Chapter 107: The last
The location spell using Rose’s blood had worked. Rick had discovered that Voldemort was hiding somewhere East, near Norwich. He sat on that information however. Until they had all the Horcruxes. One fight with Voldemort and his subordinates was enough in his opinion. Knowing his propensity to run away, he didn’t want to put more people in danger multiple times instead of just once.
Dumbledore had recuperated enough to walk by himself and left the comforts of Potter Manor for Hogwarts. He was in constant contact with Regulus and was working as much as he could on creating a locating spell through one of the horcruxes.
Rick’s work on his love patronus was done yet for some reason his wand only gave pastel red sparks. He didn’t understand why. He worked and re-worked the arithmancy thrice and even had Lily check the calculations, yet the spell didn’t work. Deciding for a break, he tidied up his desk and stepped out of his lab.
He hasn't seen a whiff of Lily, Bella, Nymphadora or Fleur for the past three days and he knew they were having their little fun. Andromeda, with Voldemort’s official return, found herself crawling under work more than ever. Narcissa has decided to go to Spain on a vacation with their children and the Greengrass. The rest of the children were spending their time at the Burrow for a two week outing. Again, that left the babies, Marlene, Rose and Susan in the Manor.
“You could at least do that in your room!” He called out to his eldest daughter and girlfriend getting heaving with their affection in the playroom.
They were wearing nothing but their bikini bottoms and were kissing wildly on the sand, naked breasts against naked breasts, Rose on top of Susan. His interruption had them separate on the spot faster than a golden snitch. Rose was the more modest of the two, hiding her breasts with one arm, while Susan didn’t care one bit.
With a face as red as her hair, Rose shouted in reproach. “DAD!”
“Don’t ‘dad’ me, Rose. You have two bedrooms to have fun in private and you are in the most used room in the whole manor. And Susan, put a top on!”
“It’s not like you never saw them, uncle.” she cheekily replied.
Surprisingly Rick wasn’t the only one who did a double take. Rose did too. ““What?!””
“Aunties and I have the same.”
“That’s not the- wait how do you know that? I mean how do you know what Amelia’s breasts look like?”
With a smug and victorious smirk on her face Susan made him sweat. “We found your special photo album.”
“Suzie!” Rose sounded even more horrified by that revelation than by her father catching her.
Rick had frozen in shock and his brain was rebooting. “H-how?”
“Aunt Bella left it open in the parlor.” replied Susan and he swore he would almost kill his wife. “Rose looks like Aunt Lily at her age and I look just like Auntie, so really…”
“I'll stop you right there, Susan. I know perfectly well how my wives looked like when we were at Hogwarts, I don’t need a reminder. Second, you’re still my niece and Rose my daughter. Resemblance or not, it’s highly inappropriate.” Pulling out his wand and with a flick of the wrist, Rose was dressed with a shirt while Susan got a potato bag. “Third, Lily and Amelia will hear about this.”
“I doubt it. Auntie Lily is too busy with her research and Fleur. Auntie’s mind is never here and that's in the rare cases where she is in the manor.” huffed Susan.
Rick took a long breath and sighed. “Amy’s are perkier and bigger.” he lied and turned away to deal with Amelia.
“That’s a lie!” Susan shouted unhappily after him but he didn’t answer. She wasn’t the only one unhappy.
“Did you have to…I don’t even know where to begin! Not covering yourself or talking about the album?!”
Susand got out of her conjured cloth and went to her girlfriend to embrace her. “No, I didn’t have to but I had fun doing it. Now I understand why Auntie always used me to tease him.”
“That’s my dad, remember?”
“And almost mine too, remember? I don’t understand you, Rose. You were even more interested in your dad than I was when we saw the pictures.”
Rose denied it strongly, her blush coming back full force. “I wasn’t interested!”
“Liar! You couldn’t divert your eyes from his dick!”
“That was the first one I’ve ever seen!”
“And you had to look at all of the pictures of your mom and Auntie sucking on it to have a better view?”
“I-I was just… curious!”
“Hu-huh.” Susan was clearly not convinced.
“I was!”
“Me think you wished it hadn’t been your mother but you on her knees and that log on your face.” Susan teased, taking Rose’s ass in her hands.
Rose tried to pull away. “Are you mad?!”
“Perhaps. In any case, I don’t mind if you do. Have a thing for your father I mean.”
Looking at her girlfriend with a slack jaw, Rose didn’t know what to answer or even what to think.
At the same time, Rick had gone back to his bedroom to change clothes and took the floo for the Ministry of magic. He exited in the atrium and made a bee-line for Amelia’s office. It had been quite difficult, way too many people were there, but he made his way there. The secretary’s eyes boggled out of her head when she saw him in front of her and when he said he was here to visit Amelia urgently, the woman stood up and went to slightly open the office’s door, exchanged a few words and let him in.
Amelia looked tense. More tense than she actually was and he really couldn’t blame her. Not with the crisis Magical Britain was facing.
“Hello, Amy.” he greeted her. She didn’t even bother to look up to him as she greeted him back, too focused on what she was writing. “Do you remember the first time I practice the summoning charm?”
On the spot she stopped writing. She finally looked at him with a tug at the corner of her lips. Then she had a small smile and tried to suppress a chuckle. She was successful for five seconds before she grinned and began to laugh loudly.
He let her laugh, and laugh, not caring about how embarrassing that moment had been. When she finally got herself under control, she wiped the tears forming at the corners of her eyes with her sleeves.
“Merlin… I needed that so much. Thank you.”
He walked around her desk and leaned for a small but meaningful kiss.
“I know. Susan had to point it out to me. Remember, you have a husband waiting at home and a baby boy. Some things can wait.”
“Some do not.” Amelia replied with a frown then sighed.
“Hire an assistant to organize everything. That way when you arrive in the morning you don’t waste time. You need to learn to delegate mundane tasks, Amy. Percy Weasley is very good at organization. Borderline obsessed with it really.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. I don’t believe this is why you came to see me at this time of the day, though.”
“No. Our niece is proving herself especially rebellious.”
“I have noticed. She forced me to marry you and have a child, remember?” she replied drily.
“You loved every second of Edgar’s conception, don’t lie but yes, I remember. Anyway… twenty minutes ago I caught her and Rose going at it in the playroom. Beach mode. I invited them to do that in private but Susan had something to say about it. For one, she wore only the bottom of her bikini and refused to cover herself pretexting that there was no point since I already knew yours very well.” At this point Amelia’s jaw was on the ground. “It turns out that Bella left THE album open in the living room and the girls found it.”
“MERLIN!” At this point Amelia’s face had paled a lot yet at the same time she was blushing like mad. It was quite a feat. “Bella, did it on purpose I’m sure!”
Rick shrugged his shoulders. “You never know with her. Anyway, I’m blaming you for how she turned out! She purposefully teases me now.” he growled.
“I… may not have thought this through back then.” she winced.
“You think? And now it’s biting you in the ass.”
“How, exactly?”
“Well… I can’t punish Susan for making me horny by bouncing replicas of my wife's tits in front of my face but I certainly can punish my wife.”
He drew his wand and applied the standard privacy charms on the door, before pointing it at Amelia who suddenly found herself in her underwear.
“No! I have work to do! Nonono-Hmm.”
He shut her up with a kiss, putting his tongue in her mouth and she immediately gave up. Between doing boring and maddening paperwork and having an office tryst with her husband in the middle of the day? Easy choice. Soon enough Amelia found her back against the top of her desk and screaming for more.
It didn’t last long but it had been quite the intense quickie. One thing was sure, she needed that. A lot. Rick joked she needed a glamour to hide the stupid well fuck smile she displayed. She shot him with a sting hex on his ass for that.
“How do you want me to punish her?” he inquired.
“You?”
“Yes. You have more important things to do than dealing with Susan’s little rebellion.”
She took a moment to think about it and shrug her shoulders. “You’re the expert parent.”
“I’m an expert in making children, that’s different. Unless you-”
“Well, that would calm her down for sure.” The nonchalance she answered him with left him slackjaw. “I’m kidding.” she added with a deadpan face. “Although it would definitely work. And that would be a good payback for everything she made me go through for the last two years.”
“She’s sixteen!”
“She won’t always be but I can see you’re uncomfortable with the joke so I'm stopping there. Although the threat of you doing that is a good idea. I’ll give it to her tonight, don’t bother.”
He looked at her without blinking for nearly half a minute. “She’s as mad as you. I give up.” he sighed, kissed her goodbye and left back to the Manor.
Days came and passed after that. Susan got a good spanking from Amelia, literally and so did Bella for forgetting to lock the album. Rick went on his annual vacation with his mother in Japan and took each of his wives and concubines away for a few days’ retreat. During this time Voldemort had showed up at Azkaban again to break free his servants and recruit new ones. He had been quite enraged when he found none of his death eaters there. Amelia had been smart and put them all in the Black Prison under the watchful all seeing eye of Moody. The results however had been the attack on multiple muggle villages all across the United Kingdom.
One of them could have been prevented as Snape had the information about it, however, while he had known about the other targets he didn't know which they were. Saving the village he knew about would have increased Voldemort's suspicion about his true allegiance. At the end of a meeting, Bella asked for a moment of Dumbledore’s time. Curious, Lily, Rick and Marlene stayed behind which Bella didn’t care much.
“What do you want to talk about that you couldn’t say in front of the whole order, Bellatrix?” Albus was curious and really tired. A two hours meeting had been torture for him as he had to hide his condition.
“We need to secure Severus’ loyalty to Moldy-short.” She was blunt with her answer.
“I’m all for it but, how do you suggest doing so?”
“By having Severus kill you.”
Had it been the Bella during the first war they would have taken her words literally but they knew Bellatrix closely now and understood this was not what she had in mind.
Albus stroked his beard. “Hm... that could work.”
“Or backfire badly.” Lily commented. “Not that it’s not a good idea but Severus killing you, Albus? There is a need for context. A well orchestrated one.”
“Hm… Except a sudden death eater raid in Hogwarts to get to Ros- No, we're not doing that.” Rick stopped himself when he saw the glint in Bella’s eyes.
“It would work! The students would be protected in their common rooms! But,” this time she was the one who stopped her husband. “That won’t be enough security. Especially for the slytherins.”
Marlene sighed. “If only we could locate the last horcrux.”
“We can.” They all turned to Albus in shock.
“You finished the localization spell?” Rick asked in shock.
“Oh, no. The spell is perfect the way it is. I didn't have to finish it. Regulus and I found a way to harness the curses on the diary. The horcrux maintained the magic of the curses. It took a bit of time but we succeeded in transferring the curses to a compass then removing their effect but keeping the magical signature.”
Albus put his hand in his pocket and brought an old square compass. When he opened it the needle not pointing to the north proved it had worked. The idea that the compass was defective didn’t cross their minds.
“So we have a direction. Better than what we had but it could take weeks, perhaps months.” Bella was a bit disappointed it wasn’t a more effective object.
Lily didn’t agree with her statement though. “If you follow the needle, yes.”
“How are we supposed to find the horcrux if we don’t follow the needle?” Marlene was as confused as Bella and so was Albus.
“Mathematics.” Rick called for Karkass and asked him for a map of the UK. Once he got it he explained what he and Lily had in mind. “Triangulation works by using bearings from known locations to find the position of an unknown point. Take a compass and get a bearing to the target from your current location. Mark that angle on a paper map, starting from your position, drawing a straight line in the direction you observed. Then, from a second location—also known and marked on the same map—take another bearing to the same target and draw a second line.
Where the two lines cross, that’s the approximate location of your target. A third bearing from a third known point can confirm the result and increase accuracy. The intersection of all three lines is your best estimate of where the unknown point is located. That’s triangulation.”
Lily explained further regarding their situation. “We just need to divide the country into triangles and test. Once we get something…”
“We either found the horcrux or diminish the triangle.” Albus was clearly impressed.
“Honestly we can be done within the day, tomorrow.” Rick was sure of that.
Marlene had a question however. “Wait a minute. Why not just make one triangle for the whole country?”
“The compass will locate Voldemort’s magic. So the horcrux or horcruxes or himself. By dividing the search area in small triangles, we will avoid making mistakes.” Rick replied. “Of course there are also the others but they are inside a suppressing magic box. If I can't feel them while they are inside the box I doubt the compass will be able to.”
“Let’s go.” Bella took the compass in hand and began to walk away.
“““Bella!”””
The Lady Black didn’t hear anything. “Tomorrow is the start of our vacation,” she said to her husband. “I’m not wasting a single day of it. We’re doing this now. I’m going to the manor to take brooms and change clothes. Who knows where that insane flobberworm put that thing.”
It was Albus who spoke first. “Take me with you when you find the location. I know him better than anyone. I’m sure my knowledge will be able to help.”
“We will.” Lily assured.
They all left through the floo to be back at Potter Manor. Amelia had just gotten there from work. Looking at them and the time, she knew they got back from an order meeting. She wouldn’t ask questions.
“Sorry, Amy but we’ll have to reschedule our night.” Rick was apologetic as he took her in his arms and gave her a loving kiss.
“Another raid?” This time she asked. She needed to know those things.
“No. Not from the death eaters as far as we know. We, however, are going to raid Voldemort’s hideouts.”
“That’s the Aurors' jobs.” Her eyes narrowed as she reminded him.
Lily came behind Amelia and unashamedly embraced her by firmly grabbing her breasts. “Not for this.”
“And why not?”
“It’s related to Voldemort’s pseudo immortality. We went to great lengths to keep everyone out of it. It could-” The look Amelia gave him could have turned him into an ice statue. “Fine. It’s not like you’ll be able to share the secret anyway.”
He used his soundproof charm around the three of them and he shared the secret of the horcrux to her. Her face paled sickly when he described what it was and how many Voldemort may have created.
“We’ve been searching for the last fifteen years. And now we have a way to find the one we’re missing.” Lily finished the explanation.
“I’m coming.”
“Amy, you’re already overworked as it is. It could take us the whole night while you need to rest.” Rick refused.
Before the redhead could say anything against it Lily interjected. “He’s right, Amelia. You have your work, we have ours. You won’t last if you’re taking part in what we’re doing.”
Reluctantly, the redhead agreed. “You owe me two nights then.” She looked at her husband.
He kissed her as a sign of his agreement and Bella came into the living room with a trunk floating behind her.
“Bella, really?” Marlene flatly called out.
“Yes.”
“Wait, that's my trunk.” remarked Rick with a frown.
“And plenty of ingredients and potions inside of it. Who knows what traps he put up to deal with intruders?” She picked from her pocket not one but three compasses and tossed them to Rick, Lily and Marlene. “The gemino spell worked on its effect. Now let’s start.”
And start they did. They methodically scoured Scotland from top to bottom but got nothing. The needles indicated West, South-West. Considering they were facing the sea, it only meant one thing.
“Ireland? He put it in Ireland?” exclaimed Marlene.
“It is part of Magical Britain. Now the question is-”
“Here.” Lily interrupted Rick by holding her belt in hand. He understood it was a portkey as he remembered Lily’s grandparents had been farmers in Ireland.
He gave her a kiss and grabbed the belt. Bella and Marlene exchanged a look and shrugged their shoulders before doing the same as their husband. The portkey did its job and they reappeared in an unknown location.
“Where are we exactly?” Bella inquired.
“Castlerea, in the Connacht province. That farm over there belongs to my grandparents.”
“Want to say hello before-”
“No thanks.” Lily quickly said and used her compass to get a direction. South west again. She got up on her broom, disillusioned herself and took flight.
Bella gave a curious look at Marlene and Rick. The latter filled her in. “They’re very religious. Burn witches as the stake, religious.” that made her frown.
“Even Lily’s sister can’t stand them.” Marlene added.
They split into two groups. Marlene followed Lily who went west and Rick and Bella went South west. At 2 AM, after three hours of searching they finally found the location of the horcrux. The cliffs of Moher. While the sight was beautiful, with the sound of the sea, the stars and milky way up in the sky, they couldn’t take a breather and admire the view. By flying around they found the entrance of a cave.
“Not ominous at all.” Marlene remarked.
Rick pulled out his mirror and called Albus. “We think we found it. A cave on Ireland’s west coast. How the orphanage was able to go that far is beyond me.”
“That poses a problem for me joining you. In normal time it wouldn’t but currently…”
“I’ll hang the mirror around my neck so you can see.” Rick conjured a thin chain, put it on the mirror then around his neck.
“Thank you.”
Looking at his wives, he stepped forward as they all were ready. As darkness engulfed them, they used lumos to see but the effect of the charm was diminished.
“Not a natural darkness.” Lily remarked.
Bella unlit her wand. “Let me try something.” five balls of white light producing extreme heat appeared above her head.
Rick was dumbfounded. “Is that…”
“Yes.” grinned Bella. “Instead of firing it directly I condense the plasma into a ball. I can still shoot them and they are relatively fast.”
Rick mouthed she was going to get rewarded for that idea and she sent him a kiss. A dry cough from Dumbledore reminded the married couple that they had a task to do. Quickly they arrived at a dead end. Immediately, Lily and Rick began to search for enchantments around them.
“I found something.” Lily shouted to the group who gathered around her.
“A secret entrance?” Marlene wondered.
“Hm…” Rick passed his wand over the spot Lily pointed at. Of the two, he was the one who had delved more into this kind of thing. “Blood. We need to smear blood on that wall.”
“A blood sacrifice as payment. To make his enemies weak. How foolish.”
“I admit that’s not very dark lordy. More like…”
“Emo boy going through a phase.” joked Bella who had already picked Rick’s trunk from a pocket, gave it back its original size and opened it.
“I think Voldemort never grew up from that phase.” Lily added as Rick took a vial of blood from his truck and splashed it on the wall which began to reveal an entrance.
He closed his truck and miniaturized it again. “My theory is because he made his first horcrux during that time.”
They went through the hole in the wall and walked deeper into the cave. Bella sent flying up in the ceiling with her balls of plasma to fight the growing unnatural darkness.
“Anti-apparition charm and anti-disapparition jinx.” Lily nodded as she waved her wand in the hair.
“That’s not the most preoccupying, Lily,” Marlene pointed at a huge lake the plasma balls had revealed and what was in it.
“Inferi? God, there must be hundreds.” whispered the redhead in disgust.
“They’re not moving,” Rick noticed.
“A trap. Probably one that activates once at the altar over there. To keep you from escaping.” Far away was a small island in the middle of the lake. Obviously, their destination. “I wouldn’t be surprised either if the use of the summoning charm would wake them. Or just touching the water.”
“Brooms?” Bella suggested and they all nodded. Unfortunately the brooms didn’t work.
“Well… There must be a way to cross. I doubt Voldemort would not give himself a way to cross over.” thought Marlene.
Rick transformed into his crow form and flew above the lake without any difficulty. He landed and transformed back into a human once on the island.
“It’s amazing how little thought he put into bypassing the lake. Arrogant to the end.”
“That he is. Do you feel the horcrux?”
“Hm, yes. As nauseating as usual.” Rick replied with a frown. He climbed up the small hill to arrive at some kind of basin containing glowing green potion. “You’re thinking, what am I thinking?”
“That the horcrux is inside the basin and that you’ll have to drink everything?”
“Yes. But I’m not playing by Voldemort’s rules.”
Rick pointed his wand and used his plasma spell to cut a side of the rock on which the basin was on. Just enough to destabilize the basin to make it fall. The potion was spread on the ground and in it was Salazar Slytherin’s locket.
“Rick!”
He turned around and saw the inferi begin to move. Not only that but the entrance closed on itself. He quickly picked the locket, feeling disgusted and a bit weakened, and started to think of a plan of action. Having a feeling he called for Tipsy.
A small pop echoed through the cave and Rick smirked. “Master called Tipsy?”
“Tipsy, go apparate them away from here then me.”
The house-elf of the Potter family turned around and nearly fainted when she saw the inferis slowly getting on the island. Thankfully, she didn’t and popped away to reappear next to Lily. She grabbed her and popped away then did the same for Bella and Marlene. She came back for Rick who was burning the inferi to ash and disapparated with him too. He arrived in the living room of Potter Manor.
“That man is really an idiot.” He commented. “Thank you, Tipsy, you may have very well saved our lives. Although I wonder how you could apparate from so far and so many times.”
“House-elf magic, Master. It’s a secret.” she replied politely but it was clear she was exhausted.
“Take some rest, Tipsy. You deserve it.” He didn’t have to tell her twice as she popped away for good this time. He checked the compass which indicated East then put the locket in a second containment box. Kissing his wives good night, he stayed with Bella as their vacation was supposed to start in less than five hours from now. In the end they both slept in and just spent the morning in bed.