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Hogwarts [Earlier that Night]
–Damian Hawthorne–
As soon as he flew out of the hole that was covered in dense shrubbery, something that was taken care of by his forcefield, he immediately turned on the spot and flew away, while maintaining low altitude. His natural control over his magic meant the initial flight from the sewer was done with minimal magic, and once he was out of Hogwarts' ward influence, he quickly enchanted his clothes and flew off, away from the Castle.
Since it was not something he made with care or performance in mind, he was flying at a fraction of his maximum cruising speed, but that was fine because he just had to get away from the Magical Forest that acted as the natural barrier between the non-magical world and the most magically important place in all of Magical Britain.
Well, his Lair and the London Sanctum notwithstanding. Not to toot his own horn, but he liked to think that his research, as well as his experimental weaponry, on top of the specialised Ward Matrix that had the potential to stump even the most foremost experts on Wards, meant his Lair was quite a magically significant place.
Maybe not on par with something that sustained a planetary magical shield that both stopped as well as filtered any magic or magical being entering the planet, but it was significant to him, alright?!
As soon as the first streetlight entered his vision, he flexed his magic in a way he hadn't in over a month, as he teleported straight to the Portal Room of his Lair, using long range Apparition.
Opening his eyes, he smiled as he found himself in the familiar visage of the Portal Room, with smooth walls all around, with no discernible entry or exit. Only he knew how many weapons, both magical, and non-magical, and a mix of both, were hidden behind the wall panels that made up the entire room. One never knew what kind of weapon would come out and shoot someone right between the legs.
That was something he hoped was never used on someone, but if the Ward Matrix judged a situation to reach that high in terms of severity, then maybe the person deserved it. It was not like his Lair was a public place where someone could accidentally stumble upon anything.
As the doors opened on their own, the Ward Matrix lighting up the entire Lair upon his arrival, he found himself going to a place he held most dear. Not his office, not his workshop, not the modest library he had built for himself that consisted of both legal as well as less than legal acquisitions, and not even the armoury.
He went straight to his….toilet.
Before he even reached his living quarters, he knew that the Ward Matrix had performed a deep cleaning cycle on everything, despite this entire place basically being a Clean Room, where finding a speck of dust would be harder than finding a Horcrux, since there were none.
Snorting at his lame joke, he entered his bedroom, and…did his business, before moving to the Armoury, as the time spent in the loo had another very important purpose. As most humans on the planet would agree, he did some of his best thinking on the toilet.
It was the same this time as well. See, when he first left the Castle, he had only concepts of a plan about how he was going to go about the whole thing. His only motive was to establish an alibi for his student identity, and to do so in a manner so flashy that there should basically be zero doubt that the Giant Killer was not in Hogaerts, no matter what their spell might tell them.
Too bad he had never gotten a chance to look at the spell that had tried to latch onto him, he might have been able to tell a bit more about the nature of that particular magic. Was it a ritual? Or a spell? Or something else? Dark Magic? Blood Magic?
Then again, in exchange for what little information he would have gleaned, he would have had to deal with people who would then be certain that the Giant Killer was within Hogwarts and his exact location as well, instead of just a general direction. Shrugging, he moved to the Armoury, his destination and more importantly, his plan now coming together, which had him grinning like a maniac. He could just imagine the headlines tomorrow. If only the magical world had something like Reddit, he would have loved to scroll endlessly and listen to people's delusional takes, with the rare good take sprinkled in between.
Ah, he missed the denial and then moving the goalpost that constantly occurred on Reddit arguments. He always felt like eating popcorn when reading some particularly spicy comments, especially when he knew that those comments were going to be removed soon, either by the Mods when they saw it or by Reddit itself after being mass reported.
Cracking his neck, he input the complicated series of codes he'd installed for the Armoury, as the doors opened with a hiss, revealing rows upon rows of forcefields holding onto what appeared to be rectangular blocks, sparkling with magic. Despite the door now open, he did not actually enter, instead waiting for an entire minute before the view in front of him distorted, revealing a wall of lasers strong enough to go through any magical shield.
After the lasers were dispelled, he moved in, heading straight to the first thing on display.
His battle uniform, a variation of the usual hood and cloak uniform he wore on outings, only more. More defense. More offense. More hidden spaces for weapons. More Curses woven into the uniform. More Magical batteries, just in case. Just more.
The textbook definition of overkill for normal or even moderately intense use, which is why this was going to be the first time he was going to take this baby out. This was a direct result of the inspiration he had after experiencing first hand the magical horrors that the superpowers of the planet could dole out.
Wakanda's disintegration ray had really done a number on him, which is why he preferred this method of shock and awe to deflect their attention away from Hogwarts.
He shuddered to think what they could do if they had a portable version of that beam, which was unlikely considering all the enchantment principles he knew of but then again, the same principles also told him that the magic required to power such a curse was not just astronomical, it was something that would power the most magical intensive artifact that Magical Britain had for decades.
The Magical Net, something he thought didn't even exist, but apparently, it does. An artifact likely as old as Hogwarts itself, woven into the Great Isles, with the main wardstone buried in the foundation of the Ministry of Magic. Its function was to use a shit ton of magic to temporarily give the Ministry the ability to track individual magical signatures down to their affinity, something that his Global Satellite network could not do yet.
He was sure he could devise a cost effective alternative and install it in his network, but the stone hadn't been seen for decades at this point, not even used during Tommy Boy's reign.
Shaking his head, he donned his armour, took one last look at the enchantments on the Dungeon/Prison floor before heading to the Portal Room. Checking his weapons of choice one last time, he disappeared from his spot, appearing in the middle of a light storm, with darkness all around him.
Slowly lowering his height, he saw it. The Monstrosity of Magical Britain, a prison that housed what were the blight upon magic, a feeling his magic reciprocated, giving him that same irrational urge of anger when he first encountered that Pureblood Vampire, a supposed aberration of nature, as they were not supposed to appear naturally.
Though, because of the distance or maybe because of the knowledge of what he was about to do here, the rage was muted. Sighing, he took a moment to center himself before spinning the small knife in his hand, the handle having a hole in which his index finger was currently in.
To make sure that his entry could not be missed by anyone, he made his suit glow, subtly then brightly later on. Soon enough, as he was now level with the prison built into the small hill on the island, he saw activity all around the island.
Knowing that time was of the essence, he dashed in, ignoring the guards and blasting into the prisoner cells, his destination already fixed.
He had done his research about this place, as this was a point of global interest, as nowhere else were Dementors used to house prisoners. The worst of the worst, mind you, but the rest of the magical world just executed them and washed their hands of the matter. Magical Britain was the only one that used a horde of Dementors to torture and suck the life out of the prisoners, a punishment some argued to be worse than death.
Well, he was not here to judge anyone, though most people here definitely deserved living here. He was here to create chaos and also to rescue some people who were unjustly cast here.
Thankfully, no new prisoner had been added to Azkaban in the last decade or so, with the Death Eaters, which included Sirius, being the last ones. He was actually surprised to see that innocent people were not placed here.
While there had been attempts by the nobility to railroad some innocent people to Azkaban, it helped that the Wizengamot had light aligned nobility as well, and failing that, Dumbledore had final say whether someone could go to Azkaban or regular jail.
It was actually one of the conditions put forth by the ICW in exchange for letting the prison function.
Well, it was a good day for them, as he was about to put them out of their misery. Before doing that, though, he recognised the odd magical signature, burst into the cells, completely ordinary ones, rescued Sirius Black before moving straight up, bursting through two levels of stone, and soil before quickly teleporting back to his Lair.
Placing Sirirus in the same Dungeon he made for the thralls, something he never thought would be useful again, he popped back to the Portal Room and then back to Azkaban, ready for some Grade A Aura Farming.
If you would like to read ahead 12 chapters ahead, you can head to my P*treon.