CH13 Here there be dragons

19th day of the 11th moon, 259 AC. Angmar, just outside Dol Guldur.

Funerals had never really been a thing beyond the Wall. Death was simply so omnipresent that nobody could spare the time or even emotional investment to make a ceremony of it. You just burned the body if you could and got back to fighting to keep your own corpse off the pyre for another day.

Harry was glad of it. He'd always hated eulogies and the pointless milling around as people reminisced about the deceased. Over time, he'd also grown to hate them because of how many funerals had been for his children and grandchildren, although not so much because of their deaths.

More than one person had accused him of being heartless for how easily he accepted the death of even those closest to him, but he just didn't understand what the fuss was about. Everyone had to go eventually and it wasn't like dying was some horrible fate. More like a nice bench at the end of a long and difficult hike in the mountains, really. Most of them had lived long and full lives.

The thing that really got him was seeing his wives force smiles through their grief. They were less sanguine on the topic than him. How anyone thought that an endless stream of people offering their condolences for your loss was supposed to do anything except make you feel worse escaped him.

Which was why he was glad that the free folk had no funeral traditions. Things could be kept brief and private.

Ash had died. The direwolf had already been with Hala for quite a while when he'd stolen the spearwife over twenty-six years ago. A regular wolf could expect to live about six to eight years in the wild. Direwolves were much hardier and Ash's bond to Hala extended that longevity further, but there were limits.

Hala was trying to put up a strong front, but she didn't object when Luna hugged her during the burning or when he put his arm around her shoulders. She was in her mid-forties now and close to half her hair had already turned grey. Low melanin and too much stress in her earlier years no doubt.

Harry was quite sure that if things had been different, she would have 'gone hunting' within the next few days and never been seen again. All her children were adults already and could take care of themselves, it would have been the obvious choice so as to spare them the trouble of feeding one more person who had little left to contribute.

She wasn't the only one saddened by the direwolf's passing. In fact, their entire family was together for the first time in years.

Sigrid, Ava Oak, Havel, Skadi and Verthandi still lived either in Isengard or Dol Guldur itself, so they were a given. Tarkus had meandered back a couple of months ago and was sticking around for now. The others had come via the mirror portals that he had installed in their new homes, leaving any partners and children behind for now, although they did promise to bring them for a visit next time.

Ash had loved playing with them when they were still children, always looking like a ridiculously oversized puppy. Even Harry would admit – under duress – that he'd miss the slobbering monster.

Even Velka was here, and the giant crow had never been fond of the direwolf, on account of the contemplatively hungry looks she got from the big predator.

"Come on, let's go back inside." Harry said once the pyre had burned down, receiving only a murmur of quiet agreement.

XXXXX

"You could come stay with me and Xhoran for a time." Jala offered, disturbed at the sight of her strong and fierce mother looking so downcast.

Hala gave her daughter a small smile and shook her head. "I'd just be in the way. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine."

"You wouldn't be in the way." Jala insisted, rubbing her slightly swollen belly to draw attention to it. "I could use some help looking after my young ones now that I've got another one coming."

It would be her fourth child and she'd always absolutely refused to foist any of them off on wet nurses any more than necessary, which did stretch her a bit thin since watching over the children wasn't the only thing she was doing as the Princess of Koj.

"I would like to see more of my grandchildren." Hala admitted. With all of her children having moved so far away, she only got to see them during visits and she knew that she couldn't hover too much around Garm or Grond without making them lose face with their people.

"Then it's settled." Jala nodded firmly, automatically slipping into the decisive mindset she'd learned was so important to leaders. "I was going to ask Father if he could come to Koj and teach a few artisans how to fortify our coastal settlements and build ship-to-ship siege weapons anyway. Bloody pirates have been getting bolder and bolder over the past few years."

Though skilled craftsmen, Summer Islanders were not a martial people. Jala had been doing her best to bring them around to the idea that they had to get serious about protecting themselves, but it was slow going.

"It's the Band of Nine." Harry spoke up from nearby, breaking off his conversation with Havel and Tarkus. "They've got a couple of notorious pirates among their number and their recent successes have gone to their head."

"Aye, I've heard of the fucks." Jala scowled, her old accent coming through in her irritation. "Xhobar Qhonqua joined up with them after he got exiled, the grasping shit."

All of them had actually met the so-called Ebon Prince, formerly of Golden Head in the southeast of the Summer Isles. He'd tried and failed to add the neighbouring Red Flower Vale to his dominion and been exiled for his trouble after failing. Since then he'd become a moderately famous sellsword captain in the Disputed Lands. None of them had liked him much.

"Does that mean I can go kill him now?" Tarkus asked eagerly. He had been wanting to do it ever since the then-prince had insulted Skadi after she rejected his advances some years ago.

"No need." Harry shook his head. "All nine of those idiots are going to get themselves killed before long with the clumsy way they're going about their ambitions. Besides, even you couldn't cut your way through thousands of men to get at him."

Tarkus huffed and cross his arms over his broad chest, but quickly perked up again. "What if I joined up with the southron army? They're going to be fighting them soon, right?"

"Their wars have nothing to do with us." Havel interjected, giving his younger brother a disapproving look. "If you're so eager to have something to do then maybe you should look after all the brats you've sired."

Tarkus grinned irreverantly. "Come on, brother, you know that nothing can keep Black Iron Tarkus in one place for long."

He had no idea who had spread that name around, but he liked it.

"Havel is right, though." Harry said, lips twitching. He was glad to see that the name he'd been spreading around had taken hold. "Sticking your nose into other people's wars is never a good idea. To name just one problem, you'd be expected to follow the orders of southron lords even if they accepted your offer to help them and you know how you get when people tell you what to do."

Tarkus scratched at his beard awkwardly. That was how he'd ended up in charge of several clans up in the Frostfangs. "I suppose. Too bad, though. Fighting in a big war like that would have been fun. I'm still pissed that none of you thought to invite me to the invasion of Skagos."

Pretty much everyone in the room was grateful that Tarkus had no ambitions to actually rule.

Harry would be deeply surprised if his biggest son lived long enough for his hair to turn grey with that attitude.

"So, will you come to Koj and teach our artisans, Father?" Jala cut in before Garm or Grond could respond to the implied rebuke, bringing the conversation back on track.

"Sure." He agreed easily, and then frowned slightly. "I might have to bring Marwyn along, though. There's a risk that I'd overengineer any siege weapons I designed and his input would be helpful."

He'd never actually made a medieval siege weapon after all.

"I could send along a few of my alchemists." Garm offered. "We've been talking about what you said regarding water drag on ships and they think they might be close to creating a wood coating for the hulls that would lower it a great deal."

"We would love to have them." Jala was quick to accept. With the emphasis Koj placed on ship-building, she immediately understood what an advantage that would be.

XXXXX

6th day of the 4th moon, 260 AC. Angmar, Isengard.

Although he had never voiced the desire to anyone, Rickard had wanted to see Isengard and Dol Guldur ever since he had first heard of them. When an excuse to do so presented itself, he had jumped on it.

Especially as it got him away from Father's increasingly insistent reminders that he needed to wed and sire an heir.

It wasn't that Rickard didn't want to get married and do his duty, he just had his eye on a woman that he knew his father wouldn't approve of. Lyarra Stark was his cousin and brought no political advantage to House Stark.

He was still hoping to find a way to get Father's approval for the match, but in the meanwhile the excuse to travel beyond the Wall was a godsend.

There was still much tension and wariness between the North and the newly risen Angmar, especially among the common folk, but at this point it was understood that diplomatic courtesy could be trusted to hold between them.

The purpose of Rickard's visit was to check up on the agreement made three years ago at Castle Black. It had been unexpectedly difficult to find people willing to travel beyond the Wall to learn glassmaking, the lords having underestimated the smallfolk's fears of wildlings, but some had eventually been found who would go if enough incentive was given.

Only, now they weren't coming back! House Stark had received such complaints from its vassal Houses and Edwyle had in turn written to Havel the Rock. The giant of a man had then invited him to travel north so they could discuss the matter, claiming that it could not be settled over letters.

Rickard had felt like he'd stepped into an entirely different world ever since his party had entered the Haunted Forest.

The trees felt watchful. Ravens and crows shadowed their steps at all times, placidly sitting on branches and just staring. The very air felt heavy with presence and all of them were acutely aware that a sorcerer of mighty strength had brooded over these woods for nearly thiry years now. When a weirwood dryad stepped out from between the trees and began walking next to them, Rickard was more relieved than disturbed despite having never seen one of them himself. The Old Gods could be trusted to not lead them astray.

It took them almost twenty days of travel to make the journey from Castle Black, the conditions being harsh even by the reckoning of Northmen, but they made it without incident.

Rickard was surprised to see Isengard looking not that dissimilar from Wintertown. It was larger, the construction sturdier and the streets were densely-packed snow rather than mud, but much was familiar. Children running through the streets, roars of laughter from a tavern, men and women going about their business...

Then Velka swooped down to land on a nearby roof and the illusion of normalcy was shattered.

"Lord Rickard." The great crow greeted genially.

"Lady Velka." Rickard replied with all the courtesy he would give to any noble lady, no matter how strange it felt to address a giant crow as such.

"Havel has prepared a guest room for you in his home, but I am afraid he doesn't have room enough for all of you." Velka said apologetically.

Rickard found that a little surprising, but hid his reaction. He had assumed that Havel lived in the tower that loomed over the city.

"I'm sure we'll be fine lodging in an inn." One of the two Night's Watch rangers that had escorted them said easily. "By your leave, m'lord, m'lady?"

Rickard knew that the black brothers came to Isengard fairly frequently and were familiar with it, so he merely nodded at the suggestion, but he did give his men-at-arms a stern warning to be on their best behavior. None of them would live down the shame if they breached the laws of hospitality after millennia of claiming that wildlings were base savages.

"Is your father well?" Velka asked once it was just the two of them. "I haven't spoken to him since you were born."

"He fell ill just before I left, but the maester does not believe it to be anything serious." Rickard admitted, finding it strange to have his escort flitting from rooftop to rooftop instead of walking by his side.

"Perhaps I should go visit him?" She mused, apparently to herself, and then visibly perked up. "Ah, there is Havel."

Rickard looked ahead, easily spotting the huge man. He seemed to be helping pull a heavily laden sleigh. An unusual thing for a lord to be doing, but then he was not a lord in the fashion of the Seven Kingdoms, was he? It truly was a different world.

"I trust you will be alright on your own from here on out." Velka stated more than asked. "Do make time to visit Dol Guldur, however. Luna wishes to host you for dinner and would be upset if you denied her the opportunity."

"Certainly." Rickard agreed. He had no wish to upset a powerful witch, no matter how kind his father said she seemed to be.

XXXXX

Havel's home was once again a surprise for Rickard. It was quite a bit larger than any smallfolk dwelling of course, but not immediately recognizable as a leader's dwelling. To an outsider, it just looked like an unusually large house.

"Isengard looks to be a thriving city, you manage it well." He said, pushing aside his confusion.

"It isn't as hard as it looks." The huge man chuckled. "There's always work to do, aye, but nobody wants to draw my father's attention, so people don't cause trouble."

"They fear him that much?" Rickard's brows furrowed. The Sorcerer had not seemed like a tyrant three years ago. In fact, he seemed barely interested in their discussion.

"They believe him to be a god, of course they fear him." Havel shrugged.

Rickard had heard that before, but found it difficult to understand, and so ended up feeling vaguely surprised every time it was brought up. Surely nobody truly believed that Harry was a god?

"Will he wish to take part in our discussion?" He asked.

"I doubt it." The other man shook his head. "Father seems distracted these days, and spends much of his time locked away in the private parts of the tower. I suspect he would be annoyed if we bothered him with something so mundane."

Rickard didn't think he would ever understand how Harry could rule his lands so carelessly, or how it was working. He could get used to the lack of formality and respect for social class or blood. He could get used to the coarse manners. He could definitely get used to the straightforward politics.

But he could never get used to the idea of an immensely powerful man like Harry allowing those under his rule, even his own sons, such a free hand.

"The let us get right to the meat of the issue." Rickard said, once again pushing aside his bafflement. "Several of my lords have written to me, complaining that the men they sent to learn glassmaking as we agreed at Castle Black have not returned. Why?"

"They don't want to." Havel shrugged. "A few of the youngers ones got poached by local girls and several others decided they liked it better here. The latter were from Bolton and Umber lands if I remember correctly."

Rickard wanted to sigh. Bolton and Umber, of course. House Bolton had an evil reputation and it was easy to imagine why the smallfolk they sent may not want to return. The Umbers, while staunchly loyal to House Stark, could also be quite hard on their smallfolk at times. "The agreement was for those men to return once they had been taught to make glass."

"I won't force them out when they did nothing wrong." Havel replied fimly. "If you want them to return south with you, then you'll need to convince them to do it willingly."

What could he say to that? He wasn't being denied, nor was Havel reneging on the agreement. The North simply needed to entice its people to return.

XXXXX

In the end, Rickard spent almost two turns of the moon in Isengard. Part of that was to learn more about their new neightbour to the north and their ways, and part of it was to get their people to come back.

Despite his best effort, his success in the latter was only moderate. Those that had found themselves Angmari women weren't willing to leave them, and the women refused to come south and become 'kneelers'. A couple of others that hadn't found women were refusing to return for essentially the same reason – they'd had a taste of what it was like to live without lords and found themselves enjoying it.

Of those that did agree to return, Rickard had found himself facing a group of rather enterprising men and needing to make concessions that he wasn't used to making with smallfolk. They wanted to establish a glassmaker's guild, similar to the one in Myr, with certain privileges and legal protections.

How had they even heard of the Myrish Glassmaker's Guild? Rickard soon learned that the prospective glassmakers had also been taught letters and numbers and whatever else they wished to learn.

He also learned something else during this time, something very important. The Sorcerer of Dol Guldur held anyone who would choose ignorance over knowledge – whether it be in himself or for others – in the greatest contempt. They had sent him smallfolk to be taught, and he had taught them far more than they bargained for.

His father and the other lords wouldn't be happy, but what else could he do? None of them had expected that the smallfolk would take the opportunity to leverage their newfound knowledge for advantage, which was in hindsight rather foolish. Loyalty only went so far.

While these negotiations were underway, Rickard and Havel became friends, finding common ground in their dutiful and straightforward personalities. When it was time to leave, the Stark heir did so with a largely positive impression despite the unexpected complication with the glassmakers.

XXXXX

It wasn't long after Rickard's visit to Isengard that the War of Ninepenny Kings got started up properly, and then passed with little consequence to Angmar and anyone it was affiliated with. Rickard and his ailing father were the only Starks left except for their cousin Lyarra, so it was deemed too dangerous for him to join in. The southern kingdoms had it well in hand anyway.

For Harry personally, the war was not important. His experiment with god creation proceeded without disruption and may have even been helped along by the chaos that the self-titled Band of Nine were causing.

Edwyle died not long after the war was over and Rickard, despite his grief, seized the opportunity to marry the woman that he was sweet on. Brandon Stark was born in 262 AC, and Winterfell received another visit from a gift-bearing Velka.

That event put a firm idea into Rickard's mind. He could not create closer relations with Angmar through an arranged marriage, but perhaps he might be able to do it by asking Havel to take in one of his sons as a fosterling. It couldn't be Brandon, who as the heir to Winterfell needed to know and be known to the North, but a second or third son could do it. Eddard Stark was born in late 263 AC and Rickard was sorely tempted to immediately ask Havel if he would take him in a few years, but held off on it. There was no need to get ahead of himself and the situation with the glassmakers had taught him a thing or two about caution.

Said glassmakers had established their guild after securing a legally binding agreement with the lords of the North, who were unhappy but had to abide by it. Rickard had negotiated it and as the Lord of Winterfell, his word was both law and obligation. If he broke it, then who would ever trust him again?

It took some time for business to actually get started, especially with the war getting in the way during the early stages, but the North did eventually start producing glass. On a side note, Dorne was baffled as to why the Northmen were suddenly buying sand from them in bulk.

The initially somewhat tentative trade between Angmar and the North also started gaining momentum, and with Adrastia's prodding, money was slowly introduced into the economy. This had the immediate knock on effect of giving rise to prostitution, which she had been waiting for and seized control of.

For Luna's part of things, she continued to busy herself with the spread of weirwoods, and behind her came Earthsingers and Green Men to carve faces into them. The forests of the Riverlands were gaining an older, more primal feel, for the few that could sense it. The spread began to creep into the Vale and the Westerlands and further south as well.

Various septons and zealots of the Seven spoke out against this or tried to halt it by force, but were either ignored or ended up killed by 'brigands'. Without any obvious threat, few lords could be bothered to care about it. What were they supposed to do, make war against trees? They did nothing to stop the devotees of the Seven from attempting to destroy weirwoods, but didn't see any need to expend resources to help them either, even if they were of a pious mindset themselves. To their thinking, it would sort itself out soon enough, Not like there was some plot behind it, right?

Aside from his teaching duties, the vast majority of Harry's time became consumed by his project to create new bodies for himself, Luna and Adrastia. Due to an unexpected cascade of problems in the early stages, he decided to rebuild the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, and a few years of work stretched out to become well over a decade.

But he did eventually succeed.

XXXXX

20th day of the 2nd moon, 264 AC. Dol Guldur.

"This is not what I was expecting." Adrastia said, staring at the trio of metal skeletons in open fascination. One was an even six feet, the next an even seven and the largest stood at 7'2''.

The shining bones were absolutely covered in glyphs and runes of all sorts. From the top of the gleaming skulls down to the toes they crawled, not an inch was left unmarked by the magically charged symbols. Even the inside of the skull had them, and the symbols were positively tiny. The only thing that looked remotely natural were the teeth, and even that was just a clever illusion.

"You didn't think I decided to replace the bones with metal just for giggles, did you?" Harry asked amusedly. "Cloning identical bodies or body parts is relatively simple, but for building them up from the ground up I needed somewhere to write down the instructions. Although I did lose the first two versions before I figured out how to simulate the skeleton's other roles in the body aside from structural support, few though they are."

Adrastia really had no idea what all might have gone into it and doubted she would understand even with a detailed explanation, so she decided to just move forward. "So, what's next?"

"Fleshing them out." Luna punned with a giggle.

"Essentially." Harry nodded, chuckling and pointing at a trio of fleshy pods sitting against a wall. "We put them into those womb-things over there and wait a few hours for the meat to grow on them."

"I see." Adrastia said for lack of anything better to say, thinking that the 'womb-things' looked more like tentacled venus flytraps. Rather disturbing, actually.

She watched with a mix of interest and unease as Harry and Luna lowered the metal skeletons into the fleshy things, the tentacles grabbing them and pulling them in before closing up.

"Now we wait for them to finish cooking." Harry declared once it was done. "I'm almost positive that I got it right this time and that it won't end with more horribly mangled slabs of meat."

"How reassuring." Adrastia replied drily.

XXXXX

"It's happening!" Luna exclaimed excitedly, staring with an awed look at the bottom of the pods.

Adrastia had thought that that part looked rather suspiciously vagina-shaped. As a head of dark hair was pushed out of it, absolutely covered in slime, she knew that her suspicious were entirely correct.

Luna and Harry stepped forward with the surety of people who had helped at numerous births and gently pulled the rest of the body out.

Adrastia could only stare at the body that had her face.

"Hold the head." Harry instructed.

Luna obediently did so, holding it in the universal puking position.

Harry cast a spell on the artificial body, causing it to expel the hyper-oxygenated amniotic fluid from the stomach and lungs.

"It's breathing!" Luna almost squeed.

"Excellent," He said, obviously pleased. Then he blasted it with a high-powered torrent of conjured water to clean off the worst of the gunk. "Lay it down on the table."

"So rough." Adrastia managed to tease, hiding any hint that she'd been affected by the pseudo-birth.

"I like it rough." Harry smirked.

They had to wait for a few minutes before the next pod began to expel its passenger

"Congratulations, it's another girl." Adrastia snarked, seeing the golden hair.

"So it is." Harry agreed, amused.

"Harry, do you know what this means?!" Luna exclaimed as they repeated the process of cleaning the body up.

"What?"

"We'll have our birthdays on the same day!"

"Sure, Luna. Whatever you say."

"Wait, will this make you our daddy? Will it make you your own daddy?"

Harry could only snort in amusement. Trust Luna to ask the important questions.

His own body got 'born' almost immediately after Luna's.

XXXXX

In a matter of minutes, the new bodies were cleaned up and set on tables so that they could be inspected thoroughly.

Adrastia's was nearly identical. Aside from the general improvements such as skin complexion and the like, the only notable differences were slightly adjusted proportions and a more defined musculature that she had never had the drive and self-discipline to foster through exercise.

Luna's, on the other hand, was very different than the original. The slender, almost boyish, figure had been replaced with voluptous curves – large breasts with rosy pink nipples, slim waist, wide hips and a sculpted rear end, all of it defined by the kind of perfect muscular development that took constant effort to maintain, covered by just enough body fat to give it a little softness.

Harry's struck a sort of middle ground. It was about a foot taller and appropriately larger all around of course, and the musculature was more evenly distributed and better defined, but nobody could miss that it was still Harry. Except for one thing.

"How strange it is to see your face without the scarring after all these centuries." Adrastia commented.

Harry's potential new body had obviously come out of the pod as unblemished as any healthy newborn baby.

Harry himself wasn't sure if he was pleased by this. He had lived with his scars for so long and they were poignant reminders of important life lessons. Having them missing didn't feel right.

"Something to get used to." He finally replied, to himself as much as to her.

She hummed noncommittally and turned to Luna's new body. "And why does she have that mark on her forehead?"

'That mark' was a silver crescent moon laid down in a horizontal position, the narrow points curving directly upwards to make a sort of bowl shape.

"Because it goes with her eyes." Harry drolled, refusing to contemplate whether Luna was deliberately ripping off the look of Queen Serenity from that insipid Sailor Moon anime or if she was just using the moon iconography because of her name. That way lay madness, and possibly pudding.

"Yep!" Luna enthused, opening up the eyelids of the unresponsive body, revealing silver-blue pupils of luminous moonlight, although their current blankness made them a tad unnerving. "See?"

"Ooh, that is a nice effect." Adrastia enthused back. "It would clash quite horribly with the blonde hair if not for the pale complexion, but if both the hair and skin were dark then the contrast would make it even more striking. I must remember to try it out."

"Does anyone want to hear the technical details or would you prefer to talk meat puppet fashion?" Harry asked pointedly.

"How quintessentially male of you." Adrastia rolled her eyes. "Very well, regale us with the specifications."

"How quintessentially female of you." Harry mocked. "Starting from the top. The hair. As you may have noticed, it has that freshly-showered look."

Luna and Adrastia nodded, looking between the bodies. Luna's body had her natural hair color enhanced to an unnaturally brilliant golden, whereas Adrastia and Harry's was blacker than pitch.

"That's because I've made it to repel filth and various oils. It also won't tangle easily." He continued.

"So even if we never washed it again, it would still look perfect?" Adrastia wanted to be clear on this.

"Theoretically." Harry shrugged. "In practice, I suspect that washing will still have some effect. Oh, and it'll also self-repair, so no more microfractures and split ends."

"We should have done this centuries ago." Adrastia swore, frustrated by the fact that only the vague ennui that had plagued Harry in the later half of his time on Earth had prevented him from doing this sooner.

"Yours and Luna's bodies also won't be growing hair anywhere except the top of your heads."

"You mean to tell me that I spent centuries shaving when you could have just done this?" Adrastia asked slowly.

"What about you?" Luna asked at the same time, ignoring the other woman's irritation.

"Mine will grow some body hair, since I know you like it." Harry answered, also ignoring Adrastia.

"Good." Luna beamed.

"Moving on, the soft tissues." He pressed onwards. "Since the metal bones can withstand far greater stresses, I've made the skin thicker, the muscle denser, the tendons and ligaments stronger and so on. The cartilage has been especially heavily reinforced. At an educated guess, we should easily be able to exert somewhere between two to three times the strength that a normal body of that size would be able to and it should be close to impossible to break our noses with anything short of a hammer."

"A substantial increase." Adrastia noted, taking another look at the bodies.

With what Harry had just said she, and Luna even more so, should easily be stronger than the vast majority of normal, non-enhanced men. Harry himself should outstrip even Havel and Tarkus in raw strength.

"The muscles will also purge lactic acid much faster, but it won't be possible to build them." Harry replied with a nod. "One of the things graven onto the bones is a spell matrix that will permanently keep them in their current condition, no more and no less."

"Even if we ate nothing but saturated fat? Or ate too little?"

"The organs won't store fat past a certain point, so gaining weight is literally impossible." A death sentence for an animal in the wild. "Starvation, however, is even more of a danger than normal because the organs all function at a significantly higher capacity and so burn energy faster too. I managed to compensate a little by having the bodies absorb solar energy, but lots of food is still a must, especially in places without much sunlight."

"You mean places like the near-permanently overcast frozen wasteland you insisted on living in?" Adrastia asked drily.

"Exactly." Harry nodded.

"I do wonder at how starvation can be a danger to the undead, though." She pointedly shifted the topic.

"These bodies won't be undead, just upgrades." Harry replied, shaking his head.

"You shouldn't be so eager to become a lich, Adrastia." Luna spoke up, looking at the other woman sadly.

"She's right." Harry added. "I'm only considering it as an absolute last resort. I won't stop you if you insist on it, but unless you're a dedicated necromancer it's not something to aspire to."

Adrastia pursed her lips. The added insurance against unexpected danger was tempting, but their warnings could not be easily brushed aside. She knew that they knew more about the consequences than she did, however insignificant they seemed.

"I will think about it." She finally said neutrally. "Please continue with your presentation."

"Alright." He nodded. "Now where was I? Ah yes, the organs. They work better and harder. Aside from the multitude of benefits this also carries a few side-effects. For one thing, the core body temperature naturally runs at just shy of 40°C, which I'm pretty sure is being helped along by the fire-aligned bones. That killed several of the earlier version before I figured out how to compensate. Oh, and since the bones are metal our urine and feces will have much higher proportions of calcium in them. We may also need slightly more Elixir of Life to maintain all this."

"But what about the fun parts?" Luna pouted, not really interested in the nitty gritty since she trusted him to have it well in hand.

Harry rolled his eyes and waved at the motionless bodies. "Go ahead and feel them."

Luna pounced without hesitation, grabbing two handfuls of boobflesh.

"Honk honk!" She said gleefully, squeezing the breasts that were too large to fit into her tiny hands. "These are really great. Adrastia, come honk my boobs."

"I don't want to honk your boobs." The Black Widow protested. In truth, she did want to feel them, but not in the undignified way in which Luna was going about it.

"You wound me." Harry grabbed at his heart dramatically. "Do you have any idea how much effort went into those? They're a work of art!"

"Firm, but also soft and bouncy." Luna declared with one final honk.

"They fucking better be." Harry swore. "I wasn't kidding about the effort that went into them. My ravens were getting fat on failed tits for three weeks while I was working on that."

"Too much information, Harry." Adrastia grimaced.

"There is no such thing as too much information in SCIENCE!" He countered dramatically.

"Adrastia," Luna gave the Black Widow her most soulful gaze. "please honk my boobs."

"Very well." Adrastia gave in gracefully and went over to squeeze the breasts.

"You aren't honking them." Luna protested with a pout.

"...honk honk." The darker witch said reluctantly and unenthusiastically. She had a feeling that if she didn't do it now that the other witch would insist on it later, once she was inhabiting the body.

Luna beamed happily.

Harry just snickered at Adrastia's futile attempts to remain dignified and aloof.

"Can I honk your boobs now?" Luna asked?

"...If you must." Adrastia sighed, wrapping her arms around her chest to prevent any misunderstandings as to which boobs.

Luna made a noise of happiness and pounced on the comatose dark-skinned body, groping its chest vigorously.

"Not as big as mine, but very nice." She determined.

"What about the other 'fun parts'?" Adrastia asked calmly, only the slight tension around her eyes betraying her exasperation.

"Not much to say about the butts." Harry shrugged. "Let's just say that they're weapons of mass distraction."

"Even yours?"

"Depends on your taste. Mine won't jiggle though."

"And the genitalia?"

"Has the anime package we discussed – increased tightness, wetness, hotness, sensitivity, quicker recovery and so on. The vaginal canal will stretch quite a bit, but always reform back to its original shape. Orgasms will be much more intense and release a larger quantity of the associated hormones. You'll also have a lot more control of the muscles in there. And the nerves are under the permanent effect of a spell that makes them reactive to the touch of semen."

"So creampies will feel even better?" Luna asked hopefully.

"Orgasms guranteed or your money back." Harry promised. "Oh, and I made your vaginal secretions taste like honey."

Eyes widening, Luna immediately stuck her fingers into the vagina of the nearest female vegetable body, which happened to be Adrastia's, and then brought them to her mouth.

"Hey." Adrastia protested, feeling strangely violated by proxy.

"Mmm, tasty!" Luna said with a rapturous look on her face, completely ignoring the other woman's displeasure. "And it's not sticky like real honey."

"That reminds me, I also enhanced the sense of taste and smell on these bodies, so everything will taste a lot better." Harry continued, not even blinking at the act of casual molestation.

"I assume you also made similar improvement to your own genitals?" Adrastia asked tersely, seeing that her protest would be getting no consideration.

"Of course." He nodded. "An increase in size and girth to the upper range of viable, all around improvements to sensation, stronger orgasms, larger release of associated hormones, reduced refractory period, increased semen production. The semen is also under the effects of a spell that triggers a pleasure reaction from nerve endings it touches."

"So sex with you will feel at least twice as good as with anyone else for us by default, before even factoring in size or skill?" Adrastia was very amused.

"Naturally." Harry confirmed smugly. He was certainly not above stacking the deck in his favor.

"But what does it taste like?" Luna wanted to know the most important thing.

"Vanilla."

"But I like chocolate better." She pouted, eyes wide and shimmering.

Harry patted her hair as if she were a despondent kitten. "I know, but variety is the spice of life. You eat too much chocolate pudding as it is."

Luna thought about this for a moment before nodding. "You're right. It would be terrible if I had so much chocolate that I got bored of it."

"Are we even still talking about cum or did we switch to pudding?" Adrastia thought it was best to be sure.

"Yes." The other witch replied seriously.

Adrastia sighed, not sure what she'd been expecting. Time to change the subject. "What of the pheromones or the ability to change coloring."

"I couldn't figure out a way to make the pheromones a natural part of the body, so I had to go at it from an angle. You'll have to drink a potion to trigger it."

"That isn't so bad."

"A potion that uses fresh vaginal secretions from an orgasm as the main ingredient."

"...Are you telling me I'll have to masturbate over a cauldron so hard that I squirt to brew it?"

"Magic can be strange and disgusting, but mostly strange."

Adrastia pinched the bridge of her nose, trying not to let her amusement show. Harry had definitely spent too much time around veela. "And the color changing?"

"That I did manage to do. It's tied to a spell trigger that will unlock the option. Fair warning though, expect to look like a finger painting project by a dozen pre-school children before you get the hang of it."

"So noted." She nodded. "I have no more questions. Luna?"

"Nope, ready to switch!" The smaller witch said eagerly.

"Well the bodies aren't." Harry put a damper on it. "They have to sit for a month before I'll be convinced that they're viable. I think I got it right, but I don't want to find out that some small error will eventually build into catastrophic organ failure."

He didn't mention that he also had to see if the brains might eventually develop something resembling a proto-personality. They had to be blank of absolutely everything except automated biological processes for the transfer to succeed and he didn't need Luna's arguments against disposal of the bodies if they showed even a hint of self-awareness.

XXXXX

A month passed and the bodies remained viable, so they decided to make the switch. Harry's original reasons for starting this project may have been protection against attacks on his soul, but there was no reason to not upgrade the old hardware first.

"Can I go first?" Luna asked excitedly, hopping from foot to foot.

"Are you sure?" Harry asked skeptically. "I'm confident that it'll work fine, but I was going to go first just in case anyway."

"I trust you." She replied simply. "Now how do I do this?"

Off to the side, Adrastia could only shake her head. Luna's absolute faith in Harry was something that she just couldn't understand.

"Alright." Harry relented. "You basically just have to kiss yourself. The inside of the skull is loaded with a one-shot dementor style soul-sucking spell. It'll pull you out of your current body and settle you into the new one. The whole thing is probably going to feel very strange and unnerving, but not painful."

"Okay!" Luna chirped and bounced over to her new body.

Giving it one final once-over, she took the face into her hands and pressed her mouth to the plush lips.

Harry was quick to grab Luna's original body as it collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, but his eyes stayed on the new one.

"Luna?" He called, concealing his worry. There was almost zero chance of failure after all the tests he'd done, but the irrational fear that something would go wrong and he would lose her, his oldest and closest companion, did not concern itself with reason. Moving forward without her would be...difficult.

The eyes fluttered open, glowing like twin moons in a face that was ever so slightly different to accomodate the new body, but the soul behind those eyes was as familiar as his own.

"Harry?" She asked, her voice substantially deeper because of the wider chest, but the inflection was the same as ever. "I feel weird."

"Weird how?" Harry asked, settling her old body down into the prepared stasis pod/coffin.

"Weird...good." Luna determined, sitting up. "Weird strong."

"Well, that makes sense." He replied, lips twitching into a smile. "You always were a bit of a wimp."

Luna made a noise of agreement and slowly stood up.

"Whoa!" She exclaimed with wide eyes. "The ground is so far away!"

"Be..." Harry tried to warn as she made to take a step, only to wince as she lost her balance and nearly fell over. "...careful."

Luna stared down at her new breasts with a pout." Why would you betray me like that?"

"I don't think they did it on purpose." Adrastia spoke up, her voice as dry as a desert but her eyes assessing Luna's figure. Now that she was no longer lying down, it was obvious to see that her breasts – despite being in the upper E-cup range – were holding their shape in blatant defiance of gravity.

The now taller witch made to reply, but in the process accidentally flexed her pectoral muscles, which made her breasts jump. Well, that answered at least part of the question as to how they were keeping their ideal shape if the supporting muscles were that strong. Still, there had to be some magic involved as well, because there was pretty much no sag to be seen.

Luna stared at them in shock and then smiled widely. "Harry, look at what I can do!"

Harry watched his wife play with her new muscle control, sending her breasts on a bouncing spree that looked as if it should have a soundtrack. It probably did somewhere in Luna's head. "Yes, very impressive."

Luna giggled and started hopping in place, and then swinging her torso from side to side, apparently testing how much bounce her breasts had.

The answer was quite a lot – they were modeled after anime breasts after all.

"These are great!" Luna declared, grabbing them with her hands and giving her nipples a pinch, crying out in surprise at the intensity of the sensation. "Oh, that felt really good!"

"You can play with them later, let Harry do his switch first." Adrastia suggested, not wanting Luna to work herself up and end up delaying events with sex.

Luna ignored her, turned around and started doing squats. "How does my bum look?"

"Like it could stop a war, or start one." Harry complimented, admiring his work. Sculpting such a perfect arse had been a lot harder than expected, and his ravens had also eaten dozens of failed butts before he'd been satisfied with the results.

"But does it jiggle?" Luna wondered, experimentally gyrating her hips a few times. "It seems to, but there's only one way to know for sure. "Smack my butt, Harry, but make sure you do it hard enough."

"Was it absolutely necessary to say 'but' so many times?" Adrastia asked in exasperation.

"No, butt I wanted to." Luna giggled and presented her rear end to Harry.

He swung an open palm at the naked cheeks and hit them just off center, sending the flesh jiggling as intended.

"Ouchie!" Luna squealed at the sting and giggled.

"Can we please move on now?" Adrastia begged

"Just one more thing." Luna said seriously, then smiled widely. "Hugs!"

Before Harry could react, he was being pulled in by his suddenly much stronger wife and had his face mashed into her cleavage. It was soft and almost swelteringly hot because of the new body's high temperature.

"You look so cute when you're small!" The neo-giantess squeed, mashing her husband into her chest. "Now I understand how you felt when you looked at me."

Harry managed to pull his head away with a gasp. "Somehow I doubt that."

Luna let him go and set her sights on Adrastia.

"Oh no, no you don't." The Black Widow protested, backing away as the other witch stalked towards her. "Harry, stop her."

"Nah." He shot down casually, settling in to watch the show.

"I was always so envious of girls with big breasts." Luna cooed as she held the struggling Adrastia's face to her chest. "They could comfort people with boob hugs and all I could do was give regular hugs. It was so hard after Nymphadora and Fleur left us and there was nobody left to give boob hugs to our friends and family. Now that I have super boobs I can use them to bring joy to the world with my super boob hugs."

What? Harry wondered blankly. The hell was Luna talking about? Six hundred years and I still have no idea how her mind works sometimes.

"You wanted big boobs...for super boob hugs?" He said slowly, hoping that it would make more sense once it was spoken. It didn't.

"Breasts are magical, Harry." She stated matter-of-factly, still easily containing Adrastia's increasingly more feeble struggles.

"I won't disagree, but I'm pretty sure that's not a literal truth, Luna."

"Is too. Breasts make people feel better by reminding them of the feelings of warmth and security when their mothers nursed them."

Harry was about to point out that this didn't make breasts literally magical even if it were true, but then he realized something else. "That's why you wanted the spell trigger for lactating on demand!"

"Well, I suppose it could be used for that too, but I mostly wanted it just in case we came across any hungry infants. What did you think I wanted it for?"

"I thought you were just being kinky." He admitted, wondering if the 'extras' he'd attached to her body's lactation were as good of an idea as they'd seemed at the time in light of this new information.

"My boobs are multi-purpose." Luna assured.

"The Swiss army knife of boobs." Harry joked.

"Exactly!" She beamed and looked down at a completely subdued Adrastia. "Do you feel better now, Adrastia?"

The dark-skinned witch grumbled something that couldn't be made out on account of being smothered by breasts.

"What was that?" Luna asked, pulling the other woman away.

"I said 'I felt fine to begin with'." Adrastia huffed, quickly stepping away lest she be hugged again.

"But do you feel better than before?"

"...Sure, whatever."

"Alright, my turn." Harry declared, stepping up to the bed that held his new body. He knew that Adrastia would want to go last.

"What's wrong?" Said witch asked with an evil little smirk as she saw him hesitate. She knew exactly what the problem was.

Harry shot her a dirty look and focused back on the task at hand. The task of soul-transferral, of which an essential part was kissing his very male body.

"The things I do for science." He muttered and decided to just get it over with as quickly as possible.

Fortunately, the sensation of having his soul sucked out quickly eclipsed the discomfort of having to override his sexuality's demands to abort this course of action and go gargle mouthwash. Flashes of instinctive existential terror as you were being disembodied were good at that.

Then it was over and he was suddenly opening his eyes from a new perspective.

"Harry?" Luna's concerned face drifted into his vision. "Are you alright?"

"I..." He cut himself off with a grimace as he felt a dissonance between body and soul. "Something's wrong."

His magic roiled uncontrollably and he hissed as pain spiked all over his chest, back and head.

"Harry!" Luna called frantically, latching on to him and wrapping her own magic around his, but it didn't help.

The pain peaked and he felt his skin tear in unison with the magic latching on to his body.

"Your runes." Luna said softly. "They're back."

Harry wiped the blood leaking from his eyes and nodded with a sigh. "I thought this might happen. The magic of them has been part of me for so long that just switching bodies wasn't enough to escape them, even the ones that only affected my body."

He stood up, wobbling only a little as he adjusted to his new height. The ground really did seem far away now.

"How are you feeling?" Adrastia asked neutrally.

"Good." Harry replied after a moment's thought, clenching and unclenching his fist, feeling the tendons strain and muscles flex. "Strong. Maybe a little bit too strong, actually. I'm going to have to be careful not to break anyone with the runes boosting this body's natural strength."

Luna had by this point put his old body into its own stasis pod/coffin and turned to look at him with a beaming smile.

"As long as you're alright." She said and turned to the only one still using her original body. "Your turn."

Adrastia only hesitated for a moment before planting her lips on her new body, and was waking up in it seconds later.

"You weren't exaggerating about the feeling of strength." She said, clenching her hand in amazement.

"Shower time, then sex. I'm horny." Luna declared, grabbing their hands and dragging them off.

XXXXX

Washing the blood off from Harry's reopened runes ended up being more of a side note to thoroughly fondling each other in order to get re-familiarized with their bodies. Certainly, there was far too much giggling, gasping and moaning involved for it to be called mere washing.

Especially since both Harry and Adrastia quickly found themselves attached lips-first to Luna's nipples.

Luna herself was bracing herself against a wall and holding their heads in place, enjoying the attention too much to risk having them move elsewhere. She did wish that one of them would use their unoccupied hands to give her groin some attention, but for some reason they didn't.

That reason was that Harry had redirected Adrastia's hand to tend to his own arousal, more because he was interested in how far they could push Luna with just breast stimulation than because he wanted a handjob.

The answer turned out to be quite far, as it was only several minutes of this before she shuddered collapsed on them with a moan.

"Oh..." She sighed happily. "My first boobgasm without spells to help it along. So nice..."

While she was enjoying a post-orgasmic bliss that was unusually intense for something so relatively minor, Harry tangled his head in Adrastia's hair and insistently maneuvered her down to her knees.

She didn't resist, but she did hesitate once faced with his manhood. While it was only a couple of inches longer than before, it was also substantially thicker and she wasn't sure she could take it.

"It'll be fine." He dismissed her unvoiced concern and pressed her head forward.

Adrastia gave him a single dry look that suggested she didn't think he was really concerned about her comfort before following his obvious wishes.

As she figured, the increased size left barely any room and she had to keep her jaw at full extension to take him in. To her surprise it wasn't uncomfortable and she realized that the increased strength in her jaw muscles was to thank for that.

This realization made her smirk around his member, figuring that she could probably bite it clean off as if her teeth were a guillotine, which was followed immediately by a warning twinge from the geas that bound her as it reacted to the malicious thought. Apparently a body switch wasn't enough to escape it.

Harry must have felt it too, because he pressed down harder on the back of her head, forcing himself down her throat. The feel of her esophagus stretching around the intrusion without pain or discomfort was less of a surprise, as she'd half-expected him to do something like this.

Luna had by then recovered from her orgasm and knelt down next to Adrastia curiously. More specifically, she was watching with fascination as the other woman's throat bulged every time Harry's shaft occupied it.

Wanting a more tactile experience, she placed her hand around Adrastia's throat to feel it happening.

"That looks fun." Luna giggled.

Adrastia obviously couldn't reply, but she did make an unamused grunting noise.

"Why don't you help her out a little?" Harry suggested with a smirk, knowing that Adrastia didn't particularly enjoy being on the giving end of oral sex.

Luna was more than happy with the idea and quicly maneuvered herself behind the other woman. Her much increased breast size immediately made it clear that she wouldn't be able to flatten herself against her back as was her wont in the past, but she managed a hug all the same.

Since breast stimulation had worked so well on her, Luna decided to give Adrastia a similar treatment and started rubbing, pinching and twisting.

It worked, and she was soon squirming as pleasure shivered up her spine from the stimulation of her hyper-sensitive nipples. Her technique on Harry also shifted from merely mechanically good to genuinely enthusiastic as her arousal mounted.

That only intensified when Luna slipped a hand down between her legs. It wasn't only before she climaxed, moaning around the member in her mouth.

That set Harry off as well and he pressed on the back of her head with a groan, spilling himself down her throat.

Luna cheekily used the hand that wasn't rubbing Adrastia's crotch to massage her neck, giving Harry a sort of handjob through it.

Adrastia gasped for air when she was let go, barely registering the taste of vanilla on her tongue, and watched dazedly as Luna pounced on Harry'y shaft, wrapping her lips around the head and pumping it vigorously.

"It really does taste like vanilla." She giggled after squeezing the last few drops out of him.

Harry growled and picked Luna up by her armpits, slamming her almost violently against a wall.

"Be gentle, it's my first time." Luna giggled some more.

Harry snorted in amusement and lined himself up with her dripping opening. "Mine too."

And with that, he thrust into her all the way to the hilt with no concern for gentleness, knowing full well that it wasn't necessary with the upgrades he'd made.

A scream of pleasure escaped Luna's throat at the unexpected rush of sensation, and she clung to his back as he began pounding into her.

Adrastia watched the almost violent fucking – it couldn't really be called much else – and stood up on slightly shaky legs.

"I will be in your room." She said calmly, knowing that they weren't finished with her.

Luna tried to say something in response, but just ended up moaning and giving a haphazard wave, far too distracted by the pleasure she was feeling to properly acknowledge anything.

Harry, meanwhile, was having trouble pacing himself. He'd known that all of them would have to relearn self-control to adjust to their new bodies but he had somewhat underestimated how hard it would be.

Luna's experimentation with her control of her vaginal muscles wasn't helping either.

In the end, it took biting himself on the cheek hard enough to draw blood to snap him out of the hormonal rut, and he was finally able to slow down.

"Don't stop." Luna moaned, clutching onto him tighter with both arms and legs.

Air hissed through Harry's teeth as he forced himself to set a slow and deep pace that he knew was Luna's preference, rather than the frantinc rutting of before.

He reached out with his magic, seeking to establish the Joining as he had so many times before. Luna opened herself up eagerly and the link snapped into place. The feedback loop of emotional closeness added to the physical sensation actually helped keep the impulses of the body in check, but it sped up the mounting of their pleasure drastically.

It took less than a minute of actual lovemaking against the wall of the shower before Harry was groaning as he released into his wife.

Semen enchanted to stimulate nerves inside the vaginal canal splashed against nerves enchanted to fire off pleasure signals when touched by semen, and Harry could feel through their bond when Luna's mind blanked out from the overwhelming sensation.

She thrashed against him wildly, eyes rolled back and mouth open in a silent scream. The feedback loop affected him second hand and he found himself helpless to do anything except continue ejaculating into her, which set off another round of orgasms in her.

If not for the fact that there was a limit to how fast even his improved testicles could generate semen, they would have been stuck there for quite a while.

Harry's legs failed him as soon as it ended and he collapsed on the ground. Luna still had a deathgrip on him, so she went with him, still impaled on his shaft.

A solid ten minutes passed before either was up to doing anything more than breathing.

"That was nice." Luna understated with a loopy smile. The semen was still making her insides tingle pleasantly.

"Mhm." Harry agreed. "I can't believe I was ever worried about our wills softening if these new bodies made life too easy. That was orders of magnitude worse than the Imperius."

"We need to get to Adrastia, she's waiting for her turn." Luna didn't want to be selfish.

Harry's member jumped at the thought of making the predatory and self-controlled man-eater lose it. It wouldn't be as intense as it had with Luna since they wouldn't be doing the Joining with her, but it was unlikely that she'd be able to stay in control.

"Let's go." He said with an eager grin.

Luna detached herself with a little whimper and then they shakily made it out of the shower.

A few quick spells had them dry and they were going to their rooms with a purpose.

Adrastia was waiting for them as she'd said, lying nude on the bed.

"You're late." She sniffed.

"Sorry!" Luna giggled and bounced forward, kissing the other woman and getting handsy.

Harry watched them for a moment, thinking of how best to do this. Adrastia's glistening snatch and the first trickle of white leaking from Luna's gave him an idea.

Centuries of familiarity mean that a single touch and a push on her rump was enough to convey to Luna what he wanted and she quickly maneuvered herself further upward until she was sitting on Adrastia's face. Her knees were pinning the other woman's hands to the bed.

Harry knew that Adrastia didn't much like that position, but she had been fully cognizant of her subordinate position since the beginning and after centuries to get used to it, didn't put up even a hint of protest and simply started licking.

Luna moaned and began mauling her breasts as the pleasure began mounting again.

As this was going on, Harry gripped Adrastia's legs and brought his face to her crotch, admiring the glistening fold of her labia and the engorged clitoris. Some of his best work to be sure.

He dragged his tongue over her outer folds, enjoying the sweet taste of honey. It was just a trick of course, a spell feeding false sensory data to the taste centers, but it was a damn good trick if he did say so himself.

Adrastia began squriming as he moved further inward, and he had to grip her legs tighter to keep them still. When he reached her clitoris, she began bucking her hips into him. When he felt that she was getting close to climax, Harry pinched it with his lips, hearing a muffled yell in time with the spurt of vaginal fluids hitting his chin.

On top of her, Luna moaned as the yell stimulated her to another orgasm, this one nowhere near as intense as the one in the shower.

"Stop playing around and give it to her, Harry." She said, tangling one hand into the other witch's hair in a silent appeal that she continue with the licking. "I want to go again soon."

"If you insist." Harry smirked, lining himself up with Adrastia's entrance and pushing in with deliberate slowness.

Air hissed from between his teeth as he was enveloped by warmth and tightness that urged him to begin thrusting with reckless abandon, but he managed to resist the impulse until he was all the way inside.

Just like Luna, Adrastia also quickly figured out how to control her vaginal muscles and began squeezing in a silent plea for him to start moving.

Harry was glad to oblige, but he kept himself in control and set a slow pace no matter how much her sucking warmth urged him to speed things up. After he got used to it, he turned his eyes to her neglected breasts and reached forward to give them some attention.

Adrastia had only wanted a miniscule size increase, so his now much bigger hands easily envoloped both.

"Yes, keep doing that. She likes it." Luna moaned, feeling the licking get more erratic.

Harry didn't need her saying so to see that. Aside from her clenching, squirming and throaty moaning, he could also feel her magic begin to billow from her aura in uncontrolled pulses.

When he felt himself approaching climax, he began pinching and tiwsting her nipples more vigorously while slowing down his thrusts, determined to get her off before he did since he knew that her orgasm would surely set off his own.

It only took a couple more minutes of this treatment before Adrastia's body began jerking wildly and he sped up his own thrusting to match. Her muscles clenched like a silken vice when she came and he buried himself as deep as he could and let go with a groan.

Without the Joining blinding him to everything but the pleasure, he could fully appreciate the way her hips bucked into him, the wild convulsing of her abdominal muscles and the muffled scream from between Luna's legs.

When it was over, Adrastia was left lying limply on the bed with her legs shaking from the sensation overload. Luna clambered off her and the two of them took a good look at her face.

It had a certain blissed-out, slack-jawed expression, most of her jaw covered in Luna's juices and traces of second hand semen around her mouth.

"Oh, to have a camera." Harry mourned. They hadn't taken one on their walk around the world.

Ah well, there was always the Pensieve.

Adrastia clearly heard him, as she shook off her orgasmic daze to glear at him. A bit blearily, but she glared.

"I hate you sometimes." She muttered.

"Enough about that, it's my turn!" Luna cut in impatiently, climbing back on top of Adrastia in a 69 position. "Fill me up while I slurp up this honeyed vanilla creampie."

She hadn't quite gotten off from Adrastia's licking.

"Whatever you say, dear." It sure was nice to be married to someone that was on the same wavelength.

XXXXX

Several hours later...

Thoroughly sticky and satisfied, the three of them lay on the bed and stared lazily at the ceiling.

"Well, I think we can conclusively say that these bodies work perfectly." Harry said.

"So we're finally done?" Adrastia asked hopefully. "Because I'm getting hungry."

"You can have some of my breastmilk." Luna offered helpfully from in between them.

"I was thinking of something a little more substantial."

"Actually, that might be another thing to try." Harry admitted.

Adrastia groaned, at the moment not caring to maintain her refined persona. "Can't it wait?"

"It'll only take a minute." He promised. "Luna, trigger your lactation."

"Umm, okay." She said, scrunching her nose in concentration as she focused on the spell trigger attached to her magnificent mammaries. The mental switch was flipped and the body responded.

"Done!" She said, feeling her breasts fill up with milk.

"Adrastia..." Harry began gravely. "Start sucking that nipple while I take this one."

With an exasperated sigh, she did so, eyes briefly widening in surprise at the taste. Then they rolled, because of course Harry would have fiddled with that too.

As her lovers fed from her, Luna cooed, finding herself floating on a cloud of contentment that was rather similar to the Imperius curse, but without the external magic. In fact, it was kind of like the post-orgasmic bliss, except even more so in some ways.

"Why does this feel so good?" She asked loopily, eyes drifting closed.

Harry popped his mouth off her nipple, looked at her expression and knew that this had to be explained.

"Because your brain is marinating in a soup of feelgood hormones." He admitted. "Since I thought you wanted the ability to lactate on demand for kinky sex games I dialed up the hormone release up to eleven. Dopamine, endorphins, oxytocin, serotonin, various endocannabinoids and a few others...breastfeeding will essentially get you stoned out of your gourd."

"Mmm, that's nice." Luna smiled lazily, stroking Adrastia's head encouragingly since the other woman was still feeding.

Harry decided that surprise would snap her out of it at least long enough that she'd be able to shake off the daze. He went back to sucking on the nipple but didn't swallow. Once he had a mouthful he moved up to Luna's mouth and gave her a kiss.

She reciprocated, only for her eyes to widen in shock as she felt him push her own breast milk into her mouth. Her chocolate flavored breast milk.

"Harry!" Luna said in shock, rising up and disloding Adrastia. "You wouldn't make your semen taste like chocolate for me, but you gave me chocolate milk for yourself?"

"You know I hate the taste of regular milk." He shrugged unrepentantly.

She considered that for a moment and nodded. "Alright."

"You should probably shut off the pipes, you're dribbling."

XXXXX

22nd day of the 2nd moon, 264 AC. Dol Guldur.

His still-breathing original body was laid out naked on the worktable, staring at the ceiling with blank green eyes.

"It's a sobering experience, looking at your own corpse." Harry said to himself contemplatively.

He hadn't really looked at it too closely after the transfer, which was probably for the best. There was a confusing sense of both disconnect and attachment to his old body. Perhaps this was the kind of discomfort that more empathic people felt when looking at human skeletons, only magnified to a huge degree?

But it passed quickly enough. Harry just wasn't that sentimental.

"Now, let's get to the fun part." He grinned, picking up a scalpel from his table of surgical instruments.

XXXXX

23rd day of the 2nd moon, 264 AC. Dol Guldur.

Adrastia was posing naked in front of the full body mirror in her room, twisting this way and that.

The past few days since the body switch had been...interesting. Her own changes were visually minor, but Harry and Luna had a devil of a time explaining their change to people. They were fortunate that there were few they interacted with regularly and everyone else just waved it off as a god thing.

In the meanwhile, she had been experimenting with her color change options.

As Harry had warned, the initial attempts had indeed looked like a whole class of pre-school children had finger painted all over her. The garish mish-mash of colors had been downright nauseating and she'd spent every moment not spent eating or sleeping since then mastering the shifts.

She'd finally managed to get back to normal just a short while ago and was inespecting herself for errors, but there were none to be had.

"Alright, here goes." She muttered to herself bracingly and used the sophisticated spell trigger Harry had implanted to guide the change.

It wasn't instantaneus as a metamorph's would be, but still happened at an acceptable speed. The skin lightened and turned golden, while her eyes shifted to a deep, deep purple.

Adrastia smiled at her new self. Yes, this would do. The effect was incredibly striking and should be especially effacious on the superstitious people of this world.

That was when Harry barged in without so much as a knock.

"Nice look." He complimented.

Adrastia could only huff in irritation at the intrusion, but gave him a sultry look anyway. "Something you wanted?"

"I have another wand for you." He said and handed over a wand as pale as weirwood.

But it wasn't weirwood.

"Harry, this is made of bone." She said calmly, a bit disturbed despite the rush of a powerful, and strangely familiar, connection snapping into place. She'd never heard of a bone wand.

"Yep, I hacked off your old body's right arm for the casing and cut out your heart for the core. How does it feel?"

"You butchered my old body for parts?" It was times like these that really made it clear how much of a functional psychopath Harry was. Not that she had much room to talk.

"It's not like you were using it anymore." He shrugged. "So, how is it?"

"It's great, Harry, but why do I need another wand?" Granted, the ironwood and dragon heartstring one was far from ideal, but this was just too creepy.

"Ah, that's the beauty of it." He said sagely. "See, wands made from local materials will only work in this world, that wand will work anywhere. I made myself a staff out of my own skeleton already."

"You plan on leaving this world?" Adrastia asked neutrally, ignoring the part about how he was carrying around a stereotypical necromancer's staff in his hammerspace.

Harry gave her a Look, as if she was the one who'd said something strange. "Of course. There's a whole multiverse to explore, I can't stay stuck on this one dirtball."

That he'd made her this new wand implied that he wanted her to come along, which was something that Adrastia was not eager to do. She'd already adapted to this world and was slowly shaping it according to her desires. Embarking on a nomadic journey through the multiverse, no doubt courting danger every step of the way, was not something that appealed to her.

XXXXX

8th day of the 5th moon, 264 AC. Dothraki Sea, Mother of Mountains.

It wasn't really that hard to hatch fossilized dragon egg, if you knew what you were doing and had the right skills. Fire to awaken the creature's inner flame, life to revive it and the open sky to bear witness.

Harry hadn't even needed a sacrifice, merely a quick ritual to infuse the flames with Elixir of Life.

Now trying to work in some changes, that was hard. Dragons weren't like crows, they intrinsically had powerful magic of their own and it was no simple task for a wizard to make alterations to their base nature.

Of the nineteen eggs recovered from Valyria, eight had been lost to experimentation. With the two recovered from Aegon's fuck up, that brought the total to thirteen.

Harry decided to start things off slow and hatched only a single egg, the red one that he had been eyeballing since day one.

"Hey there." He said gently, seeing the little snout peek out through a crack in the shell. "Come on out of there."

Beside him, Luna was almost vibrating with excitement.

The newly hatched dragon made a noise reminiscent of a kitten and slowly clambered out of the egg and onto Harry's extended hand.

"Well aren't you a handsome one." He said, admiring the light red scales. No doubt they would darken with age over its back while staying more or less the same on the belly.

"He's so cute!" Luna managed to contain her squeals while petting the tiny head.

The dragon raised its head in the air like a particularly prideful cat at the attention.

Harry was encouraged by that mannerism. He hadn't been able to make too many changes to the dragon's baseline nature, but he had managed to slightly increase their intelligence and give them something akin to a hippogriff's pride. It should be enough to keep them from being enslaved by magic targeted at animals, as well as prevent them from feeling any mystical kinship with those of Valyrian ancestry. Only those stronger than them would have even a chance of making them submit, and those were vanishingly few.

Alternatively, if one could do a dragon some great service, they may consider them friends, but there would have to be some pretty unusual circumstances afoot for that situation to come about.

The little dragon mewled again, this time with a distinct note of hunger, and began snuffling for something to eat.

"Alright, let's see what kind of food you like." Harry said and Luna quickly started setting out bowls filled with a variety of stuff.

The first was completely average goat milk, which the dragon turned up its nose at.

The second was Luna's breastmilk, which she insisted on including. The dragon gave that one a few curious sniffs while looking at her, but didn't seem terribly interested otherwise. Luna pouted at this.

Next was milk mixed with liquid magic. That got a lot more interest, but not enough to hazard a taste.

The next two were bloody broth with ground up raw meat, one with liquid magic added and one without. The one with added magic once again got some interest, but the dragon shied away from it in the end.

The last four bowls featured a bloody stew of ground meat that had been cooked beforehand, one with no additives, one with liquid magic, one soaked with high grade alcohol and the last with both.

The dragon sniffed all of them with clear appreciation, but it was the last that it truly gravitated towards and nearly jumped into the bowl upon tasting it.

"Well, well, well, seems that it's not just Earth dragons that like booze with their meals." Harry was very amused, but not too surprised. These dragons may be different, but their biology was similar enough that he had been half-expecting them to have a fondness for moonshine. The combustible nature of it made it delicious for them.

The cat-sized dragon spent several minutes gorging itself and then licking the bowl clean, finally giving off a satisfied little belch (complete with smoke) when every last drop was gone.

"Good boy." Luna cooed, picking up the miniature magical monstrosity and settling it on her breasts, where it promptly got comfortable and went to sleep.

Harry didn't comment on Luna's gendering of the dragon. The beasties reproduced asexually in this world, so they were technically neither male nor female and it didn't really matter which they were called.

"He'll need a name." She said quietly.

Harry had had a name in mind for many years now, his favorite dragon in any fiction he'd come across. A red dragon whose design, voice lines and charismatic delivery was by far the best part of what was otherwise a below average game. He'd tried it out in the summer after his first year in Hogwarts, one of the last games he'd actually played when searching for ideas before he'd moved on to actual research or just skimming wiki entries on the internet. Though, perhaps 'played' was the wrong word since he'd used a trainer to cheat his way through it in about two hours. In any case, he hadn't gotten any viable ideas for spells out of it at the time, but had never regretted the wasted effort simply because of the impression that one dragon had made.

"Grigori, we'll call him Grigori."

XXXXX

15th day of the 6th moon, 264 AC. Dothraki Sea, Vaes Dothrak.

With lots of food, added magic and plenty of exercise, Grigori grew at a rapid pace. He doubled in size over the course of a week, and then doubled again in the next ten days. By the time that five weeks had gone by, he was bigger than a St. Bernard.

And long since passed the point where he needed his meat to be ground up. Luna had been providing him with steaks up to this point, either cooked beforehand or raw so that he could charr it with his developing breath. Now Harry was going to teach him how to hunt.

How fortunate that the area around the solitary mountain that the Dothraki called the Mother of Mountains, which Harry had selected as the dragon's nest, was teeming with fast food – the Dothraki themselves.

The Disc was brought out of hammerspace and Harry flew down the mountainside with no regard for stealth. Naturally, he was seen soon after he began levitating over Vaes Dothrak, the so-called 'city' of the Dothraki. In truth it looked more like an oversized and rather primitive village sprawling over a vast territory by medieval standards.

The Dothraki down below began running around in a mad scramble for weapons, cries of 'maegi' ringing everywhere. The nomadic people greatly feared magic. Before the day was done, they would fear it a lot more.

A few brave souls loosed arrows at him, which Harry froze in the air and then sent back at them. That promped further cries of fear, anger and also outrage as blood was spilled. The Dothraki had decreed that no free man's blood may be spilled in Vaes Dothrak, a decree that Harry had no incentive to respect.

In the rushing panic below, he sighted what he was after; a Dothraki teenager, perhaps fourteen or fifteen. Someone past the age of reason and thus responsible for his own actions, and young enough to perhaps be a slight challenge to Grigori without being a serious threat. Unless he was a prodigy of violence of some kind.

Another volley of arrows came his way and Harry irritably brushed them out of the air before retaliating with a blast of chain lightning to discourage any further shenanigans.

Disregarding the twitching corpses and the general screaming at the display of sorcery, Harry refocused on his target.

Yoink! One spell and the teenager was flying up at him. Another spell paralyzed him so that he wouldn't struggle on the way up the mountain.

"Maegi!"

Harry paused. That one call had the feel of an address more than a curse in his general direction, not to mention that it had been in a woman's voice. Looking down, he saw that sure enough, there was a old woman down there, looking up at him from a circle of Dothraki men.

"What?" He questioned in the guttural Dothraki language, figuring that this must be one of the Dosh Khaleen, the 'wise women' and widows of the Dothraki khals. Given the Dothraki lifestyle, there was always plenty of them.

"Why do you attack us, Maegi?!" She hollered at him.

"I just needed some meat." Harry said amusedly, shaking the paralyzed boy for emphasis.

The crone was taken aback by his reply, just staring in horror for a moment before shouting back in an aggrieved tone."You dare spill blood on this sacred ground and treat proud warriors like cattle, Maegi?!"

That...kind of pissed him off, actually. Not even so much the rank hypocrisy of a slaver saying something so ridiculous, but the implication that the pride of the Dothraki actually had some kind of value.

"Who are you to declare sacred ground, Dothraki?" He demanded harshly. "Your people are no better than maggots crawling over a long dead corpse, an unforgivable waste of potential and a disgrace to all mankind. Consider yourselves fortunate to be regarded as cattle."

The Dothraki created nothing and built nothing. They had no written language, no philosophy, no art, no poetry, not even a dirty limerick. The only thing they knew how to do was destroy, rape and pillage. When Valyria was still strong, they cowered in the Bone Mountains to the east like rats, only swarming out after the Doom to pick apart whatever was left. A people and culture like that...well, they were the type that Fleur and Dora would have turned a blind eye to when he needed a lot of bodies. He had no promises or restrictions holding him back when dealing with them.

Seeing the crone open her mouth to respond, Harry decided to pre-empt that before the annoying old woman irritated him any further with her bullshit.

"Blood Bomb." He intoned darkly.

The Dosh Khaleen woman exploded like an overfilled balloon, splattering everything in a four meter radius with blood, the choice of spell a deliberate insult to their customs.

There was a moment of tangible horror before the Dothraki roared with rage. The smarter ones ran for cover, though.

"MAEGI!" The least intelligent of the bunch raged up at him. "I WILL FIND YOU! I WILL KILL ALL YOU LOVE! I WILL RAPE ALL YOUR WOMEN! I WILL-!"

"You're going to shut the fuck up." Harry interrupted mildly, a Sonorous spell letting him speak over the furious vows of vengeance. "Blood Bomb."

The second explosion of gore finally convinced all but the most obtuse that discretion was the better part of valor. Objective complete and anger largely expended, he flew back up the mountain.

Harry had no fear that the Dothraki might figure out that there was something up there. Prior to hatching Grigori, he'd spent some time making the peak inaccesible by any means save flight, so even if they arranged for a mountain-climbing expedition all they'd get is lost.

"Grigori, breakfast is here!" He called out when he arrived.

The dragon perked up, fixing brilliant golden eyes on the scared shitless Dothraki teenager.

Harry kicked the boy off his Disc, cancelling the paralysis on the way down.

The Dothraki youth landed hard, but picked himself up with admirable speed, staring between the wizard and the dragon as if trying to decide who he should be more afraid of. The decision was made for him when Grigori began stalking forward.

Harry watched with interest as the Dothraki tried to pick up a rock to use as a weapon, only for Grigori belch a small gout of flame in his direction, forcing him to dodge away. This happened a few times before the boy got singed and tripped over his own feet with a pained cry. It would seem he'd picked one that was doomed to the life of a nameless minion rather than anyone special.

Grigori took a deeper breath and unleashed a stream of flame at his prospective meal, killing and cooking it in one move.

Adorably, the young dragon then looked up at him with a clear 'did I do good?' sort of expression.

"You did very good." Harry assured, further amused to see Grigori slap the ground with his tail in satisfaction before beginning to eat.

In the following months, the Dothraki would attempt to deal with the situation in a variety of ways. At first they tried their usual means of conflict resolution – violence. That didn't work out too well for them, so they attempted bargaining – setting out horses and slaves for him to take. That didn't work either, as Harry would ignore the offerings and go out of his way to target the Dothraki specifically. Even if there were none of them in Vaes Dothrak at the time, he would fly out into the Dothraki Sea, track down the nearest khalasar and snatch someone from them.

Eventually, Grigori started hunting on his own and the Dothraki fully realized that the future was not looking good for them.