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.

18. Chapter 18

Hey people, here's the latest chapter! Now, as promised, this one contains a hell of a lot of magic, with demons, enchantments, swords, rings, and a lot more cool stuff.

Now, a word of advice: I have attempted to categorize and explain Summoning as best as I can, but for full comprehension, it would be best if you went and brushed up your Bartemius Trilogies a bit. The primary influence is from there, after all.

And one question: There is a war coming. This chapter covers about 40% of its logistical details. Do you want more, or should I just toss it into the action scenes without any warning ? (Heaven knows I hate unexplained things, but that's just me).

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19th January 1995
Goldia Alley
Talbot, Smith and Boot office

"And that should conclude the matter, as far as Althric Airways and Althric Guardians are concerned. We have the permits; the carpets and items have been registered. Ads have been placed in every publication on the planet, along with commercials on Althric Entertainment. The pilots are fully trained and have their licenses.

"In other words, every "I" has been dotted, and every "T" crossed." The voice of Ralph Talbot was jovial, and filled with no little relief, as of one who had just gotten a moment of relaxation after shouldering an unbelievable workload.

"And just how much did the whole matter, from the clerks to Fudge, cost us?" Harry asked from where he was sitting on the couch, absentmindedly crunching on a biscuit from a plate next to him.

"Somewhere around thirteen million galleons, your grace," The lawyer's tone turned slightly apologetic. "It could have been done cheaper, but I was given to understand that there was no limit to the amount…"

"Oh that's fine. There isn't. I was just asking." Harry said reassuringly.

"Of course, sir" Talbot said, ever the smooth solicitor.

"Well, so that's it for today, unless there is something else, human?" Grithlauk asked from its position on one of the corner desks. The three of them, Harry and his solicitor and his banker, had been signing, stamping, sealing and marking papers for over six hours now, and all were understandably irritable.

"No, that'll be it, I think." Harry said, standing up. For a moment he envied the two. They would be going to their homes for a long, well deserved rest. Him? He was heading to Yugoslavia, to look over some problem that had come up with one of the builders regarding some roadway. After that it would be a trip to Switzerland to negotiate with the dwarves and the gnomes, and after that…

He shook himself out of it, reminding himself that it was very much the better way for him.

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20th January, 1995
Hogwarts

The room was big. Indeed, not just big as in 'large', but big in the sense that it was vast, cavernous, the size of a planetarium. It should have been, as it was a planetarium. But it was not for the purpose of viewing stars and studying them.

To be honest, it could serve that purpose, but so could a thousand other ones that were infinitely cheaper than this. It was almost completely bare, with the only adornments of any sort being the large mirrors set on the walls, meant to serve as screens. Not that they were needed, not with what was sitting in the middle of the room.

It was a simple plinth with a glass orb set on it, the only strange thing being the small glow that emanated from its surface. The glass orb was far more interesting. It was a full, extremely detailed model of the Milky Way galaxy, covering every single detail that could be considered even halfway relevant. The exact, to the last kilometre, distance of every star, planet, asteroid or satellite in the galaxy to the Earth, their sizes, the nature of their gravitational pull and its strength, the exact power and probable lifetime of every star, the projected paths, over the next one hundred billion years, of every single body, it was all recorded and represented perfectly by the model, along with so, so much more.

Studying it, closely enough that his forehead almost touched the glass container, was the owner of it, the same man who was determined to one day be the sole master of everything it represented and so much more.

With a small snort of impatience, Harry rose from his seat, to start pacing around the room.

"This is ridiculous. I shouldn't waste so much time deliberating over anything. It is a sign of weakness."He muttered to himself.

From nowhere, a feminine voice responded. "Well, the decision is a rather momentous one, sir, perhaps-"

"No. I will not allow myself to be diverted. Activate the projector. Expand the image to full representation size."

His order was followed immediately. The room seemed bathed in light, as the representation of the Galaxy appeared in a greatly expanded view, its diameter in the region of a hundred meters or so. Harry focused on the things he needed.

At this point, a little explanation may be in order. What Harry was trying to decide, and what was taking him so long, was the choosing of the components of one of the greatest weapons ever created by wizardkind. Indeed, barring divine weapons and some of the extraordinarily powerful Noble Phantasms like the Sword of Rupture or the Brahmashiri, it was a serious contender to be the most powerful weapon ever.

Called a Shatter-Star, it came in the category of a celestial weapon, not as in one used by celestial beings, but rather in that it drew upon celestial components, hence Harry's predicament. To put it simply, a Shatter-Star was what Harry called an ISBM, standing for Inter-Stellar-Ballistic-Missile.

How it worked was better shown that told.

Getting over his indecision, Harry allowed his Occlumency to fully exert itself, all the while cursing himself. It had seemed a clever decision at the time, to occasionally remove his mental control, so that he could learn to function in a situation where someone managed to disable his Occlumency. It was a clever decision even now to be honest, as to rely solely on one thing to make decision wasn't so much as creating a chink in his armour as digging out a canyon, but it sure made things unnecessarily complicated.

Finally as his mind was clear of all considerations other that cool, hard logic, the decision seemed a ridiculously easy one to make. He chose the Asteroids he needed, big enough to do the job but small enough not to overdo things, all comprised of materials found on Earth (just in case someone survived to run a chem. scan). Once the selection was completed, he moved on the execution. Immediately, signals were transmitted from the room on a frequency encrypted to a level that no computer or Magical nexus in the Universe was capable of breaking.

They were received several thousand miles away, where things started happening. Located inside a hollowed out peak in the Himalayas, the tower of Mel-Nig-Naar was one of the best hidden secret bases of the Sharr family. It was at this tower that a giant structure shaped like a wand but consisting wholly of crystal started humming. Power flowed into it from thirteen separate ley lines all located huge distances away from it, coming through Mithril wires that passed through portals. As the magic reached the needed levels, it went into operation.

It flung the magic through the vacuum of space, covering unbelievable distances in the blink of an eye, till it had a hold on the Asteroids. Then it forged the magic into an Alchemical bond, forcing the Principle of Sympathy on an item that had not felt the touch of Magic since time unknown. The representations of the Asteroids became the Representations of the Asteroids, and Harry knew that every change made on the little images would be reflected, through the phenomenal might of magic, on the bodies themselves.

After that Harry spoke several words, layering spells upon the faraway rocks. Once he was done, he allowed power to flood him from his three leylines, submerging himself in raw magic. With that done, he focused on his mind, connecting with magic himself to express what he wanted done in a way beyond speech or explanation.

He spoke the word of power clearly, his throat moulding seamlessly under his Metamorphmagus powers to make the alterations that would allow it to speak the sounds that were never meant for a human voice box.

As the word of power was spoken, its result travelled the universe. The Crystal wand was filled with a maelstrom of light, while the room in which Harry was sitting seemed to twist on itself, before, with a huge pulse of Magic, a number of Rocks the size of basketballs appeared in previously prepared tanks.

Once the runes in the tanks drained away the last trace of magic from the rocks, the tanks disappeared, leaving the stones free. Over three dozen pieces of stone transported across unimaginable distances, each a perfect representation, in miniature, of the Asteroids from which they were removed.

After that, they became the focus of his attentions. He worked patiently but rapidly, engraving upon them rune after rune, pouring potion after potion onto them, all the while chanting softly.

It was several hours before he was done.

Then he turned his mind back on the star map. He checked, and saw that the deed was done, signified by the glyphs that had appeared on the original Asteroids. So the Principles of Empathy and Contagion had both been invoked and intertwined, forging a link that was unbreakable except to someone who knew exactly what they were doing.

After that it was a matter of Power. It was much simpler, thankfully. The asteroids were linked to nearby stars, from which they absorbed gigantic amount of heat energy through the runes that were there for that purpose, before being channelled through the other runes, and turning into kinetic energy.

And once that was done, they were ready. Over the course of the next several hours, these basketball sized stones would be buried below a number of Muggle and Magical cities. For the Muggles his agents would simply go into the basements of the houses he had there, while in the magical ones the task would be done by the litany of blackmailed and bribed officials he controlled in their governments (there weren't many, to be honest, but there were enough).

Of course, blackmail aside, none of them would have done this had they known what the things were. But all they would be seeing were big boxes that in any case they believed were weapon supplies for his spies there.

It hardly mattered, as all of them, thankfully being minor spies, would be liquidated afterwards anyway.

And then, it would be ready. The beacons would lie waiting, undetected and undetectable, till he decided to use them. Once the crystal wand hidden in the icy mountains broadcasted the signal, the full sized asteroids would come like lost lovers, rushing to be reunited with their parts.

The result?

Boom

With any luck, he would never have to use it, but he was thankful for the insurance policy nonetheless. It was one of the precious dozen or so apocalypses that he could unleash on the magical world as a last resort threatening option, adhering to the long held Sharr policy. 'When all seems lost, toss an apocalypse threat at them. It always works'

In the Muggle world… ha!

He had so many things in place that he could probably mistakenly wipe out all Muggles if he wasn't careful. Fishes in water reservoirs carrying exactly one litre of Basilisk venom each… Mandrakes hidden in Radio stations… tons of uncut RDX buried under town squares… magical crystals placed in graveyards with just enough Necromantic power to bring about a fully-fledged Zombie apocalypse… he had gone a little overboard.

But all that was for later. His work here was done. He had preparations to make. In a fortnight he would be through the second task, and after that he was off, straight to Russia. He anticipated at-least five to six months of campaigning there, during which he would need to return once, for the final task. All of that would require that he did all that he was needed to do here at home.

There were plans to finalize, links to test and strengthen, powerbases to consolidate, people to train, and no end of other, similar loose ends to tie up.

Speaking of which…

Harry Apparated to one of his Russian estates. Over the course of the last several weeks, this particular place had been prepared with a huge array of spells, aimed to control the environment of the different parts of the twelve thousand acre parcel of land. In the official Ouroboros Alliance records (what few he'd allowed to be created), this place was called the 'Magical War Beings Reserve I'.

He called it, 'The First Bestiary'.

Over a long period of time, Harry had visited caves, forests, mountains, pits, and a whole lot of places, all with one purpose, which was to track down some of Nature's fiercest, most dangerous beings, and then tame them and make them obey him. This place, along with half a dozen others, was the result.

Eleven Nundus, Seventeen Nemean Lions, Five Chimeras, Twenty-Three Cerberuses, and fourteen Dire Wolves were the cream of the crop, with plenty of other beings. Each and every one of them perfectly healthy (after a course of treatment), each obedient to the instructions whispered into their minds, and most importantly, split nearly equally along gender ratios, which had already shown massive dividends, in the form of a bumper crop of offspring, already secure in safer bestiaries.

As he arrived, Harry entered his office in the building. With a snap of his fingers, he ordered the answering elf to fetch the Captain of Company 'Wild Fury'.

Seeing the man, Harry said "How are you, Captain Stormson?"

"Fine, Sir!" the man said, with a full military salute.

Harry knew that the man would take it as a mortal insult if Harry rolled his eyes, so he stayed aloof.

"Captain, as I'm sure you know, this meeting is to decide which of your men and their partners shall be going into the mixed companies as cavalry and which ones shall remain part of Wild Fury."

"Yes sir, I do."

"Well, Captain, have you finalized the list?"

"I have, sir"

"Very well, tell me."

"Sir, as I have decided that out of the Nundus, we can afford to attach one each to the five of the companies, and two Cerberuses each. Similarly, sir, we should place a Nemean Lion with ten other companies, and place a dire wolf each with the same companies."

Harry considered the man's words. It wasn't a bad distribution at all. Two or three beasts placed with the mixed companies would be enough to ensure that when they got the advantage there would be enough of the beasts to push it, and would still not be enough that the humans couldn't bring them under control if they started causing problems.

"What about the other animals?"

"Well, sir…"

"Actually, just show me the written list." Harry had picked up most of the Thestrals to be had in Britain, near about two hundred in number from his own estates, and slightly less than that number from the Ouroboros Members, along with twenty-twenty five from Hagrid's herd at Hogwarts.

Similar numbers of Hippogriffs, War-Pegasi, and other beasts had also been picked up, to serve as the rank and file of 'Wild Fury'. After all, the Lions, Wolves and Nundus were firmly in the 'elite' categorization.

Speaking of Hagrid, Harry had picked up almost the man's entire reserve of Blast-Ended Skrewts at the same time as the Thestrals.

Of course, not wanting Dumbledore to realize what he was doing that clearly, he'd made the detail under a different name, which itself was the final link in a fairly long chain of false names. It wasn't his only deal, as Hagrid had a veritable phone-book worth of contacts in the Magical European Beast smuggling community. He'd been somewhat reluctant of selling the 'lil darlings', but the promise of the beasts enjoying themselves had done a lot to convince him, as had the outrageous prices .

And they would enjoy themselves, that much was certain. So far all they'd done was to eat, train and breed , but soon they would have enough killing and maiming opportunities to fulfil a lifetime's worth of desires.

There was a little thing, of course, in that all of those beasts that he had acquired paled drastically in comparison to the sheer numbers he possessed of the Acromantula. Harry had enslaved a nest with thousands of spiders, and then given the spiders several other forests on his lands to breed even further. He'd had to spend a fortune in bindings, of course, but that was a given.

And he'd recouped all of that five times over anyway, what with the sheer quantity of silk that Althric Clothiers was selling and using, not to mention the parts of them, sold by Althric Potioneers.

Reading through the list, Harry found nothing to be worried about. He had, naturally, decided the distribution himself just in case, and this was close enough. Looking the man in the eye, Harry said. "Okay, that seems acceptable to me. A pen, if you will?"

"Certainly, sir." He said, before pulling out an ivory white fountain pen from his pocket.

Harry looked the list over for a final time, confirming that it was as the man had said, before scrawling 'approved' at the bottom, followed by his seal and signature.

Handing the list back to the man, he reclined in his seat.

As the man rose to go, he waved him back down.

"Sir?" the Captain asked with a puzzled look on his face.

"There are some additional orders, Captain."

"Yes, sir?"

"First of all, what do you think about your subordinates? Do you think that they'll bear the stress well?"

The man paused for a few seconds, probably weighing his answer, before he said with a hint of hesitation "Well, no one can just say that. They have been trained extremely well, but that sort of thing's hardly predictable."

Harry nodded thoughtfully in agreement. "Yes, it isn't, is it?"

"In any case," he said after a moment's silence. "What you need to watch out for is if any of your subordinates shown extraordinary talent."

"Sir? What exactly would classify as extraordinary, exactly?"

"You know, if it looks like they could regulate two, even three of the beasts, if they seem to be handling things easily. We have to be careful not to waste potential, don't we?"

"Of course, sir, may I speak freely?"

"Go ahead."

"What exactly will we do if there are those with extraordinary talent, sir? I mean, are there plans for expansion, if I may ask? To accommodate promotions?"

Harry's face developed the slightest hints of a smile. He remembered that the man before him didn't exactly know all that much about the breeding programs.

"Expansion, Captain? Well… of course there are!"

"May I inquire as to scale, sir?"

"Hm… scale? Let's just say, perform well enough, and you'll be able to call yourself full Colonel very soon. Maybe even General, if the numbers hold."

The news delighted the man, and Harry saw that much in his mind.

"Well, that will be all, Captain. Dismissed"

With another formal salute, the man marched away with a noticeable spring in his step. Harry caught the murmur of "General Stormson…" as he left the room.

With an amused smile, Harry considered the matter again. The man had reason to be happy, as a General in the Ouroboros Army was a position of considerable power. He laid even further back in his seat, thinking more on the organization of the military. His military.

The smallest uniform unit of the army was a company, like the man commanded. There were smaller units, but they were different for every company.

Five companies made up a Regiment, led by a Colonel, to whom the captains reported. Three Regiments made up a Legion, commanded by a General. So far, there were Eighteen Legions in total. A final division was between Land and Sky, with Ten Legions being Land-Legions, and Eight being Sky Legions. Both were led by Marshals, their official titles being the Land Marshal and the Sky Marshal.

Above the whole thing was the heard-loud-but-rarely-seen, almost mythical structure called CC, standing for Central Command. Heading it was the man in charge of the entire army, the CIC, which stood, obviously, for Commander-In-Chief. That just happened to be Erebus Sharr. But all day-to-day work was done by the 2IC, which was a certain young man called Harry Potter.

Of course, that was the status of the 'official' army. Not official in the usual sense, which just meant 'legal', but as in that this army was what Harry would admit to as far as anyone out of the innermost of his inner circles of confidantes was concerned. (Which, given that there wasn't any 'inner circle of confidantes' except a few paintings who couldn't do anything with the information, meant… everyone alive.)

These were the properly trained, uninjured beasts, the successfully created automatons, the properly enchanted Inferi, the correctly functioning Muggle weapons, pretty much all his other units that were working as they were supposed to work.

On the other hand were the 'Unofficial' numbers.

Harry was an extraordinarily capable wizard. Just about every piece of magic he had in play worked perfectly. But what he didn't like to admit to anyone other than himself (and that was only to keep his ego down) was that each successful result was achieved after several failed ones.

Beasts that had been badly injured in his struggle to capture them and couldn't be healed well enough (rare) or were too feral and violent (much more prevalent), Inferi where the spells had gone wrong in some way or the other, automatons that were a bit too wacky, Muggle automobiles that hadn't been enchanted properly, all that formed the majority of those forces.

The other half was stuff that worked very well, but consisted of his inventions and discoveries, and in the experimental stage. That is, things and ideas that hadn't been tried and tested over generations like the magic he was mainly using had.

In other words, they were the expendable items, and therefore had to be kept out of the same zone as the Non-expendable things. Once the items he'd personally developed had been tested in live action and then cleared for human use, they would be integrated into the main army.

Their divisions were rather rudimentary. The mass of animals that were injured, or insane, were simply made into a group called 'The Horde'. The Inferi became 'The Scourge', the animalistic automatons were 'The Swarm', and the automatons that he'd specifically made capable of both robotic forms and vehicle forms had been named, in a fit of pique, 'The Transformers'.

Of course, there was more. He'd scoured all Muggle and magical entertainment, theories, possibilities, historical accounts, mad dreams, etcetera, etcetera for inspiration no matter how silly or childish.

Harry brought himself to the present by an effort of will. There was a great deal more to do, and he couldn't afford daydreams. Pausing a few seconds to change his appearance, he Apparated to Azkaban Island.

Out of the Five thousand soldiers that he'd ordered to be taught special techniques and turned into special force units, which were not deployed in Russia, nearly Three hundred or so had been dedicated to Azkaban Island. They had turned the island to a total fortress, acting under plans carefully made by him and their leaders.

A fleet of forty warships; bought as commercial vessels, grain ships mainly (tankers had too much piping for his needs) and then mounted with giant arrays of weapons, patrolled the seas around the island. Each of them carried enough firepower to wipe out any given Muggle fleet in the world. They were aided by the thirty or so submarines, these ones appropriated from the long-since-mothballed units of the Soviet Navy, and once again optimized to over a million times their original capabilities by magic.

This was one part of the Azkaban Defence Web. There was a huge necromantic contingent in addition, consisting of Inferi created from everything between Sharks, Swordfish, Krakens, Leviathans, Octopi, and a whole list of other beings. Then there were the live beings, in the form of half a dozen adult Kelpies, Hundreds of non-magical marine predators, and smaller but much more dangerous numbers of magical ones.

As if that wasn't enough, Crystals were buried in the nearby seabed in a circle, carrying enough juice of the Water Elemental variety; all coming from Harry, obviously, to create a gigantic Whirlpool a mile in diameter, complete with sharpened icebergs, to be activated by codes held by Harry and him alone.

Of course, Harry being Harry, all limits of overkill had been broken. That was why a similar, if not superior level of Air Defence was maintained constantly on the island. The teams of guards themselves had numerous water and Air elementals, Sorcerers that specialized in Spirits of those natures, and Marine/Avian animagi of the Predator variety.

None of this gave any reactions, other than gaining a slight boost in effectiveness, as Harry appeared in his office without any hint of a noise.

Immediately, he summoned all three of the Deputy Wardens (Land, Air and Water). To the latter two he talked for a few minutes, getting status reports on the functioning of the defences, before dismissing them.

Then he turned to the Deputy: Land, who was the one responsible for the conventional prison administration and running.

"You received the orders that were sent a week ago?" he asked tersely.

"Yes, Sir, I did."

"And?"

"The men have been informed. They've carried out the drills too."Pride for his soldiers was clear in the warden's voice. He had reason to be.

"Good. Then broadcast the orders under my authority. Remember, there should be no mistake in any conditions."

The man looked ever the slightest bit affronted. "There won't be, sir. We're well prepared."

"I know you are. In any case, inform your colleagues that they are to place all their units on Orange Alert immediately. Lethal force, as always, is authorised and recommended." 'Damien' said a hard look on his face.

"At once, your grace." The man saluted before leaving, no doubt to his own office which was a few doors down the corridor.

In a few minutes, Harry heard the Sonorous amplified voice. "Attention all units: This is the Deputy Warden for Land. Cell block leaders are to initiate Operation Sigma-Five immediately. Evacuate all of the prisoners to the central auditorium in a calm and orderly fashion. Discipline is to be maintained under all conditions. Sedation for the highest level offenders is authorised. These orders come directly upon the authority of the Duke of Azkaban. Repeat, Initiate Sigma-Five imme…"

As he turned his attention to the numerous screens covering almost the entirety of the 25X10 meter wall, each showing the feeds from the various (four, to be exact) sources covering every single square inch of the complex, all showing the same scene; armoured Golems marching into cells, dragging out the occupants and herding them towards the vast underground hall he knew covered the whole set of buildings, his mind turned to the surveillance system that had taken three hundred million galleons to design and put in place.

It was worth every Knut, given that it covered every single square inch of the island not once but five times over. Once through highly enchanted cameras, once through Scrying spells, once through Scrying Spirits, once through X-ray imaging from the platform hovering exactly 1200 meters above the island, and once again through a mixture of Sonar, Infra-red, magic-sensing and the other technologies that were in place. Out of them, three systems (all except the hovering platform and the last one) were connected to the island AI, which he had named, again in a fit of pique, as 'Big Brother'.

The only humans that knew that there was more than one system were the three wardens (the dramatically different natures of the systems meant that not even the teams that had installed the systems knew) . No one on the planet other than himself knew about the fourth and fifth systems.

Once those systems showed him that the prisoners were all assembled, he Apparated to the hall, appearing in the small anteroom just off to the stage.

He paused for a few seconds, preparing what he would say, before he walked into the hall.

He was welcomed almost immediately with a loud outbreak of boos and jeers only silenced when the guards used area effect bludgeoning spells. With a slight clearing of his throat, he started to speak.

"Prisoners of Azka-" he was interrupted by one of the occupants of the front row rising up and throwing his shoe at his face. It didn't hit straight, but managed to lightly impact with his shoulder. Harry couldn't have given any less of a damn about it, but he knew that that wasn't the impression he had to give to those around him.

He picked up the shoe, and threw it back with such force as to make the standing man topple under the impact it made with his chest. That achieved immediate silence of a few seconds, before a second round of jeering started.

Not for the first time, he cursed his decision to remove the dementors. But he needed these men in some semblance of consciousness if what he had in mind was to get anywhere. This was just a necessary evil.

It took several minutes, and more than a few of the prisoners being injured seriously, before the crowd was silent. (He considered the irony that the worst offenders present, the rapists, murderers etc. were docile as rabbits, having just been awoken from their ten-minute long sedation).

He started to speak. "Prisoners of Azkaban. As you know, I am Damien Peverell, your warden. Today, you have been called here for an important matter."

At that point, some started gearing up to scream again, so he cast a spell that lifted them in the air, and smacked them, hard, against the ceiling and the floor an even dozen times. The sound of breaking bones was even more effective than the screams that they released afterwards in cowing their friends.

"I really don't like to be interrupted" he said conversationally.

He continued. "All of you are here because you are too savage, too wild to be allowed to remain in society. And more importantly, you're here because you are very, very stupid, enough to get caught." He let that statement, by all accounts provocative enough to get him lynched, hang in the air. Just as he'd expected, no one opened their mouths.

In any given prison, there were two types of occupants. One was the quintessential first-time offender, who truly regretted what they were in here for, and made an effort to carry out their sentence quietly and cleanly, while being resolute to never do it again.

The others were animals. They were the kind that thought nothing of raping, killing and murdering others in cold blood, and indeed, enjoyed it.

In this case, the first kind would feel a bit angry but remain quiet, knowing that the words weren't really meant for them.

As for the second…

Any person who could wantonly rape, steal from, drastically injure or kill their contemporaries in the way these things had, were, without any possible exceptions whatsoever, cowards. It wasn't a theory, but a simple fact. They would posture, make a scene, and otherwise do things to satisfy their egos, but when it came right down to it, they were spineless little worms.

He let a few seconds pass, before saying again. "Now, because you are stupid criminals, you lot, all of you, are under my power. And let me tell you, it's not a very good condition to be in."

The silence continued, with the criminals starting to fidget as his aura-presence steadily grew.

"Let me make a long story short. Would any of you be interested in having a chance to get your life back?"

That got their attention. He saw them looking up with a kind of desperation in their eyes, willing him to continue.

He did.

"See, all of you has a choice. You can either stay here, rotting and dying under the attentions of the Dementors, or you can swear an Oath of Fealty to me."

Shock spread through the room at his words. Heads nodded, as if realizing and saying to themselves that this was his game.

"I am currently going to have need of capable, ruthless people for certain purposes, and anyone helping me is in for a life full of plenty of fighting, more money that you can spend, and everything that comes along with it. Wine, women, the works"

The words hung in the air for several seconds, before one of the mid-level offenders; here for grievous assault, if Harry remembered right, spoke. "I'm not agreeing to anything, but how much money are we talking again?"

"Five thousand galleons"

"That's it?" the same man said in disbelief and a bit of anger.

"That's per month, Mr-"

"Smithkins. Joe Smithkins. How'll we be paid?"

"If you have any family surviving, then you can ask for the money to be deposited in their accounts, if not, then new accounts will be opened for your use. For the duration of your service, you won't have access to the money, but when your sentence ends… well, you get the point."

"What 'bout us lifers?" a dirty little woman asked from the back.

He was reminded of the time when the prisoners having connections to Voldemort or the Death Eaters had asked that question. He'd ordered the lot of them either lobotomized or kissed or, in the case of very few of them, fed the Draught of Living Death, and their bodies were still in stasis, waiting for him to use them.

But there were problems that were stopping him for doing so. They had many facets, but eventually came down to the simple fact that the magic that was involved tended to be very vulnerable to the detectors just about every government employed, and therefore had to be carried out in a sovereign country whose Dark magic sensors he controlled.

As he thought to answer the woman, a shark like grin appeared on Harry's face, causing her to gulp.

"I'm glad you asked. You see, unlike them, you don't get a choice in the matter. You're dead to the world anyway and, well…" he trailed off, discreetly signalling the guards to move in.

He was right to do it, as the woman exploded "You bastard! I'll-" was about as far as she got, before taking three bludgeoners and going down.

Harry spent another half an hour explaining the details of what he wanted and what they'd get, before he left, giving the prisoners two hours to decide.

Not that Harry would wait around for two hours. Their answer would go to the Land-Warden, who would relay it to him afterwards. As it was, Harry Apparated straight to Hogwarts, intent on getting another major part of the preparations completed.

---

Potter family stronghold
3 miles below the Ural Mountains

Harry appeared in the section of the tunnel complex that he'd personally closed off just over a week ago.

Entering, he saw that the room was ready, with the golems just finishing the last of the work.

It was a relatively small room, around 15X20X10 feet. All of the walls were coated with an unbroken mirror coating that was parted only for the slight moments that the door was open. In the middle of the room, standing proud and mysterious as ever was one of the most powerful mirrors in the world, the mirror of Erised.

As the door closed, Harry went to work. With several spells, he activated the long dormant magic of the mirror, reversing it from the funny curio that it had been for the past millennium to the WMD that it had been made as.

From the walls, tendrils of pure magic emerged, connecting to the upper corners of the mirror. Slowly, Harry could feel the terrible power of the mirror rear its head, manifesting its presence on the human plane.

He was reminded of the story behind it. Even though there was considerable intermarriage between the Slytherins and the Sharrs, it was still a rare thing for a Slytherin to be a Sorcerer. Studies had revealed that the extreme change inherent in chaos had a very destructive effect on the carefully ordered mind magic of the Slytherin family. Still, exceptions were always there, and there had been a handful of Slytherin sorcerers.

Perhaps the most powerful of them was the boy born towards the declining days of the Roman Empire.

His name was Faustus Slytherin (not the Faust. That was the lad's grandfather on the Sharr side). He performed many great feats, but perhaps the greatest achievement he managed was the summoning and successful binding of no less than thirteen Desire demons, each of them a Marid, and several of them minor Royalty.

He bound them into a single object, after which he went to work on it. For several years he devoted himself to the task, casting spell after spell on the object, pouring potions, drawing symbols, and working layer after layer of magic.

The end result was a weapon of unfathomable power. It held the power, under a sufficiently capable user, to penetrate any mind, any thought, and extract the information about their closest, dearest desire.

That alone would have made it fearsome, had it been all. Not only could it know people's desires, it could also act on them. It could create perfect illusions, in which the men and women would have everything that they had ever wanted, or indeed ever would want. A victim would simply sit there, absolutely content, dreaming the dream it lured them into.

Then it was as simple as breathing to walk in and slit their throats, or, barring that, just let them die of starvation. Even that was a lesser thing. The single greatest power the mirror had that it could be cast on any number of people at once, and without even the slightest decrease in its power.

That was the true power of the Mirror of the Erised.

Once the connection between the walls and the mirror was secure, the next step began. From several feet ahead of the mirror, a plinth rose from the ground. On it was a set of fingerless gloves, with the backs of their hands made of shining, burnished steel, more than polished enough to serve as a mirror. And, under preservation spells, impossible to scratch, dirty or fade.

Soon, the steel plates were linked to the walls, before those links interconnected, directly connecting the gloves and the mirror.

Over the course of the next several minutes, Harry cast a multitude of spells, while carefully arranging and rearranging the complex mind magic that comprised the Mirror of the Erised. A link was formed. The mirror's power flowed in the gloves, again and again, till a permanent link developed, and Harry knew that it was done. He now had the power to make any number of people cease all actions, even eating and breathing, and just sit and dream, dream of having all their dreams fulfilled. He had that power quite literally in his hands.

Of course, it wasn't enough. All that was required for the mirror's powers to be anchored to another object were reflective surfaces. With a snap of his fingers, Harry replaced the plinth with a bed. Then, lying on it he repeated the procedure, embedding the power straight not in another device or piece of clothing, but in the lenses of his eyes.

It was a very, very delicate operation, as a mistake could very well blind him, or worse, leave him in a dream, but it worked without a hitch.

And then he was off, this time into time acceleration, to understand the new power he'd given himself.

Over the course of the next several weeks, the world underwent changes.

Acute observers, (they'd have had to be very, very acute indeed), would have noticed certain signs, trends emerging in the Political-Economic scenario of the magical world. It was a very slow process, with each and every change it involved having not one, but several ordinary, reasonable explanations, but it did happen, and its effects would reverberate for all time.

Certain businesses started to have difficulties. Several belonged to families that had a rather pro-Muggle stance in the Wizengamot, others belonged to individuals that had stood against certain decisions made by certain people, while others just happened to oppose advanced magical studies. And yet others belonged to people who weren't guilty of any of those things.

What went unnoticed, because it was meant to, was that of the latter group, the problems were not from external sources, but rather internal (oh, pretexts were invented, as was evidence indicating otherwise, but still). Basically, the owners were quietly and cleanly pulling back their resources from those businesses, and putting them elsewhere, allowing certain pseudo-monopolies to emerge.

They were not monopolies in the traditional sense, oh no. there were still several suppliers for every item, but they were in the practical, hidden sense, in that every one of them was, or to be more accurate would be, under Harry's control.

These signs could be seen the least difficultly in Britain, but they were present, for those who could find them, just about everywhere. Power was being concentrated in certain hands using an array of tactics, some legal, most illegal, and all unseen. Again, the reason this couldn't be seen was that it was very, very slow. It had only just begun, and would take, barring some exceptions, years to complete. And it was a perfectly reasonable occurrence. Businesses suffered all the time, and so did families, as everyone said.

Certain officials in governments and businesses all over the world started to have things happen to them. Some were transferred from lucrative posts, others were outright fired after making a major blunder, and yet others were promoted to elevated positions.

That was fine, nothing strange about that, as everyone said.

Certain things, businesses, land, farms, orchards, started to change hands, bought by families, or by corporations, or by a random individual. They were of many types, focusing on just about any field imaginable, but what the buyers oh so diligently diverted attention from was that while in most cases only a small but significant stake was acquired, in others, specifically the ones of a certain, ahem, strategic nature, the stakes were far, far bigger, resulting more often than not in total monopolies.

Again, as everyone said, it wasn't anything to be worried about.

It was far from being a matter of weeks. Later analyses would reveal that what happened then was but the beginning. The changes would continue for years, well over a decade.

But the end result would be…

Well, that would ruin the story.

Another thing of note was what happened in Russia. Certain parties of strange men and women, foreigners, each highly trained and dangerous, started to make semi-regular appearances with the Strassinov camp. They were vicious in battle, and each of them was unusually clear-headed and powerful, possessed of considerable leadership talent.

Not that an observer would have known it, but they were the entire Officer corps of the Ouroboros Army, here to gain live experience so they could be worth a damn when leading their fellow vassals in said army. It was a vital thing to do, that much was certain. Till he had the supplies and the training at a high enough level, he couldn't enter in full force, but till then, he could at least provide invaluable battle experience to his vassals' leaders.

They participated in several skirmishes, some major, most minor, just enough for all of them to get their first kills. Harry kept the pace rising slowly, and for all that, he was just able to rate them adequate when February dawned.

Meanwhile, several other plans continued to move ahead.

Not everyone was happy with that fact.

His name was Julius Morrigan. He was one of the most powerful men in Britain, the Head of the Ancient and Noble house of Morrigan, senior member of the judicial committee of the Wizengamot, and the Chairman of Morrigan Enchanters Inc., one of the most powerful companies in the world. His company did everything that involved enchantment work, from specialized orders to mass produced trinkets.

And he was currently in a mix of anger and confusion. Because Julius Morrigan did not like what was happening these days, and what he liked even less was that there wasn't anything he or anyone else could do about it. There was simply no proof at all of any wrongdoing, or even of anything out of the ordinary.

But he, the Marquis of Shrewsbury, was far too canny to not recognize the signs. First there was the humiliation he'd faced in the Wizengamot at the hand of Damien Peverell, and then there was them, the thrice damned Alliance of the Ouroboros.

'It is an obscene thing' he thought, considering what he knew about the Alliance. He had been approached by Lysander Yaxley several months ago, with news of the families of Potter, Black, and four eldritch families putting together a group that would then, supposedly, use the enormous powers of its members to peacefully fulfil its objectives, namely the ensuring of total separation from any and all Muggle contact, which would be followed by a resurgence of old magical traditions and lifestyles.

Morrigan could imagine what they meant by that. It would be a throwback to the Ancient days, the days in which Magic had unquestionably reigned supreme throughout the planet, and Muggles hadn't even been considered animals, being categorized solely as ritual ingredients, slaves, and decorative items.

They had been dark days, far, far too dark, at least in Julius's imagination. The days of Middle Earth, of Sauron and Morgoth, of the land of Algaesia where the house of Malfoy had become royalty for the first time under the Mad King Galbatorix , and the days of Westeros, when the Potters had ruled, only named as Baratheon.

The house of Morrigan, along with a few other like-minded families and individuals, had spent considerable time and effort in erasing every hint of those days from public memory. Their reasons for that were many. Ranging from altruistic, (like Dumbledore) to pure businesslike the Morrigans themselves, the Ollivanders, the Dagworth-Grangers, et al.

None of them wanted to return to the times when the ordinary wizard had done everything, from enchanting their objects to making their wands to brewing their potions, on their own, after all.

Still, the reasons were irrelevant. The point was that it had been happening. The beginnings of it had been laid back in the 1700s, with a few innocuous laws that, ahem, discouraged certain magic. It had progressed with rites and rituals like the cleansing of Mabon, the lighting of the Imbolc flames, among others, being categorized as 'dark' and later 'evil'.

It had gotten easier later, with classes in the schools being first cut and later abolished. The process had gotten a very substantial boost in the 20th century, when Albus Dumbledore had become Deputy Headmaster of Hogwarts. As the institution that set the bar for every educational institution in Britain and thence Europe, it had allowed severe curtailing of Ancient Knowledge being passed to the younger generations.

It had all been going so well, till a few months ago, when the unthinkable had happened. Hogwarts had passed from Dumbledore's control, and into Harry Potter's hands. The boy had, in a matter of days, laid waste to many centuries worth of plans.

The situation was rapidly becoming untenable now, as more and more books spread throughout the Hogwarts student populace, spreading the history of the Magical world, with all its darkness and blood and power, out in the open.

No one could do a thing about it, as the laws in the matter were a matter of basic trickery. It was a simple thing, actually. In Britain, it was fundamentally illegal to actually ban a piece of magic. It was a Royal Decree, bearing Uther's own seal on it, which made it unalterable by any and all means whatsoever, except for…

Well, that avenue wasn't even worth considering. The point was that all the restrictions that had been imposed on magic were inherently dependant on the tacit approval of the schools. After all, schools had the right to choose their own curriculums. And if they chose to discontinue their courses, well, that was their business, wasn't it?

Except that it was now all falling apart. Students were learning magic, all sorts of magic, and moreover, were raving about it in their letters home. That caused people to buy books to see what their children were talking about, and to read, and be fascinated.

That caused indignation when it was realized that they should have learned all of this by themselves, and that, it turn, was causing a slow but steady build-up of pressure, to restore the knowledge that was their birth-right and punish the ones that had taken it from them. For a long time, Morrigan had considered what to do, but no answer seemed to be forthcoming.

---

27th January 1995
Hogwarts Castle

It was a fairly unique gathering, to be honest. They all had only one thing in common, and that was that each of them was a top scorer in their years. There were Gryffindors, Slytherins, Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs, Muggleborns and purebloods, scholarship students as well as heirs, all invited with the sole criteria being talent and an ability to work hard.

Well, to be honest, there were a few others, who had been invited for somewhat different reasons. That was the reason why the gathering included more than a few heirs and heiresses of old, highly respected families, or individuals for that matter, sons and daughters of millionaires, brilliant scholars, ambassadors, highly placed policy-makers, and the like.

Naturally, there weren't many of them, the total numbering somewhere between twenty-five and forty. They all were, right now, busy looking around the room they were in, which looked as if it could admit quite a few more of them.

It was a lavishly appointed room, as well. Comfortable couches lined the walls, letting their occupants sink deep into the cushions. The curtains and draperies were velvet, while gem-dotted chandeliers decorated the ceiling. The walls were covered with elaborate tapestries, displaying important scenes from magical history. An array of snacks and soft drinks were floating around by themselves on silver trays, which seemed unable to be emptied. Here and there were games, a small setup for Magic: The Gathering with the things and creatures actually appearing in miniature, gobstones, Exploding Card games (really, it was ridiculous, assuming that only one game could be played with the decks just because the owner of the company happened to like Snap), Monopoly, Magical Chess, Magical Checkers, Dungeons and Dragons, etcetera, etcetera.

The few walls without tapestries had a line of video games and computers, featuring everything from Dungeon Keeper to Nurmengard-3D (Each and every one of them bearing the logo of Althric Entertainment in unobtrusive but still visible places, of course). A door led to a hallway from which other doors led to a giant Swimming pool, a fantastic library, a cafeteria where every single food item to be had anywhere in the world was available (courtesy of imported house-elves, not that they knew it)

It was some minutes after the last of them entered the hall that their host came.

Harry Potter was received with a loud chorus of 'Hi's, and 'How're you', with much high-fiving and back-thumping entailed. It was a gratifying thing to him too, that these students, each by now a seasoned fighter in their own ways, still had the capability to have some fun.

"Well, people, gather around, gather around." He said, climbing up on top of one of the tables.

"Now, each of you is here because you received invites from those Nuntius birds that I sent, is that right?"

There were affirmative sounds all around the room.

"Well, before I tell you why I called you, tell me, what d'you think of-" waving his hands around in an expansive gesture, he continued "all this?"

Cedric Diggory was the first to speak. "It's good, Potter. Really good."

Harry beamed at his. "Thank you! I spent an awful lot of time on this, you know."

The relaxing effect of his carefree answer, and the lack of response at the improper address, was visibly apparent in the gathered group.

"Well, it shows, really." Blaise Zabini said tentatively.

"So, you all agree that this complex has anything and everything any witch or wizard of our age could possibly need?"

"Yes, really." This was a Ravenclaw, Turpin maybe. She was one of the few Harry had bothered to invite, having not been involved in the Luna affair.

"OK, but I really should get to the point now, eh?"

Harry cleared his throat once, before continuing "Okay, you all probably want to know what we're doing here, yes?"

"Yes, yes" they said hurriedly, waiting for him to carry on.

"Well, see, the thing is, currently gathered in this room, are some of the best and brightest, not to mention some of the most privileged young people in all Britain. You agree?"

It wasn't the sort of statement to which people tended to disagree at all, and that much was visible, in the nods and 'Yes's, and 'Right's, that went around.

"So, you see, I was just lying around, when I thought that hey, instead of being separate and making us all fend for ourselves, why not gather ourselves in one group? I mean, we'd be totally the best at everything, and we'd run this school in a matter of weeks!

"Of course, I already run this whole school by myself, but to have the very best students in here helping me and enjoying some power themselves, well, it'd be fun, no?"

His statement elicited a room wide round of wide eyes and incredulous head shaking, while more than a few people gained interested looks. Sensing the general mood, he continued "See, it would be very simple. The current prefects, club leaders, sports captains (he'd introduced more than a few new sports in Hogwarts, so just Quidditch no longer applied), and all have managed to snatch their positions. A great number of them are you guys, as a matter of fact. But, I was thinking, why not make this the rule, rather than just a onetime occurrence?"

He continued looking around the room again and again, effortlessly slipping into minds and notching up their receptivity to his words just a tad, while planting some ideas, culling others, and in general doing clever mind magic things. He let a charisma spell or two wash over them, while letting out his aura, tuned this time to generate awe and respect instead of fear.

"I mean, I want to make sure that it's the very best who reach positions of power around here. That means that you've got to be smart, able to work hard, ruthless, and all that. But these things sometime take some effort and help to develop. Now I can help you develop those skills, I can teach them to you well enough that you'll thrive not just here, but also in the real world."

So far, so good...

Now came the tricky part. Harry whispered a word that caused a faint vapour to rise from the walls of the room, releasing the Unctuous Unction in aerosol form. He allowed them to inhale it, while holding a dramatic pause, till he was satisfied, and spoke again.

"And in return, all that I ask is for you to join this little organization of mine, and abide by its few rules, and in general cooperate with me in all the matters. And, of course, do a few favours for me here and there."

By this time they weren't quite incapable of conscious thought, but they were severely compromised in their judgement capabilities. It was eventually Neville, who'd known most of the information beforehand, who said "Well, I can't speak for the others, but I'm interested. Count me in, Harry."

"Same for me." Luna said.

It was fairly slow, but concurrences slowly trickled in, finally getting Harry a following in his own generation. None of the gathered knew it yet, but they (at least the ones worth anything), had made the best decision in their lives. This thing, here, would see to it that they would go far, very far indeed.

"Ok, so time to get the formalities out of the way. Now, as for the name, my father had this little group…"

And that was how the Marauders had been born anew in Hogwarts, destined to fulfil the meaning of their name in every way possible.

Harry had been unanimously elected leader within hours of the decision, and he'd outlined a set of objectives and divided up teams to carry them out immediately afterwards. They included the complete domination of the Hogwarts illegal goods market (it was not a very big one, but substantial), an information network that would patch through every shred of data to be had in the finest households that the members belonged to into one central communication centre, complete domination of the student populace, and a great, great deal more.

It was one of the many, many steps Harry took that winter, working tirelessly to establish a powerbase spanning the whole world, from 'donated' contacts, materials, etc. by the Ouroboros Alliance members, to schoolboys and schoolgirls limited not just to Hogwarts but also Durmstrang and Beauxbatons, to increasing his personal magical power exponentially.

Speaking of increasing magical power…

It was the longest, toughest, and most painful training session Harry had even undergone, and it was only beginning. Harry had, several months ago, classified himself as a novice in most of the Olde Magick, and a master of one of them, Mind Magic.

Now he was a master in almost all of them. Necromancy, War Magic, Elementalism, Divination, and the other subjects had all, although not even nearly perfected, had been learned well enough for him to use them expertly. And that would do for now.

Another major subject that he intended to master right now was Summoning.

Sorcery was one of the most powerful branches of magic out there. A lot of people had their own opinions about what it was, but the simplest, cleanest explanation was given by the Royal Camelot Dictionary, which was:

'The art of causing magical effect by utilizing forces not native to the human plane, drawing upon mostly, but not always, from the realm called nevernever.'

There were two branches of Sorcery: Invocation and Summoning. Both were more or less exactly what they sounded like. The first was the art of using the power of otherworldly entities, making bargains with them, while the second just dragged them into this plane from theirs, and then made them do the Sorcerer's will.

Of course, it also had a great deal to do with the beings themselves. Some were truly powerful beings, gods, demons of near godly power (Mephistopheles, Nicodemus, etc.), fallen angels, and others, who were too powerful to summon. In their case, Invocation was the only way to go. Others were the type that one should not summon, that were just too uncontrollable for anyone other than the finest of experts. This kind included Fey, Elemental guardians, and others, basically the kind of creatures who could breach the containment walls of their own accord; the only thing needed being their names.

Harry had, for the time being, judged that these were simply too much trouble to bother with right now.

However, that still left a whole lot of variety. Balrogs, Skilosh Demons, Hellspawn, Drakons, Djinn, and Spirits, were just the starting point of a vast list. They were the ones that Harry would be focusing on, when he went summoning.

And there were things that had to be understood for that. To put it simple, there were classes of demons. At the lowest rung of the ladder were the lesser demons, minor imps, moulers, Will o' wisps, etcetera, etcetera. At worst they were used to feed other demons, and at best they could be used to carry messages and spy.

Harry had a large number of them watching Azkaban, as a matter of fact.

Above them were the more powerful demons: High-class imps, Screamers, and the like.

They were rather sturdy, powerful things that could take quite some punishment, in addition to dealing it out. These were the foot soldiers, so as to say, especially as their brainpower usually left much to be desired.

Above them, were the beings that were traditionally called 'Demons'. They were the most varied by far, ranging from slightly more powerful than an imp, to powerful enough to level cities and dry seas.

Above them were the Arch-Demons, also called Afrits. They were very much similar to Normal Demons, just much more powerful. 99 percent of the Balrogs belonged to this level, along with the other similar beings.

It was at the stage next to them that things got complicated. Demon Lords, or Marids, almost always possessed extra powers, and were best tangled with only at one's own risk. Harry controlled a number of them, but they were all safely bound inside objects. The Mirror of the Erised alone contained thirteen.

Harry could just about take one on an equal footing, and maybe half a dozen more if he had an hour or two to prepare, but that was it. Of course, one day he would be able to take them on casually, but then he would be able to do a lot of things one day.

Above them were the beings known simply as Greater Daemons, and the less said about them, the better.

Harry being Harry, had practised both Invocation and Summoning extensively, but had deemed the latter to be more suited to his current aims for the time being. Drawing the undue attention of near-omnipotent being this soon was… unpalatable. While if he summoned them, he could at least control them. He could direct what they did or didn't do, and that allowed him considerable leeway as far as self-protection was concerned.

Still, the time to think about it would come. Right now he needed to work.

The hall he was standing in was dark, except for the light that came from the many candles on the floor. There were a large number of them, dotting the intersections and corners in the vast diagram that covered the whole of the floor. In one of the corners there was a comfortable single-seat sofa and it was in this that Harry was lounging.

Floating over his head, in just the right position for him to read it, was a single piece of paper, and it was here that his attention was focused right now. It was a list of names, which he had ordered made by the scholars among his vassals.

They weren't very impressive names, featuring ones like 'Trunklet' and 'Simkin' among others. But then, they were just imps.

Finishing off, Harry gave a slight nod, and immediately, the list disappeared.

He knew that every name on that list had just been marked on the central database as 'unavailable'. Unfortunate for the poor souls that had searched them up for themselves, but such was life. With a small stretch, he turned his attention to what he had to do now.

He opened himself to his keystones, letting the power of the leyline flood him, making his extremities tingle. Then, in a voice loaded with power, he spoke the summons.

The language he'd chosen had been Latin, and so the whole thing had to go on for quite a while. He spoke the first section, that of summoning, allowing power to pour from his body into The Other Place, forming into leashes and tethers and manacles, all consisting of pure magic. Then, once that part was complete, came the second part, that of providing a target by virtue of the names of the beings being summoned.

Nine hundred and ninety-nine names were spoken. By the end of which, his throat was beginning to feel like someone had scrubbed it thoroughly with sandpaper and powdered glass (his voice remained as smooth as ever, of course).

After the names, it was the conditions that enslaved the spirits to his will. Words of power were spoken again and again, creating locks and restraints, combining their power with that of the symbols on the floor, doubling back on themselves and shoring up to create an inescapable bondage.

It was when the last part was nearing its end that effects began to materialize. Clouds of Sulphur, sounds of thunder, of lightning, of women crying, sultry voices, loud flashes, and a whole lot of other drama filled the room, all engineered to do one thing, which was to get him out of his circle, and thus at their mercy.

He made a big show of yawning in his sofa.

After the 60's special effects had cleared away, they were finally visible. And it was a motley display indeed. Had Harry been anyone lesser than he was, he would have gaped at the display. Men with the heads of animals, animals with the heads of men, spiders, tentacle demons, outrageously coloured and sized animals, and a whole lot of other things.

As it was, the demons looked around, and before long they were the ones gaping. In their case, it was a matter of numbers. They felt their bonds, and Harry knew those were as strong as they'd ever felt. And then they saw the scene. A thousand imps and one wizard that had summoned them. That was impressive, no matter how one looked at it.

And these were good imps too, high class ones, no one below the 10th level (those were the only imps worth summoning for any fighting jobs anyway, anything lower being only for messages and spying). Of course, some species were opposed to each other on principle, like the Utukku and the Wolf-Soldiers, whose enmity dated back all the way to Al-Arish. But they would all work together under his will. Their lives quite literally depended on it.

Harry didn't waste a lot of time on these. He spoke rapidly, binding the demons to a number of tasks. First and foremost was to protect him from all harm, of course, and there were others, to never betray them, to never attempt to find out his true names, and others that all boiled down to 'obeying his orders, in the spirit of them, without hesitation or demur'. As soon as the last of the words left his lips, he felt the magic in the room change.

A minute ago the spirits had all been struggling hard, and flexing their powers, trying to make him baulk. All that ended in a single moment, and they were left bowing, crushed under the weight of his will.

It was a Brown, horned thing, all fire and brimstone, who spoke eventually. "Well, what'cha want?"

Harry said in a clear and concise tone. "First of all, which of who took part in Arthur's campaigns?"

A sea of hands, flippers, tentacles and assorted parts went up.

"Then understand. We are in Russia right now. I know some of you might have been summoned recently in the last several decades, but that's irrelevant. My first charge to all of you is to spread yourself across the land, and acquaint yourself with its terrain. You will find regions where my magic is strong. Avoid them, but cover all the other areas."

Another demon, this one a Minotaur, bowed, and said. "We obey."

It was followed by affirmative sounds from the rest of the spirits, before they all took off.

Harry watched them go, before turning his attention back to the pentacles. He started speaking again, and the chalk-drawn diagrams changed. They wiggled and moved, like multi-coloured snakes, before settling again.

By the time they finished, there were considerably fewer summoning circles, while the bindings on them were dramatically stronger.

Harry started on the second batch of summoning. He had to be much more careful now, as these beings were the typical 'Demons', and would all be capable of causing him several problems if he wasn't. If the imps were as powerful as sidewinder missiles, then the beings he was calling upon were small nukes.

There were 108 of them, and the appearances they made were just as dramatic. 20 feet tall slate giants, Wyverns, Chimaeras , old-fashioned horned and scaled monstrosities, Lizard-like creatures, Genies, all could be seen in the room. They all looked around, and the vast majority of them were immediately terrified, while the rest gained interested looks. There was a reason for them, as the majority were weak, barely Seventh or Eighth class. While twenty of them were of Class Twenty, the highest class of demon out there.

He sent them out, tasking them to seek out concentrations of magic not his own and make their own assessments about them.

After that Harry summoned Ten Arch-Demons, and then three Demon Lords. By the end of it, he was severely winded, and his head was hurting from the power he'd had to channel. He waited for a few seconds, letting power wash away his weariness, before continuing. He spoke a continuous stream of words, and he felt their effect immediately.

Bonds of obedience were forged, as the entirety of the host that he'd summoned was organized into three Legions. The 999 imps were divided into Nine Companies of 111, out of which eleven became devoted to scouting, spying and message carrying duties. The remaining hundred were divided into groups of ten, each commanded by a weaker mid-level demon. Five such groups came under one of the higher level demons, and each group of 111 was under the overall command of an Afrit, three of which answered to a Demon Lord.

Finally, Harry pulled out four summoning horns from his pockets. Three were white, and decorated with elaborate filigree, while the fourth was a pure black, without any decorations at all.

He created new bindings for all of the demons, creating first a secondary line of obedience tying each demon in the host to the Black horn. That one, commanding three Legions, would be for emergencies, when he had no other options left.

For ordinary uses he would be using an object…

Well, that could come later.

After that, each Legion was bound in a tertiary binding to each of the horns.

Once the last of the bindings was set, he dismissed the lot, aware that all he now needed to do to have them ready to fight for him was to call upon them to attend him, or, failing that, blow the appropriate horn.

After that he rested for some hours, before making a few more summoning rituals. A few messengers, some new spies to add to the ones he already had on several of his targets, spying on their every move, their every word.

The last beings he summoned were a retinue of Horlas, Level 15 demons and an Afrit that would now serve as yet another layer in the defence of his person. It was a layer on top of many others, with enchantments, armour, potions, his own scales, and quite a few other means already serving him, but then he'd always been somewhat hazy on the concept of 'restraint'.

And he couldn't fulfil his ambitions if he was dead, could he?

To the onlooker, it would look as if he'd immediately set himself to test the truth of that. After the last of the demons was summoned and bound, Harry entered the time chamber, activated a set of spells, and went to work.

He kicked, punched, jumped, rolled, and pushed for several hours afterwards, doing complete katas for every one of the styles he'd stolen from their masters across the world. Given that there were over a hundred styles that alone could have been enough to severely exhaust anyone lesser.

Given that he did it all while feeling thirty-four times the natural gravity, even he was slightly tired.

After that there was the kata that he did over a hundred times, that of his own style. It combined the deadliest and most effective movements of each of the styles, while using ideas from one to cover the weaknesses of others.

After that was yet another set of martial arts katas, but for a different purpose. These were the movements for one of Harry's pet projects, which was to rediscover that which the Gryffindor family had lost such a long time ago.

Magical martial arts.

It was a simple enough art to enhance one's body using magic. Doing so permanently was what sixty-percent of blood magic was devoted to anyway. Doing so temporarily wasn't a very big deal either, with even wand users having figured it out to several degrees. Strengthening Solution, the wit-sharpening potion, the super-sensory charm, all these were examples.

But the trick was to do it effectively. Mind-potions didn't count. For all its necessity, it was one of the easier organs to muck around with magic. No, there was a beauty of its own in being able to move several times faster, lifting several times more and possessing several times enhanced reflexes than anyone around them, and to do it on a moment's notice, not after blood rituals.

Once, the Gryffindors had been masters of the art, being nigh-unstoppable on any battlefield. But it had been lost, with the only things remaining being a few steps in the raw enhancement section.

But enhancement was useless without control, and that was what Harry was trying to teach himself.

Still, time taking as they were, the physical exercises ended, and then he was on to magic. In a smooth motion, five spirits materialized around him, and then they were on. He cast, cast and cast, letting loose killing, maiming and destroying curses with reckless abandon. Now five Demons were no joke, and Harry had to actually struggle in the combat. He took wounds, horrific ones, in a way testing his healing rituals in the process.

To make a long story short, it was a very long session, continuing without so much as a second of rest for well over a week and a half in accelerated time, in which he brought out and used everything he'd learned.

By the end of it, Harry was left a mess of slowly mending wounds, far beyond pain and exhaustion and into that limbo between life and death where the will was the only thing that kept the body moving. He had suffered magical exhaustion time and again, pushing onwards ruthlessly, ignoring the pain (and it was tremendous) with a practiced ease.

Some might have questioned why he was doing this. Why it was, that he was torturing himself in this way. The answer wasn't 'to test himself', or 'because it was his duty to his soldiers' or anything as stupid and cheesy.

It was, as ever, very practical. The healing magic on his body were the adaptive sort. If they faced anything, any injury, poison, disease or other ailment once, they could adapt to it, and the second time it would be a matter of seconds for them to get rid of it.

That was all the reason Harry needed. Although the memories of unspeakable pain were an always welcome addition to his mind (one day he would fling them at any Legilimens stupid enough to attack him, and that tactical, logical reason made it all worth it).

After Harry had slept off the effects of his training session, he Apparated to Hogwarts. It was two thirty in the morning , and he had some important and incredibly delicate work to do. As soon as he was within his office in the chamber, Harry looked at the enchantment matrix of the castle. With a few gestures, he went to work.

A slight pulse of magic swept through the castle, too little to be detected even by the finest of sensors, and little slits opened up in the walls of the Gryffindor third year girls' dormitory.

Out of them, draught of living death soon emanated in aerosol form, taking but a few minutes to make all occupants of the room totally dead to the world. After that, a second pulse of magic occurred, without any discernible effect. Had one looked very, very closely at one of the beds, they might just have discovered that it was occupied by a life-size, completely identical doppelganger of Ginny Weasley, with the girl herself whisked off by the magic moments ago.

She had appeared in the Chamber of Secrets below Hogwarts, and it was once she arrived here that Harry went to work on her. Quickly and effectively he put her down, hands out wide and legs clamped together, on a ritual circle. Standing up, he uttered a few words. Immediately, the runes comprising the ritual started glowing.

They glowed brighter, and brighter, while Harry busied himself with a set of syringes, containing potions that he injected into her veins. They were followed by a series of spells, at the end of which a faint, ethereal string started becoming visible on the first plane.

Harry focused on the thread, watching patiently as it steadily grew more and more tangible.

It was the magical representation of the life debt this girl owed him, and Harry now intended to use it for a purpose much more relevant than what it had once been meant for. As soon as the string of pure, ancient magic was fully tangible and glowing, Harry bent and extracted a small quantity of blood from the girl via a syringe. He spread it along specific glyphs on the ritual circle, watching as it flowed this way and that. The process was repeated then, this time with Harry's own blood.

After that, Harry picked up a very particular device that he had made some days ago. It was like a wand, just ending in a cubical block, instead of the typical slightly pointed tip. He wrapped her fingers around it, waiting for the tell-tale red indicator to light up.

As soon as it did, his attention shifted to the small measurement units on the block, watching as they rose to full. As soon as that happened, the light on the indicator turned white, indicating that the crystal had now extracted the needed amount of magic from her. Another few seconds, and it turned green, which meant that it was ready. Harry removed the crystal, putting another in its place.

He repeated the process, and then set both crystals together on the ground. After that, it was another set of bloodlettings, this time on the second ritual circle that was a few feet away from the first. Afterwards, he moved into the second circle, positioning himself in its middle so that the thread of the life debt coincided with an actual line of runes drawn on the floor.

As soon as he was in position, a sound was heard, before the ritual glyphs lit up, signifying that it was ready. A few levitations saw the remaining components into their places, and it began. Harry started chanting in a mixture of languages, invoking some old gods, magic itself, and certain specific phenomena.

It continued for several minutes, Harry's magic leaving him, shaping into different spells according to his will, and then imposing itself on the mind, body, and soul of the girl, turning the life debt she owed him into a soul bond.

The process didn't take long. Soon enough, the thread of the debt was a thick chain, and soon after that, it disappeared, hidden away from sight or sense. The disappearing was followed by the girl returning to her dorm, and it was after that that Harry let the circles disappear, before conjuring a recliner and lying down.

He rested for a few minutes, before picking up a small figure, a model of Ginny Weasley. He cast a number of spells on it, knowing that they would act on her perfectly, while not leaving a hint of magic.

The active parts of the bond, where she would have to obey his every word and command, he left untouched. He didn't need them. But he used the passive parts, encoding certain compulsions irrevocably into her psyche.

A compulsion to study hard, to be something, to become talented was one thing, a magnification of the dislike she already held towards poverty and second-hand clothes another. The list went on.

As he worked, his mind turned to what he'd just done. Soul bonds were actually a popular element in romance novels, spread about by moronic authors who had no idea what they were doing. They painted soul bonds as some sort of soul mates equivalent, playing on the made-for-each-other rubbish.

Harry doubted that they would have all that much interest in them, had they known what the things actually were. To know it, one would have to understand the relevant context.

There were three components of all beings. The body, that was, essentially, the blood, after that the soul, and then the magic (which was the most important, able to alter both the other components).

Now there existed ways to use each of these to bind one sentient being to another. Vassals that had been bound several generations ago, magical beasts, were all bound by blood, all of them (Well, except those that Harry controlled, but that was a story for another time). Other ways, familial bonds, inherited positions, were also examples of blood bindings.

Then there were magical bonds. Those included the Imperius, any number of compulsions, the Unbreakable Vow, and others. They were by far the most common, as to create them was often a trivial matter, compared to the other two.

Soul bonds were the last category. They bound a soul to another, on the most fundamental level. These bonds persisted even after death, with properly made ones being able to breach the void itself with impunity.

Now quite naturally, things weren't quite that clean cut. The bindings always overlapped a bit. Vassal bonds were more Blood-Magic bonds, and The Unbreakable Vow was more a magic-soul bond. To put it simply, every bond capable of being passed down along a family had to have a blood component to it. But that was fine.

What was more relevant here was that most of the time, these bonds had to be entered into willingly by both the parties involved, so that the bond could form properly. But, there were exceptions. A life debt was a very big obligation on a person's soul, more than enough to allow for a soul bond to form. And that was what Harry had done. Ginny Weasley was now a puppet for him, to use as he saw fit. And he had certain plans for her.

Harry went back to his representation of the Hogwarts ward schema, and did some alterations in it, awakening certain sections and deactivating others. Their effect couldn't be seen yet, but it would be felt in the long run.

Because the entire school was already carrying a minor loyalty and trust ward keyed to him, but what he had done was an even more subtle bit of mind magic. From that day onwards, Blaise Zabini would start to develop a very, very slight interest in redheads. It would be followed by him 'noticing' a certain girl a year his junior, and things should continue on that vein.

It wouldn't hurt that from that day onwards the girl in question would start being altered, consuming certain potions with her food and certain spells being cast on her at regular intervals.

It wasn't going to be quick. Harry expected them to have serious feelings for each other by the middle of Zabini's fifth year, which should turn into 'love' a fairly long while after that. While throughout that time they would be enlightened to the merits of Harry's system, seeing the example of it at Hogwarts. Who knew, it might become necessary to use Ginny to cajole the Zabinis out of neutrality, it might not.

But it was better to have that option and not need it, than the opposite.

It was but one of the steps he was taking then, in the long process of tying off loose ends. The next thing was to activate a series of simulacrums. And these weren't ordinary ones that could be simply made out of snow and some wood, coupled with some spells.

No, Harry had taken seven of the brain dead Death Eaters to Russia, where he had, through a series of blood magic rituals, transformed them into exact replicas of himself, down to a close representation of his magical core. Then he'd done a quick bit of soul magic, slicing of a very, very thin stretch of his soul (about as much as went in a portrait), locked it into position, and then topped it with a spell matrix consisting of animation and sentience spells normally found on portraits or chess pieces.

The end result was seven perfect simulacrums, each of them acting, smelling, tasting and feeling exactly like him. Their higher thought functions were somewhat limited, sure, but they were more than capable of executing the detailed orders that he would be transmitting regularly to them. And in any case the most strenuous things they had to do would all be taken care of the ultra-capable secretarial staff that he'd handpicked from his vassals, while if they had to do any magic in public (which they would skilfully avoid whenever possible), there were spirits that had been bound to take care of it.

Harry had been preparing for this for a very long time, and every variable had been considered and reconsidered dozens of time. He knew it would work.

Harry was sitting in one of the main fortresses, surrounded by the 'Russia' subcommittee of the Ouroboros Alliance.

"Okay, Selene. Final Sit-Rep."

"Sir, all of the legions have been stationed in their respective bases. All officers have been familiarized with all levels of immediate planning. WMDs are in position and awaiting Launch codes."

"What about Auxiliaries?"

"Legions Nineteen to twenty-five, consisting of former Azkaban Prisoners, the late mercenaries' entries, and the final wave of vassals that have come from the alliance are currently in the second-to-final levels of their training, sir. They shall be ready for deployment in three to five weeks."

A round of nods went around the table at this. It was nothing they hadn't already known, but the reconfirmation was gratifying anyway.

"Okay then. Now, apart from the personnel perspective, what about equipment? Their primary wands, staves, side-arms, grenades, and all that?"

"Everything has been tested a minimum of three times, sir. They are in proper working conditions."

"Okay. Auxiliary supplies?"

"100% efficiency, sir."

Under his breath, Harry muttered "With any luck, they won't even be used."

He started to question about the equipment and items that most certainly would be used.

"Tell me about the non-living units, starting with the Infantry."

"Final Inferi count is at eight point three million, sir. Golems are an even six million units."

"What, the MI golems?" Mobile Infantry was the type that Inferi and other humanoid golems made up, along with an array of automatons, and nonhuman Inferi. It was named so, because it could be moved and manoeuvred very rapidly according to the controller's wishes.

"Yes, sir. The MI golems. The Heavy golems are at one point eight million units."

Heavy golems consisted of many types, from twenty-foot concrete-titanium statues, to merely Eight-Nine foot "Loew Model' ones. Each of them could (and to be honest, had) single handily defeat entire tank regiments.

"What about the automatons?"

"Do you require a type-by-type listing, sir?"

"No. Just a general figure will do."

"Nine million, sir."

"Nine million, divided again between the Mobile and Heavy units."

It was far from the numbers that he had manufactured, but the problem was, once again, in the human element. He had several times the mentioned numbers in all units lying back in Britain and a great number of them even here in Russia, but they were useless without humans to control them.

Still, there was nothing that could be done.

It went in that vein, Harry getting final reports on the numbers of all his forces, before he asked for updates from the men themselves.

In an hour, he had received the 'Ready to go' responses from every General, Colonel and Captain, and then, just like that, it was started.

Throughout the bases, the respective AIs assigned to every regiment released specific codes, confirming old orders and activating old plans, although with alterations caused by fresh data, to be read and destroyed by the officers immediately, and then to be followed with implementation within hours.

Harry didn't intend to enter this war with a communiqué, or with a sudden dramatic reinforcement of some beleaguered party. He knew that the Strassinovs had recently captured three more leylines belonging to three separate factions, which had put the respective parties in somewhat dire straits. Under normal circumstances, they would eventually have managed to take them back, or take something else.

Not this time.

Soon, the officers manning the comm. links alerted Harry to the confirmation messages arriving from the Legions. He gave out the respective authentications, and that was it, the decisions were made.

Three of the Legions would remain garrisoned, waiting this battle out, while fifteen legions were divided in three groups of five, which would each take one primary fortress. Barring unforeseen complications, three major factions would fall this very day, with their leaders dead, and their keystones replaced. It had taken Harry considerable amount of money and effort to extract the locations of those men, who usually made a point out of concealing their whereabouts very thoroughly.

It was a risky move, to be honest. He was putting most of his army on the line. But it had to be done. The army had been in training exercises for the last several months (years from their perspectives), and had been systematically acclimatized to this terrain, given experience of the style of fighting of the factions they were going against, and thoroughly prepared in every way that counted over the last month and a half.

It was another several minutes before the last of the communications was completed, the last orders given out. Harry settled in his chair. The attacks would be launched in exactly twenty minutes from then. He looked around. Everyone seemed on edge, nervous and yet excited for what was coming.

"Well, gentlemen, Selene will keep me in constant communication with this room. I wish you good luck."

One of the men, a Potter vassal if he remembered correctly, asked. "Where are you going, sir?"

"Oh, just on a little trip."

The man tried to hide his disapproval at the perceived abandonment, but Harry could see right through him. He smiled to himself. Little did the man know…

He Apparated to one of the bases that no one, not even the portraits knew about. Walking in, he made his way to the armoury, bedecked with an array of ridiculously powerful weapons. Turning from them, he opened a closet, and pulled out a change of clothes.

He had been tempted to go with a medieval look, with all shining armour and cape, but decided against it. Nor did he happen to find combat fatigues particularly suited for him. He'd settled on a simple enough uniform, in blacks and greys (of course). Over it was Basilisk hide armour, on his hands were the same fingerless gloves that he'd made a receptacle for the Mirror's power.

Over the course of the last several months, Harry had created several extremely powerful weapons, borrowing from Muggle weapons and ancient magic alike.

Most of them were run-of-the-mill types, but some had been augmented beyond all reasonable or unreasonable boundaries, becoming mystic codes first and then into full-blown Noble phantasms. All of them were now pulled out of their shelves, and strapped onto their correct places.

It wasn't a too heavy mixture. He wasn't covered in weapons like some of his ancestors he knew. But there was enough that could make anyone facing him have a very, very bad day.

As he looked at one of the single most powerful weapons he had, Harry was reminded of the day he'd forged it.

The pieces of metal were finally at the correct temperature. Harry had left them on the hearth thirteen hours ago, set to be heated while putting in place a nexus to keep working spells at them.

But it was finally done. Even though it didn't have the lustre right now, or the cross-guard or the crystals, the blade was even more beautiful now than it'd previously been, Harry would have to admit that much at least. He had been surprised when it'd broken the moment he'd pulled it out of its sheath, only to remember the tales about it that he had read.

Rolling up his sleeves, Harry went to work on the Sword of Godric Gryffindor. He hammered the blade again and again, reshaping the two pieces of metal, forging them together again. He had to be careful not to damage it, which was remarkably easy to do at this time, when its protection magic was ripped away like this.

He worked for several hours, hammer hitting the metal, him picking it up (barehanded, of course), then carefully checking the consistency and metal nature distribution (soft in the middle, hard at the edges), all the while pouring magic into it. Sometimes necromantic, sometimes elemental, sometimes dimensional, at times elemental, but most often it was raw chaos.

It was only after the sword was at the perfect point, when its metal consistency, its balance, each of its aspects was utterly perfect, that he started to hum a slight tune. It wasn't any random song. Rather, it was a composition that had been created, in a land far away and long gone, for the very purpose of forging a sword. That didn't mean it was just one song continuing for all that time. No, every one of the family it came from who picked up a hammer and tongs to forge a true sword had contributed something to it.

It varied. Some added a note, some a whole line, some several stanzas worth. But the essence remained the same. The song/poem/verse/ballad/hymn (it depended on who you asked) sang of the nature of the sword, its edges, its metal, its cut …everything that made a blade what it was. More than the blade in question, it sang of the concept of the sword, the very idea behind a bladed weapon.

Its power was immense, and it drew from the forger, his predecessors, and to a small extent, reaching beyond time, his successors. The more the skill and power of the maker of the sword, the closer the weapon came to being the very embodiment of the inclined plane.

Harry was singing it in his tune, focusing on what the sword was and what he wanted it to be. And as the words, laden with power, left his lips, the sword changed. Harry's hands continued falling in their steady rhythm, and slowly, certainly, spell after spell, piece after piece of magic wove its way into the blade. Its edges grew sharper, and harder, while its middle became solid, more solid than an oak, and yet flexible like rubber.

It continued for a long time, delicate, intricate changes taking place one after another.

Of course, Harry wasn't spreading this out for fun. Things had to be done at this rate, slowly and steadily, because while even an ordinary blade held the potential of becoming the finest sword in existence under this magic, doing it badly could ruin even the finest of swords.

And this was a very, very special sword.

This blade had seen countless civilizations rise and fall, it had seen kings enthroned with itself at their sides and other kings whose heads had fallen after it touched their necks. It had known more names than anyone cared to count.

It was a sword that had been called, at times, the embodiment of all goodness and at others the evil that was at the core of all things. Because this was the sword that Harry's ancestors had both wielded and died by.

This was the blade that cleaved the One True Ring from the finger of the greatest Lich King of all time.

This was the blade that had killed the mad dragon-king, wielded by the man who became Kingslayer.

This was the blade that had slain the Dragon called Saphira, and later the dwarf-king called Hrothga r.

It was this sword that had glorified the hand of the Cimmerian, and slain monsters uncounted at the twitch of his wrist.

It had been by this blade that Darius, Emperor of Persia, had had his head removed from his shoulders.

It was Elendil, Zar'roc, Undwith, and a thousand other names.

Every male of consequence that had ever been born in the bloodline of the Blood God had wielded that blade, regardless of what the family name might have been. When they were the House of Lannister, then it was Jaime Lannister. When the era was one without last names, then the wielder had no last name. It mattered not.

This blade, right here, this stretch of Celestial-grade Mithril was one of the most celebrated weapons of all time.

Harry observed the complex matrix of spells that was now in place around the sword, making it impervious, unbreakable, and unstoppable. He looked on the tiny veins at its edges, which would always be full of Basilisk venom once he was done. He looked at the distortion in the fabric of the magic, which was the replication of the werewolf curse, in that no wound by this sword would ever heal.

There were a lot of other changes that he made, working tirelessly, endlessly, making his sword the finest work he had ever done: A true piece of art. Indeed, the ultimate piece of art.

Eventually, it was done. The blade was finished, the hilt was done, the guard was finished, and the sheath was finished. All that remained was to quench the blade.

He'd returned two days ago from a raid with the Strassinovs, as part of his preparations for the onslaught that would be released in February. It was nothing very special, just the destruction of a supply depot belonging to the Alex's. But he'd returned with something special this time. A prisoner that he'd captured.

It wasn't his first prisoner, far from it. He'd captured many, mainly for information gathering. But this one was special.

Harry made the man kneel, before picking up the blade, ready for the grisly deed. Then, pausing for a moment to set his hand, he ran the would-be-sword through the man's heart.

The blood of a captured foe was the traditional way to quench a blade of this potency, after all. And while under normal circumstances Harry had no problem with telling tradition to take a walk, it had a very nice power boost he was loathe forsaking for such an insignificant cost (well okay, the cost was irrelevant. If what had been required was to quench it in the heart-blood of a thousand infants, he'd still have done it without blinking an eyelid, as long as they weren't magical)

But the sacrifice had worked perfectly, using the energies of the man's death to bind the enchantments to the blade.

After that it was several hours of polishing and woodwork.

The sword was one of the most powerful things he had in his arsenal, but thankfully, there was more.

Back when Harry had enchanted one hundred and eleven rings to all be Noble Phantasms, as perfect as they could be for their purposes, using every method from ordinary quality control to item-world manipulation, one of the rings had been much, much more special than the rest.

He'd still been thinking of having the sorcerers in his army (there were more than a few, thankfully), work with him to summon a massive war host on top of the one he already had, when he'd chanced upon an entry in the Lords' journal of the Sharr family, detailing a state visit to King Gilgamesh's court.

…And there was the King of Uruk and all Sumer, sitting high and mighty on his throne, watching with a brooding eye the fawning courtiers that he surrounded himself with. Only he knew what he looked for, in his endless suspicion and lust. He gazed, and they all struggled like rabbits to avoid his eyes, mindful of keeping themselves ever deferential.

I had wondered for this behaviour, for it seemed odd, to say the least, for a court full of some of the finest sorcerers in the land to bow and scrape such to such a little wisp of a lad.

Our own lands are too far away, so it can be understood that we don't know of the cause that well, but it is intriguing, and…

Another entry from the same person shed more light.

I have finally found the reason. It is terrible and strange, perhaps even ludicrous in some opinions. But he has a ring. It is a little thing, a small band of gold with a little black diamond, but it is the sole reason for the rapid rise of this Kingdom. That much I now understand. It is undoubtedly one of the…

The man went on for pages, but the short version was that the ring was a direct, permanently open portal to Nevernever, more specifically to the sections of it that were called simply as 'The Other Place' or 'The Warp'. They housed an infinite number of daemons and spirits, and were the pool all sorcerers typically drew upon from.

Of course, an always open portal was just what one didn't want to such a place, so it was logical to derive that there had to be a spirit bound to the ring itself, that did the job of dragging the spirits out into this world, and, more importantly, the jobs of maintaining them here, under ample restraints, most important of which was protecting its wearer from them.

It would have to be an incredibly powerful spirit. That much was self-evident, if it had to do such a job.

Now, the complicated part was, Harry knew about such rings. He had checked out the journal entry against some other historical data, and it was true. The portraits of Gilgamesh, (inanimate, given that the tech for soul-linked portraits hadn't been invented then) had the ring, his court historians had left records about it, and the amount of material that he had found about the nobles of that very court plotting for the ring in question weighed quintals in parchment.

So it was real, and it was oddly similar to the ones that had been made by Sauron, not to mention the ones from Egypt.

Once he knew what to look for, the damn thing had a paper trail a mile wide and long. Or to be accurate, the concept had a trail.

And it was simple enough. Summon a powerful enough demon, bind it to a funky object, place a series of strictures, bindings, spells, etcetera, etcetera to allow the spirit to do all the complicated bits about summoning something, like the locking injunctions, the doubled-back clauses, the invoking of the corrosive power of herbs, symbols, and whatnot.

Then commands would be given to the spirit, and it would pass them on to the spirits under it. And they, under the bindings of their summoning, would do the hard work.

A simple, effective arrangement, where the only thing the human involved had to do was to give orders and his magical energy. No complex arguments in the middle of a battlefield, no considerations that had to be remembered and reasoned before giving an order. Both had killed more summoners that any other way, and they were all removed by this means.

Of course, had it been quite that easy then everyone would have done it. The object in question: ring, staff, sword, whatever had to be prepared very carefully, in a long, considerably elaborate process that, if one tiny step went wrong, could release enough power to equal a small volcano.

The point was that Harry didn't have that ring, neither one similar to it. (Timonzel had possessed one, but it'd been destroyed on his death. There might just be one or two lying around in that permanently locked room in the Department of Mysteries, but that was irrelevant anyway.

Now, strictly speaking, Harry didn't need this. He already had a large (well, for one summoner) army of demons he'd himself summoned, and another that made up a significant part of his legions, summoned by his vassals.

But the fact was, he had the means to make as many as he wanted. And Harry loathed leaving resources untapped. So he had researched up the binding strictures, assimilated The Stormbringer's memories of it, and then went about it.

The result was now being lifted from the box it was in, before being allowed to settle on Harry's left ring finger. It contained a Greater Daemon, a spirit that could easily be considered Royalty-class (in a measuring system that harkened back to the days when all Nevernever was judged along the Fey courts' power levels). In short, more than powerful enough to provide him with any number of spirits he needed.

Indeed, he had already tested it out, as part of suborning the spirit. It had effortlessly provided him over five thousand demons, out of them a hundred Balrogs, and fifty Demon Lords. Such a summoning was enough to burn down the known world three times over, and was well beyond what the entire Sorcerers' guild could manage, even working together.

Indeed, he could quite possibly have won the whole war using it alone, but the unfortunate thing was that it drained magic like it was going out of fashion. Now, he had an infinite supply, but channelling the needed amounts through himself would see him a crisp faster than he could say 'Ouch!', so he was restrained to a (very) large but still finite number, reduced further due to his other needs.

Namely, his needs to be able to do something that was more than point and destroy. Harry wanted a country, not a wasteland.

All of this passed through Harry's mind in the time it took him to put on the ring. He reacted to the pain he felt, and it was immense, by clamping down on his Occlumency shields, and then touching his finger to kill the nerve endings in it. Given that the pain was magical, the action did not end it, but it was substantially reduced.

Harry had, over the course of the last several months (decades to him), prepared a host of artefacts. The Sword and the ring were the most powerful, but far from the only ones.

The horns were there, of course, but there was more. The simplest thing was a locket, a little circular piece of beaten silver with a Beryl inset that he placed around his neck.

It didn't look like anything extraordinary, and that was exactly as Harry wanted it. As a matter of fact the beryl was hollow, and carried an undetectable extension charm. It contained exactly one hundred thousand prime specimens each of his golems, Inferi, automatons of the various types, and the other major infantry types.

Excessive as the numbers were, Harry had a feeling he'd end up needing them sooner or later. Still, time to continue. It went on for several minutes more, Harry carefully putting on and activating the weapons he'd spent the last several months preparing.

Till it was done.

Harry Apparated.

"Well, gentlemen, this is it. All our training, all our practicing was for this day only. So, are you ready?" the asker's name was General Marcus Vickston, and he had been given overall command of Assault Force Alpha, the group made up of five legions that was tasked with destroying the primary fortress of the Republican faction called 'The Novgorod League'.

"Sir, yes sir!" came the answer.

"Well, people. Remember that we have the best training in the world, the best equipment, and the very best leader, who is depending on us to crack this mothefucker open for him and roast the bastards inside. Are we going to disappoint him?"

"No sir, Never!" came the answer.

"Alright, gear up. We roll out in ten minutes."

He walked into the command tower, where all of the fifteen colonels and the 75 captains were already present.

"Okay, people. Time for the last go-over." He said, as the AI assigned to him lit up the air with a large-scale projection of the Map of Russia.

"We are here." he said, indicating a mark on the map.

"The building we have to take is here." another mark was pointed out.

"Now, till a few weeks ago, the enemy had fortress class wards interlinked with Sovereign grade ones, spread all over the area they control. As we know, they were powered by the ley lines under their control, which are one primary, six secondary, and a dozen lesser ones."

Nods went around. All of this was common knowledge.

"Now what changed was that that their sovereign grade wards were all triangulated off of this particular tower-fortress, which was also a major powering pool, sitting on the intersection of three ley lines." He indicated a point some hundred miles from their position.

"As we know, it is no longer under their control. It fell to the Strassinovs some weeks ago. I believe some of us were a part of that?"

A woman in her early thirties, one of the Slytherin vassals if he remembered correctly, raised a hand. "Yes, sir, I was there."

She was followed by a few others here and there, till he waved them down.

"Now, this means that not only are their Sovereign wards down, the Fortress class shields and enchantment web also had a hole ripped out of it." He said with just a hint of a smile.

"But they can't be stupid enough to leave it that way, could they?" one of the Captains asked.

"No, no, captain they can't. We shall be operating under the belief that they have patched it up significantly, reacquiring sixty-percent efficiency. Be advised that the actual numbers are probably far lower, given that the lost fortress also had a rather big store of wardstones, keystones and weapon supplies that they don't have the resources to just replace so soon.

"Also, the loss of three ley lines also overburdens their keystones seriously, which is another advantage for us."

Another round of nods circulated at this, interjected with a few questioning looks. "Yes?" he asked, looking at one of the questioning faces.

"I thought ley lines could supply unlimited power, sir?"

"They can, soldier. But there is a limit to how much the keystones can channel without going into meltdown, and their keystones have to be near the limit. They've got just too much magic functioning."

"Anyway, we don't have all day for this, so any further technical queries will have to wait." He announced somewhat loudly, to catch the attention of the few who had started looking around.

"So, we have two primary objectives. The first is that we need to get tech teams into the building, who will then find the location of the keystones, figure out a way to shut them down, and replace them with our keystones. Given that this building sits on a cluster of one primary and three secondary lines, we have to get at least four teams in safe and sound. Clear?"

"Yes sir"

"Now, this works in closely with the other primary objective. We need to find these men." He said, before a complicated gesture of his hands had several blown-up photographs projected in the air from the mirrors in the walls.

"They're all members of the RCC, and have to be taken. I can't overstress this, people. Any one of them surviving free will make this war a hell of a lot longer than it has to be. It has taken the spooks a lot of effort to get them all in this building at the same time, and we can't fail this thing."

"So, no pressure," One of the colonels quipped.

"No, none at all. So, here's how this is going to be. We move in here-" he indicated a spot a quarter miles from the fortress "We bunker down, Land the base buildings, and then set up our heavy artillery to give their wards a thorough pounding. As soon as we have their attention, we raise our shields, and while they waste time hammering them, the air force starts strafing runs."

"As a result, they'll have to split their attention to start suppressing fire at the flyboys, and this is when a tech team moves in and puts up siege wards."

Siege wards, on hearing the name, sounded like something defensive in nature. In truth, they were a set of wards that more or less did everything that normal wards did, only in reverse. Essentially, the outside of a building was being warded from those inside it.

"Now these boys are heavy on artillery. So the wards won't stand for long. But they'll last long enough, for us to do some serious beatdown on their wards, yes?" he asked, turning to one of the tech. corps' leader that was standing unobtrusively on the side.

"Yes, they will."

"Now, we're counting on their keystones to be severely taxed, and the heavy burden that their wards will become, not to mention the artillery, should push them into meltdown. It won't be quick, at least some hours' work, but it will be done."

"But just in case, there are a number of contingencies. They can take down specific sections of the wards, or shut down their Artillery and release their Infantry and air forces. Our estimates say that they don't have all that great numbers of either, which is why they've been defensive for the last several years, but they could be wrong. In any case, this is where we release our forces, and start taking down their numbers. Clear?"

"Sir yes sir!"

"All right. Move out, there are ten minutes left"

What he hadn't told them, because they didn't need to know, was that with a few exceptions, all their work was diversionary action.

It was simple, really. In the whole army, every single regiment in every single legion had two technical teams, trained in everything from controlling and recreating bindings on demons to warding and curse-breaking to repairing mystic codes. That meant that there were going to be thirty teams in play here today. Out of them, fifteen would stay right here, working on the needed pieces of complicated magic that they had to do, along with the inevitable emergency repair work, in which they would be working with the medical corps (who had similar numbers, but by and large would be staying right there).

The other fifteen were going to be doing far more interesting work.

He continued thinking, while reflexively donning his armour and weapons, till it was time.

He put on the communicator that they all had been issued with, a black piece that was hooked onto the ear, with a mike extending halfway down the cheek and a little bit of glass extending horizontally over the eye. He knew that the visor was perhaps the greatest weapon of everything they carried, carrying spells that allowed the wearer to look through surfaces, use look on all seven planes (which, when it was a natural talent, was called "mage sight" or "third vision"), and also had all of the spells on an Omnioculars set.

Similar scenes had just ended with the Assault forces Epsilon and Sigma, who were operating on similar plans, just engineered for their respective needs. They were led by the two marshals in Harry's army, mainly as the fortresses they were tasked with had been judged vulnerable in those ways by the analysts.

So, when the time came, it was a simultaneous attack on three on the strongest contenders in the war, and it was being carried out by superbly trained, superbly equipped armies, who were all dedicated to the cause of their master.

Said master was on a mission of his own. After he'd geared up properly, Harry had gone out, intent on some serious slaughter and conquest. His aim was simple. As far as the Generals knew, the main fortresses would fall today, and the secondary ones left, would be easy pickings, in the coming days.

It was not so, not at all.

Harry intended to finish the three factions once and for all, and that meant taking everything they had in one, single, blitzkrieg attack.

"So, there are exactly twenty-one places that we need to take care of, yes?"

"Yes, Harry" Selene said in his ear.

"Okay. So, do one thing. Prep an info packet, containing all the details, like the exact locations, levels of preparation, etcetera, etcetera, of… fourteen of them. Actually, let me point them out."

"Certainly, Harry." The answer came, before his visor displayed a map of Russia with all the enemy strongholds marked out. The ones his forces were taking were already crossed out, and Harry crossed out another seven, separating them for himself.

In a few moments, he felt Selene gently probing his mind, before depositing the data.

"Okay, so, here we go." Harry steeled himself, and drew upon his powers, before he turned the ring on his finger.

Immediately, he could feel the spirits that made up his bodyguard retinue quail, utterly terrified. There were spirits mighty enough to level cities among them, and they quailed at the feel of the ring.

With good reason.

The world grew dark. All sound in the air ceased, and the sun's warmth dimmed noticeably, while the Earth seemed to be suddenly burdened. A presence of purest blackness, looking like a hole in the air, materialized beside Harry.

Rolling his eyes, Harry said loudly. "Cut that out, Uzariel"

Immediately, the special effects ended. What was left behind was still intimidating, in the form of a giant shadow standing tall, but now seemed somewhere close to professional.

"You're no fun." The spirit of the ring, also one of the most powerful entities in the whole of Nevernever, spoke.

"Anyway, ahem: What is your will, ring-bearer?"

"Ah, getting professional, are we?" Harry said casually (and as tiring as the charade of not being an emotionless psychopath was, it was a fairly amusing role).

He pushed the information in his mind to the spirit, down the bond between them.

A few seconds later, he knew it had been understood, as the spirit asked. "I see ... And?"

"I want them all razed to the ground within the hour. Take the occupants alive wherever possible, but it is not a necessity. And I want both myself and Selene to be informed as soon as they fall."

"It shall be done."Harry heard.

And then he had to look away, because what happened then caused his mage sight to hurt, as the world seemed to light up in a blaze of colours. He saw Uzariel grow bigger and bigger, till it resembled more a mountain that anything else.

Had he not been the only one capable to seeing the spirit, Harry could have been worried about that.

Of course, the successive events made discretion and secrecy irrelevant. The giant slapped its hands together, before pulling them apart. And when they separated, a portal opened between them. It was a hole in the sky, like a fiery wheel tilted on its side. The fires extended like spokes towards its centre, burning with great ferocity, yet no heat reached Harry, and neither was its brightness reflected on the ground or the trees below.

It was there, but not there, a window to another world.

And through it, they came.

They were like a swarm of bees, like a curl of smoke. Noisy, with the whispers of their wings sounding as the rumbling of clouds, they descended to the Earth in a spiral, growing thick, then thin, and thick again.

As they neared, Harry saw details, forms every bit as exotic as the ones worn by any of his other summoned servants. Claws and beaks aplenty, jagged talons, tentacles and smoke dominated the sight. Flames coiled over bodies, and weapons shone. Scimitars, maces, rifles, broadswords, tank turrets, clutched in hands, tentacles, tails and other, even more elaborate appendages.

There were thousands of them, certainly far beyond anything any nation save Persia could have mustered. And not one of them was anything lesser that a level fifteen demon, that much Harry could sense easily.

He saw Balrogs, Ram-headed Daemons, screamers and Chaos demons. They swarmed the sky, hovering silently in the air, blotting out everything. Till the last of them came, and the hole closed behind them. And then they dispersed, dividing into exactly fourteen separate armies.

He would have looked at them for longer, but he didn't have time.

He took to the air himself, first matching then surpassing the speed of sound in slightly more than a second (to exact, it was 1.209 seconds, slightly better than his previous record of 1.351 seconds. But then, he was that kind of person).

And so it was on.

As he approached the castle, Harry went over what he knew about them. The Council of Trepalnov was another republican faction, one that had somewhat better reserves of active soldiery and weapons that the Novgorod League. If he remembered correctly (and he always did), he'd sent the Air Marshal to lead the five legions as the Assault force Epsilon.

Intel reports had indicated that they had just moved their troops from the main fortress to the secondary ones, with a substantial contingent, around three or four million strong, to the very castle that Harry was headed to.

Well, that should be just about enough to give him a decent workout. Although he did wonder how they would be controlling them. Meaning that the controllers would, of course, have to be among or slightly behind the controlled objects, but would they mark themselves out clearly, or do the smart thing? (Harry's controllers for his non-living infantry were clothed and armoured exactly the same as the infantry itself, which made it utterly impossible for anyone without the third eye to pick them out. Even with it, it was deucedly difficult)

As he neared the castle, he knew. Well, it had been too much to expect that war-tired minds would have the imagination anyway. He could see the columns marching out, with dirty-half rotted Inferi, golems, and transfigured items marching out. For a second he wondered why the hell that was happening, but then he remembered.

Well, the chaps had their comm. systems top notch, at least, if reinforcements were already rolling out in minutes of the attack. Although judging by the state of readiness, they must have been planning a march to somewhere anyway.

Still, it didn't matter anyway.

Harry went to work immediately, casting diagnostic spells, aimed to locate just who it was that the magical bindings were controlled by. The spells, obviously, showed no result. That was fine. Anyone who'd taken control of nine leylines couldn't be that stupid anyway.

He moved on to higher spells, while drifting gently to keep up with the war host. No result. It was when he was at the very highest echelons of divination magic, that he struck gold. Whatever the spells keeping the bindings hidden from his third eye were, they had been broken or ignored by Harry's magic. He activated the mage sight, and then looked at the marching soldiers again.

Only to frown in annoyance; the strings were a convoluted mess, tied this way and that, making it completely impossible to identify who the leaders were. It had been expected, but that didn't make it any less bothersome.

Well, that ruled out surgical strikes. Wholesale slaughter it was, then. Somehow, Harry couldn't bring himself to care.

At least, he would be able to test drive his powers.

Closing his eyes for a brief second, Harry turned his focus inwards. Glyphs glowed all over his body for a brief second, as the deepest sleeping of his powers came to life. Every battle-ritual he'd ever done was then activated, and readied for use.

White flame enveloped his hands. Magic poured from his body, as his teeth elongated into fangs, while claws emerged from the fingernails. Wave after wave of magic poured out of him, as his skin acquired the tell-tale glint of scales, and his pupils became narrow slits, as of a dragon.

A dark chuckle emerged from his lips, as he descended like a hawk, letting lose a wide, crescent shaped bolt of magic. A sadistic grin manifested on his face, as the soldiers below scattered like rats, all to no avail as their bodies rotted cleanly through their armours, while the magic animating other objects simply ceased to be.

Immediately after that, he let loose a series of fireballs, each several meters in diameter in the beginning, and growing as it fell. They hit the disoriented soldiers in a fraction of a second, roasting alive tens of thousands of expendables and hundreds that were not.

It was after this that that Harry saw chariots and Hippogriff-mounted cavalry take to the air. He let them come near, before speaking out a spell of War Magic. Immediately, magic poured out of his whole body, enveloping him in a sphere. The cavalry didn't stop, no doubt thinking it some sort of defence.

They couldn't have been more wrong. A second after it formed, the whole sphereacquired a very specific flavour of magic.

One of conjuration.

Hippogriff parts, wheels, scrap metal and human limbs alike rained out of the sky, as thousands upon thousands of bladed weapons rained upon the airborne units in speeds that ran to over 2000 mph. Some of them had raised shields, yes, but the weapons were reinforced iron.

After that Harry aimed another volley of fireballs at the spots the air defenders had launched from (finding them out was the reason he'd been hanging up there anyway). As they approached, several hasty shields were thrown up, with about as much effectiveness as a sheet of polythene against an artillery shell.

As soon as Harry confirmed that any air power there was had been suitably crisped, he descended to the Earth. As he did, Zar'roc (the name he'd decided upon eventually) appeared into Harry's hand. Seeing this, swords, guns, RPGs and other various weapons were swiftly drawn by the defenders themselves.

Well, it doesn't take a master's degree to figure out what happened next.

It took a long time, sure, and more than a few serious injuries were sustained by Harry. But the end result was never in doubt. With the holders of the wards dead, they had gone into lockdown, but wards based on substandard wardstones and cast by shady, back-alley enchanters (the top notch ones all being with either the stronger parties or Harry himself), were far from being a problem for him.

The scene was repeated, with similar results, six more times, while tech crews descended on the smoking ruins that were left behind, sweeping them clean of anything valuable and then bottling the castles, while landing previously bottled fortresses there. Each of them had been warded and enchanted personally by Harry, and each carried enough animated and other non-living-magical defences to withstand just about anything. In any case, once the tech crews were finished replacing the keystones, calibrating the wardstones to protect the fortresses, and setting up the defensive networks, they took rooms there, in the form of the skeleton crews of the strongholds.

While this was happening, the vassals were busy taking out the main fortresses.

As set out in the plan, the main army was camped out in front of the buildings, at the exact maximum limits of their artillery's range. This had an advantageous effect no one could have foreseen, in that the distance placed them out of range from the defenders' weapons, and increasing the range accordingly added yet another burden to the already overtaxed keystones.

And the real goals of the whole operations were being carried out right under the defenders' noses all this time.

"Hurry it along a bit, will you?" said the girl called Jennifer Austins, who, not a long time ago, had been a simple village girl. Upon being given a full education in a matter of weeks, it had been discovered that she had considerable talent for Arithmancy and Ancient Runes, which made her perfect for Enchanting and Warding-related work.

And that was how she was here, as the number two to the leader of tech. team Zulu.

"I'm trying, girl. Just wait." Her boss, a Peverell family vassal by the name of Alfred Montis said, well used to her feigned impatience.

The work wasn't easy, in all fairness. They were crouching here, in the jeep that was parked at the exact edge of the Fortress wards, serving also as the anchor for their own wards. The man was leaning out, casting an endless series of spells.

What he was doing was very, very delicate work. To put it simply, wards around the building were a spherical structure, encompassing the whole plot, extending the exact distance both above and below the ground. It was a familiar schema to the men, being near-enough impregnable to all conventional and most unconventional means. They had no irregularities, no gaps, the spells comprising them shaped into thin but unbreakable threads, interlocking again and again in the air around them to form a web that covered each and every square centimetre of the surface area of the sphere.

For all of that, it was a rather stupid scheme to use, given that ninety-nine per cent of the time both the keystones and the ward stones had to be located at the exact centre of the sphere. So… once someone knew how to beat it, the rest was a piece of cake.

And these people did know.

Jennifer watched entranced, as under the careful coaxing of the man's spells, one by one the threads comprising the ward matrix lit up in her visor. She saw the concealment spells quietly and effectively neutralized, by simply shifting their ranges so that instead of covering the whole area, they left a 10x5 foot area bare, doubling back on its surroundings instead.

They could have removed the spells entirely, but it would have triggered alarms. After the needed area was exposed, her boss stepped away, letting her and the rest of the three team members go to work. They pulled out a small case, from which they pulled out what looked like a folded ruler at first sight.

As a matter of fact it was a foldable doorframe, and they unfolded it, creating a 7x4 frame that was set straight in front of the ward screen. After that, they pulled out from the same case, four thin, foot long rods, which were fixed into the frame at its corners. At their other ends (the one poking out in the air) were glyphs, all of them currently glowing a bright red.

The frame fixed, they turned, as the well-oiled machine that they were, back to the case, which was now empty. Alfred probed its bottom till he found what he was looking for, a slight irregularity. As soon as he found it, he pressed his fingers in a rough circle around it.

In a few seconds, his fingerprints had been scanned, and Jennifer knew that then it was the turn for magic. She kept her eyes focused as, keeping his fingers in the same position, he channelled a bit of magic down them. Once his magical signature was identified, he altered the flow, creating several fluctuations that, while too minor for her visor to detect, she could sense by her own magic sense.

She studied them carefully till she confirmed that it was one of the hundred single-use patterns they'd both been taught.

Once the pattern of fluctuations matched with what had been fed into the box previously, a new surface appeared. It wasn't much, just four glyphs, the exact mirror images of the ones on the frame. As one, all members of the team except for the leader put their wands to the glyphs. The next seconds, their wand signatures were recognized, and the glyphs glowed white.

Good. The system was now on. Immediately afterwards, the glow turned red, causing them to remove their wands. What the red glow indicated was that currently the binding spells, that is, the spells that were there to ensure that the other spells stayed in the correct position and on the correct strength, were at full power.

After that it was a waiting game. With the hammering the wards were taking, two things could happen. One was, the wards would falter, at the exact threshold between the 'safe' and the 'collapse imminent' stages (the terminology had to be different for the enemies, but the point remained). Or, the defenders would somehow boost those wards, strengthening them.

Either way, the fixed state would cease. The wards would be malleable in the transition state, irrespective of whether the transition was upwards or downwards. It wouldn't be a very long window, two or three seconds at the most, but it was all that was needed to get the magical tethers in, and begin the unravelling process.

Just begin, mind you. Even after that it would take a long time.

And a long time was what it did take. As things turned out, the defenders opted to let the wards weaken and fall, opting to put their faith in their active defences.

Stupid thing to do, really, but then they weren't to know, were they?

Still, after that it was just as they had been trained. As soon as the wards flickered for the first time, the glyphs on the board turned green, signifying readiness. Quick as anything, all four placed the tips of their wands on the signals, beginning a series of spells meant to slowly disable the wards within the area of the frame.

It was delicate work, to say the least. The ward structure depended on the threads of magic meeting at two diametrically opposite points, exactly a certain distance above and below the centre of the circular plot of land over which they were cast. This was the key.

If the strings disconnected for even one fraction of a second (as in if someone or something interrupted them), the spells went active, releasing their effects. It was this system, exactly, that had to be subverted to make an undetected entrance, and that was what was being done.

There was a gaping weakness in the system. While the threads being broken was easily detected (and the backbone of the system), the threads meeting wasn't. So, a capable magic user could find their way with a very specific method.

They all watched, as under the careful urging of their magic, the threads started to meet along the circumference of the frame. Knot after knot was created, string overlapped, coincided, and interconnected, creating, and this was the point, really, an exact simulation of the connection point below the earth.

Slowly, as thread after thread combined at the circumference, they ceased to be inside the area itself. This continued for over an hour, till it was over, and the door shaped frame served as an actual doorway into the wards.

Of course, that wasn't all. They worked on, casting spell after spell at the grounds, testing for other wards. It was unlikely, as the strain of multiple ward schema would be unbearable for the substandard keystones intelligence said these guys had, but it was just possible.

Thankfully, it wasn't.

Spell after spell showed the same result: Grounds Clear. There was another set of wards on the building itself, but it would be easy for them to crack.

So it was with a light mood that the team reported their success to the CO. they received their orders, which were to move in and execute their primary objective, the replacement of the keystones, while leaving behind one member to oversee the entry of the Hunter squads that would carry out their primary objective.

All in all, it was a matter of some hours, before their work was done. The fortress of the League of Novgorod had fallen to the Ouroboros Alliance.

The same, although Austin didn't need to know about it and therefore hadn't, had happened to two other fortresses, and several minor ones. In every case, the victory was exactly as it had been predicted to be, and the direst contingencies that had to be invoked was an H-class (with A being the original plan, and B, C, and D being worse ones progressively).

It was a testament to what they had been repeatedly told, that well made plans did, in fact, survive contact with the enemy, and as a matter of fact it was the enemy that wasn't supposed to survive contact with them.

Still, well-made or not, the plans had worked, the opposition had fallen, and all of a sudden, the most powerful faction in the Russian Civil war were the Strassinovs, in their new partnership with the Ouroboros Alliance.

Now it would be another day worth of landing castles, bases, factories, casting wards, spells, linking enchantments, before the men could rest.