A/N: This story is intended as an in-canon sequel to the original novels, starring new and old heroes and a lot of new villains. Details of the Harry Potter universe and magic itself will be expanded to breathe new life to the world we know. This story will stick mostly to the original themes of Harry Potter (Love, Prejudice, Death, etc.) but with a more mature lens. The ball takes a while to get rolling, but when it does, it will feature crazy schemes, moral quandaries, thrilling action, and most importantly: romance and drama that is integrated to the core of the story. I highly recommend reading to the end of Chapter 3 to get a sense of the true direction of the plot; Chapter 1 is more of a prologue.

Chapter 1 – War

The night sky was a solid black canvas behind the military air base. The barracks, storehouses and other buildings were lit with glaring yellow lights; the sentries stationed in front of them looked half-glowing, each with a night vision and thermal imaging scope perched over one eye. A team of six men passed by them, sticking to the shadows on the other side of the road. They would have been seen regardless if not for the magic spells cast over them; one to make their bodies take the colour and texture of the bushes behind them, and another to mask the heat of their bodies.

Their leader moved silently under the shadows, taking the lead a yard ahead of his team. Unlike the others, he draped a cloak over his shoulders that granted him true invisibility; he could move swiftly without betraying his silhouette.

He and his team drew near a pair of guards standing before a large hangar. He signalled his team to stay back, and approached the guards. Their eyes were peeled through their scopes for the outline of a camouflaged wizard, but his true invisibility let him stalk right beside them. He pulled his wand from the sleeve of his robes.

'Stupefy,' A streak of red light struck the first guard and he dropped unconscious to the ground. The second guard raised his rifle in alarm, but the invisible wizard fired a second streak of red light and knocked him out as well. The invisible wizard stood straight and pulled something else from his sleeve: a flat, round, inch-thick disc.

He planted the disc against the hangar door and stepped a several feet aside. With a flick of his wand, the Vanish Bomb detonated; a perfectly circular hole carved into the hangar door, with a smooth crater of earth at its base. The wizard signalled to his team, and they filed into the hangar.

As the wizards entered the unlit space, they raised their wands and spoke "Lumos" – their tip of their wands sparked with white light that was bright but not glaring – the wizards spread out across the darkness and began planting Vanish Bombs on every fighter jet inside. Every few seconds a bomb detonated and silently consumed a plane into nothingness.

"Harry," called out one of the invisible wizard's men near the hangar entrance. "Where are you?"

The invisible wizard pulled off his invisibility cloak and faced his fellow Auror. "Tribett. What is it?"

"You didn't finish off those two guards," Harry couldn't tell how Tribett looked as he was Disillusioned, but he sounded annoyed.

"It wasn't necessary. They're out for at least thirty minutes,"

"Well I took care of it. I'm not gambling with other people's lives," His subordinate headed towards the far end of the hangar to join the others in setting Vanish Bombs. Harry held up the rear, following him silently.

Suddenly the hangar filled with a high-pitched, relentless beeping, stabbing into his ears like a giant nail gun. Harry and Aurors clamped their ears shut, but the sheer force of the sound waves was making his eyes sting and throwing his brain inside out.

"What is this – a sonic attack?!" yelled another one of his Aurors. None of them, Harry included, had ever encountered such an attack from their enemy. All the Aurors' Disillusionment Charms broke, rendering them visible – the immense migraine induced by the noise made it impossible to maintain enchantments over themselves.

Harry raised his lit wand and focused a beam of light up along the high walls. Attached near the ceiling were flat, black panels angled down at them, blasting that searing noise. Harry fired a Reductor Spell at one of them – the device burst into pieces and the noise became marginally softer.

The coin-sized mirror strapped to his wrist heated up like a hot iron – a warning of closing enemies. An instant later, the hangar exploded in a cacophony of sounds and light – rattling gunfire, flashing muzzles, and a metal-like ting as bullets bounced off the Aurors' grey robes. Their standard Auror robes were each enchanted with a Barrier Charm; an invisible layer of energy wrapped around each Auror like a coating and flashed light blue against every colliding bullet. They rendered all attacks harmless, but they would only last seconds under sustained fire.

"Wall! Seal them out!" shouted Harry.

Each Auror pointed their wands to the ground and a thick wall of concrete rose where they pointed, each wall over twenty feet high. With every swing of their wands the Aurors erected walls between themselves and the soldiers until the massive width of the hangar was fully sealed. Harry then shone his lit wand to the ceiling – the sound-blasting speakers lined every dozen feet along the top of the walls, far too many for them to take out in time.

"Retreat!" Harry commanded. The Aurors ran for the opposite end of the hangar. Harry cast a Soundproof Charm around his head – he saw his Aurors spinning their wands over their own heads, doing the same. All sound disappeared – Harry was now functionally deaf. He couldn't hear the sonic weapons above him, or the gunfire behind him, or his Aurors in front of him.

When his Aurors suddenly stopped, Harry didn't understand why, until he saw the spark of several bullets bouncing off his chest. More soldiers had entered from the other end of the hangar. His Aurors began to fight them off, but if they didn't break through quickly, they will soon be sandwiched.

A low rumble at Harry's feet told him that the soldiers behind them had blasted through their wall. As he turned around, a hail of bullets pelted him, nearly shaving off his Barrier. Harry pointed his wand upwards – the light at the tip of his wand exploded into a blinding flash. The gunfire halted, the soldiers blinded by the bright light through their night vision scopes.

Harry began his counterattack – from his still-lit wand he fired red beams of light in rapid succession – his Stunning Spells flew straight to the soldiers' heads, knocking them unconscious before they hit the ground. Before the first man recovered Harry had already taken out half of them. Some of them dived for cover behind a jet refueler or other equipment – Harry simply arced his spell to hit them from the side. One by one, he picked them off while barely sustaining any fire.

Out of the corner of Harry's eye, he caught movement. He looked down and saw a grenade rolling at his feet. He only need a second to fling it away with his wand, but it was too late – the blast shattered his Barrier and knocked him on his back. His vision all black, body shredded by steel fragments, he heard footsteps approach and then felt bullets sink into him – two in the chest, and one through his head. He was dead.

They had the wizards outnumbered three to one, but it was still too close for comfort. Five of Jake's team was down, from a second of weakness against a single wizard. Using his grenade worked, but it was a risky move considering that wizards usually flicked them right back.

Now recovered from the blinding flash, Jake's team pushed forward to engage the remaining wizards. The wizards had managed to push out of the hangar, and were currently engaging every guard that responded to the alert. One wizard transformed one soldier's rifle into a grenade and killed two; another wizard set soldiers on fire and impaled them with conjured spears. They had downed three times their number but were slowly being overwhelmed by reinforcements.

Jake's team took cover by the hangar door and fired on one wizard in the back; it seemed to take an eternity to break through his Barrier and take him down. Another wizard retaliated with green jets of light that flew with a howl of wind; two of Jake's team dropped lifelessly upon being hit. One wizard started raising earthen walls from the ground to provide cover – reinforcements brought in rocket launchers and blew them apart. One by one the wizards were finally being brought down, but the cost was too much – including Jake's team at the hangar, only six guards remained.

Jake heard movement behind him and turned – no, that's impossible – he shot him in the head! The wizard, crawling along the floor, pointed his wand at him and shouted.

"Imperio!"

When the world returned to Harry, the first thing he saw was his blood spattered on his cracked glasses. Wordlessly, he flicked his wand and they were clean and restored. His shredded legs were still regenerating, so he turned over on his chest to face the hangar exit. His Aurors were gunned down, laying across the road outside. There was only one way to save them –

"Imperio!"

The soldier by the hangar door seized up; the hands grasping his rifle shook violently as he fought against Harry's spell with all his might. But he could not overcome the raw power of the Elder Wand. His hands stopped shaking, and he smoothly, sharply, turned to the soldier beside him and fired. Two shots, one in the chest and one in the head.

The soldier across the hangar turned at the sound of the gunfire. "Jake, what are you doing?!"

He aimed to the yelling soldier and shot him, too. He then advanced out of the hangar to the three remaining soldiers, who were approaching the Aurors to execute them. He opened fire and killed them.

When he was done, the soldier slowly lowered his rifle, hands shaking. Harry stood up on his regenerated legs and ran to the nearest Auror.

Tribett's whole body was riddled with wounds, but thankfully, no headshot. With immediate healing, he will able to recover.

"Can you Disapparate?" Harry asked. The shrieking of the sonic weapons behind them was distant now, not able to interfere with the high concentration needed for them to teleport to safety.

"Tch. What do you think?" Tribett gingerly twirled his wand in the air and vanished with a faint cracking sound. A few more of Harry's Aurors managed to retreat on their own, finally recovering enough from their sound-induced migraine to Disapparate. Those that were unconscious or in too much pain, Harry cast the Disapparition Spell on them, sending them to medical attention. Thankfully, none of them were fatally wounded.

After evacuating his last Auror, Harry walked up to the soldier he dominated, pointed his blood-stained wand at him, and ordered him to kill himself.

The soldier turned the barrel of his rifle to the underside of his chin. His hands were shaking more violently than ever, and tears were rolling freely down his cheeks. He stared straight into Harry, breathing heavily through clenched teeth. In the soldier's dark eyes, Harry saw a shattered man. Death would be a kindness.

With an ear-ringing din, a rain of bullets fell upon Harry's regenerated Barrier. Reinforcement soldiers were closing in from all sides. The sudden attack made him lose focus, breaking his control over the last soldier. The soldier pointed his rifle at him and opened fire, not caring about the danger of ricochet. Just as his Barrier gave way, Harry turned on the spot and Disapparated. He landed in the middle of the Entrance Lobby of the Ministry of Magic.

He did not Disapparate properly; only his head, right hand and torso made it, but it was enough for him to regenerate on the correct side. He was also shot full of bullets, but he couldn't feel them. He also couldn't feel what should be the excruciating pain of his bones and flesh regrowing; all that filled his mind were the bodies of the soldiers strewn across the camp, and the face of the soldier he dominated, staring at him like he was…like he was a monster.

Devon, England was once a beautiful county. It was covered in lush, green farmlands and rustic villages, dotted with quaint, cobblestone houses that Jake didn't think existed anymore. But if he looked out one of the tiny bulletproof windows of the APC, he would not see that Devon. The countryside would be pockmarked with bomb craters, so thoroughly that the craters overlapped, almost no green to be seen around the blasted loose soil.

It has been thirteen months and two weeks since the war began in the United Kingdom. The earliest clear hostilities between humans and wizards started a couple weeks earlier in one African country, followed quickly by the rest of the continent. For a week, the media didn't understand who the belligerents were, until July 9th, 2021, when the Russian government enlightened the world to the existence of magic and ordered the capture and execution of the Russian Ministry of Magic. The Russian Cabinet had broken out of domination by the Russian Ministry, and they intercepted communications that corroborated the intelligence of other countries; it indicated clearly that the International Confederation of Wizards had used mind-altering magic to control world leaders and key figures in business and media. After that, the world was on fire.

The Russian Ministry annihilated the Kremlin and was currently engaged in endless skirmishes against the Russian military. The Chinese government currently had the Chinese Ministry on the run across its vast countryside, but suffers constant guerrilla attacks on its military bases. In the Middle East was anarchy, with dozens of groups of humans and wizards warring against a dozen other groups of humans and wizards. The U.S. government forced MACUSA – the Magical Congress of the United States of America – to surrender six months ago, and the military was currently supporting its allies to defeat their respective wizard governments.

Until the war, wizards lived in secret among humans in small enclaves. When the war started, wizards either left their homes or occupied the town or village they lived in. They concealed these wizard strongholds with illusions and mental magic. However, concealment did not make these places invulnerable, and their concealment magic could be dispelled by carpet bombing if one could identify their general location. Devon was home to a significant network of wizard villages, and Jake and his team were now approaching one such village.

In the cramped, dimly lit space of the APC, Jake's team engaged in their pre-battle chatter, taking bets, psyching each other up. As a captain and squadron leader, it should be his job as well, but Jake was never a great speaker.

"Hey, why can't we ride this thing straight to our target?" asked Andy aloud.

"Same reason we're not getting tank support," Jake answered. "Tanks on a street are just giant targets waiting to be transfigured into teapots. You want to be in a teapot?"

"No, sir,"

"Wouldn't the teapot just shatter against us?"

"That sounds bad. Trolls, gargoyles and wizards I can handle, but what if the teapot cuts my face?"

"You'll finally look good enough to date a troll,"

Their APC stopped at the threshold of the village. Jake searched for some final words to give before moving out.

"Remember, cover doesn't last long against wizards. Keep moving and keep shooting. Let's move out. Hooah!"

"Hooah!"

Jake opened the rear door and his team of Delta Force operators moved out. They split into three teams of three and fanned out to secure their current position. Jake joined the first team and scanned the nearby buildings for threats.

The wizard village of Godric's Hollow was half destroyed. The village had a magical barrier surrounding it that prevented entry and attacks. When bombers broke through the barrier, some excess bombs fell through and levelled the buildings. Such a thing was unavoidable as the strength of every magical barrier was different. Most of the buildings, rows of gable-roofed residences, were half-blown to rubble, the street littered with shattered wood and broken bricks. In between some destroyed buildings were lots that were completely empty – those belonged to wizards that managed to evacuate their entire house via teleportation magic. All the wizards that lived in this village should have evacuated long before the bombs started dropping. Hopefully no one in this village was too stubborn to leave their home.

The goal wasn't to kill wizards. It was to force the British Ministry to surrender and have them order all wizards to surrender their wands to the British government. Wizards needed their wands to cast nearly all magic – the dangers they were capable of with them were simply too great to go unregulated. This was the only way to ensure safety for all.

Their current mission was to search and rescue a CIA undercover operative, then join the main force that was securing the village. Jake looked down at his commander's digital assistant for the location of their target. The screen of his blocky handheld computer showed a satellite image of Godric's Hollow. A blinking dot showed the current position of the agent's cell phone by GPS, inside a red-roofed house down a street to the northwest. No change in position from when they deployed from base – not a good sign.

"Let's go," Jake's team took the lead, with the other two teams covering them from either flank. In the distance down another street, Jake could see U.S. infantry breaking down doors, clearing what buildings were still standing. They reached the red-roofed house without incident. The back half was blown apart by the bombing; the rest of the house looked ready to collapse from a strong breeze.

"Looks like a trap," said Andy.

"It probably is," replied Jake. "Earplugs on in case of mandrakes,"

After putting on their earplugs, Jake and his team climbed up the porch. The dusty front window showed that the room was empty; all the same, they stacked up against the front door. Jake touched the hilt of his sheathed cold iron survival knife. It was hot to the touch; there was definitely a lot of magic nearby. On Jake's silent count, they burst in.

It was an ordinary sitting room, dark blue wallpaper, mostly wooden furniture. Everything was too neat and in-place for it to have recently suffered an aerial bombing. There was a single cell phone lying on the ground in the middle of the room.

The front door swung closed the moment the last of Jake's team entered. Then a cloud of sawdust shook off from the corners of the ceiling. The ceiling started lowering on them, about an inch per second.

Benjamin kicked on the front door, but the simple thin wood did not give way. He fired his weapon on the bolts and hinges, but the bullets bounced off the wooden door frame like it was tank armour. "Fuck! It's a trap!"

"Checkmate 1; the building is a trap. Checkmate 2 and 3, get us out of here!" Carlos yelled into his radio.

Jake could hear the sound of gunfire from the radio. "Checkmate 2, we're both ambushed! Five wizard militia, all around!"

Jake's team continued ramming at the front door and window, with no effect. Jake strode forward and picked up the cell phone. It was perfectly clean – not even the smallest speck of dust or smudge on its surface.

"Jake, what are you doing?" yelled Andy.

"Shut up, I'm thinking," The phone and the entire room was spotless, so it must have recently been cleaned with a stack of cleaning spells. The only reason for that would be to clean up the trap after killing its victims. If so, there must be a charm that detects when there is no more life in the room so the trap can reset. Autonomous spells are usually contained in an artefact, and it had to be somewhere in the room, as well flat enough to survive the trap.

Jake looked down at the floor. Under his feet was a large red rug. Jake got off the rug and lifted it – underneath it was a single photo. Jake picked it up; it was, most likely, the photo of this house's family, a middle-aged couple and their young daughter. Like all wizard photographs, it moved in a continuous loop; the family shifted slightly in place, beaming up at Jake.

The ceiling was a few inches away from his helmet. If Jake destroyed the photo here, it would seal his and his team's fate. Instead he took the photo to the far end of the room, as far from the front door as possible, and placed it there on the ground. He ran back to his team with the ceiling pressing on his helmet.

It worked: the ceiling started to slow rise back up. They were now out of the artefact's detection range, so the trap was assuming they were dead and resetting.

"When the ceiling's back up, get out and engage!" Jake shouted. The moment the ceiling stopped moving, the strengthening charm on the house walls lifted. Benjamin kicked open the door and all of them charged out – into the middle of a battle with the wizard militia.

Two of Jake's second team were firing from the side of the house, with the third member lying wounded behind the stump of a tree.

Jake spotted silhouettes of blurriness on the street – Disillusioned wizards, appearing camouflaged against the street. Jake opened fire; the camouflaging charms broke and their bullets ricocheted off the Barrier Charms of two revealed wizards.

Jake's team focused their fire on the nearest wizard. Their rain of fire tore through his Barrier and peppered his body. The other wizard spun on the spot and Disapparated before his Barrier gave way as well.

"Keep moving!" Jake yelled at both teams and jumped off the porch. Suddenly, a roaring ball of fire, glowing orange materialized on top of the porch. It dropped and exploded in an enormous blaze, spitting out smaller fireballs in all directions. Jake and his men were flung several feet by the blast.

After that came the mandrakes. Flower pots materialized out of the air and smashed on the ground, the nearest one just a foot from Jake's face. Squirming in the mound of dirt spilled from the pot, was a brown root the size of a baby, but shaped like a wrinkled old man. It flailed its tiny arms and screamed – immediately Jake's brain felt like it was crushing into itself. If he hadn't been wearing earplugs, he would have died instantly. Jake rose off the ground and stomped the mandrake's face. His vision swaying, he and his soldiers shot down the other mandrakes before their combined screaming could knock them unconscious. When the street fell silent, Jake pulled off his earplugs and breathed deeply, trying to steady his mind.

"Jake, are you crazy? Put them back on! What if there's more?" cried Carlos.

Jake heard a soft, nearly inaudible 'crack' sound from behind and above him – the unmistakable sound of an Apparating wizard. Jake swerved around and fired at the roof of the trap building. The wizard lost concentration and his spell fizzled from his wand. Jake's team joined fire and punched through the wizard's Barrier, killing him.

One more wizard Apparated onto a rooftop, but Jake's troop was ready for him. They split up and fired on him from three different angles – the wizard's Barrier soon broke, but he fell off the roof out of sight. Jake ran to the other side of the building after him.

"Jake, stop!"

He spotted the wizard limping away; he was in too much pain to Disapparate. When the wizard spotted Jake, he pointed his wand at his feet and bounded through the air, trying to make distance. Jake chased after him, onto a different street.

"Drop your wand!" Jake shouted, his rifle aimed at the wizard. Jake didn't want to kill him, but he wasn't going to let him escape either. The wizard paused, then turned around and pointed his wand; Jake's rifle exploded in a shower of shrapnel, and the force knocked him on his back. Shards of metal sliced through his face and neck. One dug into his left eye, blinding him on that side.

Jake raised his bleeding head and saw with his remaining eye the wizard waving his wand, preparing to finish him off. Jake fumbled for his pistol and opened fire just in time – he emptied his magazine into the wizard, and he dropped dead.

His head getting light, his vision growing blurry, Jake forced himself up and knelt over the wizard's body. He dug into the wizard's robes and pulled out a vial of green liquid. He uncorked the vial and downed the potion in one gulp. Immediately he could feel his bleeding stop as the blood clotted over his wounds. It would take a more advanced potion for his eye to regenerate, though.

A hissing sound loomed from behind him, growing steadily louder. Jake didn't turn back – he stood up and ran forward as fast as he possibly could down the length of the street.

A gigantic serpentine shadow covered Jake and grew larger and taller, swaying left and right. It was going to strike any second. Jake saw the monstrous shadow rear back – he leapt to the side just as it lunged. The ground shook and cracked as the giant serpent smashed into the concrete. Jake kept running and rammed his way through the door of the nearest house.

The basilisk's head broke into the house after him, sending splinters of wood bouncing off Jake's back. Jake ran through the sitting room, saw what looked like the basement and rammed through it. He tumbled down the stairs and pushed himself to his feet. There was a second of relative silence, only the sound of hissing from above. Then the basilisk's head smashed through the ceiling, the top of its head right before Jake, its jaws big enough to swallow him whole.

Jake closed his eye shut – one glance into the eyes of a basilisk was instant death. He then unsheathed his cold iron knife and leapt onto the snake's head. He plunged the magic knife into its dark green, armour-like scales – the knife's blade grew hot and sunk deep. The basilisk roared and rose its head high. Jake swung in the air, held only by his grip on the knife. He gripped his boots on the top of the monster's head, and scrambled around his vest for his CDA. Opening his eye, he searched for the right track, and played it at the highest volume possible. It was the crowing of a rooster, barely audible over the basilisk's roars. The crow of the rooster was fatal to the basilisk, but only at point-blank range. Jake brought the CDA close to one of the basilisk's ears – immediately the great monster emitted a scream louder than any other.

The basilisk thrashed its head and whipped its entire body in a frenzy, flattening nearby buildings to rubble. Jake's knife slipped out and he fell several dozen feet to the wooden floor. A wave of cracking bone shot through his body, his head rang inside his helmet, his eye saw only stars. With a final anguished cry, the basilisk's head fell to the ground and it moved no more.

Jake remained lying amongst the debris, mostly because he was exhausted, but also because his spine was broken. The Healing Potion he took earlier wouldn't be enough to heal it fully, but his medic should have a couple more stolen ones.

A minute later, Andy walked up to Jake, sporting some burns in his uniform, but otherwise fine. He gave a low whistle at the dead basilisk.

"Damn. Now I remember why you're in charge,"

Jake started pulling out the rifle fragments that were lodged in his arms and neck. It was quite painful, but the wounds clotted over again quickly. "What about the other wizards?"

"We managed to take them out,"

"The agent?"

"Team three recovered her. She was hiding from the wizards in another building. She helped us take out one of them,"

"How many injured?"

"Five injured, but nothing serious. No casualties,"

Jake breathed a lot easier. Someone came hurrying over the debris of the house, dressed in black wizard robes, but carrying a pistol. She knelt beside him with a horror-struck look.

"Jake, are you okay?" she said, staring at his blood-stained uniform. "Oh God, your eye,"

Jake recognized her voice, as well as her face. "Valerie? You were the agent?" Now he realized she was wearing a black wig. "I didn't recognize you in the mission brief. I thought the agent's name was –"

"Fake identity, obviously," said Valerie. She pulled off her wig to reveal her usual gold blonde hair, trimmed to a short pixie cut with long side-swept bangs. "Are you okay?" She repeated.

"I'm fine. I took a Healing Potion,"

"Oh, good," Valerie sighed in relief. Then she shoved him roughly in the chest.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" she shouted furiously at him. "I saw you. You ran off after that wizard. Did you try to fight him by yourself? Are you crazy?!" She shoved him again. "You don't engage wizards by yourself! You know what 'team' means, captain? Did you skip basic training?"

"I'm sorry," Jake coughed out. "I thought I could catch him,"

"Sir, if I may voice my opinion," said Andy. "I think the lady is right. We're Delta Force. It'll take more than five wizards and a basilisk to kill us. Have more faith in us,"

Andy and Valerie got on either side of Jake and carried his limp body up from under the arms. They met up with the rest of the troop who escorted both Valerie and Jake to the field hospital. Once they were in safe territory, everyone was able to relax.

"Damn, I knew basilisks were big, but damn. I didn't even see it, but I could feel its size!"

"More meat for everyone tonight,"

"You think it tastes better than regular snake?"

"Jake can tell us after he takes first serving,"

Jake cracked a smile. "Sure, but only if you guys roast it first,"

A day later, and Godric's Hollow was on its way into becoming a forward operating base, with earth-filled gabions and guards being placed around the perimeter. From here, they would be able to strike at the other wizard villages in Devon, and take back any towns and villages the wizards captured. This was in general what the U.S. and U.K. military planned to do all over Britain, until the wizards surrendered.

Jake was able to stagger around on his feet, but his left eye would need another day to become usable again. He hid it under a medical eye patch to spare others the sight of a half-grown eye. He hobbled his way before the ruins of a cottage at the very end of one long street. The cottage appeared to have gone through decades of disuse before it was completely flattened by the bombing; the hedge fence was overgrown, the gate was more rust than iron, and what grass was not under rubble was overrun with tall weeds.

A wooden sign stood beside the gate, and with golden letters it described a significant event in wizarding history:

On this spot, on the night of 31 October 1981,

Lily and James Potter lost their lives.

Their son, Harry, remains the only wizard ever

to have survived the Killing Curse.

This house, invisible to Muggles, has been left

in its ruined state as a monument to the Potters

and as a reminder of the violence

that tore apart their family.

What free space not filled with these letters was littered with scribbles, apparently from other wizards. Some were names, some were initials, and some were messages. These messages were words of encouragement. 'Good luck, Harry, wherever you are.' 'If you read this, Harry, we're all behind you!' 'Long live Harry Potter.' All these vandalisms appeared decades worn, except for one: 'Harry Potter will defeat you.'

Harry Potter. Head of the Auror Office, the department of the most highly combat-trained wizards in the British Ministry of Magic. A hero of two wizarding wars, who defeated a powerful dark wizard when he was seventeen. He owned three ancient artefacts, called the Deathly Hallows; as long as all three are on his person, he cannot be killed. Wizard newspapers dubbed him the 'The Man Who Lived', 'Master of Death', and the greatest hope of Britain's wizarding community.

You're not a hero. You're just a man. A man who made a terrible mistake. That mistake was not killing Jake when he had the chance. And someday, somewhere, Jake was going to make him pay for it.

Jake didn't hate him because he killed his friends. No, they were at war – he was killing his friends as well. What he hated was that he made him do it. In their last moments, his friends were hurt, confused, wondering why he had betrayed them. He will never forgive Harry Potter for that, as much as he will never forgive himself. So many soldiers have resisted the Imperius Curse – they were able to shoot themselves before hurting their friends – but he couldn't. He betrayed his entire team by not being strong enough to fight the Curse. The least he could do as penance was kill the other man responsible.

"Captain Jake Tanner,"

It was the adjutant to his commanding officer. Jake turned to face him. "Yes?"

"CO would like a word with you. He's in the church,"

Jake hobbled his way back to the town square. In its centre was a stone monument that was blasted in half. It was two pairs of legs, one in trousers and another in a skirt, seated on a bench. The town square had several shops, a post office, a pub and a little church, all in varying states of ruin. The pub was cleared out though, and soldiers were moving in and out, some of them carrying a large roll of basilisk skin, jerry cans labelled 'venom', or a pig-sized block of meat.

Jake entered the church; the sanctuary had a few soldiers seated in the pews, praying. Lieutenant General Anson stood up from the seat nearest to the entrance and approached him.

Jake saluted the Commander of Delta Force. "You wanted to speak to me, general?"

He was a tall, tanned man with balding grey hair. "Yes. How were the interviews?"

Most of Jake's morning had been taken up answering to reporters who wanted to hear details of how he managed to be the first person to slay a basilisk single-handedly, and before it could take any casualties.

"They were okay," Jake couldn't come up with more to say; he wasn't a great speaker. The reporters who interviewed him had to ask many leading questions to get the dramatic story they wanted.

"Good to hear," the general replied. "But that's not why I called you here. Follow me," He led Jake through a side door, a short hallway, and into a small office. It had some ordinary items; a wooden desk, table lamp, and a stack of papers in a letter tray. The human residents of Godric's Hollow used this church before the wizards occupied it, booting the residents out. Thus the desk also had some less-ordinary items; an empty owl cage, rolls of parchment and a round mirror, plate-sized, made of polished black material.

He touched the hilt of his cold iron knife to feel if it was giving off heat. It was slightly warm.

"We already swept the area for magic," said Anson. "There should be no traps or spying artefacts in here," He picked up the black mirror and showed it to him. "Except for this. I took this from Diagon Alley. You know what this is?"

Jake looked into the mirror. Though the reflective material was dark and spotty from age, he could make out his reflection: a twenty-five year-old Caucasian man, one grey-blue eye, and dark brown hair in an inch-tall crew cut. Over the shoulder of his reflection were dark, misty silhouettes drifting about; men in wizard robes holding wands, they filled the space behind him, more than Jake could count.

"It's a Foe-Glass. It's a magical artefact that shows you your perceived enemies, and their image grows clearer the closer they are,"

"That's right. With artefacts like this, the wizards here were able to evacuate the whole village before our planes even got close," Anson put the Foe-Glass down and sat behind the desk. He leaned back in the leather chair with an air of tiredness. "Sit down, Jake," Jake sat opposite him.

"Ten minutes ago, I received news that wizards have occupied another village in Devon, and have already relocated and concealed it. Most likely, those wizards were the previous occupants of this village,"

Jake had expected this news. It was a pattern repeated for thirteen months now in the United Kingdom. It was the same in the U.S. until the CIA managed to infiltrate the base of the Magical Congress, capturing their leaders. It was only with the aid of goblin magic that they were able to thwart the Congress's defensive barriers, concealment charms and warning magic.

The general continued. "We tell the media that we're winning, but it's not exactly true. We're spreading thin across the country, and we're not winning any battles. Any base we have, including this one, can fall any second to a real attacking force, not the five wizards you fought who were disorganized, probably deserters. Wizards can move far more easily than we can, so we're losing more resources than they are in this cat and mouse game,"

"We need to enter wizard villages without triggering their warning magic and capture their leaders swiftly, before they have the chance to Disapparate. The goblins can help us with the first part, but only a few men can penetrate the barriers at a time. So these men have to be capable of fighting wizards in equal or even greater numbers," The general pulled himself straight in his chair, his bearing firm and serious.

"And so, the United States Army is inviting you to join an experimental unit. A unit of soldiers who will willingly infect themselves with lycanthropy,"

Jake's fists tightened.

"Lycanthropy is pretty much exactly how we know it from folklore. Once infected, you will gain the ability to transform into a half-man, half-wolf. You will have increased strength, senses, reflexes, endurance, and regeneration. If you lose an eye, it will regenerate within a minute. Your body will gain an innate resistance to magic; you will take half the impact of most spells. You will gain a strong resistance to mental magic; you will be nearly impossible to control or brainwash,"

"So this was how the CIA managed to overrun MACUSA's base," said Jake. So other units have already been given this offer. His heartrate was steadily rising; it was getting harder to contain his excitement. "Why did it take this long for this to come to Delta Force?"

"There were a few obstacles,"

"Like my father?"

"Yes. In fact I'm likely jumping in hot soup by offering you this behind his back. Also, there was the concern that you were once under the Imperius Curse and may still be under control, though you have already cleared all tests for mental alteration. We're offering this to all of Delta, and reorganizing those who are willing into one squadron. If you accept, you will be commander of that squadron,"

"…I see," Jake began thinking about who in his squadron would be willing to become a werewolf. Because it was more than simply enhanced physical attributes and magic resistance.

"I've told you the benefits – now I must tell you the price of becoming a werewolf," The general leaned forward, his fingers laced over the desk. "You will be more prone to anger, especially as the full moon approaches. And when angered, you will begin to transform. Transform fully, and you will lose all control of yourself, and attack every living thing in sight. On the full moon, you transform fully regardless, and have to be locked overnight in a reinforced strongroom. Finally, you can forget about marriage or having children. You will be feared by your friends, family, and other soldiers. You will be a monster to both humans and wizards,"

"Both?" Jake echoed softly.

"Yes. Even wizards are terrified of werewolves. At half-morph, you can face one, even two wizards on your own. A werewolf's abilities are fuelled by his anger – it's possible that we don't truly know how powerful one can be,"

Jake remembered the night he killed his own squad mates. He remembered that fight several times a day, and now the memory rose vividly to him; his weakness, the shock and confusion in his friends, staying on their faces as they died, and the man with the lightning-shaped scar who couldn't die.

"…I accept,"

Lieutenant General Anson leaned back in his chair. "Take some time to think it over. The curse is irreversible,"

"Frankly, general, it doesn't sound like much of a curse," Immense power and magic resistance at the cost of alienation and being locked up once a month? It sounded like a decent deal.

"I think so, do you?" The general murmured darkly. "Out of the classified number of men we've given this curse, ten have gone berserk and had to be put down by their own teammates. Most of them prefer to stay locked up in their bunks between deployments. Some of them refuse to see their own families ever again. All of them volunteered to wear ankle monitors while on leave, prepared to inject them with basilisk venom if they ever fully transform,"

The general pulled his chair forward and stared directly into Jake's eye.

"When I say you will be more prone to anger, I don't mean PMS-level testiness. I mean who you are, right now, will cease to exist. Once you become a werewolf, managing the monster inside will be the only thing you ever do with your spare thoughts. This is a curse we are offering only to our most disciplined operators. To be honest, you almost didn't make the cut, Jake,"

Jake met his superior's withering gaze with perfect stillness.

"I've made my decision, general," said Jake firmly. "I'd like to begin learning to control this power as soon as possible,"

"Very well," The general pulled out a knife in a leather sheath. The cross guard and pommel were silver with dark brown leather grip. It looked like an art piece compared to Jake's tactical-style cold iron knife, but Jake did not doubt its viability.

"This goblin silver knife is currently imbued with werewolf saliva. You can keep the knife, imbue it with something else," The general stood up and offered Jake the sheathed knife.

"Remember to always keep your anger under control,"

Jake stood up, accepted the knife and unsheathed it. Unlike the black finish of his cold iron knife, the silver blade gleamed like a mirror. It had the exact same bowie-knife profile as his cold iron knife; the goblins who forged both knives for the military clearly intended them as part of a set.

Jake thought about what he had to lose by taking this curse. He couldn't come up with anything. Any friendship or relationship he had, he had lost after that night; he cast them away and shrank into himself. He was the perfect candidate for this curse.

I have nothing but my life to give. He sliced open his left palm.

Jake had every bone of his ribcage broken once and contracted dengue fever during an exercise in Thailand; what he experienced now was like both at once, multiplied by ten. His blood was boiling under his skin, his bones creaked and twisted, the room spun and swirled. Jake staggered on the edge of falling over. He felt something inside him – his soul maybe – warping and mutating, changing forever. He looked at his palm and saw only blood on unbroken skin. He ripped off his eye patch and picked up the Foe-Glass – his broken eggshell of half an eye was mending; it was fully healed a second after he held up the mirror.

He was growing taller, lankier, but his muscles felt a hundred times stronger; he could break the artefact in his hand with two fingers, which were now clawed. His hair was turning grey with more growing about his face; his teeth had become pointed.

The general looked shaken, Jake could smell his trepidation – had he never seen a transformation before, or never seen one like his?

There were more shadows than before inside the Foe-Glass; they swarmed and filled every speck of space behind his reflection. And not just wizards, but humans as well. Soldiers, civilians, politicians in suits. Everyone. Now the whole world was his enemy.

But that didn't matter to him. There was only one enemy Jake had in mind.

If it's the last thing I do, I will kill you, Master of Death. And when he did, he will be extremely thorough.