I blinked at Ahri’s statement, processing.

It was Amy who frowned and answered for me. “What do you mean, you have a request?”

Ahri winced and glanced at the brown haired woman next to her before she spoke. “This is Lin…”

I blinked. That was the employee that had acted as Chihiro’s pseudo big sister slash mentor figure in Spirited Away. She had started out being gruff and dismissive, but ended up being the sister Chihiro needed as she grew to stand on her own two feet. In fact, she was the one who taught Chihiro how to survive her first few days, getting her food, and teaching her how to work around so many powerful and strange spirits. Then when Chihiro gets the chance to leave, she helps her by paddling her out to the train station and threatens No Face, just in case.

While I was thinking, Ahri seemed to be lost in thought on how to approach the issue for several more seconds before she sighed and explained. “Lin has come to ask for us to purchase her services and take the two of them with us when we leave.”

I blinked, mouth open.

My girls blinked

The trio blinked.

It took a moment as I tried to figure out what she meant by ‘two of them’ but then I saw something in Lin’s tails move. As I watched, I saw a small fox face pop out of the tufts of Lin’s tails. Had she been hiding her… daughter, probably… in her tails?

No, as I inspected the clothes that Lin was wearing, I noticed that Lin had a small backpack carrier strapped around her shoulders.

Suddenly I realized Lin was looking more and more worried, while Ahri was nibbling her lip in concern. Apparently my confusion had lasted longer than I had thought. It might have made me seem like I was mad about the situation, or maybe just dismissive.

Shaking my head slightly to clear it, I focused on Lin. “Of course. You have been helping Ahri learn more about spiritual foxes like herself. I was going to have offered you something to help regardless when we left.” I turned and smiled back at the little fox girl once again peaking out of her mother’s tails. “I was just a little surprised when I saw your little one.”

That seemed to have clued the rest of the girls into the presence of the little fox spirit. Well, the seers probably already knew and Taylor might have already figured it out, but it didn’t stop them all from joining in the push to get a closer look. Instantly I had eight cooing girls looking at the baby, already probably thinking of ways to dote on her, but Ahri shook her head and frowned at the group. That seemed to be enough to break the spell and everyone took a few steps back again.

Getting to the matter at hand I asked. “So, what exactly do we need to do in order to let you come with us? We could probably just whisk you away when we leave, but I suspect that you would have done that already if you only wanted to just be somewhere else and you wouldn’t have mentioned a purchase.”

Lin’s shoulders were already starting to sag at the removal of the tension when she saw our willingness to help, and her voice was similarly relieved. “Yes, we could just leave, but I would really like to purchase my name back… I still owe two silver taels.”

I frowned talking more to myself than anyone else. “I am pretty sure that a Tael was like 50 grams or something…”

Lin simply shrugged but I saw Hermione nodding her head. “Yes, although that was only standardized in china in the 1900s. Before that it varied a little from region to region.”

I nodded slowly before giving Hermione a grateful nod. “Still, even if we assume the worst and the Taels here are twice that size, we should have enough gold or silver to buy her contract out.” I said before I stopped. Lin looked relieved, but I had to ask the followup question. “The thing I want to know is what you plan on doing after you join us.”

Lin bit her lip and looked at Ahri who nodded in encouragement. “I would like to go with you, at least for a little while.”

I considered. There was still a small part of me obsessed with the idea of finding another woman to add to the Family…

Yet something was wrong. It didn’t feel right…

I glanced down at the young face before a flash of the cultists we had killed came back and I realized what was wrong.

Outwardly, I probably only hesitated for a moment or two before I shook my head. “You are welcome to come to England with us, but I don’t think you should plan on traveling with us permanently or joining the Family any time soon.”

The trio looked a little shocked and the girls from Earth Bet looked especially confused probably remembering how hard I recruited back then, but I continued my explanation. “I could easily offer you a position in our family in terms of your personality and work ethic. I heard stories about how you took care of the human girl, Chihiro, even when it didn’t benefit you at all. However, our family gets into some pretty serious and dangerous situations, and I really wouldn’t want your daughter anywhere near any of that. Once she has grown up we can revisit this if you really want to join.”

Internally, if felt like something that was broken finally realigned itself.

Had I really been broken?

Was that fear for the child the underlining reason why I hadn’t wanted to take Purity and her daughter with us, even with the compulsion pushing me towards it? Or did I feel better because I was actually starting to understand myself… either way, it felt right.

Regardless of my thoughts, by the time I finished my explanation, everyone was nodding slightly. Even Lin and Ahri were nodding back.

Finally, Lin cleared her throat to speak, still incredibly respectfully. “I didn’t want to say anything, but I also would like to settle down somewhere as well, maybe find a mate to help raise my daughter.”

I smiled at the fondness that Lin had while looking down at her daughter. That was heartwarming to see, but I remembered her being much more assertive during her time in the movie… maybe she thought she couldn’t risk offending me while I was helping her or something. I preferred women strong-willed even if they weren’t joining me, so I would have to encourage her a little, I guess

It was Ginny who spoke up to ask the question. “What does she mean, purchase her name back?”

I hummed and then shrugged. “I don’t know how the magic works, but the Lady of the bathhouse is a Yokai mountain witch of some power and, like Luna explained, if you ‘offer’ or ‘give’ your name to someone, there are spirits that can actually take said name from you.”

Lin grimaced. “The Lady Yubaba takes our names to ensure we don’t run off, it also serves as an investment in us since it can take quite a while to train a new employee. If you save your pay, you can buy it back in a decade or so, but I hadn’t been saving very well before now, so I only have it half paid off.”

It was Taylor who frowned and asked the follow-up question. “Why do you need your name back? If you really wanted to leave couldn’t you just pick a new one. And what about Lin, isn’t that a name?”

I was glad they didn’t make a big deal about the working conditions or length of time. We were humans with human ethics and senses of time. I suspected that the passage of time for creatures like Lin were significantly different and we had more important things to think about.

Still, Lin seemed to be confused on how to answer Taylor’s question. It might have been so fundamental that she didn’t even know where to begin. So ultimately it was Luna who explained. “Names have power. To change a name can change what it is. Do not take names lightly, or you will never ascend properly.”

Everyone looked at her, but Lin nodded before I noticed Ahri doing the same. Apparently, she had come to understand the concept of names the same in some way.

Lin then spoke up again. “I would be happy to help you all in whatever way I can to repay your kindness here.”

I almost felt like waiving away the concern. We had a lot more than a hundred grams of silver. Especially after the sale of nearly half the artifacts in the ‘Room of Lost Things’ in Hogwarts, which was then nearly quadrupled with the sale of the Basilisk. Even after purchasing our home, we still had plenty.

However, before I could blow off the offer of repayment, I was reminded that in many cases deals like this were really important to magical beings. So I simply shrugged and agreed. “You can repay us by doing some errands for us when we are busy and keeping the cottage clean when we are studying in Hogwarts or traveling.”

It was Holly who spoke up. “What about Dobby, didn’t you say you were just going to lend him to me? Wouldn’t he just return to you after the summer?”

I shook my head, grinning a little. “With how much trouble you have been getting into, I think taking care of you might become a full-time job. Best Dobby stay with you for now.”

To our surprise, Dobby popped into the room, making everyone jump. I was surprised that he could reach us here, but then again, it would be weird if this obviously Fae-like-creature couldn’t travel to this spirit world.

“Dobby is happy to help the Great Miss-y Holly Potter, Ma’am.”

I could see the cringe from Holly as she heard Dobby call her by her title, but I shook my head. “We can work on your English later. Is there anything we need to know about, Dobby?”

Dobby shook his head so hard his ears started flopping around. “No, Great Mr Max-ses Alcott, Sir. The walrus man and horse lady only say they happy the girl has learned not to be seen while getting her chores done.”

This time, I did actually sigh as I addressed the excitable house elf and ignoring Holly’s dejected slump. “I am glad that you could find us, but why don’t you pop your way home and do whatever work you can find to reward yourself.”

Dobby almost squealed with how excited he was before popping away.

Sighing yet again, I turned and looked around the room. “Well, we might as well head up to talk to the Lady Yubaba then…”

Surprising or not we got our audience quickly. Boh, her son, was actually the one to lead us into her office where an old woman with a head much too big for her body was smoking behind a desk.

“What can I do for you, honored customers?”

It was clear she was willing to treat us somewhat nicely as we were essentially paying customers, but it only went skin deep.

That was fine… we didn’t need to explain how much we wanted Lin to come with us. Instead, I started out by giving compliments. “Ah, Lady Yubaba, I wanted to tell you how much we enjoyed our time here and how beautiful your bathhouse is. It is hard to describe how incredible we found your work and your baths.” I said while trying very hard not to actually ‘give thanks’. I should have asked either Lin or Luna if that was a thing with Yokai, but better to be safe for now.

Yubaba simply smirked and nodded for me to get on with it.

“Your staff have also been extremely helpful and we will of course be leaving you a tip when we leave.” I was certain that Yubaba would take any extra money the staff got regardless if she could anyway. Still, her improved mood might be the only thing I could actually do for the common staff member here.

Yubaba actually smiled at that. “That would be quite generous, young master.”

I tried to smile softley. “Unfortunately my women have started to become accustomed to this level of service and so I need to look for another servant to help take care of them.” I could see how uncomfortable that made a few of them, but they tried to not let the statement show. “My fox has found companionship with Lin here and so I would like to purchase her contract and name so she might join my household’s service.”

I could tell how much Yubaba loved money at that moment as her smile turned predatory. In the end, we ended up paying the equivalent of three Taels for Lin’s name and contract. I didn’t even bother looking at the paper, as we could negotiate the details later with Lin directly.

Yet, I almost felt it worth it alone to watch the process of giving her back her name. Honestly, it was utterly fascinating to see her slowly clench her hand then blow the characters of Lin’s name back towards her then watching them settling back down into Lin as we all waited, not breathing.

After a moment, Lin opened her eyes and smiled. “I remember now, my name is, 凛 恋, Rinko. With Rin meaning Dignified and Ko meaning Fondness.”

I was momentarily confused before I remembered that the L and R were basically the same sound for Japanese and Yubaba had taken the rest of Chihiro’s name, leaving her with a single character. That was interesting, but it also made me more interested in how my language ability was able to translate this all into English with the same grammatical variations. Was it because I identified myself as speaking English and subconsciously knew there should be that quirk?

Still, as Lin pulled us a little further away from Yubaba she looked down at her daughter and her smile was dazzling. “Your name will be, 涼愛, Rinoa. Rin meaning refreshing and A meaning love.”

That was incredibly special. I didn’t know if it was exactly the same, but knowing a spirit’s name was a sign of incredible trust. Looking over, I noticed that Ahri had cast an anti-easdropping spell to keep the Lady Yubaba from hearing us and Lin, I mean Rinko, had only named her daughter when she had seen the ward.

Smiling, after the touching moment, I actually turned and walked back to Yubaba. “Now, you may have noticed, but we have had quite a few run-ins with curses and corruptions. I would like to ask about purchasing the secrete to your baths. We do have some gold to pay for it all.”

Yubaba narrowed her eyes as I asked, until the mention of gold was brought up and suddenly I could practically see the dollar… or I guess ‘Yen’ signs start to dance in her eyes.

The negotiations took another two hours, where only Taylor stayed with me as the rest of the girls went down to help Rinko pack her belongings before saying goodbye to her coworkers. Yet in the end, after paying nearly a full kilo and a half of gold along with an oath not to share it with any other spirit or open a competing bathhouse, we had them.

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As it turned out, the recipes for most of the bath’s herb mixtures for human or near human clients was a variation of the purging potion used in England. That made things a bit simpler, but we were surprised to find out the water was also both ritually blessed purified before anything was added. First the water had to be ritually set aside with an oath that it would be used for nothing other than healing and purification then run through a boiler where it was lightly boiled for 99 minutes. A memory reminded me that 99 had significance in asian languages. This purification had to be all done in a cauldron with a large set of engraved runes for further purification.

The process was fascinating and I was absolutely sure I was going to be studying the various parts down to the smallest detail. Hell, I was probably going to be spending the next year or two simply experimenting in order to understand the limits and process.

And with that, our time at the bathhouse came to a close. Rinko and her daughter slept with the golden trio, Luna, and Dinah while my wives were going to obviously sleep in my room.

Yet, despite not saying anything about getting some fun or special treatments, we were brought aside for one final surprise. Now maybe it had been at one of my wive’s requests (my money was on Sabah as she looked a tiny bit smug), or maybe it had been just as a reward from Rinko’s friends for helping her, but I certainly wasn’t going to complain.

Regardless, the private mixed bath where I could admire my wives bodies in the private pool with the cool blue starlight streaming in through the open balcony was pure perfection. We didn’t actually do anything other than a little cuddling, but just having the women I loved around me, relaxing and happy… it was amazing and a fantastic end to the trip.

So, once again, I had to admit that life was pretty good…

I blinked. It… it had been quite a while since I had said that.

Things hadn’t really gone to plan in a long time… not since the last Halloween nearly nine months ago now… but being here with the women I loved I had to admit that yet, I was happy.

Each of us was supported by the family. We weren’t perfect, but we would pull through whatever came our way.

After all of that, the return home to England was almost anticlimactic. A few jumps and we were back in England, dropping off Ginny and Hermione back with their families, while Holly just asked to be dropped off nearby.

I was still curious why their families had just let them come with us so easily. Yeah, I was certain that the trio hadn’t used the truth on where they were going when talking to their parents, but I thought there would be more push back despite only being gone a little over 5 days in total.

Then again, the trio were nearly 18 in this world… the idea they would spend some time with friends, away from home was probably to be expected at that age.

Hell, Ginny had apparently even planned ahead by putting a sticking charm on her hand in the family clock. The clock that would have been showing mortal peril at least a few times had been unable to move from ‘traveling’. That was… smart, I guess… although it did make me wonder how often she had done stuff like this to know what to do to get away with our dangerous adventure.

As we returned to our cottage in Hogsmeade I, of course, kept the portkey we had gotten from the Tengu, Ryu. I absolutely wanted to find out how they made one that didn’t spin us around like tops. Plus, I was curious why it had to be paired with a Tori gate.

When we were finally back at our cottage, I finally had the time to try to figure out how to introduce Rinko to the town. Well, “Lin” actually since we needed to keep her true name hidden. However, it turned out that there was actually a process for this which was fairly straightforward.

That wasn’t to say it was easy. Wizarding England was just as discriminatory as we thought it would be, being mostly run by the old Pure-blooded families, so we ended up having to resort to a little bit of bribery to make sure it went through.

Yet, after everything we are able to convince one of the ministry employees that Lin was a fox spirit that was working for us. The man was a lot more willing to move forward once we explained Lin was under a contract. I suspected he had just put her in the same category as house elves, but if it let her walk around town without a disguise without causing problems it was worth the money to get her papers in order. It did make me glad we had hidden Ahri, though, I doubted they would have tolerated a fox spirit to be the guardian of human wizards and witches.

After that Lin got back to work and immediately started helping in cleaning and renovating the cottage while the rest of us got back to our training. We practiced in the edge of the forest while Taylor and Dinah ensured we wouldn’t be noticed.

The thing was, after all of our battles, our duels were obviously a lot more real than they had been before. Yet I was pleased to see that none of the girls ever lost sight of who they were fighting and no one was ever hurt more than Amy could fix with a touch.

It was a week or so later that we woke up that morning and were surprised to find out that this was the day that Sirius Black escaped from Azkaban. Every newspaper was filled with his slightly deranged mugshot. Honestly, it was kind of disappointing to view how badly they were treating him. I was curious why everyone seemed to be so sure he was guilty, when other death eaters had claimed to be brainwashed or controlled via the Imperius Curse. What made them so certain he wasn’t?

Then again, we confirmed that most people didn’t even know anything about his trial. Maybe they just assumed he had been tested somehow in this theoretical trial and proven guilty. In many ways that was all the more tragic as he hadn’t gotten an interrogation let alone a trial and instead spent nearly two decades in hell for a rambled grief stricken ‘confession’. Honestly, personally, hearing someone laughing and crying while muttering ‘I killed them…’ would make me think he was out of his mind and probably being controlled.

At least in this world at this point in time, Holly knew the truth. She wasn't going to be terrified by a Grimm appearing around her for the next nine months nor was she going to be furious at everyone keeping a secret this important form her.

That actually gave me an idea. We should really just grab Sirius and heal him. Even if we somehow determined that he needs to be free and alone again to go after Pettigrew, I couldn’t see how being healthier would be a bad thing. We had made bigger changes to the timeline already and it wasn’t like we were trying to really preserve cannon anyway.

Consequently, I pushed a portal down to Privet Drive and quickly pulled my girls together to explain my new plan.

Well, honestly, it wasn’t a complicated plan. Asking Taylor to set up a region around Holly’s house, using her bugs, and watch for any large dogs would take only a small fraction of her concentration. Then we could ambush him via portal and pull him back into the pocket home where no one could find him, no matter what they tried.

The only hang-up was that I wasn't entirely sure how long it would take for Sirius Black to actually arrive in Surrey. It happened after the fight with Aunt Marge, but Holly was probably old enough to simply leave the confrontation without blowing her up like a ballon. Especially after the trip through the purification baths. Those, if nothing else, they seemed to have relaxed her completely.

Still, even without an exact day, I didn’t think we needed to rush which Dinah and Luna seemed to confirm. A single portal and a bug watch was pretty easy to maintain.

The other slight change in our plans was that Luna had requested some time to spend with her dad. Honestly, I was more than happy to encourage that. Despite Luna being nearly 16 now, I didn’t want to pull her away from her father.

She had been obviously eager to join our family, but I could tell she had missed him and part of me just didn’t seem to be able to shake off the concern I was forcing them somehow.

However, the secondary and more unpleasant surprise was it actually hurt a little to have her leave us. Well, more specifically, it was a little uncomfortable to have her in the Brazilian rainforest on her creature hunts while we were still here.

After some consideration, I realized that did seem to make sense. Really, despite the whole soul portals thing, having any part of her that far away was hard on the bond since even my much more malleable soul didn’t really like to be stretched out.

Oh, it was bearable and I didn’t say anything, but it made me realize that leaving any of my girls behind during one of our reality hops was probably a terrible, terrible idea.

It did make me inspect her soul a little more closely. She had a lot more of her soul in her physical body. Almost like it was bursting out of the portal and gem. It wasn’t hurting her nor was it like she wasn’t bonded, she was just more present in her body. I really didn’t know what to think about that, yet with our search for Sirius Black I didn’t have too much time to really think about it any more than I already had.

Instead, we spend our mornings practicing our dueling. That was followed by a group battle before Lunch. Then the afternoons and evenings were spent studying our various subjects of Interest. Nighttime was reserved for movie nights or a few board games and playing with the baby fox spirit.

We even purchased Monopoly… which was promptly was banned by the second week, with Risk following it the week after.

Personally, the primary source of my training and study ended up being my work with ancient ruins and enchanting. I was already pretty sure I could already improve our bullet wards. Obviously, none of us have been shot in the head, but we'd actually had several close calls from ricochets or shrapnel drawing blood across the head or hands. Yet, Amy could heal said injuries in less than a second and we didn’t run around with much exposed skin in the first place, but I could do better.

My strategy for the bullet wards had been quite simple. My best description was envisioning it like a programming language. “If fast small thing approaches head, then create shield around head to deflect up”. Again, It had been moderately effective, but I knew I could do better.

Really, trying to compare my crude hack job to something truly powerful like the Hogwarts Sorting hat… something with real intelligence inside, made it clear how far I still had to go. In fact it was almost funny how simple my work had been. Yet the more I studied, the more I was absolutely certain that I eventually wanted to reach that level of ability. To be able to create something like the diadem of Ravenclaw, a true masterpiece.

It was then, to our horror, that Sabah reminded us that this year we would have Dementors around the school if we didn't change anything in time. Now, I was pretty sure that our souls couldn't be sucked out as they were firmly tied to an anchor and to each other but I had absolutely no desire to test that. Especially as being anywhere around one of those monsters could apparently make you relive your worst nightmare over and over again.

Just thinking about what would happen this year made me once again lower my opinion of the wizarding world and especially the ministry of magic and the school board of Hogwarts. I mean, in the books Draco’s father, who is on the board of directors, seemed to trust Diary Voldemort to not go after his son when he hears the chamber had been opened. I would say it was idiotic, but it could perhaps make sense. Yet, he didn’t step in to prevent literal soul sucking demons there the next year? What assurances did he have that year they wouldn’t go after Draco?

While I was facepalming thinking about the monsters surrounding literal children, Taylor came walking into our room living room quickly. I recognized her look of concern I stood up and closed my book.

Amy and Sabah seemed to have noticed the same thing as they put away their books on biology and fabric enchantments before walking over to join us as well. Around the corner I saw Ahri who had just come back from a light run join us after being directed by Taylor’s moths. Meanwhile, I watched Dinah walk in with apparently no instructions at all.

Looking around, I shrugged and nodded. “Let's go catch us a dog, I guess”

It was then that Taylor stiffened and jerked her head to look over at the portal I had left at the side of the room before frowning. Yet the only thing she said was “Dobby.”

I was momentarily confused, but then nearly facepalmed. We hadn't remembered to tell Dobby about what was about to happen. I didn’t want to spook the dog or the ministry, so I quickly called out “Dobby” to summon him.

Instantly we heard a pop where a somewhat frazzled Dobby appeared. “Dobby cannot help Master, Sir. Dobby has to ward off bad, bad man.” His face was worried, but determined.

Holding up my hand before Dobby could pop away again, I called out quickly. “Dobby wait! We know who's come to see Holly, but Sirius Black isn't actually a criminal. He's there to protect Holly.”

That made Dobby look around dubiously. “Master is sure?”

“Yes, Dobby, can you make sure that he doesn't get away? We are going to need to grab him to get him help. I'm sure he isn't into the best mental state after spending so long around those Dementors, but I think he will be very good for Holly once he heals.”

“If Master is sure, then Dobby will make sure that Black Doggy doesn't cause any problems to the Great Holly ma'am and doesn’t get away.”

Nodding, I turned around and pointed towards Amy and Taylor. “I want the two of you to try and stun him as I open up the portal. Amy, you are probably going to need to monitor his health so we will have Taylor and I levitate him in. Ahri, I want you ready to distract him with illusions if he looks like he is getting away. Whatever you think might work.”

All three nodded firmly, so I turned and opened up the portal above the Dursley’s home and moved it around to look for Sirius with Taylor giving the direction.

All our practice was pretty effective as it only took a minute before we were behind him and I gave a count-down using my fingers before two stunners hit the shaggy black dog. A moment later we were pulling him inside and Amy was kneeling down to get to work.

Yet, only a few seconds later she grimaced. “I don't see anything about his human body in here.” She bit her lip. “I don’t want to do anything to this form as I don’t know how the magic would translate my changes into his human body.”

I felt like face palming myself. I should have thought about that.

Frowning, I turned to Sabah. “Sabah, if we wake him up and he starts to freak out, do you think you could tie him up. I don’t want to keep stunning him if we don’t have to. I am pretty sure I read that was bad for your health, and he isn’t exactly healthy. Amy, maybe be ready to calm him down manually if we can’t reach him.”

After a few more nods and a minute or two while we arranged him slumped against a comfortable chair, we prepared to awaken the shaggy dog. A swish and a twist with a muttered ‘Enervate’ saw the dog jump and jerk open before he twisted around frantically.

“You are safe, Mr Black! You are safe! Yes, we know who you are and we are here to help. Please, please calm down!”

Surprising or not, that didn't actually work. Sabah was forced to tie his hands to the chair, and Amy reached forward to probably force his body to relax. Yet we watched as his body almost spasmed at whatever Amy had done.

Amy looked horrified. “It's almost like he is brain doesn't know how to deal with endorphins. Even the tiny amount I released seem to overwhelm it. The body is going almost into shock and is fighting even my direct commands for the sarcoplasmic reticulum to store the calcium markers and relax the muscles groups.”

I grimaced, not really talking to anyone in particular. “I… don’t know what that means… but I assume that Dementors are even worse than I imagined… somehow”

Shaking my head to try to clear it I looked at Amy. “Do your best, you're the expert here. Especially as if it doesn’t work then I'm not sure what else we can do until we find a magical healer who might believe us about Sirius.”

Nodding grimly, Amy continue her work trying to calm the human-dog’s body while Sabah decided to shoot a cheering charm at Sirius. Not knowing what else to do I just kept telling him that we were there to help.

Finally, after a harrowing few minutes Sirius seemed to have calmed down enough to actually listen so I decided to explain again. “We are here to help, but we need you to turn back to human so we can get you the medical treatment you need. We promise to try to get you a trial to prove your innocence and bring you to Holly as soon as you are healthy. Please, let us help you.”

There was a bit more twitching before slowly, ever so slowly Sirius began to nod. Finally there was a pregnant pause while the dog seemed to consider if he really would, or maybe even could turn back, before slowly he shifted into his human form.

Looking over at Sabah I gestured for her to remove the restraints even if I wasn’t going to stop Ahri and Taylor from discreetly pointing their wands at him, just in case.

That let Amy finally get a hold of his human body. Yet as we watched her face harden even further as she grimaced.

Muttering a large list of medical terms that I had no reference for she sounded somewhere between horrified and disgusted.

Finally, I didn't know what to do and finally just shook my head waving my hand impotently. “Amy, none of us are able to speak medical genius.”

Amy side rubbing her temples “Basically everything in his body is fucked up. I don't think there is a single part of him that isn't either actively failing, like he is over 100 years older than he should be, or outright already failed. His liver is mostly non-functioning and a part of it might go sepsis and one of his kidneys is completely shut down, his endoctrine system is on its last legs making his hormones and signaling erratic while the digestive system wouldn’t be able to digest anything more substantial than gruel. Honestly, it's a miracle he hasn't died of shock yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was only his magic keeping him alive at this point.”

I winced, and even Sirius looked a little shaken up with how bad it was. “Do you think you can fix him, or are we going to have to recreate his body from scratch?”

That surprise Sirius, but before he could question us Amy responded. “Oh I can fix him it's just going to take a while as I need to do it slowly so while I fix something it doesn’t overwhelm something else. Plus, he's going to need nearly three times the body mass that he currently has. Yeah, I can substitute some of it with other biomatter, but his body is so deteriorated that it would be better if he has food in his stomach as well while I work.

Looking back at his eyes, I realized just how haunted his eyes looked and reminded myself that we weren't only dealing with the physical scars. Not when the prison was willed with literal soul sucking demons. I wasn’t sure what we could do for all of those mental scars, but I was sure it was going to be a long process.

While Amy worked, it gave me time to consider his appearance. He didn't look exactly like he did in the movies. His face was much more angular and aristocratic which was only accentuated by how thin he was. His black hair was still somewhat curly, but it was hard to tell if he had been handsome, as he looked about 10 times worse off than he had ever looked in the movies. Hell, it looked like a lot of his hair was actually falling out.

Really, I hadn't considered it, but this was probably one of the effects of finding a universe where everyone was a little older. Instead of 12 years, he had spent over 15… another 3 years to slowly lose his mind.

It was then that I realized that Sirius Black hadn't spoken a single word out loud since he had arrived. Hell, he hadn’t even barked or growled in his dog form. Had he more or less forgotten how to speak, become too overwhelmed to say anything, or had his vocal cords deteriorated so badly that he didn't have the ability to talk anymore?

I didn’t find out as after the first of Amy’s healing session I simply ushered him towards the bath hitting him with a dozen low-powered cleaning charms along the way.

He didn't even wince, which made me even more worried as I knew that the cleaning charms were uncomfortable on the skin. Sort of like a light sandpaper which would turn into a bit of a light rash. Once again, it made me wonder what type of treatment he had been given while in prison. Was routine cleaning charms part of some sort of method to control disease? That was… unpleasant to think about.

Not knowing what else we could do so soon, I pulled some of the limited water we had gotten from the bathhouse and poured it into our bath. Lin offered to take care of him. I was a little concerned, but she had years and years of experience taking care of customers who were corrupted or hurt in one way or another.

Yet I didn’t completely trust him as I pulled the bathroom into it’s own pocket dimension and then put a lock on the door before showing Lin how to knock on the door to get my attention when she wanted to get out. As much as I liked Sirius, I didn’t want him wandering around the house without supervision.

Maybe I should get another small house to hide him in for the time being, but for now he was safe.

It was a good thing too because not 2 hours after we had removed him from our house we were visited by Aurors looking for Sirius Black. Apparently, having pulled him through our cottage before bringing him into our pocket home had tripped some sort of magical alert, but they couldn’t detect exactly where he had been.

Yet instead of assuming it was an error, they decided this just meant that they would just bring the Dementors into the area early.

By the third day, we had a new item on our to-do list. Dementors were abominations and absolutely needed to be eradicated. Anything that would force everyone and everything around them to relive their worst fears, traumas, and pain then eat their soul did not deserve to live.

Even Ahri, who was forced to eat souls as well, went out of her way to starve herself if she couldn’t find someone that deserved it. As if to make an even better comparison, within the first week a Dementors had tried to eat a random 5-year-old child it found on the edge of town before it had been stopped.

Interlude Holly:

Holly had been feeling incredible since the beginning of the summer.

Apparently all she needed to get over how frustrating her life had been was to help kill some murderers and rapists before taking a magical purification bath in another dimension.

Ok, so that wasn’t exactly simple or even all that reasonable, but it had helped.

Her bones had felt like they were strengthened. Her various scars growing up… mostly from Holly Hunting seemed to fade. Even her damn lighting bolt scar had faded slightly. Yet one of the biggest changes was the stress and fears of the last two years were eased… at least a little.

Yet, even knowing that the Mass-murderer that even the Muggle news had been going on about wasn’t actually after her wasn’t really all that comforting. Instead, he was her last remaining family member (since she was pretty sure godparents still counted as family) which was making her… confused.

Yeah, mostly confused and conflicted.

She had dreamed for nearly two decades about having someone arrive to sweep her away from the Dursleys. Yet only a single year away from being 18 and being free is when he finally decides to arrive.

Yeah, he had been in jail, but how hard was it to tell someone… someone like Dumbledore what was really going on so they would make sure you got your trial… or at least ask questions to follow up afterward.

Still, if Max could get him cleared then maybe she could finally, Finally, have some actual family.

No… she shouldn’t get her hopes up quite yet. Max had said he was going to be crippled both physically and mentally by his trauma until he could work through some of it.

That gave her something else to think about.

What kind of family would she be if she wasn’t there for him? How could she complain if she did the same thing by not ensuring he was taken care of when he needed help?

Holly sighed.

No, she needed to look on the bright side. She was so close to finally getting out of here. She looked around at ‘her’ horrible room with its stained and ancient sheets and shelves filled with Dudley’s broken toys and bars on the windows.

She sighed again… at least her friends were sending her letters this year. She even had quite a few more of them with all of Max’s Family…

She could figure out what she was going to do next year later, but she certainly wasn’t going to stay here with these… people.