[Emissary] Chapter 33 - Blood Adoption

Once he stepped through the portal that Death had created for him, Harry found himself right in front of the Leaky Cauldron. 

‘How considerate,’ he mused. 

Deep down, he could not help but be wary of Death’s seemingly helpful actions. He could not shake the feeling that Death was plotting something. Was it just paranoia after getting burnt one too many times? Or was he right on the money? That was something that only time would tell. On the other hand, he was a fool for his little daughter. Her tears the other day had broken his heart. He wished for nothing more than to make her happy. 

Glancing at his surroundings, he noted that the street looked just like in his memories. The Leaky Cauldron’s dingy appearance was no different either. 

As he opened the old, wooden door and walked inside the pub, he was greeted by the sight of people wearing wizarding robes; he nodded at Tom, the innkeeper, and walked to the back of the pub, tapping on the wall three times with his wand. 

Seeing the bricks starting to move away to create a doorway, Harry smiled. It appeared that Death had not lied to him. He really was in the right dimension.

‘I can’t wait to see the look on the girls' faces when they see this,’ he thought with a smile. 

He did not enter Diagon Alley. Instead, he turned on his heel and left the pub, returning to the muggle side of London. Once he was out, he walked some distance away, to the closest side alley, and cast a spell that would make passers-by ignore that spot. Making sure nobody was watching him, he crouched and inscribed a series of symbols with his Rune Magic. 

It was a Runic Array that would allow him to teleport back to that place without the use of a Portkey because, in a world where wizards and witches existed, Portkeys were strictly regulated and tracked by the Ministry of Magic. 

Using a Portkey to dimension travel back to where Kara and Astrid were was fine because the Ministry would have no way of tracking him there, but he wanted to return without kicking the hornets' nest. 

Done with inscribing the Runic Array, Harry left that place and walked for another half a kilometre. Then, he ducked into another side alley and, picking an empty can of beer off the ground, he touched it with his wand. 

‘Portus.’

The can glowed with a blue light, and Harry’s body disappeared into thin air. 

Just as he had predicted, less than one minute later, two Ministry officials Apparated on that spot to catch the ones who had broken the law. Alas, their Tracking Spells did not yield any results. Much to their bewilderment, the wizard and the witch could not find the destination of the Portkey that had been used there. They were left scratching their heads for a long time as they tried to make sense of it.

⁂

When Harry returned to Kara, she let out a sigh of relief. 

“You’ve been gone for a while. Did you run into any trouble?”

“Quite the opposite. This dimension was a dud too, but Someone,” he stressed the word meaningfully so that Kara would understand who he was referring to, “offered to open a passage for me to a dimension where my kind exists.”

“You mean-”

“Yes. The one above.”

“Oh. . .”

The meaning of their conversation went right over Astrid’s head. She had no interest in that. Instead, she asked in excitement:

“You mean we can see the magical world now?” 

Harry smiled at her. 

“Yes, it’s all good now! I can’t wait to show it to you!”

Harry’s and Astrid’s enthusiasm was so contagious that Kara found herself looking forward to it as well. 

“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

With the two girls hugging his side, Harry activated his Rune Magic. Teleportation through Rune Magic was different. Their bodies glowed with a blue light, and then they seemed to fade out from existence. 

A moment later, their bodies materialised in the other dimension, in London, in the side alley where Harry had inscribed his Runic Array. 

“Let’s go! Let’s go!” Astrid let out a squeal of joy and grabbed both Harry and Kara by their hands.

Harry and Kara laughed. Astrid loved magic. She had said many times that she was envious of her father’s ability to cast magic. The thought of visiting a magical world filled with wizards and witches excited her more than words could tell. 

With Kara and Harry holding Astrid’s hands and walking on each side of her, the three of them looked like a young and happy family as they walked down the streets of London. 

“What year is it, by the way? What’s the date?”

“I’m actually not sure. I forgot to check.”

“Is age getting to you, grandpa?”

“I was so excited about bringing you over that it escaped my mind,” Harry said, laughing. “But if I were to judge by the look of the cars, we’re probably in the 90s.”

“Good grief. What am I to do with you, old man?”

“This old man managed to pull a young and beautiful bird like you. I’d say I’m still doing alright.”

Astrid giggled. Her parents’ usual back-and-forth never failed to amuse her. 

Eventually, they arrived in front of the Leaky Cauldron, and Kara and Astrid got a taste of what Muggle Repelling Charms felt like. They did not notice the existence of the small pub until Harry led them there and stopped in front of the door. 

“You’re back again,” Tom, the amiable owner of the Leaky Cauldron, said as a greeting when he noticed Harry returning in such a short time. 

“Yes, I wanted to check the place first before bringing my wife and daughter along.”

“Ah, muggleborns I presume?”

“Indeed.”

“Well, it's good to have you here. Welcome to the Wizarding World!” Tom said with a smile. 

“Thank you. Have a great day!” Harry replied, and then they took their leave. 

Astrid and Kara were looking at their surroundings as though they were at a zoo. 

“Wow. You weren’t joking about the Victorian-era clothes,” Kara said in a low voice that only Harry and Astrid could hear. It felt surreal to her that people were walking around wearing cloaks, top hats, or pointy witch hats. 

“You haven’t seen anything yet. Wait till you see what older ladies from pureblood families dress like,” Harry said, chuckling at the mental image of Augusta Longbottom and her vulture hat. 

He led the girls to the back of the pub and stopped in front of a wall. It looked like a dead end, but Harry smirked at them. 

His smirk turned into joyful laughter when Astrid let out a gasp of surprise at the sight of the bricks magically moving to the side and creating a hole in the wall for them to pass. 

“Oooh!”

The sound came from Astrid, but Kara herself was no less surprised at the scenery that appeared in front of their eyes. 

It was a long and narrow alley stacked with dozens of shops on each side and so crowded with people that they could hardly make their way through. And those people were all wearing the same clothes as the ones in the pub. 

For Astrid and Kara, it was an even more overwhelming first experience than it had been for Harry 500 years ago because of their superhearing and X-ray vision. They did not only see and hear what was on the street but also what was going on inside the shops. 

People were buying and haggling over magical ingredients at the apothecary; magical creatures and other pets were being sold at the Magical Menagerie; they saw magical artefacts and strange gadgets of all kinds, flying broomsticks, food that moved as though it was alive, shops with books that spoke or sang or tried to bite the fingers of those touching them, and many other things that they had never seen before. 

It was as though they had set foot in the world of a fairy tale.

⁂

After making a stop at Gringotts, where Harry had exchanged some of the gold and jewellery that he had brought with him into galleons, he went to the Daily Prophet kiosk and bought a newspaper to find out the date and year without having to ask someone and make them look at him like at a weirdo. 

The moving pictures fascinated Kara and Astrid, who were flipping the pages of the newspaper and using their X-ray vision as if to see if there weren’t any circuits or other forms of technology that were animating them. 

“It’s 1991, the 2nd of March. It's half a year before I started my first year at Hogwarts, huh?” Harry mused. “Well, let’s go to the Apothecary first. We’ll finish our business first, and then we can go wherever you want.”

Thankfully, the layout of the alley was identical to how he remembered it, so he had an easy time navigating the cluttered street in search of what he required. 

Ten minutes later, as he walked down the streets of Konckturn Alley, he laughed as he told the girls the tale of his first Floo-travel experience.

“I still remember how terrified I was the first time I got lost in this place. I botched the name of the alley I was supposed to get transported to, and I ended up in this scary place filled with scowling wizards, and shops with nothing but dark and cursed objects.”

“Dad, I want to Floo-travel too! Pleaseee!”

“I’m also curious,” Kara said. “You’ve never used that form of transportation before.”

Their happy-go-lucky behaviour made a stark contrast with the generally dark and dreary ambience of Knockturn Alley, but Harry could not care less about the glares of those who lurked around. 

Thanks to his mastery of the Mind Arts, Harry’s memory was excellent, so he still remembered perfectly the required materials and ingredients for the Blood Adoption Ritual. That being said, the Blood Adoption Ritual also required a special potion whose ingredients could not be found in conventional shops, hence their trip to Knockturn Alley. 

Thankfully, it did not take long for him to buy all the stuff needed for the Metamorphosis Potion and for the ritual. 

After that, for the next 5 hours, they explored Diagon Alley and even Knockturn Alley. The racing shop, the Ice Cream Parlour, the Book store, the Tailor shop, the Brewery, the Fireworks shop, and so on and so forth. The girls dragged him around everywhere, leaving no stone unturned. 

⁂

Later that day, in the evening, as they were having seafood for dinner at Brews and Stews on Diagon Alley, a thought came to Kara’s mind. 

“You said it’s 1991, half a year before you went to school. . . that means you were still living with your relatives, right?”

Harry had not been that forthcoming when it came to talking about his early childhood, but they had talked a bit about it before, and Kara had gotten the impression that he and his relatives did not have a good relationship. 

“Yes. I lived with my aunt and uncle.”

“You had an aunt and an uncle? Can we visit them?” Astrid asked. 

The girl’s curiosity knew no bounds. Harry was firmly convinced that if she were to be sorted at Hogwarts, she would definitely end up in Ravenclaw. 

“They aren’t my real relatives. This is a different world. For all we know, they could be entirely different people, or they may not even exist at all. There’s a chance I don’t exist in this place either.”

“Still, it wouldn’t hurt to try, would it?” said Kara. 

She brought her hand across the table and placed it on top of his, offering him a comforting smile. Unlike Harry, she didn’t have magic; she could not read other people’s thoughts, but her intuition as a woman told her that it was a sensitive topic for him.

“But only if you want to. There’s no pressure.”

“To be honest, I wanted to go check up on my younger self alone. . . you see, my relatives weren’t good people, to put it lightly. I would rather Astrid not see that sort of thing yet,” said Harry.

“Don’t be like that, Dad. I’m a big girl! And I’m curious! I want to see how you looked when you were my age! Pretty please?”

In spite of his better judgement, Harry found himself saying yes. With both Kara and Astrid turning their soulful gazes at him, it was impossible for him not to cave in. 

“Alright,” he said when they were done with their dinner. “But, before we go there, I need to make some preparations."

“What sort of preparations?”

“If Vernon and Petunia are the same type of people that I used to know, things will get ugly. I won’t let my younger self continue living with them. But I can’t simply take him away either because the place I lived in as a child was under constant surveillance. We’ll surely come to blows with other wizards and, if worse comes to worst, the strongest wizard in the world himself may come after us.”

⁂

Half an hour later, thanks to Kara, who carried him in her arms like a princess (much to Astrid’s amusement), the three of them flew from London to one of the forests in northern Scotland.

Due to being in a different world, Harry did not want to risk Apparating in places he had not visited yet. He had to rely on Kara’s Kryptonian speed for travel since she was far faster than his flying spell. As for Astrid, she could keep up with her mother just fine. In the end, she was Kryptonian herself, and Power Girl was not flying at her top speed either.

Once they arrived at a place he was happy with, they stopped and he asked the girls to give him some space. 

Using his wand as though it were a brush and the air in front of him as though it were a canvas, he started writing at a very high speed a large number of peculiar symbols. 

Every time he completed a Runic Array, he would jab his wand towards a spot on the ground, and the glowing writing would sink into the earth.

“This might take me a while,” Harry said. “I could send you home, back to our dimension, if you wanted.”

“I don’t mind waiting,” Kara replied. 

“I want to stay with you too,” Astrid said while flying around and jumping from one tree to another. 

“Looks like I called you a little monkey so many times that you really turned into one,” Harry laughed. 

The girls laughed too. 

“Isn’t it distracting to speak while writing those spells?” 

“Not really. I’ve been doing it for so many years already; it’s almost like second nature for me now.”

When the three of them arrived, it was already quite late; only fifteen minutes after Harry started casting his Runes, it became dark.

“So, first you said I was your fiancé and then your wife~” Kara said out of nowhere. “You sure are taking liberties lately, aren’t you?”

Harry returned the teasing grin she threw at him.

“We already have a daughter, and we’re also living together. We’re practically married. Or, perhaps, do you mind it?” 

“Of course I don’t! But where is my ring? Where is my proposal? And where is my wedding?”

Before he could reply, Astrid flew to Harry’s back and climbed on his shoulders. 

“You won’t get any of that because Dad is going to marry me when I grow up.”

“Hah?! What are you saying? Harry is mine!”

“No, Daddy is mine!”

Twenty minutes after they arrived in the forest, he finished casting all the spells. Satisfied with his work, he put his wand back in its holster and turned his attention to Kara and Astrid, who were still going back and forth. 

“Dad!” “Harry!” Kara and Astrid called out to him, with the girl flying so that she would be on the same eye level as them. “Who are you going to get married to?”

He stared at them, taken aback momentarily. Then, he burst into laughter.

“You’re my little angel, Astrid, but your mom is going to be my wife.”

“Ha!” Power Girl let out a shout of triumph.

“Just you wait until I grow up! I'll be even more beautiful than you!” Astrid said in jealousy. 

Kara laughed and made a show out of embracing Harry and pressing a loud, wet smooch on his cheek. 

Astrid’s annoyance grew even higher. 

“Eww, can you stop kissing for one day at least?!”

“What’s wrong with kissing? You don’t like kisses?”

Astrid was so well-behaved most of the time that it was almost refreshing to see her act bratty now. 

“Or maybe you’re being jealous?” Kara said in a teasing voice.

“I’m not jealous!” the little girl said hotly, her face flushing as she crossed her arms to her chest and turned her back to them. 

By now, the two of them were grinning at Astrid from one ear to another. He walked to the levitating girl and took her in his arms, embracing her from behind. 

Astrid appeared to be struggling to get out of his arms, but it was clearly just an act. If she had wanted to, Harry’s physical strength was nowhere close to being enough to stop her. Her behaviour only endeared her even more to Harry. 

“Here, a kiss for you too, so that you stop being jealous,” he said as he kissed her cheek. 

The little girl stopped struggling and turned into her father’s arms to hug him. Looking at her mother, she stuck her tongue out at her. 

⁂

Due to how much time they spent in Diagon Alley and then flying to Scotland to cast his Rune Magic there, it was already night, so Harry and Kara decided to leave their visit to younger Harry for another day. They returned to their own dimension, back to their apartment in New York.

But now that she knew that Harry had all the required ingredients to perform the Blood Adoption Ritual, Astrid could not long hold back her impatience. In truth, even Kara was curious and couldn't wait for it.

Therefore, mere minutes after returning to their own dimension, the three of them used a Portkey to teleport to Harry's secret underground bunker in Southern France.

Unfortunately for the girls, the preparations for the ritual were quite time-consuming. Leaving aside the matter of drawing the complex magic circle by hand with white chalk, brewing the Metamorphosis Potion needed for the ritual took nearly two hours too.

Kara and Astrid decided to pass the time by watching a cartoon about three spy girls going on secret missions, but their minds were not on the show they were watching. Every ten minutes or so, the mother and daughter would use their X-ray vision to secretly peek into the other room, through the wall, to check up on Harry's progress with the magic circle or peer into the cauldron to see if the potion's colour had turned red yet (Harry had told them that the brewing process would be complete once it became red).

The next three hours seemed to pass at a snail's pace for the girls, but, eventually, the preparations were complete.

Now, Astrid was wearing nothing but a long, pure-white dress and sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle of a large magic circle. 

Magic circles were rarely used by the modern wizards and witches in Harry’s world of origin; they were relics of the ancient era. Nowadays, Ancient Runes masters and enchanters preferred to use simpler formulas because they were faster to inscribe. With the increase in population, the craftsmen’s focus shifted from creating masterpieces to mass-producing magical artefacts of moderate quality. 

That being said, some things, like the Blood Adoption Ritual, never changed. 

It was a seven-meter-wide circle encasing a seven-pointed star, each corner of the star containing another minor circle, for a total of seven. Numerous Ancient Runes filled the remaining spaces of the circle. 

Number 7 was a number that symbolised perfection, magic power, and divinity even. It was one of the most important numbers in Numerology, Arthimancy, Alchemy, and the study of Ancient Runes.

Harry placed a small stone bowl in each of the circles contained in the seven corners of the star. 

One filled with water.

One filled with earth. 

One filled with fire. 

One filled with mercury. 

One filled with sulphur. 

One filled with salt.

And one that was empty, symbolizing the element of air. 

Those were the seven main elements used in Alchemy. 

Once he was done with that, Harry walked to Astrid and smiled to reassure her. 

“Are you scared?”

She shook her head and smiled. 

“No. I trust you!”

“That’s my girl!" he said, pinching her cheek lightly. "Now, here, take this goblet. You have to drink it all in one go. It's going to be very bitter, so make sure not to spit it out, or you'll have to wait another three hours for me to brew another batch."

"I'll be careful, I promise," Astrid said in a voice filled with resolve as she took the goblet from Harry's hands.

The potion was a dark red colour, and it was letting out bubbles incessantly, as though it was boiling. However, the goblet was as cold to the touch as ice, and the steam coming from the potion wasn't hot either.

Holding the goblet with both hands, Astrid closed her eyes and brought it to her mouth, downing it all in one go. The taste was even more horrible than she had expected, but the thought of waiting another three hours if she wasted the potion gave her the strength not to spit it out.

The little girl let out a sigh of relief when it was all over, and she opened her eyes when she felt her father's heavy hand caressing her head.

"You did great, Angel," Harry praised her. "Now, I’m going to cut open my finger and draw some symbols on your body, okay? Keep your hands with the palms upwards. . . yes, just like that.”

He made a small cut with his wand on his index finger’s fingertip and drew three runes with his blood on Astrid’s palms and forehead. While he was at it, he also bopped her on the nose with another finger, making her giggle. 

It was just a small gesture, but it did wonders to ease Astrid's nervousness.

Kara smiled warmly from the side. The more she witnessed how Harry interacted with Astrid, the deeper she fell in love with him. 

‘If only we could have a child of our own too. . .’ she thought wistfully. 

She and Harry had only known each other for a few months, but the things that they had experienced had brought them much closer than was normal in such a short time. Allowing Harry inside her mind and letting him see all of her, her deepest and darkest fears and secrets, had created a level of intimacy and trust between the two of them as though they had known each other for years. 

‘But, with this, won’t Astrid become his as much as she is mine?’ Kara mused. ‘She’ll have both my DNA and his, won’t she? She’ll be no different from an actual daughter, as though she was born from us.’

Once the final preparations were over, Harry stepped out of the magic circle and knelt in front of it. He placed his palm on the designated spots in the magic circle and channelled his magic into it. 

The magic circle, the runes, and the lines all lit up with a bright blue light, and Harry started chanting in a language that neither Kara nor Astrid could understand. It was ancient Egyptian, the language spoken by the Pharaohs thousands of years ago; the Blood Adoption Ritual was their invention.

Due to the ritual being magical, Astrid was not invulnerable to it, and she let out a hiss of pain as the blood on her palms and forehead started burning. If not for Harry expressively telling Kara not to intervene, she would have jumped to her rescue in worry. 

The little girl gritted her teeth, trying not to let her discomfort be known to her parents. Even as she suffered through the pain of her body being reconstructed, she was worrying about others. 

The seven bowls containing the seven alchemical elements glowed with a blue light as well, and their contents transformed into seven threads of light that burrowed themselves into Astrid’s body through the runes drawn on her palms and forehead: two threads in each palm and three in her forehead. 

The girl cried out but, as sharp and sudden as the pain was, as quickly it stopped too. 

The light coming from the magic circle increased in intensity to the point where it became impossible to see what was happening inside it. But after half a minute, Harry’s chant stopped and the Blood-Adoption ritual came to an end. 

As the light faded away and Astrid’s body became visible once again, Kara was the first to rush at her, to make sure that she was alright. 

“Unbelievable!” Kara couldn’t help saying in amazement. 

“Tell me, tell me! Did it work?” Astrid asked in a mixture of excitement and impatience. “Muuum! Say something!”

Harry chuckled as he also came inside the circle and conjured a round hand mirror before he gave it to her. 

Taking the mirror with both hands, Astrid let out a gasp when she saw her reflection in the mirror. 

The first thing that caught her attention was the pair of vivid, brilliant, emerald-green eyes. 

“I got your eyes! Dad! I have your eyes now!” Astrid shouted, unable to contain her excitement. 

Her eyes were the most obvious feature that changed, but there were also other, slightly more subtle differences too. Her round face had become thinner, and her cheekbones slightly more pronounced, resembling Harry’s face more. 

Overall, she still took mostly after Kara, but, upon taking a better look at her while standing next to Kara and Harry, even a stranger would be able to tell that she had inherited features from both parents. 

Kara knelt in front of Astrid and embraced her lovingly, squeezing her tightly into her chest. A strange emotion blossomed in her heart at that moment. Over the past few weeks, not in a small measure due to seeing how much Harry seemed to love Astrid, Kara started to think of Astrid as her daughter too, sometimes forgetting that the little girl was basically identical to her, that she was her clone.

But now it was different. Astrid was not just a clone anymore. She was hers and Harry’s daughter. 

Unbeknownst to both mother and daughter, at that moment, Harry felt an outside force levitating him and pulling him towards them. 

‘No way!’ he thought in disbelief when he realised what happened. 

It appeared as though Astrid had inherited something more than just a pair of green eyes from Harry.

In her desire to have both her mother and father embrace her, the little girl had unknowingly cast her first bout of accidental magic, summoning her father to her!