his thoughtful moods again and would be unsociable for a while.

A week later.

After several attempts, dead ends and false starts, Harry had finally figured out a possible workaround to the Nexus enchantment problem.

Wood might be more or less useless from an enchanting standpoint, but it could be carved with runes to direct how the magic would be funneled through it. From there it had been relatively simple to figure out how to make use small wooden sticks as distinct channels so that multiple mirror-mirror connections could be active simultaneously.

At this very moment, Harry was just finishing the rune carving of the last such channeling stick.

It really sucked that this had to be done by hand when there were so many options for precision carving available in the non-magical world. But alas, as Harry had long noted, magic was good for skipping small inconveniences but crap at large scale projects. Automation was simply not a thing with magic. There was no such thing as enchanting an item to make more enchanted items.

A magic user unconsciously imbued some of their power into most everything they did, from potion brewing to something as simple as writing a letter. If a person without magic tried to brew a potion, all they'd get was toxic sludge. A wizard signing his name stamped a bit of his identity onto the parchment or paper or whatever medium they used, something that more people would be well advised to be wary of.

Similarly, runes were powerless decoration unless they were handmade by a witch or wizard, which was the whole reason why he even needed employees for his idea to work instead of simply paying an engraving business in the mundane world to do it for him.

But that was a problem for the future, one of many. For now, he just had to make this much smaller scale Nexus work so that he had a proof of concept and so that he wouldn't have to carry half a dozen mirrors with him all the time.

Harry slid the newly created channeling stick into the opening he'd prepared in the block of petrified wood, nodding approvingly to himself when he felt the connection snap into place.

The Nexus was now a thick slab with twenty holes in it, only three of which were currently filled.

Next, he connected a set of mirrors marked from one to six to the Nexus, once again nodding approvingly to himself when no problems appeared.

Now for the part where things always went awry in the past.

First, he grabbed the mirror marked 'one'. "Two."

The number two mirror vibrated, signaling an incoming call. So far so good.

After answering it, he grabbed the mirror marked 'three'. "Four."

This was the part where things usually failed in past attempts, but the number four mirror vibrated just like number two had.

Harry answered it and was able to see his grinning face reflected in all four mirrors. Success!

Just to be sure, he did it again with the five and six mirrors, getting the same result. Then he deactivated all six and tried various combinations of it just to make sure that there weren't any hidden problems, but everything seemed to be working perfectly. Perfect.

This was actually even better than if the Nexus alone could support the whole enchantment. This way, every stick represented a mirror's incoming connection. Not only would it prevent multiple people attempting to connect to a single mirror, but he could also easily disconnect a mirror from the network if the buyer didn't pay their monthly fee.

He wasn't sure if he was going to stay with the sticks or change it to something easier to carve on(picking round, wand-like sticks had been a bad idea in retrospect), such as small wood plank or something so that it more resembled a blade server design that he'd seen while cruising the internet for ideas, but the important part was that it worked. Figuring out the specifics and streamlining it could wait until he was ready to start hiring people, for now he was going enjoy the feeling of accomplishment.

Harry was still sitting in the lord's study twenty minutes later, feeling inordinately pleased with himself, when Fleur walked through the door.

"Why are you grinning like that?" The French veela asked.

"Because I've done it." Harry said simply, gesturing at the Nexus.

"Really? It works?" She asked eagerly, moving closer and plopping herself in his lap. "Show me."

So he did, and an excited Fleur pronounced that it was 'magnifique' and attempted to shove her tongue down his throat.

"You are intending to make a business out of this when we come back from America, non ?" She asked, ignoring the heat in her loins for now.

The question was rhetorical, but it got Harry thinking anyway. The idea of Potter Communications had been mostly theoretical up to this point, but now it was just a workforce away from realisation and there were things to consider.

Namely, distribution of profits. He was naturally keeping the lion's share for himself, but he hadn't been the only one working on this. Everyone living in Potter Manor had chipped in to some degree, some minor and some more major.

Luna's was as good as family anyway so anything he made would be available to her as well, not that she needed much.

Sirius had abdicated the position of Lord Black to him, but retained vault access and was not hurting for money, nor did he really use it much. Unlike his family, the white sheep of the Black family had learned the wisdom of careful spending in spite of his generally reckless nature. Plus, Harry was utterly certain that his godfather would refuse to take a share. Whatever his faults, Sirius could not be accused of being greedy or not loving his godson. Harry would still offer him a share, but fully expected to have it rejected.

Penny was already on his payroll and her involvement in this project had been minor outside of providing the materials, which was already something that he was paying her for. Still, he'd increase her salary a bit anyway. Nothing wrong with showing appreciation to people that made one's life easier.

Fleur was the real sticking point. She had helped him the most and was also financially dependent on him at the moment, which was something that he knew was starting to bother her. Many veela could - somewhat rightfully - be considered gold diggers that used their charms to coast through life on easy mode, but Fleur wasn't one of them. He suspected that she had been so eager to help him make this project work at least partly because she didn't want to feel like a freeloader.

He nodded with a humm. "How would you feel about having a share in said business?"

Fleur sat upright and looked at him in surprise. "'Arry, you did most of the work yourself!"

"But you helped quite a bit. It would've taken me longer without you." He pointed out.

"I did not do it for money." She said quietly.

"I know, but you still deserve some of it, perhaps especially because you didn't do it for the money."

Fleur worried at her lower lip for a long while before she resolved her feelings on the issue and nodded. "Very well, but I will take no more than 5%."

Harry had been thinking closer to 10%, but 5% of what he expected to make with this was still quite a lot. "Alright, 5% it is, Partner." They'd figure out the exact legalities later, but he wasn't worried. He knew that Fleur was trustworthy.

"I like the sound of that, Partner ." Fleur purred and moved around so that she was straddling him, extremely glad that she had worn a skirt today. Riding him on this very chair was sounding like a fantastic idea just now.

Harry might have meant business partner, but she was more inclined to see him as a romantic one. She hadn't told him that she'd fallen in love with him yet, but knew that he must be able to feel it whenever they Joined. He was slower to love, but this gesture of giving her a share in his future business would bind them closer and that was more important than the considerable amount of money it would no doubt earn her.

January 16th.

Narcissa let out a deep sigh as she rested her head on Harry's chest, feeling intensely satisfied with the pleasant ache and seeping warmth between her legs. Her lord and lover had delivered more than his usual load today.

She had learned to cherish these quiet moments after one of their meetings. She would never be more than a mistress to Harry, but she could be happy with that. Happier than she had ever been during her marriage to Lucius. It certainly wasn't how she had expected things to go, but she had no complaints.

"You ready for tomorrow?" Harry asked.

"Of course." The clothing store that she had helped advertise was finally being opened and Narcissa was very eager for it. She had been heavily involved in that venture ever since escorting Harry to the ball on Halloween. People had approached her with questions long after that day and she had been the one to help the girls place adverts in Witch Weekly, Teen Witch Weekly and other publications. She had been the one to keep interest high even months after the ball.

Working with witches that were one step up from muggleborns had been hard at first and she had struggled with her prejudices, but she'd known that Harry would be deeply unhappy with her if she showed it, so she had sucked it up and gotten on with it. Associating with those of lower birth had ceased to be shameful somewhere along the way.

"Good, I'll be counting on you."

"I won't let you down." Narcissa replied with a content smile. Even as just a mistress, this arrangement had more substance to it than her marriage to Lucius ever did and Harry was a much better man than her former husband had been in almost every way. She was a respected public figure again and was trusted to act in her lord's name. That was much better than the minor prestige of being associated with a powerful figure that she had expected and vastly better than the shame of being reduced to poverty.

She may have become Harry's mistress desperate and backed into a corner, but now she felt more free than she ever had. Lucius' death had turned out to be one of the best things to ever happen to her.

January 17th.

"I didn't expect this kind of turnout right from the start." Bryanna's voice was quietly awed and more than a bit nervous as she observed the sizable crowd gathered outside the doors of their soon-to-be-opened store.

It was situatied in Diagon Alley, a bit further down the line from the busiest part of it but still in a good location. Harry had bought out the building and had it remodeled to suit its new purpose. It now looked quite reminiscent to a mundane clothing store, albeit with space expansion charms. Harry had also considered attempting a magical escalator, but decided against it in the end. No need to prop up peoples' laziness any more than magic already did.

"I'm a bit surprised by the turnout myself." Narcissa admitted, also looking outside. "I know that our marketing campaign was well received, but there must have been more demand for muggle style clothing than I thought."

"Good clothes are always in demand." Fleur said with authority. She had modeled for Bryanna and Tiana a few times and wanted to be present for the grand opening. They'd no doubt have had group sex with Harry back on Black Island if he hadn't nixed that idea because of the Allure.

"That bit about helping wizards and witches dress like proper muggles when they need to might have helped with that too." Tiana added.

Everyone present nodded in agreement. That had been a particular weakness of British magicals that all four girls had been looking to exploit since the start, long before Bryanna had approached Harry the first time.

"Maybe they're just looking for snorkacks." Luna pondered, making her first mystery creature reference in a long while.

"She's got a point, they could just be curious. I actually wonder how many of these gawkers are here to bother me rather than shop?" Harry wondered cynically, automatically translating Luna's statement in his head, a skill one tended to acquire around her.

He had to be here since it was his name and money promoting the store, but he would've rather been at home. He would also have to stick around while Fleur and Luna got to leave at any time.

"The reporters for certain." Narcissa chuckled awkwardly, deciding to ignore the strange Lovegood girl. She was wearing a fine white silk blouse and black skirt instead of formal robes, all the better to promote this business. It was no longer uncomfortable for her to wear things other than robes.

"Well, it's time." Bryanna said nervously. "Let's open it."

Several hours later, Harry was escaping to the break room to get some peace from the barrage of mostly idiotic questions. Just as Narcissa had said, there were indeed reporters there and they were as annoying as ever. Fleur and Luna had already left, irritated by the pushy crowds. He'd have to tell Dora that she hadn't missed anything of importance.

As he made his way to the employee only area in the back, he became aware of a tiny, muted presence hovering at the edge of his senses. It would have been impossible to sense in the crowd he'd just left, but here it buzzed in the back of his mind like an irritating fly.

He took a seat in the break room without letting on that he knew something was up, merely closing his eyes and trying to pinpoint the origin of the feeling. It was familiar, kind of like Sirius when he was Padfoot, but even more muted.

His focus was disrupted when Bryanna's familiar presence entered the range of his detection.

"I can't believe how successful we are!" She gushed happily as she entered the room. "We'll have to hire more people if this keeps up."

"I doubt it will." Harry said dismissively. "People are curious now since it's something new and has to do with me, but it should level out soon."

Bryanna bit her lip for a moment and then dropped herself into his lap, hugging him tightly. "Thank you."

"What for?" Harry asked curiously.

"For helping us. We never would have gotten our idea off the ground without you." She elaborated.

"Well it's not like I'm doing it for free." He pointed out, knowing that he was taking in 60% of their profits until they paid off the loan he gave them.

"I could give you a quick repayment right now." Bryanna whispered hotly into his ear.

"i'd love to, but I'm not into exhibitionism."

"What?" Bryanna asked, baffled.

"There's an Animagus in the room with us." Harry explained, keeping his eyes peeled for any movement when he felt the panicked flare of magic from the skulking presence.

A blue beetle fluttered from behind a tea cup and Harry swiftly summoned it into his hand before it could escape.

"Is that…?" Bryanna asked uncertainly, still seated in Harry's lap and staring at the clearly terrified bug he was holding.

Harry didn't answer, taking the time to cast the Animagus-Reversal Spell instead.

A familiar woman smacked into the floor arse first, blonde hair and tacky glasses askew.

"Hello, Rita." Harry said mildly and without surprise. He'd guessed that it might be her.

"Lord Potter, fancy meeting you here." Rita tittered nervously. "I was just…"

"Snooping for a juicy story." Harry finished when she failed to come up with a plausible excuse. "Would I have been reading about how I was using my fame and position to take advantage of vulnerable young women in the Prophet tomorrow if I hadn't noticed you? Figures that you'd be the first to scrounge up the balls to start talking shite about me again."

"I would never say something like that about you!" Rita protested quickly and unconvincingly.

"Oh, well that's alright then." Harry said cheerfully, gaining queer looks from both the reporter and the furious Bryanna.

"I'll just be going then?" Rita nervously asked more than said, getting on her feet and dusting herself off.

"Go right ahead." He nodded.

"Harry!" Bryanna hissed at him.

"It was, uh, nice talking to you again." Rita began to shuffle towards the exit, starting to think that maybe, just maybe, everything was going to be alright.

"Make sure to stay available though, Amelia Bones will definitely want to have a nice long chat with you about being an unregistered Animagus and trespassing and who knows what else."

Rita's shoulders slumped and she turned back to him with a resigned look on her face. She knew that Bones hated her and wouldn't miss out on the chance to charge her with everything she possibly could. "What do you want?"

"I would've liked to live my life without bitter old hags causing me trouble because they're bored, but I guess that was too much to ask." Skeeter was only a few years older than Narcissa or Septima and might pass for attractive if she ditched the hideous nails and glasses that she was so fond of, but Harry wasn't going to let facts get in the way of a solid hit to the reporter's self-esteem.

Rita didn't quite succeed at holding back a scowl at the insult. "What is it going to take for you to keep quiet?"

Harry gave her an almost pitying look. "Rita, you obviously work for me now. Permanently."

He'd been intending to leave the toxic reporter alone since she wasn't really worth the bother, but that was clearly not an option. Fine then, if Skeeter wanted to be a trouble stirrer then she could be, but he wouldn't tolerate her doing it to him. Harry didn't really know what use he could put her to just yet, but something would probably come up.

Rita did not like that at all. She'd spent all her life puncturing people's bloated egos, so being a pet reporter for someone as high profile as Potter was exactly what she didn't want to do. But with the alternative being Azkaban…

"Fine!" She snapped with a glower.

"You can go now. I'll get in touch if I need you for anything."

Skeeter barely acknowledged the dismissal as she transformed back into her beetle form and angrily buzzed off.

"Harry, I think seeing you handle that annoying cunt might be just about the sexiest thing I've ever seen." Bryanna said throatily. "I need you to take me right now."

"Only if you promise to keep this little altercation to yourself." Harry said, giving her hip a squeeze. "And that you won't try to blackmail Skeeter yourself."

"I promise." She said without hesitation. She wasn't much of a blackmailer anyway and it wasn't worth upsetting Harry. "Now let's hurry before someone else walks in here."

January 28th.

Business was going well. His reclaimed vineyard had suffered a bit from the abrupt change in ownership but things were back on track now.

Harry knew that Parkinson had also taken the Potters' pottery business from which their name had originated, but he also knew that it wasn't an especially profitable business. The Potters had kept it going as a nod to their heritage rather than the gold it was bringing it.

Harry simply wasn't sentimental enough to care about that and Parkinson had already sold it to someone else years ago anyway. It wasn't worth the effort of getting it back.

The girls' store was also doing impressively well for a newly established business that dared defy tradition. They had all expected to suffer a net loss in profit for some time before things picked up, but all the advertisement seemed to have done the trick.

Perhaps this bout of smooth operation was why Harry was utterly unsurprised when he received a mirror call from a visibly upset Bryanna, telling him that he should come to Diagon Alley because someone had vandalised their newly opened store. You'd think that people would be smarter than that, but they really weren't.

Businesses in Diagon Alley didn't open until around 9 AM, so he'd been awake for hours already, but Harry was still annoyed at the disruption to his day. More so when he apparated there and found it to be full of curious gawkers. At least they got out of his way in a hurry when they saw him.

He found Bryanna and the other girls easily enough, currently being questioned in an out of the way spot by a member of the Magical Law Enforcement Patrol, newly restored to usefulness by a recent increase in funding to the DMLE as a whole.

He made his way towards them while looking at what had been done to the front of the store. Some uncreative soul had written 'mudblood whores', 'go back to your holes' and similar classy slogans everywhere in what appeared to be magical paint, the type that resisted easy removal. There was even a spelling mistake in one of them. At least the display windows weren't broken, though that was probably because they were enchanted for extra durability.

"Morning." Harry greeted dryly as he stepped up to the four girls.

"Lord Potter." The MLEP officer said after the subdued greetings had been returned. "Do you have any inkling as to who might have done this?"

Harry did like this one. He got right to the point. "I can think of several dozen blood purists off the top of my head that might have their panties in wad over what's being sold in this store, but not anyone specific."

"I was afraid you'd say that." The man sighed. "They didn't seem to have used any spells, so there are no spell traces and there were no eye-witnesses either."

"So, stupid enough to do this, but not completely retarded." Harry nodded in understanding. Diagon Alley wasn't a residential area after all and nobody lived here except for perhaps a couple of people renting rooms in the Leaky Cauldron. It would have been abandoned in the dead of night when this was presumably done.

The wizard ignored his summation. "We'll check to see if anyone has bought any spell-paint recently, but I have to warn you that we don't expect to find whoever did this."

"I understand."

The MLEP officer asked a few more general questions before moving off, leaving Harry and the four girls alone.

"I can't believe someone would do this." Isabel scowled.

"I can." Harry said dryly.

"How can you be so calm?!" Jade demanded, as stereotypically Gryffindorish in her temperament as ever.

"Easily, I'm phlegmatic like that." He replied drolly and waved his hand towards the vandalised wall. The spell-paint might be resistant to magical removal, but it could still be done and Harry was more than up to the task. "There, problem solved."

"Thanks, Harry." Bryanna said, still a bit upset about the vandalism but better now that it had been undone so quickly.

"They'll probably just do it again." Tiana said cynically.

"Probably." Harry agreed, looking over at the now dispersing crowd. Some of them were wearing things bought in this very store and he could easily imagine some puffed up pureblood getting all offended about the 'filthy mudbloods corrupting their culture'.

But this had the feel of petulant thuggishness rather than the attack of a business rival, though one might be a cover for the other. Still, if he was right, the perpetrator or perpetrators likely would be stupid enough to do it again as Tiana said.

"So, rotating night's watch?" Bryanna asked in resignation, already mourning the lost sleep. There were alarm spells that would go off when someone trespassed, but they weren't particularly reliable and wouldn't be of any use if the caster was asleep anyway.

The notion of asking the DMLE to do this for them wasn't even considered. They all knew that it wouldn't expend the manpower on what could very well be a one-off event.

"No need, just let me handle this."

That got all four of them curious. "How?"

"I have my ways."

Things had progressed since the first time that corvid birds had started appearing around Potter Manor. The most notable was that Harry had decided to have a wall removed between two empty rooms on the top floor and turn the resulting(also magically expanded) space into a ravenry.

There were more than just ravens nesting there now, but it was still called that. Penny sometimes complained about the expense of feeding so many birds, but Harry suspected that it had more to do with being creeped out by all the beady eyes staring at her.

Those beady eyes all turned to him as Harry entered the ravenry, but he wasn't perturbed by them, instead making his way leasurely towards two particular ravens.

" Hello, Huginn. Hello, Muninn. " He croaked in a way that was actually anatomically impossible for a human to do, but magic allowed for many things.

The two ravens croaked back a greeting of their own, their intelligent eyes waiting for him to continue. These two were his favorites, named after the mythical ravens that scoured the world for information and brought it back to Odin, the Sky-Father of the Norse pantheon.

" I have a task for you. " Harry said.

" What would you have of us? " Huginn asked.

Just like a wizard or witch imbued a bit of their power into their written word, so too did they do it with the spoken one. It was so little that it wasn't even noteworthy in most cases as anything but a curiousity, and Harry remained firmly convinced that even spell incantations were little more than a placebo effect, but magical languages were a different kettle of fish. They were powerfully, though subtly, magical and had a powerful, though subtle, effect.

Complex conversation required considerable intellect, well above what most animals were capable of, and a witch or wizard speaking to them in a magical language should really not be getting anything worthwhile out of it. Snakes certainly weren't smart enough for Parseltongue to be particularly useful, at least the mundane species.

But magic made things happen that shouldn't happen. A witch or wizard speaking to an animal in a magical language as if they could actually converse on a human level quickly enhanced an animal's intelligence to make it possible.

And ravens were already in the upper tiers of animal intelligence.

" I need you to guard a place for me. " Harry said, using his nascent Legilimency to project an image of Diagon Alley into the minds of the two ravens.

It had taken him a long time to get a start on the other half of the Mind Arts, but that was mostly his own stubbornness at play. He had disdained the use of the formalised Legilimency spell, which was really just a crude battering ram into another's mind. He knew that Dumbledore was capable of a more subtle form of it that required no spell and was determined to learn that instead.

Oddly enough, his prior experience with the Joining had actually been a hindrance towards learning Legilimency. He'd had trouble reaching for the mind instead of the soul, though that might also be because he had wanted to disprove the necessity of eye contact, which he had ultimately failed at.

" It will be done ." Munnin acknowledged.

Even without the intelligence boost that Harry speaking to them had imparted, ravens frequently formed partnerships with animals such as wolves, acting as scouts in exchange for scraps. A nest safe from all predators and an unlimited supply of food was a much better deal and they were happy to do their part.

Two days later, Diagon Alley.

Marcus Flint and Lucian Bole were two very dissatisfied young wizards. Both recently graduated Slytherin purebloods, they had expected to play professional quidditch after they got out of Hogwarts.

Those dreams had shattered like glass when they had been all but thrown out of the tryouts, the tactics employed by the Slytherin house team being utterly unacceptable on the professional level. The fact that their Gryffindor rival Oliver Wood had made it onto a professional team only made it sting worse.

Neither was really the type to accept blame for their own shortcomings, so it was of course all the fault of those filthy mudbloods and halfbloods.

From a certain point of view they were even technically correct.

Quidditch was simply not something where you could do well solely because you were a pureblood or even cover up your incompetence. It had certainly been tried, but even bigotry eventually bowed under the desire to win and there were only so many pureblood quidditch players, especially good ones, which neither Flint nor Bole were.

After their abject failure to take the pro quidditch scene by storm, the two had stewed resentfully and done little besides develop the beginnings of a lovely alcoholic habit while muttering imprecations against mudbloods.

Then came news that one of their former housemates, Tiana Day, was opening her own business under the aegis of the Potter family.

Day had been Flint's yearmate for seven of his eight years in Hogwarts. She had been a pretty piece of arse even if she was as good as a mudblood and Flint had been of the opinion that she should have been flattered by his attention.

That was another of Flint's beliefs that proved to be false. The rumors of her fucking Potter while he was still a third year, alongside her Ravenclaw friend no less, did nothing to soften the brutal rejection he'd received from her.

Both Flint and Bole had been present for Lucius Malfoy's fiery demise, but they were young, cocksure and not all that bright. The terror of the moment quickly faded from their minds.

Seeing an increasing number of people wearing muggle style clothes was the last straw. Flint had already been nursing quite a grudge against both Potter and Day, then had his dreams of being a pro quidditch player stolen from him by mudbloods, now he had to watch as his world was taken over by that filth. No, this was too much to tolerate.

Add in some Firewhiskey and it wasn't much of a surprise that trashing the newly opened clothing store seemed like a good idea to him. Bole didn't have the same personal resentment going for him, but he was still more than game to spread his own misery to someone else.

The ease with which their first attempt was undone only made them more angry and they came back better prepared. This time they had some Zonko's Dungbombs that would make sure that nobody would come near the building until it stopped stinking, at which point they'd do it again and again until the mudbloods learned their place.

The two Slytherin graduates crept through the dark and empty magical shopping district, intent on their self-assigned crusade.

"This'll show them." Bole said gleefully, taking a couple of Dungbombs out of a bag with a gloved hand.

Flint merely grunted in agreement, taking a pair of stinky surprises for himself.

And from the rooftops, Huginn and Munnin watched.

Early morning.

Harry withdrew from the minds of his ravens with a thoughtful expression.

Lucian Bole and Marcus Flint, huh? He honestly hadn't expected to recognise whoever was vandalising the girls' store right away, but he was familiar with these two particularly unimpressive specimens of the human race, having dropped in on quite a few of their classes back in Hogwarts. They weren't good for much besides wasting oxygen.

He'd have to think of an appropriate retaliation, but for now he needed to go clean up the mess they made. Maybe get Tiana's opinion on Dumb and Dumber while he was there too.

With how late Diagon Alley's business day started, Harry was able to remove the Dungbomb stink before anyone besides a few early strollers even noticed it.

Today, Tiana was working along with Isabel, and she was as grateful for that as she was furious that it had been necessary.

"Do you know who did it?" She demanded.

Harry nodded as he replied. "Lucian Bole and Marcus Flint."

" What? " She seethed. "Those two useless twats?! I'll fucking kill them!"

"Easy there, Tiger. I'll take care of it."

But Tiana wasn't listening, instead continuing to rage like Gryffindor. "Seven years I've had to put up with Flint's stupid ugly mug and now he pulls this shite?! I bet it was because I hurt his precious pureblood pride when I told him I'd rather fuck Hagrid's dog than touch him."

"He made a move on you?" Harry asked with a frown. He was terribly amused by the harsh put-down, but now was not the time.

Tiana snorted derisively. "Calling it that is being a bit generous. He swaggered up to me like he was king of the world and told me that I was going to Hogsmeade with him, but it was obvious what he really wanted. If he wasn't a total blockhead and Snape didn't keep such a close eye on the Slytherin dorms, I would've been seriously worried about being raped. I still made sure to never go anywhere alone though."

Harry frowned some more. He'd be the first to sneer at the 'Hogwarts is the safest place in Britain' bullshit, but he hadn't ever gotten the feeling that rape was one of the dangers there. Then again, he was a guy and automatically in far less danger of having that happen to him even if magic was the ultimate force equaliser.

"Did that kind of thing happen often?" He asked.

Tiana hesitated. "I'm not really sure. Like I said, Snape kept a close eye on the dorms and with all the stupid House rivalry going on outside it, we had to present a united front in public. With so many of the worst purebloods going there though, Slytherin was always a breeding ground for the worst kind of social climbing and I've heard some things about sexual favors being used or sometimes extorted. I managed to keep well out of it until Flint's idiotic proposition. Me shooting him down like that for everyone in the common room to hear hurt him badly and I didn't like the looks he gave me for the rest of the year. I don't know if he's ever actually done anything, but there have been… rumors."

"Rumors?" Harry prompted.

"Not about Flint specifically, but he always struck me as the type." She admitted. "It's a big castle. Lots of empty rooms and secret passages and we have spells to make people forget inconvenient memories. I'm not sure if there's any truth to it, but there was talk about people losing a few hours from their memory sometimes. I'm not sure how it is in the other Houses, but we Slytherins were a suspicious lot and there were… rumors."

Harry hadn't been sure how severe to make his retaliation, even with Narcissa fingering the Flints as Voldemort supporters, but this cleared up things nicely. True, he hadn't heard anything specifically damning, but it was enough to tell him that he didn't need to waste his limited supply of kindness on Flint. He didn't even really care if these rumors were accurate or not to be perfectly honest.

Oddly enough, Tiana's words also raised his opinion of Snape a little bit.

"What about Bole?"

"He was a year behind me, so I don't know him as well, but he's friends with Flint so he's probably about the same."

Harry nodded thoughtfully.

"You said you'd take care of it. How?" Tiana asked when he didn't say anything.

"I think it might be better if you don't know. Plausible deniability and all that." He said, amused.

"At least tell me if it'll hurt?"

That made Harry scoff. "Of course it's going to hurt. If they were smart enough to be taught by anything other than pain, they wouldn't have done this in the first place."

"Good." Tiana smiled viciously.

Now if I was a petty idiot taking my inadequecies out on those better than me, would I be stupid enough to come watch the results of my handywork? Harry pondered as he watched the crowds of Diagon Alley pass by, leaning on a wall and covered by a spell that made the eyes of anyone looking at him slide past him without recognition. The spell was made many-fold more effective because nobody expected him to be here and were busy with their errands. Very soon, he spotted the angrily disappointed faces of Lucian Bole and Marcus Flint glaring at the store front. Yes, I would be that stupid.

Flint and Bole turned around and stomped off. Harry pushed off his wall and followed after them.

To his surprise, they opened the 'secret' wall that led to the Leaky Cauldron. They must be getting an early start on a drinking problem if they needed a stiff drink at this hour.

Harry quickened his step so that he could pass through before the passage closed. There was a small, secluded space between Diagon Alley and the Leaky Cauldron and this was not an opportunity to be missed.

Bole and Flint heard his approach as the passage closed behind him and turned their heads to look at him, eyes briefly furrowing in confusion before they widened in shock as the direct attention caused his spell to fail. They went for their wands.

A useless gesture. They couldn't hope to cast anything so close to him, not when they were so weak.

A costly gesture too, because Harry was not so hindered and sent them both crumpling to the ground with a wide area stunner. He followed it immediately with a powerful locking spell on the door to the Leaky Cauldron and another to make the bricked over passage to Diagon Alley unresponsive.

Looking at the two unconscious morons, he was briefly seized by the barbaric idea of drawing his kukri from where it was sheathed in his boot and cutting an ear from each of them. He had nearly asked his ravens to bring him their ears instead of just observing. Only a desire to keep his rapport with the carrion birds hidden for as long as possible had stopped him.

But no, strangely tempting as that was, he had prepared something else. There were two syringes in his pocket, one labeled 'Bole' and the other 'Flint'. Cutting ears could always be Plan B.

Harry wasn't a nurse of any kind and didn't really know the best spots to draw blood from, but he figured that you can't go wrong with the neck. He was almost disappointed to discover that he was right.

As a finishing touch, he hacked off a few locks of hair from each.

Four days later, the Shrieking Shack.

"Why would he want to meet us here of all places?" Bole bit out angrily, shifting awkwardly where he stood.

"How the fuck should I know?" Flint growled back, also shifting awkwardly.

They had woken up alone right where they'd been stunned, seemingly no worse for the wear. Both had been baffled as to why Potter would stun them and do nothing else, since he must have known that it was them vandalising his store.

Their bafflement hadn't lasted long. Mere hours later, painful boils had started appearing all over their genitals. It was agonizing, but almost worse was the embarrassment of needing to wear diapers soaked in Boil Cure Potion when they discovered that the boils and sores would just reappear as soon as the potion wore off.

Clearly, Potter had cursed them. They'd been thinking of ways to fix the situation when the letter came. 'February 3rd, 10:00 at the Shrieking Shack' was all it said.

They could have refused to show up, but they obviously liked having uncursed cocks and balls too much for that.

So here they were, in the Shrieking Shack.

"Maybe this is where he fucked those sluts?" Bole suggested with a leer.

"Give me some more credit, will you?"

Flint and Bole jumped nearly a foot into the air, making a little 180° spin and staring with wide eyes and pointed wands at the back wall, on which Harry was indolently leaning as if he'd been there for hours already.

"Put those away before you hurt yourselves." He said snidely, gesturing to their wands.

"When did you get here?" Flint demanded, but lowered his wand all the same.

"I've been here longer than you." Harry snorted and then smirked at them. "How have you been enjoying my curse? I hope it wasn't too uncomfortable."

Both Flint and Bole very much wanted to know how Potter could have been here longer than them since they hadn't seen anything when coming in, but wrote it off as invisibility in the end. What really mattered was getting the curses removed.

"Of course it's fucking uncomfortable!" Bole growled. "Take them off!"

"Why should I?" Harry demanded back. "You attacked my business and insulted people under my protection. I should leave those curses active for the rest of your lives and make you thank me for being lenient."

Flint really wanted to say that they were just mudbloods, but even he could tell that would be a bad idea. "We didn't mean it…"

Flint hated begging, but there wasn't much else to do. Potter didn't seem in a forgiving mood and they had nothing to threaten or bribe him him.

"Sure you didn't." Harry snorted again, shaking his head. "Look, here's how it's going to be. You two are going to swear Unbreakable Vows to obey my commands and I'll release the curses I placed on you. Deal?"

Flint and Bole went pale white and then red with anger. A Vow like that… it was a death sentence. Just a few careless words that contradicted each other would be enough to kill them. And even if it didn't, Potter could order them to hand over everything they owned and they could only choose between doing so or death. Not even the Dark Lord had ever demanded such a thing.

"Do you have any idea what you're asking?!" Bole shouted.

"Yes." Harry replied simply. "Don't give me those looks, if all goes well we won't ever see each other again. I would've left you alone if you had left me and mine alone, but you didn't and here we are. I have to warn you though, if you don't make the vow, I'm going to make you both… disappear."

Flint and Bole brought their wands up at the threat, but Harry had been prepared for it and a spell wrenched them away before they were halfway up.

"None of that now." He said mildly, but his eyes were hard and the air was getting cold. "You know a bit much to be allowed to leave here unbound. For all I know you might decide that Amelia Bones would be able to help you and that would really be quite troublesome."

The two former Slytherins were pale and terrified now, feeling trapped between two impossible choices.

"So what's it going to be?" Harry asked when they didn't say anything for a minute. "The Vow or freedom from all earthly concerns?"

The grim humor of the last sentence didn't make them feel any better. They were being harshly reminded of the fact that this wizard who was younger than them was already a killer.

The two former Slytherins deliberated for a while longer and then, with great reluctance, swore the Unbreakable Vows that Harry had demanded.

Grimmauld Place .

Harry destroyed the hair and blood samples that he had bound the curses on Flint and Bole to, as per their agreement. It didn't really matter. He had more in case he needed them, carefully placed in a freezer by an awestruck Kreacher.

This little episode had also brought about a bit of worry to his mind. What if someone cursed him like this? Laying hands on his blood would be difficult, but it might happen. His hair would be much easier. People shed hair all the time. Not as good as blood for cursing, but still potentially problematic.

Maybe it was time to start performing that little ritual every day? The one that severed all previous magical connections to him? It would be inconvenient, but not as inconvenient as getting cursed.

Probably just unfounded paranoia, but still…

At least this issue was over with, even if Unbreakable Vows really weren't that good a method for controlling people. The one he had forced Dumb and Dumber to swear was incredibly dangerous and posed a very high risk of killing them.

He hadn't had much of a choice though. He couldn't do the same to them as he had to Narcissa, obviously. Not only was he not into dudes, but he suspected that he wouldn't want to touch either of them even if he was.

Even if he never spoke to them again, he had at least denied Voldemort two idiots that would almost certainly have joined up with him if given half a chance. It was something. And on the off chance that they were stupid enough to join, he'd have spies.