: Inserted into the previous post to preserve the timeline.
You fire off an email to your lawyer early Monday morning about the blackmail material you found—you don't actually phrase it so blatantly of course, but since you had brought it up previously he should know what you're talking about.
After your morning classes, you pop back to your lair and grab the finished mandrake potion. You levitate the elf into the main room, lay it on a cot, and apply some of the draught topically. As the elf's face softens you pour the rest down their throat and sit back as their stiff posture relaxes. The diagnostic spell that had been reading nothing suddenly shows readings of terror and fear before tapering off to something resembling normal for a house-elf. It takes close to ten minutes before the figure stirs, however, and that's only a weak shifting to look over at you.
You move over and kneel beside the cot. "Hello, can you tell me your name?"
"Ic namede Ælfgifu, me friáa."
"Oh, how lovely," you sigh and hit the elf with a translation spell. "Let's try this again. Did you say your name was Aelfgifu?"
"Many apologies master wizard, I be indeed Ælfgifu."
Well, either the translation spell smooths out the very odd house-elf voice cadence, or elves in foreign languages speak much more formally. It's better on your ears, at least. "My name is James Peverell. Do you remember what happened before you were petrified?"
The elf brings its hand up and curls it around, "Ælfgifu was asked by Master Slytherins to help test the security of his chambers. Ælfgifu does not know why Master Slytherins moved his chambers under the school, though, it be cold and wet down there."
"And do you remember what year it was?" you ask with a sinking feeling.
"No, Master Peverell, but the king be Æthelred, if that helps?"
You groan. No, no it doesn't help at all. "Aelfgifu, I have some very bad news…"
Explaining to a house-elf that they've apparently been petrified for over a thousand years and that you're the only wizard around is heart-wrenching. You end up bundling Aelfgifu's slight form in your arms as she weeps for the loss of everything and everyone she knew. You send Crystal a text and she arrives and sits down next to you and places a hand on the elf's back as she finally starts to get herself together.
"You be right, master Peverell, Ælfgifu don't senses any other elfs or anything around. Your trunk has been to Hoggywarts, I feel the magics on it, but it an older Hoggywarts than I knew." She turns to Crystal, then back to you and blinks, "Oh, Ælfgifu is sorry, Lord Peverell, I not see your lady there." She hops onto the floor and gives a curtsy to a confused Crystal. "Lady Peverell, I be Ælfgifu."
Your girlfriend flicks her eyes over to you, then back down to the tiny elf. "Um, hello. I'm not Lady Peverell, though. We're just dating."
The elf looks at Crystal, then back at you and cocks her head, sending her ears wiggling. "If yous say so, Lady Crystal."
"Aelfgifu, if you'd like you can search for other wizards and witches, but I would appreciate it if you let me know what you found first."
"Oh no, Lord Peverell, I will bond with the Peverell family. I waste away otherwise."
"I'm pretty sure I'm not a lord either."
"You be the only wizard here, you said. Then you be all the lords."
"….I'm also pretty sure that's not how it works."
The elf hops onto the table and sticks her hands on her hips. "How you think people be kings? You say you king, beat up anyone who argue. So you say you lord, zap any wizard that argue."
That's some fucked up logic, but it is logic. "You know what? Sure, I'm Lord Peverell, that's fine. How does this bonding work then?"
You're guided through laying your hand on her head and formally inviting her to serve the Peverell family. With that done you now have a bonded servant who is side-eyeing your girlfriend and referring to her as 'Lady Pev-Lady Crystal'. You explain your apartment and the lair, and take her to each location, and have to sit and explain cameras and surveillance to her in a way that she understands—in this case, like portraits that can remember things. Your first orders to her are to pop around invisible and get used to the world she finds herself in as you head back to your lair and your girlfriend.
Crystal wraps her arms around you and holds you tight as you explain more about what little you know of house-elves, and additional questions about the Wizarding World.
"So you seriously could be a 'Lord Peverell'?"
You chuckle. "I guess it's possible, but I'd doubt it. Peverell's a Norman French name and the only real ancestor I know of was a knight, but that doesn't exactly entitle me to be Lord anything. If it helps Aelfgifu, though, then I don't mind."
"So why am I Lady Peverell?" Crystal asks. "Not that… well, I mean… you, uh," she trails off, blushing.
Kissing her forehead you cut her mumbling off. "I'm assuming it's some kind of difference between 10th century wizarding life and now. Women were much more limited in what they could do, so if you're here and we're 'dating', she probably thinks that's either some kind of betrothal or alliance between our families or something."
Looking up at you, Crystal's eyes darken a shade as she uses her flight to tug you in the direction of the bed. "Perhaps my lord would like to strengthen his alliance with the Pelham family?"
"An excellent idea, my lady."
After Crystal has gone off to classes and Arcadia lets out in the afternoon, Amy shows up at the lair and is introduced to Aelfgifu. Being called 'Mistress Peverell' turns her bright red, but her blushing stops when she actually touches the elf and gets lost in examining the makeup of a highly-magical being other than yourself. Aelfgifu is pretty decent about it, all things considered.
With introductions completed, you and Amy get started on planning a greenhouse. You've decided to take over the rest of the block and make everything unplottable, but rather than level it all and put in the greenhouse on ground level you're going to gut a couple of the buildings and transfigure the sides to glass, as well as grow larger items like trees on the roof.
After learning what you're planning, your elf wants to assist as well, and manages to transport enough dirt from somewhere to layer it thickly on a newly-strengthened roof as Amy plants some larger bushes and trees and gets them rooted.
You take a break after reinforcing the building and pull the short girl into a hug. "Have you ever considered becoming a plant-themed cape with your talents?"
Amy looks up at you with a confused smile and smudges of dirt on her face. " How would I manage that?"
You paint her a mental picture of an vine-whip-wielding, sleep-spore-spraying version of Poison Ivy and smirk internally as she wanders off to experiment with some plants. Hopefully that experimentation will calm her shard down some so that she doesn't need constant cleansing to feel better.
Off-and-on during the day you check on Coil, but he spends most of his day at the PRT doing random bullshit—typing things on a computer, mostly—while doing his best to hide his shakes and chugging water like he's in the middle of the desert. Lisa looks to be doing research about one of the drug storage locations the Undersiders are supposed to hit on Wednesday evening. It's one of the ones Diego knew about, checking over the notes she has strewn around and pulling some stuff from Coil's memories tells you that he's using this as a chance to get yet more practice with breaking and entering for the Undersiders and possibly stir up some heat with the Empire, who are taking over the area. The business that the drugs are stashed in is near the Palanquin, so drawing Faultline's hangers-on into the mix would be a bonus. The current plan seems to be for them to retreat towards where the ABB is taking over former Merchant territory and try and get the two or three gangs to scrap a bit.
[X][Undersiders] Go disrupt the Undersiders' raid
[X][Undersiders] Mysteriously appear and proclaim that Coil is doomed
[X][Undersiders] Try to talk to Lisa separately about Coil
[X][Undersiders] Attract Faultline's crew's attention to the raid
[X][Undersiders] Attract the E88's attention to the raid
[X][Undersiders] Do nothing
[X][Undersiders] Monitor them and step in if things go badly
[X][Undersiders] Write-in
You get a text back from Quinn and he tells you stop by at any time tomorrow, so you decide to try and knock another item off your list and set up a lunch appointment with Templeton. She's apparently off during the day, and agrees to get something at Cafe Sofrito.
Tuesday morning after you both run with Taylor, Aelfgifu takes it upon herself to pop Crystal back over to her dorm room rather than making 'her lady' fly. You get a guilty text later about how she didn't stop the elf from cleaning her dorm room, which had gone back to being dirty, but when you mention to your elf that she doesn't have to clean if she doesn't want to you get a pitying look and drop that line of conversation.
After your morning class you drop in to talk to Calle and find that he's got a fair amount of stuff to talk to you about as well.
"So the DA wants to do the deposition Thursday morning. I'm going over the questions now, and I don't have any major objections with what's been checked over so far. There were a couple of items that questioned your use of drugs, but when I pointed out that Panacea was there, and you also know how to heal they scrubbed those questions entirely." He runs you through the questions quickly and while some phrasings of your answers are changed, it's obvious the DA is throwing softballs to keep you from deciding not to testify at all.
[X][Deposition] Use the time-turner to do the deposition
Spoiler: Winning Vote
-=-=-
"Alright, I can do Thursday morning. Do I need to wear a suit over my armor?" With a wave you're wearing a tuxedo.
You get a longsuffering look from Quinn. "Please don't."
Leaning back, you do your best to project a smirk with your voice. "Fair enough. Rather than bother with travel, I'll meet you here and teleport us there."
"To somewhere outside, I hope. I doubt they'd appreciate us appearing past security."
You wave his concern away. "Of course man. Being shot would irritate me, not to mention putting holes in my coat."
-=-=-
After that you drop the information about blackmail on him and hand over a copy of Sia's drive. Quinn flips through some documents before noting that 'Tammy Roche' hasn't been processed yet, but one of the attorneys has made a motion for minimal bail—and that name happens to be the pissbaby she has information on. Quinn makes a call to the head federal District Attorney and comments that the two of them should get a late lunch.
"Went to the same law school, he was a year ahead of me." Calle comments after he hangs up, "Guy's kind of an asshole, but he's not stupid. I'll check this stuff out and let him know what's up with his people and they can get assigned to other things or find a different job. Either way it's not our problem after this."
The work on your cosmetic surg—alteration sideline is almost done as well. You're given copies of the agreements that people will be required to sign, and you're told that there is one bite already—a Hollywood starlet who survived breast cancer, but has had a double mastectomy. She had been considering breast implants, but landed a role in a movie and wouldn't have the time to recover. If you're okay with it, you could meet her in Brockton Bay, Boston, or New York some time next week. This would give you an A-list starlet in your pocket who would be talking you up, although she's apparently known as a raging bitch, and will probably 'ask' for more that just the boobjob. You wouldn't be making money on this one, but hopefully a good result would net you a lot more in new clients.
[X][Cosmetic] Agree, do it in Brockton Bay
Spoiler: Winning Vote
-=-=-
"I have no problem with growing her a pair of breasts, but I'm completely serious about being extremely limited on how much flesh I can add—shifting it around is easier and better for her in the long run. Be very firm that she should just pig the fuck out for the next week. She can use the weight gain to fuel baby rumors or shill some lifestyle bullshit, but if she's as rail-thin as she is in this picture," you poke at the magazine cover Calle had given you, "she's not getting a pair of Ds like she's asking for unless I make her ass as flat as a board."
Quinn fiddles with his pen and lets out a soft laugh. "So doctor's orders are to eat nothing but fast food?"
You tap the side of your nose. "Yes, but no throwing it up and no nose candy to burn it off. If it helps, point out that every extra pound she puts on is another inch I can add to her breasts or buttocks." You pause, "Or hips, or lips or whatever. I'll warn you that I may have things come up next week, so while I should be available any day, the time of day might be booked."
-=-=-
Lunch with Janice Templeton is done in the baking room of Cafe Sofrito. You blur your face, alter your lips and skin color, and use your half mask as you both eat.
"So, what exactly needed this cloak-and-dagger stuff, Warlock?"
Taking a sip of your drink you sigh. "So if I say 'Coil', what do you think?"
"Eh, yet another cape who's screwing around in the drug trade. Not nearly as impressive as a follow up to your Merchant capture," she flicks a hand dismissively.
You lean your elbows on the table you raised from the floor and give a toothy grin. "Wrong! Well, you are correct, he does deal drugs, but he also has multiple groups of mercenaries, is spying on capes from all the gangs and the Protectorate, and has like a half-dozen moles in the PRT."
Templeton drops her fork and rubs the heels of her hands in her eyes. "Jesus fuck. How in the hell…"
You spin her the same general story that you told Crystal, although you play up James as 'Crystal's boyfriend' and also a friend of yours. You're glad you had her eat for a while before you dropped the information on her, because Janice seems to have lost her appetite when you get done. She's going over scenarios in her head trying to scrape together enough forces to deal with up to a hundred-and-fifty bodies without letting anyone get wind of what's going on and failing.
"Fuck. If you give me the moles' names I can try to keep them out of the loop, but it wouldn't last long before they overheard something, I'm sure. What's worse is that we don't have the space to hold more than like a dozen more people in our cells, and the local jail's pretty tapped out as well. Is there any way you can monitor Coil until next week? We'll have some space freed up Thursday, and hopefully more will go to a regional jail over the weekend. I could schedule a readiness check one of the days next week and turn it in to another capture." Her fingers run through the grey streak along the left side of her head. "And no matter how this turns out, Piggot's going to stick her nose in. With officers being turned she's going to flip her shit until you've signed NDAs. I'll need to call in the Protectorate as well, Armsmaster will be all over those laser rifles trying to figure out who made them."
[X][PRT] Yeah, you can hold off until next week.
(Rounds up most of Coil's mercs)
Spoiler: Winning Vote
-=-=-
"Dammit, Janet."
Janice gives you a flat stare. "How droll. Seriously, can you hold him off until next week?"
"Hold him off? " you scoff. "Yeah, but rather than have a mask-pulling Scooby-Do reveal I'm gonna make the guy flip his shit and reveal himself. When will you know when you'll have the space available?"
Taking a sip of her drink, Janice flips through her phone and is doing some guesstimation. "I'll check in with you Friday with something resembling a timeline. Maybe Tuesday?"
"That's probably doable. I've got some shit happening next week and knowing a definite day would be helpful."
"Hot date?"
Conjuring sparkles in the air you give the PRT officer some jazz hands. "Work related, actually."
You watch Janet mouth 'work related' and shake her head. "Capes," she sighs.
-=-=-
You take the time in the afternoon to do a bit of reading on curses, especially Fiendfyre. Not that you feel ready to test the spell out quite yet, but you do test a few other curses, including the purple flame curse that Dolohov used in the Department of Mysteries, and the good old fanon 'ribbon cutter', which ends up being more like whipping around a monomolecular chainsaw and causes you to do a lot of repair work.
In between periods of spell practice, you pull up Amy's capefixxx.net account and browse her stories. Well, actually, her favorites are pretty illuminating as well, with her older favorites skewing heavily in the girls' love direction, and the last month or so becoming more all-over-the-place. She even favorited a Warlock/Gallant fic two weeks ago that involved such impossible dude sex that you're not sure magic would make it possible.
The stuff she's written, especially recently, whoo boy. There's the series where she's the Queen of the World and you are her ever-loyal consort and lover. That has a fair number of favorites and some skimming tells you that the sex scenes are… almost Victorian in their wording. There is a lot about your 'turgid maleness' and the 'flower of her femininity'. The 'petals of her womanhood' shine with 'dew'. If you didn't know better, you'd think the scenes were describing erotic gardening. Even the most recent update is pre-Amy-touching-you, maybe things just weren't… real… maybe to her.
A more recent story from Thursday with a couple of chapters involves a cape high school AU where you're actually a student teacher and you and goth-Panacea are having a torrid affair in a janitor's closet by the second half of the first chapter. She's gotten into her stride now, because your 'enormous bitchbreaker' is 'taming' her self-insert, and a second chapter is given almost completely over to a lovingly-described bondage session at Warlock's 'lair-like apartment.' L O fuckin' L.
The most recent story was actually first posted Sunday night with a second chapter this morning, and has 'John 'Warlock' Williams' and 'Amelia 'Panacea' Smith' be the only two survivors of a crashed colony ship on a new world. With their techno-magical nanomachine-based powers they've established a homestead in the space of a few scant paragraphs and Amelia is already telling John that they need to 'do their duty' to populate this world. Your curiosity makes you do a search for 'breed' or 'bred' and it shows up over thirty times in ten thousand words worth of smut. Panacea's womb is 'fertile', and after Warlock knocks her up with his 'potent seed' the very next day she knows she's pregnant and her breasts swell with milk. That's… she knows better, so you chalk it up to yet another fetish of hers. Maybe you should see if there's a wet-nurse charm in your library somewhere….
Still, you almost feel like you need to give the girl a couple of non-dick related orgasms to take the edge off. Fucking her might just make her worse in the short term.
[X][Fanfic] Send Crystal links to Amy's fics
[X][Fanfic] Write feedback on Amy's fics.
[X][Fanfic] Write a porny fic of your own and send it to Amy
[X][Fanfic] Write-in
AN: Yeah, I'm only good for about 4k of words before I break things up. The next part of the week with PHO trolling, healing with Pan-pan, etc. will be next. Tentative plan is healing Wednesday, party with SKlub on Thursday (the real beginning of the weekend), and staring at Catholic schoolgirls on one of those two days as well.
Your elf will allow you in the future to spy on people, help defend your girls, find things in your trunk, and can do some of the planting and harvesting of potions ingredients as well. Starting over the weekend you'll be able to vote on Aelfgifu's jobs. She will not murder people, but is more than happy to fuck a motherfucker up in defense of 'her family' or their environs.
I've added a [Lisa] vote below, and it really hinges on the PRT vote—if you decide to hold off on rounding up Coil until next week, you'll probably likewise want to wait to tell her about it until shortly before it happens instead of giving her time to think it over. Or not.