August was going to be a slow month.

Not that Harry expected anything else. It seemed that whenever something, or someone threatened, it always started on a Halloween, or thereabouts and ended in June, in some climatic way. His fathers answer to this was it almost always happened that way. You start with some introductions with the new flavour of villain in September, who really didn't get into it until Halloween, and went until Apocalypse season in June.

Xander told them that he actually speculated, when younger, that the school year was as it was not because help was needed on the farm, but so that kids would have someplace to be safe during the lean months of the year for the supernatural villains. After all, like bears and other hibernating animals, humans had the summer to 'fatten up' so that they were tasty when other food stocks were getting low. Except for a few unusual ones, all of them took vacation at the same time, usually to spawn.

Willow, who was eating with them, had said it was because of the equinox's and solstice's, and since, in the northern hemisphere, the Summer Solstice was the longest day and the Winter Solstice the shortest, that demons, vampires, and big bads were following migratory patterns.

Xander countered with the fact that it was only in recent history that they could travel like that.

Willow countered with portals, apparition, magic circles, etc.

It was really getting to be a huge debate when Dawn put an end to it by stating the origin didn't matter, only the result.

This settled the matter as they started to discuss more important things, such as schedules to improve their magic over the month. Willow had insisted that Jedi training be put aside temporarily as they had to be in a magical environment. Xander disagreed with that, and had wanted to intensify the training, especially as it concerned planes and their jets. He wanted them to build a couple of simple astromechs before they left for Hogwarts for the year.

Dawn rolled her eyes as the argument started again, "Enough! Both of their training needs to continue, and you're going to do it properly. Four hours of Jedi training, four hours of magic training, relaxation time, and if they want, two hours before bed for them to build an astromech."

"But," Xander started.

Dawn glared at him and he settled down.

Willow pouted, but agreed, seeing there was no way around it. "In that case, I want to give you two a hint for tomorrow training."

Hermione, always willing to learn, perked up. "What is it, Aunt Willow?"

Willow smirked, knowing that they would not take this well. "Everything you've learned about transfiguration is wrong. With what both of you know, you should be able to figure out the first rule of why it is wrong. I'll let you sleep on it and you'll tell me your answer tomorrow."

The two kids were not happy with this as transfiguration was their best subject and it showed on their faces. There was a slight difference between the two faces a moment later. Hermione's had an intense look of concentration while Harry's was worried.

Voldemort paced in his temporary headquarters, quite angry at what he'd learned over the past couple of days.

In an attempt to keep his Horcrux's safe, he decided to go and get them and better protect the items. Unfortunately, he didn't have many left. He couldn't get into Hogwarts to get one, the Locket was missing, and presumably destroyed, the ring in the Guant shack was missing, the cup had been turned over to the demons, and the diary was carelessly used by Malfoy, which only left Nagini.

This meant that Nagini had to be protected at all costs as he had no idea of the fates of the four of them.

It also meant that he had to have another way to protect himself from death.

Unfortunately, there were now very limited ways in which to do so. He had already split his soul into seven parts, so another Horcrux was out of the question. He'd see what Wormtail could come up with on the Muggle side of the equation.

Which brought his anger back.

How had the muggles gotten so powerful? Admittedly, they had power, as was evidenced during the second world war, but to advance as far as to have defenses against giants and many other species was far outside his imagination. He should have never ignored them for the conquest of the magical world.

Still, Bellatrix had come through, in a way. She had managed to steal one of the planes that converted into a giant. Something called an F-15, which matched. There were slight differences, but not enough to matter, it was obviously a more streamlined version of the same plane. Now if they could only figure out how it worked.

Raw material collection was going well, if slowly. In order not to draw attention to themselves, the minions were taking a bit from here, and a bit from there. Never too much at once, and since it was done globally, especially from junk, there wasn't as much of a trail to find. He needed enough to duplicate the aircraft and the space carrier he decided on for them.

Training in how to use them would come later.

Still, none of the people he could recruit would have any idea of the technology, which meant they would have to come up with a way to magically reproduce everything needed. That meant he needed researchers, and the best ones would probably be on a hellmouth. Unfortunately, that meant probably crossing swords with demons, which wasn't in his interest at this time.

Sighing disgustedly, Voldemort took one of the books pertaining to his new enemies to read.

It would be a long night of research.

Willow was somewhat chipper when she started the morning with her two students, "So, did you think about what I said?"

Harry shrugged, "I can't see anything wrong with it. Transfiguration is simply changing one thing to another."

Hermione nodded to that, "You need to keep in mind what it is that you want things changed to and from to have it done. The wand movements help with that, as do the incantations."

Willow smiled, "Both right and wrong. Right in the fact that it is one of the easiest skills to learn, and that you do need to keep the images in mind. Wrong in what the wizarding world thinks it is. Let me ask you this. Does it take more power to make a permanent transformation than a temporary one?"

Hermione answered this easily, "More power, and a different subset of spells."

"Wrong!" Willow almost sang, "You see, the magic of transfiguration still follows the laws of physics for the most part. A temporary transformation takes at least twice the amount of power as a permanent one."

Harry scowled, "How is that possible?"

"Wizards have overlooked the sciences, so they only think in terms of macro magic, not micro magic and so limit themselves. If you had the proper imagination, and understood the cells of wood to say the steel of a pin, then it takes less energy to cast the spell for a permanent solution if you transfigure one to another. By concentrating only on the macro magic, you only put generalizations. This in itself could become permanent very easily, except for one thing. Macro magic depends on forcing energy into an object, so you make a detailed planed copy of the original object on the ethereal plane, and power the energy through so that after a given period of time, it will change back by powering a reverse transfiguration."

She smirked, "The spells you learned to do permanent transfiguration mean that you are destroying the copy that is stored in the ethereal plane. To put it in terms of science, you have rendered a computer copy to the buffer and now the buffer is letting you keep the copy until a timer runs out where it runs the reverse program. As you can see, it takes twice the energy instead of doing it properly by thinking about the cell structure, atomic bonds, and how the atoms are arranged. You're still doing macro magic for the most part, since most people can't think to that exacting a detail, but if you concentrate enough, you use less energy for the same spell."

She pulled out two matchsticks, "You've already had some biology lessons on wood, and with building the planes, you should have learned some metallurgy, so lets start by letting you relearn the proper way to do transfiguration."

Harry's and Hermione's jaws were dropped as they had never even considered this explanation.

"You, my boy, are a fool." Fudge told Draco as he led him towards his home. "I thought you had been placed in Slytherin, the home for the ambitious, smart, and cunning?"

Draco glared evilly at the man. "I was. And I show the best of the house's traits."

Cornelius stopped for a second and then slapped Draco on the back of the head. "Then why don't you use that?"

Rubbing the back of his head, Draco said, "What?"

"You're ambitious. There's no question of that, but you're ambitious for someone else, not for yourself. I wouldn't call that a quality of Slytherin. Cunning? I haven't seen that, what I see is a boy that still cries to his parents the first little thing that goes wrong. Smart? If you had been smart, you wouldn't have listened to Doloris. I sent her to Hogwarts to get rid of her, not for her to continue to meddle in my business."

Draco blinked, "Uhhh..."

Cornelius slapped him on the head once more.

"Stop doing that!" Draco shouted to the former minister. The man that he was indebted to for helping to release him.

"Then stop sounding like an idiot. Every time you make that sound, you make yourself look more and more foolish. Not that it will hurt your reputation."

"I'll have you know that the Malfoy's are an Ancient and powerful family." Draco growled, almost going for his wand.

He was hit on the head again.

Draco pulled his wand, and promptly had it smacked out of his hands. "Wha.."

Cornelius hit him on the head again. "I'll keep doing that until I smack some sense into you. There's no way that you will survive in the political arena with that sort of brain."

Dumbledore stared at the ring that lay on his desk. He had managed to retrieve the Gaunt family ring, and had recognized the stone in it, but he was wary. His first instinct, upon seeing the stone was to put the ring on, a decision that he left as he pondered. Too many of his assumptions had been proven wrong in the past month, and it was time that he stood back and really considered instead of doing.

It was only with that pondering that he realized the ring was a trap. An almost irresistible trap to a grown person as opposed to the trap that the diary Ms. Weasley wrote in was to a teenage girl. Truly, history was repeating itself as the ring was an incredible object of power that could sway minds without it having to do so.

If he had not heard, or read the story of, the One Ring, then he would have fallen prey to this.

He handled the ring delicately, and put it into a box which he then sealed. Handling such an artifact was far beyond his abilities and understanding, although he would not have considered it a month ago. No, the ring and the stone would be turned over to the White Witch, with the request that the stone, once broken of the Horcrux enchantment, be turned over to Harry.

He then pulled out a ledger and considered for a moment, before adding a new history class that would be mandatory for all Hogwarts students, and that would study and consider all the lessons in the history that had been uncovered by Professor Tolkien.

Buffy was, in a word, bored.

It seemed everyone was having fun but her.

Xander and Dawn were teaching the potential Jedi and keeping track of their children.

Willow was messing about with politics and playing jokes on them.

Even Faith was off with her new partner Staypuft.

Well, Faith was sort of easy to figure out, and with a name like Staypuft, well, it conjured too much to the mind.

She didn't come alone on this adventure just to continue training the SIT's. She wanted action! It had been so long since any demon would even cross her that she felt rusty, and this was an opportunity to beat a big bad.

But the Big Bad wasn't co-operating!

Instead of attacks to respond to, it was walking around, keeping the peace, and answering questions with 'jedisms' up the wazoo.

Well, there was nothing for it.

Grabbing her credit card, she took a portkey to Diagon alley and from there went out into London. She had shoes to find, and fashions to browse. Perhaps go to a few of the demon clubs and see what was happening. There had to be SOMETHING to fight.

Of course, people stared at her as she walked down the streets, having forgotten to take the Jedi uniform off.

The scene when she got to the bar, however, was priceless.

They laughed.

It ended up with one bar table split in half thanks to her lightsaber.

They shut up fast.

The bartender groaned, "What are you doing here?"

Buffy smiled sweetly, "Just came by for a drink and some information."

The bartender, a rather pudgy looking white haired male known as a Hoffmanite who was from another dimension scoffed, "Girl, I like you and you like to fight as much as I do, but could you keep the damage down? It's not New Hong Kong, you know."

Buffy waved it off, "Ah, I'm bored. There any real action happening?"

The bartender's eyebrows drew together, "There are rumours of some terrorists, regular kind, not mystical so you might not want them. There's someone stealing a lot of steel and wire from the junkyards, no idea who, but it's enough to float a battleship. Vamps have taken a complete powder in Britain since Willow became public here, although there is a rumour of some Polgara down by the river."

Buffy smiled and took her drink, "Do you have a list of all of these? I think I may look into a few more things than normal."

Godot grinned, "Only if you have room for someone who knows some tech. It's been years since I was a detective, and I want back in, even if I won't be going out in the field anymore. Beside, it would be nice to get back into space."

Buffy laughed, "Ok, Buck, I'll put in the word."

A week after having started this learning, Draco was not having a good time learning politics as Fudge wanted. What good was giving in to some position when he was in the right? So you squeezed something small out, so what? It just made you weak.

"Do you understand now Draco?" Fudge said calmly after going through the lesson.

"No! It makes no sense. How could accepting something small lead to more? I see no practical applications for this!"

Cornelius laughed, "Oh, so you want a practical lesson now, do you? What do you know about what happens in the Middle East?"

"That there's nothing that we need or want." Draco said.

"Wrong. There's a lot that we want, so we need to know the local politics, and the local politics revolve around fighting, fighting, and more fighting. To get what you want, you play the various oppositions off on one another, accepting small things, until they come to you wanting more, and you demand even more than they considered if they don't want you to pull your backing." Cornelius answered.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, lets take a look at how we work with Gringotts on this. You should know that they have in their employ curse breakers to investigate tombs in Egypt. Egypt was a place of war. Lots of wars, and lots of interesting artifacts lost. The place has a history, and there are lost spells, gold, and other valuables that we want.

"To get them, the Ministry and Gringotts worked together to quietly supply groups of mercenaries. They were not officially on the Ministry or Gringotts payroll, but they were instrumental in keeping waring factions out of the country, or stirring up factions outside of the country. By the time the country was stable, it depended on these mercenaries staying in place to help keep the peace. If we pulled them, the whole area would dissolve into war again, and the mercenaries wouldn't be there to cause disturbances between others in the region.

"Well, the Ministry wanted spells and magical artifacts. Gringotts wanted gold and magical artifacts. Seeing the situation, Gringotts, with the help of the Ministry, negotiated a treaty which left us with more than 80 percent of the gold, 90 percent of the magical artifacts, and all of the spells, with Egypt only getting the mummies and a few scraps of information here and there. In other words, we got what we wanted by playing the smart long game, instead of the stupid we take what we want. It was less costly, and it gives us a hammer to hold over them."

"Now," Fudge said, "Since Egypt is a prime example of the lesson you're now learning, can you say it has no bearing on what you need to know?"

"The President of the US on line 5 for you sir," the secretary said.

"Thank you. I'll take it in here," the PM responded. "Ah, Hello Mr. President, what can I do for you this fine day."

"Can we skip the pleasantries? There's something going on in your country, and it's causing some concern over here." the President replied.

"Oh, I don't have any special projects going. At least not one that I'm prepared to talk over the phone about."

A snort was heard, "I understand that. No, just a bit of a warning for you about some of my people. They've been observing some test flights via satellite, and they keep telling me the test flights disappear. And that you've developed the Optical Camouflage to an outrageous stage."

The PM frowned, "We haven't been testing any technology like that."

"Look, I know one of my predecessors promoted the 'Star Wars' plan, but this cloak is going a bit too far. I've seen the pictures."

"Oh that!" the Prime Minister said understanding. "No, that isn't an optical cloak, those are actual aircraft."

The President began sputtering.

"Yes. Quite. The aircraft that you saw in those photo's have already been revealed to the public over here. It's part of a local competition to develop new technologies, and combine them despite whoever comes up with it. Boeing and MacDonald Douglas haven't contributed, but they are going after normal air technology rather than outlandish ones."

The President sputtered out, "You mean you've managed to create an actual Falcon?"

"As I said, outlandish technologies." the Prime Minister laughed, They're using ramjets to get the thing to work, and they hope to eventually go to space with it."

The President groaned, "I can see this going over well with the Pentagon."

Now laughing out loud, the PM said, "Well, wait until they go for the X-prize. That should put some fire into civilian space development."

"You realize some of my people will want a 'black ops' to obtain the thing, or to have it classified so far it will never see the light of day."

The PM stopped laughing, "It's a civilian project, technically. The government is not funding it, nor have we had a hand in building or development. The people involved are part of the Jedi Order, and they do have rights and status over here."

"Jedi? Are you out of your mind?"

"No. In the last census there were enough people to have them be officially recognized as a proper religion. I will admit that they are a tad enthusiastic, but if any Black Ops teams interfere, I'm afraid it will become a diplomatic incident with all the Commonwealth countries, and the Queen is quite willing to back the government in this."

There was the sound of rubbing, and the President continued, "Well, I'll see what I can do. And I do have some time coming to me for a vacation later this month."

"You want to see it fly in person."

"Hell. Anything to get out of the office for a while, and seeing someone making a bold statement that Science Fiction can be Science Reality is enough of an excuse."

"Ah com'on! I found a place that will be fun. We can go get a few drinks, through back, and relax." Faith was pleading with her partner.

Staypuft made an adamant noise, pointing to some of the controls. Specifically the ones dealing with space maneuvering and the weapons controls for the missile system and laser turrets.

"One night! That's all I'm asking here. We have a month before we need to get this ready for a space trial.

Staypuft sighed, "You're just going to keep bugging me until we go, aren't you?"

"Hey, it's just in town nearby. We're not going off the London, and we'll be close enough if an alert comes that we can just pop back here easily enough." Faith argued.

Shaking his head, Staypuft stood up. "Ok, lets go. We have to get back to this tomorrow because the others really want the cannons to work."

"Ah, what could happen?"

"Only two weeks left before school, do you think we've studied enough?"

Harry rolled his eyes, "Hermione, right now we're far ahead of anything that Hogwarts could teach us."

"But."

"The only thing I want to do is ask if we can take our X-wings with us. We just got them complete yesterday, and I want to fly them."

A couple of beeps and whistles came from the side.

"See? R3 wants to come along as well, and you're not going to leave poor R5 behind by his lonesome, will you?"

Hermione threw up her hands, "Fine! But we need to get some more books to study."

Harry groaned. It looked like it was going to be a long two weeks. He then blinked. How was he going to get the X-wing to school when he had to take the train? Maybe he could have a special car hooked up? Or fly it up a couple day before they had to leave? Well, it was something to think about.

Come to think of it, should he even take his broom? It wasn't like he needed to play Quiditch anymore. It just didn't seem exciting anymore. Ah well, if he didn't use it, maybe Ron could.

"A relaxing night on the town," Staypuft growled as he punched the bar brawler.

"Let's just go to a local bar for a drink and a bit of fun," he continued as he ducked under the pool cue.

"It's OK, just take some time to relax," he concluded as he picked up one of the men facing him and tossed him across half the room.

Naturally, none of the people could understand him. To them, he was an actor or something, and had to be hot in that suit. Although where they were filming was a bit of a mystery, but given the photo a few weeks back, understandable.

A black haired man with a beard brought down a chair on the Bigfoot. "Stay down, ya poof!"

Staypuft turned and growled, then punched the man unconscious, "You call this fun?"

Faith snorted back as she backhanded one of the men facing her, "Well, it got us off base, didn't it?"

"Jedi aren't supposed to fight like this!" came the growl.

"Well, that guy shouldn't have pinched my bum!"

A couple of days before the train was to leave, the President of the US visited, and was very quiet as he saw what was going on.

It was later, when he was talking to the PM alone, that he asked if any of these people would be willing to become part of the military, something which Buffy heard.

"Not after how your government treated us." she huffed to the supposed leader of the free world.

"What do you mean?" Asked the President.

"Last time we got involved with your military, they tried to experiment on us, and do things to bring about the end of the world. A mistake we won't be repeating." Buffy answered him.

"Last time?"

Buffy almost groaned at the idiotic leader, "Look up a project called the Initiative. Also ask about the Slayer, the Watchers, and the supernatural. I think you'll be a bit angry over what they did. If you're smart that is."

She left them after that.

"I take it all of the Jedi are like that?" the President asked.

"The way to deal with the Jedi is to let them act as an independent force. They have been around a long time, you know, and they never interfere in the politics of a nation, if they can help it. All they want to do is help people." the PM said.

"So, I should declare this an official religion?"

"If you want their help. Things are coming which will require us to have them out in the open, and while they won't be that out in the open, the Wookiee people will be more than willing to integrate into the general population. Getting translators may be a problem for a while, however."

The President shook his head, "I think I'm going to be looking at a lot of files when I get home."

Clones.

It was the answer to Voldemort's problems concerning bodies, and keeping himself alive.

If he could find or discover the cloning technology, even early experimentation with it, then he could magically speed up the process and make the bodies he needed. All he had to do was find the information, and who better than Wormtail, who had proven himself in the muggle world. An elegant solution, if he did say so himself.

It would also answer the question as to where he would get troops and workers from. Growing them, and indoctrinating them to his way of thinking would be faster that way, and he could just implant the knowledge required of them. It would take some research, but it was the best solution.

"So, do you understand what you need to do at school?" Fudge asked his student.

"Shut up, listen, and make deals," Draco answered, having learned a lot from the man, although he still thought the politician was an idiot. He would use him, however. An advisor for when he took over the Wizarding world.

Fudge nodded. The fool of a boy learned only the basics, and with his help, would end up as his pawn in the ministry. "Good. Go home and get some sleep, you need to catch the train early to start preparing for your year."

"Hey, Harry! Hermione! How are things going?" Ron said as he saw his friends on the platform.

"Good. Ready for the next school year?" Harry smiled.

"Yeah. How much trouble do you think will be coming our way this time?"

Hermione almost laughed, "As dad say 'The future is always in motion, but trouble will always find you.'"

Ron rolled his eyes, "So another year where we have to put off some death threats, some stupid defence teacher, and Who Know Who trying to get at us."

Harry laughed, "Yep. Just another year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.