Reclined on the short, millimetrically perfect grass of one of the hills crowning the fief's meadow was one of my clones. It was a copy deliberately stripped of magic or significant physical capacity—an extremely weak double whose sole operational directive consisted of consuming quality time with the little creature currently crawling over his torso: Ruby.
The little one had experienced remarkable biological development. The old crust covering her tail, similar to the chitin of an arthropod, was peeling away in sections, revealing underneath a smooth pattern of reddish scales as perfect and clean as a canvas, yet with a hybrid texture combining the coldness of glass with the flexibility of snake skin. I deduced that this was a strictly aesthetic transition, as it showed no improvements in her defense indices or physical resistance. It was a mere visual display, probably designed by her own genetics to increase her attractiveness, since the design evoked an authentic piece of living art.
From what I could make out, the scale pattern continued to ascend gradually up her lower back. An exhaustive check with the new analytical tools of the upgraded [Hospital] revealed that the mutation would colonize her spine until reaching the base of her neck; however, the tissue would maintain a retractable property, allowing her to alternate her appearance back to the previous version at will, in the same way she currently alternated her reptile appendage for a pair of human lower limbs—though she manifested a clear predilection for crawling over the mechanics of walking. Just as I had cataloged it, that was a sophisticated adaptive beauty trap. Ruby herself had internalized that her alternative physiognomy was excessively terrifying to the environment, and that fascination and control over other entities were considerably simplified if she optimized her visual appeal. She was my little alpha predator. Fortunately, her temperament was somewhat colder, calmer, and more rational than that of my wicked arachnid daughters.
At that moment, Ruby continued to move lazily over my anatomy, alternating between basking in the sun's warmth and playing. She ascended past my stomach up to my chest, parting the fabric of my T-shirt with her hands to rest her head directly against my bare skin. Immediately afterward, she brought her smooth yet rigid-edged jaw toward my nipple, opening her mouth in a deliberate attempt to bite the area.
A simple, strictly symbolic corrective tapped her crown.
"No, Ruby. There's no milk there... Stop looking..." I ruled without bothering to open my eyes. In fact, it was physically impossible for me to do so, given that another small biological anomaly had climbed onto my skull, obstructing my eye sockets and threatening to seal my respiratory tracts. "Ditto, don't suffocate Daddy."
Yes, Ditto was here too. It had been moving its lax, gelatinous body across the entire perimeter, alternating between the ground and the contours of my own anatomy in search of an optimal spot to anchor itself to sleep under the sun alongside its sister. Previously, it had detected a comfortable niche right over my crotch, but I had been forced to evict it immediately; the texture of its body proved to be an excessively complex stimulus to manage. Because of that, it now intended to occupy my face, forcing me to wear a sort of organic mask.
Ruby, registering the subtle scolding, pulled her jaws away from my chest, but refused to retreat too far. Keeping her head firmly adhered to my outline, she slid down my ribs and attempted to sink her teeth into my sides once more. The little one manifested a persistent need to tear off a piece of her progenitor, or perhaps she simply used me to train her bite pressure.
It was a genuine slice of time shared with my offspring. At least, with a section of them. Inside, I experienced the recurring notion that I should give them more attention; therefore, whenever allowed, I yielded fractions of my time to them, even if it was in dynamics as mundane as this. I refused to catalog myself as a negligent father... despite the fact that, strictly speaking, every child I had fathered constituted an absolute divergence from the standards of normalcy. Each required a specialized rearing protocol and a different language of affection.
Even so, I couldn't help but detect a tinge of hypocrisy in my own behavior: there were certain heirs to whom I had not dedicated a single visit nor the follow-up they legitimately deserved. I had confined myself to letting their development follow its pre-programmed course, justifying that such isolation corresponded strictly to the fundamental purpose of their conception. But if any of those bloodlines rose tomorrow to claim a lack of equity in my parental distribution, I would lack the arguments to refute it.
The family time expired when the mothers personally appeared on the hill to claim custody of the little ones. Unfortunately, the conditions for a threesome were not optimal... once again. Although I understood why, those two creatures possessed such an acute index of curiosity that they would have transformed into instant voyeurs without the slightest moral qualm, and their respective mothers felt uncomfortable doing it under those terms. Well... Gemma already manifested practically zero resistance to my initiatives, so if I applied the correct effort at the proper time, the panorama promised to update very soon...
...
Leaving my paternal responsibilities aside, I went with my real body toward the "Dying Lands"—I definitely require a better name for this sector. This part of the fief constituted the expansion I had granted to Helena's private cemetery so she could execute her large-scale spiritual activities. The truly advantageous thing about having added Albus Dumbledore to my ranks was that I no longer had to structure alibis to justify the Grey Lady's prolonged absences from Hogwarts; now Helena could reside here permanently without fear of the faculty formulating uncomfortable questions. It was a necessary measure: her visits to the castle were increasingly sporadic, and the Bloody Baron was becoming frustratingly insistent, snooping around and demanding to know where she was.
I wandered without haste through that monumental dead field. In this perimeter section, the tombstones kept a vast distance from one another, projecting an image of absolute emptiness, yet imbued with a spaced-out and certainly peaceful stillness... Well, it manifested the freezing, sepulchral calm typical of a first-rate cemetery.
Finally, I spotted Helena. She was moving her hands with a hypnotic cadence, articulating the flows of arcane magic with an ease as organic as if the ether were a natural extension of her spectral anatomy. Her necromantic arts were experiencing a commendable evolution. Rowena's heritage was visible in her genes. Her voracity for knowledge was catapulting her to astonishing levels, a process severely optimized by her undead condition: exempt from the biological need to sleep and devoid of physical fatigue.
"So... are you finished?" I inquired, approaching.
"No, the last specimen didn't work either. However, I believe that this time I have located an optimal candidate," she replied, interrupting the conjuring of a node designed to channel and boost negative energy, causing a group of undead to rise. "Nonetheless, the process remains inefficient if you insist that I only catalog individuals who meet the restrictive requirements you gave me," she added, arching an eyebrow in a subtle gesture of reproach, delegating the authorship of her logistical delay to me.
"Consider it a small personal fantasy, grant me that whim," I defended myself with a restrained laugh. "I know perfectly well it isn't the most efficient method, but the final result will be extremely amusing... though I'll probably be the only one capable of appreciating the joke. Although, thinking about it, perhaps I should invest a couple of those vouchers to get the game and let you see the exact design I intend for you to structure. We could even show it directly to them when you complete it, so they can better assimilate how to characterize the character."
We continued the exchange along that same line for a good while, consolidating a dynamic that could well be cataloged as a formal date. Exchanging theoretical variables, analyzing grimoires together, technical debate... The typical romantic evening with a ghostly Ravenclaw.
"By the way... do you wish for us to attempt to consummate the sexual act?" she questioned in a purely casual manner, stripped of modesty, while she continued manipulating necromantic relics on a stone table arranged under the canopy of a withered willow.
"We can try, but last time you ended up highly indignant when I made my member pass through your frontal lobe," I replied, adopting a expression that straddled accomplice melancholy and amusement.
"That proved deeply humiliating to me," she reproached, shaking her head, though her voice betrayed that there was no real anger and that, if I pressed it, she would offer no resistance. "The fact that my nature is ethereal does not authorize you to use just any part of my body. Nonetheless, I have been perfecting alternative methodologies."
"Ooh! Let's try," I applauded, genuinely enthusiastic.
Helena sketched a chilly smile, anxious to check if her theorems withstood praxis.
With a subtle movement of her hand, she unleashed an expansive wave of cryogenic magic that knocked me flat on my back against the grass; instantly, the fabric of my clothes began to corrode and wither until disintegrating into stale dust. Following that, her spectral silhouette floated until positioning herself astride my body. She extended her subtle hands over my member, and instead of experiencing the usual ghostly permeability, she managed to exert legitimate physical pressure, though the touch retained the temperature of a glacier. The fabric of her medieval dress seemed to rip conceptually between her thighs, revealing the geometry of her spiritual cunt. She let herself drop, introducing me into her interior.
The sensation was highly bizarre; ordinary texture and dermal friction did not exist, but rather a magnetic compression force, completely freezing and abstract. In part, it felt as if a current of pure magic were being applied directly to the nerves of my member, stripped of real physical contact.
"Do you register an improvement compared to the last trial?" she inquired, evaluating my reactions.
"Uh... Yes, technically there's an advance, but it still transmits the feeling that I'm not really inside you..." I admitted, contorting my features to mitigate the cold that was beginning to numb the area.
Helena nodded, archiving the result, and decided to activate the second methodology from her inventory. A massive density of negative energy began to condense in her core and, through a process similar to a magical implosion, various pieces of armor forged from a metal of terrifying vibration materialized in the air, snapping onto her anatomy with metallic clicks. Floating above me was no longer a phantom gothic lady; the figure confining me was the living image of a war specter. A possessed armor encapsulating a featureless spiritual mass. It proved impossible to determine whether the entity corresponded to a male or female specter; the only living thing in its design were the veins of purplish luminescence connecting the metal joints and two glowing spheres like will-o'-the-wisps flaming in the helm's sockets, which mimicked the silhouette of a cursed crown.
"What verdict do you offer now?" resonated a raspy voice, heavy with a polyphonic echo and stripped of gender, similar to the bellow of a demon from the abyss.
"Now... It definitely feels like... Something..." I articulated, staying practically petrified on the spot.
There was a real tactile response; it wasn't cellular tissue, but that spiritual density forcibly confined inside the metal generated an unprecedented friction—a sensory experience for which conventional human biology is not remotely designed. However, the real drawback lay in the nature of the cold: the torrent penetrating through my member was no longer mere surface temperature; it was a current of degradation expanding into me and invading my bones, simultaneously corroding my physical body and my spirit. Clearly, I was interacting directly with a spectral being cataloged in the Legendary rank.
Detecting the necrosis it was causing me in my now-weakened state, Helena propelled herself backward with celerity, shedding the armor mid-flight and reclaiming her habitual high-school ghost physiognomy, returning to the status of a Grand Mage bordering on Almost Legendary.