So, this chapter isn't quite as large as most of my large story chapters are. The reason for that is twofold: first, this segment of the original chapter I planned out gave me several major Blue Screen of Death™ moments. I use a voice to writing software to speed up my writing speed, but with this, every time I went to speak, my mind would just quit on me. This forced me to type most of it out. Not cool.

On the other hand, I have the majority – the VAST majority of the next chapter done via DNS, which means the whole thing might only take me a week to finish. We'll see if that makes next month any easier than this month was after starting nine days behind the eight ball LOL.

This has been edited by Nad Destroyer and myself via Grammarly. I was also helped in my research by Wesley, Delphinous and Beleriond. Thank you all for your help, even if I don't always follow it. LOL.

I introduce a character based off of the amazing Máiréad Nesbitt in this chapter. She is incredible, and if you haven't already checked out some of her stuff with the rest of the beauteous Celts, please do so.

I will also warn you this is a kind of boring chapter in terms of action since there is a lot of investigation going on. But it is necessary to figure out what is going on with the fog and everything connected to it.

Edit 8/1/2020: thanks to a guest for pointing out I got my Scottish and Irish accents wrong in places - i know a Scotsman with a Scottish accent, haven't met any Irish with 'actual' Irish accents, sorry. The examples you pointed out have been corrected. If you have more in the future I will endeavor to correct them too.

Thanks also go to goku90504 for pointing out several mistakes which have also been corrected.

Chapter 19: Smashing The Looking Glass

When Harry and Loup had been enchanting the SUV, some of the spells they had put on it were the types found on the Knight Bus, which allowed them to phase through traffic almost as well or even better than a bicycle could, unseen by nonmagicals. The two of them had done so not just to avoid traffic, which in itself was a worthy goal, but also to make certain that they could continue to use the SUV in forests and other uninhabited areas. Both of them were convinced that the mystery to what was going on in Ireland, and perforce, discovering more about Harry's deific-based magic, would take them into a forest somewhere.

Because of these spells, the trip down to the ferry passed quickly. Luna and her husband Rolf entertained the others with tales of their own adventures since they had begun dating. These adventures didn't deal with people after their lives or magical combat like what Rias, Harry and the others were used to, but they were still fun, and certainly interesting to hear about the two of them on the trail of this or that mystical creature. The Devils, Mittelt in particular, were utterly fascinated by them, completely unused to the idea that so many strange animals existed on Earth.

As they were disembarking to go and pay for the ferry to transport their car, Rias whispered, "I had no idea how extensive the Wizarding World's Notice-Me-Not Arrays were. Your anti-muggle arrays are also incredible. But…" she paused, glancing upward metaphorically up into the sky. "Do they work on satellite imagery and similar long-range detection?"

"Apparently, they do." Harry shrugged. "I have no idea how long there've been so many satellites out there, but I know that no one has pointed out, publicly anyway, that there are large swaths of the world where technology cannot go and so forth. Can you imagine a typical Londoner's response to the idea that there are entire streets that are completely cut off from the rest of the city?"

She chuckled at that, and the two of them led to the rest of their enlarged group to the front of the ferry, checking with one of the sailors. From there, they moved up into the ferry itself.

Koneko and many of the others began looking around in interest, having never been on a ferry before. It was almost like a small cruise ship, with a lot of the things one could find on a cruise ship only with a little less in the way of variety and no separate rooms or sleeping areas, or pools. Mittelt and Luna soon led Koneko, Asia and Lily off to explore with Loup joining them as they moved around the outer deck, watching as the ferry left the Liverpool docks behind and headed out to the entrance.

At the front of the ship, Rias leaned against the safety rail, smiling as she looked around at the port before turning back to the others who hadn't left with the intrepid explorers. This surprisingly included Rolf, Luna's husband, who Rias had yet to really get to know. This wasn't because he was his wife's shadow. He was simply less talkative, and his own relationship with Harry was very much that of acquaintances. But that doesn't mean he won't have anything to contribute. "So, where will we go first?"

"I want to check in with the local Irish Magicals," Harry began. "That'll be a starting point. The regular wizard on the street won't have been part of the Unspeakables investigations, but they would know about the fog in general terms, and rumors are always a decent starting point."

Rolf nodded. "Whether or not the other individual involved understands what you're searching for, you can get some interesting answers if you know the right questions to ask. Luna and I have found that asking the right questions of the locals will point us in the direction of the magical beasts we are searching for any number of times."

"I'm still confused by the nature of the relationship between magical Britain and Ireland," Rias confessed. "Why didn't the magical segment of Ireland break off as nonmagical Ireland did from the United Kingdom?"

"The long and short of it is numbers," Harry said with a shrug. "The magical community of the United Kingdom is kind of small, the magical population of Ireland is even smaller. There just isn't enough of them to make being independent work."

"We did have to make concessions. I remember me Mum talking about it. It's a really odd kind of give-and-take," Tonks added. "The Irish have their own International Quidditch team, but they send all their kids to Hogwarts, like the British and Scots do. They get to have a large say in how their own taxes are used in Ireland, but they still pay those taxes to the British Ministry and the final distribution is decided by the Wizengamot. Oh, and there's no sales tax on the sale or distribution of ale and mead in Ireland."

"Really? But why would that… oh." Rias giggled, shaking her head in amusement.

"Yep. The Brits get to do the paperwork, the Irish get to drink is how I've heard it described, by both Irish and Brits," Tonks grinned back at the redhead as they stood at the rail of the ferry's open-air deck.

To one side, Rolf had been ignoring this portion of the conversation, waiting for it to turn back to a topic he could contribute to. Now he blinked, staring past the others at a woman who had just come out onto the deck from the interior of the ferry, her blonde hair blowing in the breeze. "Good grief, a true doppelganger. I wonder, should I get my magical creature book out?"

Harry looked at him quizzically, then over at the woman, only to blink himself. "She does look like Luna, doesn't she?"

Just then, Luna returned from walking around the outer deck with Lily and the others, only to stop and stare at the other woman who had grabbed Rolf's attention. "Cousin Melissa!" She shouted, racing towards the woman.

The woman blinked, turning as she had been addressed, only to stare at the slightly younger woman coming towards her. For a moment, there was no recognition on her face, then that recognition donned, and she gasped, taking a step back. "Luna?" Then as Harry looked at her face, he saw her look around wildly, her eyes flaring in sudden alarm. Yet the look softened as Luna reached her, hugging her tightly.

In unspoken agreement, Harry and the others moved over toward the two hugging blonds as Lily and the others also gathered around, looking at this impromptu meeting in interest.

As they came closer, the differences and similarities between the two women became more apparent to Harry. The woman was short, but an inch taller than Luna herself, which meant she was about as tall as Koneko. But she was fully grown, unlike Koneko, and had the same body type as Luna, a well-formed, but not exceedingly athletic-seeming body. And when she moved, swinging around the shorter girl once before stepping back quickly, she moved lightly on her feet, like someone trained in dance. The woman had delicate features, and a face that seemed to be made to be very expressive, long blonde hair like Luna's, and similar delicate features, with light brown eyes.

"I see that looking a little… well… fantasy elfish runs in the family then?" Rias whispered.

"It appears so," Harry replied with a chuckle.

As they arrived within conversation distance, Luna had pulled the woman out from the doorway into the depths of their little group. There she introduced Asia and Koneko as Lily's "Adopted big sisters. Only Asia's really adopted and has actually taken the name of Potter too."

The woman nodded politely at Koneko, somewhat thrown by her hair, but she stared at Asia before she shook her head slightly. "And you are all, I mean…" she stammered, looking around at them all, but her eyes kept on straying to Asia, a question visible on her face.

"Perhaps we should move this little meeting to a table somewhere?" Harry asked, before bowing his head politely to the woman.

Melissa nodded, but there was no recognition to his name, telling Harry that the woman was probably not a witch. She moved with the rest of them up to the topmost level of the ferry, where a series of small tables had been set up. There Melissa flopped into a seat staring with exaggerated annoyance at her cousin. "Hello, my name is Melissa Mistborn, as Luna would have told you if she wasn't forgetting her manners in her excitement. Me dad and her mum were siblings."

"You'll forgive me, but I never heard of you before this," Harry said.

To which Rolf nodded firm agreement. "My wife hasn't mentioned you," he added.

Melissa's eyes widened, and she turned to stare at Luna, who smiled and held up her ring finger where the ring that Rolf had given her rested. It looked to be made of wood and glass almost, but it had a diamond in its center that seemed to shine a little bit with an inner light. "We married nearly nine months ago now, after dating for two and a half years. It wasn't a quick decision, although the wedding itself was certainly fast. I had waited long enough, and I wanted my man."

"Well, congratulations, I guess," Melissa laughed, shaking her head, and then turned back to the others who were still looking at her in question. "As to why you've never heard of me before, well, the answer to that is my parents were Catholics, staunch Catholics. My father converted later to it. Our family's never been entirely magical or nonmagical, you see. Most apparently were magical, but my parents, me father was a squib, and they loathed magic and everything with it, even if they were willing to keep the secret. But when Luna's mother was born with magic, my dad basically distanced his side of the family from the rest, wanting naught to do with magic."

She laughed wickedly, dispelling the serious air that had overtaken the table for a second. "And then when Luna was thirteen, this odd little man shows up at our doorway with her, shouting about how 'his little moon is bleeding,' and he didn't know what to do. Even though he was a wizard, my parents decided they couldn't just leave him alone to give her the Talk about that kind of thing at the very least, and Luna and I met at that point. My parents were still very much against the whole magic thing, though, and so didn't want any of us to have anything to do with them even after that. Luna and I have exchanged letters occasionally over the years, that's about as much contact as we've had."

"Excuse me, but you look familiar," Yubelluna spoke up, tapping one finger lightly on the table in front of them as she stared at the slightly older woman. "And I am not talking about your resemblance to Luna."

"Are you a fan of folk music?" Melissa asked with a grin, holding up a violin case. "I'm part of a group called…"

"Hellfire, I know who you are now! I'm a great fan of your work!" Yubelluna interrupted, smiling happily. She looked around at the others and said simply, "Her group is called Celtic Ladies. Her songs are among the ones I've used occasionally."

Melissa blinked. "Used?"

"At parties and so forth," Harry said with a chuckle and a subtle glare towards Yubelluna, warning her not to mention what exactly they used those songs to do.

"Are these parties public events? If so, I might have to ask for royalties," Melissa teased, before looking directly at Yubelluna. "I take it you play the violin?"

Yubelluna nodded. "Not nearly as well as you can, although I try my best."

"That's all anyone can do," Melissa said with a smile, even as her eyes strayed to Asia once more.

The young, mostly black-haired young woman cocked her head quizzically, and Melissa asked hesitantly, "But you are… I mean, you hang out with all of these people who are no doubt magical, but you still… that is…" she trailed off, gesturing helplessly towards the rosary.

Asia smiled serenely. "Yes. I was raised within the Church before I found a new home with the Potters. I still keep to the faith despite that estrangement."

"How… I mean, how do you reconcile that?" Melissa asked hesitantly. "I have to admit I've had a few problems, I mean there's so much Celtic lore that I love to research and enjoy, I consider myself almost as much of a Celt as a Catholic. And then there's Luna and our relationship with her side of the family. But like I said, I'm also a Catholic like my parents."

"I will not proselytize," Asia began shaking her head while also thinking of how to say what she wanted without using the word God, as it would hurt her Devil friends. "I don't think it is my place to tell someone else how to build their faith. My personal belief is that Our Holy Father's message is not built on Abjuration but hope and salvation. Kindness and a hand outstretched, instead of a condemning voice. Do I condemn? Yes, I condemn those who have heard His message and who think they follow it yet do not, instead giving their own words the same weight as His."

She gestured to Luna and then Harry and Rias. "Harry, Luna, and the others here were all raised in different faiths, come from different societies. Does that make them any less worthy of His love?" Asia waited, but Melissa said nothing. "No, it simply means they do not believe as I do. Just because they do not believe doesn't stop them from being good people. That is their right. After all," she finished with a small smile, remembering her conversation with the two exorcists back in Kuoh. "Choice is among the greatest of gifts given to humanity."

Rias chuckled dryly at that, thinking about how few Churchmen or Angels would ever believe a Devil could be a good person, regardless of the personal Sins of the Devil in question. Still, that kind of belief was part and parcel of what made Asia so strong.

The woman nodded thoughtfully, then almost seemed to stiffen her shoulders as she looked at Luna. "Congratulations. I'm happy for both of you. And... I'm happy to meet all of you as well, I think. I can't say any friend of Luna's is a friend of mine, because I haven't been all that much of a cousin to her, let alone a friend. But I think I'd like to try to change that."

Luna's beaming grin and Rolfs chuckle was all the response she needed, and she smiled happily back at them. Harry, however, was wondering something else. "So, Ms. Mistborn, are you here with the rest of your band? Heading to Ireland to perform somewhere?"

"…That's part of why I've been questioning my parent's faith lately," Melissa began, once more hesitant. "I feel as if Ireland is calling me home." Her Irish brogue began to come out more now as she continued to speak. "Many a lad or lass I know who call Eire home and who are interested in the old faith, they be having dreams. Strange ones aye, some that have made me wonder if I've been messed with by someone like Luna. That was why I was so concerned about meeting ye all."

"We can check for that if you want," Tonks offered.

"If Luna be the one checking, I'd be grateful," Melissa said with a nod, and Luna hopped to her feet instantly, looking over to Harry. He quickly stood up as he looked in turn to Rias, and the two of them set up a series of charms around the area, both devil and wizard-style, to keep attention away both magical and non.

When they were finished, Luna instantly went to work, her wand out as she tapped Melissa on the forehead, casting a Finite Incantatum. "Do you feel any different?"

"Ermm… I think… huh." Melissa trailed off her eyes widening then. "Ah, I remember! I was at Stonehenge. Just was walking up to it, I was. Then there was this fog and lights within the fog coming out of Stonehenge. A second later, there was this fecking arse in robes there. He waved his hands and…. suddenly I couldn't remember it."

"Yep, you were subjected to an Obliviate spell," Tonks nodded. "Don't worry, Luna's spell would have removed any other memory charms on you just then. Nothing more than that."

"…Well, that's a relief, even if I would like to know what was so special about that fog." Melissa breathed, then found her hand gripped by Luna's, who gave her a smile. The older woman smiled wanly back, squeezing briefly. But she still looked both relieved and concerned.

She turned back to Harry as he leaned forward. "So, tell me about these dreams?"

Melissa shrugged, "In faith, they weren't very clear, although they were a little clearer last night in Canterbury rather than over in Canada. An endless forest, with odd trees, trees of silver and black, some o' which were almost shaped like odd houses. Singing, lots o' singing in languages I surely never heard before or since and weird woodwind instruments playing. Occasionally I'd see shadows moving like they were alive, but rarely. And last night, well, I dreamed of that fog too, I think."

"And you've talked to other people with dreams like that?" Yubelluna asked, recognizing some aspects of the scene she described.

"Aye, I have. All good men and women of Eire, people who've been feeling the call to come home to the Emerald Isle. Most of us're also interested in Celtic Lore too. But there's not a lot of real knowledge about that kind of thing left."

"Would you call yourself an expert on what is known?" Harry questioned intently.

She shook her head. "Nay, I wouldn't. But if'n you're interested, I can point ya in the right direction of some in Dublin who'd hold their hands up to that."

"Yes, I think that would be helpful."

"Why, what's going on with this fog?" Melissa asked, crossing her arms now as she looked around at them all somewhat angrily. "And what're you all doing looking into it? No offense, but none of you seem to be the government type. Luna certainly isn't, and I don't know any government type who would take a child on an investigation!" She nodded her head over to Lily, who was staring at the port still all around them avidly.

Harry chuckled in a wry, dry tone. "Let's just say that we are uniquely suited to look into this. Unless you really wish to step fully into the world of the spiritual and magical, I can't really tell you more."

To her credit, Melissa seemed to think that through rather than respond instantly, then she shook her head firmly. "Then don't tell me. As much as I like the idea of getting to know me cousin and her new husband again, I'm not comfortable with magic. The idea of it being involved in these dreams is more'n a little disturbing."

At that point, the ferry finished exiting the port, and its captain came on the intercom, his voice blaring out from a nearby loudspeaker. He informed the passengers how long it would take to get to Ireland, and about the amenities aboard the ferry. His voice was so loud that their conversation halted until he was finished speaking.

The moment he stopped speaking, Melissa shifted the discussion, still unnerved by the knowledge that she had been messed around by some magicals and was now sitting at a table of other magicals, no matter how friendly they were. She pointed to Yubelluna, then at the violin case next to herself. "You said you could play? How about we pass the time for a bit, then?"

Yubelluna laughed and got to her feet sprightly, where she curtseyed to the woman. "To play with you would be a delight," she declared. She then left to head to the car to get her violin from their luggage.

When she returned, the two of them instantly began to play, with Melissa leading off with one of the songs that Yubelluna had used during their first ritual, which Lily promptly began to dance to. They soon began to draw a crowd, with many an Irish voice raised in delight and in song as other kids joined Lily in cavorting around the deck.

As they played, Rias and Harry walked to the back of the ship, talking quietly with Tonks about the ramifications of the memory charm they had just canceled, and the fact it seemed to have not been as lasting as it should have been. The fact Melissa had dreams about the fog and the lights from Stonehenge was very odd indeed, on top of everything else. They determined to come back and ask her some more questions later after she had calmed down. Whatever was going on was evidently affecting the people of Ireland, far more than the Ministry had realized.

As they talked, Harry began to feel a slight tingle, a pull on his magical core. He concentrated on it and pushed it down instantly. There was no reason for Yubelluna to be calling on his powers, and that tug had been a lot stronger than he had anticipated from a simple jam session. Proximity to Ireland, perhaps? Or… He suddenly realized that the answer was right in front of him as he stared out into the Irish Sea and started to chuckle.

Rias looked at him quizzically as he began to laugh, poking him in the side. "What is it?"

"I forgot. While being most known for being the ferrymen to the land of the dead, Manannán Mac Lir was The Tuathan deity who was most involved with the ocean and oceanic travel." He gestured at the expense of water around them. "Ocean," he explained simply. "I should've anticipated that Yube's call, so to speak, would sound much louder here, even if she isn't consciously doing it. But thankfully so long as I don't respond, it is merely a call, not an answer."

"Interesting," Rias said with a nod.

The rest of the voyage passed uneventfully, although Rias kept on using the Devil-style magic to check some of the passengers for magical influence. This style was both undetectable except in more powerful forms by wizards and was better for analysis too. Many of the passengers had indeed been subjected to the same kind of memory modification charms as Melissa had, and all of them were showing signs of fraying too. Not enough to remember what had been so obliviated clearly, but enough for it to impact their dreams. That wasn't good. Whatever their long term feelings on magic and how it would have to come out into the open in the future, they were not ready for that just yet.

Discussing the matter with Harry, they agreed that he would have to tell the local magicals about it, but only after they had figured out what was going on their own. After all, if wizard-style memory charms were failing already, repeated use of them as the problem persisted wasn't going to help. Indeed it would hurt. It was well documented in the Wizarding World that repeated use of the Obliviate charm would cause permanent brain damage.

However, despite Rias's investigations, the trip passed uneventfully, with Melissa and Yubelluna regaling much of the passengers with their impromptu jam session for an hour. "Although I'm uncertain whether or not the phrase jam session really does you justice," Harry quipped as he sat down across from the blond as she sat down, grabbing at a drink. Her method of playing was almost as energetic in terms of full-body movement as it was on the violin.

"Oh?" Melissa asked challengingly, looking up her drink. "Sure an' what would you be calling it then?"

"Impromptu magnificence?" Harry asked, his tone innocent.

She laughed, pointing to Rias. "Saints preserve us, you best be keeping an eye on this one. Its a silver tongue he has."

Rias laughed gaily, smacking Harry on the shoulder, but Harry's words had been meant for Yubelluna even more than Melissa. And she was looking away in embarrassment, a small, appreciative smile on her face.

But then the conversation turned serious once more as Harry asked, "So, are you willing to talk to us some more now?"

"If you promise not to mess with me memories, and if'n while you're in Eire I can have some time with me cousin, I'll talk to you some more about the Emerald Isle and about me dreams and those I've talked to," Melissa said, having regained her equilibrium playing with Yubelluna and speaking with Asia in between songs, the blonde woman having stayed to dance with Lily and the other kids. Whatever else, the young nun had helped Mellissa reconcile the faith she had been raised in and the personal faith she had begun to make for herself since leaving home.

Harry agreed readily and even went so far as to give Melissa his and Rias's phone numbers just in case. Luna, like most magicals, didn't have a cell phone, but Harry promised to buy her one and share Melissa's number with her. From then on, Melissa began to talk about the other people she had talked to who had dreams of that kind, as well a bit more of an idea on what modern Celtic belief was like. This conversation took the remaining hour of the trip.

When they arrived in Dublin and prepared to disembark, Melissa walked with them to the cars, where her own small coupe waited. She promised Luna to keep in touch with her, thanked Asia profusely for her words causing the girl to blush and left them there, all the while wondering about what the heck she had come close to being involved in, and why she had a feeling it wouldn't be the last time she was involved in it.

"Well," Harry said with a laugh, "Luna being on this trip with us has already helped somewhat."

"Oh, that was incidental." Luna shook her head. "We haven't even gotten to what I'm really here for."

She paused, and then covered her eyes, which had gone silver as she spoke. "And no," she groaned, pulling her hands away to reveal that her eyes returned to normal. "I don't know what that means."

Harry grunted irritably at that, but led the way to their car, where they all piled in, started up, and waited to disembark. The moment they were out and into the regular traffic, Loup activated some of the enchantments on the car. It disappeared from the minds and eyes of everyone around them. Then they were gone, the Knight Bus-like suite of spells activating, letting them move forward at a brisk pace.

OOOOOOO

"Yo, Maou Lucifer! Been here for what, two, three days? It's hard to tell down here without any sun, and this is the first I'm seeing you? Not certain I could give you a good review for your hospitality. So, is this when you guys break out the thumbscrews, the mental spells, the drugs? Because I gotta say, so far this whole being captive of Devils thing isn't living up to its hype," Bikou quipped, keeping a burst of sudden worry off of his face as Sirzechs looked at him through the bars. He was pretty sure certain that his Monkey Youkai constitution would overcome any drugs they tried, and his mental defenses were enhanced by a runic tattoo that Ophis had given him and many others.

But pain could break anyone, and well, they were Devils after all. Simply being chained up here like he had since waking up here didn't make any sense. He hadn't even been questioned yet.

"Hahaha, no, no," Lucifer said with a laugh. "We're not going to do that, although I do approve of your chutzpah. We were just waiting for someone else to arrive to question you in our stead."

"Oh, crap!" Bikou muttered, staring at the older Monkey Youkai who stepped up to the bars. He was not very tall, being around half of Bikou's own height, but his shoulders were just as wide. His face was crinkled with age. His hair, though still spiky, was going gray, along with his beard, which was long and came to a point. In one hand, he held a still-smoking pipe, while on his back, the Ruyi Jingu Bang was strapped. On his head, he wore the same kind of thin golden circlet that Bikou wore.

Despite the worry working through his gut now being joined by guilt, Bikou was still a Monkey Youkai, and whatever he was encountering, there was only one way to face it: with braggadocio. "They just had to call you in, huh, Gramps? Are you sure you should be up and about without your walking cane?"

"Funny thing to say, considering how you stole my damn staff, boy!" The other monkey man shouted back, as Sirzechs opened the door.

Sun Wukong was in the cell quickly and grabbing his many times-great-grandson in a chokehold with one arm, growling angrily as the knuckles of his other hand went to work on the top of his head. "What the hell have you been up to, huh?! Why did you join the Khaos Brigade?! If you wanted adventure, still see the world or travel or something like that, I'd be fine with it, but joining a terrorist group?"

"Gah damn it, old man, stop that, you know I hate that!" Bikou howled. "And the Khaos Brigade isn't just a…"

"You might not've been involved in any of the attacks, but that doesn't mean that you're in the clear when it comes to their actions, boy! I know your mother taught you better than that. Unless you wanna follow in my footsteps and spend a few centuries trapped under a mountain?" Son Wukong snarled. "Now you're going to tell us everything you know about the Khaos Brigade, or else!"

"Or else what! You think a noogy is going to, Oh damn it! Stop it, old man! Dammit if I wasn't chained up…"

"Hah, if I make your young ass bald, then maybe ya won't be able to spam my hair cloning technique! And chained up!? You think you could take me if you weren't chained? You want to put your tail where your mouth is?"

Even as his Knight, Souji Okita, undid Bikou's chains, Sirzechs smiled beatifically. Yes, he reflected. This was the best way to go about asking questions. Embarrassment, an ass-kicking, familial guilt, and the threat of having a Buddha really angry with you should work. After all, Bikou will know that Son Wukong can indeed bury him underneath a mountain. And then hide him via a deific spell so that no one will ever know he was there. After beating the tar out of him, of course.

Several hours later, his urge to smile had faded, as a now thoroughly bruised and humiliated Bikou began to gasp out the description of several people. Many of the Devils he described shouldn't even be alive anymore, let alone involved in this Khaos Brigade. His shock at that, though, was next to nothing to the knowledge that another person, whose name was not going to be pleasant to pass on to Azazel, had also joined the Khaos Brigade. Oh, this is not going to go over well…

OOOOOOO

Inishshark, or Shark Island, was one of the Islands of Connacht. Off Claggen Bay, it had been inhabited for centuries by fishermen from the Bronze Age on. But life had never been easy there and being so small with no local industry beyond fishing, it had been abandoned in 1960. The people left behind several derelict houses, a few tiny historical sites, that were barely interesting even to dedicated historians, and a whole lot of nothing.

This process had been hastened by the Irish magicals, and once accomplished, the Irish had put down spells to keep the muggles away, shifting the center of the Irish magical community there that year. Building on what the muggles had left behind, the Irish wizards had set up a small village on the island, which now sprawled across the entire island. The magicals even had a secret path leading to the nearby Island of Inishbofin, which was a tourist site mainly. Just so they could have easy access to the beaches.

It was here where Harry had Loup drive them, traveling across Ireland to do it. Dublin, for all that it was both the Republic of Ireland's capital and their largest city, was not where they wanted to start their investigations, not yet. Harry wanted to check in with the local magicals first, and that meant Inishshark.

Once more, as they neared the area where Harry had been told there was a path leading to Inishshark, the Devils and Yubelluna began to twitch and become uneasy. But the wizards were able to calm them down, with Harry taking over the driving as they came to the small, long walk path that had been created to connect the two islands.

As she once more became accustomed to being under the Wizarding World's immensely powerful Notice-Me-Not Arrays, Rias stared. "You know, I have heard it said several times that wizards lack common sense, Harry. Seeing that bridge, I now have a much deeper understanding of what that means. Are you certain that it will be able to take the car's weight?"

The bridge in question was a simple wood and rope bridge. The slats were large, about three feet by three feet, squares instead of rectangular slats. The sides of the bridge, however, were just ropes, lots of them to be sure, but still, ropes.

"There are apparently charms on the bridge to keep people from falling off and to keep it up, though I don't know the exact makeup of the spells in question. As for the weight of the SUV, I don't want to leave it on this side of the bridge. A featherweight charm should help, though," Harry agreed, shaking his head.

Although the bridge creaked and groaned alarmingly, very audible since they had all opened their windows, the SUV was indeed able to get across. On the other side, they found themselves decamping out directly into the magical village. The buildings, though old looking were very clean, there were a few magical signs here and there, and owls flew overhead, while everyone was dressed as they would be in Diagon Alley.

The SUV got some odd looks from the passerby as the Knight Bus spells deactivated, but Harry and the others ignored them as they clambered out of the car. As quick as the trip was, it felt very good to get off their feet again. With Tonks in the lead, they left Harry and Loup to park the car, the two men talking about the car, the spells they had been using, and if it might be a good idea to invest in a car for the extended clan back in Kuoh, a conversation none of the others had interest in. Rias and Lily soon broke off, heading to a public bathroom they passed by.

Tonks led the rest of the large group through Inishshark to a pub called the 'Irish Staff'. She had been there before and knew it was a great place to listen to rumors. Inside, it was almost a carbon copy of the pub that served as access to Diagon Alley, but it had a visible set of menus floating around to be grabbed by anyone wanting something and apparently, from the pictures on it, the food on hand included ice cream. The large group took up several tables as they sat down, causing a few of the locals to look at them as they had a moment ago. But this time, it was the beauty of the girls which seemed to grab more than their fair share of attention.

Indeed almost as soon as they sat down, one man moved over, sitting next to Koneko in the chair that she had pulled over to the table and giving her a wink. "'Ello Cuttie here to do a bit of sightseeing? I can show you and yer friends 'round if'n…"

Just then, Harry came in. Seeing this, he growled deep in his throat, a sound that caused everyone in the room to stop and turn towards him. As eyes widened in recognition of the forehead scar, Harry shouted, "Seamus, you walking stereotype! Get away from my daughter!"

Seamus looked up, and his broad, bleary face burst into a grin as he hopped to his feet. "Potter!" He moved over and slapped forearms with Harry, apologizing profusely to Koneko at the same time.

She shrugged the moment off, being too happy at once more being called Harry's daughter, and this time in a public setting, to be too angry with him. Although why he hit on me when Yubelluna's right there, I don't know. Or want to know.

"So, what are you doing in this neck of the woods, Harry? Come down for a bit of Irish ambiance? Or something more?" Seamus asked, moving over to the table with Harry beside him.

"Ambience?" Harry scoffed, shaking his head, looking around in amusement. "Yes, it's quite rustic, if you like that kind of thing. Of course, if you don't, you're shite out of luck, aren't you?"

"We're not going to comment on the fact that he's drunk in the afternoon?" Yubelluna grumped, shaking her head. She was not exactly a prude when it came to drinking, of course. Indeed she enjoyed a glass of wine more than most of the other ladies in the extended clan. But getting drunk this early in the afternoon, it being only two at present, was just strange to her.

"Screw you, I'm Irish," Seamus guffawed, "I'm obligated ta be drunk."

"What's the real reason for you being here, Seamus? Note I'm not asking about the real reason why you're drunk. That I know is just your normal state of being," Harry drawled. "But you would normally be home getting drunk with Dean or Dennis. Neither of whom I see here."

Seamus glanced over to Luna and Rolf, and then over to Tonks, before looking back at Harry, his drunken face firming up a little. "The news is full of ya being back in England, Potter, and that ya've decided to look into the whole mist thing we've got going on hereabouts. As well as the trouble in the Wizengamot. For once, Skittering Skeeter wrote a good article there. Ya have anything to do with that?"

Watching Harry's smile widen to show a hint of teeth, Seamus chuckled. "Aye, I can see ya did. Anyways, I, well, we really, me and the boys, we needed you to know that Luna ain't the only one who'd come calling if you called us to war," he said, tapping one hand against Harry's chest lightly. "I ain't talking about the moves the old folks home tried to pull on you, but you don't need to be the quirkiest Ravenclaw in decades to know trouble be brewin'. The magic you're probably here to look into is just one thing of many. And if you call," Seamus repeated, "this Irishman'd be proud to fight alongside you again. And I ain't alone either."

Seamus, Harry remembered, had kept in contact with a lot of the old crowd from Hogwarts. Certainly, a heck of a lot better than Harry had. The Irishman had run a still on campus for a while in their seventh year, and that made him a contender with Lavender and Parvati for being most in the know about everything happening in the school. He had kept it up after leaving, however, unlike those two.

The two of them had never been close friends. Indeed, Harry had never had many of those, and fewer still after leaving Hogwarts. But Harry knew Seamus was sincere. And if he was saying this, it probably meant that there were a lot of concerned people among the group who had fought with Harry or at least stood beside him occasionally during the war with Riddle. People who could see the growing turmoil in the Wizarding World and where it might go.

"I'll remember that Seamus," he answered, shaking the other young man's hand firmly. Then he smirked. "Although, have you even kept up your training? I see a bit of a beer gut there." Seamus scoffed but seemed to get the message there, and Harry went on. "For now, can you tell me anything more about what's been going on?"

"A bit aye. But not much." Seamus shook his head. "I've seen the fog for myself, it's silver and gray, and there's this feeling of magic in the air, like, like we were back at Hogwarts and seeing it for the first time, or something similar. It didn't appear around here, but there's a place near Dublin it showed up at, that's where I saw it. I also know that it appeared on a few other places, Clonakitty fer one down south and others way north. But that's about all I can tell you. If anyone has any idea of what's causing it, they ain't talking."

"And no one but the Unspeakables have been allowed to look into it?" Tonks asked sharply.

"Nope. They've been signing wizards into the Obliviate squads left, right'n center, but they ain't asked for help or nothing. I've heard tell a few part-time researchers have tried to look into it but then been Obliviated themselves, but that's only rumors. Whatever it is, though, it's huge. I mean, Clonakitty's in the south and the Seven Sisters are way north. To say nothing of places in Wales and England are reporting the same thing."

As Seamus ran out of things to say on that subject, Rias, who along with Lily had joined them as Harry and Seamus spoke, leaned back in her chair, looking at Seamus thoughtfully. "Would you mind if I ask a question?"

"And why would I ever mind a question from such a pretty lass?" Seamus asked back, winking at her.

Rias smiled politely but made no other reply to his attempt at flirtation. "If there are so many that remember Harry fondly, why was he so alone? And why could your government get away with treating him so shabbily?"

Seamus shrugged. "While we followed Harry, none o' us were really close to him. Oh, we were friendly with him, joined him in the fightin', but the only two who were ever truly close to him in school were Hermione and Ron, then Tonks and Sirius Black from out of school. And none of us took to fighting as well as he did. Right scary he was, willingly trainin' to be a warrior from our third year on. And when Riddle returned, it got worse. Intense, our Harry was, very, very intense. And violent. Not many of us were willing to go as far as he did, for all we followed where Harry led."

Seamus looked down into his drink for a moment, then tipped it back determinedly, downing the entire stein of ale in one long gulp. "None of us want more fighting. None of us want to go back to that again. I sure as hell don't. But if something's coming, another dark Lord rising maybe, I'll fight with Harry."

"And the local political arena? Why didn't he have more help there?" Rias pressed.

"Because wizards all live a long arse time, Red," Seamus grumped, before elaborating. "We don't want to fight a revolution. To have power in the government now, we'd all have to fight the oldsters, use force to make them change things. Fight our own families more often than not, no matter how distant. If we want to do it peaceably, we need to play their games, and few of us have the clout to do that at this point. That's decades in the future before we can get enough of us in there to really start changing stuff. Neville and Daphne were it for a while."

He brightened then. "But that don't mean that nothing is going to change. Eventually, all those old farts will be gone, and new blood will take their place. My family don't have a seat, o'course, but many do. Angelina of the glorious gams is the first, there'll be others."

Lily interrupted their conversation at this point, her head cocked to one side quizzically as she artfully asked, "What are gams?"

"Yes, why don't you explain to my daughter what you mean Seamus," Harry intoned dryly, his eyes flashing dangerously.

"Ah, ur, um…" Seamus blushed, coughed, then looked down into his empty beer stein as if only just realizing it was indeed empty. "Um, before that, I need a refill. Anyone else?"

He hurriedly stood up, and moved towards the bar, while Lily and Rias exchanged a surreptitious high five behind Harry's back. He heard the slap of skin on skin, though, and chuckled inwardly.

As Harry and the devils sat and drank their drinks or ate their ice cream, Luna, Rolf, and Tonks were making the rounds around the bar, asking questions. Unfortunately, their subtle questions didn't give them any more answers than Seamus or Melissa had given them.

Many wizards and witches there had seen people wearing the traditional Unspeakable robes – black robes marked with a series of shut eyes and mouths - and more than a few mentioned that they had seen the Unspeakables out among the nonmagical population casting memory charms like there was no tomorrow alongside the normal Obliviators and on their own. But while a lot of the wizards and witches had seen the fog, no one had any idea where the fog originated.

"At least, not a single place," Tonks reported later that day, with Luna helping. "There seem to be three perhaps five places where people think the fog is originating from. Everyone agrees that at least three of those places, the place near Dublin, the Hill of Tara, Clonakitty down south, and Lough Neagh, also had fog the first time around. There were no wizard-type witnesses at that time around the other two at the time. "

"But everyone's clear that whatever it is, the Unspeakables haven't been able to do anything. They were out in force at both times yet couldn't even slow the spread of the fog down, let alone contain it. At this point, people don't think it's dangerous, but they don't have any idea what it is and are getting really bloody worried about both how widespread it is and how it spreads into the nonmagical world. Every wizard and witch I talked to are worried about the impact it could have on the Statute of Secrecy," Luna added.

Tonks agreed, shaking her head wryly as she gestured around them at the crowd of drinkers. "Despite what Seamus might think, most Irish aren't really willing to drink in the afternoon like this normally. They're drinking because they are worried."

"I see," Rias muttered, leaning back and looking down at the inn's menu before setting it aside. The food in the wizarding world was quite 'oldy-worldly' which was polite language for very old-fashioned and bad. But the ice cream they had in the Wizarding World was to die for. Koneko, in particular, had a look of bliss on her face as she and Lily shared a large bowl of something local. Her look told Rias that she would probably have to by several gallons and magically transport them home for the girl, or else she might well face a mutiny. "Still, at least that gives us a place to start."

"Agreed, but I think we need to make tracks." Everyone else looked at Tonks quizzically, and she sighed. "Right, Harry's never done long-term undercover works. Since we came in here, everyone on the magical side of Ireland now knows or will know soon Harry's here. If we want to act independently, without people following us for a round o' gawking, or the Unspeakables trying to track us, we need to disappear into the nonmagical world."

"Yes, you did say the Unspeakables weren't willing to help, right?" Rolf asked. He had been involved in the rumor-gathering but was content to let the ladies do most of the talking.

Yubelluna nodded quick agreement. "They most certainly were not. They didn't outright refuse to follow the Minister's orders, but they didn't share any information with us when we met with them in the Department of Mysteries. In fact, the way their body language made me rather uncomfortable. Not in a Riser sort of way but more like a mad scientist 'I want to dissect you' sort of way."

"I would have said a Stein rather than Spirit way, but I see your point," Rias murmured, looking at the older woman thoughtfully, causing Harry and Lily to laugh as they got the reference. "In that case, we should get out of here. And give them a target to chase for a bit," she added, looking over to Harry, who nodded.

They left the bar behind and then back to where they had parked the car. Mindful of Tonks's warning about being followed, Harry went over the SUV with a few diagnosis charms and was gratified to find that no one had tried to place a tracking charm just yet. Despite that, as they were in the town, and Loup had started up the car, Harry started to do his own part as did Rias.

First, he created an illusion all around them that looked exactly like them. Using the lessons he had learned from working with Yasaka, this illusion was then given life, almost, and orders to move off in one direction once across the bridge. At the same time, Rias momentarily covered the real SUV with a tiny bounded field, removing the SUV and the people in it into a momentary dimensional copy of the area around them. This hid them from everything outside, while Harry began the next part of their impromptu plan to disappear.

Rolf and Luna looked at Harry quizzically as fog spread out from him.

"What is that?" Luna asked, staring at it interestedly, waving her hands through it as it began to cover her. She watched in amazement as her hands disappeared, only to reappear as her head was covered by the fog in turn. "Your invisibility cloak has evolved!"

"I told you I've been going through some changes," Harry said wryly, then stretching out his hands to either direction, directing the fog to cover the car. He looked up front to where Loup was once more driving. Ironically only he and Harry actually had licenses to drive legally, which Harry felt somewhat hilarious. "Get us out into the countryside, and then I'll drop the cloak. Until then, no one is going to be able to discover us, not magically or mundanely, not through sight or sound, no matter what kind of spell they use."

He winked at Koneko, who smiled back slightly as he joked, "Smell is a somewhat different story."

In this fashion, they traveled back to Dublin. While it wasn't close, it was where Seamus had personally seen some of the fog. Harry booked them into a hotel there, jokingly arguing with Rias on who should pay as they checked in. But then Yubelluna took over, after whispering into Harry's ear that his name might be flagged. "We know that wizards do have some access to the nonmagical world Harry. If the Unspeakables know how to track your name being used on their computers, then it will come up that we're staying here."

Later on, after ordering some room service for dinner, Harry sent Lily outside to take some pictures of the city and compose an email for Kunou about their adventures so far. Due to the time difference, it was too late in Japan for the two girls to talk in real-time.

With his youngest daughter so occupied and Koneko sitting by the door to keep an eye on her, Harry directed his attention to the matter at hand. "I think we need an organized plan of action here. And unfortunately, I think we need to examine every… call them fog-sights in turn. We can't assume that the Unspeakables or other wizards who have investigated them have found the originating sites just yet."

"If it's based off deific magic, then that makes sense. Wizards don't know anything about faith-based magic. Any other kind of magic frankly," Tonks admitted. "Or if the Unspeakables do, they lack the power to do anything about it."

Luna and Rolf looked confused at that, and Tonks explained about the basic power difference between wizard-kind and the Three Factions. To say nothing of what Rias called Deific Remnants, members of old pantheons that had somehow lived on after the rest of their fellows had been killed off by the monotheistic divinity and the forces of Heaven. This hadn't come up in conversation before this, but it was a good, Occam's Razor type idea to explain why the Unspeakables hadn't been able to do anything about the fog: they simply lacked the power to do so.

"We need information," Harry said, dragging the conversation back on task. "To that end, I think we need to split up. With at least one Wizard and one Devil in each group. We'll have to be on the lookout for Unspeakables, as well as anyone else throwing magic around where it shouldn't be."

Asia raised a hand from where she had been sitting in front of Yubelluna, who had been doing the girl's hair after a shower. "Ano, can I make a suggestion?" When everyone made agreeable noises, she went on. "We are looking for information on the old Irish pantheon, correct? Then surely one place to look for such information would be the Church."

Mittelt nodded seriously. "I might have already Fallen by that point, but the Church has always been big on keeping track of things, and even in the various conversion wars, Heaven did much the same thing. It helped us keep track of the different pantheons when we were fighting, making sure that we had stamped out all opposition."

While Asia winced at her wording, she didn't disagree with the basic premise of what Mittelt was saying, and Harry nodded. "Okay, that makes sense. Loup, Koneko and Luna, would you mind going with Asia? Would I be right in saying that you would need to be a member of the church to gain access to those files?"

Asia nodded firmly, then an impish little smile, almost sly, crossed her face. "That's right. And the church has seemingly not spread the news that I have been excommunicated from the Church. And if that's true then, I don't see any reason why it would have mentioned it to anyone around here."

"I'll keep Lily with me, along with Mittelt. But we might want to go to the Hill of Tara at the least in a large group," Harry decided. "But before that, we'll do a more in-depth search into the history of the Irish wizarding society, see if we can discover anything there."

Rias nodded. "Agreed, though to start with, I will take Rolf with me, along with Tonks and Yubelluna. We'll research some of the sites in the nonmagical world, research books about the Tuatha De Danan and their powers, and meet with the two experts Melissa mentioned. While you, Mittelt and Lily do the same thing in the Wizarding World."

The next day alas, Harry's personal search for information on the Tuatha De Danan among the Wizarding World the next day came up negative. Most wizards believed that what non-magicals called gods had simply been ancient wizards, who used their powers openly before the Statute of Secrecy had been created. It was a popular fiction that was seen as simple truth among the Wizarding World, started by a wizard who had claimed the name of Zeus during the Mithridatic Wars, something Harry only knew thanks to Hermione and her love of history.

Harry had always found that annoying, and now that he knew the gods had been real even more so, a sign of institutional arrogance that was built on quicksand. Worse yet, they couldn't find anything about the Tuatha De Danan. Although oddly, he found a book on their supposed enemies in the local equivalent of Borgin and Burkes.

The Fomorians were the Irish equivalent to the Titans of Greece, an older, simpler pantheon supplanted by the more human 'People of the Goddess Danu'. It didn't have much on them even so but did list their supposed powers and speculate on what Dark Magics could have been used to create them. It also listed some of the powers the Tuatha De Danan pantheon all shared, trying to figure out what group of spells and charms could have been used to create them as well. That was an okay find, but for an entire morning, it was somewhat demoralizing.

It was Mittelt who saved the day by overhearing a conversation about the white fog among a group of wizards coming out of the local Owlery. "Excuse me, but did you just say white pop fog appeared on some date?"

"That I did lass. Why?" the man she addressed asked quizzically.

Mittelt ground her teeth internally, but in a show of astonishing self-control did not tear his head off or try to eat his soul. I've been looking forward to finding out what souls tasted like, and I get resurrected into a devil in a time when eating them is passé. I feel gipped. "That was my birthday actually," She said aloud, smiling winsomely at the man.

"Hahahahah, I think that's just a coincidence," the older wizard laughed, patting Mittelt on the head, which caused her to jerk back and glare at him.

Before her thin veneer of being a young girl could take any more hits, Harry came over, gently taking her by the shoulder and leading her off. He was covered by an illusion that made him look like a redhead and which covered his lightning bolt scar. "Come on, Mittelt, it's time to go."

As soon as they were out of earshot, Harry spoke again while still gently guiding his young daughter and the young-seeming Fallen Devil away with a hand on head and shoulder, respectively. "That date, is that when I think it was?"

Mittelt smirked. "If you think it was the time of our last ritual we all did back in Kuoh, you've got it in one."

Soon enough, through asking enough questions of enough people, Mittelt and Harry discovered that each time the white fog showed up, Harry had been involved in a ritual. "So, this fog definitely has some kind of connection to me, and perhaps to the Tuatha De Danan as a whole given where it is appearing. Let's meet up with the others. I think it's time to head to the Hill of Tara."

OOOOOOO

As they had planned, Rias, Yubelluna and Tonks had headed out into the wider world, searching for information about local legends and suchlike which they hadn't been able to find online. First, they began by meeting two of the experts who Melissa pointed them to. One was an expert on religious or historical sites dubbed of Celtic origin, which had been covered over or repurposed by the Church. The other was the exact opposite, and between the two of them who happened to be old drinking buddies, the trio got an idea of what the local religion was really like beyond the 'mostly Catholic' that they had found online when researching Ireland.

Unfortunately, both experts admitted there wasn't a lot known about the specific various religious practices of the ancient Celts in terms of rituals and such. In England, the Celtic religion had been pretty much wiped out by the Roman invasions or changed so much they were entirely cut off from the Welsh and Irish. Later, the Catholics had done an even more thorough job of destroying or changing the local myths and legends enough that there was no real way, to tell the truth from fiction.

It was known that a reverence for nature, which followed the Celtic tradition was a major part of it, but that was about all the two experts questioned could agree on. As they had feared, Heaven and its forces had done a very good job of stomping out any real information about the belief structure or ceremonies of the Celtic people.

From the meeting with the two experts, the trio started to move among the general populace. For one thing, this allowed Rias once more test random passerby to see if they had been magically influenced, finding a disturbing number who had. Worse, most of the memory charms she could detect were beginning to fray.

For another, this let them question the normal men and women on the street about the ancient Tuatha De Danan and what was known about them. As well as raid several bookstores for tomes on the same subject.

"One thing that they all seem to agree with the experts on is that there was no real separation in who you could call on," Yubelluna explained to Rias as they returned from talking to a few young men who had been looking at her with interest, and who had Wiccan symbols on their bracelets, necklaces or, in one case, an earring. They tried to chat her up only for her to turn the tables on them, asking so many questions about the Celtic traditions that she had completely thrown them off their flirtation.

"A warrior would call on Lugh during battle, but another deity, Dagda or Brigid say, during something more peaceful, like putting up a house or the birth of a baby. During several ceremonies, multiple deities could be called upon. If you wanted to ensure a good harvest, you would call on at least three different gods. For health in the family, two at least, and so forth. There seems to have been a lot of overlap. For example, they have three different deities for smithing, Brigid, Gobinu, and Credne."

Rias looked up from having marked out a note on a book about the ancient Celtic gods, frowning heavily. "That's good enough for now on that front, it's time to do some more footwork. This booklet has a few so-called local religious sites marked out. Several of them have been taken over by the church, but one of them is apparently the center of a small city park. It wasn't one of the sites the magicals noticed fog, but we'll see if your bandrui senses can tell us anything as an experiment."

Yubelluna shrugged grumpily, having not enjoyed her morning of research. "Sure, we don't have any other leads right now."

"Calm down, Yubelluna," Rias soothed. "No research project into something this widespread was going to be quick. Remember this fog was seen from one end of Ireland to the other, and then well out into the United Kingdom. And even now, we have learned something."

"What's that?" Tonks asked as she sat down, almost jostled off her feet by a large fat man behind her. "Other than the fact that people can be bloody rude anyway."

"The two experts agreed that the Tuatha De Danan routinely worked or were called upon together, especially during large-scale festivals or rituals. It's not exactly a huge leap to say they would do the same for large scale enchantments, which certainly could explain the reach of this white fog. That's a start. Especially when you link that to Harry telling us he feels something else answering his call for power during rituals. That's enough for now. Let's get back to the others."

After meeting up back at the hotel, Harry and everyone, bar the group with Asia, made a trip out to the site where Seamus had seen the fog personally.

The Hill of Tara was an ancient ceremonial and burial site. They had discovered it had been known as the inauguration place and seat of the High Kings of Ireland. It was where the Lia Fall, which was supposed to tell if someone was worthy of becoming king, sat on top of the eponymous hill. This stone was a single, semi-cylindrical plinth of granite stone set into the ground of the hilltop, surrounded by rectangular stone bricks situated around it, almost like the rays of the sun. The sides of the stone were etched and worn, almost pitted in many places with age.

When they began to ascend the hill, however, Harry and the others started to see signs that stated the area was apparently closed off. According to a few signs, this was due to some kind of gas-based damage. Others claimed vandalism.

Seeing the first few signs, Tonks shared a snicker with Harry. "Gas, they're blaming gas? Blimey, will the Obliviate squads ever get tired of using that same old-line! I swear to Merlin, but that was old when my great grandfather was around. And out here, it don't even make sense! Someone got lazy."

"Can't be, when your great-grandfather was around, the Wizarding World was still at the height of fashion," Rolf teased. "I will agree with the lazy bit, though. At least the other signs make more sense."

As they got closer to the top of the hill, however, Harry, Luna, and the other wizards began to feel uncomfortable, like they shouldn't be going forward. The feeling got stronger and stronger, showing it was the effect of a warding charm, designed to keep magicals away almost like an anti-muggle charm. But beyond Rolf and Lily, this group was too strong for them to have much of an impact on. Eventually, though, Harry was forced to use a Finite Incantatum to dispel the feeling to allow Lily and Rolf to continue.

The instant he did, a voice boomed out from nowhere ahead of them up the hill leading to the stone. "This is Unspeakable Green, you have entered a restricted zone. You will turn back and agree to have your memories modified. Or you will die."

"Hellfire, that wasn't just authoritative, that was tyrannical," Yubelluna muttered, as she looked around. "And completely disregards the Minsters orders that they work with us."

"Talk to them about that when they aren't threatening us. Wide-angle Finite Incantatum and Expeliarmus in two, people," Harry ordered the others who could use wizard spells. "Overpower them outrageously, but no deadly spells. Rias, if you could set up a Devil-style Notice-Me Not spell over the area?"

When Harry said that, he got a few nods, but before anyone could start their spellwork, the Unspeakables attacked. Hidden behind decently powerful Disillusion charms, they launched spells at the foreigners.

Rias and Yubelluna were their first targets, and they dodged this way, and that as circles of red energy and blooms of blue flashed their way. Lily yelped as she too came under fire since she had been standing between them, but then found herself behind a series of monstrously powerful shields, with her father standing between Lil and the attackers, who, thankfully were only attacking from one direction.

The next second, the overpowered Expeliarmus and Finite Incantatum spells lashed out from Harry and the others, catching the Unspeakables by complete surprise in terms of their power. Most Unspeakables were very decently powerful wizards or witches in their own right, but Tonks would have overpowered any one of them when she was a normal witch. And as a Devil, she had access to a lot more power.

The twelve Unspeakables found themselves blasted off their feet, suddenly visible to their very angry opponents. Before they could get back to their feet, the wizards, none of whom were using wands, Rias noticed were faced with an annoyed werewolf in their face. Harry grabbed two of them by their masks, slamming them down headfirst into the ground, while an Expeliarmus from Rolf caught another wizard. The blast took the man off his feet, hurling him backward.

Two more were taken out by spell work from Yubelluna, another wide-angle Stupefy. The rest fell from a pincer attack from Mittelt, Rias and Tonks. Their attention already split between Harry and the others, Mittelt moved to their flank, sending out Stupefy spells, the only wizard-type spell she could use, and even then only with verbalization. Rias and Tonks then took them under fire from two sides, Rias having teleported directly behind them with a very nifty bit of magic.

"Are there any more of them out there?" Rias asked as she pushed her ahoge out of her face, scowling angrily at the needless bit of conflict.

"Not around this site." Tonks looked at the Unspeakables, pointing to them in groups of three. "What we have here are four teams of the normal three Unspeakable reaction squads. One for offense, one to switch to defense, and one to use an obscuring illusion to cover all three since personal invisibility charms never last once you're moving too fast or casting spells. I've never worked with them, but I know their operating procedure. Knowing how to work with the Unspeakables and how they operated was part of my training with the Aurors, though the wankers never did bloody shite as far as I could see."

"What should we do with them?" Mittelt asked, scowling ferociously down at the Unspeakables. The fact that underneath their hoods their faces were covered with some kind of spell that concealed their features under what looked like pixelated censorship was kind of funny. But they had attacked them without warning, so the idea of just dumping them into a ditch was a pleasant idea.

Harry scratched at his lightning scar. "Rias, do you think that you could memory charm them?"

Rias bent down and sent out her thoughts, creating the Devil version of a memory modification spell. But she quickly pulled her senses back, her eyes widening in surprise. "They have some extremely strong mental protections. I could break through them, Harry, but there's no way I could do so without leaving behind a residue of my work. Or causing permanent damage," she added, almost as an afterthought.

Harry tsked. Then sighed. "Never mind then. We'll dump them in a ditch somewhere with a message about what happened. Coupled with a question as to what the bloody cocking fuck they think they are doing attacking me and mine."

"After the Minister agreed to let you look into this fog situation, right?" Yubelluna asked.

"Yeah, that," Harry replied, unconvincingly while Lily giggled and joined Mittelt where she was poking her finger into the pixelated face of one of the Unspeakables.

With the Unspeakables down, the remaining enchantments they had used to keep people away from the Hill of Tara had vanished. Rias and Harry talked for a bit about that, wondering about the necessity of putting up their own just in case, but Harry decided against it. For one thing, given they didn't want to kill the Unspeakables, they would have to leave the morons there, and they would be able to redo the anti-muggle and anti-magical spells easily enough. For another, despite the Lia Fáil importance in historical and mythological terms, Harry didn't think that it would be the center of whatever was causing the fog.

"I can't tell you why from here, but I think whatever magic remains on Lia Fáil has nothing to do with whatever is creating the magical potential."

"Yubelluna, can you sense anything to go with what Harry described earlier?" Rias asked, turning to look up at the Lia Fáil at the top of the hill. From here, she could feel something as well, some kind of energy in the air, like an electrical current that made her somewhat nervous. But she couldn't make out anything more than that, nowhere near as much as Harry could see. "And Harry, considering that the Minister said you were allowed to look into this, couldn't you send him a message about their attacking you like this?"

"I certainly can, although it's always been very iffy how much actual control the Minister has over the Unspeakables and even segments of the overall Department of Mysteries," Harry answered wryly, shaking his head. "They originally were created by the Coterie of Merlin, which predates the Ministry. It was in power at around the time the Romans left Britain when the idea of a separate magical society really started to gain momentum in the islands. Still, since they attacked first, I bet I could at least get Shack to try to curb their aggression against us. And we can keep them from tracking us easily enough."

"Good, I rather like the breakfast menu at the hotel," Yubelluna said absentmindedly, staring at something only she could see at present. "And as to your question Rias, I think Harry is right. This was a sacred site, and I have no doubt that it reacted to the fog, but from what I see here, it certainly didn't create it."

With the others on guard, Harry and Yubelluna walked up the hill to the stone. Normally there would have been a lot of other tourists around, and they would have had to stop outside the bricks set into the dirt of the hill, which surrounded the actual Lia Fáil by three to five feet in every direction. Thanks to the Unspeakables, no one was around close enough to have noticed the small fight they'd just had, let alone see the two of them leap over the banister guarding the stone to stand on the bricks as they examined the stone.

The two of them moved around the stone, with Yubelluna explaining what she sensed from the thing. "It's definitely Faith-based magic, but it is broken, broken in several places. And I don't see anything like the runes I saw on the stones I examined during my out-of-body experience."

"Broken for certain, you're right about that. The magic in the stone, which I think began as deific but was then powered more by the Faith of the Tuathan's followers, is fading, and a lot of it is just plum gone. There are lines of what look like runes but without the physical form that should have magic but don't at the moment, tying into what little magic that remains there. I think this really was a sorting hat," Harry suddenly said, nearly laughing as he took a step backward, shaking his head.

"Sorting hat? I don't get the reference."

"According to the myths, this was the site where the High Kings of Ireland were crowned, right? Until one idiot tried to break it since it didn't like his candidate anyway."

Yubelluna nodded. "Right. Afterward, you had to be really an exemplary sort to make the Lia Fáil react, like Conn of the Hundred Battles." She had learned a lot about Irish history today, she reflected.

"But when a person with the right abilities and mentality touched the stone, it would glow or shout in joy. The Sorting Hat did the same thing for Hogwarts, sort of. It chose which house to assign students to as they arrived at the school. From what I'm feeling from what little of the spellwork is still active and what I can see of the inactive portions, I'd wager this thing did the same."

"What you're feeling?" Yubelluna asked shrewdly, gently taking Harry's hand in her own and tugging at it to make him turn away from staring at the stone. As she did, she felt something like a ring on one of his fingers for a moment before it disappeared, flowing back into his body, much like Fragarach did when he was finished using it. "Is the Blessing within the stone trying to tell you that, something within you resonating with the magic in the stone?"

"Resonating, good word. Yeah, I think it's something like that. And it is definitely a Blessing, I can feel Manannán Mac Lir's touch on it, along with others. I can't tell much about them, but I can sense their fingerprints," Harry replied, shaking his head and nodding his thanks. "Thanks, I sort of lost myself there for a moment, luv."

Her lips twitching at the term of endearment, Yubelluna gestured back at the stone. "Could it be reacting to something over at the passage tomb?"

"It's reacting to something, yes, the enchantment within trying to take in the magical power it's leaking now for some reason, but it couldn't do anything with it anyway, given how damaged it is. I think we need to head over there now, before deciding what to do about this one."

Returning to the others, Harry and Yubelluna informed them about what they had seen and then moved off to the other religious site within the Hill of Tara was Dumha na nGiall, the Mound of the Hostages. It seemed to be a natural hill almost, far smaller than the nearby hill upon which Lia Fáil sat, but it was too regular, too rounded to be a natural creation.

Instead, it was an example of a passage tomb, a type of burial mound that could be found throughout Ireland. As they went, Rias explained that in their research, she and her team had found that passage tombs were a cornerstone of the religion that worshiped the Tuatha De Danan, just like the use of trees in certain ceremonies.

The interior of the mound, the tomb itself, was accessed by a wide doorway created by menhirs, stones like those found in Stonehenge, which had recently been excavated after having been buried. The interior was not open to the public yet, but the site had been closed off due to a 'recent cave-in', another ploy by the magicals to keep people away from it. And once more, Harry and the others found mild spells attempting to keep them out but easily canceled them out.

There Harry, Yubelluna, and Lily saw another example of a shattered deific enchantment. The magic began by the doorway, leading deeper inward. Several of the interior runes were still there, and Harry, Rias and Yubelluna all quickly began to copy them into notebooks for later perusal. But the ones by the doorway were just gone entirely, something Harry felt was significant. Rias agreed, thinking her way through what they saw here, and comparing it to the runes Yube had reported previously.

The magic here was much more potent too, and Harry said so. "The magic around the Lia Fáil, it was not only broken, but it was also draining away, barely a shadow of itself. A process begun when it was broken, I'd imagine. This magic, though, it's still here, and there's a lot of it."

"I'm not certain I understand what you mean," Rolf admitted from where he was using a light spell to look around the tomb in interest. Lily was still outside with Mittelt, in plain sight of where Harry was standing, but not wanting to be inside the musty interior of the tomb. "First, you say the enchantment is broken, but then you say it is still there. To my mind, if an enchantment on an object is broken, the spell is gone, yes? Unless there was more than one spell on the object in question."

"You never studied runes, did you?" when Rolf answered that he had not, Harry went on. "We were using the word enchantment, but it isn't really accurate here. The Blessing, the deific-based spell that is, that I'm seeing was laid down into runes. With a runic array, you have different parts. You have the runes which house the power, the runes which gather it, and the portion of the array which causes the effect you are looking for. Here it isn't so simple, of course."

"Right. The Blessing itself is still there, sort of embedded into the stone. It should be providing the power, while the runes provide the direction," Yubelluna murmured, moving around as she traced a few of the runes, her eyes following the paths of magical energy that only she and Harry could see. Even so close, Rias could only make out the fact magic was there, not what it was doing, and even that was more than Rolf could make out. "Or am I wrong?"

"Pretty much yes, but then again, there are no real rules with deific-magic, all that matters there is if the deity in question is acting within their portfolio or not. If they are, they can basically make their own rules," Harry muttered, staring at the magic. "Outside of their area of control, it's more of a mixed bag, I assume."

The magic in question was like bands of energy to his eyes, most of which were colored in various shades of gold moving around the stones in the ceiling and floor. But there were frayed points, a lot of which were by the doorway, while there were gaps in it in various other sections. And there were other places where the color was not gold, but black, tiny bands of black or dots of black within the gold.

"Still, it makes sense that the Tuathans made a lot of use of runes, especially when they worked together like this. The use of fals, or stones, was another thing we discovered in our research," Rias murmured.

"Agreed. And I definitely think this was definitely something Manannán was part of, but he wasn't doing it on his own. His power is in a few of these runes, but not others. But this is definitely where the fog is coming from. I just wish there was enough of the runic array left to tell me what the Blessing was supposed to do!"

"The wizards, they said there was magic in the fog correct. Like the magical potential we created when we went through our rituals," Rias murmured, working it out. "And you said the portion of the runes around the doorway was gone?"

"Yep. Ruined, the lot of them, not a single rune left." Harry, too, was getting the idea of what was happening, staring at the frayed edges of the enchantment. "So we have a Blessing here that reacts to me when I call upon Manannán's power, which in turn creates or pulls magical power from somewhere else. The magic from that somewhere else fuels the ritual I'm creating, but also comes out here, due to the damage to this array. This creates the magical potential-infused fog."

"Right. And the spell on the Lia Fáil reacts to the magical potential, but doesn't do anything with it, because the enchantment's too broken."

"So… it's like a live wire?" Lily guessed from outside, nearly shouting to be heard by the people inside the passage tomb. "But the magic is like, like the electricity at the end of the wire sparking out?"

"Something like that, lovey, yes," Harry said with a nod.

It took the group another twenty minutes to mark down all the runes they saw before they decided to leave. Harry had no way of knowing how to repair the runes, and thus the deific enchantment so it wouldn't create the fog. "I could probably try to damage it more, though. Make it completely unusable."

Everyone felt that move was premature, but there was nothing more to learn from this site. Rolf, however, had a thought. "You said you were able to learn a bit about the Blessing on the Lia Fáil just by looking at it, right? Like, you were reading it almost like these runes?" he asked, gesturing over their shoulders as they finally left the dank darkness of the passage tomb. Nearby Mittelt and Luna moved to join them, where they had exited earlier, neither having much to contribute.

"Yes. I was able to see a bit about this spell too. Not a lot, though. It was too damaged. The enchantment and the runes were too darn intertwined, which is why I said earlier that the Faith-based enchantment wasn't just providing the power, but something else too," Harry replied, looking over at Yubelluna, who nodded in affirmation.

"Then I think we need to follow that aspect up," Rolf answered firmly. "At the moment, getting you up to speed on this whole Blessing thing is the best way forward. If we can't do that, even if we discover enough runes to figure out what is going on, we won't be able to do anything about it. Or am I wrong?"

"You might not be wrong. And we discovered that the Isle of Man is supposed to be the home of Manannán Mac Lir," Rias murmured, looking over at Harry before she ran her fingers through Lily's hair as the girl took up position between her two favorite adults.

"Agreed. However, this time I think we will travel the Wizarding World's way to the island rather than the nonmagical."

"That's fine and all, but can we eat before we go? Magical sweets and desserts are all well and good, but their actual food just isn't very good," Lily grumped.

"Someone's been spoiled by Kala's good cooking, I think," Harry teased, tweaking Lily's ear lightly since Rias was still ruffling her hair. "Still, I do agree with you on that."

After a brief meal, the group piled into the SUV, taking it back to their hotel. From there, Harry created a portkey to Inishshark, where Harry sent off an owl-post to Shacklebolt, being unable to send a Patronus that far, especially since nonmagicals could see them. As he did that Tonks found the local portkey operator and got one which would transport them to the Isle of Man. Apparently, there was a small hamlet there which specialized in fish and other sea-based magic products.

The Isle of Man was situated in the Irish Sea, slightly nearer to England than Ireland. A Crown dependency, it was under the control of the crown. It was a separate, self-governing entity, and had historically been the first country to give women the right to vote. 571 square kilometers, it was surrounded by much tinier islands, several of whom were named for Christian saints. On its flag was a set of three legs joined together, a triskelion that was supposed to have come from Manannán Mac Lir having three legs.

"Um… no," Harry drawled as Rias relayed that little tidbit. "I met the man, and he certainly did not have three legs."

"Meh, I say they just lost the joke in translation," Mittelt retorted, looking between Harry and Rias and then over to Yubelluna. "Or it was just simple jealousy over his 'third leg'." All three laughed, while Tonks exchanged a low-five with the diminutive Mittelt while Lily looked confused.

The magical hamlet of the island of Man was extremely small, only about seven different buildings depending on how you defined the world-building considering one or two looked more like shacks. A small road led out to a dirt road that marked the edge of the anti-muggle wards and which led to a paved road. Thankfully there were so few people about here that Harry and Lily didn't draw any attention their way as they arrived there that evening, and they were all able to leave the hamlet quickly.

Once on the road, Rias had barely a moment to wonder about why it looked as if three middle-aged men were doing some kind of time trials on it with three different cars before Harry stiffened, as did Yubelluna, and Lily. "Okay, let's hear it for research. Because I think we just got a hit, ladies and gentlemen."

To the eyes of Harry, Yubelluna, and Lily, there looked to almost be a web of some kind underneath the ground all around them, like the outlines of magical energy. He turned in one direction, waving his hand to Yubelluna and pointing inland. "See if you can figure out where the center of this is. I want to see where they end. We need to know about how the magical fog can be contained, which means we need some examples of what the edge of this runic array/deific enchantment looks like."

"Right," Yubelluna replied firmly, causing Harry to smile at her, even as he turned away floating up into the air and away.

Rolling her eyes, Rias picked Lily up, and then politely asked Tonks to cover them all with wizard-style Notice-me-Not spells as she did the same with her own devil based magic. She could have done both at this point, but it saved time. Then she rose into the air, with Lily still in her arms, and gestured with one hand, using a levitation spell on Rolf lifting him up into the air as well. "Mittelt, go with Harry. The rest of us will figure out where these lines of magic go. Yubelluna, Lily, we're following you."

"Right," Mittelt said, mocking Yubelluna for a moment, before flapping her wings and hurrying off after Harry. "He's obviously never heard about how you shouldn't split the party. Has he never played any role-playing games? Or seen any horror movies?"

Soon enough, however, Yubelluna had them all back down near the ground. The enchantment disappeared to her ability to see it. And nearby, Mittelt was cackling at a sheepish Harry who had realized the same thing.

But contrary to Mittelt and Rias's worries, that was the only problem they ran into. Not only did nothing violent happen to either group, but the main portion of the search actually ended quite easily. The web of runes hidden under yards of stone and earth, much like the buried runestones of the defensive array back in Kuoh, eventually led underneath and then up to the top of Snaefell, the only real mountain on the island.

There, at the top of the mountain, about an hour's walk from a nice little railway station and café, the deific enchantment came up into a stone statue, which everyone knew instantly was supposed to represent Manannán Mac Lir. It was of a man standing in a boat, his hands outstretched to either side, one hand holding a spear, the other a net draped across his arm. No third leg was in sight, and the face of the statute had long been worn away, as had much of the surface of it.

To Lily and Yubelluna's eyes, the thing glowed with rune-work. But it was a dull glow, like the rest on the island, and broken too. "Like… you know how a fire dies down, and you're left with those little glowing embers? This is like that. The embers are still there in the statue, the center of this, whatever it is on this island. Um, but that's about all I can say."

The little redhead frowned, cocking her head and leaning close eager to take part in things this time as she stared at it from the inside of a little guardrail that was supposed to keep people from touching the statue. Rias and the others had ignored it, of course, and what hikers were there had moved away under the pressure of their Notice me Not and anti-nonmagical wards. "I don't see any actual runes here."

"What do you think, Yubelluna?" Rias asked, looking up at the purple-haired woman.

Yubelluna had been moving around the statue, staring at it from it every angle, trying to see if there was a single rune left to tell what this spell might have been. She wasn't having much luck because Lily was right, and she said so. "The power is still there, vaguely, but whatever this is supposed to have been doing, it is barely doing now. The rest of the array might be intact, but this statue doesn't have a single rune left on it. Not through vandalism or deliberate acts, I don't think, just from age. And it isn't being powered anymore. Like the magic on Lia Fáil, it is dying out."

Lily smirked triumphantly at that, then twisted her head to the side, frowning slightly as she looked down at the ground. "I can't tell what it's supposed to do!" she growled, at last frustrated. "It looks as if the runes go down into the ground and join the web that we followed here, but was the web the point of this, or was the statue the point?"

"An excellent question, lovey," Rias said, kneeling down and gently hugging the now irritated girl as she looked over to Yubelluna. None of the others could perceive what the two of them were seeing, which meant that these runes and the magic they covered were sitting beneath another Blessing of some kind, which made sense considering what they had seen already. "But I think we need to figure out if this too was creating the magical-infused fog and if it's something Harry can access. Rolf, Tonks, would you mind going back to that hamlet and asking some questions? Yubelluna, Lily, let's see if we can find any other point where the 'web' comes above the ground."

Elsewhere on the island, Harry's search had gone much slower. The outer edge of the web of runes seemed to follow the edge of the island at sharp edges. The first two such edges were held down by what Harry describes to Mittelt as an edge stone. "An edge stone is something that is used to mark the edge of wards. It's not used all that often these days because our abilities with runes have grown so much that we don't need to have a physical representation to mark the edge of the warded area."

"Well, we're looking for something that's really fucking old, right? And the Tuathans had a thing about fals. So why is that such a surprise?" Mittelt asked.

"It's not surprising that they were using fals, no. The surprising thing is that they used them for this array, because this isn't a defensive enchantment. Don't ask me how I know that, I just know it isn't purely defensive in nature." In fact, from what Harry was getting through his connection to the ancient magic here, it was positively belligerent and aggressive. Some kind of attack spell then, but one that attacks only in a set area? Strange.

He looked up from the stone he had been studying. It was a simple enough stone, large, about half the size of Harry, made of granite, which was the stone of choice for this kind of thing. It had been made into part of a wall of a small fisherman's steading, the owners probably never even realizing there was anything unusual about it, despite the squiggles and lines on it. "Let's go."

The next one, however, proved to be a bit of a bother. Because it wasn't on land. Rather, it seemed to be off the coast of the Isle, specifically out into the ocean by way of Castletown, one of the islands port towns. It was built around a Viking-era castle, but Harry wondered idly if there had been something else there long before that.

"Wouldn't the water interfere with the spellwork?" Mittelt asked as she and Harry stared out into the ocean from a supposedly private dock that happened to run over the line of the enchantment.

"Not if the Tuathan pantheon's sea deity was the one using it," Harry answered Mittelt's question, careful not to use the word 'god' as they had all been, to not cause the Devils among them pain.

As he stared, though, Harry thought more deeply on that point. Manannán Mac Lir had indeed been the primary sea god of the Tuatha De Danan and had been mentioned as such in Welsh and English Celtic lore. And this is the ocean… and I have used water spells somewhat better than I did before. I don't normally rely on water-based magic overmuch, but there has to be a reason why this edged stone is out there in the water…

"Don't suppose you'd know what the Celtic word for water is, would you, Mil?" Harry asked absentmindedly as he began to gather his magical power.

"No. And don't call me that," Mittelt grumped.

Nodding once at that, Harry moved forward until he was laying on the docks, his hands thrust down into the water. Then he concentrated, pushing his thoughts and will into the water around his hands.

The magic pulsed out, and as Harry had almost expected, the frayed, tattered remnants sluggishly responded, feeding him knowledge. It wasn't complete, it was more like someone had taken a short story and torn out two pages in three. The reader could get some of the story, a name or five, but there was no way the reader could understand everything going on.

But Harry didn't have to. He had a bit of Manannán Mac Lir's power inside himself. His magic simply flowed, its shape changing as Harry willed it. As it did, Harry knew he would be able to do this again, even without the enchantment, whose power slowly receded as his own core took up the task of powering the spell, which actually didn't require much. It was almost as easy as conjuring up metal was with the Onmyodo style systems. It wasn't quite a Blessing, but it would do for now, and put Harry one step closer to understanding how to cast those as well at need.

As Mittelt watched, the sea under Harry's hands receded, like he had just made a tunnel down to the bottom of the ocean under the end of the port. Then the tunnel twisted along the ocean's floor, heading out, following the line of the enchantment.

Eventually, he was done, and Harry pulled his hands away from the edge of the watery tunnel. "It will sustain itself until I cancel the spell now. We'll have to throw up an anti-muggle charm before we go down.

"Should I call you Moses Jr. now?" Mittelt teased, even as she leaped down, one hand holding her skirt down as she gently floated down to stand on the ocean floor below.

Harry laughed, put up the anti-muggle charm, and then hopped after her.

For all this effort, though, the edge stone turned out to be the same kind of stone that they had already found. Staring at it, Harry was once more astonished that whatever magic these runes were supposed to convey was still working, no matter how broken. The runes themselves looked as if they had been nearly entirely scored away, but the magic was still there within the rock

It really shouldn't be working still, but it is, just like the back in the Hill of Tara. I suppose I could blame that on the overlying Blessing that hides it from any magic user that isn't directly connected to Manannán, but that's rather than a lazy bit of thinking. Hmm… I wonder…could I do that? Embed a spell, a Blessing rather into something through the use of runes? Which would then survive the runes' destruction?

Harry moved around the rock for a few minutes, trying to figure out if he could see any actual runes left to copy out, before giving it up as a lost cause. Still, he couldn't complain. This bit of investigation had already given him a lot of information to think about. "We should head back. I want to see how many of these edge stones are out in the water like this one. I'd wager I have an idea of what this spell was supposed to be."

Nodding Mittelt made to follow him, then paused for a second. As Harry watched, she moved over to one side. Her hand scrabbled underneath a bit of craggy rock, pulling at something. "What did you find?"

Mittelt smirked, holding up a bit of hilt. She then gestured all around them. "Looks like a ship went down. One with soldiers on it. Any idea what that could be? Especially since I see the remains of a standard over there, I recognize as belonging to one of Heaven's legions."

"Oh, I think I do," Harry answered with his own dry, wintry smile.

Meeting up with the others back at the local magical hamlet, Harry explained what he thought about the local enchantment and what it probably meant. "It was some kind of signal array and offensive magic dealing with the sea. I think it was part of how Mac Lir made his final stand after he created the Hallows and hid them away. He returned here, in the seat of his power, and waited for the forces of Heaven to attack him. He made them pay for it every sea mile and then fought them here on the island as best he could. But I don't think it has anything to do with the magical fog. Like Lia Fáil, the magic here is dying out. It's not powered by anything else."

'But you learned something?" Rias asked intently.

"Oh, yes. More than a bit," Harry replied, taking her hand and kissing her palm gently, then smirking suddenly as he looked out to the ocean beyond the tiny hamlet. A wave of his hand and a tiny bit of magic, and the ocean rose up at his command, creating a giant hand that waved at them once before subsiding. "You might say that."

As Rias laughed, Harry went on. "But, alas, nothing to do with the magically-infused fog. So unless my daughter or Yubelluna has anything more to add, I think we're done here."

Throughout the rest of the day, Harry led the others around the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, and then back to England traveling the magical way for much of that, alas, but not all, the better to throw off any attempt to follow them. At each stop, they examined a local historical site where the fog had been seen. After doing that, they started to expand their search to include other historical or mythologically important sites.

Doing so, they discovered remnants of ancient magic in many places, but most, like the magic on the Lia Fall, was decaying but not dangerous. However, at many, they discovered the same kind of enchantment that Harry was certain was creating the magically infused fog.

The position of each of those sites was different. Some were centered around tombs such as one large one they found at Brú na Bóinne, others were around hill forts like Clonakitty. Some were centered around natural sites like the hills called Da Chich (breasts of) Anann, which caused Mittelt nearly to shriek in anger as she stared at the hills in question and learned about the sheer number of such hills there were scattered around Ireland. Mittelt's breast envy had not dissipated during her time as a Devil. Thankfully, however, only the hills devoted to that one portion of Anann's body contained anything of interest to them. They had examined four more such sites to be certain.

However, as different as they all were, they each had several things in common.

One, they had a Blessing covering over the underlying enchantment, hiding it from discovery from anyone magically as well as an underlying enchantment of unknown purpose. The underlying deific enchantment was also created by multiple deities working together and further controlled via a runic array.

Two, that runic array had faded horribly, to the point where everyone agreed it shouldn't work. "It shouldn't work, but it is, or at least, the enchantment is working enough so that while it isn't working properly, it is most definitely working enough to pull power from wherever the power source is and react to Harry when he calls upon the power of Manannán to create this magical potential fog," Rias said shaking her head as she stared down at another example of an edge stone, this one set into the edge of a hill called Fort Navan.

For that was the third thing that many of these sites seemed to have in common: they all had edge stones, not one of which was intact. All of them were horribly aged, no longer working to mark the edge of whatever spell they contained, but they were there. The edge stones obviously were supposed to have kept whatever magical potential or spell the runic array was a part of inside that area. With time they had eroded to the point where they no longer could.

As lily had said, those stones now acted like 'Live wires, shooting out electricity every which way."

And yet, they were still no closer to discovering where this massive enhancement was gathering its magical power from, the source that Harry had been able to call upon. Nor had they discovered what the bleeding heck it was supposed to do. This would elude them until the last group of researchers returned that evening.

OOOOOOO

While the others had been researching and going all around Ireland, Asia, Luna, Loup, and Koneko had stuck completely to the nonmagical. First, Asia had researched the local churches, finding which of them was both the head of the Church in Ireland and then the oldest purposely-built monastery as opposed to a converted building. This place was where Asia led the others to with Loup driving them there via the SUV since Harry and the others would be traveling via public transportation or magic all day.

"Not Saint Patrick's Cathedral?" Loop asked, ignoring the stares he was getting as he walked along beside the three girls. They were a rather startling contrast after all. Loop routinely dressed like a punk rocker, complete with a bandanna on his head, and stood over 6 feet in height. Asia barely topped five feet one inch, Koneko four feet six inches. Luna, too, was on the short side and looked nowhere near her actual age as she skipped along merrily beside them.

"No, they will only keep bureaucratic records there. That kind of place is far too open to keep historical archives, especially those that go back to the conversion of Ireland. Um, I honestly don't know where those will be, I just don't think that they will be there," Asia confessed. "The records being stored in the oldest monastery is just, well, a bit of guesswork on my part."

"That works for me," Luna chuckled. "Guesswork is often the way the mind tells us a logical conclusion without all the folderol of explaining the logic behind it."

The others blinked at that, then shook their heads and moved on, already getting used to Luna's frequently odd comments.

Soon they arrived at the church, where Asia entered first. This was not a very well-known one, so most of the people within were believers, there to take a moment to pray, or ask the monks questions on personal matters. Asia moved among them for a moment until she was in front of the altar, where she knelt down, her hands clasped together as her fingers interspersed into a rosary. Once more, she felt the Faith of this place wash over her and smiled serenely as she began her prayer.

Koenko, Luna and Loup awkwardly waited at the back of the Church, even Luna knowing that she was kind of out of place here. I don't think I've even entered a church before. Unless Melissa's parents took me to one at some point. Regardless there is a kind of strange, oppressive feeling in the air.

This was nothing in comparison to what Koneko was dealing with. She had entered with quite a bit of trepidation, knowing as Asia did that this place was most decidedly sanctified, and the history of Devils being on such sacred ground was not good. If any of the priests here had even a smidgeon of exorcist training, she would stand out like a fish out of water.

Thankfully this did not seem to be the case, although Koneko felt a tingle over her skin and pain growing at the back of her head, telling her that she was most decidedly not welcome here. It was almost she thought like the feeling someone would get in the under the wards back in Kuoh, although not nearly as watchful or filled with the waiting violence and intelligence of those wards.

Once she was done praying, Asia stood up, looking around, with a smile of beatific joy on her face. Quickly she spotted the most senior clergyman currently present. She moved toward him, only to find that he had already turned in her direction, his eyes widening momentarily before he bowed from the waist. "Holy Maiden, what can this humble church do for you?"

"Good morning, Friar, and please, call me Asia. Holy Maiden is but a title, one I routinely do not feel worthy of regardless of the power that our Holy Father has blessed me with." The man chuckled at that, bowing his head in reply, and she went on. "As for what you can do, might I ask if this church is where the Church has stored their records of the conversion of Ireland?"

"… Yes, it is," the man said, looking around quickly to make certain that they were not being overheard by any of the churchgoers. "Might I ask why? I am not an archivist myself, we do not have one stationed here, but we are supposed to keep those archives secret."

"I, in my travels, I have run across ancient magics, which I believe somehow link back to Irish history. I wish to know the truth of it," Asia said, reminding herself internally to add a Hail Mary to her next prayer in recompense for the need to mix truth with lies. "Would it be at all possible if my companions and I could search the archives?"

The man's eyes had widened as Asia spoke, looking over to her companions, having noticed who she had entered the Church with but not having examined them before this. Loop made a point of crossing his arms, looking about as intimidating as he possibly could, which was quite a lot. Luna and Koneko did no such thing, of course. Luna was still looking around the Church interestedly, while Koneko was working hard to keep the pain of being on ground dedicated to God from her face.

"… I believe I can allow that, so long as you do not attempt to remove the archives from the Church," The priest replied, wondering if the two girls were Exorcists in training or archivists of some kind. The man at least screamed bodyguard to him, which he would expect. "Please, follow me."

The Friar led them through the monastery to the back room, then down a set of stairs into the cellars. Asia led the way, smiling and talking to the Friar about the Vatican and some of the works of art there, the Friar having an interest in art that his poor Church, alas, could not meet. At the bottom of the stairs, they came to a doorway, where the Friar intoned a prayer under his breath, touching the handle of the doorway with his fingers after a moment.

Thanks to her father's training, Asia could now see the magic within the doorway, a ward powered by the Faith-based magic around the Church itself. Oh dear, I don't think any of the others are going to be very comfortable in there. Still, we came to the right place, now let's see what we can find.

Looking over Asia's head, Loup's eyes widened. The room revealed behind the door was nearly as large as the Church above, perhaps even longer in length, and certainly far more cluttered. There were dozens of standalone bookshelves, and the walls were lined with bookshelves. There were only a few chairs scattered here and there, while a single chandelier in the center of the room was the only illumination.

Luckily, that illumination was activated by a flick of a switch by the doorway rather than by someone having to light candles manually, Loup thought to himself, chuckling at the idea. He nodded politely to the Friar, while Koneko while moved around him, staring around the room thoughtfully.

In contrast, Luna curtsied, then quipped, "Would you like us to do some dusting for you while we're down here?"

"If you are offering my daughter," the Friar shot back with a chuckle, before nodding his head to them and saying that he had to go back to his duties. "But mind what I said, Holy Maiden. Please do not try to remove any of these texts from the room."

"Ano, but I thought I asked you to call me Asia," Asia pouted, before shaking her head and bowing gracefully from the waist to the man. "Thank you for your help, Friar. And I promise we won't remove anything."

As soon as the door closed behind the man, Luna chuckled. "Of course, we won't. That's what copying spells are for."

"Think twice before trying spells here," Koneko warned quickly, still dealing with the pain of being here at all. Father owes me ice cream for this! "It's a sanctified site, your spells might not work here. I know my spells won't work here at all, although I might be able to call upon my wings."

Loup had already moved away from the others, picking up a book, turning it so that he could stare at the text on the spine. "This is in Latin," he grunted in annoyance.

"Ah, I can read that," Asia said with a smile.

"So can I," Luna and Koneko chorused before Luna laughed and pointed at the white-haired Nekoshu. "Jinx!"

Then she shifted gears with the suddenness that always threw people off, her next words coming out like the Ravenclaws she used to be. "Bring us any volume ones you can, the numerals should be easy to make out. The rest of us will spread out, read the various titles, and see if we can figure out how this place is organized. And please try not to damage any of the books here, they are probably priceless."

The answer to the organization question, alas, was not at all. Volume 1 of one group of books would be next to volume 10 of another. There was no chronological order, no organization whatsoever. The books in here were well kept, there was no sign of mildew or decay of any kind, but it was just as obvious that these books were also things that the Church would sooner ignore then have anyone actually make use of. They were simply stored here because that was how such things were done, that was all.

Worse, Loup found that some of the books had faith-based spells on them. Opening one, he found it entirely blank. He waited a moment, listening intently, but there was no hue and cry from opening the book itself, so he decided that causing the book to look blank was the only protective spell on it. "I have a blank book here. Watch out for others, they might have magic on them too."

Asia frowned, then looked to Koneko and ask politely, "Koneko, do you think you could fly around and look for more like that? I can see a few books from here that look to have magic around them, but perhaps I would be able to find more from the air."

Koneko tried to oblige, only to find that she could not, in fact, pull out her wings while under the effect of the sanctified ground around them. Luna also found her spells fizzling, just not leaving her wand at all. This made Loup volunteer to lift a massively pouting Koneko up into the air. In this fashion, the two of them found about a half dozen books within the archives which had protective spells on them.

As he set the still pouting Koneko down, Loup frowned pensively. "I wonder if a lot of these books are fake?" The others looked at him, and he shrugged. "I mean, this place is huge, so would all of these books really cover the spiritual side of the Church's history in Ireland. Seems a bit much. Unless they are all picture books or something."

"I agree with that, and here's something else to think about: the whole blank page things is a very old but still well-known wizard type spell. I suppose in the ancient past, a few of us wand waivers might have found faith somehow."

"Can you walk me through how to remove it? As we've just found out, I don't think you should do magic here. But I should be able to get away with it." Asia apologized. Luna obliged quickly, proving herself an able teacher and Asia could soon cancel out the spell, although she would have to put the spell back on before they left.

With that done, and with the first few books they wanted so picked out, the group began to read through them slowly, calling out notes to one another as Loup wrote it down, having been relegated to chief notetaker since Luna didn't know any translation magic.

They were there from early morning to near sunset, but eventually, they had enough notes to describe speak about the true records of the 'Catholic Conquest of Ireland'. Considering that several of the magically bound books had titles along that line, as well as one that's called itself, "An account of the initial war against the Pagans of Ireland and their so-called local deities' the copy spell had served them very well too once Asia removed the initial magical protection.

Meeting up with the others back at the hotel, they explained what they found. First, they explained that the Tuatha De Danan were also, in many ways, worshipped beyond Ireland, if under different names. Wales was under their control, along with large swaths of England and parts of Scotland. And the battles against the encroaching faith of the One True God occurred across all three main islands and on many of the smaller islands as well.

In general terms, the battle between the Tuatha De Danan and the Faithful came in three stages. The first had been the arrival of the proselytizing priests looking to convert the locals. They had been met with scorn and derision, and the remaining Fomorians had actually gone so far as to attack them. The Tuathans had not fought them directly, even though, regardless of local opposition, the monotheistic belief system of the One True God had gathered followers. Instead, it seemed as if they had allowed the Seelie and Unseelie, the good and bad Fae or rather, the semi-playful and mostly harmful Fae, to play with the converts freely.

This portion of the history was replete with tales of the priests using their powers more freely than the druids who worked as intercessors between the Tuathans and the general populace, as well as spreading literacy and knowledge about how to be healthy and things of that nature, while being attacked by the locals, or the converted local faithful being ostracized. Harry and Rias took it with a grain of salt, knowing the victor would always try to paint themselves in the best light, but still felt it was probably accurate since it dovetailed with what was known to have happened in other places as part of world history.

However, after one truly heinous attack, where a group of monks was burned in a bonfire, the Hosts of Heaven arrived in force. Far more strength than any of the local gods could combat. The Hosts fell upon the Fomorians, as they had been the ones whose followers burned the priests, wiping them and the few remaining clans who worshipped them out in a day-long battle at the Battle of Saul. Being elemental gods, each of the Fomorians could call upon greater power than the majority of the Angels involved, but could not match the enemy's numbers, and the Light Spears were deadly even to other gods. Balor, who had already lost one of his eyes to Lugh, a Tuathan, was the first to fall. The archive described his fall in detail, mentioning how his last eye, which could stop time among other things, was plucked from his head and taken to Heaven 'To be purified in the light of the Most Holy.'

Rias, and indeed everyone, believed that was faithful-speak for the process which the Divinity used to convert such things into Sacred Gears.

"However, the downfall for the Tuathans themselves also began in that battle," Asia explained sadly. "Lugh, the local deity of, truth, oaths law, the storm, and war, had made an oath to end Balor."

"He wanted to finish the job he had begun on his maternal grandfather," Koneko supplied, taking over the story for the distraught Asia, speaking more volubly than was her wont to save Asia from the retelling. "He took exception to the Hosts taking his kill and under the influence of nemain, the goddess of bloodlust and challenged them. He, along with Nuada, the deity of hunting and, Nemain and her sister Badb attacked the Hosts in anger. Lugh was slain in a battle which 'rocked the island of Ireland from one side to another'. His power was then stripped from him, much like Balor's, with Nemain dying alongside him and Badb driven insane by the loss. She became the first Banshee."

"And Nuada escaped but minus his arm, although it was supposed to have been lost against the Fomorians," Rias exclaimed. "It was later replaced by Gobinu, one of the three Craftsmen gods, who made him a silver arm. That's a perfect example of the Church mixing the original battle between the Fomorians and their own conquests to obscure the truth."

Hearing this, Harry blinked, exchanging a look with Rolf, Koneko and Loup in turn before asking the question that was on all their minds. "Wouldn't having a silver arm be sort of stupid for a hunter?"

"You'd think so, wouldn't you? But I suppose at that point the Tuathans had more to concern them than if one of them could keep up his duties among the human populace," Rias replied dryly, before looking over at Asia. "I'm sorry, Asia, Koneko, please continue."

"Um, there, there wasn't much more to that second portion of the tales. Lugh was one of the greatest warriors among the Tuathan pantheon, and his death sent them reeling into retreat. Erm, the archives sort of split off, describing various battles or smaller conflicts spread out on all the local islands, going into detail on the ones dealing with Ireland. Um… there were more than a few who mentioned battles against Ddraig as the Great Welsh. He fought every side indiscriminately before being forced to retreat. Finally, a fight between Albion and Ddraig in Wales was mentioned, but nothing afterward."

Koneko interjected here, telling the others what Ddraig was passing on. "In those days, Albion and I were almost completely obsessed with proving who was stronger. Fighting the forces of this new Faith was just one way we tried to do that. I remember those battles and the terror we caused, the ignominy of retreating. Although that isn't nearly as painful as the fact that our final battle ended with both of us suppressed by the so-called Holy Father and then our very souls transformed into weapons given to humanity."

There was an awkward silence at that, but Loup eventually continued the tale. The next aspect of the war between the local faiths and the 'One True faith was a more subtle battle as the forces of heaven moved to a defensive role, defending their followers as the priests continued to proselytize, urging the locals to convert. Even with the Fomorians wiped out, this was not a smooth process, but it was a steady one, the Tuathans slowly losing power among the human population of Ireland as they did elsewhere.

Loup shrugged. "Though few of their number were reported to have died during this phase. The Hosts seemed to have concentrated on wiping out much of the mythological beasts and creatures who looked to them and normally preyed upon the humans. None could stand against the legions of Heaven, who were just always there, ready to respond to their faithful's prayers in a way that the Tuatha De Danan were not able to match. By the time the Tuathans recovered from Lugh's death, the war was basically lost."

"What followed after that was what we think of as the crescendo phase. The Tuathans under Dagda and Manannán Mac Lir tried to fight back, but as Loup said, it was too late. The Host killed Dagda and several others, then drove the remaining deities back. There was supposedly a last great battle in which all but Manannán Mac Lir were slain, much of their powers taken. He retreated to his island, where he later died, but not before, apparently, creating the Hallows which Harry later gathered and mastered," Luna finished, looking over at Harry. "He apparently left the others to fend for themselves but obviously not before doing his part of whatever this vast enchantment is that is somehow still around and pulling power from somewhere."

Loup once more took up the tale. 'After that, the Church began to remove all mention of the Hosts Of heaven from all of the faithful who had seen them in action. Instead, they began to propagate the talents of the various saints in their stead. Part of their whole mailed gauntlet in a velvet glove way of spreading, I suppose. Not that they didn't do good works, it just was a bit more self-serving than it seemed at the time. Meanwhile, they also made a point of destroying or altering any information or tales about the Tuatha De Danan to weaken the long term hold their memory could have on the people."

Harry nodded, looking at Loup, then Asia and Luna. Koneko was currently heading over to get another large bowl of cherry chocolate and cinnamon ice cream, which Rias had bought for her in Inishshark earlier that day, knowing she would have had a tough time of it. Harry had simply pampered her something fierce from the moment they all returned to the hotel. "Was there anything of a surprise in the reports?"

Luna held up her hand first. "I noticed something. There wasn't nearly as much talk about the Seelie and Unseelie, the Fae, as there should have been. With how much the Church at that time was death on magical creatures and beings, they should have fought with the Tuatha De Danan from beginning to end. But beyond a few run-ins from before Lugh fell, they're only mentioned once or twice."

"My take on that would be that they simply saw the writing on the wall and knew when to retreat," Tonks answered, shaking her head. "Given what we've discovered about these Fae during our research into Irish mythology, they certainly wouldn't be willing to throw their lives away for a lost cause."

"True enough, but they should still have been some sightings of them. They're not around any longer. We know that more than this lot," Luna said with a laugh looking over at her husband as she gestured around at the rest of them.

Rolf quickly agreed with his wife. "My family has long searched for clues to where the Fae went, both in Britain and elsewhere like here in Ireland. We've never been able to discover more than a few faint signs of their passing."

"When did this conversion war occur?" Harry asked, looking at Asia. When she told him that it had begun in 380 AD and continued for more than a hundred years given how long it took to stamp out the old religions, he looked over at the other wizards. "My sense of history was ambushed by Binns and his love of the goblin wars. What was going on in the Wizarding world at the time?"

"Well, for one thing, there weren't any Irish wizards at the time just yet," Tonks said authoritatively. When the others looked at her, she shrugged. "Me Mum was a stickler for knowing history, even if she had given the finger ta the whole Pureblood shite the Blacks were known for. Anyway, we hadn't retreated beyond our Muggle repelling wards just yet, and we weren't organized at all in Britain. In fact, at the time, the only organized portion of the Wizarding World was in India and Italy. Oh, and bits of Germany and Norway, but I don't know much about the bits."

"So you all certainly wouldn't have had any time or interest in discovering more about any magics being hurled around elsewhere. And we've already found out you're all rubbish about keeping records of things like that anyway," Rias mused. "Does the record of the last battle include the death of all of the major players in the Tuatha De Danan?" Rias asked, leaning back in her chair, smiling as Lily joined Koneko in eating ice cream, curling up next to her as Koneko did the same to Harry.

"Not in any great detail, and that is the most interesting thing," Luna said excitedly, actually bouncing her seat. "They are said to have died, but none of the Holy Host were given credit for specific victories like they had been before that. They were only said to have 'passed on.'"

"And where did that happen?" Harry asked, feeling as if they were going to finally get a clue as to where to take the physical aspect of their investigation now.

"Oddly enough, it was not at the Hill of Tara, which was the capital of the Tuathan's faith. Dagda fell there along with many others, but the final battle was at a place called Emain Macha in ancient Celtic," Loup replied. Asia was too busy chewing on a spoonful of ice cream, which Lily had just jokingly shoved into her mouth. "You were there today, right?"

"We were, Fort Navan. And it was easily one of the larger areas impacted by the fog. But…" Rias looked over at Yubelluna, who nodded.

"It was also the most broken. Most of the edge stones were just gone, and those that were there were mangled or just wiped clean of any runes. There was also… I don't know, a feeling in the air, perhaps? It was too faint to tell me anything beyond that. But it wasn't part of the enchantment. The enchantment itself was also horribly broken, and some of the golden threads seemed to have been replaced by the black threads we've seen all along, just not in nearly that amount before."

"So, let's recap what we know.," Harry began, counting off points with the fingers of one hand, his other busy with petting Koneko. "The Church knows that most of the gods of Ireland are dead, but a few of them died in a single battle, leaving nothing behind, which as Asia puts it is unusual. Normally, their powers or abilities would have been absorbed by the Church in some fashion, given to Saints or turned into Sacred Gears. For example, the eye that God had torn out in the initial battle against the Fomorians becomes a Sacred Gear, which is currently ensconced in the soul of Gasper, Rias's NEET Bishop."

"I wish I could argue with that appellation, but even now with all the effort we've put into it, getting Gasper to agree to come to school next year has been an uphill battle," Rias remarked with a sigh, winking at Koneko, who had been her chief minion in that fight for several months, joined by Lily in the past two months.

"The fog is originating in multiple places, all of them at the same time or as close as makes no difference and we know that the fog is being created when we, that is Yubelluna and me, use my deity-based magic, and the magic within the enchantment responds simply because Manannán was involved in their creation. Whatever this is, it isn't spreading from a central point in that fashion. The wizards think that it originated from a point in the Wizarding World, or from a place nearby where wizard-style magic had been used in the ancient past, but we haven't found evidence of that," Harry continued. "Rather, it is directly connected to passage tombs and the broken Fal, which were the literal bedrock of the Tuathan magical system."

"Some of that ignorance is because wizards can't see faith-based magic, so they are left with trying to make up excuses rather than search for real answers," Tonks muttered, shaking her head. "That, and the Unspeakables are being wankers of the first order."

During their searches of other ancient sites, two more intervention teams of the Unspeakables had made their presence felt. Both times they had attempted to ambush Harry and his allies, but each failed just as miserably as the first, larger ambush had. Neither that nor the fact that each time Harry had sent a letter to Shacklebolt, had seemed to get through to the pixelated morons. Shacklebolt, in turn, had eventually replied with a message that said the Unspeakables were being forced to respond to some kind of ancient Magical Oath, which did not make Harry feel any more kindly towards them, but which explained why they couldn't follow Shacklebolt's orders to stand down. If they did, they might lose their magic.

Harry still hadn't allowed any of them to use Devil-based magic or deadly spells, though. Yet. Rias was certain that would change the moment the Unspeakables deliberately sent a spell Lily's way, which they hadn't had time to thus far. Her or Asia. Koneko, Harry knew, could look after himself, but his 'Fatherly Protection Doctrine' was routinely stuck in the Overdrive mode when it came to the other two girls, especially his youngest.

"And each site was the site of the same kind of ritual or the same exact ritual but interconnected. Rituals shouldn't work like that, being able to connect different places so far away from one another which are not physically connected by the same runic array. But it seems to work here thanks to the Blessings of the Tuthans, just as much as the magic in each specific array is still working because of that Deity-based magic pulling power from somewhere else still, despite the damage the runes themselves have taken at each site we've examined," Mittelt broke in, speaking up for the first time. "That's kind of incredible, really."

"On top of that, whatever this ritual was meant to do must have the taste of Manannán's magic somehow, above and beyond the magic of the rest of the Tuatha de Danan pantheon. That's the only explanation for why it would be responding to Harry's powers in particular from so far away." Rias supplied.

"And the fog leaks out because of the damage to the wards stones marking the edge of the affected territory. So it, the magical potential the fog contains, must have been a deliberate part of the enchantment, whatever it is," Harry finished.

For a moment, they all sat, thinking, trying to put it together but still the nature of the spell that was creating the fog eluded them, as did how to use it to discover more about how Harry could more freely use his godly powers, although the Crow's Reach name gave them a hint as to where to go next, even if none of the wizards they had spoken to had mentioned it.

Then Luna began to laugh, leaning back in her seat as she kicked her feet up onto the table, wiggling her toes at everyone as she began to sing a little ditty that she had very obviously made up on the spot. "What is a ward but an area marked out by a hedge, a hedge made of stone? What is a hedge, but where two properties meet? And how do you go from one property to another? You use the door!"

Everyone else stared at her, even her husband, although he was chuckling quietly at her antics, despite being completely in the dark as to what his lovely and playful wife meant. Then Rias hissed in surprise, leaning forward. As she stared from Harry to Lily. "Property? Say rather, plane. A dimensional plane!"

"Wait, what?" Harry asked, looking at her.

"Think about it!" she exclaimed, hopping to her feet and pulling Luna into a hug before setting the much shorter blonde back down as she whirled on Harry, pointing at him to dramatically. "What are the powers of Manannán Mac Lir?"

"Celtic ocean deity which we've found the truth about, as well as travels, battles too, but they were not his major area of expertise despite his personal martial skill being quite high. He is also supposed to be, and the Hallows bear this out, the deity who ferries the dead from the land of the living to the land of the dead. But don't ask me to raise the dead it causes them pain, the older the soul the worse the pain, and I don't like doing it," Harry recited, still looking confused.

"Exactly! From one dimension to another. That is where they went. Another dimension!" Rias laughed as she sat back down next to Lily once more, who was also grinning at seeing the adults solve this weird mystery.

Luna again raised her voice in song, singing a tune, ironically, that Melissa and Yubelluna had been playing their violins to back on the ferry. Although at that point, they hadn't had verbal accompaniment. It had stuck with her, and now she knew why. "Come beyond the ancient fog. Tír na nÓg, oh come with me to Tír na nÓgg'."

"The ancient realm of the fairies, a separate plane of existence, connected to ours, but separate, a pocket dimension. A permanent pocket dimension, created by the Fae at some point in their own distant past, well before recorded history, well before the Holy Father began to rise to power in ancient Canaan. It makes sense," Yubelluna agreed with a nod. "And it was said to also be a place of great magic too, which explains where the power is coming from."

For a moment, all of them looked at one another, grinning as now they understood most of what was going on here. What to do about it eluded the group for a moment, but at least part of their task was accomplished.

However, the feeling of accomplishment was burst by Mittelt, who started to curse volubly. Rias instantly clapped her hands over Lily's ears, causing the little girl to roll her eyes, but she didn't fight the motion, staring with interest as Mittelt continued to curse loudly.

Harry let this go on for a few seconds before he looked at Tonks and asked politely, "Would you do the honors?"

"You bet." With that, Tonks pointed her finger at the cursing girl and cast a tickling charm on her. Thanks to her being Rias's Bishop and Mittelt one of her Pawns, she didn't even have to overpower the childish charm.

The spell caused Mittelt to break off her cursing and begin to laugh, holding her stomach and trying to glaring at Tonks even as giggled. "All right already! I get it. I'll stop cursing." Tonks obligingly ended the spell, and Mittlet spent a second to glare at her before looking around at the others. "But this isn't as good as you all seem to think."

"I'm not certain any of us really thought it was a good thing, but share your points," Rias ordered.

"If I remember right, the Fae were not exactly friendly." Mittelt began, only to be interrupted by Luna, Asia, Lily, and even Koneko, all making loud "Huh?" Noises.

She rolled her eyes at them. "Come on! The Fae, even the good Fae, were always playing tricks on humanity, leading them astray, making fun at their expense, lording it over them for their lack of magic or making deals that always ended up with the humans making fools of themselves. To say nothing of the Unseelie, who were just nasty most of the time. And they were always fighting one another, the Winter Court against the Summer Court, right?"

Rolf nodded firmly. "During our research into them, we've discovered that for certain. Indeed, in Britain, there are still a few forests and other places where you can discover examples of deformed plant life and earth where their spells clashed."

"And if I remember, the Irish have a history of the Wild Hunt too, which certainly sounds like it should be part of the winter court. And we know that it exists in this other place, given the description of what you Lily and Asia ran into," Mittelt went on looking over at Yubelluna.

"And some of the trees and stuff we saw in that dream match what the Fae would probably create." Yubelluna agreed, seeing where the blond loli was going with this and not liking it.

"I think I know where this is going," Harry said with a sigh. "What would happen if there were no humans around to play tricks on, to use as proxy pawns? The two courts would go to war. Not quickly, perhaps, but eventually, their very natures would force them to go to war with one another."

"They would prick themselves to pieces," Rolf agreed after a moment of thought. Even Luna nodded her head, scowling now and poking her toes angrily into the top of the tea table in front of her.

For a moment, all of them fell silent, thinking about that. Then Tonks asked the question that was on everyone's mind. "Where do we go from here?"

"And should we ask Fawkes for advice now?" Rias added.

"I am still of the opinion that Fawkes is going to show up when she," Harry emphasized the gender, "Wants or needs too. As to where to go from here, let's get out the maps again."

Loup nodded and pulled out a sheet of notes, which he had made during the research into the church archives, working with Asia and Luna to put them on a map. Harry and Rolf had similarly used another map to put the places where the wizards had spotted the fog, also marking out where the Unspeakables had set up observation points.

Luna and Rolf put together his and Luna's own research into the fae and their coterie, on a third map. And Rias and Tonks worked on putting the places where the local Wiccans and would-be Celtic believers felt were religious sites, as well as the points that were known historical sites.

When they were all done, Rias used a devil-style spell, layering the maps one on top of another, color-coding them, and then enlarging the map until it covered most of the room while the others pushed all the furniture into the corners. Koneko instantly noticed that a few of the points did overlap, pointing them out before any of the others could. These were sites of battles against the local gods or mythological creatures or heroes and the various points where they had discovered fog places.

One of them was a bit to the side. That same point was also marked by some information from Rolf and Luna had researched into the Fae. She also realized that it was in a national park. "Ballycroy National Park," Rolf said, looking around at the others. "It was a place mentioned several times in various notes on the Sidhe that my father and I attempted to discover any truth of. We were able to find local legends about them, but nothing more distinct."

"Hmmm… that matches what our notes say," Loup interjected, looking them over. There was a running battle that ended there, but it was basically a long skirmish, archers ,illusion magic and trickery against a few hundred Angels."

Rias instantly turned to a laptop that she had brought along, looking for information on the Internet about the place. It was a large national park, indeed one of the largest in Ireland, and denoted a wide range of different types of terrain, from flat up to mountainous, complete with rivers, rocky areas, and peat that covered nearly everything in it from one end to the other. "Their site says that portions of the park are closed for ecological preservation," she finished, looking over at Harry. "Would the Unspeakables know enough to be able to use that label to cover their activities?"

"Easily," Tonks said with a nod. "Out in a forest, where they couldn't use that old line about gas or cave-ins or vandalism, that makes a lot more sense. And we know the magicals have some understanding of computers, some of them anyway."

"They used something like that to cover the Quidditch championship in my fourth year at Hogwarts." Harry agreed.

"All the other battles were right on top of the sites. This one isn't on top of the historical sites in the park or the notes about where the Fae were supposed to be. It was off to the side. Like someone was fighting extra hard to keep the forces of heaven away from something they were hiding," Koneko said, looking at the map.

Harry looked the map over, nodding. "And some of those sites are deep into a forest. One thing that all of the Tuathans, indeed, all the Celtic pantheons, had in common was a reverence for nature, right? That was why the druids and bandrui were so important to them. That, and the idea of these passage tombs. So if the battle was kept away from the heart of the enchantment, then there's a chance it wasn't damaged."

"So tomorrow we will be sitting there, I presume?" Rolf asked, looking around at the others. Then he smiled serenely as he asked another question that was beginning to percolating everyone's mind. "So when we get there, if we find out enough about this dimensional teleportation, what do we do? Do we go through somehow, cut off the magic coming through it, or do we shore up the wards stones to simply stop this fog from getting out?"

"I don't think that last bit is an option," Tonks said reluctantly. "Even if the fog isn't able to spread out from beyond the edge stones, it would still be very visible within it. Which includes a decent number of historical sites scattered around the rest of Ireland. To say nothing of the sites in Wales, England or the other smaller islands. Covering that up would be a massive project if it could be done at all."

"And I'm not even certain we would be able to do that anyway. Remember, I can't call up my own god-based magical powers on command, that's part of the reason why we're here. And we don't have enough of the runic array to figure out how to redo it," Harry reminded them all.

"Agreed. But we could perhaps cover the old base, create a warded zone around those areas to keep the magical potential within. But like Harry, I don't think that such a thing would work unless he can use a Blessing to counter the Blessing that is part of this enchantment. No, we will either have to go in or somehow destroy the connection between this secondary source of power and the enchantment. Regardless of the dangers, curse it," Rias intoned, looking over at Lily.

Harry turned away, also looking at Lily, who was measuring distances with her feet on the map as it spread across the floor of the hotel room, talking to Koneko quietly about the national park, and what it might be like to camp there. Of course, wizard-type camping was very different from nonmagical camping, but she hadn't been camping in either style before despite all the time she had spent running around the forests around Kuoh with Koneko and their daddy.

"I think we will have to determine that when we get there," Harry decided reluctantly, knowing that whatever this was, his daughter's magical core was also reacting to it in some fashion. "We'll need a ritual for certain though whatever we do. For something this large, no regular enchantment or spell is going to work. Some kind of ritual that is at the center of the worship of all of the different gods of the Tuatha De Danan, not just Manannán Mac Lir. Remember, we know that there were other gods involved in this enchantment."

"I have just the thing actually," Yubelluna spoke up, holding up a finger. She moved over to some of the books that she and Rias had bought earlier that day, picking one out and then flipping to a marked page, reading what was there. "'The festival of the trees. A general ritual or ceremony in which the Celtic believers called upon the power of nature, renewing their connection to the world at large, and to the gods who protected them from the elements and the magical creatures of the world. This is one of the few rituals which are still known in one piece from the time before', yadda… ', and was used throughout all of Ireland. A sort of general ceremony to mark either birthday, small-scale holidays, or equally small-scale local positive events. It was often accompanied by music, the use of chimes or chants would differ greatly from one region to another, but the basic tenant and movements of the ceremony startlingly remained the same regardless of where within Ireland it was taking place.'"

Harry nodded firmly. "That sounds perfect, actually. And who knows, I think that if we do perform a ceremony there, we might get a bit more in the way of direction, either through my connection to this dimensional teleportation enchantment or from our firebird friend."

"In that case, might I suggest the youngster head to bed soon. And that myself and my wife go out and purchase supplies from the magical side of things? Who knows how long we'll be searching after all," Rolf suggested.

Rias nodded, and grabbed Mittelt, taking her out to go shopping for foodstuffs themselves. After all, who knew what would happen if they did end up going through to Tir Na Nog? Better to be prepared than not.

OOOOOOO

"… The local magic users don't know anything, although they have said that Harry Potter is here, and looking into this whole strange fog business, which I suppose is good for them, not so good for us," Le Fay said to her brother as the two of them sat in their hotel room, eating a nice English-style dinner. "But I don't think I have any way of narrowing it down from one place to another. Which means teleporting around the place, which might cause us to have trouble with the wizards."

"Perhaps then, we are barking up the wrong tree. If Harry Potter and his Devil allies are here to look into fogs, perhaps we need to look into following them," Arthur said as he sipped at his tea. "Mind you, I would rather stay away from them, well away. I would cheerfully believe that I could stack up against any single, perhaps any two of Harry Potter's followers. But that one's power and the Power of Destruction that the Princess of Red Wrath can call upon is probably beyond my abilities. Even with you to back me up, dear sister."

Le Fay smiled at that, although she felt that Arthur was a little too optimistic about their chances. Arthur's sword, Excalibur Ruler, was made to control anything and everything it could touch. However, there were hard limits to its abilities, and one was the willpower of the opponent it tried to control or the power of the magic. On the other hand, he has used it very well against the local wizards when they've tried to question us today.

"How are we going to follow them? We don't even know where they are now," she asked, instead of following up on those thoughts.

"Le Fay, I believe in your attempts to work with the magicals, you have forgotten that we are here on the behest of the British Government, which is working with their Republic of Ireland counterparts. I am certain Cousin Daniel can ask the Republicans to put out a subtle APB. With that done, we can only hope they are not paranoid when it comes to the nonmagical world and prepare to move after them as quickly as possible."

Le Fay bit her lip, thinking hard. "Let's look online and at the maps again. I think we need to follow up on the fog angle. I just wish we understood anything about what was creating all that magical potential. For all my snooping around, I wasn't able to detect anything in any of the places where the fogs are supposed to originate beyond the fact that magic was there. Annoying."

Arthur put an arm around his sister's shoulders, squeezing gently. "Then once more, we must look to piggyback on Harry Potter and his group's efforts in some fashion."

OOOOOOO

Vali frowned as he knocked on the door to his step-father's office. Not that it was used all that often. Indeed Azazel would normally be found either in his lab or somewhere in the human world at some random strip club. Or occasionally at a porn studio giving the workers, both the stars and the cameramen, pointers. Vali preferred it that way, really. He was well beyond the age where he needed his so-called father figure around, and the less oversight he had, the better for his position in the Khaos Brigade.

To be summoned to Azazel's office was therefore highly unusual and set Vali on edge. Albion was riding his senses as per usual ready to be called upon at need, and he had one hand in his pocket fingered in the silver chain that hung down from the side of his pants. It had been a part of his style for so long, no one had noticed that he had gotten a new chain a few years back.

"Be calm, Vali. You don't want to burn this bridge until the last moment," Albion soothed. "And remember, we have a plan for this. The time since Bikou was captured to now has been a major help."

"It's just meant relying on Ophis more, damn it. Her Blinking skill, and the ability to infuse it into artifacts, is fine, but relying on it sucks. Makes me feel almost beholden to the creature," Vali shot back.

"I would resent the whole creature thing if Ophis's thoughts weren't so different even from other dragons," Albion shot back, amused. "Now, game on, brat."

Vali opened the door to his office, but contrary to his expectations, there was not a large band of upper-ranked Fallen waiting for him. No, the only one there was his step-father, leaning back with his feet up and looking at an adult magazine. Currently, he was whistling at the pinup, having folded it out to look at the full image.

Rolling his eyes, Vali calmed down, walking towards the older man. "You wanted to see me, Azazel?"

"Damn kid, won't you ever just call me Dad? Just once? Or Stepdad if you want to be formal?" Azazel whined as he set the magazine down, smirking over his desk at the younger man.

"No. Now, what did you want to see me about? Another mission, maybe?" Vali asked, ignoring Azazel's most common complaint.

"Gah, so cold kiddo. How the hell you can only get your rocks off when thinking about fighting is beyond me, especially with me here for such a magnificent example. Come on in and sit down for a sec." Azazel said with a chuckle at his stepson's attitude.

Vali moved forward but didn't sit down. Instead, he just leaned against the side of the large plush chair that sat in front of his Father's desk. "Come on, old man, get to the point. I could be training right now, you know."

"Hah, but you weren't, you were just sitting in your room all alone eating noodles or pasta, no doubt." Sighing, Azazel let his legs fall off the desk, sitting upright to look at his stepson. "But I suppose you're right. To business."

Just like that, pressure suddenly blasted into Vali from the older man, magical power roiling off Azazel as his twelve wings appeared all around him, so black they seemed to suck in the light of the room. At the same time, a series of talismans around the room powered up, creating a sealing area between them. In this fashion, Azazel could seal the powers of something within the covered area away, and Vali realized almost instantly that his connection to Albion, to the Divine Dividing, was fading.

"I gotta say Vali, I've known for a while that you had balls to spare but to still be around here, all brazen like when your friend Bikou was captured and turned over to Sirzechs. Did you think that he wouldn't eventually break? Or did you think that Sirzechs wouldn't share what he learned with me?"

Grunting under the pressure the old man was exhibiting Vali strained to open his mouth as his blood began to pound in his ear. "Those things are suppressing my power Vali, I won't be able to divide his power as much as normal," Albion warned.

"More the second than the first honestly. And I didn't think that Sirzechs of all people would have the will to break out the scalpel and waterboarding,"

"No need for that, just a family visit is all that was needed. Seems unlike you, Bikou had some guilt about the rest of the shit the Khaos Brigade has been up to. Told Sirzechs more than enough to start him clearing house, and then passed on your little bit of betrayal to me." Azazel shook his head, more sad than angry. "Honestly, Vali, why the hell did you think that joining that crazy group would do you any good?"

"I was never out to do good, or to live well or shit like that!" Vali ground out, getting used to the magical pressure now and pushing away from the chair to stand directly across from the now also standing Azazel. "All I have ever wanted, all I will ever want is to fight and grow stronger! I have hated the fact that I was born in this era of peace, and you think I would turn away from a group that would bring Khaos to this peaceful existence? FUCK THAT!"

With that roar, Vali pushed through the magic of the sealing array, activating Divine Dividing. "Scale Mail!" The wings of the Sacred Gear appeared above his shoulders in blue and white armor, which began to spread down from his shoulders.

The transformation was slowed tremendously by the barrier though, and Azazel had already activated another series of barriers, which attacked Vali in turn. Purple and dark tan lines of magic flared across the room, some coming up from the floor to tie Vali down, the rest from the surrounding walls. Still more, these in an off-white color with grasping ends that looked more like tentacles came down from the roof, trying to grab at Vali's shoulders and back.

"Divide, DIVIDE!" Albion's voice roared out, and the magic of the seals started to fade away bar the original, which had been crafted specifically to suppress draconic power. Indeed, if Albion was there in person, he would have been weakened more than he was at present with his Sacred Gear tied to Vali's soul, and his specific type of magic might not have worked at all. Not that it would have mattered. Even at his weakest state when he had a body of his own, Albion was able to sneer at any force below a hundred Archangels, such was his physical strength.

But now the barrier slowed Vali's movements and transformation down, allowing Azazel to close over his desk. In his hand was not a light spear, but some kind of giant syringe, it's metal needle gleaming green for some reason as he aimed it at Vali's neck.

Whatever that was supposed to do to him, Vali had no wish to discover. He desperately shifted the way the armor was appearing, forcing it up his neck and face more quickly rather than down from his shoulders and up his neck at the same time. This sped up the process, allowing the armor to be in place to catch the needle, which seemed to shatter on his armor, sending dark green liquid everywhere.

But Vali could pay it no mind as a punch from Azazel sent him reeling. Even with Divine Dividing taking half the strength from the blow, it lifted Vali off his feet, sending him crashing into a wall.

This proved to be an error, however, as Vali landed by one of the talismans that Azazel had used to create the anti-draconic barrier. Instantly he reached across, tearing it into pieces. And instantly, he felt the return of a large portion of his power.

But Azazel closed again before the rush of power even finished going through Vali's armored form. One hand clamped down on his shoulder as a Light Spear, shaped into a short sword, pressed hard against Vali's abdomen. "Surrender, kid! I don't want to have to hurt you any more than I already have, but I will!"

At that point, Azazel was interrupted by the door banging open, and Shemhazi came in his eyes wide. "Azazel, what the hell is going on?"

A slight turn of Azazel's head was all Vali needed. He let loose a roar and kicked out hard, catching Azazel right in the fork, something Azazel would never have anticipated. Vali wasn't the type to normally go for below the belt.

With all the power he had gathered from defending himself against the barrier and Azazel's punch a moment ago, the kick lifted the Governor-General off his feet, hurling him backward to crash through the opposite wall.

A second later, Vali smashed into the outer wall and out into the Underworld beyond. Light Spears flared after him from Shemhazi and a slowly recovering Azazel, but an instant later, Vali had grabbed at the silver necklace at his side, breaking it, and activating the Blink spell within. As Shemhazi watched, he disappeared from the air over the Grigori headquarters. "… You think he bought it?" he asked, looking over at Azazel. "I'm assuming you were able to emplace the tracking spell, you'll note."

"Of course I did, who do you take me for? My acting ability was perfect, the little ass probably thought I was holding back just because I didn't want to hurt him, and certainly never noticed me putting the tracking charm on him," Azazel grumped. "Wherever he goes, we'll know, and finally have a target that might really hurt the Khaos Brigade."

While He had been holding Vali against the wall, Azazel had placed a spell on Vali as Vali attempted to shift his armor to block the needle, thinking it had been the main danger.

"Given what Sirzechs passed on about what his sister found out, I'm uncertain that they should be our priority. Still, you're the boss."

"Good. And don't worry. I think we just showed there is more than one way to skin a dragon, no matter how powerful. Now for something more important."

"And that is?" Shemhazi questioned, looking very quizzical.

"Getting me some ice." Azazel whimpered as he slid back to his knees. "Fucking kid just had to hit below the belt!"

"Heh, a billion women the world over will no doubt send him gift baskets," Shemhazi teased, even as he moved to the door.

OOOOOOO

Leaving after an early breakfast the next day, the trip to Ballycroy took about an hour and a half even with the various spells they had put on the truck thanks to the distance involved from Dublin to the Nephin Beg mountain range in County Mayo where the park was located. They stopped to eat an early lunch before entering the park like a normal group would, the various spells on the SUV fading out as they pulled up to the visitor center, a large white building designed in what Mittelt explained was an ultramodern style.

Inside, while the others began to look around at the landscape paintings of the area, Harry spoke to the park ranger on duty, who noted down their numbers and the title of their car. "And where will you be staying, do you think?"

"We don't rightly know just yet," Harry said, smiling politely at the man. "We figured we would just come here and play the rest by ear. But I wanted to ask you if you had noticed anything unusual around here?"

The man sniffed as if he had smelled something unpleasant, sticking his nose in the air slightly. "No, I haven't. And if'n ye are some of those gobdaws who believe in the Fae or such-like, I'd say yer wastin' yer time. Whatever's been causing the swamp gases to rise from the peat bogs has naught to do with the supernatural!"

Harry and Rias exchanged a glance as the redhead moved over to Harry, absentmindedly entwining her hand with his as Harry looked back to the ranger. "Okay, that actually sounds dangerous. Where were these gases seen so we can avoid them?"

"Now that you have gone and asked that, be aware the park authorities are not liable for anythin' that you run into if you ignore the warning signs and instructions," the man warned, but after a very mild compulsion charm from Harry, he sighed and pulled out a map. "I'll give ya a map where some of the rest of your born-again Wiccans have been lookin' for fairy lights or whatever."

"As for the play it by ear, we prefer people to have specific campgrounds picked out," the man went on as he finished marking the map. Then he sighed like the weight of the world had settled on his shoulders. "However, I suppose that we can do that for you now. Now, this campsite's full already, but over here and…"

Harry had no time for petty bureaucrats like this, the kind which always tried to make you feel as if you were stupid simply because you didn't want to follow normal procedure. So it was with a bit of glee that he asked Rias to memory charm the man. He would remember that Harry had come in, but not the make or number of the car, the makeup of his family or his questions. Rias's memory charms were more subtle than the wizard equivalent.

With that done, the group piled back into the SUV and continued on, slowing down due to the road's conditions as they moved deeper into the park.

Over the next two hours, they discovered a few new temporarily warded areas, the outlines hazy but visible to the wizards thanks to the Mage Sight spell. These were enchantments laid down by wizards. Some were wards set to stun or entrap. This proved that the Unspeakables knew that this area was a part of the deific enchantment. This actually made Harry wonder if they were barking up the wrong tree even as they canceled out the dangerous enchantments and moved on deeper into the park, higher up into the mountains.

But before he could voice that thought, they broke through a bit of peat bog, and at the bottom of the next ridge, Harry began to see a faint glow of magic. A lot of magic. The glow went from one horizon to the next as he turned his head this way and that, and he smiled faintly. "I think we've discovered at the very least another one of the areas that was meant to be a teleport point."

Moments later, they stood on top of a tiny hill, barely a mound in the land, but one which was shaped like a long ridge. It had hidden the enchantment from them, but now Asia, Lily, Harry and Yubelluna were all able to see it. To their senses, it looked like a three feet wide road of energy about a foot down into the ground, only visible this close underneath the overlaying spell hiding it from discovery by other magic users.

"It's huge!" Lily exclaimed, staring from one into the other. "I can't see the end of it in either direction."

Rolf, an experienced outdoorsman, quickly got out the map, put down a compass on top, and used a modified Point Me spell. Point Me spells didn't work on concepts, they had to be specific. You couldn't, say, use a Point Me spell to find a direction of the answer to a mystery, or in this case, the direction of whatever was at the heart of this deific magic.

But Rolf's modified spell merged the Point Me spell with another divining spell, which, Rolf hastened to point out to the watching Devils, were not just about reading the future in tea leaves. "It is, in point of fact, about simply finding things you want to. Wizards in ancient times made quite a lot of money using them to find precious metals. But this spell will just help me find my position on the map."

His wand quickly smacked down into the map on one position, and Rolf looked at it closely. Asia came over, looking over his shoulder with a whispered apology, but Rolf shrugged it off as he pointed to the right. "That way is deeper into the park. The other way leads out to the edge made by the Slieve Carr mountain. I would wager the burial cairn up there is one of the edge stones."

"Is it just me, or is this, this inner framework, let's call it, almost intact?" Yubelluna asked, staring into the ground. She couldn't see any fraying or anything similar to this enchantment, although oddly, the odd bit of black and light blue-seeming color was there in wide veins scattered along its length, far more than they had previously seen even in Fort Navan.

"The inner framework is indeed practically whole. Which probably that we are on the right track here," Harry agreed.

"If you're right about the size, a significant portion of the park might be covered with the fog. We'll have to do something about that, I think, make certain that no non-magicals are going to be caught up in whatever we do here," Tonks warned.

Rias agreed, then looked over at Harry. "Do you want me to get on that now?"

Harry thought about for a moment, then nodded. "Good Idea, Rias. Tonks, do you have any friends in Ireland?" When the former Auror answered in the affirmative, he went on.

"Then head to Inishshark and get in touch with them. We might need to have them willing to help with the Obliviate teams. I'll also send a message to the Ministry. With what I sent last night, they should already be ready to go, but they will have to force the Unspeakables to tell them about all the sites they haven't mentioned to anyone else on the magical side. I doubt that this is the only one they handled without informing anyone else on the magical side. Take Luna with you just in case you run into Unspeakables elsewhere in the park. When we stop, we'll throw up a magical flare to guide you to us."

Without another word, Rias moved over to Luna, hefting the shorter blonde woman into her arms as Rias's wings appeared from her shoulders. Flapping once put her in the air, and she was off, heading towards the entrance to the park, where, judging by the locals, she would find a record of how many people were in the park at the moment. With that, she could move around and use bounded fields to protect the people around the park for twenty-four hours. It was a bit brute force, but that would keep the people already in the park safe and ignorant of the magic going on in the real world. People coming in afterward would be an issue, as would the few roving park rangers. But there weren't many of them, and Luna put all of them under Cunfoundus charms one after another, so they wouldn't notice anything unusual. The Wizards and Ministry would have to handle the idea of more people coming into the park.

Back with the others, Harry looked over at Rolf, who once again pointed in the direction deeper into the park. Thinking for a moment, Harry nodded to but decided to prepare for trouble now.

"Mittelt, take to the air," he ordered, covering the girl with a portion of his Invisibility Cloak, looking around to the others as the diminutive Fallen-turned-Devil summoned up her wings. "We know there are Unspeakables out here people, whether or not they want to fight us is a question. But if they do, we'll be ready for them. Same rules of engagement as before, nonlethal unless there's no other way to defend someone in our party. We don't want more troubles with the Wizarding World then we already have. But don't hold back beyond that. The Unspeakables are not my favorite people right now, and I really would like to put some shock or awe into them."

Besides, I doubt they would even be able to tell anyone about us. Secret of theirs or no, I think the Unspeakables are bound to simply not divulge anything to anyone else. Stupid blighters, the lot of them, Harry reflected.

"Then why don't you cover all of us with your cloak?" Rolf asked.

"Because it wouldn't do anything for the tracks we're leaving behind," Harry answered with a shrug.

It was well that Harry had prepared them, because about twenty minutes of driving in a straight line later, they came down into a small gully where they found an ambush waiting for them. Spells raced towards them without any warning at all, and Harry threw up a hasty Protego in front of the SUV. "Combatants out of the car! Lily, stay here!" The SUV had been enchanted to be more durable as well as all the other spellwork that had been placed on it.

Leaping out of the window as only she could, Koneko barely had an instant to squawk in surprise before spells were coming out at her while Loup took a moment to shift into his werewolf form before opening the door. Moving slower than the Nekoshu, he took a few cutting spells and growled angrily, but thanks to his werewolf durability, they didn't do much but slow him down.

Following the two of them out of the SUV, Harry rolled as he hit the peat bog underneath them. Twisting onto his side, gestured with his hand outstretched. "Finite Incantatum!" blasting the area with the cancellation spell. This should have instantly canceled the invisibility charms covering the Unspeakables, Harry's power washing the enemy's spells away.

But these Unspeakables were armed with their own Invisibility Cloaks. The enchantments on them were such that a Finite Incantatum couldn't do anything. Koneko, Harry, and Loup had extra senses and attempted to use them to discover where the attackers were coming from.

But this didn't work. The Unspeakables had covered themselves with a spell that canceled out their smell, and none of them made any noise as they shifted from one position to another. Further, they weren't fighting nicely. After that first fusillade, all of them had shifted entirely to deadly spells.

Yubelluna was nearly hit by a Reducto, but Loup used a Protego at the last moment while the rest dodged or guarded at need. Then they both went on the attack, with Yubelluna using her Sacred Gear to try to let Loup get close, but she was forced to stop as she was suddenly being flanked from her right, taking flight to avoid a cutting spell before using her own shield against a third.

As he created a massive rampart of stone around all of his allies, Harry wasn't certain where all the animosity was coming from, but he was now determined that regardless of what would occur to the Unspeakable in question, he was going to get some answers from this group. "Kinzoku (metal)!" With the use of the Japanese spell, he conjured up a metal dragon, sending it forward.

The Unspeakables attempted to shatter the metal of the dragon, but it moved too quickly to be blasted more than a few times. And, thanks to the spell which had created it, even broken up, the metal was still under Harry's command. That was why element-type attacks were such a major part of the Onmyodo assault spells: once the element was called upon, the wizard who did so controlled it unless it was completely destroyed or his old on it was broken by a stronger wizard. And now, as the remains of the dragon closed, the bits of the metal dragon shifted under Harry's mental direction into a hail of blunted mushroom-shaped bits of metal, going at a considerable speed.

The physical attack broke through several Protegos the Unspeakables had thrown up, showing that for all their knowledge, they lacked combat experience. Protego was a good shield to use against spells, not large scale physical attacks like the mass of metal coming towards them. The bits of metal smashed away Unspeakables. Several of them finally became clear, their pixelated faces showing as their hoods fell back, or their feet became visible underneath the Invisibility Cloaks as they were knocked off their feet.

Yubelluna instantly followed this up, a fierce grin on her purple painted lips as she shouted out, "Bombardier, Claymore!" This spell caught four of the Unspeakables blowing the ground beneath them up and into the air. Because Yubelluna had targeted the ground, not the people standing on it, they were still in one piece. The wizards would simply wish they weren't when they woke up and would need medical attention on their legs lest they bleed out.

At the same time, Mittelt began to send down Light Spears forgoing any attempt to seem like a witch considering she was already flying under her own power. She aimed to miss, but the Unspeakables didn't know that and had to split their attention between her and the others, who were now hidden behind a wall of stone and Protego shields created by a frowning Asia.

Behind this protection, Rolf knelt down, muttering a spell under his breath, before smacking his wand down on the ground. From the ground erupted a dozen leaping rabbits. All of whom were armed with stone axes.

"Hmm, good thinking. Stick to physical type spells," Harry ordered, then conjured up several dozen snakes hissing out commands, "*Head towards the origin of the spells coming towards my friends and try to bite whoever is attacking us!*"

The spells coming at them sharply declined at that point, the remaining Unspeakables, perhaps six or seven at that point, pushed entirely on the defensive. They continued to lose men until finally, the last two Unspeakables made a mistake. They stayed in place too long, and a Stupefy from Loup caught one while Koneko leaped forward to where the last one had to be, having watched the wave of banished creatures. He was still invisible until she actually landed on them, then she was able to see underneath the hood to the pixelated face. A punch flashed out into the center of that face, controlled so it would only knock the human out instead of turning his head into a fine paste.

Blood burst from his shattered nose despite that, going from pixelated to regular, and Koneko smirked slightly at the effect, before grabbing one unseen portion of the human, grimacing then grabbing another portion, making a mental note to wipe her hand off later. With that, she dragged the cloak off him, holding it in one hand, before dragging the man across towards Harry and the others with her other hand.

"Do you think we can keep these? As great as your invisibility spells are Tou-san, all of us having our own would be nice," she said, then was rewarded with a nice head-pat that caused her to purr briefly while Lily gave her a thumbs up.

Pulling his hand away from a now mildly pouting Koneko, Harry hit the Invisibility Cloaks with a few analysis spells. He then shook his head. "Sorry, no can do. Each of them have a tracking charm woven into their very fibers, along with the invisibility enchantment. "Still, they are quite good. When we get to Egypt, perhaps we should look into buying some from the Wizarding World black market. I'll ask Tonks. She's the one who would know best how to go about doing that."

Koneko nodded. The Invisibility Cloaks, even the non-immortal versions that the Wizarding World had created, were actually better than similar spells, which she, as a Devil, had access to. Her Senjutsu illusion spells could do much the same work, but she wasn't anywhere near as good with them as she could want to be, certainly not very fast with them.

When they had the group of twelve Unspeakables laid out in front of them, Harry pulled off the Invisibility Cloaks from all of them, stacking them to one side before using a painting spell on the mound so that everyone could see them, before turning to the Unspeakables. Even now, with their hoods pushed back, their faces were obscured, the pixels in place to hide their identities. It must be some kind of runic tattoo rather than an actual mask. The masks I suppose are for more formal functions.

Snickering a little at that thought, Harry then began to wake them up, laying Fragarach on the ground in front of him in the form of a tiny dagger form, unseen under a bit of his own 'cloak'. "Why are you Unspeakables fighting me so much?" He asked without preamble. "I realize you lot love your secrets, but the Minister basically gave me carte blanche to look into this whole white fog business as an independent advisor. Yet you all are fighting me as if I'm an enemy. Why?"

"You are foreign," the Unspeakable replied, his voice tinny and utterly impersonal, another spell used to hide his identity, before trying to raise his arms to clamp them over his mouth. "How…"

Harry smiled thinly. "That will remain my secret. What do you mean I'm foreign?"

"You're no longer human," the Unspeakable hissed like a kettle under pressure. "You are no wizard, you have dallied with other powers! If not for the fact that you no longer lived in the United Kingdom and your own notoriety, our mission objective would be to contain you, imprison and perhaps experiment on you to discover what kind of magic you have been subjected to."

The insults and rain washing off him like water off a duck's back, Harry continued his questioning. "Why?" With Fragarach, that kind of all-encompassing question was the best way to get results, a sharp difference from using Veritaserum or even an Imperio spell.

"The, the Department of Mysteries was, ch-charged by the predecessor of the Ministry, the Coterie of Merlin, t, to make certain that the Wizarding World and its inhabitants remained aloof from all other magical societies. Our ma, mandate was then enlarged with the c, creation of the Statute of Secrecy and the a, a, arrays that cut the Wizarding World away from the nonmagical world."

The Unspeakable actually looked like he was in pain now as the words were forced out of his mouth despite his oath, Fragarach's magic overwhelming the man's own magic, which would normally have kept his lips sealed. But after the battle they just had, Harry didn't care. This was the fourth time the Unspeakables had threatened his family and his daughters, in particular. Harry was very close to forgetting the fact they were all supposed to be on the same side and unleash his bestial side. "And you are obviously under Magical Oath to keep those secrets."

The man nodded, but as his head moved, froth began to appear from his pixelated face, and Harry sighed, knocking the man out with a simple stunner, before turning his attention to another. Going to have to spread out my questioning, I suppose.

In this fashion, he learned that the Unspeakables already knew about the other magical systems out there, making Mittelt's earlier show somewhat less impressive. But they also knew that in terms of power, many of them, Godly, Devil, and so forth, were much superior to that of wizard-kind. But their mandate wasn't changed by that information.

When it became clear to the Unspeakables that they could not solve the fog problem, they were caught in a quandary. They had to act according to their Magical Oaths to try to mitigate the damage, but when Harry came along, one of their other mandates had superseded that: the importance of removing or containing contamination from other magical systems.

When he was done, Harry honestly felt somewhat sorry for them. The Unspeakables were all caught between Magical Oaths, putting them in an untenable position. But he didn't feel all that sorry for them. After all, the Unspeakables had been the ones to craft those Oaths, and they should have realized that at some point, one or two of them might contradict. The fact that they hadn't was a sign of gross stupidity on their part.

Regardless, he decided not to simply dump their bodies somewhere. He made certain that all twelve of them were unconscious, then with their cloaks still painted, levitated them all into the air. "I'm going to dump this lot somewhere. Find a nearby campground, then send up a rally spell, we'll all meet there before we decide what to do next."

Rias and Luna returned quickly after Harry sent up a magical flare, reporting that the park was nearly empty of people save for around the southernmost areas. She also reported that their phones had no signal, something none of the others had realized until then. "This park is so big it shouldn't surprise us that we're in a dead zone. But I was able to find and place most of the people into bounded fields. Luna was also a big help with the Park Rangers."

With Rias and Luna back, it was Harry and Yubelluna's turn to leave the group. Taking two of Harry's brooms – they were faster than flying on their own – the two of them skimmed across the land in different directions following the thread of magic they had discovered. Having already ranged out from their current position, they had found a few other threads, but they were so dense that Harry couldn't figure out which direction to go to the center of this vast array.

It turned out his guess that the center would be deeper in the park was wrong. And so was their idea of the area involved. About twenty minutes of flight, Harry found the end of the magical thread, another set of broken and ruined ward stones. Here the deific blessing had become frayed and tattered once more, which no doubt meant this was the source of the magically infused white fog, but not the actual enchantment.

However, Yubelluna found something else entirely. She returned to the others at breakneck speed, nearly collapsing off her broom. "By the Maous of old, how in the hells do wizards have any bits left if they ride those things so much!?" she grumbled, rubbing her rear, before smiling at the others in delight. "I think I might have found it…"

It, in this case, was well out of the park by a good fourteen miles, although that didn't mean there were any actual nonmagicals around either, the whole territory being mostly uninhabited. The site she found was up the side of Slieve Carr, in a tiny valley in the side of the mountain that was practically invisible until you were right on top of it, no magic needed. Inside the valley, which was about four hundred hundred yards across, there was a single tree ringed around with another set of enchantments that Yubelluna, as a bandrui, could see through easily to the reality beneath.

When Harry and she worked together to banish the illusion covering it, that reality was truly breathtaking. The tree was an ancient oak, truly massive, so huge it almost looked like a miniature redwood in girth instead of a regular oak tree. Yet for all its age, it was alive, gloriously alive, with green leaves on every bough, through which someone had once hung silver bells, which were now badly corroded, yet the corrosion had somehow not spread to the tree. Here and there faces had been somehow molded out of the trunk. Not carved. It looked like the tree had been shaped almost like clay at those points to create the faces.

Faces that were not human. They were too pointed, thin and angular, with wide ears to be human.

When she looked at it, Lily instantly raced forward and began climbing, her form shifting to her were-body as she yipped happily even as her dress ripped, unable to cope with the sudden shift. There was just something about this tree that made it impossible to not climb. Koneko joined her quickly, her ears and tails out as did a laughing Luna. The older woman kicked out of her boots with delight before running barefoot over the roots and up the side, grabbing a limb and flipping herself upward like an acrobat.

The others were simply in awe of the sight, and what was revealed between the two largest roots, which acted almost like short walls, spreading out from the base of the tree. For there under the roots of the tree was a small bit of stone, just barely sticking out from under a lot of piled up loam. Behind which, Harry could see more magic almost hidden by the peat, just barely visible.

"That tree must be an example of the Fae's work," Rias breathed, while nearby Yubelluna was just staring avidly at the tree, her eyes far away as she lost herself to listening to its ancient voice. "And the Fae were involved in whatever enchantment this was to their homelands. If, if that is some kind of passage tomb, and it's intact, then…."

"Then we will have what we need to figure out if we need to go through, or can safely shut this enchantment down," Harry nodded firmly. "Rias, if you could throw up some concealment charms, Rolf, Tonks, let's get to work. Gentle excavation spells I, think, nothing that can damage stone… or tree." He added hastily under Yubelluna's sudden laser-like glare.

The peat was slowly removed, revealing the passage tomb hidden under the tree. Though small, barely large enough to let Lily inside, the runes on the stones set to either side of the entrance, and above were very clearly delineated. "Yes!"

Everyone bar the trio climbing the tree breathed a sigh of relief. "With these, we should be able to figure out what to do to either shut down this deific enchantment or use it to go through to Tir Na Nog," Rias gave voice to all their thoughts. She then looked over at Harry, then up at the climbing Lily. "But are we going to do that?"

"I really wish we didn't have to. Simply figuring out a way to successfully destroy this enchantment, whatever it is, without damaging the world around us would be better. But if we can't do it without causing damage to the physical world around us, then recreating fal stones enough to seal off the…"

Harry broke off as the phoenix, Fawkes, appeared in midair above them, flying above their heads as its song began to fill the area. It moved around the tree, warbling and trilling in delight, before alighting between Asia and Lily as they sat on a bough above the others, singing and crooning as both of them moved to scratch at her neck.

Harry looked up at Fawkes, his arms crossed as he almost glared at the light-sided creature. Which he was now certain was not simply a phoenix. "About time you showed up you old sack of feathers! So, do you want to explain to me why I can't just try to destroy these enchantments?"

The bird trailed sadly before raising its voice in song, and Harry blinked as an image filled his head. Harry had the strength to destroy the enchantments if he could figure out how which was up in the air. But even if he could do it, breaking the deific enchantment would be like a generator sending all the energy it had within out in a single moment. All the power within which came from Tir Na Nog would simply roar out uncontrollably. Right now, it was still bound by the blessing, only reacting to Harry, given how much of himself Manannán had put into the spell work.

The effect on both sides of the portal for that kind of uncontrolled outburst would be extreme. Ireland would be shattered as if it had just taken a series of mid-size earthquakes. The other side would face the same kind of destruction.

Harry sighed sadly as Fawkes stopped singing, and the vision ended. "Can I at least keep her out of it? She's too young for this!" Truly, Harry knew this was a bit of a forlorn hope given how Asia and Lily had both been pulled into Tir Na Nog once already in spirit, but it had to be asked anyway.

And, unfortunately, there was no one in the UK that Harry would trust to watch Lily anyway. The closest was Hermione, but even then, while he trusted her to watch Lily, Hermione lacked the raw magical power to protect his daughter from the threats in this new, wider world Harry and his daughter had joined. And with Ireland as a whole being a staunch Christian bastion, there was no Devil clan nearby which could be prevailed on to let them access to the Underworld, where they could have dropped her off with Sirzechs.

He ignored Lily's indignant growl, or Koneko's firm agreement, as she ruffled the younger girl's hair. He did smile though at her whisper of "Wait until you're at least fourteen before going looking for trouble."

Lily's response nearly had Harry laughing out loud despite the gravity of the moment. "But my daddy only waited until he was twelve!"

"He was precocious like that, my dear. Despite the adventures you've already had, we in no way want you to keep following in your father's footsteps in that manner," Rias drawled, looking from the phoenix to Harry and back again. "And I agree it would be nice to leave Lily out of this adventure if at all possible."

But Fawkes replied in the negative to Harry's statement, her song still beautiful but somber as meaning came across almost like a psychic sending carried by her music. Lily was connected to the enchantment just like Harry was thanks to their blood status, and her consciousness at the very least would be pulled into the other world if Harry and the others tried to cross over. And in that form, she would be in more danger, not less. Especially if she did not travel with them.

Growling in annoyance at that, Harry looked over to Yubelluna, the commiserating, worried look on her face, and that of Rias who moved to stand beside the bandrui, caused him to calm down. This process was completed by Koneko leaping out of the tree to land on his back, wrapping her arms around him. "Don't worry, Tou-san. I will watch her too."

Tilting his head slightly to the side, Harry pressed his head into the side of Koneko's. "Thank you, Koneko-love."

Seeing her husband's acceptance of what they would have to do, Rias turned to the others, burying her own anger at having to put Lily in danger. "Right, let's do this then. Luna, while you're up there, see if you can do something about the rust on those chimes. Mittelt, head back to the SUV and gather up our luggage. I doubt we could get the car up here, and it's better to leave it where it is hidden now."

Most of the luggage at this point meant food they'd bought just in case they did indeed have to travel to this other dimension, but there were also the portable speakers they had bought the other day. But Rias had read a bit about the ritual that Yubelluna wanted to use and knew that the sacrifice of food – tossing choice viands into a fire, was part of it. And we have 'Fawkes' here, so that makes the idea of adding fire to the ceremony doubly important. "Rolf, if you could gather up material for torches somewhere?"

"Hmm… and we'll need to set up some means to play some music here. I don't think Yubelluna alone will be enough for what we have in mind, and…" She paused, pulling out her cell phone and scowling. "And I still don't have signal out here. Drat. Still, let's get everything else set up, and then figure out a way around that problem. I'll start transfiguring a few sconces for the torches. Lily, shout out if you and Koneko find anything strange up there beyond the faces."

Watching Rias take over the preparation, Harry chuckled, tapped his head against Koneko's a single time, before indicating she should hop off before crooking a finger to Loup before he could get caught up in Rias's preparations. As Loup moved to stand in front of him, Harry hit Loup with several spells, and the others watched as Harry's invisibility cloak father began to appear once again around him, enveloping the werewolf and hiding him from view from all of them save Harry himself. "You're the best hunter here, scout around us for a bit, Loup. I want to make certain we're alone out here. The last thing we need is the Unspeakables on our tail and interfering when we perform this ceremony."

OOOOOOO

About two hours after Harry and his group had left the welcome center, a small, extremely sporty coupe pulled up to the building. A moment later, Arthur stepped out, moving to check in with the park rangers, the same one who had been so annoyed with Harry and the others, and who had, when inputting Potter's name into a computer, been told to call a specific agency in the Irish government. It had taken the twosome that long to follow up on the call, having also been in Dublin.

Moments later, he was back, sitting back down in the driver's seat as he looked at his sister. "He couldn't tell me what their car looked like. Going by what you told me to look for, I think he was placed under a charm of some kind," he grumbled, shaking his head. "Still, it shouldn't be too difficult to check all of the parking spaces in this area."

Le Fay shook her head very slowly from side to side. "Brother dear, didn't you notice how large this park was? It would take days even to just look at the places where people are normally allowed to camp out. Furthermore, why do you think that they would be sticking to regular parking spaces? They are wizards and Devils, remember?"

He paused, then nodded agreement. "Yes, that was rather foolish of me. Thank you for the correction. What would you suggest then, dearest sister?"

"Historical sites," she said promptly. With that, she began to direct them down the road ahead of them, then to the left and around a hill with a map of the park, frowning as she did. "This burial cairn on Slieve Carr that's supposed to be the resting place of a giant perhaps, the Daithi Ban? The park was enlarged to include it, but it looks to be the most interesting of the historical sites." she sighed, shaking her head. "There's going to be a lot of flying and hiking here brother dear."

As Le Fay had warned, the two of them were soon forced to leave their car behind quickly. But Le fay had planned for this, and the two of them continued on in that direction for a while, flying on brooms she had bought and walking in turn, using Point Me spell to head straight to the cairn Le Fay felt might be Harry's goal.

It wasn't, but it was surprisingly close. Although the cairn itself had no magic, it was at the top of the mountain whose foothills contained the Fae-influenced Tree that Yubelluna had found.

About five minutes after the trail began to become steep enough to be called that, Arthur abruptly halted in place, his sword suddenly in his hand almost as if it had been teleported there from the scabbard at his waist, as he looked around, his other hand held up in a fist to signal his sister to stop. "Wait," He ordered firmly. "There is something here."

Le Fay looked at him quizzically. "Where? I don't even see any magic around, let alone any personEEEP!"

Her voice broke off in a yelp as a hand lightly touched the back of her head. She whirled around as did Arthur, but he should have really been paying attention to his own front. Behind him, a massive werewolf loomed, about to do the same to him in turn. But sensing something behind him, Arthur twisted around, his sword flashing. The werewolf leaped away, glaring, and Arthur turned to the werewolf that had come up behind Le Fay.

A werewolf, she noticed, who had emerald eyes and was now grinning at her, its fangs carefully hidden to not appear threatening. He held up a large paw towards Arthur, and a shield appeared between Arthur and Loup. Arthur cut it in half with his sword, but by that point, Le Fay had regained her senses and shouted, "Mr. Potter, we're working with the British Government, MI6!"

Looking at the young girl incredulously, Harry turned his attention back to the sword wielder just in time to see him forcing Loup back once more, the large werewolf barely able to escape a blow before he twisted around and launched himself toward Harry. The man was quick for certain, but he was just a bit too far away to bring Harry into close combat before Harry could bring magic into play.

And that made all the difference.

"Switch off Loup. Glacio!" Harry intoned, pointing at the ground. Arthur leaped into the air, seeming to fly forward, but Harry had already Apparated several dozen yards away. Ten quick spells followed, flowing out from Harry's outstretched hands. Several were aimed directly at Arthur, while several were aimed at the ground underneath him, turning it into mud then making it come alive to try and wrap Arthur up in its muddy embrace.

Arthur slashed into it, and for just a moment, Harry blinked, seeing the mud moving away from him as if Arthur had taken control of it, willing the mud away from himself. The sword in his hand was interesting, radiating quite a bit of magic, faith-based magic of some sort, making Harry wonder what kind of spell could create that reaction. Beyond that, the young man was fast, his moves showing no tells at all, and his sword style was intensely precise, controlled, reminding Harry strongly of Kiba. His reaction time was also reminiscent of Harry's: viper quick, and his situational awareness seemed to be amazing.

But it didn't matter as he had stayed in one place for too long, and Harry was able to keep the range open. And while the holy sword the young man was using was able to cut through the magic spells hammering him, the spell blasts had to come close to him for him to do so.

An overpowered Lumos blinded Arthur with its brightness, causing him to be unable to see, and another spell caught him on one leg freezing, him to the ground. Finally, a Stupefy, massively overpowered if Harry had been dealing with a normal human, slammed into Arthur, knocking him out. The spell should honestly have knocked him arse over kettle, but instead, he simply slumped, showing the young man had a great deal of magical resistance.

At the same time, Loup had moved over to the other interloper taking Harry's place, just standing there with a hand on her shoulder in case she made any move to join the battle. But Le Fay made no move to fight them, determined to try not to get into a fight with a person who could probably easily kill them both if he felt it was needed. "Mr. Potter, please stop! We really are working for the British government."

Harry looked at her shaking his shaggy head slightly before gesturing Loup over to the now unconscious Arthur, dissipating the spells on him as he did. "We're not in the UK, and even if we were, this is the first I've heard of the nonmagical government having magicals on their payroll. On top of that, even if I was one to believe in coincidences, this would be one heck of a doozy, little miss. Still, I will give you the benefit of the doubt. Explain."

To Le Fay's relief, both werewolves now stayed away from her, with the other one taking Excalibur Ruler from her brother, before backing away. Harry then levitated Arthur over to land gently at Le Fay's feet, before moving away. "Um, it is unusual, but our family is sort of unusual too. On top of that, our cousin is a member of the Secret Service, MI6. He works with several, um, nonmagicals born into magical families. I don't really like the derogatory word for them."

"No reason you should. But go on."

"Um, He is sort of in charge of a joint operation between the portions of the British government and the Republic of Ireland's that is dealing with these weird outbursts of magically infused Fog. As for us, um, our family has never been really involved with the Wizarding World society. We much prefer to keep to the nonmagical world for many reasons. But we know about it and have always homeschooled ourselves in magic."

Harry grunted at that, then looked at the sword in Loup's hand. "Is that a family heirloom then?"

"Erm. Yes. It's been in our family for generations, and Arthur was allowed its use," Le Fay answered, grateful that Arthur while coming around, was still a bit too out of it to argue the point. His misplaced sense of pride was not something they needed now.

Before Le Fay could think of what to say next, Harry quickly twisted around just a bit. As he did, she noted that there was something like a metal claw on top of one of his own. He pointed the thing on his finger towards Arthur, who, Harry reflected, had recovered extremely quickly from the stunning spell. "Do you intend any danger or harm to me and mine?"

"Not unless you attempt to harm my sister. If you do, I will do my utmost to end you," Arthur replied instantly before blinking and narrowing his eyes behind his glasses as he stared at Harry. "What just happened?"

Harry went on without answering. "What is that weapon you have?"

"A family heirloom called Excalibur fragments Excalibur Ruler," Arthur answered before locking his jaw around the words.

Harry blinked at that, and then slowly nodded now his head to Le Fay, indicating he saw she had answered truthfully, something, she suddenly realized, he was able to know. Fragarach!? But, it has a mutable state-effect? I've never heard of it being able to change forms. Amazing!

"Isn't that interesting. But you have no connection to the church?" Harry asked.

"Our family historically had a connection to the church until the creation of the Church of England by Henry VIII. Our oaths to the King made us follow him into his break from the Vatican," Arthur said, calming down somewhat at this line of questioning. So long as their connection to the Khaos Brigade did not come out, they could get through this, he supposed. And his earlier experience against the werewolf demigod had proven that unless he could get within hand to hand range Potter would just batter him down with an endless stream of spells.

Harry finally allowed whatever that was on his finger to fall away from pointing at Arthur, looking at the two of them, then he pointed his finger again almost gently at Le Fay, who straightened her shoulders and stared back at him unafraid. As she watched, he shifted, transforming back into his human shape. It was much less threatening, and the glimmer of his eyes was now definitely gentle, reminding her of her brother almost.

"Your brother's fierce defensiveness of you has reminded me of my own priorities. I will not deal with either of you harshly, never fear. But I do have one question for you for right now, Le Fay. And then you can explain to myself and to my friends why you're here. I'll even answer your question about why neither of you can lie to me right now. When we met you at the Cathedral of St. Paul's, was that really coincidence?"

"Yes," Le Fay said promptly, and Harry somehow knew that it hadn't been prompted by the finger. "I was only there because I wanted to see the Cathedral. It was magnificent, and our ancestor was actually the bodyguard of the last priest to baptize it. There was still a lot of issues between the church and the Church of England at the time so…"

"Enough," Harry said, clenching his hand, the thing on his finger disappearing before he reached out with his other hand and ruffled her hair. "Enough," he said, shaking his head. "Let's go and talk to the others, so you don't have to explain everything twice. I know how irritating that can get. You can get your weapon back if we agree with the reasoning behind your following us."

"Thank you," Arthur muttered, staring hard at Harry through his small glasses. "And now explain what…"

Harry laughed, sending the young man a look of approval. "You don't cow easily, do you?"

"No," Arthur said simply. "I do not. And my question?" Being forced to answer his questions like that, regardless of my own will, was most unpleasant. Is that what people and animals feel when I use Excalibur Ruler on them?

Now Loup was grinning too and slapped the other young man on the shoulder.

"The answer is the Answerer," Harry said, smirking crookedly.

"Ah," Le Fay said, nodding. "That would do it." Called it! She thought, a chibi-Le Fay in her mind thrusting up a fist in triumph.

"I seem to have missed something, but since my sister with her infinite wisdom seems to have caught it, I suppose that I will get that answer out of her later," Arthur drawled dryly. Arthur then bowed from the waist towards Harry. "Lead on, Sirrah."

Harry chuckled and turned away. Loup moved to walk beside him still in his werewolf form as the two of them led the others off towards where Rias and everyone else was gathering in front of the tree. "You do know there's more to their story than they're telling, right?"

"Perhaps," Harry said with a shrug and a hidden smile. "However… do you think they're bad people?"

Loup frowned cocking his head to one side, surreptitiously looking behind him at the two siblings as they hurried along over the peat behind them. "No. I think they're young and possibly foolish, but they are obviously telling the truth about working for the British government. Still, that leaves a lot of room for everything else."

"Truly. So we speak in front of Rias. Of all of us, she's the most involved in the espionage side of things. And even if there is something more sinister… remember Loup, in war, it isn't always about who wins battles, but who can turn people to their side."

Loup grunted in confusion at that, but Harry didn't elaborate further.

Asia looked up, smiling happily as she finished setting down a plate of berries, fruits and other things that Luna had bought from Inishshark. The two of them had been chatting happily about Harry's Hogwarts years. Harry had told Asia about several of his adventures, but not a lot about the day to day classes, which sounded quite interesting. She was now looking forward to the day when Harry, Sona and Rias would set up the magical school they were looking to in Kuoh.

She blinked, cocking her head as she saw Le Fay and Arthur following Loup and Harry into the culvert towards them. Both of them stopped and stared at the tree as they came under their protective spells, with Le Fay actually going so far as to breathe out a delighted "Goodness!" while Arthur simply stared in shock.

In particular, the phoenix grabbed their attention. They both had heard about the phoenix of Hogwarts, but seeing was something else entirely. And the feeling the thing gave off, that was well beyond what either sibling had ever felt before. Its power was minor in comparison to some of the aura they had been subjected to, but the innate Light-magic that accompanied the phoenix's presence was entirely unusual in how it uplifted their spirits.

Setting down the plate of fruits and nuts, Asia moved down the hill towards them, looking at them quizzically. "Hello! Ano, um, what are you doing here, Miss Le Fay?"

"Miss Asia, we, we were, well…" Le Fay stammered.

"It turns out that Le Fay and her brother have a connection to the British government. Beyond that, let's get everyone together so they can only explain once, lovey," Harry said, saving Le Fay from having to explain what no doubt was supposed to be a secret to the other young lady who she had seemed to befriend so easily.

Moments later, everyone was gathered, and Le Fay and Arthur launched into their spiel. Luckily, the two of them had talked about what they would tell Harry if they were discovered following him after making the decision that was the best way to move forward with their investigation. The issue with Fragarach forcing them to answer honestly had thrown them earlier, but Harry hadn't asked them point-blank about the Khaos Brigade, and Le Fay for certain was not known to be involved with the Khaos Brigade at all. Although Arthur could possibly be recognized. But they just had to hope that that wouldn't be the case.

Le Fay took out her phone as she began to explain more about her cousin Daniel, building off what she had told Harry before. "He gave me this phone, and Arthur got one too, to contact him if we needed help, so I suppose that would be a good place to start. He is something like a secret agent, so..."

She paused, blinking as Yubelluna and Lily both went "Ooooooh!" at that, the little girl's eyes sparkling with delight.

Harry and Rias and the other adults looked at Yubelluna, and she blushed. "Well, excuse me! I have mentioned my Bond fetish a time or two-dozen, haven't I?"

While the others laughed, Arthur allowed a wry smile to appear on his face, putting forth a little joke, blaming it on his sister being there and the effect from the phoenix, who was simply perched in the tree, warbling a low mellow tune. "Funnily enough, Cousin Daniel hates those movies. He says, and I quote, 'being a secret agent is only about twenty-five percent action. The rest is thirty-percent bureaucracy and seventy-percent paperwork."

Lily cocked her head to one side. She didn't like math all that much, but she was good at it, and the others were also looking a little bemused, so she had to ask. "Wouldn't paperwork be part of the bureaucracy, and doesn't that equal up to more than a hundred?"

"That would be the point, yes," Arthur said, still chuckling.

Rias cocked her head thoughtfully as she looked at the two of them. "Do you actually have a signal out here?"

"We do," Le Fay nodded. "It's set up to connect to a secret spy satellite or something. I don't know how it works, but it gives a signal everywhere we go. It was the first thing cousin Daniel gave us when we returned to the UK from where Arthur was studying Asian sword styles."

"The Wing Chun sword style," Arthur said, shrugging his shoulders. "It is a little too passively defensive for my taste, but when facing multiple opponents, it is actually quite a bit better than any European sword style. Furthermore, it…"

"Enough," Rias cut across the young man's voice. Are they trying to divert our attention by giving too much information? "If your story checks out, we might need to borrow those phones from you. But you were saying that this Daniel fellow is leading a joint operation between the ROI and the UK. Why? If they were already working with the Ministry of Magic, then shouldn't the nonmagicals already at least understand it was being handled as best it could be?"

"That's just it," Le Fay answered, looking worried. "You see, while the Obliviators were willing to work with the nonmagical governments, they weren't really telling them what was going on. Add if not for Republic of Ireland's government and the British governments working together almost from the get-go, there would've been a lot more people who had realized what was going on after this last incident with the fog, I mean they were hunting pictures posted online for days. And no one was telling anyone what was causing it. This was making a lot of people anxious. Eventually, Cousin Daniel was asked to call us in by his superiors."

"Explain that more, please," Harry asked. "You said something about your family before?"

Arthur took up the tale. Again, this was nothing but the truth, which was good. Arthur was not someone who was at home with prevarication. "My family is named Pendragon."

Everyone there hissed at that, and Harry said slowly. "Arthur Pendragon. A familial name, I suppose. Quite arrogant, if so."

"Perhaps, but I did not choose my name," Arthur shrugged, that very motion seeming to tell everyone that he cared not for the history behind his name even as he went on, leading the conversation away from their family's origins. "Our family was basically set up to be a clandestine check on the magical world. We were supposed to be called in when magical issues boiled over, either Church-type events or the Wizarding World."

Raising a wintry eyebrow, Harry asked the obvious question to that one. "Why didn't you get involved in the war against Tom Riddle then?"

Le Fay sighed, inching away from her brother, who seemed to growl for a moment his hands clenching and unclenching. "That's sort of a sore subject. We didn't even know it was happening, the two of us, I mean. Our parents should have been involved, but they weren't. The British government didn't ask them to be, and we were deemed too young. Apparently, our father was involved in Riddle's first rising, even in the war against Grindlewald, when he brought his war to England. But we were not called in to help deal with Tom Riddle's resurrection. And when we discovered that, my brother here…"

"I went a little spare," Arthur supplied with a shrug. "That war spilled over into the nonmagical world's despite all you could do Mr. Potter, and we should have been involved in ending it. But instead, the magical government didn't think our family was up to it, given my age at the time and our father's advanced years. And you won the war without us."

Harry nodded slowly. "All right. I have connections with the British government, as well. If I get in touch with them and this Daniel checks out, you can work with us. Although I don't know what you will bring to the table."

"My sword skills and my weapon are most formidable if you give it back to me," Arthur answered simply. "You might have overcome me, Mr. Potter, but do not think that means I am without recourse."

"I'm a dab hand with magical analysis, and I have a mastery of several magical disciplines," Le Fay added, shrugging. "But really, I don't know what I'll be able to offer that you and yours weren't already doing."

Having had to head back to Inishshark where he could Floo-call the Minister, it took Harry about twenty minutes to get in touch with Shacklebolt directly, using a password that Shack had given to him when they had met the other day. The Minister then got in touch with the Prime Minister on the nonmagical side, which caused further delay. Eventually, he discovered that yes, Mi6 did have a branch dedicated to keeping the Wizarding World separate, and who was both working with the ROI and had called for non-Wizarding World magical assistance in the form of the two Pendragons.

Daniel was then brought onto the phone line from where he had situated himself and a team of his fellows in Northern Ireland, coordinating in person with the Irish just in case the fogs appeared again. He gave descriptions of his cousins and then was officially given the names of several Obliviator team leaders he would be working with to help keep information about the fog phenomenon under control. The fact he was a squib from a reclusive magical family was a salve on the egos of the Wizarding World.

The news that the fog would return one last time, but it would be because Harry was doing something about it, was also good, allowing them to start putting people in place now. More importantly, working more closely with the nonmagical governments of the Republic of Ireland and the UK allowed them to put stories in place to cover what was going to happen. This led to the nonmagical governments to shut down several of the sites that would be impacted. Which, in turn, allowed the Wizarding World redistribute most of their Obliviator teams to other positions.

Thankfully Harry wasn't involved in any of that. Just the portion of the discussion he'd been involved in took so long that by the time Harry got back to the others, the sun was just starting to set, and the group was cleaning up what had been a meal with their two new possible-acquaintances. Grabbing up a small sandwich, Harry munched on it as he moved over to where Arthur and Le Fay sat leaning against one another, a pot of black tea on the peat in front of them as they talked to Koneko and Loup, having already been told about what they had discovered so far.

"Your story checks out," Harry began without preamble, smiling at the two as he squatted down in front of them. "But how much combat experience do you both have?"

"Lots," Arthur said dryly, without going into detail.

Le Fay blushed, shaking her head. "Not a lot, I'm afraid. But like I said, I'm really good at analysis! And, I was born with Mage Sight. I can use it to a higher degree than most anyone I've ever met."

"And what if we said that we didn't need you here and ask you not to get involved?" Rias was genuinely curious. It wasn't as if these two were actually government representatives after all, and they could be told no at this point very easily. Not that I would like them out of my sight right now. Or rather, him at any rate.

"I will be annoyed but also somewhat relieved. This magical-potential fog and what we have already learned about it concerns me greatly," Arthur replied.

"Resigned but accepting. I'd only ask that we are allowed to remain here to see the results of whatever you will be doing."

Harry frowned, staring at the two of them. Then Rias spoke into his ear, whispering the words so that only Harry, with his enhanced senses, could hear it. "Better the devil you can watch than the one you can't."

Harry nodded slightly. "Okay, you're in. I just hope that both of you can contribute something."

Arthur smiled like a gentlemanly shark, all poise, calm demeanor and flashing teeth. "Believe me, if we do end up in combat, I will most certainly pull my weight. That is, so long as you give me my sword anyway."

Le Fay just nodded, nowhere near as confident as her brother. But she was also willing, and the instant Harry turned away, Asia started to talk to the girl, with Lily complimenting her on her hat, and that made Harry feel better. Asia was almost a scarily good judge of character at times, and Asia also seemed to bring out the best in people she met. If Asia liked Le Fay, it wasn't just Harry's own inclination to be kind to teens and kids coming out that was making him handle them with kid gloves.

Arthur, on the other hand, Harry was still having issues with trusting. Something that Rias agreed with, if with more reason than Harry. "You do know he's hiding something, right?"

"Is he one of the 'unknown swordsmen' the Khaos Brigade can call on?"

"He matches a description of a swordsman that's been seen during some of the Khaos Brigade's attacks. The ones that strike at actual strategic targets in the Underworld rather than try to sow trouble or attempt to bring magic to the attention of the rest of the world," Rias said with a nod. "Arthur is definitely allied with the Khaos Brigade, regardless of their reasons for being here. His sister, I've never heard of a description matching hers before."

"So perhaps Le Fay is a good influence on him? Their affection for one another is genuine, so it makes sense to me," Harry said with a shrug. "I don't think they're here on the bidding of the Khaos Brigade, but I do want them close, as you said. There's always the chance of turning them."

"I agree, but before we split off from the two of them after all this is over, I want to question them under Fragarach," Rias said firmly. "I am sincerely worried about Hades and Ophis being in a genuine alliance, and would like to make certain that is not the case."

Harry nodded, agreeing with that statement, then looked over Rias's shoulder. "Mittelt, you're going to be the one watching them."

"Why me?" Mittelt asked from where she had been sidling closer to the two to overhear their conversation. It had been evident by their body language it wasn't one of those private husband-wife things, so she felt no remorse from the attempt to overhear.

"Because you're paranoid, because your nosy, and because you're one of our best aerial combatants, which means you'll probably have a better view of any battlefield we get into on the other side."

"I love it that we're assuming we will be in combat on the other side of this dimensional jump but are still doing it," Mittelt muttered before nodding her head. "Fine, I'll keep an eye on the two Pendragons."

With it being just around evening Yubelluna decided they should push forward with the ceremony now. And with the phones Le Fay and Arthur were willing to offer up to be part of the ceremony, they had the last pieces they needed.

While everyone else began to prepare the area, Harry borrowed Le Fay's phone and called a very long distance to Akeno. Given the time difference, it was about twelve back in Kuoh, but Akeno was a late-night person, so he hoped she was still awake. Given the lack of musical talent among them bar Yubelluna, her voice would no doubt be necessary.

As it so happened, Akeno's phone wasn't on her. But Kalawarner responded, picking it up from where Akeno had left it to charge in the kitchen, although she was wary of getting a call from a number she hadn't seen before. "Hello, who is this?"

"Hey Kala, how are things back in Kuoh?"

"Harry! Very boring on our end, but how goes the investigation?" Harry had called and talked to Kala early that morning (for them) over breakfast, filling her in on everything they had discovered so far.

"We're near the end of the investigation part. The rest is going to be a magical exploration, sort of. But we figured that we might want Akeno and her voice for this. We are going to be putting a ritual together you see, and of course, rituals are always better with music."

"And you want Akeno's help. Certainly," Kalawarner answered before pausing then turning on the video portion of the call, allowing Harry to see her face, which was currently wearing a wicked grin. "I'll just go get her for you," she chirped, and Harry knew that she was about to play a prank.

He watched bemused as Kala carried the phone in front of her while heading up to the second story of the girls' dorm, as everyone now called the former Gremory house. As she went, Harry started to hear singing, Akeno's voice singing something. "…Turn away and lock the door, here I am in the light of day…."

The noise got louder as the door leading into Akeno's room opened, as Harry gaped, his jaw-dropping at the sight of Akeno dancing around the room swaying to the beat of a song she was singing, clad only in her underwear. The underwear was actually quite simple, only a white bra and panties, with little frills, made of cotton instead of something more erotic.

That task was left to the body which wore them. And seeing Akeno's perfect bubble rear sway to the song, her long, magnificent legs flashing this way and that, and the sight of her amazing chest bouncing and swaying, Harry let out an audible growl. The flipping moment I am back in Kuoh, I am going to take her out on a date, and then no one will find us for several days, at minimum.

The noise cut through the sound of the song, and Akeno turned, smiling brightly until she saw the phone in Kalawarner's hands, and Harry's face visible within it, gaping at her. "….KAALAAAA!" She shrieked leaping toward her bed as she sent a bolt of lightning Kalawarner's way, and for a moment, the video devolved into a lot of movement and shadows.

When it finally stopped moving, Harry watched as Akeno poked her head up from behind the bed, a blush suffusing her features as Harry began to chuckle.

But it wasn't a teasing chuckle, it was simply warm, loving, almost wondering in tone. "I've known for months that you are gorgeous, Akeno. One of the most beautiful ladies in the world. Seeing you like that was a bit of a surprise, but I can't say I'm sorry."

Akeno blushed but seemed to be getting herself under control again. Yet Harry would treasure that moment. Treasure another glimpse into the young, secretly romantic girl when you could startle it out of her that Akeno was underneath her masochistic inclinations and her delight in teasing. It was simply another aspect of her, much like Rias and her love for anime, on top of her love of family and her desire to be the best King she could be for her peerage.

When told what was going on, Akeno readily agreed to join in, although she did promise Kala she would get her back for her earlier embarrassment. Showing her body when she was prepared was one thing, showing off her dorky side plus her body at the same time was quite another. Then she blinked, looking at Harry. "But if Fawkes is there as you say, couldn't she come and get me…"

"Us!" Kala interjected firmly.

"Us, then, and bring us back?" Akeno finished with a glare and a nod at the other woman.

Harry looked up to where Fawkes was still chomping happily on frozen plum slices, one interrogative eyebrow raised in query. "Well?"

Fawkes alas shook its head, trilling out a short song. Cocking his head, Harry got the impression that it had to do with magical weight for some reason but decided against simply passing that on unedited. Instead, he decided to go with what he felt the phoenix meant. "I don't think so. It might be because you're a Devil, and your body would reject it's ability to Flame. I mean, Fawkes is a Light-based creature after all. Its songs might not have an impact on you but, that's not the same thing as being teleported through its spell."

"Poo," Akeno muttered.

With that avenue of aid shut down, the phone was plugged into one set of speakers. Nearby a Walkman, which Tonks had bought along with the speakers, was plugged into a few others, playing a cassette that Yubelluna had used to practice with occasionally.

Finally, once everything was ready, Yubelluna began to play her violin, and everyone began to get into position standing around the area right in front of the entrance to the passage tomb. The first song was called Ancient Land and was purely instrumental, the song filling the little dell from one end to another. At the same time, Rias sent a gust of wind up into the tree, causing the newly repaired and de-rusted chimes to pealing. The sound was almost hypnotic on its own. Accompanied by the music and Yubelluna's playing, the impact was magnified a dozen times over, and the bells kept on ringing, picking up the rhythm of the song somehow.

Before the first chorus, Harry began to feel the tug, the drain on his magic, as Yubelluna's music began to shift into a prayer in her mind, calling upon his power. Instantly Harry began to open that connection more, pouring his own magic out as his eyes began to glow, following by his hands as he crouched down, laying his hands on the peat beneath his feet.

Both Lily and Asia started to feel it, and Asia raised her voice into a hum as the song shifted. Lily, on the other hand, hopped up and began to dance around Yubelluna began to move, high-stepping as she moved into the second song, which was called The Foxhunter, a song she had played on the ferry over from England with Melissa Mistborn. Oddly enough, as she did, Yubelluna caught an echo, almost like another violin had begun to play with her in perfect concert.

Everyone else began to clap, even a somewhat out-of-his depth Arthur and a wildly smiling Le Fay. While clapping, they formed almost naturally into two crowds to either side of an aisle town to the entrance under the treed, and Lily and Yubelluna moved back and forth along it.

The third song began a song called Homeland. Now it was Akeno's turn to shine, and she began to belt it out, having practiced it with Yubelluna before, along with many of the other songs. Pouring as much emotion as she could into it as she could. She was joined by Fawkes, her chirping song rising to the heavens as more power began to be poured into the ritual from Harry and the phoenix both.

White fog started to coalesce and pour out of the passage tomb, spreading quickly as the song went on, and Lily continued to dance. In the fog, lights began to be seen, white, light blue, black, fiery red, gold, and blue. With every line of song, the fog continuing to spread out all around them, the rest of the world becoming obscured through the depths of the fog.

Koneko joined the dance next, Asia third, and finally Luna, Rolf, and Le Fay in that order, the last pulled forward by Asia. They were followed by Harry, Tonks and Rias.

Loup, Arthur and Mittelt did not dance. It just was not their thing. Instead, Loup moved over to take the drums over from Lily, and Tonks and Mittelt began to hum under their breath in accompaniment to Akeno's voice. She continued to sing out as the playlist went on to the last song, When You go, her voice as much an expression of beauty and love as anything physical could be. Akeno's singing kept on going strong even while the phone, the speakers, and every other piece of electronics in the area began to short out due to the sudden rise in magical energy around them.

When the song ended, so too did the dance with an almost abrupt stillness as the fog around them roiled with magical potential as the speakers burst frying themselves while the phone continued to work even as it began to crackle and smoke. A second later, Yubelluna laid the violin down next to where Harry was standing, having placed himself in front of the entrance to the passage tomb, their friends all around them.

Above, the phoenix stopped its winged dance as well. It settled down on top of the entranceway into the passage tomb where it spread its wings. When Rias and Le Fay, the only ones not concentrating entirely on the ceremony, looked at it, they both saw Fawkes starting to almost fade out of existence, some of the fiery bird's magical substance seeming to seep down into the awakened enchantment.

Bowing her head, Yubelluna touched her forehead to the root of the tree in front of her. As her bandrui powers almost went into overdrive at that touch, joining the rest of the magic boiling within her, Yubelluna raised her voice to the heavens. At the same time, a wind began to pick up all around, moving the white fog all around them in whirl around the group.

"I thank Aengus for my abilities with word and voice." With those words, she reached to the side, taking a grape from a plate set there earlier, tossing it into the ceremonial fire. This was a large silver bowl filled with oil, which Fawkes had obligingly set on fire earlier.

"We thank Lugh for strength in times of strife." For this, Harry cut his palm with a silver dagger, sending some of his blood into the fire, which started to change color, blue and a pure red joining the orange. With his part done for the moment, He moved to stand by the passage tomb once more.

Of course, the ceremony had continued while this was happening. "I thank Dagda for wisdom," Yubelluna announced, tossing a bit of her hair wrapped up with a holly leaf into the fire.

"I thank the Hunter Nuada for the gift of this food and the skill of the hunt," Loup growled, having shifted into his werewolf form, tossing a bit of meat – processed alas – into the fire.

"I thank Succellus for the gift of the vine and the harvest." A sheathe of wheat, and more grapes joined the rest of the offering, burning to ash in the searing hot flame.

From there, Yubelluna went on alone the parts of the others in the ceremony done. "I thank the Goddess Brigid for my abilities with music and string. I thank Manannán Mac Lir, for bringing me to this shore. And I ask that they allow me to enter Tir Na Nog!" She finally shouted at the top of her lungs, the cadence of her voice changing as she did to demanding rather than supplicating.

There was a blast of something, a horrible intake of breath almost as if the whole world seemed to gasp. Then the entryway to the darkness of the interior of the passage tomb, which up to this point had simply been pouring forth the fog, blazed with gold and blue light.

The phoenix, which now more resembled a mirage than a physical being, gave a cry of pure triumph and dove into the light of the passage. A second later, the magic shifted, the blue and gold blooming open towards them, merging with the fog all around them, dragging everyone there to… somewhere else. Seconds later, the only things remaining in the odd little valley was the giant tree, and the still sparking slag that had once been a series of speakers, a Walkman, and a phone.

OOOOOOO

Akeno stared at the phone, which was now showing a signal lost message. She then looked over to Kala, who looked back at her, putting an arm around the younger girl. "You've done your part, Akeno. Trust in them to get themselves out of whatever kind of trouble they face, hmm? That's all we can do from here."

Nodding Akeno leaned into the other woman's embrace. "I know that. Doesn't stop me from worrying, though."

"Duh," Kala snorted. "I never said it would now, did I? And when did I say I wasn't worried for them as well?" Akeno nodded and leaned against the other woman, still staring at her phone as she hoped that those she loved would return to her soon, hail and whole.

End Chapter

So yeah, like I said, more of an investigative, mystery solving sort of chapter than I normally do. Hope you enjoyed it regardless. Next chapter though... can you say magical war?