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London
–Damian Hawthorne–
He waited a moment, just lurking in the background kind of awkwardly, for Dumbledore to speak because this whole thing was not over, not by a long shot. Minerva and Flitwick both kept looking at him with a hawkish gaze, ready to snap their wands out and send spells like bullets the second he even looked at them or Harry wrong.
The tension in their bodies was very clear for everyone to see and sense, likely because he was very recently branded a dangerous criminal who had committed crimes on an international scale. Also, because Wakanda almost certainly used all the pull they had in the magical world to make sure he was either brought in or put down for the crime of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
That day truly was a bad one, a mark that would remain on his outings for all his life. To this day, that beam of just disintegration haunted his dreams, forcing him to focus more and more on defense, to the point that the current iteration of armour should easily bear the mental pressure that Dumbledore's freaky Ancient Ruins relic put on his mind the last time they met.
Hopefully, this meeting would not end up like the last one, where he was forced to use an AoE attack to escape from a freak mental attack, and destroy his immediate surroundings. He was pretty sure that Dumbledore had gotten off scot free right in time because of Fawkes, because if Dumbledore had been injured and that news had gotten out, it would have gotten a whole other level of media coverage, domestically as well as internationally.
It was almost a full minute before Dumbledore sent Harry and Minerva away with Fawkes, and the Dursleys side apparated with Filius, presumably because Harry was more familiar with Fawkes and Minerva. Filius should be more than capable of silencing Vernon if he objected to the sudden ride he was given halfway across the town, with his car stranded in the middle of the road, not that the car would be missed since Vernon had a much fancier car just sitting in his driveway.
And that was that. Leaving behind just Dumbledore and him, standing face to face, cars passing behind both of them as they stood in the unusually large highway median. He was tense, expecting an attack that never came or being blindsided by the use of some arcana artifact that he could not defend against that Dumbledore had collected in his youth, never used until now.
It certainly fit the recent theme his luck had adopted recently.
Getting tired of this power play that Dumbledore was trying to pull off here, when lives hung in the balance, he snapped, "What?"
Dumbledore held his gaze for quite a while before replying, "Nothing. I have many questions, but I suppose they can wait until after we have dealt with the thralls. I assume you have a way of tracking them across vast distances?"
Fishing for information, eh?
No matter, it was not like working together was not going to reveal some of his abilities anyway. Plus, he had been palming the magical equivalent of a force exit ever since the bystanders left and he was left with just Dumbledore. A single thought will create such force all around him that even the strongest metal, bar the mythical ones like Vibranium, Uru, and Adamantium, will be torn to shreds. That same force will also propel him, straight up, and once he was at a sufficient enough height, blast him back down into the ocean.
He had enough reserves to last weeks in the Ocean without any outside intervention, so even if he did fall unconscious due to some mental attack from Dumbledore, he will be out of danger, and with the magical SOS being sent to Corven, he should be back on land within days, safe and sound.
Some might call it overkill but ain't no kill like overkill, especially when dealing with the likes of Dumbledore here, titans of magic as well as shrewd in all the ways that counted.
"Yes," He confirmed, "I can sense magic and magicals in a set radius around me. I flew around the city a bunch of times to count them. Even now, we have about 20 of them moving about. Some fast, some slow, some stationary."
"I see." Dumbledore seemed deep in thought for some reason before continuing, "What do you propose we do about them?"
Excuse me?
"About the thralls," Dumbledore added, as if that clarified things, "I assume you know the standard protocol when dealing with a mass conversion from pureblood vampires."
He knew that but that was an option he was not willing to take, which is why he was standing here. Damned pureblood vampires. Vampires that are born from unique means, taking birth from a female vampire and growing up to maturity, only to stop and become ageless since then.
Their ability to spread vampirism with a single nick or scratch from their claws was the whole reason they were in this mess. That vampire being pureblood explained the submissive behavior of the other two vampires but it did not explain his self destruction. They were rare, treasured by any vampire coven as they were guaranteed to go absurdly strong, and failing that, a guaranteed increase in vampiric members was also a great boon to the covens.
Why would someone like that be unguarded, roaming out in the open? The question plagued him but was not the most important for now.
"Yes," So, he snapped at the man, Dumbledore maintaining that placid expression at his loud outburst, "I know what the ICW, the Ministry of Magic, Hogwarts, and many more magical institutions around the world recommend. Clearly, I don't wish for that to happen, which is why I am standing here, talking to you. I assumed that the fabled Headmaster would have some other idea, rather than just sanctioning the wholesale slaughter of almost a hundred innocent people."
Dumbledore remained silent at that, his eyes glazing over as if reminiscing something. After a whole minute, he sighed and said, "I might have something but for that to work, we will need to capture all the thralls safely, and keep them contained because it might take a while. I…..have no feasible way of doing that."
He grinned at that. Neither did he, not right now anyway, but within less than an hour? With the help of a single portal wielding member of Kamar Taj?
Oh, hell yeah, he could hold that many people.
Today was the day building an entire prison dungeon-esque floor in his lair was going to pay off, handsomely at that, presuming that the end solution is somewhat realistic and halfway decent rather than just killing these people.
"You leave that to me. How much time would you need?" He asked, itching to go back home and start rounding up the thralls. It was nearing midnight, so he still had a good 5 or so hours before the sun started coming up, and these people burned up due to that.
"There will be a cost," Dumbledore tried to warn him and he rebuffed that immediately, "And I saved your Golden Boy for free. Consider us even."
Dumbledore's gaze sharpened at that and he had a hint that the man desperately wanted to address the Child of Prophecy shaped Elephant in the room, but due to more pressing matters, did not do so.
Something that would be brought up later on, he was sure of that.
"Well, I will be off. I'll send you a message when I am done. Also, make sure Harry is safe. Today, things came a lot closer than you realise."
With that warning, he sped off into the atmosphere, only teleporting back to his lair when only the black lines of tar were visible this high up, just in case Dumbledore could track teleporting destinations.
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