November 1st 1976, Little Whinging, Surrey, England
"Good luck Harry Potter." whispered Albus Dumbledore as he turned to depart.
"No good will come of your actions." growled a voice from the shadows cast by moon behind the uniform houses of Privet Drive. Stepping out of the darkness, using an immense double-headed battleaxe as a walking stick, a figure emerged. With dirty dark blond hair, a long beard and moustache braided and a surcoat of dark-red leather over chainmail, he was an impressive sight.
Dumbledore slewed round, a burst of red springing from the wand that had appeared in his hand. The figure swatted it away with an irritable swing of the battleaxe.
"Now boy, lower your wand unless you want a fight." the approaching man rumbled.
"Who in Merlin's name are you?!" demanded Dumbledore.
"Cedric, sworn servant of the Potter family. And you're standing between me and my charge." Cedric stated, hefting his axe so the haft rested on his shoulder, lifting his cloak enough to reveal a Saxon longsword slung at his side; "I'd advise you to step aside boy."
"I cannot allow you to take Harry from his blood family." Dumbledore replied serenely, even as Cedric stepped towards him.
"He isn't with his blood family you utter fool! You've left him lying like a parcel on the doorstep of a house." snapped Cedric; "If you believe you have his best interests then I believe I know the name of a good mental asylum, or a good treestump that I could use to relieve you of your head. Leaving him in the night with a blanket for warmth and nought to protect him from the elements and the foxes. Either a fool or you want him gone, like his mother and father, who you promised to protect."
He began advancing forward when, only feet from Dumbledore placed his wand inches from his forehead.
"Don't, boy." Cedric snarled angrily.
"I will place Harry within the house where he is warm, out of the rain and away from the vermin, and that should satisfy you. But you can go no further, and I would rather you don't question me." Dumbledore warned; "There is no place safer for him, the protection his mother's sacrifice-"
Cedric had had more than enough of Dumbledore blathering on and on. He was convinced that nobody could be so blatantly stupid and evil at the same time. He slammed the haft of the axe into the wizard's solar plexus before striking him on the back of the head with a mail-clad fist, instantly knocking him unconscious. Walking up to the front of the house, he swept the sleeping child up and vanished in a cloud of smoke.
1990, Rabi Castle, Czechoslovakia
Harry stood opposite his opponent in the long gallery of Rabi Castle. He'd acquired it within the last year as part of a payment for his assistance in 'preventing' the actions of some radical ultra-communists during the revolution. Prevention was a nice way of saying that they were lying in a shallow grave somewhere in the country.
With a sudden roar, the man flung himself at Harry, a sword swiftly drawn from a sheath at his side. Harry had grown well. At nearly fifteen, he had been educated by the English standard to A-levels, and his magical skills in combat had yet to meet a match. What he was most fearsome with was the longsword slung from his belt.
The two met with a clash, Harry parrying above his head with both hands on the grip of the bastard sword, taking one off and curling it into a fist, driving it into the stomach of his attacker who lurched back, gasping for breath. Harry attacked, slashing in from his right, which was swiftly parried by his opponent half-handing his sword vertically at his side. The swords rang as the deadly dance accelerated.
Leaping over a slice aimed at his knees, Harry brought his sword down at his opponent's head, who stepped aside, smashing away the sword with a vicious point-down inverted parry before lunging at the adolescent. Harry placed his own sword diagonally across his body from his right shoulder to his left hip and stepped into the lunge, steel rasping on steel as he forced the attacker's blade away from him. He spun around, slamming his elbow into his opponent's chin before they met in another attack.
With lightning-fast movements, each carefully controlled, full of measured aggression, Harry dealt blow after blow, forcing his opponent backwards down the long gallery. Lifting one leg over an attempt to sweep his feet from under him, he lunged forward, the point of his sword seeking a target. The lunge was swiftly parried, but in a moment, his sword was no longer there. The feint was fast, followed by an envelopment and a violent twist. His opponent's longsword went skittering across the floor before coming to rest at the foot of a piano.
Harry's breathing deepened and became more rapid as he relaxed after the furious fight, sword point just inches from Cedric's neck. Their momentary freeze was interrupted by clapping. Harry swung around to see his butler, Victor Dubose, stood in his coat and tails next to one of the ornate sofas where two men, one a bearlike man of great stature, dressed in the scarlet and the black of the Vatican. The other wore a Van Dyke beard, a long, thin face and clad in a uniform of black riding boots, dark blue trousers and a dark-green velvet jacket adorned with small pieces of gold braid.
"Well done gentlemen." Victor stated, his upper-crust southern English accent redolent of his past as a manager at the Savoy in London, where Harry had met him and employed him; "If you don't wind me interrupting..?"
"Not at all. We had just finished." grunted Cedric, walking over to where his sword lay, picking it up and pushing it home into the sheath at his side; "The armoury after supper, Harry." he added before sweeping off.
"Gentlemen." Harry greeted his visitors, walking over as he sheathed his sword.
"Sir, Cardinal Mage Nicholas Graf von Schwartz," Victor introduced the first, who rose and bowed slightly to Harry, who returned it; "and the Holy Roman Magical Empire's Ambassador of the Interior, Ernst Dahl." the second man greeted him with a slightly deeper bow, being of lower social rank than the Cardinal Mage. "Gentlemen, Hadrian Potter, heir and de facto head of the British noble House of Potter
"Shall we take this to my study?" Harry asked after the formalities had been observed.
"That would indeed be wise." replied von Schwartz.
Turning away, Harry gestured for them to follow him down the long gallery and through a studded door into a comfortable sitting room and through a further door to his study. A huge fireplace occupied most of one wall, big enough to burn a good tree trunk, though only the embers of the previous night's fire remained. The stone floor was, mostly, covered by a Persian rug and a wide, leather-topped captain's desk, on which Harry perched himself, his guests occupying
"May I offer you drinks?" Harry asked.
"No thank you." declined von Schwartz.
"Very well, business." stated Harry.
"Indeed. I assume from your lack of questions, you are aware of who the Mages are?" asked the Cardinal Mage.
"I do indeed. Occupiers of the Palazzo di Magia in the Vatican, international peacekeepers, and, when necessary, soldiers." Harry recited; "Also ruling mainland Italy, Sardinia, Sicily and Switzerland under the title 'Papal State of'."
"Good, that makes things a lot easier." nodded von Schwartz approvingly; "Since the downfall of the non-magical Soviet Union, we've come across evidence of rogue wizards using magic to experiment on humans... not a lot of evidence, but enough to require action. Unfortunately, there aren't many in our ranks who could easily blend into Russia and Eastern Europe while being comfortable in the non-magical world."
"You wish for me to work on your behalf..." Harry said, putting on a 'thinking' tone of voice and running a hand down his chin; "I am tempted. Though I am aware that the Mages do not simply walk into other nations and hunt down those they don't like. There must be some form of jurisdiction, and the declaration thereof."
Schwartz produced a small pendant and threw it to Harry, who deftly caught it.
"The pendant of a mage. By it, any action made is in the name of our organization. This one is conjured and will return to nothingness in sixty days." he stated; "Come to Rome when sixty days are up and you will stand before a council of Cardinal Mages. But beware, should you use the pendant for ill, then it will destroy itself, and you. Should you survive, we will know and will end you."
"And the Ambassador?" Harry asked of the still-silent man.
"While you live on the non-magical side of the curtain of this world, Czechoslovakia, as with the rest of what was once the Austro-Hungarian Empire is part of the Holy Roman Magical Empire." stated the Ambassador; "As an undoubtedly skilled and powerful wizard with a burgeoning reputation, I felt it my duty to get the measure of you."
"And now?"
"I am intrigued. A wizard of some reputation in his home nation, the so-called 'Boy-Who-Lived' and the 'Boy-Who-Vanished'... a child born to powerful parents, at ease wearing non-magical clothes." said Dahl, nodding to the jeans and long-sleeved t-shirt Harry was wearing under dragon skin bracers, vambraces and vest, before nodding to the sword at his side; "Or wielding non-magical weapons and working with the non-magical government."
"It's always good to keep people intrigued..." Harry chuckled.