Why is a raven like a writing desk? The muggle saying was meant to be a non sequitur to confuse people, but with magic the only difference was a swish and a couple of flicks and jabs. Well in the case of Onyxia's caverns it was a little more complicated than that, but it wasn't that hard to have an illusion ward of a solid rock wall cover the entrance, mixed with sense confusing spells and notice me not wards.
"Lord Potter, explain to me again why we are warding the entrance to a dragon's cave, especially given from your rather brief description her kind are the death eaters of Azeroth. Only these ones can fly and breath fire..." Ah yes, the difficult bit was in trying to convince the head warder of the phantom strike teams on Azeroth that he hadn't gone entirely mad, so that the man would help him with the slightly challenging process of integrating the different wards together.
"Darius, I thought you trusted me by now to make the right decisions..." Harry's attempt to Dumbledore his way out of answering the question posed to him fell completely flat as Darius merely snorted and carried on carving into the rune stone supports that Harry had created.
"That didn't work the first time you tried it on us lord Potter, perhaps in fifty years when you have a long grey beard. Now, what is it that you and her have talked about that has you so interested in her safety?" Darius Heath, former third son of a minor British pure blood family, was a man in his early fifties and very much at odds with what his father might have planned for his 'unnecessary' son.
"Very well, after speaking with Onyxia she has given me some information about my next diplomatic targets that have me more cautious than I was before. And she was honest with me, as far as I can tell without actually establishing a bridge to her mind, a suggestion that would definitely get me back on the 'to eat' list." Darius chuckled as he carried on inscribing the necessary runes into the floor.
"Yes, women seem to be like regardless of which species or world they are from. I'm just glad she can't understand English or I might end up being the one she eats." Probably not given the amount of interest the female dragon was exhibiting, sat right at the edge of the twenty five metres of space that Harry had requested, mostly as given her size her breathing down their necks would be physically uncomfortable rather than the usual mental unease.
"You can worry about that later, though given her interest in us I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't try and learn english at the earliest opportunity. Now, let's see if we can power these wards up..." Darius nodded and quickly added his wand to Harry's, the pair quickly inputting enough magic into the wards to get the intended effect, the cave entrance shimmering for a few moments before shifting into a continuation of the surrounding mountainside.
It was a piece of beauty in all honesty, the wards capable of withstanding large physical attacks due to the sense confusing charms, which would imitate the response a normal attack would have on a mountain. If something would gouge the mountainside, a gouge would appear in the exact spot it was meant to. Even the worn ground, due no doubt to the passage of five dragons, was quickly cloned into non descript ground from an area nearby.
"Interesting magic mortal, even though I watched the spell take effect I cannot determine any physical sign of the entrance being there." Onyxia spoke even as she swooped down to join them, changing form in mid air before tumbling acrobatically to land to Harry's right. She sniffed the air, then closed her eyes for a moment, a pulse of magic erupting from her to envelop the area.
"Even my magic sensing tells me the only magic on that mountainside is twenty metres to the left of the entrance and faint enough to just be a natural anomaly? How is that possible?" So she was impressed then? Always a good start in these situations.
"When I said sensory disrupting spells Onyxia I meant all the magical senses as well, how else would we have fooled the Legion for so long? Now, we just need to tie your magical signature into the wards and do the same with the top entrance and you should be safe enough for the time being." Onyxia gave a snort at the stating of the obvious he gave, but nodded nevertheless.
"It is strange, I never thought I would be forming a deal with a mortal race in my true form, especially given said deal is to help evade the machinations of my brother. I think we are about to get our first true test of your little spells Terran, best we complete whatever it is you need before the interlopers arrive..." Harry could sense them as well, half a dozen humanoids approaching from the extremes of his senses, probably a scouting party of some kind to investigate the sightings of Black Dragons.
"Scouting Party on their way Darius, so I am going to get Onyxia to transform and then you can tie her to the wards. We have ten minutes before they might be able to see us." And by then, hopefully all they would see is a rocky mountainside on the edge of a swamp, otherwise Harry's hopes of more information from the rather distrusting dragon would be rather rudely cut down...
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"So you have made a positive impression of us and our intentions to several leaders on this Azeroth, on both sides of this rather un-cold war you have described to us, though perhaps you should have included more of us in this plan of yours than your Strike Force... Companions Mr Potter..." Harry chuckled to himself even as he faced what remained of the ICW through the projector of the portal device, before shrugging a little half heartedly.
"I am honoured my fellow members of the ICW, that you assume the idea for this brilliant plan was my own, you obviously hold me in high esteem." Then, pleasantries aside, Harry decided to remind the 20 odd group of predominantly men the reality of the situation.
"But need I remind you that my group are the ones who have ensured the survival of our race thus far, fighting the Legion alongside our mundane brothers whilst you all tried to bury your heads in the sand, like you have so many times in the past." This was not the first, nor would it be the last time Harry would need to remind the ICW of the realities of the life they now lead.
Many of the ICW members were well over a hundred years old, and therefore whilst not like the British Purebloods with their supremacism and elitism, they had viewed Harry's breaking of the Statute of Secrecy to fight the Legion alongside muggles as a crime similar to a dark lord's. Some had even called for his arrest, somehow prepared to ignore the Legion invasion in place of maintaining what was by then a useless piece of paper.
"The bunkers in which you currently reside; my groups design. The majority of the strike forces that work around the world to try and save what few of our people remain; trained and equipped by my forces. Whilst there were those that proposed we just hide and pretend to be gone in the hopes the demons will go away, even when the world around us dies and we can feel our magic weaken... Well, I think you get the idea why I don't necessarily trust you to actually give us useful or rational help in this regard."
There was the lightest of coughs from off to his left, Blaise's best attempt to inconspicuously tell him he had gone to far, but Harry ignored him even as the ICW broke out into shouting. Members shouted at him; at each other; to aides and advisors stood behind them, leading to a chaotic and incomprehensible rabble.
"ENOUGH!" The bellowed shout almost surprised Harry, as it hadn't come from him or one of his other strike members, the single word enough to quieten down the assembled ICW members. Stood from his seat was Ambassador Hawke, the leader of the American magical survivors, a burly red headed man who was as comfortable with a hunting rifle as he was a wand.
"We did not arrange this meeting for you pureblood pricks to piss around and pretend you have some semblance of authority over what happens here." His glare silenced the few remaining people who might have tried to respond to him.
"Potter, my men have encountered another group of survivors, they are being scanned now and from the sounds of it they are part of a larger group. More importantly, now that your group have let us know what you are doing, what do you need from us?" A small reprimand from the Texan, but Harry didn't care, operational security wasn't his purview, he would love to see Hawke try and stare down Daphne.
"Any of your men you feel are phantom level can form a squad and support our strike teams to capture gates on Earth, but if they are the ones that end up being sent through I need them to respond to orders like they are my phantoms. None of this 'U.S is best' BS that has been a persistent thorn in my side since we rescued you guys." Hawke nodded in understanding though he had only heard the stories, he hadn't been there when Harry had lead the first teams over the Atlantic in search of survivors, equipment and targets.
The first group they encountered after battling their way out of the ruins of the American Ministry building, where they had flooed into after finding one of the fireplaces hadn't been destroyed, reminded Harry that it wasn't just the demons that they needed to be cautious of. The men had been part of a apocalypse ready anti government group who owned a swathe of self made bunkers and, from how they tried to rob Harry's group after finding out they weren't American, they weren't wanting to work together against the demons.
Whilst most of the Americans they had worked with since then had been some of the best people he had ever met, their bad eggs were the ones that could really cause him trouble on Azeroth. If they were that irrationally violent against humans due to things like nationality or skin colour, then the chances of them accepting the many races of Azeroth was unlikely.
"There are a couple of squads I think will feel rather honoured to work with you guys, what's this about the gates? Surely we want to stay the hell away from those things given how they like to spit out hell beasts without any warning." So no one had explained the fact that they were hijacking the demon portals, using portal devices at both ends to create a wormhole between the two?
"Ask Hermione or one of the science team, I understood about one word in three so it will be no use asking me. I have heard about some portal magic that the people here use for transportation that we might be able to use in the future, but I need to do some more research to see if it would be applicable to helping transport you guys across. Anything else?" Whilst Harry could probably have been a little more diplomatic, he had other things on his mind, Hawke shaking his head as the ICW members starting speaking once more.
With that little piece of political drama out of the way Harry tapped a couple of runes on the portal device, switching his view to the main control room, all frustration at the ICW fading as he smiled.
"Hey beautiful..." Ginny Weasley was stood with Ellen, Hermione and Daphne, smiling despite the fact that had made it clear in their last set of messages that she was still mad at him.
"Dammit Harry, I am trying to be mad at you here!" Despite the fact that he was 'involved' with Hermione and Daphne, it had been a long accepted thing that Ginny was the 'alpha' of their little group. Not that he hadn't come to love the others over time of course, but Ginny would always have that little special place in his heart.
"I know you are, and I am sure that when you make it over here you will kick my ass, but I miss you and don't want our first proper trans-world talk to be a fight." Whilst Harry may have originally been absolutely clueless about women, juggling four of them tended to make you learn fast.
"If you don't mind us normal unappreciated women interrupting your sickly sweet bullshit..." Daphne didn't care that she broke the moment, the scarred woman pausing for a moment before sighing in defeat.
"Fine, we miss you, so can we please get to fucking point where you tell us some good news? You left a lot out when talking to those old wankers, not that they probably noticed the senile little..." Hermione spoke up seamlessly as Daphne petered off into her own little rant.
"You know what she really means Harry, just getting it out of her is a little challenging at times. We heard what you've said to the Americans, do you want one of us to come across with the next group to help manage things?" He did, and for more personal reasons than Hermione had just stated, but he knew exactly why he couldn't ask them too either.
"I would love to have you all over on the next run, in fact I wanted to have you all come over with the first gate, but unfortunately we have to think bigger than that, I need you keeping things together on Earth. We have teams out scouring the local area for more portals on brooms, and I've asked our allies to notify us straight away if they discover one, but it will be a slow process..." Hermione nodded, Harry knew she had a better understanding of logistics than he did, they needed to speed things up one way or another.
"Now we know the portal devices work we are working on developing our own portals that we could set up down here, but any information you can gather on the methods the others use would be very helpful, we aren't making much headway yet." So he now had a concrete task to follow up on, though getting hold of that information wouldn't be as easy as it perhaps sounded.
He would worry about that later though, as right now he had more important people to think about...
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"There they are sisters, wait amongst the crags for when the land stealer tries to double cross us!" Queen Windfury knew that such a slanted view was probably presumptive of her given the land stealers actions thus far, but every other land stealer they had tried to deal with had yet to prove her wrong, and given the excited calls of agreement her sisters agreed.
Still, if this was meant to be some kind of trap she had expected slightly more than three people waiting with Sister Stormfire's young daughter, even if one of them matched the description of the powerful Mage that had so easily downed three of her kin. Swooping in as the dozen warriors she had brought with her settled themselves above, she did her best to remember the land stealer tongue that they used to converse.
"I am here as you requested land stealer, now what demands do you have before you release my kin?" She wanted to leap across and attack him for downing and then chaining one of her little hatchlings, but she was old enough and experienced enough to ignore the flaming desire for the time being, though she did dig her talons into the ground as a way of diverting some of her anger.
"My Queen!" Stormfire's calm but happy greeting surprised her, given her captivity Windfury assumed that Stormfire's rage would be incessant and overpowering her usual instincts, obviously her time in the land stealers hands had not been as painful as so many of her sisters had been forced to suffer through.
"Queen Windfury, I am Nash'ala and this is Harry Potter of the Terrans along with his mate, I will act as translator as Harry has not yet mastered the common tongue..." The Naga's speech surprised Windfury further, she had assumed that the Naga had been another captive or a mere pet, her surprise obviously reaching her face as the human male chuckled a moment later and hissed something that caused Nash'ala to turn and hiss something back before nodding.
"Regardless of what you think Queen Windfury, Harry does not make a habit of kidnapping people for selfish reasons, in fact if the risk of you trying to attack us hadn't been so great we would have released your kin after healing her injuries. But the stories of Harpy swarms attacking and ransacking settlements out of the blue are a little too well known for us to risk a similar attack on us, so we thought negotiating with..." Windfury had heard enough, beating her wings in anger as she slammed one talon into the ground.
"So you enslave one of my sisters in your desire for peace? I think you claim much in the way of 'diplomacy' manthing, but you are just like all the others whose honeyed words belay their evil deeds, your attempts to manipulate us end here." She prepared to take flight and unleash the fury that had been building inside of her since she had first laid eyes upon these interlopers, when the human male unhooked the long and ragged black cloak that he had on, the expression of rage on his face unnerving her before she was hit by his magic.
Windfury wasn't a particularly good sensor, she preferred to rely on her other senses, but the sheer strength of the man's magic engulfed her like a hurricane upon an ill prepared nest. The air felt heavier than water and the temperature dropped to the point that if she wasn't already shivering with fear then she would be to try and keep warm. How had he hidden such power before now?
"You dare accuse me of manipulation and lying to you... You know nothing about me Harpy, if you did you would know I have maimed people for insulting me as such before, and that is ignoring the fact that you brought some of your kin to try and ambush us..." The strength of the magic wasn't what had Windfury regretting her earlier attempt to anger the land stealer, instead it was the emotions and feelings the magic brought with it that had her on the verge of trying to flee.
It was fear on a level that she had only encountered once before, as a hatchling, when she had fallen from her nest at only a few weeks old. The feeling of complete helplessness as death reached out to grasp her was something she had hoped to never feel again, but given the land stealer's rage it might well be the last thing she felt in this world.
"I had my childhood taken from me by the manipulations of old men, twisted to become a martyr for a race of people who were more than happy to let a child do their dirty work for them, all because I was 'chosen' by Prophecy..." The Naga woman seemed frozen like she was, head fin twitching uncontrollably in a manner that made it clear that she had not encountered this kind of display before either, though the human woman seemed mostly unaffected apart from a small frown that was slowly deepening on her face.
"I lost friends and loved ones for 'the greater good' and watched as a man prepared to wipe out thousands of people because they weren't 'pure'. I have seen my world burn and it's people slaughtered by the Burning Legion. I have fought demons and devils whose power far outstrips your own, and you think I am being diplomatic because I want to ENSLAVE YOU!" The human's words took several precious seconds to sink in and for Windfury to comprehend them, her mind stuck on the fact that each and every moment could well be her last if she so much as breathed wrong, when her saviour came from an unexpected source.
"My lord, please don't hurt her, if you are correct about our curse than given our history with land stealers she could have said far worse..." Stormfire's rather impassioned request seemed to combine with the human woman putting a hand to the mage's shoulder, though he flinched at something and the pervading feeling of imminent death slowly started to fade from Windfury's senses.
"Stormfire, I am not your lord, I am nobody's lord..." It was surprising, the level of distaste that entered the man's voice at the title he had been given by her younger kin, the mage then taking a deep breath before sighing and flicking his hand.
The tattered cloak rippled up from the floor and reattached itself to his shoulders and chest without a sound, his magic disappearing almost entirely the moment it did so, the mage then surprising Windfury by stepping forwards and offering a hand to her. It was only as he seemed to tower over her that Windfury realised she had at some point fallen to one knee, probably during the initial unleashing of his power.
"S-such power, why not just unleash that power at the start of our talks la-human?" The slight tremble in Windfury's voice made her angry internally, but fear of the man who had shown he had enough power to destroy her and her flight quickly squashed it before it could become an issue once more, taking his hand cautiously and allowing him to pull her up.
"Because I came here to negotiate with a group of intelligent beings and to try and work out a beneficial agreement between us, not to force you into an agreement through fear of destruction, I have seen far too much of that to stoop to that level..." Looking down at where the mage's hand was still joined with her own, Windfury felt a strange emotion build up inside her, her mouth tilting upwards into an expression she had seen land stealers call a smile before what Stormfire and the mage said brought her back to where they were and what they were meant to be doing...
"So, Harry Potter, what is this young Stormfire means when she talks about a curse?"
*Line Break*
The malice was stifling in the large throne room on top of Blackrock mountain, three of the black drakes who had been Onyxia's guards stood as still as they possibly could, whilst their liege tore his jaws from the neck of Firaxion and growled in frustration.
"You mean to tell me that not only does my dear sister now suspect that you were there to mind her, but you now have let her disappear due to your incompetence?" The three drakes looked at each other for a moment, before the smallest was shoved forwards unceremoniously, twitching uncomfortably as he tried to work out how best to maximise his chances of avoiding Nefarion's wrath.
"My lord, it is not that she disappeared that is the problem, but the caverns she uses to contain her eggs... We cannot find it." Nefarion's face contorted into a snarl and the drake flinched as the black Dragon snapped towards him, expecting the end as had happened with Firaxion minutes before.
"Interesting... My sister is no master of illusion magics, especially of such a scale to completely hide a cavern, even from you idiots." Realising that he was still alive, the drake opened his eyes to find Nefarion eying him with something that could be considered interest in any other creature, though Nefarion merely looked... Hungry.
"You tell me that she was meeting with a... Human before you fled, a Mage who managed to make a fool of all four of you." A talon lunged forwards, grasping the drake by the neck and hoisting it in the air with the ease of a human picking up an irritating child.
"Tell me of this human... He sounds very interesting."
A/N: Merry Christmas everyone! Phew this chapter was hard work, it is part of the challenge going from a universe that I do know a lot about (HP) to a universe that I know practically nothing about.
Still this chapter shows that Harry has a bit more bite to him than has been previously seen, especially with those amongst the Terran survivors that remind him a little too much of Dumbledore.
Yes, this Harry holds a grudge against Dumbledore, both for turning him into a martyr and also for not training him at all, which would have been a big boon for his post Hogwarts years..
Let me know what you think everyone, and Merry Christmas again to one and all.