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Nearby Secret Lair
–Damian Hawthorne–
WTF?!
He immediately took a few steps back, stopping just short of hitting the forcefield keeping the people contained, as the portal stabilised as only darkness on the other side was revealed to him. The darkness parted like a curtain as multiple people began stepping out of the portal.
All of them vampires. Strong ones. Nothing he couldn't handle, and the vampires are not really the shocking part here. The shocker came in the form of that portal. The damned familiar portal. It was a brand of portals that was almost exclusive with Kamar Taj, at least as far as his understanding of it went.
He was still woefully undereducated on Dimensional Energy, and how it was used for Mystic purposes so he was no authority on that topic, but still! Wasn't Kamar Taj supposed to be, like, a tight knit group of people who could be called upon by the Ancient One whenever there was a big emergency? When did they start teaching their arts to Vampires of all people?
Was Kamar Taj actually involved in this operation? If so, that was kind of impressive of her. It spoke of a level of hold over the magical world he had never even thought of. Thinking of it a little more, it made sense.
She was like the hidden hand, controlling all the big, significant magical organisations to behave and not, well, expose themselves to humanity at a point in time where they were not really capable of defending themselves against a magical civilisation sharing the same space as them, but more than capable of destroying the planet if pushed into a corner.
Hell, even without being pushed into a corner. Just the fear of the possibility of that happening sometime in the future would be enough to trigger the nuclear option, turning the planet into a massive irradiated wasteland with only pockets of civilization, who will soon have to either leave or die off as the remaining resources dry up.
Not even Wakanda could be truly isolated from the aftereffects of a global nuclear exchange.
It also made sense how the magical world had not been exposed to the wider world yet. If not sooner, it should have at least happened during WWII, with Grindelwald openly working with Hitler's forces in a bid to complete his goal. His battle with Dumbledore was reportedly witnessed by both sides, so how was the news so tightly suppressed, especially when the ICW before that was just an agreement, like a gentleman's handshake?
It only meant something if both sides had honor or something like that. It was only after coming that close to total statute collapse that the ICW began turning into an actual enforcement agency, with near total global reach, aided by strong wizards like Dumbledore. The other countries soon had no choice but to fold under the ICW's strict, almost draconian rules regarding the enforcement of the statute.
Not to mention the numerous incidents happening almost daily of wizards ignoring the law and performing actions that threatened the Statute daily. Cooperation on both sides was necessary for that, and if there was one thing that humanity, both magical and non magical kind, was bad at, was global, effective, and long lasting cooperation.
At least without an invincible big hand guiding both sides. The visual of her hand puppeting ICW, UN, SHIELD, and the more powerful world governments flashed through his mind as a mild shudder ran through his body.
Despite knowing that that level of control was impossible, it was still kind of impressive how the woman had used her centuries, powers over time, magic, and her mind to bring the world to what it is today. An imperfect but surviving civilization.
All of this ran through his mind within moments of the portal opening and his attention snapped to the present moment the second the portal snapped shut, leaving behind four powerful vampires standing still. Before he could open his mouth, one of them did, the one at the back.
All of them were covered in cloaks so it was hard to tell who they really were, especially because it was already night, "Can we take the relic with us?"
He opened his mouth, ready to reject the request, but paused, as it made the most sense. The relic was also not really a relic anyway, just a cobbled up piece created to fulfill basic needs, and it would soon degrade anyway. Also, it would help them transport the people more easily, so that was another win.
So, he shrugged, "Sure. But it will not last long," He added the warning and disconnected the magic battery connected to it. Like hell he was going to give something like that to them. The atmospheric manipulation, pseudo kinetic movement and magical authorisation matrices were commonplace enough that he felt no issue handing them over.
Stepping to the side, he watched as two of them stepped forward, and to his surprise, used their magic to connect to the relic in a way that suggested past experience handling such procedures. Once they had taken over the relic, they marched back to their formation and waited for the portal, presumably.
His brows furrowed as he waited for them to leave but they did not do so. Curious as to what it was, he too remained silent and still. Until one of them spoke, the same one that did so earlier.
"Our Lord would like to speak with you. At your leisure, ofcourse." And then, retrieved a block of purple from his robe and offered it to him.
Ah, the Shepherd. A magical myth capable of deterrence on a massive scale. He wondered if she was yet another pawn propped up by the Ancient One, placed strategically in a position to extract maximum value out of her before summarily disposing of the leader.
"Ok," He said as he used his magic to flood the area, using it as a very crude telekinetic spell to get the block from the vampire. Except that action was not to just to retrieve that block from a safe distance. It was meant as an intimidation tool. He knew it and the vampires did too. After all, this was enough to make even Dumbledore tense up in wariness. What were a couple of vampires in comparison?
"Very well," The vampire spoke again, with a hint of nervousness this time in his voice, "We will return now."
"Sure. I do have a question though. Who opens the portal for you guys? Are they human or just another vampire who know the Arts?"
"Only our Mistress can answer that." They tensed up after answering him, as if expecting him to fly into a rage at not receiving a proper answer.
"Alright. Off you go," he gestured for them to leave. Two of them exchanged glances before yet another magical ping left the area, quite similar to that of the one he sensed earlier. An identical portal bloomed behind them as they quickly left the scene, leaving him with a similar purple block that he had to leave behind in one of the metal storage spaces he had installed underground.
After that, he was back in his lair. For the rest of the night, he only had two jobs to do. Write a letter to Dumbledore, extending an olive branch because the man genuinely helped him, looking past his past crimes, and to find appropriate gifts for the Hawthorne sisters.
Too bad he could not just give them high tier magical relics or anything magical like that. It would just further expose his abilities and that was something he wished to avoid for as long as possible.
___xx__
Hogwarts
–Albus Dumbledore–
Reading through the letter that was delivered to Hogwaerts by the Giant Killer himself, he sighed and set it down, more than happy that the thralls were saved but less so with the way the opportunity to finally get some answers from the Giant Killer just slipped right through his hands.
Even the short amount of time he spent with the man, he gleaned quite a bit about the man's magic, his character and his hard lines. They were far broader than his own limits but then again, he had a hunch that they were not unlike that of Moody's, and he would never call Moody a criminal with his moral boundaries.
The fact of the matter was that Harry was safe, he and the Dursleys were currently at their home, protected by a rotating shift of his teachers. The Blood Wards made moving quite a bit painful but it was certainly a possibility.
A possibility that was less likely to become reality because of Harry coming to Hogwarts in less than a month. Which meant the protection detail was temporary, and over time, once he was sure that the Blood Wards had not failed and the only point of failure was him spending time with Harry regularly, he could pull back his already overworked teachers to a daily check instead of a round the clock watch.
Setting down the letter, he waited for exactly three seconds before it burst into flames, the ashes becoming red hot before they too were vaporised. Interesting approach to disappearing letters. Most wizards used the banishing charm as the base for the letter, with a timed approach.
The Giant Killer, on the other hand, used a far more advanced, magical contact sensing enchantment, and coupled that with a delayed timer so that the wizard with the letter has the option to delay the burning once. After the burning, the ashes too are burned at a very high temperature to get rid of them.
A quite different and inefficient approach to a problem that has been largely solved for decades at this point. Which either meant that the Giant Killer loved to apply magic in different ways, even for mundane things, or he was self taught or taught by someone who was self taught.
Unorthodox teachings like this were rare but not impossible to find. It was just so that they were coming from someone who was, by far, the strongest wizard criminal to have emerged on the British Isles in the past decade or so.
His gaze then shifted to the second letter sitting on his desk, which was purple colored. It would seem that the Shepherd was particularly insistent on using the purple color for all their uses. Opening it, he read through the rather sparse letter.
Payment Received. People secured. Interested in the other party. Willing to meet on neutral ground.
And just like that, the letter disappeared from his hands, with the banishment charm as the enchantment base.
Leaning back in his chair, he sighed, thinking of what the meeting would entail. Neutral ground was mentioned but with both of them involved, he shuddered to think what party could enforce the rules of said Neutral ground.
He knew of no other place other than Hogwarts itself that could act as a deterrent to both of them at the same time.
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