Harry Potter and the Physical Adept

Chapter 28: Back to Life, Back to Reality

Saying their goodbyes, the shadowrunner, the dragon and the fairly normal young witch left King's Cross Station on foot, traversing the half-hour walk to the Leaky Cauldron in the night, the bright lights of the many storefronts along the way illuminating their journey. While the dragon-in-girl's-form and her sister walked hand-in-hand, the physical adept led by a half-step, keeping one hand on the monoknife in his pocket as he remained alert for trouble.

Pulling up the hood on his jumper and tugging the bill of his ball cap down over his face just as he and his daughters entered the Leaky Cauldron, the Hermetic mage quickly pushed his way through the evening's patrons and made a beeline for the backyard with his daughters in tow, only relaxing after the door had closed behind them, leaving the trio alone in the back passage.

With a wave of Liv's hand, the brick wall parted, revealing Diagon Alley after nightfall. Unlike the daylight hours, where the street bustle with activity, it was desolate in the dark, lit by only a few scattered lanterns at street level providing just enough light to barely luminate the avenue for pedestrians while the glow of interior lighting leaked through numerous second-story windows; traversing the darkened boulevard, the trio stood out as the only forms moving on the street, and the shadowrunner and the dragon kept a hand on their weapons as they walked, carefully scanning their surroundings for hostile contacts as they went.

Turning into Knockturn, the children hurried to their destination, coming to a stop at the darkened doorway of Wizarding Supplies.

Without hesitating, the Hermetic mage knocked on the door three times with a closed fist, creating a dull thumping noise that echoed in the night. When there was no answer, the boy repeated his pounding on the door, and after a long moment, one of the second-story windows slammed open.

"What do you want?" the shopkeeper demanded, shouting down from the upper floor.

"Let us in," the shadowrunner shouted back. "We need to talk."

"Do you know what time it is?" grumbled Leticia.

"It's urgent," the Boy-Who-Lived insisted.

"Fine, I'm on my way down. Just give me a minute."

A minute turned out to be five. Then, the proprietor of Wizarding Supplies answered the door in a thin dressing gown, grumpy from having her night interrupted. "What is it?"

"Can we come in? You're going to want to sit down for this."

Reluctantly, Leticia opened the door, and the three children entered the shop, following the woman to the back, where she sat down at a table, leaning back in the chair and crossing her arms. "Well?"

"Do you know anybody discreet who knows how to dismantle monsters?" asked the boy, as he placed the trunk he had been carrying by hand on the floor and opened it.

"Discrete?" asked the shopkeep, brow furrowing suspiciously. "Why?"

"C'mon, let me show you something," said the shadowrunner, nodding towards the interior of the trunk. Seeing Leticia's suspicious expression, he added, "I promise you, I'm not going to try anything funny."

The shopkeeper nodded hesitantly, watching as the boy climbed into the trunk; a moment later, she followed.

What she saw within the trunk made her stop dead in her tracks.

"Is that…?" she started to ask, but trailed off.

"A basilisk?" asked her silent partner, more confirmation than question. "Yeah."

"But how?"

"You know about the Beast of Slytherin?" asked the Boy-Who-Lived.

"This… this is it?"

"Yeah."

"So you need a dismantler because…"

"I'm planning to sell parts of it."

"But basilisk-material goods are priceless because of the rarity," Leticia protested.

"Not anymore," the Hermetic mage said. "I've acquired the methods for breeding basilisks, and I want to bring basilisk materials to market and sell them here and to other vendors through a third party, so that nobody can trace the source of the materials."

"But breeding basilisks is illegal," said the owner of Wizarding Supplies.

"Are you going to tell somebody?"

"Of course not! But I just thought you should know."

"I already know. It's in every book that even mentions basilisks in passing."

"Okay then. So, a discrete dismantler, huh?"

"One who hopefully won't take more than a ten-percent cut of what they're processing."

"I'll have to ask around, but given basilisk components are priceless, we might be able to find somebody who might do the job for as little as five percent."

"You do that," said the boy. "Five percent of the basilisk will go to you as a finder's fee for finding a dismantler; if you can get the dismantler to take less than ten percent, the difference is yours as well, but you probably shouldn't let that influence you in getting a shady dismantler for cheap, because if they fuck up taking the basilisk apart, none of us get paid.

"I'm going out of country Saturday, so the basilisk will either need to be either dismantled by then, or wait until the end of August; I'll come check in with you on Tuesday morning, and again on Thursday."

"All right," said Leticia. "I'll start looking in the morning."

~ooOoo~

Saturday nights were the nights when Patience was storyteller for her World of Darkness campaign at Jason's hobby shop, so the dragon, the Hermetic mage and the artistic adept caught a black cab back to Surrey and arrived at the store a little after twenty-two hundred hours, just as the night's session was wrapping up.

With Hogwarts and Knockturn behind him, the shadowrunner had turned his Astral perception on, and the ride from London had been enlightening to say the least. While most people he saw were nothing special, every now and again, he saw a spark in someone's belly, often small and dim, and always a different color and shape. Given what he knew about Astral signatures, it meant there were either a lot more magicals out in London, or something wasn't adding up.

It wasn't until he entered the back room, when he saw the telltale ember in Romy—razzmatazz like the color of the Crayola crayon and shaped like a tiny, ever-shifting polyhedron—that he finally had the chance to ask.

"You're not magical, are you Romy?"

"Of course not! Why would you even ask me that?" the post-graduate asked, indignant.

"What are you even talking about?" Patience asked.

"I recently learned to see magic, the way Liv does, and every magical person I've met, they've had this glowing ember inside their belly," explained the Hermetic mage. "You have it too, which is why I asked."

"If I was magical, don't you think I'd know?" Romy protested.

"I don't see an aura when I look at her with Auspex," Patience agreed. "She's not a mage like you are."

"Maybe she's a squib," Luna suggested.

"A what now?" asked Jack.

"A squib is a person with at least one magical parent who themself isn't magical," Harry recited, recalling something he had read in a book. "Is either of your parents magical?"

"If they were, they never said."

"Can you be a squib without magical parents?" the dragon asked the artistic adept.

"Then they wouldn't be a squib," said the blonde. Seeing the dragon's expression, she continued. "But the point stands, I suppose; it's not unheard of for squibs to have magical children, so there could be people out in the normal world who are unaware of having magical potential in them, even if it's not enough to get them into Hogwarts."

"I can go for that," Harry said, as he looked around the room. "Where's Karen? I thought she was playing in on this."

"She's in L.A. right now," Jack explained. "She's been cast in an action movie that's in filming for the next couple months."

"So, 'Squeak, you have any plans for the summer?" Jason asked, as he entered the back room.

"I was thinking the girls and I would travel a bit, see more of the world," said the physical adept. "Probably fly over to New York, then work my way across the States before crossing the Pacific and hitting a couple places in Asia."

"Well, here're the papers for Luna," said the shopkeep, handing a thick, folded manila envelope to the boy, who quickly handed them to the artistic adept. "If you're going to be in New York, I may have something I need delivered, and Patience might already have eyes on her."

"I got you covered," said the shadowrunner. "Just don't ever tell me what it is."

"I can do that."

~ooOoo~

As soon as they were through the front door of the safe house, Liv was making a beeline for her bedroom, pulling Luna along by the hand and leaving behind a trail of discarded clothes, forcing Harry to pick up after the girls in true parental fashion as he went up the stairs after them. By the time he reached the landing, the dragon's bedroom door was closed, but he could see light coming through the crack beneath the door and could make out the sounds of girlish giggling through the solid wood.

Retiring to his chambers, the shadowrunner finally took a moment to take stock of the room; furnished with just a double-sized bed with a lamp-adorned nightstand beside it, an L-shaped wooden desk in the corner, and a cushioned, high-back office chair on wheels, it was a rather spartan living arrangement, with nothing personal in the space. Even the walls were just beige, the most plain, nondescript color imaginable.

He heard footfall in the hall that grew fainter as they descended the stairs; a moment later, he heard the fan in the kitchen come alive and added the silencing of the ventilation system with magic to his mental list of DIY.

For now, though, he had other things on his mind; his brief discussion with Hermione about the time-turner and time travel had made him more acutely aware of just how much he needed a method for manipulating time that also wouldn't tempt him to try to alter history, and while he had certainly considered developing some version of Time Stop, stopping time in one to three minute intervals was worthless if the drain left him him nonfunctional for all of it, and when he had tried magic of that level the previous year, it had rendered him completely unconscious for several hours, not to mention nearly killed him.

His bedroom, however, was not a good place for the research and development of magic, what with its windows to the outside world; it's why he had converted the basement into a workspace. With that in mind, he came out of his room and immediately saw the dragon had left the door to her bedchambers ajar; from where he stood on the landing, he could see the Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and the Art of Fighting posters that decorated the wall through the gap, with the 1976 poster of Farrah Fawcett in her red bathing suit hanging between them.

He wasn't sure where the dragon had gotten that last poster, but if he was a betting man, he'd put money on Shaun's involvement.

Beneath that was the superking bed, covered in a pink Little Twin Stars duvet, which she had paid through the nose to have altered to fit her oversized sleeping arrangements, and a pair of fluffy white pillows she had Sharpied the phrases "I can't get out of bed, the blankets have accepted me as one of their own and if I leave now, I might lose their trust" and "Don't wake me up, just go-go away" onto in large, carefully printed letters.

"Lulu's never had mabo dofu, so I'm making some," called the dragon from the kitchen as the shadowrunner descended the stairs; she must have heard his footsteps from the distance. "Want me to save you any?"

"Sure," the ferryman called back. "I'm going to be in the basement; there's a project I want to get started on now, before we head overseas."

"I'll let you know when food's ready."

"Thanks, omae."

~ooOoo~

First thing Sunday morning, the ferryman was back in the facility, this time accompanied by the dragon and the artistic adept. Once through the door, he headed straight for the exercise equipment while Liv and Luna began setting up dozens of steel targets on conveyor tracks, several paintball-loaded turrets rigged with motion detectors and a multitude of crates for cover.

By the Hermetic mage time finished running the battery of tests on himself to determine his limitations as a physical adept, his daughters were already working through a series of dynamic shooting drills, moving from cover to cover while shooting at targets and avoiding the paintballs flying at them, first with rifles, then with pistols. As he watched, the dragon-in-girl's-form cut from one stack of crates to the next at full speed, triggering several turrets at the same time; as they fired simultaneously, filling the air with a barrage of paint, Liv vaulted into a corkscrewing flip, hitting two targets while in midair before landing and rolling smoothly into cover.

Peeking out, she quickly sighted her last remaining targets and double-tapped each, leading to her sister blowing the air horn in her hand.

"Show-off," said the blonde, her tone half jest, half accusation. "All right, reset."

As the Norwegian Ridgeback moved back towards the starting area of the drill, she nodded at her adoptive father. "How'd you do?" she asked.

"Ran the mile in just over four minutes and thirty seconds and kept up pace for about an hour without feeling tired, so I'm a little slower than Pace," said the physical adept, consulting a legal pad he had written his findings in. "Not sure how well my stamina will hold up, but I went thirteen-plus miles without running out of breath, so I think my fitness is pretty good there.

"In terms of functional strength, I managed to bench press one hundred forty kilos and deadlift two-thirty-five kilos with practically no effort as an adept, so while I'm not as strong as you or Patience, I'm still significantly better than most adults can manage."

"Already knew that," said the dragon. "That's why you haven't beaten me again since that time you surprised me, because now I know I can just get in close and overpower you."

"So, mind if I step in and try the course?" asked the shadowrunner.

"Be my guest," Liv said, gesturing for the boy to go ahead of her.

Carefully, the ferryman doffed his overcoat, then dropped his haversack to the floor and retrieved a HK33 and a Beretta from it, laying them down on the floor before pulling off his belt, slipping a pair of multi-pocket magazine pouches, one for his rifle and one for his pistol, onto the leather strap before running it back through his the loop on the waistband of his trousers and cinching it tight with the steel buckle. Next, he strapped on a chest holster for his pistol, slipping the Beretta into it before pulling his coat back on and throwing the carrying strap of the rifle over his head and right shoulder.

Taking up the position the dragon had previously occupied at the starting point of the course, the ferryman nodded to the witch, who started the stopwatch in her hand and sounded the air horn at the same time.

At the blaring noise, the shadowrunner moved up to the first stack of crates, pressing his back against them before quickly pivoting around the makeshift barricade; instantly, he sighted the trio of human-shaped targets on the conveyor belt and squeezed off a bullet into each as he moved at full speed towards the next set of crates, placing the shots perfectly into where the brain stem would be in a human body as he ran. Diving into a forward roll just a ball of paint whizzed by where his head had been a moment earlier and rising to his feet just before he would have collided with the wooden boxes, he quickly set up on top of the blockade and shot two more targets before dropping back down to avoid being struck with paint, scooting over to the edge of the barrier and peeking out to get a look at the next area.

With several turrets set up to create a crossfire and a wide space between his current cover and the next one, the physical adept quickly recognized he couldn't just run to the next set of crates the way the dragon had; even if he could react faster than the Norwegian Ridgeback, he just didn't have her ability to dodge gunfire with acrobatics. Furthermore, with the way the field was designed, he was expected to take down a pair of targets while on the move, which meant he couldn't just make a beeline for cover and hope for the best.

On the other hand, he had options the dragon didn't have.

He flashed Astral power into his left forearm, activating his tattoo; immediately, the translucent black disk of magical force formed, then winked back out of existence, and he was glad for the precise control of Astral power he had developed over the years. Quickly, he rose, dropping his assault rifle and letting it hang by the shoulder strap as he quickly drew the pistol from his chest and sidestepped out past the barricade of crates, quickly pulsing Astral power to his tattoo in rapid succession, erecting the shield before dropping it momentarily in time with his shots, paint splattering harmlessly against the zero-thickness disk as he took down both targets in rapid succession while he ran laterally for the next set of crates, holstering his Beretta and taking his HK33 back in hand as he slid into cover, the shield keeping him free of paint.

From behind the wooden barrier, he quickly peeked out over the boxes and spotted the targets, then dropped back down as a ball of paint sliced the air where his head had just been. Realizing he could not easily maneuver the rifle into position for any shot, he once again switched back to the handgun, then closed his eyes as he envisioned the area in his mind's eye, creating a clear, precise three-dimensional map in his thoughts, complete with the exact position of the targets, the turrets, himself and the crates he had taken cover behind.

Without opening his eyes, he reached up and blindfired in pairs five times, quickly switching from target to target between every double tap; with each pull of the trigger, he heard the steel of the target ring out as it was struck by a bullet.

The sound of the air horn broke the boy's concentration, and his eyes opened to see the dragon glaring at him.

"You cheated," Liv accused. "You used magic."

"You didn't say I couldn't," the shadowrunner countered.

"He has a point," Luna agreed thoughtfully.

"Look, I don't have your raw physical abilities, so I did what I had to to get to the end," said the physical adept, as he switched his firearms back to safe. "Without the magic, I'd probably have used a frag on each target, then popped smoke to conceal my movement from the motion sensors while I move to the next set of cover, but grenades are kind of expensive. Besides, even if I'm tougher when I'm channeling Astral power into my skin, muscles and bones, I still don't know how much tougher I really am."

"Besides, if this was a real firefight, I'd make sure no witnesses survived, so magic wouldn't be an issue."

"Still, you light-switched everybody except the five you got with blindfire," the dragon noted. "That's some pretty amazing accuracy you got there."

"Yeah, I think that's from being a physical adept," said the boy. "I might not have your raw physicals, but my reaction time and coordination is off the charts."

"Better than mine; I don't think I could lightswitch somebody while on the move, let alone two targets at the speed you did it at."

"In the real, you could probably just rush them and tear them apart, limb from limb; you're pretty much bulletproof, at least against small arms."

"Fair enough. So, want to find out how tough you are?"

"I'm not letting you hit me; last time you did that, you cracked one of my ribs."

Liv grinned, then beckoned to Luna, who dramatically pulled first a cricket bat, then a steel pipe, a knife, and finally a Walther PPK out of her messenger-style bag.

"Try not to hit anything vital, all right?" said the shadowrunner with a tone of resignation, placing his hands behind his head and interlacing his fingers.

"I know, Tolly," chirped the blonde brightly, the cricket bat resting on her shoulder.

Then, she went to town on the physical adept, striking him repeatedly with both the broad and narrow parts of the bat as she circled around him, landing multiple blows on his back, chest and side without making him even flinch.

"Come on, what are you trying to do, Dia, tickle me?" asked the boy.

The artistic adept's smile suddenly turned mischievous, and the bat clattered to the ground as she suddenly traced her finger down his side.

"Huh, guess it can dull sensation too," Harry said, brow furrowing in concentration.

"You're not ticklish?" Luna asked.

"I'm very ticklish," answered the shadowrunner, "but apparently, if I adjust the Astral power I'm channeling into my skin, I can control how sensitive my skin is, either amp it up or turn it down."

"That's no fun," pouted the girl, before picking up the pipe. "Ready for round two?"

"Ready as I'll ever be."

The girl repeated the process with the length of hollowed out metal, beating it against the boy until it was showing dents. "No discomfort?" she asked.

"No more than a finger flick."

"All right then," Luna said, tossing aside the pipe and picking up the knife. "Hand?"

The shadowrunner removed his left hand from his head, and the blonde took him by the wrist, holding it for a moment before stabbing the blade into his palm; on impact, the steel shook and the tip blunted, but skin and flesh did not budge.

"Only one left," Liv said, watching with interest.

"Wait," Harry said.

"Getting cold feet?" teased the dragon.

"No, I just don't want either of you shooting at me," said the shadowrunner, before pulling his Beretta from his haversack with his right hand and firing it at the other.

The pain was excruciating, like a huge iron fist had punched through the back of his hand and out of his palm, and in that moment, he wished he had been shot with a Walther instead of the Beretta because of the PPK's smaller cartridge.

"Fucking hell!" shouted the physical adept, shaking his bullet-hole ridden hand in pain.

"Guess you're not bulletproof," said the dragon, as she crossed over to the shadowrunner, waving a hand over his wounded appendage, watching with interest as the wound healed over. "So, what're our plans for the afternoon?"

"I thought we'd catch a cab out to the country, find a farm that'll sell us fertilized chicken eggs, then search pet shops for toads," said the boy, taking one last look at his previously injured hand.

"Does it have to be chicken eggs?" the blonde suddenly asked. "How do we know it won't work with other eggs? Or with frogs, or newts?"

"Good point," conceded the shadowrunner. "I guess, but before we buy some chicken eggs, we'll need to get something to keep them in. After that, we could go raid places for other eggs, maybe even hit Saint James's Park for some swan eggs, and shop at a couple pet stores for any amphibians they might have in stock."

~ooOoo~

As it turned out, it took most of the day to get the trunk, which the salesperson at Llewellyn and Haig called the Scamander Special, go to several pet stores to purchase all manners of amphibious animals, catch a taxi out to the country to find a farm that would sell fertilized chicken eggs and get back to the city center; by the time they got back to London, it was after night had fallen, and the trio knew better than to attempt an operation at night without first casing the location, so acquiring the swan eggs would have to be put on hold, as Harry had already made an appointment with Grace for Monday morning.

As always, the noirette was impeccably dressed, this time in a tank top, skintight leather pants and a pair of high top combat boots, all in black in sharp contrast to her alabaster skin.

She looked even more beautiful than he remembered, and he could feel his pants tighten, something he had thought he could avoid by making sure to crack one off before he left home that morning.

"Twice in one year? You're going to give a girl ideas," said the tattoo artist with a coquettish smile as she greeted the dragon, the shadowrunner and the blonde at the door of her studio, tossing her hair as she closed the door behind the trio.

"Like what, that I need more tattoos?" Harry deadpanned.

"You know, I've been out drinking a few times since I got the Ribbon tattoo, and I haven't been able to get drunk," said the woman.

"The Ribbon must consider alcohol poison," deduced the Hermetic mage. "I'm sorry, I didn't see that happening."

"No, it's good," Grace said. "Now, I can enjoy the taste of a good whiskey or mixed drink without worrying about having some bumsucker trying to get me drunk so he can take advantage.

"So, what brings you here today?"

"There was an incident last month that made me realize I needed another tattoo," said the boy, noting the soft blue glowing ball seated in her belly, visible only through Astral perception. "You're the only person I'd trust to do this."

"All right, what's the design?"

"Dia?" the boy asked, and the blonde opened up the drawing pad she was carrying in hand, showing the tattoo artist an intricate design made up of numerous runes.

"If you wanted wings, wouldn't it be easier to get a wing tattoo?" Grace suggested.

"The runes might be arranged to look like wings, but they're more than that," Harry explained. "They're supposed to provide additional functions, which plain wings wouldn't provide, if plain wings could produce any sort of magical effect at all."

"And I need this tattoo," Luna added, as she flipped to another page.

"This one's much more simple," the pale woman observed. "So, where do you want these?"

"On my shoulder blades," said the Hermetic mage.

"Behind both ears, so I can hide them with my hair," said the artistic adept at the same time.

"How big do you want them on your shoulders?" Grace asked Harry.

"Large enough that you can incorporate all the details, but not so large that you can't include it into a full back mural in the future, if necessary."

"That's going to take at least four hours, maybe even five or six," said the noirette. "We better get started."

~ooOoo~

"This is Yanis," introduced Letiticia, gesturing to the rail-thin man with the hooked nose, his salt-and-pepper hair slicked back behind his ears. "He's a dismantler of beasts."

It was Tuesday morning, before business hours, so there were no customers shopping at Wizarding Supplies yet, making it an ideal place for the introduction to take place.

"You're Harry Potter," said the man, head tilted slightly to the side as he scrutinized the boy. "What business could you possibly have with me?"

"Hey, I'll have you know, Harry's amazing," Hermione declared, forcefully defending her best friend's reputation. "He defeated the You-Know-Who, you know!"

"Everybody knows the story," said the man dismissively, not realizing the girl meant a completely different incident than the one he was thinking about.

The Ravenclaw started to retort, but Hermetic mage had extended a hand in front of her, stopping her from continuing.

"I got this," said the boy, opening the trunk he had been carrying and gesturing inside. "Have a look."

The dismantler looked at the shopkeeper, who nodded, barely able to contain her excitement behind a mask of professional calm.

The man descended into the trunk, only to emerge a moment later, his eyes wide and expression shocked. "Is that a basilisk?" he asked, clearly unable to believe what he had seen.

"It's exactly that," Harry said flatly. "Why else would I need a discrete dismantler?"

"Where'd you even find one?" the man asked.

"Can't tell you that," said the shadowrunner. "Gotta protect my sources."

"Fair enough," said the man. "I'll do the job for seven-and-half percent of the materials that come out of the dismantling."

"Done," said the Hermetic mage. "When can you start?"

"How about right now?"

"How long do you think it'll take?"

"Working eight hours a day, two, maybe three days?"

"I got to be somewhere today," said the shadowrunner.

"I'll stay and watch," Liv volunteered.

"Me too," Luna said. "I want to see what a basilisk looks like on the inside."

"All right, then," Harry said. "I'm going to visit St. James's Park. I've been meaning to see the swans for a while now."

"Can I come?" Hermione asked. "I haven't been to St. James's in years."

"Well, it's a public park, so it's not like I can stop you."

~ooOoo~

"This is nice," commented the Ravenclaw, sitting across from the shadowrunner on a blanket with a basket of sandwiches between them. "Did you know this was going to happen?"

The sky was a clear, baby blue, cotton candy clouds slowly drifting along wherever the gentle breeze took them. They were by the riverbank, the still surface of the water reflecting the sky and the bright green of the foliage around them.

All in all, it was very picturesque, complete with ducks and swans.

"I had an inkling," admitted the Hermetic mage, as he looked around. "Somebody had to stay to make sure the dismantler didn't try to steal anything, and somebody had to be at St. James's to case the place for a run."

"Wait, this is work related?" Hermione asked, trying to hide the disappointment in her voice.

"Why would I go to a park otherwise?" asked the shadowrunner, brow furrowing in confusion. "Nature's not something I'm particularly keen on."

"What's the job?" asked the Ravenclaw, crestfallen.

"Acquisition."

"Of what?"

"Waterfowl eggs."

"Why not buy them?"

"I can't think of a place where you could buy fertilized duck, geese or swan eggs. Can you?"

"Why do you even need them?"

"Paracritter breeding experiment."

"That's all you're going to tell me?"

"Something like that."

"If you're planning on acquiring the eggs, don't you need to be keeping track of all the birds?"

"According to my research, we'll have to hit this place three times: once now, once over the Christmas holiday, and during the Easter holiday."

"Why?"

"Swans, ducks and geese nest at different times of the year."

"Which one are you here for now?"

"Swans."

"Aren't those the property of the Queen?"

"I won't tell her if you won't."

"That's fair. How are you planning on taking care of them?"

"Dia's volunteered to. I think she's interested in paracritters."

"That makes sense; she's really good with Liv."

"You see it too, huh?"

"Even a blind person could see it."

~ooOoo~

Acquiring the swan eggs wasn't really much of a challenge; as St. James's was a public park and little else, it did not have much security beyond a few CCTV cameras which could be easily evaded and a physical barrier that could be bypassed through climbing or flight. In fact, the hardest part of the entire heist was locating and securing the swan eggs, no more than one from any single nest, before extracting from the job site.

Still, the entire run had been done after dark, so they didn't arrive back home until well after midnight, which made for a very late bedtime. Thus, when the ringing of the telephone woke the shadowrunner in the morning, he was uncharacteristically groggy, and he trudged down the stairs to the only phone in the house with heavy feet.

"Potter," the shadowrunner growled into the handset. "Go."

"There's a lady here looking for you," Jason explained. "Asked for you by name and all."

"Is it urgent?" asked the physical adept, massaging his temples.

"She said it was."

The Hermetic mage groaned as he rubbed small circles on his forehead with his thumb. "Tell her I'll be there in an hour; I just crawled out of bed, so I gotta get some stuff done first."

"Wilco."

As the boy hung up the phone, he turned to see his daughters at the base of the staircase, the blonde rubbing her eyes with the back of her hands.

"We have to get up, don't we?" asked the dragon, expression glum.

"Unfortunately."

~ooOoo~

"Where is she?" mouthed the Hermetic mage, as he came through the door of Bourne's Comics and Games, heel of his right hand on the Beretta in his waistband holster.

Without a word, Jason tilted his head, gesturing in a direction with his eyes; following his line of sight, Harry quickly recognized the pensioner in the monochromatic wardrobe at the Shadowrun section of the store, an open hardcover book in hand.

Nodding to Liv and Luna, he approached the woman while his daughters fanned out, setting up overwatch positions where they could coordinate fire and create a kill box should it go badly.

"Lady Longbottom," said the shadowrunner, as he reached conversation distance.

"Mister Potter," said the Longbottom matriarch back.

"What can I do for you?" asked the boy

"So, you're a shadowrunner, huh?" asked the woman, holding up the Shadowrun core rulebook, and the shadowrunner nodded. "In that case, I'd like to hire you for something."

"What's the run?"

"I need you to find somebody for me," said the pensioner, as she took a faded black-and-white photograph out of her handbag, showing it to the shadowrunner.

The picture was of a beautiful young woman, who the Hermetic mage could see was the Longbottom matriarch in her youth, along with a group of servicemen in both British and American military uniforms circa the Second World War.

"I want you to find this man," said Augusta Longbottom, indicating a tall, ruggedly handsome man dressed in an American uniform with broad shoulders and a confident smile on his face. "His name is Peter Gallo, and he's a scout and raider from Brooklyn."

"What makes you think I can find him?" asked the shadowrunner.

"My Neville tells me you plan to visit New York over the summer," said the woman. "All I ask is you give it an honest try."

"What else can you tell me about him?" asked the boy.

"We didn't really exchange many personal details due to the nature of what we were doing," admitted the pensioner. "Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, you see…"

"Fair enough," said the shadowrunner. "What's the offer?"

"I'm willing to pay one hundred Galleons, plus expenses," said the woman. "And one hundred more if you succeed in finding him."

"That's a lot of money for just one bloke," said the boy, as he did a quick bit of conversion. "I'd like to know what exactly I'm walking into."

"Peter is very important to me, that's all," the Longbottom matriarch told the boy. "One of the few regrets I have in life is that we fell out of touch after the War."

"All right, I'm not promising anything, but I'll look into it," said the shadowrunner.

"That's all I'm asking for," said the elderly woman, before glancing at Liv and Luna. "Well, I'll be on my way, then, so you can tell the girls to stand down; I know a kill box when I see one."

The dragon stepped aside, letting Augusta Longbottom pass, then cocked her head to the side as she gave the physical adept an inquisitive look. "Why?"

"We're going to be in New York anyways, so might as well take a look," said the Hermetic mage. "Besides, nobody pays that much money unless it's for something really, really important, and we might be able to leverage that in the future."

~ooOoo~

Hermione Jean Granger stared at the number written on the scrap of parchment Madam Malkin had just handed her; when the Ravenclaw had mentioned she had come into possession of some basilisk rawhide, the seamstress had asked to see it, and after she had authenticated a square-shaped piece large enough to serve as a tablecloth for her rather sizable workstation as the genuine article, the older witch had written a number on a piece of parchment and given it to the bushy-haired girl, explaining that it was her offer for the serpent hide she had just examined.

There were two zeroes, preceded by a five. In Galleons.

The Ravenclaw did some quick mental calculations in her head, then realized, if she asked Harry to sell the gold on the black market on her behalf, she would come away with close to a hundred thousand pounds sterling even after he took his cut for acting as an intermediary.

That was probably more than what her parents had managed to save after decades of hard work, and she could earn that much from just a fraction of what she had acquired through a couple months of research, knowing the right person and cutting a smart deal.

Without hesitation, Hermione accepted the offer and the gold quickly exchanged hands; leaving Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions, she wondered what she could get for the remainder of her share of the basilisk, which consisted of more rawhide, some bones and teeth, and several bottles of blood and venom.

Then, she wondered what her best friend was doing with his portion of the spoils, which included some of all of those things, plus the basilisk's meat, which Yanis had described as being worthless due to its inherent toxicity.

~ooOoo~

Aboard the plane bound for John F. Kennedy International Airport, Jason's package tucked away safely in his haversack, the shadowrunner watched Dia, who had her nose pressed against the window as it taxied down the runway. As the aircraft slowly lifted off, the blonde stayed glued to the glass, staring out in excitement.

"This is brilliant," the girl said. "How is it doing this?"

The dragon quickly folded a piece of paper so that it resembled an airplane's wing.

"As the air goes around the wing, which is shaped like this," Liv explained, gesturing with her free hand, "it has to go faster over the top in order to catch up with the air on the bottom, but when it does that, it doesn't push down as hard as the air under the wing pushes up, which causes the plane to lift up off the ground; the faster the plane goes, the more lift the air under the wing generates, so when the plane goes fast enough, it can fly."

"That's so cool," Dia said. "How do you know this, though?"

"I don't just play video games," said the Norwegian Ridgeback with a smile. "I read books too."

"I know," said the blonde, still looking out the window. "It's amazing normies figured this out."

"I mean, flight was never going to be the exclusive domain of those who wave sticks around," Harry said. "It was a human dream for a very long time, so somebody somewhere was going to work the problem until they solved it to their own satisfaction."

Dia didn't answer, instead continuing to stare out the window.

All things considered, it had been a good year. Liv was making friends and becoming a better person than he could ever hope to be, he had a second daughter who was also best friends with his first and the two never argued, let alone fought, he had developed a new magical item that had seen mass production and had earned his daughter enough money to be financially independent for life if she so desired, and he had put together another successful run that had allowed him to acquire another priceless thing.

In a week, Bletchley and Wildfire would both be in Vegas, attending the program run by Jack Ryan, which Jason had helped arranged for but the shadowrunner had financed with his own money; to his mind, there wasn't much difference between a badge and a deniable asset, and those skills serve both well in their future endeavors.

As the seat belt light turned off, Harry excused himself from his seat, making his way down the narrow aisle to the lavatory. Earlier, when the very attractive stewardess had come to check on him and the girls, she had leaned over, inadvertently showing off the swells of her cleavage beneath her uniform; since then, his trousers had been uncomfortably tight, and he really wanted to take care of the situation now, rather than later.

Still, it had been a good year.

Author's Notes: A really long chapter—longest to date even before author's notes—where I couldn't seem to find any sort of appropriate break within the chapter for.

If every witch and wizard born from a normal family has at least one magical ancestor, then there has to be a lot of people with magical ancestors running around out there who don't know they've got magical ancestors. There's going to some even more specific departures in worldbuilding in the following books regarding "squibs"—non-magical descendants of magicals, in this context—building on the aesthetics of this world already in place.

Part of the idea of Physical Adept was to take this version of Harry beyond what a normal child of his age would be physically capable of, since he was ultimately going to have to go to war and be even more of a soldier than he already is; it was like taking a dungeonpunk story and adding elements of superheroes stories to it. Given that, Liv would be Wonder Woman mixed with Wanda Maximoff, and Harry would be comparable to a fusion of Steve Rogers, John Constantine and Earth-1610 Clint Barton. Unfortunately, with my lack of in-depth superhero knowledge, I don't really have a comparison for Luna.

This is the first time Harry's gotten a tattoo that doesn't have a permanent effect, and even Luna gets in on the action, getting herself another magical tattoo, this one of her own design.

Poor Hermione, she thinks it's a date...

And then back to the United States, this time to experience the world.

I wrote Physical Adept in the space of nearly a year while working full time, not counting any research I had to do prior to putting finger to keyboard, and it was an exhausting endeavor. As Book 3 will require a similar (if not more) of research, I expect publication for it will not start until end of Q1 2021, so, until then, this version of Harry Potter will be on hiatus. The next book in the series will be entitled Harry Potter and the Runecraeft of the Norns, and I will once again include a final update to this story when it begins publication.

Whereas there have been mostly only plot-related deviations from the original in Hermetic Arts and Physical Adept, Runecraeft of the Norns will represent a complete departure from canon, as the America I have been developing does not even resemble the American depicted in the Fantastic Beasts films; where Rowling's version of magical America seems like it's just another version of magical Britain, I'm going for a version of magical America that draws upon the country's roots and principles from when it was originally colonized.

I am currently seeking a Spanish-language translator familiar with Spanish as it is spoken by Mexican immigrants in the United States; I'd like to get Catalaya's dialog (since she doesn't really speak English) as accurate as possible when she appears in Runecraeft. I'm also still looking for people who have first-hand experience of Tokyo and Paris during the summer of '93 who would be willing to share those experiences with me as part of my research for this version of Harry's summer of '93.

With places reopening amidst the continuing WARS pandemic, please take care to remain safe. Don't be like the students of Hogwarts, who forgot about their Ribbons as soon as the danger of the Chamber of Secrets seemed to have passed.

One last time, thank you to my long-suffering editor Romantically Distant for their work editing and proofing this story. I'd also like to thank you for taking time out of your life to read it, as there are innumerable other forms of entertainment you could have chosen to spend your time with. If you have something you'd like to share, please feel free to leave a review or send me a PM, though, with FFN no longer sending notifications for PMs, I might get a little behind on answering them.