Unfortunately for us, by the time we made it down to the carriages after talking to Dumbledore we found a line of people trying to enter the castle again. Apparently finding a man thought dead with a Death Eater tattoo was enough that the ministry was closing the entrance to the school sending the students in the village back, but not enough to send more Aurors to actually guard us.
I could still open a portal to bypass the closure, but I didn’t think it was a good idea to leave the castle when the ministry might be monitoring for any disappearances. We still gave Sirius the good news through a small head sized portal, but Holly wasn’t able to talk much especially as Sirius was still struggling with speaking for long periods. Amy once again confirmed it wasn’t a physical issue, but a psychological one.
We even got Dumbledore to take a look but he didn’t see anything wrong either. I would have loved to change Sirius’ face to be unrecognizable and take him to Saint Mungos, but I didn’t know if there was another way of detecting who he was. Dumbledore might know, but he was also incredibly busy again with everything going on. So, in the end, all we could do was wait.
Ultimately, it was another two weeks before we could visit. That meant our trip to Hogsmeade ended up landing on Halloween and while I was nervous about the date, I was somewhat confident we would be alright, doubly so if we weren’t even in the country for most of it.
Heading down to Hogsmeade I had to admit that one of my favorite things about an older starting age for Hogwarts was the fact they didn’t restrict where we went during the weekends. Oh sure, they didn’t like the students who hadn’t taken their fifth-year OWL exams from leaving for the weekend and they heavily discouraged those below third year from leaving at all, but they didn’t stop us.
I knew a lot of students from wizarding backgrounds went to the public floo entrances and visited their homes. That was to say nothing about the students that actually lived in Hogsmeade like we did or the parents of even first years from ‘just so happening’ to stop by the village at the same time their children were there.
So in the end, like just about everything else, Muggleborns were the only ones that were mostly out of luck. They could use the Knight bus, but that could get expensive to take people all the way from Scotland to anywhere near London. Obviously, once they learned to apparate that changed, but in this world that was only supposed to happen after they turned 18. That was a strange number that would fall sometime in the middle of fourth year for most students, but what did I know? The good news was Hermione would be learning it next year and I was pretty sure she would be willing to teach us.
As we headed into Hogsmeade we made the turn towards our cottage for some privacy and so we could go visit Sirius. Opening up a portal we were about to step into the Iceland retreat when I paused.
“Oh, yeah! YEAH! Give it to me, you DOG!”
I looked back at my girls wide-eyed before we heard a long screamed “AHHHHHH!” as she peaked.
Quickly closing the portal I winced before I said anything. “Well… I am glad Sirius and Sherrel are… feeling better…”
Holly actually face palmed and started grumbling, but it was Taylor, surprisingly enough, that spoke up. “I really, REALLY didn’t want to know whether or not Squealer’s name came from both her cars and what she did in the bedroom…” She looked at me, exasperated. “You are treating us all to a round of butterbeers so we can forget this.”
I winced in agreement but I had to ask. “Uh, you know that butterbeers are nearly completely non-alcoholic, right?”
Taylor rolled her eyes. “Of course… it is just a matter of how many we will need.”
I hummed in resigned agreement before we turned around and headed back towards the Three Broomsticks, yet as we walked in we were greeted with the disheveled face of Remus Lupin. He was hitting the bottles pretty hard and I realized that Dumbledore probably told the man what had happened.
I felt bad for the man, but before we could step in and maybe distract him I spotted Lin walking through the various tables bringing a few more bottles of fire whiskey.
As we watched the fox girl sat down next to him handing him another bottle before taking one herself and then practically draping herself on him. I momentarily wondered where her daughter was when I remembered she had made friends with our neighbor in the village and assumed her daughter was being babysat with said neighbor.
Looking at the girls I winced and shrugged, with most of the other girls rolling their eyes in response at me. Yet I could tell none of us wanted to get involved here either. It was just a bit amusing to see how quickly the women were working on their chosen target.
After a few quick discussions I walked up to the counter and ordered a dozen ‘endless’ bottles of butterbeer and we walked back to our cottage. In reality, they weren’t actually endless, they just had massive extension charms on the bottles so they were about 10 times bigger inside than they appeared. Apparently that was a fairly hard rule of magic. Making an extension charm increase an interior more than a factor of 10 was much more difficult and was usually somewhat unstable, especially if another expanded item was placed inside the first. Unstable pocket dimensions collapsing did not end well for anyone.
It was unfortunate I couldn’t expand our pocket home indefinitely, but it was something I could work on since Luna said she was bringing her father for this Winter break trip. I didn’t know her plans yet, but I liked Xeno Lovegood way too much to not bring him along if he wanted to come. I would just have to make sure the silencing charms on our master bedroom were working first. Even if Luna wasn’t joining us in our bedroom, it was still awkward to sleep with my other girls while he was here.
As we arrived back in the cottage I opened up a portal to our actual Pocket Home. The trio had never seen it and Sarah had only been here for a little while as we woke her up for the first time.
Sitting down in the living room it was Holly who asked the question. “Where are we?”
I shrugged. “So… you know I can open up portals to anywhere…” At her nod I continued. “Well, I can just open up a portal bubble and shift it a bit so it goes nowhere. That creates a small pocket space no one can get to. We call it our pocket home and we can use it to travel around.”
Hermione gasped. “You made yourself a Tardis!”
I paused before I started chuckling. Everyone else did the same a moment later. I sighed “I am not surprised you are a Dr. Who fan, but yeah.” At her indignant look I put my hands up to try to calm her down. “Oh, don’t get me wrong, it is a good story. But yeah, basically… It is just a home instead of a phone booth and I haven’t figured out how to travel in time, so it is mostly just moving around. We also didn’t have magic to make it bigger on the inside until we visited this world, but it will be something we add moving forward.”
Hermione nodded, appeased I wasn’t making fun of her or Dr. Who. “So why didn’t you show us this earlier?”
I bit my lip before I decided to be blunt. “We were being careful. We weren’t sure what Dumbledore would do so we decided to keep this as our get-out-of-jail-free card. It was a place that no one could enter without my help since it isn’t even fully in your dimension. Someone might be able to find it eventually, but they wouldn’t know where to look if we didn’t let them know it existed. If Dumledore had turned out to be evil I would have probably grabbed you three, Sirius, Lara, and anyone else we thought deserved to get away and just left.”
Ginny nodded slowly, but pointed towards the TV and stacks of DVDs. “Then what are those?”
I smiled. “That is what we are here for. If we can’t visit Sirius and we don’t want to third wheel Lupin while he is being consoled by Lin then we might as well enjoy ourselves with movie night. I suggest we maybe start with Lord of the Rings since that is a classic.”
There were a few surprised pleased noises from Hermione. Holly looked equally impressed so she must have snuck the Lord of the Rings books away from her aunt and uncle since they wouldn’t want anything that even hinted at magic in their home. Yet the most fun was watching Ginny be blown away by the modern movie with its special effects.
As we finished the Fellowship of the Ring, it was Hermione who realized the implications. “WAIT! You said you could visit universes where these fictions were real. Does that mean we could visit Middle Earth?” She paused and then her eyes widened and she looked at us. “WAIT! Does that mean there is a movie about us?”
We all chuckled a bit, but it was Amy who answered. “Oh, yeah. Finding out you are one of the main characters in a fictional book never really gets any less weird.”
Taylor hesitated for a moment before getting up and pulling out the DVD cases and looking at the rest of us. It was Luna who spoke up. “It is best not to get too worried about the future. Maybe we only look at the DVDs up through this year?” There was some disgruntled complaints but ultimately the trio agreed before spending some time looking over the cases and reading each of first three movies’ synopsis.
The comments about the characters was still funny though. Ginny snickered as she looked at Harry commenting, “So you really were a bloke over there?”
Holly huffed, but didn’t disagree.
Hermione just sighed. “Did they really need to focus on my hair so much? My hair is not that frizzy.”
Eventually the trio looked back at the rest of us before Holly focused on Taylor. “So you were the main character? Did you have to defeat some sort of tyrant as well?”
Taylor winced. “No… well it was complicated” She took a long slow breath. “Look, we were technically up against something that was basically a god, and I might have ‘won’, but humanity was being led by some idiots and well, just about everyone dies. I even got two bullets to the back of my skull after tearing myself apart to try to defeat him. No one really got a happy ending in my story.”
Hermione looked apologetic “Oh… Sorry”, before glancing around not knowing what to say before her eyes landed on Amy.
Amy sighed pointing around the circle starting with herself. “Started out as a heavily respected healer… ” she took a deep breath. “Let's just say that I might have preferred death.”
As Amy pointed at Dinah, she winced but answered. “I lived at the end of the story, but because of my seer powers I know I might have preferred death to living as a deranged man’s plaything.”
Next was Sabah who sighed. “I fared a bit better, eventually might have found another girl named Lily to be with, but well… getting there sucked and that wasn’t guaranteed.”
Amy then pointed at Sarah who sighed but responded. “I was a villain named Bakuda that Taylor and her friends took down. I would have killed a lot of people before being crippled, spent a lot of time in jail and was killed by my boss, then brought back, used to assault a tower and died again, all pretty badly.”
Putting in the Two Towers I pointed to the opening credits and sighed. “We will probably show you the Harry Potter movies and let you read the books soon, but for now let's just watch something fun. Maybe the Princess Bride. Middle Earth is a lot less fun when you have to consider living in it.”
As we finished up it was Hermione who bit her lip and turned to my girls and asked, “I… I have to ask. Are you all with him just because he saved you?”
Dinah pouted and Luna shook her head speaking for the two of them. “We still haven’t even gotten a kiss, but saving us wasn’t why we like him. We like him because he cares about us.”
Amy glanced at Sabah then nodded. “He has tried to take care of us and he wants us to be happy.”
Sabah huffed. “He does like the sex, but what boy doesn’t… and it isn’t completely terrible.”
I could feel my face turning more and more red as my girls continued explaining.
Taylor hummed. “It is hard to dislike someone who honestly tries to build you up, tell you how beautiful you are, cares about you… and I would say the sex is pretty good too.”
Ahri who had moved to right behind me simply smirked and leaned my head back into her chest and gave me a kiss before speaking. “He takes care of us, helps us, and supports us, he is a good mate.”
Holly was turning read, “... and you don’t have problems with each other.”
We all turned to look at each other before Amy shrugged. “We don't’ always get along, but it is hard to hate each other when you fight together and try to support each other.”
Taylor nodded. “Even for those of us that aren’t really attracted to the others, it is hard to beat having family you know will have your back.”
Now thoroughly embarrassed and just a little bit uncomfortable, I clapped my hands and asked, “So, what movie should we watch next.”
It was Luna who interrupted before we could watch anything else. “Hey Max?”
I turned and raised an eyebrow? “Yeah, Luna?”
Luna smiled at me but pointed at the rest of the girls. “I think you should plan on another set of one-on-one dates before we get too involved with the travel preparations.”
I smiled. “That is a good idea. It will take a while with only being able to leave school on the weekends.”
At the smiles I could see on all of the girls, including Holly, Hermione, and even Ginny, I realized they were all looking forward to being doted on. Holly and Ginny were a surprise, but I supposed a girl could be flattered by being asked on a date even if she didn’t have any intentions of marrying him. Some people might have found that scummy, but I felt that was just bad communication. Dating for fun was perfectly fine as long as everyone understood the situation.
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With those tentative plans made, the remaining evening was spent watching movies, eating ice cream and drinking butterbeer.
When we finally returned to the castle we were met by someone I hadn’t expected.
Standing next to the Headmaster we were greeted by the sight of what was obviously Nymphadora Tonks. I had never seen anyone else in wizarding Britain with any sort of the dark pink hair dye I spotted atop of her head. The confirmation that it was Tonks was confirmed a moment later when her hair flashed yellow for a moment as we all climbed out of the last of the carriages before the thestrals turned and pulled them away.
Being surprised was kinda to be expected though as to fit in a single carriage trip, Amy had sat on Sabah’s lap, Taylor had sat on mine, Luna had sat on Dinah’s lap, and Holly had had to sit across Ginny and Hermione’s laps. Only Ahri could relax as she was resting on the top of the carriage in her cat form. So while the carriages could magically expand, they couldn’t expand that much. It might have better to wait for the next one, but no one had wanted to wait.
All in all, it must have looked like the magical version of a clown car made all the more amusing as both Dumbledore and Tonks knew for a fact we must have done some Jenga to fit us all inside.
As we walked up we were greeted by a wolf whistle. “Wow, I never would have thought I would see the day there was a 9 wizard orgy in the carriages.”
I had forgotten that Tonks was so incredibly fond of crude humor. And since we were all older in this world, that seemed to have included blunt sexual jokes. However, the joke was on her since while some of us were a little embarrassed, we had a Luna and an Amy.
Luna walked up to the Auror in training and simply stuck out her hand. “You have seen the humdingers, keeping it secret is pretty much impossible at this point.”
Amy seemed to be following her lead as the most thirsty of my women walked up to and around Tonks, openly checking her out.
That seemed to have put Tonks on the backfoot which was made worse as Amy turned back to me and declared, “Max, love, may I keep this one? I think she would be fun to bring to bed with us.”
Tonks’s hair had been cycling colors for some time now before settling on a bewildered purple.
Ignoring the byplay and a very amused Holly and Ginny and a somewhat thoughtful Hermione, I turned to the headmaster. “As much as I appreciate the warm welcome back. Why did you feel the need to come greet us in person, Headmaster?”
Dumbledore sighed and gestured for us to follow him through the courtyards. As we walked I noticed him flick his wand a few times before he started to speak. “I am afraid that Peter has escaped ministry custody.”
All of us stiffened at that, but Dumbledore continued. “Unfortunately it doesn’t look like we are going to be getting rid of our Dementor… guards… any time soon.”
Holly turned to him and asked. “And Sirius?”
Dumbledore sighed. “Without a trial for Peter, there hasn’t been enough pressure to actually clear Sirius’ name. The ministry is still embarrassed by his escape and doesn’t want… well to admit to any mistakes right now. That is why there will probably be no mention of Peter’s arrest.”
I grimaced. “I knew we should have tried to make it more public.”
Dumbledore sighed. “You were right. I had pushed for it to be somewhat private to keep the students safe, but looking back that has just allowed Cornelius to bury it all.”
Shaking my head I eyed Tonks. “Then what is Miss Tonks doing here?”
Tonks looked surprised that we knew her name, but was apparently glad I hadn’t used it. That came crashing down as Dumbledore responded, a twinkle in his eye. “Our Young Nymphadora here has been sent by Madam Bones. She is to make sure that Holly is safe.”
We both ignored the squawk of ‘Its Tonks’ from our side as we continued walking. It wasn’t like she was dumb enough to try to hex the Headmaster. “Does she know anything about Sirius at all then?”
Dumbledore smiled. “Yes, Madam Bones was horrified to learn that Sirius had never had a trial, but she has been ordered to drop it and she is too worried about what would happen if she was replaced to push back right now.”
I sighed and Sabah followed up. “So Tonks here is an extra guard for Holly, but what are we going to do long term?”
There was a moment of silence before Taylor spoke up. “What if we sent an anonymous letter to Rita Skeeter with the story. Maybe pretend to be one of the Aurors who wanted to get the truth out. She has the skills to leak the story.”
Dumbledore stroked his beard. “That might prove useful. Excellent Idea, young lady.”
I turned and sighed. “I guess we know what went wrong this Halloween.”
Dumbledore raised his eyebrow, but stopped to think. “I suppose Halloween has proven quite… problematic over the last few years. Regardless, Nymphadora here is going to be pretending to be a transfer student and she has also promised to keep your secrets as long as you don’t do anything too illegal.” He sighed. “I need to get back to work. Unfortunately, the Peruvian government has an emerging vampire problem and some missing artifacts that I need to look into. ”
I heard Luna turn to Tonks and explain. “It is probably the Rotfang Conspiracy!”
Tonks didn’t know how to deal with that and simply nodded before turning to us. “Ok, spill it. What the hell is going on here?”
I looked at Amy who nodded followed by Luna and Dinah. We were going to have to question her a little and maybe get an oath to make sure, but she could probably be trusted.
The interrogation went a lot quicker than Dumbledore’s. We didn’t have any issues with her character in the books, well other than dating a man who ran away after finding out she was pregnant. And NO I was NOT going to let that go. A large part of me would NOT let it go Especially not as I was starting to like Lin. Yeah already having a daughter meant that Lupin wouldn’t ‘pass his curse on’ but I was still a little worried he would run not wanting to risk her child.
Thinking about it, I realized maybe one of the larger soul fragments might have had something like that happen to them. I would have to take a look at myself and try to find out if there were any more triggers like that in my subconscious. The last thing I needed was to freak out randomly because my soul fragments had some hidden trauma.
Tonks was pretty unbelieving with our story until we started opening up portals, controlling bugs, and manipulating biology. Well, I was pretty sure that Amy was just showing off the fact she could imitate and even surpass what Tonks could do… or maybe she was hoping Tonks might be interested in her new F cup breasts and the most beautiful face she could give herself.
Apparently Amy had a new type between Sabah and Nymphadora, maybe to get further away from her thoughts of her sister. Now she seemed to watch girls that had slight bad girl vibes, particularly those who were tall with slightly messy lob-cut hair, especially in boots. (I was informed about the lob hairstyle which was not a bob cut and was told in no uncertain terms that the differences should be BLINDINGLY obvious last time I got the two confused.)
Yet, I didn’t blame her, Tonks was pretty hot, but I wasn’t about to interfere if Amy wanted to do the recruiting herself. The only hiccup was, I was still conflicted about recruiting in general. How did I know if they wanted to be here if I was somehow controlling them? I had thoughts on how to control them in the past and I might have been doing it subconsciously even now. Yet, ignoring that they had repeatedly said they didn’t want to leave, and their explanations on why they cared about me seemed genuine I found a part of me still doubted.
I also literally couldn’t just remove all the bonds to test it… doing so would kill me and I still wanted to live, Frankenstein’s monster or not. It was why I had not said anything about Luna’s plan to ‘prove’ it to me. It was clear that Dinah was not happy about said plan and no one else, including me, knew exactly what it was. That left me conflicted as I certainly didn’t want to hurt or endanger her, yet I really wanted to confirm I wasn’t brainwashing them.
As the girls continued to catch Tonks up to speed I spent time trying to understand what my fragments felt. It was difficult, but by focusing on the discomfort I was feeling in each fragment as I considered different things I could sorta get a picture of what each soul fragment thought about said idea.
By doing so, I realized that half my fragments including the largest two were the ones worried about the brainwashing potential while the red one was horrified and the other two more evil fragments thought it was a good idea and wanted even more control.
That was worrying but I didn’t have a way of dealing with this right now so in the end all I could do was continue to go back to school… literally. At least it was a magic school.
The following week is when I got around to starting the dates. I was glad that Dumbledore didn’t seem too concerned about us as we were going to be doing a lot of sneaking away from Hogsmeade for the remaining 7 weeks of the fall term.
The first date I had was actually a double date with Dinah and Luna. I still felt strange about dating them even though they were now 16, but they refused to let me get stuck in my head. Instead, the three of us snuck away to a small theme park where we spent most of our time in bumper cars before heading out to a pizza parlor for food and drinks. In the end, they both gave me a kiss on the cheek even if Dinah looked conflicted about it.
The next day was Sunday which saw me focusing on taking Taylor out fishing. Apparently her family had done that before her mother had died. We then grilled said fish before retiring for the night where I reminded Taylor again that she would never be forgotten, vigorously.
The following Saturday saw Amy and Sabah deciding to share dates as well and I was once again asked to don a female form. A movie, dinner, and enough three-way fun that I was glad I could go back to my male body with zero chance of being sore the next day.
Ahri surprised me and booked a trip back to Japan to walk through the Asian markets for early the next morning in England. Yet as we arrived it was late afternoon so we spent some time wandering the night markets of Tokyo. We then spent a night at an onsen and due to the time difference were able to get back and go to classes the next day.
That left the trio. To my surprise, Hermione requested her own date. I had expected her to join up with the other two to avoid being alone with me. Yet things made a lot more sense as she pulled me aside. “Amy says you figured out how to make me omnilingual.”
I chuckled and nodded. A few moments later, after making the change, Hermione demanded we visit the British Library so she could finally read some of the primary sources. I had to admit that I didn’t know what the British Library was at the beginning but was too intimidated to question it. By the end of the day, I had only managed to pull her out of the library long enough to eat a little lunch provided by Dobby before she dove back in. As the building finally closed at 5pm for the night I saw her face and actually took a step back. I remembered the parts of the books where she orders Harry and Ron around and realized this face was why they didn’t gain say her.
As she walked forward backing me into a table I was a little shocked as she reached up and wrapped her hands around my neck before pulling me down to kiss her, long and passionately. It was clear that the bookwork didn’t really have much experience, but she was making it up with enthusiasm. After she came up for air I realized she might have jumped into my bed already if we hadn’t explained the rule about only sleeping with women who have fully joined the Family. Hell she might have agreed to join us right then and there if I had given her the option. Hermione really was half book-sexual at this point and doing this had apparently pushed all of her buttons.
It was then that I had to ask. “Hermione, are your parents really ok with all of this? I know you have probably not told them everything, but I mean we might not get back in time for you to visit them this winter.”
Hermione sighed. “Yes…” she paused, obviously considering her words before she shook her head. “My parents have always been work-a-holics and were never very affectionate people. Having two dentists doesn’t leave a lot of free time. They care, they really do, but they don’t know how to parent, I think. In the end I love them, but they are just happy as long as they think I am happy and I have been content with Holly and Ginny and now with all of you.”
The next day I was once again surprised when Holly asked for her own day. Just like Hermione I would have thought she would want to stay with friends.
Instead, she spent the morning talking with Sirius followed by a trip to see her parent's graves and the family cottage. It was at that point I realized she had mostly been using the ‘date’ to connect with her past and I backed off and left her to it. It was made even more awkward as Tonks, who didn’t know what to think about me, was left standing at my side the entire time to ensure that Peter didn’t find us. I thought about flirting with Tonks, but visiting graves and a destroyed cottage was a bit of a mood killer for even Tonks.
Or maybe she was just overwhelmed seeing Sirius again after 15 years. If my mental math was right, she must have been about 10 when Sirius was locked away. She definitely remembered him and seeing him trying to recover was probably hard to stomach.
It was only at the end of our time visiting Holly’s past when Holly requested the rest of the day be a group date for the trio starting as a dinner. The evening finally turned fun as the five of us teased each other. It was nice even if everyone was aware that my dates had the potential to pull the trio apart.
Unfortunately, that was the end of the fun as Hermione ensured that we were all focused on the end of term progress exams. I was pretty sure that we would all do fine. I mean we were all well above where we should be at this point in our schooling. It was to the point that Ginny and Holly were having to hold back, not wanting to demonstrate how far ahead they were. They were probably ready to start fourth-year material and the Family was only a little ways behind that. Even Sarah was catching up quickly with so many people ready to give her pointers. That was of course ignoring Hermione who might be half-way through fifth-year material as a third year. Being able to read other languages had apparently just allowed her to push herself harder.
As the final class finished up we were met by Hermione, Holly, Ginny, and Tonks before we headed to Hogsmeade. The train station was on the edge of the village, but apparently we weren’t required to ride the train back for the winter break so we just walked to the three broomsticks where Ginny went home for the winter break and we picked up Luna’s father.
To our pleasant surprise we saw that Xeno had brought three wizarding tents with him. I wasn’t sure why he thought we needed so many since we still had the three from our trip to Yamatai as well, but I was glad he was prepared.
As we walked towards our cottage I spotted Lin and Lupin standing in front of our door chatting somewhat fondly. Glancing at Tonks I wondered if the fact she was going to be stuck near him for several weeks would cause problems, but I shook my head, it wasn’t my business unless she wanted to join us and we hadn’t even asked her.
When we arrived we made small talk as Lupin asked us how we felt we had done on our exams but soon enough he pulled out a loop of rope that Dumbledore had used to create a portkey to our cottage in Iceland.
Lin, Lupin, Tonks, and Holly all took hold of the rope and a moment later they were gone.
Looking at our remaining group consisting of our Family plus Xeno and Hermione I invited everyone inside before immediately opening up a portal to our pocket home.
Before he even stepped inside Xeno looked particularly pleased. “Oh, I do hope we can find some snigglefliffers on the way.”
Luna looked back to her father and smiled. “I know, right?”
I realized then that despite all of our summer travels last year we hadn’t actually taken Luna away from this world. Or at least not directly away from this reality as I wasn’t entirely sure where the spirit world bathhouse was.
Looking around I brought everyone together. “Let's get changed back to our original bodies so we don’t cause any more issues than needed. I also want to be as hidden as possible. I don’t think we made many friends on Earth Bet and we will want to be in and out as quickly as we can manage.”
There were some nods, with Hermione and Xeno looking a little surprised we were doing something like swapping bodies, but not overly concerned. I guess hopping realities was shocking enough to make everything else seem less crazy.
After a moment Hermione frowned and interrupted us before we could head downstairs. “Is your world really still that dangerous?”
There were a few uncomfortable moments before I grimaced. “Actually on that note, we should probably be wearing all the protections we have available while there. I really don’t want to be caught by surprise.”
Wanting to clear the atmosphere, I clapped my hands. “Lets get everything stored, we need to move somewhat quickly, we only have three weeks before school starts again after all.”
Dinah gave a quick wince and looked to Luna who nodded firmly.
I really needed to find out what they were planning once we got this all taken care of.
I then turned to the group one final time. “Seriously. I know we have gotten a few letters from Vicky that makes it sound like things are a little better now, but we still don’t know the full situation so I want us prepared to pop away at a moment’s notice.”
Amy looked like she was considering something but slowly spoke up. “Can we bring people with us if they want to come now?”
I looked at her, she wouldn’t have been this conflicted if we were talking about just her sister. Maybe she was considering bringing her entire adoptive family.
I stopped and considered that for a moment before responding. “I think we are fairly well set up now and I think I am quite a bit stronger so we can probably bring a dozen people if we really push it, but I want you to think about it carefully before you make the offer. We don’t have many options for worlds for them to join so they will probably be forced to start a new life here and Wizarding Britain isn’t exactly welcoming even if we make them wizards.”
Hermione’s eyes widened dramatically at that. I had forgotten that we hadn’t explained that part to her yet, but she didn’t interrupt.
Turning back to everyone I wondered who they would want to bring before I shrugged. “Who we invite will be up to each of you so just consider it.”
After the body swap I stood, and walked down to our vault room. Frowning I hesitated for a moment, but I didn’t want the Horcruxes to do something weird in a separate dimension so I left the Horcruxes in the sealed chest underneath our cottage. I then scribbled a note to Holly and told Dobby to give her the note and our letter of instructions if we weren’t back in a month.
Turning around I picked up one of the souls in the small gems left from Earth Bet. I was pretty sure this was Kaiser, but I didn’t really care.
Walking back up I looked around the room. Dinah and Luna were already asleep to avoid issues with their gifts while the rest of the girls were trying to relax and not look too nervous. We were both visiting a world they had fled as well as families they had temporarily abandoned.
Not wanting to make this a bigger deal than it already was, I sat down on the recliner and pulled out the gem. “Ready?”
A chorus of ‘yes’ and ‘yeps’ greeted me before I closed my eyes and reached out and slowly popped the soul.
Now knowing what I did about myself I felt the power strain my soul fragment connections. It was no wonder I didn’t have the power to jump by myself and why it leaked away so quickly if I didn’t use it. Maybe if I could fix this I wouldn’t struggle as much.
Regardless I focused hard on the beacon in the sea of realities that represented the message tube I had left there. Pushing ourselves forward we left this reality and jumped away.
Interlude Holly:
Holly smiled as she spotted Sirius standing in the doorway ready to receive them.
Yet her smile fell a little bit as she spotted Sherrel standing in the entrance way behind Sirius.
As she gave her godfather a hug she couldn’t help but notice Lin brushing up against Professor Lupin.
Walking inside they all congregated in the living room, sitting down in the different sofas and chairs.
Once again she noticed that Sirius was sitting next to Sherrel while Lin practically jumped at the option to sit next to Lupin.
Glancing over, she spotted Tonks grimacing at the two couples as well. At least she wouldn’t be the only one stuck here third-wheeling with two new couples, at least one of which was actively sleeping together.
It was Sirius’s voice that broke her out of her awkward thoughts. “I am so glad you could visit. I can tell you stories about your parents and grandparents now. Hell, with Nimmy here it is practically a black sheep of the black family reunion.”
Holly blinked and said, “What do you mean?” while ignoring Tonk’s growled exclamation of “It's just Tonks!”
Sirius smirked at Tonks before he blinked and looked vacantly out into the distance until Lin cleared her throat and Sirius snapped back to the present. “Ah! Well… you see, Nimmy is my cousin’s daughter. They threw her mother out because she married a Muggleborn while I was thrown out of my family for not wanting to join the blood-purists in the build up of the first war.”
There was another pause where this time Sherrel had to poke him making it clear that this was something the two women had gotten used to while trying to help him. Apparently pulling him out of his head was something that had to happen often, or at least often while remembering the past.
“Ah, yes… James and his parents, Fleamont and Euphemia Potter took me in when my mother threw me out. Fleamont’s mother was Dorea Black, my grandfather’s favorite cousin. It is why he stopped my mother from tracking me down. Dorea also wanted nothing to do with the darker elements of our society.”
After glancing at Tonks, Holly nodded and Sirius smiled. “So I was third cousins with your father while Holly, you are like… third or fourth cousins with Tonks. Actually while I am thinking about it, I am pretty sure Holly, you are either third or fourth cousins with the Weasley family as well.”
A small smile started to creep on Holly’s face as she listened to stories about her family from Sirius only being interrupted occasionally by others to keep Sirius from getting stuck in his memories.
It might be somewhat distant but it was nice to be around family and hear stories about her parents and grandparents… even if she wasn’t looking forward to watching all of the flirting that was going on with what was turning out to be her new pseudo-parental figures. No one wants to think of any parental figure like that.
Seriously, as glad as she was to see Sirius starting to look better and be happier. She didn’t want to think about what Sherrel and him were doing while trying to enjoy this time together. Plus, if Professor Lupin and Lin actually got properly together it might get even more awkward.