Two for One

Chapter 25: Wards

Harry is making lunch downstairs, clanking around a bit with the pots and dishes. Tom comes stumbling down first, an old tome still open as he blindly makes his way to the dining table to keep Harry company while he cooks.

Mooney trots over to the open backdoor and flops down so Gellert can slide off the wolf's back and join Tom at the table, bullying his younger sibling into sharing the book.

Harry grabs a bit of raw chicken and tosses it to Mooney. The dog snaps it up but then snakes start pouring out of the woodwork for some food too.

"Tom, are you not feeding them?" Harry wonders, nudging one away with his foot when it tries to climb onto the lit stove.

"Mooney keeps eating their food," Tom says.

"No he doesn't," Gellert retorts. "Your snakes eat his food, which is why he's always so hungry all the time."

"He's always hungry because he's a wendigo!"

Harry drops the wooden spoon into the simmering soup and turns to the boys.

Gellert opens his mouth, closes it and then tries again. "Okay, yes, but Mooney doesn't eat people."

Harry calms down because he actually knows Mooney doesn't eat people but he's a little confused. "I thought wendigos only ate people?"

The more human flesh they eat, the more they become human in order to attract more prey, and the cycle continues.

"The adults ones do," Gellert says. "Mooney is a baby so he eats meat in general."

Harry looks at the five-metre-tall baby lying with only his giant head stuffed through the doorway. "Does he get bigger?"

"No," Gellert says firmly. "And it will take him another half a century to mature, so I feel it would be best to decide a plan of action in fifty years when the human-eating aspect is more relevant."

"I'm okay with that plan," Harry says because is fifty years it will not be his problem anymore, and goes back to stirring. "Wait, who's eating the food then?"

Child!Death, now also sitting at the table, nods towards the cold box. "There is new life."

"In the freezer?" Harry asks sceptically. "What did you put in there?"

Harry leaves the stove and opens the 'old fashioned' cold box, magically charmed for an extra boost. It's full of various food items so he searches around a bit until a tiny dragon head pops up.

"Oh," Harry says. "Wow, how did I forget about a dragon?"

The baby warbles and makes a chuffing noise, currently a pale grey with squinting icy blue eyes and small stubby spine down it's back. It's sitting on a pile of frozen, bloody meat and some dead mice so it's clearly been stealing food.

Harry coos and rubs under its chin. The dragon chuffs again and throws up a snowball.

=====================

Harry wakes up in the middle of the night to the illusion cast over his house shattering.

Tom and Gellert meet him in the hallway, all of them rumpled and quickly dressed.

"Get the animals and go to the floo," Harry barks out. "Stay out of the way, don't go near the windows and leave the lights off. Death, stay with them."

"Harry, we can-" Gellert tries.

"Don't argue when we're being attacked!" Harry snaps, already charging downstairs. He slaps a hand down on the wall near the door and the entire door plus frame turn invisible as a one-way mirror.

The street is quiet, none of the other house lights on and the streetlamps off. Shadowed figures encircle the property, half hunched behind vehicles.

A massive truck is right outside the ward edge, an equally massive muggle generator sitting on the open back chugging away, jumper cables connected to the bright red ward stone that's been dug out of the ground underneath what used to be the front path.

"Muggles?" Harry whispers in confusion.

The shadowed figures, police officers? They move forward cautiously, one stepping over the ward line and the rest moving in.

But the ward isn't meant to stop them. The stone hides the second floor and the stretched-out backyard plus any of the strange pets. The actual layered wards to protect are still up and running. They cause people with malicious intensions to feel nauseous and alert the ward holder – the Unspeakable.

Harry is fed into the ward as well, which he can use to attack people – to compress them instantly or to just throw them out. It also protects against blunt for entry to the house. It could take a bomb and not flinch, as long as everyone is inside.

"Tom, Gellert, where are you up to?" Harry calls back and steps away from the door, heading into the living room.

The boys have collected their eclectic family and pushed back the couch to reveal the floo built into the floor, the fire already up and running. The two are clutching their wands tightly, tense and cautious.

Harry does a quick head count. "Okay, go through. I'll stay with the house for now."

"We're going to abandon our home?" Tom asks, in a carefully bland tone of voice.

"No, we're being safe," Harry corrects firmly. "We can build another house. I can't build another Tom. Go through."

The floo flares up before the boys can protest any more and the Unspeakable appears in a shower of embers. "The wards are - oh, the whole family is here."

"There are people outside," Harry explains urgently. "I think they're muggles – they're doing something to the wards."

The Unspeakable hums curiously and tilts their head. "Harry, you have a small militia of magical creatures and two budding Dark Lords, not to mention the creature currently devouring your shadow. I don't understand how anything could possibly worry you."

Harry blinks rapidly. "There are people trying to attack me and my children."

"Alright, fine, I'll take care of it."

Harry steps into the Unspeakable's way when they try to move past. "They're muggles, and they have weapons. Let's get the boys through first-"

"Harry," the Unspeakable interrupts. "That's cute, really. But if you keep insisting, I'm going to start feeling insulted."

The Unspeakable gently moves Harry aside, walks out, and decimates them all.