Edited 22/03/16: Error Fixing. Added some more paragraphs for the old base.

31st of August 1985

Situated behind his desk in the warehouse office overlooking the harbour, Dumbledore let out a small chuckle while going over his paperwork. It was a mixture of his Hogwarts, Ministry, Confederation, and personal paperwork, most of it was complete of course, unlike many he was punctual in getting it done, instead of leaving it to the last minute.

The particular piece he was chuckling over was a request from Bismarck to have all biplanes within fifty kilometres of the harbour destroyed, or relocated, preferably to the bottom of the sea, again. His lips quirked upward he denied the request, again. A letter from the magical branch of Rolls Royce informing him of the completion of one of his orders, and the status of his others, they were coming along nicely he would have a good set of presents to give to Harry on Christmas. A few more requests and questions, such as the when the next vote for deciding what war-games to have would be, or if they could get a particular ship to the warehouse. The later form of request were the hardest for him to deny, the amount of preparation required to collect even one ship was immense, and he had to do it all by himself, he denied the request before adding the requested ship to a list he had, hundreds of names adorned the list, sadly many were struck through indicating it would be impossible to ever recover them.

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows as he read the latest request in the pile, leaning back in his chair, and holding it out at arm's length, a request for a miniature radio set for Harry, in fact it was a copy of a requisition form and signed HMS Prince of Wales R53, HMS Ark Royal, and Musashi, such an officially set up request showed how serious the three were. Reading through it he noted that it was so Harry could communicate with the model ships effectively when taking part in war-games, and practice manoeuvres. This seemed suspicious while it was a perfectly reasonable request, something seemed off about it a strange feeling in his bones, with a flourish he approved the request, he would wait and see for now, but eventually he would figure out what those three were up to.

*BIG*

31st of October 1985

Harry didn't know what to think of school, he had started in September and found it very different from the pre-school he had attended previously. Dudley was making it difficult for him to make friends, and he no one shared his interest in ships.

But that was ok, because at the start of October he had another present delivered, this time it was radio set, and a miniature hand held radio set that looked like the part of the telephone you held onto, but with an antenna, and a bunch of dials. He had been surprised when he had turned it on and had heard three different voices all trying to speak at once, they had all sounded like girls his own age, he'd eagerly jumped into a conversation with them and had been surprised when he found out they were the ships he'd been sent on his birthday, they were also surprised by their own voices beforehand all they could communicate in was in Morse code over the radios to each other.

Musashi sounded quite serious most of the time, though sometimes she sounded a bit more relaxed, Prince of Wales, who he called Wales, sounded refined with a bit of pride mixed in with some playfulness, and Ark Royal, who preferred to be called Ark, she sounded brash, and friendly though the pride in her voice could never be disguised.

Harry prepared to go to bed, in an actual bedroom, on his birthday after he showed her his gifts and told her how he had got them; Aunt Petunia had said something about him getting to old for the cupboard and moved him into the spare bedroom, between Dudleys' bedroom and the guest bedroom. He'd even gotten some cloths that while still second hand, fit him heaps better than the ones he used to wear.

Uncle Vernon hadn't been happy at first but on finding out on Harry's interest in warships, he'd announced at least he was interested in something useful, and that if he joined the Navy he'd better put all the queers, and nancy boys in their place, because they were bigger freaks than he could ever be. That had shocked Harry because he didn't think it was possible to be a bigger freak than him and it was the most positive thing he had directed at him by his Uncle.

Harry whispered a quick good night into the radio set up on his desk, before getting in bed and promptly falling asleep. Hours later he was unaware as an eerie glow washed over the three ships in his room, and motes of light began coalescing into numerous forms aboard them.

*BIG*

Sendai was bored it was a beautiful night and no one wanted to play around with her. A quick glance over at "those three" as the others had begun to refer to Prince of Wales, Musashi, and Ark Royal as showed a strange faint glow covering them. That was strange and those three had been acting strange ever since they had those models of themselves sent to the maybe future admiral, they barely moved during the day, always stuck close to each other, and had delayed reactions when they weren't participating in stuff, though they were far more active during the night than they had been before so she could look past the change in behaviour, but this glowing was really strange, though maybe it was a bit of magic cast by the old Admiral, "yes" she thought "that's what it is, a bit of magic he's testing on them and then if it works right we'll all get", satisfied with her conclusion Sendai went looking for something to do.

*BIG*

Deep in a hidden base approximately 14 km north of Kiel, in a massive vaulted chamber a large glowing portal stood with a massive pool of water at its base. The edges of the pool were iced over, and a thick layer of mist covered the entire chamber, cages were situated throughout the chamber, some containing the bones of long passed prisoners, others had swirling spirits that were ever changing in shape, and form, and finally in some of the cages was the source of the unnatural cold that pervaded the chamber, the rotting, and mummified hands griping the bars were attached to beings shrouded in ragged cloaks, their faces hidden by hoods, and loosely wrapped cloth. Suspended above the pool of water were a dozen roiling masses, their black oily surfaces in a constant flux of movement. During this movement a relatively small droplet fell from the bottom of one of the masses into the pool below with a quiet splash that echoed throughout the chamber.

This noise drew the attention of a house elf one of many that had been charged to maintain the base in their masters' long absence, the house elf was a young one eager and willing to do anything for the master he was too young to have ever met, as he cleaned up some of the oily substance that had fallen onto the floor near the pools edge, he never noticed the black shadow under the ice, his only warning was when the beast burst out from under the ice, it's jaws clamping down on him as he let out a screech, and was dragged under, seconds later all that remained of the house elf was a slowly spreading cloud within the water.

Hearing the screech one of the older house elves shook his head, another one lost to the masters' monsters, so eager to do their duty that they forgot all the warnings they were given by the elder elves. Entering the room he quickly used his magic to clean up the new mess, keeping an eye on the pool the entire time, he saw the shadow exit out through the portal, and gave a sigh of relief, nothing had ever returned from going through the portal. Eyeing the roiling masses he noted that one of them had a small sack suspended in the water attached by a thick cord, he knew that meant a special monster was growing, and the chamber would need a much larger clean up than normal after it was grown. Taking note of how the other masses appeared he left the room.

AN: Well there we go, before the Shipgirls can manifest, the lesser spirits need to pave the way, so the equipment fairies have arrived.

This chapter was going to encompass Christmas of 85 originally, but that didn't feel right for the way the chapter went.

If anyone's curious I managed to complete E-5 of the 2015 Summer event, I forgot about playing for the last two weeks and had to rush E-5 on the last day, celebratory LSC attempts yielded 2 Souryuu, and a Hiryuu, both Souryuu were fed to my other girls because I already had one.

In the coming days I should have an accompanying side story to this one called Harbour Days which will look at more characters, the harbour, and other happenings, not all of them will be canon to the main story, but I'll mark which ones aren't. Magic and Steel will be focused on Harry, Prince of Wales, Musashi, Ark Royal, and Kaga when she arrives.