Author's Note: You may want to reread chapter 4 before you read chapter 11, because those events now come into play *hint hint*. Hope you enjoy.

To the guest reviewer, Rilla, who was the reviewer last chapter, your question will be answered this chapter!

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. All rights go to J.K Rowling. I am merely writing this for fun.

Recap: The Imperius Curse on James was broken. Lucius Malfoy killed Voldemort, and then a group of men in cloaks Apparated in and are holding the Potters and Sirius at wandpoint.

Chapter 11: The Dark Mages

"Um…" Sirius said, staring at the man who had just spoken. "Who are you?"

The man in front looked back at his companions before speaking once more. His accent was affected and sounded, of all things, old. "I believe that the child over there will know." He pointed towards Harry, who was completely confused. How would I know?

"Oh, but of course, he needs his memories back." The cloaked man snapped his fingers once, and a very odd sensation washed over Harry. Images flashed through his mind as though they were a film, and when they stopped, he gasped.

"You're those wizards who attacked me and Hermione!" He suddenly remembered everything, but it was like someone else experienced it. He could see the wizards bringing Hermione and him back to Hogwarts, wiping their memories, and then Harry suddenly appeared in his bed, not remembering anything. It was as though he had someone else's memories, but he knew that he had experienced them.

Lily and Sirius were looking at Harry curiously, waiting for an explanation. But he didn't have time to give one, because the man spoke once more.

"Yes, we did. What you had found was our Hogwarts outpost. We used it to observe and gather information about the school.

"But now I suggest you all sit down," He waved his hand and four chairs appeared. "We have much to tell you."

James immediately fell into a chair, holding his head while Sirius and Lily stood defiantly next to him. "Explain who you are, first," Lily said, blowing a few strands of hair out of her face.

"We cannot give you the whole story." A different wizard spoke this time.

"And why not?" Sirius asked.

"We cannot because the Great One has not yet arrived," the man continued. "We are not permitted to divulge this information to you."

Sirius nudged Harry and whispered, "These people are mad. On my signal, grab my arm and we'll Disapparate."

"We are not mad, or dangerous, or any label you may place upon us. Wait and listen. And just in case you gained any ideas, we have reinstated the previous Apparition wards." Sirius blanched.

Meanwhile, Harry was going through the memories he now had, memories of what he and Hermione had found underneath Slughorn's office during his Christmas party. They'd found the crest that looked like Hogwarts', but the colors were inverted and instead of a lion, snake, badger, and eagle, it had a wolf, owl, bear, and raccoon, respectively. It was the same one Hagrid had found in the Forbidden Forest near the beginning of the year. All of the pieces were there, but not assembled. Now Harry needed to know who these people were.

Harry shook himself out of his thoughts and looked around. The cloaked wizards were about ten feet away. They were standing perfectly still, as though they were having a contest to see who would move a single inch first.

He glanced over at Lily and saw that she had drawn her wand and was hiding it behind the chair in front of her. Sirius had done the same. Harry reached for his pocket-

Suddenly, Harry was blinded by a bright flash of light, and when it dimmed he could see another cloaked figure had walked out of it.

"The Great One is here," one of the men said while they all bowed at the newcomer.

The newcomer approached Lily, Harry, Sirius, and James slowly. Harry couldn't see their face- they were wearing a hood. Harry could see Sirius holding his wand more tightly as the newcomer walked towards them.

The hooded stranger stopped when they were about ten feet away from the Potters and Sirius. They reached up and pulled down their hood, revealing their face.

A woman stood in front of them, her long black hair tumbling out of her hood in perfect waves. She looked to be about forty years old, her face slightly aged but still flawless. She smiled at their astounded faces.

"Yes, I usually get this reaction. Most wizards don't expect a woman of my age to be "The Great One," but I assure you, I am." She spoke quietly, almost in a whisper, but something in her voice commanded attention. It reminded Harry of Professor McGonagall, who could quiet a classroom almost instantly.

"I am the leader of the Dark Mages," she said.

"Who?" Sirius asked.

"I am going to tell you a story. The story of a young woman named Arlissa, who lived around a hundred years ago.

"She was born to two loving parents, both renowned wizards in their time. She was like any other wizarding child, but around age seven, her parents did not notice any of the usual signs of magic. They waited two more years for Arlissa to show any trace of magic inside of her, but she did not show any. The parents had to finally face the fact that she was a Squib. And, as you know, Squibs are ranked somewhere under beggars in the wizard society.

"Her parents desperately tried everything to prove she was magical enough to get into Hogwarts school. She was rejected, without even an apology.

"That night, after her parents received the letter, a mob ambushed her in our yard and killed her. Their reasoning was that she was a Squib and threatening their wizarding children. But what really happened was wizards taking out their prejudices on this poor Squib. The organizers of the mob were never acquitted, and the story of this tragedy was wiped from the records.

"Her parents were heartbroken, and her father died of grief six months later. Soon after the mother fled in shame from her life, away from all of the hate from her neighbors, and hid in a forest deep in the heart of Albania."

Harry listened to the story and let it wash over him. It was very tragic. How could they kill a girl just because she was a Squib? Sure, Squibs weren't allowed in Hogwarts. But was the prejudice really that bad?

Lily spoke, her face betraying the sadness she undoubtedly felt. Maybe it was because currently her son was stuck in some other world, out of her reach, and she felt the similar pain of loss? "You said "our yard" when you told the story."

The woman's face hardened. "Yes. The mother in the story was me."

Harry gasped. "How are you alive? After a hundred years?"

"Unicorn blood. I had been living in the forest, staying alive, until I knew the world was unbalanced enough for me to venture out and gain followers, which I have." She gestured towards the group of cloaked men and women. "They will help me achieve our ultimate goal, to avenge Arlissa. And so shall you, if you accept our offer."

"So you told us all of this so you could offer us to join your gang of nut jobs?" Sirius asked incredulously. "What do you guys do, anyway? Do you have, like, a day job or something?"

"No, of course not," the woman said. Apparently she did not understand sarcasm. "As you most probably inferred, we despise of magic and wizards."

"You used magic already, though. How do you hate it and use it?" Harry asked. Seemed kind of hypocritical.

"We use magic in its purest form. Deep in the forest, my exceptional magical prowess enhanced by unicorn's blood, I discovered many secrets of magic and found new ways of using it. So, of course I will use it to stamp out the problem. We need magic to go about our plan, anyhow. But we will not abuse it like other wizards do."

"So… you want to stop all magic?" Sirius asked.

"We have waited in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to strike. I knew that this fool-" she gestured towards Voldemort's body once more, "-would make an empire strong enough that it would encompass the entire continent. Once he did, we would strike and take control of it, giving us the power to expand to the entire world. We used him as our cover up. We have been waiting for so long to strike.

"I was formulating a plan to take him out when you killed him. We know that you have considerable magical power and seem respectable. We want you to join us."

"Join you doing what, exactly?" Lily asked.

"In the honor of Arlissa, we are going to stop all magic. And that includes making sure it does not exist anymore. Meaning," she said pointedly to Sirius's dumbfounded expression, "We are going to take away all magic from everyone. And then we will rule the world for Arlissa and all of the other Squibs who are ridiculed and not respected because of the lack of their abilities. We will give everyone a taste of their own medicine. We will bring equality."

Sirius asked, "What the hell? Take away magic?"

"How are you going to get rid of all magic?" Lily gasped. "Is that even possible?"

"We are not going to divulge that information until you agree to join us, obviously, for security reasons," the woman said.

Harry couldn't bring words to mind. They could stop all magic? How? They needed to get out of here and do something to stop this madness. "What about your crest? A scrap of fabric with that crest on it was found in the Forbidden Forest ages ago."

"That was a mere accident. A slip up."

Lily spoke. Perhaps she understood, like Harry, that they needed to get out of here, and fast. "Can we have a few minutes to decide what to do exactly? It's a lot of information that you've given us, and we need to decide what's best for us and for our son."

"I hope you know that your son is seventeen, not from here, and bumped your real son to another world. I knew that as soon as I saw him." Lily blanched slightly at the woman's words. The woman didn't notice. It seemed as though she lost the ability to communicate like a normal person too.

"We'll just talk in the corner, alright. Oh, and by the way, I love what you did with your hair." Lily used her wand to move James's chair to the corner, and Sirius and Harry followed.

The woman's voice rang out from across the room. "If you require more convincing, what we are trying to do is not to gain power. We are trying to stop magic and all of the horrible things associated with it. If magic were gone, do you think Voldemort would have made such an empire and killed all those people? We want equality for all, wizards, Squibs, and Muggles. Think about it again."

Well… It was a good point. Without magic, Voldemort and other people like him won't be able to take over, wizards and Muggles, Harry thought.

"No. We can't do that. The idea just doesn't work. If everyone is equal, someone will still find a way to take power. But you can't destroy all magic," Lily whispered vehemently.

"These people are mad. We need to get out of here and find Dumbledore. He's wise and all, he can probably figure out something for a plan," Sirius spoke in a hushed whisper and waved at the woman, who was watching them, her eyes slightly narrowed. "Like, we just got rid of Voldemort and now there's a new threat? Can't we get any peace?"

"I'm more nervous about their "power to stop all magic". Does that mean they can take away magic?" Harry asked nervously. It didn't sound good. How could they defeat these people without magic?

"How do we even know they're not just some fake cult that is trying to trick us?" James asked, surprising them all. He got up from his chair. "I'm fine," he said to their glances.

"Well, they did Apparate in that flash of light, and they did something to give Harry his memories back of whatever that was, and she knew those things about this Harry. That seems like pretty 'pure magic' to me." Lily reasoned.

"Yeah, what was that about, Lils?" James asked. Harry realized that James didn't know anything about where Harry came from, and what happened to his real son.

"I'll explain later," Harry said hastily. "But we need to find a way out of here. I'm not joining any secret cult thing."

"We need to distract that mad woman and get out. We're outnumbered, we can't fight." Sirius put on his classic thinking expression, which made him look slightly constipated. "We could ask her to demonstrate some of her so called "magic in its purest form", and maybe while she is distracted, someone could Stun her and we'll sprint for the window.

"I could explode something," Sirius added, "With Confringo. Lily and James got to do it, now it's my turn." He grinned a little evilly.

They returned to the middle of the room. The woman seemed to have sent away some of her cloaked friends, for there were only two remaining.

"I believe we have made a decision, right?" Lily asked, while Sirius and Harry nodded.

"Good. And let me remind you, if you did not accept our offer, we would have to kill you, but you are intelligent enough to realize that we are the future," the Great One spoke with relish.

"Yes, about that… we would like some proof of your 'magic in its purest form' so we can be sure of our decision," Lily said. Everything was going to plan.

"Of course. I wouldn't believe it myself if I had no proof. You would make a good lieutenant, Lily Potter."

Lily vaguely registered the use of her name even though she hadn't told the Great One who they were, but she brushed it off. "Thank you. Now, for the demonstration, please…"

"What if I told you I could bring down that wall without a wand?" the Great One pointed to the wall on the far right, with a fireplace. She opened her hand and closed it again. As Lily watched, the wall collapsed in a pile of bricks. Dust billowed from the wreckage.

Lily saw Sirius staring open mouthed at what used to be a wall. He's not ready. Delay her again.

"That was impressive. But you could have your wand hidden somewhere, or some other trick. I need more proof," Lily said, stumbling over the words slightly in her haste.

"More proof? Alright, I suppose… my magic has limits, my dear, however. I can perform wandless magic, and greatly improve the power of spells, while also inventing some new ones, but beyond that... I cannot do amazing things like bringing something to life. I hope you knew that."

"Okay! Do a spell with greatly improved power for me!" Lily said breathlessly. She glared at Sirius, who pulled out his wand and once again hid it behind a chair.

The woman pulled out her wand now. It was white. "White birch, my dear," she said. "Confringo!" a blast of blue light shot through the hole of the old wall and collided with another wall beyond it, and the entire room seemed to collapse into itself.

"Wow…" Lily breathed.

"Stabilis," the woman waved her hand in the direction of the room and the thundering of debris stopped. "Is that enough pro-"

Sirius flicked his wand in her direction, and a jet of red light flew towards her. At the last second she whipped around and grabbed the spell out of the air in a puff of smoke.

The two cloaked men rushed to get to her side, but not before silent Stunners took them out. Lily looked and saw James and Harry both standing with their wands outstretched.

"I suppose you choose not to join us… It's a shame, I hate to see such good witches and wizards dying like you soon will."

She pointed her hand towards Lily and opened her mouth to speak. Lily tried to move but some magic was holding her in place. She struggled desperately as the woman chanted, her eyes glowing-

"Argh!" the Great One shrieked as Sirius tackled her. Lily could move again and she ran towards Sirius, who had the woman pinned down.

"Incarcerous!" Lily said. Thin ropes sprouted out of the end of her wand and wrapped themselves around the woman. Sirius got up and brushed the dust off his shirt.

"Let's get out of here," Sirius said. "She could break out at any moment."

"Should we, I don't know, capture her?" Lily asked. As she spoke, a white orb formed around the woman. It crackled with electricity.

"I'm guessing we won't be able to get to her," Sirius said. As they spoke, the orb grew larger and larger, giving off heat. They moved out of its way as it expanded. It met a wall on her left side and cut right through, the wall collapsing at its touch. It was like an orb of pure destruction. But whatever it is, Lily thought, I don't want to be anywhere near it.

They ran out of the room, James albeit a little slowly, and down the passageway. They could hear rubble and bricks falling. As they reached the end of the tunnel the noise abruptly stopped.

"I think she's gotten free. Make straight for the trees, and fast," Sirius spoke hurriedly. James went through the window first, then Lily, Harry, and Sirius last. They sprinted for the fence closest to the forest. Lily's heart was pounding fast and she clutched a stitch in her side as they ran.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" Sirius said. James flew over the fence and landed in a heap on top of a snowbank. Sirius did the spell on Harry and Lily and then on himself.

"Let's go." As they ran through the trees they could hear an explosion and a shriek of anger coming from inside the manor.

"I can't believe what just happened," Sirius said, stoking their small campfire. After a few kilometers, they had picked a spot out of the wind and set up the usual protective enchantments around them.

Harry sat, staring at the fire, thinking. He was pretty certain these "Dark Mages" didn't exist in his home-dimension world thing, because they would've already gained power there if they did exist. So they were a completely new threat, one he had no idea how to beat.

He looked over at their camp. Lily was gathering wood while James was sleeping. Sirius was cooking something over the fire. That was it. Us four and Dumbledore. That's all who's left to fight. No one would come to help them. The Order had disbanded, many members in hiding or captured. We need to win.

Harry shivered slightly in the cold wind that blew over them. "What's our next plan?" he asked.

"Beauxbatons." Lily deposited some wood into the fire, which sparked and the flames grew higher. "That's where Dumbledore told us to go. We might see him there, if they managed to save the school from the attackers. And if not, there really won't be anything else, but I expect even if they lost they would have evacuated the students, so that's good."

Sirius spoke after a short silence. "I think we should stop at Hogwarts. If these people really hate the school, we should make sure no one is left there, just in case."

"Alright," Lily said.

"Do you- do you even reckon we can stop these people? They're really strong, and if they can take away magic-" Harry stopped. He couldn't imagine life without magic. It would be awful; magic was like an identity for many people. If it was gone… Harry almost laughed when he pictured the Malfoys trying to act like Muggles. But then he remembered that Lucius Malfoy was the one who vanquished Voldemort.

"Why do you reckon he killed Voldemort? Lucius Malfoy, I mean. He was a loyal servant, so why would he go against him?" Harry asked.

"I don't know. Maybe he was tired of serving Voldemort and wanted power?" Sirius said, scratching his head.

"Maybe Voldemort did something to his son," Lily said, the fire flickering in her eyes as she watched it. "We didn't see Draco there, so maybe Voldemort did something. I can understand what Lucius would have went through."

Harry realized that she was talking about how he had… he didn't know how to describe it… replaced her son? Caused her to lose her son to another world? Her son was alive and well, they knew that much. But it must have been horrible for Lily. And James… he doesn't even know yet, Harry thought, sighing.

"So what's the plan once we get to Hogwarts?" James asked, eating ravenously. Sirius was a very good cook, everyone had to admit.

James and Lily had had a quiet reunion, which Harry didn't watch- he didn't want to invade their privacy, and it kind of felt as if they weren't his parents anymore, because of all that had happened. He had heard raised voices, however, even though he tried his best to tune it out. But it looked like their issues were worked out. They were sitting next to each other, at least.

"We need to evacuate anyone who is still in the school. That would be all Purebloods and many Slytherins, so we need to anticipate that there will be some dissent," Sirius said.

"Aren't they still on holiday?" Lily asked. "That means there would only be the house-elves and a few teachers who might've come back early. No students, at least, so that's good. Otherwise we'd need to figure out someplace to send the students, but most are either in hiding by now or, as you said, Purebloods."

"We should just tell the teachers left to go into hiding- they would listen. I'm more worried about the house-elves… they might not be keen on leaving," said Harry.

"Well, we'll get them out at wandpoint if necessary. The alternative is letting them take their chances with those mad magic haters," James said.

It was silent for a moment, until Lily spoke once more. "Is this really our fight now?"

"Well... If we don't try to stop the Dark Mages, who will?" James asked. "Dumbledore needs all the help he can get and personally, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I knew I didn't do everything I could have."

Harry had to admit he felt the same way. Maybe it was just the Gryffindor in him, but he knew he had to help.

"Well, why don't you three get some sleep?" Sirius asked. "I'll take first watch. We'll leave in the morning."

James couldn't sleep. He'd had a nightmare where he was forced to kill Lily and Harry once more. It was around 3 AM, he guessed, and he lay down, watching the fire flicker, casting ghostly shadows on the ground. He remembered how his curse had hit Snape. Snape was dead. Because of him.

He tried to change his thoughts. His reunion with Lily hadn't gone as he expected.

James sat awkwardly. He had woken up a few minutes before, and Lily had gestured for them both to move away from the campsite. She sat across from him on a rock and waited, after explaining everything that had happened while he was captured. He didn't know what to say.

"Well… er-" he started.

"I hope you know I didn't approve of you leaving. Or that you went and got yourself captured. Who knows what you could've done under the Imperius Curse," the volume of her voice raised slightly at the her last words.

James's stomach lurched. He didn't remember much after he was put under the curse, but he did recall Voldemort telling him to kill his family. He'd fought the curse off, with Lily's help, but it must have been awful for her.

"I'm sorry, Lily. I'm sorry that I left you, I'm sorry that you had to go through all of that. But I- I want to thank you. For saving me."

She looked away. "I think I can forgive you, James. You always make reckless decisions, and I know that's a part of you. I suppose I should have gotten used to it by now."

"No, Lily. I promise, for real this time. I promise that I'll never leave again. I'll always be there. Don't worry." He took her hand, and she managed a smile.

It had gone okay, for the most part, but James knew that their relationship would take some time to heal.

At dawn Sirius shook them all awake and, yawning, they packed up their campsite and headed back in the direction they had come.

"There's still about two kilometers left 'till we get back to the place we can Apparate from," Lily said, looking at the map. "We're going to pass by the town we stopped in."

"We should go back and say hi to Mary. She was nice," Sirius said. "And her cookies were delicious. Plus, I think Harry needs new pink boots."

"I don't think we'd have time, Sirius," Lily said.

After about ten minutes of arguing, Lily gave in, and they set course for the village of Cheshire Pipe. They travelled down the path that led into the village.

As soon as they got in, Harry knew something was wrong. What he soon saw confirmed his suspicions. The entire main street was demolished, its buildings reduced to smoking rubble.

"What on earth happened here?" Lily asked, shocked.

They went over to where Mary's store used to be standing. In its place was a pile of bricks and what looked like half of a chocolate chip cookie. Could there have been an earthquake or some other natural disaster? What else could have caused this?

"Come over here, I think I found something." James's voice rang out from across the street.

"I found this," he said, as they trudged over. He was holding a flat, shiny piece of circular metal, which glinted in the winter sunlight. It was about 12 centimeters in diameter.

"I wonder what it is?" He looked at it from all angles, then passed it over to Sirius. They each tried to uncover the secret of the disk, but they couldn't.

"All it could be is a mirror of someone's house," James said, and threw it aside.

Harry gasped. A mirror?

"Wait! Hold it up to the sun. Move it to your right a little." James repositioned the disk as Harry had instructed. Harry now looked at the ground, where the beam of sunlight was being directed.

"It's got words from the reflection," he said, squinting at them. He could barely make it out-

"Looks like the first word is WE," Lily trailed off thoughtfully.

"Well, hurry it up, this disk is heavy!" James exclaimed. He was holding it at an odd angle…

Lily seemed to be thinking the same thing as Harry, and she instructed James. "Move it up and slightly to the right… just a little more…."

The words became more focused. "There! Keep it still!"

Harry read the words out loud. "We have destroyed this village, Great One, because magical gangmen tried to attack us. They assumed we were Muggles, and their prejudice forced our hand. We shall meet with you tomorrow to discuss our plans." With each word his stomach dropped.

James put the disk back down. "They destroyed the entire village over that?"

Harry was too angry to form words. There were innocent people here- why would they destroy the entire village?

"We need to get to Hogwarts. If my hunch is right, they'll do the same and more to the castle." Sirius' voice was grave.

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