/* AN: So I guess this didn't come out as soon as I had hoped to get it out, life caught up to me. But it's out now! So, yeah! I know last chapter ended kinda oddly, but I needed a place to end the chapter before it ran even longer than it did. I like to keep chapters around the 2k-3k word range. Anyways, new chapter! Here goes!
*/

May 2, 1863
Chancellorsville, Virginia

James walked out of the meeting with President Davis and the other Generals happy with the progress he'd made in the meeting. He'd managed to talk Davis into creating a corps for freed slaves, and use a draft system that for every ten slaves owned, an owner freed one for the new corp. These freed slaves would, in theory, fight harder for their freedom, which would remain after the war.

Davis finally agreed on the provision the new "Colored Corp" would be added under James' command. That decided on, the rest of the meeting went smoothly. General Lee would remain in the West with a good chunk of the remaining troops to combat the suddenly effective General Grant, while Beauregard would lead his troops to combat the rampaging General Sherman, who was starting to destroy his way towards Atlanta. General Tonks would join James in a mission to fight their way North towards Washington DC and take the North by the throat and end the war. The combined troops fighting their way North would be under James' control and the Colored Corp would join them when they fully formed.

James and General Tonks, who told James to call him George if they would be working closely together, made their way to James' tent for further strategizing and for him to release his life debt to the younger man. They entered the tent and James laid out maps marking troop positions.

"Whiskey?" he asked Gen. Tonks, who accepted. "Alright, so let's talk life debt. Believe it or not, this exact situation happened earlier in the war, in my defense of New Orleans with a Frenchman actually. I'll tell you the same thing I told him. My adoptive parents found me with a note saying that I would return to the year 1998 if all goes right with the ritual my parents did to send me here. My resolution with him was to have an open-ended marriage contract. I assume that's the way you want this to go?"

At a nod from the older man, he continued. "Right, we crafted an open-ended marriage contract for James Jackson to marry a daughter of the house in question if the daughter was within a year younger than me and five years older than me. The contract was then put into the Gringotts vault in my name in Richmond, and when I claim that vault when I return to the 1900's, the contract would be activated, assuming a daughter of the house of Tonks meets those requirements. Is this a suitable conclusion?"

"It is, although I am slightly concerned that someone other than you yourself would be able to claim that vault and the contract."

"That should not be an issue, sir. The vault is under blood locks, and since I'm the only person between now and when I return to my time that has my blood, it will not be claimed between then. In addition, I have informed the goblins that I will be returning to my time, and they will maintain my vault. In theory, I should have returned in November of last year, but I think the binding on my magical core when I arrived have delayed my magical maturity, so the goblins know I could up and disappear any day now."

"Delayed magical maturity aside, that sounds acceptable to me, shall we get that written up?" Gen. Tonks asked James.

James nodded. "I even have a wizard in my support staff that was a lawyer, and he wrote up the other contract, so he knows how to write a good contract. Is that acceptable to you?" At a nod from Gen. Tonks, he continued. "Alright then, let's start planning. Can you call in your officers? May as well involve them in this?"

Gen. Tonks saw the logic in this, and each man called in their supporting officers and James invited his spymaster, who was the first to speak once James opened the floor after explaining the purpose of the meeting.

"Well, as these maps show, the Union troops that aren't with Grant and Sherman are under the command of Gen. Buchannon, and they are mostly concentrated in Gettysburg. Lincoln has sent them messages ordering them to hold there for the time being, and we've spliced into their telegraph lines and given fake messages to further that effect. In essence, the heart of the Union army is sitting on their thumbs waiting for an attack there."

James spoke next. "They may be sitting there, but they have a good position to sit there and wait for us. For the positons I can see here, they've been arrayed on the high ground, and we'd have this large field to traverse before we could get to them."

The leader of Gen. Tonks' cavalry, a guy named Pickett, offered an opinion. "Well if they gave us all that wide-open space to attack, I say we do it. They know we're being led by Gen. Jackson, so they'll probably expect trickery. They'll never expect an up-front charge into their teeth."

His suggestion was met with thoughtful expressions from the assembled officers. James was the first to respond. "That may not be a terrible idea. The problem is we're going to be slightly outnumbered when we get there, assuming the Colored Corp won't be battle-ready. If we do go with Pickett's charge, we couldn't do it right off, the men we'd send would be massacred. You do have a point though, I am know for my tricky maneuvers, and they might be expected any other suggestions?"

After another few ideas thrown out, James hit on an idea and dismissed the officers except Gen. Tonks. "George, I have an idea. As you know, the knowledge of magic users is highly restricted to those not in the know. What you don't know is that I can sense magical users, and I've formed a corps of men in my army exclusively made of wizards. They function as my special operation unit. Any mission I think may be too dangerous for a normal unit, I send them in. They can't do much active magic while on missions, but subtle magic beforehand can make a world of difference."

"What kind of mission have they been sent on, and what can they do?"

"Do you remember my victories in Shannon, Tennessee and Wilson, Georgia?" A nod from Tonks. "Those victories were mostly due to the Suicide Squad, which is what they call themselves, since once they go out on missions, they are utterly out of sight, out of mind. They have no support, and officially don't exist. The only people who know about the squad are myself and President Davis. At Shannon, they charmed themselves invisible and ambushed reinforcements being sent to the town, reducing the number of troops we had to fight by nearly a third. At Wilson, they transfigured their uniforms to look like Union uniforms, got into the fort, poisoned the well, and killed off all the officers. In the bedlam the next day, we went into the doors the squad left open and wiped everyone up."

Tonks was wide-eyed by this point. "Those are the two battles they did the most for, they almost single-handedly won those battles for me, and I'm not sure I would have won if not for them. But that's mostly what they do, ghost around and off who I tell them to. I've even got a group planning to off Lincoln if President Davis gives me the go-ahead on that plan. But that's in the past. For Gettysburg, I think we can send in the Suicide Squad and sabotage the Union troops, that'll give us an edge. Thoughts?"

"It's a damn good idea, we'll have to pick where we want them to focus. The thing we need to worry about is if this is a 'go in and kill people' mission or a 'go in and sabotage things' mission. My immediate thought is to have them go in and sabotage the cannons in the center of the line for Pickett's charge, but if we're not doing that right off, we might want to hold off. Otherwise, we could just have them go in and off as many troops as possible before they get caught. Go in with blades and just start cutting."

"The cannons thing is a good idea, and I'd thought about that too. What we could do is have them go in and sabotage the cannons, and then stay absolutely away from the center of the lines day one so they don't notice. If we don't lick them on the first day, we go with Pickett's charge and hope he smashed through their lines in confusion of the North about their cannons not firing. As to your second idea, that's a bit too literal on the name Suicide Squad for my liking."

"That's a fair point, what about incapacitating their troops through some other means? How's your knowledge of potions?"

"Almost entirely non-existent" James informed the older man cheerfully. "What do you have in mind?"

"My family has held onto a potion recipe to cause incurable explosive diarrhea, one of my ancestors accidentally dropped the wrong ingredient into a potion. We've mostly held onto it in embarrassment, nobody really wants to be known for something like that. If your squad can start mass-producing it, they can get in and drop it on food after or before they sabotage the cannons."

"I like that idea, that should be incredibly effective. Let me call in Captain Greengrass, he's one of the men the Brits sent to help us, and he leads the Suicide Squad, and get him started on brewing. I'll also have Captain Stevenridge come in to write up the marriage contract while we're at it."

That said, James called for the two captains to be brought to his tent, and he laid out what he wanted from each of them. Captain Stevenridge got his orders first, and promised to have the contract done by the time they arrived to Gettysburg, and was shown out of the tent. Captain Greengrass was given his instructions to begin brewing the diarrhea potion, which luckily had fairly common ingredients. Once it was brewed, they would start stocking it in mason jars. He was also given the instructions to sabotage the cannons, with the possibility of more orders once they got to Gettysburg and got the lay of the troops.

July 3, 1863
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

The march to Gettysburg was restful for James. They kept intercepting orders from Lincoln for Buchanon to send troops to attack the approaching Confederate troops and kept sending Buchanon their fake orders to stay put. By the time the Confederates got to Gettysburg and set up their lines, Cap. Greengrass had stockpiled a fair amount of the potion, but not nearly enough to take out the whole Union Army. James called Cap. Greengrass to his tent.

"Good evening Captain, are your boys ready for the mission tonight?" Upon receiving and affirmative answer from Greengrass, he continued. "Good man. You're going in invisible. Take care of the potion first; concentrate most of your efforts on their right flank. Once that's done, take care of the cannons in the center of their lines. Call it the center-most five cannons, any more and they'll notice. If you manage to pull that off, start replacing men on their left flank with men from the Squad. Off 'em, take their uniforms, and play good until day two. If you manage that, send one man back to me as messenger that you did it, or we're coming in for vengeance for your deaths. If you do it, when Pickett leads his charge, turn on 'em and hold 'em off, we'll send men in to back you up. Clear?"

"Yes sir. We potion their right flank. Sabotage the cannons in the center, then replace men on their left flanks. Once Pickett charges, we attack their left flank, and you send in backup when you can. How will the men attacking their left know who we are?"

"I had Cap. Stevenridge draw up these documents stating your allegiance, each signed by me personally. There is one for each of the Squad, take them and keep them close to you. Other than that, the men should know by then that you're there and on our side. I'll be personally leading that effort, since you are my men. Always know that. I want one picture with the Squad, then once night hits, you're off."

"Very good sir."

It was that easy. Captain Greengrass sent back his messenger saying that they estimated a quarter of the Union troops would be affected by the potion, the five cannons in the center of the line were spiked and ineffective, and they'd successfully replaced men on the left flank, only losing two men in the process.

The first day of the Gettysburg battle was slow. James sent a few units to attack the North's flank where, true to his word, a quarter of the Union Army didn't look so good. Once James' men wiped out those affected by the potion, he called it a day, and waited for their all-out attack the next day.

That night, James intercepted messages from Buchanon begging Lincoln for the order to retreat, and sent back more false orders telling him to stay put and fight to the last man. Chuckling himself at his duplicity, James went to bed anticipating the next day's events.

July 4, 1863
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

Dawn broke, as it always does, and the Confederacy was waiting with bated breath for their orders, rumors had broken that today was the day they would forever break the North. When they assembled, their orders backed it up: Captain Pickett would lead all cavalry units into a full-on charge at the center of the lines, while the rest of the troops would be under James or General Tonks attacking the North's left and right flanks respectively.

When Pickett started his charge, it happened exactly as they'd planned. The center cannons, which hadn't been touched the day before, failed to fire, causing mass confusion in the center lines. Pickett more than capitalized on the confusion, smashing the Union troops into even more disarray. Greengrass, as ordered, turned the Suicide Squad against the men on the flank, causing even more confusion.

As soon as Pickett hit the Union lines, the rest of the Confederate troops charged their respective flanks. James hit the Union hard just as the Suicide Squad was surrounded. Internally sighing at the predictability of this action, he idly shot the man about to stab Captain Greengrass. The two shared a meaningful glance that said they'd discuss the life-debt later, and then turned back towards the imminent death they were facing.

It didn't take much longer before Buchanon surrendered his army, and there was much rejoicing among the Confederates. New shortly afterwards came in that Grant and Sherman had surrendered, and the North had surrendered to the Confederacy, granting the South their freedom.

In the aftermath, James made sure to meet with each remaining member of the Suicide Squad, now much diminished, and thanked each and every one of them. He managed to set aside time to set up a similar contract with Captain Greengrass that he had with the Tonks and Delacour family, then met with President Davis to receive commendation for his victory.

October 30, 1863
Clarksburg, Virginia

Harry spent his birthday at the Jackson home in Virginia. Now that he was 19, he was wondering when exactly his magical maturity would occur and he would return to his time. Not that he was happy to leave the place he had spent most of his life, far from it.

His military career was on the rise, or would be if he hadn't told President Davis that he would be sent over a hundred years into the future any day now. Davis offered James a perpetual license for training with the Confederates, knowing that in the 100+ years James wouldn't be around, that warfare would change immensely. Since this was pretty much the extent of the reward he could give his most successful general, Davis offered it eagerly. Harry always kept this license on him in anticipation of the day he would be sent back to the future.

Almost as if it was waiting for him to ask, a swirl of magic descended on Harry, picking him up and sending him swirling into the future. When he landed, he was standing in the center of a large hall in an equally huge stone castle, surrounded by children. Directly in front of him was a casket, a large goblet belching bright blue flames on top of it. Standing behind a table behind the goblet was an elderly man with a long white beard and unnaturally twinkling eyes, shouting the name "Harry Potter!"

/* AN: Fin! Whoo, baby, didn't think I'd make it all the way through that one! I'm not entirely happy with how this one came out, I may rewrite parts of it later, we'll see. But Harry's back in his time, and has been chosen for the Triwizard Tournament! How will he do with no official magical education and only his military training? Tune in next time to find out! Next chapter I'll put out will almost certainly be for Marauder's Journey, then I'll come back here. My spring break is coming up, so writing will be limited, in theory. We'll see. Peace,
*/