Moments earlier, in a clearing in a Russian forest, a bear was disturbed by the sound of shattering glass, only in reverse. From nothing, jagged shapes began to appear, connecting and joining from a broken mess until the form of a man could be seen. He was frozen and unmoving until the last crack in his appearance melded neatly, and he took a breath, lowering the hand mirror he held and stowing it carefully in his robes. Producing his Wand, Harry Potter thought of late mornings in bed, Ginny's floral perfume, and breakfasts clumsily made by children's hands.
"Mrs Lisiewicz," Harry said to his Patronus. "I have dealt with the matter on the Moon. I expect your Ministry to step up to the defence of your country. Tell Twardowski that I expect him to join your efforts body and soul, and if he has any hopes of leniency from me in the aftermath he will refrain from attempting to steal any more Dark Lords from Death." He paused, considering. "Remember Hong Kong." He flicked his Wand and the silver stag bowed its head, before leaping away into the sky and out of sight.
The grizzly bear whuffed, eyeing him from across the clearing like it was wondering if he was worth the effort to amble over and eat.
Harry glanced at the bear, and touched the soul of his animagus. "Gone on. Shoo."
The bear shooed.
The forest had a weight to it, an oppressiveness that came with places far off the beaten track, rarely frequented by humans. It was one of the last true bastions of wilderness in the modern world. Few had cause to come here, and of those who did fewer ever left. Harry walked through the trees with the ease of a man who had visited darker places for more frivolous reasons, crunching pine needles underfoot.
As he walked he drew his wand, hesitating a moment to check it was holly and not elder, and removed a number of charms from his person. His breath began to steam in the air, and a bracing chill crept through his robes. Dealing with the elements was different as a young man without aching joints and old scars complaining of the cold. His path meandered, going nowhere in particular. He would find the ones he was here to see when they were ready, not before.
If he was lucky, his information about the eldest's death was accurate. She would be insufferable if she were to see him as he was now.
Through the trees, he spotted a warm light, flickering slightly. He adjusted his path, heading towards what was revealed to be a cottage, fireplace lit within it. It was a squat building with a thatched roof, and a chimney made of mud bricks. Poking out from underneath it as if crushed were a pair of scaled legs.
Harry knocked on the door thrice, before stepping back to wait. It was only a moment before he was answered.
"Yes? Who is it? What do you want?" a scratchy voice came through the door.
"It is I, Harry Potter of England. May I come in?" Harry asked politely. Politeness was useful, to a point.
The door opened a crack, and a young face could be seen peering through. "Alright. Come in. But remember what happened last time you visited!" The door opened fully, revealing the young woman entirely. She had blonde hair like spun gold, and her features radiated youth and vitality. The rough smock she wore only served to further highlight her beauty. She stepped back, clearing the door, and Harry entered.
The cottage was rustic, with no hint of technology to be seen. An iron pot sat in a bed of coals on a raised stone bench, and on the other side of the room a round wooden table was covered in potion ingredients. Animal hides hung on the walls. There were two other women in the cottage, one middle aged, the other a crone, both clearly related to the youngest. The crone sat in an armchair by the fire, blanket over her legs and knitting needles in hand. The middle aged woman was stirring the contents of the iron pot, occasionally summoning ingredients from the table with a wave of her hand. The youngest took a seat at the table and picked up a small knife, presumably returning to whatever task had been interrupted.
"What brings you here, Harry Potter of England?" the matron asked.
"You know quite well why I'm here, Baba Yaga," Harry said. He conjured a stately armchair in the middle of the cottage, sitting so he could see all three of his hosts. "The world is on fire, and you are hiding in a forest."
There was a pause, and the shadows in the corners of the room lengthened.
"I would have thought you'd learned to mind your manners after the lesson I taught you," the crone said. Her voice was hoarse, and she didn't take her eyes off the fire. "You little shit," she added, almost as an afterthought.
"We are all young and tempestuous at some stage," Harry said with a shrug. "While I do regret being tricked into attacking you, I believe I made my apologies."
"Yet here you are, intruding upon my sisters and I without invitation," the crone said. She looked away from the fire and into Harry's eyes, displaying white orbs. "You were a fool to come back here with my geas upon you."
"I was sorry to hear about the death of your mother," Harry said. "But I see your granddaughter has risen to the task."
"What."
Harry wasn't sure which of them said it, but he smiled all the same. "It's not every century that one of you passes on. I had hoped to speak with your mother about the geas she placed upon me; it was quite the piece of spellwork."
The three women shared a glance, the youngest rising to her feet, wand in hand but still pointed at the ground.
"You have a very strange way of asking for our aid," the matron said. She poured a jar of something bright green and glowing into her pot, and it began to give off rings of smoke.
"I've kept it to myself, if that's what worries you," Harry said. From his sleeve, he appeared to pull a cup of tea, piping hot.
"How gracious of you, with the geas holding your tongue," the crone said.
"Oh, that old thing. It took me three years to break it you know, and that was with Hermione Granger helping me," Harry said. He took a sip of his tea, pinky finger sticking out.
The three women shared a look, that of a group just realising that a rather important secret was rather less secret than they had known, or hoped.
"It always amused me, thinking on how the Russian Ministry would react if they knew the dreaded Baba Yaga were not a trio of unaging sisters but a mantle, passed down through the family," Harry said. "Did you know that the Vasilievs still sometimes attempt to scry for you using the blood of your great great grandmother?"
The crone's hand blurred, and a knitting needle was thrown with deadly force. Harry's free hand twitched, and it was transfigured into water. Instead of a needle through his eye, he was slapped by cold water. Another twitch from his wand blew the crone from her chair and into the fireplace.
"Бабушка!" the youngest cried. She made to raise her wand but faltered as her mother shook her head.
"Calm down child," Harry chided. "Your grandmother is fine." He glanced at the matron, who was still stirring her cooking pot, eyes fixed on the wand in his hand that had just happened to come to a rest pointed directly at her.
The fireplace wavered and faded, as did the heat it cast. The mantlepiece joined it, and then the rest of the wall too, revealing an entire section of the cottage beyond it, showing the rustic cottage to be little more than a set piece. It was much more modern and well appointed, a sweeping staircase and foyer suggesting an expansive dwelling, and Harry even spied a few Muggle luxuries. The crone was picking herself up none the worse for wear, transfiguring the primitive clothes she had worn back into their original forms with the wand that had been hidden as a knitting needle, leaving her in stern witches robes.
"I am fine, ребенок," the crone said to her granddaughter. Her face rippled and twisted, several decades falling off as wrinkles smoothed and nose hair receded until she was merely old, not ancient. "You're looking spry for an old man, Harry Potter."
"Nicholas Flamel owed me a debt," Harry said. He took another sip of his tea, before placing it on empty air, where it stayed. "I did not lie when I told you I had kept it to myself."
The eldest of the three folded her arms over her chest, remaining in the foyer area. "And now you come to claim payment for your generosity. What is it you want?"
"Well, I'd appreciate it if your daughter would stop attempting to poison me," Harry said. He glanced meaningfully at the smoking pot, then at the matron and the maiden and the near unnoticeable bubble head charms over their nostrils.
"Tch." The crone nodded to her daughter, and the woman placed a lid over the pot and took it off the coals, cutting off the smoke rings coming from it.
"Thank you," Harry said. He took up his tea and had one last sip of it before tucking it back up his sleeve. "Allow me to speak plainly. I have no designs upon you and yours, no grudge against your family, and no desire to rid the Russian Ministry of the greatest thorn in their side."
"Then what brings you to our home, hmm?" the eldest asked. She came closer, taking her seat again as it's legs turned to face Harry directly. "It is hardly the most convenient time for a polite visit."
"I want you out there, fighting. Defend the land and those in it. Lend your reputation to the defence," Harry said.
"You ask for a blatant violation of the Statute," the matron said. Her voice was softer now that she wasn't brewing an airborne poison. "There are faster ways to unite our enemies against us."
"You won't be alone. The Polish Ministry already moves against the invaders, and Jan Twardowski stands with them, if he knows what is good for him," Harry said. "I will lead England personally."
"Why expose ourselves for the Muggles? What draws you from your school fortress?" the eldest asked, peering at him.
A flash of red hair and a green eyed smile crossed his mind. "Millions are dying as we speak," he said. "I would call it common decency."
The eldest harrumphed. "We will have compensation. And a Vow."
Harry inclined his head. "Within reason. You will have my Vow after the fight, when I have a second to stand for me. My word will have to do until then."
"Not good enough."
"I've not spoken of it for the last century and a half," Harry said. "I'm not inclined to start gossiping now."
The eldest narrowed her eyes at him. "You will have dinner with my granddaughter."
The youngest stirred, as if to protest, but remained silent.
Harry frowned for the first time since entering the sanctum of Baba Yaga. "I will agree to dinner. No more."
"You think we want unwilling fathers?" the crone asked. She snorted. "Unhappy unions foster unhappy children."
He hesitated for a long moment, but in the face of alien invasion, what was a dinner date? And it would only be that. "Very well."
The grandmother nodded, pleased. "Good. Now if you don't mind…"
The Baba Yaga 'sisters' clapped their hands sharply three times in unison, and Harry began to move with a jolt. The floor his chair sat on was flowing towards the door, and he barely had enough time to hop to his feet and vanish his seat, narrowly avoiding being dumped onto the forest floor. The door to the unassuming cottage slammed closed, displaced air rustling his hair.
The cottage seemed to shiver, and the mud brick chimney started to belch thick grey smoke. The scaled legs under it, once still, began to twitch and stretch, like a person rising from a long nap. They scrabbled for purchase on the ground briefly, and then the cottage was rising up into the air. Harry stepped back as the walking house seemed to pause for a moment, as if orienting itself, and then it was off, disappearing in a blur, dirt kicked up in its wake. The rapidfire beat of its footsteps quickly faded from hearing as it raced towards the nearest city.
Harry let out a small sigh as he rummaged about in his pocket for his mirror. That could have gone far worse, and all it had cost him was a dinner date. Thinking on what he had already done this day, and what he had yet to do, he couldn't help but wonder if there was something off with him that the dinner date was what left him most unsettled.
He held the mirror above himself and shattered it once more. He could just imagine Ron and Hermione at his shoulders, rolling their eyes at him.
X
The courtyard was full of corpses. Some were human, but many were not, the grey pallor of their skin marking them as invaders. At the centre of the carnage stood a man in a cloak, one arm covered in grey gore and viscera, and at his side stood an Asari. Harry approached the unlikely pair, stepping over bodies as he tucked his mirror away.
They turned as he neared, revealing their faces. The asari had a purple tinge to her skin and a hunger in her dark eyes, with that youthful look all the asari under 300 had. The man looked older than Harry, but with a long goatee and dark hair that could put him anywhere from 30 to 60. Harry had once thought he almost looked like a more distinguished Snape, if Snape had been handsome and actually washed his hair. The wizard purged the errant thought from his mind.
"Oh my," the man said, smiling with a mouth full of gleaming white teeth. "You're looking very healthy, Mr Potter."
"Mr Tepes," Harry said. He glanced at the human bodies littered around. "I trust you're not responsible for any of these."
"But of course," Tepes said. "If I was, I would be ash and my castle rubble, struck down by our oaths."
Harry inclined his head to the man the world knew as Dracula, and looked to his companion. "And who might this be?"
"May I introduce Sulara T'valin, a kindred spirit and companion of some seven years now," Dracula said, voice smooth and low.
"Harry Potter," Sulara said, stepping forward and offering her hand like a Queen might to a peasant. "Vlad has told me much about you."
Harry took her hand and bowed forward as if to kiss it, only to pause and stare directly into her eyes for a long moment. Sulara faltered and moved to step back, only for Harry to keep a fast hold on her hand. He frowned, minutely, and glanced to Dracula. "The Statute?"
"Kept in spirit, if not to the letter," Dracula said, hands clasped under his cloak.
"Hmmm," Harry said, releasing her hand. "Don't suppose it will matter soon enough anyway."
Sulara stepped back into Dracula, and he shifted so she could fit under his shoulder. Her head barely came up to his chin.
"Oh?" Dracula asked. "That sounds quite...final."
"I've made a decision," Harry said, gesturing to the husks littering the courtyard. "The magical world will stand with the muggle as we defend our home."
"That's quite the decision," Dracula said. "Surely there are some who disagree."
"I'm calling in my markers," Harry said, as if that was enough. And it was.
"I see," Dracula said, almost to himself. Sulara looked between them, drinking in their exchange. "How frightening."
Harry cracked a humourless smile. "I have my reasons."
"And what brings you here? You do not hold my marker, merely my leash, and there is little I can defend here, confined to my home," Dracula said.
"Do you remember what I said when I defeated you, Tepes?" Harry asked.
"Ninety nine years past," Dracula said, almost tasting the words. Sulara's gaze shot to Harry. "I remember it like it was yesterday. A brat still in their first century, telling me to choose: would I be monster, or would I be man?"
Harry nodded. "You had no answer for me then. Do you have one now?"
Dracula breathed in, slow and deep, and took Sulara's hand in his own. "I will always be a monster - but I choose to act as a man."
Touching his wand to the palm of his hand, Harry cut himself, thick rich blood welling forth. He traced his wand through the air, blood following in its wake, until a circle ringed in runes hovered between them.
Vlad Tepes, Count Dracula and once ruler of Wallachia, took one clawed hand and gouged the other from fingertips to palm, pressing his bloody hand into the floating spell circle. When he removed it, a red handprint remained.
"Vlad Tepes," Harry said. "I hold your oath fulfilled." The blood spell pulsed with two heartbeats, slowly synchronising. "No longer are you confined to your castle, to your country, to your planet. Go forth and live as you will."
The beat pulsed faster and faster until it stopped utterly, the blood dissolving into mist and vanishing into air.
"A burden held for almost a century, gone," Vlad said, rolling his shoulders. "What made up your mind?"
"It is not the circumstances of your birth, but your choices that define you," Harry said. "You made an important one today."
"Nicely stated," Vlad said. "Who said it? Albus? Nicholas?"
"Something like that," Harry said. "But now, you have a city to defend, and I have favours to call in." He retrieved his mirror, holding it high. "But remember Vlad, should you ever choose...poorly. I will be there." With that he shattered into infinitely smaller pieces, and was gone from the castle.
"Such an interesting young man," Dracula said to himself.
"You've been holding out on me, lover," Sulara said, twining her arm through his. "'Genetic defense against ardat yakshi' indeed."
"So I have, my dear," Vlad said. "And I promise I shall tell you all - but for now, we have so very many uninvited guests in MY DOMAIN."
Darkness exploded from the castle, announced by the shrieks of unnatural beasts, sweeping into the city around it, not to prey, but for the first time in history, to protect.
X x X
Harry disappeared from Wallachia to the shattering of glass, and reformed in the west of Africa within a city in ruins. Once proud skyscrapers burned, their skeletons sagging as he watched. The Reapers had come and gone, their red gaze destroying all it fell upon.
A screech rent the smog filled morning air. The Reapers might have moved on, but their minions had not.
Another scream, this one more human, rose above the roar of unchecked fires and collapsing buildings. Harry rose into the air, above a burnt out traffic jam and flew towards the cry for help. A mother and two children were trapped on top of a bus, looking down in horror as a pack of husks swarmed something on the ground. Blood spurted, but their victim was still, and soon they turned their attention to their still living prey.
One of the two children, a boy who would likely protest to being a man, swung a length of metal, knocking the husks back as they attempted to climb the vehicle. His sister was busy holding a wad of material to the blooming mass of red on her mother's side.
Harry circled above them, wand a blur. He cast a different charm, hex or curse for each husk, youthful eyes watching sharply for the results. Some husks were unaffected, others stumbled and jerked, one exploded and set off a chain reaction, some howled and turned fruitlessly to him, and one collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, before rising and seeming to take in its surroundings as if for the first time.
He smiled in cold satisfaction before loosing a torrent of flame, reducing the husks to ash in seconds. A moment of attention to the mother and her pained gasps eased. The family stared up at him, dumbstruck by the manner of their rescue.
The screech he had heard earlier came again, much closer this time. Harry turned to face it, and was greeted by a husk - but this one was different. It approached through the air, drifting slowly, but then it let out that Morgana cursed shriek and lurched forward through a corridor of savaged reality set alight with blue flame, slamming between existence and non-existence, between stillness and charging predator. This one could use biotics.
Harry cast reflexively, resorting to a spell he had used the one time he had come across a hostile krogan. The husk dissolved into a puddle of goop from toe to crown, and he had just enough time to recognise an Asari face go slack before it was gone.
"What are you?" the boy atop the bus asked, jaw slack.
"Here to help," Harry answered, Hermione's translation charm still worth it's weight in galleons after all these years.
There was a soft pop, and they were joined by another, a woman in yellow and green kente cloth robes. Her wand was ready and her gaze focused, but she stopped and blinked as she saw Harry.
"You are…" she said before pausing, taking in his appearance. Long black locks shimmered with the light of burning buildings.
"Harry Potter, yes," he said. "I'm looking for the Anansi Brothers. I presume you can take me to them."
The woman nodded, hesitating only briefly. "I can take you to them."
In normal times, the ex-Chair of the ICW and its most feared enforcer asking a member of a group of smugglers turned crime lords turned freedom fighters turned illegitimate government for a meeting with their leaders might be politely rebuffed. These were not normal times.
"Take this," she told the Muggle family, handing a rope to the mother. "All together now. Good. Sanctuary." They disappeared in a swirl. "I will bring you to Anansi Side-Along," she said.
"I would prefer you to lead, if that's all the same," Harry said, surreptitiously casting a hex. "I will follow." Being dropped into an ambush with a deliberately sloppy Side-Along once was more than enough.
The witch wasted no more time, turning on her heel and disappearing with a pop. Harry cast a charm to read the wake of his hex, and then followed its trail.
Harry appeared by his guide's side in what looked like a market square of the magical district. Today there was no market, only chaos, as Muggle and Magical families alike huddled together, many of them injured. Witches and wizards in yellow and green robes like his guide moved about, providing what aid they could. Some of those held by family were far too still.
"This way," the witch told him, schooling her shock at being followed through an Apparition. They headed through the square, towards what was once a two story clothing store, but was now an emergency HQ.
"May I have your name?" Harry asked his guide.
She glanced at him. "Kyala."
They stopped before their destination, and Kyala tilted her head a fraction, as if listening to someone. "They are ready for you," she said, gesturing him forward.
Harry entered, leaving the chaos of the square behind, to find the ground floor empty but for two men. The Anansi Brothers...two of them, at least. He raised his hand in greeting, the motion disguising a revealing spell. The third brother stood on the second floor, directly above him and wand at the ready.
"Harry Potter," the brothers greeted him. They were bald, strong of build, and clad in the same kente cloth robes as their subordinates. Their hands were hidden in their sleeves.
"Anansi, Anansi," Harry said.
"You are looking youthful," one brother said.
"Finally cashed in that favour Flamel owed you, we see," the other said.
"Interesting times, interesting measures," Harry said.
The first brother laughed. "British understatement rears its head. But what brings you to us?"
"We would have thought you too busy putting out fires to cast your gaze our way," the second brother said.
"Oh, I heard there was a fire here," Harry said with a smile. He made no move for his wand.
The brothers grew tense. "The world is on fire, we would say."
"The whole world isn't giving aid and refuge to Muggles," Harry said.
"You're here about the Statute?" the second brother asked, anger in his voice. "You go back to the ICW now of all-"
"Brother!" the first cut him off.
Above, the third brother shifted, waiting for a signal.
"I'm not here to stop you," Harry said. "I'm here to tell you to do more."
The Anansi Brothers paused. "What?" they asked, out of sync.
"The ICW did not listen to me," Harry said, "so first I dealt with Jan Twardowski, and secured the Polish Ministry. Then I spoke with the Baba Yaga. From there, I went to Dracula and released him from his Vow. Now I speak with the two of you while the third listens in from above."
The two brothers rocked back at what he told them, before an unseen signal had the third seep through the ceiling in a cloud of grey smoke to reform next to his siblings.
"The time of the Statute is over," Harry said. "Either it will be cast aside as magical and mundane come together, or I'll crush it under my bootheel as I drag the Magical world into the light."
From another man, such a statement would have been laughed at, dismissed as a pretentious statement from a deluded fool - but this was Harry Potter. This was the man who had vanquished a Dark Lord before he could speak, who was raised by Albus Dumbledore and then outdid the man in every field, the man that Ministries the world over called for aid when they could no longer stand alone. Children everywhere knew his name.
"You want to break the Statue," the first brother said.
"I've already started."
There was a pause, as the brothers conferred somehow.
"We would need...guarantees," the second said.
"I could tell you that I will recognise you as the legitimate Ministry of West Africa, but if you step forward now, that will not be in doubt. I could offer to block the Ministry-in-Exile's attempts to have ICW forces sent after you, but I already do so. I could guarantee you many things, but none so grand as to match the opportunity before you."
There was another, longer pause.
"We'll do it," the first, the eldest, said. "On one condition."
Harry waited.
"Prove you are who you say you are," the third said.
"I suppose I can't blame you," Harry said, slowing drawing his holly wand. He conjured thoughts of breakfasts in bed, inexpertly but enthusiastically prepared by small hands, of teaching a red haired girl how to fly her first broom. "Expecto Patronum."
Prongs came forth, each step of his hooves upon the tile floor sounding as echoes from a great distance. For a long moment, the four of them simply basked in its aura, a sense of calm reassurance that everything would be ok suffusing them. Then the Patronus faded, and the moment was gone.
"That would do it," the second brother said. "We'll contact the Prime Minister and go from there."
"If they still live," Harry said. Something began to vibrate in a pocket, and he reached for it. "The husks are coordinated by way of their cybernetic implants; I have found hexes aimed to disrupt Muggle communications to be effective." From his pocket he pulled a golden coin, inspecting it with a frown.
"Ill news?" the third brother asked, breaking his silence.
"Just news," Harry said. "I'll leave you to it. Good luck, Anansi."
With that abrupt farewell, Harry retrieved his mirror and shattered with it, disappearing from the centre of the Anansi Brothers' power.
Tension seeped out of the brothers' frames. With Harry Potter gone, now all they had to worry about were the hordes of alien invaders. A whisper and a flicker of shadow later, they too were gone, off to marshal their strength to truly strike back against the Reapers.
X
Hogwarts was a swarming, kicked over ant hill. Its green lawns were buried under a horde of witches and wizards, slowly filtering through the main doors. Even the Lake was part covered, the ebb and flow of the crowd seeing some families conjuring watercraft for themselves to escape the press. House Elves wearing the school crest on their robes popped in and out of the crowd, giving aid to those who urgently needed it and even transporting those with small children past the bottleneck of the doors. Family Elves could be seen helping too, as their employers stood shoulder to shoulder with common shop workers. Hogwarts had given the Sound for Sanctuary, and nearly every magical family on the Isles had come seeking it.
High above in his office, Harry turned away from his window. It was the same office that had belonged to Albus Dumbledore, but nearly all personal traces of the man had been worn away after nearly two centuries of other occupants. Now it hosted knick knacks and keepsakes of past adventures rather than esoteric devices; a shattered sword with a ruby pommel here, a broken broomstick there, a broken treaty signed in blood and ink above the mantelpiece. He returned his attention to the guests sitting across his desk.
"If the enchantments are holding in the Great Hall, then I expect they will hold for the dormitories as well," Harry said.
"We don't need to worry about running out of space then," Athena, his Deputy, said. "Food may become an issue." Her hair was in that indeterminate state between blonde and white, and was done up in an uncharastically severe bun.
"We can worry about that when we have fewer immediate troubles," Harry said. "Now," he turned to the man sitting beside Professor Lovegood, "what brings you to my office at this time, Mr Parkinson?" He remembered teaching Padraig Parkinson. Above average grades, but perhaps a bit too interested in chasing witches.
The young man took a breath, holding his unfortunate bowler hat in his hands. "I was promoted to Acting Head of Magical Games and Sports yesterday, and as best as I can tell, I'm now Interim-Minister."
Long practice kept Harry's thoughts from showing on his face, even as he pushed down fresh grief. "I see."
Padraig shivered, almost imperceptibly. "I only bring it up because I received complaints from the ICW about your visit there," he rushed to explain.
"Complaints," Harry said, voice flat.
"I told them where they could shove it, which in hindsight, was - well. Given the situation, I thought it was important to - that is, whatever authority the Ministry has is behind you. England is yours, Prof - ah, Headm - sir." Padraig clamped his jaw shut, staring at his bowler hat as the tips of his ears burned.
Harry paused a moment, memories of an obstructionist Minister in a bowler hat fading away. "I appreciate your trust, Minister."
A tension seemed to flow of out Padraig, even as he sat straighter. "Is there anything you need me to do with the ICW? Or elsewhere?"
"No, that is - wait, yes. If you could find any members of the Malicious Interdiction of Secure Systems squad, please tell them I can use them. Volunteers only; it will be dangerous."
"Right away Professor," Padraig said, already halfway to his feet. He was out the door before Harry could finish thanking him.
"I caught him in a broom closet with Miss Hill and Miss McKillop, once," Athena said.
"Arthury Creevey," Harry said, in much the same tone one might say 'checkmate'.
Two spots of colour bloomed on Athena's cheeks, and for a moment, they were just two old colleagues reminiscing together. The moment passed, the demands of the situation pressing in once more.
"Hogwarts is in your care," Harry said more seriously. "I will need to focus on the invasion."
"I have it," Athena said. "Felix be with you." She rose and departed, leaving him alone.
Two flicks of his wand, and a pair of shimmering hummingbirds made of light hovered before him. "Find Antigone Lupin and Melvin Nott. I'd like to speak with them in my office as soon as possible." The birds flew off in a flash, glittering trails left in their wake.
Antigone arrived first, her status as a Professor and reputation clearing her way through the halls. She slowed upon seeing him, but only briefly, and took a seat. "Harry. You're looking well." She curled a lock of her brown hair around one finger.
"Flamel. I don't have time to be old," Harry said. "What were you doing when I called?"
"Supervising the guests. They're well behaved; most of them caught a glimpse of the invaders," Antigone said.
"They're being called Reapers, according to Twardowski."
"Twardowski?"
"I took a trip to the moon, amongst other places," Harry said.
Antigone raised an eyebrow.
"Siberia, Wallachia, West Africa," he explained.
Antigone's other eyebrow shot up to join the first. "That would explain the ICW's complaints."
Harry grunted. "They're not aware. Can Tiberius cope without your help?"
Accepting the subject change, Antigone pondered briefly. "All things considered? Yes. What do you need from me?"
"I need you to gather your old colleagues, those that can cast the Killing Curse."
Hogwarts' Head Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher could never be called slow witted. "You think it will work against the Reapers. Why? Your curse only slowed it."
"I saw a Muggle ship fire upon a Reaper in France; it may as well have been a pixie poking a nundu. But if we could disable them before they attack…"
She nodded slowly. "It could work. But there aren't many of us left who received Forgiveness," she warned.
"I am also organising other capable casters," Harry said.
"Other capable…" Antigone trailed off, frowning.
As if on cue, the door to his office opened again, and a wizard stepped through, caution writ on every inch of his frame. He could have passed for a banker, or a shopkeeper, save to those who could feel the charms and spells on his sober robes.
"Nott," Antigone said. Her wand was in her hand.
Harry hadn't seen her move.
Very carefully, Melvin Nott held his empty hands out to his sides. "I am a guest, here after being offered Sanctuary."
Antigone's nostrils flared as Harry watched her weigh the man's life against a sacrosanct tradition. In the time it took to blink, her wand hand was empty again. "Funny how tradition suddenly matters when you're the one protected by it." Her face was blank.
A ghost of a smile crossed Nott's face. "Or perhaps I'm simply smart enough to recognise which traditions will actually protect me."
Antigone went very, very still.
"Mr Nott," Harry said pleasantly. "You should know that as of this moment, and for the foreseeable future, there are no checks on my power in England, personal or political."
Nott wet his lips. "Ah."
"Take a seat."
Nott sat.
"You will take a message from me to your...colleagues," Harry said, leaning forward. "You will tell them that I want those who can cast the Killing Curse. You will tell them that this is their chance to pay back some of the blood in their ledger. You will tell them that I will be disappointed in those who do not make the most of this opportunity. Do you understand?"
Nott's jaw twitched as he fought to keep a pleasant expression on his face. "Yes."
"Good," Harry said, sitting back in his chair. "That was all; you may go."
Jerkily, the man who was unprovably but unquestionably in charge of most of the organised crime in the Wizarding British Isles rose from his seat and turned for the door.
"Oh, and Melvin," Harry said, as if just remembering something. "Those warehouses you thought I wanted to negotiate with you for? Show one of the Elves where they are; we wouldn't want the castle to run low on supplies."
Nott faltered for a scant second, but marched stiffly from the office. The door shut itself behind him.
"You should have let me kill him," Antigone said.
Harry sighed, his true age showing on his youthful face for a moment. "I could have. It would have been easy."
Antingone's upper lip curled, her hair pulsing red. "But not 'right'. I remember your talk. That doesn't mean we should always turn the other cheek."
"I wouldn't call what you did to your son's killer 'turning the other cheek'."
"You know Nott gave the order," Antigone said, almost hissing.
"I could have let you kill him," Harry conceded. "I could have done it myself, in the Great Hall even. But what then? I am over two centuries old, in the body of a twenty year old. I am 'The Great Harry Potter'," he said, and now it was his lip that curled. "Who could stop me? It would be the start of something terrible."
Antigone's lips pressed into a thin line, and her eyes flashed yellow. She did not respond.
Harry sighed again. "Nott is useful, for now. If he survives this war, he will not always be."
A reluctant grunt forced its way from Antingone's throat. "Is that all?"
"For now. Speak with your people as soon as possible; I hope to strike the Reapers before the day is out."
Antigone rose and gave him a short nod. "Uncle." She left swiftly, robes billowing behind her.
Harry watched his goddaughter leave, old regrets weighing him down. He shook them off, before taking up a quill and setting it to parchment. There were still more he could entreat to fight, some even well enough disposed to him that they would not require favours be called or subtle threats. He started with one of the closest.
To the Gurg of Gurgs, Maximus Hagrid,
My friend, I write to you….
X x X
It was late afternoon when Harry stood on the Quidditch Pitch, a group of witches and wizards before him. As he inspected them, he realised that to call them one group was being overly charitable. There was a clear split between them, and open hostility filled the space. The only thing preventing bloodshed was his presence.
The smaller group was also the elder, and it was headed by Antigone Lupin. The group of fifteen or so men and women would have looked more suited to a tea parlour, huddled around the Wireless, but they stood tall and proud in the old style Auror robes, maroon cloth faded and badges gleaming.
The other group was more roughly arranged, but Melvin Nott stood at their head. They were a motley lot, some looking like every stereotype of a malicious wizard lingering in an alleyway, while others looked more like they should be serving butterbeer behind a village pub. There were nearly thirty of them, and none looked happy to be there.
"I appreciate your presence," Harry said, breaking the silence. "Whatever your reasons for being here, you have come, and you will make a difference."
Both groups stirred, each taking his words a different way. One old man in Auror robes that Harry remembered as a pimply recruit met his gaze evenly and nodded, quiet acceptance warring with pride. A young woman from the other group with empty ice chips for eyes stared at him blankly.
"Wizardkind has never fought an enemy like this. Our enemy is legion, are larger than Muggle skyscrapers, and command hordes of Inferi-like creatures. If you approach this without the seriousness they deserve, you will perish," Harry said. His gaze swept across them. "They will strike at your mind, attempt to turn you against your fellows. You will need your Occlumency. They have weapons in the Muggle fashion that put anything we have seen before to shame. It took three Aegis Shields to weather a single attack."
There was some shifting amongst them, and none spoke, but Harry heard the disagreement nonetheless. He would have to make them understand.
"The Ministry is gone. Centuries of protection, concealment, and history, destroyed in an instant by one of these creatures. We have magic, yes, but we are none of us immortal. I do not drag you into defence of the Muggles simply because it is the right thing to do, but also because if we stand alone, we shall surely perish. The Killing Curse alone is not enough; I was forced to resort to uncontrolled fiendfyre and forbidden magic just to kill two."
"If they can't be easy killed by the Avada, why'd you want us lot then?" One of Nott's men spoke up. He was an average sort of fellow in a brown coat, and wouldn't have been out of place in the Leaky Cauldron.
"Because the Killing Curse can stop them in their tracks and leave them dead in the sky, at least for a moment," Harry explained. "That will give the Muggles an opening to cut them down."
This time the disagreement was not silent, someone snorting a derisive, "Muggles."
He scowled. "You know who I am. You know what I've done, and I am telling you that if you approach this fight with unthinking arrogance you will not survive," Harry said flatly. "Yes, we are Wizards and Witches. Yes, we have seen off every challenge from the Muggles over the centuries. But this is not a Muggle threat. The two I killed were alone, and even one more of them would have made killing them...challenging. I have seen them prowling Muggle metropolises in packs. From the Moon, their numbers are too many to count. Think for a moment, of the Muggles united against us, and then give them the ability to attack our minds and land on Unplottable land. That is what we face."
Harry surveyed them again. They were beginning to understand.
"In time, we could perhaps defeat these Reapers. But at what cost, and what would our planet look like afterwards?" He held his hand out, as if weighing the price. "If you will not fight with me to save lives, you will at least fight with me out of self interest."
"We're with you, Captain," an old witch with a peg leg called out. "We'll not shirk from our duty."
Harry nodded. Gods, he remembered teaching her mother.
"You haven't exactly given us a choice," Nott ground out. "We'll do our part."
"You're no use to me dead," Harry told the group of killers and criminals. "And for every Reaper you help kill, you'll have saved tenfold more lives than you've ever taken. Now is the time to be something greater."
None responded, but some stood straighter, hostility leaving their stances. Harry nodded. That would have to be enough. He snapped his fingers, and a stream of knotted handkerchiefs burst from his palm, flowing from person to person like a snake. Ensuring everyone had a grip on it, he took a breath and prepared himself.
"London stands."
The Portkey activated, everyone twisting into nothingness. All that was left behind was the quiet of the pitch, and the sun shining down on it.
X
They reappeared atop a building in a hellscape of burning skyscrapers and smoke choked skies. Looking down, the streets were clogged with abandoned vehicles and bodies, mostly human, but some husks as well. Gunshots rang out above the chaos here and there, and movement could be seen, with people fleeing from one certain death only to find another waiting for them. A bubbling rage began to rise within him; akin to a volcano that no one could ever turn their back upon. His Wand slipped into his hand.
"None of you go alone. Watch each others' backs, and if you must die, make them pay dearly," Harry said. He stepped off the building, accelerating through the sky. Behind him, his forces burst into clouds of white and black smoke, expanding into the city, but his gaze was focused on the street below, where three soldiers were trying to escort a group of families to safety. A swarm of husks was growing around them, drawn by their resistance. They moved like redcaps around a kill, sizing up their food.
The soldiers shot them as they approached, scything them down, but that only drew more from surrounding blocks. Those they protected huddled together, trying to stay low as they moved, seeking some ephemeral promise of safety. Despair was writ across their faces, and yet more husks gathered, running at them with mindless hunger. The group darted into an alleyway, seeking a shortcut, but finding only a dead end. They turned, trying to get back out and keep moving, but they were blocked in. Grimly, the soldiers took up position at the head of the alley.
Harry set down gently before them, cloak billowing. A haze poured from his wand, seeking out the husks and wrapping around them before searching for more. The grey skinned beasts melted where they stood, their rasping growls cut off to leave a strange stillness.
"What the fuck…" one of the soldiers breathed.
Harry turned to face them, ignoring the rifles pointed at him. "My name is Harry Potter. I am a wizard, and I am here to help."
The rifles were lowered ever so slightly, but the confusion on their faces grew. Behind them, children were clutched behind parents, breathing harsh and uneven. This was likely their first chance to rest for some time.
"Where are you taking these people?" Harry asked the soldiers. None of them seemed to have anything but the most basic rank insignia on their uniforms.
"Underground," a soldier blurted. With the immediate danger passed, his hands were starting to shake. "The Underground. There are old emergency bunkers down there. Our company was to escort civilians down there, but…"
A quick glance at his eyes told Harry that these three soldiers were all that was left of their company, and the few families behind them all that was left of several hundred more civilians. A flick of his wand and they were all calmed, steadied, and fortified. Several more and their clothing was as armour, bubblehead charms settling over their noses and mouths, before he laid a final charm originally designed for English longbowmen on their weapons.
"What was-"
"I have protected you," Harry said, cutting the soldier off, "but I cannot stay with you. Where are your commanders?"
"Dead, uh, sir," a soldier said, her breathing starting to even out. "Command was taken out quick."
"Do any forces remain?" Harry asked.
"There was a frigate, the Marathon, on the air half an hour ago," one said. "We didn't hear it go down." His words were hopeful, but his eyes were resigned.
"Hmmm." Harry considered the group before him. Despite his charms, they would still be lucky to make it to the promised safety of the Underground. "How far do you have to go?"
"Only a few blocks. We're almost there," he said, as if trying to convince himself.
From crumbling buildings and burnt out vehicles, Harry conjured and transfigured great beasts, lions and elephants and bears clad in spiked armour, perfect for fighting Inferi. "They will defend you, attack moving corpses, and obey simple commands."
Slack jaws were his answer, even as the cry of a husk saw their hands tighten on their weapons.
"When you reach safety, tell your fellows that the Wizarding World stands with you," Harry commanded. He took to the air without another word, leaving them to their fate. Hopefully, his aid would be enough.
As he rose above the skyscrapers of London, he searched for signs of resistance. He spied two Reapers toppling, green lightning arcing over their enormous bodies, but with no great weapons to deliver a killing blow, his people were forced to kill them slowly, whittling their way through the defence their sheer size offered them. Even as he watched, one of the toppling Reapers came to life once more, only to be struck by another Killing Curse.
A repeated booming reached his ears, the steady beat standing out over the sounds of the fallen city. Turning, he began to fly towards it, slowing only to bombard a street packed full of husks besieging a cafe. As he grew near, the tall buildings fell away, turning to wreckage and rubble that grew smaller and smaller as they went. At the epicentre of the devastation, there was only dirt and rock, an Alliance frigate hovering above it. At the edges of the destruction, three Reapers surrounded it, facing inwards. They had the human ship dead to rights, but for some reason, could not seem to land a blow. Their attacks, torrents of red light and hate, seemed more random and probing than anything, while the frigate was firing its guns as fast as it could, despite their complete lack of effect.
With a start, Harry realised he was looking upon the remnants of the Ministry of Magic. Whatever had happened here had resulted in the destruction of the underground complex and several surrounding blocks as the protective magics failed.
This was where his daughter had been killed.
"AVADA KEDAVRA."
The largest of the Reapers stopped, crackling green, and the guns of the frigate boomed once more. This time, they were not met by shields and ignored. This time, they impacted on the body of the Reaper with a great crash, blasting a crater in its armour. The other two Reapers paused in their probing attacks, as if disbelieving whatever passed for eyes amongst their species. The frigate did not, if anything its attacks came faster, hitting the same point again and again until they blew through the other side with a roar of high explosives and the screech of a dying Reaper, it having recovered from the Killing Curse just in time to feel its own death. It fell, crushing several blocks under its weight.
The frigate rotated to bring its gun to bear on another, smaller, Reaper and Harry obliged them with another sitting duck. This one fell even faster, something important inside it exploding and causing a chain reaction as it collapsed, taking a skyscraper down with it. The third began to lift off, giving a great electronic bellow, but there would be no escape for it. Finding the hate was easy, and it too was destroyed by the guns of the Alliance frigate.
Harry tapped his wand to his throat, and spoke. "SSV Marathon," he said. "Permission to come aboard?"
