It was official. Ensign Mayr had it out for her. It had been her first day as crewman aboard the Chimera and it already felt like an eternity. Her entire body ached with cramps as the Ensign had let her stand attention rigidly for hours in his "office" which he shared with two other males of his rank. Those other two working on their stations had not beaten their eyelashes. Harriet therefore assumed that this was most likely a usual occurrence.

Afterwards he had ordered her to follow him and she had to complete drills, to the very amusement of the training storm troopers and other training personal on the training deck. It seemed that she was punished severely for something, but she could not, for the life of her figure out, what that something was. Her muscles were burning and protesting, but she refused to give in.

She had endured her neglecting family which had always preferred her oh-so- wonderfully-gifted-brother- who- simply-would- not-die, the hardships of studying in the muggle world while being forced to stay at Hogwarts and the second dark reign of Lord Voldemort where she had actually dared to venture out into mortal danger for the Order while her family had kept her brother in the Potter Manor. Even though he had wanted to go out and fight. But what had hurt her the most was, that they had not even realized that she had been missing for months. It spoke volumes about their not existing love for her. She had ventured our not only because she wanted Voldemort gone, but also because her other "family", the Dursleys had been her major concern. While her real family had been ignorant towards her, the Dursleys had slowly warmed up to her throughout the years. The fact that she had helped Dudley to lose weight and tutoring him was probably part of why Petunia "forgot" that Harriet was actually a witch. The will to keep them safe had always overridden her suicidal thoughts which had cropped up on occasion. Especially, when her mother had forgotten again that she had her birthday the same day as her brother and other events or when she had been able to achieve something unusual.

Her drive for perfection came out of her desire to finally be noticed by her family, but it had taken years to realise that she would never be noticed by her family. She had survived her jealous "pureblooded" boyfriend, who was prone to swift mood changes, and what he had done to her.

No! She would not be defeated by some stupid, core world ensign with a serious power complex.

There's no way I'm going to be his next victim!

She would not give in, but she would endure it. He would be tired of her soon enough if she did not react to his unjust behaviour. On Earth she would have been able to complain about this, but here she was unable to call him out to his superiors. She would only make matters worse.

She was now literally putting one step after the other as she was completely drained, her head pounded because of dehydration or extremely low blood sugar which made her nauseous as she had not been able to grab a bite after her twelve hour shift. It was probably a combination of both.

Looking at her chronometer she groaned loudly as she stepped into the grey turbolift to reach the sleeping barracks. Her next shift started in four hours! If she didn't get sleep soon she would most likely oversleep in the morning. Or whatever morning was. It was hard to tell the difference in space without a sun to guide her. Morning for her was when she had to get up for her shift.

She leaned her body against the cold metal of the lift wall and enjoyed the cooling effect on her pounding head. Very slowly and sluggishly, she mentally went through the things she could skip before getting to bed, but somehow her thoughts circled without reaching a final conclusion. It was probably better if she just went to bed straight anyway and take a potion for regaining her strength, which she had smuggled on to the ship. Being a witch sometimes had its perks. The lift stopped and Harry glanced at the display, which told her that she had not yet reached her deck.

Great.

Someone would join her in the lift. She rolled her eyes and barely had enough time to register that a tall person in a white uniform was entering the lift. When she finally registered that the person was actually blue skinned she jumped immediately with racing heart and stood attention.

No! Worst day ever!

The commander of the Star Destroyer was in the same lift! Did he sleep at all? Did his species require less sleep than humans or none at all? What should she do? Greet him? Ignore him?

She decided on staring at the display showing the deck numbers while standing attention although her muscles where aching, protesting and she could have sworn that some of her bones were cracking. She hoped that she was not trembling due to the effort it cost her.

Seconds tickled by while Commander Thrawn standing next to her was reading something intently on his datapad. Harriet held her breath and dared not to make a sound. She even considered her breathing to loud, while her pulse was racing in her throat.

Did the lift always take that long? Would she have to get off the lift before the Commander? How should she behave when leaving it before him? Should she say something or acknowledge his overpowering presence non-verbally? She had no idea as she had never been briefed on things or situations like that. Only what was required of her on the bridge. What if she involuntarily did something to upset the commander because she did not know the proper protocol and the empire just loved to have uncountable official and even more unofficial protocols. It was one thing to upset Ensign Mayr, but a completely different and even dangerous one to upset the highest commander of the Star Destroyer. Maybe she was lucky and he had not noticed her, although she doubted it. She could stay in the lift longer than him and wait for him to get off and avoid the potential break of protocol.

"At ease. Crewman." the commander finally said in a deep, calm and very cultivated sounding voice. Harriet gulped nervously, finally dared to take a breath which her lungs happily received and relaxed her stance somewhat.

"I believe your next shift starts in…" he looked at his chronometer on his datapad. "Three point 5 hours. Does it not?" he asked.

"Yes, Sir." she croaked due to her dry throat, cleared it and answered his question in a stronger voice than she actually felt "It does indeed."

How does he know that!? Has he memorized every personal's shift roaster?

The commander was silent for a moment and looked as if he was contemplating something until he finally said one word:"Curious."

Harriet barely registered that the lift stopped again, the doors opened and the commander stepped out while saying: "Get some rest, crewman."

The doors closed after him and Harriet stumbled back to the cold wall in her back and slid down as her legs gave way. Where should she get the strength to get up again and make it to her bed?! Two decks down the lift doors opened again and she struggled to get on her feet again as she dragged herself to her small, hard cot among hundred others and fell head forward into it and into much needed oblivion.

Deep under the grounds of the Metropolis London the Ministry of Magic had called for an assembly of all wizards of Great Britain. This had never happened before, but the dire circumstances had called for it. The statue standing in the ministry had been lowered to the ground to make more space for wizards and other adjustments had been fulfilled to get them all in the ministry. Kingsly Shacklebolt the current minister of magic standing on a podium watched the masses with some trepidation. There were too many people cramped in a confined space without enough exits. Anything could happen.

He raised his wand and uttered the Sonorus spell which amplified the voice intensity to its maximum potential.

"Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen! Thank you for coming. You are probably wondering, why we have an Assembly of this magnitude, especially as we never had one before. Not even in out darkest hours, but certain things have happened which give us no other choice than calling for an Assembly."

He paused shortly to get the fellow wizards full attention. The chatter died down to make way to an eerie silence.

"As you may have noticed, there has been a major change of leadership in the Muggle world. All the Muggle's Parliaments, Assemblies, and other Leaderships have been destroyed and replaced by one "Governor" for the entire planet.

"What, NOW yer realize that!" a mousy elderly woman shouted angrily.

"We've lived with that changed leadership for more than two years while you cower and hide yerself behind magic in yer hidden world."

Shacklebolt deduced that she was probably a Muggle-born and he had to admit that he only found out about that change when he had been unable to reach the Muggle Prime Minister. Further investigation by the Aurors had brought even more worrisome things to light. There were several "garrisons" on each continent, people too afraid to speak up against their oppressors and each family was missing or praying for one or more family members. Several, formerly thriving cities had been completely wiped out, others were currently rebuilt.

Lily Potter, the saviour's mother and her family had been completely shocked when he had enquired, if they had known anything about it, which they had declined as she had not been in contact with her muggle sister for years. She had practically left the Muggle world when she had entered the Wizarding world. As he had known her to be a Muggle-born he had assumed that she, like most Muggle borns, would keep close ties with her former world.

An intern investigation had also dug up evidence that many families with wizarding children or other members with ties to the Magical world had written desperate letters asking for help to vanish into the Magical World to avoid losing them to the "Empire" which had taken over the planet.

So far it was still unknown who had rerouted the letters and refused help which he as minster would have granted to them. Their anger and fury was naturally understandable, but could also lead to the outbreak of another war in the magical community. Pureblooded favouritism was still present after the second wizarding war although he worked 24/7 to root it out.

When he had tried to get a hold of a former Order member who had foolishly risked her life and who had always preferred the Muggle World to the Wizarding one he had unfortunately found out that she was one of those who had disappeared for "serving the Empire."

There were now two options on how to proceed and the Wizengamot was not able to decide on one, which was the reason why he had decided to ask the entire populous of this country. All over the world other magical societies were doing the same.

Shacklebolt calmly explained the dire situation to his audience with his deep slow voice. He apologized to the Muggle-borns whose letters had been detained and promised that he would do everything to get their members back, but the simmering anger of the Muggle-borns was very palatable and he knew that he had to tread carefully. He had first opted to leave it out, but with that he would have made the same mistake as his predecessors and it would have eventually come out.

"We have therefore only two options:

Option 1 would be that we shut us off from the Muggle world and protect our own. Wizards would be forced to decide between one of the worlds and to break off any contacts they have in the other. Should you decide to live in the Muggle World you would have to hand in your Wand and anything magical you own. If you prefer the Ministry would offer to obliviate you after an auror or someone similar has agreed to keep watch over them."

Shacklebolt hoped that they would opt for option two because he hated Option one and would cause to huge tensions and could eventually lead to the extinction of wizard kind in this country because of the very limited gene pool. A commenting murmur went through the crowd. He took a deep breath and continued:

"Option 2 would be that we begin to help the Muggle World to rebuild their homes, cities and find their missing family members. We would aid them in their pursuit to fight the empire. At first it would be hidden, but as soon as we can show results we could reveal us to them. I beseech you. Vote carefully, because Option one will eventually lead to an even more limited gene pool and therefore decline of magic. You would condemn families to live apart and make no mistake. We can only shut us off from the Muggle world for some time until the Empire finds out about us. From what we have gathered the empire is very capable of finding things out. I know ask you to cast your vote. Red for option 1 and Green for Option 2. Decide carefully as this vote can't be overturned."

He pointed his wand upwards and shot his ballot with colour green against the ceiling which displayed the number one as he had been the first voter. More and more wands where raised and one of the two colours shot towards the ceiling. With mentally trembling heart he carefully raised his bald head towards the ceiling to find out the final results.