Chapter 3
Wulf said to Severus.
"I will give you my indefinite parole; I will not renounce my allegiance to the Prince and swear to you until my daughter is safe."
"Understood" said Severus.
"I cannot understand why he would use such methods" said Wulf, helplessly.
"I have some theories if you will hear them" said Severus. Wulf nodded and he went on, "He was always reared as the prince, the heir of Grindelwald, the young Seigfried if you will; he is handsome and charismatic and from childhood doubtless had anything he could ever have wanted. He thought to join forces with – and doubtless expected to later dominate – Voldemort, and that plan was thwarted by, as it happens, Krait. He sought to regain favour with Voldemort by attacking Dumbledore using Huorns and I suspect that he either forgot or did not care that Hogwarts is a school full, as schools are, of children. The utterly selfish are often thoughtlessly callous. We drove them back relatively easily and Voldemort would have then laughed at him, if I know Voldemort. Which I do, far too well. So he consolidated in Germany and brooded on what he saw as his wrongs and watched. And Voldemort was defeated. At this point, two things go through his head. One, that Dumbledore has a power base that he can train up from childhood from his position in a school and two, that his grandmother has a twin sister who is a headmistress of a small but prestigious girls' school. That she had already failed once to take over. However, taking over Hogwarts would be even more spectacular; he does not trust Voldemort's word of how easily the huorns were defeated to he sends more. Only he can't get as many and adds his favourite werewolf troops to the mix with a couple of wizards too to oversee things. And that lot disappear too, without trace. He has people inside Durmstrang but he's not quite ready to buck several Eastern European governments yet by taking it over outright so he turns his attention to Miss Cackle's school, to the delight of his grandmother, because once in charge of one school he has greater access to information about other schools. Only Connie Hardbroom escaped. He sent hit wizards; and they believed that they had killed her and the six little girls….."
"WHAT?" said Wulf.
"There were six first years with her that she rescued; the killing curse was cast at what the Odessa hit wizards though to be them" said Severus. "Presumably they were ordered silenced. But she had already contacted us. It must have been a shock to Gerhardt to realise that there were wanded intruders in the school; and he escaped forthwith. Personally I'd lead and rally my troops but I guess the German psyche calls for all for one and one for himself. He alerted the troops that you were a part of to attack and as we did not find his body and he is still sending people to do things presumably did not lead in person there either. We killed everyone except you, as you know. Had I known that the wolftruupen leader was a man of honour I might have tried harder to keep the werewolves alive. I regret that; but it is done. A werewolf in wolf form is not a rational nor a benign being. For that, Hogwarts had to be punished, as I suspect was his reasoning; hence the erklings. As you know he came himself to watch. And ran away. Again. And then he laid plans that would enable him to take over here. It was no good taking over while I was out of the castle; for then I would still be master of the castle in absentia and the elves could legitimately come and warn me. He had to have me defeated so the elves would belong to the winner. A bit like wands. The timing was critical; when I was here with just my family before term began would be perfect. Or so he thought. Soften us up with dementers, filling the women with negative thoughts and fear for the children, hopefully the dementors would do the dirty work with their vile kisses and leave us soulless vegetables, in comes a few troops to mop up any determined resistance in case I and my oldest son have stood firm, then be ready for the girls coming back with moderately personable witches to greet them and start corrupting them to The Cause. If you are utterly selfish and don't care about people outside of yourself and those close to you, utterly simple reasoning. I've had too many children through my hands who think like that not to recognise it; catch it young and sometimes, just sometimes you can cure it. But not often. I have had too many failures to be sanguine about a cure once a child is over about five years old – unless they suffer a shock so profound that it makes the think and re-evaluate."
"I see" said Wulf.
"He's rather like Gilderoy Lockhart, isn't he?" said Jade shrewdly "All good looks, smile of the year, all squeak and no trousers."
"A fairly good summation" said Severus "His image is more important than the substance of what he does and is. And ultimately, Gilderoy Lockhart was ready to murder three children to maintain his image."
Jade considered that those of the bloodgroup they had with them was quite sufficient to produce an invisibility cloak or several; after all, the Peverell brothers had produced theirs without a bloodgroup.
"But it does cut down on the time and effort required" she said. "I'm guessing they may have had aid from one or more fey. Seagh and I will drag out the substance of feyspace and you people weave it, all right?"
"I don't know how to weave" said Hermione.
"I ain't asking for a brocaded gown with voided velvet trim" said Jade "We set up a warp of demiguise hair to tie it to this world and then make the weft of feyspace. Just in and out; simple."
Krait transfigured a chair into a loom as the easiest way to make one; demiguise hair was expensive but not difficult to get; and they did not take long to figure out how to tackle it with a single simple heddle. And then Seagh and Jade entered feyspace and danced its substance into a strand drawn by wand from its interface with the normal universe and drew it out, able to reach through so one drew and spun while the other passed it out to be wound on a shuttle and woven. The charmed shuttle flew back and forth as the heddle, enchanted to be in synchrony with it, lifted and dropped the threads.
With such it could proceed as fast as the thread was drawn from the other space.
The first cloak was a small one, enough to cover one person, just to test if it worked.
"It looks and feels like Harry's cloak" said Hermione "Doesn't it Ron?"
"Yeah" said Ron. "Time to try it, Jade!"
Jade pulled it over her.
"No parts of you visible; and even in strong light no shadows" said Severus. "Well done my dear; you have successfully duplicated one of the Hallows."
"The only one worth bothering with at that" said Jade, emerging. "Dead is dead and shouldn't be mucked with in any respect; after all if you want a chat you can always have a portrait. And wands are only as good as the wielder anyhow. Never bother with one myself 'cept for complex crap like this and any one wand is as good as any other."
"You're a bit unusual though" said Hermione "We all are I guess. Start another bigger one?"
"I need to enlarge the loom" said Krait "We could do with more of us in feyspace; give me the algorithm, Jade, and Lydia and I will come inside and double the spinning efforts, the weaving should hardly be slower just because the loom is wider."
They were working against time to get it sorted before the end of the holidays; the other children would arrive in less than a week.
But with four people using their wands to spin and the rest reaching in for it the large cloak was quickly completed.
Wulf watched.
"I really haven't got a clue how you do that" he said.
"And well you should not until we have you sworn to our side" said Severus "THEN we can invite you in fully."
Hermione shot him a sharp look; and Severus gave an almost imperceptible glance at Jade. Hermione's eyes widened. She was almost about to burst out 'but she's only a child' when she looked again at Jade working seriously to finish off the ends and sighed.
Jade was not really a child.
That night they took the three witches and the commandant, all rendered unconscious – by sap not by spell – and flew them to near the Austrian Odessa command post, high on an alpine peak and well guarded. With the invisibility cloak wrapped around them, Severus and Krait, using mobilocorpus dragged in the four unconscious and bound bodies, right over the top of the castle, past vigilant-eyed watchers, shielded at least in part too from the scenting of hounds and werewolves; and into the central courtyard. A moment's wait to check no eyes were glancing their way; then the cloak was whisked of the prisoners and wrapped more closely about the lovers.
Of course they had to watch until someone saw the bundles on the ground; they perched on the castle's walls.
And the alarm was given; and stuurmzauberern ran out, wands at the ready, pointed at whatever this threat might be.
The cries of surprise – and not a little fear – were as music; and spells were being cast to arouse the four, and unbind them, and demands made to explain how came they to be there.
"Where did you come from, baby dear? The blue skies opened and I am here" quoted naughty Krait softly.
It was a question that the group could not answer.
Moreover, it was a base that the Major had not known about, one of the reasons for their choice; he had been based at a forward base set up purely to overlook Prince Peak.
That was being destroyed at this moment by Ron, Hermione, David, Ellie, Jade, Lydia, Seag, Erich and Tala, Sirri, Dione and Beloc.
It was only a small base after all with a maximum of a platoon at any one time; and they were going by Jade's rather terrible plan of enclosing it with a dance and drawing on the power of the whole group to cast Evanesco on it.
Hermione had been shocked.
But then these monsters had sent Dementors against children; and she might easily have been there early with her little Penelope.
There is nothing quite as ruthless in the world as a mother whose infant is threatened.
Even David had been taken aback when Jade suggested it.
"You taught us about total war David" said Jade "They have brought total war to us; is it more terrible than huorns or erklings or werewolves free to feast amongst helpless children at Hogwarts had we not been hard enough to view it as little more than a slightly risky lark, or dementors amongst my infant sisters and brothers? They MUST be stopped. This is a terror tactic; we don't DESTROY the base we DISAPPEAR it."
"You are right" said David "We did not seek total war; but if that is what they want, that is what they shall have. It is a military target, a legitimate target; which is more than a ruddy school is."
Wulf, invited to the council had looked upon this terrible wonderful girl with horror and awe.
"Wulf" said Jade softly "Are there any there you would save?"
He lowered his eyes
"No" he said "Had any of my men lived and got back…. But though we werewolves were supposed to be comrades in arms we have never been anything more than tolerated and despised wand-fodder. There is nobody there."
And so they took invisibility potions to perform the enchanting dance; the darkness of the night covering any deficiencies in it, and safe in the knowledge that no werewolves survived to scent them.
And the personnel in the camp must be wondering where Major Raute and his men had got to and if there were any problems.
And the ritual progressed, possible only because of the ties of blood and love between its performers.
And then the heartbeats synchronised; and twelve voices cast the vanishing spell.
Silently, terribly the base disappeared; and a precisely circular bite of land with it.
"I guess we overdid it" said Jade; then slumped to the ground as did everyone else.
"What we need" said Ron "Is Draco to say 'that's what I'm trying to tell you kid, it ain't there any more it's been totally blown away'"
"Well you did it beautifully for him Ron" said Hermione "I'm sure he'd be proud of you."
Ron, uncertain of whether Hermione was being sarcastic or not, decided very wisely not to make reply to that!
"Does it upset the psychological advantage taking the ground too?" Jade asked David.
"No, I think it actually enhances it" said David. "it's perfectly circular and smooth. They won't have a clue how it was done. Maybe at LAST we might get a little peace."
"We'll have to destroy them sometime" said Jade.
"But not now" said David. "We don't have enough intelligence on the organisation as a whole. It really is a many headed beast mutable and….whatever else it was that Scales described the dark arts as."
"The dark arts are many, varied, ever-changing and eternal. Fighting them is like fighting a many headed monster which, each time a neck is severed sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer than before. You are fighting that which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible. Your defences must therefore be as flexible and inventive as the arts you seek to undo" Jade quoted softly, having heard Severus on it many times. "And thus it is with Odessa. We can cut them back but until we stab them in the heart each head will come back hungrier and thirsting for revenge. With this sort of scare tactic we've effectively thrown sand on the severed stump like whassiface in Greek mythology and that delays the regrowth. But regrow it undoubtedly will."
"Hercules; the Lernean Hydra" said Hermione.
"See? I don't need to learn that stuff" said Jade "We have Hermione to google for it."
Hermione fell back on the tried and tested method of reproof by poking Jade; and then she cuffed her with two fingers.
"Hmm, remarkably satisfying that" she said "I can see why Severus uses it."
There were startled mental questions from other bloodkin; and a wideopen mindmeld to show them what had been done and why.
"I shouldn't mind being a fly on the wall of Gerhardt's office when they report all this" said Severus when they got home.
"What bug the place like Rita Skeeter? Actually it's not such a stupid idea" said Krait. "Has she got out of the zoo yet, Hermione?"
"Not so far as I know" said Hermione "Did I ought to release her?"
"Do you think it'll have improved her nature and scruples?" asked Severus.
"I doubt it."
"Then if I were you I'd leave her be. Where she isn't bugging anyone in any slang sense of the word."
The next day they had visitors; and very welcome ones.
Kronprinz Victor of Belsornia, Pris, no longer Lockhart, his wife, and Franz von Mensch und Eberhardt, Victor's father and prince consort to Princess Josefina, Victor's muggle mother.
Krait kissed Pris and all the girls congratulated her, wanted to hear all about the wedding and the dress she had worn and was she pregnant yet.
Pris blushed rosily and said she wasn't totally sure yet but broom travel was making her a little queasy so maybe.
"We have, I fear, a more serious business" said Prince Franz. "We crave aid."
"As a cousin of my wife's and as a friend of Hogwarts you have only to name it" said Severus.
"I will if I may tell a story of some of my family to give background" said Franz. "It begins some two hundred years ago; or more"
Severus served cocoa so they might listen to the story in the traditional manner.
"Once there was a Prince of a magical country called Zorn, a small valley near the borders of Hungary, unplottable and its only entrance protected by a Fidelius charm" said Franz. "His name was Irun. The people of Zorn did not call him prince because they were not numerous and there was no need for titles among them. Everyone knew who the child Irun was. Including his wicked uncle, who had been banished from the land and was the reason for the Fidelius charm. Now it came to pass that a betrothal was arranged for Irun with a girl child from an Indian wizarding family and her name was Sandalla. And Irun travelled to meet her. Unfortunately his wicked uncle got wind of this and kidnapped the children; and transfigured Sandalla into a wooden doll and Irun into an iron boy, using their names to give him the idea and the magical affinity. Irun was placed on the clock of the wizard's house to strike the hour with an iron hammer and Sandalla was cast with other toys into an old attic nursery. And the wicked uncle declared that officials from Zorn were welcome to search his house. Which they did, and in vain. But he had been hoist by his own petard as they say, for the elders of Zorn declared that as there was no body found of Irun, he could not be dead and therefore was still the heir and would rule in absentia after his father's death.
"And one of the elders wondered about the iron boy; and told his son, who told HIS son, who managed to acquire the house when the wicked uncle died, embittered and impoverished, complete with magical guardians bred by magical experiments that would be illegal today. And he researched and set up enchanted conditions to allow the spell to be broken, for the enchantment laid upon them included a curse that they would remain thus in all time. So the magician curse-breaker made the clock strike thirteen; and it awoke the children but still alas! made of sandal wood and iron. The breaking of the rest of the curse was down to them; and after many adventures they reached the entrance to the country of Zorn, through a narrow tunnel in the mountains; and though neither had any recollection of their previous lives, Irun was able, because of who he was, to enter the Fidelius charm. And then they might bathe in the river in the valley that was the final breaking of the curse. They duly grew up; and married; and had two children, Alanna and Ebon. And as Alanna grew to adulthood a terribly wounded wizard, fleeing what became Grindelwald's organisation, managed somehow to stumble in at the wrong end of the valley. He was my grandfather; and he married Alanna and their son married Drusilla Malfoy. Alanna's brother meanwhile married a girl from the valley and they had four children, one of whom was their son Steele. The people of Zorn sealed their valley against intruders even more firmly to keep out Nazis and Odessa with one exception; that true refugees could see the path. Much like the enchantment of the Room of Requirements Victor has told me about. Steele married such a refugee. His only son is Irun; and Irun has but one child, a daughter, Sandalla. And it is their wish that she grow up with normal children and should meet modern witches and wizards. So I suggested she come to your school here."
"Most flattering" said Severus "We have not the facilities yet that Hogwarts has."
"No; but your school is smaller, less frightening for a girl who has led a rather sheltered life. If you will take her she has been charged straitly that she will have no concessions, that she is to be treated as any ordinary child and that she must keep her identity as the Princess of Zorn a secret. But because we have opposed Odessa in both Belsornia and Zorn – indeed once, Belsornia was part of Zorn until all those with any talent withdrew into the high valley as medieval hysteria over witchcraft reached its heights – we have enemies who would count it a coup to seize the child. We would take it as a favour if someone might escort her."
"A job I think for the Marauders" said Severus "Jade, you and Wulf have a mission first; I will ask the other Marauders to come out early and then you will all escort Sandalla to the railway station at Zurich since the link is to be completed tomorrow. You will be seniors so escorting small people will not look strange. Lynx and Fabian will retain their Prefectures too, and I am promoting Jem to join the three girls I made up last year plus another upper sixth girl and the boy who will be joining us for the upper sixth year. He has been working at home so he seems reasonable material to have as a prefect. There will also be an older new boy, Adrian Petrescu from Romania, he's been expelled from Durmstrang."
"Crumbs, whatever do you have to do to be expelled from Durmstrang?" demanded Jade.
"Telling the head that her philosophy sucked because he objected to the punishment of a house elf" said Severus. "He's asthmatic; keep an eye on him."
Jade nodded.
"I will. But first Wulf and I have a furry little mission."
It was a stiff broom ride to the secure base where the werewolf families dwelt, and only the discomfort kept their minds from the sweeter discomfort of flying so close to each other. It was a grim place, with high walls around it deep in the forest to prevent the inmates from running off at full moon.
Jade growled angrily.
"FINE sort of protection; they could set up invisible wards against the animal form that acted as well without looking like a prison!" she said.
"I have been here since I was thirteen save when I was sent on missions; and on missions we had to make the voluntary change so I remember little about them" he said "Madam Myrtle Malfoy had wounded me which started me changing; and I recalled that I scented that she was pregnant. Maybe I have savaged pregnant women before unthinkingly; I do not know. I cannot know. I – I have done terrible things I am sure. They said we were confined for our own safety….. or maybe theirs so that if we were wild and uncontrollable when they did not want us being so we should not attack them or those who would trail us….."
"Wulf" said Jade "Whatever you have done, which was moreover all unknowing, I love you. My Wulf is a gentle, honourable man; and implacable in that honour. We shall right the wrongs done to these poor werewolves here one day; and stealing them all will be one of our first missions against Odessa, this I promise."
Wulf drew her to him and held her, breathing in her scent for comfort.
"How do we get in?" he asked "It has wards and an anti apparating zone; and guards around the walls."
"Heh, we go the other way in" said Jade. "Hold me tight and concentrate on your own house; I need to legilimens a picture of it to get us in."
"You are a legilimens so young? Your father? He taught you?"
"I kind of picked it up as I went along actually" said Jade "Watching him do it….ah yes I see. Hold me now Wulf; and try to think about your house not how much we want to kiss each other. I don't want to splinch us even for your sweet kisses."
Wulf concentrated; worry for his daughter helped.
Jade checked the invisibility cloak was tight about them and used the elf-style apparition to take them directly inside.
It was a squeeze; there were two men in the little girl's bedroom but no child. One was berating the other.
"You have turned your back for an instant and she is gone, gone without trace?"
"She went to the bathroom; I cannot follow a madchen into the bathroom!"
"She is no Madchen, she is an animal, a useful asset, you should not think of them as people!"
Jade slipped her hand into Wulf's feeling him trembling in rage and disgust next to her.
"Well we shall have to try to find her; surely she cannot have got out of the compound?"
"You are wrong, idiot! There was an alert when one of the guards did not report and he had been confunded and wandered off into the forest looking, he says, for pretty flowers of all things!"
Jade grinned.
Irmi sounded a resourceful little maid!
"It cannot be more than a day at most…. I reported when she did not come out of the bathroom. It is not my fault that my report was not followed up immediately" said the less important wizard sulkily.
"What is missing? What of her clothes?"
"Well she took nothing but a neat pile of a change of clothes in to the bathroom; as is reasonable" said the under wizard. "Her school trunk is here. I do not understand; surely she would wish to obey the colonel and seek for her father?"
"I do not understand it either. Her dossier says she is devoted to Hauptman Luytens, insofar as these animals can be of course. Hauptman! If you ask me giving them ranks shows too much favour to them. Her orders were specific; find and release him and report on the dispositions of the enemy. What could there be in that to make her run off?"
"I do not know sir. Shall I join the searchers? I know what the brat looks like after all."
"Yes do; and may you find her you dolt or I shall know who to blame!"
Both wizards left; and Jade looked out of the window to see them out of the house.
Then she sprang the lock on the plain school trunk.
It was full of Prince Peak uniform. Jade did a quick search.
"Clever girl your Irmi" she said "She's coming to find you anyway; but NOT under their orders so she does not have to choose between duty and personal wishes."
"How do you know?"
"Because she has enough uniform with her to pass muster at the train station" said Jade "Trust me; I'm a schoolgirl. I know exactly what kit one has; and how much one might need to not look out of place. Where she is now I don't know but the day after tomorrow she'll be where they least expect her – Zurich train station."
"Should we trail her?"
"No. Yes, but not to pick her up. Safer for her if we're not involved. But they'll use hounds; why don't we confuse the scent as two perfectly ordinary wolves?"
"I like it" said Wulf "But I am scared for her!"
"The most dangerous bit was getting out of here" said Jade. "I reckon she slipped that soldier something so he dozed while she was supposedly bathing. NICE touch to confund the wizard on guard; she has a wand with her for protection and the German authorities are laxer about under age wand use so she doesn't have to worry about using it in self defence. I think Irmi's just fine; and I have bucketloads of respect for her. Had you a secret place to leave things?"
"Only the wolfbane potion."
"Check there; and see if she has any. Full moon the night after we get back" said Jade.
Wulf lifted a floorboard in the bathroom.
"It's all gone" he reported "There's a scrap of paper!"
He reached in and opened the note; for note it was.
"Daddy; they say divination revealed you are alive. They believe some English professor might be doing experiments on you. They want me to find you but I shan't play their games. If you aren't a prisoner of the English I've gone to the English school they now call Prinzhorn and I am looking for you there. I have potion so they need not find out I am a werewolf and experiment on me. I love you daddy."
Wulf sobbed.
"That's a very good little girl you have there" said Jade softly "We'll keep her safe. Now let's slip out and confuse the dogs."
Wulf nodded.
They apparated out again and Wulf was quickly able to pick up his daughter's scent; and they ran along side it until it came to a river. Jade barked happily; and they turned to run along the river bank, which scent any hound was likely to follow.
And they found a place that could be lair; and waited for the baying of the hounds.
And let the hunstmen see them as they ran slipping between the trees.
"Just a pair of ordinary wolves!" he said "Freidl, your hounds are useless!"
"I can't help it if they can't tell werewolf from wolf-wolf" grumbled the dog handler. "Let's go back to the brat's last known position and try again."
Wulf and Jade apparated back to where they had hidden the cloak and the brooms – up in a tree – and returned to Prince Peak to report.
"She could have taken any one of a number of routes" said Jade "we can't cover them all; and I would not wish to as our own presence is more likely to alert the searchers. If she does NOT turn up at school we assume she has been caught and go back in some force looking. She's safest left to her own excellent devices, though I know that has Wulf climbing the walls."
"I should be too if it were Jade or Lydia" said Severus looking sympathetically at Wulf "Even knowing how capable they are!"
Wulf nodded.
"My head knows that Jade is right" he said "My heart yearns to be out there searching."
"You shall be on the train my friend" said Severus "And when she gets on you will have much to catch up with."
"Thank you" said Wulf simply. "I believe she will be there; and I hope you scheduled in those German lessons I am teaching."
"Of course; I have every faith in the ingenuity of daughters" said Severus.
