CHAPTER 38
"Yes Chieftain, we have completed the investigation on both the rune-covered stones and the lineage paperwork from Dumbledore's office. The reality of what the old man has been doing is reprehensible," said the leader of the research group.
"The first step is the runes that were placed into the stones at the entrance of the castle. The entry blocks held a set of runes in a subset language… a code if you will. Not all of the runes were empowered and it took time to pull out the ones that were not used. The more one passed them the more they set into a person's psyche, and seeing as most students passed them at least twice a day for classes outside the castle, It could be very deep by the seventh year.
"The first grouping is a set of... for lack of a better term apathy runes. Exposed to them enough, people become complacent, staying within their family station and willing to live with the status quo.
"The next is a set to make those that enter loyal to the magical world and more responsive to those in power.
"This set," he said passing a photo across, "produces a distrust of anything outside of the magical.
"This set is odd, and took us the longest to figure out and determine the implications; it is to make a subject suggestible in the choice of a mate. After looking through the other paperwork from the office we were able to understand what was being attempted. He was selectively breeding the population."
Ragnarok's eyes widened, "To what end?"
"If you look closely," the goblin pointed to several pages, "you will see a pattern developing, especially with the non-magically born. The older politically powerful families are kept small and are intermarried to make for a smaller power base, while the younger families are bred for potential, to be bred into the elite caste. With the non-magically born, the women mostly hold low paying jobs and have children unwed. We think they are kept as a form of breeding stock. The children are bred into the system, marrying into the younger families just enough to hold off problems with inbreeding. As for the men… we don't know. Within a few weeks or months they disappear.
"If an individual is above a certain threshold, either in sheer magical ability or being sufficiently strong minded, the rune exposure will affect them less. Strangely," he said with a sarcastic tone, "those tended to pass away, or lose a spouse and never remarry.
"A lot of the disappearances were hidden by the wars, but the numbers never seemed to follow what the projections were, till young Gratsnap made an off the cuff remark about the massive reduction in population looking like a culling of the herd, to make the magical world harder to find.
"Using that as a new starting place, we went over things again; it was a culling. Only instead of keeping the strongest the weaker survived and gained power in the world, while the more powerful families were systematically destroyed till only the very last of them exist. Then on the other side it seems that the strongest of non-magic born disappear, for what reason is unclear."
"How many non-magical born students are there?" asked Ragnarok.
"From our estimations, as we only have solid numbers from Hogwarts we had to go through the exchanges of pounds to galleons, 72 out of 685 students at Hogwarts are from wholly non-magical families. We estimate out of 2500 students between all schools almost 700 are from non-magical families. Around 100 graduate each year, most with their Owls at age 15 or so, plus the few that were chosen for Hogwarts, around ten. They are the first to disappear.
"We suspect that similar runes are in place at other schools, and perhaps elsewhere as a kind of 'booster'. Sir, that is not the most troubling thing... The runes... they are old. Very old. Dumbledore did not place them there, he may have improved on them, but they have been in place for many years."
"Very well, I will need to speak with our allies as soon as possible." The goblin nodded to his chief and quietly left the room as Ragnarok's mind raced.
'To do this to their own people… but why? Who gains out of this?'
James had become a man that took great pleasure in the small things in life, and it had been a fine day with Terry. They had had a wonderfully relaxing evening, a great dinner, a good wine, and a little dancing. After all he had been through, all that he had done, this and the knowledge of their children and surprisingly grandchildren, he found that they, those few people, gave more meaning and happiness than he ever thought possible. Especially when he thought he had lost this chance with Tracy.
Driving home with a beautiful woman's hand in his, all was right with the world.
When a red light began to flash on his dashboard, he stared at it with a stunned silence, it was the one piece of equipment that he had prayed would never be used. One that he knew he had precious little he could do about in the near future, he could only pray that someone could get there fast.
Harry's emergency beacon had been activated. He released Terry's hand and began to push the Jaguar to its limits as he raced toward London.
"Terry, pick up the phone and dial 007001 and hold the handset for me."
"James?" she asked as she picked up the handset and dialed. "What's wrong? Did something happen? Are we in trouble?" She looked over her shoulder and out the back window to see if anyone was pursuing them, while listening for the call to connect.
"Not us, Harry. His distress beacon has been triggered."
"Good evening, Universal Exports. Our hours are..." came over the earpiece.
"Day code: Lemon, Seawater, Junction. Operator code: d6hf0. Call Sign: Predator."
"Verifying… Set encryption on my mark." James's hand hovered over the button. "3..2..1.. Mark."
"Predator, this is operator 534, state your code."
"Strider down."
"Verifying… I'm showing an emergency beacon activation. Gridpoint, NH10038227. Latitude, 57.79. Longitude, -5.19614. Declaration of an emergency has been verified, opening procedure for response to beacon number 085743. Activation verified… +3 minutes, response arrival estimated 2 hours. Predator, you are to stand fast. You will be notified as soon as possible. Understood?"
"Understood," he said as they hung up. "Like hell!" He swung the heavy machine through traffic and finally into an alley. Touching a hidden stud in the center console he sped up and slammed into the wall at the dead end of the alley.
He looked out over the parade ground at the rising sun, absently rubbing the slightly sore knuckles of his right hand. Two days was all he had left in Sport And Social, and here he sat in the brig.
He sighed and set his head back against the wall as he looked around the room. As one of those yanks said, 'a friend is someone who will come bail you out; a real friend will be in with you'; he smiled for every single member of his team was asleep in this and the surrounding cells.
It had been quite the party, they had spent the last three weeks bringing his replacement up to speed, and for the last week they had been cross-training with those Yank Marines. Last night was to be the farewell bash for both them and himself, and it was... till the contests started.
He wasn't sure where or when the rivalry had bled over, or who threw the first punch but his boys gave as good as they got. 'And that Marine Gunny had an unbelievably hard punch,' he chuckled to himself as he rubbed his jaw, 'but he went down in the end.'
He heard the key rattle in the lock and the large iron door creak as it opened, many of the men flinched at the sound in their sleep as the birth of their hangovers began.
A large man entered and started scanning the cells, looking for someone. His uniform was crisp, not a thing was out of place, not even a single scuff on his shoe. It all screamed one thing to him, this was a desk warrior. One who fought a valiant battle with two of the things he hated the most, the brass and paperwork.
That job brought about one of two types of people, the ass kissers; those who lived their lives to say yes and cater to the needs of the brass and aspire to be them in the future; or the much more rare, the ass kickers; the ones who got the job done regardless.
He supposed they both had their uses, especially when dealing with mountains of paperwork, but the second was much easier to work with.
"Captain David Granger?" Slowly he stood.
"Yes."
"Release him, Major General Gram wants to see you. Come with me." He was led from the building and up to a waiting staff car.
Opening the door he peered inside to see the Major General; snapping to attention he said, "Sir!"
"Get in Captain." He did as instructed. "Heard you had a spot of trouble last night."
"No trouble Sir. Spirited discussions."
"Ahh... Be that as it may, that is not what I need to see you about." The Major General reached to his side and handed David a folder. "You have been reassigned, effective immediately."
"Sir, that seems to be a waste, I muster out in two days. My twenty is in, mandatory retirement from the team, and I'm no paper pusher."
"Not according to those David. You have been transferred to someplace that has need of your Counter Revolutionary Warfare (CRW) training, and this order comes from upstream, the Ministry of Defense."
"All leave canceled, all other orders rescinded."
"And my team?"
"They are in good hands, you trained him yourself. You are to report at 8:00 AM Monday, room 216 in the main building of the Ministry of Defense, Whitehall."
"As for your... discussion last night, did you win or lose?"
"Sir, for my team there is no lose."
"Then consider yourself chastised. It has been an honor having served with you Captain," he said shaking David's hand.
"It was an honor to serve with you Sir."
"Now go pack up, and get off my base before the Marine Commander gets here. With you gone I can blame it on someone not in my command any longer."
Stepping out of the car David turned and saluted, "Sir, yes Sir!"
Returning the salute and pulling the door closed his ex-Commander said, "Good luck soldier."