Same Time,
St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries,
London
Ginny gagged, trying desperately to prevent the vile potion she had just swallowed from coming straight back up again. She'd only have to drink another one if it did.
"Come on, it can't taste that bad," despite her concern, Hermione still managed to sound like a disapproving teacher.
"It really does, it's worse than your Mum's casserole." A low blow, Ginny knew, but she felt it was deserved.
"Are you ever going to stop bringing that up?" Hermione asked exasperatedly, despite the hint of a smile tugging at her lips. "Dad said she's improved a lot last time I spoke to him."
"Doesn't take much," Ginny grumbled, flopping back against the sumptuous cushions of her hospital bed and glaring at the comfortingly-pastel wall. "Can't you pull some strings and get them to release me already? I feel fine, and we should both be with Dumbledore for when he wakes up." Hermione frowned, with feeling this time.
"You know I can't do that," reaching forward, she took the redhead's hand in her own and stroked it softly with her thumb. "The mediwitch said you were about thirty seconds from permanent brain damage, and if you don't take the time to rest and drink your potions-" she glanced meaningfully at the small tray of potions still waiting to be drunk "it will end up being permanent." Ginny huffed, unwilling to concede the point.
"Did Dumbledore say anything to you about him?" She asked, hoping to distract Hermione from her insistence on downing the revolting concoctions.
"Apart from the initial patronus about the Lambstead Expedition and the fact that you found Harry Fucking Potter in the wreckage, I haven't spoken to him yet." Hermione sounded as disbelieving as Ginny felt, but that wasn't what struck her.
"You haven't spoken to him yet? But you're his chief advisor, and intelligence officer, and researcher! He needs all of those things right now!" Ginny tried to clamber out of bed in order to shoo Hermione out of the hospital room but was stopped by the soft touch of Hermione's hand against her shoulder.
"Yes, I am, and yes, he does." Hermione agreed evenly, "But my wife is currently in hospital with brain damage that could become permanent if she refuses to take care of herself like she usually does. Dumbledore can handle himself for a bit." Ginny subsided into her bed, chastened, but pleased in spite of herself.
"Why'd I have to marry someone who's always bloody right?" She groused half-heartedly.
"Because you made the mistake of falling in love with her and wouldn't take no for an answer?" Hermione rebutted playfully. "Now drink those potions and we can get you out of bed and back into the thick of things." Leaning forward, she gave Ginny a quick peck on the lips before handing her the next potion in the Healer's regimen.
Sighing, Ginny took the potion and lifted it to her lips, bracing herself for the foul liquid. Glancing at Hermione, a wicked notion seized her. As quickly as she could, Ginny downed the potion, her face contorting involuntarily at the flavour even as she reached for the last two potions. Taking one in each hand, Ginny forced them down, one after the other, employing skills developed in post-mission bar-crawls with her Auror compatriots. The instant the last drop of foul fluid had disappeared down her throat, she reached forward, tangling her fingers in her wife's bushy brown hair and dragging her in for a kiss.
Hermione released a small squeak of surprise at the unexpected gesture, before releasing a small moan as Ginny's soft lips moved against her own, the redhead's tongue lapping at her lips and begging for entrance. Eagerly, Hermione opened her mouth and reciprocated with her own tongue, only to break off in a sudden fit of spluttering gags.
"EWW! That is revolting!" She gasped, the vile flavour of the potions clinging to her wife's tongue made even worse by the jarring departure from the pleasure of the kiss.
"Come on," Ginny smirked, slinging her legs over the side of the bed and standing, "it can't taste that bad." She indulged herself in a luxurious stretch, celebrating her victory.
"You are pure evil." Hermione fumed, although there was no real heat behind her words.
"And you love it," Ginny replied in a singsong voice, taking the opportunity to administer a loving slap to her wife's rump. "Now, where'd they put my clothes?"
"They had to be incinerated, something about the blood from those creatures you fought didn't react well to cleaning charms. I brought you some from home." Hermione handed over a set of folded clothes, taking a moment to admire the view as Ginny stripped off her hospital gown and donned the fresh clothes. "You do know that you could've just used a switching spell?" She asked, wryly.
"Yes, but then I wouldn't have caught you checking out my rack as I got changed." Ginny winked.
"I make no apologies." Hermione sniffed primly, "Now, let's find Dumbledore." Raising a hand to forestall Ginny's objection, she continued, "You can report to Madam Bones tomorrow, she's ordered 24 hours mandatory leave for everyone from the expedition."
"Has anyone else made a report yet?" Ginny asked as they wound their way through the halls, heading toward the all-too-familiar department reserved for military casualties.
"Nothing formal, but I'm sure Black has given Dumbledore at least the broad points of what happened, and Moody said he'd have his report in tomorrow morning, damn the mandatory leave." Ginny nodded, that sounded like Moody.
"Do you know what's been done with the bodies we brought back?" As much as Ginny never wanted to see any of the monsters they'd fought in Lambstead again, it was vital they learn as much about the beasts as possible.
"As far as I know, they've been deposited in my lab with Project Hephaestus." Hermione glanced around reflexively, making sure there was no one within earshot. Ginny had already completed her own check, but Hermione's unease made her scan their surroundings again.
"Did you see something?" She asked, noting the look of concern marring Hermione's normally implacable focus.
"No," Hermione replied slowly, "I just keep getting the feeling I'm being watched."
Now that she mentioned it, Ginny could sense it too. At first, she'd dismissed it as post-mission paranoia, but if Hermione was feeling it too, perhaps it was something more. For a moment, the apparently empty hallway seemed to darken, as if with some sinister presence.
Then Hermione shook herself, "It's nothing, just nerves. With the war stalemated for so long, we've all gotten jumpy." Ginny relaxed, Hermione was right, they'd all got so used to looking over their shoulder they'd started imagining there was actually something there.
"Speaking of Hephaestus," Ginny began, as the pair resumed their journey. "Any progress?"
Hermione sighed, "Not really, the problem is fundamental to the function of the enchantment. So far as I can tell, I'd have to create an entirely new enchantment that functioned via a completely different mechanism to solve it."
Ginny grimaced, "Which would take how long?"
"Years, at least." Hermione's teeth worried her lower lip as she considered the problem, "honestly, I think we're better off going with Bill's suggestion of trying to adapt the enchantment for some kind of magic draining restraints. The main challenge there would be finding a way to manage the drain so it didn't actually kill whoever we put them on."
Ginny reached out to grip her wife's hand and squeezed, "You'll figure it out, love, in the meantime, we need to find out where Dumbledore is." The pair had just entered the military department of the hospital, receiving respectful nods from the pair of crimson robed aurors flanking the doors. Ginny returned the nods, she knew the pair by sight but had never spoken to them. Meanwhile, Hermione stopped a passing Healer, getting directions for the room where Dumbledore was waiting. Harry's room. It was only a short journey, although they passed at least a dozen aurors along the way, all with wands drawn and Grangers slung over their shoulders. Upon arriving at the door to the ward, the pair had to wait while the lead auror, Neville, went inside to check with Dumbledore to ensure they were allowed inside.
"You can go in." He confirmed, after only a moment. "Sorry," he smiled apologetically, resembling the boy they'd known in their early years at Hogwarts for a moment, "procedure, you know how it is."
"No worries, Nev." Ginny waved away his concerns. Before they could enter, however, the door opened once more and both Black and Lupin filed out, both wearing expressions of mingled anxiety and joy.
"Ah, Hermione, Ginny." Lupin smiled at them both, tiredly as always. "A pleasure to see you both."
"Likewise, Remus." Hermione smiled back, she had always liked their former professor.
"You alright, Black?" Ginny asked, eyeing the matted blood in the man's normally immaculate hair.
"I'm fine, Weasley," Sirius waved away her concern, "takes more than a kick in the head to keep this dog down." Although they'd never been close, Ginny respected the man for his skills and had always felt for the exonerated ex-con.
"How is he?" Hermione inquired, eyeing both men.
"According to the Healers, he's fine. Nothing more than a mild case of magical exhaustion and a very slight Vitamin D deficiency. Apparently, he can't have seen more than a few hours of sunlight in years. Although his magic's done it's best to make up for it." Remus sounded relieved, although Sirius almost growled at the latter part of his friend's statement.
"They say he should be waking up soon," Sirius added, still frowning. "They've given him a potion to try and help his skin adjust to sunlight so he won't burn the second he goes outside. We're going to prepare a room for him now." He gave both of them a fierce look as if daring them to disagree with the decision to let Harry stay with the men.
"Good, if anyone deserves to spend some time with their family, it's you three." Both men beamed at Ginny's words, before excusing themselves and allowing her to follow Hermione into the room.
The room, like Ginny's had been, was dominated by a large hospital bed, although this one had a myriad array of magical readings floating in the air above it. Hannah Abbot was hovering next to the bed, keeping a close watch on the displayed information between furtive glances at the figure lying in the bed. Next to her, Dumbledore sat straight-backed in an uncomfortable hospital chair, somehow managing to make the cheap plastic seat appear as regal as a royal throne. His robes were still singed and cut from his battle with Voldemort and the Swarmlord, but his piercing blue eyes were bright behind his half-moon spectacles, and his voice was strong as he addressed them.
"Excellent, Hermione, Ginny, you're both here." He gestured for them both to take the seats across from him, "Please, sit."
The pair sat, and Ginny finally allowed herself time to study the figure lying in the bed. His hair had been washed and cut since she had seen Sirius carry him out of Lambstead, and his body was concealed beneath a warm hospital blanket. His face, though still pale, had coloured from the unnatural pallor it had previously possessed, likely as a result of the potion Sirius had mentioned. His features were handsome, a strong chin and sharply defined jawline complimenting his aristocratic cheekbones. The darkness of his messy ebony locks contrasted sharply with his pale skin, although the effect was far from unattractive, and, while slim, his face bore no traces of malnutrition. On his forehead, half-covered by the hastily cut fringe of his hair, she could just make out a lightning-shaped scar.
"The goblins have confirmed Sirius' and the Healer's findings: he is Harry Potter." Dumbledore sounded almost overwhelmed. For several long moments, silence reigned.
Eventually, Hermione asked the question that occupied that silence, "Where has he been all this time?"
"And why now? He disappeared within days of the Swarmlord's first appearance, and now he's reappeared just when it and all those other monsters have." Ginny added, voicing the concern that had been eating away at her since Lambstead.
For the first time in Ginny's experience, Dumbledore removed his half-moon spectacles taking a moment to massage the bridge of his long crooked nose.
"I do not know," he admitted, once he had replaced his spectacles. "However, I have a theory. I believe the creatures we faced today, including the Swarmlord, are the product of powerful transfiguration, beyond anything I've encountered before." Dumbledore's expression darkened, "The use of transfiguration to create new life is among the blackest of the Dark Arts, and a monster as terrible as the Swarmlord could only be a product of the most depraved and powerful of dark wizards."
"You think You-Know-Who made them?" Hannah asked, sounding horrified at the mere idea.
"As terrible as it would be for Voldemort," Dumbledore placed a gentle emphasis on the name, ignoring Hannah's wince, "to have achieved such mastery of yet another black magic, I fear the answer is much worse."
Hermione and Ginny exchanged a worried look, before the former spoke up, "Worse than Voldemort?" The notion was so terrible Hannah didn't even realise Voldemort's name had been spoken again.
"I believe there is another Dark Lord in Britain. One who has been biding his time and building his power for decades." Dumbledore paused for a moment to allow the gravity of his assertion to sink in before continuing, "I have spent many years trying to discover what happened the day Harry disappeared, but until tonight I lacked the clues necessary to resolve the mystery." Pushing himself from the chair, Dumbledore began pacing the room, his movements showing no sign of the fatigue he must surely be feeling.
"Twenty years ago," Dumbledore began, "our world was vulnerable. Still recovering from the First War, we had convinced ourselves the need for vigilance and security was gone. The perfect time for a Dark Lord to make his move. Only one thing stood between our mystery opponent and victory, something which had, through means unknown, vanquished the previous Dark Lord while only a baby."
All eyes turned to the sleeping figure in the centre of the room, "Harry." Ginny could understand the logic behind Dumbledore's theory. "So, like any Dark Lord, he decided to remove that obstacle?"
"Precisely," Dumbledore nodded.
"But then why wasn't this new Dark Lord defeated, like Voldemort was?" Hermione asked, identifying a hole in the aged sorcerer's argument.
"Because they learned from Voldemort's mistake," Dumbledore answered. "Voldemort's power was broken when he attempted to kill Harry."
Ginny's head snapped up in sudden understanding, "So the Dark Lord didn't try to kill him." She looked at the sleeping figure with dawning horror, "You mean he's been the prisoner of a Dark Lord all this time?" Hermione gasped, and Hannah swiftly performed another suite of diagnostic charms to confirm Harry's well-being.
"Apart from the blow to his head, he doesn't show any signs of trauma," the Healer reported after a moment. "There aren't any signs of injuries that have healed naturally, and there aren't any traces of healing magic apart from our own spells." The news was a relief, but it also raised questions.
"Why would a Dark Lord keep him prisoner for twenty years and not do anything to him? I understand not trying to kill him directly, given what happened to Voldemort, but not even any torture?" The concept was at odds with everything she had ever learned about the Dark Arts. Black magic was addictive, and once a witch had fallen far enough into its embrace she would be pushed to perform acts of sadism and cruelty just to get her fix.
"It is possible this Dark Lord simply lacks the sadistic tendencies that Voldemort is so fond of indulging in," Dumbledore offered, "or that they feared performing dark magic of any kind on Harry would elicit some form of reaction."
"So the Dark Lord just locked him up somewhere?" Ginny was appalled, she couldn't imagine spending two decades alone in a cage without losing her mind.
"It would seem so," Dumbledore confirmed, looking sadly at the sleeping figure.
"But why not just leave him to starve?" Hermione interjected again, "I can understand not wanting to use magic against Harry, but surely it would have been much simpler to allow the problem to take care of itself?" Dumbledore nodded, acknowledging the point.
"For that, I have no definite answer," he admitted. "I can only theorise that the Dark Lord was attempting to discover the mechanism by which Voldemort was defeated, either to avoid meeting the same fate or to make use of it themselves."
"But how does this connect to the Swarmlord?" Hermione questioned, surprising Ginny, who had almost forgotten about that aspect of the mystery.
"For that, I must return to my narrative of twenty years ago." Ginny resisted the urge to roll her eyes, she may respect the man, but he did have a somewhat infuriating flair for the dramatic. "Creating life with transfiguration is forbidden for many reasons, foremost among which is that in order to create a life, one must be sacrificed. Or, if the aberration being created is exceptionally powerful, more than one."
"Harry's Aunt and Uncle," Hermione stated sadly, garnering an equally subdued nod from Dumbledore.
"You mean the Dark Lord used Harry's family as sacrifices to create the Swarmlord?" Ginny was horrified, "And they did that in front of him?"
"The 31st of October 1988 was an auspicious day for black magic," Dumbledore explained. "The barrier between this world and the next is always thinnest on Halloween, part of the reason why it has become associated with monsters and ghosts among muggles. In 1988, it coincided with an alignment of Mars, Saturn, and Pluto, the three planets most associated with the Dark Arts. A triple planetary alignment, coupled with a triple sacrifice, drawing upon the power of a magically gifted child's despair would've been enough to create a beast of almost unimaginable evil and power."
"And then Moody and Bones sent the fucker straight into the Veil," Ginny couldn't help a kind of vicious triumph from colouring her voice, despite the losses that had been incurred to achieve that victory.
"Indeed, the Dark Lord had lost their most powerful weapon, and the circumstances they used to create it wouldn't appear again within their lifetime." Dumbledore seemed grimly satisfied at the unknown Dark Lord's misfortune, "So they returned to biding their time, creating an army of lesser minions and gathering strength. Until a week ago."
It wasn't difficult to discern what the former Headmaster was referring to, "Lambstead." Ginny breathed, the concept too awful for her to fully accept, even as it occurred to her.
Hermione was equally astute, and appalled, "You mean this monster sacrificed an entire town just to recreate his pet abomination?" Dumbledore merely nodded, mere words insufficient in the face of this atrocity.
"But now he's lost it and Harry!" Ginny declared fiercely, jumping to her feet unable to remain seated any longer. "I bet he thought today was his lucky day, all his main rivals collected in one place just waiting for his aberrations to slaughter them. But now he's lost his trump card, revealed himself to the world, his prisoner's escaped, and both we and Voldemort will be looking for him."
"Indeed, a most inauspicious beginning to his efforts," Dumbledore agreed, the faintest hint of satisfaction gleaming behind his half-moon spectacles.
Hermione rose to her feet, taking her wife's hand in her own, "We'll get him, Ginny, we'll get them all."
The show of solidarity was interrupted by an insistent chiming, coming from the bed dominating the centre of the room.
"That's the monitoring charm!" Hannah burst out, rushing over to the hospital bed, quickly followed by the others. "He's waking up."
?,
?,
?
The One emerged from darkness into another, softer, darkness, this one tinged with a hint of reddish light. It seemed- lonely. There was something warm and smothering covering the One, something physical. The sensation was unfamiliar and unwelcome.
Desperately, the One reached out, searching for its eyes to see and ears to hear, to discover its surroundings. In an instant, the One was standing in a long white passageway, a strange cacophony of background noise distracting it as it took in its surroundings. Its body felt wrong, it was too small, too soft, the balance felt wrong, and as it whipped its head around to inspect the area there came a stabbing pain in its neck. As it looked around, examining the colourfully clad beings surrounding it, the One realised that not only did the body feel wrong, but having only a single body felt wrong. Reaching out once more, it found another, but as soon as it grasped this new body, it lost its hold on the first, suddenly finding itself in a pastel-coloured room, gazing down at a pale figure laying on a soft bed in its centre.
This body also felt wrong, there was an unfamiliar weight hanging from its chest, and the strange background noise from the previous body persisted, albeit with a different flavour. Still, it was better than nothing, keeping a firm grasp on its current body, the One reached out for the one closest. The figure in the bed. The instant it shifted its attention to claiming the figure, however, its grasp slipped on the other body, and the One was suddenly back in the red-tinted darkness.
The figure in the bed was its body? The One was confounded, having a single body simply felt wrong. But the longer it spent in the red-tinted darkness, the more it seemed right. Unwilling to accept this, the One reached out again, this time choosing a mind that felt different from the others. There was some form of resistance, almost negligible at first, before abruptly sharpening into an obstacle that actually required a small measure of exertion to sweep aside.
Immediately upon banishing the resistance, however, the One found itself again transported whole to the new body instead of merely adding it to its collection. This body was again looking at the figure in the bed, at the One, and the background noise was louder, more insistent.
What is this? A legilimens attack? But who!? Abruptly, the One realised the background noise was actually the thoughts of its present body. Armed with this new information, the One dove into the body's mind, searching for deeper understanding. The body made feeble attempts to prevent the One's investigation, but they were swept aside with barely a thought. According to this body, the one in the bed, the One, was a he.
He am he, he tested it out in his mind. It seemed wrong somehow, but also more correct than the One. After another quick examination of his new body, he tried again, I am he. That felt right. The only problem was that it was becoming increasingly difficult to remain in this body. Not because of the body itself, although it was still attempting to eject him, it felt as if he was being drawn back into his own body. Still unwilling to accept this completely, he selected another body, claiming it and accepting the transfer from the resisting one.
This time, he had chosen another body in the room. The body's thoughts were moving with incredible speed, and it took only a moment before it began attempting to eject him as well. However, the attempts of this body were even more negligible than the one he had just vacated. Ignoring them, he searched the body's mind for information about his body. She -Hermione she thought of herself as- called him Harry Potter. She seemed to know little about him, although she appeared to be surprised he was alive. Even more frustratingly, her eyes were stinging, feeling uncomfortably dry. After a moment, the body acted on its own, eyelids closing to cover and moisten the eyes and, for a moment, plunging him into a familiar red-tinted darkness.
My eyes are closed, he realised, idly acknowledging that the revelation seemed like something that shouldn't be as surprising as it was. The pull of his own body, momentarily ameliorated by the switch to Hermione's body, was growing stronger again. With little left to learn in his current host, Harry extended his awareness, preparing to select another. Upon doing so, he realised that, so long as he didn't attempt to fully usurp control of another body, he could listen in on the thoughts.
Deciding to test the limits of this new form of exertion, he ordered the closest body to his own, a she called Hannah, to turn and place herself between it and the other occupants of the room. Hannah obeyed, but the loss of focus in creating the command proved too much for his failing hold on Hermione's body. Despite his flailing attempts to reassert his grip on Hermione, or even jump to one of the other bodies nearby, Harry was dragged back into the increasingly familiar confines of his own body.
Deciding to accept his residency this time, Harry made a quick scan of the others in the room, determining that none of them seemed to mean him any harm, before opening his eyes. He immediately regretted his decision as twin daggers of agony lanced through his optic nerves.
A chorus of strange sounds echoed around him as the others shouted, He's awake! Harry cringed, slamming his eyes shut as the burning light of the room seared his retinas, only compounded by the others loud exclamations.
It's the light! It's too bright for his eyes! We need to turn it down until he can adjust, Hermione said, very loudly. "Dim the lights! He needs time for his eyes to adjust," the series of strange noises came from her direction, even before she had finished speaking.
Of course! He's been locked in a dark room for who knows how long! Hannah shouted.
I have? Thought Harry, that seemed like something he should remember. Thankfully, the red-tinged darkness of his closed eyelids grew even darker, and Harry decided it was worth trying to open his eyes again.
Slowly, tentatively, he allowed his eyelids to lift a fraction. The light was still uncomfortable, but it was no longer agonising, and as he opened his eyes further, even the discomfort began to fade. Immediately, he was bombarded by another series of intrusive exclamations.
He may be the spitting image of James, but those eyes are like looking back into Lily's! Albus exclaimed, albeit somewhat quieter than the others.
I've never seen a green that rich in a person before, Hannah marvelled, some unidentifiable sentiment colouring her words, it's incredible!
He looks just like I imagined, Ginny said.
He doesn't look at all like I expected, Hermione noted.
Albus began making strange noises, "Hello, Harry." Best not to overtax the poor man, this must all be quite a shock. "My name is Albus Dumbledore, do you know who I am?" We'll see if he's strong enough to answer some questions about what's happened to him over the past twenty years. Harry frowned, it wasn't phrased as a question, but it would be very odd for Dumbledore to simply be talking to himself.
In the end, he decided to answer regardless, I don't remember anything before waking up here. Dumbledore froze, his piercing blue eyes widening dramatically behind his half-moon spectacles.
It was him!? He almost shouted, Harry performed the legilimency attacks before he'd even opened his eyes?
Why are you talking about me as if I'm not here? It was beginning to grate on Harry's nerves.
He can still hear me? Even with my Occlumency shields up? Dumbledore sounded stunned. "I'm sorry, Harry, but you must know it's very rude to enter another's mind without permission." The strange sounds Dumbledore kept making were also starting to irritate Harry, not to mention the fact that he was still talking as if Harry wasn't there.
Yes, I can still hear you, he said, a little testily. How would you talk to me if I couldn't hear you?
Wait, Dumbledore paused, a look of sudden understanding smoothing his furrowed brow. "You don't understand that I'm speaking, do you Harry?"
End AN: So, fun fact, I thought it was termagaunts for the longest fucking time until I was doing research for this chapter. I guess my brain was just reading hormagaunts and assuming that termagants would be the same thing.
Also, I know you're probably thinking "What the actual FUCK was that section from the Hive? Only parts of that made even the tiniest bit of sense! And the beginning? Did the author suffer an aneurysm while writing and was too lazy to go back and fix it?" The truth is, that was intentional. The Hive is a mind shared by many bodies, each of which has its own mind to varying extents. It's not something human brains are supposed to be able to comprehend, our brains are designed to operate one body and one mind only, exclusively. We're physically incapable of comprehending anything else. My depiction of the Hive is the best I could do at trying to force my mind to work in a way it physically can't. Some of it was hopefully decipherable, some of it will become clear only when you finally learn what the Hive was talking about, and some of it will probably never make sense.
The beginning of the Hive section, in particular, is intended to be broken, the Hive had just lost the Swarmlord, who had formed the core of the Hive's psyche since it first began. The loss of that essential central component fucked the Hive up until it was able to reroute itself through other bodies and knit itself back into one piece.
In the end, it's not really important to understand what the Hive actually said. The more you understood, the better idea you have of things that are going to be happening later on in the story. But, even if you understood nothing, the important takeaway is the insight into how Harry's mind has been working for the past 20+ years, which helps understand why and how his mind isn't quite working like a human mind should even when he's transformed back into Harry.
Also, to any of you who may be wondering: despite what Bellatrix may have made you think, there are no noble titles or Most Ancient and Most Noble House of Bollocks, or whatever, in this story. Bellatrix is very concerned with the antiquity of your family and the purity of your blood, but there are no actual legal distinctions between Bellatrix or Lucius Malfoy, and any random Muggleborn you might pull off the street. Apart from Bellatrix and Lucius both being wanted as Death Eaters and mass-murdering terrorists, of course.
Finally, if you're an astronomy buff, you'll probably notice I took a few liberties with the actual conditions on the 31st of October 1988. It's a very minor point, but as this is the internet I'm sure there would be someone pedantic enough to make an issue of it were I not to address it. So yes, I'm aware there wasn't a triple conjunction of Mars, Saturn, and Pluto in 1988, but for my purposes in this fictional world, there was. Deal with it.
Review, por favor, bitte, vaer sa snill, please. And no, I didn't need to look any of those up.