Chapter 29: Russia's Hammer

"To peace!" Daniel Jones toasted with his friends and fellow aurors Jennifer-Anne Wilkinson and Jerome Pearson. They were sitting in the Leaky Cauldron, still in their uniforms. Jennifer had unbound her blonde hair though, and Jerome and Daniel had opened their cloaks.

"Let's hope it lasts." Jennifer added, after emptying her mug. She had come straight from forensics.

"It'll last as soon as the Tsar's dead and buried. Or burnt." Jerome, animal expert, answered.

"The Tsar and his War Wizards." Daniel added. "Only obstacles left for peace." He waved at Tom for another round. Turning back to his friends, he asked "Did you pull election duty as well?"

"I think every officer did. We're still weeks away, but they are acting as if they expect a country-wide riot." Jerome snorted.

"To be fair, those are the first democratic elections in the history of Wizarding Britain. A lot can go wrong."

"Didn't we kill all trouble makers already during the Revolution?" Daniel frowned. If they had to deal with another Blood War...

His former year-mate sighed, shaking her head so her hair obscured her face for a moment. "We dealt with the terrorists. Passionate voters clashing with each other is another thing."

"What's there to clash about? We won here, we won in Europe." Daniel liked things simple.

"Well, there's the question where we'll go from here. Do we join the United Kingdom? Or declare our independence?" Jennifer leaned back, opening her own cloak. "I'd not mind more modern uniforms, but I'd rather not deal with the old boys in the Metropolitan Police all day."

"And I'd rather not have to treat manticores as an endangered species." Jerome added when Tom brought them the next round of beers.

Daniel was puzzled. "If we're not already part of the United Kingdom, but not a sovereign nation either, what are we then?"

Jennifer grinned, sipping from her ale. "No one knows, but for Harry and Hermione, I bet. But the question you should be asking is: What do we want to be?"

Daniel didn't ponder that for long. "If we join the United Kingdom then there's no chance at all that we'll have to follow pureblood laws ever again."

"Westminster's laws are not much better. My parents complain all the time. And we might have to give up our wands, if they are classified as weapons."

Daniel stared at Jerome. "That has to be a joke. Giving up our wands? Over my dead body! The purebloods tried that already once!"

"Well… its very unlikely, but we all know just how messed up things can get if we simply apply British laws to magical cases." Jennifer emptied her second ale.

Everyone groaned, remembering particularly bad examples.

"But going independent… abandoning Britain? We'd end up like magical yanks! The horror!" Jerome laughed.

"Worse, if we isolate us from Britain we might end up as the new purebloods in a century or two…"

That was a sobering thought. Daniel ordered another round.


"Paperwork is a curse. Darkest magic, I tell you." Harry announced after he had closed the door to Hermione's office, then fell into his seat with the air of a man who had just run a marathon. Hermione couldn't help but grin in response to his antics. She didn't loathe paperwork as much as he did, but correcting the mistakes of others quickly got old. She didn't grin for long though,

"We've got a meeting coming up with the Prime Minister." Hermione announced, and sent a memo over to him - with wingardium leviosa, of course, not as a paper plane.

"What about? Is there a new crisis? Did the Russians do something on the muggle front?" Harry asked while grabbing the memo. He sounded almost eager.

"The topic of the meeting is 'Determining the relationship between the United Kingdom and Wizarding Britain'." Hermione answered.

"Oh."

"Yes. We've been avoiding that topic for a long time. I assume with the war all but over, the Prime Minister thinks it's time to settle it." Hermione answered while approving a request for more funding for the department overseeing and organizing the upcoming elections.

"Damn."

"Harry, language." Hermione took a small bit of comfort in the familiar comment. "He's not the only one. I've heard people discussing the topic recently, in the cantina."

"Wow. They do that? No one ever asked me."

"I assume they assume we know what we will be doing."

"That's a lot of assumptions."

"Yes." Hermione closed her eyes, sighing almost as theatrically as Harry did when paperwork was mentioned.

"Where's a war when you need one?" Harry chuckled at his own remark, treating it as a joke. Hermione knew it was not just a joke. How far had the two of them come if dealing with a war seemed, even only partially in jest, better than facing peace? Sometimes, increasingly more often, she was asking herself if it was all worth it.

The door opened again, and Luna breezed in, ignoring - as usual - the frantic attempts of Hermione's secretary to stop her. Hermione smiled, and nodded at the apologizing witch before the door closed.

"Wow! You've got an invasion of Trimitites!" the blonde witch exclaimed. "Did you bust open a nest?"

Hermione had no idea what Luna was talking about, but she welcomed the interruption. "Hello Luna..." She began, but was cut off when the blonde reporter all but jumped into her lap and glomped on her. "... Oooof!"


Neville sat on a bench, watching his fiancée and his grandmother walking around the wine cellar of Longbottom Mansion. Gran was pointing out the different vintages, and commenting on which occasion the different bottles were used the last time. Neville for once was glad for his leg brace - without it, he wouldn't have had an excuse to literally sit this out. He already knew the contents of the wine cellar by heart, and he had a lot of thinking to do.

He smiled when Hannah bent down to check a fairy wine held in stasis. He loved her. If anything, his time away from Britain, fighting in the Revolutionary War, had confirmed that. Risking one's life each day for weeks had a way to realign one's priorities. Make one see what really was important, how one really felt. And he knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.

What he didn't know, yet, was what to do with the rest of his life apart from that. Diggory's offer had the support from Augusta, she had made that clear. He was certain the majority of the surviving old families supported him as well. And yet - did he want to go up against Hermione? This wasn't school, where they had been competing for the best grade in Herbology. This was politics, shaping Britain's future. It wasn't that he was afraid Hermione would kill him. He was afraid he'd not measure up.

A Longbottom always did his duty, no matter the cost. But what was his duty? To Britain, and to his family? What vision for Britain's future did he have? His grandmother, the other old families, had none. They simply wanted to restore the past. Hopefully without the rotten parts. But they had no plans for the future, they were fixated on the past. Glorified it. Treated it as the ideal that it never had been. Neville had been in the War. One lesson he had learned well was that trying to simply repeat what had worked in the past, even if it had worked well for a long time, was a recipe for disaster. And past Britain had stopped working well a long time before he himself had even been born. What good could he do, even if he won the election? More importantly, what harm could he cause, to Britain, to everyone?

He looked at Hannah again. Smiling, happy Hannah. Beautiful Hannah. He had a duty towards her as well. Towards her, and towards the family they'd form. His family. His future. He knew what he wanted. What he could do, what he would do when it came to her.

And he knew what he would do. Smiling, he stood up and walked over to his fiancée, with only the slightest hint of a limp.


Vladimir Petrovich Volodin watched Sasha - Mолот - and Lidiya - Lidiya Sergevna Golubeva - go over the plan with the portrait again. The portrait of the Seer Princess, Anna Karina Romanova. The portrait who seemed to know so much more about his dearest… comrade, Sasha, than he did, even after sharing so much with her, in the War. He hadn't even known her full name, until that pureblood officer mentioned it.

Alexandra Irinovna Glebova. A bastard. Not that he'd hold that against her. In the Revolutionary Forces, ability, not heritage counted. As it should. All were equal at birth, after all. And Sasha, молот, had earned her position as the Leader of the Revolution time and again through her deeds. She hadn't been born into privilege, like Lidiya. Or not really - Vladimir was all but sure the two witches were sisters, half-sisters. Their hair had the same golden shade, a family trait Lidiya had seemingly idly remarked once, when she had caught him staring at the lock she twisted in her hand. And they were too familiar with each other for mere academy acquaintances. And Sergei, killed by the Tsar, had been Lidiya's brother.

Vladimir wasn't sure how to feel about that discovery. To think Sasha - Mолот - was of noble blood. Blood wasn't supposed to mean anything, but… it did. A little. He was of peasant stock himself. To think, to dream, that...

"Vladimir? What do you think?" Years of hiding his emotions from pureblood officers kept his face and body from showing how startled he was at Sasha's question. His mind at been drifting, he realized. A bad, dangerous habit in wartime, especially with Sasha's life on the line. And his own reputation - he didn't want to appear distracted or foolish in front of her. He focused quickly on the matter at hand.

"I think we can do the diversion with minimal forces, as long as Zhirov can provide the katyushas and explosives. We can strike from afar, and apparate around the wards and jinxes they can out up." Vladimir was glad his voice was as professional as possible. It wouldn't do to show any of his twisted emotions. Especially in front of a portrait of a seer, and that damned perceptive aristocrat.

Sasha looked at him, for a moment she seemed distracted herself, then she nodded in response. "Yes, I concur. We can do this."

"We can do the diversion. The main assault though…" Vladimir let his voice trail off. The portrait had been adamant that the Revolutionary Forces had to attack and destroy the Russian Academy for the Magical Arts or the Revolution would be crushed. Not the Russian Academy for Battle Wizardry, where War Wizards were trained. Vladimir was sceptical, but Sasha was convinced. Or convinced enough - destroying the Academy would be a blow to the Tsar's prestige and morale, even if that deadly danger, that Black Death hidden there was just a portrait's imagination. If portraits had an imagination. On the other hand, Princess Anna Karina had been a seer. The last seer of the Romanovs, in fact. And her knowledge about the defenses of the Palace and the Academies had panned out so far.

"It will be costly, but it must be done, or the Revolution will perish." The portrait stated with firm conviction.

"I know we can take it, but it's in the middle of Moscow. If the battle spills past the wards, the muggle authorities will take notice and interfere." That was what Vladimir was worried most about.

"Even then, destroying the Academy and killing Rodion Stanislavovich Klimov is more important than anything else."

"We could use the same tactics and take out the Tsar. End the war."

"Even if I knew all the defenses of the palace, the killing the Tsar would not end the war. Not anymore. By sparing his son, the Tsarevich, the Tsar has shown a fatal weakness. Others have noticed what he is doing. Families have been sending their sons and daughters to the Revolution, to ensure no matter who wins the war, the family survives. Like the Tsar did. And in doing so, he has shown that he is not convinced he will win. A fatal weakness for a Tsar. Rodion Stanislavovich Klimov will not follow his orders anymore."

It made too much sense, given the sudden influx of pureblood recruits the Revolution had seen in the last week. And as it had stated - they knew the defenses of the Academy, but not of the Palace. It would still take a lot of their best forces. Risk a lot of their best forces. "молот shouldn't go though. She's needed as our leader, even if we fail." And it would keep her safe. Vladimir saw Sasha's eyes narrow with sudden anger, and didn't understand the reason.

The portrait though was not moved. "Alexandra Irinovna Glebova has to be there. If she isn't, the chances that we will fail and doom the Revolution are increased. And she'd perish anyway." Vladimir wanted to destroy the portrait for this. Lidiya was amused, for some sick reason, or so he thought, she had that glint in her eyes Sasha had when they had pulled something over a pureblood commander. Sasha herself… she was fuming, he suddenly realized. Like the night she had discovered one of the sentries asleep at his post.

"We'll execute the operation as planned, as soon as all is ready. Good night, Lidiya, Princess Anna Karina. Vladimir, stay for a moment."

Still smiling the aristocratic witch shrunk the portrait, and left the tent with the grace of a princess leaving a ball, abandoning Vladimir to the tender mercies of his furious leader. He turned to her, and stood at attention - a fact that somehow made her even angrier. With a muttered curse, she silenced the tent's entrance, then turned to him. And even though her eyes were blazing with fury, Vladimir couldn't help but admire her beauty. Until she grabbed his collar, that is, pulled his face in front of hers, almost choking him.

"I am sick of your attitude, Vladimir! Since weeks you have been acting like a stranger, a stupid one at that,, and now you try to keep me from an operation that could decide the war for us? What is wrong with you? You weren't acting like this before! Don't you trust me anymore?"

Vladimir hissed, sucking in air. That accusation hurt. "Mолот, of course I trus…" he didn't get any farther, she cut him off.

"Mолот, Mолот, Mолот! Have you forgotten my name? No one else can hear us, so don't give me that cursed excuse of upholding discipline or giving an example to the others!"

"Sasha…"

"See, you can speak it. Why have you become so distant?"

Vladimir wanted to answer 'because it hurts less that way', but couldn't. He didn't want to make a fool of himself.

"Answer me!" She was almost hissing into his face.

Vladimir slightly shook his head. He couldn't. Not without wrecking what friendship he had. He caught a glimpse of tears in her eyes and froze. "I don't want to see you hurt." It was true, in more ways than one.

"You're hurting me now."

"How?" How? He had done his best, after all. For her.

"You're acting like a stranger. Like an officer. I don't want a subordinate. I have enough subordinates. I want my friend back. I want you back."

"I can't. I can't go back."

"Why not? What has changed? Answer me, damn it!" Sasha still held his collar in her hand. "I want, I need to know what happened!"

She was hurting, Vladimir realized. He was hurting her. He couldn't be hurting her, he knew that. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes, and answered "I can't go back to be your friend. I love you." There, he said it.

"Oh." Almost inaudible. Whispered. He opened his eyes, staring into hers, taking in her surprised, vulnerable, expression, so rarely seen on her face. He saw her close her mouth, saw her eyes change from surprise to determination. That expression he was familiar with. That was the Sasha he knew so well.

He was quite surprised when she pulled him in for a kiss, and only realized the two of them had been moving during the kiss when her field bed hit his knees from behind, causing him lose his balance. Sasha ended up on top of him, not that either minded.


Percy Weasley was sitting in his office, behind his desk, but his attention wasn't focused on the latest report from the ICW that was in front of him. He was pondering the upcoming election. Rumor had it that the old families were looking for a candidate to challenge Hermione. Not him, of course - his family was too poor, too undignified, to be considered. If his father managed to create the Spellphones, and Percy didn't doubt that, seeing as the prototypes kept gettin better, and made a fortune with them, that might change. But that wouldn't happen in time for the election.

Leaning back, he rubbed his chin. It didn't matter who the old pureblood families chose as a candidate, What mattered was whether or not Hermione was running. Hermione and Harry, to be precise - he doubted one would leave the other "hanging", as Harry would see it. He didn't think they were ready to retire, it hadn't been long enough, and they had spent most of the time in office dealing with the bloodiest war in decades, a situation both thrived in. But he better had to make sure they were both running, or he'd have to hurry to position himself.


Tsar Cyril Dmitrovich Romanov study of the latest reports from the recruiters and trainers at the Academy was interrupted by his aide entering without permission. That indicated an emergency - or treason. Or both.

"Your Imperial Majesty! The mudblood rabble is attacking the Academy for the Magical Arts!" the young wizard reported, in a mostly calm voice despite his obvious agitation. The Tsar frowned. "A foolish notion. Our War Wizards will crush them. Send word to the commanders of our reserves."

"At once, Your Imperial Majesty!" Neither one noticed the portrait of Princess Anna Karina leaving her frame.

A few minutes later though the Tsar heard a horrible screaming noise, followed by a series of explosions. A banshee? Here? The wards were not breached, but the Tsar had felt the ground tremble, just a bit. How was this possible? He strode out of his office, wand in hand, and called for the captain of his guard.

More of that infernal noise followed, and more explosions. Through the next window he spotted a burning stable, in the middle of a wrecked garden. How in Baba Yaga's name had that happened? His first thought was treason, sabotage. Someone inside the wards. Then he saw a most peculiar sight - flying objects, descending on his palace, passing through the wards, then exploding against the walls. The protection spells on the walls held, of course. Still, he ducked reflexively when one struck the window he was standing at, leaving soot on it, then cursed himself for showing such weakness.

"Guards! We're under attack! The attack on the Academy is a feint to draw our forces away! Call them back here!" He bellowed, sending the War Wizards at the next door running. "We need more War Wizards here." To think the mudbloods had the audacity to attack his palace! And he had almost fallen for it - if they had just waited a bit longer, his War Wizards would have been deployed already. He smiled, shaking his head. The lack of training and experience was telling. His own commanders wouldn't have made such a mistake.


Vladimir Petrovich Volodin was standing on the roof of the Academy for the Magical Arts, the wards themselves, those not already broken, hiding him and the other revolutionaries from the muggle Moscow. Sasha, his beautiful, passionate, brave Sasha, was there as well, together with Lidiya, for once not in a robe, but fatigues like everyone else on their side. Wearing a robe would be asking for a stray spell in the coming battle. Zhirov had come through, and produced enough katyushas to convince the Tsar that he was under attack. With some luck the explosives planted near the rocket launchers would take a few War Wizard with them as well. Now they only needed to take and destroy the Academy. Only.

"Protective Wards are down. Cast the spells." Sasha ordered. A dozen comrades drew wands and turned a big part of the roof into acid that quickly ate through the stonework below, creating large holes in the roof - and in anyone unlucky enough to be straight below. Judging from the screaming, a few had been.

"Grenades!" At Sasha's command, a dozen more wizards and witches threw grenades into the holes. As soon as they went off, they jumped through the holes. Hopefully the acid was gone now. Another wave followed before Sasha, Vladimir and Lidiya stepped up to the holes. Vladimir would have been happier if Sasha would have brought up the rear, but this had been as far as she had given in.

Inside, a scene straight from a horror movie awaited them, with a half-melted corpse sunk into a melted desk serving as a stepping stone for the invaders. Only offices, for junior members of the academy, were on this floor. The research was all done underground, and their objective was on the lowest floor, in the vaults, were things that should never see the light of day were stored. Black Death would be there.

Black Death - a magical variant of the plague that had ravaged the World for centuries. Stronger, faster to infect, but slower to kill. Created by a mad researcher in the 17th century. The man had been executed once the Tsar of the time had found out what he had done, but the plague had not been destroyed - like so many other "Dark Arts". When Vladimir had finally realized what Klimov was planning according to the portrait, he had agreed with its judgement. The pureblood was planning to vaccinate his own forces, and then release the plague on the Revolutionaries. The seer's portrait had attempted to persuade the man that releasing the plague would not just kill the Revolutionaries, but also the muggles, but Klimov had waved her arguments aside, convinced that another plague wouldn't really matter. The fool didn't realize what would happen if a more effective, unknown strain of the pest suddenly struck Moscow. The muggles would assume an attack with a biological weapon, and react accordingly. And that was something Vladimir knew had to be avoided at all costs. For all their sakes, even if the muggles never found the real culprit.

They fought through another office floor, killing clerks and academics. No real resistance so far. A few door guards tried to make a stand on the ground floor, but an RPG took care of them. Vladimir checked his watch. If Klimov had started to open the vault as soon as the wards had gone down, then they had five minutes left - it took quite a lot of time to deactivate all the defenses that guarded the horrors stored there. Five minutes… they couldn't play it safe. The risk was too great.

Sasha had realized that as well, of course, and pushed their forces on. People were not waiting anymore, some leaping through fire, running through acid to reach the next nest of defenders. Casualties were mounting, but they could not stop. Could not rest.

They lost half a dozen comrades on the stairs leading to the vaults, to traps and one desperate researcher. Vladimir had a gash in his arm, barely closed with a spell, from shards of ice that had been banished at them. A killing curse had almost hit him as well, only stopped by a slab of granite conjured by Lidiya. He owed her now. Maybe for more even. The last line of defense - hopefully. Barricaded behind marble walls. Warded, no doubt. One minute left. Explosives would not go past, and to break the wards would take too much time...

Sasha put a hand on the shoulder of Dimitri, one of the men carrying the explosives with them, nodding once at him. He nodded back, then screamed, running, charging straight at the barricade, pushing his backpack through the gap in the walls before a series of spells cut him down. Then the backpack exploded, inside the warded marble, and the last line of defense turned into an inferno.

Headless of the heat and flames, protected only by some cooling and bubblehead charms, Vladimir, Sasha and the remaining attackers entered the last floor, the last vault at a dead run, passing a series of doors and gates. Then, in front of them, a robed man was turning towards them just as a massive vault was sliding open, revealing row after row of shelves, with odd-sized items on them, chests and vials of various designs.

Whatever the man had been about to say was left unsaid as he was hit by a dozen curses at once, his shield shattered before it had formed fully, and his life gone before he hit the ground.

"We made it." Sasha stated. "At terrible cost, but we made it." Vladimir could only nod. As long as Sasha survived he would be happy. Happy enough.

"Place the charges!" Sasha ordered. "We need to be gone before the War Wizards arrive!" At her order, the surviving carriers stepped inside, and quickly placed drums of fuel, and packs of explosives inside the vault. A minute later, the door was slowly closing, the last comrade sprinting through. Sasha raised her wand and cast. Just before the vault door closed fully, Vladimir saw fiendfyre spring up inside it.

"You have done it, молот." the portrait said. For the first time, Vladimir realized, the portrait hadn't used Sasha full name, but called her "Hammer". He hadn't the chance to dwell on the importance of that though.

"We're done! Move, move!" Sasha urged them on, and the survivors started to run back to the stairs. Behind them, centuries of research, artifacts thought lost, things only known in legends and tales, and a magical plague that should have never been created burned hotter than hell.