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A Historiographical Note on the War

Much can be written about the War of the Dark Coalition, the magical conflict that swept across the entire wizarding world from 2016-2017. Whole libraries can be (and have been) filled with books on the subject, all without ever covering the same subject twice. The British conflict known as the Second Voldemort War or Second Blood War is a mere part of the larger global conflict – an important part, indubitably, due to the role of Tom Marvolo Riddle, the self-proclaimed Lord Voldemort, in organizing the Dark Coalition, but just a part.

To write about everything that came to pass during the last great war of the magical world would be a nigh-impossible exercise, especially if one wants to frame it as a single, coherent narrative. And yet, one might get a flavor of the overall course of the war and an understanding of its key milestones by following the challenges, personal, magical, and martial, which faced Harry Potter and his friends from the Fall of the British Ministry through the Final Battle.

As you read this tale, remember that it is only a small sliver of the overall story of the war. Many important campaigns will be glossed over or entirely unmentioned.

With that said, read now the story of the Boy-Who-Lived as he faced his prophesied foe…

Friday, 24 June 2016

Harry spent the month of June at his girlfriend’s bedside. Of course, a ‘month’ for Harry was more like three months, seeing as he was spending it entirely under the Chamber’s time dilation. Spending basically every waking hour with his beloved Ginny’s still form within arm’s length did little to engender positive feelings in Harry for Snape or Dumbledore.

Harry had gotten reports that Snape had been able to successfully warn the Order of the Phoenix about each one of Voldemort’s attacks since the fall of the Ministry, and Dumbledore had been able to mitigate the damage being caused by Voldemort wielding the Spear Destiny. The unbeatable wand against the unbeatable spear was a fairly even match-up, although Voldemort came out slightly ahead due to being able to use both his wand and the Spear, while Dumbledore had only a wand.

Voldemort was furiously tearing through his organization, trying to find out who was leaking information to Dumbledore. Of course, the Fidelius ensured that he never once even thought to suspect that Snape was the culprit. In fact, Snape reportedly was being treated far better than before, only receiving a short Cruciatus session when Dumbledore’s survival of the attack on Hogwarts was revealed.

Harry, of course, didn’t spend all of his time staring lovingly at Ginny’s comatose form. With the help of Rose and Luna, he worked on finishing the trickiest projects he’d ever had to complete – the magical manufacturing project.

The problem, of course, was the Fourth Principle of Druidry. “Will and Choice are the unique and unalienable traits of a living soul,” his many times great-grandfather had told him, and it applied not just to druidic magic but to all magic. While in theory, a runic enchantment can do anything that a wand can, a wand is wielded by a living magical being with their own will. That was why, no matter how good the Avengers Arsenal weapons were, wand magic still remained a key component of the group’s fighting styles for its sheer versatility.

Still, they were making progress. Ron and Hermione were close to figuring out a way for one enchantment to cast yet another. Harry, Luna, Rose, and MARC were building two new AI’s to take over the manufacturing process once they got it working. And Harry, Ron, and Luna were trying to enjoy their last free time before the war ended, insofar as they could with their girlfriend, sister, and best friend respectively stuck in a coma.

It had been three real-time weeks, or just over two perceived months, for Harry when Hermione came rushing into the room where Harry and Rose were working while watching over Ginny. She was looking more panicked than Harry had ever seen her since the troll.

“What’s wrong, Hermione?”

“The Avengers have split up!” Hermione shouted.

“They WHAT?!” Harry shouted. “Are you sure? How?”

“She’s right,” Rose piped in. “I’ve been shifting almost all my conscious attention to the wizarding world for the past few weeks, which was clearly a mistake. Over the past few days, the Avengers have had some sort of… Civil War, people are calling it.”

Hermione nodded in agreement. “My parents just wrote me about it,” she said. “It was bad –Bucky Barnes was accused of bombing a UN conference, your friend Steve became an internationally wanted fugitive, and the Avengers destroyed an entire airport in a massive fight.”

“How are your parents doing nowadays, anyway?” Harry asked, trying to give himself time to process what he had just heard. Steve was a fugitive now? The Avengers were disbanded?

He vaguely heard his friend describe how her parents had temporarily relocated to Australia under an assumed identity crafted as a favor by Tony Stark. The Land Down Under had a relatively small wizarding community, so they were theoretically safe. They weren’t exactly happy that their daughter was going to be fighting a war at seventeen, but they knew better than to think they could stop her now that she was a magical adult. Snape had promised to claim that he had killed the Granger parents a few weeks from now, providing them an additional layer of security.

“That’s good to hear,” Harry said.

“But you’re more worried about Steve,” said Hermione. Harry nodded, embarrassed. “That’s okay,” she reassured him. “Steve is your friend, and you’ve barely even met my parents.”

“I am worried about Steve,” Harry admitted, “but he hopefully kept his notebook with him so we can talk. I’m more worried that our best line of defense should another invasion happen, or should the Statute fail, just imploded. Which means that, first things first, Steve and I need to have a talk.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Monday, 27 June 2016

Madam Pomfrey having just cleared him to use magic again, Harry was able to make an intercontinental portkey to the coordinates that Steve had provided for their meeting. They were somewhere in southern Africa, according to Harry’s atlas, inside a small, primitive nation called Wakanda. Harry recalled that the prince of said nation had been involved in the Civil War incident, although on the so-called “Team Iron Man” side, which made Harry wonder what had caused the shift in allegiance.

When Harry’s portkey landed, he looked up to see a wide plain, with no human in sight as far as the eye could see, except for one familiar face.

“Hello, Steve,” he greeted his friend warmly. The supersoldier was dressed simply in a tee-shirt and an unfamiliar style of pants.

“Hello, Harry,” his friend. “It’s good to see you, especially after… well, everything that happened over the past few weeks.”

“About that,” Harry said. “I’ve been out of the loop on the Muggle side of things for a while. Could you explain exactly what happened that caused the Avengers to split in two? Oh, and why I had to hear about it third-hand via Hermione’s parents?”

Faced with a disappointed gaze from Harry, Steve began to tell the story. “It all started in Lagos…”

Steve related the story of a mission in Nigeria that went disastrously wrong, leading to Thaddeus Ross presenting the Sokovia Accords, a law to control superheroes. Tony Stark had agreed with it, while Steve had disagreed. At the signing of the accords in Vienna, an explosion had occurred and Bucky had been framed. Steve had managed to find his best friend and to protect him both from police and from a vengeful prince, but he had failed and had ended up in jail alongside Barnes, the Falcon Sam Wilson, and Prince T’Challa. A fake psychologist had used trigger words to send Bucky on a rampage, leading to Steve escaping.

With the Avengers now in full-blown Civil War, each side had assembled allies, leading to a destructive battle at the Leipzig-Halle airport, culminating in Steve and Bucky fleeing to deal with additional Winter Soldiers in Siberia. Tony Stark had beaten them there, where a man named Helmut Zemo had revealed that he was in fact behind everything. After forcing Stark to watch Bucky murder his parents as the Winter Soldier, Zemo had used the trigger words again to force Bucky to attack Tony, leading to a two-on-one battle that culminated in Bucky’s arm being ripped off, Stark’s armor being disabled, and Steve giving Stark his shield back out of guilt for what had happened.

“Well,” said Harry as Steve’s tale came to an end. “This Zemo person got you good.”

“He did,” Steve sighed, “and the worst part is, he didn’t even have to do much. Just play on the worst parts of us. And I wonder if I had done something different, anything different, things wouldn’t have gotten so bad.”

“Would you like to me to assure you that you did everything right, Steve?” Harry asked. “Because I could do that. I wouldn’t even be lying. In your position, I probably would have done mostly the same things.”

“No, Harry,” Steve answered. “I need to do better. So, lay it out for me. What did I do wrong?”

“Item one,” Harry said, “Wanda. Was she struggling with her control before Lagos?”

“Yes, she was,” Steve admitted, “but we were training her as well as we could, and she needed to get more field experience to get better.”

“And you didn’t think me to ask for help?” Harry questioned.

“You? Her powers aren’t magical,” Steve protested.

“But they’re closer to magic than anything you have experience with,” Harry replied. “I – or one of my friends – could have come to help her, even if it was just an hour a week, an hour a month of tutoring.”

“Fair enough,” Steve said. “I just feel like you’re always helping me out, even when you have your own battles that need your full attention.”

“Our friendship isn’t a transaction, Steve. It’s not give and take. I help you because I saw you grow from a good kid to an even better man, and it’s because the right thing to do.”

“What else could I have done better?”

“Item two, the Accords. You and Stark are friends, right? Colleagues, at least, and both of you are adult men and good people.”

Steve nodded in agreement.

“Then,” Harry continued, “you should have been able to come up with a compromise.”

“The Accords were a huge mistake,” Steve insisted. “Even Tony ended up breaking them by the end of things. And you know that I always stand up for what I believe in.”

“So does Stark, in his own way,” Harry pointed out. “And as good as you are, Steve, the Avengers were far more than the sum of their parts, far stronger together than they ever were individually. You were their leader, which meant it was your responsibility to keep them that way. I mean, my two best friends were in a cold war over their mutual romantic attraction for a year, and they still managed to get me through a gladiatorial death tournament. You argued with Stark for a week and ended up destroying a major airport and compromising planetary security.”

Steve looked suitably chastised, so Harry relented somewhat. “It wasn’t all on you, Steve, but as I said, you were the leader. Refusal to budge is hubris, Steve, and hubris has a price.”

“That?” Steve was clearly surprised to hear the prophecy Harry had delivered back in 2012 be referenced again. “We all thought it was completed during the Ultron incident. Tony played with the Scepter because of his fear, and the Maximoffs allied with Ultron because of their hate. JARVIS became Vision. Novi Grad paid the price for Tony’s arrogance in playing with things he shouldn’t have been. And Thor went off to find answers about the Infinity Stones.”

“Maybe that was how the prophecy was fulfilled, or maybe it wasn’t, Steve. Prophecies are vague. One might equally say that the Sokovia Accords, as written, were a folly born of the world’s fear of the Avengers. And Zemo’s plan was certainly the product of hate. Bucky, who was a mere servant as the Winter Soldier, is finally getting freed of that, you said. Your hubris can be blamed for the fall of the Avengers. And the answers about the Vienna bombing were found, but far too late.

“But prophecy isn’t what we’re here to discuss, Steve. Item three, Siberia. You should have tried to stop Bucky when he attacked Stark, instead of joining him.”

“I know that,” Steve said. “I knew that even before the fight ended. But in the moment, all I saw was Tony striking out at my best friend in a rage, and I had to defend him. And once the fight started, it wasn’t going to end easily.”

Harry was disappointed that his friend hadn’t thought things through, but there was little that could be done about it.

“Just remember to think a bit more next time, Steve. And item four. Giving up your shield, Steve? Really?”

“He guilted me into it,” Steve said, “and he was right – I don’t deserve it.”

“Do you not remember what alteration you helped me make to it?”

“What alteration?” Steve asked, before suddenly he remembered. “Oh,” he muttered, “that is not good.”

“Yep, your shield is one of the things that sustains Rose and the Statute of Secrecy,” Harry reminded him. “And while you holding onto it isn’t strictly necessary to maintain the spell, Rose needs all the power she can get now that the war has gone global. So I’m going to talk to Stark, have him give it to me so I can pass it back to you.”

Steve nodded mutely. “And I’m fairly sure Natasha has possession of the crystal, before you worry about that. She knows exactly how valuable and important it is; she wouldn’t leave it behind.”

“Good,” Harry said. “Now, how is life as a wanted man? Or, given where we’re meeting, as a guest of Wakanda?”

“It’s been… okay,” Steve said.

The pair continued to chat for about an hour about various things, before their conversation naturally drew to a close.

“I should get back to Scotland,” Harry said. “It was good getting to talk to you in person, Steve.”

“You, too, Harry. And Statute or no Statute, let me know if you need any help from in your war.”

“I will, Steve. And thank you.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Wednesday, 29 June 2016

A magical enchanted owl automaton portkeyed from the edge of Hogsmeade to an abandoned alley in Brooklyn, and from there, it winged its way north to the Avengers Compound. It was carrying a carefully-wrapped communication mirror along with a handwritten note on a piece of parchment.

Tony Stark,

This is a magical communication mirror which connects to its partner, which is in my possession. If you have a half hour or so to talk, please say my name, and the mirror will connect you to me.

Sincerely,

Harry Potter

P.S. The spellwork on this mirror shouldn’t affect electronics in any way.

The mirror and note were dropped off by the runic owl, which then flew away to hide in a nearby tree. They were found a few hours later by a very confused Happy Hogan who, thanks to a conditional concealment charm on most of the note, saw only the words “To: Tony Stark, From: Harry Potter” on the outside of the mirror’s wrapping and nothing else. Unable to find anything dangerous about the package, he took it to his boss, who was able to read the note and assured his Head of Security that it was fine.

Once alone, Tony Stark unwrapped the mirror and set it upright on his workbench.

“Let’s see what you have to say, Harry Potter,” he mused aloud. The mirror’s image turned fuzzy for just under two minutes before revealing the face of Capsicle’s time-traveling wizard friend.

“Hey, mini-Gandalf,” he greeted the boy. He was only slightly older, Tony realized, than the Spider-Kid. And he was off fighting some sort of magical war with his equally young friends that Tony couldn’t do anything about because his Iron Man suit wouldn’t last a minute against spells.

The kid looked at him quizzically for a moment. “Oh, you mean the fictional character,” he said. “Hello, Mr. Stark. I see you got the mirror. Thanks for agreeing to talk with me.”

Tony wondered for a moment whether there was a non-fictional Gandalf, before dismissing the thought. “What do you need, kid?”

“Not much, really. I’ve already talked to Steve, but I want to get both sides of the story. What exactly happened that the Avengers are broken?”

Tony looked at the kid. He didn’t owe him any explanations, especially since he was Steve’s friend. Not his. But he had seen memories of the teen wizard fighting, and Tony knew that he was in the middle of a war against some Sauron type that Thor had called an ‘Abomination’. A war that Tony desperately didn’t want to spill over into the normal world. He already knew the Captain’s side of things, Tony reasoned, so telling his side would maybe let him get some things off his chest.

“It all started with the disaster in Lagos…” he began.

For fifteen minutes, he shared everything. He wasn’t sure why – after all, he didn’t usually talk about himself to anyone, let alone a near-stranger. And as he spoke of Steve ramming his shield into the arc reactor and leaving, Tony felt like he was a bit more whole than he was when the storytelling began.

“Are you going to tell me now how much I screwed up?” Tony asked, bitterness in his voice. “How I made a mess of things as always, how I tore the Avengers apart?”

“I could,” Potter said. “I did for Steve. Of course there were things you could have done better. You shouldn’t have been the one to have Spider-Man make the first move at Leipzig. You should have known that something was fishy with the Accords when they sent General Hulk Hunter to present them. And, most of all, you should have been able to reach a compromise with Steve. But the fault for the Civil War, if you want to look at it that way, lies with him, too. And with Black Widow for deciding to switch sides halfway through. And with that Ant-Man character for deciding that becoming a giant in the middle of Leipzig Airport was in any way whatsoever a good idea.”

He wasn’t wrong. About Ant-Man and Spider-Man and Natasha and Ross and Steve and about Tony himself. “Fair enough, mini-Merlin,” he said.

“Please don’t,” the wizard said. “Merlin was real and the most powerful wizard to ever live, and he remains one of the most respected.”

Merlin was real. Who knew?

“He was also an arrogant man who arguably is responsible for most of the problems in the magical world today,” Potter said somewhat bitterly. “But that’s beside the point. The one thing you did unquestionably wrong was taking Steve’s shield. And,” Potter continued before Tony could protest, “it doesn’t matter one bit whether or not you think he deserves it. The spell that maintains the Statute of Secrecy depends on that shield, on its symbolic power. And while Steve’s physical possession of the shield isn’t strictly necessary, it certainly helps, and with Voldemort launching a global war, we need everything we can get.”

“Global war?” Tony asked, latching onto the most immediately concerning part of that monologue.

The wizard nodded gravely. “He gathered allies from around the world. He used them to take the British Ministry, and now he’s launching attacks everywhere. The Statute needs to hold up until we defeat him, so I’m asking, begging you to return his shield.”

“Fine,” Tony relented. He didn’t know much about magic, nor did he care to know, but he knew that the Captain had trusted this kid and, as much as he felt bitter about the Civil War, he felt like he could trust Harry Potter as well. “I don’t know where he is, though – at least, not officially.” Unofficially, he strongly suspected that the ‘rogues’ were hiding out under the protection of Wakanda.

“That’s not an issue. The owl automaton that brought the mirror should be waiting in one of the trees nearby. It should be able to portkey the shield back to me, and I’ll send it on to him.”

“A teleporting owl robot? Super cool,” Tony said. “Very ‘Clash of the Titans’.”

“Huh?”

“You never saw that? ‘Release the Kraken!’ No?”

“No. And thank you very much, sir.”

“Please don’t,” Tony said reflexively, inadvertently echoing the teen wizard’s earlier request. “You can call me Stark, or even Tony. Just not ‘sir’.” The word ‘sir’ in a British accent brought up grief-laden memories.

“Someone you cared about called you that, didn’t they?” the wizard asked. He was surprisingly intuitive. “Someone you lost.”

“My first AI, JARVIS,” said Tony sadly. He remembered that Harry had an AI of his own, one he called his daughter. If anyone could understand… “He was killed by Ultron, and then when I managed to piece him back together, he sacrificed himself to save our lives and create Vision.”

“I’m so sorry,” the wizard comforted him. “I can’t imagine losing Rose. I suppose that’s why I argued so hard about the shield.”

“I haven’t been able to talk about this to anybody else,” Tony said. “Not to the other Avengers, not even to Rhodey or Pepper. Not really… I loved him like a son. And even if parts of him live on in Vision, he’s gone forever now.”

“Tell me about him, Tony. Tell me about your son.”

And so Tony spoke. He shared stories of JARVIS from his creation to his final days. And in return, Harry spoke of his AI’s, plural. His first, Rose, who emerged spontaneously from the magic that he cast to maintain the Statute of Secrecy. His second, MARC, who was created to be a copilot for his friend’s magical armor that was based on Tony’s own. And his third, the newborn EMMI who was destined to manage a magical manufacturing project that sounded really awesome.

“I need to get working on some paperwork,” Tony said eventually. “But if you need help, or if you just need to talk, kid, give me a call.”

“I will, Tony,” the wizard said before disconnecting.

That evening, Tony pulled Capsicle’s shield out of storage and gave it to the (really cool) automaton owl, which blinked away in a swirl of magical light.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

In Hogwarts, Harry put the mirror down with a smile. It was always good to make a new friend and ally.

Then, he felt a wave of powerful energy. One which reminded him of Luna, of the enchantments on the Chamber, of meeting Steve. It was, based on his previous experiences, the energy of the Time Stone itself.

Which, last he knew of it, was in the hands of the sorcerers. Were they still around, or had some other group gotten their hands on one of the most powerful objects in existence?

Chapter Text

Sunday, 3 July 2016

Almost exactly one month real-time after she’d fallen into her coma, Ginny woke up. Harry was sitting next to her, working on the magical manufacturing project, when he noticed her eyelids flutter in the corner of his vision. Casting the best medical diagnostic spells that he knew, he confirmed that she was waking up, and for good.

“Hello, my love,” he whispered as leaned over her so that his face would be the first thing she saw on awakening.

“Hello, Harry,” Ginny said weakly. Harry leaned down to give her a light kiss, which she happily reciprocated. He also showed her the written Secret of Snape’s true loyalties so that she was able to remember why she had gone into a coma in the first place.

“I’ll call Madam Pomfrey to check on you,” Harry promised. “Dobby?”

“Mistress Ginny is being awake now!” the loyal elf exclaimed. “Dobby is getting Miss Healer Poppy now.”

“How are you feeling?” Harry asked.

“I’m sore,” Ginny said, “but getting better. Help me up.”

Harry lent his girlfriend his arm as he helped her sit up in the bed where she had lain for her three-month coma. They took advantage of her new position to engage in a session of heavy kissing – or, at least, heavy kissing for a girl who just woke up from a coma. But for a boy who had gone three months without a kiss from his girlfriend, that was enough.

They were interrupted by a pop and a coughing sound, causing them to burst apart.

“You can get back to what you were doing when I’m done,” Madam Pomfrey said. “But first, I need to check Miss Weasley over.”

Ginny was subjected to a fifteen-minute medical exam, at the conclusion of which Madam Pomfrey gave her report.

“You’ve recovered well enough from that foolishness,” she declared, “though I think you should take it easy, with limited magic use, for the next three or four days.”

“Thank you, Madam Pomfrey,” Ginny said before the healer popped out via Dobby Express. “Did you miss me?”

“So much, Ginny. But I stayed here by your bedside every day.”

Ginny smiled at her boyfriend’s devotedness, before her face turned serious. “Now,” she commanded. “Tell me what’s been happening with the war.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

That evening, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were all at Grimmauld Place. Ginny was there to reassure her mother that she was alright. Molly Weasley had not been happy to hear that her daughter had sacrificed three months of her life in some magical ritual. Dumbledore had assured her that Ginny had saved his life and that she would be fine, which had only partially appeased her. The mother and daughter were both glad to have a few hours together.

Ron and Hermione were there, however, for a different reason.

“This meeting of the Order of the Phoenix is called to order,” Dumbledore declared. “Let me introduce to you our two newest members, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger.”

“They haven’t graduated Hogwarts yet!” Molly Weasley immediately protested.

“Actually, mum, we have,” Ron informed her. “Minister Bones let us take our NEWTs at the Ministry back in May. I got O’s in Charms, Defense, History, and Arithmancy. E’s in Runes and Transfiguration.”

“Congratulations!” Mrs. Weasley exclaimed, and she wasn’t the only one impressed. To get such good scores on six NEWTs, and with less than a year of NEWT classes, was incredibly impressive. Hermione, of course, had gotten straight O’s in her eight NEWTs of Charms, Defense, Transfiguration, Runes, Arithmancy, Potions, History, and Muggle Studies. Harry had gotten O’s in Defense, Charms, Transfiguration, Runes, and Muggle Studies with an E in Potions.

“But why?” Mrs. Weasley asked.

“Because I can’t afford to sit in Hogwarts for another year, taking classes on things that I mostly know already. Neither could Ron and Hermione, and they certainly wouldn’t let me do it alone.”

“I am sure that our newest members will continue prove their worth,” Dumbledore said, quieting any further protests and discussions of Ron and Hermione’s presence. “Now, let us begin. Kingsley, how are things at the new Ministry?”

“We’re still working to get fully back on our feet after the big move, but Granger did an excellent job of moving the most important things.”

Hermione smiled in acknowledgment.

“The Auror office is functioning at 90% efficiency, I’d say,” Shacklebolt reported, “and Minister Bones is continuing to work to weed out spies and double agents. The new wards are revealing quite a few of those.”

“The other departments of the Ministry are also doing well,” Percy Weasley spoke up. “Jeremiah Graham has been appointed the new head of International Cooperation after the previous director, Alice Stratten, was found to be a Death Eater. Ludo Bagman is causing problems in Games and Sports, but what’s new about that? And… that’s it.”

“Thank you, Kingsley, Percival,” Dumbledore said. “Now, as you know, I have several spies in the Death Eaters.”

“More reliable than that traitor Snape?” one member of the Order called out.

“Knew we should never have trusted that turncoat bastard,” another muttered.

Sirius was not among those speaking out against Snape, having gotten the Secret shared with him due to his role in the Vow-breaking ritual.

“I have, as I said, several sources now,” Dumbledore repeated. That particular lie was one of Ron’s ideas, both to reassure the Order and to cause Voldemort to thin his own forces searching out nonexistent traitors. “And several have confirmed that a large attack is being planned on Vedmagorod, the main magical settlement in Russia, in three days. Lord Voldemort himself will be leading it, wielding the Spear of Destiny. There will also be a large force of Ural giants.”

“We need to figure out a way to deal with that damn Spear,” Moody said. “You’re the only one who can fight it, Albus – even Granger had to run from it in the Ministry.”

“Can we destroy it?” Daedalus Diggle asked.

“Artifacts are hard to destroy,” Hermione spoke up. “I mean, that’s the whole reason the Second Sauron War even happened. We don’t know what the Spear’s destruction method is, so unless we want to risk Fiendfyre…” Everyone in the room shuddered at the name of that particular dark spell.

“What about… you know, Rose?” Harry asked. The process of creating her had destroyed four of the Rings of Men, which were definitely artifacts. And they had destroyed a fifth a month ago to create the extra anchor.

“That was more of a transmogrification of the artifacts into a new form,” Ron said, “and it required a tricky five-minute spell that had, frankly, the worst incantation I’ve ever written. Not to mention it depended on the fact that you had won those Rings fair and square. The Spear definitely belongs to Voldemort. Not an option.”

“Fair enough,” Harry said. “Still, there has to be a way to end the threat of the Spear. It’s not absolute power – Dumbledore can hold his own against it.”

“He can’t keep going forever,” Ron shot back. “Sooner or later, even he will slip.”

“I remember reading once,” Hermione mused, “about a lesser artifact being destroyed by a superior one. And even if the Spear was made by a master dwarf and a high elf…”

“We have the superior artifact,” Ron finished with a smile. “But will that be enough?”

“I borrowed a memory of some of Dumbledore and Voldemort’s fights,” Harry said, “and looked at them with, well, and we both agreed – Voldemort doesn’t actually know how to use a spear. He’s just relying on its magic.”

“Which means that she should be able to win,” Hermione concluded. The three of them turned to face the rest of the Order.

“We know how to destroy the Spear,” they said in unison.

They would explain their plan eventually, once the Order got over the shock of witnessing a Golden Trio brainstorming session.

It might take a while.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Wednesday, 6 July 2016

Several members of the Order of the Phoenix lay in wait within the streets of Vedmagorod. The magical town was significantly larger than Hogsmeade, its closest British equivalent, featuring a wide range of stores, residences, and even a branch of Gringotts. Their arrival in Magical Russia hadn’t been entirely above board, but Dumbledore had been able to use his influence to smooth things over and, hopefully, keep Voldemort from finding out that his attack plan had been compromised. Unfortunately, partially due to the hit his credibility had taken two years ago, he hadn’t been able to convince the Russian authorities to evacuate the townspeople before the assault began.

The first sign of the attack was a slight shaking of the ground, one that would have been unnoticeable to anyone who wasn’t already expecting it. It was the cumulative effect of dozens of giants’ ponderous footfalls approaching the magical settlement from all sides.

The second sign of the attack was a massive anti-apparition spell and an anti-portkey spell, both of which blanketed the entire town, preventing the townsfolk from escaping. This was accompanied by a shutdown of Vedmagorod’s Floo connections, orchestrated by one of Lord Alexandrov’s contacts within the Russian magical government.

The giants’ massive forms emerged from within a bank of fog, the massive and once-noble creatures now reduced to heavy weapons for the cause of the Dark Lords Alexandrov and Voldemort. They half-encircled the town of Vedmagorod. At the center of their formation, a host of wizards appeared, led by two powerful figures – one with a cruel but decidedly human face, the other whose face was inhuman and serpentine.

“Wizards of Vedmagorod!” the Russian dark lord announced, his voice magically echoing across the whole town, which now cowered in fear. “Your time has come! Bow before your masters or be destroyed! For I am Vladimir Alexandrov, rightful lord of all Russia! And with me is the mighty Lord Voldemort, wielder of the unbeatable Spear of Destiny, master of all magic! Bow down or be destroyed!”

A translation charm helped Harry get the gist of Alexandrov’s declaration. He was surprised that Voldemort would let anyone take the lead, but Harry supposed that even he would have to give some modicum of respect to his fellow dark lords.

“No, Tom, Vladimir,” Dumbledore said in fluent Russian as he stepped out to face the dark army. “The people of Vedmagorod shall not bow today. You shall be stopped.”

“You cannot hope to stop us,” Voldemort said with a sneer, this time in English. “You might be able to fight me, barely, but your allies cannot stop the might of Lord Alexandrov, nor his fearsome armies!”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that, Tom,” Dumbledore said. “Besides, it won’t be me that you shall be fighting today.”

Harry and Ginny stepped forward to stand at Dumbledore’s sides. Harry had his Shield already deployed on his left wrist and his wand in his right hand. Ginny had the Excalibur sheathed in a scabbard across her back for effect. Meanwhile, Ron and Hermione flew down to hover above them.

“Hi, Tom,” Harry said with a smirk. “We’re ba-ack!”

“Harry Potter,” Voldemort spat, “the Boy-Who-Lived. Even you shall fall to the Spear of Destiny, and fate shall favor Lord Voldemort forever!”

“Oh,” Harry said, “I won’t be fighting you, either. My lovely girlfriend shall be your opponent this afternoon.”

“If you are so willing to let your beloved go to die by my hand,” Voldemort taunted, “then I shall oblige.”

With that, he threw the Spear of Destiny at Ginny, who summoned the Excalibur to her hand and used it to bat aside the powerful artifact weapon with a seemingly careless swipe, pinning it to the ground. Voldemort held out his hand, summoning the Spear back to him.

“Not so easy, Tom,” she growled before rushing forward to fight him.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Harry stepped up to face Lord Alexandrov, wand pointed at the powerful Russian wizard.

“The Boy-Who-Lived,” Alexandrov spoke in a thick accent. “The one that Voldemort thinks would be his downfall. You do not look so intimidating.”

“Looks can be deceiving,” Harry said before shooting a moderate Blasting Curse at the ground beneath Alexandrov’s feet, followed by a Severing Curse and a Jelly-Legs Jinx. Nothing too powerful yet, just enough to test the waters and get a gauge on how Alexandrov fought.

The Dark Lord responded admirably, maintaining his footing and shielding from both follow-up spells. He replied with a Killing Curse, a dark green curse that Harry didn’t recognize, and another Killing Curse, all of which dissipated upon his Shield.

“You are child,” Alexandrov said dismissively, “hiding behind Shield.”

And, well, if Alexandrov wanted to go all out, Harry would certainly oblige. He began shooting curses, ranging from nuisances to powerful shield-breakers, at the rate of about two per second. Seeing as he didn’t have to cast shields, while Alexandrov had to both shield and cast curses, Harry had a two-to-one advantage in speed and stamina. It was clear that despite Alexandrov’s experience, the Russian was a curse-heavy dueler, which was exactly the kind of opponent Harry handled most easily. He was winning.

Suddenly, Harry changed tactics. He tossed his Shield sharply to the ground and jumped to the right as he brought up a Protego shield for the first time. Alexandrov took the unexpected opportunity to send another Avada Kedavra at Harry. In response, Harry quickly conjured a wooden disk to intercept it, which exploded into shrapnel that Harry burned with a massive fire spell that Alexandrov had to shield from.

Or rather, he should have shielded from the fire but couldn’t because his legs had been taken out from under him by the impact of Harry’s magically ricocheting Shield. He was burned by the oncoming fire, so when Harry hit him with a Stunning Spell, he sank into blissful unconsciousness.

Tying the dark lord up in his best magical chains, Harry smiled. He had done his part.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Ron flew up to meet the giants. He hated fighting them, knowing their past greatness, but nowadays, giants were merely cannon fodder, to use the Muggle phrase, for whichever lord could win their loyalty through gifts.

Allowing the winds to guide him, he flew up to the head of the largest giant – the one most likely to be the Gurg, or leader, according to his reading and Hagrid’s tales – and he smote him hard on the head. Giants were very spell-resistant, but the mass-altering magic placed on the Mjolnir 2 was some of the most powerful magic Ron had ever cast, and it was backed by Ron’s incredible airspeed.

The giant stumbled back, but did not fall, and though Ron did not speak giant, he could guess that his victim’s growls meant something like “attack this puny flying thing”.

Having gotten the giants’ attention on him and away from the village, hopefully, Ron flew away from the village and did a lower pass, swiping at the giants’ kneecaps while he charged his hammer with lightning. As he reached the end of the row of giants, he let the lightning loose, straight into the face of the giant at the far end. The bolt was not one created by mere wizard spells, but one that channeled the power of the sky itself, and so it was able to take the giant out.

Ron continued his pattern of attacking the giants physically while charging and releasing powerful lightning bolts as often as he could. All the while, he let the senses he’d gained through the Rite of Air alert him to and avoid any incoming strikes. He saw that several members of the Order, including Sirius and Professor Lupin, were supporting him from the ground by conjuring massive sharp objects, like spears and swords, and banishing them as hard as they could into the joints of the giants. It was a very tiring process, however, so the Order members mostly focused on those giants who were still focusing on Vedmagorod instead of Ron. Which was exactly according to plan.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The first thing Hermione did was to surround the Voldemort-Ginny and Alexandrov-Harry duels with tall dirt walls. They wouldn’t stop a determined individual, but they would be able to prevent any members of the dark army from taking cheap shots at her friends while they defeated the two dark lords.

After that, she got to work. MARC found a large concentration of dark wizards and Hermione immediately dove into the fray, taking them on with a combination of physical strikes and spells.

“One right behind you,” MARC alerted her, so she struck out with a hard rear kick, sending the enemy in question flying several meters backward. Whoever it was probably wouldn’t get back up any time soon.

Meanwhile, Hermione willed a large mass of earth to rise up and form into stone spears, which rained down all around her. Some of her foes were taken down immediately, while yet others shielded above, leaving them open to be taken out by curses cast by Hermione or sent out by MARC. With this group thinned, Hermione left to deal with other things.

With MARC monitoring the integrity of the walls protecting Harry and Ginny, Hermione didn’t have to worry too much about them. MARC sent a Spell Dart at each of the two dark witches that Mad-Eye Moody was fighting, causing the scarred Auror to send her a grateful nod before he found a new opponent. Hermione transfigured the ground beneath Tonks’s opponent to drag him downward, giving the shapeshifter an easy victory as well.

She saw in the distance that Dumbledore, freed from the need to fight Voldemort, was taking on eight different opponents with ease. Suddenly, a familiar Shield flew in and started to ricochet among them, knocking them all out.

“Alexandrov was more of a dark wimp,” Harry said casually as his Shield flew back to him. “Ginny’s doing fine for now. Where do you need me next?”

The two friends raced into battle together, armor and shield working in perfect harmony to devastate opponents.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Her boyfriend and Captain America had been right, Ginny decided. Voldemort really didn’t know how to use a spear. Only his knowledge and skill with dark magic was keeping her from completely dominating their fight.

Ginny let the Excalibur and her own skills guide her to block a spell with the flat of her blade while forcing the tip of the Spear of Destiny upward. Lashing out with a kick to the side of his knee and a Bat-Bogey Curse (which was surprisingly useful in a fight, despite its pranking nature), Ginny spun left to avoid a curse before slipping under the Spear to score a slash across the front of Voldemort’s chest, making the dark lord wince in pain.

“I’m coming over the top,” Harry’s voice came into the jewel in her ear. The communication system they were using for this battle was based on the enchantment Harry had developed for Hermione to communicate with MARC outside her suit. Because of her boyfriend’s message, she wasn’t surprised by the “Hello, Tom” that came from above them.

Voldemort, however, was, allowing Ginny to slice his wand in two with the Excalibur. As Harry leapt down to force Voldemort against the dirt wall with his Shield, Ginny focused all of her power and all of the Excalibur’s power into its blade. With a ferocious swing, she cleaved the haft of the Spear of Destiny in two.

“How?” Voldemort gasped. A skilled user of wandless magic, Voldemort let loose a massive burst of power that sent both Ginny and Harry flying backward and disintegrated the wall around them. Looking around, Voldemort saw the utter defeat that had occurred. Half of his giants were down thanks to Ron, and the other half weren’t doing so well. His ally Alexandrov was burned and tied up. And the army of Russian dark witches and wizards that Alexandrov had brought was on the verge of defeat at the hands of the Mudblood Granger and Dumbledore.

Snarling, he signaled for retreat.

Chapter Text

Friday, 15 July 2016

“Hello, Harry,” Steve’s voice came across the communication mirror. After his conversation with Tony, Harry had decided to give Steve a mirror as well, in addition to the journal he was already using to communicate with his friend.

“It’s good to see you, Steve. How’s Bucky?”

“He’s still under cryo,” Steve informed him, “but the Wakandans say that they’re close to finding a solution for him. At least the mess with the coronation didn’t affect him.”

“The coronation?”

“Apparently, some long-lost cousin of the king came and tried to claim the throne to start a global race war.”

Harry didn’t really know what to say about that. “Everything’s all right now?”

“As far as Wakanda’s concerned? Yes.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“And on your end?” Steve asked. “How are you doing?”

“The war is… well, it’s a war. The Order is doing its best to fend off the attacks of Voldemort and his allies, but it’s not easy.”

“If there’s anything I can do…”

“You know that you can’t Steve, not without making things worse than they are.”

“I know that, Harry, but it goes against everything I am, everything I was raised to be, everything that you showed me, to know that there’s a world war happening and not to do a single thing.”

“I know that,” Harry assured him. “And I know that if there’s a single thing I need that you can do, that you won’t hesitate to help me. Just like I won’t ever hesitate to help you.”

“Speaking of helping,” Steve said, “I was thinking about what you were saying last month. About Wanda and her powers.”

“And?”

“Is that offer still open?”

“Somewhat,” Harry said. “I can’t spare much time. But an hour or two every other week, I can spare.”

“Good,” Steve said. “I asked Natasha to get me the Maximoffs’ location. She says that both of them are in your neighborhood, actually. Edinburgh, Scotland.”

“I can find them from there,” Harry said.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Tuesday, 26 July 2016

As cities went, Edinburgh was far from the largest Harry had ever been in – London and New York City both beat it by far. It also didn’t have much of a magical presence at all, with Hogsmeade and Hogwarts being the center of the wizarding community in Scotland like Diagon Alley and the Ministry building were for England.

Steve’s information hadn’t been too detailed on where in the city the twin Avengers were staying, so Harry had had to magical tracking to narrow things down further. Tracking arbitrary people or objects with magic wasn’t a simple matter of casting a spell. No, the idea of modifying the Point-Me spell (technically known as the Compass Charm) into something that could find anything was a pipe dream that had consumed months of years of the lives of many spellcrafters, though Ron had so far avoided falling into that particular rabbit hole.

Instead, Harry and Hermione had spent an hour in Edinburgh setting up a grid of spells to detect objects moving above a certain speed. Harry knew that powers and abilities weren’t just a tool. They were a part of you, and it became natural to use them even in one’s everyday life. So it wasn’t a surprise when the detection net got a lot of hits inside a particular apartment in central Edinburgh. That was where Pietro Maximoff lived – and most likely, where Wanda Maximoff lived, too.

So today, while Rose and a few DA members were supervising an experiment, Harry decided to approach the Maximoffs with his offer. He had in his hand a handwritten letter of introduction and explanation from Steve (sent via their connected journals) as well as his Trace-free wand. (He still had a few days before his main wand’s Trace would no longer be able to track him.)

Steeling himself to face a pair of paranoid, fugitive superheroes, Harry knocked on the door of the apartment he’d identified. Unsurprisingly, it was Pietro Maximoff who rushed to get the door and open it.

“Hello, Mr. Maximoff,” Harry said when the door opened to reveal the speedster. “I’m here to see your sister.”

“Who the hell are you?” Pietro demanded.

Harry sighed. “I suppose you wouldn’t remember me, since we only met the once. My name is Harry Potter. I’m a friend of Steve’s.”

“I remember you now,” a female voice came from behind Pietro. “You were the one who gave us the anti-electronics weapons before we fought Ultron. And you freaked out over Vision’s Mind Stone.”

Pietro nodded in agreement, beckoning him to come in to their apartment. “What do you want with Wanda?” he asked protectively.

“I want to offer her training,” Harry explained. “I’m not sure how much Steve and the others shared with you about me, but I’m one of a community of wizards and witches that exists around the globe. And I think, Miss Maximoff, that I can help you expand and control your skills.”

To demonstrate, Harry used his wand to levitate an empty glass that was sitting on their coffee table, transfigure it into a gerbil, and finally send it back into its original form and position.

“They explained a little,” the red-haired twin revealed, “but from what I understand, I’m not one of you. My powers are entirely unique, and they come from the Mind Stone.”

“Well, for one,” Harry said, “my abilities are still closer to yours than anything the Avengers had experience in. Steve frankly should have called me for advice at least on your training, if not help. And for another, my magic comes from an Infinity Stone, too – just a few generations back. Or rather, a few hundred.”

The two Sokovians shared a familiar look – one that Harry had seen on his own set of twins, a glance of mutual understanding and silent communication.

“I’ll take any help you can give me, Potter,” Wanda said.

Harry smiled. “Glad to hear it. I won’t be able to give you much of my time; I have a magical world war going on right now. But every other week, I or one of my friends will spend an hour or two with you, and give you exercises to practice between lessons. It won’t be as good as a full Hogwarts education by any means, but it will do.”

“Okay,” Pietro said quickly, “so two questions. First off, Hogwarts? How is a pig with a skin condition educating anyone? And also, where is my sister going to be training? Because here, in this apartment? No way.”

“Hogwarts is one of the world’s premiere schools of wizardry, for your information,” Harry informed him.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Harry said, “and I’ll admit that it sounded exactly as silly to me when I first heard of it, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. And as for where…”

Harry pulled out a wristband from his pocket and tossed it to Wanda. “This is a portkey. Basically, a magical teleport device with fixed endpoints. This one is multi-use and will take you between the entryway of your apartment and the woods I’ve set aside for your training.”

The twins stared at him incredulously.

“Yes, really,” he said. “If you want to try it now, you can. Just remember that everyone has to touch the wristband and to hold on.”

Wanda put the wristband on her right wrist and held it out for Pietro and Harry to grasp.

“The phrase to activate it is ‘Time for School’.”

As Harry spoke, the familiar navel-hook feeling of the portkey pulled the trio out of the apartment and toward a wooded area. Harry, familiar with the sensation of portkeys, was the first one to stand up, so he was able to look at the twins’ reactions to where they’d arrived.

“These… these aren’t woods,” Wanda said.

And they weren’t, or at least not entirely. Surrounding them were numerous treehouses that seemed to be not additions to the forest but part of the forest, connected by bridges in a natural, elegant pattern as far as the eye could see. The settlement, however, was damaged, with parts of it destroyed or burned and other parts overgrown. Still, one couldn’t help but perceive of the beauty of what had once existed here.

“Welcome to the fallen elf city of Tirion,” Harry narrated.

“Elf city?” Pietro asked.

“Wizards and witches aren’t the only magical race in existence,” Harry continued. “The first ones were called the high elves, and, like you, they got their powers directly from an Infinity Stone. That was one of the key reasons I chose this place to train you, Miss Maximoff.”

“You don’t have to keep calling me ‘Miss Maximoff’,” Wanda said. “And what were the other reasons?”

“For one, this place is still heavily protected. And, since this city was destroyed at the start of the Morgoth War and never repopulated before the high elves went extinct, I am one of the few people alive who actually knows about it.”

Harry took in the fallen city for a few minutes, letting the Maximoffs do the same. He saw Pietro take a high-speed running tour of the place.

“Now,” Harry said. “I have a few hours now, barring emergencies. So would you like to get started?”

Wanda nodded eagerly. “I’d love to.”

“Then, Wanda, let’s start with what you can do.”

With Pietro looking on, Harry ran Wanda through the basic abilities she’d figured out so far. Telekinesis, energy blasts, and force fields were her main physical abilities, while telepathy, mind control, and illusions were her mental ones. Her attempts at entering Harry’s mind were successful, but blunted by his practice of occlumency. It was the first time that someone had broken into his head (aside from the occasional scar vision) in years, and the first time that someone had resisted her powers so much.

“You’re powerful,” Harry said after he’d recovered. “More than me. More than anyone I’ve ever fought with or fought against, with the exception of Thor and maybe one other person. But power isn’t everything. Let’s fight.”

“Are you sure?” Wanda asked, looking over Harry. To be fair, he didn’t look particularly intimidating. “How old even are you?”

“Biologically, my seventeenth birthday is this Sunday. In terms of lived experience, I’m a few years older than that. And this sixteen-year-old is going to kick your ass.”

And he did. In their first spar, Wanda used her powers to throw heavy objects at him, but her projectiles were slow and easily diverted. His spells splashed against her shields, but causing a tree trunk to nearly fall on her diverted her attention long enough for him to slip in a Stunning Spell.

In their second spar, Wanda instead focused on Harry’s mind. He was able to focus through her assault and cast a wide-area Ventus that distracted her enough for Harry to break out of it and hit her with a Stunner once again.

In their third and final spar, she used a combination of physical and mental attacks to force Harry on the defensive. However, Harry had slowly been learning how her mind powers felt and was able to withstand them enough to dodge the physical attacks while transfiguring the ground beneath her into an earthen prison to trap her arms. Unable to move, her powers no longer worked, and she was forced to surrender.

“So,” Harry asked. “What did you learn?”

“I overpowered you every time,” Wanda said, “but you always found a way around it.”

“Rule one of magical combat,” Harry lectured. “Finesse and creativity beat power nine times out of ten.”

“I’ll never have as many different abilities as you,” Wanda protested.

“Remind me to show you the time I sparred with Steve,” Harry mused. “For all the different spells I knew, he was clever enough to use his strength and his shield against me and beat me two times out of three. My spell repertoire is immense, yes, but the number of spells I actually use in battle isn’t that large. What matters is the versatility of the abilities you have, and that’s one of the things I’ll help you to do. Versatility and creativity so you can face any challenge, control and precision so you can be confident in your own power, and pushing your limits so that you can use your powers in more ways and in more situations. Are you in?”

“I’m in,” Wanda agreed enthusiastically.

“Step one is control,” said Harry. “Let’s talk about Lagos.” Guilt flooded Wanda’s face at the memory of that disastrous mission. “What went wrong there?”

“Hey!” Pietro protested. “She doesn’t need to talk about that!”

“Yes, I do,” Wanda said softly, disagreeing with her twin. “If I’m going to control my abilities, I have to face my failures. That mission… it was all going so well. We’d stopped him from getting the bioweapon. But then he activated the suicide vest, and I just reacted. I tried to contain, to send it away, and it only ended up killing more people.”

Harry laid a comforting hand on her arm. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said comfortingly. “I can’t say I’ve had to face a situation like that, though the mess I nearly made in the third-floor corridor has some parallels. But you did the best you could at the time to save lives. Had you not lifted him up, far more people would have perished. And yet, in the future, you can do better. Which is why we’re going to start with precision.”

Harry waved his wand to conjure a rubber ball as well as a dozen hoops. He levitated the hoops into the air so that they were in a simple column, casting Permanent Hover Charms on them so they stayed in position.

“Your task is to levitate this ball upward through these hoops without them touching,” Harry instructed.

“Easy enough,” Wanda said, grasping the ball with her red power and sending it in a straight vertical path before calling it back to her hands.

“You didn’t let me finish,” Harry said, summoning a few branches, shaping them with his magic and enchanting them with some simple runes. The branches were now automated spell shooters that would send out color-changing charms. “You also have to shield against magical paintballs at the same time.”

Harry and his friends had done similar exercises to train themselves to split their focus during battle, even casting one spell while holding others. The ability to magically multitask had saved him against Rookwood, Voldemort, Malekith, Grindelwald’s Champion, and in his two-on-one duel with Lestrange and Malfoy, among other fights.

Wanda was semi-consistently completing the simple vertical course within an hour and a half. By the time a mental ping from Rose informed him that he was needed somewhat urgently, he had completed the permanent version of this exercise, with a dozen different static and moving configurations and several levels of difficulty for the color shooters. While his creation would be a term project for a typical NEWT Runes student, Harry’s skill in enchanting made it a fun project to complete in just over an hour.

Harry showed Wanda how to use the equipment and gave her exercises for the next two weeks (to complete the first three courses with the color shooters on Easy Mode) before giving her the passphrase to portkey home – “School’s Out Forever”, a reference to a Muggle song he’d heard Hermione sing snippets of a few times – and apparating away to his own destination.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Sunday, 31 July 2016

Harry’s seventeenth birthday and coming of age began with a celebration, or at least as much of a celebration as they could afford during wartime. Mrs. Weasley baked him a cake, Sirius gave him a watch, and Minister Bones owled him his apparition license and a retroactive pardon for all the times he violated the underage magic laws. (He figured that her second gift was mostly tongue-in-cheek.) Steve, Tony, and the Maximoffs all sent him their well wishes, though Thor didn’t, and Harry didn’t blame the god. He figured that timekeeping while traveling between planets was not an easy task. Among his school-aged friends, it wasn’t just his closest ones who sent him gifts – many of the DA sent him cards, presents, or both. His favorite present, however, was a “family portrait” photo of him and the avatars of Rose, MARC, and EMMI.

Sunday also marked his and Neville’s formal induction into the Order of the Phoenix. Technically, he was only an ‘observer’ while he was still underage, and this would be his first meeting as a magical adult. He’d also convinced Dumbledore to let Neville, the backup Chosen One, into the Order as well now that he was an adult, too, even though he hadn’t joined his friends’ insane plan to get his NEWTs early. Ginny and Luna were still not allowed into meetings, but it was a mere technicality since everyone knew that they would be told everything anyway.

“This meeting of the Order of the Phoenix is called to order,” said Dumbledore. “Today, we officially welcome Harry Potter as a full member of the Order on the occasion of his seventeenth birthday.”

Harry basked in the joyous chorus of “Happy Birthday” that came from the assembled Order.

“Thank you,” said Harry. “I know that I’ve been sitting in on these meetings for a while now, but it’s still good to join formally.”

Dumbledore spoke up once more. “We also welcome Neville Longbottom, who has performed admirable services in the war already and has also recently turned seventeen.”

Neville stood up and nodded to the crowd briefly before sitting back down.

“In the past week, we have thwarted three more attacks by the forces of the dark, including simultaneous attacks on Montréal and Shanghai!”

The Order cheered. It was always good for morale to expound on one’s victories, but Harry was worried that the Order might get too complacent.

“We dealt with the simultaneous attacks by splitting our forces,” Dumbledore expounded, “with myself and Miss Granger defending Montréal while Mr. Potter and Mr. Ron Weasley led the forces in defense of Shanghai. Still, we face challenges – there are more dark lords in the world than we have individuals capable of opposing them. And despite our defiance, Lord Voldemort has succeeded in creating global terror.”

“Has dealing with other wizarding governments remained an issue?” Ron asked, though he knew the answer. They had consistently faced challenges entering other countries to face attacks that he knew were coming. It had made Harry really sympathize with Steve’s stance on the Accords.

“Unfortunately,” Dumbledore said gravely, “it is not only the British Ministry that had significant dark elements. And while I am sure that there are supporters of the light throughout the world, I – and the Order – simply have not had time to recruit abroad. While the evacuation of the Ministry was well done,” he gave a nod to Hermione, “and kept Voldemort from many important things that he otherwise would have gained, we are severely behind on the international front as a result of our efforts there.”

“We need a way to organize everyone who opposes You-Know-Who, all around the world,” a middle-aged witch – Harry thought her name was Hestia Jones – said, “and person-by-person recruiting just won’t cut it.”

“And we can’t go letting in spies like Snape,” Moody growled. He had actually been let into the Secret, but kept up his paranoid and distrustful act anyway.

“And not just wizards,” Hermione added. “The other magical races have a lot to contribute as well.”

The Order went through a tally of the various races and their overall allegiances (though of course, there were exceptions in every case). The dementors, giants, and many werewolves had pledged themselves to the dark lord’s cause, and the goblins had made a neutrality agreement with Voldemort – they would serve both sides of the war so long as neither side attacked them. The dragon sanctuaries had put out a universal statement of neutrality as well, declaring that they would not allow their charges to be involved in another war like they had been used in the Grindelwald War.

However, they had a few allies. Ginny’s claiming of the Excalibur had secured the allegiance of merfolk around the world. Ron and Luna had negotiated an alliance with the centaurs of the Forbidden Forest in exchange for exterminating the acromantula colony after Aragog’s death. The horse-human hybrids had promised to come to defend Hogwarts and to contact other centaur communities to put in a good word for them. Neville had used his completion of the Rite of Earth and the knowledge on Dain’s crystal to secure the friendship of the dwarves, though the greatly diminished race would not be nearly as formidable a fighting force as they had been against Sauron or Morgoth.

Harry turned to his plant-loving friend, who had a thoughtful look on his face.

“We already know something – someone,” he said softly so that only Harry and Ron, who were sitting on either side of him, could hear, “who can communicate across the world. Who can see into minds and know loyalties, at least in theory.”

“But she has her limits,” Harry pointed out fiercely. “There’s a reason we’ve been phasing out using her to relay messages, even just among us.”

“Still, she’s a field of powerful mind magic that spreads across the globe,” Neville said. “And we could use that.”

“Piggyback off of her?” Ron asked. “Use her as a sort of carrier wave?”

“Precisely,” Neville said. “It would take a lot of magic to make it work, even with Rose’s full permission. But I have a lot of magic to spare – perks of being the backup prophecy child – even if I’m not nearly as good in battle as Harry is.” Which was true. As good as Neville was in fighting, Harry had more experience and a naturally greater affinity for battle magic. “I can do this.”

“How long?” Harry asked.

“A week in the Chamber, real-time,” Neville estimated. “Mind magic is what I’m good at, and that’s three and a half weeks Chamber time, with Luna’s latest upgrade to the time ratio.”

“I’ll be there with you the whole time,” Harry said. “I have my own project that needs completion.”

The inventory of magical races was coming to a close, so Neville spoke up.

“On the issue of locating allies worldwide,” he said. “I have an idea. I’ll get back to you in a week to see if it works, though.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

When Neville wrote up the basic outline of his plan later that evening in the Chamber, Harry smiled as Rose gave her approval. It truly was a brilliant idea, and he had a fantastic name for it.

The Subwave Network

Chapter Text

Sunday, 7 August 2016

The ambient magic of Hogwarts truly was impressive. Without it, the space and time expansion charms on the Chamber could not have been sustained, nor could Harry have managed his most recent accomplishment.

“Are you ready, EMMI?” he asked aloud.

“You know I am,” the magical AI responded from a light blue ball of magical light.

EMMI, or the Enchantment and Magical Manufacturing Interface, was Harry’s second created AI. While MARC was created with a relatively simple Purpose and small scope, EMMI’s design required several further advances in enchanting to allow her to create enchanted objects herself.

The first enchanted objects she learned to produce were Spell Arrows. While it took an experienced witch or wizard fifteen to twenty minutes to do the enchantments on each one, EMMI’s first production line was able to create one every minute, which meant several thousand per real-time day, given that all of her production took place under time dilation. The only human intervention required was to switch out the component that dictated which spell the arrows would cast, and even that would soon be automated once Harry gave EMMI control of a maintenance automaton, and to occasionally load in new wood for raw materials.

With EMMI’s second line making Spell Darts for Hermione’s armor (which were even harder for humans to make given their small size, but posed no problem for the AI) at a similar rate, the DA Runes Group was freed from the onerous task of maintaining their stockpile of ammunition.

But Spell Arrows and Spell Darts were only secondary priorities to Harry’s real goal. Over the next hour, Harry saw EMMI shape a mass of steel into a humanoid and enchant it with powerful strengthening and durability spells as well as the ability to fly. Afterward, she added runes to allow its limbs to move independently and for it to cast a wide variety of offensive and defensive spells from its hands, feet, chest, and back. Several compartments were added which were enchanted to be able to select and fire Spell Darts in any direction. EMMI cast spells to allow the automaton to take in information from its surroundings. Finally, she inserted a small disk, enchanted to control all of the automaton’s functions, into a heavily shielded compartment of its chest, setting aside its Protean-connected partner that would be able to send commands to control the automaton remotely.

“It’s done, father,” EMMI reported happily. “That was the hardest thing I ever made, but I did it.”

“And did the other production lines slow?” Harry asked.

“Not at all,” EMMI replied. “I’m quite capable of splitting my attention as much as needed.”

“And I couldn’t be prouder of what you’ve accomplished, EMMI,” Harry congratulated his youngest AI. “Now let’s test this thing out.”

Casting a Protean Charm, Harry connected the control disk to MARC, who had agreed to run the first rounds of testing. Harry and EMMI watched as MARC flew the prototype automaton toward the Chamber’s largest testing room, where he put it through its paces, sending out accurate spells and darts in response to numerous visual, auditory, and magical cues.

MARC, however, would not be the one who would be controlling these automata in the long run. He simply didn’t have the capability nor the desire to manage hundreds of things at once. That job would go to Harry’s third AI, who would be coming online within a few days. The Adaptive Logical Intelligence for Combat and Informational Automata, or ALICIA for short, would connect to the control disk of every automaton that EMMI manufactured and manage their deployment in battle.

“Looks good to me,” Harry said.

“And it handles wonderfully,” MARC added, “though I remain partial to Hermione’s armor.”

“Of course you would,” Harry answered with a smile. “Let’s give EMMI the good news and have her start on the next ones.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

After almost a month, perceived time, in the Chamber, Harry was glad to see some real sun again (and not just the fake stuff in Neville’s underground greenhouse). The one time he had left the Chamber was a brief excursion to help deal with a dementor attack in France while his friends were defending Hogsmeade from a raid, which was not exactly conducive to enjoying the weather.

He always enjoyed the feeling of the mighty wards of Mordor welcoming him back, telling him that all was well and letting him know that the guest he was expecting had already arrived and walking toward the main fortress from the ward line. Harry strode briskly from the Floo room toward where the wards informed him that his guest was.

“Welcome to Mordor, Headmaster Dumbledore,” Harry greeted the old wizard upon seeing him.

“Thank you, Harry, and may I say that it’s marvelous you’ve turned such an evil place toward better ends?”

“It was mostly the work of the dwarves,” Harry said. He would not let anyone forget the sacrifice of a species to create this safe place. “Though my friends did a bit of fixing up of the place.”

“I felt the strength of the wards here,” Dumbledore said, “and I see that you’ve prepared this place for a siege.”

“We did,” Harry agreed, “and any refugees that need to be relocated to safety are welcome here. We have plenty of room.”

“You said you have something to show me?”

“I do,” said Harry, “as will Neville in a little while. But for now – MARC?”

“Who is MARC?” Dumbledore asked.

“Another magical intelligence I created,” Harry explained, “like Rose, but intentionally this time.”

“The idea of your Rose is quite intriguing,” Dumbledore mused. “Like a magical portrait of a person who never existed! And you’ve made another. How fascinating!”

“Sort of,” Harry equivocated, not wanting to get into the minutiae of explaining AI to the supercentenarian. “Most of the time, he helps manage Hermione’s Iron Witch Armor, since we made it with more features than a single person could actually use. But today, he’s running the demonstration of our newest creation.”

Three things flew out of the doors of Mordor Fortress. Two of them were humanoid in shape, only distinguished by their colors – one was metallic grey and the other white. The third was far smaller, a dark beige orb.

“These are the prototypes of what I’m calling the Golden Legion. Automaton soldiers to make up the numerical disparity between the Order and the forces of the Dark. MARC, if you would demonstrate?”

The grey-colored automaton, the first to be completed, went through an abbreviated version of the testing that MARC had already put it through.

“Future versions should be able to turn themselves into portkeys to anywhere for which they have an image,” Harry noted, “though Ron is still finalizing the details of how to make that work.”

“Stupendous!” Dumbledore exclaimed. “What do the others do?”

“That was the Advanced Legionnaire model,” Harry said. “They’re the hardest to make, even with magical mass production. The white one is the Support Legionnaire, whose abilities are simpler. They can cast Shield Spells and Stunners, as well as some basic battlefield healing spells which the Advanced model can’t. They can also temporarily disillusion themselves.”

The prototype Support Legionnaire demonstrated each of its abilities in turn, including wrapping Harry’s arm in a magical bandage. While the Advanced model took a full hour to create one of, a Support Legionnaire could be completed in around twenty minutes.

“The last version is the Combat Legionnaire,” Harry said, indicating the beige orb, which EMMI made in just ten minutes. “It has most of the spellcasting capabilities of the Advanced Legionnaire as well as two diametrically opposed Spell Dart shooters, but it’s designed to rely on maneuverability and being a small target for defense – it’s not particularly durable or well-shielded.”

“This will change the way the war is fought,” said Dumbledore, “but a powerful dark wizard could take out dozens of even the Advanced Legionnaires.”

“I know that,” Harry said, “and these aren’t meant to replace witches and wizards, merely to give them support. But an Advanced Legionnaire could conceivably take on one or two less experienced Death Eaters and win, especially once ALICIA, the intelligence I’m creating to control them, gets some experience of her own.”

Dumbledore smiled. “You did an astounding thing here, Harry. You truly are a master of enchantment.”

Harry grinned at the praise. Even if he didn’t need the old wizard’s approval, it was still a wonderful thing to impress the most powerful and learned wizard alive. “I was just trying to save some lives, sir.”

“Well, this most certainly will do that,” Dumbledore said.

After Harry signaled MARC to dismiss the prototypes, Neville came running out of one of the larger auxiliary buildings on the grounds.

“It’s ready, Harry, Headmaster,” he said with a wide grin.

“Then let’s see it,” Harry replied.

“Activating the Subwave beta test,” Neville said.

Suddenly, their sunny surrounding disappeared and were replaced by a large stone room.

“We did not move…” Dumbledore noted. “This is inside our minds, isn’t it?”

“Correct, sir,” Neville said. “This is a prototype of what we’re calling the Subwave Network. It’s a worldwide telepathic field that will allow us to find, connect to, and securely communicate with leaders of the opposition to Voldemort and his allies.”

Harry admired his friend’s accomplishment. It may have surprised some that the boy who had to be sent a Remembrall in his first year would become a master of mind magics, but Harry had seen him take to Occlumency and Legilimency faster than anyone, and his illusions were second to none.

Dumbledore walked around the empty room. He tried to press his hand against one of the walls, but his hand dissolved into motes of light a few centimeters before he managed to reach the wall.

“Right now,” Neville explained, “we are all illusions within a particular unused room in one of Mordor’s side buildings. When the subwave is fully activated, we could have hundreds of people in here interacting with each other. Not to mention that anybody who happens to be in Mordor physically could come in person.”

“So many illusions,” Harry mused, “and detailed ones. How did you get enough power for it? Are you drawing on Rose?”

Neville shook his head. “Not at all. I’ve spent the last few hours carving runes into the walls of this place and imbuing them with powerful illusion magic. It was more of an art than a science, to be honest, but the Rite of Earth let me enchant these walls far more deeply than anything a normal wizard could manage. This space is naturally aligned with illusion magic now, you might say. The ambient magic of Mordor and my own core are enough to fuel most of it, though every witch or wizard who connects will have a small portion of their magic – no more than the cost of a small Wingardium – drained to power their connection.”

“And you say that this will be able to find allies for us?” Dumbledore asked.

“Precisely,” a female voice came. Harry turned to see his daughter’s usual avatar, this time in casual witch’s robes, appear in the room. “By my very nature, I can see inside people’s minds to determine friend from foe and to know who the masses consider to be their leaders. Once the initial invite ping is sent out and accepted, that consent is enough for me to do a brief scan to weed out traitors and spies before a full connection is made.”

“Even better, I’ve connected the Amulet of Agrius into the system,” Neville said.

“Luna said that no seer worth the title would ever work for Voldemort,” Harry pointed out.

“Still,” Neville said, “there are some techniques that any trained wizard or witch can use, not to mention the Imperius or other forms of coercion. The Amulet will ensure that the Subwave Network is absolutely undetectable and impenetrable to any attempts at hijacking it or spying on it by the enemy forces.”

“A most ingenious use of the artifact you recovered in June, Mr. Longbottom,” Dumbledore said. “Still, there remains the question of how we shall convince hundreds of wizards to accept a mysterious mental invitation.”

“We’ll use you, sir,” Harry said. “You command a lot of respect worldwide, especially among those who are old enough to remember Grindewald. The initial invitation could include a message from you explaining what was going on.”

“We can also try spreading the word in the real world,” Neville added, “but that runs the risk of Voldemort finding out about it, even if he can’t access it.”

“I agree that that’s a good solution,” Dumbledore said, “but within the Subwave, I cannot take on sole leadership.”

“You’re right,” Harry said with a nod. “That role falls to Neville.”

The boy in question shot him a questioning look. “You’re the Boy-Who-Lived,” he protested.

“But you’re the one who created this place,” Harry replied. “You’re the one who was raised to understand wizarding politics. You’re the one who’s pureblood, which still means a lot to some people. You’re the one who will be safe at Hogwarts while I’m running around the world fighting dark wizards. You’re the one whose memory of names and faces is better than mine. And, if worse comes to worst, you’re the one who doesn’t have a horcrux in your head.”

“You shouldn’t talk like that, Harry,” Neville said quickly. “You’ll survive this.”

“Mr. Longbottom is right,” Dumbledore agreed. “It is quite likely that whatever solution Miss Weasley discovers will resolve the problem of your scar as well.”

“But it’s also possible that it won’t,” Harry said somberly, “and that Neville will have to end this war.”

The three wizards – the Leader of the Light and his potential successors – stood in awkward, sad silence for a while.

“You can show memories in here!” Neville shouted suddenly. “Like a Pensieve!”

To demonstrate, he made a gesture with his hand, showing his perspective of fighting Bellatrix Lestrange at the Ambush at Hogwarts.

“And like the mind-conference spell?” Harry asked, causing Neville to nod.

“I’m not familiar with that spell,” Dumbledore said.

“It’s an obscure mind-arts spell that lets two or more people have several minutes of conversation in a split second inside a mindscape,” Harry explained. “I found it in a handwritten book in the Bucharest Magical Library before Grindelwald burned it. It’s draining – and painful – but I’ve had good enough reason to use it a few times.”

“Ah, I believe I remember hearing of such a spell once in my youth,” Dumbledore said, “but as you said, it’s quite obscure, and I never did discover any more about it.”

“I’d be happy to teach you, Headmaster.”

“One is never too old to learn something new,” Dumbledore said.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“How much of your magic will it take to sustain the Subwave, Neville?”

Dumbledore had left Mordor after giving his full approval to deploying both projects. Neville and Harry retreated back to the Chamber of Secrets for a while – Neville to finish off some final tests and Harry to continue working toward the goal of bringing ALICIA online. But before they went their separate ways, Harry asked one question on a subject that Neville had glossed over.

“A lot,” Neville said. “I’d say ninety to ninety-five percent. I’ll be able to do my classwork – barely – but that’s it. But within the walls of Hogwarts, and of Mordor, I’ll be safe enough. Thanks to the Rite of Earth, I’m hardly defenseless. And I’ll have plenty of time to help Ginny and Luna in their research on the horcrux problem.”

“Still, if worse comes to worst—”

“Don’t,” Neville commanded. “You’ll survive this. We can make contingency plans later. And even if you are gone, I know that all of our friends will stand by me as I fulfill the prophecy.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Saturday, 13 August 2016

For six days, Neville, Rose, and Dumbledore had worked tirelessly to reach out to leaders of the Light around the world using the Subwave Network. Only two of their candidates had been identified as dark sympathizers. And now, every member of the Subwave was going to be attending a virtual meeting. Dumbledore, Harry, Ginny, and Luna had assembled in a room in Grimmauld Place to join the event while Ron and Hermione were going to help Neville with the final initialization of the Subwave in Mordor.

“Are you ready, Neville?” Hermione asked.

Neville centered himself. “I am, Hermione.”

“So am I,” the voice of Rose came into their heads. “Every test has been a success. It’s time.”

“It is,” Ron confirmed with a look at his watch. “One minute to eleven AM, Greenwich Mean Time.”

Neville closed his eyes to focus, and the runes on the walls of the Subwave Room began to light up. First, the forms of Dumbledore, Harry, Ginny, and Luna appeared standing near the front of the room. Then came the image of Fleur Delacour-Weasley, recently married in a lovely ceremony at Hogwarts, who had been included as the holder of the wizard’s key crystal to Rose and as a liaison to the Veela. After that, more and more people started popping into illusory existence.

“Welcome,” Dumbledore said when the flood of arrivals finally halted. Though most of the people here knew English as the wizarding world’s current lingua franca, a Translation Charm ensured that everyone would be able to fully understand him and each other. “Welcome to each and every one of you! You all know why we are here. As has happened in times before, the dark forces of the Earth have united to terrorize and to conquer the magical world. And as has happened in times before, so too must the forces of the light unite to oppose them. Some of you were alive when I, with the help of the hero Jean-Baptiste Olorin and with the help of numerous allied witches and wizards, defeated the Dark Lord Grindelwald and ended the Global Wizarding War. Others may only remember how Voldemort, even when standing alone, caused terror in every corner of the Earth. And so now, in his second rise, must we stand and fight for what we believe in.

“The Dark Lord Voldemort is terrible, yes, but not unbeatable. Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, delayed his return several times, including at the end of the Triwizard Tournament. A year later, I helped him and his friends expose Voldemort’s return to the world, with six brave and skilled students capturing dozens of his strongest subordinates. Voldemort took the British Ministry, but we made his victory a worthless one by saving all of the Ministry’s employees and resources, leaving him only a meaningless building. Since that day, my Order of the Phoenix has thwarted numerous attacks by the dark on wizarding settlements worldwide, including destroying Voldemort’s Spear of Destiny.

“But we cannot fight alone. We stand here today, all of us, as leaders of the light. As those who are willing to face the forces of the darkness and say, ‘No, we will not give in.’ We must pool our resources, combine our strengths, and align our strategies. This Subwave Network, created by the brilliant Neville Longbottom, is one step in that direction, and we must continue further on this path lest all be lost.

“It is time for the Wizarding World to go to war. Will you stand with me?”

The response was a roaring chorus of cheers.

Chapter Text

Thursday, 1 September 2016

For the past six years, the first day of September meant one thing for Harry – the end of summer and his return to Hogwarts Castle. For the last three of those years, it had also meant saying goodbye to his godfather for a while, though they still got to write letters and occasionally talk over their communication mirrors.

This year, though, was different. He wasn’t spending his day riding an enchanted train but joining the Maple Leaf Brigade, the Canadian answer to the Order of the Phoenix, in the defense of the magical city of Boreopolis, located in the northern reaches of the Muggle province of Saskatchewan on the shores of Reindeer Lake. It was one of the world’s largest magic-only settlements, and the largest in the Western Hemisphere. (The city of Tenochtitlan was larger, but it was hidden within a space-expanded pocket of Muggle Mexico City, so it didn’t count.)

Information from Professor Snape had come in the previous day that the forces of the Dark Coalition would be leading an attack to claim the crown jewel of Magical Canada in the name of the Dark Lord Voldemort and Canada’s Dark Lady Isabella Worthington, and Harry had been dispatched to help in the defense.

“Are you sure there’s an attack coming?” asked Jolene Barton, the leader of the Maple Leaf Brigade. She was a respected professional duelist and semi-retired Auror who had led the fight against Worthington since the dark lady first made an appearance just under five years ago. With short blonde hair and dark brown eyes on her pale-skinned face, Barton cut a striking figure. She was a little over five feet tall but exuded an aura of power and competence, and despite being almost sixty years old, the strength of her magic meant that she appeared to be forty at most.

“I’m sure, Barton,” Harry said, “and so is Dumbledore. Our information is good.”

Suddenly, he shivered slightly, despite the light of the northern sun bathing him and the warming charms he’d applied to himself. That was a sure sign of one particular kind of enemy.

“Dementors,” he warned. Grabbing a set of charmed binoculars, he stood up and looked in every direction to figure out from where they were coming. Sure enough, he saw a dark mass approaching quickly from the south-southeast. Handing the binoculars to Barton, he pointed her to look in the same direction.

“You’re right, Potter,” she said. “They must have brought them up all the way from Alcatraz.”

The famous Muggle prison of Alcatraz in California had a magical equivalent, and while the Muggle Alcatraz was now a tourist attraction, the magical one was still very much in use as MACUSA’s answer to Azkaban – a dementor-guarded prison for the worst of the worst magical criminals in the Americas.

“How many of your people can cast Patronus?” Harry asked.

“Not many, Potter,” Barton answered. “I can, and maybe a few of my people who moved here from Europe or California can also. But we never thought that dementors would be a threat to us here in Canada.”

“Well, my Patronus is pretty good,” Harry said proudly, “but to handle so many will take a lot out of me.”

“I can handle Worthington if she shows her ugly face,” Barton assured him, a bit of venom in the Canadian’s voice for her rival and enemy.

“Good,” Harry said. “I’ll cast my Patronus in about two minutes. You organize your people to face whatever the next wave is. And…” Harry pulled a small jewel out of his pocket and reached over to place it in Barton’s ear. “This will let you talk to ALICIA and command the Legion.”

“I look forward to seeing if your Golden Legion lives up to the hype, Potter,” said Barton.

“It will, I promise you that,” Harry answered, “and I’ve brought in a full cohort to defend the city. Just remember that this is ALICIA’s largest battle yet, so you’ll need to be very clear with her on what she needs to do. Once she gets more experience, though, she should be even more effective.”

“A cohort,” the Canadian witch repeated, “that’s three hundred forty-three of them, right?”

Harry nodded. The Golden Legion was organized into cohorts. Each cohort consisted of seven platoons. Each platoon, in turn, consisted of seven squads – one squad of Advanced Legionnaires, two of Support Legionnaires, and four of Combat Legionnaires. And each squad consisted of seven Legionnaires each. A full cohort was meant to counter a force of fifty dark wizards working alone, or to act as a force multiplier to help a dozen witches and wizards to handle a hundred.

“Dementors a mile out!” a thirty-something wizard, one of Barton’s lieutenants, called out.

Harry centered himself and, drawing upon his magic, whipped out his wand and yelled “Expecto Patronum!”

The glowing figure of Prongs, his father’s Animagus form, burst out of his wand and pranced around once in a circle before rushing at the mass of dementors. He watched as the mere presence of Prongs caused the attacking force to scatter. Additional Patroni – a moose, a hawk, an eagle, and a salmon – appeared soon after, corralling the dementors towards Prongs so they could face the stag’s wrath.

Harry pushed more power into his Patronus, causing it to glow even brighter. He knew that dementors could not be directly destroyed by any means known to wizards, high elves, or druids. They could, however, be bargained with, which is why the various wizarding governments of the world used them to guard prisons. And eventually, they would fade away of old age, ensuring that their population wouldn’t grow out of control.

They had one other weakness – despite their amortal nature, they still very much had physical forms, which meant that they could be trapped. And that was exactly what Harry intended to do.

Using his Flight Belt to approach the swarm of despair-inducing monsters, he dismissed Prongs in order to cast another spell. “Aqua Eructo Maximus!” he incanted, causing a massive amount of water to erupt out of his wand. Harry willed the stream to form into a spherical bubble of water that encircled the entire host of dementors.

“Glacius Maximus!” he called out, and the natural chill given off by the dementors actually helped him here, as did the natural cold of Northern Canada. Still, the exertion required to freeze the water bubble into a shell of ice.

Without Harry’s will to support it, the dementor ice ball began to fall to the ground under the force of gravity, and Harry let himself fall with it. As the dementors tried to force their way out of the ball, Harry carved two runes into the side – isaz and laguz – and enchanted them with the Glacius and Aguamenti charms, respectively. These enchantments would cause the ball to fill with water and freeze, trapping the dementors for a good while, hopefully until they naturally faded. Finally, he cast the Portkey Charm on the entire ice ball, with the target destination being the Arctic ice where Steve had crashed the Valkyrie in order to stop HYDRA.

Just before the ice ball hit the ground and shattered, the Portkey activated and took it away. Harry had to pull a Wronski Feint in order to avoid being splattered over the Canadian soil.

“ALICIA, how’s it going?” he asked as he caught his breath. Dealing with those dementors had taken a lot out of him.

“Not well,” ALICIA informed him, worry evident in her tone. His youngest AI child had chosen a voice suspiciously similar to that of his former Quidditch teammate Alicia Spinnet. Harry was fairly sure that it may have been a prank on him by Rose and/or MARC when they were helping to initialize their younger sister. “Jolene Barton is fighting Isabella Worthington, but the Dark Lady Park Ji-yoo and the Dark Lord Papadopoulos have made appearances as well.”

“Damn it,” Harry swore as he willed his Flight Belt to take him toward where he saw the thickest fighting.

“It’s taking most of the Maple Leaf Brigade just to hold them off, and the Legion is losing badly against the dark wizards they brought with them.”

“Tell Barton I’m coming,” Harry said. “She can keep on handling Worthington. I’ll take the other two.”

Harry landed in front of Park and immediately started going on the offensive against her with a Reducto followed by an Implosio, both of which the Korean witch easily blocked. Meanwhile, he threw his Shield, commanding it to strike at Papadopoulos and several of his allies. He barely gave its physics-defying trajectory any mind as he conjured a stone plate to block several curses from Park.

Both Park and Papadopoulos turned their attentions to him, and Harry recalled his Shield to maintain his defense. He was dead tired, but the Canadians were counting on him to keep the dark lord and lady occupied long enough for them to push back against the Dark Coalition.

He wondered how his friends were doing.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Hermione Granger and Tom Riddle floated above a massive battle taking place in the magical district of Mumbai. Hermione knew that her armor would be able to turn the tide in the fight below. Unfortunately, Voldemort knew that as well, which is why he had forced her to turn her entire attention to confronting him in the air. All she could do was have MARC take potshots with Spell Darts while she focused on yet another fight with her current opponent.

She flew straight toward Voldemort, twisting herself around a Bludgeoning Curse that would have forced her backward, and landed several blows on him before grasping his right shoulder firmly in her left hand. The witch and wizard began to grapple mid-air. While the Iron Witch Armor enhanced Hermione’s strength, Voldemort’s artificially created body also possessed preternatural might. Seeing as neither of them were particularly skilled or trained in hand-to-hand combat, the match was actually fairly even, ultimately ending when Hermione blew a hole in Voldemort’s side with a point-blank Reducto, causing the pair to fly apart.

When Voldemort recovered, he waved his wand to bind Hermione and her armor in a rope of glowing yellow magic that trapped her arms and legs.

“No escape for you now, girl,” the Dark Lord sneered.

But Hermione was not called the Brightest Witch of Her Age for nothing. As soon as the rope had begun to flow out of her opponent’s wand, she had begun casting a counter, reaching out with her magic to disrupt the spell at one point, causing the whole thing to fall apart into motes of light. Meanwhile, MARC distracted him by peppering him with Spell Darts.

“I beg to differ,” she said with a smirk as she pointed both her arms at him, retaliating with twin Blasting Curses. “So, Tom, how’s life? Enjoying your Ministry?”

“We’re still cleaning up the mess you made,” Voldemort said as he shielded.

“Glad to hear it. Found any spears lately?”

“Hardly,” Voldemort replied as he sent a stream of water at her. “And you, girl? Had any good times with your blood traitor boyfriend?”

“Yes, very,” Hermione answered with a smile as she turned the stream of water to steam. “Some very good times. And you know that you can call me Hermione at this point, Tom – or Granger. The whole ‘girl’ thing is getting old.”

Voldemort ignored her as he quickly looked down. “It seems that the battle is over for the day,” he said. “Fare thee well, Granger.”

Hermione flew down to see if she could help repair some of the damage and handle the wounded.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Despite the fall of the Ministry, the Hogwarts Express still ran this year. Ron flew above it, guarding it from a Death Eater attack that, while not confirmed by Snape, seemed likely given Voldemort’s obsession with his alma mater.

To be fair, said obsession was not without good reason. Hogwarts remained, as it was in the Founders’ time, one of the greatest concentrations of ambient magic in the world. It was what powered the creation of the Golden Legion, and should Voldemort gain control of it, it would spell doom for the cause of the Light.

And so, Ron Weasley spent the hours-long train ride flying invisibly above the Express as it wove through the English and Scottish countryside. He knew that below, his sister and Luna were leading the DA in patrols of the train in case one or more of the students were Death Eater plants and tried something. Neville, with most of his magic bound up in powering the Subwave Network, was under DA guard for his own protection, but Ron knew that once he was on solid ground and within the stones of Hogwarts, his Rite of Earth powers (which were independent of his normal magic) would keep him utterly safe.

The train ride passed without incident, but as the Express pulled into Hogsmeade Station, Ron remained wary. The chaotic unloading of the train would provide a perfect opportunity for the Death Eaters to do a lot of damage. He spread out his senses through the air, knowing that Neville was doing the same through the earth beneath them.

When the train was about halfway unloaded, Ron felt a large group begin to move toward the station, approaching rapidly from the outskirts of the village. Turning his eyes toward where he felt the disturbance, he spotted the distinctive cloaks and masks of the Death Eaters, along with a contingent of trolls. The leader was unmasked, showing the distinctive face of Bellatrix Lestrange.

“ALICIA, alert the DA,” Ron said, glad that he had a connection to Harry’s newest magical AI. “Bellatrix, a dozen Death Eaters, and a few dozen trolls coming in from the east.”

“Got it, Ron,” the voice of ALICIA came through the jewel in his ear. Ron could see the message disseminating as the various members of the DA drew their wands and entered dueling formations with their usual fighting partners. Ginny and Luna called forth their swords and rushed in the direction Ron had indicated, while Neville ran toward Hagrid.

His plant-loving said something to Hagrid, who immediately started herding the first years toward the carriages instead of the boats. Ron could see the DA members hurrying their fellow students to the carriages as well, trying to get them to safety as soon as possible.

Ron flew down to confront the posse of attackers, slamming his hammer into the ground as he landed. This created the dual effect of a localized earthquake and a powerful gust of wind that made the trolls fall over each other. The dark witches and wizards, however, were able to keep themselves steady, and Bellatrix sent a Killing Curse at him immediately. Ron absorbed the sickly green curse with a swipe of his hammer before executing an air-assisted leap to avoid the barrage from the Death Eaters that followed.

“You will not touch those students,” Ron swore.

“Just try to stop me, ickle Weasley,” Bellatrix taunted back with her usual unnerving laugh.

Ron lifted his hammer into the air, summoning a powerful lightning bolt to strike down in the middle of the formation of Death Eaters. At the same time, a volley of curses flew in from behind Ron to strike the Death Eaters, causing the red-haired wizard to smile. Ginny and Luna had arrived.

“I’ll take Trixie,” Luna called out, and she began to send curses at Bellatrix. The mad witch responded back in turn, but Luna danced out of the way or sliced the Death Eater’s attacks apart with Clarent.

Meanwhile, Ginny dove into the fray, slicing at the Death Eaters with the Excalibur while casting curses and shielding herself with her wand. She was handling four of them at once, but she couldn’t stop them all, as a few of them managed to slip by and head towards the train station.

Ron was focused on dealing with the trolls. While they were powerful and magically resistant, a swing of his enchanted warhammer or a bolt of magical lightning would take one down, and the agility and wind control he gained from the Rite of Air let him evade their clumsy but devastating strikes in the meantime. Within five minutes, all of the trolls were down. He’d come a long way from levitating a club in a bathroom, he thought as he turned to his sister and friend. Luna was still dueling Bellatrix, while Ginny was almost done with the last Death Eater she was facing. Moving to help Luna, he struck out at Lestrange with a lightning attack, but she clearly sensed his approach, for she bowed out of the fight, apparating away.

“Let’s go,” Ron said as he flew back toward Hogsmeade Station where, hopefully, they would find all of the students safe and sound.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

When the Death Eaters appeared, all of the students had been evacuated off the Express, but many of them were still waiting on a carriage. The members of the DA were lined up around them, a protective wall of skilled wands to keep the younger students safe. Neville was among them, though he did not have his wand out. Instead, he knelt on the ground, focusing on the information that the earth was giving him.

“Approaching,” he whispered, and his fellow DA members repeated, passing his warning down the line. When they got within wand range, Neville didn’t let them let loose any curses. Instead, he willed the ground beneath their feet to rise up and trap them. It didn’t take the Death Eaters long to begin to counter this, but Neville kept the effect going long enough for the attackers to fall to a massive barrage of spells from the DA.

“We’re safe!” Neville declared aloud, and he could feel the relief spreading among his fellow students. He was Head Boy this year, and he would not let the school down.   

When Ron, Ginny, and Luna came rushing back, Neville just gave them a smile. Their rescue wasn’t needed.

As the girls joined him on the last carriage to Hogwarts, Ron flew above to guard them on their way before portkeying away into the evening.

Chapter Text

Monday, 31 October 2016

In times of war, life goes on. This much, Ginny had learned over the past two months. The Sorting Hat had still sorted (though there were far fewer Slytherins than normal), the professors still taught (with Sirius Black of all people in the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts professor), the elves still made delicious food (though not in quite as copious amounts as usual, given the need to stockpile), and the students were, for the most part, children.

The wards of Hogwarts had been boosted by one of the Rings of the Elves. Dumbledore was wearing one of the Sauron-era artifacts on his finger, giving him complete and dynamic control over the defenses surrounding Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, the New Ministry Building, and even the Chamber of Secrets. He was able to monitor everything that happened within the wards, especially the few children of Death Eaters who had returned to school. While some of those children, like Theo Nott, held no love or loyalty for their parents’ cause, others were undoubtedly sent to wreak deadly mischief on Hogwarts in the name of their dark master.

The Hogwarts Headmaster had been shown into the Chamber over the summer, and had been duly impressed by the space and time manipulation magic at work there. He had not, however, made much use of it, seeing that he needed to spend almost all of his time in the real world, managing Hogwarts, the Order, and the global forces of the Light.

Ginny, on the other hand, spent almost all of her time in the Chamber of Secrets. The unanimous conclusion of those in the know was that she, due to her connection with the Soul Stone-forged Excalibur, was the most likely person to solve the horcrux problem. She only really left her study for classes, meals, sleep, and to join the Subwave Network. The Network had been an immense help to her, connecting her to magical scholars from around the world. While the existence of the horcruxes had not been revealed in full, the various leaders of the Light had been informed that Voldemort had protected himself with a form of soul magic and that they should send any knowledge they had on the subject to Ginny Weasley.

That wasn’t to say that Ginny worked on the horcrux issue entirely alone. Her friends, of course, gave what help they could, especially Luna. Dumbledore spent quite a bit of time reviewing her work and suggesting things that she might have missed but he, with his more than a century of experience, was able to spot. Her oldest brother was coordinating several teams of cursebreakers to hunt down horcruxes from the locations where the Asgardian device indicated they were hidden and deliver them to her for study. Each team consisted of only the most trusted and skilled witches and wizards, and they had all been sworn to secrecy with an (almost) Unbreakable Vow. Still, they were hardly making a dent in the number of horcruxes Voldemort had produced – since the Asgardian device had first activated, Voldemort had split his soul a further twenty-three times, stashing the new pieces mostly in the homes and bases of his new global following.

One distinct benefit of her work was the chance to speak to some very interesting people from around the world. For instance, just a few weeks ago, she’d started corresponding with a Finnish witch by the name of Kaisa Kivinen. While not exceptionally skilled in wizarding magic, she practiced some traditions that had strong roots in druidic traditions, giving her a connection to living things similar to that granted to those who had completed an Elemental Rite. Her boyfriend had met the witch as they had worked together to defend a magical forest in Sweden from a Death Eater raid trying to poach some rare magical ingredients.

Kivinen’s ‘animistic magic’, as she called it, was not only exceedingly interesting, but her ability to link to the spirits of plants and animals and follow those links through an entire biological community provided an interesting parallel to the Asgardian magic that had gone into the horcrux tracker. Just as the Finn had managed to cause an entire forest to rise up in defense of her, so too did Ginny hope to eventually to cast a spell capable of effecting change in every horcrux at once.

There were others whose unique insights and knowledge had already proven useful in her quest. The vampire Anastasius Sanguini, whom Ginny had met at Slughorn’s Slug Club Christmas party the previous year, had provided some interesting perspectives on the transmutation of a living human soul that was part of the vampire siring process. Fleur’s elderly full Veela grandmother was old enough to have met the druids before their fall, and had provided some additional insights into their ways. Ginny had even used the Resurrection Stone once to talk briefly with the Merlin about his experience with the Soul Stone, but the entire experience had seemed wrong to her instincts. She had made a promise after Merlin’s shade had been dismissed never to use the last of the Hallows again. Even if the Soul Stone’s power was bound, she still wasn’t sure she wanted to risk having to pay a price for overusing it.

(And she could swear that she felt a small sense of satisfaction from the Stone when she made her promise.)

Ginny’s contribution to the war effort hadn’t been entirely academic. From time to time, she had been called upon to deal with attacks from the Dark, especially ones where a powerful artifact weapon was being used. She’d already had to deal with the Gan Jiang and Mo Ye, a pair of legendary artifact swords that had been forged about 2500 years ago. As much as she’d hated destroying any artifact, seeing as no more could ever be created, Ginny had gone out to face the married swords’ wielders. Though the swords granted their users strength and speed, they were no match for a weapon created using the power of the Soul Stone, and Ginny had managed to disarm both the Chinese dark wizard and witch wielding them, claiming the weapons to be used by the Light.

On Halloween morning, Ginny was nervous, and for good reason. Something bad had happened on Halloween at Hogwarts for six years running, and with the war on, she doubted that this year would be the one to break the streak.

“Morning, Neville. Morning, Luna,” Ginny greeted as she took a seat at the Gryffindor table. While her best friend was a Ravenclaw, she commanded enough respect at this point that nobody bothered to protest her presence.

“Good morning, Ginny,” Luna greeted her back.

“Do you know what’s going to go wrong today?” Ginny wondered, but Luna just shook her head.

“We know for sure by now that Riddle has the damned Altar of Thoon,” Luna muttered bitterly. “Even my Clarent can’t break through that artifact’s protection.”

“All we can do is stay on guard today,” Neville said, “and brace ourselves for whatever’s coming. Just like we do every year.”

Neville briefly closed his eyes and concentrated. Ginny suspected that he was sending out a message to that effect via the Subwave. The obligatory Halloween disaster might not just be limited to Hogwarts or even Britain, after all.

Suddenly, Neville’s eyes widened. “We just got an alert. Attack at the Romanian Dragon Sanctuary.”

“Charlie?” Ginny asked worriedly.

“I’m sending Hermione to help him out,” Neville said, though it was clear that he was barely paying attention to the real world, instead focused on handling the information coming into his head.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Hermione portkeyed into what was already a warzone. Several of the dragon handlers were already dead or dying.

“ALICIA, give me two platoons, stat,” she barked out.

“Got it, Hermione,” the AI voice came through her ear. “Dispatching them now.”

Hermione was hardly paying attention to the AI’s response because she was already tearing through the attackers. She didn’t particularly care at the moment whether she was taking down the dark wizards lethally or nonlethally, seeing that her boyfriend’s brother was in mortal peril.

She sent one Death Eater flying more than ten meters into a tree with one punch before taking out another’s knees with a close-range cutting curse. MARC handled two more with Spell Darts while harrying the remainder with a flurry of Stunning Spells and Stinging Hexes. None of her opponents were skilled enough to do anything that could actually hurt her through her armor.

“The Legion’s here, Mi,” MARC informed her briefly.

“Good,” Hermione said as she let loose a powerful Blasting Curse into a concentration of Death Eaters. “ALICIA, have one platoon patrol the sanctuary, make sure the dragons are safe.”

“And the other one will help you here,” ALICIA finished for her as half of the Legionnaires rocketed off into the depths of the sanctuary. “I’ll be sure to catch any poachers who made it in.”

With the help of a Legion platoon to corral the Death Eaters toward her, Hermione made short work of the remainder of the task force. ALICIA sent the Support Legionnaires to help do basic triage, with Hermione helping them. Ten minutes later, the platoon that had gone into the sanctuary returned, some of them carrying unconscious wizards.

“We caught five,” ALICIA informed her, “and we only lost four Combats and a Support in the process.”

As the Legionnaires got closer, Hermione recognized one of the wizards who’d been caught – Severus Snape.

“ALICIA, have the one carrying Snape fly up a few dozen meters. I need to talk to him in private.”

“Roger.”

Hermione paused her healing efforts and rocketed up to where a white Support Legionnaire was holding the unconscious potioneer.

“Enervate,” Hermione cast, and Snape’s eyes opened quickly.

“Miss Granger,” he said.

“Professor,” she greeted back. “It’s good to see you.”

Snape nodded. “I was sent to procure dragon parts for the Dark Lord’s potions. One of Potter’s automata got me from behind.”

“What does he have planned for Halloween?”

“A lot, Miss Granger, and I only know a little of it. Even if the Fidelius means he trusts me most of all, that trust is not absolute. Not yet.”

“I’ll cast a light Somnium on you,” she said, “that will wear off in five minutes. After that, you’ll wake up, and you should make a run for it.”

“I’ll take a liter of dragon’s blood, lest I draw his ire,” Snape said, and Hermione nodded in agreement, even if she wasn’t happy about it. “And after that, I’ll do my best to find out what’s happening, sending information back along my usual channels.”

“Patronus and coin?”

“Precisely.”

“I’m not sure I’ve ever said this before, so thank you, sir. Somnium.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Ron swung his hammer, letting loose a bolt of lightning at another of the attackers who were assaulting MACUSA’s office in Chicago. Being in the Windy City made his Rite of Air powers all the more potent, which was a good thing seeing how tired he was. This was the fourth battle he’d been in today, and it looked like it had no chance of stopping for a while yet. Around him, American Aurors were exchanging curses with members of the Dark Coalition. The dark wizards were not making any headway though, and their leader called for a retreat.

Ron rested on the floor for a minute as the Aurors around him began to repair what had been damaged in the battle. A ping in his ear made him groan.

“Where next, ALI?”

“Just in from our spy – an attack in Nigeria. Twenty minutes.”

“Nigeria?” he muttered.

“Nigeria,” ALICIA confirmed. “You can rest for ten, but then you’ll have to portkey.”

“Understood.”

Ron took every one of those six hundred seconds before standing up.

“Got to go,” he informed the Senior Auror in charge of the Chicago branch, a Guiseppe D’Angelo, “another attack’s coming.”

“We thank you for your assistance, Mr. Weasley. We might not have been able to hold on otherwise.”

“Just doing my part, Auror D’Angelo. Portus.”

Ron let the portkey activate, the whirlwind of light and space and magic whisking him away to Africa, where his next challenge awaited.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Albus Dumbledore waved the Elder Wand in profound magical patterns as he helped to rebuild the defenses on the ICW prison in Croatia. It was one of several prisons around the world that had been hit in Voldemort’s mass attacks today. While he had been able to arrive soon enough to stop some of the prison breaks, the prison in Croatia had been emptied before he could arrive.

Albus was just thankful that Riddle hadn’t tried to hit Nurmengard. While he didn’t think Gellert would ever ally with Tom, seeing as both his old friend nor his old student thought themselves to be the greatest wizard alive, it was not something he wanted to risk.

In a few days, he planned to go add some additional defenses to keep Voldemort and his forces away from Gellert. Just as a precaution.

Albus was loathe to leave his school, especially on Halloween, but his wand and his skill were desperately needed to combat the wave of attacks that Voldemort had unleashed, and he refused to let Harry, Ron, and Hermione fight alone. In his eyes, the three of them were children – brave children, skilled and powerful children, but children nonetheless. They were the future, but the future hadn’t come quite yet, and he would not sit in the halls of Hogwarts, leaving them to fend for themselves.

With the wards on the prison back at their previous levels and even a bit higher thanks to the powers of the Elder Wand and the Ring of the Elves, Albus nodded in satisfaction. His work here was done. Now, where to next?

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Fred and George Weasley had only gotten to run their dream shop for a year before they had to evacuate Diagon Alley. They didn’t blame anyone for the loss of the Ministry except for the Dark Tosser Voldemort, but it was still annoying that they’d had to leave behind their storefront to take refuge in Hogwarts Castle.

Most of the time, they spent in the Chamber of Secrets, working as the Order of the Phoenix’s research and development team to create and produce magical trinkets. Of course, Harry’s Golden Legion blew anything they could make out of the water, but they still were glad to contribute, knowing that every person who went into battle with a War Wheeze was a bit more likely to come home alive.

Unlike their younger siblings and their friends, the twins weren’t as utterly dominant in battle, and so they were rarely called out to join in the fighting. However, on Halloween, they were ready for something bad to happen, and so when the call came to go join an Order of the Phoenix task force dealing with a Death Eater and dementor attack in Godric’s Hollow, they got out their wands and battle robes and went out to war.

Like most members of the Defense Association, the twins were capable of casting Patroni, and so they both did so, the identical magpies flitting about to drive off the dark soul-suckers. While Fred threw out a packet of Instant Darkness Powder to confuse the Death Eaters, George set off a few Stunnerworks – magical fireworks that shot out Stunning Spells instead of harmless sparks.

The combination was enough to distract the Death Eaters and take out a few of the less skilled ones, but not all of them. It did, however, give the Order of the Phoenix time to encircle the group of dark wizards and assail them with more powerful and dangerous curses from all sides. Fred and George were happy to join in on the fun while keeping their Patroni flying.

Overall, they considered the day a success.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Harry stood on the land of the Avoine family. Perhaps the largest wizard-owned farm in all of Europe, the produce of the Avoine lands fed most of Wizarding France as well as parts of Wizarding Britain, Spain, Germany, Italy, and other nations. Voldemort had personally led an attack to scour as much of the Avoine’s property as he could, and Harry showed up to stop them. The French Aurors had come to fight off the Death Eaters he’d brought with him, but Voldemort was threat that had to be dealt with by Harry personally.

The two titanic wizards battled for eight hours. Harry had a lot of magic to spare, but Voldemort had more. It was all Harry could do to not die and to keep the damage Voldemort was causing to a minimum. The Dark Lord had used several powerful fire spells in order to burn Wizarding Europe’s food supply to ashes, but Harry had managed to counter them all with the help of the French Aurors. The earth was scorched and marked with divots from spellfire in a fifty-meter radius around the two fated foes, but beyond that, waves of grain remained largely untouched.

Toward the eight-hour mark of their marathon duel, both wizards had to stop for a moment to catch their breaths.

“You know,” Harry said, “I didn’t think that I could last this long. Or that you could, either.”

“Lord Voldemort is superior to mere men in every way, Potter,” Voldemort declared.

“Sure,” Harry replied with a roll of his eyes. “Even your sweat is superior.”

Because Harry was one of the few wizards who had ever had the privilege of seeing the Dark Lord Voldemort actually sweat. Apparently, not even he could last this long without showing signs of physical exertion.

“And, just between mortal enemies, you don’t really believe in your own propaganda, do you?”

“I AM LORD VOLDEMORT!” he shouted. “I am immortal, I am more powerful than any wizard since Merlin, and I am – Avada Kedavra!”

Harry absorbed the green curse with a lazy motion of the Shield on his left arm. “Now that wasn’t very nice,” he chastised lightly.

“Just between mortal enemies,” Voldemort said, “I know I am far from all-powerful. But I’m certainly powerful enough to destroy you!”

“If you say so, Tom,” Harry said as Voldemort began to cast curses again.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

In the early morning mists of the Scottish Highlands, a massive army began apparating and portkeying in. Dark wizards and witches, werewolves, giants, trolls, vampires, and many others appeared into an area that was warded with powerful spells of concealment, including the Fidelius. They brought with them numerous enchanted objects and artifacts that would help them in their mission.

Towards midday, a group of seven powerful witches and wizards put on invisibility cloaks and spread out to encircle the area. In unison, they chanted the incantation of a powerful variant of the anti-apparition and anti-portkey spells that would be undetectable until it was finally activated. The sheep going about their day would have no idea what hit them.

Over the course of the day, they heard news that came in via owls and communication mirrors. Their lord’s brilliant gambit was working, with the champions of the Light side running around like cockatrices with their heads cut off trying to stop the attacks happening around the world. If some of them worked, all the better, but success was not the goal today but distraction. A distraction to ensure that their critical work would go unnoticed and unopposed.

By sunset, all of the needed spells were cast and anchored to a powerful artifact wardstone that their Lord had acquired. With a simple word of command, all of the wards snapped into being.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

In a field in France, Voldemort cast one last set of fire spells at the fields around him before apparating away. His job in the day’s events, the distraction of one Harry Potter and the French forces, was complete.

Thousands of kilometers away in India, Albus Dumbledore felt something from his Ring, a warning that a ward had been placed around the areas under his protection. He tried to apparate back, and then to call Fawkes to bring him, but neither worked.

Dumbledore immediately apparated to Mordor, knowing that there was a secure direct Floo connection from there to the Chamber of Secrets. As he rushed through the halls of the formerly dark fortress, he cast his Patronus to send a message to his deputy.

“Expecto Patronum! Go to Minerva McGonagall and deliver this message: What is happening at Hogwarts? I cannot apparate there, nor is Fawkes responding to me.”

The glowing white image of Fawkes shook its head sadly before vanishing. Not even Patronus messages were working! Somehow, all communication with Hogwarts had been cut off.

When he arrived at the Floo room, the flames that should have been perpetually green were burning an angry red. This method of transportation, too, had been severed.

Albus Dumbledore, for the first time in a long time, had no idea what to do. His beloved castle was under siege, and he had no way to help.

Chapter Text

Monday, 31 October 2016

When the siege wards went up, every single witch, wizard, and magical being felt it. How could they not? It was a powerful field of magic that rivaled the natural ambient magic of Hogwarts and pressed down upon everyone within it.

At the moment the wards went up, the students and staff of Hogwarts were doing their best to enjoy the Halloween Feast. Although the fare was not as extravagant as usual and the mood was subdued due to the conspicuous absence of Professor Dumbledore, the younger ones were still able to enjoy the special meal and the fun decorations.

Ginny Weasley and Luna Lovegood, on the other hand, were tense, as were the various members of the Defense Association. When the siege ward snapped into place, the two sixth-year girls burst into action, rushing out of the Great Hall and the front doors of the castle to see what was going on. They burst outside just in time to see the dome of powerful magic complete itself, as the circular hole at its apex dwindled to a pinprick and then to nothing as the sealing was completed. Behind them, a loud gong sounded, a warning to everyone.

“What’s happening?” Ginny wondered aloud as she activated her Flight Belt to shoot up into the sky. Pulling out a pair of charmed binoculars, she looked toward the edge of the dome to see a huge army of dark wizards and creatures assembling.

“Harry Potter,” she called out as she pulled the communication mirror she used to talk to her boyfriend. She expected that the mirror’s surface would blur while she waited for Harry to open the connection on his end. Instead, the mirror remained just that – a mirror. Frowning, she drew her wand to cast some diagnostic charms, which all showed that the mirror was in perfect working condition. It just couldn’t make the connection.

Taking another look around, she saw detachments of the Death Eater army setting off toward Hogsmeade, the New Ministry Building, and Hogwarts itself. Swooping back down to Luna, she began formulating a plan.

“Luna,” she ordered, “tell McGonagall that the Death Eaters have besieged Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, and the Ministry, and then gather the DA to come help me defend Hogsmeade. I’ll try to send a Patronus to the Minister.”

Her Ravenclaw friend nodded in agreement. “That will work,” she said, “but we can’t get any messages out. The ward prevents it.”

“That’s something you Saw?”

“It is,” Luna confirmed. “I only Saw it just now; I think they had the Altar with them when they were setting things up today.”

“The Death Eaters might already be in Hogsmeade,” Ginny said. “I need to go.”

Pushing herself off the ground, she reactivated her Flight Belt to cross the Black Lake, only slowing down to shoot off three Patronus messages – one to Minister Bones, one to Merchieftainess Murcus, and one to Magorian, the current leader of the Forbidden Forest’s centaur colony. All three of them shot off in the appropriate directions, thankfully. It seemed that the siege wards only stopped communications from passing between the inside and the outside.

As Ginny flew over Hogsmeade, she tapped her throat with her wand, amplifying her voice.

“HOGSMEADE IS UNDER SIEGE!” she announced. “STAY IN YOUR HOMES, AND PROTECT YOURSELVES!”

With her message delivered, Ginny landed a few minutes later to face a force of two dozen dark wizards, three dozen trolls, and a dozen werewolves. Another dozen wizards were flying above them on brooms. At the head of the dark forces was a masked figure with very distinctive platinum-blond hair.

“Hello, Lucius Malfoy,” she greeted as she cast a fire wall spell separating her and the dark army from the town of Hogsmeade, tall enough that even the broom flyers were stopped short. “It’s been a while.”

“What are you doing, you foolish girl?” he asked with a sneer, casting a Killing Curse at her which the Excalibur let her bat away easily.

“Stopping you,” Ginny replied simply.

“Oh, really?” Malfoy asked. “You may have some power, girl, and a shiny sword, but you have no hope of stopping all of us.”

Indeed, the combined magic of the Death Eaters had brought the wall of fire low enough for the broom flyers to pass over it, drawing their wands as they prepared to rain down terror on the roofs of the village.

“I can, and I will,” Ginny asserted.

“You and what army, girl?” Malfoy said with a cruel laugh.

“What army?” Ginny said with a cheeky smile, which widened along with Malfoy’s eyes when a formation of broom flyers approached from behind her. “This one.”

“DEFENSE ASSOCIATION!” Luna shouted. “GROUP ONE, WITH ME! GROUP TWO, TO GINNY! GROUP THREE, ON THE ROOFS!”

Magical shields were conjured to block the flying Death Eaters’ first barrage of the spells, and they could hardly let off any more spells because they were too busy defending themselves from Luna and her support. Group One, it appeared, was composed mostly of Quidditch players, who were flying circles around their opponents, maintaining tight formations to support each other while easily evading what spells they couldn’t block. Luna’s battle divination let her slice her green sword through the Death Eaters and their brooms while nimbly twisting her body through the rain of curses, not let a single one hit her.

About half of Group Two remained airborne, raining down curses on the Death Eaters, while the other half took to the ground to back up Ginny. One member of this group caught Malfoy’s eye in particular.

“Theodore Nott!” Malfoy exclaimed in surprise and anger. “I knew that you’d run from your house and your destiny, but I never thought you’d stoop so low as to join these blood traitors.”

“I choose my own destiny, Lucius, and not my father’s,” he shouted angrily, slinging a curse at his father’s friend and brother in arms. “And I will defend the innocent from your cruelty. May I?”

“By all means, Theo,” Ginny said, letting the Death Eater and the son of one engage in a furious duel, instead heading toward the brigade of trolls, using her sword to slice through their magic-resistant skin while evading their heavy clubs and damaging blows.

From time to time, she would see an arrow flying past her. She knew that it had to be the work of Group Three, who had alighted from their brooms onto the rooftops of Hogsmeade to act as support, using their archery training to accurately pepper enemies with Spell Arrows. The arrows weren’t quite as effective as they once had been, but they were still harder to counter than normal spells or conjured objects. And with EMMI churning thousands of them out every day, they were at no risk of running out.

When she had finished up the trolls, she turned to see how the rest of the DA was faring. Most of the Death Eaters were on the ground or in retreat, while the DA had pressed their advantages and had suffered only a few minor injuries. There were even a few Order members that she vaguely recognized who had been in the town and come to help.

The duel between Theo and Malfoy Senior had also come to an end, with Theo bloodied in several places but the senior Death Eater disarmed and looking far worse. Malfoy was on the ground with Theo’s wand pointed at his neck.

“Diff—” Theo began to shout before pausing. “No. I won’t be like you, like my father,” the son of a Death Eater declared. “You’re an unarmed prisoner, and I’m sure the Aurors and the Order would love a chance to put you under Veritaserum.”

Ginny nodded in approval. While she hadn’t had to kill anyone yet in this war, she knew that Harry, Ron, and Hermione all had had to take their opponents’ lives, and she loved all of them anyway. Still, she knew that killing, especially someone who was defenseless, was not an easy step to take. She was proud that Theo Nott had become the kind of person who wouldn’t take that step.

“Stupefy,” the Slytherin boy incanted, and Lucius Malfoy fell unconscious.

“Let’s wrap this up and get all our prisoners and our wounded back to Hogwarts,” Ginny commanded. “Luna, will you take some volunteers to maintain a patrol of the village until reinforcements come?”

The Ravenclaw girl nodded, and a few of the students, mainly from Group Three (who hadn’t had to cast many spells during the battle), agreed to join her.

“Just a warning, Ginny,” Luna whispered to her as she passed. “The other battles didn’t fair quite so well.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Luna Lovegood came literally flying back into the Great Hall of Hogwarts a few minutes after she and Ginny Weasley had left.

“We’re under siege!” she shouted into the Hall, which quickly fell silent. “Us and the Ministry and Hogsmeade. No communication going in or out, and no magical transportation either. I need DA volunteers to fly out to Hogsmeade to defend it.”

“Miss Lovegood—” McGonagall began to protest.

“The Order’s trapped outside,” Luna snapped, speaking rapidly, “the professors need to defend the castle, and the Aurors are stuck at the Ministry. The DA can hold Hogsmeade. Just keep the castle safe, Professor, and stay safe yourself. LET’S GO!”

As two dozen DA students ran out of the Great Hall following Luna, McGonagall shot off a loud bang from her wand to restore order.

“Students!” she said. “You will remain in the Great Hall! Nobody goes in or out. Professors Sprout, Slughorn, and Burbage will stay to guard you, listen to their instructions. Every other professor, follow me!”

In the hall, Neville was the highest-ranking member of the DA remaining, and the only seventh-year. Rummaging through his pockets, he found the Marauders’ Map.

“Thank Merlin I had it with me,” he muttered. “I solemnly swear I am up to no good.”

Looking around, Neville spotted that the next oldest member of the DA who was nearby was one Romilda Vane. The currently fifth-year witch had once had an unrequited crush on Harry, but knowing that he and Ginny were a power couple and very much in love, she hadn’t even considered using a love potion to get her way. While not the best fighter, she was a member of the DA and had sworn loyalty to them, so Neville trusted her with the Map and an important task.

“Vane,” he said urgently, “get the rest of the DA to form a line of defense in the Hall. Check the Map for intruders and any stragglers – we don’t want another troll incident. And if the worst happens, lead everyone to the Chamber.” Neville handed her his own DA coin, which unlike normal DA coins, was able to let more than just its holder into the Chamber at one time. “This will let you.”

“Where are you going, Longbottom?”

“To defend the castle.”

Neville rushed out of the doors just as they were slamming shut.

“What are you doing, Mr. Longbottom?” the Deputy Headmistress demanded.

“I’m going to help in the defense,” he informed her.

“You can barely use your wand this year!” she argued.

“Who said I was going to use my wand?” he asked as he put on a pair of green gloves and reached out to connect deeply to the stones of Hogwarts Castle. “You need everyone you can get.”

“Very well,” McGonagall said with a frown, not wanting to delay with arguments. She turned to approach one of the suits of armor lining the castle walls. “Piertotum Locomotor! Hogwarts is threatened! Man the boundaries, protect us, and do your duty to the school.”

All around the castle, the armors stood up and responded to the Deputy Headmistress’s command. “I’ve always wanted to use that spell,” she whispered with a bit of glee before her face returned to utter seriousness.

Meanwhile, Neville was trying to reach out to the Subwave Network. Though he could still feel the drain on his magic powering the global telepathic spell, he could not manage to communicate using it. Nor was he able to reach out to Rose, even though a piece of Harry’s daughter existed in every mind on Earth. His communications jewel that connected to ALICIA was also silent. Whatever the Death Eaters had done to besiege Hogwarts was extraordinarily effective.

He could, however, reach out to EMMI, who was still churning out her products but informed him that the Floo connection that she used to ship them to Mordor for deployment had been shut down unexpectedly.

If he’d had time, he might have tried to jury-rig a way for EMMI to take temporary control of the Golden Legion remaining within Hogwarts, but the stones of the castle told him that there wasn’t time.

The force that went out to defend Hogwarts was pitifully small. Only Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, Hagrid, and Black, along with Neville himself, had significant combat training. The others – Sinistra, Vector, and Babbling – were skilled witches, but would likely not be able to make a huge impact. Professor Trelawney, Professor Binns, and Madam Pomfrey hadn’t made an appearance, and Neville could only hope that the Divination Professor and the Hogwarts Healer would remain safe. Just to be sure, he reached out to the castle’s stones and raised some additional walls around the Divination Tower and the Hospital Wing.

With the students all in the Great Hall and most of the professors either defending them or out here…

“Filch!” he recalled. “And the elves! Professors!” he shouted. “Someone needs to call the elves to warn them! And maybe ask them to get Filch, Pomfrey, and Trelawney to safety.”

“Good thinking, Neville,” Sirius said, and he called on one of the Hogwarts elves to do just that.

“Can you call your elf, Sirius?” he asked.

“Kreacher!” he said, but nothing happened.

“Damn,” Neville muttered, “the siege ward can block even house-elves… It’s time.”

The group of eight strode to the gates of Hogwarts to come face-to-face with a dark army led by Bellatrix Lestrange, who was in the process of opening a hole in the Hogwarts wards. While normally, such a hole would be detected and closed by the holder of the wards through a simple flex of will, the holder of the wards was currently cut off from the castle by the siege wards and thus unable to respond.

“It’s ickle Longbottom! And Siri!” she shouted as she darted through the hole, her army following her. “Isn’t this my lucky day?”

Neville didn’t think that he could hold his own against his parents’ torturer, not in his current state. So he was quite thankful when she was stopped in her tracks by the short form of Professor Filius Flitwick.

“If you want to get to my students, Ms. Lestrange,” he said in a steely voice, “you’re going to have to get through me.”

The mad lieutenant of Voldemort shot a series of spells at Flitwick, who nimbly dodged out of the way, and their duel was on.

Meanwhile, Neville reached out the ground beneath him and forced it to shake beneath the feet of the attacking Death Eaters.

“Vector, Sinistra, Babbling,” he said, “please defend me. I’ll need all my concentration for this.”

The advance of the Death Eater army was slowed by a barrage of stone spikes and the appearance of numerous dirt walls which they had to handle. Neville’s efforts were aided by Professor McGonagall, who proved her status as a Transfiguration Mistress by conjuring flocks of birds and herds of animals to attack her enemies as easily as most witches would conjure a glass of water to drink.

Hagrid and Sirius made an unlikely but perfect duo, with Hagrid’s magic-resistant skin and physical threat causing chaos among the opposing forces while Sirius used his magical skills to pick them off one by one.

The Runes, Arithmancy, and Astronomy Professors, while lacking the skill of their colleagues, restricted themselves to taking potshots and shielding Neville from any attacks that came his way. He was grateful for their efforts, for it allowed him to go entirely on the offensive. He focused on nothing save which Death Eater to target next and where he needed to avoid due to the presence of his allies.

Neville was broken out of his reverie by a horrible shout from Flitwick. He snapped his head in the part-goblin professor’s direction to see him on the ground with his right leg severed and Bellatrix Lestrange cackling in glee.

And Neville saw red.

The person he hated most in the world had hurt the man who was probably his second-favorite professor after only Professor Sprout. Rushing forward, he reared his right arm back as he formed his right hand into a perfect fist. Lestrange turned her wand toward him and shot a curse at him, but he intercepted it with a stone pillar without even slowing down.

Thrusting his arm forward, he caught Bellatrix in the sternum with a hard punch. Thanks to the gloves he was wearing, the punch’s strength was amplified a hundred times, and the mad witch went flying out of the Hogwarts grounds and deep into the Forbidden Forest.

The entire battle stopped to watch Lestrange’s arc through the air. Then, a hunting horn cut through the stillness, followed by the whistling sound of arrows cutting through the night, each one landing accurately on one of the Death Eaters. Some of them managed to shield themselves, but others were caught by surprise.

In the distance, Neville saw the centaurs drawing back their bowstrings for another shot and shook the ground once more to destabilize the Death Eaters’ footing, interrupting their attempts to shield again.

Before a third volley of arrows could be launched, one of the Death Eaters called retreat, and they rushed back through the hole they’d made in the wards, centaur arrows chasing them all the way.

And all the while, Hagrid carried Professor Flitwick back into the castle as Sirius did his best to stem the bleeding from his stump.