AN: This is it. the last chapter of the story. it got more love then i first thought it would. i started writing it at the same time as Investigator and i saw how good that story took off so i sidelined this story. i'm glade you guys liked it and like i said there is a lot of sequel opportunity here. i really liked this story and so did my friends that's why it's the backbone of our RPG.
In about two weeks i will start posting the the alternate universe version of this story that takes place in my RPG. That story started off the same as this one but the world is very different. We have 6 game sessions under our belt so far and the DM notes i took from the game are good for about 3-5 chapters depending how i sum it up. i will be putting out one chapter a week and the story will get a wrap up happy epilogue when they get tired of playing or if there is a TPK (Total Party Kill). if the story is getting more love then average i might keep it going after they quit or get TPK'ed. In any even thank you for tuning in to Harry Steel Through Time. it was fun to write and i love the Character of Tommy. he's a fun OC.
The year of 1887 flew by so fast that it rolled into 1888 without them even noticing. The family was so busy they barely had time to talk. BSSI took up a lot of time. Not to mention the time they lost taking the potion. Starting with Harry in the end of January they all took the elixir of life and spent some time in a coma as the potion did it's magic. Harry was out for 7 days. Neville was out for 10 days. Hermione was out for 10 days. But Abby was out for 20 days. The reason she was out for so long was because she took a different potion them the ones they took. Ollivander tested the stone they found and he figured out what it's properties were. The stone from the tomb granted 100 years of life but it also gave you a power boost as well. The thing was you had to be young enough to handle the stress of your core expanding. Younger cores were still flexible. As it was Abby just made the cut off. If she was two or three years older the potion would have killed her. The stone was also smaller, it could only make three doses of potion. But with the two stones they had eight doses of potion. Five Ollivander blend, three Egyptian blend. After they all took the potion they had four doses left, two of each kind. Harry took the potions and put them in a locked box in the vault. They had a shelf life of a hundred years.
When they got their bearings about them they dove head first into BSSI. They started off working in New York only, but soon word of their work spread to London, Chicago, and Paris. By mid March they had an office in London. June saw the Chicago office opening up much to the Pinkerton agency's displeasure, and by the end of the summer they had an office in Paris. Each time they opened an office they had to hire more staff and train more agents. None of the offices had a big building like the main office in New York. But each branch had 25 full time agents and a hundred staff workers. They also had a full time staff of healers and five black level agents. Harry spent most of the year training agents and shuffling them around to fit best with each team. By the end of the year they had 130 agents and 25 black level agents. They also had 750 staff members working for the agency. With their other three companies they employed 1,485 wizards and witches. By the time they were hiring for the Paris office they were scraping the bottom of the magical, english speaking, able bodied barrel. As it was it took some shuffling of staff to get the smarter, more powerful people they had in positions of management to keep an eye on the less educated ones.
On the upside the agency was handling everything from secure transport, to insurance investigation, to helping police solve murders and thefts. On top of that they had the Black level agents doing covert work. They cleared the list of dark vault objects and under Harry's tutelage they learned how to make people have accidents. They took out some of the dark families that year and monitored the rest to see what they were up to. As soon as they did something bad they got a visit from the men and women in black.
But the year of 1887 wasn't all work. On June 21st they attended the Queen's golden Jubilee in London. They also visited the construction site of the eiffel tower. On top of that Harry got to have dinner with Arthur Conan Doyle at Criterion and got his copy of a Study in Scarlet sighed by the man. But by far one of the best days of the year happened when they went to the Winchester factory in Connecticut and bumped into John Browning. Harry had him sign a Winchester 1885 high wall rifle in .45-75. He handed him a card and told him if he ever needed anything at all he shouldn't hesitate to stop by any of the B&S locations in the world.
Harry ordered 200 1887 lever action shotguns in 12 gauge with 18 inch barrels, pistol grip stocks, and shoulder slings. He then had Smith's team add an extended magazine tube to hold 50 shells, a recoil enchantment so they could shoot it easier without a shoulder stock, and make a run of 12 gauge brass shells with a slug and ten buckshot bb's. With some file work and the brass shells the shotguns could run through all 52 shells in under a minute with no hiccups. Soon most agents carried the shotguns on shoulder slings under their coats and the criminals knew not to fuck with the BSSI agents.
All it took was a group of six armed men attempting to knock over a female agent making a delivery to a bank in Chicago. She got off her horse and took the leather bag full of silver and gold certificates out of her saddlebag. She made the short fifteen foot trip to the bank and six men with guns drawn ran at her demanding the bag. She dropped the bag by her feet, slung her lever action shotgun up, and blasted all six men in three seconds. She got shot three times in the vest and sustained four broken ribs. She cast a healing spell at herself and walked into the bank to hand off the pouch like nothing happened. The cops showed up as she was leaving. She flashed her badge and they just nodded as she hopped on her horse and rode away.
This happened a few times over the course of the year. Each time the men ended up dead and the cops shrugged it off. After all, there were a half dozen less stupid criminals in the world now. If you're willing to attack a BSSI agent you deserved what you got. And there was no confusion involved. BSSI agents wore gold badges on their jackets. They rode in black cargages with BSSI on the doors or on black stallions with gold and black leather saddles with BSSI embossed all over it. They were armed to the teeth and half the time they came in pairs with one man acting as just the firepower.
Harry trained them so well he trained himself out of a job. The regular agents didn't need to call for backup once the whole year. They handled everything by themselves or with a prefered partner as backup. The truth is Harry trained them for a modern threat and the sorry bastards they encountered were not ready for it. He taught them SWAT team tactics and the criminals they were facing didn't know what the word tactical ment. In the end the agents ended up arresting a lot of people that just surrendered when they saw them coming. By the beginning of 1888 the agents just had to announce themselves and half the men they were coming for would give up.
Harry could understand the fear on the criminal's part. BSSI agents killed close to a hundred people in their first year. They solved dozens of murders, more than a hundred high end theft cases, made hundreds of deliveries, and no one under their watch got anything more than a few bumps and scrapes. Half of the black level agents handled the the more dangerous jobs like dark creature hunting and dark object retrieval. The other half, Harry hand selected to handle Unspeakable jobs like assassinations, kidnappings, interrogations, and counter intelligence. They were responsible for the uptick of bad shit that befell the dark families in the UK.
For all of their hard work and dedication BSSI alone pulled in just over 20 million dollars in profits in its first year. When added to the 39 million in profits B&S took in it was a staggering amount of cash. Harry doubled the $1 rase to $2 and increased the christmas bonus from 22% to 32%. He also upped the pay of agents to $32 and $52 a day for black agents.
Hermione said they were messing with the economy by overpaying their work force so much over market value but Harry just laughed. The truth was the more they paid their work staff the more they made in profits every week. Besides, even with their expenses and the rich lifestyle they still were making money hand over fist and Harry felt guilty with the wages he paid his workers. But the market value for everything was so low it was still staggering. They figured out things were about 90 times less in 1887 then they were in 2016. Their lowest paid workers that were making $1,825 a year before bonuses was the equivalent of $164,250 a year in 2016. Which made Susan and Penny's new salary of $18,250 a year in 1887 the equivalent of $1,642,500 in 2016. But with the way they took care of the four twins it was worth every dollar. Besides with the way Tommy and Penny were looking at eachother and the amount of time they were spending together Penny was going to be his daughter in law at some point.
They also stockpiled crates of 100,000 liter tanks of gas, jet fuel, diesel fuel, propane, and kerosene in a cold vault. Which would be worth billions in the future. Not to mention all the gold and silver bars they now had stockpiled in the vault. Their future was secure. On top of that was all the works of art from Monet and other impressionists hanging on the walls of the apartment. Hermione had a good eye for art. Harry could care less. He knew what the names ment and he gathered as many as he could get his hands on. The ones that weren't in the apartment were hanging in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Each painting was tagged with a magical tracking charm and covered under BSSI like most of the works of art in the Museum.
But they didn't just buy works of art. They bought a lot more real estate. Big chunks of land in new states like Montana and the Dakotas. They also bought more land in big cities like Chicago, London, and Paris. In New York they bought up land in Queens, and Long Island.
At the start of the 1888 year, as Abby and History predicted the two very cold winters in 1886 and 87 that hit the south killed off most of the citrus trees causing the land in southeastern Florida to sell for pennies an arch. They bought up a huge piece of land to the south of Miami and re-planted citrus trees early in the planting season. They packed the roots in dragon dung fertiliser. By the middle of summer they had huge orange and lemon trees full of big juicey fruit. They hired a few workers to tend to the trees and by the end of 1888 B&S was in the fruit game thanks to a field of Banana and apple trees they added at the end of summer. The whole 6,400 arch plantation was covered by wards to keep the temperature just right and the bugs/people out. With magic it took just a few farmers to grow, pick, box, and ship the fruit and with the amount of fertilizer they had from the beef farm and the dragon hunts they kept the land healthy and growing year round.
They thought about buying the the islands off the coast of Miami and having the goblins clear the land of trees and building the islands connecting the mainland to Miami beach before Carl Fisher could do it. But they talked it over with the goblins and the price would be too high. Besides the goblins were still building the race track mountain and they couldn't take a big contract like that. So instead they drew up plans for a big spanish style house with white walls and clay tile roof on the edge of the farm that butted up against the bay to be built by the summer of 1888. They made a three level 10 bedroom 12 bathroom house with a big pool, a pool house with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, and a private beach with a big deep water dock for boats. In the front of the house coming off each wing of the house was a carriage house with a ten car garage on the main floor and three 2 bedroom 1 bathroom apartments on the second level on each side. There was a big eight foot tall brick wall around the whole property and a big gate in the front in the middle of the big courtyard/driveway was a fountain. The house cost 1,800 galleons or $45,000 when it was all done in june of 1888. They spent another $5,000 to furnish it.
The place was called El Castillo and it would be a place where the whole family could come and be together. It was something Harry had been thinking about. His son Tommy was 13 and getting more independent by the day. At some point down the line he'd have a family of his own and even if they lived in the same apartment. They would be dealing with their own problems. At some point all the twins would become grown ups with families of their own. Both families wanted to adopt more kids in the future. The truth was at some point their family would balloon from 9 to potentially hundreds of Steels and Blackwells. Both his wife and his sister laughed when he said this but Neville nodded. He was thinking about it to.
The race track was completed by January of 1888 and the boys spent all of their free time in their new playground. The girls couldn't really roll their eyes too hard because they were with them half the time. In the middle of the mountain top was a big building with a garage to store all the cars and a place to work on them. The building also had a bar, game room, six bedrooms, ten bathrooms, and a big hundred foot tower with a magical elevator overlooking all the race tracks. The boys spent time stripping the 35 random cars Harry had in his bag and getting them race ready.
They were mostly euro sedans and coupes. But there were ten nice sports cars and exotics in the bag too like a 2015 Lamborghini Huracan, a 1998 Ferrari F355, a 2014 Dodge Viper ACR, a 2012 Nissan GTR, a 2015 Corvette ZR1, a 1989 Porsche 944 turbo race car, a 2016 Mustang GT350R, a 2014 Subaru BRZ, a 1997 Honda NSX, and a resto modded 1969 Camaro.
The rest was junk Harry forgot to clear out of his bag. Things like BMW M3s and M5s, Mercedes S and C class cars, Audi A and S class sedans, Jaguar X types, Rolls Royce Phantoms, and Bentley Continental GTs. They were a nice cars taken from bad men with the intent to add them to the sell pile in the contraband wearhouse. None of the cars were older than 2010, most of them were black, and all of them had nice leather and wood interiors.
They set aside a few of the really nice cars like the two Phantoms, the Jaguar XJ Limo, and the custom Continental GT. Neville and Harry worked on the rest of the cars. By casting an overpowered repair charm at the car they took it back to factory new. Then they stripped out the interiors. Harry copied the racing seat and the five point harness and they bolted them into the cars. They enchanted the cars to take a hit and hold up to the damage. By March they had a fleet of track cars. By early April they were learning the tracks and teaching friends and family how to drive. It ended up to be fun for the whole family with Tommy learning quickly and outpacing his dad and uncle.
On the home front the four twins went from small football sized crying babies to walking talking two year olds with personalities of their own. Even at the age of two they acted like their parents. Little Frank Blackwell looked like his dad but acted like his mom. At two he loved books. Storytime was his time. He liked to sit on his father's or his uncle's lap and look at the book as they read. Susan was sure he would be reading in a year. His sister Emma on the other hand liked to hang back and watch the room as if she was taking everything in and making mental notes. It unnerved both nannies at first but after spending time with Neville they saw the same quite observant behavior.
The Steel children were a mix of their parents. Lily had blond hair and green eyes and liked to always be moving. Playing, crawling, touching things, when she started climbing the furniture they had to start baby proofing the house. Not that it mattered she started summoning things to her by 15 months. It would have shocked them if little Bobby hadn't been doing it for five months already. Bobby had black hair and blue eyes and was a powerhouse like his dad. He skipped right over accidental magic and went right to controlled magic. He summoned, levitated, and banished toys at will. He also like to entertain his sister and cousins. One time they walked into the nursery and saw all of the stuffed animals dancing around the room. It was something he liked to do.
"Son, what are you doing?" Harry asked his little boy.
"Teddy make dance." He said.
"I see, how are you doing it?" Harry asked.
"Magic." Bobby said laughing.
"Right. Well if there was any doubt you were my kid it's gone now." Harry said hugging the boy with a smirk.
The family fell into a groove and things ran smoothly. It was comfortable. Hermione continued working on ways to make their lives easier. Abby kept BSSI going with Marcus' help. Neville turned out to be a good field trainer helping green agents get their footing. Harry shocked everyone by really embracing classroom teaching. He ran a class three times a week in the danger room for advanced agents training. Not everyone had the power level and the moral flexibility to become a Black level agent but he pushed the agents and agent trainees to become better. In a year and a half they had yet to lose an agent and he wanted to keep that record going as long as he could. On the days he was not teaching he was working in the field as as a field trainer.
Nothing happened until October 30th 1888. That day Neville walked into Harry's office in the BSSI building with a big grin on his face.
"What can I help you with?" Harry asked.
"You busy on the night of the 8th of November?" Neville asked.
"Not really, I mean sleeping might be on the agenda. why?" Harry asked.
Neville dropped a newspaper on his desk with a headline Jack The Ripper
"We've been so busy we forgot something important. But we know where he's going to be on the 8th of November. He's going to be at 13 Miller's Court off Dorset street. Where the killer will be busy killing Mary Kelly. I say we stakeout the place from the rooftop and wait for him to strike. Then we'll go in and get him." Neville said with a grin.
"Okay. Now this sounds fun. Let's do it." Harry said matching his grin.
That was how they found themselves sitting on a roof behind a wall of charms sharing a flask of Highland Park at 3:45 in the morning November the 9th.
"What time do you think he'll strike?" Harry asked his brother as he held his agent's revolver in his hand.
"No idea. They found her body the next morning according to the book Abby had." Neville said.
"You think we should try to take him alive?" Harry asked.
"Sure, unless he's someone famous, then it's our word against his, in that case we're fucked. There are too many questions to answer. Things like why are we here staking out this house? If we were following him then how did we know it was him. Also if we stop him from killing this prostitute then we have what? A man followed a hooker back to her house and got rough with her? It's 1888 Harry, women have no rights and hookers have even less." Neville said.
"SO we let him kill the girl?" Harry asked.
"No, we shoot him in the face, mind wipe the girl, and dump his body in the Themes after we rob him. But that's only if he's someone famous. If we can't recognise him we take him alive and question him under truth potion. Either way it ends tonight. This is what most likely happened the last time. Something happened to the killer before he could kill again. This time we're what happened." Neville said looking at his pocket watch.
"What time is it?" Harry asked.
"It's 3:57." Neville said.
"Over under he gets here by five?" Harry asked.
"Under." Neville said.
"Gold coin?" Harry asked pulling out a $50 gold coin.
"Deal." Neville said with a smirk. "I can't believe we're sitting here waiting for Jack the Ripper." Neville said.
"I know, this is fun. I wish we would have thought about this sooner." Harry said.
"We dropped the ball on this. There should have never been a killer in Whitechapel." Neville said.
"Hay Nev, who wins if he get's here before four?" Harry said pointing to a man in a top hat and overcoat following a woman down the street.
"Me I think." Neville said putting his watch away and pulling his gun.
"Cool, I'll owe you?" Harry asked as Mary opened her door and slipped inside.
"Yeah. full approach? Or one in and one out?" Neville asked as the man approached the door.
"Let's see how this plays out. This could be a john." Harry said tracking the man with his gun as Mary answered the door. The man showed her something and she let him in. "What's going on?" Harry muttered.
"I don't know but I'm going to find out. Let's approach the door and see what's going on." Neville said before popping to the side off the door. Harry did the same thing going to the other side of the door. Harry made the door invisible to them and they saw the man talking to Mary. Harry looked at the gold badge on his jacket and studied the man closely.
"Is that the Chief Inspector?" Harry asked.
"Yeah, Abberline, Fred Abberline. If he's the killer then we know why he's getting away with the murders. If he make a move at her I'm dropping him. We can't arrest him." Neville said.
"Copy that, I'll kick in the door." Harry said backing up and standing in front of the door.
Harry watched closely as the inspector waited until she turned around before pulling a knife out of his coat. Harry kicked in the door and Neville rolled around the door jamb and shot him in the arm. Harry slipped in and kicked the inspector in the center of his chest and slammed him into the wall as Neville came in. Neville rolled him over and cuffed him as he drug him out of the house. Harry mind wiped Mary, picked up the knife and fixed the door as he walked out. They portkeyed to the london office and sat the inspector in a chair.
"What is the meaning of this?! I am a chief inspector!" he shouted only for Neville to belt him across his chin.
"Shut up Jack. Yes, we know it's you." Neville said when his eyes got big.
"We know it's you and we want to know why?" Harry said.
"I have no idea what you're talking about! Now let me go!" He shouted setting his eyes in a cold glare.
"Right, we do this the magical way." Harry said grabbing his hair and pulling back hard enough to make him open his mouth. When he did, Neville put some truth potion into his mouth. As soon as it hit his tongue he went stiff before going limp. "Good, now why did you start killing hookers?" Harry asked.
"I did it because I could. Because I wanted to. I did it because the fucking whores deserved it. I wanted to do it. I wanted to gut them like the fucking cows they are." He said coldly.
"How did you get the idea to start?" Neville tried.
"There was a murder a few months back, a whore was stabbed 39 times. The blood, the guts, the inner workings of her body touched something inside me. I needed to see it again. I needed to feel it." He said with a voice full of pleasure and lust.
"Right one last question. How many people did you kill?" Harry asked taking his gun out.
"Four whores." He said.
"That's it?" Harry asked.
"Yes." He said.
"Good." Harry said putting a bullet between his eyes.
He took his pocket watch, his cufflinks, his ring, and his Webley Royal Irish Constabulary revolver from his pocket. He left the badge but made sure to take everything else off the body. The last thing his did was summon to lead slug from his head and the one from his arm before transfiguring him into a small black rock. They took a short walk to the river and tossed the rock into the water. It would take a week or two for the transfiguration to drop and then the body would surface a week after he went missing. They portkeyed back to the house and Harry walked into the study. He took a display case out of his desk and put the things he took off of the killer's body in the case. He transfigured a small brass plaque that read Jack the Ripper and stuck it to the case before putting the case on a table next to the guns he had signed by John Browning.
Harry took out a bottle of scotch and two glasses. He poured two drinks and handed one to his brother along with a gold coin.
"You took the under." Harry said taking a seat by the fireplace with his brother joining him.
"It was a safe bet, all of his killings took place before five in the morning." Neville said.
"We should have caught this guy sooner. Four dead girls are on our heads. We stopped so many tragedies in the last two years but we dropped the ball on this one." Harry said summoning two cigars and the lighter from the table and passing one to Neville.
"We got comfortable. We can't let it happen again." Neville said.
"We can get comfortable, but we need to stay on top of these dates better and we need to get in with the cops betters. London Metro should have called us after the first dead girl. We can't butt in on every case without being called, it will look bad but we need to keep on top of dates better. We can't prevent every murder but we can soften the blow of tragedy. Just like we did for the snow storm in March. We warned our staff it was coming and they in turn warned their muggle friends and neighbors up and down the east coast. And we opened the warehouses for shelters. Abby said the storm killed 400 people in our time, this time the death count was less than 200. Was it bad? Sure. but it wasn't tragic. We did what we could." Harry said as Abby walked into the room in her night gown and bathrobe.
"Did you two get him?" She asked with a grin as she dropped into Harry's lap and took a sip of his drink.
"We caught and killed Jack the Ripper tonight. You'll never guess who it was." He said with a matching grin.
"Who? A mad doctor? A member of parliament? It has to be someone powerful or you would have arrested him." She said.
"Chief Inspector Fred Abberline." Harry said.
"NO! You're kidding! The lead investigator? That's too Hollywood!" She said looking shocked.
"I know, when we saw him we waited until he almost slit that girl's throat before moving in. but I have something I want to show you." Harry said getting up and getting the case. "Jack the Ripper's knife. It's a scalpel I think." Harry said handing her the case.
"Fuck this is both exciting and morbid." She said looking at the case.
"I know, it's why we feel odd right now. We stopped a killer but we did it too late. We need to get on top of shit like this faster." Harry said.
"I've been talking to Mia about hiring a seer to head off new events and keep track of the list we have. We know we messed this one up." Abby said.
"Good. It's no one's fault because we all worked our asses off but the we have a responsibility to stop killers. Who knows what the Inspector would do or did in our timeline to make him stop after tonight? If he even did? It's shit like that that haunts my..." Harry started to say before they heard a knock at the front door. Harry was out of his seat heading to the front door. Harry checked the magical peep hole on the wall in the front hall and saw Sally the night shift desk clerk with a small bulldog revolver in her hand and a white haired woman in her early forties dressed in shimmering red robes under a black cloak. She had silver blue eyes that looked oddly familiar to him and while he was looking she smiled a warm and friendly smile. Harry pulled the agent's revolver from his shoulder rig and answered the door with a smile.
"Sorry for the late hour Mr. Steel, but this lady said it was an emergency and that she had very important information for you. She's clean, Mike checked her for weapons and she surrendered her wand before we came up here." Sally said handing him a 10 inch very thin wand that had an odd power rolling through it and a card that read Madam Lyra Lovegood, Seer.
"State your business." Harry said holding back the smile on his face. That's where he saw her face before. This was Luna's however many time great grandmother.
"Many times is right. I was born in 1447. I am the second oldest in the bloodline, I believe you know my however many great uncle Gideon Ollivander and I'm here to strike a deal with you. I will work for you if you will protect my family." She said as her eyes clouded over more.
"Right, please come in, Sally we have it from here. Thank you." Harry said shaking her hand and placing a $5 coin in her palm.
"Just doing my job Sir." She said with a smile.
"And you do it well. As for you my lady Lovegood, may I take your cloak?" Harry asked putting away his gun and handing her back the wand with a slight bow.
"You may, and you don't have to treat me like a lady of the 1400s. I've seen hundreds of different possible futures and hundreds of years into those futures. I know of a great many things. Like my uncle I too have seen the future you all came from." She said as Harry hung up her cloak by the door and lead her into the study. "Hello." She said with a very Luna like smile to Neville, Abby, and Hermione who was sitting next to her husband in her robe.
"I would make the introductions but I think you know everyone here Madam Lovegood. Guys this is Luna's many great grandmother Lyra Lovegood. Would you like a drink Madam Lovegood?" Harry asked handing her into a chair and going to the drinks cart.
"Yes, a glass of that fine scotch with two ice cubes if you please and you don't have to be so formal Harry, Lyra please." She said with a faraway smile that got bigger when everyone else in the room smiled.
"I hate to be a pessimist but I've never heard of you from Luna." Harry said leaving the question in the air.
"That's because I died in 1939 in the london bombing. The Lovegood sight is a blessing and a curse. It occurs every so often in the the bloodline. We can see the ever changing future but, when it comes to us and our families it's blank. A blind spot. But I've been keeping an eye on you ever since my uncle told me about you. It was at that point I knew that dark timeline was the one you came from. But since your return things have been looking up. When I saw your need for a seer a few days ago I knew this was my chance to protect my family and put my gift to better use then telling fortunes for the rich and powerful. For space in a building like this, and protection for my family. We don't need guards but some of those protection vests you all wear, and those emergency portkey rings would be nice. For this I will help you keep track of the future. And to answer your previous question, in half the time lines where Mary Kelly lives she will continue to walk the streets until she dies of syphilis. In other timelines she meets a man and they have a few kids. In others she is murdered in various ways. She does work a dangerous job. As for your other question, the chief inspector, in some timelines he stops killing because the other cops start looking at him. In some he moves on to killing children. Only in a few timelines does he get caught." She said with glowing white eyes and a breathy voice. She blinked a few times and flexed her nose like she had to sneeze.
"I think we owe it to Luna to look out for your family no matter what. How many Lovegoods are there?" Harry asked.
"As of right now, there are 15 of us in the bloodline, not all of them are Lovegoods but they are of the Ollivander bloodline." She said.
"Well we do not have enough space for them in this building but, we have an empty apartment building with 8 apartment units in the danger room on the corner of C street and 3rd avenue. They will be living in one of the most secure buildings in the world surrounded by armed agents and have access to cheap goods and services. They will all be making $5 a day for just living inside the room and I think we're going to start handing out the rings to all of our people. They cost very little and the potential good they can do is staggering. I'll see your request for vests and raise you vests, guns, and training." Harry said.
"You have yourself a deal." She said.
"Oh we're not done dealing yet. We have to talk about your pay and accommodations. I think the first thing we need to know is how your gift works." Harry said.
"It works by questions. The more precise the question the more precise an answer I can give you. Like you asked what would happen to Mary Kelly. As soon as you asked that question I got thirty visions of her death. The timeline is ever changing. I just don't know what will happen, but as time goes on and I look in on the same question I'll see less visions until the timeline locks in and I'll see one vision. If I have a specific event then I can see if it will happen unless a family member or I end up dead in the event then I can't see it. But if you have a list of events I can tell you if they will happen, and if they will happen then I can tell when they will happen, and how bad it will be. I can also tell you the outcome of things and the changes you made. I can not predict wars, and freak accidents. There are too many variables. Also random murders. If someone loses their temper and shoots someone I can't see that. Human emotion plays a big part in randomising the time line. The difference between life and death might come down to weather a man got up on the wrong side of the bed. A bad night's sleep, leads to a poor day at work, which means a man drinks more that night, he stays at a bar past dinner time, he bumps into a guy he works with that gave him a dirty look, a gun is pulled, a man dies. It could be the man that got up angry, or the man that gave the dirty look, or a man leaving the bar to head home to his family. Now if you asked me about any one of those men and how they died I would see that day, and a dozen other days. However if you knew that man could die that day and he did get up angry and he did have a bad day I could tell you for certain that he would stay at the bar and things would play out like it did in your timeline. That is what I'm good for. Confirming and tracking events to see if they play out the way they did from you." She said.
"Then I think we can put you on the payroll at the same level as Marcus and Smith, they get $25,000 a year and your choice of living arrangements. I would like to welcome you to the BSSI family." Harry said holding out his hand.
"I foresee great things." She said with a smirk making them all laugh.
"I would love to pick your brain, but it's after midnight. Do you have a place to stay?" Hermione asked.
"I have a room at the Fifth Avenue Hotel and my driver is waiting for me downstairs. I understand we work out of the office in battery park? I shall report for duty 9am sharp. I look forward to helping you keep us away from that dark timeline." She said finishing her drink and standing up. They all shook hands and Harry walked her down to her waiting carriage.
"I have to know…" Harry started.
"Your whole family makes it past the time you all came back in almost all of the timelines I can see involving your family. But time is ever shifting. All I can say is that you are doing everything right. The things you have set in motion have all protected your family and the more powerful your family gets the more and less safe it becomes. You are more protected but your enemies are an ever growing list." She said.
"Thank you. Have your family come by the office and we'll get them settled in." Harry said handing her into the carriage. He walked up to the carriage driver and saw that he was armed. "You make sure she gets to the hotel tonight and the office in the morning and there will be two more of those in it for you." Harry said handing the young man in his twenties a $50 gold coin. The young man saw the gold coin and nodded.
"I will sir, I'll walk her to her door." He said.
"Good son." Harry said shaking his hand before he took off. Harry walked back into the apartment and saw the study was empty. He walked into his room and saw Abby on the bed. "She's a powerful seer." Harry said.
"You asked her?" Abby asked.
"I didn't have to. We're doing everything we can and we doing the right things." Harry said taking off his clothes and getting into bed.
"Good. That's all we can hope for." She said.
The next day Lyra showed up to the office building and was shown to an office next to Abby's. She sat down and handed Abby a list of things she needed. A runner was sent out and by noon she was sitting in a big leather chair in the dark office surrounded by candles with a glass of brandy and the list of events. By closing time she had percents marked down next to each event on the list and a tired look about here.
From that day forward she looked at the possible future she also added to the list by looking into the possible chain of events that followed the actions they took everyday. It was draining work on her part but every time they stopped something bad from happening she felt a sense of accomplishment and that was something she never felt before. The fact that her whole family lived in a nice apartment inside of the most secure building in the city, for free and they were being paid to live there on top of it. Helped her sleep good at night. In fact neither her or her family really left the building. Why should they? They had everything inside and they made enough money to not have to work. Most of her family joined the company doing things like secratary work, two of her nephews found jobs on the gunsmithing floor others pitched in helping the healers. They were all happy and the fact that their kids could play inside the danger room and they were making a good wage which means they didn't have to work.
That was another thing that had to go much to Harry's dismay. The danger room was renamed B&S town and Harry had plans to build more. The idea of living in a protected building was appealing to a lot of people. Harry was thinking about building a huge blimp hangar style building and expanding it to the size of a small city somewhere in the middle of the country. He was thinking about making the roof retractable and leveling the floor dirt so they could plant yards and gardens. A eutopie protected from the harsh weather where magical families could live and grow and not have to worry about their neighbors seeing their kids do accidental magic. The same idea could also be applied to crop farming. Harry passed the idea around and he got a lot of agreement from his family. He set the goblins to it and the Wolf Crest Estates was constructed in the spring of 1889. It was built in Kansas close to the deer farm.
The building was impressive from the outside. It was shaped like a football stadium. The building was 1,500 foot long and 750 foot wide with a 20 foot tall roof that was fully retractable. From the air it looked like a modern day factory. The building was constructed out of steel frame and heavy two foot cubed blocks of concrete. They dug out the floor one foot deep and laid a concrete slab down with magical drainage. They painted the walls a soft sky blue and cast the sky enchantment on the ceiling. Then they put a 10 times expansion charm on the whole building making it 15,000 foot long, 7,500 foot wide, 200 foot tall, and teen foot deep. This gave them 4 square miles of space.
They back filled the dirt and mixed in dragon dung and fertilizers to grow grass and trees. Over the next year the goblins built a town inside the building. They started buy planting a 15 foot ring of trees around the building along the blue walls to give the appearance of being surrounded by woods on all sides. Then they built a grid of roads separating out blocks with letter street names going east to west and number streets going north to south. They laid down tons of grass seed and with the sunlight coming in on nice days and the magical sunlight and sprinkler system taking care of the not so nice days the grass grew nice and thick.
The goblins next built a town square in the center of the building with a big park with a baseball field. They made a town hall, store fronts with houses above, a ten classroom school, a sheriff's office, a doctor's office, and a few restaurants. Branching out from there they made rows of small two bedroom one bathroom houses with little front yards. Intermixed with small houses were bigger houses with three and four bedrooms and more bathrooms. But for the most part they made smaller houses. They branched out to three block from the town square to start and as more people came to Wolf Crest Estates they would come in and build out a few more blocks. They had 650 houses built by the winter of 1989 and Harry spread the word through the B&S company that they had good affordable houses inside a protected building and sitting under goblin wards.
Wolf Crest cost them 5 million to build so far and they work out a deal with the goblins to come in and build houses when they needed them at a good price. $500 for a two bedroom house, $750 for a three bedroom house and a $1,000 for a four bedroom house. Harry was thinking about selling the houses for ten times that and giving out no interest mortgages for employees looking to buy a house in Wolf Crest. They would also have to pay taxes on their house to keep the town running. $350 for a small house, $550 for a medium house, and $750 for a big house. It was well within budget. After all the lowest level employee made $5 a day and with their bonus they took in $2,400 a year. If you took into account that most of them paid little to no rent and they shopped in B&S stores and bought goods at just above cost and in a lot of cases more than one family member worked in the company making good money. They had plenty of coin left over to buy a house and pay their taxes.
There were a lot of takers as word got out. Everyone liked living in the apartments Harry provided, but the idea of land and more room for their kids to grow and play sold almost every family they had working for them. When they saw the little houses and the town they all jumped on the deal. A ten year mortgage on a two bedroom house was $500 a year when you added in the taxes it came to $850 a year or $70.83 a month or $2.32 a day. And if that was too much Harry gave them the option of a 15 year mortgage for $333 a year, $683 a year with taxes. That was $56.91 a month, or $1.87 a day. And the home was yours after you paid it off. It could be passed on to your kids or sold to someone for more them what you bought it for.
By the spring of 1890 they had most of the town business filled, they had a mayor, a police chief, and a headmistress for the school. They also had 350 of the houses filled with families and young couples. At the end of the day they would lose money on this project even with inflation and the price of houses and taxes going up over the next hundred years but bringing the magical community together was more important.
Not everyone saw the point in buying a house in Wolf Crest. A lot of the workers kept asking the same question to the point that Harry called a mass town hall meeting in Wolf Crest for all of the B&S workers. That was how he found himself standing in front of 1,600 people in the town square on April 5th 1890.
"I called this meeting to address some questions and comments we've been getting about this place from some of you guys. I think the first question I can answer is: Why bother buying a house here in Wolf Crest if we provide houses in apartment buildings for free or close to free. And the answer is, you're right. If you're young, single, old, or working at the entry level position in your first year and you're just now adjusting to having coin in your pocket then Wolf Crest is not for you. You want to be in the city, where the action is and the nightlife is better. As you can see there is only one pub in Wolf Crest and I can tell you now it closes at midnight every night. We do not plan on building another pub and definitely no bars. Wolf Crest is for families full stop. This place is not for you. It's for your kids. It a safe place where you can let your son or daughter walk to the park without having to worry. A place with a yard to pay in. a play ground. A little league baseball team, boy, and girl scouts. Clubs, games and arcades. Not to mention a free school to teach your kids basic reading, writing, math, and magic. That does not mean this place has nothing for adults. Every week we are going to have events planned. We have a bowling alley, a social club for ladies, a hunting lodge for the men, and a bunch of restaurants for everything from inexpensive hearty home cooking for the nights you don't feel like cooking for the family, to five star fancy dining for that special occasion like anniversaries and date night." Harry said taking a drink of water.
"Now the other question I keep getting is why do I have to buy a house to live here when people are paid to live in B&S Town? The answer lies with the name change of the room and it was a reason I was against changing it. As most of you know B&S Town used to be called the Danger Room. the people that live there are paid because they have to put up with us going in there everyday and shooting at each other. They live in a constant state of having to live around us closing off streets, and the sound of gunfire. Yes we throw up muffling charms over the area we close off for the class that day but it's still a constant stream of small popps four hours a day, every day. They get paid to put up with us." Harry said and he got a lot of nodding heads.
"Also, they don't own the apartments they live in. For the price of $5,000 you own a piece of very limited land in a place tailor made to raise a family. Once we fill this place up that's it. We figured out that there's room for about 15,000 people in Wolf Crest. That number might seem like a lot, but consider this. There are 1,600 people in the B&S family right now. A third of you have kids, as your kids grow up, and have kids of their own that number is going to balloon out. We also hire about 150 to 200 people a year to work in the B&S family and some of them are going to want to live here. A $5,000 two bedroom house, with a few expansion charms can become a ten bedroom mansion that you can pass down to your children and your children's children. A piece of land they can call their own." Harry said.
"The last thing I wanted to address was the taxes. Depending on the size of the land under your house you'll have to pay out between $350 to $750. That may sound steep and I just wanted to tell you where that money is going to go. It's going into a fund to pay for the school, the teachers, the post office, the doctor's office, and the police station. It's going to go into the upkeep of this place. To making sure the roof can open and close and the walls don't fall apart. It's also going to go back into the community. Like I said there will be weekly events like dances, fairs, concerts, barbecues, and social gatherings. What little money is leftover will go into a fund for unexpected emergencies. None of your tax dollars go to me. I'm going to level with you all, this place cost 5 Million dollars to build." He said and got a bunch of shocked gasps.
"But it was worth every penny because Wolf Crest is a community. Something the magical world is lacking. And I understand it, it's hard to get to know your muggle neighbors when your young son can't control his magic. That's something you never have to worry about here because you're neighbor's kid is having the same control issues." Harry said with a smile and got some laughs from the crowd.
"Now I can take any questions you have." Harry said drinking his water.
He fielded a few questions that day, and after that they did a walking tour of the town. The next day they had 100 new mortgage requests. By that winter they had most of the houses full and they had the goblins come in and build 500 more houses. That Christmas Harry surprised the them with a big ten bedroom house in the back corner of Wolf Crest. They had some land but not too much. The house was for when their kids got bigger and they wanted to slow down. The Park Place apartment was their home, the El Castillo was a vacation house, but the house in Wolf Crest was for the day their kids got tired of not seeing their parents every day. They knew that day was coming. As it was they started cutting back their hours at work to spend more time with their kids that were rapidly getting bigger. They would use the Wolf Crest house for the summer for now but when they felt it was time they would move their house to Wolf Crest. Until the twins were ready to head off to Salem or Hogwarts. Or if Harry got his way he would have a magic school up and running in seven years. A school that taught advanced education and advanced magic. As it was the school in Wolf Crest would offer night classes to help people that needed it. It was shocking how many employees they had that couldn't read or do math.
That summer when they moved into the wolf crest house and for three months they lived a small town life. During the morning they all headed off to work leaving the kids with the nannies. They got home at or before two everyday and they spent the rest of the day with the two sets of twins in the yard or at the park in the town square. They didn't carry all their guns they just wore their undercover rig. In fact they ditched their formal clothes all together. On the weekends they portkeyed to Florida and spent time on the beach. They attended BBQs, baseball games, concerts, and fairs in the town square.
The twins also got to know the teachers at the school. By this point they were three and a half and they knew how to talk in full sentences even if a bit broken in word choice. Susan knew they were all gifted children. They were a half a year ahead of the learning curve. They would soon be attending school, but as it was Susan taught them letters, numbers, colors, and shapes, Frank was in the lead so far. He could understand what words were. His sister Alice was the next smartest, followed by Lily, with her brother Bobby bringing up the end. But as slow as Bobby was he was still speaking in full sentences. It was funny that the order of intelligence was flipped with the order of power. Little Bobby was a powerhouse. At three he scored an 85 on the power scale. His sister was a 75, still very high for a small child. Alice was a 60 and her brother was a normal 55 on the mage scale.
As time rolled on they all found spending time a Wolf Crest a joy. The slow paced life of a small town did wonders for them. They loved going to events hosted by the town, and they loved talking to their neighbors. They made friends in WOlf Crest that they would miss when they moved back to Park Place. What was a dreaded inevitability of moving to the town for the twins was now something they were looking forward to. The fact that they could relax and not worry about anything took a lot of stress off Harry's mind.
Everyone loved Wolf Crest. The exception being Tommy who spent most of his time running the meat business and spending time in New York with Penny. In fact when they got to the house in Wolf Crest around noon Penny would portkey back to the city to be with Tommy. They would have dinner someplace nice and head off to a play or concert. Some nights they just walked through the park. Some days they portkeyed to London or Paris. Whereas the rest of the family liked the slow pace and calm nature of Wolf Crest, Tommy liked carrying 6 guns, 3 knives, and a wand. He liked the excitement of wearing body armor and having to watch his back as he walked the streets at night. He never made himself a target but if someone tried to mug him he would pull a gun and his BSSI badge. If they still wanted to dance he would kneecap them and drop them off at the office for them to take care of. Every night Tommy would escort Penny back to her room at Wolf Manor by ten they would share a good night kiss before he heading off to the study to talk with his dad.
They would sit and talk about things as they shared a glass of scotch and a small cigar. Most parents would frown on their 15 year old drinking and smoking and Hermione did, but Harry just shrugged. The boy ran a division of B&S. He worked a full day. In fact he worked harder than his father did. He was magical so smoking had no effect on his body. And as long as he drank responsibly Harry didn't care if his boy had one drink before bed after a long day. Boy, that was the last thing you thought of when looking at Tommy now. He was almost six foot tall and thanks to the crossfit workout routine he got from his uncle he was 200 pounds of bulky muscle. He was broad chested with big arms and legs from his long treks through the woods and jungles hunting animals for the meat company. He had a good mustache but his beard was taking it's time coming in. His maturity level never wavered once. He still acted like a 30 year old man most of the time. Harry was just happy his son still took time to talk to him every night.
As September rolled around they moved back to New York. the move fucked with the childrens time clocks and caused a few nights of the crankies but the twins soon settled down. The month was packed with birthdays and Harry liked the challenge of finding new and inventive gifts. But as the month drew to a close Harry looked forward to a different day marked on his calendar. October 19, it was the five year anniversary of their trip back in time. On that night Harry cooked a small feast of chicken tacos for his family and friends. Harry sat as the head of the table that night with a grin on his face. As he looked over the group he felt a warmth in his chest. He came back in time by accident. He landed in a time where almost all of the things he enjoyed were not invented yet. He came back with the only two people that mattered to him and now he had so much more. He had a wife that he loved and that loved him back. He had a son he was so proud of. He had the twins that were his whole world. He had friends. He had a company. He had it all. Sure there were wars, economic depression, and plages on the horizon. But for now, at this moment in time, Harry was happy.