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Secret Lair
–Damian Hawthorne–
His eyes snapped open, instantly becoming aware of his surroundings as he relaxed a moment later, stretching on his very comfy bed and staring at the ceiling for a few seconds before he finally moved and got out of the bed.
Taking a note of the time, he realised that he still had a couple of hours before he had to meet Dumbledore, so after making sure that the Prison Dungeon worked properly and taking a few notes on what he could do better in case he had prisoners here with more exotic abilities, he went to the kitchen, ready to make a very heavy breakfast.
Well, that was the plan, but apparently, someone forgot to do the mandatory weekly grocery shopping. Sure, he could buy groceries for like a month in advance, deep freeze them, and use them without any degradation whatsoever, especially since magic was involved, but he preferred not to do that.
He tried doing that once and it just didn't feel right to him. The taste and the textures were the same, yes, but it just did not feel tasty enough for him. It was illogical but unfortunately, it was not something that could be waved off with just magic. So, he had resorted to using the same deep freeze magic, but only for a week's worth of groceries.
Groceries that had run out. Which meant he might just get breakfast on the way, and move Dumbledore's meeting up a few hours. He might not have taken this call a few days ago but he had a strange feeling that Dumbledore would not attack him on sight now.
Also, he might or might not have built something that could or could not be implanted directly into the body that would take him out of the situation even if he was unconscious and if the initial tests were any indication, nothing short of a Vibranium prison humming with Cosmic energy should be able to hold him, even with the handicap of being unconscious and unable to use all his tools in a creative manner.
….
…
After breakfast, he flew towards Hogwarts, which was rather easy to find, provided you had a way into the magical world, as maps demarcating the magical areas were very easy to find, presumably in a bid to educate the magical population to reduce the incidents of non magicals somehow seeing wizards perform real magic.
That kind of incident almost always ends in the non magical being either professionally obliviated by an Auror of some sort with very little in terms of physical harm, or a haphazard obliviate done by an idiot wizard after they had inflicted physical damage upon the unsuspecting non magical in either panic or sadistic glee.
Unfortunately, stuff like this regularly happened, and information about it was easily available to him, with the DMLE leaking incident reports like a sieve. More than once, he had been asked by his contacts about the reason for the reports since, according to them, they were entirely worthless.
He did not answer their questions, obviously. He had a hard, criminal image to maintain. Obviously couldn't do that if he was cooperating with their queries.
Within minutes, he flew over a vast range of forest, with the roads visibly curving away from the forest, the traffic going with it, as he flew through the last patch. He felt it when he crossed an invisible boundary, and Hogwarts became visible to him, the train tracks being the only part in the forest that were not covered by the dense trees.
Passing Hogsmeade, he flew down right outside the range of Hogwarts' wards, and metaphorically knocked on the Hogwarts' wards using his magic. That ought to get his attention.
Within moments of that happening, he felt more than saw Dumbledore coming through the doors, towards the gate. He was under an invisibility charm, that much he could see but it was not done really well, like he could easily tell. It was probably only for any onlookers, instead of confusing him.
Well, he was doing the same anyway, having undone some layers of his magical stealth as soon as he crossed over the Forbidden Forests. Dumbledore came and stood in front of him before heading out. He followed suit, as they headed towards the forests, inside a small cabin that screamed magically hidden to him.
Thankfully, still out of Hogwarts' ward influence, they both cancelled their respective stealth and sat down. He waited for the man to begin, knowing that this was just yet another power move, something he hated with a passion, but had no other option because all these old monsters had a ton of patience, and giving them an inch almost always will lead to loss on his part.
"I have good news," Dumbledore spoke after almost an entire minute of awkward silence.
"The Shepherd has agreed to take in the thralls. The cost is…acceptable. She wants to transport them as soon as possible." He then took out a rock from his coat and placed it on the table between them, the entire thing radiating a sinister purple hue that gave off a really bad vibe to him.
The magic itself was not dark or demonic, but for some reason, it just set off some alarms in his mind.
"That can be used to contact her. Once you crush it, her people will come to your location, ready to transport all of them. I assume you have them securely contained?" Dumbledore's tone turned probing towards the end, and it was understandable.
After all, not everyone had a private prison capable of housing dozens of confused thralls that were most likely to lash out at anyone around them because of the mental compulsion placed on them.
Also, Shepherd?
"The Shepherd is real?" He'd thought the person itself to be an urban myth, propagated by the organisation itself and the world's powers to a lesser extent to maintain a thin layer of separation between the governments and the vampire enclave.
Ofcourse, he'd heard of that barely kept secret organisation that was responsible for the ethical rehabilitation of unwilling victims as per the brochure that the vampire loving church distributes to anyone who would listen.
"Yes," Dumbledore confirmed and then fell silent, as he reached and took the stone in his hand, after making sure that it had no weird trigger on it that might activate. Keeping it in his hand, he replied.
"So, I assume this is where we part ways? I crush this, and she comes to collect them. I assume you have some questions," He added when it looked like Dumbledore was about to speak up, "But unfortunately, I have an important meeting coming up and I need to prepare for that."
With that, he disappeared from the spot, teleporting to the edge of the Forbidden Forest, before he flew away, back to London. Once above the Sanctum, he teleported once more, entering a quarantine box he had built for this specific purpose, hundreds of meters underground in London, dumped the rock there, and left for his Lair.
He was not stupid enough to bring that rock anywhere near his home. It was already grating on his security protocol minded mind to bring a complete stranger in some parts of his lair, even if he was personally vetted by the Bald One, so he was not keen on bringing anyone else even close to his lair for the foreseeable future.
As he exited the portal room, he checked on the thralls once more before heading to his office.
The weekly lunch with the Hawthornes was fast approaching, and unlike last time, he actually planned on staying there this time. It would be a lie if he said that it wasn't nice having lunch with them. Also, he had to bring something to apologise to Eleanor, who was a crying mess when she saw him.
Now, what would be a nice personalised gift for someone of her age, without giving away that he had more means than he had shown until now?
___xx___
[A few Hours Later]
It was fast approaching the end of the day now. The sun had already set, but there was still light outside. He was standing in the middle of nowhere, with over 56 people floating nearby, contained by four blocks of enchanted rocks that were currently being supplied power by a thermal/magic battery.
The enhancements were hastily done so there was very little synergy between them and no reuse of residual magic to power the next function in line, so it was not very efficient, meaning that the medium sized battery only had enough juice in it to last 3-4 hours. Hopefully, these people did not take that long to transport all of them.
He wondered how they would even do it, though?
He couldn't really call upon them anywhere his home, and leaving to get the thralls after they arrived was not an option because he had to transport all 56 of them while flying, which was not just time consuming but almost impossible to completely mask, especially from people who were already there and could just track it with ease.
So, he had just unplugged the makeshift prison he had made for them, lifted it with his magic, and flew out of his lair, for the first since he built the damned thing. Thankfully, the cleaning wards worked, and there were no cobwebs in them, and there was ample ventilation and lights inside once the wards detected a person actually using it.
Using that long ass tunnel that went way down before coming up, he emerged on the side of a small hill, the entrance having been covered by stone that looked one with the hill instead of being the entrance to his lair. That one single stone was the only way of entering his lair without directly teleporting inside, and as such, had tons of measures built into it that would seriously injure/kill even an Asgardian level intruder.
Outliers like Odin the All-Father, Empowered Hela, and Empowered Thor are not included in it.
He chuckled as the disclaimer just popped into his head, as if it was a product advertisement and he had to rattle off the disclaimers because of the regulations created by a non-existent magical relic authority.
Crushing the stone in his hand, he immediately flicked the weird purple blood off his hands. Ew!
It just fell on the ground, ate away at the grass, and then sent out a magical ping that his senses catalogued.
He looked around, senses peeled to the max to see what method of transportation they were going to use to take all these people. They knew the number of people and their states, so he was not expecting them to come unprepared.
What he did not expect to see was a freaking golden sparkling portal opening a dozen feet away from his position.
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