A/N: So yeah, I know the next update should be The End of the World as we know it but I'm not happy with what I have so far and this was already done so... yeah. BUT! It will be the next thing to go up I promise!

Notes:

"Normal speech"

'Thoughts'

"Parseltongue/foreign language"

**Scene transition to new place**

Milenko hummed thoughtfully as he thrummed his fingers together. Turning the corpse of Garrick Ollivander into a puppet was short work even if a bit rushed to preserve the magical core from disappearing. For his puppet to be perfection he needed it to not only be capable of casting magic but to be able to siphon it from any other living source. A pain in the ass process to be certain but so worth it in the end. Of course there were those who would try to kill him for his work but between the rituals binding his soul to his current host, the rituals that augmented him physically and magically & the arcane sigils branded into his skin, it'd take someone far older and stronger and well versed in White Magic to even begin to hurt him. "Of course I could humor them.." he said to himself after a moment.

"Humor who?"

Milenko flippantly waved his hand at the Jeckel Brothers standing in the entryway to his tent. Jack and Jake were mysteries on one level while another they were almost ironic. Jugglers, ying and yang; two halves of the so called 'balance' of the human soul. Your good deeds and bad deeds given corporeal form before your eyes; one brother defiantly trying to send you to hell by adding more fireballs, more of your sins to be juggled, to the show while the other did his best to get you in Shangri-La. "Not important boys" he said closing his X-marked eye.

"Ringmaster wants to speak to you Milenko" Jack said with a frown. He didn't trust anyone in the circus, he barely trusted his own brother, but he trusted the Ringmaster even less. He had his own private ideas about the 'man' running the show and his dealing with the mad immortal mage. Their careless use of soul magic interfered with their act and Jake's bitching was so not worth those two having their alleged 'fun'.

"Did he say what about? I've barely finished the puppet and I've got this... task tomorrow" Milenko said with a scoff. What could that milennia too young bastard want now? Things were going according to plan so he shouldn't be bothered.

Jake coughed into his fist. "He didn't say anything about why though he made some kind of comment about dragons. Which is just dumb. Dragons are fantasy creatures" the younger of the brothers said.

Milenko sat up sharply hearing that. Dragons? Now that would be interesting. "They might not be as fantasy as you believe Mr. Jeckel. Magic is supposed to be only in the realm of fantasy yet how many times have you seen me mystify the idiots that walk into our slice of Hell on wheels. How many times have I have just about put you in the arms of the Wraith for your trip to Hell's Pit with a wave of my hand from across the carnival?" he asked rhetorically.

Before Jake could answer Milenko was gone in a blink leaving him and his brother alone.

"He's right you know" Jack said as he turned and left back toward their performing tent. The show opened soon and they both needed to change.

"But dragons, seriously? Flying, fire breathing lizards are not real" Jake argued. "I'll eat my own kidney if I'm wrong."

"I'll hold you to that" Jack snorted while shoving his hands into his pants pocket.

**RINGMASTER'S TENT**

"What did you mean by the dragon comment?" Milenko asked walking into the tent without so much as announcing himself, a rule the Ringmaster put in place but Milenko never paid attention to.

"You didn't announce-"

"I never do and if I had the inclination you would have been dead several times over the last three centuries. What did you mean by the comment about dragons?" Milenko hissed, his hands engulfed by black flames. If the comment meant what he thought it did, he needed to dig through his tomes for a certain text he hadn't read in two centuries.

Ringmaster was tempted to snap his fingers to make the petulant mage fall in line but he was not dumb enough to actually do so. The last time Milenko had done something to displease him, that being steal the souls of an entire county in Texas, he'd taken his displeasure out on the mage. Hadn't that been a mistake as Milenko's retaliation had nearly exsanguinated him from his crucified position on a cross. "I came across some information you might find interesting for the morrow."

"It's a task of bravery against the unknown. You deliberately make a dragon comment that the Jeckel's could hear, probably in the lowest voice barely audible." Milenko looked thoughtful with a furrowed brow though he did not extinguish his blazing hands. If Ringmaster so much as twitched a hand he'd grab the man by the neck and char his flesh just shy of being fatal. "The last time I fought a dragon was after I had just burnt Shangri-La to the ground, stole the magic from the Masters souls and desecrated the grounds by opening a portal to Hell binding the upper echelons of demons to my service." His brow furrowed more. How stupid were these mages of England when history showed dragons were mage killers no matter the breed? Some were fa more dangerous than others, obviously, but that didn't change the fact they were insanely dangerous.

Insanely dangerous for a normal witch or wizard that wasn't Milenko anyway.

"It would be a safe assumption" Ringmaster said simply. His left hand was getting really twitchy now but a force of will stilled it.

Milenko left without a word, his hands only extinguishing once he was away from the darkly flamboyant tent. 'Seems I need to break out that tome after nearly six centuries' he thought clasping his hands behind his back.

**Dumbledore's Office**

Dumbledore grimaced as he, for what felt like the hundredth time, poured over the scar on Rosalind Potter's face. Not the one left by Voldemort, he already knew about the Horcrux in it and had plans for the girls future, but rather the other cursed scar left by Milenko.

The scar left after James and Lily tried to purify their sons body of the malicious entity in control of it.

On the surface it was a simple looking scar, a long wicked slash that nearly blinded the girl in her left eye and went all the way down to her chin, but the malice that lingered made sure it was known. Ever since the attack and Milenko's retaliation, he had noticed a startling drop in Rosalind's fine motor skills and a marked dip in her intelligence. Where Rosalind was smart as a whip before, she was slowly but surely become more of a ditz. Where she was formerly almost always found in a book while speaking to friends, she was becoming more and more girly by large increments daily. She was becoming more and more concerned about her appearance than her grades, she was quickly becoming extremely vain and boy obsessed. She didn't even enjoy quidditch anymore and thought it a 'dumb boys game' but 'they look hot covered in sweat when it's done'.

Whatever curse or curses were intertwined into this scar was fast turning the smartest witch to grace Hogwarts since Lily Potter nee Evan's into a completely useless...

"Albus, have you figured anything out? Rose.. Rose asked me what boys found attractive and laughed it off when I said intelligence over any kind of physical traits. I'm really getting worried with her mental faculties diminishing by the day. Before we know it she's going to be as intelligent as a Barbie Doll" Lily said ringing her hands hard enough to cut her nails into her skin and draw blood.

"I have not found the specific curses but I have found the roots of where they come from..and it isn't good news Lily, James."

From her seat Rosalind toyed with her hair looking bored. Merlin, why did her mom and dad have to bring her to talk to the old man? She was more than happy to read her fashion magazine. She saw some really, really, really cute new dragon skin boots she was going to buy come the winter hols.

"There isn't a counter as far as I can tell" Dumbledore said grimly. "Not one we can cast anyway."

James looked at his former mentor incredulously. "What the hell do you mean there isn't a counter curse we can cast that'll cure what's happening to our daughter?!" he demanded in an infuriated tone.

"I don't find any pleasure in saying it James so don't take that tone with me" Dumbledore said crossly with a glare aimed at the Potter patriarch. "The root of the curse is in magics long forgotten to us. I only know how to tell what is because I had to regrettably put down a practitioner of such magic in the last war against Grindelwald during what the muggles believed to be the.. Blitz-kream?"

Lily shot Dumbledore a hard look. "The Blitzkrieg of World War Two? Are you meaning to tell me that World War Two was a large scale memory rewrite to cover up the war against Grindelwald?" she asked with narrowed eyes. She knew as a witch that the Statute of Secrecy had to be maintained but if the second world war was a lie due to obliviation and black water works..

"That's neither here nor there Lily" Dumbledore said sharply. "The curses affecting your daughter are over a millennia old. More common during the Founding Era of Hogwarts but these magics were practiced in The Orient. Degenerative magic to be exact. It works on the mind, the magical core, body and soul.. The only person who can undo the curse is the caster themselves."

When dawn rolled around Milenko was stood on top of the tallest turret Hogwarts had to offer. As much as he hated it here, one exception aside, he had to admit the view was to kill for. "I could kill but it's so much less satisfying when the prey can't even fight back properly" he lamented with a sigh. A roar caused his head to turn near around a perfect three sixty and narrow his eyes. The jet streams of fire made him scowl. From the auras he felt his scowl deepen in thought. Three of them he could identify right off the bat but the last, the last he could not.

"The view is amazing isn't it, Milenko?"

Milenko's head turned back around to the right position where Luna had somehow snuck up on him and taken a spot beside him staring at the purple-red horizon. "To kill for" he said with a roll of his eyes.

"Sounds delightful" Luna said with a pleasant sort of smile. "Just whom is the victim and can I help?"

"As much as I'm sure you'd be an asset to any murders I could pull off, you'll have to wait. I do have to do this thing today, whatever it may be. All I know is that it will die or be used to amuse myself." Milenko jumped from the turret toward the ground headfirst. Just before making contact with the stone and hard ground he melted into the air. Wizarding apparition was an option but he thought it was too stupid and magic wasteful. Why the current generation of magic users thought Phasing was 'Dark Magic' made him scoff. So it was rooted in combat magic, elemental combat magic to be specific. So what if one idiot used it for nefarious deed. It did not make Phasing a 'Dark Magic' sort of arcane practice. He himself was a right bastard with a soul black as tar but even he respected the arcane practice to not warp it into something unholy.

From her perch Luna sighed dramatically. Milenko was certainly a puzzle to be worked out and provided what she had seen came to pass she would solve his puzzle. It would take some time was all. Returning to her dorm to dress, she needed to dress for the day. What was to come would be entertaining to say the least.

**Task Arena**

Milenko hummed a dark little melody to himself as he floated in the air above the tent. He had time to kill and not enough people were up for him to scare half to death. "I hate people that are so slow to tasks" he said with a sigh after stopping his humming. Entertaining himself by floating in three hundred and sixty degree circles he contemplated how to go about killing his particular threat involved in the task. Implosion, flaying the scales before shredding every piece of bone and soft tissue with Khan Magic..

"Don't even think about it. If he and his companions are so nonplussed by murder, just imagine what he would do to you for so much as touching him let alone breathing in his general direction. "

Milenko was interrupted from his thoughts as a brunette boy from Hogwarts pushed the french girl into the tent. What had the blonde french been planning to do? How long had he been lost in his thoughts for the other unfortunate souls in this tournament and its governing officials to finally be arriving? Shrugging his shoulders internally and shelving the thought to interrogate the blonde later he focused on his body before letting the magic keeping him suspended stop. Falling through the material of the tent was childsplay for a master mage of his caliber, the shock of his sudden appearance spooked the blonde witch and what appeared to be a reporter with her camera man. "Well well... I haven't seen a Veela in.. a long time." His lips twisted just slightly into an unnerving smirk as he breathed in her scent after leaning forward a hair.

Fleur wasn't sure what to make of the action.

"But you aren't fully blooded, not even a fourth from your stench. Your mother laid with mundane filth. Pitiful." Milenko's lips twisted further into an antagonistic cheshire smirk at the immediate aura shift around the blonde witch went from a neutral curious grey to bloody enraged red. "You both were exiled from her coven weren't you? The Matriarchs wouldn't pardon race traitors and their spawn like that; existences like yours are unforgivable sins by their laws. Blights on the proud Veela race. As vain as Vampires and dumber than rabid Werewolves during the full moon" he remarked leaning back with his eyes shining with malice.

Fleur was seconds away from killing the young man in front of her. How dare he say that about her?! Nails changing to talons she went to swing at him, tournament be damned, but the massive hand of her Headmistress caught her wrist.

"Keep your anger within the rules of the tournament or incur the wrath of the tournaments magic against yourself" Madame Maxime chastised fleur in french while shooting her own angered looks at Milenko.

A throat clearing caught everyone's. "Now that everyone is here-"

"I was here since after the dawn barely rose over the horizon" Milenko interjected with a stretch of his arms after getting to his feet.

"The first task of the tournament is a task of bravery in the face of the unknown. A test of your mettle in the face of adversity against an adversary you know nothing about" Ludo Bagman said with a displeased look shot at the insane champion who dared to interrupt him. "Inside the bag in my hands are models of the creatures you will have to face out in the arena. Given you are the only female champion Ms. Delacour, you shall pick first."

Fleur stalked forward after snatching her hand back and glaring death at Milenko. He'd pay for the comments he made about her and her mother! Snatching a the first thing she felt in the bag, not mention getting bit in the process, she shifted her glare to a green statuette of a dragon with a wooden placard embossed with the number one on its base.

"A common Welsh Green."

Milenko looked at the other champions as they pulled their own dragons, a Chinese Fireball and Swedish Short-Snout respectively, before Milenko summoned the bag with a flick of his finger and incinerated it with a thought leaving a snarling model to glare at him. "Imperial Thorn" he said with an amused chuckled.

"And for you Mr. Pott-"

Milenko snapped his fingers once and the ludicrously dressed man collapsed in agony as every bone in his legs liquified at the same time. "I forget myself times. You idiots don't know the old tongue of my birth country, what you now call Moscow within Russia. What you call the Hungarian Horntail, we called the Imperial Thorn. A symbol of the King and his legion yet equally a pain in our asses as it ravaged the lands" he said shaking his head. "Since I am the last to go, I think I'll go take a nap. Try not to get yourself killed abomination, you might be a slight against nature according to the Veela covens but I'm sure you'd make a great fluffer for the night. At least you would before your own kind tracks you down and binds your magical abilities so they can shove in a brothel to never see the light of day again."

It took Madame Maxime and all the tournament officials, minus Ludo Bagman who was rushed to the infirmary wing to be flooed to St. Mungos, to get Fleur into the arena once the canon signal went up after explaining they needed to retrieve a golden egg from the dragons nest.

Viktor watched the mad champion with interest as the gears within his mind turned. He was certain he knew the name Milenko for a reason but not just for the introduction when the young man appeared out of the blue the night of Champion Selection. "You say come from Russia?" he asked with a rather thoughtful look.

"Russia came after I was first born. What's it to you tall, dark and brooding?" Milenko asked.

"I know you but.. hard placing name."

Milenko's eyes gained a curious glint as he tilted his head almost as if in thought. "When you get something let me know. I'm going to nap. Blondie should be friend Veela within ten minutes top" he said carelessly. Finding a bench long enough for him to lay on he stretched out on his back and folded one arm behind his head while the other covered his eyes. He wasn't actually going to nap, any information was going to be a boon to him and lucky enough for him his mage senses were trained from nearly a millennia of existence that interpreting the slightest disturbance in the magic would be like opening the archives at the Vatican Library to the world at large.

"He's got some stones on him. Pissing off the daughter of the French Minister of Magic" the Hogwarts champion said.

"Big stones means he can back up" Viktor said with the same thoughtful look.

"We shall see."

Milenko snorted internally. The brunette male would see how just how well he could back up his word. It would hurt him. A lot.

**Nearly two hours later**

"and Diggory is done ladies and gentleman! Quite the showing from Hogwarts Champions!"

Milenko sat up with a yawn. He actually almost fell asleep with the fact it took so long. To call himself disappointed with the abilities of his 'competition' was an understatement. They were horribly trained and practically flailing in the face of danger despite seemingly knowing about the dragons before hand. When the canon signal went off he strolled in with so much as any tell of fear.

The stands of the arena were silent as the angry Hungarian Horntail roared and breathed fire at the wizard dared to approach her & her nest. Her nest, her children, were in danger and she wouldn't let the wizard take them!

"You know, I could make this easy for you or I can kill you. The choice is yours Imperial" Milenko growled with a malicious smile as his aura seemed to coalesce in a shadowy figure.

The Horntail cowered at the image and, sensing it would die if it didn't comply, bowed in submission removing its wing.

Milenko walked to the nest maintaining his aura the entire way and stole the egg. "Good decision, however you took too long." In a swing of his free arm the eggs shook before the audible pop of what could only be miniature explosions sounded staining the inside of the eggs crimson. That same motion of his arm conjured black metal-like spikes that rained down on the dragons head. It didn't even have a chance to roar as half a dozen spike penetrated the eyes killing as the points sheared through the brain. "I claim the corpse of this dragon and its slain children in the name of my line, Rasputin." The body and egg vanished as Milenko felt the tension in the air.

Near all jaws were slack from the Durmstrang contingent. This mad man, this monster... was related to the mad monk, the so called 'Holy Demon' Rasputin?!