Ruby stepped through the front door of Grimmauld place; she had decided to take Magnus' place for the visit. She was starting to feel a bit troubled about her boyfriend's decision of upending the whole magical word.
Oh, she wouldn't be stopping him, and honestly she understood pretty well why he was doing it. She had spent enough time reading the local history books to know that while he had aggrandized some of the problems, he hadn't lied or exaggerated that much. The local magical people were impressively ignorant about many things and they were definitely quite stagnated in their ways.
However she couldn't deny that she felt a bit bad for the people she had met. Not all of them, but certainly a few appeared to be good people, even if they supported slavery among many other troublesome aspects of their society.
Was she bringing them healing potions to make herself feel better? Most likely, but it would still help them and still make her feel better about the whole situation.
It had barely been a day but it was obvious they had been extensively cleaning the place, she could count quite the large number of people in the house too, a number of children too to her surprise.
"Ruby?" Molly Weasley, and she was glad the System kept track of people for her, asked surprised.
"Hi Molly, sorry to come unannounced, but we read the papers this morning and thought to drop by with some help." She greeted her, lifting a leather bag, opening to show a few rows of healing potions.
For the World they were in, the potions were top of the line. But compared to the potions Magnus brewed, they may as well have been a band aid for a disembowelment victim.
"Oh, excellent, let me show you where they are resting." The woman sighed in relief. "We've been running low on them, we treated the worst, but there's one too many small things we had to leave for later."
"It's okay, I can imagine how hard it can get." She answered, as if she had previous experience. "I take it you've been cleaning? The place looks so much better."
"Ah! It's nothing a mother couldn't do." The portly woman laughed softly. "I had my oldest son, Bill, help me with the curses laying around, we found so much less than we expected. Not that I'm complaining, it meant we finished cleaning much faster once we shoved a few old Boggarts out of their hiding places and the other pests."
"Oh, we've had to clean a few haunted houses before, some creatures can be so troublesome to deal with." She lied.
"Exactly." Molly laughed. "I forgot to ask, how are you and Magnus?"
"Oh, we're okay. Well, not entirely," she sighed, "with our target's actions yesterday we are running out of time. We managed to stop something last night, but we're starting to doubt we're actually making any difference."
"Don't say that dear, I'm sure you two are doing excellent." Molly said and smiled warmly as she opened a door, a bedroom had been converted into an infirmary.
"Molly?" Lupin asked, surprised.
"Everyone, Ruby here brought some more healing potions." She announced.
"Excellent! I was getting tired of being in bed." Alice Longbottom said. "I've spent way too long on a hospital bed already." The woman barely waited for Ruby to hand her one of the potions before she downed it. "Ugh, just as nasty as I remembered, ugh, the aftertaste is terrible, I wish someone did something about it."
"I don't know why you complain, Alice." Lupin said, compared to the woman's broken arm, the man's both legs were covered in wrappings. "You could have just taken a swig of Skelegrow and be out already."
"Are you kidding me? Those taste even worse than a healing potion." She said as she spelled the cast off her arm. "Magnus' very lucky to have you, eh?"
Ruby laughed. "Oh, he saved my life, I'm lucky to have him." She waved it off as she followed Molly out of the room.
"So he saved your life?" The redheaded woman asked as they went down the stairs.
"Oh yes, it feels like it's so long ago. However, honestly I would prefer not to talk about back then if it's okay with you." She asked carefully.
"Understood." The woman grinned and thankfully let it lay as they entered the same dining room she had met everyone on the day prior. "Everyone, this is Ruby, she's Magnus' partner."
A group of kids turned to look at her. "Hello." She greeted them.
"The redheads are my kids, the twins are Fred and George, the single is Ron, the girl's Ginny. Then there's Hermione Granger and Harry Potter." Molly presented them, each letting out a hi or hello when named.
Molly turned back to her. "I know what you're thinking, it's just that Harry was attacked in his home, so we decided to move the kids here before something worse happened."
"Oh, was everything okay?"
The kid looked tired and angry. "They took one of the only things left to me by my late parents." He answered.
"I'm sorry to hear that." She replied honestly, even if she knew exactly why it happened. "At least you weren't injured."
The bushy-haired girl, Hermione, turned to her. "Can I ask something? Are you a metamorph? I don't think I've seen any other person with pink hair."
"Oh, no, it's a side-effect of a failed potion. Honestly I kept it because I liked how it looked." She lied nearly as easily as Magnus did.
"Oh, I didn't know there was a potion that could do that." The girl said.
"That's because it shouldn't have done that." Ruby laughed. "Though I wish it had been red, it would have fit better with my name." She joked, getting a few laughs.
But even as she answered a few more questions, it wasn't as if that was all she was doing. Her Magends were still quite busy, especially as the Greener Fields had deployed on Mars and a few of the Metaloids had asked for samples of the many plants she kept in the greenhouse.
"Are you sure you only need a sample of each plant?" She asked, watching massive plantations of crops she had never seen.
"Dad's long since developed methods to deal with that kind of thing." The group's leader answered.
The Metaloid's name was Pine. At first she thought he had been named fittingly, but apparently it was a name he had chosen himself along with his goal in life. This was pretty common from what she had been told, many Metaloids had a human name and a personal name, with the second chosen by themselves. Apparently Orange was an exception mainly because she didn't care about hiding her nature or dealing with other people.
She eyed the crops that were already growing around. "Also, could I get some samples of what you have here?" She asked.
"Of course, I will go ahead and deliver one of the seed processors too, I've seen what you've been doing and I'm sure you will get a lot of use from it." Pine answered happily.
"Seed processors?"
"Yeah, it's something dad got an idea from an old game. It basically takes any crop with seeds and produces genetically varied seeds from it. It's designed to work along with the ship's systems, so it should cover you pretty well. It's usually rare to get into genetic problems with magical crops, but it's better to make sure. Plus you usually get multiple seeds from a single sample, so it's great when you get your hands on some rare plants." He explained.
She nodded surprised, it would certainly be a useful piece of tech.
"You know what," Pine added, "I will go ahead and add the other toys too, I've looked at your experiments and more tools would help. I'm sure you know that you will have to study the manuals, right?"
She laughed. "Oh yes, don't worry about that, I can totally do that, most likely I will be aiming to create a Magend aimed to that kind of research soon, the druids haven't been enough lately."
"That's a very useful ability." Pine said.
"It's honestly being propped up higher thanks to the System, without it I may have grown scatterbrained if I created too many. Instead I'm only getting better and better." She commented.
That comment made her think back to her World, a strange longing assaulting her. She was wondering how things were going there? How about her Magends? She hoped they were living well. She should talk with Orange, maybe see about getting some news from the World.
"Hit it." Magnus called out and Gina pulled on the oversized switch.
Instantly a few dozen high power lasers turned on, a few dozen streams of amplified Light battered down on his small body, quickly drinking in the energy and fed it directly to his still sputtering spark.
He could feel his Soul quickly filling up. Under normal circumstances even Gina's lab would have had problems generating this much power, even accumulating it would have been hard. But they had spent a week the three of them working into designing a better power source, Gina, Britanny and him all together.
It had impressed just how smart the two of them were, Gina especially. Britanny had a more focused field of study on small robotics, explosives and guns, meanwhile her sister covered anything she found interesting. They had worked together into improving her current generators by applying runes, better power generation, cooling, heat recycling and a few others.
Gina had been very interested in any application of magic on technology, apparently it just wasn't something that was normal in the World. He chalked it to his upbringing and how common it was given his father's line of thought.
He had met the rest of the family and many of their acquaintances in that time too. Many he had already seen during the wedding, but hadn't been presented yet.
Of that had been during the few breaks, most of the week had been spent putting together the laser chamber he was currently bathing in. He rested at the center as all the lasers on the dome pointed at him. Given the amount of power being used had to be above that necessary for Nuclear Fusion, the chamber had been reinforced as much as possible, especially using the runes he had access to bounce all that heat and energy back to him.
While his body was practically drinking all the energy pouring on him, he couldn't deny it wasn't the most enjoyable activity, he was effectively forcing his body to get used to intense heat to the point he may be able to walk on the surface of a star. Or at least he could if he ignored the radiation and solar fire aspects of it.
He withstood the lasers until something clicked and the System deactivated the machine for him. He sighed in relief as he looked inside, the little spark of Light started to grow, more power getting generated than he was consuming. All extra was fed back into the reaction, allowing it to grow exponentially until it truly clicked and the star ignited.
"So it's done?" Gina asked when he came out.
"Yeah, one done, the other should-" he felt the Light feed into Darkness and the second star ignite too, "- there we go. I'm feeling so much better." He said as he took a deep breath and evolved.
The blonde woman shivered. "I felt that." She shuddered as she looked at him up and down. "Is that normal?"
"I can't say, it's the first time this has happened to me. But I basically recovered my 'weight' in reality." He stretched his limbs, testing his purple claws as he looked at his mane, he would need to braid it and make a new Stonebell. "Goodbye my tail, it was nice having you back for some time."
Gina laughed. "Well, I've to say you are looking much better."
"Please, don't fall for my foxy looks." He joked. "It's good to be over a meter tall again, and have thumbs, you never know how useful they are until you lose them."
She laughed as the two walked out of the laboratory, he wrapped his figure in a loose cloak of Darkness as Light became embroidery. It looked like silk, but could withstand a lot of damage, especially that caused from an elemental source as it would just drink that kind of thing.
"So what will you do now?" Gina asked as they walked into the kitchen.
"Most likely buy one of the empty plots near here, apparently the previous owner ran away, something about the undead rising and attacking?" He asked towards her with a raised eyebrow.
Gina's laugh turned a bit embarrassed. "Oh, that." She sighed. "Some time ago we got attacked by a certain Lich, he sent his forces to kidnap me and Britanny."
"Oh, that must have been a problem. My usual problem with the undead tended to be the ghosts back home. Of course they were also pretty corporeal so you could usually just punch them." He mimed a one-two. "Actually, most just wanted a good fight."
"How does that even work?" She asked curiously.
"It's a particularity of the local version of Ectoplasm, it could be called semi-solid memories. It allows Ghosts and Spirits to interact with the physical world and also utilize supernatural abilities." He explained, thanking her for the glass of juice she handed him. "Anyways, I've had my System create my identity and start a bank account, I had already acquired enough money to buy the place and start a small company. Thankfully I can provide all the work force and materials with magic."
She looked at him surprised.
"It's a spell I learned in the World I visited before this one, it allows me to reshape the terrain and transform magic into materials. It's mostly natural materials unless you pour a lot of Power into it, thankfully that I can provide." He happily answered. "I would also like to help you and your family, the support you have provided me these few weeks has been incalculable."
"… thanks."
"No problem, it's always good to have friends." He said.
That was when a portal opened just in front of them and Brianna stepped through, she looked like a complete mess, her clothes were scorched, dirty and practically falling off her figure. The rest of her wasn't much better, bruises, cuts, a few burns and soot were just the start.
Both of them stood up quickly as the sight alarmed, it was only the smile on her face that stopped them from being more worried. "Brianna! What happened to you?" Gina asked.
"You remember that villain we kicked the ass off a few months ago? Tyrant or something?" She asked.
Gina frowned. "I think? Bald guy, used electricity or something."
"Well, he apparently escaped prison and made his way to Jade." She explained. "He was trying to kidnap mages for some crazy plan."
They watched her sit down, Magnus quickly casting a few first aid spells and a cleaning one to fix her looks a bit.
"Thanks." She said before her eyes opened wide when she looked at him properly. "Hey! You got your body back."
"Yes, but I'm going nowhere, finish your story." He insisted.
"Oh, right, well I was attending my appointment with the Balance Mage when we got attacked, they got kidnapped in front of me. I managed to escape, thankfully I had met with Gar and his team earlier so we grouped up. We had this crazy fight against a few mercenaries under the tyrant dude, and he activated this huge stone robot golem." Brianna happily explained between small laughs-. "The fight was… something else. I still managed to blow it up… though I miscalculated the radius."
Gina rolled her eyes and Magnus just laughed. "Well, all looks well, my scans point at some rest and the Werecheetah part of you will heal all the little damage."
Brianna turned to look at him. "My damage doesn't matter, but you two should really have waited for me, how much would it have cost you?"
"It wasn't that interesting and we're done like fifteen minutes ago at best." Gina said.
"Even more reasons to wait." She chided her sister.
"You're in luck to be here, because I can now show my true form, please don't go crazy." Magnus joked about it. He wasn't entirely sure about doing it given the girl's interests for the opposite gender.
"Wait, that's not your true form?"
"I remember saying it before, and it's not like this is not the true me too, just not my base form." He explained as his fur started to recede, his features softened and flattened. It sucked that he didn't have access to the Traveler's Garments, but he could certainly make something new, he still had to find his new identity. He was honestly glad that he had studied Mr Digger and Seance's magic suit, otherwise he may have ended up naked.
Gina and Brianna's eyes opened wide as he revealed his human looks. "Dayum." Gina whispered.
"Down girl." Magnus joked. "I'm not against one night stands or dating, but allow me to get my feet on the ground properly."
His words caused Gina to pout as Brianna laughed, though she also looked interested.
"I have a question, where exactly did you get the money?" Brianna asked.
"Oh, do you remember when I talked about what we did to that Wererat? Well, part of that money was laundered and moved around by my sister Orange, she set it in a number of investment groups under a fake name. There's a VI in charge of checking on them from time to time and mostly reinvesting it, some excess is donated to a few organizations. But since I'm here, I'm taking control of it and putting it to proper work."
She nodded. "Then if you've money we need to go buy you some clothes." She purred.
He laughed. "Well, I usually prefer to make my own clothes. So maybe I wouldn't be against going to buy fabric and similar materials." He would have wished to produce some magical fabrics, but that would require a proper workplace and some more advanced facilities.
There was also the fact that he was still a Forger, his Soul had healed enough for him to start getting Perks again, he had even acquired one during the week of work towards the laser dome, it was aimed to refine power supply systems; which would be pretty useful for his future home.
"You can make clothes?" Brianna showed her Britanny side.
"Yes, I would say I'm actually quite a great tailor." He answered. "I started because I wanted to make sure my clothes could survive whatever I put them through, branched into enchanting and reinforcing them. It's especially useful because I can change shape." His hand shifted into claws and back to human,
"It would be nice to have clothes that don't fall apart at the first sign of damage." Brianna sighed hopefully.
"I'm sure we can work something out once I've got things in order." Both smiled brightly at his words.
"Hmm, we'll have to talk Britanny into it too, she's usually the one that mostly ends up dressed in rags when something happens." Brianna said.
"That's because she's also the first to run into danger." Gina laughed.
He laughed along, internally he was itching to build a forge, the lack of a weapon was the biggest thing he wanted to correct. The problem was what would he go for. Recreating any of his weapons was all well and good, but he felt like he needed something new.
There was the possibility of focusing on magic and curses, he certainly could join Seance and learn from Dr Digger. That thought pulled up an idea he had buried time ago back when he was still in Hyrule, a runic book. Having a casting focus connected directly to his will, holding his knowledge of runes and being capable of stringing them as he wanted, effectively creating rune strings on the fly.
Of course it wouldn't be just that, he still enjoyed getting close and personal too much, so a melee weapon was also necessary. Maybe a broadsword or a rapier? The question was what to make it from, infusing it with his Elements could work well, but there was a World of interesting materials. He would need to ask Gina and her father about exotic materials.
"Are you okay, Magnus?" Gina asked.
"Oh, sorry, my mind wandered a bit." He answered. "Just planning stuff and deciding what I should start with."
"Oh! I've always wanted to try my hand at architecture, can I help?" Gina excitedly said.
"Sure, I've got some ideas." He answered, thinking it would be fun. Plus the faster he built the house, the sooner he could connect with the World buoy and see about calling himself.
Magnus had arrived at Grimmauld Place with Ruby as quickly as possible after receiving Dumbledore's call. The old wizard apologized, apparently they had lost all contact with the aurors protecting Stonehenge.
Of course he already knew this, his other half had knocked every auror about an hour early with the help of Team Maus and a number of Ruby's Magends. It also wasn't as if the Ritual wasn't already ongoing.
It actually had started eight hours earlier, the magical satellites had been constructed on Mars and taken through Spacebridge to Earth's orbit. It had been a good idea to take into account the preparation time into the process, it meant that by the time the Ritual was in any way noticeable, it would already be finishing and be unstoppable. And it had already passed that point by the time they acted.
"I'm sorry to have called you with this urgency, but we just recently noticed we've lost contact with the Aurors in Stonehenge. We just can't take the chance by sending a team to check on them and we've decided it's time to move." Dumbledore explained to them as they joined the rest of the Order of the Phoenix. "We've prepared a number of Portkeys to move us to the area."
Internally Magnus wondered why they were all pieces of trash, he kinda understood the whole no one would grab trash. But even then it felt very silly.
"I'm glad you called us for help." Ruby honestly said, after all we needed to be present for the play.
Magnus nodded.
"Thank you." Dumbledore spoke honestly. "Unfortunately it's very possible Voldemort will be moving too, he's been hiding and accruing his forces since the battle at the Ministry, so I fear we'll be fighting a two-front battle. I managed to destroy his Horcrux, but I believe he may still have more."
Magnus' mouth twisted, of course it wasn't because there were more Horcruxes, he knew that already. However, if the cup had been destroyed that meant one artifact less for him to study. The Diadem's enchantment had been quite an interesting piece that he was looking into applying for an accessory line.
"Don't worry, this time I won't be holding back." He said and grabbed Gentle's pommel.
The old man nodded grimly. "It's an unfortunate need."
Magnus gave the people in the room a look. Once more he found the wizards and witches' idea of personal protection lacking. He could tell they were wearing Dragon hide, mainly in the form of leather jackets. But that was it, he had looked into it, enchanted leather armor existed, and while Dragon's hide didn't enchant well, cow and snake leather could be enchanted to quite an impressive extent and provide nearly the same level of protection; on top of other abilities.
He still kept his mouth shut, it wouldn't do much difference at the end.
"Okay everyone, gather up and grab onto the Portkeys, we'll move in a minute." Dumbledore called out. "They will deposit us about a block away, so get ready, at my count, the word is cucumber."
Magnus nodded and grabbed the same piece of trash that Ruby and the Longbottoms. He ignored the fact that Harry and the other were hiding just outside the door and had swept one of the extra Portkeys. He wondered how Dumbledore hadn't noticed. Not that he didn't mind, he would aim to make sure they didn't die. They deserved to see the end of their world.
