A/N: IMPORTANT READ THIS FIRST! This isn't actually a true new chapter, sorry guys but after some reviews I needed to go back over the previous chapter and improve some of it, doubling the word count as I did so. Given the break point seemed to make sense now given the increased word count I have split things into to chapters, hopefully improving the interactions between the characters and also giving you guys a combat scene... So read the previous chapter first and then let me know what you think of the new version :)

Things hadn't gone according to plan, something Harry was starting to expect. Harry's original plan, which was to take Jaina back to Thunder Axe so that she could meet Susan and take a look at the small library the Terran's had managed to bring with them, only lasted until they met Aegwynn whilst relocating a group of Thunder lizards who had become very hostile after the destruction of their homeland woods.

The ancient Sorceress was tetchy at best even as she aided them in moving the Thunder Lizards to a new home, a job that was easy enough with 3 powerful magic users that each had their own special magics to bring to bear, along with Aegwynn lowering the anti-teleportation wards that had disrupted Jaina's original attempt.

It was when they had returned to her home up in the mountains that the trouble had truly begun, Aegwynn bringing up the subject of demon influence growing in the surrounding regions as if she were discussing the day's weather. When Jaina had pushed her about what she knew, Aegwynn had instead used her magic to show the return of a cabal called the Burning Blade amongst both the Horde and the humans at Theramore that was working to instigate another war between the two factions..

Whilst he still wasn't entirely clear what the Burning Blade was and what it's aims were, groups didn't usually use such names if they were mere smugglers or members of the Neighbourhood watch, so Harry had decided to save Jaina some energy and offered to apparate the three of them back to Theramore. Whilst Jaina didn't like the sensation of being squeezed through a drainpipe, Aegwynn had merely found his display of magic to be 'slightly different from the usual cantrips used by young people these days'.

It hadn't taken long for them to root out the source of the Burning Blade's revival, in fact it had been waiting for Jaina to return. A group of warlocks, both Human and Orc lead by Jaina's own chamberlain, had taken over the main palace to summon a powerful demon using Jaina as a sacrifice. Given the lack of guards other than the pair that the chamberlain himself claimed to have murdered, Harry had to assume other Burning Blade members were either posing as Guards at the entrance to the palace or were distracting Theramore's military forces elsewhere to keep them from their normal patrols.

"Your treacherous simpering to the foul orcs has left us weak for when Thrall dies and the rest of the brutes revert to their barbaric heritage. I refuse to see our work go up in smoke just because you think you can trust them." The Chamberlain had been ranting for almost a minute now and Harry was surprised Jaina was letting him continue rather than just blasting him, but he supposed that she didn't have his concern of conserving his magic to listen in for any further insight into the traitors grander plans.

The Ork warlocks amongst the Chamberlain's group were obviously not pleased to hear the mocking the human was giving their race but they seemed to keep themselves remarkably composed, and given the knowing grin one of them threw another Harry could tell that they had their own plans for after the group had defeated Jaina. Not that any of that mattered as Jaina obviously grew bored of her former Chamberlain's ranting at last, launching an ice bolt across the room that nearly punched through the shield spell that the man erected in front of him.

The warlocks were only moderately powerful, probably at the same level as an average member of Harry's Phantoms, but between them they would probably be able to overcome Jaina by herself, especially as they had the advantage of preparation time. Harry had never been one to sit idly by and let other people fight battles by themselves though, even without the added bonus of dealing with some demon worshippers who would definitely have caused him trouble in the future.

So even as the first of the warlocks cast his fireball towards Jaina, Harry waded into the battle and immediately changed the whole dynamic of the conflict. His first earthen spike flurry obviously caught the warlocks by surprise, one of them falling to the ground with a fist sized hole in his chest from a piece of shrapnel whilst the others managed to either dodge or shield themselves. Leaving Jaina to fight her Chamberlain, Harry began a deadly dance with the majority of the warlocks, the human and orc groups separately working together and both groups seemed perfectly happy for him to attack the other.

He had erected an earthen barrier as soon as the battle started around Aegwynn and Nash'ala as both of them would be at risk in the torrent of magical spells that filled the air, the warlocks working together to summon their demonic allies whilst some of them shielded the others from Harry's spells. Given the fact he had been outnumbered before, the sudden doubling of his enemies would have daunted most people, but Harry merely stamped his feet and poured his magic into the ground, a dozen roughly hewn golems smashing their way through the wooden floorboards a moment later.

He would be able to repair those later, but the destruction was worth it for the looks on some of the warlocks faces as each of the Hagrid sized golems moved to attack. They wouldn't last overly long, Harry hadn't put much magic into them so their actual endurance was probably only be worth 2 or 3 fireballs before they collapsed, but they served the purpose of distracting the enemy wonderfully.

Charging towards the smaller group of warlocks which was made up of the Orcs, Harry fired half a dozen cutting and piercing curses at the magical shield three of the Orcs had erected whilst summoning the sword of Gryffindor. The spells didn't penetrate the shield but did sap it's magical strength so that he was able to physically force his way through as he rolled under the attack of the Felguard that had been summoned by the group.

Even as it tried to bring it's giant weapon round for another strike Harry had already fired a bombarda into it's chest whilst he brought the sword of Gryffindor round to remove the head of one of the shielding warlocks. The others were slow to react, obviously not expecting him to close with them given his initial mage like spells, the wounded Felguard falling to his blade before the other Orcs had time to recover and turn their attention to him.

Despite their obvious nervousness at close range Harry quickly found himself under attack by half a dozen spells, each of which reeked of corruption magic and slammed into his shield with enough power to shatter it, meaning he had to duck under the last dark purple curse aimed at his head and radiated enough heat to make him think he might not be imagining the smell of burnt hair around him.

Time to think on that later as he resisted the pull on his mental shields of a warlock's summoned succubus as his wand and sword did their bloody work, ending the remaining Orcs in less than ten seconds. There was no respite however, a wave of fireballs and other dark spells were fired in his direction from the other group of warlocks who had managed to bring down his Earthen golems, Harry quickly bringing up an Earthen wall whilst he opened up a hole in the ground beneath him to let him move out of the killzone.

The fact he could pop up in different places without using apparition meant that many of his opponents thought he could actually meld with the earth and travel through it almost instantaneously, but that would take a connection to the earth that even Harry couldn't claim. Instead he merely opened a passageway large enough for him to slide through and then manipulated the earth under his back to move the passageway and to his destination, which was directly behind the human warlocks who were still blasting away at what was left of his earthen shield.

A wave of dark energy caught his attention before he could return to the fight and Harry turned to see the Chamberlain dead on the floor, a dark fire surrounding his corpse as a portal opened and a winged demon the size of Cairne began to wrestle its way out of the twisting nether and into Azeroth. Despite the things size Jaina seemed no less confident than she had before, the petite sorceress summoning a hail of icy shards to fall upon the newest demon whilst at the same time summoning a water elemental that was almost the same size as it.

As the summoned creature moved forwards and slammed into the newly arrived demon that Harry could only assume was Zmodlor, Jaina was forced to distract herself into dodging the attacks of the warlocks who had destroyed his earthen wall, forced to lose her cloak as a dark fireball caught it and set it alight. Realising he had been lax in dealing with Zmodlor's minions and that Jaina was now suffering for it, Harry pushed himself out of his hiding area and summoned buckbeak, the amount of mana needed to do so easily worth the look of terror on the humans faces as the Earthen summon tore through the first two imps it faced.

WIth buckbeak gouging at the remaining warlocks it was unsurprising that some of them tried to flee, their plan a complete failure with Harry's intervention. Harry wasn't going to allow any of them the chance to slink away however, using his agility to catch up with the fleeing cultists and cutting them down with curses that most were too busy running to try and dodge or block.

The fight ended relatively quickly after that, Zmodlor reduced to a mere distraction for the pair of mages, Jaina banishing the demon by following Aegwynn's instructions whilst Harry dealt with the remaining warlocks. Other than slightly singed hair caused by the fireball he had been forced to dodge, Harry was unharmed and still ready for battle, whilst Jaina lost her cloak and had to expend a good portion of her energy banishing the demon as well as defeating her traitorous servant.

Assuming that Nash'ala would translate for him as he brought down the protective earthen wall he had put in place, Harry started checking the warlocks to make sure none of them were faking their demise.

"And that's why you don't mess with the Terran-Theramore alliance! Or perhaps we call it the Terramore alliance, what do you think Jaina?" Seeing Jaina smile at his adrenaline fuelled antics before frowning and looking at her chamberlain once more, Harry was confused at her lack of a good mood.

"Our work is not yet done brat, so stop acting like a candy filled child at this minor victory." Aegwynn's rather amused comment, translated through Nash'ala who had been hidden behind the ancient witch the entire time, brought Harry's little victory boost rapidly back to earth, Jaina nodding as she moved through the palace to her throne room.

Harry would have liked to review the monologues that her chamberlain and then Zmodlor had given in usual evil villain fashion, obviously he had missed something. But he stood by his cancelling of the translation charm part way through the Chamberlain's rant to save his magic and Nash'ala's head, he zoned out most monologues now as a point of course, he had heard enough shit from Voldemort and Vaquis to last a lifetime. Perhaps it had been a bit hasty of him if he had been by himself, but seeing as both Jaina and the old crone (call him brat would she?) seemed to know what was going on he wasn't too worried.

Still whilst Jaina was looking frantically through the papers on her ornate desk, Harry had another thing he could follow up on. All he needed was a little back up...

*Time Skip*

"All present and accounted for Harry, the guards had no idea what the Chamberlain was planning, merely assumed it was part of his military reorganisation strategy that he claimed Jaina had left him to administer." The report from the lead mage of the phantoms did allow Harry to relax even as Blaise threw him a 'what did I tell you' look.

Harry had decided to be safe rather than sorry in the end, the twenty mages from Thunder Axe helping him stun and restrain every guard on duty on the Palace outskirts after he had apparated back and told them what was going on. He wanted to go a step further, which was to have everyone in Theramore's military screened either by himself or a legilimency user to make sure they weren't a member of the Burning Blade. But first Blaise and then Jaina, when she had returned from helping Thrall deal with the conflict at Northwatch that had been brought about by her chamberlain's machinations as well as infiltrators amongst the Horde ranks, had stopped him from trying such a feat.

Firstly, it would be a logistical and endurance nightmare for the small number of Terrans to carry out such tests just on the fifty guards they had subdued given the innate magic resistance that most denizens of Azeroth had to such invasive spells such as legilimency. Secondly, the panic such an inquisition would cause, especially if it got out that Jaina's own head of staff had been a traitor, could possibly do the Burning Blade's work for them.

"I must admit, this Zmodlor knew what he was doing, this is more complex than most of my plots before the Legion attacked. If he hadn't been so overconfident as to actually come here physically then he would have been quite the thorn in our side in the future." Blaise's almost impressed comment made Harry look at him in slight surprise, the former Slytherin almost never complimented anyone on anything.

Blaise caught his look and sighed before gesturing to the papers in front of him that Nash'ala had helped them translate.

"Let me start at the top, I will try and simplify things as best I can..." Ignoring the irritation he felt yet again at being treated like a simpleton, Harry refused to react and simply listened in as Blaise began to speak in detail about the plot.

Given the seeming ease with which they had ended up unravelling the plot, Harry was surprised how many backstabbing promises and hidden maneuvers made up the plot once they started reviewing it. From what they could make out, Zmodlor had spent years infiltrating the two sides and playing each sides hatred for the other to his advantage. Even in the final confrontation with Jaina when they summoned him, Zmodlor had both the Humans and the Orcs under the impression that once Jaina was dead then he would help them wipe out the other group before moving onto increasing their powers further.

The attack at Northwatch had been an almost entirely separate plan in case Zmodlor had failed to kill Jaina, the demon using the Chamberlain's paranoia about the Orcs other than Thrall to get him to reinforce the Northwatch when Jaina had left him in charge, knowing that such a military build up would cause tension that his agents in the Horde took advantage of. If he and Jaina hadn't been so prompt in dealing with the warlocks the situation might have been much worse, as it was Jaina arrived before hostilities had truly commenced.

Despite this Burx, the Orc leading the Horde army that had set up camp outside of Northwatch, still tried to commit to a fight even after Jaina had arrived and informed him of Zmodlor's deception, so Jaina and her forces had been forced to repel the first few probing attacks until Thrall had arrived via Zeppelin and dealt with his errant leader. Supposedly the little duel had been as one sided as Jaina's fight with her Chamberlain, Thrall not even using magic and merely battering his commander into the ground with Doomhammer in front of his suddenly more amenable forces.

Speaking of the Warchief, Thrall had returned with Jaina after sending the Horde forces home, the Orc's concern for his friend obvious even as the two of them talked quietly to a scribe who was writing down what would become the first official document of peace between Orcs and humans since the end of the Second Azerothian war.

"This kind of lucky happenstance of you being in the right place at the right time is ridiculous, I thought we would have left it behind on earth but here you are again, no doubt causing the seers and prophets of this world all kinds of hell as you ruin plots and schemes..." Blaise's bitching, as there was no other way such complaint could be surmised, just brought a smile to Harry's face as he mentally ticked the scoreboard in his head.

Harry couldn't help but be quite pleased with himself, he had managed to prevent all out war between the largest faction on the continent and his own soon to be allies, killed more than a dozen demon worshippers and was now even being included in the Non-Aggression pact that the two sides were formalising even now. It was in the form of a witness Harry had been asked to take part, as opposed to a direct signee, but that was more Blaise's advice rather than a lack of commitment from either Thrall or Jaina.

Until his people were evacuated and set up properly, it would be better if the commitments made to any group or faction were made on a personal level, meaning Harry pretty much was only able to use his services when it came to bartering with the other leaders. It would allow the Terrans at a later date to go to any and all negotiating tables from a better bargaining position than as the interplanetary refugees that he was currently.

But given his actions regarding Theramore thus far, Harry thought that he could claim that they wouldn't be too hard done by when they did trade with the people of Theramore, assuming that nothing else occurred to screw with plan of course. And given the powerful Earthen magic that he had felt off to the South East of the city when he had truly unleashed his powers for the first time since Ashenvale, Harry doubted that rather optimistic hope would come to pass without some help on his behalf.

Rather than mention the feeling to Jaina and causing her additional stress, Harry instead merely resolved to investigate it later, after introducing Jaina to Susan and Thunder Axe fortress of course. Only polite to show someone your fort after the battle you took part in wrecked a good portion of their own...

*Line Break*

She felt him through the air long before the vibrations of his footprints reached her, which was a surprise for Onyxia as she ordered her guards back with a simple two pat rhythm of her front left claw. The feel of the approaching human's magic was both enticing and of some concern to her, the fact that his magic interacted with the earth almost as easily as hers did and with so much more fine tuned control made it clear that he knew she was there even as he reached the entrance to her cave complex.

Normally she would have crushed such an impudent human for stepping into her realm with only a bound Naga to accompany, but his power was enough to give her pause, for now. After all, given the eggs that she had spent the last ten years laying and protecting, Onyxia wasn't so much concerned for her own health but their wellbeing. Given their pariah status amongst the over dragon flights along with the main races of Azeroth, their numbers had dropped to the point that even with whatever her brother was planning in Blackrock Mountain her eggs were more precious than anything else.

Well, she admonished herself for being so melodramatic, not more important than she was of course given she could just relocate and lay some more eggs if such extreme action became necessary. But that would take another decade and she had better things to do than play house with no company other than the rather dull guards that her brother had granted her.

So she had to be nice with this mage to begin with, if only to prevent her getting overly energetic in her first fight since she had escaped Stormwind after that Stonemasons debacle and accidently destroying some of her own clutch. Who knows, Onyxia thought with a grin as she sensed him approach closer even though her eyes could not pick out his form, perhaps if he was interesting enough she might play with her food for once...

A/N: Better I hope than the original version (if those reading this did actually read that...)

So, Onyxia... Thought I should get the initial meeting out of the way now given that Harry will be travelling significantly and therefore might not be back to Theramore too often. Onyxia's history will be different to the canon lore, both because most of that is hearsay and also because I don't see her being foolish enough to kidnap the crown prince of Stormwind when she escapes the city and think that is a good plan to stop people coming after her.

I have tried to make her out to be a little different from Plums portrayal of her thus far, but I will let you guys decide if I have been at all successful.

Please review and let me know if you like the new more in depth version...