The Chronicles of Camelot: The Snake, The Boy and the Chamber

by blackshadow111

The world is a far older and better place than the muggles believe. Harry Potter knows this very well indeed. Watch as the heir of Alexander and Arthur takes a world rotting in its mediocrity, and turns it into a utopia. With unlimited resources, an icy, brutal ruthlessness and an unparalleled mind, no one can stand in his way. Amoral, Political Harry. Dead, but the rewrite is up.

17. Chapter 17

Welcome to the latest chapter of the Chronicles of Camelot.

Before we begin, a word:

To that spineless little motherfucker calling him/herself ddk, the one that came crying about how I'd misbehaved with that author who was fond of making stupid, empty threats:

Hey dumbass? Why don't you grow a couple centimeters of spine and log in before insulting someone? Y'know, like the people who actually have those little things called conviction and guts. What? Never heard of them? Of course, that goes without saying. Thoughtless of me.

To the King of Hearts.

I really do apologize, your majesty. It's just that I have been sorely lacking in time, hence my unforgivable behaviour to you. i shall attempt to do better.

11th December/1994
Unplottable Location

Harry had been pondering this for a long time, and he had finally reached a conclusion. The funny thing was, it was a conclusion he'd already known, which had been said again and again by just about anyone who knew the subject matter. He'd decided to think and test the matter just 'cause, but he had to agree in the end.

The laws of magic were a bloody, motherfucking bitch of truly colossal proportions.

Of course, there was the fact that their effect was muted for him. At the levels he worked at, most laws of magic were more like guidelines, while the laws of Physics were just silly suggestions. But despite all that, Newton remained supreme.

Every action did have an equal and opposite reaction, and the reaction was just as painful as the action was important and/or powerful. How this mattered to him right now was because of the ritual he was engaged in.

It was the most important ritual he had ever done till now, being the first of many that were absolutely vital in the eventual scale of things. Harry had made several very careful arrangements for this ritual, quietly gathering together the extremely rare, expensive and delicate materials required. It was a good thing that the most important components had been arranged for by his own efforts, but even then the costs, both in terms of moneyand man-hours, had been nothing short of astronomical.

And that was nothing, nothing compared to the real price, which was, put simply, pain.

Enormous, unrealistic pain, on the levels that made his brains want to melt out of his ears, that tore apart every sinus in his body, that, had he allowed himself the weakness of a scream, would have ripped his throat raw in a wail of agony.

But then he thought of the rewards, and it was worth it a thousand times over.

It was amusing how literal the saying 'No pain, no gain' was in terms of Blood-Magic.

A ritual that gave a person perfect balance caused a few twinges as the needed adjustments were made, while one that would allow them to survive fire unharmed would cause a terrible burning for several hours.

Harry was currently lying in the middle of a seven-pointed star that had been painted with a mixture of his blood, molten Mythril and Gold and the extracts of numerous extremely rare plants, among other things.

While he was in the polygon in the middle, four of the triangles were occupied by four of what appeared to be stakes, each of them carved directly out of the Yggdrasil, studded with several magical crystals of very specific qualities.

Apart from the crystals, the surfaces of the stakes were decorated with elaborately carved grooves, forming tiny hooks to which silvery threads were tied. These were unicorn mane hairs from seven different unicorns, all of who were eleven hundred years old, and were worth over a million times their weight in gold. There were exactly Nine hundred and ninety nine hairs, stretching taut from the wood.

Of course, the pain came from the other ends of the hairs.

The Nine Hundred and Ninety-Nine hairs had been divided three times, each set separated so as to affect a particular part of him. Their tips were embedded into tiny beads of crystallized High Elf Blood, which were scattered across his body.

Three hundred and Thirty-Three hairs were in his skin and flesh, separated along the topmost layer, barely touching him at all, to the ones buried deep into the lowest levels of the Lower Epidermis, to the ones into his muscles, going deep into his limbs' muscles, along with the flesh on his chest, on his neck, in his back, among the other regions.

The second set was to affect his organs. Every major and minor organ in his body, from his Heart, Liver, Kidneys, to his Lungs, Brain, intestines were all hooked to the shimmering threads.

And the last set was in his bones. Every bone, from the limbs, to the ribs, to his backbone, all the way to his Cranium was riddled with tiny beads. In several cases, the bones were penetrated to reach the marrow, the CSF, the brain stem, and, well, everywhere.

Each of the beads had been placed personally by Harry, in a bloody and painful process that had nevertheless betrayed traces of the world renowned master surgeons whose skills Harry had assimilated for this very purpose.

This was the sight inside the room. Had one cared to look a floor below, they would have understood more about the ritual.

What above appeared to be stakes were in fact pillars, which rested on the floor of this chamber which was of vast, cavernous dimensions. It needed to be that big, because of the things present in it.

Connected to the pillars by thick chains of pure magic, were four corpses, each of them a creature Harry had personally slain. One was the Dragon that he had killed nearly two weeks ago, connected to one of the stakes. The damage to its insides and bones had been carefully healed by Harry just days ago. Another was a thousand year old basilisk, Xerxes its name. Once it had been one of the personal familiars of Salazar Slytherin. The third was a yield of his mercenary elimination efforts, in the form of Raskul the Black-blooded, a seventy year old Werewolf that had caused no end of problems for several European regimes. He was, of course, in his transformed state. The fourth was one of the last true Krakens, which Harry had tracked all the way into its lair at the heart of the Bermuda Triangle.

Harry was currently chanting a series of spells, stabilizing critical components and smoothing out wrinkles in the technique.

Before long, he was ready, and in another few seconds, the process had started. Slowly, guided by his will and his words, magic poured out of his core, pooling into his body before being drawn by the strings. It travelled along them into the pillars, from them entering the bodies of the beasts. It suffused through them, pouring into every portion of their corpses, bringing alive ancient magic that had lain dormant since their deaths.

Of course, Harry's core, while of an extremely impressive size, was still somewhat lacking to truly charge the bodies to the needed levels. But that was no matter, as he'd known it beforehand.

Power from his connected ley line poured into him and through him into its targets, till every part of their bodies was brimful of magic, the enchantments flaring to full power.

Then, at that point, Harry spoke a word of power, shaping his will into ways beyond ordinary spells. Immediately, runes glowed to life on the beasts, shaping their magics into pre-decided patterns. It continued deep into the cadavers, the magic saturating every single cell, rendering the once mighty beasts into the conditions that the spells governing it told it to.

It continued to increase, reaching higher and higher crescendos, till each of the bodies was prepared to the levels required, all of them more magic than matter. Once the state was reached, the flow stopped, the magic settling its presence, forcing the native magics of the beasts to acclimatize to it, forming unbreakable connections between itself and both the beasts' bodies and magic.

Once that happened, the first stage of the ritual began. Magic started to flow again, but this time in the opposite direction. It flowed from the Dragon, the Snake and the Wolf and the Kraken, along the chains, along the pillars, pouring into the unicorn hair and then into Harry himself.

But it didn't flow alone.

The bodies turned first into dust, and then smoke, before they started travelling the magic's path, swirling up, up and sideways, pouring into a body that was ready for them. Along with them flowed their magics, drilling into an all-too-willing core, every aspect of the beings becoming one with the persona of Harry James Potter, mind, body and soul.

Indeed, as they came, things changed. Bones became thinner and denser, muscles increased in density from the levels of impressive to outright spectacular. Nails became claws, skin turned into scales, while traces of fur emerged from the spaces between the scales. In the mouth, canines turned into full-fledged fangs, small tentacles emerged from what was a pink tongue previously. The list of changes was endless, and by the time they were done, Harry was left looking as a strange mix of Reptile, Vulpine, and Kraken.

Of course, this was hardly acceptable, hence the part that came into effect next. Sigils burned everywhere into the room; on the floor, in the air, on Harry's skin, everywhere.

Once they were formed, they went to work. Burning black, they sent forth waves and waves of pure Chaos Magic, pouring power into him till the amounts reached saturation levels.

An extremely useful property of Chaos Magic was that it made everything extremely susceptible to change. Uncontrolled, this could cause untold devastation, but in controlled form, as this case was, all it did was to facilitate all change several times over.

Indeed, it was only with the mutability granted by chaos that the next stage could be carried out. Magic reached deep within Harry, penetrating every aspect of him pouring into his cells, all the way into every single nucleus of every single cell, so that it could affect that which was the holy grail of all Blood-magic.

His DNA was laid open before the power of chaos powered blood magic, spells already coming to life to work on it.

And work they did. Harry's genetics were cut, spread and pruned, before a whole lot was added to them. The DNA was shaped, twisted, broken, reformed, reshaped and altered to create new characteristics. The features of the Dragon, the Basilisk, the Wolf, and the Kraken were all assimilated in the truest sense of the word.

As it happened, changes appeared on the surface. The fangs, claws, scales and fur receded, withdrawn deep into his body. The magics worked properly now.

He felt as if a thousand burning pins had been driven into his body (curiously enough, that was exactly what had happened), and they were turning hotter and hotter, melting his very physiology.

This time the changes were smooth, perfect even. Bones hardened beyond diamonds, nails became sharp and capable of becoming claws at a moments' notice. Teeth were just a bit more pointed, the skin was now closer to marble than any organic material. His muscles now had the density and consistency of the beasts he had taken in, in proportions so vast that he knew he could probably lift tons right now if he chose to.

The list of changes was endless. His body was shaped and reshaped as if it was clay in the hand of a god. He became faster, stronger, plain better than he'd ever been before. And the fun part was that as impressive as the changes in his body were, they paled dramatically in comparison to the magic.

His magical core had grown over ten times in size. His skin now carried enchantments that had protected Dragons and Basilisks since before known history. Any wound made by his newly grown claws or fangs would never heal, unless he willed it to.

Harry's bones had been hollowed dramatically, and he felt the set of spells developing in him that would allow him perfect flight like a dragon. On the other hand, tiny slits, around a centimeter wide, formed along the sides of his neck, and he knew that he could now breathe underwater. And these were just two of a long, long list of powers.

The dragons and Krakens were elemental beasts. Harry could even now feel the Dragon's magic dramatically enhancing his fire and wind affinities, while the Kraken did the same for his water and Earth affinities. It was all there, the strength of the wolf, the venom of the basilisk, everything was merged flawlessly into him, till he was left looking one hundred percent human, while feeling anything but.

The only evidence of things being otherwise was the slight shimmer that his skin now had, due to the fact that his skin was now millions of ultra-minute scales. Apart from that, his nails were just a bit pointed, while the whites of his eyes were just a bit tinged with yellow. Looking closely, one could even see where the iris had taken a slight oval, slit-like shape.

Once the last of the changes was cemented into him, their traces removed till he chose to activate them, their features and genetic markers incorporated into him (speaking of which, it had been absolute bloody hell to extract male features from the dragon), he slowly stopped the connection between the stakes and him.

Even now, he could feel them, the willful pride of the Dragon, the brutality inherent in the werewolf, along with the bloodlust and, well other forms of lust they all had in common. It surged through him, feasting on his hormones and struggling against the iron walls of his Occluded mind, before being silenced and calmed by the combination of the Basilisk's prudence and the Kraken's patience.

This was a slight concern he'd taken a calculated risk on, given that the instincts of Primal powers weren't controlled nearly as easily as human emotions. Harry would have to sate them once in a while, one way or the other.

Still, he had no time to let his mind wander. The ritual wasn't complete yet.

Once the last traces of magic between him and the stakes stopped flowing, Harry's attention turned to the occupants of the other three triangles. These ones were simple, thankfully.

Three small representations of keystones sat in the triangles, looking perfectly innocent. They were the 'twins' of three other keystones which were currently set to regulate the magic in three of Harry's bigger leylines, one of them even a secondary line. Harry had chosen this day to increase the amount of magic he had on tap, and they were the preparations.

After yet another ritual involving just as much complexity as he last but thankfully much lesser pain, the last of the beads vaporized while still within Harry. They were followed by the Unicorn hairs, which were transported to an extremely safe containment vault in a pulse of magic.

Eventually, Harry stood up, feeling quite literally ready to burst.

It was all he could do to stagger to a specially prepared tank containing the magical version of what the muggles called heavy water, fall in with a small splash, and sleep. It was his due, after all. The whole ritual, from starting till the end, had been over sixty hours of back-breaking work, especially since everything, from the carving of the pillars from the logs he'd received, to the careful coating of the unicorn hair in nineteen radically different potions (prepared at the same time), to the forging of the chains of magic, to the cutting of the magical crystals had to be done in one, single stretch.

Harry woke thirty-nine hours later.

Checking his watch (the one he'd set to follow the time outside time acceleration), he realized that it had been nearly ten hours of real time from the beginning of the ritual to its end.

That was fine, but he had to get a move on. He had to master and acclimatize himself to one hell of a lot of things.

Thankfully, there was this little device he'd just reconstructed. It didn't look like much, a simple archway, with a box attached to its side, along with a tray.

It was one of the greatest masterpieces of the Sharr, a combination of time magic, abstractual magic, raw chaos, Sorcery, Alchemy and, well, other things.

It had been invented by an ancestor of his who'd found himself trapped in Nevernever after a summoning gone wrong (instead of the demon being pulled into the human plane, it'd pulled him into the demonic one).

Of course, the Sharr family being the Sharr family, the man had slaughtered every demon he'd encountered, created a ritual on the spot that had turned him into a demon with all the advantages but none of the disadvantages, and declared himself King. He'd made it stick, too, establishing an actual empire strong enough that Harry still had the entire Capital City bottled up in one of the Sharr vaults (one of the ones below Castle Sharr, certainly not Gringotts).

Even now, Harry had talked extensively with the portrait, he'd assimilated the man's memories (thus being able to build the bloody thing), but he still had to admit. Krichevskoy Sharr had been one of a kind.

With an effort of will, Harry brought his mind to the present.

Rummaging through his pockets, he pulled out a set of rings that he'd forged in the last several days (well, he'd spent weeks, but that was the beauty of time acceleration). They were pieces of art, even if Harry said so himself. He'd spared no expense. Ancient scrolls and journals had been duly dusted off and carefully studied, from those coming all the way from Atlantis itself, written by the best enchanters among the wizards that had come to call themselves the Valar, from those that had passed through names as venerated as Rhunon the Elf Enchantress and Hattori Hanzo the weapon-master.

And that was just the knowledge. The pains he'd taken with every milligram of the metal, not to mention with the crystals in the centre would fill a small book. They were rings of power, every one of them destined to be Noble Phantasms one day.

This day, as a matter of fact.

Harry set the rings on the tray, before raising his hand and making a gesture. Spells activated in the room, beginning the careful work of altering the ring, finalizing the enchantments upon them, while steadily pouring more and more power.

To Harry's eyes, the activity in the room was massive. Spells were all doing different things to different rings, some were fluctuating the power between different levels, some were twisting spells, and it was enough to convert every plane of sight after the fourth to a dazzling white.

As the first ring went into the box, Glyphs glowed on the doorway. It hummed steadily, before some rather loud sounds emitted from it. Its aura grew heavier and brighter, signifying the huge, huge amount of magic unfolding within it.

Harry knew what was happening. The archway was channeling pure chaos from the deepest, darkest pits of Nevernever. It was spreading its magic through the ring, analyzing every single aspect of it, finding out its strengths and flaws, using the connection it possessed with the soul of all things to identify the very concept of every single flaw in the ring.

Harry knew that once it was done, once it knew everything there was to know about the ring, understood every aspect of every flaw, from the minute mismatch in the spell matrix to the slight faults appearing in the power flow, then its powers would reach into the endless ether of Nevernever. It would take a bit of the limitless swirl of Nevernever, and fashion out a tiny reality for itself.

In that reality, every single flaw in the item, everything that was keeping it from becoming the embodiment of perfection for the tasks it needed to perform, would be given form. Demons, spirits, shades would be summoned from every part of the Realm, the summoning indiscriminate as to region or type, caring only that the entity embodied the weakness perfectly.

In the cases where no entity could be found that suited the requirements, new ones would be created. It was child's play, what with the endless formability of the ether. This option was more likely to be exercised later, Harry knew. The device had been programmed to carry out a large number of operations later too, after all. As even the slightest complication arose, a demon would be created/summoned in real time to embody it.

It continued in that strain, till finally a swirling, shrieking vortex appeared in its middle.

Harry stepped into the item world.

He was greeted by the sight of a hellish world, fire literally raining from the skies, while behemoths walked the land. He turned his head, and he could see shimmers appear, followed by new demons. There were Dragons, Balrogs, Abominations, Biblical Hellspawn, Inferi, you name it, and it was there.

In that second, Harry dropped nearly all of his emotional barriers. He unleashed it all, letting the rage, bloodlust, hatred, and; loath as he was to admit it even to himself, fear, show on his face, he delved even deeper, bringing the most terrible and deep ranging instincts of the wolf, Dragon, Basilisk and Kraken appear in full force.

Looking back at the largest swarm of monsters, a bloodthirsty grin appeared on his face.

It was time for the slaughter to begin.

Over the course of the last several months, Harry had learned a truly vast array of magic. He had mastered spells that could both raise and freeze volcanoes, magic that could make the very Earth bleed. He had perfected magic that could summon the very flames of hell; fire that made Fiendfyre seem like a poorly lit matchstick. He had learned spells to bind and destroy gods and demons (albeit very, very minor ones), that could tame and enslave Archangels.

His elemental abilities had reached peaks that could raise mountains out of nothing. That could turn every gust of wind in a several mile radius into blades of deadly sharpness. He could cause metal to rain in a downpour, or the very blood in a body to boil. He could cause organs to explode and trees to become warriors. He could erase all possibilities of any event happening, or make it as certain as the sun rising.

All that and so, so much more he'd had to keep confined within himself, aware that there were people, a lot of people who could do a lot more and would not hesitate even in the slightest to destroy him.

But now…

The first 300 foot tall Hellgod fell without any effort, its heart ripped out of its chest by the arm that rose from the ground at Harry's direction. Harry didn't know it then, but at that instant, in the outside world, a significant imbalance in the combination of metals in the ring corrected itself.

Harry rose into the air at his third try, after falling in the first two. He increased his velocity to equal and beyond that of sound, ripping through a dragon's fire, entering its fire gland and exiting out of the back of its throat.

Outside, a spell that had been leaking some magic stopped.

It was brutal, glorious carnage as Harry forgot all restraint, all thoughtfulness. He let all caution fly to the wind, let the rules and limitations he'd decided to define his life in wither away and die. He was a Dragon and a Wolf and a King twice over, once of the serpents and once of the sea, and he would not be tamed.

Of course, it had its consequences. Harry took injuries, massive ones that he otherwise would have dodged effortlessly. But no injury, no magic affected him for more than a few seconds, such was the raw power of the magic now coursing through him.

Harry fought endlessly, ripping and burning, gazing and biting and casting and drowning and cutting and crushing without stop. After the first day he swore an oath to never go back till every last flaw was destroyed just for the sake of denying himself the option to quit. He ate Dragon and Demon, he sustained himself off magic alone.

He did things he'd learned long ago but never felt like applying, sleeping inside the lungs of a dead Leviathan that he'd picked up barehanded from the depths of the literal sea of blood. Time ceased to have a meaning, days melded into each other as he continued dealing with the flaws and imperfections.

It was only in the nights, when he was just about to sleep, that he meditated for some time, reminding himself of who and what he was. He also took the opportunity to connect to the device and altering a few controls. When he'd entered he'd allowed himself unfettered access to the power of the ley lines. Over the course of, he steadily decreased it, bringing back more and more of his finesse in the play. Of course, at times he increased it right back up, all for the purpose of acclimatizing himself.

It was a long, long time after he'd entered, nearly seven months after, that he gazed at a perfectly calm, cleansed world. He knew that the last of the changes that had been planned in the ring were now complete, not to mention the original needs of improvement.

It had been seven minutes in the real world.

Of course, as much as he'd have liked to leave then, he couldn't. He had, by then, a rough handle on his power. By the time he left, intended to have a pinpoint and precise control over each and every aspect of it.

He started meditating again, connecting to the device, making it load the next ring into the box. The first one had been a fire elemental ring, hence the propensity for dragons and hell beasts in this realm (with the Leviathan representing flaws in the fire spells). This one, if Harry wasn't mistaken, was an Earth ring.

As the world morphed into mountain terrain, with giants, Oliphaunts and Titans, starting to take shape amid a host of other things, Harry let the grin appear right back on his face.

This was going to be fun.

"-nd therefore the unusually risky venture of investing in powerful beasts, normally a rather problematic proposition, but in this case an idea of unmatched brilliance, was what secured the fortunes of the group calling itself the Theseus Consortium."

The lecture ended on that note with the sound of the bell. The lecturer, a hazel eyed witch in her late thirties, called out over the sound of several students packing their bags. "In my next class I shall require you to submit fifteen salient points about the marketing trends of the late fifteenth century in Europe. Thank You for your attention."

The Study of Financial history was a joint course between History of Magic and Magical Commerce, and most students only took it because an O in it provided five credits in both subjects.

The fourteen year old Count of Wicklehampton wasn't one of them. He couldn't be, as both his Grandmother and his best friend would've joined forces in skinning him alive otherwise. As he packed his bag, Neville Longbottom was feeling annoyed. He had been looking to get himself a date for the Yule Ball for several days now, but wherever he went, he found that the girls were 'already committed'. A month ago, he might even have believed that, but now he knew better. They were all, with very few exceptions, waiting for Harry to ask them, he could tell.

It was a bloody annoying thing, that's what it was.

Not that Neville would ever begrudge the boy anything. Harry Potter was as close to a supercool protective older brother as it ever got for Neville. He never made fun of him, never humiliated him, always taking care so that Neville wasn't bothered overly with any magic he tried to teach Neville and Luna. Under his tutelage Neville had learned more magic in one month than he had in three years of Hogwarts.

Speaking of learning, Neville couldn't help but agree that Hogwarts had changed in Harry's yoke. One of the clearest examples was the course Neville was just leaving. Magical Finance was a class Augusta Longbottom couldn't have dreamed of in her day, and it was still the tamest of changes.

Indeed, it was easier to catalogue what hadn't changed. Neville was suddenly aware of what Harry called 'Being forced to watch, fully aware, but unable to act, as the mind went off on a tangent'.

The core subjects had been totally revamped, with Astronomy dumped into third year electives. Healing magic was another topic added to the electives, with Poppy Pomfrey being made a full teacher. A full team of St. Mungo's medics had been hired to run the infirmary instead. Granted, most of them were interns, with two certified healers as the Chief medic and her Deputy. Other electives were Elementalism, Warding, Curse breaking, Magical Artistry, Political Science, along with a long list of minor subjects. The Muggle studies course had been totally gutted and renewed. Nor was it the only one. The entire Hogwarts syllabus was now wider, tougher and deeper than it had been in the last century. Students were doing Third year transfigurations in the second semester of first year, topics which had previously been allotted months had been stuffed into days.

Indeed, more encompassing than the new subjects was the new system. Instead of the do-nothing-but-sucking-up-to-teachers system, the entirety of Hogwarts had been turned into the most competitive environment imaginable on the planet. Every single thing, from the right to sit in a course, to the right of advancing early (or advancing at all), to the right to open a club, to spots at the sports teams, to Prefect-hood and Captaincy had to be earned, to be fought for.

It wasn't obvious at all. There were no rules that said 'get this by defeating your competitors for it'. But everyone with half a brain knew it was this way.

Indeed, it was difficult not to know. Almost nothing that had previously been vital mattered now. One could skip classes, pick fights, roam around free, and they would still pass, given they cleared the one and only objective of every year.

One Hundred Credits. That was all that mattered, all that was relevant to clear the year.

They had to be earned out of assignments (5-15 credits), 'Special courses' (10-25 credits), End-of-year exams (60 credits), or Individual Projects (20-45 credits), Weekly tests(20 credits) and a few other means.

And 'clear the year' did mean clear the year, only subject to a few conditions. The rules were clear. The moment one had the elusive three figures, they were in the next year, with the credit score back to zero.

Only, it wasn't quite that simple. Harry had made sure of that.

First of all, it was the assignments. They were issued to all of the students, but the only submissions that counted were the ones before the number reached half of the class. That is, if the assignments was to 'Identify all the major and minor features of a Werewolf', and issued to a class of forty, then only the first twenty submissions would be accepted. That made the students rush to complete their assignments early, and, much more relevantly, delay others.

It was similar for everything. A first come, first served policy, not only accepting sabotage among the students, but tacitly encouraging it.

Of course, such a thing could divide the school badly, which was why exactly half of all Credit gaining opportunities were teamwork exercises, and no same teams were permitted twice. That would either force the students to be friendly to everyone they met, or teach them to control themselves and work together for the objective with people that had been bitter enemies just previously.

On top of that were the new standards. It was a simple three strike policy. Fail anything, a weekly test, and that was a strike. Mouth off on a teacher in a major way, and that was one. Break a major rule, and that could be another. It was a rather long list, to be honest. One way or the other, the rules were simple. One strike was a reduction of ten credits and two weeks detention. Two strikes meant a thirty credit reduction and five weeks detention. Three strikes was Expulsion. Re-admittance cost three times the fee, and a permanent black mark on the record, a record that would follow them wherever they went, whether they wanted it to or not.

It was cold, brutal and unmerciful, characteristic of the one who'd designed it. Of course, Harry had predicted that things would be extremely liable to go out of hand if he left it at that, so every single teacher and staff member had been issued strict instructions to manage the students in ways that had been elaborately described to them.

The ways worked well, and despite the inevitable hiccups now and then, the school on the whole worked with a perfect smoothness, once again characteristic of the man behind it all.

Neville still giggled like a schoolgirl at the accounts his grandmother told of the meeting of the Board of Governors, where Harry had basically told them all to go fuck themselves and he wouldn't reverse one damn change, albeit in much politer terms.

He himself had read the much touted quote in the paper. 'Unless you're the best of the best, there's no place for you at Hogwarts'

Neville forced his thoughts back to his own learning under Harry. Such was the modesty of Neville's friend that Harry always insisted it was 'just a bit of help'. But Neville had yet to find a helper who bought 10,000 galleon pensieves for their students knowing that there was no way in hell they could repay him for several years yet.

And he remembered what had happened when he'd caused the first one to be dropped out of the window of the room they'd been discussing things in. He'd been near to tears, but Harry had waved it away, saying that he refused to break friendships over a bit of pocket change.

These were the thoughts in Neville's mind, as he entered the Ravenclaw common room. He disliked what he was going to do, especially as it sometimes made him think he was taking advantage of a girl younger than him, but, well, desperate times…

As soon as he entered the place, Neville could see the students all over the room turn to look at him. Raising an eyebrow in a gesture he had by now seen a thousand times, he asked "Yes?"

Maybe it was something about how this gesture gave him a resemblance to Harry, but the voice of Roger Davies shook as he said "Sh-she's in the library."

"Is she now? Okay, see you later, then."

He heard what sounded suspiciously like "I hope not", but paid it no mind.

It took him several minutes to get to the Library, even with the secret passages.

Once there, he let his eyes roam over the place, till he found her, sitting alone, working diligently on an essay.

"Hey Luna" he said in a low voice when as he neared her table.

"Yes Neville?" she said, her wyes questioning.

"Well, I was wondering… I mean, I wanted to ask you… That is, I was thinking…"

A hint of mischief entered her eyes. "Go on, Neville. I'm listening"

Taking a deep breath, he asked. "Luna, will you go to the Yule ball with me?"

Her eyes sparkled as she smiled. "I was wondering how long it would take you to ask. It was getting tiresome putting compulsions on all those girls to refuse you."

What?

Neville tried to be angry. He really did, but the sight of her laughing that tinkling laugh of hers, all without making a bit of noise, was too much.

He smiled "And here I was blaming Harry for being too damn cool. You know I was thinking they all refused because they wanted him to ask?"

"Oh they did. But it was a slight, subconscious desire in most of them. I enhanced it into full blown decisions."

"Oh. Okay, but you still haven't answered my question properly, you know."

"Oh, silly Neville, of course I will come with you!" she said, laughing again.

Neville laughed too. It was a good day.

Albus Dumbledore was having a good day too.

For once all of the notices from the ICW-could they really be that incompetent?- were dealt with, the Wizengamot's rulings were actually being handled by the people assigned to handle them, Fudge's parliament of owls had been sent back with the advice he'd needed, and Hogwarts issues had stopped coming to his desk altogether.

It left him with some much needed time to just sit back and quietly ponder. And by Merlin did he have an awful lot to think on. There was something really, really rotten going on over there in the mainland, something that required a close eye of the ICW.

Large bands of Mercenaries, creatures that had in the past many times made him practically pull out his hair, had disappeared, vanishing off to nowhere. The same had happened to several very specific names too. Vampires that had been thrown out of their clans and covens, Werewolves without packs, and indeed, in some cases entire werewolf packs, washed out Aurors, crazies and criminals all seemed to have just packed up and left.

By itself it wasn't all that worrying at all, as there was only one place really that they could go. Russia was a headache he'd tried many times to tackle, but every time things had snowballed into hell and much beyond, making him consider the very thought of it as a waste of time.

But if a new party was entering the game, one with enough resources to buy the kind of firepower they'd bought… well, who knew what could happen?

At least things were much better at the commercial front. In the last month alone, no less than a dozen major enterprises had passed into hands he'd traced to be British. Oh they didn't advertise that, whoever the new holders of the new Dragon reserves, Hotel chain, Wand-tree groves, and the other things were. The official owners were invariably of the same nationality as the original owners. But he'd dug deeper. In several cases the owners didn't exist at all, having addresses located conveniently in places that had been muggle residences weeks previously. (That wasn't quite illegal or even attention-worthy by itself, but he'd no illusions about the amounts that must have entered the registry clerks' accounts).

In other cases, the owners were people who he knew were held by the, ahem, nether regions by people, who were beholden, one way or the other, to others who certainly were as British as Yorkshire pudding.

Of course, he was simplifying things. In every case it was a long trail of aliases, proxies, dead accounts and secure banks before the real owners, more than enough to throw off just about everyone. But all modesty aside, he was Albus Dumbledore. He knew things.

But he wouldn't tell. Yaxley, Nott, Montague, Malfoy, Peverell, Sharr and the others were completely safe, now and for the foreseeable future.

And then there was Harry. Even now, when all this time had passed, Albus wasn't quite sure just what he felt about the boy. His performance at the first task had reminded Albus of himself at that age, and yet there were things that were oh so different.

Althric had grown in the last few weeks beyond anything Albus could have predicted in his wildest speculations. Offices had been inaugurated in Rome, Madrid, Paris, New Persepolis, New York, Berlin, Beijing and just about every other capital. The enchanted items branch, what was it called? Ah yes, the Althric Artificers, had showrooms in four times as many places.

In one giant leap, it had become one of the largest corporations in the world, all managed by a fourteen year old. Harry had truly outdone himself. Of course, Albus supposed the public would eat this up as a natural thing for the Boy-Who-Lived. Indeed, everyone (including himself) would have been more surprised if the meteoric growth hadn't happened, although for the more knowledgeable among them, the reasons would've been a bit different.

When names like Potter, Black, Peverell, Gryffindor, Slytherin and Sharr were on a company's letterhead (let alone all at the same time), miracles like a two month old company doing this well were not just accepted. Indeed, they were somewhat expected.

No, far more interesting was the workforce getting all this done. Some investigation had revealed a huge number of the workers as being vassals of the families in question. That was nothing new. Indeed, that was the standard way to do these things. But the tales of the workers' competence... well, it was early days still, but they were among the finest trained men and women anyone had seen in a long time.

And even all that aside, there was his attitude. Albus hadn't said anything, nor would he, given that he understood the simple fact about omelets and eggs, but Harry could be quite infuriating at times.

He still remembered the meeting in his office the day after the selection of champions.

It was late in the afternoon. Albus had heard of the treatment of the senior year Gryffindors at Harry's hands, and was wondering just how to calm McGonagall, after she'd spent the whole breakfast badgering him.

His attention was drawn by the slight disturbance of magic in his connection to Hogwarts. He murmured a simple command word, patching through the vision from the eyes of the Gargoyle to his own mind.

Seeing who it was, he prepared himself.

Moments before she knocked, he said "Come in, Professor McGonagall."

Normally she'd probably have made a comment about his ability to know who it was, but this time he could see that it was the farthest thing from her mind.

"The boy really is getting outrageously difficult, Albus."

"You did the investigation you said, then?"

" Oh yes, I did. Now normally I'd be the first to admit that they were being ridiculous, but the things he imposed-"

She was interrupted by the sound of the sorting Hat.

"All rise for His Royal Grace Harry the fifth, Duke of Gryphonsworth and Parsellsia, Lord Gryffindor-Slytherin, and Master of this Castle!"

Rising to his feet, Albus barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes as the woman's nose flared like she was about to spit fire. He knew very well that it was exactly for this reason; to infuriate Minerva and thus put her off-balance that Harry was putting on this charade.

Sure enough, the crooked, infinitely amused smile on the boy's face as he strolled in was proof enough. At that moment, Albus's opinion was reconfirmed yet again. Harry Potter was a novice at manipulation like he was a toddler. The boy knew the game well. Too well, perhaps, but that was neither here nor there. Point was he, could play it like a master.

"Someone called?" the voice, too, was just the right tone that would set the Scotswoman off.

Perfectly polite on the surface, but thick with Arrogance and Mockery underneath.

It worked spectacularly. The woman's face was red with rage, like a steam engine about to explode.

"Yes! I did, Mr. Potter! I wanted to talk to you about what happened in the tower yesterday!"

Not even the hint of acknowledgement passed the boy's face. "Say, Albus, who's she talking to?"

Albus decided to choose the better part of valor, pretending not to hear.

With tremendous effort, Minerva calmed herself.

"I meant you."

"Sorry, come again?"

"I meant you, your grace."

"Oh, me? You should have said that before, no? No point in yammering about uselessly."

Albus worried for the health of his dearest teacher. She seemed far, far too near to exploding for her own good.

Through clenched teeth, she kept herself from hollering.

"Oh? Well, talk then."

Minerva seemed taken aback at this. It took her a moment to start. "As I was saying to Albus before you came, while the students in question were undoubtedly acting ridiculously, the offence was hardly enough to justify the punishment."

"Hm… and?" the question seemed genuinely curious.

"And so it should be reduced to a slighter one, one more fitting their position and offence."

"Oh?"

Minerva seemed oddly smug now. Albus could see that she was in the flow.

"I'd suggest full reinstatements to their previous positions, with the detention reduced to one of a few days, and maybe a few points cut off. Their privileges should be returned too, I should say."

"Oh, anything else?" At this Albus got the sudden inspiration that he should maybe stop this.

"Well, you should apologize, to be honest. You really were too harsh on them."

If they hadn't already, this statement was enough to send alarm bells ringing through Albus's head. Unlike Minerva he could, in fact, see the cold rage slowly gathering in the green pools that were Harry's eyes.

He tried to interject "Oh, Minerva, I hardly think that-"

"Please don't interrupt, Albus." McGonagall's voice seemed positively jubilant now, as of one on the cusp of victory.

Albus started thinking up arguments to allow her to keep her job.

Harry seemed evasive. "Well, okay, I'll think on this, and let you-"

And there it was, all the anger back in her voice. "Oh you were quick enough to decide when you destroyed my quidditch team and prefects, my Lord. You'll think nothing. You will restore all of them to their rightful positions, and that is final!" she was positively frothing at the mouth at the end.

And then something happened in the room. It was almost a palpable process, as Albus felt something terrible take shape then and there. Harry's form seemed to ripple and shift for a moment, before consolidating again.

Albus flared his aura to its maximum limit, bolstering himself. He was barely in time for all that, as a noxious, crushing presence unfolded around Harry. The shadows cast by the afternoon sun writhed and squirmed around them, while hisses seemed to come from the dark corners of the room.

At length, Harry opened his mouth to speak. For a moment Albus feared a long, drab diatribe that was more annoying than moving, as was so common by the angst and tragedy heroes which Harry had so much in common with.

But then he regained faith. This was Harry Potter, after all.

"Is it now?" the words came slowly, rolling luxuriously off the tongue.

"Really. It's final? As in F-I-N-A-L?" the mockery was back in the voice, but in a much different way. Where previously it was a boyish charm-like thing, now it was the mockery by a man who whispered sweet words to a caged bird. It was cruel and harsh, intended not to humor at all, but to thoroughly humiliate.

"You know, you yapped for such a long time, but never did clear up a point to me. Yes it was unfair. Yes it was harsh of me to destroy them like that. But honestly? Well… the way you said it, it was almost as if you expected me to, I dunno, care, or something?"

Albus could only watch as his deputy sank in on herself, crushed by the weight of the aura pressing down on her like a million pound rock. He would have been seriously worried by the sheer malice Harry was showing, had he not detected the very real undertone of genuine sorrow in Harry's aura.

It was all an act. Harry had to make a place for himself at the top of Hogwarts' hierarchy, and not even Albus was naïve enough to believe that the existing 'Rulers' would give way because of how cute and polite he was.

This was the magical world. Power was the only thing that mattered.

Of course, Albus Dumbledore would have been worried even more, had he heard of Tristan Slytherin, the one his own descendants called the aura-crafter. The man who could not only fake his own aura to show anything he wanted, but had taught the details of the art to Harry. Or for that matter that the portrait himself had pronounced Harry to be 'the most talented student he ever taught'.

It was after another short pause, during which the strain of the aura started to make even Albus falter, that Harry continued. "Well, none of that is going to happen, of course. But don't worry. Some things are going to happen around here."

He gained a thoughtful look.

"On second thought… you know what? Go ahead and worry. It's not as if the changes are going to bring anything good for you."

"Let's see. The Gryffindor Headship… gone, certainly. The Deputy Headmistress position… eh, what the hell, keep that.

Apart from that, bout your pension… halved, of course. Actually, scratch that. It remains as it is. No wait, it's doubled, just 'cause. Same goes for your salary."

"Then…oh, I know! You're stripped of the power to issue detentions. Let's see you deal with that one!

"And… well, I can't think of anything else. Can you think of anything else?" he bent down to ask the near catatonic woman.

Receiving no answer (duh), he shrugged. "Oh well, later then."

Even though it should have been the last thing on his mind, Albus resisted the urge to applaud, as the young man left the room, the air becoming perfectly light instantly afterwards. It was all done perfectly, down to the last seeming act of randomness.

A calm and collected young man out to destroy her for perceived insults? Albus knew that Minerva could have handled that. A boy, barely out of his britches, trying to bully her? She'd have eaten him alive. But a careless, callous maverick who truly didn't give a damn what she thought of him? That was so far out of the left field that it was practically communist.

Albus would have been shaken by that. And it wasn't as if he did anything he wouldn't already have done. He cared about authority, so she lost authority. He couldn't spend the interest from his earnings, so she got a bucketful of money. And it would go a long way in making her careful of what she said and did from now on, lest she loose her newly gained wealth.

To purchase an opponent's prudence… it was one of the oldest tricks in the book, and among the most effective.

All of this passed through his mind in less than a second.

Immediately afterwards, he summoned an elf, telling it to fetch Poppy.

Several days later
Night of the Yule Ball

Harry was ready. It had taken him twenty three minutes and forty-nine seconds, from the first drop of water to wash his face to the last spell to keep the robes warm.

The Yule ball began in an hour's time, and there were things he had to do before then. Spells to cast, pieces of information to review, people to put in place, the list was a rather tedious one. The ball itself would be anything but, he hoped.

He intended to rather enjoy the reactions to what he'd managed.

(Author's Note: A large part of what is coming objectifies women, and all appeals to remove it will be summarily rebuffed with extremely abusive replies. If you've got a problem, skip to the next scene break.)

He still remembered asking her, no, them out.

Weasley had just made a monumental fool of himself, practically drowning Delacour in drool.

Harry turned from where he'd turned to look at him, and then said to Neville. "And that, my friend, is exactly what you don't do when asking out a girl. Now watch this.

He rose from his seat, walking to the Ravenclaw table. As he moved, he could feel the eyes of the hall at him, including those of Delacour.

As he neared her, the girl spoke. "What exactly do you want here, Mr. Potter?"

Harry made a show of being surprised. "Oh, I'm just showing a friend how to ask a beautiful girl to a dance."

Her face showed no expression, but Harry could practically feel her magic becoming excited, her pulse quickening in anticipation. Veela were drawn to power, and, well, he was Harry Potter.

Too bad.

"Oh, then how does Harry Potter ask a pretty girl to a dance then?"

"Instead of telling you, why don't I show you?" he said, before turning to the girl sitting four places to the right."

Bowing slightly to Padma, he asked "Well, Ms. Patil? Shall you do me the honor of coming to the Yule Ball with me?"

At that instant, he could feel the shock on Delacour's face, as her expression went from that of smug superiority to one of bewildered anger.

He paid it no mind. The games he intended to play with as valuable a piece as her had only just begun. Right now the girl in front of him was almost exactly suited for his purposes.

Speaking of which, she colored immediately, visibly flustered.

Seconds afterwards, she regained control, an action that significantly raised her esteem in Harry's eyes.

"I shall have to come back to you on this, Lord Potter. There's a fact that I think you need to be made aware of."

He didn't bother to correct her about his title. Giving another slight bow, he said "Of course, I shall await your response with the utmost eagerness!"

Sauntering back to his own table, he settled down.

Immediately, Neville started speaking in a rushed tone."What was that, Harry? I was sure you were going to ask Delacour!"

"That, Neville, was me putting in practice what is so quaintly referred to as '."

His face gained a puzzled look.

"I don't understand."

"You will, later. Trust me."

It was several hours later that Harry found out what were the problem with Padma.

"You know Harry, I feel odd saying this, but, well, I've always shared everything with my sister, so…"

Harry Potter was a cold, unfeeling monster. He was completely uncaring of the wishes and wants of anyone other than himself (Or even himself, if Salazar and Darius were to be believed). None of that made him stupid.

It took him all of half a second to grasp her meaning. As he did, he got the sudden urge to grin from ear to ear, and give the girl a salacious wink. He knew that it was a bad idea, that the girl was nervous enough already.

Shrugging, he did it anyway.

Padma Patil went beet Red, before returning the wink shyly.

At that point, Harry's head was filled with, well, things not worth mentioning on a site as draconian as this one.

It took him several minutes to track down Parvati and ask her, but another set fierce blushes later, it was confirmed. He was taking them both to the ball.

It wasn't quite unprecedented, but it certainly was something, all right.

Harry went about his way, placing certain spells in certain portions of the castle, ordering certain substances mixed into the drinks and the food, along with a whole lot of other things.

It wasn't long, before he was heading down to one of the smaller classrooms placed equidistantly from both the Ravenclaw and the Gryffindor tower, where he'd arranged to meet the two girls. They would have a few minutes before the ball began, and he needed that time to talk a bit with them, find out just who would be in the first dance with him (they'd told him they'd sort it out themselves), and maybe spring a surprise or two.

Sure enough, it was a few minutes after he had conjured a recliner for himself and settled on it that he saw Parvati coming in. When he saw her, his mind evacuated itself of conscious thoughts for a few seconds.

In one word, she was sexy. He'd told her not to bother with gowns and whatnot if she didn't feel like it. Well, she certainly hadn't, but Harry hadn't quite known that a red Ghagra-Choli could be quite that, well, revealing.

It was a beautiful piece, to be honest. At least three sizes too small, but then that was a large part of why it was so beautiful. He identified the workmanship as that of a few very specific villages located in the heart of the Maratha region of the Suryavanshi Empire. The Patils ruled almost all of that, if he remembered correctly.

And they certainly did well ruling it. They couldn't have just taken this on a whim from their citizens, he knew that much, given that the region was a major attraction for international clientele, and 'injustice' like that would be known throughout the world in hours.

And if they couldn't just have taken it, then it was worth remembering that where it came from, a few inches of that dress could set a man up for the rest of his life. Not to mention the jewelry. Harry calculated that she had to be carrying enough to buy half of Hogwarts on herself, in her earrings, her headpiece (Maangtika if he was correct) her bracelets and her nose piece.

All that was missing was a necklace, but he knew the reason for that.

All this went through Harry's mind in a matter of nanoseconds, as he gazed upon the girl. He rose immediately, bowing slightly before brushing his lips across her knuckles.

"Well, you certainly look…" he made a big show out of being speechless, opening and closing his mouth dumbly.

It had its effect. He could feel her mood going from 'nervous and excited' to 'proud as a peacock' in the very next moment.

"Well, I-"

She was interrupted by the arrival of her sister.

The contrast couldn't have been greater.

Padma Patil was dressed in a silvery-white Sari, covering almost three times as much as her sister. Not that it meant that she was plain, far from it. Indeed, the Sari was almost more sensual than her sister's dress. But it was a different kind, much more subtle.

If Parvati was a hammer of lust, then Padma was a needle, almost unnoticed in context but striking all the deeper for it. It was the same with her jewelry, too. It was a much simpler set that matched her eyes, but with the necklace missing again.

He greeted her in the same way as he had her sister.

They talked for a few minutes, before it was time.

"Before we leave, ladies, I believe I have something for you." He said.

With a casual motion, his hands were occupied by two jewelry boxes, each of them with the Potter Crest on it.

In an almost impossible motion, he opened the clasps, and presented the girls with two of the most beautiful specimen of jewelry they had ever seen.

One was a large Jadau piece, designed to be placed at the juncture between her neck and shoulders. Most of it was beaten 30-carat gold, studded with a mixture of Diamonds and Rubies. Dominating the piece, however, was the centerpiece, which was a single large Ruby decorated heavily with delicate Gold work. No guesses for who that one was for.

The other, however, was far simpler. It was three strings of Pearls, all of the very finest water, ending at a centerpiece that was studded with one of the largest known Diamonds in the world.

And when he said 'Diamonds' and 'Rubies', he, of course, was referring to Diamond and Ruby natured Magical Crystals. There was a host of spells, wards, enchantment and other magic embedded in the Jewelry. Harry had replicated some of it, but the vast majority was under strong protections. Not strong enough to resist his spells, but strong enough that the pieces would be destroyed in the process.

They were all capable of a number of effects, to be released by specific command words and codes, held traditionally by the Matriarch of the Patils. But that was for later.

Even to Harry, who couldn't have cared less about jewelry and clothes if he tried, they were truly magnificent pieces. Both were of Indian make, one coming from the much-fabled Rajputana and other from the Royal Suryavanshi treasury itself.

There was a rather colorful history attached to them. Come into Maratha hands as parts of Dowries, they had been paid to a minor Persian soldier as part of ransom for when the Maharaja of Maratha, the man who was the girls' several times great grandfather, had been captured in one of the innumerable Persian-Meluhan conflicts.

Over the course of time, they had ended up in Bashir hands as much prized treasures, and then into Harry's as the 'Seal upon their alliance'.

Well, here he was, using them now to all but rig the negotiations for yet another alliance in his favor.

He'd chosen them carefully, too. They were among the most important relics the Patil family had ever had, and this offering would go a very long way in making them affable to him.

It was evident on the girls' faces even then. Their eyes were practically glinting with joy at what they were seeing. It was several minutes before Padma spoke. "Um.. That's a really…"

Harry silenced her with a finger on her lips.

"No need to say anything. And come on, we're getting late."

He took his time putting the necklaces around their necks, though, for all that. He had to, as he was barely resisting the temptation to cop a feel here and there. (At that point it did cross his mind that slackening his occlumency might just have been a bad idea, but it was too late, by then.)

The ball itself went excellently, Harry opening the dance with Parvati, with Padma joining them later. He could tell that they enjoyed the way over half the eyes in the hall were glued to them, and even more to their necks. He himself received many a salute, for the 'Supreme act of Manliness' as Bagman put it.

Not that dancing and showing off was the only thing to happen. Harry wasn't that stupid. Just about anyone who was anyone in Europe was here, and Harry made a point out of getting introduced to the ones among them he didn't already know (quite a few, unfortunately). The girls were useful here too, as simply keeping an eye on which ones couldn't keep their eyes of Parvati's cleavage gave valuable character information.

This was how the hours passed, Harry chatting around, sometimes alone with the girls, sometimes with the guests, dancing a few times with his dates and a few others, and all in all doing things that people did in balls.

Of course, for all that normality and regularity, he still was surprised rather strongly when, after sitting for a glass of wine with the girls about three-four hours after the start of the ball, Harry felt two separate legs trailing along the insides of both his thighs.

Now Harry was probably the best self-controlled lad in the world. He had undergone specific exercises that gave him near-perfect control of each of his facilities, including his lust. Even after assimilating the instincts of two of Nature's most passionate and fierce beings, the influence of the other two beings allowed his to ignore their instincts whenever he wanted.

Had he chosen not to, there was not any Veela, Succubus, Vampire or Human that could seduce him.

That all said, he had decided a long time ago that he would blow his brains out with a spell long, long before he allowed himself to become pathetic enough to refuse a willing, beautiful girl. (Why he would refuse any other being was a different matter)

Given that these were twins, well…

Harry and the girls left the hall normally enough, but half a dozen paces ahead they entered a secret passageway, and that second onwards it was a story of deep kisses and frenzied make-outs, till they ended up in the Room of Requirement.

From the entrance of the room itself it was a rather unnecessarily long trail of garments, all pulled off hurriedly but somehow not a thread out of place.

Five hours, Twenty three positions, two Pepper-Up potions, two bloodstains, eighteen sprains and one collapsed bed later, two were asleep with smiles on their faces.

Harry was thinking.

It was the tenth month of the fourth and last year of his training. In another two months he would be going out to take his exams in the ministry.

"And is there anything else I need to worry about?"

Salazar seemed oddly amused. "Well, not really, but there is one matter. Do you remember the thirteenth chapter of the Gryffindor Journal?"

Harry was suddenly sporting a small mischievous smile as he answered "Yes, I do."

"Well, I need to add something. It's that, well, and this isn't easy, but you need to remember a simple fact about sex."

"Yes?" Harry's tone had ever the slightest tone of mockery in it, just as it did at all the other times he encountered Salazar's hesitation to discuss what the portrait called as 'Somewhat uncomfortable' topics.

"Remember. There is a considerable amount of power in Virginity, and yet more in the act of losing it. There are spells that can use that power to wreak a considerable amount of trouble on you, so you need to be careful. Make sure that whatever happens, the first time for you is also the first time for your partner. That way, you can use those very spells to wreak trouble on them."

All Harry did was to nod.

Going ahead, he encountered Darius. He, as opposed to Salazar, was thankfully much more open. "So, do you have any advice for me too?" he asked.

"Only one thing. Whatever you do, make it big."

In any case, what was done was done. He would need to take appropriate steps in the coming days to ensure that he managed a proper alliance without giving out too many concessions, but that was for later.

Those were the thoughts in Harry's mind when he went to sleep.

Over the next several days, he found out that he'd been right when he'd thought of the alliance thing. He woke to an elaborately decorated owl bearing a cloth scroll; which was the traditional Indian way to send messages, he remembered, three days after the ball. It invited him to a meeting in a month.

Of course, everyone involved, from him as the receiver to the senders' lowliest servant, knew that it was a waste of cloth. It would be a cold day in hell before he allowed himself to be seen desperate enough to acknowledge the very first message, let alone one from a lesser house than his.

As the beneficiaries in the would-be alliance, the Patils would squirm for a rather long time before he 'magnanimously deigned to grant them an audience'.

And he had more important things to deal with right now anyway.

The last of his soldiers had finished training and were out of the acceleration chambers. The levies that had been provided by the vassal Lords were well on their way to attaining the required levels of proficiency, while the ones that had come from the Ouroboros Alliance members were only slightly behind, thanks mainly to the fact that they had been somewhat capable already and their training was inferior to that of his own vassals.

He had Thirty thousand soldiers to decide positioning of, and it was a task that required long and exhaustive meetings with the Alliance members, with the Strassinov tactic experts, and the vassal leaders themselves. Meanwhile the five thousand he had separated were being placed rapidly into the pre-decided zones. A large contingent formed a security force for his offices, while others had been formed into Blitzkrieg teams; to be deployed as and when deemed appropriate.

Speaking of which…

Harry apparated into one of his 'special' factories. It was located in one of the innumerable islands in the Caribbean he owned, and was devoted to a special purpose. Created using a number of transfiguration spells, and then treated to complex magic in the form of both spells and other, older things, were thousands, indeed hundreds of thousands of little animals and insects. They were truly small, mainly pigeons, flies, rodents, Hawks, and other small beasts.

Calling for the Manager of the Factory, he asked for a status report.

"Sir, by now the scrying spells have been combined completely with the beasts. We have tested them, and they work well. We can see everything they see, hear everything they hear."

"What about long distances? Say, can you see what a Desert Eagle flying over the Sahara can?"

He could see that this question had been prepared for well. "Oh yes, sir. The relay stations are working well. The signals are bounced off the towers in Turkey to the one in London, and then rerouted back to us. We receive the data streaming in real time." The man excitedly finished.

"Excellent. Now what about variety? We need to be able to insert these portable cameras in any environment, at notices as short as a few seconds."

The enthusiasm was noticeably lacking here. "Well, it's happening, sir, but there are complications. The birds and insects are being prepared, but the bonding of the recon spells shows some complications."

Harry was amused. "Really, I'd have thought that it would be one of the easier parts. Still, do the best you can. As you know, there is no limit on your funding or your resources. Inform Selene of whatever you need, and if we can get it without raising too many eyebrows…"

"Speaking of which, what about the armament integration?"

"Oh, sir, didn't you get my report on that?"

"No, I must have missed it. Why, anything wrong?"

"Oh no sir, far from it! It's done, all the way through."

"Really?"

"Oh yes. All of the assigned targets have been fulfilled, sir."

"Oh, give me a copy of your report then."

"Certainly, sir." The man said, before pulling out a thin folder from his desk.

As Harry's eyes started to skim the report, a cough drew his attention.

"Yes?"

"Well, sir, there is the matter of the bonus we were promised…"

"Oh, yes. Pardon me, of course, it totally slipped my mind. How much was it?"

"Well, you said fifty thousand galleons apiece, but I'm sure I could convince the men to take as little as…"

It was at this indirect accusing of niggardliness that Harry's tone changed from jovial for the first time. "There will be no need for that. Inform them that one hundred thousand galleons will be deposited in their accounts post haste."

"Thank you, sir."

As Harry settled down to read, he mused at the easiness of it all. There was the man, contentedly thinking that he'd manipulated Harry into giving them twice the amount he'd promised the researchers and the workers.

Fact was, despite ninety-five percent of the magical world believing otherwise, there were still fools who thought that his age made him unfit to lead. Out of them, there were categories; those who would completely refuse to so much as consider him anything more than a kid, and those who would give him a chance and reserve their judgement for later.

Harry had systematically identified every single member of the first group among his vassals, and arranged careful accidents that ensured painful deaths for them. This particular Factory manager-cum- Head Researcher fell in the second category, and so he would have to be played with for a while before Harry allowed the truth to come crashing down on the man.

Perusing the report, Harry allowed a smile to come on his face. It was hard not to. Mosquitoes that could turn into pounds of Semtex-H with detonators attached, hawks that could identify and actually shoot poison dipped pins at individual skin flakes from miles high, turtles that could be transfigured at a single thought into claymore mines, all these were things he found rather interesting. And they were all completely done!

Those men and women had earned the bonus.

It was a few minutes later, when he'd read through the report, that he was reminded of a meeting by Selene.

He apparated.

The room was a cross between a war command centre and a corporate boardroom. Dominated by a large table with a set of chairs around it, it was occupied by the men who had become extremely familiar with it in the recent days.

Harry entered to find his alternate forms already present.

"Ah Harry. Nice to see you. We were wondering what kept you."

"One of the Caribbean labs, actually. But that's for later. I believe this meeting was called to check on the acquiring of Magical beasts?"

"Yes. Lucius, please begin."

Malfoy's grin seemed suited more to a shark. "Ah yes. Well, it is my honor to inform you that the Alliance of the Ouroboros is now the proud owner of fifteen major Dragon reserves."

"As was requested, I have ensured that the ownerships are untraceable to us, using a seven segment chain of proxies and alternates in every case." He finished, his tone that of one who has achieved the impossible.

Harry considered informing the idiot of the number of times he'd been forced to step in personally to clean up after the fool had closed a deal with all the subtlety of a rampaging Oliphaunt (not much, if you're wondering). He'd counted thirteen obliviations in the last two weeks alone.

But fifteen reserves were impressive regardless, so he joined the others in their praises.

A few minutes afterwards, the attention turned to Nott. "Well, Viscount, what about you?" Erebus asked.

"I too, am delighted to say that my assigned objective is almost fulfilled."

"Explain"

"As asked, I have made contact with the so-called 'infantry' species. Minotaur clans have been contacted, as have troll tribes all over Europe and Africa. With a few exceptions, they have agreed to fight in our name, provided their usual requirements are fulfilled. It should be noted that the vast majority of those species are either destroyed or already committed to the war to other factions, but I still have managed to secure a significant force."

"That is quite excellent, Lord Nottingham"

He turned to the room at large.

"Now, there is another matter to take care of. Over the last several days, we have met in the form of different groups, so as to discuss different aspects of the planning. I now yield the floor to Harry to explain the basic overview of the war plan to all our members."

The attention of the room turned to Harry. He gestured once, and a hologram appeared on the table.

"Now I won't go very deeply in details for obvious reasons, but I can give a basic idea to you.

"Our plan is in numerous phases. The first phase, of preparation, has been underway since Samhain. We have purchased war beasts, trained soldiers out of our vassals, and most of all, diverted our resources into stocking up on weapons and supplies."

There were several nods around the table at this. Harry noticed Aurelius Loring (Warlock-cum-food tycoon) looking particularly smug. He had a reason to, as after all he'd supplied practically all of the provisions for the war.

"At the same time, we have been discreetly supplying our Russian allies with weapons and money in small amounts. Nothing much, just a few millions here and there, and a thousand or so automatons (a blatant lie, the last part, but understatement was the key).

"And once we have our forces mustered to sufficient levels, that is to say in numbers heavy enough that well trained but green recruits can take on seasoned veterans, we shall initiate the next phase, which will be direct action.

"On that day, which I hope to decide in this very meeting, we shall appoint from amongst ourselves a field commander, and then place him or in charge of the whole Russian campaign."

There were a few murmurs of disquiet at this, with the Lords being rather disinclined to surrender their vassals to another's authority. Harry paid them no mind. It wasn't as if anyone involved had any choice, after all.

"The plans for the war itself shall be prepared in the coming days, based on whatever information we can get of the enemies and the terrain."

At this 'Damien' interjected.

"Speaking of which, I think it is time to fully share what information we do have."

Harry shot him a glare.

"Really, your grace? We hardly have anything complete."

"Harry, these people have millions invested in this. I think a little disclosure is due."

Sounds of "Hear, hear" went around the room for this, while several faces gained interested looks. Harry was fed each of the names by Selene, who was watching from the cameras that covered every single square millimeter of the room.

They would bear watching.

Still, as they said, 'The show must go on'

"Well, I'm not denying that, but with due respect-"

"I insist." Damien's voice carried the unmistakable hint of steel in it. The interested faces were practically salivating now, glad at this first hint of friction the hitherto impenetrable 'Founding Council'.

Of course, that was the whole point of the charade, to identify the ones whose spirits would have to be broken, or barring that, those who would have to be 'disappeared'.

Harry had no illusions that this group of self-serving, corrupt and weak so-called great men would obey his every wish effortlessly. Regular measures to keep them in check, to tame them, were very much a necessity, if he wanted to remain being the one doing the taming.

And to be honest, it wasn't even a purely selfish desire. Once, a short while ago, he'd been a puppet, with every single move of his life directed by an old man from his office. Now he was free. He'd shattered the glass cage, torn down every hint of his bindings.

He would not, could not go back to being controlled. And control him was exactly these creatures would try to do. That was… undesirable.

Moreover, he was now beyond a man. He had the spirits, magic and bodies of four of Nature's mightiest animals in him. He knew that if he was shackled again…

He might just burn the whole world down.

"Well, in that case…" with tremendous reluctance in his voice, Harry summoned a thin folder out of nowhere.

"As we already know, there are nine major factions in Russia right now. For convenience's sake, I shall endeavor to categorize them by the form of government they hope to impose.

"First is the Monarchist block. This is by far in the majority, with five of the groups having this as a target.

"First of all, the Alexandrovitchs. They are a major family, with a seat in the conclave, which makes them equal to the secondary tier of clans, the so-called Ancient and Noble Houses."

Harry paused for a few seconds, watching quietly as several people nodded and murmured at this, sharing their own knowledge on the formidable clan with those unaware.

To be honest, it went against the grain, sharing detailed, painstakingly collected information casually like this. But it served several purposes.

"They have several lesser families, and two families of their own stature, sworn to them. The total land army in around two million or so infantry, which is primarily golems from what it would appear, to around half that number in heavy infantry, comprising of automaton of various types. Transfigured and enchanted Elephants, Rhinos, and Dinosaurs, the usual. Apart from that, there is a significant air force, about a quarter of a million strong, comprising of basically the same things as the heavy infantry, but with wings and flying spells attached. And of course, long range spells are also attached."

"Controlling one primary and four secondary lines, they are a strong faction, one of our major concerns."

And that was all he would share on the 'Alex's, as he called them in his mind.

He waited for someone, anyone around the table to rise up and say, "But that means that their R&D setup must suck!" (An evaluation he'd made the first time he'd confirmed the air force nature). Or for that matter for any of them to realize something out of the half-dozen hints he'd dropped.

No such luck.

Well, it had been too much to hope for anyway, particularly from cretins like this. A constant diet of wealth, privilege and non-activity had practically rotted their brains through. Now, had been a muggleborn, he'd have tossed an 'inbred' quip. But he counted eight separate muggleborns in the group, every bit as oafish as their pure blood counterparts.

He continued. "The next major faction of the Monarchists is the Cherinsky family.

"They are the mind magic specialists, preferring illusions, fear and confusion magic over direct attack. As such their physical numbers are few enough, but more detailed information is currently unavailable. We know that they have some number of Lethifolds and quite several Noble Phantasms capable of causing of vast damage, but that's just about all we know.

"At this point I should remind this meeting that if nothing else, then that fact alone makes them a class alpha threat. We quite literally cannot afford to take them lightly." He finished, resisting the urge to roll his eyes at the worried looks that appeared on their faces. As if any of these men would be in so much as the same country as the danger.

Of course, there was more, a lot more that he knew about the House of Cherinsky, but that was confidential information of the slightest degree, compiled solely by using Slytherin family resources. He had no intention of sharing that, now or ever.

"After that…"

The explanation of several of their enemies, along with whatever details that could be told, continued for another hour. After that it was time for small break for some snacks and a round of drinks or two, allowing the members some time to digest the information.

Then the much more relevant part of the meeting would start, which was the detailing of their own armies and preparations.

Sure enough, an hour and a half after the start of the break, they were again united in the meeting room.

Aries rose. "And now, as the last item for this meeting, I shall be informing you in the details of the preparations by our side for this war. As there is not a lot of time, we shall be forced to gloss over some of the less important points, but I shall try to give you as thorough a picture as possible."

"As we all know, the total number of soldiers we have currently in training is Twenty-Five thousand. Now, this is the number of witches and wizards in our hands. They all have tasks to do, which I will now detail.

"For the Land army, we have Infantry, heavy artillery, light artillery, heavy assault units, siege weapons, cavalry, and a few other divisions that are currently under development. For a navy, Harry informs me that he is breeding several sea serpents, not to mention that our agents are working even now in the muggle world, quietly purchasing several fleets' worth of grain and cargo ships, which shall later, on docks controlled by us, be converted into magical warships.

He allowed them to take it in, before continuing.

"Expounding on the Land army, we have an inferius count somewhere around five to six million. Similar numbers of automatons and golems are also being prepared. Apart from all that, there is a small but significant force consisting of Basilisks, Acromantulae and a few other creatures under Harry's command."

Even if he did say so himself, the report was brilliantly done. He could have told them all of this in simpler ways, spending more time on the actually relevant information. Because inferi, golems, magical constructs, they were all run of the mill as far as the Russian war was concerned. The only way they would be winning the war using items like that was if somehow the men who'd spent the last several decades dealing with worse things all spontaneously lost their memories, tied their hands behind their backs, and sealed their magical cores.

No, so far the only important things that had been revealed were the Basilisks, slipped in dexterously as yet another boring bit of information. He would be doing the same for the rest of the less important secrets. It was a rather careful thing. Bore them till their minds started to wander, then slip in a major fact that would draw the attention of some, then bore those few.

The process of elimination would ensure that no one got anything more than a hint of the real information, while he got the ability to claim under veritaserum "But I told you about that!"

Of course, he could beat Veritaserum, but that was just an analogy.

Of course, there were exceptions, such as the next topic.

"And on the matter of an air force, our forces are without any doubt the best in play. First of all, there are Inferi, of creatures like Dragons, Pterodactyls, Rocs, Gryffins, and a whole host of other beings. Indeed, almost the entire Peverell stash has been decimated (a blatant lie, as even the millions taken out had barely made a dent). Apart from that, there are a huge number of flying vehicles, from old aircrafts to tanks and even SS-20s.

This was an understatement so big that Harry had to suppress a twitch. The Ouroboros air force had hundreds, indeed thousands of old WW2 jets, each and every one of them treated with magic to make it powerful enough to take on entire cities. Then there were the necromantic beings that he'd just explained.

Long dead beings, each terrifying power, even more so after undergoing a treatment by Harry. Dragons' fire glands had been studied and cloned, placed into every single inferius they had. Pterodactyls, Rocs, Wyverns, Occamies had all been fitted with every upgrade he cared to throw at them. RPGs and Gatling guns to be released when they opened their mouths, Missile launchers fitted on their backs, Claymore mines dropping from their arses, the whole nine yards. It went without saying, of course, that every single muggle weapon had been altered so that the effects were magical. Flamethrowers released fiendfyre, claymore ball bearings were of Alchemical mythril, etcetera, etcetera.

As if that wasn't enough, (and to be honest, it wasn't. Not by far). There were the constructs. Here Harry hadn't had to observe any limitations at all, and the results, had anyone known about them, would have been enough to cause the medicinal cabinets of numerous offices in the world to be fully stocked with indigestion potions till kingdom come.

Dragon sized birds, capable of enough mischief to level entire nations existed in the hundreds, along with humanoid beings consisting solely of flames burning at supernova temperatures (Johnny who?), and a long, awfully long list of other items were waiting in reserve. Then there were what Harry called 'castles in the sir', as in fifty (so far, and counting) Boeing 747s hollowed, enchanted with, among other things, space enhancement spells. They became resupply centers, hospitals, you name it.

There was a lot, a hell of a lot more, but Harry wouldn't be revealing any of that to these people. Instead, he turned to a particular Scotsman, who was the sole known supplier of that particular ingredient without which no air-force was ever complete.

To say that Baldwin McFusty was a powerful man was a very, very big understatement. His wealth was almost beyond measure, certainly enough that if he closed all operations right now, his future generations would still struggle to spend the interest. He was a major, very major player in almost every circle that counted.

Potions, warding, defense, munitions, the list went on. If it existed and was done in Britain, then Baldwin McFusty was in it. And he owed all of that to one thing and one thing only. The Hebredian Black Dragon.

To clan McFusty it had been a boon of truly incalculable proportions when Uther had carelessly said, "Fine, you keep the Dragons!"

There were very few branches of magic which didn't make use of Dragon parts in one way or the other, and unless one wanted to pay the import duty (truly horrendous, thanks to lobbying, no guesses as to who by), the McFustys were the ones to go to.

The one thing they'd lacked was political power, and that had come when Albus Dumbledore had become Chief Warlock, in the form of permanent seats on just about every wizengamot committee remotely involved with Dragons or any other beasts.

The reason for that, of course, was Dumbledore's Order of Merlin, which he couldn't have won in a million years if not for the access they'd granted him to their reserves.

All that said, he was still a weak, spineless sort of man, fattened over a millennium of utmost privilege and wealth. Harry had decided, months ago, not to even bother with trying to deal with him as an equal. No, the House of McFusty would have to be brought to heel with brutal force, savage and unrefined. That was the only language they were capable of understanding after spending all that time with the dragons.

Funny thing was, Harry would, in a matter of years now, be a real competitor to them. His defeat of the Dragon had won him everything that was its, including the eggs. They were already in an extremely safe location.

But coming back to the point, the fact was that apart from the international reserves, which had yielded barely a dozen or so Dragons, the solution lay in their own reserves. It had taken several hours worth of negotiation, including: the torching of seven businesses they owned, the slaughter of the entire retinue of the man's bodyguards, the cutting of all prices for snake parts to two thirds of the original rates, (whose pseudo monopoly was with the Slytherin family) and the threat of a public denouncement in the Prophet by Harry (which would be more damaging to the man than everything else combined) before the old bastard had come, begging and scraping, to join the same Ouroboros Alliance whose invitation he'd tossed in Aries's face two months ago.

Of course, once he was in, he was finished. His wealth, power, all of it now existed to serve the needs of the organization. Harry would squeeze out everything of the man like pus out of a wound, but that was for later.

Harry spoke. "Well, Lord McFusty? What is the result of your assessment? How many Dragons can we expect to have battle ready in time?"

"Well, your grace, you must understand that my reserves are meant to remove the fighting instinct from the beasts, not increase it. I can hardly-"

"How many, Your Lordship?" Harry's voice was cold now, while a hint of a flame lurked at the sides of his mouth.

The man knew enough to recognize an angered Dragon when he saw one. He paled dramatically, before saying "Th-Three dozens, your grace."

"That's it?" Harry asked, making no effort to conceal his disappointment. A strange heat grew in the room, several people starting to sweat.

"I shall tr-try to get more, your grace." The man quaked. Harry suppressed the urge to tear his head off. Once it had been said that back in the mountains the Dragons and their keepers vied for ferocity.

The name McFusty had commanded a certain respect, a form of fear. Now… a creature as spineless as this was the patriarch. 'The toothless dragon' indeed.

Well, nothing could be done about it. Yet he added in his mind. Soon he would have a dragon animagus form, and then… they'd see.

"Thank you. It goes without saying, of course, that failure will mean the Organization taking steps to… rectify the situation."

If possible, the man blanched even worse.

"Of course, sir."

Harry nodded slowly, in an imitation of great sorrow. "It is an unfortunate thing, but sacrifices have to made."

He looked around the room. Everywhere there was a mix of surprise and that smug, slimy sort of happiness that was common between all slugs, with or without legs. They had enjoyed the humbling of one of their greatest rivals, it would seem.

Well, time to ruin that.

"Speaking of sacrifices…" Harry trailed off, letting the words hang in the air till he had the room's attention once again. It had the needed effect. Smiles disappeared, eyes grew worried.

'Sacrifice' was a very unpleasant word to the men in front of him, and it showed.

"We come now to the last agenda for this meeting.

"As we all know, this organization, when it was reinitiated a few months ago, had only four members." He made an expansive gesture towards himself and the three others. Soon after, more members joined, and the process continued till the last wave, which occurred just days ago."

Some people nodded, while other gave him looks to continue. He could see that their attention spans were starting to end.

He continued at the same sedate pace. "In the past, we have been few enough that regular meeting have been possible with relative ease. But last week we reached sixty-three members. As we know, it is a powerfully magical number. But the point is that the meetings are starting to take overlong amounts of time to arrange. So, the decision by the council is this:

"As of now, the sixty-three members of the Alliance of the Ouroboros are formed into a second ring, called the Core Assembly. From this day onwards, any members recruited shall be lower in the chain of hierarchy that these sixty-three, till they make a contribution of sufficient significance to the organization."

They didn't break out in cheers, but that was about the only expression of jubilation he was spared from watching. They openly smiled and laughed, clapped each other on the backs, and in some cases, hugged.

Harry couldn't help but think of just how happy small minded people tended to be when they finally had someone they could consider inferior to themselves.

"The assembly itself is now divided into circles of different degree. The innermost of inner circles is, of course, the Founders' council, and further levels shall be announced to you in the form of official communication.

"Apart from this, the Assembly shall now be divided into Sub-Committees, which shall take up the responsibilities for specific tasks, of which there shall be a truly humongous number, certainly with yields large enough to transform the financial, industrial, political and magical positions of everyone present here." Again the smiles and wistful looks. Harry was beginning to get a bit miffed now.

But here was the kicker. "But unfortunately, these things come at a price." And there it was, the phenomenon of a roomful of smiles melting faster than a snowflake in a volcano.

"Till now, we have managed our needs because the individual who control certain resources have been able to wield them personally. Due to this division of labor, this shall not be possible in the future. Therefore, what needs to be done is to create a pool of resources, from which each of the Sub-Committees will be able to draw at a moments' notice."

He watched the crowd closely to see the effect of his words. He could see suspicious looks forming, and a quick trip through their minds revealed that they were just a tad reluctant. Well, he'd have to lead by example, as usual.

"The council is aware that the controversial nature of this decision means that it has to be one which is freely accepted by the organization. Therefore, I call for a vote.

"Those in favor?". He asked, before raising his own hand.

It was at this point, that a ripple of magic passed through the room. Over the course of the last several weeks, a wealth of control-oriented magic in the form of compulsion spells, persuasion potions, etc. had been entered into the members of the organization. All of them activated now. Harry could almost see the magic going to work, whispering honeyed words into the all-too-willing ears.

It would tell them how sensible his words were, how they should agree, how they should be grateful, et al. He allowed it to continue for some time, before raising his hands in his actual form. As they saw him, the thoughts changed, reminding the wavering members of the obligation they had to the Alliance, to him, and what he may do to them if they didn't agree.

To make a long story short, the motion passed unanimously, as Harry had always known it would.

Shortly afterwards, the details came forth. The four pillars of power were explained, and contributions extracted from each of the members to give these to the Alliance.

Leading by example, Harry announced that the founding council would set up a money pool consisting of a staggering Ten Billion Galleons, to serve as the interim budget for the organization. That act alone was enough to make it a matter of pride for the Lords to contribute in the same league, just as he intended.

Money was quite literally less than nothing to him, thanks to the extremely clever things he'd done such a short while ago.

Still, the ploy worked. The contributions came trickling in, much to his amusement. Lists of contacts, of officials susceptible to bribery, of officials on whom the people present had blackmail, along with the blackmail itself, deeds of far off and well protected properties, artifacts, potion ingredient contracts, guild members' strengths and weaknesses, the services of soldiery and spies, blueprints and ward schema of important buildings with all the loopholes marked out, locations of extremely powerful magical beasts, it was a very rich harvest.

And that was just what they could give him right then. There would be more, much more. Rare books, Noble Phantasms, patents, they would all come once the Lords returned to their houses and took stock of what they could afford to give.

The meeting ended half an hour or so after the last submissions. Gradually the members returned to their homes, leaving Harry alone.

Several hours later, after he'd gone through the charade twice again, Harry read through it all, a smile growing on his face as he did so.

Things just became a whole lot easier.

And that's that. Done. Over. Chapter 17 is DONE!

As always, I welcome all suggestions, requests, grievances, and, well, everything else.

See you sometime in July,

blackshadow111