A/N: It's update time again so let's get to it.

Disclaimer: The X-Men were created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and belong to Marvel Comics. Harry Potter was created by and belongs to J.K. Rowling. I make no money from this and the only thing that's mine are the original parts of the story.

"Normal Speech"

"Telepathy"

26) INTERNATIONAL INCIDENT

"X-Men" called Professor Xavier, "please report to my office immediately. The matter is urgent."

It took less that a minute for the X-Men to arrive in Xavier's office. They had just finished their morning training session and none of them had changed out of their uniforms yet. Even Mage hadn't removed his mask.

"We're all here professor" said Cyclops speaking for the team, "has something happened? Has a new mutant appeared? A menace that we have to face?"

"In answer to your questions" said the professor, "yes, no, and yes but not yet."

"A menace that we might have to face who isn't a mutant?" said Mage, "I can only think of one of those and that's – "

" – Voldemort" said Lightning finishing off Mage's statement before looking directly at the professor, "he's back, isn't he?"

"Yes" said Xavier, "I just received word from Albus who heard it from Professor Snape. It seems that Snape's dark mark suddenly darkened all the way to black. Albus says that the only way that would happen is if Voldemort was back and he was calling his Death Eaters to him. Snape left to answer the call and Albus is waiting for him to return to get more information."

"I can't believe that man is spy for us" said Mage.

"Are you sure he is a spy for us?" asked Marvel Girl, "and not for the other guy?"

"Albus says he trusts Professor Snape" said Xavier, "and I've known Albus long enough to know that he wouldn't say something like that unless he had a very good reason for it."

"So what do we do?" asked Cyclops, "it's obvious that he'll come after Harry."

"Eventually yes" said Xavier, "but not yet. Right now he's almost alone. Voldemort is not the sort of person who will announce himself until he's built up a lot of support again. That buys us some time to prepare although there's no telling how much time."

"Should we step up our training?" asked Angel.

"No" said Xavier, "as it is your training has already been enough to beat Magneto and other menaces. Voldemort isn't any more special than they are. He has a different kind of power in his magic but you already have experience with magic. Stay on your guard, don't slack off, and always have each other's backs."

"No question of that sir" said Cyclops, "can you find him and possibly find out what he's planning?"

"I'll try" said Xavier, "but it's not as easy as you think. I've never had any contact with him before but that, by itself, isn't an obstacle. Under normal circumstances I'm sure I could find him. But he's a powerful wizard. Although natural telepathy can beat magical mind arts most of the time there are magical ways for a wizard to hide his mind. This past fall, for example, I couldn't contact Moody when he was being held prisoner in his trunk because of the enchantments on it."

Professor looked around at all of the X-Men.

"That's all we can do for now" he said, "let's not brood about this. We'll be on alert and when the time comes we'll be ready. Harry, we have an advantage in that Voldemort doesn't know that you're an X-Man."

"The power he knows not" Lightning muttered. Xavier nodded.

"From what we know about him" the professor said, "Voldemort discounts anything 'muggle.' Even if he's heard about the X-Men, which is quite possible, and even knowing what you all did at the Quidditch World Cup, he probably still won't take you seriously as a threat."

"And since he doesn't know Harry is one of us" said Hank, "he probably won't think about us very much. We're not part of his world after all. Our being present to help at the World Cup was just luck."

"Exactly" said the professor, "the only thing he might care about is Moody's Danger Room project but that's a magical project, not a mutant one. Right now, Harry, you should think about the second task. It's only a few weeks away." Lightning nodded.

"I have been" he said, "the biggest problem is being able to breathe underwater. I was discussing it with Ororo and she suggested either the Bubble-Headed charm, which I don't know – "

"I can teach you that if you need it" said Mage.

"Thanks Padfoot" said Lightning, "but I'm going with something else. She also suggested something called Gillyweed which allows you to breathe underwater by giving you gills. I wrote to Neville about it not long ago and he confirmed what she said. Neville's a genius with plants and he said that a normal dose of gillyweed lasts for about an hour. I recently sent Hedwig to Colony Alley for some of it and I intend to practice with it in the swimming pool at least a few times before the task."

"Sensible" said Cyclops, "and how are you going to keep warm during the task?"

"I'd recommend a wet suit" said Warren.

"That and some warming charms" said Mage.

"I'll figure it out" said Lightning, "and thanks. What I worry most about is what I'm going to have to get from the lake, or maybe who I'll have to get from the lake."

"Would they really use a person for that?" asked Iceman.

"Yes" said Lightning, "somehow I don't see them using any of you. And Ororo's a princess. That would be too risky. I wonder if they'll have me go after a friend at Hogwarts?"

"Just have to wait and see pup" said Mage and with that Lightning had to be content.

In the days that followed Harry regularly spent time in the school swimming in the pool practicing his swimming (he'd never been very good at it but he'd gotten better since coming to Xavier's school) and getting used to using gillyweed. It was weird having gills in his throat and also weird to have his hands and feet develop flipper-like webbing for easier movement through water. Once he got used to using gillyweed he rather enjoyed it although he would never like the taste or texture of the stuff.

Harry was fairly confident that he could handle the second task by now. He remained worried who he would have to rescue from the bottom of the Hogwarts lake but didn't see anything he could do about it right now. He wrote to his friends at Hogwarts and warned them about his suspicions and received a reply from Hermione thanking him for the info but also telling him not to worry. Harry read this over and smiled to himself. It was so like Hermione to tell him not to worry and yet she herself had informed him of the attack on Neville's mum so who was she to talk? Harry had written to Neville after getting that letter saying he hoped his mum was okay. Harry worried about that attack. Dumbledore had informed Professor Xavier about how it was Pettigrew who had been the attacker which meant that Voldemort was behind it. Only a short time after that Voldemort had apparently returned. There was no way that was a coincidence. Voldemort would soon start to make moves and Harry could only wait to see what he might do.

He didn't keep his worries a secret from Ororo. She sympathized with him and even went so far as to let her mother know about the situation but beyond that she couldn't do much more than simply be as supportive as she could.

Six days before the second task was scheduled Harry and Ororo were walking together outside the front doors of Ilvermorny. It was a Saturday and even though it was mid-February and there was plenty of snow on the ground it wasn't all that cold. There were other students on the grounds here and there but no one was bothering them so Harry didn't pay much attention to any of them.

Harry's wandless magic was coming along very well. He still used a wand when he first learned a spell but now it didn't take long for him to learn it wandlessly afterwards. That had gotten him thinking about staves again. He knew that a person had to master their magic before being able to get a staff but hadn't been able to find information on exactly what that meant. He decided to ask Ororo what she knew on the subject because she had confirmed that some African magicals used staves.

"Well" said Ororo when Harry raised the subject, "in Kenya and other countries in Africa you can't apply for a staff until after you've passed your NEWTs and come of age. That's just the beginning though. You then have to prove to a board of examiners that your control of your magic is complete and you don't need a wand for any spell. You have to take another round of tests called the Expert Wizarding Exams or EWEs for short. To pass those tests you must do all of the required magic without using a wand at all and you must have Outstanding results on a clear majority of them with no grade lower than Exceeds Expectations on any of the tests."

"Wow" said Harry, "that sounds tough."

"It is" said Ororo, "but even that's not the end of it."

"What else could there be?" asked Harry in surprise.

"You have to earn a wandless mastery in one subject that would otherwise use a wand" was the reply, "once you can do that then, and only then, are you allowed to get a staff. If you make it that far at all you probably haven't needed to use a wand in a long time anyway so you would definitely be ready for your staff."

"Staves augment a spell's power" Ororo continued, "but in order to use one properly you have to be able to control how much magic you put into the spell. Otherwise the spell is liable to be augmented out of control. That's why you have to have complete control over your magic in order to use one. There have been a number of incidents over the centuries of people using staves who weren't ready to do so. The trouble some of them caused is pretty legendary. There's one infamous story about a wizard who destroyed not only his whole house but several of the surrounding houses as well because he couldn't use a staff properly."

"Wow" said Harry, "how many people get staves? With requirements like that it can't be that many."

"True" said Ororo, "but more than you'd think. It's sort of like going to a mundane university and staying long enough to earn a Ph.D., although qualifying for a staff is more difficult." Harry nodded his head. He wondered if he'd go that far with his wandless magic. As far as he knew neither Ilvermorny, Hogwarts, nor any of the other western schools offered staff programs, That really was too bad. Maybe in the future he'd be able to bring such programs back to those parts of the world.

After that Harry and Ororo didn't talk about anything in particular for a while. They were just content with each other's company for the moment. As they walked Harry noticed movement happening from the edge of the front lawn opposite the front doors of the school. This part of the lawn led back to the mundane summit of Mt. Greylock and Harry remembered coming in from there the first time he had visited Ilvermorny a year and a half ago. He idly looked over in that direction and saw two men entering the lawn from there. This wasn't exactly unusual so at first Harry ignored the newcomers. It wasn't until he noticed that the two strangers seemed to be heading in their direction that he took greater notice of them. He turned to look right at them and saw that they were both raising their wands.

"Get down!" Harry hissed at Ororo just as he heard a yell of "Stupefy!" Harry pushed Ororo out of the way of the curse and ducked to avoid it himself as he heard a second yell of "Incarcerous!" Harry grabbed his own wand and spun around to face the attackers, only to be brought up short by a flash of bright light that briefly blinded him. In that moment he expected to be hit by more spells but he wasn't. When his vision cleared he was able to see why.

The two intruders had been immobilized. At first it looked like they had been seized by fields of pure light but as Harry's sight adjusted he saw that actually the two wizards were both being held by prisoner by, well he wasn't sure what they were. He stared at the four – people? Spirits? Beings? that had grabbed the two wizards who had tried to attack them. They looked human in shape but that was about all he could see for sure. Their outlines were blurry as if they were fading in and out though they seemed to be lit up almost as if made of some kind of light. They went from being opaque to being more transparent and back again. Their features were impossible to make out. He couldn't tell if they even had faces. They were definitely solid, however, and they had the two attackers in firm grips from which their prisoners could not escape.

Harry looked over at Ororo and was startled to see that she did not seem to be surprised to see them.

"What are they?" Harry asked Ororo.

"They're Ethereals" was the reply.

"What are Ethereals?" asked Harry. The name meant nothing to him.

"Spirit-like beings" said Ororo, "they are here yet not here, seen yet unseen, solid but intangible, and above all the best protectors one could possibly have. They have something in common with patronuses but Ethereals are living and intelligent beings while patronuses are simply expressions of their casters."

"Oh" said Harry who remembered something, "are these the great security people you told me about when I first met you?"

"Yes" said Ororo, "as soon as one of our attackers began his spell it tipped them off to come."

"Then you didn't need my help at all" said Harry.

"On the contrary" said Ororo looking at Harry, "your quick actions saved me from being hit by either of the spells. Thank you." She quickly kissed him on his cheek causing him to blush a little.

By now someone had gotten word to the staff of the school because Headmaster Pope and several of the teachers were running toward Harry and Ororo.

"Are you two all right?" called Headmaster Pope, "what happened?"

"We're fine headmaster" said Ororo, "these two men tried to attack us. Harry pushed me out of the way of their spells and my security Ethereals grabbed them and are holding them now."

"Oh my" said the headmaster as he got a good look at the Ethereals, "I never thought I'd see an Ethereal."

"They serve as security for my family" said Ororo, "they will hold our attackers until the aurors get here."

"Right" said Pope who turned to one of his colleagues and told him to call for some aurors to come. The colleague in question moved off to do just that.

"Now the question is who are these people and what are they after?" said Harry looking at the prisoners.

"We'll soon know" said Pope. A few minutes later the front doors of Ilvermorny opened and several American aurors arrived. Unlike British aurors who wore red robes American aurors wore blue uniforms that resembled those of muggle policemen.

"What do we have here?" asked the leading auror as he approached the two prisoners.

"You better let us go right now!" one of the prisoners yelled, "we're with the British Ministry and we have diplomatic immunity for our mission so you can't hold us."

"Can't we?" asked the auror with a skeptical look on his face, "you have no jurisdiction here and even having diplomatic immunity doesn't give you the right to kidnap people. What would this mission of yours be?"

"We don't have to tell you" spat the other prisoner.

"And we don't have to let you go" the chief auror said, "you certainly aren't acting like ministry diplomats. In my experience such people don't attack teenagers at a school."

"We didn't attack anyone" said the first prisoner.

"A stunning spell and a binding spell?" asked Harry, "that looked like an attack to me."

"No, no you got us wrong" said the prisoner, "we meant no harm. We just came here to escort Ms. Munroe here to Hogwarts. She's been chosen to participate in the second task of the Triwizard Tournament and we need to get her to Hogwarts right away."

"Really?" asked Ororo, "this is the first I've heard of that."

"Of course you haven't heard of it" said Headmaster Pope looking rather angry, "because it's complete baloney." The headmaster turned to the chief auror.

"As the head of one of the participating schools in the tournament" he said to the auror, "I know all about the plans and arrangement being made for each task. The people participating in the second task alongside the champions have been chosen but Princess Ororo isn't one of them. Everyone agreed that the risk of an international incident occurring if something happened to her during the task was too great. Beyond that, the task isn't for several more days and the chosen people aren't supposed to be told about their selection until the night before the task."

"Which means their whole story is a lie" said the chief auror, "so why are they really here? We'll get to the bottom of this, have no fear of that. Let's take them in."

"Princess" said Pope to Ororo, "will you have the Ethereals turn them over to the aurors?" Ororo nodded and spoke a a few words in a language that Harry didn't recognize. The Ethereals released the two prisoners to the aurors who put them in magic suppressing handcuffs before popping them to the nearest auror headquarters. Once the aurors were gone Ororo dismissed the Ethereals who bowed to her and disappeared.

Now that the crisis was over and both teenagers had calmed down again Harry asked more questions about the Ethereals. It turned out that no, they weren't present when they weren't needed. They didn't watch everything that Ororo did to keep her safe. Harry was relieved to here that no, they didn't watch Ororo take a shower for example or get dressed in the morning and undressed at night. The best way Ororo could explain it was that an Ethereal was "there yet not there at the same time." They had a sense that allowed them to know when and where they were needed and were able to instantly appear wherever they needed to be.

"They don't turn up for every little thing" finished up Ororo, "only when one of us in danger and it's beyond our ability to deal with it ourselves. For instance in the future, as my mutant powers grow along with my magic, I might not need them as much but they'll always be available just in case."

"Is it possible to call one of them to you even if you're not in danger?" asked Harry, "say maybe you need to give them information about something, or you need to ask them some questions, or some other reason?"

"Yes" said Ororo, "but you'll have to learn Swahili if you want to speak to them. That's the only language they understand."

"Ah" said Harry.

The aftermath of the attack at Ilvermorny happened quickly. As soon as the two prisoners were brought to the auror headquarters they were identified and searched. Their names were Walden Macnair and Corbin Yaxley and they were employees of the British Ministry however when they were searched they were both found to have the Dark Mark on their left arms.

When the British Ministry was contacted and informed of the situation the ministry strongly denied any knowledge of what these two people had intended to do and gave the Americans permission to interrogate them as they saw fit. Since the two prisoners were Death Eaters that allowed for the automatic use of Veritaserum. Once dosed the two prisoners sang like Mariah Carey and Sting on steroids.

Voldemort had been behind the whole thing. He had ordered the two Death Eaters to capture Princess Ororo to use her to lure Harry to him as it was known that they were dating. The fiction of taking Ororo to Hogwarts as a second task hostage had been Yaxley's idea. He'd overheard details of what the second task would entail when he came across Ludo Bagman discussing it with Percy Weasley at the ministry so he and Macnair decided to use that as their excuse if anyone tried to stop them from taking Ororo. Truth to tell it wasn't a good plan and everyone knew it. Even Voldemort knew it on some level but he went ahead with it anyway because none of his people were brave enough to tell him that it wasn't a good plan. If it had worked he would have been able to get rid of Harry Potter and still remain out of sight since no one would know for sure who was responsible for the crimes in question. Unfortunately the people he'd sent to do the job had been caught and they had talked.

Macnair and Yaxley couldn't tell their interrogators where Voldemort was because they didn't know. When their Dark Marks had activated with their summons they had apparated blindly being guided to Voldemort by their marks. If they had succeeded in capturing Princess Ororo they would have summoned Voldemort to themselves by pressing their own marks which would have guided him to them.

The upshot of things was that Voldemort's return was not, in fact, announced to the general public. The aurors announced the attempted kidnapping, named the two perpetrators, but stressed that the investigation into the matter was still ongoing to find out if they had acted alone or if they had accomplices.

The people who really counted, however, were told the full truth. The Kenyan, British, and American magical governments were all fully informed as to the situation. The first thing that happened was that Queen N'Dare decreed that all travelers to magical Kenya had to bare their left arms upon arrival at customs and anyone who was found to have the Dark Mark was denied entry into the country and immediately deported.

In Britain the DMLE used the incident as an impetus to progress further with their plans to get ready to face Voldemort when he finally did reveal himself. Mad-Eye Moody stepped up his efforts to plan the ministry Danger Room and was again regularly conferring with Professor Xavier on the subject.

At Hogwarts Professor Dumbledore was very concerned. He had been informed of the whole attempted kidnapping and while pleased that it had been thwarted was worried that he hadn't heard about it from Professor Snape in advance. Unfortunately Professor Snape had disappeared. He had never returned from going off to meet with Voldemort and after almost three weeks Dumbledore feared the worst. There were no leads as to his whereabouts, whether it was aurors searching for him or members of the Order of the Phoenix. Even Professor Xavier had been unable to find him when Dumbledore had asked him to look.

It was always true that Snape being caught as a spy by Voldemort was a possibility. At the best of times spying is dangerous but when the spy is dealing with someone like Voldemort it becomes a truly deadly risk. Dumbledore wondered if Snape's luck had finally run out.

(To Be Continued)

A/N - That's it for this week. The Ethereals are something that I made up and are not based on anything else as far as I know. I don't know enough about traditional African spirits and deities to know which ones might be appropriate for guarding the Kenyan royal family and I didn't want to do something that would be stereotypical or culturally insensitive. I made up something from scratch instead. If they do resemble anything that someone has heard of then 1) that's a coincidence and 2) please let me know as I'd like to learn about it.

As usual please take a moment to leave me some feedback. Constructive comments are always welcome but no flames or trolls please. As always stay safe and well everyone.