Harry Potter, Hero of Legends, Stories and Elves Part 9

"For the last fucking time, I can't make you a magic cock ring to fix things…" Dawn trailed off as she yanked open the door of the smithy to scream at yet another person that couldn't read the sign on the door and saw the person that had been knocking on the door. "Huh."

"I don't need…" Xander trailed off as he recognized his friend's voice and face, despite the changes to her body and the fact that she had messy green hair that looked like she'd just woken up. "Dawn?"

"Xander?" she asked, not sure what was going on since Xander was supposed to be in Sunnydale or at least not in elf land since he'd vanished off the bus. "What's going on?"

"Wait, you're that Xander?" Kara asked Xander.

"That Xander?" Xander asked as he glanced between Kara and the green haired girl that had his friend's face.

Harry studied the athletic girl that was wearing a blue summer dress that showed off her muscles to great effect, fairly sure she hadn't even noticed his presence.

Kara grinned. "She has a lot of stories about a handsome friend of hers that happens to be a demon hunter."

Dawn pulled her attention off Xander and looked at her friend. "Don't."

"Demon hunter?" Xander asked.

"You've killed a few over the years," Dawn pointed out, hoping she didn't mention some of the embellished stories. "Or at least my Xander has."

"Your Xander?" Hermione asked, wondering if there was another Xander running around.

Dawn gestured toward Xander's face. "My Xander lost an eye, which means he's probably an alternate version of him."

"While that's entirely possible, the priestess fixed my eye," Xander pointed out. "If you're like Luna, why didn't you say anything?"

"I remember telling my sister when I was little, she thought I had an over-active imagination and then she turned into a bitchy cheerleader and my parents freaked out about her burning down the gym so I just decided to keep things to myself and write a couple of books about my adventures," Dawn explained.

"She burned down a gym?" Harry asked in surprise.

"To be fair, it was filled with vampires," Xander pointed out, having heard the story a couple of times over the years.

"Of course, everyone 'knows' vampires don't exist so they tossed her in a mental ward for a couple of weeks, after that I decided that I wasn't going to mention my issues with dreaming about different worlds," Dawn explained.

"Seems reasonable," Xander agreed.

"Exactly," Dawn agreed. "I thought about sharing the stories, but things kept coming up and it's hard figuring out which bits to share and which bits to leave out. If you're actually my Xander, when and how did you get here? You vanished from the bus and I fell asleep after we were all done panicking from my point of view."

"Earlier today, I got kidnapped off the bus by a genie," Xander replied with a grin.

"Like Aladdin or like Anya's old boss?" Dawn asked warily.

"More like the genie from Aladdin," he assured her.

"Did it appear on the bus or just teleport you and why were you on a bus?" Dawn asked, curious if his story lined up with what she remembered from the 'dream' she'd gotten woken up from by his knocking.

"We were fleeing Sunnydale after we collapsed the Hellmouth because of the First Evil and no, the genie didn't actually appear until later," Xander explained.

Hermione glanced at Xander. "First Evil?"

"Poke," Dawn said as she reached out and poked Xander on the shoulder. "It was basically an incorporeal demon that wanted to destroy humanity so it could take over or leave the world or something, I was never quite sure about its actual goals just that it could pretend to be dead people and mentally torture people with everything the dead knew."

"That sounds like a mess," Harry offered.

"Yeah," Dawn agreed as she glanced between the people she didn't recognize. "How many heroes got summoned?"

"Six," Xander replied as he gestured at Harry. "Harry is actually the main hero, the rest of us are just support."

"It's a team effort," Harry argued.

"You're excellent support and you've saved the world at least twice," Dawn pointed out.

"Twice?" Xander asked.

"You stopped the zombies from blowing up the seal and you talked Willow out of destroying the world," Dawn reminded him.

Xander shook his head. "I'm not sure that first one counts since the Watchers could have probably found someone to reseal it and I wouldn't have had to talk her out of destroying the world if I'd just shot Warren to start with."

"It would have made things easier," Dawn agreed as she pulled Xander into a hug. "It still counts and they're going to be jealous when I tell them I found you."

"You're going to have to explain about your dreams," Xander pointed out.

"We've survived worse," Dawn pointed out as she gave Xander a 'light' squeeze.

"I need to breathe," Xander argued, mostly teasing since she hadn't squeezed him that hard.

"Overrated," Dawn replied as she let go of her friend. "Do you want to come in?"

"Sure, I'd love to see the forge," Xander replied. "That's actually why we're here, Harry found a pair of metallic demonic horns that he wants turned into a decent weapon."

Dawn shook her head. "Just because I'm running short on metal doesn't mean I'm going to fuck my forge up by using tainted crap."

Harry spoke up, "I can swap the corruptive property for something else but the horns have four magical properties that I can swap around with my Property Translocation ability, that's better than anything else I've found."

Dawn glanced at Xander then at the forge. "Okay, if you can swap the corruptive property for something more reasonable and you're willing to pay me for the trouble of cleaning the forge, I'm willing to make something fantastic."

"How about a cowboy hat that keeps you from getting sunburned or a magic belt that lets you fly or a loincloth that helps permanently improve your mental defenses?" Harry offered.

"Loincloth?" Dawn asked.

"I picked up a spell to conjure them," Harry replied as he conjured a green loincloth that matched the girl's hair.

"Just a warning, they're cursed to remove any hair you have below the waist for a week after you wear it and it degrades your modesty a bit," Hermione warned her.

"Good, I hate shaving," Dawn replied as she took the loincloth and stepped away from the door so they could walk into the forge. 'It's not like I have a lot of modesty to start with and it can't be that bad if Xander isn't complaining about it,' she decided as she worked on putting the loincloth on under her dress without flashing anyone, if only because she didn't want Xander telling her sister when he got back. "So, what type of weapon are you looking for?"

Hermione walked over so that she could check out the forge that had dozens of glowing runes carved into it, wondering how everything worked.

Harry followed Kara into the smithy and glanced around at the dozens of gleaming weapons hanging on the walls of the stone building. "I want something with a bit more reach than the daggers and throwing axes that I'm currently using but one of the perks I picked up when I got summoned was the ability to fight with both hands so maybe a pair of swords or axes."

"Nice setup," Xander offered as he stepped into the forge and realized that everything was set up so that two people could work in the forge without getting in each other's way. "Buffy would love the weapons."

"You can blame my grandfather," Dawn offered as she finished putting the loincloth on.

"What are you blaming me for?" Eldrin asked with a touch of amusement as he walked out of the back room with his tea.

"The layout of the forge," Dawn replied.

"I was tired of you moving my tools and putting them back in the wrong spot," Eldrin replied as he studied the strangers, noticing their rounded ears. 

"It's called organization," Dawn argued.

"What brings the heroes of legend to my not so humble shop?" Eldrin asked, ignoring his granddaughter's attempt at humor.

"Kara mentioned that her friend is a smith and we needed a weapon forged," Harry offered, a bit surprised that the man was Dawn's grandfather since he looked like he was in his late twenties or early thirties at most.

"I know most of the smiths in town are busy making weapons because of the demons, I figured I could bribe Dawn with magical items to do a bit of extra work," Kara admitted.

"As bribes go, that's a pretty good one," Eldrin agreed. "We're running a bit short on metal because of the demons but I have some dark iron I was saving for a rainy day if you don't mind a bit of extra weight."

Dawn gestured toward Harry. "He has some uncorrupted or mostly uncorrupted demonic metal that he wants me to use. I was going to ask if you had a decent way to purify it since I doubt just removing the corruption trait is going to get everything."

Eldrin raised his eyebrows. "You're going to have to forgive me if I don't trust his word on that one, I'm going to have to see it before I let it anywhere near my forge," 

"That was the plan," Dawn assured him.

"Give me a minute, I need to actually swap things around," Harry replied as he opened his Property Translocation interface and tossed the demonic horns into one of the slots. He dropped one of his silvertine daggers into the other and swapped the Corruptive quality for the anti-demon quality on the dagger.

"That's fine," Eldrin assured him and took a sip of his tea.

Harry traded the dagger for one of the daggers he'd picked up from the demons. He swapped the Rust quality for the quality that reduced magical defenses by half then pulled the horns out of the box and held them out so Dawn's grandfather could examine them. 

Eldrin spent a couple of seconds examining the strange pair of metallic horns then cast one of the first spells he'd learned from his father nearly fifty years ago, creating a floating window that listed the properties of the metal. "While the metal is certainly corrupted and filled with impurities, it's nothing that a bit of time in the forge won't fix. You're going to rip through demons like a hot knife through butter." He turned to look at his granddaughter. "Are you going to be offended if I steal your project?"

Dawn chuckled. "Only if you don't let me at least operate the bellows, I want to be able to honestly tell people that I worked on the hero's weapon."

"I'll even let you put the edge on it," Eldrin promised, happy to have her deal with the bellows since that left him free to forge.

"That's because you hate using the grinder," Dawn teased.

"That's why we train apprentices, to do the chores we don't like," Eldrin replied smugly as he headed over to the rack to grab his apron and gloves.

"Or you just pay the leatherworkers," Dawn replied as she walked over and grabbed her apron and gloves.

"Leatherworkers?" Xander asked.

"I don't like wrapping the hilts," Dawn admitted.

"Gotcha," Xander said as Hermione moved away from the forge so that she wasn't in the way.

"Is there anything I can help with?" Harry asked, fairly sure there wasn't but figuring he'd ask since he didn't know much of anything about blacksmithing.

"Absolutely," Eldrin replied with a smile. "You can provide the mana for the forge, we've been crafting all day and you feel like you have mana to burn."

"Sure, what do I need to do?" Harry asked.

"Just walk around to the side of the forge and feed a bit of magic to the large gemstone until you run out of mana or the gem stops accepting mana," Eldrin told him, fairly sure he wouldn't be able to fill it since it could store a couple of weeks worth of mana. "We're running on fumes trying to keep it filled while keeping up with the orders for weapons, so this should help."

"I'll give it a try," Harry replied as he walked over, touched the gem and cautiously pushed magic into it.

Eldrin stared at the hero as he felt the mana pouring into the forge go from a respectable trickle to a stream of mana that was quickly filling the gem as he watched. 'If I wasn't sure he was a hero before, this would have settled things.'

Harry quickly stopped when he felt the gem stop accepting mana. "That should do it."

"Perfect," Eldrin assured him. "Grab an apron, some gloves and some tongs, you can hold the horns in the forge until they're ready to work."

"Okay," Harry replied as he headed to the rack to grab the safety gear.

"While we're waiting for it to heat up, how does your ability work? Can you swap any magical quality?" Eldrin asked.

"Anything that sort of makes sense," Harry replied as he grabbed an apron. "I can also swap some of the mundane properties like mass, sharpness, edge, type of metal or the shape or color of something."

"Start the forge and make sure that everyone grabs an apron," Eldrin told Dawn as he headed for the back room with a spring in his steps. "I'm going to grab some samples!"

"Is that a good thing?" Xander asked as he watched the man leave.

Dawn laughed. "It's either going to be really good or really bad."

"Don't worry, he's actually fairly sane," Kara offered.

"And extremely good," Dawn assured him. "Speaking of sanity, where's Luna?"

"She was taking a nap, she talked Harry into knocking her up and they were a bit enthusiastic about it," Kara explained.

"Nice, dibs on Xander," Dawn replied with a grin.

"What?" Xander asked. "Do I get a choice in the matter?"

"Of course," Dawn assured him. "You can either knock me up, so I can do my part for saving the elves or you can tell Buffy that you let a stranger knock me up."

Xander sighed. "She's going to kill me, you know that right?"

"I'm sure as hell not going to tell her, are you?" Dawn asked.

"I wasn't planning on it, but these things have a way of coming out at the worst time," Xander pointed out. “I also don’t like the idea of leaving you as a single mother, it’s bad enough that I’m going to have children I won’t get to see grow up.”

“There are going to be a lot of single mothers here, the demons have made that practically mandatory if we want to survive as a people, and with me I’ll be able to tell you how our kid is doing when we are both home, as I’ll still be here,” Dawn pointed out. “I won’t be raising him or her alone, I have a great family here.”

“I know and maybe it’s hypocritical of me… but I don’t like the thought of abandoning you while you are pregnant with my child a lot more than simply lending a gland to random elves,” Xander admitted.

“Life isn’t perfect, stop worrying about everything that can go wrong and think about what can go right, like having a child far away from any sort of Hellmouth or vampire with a gorgeous young woman whom you love dearly,” Dawn told him. "It doesn't have to be today, but I'm going to want children eventually and I don't want to have to wait twenty years for the next generation to grow up.”

Kara smiled, knowing that Dawn wasn't going to give up on having Xander knock her up given some of her stories. "More like fourteen to fifteen years. Harry has a ring that reduces the time pregnancy takes to a couple of weeks and makes the children quickly age until they're four. It also gives them memories and life experience as if they'd lived in a nice town for those years so they're not missing out on things."

"One of the rings also magically prevents complications which means it's completely safe and it gives the children some useful life skills and boosts their intelligence," Harry added as he finished putting the gloves on. 

"Thanks guys," Xander muttered.

"I want to fuck you like an animal on the Discovery channel, is that blunt enough?" Dawn asked, trying to get it through his skull that she wanted him and had for a while.

"You're…" Xander trailed off, not sure how to convince her that this was a bad idea without saying something that would piss her off.

"A kid? I'm sixteen, I'm technically an adult here and the age of consent is sixteen in most states back home so, my age isn't really an issue."

"I was going to go with your sister being the Slayer, I don't want to take advantage of you, which is what she’ll believe regardless," Xander told her.

"I have shackles, I can chain you to the bed," Dawn offered.

Xander stared at Dawn. "I'm going to ignore the rest of that. Why do you have shackles?"

"Don't ask questions you don't want the answer to," Dawn teased.

Kara shook her head. "Someone ordered a set for dealing with monsters a couple of years ago and died on a hunting trip before they could pick them up."

"That's less fun," Dawn complained. "Let's just ignore Buffy for the moment, are you saying that I'm not attractive?"

"I'd be lying if I said you weren't attractive, but it's a bit hard to ignore the fact that Buffy would geld me," Xander argued.

"Bullshit, she'd be laughing too hard about me chaining you to a bed and she doesn't have a leg to stand on for relationships, she's fucked two corpses, an asshole, and a cardboard cutout so her judgement is suspect," Dawn argued.

"Fine, I expect dinner and a show and maybe flowers," Xander joked, realizing she was old enough to make her own choices and it wasn't like she didn't know how much of a wreck he was.

"Yes!" Dawn squealed as she pulled Xander in for a hug and kissed him.

'Buffy is going to kill me,' Xander thought, fairly sure it would be worth it, if only because not helping her out would hurt more than he was comfortable with.

"Just remember to wait until you get the rings back from Neville," Harry reminded him.

"We should probably start the forge," Hermione suggested, trying to get them back on track and save Xander's back since she was pretty sure she'd heard a couple of pops.

"Right," Dawn replied as she let Xander go so that she could start the forge.

"Medic," Xander teased as he twisted and cracked his back.

0o0o0

Sirius looked up from his drink when Neville walked over to their table with a slight smile on his face. "You survived."

"Barely," Neville admitted as he took the open seat next to Tonks, making a mental note to grab ear plugs the next time he borrowed the rings because some of the women could have shattered glass.

"What happened?" Tonks asked.

"After I finished helping all of the priestesses, they sent me over to the school to help the teachers and that's all of the details you're going to get, I need a drink," Neville replied, not sure how to feel about the entire 'ordeal' since some of the women were probably old enough to be his mother and one of the women had looked like a much younger McGonagall but at least he's had a hell of a lot of fun, even if he was going to be feeling it in the morning and possibly the day after.

"Start with the lemonade then switch to something hard if you need it, you're probably dehydrated," Sirius offered, looking forward to having some fun with the waitresses on the roof since they'd offered to show him a good time and it had been a while since he'd had sex. "If you'll excuse me, I'm going to make some girls happy."

"Have fun," Tonks offered as she poured Neville a glass of lemonade, still not drunk enough to do her part.

"Absolutely," Sirius replied with a grin as he accepted the rings and bracers from Neville and headed for the stairs that went to the roof.

"Are you going to be okay?" Tonks asked Neville after he'd drank half the glass in one go, figuring she might as well check.

"I'm fine," Neville assured her. "I was expecting to be more nervous but once I started the perk kicked in and everyone was having fun, so I just sort of rolled with it. Next time, I'm taking more breaks and drinking more water though."

"And that's enough details on that," Tonks said as she grabbed her ale.

"Yep," Neville agreed, happy that he'd been able to help a lot of women and willing to do it again, in a couple of days after he recovered.

0o0o0