Bear's Beauties: Existential Crisis 9 (Patreon)

<<Sirius Black>>

I didn’t know who the people that were brought along with Hyacinth were, but Dumbledore had vouched for them. Even better, they’d managed to get my dear old mother to not fight closing the curtains. That last part alone made them more than worth inviting in.

“Sirius Black, I presume? Thank you for letting us in,” the only man in the group said with a soft smile, hand outstretched.

I shook his offered hand and said with a grin, “Thank you for getting the old hag to shriek something other than insults.”

I turned to Hyacinth, “Good to see you again, Pup.”

“Woof,” she said with a smile and two finger salute, but…

“What’s wrong?”

She flinched, and the pigtailed blonde put a hand on her shoulder. Before Hyacinth could answer, there was the sound of feet down the stairs as the sole Weasley girl and Hermione came running in.

“Harry!” Rhonda cried out happily as the much taller red haired girl picked her up in a hug.

“Hyacinth Chrysanthemum Potter! What happened? Are you all right? Why did Dumbledore Floo over? Who are these people?” Hermione asked without taking a breath as she joined the group hug.

“Rhonda, ‘Mione, air!” the bespeckled teen gasped, making her covenmates loosen their grips.

“It’s been a long day, perhaps such talk should wait for the morning?” one of the women brought by the Order, the short-haired blonde, suggested. Much as I’d like to spend time with my goddaughter, it was pretty late and if she was being brought here ahead of schedule it had to have been an extremely tiring day for her.

“Yeah, probably for the best. Pup, you’ll be sharing a room with Hermione and Rhonda. They can help take your stuff up and get you settled in,” I said, doing my best to ignore the way she tried to hide flinches as she passed by various members of the Order.

Once the three made their way up the staircase, and the sounds of the door to their room closed, I turned to the newcomers and asked, “Care to explain what happened to my goddaughter?”

“Just over an hour ago she was nearly gangraped by her cousin and his friends before two rogue dementors showed up,” the sole male of the group said, fury clear in his voice.

…

“Mooney, move,” I growled as my oldest friend stepped in front of me and placed a hand on my chest.

“I’m furious too, but you going and getting yourself caught won’t help Hyacinth,” he said, his eyes amber despite the full moon being two weeks away.

“The dementors were dealt with by Lana and I,” the tallest of the women said, gesturing to the short-haired blonde before gesturing towards the curly haired brunette, “while Miss Hebert made sure that the… thugs were suitably distracted.”

I didn’t know how the girl that looked like she was Hyacinth’s age did that, nor did I care. Turning to face the girl in question, I said, with every ounce of seriousness and gratitude I could manage, “Thank you. If there’s anything I can ever do to help you with anything, name it.”

“It’s alright,” she started.

“I mean it. Name it, and I’ll do what I can to help.”

Of course, that was the moment a certain unwanted bat chose to open his mouth, “Doubtlessly it was provoked by Potter for…”

He was interrupted as one of the women, a blonde Hyacinth’s age, stepped out from the group and slapped Snape across the face. Once, twice, three times. Before the git could do more than stand there in shock, Molly grabbed him by the back of his robes and dragged him to the fireplace.

Thunderous expression on her face, Molly grabbed a handful of Floo powder and threw it into the fireplace, “HOGWARTS!” She bellowed before throwing Snape through. The flames died, and the Weasley matriarch turned around with a huff.

“Much as I enjoyed seeing that,” my cousin spoke up, her hair a fiery red from her anger, “how’d you stop them without triggering the Trace?”

“The what?” Miss Hebert asked as the man walked over to the blonde who’d slapped Snivellus.

“She didn’t use magic. None of us have it like you’re used to,” the last blonde, looking to be roughly the same age as Tonks, said moments before we realized her feet weren’t touching the ground.

I don’t know who would have spoken up first, but before any of us could say anything, a veritable swarm of ants, spiders, wasps, and other creepy crawlies poured down the staircase. Miss Hebert stepped past the crowd of now very nervous witches and wizards and cheerfully asked, “Does anyone want to tell me what these all are? I can tell they’re not like normal bugs but I’m not sure how.”

“Long story short,” the man spoke up, at the same time as Moody took a longer than usual quaff from his flask, “We’re not from this Earth. Nikhol and Lana are the closest to witches as you’re familiar with. Kara has physical abilities far beyond even giants, and light from the star she was born under takes twenty seven years to reach Earth. Taylor and Lisa both possess powers unique to them, Taylor has complete and total control over every bug within her range while Lisa would make Sherlock Holmes hang up his hat in shame.

“Harley might not have any powers that compare, but on top of being an extremely athletic and skilled fighter she has the most important job of the group. That being making sure we’re all in sound mental health.”

All was quiet for a few moments, before Tonks turned to the two not-but-apparently-close-to-being witches, “So are those real lightsabers?”

“This world too?” the taller of the two grumbled, “Yes, these are lightsabers. Yes, we can use the Force. No, we are not Jedi. No, we are not like the Emperor. Those vids were a horrific misrepresentation of Sith culture, society, and philosophy.”

Wait, lightsabers? Weren’t those the blue and pink sword things in that Muggle portrait play that Lily dragged us to just after graduation?

[hr][/hr]

The man of the group that saved Hyacinth, Bear I think his name is, bunked with me that night while the ladies with him shared Andy and Cissy’s old rooms. Thankfully, my new roommate didn’t snore, not like The Rat did all throughout Hogwarts.

We were almost to the dining room when the amazonian woman of their group approached the two of us, a look on her face reminiscent of Lily when she found the toy broom James and I had gotten Hyacinth for her first Christmas.

“There’s one here somewhere, I felt it as I was heading to the kitchen,” she said without preamble, leaving me confused.

“One what? You’re going to have to be more specific than that,” I said, causing her to, wow that was a terrifying glare. Mental note, find out if she’s seeing anyone.

“While I was explaining our circumstances that brought us here to Dumbledore, Nikhol pulled a soul shard out of Harry’s scar. You’re certain it’s here in the building?” Bear asked her. I meanwhile was doing my best not to fall on my ass.

“You’re saying my goddaughter is a horcrux?!” I hissed in a whisper, glancing back and forth between the two of them.

“Was. Was a horcrux. Nikhol has something of a… unique experience and skill set when it comes to spirits, souls, and ghosts. So she was able to remove the fragment of Tom lodged within her. Sirius, we need to talk to Kreacher.”

“What? Why? How do you even know about him?”

“Long story, if I’m right he’ll know where the horcrux is and will be more than happy to see it destroyed.”

I sighed, my nerves already strained from the revelation of Hyacinth’s scar. “Fine, he’s a pain in the ass, but if you want to talk to him so bad, KREACHER!”

There was a pop as the old, cranky elf appeared, “Bad Master calls poor Kreacher?”

I point to Bear, “He wants to talk to you about something. I need to find a bottle of Dad’s stash and forget what I just learned.”

“Bad Master shouldn’t be getting drunk before even eating breakfast. Oh how poor Mistress would be ashamed to see how far the House has fallen.”

I waved the crazy elf off, leaving him for Bear to deal with.

<<Bear Sandosen>>

As Sirius left, I knelt down on one knee so Kreacher wouldn’t have to crane his neck so far. The old elf really was as hideous as the books had described, and from the smell coming from him I didn’t want to try to guess the last time he bathed, but he was the only one who knew where the locket was.

“Filthy, nasty Muggle, spoiling House,” Kreacher snapped as he glared at me.

“Did your Master Regulus give you a final mission?” I asked, making him freeze as he stared at me, wide eyed with shock. “One that you tried your best to complete, but despite everything you tried you couldn’t?”

“How does Nasty Muggle know that?”

“Does it matter?” I asked with a reassuring smile. “Your Master didn’t die in vain, bring it here, and we can finish his last request.”

“How? How can Muggle do what Kreacher couldn’t?”

“I can’t. She can,” I answer, pointing to Nikhol. Holding a hand out, she let arcs of lightning dance between her fingers, making Kreacher’s eyes widen before he snapped his fingers and vanished.

“Think it’ll wo,” Nikhol began, only for Kreacher to reappear with a gold locket that he held out for her to take. Nikhol’s face twisted in distaste before she used the Force to levitate the locket and with a snarl unleashed a bolt of lighting at it.

“Hord, Ragnos, and Sadow damn you to eternal torment, you overrated, two-bit, foolish, kriffing IDIOT!” she bellowed as the locket glowed and warped under her barrage.

The crackling of lightning and Nikhol’s tirade drew more than a little attention, heads poking through doorways with wide eyes at seeing her display of Force mastery. After a minute or so of concentrated Force Lightning, whatever protections were on the locket broke and with a scream, a cloud of black smoke wafted out of the now melting locket. When the last of the smoke vanished, Nikhol cut the flow of lightning. Still levitating the now molten ball of gold, she looked to the shocked Order members staring at her.

“Does someone have a place I can put this that won’t risk burning the house down?” she asked with a touch of sarcasm.

“Boy Nikkie, ya sure shocked everyone,” Harley said after a minute of the wizards just staring.

Good news: the pun snapped everyone out of their stunned staring. In other news, my face hurts from how hard the pun made me facepalm. But, Dumbledore had returned and made what looked like a crucible from those videos on YouTube of people taking odd bits and bobs and melting them down.

“Another of Tom’s ‘trinkets’ I presume?” he asked as Nikhol levitated the gold into the ceramic pot.

“Yup. That’s three down. The fact that this one was where I was expecting means there’s a damn good chance the others are where I’m expecting,” I said, keeping myself from dancing with joy.

The diary, locket, and Hyacinth were all taken care of. That left the ring, the diadem, the cup, and Nagini. The hardest one to get to would be Nagini, followed by the cup. But, depending on how the marriage between Bellatrix and whatshisname worked, we might be able to get the contents of the vault confiscated. It also depended on how the goblins were, if they were like from the myriad of fanfiction or the last book.

Regardless, we’d probably be able to deal with the easier half of the remaining horcruxes within the week. The ring was at the Gaunt shack, and the diadem was in the Room of Requirements at Hogwarts. Which reminds me…

<<Rhonda Weasley>>

Being the only daughter in a family of eight was difficult at times, but what Harry had described to ‘Mione and I last night… I… couldn’t understand it. I couldn’t understand how anyone could do something so horrible to their family. Merlin, Harry hadn’t needed that kind of comforting since the first night of third year, after the dementors on the train.

Even the shriek from downstairs (Fred and George said it sounded like a nun’s first exposure to death metal, whatever that meant) could barely distract me from trying to comprehend it. In the end, it took Mione shaking me to snap me out of my thoughts. Maybe I’d never understand it. I hope not.

The three of us were nearly to the dining room for breakfast when Mum came up to us, a look on her face I’d only rarely seen. She’d gotten mad at us in the past, like the time when I set Bill’s robes on fire while playing with Charlie’s wand when I was ten, but it wasn’t that kind of mad. The only thing that didn’t make it scary was that it didn’t seem to be directed at any of us.

“Hyacinth, dear,” Mum began (ignoring Harry’s usual ‘Please call me Harry’). “Professor Dumbledore and I had a talk, and due to certain… statements made by that…” wow, I’d never seen Mum this furious. “Alleged man who claims to be a Potions Professor regarding what occurred yesterday, you will not be seeing him outside of mealtimes this upcoming school term. You will instead Floo here when you would have Potions for tutoring under me.”

I can’t even feel jealous that Harry no longer has to deal with the bat faced bastard, whatever he said that got Mum so furious must have been bad. And for Professor Dumbledore to agree to it? I share a glance with Mione behind Harry. She gives a slight nod and I fight the urge to grin. I’m not the most studious of students, but finding a Coven Curse to cast was going to be fun.