HP: A Magical Journey
chapter-125

Quinn arrived at the dark alley where he applied the illusion glamor upon himself and dropped the magic to return to his usual black hair and stone-grey eyes. John was gone, and Quinn was back, and with today being Quinn's last day in Denmark, John's appearance would never come back again. At least in Denmark, John would never step on the Danish soil, in case Gamel and his chaps think of revenge.

'Why did he have to make things difficult?' thought Quinn with a heavy sigh as he stepped out of the dark alley and joined the crowd of people back in the central region.

While Quinn didn't consider magic to be light or dark, he did consider people to be tending towards light and dark: ranging from lighter shades of grey to the deep, dark hues of murky grey. And the place like Mørke Gade was full of shady people who had different moral compasses than the average person.

Quinn understood the reason behind's intimidating-extortion strategy, which Gamel had tried to employ. He was clearly a foreigner who couldn't speak the language and was carrying a large amount of money on him. Quinn was sure that in Gamel's eyes, he was a fat cow that Gamel could milk a lot out of.

'Didn't think that I would be using the bone-breaking curse here in Denmark.'

The curse was a cousin to the deboning curse sometimes used while healing magic and surgeries to clear out a bone: used in cases where the bone had problems that couldn't be fixed in a short amount of time, like the bone being afflicted with a curse that took time to cure.

The bone-breaking curse used the magical-medical knowledge of bones and translated it into offensive magic. The skeletal system was the supporting frame of many creatures, and if one snapped that underlying supporting structure, they could cause take away a target's mobility, rendering them immobile.

Quinn initially had learned the spell in his sin curse days from the Room of Requirements under one of the "dark" spell books and had practiced it against animal bones to get better at it. But it was in his fourth year that Quinn was able to tap into the bone-breaking curse's true potential. After learning about the human body in healing magic, and was able to understand the spell on a deeper level. This allowed him to work with the bone more profoundly.

"I hope they use the bone-vanishing curse," humphed Quinn, shaking his head. He had intentionally suggested the bone-vanishing curse was because then the vanished bones would need to be regrown, and Skele-Gro would make sure they didn't sleep at night from the pain and excruciating discomfort.

"Even if someone uses the bone-mending charm, it would still cause more pain," shrugged Quinn. There were so many bone shrapnels inside Quinn's target's bodies that when they would be put back, they would scrape against the muscles and cause more pain.

Quinn had no guilt regarding the amount of damage he had caused. Gamel and the two men looked used to what they were doing and seemed pretty confident while confronting him, meaning that they had been successful at it. And that was all reason he needed to break their bones and leave them in pain. Plus, the injuries were reversible and won't leave any permanent harm. The losses they would suffer were their wands and the free book that Quinn had come away with.

'I can't feel guilt with something like that,' thought Quinn knowing what was to come. If he felt guilty at this level, later he won't be able to do his part in the future. There were terrible things in the future, and if Quinn wanted to get rid of them, he needed to fight the terrible with some terrible of his own. Something like breaking bones would seem minor to what was going to come in the future.

Quinn slid the thoughts to the back of his head and looked around the Danish market streets, thinking how it was his last day here and tomorrow morning he would be going back home.

"I should probably buy souvenirs, or they would hound me later," reminded Quinn. People like Eddie and Luna had outright demanded him to get them something when he wrote them letters about going to Denmark. If he didn't buy Lia something, she wouldn't bring him back books, and that wouldn't be good for him.

"I wonder what I should buy? Oh, right! I should buy them Legos. We are in Denmark. after all. Should I charm them somehow? Or should I give them the stock version? Oh goody~!"

But then Quinn stopped and looked around among the magical people of Denmark and wondered aloud.

"Now, where would I get Legos?"

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After roaming around some and luckily finding a store, Quinn bought a ton of Legos. He was sure that Luna would want a lot of them when she discovers what they were. So he made sure to buy an amount that shocked the shop owner.

"I wonder what she would make with them," smiled Quinn as he stood in front of the hotel door and cast disillusionment on himself before silently opening the door.

The door wasn't visible from the living room, so as long as Quinn was silent, no one would see him entering. And sound magic was something Quinn researched since his second year when Filius Flitwick had introduced it to him.

With silent and slow steps, Quinn walked into the living room area to find five new people sitting in his living room along with Aksel, who was looking at a map on the table in front of him.

Aksel raised his wand and pointed at the map for red spots to appear all over the map. "These are all the places where I took him. I stuck to the central and a whole lot of the muggle areas. I would've preferred not to go muggle, but he dragged me along."

"When did he leave?" asked a guy dressed in a suit and overcoat.

"I don't know," sighed Aksel while observing the map. "I found him missing around half an hour ago. But, I've no idea when he left the room."

Aksel's words brought a smile to Quinn's face. He could barely understand them speaking in Danish, but he did recognize some phrases, and to him, it sounded like an achievement because he had been gone for hours.

"... Leave? Are we sure that he left on his own discretion, or was he taken away?" asked another man, dressed in casual clothing. "Quinn West is from the West family, and they are filthy rich. So are we sure he wasn't abducted?"

"I was here the entire day," replied Aksel shaking his head. "He wasn't abducted. If he was, I would've known."

"Yeah, right," scoffed the guy in the suit. "If that's true, then you let a kid get away from you right under your nose."

Aksel withdrew his eyes from the map and looked up at his colleague with a heated gaze. "Are you sure you want to do this now? Because my principal is missing and I want to find him, and do it quick. So I will make it very quick: all it would take is one spell."

The guy in the suit and Aksel locked eyes for a few seconds before the suit guy broke eye contact and looked away. Aksel gave every other man in the room a stern gaze, asking if they wanted to say something else and the promise that he wasn't kidding.

"Good, then let's get a move along. As time passes, the search radius lengthens. We have to find Quinn and quick..." Aksel looked at the band of his colleagues and finished his sentence. "... because if we don't, we will be over. Everything we have built will go drain. Even if we start over, the Wests will ruin us."

All men looked at each other and solemnly nodded. The West family was the owner of their business. A lot of what they did depended on the West family, and if they lost the support, they would have to start again and build up from the ground. Plus, if they didn't find Quinn or if Quinn got hurt, their future would be in trouble as Quinn was the grandson of George West, and that man with his resources could ruin their lives.

Everyone got up, and that made Quinn decide that it was over for the day. And that he should probably reveal himself before they go out looking for. Though Quinn wouldn't lie if he said that, he didn't entertain the thought of letting them go out and sweat a little.

But in the end, Quinn decided to end before it ended up getting out of hand. So he dropped the disillusionment on himself and revealed himself to the group.

"Hello, everyone," greeted Quinn with a smile. "My name is Quinn, and it's a pleasure to meet you all."

The six men, including Aksel's first reaction, were to whip out their wands and point them at Quinn. Within two seconds, six wands were trained on Quinn as the six adults went into combat mode and were ready to cast at a moment's notice.

Quinn slowly raised his hands in the surrender posture with a smile on his face. "Calm down, calm down, no need to be so wand-happy. Let's relax and have some good fun."

He opened both his fists to show choco-balls between his index and middle fingers.

"Chocolate?" asked Quinn, wiggling his fingers that held the choco-balls.

Aksel dropped his hand down and stopped pointing his wand at Quinn. The others also put their wands down as Aksel spoke in a stern voice. "Where were you? Why did you leave? How long were you out?"

"Now, there is no need to take that tone," responded Quinn, giving Aksel a look. "I was out, exploring the city. I have to say it has quite a lot to offer. There is no need to get all huffy about that. Also, you should've told me about the flavored milk tavern? The choices they had were just Magnifique." He did a chef's kiss to show his delight.

"... But why did you go out on your own?! You should've asked me, and I would've taken you. It's my job to guide you and show you around," frowned Aksel.

"That's true, but you were restricting my moments, Mr. Thorn," said Quinn as he unwrapped one of the choco-balls and popped it into his mouth. "I wanted to see both magical and non-magical Aarhus, not just the magical parts. But you insisted that I restricted my movements. You even protested against the random and new restaurant plan. No offense, but I explore better alone."

Quinn was also sure that if he asked Aksel to take him to Mørke Gade. He would've got shut down before even saying the entire sentence. The area was just too shady for a teen like Quinn to wander around.

"But what if you had got lost," asked one of Aksel's colleagues in English. "This isn't your country, and you could've gotten lost with no one to ask for help from."

"Oh, please," scoffed Quinn in response. "I know how the hotel's lobby from memory. With its image and some apparition, I can return from anywhere a few kilometers without breaking a sweat, do ask Aksel. I can't get lost in public, and even if I do, I can teleport at will to return to the safe lobby.

Quinn walked past and settled on one of the single-seater sofas in the living room. "I can tell that you guys are Mr. Thorn's friends, and from the looks of it, you also work together with him. How about you guys sit down and we talk?"

None of the guys sat down as Aksel once again asked. "Why would you leave? Did you not know how much panic you caused? How did you even sneak out?"

"Mr. Thorn, why are you even surprised? Didn't your briefing stress on the part that I will try to sneak out?" replied Quinn. He took out a Durum shawarma wrapped in foil out of his pockets and spoke as he unwrapped it. "It was your fault that you put your guard down. Just because I acted politely, you assumed that the information you had turned null and void. Is this what they taught you when you were training to be an Auror?"

Aksel's eyes went wide open when he heard Quinn speak up. "I didn't tell you that. How did you know that?"

"I didn't," smiled Quinn and took a bite of the pita and the meat inside. He pointed at Aksel and chuckled. "I simply guessed, and just you confirmed it. So, thanks for that. I was genuinely curious if my guess was correct."

Quinn then looked at the other five men: except for the suit guy and Aksel, the rest of the gang had sat back down and were listening to Quinn speak. He observed every one of them and took in what they gave to him. Every one of them looked fit, and the way they had whipped out their wands the second they saw Quinn was indicative of a few things. When combined that with Aksel's confirmation, Quinn concluded.

"All of you are either Aurors or Hit Wizards," started Quinn. "To be precise, ex-Auror and ex-Hit Wizards. Given that you guys work for the family business means that you all left the ministry jobs."

Quinn looked at the detailed map on the table and recognized the detail in the map. "Hmm... let me front a guess. You guys are bodyguards or maybe wands for hire that work under the banner of the West family."

And looking at them, Quinn could see that his guess was correct.

"I didn't know that we worked in this business."

Quinn heard clapping and turned to see the man in casual clothes and flip-flops clapping his hands while smiling.

"Aren't you a smart one," grinned the man. "I am Niel. And yes, you're correct. We are bodyguards for hire. Got trained to be Aurors and Hit Wizards, did some time as Aurors and Hit Wizards, and then left the ministry to start this up."

Aksel, Neil, and Lucas: the guy in the suit, were three childhood friends. One pureblood, one half-blood, and the last a first-gen magical. All of them were poor or came from tough backgrounds. Two were orphans, while one of them had an abusive parent. So they banded together and formed a lifelong bond to stick together and be the family none of them had.

The three were bright students, and when they graduated, all of them applied for Auror and Hit Wizard apprenticeships, and with their grades and aptitude, passed the tests and got trained to become Aurors and Hit Wizards. The three, who didn't have much money in their lives, finally had a substantial income with the job.

"But you see. People can hire Auror and Hit Wizards for protection when they have a good reason to do so, or they have the money and influence to haul around Aurors are guards," spoke Neil with a smile as he crossed his legs; his flip-flop removed from his hanging foot. "We saw an opportunity to earn more money than we were already making, and thus, we left our jobs to start our protection service. We could be hired as bodyguards at a fee. And as it turned out, many rich folks are willing to fork out money for some protection."

Quinn nodded, well familiar with the private security industry, which was prevalent in the non-magical world. But in the magical world, it wasn't common, and thus, this here could be considered a new industry and job line.

"How does the West family business come into play?"

"The connections," answered Lucas, dressed meticulously in a suit. "Not a lot of people do what we do. Most of them were used to going to the ministry for such services, and the ministry would take care of it. But unlike the ministry, we didn't have that level of credibility. Sure we were trained but lacked the connections to get the business started."

Gathering cliental was always one of the hardest parts of starting a business. And this was also for the trio of private bodyguards.

"At that time, we met with Adam West," continued Lucas.

"Adam West," repeated Quinn at the mention of the name. Adam West was his father, who had died in an accident when Quinn was a one year infant. Quinn didn't know much about 'his' parents. He never asked, and none of his family members told him about them.

"Yes, he offered us the connections of the Wests and provided us with clients," nodded Lucas. "From then on, everything was uphill. We never ran out of clients as someone was always looking for guards and defenders. It has been fifteen years, and we have grown from the group of three to forty trained wands working in Scandinavia."

Quinn felt impressed and whistled at the growth. This was the first private security company he had seen, and from what Quinn knew, Britain didn't have something like this. There were retired Aurors who sometimes did something similar for money, but there wasn't anything organized like this, not even close.

"What do you guys call yourselves?"

Aksel, Neil, and Lucas exchanged before Aksel turned to Quinn and answered.

"Limax."

The Limax was a magical creature with a wide, hammer-shaped head, four arms, and a serpent-like lower body. It was capable of wielding multiple weapons at once, including axes, maces, and daggers.

Quinn smiled at the choice of the name and praised.

"Now, that's cool."

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A/N:

If the storyline permits, and if I am able to find time in the progression of events, I will bring up the plot hook of exploration of parent's death. Looking forward to if I will be able to create an out-of-Hogwarts plot with the death of Quinn's parents.

Just to be clear, it's not decided yet. It's just an plot idea.

]

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Quinn West - MC - Has a foodie side to him.

Aksel Thorn - Founder (Limax Group) - Bodyguard, ex-Auror.

Neil - Founder (Limax Group) - Bodyguard, ex-Hit Wizard.

Lucas - Founder (Limax Group) - Bodyguard, ex-Auror.