I was utterly knackered by the time I made it back to my warded hotel room, my legs sore from being on my feet all day and my mind worn out from spellcasting. My dinner was a long sandwich piled high with cured meats and cheese that I acquired from a shop next door to the hotel. I would have preferred something hot but I just didn’t have the energy to find somewhere else to eat.
I did discover that my room had come with several packets of tea and coffee and was able to enjoy a good strong cuppa with plenty of sugar. The quality of the tea was somewhat lacking, but It had been a few days since I’d had any tea at all so it was still a good way to end the day.
There was an odd-looking black contraption holding a glass pitcher on the table beside it and I presumed that this was some manner of muggle kettle, but I wasn’t sure that I trusted it and simply used a heating charm on my water instead.
I woke up bright and early the next day, a ray of dim sunlight streaming through the not-quite fully closed curtains by my bed. I was rather looking forward to this evening when I’d finally be able to meet with another proper wizard, but before that I had another plan for the day.
Yesterday, I’d gained the ability to summon a very special sort of undead by the name of Solomon Grundy. He was a creature born and reborn of Slaughter Swamp, a sort of manifestation of the dark magic churning deep down in the water and earth beneath the swamp.
As far as I could tell, the magic in the swamp had tried to…piggyback on my Inferius spell to recreate Grundy faster than the swamp would have otherwise been able to do so, but the two forms of necromancy had proven too incompatible and the attempt had failed. Unlike an Inferius, which was essentially a golem crafted out of a dark-magic infused corpse, Grundy was fully intelligent and possessed his own mind and will.
In making the attempt however, the swamp had given me a lot of insight into the way that Grundy’s mind and body worked, which is why I’d gained the ability to create a copy of the creature myself. Strangely, it seemed that only one Grundy could exist at a time in the world. It wasn’t just that I could only summon one instance of him, but I also got the feeling that if Grundy was reborn properly while I had a version of him summoned, my summoned version would be destroyed or at the very least greatly reduced in power.
Well, that didn’t really matter right now. It wasn’t like I was even close to having enough mana to summon the powerful undead. Still, I couldn’t help but find my mind drifting to the creature and what little knowledge of it I had somehow gained. I knew that it was powerful, but that its power could wax and wane from incarnation to incarnation. I also knew that Grundy was nearly impossible to truly kill, his body and mind reforming over and over after every defeat.
However, I didn’t really know what that power meant. I knew that Grundy was stronger than an Inferius, but how much stronger? He was also at least somewhat intelligent, but how intelligent? Was he like a wizard? Perhaps a particularly stupid wizard? Or was it more an animal intelligence or perhaps a muggle-sort of cunning?
The easiest way to learn more would be to summon the creature and question it directly, but unfortunately that was currently impossible. Instead, I had a different plan. I knew that Grundy had existed in this place for decades, and that meant that the local muggles likely knew at least something of its existence, even if that knowledge only existed in stories. Assuming the statute hadn’t been enforced for at least a few years, it was possible that some muggles had even seen Grundy and were allowed to keep their memories of the event!
Thus, I needed to track down a muggle that may possess the knowledge I was seeking. Perhaps it might have been better to turn to a learned scholar, for as much as the muggles had those, but so far I had only met one muggle in this place that had been genuinely helpful and I hoped that she may be of service to me once again.
I returned to Big Belly Burgers just after nine, the signs and decorations around the restaurant still just as garishly Gryffindor as I remembered. The place was considerably busier than it had been during my first visit, a number of the tables occupied by weary-looking, grim faced muggles sipping at coffee and rapidly chowing down their food.
There was also a long line of what I assumed were automobiles slowly driving past a window in the side of the restaurant and receiving food without exiting the vehicles. Automobiles looked very different than I remembered from the rare few occasions I’d seen one outside grimmauld place, their outsides sleek and shiny and painted with bright colors, and there were a lot more of them, but their form and function was still familiar enough to be identifiable.
I slipped silently into the restaurant, my muggle repelling charm making the muggles mindlessly step out of my way as I passed. Many of them were holding the same sort of little rectangle that the muggle waitress had been staring at and one was even holding it to his ear and talking into it like it was a communication mirror.
To my disappointment, there was a different muggle at the counter today, this one one an older, short-haired woman with graying hair and dull eyes. For a moment I thought that the muggle I was looking for, Magnolia, was not present, but then I noticed her off to one side cleaning a table with a blue rag. She was holding a strangely-shaped bottle in her other hand, and from it white mist sprayed down onto the table that she then wiped up with her rag.
Ah, perfect. This was even better as pulling her aside would not require her to leave the busy counter unattended. I headed over towards her, reluctantly dispelling the muggle-repelling charm I’d cast this morning as I went.
I stopped behind her and cleared my throat. “Magnolia, yes?”
“That’s my name, don’t wear––” she looked up from the table and our eyes met, “Oh! Sorry, hello. I thought you were someone else. Can I help you?”
If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
“Perhaps. I have a number of questions I was hoping you’d be able to answer for me.”
“Um, I’m cleaning right now. If you want to order something, you’ll need to get in line like everyone else or use the drive through.”
“I am not interested in food at this moment. Is there somewhere private where we can speak?”
Her eyes darted up and down my robes, then towards the counter where her fellow waitress was speaking with a customer. I saw her throat bob as she swallowed and then she took a half step back, “Sir, I––”
My lips narrowed. I had been hoping to avoid needing to cast anything on her––it would be harder for her to answer questions properly that way––but she didn’t seem like she wanted to cooperate. My wand, tucked out of sight within the sleeve of my robe, fell into my hand and I drew an upside-down teardrop in the air with its tip. “Confundo,” I murmured, and her words died in her throat.
“You want to take me somewhere private so we can talk,” I told her quickly before the spell could wear off.
She blinked. “I…want to take you somewhere private so we can talk,” she blinked a few more times and then shook her head rapidly. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what came over me. If you would please follow me, sir?”
She led me down a short hallway past two bathrooms and then used a key hanging from her belt to unlock a door labeled ‘Employees Only’. I followed her inside and she closed it behind us, then relocked it.
The room was a sort of modestly-sized storage area. One wall was lined with metal and wooden shelves ladened with cleaning supplies and assorted muggle things I had no name for. There were a dozen extra chairs stacked together in a corner, a table lying on its side against one wall, and a cart much like the one the Trolley Witch pushed around was standing by the door.
The muggle turned to face me, then suddenly froze and her eyes widened. “Wait, what am I…where––why did.”
I drew my wand and waved it in a circle above my head. “Silencio.” The sounds of the restaurant outside vanished as I silenced the room and the muggle’s mouth snapped shut, her eyes filled with fear as she cringed away from me.
Hmm, that wouldn’t do. Muggles were well known to lash out when they were scared. “I mean you no harm,” I told her firmly, “I just want to ask you a few questions.”
“Um, and, and you’ll let me go after that?” she asked weakly.
“I will, you have my word as a member of the House of Black.” I would also probably obliviate her at this rate, but I’d heard from a few Obliviators that it was best not to tell muggles about that before you performed the spell.
She relaxed slightly, “Oh, okay. Um. How can I help you?” Her voice was a bit squeaky, but she looked much more composed than she had a moment before.
Hopefully she would know something or this would be a huge waste of time. “Are you aware of the creature Solomon Grundy?” I asked, ready to be disappointed.
She tilted her head to the side. “You mean the supervillain?”
I mulled the unfamiliar word over in my mind. Supervillain. A villain that is superior to an ordinary villain? Perhaps a villain that could use some form of magic, like a wizard or powerful undead?
“Probably,” I eventually decided. “Gray skin, white hair, very strong and durable. He looks a bit like a…” I tried to remember the form of undead native to the Americas. We’d talked about them in Defense against the Dark Arts back in third year. Not an Inferius, but a… “zombie.”
She nodded. “Yeah, that sounds like him. I’ve seen a few pictures on the news. He had a big fight with Killer Croc that spilled out onto the streets a few weeks ago and some kid captured it all on video. I haven’t watched it myself but my friend Marry says it was pretty sick.”
I perked up at her words. “Your friend Marry has seen Grundy? Where can I find her?”
Magnolia hurriedly backpedaled, “Well, no, no, she just saw the video. I can show it to you, you don’t need to go looking for her.”
“How?” I asked sharply.
Magnolia reached for her pocket and my wand came up in an instant pointed directly at her chest. Her hand froze and she tried to take a step back, but the small size of the room meant her back was already almost up against the wall. “I’m just getting my phone!” she squeaked, “Don’t hurt me!”
I slowly lowered my wand. “And this…phone will allow you to show me Grundy?”
“Yes,” she nodded rapidly, her long hair flying around her face, “yes, I just need to find the video on Lextube. It will only take a second! Here, you can watch me do it!”
I watched warily as she retrieved her little black rectangle from the pocket of her pants and poked at it. The front of the rectangle flickered and then changed colors and she made sure to keep the colorful part in my field of vision as she continued to poke at it, her fingers flying across its glassy surface.
“Here, I found it!” She turned the rectangle fully towards me and I leaned in to see it more clearly.
It was like a news-portrait, but smaller, I quickly realized. She poked something on the side of the rectangle and the sound got louder. I watched with interest as what was clearly Solomon Grundy exchanged powerful blows with a huge, muscular man-shaped beast covered in green scales.
The video was short and blurry, but just from looking at the destruction left in the two fighter’s wake I could see that Grundy was very strong and very durable. Much more so than a wizard or a simple Inferius, his might was comparable to that of a troll or giant.
“Fascinating,” I breathed. “And this device, can it be used to watch other…videos?”
“Um, yeah?” she said like it was something obvious. “I have Lextube installed so I can watch anything on there, and anything else I can just find in my browser.”
It took her a few minutes, but soon I was watching another ‘video’ of Solomon Grundy, this one accompanied by a woman’s voice discussing his battle with a ‘superhero’ by the name of Batman.
The Grundy in this video looked weaker than the previous one, his body smaller and less muscular, but he fought far more intelligently. In the next video however, Grundy was stronger than the previous two combined, able to go blow for blow with the flying man I’d seen in the news portrait the day before whose name was Superman.
I was amazed, both by the power of my future zombie summon, and by this fascinating muggle technology in Magnolia’s hands. It was incredible what muggles had managed to achieve once wizards had chosen to end the statute of secrecy.