Chapter 10: A Brewing Storm

Daniel Jones suppressed a yawn and pinched his thigh, hidden under the desk he was sitting at, to keep himself awake. He was sitting in the third row in the small classroom, listening to an instructor go on about proper police procedures to secure evidence. At least he knew now why the tv shows always skipped that part - it was boring. Of course he understood how important it was to catch criminals, and how a single mistake could mean a case would never get solved, at least not without magical means. It was still a lesson more boring than Magic History ever had been. At least the Goblin Wars had had some action, if one read the books. And if not one could sleep there, and miss nothing. He wished, not for the first time, the instructor would add examples from the field to his lesson. Or that he could use a dictapen, instead of taking notes by hand. Sometimes he wanted to curse the Statute of Secrecy… especially when everyone treated him as a cadet from a backwater town, and not as the Magical Law Enforcement officer he was. Granted, he hadn't been an MLE officer that long, only since the Revolution, but he had done good work since then, caught a fleeing blood purist by himself on his first day, before they even had the correct uniforms. If he heard the term "wait until you start working… if you make the cut" one more time…

Sighing, Daniel took more notes. For all his - silent - whining, he was a dutiful officer. That's why he had been selected for this assignment, after all. The Magical Law Enforcement Division needed people who could pass for police officers, and could work with them, and knew what they had to offer. And - as the rumor went, Minister Granger had personally added that to the mission goal - could work on creating magical equivalents. But the main goal was to prevent criminals from abusing the divide between the magical and the non-magical world. As an investigation following a few statements under veritaserum during the Tribunals had shown, far too many magicals had been very apt at committing crimes in the non-magical world and using magic to hide any evidence of it - often helped along by ministry policies. Daniel's face grew hard. He knew what kind of sick crimes had been covered up by obliviators, all in the name of keeping magic a secret and their pockets full. As long as non-magical people were the victims, the Ministry had not cared at all. But they had paid, all of them. With their lives. And once he had finished his courses here, he'd do his best to make sure it would not happen again.

A faint smile appeared on his face. Not so long ago he had been just another muggleborn who had been refused entrance into the auror corps despite his grades surpassing five purebloods who were accepted, and who had been looking at either getting a menial job in a shop, or return to the normal world as a drop out without any skills. And now he had returned to the normal world as a full-fledged law enforcement officer, and one who could make a difference. And he was not the only one. A friend and former yearmate of his, Jennifer-Anne Wilkinson, was taking lessons in criminology. Jerome the class clown - though not on par with the Weasley twins - was learning how to handle police dogs. Daniel focused on taking notes again. He didn't want to think about the rest of his friends, killed by Death Eaters.

Albert Nott closed the door behind him and threw his suitcase on his couch before removing his tie, cursing the small strip of fabric. Just his luck - Wizarding Britain decided to join the 20th century, dropped robes and pointed hats, but replaced them with suits and ties. Ready-made nooses, in his opinion.

He grabbed a beer from the fridge and sat down in front of the tv, his take-out food on the small table, the smell of curry filling the room. Another day spent in Magical Britain, a place he hadn't wanted to return to, ever, once he understood just what fate he had escaped when he was 11 and his Hogwarts letter had not appeared. His father would have killed him, he knew. Had planned to, even, but then the Dark Lord had been defeated, and his father couldn't risk a dead squib son while people were still wondering if the Imperius defence would hold. So he had been dropped off at a muggle orphanage, one "used to dealing with squibs". He snorted, remembering - yes, they were used to dealing with kids who had no clue about the muggle world, and no ties to the magical world anymore. They had been dealing with them in the same way for generations - by shoving them into the army, where they didn't need much of an education and would get killed in some backwater colonial skirmish.

Well, Great Britain had mostly ran out of such colonies. He had missed the Falklands, but had taken part in the the Gulf War. As a ground pounder, and not one in the special forces, he hadn't seen much action though. But he had been accepted, had his place, his life. No wife, but then, he had been young. Still was, he reminded himself. And a wife meant kids, and kids meant possible wizards. Could he stomach having a son who could cast spells, while he couldn't, would never be able to? He shoved the thought away, returning to the past.

And then the Dark Lord had returned. He remembered the times, reading the newspapers. Realizing what was happening. Getting a Daily Prophet in the Leaky Cauldron whenever he was in London - which was not often the case. Wondering what was happening. Wondering about his family, his cousin Theo, wondering if one of them would show up at his door, ready to "restore family honor". And then the war had ended, and the stupid wizards had celebrated openly again.

He had finished his meal, and pulled up some paper for the report to his handler. Officially, he was taking part in some exchange of information with the Ministry for Magic, to create lines of communications in case there was a need for close coordination, one day. Unofficially, but with the blessing of the government, he was to gather information about the new regime, especially its weaknesses. To him, raised in a scheming pureblood household, it looked like someone on the muggle side was preparing for a coup. It suited him fine - he was not fond of any wizard, muggleborn or pureblood. Purebloods wanted him dead, muggleborns had gotten what he had wanted, had needed, just out of pure luck. Not that he had seen many hidden weaknesses so far, they mostly lacked numbers, but what they had were decently organized. A number of them had muggle military training even, obvious to him in how they spoke and acted.

He paused in describing the structure of the fast response teams of the MLED and glanced at his suitcase. Maybe he should reconsider his indifference, seeing as he was the legal heir of the Nott family. He had a stake in the magical world now. But he didn't know, yet, which side would serve his interest best, so he'd play a waiting game. He snorted at the irony - for all his hatred for his family, he would have fitted into Slytherin just fine.

Ron was happy. Tired, exhausted, but happy. For the first time in his life, he had found something he liked more than Quidditch. Well, apart from food, and girls, of course. His mother would be angry, once she'd find out, his father would be intrigued, and his brothers confused. But he liked learning how to really fight more than Quidditch. And he was better at it too. Not that he was bad at Quidditch, mind you. But he was really good at combat and tactics. Really, really good.

He wasn't the best wizard. He was no slouch with his wand, but he hadn't the skill of Hermione, or the raw power and instincts of Harry. But damn, he was good at fighting, muggle style. Real fighting, not the brawling most wizards thought of when they heard the word. Muggles had the thing down to a science, or an artform. And he was loving learning it. Despite the work involved. If Hermione could see him, reading ahead of the class - well, course. It wasn't a class. Just some special lessons by some experienced soldiers and instructors. And physical training. And exercises. And shooting. Sorry, marksmanship. He loved it. And he got better at it each day. And in better shape too, if he said so himself. He thanked Oliver Wood again. If not for his crazy training schedule, which his successors had kept up, he'd not be able to survive the physical part. Well, he'd survive, but be in much more pain. He'd still love it, though - shooting was just so much fun!

The only thing more fun than shooting was leading. He loved directing an exercise, positioning soldiers, planning and executing a battle. It was like chess, only much better. More vicious, more exciting, more alive. No rules to hold him back. Any limit was a challenge to overcome. And most of all, no silly rules like "no lethal spells". Muggle fighting was all about killing the enemy before they killed you. He was fine with that.

Sometimes he thought his wand was useless, given just how far those rifles could reach, and how fast they could spit out bullets that tore through most shield spells. Not through Harry's, of course, or Hermione's, and his own would stand up to fire as well, but most wizards couldn't cast a protego that could hold up to a 7.6 mm full metal jacket bullet fired from a battle rifle at a range closer than 100 meters. And sustained fire went through eventually, or made the shield collapse. That had been a discovery everyone had been talking about, even the muggles. Especially the muggles. Ron had loved teaching his teachers a thing or two, it had felt good to show them what he could do. And he had gotten to see and shoot more firearms. After hearing about machine guns - heavy machine guns! He couldn't wait for that lesson! - Ron could understand his father's love for muggle things.

Though he also understood that his father never really saw how frighteningly effective muggles were at what they did. Especially at fighting. His dad still had the "for non-magicals, they do well" attitude so many wizards shared, but Ron wasn't sure even an Auror Squad, if they still existed, would fare well against the lads that were teaching him and his mates. Throw up some anti-apparition wards, and some way to block or spot invisibility, and it wouldn't even be a contest.

Ron blinked, then pulled out a notebook. He had finally started to use them, after being told that he couldn't use parchment and quills or damage his cover, not that there was much of a cover, his instructors were all squibs, married to squibs, or had family members who were muggleborns. It had galled him to admit it to Hermione (and the girl had not let him forget it since) but she had been right, they were more handy than what he was used to. He made a few notes about possible combined arms tactics.

If a wizard focused on neutralizing apparition and countering disillusion spells, then muggle soldiers could beat enemy wizards easily. Unless of course someone started throwing around Confundus-spells and Imperiuses. Protecting muggles against those would be the first priority of any wizard. But apart from that… maybe some way to mark invisible targets with colored markers that floated above them. A copy of the charm on Moody's eye should see through most invisibility devices. Combine them, somehow, and it would be a shooting gallery. That left the anti-muggle wards though. One would need a way to break those quickly, or a whole squad would suddenly break off and return to base. On the other hand, those wards had a pitiful range, compared to rifles, much less artillery. Maybe a wizard spotter got close, concealed himself, and used spells that marked a target so only muggles using infrared goggles could see it, leaving the soldiers to kill from further away...

Ron chewed on a sandwich - another good thing: No one was commenting on his appetite here - and wrote down a few more thoughts, before closing the notebook and picking up a book from his shelf. He had to finish a paper on small unit tactics in the Vietnam War.

Antoine Malfoy - of the French Malfoys, not the English branch, not that there was an English branch anymore these days - the representative of Magical France to the International Confederation of Wizards, schooled his features. He almost looked bored, despite his tension. This was an important moment, possibly the most important moment of his time at the ICW. The delegate from Wizarding Britain, Alphard Stanford, was about to speak. Antoine sneered internally. Technically, he was the former delegate - his own Ministry had recalled him, on the grounds of his actions during the Second Blood War, what the English called that insurrection by the half-blood upstart Riddle. Of course Stanford, who had had some quite damning views of mudbloods, as Antoine had found out at a late dinner with lots of his best wine, had not returned, and had sought asylum, on the grounds of being persecuted for his pureblood status. That had made some waves in the usually quiet institution - also because no one was sure if the ICW could even grant asylum. But nothing came of it - not surprisingly, the British mudbloods didn't understand how important the ICW was, and had not made more of a fuss. Again, not surprisingly, since they were not just mudbloods, but English mudbloods. Even the Prussians and the Russians had more brains than those.

While Stanford was going on about the evils of the mudblood regime in Britain and their crimes against pureblood maidens, Malfoy glanced around. It wasn't important, other than to drum up sympathy in the press. Stanford should know that, one of his predecessors had tried to drum up support for the fight against Riddle with similar arguments, without any success. None of the American delegates cared a bit about the fates of the English. The various North American States were still more concerned about the slavery issue. Even after two wars they hadn't settled that yet. Malfoy himself was, of course, all for the enslavement of mudbloods, but it wouldn't do to voice that - not with France doing so well by staying neutral in that currently cold conflict. Wizards had long memories, and the North American Wizards never forgot who had helped them win their independence from Britain, even if they had forgotten that originally, they had seceded because Wizarding Britain - in a fit of typical English foolishness that had, sadly, infected most of the rest of Europe back then - had banned slavery. Of course, the shamans of the Native American Magical Nations wouldn't get involved in anything at all that didn't directly concern them, and they had their hands full in keeping the conflict between the North American Magical States alive, so they couldn't unite and clear up some of the old issues between them and the shamans, permanently. There was a reason there were no native American Magical Nations left east of the Mississippi.

South and Central Americas were in a similar state, though not over slavery - none of them ever gave that up - but struggled for control over the magical nexi the different Magical Conquistadores had taken from the Aztec, Mayan and Incan wizards they had murdered. He glanced over at the representative of Magical Spain. A non-entity too, Magical Spain had lost most of its wizards to the Americas due to the Inquisition - only Italy's wizards had suffered worse, without a conveniently depopulated magical continent to move to - and Spain's Ministry was now mainly trying to make sure the ever-present idea of Reconquista, meaning, the return of the motherland into the fold of the True Magical Spain in Exile, was not becoming a reality.

Asia too, was mostly occupied with their internal struggles, between India, China and Japan, and no one had ever offered the Australians membership. Antoine still had to shake his head at the foolishness of the English wizards, trying to colonize that continent. Africa… well, there was no Magical Africa, apart from Northern Africa, which was nominally under the rule of the Sultan, or whatever faction in his harem was trying to rule. Not any more, not since those foolish primitive tribes had tried to use magic to throw out the muggle colonialists. The ICW was usually quite slow to move - unless the Statute of Secrecy was threatened like that. After the fatal fate of the magical tribes in Africa no one had tried to follow their example. Not even Grindelwald had threatened the Statute of Secrecy.

Antoine grinned. And the Great Punishing Expedition also had netted Magical France, Prussia, Russia and, sadly, Britain, vast amounts of suddenly unpopulated magical areas. Some were even nominally independent now. Part of his own family's wealth had come from looting the fabled City of Gold. It had gone a long way to refill their coffers after the theft by the English Branch. Privately, Antoine and his family had cheered when he heard of their executions, at last a good thing to come from the English, but officially of course they were appalled by the murder of their family. Their anger had turned real, unfortunately, when the mudbloods had confiscated the estate of the British Malfoys, and had not returned the wealth to the French branch of the family.

Stanford still hadn't finished, even though no one but the press was listening. Not even the Supreme Mugwump. Antoine glanced at Herbert Steiner, the Prussian representative. Prussia had been the heart of Grindelwald's realm, and its muggleborns and half-bloods the core of his forces. The Bavarians had been, at best, followers, and the rest of the German states didn't really matter, their mudbloods and half-bloods had flocked to Grindelwald, who had been promising them equal rights and a place under the sun, before throwing them at the Russian Wizards, where they bled, and then at France, where they died. Antoine had toasted Dumbledore's death. That English bastard had stolen France's triumph. French wizards, admittedly with help from the infamous Russian War Wizards, had stopped Grindelwald, had turned the tide, been ready to invade Prussia and the rest of the German states, and then some upstart English teacher arrives, and defeats his old friend Grindelwald, and everyone hails him as the saviour? Antoine had lost three uncles and both grandfathers in that war, and his family had lost three mansions and one estate.

At least Prussia had been too scared to suffer a "Punishing Expedition", now that their Dark Lord had been defeated, and had been too happy to demonstrate they had learned their lesson, toting the ICW line better than anyone else. Unless things changed drastically - and he knew none of the purebloods currently in power in Prussia had changed - they'd not follow his lead. Magical Russia of course, represented by Igor Romanov, had been behind the mission from the start. And where Magical Russia went, Eastern Europe followed - willingly or not. At the same time, the Scandinavians would keep their distance from anything Russia was involved in, but then, the times of Viking Berserkers were long past. No, this day would see France and Russia show the world why purebloods ruled.

Stanford had finally finished, to weak applause mostly from relief it was over, and Antoine stood up to take his place. The fool still hadn't realized that no one here really cared about the fate of British purebloods, wizards so weak and stupid, they had let mudbloods take over. No, there was only one thing that could move the ICW to act - or at least to let nations with more spine and esprit act - and that was the Statute of Secrecy. Antoine, who would have gladly invented a threat to the statute - one could not let mudbloods inspire more mudbloods, Grindelwald had shown how dangerous those beasts were -, could still hardly believe that that English scum actually was about to break the statute. They were training muggles in magical combat, even, instead of obliviating the animals!

"My fellow wizards..:" he began, his voice dripping with concern and sincerity, "... we face a threat unheard of since the time of the Great Punishing Expedition. Those muggleborn who have taken over Wizarding Britain not only persecute and murder pureblood wizards in an attempt to stamp out our traditions, no, they are recruiting muggles for their goals! They are training muggles to fight wizards! Not even Grindelwald went that far, for all his evil deeds!"

At his silent prompt, his aide and nephew cast a spell and wizarding pictures showing muggles - or mudbloods, he didn't care, they showed no wands - in muggle uniforms patrolling Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade and arresting students in Hogwarts. A pensieve was a wonderful way to capture pictures of events one could not openly take pictures at, worth every galleon he had paid for it.

Murmurs rose - mostly from the european representatives though. It seemed the asians were not that concerned, though the Americans were somewhat livelier now. Antoine was fine with that. All he needed was the official mandate to deal with this threat, the rest France and Russia and their allies and vassals could do alone. Could do better alone, even - more spoils for everyone that way. After Riddle's uprising and the murder of the purebloods, the mudbloods were too few and too weak anyway, to oppose two great nations whose wizards had been in a real wizard war, against a real Dark Lord, not some half-blood pretender and the weak fools who followed him without realizing that he was not even a pureblood, much less a lord.

To his anger, Prussia opposed his plan, and managed to get enough votes to change his proposed mandate from countering a threat to the Statute of Secrecy to investigating a possible threat to the Statute of Secrecy. Antoine glared at the Prussian delegate. It was a minor obstacle, the mudbloods were about to break the statute, and decisive action would be needed quickly, but if Prussia had finally grown a spine again… that could be trouble in the future.