Foundation

"And..., picture perfect touchdown!"

"Why Mr Potter, we may make a half decent pilot out of you yet."

"Why thank you, Ms Weasley. Shall we?"

"We most definitely shall."

Exiting the ship, they locked it and cast a few quick wards. To make people ignore the ship sitting in the middle of nowhere, as well as a detection wards, in case someone was able to resist the first wards and actually approached the ship. Then, they gave nods to each other and apparated to the closest of the 4 Fidelius locations.

"Harry! Ginny! It is good to see you guys!" shouted Nevile as they appeared, grabbing each of them into a hug.

"Nevile! Luna! It has been far too long!" agreed Ginny, giving each of them hug back.

"Your boobs are back" noted Luna, after giving Ginny a hug. Making everyone laugh at Luna's typical bluntness.

"That they are" smiled Ginny. "Come on, there is a lot we have to tell you. I bet, there is lots you guys want to share too" she pulled Luna to the local cafeteria. The six hours flight was tiring, it was also awhile since they ate last.

It took hours, to fill in Nevile and Luna on the progress at Avalon over the last 4 weeks. To resolve the communication issues, they brought communication station with them. According to engineers, it was pretty good and secure station, belonging in the past to the local crime lord.

With a bit of work, they were able to make a few copies, that were tied into their own secure network, outside of the local intraweb. All of the messages were also encrypted to high heavens, making it even more secure. It was not good enough for holo-meetings, yet, but more than a few steps above single word, bracelet messages.

They had also brought with them the newest versions of the access watches, as well as electronic door locks, to be fitted to the most critical locations. Nevile and Luna were going to profile all of the local members of the Alliance, to add them to their ID system. It was required to open the bank accounts. Hopefully, they will all be pleased by the back-pay amounts. Those were more than substantial for old Alliance members.

They had also brough with them a few other things, like products of the alien animals, better data pads, weapons, etc. The Xerebus branch had lots of the stuff from Earth, but very few things from this dimension. Mostly, only the things they took from the first few pirates they kidnaped.

By the time they finished bringing Luna and Nevile up to speed, it was already very late. Therefore, they broke up for the night, agreeing to continue in the morning.

"What have you guys been up to, while we dealt with the town folks?" asked Harry, as he skilfully worked around the stove in his expanded tent kitchen. Ginny sat at the counter, occasionally stealing a few pieces from the ingredients he was preparing. Luna and Nevile came over, to continue their conversation, as well as have a breakfast together.

"Monks came to look at our portal" popped in Luna.

"That's good, what else?" asked Harry, then froze a moment later. "Wait, what monks? The Jedi, the local wizards, those monks?" he asked with narrowed eyes.

"We think so, but are not sure. Only one of the scouts saw them, via eye piece. We have the memory, if you want to watch it in the pensive" answered Nevile.

"When was this? How come we are only hearing about it now?" followed up Harry.

"They came only 2 weeks ago, an adult and a kid. Spent maybe 30 minutes staring at the place where the portal once was. Then, walked around the perimeter of the old wards a few times, where the camp used to be. I think they were able to sense the residual magic, where the wards touched the soil" shrugged Nevile. "They didn't cast any magic or anything, so we didn't think it was critical to contact you guys. We knew you were coming anyway. Explaining it all over the bracelets would have been a real pain" he finished.

"Did they visit the town?" asked Ginny in interest. It was surprising that the locals didn't cast any spells. Only someone like Dumbledore would rely on their own sense of magic over detection spells, when encountering strange magics.

"Only briefly, the local muggles were all over the place and they didn't want to stick around for too long" answered Luna. "If they were Jedi, then it may be true that Hutts don't like them in their space" she added.

"Great!" exclaimed Harry, with fake enthusiasm. "It looks like we will need to accelerate our plans of taking Xerebus over. No way I am going to risk having the local wizards try to re-open the portal back to Earth" he sighed. "And we just started to wind down the workloads for our people" he lamented.

"I don't think it changes much for us, we always planed securing this planet. With the new communication station, we will know if the locals try something funny right away. I doubt they can open the portal within 6 hours it will take us to come here. Even if they can, it will not be enough time for the demons to establish foothold that we will be unable to overcome, like back on Earth" reassured him Ginny.

"Right. It still sucks, that the local wizards are already on our trail. The interweb is very vague about them. The only thing we can be certain of, is that they have much more influence and power, than any of the crime lords we were going to deal with" mussed Harry.

They discussed the option of dialog with the Jedi, once they read a bit about them in interweb, but decided against it. From what little information they could gather, the Jedi answered to muggle government of the Republic. This was not something their Alliance wanted. Self-rule was one of the main cornerstones of the Alliance foundation. In fact, the Thule leadership had to take magical oath to that effect.

The idea was to carve up a piece of land, or space in this case, to rule over. If the locals were nice, they would have simply packed their things and quietly left, taking over one of the unclaimed systems. Since the locals were slavers and criminals, they were planning to take a piece of territory from them. They haven't decided on the size yet, but by necessity, it had to be big enough that they couldn't be bullied or easily conquered.

"We will deal with them, when the time comes. For now, we should continue to focus on growing and getting stronger" pointed out Nevile. "To that effect, we are now up to 55 farm trunks. It should be just enough, to feed our current population. However, we need to look into acquiring the local harvesters for crops. House elfs are good, but we have only 100 of them, it is not sustainable. They will also serve better in other roles, that the technology cannot handle nearly as well" he explained.

"Hmm..., we are actually going shopping later today, for some ship parts and technology, for Hermione and her team. Do you know where we can get those harvesters from?" asked Harry. The town's people and slaves got all of their money back, at least those in their houses. The rest were confiscated by the Alliance and melted for their gold content. Which was one of the metals they were critically short on.

Therefore, they were planning to do bartering trades. Unspeakable Allonzy and his people managed to enchant a never-ending canister of tibanna gas. As long as the draw of the gas from the canister was limited, there will always be more of the gas. It was same principle, as never-ending ink pots, just more advanced. It was one of the few practical applications of Alchemy in the wizarding world. In essence, it was permanent conjuration with the use of runes.

This took care of their ammo and fuel needs in one swoop, as it was used by both the blasters and hyperdrives. Considering that there were only 2 planets in the whole galaxy, that produced the tibanna gas, it was super important that they now had their own source. Both of the source planets were controlled by the Republic, which made tibanna a very expensive and valuable commodity in the Hutt's space.

"You will not find any on Xerebus. The harvesters are also huge, even our freighters may be unable to transport one. Maybe if it was disassembled into pieces" answered Nevile. "I have checked the nearby planets. There is one food world some 50 light years away. It would be our best bet to find a harvester" he volunteered.

"Right, so problem for another day then. You may want to give a call to Hermione on the topic, there were a few tech savvy slaves, who were already a great help. They may be able to piece together a harvester for you from schematics alone, if there are any available online" suggested Harry, placing the plates with food in front of the others.

The rest of the breakfast was spent discussing other issues of the Alliance and the best ways to handle them. Each of them had grown in a different environment, had different personalities and views on the world. It made these periodical meetings, to brainstorm the most recent problems, very important. That they all enjoyed each other company and got opportunity to catch up, was great bonus too.

Afterwards, Nevile and Luna were given a list of supplies to prepare to take back to Avalon, while Ginny and Harry went back to the ship, to fly to the biggest town on the planet, to do some bartering.

Landing just outside of the town, they exited the ship with cargo drone following them, carrying a container with the tibanna gas canisters. With the help of the slaves, they had already started to identify and turn on some of the droids. Like they discussed, the medical drones were the first ones to be handled over to the medical department. But only after the droids were verified to be safe.

Some of them had to be disabled for later, as they had sophisticated anti-thief safeguards, that their Alliance was unable to bypass. Others, had their ownership reset.

Another big thing they had to address was the sentience of the droids. Many of them were very intelligent and personable, but only the most advanced droids passed their sentience tests. Those droids were set free and were going through the same process as the ex-slaves. Which included ID, bank accounts, educational requirements and the like. The Alliance was also working on ways to prevent them from being easily turned off or reset, allowing them to develop as they pleased.

All of the other droids had their personality matrixes removed and bore an external mark, to easily distinguish them from the self-aware variety.

With purposeful steps, they navigated to the closest parts shop. The locals giving them wide breadth, in their full enchanted durasteel armour, they were very intimidating. It was a risk, that their armour would be recognised and linked to the raided town. However, from the memories and questioning of the locals, they learned that people in full body armour meant business. It was much less likely someone will want to pick a fight with them, while they wore it. The additional protection it provided was also welcome.

"Can Lilu be of assistance?"

A small alien girl enquired, spotting them in the shop. She was a Clawdite, if Harry wasn't mistaken, they had one among the pirates they captured. A reptilian species of shapeshifters, with similar abilities to that of a metamorphmagus, but mundane, rather than magical. The girl couldn't be older than 12 years old, but child labour was common in Hutt's space, especially among slaves, as the girl clearly was.

"Do you work here?" he asked, getting a confirmation, he pulled out a list that Hermione provided them. "We are looking for these parts" he handled the list to the girl. Before entering the town, both of them strengthened their Occlumency shields, knowing they will be seeing a lot of awful things here. As much as they wanted to help these people, they were not yet in position to do so.

Upon looking at the long list, the girl's eyes widened. "One moment, please" she bowed to them, running off. Presumably to retrieve the shop owner or someone more senior.

While the teen was gone, the two of them walked around the shop, poking at things that caught their attention. They both had been briefed by the research team on the parts they were buying, to avoid being dupped. Otherwise, their understanding of the local technology was still pretty low.

"You are the ones looking for parts?"

Their investigations were interrupted by a deep voice. Turning around, they had to raise their heads up, to look at a tall and bulky alien, at least 2.2 meters tall. Trandoshan, if Harry was not mistaken. Another reptilian species, renowned for their fighting, as well as strong regenerative abilities, up to and including regrowing whole limbs.

"That's us" confirmed Harry. "You got any of those? We are only looking for new or barely used parts" he clarified. Magic could do a lot of things, but restoring old, beat-up parts, was not one of those. Reparo charm could only repair what was broken, it couldn't restore wear and tear, or conjure missing fragments.

When the research team disassembled their ships, they made a list of the most beat up parts to be replaced. There was little incentive to copy garbage parts, as the copies would be just as bad. For that reason, the research team was creating a museum of the best technology pieces they had, to be used as templates for future copies.

The shop owner looked them both up and down, judging quality of their armour. "New parts are not easy to come by, you sure you have the peggat to pay?" he asked with suspicion.

"No, not much in a way of currency, but we have tibanna to spare" countered Harry. Walking over to the carrier droid, he opened the crate and pulled out a canister of the gas, placing it on the floor in front of the man. "20-kilograms of tibanna. Interested?" he asked with a smirk

A single gram of the gas was enough for 100 blaster shots. Most blaster models used 5-gram cartridges. This canister alone was good enough for 2 million blaster shots.

When it came to fuel, a lot depended on the size of the ship and a way you travel. Their corvette used around 50 grams of the gas to jump into the hyperspace, with additional 1 gram per light year of travel. This was main benefit of major hyperspace lanes. Those were well charted space corridors, with many sensors' stations on the way, which allowed for longer hyperspace jumps.

It didn't get you any faster to the destination, but you saved a lot on fuel, by having fewer jumps. It was also much less likely, that you will encounter pirates in those areas.

"It would cost more than this, to get all the parts you want. Especially if you want new parts" countered the alien, rubbing his chin.

"There is more where this comes from. Do you have all the new parts we want? Show me the parts, then we can negotiate" responded Harry in challenge.

As it turned out, the alien didn't have all the parts they wanted, only about half. He, of course, tried to dupe them with worn parts, or similarly looking but different parts.

After intense hour of negotiations, they left the shop with 20 new parts and another 7 in fairly good condition. All in all, that cost them 5 canisters of tibanna. Harry realised, that it was possible to talk the man down to 4, but he didn't feel like wasting another 2 hours negotiating, when the gas was, essentially, free for them.

Over the next 3 hours they visited 4 other shops, where they picked up the missing parts. In each of the shops they also picked a few items that were not on the list, but they found interesting. Through the day, a few people looked at them with suspicion. Some even followed them for a while. However, no one dared to make a move at the well armoured and armed pair.

Shopping done, they returned to their previous parking spot. While their ship was loaded with the goods to take back to Avalon, they went to have a dinner with their friends. It was their last opportunity to catch up for a while. The ship was going to come back, but neither Harry, nor Ginny were planning to come back any time soon. However, they expected Nevile and Luna to come to Avalon on one of those ships, to see what the Alliance was doing in their absence.

Before they knew it, it was time for them to leave. Charlie was already anxious, with less than 2 weeks of silage left for the animals. The research team was also blocked by the lack of new parts and the minerals from Xerebus mines. Saying their goodbyes, they boarded the ship and left.

"Minister, you wanted to see me?"

"Ah yes, Allonzy, please take a seat. Would you mind putting up some privacy wards too, this is a bit sensitive" requested Harry. They just got back to Avalon less than an hour ago and he wanted to address one of the other shortages they were having.

"Umm..., okay" answered the man, waving his wand around a few times, before sitting down.

"I don't like long winded talks, so I will be blunt. We need gold" he told the man, making him blink in confusion. "The goblins, so far, had been unable to find any gold veins on either Xerebus or Avalon. As you know, we need it for technology we copy, as well as the runic ink. We have already melted all of the coins and jewellery we could, but still on track to run out of the gold in a week, at the latest" he explained to the unremarkably looking, middle aged man.

"I have heard that gold was in short supply, but I am unsure why you are telling me this Mr Potter. Shouldn't this be discussed with the goblins, or perhaps military?" he suggested, looking uncomfortable.

"We have looked at other avenues, but all of them are too risky for my tastes. Therefore, I was wondering Mr Flamel, if you are able and willing to help?" asked Harry bluntly, watching the man's face freeze for a moment, before morphing into a look of confusion.

"I am sorry, Minister, but I think you have mistaken me for someone else" Allonzy responded carefully.

"As I mentioned Mr Flamel, I will be blunt. Hermione had you figured out within 6 months of working together. Luna had known since the first week you and your wife joined us. The two of you had been great help to the Alliance and we have no intentions of exposing your identities. To be quite frank, I am quite jealous of your anonymity" confessed Harry, looking ancient man directly into the eyes, trying to convey his sincerity.

"And what if I say 'no'?" asked Nick, dropping the act, relaxing in the chair. He was older than the whole Alliance leadership combined. Harry Potter was not a threat to him, no matter his accomplishments.

"Then, this would be it. The Alliance has enough enemies without need to make more among ourselves. I am certain, that a man of your age and experience already has many ways to get out into the bigger galaxy, without anyone the wiser. We would never be able to find you, even if we were looking" shrugged Harry. He was neither Voldemort nor Dumbledore, he was not going to threaten or manipulate people, for his own ends.

The next few minutes they spent in silence, with Nick tapping his fingers on his chin, deep in thoughts. "Phoenix Tears" he finally said.

"Sorry?" asked Harry, not sure what Mr Flamel meant by it.

"The Elixir of Life is made from Phoenix Tears" he elaborated, making Harry's eyes widen in surprise. "Our hidden stockpile of the tears was in Africa, Congo to be precise. By the time we heard about the invasion, it was too late to retrieve them" he rubbed his eyes tiredly.

"Oh... How much of Elixir do you have left?" asked Harry with a wince. He didn't even know how to react to that. Back in his first year, when he heard about Philosopher Stone destruction and Flamel's inevitable death, he felt incredibly guilty over it. Now, that he was older, he realised how young and naive he was. He wasn't even sure, if the red rock he held in his hand was an actual Philosopher Stone to begin with.

"We have 10 tears left, from the stock we had on our person. That should last us another 5 years" he confessed.

"Right" said Harry seriously, standing up. "Expecto Patronum" he exclaimed, summoning his trusty stag. "Ginny, can you flame into my office for a few minutes, it is important" he told the light guardian, watching it run away to deliver the message. "All of the phoenix related stock is really up to Ginny" he explained.

It took only a minute, before the office was illuminated by a bright flash of fire. "Hey Harry, what's up?" asked Ginny, giving her boyfriend a hug. "Good morning, Allonzy" she greeted the other man too, after spotting him in the office.

"We were talking with Mr Flamel here, as it turns out, the Elixir of Life is made from Phoenix Tears" he explained to her, making her look at the ancient man with surprise. "Yeah, apparently they lost nearly all of their stock in Africa and only have 10 tears left, which should last them another 5 years or so" he added.

"I see... Is there an alternative to the tears?" she asked the old man, after a few moments of consideration.

"I am afraid, I have never really looked for one" responded Nick sheepishly. "Tears were expensive, but it was never an issue for us. We had enough stockpiled, that there was never really a rush, even if the market dried up" he admitted. To his shame, he never prepared contingencies to losing their storage and supply at the same time.

"I see" she responded. Shifting into the phoenix form, she hopped onto Harry's desk, studying the man through the phoenix senses. Finally, she let loose a song, that uplifted both man's spirit, flashing away in a ball of fire. Less than a minute later, she returned to the office back in her human form.

"Here, it should have 50 tears in it" she handled him a small vital, with clear liquid inside. "If you are still looking for alternative, by the time this runs out, let me know" she told the ancient man. "Did you need me for anything else? I was, kind of, in the middle of something" she asked Harry. Getting negative headshake, she bid the men goodbye, flashing away.

"Umm..., this didn't exactly go as I was expecting" admitted Nick, shell shocked at how quickly the events developed. "How much gold do you want for the drops?" he sighed. It was not like he could say no to the exchange, even if their identities were to be compromised. Another 25 years would give him lots of time to find alternatives to the healing tears, not that he was expecting the search to be easy.

"I think you misunderstood Mr Flamel. The Phoenix Tears belong to Ginny, not the Alliance. I cannot order her to give them up any more, that I can order you to give up the Philosopher Stone. That is not the type of government I want to create or run" clarified Harry seriously. "Ginny gave them to you with no strings attached, because it is how Mr and Mrs Weasley raised her" he pointed out.

"If you are still open to provide us with some gold, then I think we can get away with 50 kilograms. It should keep us going for another 3 months. I hope by then the goblins will find a gold vein they can mine. It is also an amount we can easily say came from our visit to Xerebus. Stolen from one of the crime lords, for example" suggested Harry. It was one of the reasons why he wanted to have this discussion as soon as he got back. They initially hopped goblins on Xerebus found a gold vein by now, but alas it was not so.

"Hmm..., I must say Mr Potter, you are very different to Albus" he told the young man. Albus Dumbledore was a great man, no doubt about it, but he was not a man that Nick would choose as a leader. Granted, he was better than most leaders, but he also had many of their faults. "I will take care of the gold" he finally committed.

Standing up from the chair Nick made it to the door, just before going through he turned back. "It looks like I was right in helping to elect you as the new Minister" he confessed with a smirk. Removing the privacy wards, he walked out of the doors.

"You did WHAT?!" shouted Harry, once the shock of the confession worn off. Sitting down heavily, he dropped his head onto the desk. No wonder the old geezers elected him, if the Nickolas Flamel was greasing their palms at his behalf.

(*Plans*)

The Avalon had seen a lot of progress over the next two weeks.

For one, they finally finished transition to 40 hours work week, which was very well received by the Alliance members.

New currency was also now in full swing, with back-pay for the older members being good enough to retire. Few of them moved into civilian sector, working on projects and business they wanted. The rest, remained with the government, which was strongly encouraged.

The carrots that Alliance used were in form of access to technologies and things that were no available to civilians. Things like limited supplies of exotic alien foods, more advanced electronics, abilities to work with more advanced magics and technologies, allowed to learn to fly spaceships, ownership of speeder bikes, etc.

Then, the research team finished enchanting armour for 2 more corvettes. The original one was used to fly back and forward to Xerebus every week, shuffling stuff both ways. The other two were used to reunite the slaves with the remaining family members. Of the 98 people, only 63 were able to be reunited. For the rest, families either moved, died, or didn't want anything to do with the ex-slaves. Of those 35 unfortunate people, 29 opted to return to Avalon and join with the Alliance.

Meanwhile, the goblins continued to enchant the conventional armour, which was going slowly, but steadily. They were now up to 225 fully enchanted sets, but needed close to 1000. Due to over 500 of the ex-slaves joining with the military, wanting to help the Alliance to free more people.

Many people were also kind on learning to fly the space ships. They now had 15 ships to train pilots on. In addition to the original 11 ships, 4 more copies of the fighter craft were made, to add to their fleet. Another 6 copies were used by the research team, to run their experiments on. So far, they managed to destroy 2 of those, with the space expansion charm. It turned out, that their fears of its interaction with the hyperdrives were justified.

The magical methods of transportation were also tested in space, with expected outcomes. The Phoenix Fire had the longest range, topping at 100k kilometres, which, in most cases, wasn't even enough to travel between planets and their moons. Portkeys were next, good for 10k kilometres at most, while Apparition topping at 1k kilometres. At the same time, the Floo connection didn't work in space at all.

For safety reasons, all of the pilots in training were given portkeys, for emergencies. They were also instructed to stay within the portkey range of the Albion base. It was easy for them to make copies of small ships, but trained pilots were much harder to come by.

Ron had a time of his life, analysing the available recordings of space battles and coming up with formations and strategies for their people to adopt. It was like being a coach of Quidditch team on steroids. So far, the trainings didn't involve any shootings at each other. As none of the fighters had their armour enchanted and the shield generators were really poor on this model.

The research team was looking into enchanting, or replacing the shield generators with better ones. The weapons were also looked at, in case they could be replaced with training cannon variants. They wanted to significantly reduce the damage output, while maintaining all of the other stats of the cannons and projectiles.

Perhaps, the biggest progress was on prison front. Significant percentage of their population was held in prisons, which was a big drag on their resources. In the near future, the situation was not going to change. They were expecting to keep getting 10-20% of their new citizens in the form of hardened criminals.

Bill and his team of warders didn't have much work in the new world, mostly helping others where needed. Therefore, they decided to help with the prison setup. It all started with simple wards, to prevent prisoners from killing each other. Over time, one idea after the other, they figured out how to turn the prisoners from being liabilities, to being assets to the Alliance.

Each prisoner was given their own cell, which looked out into the main chamber, much like muggle prisons, that some people knew the looks off from TV. Then, each of the cells had wards placed on it, to only allow the intended prisoner enter or exit from it. Additionally, no items could leave the cell, other than the prisoner's uniform. This gave prisoners safe place to avoid bulling, as well as prevented them from being forced to give up any of their possessions to others.

If the prisoner shown good behaviour over 2 weeks period, then they had a computer station installed in their cell. It had access to many online courses and lectures, to help the prisoners educate themselves. It also contained a list of small tasks prisoners could take, if they have right educational qualifications. Those tasks were very varied, depending on what alliance and civilian sectors needed.

It could be as simple as drawing something for a poster, or as complex, as helping with design of systems for a spaceship. Not all tasks were purely computer based either, some were for physically inclined people, like farming, mining, woodworking, assembly, etc. Basically, no different to normal citizens, except the jobs were in warded and isolated areas, that prevented prisoners from causing harm, escaping or smuggling items back into prison.

Any income the tasks generated was heavily taxed, as high as 90%. The taxes used to uphold the prisons and pay for damages caused by the criminals. However, even at 10% of earning, the prisoners were able to accumulate a bit of cash, for the time when they were released.

More importantly, each job earned the prisoner trust points, that could be spent within the prison itself. Those allowed prisoners to spend money to purchase better meals, or items for their cell, like better bed, furniture, posters, etc. Additionally, the cell itself could be improved, anything from adding wooden floors, plasters to walls, shower, bath, expanding the size of cell itself, or even adding another room.

Those who had shorter imprisonment time, could spend their trust points to lower their taxes, down to 50%. Allowing them to accumulate more cash, rather than spending the points to improve the quality of their life in prison.

On the other hand, any troubles that prisoners caused, resulted in deduction of trust points, up to removal of the already purchases privileges and cell modifications.

To encourage the prisoners to educate themselves, achieving the basic Alliance education qualification resulted in doubling of trust points from each task. At the same time, additional qualifications opened wider range of tasks they could choose from. With more important and difficult tasks paying more, in cash and trust points.

Not all prisoners were on board with the new system, many destroyed their computer stations and were trying to cause as much damage as possible in general. However, enough took up the system, that the Alliance was already starting to reap up the benefits. Over time, they were expecting more people to participate, as they saw their block mates starting to improve their prison life.

The hope was for the prisoners to come out of the prison as better educated, skilled and more adjusted individuals, ready to integrate with the citizens. At the same time, their time spent in prison was not completely wasted and would benefit the Alliance in some small ways.

When it came to the ex-slaves, the educational department was struggling. Not only were they short of teachers, they were unable to recruit new people from the town's folks. Apparently, general education wasn't a thing in the Hutt space, even among non-slave population. They already had to increase class sizes, use online lectures and non-sentient droids, to educate older people.

If the teacher shortages were not bad enough, with non-existent general education, it was also much harder to wrangle kids to attend schools, especially teenagers. The parents also had to be persuaded, that it was in best interests of their children to get education.

Unfortunately, the situation was not going to improve any time soon. They were going to continue to expand fast, with vast majority of freed slaves requiring education. For that reason, there was a heavy focus on improving quality of online education, as fast as possible. It was the only viable option, to scale their education system to keep up with the intake of new citizens.

"Ron, if you would" asked Harry, for redhead to present his findings.

"We have looked into Nevile's suggestion to raid that food planet to get us some local harvesters. In short, at this time, we don't have enough ships and troops to pull it off, without significant loses" he summarized with a sigh. "Instead, I suggest we hit a mining outpost, that some of the pirates set in Dre'srort System. The goblins mining techniques cannot be used by muggles, so we need that equipment for growing too. It is much smaller and not directly controlled by the Hutts, so will have much lighter protections."

"We extracted the location from one of the pirates, during interrogation. He was just a thug who passed through it at some point, so we will need to scout it out before assault. By our estimates, there should be around 1,500 slaves and 500 pirates" he laid out. The initial interviews with the pirates only judged their summarised criminal history, for sentencing. Now, they were slowly working through them with much finer comb, extracting wealth of useful information.

Most pirates were well travelled and served on many different pirate ships and crews. While much of the information was likely obsolete, many pirate bases and stations operated for years, if not decades. This gave them a long list of potential targets to hit. The interrogations, data composition and analysis, were bread and butter of Ron's tactical department. They had enough information already, to keep their people busy for the next few years, at the minimum.

"Can we really afford to bring any more people into the Alliance at this point?" asked McGonagall. Her department was already teetering at the seams, trying to educate the people they got during their last raid.

"I understand your concerns Professor, but I think we can all agree, that the slaves will be better with the Alliance, even if we were unable to educate them at this point" countered Harry, getting reluctant nod back. "Therefore, as long as we can feed the people and maintain order, we must grow" he concluded. That decision was not from purely altruistic reasons either.

For all they knew their existence was already exposed, if not, then it was just a question of time. Therefore, they had to get themselves ready to defend their territory and people, from anyone who came knocking. Which was impossible to do with just 6,500 people, no matter the advantages their magic provided. Even this was not a given. For all they knew, there were million other groups, that utilised magic in the same or even in more advanced ways.

Even if they assigned just one person per inhabited system, to look for ill intentions towards the Thule Alliance, they would need tens of millions of people to cover the whole galaxy. It was truly mindboggling, how big this place was. Back home, just the idea to control the whole Earth by a single government sounded ridiculous. Here, even if you controlled a few hundred Earths, you were a small fish, compared to Hutts or Republic.

"Food is currently our biggest constraint to growth, but it is mostly soil that we are lacking, not the equipment. It is going to change soon, but I believe we can afford the detour. Any objections?" asked Harry. Their composting piles were enormous, but it took a lot of soil to cover a square kilometre of land. It also took time and a lot of work.

"I would like to remind you Harry, that our farms are back on Xerebus, while people are mostly on Avalon. Just because we produce enough food, it doesn't necessary mean we can feed all of the people we take in" pointed out Charlie. The corvette ship they were using for transport wasn't really cutting it, and their food supplies were going down fast. Much faster, than they could offset from new farms on Avalon.

Even their small freighters, that had thousand-time cargo capacity of the corvette, would need 3 trips, just to fill a single compartment of their single farming trunk. This was just to provide 20 centimetres deep layer of soil, which was insufficient for many crops and equipment.

"Another point to speed up our takeover of the Xerebus" acknowledged Harry. "Where we are at, with the space expansion charm on spaceships?" he asked.

"We have managed to make some expansion charms work in hyperspace, but others, still makes the ships go boom. We are still trying to identify why that is happening, it is not very consistent" explained Hermione. "For now, I would advise against using those at all" she added. It was honestly very baffling.

Sometimes, the bigger expansion charms worked fine, while smaller one exploded. Sometimes, exactly same expanded space would explode on subsequent runs, while working fine during the first run. Sometimes, the expanded space exploded, other times, the ship exploded. In one, even more bizarre case, the ship left its pieces behind, experiencing splinching?

"That is unfortunate. It will also take a long time to enchant armour for the freighters, half a year was the estimate I was given, the last time I asked" mussed Harry. "I guess we will have to send a freighter to Xerebus as is. It is risky, but with two corvettes for protection, it should be safe enough. We will also give portkeys to the pilots, so they can evacuate to the corvettes, in case there is a fight" he concluded.

It would be bad, to lose a ship of such size, but not critical. They had 2 more and could duplicate them if needed too. However, the risk of attack was quite low. So far, none of their trips were challenged, or even paid attention to. That is why he didn't want to send any more than 2 corvettes for escort, to avoid drawing attention to the operation.

First trip with the freighters, most of their cargo were people, as well as personal and non-consumable items, necessary to establish their base on Avalon. This time, if they filled up the freighter with mostly food, it was going to last them a very long time, even if they were to add more people.

(*Preparations*)

Jeremy Jerkins, was one of the few Americans left alive. He and couple of his colleagues were on an assignment in Europe, when the nuclear war started. It was the only reason they were still alive. Being the main western power, the US was targeted with half of the nukes that both Russia and China possessed. Therefore, even the moderate sized cities were destroyed, with few survivors remaining.

As far as he knew, the US wizarding world was wiped out completely in the initial attack. All of their main hubs of activities and residence were well within the blast range of the nukes. If anyone from the government survived, they haven't made any attempts to contact what remained of ICW.

He and his team of Aurors were on join mission, to apprehend one of the raising Dark Lords, when the first bombs fell. Even in the small town they were in, far from any major cities, night turned to day for a while. First from the explosions themselves, then, from the numerous fires that followed.

Needless to say, Jeremy didn't know what have become of the dark lord, who suddenly became a much smaller issue for the ICW. His team were quickly put to work on search and rescue of missing members of the Confederation. In most cases, the search ended on the edge of an enormous crater. Few people they were able to find, were scrambling to set any semblance of working order for the organisation.

During one of the search missions, his team ran into the advancing forces of the demons. He lost two thirds of his team that day. None of them knew what those things were, or where they came from. Before they knew what was happening, they were in a middle of a very bloody battle. Only the emergency portkeys, he insisted his team wear, saved them from total annihilation.

When he reported the beasts to his superiors, his words were met with extreme scepticism. After everything that already happened to the world over the previous months, they simply refused to acknowledge any new problems. It took a whole month, and loss of few more ICW teams of Aurors, before the higher ups started to take notice. Rallying a force of 1000 strongest wizards and witches from across the remaining world.

It was the first time he saw Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley. Just two teenagers, in a sea of seasoned aurors, curse breakers, duellists, masters and elderly politicians. Even in the US they had heard the story of Harry Potter, but for them it was just that, a nice story. As he watched the Brits interact with the boy, he could only roll his eyes at the spectacle.

The girl just bounced between a young, redhead curse breaker and Harry Potter. Not talking or interacting much with anyone else. At the time, he honestly thought that the Brits simply didn't have anyone to leave the girl with. Instead, deciding to drag her into the battlefield with them. Let's just say, that UK didn't have a particularly strong reputation in US wizarding community, of having too many marbles.

As their army started to advance on brooms, he put the two out of his mind, focusing on the mission ahead. If the Brits wanted to bring their mascot and his girlfriend to the battlefield, it was their business.

The initial stages of the attack went well. The demons were hard to put down, but having advantage of fast brooms and easy shots at the demon's heads, the most vulnerable part of their body, they were making gains. The flying demons were an issue, often coming out of nowhere, but they were managing. The teens in particular were good in dealing with those. This was his first indication that those two were meant to be here.

Then, the brooms started to fail one after another, the heavy demonic magic in the air messing up the enchantments on them. It slowed down their advancement significantly. Not only were they moving slower, but the demons suddenly became much harder to kill from the ground, often requiring at least twice as many spells to put them down. It didn't help, that many members of their assault team started to slow down, due to exhaustion. Jeremy himself was starting to feel the effects of the long battle.

Only 20 minute later he saw the pair of teens again, weaving around each other, battling multiple demons at once, still going strong. Showing teamwork, that many seasoned aurors would be hard pressed to match. Then, the girl exclaimed 'Bill!' and was gone in a burst of flames. Meanwhile, the Potter seamlessly transferred to take on the demons on his own.

It took Jeremy only a moment, to find where the girl went. She was standing over the redhead curse breaker, she interacted with earlier, who was on the ground on his hands and knees, breathing heavily. Her wand outstretched above them, holding back a demon with a shield charm. Unfortunately, it seems like her hastily thrown shield wasn't strong enough to stop the demon's overhead swing. Its sword was buried deeply in the girl's shoulder, all the way to the lung, possibly, even the heart.

He watched in shocked surprise as she grinded her teeth, slowly twisting her wand, while still maintaining the shield in place. 'Reducto!' she screamed with her last breath. Even standing a good distance away, Jeremy could swear the air itself reverberated around him. The demon wasn't so much blasted back, as it and at least three others behind it, were turned into fine mist.

A second later, the girl dropped to the ground and burst into flames. Only moments later Harry Potter apparated to the same area, just finished dealing with the demons he was left fighting on his own. Jeremy couldn't hear what the teen said to the curse breaker, but a few seconds later he was getting back on his feet, holding something in his arms.

Meanwhile, Potter turned to fight the incoming demons, while yelling at the top of his lungs 'Retreat! Retreat! Retreat!' At first, Jeremy thought he was simply panicking due to death of his girlfriend. When he looked around, he was startled to see that less than 20% of their fighting force remained. He was so focused on his own fights, that he lost the signs of lost battle.

Soon, the others were making their own assessments of situation, coming to the same conclusions. 'Retreat! Retreat! Retreat!' was soon heard all across the battlefield. As he tried to portkey away, he suddenly realised that it was not responding. In a moment of panic he spun around, realising that they were surrounded on all sides by the demons and he didn't know the way they came from.

Once more the boy took the lead, by walking into the horde. Swatting the demons out of the way, with extreme prejudice. The redhead man followed him closely behind, with the rest of the survivors soon falling into the line. Soon the survivors were organised into an arrow tip formation, with Harry Potter in the lead, picking up speed as they went. Killing the demons was no longer a priority, only to move them out of the way of the retreating group.

The longer the retreat lasted, the more Jeremy was convinced that the teen picked up the wrong direction. He was so exhausted, that he was barely able to keep up the light jog by the time they finally broke through the encirclement. Many, didn't last nearly that long, falling behind or being taken out by the monsters one by one.

After a quick argument with the Potter, the redhead apparated away, while the teen moved to the collapsing side of their arrow formation, rendering assistance. Jeremy didn't know if he had enough magic left to apparate, much less keep the fight going. He just stood back at a distance, telling people to apparate away as he tried to catch his own breath.

Meanwhile, Potter had his attention split. Firstly, pushing away the demons from the tail end of their arrow head formation. Secondly, summoning those who fell or didn't look like they could apparate on their own, turning their clothes into portkeys and sending them away. He was so focused on his task, that he didn't notice a flying demon dive bombing him from behind.

Jeremy didn't even have time to yell out the warning, when the beast slammed into the teen, flattening him to the ground, likely, breaking every single bone in his body. Moments later, the beast pounded the ground a few more times, before picking up what was left and tearing the body apart. The only comfort Jeremy took from the spectacle, was that the teen died instantly and didn't suffer.

This killed what was left of their fighting spirit. Those who could apparate away did so, others, were left behind to the mercy of the demons. Jeremy was one of the last people to go. As much as he wanted to help the few remaining people, he simply didn't have enough magic left to side along anyone, even if he was able to get to them in time.

Needless to say, the devastating defeat of the wizard's army left them all in quite the mood. They didn't even have time and energy to organise the individual funerals for the fallen. Not even a nice monument, just a stone slab with long list of names left in the field, where the attack was launched from. Most of the survivors didn't even show up for the ceremony, returning to their countries of origin. Not that the monument was going to last long, the horde was already less than a week from reaching it.

Few days later, the decision was made to relocate ICW to Hogwarts, by far the biggest and strongest fortress far North. It was the first time Jeremy visited the famous castle. Needless to say, he was very impressed, as US didn't have any castles worth mentioning.

Afterwards, it took him only a few days to conclude that the castle itself was as barmy as the UK wizards. 'He got lost so many times trying to navigate it, and they sent 11-year-olds to study there!' He wondered, how many skeletons of the lost children were in that place.

Few days later, he quite literally ran into one of those skeletons, by the name of Harry Potter. In shock, he exclaimed the first thing that came to mind 'You have died!'

His response, was just a heavy sigh. 'Yeah, I get that a lot.' Then, the young man just proceeded with his day, leaving a shocked Jeremy behind.

If that wasn't shocking enough, few days later the ICW and all other individual country governments got disbanded. In their place, a new, global governing body was formed, with Harry Potter as the Minister, the leader of the survivors.

It didn't take long for the young man to prove that he was just as barmy as his average countryman, by giving a 5 years old girl a title of General and control over a good chunk of their military. It took Jeremy a few weeks to realise, that the girl was the same one he saw burst into flames fighting demons, some weeks prior. Learning that she was a Phoenix Animagus of all things, which allowed her to be reborn from her own ashes.

At the time, he mostly worked under her brother Ron Weasley, in strategy department. His task mostly resolved around mapping out the advancements of the demons, locating survivors, finding good spots for bottlenecks and traps. Only during bigger operations, his group joined with the fighters, to slow down and thin out the horde.

During all that time, like everyone else, he was curious about the new leadership and the stories behind them. To his surprise, the closer to the source the stories were, the more unbelievable they became. Many, not widely known at all. 'An 11-year-old, who not only seen a horcrux in real life, but actually held back the spirit of Voldemort for nearly a year? A 12-year-old, slaying a thousand years old Basilisk with just a sword? A 13-year-old, banishing 100 Dementors with a Patronus?'

It would have been easy to dismiss those stories, if he didn't see them both die and come back to life, with his own eyes. Their actions over the next few months only solidified his views. The girl, probably, had the biggest kill count of the demons of everyone in the Alliance. He wouldn't be surprised, if the count was in hundreds of thousands. She led nearly every fight with the demons, often, as many as 5 per day, with different groups of fighters.

When she was not on the battlefield, she was either helping to train the others, or training herself. Taking on a thousand years old vampire without Aresto Momentum was a suicide. Yet, she insisted on spar with Aiden without using that spell, to improve her reflexes. The only spars that were more spectacular to witness, were her spars with Harry Potter.

When they got going, you wanted to run and hide, but were too stupefied by the spectacle to move. The young man didn't join the attacks nearly as often, busy with his ministerial duties. However, when he did, the two of them combined were the force of nature itself.

Needless to say, the dissent over the bizarre changes of leadership in the army didn't last very long. Granted, the youngsters were unexperienced and made mistakes, but they were determined, skilled and powerful fast learners, that earned the respect of the soldiers with their actions.

Jeremy himself was happy where he was, he was not a career man. He didn't mind when younger people were given promotions above his standing, as long as they were competent and decent human beings. Unfortunately, in his 20 years in the auror force, he ran into quite a few fellow law enforcers that were not much better than the criminals they were hunting.

However, never in his long career did he expect to witness, quite literally, the end of the world. Then, the things went even more bizarre, when they landed in a galaxy full of aliens. Now, he had to learn to fly a spaceship, while dealing with more new languages and species, than he could count.

Sighing quietly, he passed yet another hairy alien in chains. Over the last two weeks, his team had been mapping out the tunnels of the asteroid mine in Dre'srort system. Invisibility cloak, plus a whole barrage of stealth charms, allowed them to sneak in the tunnels undetected. Unfortunately, they only had 2 invisibility cloaks, so had to take turns mapping the place.

Over the last few weeks, they turned the detection weakness of the wards, into new stealth solution for their ships. If there were no obstacles on the way, even weak sensors could detect other ships within millions of kilometres. However, if the ship was covered by a ward, it would become essentially undetectable for other ships. Unless those ships were within a very short range. Even then, if those ships tried to close the distance for a fight, then their sensors will be fried by the magic in the ward.

Therefore, their stealth ship could only be discovered and threatened within a very narrow distance range. Unfortunately, this also applied to the sensors of the stealth ship itself and any other friendly ships. This meant, that the stealth ship had to fly without company, only by the eyes of the pilots, completely sensor blind. Which was not optimal, when the ship could move thousands of kilometres in a blink of an eye.

None the less, it allowed them to park one of the corvettes within 8,000 kilometres of the asteroid mine, without detection. It was close enough for portkeys to work, but far enough, that it was unlikely it would be detected by the sensors on the ground, or passing ships. Just in case, they used Notice-Me-Not ward on the ship, for additional protection.

As the miners followed the ore veins, they created a huge network of tunnels, a full-blown labyrinth. It was clear, that the mining operations was ongoing for a very long time, at least a decade or two. The Alliance didn't want to risk someone hiding in one of those tunnels during the attack. Therefore, Jeremy and his team had to map out the whole place.

As tedious as it was, it also paid dividends in form of some forgotten equipment, they were able to scavenge in old tunnels. While old and used, technically, it satisfied the goals of the raid on the facility. However, during the scouting, they also discovered a few other things of value they wanted to get.

One of which was a Destroyer class ship, that stood guard over the outpost. At 20 meters long, it was more than 3 times longer, than their biggest military ship. If they could steal it, it would be great addition to the Alliance fleet. From the looks of it, it was also in pretty good condition, compared to the other ships they got. Clearly, the mine was making a lot of money for the pirates.

In addition to the destroyer, the outpost also had 20 fighter ships in the hangar. Few of which were of different model to their own fighters, which was of great interest to the research team. There was also a transport ship, similar to their own and two shuttles.

Of the ground troops, there were around 200 who were guarding the only entrance into the mine. Some manning the turrets, some pilots for fighters, some just infantry defenders. In addition to those people, there were around 300 other thugs, who were keeping the slaves in check.

All in all, it was one hell of a deterrent force for anyone trying to seize control of the mine. Too bad, that the Thule Alliance was not interested in playing nice or fair with the pirates. The goal was to seize the place with virtually no resistance, to avoid damaging the assets they were planning to get. It was main reasons for such long scouting operation, trying to account for every possible problem.