Queen Potter

Picking up the pieces.

Amelia looks around her department and mournfully takes a count of the butchers bill. Mad-eye limps up beside her, “What was that about Bones?”
“I fucked up, that’s what. Morgana, knows I fucked up. I found out that Mafalda hasn’t been doing her job properly, and instead just sending out letters when her systems registered magic at a premises that doesn’t have known witches and wizards living there.”
“Let me guess, they found out that a school friend was one of those affected?”
“Yep, triple warning, all in her outbox. It’s not even been 3 whole days since school let out.”
“I’d say we’re lucky then.”
“Oh? This looks pretty unlucky to me.”
“None of those deaths were down to Miss Bones or Abbott. Even then, the only deaths we did have, could be attributed to suicide by dragon. The only way to combat them effectively is with dragon slaying spells, not management, slaying.”
“Who knows that sort of spell these days?”
“I do. Some idiot imported a Raka egg in the 50’s. It hatched once it thawed out, and tore a swathe through London. We persisted the smog that had settled while we hunted it. See this acid scar? That’s where I got some of it’s blood on me. We had to import help from Russia, and even then, I lost 5 friends and another 6 had to retire because of the wounds they took. The ones we were fighting, they could have killed everyone in here if they wanted to. Did you see the way one of the bastards moved out of the way in mid-air while I was trying to nail it?”
“That’s my niece or god daughter you’re talking about.”
“Not at that moment they weren’t, they were Raka going for an injured hive mate.”
“What do you know about the big one that turned up?”
“Nothing, there are legends of Raka that led armies of smaller Raka. Nothing confirmed, but the stories say they had to use demon fire to burn them out.”
“Fiend Fyre?” – Mad-eye just nods – “Morrigan, that would torch the entire city.”
“It’s not that bad, it feeds on magic remember. But it will burn everything until there’s no more magic available. Which is a problem when fighting Raka, as they’re non-magical.”
“Why not use normal fire?”
“Everyone dies because they breathe in the blood as it boils, and it turns your lungs to mush.”
“Same problem with piercers, cutters, and similar spells?”
“Indeed. I’ve heard some call them soul-less demons as a killing curse won’t always kill one either.”
“What?!”
“Aye lass, they’re generally immune to the three unforgivables. Though the Russians have discovered that it depends on if they’ve woken on their own, or someone has found an egg. When they’re found they don’t seem to have that immunity.”
“What do we do?”
“Talk to them and see where they learnt about these creatures.”

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Donald bemusedly looks around the private room that he’s sitting in, with it’s gas lamps lit by magic and old fashioned bed and furniture. Theresa, his wife, is laid out on the bed while a specialist healer tries to put her mind back together. He had his own mind put back together only an hour or so ago, and was still coming to terms with the fact that he had a magical daughter while parts of his memories say he didn’t. He supposes he should be thankful that he has always been a working man, as the healer has been swearing about hatchet men while working on her memories. With a scowl he thinks back to the conversation he had with the magical policeman.

“Mr Perks, I’m Auror Raywood. I’m sorry for knocking you out earlier, however I couldn’t ask your permission to restore your memories as, obviously, you didn’t have them.”
“What do you mean?”
“There was a grave miscarriage of justice because one of our staff didn’t follow due process. As a result, all of your knowledge of magic was wiped from your mind, as well as the minds of your wife and daughter.”
“But Sally’s a witch, she’s been doing magic since the accident that took her foot.”
Raywood nods grimly, “I know. I had a brief look and her mind would have been unsalvageable for us. I’ll be honest with you, your wife’s is close to unsalvageable.”
“Why you!” Donald leaps from his chair, then finds himself immobilised and floated back to it.
“I’m sorry, I truly am, but the healers that are going to look her over, are going to prioritise her brain functions rather than her memories. Visual processing, speech, and motor coordination are all things that were damaged by the Obliviator.”
“Why, why do this?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t have a good answer for you.”

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Amelia looks around the department floor, that has just finished being put to rights after the events of the morning. Now that there’s nothing left to focus on, her mind is starting to run away with what-ifs. She knows from Raywood that Susan and Hannah were at the Perks, and took Sally-Anne away somewhere. But it’s been 4 hours and they haven’t turned up yet. They’re also out of range of the tracking charms that Susan’s had since she was 3. They should work across Europe and also the nearest parts of the USA. But there’s nothing, she doesn’t know if they’re even alive still.
“Mucilagin!”
“Director, I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Badge.”
“Director, I was just following the instructions.”
“You failed to follow your training though. I am demanding your badge because you can’t be trusted not to seriously injure those you obliviate. I can start digging and ensuring that you’ve actually followed procedure in your job if you wish.”
Mucilagin hands over his badge muttering, “They’re only muggles, don’t see what the problem is.”
“Mr Mucilagin, the problem is that you are not supposed to cause brain damage. The preliminary report I got from the healers says that without treatment, Mrs Perks would have been unable to recognise people or objects, would have had trouble moving the left side of her body, and have to relearn how to speak again. Just be glad I’m not charging you with endangering the statute of secrecy.”
Mucilagin gulps and quickly leaves the precinct before she can change her mind.
“Scrimgeour!”

Fortunately for Scrimgeour, whatever tongue lashing is in wait for him is derailed by a flash of phoenix fire, followed immediately by another flash. When their eyes adjust again, Susan and Hannah are flanking a sleeping Xenomorph. With a happy cry, Amelia quickly hurries forward, and stops abruptly as, when Mad-eye draws a wand behind her, they both flash into their animagus forms.
“Susan, I’m not going to hurt you, I just want to make sure you’re alright.”
Mad-eye grunts as the two of them track his movements, “I think it might be my fault lass.”

Susan and Hannah both turn to guard the sleeping xenomorph as more Aurors start to pop up from behind the cover they just dived behind, wands drawn.
“Wands Down!” – Amelia calls – “They are non-hostile, I do not want any more casualties today.”
Putting actions to words, she removes her wand holster and places it on a nearby desk, before approaching the one that was Susan and kneeling down in front of her. Carefully hooking a shoulder under the head, she pulls Susan into a hug.
“I was so worried, I couldn’t find you.”
Susan shifts back while keeping a careful eye on the rest of the Auror’s, “T'o-Ba'sall took us to find Sally-Anne, and then we went to Arry’s hive. I can feel her mind healing, but she needs to stay a xenomorph for around a week.”
“Susan…”
“No Auntie, Sally-Anne is like this at least in part because of you. What would have happened if we didn’t come in today? Would we have gone to school in January and just not seen her there?”
“I would have.”
“What? Checked up on her when I sent you a letter, then said ‘Sorry, her mind has been wiped and magic bound, it’s too late to fix it now’? Assuming you could even find her, and she wasn’t in hospital getting urgent treatment for brain damage.”
Amelia wants to say lots of things, most of them probably true. But there are no good answers to those accusations, “I’m sorry.”
“I know you are Aunty, and I know you’ve been trying to be better, you’ve told me often enough over the years. But how many more Sally-Annes have there been?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll find out, I promise.”
“I love you Auntie, but I’m part of Arry’s hive now, and I know things that I don’t understand yet. Sally-Anne is obviously staying with us, as it is your fault she’s like this.”
Mad-eye stumps forward and sits heavily in a chair, “Nay lass. T’ain’t Bones fault. Her responsibility certainly, but that’s what being a director is all about. Ya couldn’t pay me to do that job. The fault lies with Madam Hopkirk and Mr Mucilagin for not doing the jobs they were hired to do properly. Your aunts job is to ensure that there are enough staff, and that the rest of us are doing their jobs properly. Scrimgeour is currently the Head of the Aurors, and he should have been checking the obliviations occasionally. Hopkirk was supposed to be in charge of the Administrative staff. Then, under Scrimgeour, is Martins, who’s the head of the Obliviators. It’s why I never allowed them to promote me past Senior Auror. It’s hard enough being responsible for my own life and safety, can’t do it for too many others. Now what does being part of a hive mean?”

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Minerva looks at the modifications she’s made to the 3^rd floor suite with a critical eye. Then she transforms and runs through the rooms leading to Luna’s lair a few times.
“Hmm, not challenging enough. What can I do, what can I do…”
Thinking for a moment, she adds several very sharp spikes around each of the faith holes. When she runs it again, she shivers slightly as her fur brushes the spikes as she jumps from one point to another through those holes. Time to let the others in.

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Arbitrator Thwau'tha-Than arrives at the Dark Blade clan ship. Curiously, he notes that there are at least 5 other Arbiters here already. Making his way to the guest suites, he stops to compare notes with the others. It appears that investigating the Honor of the clan is as secondary to them as it is to him.

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Draco runs for his dignity. He’s worked out that they won’t kill him, but surviving the full hunt spares him from now being used as an anatomy model for the merlin damned children that they keep sending after him. With a cry of frustration, he reaches the end of the corridor he was running down, only to find that it ends in a dead end after a left turn. Turning around, he hears the snap-hiss of the gauntlets that they use to make him convulse and collapse. Desperate to avoid that fate yet again he tries anything he can to get away, and suddenly he’s back in the building he shares with the others.

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Arry snaps her fingers, that’s it, she knows how she can lay a Queen Egg that’s a symbiote. The more she’s spent time with the humans in the hive, the more she’s become aware of the fact that one day she will die. This will ensure that if that day comes sooner than she’d like, she won’t be leaving her children, adopted and natural, to their instincts.

 

https://www.deviantart.com/zygot/art/Cat-vs-Aliens-180489484

 

Merry Christmas?


Vesta wakes up and, with a shout of joy, tears into the stocking full of presents at the end of her bed. Waking up in a second bed, Murph studies Vesta for a moment then looks at her own small pile of presents. Coming to a decision, she goes in invisible and pops into Bubona and Dennis’ room where they’re both still blissfully asleep. Though without any presents at the end of their bed. There’s a flash of fire in the room, and neither of them stir.

A few minutes later there’s another flash of fire and Murph reappears with two bright orange boxes that have had the locks broken. Crudely scratched into the top of the larger box is Mvm, and the second box has DLN. Downstairs a box appears underneath the tree with VLZTA scratched in it. From this box comes the sounds of several things scrabbling inside.
Murph reappears back in the bedroom and tears into her own stack of presents, trying to be careful when her claw goes through the paper like it’s not even there. Her tongue sticks out the corner of her mouth as she concentrates.
“Hey Murph, did you get anything good?”
Murph holds up a Harry Potter plushy, “Soft!”

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Bubona wakes up with a yawn and blinks as she registers the lack of weight on her chest from Vesta jumping up and down on them. Blearily she looks around trying to find what woke her up, only to stub her toe for a second time. Grasping blindly for her wand, she casts a light spell and sees the orange box at the end of the bed. With a yawn she levitates it off the other side of the bed and rolls over back to sleep.

It’s starting to get light next time she’s woken up, this time by Dennis’ yelp of pain as he stubs his toe on the box she left on the floor.
“M’ning hon’y, sl’ep well?”
Dennis swears under his breath, “Yes dear, it was surprisingly peaceful until I got up.”
“Che’k on t’a child’n.”
Bubona drifts back off as the slight weight of the box being put on the bed rocks the bed slightly. The smell of the chamber pot being used, and then cleaned, followed by a cup of tea provided by their house elf.
Now more awake, Bubona calls out, “Thank you Sailly.”

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T'o-Ba'sall looks around the ship in despair, as the entire place is spotless, and everything seems to be in perfect repair. Which would be great, except some enterprising elf has decided to clean the lubricant off of all the exposed parts, and now the doors are grinding slightly as they open. With a thought, all of the house elves appear before her with a series of pops or bursts of fire.

“Which one of you thought it would be a good idea to clean up all the lubricant on the doors?”
There’s a general shuffling from the assembled elves until one of them puts their hand up, “Ooopsi did it.”
T'o-Ba'sall sighs, then catches herself at the human gesture, then sighs again, before throwing a tablet at Ooopsi, “Read that until you understand it. Then you will properly lubricate each and every thing that you cleaned, correctly, and by hand. Do you understand? If you don’t, then you will be banned from working for a week.”
Ooopsi quails at the threat, “Ooopsi will read and lubricate.”
T'o-Ba'sall look at the other elves, who have shied away from her at the threat of withholding work, “This applies to all of you too, if any of you clean something that shouldn’t be cleaned you will be banned from working for a week.” Her mind thinks back to the Dark Blade Clan, “Though, if you are ever at a loss for work, there is somewhere you can go to clean with no fear of punishment if you clean the wrong thing. Here’s my memory of the place.”

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Arry looks at the brightly wrapped parcels, arrayed around her ovipositor, with confusion. Crouching down, she pokes one with a massive claw, only for it to crumple with no resistance. From inside comes the smell of chocolate. Shifting into her more human form, she realises that the wrappings are paper and there are labels with writing on them. Pulling them open as carefully as she can, she’s surprised to find an awful lot of sweets, one pack of jerky that she starts munching on immediately, and some books on a variety of topics, the strangest of which is titled ‘How to make friends, a guide to social cues and interactions for children with learning difficulties’.

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Amelia looks in on her niece and shudders as she sees that Susan has turned into a xenomorph yet again in her sleep, and is sleeping next to Sally-Anne. As Susan lifts her head up and looks over at her, Amelia freezes once more as the memory of what happened in the DMLE hits her yet again. Carefully, she closes the door and stalks down the hall before she leans against a wall and tries to get her heart rate under control. It’s not helped by the fact that her mind keeps going back to the implications of what being part of the hive actually means. Not just for Susan, but also for Russia.

Amelia stifles a scream as T'o-Ba'sall appears in a flash of fire, her wand left at her bedside in order to not accidentally hex Susan or Sally-Anne if they surprised her.
“S’san ask if check on you. Say you smell of fear.”
Amelia nods, “I’m sorry.”
“You fear what you not understand. Do you wish to understand them and hive?”
As she stares up at T'o-Ba'sall, Amelia feels for her wand, even knowing it’s not there. With no weapons, and a fully armed and armoured Yautja in front of her, she gives the only sane answer in a squeaking voice, “Yes?”
T'o-Ba'sall’s mandibles open in her version of a smile as she reaches out with one hand and grasps Amelia’s shoulder, “Well said warrior.”
Amelia yelps as they disappear in a column of fire and reappear in a pitch black room. T'o-Ba'sall then says, using her translator, “’m’lia, if you relax, then this will mildly uncomfortable for a moment and then you can return home with the face hugger. If you struggle, it will knock you out for a few hours.”
Amelia opens her mouth to ask for clarification when something lands on her face and pushes something down her throat. Her hands come up to try and pull it off, only for something to tighten around her throat and the world pitches sideways.

Amelia starts to come around, in a pitch black room, to the sound of an argument, “T'o-Ba'sall, what did I say about not adopting people without getting their permission.”
“My Queen, ‘m’lia gave her permission.”
“T'o-Ba'sall… No, you know what? You are no longer allowed to bring anyone to the egg chamber. If you’ve found someone that wants to be part of our hive, either talk to me, Minva, or Priya. We will then talk to the person you want to bring in, do you understand?”
T'o-Ba'sall sounds dejected, “Yes my Queen.”
“Amelia, I’m so sorry that this was just pushed on you, how are you feeling?”
Amelia starts to talk, and then coughs before rasping, “Sore throat.”
“Well, I’m Arry, and you’ve just joined my hive. Let’s get you home, then we can talk about it.”

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Lucius smiles as he walks out of the Records office a few Galleons lighter, and holding a piece of paper with the address of a Muggleborn class mate of the half-breed witch that cost him Draco. Nobody crosses a Malfoy without being paid back in kind, nobody. Taking the Floo to a well known location in the Home Counties, Lucius apperates closer, and closer to the address until he can start to use a ‘point me’ spell to narrow down the boy’s location.

Once he arrives at a well appointed home that is somewhere between a large cottage and a manor, on a reasonably large amount of land, he stops to erect a muggle repelling charm around the entire house, along with an anti-portkey hex he learnt as a death eater. That done he places a notice-me-not spell on himself and opens the front door with a flick of his wand. As he’s about to step in, he spots a statue of a lion sitting on the veranda, and turns to face it with an evil smile.

A few minutes later, a fair facsimile of that blasted half-breed, though the face is just a set of eyes, stalks through the door ahead of him and attack any muggles with it’s talons and tail, much like the photo of Arry taking the arm off of that wizard did. Finally, he comes to a large dining room where there seems to be a large family gathering to celebrate Christmas. With a sneer, he sends the transfigured statue into the room to slaughter as many of them as possible.

As the statue takes a swipe at the nearest muggle, the boy turns into one of those monsters from the school, and launches himself at the statue. Lucius fires a stunning spell at the thing only to be momentarily surprised when it corkscrews around the spell before focusing on him. Lucius barely has time to fire another couple of darker spells at the monster before it’s tail catches him across the leg. As he falls to one side, he catches it with a piercing hex, and then his screams join everyone else’s, as it’s blood splashes over him. A moment later, it’s mouth breaks through his skull, and he falls to the floor, lifeless. The statue follows mere moments afterward before Justin starts to munch on the dead body of Lucius.

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“Bones! Bones! Answer damn you.”
Amelia’s head turns towards her floo as Arry flames her back into the main hall of the Bones Manor. Swiftly stepping over to the Floo, she touches the activation rune, “Moody, what’s so urgent you’re disturbing me at Christmas?”
“We’ve got a situation at Finch-Fletchley’s home. Stevens is in St Mungo’s with a stab wound to the gut and the obliviators with him is refusing to return to the property. We’ve got a couple of Auror’s making their way there now, but making a portkey didn’t work. Apparently, they found a trail of dead bodies, and they were attacked by a Raka.”
“Morgana, can this day get any worse? What’s the address?”
Moody rattles off an address, and Amelia nods, “I… I’m going to try and get there more directly. If I do, I’ll message you some portkey coordinates.”

As she deactivates the Floo, she turns back to Arry, “Arry, do you think you could get me to that address?”
Arry looks at her distractedly as her senses have been cast out, “No, but I think I’ve found Justin, one moment.”
“Wait, I need my… wand.” Amelia stops to take in the carnage in the room, along with the screaming muggles, huddled at one end of the room. Arry has turned to the Xenomorph, who’s wounds have already started to heal over, and is talking urgently to them. A moment later, Susan appears beside her and drops her wand from her mouth before disappearing again.

Amelia blinks as she picks up her wand, before she casts a wide area calming charm at all the muggles. As she sees it take effect, she walks over to them confidently, “Is anyone here injured?”
Everyone shakes their head, even though she can now see people holding various wounds, and blood staining clothing, “I’m Amelia Bones with the DMLE, magical police, I’m just going to cast a spell that will let my men know where we are. There will be some trained mediwitches with them, and we’ll see to your wounds.”

When nobody reacts, she casts a specific Auror spell that will ensure that the detection grid flags her position. It’s harder than just tapping her badge, but beggars can’t be choosers.

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An hour later, Amelia is standing outside watching over Justin as he drinks a hot chocolate on the steps of his family’s home. Around her there’s a bustle of activity as a combination of mundane police and Auror’s are looking over the place. With a sigh, she walks over to the young man and sits down, “Are you doing ok?”
Justin shakes his head, “Not really. I ate a man today, how is that ok?”
“Justin, did you do it deliberately?”
“No, I… When I got hit with the last spell, I just couldn’t think anymore, it hurt so much. Why did he attack us? Especially at Christmas?”
“He was Draco’s father.”
Justin just looks blank, “Who?”
“Draco Malfoy, he was on the train with you in September, but he gave grievous insult to Arry, so she exiled him rather than kill him or allow one of her hive to kill him. For what it’s worth, you don’t have to worry about any charges, mundane or magical, as it’s a clear case of self defence and defence of others. None of your family or guests are going to remember your change either, as the obliviators are modifying their memories so that he was a deranged killer with a trained tiger, and a large dagger.”
“Why? Why do that?”
“Two reasons, the first is that the Statute of Secrecy needs to be maintained. Each of these police officers is either a squib, or a muggleborn who left the magical world after they graduated. The second is that, horrific as it sounds, it’s less traumatic to believe that story than it is to believe the truth. It’s also why I’m recommending that you allow yourself to be obliviated of the traumatic memories.”
Justin laughs, “I feel bad for not feeling bad, how screwed up is that? I’m disgusted at myself for eating him, but all I remember feeling at the time is excitement. Even when I got hit, it was just…” He waves his hands as if he doesn’t have the language needed to explain it.
“I still recommend the obliviation. Such things can still be traumatic, even if the event wasn’t traumatic. The longer you wait to have the obliviation done, the harder it is to do it and get all of your trauma as well.”
“I think I want to talk to Arry, Wayne joined her hive without needing an egg. So I think I should too. If I had already joined, I could have called for help.”

 

Chapter 21


Quirrell looks at the Devil’s Snare, that’s just below the trapdoor of the off limits suite, with disgust, “Master, what sort of protection is this? A first year could get past this.”
“Approach it carefully, the headmistress is obviously more canny than the old fool, as she’s even clearly labelled the room.”

Cautiously, they use light to make their way past the plant, searching the walls for any sign of more complicated traps or snares. As they get to the bottom of the chimney, the sound of a large amount of flying objects starts to reach their ears. As they cautiously make their way down the short corridor towards the sound, a wooden sign illuminates in the middle of corridor.
‘This room is off limits to all staff and students who do not wish to die a horrible and painful death.’

As they cautiously step past the sign a flash of light illuminates an obstacle course that looks like it came out of a nightmare, with flying blades suspended in mid-air, spikes sticking out of the wall, and impossible jumps through holes that look barely big enough for a man to crawl through. A second flash shows that the blades have moved, and there are some additional swinging blades. When Quirrell tries to cast a spell to illuminate the room, the whole area is blanketed in smoke like darkness leaving him barely able to see the wooden sign that’s only a pace behind him. Once he extinguishes his wand, the flashes of light start up again, and over 5 minutes become faster and faster, until they can no longer tell that the light is flashing. The effect of this is that the blades no longer appear to be flying, instead they appear to teleport from place to place, same is true of swinging blades. High, in the upper reaches of the room, a doorway can be seen in the far wall.
“Master, how are we going to reach that doorway?”
“First of all, you’re going to try using a broom. After that, we will be seeing what we can do to bypass the obvious route.”

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Thwau'tha-Than looks at the door to his suite that has just closed with a grinding noise, and the completely spotless interior with something akin to concern. The concern is mainly because he used his own locking program on the door, and it hasn’t been accessed since he went to the meeting with matriarch with the other Arbiters. Stalking across the room, he pulls down one of his weapons and inspects it before throwing it on his bed in frustration. It is perfectly clean and maintained, and ideal for a show piece that only lives on the wall. Even the acid scars he’d left on the blade, as a sign of how it had survived against even hard meats, were gone. As it neatly slices through his bedding, he re-emphasises the fact that it’s perfectly maintained.
With a growl, he pulls out his maintenance kit, only to find that the oil rag has also been spotlessly cleaned and repaired. Which is a problem as the it takes a lot of work to get just the right amount of oil into the rag so that it leaves the thinnest possible coating on the blades and trophies. As he reaches around for the weapon, he finds that it has been placed back on the wall, and the gash in his bedding repaired. Mandibles open, he puts the maintenance kit down and inspects the bedding. Turning back to the maintenance kit, his mandibles open as it is no longer on the side where he left it.
“Pauk!” He roars before storming out of the room. A faint pop behind him has Thwau'tha-Than spinning around, only to see nothing in the room.

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Sally-Anne carefully pushes the door to her mothers room at St Mungo’s open before padding in and transforming into a human to sit on one of the chairs.
“Hey Mum, how are you feeling?”
Her mother looks at her for a long moment before saying, “Sally-Anne?”
“Yes mum, it’s me. How are you?”
“I was able to wiggle my toes today, and I know you’re my daughter. Though I don’t remember you getting so big, and what happened to your leg?”
“My foot had to be amputated when I was a toddler, and they just kept taking more and more leg as things went wrong with it.”
Theresa hits her head with the heel of one hand and cries, “Why can’t I remember. Why did they do this to me?”

Sally-Anne flows around the bed and smoothly transforms back into a human before grabbing her mothers hand, “Mum, Arry was able to restore all of my memories. I’m part of her hive now and they can never do that to me again. Maybe she can help you.”
Theresa looks at her with hope and tries to bring her other hand around, “Really?”
Sally-Anne nods, “She’s back on Earth too, so I could ask her if you’d like.”
“I think I’d like…” Theresa’s body spasms as she starts to smile, and Sally-Anne calls out desperately for her Queen.

A moment later Arry appears with a face hugger already around her hand.
Once Theresa finishes spasming, she looks around blankly, “Oh, hello, when did you come in?” Looking at Sally-Anne she furrows her eyebrows, “Do I know you?”
Tears start to fall down Sally-Anne’s face, “I’m your daughter.”
“Sally-Anne? You’ve grown up quick, what happened to your leg?”
“Mum, this is Arry, my Queen. She was able to restore my memories, and I think she could do the same for yours.”
Arry stares at Sally-Anne, “I think you give me too much credit.” Looking back at Theresa she holds out the face-hugger, “Mrs Perks, if you take this face-hugger and put it on your face, it will adopt you into my hive. Once that’s done, your brain will stop deteriorating and you’ll learn how to use your limbs again. We might be able to restore some of your memories too, but we can’t know until your brain is stable enough for me to look at you.”
A look akin to hope crosses Theresa’s face as she reaches out with her good hand to try and take the face-hugger. She manages to get it almost to her face before she has another fit. Gently, Sally-Anne guides it the rest of the way and watches as it latches on.

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Donald comes in, after his own appointment with a mind healer, to see Sally-Anne balancing on one leg as she looks at Theresa. As the door clicks closed behind him, she turns to look at him before flowing into a black horror and running at him. Before he can scream, she’s changed back into his Sally-Anne and is hugging him, “Daddy, I missed you.”
Donald nervously strokes her hair, “I missed you too buttercup. What was that?”
Sally-Anne beams up at him, “That was my animagus form, it’s lovely isn’t it.”
“Er, yeah, sure. Erm, how are you doing?”
Sally-Anne bounces slightly on her leg, “I’m doing great, I’ve got my memories back and they can’t do it again. We’re trying to heal mum now, though Arry said that her memories may not come back, but at least her brain will work again and we can make new memories.”

Alarmed, Donald looks up at Theresa, “What’s that on her face?”
“It’s a face-hugger, dad. It’s how she’s going to become part of the hive. Then her memories will become part of our memories.”
“Will she become one of those things too?”
Sally-Anne looks upset, “Yes daddy, she’ll be like me. Is that such a bad thing?”
Donald doesn’t answer as his eyes roll back in his head and he faints.

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As the students return to school for the new term, Susan and Hannah bracket Justin to provide comfort as he’s still reeling from not only the events over Christmas, but also swearing on his magic to Arry afterwards, and joining her hive. He’s still reeling from the fact that so many of the Professors are part of the hive, and the Yautja.

As Sally-Anne leaps over him and bounces off a wall before weaving her way through to the Hufflepuff table, he laughs at the expressions the other students make. Somewhat more cheered by the closeness of the hive, he picks up his pace and makes his way to the table.

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It’s nearing March when Aberforth finds himself comforting a bawling Hagrid in the Hogs Head Inn.
“’s not fair, he never hurt anybody and they served him up like a deer. ‘ow could they do that.”
Aberforth just pours the man another ale and places it down in front of him, before he starts cleaning a glass.
A few minutes later Hagrid continues, “’e was with me since ‘fore ah were expelled. Ah set ‘im up in the forest, an’ found ‘im a mate. ‘s not fair, ‘s not like they were hurting anyone. ‘e was paying rent too, acromantula silk ‘as earned ta school a pretty penny.”
Aberforth looks at Hagrid side-eyed, “So he kept acromantula?”
Hagrid nods, “Aye, ‘is children. ‘e used to give silk too till ‘is glands ran dry in ta 70’s.”
“Who else knew about the arrangement?”
“Ta headmaster, an’ anyone ‘e told, ah gave ‘im the money too.”
With a tight voice, Aberforth replies, “Maybe the problem is that the headmaster didn’t tell anyone else.”
Hagrid sniffs, pulls out a tablecloth sized hanky and blows his nose, “Ya could be right. But ‘e was harmless.”

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E’jeah trudges through the deep snow alongside the shivering and crippled warrior Moody, though Moody seems to be trying to keep his distance. Bringing up her wrist, she checks the scanner again, though she’s fairly sure that they’re getting close.
“Ooman, we close. Can feel them. Queen still sleep, so safe.”
“How is it that you aren’t freezing your tits off here?”
E’jeah smiles behind her mask and tugs the netting she’s wearing, “Combat Harness, keep warm, keep cool.”
“Where can I get one of those?”
“Kill hard meat alone, bring proof of kill, and be declared blooded warrior.”

Suddenly E’jeah stops, “Can go no further, feel rival hive. Any closer and will have to attack.”
Moody clenches his teeth, “Well that’s bloody great, can you find the entrance from here?”
E’jeah flares her mandibles, “I can if you give equipment.”
Grumbling, Moody pulls out a shrunken trunk and unshrinks it. Then goes through a complicated process to safely unlock the trunk, before finally taking out a large rectangular device with a matt black polished screen on the top, “Why did I have to come on this trip again?”
“Your contacts in nation.”
“It was rhetorical, bloody weather.”
“You could join hive like leader did.”
“What? You mean Amelia?”
“Yes, before male child joined.”
Moody stews in his own juices as E’jeah sets up the scanner and does a detailed scan of the area.

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Hermione laughs with pure joy as she jumps, leaps, twists, and climbs her way through the obstacle course that the Masters at the school have set up to protect the students from Luna. Behind her come the rest of the xenomorph Hufflepuffs, though each one is taking their own slightly different routes due to the timing of the ariel obstacles. As she gets to the doorway at the top, she turns around while she’s waiting for the others and shifts to her human form. At the bottom, she can just make out Professor Quirrell watching them, so she gives him a wave. As she does he seems to jump slightly before stalking back into the corridor.

As Megan makes it to the doorway, Hermione makes her way into Luna’s egg chamber, smoothly switching to being a xenomorph as she goes. There she has a sort of conversation with Luna and Xenophilous. If asked later, the conversation would go something like.

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“Hey Luna, how are you feeling?”
“How dare you trespass in my egg chamber, prepare to… Oh hey Hermione. Sorry, I’m still getting to grips with my instincts. What do you think of my Ovipositor?”
“It’s very pretty, and it looks like you’re producing well. Are the elves feeding you enough?”
“Mmmm, though there’s not enough Acromantula.”
Hermione nods, “We’ve got all the big ones already, so we’re now waiting for the smaller ones to get large enough to breed.”
“That’s a fascinating aspect of being a Queen and having my father in the hive. We didn’t have a concept of preserving prey before Arry. Even those of us who gained an identity didn’t think of it.”
Hermione nods, “I remember, I still don’t like looking at those memories. How are you getting on with the computer tablets?”
Luna laughs, “Slowly, we only have Arry’s ancestral memories, not her genetic advantages. Father is doing slightly better than me, as his claws are more suited to using the tablets. He’s going to take my first adoption eggs with him as soon as we mature enough to lay them. He’s hopeful that he can find a phoenix to adopt, as we have come across a few nesting sites in the past.”
“Have you not found your human form yet?”
Luna smirks, “I have, but it’s uncomfortable, so I prefer to stay like this. I suppose I will need to learn to deal with it before school next year. How goes the search for another ship?”
Hermione nods in understanding, “I started feeling uncomfortable when I was close to moulting over Christmas. I think the search for a suitable ship is going slowly because Arry’s ship is notorious in the region.”
Luna nods, “I understand. It’s why Arry is keeping so close to me, so that I see her as a mother rather than a rival. It’s working too.”
“I’m glad. Would you like any real books to read?”
Luna laughs, “Only if you haven’t read them yet, as your memories are up here too, along with your parents.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”

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However, as they are speaking telepathically, the conversation involves more imagery and visualisation than words.

 

Chapter 22

As the seasons pass, and the snows melt, Moody finds himself taking more and more scans with the Russians as they slowly build up a picture of the Raka lair. What they’re seeing, both magically, and with whatever arcane sorcery this scanner uses, is not painting a pleasant picture. He glances over to where the Russian equivalent to the Unspeakables are doing their own things to try and divine the danger present past the small cave opening. Whatever it is, Moody desperately doesn’t want to be anywhere near here when they try it.

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Xeno carefully makes his way down the obstacle course with the first of Luna’s successful adoption eggs carefully stored away in an expanded trunk. She’s only managing a one in ten success rate, so she’ll be stuck in that room until it’s better. As he’s half way down, he is made very much aware of the fact that his body is not up to the sort of gymnastics that his brain is now able to perform. As he finally gets to the sign, he breathes a sigh of relief and confidently makes his way out of the room on the 3^rd floor corridor. From there he makes his way down to the kitchens and the domain of the house elves.

As the painting closes behind him, all of the elves turn to look at him warily, “What can we’s be doing for the not serpent hunter?”
Xeno smiles as he looks over at the elf the spoke, “My daughter has started to lay adoption eggs, would you know of any elves that need or want a new family?”
“Elves know it still not safe to see young queenie.”
Xeno nods, “Indeed, I have a confirmed adoption egg here. I need to go on a journey now, and I would like to have some direct family still here to look after my little moon.”

The elves all confer for a long time, as well as plying Xeno with sweet meats and tea. Eventually, one of them walks over, “We’s knows of a few elves who are in bad families. But we coulds not take them from their families.”
Xeno’s eyes glaze over as he speaks with Luna and tries to understand the house-elf memories he has, eventually he nods, “I understand, however there’s no reason that you couldn’t introduce us so that they know where to come if they ever find themselves in need of a new family.”
The elf blinks a couple of times, “Nipsy thinks sad man see sense now. Nipsy will see if Batsie is free.”
Nipsy disappears for a moment before reappearing with an elf that’s missing half of one ear, “Batsie is here, but Batsie has not being given clothes.”
Xeno nods and sits on the floor in front of Batsie, “I understand, and I would never try to take you away from your family. However, my Queen. My daughter, she has some special eggs that will make you part of our family. I would never dream of endangering such a proud elf, so would you permit me to show you what those eggs look like. That way you can avoid them if you ever have cause to visit.”
Batsie blinks slowly, “Batsie understands. Batsie thinks it’s wise to know what to look out for, as elf descriptions not good enough.”
“All of our family share memories, so that is no longer a problem for us. There is an empty classroom just down the corridor. How about I open my trunk there, and you can look inside. Just remember, you shouldn’t go inside, just look from the top, otherwise one of the eggs I’m carrying will hatch.”
“Nipsy thinks that is best idea, Hogwarts elfs not want accidental eggs.”

Xeno takes his trunk to the classroom he passed, and opens it in the centre of the room. Once done, he carefully locks the door with a non-standard locking spell so that no curious students can just waltz in. When he comes back in and takes a seat, Batsie disappears with a pop, “I do hope that Batsie remembers my warnings.”
Nipsy nods, “I’m sure Batsie does, but Batsie’s eyes not what they should be after punishment 5 years ago.”
Xeno frowns, “Why did neither of you say anything about it?”
“Batsie is proud elf, Nipsy know that proud elf not need help. Nipsy only keeping Nipsy busy when not enough work at Hogwarts.”
Xeno nods, “Well, just remember that being part of our family doesn’t stop you from working here. Batsie has gotten too close to an egg, so he will be joining our family soon.”
Nipsy looks at Xeno sadly, “Nipsy knows, Nipsy bad elf.”
Xeno looks at the elf in front of him, and places a hand on her shoulder, “Nipsy, sometimes we cannot help the ones we love without betraying their trust. It doesn’t make us bad people when we do, as long as you talk to him once he’s recovered and go through why you did it, your relationship may still work. I hurt my Luna when Pandora died, and that happened because my mind broke. Batsie’s family broke his trust when they did whatever they’ve done to him…” Xeno winces, “I possibly shouldn’t have put elf wards on my trunk, but I didn’t want any of you getting caught accidentally.”
“Nipsy knew they were there, and if Nipsy knew, Batsie knew too.”
Xeno just blinks, “My word, well, I can’t tarry. Do you have anywhere that Batsie can rest comfortably?”
“Nipsy has just the place.”

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Over the next few days, Xeno makes his way down to the south of France, where there is an infamous Veela brothel, one that both he and Pandora have frequented in the past.
As he walks through the front doors, the rather odorous male receiver smiles widely, “Monsieur Lovegood, we have not had the pleasure of your company for years. Travelling alone for once?”
Xeno thinks heavily about what he’s about to do so that the smile he plasters on his face looks genuine, “Indeed, Pandora left on the next great adventure a few years ago.”
The man looks saddened, “You have my most sincere condolences, as a token of respect you may have this visit half price.”
Xeno nods sadly, “Thank you, is Clothilde available?”
“She is with a client for the next hour, can I offer you a drink on the house? Or would you prefer a different girl?”
“I’ll wait.”

An hour, and a mediocre pot of tea later, and Xeno is led up the stairs to Clothilde’s room. There he finds her laying languidly on her bed, the thin silver band around her neck a symbol of her fate. His heart goes out to her once more as his experienced eyes spot the tell-tale signs of bruises, artfully concealed with makeup; much as they were when a younger and far more innocent Xeno and his newly wed Pandora met her so many years ago.
“Clothilde, it’s been too long.”
“Mr Lovegood, I still remember your preferences.”
Xeno laughs, “Long conversations about whatever takes your fancy, yes?”
The ghost of a real smile graces the Veela’s lips, “Indeed. One day my allure will ensnare you.”
Xeno nods, “And on that day you will be both happy and sad, I know. Just as I know that the collar you wear is merely jewellery, and the real bonds are inside you.”
“This conversation again. There’s nothing that can be done about it, so I take what enjoyment I can.”
“As you will. I have some bruise balm in my trunk, will you at least allow me to treat your bruises?”
Clothilde waves her hand dismissively, “Go ahead, just don’t block the door. You know what they’re like about that.”
Xeno starts to set up his trunk in the narrow space between the bed and the wall, “Fair warning, I’m carrying some symbiotic eggs. I’ll be a while, as I need to brew the balm.”
Clothilde frowns, “You know that I’ll be forced to kill you if you trap me in there, no matter how noble your intentions.”
Xeno nods as he’s climbing down the ladder, “I know, I know, and you’re in as much danger of being kidnapped as you ever have been when we’ve visited in the past.”

Clothilde lays back for a few minutes, relishing the unusual time that she can just spend with someone who isn’t overcome by her allure. Or worse, someone who is mostly overcome by her allure. If she was unbound, she’d have tried to steal Xeno for herself many years ago. As it stands, he’s paying for her time, and giving her a respite during the day. With a sigh, she pushes herself off the bed, and climbs down the ladder in order to try and distract the man from his brew.
Spotting what must be the eggs in question, she keeps as close to the wall as possible while she makes her way to his potions lab, where Xeno is indeed brewing a potion. Unnoticed behind her, one of the eggs opens up. Once she enters, she drapes herself over Xeno’s back and shoulder to look at his work. Her hands wander lightly up and down his side.
“You know you don’t need to do this for me every time you come.”
Xeno smiles, “Maybe, but we Lovegood’s have always seen more than most. Besides, I want to. Still couldn’t wait for me to finish huh?”
“You know me, and maybe this time I’ll be able to tempt you into my bed.”
Xeno smiles sadly, “Maybe next time.”
“You say that every time,” She shivers as something crawls up her back, “have you been learning some new tricks to leave me all hot and bothered?”
“No, no new tricks. That’s not me.”
Alarmed, Clothilde turns around to see who’s snuck up on them, only for the face hugger to leap onto her face and quickly squeeze her throat to knock her out before she can defend herself. As she slumps to the floor, Xeno catches her with his wand before levitating her out to his bed. The bruise balm ingredients forgotten behind him on the chopping board.

An hour later, the face hugger releases it’s grip and Xeno carefully takes it from Clothilde’s face before throwing it carelessly into the still open trunk. Then he wakes her up with a kiss, “Good afternoon sweetie.”
Clothilde smiles at him as her eyes flicker open, “Xeno you sly old dog, if I’d known you had a thing for sleeping beauties, I’d have napped years ago.”
Xeno smiles, “Oh, no, I have a think for intelligent, funny, charming, and above all, free women. I did warn you about the eggs, but here we are, and welcome to the family.”
Clothilde sits up, “What do you mean?” she demands.
“I only have 10 minutes of your time left, and an explanation will take far longer than that. Or you could wait a few hours and the answer will come to you. Assuming you haven’t felt it already. Anyway, I’m heading into central Africa after this, as I’ve got one more egg to deliver.”
Clothilde frowns, “But there were three down there.”
Xeno smiles as he packs up his trunk and leaves, “Try not to tell Luna, but the last one is for me.”
“What do you mean try not to tell Luna! Xeno, you can’t just leave me hanging like this!”
As Xeno heads down the stairs, Rachelle pokes her head around the doorframe, “Did he get you all hot and bothered before leaving again?”
“Rachelle, it’s not like that and you know it.”
Rachelle grins, “Oh, but I think it is. If I could, I’d be chasing him too. Shame he’s happily married though.”
“She’s dead.”
Rachelle shrugs, “Maybe you can persuade him to buy your bond then. I know I would if I was in your position.”
Clothilde shakes her head, “You’ve only been here a few years, it’s never going to happen. They tried, back when Luna was little, and the only time I’ve ever met her. They tried to buy my bond. It didn’t work.”
“But the owners…”
Clothilde nods, “They’re not lying, but by the time they’re willing to sell, you’ll be old. While we’re beautiful we’re too valuable to lose. Now I have a few minutes to enjoy a shower, so if you don’t mind.”
“I could always scrub your back.”
“No, I like the time to think.”
“Aww.”

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A couple of weeks after he left France, Xeno smiles as he carefully makes his way through the Congo, in the back of his mind is the chatter of excited Veela, and some children, as they welcome another bound sister into the hive. Slightly more alarmingly are the fledgeling Xenomorphs that used to be the owners and slavers that caught his new hive mates. Maybe he would take Clothilde up on her request before he…
“Yes daddy, I’d like that. And maybe you can give me a few sisters as well. Just, not on earth please, as I’m too young to know about that just yet.”
Xeno swallows, maybe she doesn’t know about the…
“Egg? Of course I do, you’re part of the hive. Why would you think I wouldn’t want you to have the best parts of being in the hive too? When you’re ready, I’ll lay you a special praetorian egg rather than one of the worker eggs. That way you can still tell me off if I’m being stupid.”
Xeno smiles as he reaches the mountain, it’s so much better being in the hive. He hasn’t needed his medicine for over a month now. As he leisurely makes his way to the summit, he passes signs of exploratory mining that weren’t there before. Each one abandoned, with their tools just left lying where they fell. More carefully, he continues to climb, keeping his body language calm, while scanning his surroundings for the tell-tale wisp of fire that could indicate he’s about to be attacked. The fact that those mines are abandoned gives him hope that the phoenixes are still nesting at the summit. After all, this is possibly the last unregulated magical wildernesses in the world, and all because of muggle greed.

Once he reaches the summit, he sets up his trunk a few short meters from the edge, but still far enough away from the nesting site not to be rude. Then he stops at looks at the space consideringly as he tries to trace why he thought of the distance in meters rather than yards. Coming to the conclusion it’s probably to do with all the French Veela in the hive, he shrugs and opens the trunk. A few moments later, he has retrieved a box full of dirigible plums, under stasis, and a couple of large bags of lemon drops. Removing a few of the plums and drops, he cleans an area of rock, before laying them out.
By the time the first phoenix shows itself to him, it’s been over a week, and his supply of plums is running very low. The phoenix flames in a safe distance above the plums, before dropping down to start devouring the plums.
“Ptiana likes the lemon drops you know.”
The phoenix looks at him like he’s an idiot, “Yes I know, she’s an idiot. So much sweetness, and don’t get me started on the white stuff inside.”
“Sherbet.”
“Sherbet, thank you. It give me so much gas…” The phoenixes head slowly looks up from the plum it’s working on, “Wait, did you just respond to me?”
Xeno nods, “I did. Are there any other fruit you like, or sweets?”
The phoenix hops over, the plum forgotten, “How are you able to understand me?”
Xeno shrugs, “Ptiana is part of Arry’s hive, and we’ve been getting her ancestral memories from the Royal Jelly Luna’s been eating.”
“The what, whatie, what now?”
“Have you heard of Harry Potter?”
“The snot nosed baby that bounced a killing curse of its forehead?”
“That’s the one.”
“Then no, not really.”
Xeno smiles, “Well, beyond that little tidbit, the baby also survived and was abducted by Skali explorers.”
“What explorers?”
“Skali, they’re a four-armed species that live on the other side of the Galaxy. Anyway, they then picked up a Xenomorph egg, you might know them as Raka?”
“Can’t say I have.”
“Good thing too. Anyway, Arry ended up being adopted by the xenomorph that hatched from the egg, and was fed Royal Jelly until she became a queen Xenomorph.”
“What does this have to do with Ptiana?”
“I’m getting there, but if I don’t tell you the first bit, the last bit won’t make sense.”
“Well hurry up then, we haven’t got all century.”
“Over the next several years she learnt how to use her magic, and then how to pass on magic to her children. It was after this point when she met T'o-Ba'sall on her chiva. That’s when she invented the adoption eggs. A couple of years later, Mr Dumbledore sent Ptiana to find Harry, only Harry accidentally bit her head off.”
The phoenix winces, “I’ve had that happen once or twice, it’s never fun.”
Xeno nods, “That’s when Arry, the name that Harry goes by now, that’s when she made a tiny adoption egg and gave it to Ptiana before she knew that phoenixes were sentient.”

The phoenix thinks for a few minutes while it goes back and finishes the plum, “So, what you’re saying is that you understand me because of this hive thing.”
Xeno nods, “Indeed, but here’s the best bit, not only did the hive gain Ptiana’s ability to travel by flame, and her healing tears. But she also got the ability to do human magic, and house elf magic. On top of that, there’s a whole group of people who understand her, and Arry is likely to live for a very long time. Did I also mention that there are dozens of planets that are in our ancestral memories.”
The phoenix hops away a couple of paces, “What are you trying to imply?”
Cheerfully Xeno says, “Only that I have an adoption egg in the trunk here, and I would really like it if you could join our hive. Or your mate if you’re male, as everyone that is adopted into the hive will become female.”
The phoenix hops back, “Really? They become female?” Xeno just nods and the Phoenix takes off towards the nest, “Vasiliy! Vasiliy, we could have eggs. Come quick.”
Xeno blinks rapidly when two phoenixes flame back to the trunk, “Vasily, this human knows Ptiana, and understands us.”
“Eannatum, what is it you want?”
“Vasily,” Eannatum wheedles, “you know you always say you wish you could lay an egg for us.”
“Eannatum!”
“Well, this human has something that will make that possible.”
Xeno blinks, while Vasily freezes, before turning slowly towards Xeno and then back to Eannantum, “Eannatum, why haven’t you taken advantage of it yet?”
Eannatum leans over to start grooming Vasily’s neck, “Well, you’re always the one who complains about it every season when we go to the nesting grounds.”
“Just because you’re older than dirt and don’t care anymore.”
“I’ll have you know that dirt was around when I was a chick.”

Xeno sighs and goes into the trunk to make himself some lunch while they’re squabbling. Playing a hunch, he brings the small egg out of the trunk with him once he’s finished. As he climbs out, two pairs of eyes track the egg in his hand. Carefully he sets it down next to the remains of the plums.
“Well, which ever one of you wants it, lean close to the top of the egg.”
Vasily stares at Ennantum, who somehow manages to look sheepish as he hops over to the egg. When the face hugger latches on, he disappears in a flash of fire, and the face hugger goes with him.
“Don’t worry, it will knock him out in a second, and then he’ll be fine in an hours time.”

 

Chapter 23

Quirrell bounces off the floor for the umpteenth time as he narrowly missed a grab due to needing to contort himself in mid-air to avoid a flying sabre. It had taken both him and his master a couple of months to find a ritual to increase his perceptions enough to survive those damn things. On top of that, trying to use magic on them just leads to all of them trying to attack the caster. As he stands up, one of his fingers hangs uselessly in his gloves.
“Master!”
“I am aware Quirrell, you must either catch a unicorn, or complete this task.”
“Yes master.”

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Arry looks up from her steak and small Acromantula as Luna flames into the Great Hall, “Luna! You made it.”
Luna nods as her tail swishes behind her, “I did, and I have children like you promised I would.”
Head Master McGonagall stands up at the head table, “Attention everyone, I would like you all to welcome Luna Lovegood who has been staying with us since just before Christmas. As she is like Arry, please treat her with respect. We are also going to be visited by her adopted family,” She looks down at Arry and Luna who are talking, “as well as some of her children. Please be aware that the children are like Murph, only newborns.”
As if that was a signal, suddenly the area around the doors is filled with chattering Veela of all ages as they flame in in twos and threes. There’s even a few children of various ages, ranging from toddlers to teenagers.

An unforeseen effect of this, is that absolutely everyone that’s gone through puberty, and is attracted to women, goes gaga insane as their eyes glaze over. Much to Arry’s surprise, this includes Professor Babbling and Professor Vector. Minerva clears her throat, “Ladies, would you be able to reign in your allure before you cause irreversible damage to the egos of the young men here, please.”
Startled, the atmosphere changes like a bubble being popped. As it does, the 4 younger children all run over to Arry and pull her into a hug, “Grandqueen, can we play in the forest please?”
Arry blinks, “Why are you asking me? Shouldn’t you ask your own queen?”
“But she says we can’t go until we can change like she can.”
“Well, that’s the same rule that everyone else uses. Though some of my children can’t do that, but their tails and claws have grown in.”
As there’s a chorus of ‘but that’s not fair’, Harry turns back to Luna, “Where’s your father?”
Luna flushes scarlet, “Um, Clothilde has been showing him how much she appreciates a man that isn’t affected by her allure, as well as the visits that mum and dad did to give her a rest and company.”
“I see, well, I’ll leave that well alone then.”

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Minerva struts down the corridor in the MoM towards the meeting room. Her entire body language unconsciously mimicking a particularly dangerous predator on the hunt for a good meal. Under her robes the short tail, that has started to develop, swishes back and forth in anticipation. When she reaches the door, it opens with a click, followed by a crunch as she accidentally shears the bolt in the internal mechanism.
As she steps over the threshold, she spies Madam Marchbanks resting on a comfortable chair in a corner. After a heartbeats pause, she continues to walk in, and pushes the door closed behind her. When it bounces back, she uses a touch of elf magic to push it closed and lock it. Slowly the stalks to her seat at the end of the table, noting that Malfoy’s seat hasn’t been filled yet.
“Madam Marchbanks, are you here as an observer?”
The ancient witch nods and smiles, “Indeed I am, I expect this to be entertaining.”
Minerva smiles, “I’m hoping that it is boring and they have an acceptable plan already in the works.”
The men sitting around the table all shift uncomfortably, especially when she takes her place at the head of the table and makes a show of sitting down.
“Gentlemen, the spring holiday starts in a months time, so I need an update on the boards progress for increasing student numbers.”
Bellevue mutters, “(I’m still having the contract translated, how am I supposed to have come up with a plan)”
Minerva smiles sweetly at the man, “That’s simple Mr Bellevue, by doing your job. After all, you are one of the duly elected representatives of the Ministry of Magic sitting on the board, in order to oversee the quality of education in Hogwarts School of Magic.”
“(She has ears on her)” Bellevue’s neighbour, Mr Shorten, snorts.
Minerva smiles, “It is well known that I am a cat animagus. Well gentlemen?”
Mr Heriot raises a hand, “Um, the current rules state that only children of alumni and those not automatically enrolled in the Ministry run schools can be invited. But, erm…”
Minerva looks over at the young man, “Mr Heriot is it?”
Heriot nods, “Yes Professor McGonagall.”
“Have you signed the charter yet?”
“No Professor, I was going to do it in this meeting, my father abdicated his position as head of the family two weeks ago.”
“I see, well, as board positions aren’t inherited, they’re voted, I will need to ask you to sit next to Madam Marchbanks until you are voted in. You may also wish to take notes for your father, as he is still a board member until a replacement has been voted in.”
Once Mr Heriot has taken a seat on a conjured stool, Minerva turns back to the board, “Gentlemen?”
Mr Raby says, “No, no, I’m quite interested in what the young man has to say.”
Minerva give a predatory grin, “Well, you should have considered that during the 6 months since the last meeting.”
“But the voters.”
“Have nothing to do with the board of governors, it is a body elected by the Wizengamot, not the public.”
Mr Bellevue exclaims, “Now see here, I don’t know who you think you are, telling us our own jobs.”
“Mr Bellevue, I am the acting Head Master of Hogwarts, and I am the person that notified you of a problem with the school, in accordance to the charter, 6 months ago. Since then, you have had 6 meetings without inviting me, during which time you could have discussed the problem I raised.” Minerva pulls out 6 rolls of parchment and opens one, “Instead, you discussed whether or not the school brooms should be replaced. Your conclusion was that they still fly so no. Whether or not there are adequate teaching staff in the school, your conclusion there was 7 votes to 2 that there’s no scheduling problems, so there are enough staff. Finally, you discussed the yearly renumeration for board members and unanimously voted through a 10% pay rise. That was just September, would you like me to go through the other months?”
Mr Shorten looks over at Madam Marchbanks before coughing, “No, that’s quite alright.”

Minerva looks over at Madam Marchbanks, who nods, “Then, in accordance with Amendment 6, section 1, part 4, I declare this board corrupt. According to our charter, 50% of all school age children should be receiving an academic education at Hogwarts, where they are taught all of the branches of magic, except Necromancy and those magics not native to the United Kingdom. The school currently has a population of 800 students out of a school age population of 3,000 children, this is just over half the population that should currently be attending the school. This has also affected the funding for the school, leaving us unable to provide the level of education and supervision required to get the best out of each student.
“As the acting Head Master, and with a member of the Department of Education as a witness, I am invoking the punitive measures discussed last time. Until such time as the student population has been brought up to the required levels, or all members of the current board have been declared bankrupt, the board will be required to provide the funding shortfall caused by this discrepancy. Additionally, according to amendment 6 section 2 part 4, I am required to inform you of the fact that if you are declared bankrupt, you will be forbidden from holding any public office for a period of no less than 5 years.”
Mr Heriot puts his hand up, “Um Professor?”
Minerva huffs, “Mr Heriot, you graduated 5 years ago and we are not in school. Just ask your question.”
Mr Heriot looks at Marchbanks, who nods encouragingly, “What does ‘holding any public office’ mean?”
Minerva smiles warmly, “It merely refers to any job that you have due to being elected into by either the public, or their duly elected representatives. Such as judges, members of the Wizengamot, and also school board members. There’s a large number of additional committees and sub-committees in the government, and various positions in the few magical villages around the country. All of which are elected.”
Mr Bellevue surges to his feet, “You can’t do that, we’d be ruined.”
Minerva cocks her head to one side, “Mr Bellevue, I believe that you are mistaking the consequences of your mismanagement for punitive measures by myself. I am merely doing my duties as set down in the School Charter. Hogwarts did not want, or need, the board of governors, but she caved to political pressure for standardising the quality of education across the nation. This board of governors has seen Hogwarts fall from it’s position of having the best NEWT results across the country, and counted amongst the top 5 schools in the magical world, to being above average in NEWT results in the country, and our countries NEWT exams are no longer recognised on the international stage. Congratulations, because of you and Mr Dumbledore, I have been lying to our muggleborn students for the last 10 years about Hogwarts being the best school in the country.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to hunt some lunch to calm down before accompanying Madam Marchbanks to the records office to have the minutes of the meeting notarised and witnessed. Then I need to deliver a copy to the Wizengamot and Gringotts so that we can get proper funding during the next school year, starting in August.”

Madam Marchbanks chuckles, “Don’t worry about Gringotts deary, I’ll make sure that a notarised copy is delivered to them just as soon as the meeting ends.”

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“Hey Beth, are you looking forward to Easter?”
Beth looks up from the homework she’s marking, “Hmm, not as much as I was. The Queen wants us all on ship, something to do with the Russians being stupid or something.”
Septima looks down at her hands, “What about our magical retreat?”
Beth stands up and takes Septima’s hand, “Seppy, I want to go as much as you do, but I want you to be safe more. We’ve found a frozen hive, and the Russians are planning to do something to it now they know where it is. Septima, I’ve experienced the memories of what happened the first time Arry came close enough to an enemy Queen to feel them, and that was about half the distance to the moon. I care for you a lot, and I think that’s growing into love. But you’re not part of either hive, and I don’t want to kill you because you’re in between me and a rival hive.”
“Beth, it doesn’t have to be in the home counties, I just want to spend a long weekend with you.”
Beth looks stricken, “Septima, I can’t take you to the ship, it’s not safe for a human.”
“But what if I didn’t care about that, what if I just want to be with you.”
Arry flames into the room with them, a face-hugger curled around her hand already, “Then you need only ask.” When the two women spin to face her, Arry adds, “I could feel Bathsheba thinking about the dangers of the ship and her reluctance to leave over easter. Beth, hold out your hand, this face-hugger will live for about 24 hours outside its egg. I’ll leave you to your discussion.”

Once she flames away, Septima turns on Beth, “Beth, what was that?”
“That was my Queen providing her assistance. Septima, being with the hive is the best thing that’s ever happened to me after getting to know you. I couldn’t imagine anything else now. But there’s no privacy at all in the hive. We don’t go looking at each other’s thoughts all the time, but you can’t avoid it, and even the most cursory question will see it answered by someone in the hive.”
Septima takes Beth’s free hand, “Beth, why haven’t you mentioned this option before.”
“Septima, I…” Beth grimaces, “Yes my Queen. Arry just told me to be honest.” Beth looks down at the face-hugger, “Septima, Arry has been doing better at not forcing people into her hive, or even pressuring them into it. I didn’t want to bring it up in case you saw it as an ultimatum, and decided you didn’t want it, and didn’t want me. Or worse, decided to do it because you wanted to be with me, but didn’t want to be part of the hive.”
“Beth, I didn’t even know it was something I could ask for. Now, how does that work?”

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“E’jeah, what do you mean you’re leaving?”
“Just that Mad-eye, the Queen doesn’t want any of her hive on Earth while the Russians are doing their experiment.”
“Why not... Morgana’s saggy tits, she thinks they’re going to wake up the Queen.”
“Indeed, and it would be better if we didn’t immediately try to slaughter everyone in the area on our way to the Queen.”
“Then what?”
E’jeah flares her mandibles, “We will return after easter, and either wipe out the hive or return to Hogwarts.”
“E’jeah, how likely is it you’ll need to wipe out the hive?”
“A hunter always keeps their weapons sharp.”
Moody digests this for a moment, “They’re going to kill everyone here aren’t they.”
“Probably.”
Moody turns to face the bundle of activity that is the Unspeakables carving some sort of massive ritual array, “Why don’t you think it’s going to work?”
E’jeah taps a few icons on the computer, “Here, thermal energy converters. Yautja technology that will wake up the Queen and power the hive. Tried to tell, but ignored as not magical.”
“Bloody idiots, I assume they spouted the ‘technology can’t function around magic’ rubbish.”
E’jeah nods, even as Moody pointedly looks at the working scanning computer, “Right, well I’m not staying here either. I’ll go with you when you leave.”
“I can’t you wouldn’t…”
“Then give me one of those bloody face things, I can’t get back to Britain on my own, and I’m not suicidal. Or stupid for that matter.”

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Theresa looks over at Donald with a smile on her face, something she’s been doing a lot since she was given the face-hugger, “Donald, do you remember when we went to that park when Sally was 5?”
Donald looks up from his paper sadly, as it’s probably another memory that she got from Sally, “I do.”
Theresa beams, “How about the bit where you tried to make her some candyfloss while she was on the Merry-go-Round?”
Donald laughs, “Yeah, that was funny. I had to get candyfloss out of my hair after that gust of wind.”
“Oh good, so it’s not my imagination that I licked it out of your ear in the family bathroom.”
“Tess! That was mortifying… Tess… That’s one of your memories isn’t it.”
Theresa nods, “I’m never sure if they’re real or not though. Like the time we were making love on a cheap bed when a cockroach fell out of the ceiling and landed on your shoulder.”
Donald laughs, “No, that was real. Mum volunteered to say over for the weekend and look after Sally, so we drove out into the countryside and booked into the first bed and breakfast that said it had vacancies.”
“See, that’s what I mean. I don’t remember the rest of that, just the bed and screaming when the cockroach landed.” Theresa takes a deep breath, “Donny, we, that is the hive, need to leave Earth over the Easter holidays. And, well, I was hoping you might join the hive so we can go together.”
“Tess, you don’t know what you’re asking. I’m a man damn it.”
Theresa shakes her head, “I do, Henry Granger, Hermione’s father, is going through the same thing.”
“Tess.”
Theresa scribbles a number before she leaves the room in tears, “This is their number.”
Donald stares at the scrap of paper as he hears the front door slam. He stands there for a long time in silence, long enough for the ticking clock to seem loud and maddening. Eventually, he turns the piece of paper over and writes, “I’m sorry, I can’t do this.” On the otherside, before grabbing a few changes of clothes and driving to a friends house.
Half an hour later, Theresa lets herself back in and sees the note. As she bursts into tears, she disappears in a flash of fire.

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As the Easter holidays begin, the Head Master, all of the aliens, most of the first year Hufflepuffs, and a couple of key staff members all leave Hogwarts for the holiday. This leaves Quirrell supervising the school with only a few other teachers. It’s therefore not hard for him to arrange to be on patrol during the main feast of the holiday, as the other professors are all interested in enjoying the meal and company than the lonely task of walking the school.

As soon as he’s sure that everyone’s at the feast, he hurries to the third floor corridor. There it’s a simple matter to bypass the devils snare and make his way to the obstacle course. There he grimaces, even as he looks up at the flashing blades while the flashing light stabilises. Despite his Lords assistance, he has had absolutely no success in being able to bypass the obstacle course. On top of that, if he hadn’t had his Lords assistance with the rituals, the course would have killed him many times over.
Over the next hour, and with the assistance of conjured parchment, feathers, and even ink, Quirrell slowly makes his way up the course to the open doorway. As he claws his way over the edge of the doorway with his remaining fingers, after losing a hand to the same blade that made him miss the jump last time, he lets out a deep breath.
Walking forward, he brings his wand up and sends lights ahead of him into the room beyond. Stopping in surprise, he surveys the resin covered room, looking for any surprises or exits. Scattered around the room are two dozen leathery sacks, one of which starts to open. A quick severing charm deals with the creature that comes out.
“What do you think Master?”
“The stone must be in one of these things, proceed carefully as I’ve never seen a creature like that.”
Over the next 5 minutes Quirrell takes out his frustrations on the creatures in each of the two dozen eggs, making sure that he has a clear view of the entire room at all times. Unnoticed behind him, hidden behind a fold in the resin by the door, the first magical egg that Luna ever laid hatches.

As Quirrell vanishes the creatures remains, he carefully cuts open each of the eggs and sorts through it with a conjured stick. He’s just reaching the last row when something drops on his shoulder from the ceiling. Spinning around, his wand already coming up as he dodges to one side, he is blindsided by a face-hugger using it’s tail to catch his neck and latch on as it covers his face.

Groggily, Quirrell rolls onto his side onto one of those creatures he must have missed, “Master, I don’t think the stone is in here.”
“What happened Quirrell?”
“I don’t know master, I think I blacked out. Possibly one of those seizures you’ve been having.”
“We will have to try again, though they’ll be on guard next time.”
“Yes Master.”

With that Quirrell walks out of the room, and sends an aresto momentum charm at the floor as he jumps.

 

Chapter 24

The Easter holidays are almost over when the Russians finish with their setup. E’jeah takes one look at them starting before she begins packing away the electronic equipment. Moody isn’t even that gentle as he opens his trunk to the expanded compartment, and just throws the computer components in before closing it all and grabbing E’jeah’s hand while his other hand is shrinking the trunk back down. As soon as the trunk is shrunk down, E’jeah disappears in a flash of phoenix fire, Moody along with her.

10 ritualists and 30 dragon hunters don’t even notice their disappearance as their attention is focused on the entrance to the hibernating hive. As the ritual reaches a crescendo a cloud of fire appears above the circle with creatures and faces forming as it angrily tries to escape it’s bonds. Beneath it, a funnel of air slowly starts to form, leading through the narrow opening in the rock and ice to the chambers below. Suddenly, the funnel reaches the cloud of fire and transforms into a tornado of fire, sucking down into the hive and through the permafrost torching everything in its path.
Off to one side, a diviner, bent over a polished silver plate with a thin layer of water covering the surface, calls out to the dragon hunters, “It’s working, it’s working.”

One of the dragon hunters turns to translate the message to the two brits that brought them the information and gave them so much knowledge on the layout with their strange magical device. As they walk over to see where the pair have gone, the fire comes into contact with the first of the ancient yautja thermal converters. As it does, it begins to power still more ancient machinery. As the fire comes in contact with a second thermal converter, a depleted fusion reactor starts to fire before throwing an error to the system. This reroutes the charge that’s being generated to massive capacitor banks while atmospheric pumps start to draw in oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide, and compressing them into separate fusion storage tanks. What little atmospheric helium and water that can be found is split and pumped directly into the fusion chamber. By the time the fire reaches the third converter, the system has enough energy to spare to start activating the rest of the hive complex. There, massive electrical furnaces start to pump warm air around the complex while adjusting the walls so that the fire is contained to the converters that are buried through the earth to the power centre.

Above ground the Diviner starts to shout that something’s gone wrong, but the ritualists are committed until the last of the Fiend Fyre goes underground.

Deeper underground, at the centre of the complex, the platform that should hold the queen slowly rises to the laying platform. Once there massive electrical discharges play over the frozen form of the queen that’s laying to one side of the shaft the platform came from. As they do, the queen is jolted out of hibernation, and the same systems note the movement and begin broadcasting a countdown timer.
On the surface, the last of the fire funnels into the cave and burns up the last of the tether between the surface and the fire.

As the ritualists make their way to the tents the leader of the expedition makes his way over to the diviner, “Did we get them all?”
The diviner shakes his head sadly, “No, there is one left deep inside the cave.”
A thump from deep underground interrupt their conversation as the capacitors discharge all at the same time to create the magnetic bottle and ignite the hydrogen and helium mix in the fusion reactor. Now starved of magic and combustible material the fire also burns itself out.
The diviner replaces the water that was spilt with the rocking of the earth before recasting the spell they were using. As they do, the spell takes a while to locate the large Raka that they found before. When it does, the queen has already moved off of the platform and its electric shocks. It is now starting to lay eggs, and it already has two eggs on the floor around it.
The leader shakes his head, “We cannot allow it to replace its eggs. Dragon Hunters, gear up and prepare to beard the dragon in its lair.”

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A mile above the dark side of the moon, a Yautja home ship receives the activation signal and sounds an alarm. One of the Yautja left on the ship looks up from their observations of earth to investigate the alert. Taking a second glance it walks over to the computer and enters the code being broadcast from the awakened hive. As the map of the hive renders, its eyes are immediately drawn to the icon for the queen away from the laying platform. A group of 30 icons breaching the entrance to the hive causes it to snap it’s head up before swearing and barking some commands into the communications suite. As the other two members of the hunting party still on ship come running, they watch as another movable wall is removed somehow, and the dots move on.

Moving the display back to the Queen, they’re startled to see just how many eggs she has laid already. Almost like she’s gearing up for an inter-hive war. One of the other two has already moved over to the main communications station to call their clan and inform them of the development, while the third edges the ship around the moon so that the earth is in view of the sensors. Once there, they begin an in-depth scan of the planet to locate any rogue traces of xenomorphs, as an inter-hive war is likely to end with the planet becoming uninhabitable for non-xenomorphs very quickly.

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Moody and E’jeah appear in a bunk room with oversized furniture. As Moody starts to head to the door, E’jeah grabs his shoulder, “Stay, Queen is on the way with a face-hugger.”
Moody stops and leans against the table while they’re waiting. When the door opens, it’s only the fact that E’jeah has a hand on his wand arm that stops him from firing whatever spells he can at the biggest damn Raka he’s ever seen. When it reaches out a claw and a face-hugger jumps off, E’jeah has to pin him down while it attaches to his face.
“Calm, say calm. If you do then it won’t knock you out, and you’ll be free to wander the ship. Otherwise, you’ll wake up on the bed with a sore throat in an hours’ time.”

Moody wakes up on the bed an hour later, his throat scratchy and a glass of water visible on the table. As he brings his hand up, he smiles as he realises, he’s holding his wand. After running through a large battery of spells, he finally determines that the glass of water is actually sapphire, but the contents of the glass are in fact water. Taking a sip, he smiles as he realises that he’s far from the reach of any of the myriad enemies he’s made over his long career as an Auror and Hitwizard. After throwing up a battery of wards and protections over the door, Moody climbs back onto the bed. Then, for the first time in a couple of decades, he relaxes. His wand still held in his hand, but his eye makes lazy orbits in its socket rather than the frantic spinning it normally does.

It’s a short while later that a voice says, “Ohh, these are good. Now why did you do this. No, no, that’s no good, that sort of thinking would kill a hive under orbital bombardment. Also no thoughts about how the material can be degraded without magic. Sound doesn’t travel through the area, good to hide your own sounds, but learning to move silently better. Hmm, right, coming in.”
Moody starts at that thought, and reflexively fires a banisher at the xenomorph that pops into the room with him. One that it adroitly dodges by jumping onto the wall. It then starts dodging more and more of what he’s throwing at it.
“You need to work on not telegraphing your thoughts, and on your speed. Your wand it just too slow. Right, I see, you can’t feel the hive yet. I’ll be back when you can. I’m Rula by the way.”
Breathing heavily, Moody stares at the place the xenomorph just disappeared from. His eye whirling rapidly again.
“How can you see anything with your eye going that fast? You’d never see a Yautja hunter coming doing that. Or a scout for that matter. Stop! You just missed me, see, no behind you, up bit further around. See, I’m just sitting right here. Ohh, we need to get some of these, where did you buy this, wait, can we… Arry, Arry, look at this. This might even be worth learning to be human.”
Moody stares at the place between bulkheads where Rula is lying along the length of a structural beam. How does he know they’re bulkheads and structural beams?
“Oh, you’re starting to pull memories from the hive.”

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On a ship that is now high above the northern pole of the planet below, the four members of the hunting pod watch the scanners with a growing sense of frustration and excitement. First, they found the probable cause of the Queen laying eggs at such a furious rate, in a xenomorph trace in the north of a small island a quarter of a rotation from the hive. A deeper scan of the location brought up the remains of over two dozen eggs that the locals must have destroyed. At the same time, the 30 humans that entered the training ground were attacked by the face-huggers before being disabled personally by the queen. While two of the hunters were gearing up, the third watched as a wave of face-huggers left the hive for the surface and away from the scanners in the training ground.

This is when the three of them made the decision to move the ship into a polar position so that their own scanners could look at the hive site as well as keep track of the lone chest burster they found. None too soon, they were able to start a more detailed scan of the area, revealing another 20 humans, 19 humans.
“No’dtaid, didn’t you do the maintenance on the sensors?”
No’dtaid lashes out at Bote, “Idiot, I did. Look, an infected human just appeared here, 3 degrees from their previous location.”
“Pauk! I’m sending the data to the clan ship.”
Bote soon came back, “The matriarch has ordered us to maintain sensor contact and cancel all other hunts on the planet. We have 20 pods coming in for a grand hunt, there will be much honour to be gained.”

That was a few days ago, now the hive numbers nearly 100 fully grown xenomorphs with another 20 three degrees away from the main hive. The Queen hasn’t stopped laying eggs, even though the local wildlife has been completely depopulated within 10 knells of the hive. Suddenly the scanner beeps as it detects a Yautja appear outside the hive, eliciting an immediate response from the xenomorphs inside. All four of the Yautja come running and Bote heads straight for the communications to warn the Yautja of the incoming danger. He stops only inches from the button as the scanner shows another 8 Yautja appear and take up positions by the entrance.
Then the hive sentries reach the entrance and battle is joined. They watch helplessly as two additional exits are revealed where the hive starts to flank the hunters. Then the sensor glitches, and when it comes back online it shows the number of xenomorphs has changed and there are around 30 humans nearby.
No’dtaid swears, “Pauk, when did the xenomorphs learn tactics?”
Bote rushes back to look at what No’dtaid is pointing at, as he watches, it’s clear that there are two groups of xenomorphs, and one of them is defending the humans and Yautja. There’s also some sort of glitching static in the training ground itself, with the sensors getting faint locks on an unknown lifeform before it disappears. The Queen seems to be going frantic, as eggs disappear off the scanner with each glitch. The scanner glitches again, and suddenly there are three queens next to each other, and around a quarter of the xenomorphs on the surface turn back towards the hive. It’s not long after that for the Hive they were monitoring to be wiped out completely. Including the 20 that were elsewhere.

As the xenomorphs and humans start to vanish from the scanner, the scanner glitches again, and the Yautja that were outside the training area are now inside. When the entire facility goes off line, the four of them are not that surprised based on the position of the Yautja in the facility.
Once the computer finishes reprocessing the scan data, and labels the existing xenomorphs before the first of the Yautja arrives. At the end of the replay, the four of them are at least able to take solace in the fact the attacking queens lost some of their own xenomorphs.

A few hours after the reprocessing finishes, the first of the hunters arrive and receives both the raw and processed sensor data. Over the next rotation of the planet below, the rest of the hunters arrive.

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It’s during lunch on the last day of the Easter holidays when Quirrell drops his knife and fork as his chest explodes in pain. As he clutches at his chest, he shakes in agony before a small black creature explodes out of it, and scuttles off the table. As Quirrell tries to take a breath with his heart destroyed, and lungs torn open, a black mist seeps from underneath his turban before forming into a ghostly figure and shooting out of the school.

Over at the Slytherin table, Millicent Bulstrode sees the creature scuttling past the table, and leans over to catch it with her hand.
“Oh, you are a cutie aren’t you. You must be ravenous after all that effort.”
Deftly avoiding its biting mouth, she takes a chicken drumstick from the table and carefully holds it towards the creatures mouth.
Around her, the other Slytherin, that didn’t return home for Easter, back away as she coo’s at the creature while it devours the chicken, bone and all.
As she continues to feed it, Theo ventures, “Bulstrode, um, do you have any idea what that is?”
Millicent nods, “Of course I do, it’s a baby one of those creatures the Hufflepuff’s turn into. You can see the dome at the front is the same. Aren’t you a little cutie, you are, aren’t you. Anyway, they’re much like the lizards that we keep at home for their tails. Not that I’m going to take your tail, don’t worry.” She hands it a cube of raw meat from the bowl that an elf has kindly put on the table.

Almost an hour later, as the meal is just coming to a close, a distressed looking Septima walks in with a sleeping baby in each arm. Behind her comes Moody and a few Veela, along with a couple more babies.

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Half way through the easter holidays, Donald finally builds up the courage to return home and talk things out with both Theresa and Sally. As he lets himself in, a shiver runs down his spine as the house smells weird, and the only sound that’s audible is the fridge-freezer in the kitchen. Behind him, the door closes with a bang and he jumps slightly. A frown develops on his face as he checks the living room, and then the kitchen. Especially when he opens the fridge and the smell of off milk hits him. Slowly, he makes his way upstairs, his heart and stomach dropping with each step. As he enters their bedroom, he can see that it's exactly as he left it, except the note he wrote is lying on the floor. Carefully, he reaches down and picks up the note and turns it over in his hands, before slumping on the bed, tears slowly trickling down his cheeks.

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Ptiana stares at Ennantum as he tries to steal one of her strawberries, “Just because you’re in a hive, doesn’t mean you can eat my fruit.”
Ennantum looks at her, “It’s not just your fruit, it’s for all of us.”
“No way, the Grangers bought it, and they’re part of my hive not yours. Ask one of your own hive members for fruit.”
Ennantum huffs, “I was going to bring you a dirigible plum later, but see if I care. First you wouldn’t help us out with an egg, and now you won’t share fruit that was bought for everyone.”
Ptiana nudges a punnet of strawberries towards Ennantum, “Now, let’s don’t be hasty.”

 

Chapter 25

Bubona surprises herself when, instead of freaking, she gently takes Murph from Madam Bones when she drops by for a surprise visit.
As the chest burster turns into a baby with a tail, Bubona looks up, “Thank you for bringing her over. Do you mind if I ask what happened to her?”
Amelia smiles, “We found what we thought was a wild hive in Russia, and the Russians tried to take care of it with magic. That’s why we had to leave for Easter.”
Vesta comes running over, “Mummy, mummy, is Murph home?”
Bubona looks down at her daughter, “Yes dear, though something’s happened to her. Madam Bones, do you have time for a cup of tea while you tell the story?”
Amelia cocks her head before nodding, “Certainly, call me Amelia as I’m not on duty at the moment.”

Once they’re sat down for some tea, with a plate of biscuits sitting next to a bowl of Acromantula legs, Amelia leans back as she crunches on a leg thoughtfully, “I guess the story starts a few months ago, when Moody and E’jeah finally made their way to the area that Raka, the wizarding name for Murph’s species, are most commonly seen in. Originally we, that is Arry and the Yautja, wanted to scan the planet from space. However, they found that they couldn’t just transport themselves to the moon, as none of them had ever actually been there. It’s funny, we can flame to a couple of dozen planets halfway around the galaxy, and a couple of spaceships, but we can’t flame the 240,000 miles to the moon.” Shaking her head she continues, “Sorry about that, a lot of this is still unbelievable to me. Anyway, they used some of the equipment from Arry’s ship to locate the actual hive. When they found it, they started to map it out with magic and that bit of equipment. Shortly before the Easter break, E’jeah realised that the planned attack, the were going to use, wouldn’t kill all the Raka in the hive, because of some complicated bit of technology that I don’t understand. Anyway, they tried to tell the Russians about it, but they just heard the word technology and stopped listening. After all, everyone in the magical world knows that technology doesn’t work around magic.”
Bubona nods along until she remembers her Christmas present from Murph, a pair of very fancy non-magical glass windows that show changing information and react when you touch them, “I think, I don’t believe that anymore.”
Amelia nods again, “Your Christmas present?”
“Yes, not the creepy one though. So what happened after that?”
“As the Easter holidays came, we, that is the human adults, decided that it was too risky for the students if we stayed on earth while the Russians tried to clear out the hive, so we all headed to Arry’s ship for the holiday. E’jeah, and surprisingly Moody, joined us a few days before the holiday finished. That’s when we knew they’d started. It took us a couple of days to persuade the children that they weren’t allowed to take part in the attack on the hive, at the same time we planned our attack and arrival based on E’jeah and Moody’s memories of what was there. Good thing we did, as the fight was brutal. I wasn’t there, as Sue pulled the if you can go, then I can go, card because she can turn into a xenomorph and I can’t yet.”
Amelia takes a drink of her tea while she thinks about what to say next with Vesta in the room, “I won’t go into details, as they are far too disturbing for young ears, but we lost 10 humans and veela, and around 20 xenomorphs in the fight. Murph there took a blow for Moody, who was then able to kill a handful of xenomorphs with a fire whip. We didn’t realise until after the battle and we got back to the ship, well they got back to the ship, that we’d also got the phoenix rebirth as well as their flame travel. The house elves had just been transporting our ‘dead’ back to a room on the ship. Anyway, we were all sombre and morning on the ship, when the first baby woke up and started crying, and Minerva, Professor McGonagall, screams over the hive ‘Someone better get over here and clean me up right now, or so help me I will hex first and ask questions later’.”
Bubona bursts out laughing, “She really said that?”
Amelia nods, “She did, as she turned into a newborn baby, with the same control as a baby.”
Bubona considers it for a moment, “I can see that, at least she can tell you. I remember how much trouble we had with Vesta. Why is Murph like this though?”
Amelia looks at the sleeping baby that Bubona is cradling as she considers her answer ultimately deciding on, “I think that’s why.”
Bubona looks at the baby with a confused expression, however Vesta immediately looks excited, “I get a baby sister. Mummy, is that true, is Murph now my baby sister?”

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Filius stands up as the last of the students file into the Great Hall from the Express, “Good evening everyone. There is an, unexpected, yes, let’s go with unexpected, announcement I need to make.” He glances over at the highchair in place of the Head Masters chair, “Due to unforeseen circumstances, both Transfiguration and Runes are cancelled for the next week. Classes will resume next week, once your teachers are old enough to teach for a couple hours without a nap.” He sighs, “Instead, your classes will be supervised by Miss Dunns and Master Pince in the library where you’ll be given research assignments to do. These assignments have been set by the Head Master and Master Babbling, and should stretch your knowledge of Transfiguration and Runes in preparation for when they are able to resume teaching. Enjoy the Feast everyone.”
Slightly uncomfortably, Filius sits down to his own meal as a house elf bottle feeds Minerva, and further down the table, Septima bottle feeds Bathsheba.

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Once the other Yautja leave the training complex, a ship touches down outside the battlefield, and three hunters disembark before the forth takes the ship back into orbit. Slowly and meticulously, they survey the battlefield taking careful note of where each participant should have fallen, and looking for their remains. With the surface battlefield surveyed, they cautiously make their way into the hive keeping a careful eye out for any traps that were left behind.
Much to their surprise, they don’t find any, and everything that could be stripped out has been. Including one of the massive thermal converters and the reactor. What they don’t find has them far more concerned, as there are no human remains, or even the remains of xenomorphs from the other hives. There are piles of ashes, that are almost scattered to the winds, that might have come from those casualties, however there are no discernible organic traces left in those piles. Something that should be impossible for the amount of energy they detected being used in that battle.

Returning to space, they start to discuss their findings and planning of a grand hunt.

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Luna smiles as she looks over her new batch of eggs. Her new nest is still uncomfortably close to her mother’s nest, she sighs in contentment at having a mother again. However, it’s in somewhere that Henry Granger called The Mess. Though no one in her hive could understand why somewhere that was so neat and tidy would be called a mess. Maybe once she gets her own mobile nest, she can offer the mess there to her mother. It’s still better than any of the larger rooms near the outside of the ship though.

As she’s looking at the walls, trying to decide where to place resin for reinforcement, and where to leave bare so that she can paint, violet lights in the ceiling start to flash, and an irritating screeching tone starts to echo around the room. Holding her ears, she quickly finds the feeling of T'o-Ba'sall and pops to her location.
“What is that noise!?”
T'o-Ba'sall looks up from the console she frantically working on, “It’s the emergency broadcast system! We just repaired it with parts retrieved from the enemy hive!”
“Well, unrepair it then!”
T'o-Ba'sall looks back to the console, where she was working on just that. It takes her a few minutes to change the display to one that she can actually use, and then a matter of seconds to shut off the speakers.
Luna sighs in relief, “Oh, that’s better. Can you do something about the lights too please?”
T'o-Ba'sall looks slightly confused, until she takes her mask off to use her more human eyesight to see the flashing violet light at the edge of what she can see, “I really must remember that I can see some human visible colour now.”
Luna blinks a couple of times before her eyes finish clearing, idly she looks at the alien script on the console, “So, was there anything else that was fixed, and do you know anyone who could teach us to read these consoles?”
T'o-Ba'sall looks at Luna in surprise, “You can’t read it?”
Luna sighs, “Sort of, I’ve got your memories up here, so I can use them to read and understand what’s there. But it’s not automatic like it is when there’s a hive member close enough that understands.”
T'o-Ba'sall stops for a moment as she considers that, “I hadn’t considered that, though if that’s the case, how are you understanding me?”
Luna laughs brightly, “I learnt your language silly, it’s much easier than learning to read after all. Anyway, was anything else fixed?”
T'o-Ba'sall nods, “The elves have been remarkably eager to learn how to maintain the ship, once they worked out that there are instructions on how to repair things properly. We’ve been able to use the fusion generator from the enemy hive to repair the main powerplant on the ship. The elves were able to get new power runs from somewhere, so the ship is now all wired up properly. Replacing the last of the… Ah, here it is.”
Luna looks down at the display curiously, “Here what is?”
“The emergency beacon. It’s been broadcasting our location since Arry took over the ship. Right, I’m heading to Arry’s nest to change course, and increase our speed a little

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Arbiter Thwau’tha-Than walks briskly back to his personal ship after he, along with the other Arbiter’s, moved out of the guest quarters during the lull in strange occurrences over the last tenday. Something that, in hindsight, was a good idea, as where before they were merely annoying, they’re now becoming dangerous. Only the other rest period did the ship power down for five minutes. When they got the power back up, they discovered that the main power run had disappeared. Not damaged, clearly removed from it’s runners around the centre of the ship, and to the engines. Now they’re running on ¼ power, as that’s all the redundant energy runs can handle.

On top of that Thwau’tha-Than and the other four Arbiter’s are very close to revoking the clan’s status and ability to declare bad-bloods as the evidence is damning. The only thing they’re missing is the victims or their bodies. When they do, it’s likely that they’ll be facing a host of honour challenges from the elders of the clan.

Suddenly he comes to a halt, and draws his blade, as a short bipedal creature appears in front of him. While it looks at him curiously, he lunges towards it weapon first. While he’s closing the gap between them, it raises its hand and clicks its fingers. As it does, all of his equipment clatters to the floor as it appears two paces behind him. The Arbiter doesn’t hesitate, though the loss of his weapon means he missed the creature with his first strike. His follow up only passes through wisps of fire as the creature nods before disappearing in a flash of fire.

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A much fitter and slimmer Draco rubs his chest where they cut him open last time they caught him. Despite perfecting the apparition that he did accidentally, and being able to keep away from the hunting parties for almost a month, they did eventually catch him. When they did, they cut him open while he was still awake, and placed something inside his chest.
“Dr’co, stop lazing and get some water!”
“Yes Matriach!”
Draco quickly apparates out to the river that’s a few hours walk from the settlement and fills two leather buckets. That’s another thing that’s happened, he’s learnt to speak the local language, and has been turned into the villages water boy.

Once he returns to the village, he drops the buckets and abases himself on the floor as he sees a Yautja in the village. Oh how it rankles, but it’s clear he can’t fight against them.
“Dr’co, come.”
Draco’s eyes widen in fear as he hesitantly gets to his feet. Together they walk outside the village to the ‘sparing’ ground, where there’s a rock sat in the middle of the cleared earth.
“Move rock.”
Draco walks forward to pick up the rock, however the Yautja back hands him to the floor, “Stay there, move rock.”
“But I can’t do that.”
The Yautja points at rock then looks up, “You have half rest period, move rock. No move rock, hunt tomorrow.”
Draco’s eyes widen in panic as he wracks his mind for how he could possibly do what they want him to do.

 

Chapter 26

Theresa cautiously flames into the bathroom of her house before using house elf invisibility to check if Donald has any guests. As she makes her way downstairs she finds Donald asleep in a chair that he’s turned to face the front door, surrounded by empty beer cans and takeaway cartons. Lying on his lap is the photo they normally keep on the mantlepiece, and the TV is showing BBC 2 in the background.
Silently she asks, “Can anyone teach me how house elves do that instant cleaning up thing?”
“Nissy will be right over and clean up.”
“No! This is my house, I will clean it.”
“Is house elfs job to clean.”
“It is my house, and my job to clean it.”
“Loopy think Tessy should be house elf. Tessy need imagine where rubbish go then click fingers with magic. Then imagine clean things and point at what needs cleaning.”
“Thank you Loopy. What are you doing here?”
“Loopy looking for fixing books.”
“I’ll show you to a bookshop in a few days time.”

It takes her several tries, and some guidance from Loopy, and she’s still not sure where the first pile of rubbish went, as it wasn’t in either of their bins. However, the living room is once again tidy, and the carpet stain free. Once she’s finished, she sits on the stairs and watches Donald sleep thinking about how old he looks compared to her memories. That thought leads onto the thought that Ptiana is considered young by phoenix standards, at only 600 years old. Which then leads to thinking about some of the ancestral memories, and just how short her own life appears in comparison to those of the sentient queens. Is it right for her to remain in a relationship with someone so fragile, who she has barely any memories of, from the last 10 years.
As she does, she looks down at her nails, that have grown again while she was away, nails that can scratch glass.

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Narcissa sits disconsolately in the small solar of the Malfoy mansion. Arrayed on the coffee table in front of her are a few bits of jewellery and Lucius’s personal effects. Not that they amount to much, as most of what Lucius kept as his are dark artifacts that she’s asked Dobby to dispose of as they can’t even be covered by the many loopholes available to the noble houses. What’s left is an old endless diary with a painting charm applied to it. Useful as a novelty, but something that went out of fashion nearly 100 years ago when an impersonation charm was invented, as the hidden secrets could be revealed to the caster. There’s his wand cane, made from ebony and topped with silver. If the delays in being declared Regent of House Malfoy weren’t dragging on, she wouldn’t even consider selling this as Draco loved it.

At the thought of her son, tears spring into her eyes and she looks over at the life indicator that she commissioned last year using one of his hairs and a couple of drops of the blood they kept in case he was ever kidnapped. The rest of the vial went on a tracking charm to try and find him. That was before Lucius found out that the Lady Potter is politically untouchable and made his regrettable decision at Christmas. Coming to a decision, she picks up the cane and a necklace that her aunt Dorea gave her.
“Dobby.”
Dobby appears in front of her, looking much happier and healthier than he did before Christmas. Narcissa almost loses her composure again, as he says, “How can Dobby help the Great Mistress.”
Catching herself, she says, “Would you get me parchment and quill to write a letter. Once you’ve done that, everything on the table is to be sold. Use some of the money to buy yourself a new uniform.”
Dobby clicks his fingers, and the requested items appear on the table, “Dobby thinks the diary should be burned.”
Narcissa give a sardonic smile, “If only we could afford to. However, we still need to eat, and despite the wonders you’ve done in the kitchen garden, that means buying food. Meat mainly. I’m going to write to the Lady Potter again, and if this letter doesn’t get to her, I’ll try to meet her on the platform at the end of the year.”
Dobby’s ears droop, “Dobby understands.” He hesitates for a moment before he continues, “Dobby was offered a way out of his bond. Dobby refused as Great Mistress is good family. But Dobby heard that same method was used to free Veela.”
Narcissa looks confused, “Dobby, what are you saying? Are you asking for clothes, as I would be lost without you if you are.”
Dobby waves his hands, “No, no, Dobby no want clothes. Dobby think…” He trails off as he struggles to explain his thoughts.
Narcissa looks at the house elf that became fanatically devoted to her, after she asked him to join her for dinner one evening in March, when the loneliness got to be too much for her, “Dobby, take your time and maybe explain why you think this is a good idea.”
Dobby looks shifty, as though he’s been caught doing something bad, “Dobby sometimes goes to Hoggywarts to help out. Not that the Great Mistress doesn’t have enough work for Dobby, she does. But they trade for help. Dobby hears that homeless elves given family with Great Raka Arry. Say Law Witch also family. Dobby think if Great Mistress also family, young master maybe found.”
After a long glance at Draco’s life indicator, that shows he’s sleeping, Narcissa sags in her chair and swallows her pride. “Dobby, get me another sheet of parchment.”
Narcissa writes two letters. Once she’s finished she hands one of them to Dobby, “Dobby, please take this to the DMLE and see it gets to Madam Bones. Once you’ve done that, sell these items and make sure the Manor is well stocked.”
The other letter she ties to the family owl, and sends off.

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Fudge quietly opens the door to Amelia’s office and slips in with a distressed expression on his face. Absently, Amelia lifts her wand and transfigures the chair into something a little more comfortable while she finishes the current bit of paperwork she’s working on. As she puts the quill down, she looks up at Fudge, “Good afternoon Minister, I wasn’t expecting to see you this afternoon.”
Fudge bends the edge of his bowler over and over as he nervously turns it in his hands, “Madam Bones, I need your advice.”
“What could you possibly need my advice for?”
“Y…you’re the only neutral person I can think of. Malfoy’s dead, Dumbldore’s healing, Umbridge is dead, and now 3 of my major donors are facing bankruptcy. What do I do?”
“Why are you asking me?”
“They want me to arrest the Headmistress.”
“Head Master”, Amelia corrects.
“The Head Master, and have her actions in the last board meeting declared illegal.”
Amelia nods, “I see, and were they?”
“Were what?”
“Were her actions illegal?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, shouldn’t that be your priority. How can you be expected to make a decision if you don’t know what’s going on?”
“That’s what Delores was supposed to do, I’m just a politician, I know people not laws.”
“Isn’t there another adviser you can turn to?”
Fudge shakes his head sadly, “She was the only one that knew anything beyond filing. How did it get like this?”
Amelia carefully doesn’t think of the drawer full of supposition and circumstantial evidence tying the late Umbridge to a series of politically motivated assassinations in the early 80’s, while Crouch was still holding onto power in the DMLE, “I couldn’t possibly hazard an opinion on that. But surely that gives you a great opportunity to fill the department with people who can do, rather than leeches. I hear that the Head Master’s new assistant is muggleborn, and doing a very good job. Maybe she knows other muggleborn who would be perfect for the job. You also know that they won’t be after your position, as only people from established families can be minister.”
Fudge nods along, and then stops, “But what will the voters say?”
“Maybe it’s time to allow more people to vote, after all anyone from an established family can become minister, but they can’t vote for the minister. Only landowners can vote.”
Fudge looks at her as if she’s gone insane, “Who would vote for that?”
Amelia smiles, “I would, I would bet that the Weasleys, Longbottoms, Jones, Macmillians, and Hopkins would all do so too. Especially if you make it a national vote rather than a Wizengamot vote. How many families have second sons and daughters that will never be able to vote under the current rules?”
Fudge nods along, his eyes starting to glitter, “Yes, yes, and there are a lot of voters who only own small properties, and have never been elected to the Wizengamot. Amelia you’re genius. I could also sell bringing in a muggleborn as showing them that there is a future in our society. While they might not be able to vote now, once their family is established their grandchildren will be able to vote. Thank you Madam Bones, I’m going to draft an advert for the Prophet.”
Fudge gets up and leaves, a moment later he sticks his head back round the door, “How would I find out about the legality of the Head Masters actions?”
Amelia hides a smile, “Try the Department of Education, as Madam Marchbanks was the Ministry witness.”

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A six year old Minerva stands in front of her NEWT class, “Good afternoon class. Today we are going to look at the pinnacle of Transfiguration, the animagus transformation.”
There’s a snigger from the back of the class and Minerva’s wand lashes out, transforming the girls desk into an octopus, “Is there something funny Miss Horgan?”
The girl shakes her head, “No Head Master, it’s just, you sound like my sister.”
Minerva huffs, “Thank you for volunteering for today’s lesson then. I want you to restore your desk, then summarise what you learnt about the Animagus transformation over the last week.”
Horgan swallows hard as she wrestles the octopus for her wand. The only thing that saves her embarrassment is that Brew, on the other side of the class sniggers before finding his own desk turning into a python.
“Thank you for volunteering to be the second presenter, once you’ve restored your own desk you may begin.”

Minerva looks around the rest of the class, “Have no doubt, any of you who choose to join the duelling circuit will face far worse in your time there. Over your NEWT years we have covered both the practical and esoteric uses for transfiguration. We’ve shown how with the proper application, transfiguration can be permanent without the aid of any runes. You’ve learnt how to do silent conjuration, and transfiguration. Finally, you have all practiced self-transfiguration, both animate and seemingly inanimate. For the last weeks leading up to your NEWTs we are first going to cover the Animagus transformation. After that, we are going to cover how transfiguration has been used in duelling and war. There will be no homework for these classes in order to give you more time for revision, and none of what you learn here will be in your exams. If at the end of the week any of you wish to pursue your animagus form, see me after class on Friday.”
She looks up at the two students who are still struggling with their respective animals, “Miss Horgan, Mr Brew, how are you both getting on with your transfiguration?”
Horgan calls back, “I can’t move my wand Professor.”
Minerva sighs, “Anyone, what is Miss Horgan forgetting? Nobody?” After a moment she continues, “You don’t have to do everything at once. The first step is to free yourself, you have your wand in hand, so what could you conjure to free you from the octopus’s grasp.”
Brew quickly and silently conjures a gorilla to pull the head of the snake away from his hand, which Minerva is quick to reward, “Well done, 1 point to Ravenclaw. As you can all see, it’s often hard to think clearly in the heat of the moment.” She pauses as Horgan conjures a dragon, which starts to chew on the tentacle around her wrist, “Well done Miss Horgan. As I was saying. In July most of you will be looking for jobs where you may or may not use the skills you’ve learnt in this class. I certainly hope you choose a career where you can use them. However, you will all come across situations where the solution to a problem is not straightforward. In those situations, like today, you need to give yourself space to think and deal with the problem. Sometimes that may be literally, like today. Other times it will be metaphorically, and you just need to take a break, sleep on it, or go for a walk.
“You won’t always see these situations coming, Merlin knows how many times I’ve been caught off guard with them. However, if you take one thing from todays lesson, remember that sometimes you need to make space for you to think and deal with the situation. Miss Horgan, please come to the front of the class and tell us what you researched about the animagus transformation.”

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It’s well into May when Vivan is doing her stint in the secure ward, where those patients that are considered to be a danger to themselves and the public are housed. For her, it’s always a lonely few months while the regular staff have their holidays, as has to sleep in the attached accommodation in order to be on call if there is an emergency. Of which they have far too many. Making matters worse, she’d been dreaming of hunting in forests and waking up to shredded sheets. God bless the house elves, and their magic, as she was no Theresa, who seems to have picked up on elven magic like it was second nature.

Woosily, she clambers to her feet, her tail swishing backwards and forwards, as she listens to the sounds of whatever it is that woke her up. As her brain finally processes that it’s screaming, and not the normal screams that are somewhat of a background in places like this, but actual screams of terror, she barrels through her door. The lock not able to withstand her claws as she hits it dead centre. As she’s jumping off a wall on her way to the disturbance, she finally wakes up enough to be aware of her own body. Between one step and the next she changes into her human form, as it wouldn’t do to panic the patients more than necessary. As she rounds a corner and barrels through a set of double doors, she skids to a halt as she sees Zak charging towards a Yautja with a padded shield, Issac and Everly close behind him with their own shields.
As she processes what she’s seeing, the Yautja moves as if to punch Zak, and blades mounted on its wrist slice through the shield as though it didn’t exist, quickly followed by Zak’s head as it completes the movement with a barely noticeable reduction in force. Issac and Everly both stop as blood covers both of their faces.

Vivian, on the other hand, sees red, and launches herself at the Yautja, not even noticing as she reverts to her natural form, or the fact she considers it natural.
It only takes a minute or so for help to arrive as she darts in and out in animalistic fury, trying to take it down with little thought for tactics. A battle that she’s steadily losing, despite Everly trying to help, and receiving a slash across her chest, and a kick to take her out of the fight.

By the time Hermione arrives first, Vivian has sacrificed an arm to the wristblades, and they are already starting to fall to pieces as the acid from her blood eats through them. That just meant it drew a sword from its back instead. Amazingly, the Yautja is able to abort its final attack on Vivian, to turn the lunge into a roll as Hermione’s tail passes through the space it was just occupying. That doesn’t help it when first Susan, then Hannah, and finally Sally-Anne all appear in quick succession and pull Vivian into a tighter link than the one she’s used to. With the five of them working together, and their experience with hunting acromantula, the Yautja soon lays dead on the floor, its wrist computer broken beyond repair.

As she comes down from her frenzy, Vivian becomes aware of Everly screaming. Quickly, she shifts into her human form, before rushing over to inspect her wounds. Tears stream from her eyes as she realises that Everly is likely going to die, even if paramedics get here in the next minute, as the wound she took has sliced through the bottom of her lung, and the top of her stomach. As the first tear drops from her face, and into the wound, the wound starts to heal starting with the stomach wound and the damage from the acid that leaked out.
Gently, Hermione places a claw on her mothers back, “Keep crying mum, your tears will heal the wound.”
It’s only a couple of minutes later when the sound of a police helicopter comes overhead, with the sound of sirens faintly audible in the distance. With that sound, the students all disappear in flashes of fire back to their beds.

 

Chapter 27

Everly looks at the scene in the corridor with numb eyes after Vivian propped her against the wall next to Issac, who fainted. Her hands keep feeling over her abdomen, where there’s not even a scar from the attack. Her eyes keep flicking to the glowing green pool of blood that’s seeping through the sheet covering the monster. Her eyes snap back to Vivian when a pair of the opera gloves she’s been wearing appear out of nowhere, along with a muttered, “Thank you Misky.” That’s only audible due to the silence in the hallway.

Just before shouts from the rescuers become audible, Vivian takes a strange spear from the corpse and stabs it in one of the open wounds, before throwing it down the corridor. Then she walks over to Everly, who has started to shake, and crouches down.
“Hey Everly, how are you feeling?”
“Cold, what are you?”
Vivian looks over at the doors, “We’ll talk about it later. Right now, your adrenaline is wearing off, and you’re suffering psychological shock. I’m going to give you a mild sedative, it will help with the floaty feeling.” Vivian takes a syringe and medicine bottle out of the air, “Thank you Misky. I’m also going to prescribe 2 weeks sick leave, and I recommend you seek counselling for this.”

The doors at the end of the corridor slam open and a couple of armed police officers look around the edges of the door before shouting “Clear!” and lowering their weapons. The next few hours become a whirlwind of activity as most of the surviving staff and patients are evacuated into temporary housing, while Everly, Issac, and Vivian are all sent to the local hospital while the police technician’s and the coroners catalogue the trail of carnage that led to 15 dead, including the killer.

After an interview with a government department called UNIT, along with a cat scan of her body, Everly is sent home with a 6 week sicknote.

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Luna carefully makes her way through the school, popping past closed doors when they won’t just open for her, until she reaches the Slytherin dorm. Around her hand she has an adoption face hugger, and her quarry is likely to agree to join her hive. As she walks towards the chest burster, that’s getting close to it’s first molt, a prefect shouts, “Hey, you can’t be in here!”
Luna just turns around to face him, her tail lashing from side to side like a cobra, behind her head, “I just want to speak with someone, I won’t be long, I promise.”
“No, no visitors allowed without prior arrangement. Now, you can wait outside and I will ask whoever it is to come and see you.”
Luna cocks her head, “But I don’t know who it is, only that they have one of my children.”
“If you don’t leave right now, I will be forced to stun you.”
Luna smiles sweetly, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, as I don’t know how I’ll react.”

Turning around, Luna continues on her merry way, briefly jumping up to the ceiling as she changes into her queen form and a red light shoots beneath her, before landing on the floor again. Behind her, she leaves a sobbing prefect, as another 6^th year casts a torniquet spell and picks up his hand.

Eventually, her feet lead her to a dorm room door, where she stops and knocks primly. It takes a few minutes, but eventually the door opens to reveal Millicent Bulstrode, “Yes? Can I help you?”
Luna beams at her, “Hello, I thought I’d visit to say thank you for looking after the chest burster for me. She’s been very happy with your care.”
Millicent blinks, “Huh? She’s one of yours? I thought she’d be one of Arry’s.”
Luna shakes her head, “No, no, Arry wouldn’t be careless enough to leave eggs laying around where just anyone could stumble across them. Too much chance of them being destroyed, like 24 of my children were. On the bright side, one of them survived and was in good hands while I’ve been so busy with the house elves.”
“Oh, um, thanks, I guess.” Millicent glances sadly back into the room, “I guess you want her back then.”
Luna shakes her head, “Oh, no. Not at all. Not unless you want to give her back of course. It’s just she’s almost ready for her first moult, and once that’s done with she’ll be far more mobile. I don’t want her to accidentally kill or maim you if you accidentally touch her the wrong way.”
Millicent grimaces, “Um, I’ll just go and get her then.”
Luna holds up the face hugger, “No need, I’ve got a solution right here. If you accept this, you’ll be part of my hive, and you won’t need to worry about her misunderstanding you anymore.”
“Say I do accept,”
“I do accept, yay!”
Millicent staggers backwards as the face hugger leaps at her face and quickly latches on.
An hour later, Luna is sitting on the side of the bed, stroking the chest burster, who’s skin has started to turn white where it’s separating from the body inside. She smiles as Millicent starts to come around, “There, that wasn’t so bad was it. And just in time, as she’s started to moult, see?”
Millicent sits up groggily, “What happened?”
Luna smiles, “You joined my hive, don’t worry you didn’t forget much as it’s only your short-term memory that goes, maybe around 5 minutes of memory at most.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t worry about it, here’s the chest burster back. She’s just started moulting, so she’ll be a bit grouchy for a bit. Just remember to make sure that food’s readily available, and if you have any questions, you’re part of the hive so you can ask, or check the memories yourself.”
With that, Luna pops out of the room, and to the Main Hall, leaving a confused Millicent holding a moulting xenomorph.

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“Donald, we need to talk about this.”
Donald looks up at Theresa, “What’s there to talk about, you left. You left for two weeks.”
“What do you mean I left? I gave you an hour to give you privacy while you call Henry Granger, and when I came back you’d left, and written a note on the back of the phone number.”
“You left for two weeks without telling me, all you told me is that you wanted me to give up being a man.”
“You didn’t even listen to the whole of what I said did you, do you think I wanted to just leave you? I told you, the whole hive had to leave over easter. And I told you as soon as I could after I knew.”
“You’re the one that just walked out in tears.”
“Because I don’t want to hurt you accidentally. Do you have any idea just how fragile you are to me now? I can score glass with my fingernails, what do you think that would do to you?”
“So now you’re threatening me? What, are you going to kill me if I don’t join the hive.”
“Donald, that’s not what I said. Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“This Donald, not listening to me. Not actually talking to me. What happened to the man I remember, the one I married 13 years ago?”
“I’m still here, you’re the one that’s changed overnight. I’ve tried to be there for you, but you persist in not remembering our marriage.”
“You say it like I have a choice. I don’t, I really don’t. I’ve tried so hard to remember, but Vivian thinks I’m only going to get fragments back if I get any more memories. Sally will be back at the end of June, what then?”
“Oh, yay, my disabled daughter that turns into a monster out of a nightmare will be home. Maybe we’ll have another round of brain damage lottery, and I’ll be the one to forget everything.”
“She’s my daughter too you know, and you know they’re not going to do that again. If for no other reason than I’m magical too now.”
“So I’m the only normal person in the household now, is that it? The rest of you are freaks?”
Theresa bursts into tears and disappears with a flash of fire. Moments later Donald’s anger is quashed as he realises she’s not in the house, and he immediately regrets the last few minutes.

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Bradley is sitting in a booth in the Scotsman and Angel, in Manchester, trying to drown the dysphoria, when the drunk behind him starts crying, “Jace, what did I do wrong? Why did Theresa leave me?”
Jace says something inaudible, probably something about not shouting if the man’s next statement is anything to go by, “I’m not shouting, and she wanted me to become a Tranny, did you know that. Give up the wedding tackle for a beaver, probably pop out sprogs too.”
Bradley feels his heart skip a beat as the man’s companion tries to shush him again, which works to some extent, as Bradley has to strain to hear the next bit, “But she left me because I wouldn’t go through it, like the Granger bloke did. Poof, gone in a flash of smoke. First the freaks take her memory, now they’ve taken her too… No I won’t shut up, you don’t know what it’s like Jace. How does my wife score getting care from Vivian, when I work so hard to pay for everything, and I get ignored?... The one in the news last month… She gave him my number, fat lot of good it would do. I bet he’s a freaking Tranny and happy for the changes.” A ball of paper goes bouncing across the bar, “There, I don’t even have the number anymore, so I couldn’t call them even if I wanted to.”
Bradley stops listening as he tries to track the ball of paper, before getting up and walking in the general direction it went it, “Sorry, have any of you seen a balled up bit of paper? It’s got my girlfriends number on it, and some arsehole just threw it away.”

It takes him 15 minutes, but eventually he stumbles out of the pub with the bit of paper gripped triumphantly in his hand, and a black eye from a man who thought he was coming onto him. So worth it. Bradley wouldn’t use the number for a few weeks, as that’s when he’d get a letter from the Charing Cross Gender Clinic in London refusing her care because she wouldn’t wear skirts and blouses.

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Draco is emptying a couple of buckets into the communal trough, when an unfamiliar Yautja walks into the compound as if he owns the place. Draco pays him no mind as he disappears to the river and returns with another two buckets of water. It might be hard, exhausting work, but it pays his way in the village, as it saves everyone else so much time. He’s just about to leave for a third trip, when he hears a scream and the Yautja pulls Athe out of her hut by her hair. In the years to come, Draco will never be able to say just why he chose to act in that moment, but all of the rage and frustration of being hunted by younglings boils to the surface. As it does, he just wishes the Yautja would burn for all the suffering he's gone through, and his magic answers.
Athe scrabbles away as the Yautja lets go of her hair, and turns to face Draco, who is starting to look drawn. Identifying Draco as the source of his pain, the Yautja charges with a roar as his wrist blades extend. Even half blind from fire and suffering major burns all over his body, a Yautja is no easy foe. As such Draco only manages to dodge the first wild swing because of almost a year of being hunted by Yautja.
Even still, Draco has nothing to fight back with, so his dodging is just prolonging his death. Even still, he sees the Yautja’s combistick is loose in it’s sheath, as the fire burned away some of the fastenings. Desperately, he pulls for the stick with all his might, and collapses to the floor in exhaustion. For a moment it doesn’t move, and the Yautja moves in for the kill, then the harness gives way and the combistick flies into Draco’s hand.
As the Yautja leans down to grab his hair, Draco presses the extension button, causing the spear end to shoot up, while the butt digs into the ground. When he doesn’t die, Draco opens his eyes to see the spear going through the head of the Yautja, holding it up like some demented scarecrow.

He’s not sure how long he’s been lying there staring at the corpse with Athe softly sobbing in relief in the background, but time seems to restart when a familiar Yautja steps up next to him. Draco immediately scrabbles away from the corpse, and abases himself, hoping for a clean death. Instead, the Yautja looks at the corpse for a moment before collapsing the combistick and placing it on Draco’s hands, “Do better next time, practice.”

Draco can only stare at the stick as the corpse is dragged away.

 

Chapter 28

On the darkside of the moon, a temporary habitat has been dug into the shadow of one of the craters dotting the moon’s surface. There, several Yautja are looking at a model of the earth, as it fast forwards through their collected data again.
“Stop, there see. This is when Ditein made his foolish attack. See how the R’ka looks Ooman, and here is R’ka again. Then four more R’ka appear and Ditein is overwhelmed. This is why we study prey. Watch and learn about them, then we hunt. Never assume that this hunt is the same as last. Dark Blade clan has been doing this for 8 cycles, and they are now under Arbiter investigation. Here, Red Blade clan has claim for two more cycles, here we do right.”
The Yautja rewinds the display once more before she stabs her finger at a sensor glitch, “Here, what is this?” Fast forwarding it again, she stops and enlarges the map to show just after the attack, “Same here, what is it?” Moving on once more, she ends up looking at an area full of ooman signatures, with to R’ka signatures in a domicile, “And here. Same glitch. Also, where eggs? Where Queens? Why Ooman’s not dead? Hunt not glorious if there’s no chance for victory. Go and teach the young bloods, and thank clan Dust Hawk for knowledge of Oomans that can teleport. He has apparently earned a combistick.”

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Everly looks down at the slip of paper in her hand as the minicab drives off behind her. Screwing up her courage, she mutters, “You said we could talk about it later, and now’s later.” With that said, she walks up the path to the front door, which opens before she can knock, or find the doorbell. Standing there is Vivian, holding the door with
“Well, you better come in.” Vivian’s voice shocks Everly into looking away from the arm, and she climbs the couple of steps into the house in a daze.
As she reaches Vivian, Everly touches the arm, “But you lost this.”
Vivian shrugs, “It got better. Is there any reason you didn’t phone?”
“And say what? Especially after we had to sign the official secrets act.”
Vivian sighs and leads the way further into the house, “Come on, and don’t mind E’jeah, she’s here to dissuade any attacks like the one on the hospital.”
Everly stops in the doorway and just stares at E’jeah as her mind goes back to that few minutes. When she comes back, she’s feeling calm and slightly floaty while E’jeah holds her gently on her lap.
A deep voice comes from E’jeah, “Ow are you feeling now, little ooman?”
“Floaty, like I’m on clouds or something.”
“Good, it would not be good for you to be afraid of me.”
Everly look over her shoulder, up at E’jeah, “What are you?”
E’jeah’s mandibles open in her equivalent of a smile, “I am a hunter. What of you little ooman.”
“I was an orderly, but I don’t know what I am now. I didn’t even make it one day back at work. When I saw the padded shields we use, I just saw Zak’s head fly off.”
“You could learn to fight back.”
Everly laughs, “Humans don’t work like that. I’m no psych, but I’ve picked up enough to know what PTSD is, and that I probably have it.”

On the other side of the room Henry puts a hand on Vivian’s arm as a physical reminder not to talk.
E’jeah touches her cheek gently, “That is because oomans have forgotten their origins. What you call illness was once ingrained survival instinct.”
“I think there’s a lot wrong in that thinking. Humans also didn’t live long lives, with most dying before the age of 6, or in childbirth. See, I do remember my nursing training.”
“Indeed, but now they face almost no risks they can’t control. Where once they were all worthy prey, now it is only those that live on the wrong side of the law that learn the skills your ancestors knew. Or those who train for war. It is why oomans are the favoured prey for Kiande amedha during chiva.”
“What are they?”
“We also call them R’ka, it is what Vivian turned into.”
Everly touches her chest and breaths, “I didn’t hallucinate it.”
“You could do it too, then you wouldn’t have to be afraid again.”
Everly’s eyes sparkle with life briefly before they die down again, “Sure, and pigs might fly. I’m not a fighter, I never have been. It’s why I became nurse.”
“What was it you did with the shield?”
“Vivian told you about that, huh? That’s not fighting, that’s protecting.”
“And I’m a hunter not a fighter. I do not seek conflict, I see to test myself against the strongest and most worthy prey. A pursuit that may have killed me one day, if I didn’t grow tired of life and become an Elder, or an Arbiter.”
“You are a protector, you don’t seek out conflict, you seek to protect others from conflict even if it means facing an enemy with nothing more than fire and a padded shield.”
“But I couldn’t even do that right, Dr Vivian had to save us.”
“And a year ago Vivian couldn’t have done that. It’s not something she was born able to do. But it takes courage, faith, and time. Is that something you have?”
Vivian speaks up, despite the hand on her wrist, “It’s also how I could heal you.”
Everly mutters, “I didn’t imagine that.” Louder she continues, “Why are you trying so hard to convince me?”
Henry lets out a sigh before he speaks, clearly uncomfortable with his voice, “We’re, hrumph. We’re not trying to convince you, we’re trying to make it clear that you have a choice. No Vivian, she needs to know. Everly, there’s another society that lives hidden from the larger, mundane society. It’s a place where magic is still real, and not only found in fairy tales and bedtime stories. They officially went into hiding in 1692, though with the inquisition and witch hunts, they’d been drawing away for longer than that. Vivian and I accidentally found ourselves as members of this society in September last year. They have laws about who can know about their society and who can’t, and they use memory erasure to ensure that those who aren’t allowed don’t. What they have been doing, is trying to persuade you to make the choice out of your own free will, rather than because the alternative is worse. Sorry if this was blunt, but my period started yesterday, and it’s fucking with my head something chronic as I’m a guy damn it. Well I was a guy. And the injections aren’t helping anymore.”
Everly sits up a little more alertly, “So what is the other option then?”
E’jeah touches her arm gently, “You join the hive and all it entails.”
Some of her earlier panic starts to break through again, as whatever they gave her starts to wear off, “I… I don’t know, I need to sleep on it.”
Vivian nods, “There’s a spare bed upstairs, take your time.”
“Am I a prisoner here?”
Vivian shakes her head sadly, “Not at all, but walking out the front door is, unfortunately, also choosing to forget.”
“So I am a prisoner.”
“No, that’s not it. Imagine this is an embassy, and while you’re here your subject to our laws. If you choose to become a citizen then it doesn’t matter once you leave. If you leave before you choose, you’ve made a choice.”
Everly laughs, though more from stress than humour, “That’s a better way of putting it, you should practice that.”

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Minerva stands and taps her glass, “Good evening everyone, and welcome to the leaving feast. I’m sure that you’re all raring to get home for the holidays, or to find work for those who are graduating this year. However, as always, there are a few things to address first. Master Hooch, would you be able to announce the winner of the Quidditch cup?”
Madam Hooch stands up and places the cup on the table, “In last place is Gryffindor with two wins. In third place is Slytherin with two wins and one draw. Beating Slytherin in points is Hufflepuff. Finally, the winners of the tournament, are Ravenclaw. Eliza Lawlor, please come up to receive the cup.”
Eliza smiles as she walks up to the table to receive the cup to the sound of raucous applause from the Ravenclaw table.
As Hooch sits down, Minerva continues, “With that out of the way, we come to the matter of the house cup. I’m sorry to say that this year there will be no cup.” She pauses while the boo’s and groans die away, “My assistant, Miss Dunns, has taken the time to review all of the points given and taken, and compare them to the staff and prefect guidelines. As over half of the points have had to be reversed due to blatant and grievous violation of those guidelines; Myself and Master Vector, the Deputy Head Master, have decided that because of that we cannot in good faith award the cup this year. For those returning next year, we will ensure that you receive a student handbook that will outline the points system, your responsibilities, and also the punishments that you could suffer. There will also be information on how to appeal those points and punishments.”

Minerva looks around the tables as everyone is silent, “Make no mistake, while I am currently the acting Head Master, I have every intention of making this school live up to its promise and taking over as Head Master as soon as Mr Dumbledore has healed and can defend his position. It is my responsibility to ensure that you all have an environment that is suitable for learning in. It is your responsibility to ensure that you not only learn, but you do not prevent others from learning too. We cannot protect you from all dangers in the school, especially those that come from failing to treat others with the respect they’re due because of cultural or physiological differences. That, is down to you. Same as once you leave the school as adults, you will be expected to treat each other with respect and within the bounds of the law and our traditions.
“Enough moralising from me. I only have one more announcement, and that is a reminder that it is currently illegal for you to use your wands outside the school. This applies to all of you. Anyway, I’d like you all to give a huge round of applause to the support staff that have kept the school in good repair and provided our meals. Mr Hagrid, the grounds keeper. Master Pince, the librarian, Mr Filch, the caretaker, and lastly the House-elves who do the cooking, cleaning, and laundry.”
The applause is not as enthusiastic as she’d like, but it is none the less there. As it dies down food appears on each of the tables and Minerva sits down to enjoy her meal.

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Mr Harper

We regret to inform you that you are being discharged from the Charing Cross Gender Clinic. This is within our consulting guidelines as you do not meet the diagnostic guidelines needed to continue using our services. A copy of this letter has been sent to your GP.

We understand that this can be a trying time, so we have included leaflets detailing services that the NHS provide for dealing with mental health struggles.

Regards

Dr P Davis.
p.p. L Spencer.

Bradley screws up the letter and lobs it at the wall, “You mean I won’t dress up in a skirt and do scaffolding in makeup!” Grabbing the mobile phone he bought just in case the clinic called him, he heads out to the pub for a drink. Only to stop at the front door as he sees the crumpled note, he picked up a month ago, by the landline. Staring at it in indecision, she grabs the note and heads back into her bedroom. There she picks up the stuffed penguin and holds it for a moment, while also wishing she could cry. With shaking hands, she slowly dials the number written on the piece of paper. It takes her three attempts to get it entered correctly, and then she presses the green button.

Down in London, Henry answers the phone with a confused tone, “Granger residence.”
Bradley’s heart skips a beat, and she almost doesn’t answer before Henry hangs up, “Wait, sorry, is Mr Granger there?”
“Speaking.”
Bradley pauses again for a moment, “It’s real… Sorry. Please don’t hang up. My name’s Bradley and I got your number when a drunk threw it away. They were saying that you transitioned completely, and that someone called Theresa wanted him to become a tranny.”
Henry was about to hang up when Bradley dropped that name, instead he finds himself the centre of attention of Theresa, Amelia, Moody, and Arry. As such his voice wavers as he answers, “When did you say you heard this?”
“Last month, in the Scotsman and Angel. Look, I’m not a reporter, but if you’ve really had a full sex change can you put in a good word for me please?”
Henry licks his lips, “Listen, um, we’re going to be in London tomorrow, could you meet us in the Porcupine on Charing Cross Road around 4?”
Bradley’s hands shake so much she nearly drops the phone, “L…London you say. Um, let me get a pen, yes a pen. I need paper too. Sorry, it’s just…”
Henry carefully relays the name of the pub, and that it’s on Charing Cross Road again, “Listen, Bradley wasn’t it? Do you have a mobile phone?”
Bradley nods, then belatedly adds, “Yes, yes I do, let me just grab my number.”
After Henry’s jotted the number down, he says, “Listen, we’ll text you if we get to the pub first, can you do the same please? Vivian’s about to text you our mobile number if you don’t get it in a few minutes, can you call back on a landline and we’ll try calling you.”
Bradley breaths a sigh of relief, “Sure, I can do that.”

As Henry hangs up, Bradley watches the phone for what seems like forever before it buzzes and a phone number shows on the dot-matrix screen. Quickly jotting down the number, Bradley fumbles through the menu to reply with thanks.

The next morning, Bradley is up as normal, and puts on his best sick voice as he calls his boss to say he can’t come in today, as last nights takeaway didn’t agree with him. Next, she heads to the bedroom and applies makeup, before putting on a wig and pinning it in place. A comfortable pair of jeans and a blouse, with a stuffed bra, complete the outfit. Finally, she pulls out the only pair of feminine shoes she owns, along with the credit card she keeps in the same box. After checking the window at the front of the house she’s about to leave, when she spots the letter from yesterday. Quickly smoothing it out, she hunts for the folder that she’s kept all of her other records in, before putting it in a backpack and slinging it over her shoulder. Checking the street once more to ensure there’s nobody around, she leaves her flat and hurries to the bus stop.

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Amelia perks up when Vivian gets a text message at 3pm, a full hour early, standing up she leaves her office, “Scrimgeour, grab an obliviators and head to the Perks. Mr Perks has breached the statute so I need you to blur his memories by the books. Also find out just where and when he blabbed. Moody, you’re with me, grab a room at the leaky just in case, I’m going to find our contact.”

Amelia makes her way to the pub fully expecting this to be a quick meetup, check of memories, and obliviate. What she doesn’t expect is for a tall woman with blond hair to step out of the pub and look around eagerly. As she gets closer, it’s clear that the chin is too angular, and the faintest hint of stubble is starting to show through the makeup.
“Bradley?”
The woman shuffles nervously before nodding, and saying in a deep baritone, “Sorry, I can’t do the voice yet. Um, I brought my medical records, I really need this. I don’t care if it’s an experimental treatment.”
Thrown slightly off guard by both the voice, and the attention of Vivian and Arry, “Right, well, we’ve booked a room in a private bar, if you’ll follow me, it’s just down the road.”

As they get closer to the pub, Amelia takes Bradley’s hand in her own, and notices the flinch that Bradley makes, along with a heightened sense of alertness. It doesn’t last long, as it gives way to an expression of unreality and wonder as they cross the threshold.
Tom looks up from the bar at her, “Room 2”.
Amelia smiles, “Thanks Tom, well come on.”
Bradley stumbles over her feet as she tries to follow Amelia as well as look at everything around her. Amelia gives up once she does trip over when someone comes out of the floo, and levitates her the rest of the way through the bar.

Once they’re in room 2, Amelia takes a seat at the table while Moody stands by the door, “Please take a seat. I’m Amelia Bones with the DMLE, and that’s Senior Auror Moody. I’m sorry for the deception, however I can assure you that Mr Granger is undergoing a complete sexual change.”
Bradley relaxes and takes a seat, “Oh thank god. Look I’ll be honest, there’s a few friends I’ll miss, and my grandmother’s been really supportive. But if I need to disappear to get onto this trial I’m in.”
Amelia blinks, rapidly, “I’m sorry, what do you think’s going on here?”
“It’s like I said on the phone, it’s not medically possible for a transwoman to transition completely. So I didn’t really believe the guy in the pub as he’s drunk. But I was desperate.” She pulls out the crumpled letter, “See, they’ve discharged me just because I won’t wear skirts and makeup to work. Like I’d even be allowed on site in heels, my boss would fire me faster than you could say pink slip. Same with wearing a wig. Not to mention that I like not having broken bones, as it’s not safe to walk around as a known tranny. So we all grasp at straws, and the lucky ones are allowed to transition by the pricks at Charing Cross.”
Amelia holds up her hand as Moody pulls out a distinctive vial, “I’m sorry to interrupt you, but I need to ask you a few questions.”
Bradley looks chagrined, “Sorry, I got carried away. It’s just, this is really important to me.”
“It’s ok. I need you to stick out your tongue and Auror Moody will place a drop of liquid on it. This is a truth serum, and it will make sure that you’re not lying. It’s not full proof as it just means that you can’t tell any knowing falsehoods. So I’d like you to answer my questions with only yes, no, or I don’t know. Do you understand?”
Bradley nods, “I do.”
“Close enough, stick out your tongue.”
Once Bradley has had the drop she says, “Ugh, that tastes awful.”
Amelia nods, “Indeed. Now I’d like to ask a couple of control questions. I’d like you to try and answer yes to each one.” Bradley nods, “Did we meet inside the Porcupine?”
Bradley looks confused when she answers “No.”
Amelia just smiles, “Is the sky green?”, “No.”, “Have you told anyone else about this?”, “No.”, “Is your name Bradley?”, “Nyes”, “Are you a woman?”, “Yes.”
Amelia raises an eyebrow and glances at Moody, “Will you tell anyone else about this?”, “Maybe.”
“Have you knowingly lied to me since we met?”
“Yes.”
Amelia sighs, “What did you lie about?”
“That I have any friends and why they discharged me.”
Amelia rubs the bridge of her nose as a house elf deposits an adoption egg in the corner of the room, maybe she needs to spend more time around innocent people, “What did I do to deserve this?”
Bradley tries to stay silent, but she says, “I don’t know.”
With a little prompting from Vivian, Amelia continues, “Bradley, have you had any, suicidal thoughts in the last two weeks?”
Bradley wants to deny it, she really does, “Nyes.”
“What stopped you from following through?”
The life leaves Bradley’s eyes as she finds herself saying, “The hope that I would be starting hormones soon.”
Begrudgingly, Amelia gets up and takes the face-hugger from the egg before sitting back down, “Bradley, there isn’t a treatment. This is the cause of Henry’s change, it’s an alien and it will lay an egg inside you. The egg will then bond with you and start to change you, making you part alien, and yes fully female. Personally, I think we should remove your memory of this entire meeting and the Grangers. But that’s because it’s my job. Instead you have a choice. You can walk out now, and you’ll never remember this ever happened. Or you can take this and put it on your face. If you do, you will become a woman, and more. Do you understand?”
Bradley nods, “I do.”
“Which one do you want?”
“Both.”
“You can only have one, what do you want?”
“I want to be a real woman.”
Amelia sighs at the nudge from Vivian, “Bradley, would you like me to put this on you?”
Bradley gives a slight nod and whispers, “Yes.”
“Close your eyes and open your mouth.”

 

Chapter 29

“Arry, you need to ride the train with all of the other students.”
Arry sulks at Minerva, “But Minva, why? It’s not like Luna is using the train, and the nest isn’t any closer to London than it is to Scotland.”
“I’m still the Head Master to you at the moment, and it’s one of the rules of the school.”
“But it’s so boring, and none of the rest of the hive have to do it.”
Minerva puts her hands on her hips, “So Mr Hopkins and Finch-Fletchley are not part of the hive now?”
Arry winces, “Sorry guys, I forgot you’re not genetic members. Ok fine, I’ll ride the train, but I’m leaving as soon as we get to the station.”
“Once you’ve left the train like other students, no teleporting out of the train, unless it’s an emergency.”
“But”
“And you will make sure that Mr Hopkins and Finch-Fletchley are picked up by their parents safely. You are the queen of the hive, and it’s your responsibility.”
“But I’m only 11.”
“And the queen of the hive. We will support you where we can, but it is still your responsibility. And no, you can’t delegate this to someone else, it’s not that sort of responsibility.”
“Fine!”
Minerva ruffles Arry’s hair, “I know it’s hard, you’re only just learning what it means to be human, and already we’re making you take responsibility for things.”
“But it was so much simpler when it was just T'o-Ba'sall and I.”
“Simpler, yes, but knowing what you know now, would you change anything about meeting Ptiana?”
Arry crosses her arms, “No!”
“Then go on, the train’s going to leave in a moment, and I know they’ve saved you a seat.”
Arry sticks her tongue out before disappearing with a pop.

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After several minutes of shuffling around uncomfortably on the compartment bench seat, Hermione finally exclaims, “How are you doing that Arry?”
Arry blinks as she brings her attention back to the train, “Huh? Sorry Hermione, I was miles away.”
Susan snickers, “Literally.”
Hermione humphs, “How are you doing that?”
“Doing what?”
“Sitting there so comfortably with your tail?”
Arry scratches her head with her tail, “I’m not sure what the issue is.”
“My tail, I can’t get it comfortable at all.”
Susan and Hannah look surprised, and Sally-Anne pokes her head over the edge of the luggage rack, “I wasn’t aware that you had a tail.”
Hermione shrugs as she shifts again, “It’s not very long yet, and it only started growing just before Easter.”
Oliver frowns, “Could you speak aloud for those of us not in the hive please?”
Sally-Anne just sticks her inner mouth out, while Susan translates, “She says, ‘Sorry, but I can’t, and I packed my leg this morning.’ Before that Sally said she wasn’t aware that Hermione has a tail.”
Wayne looks a little worried, “Does that mean I’m going to grow a tail too?”
Hannah holds up her hand to show the sharpened, claw like, nails, “Probably not, as you’ve not been having trouble with your fingernails, that’s the first change we noticed. Oh, and Oliver, Sally wants to know if you’re going to join the hive.”
Oliver grimaces, “I need to talk to my head of house before making an oath like that. No offence Arry, but as you’re also the Lady Potter there’s politics involved no matter if I like it or not. I got a letter from my father after Wayne made his oath, and I quote ‘Congratulations on being one of the youngest ever to achieve an animagus form. However, I have just had Mr Hopkins tell me about the oath his son made without his permission. I absolutely forbid you from making a similar oath.’” He smiles as Susan places a hand on his leg, comfortingly, “Hey it's not all bad, at least we can get a hunting bond going.”
Everyone in the compartment thinks about McMillian and Entwhistle, who are going to have to go the long way to discovering their own animagus forms. They’ve also been drawing away from the rest of the hufflepuffs, as they make friends outside the house.

While there’s a lull in the conversation, there’s a rapid knock on the door, and Millicent opens it and steps in, quickly followed by the xenomorph she’s been looking after, “Sorry about this, but can I hide here with all of you?”
As she says that, Oliver’s eyes start to glaze until Suzan stabs him with a fingernail, “Sure, what’s going on?”
“Bloody veela! Did you know that the Veela in Luna’s hive are now all pure veela?”
Oliver licks his lips, “Millicent would you…”
There’s a flash of movement, and Arry has her hand around Oliver’s throat, “Oliver, I think you want use your animagus form, don’t you.”
Oliver swallows hard and nods as he slowly shifts into his xenomorph form and climbs up to the luggage rack on the other side. There he seems to have a silent conversation with Sally-Anne, that then gets relayed to Susan, “Oliver says he’s sorry, he couldn’t help himself.”
Millicent waves a hand as she collapses into the space that Oliver just vacated, “It’s still better than it was out there. About the only boys that weren’t hitting on me are either known to be wizards wizards, or were in our year. It’s gross, and scary…”
The door slides open and a 4^th year witch, with Gryffindor colours looks in, before zeroing in on Millicent, “Hello gorgeous, would you mind swapping owl details with me, as I’d love to get to know you over… Arrrghh!” The witch stumbles back as Arry’s tail stabs her ‘lightly’ in the thigh.
Millicent smiles at Arry, “Thank you for that. Rachelle said she’d visit over the summer to teach me the control exercises they use. I wouldn’t mind, but the veela in Luna’s hive are all pure veela, and I’ve skipped over the normal maturation cycle as I’m already 11.”
Hannah looks up at Oliver before saying, “What difference does it make if they’re pure or not?”
Millicent laughs, “Magical blood dilutes Veela blood, so after a few generations their allure is no more than natural charisma and beauty. First generation magicals are barely able to use wands, and in many countries are apparently still considered to be magical creatures. They’re also the type that used to be called Harpies, as apparently pure veela’s are far more avian in appearance.”
“I think you’re getting off track.”
Millicent shrugs, “Sorry, I guess the real differences are that their allure is weaker, and their form becomes more human as they are further from pure. Also their passion fire is more like fire than the balls of lightning that the pure veela throw. I don’t know if you’ve seen Valérie around, but she was the last one rescued before they came to Britain, she was the only pure Veela that was ensnared with a forced mating bond. Now all of us are going the same way.”
Arry interrupts, “Not quite, like Hermione, you’ll find yourself developing xenomorph traits. I bet your nails are already sharper. That will cross over into your animagus form too. However, our genetics are always looking to improve, and so we pick up the best traits we can from our hosts. Beth and Septima have been working on this with E’jeah in what little spare time they have, they think that our magic is allowing those changes to propagate through the hive rather than just from host to chest burster. But only to those who are genetically connected to the queen.” Millicent just looks confused, so Arry rephrases it after a pause, “They’ll lose their bird forms as they take on more xenomorph traits, eventually having the best of both. I wonder if you’ll be able to fly in your animagus form. Ah, we’ll find out later, just keep an eye on the members like the one you’ve been looking after.”

With that, the compartment settled into easy conversation, occasionally punctuated by a scream of agony from a boy, or occasionally a girl, who got ensnared by Millicent’s allure and opened the door to chat her up. Nothing permanent, or life threatening, but enough that they weren’t going to forget about it for a while.

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As the city of London starts to go past, Arry suddenly remembers that she needs to speak to each family that isn’t part of the hive, but can turn into xenomorphs.
“Millicent, has Luna told you that she needs to talk to your parents before they leave?”
Millicent looks confused, “Why would she need to do that? Luna’s confused too.”
“Are you going to have rotating guards so there’s always two hive members awake at your home?”
“Well, obviously.”
“Then she needs to tell your parents that it’s going to happen, and why.”
Millicent’s eyes go blank for a moment, before they refocus again, “Luna’s going to be there with her father and Clothilde.” She flushes bright red, “I did not what to know that. Um, they have something they want to ask you, and Valérie through memory at the hive before saying, I’m next.”
“What is it, no wait, if it’s about sex I know far too much about it already and I don’t want to know anymore. La la la.”
“Valérie says, ‘Give it 5 years and you’ll be singing a different tune. Maybe I should ask my sister if she wants to join your hive’.”
Susan, Hannah, and Hermione all shout, “No! Please no.”
There’s laughter from around the compartment, as even the two transformed humans sort of giggle.

It only another 20 minutes before the train is carefully pulling into Kings Cross Station. As soon as the train has stopped, Arry pops out of the carriage and onto the platform. A moment later Millicent, Susan, Hannah, Hermione, and Sally-Anne all do the same. This gives Arry time to meet with the Abbotts before anyone else gets off the train.

“Mr and Mrs Abbott, my name’s Arry, I’m one of your daughters classmates.”
Mr Abbott nods his head, “Lady Potter, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Arry grimaces, “Please, just call me Arry. You may already know this, but one of my hive members. People who have a xenomorph animagus form? You’re friends with Amelia, she can explain it to you. Anyway, they were attacked because of that form. Because of that I’m making sure that there are people around who can sound the alarm if it happens again.”
Mr Abbott waves his hand, “It’s not needed, Madam Bones checks our wards regularly.”
“That may be true, but I’d feel safer if Hannah had people watching out for her. Whiskey, Tipsy, Disky, and Floppy all volunteered to look after Hannah.” As she calls their names, four house elves appear before vanishing again, “Of course, if they get bored they’re liable to clean your house and manage your grounds, so just consider it a bonus.”
“Lady Potter, you are far to generous, and it’s not needed.”
Arry waves him off, “It’s already done, and I can see Justin with his parents. I need to speak to them too.”
Before she can get half way across the platform to the Finch-Fletchley’s, a slim, well dressed woman with straight dark hair and a single blond streak running through it, stops her, “Lady Potter, please can I talk to you? I’ve tried to send you multiple letters, but they’ve all returned undelivered. I even tried sending a letter to Madam Bones, but I got no response.”
Arry blinks, “You have? Um, sorry I didn’t get them, though I have no idea why you’d want to contact me.”
“My name’s Narcissa Malfoy, and you exiled my son last year. Hasn’t he been punished enough.”
Arry blinks a few times as she tries to remember what happened, and then an expression of comprehension crosses her face, “Oh, right. Sorry, it wasn’t a punishment, it was to save his life. But if I do bring him back, what guarantee do I have that he won’t try to get himself killed again?”
Narcissa starts to cry in frustration, “I don’t know, but he’s my son, and my husband is dead. He’s all I have left.”
Arry blinks, and her eyes go distant for a moment, “Well, you’re in luck. No one else remembered him either, and Amelia said she’d deal with talking to the other parents.”
Arry reaches out with a hand, and the two of them disappear in a flash of fire.

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Draco steps forward thrusting the combistick in front of him before ducking down to the side, and into a roll. He only stumbles slightly as he comes to his feet and curses slightly. Returning to his starting point, he does the thrust again and this time comes to his feet smoothly, facing the direction he came from. With a smile, he returns to his start point once more, if he can this down it will be one more move he can use to defend himself in the hunts. And maybe he won’t fall flat on his back when he’s forced to improvise next time too.
As he’s about to start again, Athe’s mouth drops open, and he glances over to look at the girl that has taken to watching him since he killed the Yautja. Turning away he spots a woman that looks familiar, with her long black hair. Standing in front of her, with her back to him, is the woman who sent him to this planet so long ago, her tail lashing behind her. With an anger filled leap, he closes the distance and brings the combistick forward for a strike. A strike that never lands, as the woman disappears with a slight pop, and reappears behind him. Before he can recover, she has her claws around his throat and across his stomach, “If you ever try that again, your skull will adorn my trophy wall.”
The woman in front of him cries in shock, “Draco, no. We’re here to take you home.”
Draco growls, “What are you saying?”
The woman smoothly changes language, “I am Arry, and this is your mother. She asked me to bring you home. But if you attack me again outside a spar, your skull will adorn my trophy wall.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
Arry smiles, “Good, I don’t like it when people are afraid of me. It does funny things to my instincts. I’m going to let you go now.”
“Lady Potter, what’s going on?”
Arry steps to one side as she lets go of Draco, “Not sure, give him a moment to calm down.”

Once he’s free, Draco quickly moves so that he’s between the two new comers and the village. Once it’s clear that he’s not going to be attacked, he collapses his combistick and looks at them more carefully. Hesitantly, his mouth works over the words he heard when they arrived, and then he tries to voice a word in a language that it feels like he last used a lifetime ago, “Mother?”
Narcissa nods, “Yes Draco, do you remember me?”

Seeing that he’s relaxed Athe stands up from where she hid behind the trough and cautiously walks over, “Who is this Draco?”
Draco glances at her, without taking his eyes off of the visitors, “I think this one is my mother, and this one is the one that brought me here.”
Athe claps her hands together and bows to Arry, “Thank you for bringing Draco to us, I would have been chosen if you didn’t. I’m hopeful that Draco will choose me some day.”
Draco double takes at the girl, before swallowing a sudden lump in his throat, “Um, apparently they’re here to take me home. But, er, I said not without the village.”

Arry briefly translates for Narcissa, who looks surprised, and then looks Athe up and down consideringly.
Athe smiles brightly and says, “Great, I’ll get the Matriarch.” Before running off.

10 minutes or so later, the Matriarch accompanies Athe back to the group, where Draco has started to brush the dust off of his English. When she sees Arry’s tail, she stops and stares at it, before breathing, “Raka. We must warn the Hunters.”
Athe tugs the Matriarch’s hand, “No Matriarch, she brought Draco here, and wants to take him home.”
“You’ve spoken to it?”
Athe looks confused, “I’m fairly sure she’s a person.”
“I would recognise that tail anywhere, one just like it went through my mothers back while she was putting me to bed before I was brought here.”
Arry glances over, but otherwise doesn’t make any move.
“I thought you were born here.”
The matriarch shakes her head, “No, sometimes the Hunters will take us if we survive whatever they’ve hunted. Bringing in new blood. I don’t remember my home anymore, just that moment.”

With that Arry says something to Draco and Narcissa before sitting down, facing the matriarch, with her tail curled around her against the floor. It doesn’t take long for Arry’s presence to be virtually forgotten, as Narcissa draws her wand and conjures 4 chairs, a table, and a pitcher of water. As their conversation starts slow and gains pace as Draco’s English starts to come back to him while he haltingly translates for his mother. Arry smiles and slowly applies house elf invisibility. With that done, she returns to earth and, politely, asks Vivian and E’jeah to take over for her.

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Arry appears in the Grangers living room, and Everly jumps when she does, “Where did you come from!?”
Arry blinks, “Another planet. Are you Everly?”
“Uh huh.”
“Oh, cool, have you made a decision yet?”
“Not yet, but what do you mean another planet?”
“I was looking for E’jeah and Vivian.”
“They said something about visiting the hive.”
“Oh ok. Well…”
“No, wait, take me with you.”
Arry blinks again, “Wait, really?”
Everly nods, “Just like Star Trek, going where no woman has gone before.”
“I just need to make one thing clear, if you go to the hive, you have to join it. It’s just not safe for you if you don’t.”
Everly lunges forward and grabs Arrys hand, “Ouch, your nails are sharp. And yes I’m sure. My mum would kill for this opportunity too. Beam us up Scotty.”

═══════ ೋღ End of Book 1 ღೋ ═══════​

 

Chapter 1


Minerva looks out at the sea of house elves crowding into the Great Hall. Argus Filch stands nervously beside her.
“Tappenny, please join us at the top table.”
There’s a slight pop and the Head House Elf appears standing next to the two of them. Absently, Minerva conjures a platform underneath him, so that he’s standing at the same level as they are.

Taking a deep breath, she lets it out slowly before she starts to talk, “Good Morning, I understand that all of you are in desperate need of work to do. However, this is the domain of the Hogwarts Elves, so I need the rest of you to ensure that there is enough work here for them. Especially as they can’t go to the other locations that you can. That being said, there is a large amount of work that needs to be done here before the students return in September. Firstly, hands up everyone that can read and write English.”
Half a dozen hands go up out of the nearly 300 elves there, “Good, all of you will be working under the caretaker, Argus Filch, directly. You will first be learning about how to build and repair furniture from books we have in the library, and those that have recently been purchased from the muggle world. Once Mr Filch judges that you all know enough to tell what can be salvaged, you will be going around all of the unused rooms in the castle to evaluate the state of the furniture. Anything that is unrepairable will either be broken down for parts in order to repair other things, or given to the kitchens for the ovens.
“Tappenny, I want you to pick 10 elves from each hive, and as many more that you think will be needed from Hogwarts. Their task will be to sort the room of hidden things into furniture, clothing, jewellery, weapons, brooms, broken things, and finally anything that is enchanted. Make a last category for anything that doesn’t fit one of those things.”

As she’s talking Irma Pince, the librarian walks through the doors and Minerva smiles, “Irma, please join us up here.”
Irma hrumphs, “I don’t know why you wanted me at this meeting.”
Minerva nods, “It’s quite simple, I want you to find 5 house elves that are bound to Hogwarts, and teach them to be your assistants. The ones that already know how to read and write are already assigned to Argus, as they need the skills now. Tappenny, if you find any books in the Room of Hidden Things, I want you to place them in a classroom near the Library, I’ll let you work with Irma on which one.”
Irma frowns, “Why House Elves?”
Minerva blinks and bites back her first response before choosing her words carefully, “Master Pince, despite the fact that they bond to us for survival, house elves are not stupid or incapable. What they are is uneducated, and have a child like maturity. They are also slavishly driven to work. If you teach them properly, and treat them like people, you will have assistants that can do the drudge work quickly, efficiently, correctly, and on top of that, ensure that all of the books are returned on time.”
Irma stares at the young woman for a long time, as she mentally has to reconcile the fact that this is Minerva McGonagall, the woman that taught her Transfiguration. Eventually, she nods, “Yes Head Master.”
“Good. Well, everyone, you know what you need to be doing. Argus, pick a room near your office to act as the caretaker’s library. That’s where your books on maintenance and repair will be kept. And Argus, consider yourself on probation, improve your attitude to the students or you will be replaced over Christmas. Do you understand?”
Argus stops as he’s about to leave through a side door, “I understand Head Master, will the elves be able to help me with my patrols?”
“Of course. That’s why they’ve been assigned to you.”

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Priya smiles as she climbs the steps to Gringotts wearing muggle business attire, with an A line skirt rather than a pencil skirt, to hide her tail from casual inspection. Under her shoulder she has an expanded leather messenger bag with her notes about the school finances, along with an authorisation from the Head Master to discuss the accounts, and additional services.
While she’s waiting in line, she makes sport of flashing her own teeth whenever the goblins flash theirs at her. A sport that seems to be gathering some attention. Maybe she can actually get a decent hunt out of it.
Priya shakes her head at the alien thought, the sort of thought that has been becoming more and more common the longer her tail gets.
“Arry, how do you deal…” she trails off as she remembers that Arry is taking Luna hunting pirates at the moment. Instead, she gets several queries, looking at her recent memories, and then providing her with their own experiences and comfort. Strangely enough, it’s Sally-Anne who provides the best advice with a memory of just running through the forest for the sheer joy of it.
“Well! I haven’t got all day, what do you need from Gringotts today?” The goblin teller’s voice cuts through her communion, and brings her attention back to the here and now.
With a smile full of teeth, Priya licks her top teeth before she answers, “I am here to review the Hogwarts accounts, and to see about procuring services in areas that Gringotts is known to work in.”
“Black Knife, room three.”
“And where would I find room three?”
“If you wait a moment, I will send a runner to guide you.”
Priya smiles and nods, before leaning against the counter, seemingly oblivious to the queue for this teller. After a moment, her hand comes down to caress the wood, and her fingernail pulls a curl of wax and wood where it passes.
The tellers eyes follow the curl as it grows, before he growls, “Why are you still standing there, I have other customers to serve.”
Priya bares her teeth again, “I’m waiting for the runner you said you were going to send. After all, you can’t do that if you’re serving other customers.”
The teller looks at her teeth, and the new curl of wood that’s starting to rise from the counter, before climbing down from the counter and talking to a goblin somewhere behind the counter. A few minutes later, and she’s being escorted to room three. This goblin doesn’t show their teeth to her.

Once she’s let in, and sat down, the goblin, presumably Black Knife, continues to work for a few minutes. So Priya pulls out her own work, and starts to make notes on proper diets for the coming school year, and how to cut down on food wastage. As even with magic, the school is spending far more than it should on food for the number of students they have.
“Well?”
Priya glances up at the frowning goblin, “One mo, just need to finish this item.”
“You wanted to see me, not the other way around.”
Priya raises an eyebrow, “And you were not ready to see me. Anyway, done.”

As Priya looks up, she meets the gaze of the goblin, who bares his teeth. As he does, she bares her own, and doesn’t look away. After a while, the goblin snarls, “If you don’t stop doing that, you won’t have enough teeth to do it.”
“So it’s ok for you to bare teeth at me, but you get offended as soon as I do it back?”
“You are a customer at our bank.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Why did you need to see me?”
Priya grins widely, “I am here to go over the Hogwarts accounts, and compare them with my own calculations over the last school year to ensure that there are no discrepancies.”
“Are you accusing us of cheating you?”
“Given that I’m not closing the accounts, I think you should be able to draw your own conclusions.”
“Very well, key.”
“Before we do that, I need to ensure that I am talking to the Hogwarts Account manager.”
“Are you doubting my credentials.”
“Yes.”
The goblin stares at her for a long time, as if he can’t believe what he just heard, “I will see you in the pit for that.”
Priya give him a feral grin, “Fair enough, I could do with some exercise.”
“You won’t be able to use your precious wand.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
The goblin stares at her, as if she’s some sort of animal that has done something out of character, “Follow me, know that you’re facing Red Knife in the pit.”
Priya nods, “Ok Red Knife, I was told I needed to see Black Knife, so looks like I was right to question your integrity.”

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Once they reach the pit, Priya pulls out her combistick. As she twirls it in her hands, her mind goes over the lessons that Wild Mask has been forcing her to take. Something he started to distract himself as he adapts to the change in gender that is slowly taking over his body and mind. Not that she’s been the only one pushed into this, as all of the adult hive members living at Hogwarts have been pushed into it too. Thankfully, E’jeah has only taken charge of the lessons a few times, concentrating more on surveying the planet for more hives.
From the centre of the pit Red Knife calls up, “Are you going to play with your toy all day, or are you actually going to fight?”
Just before she jumps down into the pit, she looks at an unarmoured goblin with an axe by his side, “Sorry to bother you, but I know it’s no wands, but does that mean no magic too?”
The goblin looks at her with a closed mouth, “That is between the two of you.”
Priya nods, “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, make a good showing.”
Priya smiles as she jumps lightly into the pit and stalks towards Red Knife, “What magic do you want to allow?”
“Goblin.”
Priya raises an eyebrow, “Only if I can use house elf or animagus magic.”
Red Knife looks over her shoulder for a moment before he grunts, “Goblin and House elf.”
Priya shakes her head sadly and points her combistick forward like a short baton. Red Knife pulls a knife with a blade made from ruby with goblin silver etching along the blade, and a goblin silver guard.

The fight starts out with both parties testing each other, neither one seeming to have an advantage in reach, despite the short stature of the goblin. Something that he makes up for with experience. It’s when Red Knife tries to throw a fireball from just outside her reach that she presses the release button on the combistick, increasing it to its full length, and scoring a deep cut across his offhand arm. With that, the tempo of the fight started to increase as Red Knife started to use his knife to fend off the combi stick while he was using goblin magic to attack Priya, slowly herding her into a position where she can’t dodge.

Suddenly, Red Knife casts a shield around himself and batters the combistick out of the way. One he’s inside Priya’s guard, he brings a large fire blast forward and drops his shield. Just before the fire blast hits, there’s a soft pop and Priya grabs his neck from behind in her hand, the nails piercing the skin and blue blood trickles down his neck. Her other hand comes round to grab his knife hand, her thumbnail drawing blood just above where the artery would be on a human. “I believe that is my win, unless you want your skull to adorn my wall.”

There’s a long pause, and Priya is almost ready to tear his throat out, when, finally, he croaks out, “I yield.”
Priya releases her grip and steps back, “I still need to speak to the Hogwarts account manager.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

Draco tosses and turns in his old bed, the softness of the bed not the only reason he can’t sleep. Eventually, he gets up and grabs his combistick before padding out of the room. He’s almost finished his circuit of the house when he meet Athe coming the other way.
“Can’t sleep?”
Athe shakes her head, “It’s too quiet.”
Draco nods, “I know, and the beds are too soft too.”
Athe laughs, “I remember when you first arrived and kept complaining about stuff in your own language.”
Draco chuckles, “I don’t remember much of that time, when I still thought that someone was going to come and take me home. I don’t remember much of living here either, though it’s starting to come back.”
“Let’s see if any of the others are awake.”
Draco nods, “Good idea, I think there might be a set of rooms with a common thingy room. Gah! I used to know the names of all these things. It has a fireplace in it like the big room downstairs.”
Athe rubs Draco’s shoulder, “It’s ok. It will come back, or you’ll learn it again.”

As they take another tour of the house together, Draco asks, “Are you going to take them up on their offer?”
Athe takes Draco’s hand for a moment as they walk, “I don’t know. Your life giver seems to be no worse for doing so, but…”
Draco nods, “I know, I’ve been hunted more times than I can remember, and I don’t know if I could give them a reason to hunt me for real.”
Athe smiles at Draco, “It’s not that simple for me. They are offering the same power that you have, along with the downside of turning into a hybrid hard meat. That in itself would change many things, as you have done well in the training hunts. Better than any of the other males in the village have done during their various trials. Most of them are dead now.”
Draco nods, “I know, they almost killed me the first day I was here. I had a bout of accidental magic, and it pushed them away.”
“So that’s why you got preferential treatment. A lot of the village were put out at the amount of training you were given.”
Draco laughs, “They weren’t training me, they were using me to train their children. Pauk, if I got caught too soon I ended up being examined for hours on end.”
Athe looks shocked, “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“To start with, I did, but no one could understand me. After that, it didn’t seem that important compared to our daily survival.”
“Draco, it would have changed everything. To start with, the Matriarch would have gone easier on you if she’d known.”
“But she didn’t, so she didn’t.”
As they approach the door, another villager quickly opens it and sticks their head out, “Oh good, it wasn’t just me.”
Athe shakes her head, “It’s too quiet here. Come on, Draco thinks there’s a set of rooms connected to a communal room we can light a fire in.”
The villager nods, “That would help.”
Dobby appears silently behind them and says, “Dobby wonders what honoured guests are doing out of bed.”
Draco spins, drawing his combistick, and thrusting it towards the house elf, who disappears with a pop, reappearing a safe distance down the hallway, “Merlin! Don’t do that. I could have killed you.”
“Dobby is sorry, Dobby will iron fingers.”
One of the older villagers asks, “What did it say?”
Dobby disappears with a pop as Draco tries to translate. Once he has, and explained what an iron is, Athe looks at Draco with her hands on her hips, “Call him back.”
Draco nods, and does so. Dobby reappears holding an old-fashioned iron that needs to be heated on the stove.

Athe points at Dobby, “Draco, translate for me. You, don’t go anywhere. You did nothing wrong, just be more careful about surprising any of the males of our village in future.” Dobby looks at Athe in shock as she continues, “We were looking for a set of rooms with a communal fireplace, as this building is too quiet for us.”
Dobby nods, his ears flopping around wildly, “Dobby knows just the rooms you need. It’s the family guest suite where old Master Abaxi used to stay. Dobby will show you the way before ironing Dobby’s fingers.”
Athe shudders, “You shouldn’t do that Dobby, you did nothing wrong, and you can’t help defend your village if you’ve disabled your hand.”

 

Chapter 2


Luna smiles widely as she dances onto a Skarli merchant ship. As the designation of the ship crosses her mind, she pauses with a pout while her tail skewers a Fire Lizard pirate that’s coming up behind her. As it pulls itself off of her tail, which failed to puncture the rear of the armour its wearing, Luna turns around eager for the upcoming fight.

Everyone, I want a few live ones, as they look perfect for our hive.

As the lizard discards the gun it was using in favour of it’s armoured claws, Luna smiles as she can see the wound in its stomach already starting to clot over. Dancing to one side, she swipes a claw out experimentally, pulling it back sharply when the humanoid lizard reacts far faster than she expected. As it steps forward with a lightning fast swipe, she elf pops behind it and swipes at the unarmoured tail.
Using some unknown sense, the humanoid lizard twitches it’s tail to one side before bring it back to slam into Luna’s trunk, trading a minor scratch for a solid hit on its foe. As Luna bounces off the wall and launches herself at her opponent, claws first, it easily leaps off the ground in a backwards somersault before grasping the ceiling with it’s feet, its hand claws slashing out at her back, scoring deep gashes in her skin.
As the acid of her blood starts to eat into the armour covering it’s claws, it recoils backwards to re-evaluate its opponent. At the same time Luna lands in a crouch and looks up at the lizard crouched on the ceiling.
“Ow, that hurt, good hit. I think it’s my turn now.”
As Luna shifts to her natural form, the lizard on the ceiling grumbles something incomprehensible that sounds like swearing. Now filling most of the corridor, Luna leaps towards the alien on the ceiling. In turn, it pushes off towards the discarded weapon, only to stumble in confusion as the weapon disappears from the ground in front of it. Turning the stumble into a forward roll, the lizard reaches to a concealed control panel underneath the back of its armour and activates a forcefield.

After several minutes of brutal fighting that would put Chinese martial arts films to shame, the fire lizard slams face first into the floor as its legs straighten and lock themselves together. As it tries to get up, it finds that it’s stuck to the floor. Luna turns to an empty part of the corridor as she shifts back into her human form. Her phoenix blood already healing her wounds.
“Oh poo, why did you do that? I was having fun.”
Arry carefully pulls back the hood of her cloak as she steps forward and taps Luna on the nose, “You forgot that we’re here to rescue the owners of the ship.”

As the two of them talk, the lizard on the floor starts to reach around behind it, to the concealed control panel. As it does, there’s a slight pop and then it finds itself floating in the air, its arms being spread to either side. Through a doorway it can see a dozen xenomorph eggs sitting on small mounds of resin. It starts to struggle as it feels its hands being turned away from the wall behind it, and some how stuck in place.

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Narcissa giggles softly to herself as she holds a broken nailfile up to the light and stares through the long rent in the hardened metal. The laughter that’s bubbling up the culmination of all of the body blows her world view has taken since that fateful, desperate, request on platform 9¾. Placing the ruined file on her vanity, she stands up and walks over to a window that overlooks the gardens from her dressing room. There she giggles once more as she watches her son practicing with his combistick against some of her hive mates. A son that only a year ago wouldn’t have been seen dead doing something so ‘barbaric’.

As she turns back to the vanity, she notices that her nailfile has been replaces with a sapphire nailfile of a similar design, “Thank you Tisky. It is most appreciated.”
“You are most welcome Miss.”
Narcissa smiles softly as she sits back and continues filing her nails while Tisky prepares her hair for another day in court as the regent of the Malfoy family.

Suddenly she snaps out, “Dobby.”
Dobby appears in the dressing room, wearing an apron, with flour covered hands, “Yes Great Mistress?”
Narcissa smiles at the slightly wary expression she can see in the mirror, “Dobby, are you still visiting Hogwarts occasionally?”
Dobby’s head and ears droop, “Yes great mistress.”
“Excellent.” Dobby looks somewhat surprised by this, “As regent of house Malfoy I give you permission to join a hive if you wish. You may also start a family if that is your desire. I’m sure that there are many wonderful elves that have caught your eye.”
Dobby straightens up in alarm as his ears lay back against his head, his eyes darting to Tisky and around the room, “Are you sure Mistress, I do not wish to neglect my duties.”
Narcissa smiles as she turns her head to face Dobby, “Of course I am, that’s why I checked to see if you still had time to visit Hogwarts. That is all, and I hope you enjoy your free time.”
Dobby disappears from the room with a loud pop, and a shower of flour. Meanwhile Tisky continues to brush Narcissa’s hair in preparation for an elaborate braid.
Thank you Mistress.
You are most welcome Tisky, but again call me Narcissa, as we’re both family now.
That would be inappropriate while I am your chambermaid mistress.
Then maybe I should take you to Madam Primpennlies and have you fitted for court robes. Then you’d be my companion.
You wouldn’t dare, Tisky is a good house elf, and house elfies should be unseen or heard.
And family should be treated with grace, understanding, acceptance, and caution. Look where that got me in the past. Now we have our Queen and her praetorian, and all others are equal, that includes you.

Tisky withdraws from the conversation, leaving Narcissa to continue reflecting on the memories of her new family that have punished her world view so badly over these last weeks. Not that it has been all one way, her own childhood and youth as a Black have been plumbed repeatedly, especially her lessons on occlumency and Legimancy at the knee, and occasionally the wand, of her father. Idly she looks at her finger nails as she comes across memories of times where the hives ancestors have had humanoid members. Maybe she could commission some finger jewellery to excuse having longer, and sharper, nails.

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Somewhat later, Narcissa sits in the Black seat, that the Malfoy’s have held since 1986 when Arcturus died. In the centre of the court sits a Mundungus Fletcher, a common thief and conman, all around her are her fellow members arguing about the appropriate punishment for the thief. With a sigh, she glances over at Amelia in commiseration, as the woman, by custom, cannot interfere with the sentencing once someone has been found guilty.
Smoothly, she rises and pulls upon all of her training to glide gracefully down the stairs to the floor, rather than stalking or strutting as though everyone else is prey or beneath her. Once she reaches the speakers podium it takes a few minutes for the chief warlock to bring the house to order.
“Regent Malfoy, what is it you have to say on behalf of the Black family?”
Narcissa smiles at the old wizard before looking around the benches, first at the permanent seats, and then at the elected seats. “Lords and Ladies, Wizards and Witches. We have here an unrepentant thief, one that we have already found guilty on this, and other prior occasions. Before I approached the podium I heard arguments about whether we should send him to Azkaban or demand weregild from him. According to our own laws, we cannot hold any crime for which he has already paid weregild against him if he is sentenced again. Yet, a single count of petty thievery is not a sufficient crime to warrant feeding our citizens to the dementors in order to appease them.” Narcissa pauses to the calls of ‘hear hear’ from around the court, “What I propose instead, is that Mr Fletcher is sentenced to three days in the Auror cells and a deferred weregild of double the value of his theft. You will note…”
Narcissa pauses at the sounds of angry shouting, attempting to restart a few times, “You will note that this is less than we would normally demand. This is because I suggest deferring the expunction of his crime for a year and a day. If, during this period he appears before this court again, our good-will will be overturned, and we will have cause to send him to the shivering isle for a period of 10 days. As you all know, a stay in Azkaban is permanently recorded in the Auror’s record.
“As this is a new punishment, it will need to be debated and voted on during a regular afternoon session. As the weekend starts tomorrow, I propose that we provisionally assign this punishment on the understanding that if the proposal fails during Monday’s afternoon session, Mr Fletcher will be fined the appropriate weregild, and the crime expunged.”

It takes a few minutes, while the court is discussing this new option, for Mundungus to think through this proposal, and the fact he gets caught two or three times a year, before he blurts out, “’Ere, I demand my right to pay weregild!”

At that exclamation, the whole court goes silent as everyone looks down at the defendant. As the silence draws on, the chief warlock bangs his gavel, “Show of wands, green for the Black’s proposal, red to reject it.”
Mundungus swallows hard as he sees the sea of green lights from the elected side of the court. Of the permanent seats, only those in the light faction raise their own wands as green. This, however, is enough to sway the vote to the proposal to acceptance.

With a smile, Narcissa curtseys to the court, “Thank you for your faith in this proposal, I will ensure that the draft for this punishment is ready for this afternoon, along with the proposed guidelines for use.”

As she walks back to her seat the chief warlock calls out, “Mundungus Fletcher, you have been sentenced to three days detention in Auror cells, and 12g9s1k in weregild deferred for a year and a day. If the motion fails, you will pay the full 31g5s17k weregild for your crime, and it will be expunged immediately.”

Once the final parts of the sentencing are dealt with, Narcissa discretely leaves for the Black office in the Wizengamot in order to start writing up the draft of the new punishment, and rational behind not taking the Ministry’s cut in lieu of deferring the fine for a year and a day. In the guidelines she includes instructions for the lower courts, including the recommendation that it is only used for defendants of low moral character. Something that the traditional block should like, and will probably end up written into the main article this afternoon.

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High above the earth, on the dark side of the moon, an Arbiter walks out of the sensor suite and kneels down with the hunt mistress and other senior hunters, including one spear master. Bowing his head for a moment as he considers what he’s just seen, he looks up again, “You called me in to answer a dispute, and I have now seen the evidence. Hunt mistress, I find that your honour is intact. You saw the build up and called a grand hunt. Spear master, senior hunters, your honour is also intact, as this is a new strain of R’ka. Henceforth, these will be known as Halkrath kiande amedha, Red Blade clan will gain great honour when I send details to the homeworld once I leave.”
Around the room all the hunters bow in acceptance of the judgement, once they rise the hunt mistress lays her weapon in front of her, “Red Blade clan calls off the grand hunt, and opens up the planet to its allies for the remainder of their stewardship. Red Blade clan also requests that all hunters seek signs of these new kiande amedha, and report their location. If they prove to be worthy prey we will seek to transplant them to other reserves.”

 

Chapter 3


Gilderoy checks his reflection one last time before he uses the last of his daily charms on his mouth. After all, he doesn’t want to smell of onions or garlic, and his smile is his most attractive quality. Picking up one of his luckiest achievements, he pins his Order of Merlin 3^rd class medal to his breast pocket before leaving his room in the three broomsticks. An idle wave of his wand, in a practiced manner, has his dress cane find its way under his left hand, while his wand disappears into a concealed holster on his wrist.

After a leisurely walk around the village of Hogsmeade to the Hogwarts gates he pauses before knocking politely on the Hogwarts emblem. He absolutely doesn’t shriek when a voice, with a Scottish accent, behind him asks, “Can I help you?”
Turning around slowly, Gilderoy looks at the young woman before putting on his best smile, “Certainly, I was hoping to speak to the acting headmistress about the Defence post.”
“An why would you be wanting to do that?”

Taking a step back, Gilderoy lowers himself into a bow, at the same time he pulls a couple of letters from a hidden clip underneath his jacket, “Why, because the headmaster requested me personally, though I was in Peru at the time and had to decline. However, my agent informed me that the last Professor left the position open.”
The woman takes the letters with a huff, before walking around him and pushing the gates open, “Well come on then, we can deal with this in the great hall.”
Blinking a couple of times, Gilderoy straightens up and trots to catch up with the young woman. A few paces past the gates he jumps as the gates close behind him with a loud clang. As he tries to slow down to walk beside the woman, who has opened one of the letters to read it, he finds out that she’s walking too slow for a jog, but faster than his walking pace, “Excuse me Miss, huff, but those letters are for, the headmistress.”
“Hmm, I suppose they are, do you have proof of your Mastery in Defence?”
“What? Um yes. It’s in, my pouch.”
“Good, good, how about a lesson plan?”
“Yes, I was going to focus on magical creatures this year.”
“Interesting. Right, that makes things easier.” Abruptly she changes direction and heads towards the Forbidden Forest.
Gilderoy can’t help the surprise in his tone, “It does?”
The woman nods, “Indeed, part of the interview process now includes a practical test of your mastery. The first part of which will be to get 10 juvenile acromantula from the forest. Something you should have absolutely no trouble with Mr Lockhart.”
Gilderoy stumbles over his next couple of steps, “I’m sorry, what?”
“Don’t worry, all the adults have been ea… dealt with. Your test will serve three purposes, it will allow us to see how close we are to having another breeding pair, it will provide venom for our potions master to experiment with, and they’ll be lunch. I mean we’ll be able to test your competency.”
Gilderoy catches up with the woman as she stops at the edge of the forest, “I’m sorry, I didn’t, catch that, last bit.”
“I said your test will serve multiple purposes. Well, what are you waiting for, an engraved invitation?”
“You know what? No! I demand to speak to the acting headmistress.”
The young lady pulls herself up to her full height, “I’ll have you know Mr Lockhart, I am the acting Head Master of the school, Master of Transfiguration Minerva McGonagall at your service.”
“What? No, you can’t be, she was old when I was at school.”
“Yes, I was. That’s when you got an A on your Defence OWL. Now Laddie, you claim to have a Mastery in Defence, and I’m calling you on it. You can either get 10 juvenile acromantula, or you can leave. Just in case it’s not clear, by Juvenile I mean over two feet long.”
“Now see here, acromantula are a 5x creature, you can’t expect anyone to just hunt them.”
“That only applies to acromantula over six foot long, and I know for a fact there are none in there. Course, I’ll be informing the daily prophet either way, as we may be able to get some good publicity out of it.”
Gilderoy tugs on his lapels as he mentally sets himself to do what needs to be done, “I see. Well, of course it would behove someone of my calibre to deal with such a problem for the school. Understand that I’d normally be charging a hefty fee for this, however I should have your acromantula within the next 30 minutes.”

After a couple more fortifying breaths, Gilderoy nods and sets his face as he turns towards the forest. Taking a deep breath he steps forward and crouches down into a quick spin, his wand popping out into his hand in a practiced move and spitting out three confundus charms in quick succession. Once aimed at the woman’s feet, chest, and where she’s likely to dodge to based on experience. As he stands up smoothly, instead of a very confused woman, he instead has a split second to see a furry xenomorph leaping for his chest before he sees it jump away with the front of his ribcage in its hands. An instant later, the pain hits, and he collapses to the floor trying to scream in agony with shredded lungs. The pain dies away abruptly when the creature snaps his neck, as it drags him towards the school, his last thoughts are ‘That’s always worked before’.

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Minerva is almost back to the school by the time the only confundus that hit her wears off. As she idly crunches on a rib bone with one claw, she ‘glances’ down at the other claw before sending to the hive, “Oh bother. Well, waste not, want not. We have a deceased Gilderoy Lockhart for lunch.”
A moment later all the Earth side hive members dive into her memories before focusing on her last few seconds of conscious thought before her instincts took over.
One by one they see her dodge two of the charms while shifting into her animagus form, before being hit just after the change starts, but before it completes. With a shrug they, even Everly and Vivian, deem it suicide before turning back to what they were doing. Only Maia, formally Bradley, has any negative reaction to this, but that’s more to do with lacking any experience with violence of this sort, than anything else.

Somewhat later, after she has finished her ribs, Minerva makes her way down into to the heart of the school. As she leaves the freshwater well, that’s barely wide enough to fit a full grown man standing upright, through a concealed entrance that only opens into the well, she enters the Heart Room for the school. There she finds both Bathsheba and Septima working on a large computer together while they refer to a desk full of paper and the runes around the room.
“Beth, Septima, how’s things going?”
Septima groans, “Horribly, you can check our memories.”
Minerva nods, “I could, but I want to keep in practice doing things the human… way… Damn, I don’t consider myself human anymore. Ah well. We still need to work with humans, so here we are.”
Septima nods, “I can see that. Well, our biggest headache is that the founders used runes symbolically, rather than as anchors. Something that fell out of use around 700 years ago, as the magic involved tends to start going wild and developing a sort of sense of self. Not exactly ideal when you want your wards to keep doing exactly the same thing every day. Each of the rune clusters you see around us represents a ward stone somewhere in the castle.”
Beth breaks in, “It’s absolutely fascinating, and something I’ve never even heard of before. If I’m right, then even if the castle above was demolished, as long as this room still exists, any structure that is rebuilt above would have the same ward stones appear. What we’re doing here is trying to isolate each of the rune clusters, as well as mapping each of the original enchantments. Something that’s made far more difficult because Sepi needs to detect and analyse each one individually. Fortunately, we’ve been able to get the computer to do the actual calculations for us, as well as calculating the different interactions.”
Septima nods and takes over again, “Once we’ve finished mapping the enchantments in here, we can calculate the overall arithmantic result of the enchantments and craft a spell to check a ward stone against that result. After that, we need to visit each ward stone and check its individual result. If it comes back different, then we’ll need to analyse the enchantments on that stone to find out what they do. To complicate things, Beth is also checking to see if any of the rune clusters here are actually more modern anchors. Quite frankly, I think it would be easier to be a curse breaker than doing what we’re doing. However, we have the advantage that this method is actually safe as oppose to the risks of attacking from the outside.”

Minerva nods, and walks around the room, being careful not to step on the actual heart stone in the centre of the room. She really doesn’t want to be directly connected to the leylines running under the school. After a moment she stops, staring at one of the rune clusters, “Beth.”
“Yes Minerva?”
“Is there any reason why you couldn’t have some of the other hive members going around the school, looking for these rune clusters?”
Beth looks up from the computer for a moment, “Why?”
“Well, the curse was put there by You-Know-Who, what are the chances he’d know how to do the warding work that you’re untangling here?”
Beth looks over at Septima, who thinks for a moment, “It’s unlikely, and even if he did, he’d have needed to perform a ritual to get the curse to stick. As cursing something abstract is very different from cursing a person, object, or location. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a ritual circle buried underneath this flooring.”
Minerva nods thoughtfully, “So, it’s likely that he anchored his curse with runes, yes?”
Beth shrugs, “Probably, or he found another way. That’s why we’re doing this, as it’s guaranteed to find anything that’s been added to the wards since the heart stone was created.”
Minerva nods, “Then we’ve got something for the kids to do when they’re bored. Even if we find the curse that way, I still want the two of you to finish mapping out the enchantments over the school. And if the school has a personality, please try to give it some way to communicate with us.”
Beth sighs, “I’ll ask Arry for some slates, and link them to this computer.”
Minerva nods in agreement before leaving the Heart Room, and making her way to the Library.

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Pausing at the doors to the Library, Minerva turns around and walks a few yards down the corridor to poke her head into the room set aside for any books found in the room of hidden things. Her mouth drops open as she sees the piles of unsorted books dotted around the, now expanded, room, along with the two bookcases that are both almost full. Somewhat puzzled at the lack of progress on this room, she makes her way into the library. After the first couple of steps in, she stops sharply, the door closing behind her with a soft click.

In front of her are pockmarked bookcases as far as she can see. The librarians desk is so covered with books, as to be unrecognisable. The only indication that there hasn’t been some sort of fight here are the neat piles of books around the library. Carefully, she wends her way around the piles of books, deeper into the library towards the sounds of voices. Eventually, she comes across Irma talking to 4 house elves.
After a light cough to announce her presence, Minerva looks pointedly at the bookshelves, “Irma, I was under the impression that you were going to be teaching these house elves how to manage the Library, not dismantle it.”
Irma straightens up and turns around with an especially sour expression on her face, “Indeed I was. And Dipsy, Tinky-Winky, Laa-Laa, and Po here have been soaking up those lessons admirably. Though they should also be putting just as much effort into the lessons on reading and writing.”
“So, what happened here?”
“Dipsy here found a book from the restricted section behind a row of books on comparative linguistics. Since then, we have found another four, one of which was restricted due to the defences on the book rather than the content. We’ve also found 200 books that are commonly required for different assignments that are handed out to 4^th years and above, all either misfiled, or hidden behind other books. Laa-Laa found one restricted book with the cover of a non-restricted book. Finally the other books you see around are all mis-filed by era or subject. Not to mention the three shelves that were expanded to hold contraband at some point, and required Severus, Filch, and Pomona to remove safely.”
Minerva looks confused, “Era?”
Irma nods, “Indeed, we have over a thousand years of books here. The language they’re written in varies over time, and becomes more incomprehensible to modern witches and wizards the further back you go. That’s not to mention the influx of muggle books that has been happening over the holiday. Some of which I am going to be placing into the restricted section.”
Minerva raises an eyebrow, “Oh?”
“Oh is the right response. The house elves have been buying cookbooks from the muggle world.” She looks down at Po, who looks sheepish, “One of them heard that one cookbook has been modified by the muggle governments, to ensure the recipes don’t work. So they found three different first editions of the anarchists cookbook. They were given to the library after a new glycerine recipe killed the elf that was trying to make it. Fortunately, the elf was a member of one of the hives, so they’re currently with the elflings.”
Minerva blanches slightly, “Well, carry on, and have a good afternoon.”
Heavy with sarcasm, Irma responds, “Oh, I’m sure I will. Nothing like reindexing the entire library by hand to help you relax.”

Forgoing her attempt at appearing human, Minerva pops out of the library and into her own office. There, she continues looking through applications for the new jobs coming up next year, along with the capital expenses for much needed replacements and renovations, and the upcoming agenda for the school board meeting.

 

Chapter 4

Pomona whistles happily as she makes her way through a dense jungle on an unknown planet. Well, unknown to most of the hive anyway, as E’jeah has obviously been here before. While they’re supposed to be scouting the planet out so that E’jeah’s knowledge can’t be lost to the hive, Pomona is far more interested in the plant life here.
Idly she ducks down to the side as a vine suddenly curls up as it zips into the foliage.
Especially the violent sort of plant life.
Pulling out her wand, she turns to follow the vine 10m into the jungle. Elf popping onto a tree branch for a better view, she curses as she fires off a severing charm, “Damn it, Pomona, you know better than that. Romly, could I have a hand here, as this plant seems to have a fast-acting paralytic.” The last couple of words are said over the hive, as the venom has already robbed her of her ability to speak.

A moment, and a flash of fire, later sees her lying on her back in the hospital wing. Wrapped around her legs is the end of the vine she landed on without noticing. As Poppy is rushing out of her office, her wand already casting diagnostic spells, Pomona feels a tightness in her chest for a few seconds, before her world becomes fire.

As the fire clears, she opens her eyes, only to see only blurs instead of the infirmary.

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As her patient bursts into flame, Poppy stops walking abruptly. As she does, the vine around Pomona’s leg flops onto the infirmary floor, before twitching towards her. It only takes her a couple of seconds to fire a medical stasis charm at the plant, before setting up a quarantine bubble around it.
Just as she’s finished doing that, a second burst of fire lights up from the other side of Pomona’s bed. Cautiously she spells a bit of parchment with a note for Filius, and causes it to fold up and fly off with a simple charm.

A second later, half a dozen house elves appear, and one of them picks up an elfling from the floor on the other side of Pomona’s bed.
Before they can disappear once more, Poppy shouts, “Stop right there! That elfling is my patient, and until I know what has happened to both them and Pomona, they are staying right here. (It’s bad enough the Head Master and Babbling refused treatment)”
The elf holding the elfling bows her head, “Missy Healses, they’s had an unscheduled burning day.”
Poppy pinches the bridge of her nose, “Regardless, they appeared in my infirmary while injured, so they are my patients until I have determined they are both stable and not a risk to anyone else in the school. Now, unless one of you is going to volunteer to help me provide proper care for the elfling, you will place the elfling on that bed over there and return to your duties.”
The elves all share a glance before the one that spoke says, “Tanzie will stay to help.”
As Tanzie puts the elfling on the bed, Poppy summons her writing box and mutters, “That was easy.”

A few minutes later she’s written two letters, one to the ministry, and one to Snape, each one asking basically the same thing. Namely, can they look at the plant that she has under quarantine and see if it is safe to destroy, has any useful properties, and if it is an infection risk.

“Tanzie, send these letters by owl, and then come back and tell me what this burning day stuff is all about.”
Tanzie takes the two letters and disappears with a pop as Poppy starts to cast her diagnostic spells over the two sleeping infants.

A few minutes later, Filius comes running into the infirmary at the same time Tanzie returns. “Poppy, what’s going on?”
Poppy points at Pomona and the elf on the beds, “You have experience with whatever is going on here, as you were Minerva’s stand in just after Easter. Tanzie there informed me that they had a burning day, yet nobody has seen fit to actually fill the school nurse in on what has changed for these people, and what it means medically.”
Filius looks between Poppy, Tanzie, and the baby Pomona, “I see. Well. Erm, all I was told is everyone in either of the two hives, bar a very short list of boys, is a phoenix hybrid.”
Poppy puts one hand on her hip while she continues her diagnostics, “Well, what does that mean for them? Do I just cut their head off if they break a bone, or can I still give them skelegrow? Is the school still in charge of their medical needs, or are they seeking them elsewhere?”
Tanzie’s eyes lose focus as she starts to talk to her hive. At the same time, Filius shakes his head, “I’m sorry, I can’t answer those questions.”
Poppy harumphs, “Well, I’m officially informing you that Pomona Sprout won’t be in a fit state to mind the school for however long it takes her to recover.”
Filius sighs as he looks at the baby, “Thank you for letting me know, though she wasn’t due back until mid-August, as she’s got her Niece’s birthday and the herbologists convention to attend.”
Tanzie’s eyes refocus, and she looks up at Poppy, “Missy Vivi will visit to discuss healy stuff with you.”
“She better, or by Merlin I will not be responsible for my actions.”

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“Millicent honey, let us in. You brother and I just want to discuss your schooling going forward.”
As her father pleads at the door, Millicent Bulstrode turns her head to look at the now man sized xenomorph she adopted. “Lassie, I don’t think they’re interested in my academic performances, are they.”
Lassie shakes her head as the door knob rattles, followed by the thump of a heavy shoulder. For the umpteenth time she sends thanks to Xeno for showing her the locking spell she used on the door. In the same thought, she has some rather rude things to say about Luna, and the veela in the hive.

Half an hour later, the banging on the door subsides, and Millicent relaxes slightly, before starting the meditation needed to learn to control her allure. Nearly an hour later, she’s interrupted by her mother knocking on the door.
“Millicent sweetie, your brother and father have gone to the Wizengamot. Can I come in?”
Somewhat reluctantly, Millicent lifts her wand and casts the counter charm for the locking spell. “Come in Mum.”
Her mother, Omie, opens the door and slips inside before closing it behind her. As she glides over to the bed, Millicent idly wonders why her mother is wearing her night dress in the middle of the day, especially given that she’s still got her day makeup on.
With a smile, Omie sits down on the bed and pats the space beside her, “Millicent, you’re a growing young woman, so I think it’s time we had a talk about your social expectations and the consequences of your choices.”
Reflexively, Millicent checks the hives memories for what this could be about, only for Clothilde to point her at an appropriate set with a sense of amusement. As she’s sitting on the bed, Millicent’s cheeks flush as she processes what she’s just seen. As such she’s more than slightly distracted when Omie shuffles closer to her and puts one hand on her knee.
“Now Millicent, as you know young women from noble houses have expectations to live up to, which is why we are forbidden from getting too close with the boys and men, as one mistake could lead to an unfavourable marriage. Now, there are various things that can be done to deal with the urges that lead to these mistakes, and it’s time for you to learn about some of them.”
Millicent jumps as Omie’s other hand snakes around her back as her mother leans in to kiss her on the lips.
As her mother pulls back from the kiss, Clothilde’s laughter breaks her shock enough that Millicent is able to elf pop across the room to stand on the other side of her bed. “Mother! What’s got into you?”
Omie turns over onto her hands and knees so that she’s facing Millicent, “Oh Millie, you have no idea what it’s like living with your father. And a woman has needs…”
Millicent stares at her mother in horror, as she crawls closer. Fortunately for her peace of mind, Lassie isn’t frozen in horror, and swiftly runs around the bed to grab Millicent and flame away to Clothilde’s current location.

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Minerva sighs as she reads through the official ICW response to research paper on alternative methods for achieving an animagus form. Namely that she needs to resubmit the paper without the methodology, as pure blood families can’t be trusted not to kill their own offspring, or break the statute of secrecy, while attempting to give their children an advantageous animagus form. There is a question from the ICW research division asking how she came across dangerous enough non-magical creatures to prompt this response.

As she’s considering how to respond to this letter, Clothilde leads a shocked student into her office. “Minerva, I think you’re going to need to have mandatory classes on self-control and how to deal with creatures that have magical auras.”
Minerva looks up and blinks, “Um, what? You’ll need to explain that as I’m not part of your hive.”
Clothilde gestures at the student, “This is Millicent Bulstrode, and the situation she just left was more than a little amusing, even if she doesn’t think so.”
Millicent looks at Clothilde with a fair amount of disgust, “I don’t think my mother trying to seduce me is amusing.”
Clothilde gently kisses Millicent on the forehead, “It’s amusing because it wasn’t happening to me, and it was clumsy and transparent. Both things that we will be teaching you to spot and deflect, or encourage occasionally. In that respect, your mother was right, as you grow into your body, you will have needs. But at the moment, you are far too young to be dealing with those needs, let alone dealing with the needs of others.”
Minerva shakes her head, “I think we should just adopt all the students into one of the hives and be done with it.”
Clothilde chuckles, “You would, but I think their parents would disagree. Especially those who have sons attending the school.”
Minerva sighs, “Dealing with humans is so difficult sometimes.”
Millicent’s eyes widen as Clothilde nods in agreement, “They are, especially for Veela. Yet, for us they are also necessary. Well, for veela that haven’t been brought into a hive anyway. That being said, maybe we could import some cuckoo cats from India.”
Minerva blinks, “A whatery what cats?”
“Cuckoo cats. According to Xeno’s memories they’re an endangered species of magical cat indigenous to Southern India.”
Minerva drawls, “And why are they endangered?”
Clothilde smiles, “Because they leave their kittens with pack based predators, and their magic means that the predators will raise them as their own offspring, despite the fact that they’re a type of tiger. This includes Humans that aren’t disciplined enough to throw off the magical effect.”
Minerva nods, “That could well work, and it would…”
Millicent burst out, “No, it’s a terrible idea. They’re endangered because they have a habit of killing the other children. I’m not willing to put the few friends I do have endanger just to make your life easier.”
Minerva blinks, “I wasn’t just thinking about that, I was also thinking about how that sort of ability could benefit the hive.”
Millicent opens and closes her mouth a couple of times as Clothilde nods, “I can see that. But I think you’d find it just as problematic as veela allure. Especially if you want to keep the body count down. At least we don’t need to worry about forced mating bonds.”
Millicent looks up at Clothilde, “What?”
Clothilde smiles wistfully, “One of the most beautiful parts of being a veela is finding a mate that can retain their minds during our climax. To them we offer our hearts with a small ritual that binds the two of us together. However, some wizards have learnt to use magic to pervert that bond so that it is purely one way. Something we no longer need to worry about, as our bond to the hive overrides any other bonds we could ever have.”
Millicent blinks, “Um, right. Well, it’s creepy enough that mum kissed me like that, I don’t want to think about that sort of bond right now.”
Minerva nods, “Quite right, quite right. Well, I need to visit the department of education to see if they have any past advice on this.”
Clothilde’s eyes snap back into focus as she snarls, “As long as that advice doesn’t involve collars, you’ll be fine.”
Minerva closes her eyes for a few seconds, before opening them again, “Right, that’s likely to be another history lesson I have no context for. If you’ll excuse me, I need to finish this paperwork before I head to the Ministry to attend a number of interviews. Maybe you should take Miss Bulstrode home, and remain with her to act as her chaperone.”
Clothilde narrows her eyes, “You are aware that I’m with child?”
Minerva nods, “I can smell it. However, you are also an adult, and someone who understands what Millicent is going through. Therefore, you can also explain it to her parents, and be a physical reminder that she’s learning to control that aspect of her magic.”
Clothilde and Millicent share a quick conversation over their hive, before Clothilde takes Millicent’s hand and flames back to Millicent’s bedroom.”