Prologue

It was approaching the final hours of dusk and the last of the suns blood orange light shone across the horizon of the great lake as Neville Longbottom worked tirelessly in one of the greenhouses of Hogwarts School of witchcraft and wizardry. He had spent the last three hours laboriously burying Mandrakes in large earth-filled pots in anticipation of the second year Herbology classes for the following day, and they had been quite a handful. Whilst Neville was an immensely gifted wizard in the field of magical plants, it was nevertheless a demanding task to force unwilling (and in some cases grossly obese) baby plants that thrashed and wailed in protest, into dozens of pots which then had to be stored away. He did not mind, however, as his thoughts were troubled and the exertion he went through helped ease his worries.

Death is around the corner. It is inevitable.

Longbottom felt his age creeping on him. His prime had come and gone and twenty-four years had passed since he had wielded the Sword of Gryffindor against Voldemorts snake. His life since then had been uneventful. He was content to teach the newer generations the art for which he had the greatest affinity to, and was generally well liked by most of the students. Though he was quick to smile and crack jokes that were only half funny, no one he greeted or talked to knew of the inner turmoil that now had him feeling that everything he held dear would soon fall to pieces around him.

I fear that if we do not do something, this will be the end of us all…

With all his might he pushed the last Mandrake deep into the pot. He could barely hear its indignant fatal cries through his ear-muffs. He held its head down as it thrashed in the dirt, and like a drowning victim its thrashing soon slowed and came to a stop altogether. He lifted the pot, now considerably heavier than it had been when he had brought it to the table, and placed it with the other pots at the back of the greenhouse, where the other Mandrakes seemed to sleep, their protrusions twitching in the dirt. Neville wiped his brow with his forearm, which was equally sweaty and covered in dirt, and removed his ear-muffs.

"I never liked those little buggers."

It was a voice Neville hadn't heard in over a year. He swirled around to see a familiar figure leaning casually on the door of the greenhouse entrance. With his ear-muffs he had not heard the person enter, and with his thoughts elsewhere had been unaware he had not been alone. The man was tall, athletically built and wore fully black attire. His cloak was as jet black as his hair, which was cut short but as messy as Neville remembered it. The last few rays of the dying sun were enough to reveal a lightning bolt scar on his forehead. His face showed few signs of age, though his left forearm bore a distinct burn mark.

"Well tickle my ears and call me a House Elf, if it isn't the great Harry Potter!" Neville smirked. He walked up to Harry and shook his hand, which had a fierce and powerful grip. Though Harry showed very little evidence of having aged in the past decade, his eyes and demeanour was that of a man who had seen too much. Neville wasn't surprised. Harry was now head Auror at the ministry of magic, and had placed many dark wizards behind bars in the Wizard prison of Azkaban. His mark on his forearm Neville knew to be the work of an aspiring Necromancer in Bulgaria. Tales of his exploits were told by the students and teachers alike, though some of them being obvious exaggerations and others even downright lies. Although Harry had done it once before, Neville was sure Harry wasn't a Dragon rider, a label some of the younger students had given him as they recounted stories of Harry Potter defeating dark wizards while bearing down on them on the back of a fierce dragon. Although, Neville reflected, he wouldn't put it past Harry to do something as insane as what the students claimed he did on a regular basis.

Harry gave a weary smile, his emerald green eyes hinting at a soul that was haunted by his past. "It's great to see you, Neville. How are your classes keeping up?"

Neville laughed, "ah you know how it is, students asking too many questions, not listening to vital instructions, being sent to the hospital wing after being bitten by a particularly ferocious killer Thrift…Kidding kidding!" Harry gave a laugh, and for a moment they felt like students again. The moment, however was brief.

"Did you get my letter?" Harry asked.

"Yes," Neville nodded, "I got it a week ago. What does it mean?"

Harry walked towards the centre table of the greenhouse, which was long and reminiscent of the dining tables he missed from the school he once called a home. "I am requesting that you seek out the members and re-form Dumbledores Army. We have a situation and I fear this is bigger than anything we have dealt with before…"

Neville gave him a quizzical look and sat on the counter close to the greenhouse entrance. The leaves of mysterious plants brushed through his hair and seemed twitch and jerk away in reaction to the contact. Harry began to pace the greenhouse and explain what he had not managed to convey into words when he had instructed his wife to send an owl post to his old friends. Neville simply sat attentively and attempted to digest the information.

"Just under a year ago my office received a post from Norway regarding a mass murder of a small wizarding town of Monark. I had sent a team of aurors to investigate the incident and only two of the five wizards made it back alive. One of them had been severely injured with wounds even I could not recognise, both of them distressed beyond comprehension. We admitted them to St. Mungos hospital and for several days liaised with the Norwegian Ministry for magic branch. They gave us disturbing reports of dark magic rituals taking place all across the country and requested that we send help. After what had happened to the previous team I was reluctant to send anyone."

Harry paused, staring out of the glass greenhouse walls at the castle which majestically emitted numerous lights from its windows. The grounds wee now dark, the sun having completed its descent. The full moon was now slowly rising.

"I didn't want any more deaths on my hands, so I decided to go myself, with no supporting team."

Neville sighed. "You had to go by yourself didn't you? I guess I'm not surprised. Go on."

Harry gave a faint smile which quickly disappeared as he continued, "I initially began with Monark, but there was nothing to be found there. All the bodies had disappeared, and not a trace of a human being could be found. No blood, no signs of struggle. It was as though everyone had just up and left. I stayed there for few days, investigating the houses and buildings. After I was sure there was nothing that could give me a hint as to what had occurred, I travelled to the closest known wizarding village, Roth' Den. It was a village that had both muggles and wizards living in the same settlement, mostly without any incidents…"

"I notice you used the term 'was'?" Neville injected.

Harry nodded. "I expected the village to either have been left untouched or all the people mysteriously gone like in Monark. Instead I found the village in grief. Half of the villagers had disappeared without a trace, but the others had been left unscathed, not knowing what had occurred. The people who were unharmed I confirmed over the next week to all be muggles."

Neville slid off the counter and rubbed his chin with his thumb and index finger. "But does that mean that the ones who vanished were..?"

"All wizards and witches, yes." Harry took a stool that was usually used by students and sat, placing his elbows on the table rubbing his scar unconsciously. "Every person of magical potential vanished, and the muggles did not know what had happened and could not even remember the people who disappeared any more. They described them as a faded memory. Wives could not recall the faces of the husbands they had once loved and cherished. Needless to say, this did not bode well, and I knew I had to get to the bottom of this. But the clues were missing. I had no leads. So I decided to stay in the village and wait.

"I do not remember how long it took, but eventually instead me finding a lead, the opposite happened. I had been targeted. Someone had been watching me the entire time I stayed in Roth'Den, biding his time, waiting to take my life. My instinct told me to be on guard, and sleep did not come easy, even with Hermionies old tent and a wall of protective spells around me. Being the only wizard left in the village I was sure whoever was responsible knew of my presence, and was waiting for a choice opportunity to kill me. And one night I guess they decided it was time.

"I had been trying to doze off that night but a constant low murmuring noise had been bothering me and preventing me from sleeping. It went on for over an hour. I couldn't rightly identify what that noise was nor its source, but it almost sounded like a chanting moan. It went on for minutes on end and it set my hairs on edge. But after a time it just stopped abruptly. I sat up and listened hard, trying to hear in case it started again, when suddenly the tent entrance was ripped open. A dark figure came hurtling towards me, screaming madly in a high pitched voice that I don't think I will forget any time soon.

I had my wand ready before I could think and had cast a protective spell but the figure extended its long arm and shattered it without even missing a beat. It used no wand, but somehow it had broken all of my protective spells. It grabbed my face and I felt my brain begin to fry under an intense heat. I fired the first spell that came to my mind which threw my attacker off momentarily. I recovered just in time to see that it was an old man, but not "old" in any sense I can rightly convey in words. He was ancient. He looked close to death, and I have no clue how someone that old was not noticeable in a crowd of muggles."

Neville nodded, absorbing the story and attempting to conjure an image of an ancient deranged man. "You say he did not use a wand?" He asked

"No wand" Harry replied. "He got through the barriers and spells on incantation and physical contact alone. I suspect the noise that had been going on had been him outside the barrier, slowly eroding the spell with some unknown magic. After I got a look at him I threw myself away, knowing that close quarters against this foe would be dangerous for me. I did not even know if he had done something to my mind with his previous attack…I won't forget the maniacal smile he gave me as he raised his hand and cast an unfamiliar spell which I barely dodged. We battled for several minutes and reduced the tent to ashes. I finally managed to subdue him by creating a sword of ice and running him through as he attempted to grab my face again. It did not kill him, mind you, only prevented him from moving. I impaled him to a nearby tree and his body went limp, though he continued to laugh in a deranged manner. I proceeded to use the Imperius curse to retrieve information out of him."

Neville leaned forward excitedly. "What did he say?"

"Not much." Harry answered. " He simply revealed to me this; he was part of a secret order of dark wizards, only known amongst themselves as the Covenant of Elders. They are a group of wizards that have existed for centuries, festering and flocking to the darkest corners of the world like cockroaches. They are predecessors to our age of wizards, and are the remnants of a forgotten race. They have powers we cannot even begin to understand, are seemingly immortal for reasons unknown and they seek only one thing, the destruction of all wizard kind."

"Not muggles?" Neville inquired.

"He did not specify muggles. He merely mentioned wizards. They want all wizards of this age extinct and for thousands of years have plotted in secret to advance this one and only goal. Before I could get anything more out of him, he seemed to begin to melt. His face and jaw turned to a dark, foul smelling sludge and his entire body lost all shape and form and became like tar. My one and only lead was gone and I had barely made it out alive. After debriefing the rest of my department, we proceeded to launch further investigations, but so far it has yielded very little in the way of further leads."

As Harry came to the conclusion of his tale, Neville sighed, went to the sink at the back of the greenhouse and washed the dirt from his hands and forearms, as well as cleaning his face. Walked back and saw that Harry had stood up and was now holding the greenhouse door open, waiting for him. They stepped outside and gazed at the Great Lake, the faint moonlight on their backs as they reflected over the implications of Harrys story.

"So this is why you stated in your letter that you wanted to re-unite the Order of the Phoenix, and Dumbledores Army? The Auror Department isn't enough?" Neville asked

"This is going to be war, Neville, for our very existence. It isn't about the lives of a handful any more. The Rituals that took place are now being reported in several other countries around the globe. This is a call to arms…"

"And they definitely want us all dead? All the wizards?" Neville required confirmation of the gravity of what he was being told.

"Yes." Harry gazed at the light of the moon reflecting on the Great Lake, like a light reflected off glass. "They have plotted for thousands of years for our destruction yet not once have they ever acted or been heard of until now. The fact that these disturbing events are occurring now means only one thing…"

"They have a found a way to destroy us…"