Fable of The Lightning-Struck Hero 4

Chapter 4:

From One Maze to Another

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Resolution Island: New Zealand

"Come and get it my little piggies!" Sally-Anne Scott Nee Perks yelled out through her little cottage window.

She almost missed the squeals of delight from her children over the July winter wind and snow, but definitely failed to miss the booming laughter of her husband as they all charged back up the hill from whatever game they had been playing. Jack's thick beard was completely encrusted with ice yet his ever-present smile shone through it all. He kept a slow pace so little Amelia and littler Evan could sprint past him to open the door. Lazy bum, always letting ladies open their own doors.

"Lasagna!" Evan hollered in delight as the smell must have hit her full blast.

"Awwww." Amelia groaned in complaint. "Veggie lasagna! It never tastes as good as it smells."

"That and Belgium waffles." Jack said gruffly as he patted off his beard and clothes of their frozen coating. "Both of which we should always be grateful for. Rare that we get much wheat or flour to cook with."

"But if either did taste as good as they smelled..." Sally said to her growing family. "T'would be the best food on earth. After ice cream."

She kissed her husband on the cheek, being careful nut to bump him with her baby bump as he always got worried every time he did. As if he might pop her like a balloon. Three pregnancies in and he still acted like a first-time father.

"Did we have enough flour leftover for garlic bread?" Jack asked as he hanged his coat.

"No. You will have to suffer with hashed potatoes and sausage." Sally told him.

He made a similar giddy gesture as his children, shoulders brought in while rubbing his fists together, and leapt to the table as he tried to avoid stepping on the six and four year-olds running around beneath. They each eventually found their seats and Sally slowly, torturously, walked around the table to find her spot at the opposite head to Jack. A quick grace later and Jack was loading all of their plates with a hefty cube of cheese, pasta sheets and spinach. Each plate was then passed down to her for a proper helping of sausage and hashbrown.

A mother knows she did an excellent job of cooking when, instead of conversations about the latest magical trinket their father had bought from the one witch in the village that animated such-and-such object, the only sounds that met her ears was the clinking of utensils and smacking of lips. Good, she didn't feel like scolding them for playing with magical things and expressing her dislike of that witch at the end of the street. It was such a tiresome charade to keep up for this last decade and a half, after all. Nor did the conversation of their eldest come up, off to school as he was. His refusal to come home for "Summer" vacation stung more than usual this year.

But it was only a few moments before their contented grunting at the bountiful meal was interrupted by a knock at the door.

"Oh, is that the Garricks?" Jack asked. "I thought our game night was tomorrow?"

Before she could finish chewing her mouthful and confirm that - yes, their game night was tomorrow - her husband had gotten up and reached the door.

Death. Decay. Undying rot.

"GET AWAY FROM THE DOOR RIGHT NOW!" She yelled at the top of her lungs as the click of her husband turning the handle signaled the beginning of their hell. "AND GET DOWN!"

The door cracked open and she caught a mere glimpse of the hooded figure beyond before she withdrew a plank of wood she had sword never to draw again. As the mostly concealed and widely-grinning face of the Dark-Lord's servant came into view she brought the tip of her wand to the base of her ring finger, just below her wedding band, and cast the one spell she practiced daily.

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Hong Kong

Lily, Teddy and Victoria stared across at one another and the three chatty old ladies who graciously hosted them. The three old ladies stared back. They all did this in utter silence.

This was partly because they were all too busy stuffing their faces with the simultaneously crappiest and yet somehow delicious food Lily had ever tasted. They were some kind of sausage that Bella had boiled and put in buns then promptly loaded with ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise and diced pickles. It was divine. She called them brats and served them with a cola. Lily had to wonder why she'd never had it in Iran. surely nothing this divine would be forbidden by Allah? not that she cared, religious study was the one part of Hashashin culture she was not trained in. Herm other tried to spare her that, but she picked up on some of it anyways... Well, completely lived the culture without fully understanding it would be more accurate, but still.

"You've never had a Doctor Capsaicin deer?" Jasmin asked.

Lily, Victoria and Teddy all shook their heads in the negative.

"Well! I also have amphetamine cola, lightning root beer and some Compress Grape soda if you've never had those before?" Bella offered.

"I mean, I would, but I already feel a little jittery from just this." Lily said, indicating the canned beverage in her hand. "SO I think I've had enough sugar for today."

Feeling curious, she looked at the back of the aluminium can and, sure enough, it listed the nutritional information... HOW MUCH SUGAR?!

"I think I'll take another can." Victoria said.

Lily considered warning her about the caloric content of what she had just put in her body, but the idea of her losing that delightfully twiglike physique in favor of thick thighs like her stopped her in her attempt at dietary advice. In the meantime, she hoped Hong Kong had affordable dentists. She would have to make an appointment after drinking this garbage. Delicious, though it may have been.

"Do you ladies have any idea how long it will be until this ward stops and we can get back to the surface?" Teddy asked as Bella retreated to the fridge to get them more drinks.

"It varies." Admitted the ancient black woman. "Sometimes it's a false alarm and it takes until the troops finish sweeping the underground for intruders. Other times? It takes until the threat is eliminated. It's usually a false threat, or even a prank by kids who just want to play in the maze. Though that seldom happens on school days."

"You never can be too careful." Said Jasmine. "Not with Tiamat, MOM, Voldemort, The Unmaker or their followers running around."

In that moment Lily confirmed Jasmine's identity as a full-blown muggle. Wizards, witches and squibs wouldn't have left out the Shades from that list. Well, her master wouldn't. But he had warned her that the other three weren't known to all. Still, she strongly suspected this woman was a Muggle.

"Has anybody ever broken through?" Teddy asked.

"If they had, the council wouldn't have let word of it get out." The black woman said. "Or would have chalked it up to the Jester letting people through. Big ego on that one."

Lily nodded with every word. Even if the defense wasn't perfect, word would have everyone believe that it was. Weaknesses in a city's defense could not be allowed to become known to all.

"Well, the turrets weren't on." Said Teddy. "So I don't think we're facing any invading armies or real threats here. If we're lucky it's just routine maintenance and will stop on its own soon."

Holy crap could he lie when he wanted to or what? And here Lily had always considered hi meh honest one in their trio in their months together. She'd have to be more careful about him.

"Well, I'm eager to be the first." Said Victoria. "And I know how to do it!"

Lily and Teddy shared a look.

"And how is that?" Lily dared to ask.

"By making more doors, of course!" She said as if it was patently obvious.

Yup. Lily was lost again. Teddy seemed to get it though.

"Which will connect to existing doors at random, and we just have to keep creating new doors until we connect to the surface." Teddy explained. "It need not even be a door, it can be any portal, like a window and maybe even a cabinet."

"Cabinets don't work." Said Bella. "Thank goodness too, or we would be without food and drink."

Lily nodded.

"But creating more doors takes time." Said Lily. "Maybe less time than wandering and finding an exit, but with all three of us transfiguring it could take minutes per door, and with the tens of thousands of possible other doors and windows to connect to it could take weeks before we find an exit."

"Well." Said Bella. "If it does you are all welcome to bunk on our couches. I hope you like cats, I breed half-kneazles. Here, let me go get Snowy, Tufty and Mr Tibbles for you. Mr Paws is shy but he'll warm up to you all eventually. Her, I'll go let them out of their crates."

They got up and quickly went to work.

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New Zealand:

"My goodness! That spell certainly takes me back!" Wormtail cackled at the absolute carnage the pregnant witch just unleashed.

From the entrance to her little cabin to a whole fifty meters behind hum the earth had cracked open as if by the wrath of god. Stone and soil still rained down from in a constant hail from the five meter wide trench she just tore through the mountainside with that little stunt. When he had cast that spell against Sirius so many years ago it had barely done half as much damage, and only then because it had hit a gas line. This woman had... a gift.

"Let me take you back further why don't I!" The woman hollered back from the shattered remains of her cottage.

She stepped past the threshold of her home and instantly collapsed, screaming in pain.

He could merely laugh at her as she clutched her arm, holding her now ringless left hand to her face.

"Drastically worse than you expected, isn't it?" Wormtail gloated. "You expected the pain of losing a finger, but sacrificial magic of that caliber is so much more than flesh-deep. You sacrificed your ring finger and all it symbolized. You get the ripping of the skin, the obliteration of the flesh, the annihilation of the nerves, All of which you are feeling down to the last cell at this very moment."

The witch ceased to clutch her wounded hand and instead clutched her chest with her good hand, the emotional pain of the sacrifice she just made to try and kill him hit her with full force.

"You have also erased all commitments or vows associated with the finger. CONGRATULATONS! You're a single woman again. Your marriage is annulled." He cackled again. "It was significantly less painful, and less powerful, when I did it. Being a bachelor at the time. Iknow not what future marriage I lost. But you? Oh boy! Must that hurt!"

She went from collapsing to her knees to faceplanting into the snow. She may have screamed into it, but he couldn't quite hear it over the roaring wind.

He let her recover, counting the seconds patiently as they ticked by for her to come back to her senses.

"How are you still alive?" her shuddering voice finally rang out through her clenched teeth.

Only then did Wormtail look at himself, and gasp.

If only he'd ad such accuracy when he'd cast the spell, Padfoot would have surely died. This young lady almost completely missed, yet somehow removed from him half of his body. His right half. From his shoulder blade to his foot. Most, but not all, of his ribcage and pelvis were gone and his right leg up to his kneee was gone, leaving a thigh and stump to hold up his kneeling form.

He laughed again. Harder than before.

"Simple, my dear. I'm not!" He laughed merrily. "I have not been in a very long time. But days like this bring me close."

Bones and mummified flesh animated from beneath his cloak. Bones and mummified flesh of those he intended to wield as weapons, as he always had, but whom today would replace his own. They crawled along what remained of his body and gnawed at his already stolen flesh to provide more stolen flesh for him to wield as his own. But this was such an old song and dance by now that he could merely wait in boredom as the random assortment of reanimated corpse pieces animated and reformed a an inaccurate, but sufficient, facsimile of his lost limbs.

"You know..." Wormtail said to the dead witch standing. "I actually came here with a piece offering and invitation to join his legion. But I do believe your rather violent reaction to my arrival is refusal enough. Wouldn't you children agree?"

His followers obeyed his cue to come out of their hiding places. A cue they knew meant they would earn the title of blooded today.

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Hong Kong:

"Okay. So. What marks one door different from another?" Victoria asked, seemingly rhetorically. "Surely we need not make a new door entirely, but merely replace an old one."

They stood in the hallways between Bella's kitchen and bedroom. Four doorways, one with no door to speak of. that one they could all see led to a bedroom with a single king-sized bed and several cat crates they did not wish to see opened.

"So.. you suggest we conjure new doors and merely replace the old ones with our new conjurings?" Teddy suggested.

"Well, if it comes down to that. But it might be even easier than you're expecting. What if merely changing the color of door marks it as a new waypoint by this enchantment?" She said. "Or using a switching spell, to swap the frames or door or hinges makes it a new waypoint."

Finally! The Veela was speaking in a language Lily could understand.

"Color switching charms on three!" She announced.

They didn't actually wait until three, opting to instead cast color switching charms then and there. The three white doors became red, green and blue in a split second. A split second later, they opened them.

Lily's door now opened to what looked like an industrial refrigerator filled with boxes of produce, Teddy's opened to a storage room filled with empty, rusted down shelves and Victorias opened to one of many maintenance tunnels.

"You know, we probably should have checked where the doors led originally, so as to know if they actually led to new places or not." Teddy said.

They changed the colors again and, sure enough, when they opened the doors the second time they led to the same freezer, storage room and maintenance tunnel.

"Alright. Onto experiment number two. Switching charms." Victoria announced.

She cast a switching charm on her door proper with Lily's door. Lily cast a switching charm on her own door frame, swapping it with Teddy's. Teddy raised his wand, then seemed to think better of things as they had already made the necessary combinations. For a third time they opened their doors, and voila! Lily's now opened to a subway tunnel, Teddy's opened into an empty office and Victoria's opened into a public toilet.

"Now we're getting somewhere." Lily said with a smile.

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New Zealand:

Sally-Anne glanced back behind her, thinking the undead abomination had been talking to her children, but then in her periphery she caught the black shapes moving in and turned back to the enemy. Enemies, plural, and here she was injured and spent before the fight even began.

What little good humor she had felt internally vanished at the sight of these "children", replaced with disgust.

They wore Death Eater masks. The ornate skulls of Voldemort's long-dead inner circle repurposed and crudely redecorated with childlike drawings. One had a grin with a tongue hanging out, one had a hangman sketch game etched on it with the word "fate" guessed in the margins., one had a jester's hat and one had flowing tear rivers from the eyes to the chin. There were a few others, but they hanged back enough that she couldn't quite decipher.

"What manner of magic was that uncle Peter?" Said one of the children.

They all the smaller, thinner bodies of teenagers or young adults at most. Either new recruits or the children of her old classmates.

"Sacrificial magic, Alejandro." Peter said. "Teh same kind that defeated Voldemort once upon a time. Sacrifice a body part to amplify a spell, like the bombarda we just witnessed. The more flesh sacrificed, the more powerful. More powerful still are spiritual or symbolic sacrifices, like the ring finger and wedding band. But it seems to me little miss Perks didn't fully understand the implications of such magic."

"It's Scott!" Sally yelled back, instantly regretting it as the pain in her arm flared up.

She had expected the dull thumping pressure sending pain all the way up her arm with each heartbeat, but she didn't know she would feel every cell of her now gone finger being obliterated over and over again. This Peter was completely right, like a ghost limp hanging off of her bleeding stump of a finger it pained her. And there was also another pain, one of emotional loss like she hadn't felt since the death of her parents and it was actively overwhelming her.

"Not anymore, you just sacrificed your very marriage for that spell." Peter informed her. "Odd, abstract concept, I know. It's why the spell was so powerful, more powerful than any I've ever seen cast, save by Voldemort or The Unmaker. The memories and possibilities lost will fade soon, so it becomes easier."

What?! No! That couldn't be true! She glanced back into her now desiccated home and there he stood, holding their children back. They were all still there, they were real, a single spell couldn't erase all of that!

"Oh, it won't affect them." Said Peter. "Only you. Your memories, your feelings, your future. With them. If he loved you, he will continue to do so, but you will never be able to reciprocate again. Not with him at least. It's not a time changing spell. Your children are fine. For now."

The earth lunged violently, and they all lost their footing. The sweet cold of the snow-covered ground enveloped her wound as the mountainside slid away. A meter. Two meters. Three. By the time it stopped half of her home was ten whole feet away from where it began and the great fissure separating half of the Death-Eater masked "children" were one side with Peter and his little flock on the other.

Even with the obvious anti-apparition and anti-portkey wards in place, there was still a chance. A chance to get away. Maybe not for her, or the baby in her, but maybe for them... Time to stall.

"But why?" She yelled. "Why come for me? I never did anything to him."

"Precisely." The horrific voice cracked through the wailing wind like a thunderbolt. "You did... nothing."

The Dark Lord walked, limped, up the hill. Cane in hand steadying himself. The loud hissing of his respirator and clunking of the metal braces supporting his ruined body making an unmistakable rhythm. His approach was slow and to those unaware of his nature he could be mistaken for an invalid, with his back arched weakly as it was.

They would be wrong.

"You... Ran away." The Unmaker said. "Before the fighting even began. Before the first casualties."

"I was one of the only people to believe you!" Sally yelled. "And what was Cedric, if not a casualty!"

This actually gave him pause.

"That is quite the revelation. I barely knew you in school, Sally." Potter said. "But my word alone at the end of that tournament was enough to make your parents pull you out of school and flee with you? However did you convince them?"

"I didn't." She snarled through her gritted teeth. "I Imperiod them. And when we got to Australia I Left them as amnesiacs, transfigured to be unrecognizable."

She had planned these words for years. As she knew this day would come. He came for all traitors, all deserters and refugees who left Britain in that time. She wondered if she was the last one left. She was certain she had been the first.

"You went to great lengths to escape the horrors of Voldemort's second war." Potter told her. "I came here today intending to share with you some of what you missed."

He disrobed, and she shuddered at the sight of his body.

Emaciated to the last rib, blackened by some horrific curse. Rubber and plastic tubing crisscrossed from his respirator in and out of his neck and chest like twisting vines and one even went into his arm like an IV drip. It probably was an IV drip based on how visible his ulna and radial were beneath his leathery skin. The only recognizable features that bared any resemblance to the handsome seeker from Hogwarts was his crazy nest of black hair and dazzling - but now hate-filled - green eyes.

The scar on his forehead was now inflamed, almost... glowing. The rest of his scars, like the seeming dissection scar from the nape of his neck to his naval, all seemed les terrible in comparison.

In this broken, barely alive state, he was the most terrifying thing on the planet. Not for the mere body horror of gazing at him, but for the knowledge that broken and weak as he was, no army on earth in a thousand to one battle could beat this thing in a fight. Neither could she. And unlike her, he had backup.

"You cannot fathom the lengths I will go in order to protect the ones I love, Potter." She spat out the name, showing a bravery she did not feel.

He looked at her with a tilted head and chuckled. It was a nasty, mucus-filled sound.

"Oh, based on where you're pointing that wand of yours, I think I can fathom it very well." Potter said, almost in amusement.

She stood back up from the ground to show them all exactly what their lord meant with those words. In her ruined hand she had been concealing in the snow with her wand, holding the tip of it to her belly.

Peter was the first to catch on and backed away with his hands raised. Panic and fear evident on his face. The young recruits seemed a pick slow on the pickup, so she decided to brag a little.

"You all saw what sacrificing a finger could do, imagine what a mother sacrificing her life and the life of her unborn child could do." She snarled with her best attempt at a wicked grin.

She hoped it was more intimidating than it felt. It must have been, because the youths backed away with much more pep in their step. The Dark Lord remained where he stood.

"I am very tempted." The Dark Lord said. "Partly to see what such a spell could do. After all, it would take many months of preparation and forethought to make such a sacrificial curse. It's not a spell that can be done with a mere wave of the wand. Perhaps it could actually kill me? I would like that. But it would also kill you, and that was not my goal here today."

"I will never join you!" She yelled.

"I did not come here to recruit you either." He said. "I came to recruit the mysterious witch who lived with her family at the top of this hill, or else kill her if she refused. We did not know that witch was Sally Anne Perks. You get a different punishment. You get to live."

Peter piped up then.

"Having to live with the consequences of your own decisions, and own cowardice, is a terrible punishment. You will beg for death." Peter warned her.

With that tidbit of wisdom offered the man apparated away. The young recruits followed soon after like the popping of bubble wrap. With the wards now confirmedly removed she clasped underneath her cloak a talisman and squeezed it. When she did, she heard the shocked screams of Jack, Evan and Amelia as the portkeys they wore activated and they were spirited away. They would hate her. They would confused and terrified for a very long time. But they would be alive.

"You did not leave with them?" Potter asked with what may have been a raised eyebrow. She couldn't quite tell.

"No." She growled, feeling emboldened by the retreat of his servants.

He stared her down unflinchingly. Then he stared at her some more, as if he were challenging her. goading her like he had that snake in the dueling ring. She could do it. She should do it. She had the opportunity to kill this monster and save so many more lives in the future. What were her and her baby's worth in the face of millions?

The runes were carved into her flesh. The potions were in her blood system. All she had to do was select the right spell, the right curse, and obliterate him. But then why? Why did she hesitate? Why could she not use the same magic to destroy him that his own mother had used to destroy Voldemort?

Too late, her hesitance gave him the time to act, and he0 snapped his arm out to grasp something unseen in the air and Sally knew her backup was caught.

"Hello Lisa." Potter said to the invisible witch he had grasped by the throat. "It's so good to see you again. Did you kidnap your parents and turn them into vegetables as well?"

He bodily lifted Lisa Turpin from the ground and her disillusionment charm vanished as he began choking the life out of her. Still, Sally couldn't bring herself to cast the curse that was the best shot anybody had to take the Unmaker down in well over a decade. Even as Lisa made desperate hacking sounds and clawing motions and the impossibly strong, skeletal figure grasping her friend, Sally could do nothing.

Fortunately, much of their forethought and planning didn't require action in the moment and finally activated automatically.

Animation talismans buried in the snow and dirt all around the hillside activate and lumbering bodies of ice and stone rose like the dead from graveyards. Hulking masses with clubs for arms. Tall, thin masses with blades for arms. Tiny, hopping masses with razor sharp teeth. Each bore down on the dark lord like a swarm from all directions. Lisa's handywork there.

But when the Dark Lord withdrew his wand, a horrible, knotted thing - he did not point it at any of the animated golems. He didn't even point it at either of them. He pointed it at her home.

"Percussio." Potter enunciated lazily, almost mockingly.

The bright flash of light sped towards the ruins of her home and vanished from sight. Every single golem, large and small, ceased to move a moment later. Another moment passed and they crumpled to the ground, returning to the elements from whence they came. And then Lisa stopped moving with them.

He dropped the lifeless body to the ground to join her creations and returned to his staring match with Sally.

She realized her mouth was hanging open but couldn't muster the strength to close it. She knew what he'd done but couldn't fathom how he'd done it. The animations were tied to the wardstone, the foundation stone, of her home. Most people tied more obvious wards to theirs. She thought she had been clever by going an alternative route to the long-defunct defensive area wards. Clearly she had not been.

"Well?" Potter said. "Are you going to kill your little boy or are you just going to stand there wondering how I pinpointed the wardstone?"

Not waiting for her to answer, the man reached behind himself and seemed to pull something from his back. Pulling his arm back in front of him he revealed a knife whose blade was covered in thick, black liquid.

Lisa had succeeded! she had stabbed him! that meant He was poisoned and bleeding out now. She could take him! Even in her state... Just one spell. All she had to to was give her life, and his life.

"You seem genuinely confused as to where your conviction went." Potter goaded. "And it is adorable. You should have killed me when your family was still here. Then, you were a mother protecting her children, a wife protecting her husband. In those circumstances a woman is capable of defeating anything. I would know. But now?"

He waved his arms about at the world around them. The dead body at his feet. The collapsed golems. Her ruined home and yard. The piddle of black, what must have been, blood pooling from the wound where Lisa had stabbed him.

"You are free to leave. You can escape at a moments notice. You are trying to convince yourself that you are a killer, but there's no murderer in you." Potter told you. "Your boats and bridges were burned, but now they are rebuilt, and with them so too returns your hankering for home. (AN:) "Go now. You have my permission. My blessing. But if you wish to stay and watch the fireworks with me, I won't begrudge the company."

With that dismissive statement he turned his back to her to gaze out upon Seaforth River and Cooper Island and the many rolling mountains beyond. Mountains containing countless villages and hamlets built by the refugees of his and Voldemort's war. Wizard and muggle alike. She knew as well as any that when The Unmaker came, his army followed soon after. He always led it from the front.

Sure enough, moments later one of the metal behemoths that composed his fleet appeared in the sky with a crack of ten thousand apparitions. Hulking steel hull and spheres of goblin metal glowing with blue iridescent flame made up its belly. Cannons and artillery made up its deck. The second flying battleship bared an identical appearance. As did the third, and fifth, and twentieth and the hundredth.

The sky filled with these machines of death from Chalky Island to the edge of the horizon. And though she couldn't see anywhere near that far she was certain the line of ships stretched all the way to Surat Bay.

"Of course, you are also welcome to stay and watch the fireworks with me." Potter offered.

She finally took the hint and apparated away.

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Hong Kong:

The trio reached a roadblock mere moments after they began, after they exhausted every combination of doorframe, door and doorhandle without finding an exit. But after that it was time to change from switching charms to full-blown transfiguration.

How about a mahogany doorframe with rose carvings and a willow door proper? That sufficed as a new door to the defensive wards and now hers opened to some kind of venting tunnel with large fans. How about a bronze square handle and black doorframe? Yup. It qualified, and no hers opened to a wall of sand. Vanishing that away it was some caved in tunnel or other.

They continued like this for nearly an hour, transfiguring faster and with more urgency after Bella brought out the spare blankets and pillows, until finally.

"YES!" Victoria yelled in victory.

Lily turned to see blinding, beautiful, sunlight. Beyond Victoria's door was the great blue sky, warped by the mismatch of the rectangular door and circular exit, likely a pothole.

They were free!

Lily and Teddy broke away from their usual standoffishness and hugged the redhead in glee. The cheered as they damn near danced in place like a hopping Cerberus. Lily, herself, almost bleated a ululation, but reminding herself that she wasn't in the middle east anymore stopped her.

"Thank you, ladies!" Teddy yelled back to the living room.

"Oh you guys are leaving already?" Asked Jasmine. "Make sure to visit, we always have extra tea."

"Write down how to find you and I'll make the time." Victoria said, removing her sack and digging for a pen and piece of paper.

Lily made no such promise but waited patiently for Victory to head back to the living room for the three geriatrics to write down their addresses for them. When she returned they were all set.

"Be ready to catch or boost whoever goes first." Teddy warned. "Gravity on the other side will pull you back down this way. Weird feeling."

"Good call. I'll go first." Victoria said, reaching a hand out to the portal.

"Ehhh, you're wearing a sundress, so maybe you should go last?" Teddy suggested.

"Ehhh, I'm also wearing jorts under it and you're the heaviest, so why don't YOU go last?" Victoria quipped back.

Lily had to completely cover her mouth with both hands to try and hold back the laughter at that one and while she was preoccupied with that Victoria climbed through the portal like a jungle gym. She struggled against the gravity trying to pull her back down but by keeping her grsp on the sides of the door she was able to pull herself through.

Lily followed after her with much less difficulty, though she did have to blink away the odd sensation of the contrasting gravities pulling her in two different directions and then settling on one. Definitely an odd sensation.

Teddy came up last so Lily and Victoria helped him through, pulling him up by an arm each. Once they were all out Bella appeared on the other side.

"Now get a move on, the day is still early enough that you ought to make it to class." She told them before closing the door behind them.

The open hole, morphed into an iron pothole cover.

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Angelina waited for the trio to exit before pouring the antidote into her tea and taking a long drink from it. She breathed a sigh of relief at the peace restored by them leaving.

"Thank you again Arabella." Angelina said as the effects of her aging potion reversed. "I know that had to be difficult for you."

"Oh, not at all!" Said Mrs Figg. "It brought me back to happier times. She looks so much like her father."

Jasmine zeroed right into that piece of information.

"You knew that girl's father?" She asked. "The one with green eyes I'm guessing?"

"Why would you guess her and not the Veela?" Angelina asked in joking challenge.

"Because she looks very boyish. The Veela does not. Unless her father was an absolute twink I doubt she resembles him." Jasmin said crassly.

Angelina snorted into what remained of her tea. Yeah, Victoria bared no resemblance to Bill outside of the reddish hair and freckles. His absurd masculine handsomeness did not pass on, Fleur's even more extreme feminine beauty overpowered it.

"But yes." Said Arabella. "I used to babysit him as a child. Then he became a warrior in the second Voldemort war. It destroyed him. But I am pleased to see he had a child. All the more light left in the world for it."

If the world should be so lucky, yeah. But that was the purpose of their mission. To make sure these three were, in fact, of the light. For the sake of the future. And to redeem the past.

Angelina put a finger to her ear and activated the communicator inside.

"Did you boys get all that?" She asked.

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"Yup." Said Blaise. "Now if you'll excuse me, I can't neglect my duties as a truancy officer by allowing three teenagers to be walking the streets of Hong Kong during school hours. And out of uniform. Any idea what manhole they're coming out of?"

"Forty eight B." George answered into the intercom before leaning back and relaxing into his chair.

He felt a distinct sting to his pride at the unexpected hole in his masterpiece. How 3 sixteen-year-olds could manage to break it with such a simple method, when Death Eaters, militias, assassins and worse had failed, was beyond him. But a very different feeling was overpowering that sting.

"So." Came Angelina's voice. "What do you think of your niece?"

"Which one?" He said cheekily, before frowning at the reminder of the fate of the one brother he had who shared no blood.

He bounced back into being his jolly fat self.

"I like them." He said. "I like all of them. And they've only been in my life for a whole hour yet I feel... pride in them. Especially Victoria and Lily. But that's probably because I didn't know Tonks or Remus very well. So maybe I don't feel a connection to the boy?"

he heard Angelina hum knowingly over her earpiece.

"I can't wait to meet them properly." Angelina said.

"Me neither. But we have to." George responded. "Let them grow without our interference. Watch and wait, see if they blossom or rot."

"And destroy them if they prove chips off the old block." Blaise's voice interrupted.

"But support them from the shadows until then." Angelina snarled back. "Give them the best chance and guidance necessary to be good. The chance many of us were denied. Don't go Snape on them."

"Too late. Found em. Time to bring them to class." Blaise responded before turning off his comm.

George sighed in exasperation but smiled at the intense man's antics all the same.

"At least now we don't have to be the ones to tell her that her daughter finally arrived." Angelina's voice said.

"You never had to be the ones to do that to begin with." Cho said from directly behind George.

George launched out of his chair into a salute so fast that his increasingly bulbous stomach knocked over a nearby monitor. He cursed himself for letting her sneak up on his blind spot. Being one-eyed had it's disadvantages, ones he should not be suffering from.

"Honestly, George. What would Mad-Eye say?" Cho said as she walked up to the controls for his fun house enchantment.

How in the world was she able to sneak up on him like that with business heels that loud?

"Something-something vigilance." George said cheekily.

She didn't rise to his humor, instead bringing up the logs of the setting changes to the fun-house enchantment. There, for them both to see, was a log of him turning it down from the five out of ten down to two out of ten just minutes earlier.

"You went easy on them." Cho said simply, before standing back up and flattening her pantsuit in disgust at his dusty console.

"Come on! You and I both know they absolutely would have spent weeks on those doors until they got the right one." He said. "And besides, their method would have worked in the end. They beat my funhouse. They deserved a reward."

Cho nodded knowingly at him.

"And I am sure the significance of allowing them in today played no part in your going easy on them?" She clarified.

"It might have." George said, scratching at his eye patch. "I'm sure we're all eager to see them hurled at the practices this week."

"We are indeed... Weasley, I am issuing you new standing orders." Cho said, finally getting to the point. "Your time is now to be split between your normal duties and keeping an eye on your Victoria Weasley, and guiding her where you can."

"Just one eye? And just Victoria?" e clarified.

"Just the one. And just her." Cho responded, finally budging and giving him a smirk at the joke.

"What about the other two?" George asked.

"Just as you are the most qualified and the most likely to be invested in Victoria, I have chosen somebody else more qualified and invested in my daughter than anyone save myself." Cho told him. "Of course, he doesn't know about his new job duties, but I look forward to the look on his face when he finds out."

"He's going to throw a righteous tantrum the moment he can get away with it." George warned.

"I know." Said Cho with a cutesy shrug. "I look forward to it.

With that she turned and clacked along the tile floor to the sliding door.

"Wait. What about Theodore?" George asked, catching onto her failure to fully answer his question.

She stopped as the sliding door hissed open in that pleasing way it did and seemed to stand pondering.

"He's the wild card, isn't he?" She asked. "Near as I can tell he has no history, and everyone even remotely close to his parents are long gone. Him, we will have to wait and see, and let him pick the people who will help him forge his destiny instead of assigning them."

"Poor kid." George remarked.

Cho made a very unladylike sound of derision and marched off. Leaving George with his beeping and whirring computers and miserable diet foods.

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(AN: I was very tempted to remove this line and save it for original writings later. It's too good of a quote to waste on fanfics. But I decided to leave it. I hope you love it as much as me.)