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Secret Lair
–Damian Hawthorne–
"Just lunch, you can do this, Damian," He spoke to himself, checking things for the nth time as he prepared to leave for the Hawthorne Mansion, well, he assumed there was a mansion because it was a noble family. For all he knew, they could be living in a giant apartment, magically stretched to become the size of a football field.
Yeah, something told him that was particularly unlikely, especially with the dearth of free space available in Magical Britain. Turns out, when distance to city centres and connected utilities like electricity, sewage, and water were just not required, you could make your home anywhere you want.
And Britain was full of such spaces. Last he heard, there was not even a single noble family that lived near any large cities, preferring either smaller ones or just remote areas with just animals and mountains to keep them company. Hell, last he heard, there had been a major push to relocate every single government building away from areas closer to the Non-magicals, right after Voldemort was turned into a wraith by Lily Potter's magic.
That did not go anywhere, mostly because it came from the Dark Magic Faction, support for whom had dropped dramatically once their head honcho was gone.
Shaking his head, he stopped his mind from catching yet another tangent and looked at the gift he had prepared for today. He couldn't go empty handed, now, could he? He was going to meet all his siblings, for the first time, and while he did not go so far as to make a custom present for each of them, a single all encompassing magical creation was not far fetched, even when considering the polite but distant vibe he was planning to bring to this family lunch.
He could not risk using any of his usual shield spells, since they were pretty distinct and the whole magical world knew that the Giant Killer used them, and any offensive tool he could make would just be overkill and bring further attention to him and his past escapades from his biological family.
No, it had to be, at best, middling if it was offensive or defensive, or good if it was aesthetic. Making something mediocre went against his very being, so he was forced to create something that would be best served as decoration, for them anyway.
As for him, extra surveillance never hurt anybody, right?
The end result of those two thoughts was a small box that, when activated, would activate live feeds from his cluster of orbit satellites, showing the world in all its HD glory, since the world was only just moving to 4K and he had not yet dove into the world of optics and how magic could enhance it, so his satellites were equipped with run of the mill satellite equipment that he was able to buy from the non magical black market.
It was kind of surprising and scary from a Non magical perspective just what one could buy in the so called black market, which was a network that was allowed to exist by the world's governments, in a similar way to Knockturn Alley.
The idea being that a known evil was better than the unknown one, not that they could reliably keep track of stuff here anyway.
Last he heard, there had been three concentrated attempts to track down the supplier of the nuke, who had to pull out of the deal last minute because it was always someone associated with the world governments who was looking to buy the nuke.
It was amusing to track because the forums and, yes, there were forums for the Black Market, were always full of activity when it came to such a juicy target. If he was not wrong, the nuke itself was probably fake, the supplier profile built up to reveal any rogue organisations and governments who were interested in a nuclear payload, especially since none of the Big ones, like permanent UN members had made a move to buy it.
Also, it was pretty useless since it was not exactly a missile, just an outdated, Ukrainian nuclear payload that might or might not work. Anyone with an iota of sense knew that the most important part of a nuke was the delivery mechanism. It would be impossible to just transport that into any pace of significance without being flagged immediately.
Tapping the box once more, he deactivated the feed after checking that everything was working alright, before musing on the fact that he was not doing anything about a nuke that could actually be sold, however minuscule the chances might be of that happening.
If that had been the old him, the pre Wakanda him, he might have jumped at the bait, investigated everything, and tried to act as the world's savior, to confiscate and destroy something that was meant to destroy on a large scale radius, but now? Now, he knew that was not his place to do so, especially since it was probably not even a real thing.
Maybe something to do once he was powerful enough to ignore the consequences of jumping into the fray, where his identity might get leaked at any point of time.
With that parting thought, he mentally willed himself to appear in the portal room, before checking the time and turning on the spot, appearing on top of The Leaky Cauldron.
Slowly floating down into a nearby alley, he made himself visible and walked out, to find William staring intently at the alley itself, his eyes widening a bit before his face smoothed out in a neutral expression, as he walked towards William.
Hmm, his decision to not actively mask his magic because William was going to be here worked out. Could not let them know that he could become visible to magical senses at will, now, could he?
They exchanged cordial pleasantries, William's eyes straying to the obvious magical contraption in his hand, to which he made no comments, as they both grasped each other's hands and teleported from the spot. The area being in the perception filter of the Leaky Cauldron meant that they did not have to worry about any Non-magicals seeing them teleport.
The experience of the apparition was not bad, William obviously being experienced with this, but even so, he had to actively stop himself from bending over on arrival, as the impact was kind of jarring.
"Sorry for that, I am not that well versed with Side-Along Apparition, especially not when there's no emergency," William apologised, and he waved the man off. His comment about emergencies made sense since Aurors most probably did not care about comfort during emergency deployments.
Once that was done, he looked ahead and saw only green, as far as his eyes could see, just a vast sprawling lawn with fountains, mazes for gardens, and well-cobbled paths, and he was pretty sure that if he floated up, which would be kind of alarming for the Hawthornes, he would be able to see far more.
Huh. He knew that they were a noble family and likely loaded, but if the Hawthornes were this loaded, then what could be said about the Malfoys or the Blacks? The richest people in the country.
"Beautiful, right?" William spoke as they walked on the neatly laid out, and clean paths, walking towards the mansion, which was not even freaking visible right now.
"Yes, it is…spread out." He commented as his eyes took in the sight in front of him. In most cases, the amount of land you had was a pretty good indication of overall wealth levels, but maybe he needed to reassess that standard>?
Because in the magical world, any place could be used to make a mansion, even less rich people could make homes that only the top 0.1% could make in the non magical world?
William chuckled, "Yes, when you have a family as big and varied as we do, you need all the space in the world,"
He resisted the urge to deadpan at the man, because, yes, the Hawthorne family was big by magical standards, but they were not an entire village! There was probably some small settlement in some poor developing country housing thousands that was smaller than what he was seeing right now.
First world problems, apparently, were nothing in front of magical first-world problems.
It was after the first five minutes of walking, that he noticed it. William's smile, as if waiting for him to realise something, did not help, as he realised that they were walking towards a cliff of some sort, and when they reached the end of it, he realised just how mistaken he was when he thought of them being just another run of the mill noble, pureblood family of Magical Britain.
Because if these people could make a big ass hole in the ground, surround it from all sides from plains, not mountains and make a giant magical house that was glowing like Christmas lights to his magical senses, all without being declared the richest family in Magical Britain, then either, they were hiding their real wealth and duping most of Magical Britain, or he was really out of touch when it came to the lives of rich people in the magical world.
He really did need more data on how wizards lived, because how could it be true that this exists in the same freaking universe as the Weasley household, and both the families possessed the same basic underlying magical abilities?
Shitty universe building for the win!
___xx___
He appeared on the ground, right in front of the main Fountain, with William appearing a moment later, as the path down the cliff did not exist.
"Wow, you're fast," William commented, and he nodded, his eyes glued on the now, downright modest sized mansion, if compared with the gargantuan lawn area they'd built around the actual house.
What was even the purpose of that lawn, if the entire house was surrounded by mountains, if looked from the inside?
They walked past the fountain, and to the front door. A stereotypical looking old man, with the full butler costume, opened the door, and another maid who stood by his side, looking at him with barely restrained delight and also teary eyes for some reason, were waiting for them.
"Welcome back, Master Damian. Master William,"
Ah, here we go.
Before he could either ignore the comment or explain it to them, William stepped in, "Ah, Arthur, like we discussed earlier, Damian is just here for lunch."
Well, this was off to a great start.
__xx__
–Albus Dumbledore–
"I'll see you next week, okay, Harry?"
"Yes, professor," Harry said distractedly, his entire focus on the fire he'd conjured on top of his hands. For some reason, Harry was quite focused on creating cool moves as Harry called them, with his newfound ability to conjure fire wandlessly.
His enthusiasm when he first saw fire forming out of thin air was remarkably infectious, reminding him once more, why he loved being an educator first and foremost. That cheer rapidly died down once he remembered why he taught Harry this particular ability so soon.
Harry's control over his magic was exceptional, and the same extended towards wandless spells, simple ones anyway. The ability to conjure, control, and throw fire was a vital ability, especially when done wandlessly.
Combined with the ability to effectively analyse and use their surroundings, using fire in an offensive manner was something that could stop entire groups at large. Ofcourse, it would not work against the likes of Tom or even the Giant Killer, but they were but one or two people.
Anyone but them could easily find themselves caught off guard if confronted with a teenager with the ability to set people on fire. He was going to have Harry control the fire and use the environment around him optimally, before moving on to defensive spells.
There were multiple variations of multiple spells for shields. Physical shields. Magical shields. Anti curse shields. And more, but the best shield for anything was not being hit at all.
He smiled as he found himself getting excited to teach Harry the pitfalls of thinking that his shield spell would protect him, or just moving blindly in any direction would help him.
Such was Harry's focus on his Firebender moves as he called them, that he didn't even glance at Fawkes when he arrived in a brilliant blaze of fire, something of a show that Fawkes puts up specifically for Harry since his familiar had a soft spot for him.
With another brilliant blaze, he was back in his office, with a file waiting for him on his desk, with a name he had not expected to see again in his lifetime.
Damian Hawthorne.
The missing child of the Hawthorne family. He could still remember the ruckus they raised to get access to Hogwarts' sacred artifacts, just to find their son.
Shaking his head, he read through the sparse file before keeping it to the side. The case of Damian, while interesting, was not important enough for now.
He will meet Damian as he meets every other new generation of magical children. On their first day at Hogwarts.
Speaking of which, he still had a lot to do before that day arrived.
He had to train Harry, not just in spells but also in what it meant to be the last living Potter.
He still dreaded that conversation, the questions on why he was left out of the magical world and how, despite being wealthy, he had to live with the Dursleys.
Exhaling, he felt the weight of all his failures as well as the uncomfortable conversations that he could see in his near future.
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