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Chapter 6

Noctis woke up, feeling safe and warm. He blinked up at a tent ceiling and then turned his head, finding Prompto wrapped around him in the bed, Ignis’ hand stretched across the gap between the beds to be held in his own. He carefully let go, moving Ignis’ arm to rest on the bed. He then began carefully disentangling himself from Prompto the leech, not wanting to wake him but he really needed the bathroom. He got up carefully and was relieved to find the pain from the stab wound was gone and he was feeling stronger. He shuffled out of the bedroom and into the bathroom.

When done, he moved out of the tent to find Harry sitting before the smokeless fire, preparing breakfast. He looked up and grinned at him, waving him over so Noctis moved to join him.

“You’re looking better this morning.”

“I feel better,” he agreed, accepting the offered mug.

“I’m glad,” Harry smiled and Noctis fiddled with the mug before taking a drink.

“You…. you were there,” Noctis whispered.

“Where?” he asked gently, leaning forward.

“It was freezing cold…a voice…. green eyes,” he answered.

“Sounds like when you thawed out. The process was gradual, working out from the wound. I had your head pillowed on my lap in case you jerked around and once your hands thawed, I held them, we didn’t know if you were aware and wanted to let you know you weren’t alone. I talked to you in case you could hear and then when it was done you appeared conscious but severely dazed.”

“Thank you,” Noctis told him seriously. “You were taken without your consent from your world and dumped here to fix a problem that had nothing to do with you. You could have chosen to attempt to return home rather than help.” It was what most would have done. He liked to think he would have done as these three had and tried to help.

“It was the right thing to do,” Harry answered and Noct smiled.

“That doesn’t mean it is what anyone would do,” he countered, and Harry nodded slowly. “I don’t know what will happen now, if the people will wish to continue the monarchy considering it’s been over a decade since my...my Father was killed. King or not, you and your friends will have a place with us, whether you are stuck here forever or not,” he swore, it was the least he could do. If he was truly King, then he would make sure they had anything they wished in thanks.

Harry smiled at him. “Thank you,” he offered.

The tent flap lifted, revealing a concerned Prompto who relaxed on seeing him and Noctis felt guilty for slipping away. He held his hand out to him and Prompto moved quickly to his side, taking his hand. “Sorry for worrying you. I’m alright Prom,” he promised.

“I thought….” Prompto took a shaky breath and Harry got up, moving away to give them privacy.

He pulled Prompto in close, running a hand through soft blonde hair. “Hey, I’m here and I’m not going anywhere,” he swore. “I needed the bathroom and noticed Harry was up, so I came out to talk to him. You looked like you needed the sleep.”

“Which is crazy since we spent so long literally frozen and then knocked out to be de-aged,” Prompto muttered.

“Not the same as sleep,” Noct shrugged.

“You’re really okay?”

“No pain and I’m moving okay,” he assured him.

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Harry moved away to give the two privacy, seeing Hermione and Ron had gotten up but had left them to talk so he went to join them. Hermione smiled at him and then glanced back, and Harry looked as well, seeing Noctis and Prompto leaning against each other, foreheads pressed together. He’d suspected as much and they looked good together. He caught the sad look Hermione shot him and he smiled at her. He’d assumed Noctis already had someone, the feeling towards him was likely a reaction between their magic and the similarities between them.

Soon the whole group was sitting around eating breakfast, the locals dressed for the days. Once done eating the trio headed in to shower and dress. They dressed casually, jeans a shirts with sturdy shoes since they planned to keep working on repairs.

Cor looked at them and then the group of young men. “I doubt it will be much longer before others arrive to see what has happened. It would be best to see what can be done in the Citadel before then, get settled in rather than camping in here.”

Harry saw Noctis tense at his words. It seemed Cor thought Noctis would rule as King, or at least live in the building, even if Noctis wasn’t as sure of his position. “How big is this place?” he asked to take the attention from the young again Royal.

“The Citadel is rather massive as it serves as not just the residence of the Royal family but the seat of government, including the various forces such as the Crownsguard,” Ignis answered.

“So it’d be best to split up,” Hermione offered, and he nodded.

“The Royal Wing is large enough to house us all, but it would be good to have access to other areas, especially the medical wing and records.”

“Ron?”

“Sure, if someone can show me where I can take a look.”

“I’ll take whatever record area,” Hermione immediately volunteered, making them both laugh and earning them each a playful slap up the back of the head from her, making the others laugh.

“Guess that leaves living quarters to me. So however you guys want to split up to show us around? I know there seemed to be a lot of damage from the outside?”

“I can show you to the various record halls, without power nothing computerised will be available though,” Ignis offered and Hermione nodded. “As to the amount of damage…” he looked at Cor.

“Citadel took the brunt of the early fighting during the invasion. Bombs were set off outside as well. The rest is likely from daemons since then and your fight against Ardyn,” Cor answered.

Gladio glanced at Noctis, one eyebrow raised in question and Noctis shook his head slightly. “Remember where the Royal Wing is Prom?” he asked and Prompto thought it over before nodding. “Then I’ll show Ron where the medical wing is. Cor and Noct can have fun talking about the boring stuff.”

It was easy to tell that there was a reason Noctis didn’t want to go to the Wing yet and Harry wondered what had happened there, or what might be there he wasn’t ready to see yet. He stood up and stretched before looking at Prompto. “Lead on,” he offered.

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Prompto squeezed Noct’s hand, getting a small smile in return and then Noct leant in and kissed him, shocking him. “Noct?” he stared at him and then at Cor. They’d always been so careful to not let anyone else know! Ignis and Gladio may be overlooked due to their own positions but he was an adopted immigrant kid of no standing…who was actually a clone for the MT program and some people knew that now thanks to some older Imperial refugees freaking out when they saw him since he looked a bit like his donor as a young man. No one would ever agree to him being more than Noct’s Retainer. Cor…didn’t look at all surprised.

“King Regis, Clarus, and I all suspected,” he admitted. “We’d never say anything though to ensure the Council remained in the dark.”

“Oh,” he whispered. He’d barely known Cor back then, finding out he’d been the one to save him from the Magitek Facility as a baby had been a shock, but it also explained part of why the Marshal had taken personal interest in his training with the Crownsguard. It had also explained a few odd occurrences when he was younger, the man had kept a distant eye on him his whole life. He’d also stepped in the one-time there’d been trouble after the refugees had outed him, ensuring no one would give him trouble.

“I’m lost,” the redhead, Ron, said, looking between them.

“Honestly Ronald,” the woman shook her head. “He’s a King, which means being involved with another male is likely frowned upon due to dynastic concerns. Or perhaps Prompto is not politically important enough for this Council to agree even if children aren’t the issue.”

“Oh. That sucks…” Ron or Ronald offered awkwardly even as his friend shook his head.

“Come on, before Ron manages to put his foot in his mouth, again. One of his many talents,” Harry grinned, and Ron snorted but grinned.

Prompto looked at Noctis who nodded, so he stood and walked over to Harry, leading him out of the Throne Room. “We’ll have to take the long way with no power.”

“Sure,” Harry answered as they headed for the emergency stairs. “Sorry, if Ron brought up anything upsetting.”

“It’s okay…” he hadn’t been expecting that. “We’ve always had to hide because of who Noctis is. If he was anyone else, it’d be fine, but he needs an heir and none of us can give him one.”

“So it’s all four of you then? I wasn’t sure, the two of you have been pretty open about touching but not the others.” He twitched his hand and the rubble in front of them leapt up and returned to the walls, clearing their path.

“Yeah,” he glanced at Harry as they walked. “I know it’s unusual, but it works for us.”

“Is it? Huh.”

“It’s not where you’re from?”

“Depends, among magicals, no. Among the general population, well it’s still illegal for two of the same gender in a lot of places, and marriage is still between two people.”

“You have separate laws depending on if you have magic?”

“We live separately, hidden alongside them. We didn’t used to, but humans fear what they do not understand. Eventually, it was decided to hide rather than fight. Not that hiding hasn’t caused its own sets of troubles.”

Prompto listened, interested. What would it have been like to grow up in a hidden society? He paused in a hallway and Harry stilled beside him as he tried to figure out the best route. “Um…”

“What is it?”

“I’ve only been to the Royal Wing a few times and never from the Throne Room,” he admitted.

“Huh, it seemed like you’ve known him a long time though.”

“Yeah, but Noct moved into an apartment in the city for high school, we only moved him back in here just before we left the city. And it took a while for me to be cleared to come here.” He checked the halls again and then picked what he was pretty sure was the right one. “So…four’s not weird for you?” he went back to the previous topic.

“Three is more common but up to five is considered normal enough. The three of us get looks because of Hermione, her parents aren’t magical, but she is and among the older families…. well we recently finished a bit of a civil war about that. Though some are more accepting of her now because of it, because her presence means there’s a chance of children. It doesn’t matter so much for Ron, he has a lot of siblings, but I’m the last Potter and we’re an old family so it’s expected I have a few kids.”

“So the three of you are together? Married?”

“We’re registered but not married, not yet. Haven’t really had the time for the publicity mess it’d be, too busy cleaning up after the war. Everyone assumes we’re all together. Don’t get me wrong, I love Ron, he was my first friend, but…we’re not in love? We’re affectionate enough but we’re not attracted to each other that way. He’s with Hermione, and I’m with Hermione. Which is amusing because it’s assumed that we brought Hermione in to ensure heirs, which is what a lot of male pairings do, especially among the purebloods.”

It sounded…complicated, but nice that it was accepted. He took another turn and grinned when he recognised where they were.

“This world looks like it has a lot of rebuilding to do…. good time for laws to adjust,” Harry suggested as they started up the stairs towards the Royal Wing and Prompto blinked before grinning again.

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Hermione walked with Ignis, keeping an eye on him as they did. She didn’t have Harry’s raw power to be clearing everything like she could sense him doing, it was better she save her reserves for anything important. He had obviously been blind for a while and while his vision had returned, it was not a complete return. His brain was also unused to such signals anymore and the last thing she wanted was for him to fall down the stairs or a hole in the floor because he didn’t see them or misjudged the distance. “This place must be amazing when not damaged,” she offered, and he smiled grimly.

“I spent most of my life here and yes, there is nothing like the Citadel anywhere else on Eos. Niflheim had Zegnautus Keep but having been there, the Citadel is far superior.”

She smiled at that, every nation preferred their own palace or whatever the equivalent was. “I guess Hogwarts would be that for us… it was the first place Harry ever called home, the first place I ever had the chance to fit in, Ron’s first chance to stand out from his multitude of older siblings.”

“Hogwarts?” he asked, sounding curious as he carefully pronounced the name.

“Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,” she explained. “Starts when you’re eleven through to graduation at seventeen, when a witch or wizard is considered an adult. The school is over a thousand years old and is a castle. Can make navigating classes interesting when you have one in a tower and then the dungeons for the next.”

“Surely you have elevators or something similar?” he asked as she grabbed his arm and pulled him back from a drop he hadn’t noticed, and she heard him swear very softly under his breath.

“We have staircases that move when they please and secret passages that can be accessed with passwords or on certain days. Unfortunately the magical world is over a century behind the rest of the world when it comes to technology. Our dorm was in one of the towers, we all got very fit lugging schoolbags around every day,” she explained. “Your eyes and mind are still adjusting to having some vision back, don’t push it.”

“I apologise,” he offered, and she patted his arm, smiling gently.

“You’ve had a very traumatic time between fighting, being frozen for possibly centuries, then de-aged, regaining some vision…it will take time for you to adjust, for all of you to adjust.”

“And yourself? You are stranded in a new, strange world.”

She smiled. “In a way it’s like first year, I didn’t know I was magical until I was eleven and then there was the new world and new rules and it was overwhelming. Then two terrified eleven-year-old boys burst into the girl’s bathroom I’d been crying in and saved my life from the mountain troll that had gotten in and everything after that was fine, as long as we were together.” She steadied him on the stairs, but they were easier since they were a standard distance apart. “We’d been considering leaving for a while. Harry’s been in the spotlight since he came back to the magical world at eleven, one minute lauded as a hero, the next as an up and coming Dark Lord, and unsurprisingly he’s sick of it. I evacuated my parents during the war, altered their memories to keep them safe, and while I found them after and undid it, they never moved back. Ron’s family…. well, I love them, but they can be rather overwhelming. A fresh start will be good for us.”

“I see,” there was no censure in his voice, a little confusion but also understanding. “King Regis always did his best to keep Noctis out of the press, wanting him to have as normal as possible a life. It was why he was the first Royal to attend public school and I am glad he did, otherwise he never would have met Prompto. Gladio and I were assigned to him before becoming close, Prompto has always been his friend first.”

Hermione nodded in understanding. “Is this it?” she asked as they came to a large set of locked doors and he reached out to run his fingers over them.

“Yes,” he pushed but they were locked.

“Alohomora,” she pressed her hand to the doors and felt the lock release. Silent casting was better, especially in combat, but it was also more taxing and she wanted to save her reserves in case she had to cast powerful spells later. They stepped inside and she looked around, spelling the curtains open. “Impressive,” she murmured, taking in the size of the room. It was at least as big as the library of Hogwarts.

“Most records were computerised, but some have hardcopies,” Ignis explained, moving in the direction of where they were kept in a room at the back.

“What are we looking for?” she asked, unlocking the indicated door.

“Blueprints for the Citadel and other important buildings, information on power generation, anything else necessary to get at least some buildings up and running as soon as possible, before we end up flooded with refugees and nowhere to house them.”

“Let’s get to work.”

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Gladio observed the redhead as they began going through everything left behind during the invasion. It was a mess, so they were cleaning as they went. Either a lot of the medical staff had escaped, or the Empire had ransacked the place for their own stores, or a combination of both. At least he seemed competent in the way he was going through what was left.

Ron looked over at him. “Any idea if those returning will have supplies to restock with?”

“Things were getting bad towards the end, with Noctis back we should be able to get more curatives. Medications and technology will be harder to replace. We’ve lost a lot of people with technical skills,” he admitted.

“Can’t help with the technology bit, sorry. Magical society doesn’t like the stuff, have fun telling most that electricity isn’t a passing fad,” he grinned. “Had to get comfortable with it due to Hermione and Harry, but I don’t know a lot about it.”

“How long as electricity been around in your world?”

“About two hundred years? Hermione probably knows the exact date. Magic and technology don’t always mesh well either, can be a bit explosive.”

“Huh. So you’ve got nothing like Magitek then?”

“No idea what that is. Okay…stand back,” he warned and Gladio backed away, watching as the rest of themes began shifting and moving, cleaning itself. Ron looked a little winded at the end but nothing like stasis.

“So you’re a Doctor?”

“Healer, certified last year. Finished training a few years ago though.”

“So why the gap?” Gladio asked in confusion.

“Government was taken over by the enemy for a while so no one in training registered for our own safety and then after the war everything was pretty much chaos. Okay, I can set up a brewing station in here,” Ron called as he looked in one of the side rooms. “Good thing I carry a full kit still.”

“Brewing?” Gladio raised an eyebrow, surely he didn’t mean alcohol?

“Potion brewing. Just don’t let Harry near them, pretty sure he can cause a potion to blow up just by looking at it,” he snickered. “Hermione’s the best out of us but I’m not bad, especially for healing potions.” He pulled out a bag and began setting up equipment that never should have fit in it…like their tent.

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“There are no surviving Council members, so you’ll have to appoint new ones. Although Gladio has an automatic place as your Shield,” Cor explained, watching Noctis closely as his King stood at the window, staring out at the city. Something was wrong but what? It was still jarring, seeing Noctis looking no different to how he had been the last time he had seen him at Cape Caem, before they sailed for Altissia so long ago. Prompto had shown him the photo he’d taken before they entered the city, Noctis had emerged from the Crystal as a thirty-year-old, but he’d been inside the Crystal all that time, had he really mentally grown up any? “Your Majesty?”

“Don’t…please Cor,” he whispered, and Cor moved up beside him, letting a hand rest on his shoulder.

“What is it Noctis?” he asked carefully.

“There’s no Ring or Crystal anymore, no Astral given right to rule. The world got by for over a decade with no King, they might not want one again,” he finally admitted, and Cor shook his head.

“Noctis, your return was what gave people hope. Stories of your work to gain the Astrals favour, to stop the Empire, are told everywhere there are people. Even the refugees of the Empire call you King now. It is your turn to rule,” he assured him firmly and Noctis looked at him with wide eyes.

“Why?” he sounded lost. “I know what they used to say about me.”

“That was a long time ago Noctis. You spent a year among the people, even if they didn’t always realise who you were then. They have longed for your return and not just because you were the one who would bring back the Dawn. We did not make it common knowledge that it was meant to claim your life which means they have expected to have you as King.”

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Noctis stared at Cor. “Oh,” he whispered. He hadn’t expected that. So many times growing up he’d heard the whispers, how he’d never measure up to his Dad as King, that the Monarchy was going downhill with him as heir. The people had been waiting for him to not only save them from the Darkness…but to rule as King. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Okay. What do I need to do?”

TBC…