Harry took Lily Luna around Barcelona for a time seeing the sights. The girl particularly liked going to the zoo and the aquarium, becoming entranced with the dolphins. The day was so busy and so interesting that by the time they returned to the hotel Lily Luna was asleep on his shoulder.
He dropped her off in their room and then spent several minutes casting various defensive wards around the place. Since Lily Luna had been born she had been targeted by wizards aiming to get back at Harry for Riddle's death twice. None of them had survived the attempts, which had done nothing to dissuade those who thought Harry was a Dark Lord in the making, but Harry didn't care. In his mind you mess with his daughter you die, plain and simple.
But now that he wasn't watching his daughter, Harry decided he needed a drink. Maybe I could find some companionship for the evening. It's certainly been long enough, and even a one night fling will make me feel better after this past week.
He entered the hotel's bar, and almost immediately stopped staring at a well-dressed man sitting in a booth by himself as he leaned back sipping at something. It wasn't the young man's looks that had grabbed Harry's attention of course but the color of his hair. The other man looked up at him one eyebrow cocked in query and Harry shook his head. "Sorry I was staring it's just your hair's the same color as my daughter's." He said in English, cursing himself for forgetting to translate his words to Spanish.
The man chuckled. "Interesting, I imagine that isn't exactly a normal color around here?" he asked, his English only slightly accented.
"Not really no," Harry said dryly, grateful the man had understood him. "She's a bit of a sport in that area. Her mother, who is the reason I'm here to drink, is a ginger. My mother was also a ginger, even if a slightly darker color."
"Ouch," the man said, waving at a waiter to come over. "There seems to be a tale there. Care to share with a stranger?"
Harry sighed, but sat in the booth across from the man. "Can I ask where you come from? I can't place your accent," Harry said as the waiter took his order and left. "And is red hair normal there?"
"Japan actually, I've only recently learned English for business purposes though my family has British blood in us, according to my mother anyway. The red hair is a hallmark of my father's side of the family, so I suppose you could say yes it's normal in a very limited circle." The man replied dryly. "I am Sirzechs by the way. And you are?"
"Harry Potter," Harry said, watching the man closely for any sign of recognition. There wasn't any, though something was telling Harry that the man did recognize the name. He shook that thought off as paranoia however, as the drinks arrived.
"So, that story…" Sirzechs hinted, and Harry sighed before he began.
After explaining his story on the other man, Sirzechs did the same talking about his wife. They loved one another dearly, but Sirzechs was very laidback ,while his wife was uptight and very formal. They also had a lot of demands on their time, and couldn't spend much time together. However what kept them together was their shared passions, including their son, family, and simply spending time together however they could.
The two men then bonded over pranks of all things, with Harry talking about Sirius and his pranks. Sirius had died in the war, but had truly become the father figure Harry had needed for many years. After that, they got onto the subject of kids, and it turned out they were both doting dads. Harry talked about Lily Luna and Sirzechs talked about his own son, Milicas.
After they had shared more than a dozen drinks Harry asked, "So what brings you here?"
"I am actually hunting up people to take on a few jobs. You see, I am a sponsor for a private high school in Japan, and they have recently opened their doors to boys but several of their teachers left in protest. That leaves us scrambling before the school year begins to find teachers for all the positions."
"What positions are you talking about?" Harry asked suddenly interested. Japan after all was not an ICW country, and this could be a moment of good fortune. Later, Harry would wonder why he ever thought that good fortune happened to him without a hidden cost, but at the moment that was the furthest thing from his mind.
"English and Physical education are the last slots I've got to fill, but unfortunately it has to be a single person. Our budget just won't let me hire two more teachers to fill both slots."
Harry looked at him then smiled slightly. "I think you're in luck then. I happen to be a teacher, and I am looking for a job that gets me as far away from my wife and her family as possible. Do you want to see my credentials? Or do you want to set up a formal interview?" After all, I can always use a translation spell to learn Japanese quickly, and I certainly know enough about athletics to teach Gym.
Sirzechs looked down at his drink for a moment before pushing it to one side. "Meh, these were kind of weak anyway, so if you have your credentials on you now, we can do this now."
Harry nodded, and excused himself for a moment before returning with his résumé. The two of them talked some more and Sirzechs eventually offered Harry the job. The two of them hammered out the details, and Harry walked out of the bar with a new job to look forward to and plans to make for the future.
Behind Harry a silver haired young woman dressed in a business outfit she looked rather uncomfortable in sat down across from Sirzechs, looking at him thoughtfully. "Are you sure about this?"
"You felt the power in him. You know what that young man is." Sirzechs stated rather than asked, his own eyes locked on the door Harry had just walked through, looking far more serious than he had during his conversation with Harry. "And I am not talking about his werewolf curse."
The young woman nodded. "That is not what I am asking, are you sure about getting him involved with Rias-sama's issue?"
"I don't want my younger sister married to that bastard of a Phenex!" Sirzechs said, his face morphing into a grim line. "But given my position, and the number of spells my father placed on her, my hands are personally tied. This simply gives Rias-chan another way of out of possibly breaking that agreement, and one that could be more much more certain then simply hoping she finds enough powerful people to add to her peerage."
"You're putting a lot of faith both in that young man, and in your sister to actually ask for help when the time comes," she said critically. "Judging from his character I have to admit that the first one doesn't seem like that far a stretch any longer but the question is will Rias-sama be willing to ask for help from him?"
"We shall see," the young man replied with a faint smile.
OOOOOOO
Traveling with a young child on a plane flight fourteen hours long would be a trying experience for anyone, but Harry had planned accordingly. Thus whenever his daughter was awake she was occupied with coloring books, small toys, or a set of foam puzzles. Those were her favorite, little puzzle pieces that she could fit into various box-based designs, which she seemed to find fascinating. This allowed Harry to do some reading and paperwork. The paperwork was for his new job, and the reading was mostly about Japan and its relationship with the ICW.
It turned out that the magical Japanese had to deal with their version of the Black Ships and the Perry Intervention in the past, but had, unlike the mundanes, actually turned the attempt to open their borders aside refusing to become part of the ICW. And unlike the mundane governments, the ICW had not decided to try to him force their rule with force.
Instead they had compromised: Japan was allowed to keep all of its magical traditions, local laws and rules, but they had to uphold the Statute of Secrecy. How they went about that was up to them, and they seemed to have developed both an entirely new way of doing so on top of using the tried and true method of warded areas under Notice-Me Not and anti-nonmagical arrays. Unlike Britain however, they didn't stick some of theirs directly in the center of non-magical population zones, following the far more sensible idea of sticking them as far away from most people as possible, mostly up north, with one area in a large national forest the locals called 'the Suicide Forest'.
On top of that, they seemed to have developed a control over the nation's media that was both quite subtle and rather astonishing. Whenever magic appeared in the news they ran with the story and added embellishments, making it obvious that it was a tabloid type tale rather than reality. At the same time they erased any non-magical witnesses of the memory and hunted down random recordings of the incident. The combination was extremely effective, and Japan had the least number of true threats to the Statute of any country.
They also strangely had far more firstborns, what the UK called muggleborn, than most countries. The book Harry had found on the country didn't seem to have any opinion on why that was, but it was an interesting point. So they had no local equivalent of the pureblood movement that continually ravaged Europe and the UK. They weren't exactly welcoming of outsiders however, even beyond the mundane side of the country, something that had been heightened to near rabid paranoia after WW2.
Finally Harry heard the announcement they were finally going into land, and Lily Luna quickly turned, opening the blinds of the plane and staring out avidly. The city below them was large, very modern, with a kind of tower in the distance that Harry realized must be the famous Tokyo Tower, which his book had mentioned. Other than that, it looked relatively normal to his senses, but Lily continued to look out the window, pressing her face against it as if that would let her see better.
The two Potters disembarked and passed through customs without any difficulty, with Lily Luna chatting excitedly about what she wanted to do first. Fourteen hours of sitting down had made the girl go a little stir crazy, and Harry decided that the first thing they would do would be to find a park so she could work off some of that energy. With no need to pick up any actual luggage, Harry having shrunk their trunks and stuck them in his mokeskin pouch, the two quickly exited the airport, and began to look for a bus to take them elsewhere in the city.
However near the luggage area they were accosted by a middle-aged woman, who smiled politely at them holding up a sign that said 'Potter' on it. Bowing briefly from the waist she addressed them formally but in English. "Mr. Potter, your car is this way, please follow me."
Harry stopped suddenly, moving his hand from holding Lily Luna's to pushing her back behind him as his eyes narrowed. "I don't recall asking for a car," he said mildly, but there was nothing mild about his suddenly hard eyes. "May I ask who did?"
The woman's smile faded slightly, and she held up her free hand quickly to show she wasn't carrying a wand. Looking around she made sure that no one was nearby and spoke quietly. "Peace Mr. Potter. You've only dealt with the non-magical variety of customs. you now have to deal with the magical."
Harry nodded at that, but he was still tense as the woman gestured him to follow her.
Instead of heading out into the car park they walked towards a door with a sign that said 'maintenance' on it, passing through a Notice-me-Not field that extended a few yards away from the doorway. Lily Luna paused, pointing at the edge of the Notice Me Not ward where it hit one of the walls. "What's that Papa?"
Harry turned to look, and cocked his head thoughtfully. "That looks like a piece of paper with some kind of runic array on it honey, though I didn't think paper could hold runes."
"Not your European variety," the woman said somewhat proudly, or perhaps arrogantly. "Our runic language is much more subtle than your brute force methodology. We can also perform a far wider array of tricks than your rune-based arrays can through the use of our talismans."
"It's pretty," Lily Luna said, trotting over to look at the design on it for a moment before turning back and moving over to her father once more.
The woman chuckled at that, and opened the door for the two Potters as Lily Luna tried to strike up a conversation with her. The woman replied quickly enough, seemingly enjoying answering the young foreign girl's questions, though Harry noticed that she was still somewhat condescending.
The supposed maintenance hall on the other side of the door was instead a large room with two desks in it. One desk was set to one side with a few mugs of drinks and a plate of local finger food while the other desk was set in the direct center of the room. Two men sat there, one middle aged, one elderly. The older man was sitting with his eyes closed as if sleeping, his feet pulled up under him in a mediation pose Harry recognized and was wearing a kimono. The other, a thin man with glasses and wearing a very good business suit, was scribbling something on paper while several other pieces of paper waited beside him.
The two men however were not what grabbed Harry's attention. That honor was given to the two large red humanoid-looking creatures, , that stood on either side of the desk. They looked like miniature giants mated to demons, complete with heavy clubs and tiny horns rising from their foreheads. They stared forward dumbly, and both of them had a collar around their necks which was festooned by more talismans.
"Wow!" Lily Luna exclaimed, escaping from Harry's hand for a moment to rush over to one of the monsters and stare up at it. Shaking his head, Harry made his way forward, nonchalantly casting a tether spell on his daughter, which would allow him to pull her like he had cast a an Accio on her towards him quickly without him needing to cast the spell in the near future. It could also be used to bounce her away just in case.
Harry was not intimidated by the large red things. He'd dealt with far more dangerous creatures then two ogres like that. So he simply sat in the chair facing the desk with the two men without being asked and leaned back slightly, his wand in one hand but hidden behind his other forearm as he crossed his arms, staring around him. "I can't say I approve of the decor, and if either of those things even look at Lily Luna wrong you're going to have to clean their innards off your pretty white walls."
The man with the glasses looked up at that and frowned slightly an internal debate obviously going on behind his eyes. He could continue with his attempt to intimidate Harry or he could simply get to the reason why Harry was here. "…You would find that they are magically immune to a very high degree." He replied, prevaricating slightly.
"I've fought giants who thought they were magically immune to a high degree too. Boy, were they surprised," Harry said blandly, his eyes meeting the man's unflinchingly.
To his side and completely ignoring the tension between the two men Lily Luna had moved around the giants, staring at them before sighing and moving over to the corner where the middle-aged woman had moved to stand by the small desk with refreshments. Knowing the rules about such things she took a cup of tea from the woman, then hurried over to her father, who cast some spells over it despite the locals' frowns. "It's clean, just the local version of Earl Grey but I don't think you really need to the sugar do you?"
"Silly Papa!" Lily Luna said loftily, "I'm a young girl, young girls always need sugar."
The woman chuckled at that, but the man simply continued to stare at Harry and Harry returned his gaze blandly. Finally the man sighed and shook his head. "So you really are the Harry Potter, The Man Who Conquered?"
"Have to admit I like that moniker more than the old Boy Who Lived nonsense, even if the fame grates badly these days." Harry said nodding. "Why, do you get many people trying to it sell themselves off as Harry Potter?"
"We don't get much foreigners in this country at all let alone famous ones, and that's the way we like it," the man said bluntly, not giving his name. "The purpose for your visit here, Mr. Potter?"
"Business. I was offered a job at a local non-magical school and I wanted to get away from the adulation of the Man Who Conquered bollocks." Harry replied, his eyes shifting slightly over to the older man before back to the one who was doing all the talking.
"And you were having some familial difficulties with your ex-wife," the man said glancing down in a paper on his desk. "Understandable I suppose, though if that had occurred in this country you would have no need to be the one to move away rather…" he paused and shook his head. "I'm getting off-topic."
"Considering you haven't even told me you why I'm here, yes," Harry retorted mildly, though his eyes flashed at the mention of his 'issue' with his ex-wife.
The man caught that and hurried on, trying not to show that he was somewhat intimidated by the Englishman. "We have rules about wands and foci of that nature Mr. Potter," he said, gesturing at Harry's wand. "Our citizens use other mediums to cast their spells or learn wandless magic as you all put it, and there are severe fines for adults using magic in a non-magically warded area. To stay in the country you'll have to agree to be trained in the local magic and agree to abide by our laws."
"So long as your laws have places in them for self-defense and the defense of family, I'll provisionally agree to that," Harry said nodding his head and mellowing noticeably now that the attempts at intimidation were over with. "Learning how to do wandless magic sounds fascinating really."
The man blinked. "Most foreigners immediately decide they want to leave when they're told that their wand will have to be exchanged."
"What do you mean exchanged?" Harry asked, his eyes narrowing.
"We will exchange the magical core from your wand into a wooden bracelet. That is the normal median here for most spells. It is a somewhat painful process for adults I've been told as they have to a certain extent bonded with their wand as is."
"Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if I could bond with an entirely new wand. Still, that's fine by me," Harry said thoughtfully, looking down at his Phoenix wand for a moment. His old wand of course still worked for him, but it wasn't like it was his only one these days and it definitely did not react to his willpower like it used to.
Harry actually preferred the Elder Wand he had won from Dumbledore during a spar with him, though he very rarely used it. Harry thought that using it had become one of Albus is crutches later in life, that he relied on the Elder Wand rather than his own abilities.
He didn't like to think about Dumbledore though. The man had made so many mistakes with Harry and in general in his final years but he had also admitted to many of them and tried to do the right thing. Or at least what he thought was the right thing, which in Harry's opinion had not always been the same thing.
"Very well," the man said, somewhat off-balance now that Harry had agreed to that stipulation. "There are also several fines to be levied for moving into the country in the first place. As I said, we do not encourage European magicals to remain in our country overlong."
"Your blunt about it which I actually approve of frankly. Better to be up front about that kind of thing then try to be subtle. Besides, it won't be the first time I've dealt with prejudice." Harry replied with a faint smirk.
"Which brings us to another point: We understand that in Europe there is some kind of pureblood nonsense? We do not have that here," the man said firmly, not rising to the jab about prejudice or even noticing it. "Non-magicals have just as many rights as magicals, and firstborn just as many rights as those born into magically gifted families. If you have any other thoughts on that matter, then we will help you make reservations on the next flight out."
To one side Lily Luna pouted shaking her head. "No way! I am not getting back on a plane for another fourteen hours, not even for one more hour! Even taking a few portkeys would be better than that," she finished, though she looked a little queasy at the very idea. Lily Luna had developed many of the same issues with magical transportation her father had, though her stomach was able to handle apparition better than Harry's had initially.
"I rather think that pureblood business is all nonsense myself," Harry said with a shrug. "That was one type of prejudice that I was talking about having dealt with before. Unfortunately it's almost an institutional thing in Britain and in many other European countries. Even the families that like nonmagicals look down their noses at them."
The man nodded then looked quizzically at Lily Luna and back to Harry, now looking worried once more. "You will also have to, that is… certain information about you has…" he trailed off trying to think of a way to speak about this subject in front of the girl.
"I have no secrets from Lily Luna," Harry said with a faint frown, already discerning what this was about.
The man nodded quickly. "We know you are a werewolf Mr. Potter, we also know that you have somehow made peace with the inner beast. We would like you to either give interviews about that process or write up an instructional lesson on it. There are many were-creatures in Japan and China who could benefit from such thing."
"It occurs to me that that is a little beyond the pale for simply moving into your country." Harry said musingly, though he wondered how the Japanese had found that out since it wasn't exactly common knowledge back home. "How much would instruction in the local magical style cost, and how much would you be willing to pay for the kind of lessons you're asking me for?"
The two of them haggled for a time, while Lily Luna talked to the woman about anything that caught her fancy. This included a poster for a magical girl live action show that had been in the airport a few days back. "You mean one of them is really magical!?"
"Oh yes, many of the live magical girl shows have at least one actual magical involved to do the special effects. It's part of why they're so popular. People try to figure out how they can have such amazing special effects with such a primitive setup. No one has ever cottoned on to the idea it might all be real magic of course."
"Papa!" Lily Luna shouted looking over and causing Harry to look up from his discussion with the man wearing glasses. "I want to be a magical girl like Sailor Moon!"
The man in glasses chuckled into one hand, while the silent man's lips twitched a little and Harry rolled his eyes. "You're already a witch luv, how much more magical do you want to be?"
"Not like that!" Lily Luna pouted, stamping one foot. "I mean like in one of the local magical girl shows!"
Harry looked at the woman blandly and she had the grace to blush a little. "Where exactly will I be going to buy her an outfit like that?" he asked in a tone of long suffering. Of course if he had spotted the poster and seen what Sailor Moon actually wore, he would never have allowed his daughter anywhere near it. The woman hurriedly gave directions, and Harry sighed memorizing them before turning back to his haggling.
It turned out the Japanese magicals had a small workshop setup right there in the airport, where visitors were fitted with either a magical inhibitor if they were just there for shorts amount of time, or the local equivalent of a wand. Harry looked at the bracelets, nodding in approval since they were much more practical than wands. They wouldn't stick out, in fact they looked like extremely elaborate friendship bracelets, or something a child would give to a parent, which suited him down to the ground.
In fact Harry had Lily Luna pick out the design for him, while Harry was tested on a few core ingredients. Basilisk venom was a surprise to everyone but Harry, though he was happy that he also still reacted to the Phoenix feather core in his original wand. It turned out it was simply the holly wood that was causing a bit of an issue rather than the core.
Taking his wand apart was indeed as painful as he had been warned about, but Harry had dealt with much worse, and even joked, "Compared to the Cruciatus, this is child's play." The joke fell flat when everyone realized he actually had been put under the cruciatus and looked at him, rather appalled at the idea someone would joke about it.
Harry's bracelet was made of ancient oak, which was then steeped in the basilisk venom, creating a greenish tinge to the wood before it was then dried swiftly via a few spells. Then the Phoenix feather was infused into the bracelet, a process that was fascinating to watch even for Lily Luna.
Eventually Harry put on the bracelet and looked at his daughter questioningly holding it out to her. "What do you think, does it make me look pretty?"
She giggled but hugged his hand, and he lifted her into his arms. The little girl was also proud that her father had decided to go with the design she found. It looked like an intricate carving of scales and feathers going around the bracelet.
"Do you have a familiar?" the man asked as they filled out more paperwork after Harry's fitting.
He was looking a little smug, as if Harry having decided to use one of the local tools rather than his wand had been a major point of contention. It would turn out later that bracelet also had a limiter on it, which was supposed to limit how much of Harry's power it could let out at one point, as well as a tracer on it that would allow them to track him anywhere.
Harry broke both of them easily that evening, having had a crash course in such things from Sirius, though the reasoning for that had been to get away with pranks rather than anything serious. The limiter he simply broke, the tracer he eventually put on one of Lily's most infrequently used toys
"No," Harry said his voice suddenly very cold and the man backed away slightly. "Not anymore." Hedwig had died in the war taking a killing curse that had been meant for Harry, and her death was still a sore point for him, as was Sirius's, though Harry had been able to move on from that easier, considering the man had gone down with a bang, taking both Lestranges with him.
The man in glasses nodded, handing Harry a small slip of paper with an address written on it. "I apologize for asking, but if you had we would've had to register it. You will be expected at this location tomorrow morning to begin instruction in our magical methodology. Any spells outside of the spells from our school of magic you use will have to be in self-defense, or in your own habitation once you set up wards. If you use them in public where they can be seen you will be fined and if they are seen, the fines are quite exorbitant save in cases of clear self-defense."
This was both a way to keep the Statute of Secrecy and a way to discourage foreign magics of course but Harry nodded nonetheless. The locals really weren't very welcoming, but he could deal with that, he'd dealt with far worse in his life. And besides, learning a whole new magical methodology was no doubt going to be fascinating. For some reason Harry was looking forward to being a student again. "Will Lily Luna be allowed to take local classes, or will I have to teach her myself?" Harry asked.
"We start magical education later than ICW countries at around 15, but we expect that families have already begun personal instruction before that," the man said. He still hadn't introduced himself, which Harry decided was some kind of local discourtesy and so ignored it. "We also demand that all magicals are as at home in the non-magical environment as they are in the magical. Will that be a problem?"
Harry shook his head with a laugh. "No, though that means I will have to take some time to look around for a school for Lily Luna."
With all the paperwork done the two Potters were allowed to leave the airport, Harry with his new bracelet wand on his wrist and still holding Lily Luna's hand with his other.
OOOOOOO
"What did you think of him?" asked the middle-aged woman to the silent man, standing with her two colleagues by a window that was following Harry and his daughter as they walked off.
"He is dangerous," the heretofore silent man said simply. "He has the eyes of a warrior, someone who has fought and killed, which is only to be expected. He also was hiding something, though it wasn't anything dangerous to us so long as we do not become a danger to him. But he was not lying about being able to deal with the Oni. In fact he was confident he could deal with all of us despite his daughter being there. His attitude was not false bravado at all."
The man who had been doing all the talking turned to the current speaker with a startled look. "But surely that's wrong master Morimoto. An oni's magical durability is one of the highest of any species!"
"So are giants, and he said he dealt with them easily and I did not detect any lie." The man said sharply. "He is the Man Who Conquered for a reason. Remember that, and look past the prejudices of him being a foreigner. Or he may just surprise us all in a way you won't like."
The two government officials bowed their heads deeply to Truthspotter Iori Morimoto, before turning and leaving to go about their business. Morimoto stood there for a silent moment, staring out the window towards Harry, frowning.
He hadn't told the two of them what else he sensed about the young man, uncertain what to make of it. Even a soldier who was also a werewolf should not have such a Dark, dangerous aura to him, especially one like Harry, who was noticeably drawn to the Light side of the spectrum. It was a mystery, and he wondered what to make of it for a moment before sighing. If it causes trouble I'll no doubt find about it in time.
OOOOOOO
With an objective in mind Harry and Lily Luna headed into Tokyo proper, looking around in interest at the city while asking directions for where they could go to pick up a costume for his daughter. Harry figured it would be a nice gift to commemorate their moving to a new country.
His mastery of the local language brought both smiles and frowns, and Harry wondered what to make of that at first though he decided to simply ignore it after a little while. He knew that the non-magical Japanese were almost as biased against foreigners as the magical variety, and supposed it had something to do with that.
Eventually they were given directions to a section of the city called Akihabara which was supposedly more than an hour's walk away. But since both of them had spent most of the last day and a half sitting down, Harry and Lily Luna decided to walk and pick up some food on the way.
They were about halfway there when Lily Luna stopped and pointed. "Look Papa! There's a magical girl!"
Harry looked, and shook his head slightly. "I don't think that's the right style for being a magical girl Little Luna. That looks more like a personal style to me."
The young girl in question was around 15 or so Harry guessed, with blonde hair done in the twin-tail style. The blonde hair made her stick out in the crowd here and she was wearing what he thought looked like some kind of maid suit as she walked down the street.
Lily Luna paused, thinking. "Well, I think actually that looks a little better than the outfit I saw the magical girls wearing on that poster."
"And since you can actually walk around in it, I'll approve of it too," Harry said with a chuckle ruffling her hair. He had seen a poster for that show as they were walking, and feared what would happen when they actually got to the costume shop and saw one in person.
With that Lily Luna moved through the crowd to the girl. "Excuse me miss."
The girl turned to her, a somewhat haughty look on her face, which seemed to dissipate slightly when she noticed the age of the individual who had stopped her. "Yes what is it chibi?"
Lily Luna pouted at that understanding it was some kind of insult, but went on gamely. "Where can I get a dress like yours?"
That caused the girl to smile and puff herself up slightly one hand flicking one of her pony tails behind her as her other hand came to rest on her hip. "This? This is something I designed and sewed myself. You'll never be able to find a dress to match it. There are a few though that sells similar things," she said after a few seconds and she quickly gave Lily Luna a few directions.
She didn't notice Harry coming up behind his daughter busy talking to the young girl about color and fashions, which seemed to be something of a passion for her. She did look up though when another female voice interrupted them. "And who's this little cutie you're talking to rather than meeting with us, or did you just get lost again Mittelt?"
"Hush you!" The girl said turning angrily to address the woman, noticeably biting off her reply given the crowd still moving all around them.
The new woman was tallish, with long blue hair flowing down her back to her rear. Harry had no idea if the blue was natural or not, but it did look good on her. She was wearing a tight short crimson skirt and a matching jacket which was open nearly down to her belly button to allow a massive amount of her large cleavage to be seen.
Harry had to pause for a moment to take in the woman's appearance, shaking his head slightly and banishing his baser urges for a moment with the fact his daughter was right there. While as a man I have to approve, as a father I'm not certain I want my daughter to associate with these two any longer...
The woman however immediately got back on his good side when she knelt down in front of Lily Luna winking at her. "I love your hair! But I think going all black and white like my friend here would be a little too dreary. I think you'd look better in brighter colors."
"She's right you know, Red Moon," Harry said, placing a hand on Lily Luna's head. Suddenly both women were mindful of his presence and looked up at him, the woman who had knelt down straightening up, though she still had to look slightly upwards at Harry's face. He was quite tall thanks to his werewolf curse and how he dealt with it, standing at 6' 9".
"Is this little cutie yours?" The woman asked, flushing slightly at the handsome man in front of her.
"Yep," Harry said with a grin, patting Lily Luna's hair . "Oh, but where's my manners, my name is Harry Potter, and this is Lily Luna, my daughter. May I have the pleasure of knowing who I'm addressing ladies?" he asked, taking a note straight from Sirius' little black book in how to introduce himself.
"Well Harry Potter, this is Mittelt and I'm Kalawarner and I think the pleasure is mutual, or could be anyway…" Kalawarner said, smiling and moving slightly closer to Harry so that he could see even more of her cleavage. Her smile widened as the man's mesmerizing eyes flicked down once before coming back up to lock on her face. "Hmm…despite your mastery of Japanese, I can tell you're a foreigner. British, right?"
"Indeed miss," Harry said, his nostrils almost flaring as the woman's scent hit him. Next to him Lily Luna and Mittelt struck up a conversation of their own about local fashions and anime shows of all things, which Harry was quite thankful for at present. "What gave me away?"
Kalawarner shrugged. "Your looks, the way you speak. Your sentence structure is off, though your daughter's accent is more obvious. I don't suppose I could ask for your help sometime in the future to brush up on my own English? My mastery of French is good, but my English could use some work." Her tongue flicked out, lightly licking at her upper lip. "I just can't get my tongue around the words. You think you could help me with that?"
Harry's voice was deep and throaty as he replied, only his daughter's presence keeping him from upping the flirting beyond words. "Oh, I'm certain we could find some way to solve that problem of yours, certain exercises for your tongue that might help..."
Next to her friend, Mittelt shook her head looking down at her watch. "Anyway, we need to get going, we're supposed to meet up with some friends and we're already running late."
Her words helped Harry snap out of it, and he shook his head one hand falling to his daughter's head to better steady himself in the here and now. "Yes, um yes. Actually we should be on our way too if we're going to get Lily Luna fitted for her dress and still catch the train we need to. It was a distinct pleasure meeting you Kalawarner." Harry said, his eyes flashing with desire.
Allowing a faint blush to appear on her cheeks Kalawarner smiled in reply, holding out a card with her number on it, pulling the card out from under her blouse from somewhere. It was still warm when Harry took it from her. "Call me sometime, hopefully we'll see eachother again soon."
Mittelt nodded, looking at Harry thoughtfully for a moment, then took out a small card of her own, handing it over to them. "In case you have any more for questions about what real fashion is like," she said haughtily, winking at the red little redhead, before turning to walk down the road, dragging Kalawarner with her for a moment as the blue-haired beauty winked at Harry.
Behind them Harry watched them thoughtfully, his eyes narrowed as he watched them disappear into the crowd. Something was a little off about those two, and more importantly his reaction to the woman. A Veela maybe, or something similar. I didn't feel anything malicious about it, but it definitely got through my defenses in a way I don't like looking back on it. I'm going to have to be wary of that if she and I ever meet again. Still would have been a lot of fun though…
OOOOOOO
"Did you feel that?! That guy's got to have a Sacred Gear of some kind!"
"If he does, it's a fully awakened one Mittelt, and even without one that man is dangerous." the woman "That was a soldier some kind or I'll eat my bra. He also had the aura of some kind of were-creature, though I couldn't tell what kind." Kalawarner replied warningly, before blushing slightly as she licked her lips. "And he's quite an attractive man too."
"Don't tell me you're going to try to seduce him? When has that worked in the past hundred years you old hag!" Mittelt groaned.
"Tell me again which of us has the better track record?" The woman replied tartly shaking her head, reining in her temper at the jab at her age with the ease of painful practice. "There are better ways to get what we want then brute force sometimes. Don't be angry at me simply because you can't use seduction except against people with Lolita tendencies!"
As Mittelt simmered at that Kalawarner went on. "Now come on, we're already late for meeting up with Dohnaseek and Raynare."
OOOOOOO
After buying Lily Luna a dress to match the woman Mittelt's in style but which was white with yellow highlights rather than black, the two of them continued to explore the city until Lily Luna declared she was hungry. After that Harry led them to the train which would take them to the district where his new job was before buying them both some food for the train.
The public transportation of Japan was amazing: on time, clean, and very quick. The bullet train took them from Tokyo and dropped them off at their destination after only about 40 minutes whereas trying to get there by car would've taken them four hours.
Upon arriving in Kuoh, Harry checked in at the school and was shown around the campus by the headmaster, an elderly man with a bent back and frail appearance. Despite that appearance he was noticeably quite spry on his feet as he moved around the campus showing Harry where everything was.
"Our induction ceremony is in five days, and we expect you to be a part of it," he said at one point near the end of the orientation. "We welcome the new teachers there as well the incoming freshman class. You'll be one of four new teachers."
"I understand that you opened your campus to boys for the first time this year? Have there been any problems so far organizational and facility-wise?" Harry asked, looking around in slight awe at the size of the campus.
"Not so much other than the teachers who quit," the man said dryly. "That was quite a large problem of course especially given how much of the budget we had to use to set up facilities, like men's rooms changing areas and so forth. But thanks to your hiring we seem to have solved them all."
"I'll want you to have your lesson plans for the English course ready the evening before the induction ceremony at the latest," the headmaster went on seriously. "You won't have to submit all of them for review, but as this is your first job I insist on looking over at least your first week's of classes for both English and Physical Education."
"I have them ready now," Harry said shrugging. "I worked on them over the past few days. Of course I'll want to tailor them to each class, but I've made them flexible enough to do that easily enough once school starts."
"Excellent, e-mail them to me tomorrow morning and I'll go over them and either approve or ask for corrections. You did make allowances for the fact that Japan's educational standards are different than the UK's correct?"
"Of course."
The headmaster nodded agreeably, then asked, "And have you found an apartment or something similar?"
"Actually I'm going to be buying a small house if I can manage it. I'll be looking around for one over the next few days. Until then, my daughter and I will be staying in a hotel."
The headmaster nodded again, and the discussion turned once more to scholastic topics until Harry picked up Lily Luna from two of the teachers who were already on campus that had agreed to watch her as he and the principal talked. By the time he did it was obvious both middle-aged women had fallen under Lily Luna's spell as they were gushing about how cute she was, and Harry could only sigh. Wait until she has a bad day. Red Moon can be a right little hellion at times.
The next day, Harry showed up for his appointment to start learning the locals' magic, only to be surprised. "Wait, you mean they're distant courses?"
"For someone your age sure," the young man said from across the small desk. It was in an equally small office, part of dozens of others that looked this like any other non-magical office space really. "Normally, the distant courses are used for people following up on their Masters, we don't get many gaijin who want to learn what real magic is like," the man said blithely ignorant of Harry's twitching eyebrow at his unthinking condescension. "But we still have classes. We simply transfer the in-class stuff online and have you do all the work with none of the actual in-class instruction. It's a hardship of course but the textbook should be good enough."
Again not noticing or ignoring Harry's twitching eyebrow, the man went on. "The login codes are magically locked. If someone overheard your code they couldn't login to Magi-net nor could your daughter accidentally. So if I could have you use this blood quill for a moment?"
Harry sighed but picked up the blood quill and then wrote out his name. Hermione will go spare when I tell her about how much magic and technology are mixed in Japan, he thought with an inner laugh. She might actually convince Padma to move here just for that!
Although come to think of it, Tonks and Teddy might be the two who move here first, Harry thought, letting that happy idea keep his spirits up. Remus had died late in the war, but before that Tonks had snagged him after more than a year of chasing the older werewolf, and they had rather quickly gotten serious, even secretly marrying when Tonks had gotten pregnant. Harry had served as a groomsmen at the wedding, and had helped Sirius chase Remus down when he'd had cold feet. Tonks had hinted at the idea of following him with Teddy, but hadn't yet made up her mind when Harry had met Sirzechs.
His renewed good humor did not stop Harry from twitting the man nameless office drone for his condescension. After the man was finished magically copying Harry's magical signature, into a computer format Harry lit the blood quill on fire along with the piece of parchment containing his name.
At the man's astonished look Harry replied blandly, "Sorry, I've had bad experiences being signed up for things through the use of papers with my magical signature on them before. And in fact I'd like your assurances that that computer format couldn't be changed back or used without my permission."
Over the next few days Harry began to teach himself some of the local magic, while also spending time with Lily Luna looking at houses and generally getting to know the town that the school was located in. He also became interested in the number of strange auras he could vaguely sense around him at times as he and Lily Luna moved around the town. It was evident that there were other magicals in the area, or something similar anyway.
I wonder if Sirzechs knew about that. Harry hadn't been able to sense anything off about the man when they met, but that didn't really mean anything, especially since Harry had a hunch the man had recognized his name.
He and Lily Luna eventually found a small two-story house that had a large and varied backyard that they both fell in love with immediately. There was a tree right by the back of the house, where someone apparently had begun to build a sort of deck out and around it, a tiny little pond, and a large fence around the area, which was covered with ivy. The price was astronomical of course, which had scared off many buyers, but not Harry who thought it an excellent investment.
With that done they started to buy furniture and move in while Harry also put down wards around the area and began to create a permanent ward scheme. That would take several weeks of course even for Harry but by the time he was done this place would be as well defended as he could make it, to the level of Grimauld Place or maybe even better.
Soon after that, the first day of school began and after dropping Lily Luna off at a local elementary school, Harry headed into work. Striding through the front gates Harry noticed immediately how many girls there were on campus in comparison to the boys. There were also several exceptionally attractive girls, just as the teachers he had met so far had been somewhat good-looking, and the academy's uniform did not help matters.
Dammit! It's been too damn long if I'm looking at high school girls like that! Maybe I really should have found a local girl for a tumble for bit back in Barcelona, or called Kalawarner over the last few days despite how her presence affected me.
A few of the girls stuck out to him the first being a redheaded girl who grabbed his attention immediately. She had blood-red hair flowing down her back in a wave to the back of her knees and was very buxom with fair skin. Her heart-shaped face with high cheek bones and dimples was dominated by blue-green eyes which sparkled as she looked around her. Despite her age, the redhead was one of the most attractive girls Harry had ever seen.
Yet right next to her was another girl of similar beauty. The second girl's long black hair was tied in a long ponytail the end of which fell to her knees like her friend's, with an orange ribbon keeping it in place and two strands sticking out from the top of her ponytail and sloping backwards. Her face was more traditionally Japanese, slightly thinner than her friends with no sign of dimples, and her eyes were black. She also had the largest chest Harry had ever seen, larger even than Kalawarner's, though that could possibly be said about the redhead too.
I'd have to examine them much more closely to be certain though… Harry shook his head quickly from such thoughts however, despite his werewolf side wanting to sit up and howl at the very sight of the two. Their bodies were precisely the kind his werewolf instincts thought most attractive though Harry had to admit he could say he liked the that body type too, especially after being with Ginny for so long, who was more an athletic tomboy type.
The redheaded girl looked in his direction, and Harry winked at her for a moment before turning and heading towards the gym where the induction ceremony would occur. Down boy, no flirting with the students now, that was just you being friendly…
OOOOOOO
Behind him the girl, one Rias Gremory, blushed slightly at the older man's wink, shaking her head. "That was a very handsome man," she murmured to her friend. "But what's he doing on campus and dressed like a teacher too? Do you have any idea Akeno?"
Her friend Sona Sitri spoke up before Akeno could. Sona was slightly taller than Rias though not as tall as Akeno, and was less busty than the two of them. But she was still markedly attractive, with a cool, regal expression on her face and a trim body underneath the school's uniform. She was also the student body president, while Rias was head of the Occult Research Club. "He's our new teacher, English and Phys Ed. apparently. One of the administrators, I haven't found out who, reached out to him rather than vice versa. His name is Harry Potter."
"Interesting," Rias said shaking her head. "Is it just me or does he have a noticeable aura of power around him?"