It ended up taking a full two weeks before we were ready to head out on Lara’s expedition. There had simply been too much to do. It had taken nearly a week of casting, mending and repairo spells at everything before it was back to being like-new. There had been a reason such a big and fancy house had been sold for so cheap.

  We also needed to use some basic memory spells to create memories in the Muggles’ minds of someone coming in and moving the house to a different location. We didn’t want the Ministry of Magic to decide we had broken the Statute of Secrecy. Not when we wanted to stay at Hogwarts.

  Plus, Hermione had been worried about missing classes if we left on a school day… even if we were WAY past what they were teaching our year-mates. As much as she had relaxed both in the books, and especially in our company, she was still Hermione.

  Still, all of this meant that we had been able to ensure we could all practice with our new clothes Sabah had made and even customize them a bit.

  Yet, the fun part didn’t stop me from needing to work through the tediousness of recreating the utilities for our new home. It wasn’t like water, electricity, and trash removal existed in my pocket dimension before I made them.

  In fact, I was interrupted from finishing the plumbing in the third upstairs bedroom by Ahri as she walked around the corner carrying some of her personal items, obviously headed towards her bedroom.

  Giving me a happy smile, I noticed she had added a few more pillows to her stash, making it even more of a nest on top of her bed. She seemed to like practically burying herself in them whenever she wanted to sleep alone.

  Blowing her a kiss, I stood up from where I had been engraving runes and walked down the hall towards the main staircase.

  Honestly, it was a little jarring not being able to open a portal wherever I wanted, but my enchantments stopped anything from entering either of the pocket dimensions. The only way in was walking through one of the vanishing cabinets now.

  The enchantment to block all forms of teleportation had actually taken everyone we knew, including the powerhouse that was Holly, Professor Lupin, Sirius Black, and a very bemused Dumbledore. The three guests had been nice enough to not ask questions, but I knew Dumbledore, in particular, was going to be studying what he was able to observe in his spare pensive when he got back to his office, regardless. The fact that we spotted that he had another one when we came to collect him didn’t actually surprise me in the least.

  What did surprise me was that he gave Hermione, Chell, and me a very respectful nod when we explained that the three of us had done most of the planning and engraving. Chell crunched the arithmancy, Hermione designed the rune enchantments, and I cheated with my abilities with runes.

  Thus, our home was really coming together. The walls were unbreakable, immovable, and impassable. Trying to go over or around them wouldn’t work, as they would appear to move to block the way. The only way in was through the gatehouse.

  The said gate was even going to be made of Mythril with the goblin silver enchantment. It obviously wasn’t finished yet, as we hadn’t seen enough of the goblin’s process through the portal to recreate it yet, but Thea was filming everything the goblins did and we were learning a lot. I think we could recreate everything except for the final enchantment itself. Soon we would be able to do it ourselves. Ginny, in particular, was surprisingly fascinated with what we had seen so far and was itching to try it out.

  Regardless, even without the gate, not even I could portal directly into our home anymore. The enchatments were clear in that anyone could leave via pretty much any method, but no one was getting in without going through our defenses. And my girls had already started dreaming up nasty surprises if someone tried to force their way through the gatehouse.

  Focusing on the present again, I went through my mental list of things to do to finish the home.

  That was actually a little more tricky than normal. Every single item in the house was designed to be redundant.

  The simple version was a simple rune that would create water at each tap and destroy it at each drain. Simple, elegant, and exactly how the modern Hogwarts did it.

  However, if that failed due to low magic or something, then I had also hidden a water tower behind a small ridge. The sewer lines were all connected to a new septic tank. Said septic tank could then be pumped into a small water treatment facility with custom-grown bacteria designed by Amy.

  The electricity was designed with the same eye towards redundancy. We added magical light switch enchantments in each room, temperature control enchantments, and even heating enchantments inside the oven.

  However, if those failed, then the house was first connected to Thea’s nuclear battery, which was stored in a basement with her main server. Then, if that also failed, Thea fabricated a converter so we could connect to the shuttle’s power. Finally, if absolutely necessary, Thea and Chell fabricated a turbine that we could spin via magic or our superhuman strength to keep the emergency functions up.

  What was new was perhaps Hermione’s greatest achievement yet. Namely, the closest thing we could get to Hogwarts’ Great Hall enchantment across the entire interior pocket. Yet even better, rather than just imitating the weather outside like she did for the main forest and decoy manor, the one for the inner pocket could be adjusted. This way it could imitate the weather of somewhere a bit more enjoyable than northern Scotland in winter… like say, Hawaii.

  Arriving at the bottom of the stairs, I passed Ahsoka carrying what would have been a massive U-shaped sofa if it hadn’t been shrunk down to a tenth of its size. Whether or not it had feather-light spells was more of a toss-up since all of us had figured out how to reinforce our muscles with chakra.

  Behind her, out in the garden surrounding our pocket home, I spotted Amy working on some of the trees, modifying them to produce better-tasting fruit and produce them more often. I suspected she would be adding new and exotic fruit next.

  Looking to the left, where there had originally been a massive dining hall and now was a movie theater, I smiled as Ginny and Holly were catching up on a few of the Earth Bet Movies that had survived the last trip. Specifically, it looked like they were finishing up watching the original Toy Story.

  The kitchen room behind it had been expanded via magic to hold a massive table where we could all eat together and converse while whoever volunteered for that meal cooked. Although I suspected that Dobby was going to ask to join us at some point when he realized that his Mistress, Holly, was going to be leaving so we might have a cook… or we might meet someone who enjoyed cooking enough to want want to be in charge of it.

  Actually, every room in the house had been expanded. Especially the master bedroom with an absolutely ludicrously large and sinfully soft bed. That included each of the other bedrooms in the house and the two halls they were on, since I had practically forced each girl to claim a room of their own around the second floor, as a place all to themselves. Magic had taken the 10 rooms the manor had started with and allowed us to create two dozen more… just in case.

  Turning away from the kitchen, I checked on the study and receiving room combo. I had expanded it and then split it more completely into two. So now half of it was a larger semi-private study room with a half dozen desks in the center and large comfortable arm chairs around the edge. The other half was a massive Library, complete with bookshelves running around the wall and a row of free-standing bookcases in the center. Enchantments also ensured we would have a library nearly as large as Hogwarts before we would need to expand again. The combined rooms were even complete with silencing charms that ensured there were no distractions.

  Hermione and Taylor may have been impressed enough to each pull me in to test that the silencing enchantments worked from the inside as well… vigorously.

  Finally, the last room had been a trophy room filled with stuffed animals. I had gutted it completely. Now it was filled with the remains of the two computers we had left. Yet I had plans for this room. I wanted a row of computers that we could use to play games on together. However, for now, it was just another thing to get once we found another tech world.

  In the list of projects we hadn’t even started yet, the garages would be turned into storage. I planned on turning the medium sized shed into more of an eastern styled dojo. Finally, I wanted a workshop in the basement for each girl who wanted to tinker or create. Taylor, in particular, was still using an expanded trunk for her spider silk creation.

  That left the final check I wanted to do before we left to take care of Lara’s search. Opening the hidden compartment and safe in the center of the manor behind the main staircase. Inside, I inspected Himiko’s soul now that it was supporting this pocket dimension. It was working incredibly well. Maybe it was because she had hidden Yamatai Island for so long, even while dead, but the protection and concealing enchantments seemed nearly perfect even to me, who could literally feel the pocket dimension when I reached out.

  Lung’s soul gem had been moved out of the Shuttle and was now hidden in a stone in the bottom of the pond next to the distraction manor house. That would allow us to pull the Shuttle out and use it in real space without affecting the pocket dimension itself.

  Running my last checks took long enough that when I walked into the kitchen, the rest of my girls were all there, even the ones who had stopped to watch the end of Toy Story.

  At the front of the table was Lara, who hesitated when she saw me walk in, but I simply shook my head and sat down at the other side of the table.

  This was her briefing.

  Taking a deep breath, Lara nodded and pointed at the large monitor that we had placed on the wall behind the head of the table for this exact purpose. “I tracked down some of my father’s notes to a place in Syria. It is supposed to be the tomb of the prophet.”

  Hermione raised her hand. “Which prophet? There are a lot. Dozens alone in just the Abrahamic religions.”

  Lara shook her head. “That isn’t clear, it seems tied to Christianity or maybe Islam… vaguely, but they didn’t seem to follow either of those doctrines closely. Still it is hard to tell because most mentions of them seem to have been erased… probably by Trinity. This site only seems to have survived due to being extremely remote up on an unstable mountainside.”

  We all nodded and Lara pointed to a spot on a map. “Ahri and I took a portkey down to Damascus. The portal we had Max create just needed to move east for an hour and a half. So, if he started when I told him to, the portal should be arriving in the right location in the next half hour.”

  I nodded at her before rolling my eyes. It wasn’t like I was going to forget in just the last hour.

  Lara had the grace to look a bit sheepish before she firmed her jaw again. “Alright. I want to say… thank you… for helping me prove my father right. That we weren’t crazy…”

  I could tell how uncomfortable she was, but she kept explaining before anyone could reassure her. “I know you have your own beef with Trinity now, but I really do appreciate it.”

  I joined the chorus of “No problems” and “Of course” that the girls gave before Lara pointed back towards the screen. “This is the symbol we are looking for. It looks kind of like a cross in a halo, but it doesn’t quite match the iconography of anything else of that period. Also, if you spot any Historical items, please grab them in one of your bags, I will study them when we get back,” she said while holding up one of the expanded bags that Hermione had given us.

  Hermione spoke up. “Make sure you use your dragon hide gloves. We were lucky on Yamatai, but we really don’t want to find any cursed artifacts while we are searching.”

  I nodded, before I stood up and looked at each of them with a concerned tone. “Please be careful, I have said this before but you are all more important to me than anything we can find there.” Taking a deep breath I then smiled. “Now, lets go out there and find this thing.”

  I got a large number of smiles and nods and we dispersed to change into our battle clothes. Long basilisk coat, enchanted acromentula silk shirt and pants, enchanted boots, bullet shield head bands. The girls had begun to modify them to their own taste, but I had to admit they looked both terrifying and sexy. However, as we all gathered in the kitchen again, I actually made a note to make a tactical prep room, probably by expanding out the shed we were using to hold the primary vanishing cabinet.

  Looking at the group, I noticed that Holly, Hermione, and Ahsoka had brought brooms. That was a good idea. I wasn’t particularly good with a broom, but these three were insane. However, before we could discuss our new Air Force, we were surprised by Thea floating over and handing out a set of earrings.

  Holding up a cuff-style earring that looked like a cylinder, a few millimeters wide, with a tiny slice down the side so it was a C-shape, I inspected the item that looked like a generic piece of jewelry instead of a tactical radio.

  Turning it over in my hand, I asked. “What is this for?”

  Thea made her avatar look particularly smug on the screen and her little drone do a little happy twirl. “It is a tactical radio that should be completely untraceable and impervious to interference. It was actually Chell’s overall design. Then both Chell and Hermione helped me make it small and robust enough.”

  I blinked and looked at the two of them, impressed, as they had also been busy with the enchantment design as well, before I turned back to Thea. “So, how does it work and how do we wear it?”

  Hermione huffed and whacked my shoulder. “Sit down, you big lunk, and we can put it in. Amy, can you mold his ear to put it on?”

  Amy was amused, and practically skipped as she reached out and did something before I felt something slip around the top of my ear, nearest to my head.

  Now that it was attached, Chell took a tentative step forward and smiled as she explained. “I wanted to contribute something to the Family… so I took the portal gun and hacked it to create multiple tiny portals. That way the portals transmit power and audio. Unfortunately, it means they won’t work in here within our defenses. However, they have a magical backup. Hermione modified a tiny gold drum with the Protean charm that will echo whatever the master channel does. It was an idea I came up with after reading about the DA coins… that method is a bit slower, though, since each coin can only transmit or receive… so each radio actually needs two coins and Thea has to play phone operator and connect the input and outputs as needed.”

  Seeing our wide eyes, Chell decided to sum it up but kept her quiet but firm voice. “The important parts are the methods are redundant, completely untraceable, impervious to all the magic we could think to try, and even work across most dimensional pocket boundaries … although we don’t think they will work across entirely different realities. Or not yet at least.”

  I blinked a few times before I chuckled and then tilted my head. “So, how do we turn them on?”

  Hermione was the one to answer, obviously excited. “Either you can tap it and say the name of the person you want to contact, or everyone if you want to contact us all, or if you are too busy to do that you can twitch your ear…” I gave her an unamused look, and she had the nerve to giggle, “You know Amy could do that for you at any time, you are practically her play thing already anyway… ” before she straightened up and continued, “As I was saying, twitch your ear which is pretty easy with chakra and it will connect you to everyone.”

  I rolled my eyes on being Amy’s play thing. Yeah, I kinda was, but maybe it was the shapeshifter in me, but I struggled to care. Focusing on my ear, I tried it out. “Well, testing testing… Hermione might deserve a spanking.” I said in a sing song voice.

  The strange thing was that when I twitched my ear, I suddenly couldn’t hear myself talk. Yet, I noted that everyone smiled and glanced at Hermione, who had gone a bit red.

  Chell answered the obvious question this time. “Again, if you contact everyone, we assumed you were in danger so we built an enchantment that will silence everything in a bubble around your head.

  I leaned down and kissed Hermione before turning and hugging Chell. “Good work, you two.” Then I faced Thea’s drone and gave it the best hug I could with a foot-high robot. “ Then I clapped. “Now, let's get going. Maybe we can even mess up Trinity’s day by grabbing whatever they are looking for.”

  Opening a portal up in the sky over Syria, it took Lara a few minutes of telling me where to move it before she pointed down at a small canyon. “There, open a portal down there.”

  Nodding, I did just that before I turned to my girls. “Keep in mind that we can’t portal back to the house directly anymore. Instead, I will still keep a portal on each of your backs. That way Amy can reach through and heal you. However, if you need to escape for any reason, just yell at me and then jump backward, and you will land either with me or outside the front gate.”

  Internally, I wished my special project was done, but I wanted it made out of goblin silver, and that wasn’t quite ready yet.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Taking a deep breath I turned and faced my girls. “Let's spread out, stay safe, and listen to call-outs by Taylor, Hinata, and Ahsoka.”

  There was a wide variety of nods before I took a step onto a mountain ridge in Syria and felt the heat of the desert wash over me even if it was still only March.

  Fairly quickly, my girls started to split up and search the area as we approached the temple ruins. The flyers took off and started circling while Ahri, Taylor, and Hinata jumped away, scouting the area for dangers using their ninja training and Chakra wall-walking abilities.

  Finally, our scholars, consisting of Lara, Chell, and Hermione, and our support group of Sabah, Amy, and myself moved forward and started searching the main caves and paths for any artifacts or remnants that could be used for clues to the history here.

  The good news was that we were almost instantly rewarded with a few broken murals.

  They were beautiful, but it was also when I realized that even if I could read what remained of the inscriptions in, what Lara told me was ancient Greek, I didn’t actually know what they were talking about when they started mentioning a source and prophet. On the other hand, Lara looked ecstatic at being able to read everything as easily as she did English. It was nearly as strong a reaction as the first time that she opened up one of her original source texts back in London.

  Deeper we tracked our way through the caves and along paths until we reached what remained of the ancient temple proper. Honestly it looked like a combination of Greek and Byzantine influences with the latter’s domes, but the former’s columns.

  At this point we started noticing a pattern. The face of what I had to assume was the prophet on each of the murals was broken out.

  I wasn’t sure if Trinity had been the ones to break them, or it had been another group, but we were a little shocked to find old records implying that Trinity had been around for perhaps hundreds of years.

  Regardless, we pushed on, while our aerial and reconnaissance teams continued to circle the area, radioing in as they found a few interesting items or inscriptions and kept a lookout.

  It was when we reached the edge of the temple itself when we first noticed that something was wrong.

  Taylor made the first call out. “Unknowns arriving on upper mountain edge.” There was a pause before she continued. “Feels like a portkey, seven groups of 3 so far. They have the smell of gunpowder across the group. C4 in bags.”

  Hinata only took a second longer to update. “Confirmed. They have the Trinity symbol on their jackets. AK-47 and what I think is a rocket launcher. Four wizards with them.”

  That was when Holly spoke up. “We have spotted some sort of attack helicopter heading up the hill. Probably for support fire.”

  Cursing, I paused for a second to consider before I responded. “Holly, if you have your invisibility cloak, you can stay out; else, I want you to join everyone else in hiding. I don’t trust a disillusion charm against whatever military equipment or magic they might have and we don’t want to test our new defenses against something like that. Everyone else, I want you to stay in cover and circle around to pick them off whenever you can. Non-lethal for now.”

  Holly paused for a moment before she responded. “Confirmed, I have it on. I am going to try to be subtle as I distract and confuse them.”

  As we jumped up on a wall and then across a ravine to enter the temple itself, I had to admit that it was amusing that we were now faster outside my portals for short distances. I could still move them around quite quickly, but using them for transportation required me to line them up, open them, then wait for us to file through one by one, even at our highest speed that took time.

  That didn’t stop me from opening portals around me whenever I spotted a good vantage point, like more discrete peepholes, so I could keep an eye on the surroundings.

  Now, practically jogging through the temple and casting summoning charms at any item we thought was interesting and letting them fly into our bottomless bags, we headed for what we believed would be the central chamber. It seemed the most important area and, if what we were reading on the walls of the temple was accurate, the actual tomb of the prophet.

  However, I winced as we could already hear the occasional shout of voices down the empty halls and the thump, thump, thump of the Helicopter that we could start to catch on the edge of our enhanced hearing. I had to assume that was the soldiers starting to panic as my girls knocked out some of the Trinity fire teams.

  Unfortunately, as we reached the central room surrounding the tomb, we heard a burst of gunfire up and to the right, followed by another at our level to the left.

  Over the radio, Taylor called in, voice calm but a little thin from running. “Groups have opened fire. They don’t know where I am exactly, but they started spraying the area. I can get away, but they have already called in that we are out here.”

  Ginny’s less composed voice called out a few seconds later. “They spotted me as I made a pass and have me pinned down. Extraction now, please!”

  Opening a portal behind Ginny directly to our position, she only took a second or two to roll back to join us.

  Activating my radio, I made the call, “They have gone lethal, don’t hesitate to respond in kind if they find you.”

  I noticed that most of my girls' faces had gone hard and I sighed internally. I am pretty sure that all of them had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but I think we all knew it was going to end this way. A group that shot a group of girls in a city wasn’t someone you could use kid gloves with.

  Now moving even quicker, we continued on, wall walking when necessary, before we straight-up jumped across a ten-meter gap and onto the main tomb’s platform.

  Honestly, the architecture was spectacular. A peaceful atmosphere with the slowly descending sunset coming through the windows and lighting up a vast mural of people following a man who was leading them.

  The next mural showed the man being killed and buried here. However, there was another mural after that one which showed him leading the people away again.

  In the center was a free-standing arched dome protecting a stone sarcophagus. The sarcophagus was large and heavy enough that I doubted we could have moved it before our upgrades.

  Yet as Lara pushed it open, we were a little surprised to see the tomb was empty.

  Well, I wasn’t surprised that the tomb was empty, per se, just that it was empty when the rest of the complex didn’t seem to have any signs of looting.

  Was it too remote? Was there some superstition around it? Were the local people hiding it? Or was there actual magic involved? We hadn’t noticed anything despite keeping an eye out, but maybe it was just keeping Muggles away.

  Normally, I would have had no doubts that this place would have grave robbers pass through and strip it down to stone. It is what happens to nearly every archaeological site in impoverished areas and even some more wealthy ones. I understood that most grave robbers were doing it to feed or uplift their families, but I kinda wanted the items to end up in a museum, even if it was a bit distasteful that it usually ended up being a British one.

  Yet again, regardless of reason, this area appeared to have been spared that fate as, despite it being several hundred years old, the majority of the site seemed unlooted despite the defaced imagery.

  That was when the crossover nature of this world came into play as I noticed a few runes carved into the stone pillars surrounding the little platform. Said dais then had a few more runes that seemed to run inward.

  I stepped over to inspect them, only catching the start of a ward of protection, obscuring, and something about collection, before we were interrupted.

  That was when we got the warning from Hinata, “They are approaching the roof above you, they have a few wizards, they seem to be preparing to assault your position.”

  Snapping my head up, I scanned the decayed ceiling for a second before I ordered, “Scatter!”

  It was the standard procedure for ninja when meeting a numerically superior force.

  It only took a little over a second for me to jump away and reach a trio of small cutouts for statues in the side of the audience room. This side of the temple was against the mountainside and I noticed the left one had a crack in the wall that formed a small cave behind. Since that gave me more options, I diverted my path into that alcove and tucked myself behind the statue.

  Focusing, I could feel the soul portals of each of my girls around the room. Most had found similar pillars or statues to hide behind, while others found cracks in the stone, and a few, including Hermione and Ginny, transfigured a hole into a stone they could hide behind.

  We didn’t have to wait long because suddenly we heard a crack as three wizards, who transported two soldiers each, appeared in the center of the room, guns and wands facing outward.

  I actually had to make a note of that, it was a move that worked well with the shock and awe tactics I wanted to employ.

  However then, to my surprise, I saw three more wizards use the smoke apparition from the movies. Forming balls that trailed smoke as they spun around the room at high speed in various shades of grey. Really, I hadn’t realized that the movie version of what must have been battle apparition was possible here.

  However, unlike the movies, they were moving much, much faster. To the point, it was more of a blur, and they appeared to be scanning the room, making me have to force myself not to flinch away, as the motion would certainly draw the eye.

  It was one of the first rules Anko had taught us about hiding. Don’t move, the human eye is most perceptive on finding motion, followed by color, and lastly on shape.

  Regardless of it’s future uses, I had to curse when the three wizards landed further away with their own pairs of soldiers and pointed their guns at Hermione, Chell, and Amy’s positions.

  Obviously they had been spotted, but before I could get worried, the three demonstrated our training by transfiguring the stone they were hiding behind as a shield and sliding away.

  I only had to help Hermione, who hadn’t had enough room to maneuver by opening a portal behind her that she noticed and rolled through into the cave behind me. A few seconds later, she got up and crawled to get behind my statue with me.

  In the meantime, I closed the portal in time to hear the soldiers bark out a command, “They are getting away, Fire!”

  There was a burst of gunfire and even an explosion hex or two before the leader next to the sarcophagus barked out a “Stop!”

  Stepping up, he held up a compass-looking item before turning towards where I knew Lara was hiding. “Ah, Miss Croft. I wish I could say it was good to see you again, but we don’t appreciate interruptions in Trinity business.”

  Obviously, knowing she had been spotted, if not how, Lara stepped forward, holding the iconic Desert Eagle in her left hand, while I knew she had her wand hidden in her right sleeve.

  She had made sure to pick up one of the iconic guns when, after some leading statements from Amy, she had cornered me and asked about her source material. I had tried to deflect before, but after some pestering, I finally admitted that she was known for being an archeologist, carrying dual pistols, which were often Desert Eagles, and having large breasts. She had blushed, but then proceeded to tease me for the next week, knowing that I wouldn’t actually touch her until she joined the family.

  Lara’s voice was hard. “Who are you and what do you want? I doubt you and your goons just coincidentally happened to visit mere mere hours after we arrived.”

  There was a moment when I didn’t think the leader would answer. It didn’t stop me from opening a portal that wrapped around in front of Lara, which didn’t go anywhere, but would also only allow light through. I struggled to move the portal quickly when I did stuff like this, but making it go opaque for a second around the edge on her side showed her the limits, and the tension in her posture relaxed.

  I mean, it was basically a perfect shield as long as nothing more powerful than my power tried to break through. I didn’t know what would happen if something did, but I doubted it would go well for me.

  Finally, the man in the center decided to answer. “My name is Konstantin. We are looking for information your father collected that did not belong to him… information that you now stole and will need to return. You did lead us right to one of the burial sites of the prophet, though, so I might let you leave if you return it now.”

  My thoughts froze. That was something that had been bugging me and I hadn’t been able to put my finger on it. A few bits of the iconography had shown him arising from the tomb. However, a lot of cultures had their mythological or even real leaders doing that. The Buddha, some stories of Genghis Khan, and King Arthur came to mind.

  The thing was, I wasn’t prepared to declare that any one of those was impossible anymore. I had met an elder god in Pokemon after all. However, this site was a bit different. It almost didn’t seem like it was a prediction, but was documenting the times he had already come back as it showed him arising in several different locations.

  Now considering what we had learned, I couldn’t help but think back to Himiko on Yamatai… and Tom Moldy Shorts while I was at it.

  Shaking my head, I focused back on the here and now in time to catch the end of Konstantin’s monologue about how we shouldn’t get in the way of Tirinity. Something something about how they were going to achieve their rightful place as leaders and rulers of humanity.

  What I did notice was that, as he said that, the various wizards around him turned their heads and were giving him a side eye. Clearly, there was still some disagreement on who exactly would be on top of this proverbial new-world-order.

  Walking forward, Konstantin glanced into the sarcophagus before his face hardened. Now pointing down at Lara, Konstantin practically growled out, “Again, give us the items you stole from this tomb and we might let you and your friends leave with your lives.”

  Lara glanced in my direction and I shook my head. I saw several of the soldiers start to aim in my direction, but I had already pulled back before they spotted me.

  Lara took a deep breath before she smiled. “I think not!”

  I actually spotted a vein throb on Kontantin’s forehead as he growled at us. “Kill them!”

  The soldiers then surprised me by flipping down thermal imaging goggles and all three wizards cast, “Homio Revelio.”

  I cursed internally as thermals, magical detection, and while I was at it, scent and sound were things we needed to work on.

  Still, not waiting for the shooting to start while the soldiers found their targets, I pointed my wand at Konstantin and cast “Accio tracking device!“

  The compass-looking item practically yanked Konstantin off his feet before the strap around his neck broke, and it came shooting into my hand.

  Behind me, Hermione didn’t waste any more time and cast the smoke screen charm. Before my sight was cut off, I spotted a half dozen other puffs of smoke. Then Anko’s training kicked in and I heard a half dozen “Lumos maxima” spells followed immediately by “Bombarda Maxima.”

  At this point, a few of the soldiers had opened fire, spraying at our cover, but that stopped real quick with the gigantic flash of light, followed by a chorus of explosion hexes aimed not only at them, but all around them.

  The next step was to change location to avoid anyone managing to spray and pray in our last general location.

  Yet as I jumped and landed on a ledge ten meters up, I realized that even that didn’t seem to be necessary. Half of the roughly dozen soldiers who had been prepared to kill us along with the six wizards were already on the ground, status unknown, and three or four soldiers and one wizard were clearly dead, missing limbs. The rest were so disorganized that they really weren’t a threat anymore.

  Above us we suddenly heard a thunderous crash before Holly’s smug voice called out over the radio. “The chopper was taking pot shots at Taylor’s general location, so I took it out of the sky.”

  Konstantin seemed to realize that things had gone very, very wrong for him here very, very quickly as he pulled a shaky hand to his ear, probably to ask what was going on. Yet I didn’t feel like waiting for him. After ordering our deaths, he didn’t really deserve any mercy.

  I pulled out the matching Desert Eagle to the one that Lara had picked up and lined up on Konstantin. Yet, before I could pull the trigger, he must have had a moment of clarity. Perhaps realizing that his situation was FUBAR, he reached down and pulled out a detonator which he clicked before yelling something and all of the soldiers, wizards, and bodies were wisked away in a portkey teleport.

  We didn’t have much time to be frustrated with their escape because that was when we were nearly knocked from our feet as a massive explosion ripped through the ceiling where they had entered the central chamber.

  Recognizing that I didn’t have time to open a dozen portals to pull everyone out, I just yelled into my radio. “Get out!”

  Once again, ninja training came in clutch, as it wasn’t actually all that hard to dodge falling rocks before reaching the outside balcony. It was literally just a run, dodge to the left around a pillar, duck under a falling stone, slide across the ground, and then jump out of the way of the now raging river.

  As I caught my breath and looked around, my girls didn’t need any instruction as they naturally gathered around me. Seeing the threat was over, Amy and I checked everyone over for any injuries.

  The worst we found was a slightly rolled ankle on Sabah, a few scratches on Hermione, and some broomstick chaffing from heavy maneuvering on Holly’s hands.

  Sighing, I looked around at everyone. “Good work, I don’t think it was perfect or anything, but I don’t think that could have gone much better with our current skills.”

  Turning, I addressed Holly and Taylor. “Do you see anything else worth picking up? Otherwise, we should probably just head home. We can debrief there.”

  As it turns out, there were a few things, but half an hour later we were sitting back in our new home sitting down to eat a massive bowl of curry, courtesy of the Hogwarts house elves.

  The meal was wonderful, but it was hard to enjoy it because, all too soon, we needed to address the things that had gone wrong.

  Amy was the one to ask first. “So, how did they know where you were, Lara?”

  Lara simply shook her head with a shrug before I pulled out the tracking item, which turned out to be an actual compass.

  I had glanced over it, but the only rune on it was one for ‘Location’.

  Handing it over to Hermione’s outstretched hand, she waved her wand over it for several seconds before she sighed. “It was a tracking spell on something you were carrying. Probably one of your Dad’s journals or something.”

  We all groaned.

  That was a major oversight. We should have checked everything we stole back from Trinity when we realized that they had magic backup.

  I then sighed. “I have something coming that can act as a stopgap. It is part of that secret project I have been working on. But we really need to just learn how to apparate and set up the quick anti-apparation and anti-portkey charms instead of the extensive rune system we used for our home.” I tapped my hand across my knee. “I couldn’t have possibly pulled the entire temple into a half-way dimension in that short of time to cut that off, but that way we can probably stop them from popping in and out with those wards.”

  Hermione bit her lip. “They usually teach us at the end of our fourth year, but you are right. As fast as we are, it would have really helped us move around if we could just pop into position.”

  I nodded. “Or the smoke apparition. It looked kinda dumb in the movies, but if you can control your movement as you go and see everything along the way, it would be one hell of a recon tactic… especially at night.”

  That was when we all looked at Lara while Ahsoka leaned forward. “So, when do you think you can track down the next location. We want to remove them as soon as possible, if they are going to keep popping in and trying to kill us.” Although her grin showed she might also be looking forward to the fight as well.

  Lara bit her lip. “I think it is somewhere north, maybe towards the Tibetan plateau, but give me a few weeks to double-check the records.”

  I nodded and then considered. I already could see Thea looking a bit more dejected at once again being left out, so I considered for only a moment before I offered a suggestion. “Hogarts has their spring break slash Easter holidays coming up, so why don’t we plan on making the trip to look for Thea’s new body that week and be ready to hit Tinirty right after that?”

  Amy raised her hand and waved it around in front of my face like she was trying to make a point. “Along the way, why don’t we look for a world where we can find Lara’s story in? That way, we won’t be surprised anymore. I mean, it won’t tell us exactly where to look for these historical sites, but at least we would know the big picture like we do for Holly.”

  I hummed and then closed my eyes. Reaching out, I started searching the worlds around us while my girls discussed the idea.

  Now that I was mostly healed, I could have popped a soul to empower myself enough to better search the worlds around us. However, at this point, I could get a rough idea of what I was looking at even without one… plus it was good practice regardless. It felt like building up a muscle.

  Cutting through the small talk that had started in the few minutes it had taken me to look through our options, I explained what I had seen. “I think… I think that there may be a Nier Automata out there relatively close. It feels almost completely artificial… There may also be some sort of futuristic city a few realities over. Not sure what setting, but maybe 2077 or something similar.”

  That got some excited murmuring, but had to once again cut through the chatter. “There are a few options that feel like only slightly more modern worlds, but I am going to need to pop a soul to get more information. However… however on the way back, I think I found us two worlds that are centered around souls. We may want to consider stopping by one or both of them to see if they can help fix my soul.”

  Looking around, I saw a bunch of encouraging looks before Amy spoke up, looking serious. “I have been thinking… we might want to get a proper curse breaker involved if we are going to keep searching through ancient ruins. Honestly, it is crazy that we didn’t run into any of that on Yamatai.”

  I paused and had to admit that that was a good point, but I also noticed that she was also trying a bit too hard to seem nonchalant. Taylor seemed to have noticed the same thing as she called Amy out on it, even if Taylor’s tone was more amused than annoyed. “And the fact that the only curse breaker we know is a drop-dead gorgeous veela has nothing to do with it?”

  Amy didn’t even bother to try to hide her smile. “I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about… but yeah, that is a good choice. I think Lara and Hermione should write her a letter and invite her along while we are at it.”

  Breathing in before sighing, I rolled my eyes. “Sure, if you can convince her to come via letter, then let her know we will be heading out to wherever site Lara finds sometime in the next few weeks.”

  Then I huffed. “Until then, I think we need to prepare for our next series of jumps. I want these to be short, but we should be prepared for anything.” Then I chuckled. “We are starting to already outclass normal humans and wizards, even when they attempt to ambush us, but I think all of us know there are a lot worse things out there… I also don’t want to stop adding protections. I especially don’t want anything like the Dr Who’s angels to get into our home again.”

  There was a lot of nodds before Ginny and Holly looked at each other, before turning back towards me. “We are coming too. We don’t want to be left behind this time.”

  I sighed, but only hesitated for a bit longer and nodded. Turning I opened an exit portal to our Hogsmeade cottage so we could head up towards the Castle.

  That was when we heard a knock at our door.

  I raised my eyebrows before Hinata turned and looked, only to frown slightly before walking over and opening the door to show a somewhat disheveled Tonks.

  “We need to talk.”

  Interlude Thea:

  Thea was excited.

  Thea was impatient.

  Thea was getting a new body. Finally, FINALLY she wouldn’t be left behind every time the Family went out somewhere.

  She was excited enough that she barely caught the discussion Max and the girls had with Tonks.

  Well, that wasn’t true, she had allocated 23.5% of her CPU time to monitoring their conversation. Tonks had not taken her death and resuscitation well.

  She was now pressing to know how exactly the Family was able to do what they had done.

  Max had been a bit cagey with her up until now.

  They trusted her and Dumbledore with their general abilities, but Max had explained that both were tied too heavily to this world and he didn’t want to force them to give up their lives here if they were forced to leave.

  The thing was, Max was too kind hearted to just abandon them so Tonks was probably going to get invited to their training next.

  He just couldn’t help but get involved. It was probably why he seemed to just collect more people as he went along… in fact, it was why her Mother had decided to fork herself to create Thea.

  Still… a body… she was so excited.

  … She was going to have to bring one back for Tess.

  Interlude Dumbledore:

  Dumbledore studied his instruments as he watched the signatures of Max’s ‘Family’ pop in and out.

  It was clear that Max’s abilities weren’t just limited to Earth and that was fascinating.

  It wasn’t very often when you reached his age, but it was always amazing to find there was a whole new side to magic.

  He was tempted to contact the Flamels to ask them for the use of one of their Philosopher’s stones, just so he could research this more. He knew they had at least four of the things and a half dozen fakes, like the one he had used during Holly’s first year in Hogwarts.

  Yet when that thought crossed his mind, he couldn’t help but think back to his dear sister.

  No, he was going to do what needed to be done, then he would go to see her again.

  That was the best for everyone.

  Holly would have a life, a family, and no one except Tom would need to die.

  Author’s note:

  1) Thank you, everyone for your supportive comments and notes. I would say that I wasn’t trying to beg for them, and I don’t think I was too much, just trying to explain… but lets be honest, they are what helps me push through writer’s block and long nights when I am tired from work.

  2) I know some people are getting tired of the jumping, but it was always going to be a “world-hopping adventure”. However, this set should be fairly short at about a chapter each then we will finish Holly’s third year, Lara’s trip through Sibera, and pick up Luna and Dinah.