August 1994, Domum Magicae, the Vatican, Roma.
"Mage Potter, we've been expecting you." stated the Cardinal Arch Mage as Harry strode into the central meeting hall, wearing jeans, trainers and a Black Sabbath t-shirt.
In 1453, the city of Constantinople fell to an overwhelming number of Ottoman soldiers, backed by naval forces and with the most modern siege equipment of the time. But the Byzantine Empire did not die with Constantine the Eleventh. The fearsome battle mages of the Empire led the remainder of the people, mainly the most powerful magicals, into hiding, only coming out when the Statute of Secrecy was enacted, and apart from a few skirmishes with the Ottoman wizards, had stayed peaceful.
With deepened ties to the Court of St. Peter, Harry was only slightly surprised to see amongst the Cardinals and other senior mages, the purple robes of the Byzantine Court, and in particular the gold-woven brocaded purple dress of the sister of the Heir to the Byzantine Throne, Georgia Constantina, the true power behind the throne. She did all the diplomatics while he brother sat and looked good and a parliament ran things with his sister's directions.
So, upon hearing the declaration from the Arch Mage, he chose not to deign it with a response as it wasn't anything more than fishing for information. Harry walked over to his seat, a wing-backed armchair that, no matter what spells were tried on it, couldn't be removed from amongst the far more austere wooden throne-like seats. Throwing himself down in it, he sighed in satisfaction at the comfort it afforded.
Grand Master the Cardinal Arch Mage Augustus Aurelius breathed deeply, counted to ten before opening his eyes again;
"And pray tell Mage Potter, where have you been, I believe you have to inform a Cardinal Mage before going on extended leave?" he asked, dreading the answer.
"I told Cardinal di Pazzi!" Harry protested.
"You then left him in the infirmary having 'accidentally' obliviated several hours from his mind along with numerous physical injuries." Aurelius countered, hiding his amusement; "So, where have you been?"
"Sud della Francia, dove ci sono più Veela."Harry deadpanned, lapsing into Italian; 'South of France, the beaches with the most Veela.'
Audible snorts and sniggers came from around the room and it was painfully obvious to anyone with optical nerves that the Cardinal Arch Mage was counting to ten again. And again.
"Potter." he nearly growled.
"I was keeping up with my paperwork for Rhodes, ordering repairs to the wards on a section of the walls, and preparing for my return to Britain, which as this court may recall, I had already been ordered to." Harry replied; "The honest truth that I have been getting some equipment, some books and a few artefacts is far more boring than claiming I've spent the last few days living around beautiful scantily-clad women."
After a calming period of deep breathing and counting, Augustus Aurelius continued;
"Anyway, as yet the British Dark Lord has not surfaced, but some further intelligence of his return. Supplied by one Edward Potter, any relative?"
"As far as I know, no." Harry frowned; "My early years... I prefer not to discuss but it may be summed up that I have no family. I was either abandoned or orphaned, like far too many children, and as I said, I don't go digging in my past. There are... personal reasons."
A grimace was shared around the court. Child abuse or neglect left deep scars and it was hardly a secret that Potter did not discuss, or even think about his past.
"However, we were on the point of ratifying a declaration of war on the British Dark Lord in '81 when he was temporarily removed. Discuss." added Aurelius.
"Perhaps Mage Potter can give us some kind of context as he has been briefing in more detail than we, thus he might be able to give us some more input." drawled a Russian mage with a huge moustache.
"Certainly Cardinal Zotov." Harry replied, for once serious; "The principle dark wizard in Britain is a half-blood called Thomas Marvolo Riddle. The anagram for Tom Marvolo Riddle is I am Lord Voldemort, hence his name. Lived in a non-magical orphanage, schooled '38 to '45. Reputed to be involved in the petrification and murder of fellow studentsLet loose a basilisk in the '42-'43 year, which has since reoccurred. Graduated, briefly went into magical artefact dealing, vanished for a while before re-emerging as head of the purist faction and became the 'Lord Voldemort' known today. Mass murder, genocide, torture, rape, sedition, treason, breaking and entering, you name it, he's done it... several hundred times, starting with the suspected release of a basilisk into a school-full of children."
There were noises of general disgust.
"My personal opinion and recommendation, little as it's valued would be to await any emissaries from either side before taking any action, however, I feel it would be prudent to muster a couple of Cohorts of battle mages to readiness to deal with Voldemort." Harry mused; "Or should there be any offensive acts made against us and our allies."
"Do you have anything else to report of Britain?" asked Augustus.
"Well, plenty, but a few things will do for now. The Magical Premier, the Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge is hanging onto power by the barest of threads. There's public attacks in the press and in government against Headmaster, Chief Warlock and Supreme Mugwump Albus Dumbledore, with escalation expected. Dumbledore has not presented any firm evidence to the government of the return of Voldemort." grimaced Harry.
"And what of their opinions towards non-magicals?" asked another cardinal.
"As far as I can find out, the least bigoted believe 'muggles' are a curious species to be looked at and protected like some kind of hyper-intelligent monkeys. The more bigoted attack anything that is not purely wizard. Race-hate, sex-hate and species-hate crimes are at horrific levels. Most of the government are either Death Eaters, sympathisers, bought or blackmailed. The Statute of Secrecy hangs on by a thread, a very thin one, simply due to a lack of education so even the great Light Lord Dumbledore will wander around in pointy hat and robes assuming that it'll just be excused. They forget that cameras record things, and I found out that the London Metropolitan Police have a division of first-generation magicals wiping minds and recordings of magic. I've also heard rumour, unsubstantiated at the moment, that they intend to pass what is effectively an enslavement law for all 'dark creatures' or anything not human, be they Veela, vampire or anything else."
Conjuring himself a glass of water, Harry took an elegant sip before continuing.
"Now, not one to usually be so sadistic or blasé about destroying things;" he paused for the collective snorts and sarcastic retorts that came from his statement; "But I'd say that Britain is nearly a lost hope, the only way to recover it would be to burn it to the ground, burn the ground, then burn the ashes before rebuilding."
He glanced at the Princess and resisted an internal smirk. While utterly composed, there were tiny tells of the towering rage beneath. Despite the quite exotic Mediterranean appearance, he knew that her grandmother had been a Veela, and he was certain that there was a bit of Siren somewhere in her ancestry. And he was also aware that the Byzantine Armed Forces were equipped with nearly state-of-the-art magically-enhanced mundane technology.
Warships, from guided-missile destroyers to big-gun warships. Firearms from tank guns to handguns, warplanes from supersonic bombers to light, agile fighters... They had it all. They were the principle armed forces behind the Court of St. Peter, the Greek armies behind the arrowhead of the Spartans. While their equipment was mainly ex-surplus from Britain, France and America, it didn't mean that they were anything but a potent fighting force. This equipment and the manpower behind it was what made their power.
"Then there are house elves, enslaved descendants of the extinct high elves. While we have them throughout the world, only in Britain are they badly mistreated, used as curse dummies by some. There are places where they are well-treated but it isn't universal. The justice system has a penchant for throwing people in Azkaban with Dementors without trial... Sirius Black escaped Azkaban not two years ago, and I read the report from one of the court's investigators. No trial held. Held without charges, without trial and without sentence, and when he escaped, an immediate death warrant. They employ soul-sucking demons as prison guards and generally the minister's private strike force, if there's a problem, sic a Dementor on it." Harry continued his calm rant; "Any spell that could remotely be lethal is classed as dark, even if I could run around saving fair maidens from monstrous creatures with the killing curse or go on a killing rampage with nothing more than a rope-binding charm. Knowledge is stifled, cunning and ambition confused with evil, hard work and loyalty confused with stupidity. Power and loyalty amongst the powerful depends on the size of your 'charitable donations' or how inbred your family is."
After another pause and a sip of his water, he finished;
"To surmise, corruption, disregard of human rights, bigotry, a lack of justice, utter idiocy and my wondering how Darwin could be right; surely the British wizards are too stupid to have survived this long if Darwin's theories are right." a few minutes of utter silence fell before Harry groaned, popping his back before standing up; "If you'll excuse me, I've got a ticket to an opera tonight, and next week I need to go and put a nation to the sword."
He then swept out, hearing halfway down the corridor the dull roar of voices in the great amphitheatre.
Harry tensed for the briefest of moments as someone sat down next to him in one of the seats in the private box he'd rented for a performance of Puccini's Tosca before his magical senses identified who it was.
"You are an interesting man." she murmured as Harry set up a wandless one-way silencing charm.
"Infatti." Harry replied, knowing that the Byzantine Heiress was fishing for information; 'Indeed'.
"Mi scusi perché io non parlo molto Greco." he added; 'Excuse me for I don't speak much Greek.'
"Parlo Italiano meglio di Inglese." replied Georgia Constantina; 'I speak Italian better than English.'
"Sono sorpreso che siete interessati alla musica." she added; 'I'm surprised that you're interested in music.'
"Le arti sono un fondamento della civiltà e ho un pianoforte nella mia suite." Harry chuckled; 'The arts are a foundation of civilisation and I have a piano in my suite.'
"La mia prima impressione quando ho saputo di circa voi era che tu sei piu una mondana di un mago." the princess smirked;'My first impression when I learnt of you was that you're more socialite than mage.'
"Contatti, associati e amici hanno un valore inestimabile tra i ricchi ei potenti."Harry countered; 'Contacts, associates and friends are invaluable amongst the rich and powerful.'
"Tuttavia questo è un momento di musica non politica." he added; 'However, this is a time for music, not politics.'
Glancing at her out of the corner of his eye briefly as he reached down to pick up his program, he quashed the urge to smirk. In the other boxes were the socialites and musical 'experts', yet here he was with a beautiful young woman. Hair dark as night, pale features and smoky grey-green eyes. Of course he excused his poetic descriptions as an infection from the music he was listening to.
Through the performance, Harry kept using a bit of magic he'd learnt during a brief one-month deployment in Japan to deal with an uprising against the democratically ruling government by a group of extremists. Pulling a bit of shadow over him with his magic, constantly adding a minuscule amount more as he slowly covered himself in darkness. When the lights dropped to nought and the music ended finally with the deaths of Tosca and Cavaradossi, he completely clouded himself in shadow and used a short-distance travelling method, the method the famed shinobi of Japan used, shadow-walking. It could only cloak him in darkness or move him through two thin walls, but he easily left.
When Georgia turned to her companion of the night, his seat was empty but for a red rose. Counting herself lucky that there was nobody to see her furious blush, she took the rose and placed it in her magically-expanded handbag. Swearing to find out more about the mysterious member of the Court of St. Peter, she slipped out and glanced at the two Varangian guardsmen under disillusionment charms and realised they'd either seen nothing or been obliviated.
And was it her imagination or were all of the cherubs adorning the place as she left smirking at her?
Harry grinned as he settled himself behind the wheel of his dark-green Ferrari Dino. These little games he could play with people were always amusing. He was looking forward to driving the go-kart like car back to his apartment in the Vatican, and a glass of Carlos Primero.
It was not long later, that in the sumptuous apartment, he was pouring himself a half-glass of Carlos Primero brandy, savouring it as he stifled a yawn. A few minutes later as he glanced through the mission reports of the last week, a knock sounded at his door, an unexpected visitor. Grabbing the Uberti Schofield revolver from his mahogany desk, Harry cracked it open and loaded the cylinder of the revolver with a speed-loader of 325-grain overpressured .45 Long Colt rounds, snapping it closed and slipping it into the back of his waistband before walking over to the door and opening it.
At close range in a building such as this, battle spells were of little use, and he had little practice of duelling magic. Shooting them with a pistol was the reasonable method for such an encounter. If they were hostile.
"Sì?" Harry asked, swinging the door open.
"Mage Potter, Her Royal Highness sends you her best wishes and invites you to a performance of Norma two days hence." said a balding man with an impressively large moustache, who was wearing a dark suit with a purple sash and speaking heavily accented English.
"Tell Her Royal Highness that I am most honoured to accept her invitation." Harry replied with a slight smirk.
"I shall. Also, I recommend you dress formally but not too stiff." advised the messenger.
"Thank-you." said Harry.
'Interesting' he mused a few minutes later, finishing his brandy.
Grunting irritably, Harry gunned the Dino, swerving around and through the traffic of Rome. It was mid-evening, drizzling and the streets were gridlocked. Taking a few shortcuts he knew, Harry thrashed the little V6-engined car like a go-kart all the way to the opera house.
Swerving to a halt outside, Harry slid out of the driver's seat, his dark-blue suit impeccable despite the race across the city. With a blazer and trousers in dark blue, a Wedgwood blue shirt and a crimson tie with the crossed-keys coat of arms of the Vatican, he was an unremarkable person, maybe a bit young, but just a Vatican official. Truly, the Court of St. Peter was a part of the Holy See, a secret one to keep the peace of the magical world, so in a way, he was a Vatican official.
"Magus Potter." greeted the young princess as she climbed out of a Mercedes limousine behind him, a purple evening-dress dropping down from her shoulders, with a conservative v-neck showing a hint of her chest, descending to her ankles.
"Your Royal Highness." Harry replied, kissing the back of her hand.
"Georgia please." she smiled.
"Then I should not stand on ceremony, call me Harry." he said.
"Very well Harry." said Georgia.
"I thought you said you couldn't speak English well?" Harry commented with a raised eyebrow.
"I only said my Italian is better than my English." she laughed, linking her arm through his offered elbow.
"Thank-you Harry, a most enjoyable evening." said Georgia, kissing his cheek as they descended the steps from the opera house, then she noted that Harry barely acknowledged her. Another glance showed that his eyes were flicking around, a wand in his left hand while his right slowly drew a revolver.
Having, only moments before, felt the non-magical repelling wards as he realised that they were the only people visible in the area, Harry's left hand came up, flicking away two curses from them. His revolver came up. Firing once, a blurry figure became solid, their disillusionment charm failing as they moved too quickly, dodging his shots. Lining up a proper shot, he fired a single shot followed by a second to make sure that the man was properly down, leaving him with only three rounds left.
Seeing a Hydra's arrow curse coming his way, a poisoned, cursed arrow, he ignored it, stepping under it and with one move, throwing Georgia down behind a car. The bullet-proof vest under his suit absorbed the object. Forcibly throwing Georgia down against a car, Harry's wand suddenly lengthened to a staff. He thrust it forward, casting a wide-area banishing charm, the wizard attacking slammed backwards from his position into a wall, his disillusionment charm breaking in that instant. Harry swung around, the revolver barking twice more, the caster of the arrow-curse falling limply against the wall of an alley opposite them, blood-spatters red on the pale stone.
A slicing curse carved into the wall behind him and Harry quickly retaliated. One shot, missed. He cursed, then charged. Vaulting across the car's bonnet, he leapt for the opponent in the open, driving the spiked butt of the staff into his solar plexus with a terrible blow that caved his sternum in before diving behind another parked car. Dropping his staff for a moment, Harry snapped open his revolver, the gun automatically ejecting the spent cartridges onto the tarmac as he reached into his pocket and loaded in a fresh six rounds from a speed loader into the cylinder of his revolver.
With only his upper head, arms and the glowing head of the staff appearing over the car, Harry spotted two wizards throwing curses his way, then he yelled; "Oi mate! D'you know how to defend yourself against an assailant armed with... a raspberry?!"
The curses stopped for a few moments.
"Never needed to." admitted the nearest wizard.
Harry smirked as he was flattened by the sixteen ton weight.
"I learnt that in Malaya." he said smugly; "Now time for the tiger."
The last standing dark wizard swung around as a nearby moped roared and went for him with all claws and teeth bared, but the cutting curse was too late for his throat, which the tiger tore out without a moment's hesitation. Four assailants incapacitated. Very probably permanently.
"Drop it boy. The girl goes with me." growled a voice, distinctly an English voice.
Harry spun around, seeing a man with a wand held on Georgia.
"Well well well, Walden Macnair, not satisfied with chopping up rabid animals for the Ministry?" Harry sneered, recognising the man from the files on the British Ministry of Magic.
"Mage. My Lord will be most pleased if I kill you and bring the girl to him." laughed Macnair roughly, jabbing his wand into Georgia's throat, making her flinch.
"Do that again and I'll feed you your heart." Harry said icily.
"What, this?" replied Macnair, about to jab his wand into her throat again.
Taking the advantage offered by his momentary loosening of his grip on her, Georgia slammed her elbow into his crotch and as Harry shot him in the shoulder, sending him to the ground. Harry cursed as he heard the metallic impact of the bullet. How much enchanted metal would be needed to stop a twenty-gram bullet doing Mach 1.2?
"In the car Georgia!" Harry ordered, activating the emergency beacon and almost throwing the Princess towards his green Dino as Macnair got to his feet, an ugly-looking bardiche in hand. Swinging out his staff, the wood rapped across his opponent's shins, and then the axe was upon him.
Harry threw the staff into the path of the axe-handle, a ringing blow that shook him to the bones and forcing him into a crouch, then there was a scream. He drew a dirk from his boot and thrust it into Macnair's thigh. The fight was over in moments. A second blow of the axe rang off the tarmac and Harry dragged Macnair down, opening an artery with the knife in his thigh, then he was on his feet, flaming sword held aloft for a moment before he swung it down.
Shrinking his staff to a wand and pocketing it, his sword vanishing into the sheath, he retrieved the fallen revolver from the ground, he quickly cracked it open, dropping the spent cartridges and emptied another speed-loader into the gun before he reached the parked Dino, with a scared-looking Georgina sat in it. He climbed into the driving seat of the Ferrari, taking off from the kerb moments later. He didn't slow until they were miles away, going into the hidden garage of his apartment.
"This is my place, it's warded to the heavens." he told Georgia, who was awfully quiet.
"Why did they come for me?" she asked.
"Given what I know of him, simply the idea of someone outside himself having any power is abhorrent to Britain's resident dark lord, but he's sufficiently scholarly to know of the Byzantine and Mage courts which isn't taught in British magical schools." said Harry, contemplating reaching for a cigar, a rare thing that he occasionally treated himself to; "I do believe that they didn't expect my presence, but apart from Walden Macnair, I didn't identify any of the others and we can't until the Gendarmerie release the bodies."
"Gentlemen, this very evening, without provocation, wizards believed to be in the service of the British dark lord attacked Roma, and in particular Princess Georgina, but with the swift and lethal actions of Mage Potter, any harm was averted." Cardinal Arch Mage Aurelius announced.
"They make war on us, we should give back equally!" Harry demanded, standing up from his seat, pacing agitatedly, the long black robe swirling about, revealing that he was wearing basilisk-hide armour underneath. Rarely did he attend meetings of the Council of Mages, and even more rarely did he do it wearing his battle robes, sword sheathed at his side and staff leaning against his chair.
"While I am not an advocate of war." stated Cardinal di Pazzi; "That the temerity to attempt to strike us thus, should we fail to respond adequately, would be tantamount to an invitation to repeat their actions, which I cannot advocate."
Cardinal Benedict Graf von Blucher stood, a proud, tall man of over six feet and eight inches, and despite his age, he was impressively well-built and obviously magically powerful. Harry had duelled him many a time, and only ever beaten him with the use of cunning, dirty tricks and freakishly high power, yet the most of the times he'd fought him, von Blucher had wiped the floor with him.
Steady, quiet and rarely a speaker, his deep tones rang out, power in every nuance.
"There is a time when one must make a decision, for right or wrong. I have made decisions, right or wrong, I still debate some of them to this day. In my home-town of Köln, I saw wizards working for the SS burst into a monastery, to loot and more. I gave way to my wrath and struck them all down." he said slowly; "Yet would I make the same decision again, to make war on those who corrupted the country from which I am proud to have come? To make war is a bloody thing, there is nothing pleasant in it, but I would be cautious in starting one. Do we believe there will come further attempts given the body-count? Can we make allies amongst the British people such as you?"
"Forgive me, rash anger clouded my better judgement." Harry apologised; "There are a few who I might trust in Britain, to a certain extent."
"Take such action to get them onside that you deem fit." ordered Aurelius; "But I think I shall request a vote to remove any constraints from your actions, so long as they do not render you maledicti sunt."
"AYE!" roared almost every voice in the hall.
Harry stood still as stone for a moment, his face grave. He bowed his head in the direction of the seated Princess, then hoisted his staff, slinging it over his shoulder and stalking out.