"So, where were we... ah, we have werewolves, hags, and vampires all living in Little Whinging, the nexus of the site being Privet Drive. What next, what next… Oh! Then came the lich." Nott rubbed his head. "The retired headmaster of Scholomance. I'm told he, and I use that pronoun cautiously given that 'he' wears robes over 'his' body, so examination of the pelvic region is impossible, and confirming gender from a skull simply untenable; at any road, 'he' was curious about this new dark neighborhood in England, and during a poker tournament in Transylvania, the vampire Lord Judas was raving about this up and coming little dark prince to everyone and sundry, so 'he' came to investigate. Met Potter. Liked Potter. Bought the house next door." - T. Nott, No Competition, Part 1
The site of Scholomance was shrouded in ancient mystery. The ancient citadel far older than any other magical school, and a place of legendary darkness; the school was founded by the fallen-angel Lucifer who served as its first headmaster in the ancient times of the world. Word of Scholomance was never carved in stone or writ on paper, it was communed only by word of mouth. And so, it remained nothing more to the mortals than a dark myth, to be found only in folklore, and thereby a legend never discovered by the Catholic Church.
Oddly, the lack of advertising worked well for the school's purposes. It helped keep class sizes down. Only those that truly wished to learn the depths of their magic came to Scholomance. And it required commitment - the journey TO the citadel often times weeded the weak from the strong.
Some say the school was hidden in the treacherous heights of the Southern Carpathian Mountains. Others claimed the school was to be found on other plane of reality, connected directly to hell. The truth was far more complex, and no muggle science would discover the school behind the complex wards that hid it from visibility.
Not that any of that mattered. To enter the doors of the Citadel one had to be a student, or a former student, or Lucifer himself. No tourists were ever permitted. Once a student enrolled in Scholomance, they were bound to the school until graduation. And the per annum mortality rate of the school was frightfully high.
As legend suggested, Scholomance was a school of dark magic, but the description was a little peasant; Scholomance was more apt to be described as a school of magic for dark creatures; those more dangerous, more powerful magical beings with greater connection to the wild magics of Earth. Werewolves, vampires, incubi, succubi, hags, goblins, merfolk, fae and demons. The school motto was 'learn, or die trying'. There wasn't any fuzzy hand-holding by sympathetic teachers, no cheerful after-school groups, or social gatherings of like minded friends. And visitors simply didn't happen.
Except on the solstices. Poker night.
"Fold,' Judas threw down his cards in disgust, casting a withering glance at Lucifer. 'Seriously, who said you could deal? We all swore some few hundred years ago that you were never to deal again. You cheat outrageously."
"I'm the devil. It's what I do." Said the fallen angel rather indifferently, pushing an ridiculously tall stack of chips forward. "Raise."
Glowing green balls of magic, in lieu of eyes, from within a flesh-barren skull glared at the devil. "Because you don't have a royal flush in your hand after dealing the cards." said the eight-thousand year old Lich. "Contrary to your ridiculous notions, I wasn't born on the last new moon. Fold."
The devil pouted, tossing down his cards, which were, indeed, the predicted Royal Flush. "You poofs are utterly no fun."
"Poofs?" Judas snorted. "People in glass houses, should not be throwing stones. You're well known as an equal-opportunity player, Lucky. Seriously, it's very well advertised, everyone knows that that you're shamelessly indiscriminate. Male, female, goat…. Indifferent. Shameless."
"These are my adolescent years." Lucifer frowned severely, pointed a black-tipped finger at him. "I can't be responsible for my hormonal urges."
Both Judas and the Lich, whose name was long forgotten to time, snorted at that. But, all the same, the Lich gathered the cards, shuffled them in his skeletal hands, and proceeded to deal again.
"So, my students tell me you've abandoned Romania." The Lich began as he sorted his cards into some order. "Moved to England. Doing that Dracula schtick, are you?"
"Hmm?" Judas reached for a blood-pop, stripping it of it's wrapper and popping it into his mouth. "No. Please. I went for a vacation to see this new bed and breakfast some hag had set up in a residential area of muggle England. I mean, the wards that were advertised to be on the place were perfect for a vampire, she'd listed a great selection of bloodwine, and then there was a muggle all-you-could-eat-buffet of a small town outside of the Greater London Area. It sounded like a great idea, and I was craving a bit of English blood."
"Sucked, then?" Lucifer asked. "Small town paranoia, no threshold invitations, and boring bloodwines?"
"Oh, hell no!" Judas grinned, "It was AWESOME. Best vacation I've had in three thousand years. Seriously, they have this little tiny dark lord growing up there. He's the bomb! I swear. The power he gives off, and his aura, honestly, if I didn't know better, I'd think he was your long-lost son, Lucky. Except, you're a hormonal teen that practices safe sex with goats."
The Lich started laughing despite his best efforts otherwise.
"Oh for…" Lucifer threw a poker chip at Judas' head. "One time. I was higher than a kite, and made a mistake."
"We don't let skull-boy forget sinking Atlantis, do we?" Judas asked, smirking at the still laughing Lich. "So, we don't forget things like you and goat-fucking."
"When you finally expire, and come to my domain, I'm going to do dreadful, horrible things to your immortal soul." Lucifer promised loftily.
"So you say." Judas gave his hand a good look, nodded to some silent conversation in his head, and promptly stacked three chips, including the one Lucky had thrown him, and pushed it forward. "Raise."
The Lich matched. "A immature dark lord, you say. A real one, or the puffed up mortal wizard wannabe types?" He turned his head expectantly to Lucifer, jerking his chin at the cards.
"I'm thinking!" The devil said. "And really? Puffed up mortal wizards? Did you think you were BORN all bone-and-magic?"
"I was. As far as anyone is concerned, that's precisely how I came to be. Think faster." The Lich replied.
"Fuck you, too." Lucifer flicked his eyes to Judas, who had pulled the blood-pop from his mouth, and was examining it. "So, dark lord?"
"Oh, real one. Blackest, beautiful, black aura. The wild magic is seething around him in such strength it's amazing. Though, giving the stench of death I get from tasting his aura, I'm pretty sure he's a Peverell." Judas gave his bloodpop a lick. "These aren't the wonko's blood pops, are they? They're quite good."
"No." The Lich gave the devil a kick to get him moving. "I got them from a local village in northern Italy. One of our former students become a confectioner and opened shop after graduation."
The devil rolled his eyes. "Seriously? This is the epitome of an education from Scholomance? Our students are being shopkeepers? Are you telling me my school is emulating the watered-down bullshit of Hogwarts now?"
"Yes. This is the epitome of a Scholomance education. He's making millions, and putting potions into his concoctions to subvert the masses. He's caused three wars In the middle-east, and amassed himself a world-wide network of slaves dependant on his control-potions."
Judas spit the blood-pop out, and pulled a neutralizing draught from an inner pocket of his jacket. "Fuck! Why didn't you warn me, you jackass!"
The devil blinked, watching the vampire chug down the potion, grimacing the entire time. "Oh." Lucifer spun a chip like a top, head tilted. He considered the green look sliding over Judas' face, before nodding, suddenly stilled the spinning chip and stacked it. "Okay then. That's alright."
"The dark lord?" The Lich continued, ignoring Judas' scowl and issues.
The vampire ignored him, rising and fetching a bottle of blood wines - one of the bottles he'd brought with him, and chugging it down. He returned to the table, sitting and giving a slight shudder at the blood-pop he'd abandoned. A flick of his fingers, it turned to ash.
The Lich sighed. "Judas, the Dark Lord?"
"Hmm," Judas discarded a card, and pulled another. "That sounds nice, actually. Judas the Dark Lord. But no. I'm not. Tragically, as awesome as I am, I'm just a vampire. Ah." He moved his card into a new position in his hand, and then looked up again and found himself being glared at. He sneered back, "Not that you two deserve to know anything after that shit with the blood-pop, but the area is being called Knockturn II by the locals moving in. About eighty-wolves thus far, although that number is steadily growing. One hag, because the other that tried to move in was killed by the first. It's only a matter of time before we get the Goblins, I'm sure."
He frowned as Lucifer dropped another card. "Sunny, very residential with these adorable cookie-cutter clones of houses, lots of tidy green spaces for children to screw around in, and yet a thriving rich wild magic - which surprised me at first. But then I bumped into our little dark lord, cutest little monkey and so very polite, and it all made sense again. The Nibblet has the oddest curse scar on his forehead, but I haven't been able to study it yet - he's living with the most vile muggles – I truly don't want to taste them, I'm pretty sure they've gone rancid. Anyway, in addition to the muggles, he's surrounded by a wicked set of blood wards, which must be amplifying his aura's projection, because it's plastering the town. Kid hangs with the werewolves on the full moon – there's a neighbourhood howl-along; it's kinda fun. Of course, my posse of vampires, vampire servants, and vampire wannabes had to follow as soon as I announced I was buying a property. But, all in all, with the dark creature population upswing, I think the Hag was right… It's a good spot for some business ventures. The Hag has her B&B, the wolves opened a construction firm, another has opened a landscape company. I'm in process of opening a new spa, and butcher's shop, but my funeral planning business is already launched and thriving."
"Funeral planning?" Lucifer tossed two cards, and pulled two more. He glared at one of them, tossing it, and pulling a third.
"Muggles on painkillers are just like candy!" Judas smiled brightly. "Tasty and full of zip. I'm buzzing after a few sips. And with my Funeral Planning business it means I get a heads up on the ill and the dying. I make a point of visiting my customers in the hospital; I read to them, socialize for a bit, brighten up their day with my sparkling wit and personality, and then leave after the nurse has administered their pain meds and I've had a bite."
The Lich looked at the devil in askance; it was the same silent question as every time before: Why do we invite him to these games?
The devil's usual response was, "We needed a third." Suffice it to say, after six-thousand games, card games only for the past one hundred years, the conversation had been reduced to a silent glance.
"Do you and your sycophants not find the 'sunshine' to be a bit burdensome?" asked the Lich, pulling a cigarette from his robes and lighting with a flick of power. The fag hanging between the fleshless lips of the skull was rather odd to see, but no worse than anything Judas had seen on MTV.
"Nope. The Niblett's dark aura initially covered three streets and one play park, but since the influx of dark creatures, it's grown to cover the town as a whole. And this is what tells me he's the real deal - I can wander about in daylight. Hell, I'm even starting to get a tan." Judas leaned back in his chair, fanning himself absently with his hand of cards. "Seriously, I forgot how nice it was to soak up the rays – and I do make sunglasses look good. I'm thinking of putting a pool in my backyard. Something extravagant, done up with a grotto, and a very natural feel. It'll definitely need a pool bar, and a hot tub." The distant look in the vampire's red eyes spoke volumes about where his mind was at. "Hot sexy blood donors in little tiny bikinis, ooh, or better, nude, running around, lounging around…"
"Those are some serious potions your student is putting into those blood pops." The devil muttered, looking very curious about the shite coming out of the vampire's mouth. "A suntan?"
Judas rolled up a sleeve. "You can't see it in all this gloom – the sun hasn't shone in this corner of Romania in what, a thousand years?"
"Closer to seven thousand." The Lich corrected, pulling out spectacles to perch over his glowing eyes, and examining the arm curiously. "Huh. You might have a tan. Or that could be a rash."
"It's a tan. You should see my chest. It's awesome. I look Italian."
Lucifer rolled his eyes, and swapped a card when he was sure no one was noticing. "You're Jewish. You can't hide that nose, no matter what color you charm your hair."
"You're just jealous." Judas said, "And would you kindly stop cheating? It's ridiculous, because it's not like we don't know when you pull this shit."
"I'm not cheating." Lucifer protested, wide-eyed angelic innocence on display. "I'm just…thinking."
"You stole a card." The Lich hexed him for good measure. "You've already taken three. We've played twenty-seven hands, and you've been cheating every play."
"Oh bite me."
The Lich puffed his cigarette. (Judas had always wondered how that worked. It wasn't like the Lich had lungs, though really, he'd never cross examined the Lich's physical body… actually, he'd never seen it without his robes. There could be lungs under there, trapped inside a rib-cage… And wow, that was a creepy line of thought. For the most part, the Lich seemed to like doing a stellar impression of the grim reaper.) "Your blood doesn't interest me." The Lich informed Lucifer. "And your flesh serves no lasting purpose."
"Says the animated skeleton." Judas quipped, rising to his feet, and laying down a flush. "Right. Well. If this is what poker night has degenerated to after six hours of playing, I'm heading home. I want to stop in Paris on my way, and pick up a few books on blood wards while I'm out and about."
'- - -'
Ally walked in the door, arms laden with grocery bags, and dropped her keys and purse on the small table by the door. She toed off her shoes, and with a bit of a bag jostle, made her way towards the kitchen, only to stop sharply and scream in pure horror, causing bags of produce to go flying through the air, at what she saw in her living-room.
The cost (and cause) of her scream, however, was that her wolf-shaped husband's body, formerly sprawled on his back with paws akimbo in the air, woke suddenly and fell promptly off the couch only to yelp as he slammed his fuzzy head into the the top of the coffee-table as he tried to roll to his feet. He collapsed to the ground, whimpering in pain.
"MY COUCH!" Ally howled like a rising storm. "I HAVE DOG HAIR ON MY COUCH!"
Wounded, he may be, but the wolf in Jasper looked at her in affront. Dog? He wasn't a Dog! Was the woman blind? Delusional? Stupid? He was an apex predator! A killer! A dangerous piece of the magical world!
"Oh, this is awful." She ignored the wolf utterly, surprising since he was, as a were, a significant bit bigger than the average grey wolf. Ally swept right past him to examine the grey hair donning her lovely, relatively new, off-white couch. A shuddery sob rippled through her, as she swept a small (few) hairs off of the cushions. Another sobbed breath hitched as she spotted a wet-spot of drool, and she swung her gaze to the cowering wolf in front of her. "BAD Jasper!" She told him, finger pointing. "You know I don't allow pets or shoes on my furniture – and I don't care the excuse. You look like a wolf, a since a wolf is a canine, and therefore is akin to a dog which is in turn a pet – and to make it clear I won't have dogs or WOLVES on my brand new couch! Do you hear me?"
She grabbed the wolf by the ruff of the neck, and dragged him from the living room, thru to the kitchen, and shoved him out the back door. For a smallish woman, Ally was surprisingly strong, the wolf thought, far too shocked to offer resistance.
"Stay there until you're man enough to face me!" She yelled. "I'm going to clean up your mess!" The door, slammed shut with a bang, loud enough for the wolf to wince.
The werewolf heaved a sigh, head falling onto his paws, and he stared dejectedly at his house. It was official. His wife was a nutbar, she was completely lacking the common sense to NOT antagonize dark creatures. Merlin, he'd warned her, warned her so many times about what to do if he ever lost control of his transformation and she was about. But, Ally lacked all sense of self-preservation. First it was Prudence, well… okay, no, first it was himself. She'd looked at him like he had lost his mind when he'd confessed, on their third date, that he was a werewolf. And despite his efforts, Ally'd never taken his disease as seriously as any sensible witch, wizard or squib would. He should have had a clue then that his beloved wife had not a drop or lick of survival skill.
"Uncle Jasper?" Wee Harry's voice sounded a mite confused, but he bounded over from the backyard of the Dursley's home, behind the broken hedgerow defining and dividing the lot between the Dursley's and Lockwood's yards without a care in the world about his trespass. Jasper was reasonably certain that Edith Miller, who was his direct next door neighbour wouldn't be thrilled with the way Harry traipsed through her gardens. Fortunately, she was practically blind, and tended more to mind her front window than the back.
"Uncle Jasper!" Harry lunged for the furry shape of his adopted Uncle, arms wrapping around the wolf's neck and face burrowing into the very ruff Ally had so savagely grabbed and dragged through the house.
Immediately, the wolf (and Jasper) felt better, and though Jasper was self-aware while inside the wolf's body, he recognized he was far more a passenger than driver. Wolf instincts and intellect ruled most of his body in this state, as exampled when his tail started wagging happily at having his wolf's favourite human wrapped around him. "Arrooo." The wolf part of Jasper howled to Harry.
"I thought you could only come out during the full moon!" Harry scratched behind Jasper's ear, and the wolf moaned in ecstasy. "It's not the moon-time, Uncle Jasper. The sun is up!"
This was something Jasper was very aware of. In fact, his last memory before Ally had gone postal on him was settling down, as a man, on the couch to indulge in a wee Sunday afternoon kip. Waking up a wolf had been a bit of a shock. In more ways than one.
"But I'm really glad to see you!" Harry continued, having pushed past the whole daylight confusion, as only a newly achieved six year old could. Over a year ago, the lad's birthday, a much celebrated thing in the wizarding world had almost passed unknown in the muggle. Ally and Jasper had yet again shamed the Dursley's, and insured their favourite lad had a proper birthday party in their bark yard. Complete with bouncy castle, and ice cream cake. Harry had been the birthday hit of his primary class.
They'd not made the same mistake this year, and bypassed the Dursley's utterly. Ally and Jasper had taken the lad and a few classmates up to Windsor, and celebrated Harry's sixth birthday at Legoland. Certainly, to the other patrons of the theme park, it had looked odd, what with four young children, and eighteen adults surrounding only one child at all times, but really it could have been far worse. After all, the whole pack had wanted to be in attendance so they'd resorted to a lottery for the rights to go with. Harry had picked the names from a witch's cap to avoid accusations of favouritism.
"Arrooro?" The wolf didn't really care what Harry wanted, it was just elated that the lad was happy to see him all furry.
"The Dursley's have gone up to the specialist in London, for Aunt 'Tunia's appointment with her car-di-ologist." He said the word carefully, sounding it out. "They took Dudley long too, but kicked me out so I wouldn't make a mess."
The urge to bear teeth was strong, but Jasper reminded the wolf he wasn't annoyed at the lad, but rather at the Dursley's. And really, biting them was pointless. Two of the Dursleys were all fat, the other was all bone. Not really appetizing at the best of times.
"I think they plan to get dinner in London, and won't be home 'till late." Harry confided. "But, there's this strange man poking around the house, and I'm not sure what to do."
Strangers, sadly, were very much the norm in Privet Drive. Anton had done the numbers, at some point, and in the past twenty-three months there'd been an influx of one hundred and five werewolves (of which eighty were employed by Howl Construction), thirty-seven vampires, a Hag, and one establishment wherein thirty goblins now lived and operated a local Gringotts bank.
The human population was moving out in droves, and the local primary was in danger of closing if the population continued to drop. Which meant that Harry would have to be bussed to out of area. No one had liked that effect of the evolution of Little Whinging from a non-magical community to magical.
Fortunately, they had a long-term plan in the event that happened. Dudley Dursley could be bussed out of area; actually everyone was really keen on that idea. Harry, however, would be privately tutored. Judas had proved useful for once in his creepy life, putting forward an education fund for the lad in the event it was needed.
So, strangers? Not new. Something about Harry's magic just drew strangers in. They might come initially to visit, but invariably, they stayed.
"He's wearing this dark robe - and all I can see as bones for his wrists and hands. It's like he's a skeleton. Or!" Harry paused, and eyes grew wide, "I know…. Maybe he's the grim reaper!"
Jasper would have rolled his eyes if he were in control of the body. The grim reaper was five years too late where the lad was concerned, and a damn good thing that was. Still, teaching Harry to be wary of strangers had been ruddy hard. The lad's open and cheerful nature, coupled with his curiosity, made it difficult for him identifying strangers and keeping to the rules of stranger-danger.
"Do you suppose he's here to take Aunt 'Tunia? Should we let him know when she'll be back?" The child wondered aloud.
Jasper rose to his feet, shaking off the boy. Turning around, he went through the path Harry had initially taken to get into the yard, trotting casually through the Miller's vegetable patch (the bunnies were obviously reproducing again based on the state of the lettuce), and into the Dursley's yard. Invariably, Harry was on his tail.
He prowled around the Dursley's back yard, through to the front yard, and down the far side, which neighboured onto the Lovett's place. It was behind a mulberry bush that he found Harry's 'stranger' bent down, a staff with a glowing green stone mounted in the mouth of a silver skull at the pommel touched the foundations of the house.
What was interesting was that Harry's description had been bang on. Their pup was getting better at observations, it seemed. Only, this wasn't the grim reaper. This was a creature far more dangerous than just 'death'. Jasper pushed Harry behind him, hackles raising and lip curling away from his teeth.
The Lich, for that was what this creature was, turned, it's skull eerily shadowed by its hood studied the wolf for a moment. "You do know, werewolf that not only is it daytime, but the moon is a waning crescent at present?"
Jasper added a good "Grrr" to his imposing stance.
"And you're defending a dark lord against me." The Lich continued. "I freely admit, I am terribly fearsome. It's not often one faces a six-thousand year old immortal sorcerer such as I… But be that as it may, I'm not a Prince of Darkness, just his lowly student. And, I strongly suspect that Death himself would gather me to his bosom were I to touch that lad with intent to harm."
Okay, sure, the Lich was saying the right words, but… LICH!
"If you persist in attacking however, you will not survive." The Lich wrapped a skeletal hand around the middle of the staff, setting the silver clawfoot of it on the ground. "And that, my dear werewolf, would likely upset the young prince."
It didn't matter if he would be exposed and vulnerable - hello, mere werewolf against a Lich. But, words were necessary. That was something both wolf and man were in agreement about. The shift happened awkwardly, some bones lengthening, others retracting, his hips reshaping, his maw shrinking. Behind him, Harry demonstrated his understanding that the situation here wasn't safe, and ran off to get help.
"What do you want?" Jasper rasped as soon as he was able, hoping the help Harry fetched was Anton and not Ally. Ally would skin him for wandering about naked.
"Judas spoke of the little prince, and the blood wards. I came to see for myself. Judas has been known to sip drugged-up bloods on occasion, after all." The Lich seemed to lean his weight onto the staff, though Jasper was sure a skeleton didn't have much weight to need supporting.
"That doesn't explain what you want." Jasper realized he was being stupid, standing outside the Dursley house all naked, no wand, and facing an immortal sorcerer of the darkest sorts. With his luck, a patrol would come by and arrest him for public indecency. Oh hell, what if Harry called for the constabulary? That would be fabulous; the Lich would kill the cops, and he, Jasper, would take the fall for it.
Today was shaping up to be a dreadful day all around.
"What do I want," The Lich sounded almost conversational, which made the hair at the back of Jasper's neck stand up straight. "I swore nearly five thousand years ago, that the next dark lord that rose…"
Oh fuck, he was going to kill Harry. Or, he was going to TRY to kill Harry. The pack would jump in front first.
"...that I would have a hand in shaping him, ensuring his sanity did not crack like the last one."
Wait up… That didn't involve homicide. "The last one?"
"He'll be along shortly, I'm sure. Just to find out what's so damn interesting about 'Little Whinging' that caused me to relocate here too." Weariness seemed to pour from the Lich's body. "Just lock up the goats when he comes."
"Excuse me?" Jasper couldn't help his confusion. How did we go from evil super-ancient sorcerer Lich killing Harry to locking up goats.
"You'll see. I give it eight months, tops." The Lich sighed, the green gem in his staff flickering, and then going dark. "In the meantime, would you happen to know what hack set up these blood wards?"
Jasper blinked. "Err. Albus Dumbledore, I assume. The wards were there when me and my wife moved into the neighbourhood. And I'm reasonably sure we were the first, or I was, at least, the first dark creature to move into Little Whinging."
"Ah." The Lich tapped his staff against the side-wall of the Dursley's house. "He's an idiot, then, this Dumbledore. These wards depend on the love and stability of a family, a magical family. The wards have been starving for some time, so they hooked into a magical child. From what I can see, the wards have developed a limited sentience, and became aware they were harming the very person they were designed to protect, so they began siphoning wild magic, but they couldn't directly use wild magic, because they are blood attuned wards."
Jasper groaned, with sudden understanding. "So, rather than take Harry's own innate power to fuel themselves, the ward fed the wild magic through Harry first, and then harvested it as blood-attuned. All the while, exposing him to wild magic."
"Precisely." If the Lich could beam, Jasper had a feeling he'd just earned a gold star. "Now, the interesting part, the little prince's connection to death, which seems to be linked to the sacrificial magic I can find in this ward. Had wild magic only gone through a magical child with no connection to death, then no harm, albeit a stronger than usual neutral magical child with a propensity for higher ritual magic. But, the lad is touched by death, which is a primordial force of order. Order is…"
"Dark. Still. Structured. You get a Dark Lord." Jasper rubbed a hand through his hair, feeling a headache coming on. "Bugger. The lad's the sweetest kid. Kind, thoughtful, a bit shy… How do we get an insane serial-killing Dark Lord out of that?"
The staff came bopping into his skull, and therein was the headache in all it's aching glory. How did the damn skeleton know exactly where he'd banged his head into his coffee table? Ow.
"The mortal self-labelled dark lords that you wizards have had crop up from time to time are no more a dark lord than I am a dryad." The Lich told him, scathingly. "And since I've never had an urge to climb a tree, I think we can rule them as false dark-lords. I doubt any of them could actually do a necromantic ritual if it would save their lives - they certainly lacked the power for it. There have been TWO, and only two true Dark Lords, at least to my knowledge in the past eight-thousand years. The first, well, he's a hormonal teen of an estimated twenty-thousand years with a propensity to cheat at cards. The second is that young lad that just ran off."
"Harry's going to grow up to be a card-shark?"
"Are you brain damaged?" The Lich leaned forward, peering at Jasper a little too intently. What with the glowing green that seemed to emerge from vacant eye-sockets, Jasper was seriously creeped out. "Seriously? Are you even paying attention to a word I'm saying? I have had students give up their souls for tutelage with me, and you're getting a free discourse, and this is the kind of shite you produce?"
"I'm a construction worker."
"Yes. Menial labor is probably best for your limited intellect. Don't ever change trades." The Lich took a deep calming breath in, and blew it out. "Your boy is in no danger of becoming an insane serial killer, well, assuming he doesn't suffer some major mental schism or an incredibly trauma, he shouldn't become a serial killer. Environmental factors can not be predicted. What is guaranteed to happen is that the will be a Dark Lord. A guardian, defender and master of the wild magics. Possibly a necromancer, if he's not too squeamish - it happens. Definitely capable of killing in defence of his dark creatures." The Lich huffed suddenly. "The education system in magical Britain is really poorer than I ever suspected. I thought it sucked, I apparently had no idea how badly. That lad can't go to school here. It would be an embarrassment of epic proportions for a true Dark Lord to be so poorly educated and delusional about what dark magic was." He sighed. "No choice, for it then. I'll have to start tutoring him now, and enroll him into Scholomance when he's older."
Oh, fuck… Ally would lose her shit at the thought of sending wee Harry to demon-school for a hundred years, with his soul being the cost. Assuming, at minimum, that she didn't erupt at having Harry tutored by a skeleton. Jasper had the sudden urge to retreat into his wolf form and stay that way for at least the next decade.
"He's already in school." Jasper tried to interrupt the Lich's planning carefully.
"Meh."
"No, seriously, he's in primary. And, the muggles get weird about pulling children from the school system." Logic, Jasper prayed, could be his friend. Lord knows, it was rarely his friend, though, when he talked with his wife.
The skull seemed to emerge from the hood, rather like a tortoise from it's shell. "As if I would have problems dealing with muggles."
Oh Lord. There went all the muggles. Dead, dead, and deader… Oh, that would include the Dursley's. And the vampires would have to move if their food supply suddenly dropped off. Huh. This was looking up.
"Oh, my stars! Look at that fine tight pale arse!"
It was the most unwelcome voice in all of Little Whinging. Jasper cringed instantly.
"When Harry told me you were out here all naked and shit, I scarce believed it. But lookie here! MmmmMmm." Judas sashayed between Jasper and the Lych, red eyes sweeping up and down Jasper's naked body.
Jasper's hands came in front of his privates immediately.
"Oh, now let's not be shy." The grin on Judas' face was unholy. Seriously, unholy. It was manic, with fangs exposed, and way too wide. "I truly had no idea you had a thang for bags of bones. Clearly I wasn't thinking this through. I mean, canines, bones… It's a given. I just didn't realize you wanted to hump the bag of bones. Darling, I can provide you with something far superior to hump - maybe I'll even hump back."
"Seriously, Judas?" The Lich sighed. "I thought you were the straight one. Can you not let the poor man be? He's a werewolf. They don't transform like animagus - you KNOW this."
Judas waved his hand dismissively at the Lich. "Later! I'm busy!" He sang.
"Apparently, I'm the only one who doesn't think with his dick." The Lich muttered.
"You don't have one, darling. Hardly an issue for you, in that regard, so I doubt you can speak with any degree of authority on the subject." Judas replied cheerily, taking a step closer to Jasper, and watching Jasper take a step back. "Now, now…."
"Where's Harry?" Jasper asked defensively, looking over his shoulder for signs of the lad, of Anton, of anyone who could help extricate him from this situation.
"Oh, I sent him off to tea with Pru." Judas smirked. "He's much too young to watch me seduce you. Where's the wife, sweet-cheeks?"
The whimper, this time, was debatably Jasper's. He was pretty sure the Lich whimpered too. Likely, for many widely different reasons.
"Judas. Let the wolf be." The Lich ordered.
"No-can-do," The vampire's grin hadn't relaxed an inch. "Why, even his wife is on board with me getting a leg over this big hunk of a wolf." The smirk was dangerously epic. "She wants to watch," He said in an aside over his shoulder to the Lich.
"You poor mutt. Your wife too?" The ancient sorcerer said with a shake of his hooded head. He levelled his staff at Jasper. "Honestly, I recommend you run for higher ground." And with that, he cast at Jasper.
A bolt ripped through him, and suddenly Jasper had four paws again, and a tail firmly tucked between his back legs. He bypassed marvelling, and went straight for running straight through Judas' legs, tripping the vampire and hearing him fall on his ass. He didn't stop to look, the sound was comfort enough. He ripped through the Miller's garden, spooking a bunny mid-nibble, jumped the dying hedge to land back to his own yard, raced up the three steps, and skid through the dog-door that led to the kitchen.
It was far better, he reasoned, to face the wrath of Dark Lady Ally at the muddy paws he was leaving on her kitchen floor, than the seductive wiles of an alarmingly bi-sexual vampire.