November 6th 1981… Unspeakable Conference in Regards to the Samhain Incident of '81… Undisclosed Location, Britannia…
Three wizards and two witches appeared before him in a disused manor house on the edge of the Welsh mountains. They were denoted by their colors. Cobalt, Vermillion, Sage for the wizards. Scarlet, and Emerald for the witches. Their faces were concealed behind an illusion of impenetrable starlight that made them seem more as personifications of the night sky than living and breathing mages.
He shifted in his throne, the rough gaelic runic stone work and high backed seat giving him no comfort to his sore lower back. Sleeping out in the rough and evading death eater death squads that were plaguing English countryside had been a touch and go affair. With their main HQ having been raided and annihilated six months earlier by a massive Death Eater operation by the arch-traitor Rookwood, they had been stuck trying to rebuild on the run.
Unfortunately for his organization and his perpetually cursed lower back, he was far too old for this, which meant meeting in the war ravaged Brittania countryside. In the numerous vacated manors and villages that the genocidal and short-sighted policy of that Fucker-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named had scourged. All the while the organization that he had inherited and strengthened, protecting Britannia from threats from outsiders and anomalies alike had been reduced to only the mages in the room with him. It was galling. It was humiliating. And it was all his fault.
Yet, after nearly ten years of war fueled by blood-purity theology, political representation of muggleborn, and the growing rift between Europe and the Americas, this thrice damned civil war/proxy war was finally at its end. "Cobalt, report on your findings." He intoned with a voice that was more like a dragon trying to snort back a fireball, and failing.
Cobalt shifted in his seat, his blueish momentarily dimming as the wizard took out a bloody journal. In a nasally voice that said as much of his currently cursed broken nose that they hadn't figured out how to correct, and his resistance to using muggle techniques to fix.
"On October 31st, 1981 mercenary and Death Eater forces loyal to the Dark Lord descended on Godric Hollow. Local paramilitary forces, principally the American backed and funded Order of the Phoenix headed by local commander; trainee Auror, and preeminent heir to the Potters, James Potter engaged the force within the village. Both forces sustained heavy casualties. Current analysis points to this being a feint. The Dark Lord took the opportunity and immediately embarked on an attack against the secondary Potter manor where he crushed the wards and house elf defenses in under 90 seconds."
The room was aghast in horror at the frightening speed that the Dark Lord had been able to reduce the defenses to one of the most securely warded and defended manors in all of Britannia. A similar attack against the Longbottom estate months earlier led by an elite strike team of Death Eaters and Durmstrang mercenaries had been barely warded off after a twenty minute siege. They had only taken down three quarters of the wards, which were but a fraction that Charlus Potter poured into his son's manor.
Cobalt continued on after the pause. "Inside, Lily Potter along with her mother-in-law Lady Dorea Potter, engaged the Dark Lord in a four minute running battle that saw the death of Lady Potter and severe injury of Mrs. Potter."
He grimaced, not many witches or wizards would have the fortitude to last four minutes against what some were calling the Second Rising of Grindelwald. He knew intellectually he could possibly stand that long against the Dark Lord, maybe even longer if he prepared the field. But with his body failing him after nearly two centuries of active defense of Britannia, he had no doubt the younger snakeman would pin him down in short order and reap the victory he so sought.
"After this point, what we have is conjecture." Cobalt hesitated for a second. "We believe the Dark Lord entered the triplet's room where Jaxon James Potter, Ember Pyper Potter, and Harrier Remus Potter were in their cribs. For approximately 397 seconds the Dark Lord started some sort of black-blood magic ritual. During which he carved a sowilo rune on Jaxon's forehead and a naudiz on Ember's back. However, no rune was detected on Harrier, and this is where we suspect his ritual failed. To which, the Dark Lord, err… imploded."
He flickered his glance toward Emerald, who shrugged and replied.. "The scarring and residue arcana in the room are inconclusive as to what Mr. Riddle wanted to accomplish. Nothing in my repertoire of ritual based magic, including dark and esoteric has as a fail condition implosion."
To her side, Scarlett snorted rather derisively. "For you my dear, but after going through the evidence and my own family's archive. I believe it is very safe to say that the Dark Lord tried to make a horcrux. Failing to make such an accursed item results in, well, soul bursting."
He sunk in the chair and groaned. That insane snakeman and his group of inbred purebloods had already caused more than half of Britannia's population to perish or flee to safer climates. Should he had been surprised that the Dark Lord attempted something even most insane Dark-aligned wizards and witches thought was patently stupid-insanity incarnate? As they were much better techniques at achieving immortality. He was living proof of such efforts.
Scarlett disdainfully continued. "My examination of Jaxon Potter shows a residual soul anchor momentarily dormant under the sigil of a sowilo elder futhark rune. That all parties for the moment believe is merely scarring from backblast from the Dark Lord dying."
He chose this time to speak. "Our intervention?"
Vermillion spoke up, "Not that I can tell, my Lord. Dumb-as-a-door didn't even recognize the significance of it spoke volumes how that ruthless politico is not powerful or smart as his followers so claimed."
Vermillion's antagonist relationship with Dumbledore was neither surprising nor appreciated here, but what if Vermillion spoke was true, then that gave him pause. "Any other parties recognized the significance?"
"Every party recognized the significance, my Lord, but came to the wrong solution. They believe Jaxon James Potter is the 'Boy-Who-Lived' as the slayer of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Most of which is complete claptrap." Vermillion hissed with alternating voices of disgust and amusement.
"When in reality?"
Sage finally spoke up, "It was his brother, Harrier Remus Potter, that ended the Dark Lord's reign of terror."
He tented his fingers in front of his face. His thoughts turned inward at the answer he was about to receive that he did not want to know. "How is a barely few month old babe able to defeat one of the most powerful Dark Lord that these Isles have seen since Cromwell?"
"He has a negative arcane core excess of 50."
He was but for a moment utterly stunned. Before he realized what they had unearthed. By the Morgan's tainted tits they had discovered the anti-magical equivalent of a muggle nuclear bomb. An anti-mage, a mage born with a negative core, who could disrupt every single piece of arcane construction from wards to enchantments to transfigurations to curses. Could neutralize spells with a flick of their finger or neutralize an opponent mana supply with but a thought! Furthermore he was only three months old! In two decades he could have a core nearing 90!
Plus, his encounters with antimages had advised him they had unique powers that stretched from psionics to telekinesis. Not to mention even more esoteric powers that the other secret ministries in America and Europe were not keen to share the capabilities of their pet mage killers. This was a positive gold mine, and with '44 law still on the books… left him new options he didn't think would exist again. At least not in his lifetime at least.
"My belief is that Harrier's arcane core either disrupted a key element of the Dark Lord's ritual or it was strong enough to rebound whatever technique was used against the triplets. Thus causing the subsequent implosion. And may even have weakened the wards that were protecting him in the first place." Sage finished, with a tone of both absolute fear and awe.
They must have the boy at all costs, leaving it at the hands of the Potters would be like leaving a wand for a chimpanzee to abuse. There was a reason why African wizards didn't like talking about the Chimpanzee war of 1855. For a population numbering in their tens of thousand reduced to a bare fraction of that? It was more understandable why they hid magic from the muggles.
"I hope the boy is in our custody." He said it as a statement not a question.
Vermillion tilted his cowl to the side, "Sort of. Our own contact at Mungo's has declared that the girl and boy are squibs. With the cover story that whatever ritual that the Dark Lord began cracked their cores. The girl seems to be destined to be sent to muggle relatives, while the boy to Charlus' younger squib brother."
Scarlett snorted loudly. "His so-called squib brother is our own mage-killer."
Vermillion nodded. "Exactly, but we've got problems."
He sighed and guessed who was making the problems. "Dumbledore?"
"And Sirius Black. The latter is currently in DMLE lockup for leaking the Potters' location, but is loudly protesting his innocence to anyone that cares. The former wants the boy to be sent under his particular care, or to be specific to his cousin's care."
He inadvertently growled at the thought. Given Dumbledore's position on negative arcane cores being an abomination against the natural order of magic was getting out of hand. If he got his hands on the boy, he would be dead within a year. And he was not going to let an opportunity slip by so easily now that he was aware of such.
Still it was curious that the Potters were willing to let go of two of their children considering that the family was long known for being longtime supporters of muggleborn, squibs and many werecreatures. Thus, why Charlus and his son had been on the frontlines of the war from the very start. To just give them up, well, something did not add up.
"What's the story with the family?" He asked.
Scarlett leaned back in her chair. "Hard to say, even when they were declared squibs, all the remaining family seemed ready to take them in. For at least a couple years to see whether their arcane cores could recover. Then inexplicably within 12 hours they decided they should be separated."
Cobalt cleared his throat. "I'm sorry to say but that's Dumbledore's handiwork. In my surveillance, he mentioned something of a prophecy that all parties knew about. With the loss of the Department of Mysteries and the accompanying Hall of Prophecy, I cannot say the substance of this. That for 'future of Britannia' that if Jaxon was not the One, it was better to scatter the triplets across Britannia."
Great, another prophecy they didn't know about. Considering that Dumbledore had sworn if they should ever meet again, he was going to die, it was unsurprising the Unspeakables had been left in the dark. Especially since as far as everyone was concerned, they were all dead anyway. Well, almost all of us were dead.
His mind considered the possibilities with a burst of occlumency clarity, sorting through the information like a muggle computer. Sifting through the possibilities, known facts and options they had available to him. He arrived at one conclusion. One he had known from the start. They needed to get a hold of the boy at any and all costs. The future of the Unspeakables rested on it.
"Vermillion", he nodded toward the wizard. "Use what contacts you have left with the DMLE to have Sirius thrown in Azkaban, we do not need a mentally unstable heir to the Blacks undermining this golden opportunity. Considering that he is technically the boy's godfather that could undermine our control of the boy going forward if he was found innocent. "
He cast a look over to Scarlett, "Scarlett, I need your wizengamot contacts to use every ounce of political capital to make sure that Defeater of Grindelwald does not receive the child. And see if you can't reach out to Lord Charlus. You went to school with him, after all."
Scarlett inclined her head, "Shouldn't be too difficult as a family friend. The old griffin is still sore that I fell for the ol' lordy after all, it might be an angle I can wrench the boy from them with. Especially with Dorea's funeral coming up. Though. I hate to point out that if Dumbledore outmaneuvers us and gets custody?"
"Then we shall conscript him into our service, neither the Minister nor the Chief Warlock can argue with the '44 addendum to the Conscription list" He said with flat finality. "However, such a move would use up too much of our precious political capital and burn whatever relationship we would have with Potters and allies. Use whatever is needed, the vault is open."
"I may need to rope my daughter-in-law in, she and Lily were friends at Hogwarts." Scarlett answered after some contemplation.
He nodded and gave his assent before turning to Sage. "Get with Fleamont, and start putting together a training program. See if any of our asian or polynesian allies are interested in hosting our newest mage-killer. Britannia is likely to be in a state of war for at least the next year or so."
He turned to the newest and youngest members of their order, Cobalt and Emerald. "Emerald, return to the Department of Mysteries and start the process of reclamation. You're authorized to conscript and seize anything in the ministry to help recover our home base. Too long have we been scuttling in the dark while our enemies have made a mockery of our work, and attracted the attention of powers and outsiders. That must change immediately."
He grimaced as he ordered what could possibly send their youngest to the grave. Yet he had no one else with Cobalt surveillance and stealth skills to accomplish this task, at least in the short term. "Cobalt, you have the hardest task. If the Dark Lord attempted to create a Horcrux, then there is a chance there's more out there. That leaves no room to be unprepared as it's likely that his wraith still glides across our world. The destruction of those Horcruxes wherever they are found is utmost, and I'm authorizing you to seek help from allies from abroad if need be."
Cobalt and Emerald shakily nodded their assent after a couple moments of what he could only describe as nervous agitation. It was Cobalt that asked the unanswered question in the room, "And what will you be doing, my Lord?"
Lord Saul Croaker of the Most Majestic House of Croaker smiled. The stone throne flashed with luminescent crimson light that corrected the curse to his back, and restored his core back to near full."To take to the field of course. It's time those miserable pureblooded cunts know that I'm not dead."
November 8th 1981… Sandsend, Yorkshire… Fleamont Potter Residence
"So, House Potter decides to get rid of another 'squib'. Am I supposed to just open my arms and welcome my grand nephew, so you can wash your hands of him in good conscience. Char, that's not how it is played!" Fleamont flung his rebuttal into his older brother's face, after his older estranged brother showed up out of the blue with a bundle containing his three month nephew, with proposal in hand. Raise him like it was your own.
"And if you weren't so caught up with being the model Potter Lord, you'd realize that aint really something I'm up for! I'm a bit tosh at it, maybe if you talked to Euphie, you'd understand that." He pointed at the wrapped bundle that was on the table. "I was fucking shat out of the family at age six! Grandsire never tolerated no squibs and neither did our illustrated parents. Which reminds me, where are they? Oh yes, they're dead asshat! Don't give me that look, I know that look you little cunt."
His brother was giving him that look that screamed I am Lord Potter so you better listen to me or you're going to regret it. Please, as if. While his older brother was playing general in oh so recent 'troubles', Fleamont decades earlier was killing German wizards. So, no he was not going to be impressed with this loud lion.
"I'll pay you." His brother simply said. So imperious, so lordly. What was Fleamont, a goddamn ten galleon whore that will go down anyone? No, he had standards and he was going to haggle this bitch down to his knuts.
"Goddamn right you're going to pay me, and my grandnephew for running out on him just because he was born without any fucking magic in your perfect seperate society!" Fleamont yelled at his brother, his finger pointing into the air. "All the child support for the next eighteen years, my own salary for watching him, schooling expenses as I don't want him growing up like shite as I did."
His brother sighed, his fingers pinching his nose as if this was not the reception he was hoping for. "Yes, yes, of course we would support him. Do you doubt that we would?"
"Uh, yeah, twat, Grandsire gave me the clothes on my back and a nice obliviate to round that out of my quality upbringing. Awfully nice of him, instead of slitting my throat and pushing me into the nearest ditch. So, yeah, I have a fucking right to be suspicious that you'd take care of your financial duties in this case." Fleamont fumed.
HE wasn't being the unreasonable one here, Harrier Remus Potter deserved fucking better than his miserable fucking hide. He deserved to have two loving parents, and siblings that would love him unconditionally. However, if it was either him or the orphanage, then Fleamont knew that at the end he would take his grand nephew even if he didn't receive a single knut of compensation. He knew what it was like, and if the Potters didn't care a fig. He would. No one was there for him, so he might as well be there for Harrier.
His brother sighed, his hand reaching for the back of his neck either in embarrassment or discomfort. Probably didn't know that grandsire didn't leave him a single rusty knut for all his parsimonious business and family practices. Fleamont didn't care. Charlus had never come to him ever besides wanting things. That wasn't how family was supposed to be. And unfortunately it had never been that way between them.
"Look, I was only nine when…" Charlus began before Fleamont cut him off.
"Yeah, you looked smug as shit and when I was being escorted out you said that you were going to enjoy your new second room? Think I couldn't remember that? You'd be dead wrong." Fleamont laid out.
Charlus looked stricken, practically a corpse, in Fleamont's honest opinion. "I thought…"
Fleamont was not going to let his older brother get a word in here. "Thought that part of obliviation still worked? Heh, sorry to say older brother but that didn't last a week before I recalled everything that happened."
A long silence prevailed between them as Fleamont's rage and anger dissipated, as he looked at the swaddled up and sleeping Harrier sleeping quietly on his dining room table. Peaceful, innocent, and unharmed. Before he looked at this brother, haggard and afraid. His brother was arrogant, stupid, and morally repugnant, but fear was not something he ever said that he could ascribe to him. So something was up, and that stank worse than three day old cod.
"So, I am going to only ask once, and I mean only once. If you want me to take him off your dainty little aristocratic hands, I'm going to need three things. One money, which as I said earlier. Two, a god-forsaken apology, and I want it in the fucking wizarding papers that I get now and again. Three, a real good reason why you think I should leave Britain."
His brother nodded dumbly, not putting up a fight like he was expecting to. He thought the apology, something they argued before about and had nearly come to blows about, was being thrown aside. It was weird and highly suspicious, which made it even more weird when an Unspeakable showed up that morning asking a bunch of hypothetical questions. All about which wizarding nations had the best anti mages educational support and environments…
Fleamont re-examined the boy. Scrutinizing him as he let out a bit of his weak psionic power, probing the air around him. Trying to find the tell tale particle traces that denoted negative, positive, neutral core alignments along with particle volumes. A skill cultured after many years of being the Unspeakables' hatchetman. Killing the opponents of the Ministry they either couldn't legally or publicly pursue.
What he found shocked him. His grand nephew was already awakened, awaken psionic that is. A skill he didn't develop until he had accidentally killed an Italian warmage back in Tobruk. His right arm was a matrix of power, ever shifting negative and twilight creating what was in essence a pure power nullifier. Moreover Harrier had a negative core far in excess of what should be naturally occurring.
If 0 to 10 was considered muggle and 10 to 20 for a squib, and most wizards infants about 20 - 25 then his grandnephew had a core on par of a below average wizard, just inverted like his own! He was only 3 months old! What by the powers and fate happened here. He refocused on his brother who was looking at the floor with a defeated expression that was the very opposite of his proud lion look. His older brother's mouth opened and closed as if the words would not come out.
Fleamont sighed and pulled up a chair, "I see a magical oath plain as day, and don't ask me how I know. Still, I want to know how bad it is?" He could already see that Harrier was not going to have a pleasant childhood. Or adulthood, if he even lived that long.
For a long moment his brother stared at him as trying to avoid whatever oaths he had swore before simply saying, "If you don't leave in two days with Harrier, he'll be dead, along you, me and the rest of the family."
Well, if it was that simple…
November 9th 1981… Somewhere over the Arctic Sea… First Class Accomodations…
"I don't even want to know how they roped you into this." He asked, yet not asked the pureblooded witch who was ex-girlfriend. Who to his discomfort was nursing Harrier just to his left.
Euphie giggled as if the thought was the funniest shit ever, which it was not. "It's not everyday, Flea, that I get to have all expenses paid vacation for the next eighteen years. Especially not in such locales like Japan or Polynesia."
Euphie readjusted the swaddling and her shirt as Harrier finished his drink on those sizable assets. "Plus, the situation back home was getting worse. Especially now with You-Know-Who being dead."
Fleamont grunted. The political shit was likely going to be bad back in Britannia for a long while yet. What he could read between the lines in the Daily Prophet promised nothing good would come of it. Half of Voldemort's inner circle as well as several important European nobles had been arrested on the last day. European expats were streaming back to the continent in droves as the European ministries were boycotting these illegal arrests and suppressions. With talk of sanctions on Britannia.
On the other side of the knut, emboldened by the rapid free fall of the movement, the Aurors along with considerable support from the Order and Hit were up and down raiding every suspected Death Eater sympathizer. Many of whom were being sent to Azkaban without trial or due process. With their manors and vaults being ransacked by the victors. Causing increasing trouble with the native Goblins who weren't so clean to this butchering to their ledgers.
How long this purge and proscription of the Purebloods, Fleamont couldn't say. All he could imagine would stop this plundering of Britannia's countryside was when the last leaders were captured. That, or through the confiscation of properties, artifacts and galleons amounted to enough to pay back the Ministries extensive debts and IOUs. Goblins need not rebel if their loans were paid on time after all.
"Your family going to be alright?" He asked, for the sake of asking. He knew they wouldn't. Not really. Even if their great Uncle was the only wand maker left in Britannia, Euphemia Ollivander's brothers were all known Death Eaters, after all. He doubted they had the political capital to resist the Ministry's current proscription efforts.
"No, but they made their choices and now they have to live with them. Even if it inevitably ends with them in Azkaban." She adjusted her blouse as a muggle flight attendant walked on by. "I'm just glad to be out of there." She said absently. Before turning her head facing him, smiling sadly. "At least yours will be alright. The Boy-Who-Lived? Catchy."
It was in all the major domestic newspapers, all three of them. Full of eye-catching titles with lurid descriptions full of lies and deceit, Fleamont judged, of how Jaxon Potter defeated Voldemort. Most of them had a similar theme either through the power of love or fate intervened undoing the bastardly attack by Voldemort. With opinions divided on whether it was magical backlash against the insane snakeman after his decades of misuse of magic. Or if it was an epic moment of wild magic in the form Jaxon Potter made manifest. Either way all fingers pointed to the Boy-Who-Lived. Which was complete rubbish as the boy who did all that being gently rocked to sleep no more two feet away, as far Fleamont was concerned.
"He'll grow to be a giant wanker, like his father, and his grandfather, and their progenitors." Fleamont huffed. "Just worse, with all the fame and reputation, while his two siblings are shunted to the side."
"There are worse fates that one can share than having a normal childhood." Euphie said, in between humming a melody that he couldn't place. Rocking the baby Harrier to sleep. She was good at this, he realized, unlike his own lack of appreciable skills in home and hearth.
"Harrier won't have a normal childhood, given what me and the Unspeakables spoke about before we boarded." He heard the conversation go over in his head once more.
We have confirmation that the Dark Lord likely still lives, maybe kept alive with soul anchors or by some powerful outsider. We are leaning toward the latter for the moment. Evidence of multiple portals to the outer planes have been confirmed across the isles. Demons, Daemons, Devils, Dementors, and other such creatures have filtered across the first time in nearly two millennia. Not enough to sound the alarm, but if this war was one big blood magic ritual? It's not good Fleamont, and that's what I can tell you. Just… train Harrier, we are going to need him.
"Then we'll make it as happy and normal with the means that we have been given, Flea." Euphie said with a smile that reached her elfen violet eyes. "He might be the anathema of magic.
Fleamont tried to smile as he grabbed hold of Euphie's hand, but it came out crooked and misshapen. His mind recalling the horrors of world war nearly four decades earlier, when he battled Grindelwald, and how that may have been a teaser of what was to come.