A/N Everything not clearly HP is mine. Everything else is not. Fairly simple. If you are a bit hazy on the story I really recommend you go back and reread it to this point.
Enjoy!
Æðelflæd looked up as she heard the distinctive chime summoning the members of the Senior War Council ring.
She had been working on a ballad for two years now and could use the break. Pulling herself up from the pile of fabrics she had rolled into sometime in the recent past she stood. She looked across the courtyard where she had ensconced herself in since she started writing, where her wardress floated.
Everyone on the Senior War Council was eccentric, to say the least. At nearly three thousand years of age, give or take, she was no exception. The sheer amount of magic that had gone into her wardress was more magic made manifest than enchanted material.
Snapping her fingers, she dressed and slid into the bell chime riding the call to the War Council chambers.
There she saw Igor had already arrived before her, though only just, judging from the smell of ozone and rolling thunder.
"Truly Igor, must you travel so crudely?"
Igor snarled at her; they had been bickering for the last three hundred years. Nothing serious but it kept life less boring at least.
"Better than Yun Chi over there!"
He emphasized his point waving his arm out the eastern balcony where they could see Yun Chi's procession arriving.
Four hundred wizards in step, riding golden clouds escorting a large ancient coach pulled by no less than twenty Heavenly Flying Tigers.
Waving her wrist, she had to admit he was right there. Yun Chi always made such a giant production of things after all. At least in public, he was far less stuffy among the Senior War Council once they were alone.
Yun Chi was a walking example of why none of the senior members, and only a few regular members, of the War Council, were in leadership roles.
Imagine having to rule over idiots hundreds or even thousands of years your junior making the most idiotic of mistakes for hundreds or even thousands of years.
Everyone on the senior council greatly pitied the man.
Yun Chi dismissed his escort before entering the chambers. They could literally see the years wash off the man as he flopped into his chair sitting sideways.
"Sun had the right of it, thank the heavens for this summon though. I was about to declare war on the moon or some shit again just to get a break."
Said Monkey King laughed as he jumped from Yun Chi transforming from a hairpin to himself.
Yun Chi looked at Sun for a solid minute his face frozen solid.
"How long?"
Sun looked over at Yun Chi and shrugged. A lopsided grin on his face.
"Dunno, been napping there since the last meeting, what year is it?"
Yun Chi lost the battle with himself and let out an inarticulate cry of anguish, rage, and frustration.
"That's it! I'm taking a break Sun, I swear right here and now, no more! The empire's yours for the next celestial cycle! I'm done!"
Yun Chi started laughing right then at the look on Sun Wukong's face. Sun was horrified at having to deal with imperial politics for the next 81 years. His face had turned jade white and his mouth had fallen open.
Yun Chi was bent over double laying sideways across his chair as he looked at Sun's face.
A laughing yip announced Coyote as he crawled out from underneath the table morphing to his human form.
He hadn't bothered with any clothes it seemed beside his medicine pouch and war paints. No one on the senior War Council cared about modesty enough to ever say anything about it.
Besides Coyote made most of them seem positively infantile when comparing age. At what the fuck ever age he was he could dress however he felt.
Shadows grew across the last two seats, which receded showing the forms of Twijma and Uju.
An odder pair of friends would be hard to find. Twijma was a young, relatively at least, African Cannibal Warlock of nearly five hundred years.
Uju was an Australian Bushman of unknown age, even to himself, who had fallen so deeply into Bush Magic he was barely even human anymore.
With everyone here, Æðelflæd knocked on the table drawing the meeting to a start.
They all looked at the floating divination construct in the middle of the table. It seems in a few hours the Supreme Mugwump planned to introduce a new potential member.
It was standard protocol to review the potential and see what they could uncover. They had weeded out several over the centuries who had tried to sneak their way onto the War Council.
They scryed the past to see what the potential fuss was about. Amazingly enough, the vast majority of what they wished to see was blocked off from scrying.
They could see into the room he had made his base in Hogwarts once they scrolled back to before he did something to the room.
No one had any clue what he had done but that was of little worry. They rolled back time more and finally saw the details of the spell he was casting.
Igor laughed and explained the spell.
"Basic scrying focus spell. Used to help gather the intent for beginning divination users. Graduating from that spell is one of the first hurdles of any divination expert, an easy hurdle at that."
He then cackled as he went on.
"Not the slightest clue what the spirits be damned he just did with it though."
They all watched the scenes of him learning the spell and casting it on the door frame several times.
Frowning they rolled back further and finally saw what the lad had done.
"No fucking way!"
Everyone looked over at Sun and had to agree. The boy had taken a fringe theory and ran with it.
Æðelflæd had even recognized one of the articles he has used to create his theory as one she had written nearly six hundred years ago. It had been a passing interest she had given up on as a dead end.
With their new knowledge, they reviewed the door work and deciphered what he wrote on the door.
"This room is secret so stay away unless you're me, Harry Potter"
There were various reactions to such a simple yet seemingly extraordinary phrase.
One little line had stopped the most powerful divination artifact in existence from further scrying in the room.
That alone would guarantee his work would be classified under ICW jurisdiction. The four artifacts he had created for the first task only pushed it even higher up the chain of importance.
Yun Chi was the first to speak, it was clear how powerful those artifacts could shape a battlefield.
"We need to see him, that is certain. I want to study those artifacts. From the readings, it looks like they are not protected from analysis. That has to be fixed first and foremost."
That received affirmations from everyone on the Senior War Council. Luckily no one had cast any diagnostic spells on the artifacts when they were present during the task.
They began working out the magics using the scryer and after an hour had a good hold on what they did.
Everyone at the table was floored at the potential they represented.
In less than a week he had made family line bound artifacts capable of severely weakening enemies. The artifacts were also capable of judging the righteousness of the caller's task.
It was reassuring he had put that aspect in but worrying as well. Artifacts that powerful were usually great undertakings and not something just created by a single underage wizard in less than a few days.
They managed to backtrack to the end of his second year where he had battled the Basilisk. His actions there alone were great enough to warrant his tapping as a potential ICW battlemage.
It was Twijma and Igor who both sucked in a breath at realizing what the diary was. Sun followed them shortly afterward figuring out what bothered them about it.
Twijma then spoke in his deep rolling voice.
"This Voldemort had made soul jars. Look here."
He pointed at a reading on the boy that closely matched the reading from the diary.
"That is a false jar, I have only heard of such a thing. Zeus was said to have made one on accident."
The group grew extremely serious at that. Zeus had been a major enemy of the ICW until they had finally finished him off four hundred years ago.
The insane lightning mage had split his soul so many times many of them had grown into their own separate personalities.
Over half the lighting gods of the past had been a soul jar controlled magical being of his.
Twijma continued on once they digested the news.
"To make a false jar you have to split your soul at least four times from what I have researched. The soul must be so unstable that it can leak parts with minimal provocation."
Tom Riddle suddenly found himself in one of the worst places to be. Square in the sights of some of the world's most powerful mages, all with the intent to destroy his soul.
No one wanted another Zeus.
Still, they believed they understood partially what had given his artifacts such power. Using the bones of a thousand-year-old Basilisk, slain by your own hand, as a focus for a magical artifact was powerful ritual work.
It remained to be seen if that was intentional or not. The interview that was soon to come would be most enlightening.
Coyote was normally few for words, they were always worth listening to.
"We must destroy all parts of Tom Riddle's soul, regardless. A demonstration of Harry Potter's rune magic is needed. If it's as we believe then I approve his inclusion into the War Council."
They all assented to his words. It closely matched their own thoughts. Coyote was always one to cut to the point.
Æðelflæd nodded and then smiled.
"We have a few minutes until they arrive, let's get some food and drink shall we."
Shortly they all had food and drink laid out as they caught up.
The Senior War Council had not been called together formally in over a century. They ran into each other here and there but an introduction of a new member of the War Council by the Senior members had been a long time ago.
They were not called together lightly. War council members changed as old ones died and new ones took their place. The regular members often passed their position down to their apprentice as time went on.
In fact, before a War Council member could even go to battle, they were required to have a formal apprentice. It kept the magics safe and preserved if the worst were to happen.
Even that was only the first of many backups they had to keep these extremely powerful magics safe from being lost.
The senior members of the War Council were only called for two reasons. The first was if someone was about to really fuck up.
Just the threat of them potentially being called had been enough to turn the tide against Grindelwald. No one in the magical world wanted to see these powerhouses unleashed on the battlefield.
The second reason for being called was the introduction of a new War Council magic. There had been some new and rather dangerous magic's created in the last hundred years but nothing on the level of War Magic.
The Socio family had been the most recent introduction over a century ago. They had found a way to cause spells to become infectious.
Imagine a death curse that killed you and everyone within ten meters of you. Then everyone within ten meters of them, never-ending until there were no more victims.
It was only the inbuilt protections of the War Council magic towards new potential members that had kept them from wiping out the family.
Even Sun had realized the threat magic like that represented. The Socio family had been one and all bound under the vows of the War Council.
Harry Potter's magic was just as equally if not more so as worrying. The least they would require was an upgrade to Fate's Pool. That was the official name of the divination tool they used.
This incredible device was the careful construction of the seven most powerful scrying devices to exist.
The ability to block their scrying was not something they could let stand. Not for any sense of superiority, it was that it represented a potential hole in their security that had to be addressed.
They were well into food, drink, and comfort when they realized that Harry Potter was soon to arrive with Supreme Mugwump along with that girl Harry Potter seemed interested in.
Uju signaled for the young man to come alone into the room, and noted he was not wearing his original glasses.
Reaching out he pulled them across the room to the pool and had it begin analyzing them.