Working Around a Problem


Matsui Junko had been trained and groomed all her life, the latest in
a long of young men and women who had gone through the same process,
to become Japan's offering to the new earthly god, or kami, predicted by the
Buddhist Sukai - it was only much later that the organization formed
to ensure that Japan did not suffer the wrath of the earthly kami
learned of Merlin's Foretelling, and developed assocations with some
of the other, similar groups. She had, like her companion, been
trained in the arts of war, of fighting, of pleasure, and of service,
to be a gift to the new god from the nation of Japan, to turn aside
his wrath.

Most of the Japanese contingent had at least some martial training,
and it was clear to her from their general tenseness that they, like
she, could sense the watchful presence that surrounded and pervaded
the area. She was mortally certain that the new kami was watching her,
judging her, and when the kami's thunderous voice had shaken the
earth, condemning their attack on the werewolf, she had feared an
immediate divine retribution.

That the flame-haired gaijin could smile so brightly under the
pressure of the kami's scrutiny was difficult to credit, and Junko had
noticed Haru tense up nearly as bad as she had when the gaijin came
bouncing over, as if none of her group had fired on the werewolf. It
was not so, of course; they were as complicit as any, for all
diplomats travel with guards, and guards are ever quick to act against
threats.

Of course, they had thought, from the way the dumpy little British
minister had shrieked and fled, that it was a werewolf somehow forced
into its lunar form, lethally dangerous, an obvious attempt on their
lives. They might have resisted reacting completely upon seeing that
he was in his human form, had not the earth raised with his hands,
though on further reflection, it was clear that the synchrony was
accidental, a result of the kami moving to defend him at the same time
as he tried to show he was unarmed.

Still, distasteful as the red-haired girl's obliviousness to her
culpability was, there was no reason or excuse for discourtesy, so she
promptly returned the girl's bow, and attempted to reply in her
language.

"I am named Matsui Junko, very nice to meet you." She gestured at her
companion. "This is Hayashi Haru."

"Hello, I am Hayashi Haru. It is nice to meet you." Haru offered a slightly
more perfunctory bow than she had, but his English was smoother, his
pronunciation more fluid, and Junko growled to herself. No-one had
known when the kami would come to earth, as that had not been part of
either their prophecy, or the foretelling of Merlin, so she had not
really expected this to happen, but she had wanted to be able to speak
to him or her if it did happen. English was just so frustrating,
though, and she disliked the class intensely.

Unfortunately for Freja's good intentions, the shout had removed the
gates as an obstacle, meaning the long drawn out discussion she had
anticipated had actually been a short vociferous one, quickly resolved
in favor of getting into the grounds before they could be sealed
against them again.

She essayed a quick goodbye when she heard someone calling for her,
and hurried away. Junko's own group was soon called to move as well.
Though there had apparently been some quick discussions over who would
enter the grounds and in what order, and whether they would bring the
guards that had offended the Foretold, it had apparently been quickly
settled, and they were entering in the order they had arrived at the
site.

The goblins had apparently been the first to arrive, and everyone else
watched with interest and trepidation as they crossed the boundary of
the walls where the gates had formerly barred their way. Whatever
specifically it was they feared, nothing transpired, and there was a
palpable release of tension. Junko felt her own tension ease still
more when the first of the human guards that had actually executed the
attack on the werewolf passed through the gap unmolested.

She had no idea yet whether they would end up encamping upon the
castle grounds, or would actually be housed within. The history of
England had not been touched on much in her classes bar the discussion
of Merlin when she had been chosen as one of Japan's next generation
of offerings. The massive and obviously well-aged castle that came
more fully into view as her group finally passed the walls could
probably house thousands comfortably. Whether it was mostly empty,
with plenty of room to house all the delegations, or mostly full, she
had no clue.

Indeed, it might make no difference at all, she discovered, as the
various delegations spread out as they reached the doors of the great
castle and found two very nervous local officials barring the way,
claiming that the local head of government had ordered the doors
sealed and that none would be permitted within.

She could hardly bring herself to care. They had an entire temple
complex with them, bound in a set of torii they would erect. It was
not physical comfort she was concerned about at the moment, but the
ever present gaze of the kami. She could feel it weighing on them,
judging them, as they stopped. By the doors, the floridly garbed elder
wizard who had come down to greet them argued with the door guards
about whether they could enter or not.

"Hey! Sorry about getting called away like that!" Junko turned slowly
to face the ineffably perky voice. Freja was back. "So, that it
happened at a school is a good sign, don't you think? Better chance
the prophecied person might be our age!"

Haru looked dourly at the school. "What's so great about the Foretold
being possibly immature and incompletely trained?"

"Well, more chance we might get to actually meet them? And I think it
makes it a little less likely that it was some stereotypical
power-monger type who triggered the power boost with some ritual or
something. Maybe less chance they'll be looking to abuse it?"

He shook his head doubtfully. Not that it would matter for him and
Junko. They were going to be gifted, whether it was a kid or an ancient
geriatric. Japan did not intend to be the ones spoken of. "The only
good I see is that the Englishman with the funny hat seems to take the
role of the 'one who knows but fights,' which may say that England
will take that role, and save Japan. But that may be bad for all here."

---

It had taken several minutes of cuddling to calm Hermione down from
what she thought might have been a genuine panic attack. It had been
strangely difficult to control her breathing, or to hear or understand
what the others were saying for several minutes, as it seemed she
could scarcely hear anything over the thunderous sound of her own
heart pounding. As concerned as Harry had been over being a Dark
Creature and how the school and his friends would react to that, the
idea of abandoning Harry had seemed so unreal, so incomprehensible to
Hermione, after all they had been through together, that she had not
been able to give his concerns the same weight he was. 

Until he said that he had consumed Professor Lupin's werewolf curse,
on top of somehow merging with the basilisk that had so nearly killed
him in their second year. Together with actually seeing the lupine
Harry on the other couch, and having experienced the fright of running
from a werewolf and seeing the life-crushing consequences revelation
of his status had caused to Professor Lupin - he had been Fired! From
Hogwarts! If Harry was expelled, that meant no more magic. It meant
being cut off, trapped in a world that did not understand, that could
not understand, as she had been before finally finding the magical
world... it was too horrible to even contemplate.

Eventually her heart quieted, her hiccups and tears subsided, and the
feeling of Harry's arms around her seeped through and brought her back
ot herself. Which only left her feeling deeply ashamed and abashed. He
was going through so much and her weakness had... She brought her hand
to her cheek in shock as Mahaila grinned at her, having just slapped
her face. Not that hard, granted, but it had startled her quite
thoroughly, and Mahaila hardly seemed concerned that so many of the
Harry's around had just pulled wands on her. "No use getting stuck in
an emotional loop, darling, there is more story to be told, and more
to learn, and no, for all your worries," she tapped Hermione on the
nose, "have you not noticed the number of wands pointed at me? How
many did Harry have?"

"But he lost his wand!" Hermione protested, her bushy hair flying up
and getting in her way as was its wont as she spun about, staring at
all the Harrys, who seemed as startled as she, staring at the wands in
their hands in confusion.

"I did," one Harry said, and then after a moment, the wand in his hand
slowly vanished, like it was shrinking away. "I've been casting
without a wand, but..." 

"You've clearly unlocked your Shifting as a primary talent," Idra
commented from where she had retreated to a smaller two-person couch
that Hermione had missed. Had Harry made it for her? Or had one of the
other magic-users conjured it? "That was not a conjured wand, based on
how you undeployed it."

"Shifting?"

Mahaila nodded, straightening as Hermione's curiosity overcame her
embarrassment. "One of the best ways to produce lust is to look like
someone that inspires lust. Some succubi do better with illusions,
others with shifting, or dreams, or mirrors, or the mind." She moved
over to one of the Harrys, who was still eyeing her nervously, and
Hermione wilted a little inside, realizing that she had possibly
interfered with Harry getting to know real family that actually wanted
him. Well, if they could trust anything said by a succubus. "After
all, I did tell you that we could swap sex if we chose. Most succubi
have at least some skill with shifting their form, and some skill with
one or more of the other techniques, but likewise, most have a focus.
Or at least, a focus of the moment."

Idra laughed softly at that. "If you don't want to end up as one of
the most boring immortals alive, you'll shift your focus from shifting
at some point. If for no other reason than that always following the
same exact playbook means eventually, someone will design a counter to
everything you do, and take it all away." Her voice turned melancholy
towards the end, and Mahaila sighed. 

"Don't go getting maudlin on me, Idra, when I've just found Lily's
child," she remonstrated her companion, and turned back to Harry.
Well, to the Harry she had chosen to focus on, anyway. Hermione still
had a Harry sitting on either side of her, so she surely had no reason
to be jealous of Mahaila running her hand through Harry's hair, and
gently touching her horns. Because of course she was focused on one of
the succubus-form Harrys.

"I don't think mine is Shifted," Harry muttered from beside her, hands
running over his wand. It looked like his wand, as best she could
recall, though she realized then that she had perhaps never actually
paid close enough attention. She could describe his wand in general
terms, but as she looked at it in his hands, then glanced at the one
held by the Harry on the other side of her, she realized that unlike
her own wand of which she had spent considerable time taking meticulous
care and whose foibles and peculiarities she knew as well as the
proverbial back of her hand, or perhaps even better, she could not
mentally identify any particular scratches, dents, or markings whose
presence or absence could speak it it being or not being his wand.

"Mine is, I'm pretty sure," her other Harry said, showing that his
wand could shrink away. "Did you conjure that one?"

The other Harry shrugged. "Not sure."

She wanted to retort that it was clearly impossible, no-one could just
conjure a wand, but she was too unsettled. Everything was topsy-turvy,
who knew what was possible or not? 

She focused on Mahaila again, who had apparently heard rather a lot of
Hermione's own internal misgivings. Had she been talking while she
could not even hear herself over the sound of her heart? Probably, she
supposed. It was just in her nature to try to correct her boys when
they were doing silly, dangerous things.

"You need not worry about having your wand snapped or taken from you.
The magic of a succubus is innate and does not need a wand to draw it
out, though you can certainly feed it through a wand. And our magic
grows stronger with time as long as you are well-fed and not starved,
though our personal wells are rather depleted."

Well, that was a relief to hear. And it sounded like, as Mahaila
continued, that the pair of succubi could help train them even if they
got expelled. Well, train Harry, anyway. She fingered her own wand
nervously, and Harry leaned against her, whispering. "Don't worry,
Hermione, we won't let anyone snap your wand."

"Have you figured out what is going on in the Hall, Harry? Why did you
grab us like that, anyway? What changed?"

"Oh, right," Harry said, louder, interrupting his possible grandmother
and drawing more attention to them, "Fudge had just come in the front
doors after I, well, I knocked him down shouting at them about trying
to hurt Remus, and he told the aurors to take you into protective
detention to force me to do what he wanted! So I had to take you out
of there."

Luna bounced on the other couch. "What about me, Harry?" She looked
happy to Hermione, pleased about something.

"He hadn't mentioned you yet, but if he was trying to get something to
hold over me and he had put together that I was responsible for
grabbing Lupin, I was afraid I was a bit too overt in protecting you
when that jerk tripped you and when they saw me take Hermione, they
would have gone for you next."

Luna beamed at him.

"What about Ginny?" Hermione asked, and Harry looked at her blankly
for a moment.

"Oh, uhm... if they go after her, I guess I'll grab her. But she's got
all her brothers there, I don't think they would let the aurors
separate her too easily. But I'll keep an eye on her."

"What is the Ministry doing here in the first place?" Professor Lupin
asked in a concerned tone, and Hermione peered across the odd stone
chamber at him. He looked a bit ragged still, and she wondered again
what the consequences would be of Harry self-professedly consuming his
wolf curse. 

"They probably felt the same surge of power that woke us up from our
somnolescence," Idra responded. "I'm sure anyone close enough would
have felt it."

All the Harrys seemed to frown at once, and Hermione shivered at the
sight. 

"Well," he grumped, "I'm glad you haven't a prophecy for me to
fulfill, because they seem to think they've got one. 'Merlin's
foretelling', one of them said, and Dumbledore knew what he was
talking about. That's what all the people around the gate seem to have
been here about, too, at least from the ones who said anything in
English." He looked deeply unhappy about it, and Hermione could not
resist hugging one of her Harrys, but which?

She glanced out of the corner of her eyes back and forth, and finally
just grabbed the one on her right and squeezed him for a moment, then
did the same to her left Harry. 

"So that's what the testing was about," Luna commented thoughtfully.
"They were trying to see if our magic had gotten stronger than Fudge's
heliopaths."

---

The two girls being taken from the Great Hall in spite of the presence
of the teachers and Aurors had seemingly set off a powder-keg, as the
Great Hall had erupted in recriminations, accusations, and panic. Many
of the students promptly climbed up onto the tables, ignoring the
Aurors' shouted commands and demands, seeing the floor as unsafe.
Others tried to run, to get away from the vicinity of the two spots,
as though the floor were simply collapsing there, when any fool could
see that it was as solid after it had sucked them up as before.

Meanwhile the teachers were trying to get to those same spots, to try
and work out what had happened, while the Aurors were trying to
restore control. The only saving grace the Aurors had in this
situation was that their orders had been shoruted at the front door of
Hogwarts, out of earshot of the hall itself, so no-one in the hall was
yet aware that one of the two swallowed up girls had just been ordered
into custody.

It was practically inevitable given the general clamor and the tension
everyone was under that a spell would end up being thrown. And given
that most of those within were students, it was frighteningly probable
that one or more of them would be badly injured when the fully adult
and trained Aurors responded, or so it seemed to Professor McGonagall.

How they could resolve this panic without harm was a puzzle she had
very little time to solve, so she had to put aside her concern for one
of her current favorite students in favor... and it was too late,
there was the flash of spellfire coming from, not the Slytherin table
as might have been anticipated, but the Hufflepuff table. Even now a
Cannonblast or Sonorous charm would do more harm than good, but if the
Aurors moved against her students, they would find a Mistress of
Transfiguration was not so easy an opponent as they were perhaps used
to dealing... and they were gone.

She had missed which Auror had started casting, though she had heard
the voice and been turning in that direction, but whatever force had
been reshaping the castle - and she had a tightly held knot of concern
within her that claimed she knew quite well who was responsible, were
she but to admit it to herself - reacted instantly.

More than one student, over the years, had written clever papers for
her later classes on how Charms and Transfigurations could be
combined in the defense of a castle like Hogwarts. And indeed, more
than a few of them had hit upon ideas that were actually present in
the castle's behaviors, correctly hitting upon the meaning behind the
shifting staircases and odd network of hidden passages. What she saw
now, however, was more akin to the more fanciful writings of her less
experienced and more hopeful students, as the stone of the castle
simply reached out and engulfed the Aurors, not one after another but
all at once, each one swallowed up into apparent nothingness, though
she had little doubt they were being ejected somewhere. It remained to
be seen whether that was out of the castle or into an oubliette, and
given that in spite of her misgivings about the Minister and some of
those closest to him, many of the Aurors were her students themselves
once upon a time, she rather hoped it was more of the former and less
of the latter.

Professor Sprout was right on scene, of course, having headed for her
Hufflepuffs right off, correctly surmising that they would need
calming and that her skills were not what was needed in working out
the cause or reversing the vanishment of the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw
girls. 

The doors to the Great Hall promptly closed themselves, all around,
both the great doors and the smaller side doors. A silvery figure flew
through the sealed doors and she turned to it, listening as the
patronus phoenix relayed Dumbledore's words, before sending a patronus
message of her own in response. 

So, the aurors had merely been dumped out on the grounds, and Minister
Fudge had likewise been ejected from the castle. A bit impolitic,
perhaps, but as neither she nor the Headmaster had ordered it done,
Dumbledore could rightfully disclaim involvement. Merlin's
Foretelling, though. If that was what this all was...

The Professor straightened herself up, shook her robes straight, and
strode the rest of the way down the aisle to where Hermione had sat,
her heart considerably lightened. Given that there had been more than
once when they had feared that Voldemort had or was about to stumble
upon the secret to the leve of power-up that would make him
unbeatable, it was a very great relief to see that it was his
prophecied defeator and a good-hearted if lonely boy that had stumbled
his way into it instead.

It did put rather a poor light on Fudge's interference and ejection,
though. Merlin's Foretelling had a rather dark side to it, revealing
as it did the end of one of the nations that knew of it. Rather a lot
of philosophical drivel had been written, she felt, on the propriety
of revealing the foretelling to anyone else at all, and she was
slightly chagrined to recognize that if Britain itself fell into that
role, then all those arm-chair philosophers who claimed that the only
way the prophecy could hold true at any and all times was if Britain
was always the one foretold, as that was where the prophecy had been
revealed. Which was itself blatant poppycock and symbolic of their
wooly thinking, since Britain had not existed as such at the time in
the first place, but if it was Britain that fell they would claim it
as proving their correctness. 

A simple flick of her wand revealed that the floor was as solid and
sturdy as ever, her lion's temporary liquefaction of it had been
satisfactorily reversed and had not created any significant new
stresses or fractures. 

At any rate, it was not the nation's downfall that was predicted, but
the ruler's downfall, and so if that was Fudge? Well, she would cry no
tears over that, the man had never been well-suited to managing a
government.

---

It was wholly unsurprising, Freja thought, that when high level
wizards from many countries came together every little thing would
turn into a contest, whether expressly and deliberately or merely
implicitly, but it was a bit irritating that Sigurd and Vilhelmina
were participating in such a useless activity. Even more so that it
meant that they still had no shelter from the weather. Not that it was
terrible or anything, and she was used to far worse, but she could see
that several other contingents were from more moderate climes, and
would be quite glad to be out of the weather.

And instead they were all still standing around debating over who
would get what bit of the grounds to set up their portable
environments on when the British Minister of Magic and his retinue of
officials were summarily ejected from the castle, spat into a pile on
the front walk, with said Minister moaning and complaining beneath
quite a pile of angry wizards and witches.

If they had all been safely ensconced in whatever form of housing they
had brought, they could have pretended not to observe, and let the
Brits untangle themselves with some degree of dignity. Instead,
everyone was still standing around, so all those high level wizards
and witches were there to see the embarrassement of the local pols,
which of course, just ratcheted up the tension and the anger another
few notches. The furious Minister in his now rather crumpled suit and
bowler hat was turning a rather unhealthy shade of red.

"How long do you think they will be arguing over placement now?" She
asked, glancing at Junko. She was amazed at how stoicly they stood
there, faces impassive in the face of the antics of their elders.

She spotted the school's Headmaster, who had been engaged in trying to
mediate between everyone, fire off a silvery spell that darted into
the school, passing right through the closed doors. 

Well, getting to see interesting magic was one of the benefits of
being on a trip like this!

"Perhaps," Haru ventured, "they will come to an agreement sooner, to
present a united front?"

Getting to see interesting magic was just one more reason Freja wished
they would get over themselves and start setting up. She was sure that
watching everyone put up whatever they had brought would be a lot more
interesting to watch than them just standing around bickering and
dickering. "I hope so."

Though, if the Minister, who was the one that had ordered Hogwart's
doors closed to them, not to mention ordering the gates closed
earlier, had been evicted, did that mean they now might be let into
the school instead of having to set up outside? 

She moved a little closer to the doors, part of a general movement
amongst, she assumed, whatever portion of the gathered wizardry either
spoke English or had a translation spell running, to try and eavesdrop
on the conversation as the angry Minister was ordering his Aurors, to
judge by the tenor of his gesturing, to smash the doors of Hogwarts
open again.

She was just close enough to hear the Headmaster's fairly quiet but
steely voiced rebuke. "Minister Fudge, if the Aurors assembled here
attack the doors of Hogwarts, I shall be forced to defend her."

The Minister looked fairly apoplectic at this, but sputtered an order
to his men to stand down. "Look, Headmaster, you can't deny us entry,
we have every right to enter the school and find..."

"The Compact will be upheld, Minister," the Headmaster responded. "I
did not interfere with your testing, as it at least gave the children
something to occupy them while we debated, but it was not I that
denied you entry. As best I can see, it was one or the other of either
Hogwarts, or the Foretold. If you wish to attempt to enter again, feel
free. But cast no battle-magics upon the walls or doors of Hogwarts,"
and here his gaze passed over the assembled Aurors, "or the staff or
children within, else, as I have said, I will stand in their defense."

"If we knew for sure," Haru mused, "that it was the One who ejected
him, then we too would have to stand in defense of Hogwarts. We must
side with the One."

Freja shrugged. "Are we sure this Minister knows the Foretelling? The
way it was explained to me the one whose government will fall is one
who knows. If he's just ignorant, it could still be someone else."

Junko shook her head doubtfully. "It certainly seems it must be him,
but the chance that it is not is part of why we must stand with the
One. We will not let Japan fall."

"Not like I want Scandinavia to fall either," Freja responded. "But
not fighting them is not the same as fighting for them, or trying
to fight their battles for them." She shrugged. 

Junko eyed the Scandinavian teenager dubiously. It did not sound like
the other girl was expecting to be given to the One, the way that she
and Haru were. But was that because the Scandinavians had a different
plan, she wondered, or merely because Freja was not yet informed of
the full plan? Though, surely gifting someone who was unwilling was a
good way to create exactly the conditions about which Merlin had
warned them?