Chapter 4: chapter 4
His name was Danny, Aleta had told her father, and he had been with a group of demi-gods who were on their way there from further into New York.
They were being led by an adult demi-god who had never been to either of the Camps, though he knew of them and their general locations. There were twelve in that group with Danny having been both the youngest and newest member, rescued from a small pack of Immortal werewolves from Lycaon's Pack, where he lost his demi-god mother and was fortunate enough not to be infected.
The rest ranged from six to nineteen, with the leader being twenty-seven. While he, himself, chose to stay out of the Camps, the leader, Richard Ryder, did give the other demi-gods directions and sometimes an escort to the Camps, and was on his way to Camp Half-Blood when Aleta had found them. Richard was bringing his group to Harry to see if it would be viable to leave the younger and more delicate members with Harry, as well as speak to the demi-gods already in residence.
His second, Jackie, was the nineteen year old and had chosen to stay with Ryder since they met up when she was ten, and had already been on the street for two years, as well as in and out of the foster system since she was three and her father died in a 'gas explosion'.
They would be there at around midmorning the next day, but had sent Danny ahead in the hopes that he would get some better medical attention than what they would provide.
Actaea and Protomedea had had to be pulled out of movie time since they were the best at healing and mothering respectively, and had taken the kid into the bathroom while Halie and Speio went for Actaea's healer's box.
Galatea, Erato and Melite had disappeared back into the waves, saying they had something to do, but would be back soon.
The two demi-god girls were still curled up on the couch with the twins Doto and Proto with Asia perched on the end. Leaving the group to watch the opening scenes of Aladdin, Harry went to find the boy.
The boy was in the room they had slept in, reading what appeared to be a journal, an unhappy frown creasing his face.
"Hey, kid."
The boy's head snapped up and the book was slammed closed. "Yes? Can I help you?"
Harry regarded the kid for a moment. "I don't know if you've been told yet, but I'm Harrier, or Harry, Master of this Territory. Nothing more powerful than a normal human can enter without my knowing about it. And you are?"
"Luke." The boy responded warily. "Are you a demi-god?"
Harry tilted his head away and sighed. "Kinda. I'm an Immortal legacy of a few gods. The blood of my progenitors was powerful enough that I became Immortal when I was bitten by a basilisk and subsequently healed with phoenix tears." Harry's smile was a bit bitter. "Had there not been an overdose of the tears, I would have stayed human and unchanged." He tilted his head back to Luke. "Lunch will be served soon, so don't immerse yourself too deeply, or you'll miss out to the Nereids."
The blond kid looked surprised. "Those women are Nereids?"
Harry nodded agreeably and turned to go. "A group of older demi-gods will be arriving tomorrow morning if you want to stay. They sent an injured kid ahead for healing, so don't be surprised at how bad he looks."
And he wandered back down to his workshop, mind already designing two new, humanoid, children to protect the new Sanctum and those who took sanctuary there.
Also, it would probably be a good idea to have the goblins make, ward and ground a pocket dimension for the Sanctum. Land was expensive these days.The two girls were Annabeth and Thalia, as Harry learnt over lunch, which included the salad he'd made earlier, some fish grilled in his fire-pit by the Nereids and bread-rolls.
He didn't know what god was Thalia's parent, but her scent was strong and heavy, like melted dark cooking chocolate and burnt ozone, and the charm bracelet she wore tasted vaguely like raw terror on the back of his tongue. He would honestly not be surprised if one of the Big Three had broken the vow for her to smell so strongly.
It was when he pulled out the brownies that he was forced to snatch Annabeth from her chair and out of the way of the lunging Nereids.
The Harpies left not long after and the girls followed the water nymphs back into the lounge room to watch Sleeping Beauty, Luke managed to find Harry's library/office and was reading up on the Monster Book of Monsters.
Actaea and Protomedea had re-emerged from upstairs with Danny all bandaged up around 2pm and he was now drowsing in Thalia's protective arms.
Seeing the demi-god girl and the toddler cuddling sent a throb through Harry's hands, and he made a mental note to ask her about her family once she was more settled.
Doing another circuit around the house, he noticed that Vashti was gone again and Hedwig was passed out on the back of the chair that Luke was settled in for company. Clicking his tongue, Harry popped his head back into the lounge room to let the nearest Nereid (Phyllodoce) know he was running into town and might be a few hours, then popped into the office to see if Luke needed anything.
Looking distinctly uncomfortable, he admitted that Thalia needed some more feminine hygiene products, as she was nearly out and it was getting towards that time of the month.
Harry could only imagine it was because the smell of demi-god blood attracting more monsters that the boy knew her 'timing'.
Collecting a few sketches from the workroom he'd made earlier, he left with a 'pop' to the local magical district.
(space)
Someone with a horrible sense of humour thought that naming a small island in the New York Bay 'World's End' was funny. It might have been because it was completely edged in cliffs, but then it might not have. Who knows how wizardly minds work.
The Gringotts there looked exactly the same as the one in Diagon Alley and the one he'd been to in New Jersey with Nana Em. Indeed, if rumour were to be believed, all the banks were the same above the surface.
Harry only came to World's End around once a month, but he always stopped in his favourite curios shop located at the crossroads of Frog Street and Torch Row.
It was run by a young woman with black hair and green eyes named Katie, though sometimes her blond and black-eyed sister, Via, would be in attendance. Very rarely, the cousin, Endia, would mind the shop with her violet eyes constantly watching those who passed before the shop, twirling her brunette hair around her finger.
It was an old, slightly cramped place with a dark wood front and small shop window that was beginning to wear away the varnish. The small swing-sign said 'Hecate's Attic'. Inside the floor was warn, warped and creaky floorboards and cramped with shelf after shelf of miscellaneous items, artefacts and the odd tome.
The black Labrador, Hekabe, as he had heard Katie call her, looked up and thumped her tail in greeting as he entered, tongue lolling happily.
He leant down and scratched her behind the ears before moving on, smiling slightly. Hekabe was the only dog he'd met since his change that hadn't been afraid of him. Or tried to attack him.
The she-ferret running around, Galinthias, was a bit more wary, but generally left him alone.
Turning left and going to the furthest of the four cramped isle to where he had seen some god-statues and some tomes about the gods written in Greek and Latin.Finding the little bronze and the odd stone statues, he looked over the little figures and carefully selected five goddesses which he felt would heed his call to protect the place he was going to make.
He was thinking about merely calling the place 'Home', because that was what it was going to be to many demi-gods who had lost or been forced to leave their own. And then there were the ones who had never really had one to begin with.
It took him a bit to figure out which ones two of them were, but he had the idols he had come looking for, as well as a book on the gods, including history, powers and how to appease or petition them.
Collecting the items, he wove his way to the counter manned by Endia, who quirked a smile at him as she began ringing up his purchases, eyes lingering on the book and the statues with a kind of sardonic curiosity and amusement.
"Interesting selection. What are you up to, Harry?" She inquired, voice smooth with an almost singsong quality tinged by an accent the Gorgon found oddly familiar.
Harry hummed, the sound throbbing deeply in his chest as he considered his words. "I am founding a place of safety for children with certain gifts and would like to petition certain goddesses for their patronage." Both vague and informative. Nice.
Endia smiled at him, purple eyes flashing in the light flooding in through the window. "Then I'm sure you'll get what you want, if your motives are true."
Harry smiled back awkwardly, unsure, as he paid for his purchases. "Then I've gotta hope my motives are true enough . Gods and goddesses are notoriously picky and fickle."
The brunette laughed at him, voice ringing like water over stone in the small shop as he waved goodbye and exited.
Shifting his purchases into a mokeskin pouch he had in one of the pockets of his jeans, Harry proceeded down Torch Row to Gringotts and asked for Grindellaquin, his contact in this branch.
Grindellaquin, the only gobliness he's ever seen, let alone met, glowered at him over the paperwork in front of her, crouched on her perch and surrounded by ledgers, before tossing a bundle of letters at him from the increasingly distressed magic folk in Britain with her tail.
Funny thing about female goblins was that they were actually very attractive to the human eye in a distinctively Unseelie Fey manner. They had smooth lavender-grey skin stretched over a sharp waifish face with large black eyes, sharp noses and wide, thin lips that hid rows of pearly white sharp teeth similar to a cat's. Only about the size of an eight-year-old, their limbs were long and graceful and tipped in sharp points like his own, more hard caps than nails, with lean, slender torsos, four to eight small breasts and, of course, the long slender, prehensile tails twice the length of their bodies. Generally, they were built to walk on the balls of their feet and moved in a creeping manner over short distances, but stood up to walk longer distances in a swaying manner, inferring that their hips and joints were slightly different to those of most bipedal creatures. Grindellaquin's hair was thigh-length, pin straight and a pale silvery-grey, but he was under the impression that the ladies' hair could come in the same range of shades as the males'.Grindellaquin, unlike her female kin, was permitted to work in the bank after an accident rendered her sterile, which was a very bad thing as the males outnumbered the females 100 to 1. Honestly, the gobliness' were more like hive queens than the females of most mammalian species, barring the naked mole rats, who were just odd. Harry was under the impression that quite a number of goblins involved in the accident had been executed for the loss of a breeding female as young as Grindellaquin was.
Harry had been her first client and they got along well, considering that they would probably be paired together until she died of old age.
The Gorgon settled down to read the letters while Grindellaquin finished her survey of any changes his holdings had been through in the last month since he'd seen her.
The letters ranged from pleas to demands to orders to outright bribery from the ministry, and a sticky-note listed the number of spells and enchantments that had been on the letters, a few more from Sirius Black who had moved to Australia and whom he regularly corresponded with, several from Dumbledore, which were thrown into the fire, and a letter from Hermione Granger giving a mostly unbiased update on the 'war', having distanced herself from most everyone after he had left and Grindellaquin had sent back a list of spells and potions her first five letters had been drenched in by Dumbledore.
Hermione was someone he still felt bad about essentially abandoning. She had broken off her friendship with Ronald early in third year and gravitated back to Neville Longbottom, who later got her a job as assistant librarian to Madam Pince when even her highest NEWT scores in fifty years couldn't give her a job above 'secretary and bed-warmer' in one of the lesser departments at the ministry because of her blood. She was a bitter, brittle woman who seemed to cherish those letters he sent back maybe once every six months.
His attention was drawn back to the gobliness when she clicked her tongue at him, a common way of requesting attention between goblins that most other races didn't bother to pick up on.
Harry put the letters down and gave her his full attention.
Her voice, when she spoke, was a perfectly normal contralto voice that, at the same time, had a subsonic whine to it like a cross between a cat's plaintive meow for food and a mosquitos' buzzing. "Harvest has begun at the coffee plantation in Brazil and looks to be a good yield. Gold diving in Alaska is set to start as soon as the ice thaws enough. The Racing stables in Ireland will start foaling any day now and the latest yield for the vineyards in the Hunter Valley, Australia, was excellent this season."
She shifted papers to rental properties.
"The apartment building in Trenton, New Jersey, needs its plumbing updated sometime this year and one of the tenants moved out. The Venice chateau needs a kitchen update and some of the tiles in the bathroom were cracked, so they're not getting their deposit back. Potter Manor needs fumigating as there's been a sudden and overwhelming invasion of doxies that the House Elves are unable to deal with on their own. And that's pretty much it, unless you want me to bring out the stock folder."The look she gave him and the tone she said it in gave the impression that he had better not. Grindellaquin hated stocks with a passion, though she was really quite good at them.
Harry gave a polite smile. "That's fine. I trust your ability to handle those." She relaxed a bit, pleased. "But I do have a request that you might hate me for." Her wide black eyes narrowed suspiciously, long fingers twitching towards the silver letter-opener to her left.
"Go on."
"I need a piece of land big enough for a small town, some paddocks and a water source to be warded to high heaven and preferably sealed in a Reality Marble with between four and eight mobile gates."
She stared at him, completely still and expression deadpanned for a few moments, before quickly reaching out and throwing a solid gold paper weight at him, which he barely dodged.
"Do you know how much that will cost?" She demanded, teeth bared. "We will likely have to sell property to afford it!"
Harry smoothed out his grimace as her voice began to resemble a cat's yowl. "Yes. I know. But I am willing to…" Here he winced and braced himself. "… sell some of my statues and raw materials."
Grindellaquin settled back, expression shrewd.
Ever since the goblins had found out that Harry had some means of acquiring or making Divine Metals, they had been trying to get their hands on a contract for Harry to supply them with the processed metals. There had been almost an uproar when he had started to move some of his statue artworks into a high security vault to clear space in his workshop, both for what they were made of and their quality craftsmanship. One piece of Celestial Bronze the size of a terrier would be worth one hundred thousand Galleons in private sale, and more on auction. Something the size of Vashti was enough to give a goblin consecutive heart attacks just thinking about it.
Harry really didn't want to know what they'd do if they found out he could do jewellery too.
The gobliness made a high, sharp sound with her lips and teeth, eyes calculative as she nodded slowly. "I shall take your proposal to the Board. Come back tomorrow and we will sort out details."
Taking the dismissal, Harry nodded and left her office, the small female stalking along behind him to exit the office herself, only going down the hall, deeper into Gringotts, while he re-entered the main gallery.
Strolling out of the building, the Gorgon made a bee-line for a restaurant that did takeaway, mind ticking over what he needed to get done while he was on World's End, when the mirror locket thrummed against his chest.
Taking out the palm-sized pendant, he flipped it open to show Aniketos' seated fore-paws and a small group of young teenagers.
"Hello?" He inquired.The girl at the front, maybe fourteen and of strong Spanish descent, very beautiful with lustrous black hair, big dark eyes and coffee-coloured skin, edged forward. "Hello?" There was that soothing note to her voice that said she was a Charmspeaker, so she was probably a daughter or legacy of either Venus or Aphrodite. "Aniketos…?" She looked hesitantly up at the large Beast, who presumably nodded. "Aniketos says that you have a place where we will be safe from monsters. Is it true?"
Harry didn't let the pain he felt in his chest show at the pathetically pleading despair in her face and voice, and on the faces of the three younger demi-gods crowding around her back. "That is correct. I am currently in the process of finding a larger, more stable place but my home is warded strongly enough that it would take genuine effort from a High monster to get in, and even then it will have to face the demi-gods and other beings who have taken sanctuary there." Harry grabbed a menu and leant against the open entry wall of the restaurant. "There are currently four other demi-gods there and a larger group of older and adult demi-gods will be arriving around lunch tomorrow. If you want to leave with the roving leader of that group, or go to one of the Camps, I won't stop you, but you will be as safe as is possible while in my home."
The girl looked like she was about to cry with relief. "Please…"
Harry nodded his consent. "That's fine. Do you know where you are and how long it will take you to reach Long Island, New York? If you are close enough, I can come and get you."
She looked a bit worried and had a quick whispered conversation with one of the others, who pulled out a map and compass. "We're in the Catskills Mountains, in Ulster Country. We're in a place called Phoenicia Black Bear Campgrounds. Will it take you long?"
Harry checked his time-piece. "Give me half an hour and I'll be there. I'll be able to zone in on Aniketos when I get closer."
" Thank you!" The words were almost a moan of relief and the four teenagers appeared to collapse onto one another.
Harry gave them a warm smile. "See you soon."
Closing the locket, he allowed himself to be the slightest bit dismayed that it was really this easy to find demi-gods, and so close to Camp Half-Blood, too.
Honestly, it was more than a little ridiculous how difficult satyrs found it to find them. If it continued like this, he was going to beat the ever-loving shit out of every satyr he came across for being what had to be wilfully incompetent.
Clicking his tongue, he moved forward to order dinner, knowing he would still have to brave a chemist or shopping centre for Thalia's feminine products before picking up the kids.
(space)
Thirty-five minutes later saw Harry scrambling up a mountain-side scree to reach the plateau he could feel his oldest son on, as well as the wafts of chocolaty demi-god scent.
Hauling himself over an edge, he suddenly found hands helping him up.Straightening and dusting his jeans and flannel shirt off, he looked around at the six demi-gods. He'd apparently missed two when looking through the mirror as one, a seemingly normal, mortal girl of around twenty, had a set of twins of around two or three. She looked a bit more highly strung than the others, though as a teenaged mother of twin demi-gods, and likely to be able to see through the Mist as she was leaning against Aniketos, that was completely understandable.
Two of the boys appeared to be half-brothers, tall and broad-shouldered with dark hair and strong jaws, were around twelve and thirteen, and were each armed with knives, one Celestial Bronze and the other Imperial Gold. They'd been the ones to help him up.
The tall, beautiful girl he'd spoken to, he upped her age to fifteen, was wringing her hands and pacing worriedly, her lower lip thoroughly chewed nearly open.
The other was a girl of around nine with the same wide grey eyes as Annabeth, only with short black hair and a truly magnificent bruise down the left side of her face. She also seemed to be favouring that side of her body.
Harry hummed speculatively, before turning to the girl in charge. "I'm Harrier, or Harry. I'm in charge of the house until Home is finished being built and a proper council can be set up. And you are?"
The girl fidgeted anxiously, obviously having been stressed out for way too long. "I'm Ishbel Vedette, daughter of Venus. Nice to meet you." She sketched a small bow. "This is Tori Alexander, daughter of Athena," She gestured to the little girl. "Nathan Wall, son of Aries," The older boy. "And Daniel Meyes, son of Mars." The younger. Then the woman with the twins. "And this is Callie Troy and her children, Julien and Adrian, sons of Triton."
Harry vaguely remembered that Callie Troy was known as a long-distance swimmer and a known aquatic conservationist. But that wasn't what made him frown.
"Well, it's little wonder you haven't been picked up by a Camp by now. Romans and Greeks aren't supposed to be able to mix; the Mist should have prevented you meeting."
They all appeared to be shocked by that, but it was Tori who demanded "Why?"
Harry plopped down and made himself comfortable. "Because the Greek and the Roman Camps were on opposite sides of the Civil War, and that bred bad blood between the two. To keep their children from fighting, the gods pulled the Mist close so that Greeks and Romans essentially forgot about each other, and would be unable to interact unless brought into contact with one another by the gods. Even unclaimed as you are, you should be able to identify one another, let alone co-operate."
Harry clicked his tongue to his teeth. "Something to discuss with Hecate, I suppose."
"Mr Harry?" He turned to Callie, making an encouraging noise. "Triton mentioned the Mist, but he didn't really explain it. What is it?"Harry sighed and tilted his head in thought. "It's hard to explain. The Mist is what keeps most normal humans from noticing monsters and demi-gods, but it can also be used for other things." He clicked his tongue again. "As I said, it's hard to explain and vague as hell, but some normal humans can see through the Mist, while the children of Hecate, who also the Goddess of Mist, can manipulate it. When we return to the house, one of the Nereids can probably explain it better." He felt he should bring it up later that demi-gods as young as the twins should not be releasing the scent of a fully-awakened demi-god until they were teenagers.
He hummed again, head tilting as he caught the sounds of something large moving down below. "We should go. I've got a portkey that can take us back home." He pulled out a rope as the children became aware that something was coming closer. "Are you coming?" He inquired of his son.
Aniketos shook his large head and stood as Callie and Ishbel picked up the twins. ' I was following the older scent of demi-gods when I crossed the newer scent trail of this group. I felt I should find this group since the trail was only a few hour old, and go back to the other trail when you came for them.'
He nodded. "Alright. Be safe." Aniketos slunk over the edge of the plateau in the opposite direction to the one the intruder was coming from. "Everyone, grab hold of the rope and keep a strong grip of the toddlers. The ride will be bumpy and we may fall a short distance to the ground when we arrive."
Everyone nodded and the portkey activated.
Moments later, a pair of centaurs leapt up onto the place the demi-gods were camping on, having been tracking to group for a while to take them to Camp Half-Blood.
They never did find out what happened to the group, but assumed an aerial monster got them.
Eh. Done. Grindellaquin is based on the goblin princess who fell in love with a man, they went underground for the wedding, the man couldn't stand goblin singing, ran away and she curses him and his wife. Can't for the life of me remember the name of the story though.
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