Lightning crackled across the sky, followed soon after by an explosion of thunder. A heavy black combat boot squelched as it made contact with a puddle, spraying up rainwater behind it, and leaving a footprint in the mud.
More feet followed this one, around twenty in total, all wearing dark combat gear with bulky night vision goggles mounted on their heads, carry heavily modified weapons. The group of twenty split up at a cusp of trees, ten to the left and ten to the right, hoping to surround their prey.
The group on the right travelled along a chest high ditch, crouching low and moving quickly as the rain began to increase creating an almost torrential downpour. Water leaked over the goggles and flowed down the rest of their faces, stopping about halfway down the ditch, they slammed into the side. Covering themselves in mud, the leader of the group peaked over the top of the ditch, and saw what looked like a small encampment.
Tents stood gathered around a small bonfire, blazing desperately against the heavy precipitation, and several weary figures sat around the fire, partially shielded by awnings made of tarps and branches. To the normal observer it would just look like a regular camping trip caught out in a storm, but these were not the normal observers.
"Hunter 2-1, this is Overlord, do you have line of sight on the target?" A voice came from the earpiece of the leader, who responded with a barely audible, "Target acquired."
One of the people at the camp, lifted his head, as if hearing a small sound. And leaned to the man he was sitting next to, with long shaggy hair and a damp beard to go with it. Who nodded and stood with a stretch. As the shaggy man entered a tent, with a lamp in it, shining outwards he began to contort violently growing in shape and size.
"All teams have confirmed line of sight, fire at will," The voice ordered. Burst of machine gun fire filled the night, hitting their targets and dropping several outright before they had a chance to respond.
A massive hairy creature exited the tent, a Lycan, and began to charge wildly at the men. The Lycan's at the camp tried futilely to escape the hail of silver bullets that began to come from all sides. Some were able to change and attack the entrenched men.
The leader was pounced upon by the Lycan from the tent and his rifle was knocked away, yellow teeth barred and muscles bulging. He put his hands up to the creatures jaw and with all his strength he pushed. Managing to bring his leg up, he kicked the Lycan in the abdomen and off of him, standing he drew a bright silver khukuri from its sheathe on his chest.
Letting out a primal roar, the Lycan swiped at the man with its razor sharp claws, dodging out of the way just in time to avoid his intestines spilling out into the mud. As the creature of the night swiped at him with its left paw, he brought his khukuri up and cut off the creature's hand. It let out a yelp of pain and gripped its stump with its other hand.
He spun on his heel and delivered a kick to the Lycan's chest, sending it stumbling back, which he followed up with a downward slash to its chest. The silver preventing the creature from healing instantly.
Roughly shoving the creature to the ground he put the khukuri to its throat, lifted up his night vision goggles to stare at what he considered vermin with his own glacier blue eyes. Enjoying seeing the fear in the creature's eye's as it tried to squirm from under his strong grip. Tilting his brown haired head to the side, Allfather Prime Johnathon Thrane decapitated the Lycan and held up the pack leader's head as trophy, before throwing it into the mud.
Sheathing the blade, Thrane stepped over the body as it shifted back to its human form, several of his soldiers putting their fists to their chests in a salute as he passed. Towards where a rather thin and lanky werewolf lay, slowly bleeding out from the silver bullets in its body, a soldier drew a pistol and aimed it at the creatures head, preparing to execute it.
"No," Thrane commanded, "I wish to interrogate this one," The soldier bowed his head in respect and moved back slightly, the rest of the soldiers slowly came forward to form a semicircle around their leader.
"Casualties?" He asked his old friend, Aleks Wilson, "Three down, two wounded," He responded swiftly.
Allfather Prime crouched next to the Lycan as it slowly was shrinking back to its Human form, breathing ragged, "You're not from around here I take it, hmm?" He more or less stated. Thrane knew that it was a European werewolf, for Lycan's from the Western Hemisphere were much thicker and taller, more covered in fur.
"Fenrir Greyback will come for you, hunter," The Lycan said, a smirk on his narrow face. Thrane seemed to mull this over, "No he won't," drawing his own sidearm, a Desert Eagle, he put it to the Lycan's temple and pulled the trigger. The large caliber round devastating the side of the creatures face, and leaving a cavernous hole.
Putting his ear to the mic he said, "Ready for evac," and no sooner had he said that, than the sound of distant helicopter blades could be heard cutting through the maelstrom of a storm.
"Torch it," Two men nodded and shouldered their assault rifles, and grabbed the handles of their flamethrowers, quickly setting fire to the corpses and the encampment. Leaving no evidence for the rest of the human population to find, it would look like lightning had struck and set fire to the unfortunate campers.
As quickly as the men had begun, they were finished, and a pitch black chinook helicopter landed in the small clearing. All present quickly boarded, and the leader of the Order gave the burning encampment one last sweeping look before stepping aboard, the ramp closing behind him and the chinook taking off into the night.
-Line Break-
Harry appeared in a rather spacious fireplace, coughing at the copious amount of soot that he had inhaled, Headmistress Mataki gave a small chuckle, "Happens every time," she said warmly.
When he could open his eyes, he found himself at one end of a large hall, presumably the dining hall. The fire place stood several feet behind a crescent moon table, with higher backed chairs than the rest of the hall.
"Here is where I and my colleagues eat out meals," She said as she passed by it, Harry following close behind. Halls led off to the side, connecting to the dining hall with large graceful archways. Circular tables dotted the dining room hall, curious Harry asked about it.
"Ah yes, well due to the schools population, which is considerably smaller than Hogwarts, we have no houses,"
"And why is that?"
"Here in the States, we have about ten wizarding schools, each taking in wizards from the area they are based in, Salem Academy is one of them. Which is rather well known, unlike the Stonewall Institute in West Virginia," Mataki finished.
"Stonewall as in Stonewall Jackson, right?"
She raised an eyebrow, "I'm surprised you knew that, a history buff I take it?" she questioned.
He gave a huff of laughter, "No, my friend from Hogwarts she was, uh, fond of reading to say the least,"
The Headmistress smiled, "I see," then sighed, "The board of directors at Stonewall, renamed it to its current name after their involvement in the Civil War,"
Harry was about to ask another question as to why wizards fought in the American Civil War, but was stopped as they arrived in a large atrium, the walls covered with windows. Taking one of the staircases up, he looked out one and saw a snowy field surrounded by a low stone fence, when he looked out another he saw a beautiful beach on a sunny. He gave a small grin at the creativity of the enchanter, before following the Headmistress once more.
They arrived at a large stone mural of a wizarding battle, that was alive, like the paintings at Hogwarts, the wizards in light stone cast dark stone spells at each other. One wizard fired a spell, and struck another, the victim crumbling to gravel to the join the background of the mural.
A wizard with an eye patch ran from the background and towards the front of the mural, where he stopped and his sole eye narrowed at the Headmistress. The stone wizard reminded him uncannily of Alastor Moody.
"Password," the stone figure demanded in a gruff tone.
Mataki sighed, "Corbullo, you know it's me," She responded to the stone wizard.
"Password." The stone figure known as Corbullo said in a more firm voice.
"Axios,"
Corbullo nodded and faded into the background as the mural disappeared and in its place was a spacious waiting area, with a secretary's desk and several cushioned chairs. Beyond lay a pair of double doors, with a flick of a previously unseen wand, Mataki opened the doors as they passed through. She took a seat at the high backed chair behind the large spruce desk, Mataki set her wand down beside the nameplate at the front of her desk and intertwined her fingers.
Behind her was a large bay window that looked out over a large campus with stone benches dotting the green lawn, and large pine trees standing tall and proud. The lawn surrounded by the red brick that made up the rest of the school.
"Now Mr. Potter, while we wait for Mr. Hanret to arrive, I suggest you look over your schedule," Mrs. Mataki said as she handed him a piece of parchment. He raised an eyebrow.
"This was made up before you left Britain," She explained nonchalantly.
Harry glanced down at it, and was pleased with what he saw, he first had potions with a Professor Riek then Practical Application with someone named Colonel Loomis. From then onwards, Harry was taking Defense Against the Dark Arts with Headmistress Mataki and at the end of the day Magical History with Professor Ghant.
A knock on the door interrupted his reading, "Ah that must be Mr. Hanret, come in!" She called out. The first thing he noticed about the boy were his ice blue eyes, he stood with his back straight and head held high. The black hair on his head, was short, yet longer than a buzz cut.
"You wanted to see me Headmistress?" The other teenager asked, his voice was deep even for his age, yet it carried a degree of friendliness.
"Yes, Harry this is Magnus Hanret, Magnus this is Harry Potter,' Headmistress Mataki said.
Magnus stuck out a hand in his direction, Harry gripped it tight, and looked him in the eye. His grip was like iron and it was all Harry could do but not to wince in pain, after a moment his hand was released and it went back to his side.
"Nice to meet you, Potter," Magnus said, a ghost of a grin on his face.
"Same to you," Harry responded.
"Now that introductions are over with, Magnus would you be so kind as to show Mr. Potter around?" She asked.
Magnus nodded his head, "Of course Headmistress," he turned to look at Harry, "Follow me."
And so the new teenager led the way out of Mataki's office, and down the same flight of stairs into the atrium, taking them down a long hall with large windows dotting both sides of the walls at even intervals. Allowing bright afternoon light to stream in.
"As I'm sure you've probably seen from her office, that is the East Lawn," He said and jerking a thumb to his right, "That is the West Lawn, you're allowed to eat and go out there as long as you don't do anything stupid,"
He strode a step ahead of Harry as he moved, his stride purposeful, dressed in black slacks with a crimson jacket and a black tie. So that was the school uniform, a bit different than the flowing robes that he was used to wearing at Hogwarts.
At the end of the hall was a four way intersection and if you continued straight you would be at a balcony and from what Harry could see while they were walking past, it was situated over a large forest of pines and spruce trees. They turned left, "Northron is all symmetrical, the guy's dorms are opposite the girls and the two lawns are in between it all, so it isn't easy to get lost," he added the last with a small grin, and Harry was warming up to him already.
Northron may have been larger than Hogwarts, in square footage, not height, seeing as how the entire school was spread out and the highest floor was the second. With the only three story building being the Administration Building. The entire academy could have been pulled from 17th century Colonial America and Harry wouldn't have noticed much of a difference.
They stopped in front of another mural this time it was yet another of the eye patch wizard known as Corbullo, "Mr. Hanret, I welcome you back."
Magnus gave a small bow of respect, "A pleasure as always Corbullo," he gestured towards Harry, "This is Harry Potter, he's new here,"
Corbullo seemed to freeze for a moment, "He will be remembered." Corbullo stated, before he faded and revealed a small passageway into a spacious common room.
"Think of Corbullo as the school's security system," He asked with a look over his shoulder.
The common room was large with two halls splitting off, one to the right and one to the left, "Years five through seven are on the right, and the rest are on the left." Harry instantly felt nostalgic, looking at all the chairs and tables with sofas dotted around the fireplace. And in the corner were two pool tables, with several pool sticks in a case on the wall, which had a sign on it authorizing that only fourth years and up were allowed to play on the tables.
"You coming?" Magnus said, and Harry looked over at him, realizing that he had been staring off into space.
"Sorry about that,"
Magnus threw him an easy going look, "Don't worry about. Our dorms here are two per person, and the Headmistress has you bunking with me, roomie,"
Magnus was the kind of person that everyone wanted to be friends with, he could see that already, "Don't you already have a roommate thought? I mean it seems odd that you don't have one,"
Magnus's laid back expression faltered, before he regained his composure once again, "Well, there's a reason for that, my previous roommate now resides in Ridgewell Prison,"
Harry paled at that, "What did he do?"
His face darkened, "He killed ten people here at Northron and then turned them into Inferi,"
He winced, "How'd you stop him?"
Magnus looked down and then looked up again, "I cut his arm off."
A/N: I'd like to thank everybody who favorited, and followed this story, sorry for the short chapters but I haven't had a whole lot of time to sit down and write this past month.
Reviewers:
Arnel 63, akasanta, RebeliousOne, Kairan1979, adenoide, autumngold, and Slytherin Studios. Thank you all so much for the support.