Chapter 12 "Challenges"
DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Note From Vorlon666
Hi All. Sorry this chapter took a lottle longer than usual. I want to thank all of my reviewers for all of their comments. I try to reach as many as possible but time is short. I want to re-assure all of you that I fully plan on finishing my fic, do not worry about that. As I said before I need on average 4 weeks per chapter. I am still working at improving my grammar. Well besides that I think I have managed to incorporate some of Book 6 from J.K into this story. See if you can pick up some of the clues.
Well Things are going to start really heating up from now on. I havereceived some flames concerning the brutality of my fic. I would like to remind those viewers that this is a Rated M and has horror for genre. Yes my Harry is swift in delivering justice. But that is how I feel he should be. Not some wimp getting beat up by his uncle. Well enough said, Enjoy.
Harry found himself in the dark. He quickly lit the torches in the chamber and walked towards the middle of the chamber to take a really good look. He decided to take his time and gather his thoughts. Harry knew that this was going to be the training chamber for his army. Harry knew that he already spent an awful lot of fluxtime training. If he wanted to have enough life left to see his grandchildren, he had to moderate his fluxtime from now on. This is why he wanted Neville, and Luna up to speed. They would take the weekends to train the others, while they would learn more from him in real time. With some modifications this place would be ideal for that purpose.
Harry needed a way to get his students in the chamber of secrets without being detected. The best way to accomplish this was to create his special portkeys using his patented neutrino apparition signature. Unlike his and his wife's ring, he was going to make some minor modifications to the portkey ring. Harry felt that except for his immediate family and a very few select group of people, these portkey's rings would contain a runic summoning charm that would be impossible to see or break unless they knew the spells in high parseltongue.
This way if by some fate of chance one of his soldiers betrayed him, he would be able to get the portkey back from anywhere in the world. As before all he had to do was imprint his apparition signature in a crystal, cast some special runes, and let the person raw magic replenish the crystals energy. The main crystal would contain his apparition signature, with a permanent locking charm. The surrounding four crystals around the main acted as the magical storage and discharge medium. It supplied the main with the energy to activate the apparition signature. A second charm was layered on the main crystal locking charm in order to allow the input of co-ordinates. This could be done via a mental picture, or grid co-ordinates. The ring should be able to complete four portkey transports before being recharged. The base of the ring needed to be made of naquadah.
Harry devoted a lot of time on how he wanted to alter the chamber. He needed to make it even bigger, add some portals and re-configure the front door. Only a parseltounge could get in, however he wanted to change the password to high parseltongue. This way only he could open the door. This way not even snake face would be able to get it. After about 15 minutes, Harry had managed to change the password. It had not been too difficult since no one expected the heir of Salazar Slytherin to want to change the password, therefore no special locking charms were put on the password.
When he was done, Harry turned around, and began making a mental picture of how he wanted the new training area to look like. He could use expansion charms, but he didn't want to waste valuable crystals, naquadah and magical energy. He needed all of these resources towards building his trunk manor, wands, portkey's and other weapons. Besides, there was more than enough space underground to expand the chamber by simply removing more stone, and building re-enforcing buttress.
His first problem was to find a place to banish the rock. Thank God he had quite a bit of practice at mining. He knew that the English strata were made up of many different layers of lime, sandstones and granite mixed with large underground caverns interspersed in the strata. He simply had to find an underground pocket to banish the granite.
He made his way to the center of the chamber and sat down in a lotus position. He relaxed his mind and entered his magical core. He then pushed his magical sense to the surrounding chamber and below. At roughly two kilometres beneath him and about three kilometres to the left laid a huge empty cavern. He let his magical sense explore the cavern and quickly managed to build a three dimensional picture of the underground cavern. Harry then triangulated its position with respect to the chamber. Once he had a clear idea of the co-ordinates, he stood up and went to face the left wall of the camber. Harry took out his new wand, and began mining the walls. He used simple reducto to pulverize chucks of walls and banished the rock into the underground cavern. Every ten feet Harry transfigured supporting struts.
By 11:30, he was feeling quite exhausted and decided to call it a day. He figured he was halfway done excavating and building support for the left chamber wall. He had a week to get this finished, and he planned on spending all of his free periods down here finishing his training chamber. Deciding that he was to tired to even apparate himself out, he used his wedding ring and portkey himself to his trunk manor by the lake. Within seconds, he was standing in the trunks portkey room. Harry made his way out of the portkey room and proceeded to the kitchen to get himself a light snack. After taking down some pepper up potion and energy boosters, he made his way to one of the bathrooms. He took a quick shower and made his way to the master bedroom.
Being very careful not to make a sound., he approached the bed and noticed his wife sleeping peacefully with her beautiful dark hair falling around her face. He stripped down and took his naked self in between the sheets. He came into a lotus position, and began clearing his mind and sorting all of his memories and putting them into their proper folders.
When he was done clearing his mind and sorting his memories, he laid himself to bed and decided to see if some of his magical energy was still present in Dumbledore's mind. He wanted to see if his theory on inserting a Trojan would work. Harry figured that Dumbledore was merely days away from completely purging his mind of his raw magical energy sphere. Harry pictured creating a mind link to Dumbledore similar to the one he had with Voldemort. The only difference was that this link would be temporary.
Slowly Harry felt himself falling towards a dark tunnel. Harry had figured out that creating a mind link was no different than apparating. You were simply connecting two things in time using magic as the transport medium. You simply had to be very clear and focused as to where you wanted to go. After a while, Harry felt himself connecting to a residual ball of raw magic which he recognized as his magical signature buried deep in Dumbledore's consciousness. He felt himself connect with his magic, he felt as if he was in a small spherical chamber. From what he could tell, Dumbledore was indeed close to eradicating the last remnants of his raw magic. He stood in the sphere thinking of the best way to get out of it without making Dumbledore aware that he was in his head. Creating a door, was definitely out of the question, it would be far too suspicious and would definitely rouse the old coot.
After some thinking, he decided to create a crack in the sphere. He knew that this would only further the destruction of his raw magical sphere, but it also had the advantage of fooling the old coot into thinking that he had caused the crack in the sphere. This would also be a much more subtle way of accessing Dumbledore's memories. It was much easier for him to create a crack in the sphere. Harry didn't have to push against his magic, all he had to do was to call some of it back to him since it had a natural affinity for him at any rate.
Harry carefully called some of his magic until he saw crack forming like a spiders web. He allowed the crack to grow until he was sure that it was big enough to allow his conscious mind to slip through. He made his mind tune out all emotions, and pictured a serene desert landscape under a full moon. He then allowed his conscious mind to push through the crack and allowed his conscious mind to gently float down through the layers of Dumbledore's subconscious. Harry was careful to not apply any pressure. He soon found himself absorbing interesting bits of information.
Harry smiled to himself, he now knew the coordinates to Dumbledore's manor. The old boy must have been thinking of home. He was now able to pick up bits of information relating to Potter. How very interesting Harry thought to himself. If Dumbledore thought that his little plan to make him drop his lawsuit would work, he was severely delusional. Harry also realized that Dumbledore was asleep, however he felt the old man start to wake. Harry knew he had to get out, he had counted on Dumbledore being asleep, and his gamble had paid off, however with Dumbledore being consciously awake, he stood a real chance of getting noticed. Harry knew his own limitations, and he was not stupid enough to underestimate the old coot. Harry felt that he had enough information to come up with a counter plan.
Harry carefully pulled his consciousness back through the crack and inside his own magical sphere. He then made his way back through the temporary link and after what seemed a long trip, he made his way back into his own mind. He made sure that the link was completely destroyed and catalogued the information he had gained. He realized how tired he was and thanked god that his first class would not be until 1:00 pm. He didn't have his schedule yet, but Harry was still able to get the info on his future timetable from Dumbledore himself. No doubt the old coot had a say in it. Well he thought it looks like I'll be dealing with Snape after all. Through the link Harry found out that Snape was going to teach DADA. What fucking joy he though. Well no one said you had to attend class. With that thought and others, Harry fell into a deep sleep.
Xiana woke up at around seven o'clock the following morning. She turned and looked at her husband. She couldn't help herself and smiled watching him sleep. She could see his brows furrow, it looked like he was trying to solve a difficult problem. Even in sleep she though, her husband seemed to carry the balance of the world on his shoulders. Xiana remembered not hearing Harry come in last night. He must have been busy at school she thought. She normally woke up earlier than this, but she could tell that her body was changing, and that it needed more rest. She subconsciously brought her hand to her belly and started rubbing it. Xiana felt a lot more randy which she attributed to being pregnant, then again she was just deluding herself. Truth be told she simply enjoyed making love with her husband. He was so considerate of her needs and pleasure.
With that thought she looked at the clock again and knew she had tons of time. Xiana began kissing her husbands lips, and then moved to his neck. She could hear Harry starting to moan. With a smirk she moved down to his muscled chess and started kissing his nipples. Harry began to moan harder. Xiana slowly moved her way to his abs. By this time her husband had a full erection. She started to slowly stoke his phallus, after more moans on his part she straddled him and started rubbing herself against his erection. By this time she was moaning herself. This went on for quite a while, she looked down on her husband when his eyes flicked open and Xiana noticed a very hungry look in his eyes. She decided to properly greet him and said "Hello beloved, how are you on this fine morning." She teased.
Harry was now fully awake and in the heat of passion. He looked at his gorgeous wife with a huge grin on his face and said, "I am in heaven I think. This is far better than an alarm clock any day love."
Harry started to slowly kiss his wife's neck and slowly worked his way to her breast. He gently stroked and massaged her nipples. He brought his lips to her nipples and suckled and teased the tips with his tongue. He could feel his wife rubbing herself against his erection at a much quicker pace. He kept on kissing her nipples and suddenly felt his wife grab his erection and guide it inside her. She slowly lowered herself to allow her muscles to adjust to his size, and began riding him. Due to the angle of penetration, Harry was now massaging her G spot to his wife's great satisfaction he could see. He noticed his wife biting her lower lip and moaning with desire. He kept the rhythm going until his wife climaxed. He followed suite not long after and came inside her. Xiana could feel his rhythmic pulsing. When they were done she pulled out and collapsed on his chess.
God it felt so good making love to her husband. She looked at him and noticed a look of concern and said, "What's wrong love?" she said with apprehension.
Harry looked at her and looked like he was debating with himself and finally said, " Making love like this is not going to hurt the baby is it?" Xiana looked at him and burst out laughing.
Harry looked at her with a slight hurt on his face, Xiana was quick to notice it, and came over and kissed him solidly on the lips, she pulled away and gave him a long explanation about sex and pregnancy. She also described a woman's libido during pregnancy and what they could do while having sex. Harry looked back at her and said "I sure have a lot to learn don't I?"
Xiana replied "No worry's love, you will eventually figure it all out." She looked at him with a smirk. He looked back at her and smirked himself. He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her onto her back and began tickling her. Xiana went into a fit of giggles and finally called uncle. Harry smiled and released her from her torture. She grabbed him by the head and forced him down to a passionate kiss. Harry returned the gesture with equal passion. After some serious kissing, they broke apart.
Harry managed to say, "Well love it's time to get going as much as I hate to do it." Harry sighs and went for a quick shower. Xiana waited for Harry to finish and then when to get herself ready. When they were done with their morning ritual, they both portkeyed to Potter castle and met Remus for breakfast. Over breakfast they all discussed the days agenda.
It was decided that Xiana and Remus would go investigate a failed muggle newspaper agency in London. That particular agency was not too far from the Leaky Caldron. The idea was to buy new paper agency, renovate, print and shock the shit and complacency out of the wizarding world. According to Sun-Tzu the war of words is just as important as physical battle. There is only one way to fight propaganda and it's with irrefutable information. If negotiations went smooth, the Scorpion Sorcerer was going to have a vehicle to educate the inbred purebloods.
Harry explained that he had found the perfect place to train his troops. He told them about the chamber of secrets, and what his plans were. He also told them about his little excursion into Dumbledore's mind the previous night and the information he had gathered. Remus was the first one to say
"Cub, will you be able to get back inside the old coots head in the future?" Harry looked at Remus hopeful expectation and was forced to let him down.
Harry replied, "Sorry Moony, but this was a one time shot. I noticed that he has almost completed purging his mind of my raw magical energy. I was forced to crack open the last remnants of my magical sphere that I put in his head in August in order to gather bits of information. I have no doubt that by this weekend, he will have purged the last bits of my raw magical energy. No matter though, I have the information I need to screw his plans." Harry finished with a smirk on his face. Remus and Xiana looked at each other, and knew perfectly well what that smirk meant. They simply smiled at each other and went back to eating their breakfast.
Remus was looking at his cub, and knew dam well that Harry had developed a devious plan to deal with Snape and the Headmaster. One thing Remus knew for sure, under estimating his cub was an extremely dangerous proposition at best. They finished breakfast and Harry went to find Dobby and Winky for some information. Harry wanted to make sure that the other meteoric sites were mined of Naquadah. He would extract the Naquadria at a later time once he had the Naquadah mined. Naquadria was locked in the Naquadah anyway. He didn't want to send Dobby and Winky since they needed to build more trunk manor. He wanted to know if there were more elves' who wanted to be bonded and get out of Hogwarts. He would ask Dobby to find any free elf's who wanted to be bonded again.
Harry entered the kitchen and spotted Dobby. Dobby looked up and immediately dropped what he was doing and came over to greet his master. Dobby looked at his master and said, "Hello Master Harry Potter greatest wizard sir, how can Dobby assist you sir?"
Harry smirked at his elf's antic and said "Dobby, do you know if there are more elf's looking for work. I need my top elf's to look after Xiana, the castle and building new trunk manors. I have other work that needs doing, and I only trust elf's to do this work properly." Harry finished and saw the deep look of respect that Dobby was giving him. Harry could see his favourite elf scrunch up his face and think hard. After what seemed like a minute, Dobby came out of his trance and said,
"Master sir, Dobby knows of at least four more elf's that be needing a new home and master sir. I would be glad to contact them for you sir?"
Harry replied," Dobby I would be very happy to meet them. I will get in touch with you this Friday and we can meet them one by one, how does this sound? "
Dobby replied, "That is being perfect master Harry Potter sir. I believe that they will join our group sir." Harry got down on his knee and gave the little elf and quick hug. His little buddy had watery eyes. Harry really loved Dobby. He knew that he would always have a very special connection to the elf. Harry could see and feel the deep-seated loyalty emanating from Dobby. Harry mused that elf's had to be the most under estimated magical creatures in the wizarding world. Once again in his eyes, the wizarding world was showing it's utter stupidity.
Harry thought that if he won this war, the elf's were going to have a much different deal than they currently have in the wizarding world. With this thought in mind he went to greet Annubis and Hedwig. When he reached them he petted Hedwig and asked her if she would like to stay at Hogwarts with the other owl's. She hooted showing him that she would indeed like to stay at Hogwarts for a while. He was going to apparate with her to Hogwarts later this morning. Harry then turned to Annubis and said.
"Hello great one, would you like to come with me to Hogwarts today?"
" Yeesss masssteer, I would welcome the action"
Harry smiled down at his friend. Annubis was very straightforward. He needed to ask him another question.
" Great one, do you know how many more of your kind there are and where can I find them. We need to repopulate your species, and I think you would welcome companionship"
Annubis raised his head and nodded towards his master in pleasure, and said " Massteer, I know where to go in the great heat to find my kind."
Harry replied,"Very well, at the end of this month we will go late at night and find them and bring them here."
Harry felt that he owed it to the ancients to keep their work from going extinct. In any case, there was a very good chance that his children would be able to speak parseltongue, and being bonded to a temple snake would give them a huge advantage in security and they would need one of them to learn high parseltongue and the ancient dark arts when the time came. With this thought, he picked up Annubis and wrapped him around his torso. Harry's next item on his agenda was to contact his hackers friends. Harry had been thinking some more about Voldemort's finances and came to the conclusion that snake face had to be doing business in the muggle world somehow to finance his war. The wizarding population was not big enough to garner the finances needed to support a full blown war effort.
If Harry knew one thing, it was that Voldemort was as sick as they come. Any business he was into would most likely bee illegal and hurt muggles at the same time. Voldemort was many things, but stupid was not one of them. Most of his illegal money would most likely be deposited in secure muggle banks. The money also needed to be laundered before being brought back to Gringotts. He most likely had a top secure vault at Gringotts under a pseudo name. Trying to get information from the Goblins concerning large vaults was impossible.
They were completely indifferent to wizards, and their ministry. Goblin rules applied to the wizarding population equally. Making an appeal that he was looking for a vault belonging to Voldemort wouldn't matter one damn bit to them. Harry understood why that was, if they started pandering to one side or another, they would loose credibility and profits. To a Goblin, that was hitting two major pillars of their beliefs.
Harry needed to first find out what business Voldemort was into, find out who the players were, where the money was located, and which Gringotts vault he was laundering the money into. Once he had this information, he needed to eliminate the players, drain Voldemort's accounts and shut down his businesses. The plan was simple, however its execution was going to be a real bitch. He went to his computer and hooked up to the Internet. Once he was hooked up, he sent an e-mail to his hacker contact.
TechnoMage
I have another little job that requires very specific skills. I need you to assign some of your members to doing a little research for me. I have already sent you $20,000 pounds via mail order. It is sitting at your drop box. If you need more, let me know. I need you do research the Internet for some shady businesses. I need to know what they do, where they are located, and if you are able to crack into their computer system. If you are able to crack their systems could you please copy any information available and send it to me via e-mail. When you are done get back to me. To get you started look under the following pseudo name:
Riddle, Voldemort, Marvollo, Salazar, Basilisk, Muggle, Dark Arts, and Slytherin. If you dig up anything, I need contacts and addresses if you can get them. Don't worry as per our agreement; I have used your program to encrypt this message. You know how to contact me; I'll be checking my e-mail regularly.
Good Luck
Sincerely
Scorpio
Remus happened to be passing by the library when he saw Harry playing with that machine of his. He came over and said, " Harry are you still playing with that machine again?"
Harry looked back at Remus and replied, " Mooney, one thing I learned this summer was that this is much more than a simple machine. This machine provides information, and knowledge. Knowledge is power. I'll find sometime and introduce you to the muggle Internet system. It is far more efficient than owl's Remus. With this machine I have knowledge available at my fingertip from around the world."
Remus perked up at that and said, " Well, I have always been interested in muggle inventions. This look's like a good one to know." Remus told Harry he needed to get going and walked off to find Xiana.
Harry sent his e-mail and made his way up to his master bedroom to get dressed. He decided on a pair of Armani charcoal pants and a royal blue silk shirt with silver images of a stag, grim and a wolf. He changed his earring for a sapphire and put his katana in place with a disillusion charm. He was wearing his basilisk boots. His decided to leave his hair in a ponytail and cap the end with a silver scorpion stinger. He took one last look in the mirror and liked what he saw. He decided to leave his basilisk robe for today. He could always apparate back to get it if he needed it.
Harry decided to apparate into moaning Myrtle bathroom. No one ever went there and it was close to the great hall. He pictured the bathroom and in the blink of an eye he found himself standing by the entrance to the chamber of secrets. Harry smiled and knew that if Dumbledore ever found out that he could apparate within Hogwarts he would shit himself. Harry exited the bathroom and made his way to the great hall. The moment he entered, he noticed quite a few people turn towards him. He looked at some of them and smiled and others he sneered at.
Harry looked around and noticed that he was a bit early, however the food was still laid out on the table. With that in mind he made his way to the Gryffindor table and sat down. He decided on some chicken and roast potatoes with gravy. Halfway toward his meal, he noticed Ginny coming to the table. She noticed him and gave him an awkward smile. Harry looked at her and knew from looking into her face that she desperately wanted to talk to him. Harry suddenly knew that he had to talk to her and explain some things. Ginny was petite but she was a powerful witch and had lots of potential. Harry had to make a concerted effort to win her in his camp. Every body that was denied to Voldemort or Dumbledore only re-enforced his cause. Harry decided to strike up a conversation by saying.
"Hi Ginny, come over here I have not seen you since my last meeting with the bird club."
Ginny smiled at his description of the order of the Phoenix. Truth be told, after the revelations concerning Dumbledore and Harry, her sympathy actually laid with Harry. The problem was her family. She did not want to become a black sheep. That being said, she owed Harry a life debt. God she was so frustrated with everything. She needed to talk to someone about this. Why was life so damn complicated she thought. She made up her mind and said.
"High Harry, it's really good to see you. How are you holding up?"
Harry replied, "I'm fine Ginny, I find that personal freedom really agrees with me. "
Ginny returned, "I wouldn't know about that Harry, I have not been paroled by my family yet."
Harry noticed a real sour look in her face when she mentioned that last bit. Harry used his legilliment ability and carefully sorted through her surface memories. After a few seconds he pulled back deep in thought. Harry now understood the deep conflict that Ginny was going through. She loved her parents very much and wanted to believe them when they agreed with Dumbledore. Her head and soul told her that Dumbledore was wrong for betraying Harry like he did. She thought that if there were other members of her family that thought like her, then she wouldn't feel bad about standing up to her parents. Harry decided to help her out and said.
"Ginny, I can tell from your face that you have conflicting thoughts regarding me. Why don't you write to Bill. You need to sort out your feelings, and I think Bill can help you do that. Bill knows a lot more about what is going on and I think he can help you sort out your feelings. Once you have talked to him, come and see me next week. I am sure we will have lot's to discuss." Harry was about to ask her another question when the traitors decided to show up.
Ron was talking to Hermione as they made their way to their table when he saw Ginny talking to the next would be Dark Lord. Dumbledore seemed to hint that Potter was turning dark. Who was he to question one of the greatest wizard of the age. Ron felt that Potter was being a coward for not accepting his fate. Who would not want to save the wizarding world and go down in history as a hero he thought. He could protect them all by his sacrifice. How dare Potter question Dumbledore's judgement on this issue. He looked at Hermione and from the look on her face she seemed to be thinking the same thing. Ron knew that Hermione respected Dumbledore's judgement in these matters.
Ron was fuming by the time he reached his baby sister. How dare she talk to him. He finally said.
"Ginny get away from him this instant. Mother would not be pleased to find out that you were talking to the next Dark Lord." Ron plastered and evil smirk on his face and decided to taunt his ex-best friend. He was going to try and see if he could get him a detention. He was a prefect after all, he was sure Dumbledore would agree.
Ginny turned around red in the face and said, "Ron, I'll talk to anyone I want, do I make myself clear! You are not my guardian, and you better remember that, or you will find out real quick what my modified bat bogey can do." Ginny was furious by now. How dare he of all people tell her what to do she thought.
Ron sneered back at her and replied, " I may not be your guardian, but if you don't want a howler from mom I strongly suggest that you not talk to him."
Ginny was now seething. She stood up and slapped her brother across the face as hard as she could, much to Ron's surprise. Ginny said "Don't you dare black mail me brother dearest." She spat the last words at him. She turned around and stormed out of the great hall. By this time the little confrontation was starting to gather some onlookers.
Harry looked at Ron and smirked at him, before going back to his meal. At this point Ron was furious. The thing that pissed him off the most was to be bested by Potter.
Ron narrowed his eyes and in a lisping manner said, "You stay away from my sister if you know what's good for you. I'll not have her be corrupted by a coward such as you. "
Harry slowly looked up at his former best friend and replied, "Gee Ron, how long did it take you to come up with those lines. I'll bet you stayed up all night rehearsing that one, after all we all know that you aren't the sharpest tool in the shed. Now if I had to hazard a guess, I would say that the beaver next to you must have helped you. Yah that's it. Now if you don't mind, I am trying to eat my meal in peace, so if you don't want to get hurt make like the wind and blow away."
Harry went back to his food. He was eating with his left and made sure to keep his right hand underneath the table where he slowly managed to pull one of his new wands out of his right boot. Harry made sure to not let anyone see him. He just waited for Ron to eventually loose it and curse him. Harry had a little surprise for him.
By this time Ron was fuming, and Harry noticed that Neville, Luna, Blaise and Brianna were all present. If things got out of hand, he needed witnesses. He made sure to take a quick peek at Snape who was looking at him, as if expecting something. Harry turned his head and looked at Ron with a smirk on his face, which he knew would only infuriate Ron.
Ron's face by now had taken on an almost puce like color. Ron looked down at the insufferable bastard and pulled out his wand and said, " Twenty points from Gryffindor. You are going to apologize to Hermione or so help me god I am going to let you have it."
Harry just looked at Ron and shaking his head with a smirk on his face and replied, "Carrot head, why don't you put the stick away, you are only going to blow some brain cells trying to come up with a decent curse." Before Ron could blow his hair off, Hermione put a hand on Ron's arm and kept him from hexing Harry. Harry knew what was coming next. Hermione replied in her usual know it all tone and attitude.
"You have changed Harry. There was a time where you would have done the right thing over the easy thing. There was a time when you would have risked your life for us. There is still a chance for you if you come back to the order. All can be forgotten. Dumbledore is not going to try to sacrifice you now. We can train you to properly face the Dark Lord. Do what's best for the wizarding world Harry. Listen to your conscience Harry, you know deep down that I am right about this. "
Harry looked at her straight in the eye and then started laughing as hard as he could, Hermione looked like she had been slapped in the face. Finally Harry got himself under enough control and managed to say with a sneer on his face.
"Gee Hermione, how much time did you spend with that old bastard to come up with your little speech. It's obvious I have to spell it out for you. First, don't worry, I'll take care of Voldemort because I learned long ago that the cowards of the wizarding world will never stand up for themselves and fight for their beliefs. When I am done with Voldemort however I'll make sure that the rest of the wizarding world remembers me. Second, I will never again allow ANYONE to control me, especially that bastard. Third, I suggest you take your pompous, self-righteous, know-it-all fucking self and get the hell away from me. Make sure to take your inbred pureblood boyfriend with you."
Harry heard Annubis through his mind link telling him that fire head was about to curse him. Harry mentally smirked at Annubis description of Ron.
As predictable as the rotation of the earth, Ron Weasley blew his hair off, and launched a flipendo curse towards Harry. Harry expected this to happen and managed to layer two spells, and silently cast protego and merde-effreno. Harry was very thankful that he was able to cast most of his spells silently.
Ron's spell hit Harry's shield, and was throw back toward Ron with Harry's second spell disguised in the flippendo's signature. Ron was hit square in the chest, and was thrown back over the Huffle Puff table and landed on his back. The next thing that happened was Ron loosing control of his bowels. The stench became immediate and overpowering. Some people began loosing their dinners. Hanna Abbot and Christine Johnson were the first. Harry made sure to quickly slip his new wand back inside his right boot.
Harry looked around and saw the shocked look on many people's faces. The next thing that Harry knew was that McGonagall and Snape were by his side. McGonagall with a deep frown and tight lip manage to utter with great difficulty.
"Mr. Potter what is the meaning of this disgraceful behaviour."
Harry replied, "My dear professor, you witnessed the whole thing, surely you have an idea of what happened, or has the headmaster given strict orders to turn a blind eye to attacks made on a student who happens to have Potter as a last name. " Harry sneered.
Snape was the first one to reply, "See Minerva, the little brat is no better than his useless father. His ego is just as big. It's a good thing that he is no longer with us, I don't think that our world could handle two gargantuan egos at the same time" He spat.
Harry by now had had enough, it was time to make these useless peons feel a little pain. Harry brought out his dementor replicating aura and concentrated on Snape. The effects were immediate. Everyone around Harry began feeling cold, and those nearest to him began feeling as if they would never be happy again. The biggest effect was on professor Snape. The man's face was contorted as if he was remembering a horrific experience. Snape fell down on one knee. His hands were balled into fist and were pressing against his temple.
After about twenty seconds, McGonagall who was by now shaking horribly managed to get Harry's attention by yelling for him to stop. Harry stopped projecting his dementor aura and looked at her straight face. Minerva could see his green orbs glowing with power. She managed to regain enough control of herself and weakly told him to go see the Headmaster. By now her breath was fast and shallow. Harry stood up leaving the rest of the hall gaping at him and at Snape almost unconscious form.
Everyone was shocked except Neville, Luna, Blaise and Brianna. Blaise already knew why it was a very bad idea to piss off his brother in law. Blaise looked at his sister and her eyes told him that she thought the same thing. Blaise noticed that Harry didn't even draw his wand out and yet had over a third of the Gryffindor table along with two teachers, incapacitated. Now that Blaise thought about it, he remembered seeing something similar during Harry's battle in France. Blaise wondered if he could learn to do this. In battle this could be a definite advantage.
Harry left the table with a sneer and made his way out of the great hall to go talk to the meddling fool. Harry had not meant to let things get this out of hand, but where Snape was concerned it became an almost impossible task to keep ones cool. That was one bastard he was going to take out of action real soon he promised himself. Harry finally made his way to the headmaster's office. He stood in front of the gargoyles and realized that McGonagall never gave him the password. The last thing he wanted to do was to keep guessing the stupid password.
He searched his memory from his mind link the previous night and realized that he already knew the password. Harry stood in front of the statue and said, " Smarties". The stone statues moved out of the way and Harry climbed the stairs. As he approached the top of the stairs, he realized that the headmaster was already sitting there. They left almost at the same time, Harry began thinking that there might be another secret passage way that did not even show up on the Marauders map. This might be worth investigating. Harry was pretty certain that it was not apparition on the headmaster's part. After all according to Hogwarts a history it was suppose to be impossible to apparate within Hogwarts.
Albus Dumbledore looked at the young man entering his office, and could not help feeling angry at how this young man had completely destroyed his carefully laid out plan. Valuable pawns had been sacrificed to get the young man where he wanted him, and in the space of one summer it had all been for nothing. Now he even admitted to himself that he was scrambling for damage control, and so far was not succeeding very well.
Albus had initially counted on his former best friends to help bring him back into the fold, but it seemed that the young mans loathing at their betrayal ran far deeper than he ever imagined. Albus for the first time had a really good look at the young man and noticed how much he had changed. Long gone was the scrawny young boy who left his fifth year. The person standing in front of him was confident, muscular, and exuded an aura of power. It seemed that Harry no longerwearing his cousin's cast off.
Albus also realized that he could no longer get an idea of what he was thinking. The last thing he wanted was a repeat of their last confrontation back at Grimmauld place. Upon closer inspection he noticed an earring in the shape of a scorpion made of sapphire quality gemstone. Albus was beginning to get an uneasy feeling at this point. He decided to wait a little bit and then ask him about it. There had to be some significance to this. Albus finally decided to break the ice and said.
"Well Harry, it would seem that you are off to an explosive start to your school year. I would have thought that you would have waited at least until the end of this month before getting into trouble. Now we need to discuss what to do about your attack on Mr. Malfoy last night and on Mr. Weasley and your professors during lunch time."
Harry did not believe that he could hate anyone more than Voldemort. However, the headmaster was now a close second to be sure. Harry knew that the headmaster was playing his little games, and was going to try to get a concession out of him. After what seemed like a minute, Harry said.
"My dear Headmaster, It would seem that again you did not bother gathering the facts and simply assumed that I was guilty or you simply choose to ignore the evidence. I know you were in the great hall just now, and you know that I never raised my wand. It was one of your prefect puppets who drew his wand on me remember." Harry waited a moment to let his words sink through.
Harry continued by saying, "As for your precious potions masters, he insulted my parents and I still did not raise my wand to him. Yet, you sit here accusing me. I wonder what you are really on about headmaster, perhaps you are trying to find a way to remove my leverage over you and are willing to use any transgressions to do it. Now headmaster, if we could please dispense with the bullshit, I find that I no longer have any patience with these fake pleasantries. "
Albus saw that Harry would not easily buckle under pressure. Perhaps the boy could be angered into revealing some of his secrets. Finally, Albus replied with a sickly smile.
" You are being very eloquent in your arguments Harry. However, the fact remains that you still attacked a teacher even if you were not using a wand. If you could explain what you did, perhaps I could find myself forgetting that this unfortunate incident ever occurred."
Harry replied, "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. I'm sorry headmaster but a truesorcerer never reveals his secrets. Before you go any further with your implied threats, I'll tell you right now that I will go straight to the board of governors and present them with my memories of the event. That with a copy of my bank documents showing your transgression in regards to the ancient and noble house of Potter should be more than enough to get you kicked out of this school as headmaster and maybe as chief warlock." Harry said the last bit with a feral grin on his face.
Dubledore's face suddenly went white and was taken back by the sheer hate he saw in Harry's eyes. After a minute he finally said, " You have changed Harry, and not for the better in my opinion. Is there no love left in your heart Harry? Because you know as well as I do that this is the first step towards the dark side."
Harry starred hard at the headmaster and started chuckling and finally managed to say, " Well, that's a little rich coming from the so called great light wizard sitting across from me. I wonder headmaster if any of your indiscretions ever came to light how many people would still think of you as a light wizard. Lets face it, deep down you are no different than Voldemort. You play people as if they were pawns on a chessboard. If there is one thing that I condone my parents for, it is for listening to your advice in the first place. They trusted you without question, to their ultimate downfall. I have no intention of repeating their mistakes. Since we both know very well what your ultimate plan was for me, you don't have a leg to stand on calling yourself a light wizard. So by all means, call me dark all you want, I would rather be called dark then blindly follow a semi senile, manipulative, egotistical, power hungry maniac like you."
Harry could see the fury building in the headmasters face, and to add insult to injury Harry could hear Phenias in the background hooting and hollering at the headmaster telling him how badly he had been put in his place by a sixteen-year-old brat. Harry had a wolfish grin on his face. The headmaster turned around and yelled at Phenias to shut up or else. Dumbledore turned towards Harry and stood while pointing a finger in Harry's direction and said.
"I will not be talked to in this manner by the likes of you. You will show me respect."
Harry was about to reply when Fawkes suddenly left his perch and landed on Harry's shoulder much to Dumbledore's dismay. Harry looked at Fawkes, smiled and replied, "Temper, temper mon Capitaine. In my eyes respect is earned and not blindly given due to someone's titles."
Albus realized that the boy had skilfully turned the tables on him by baiting him and making him loose his temper. My, my Albus thought, what a conniving little Slytherin you are becoming my dear Harry. The headmaster made a great show of sitting down and taking deep breaths as if he was dealing with a way ward child.
Albus decided to change tack and with a smile he said, " Please accept my apology for my previous indiscretion, these last two weeks have been a trifle difficult for me. Now perhaps you could shed some light on your relationship with this Scorpion Sorcerer. Severus witnessed the Scorpion Sorcerer fighting death eaters at your house not too long ago. You are also wearing an earring in the shape of a scorpion?"
Harry chuckled and pointed towards his scar and said, "He can't get through to me any more, but that doesn't mean I haven't tried getting through to him. The best times are when he's especially happy or angry. I can sometimes break through his barriers undetected. I saw what happened at Azkaban this summer."
He dropped his hand and shook his head. "This is just going to continue, headmaster. Voldemort is going to keep gaining new recruits, and few or none of his men are going to be taken out of the equation. It's no wonder you people were losing last time."
Dumbledore's frown deepened. "Harry-"
Harry's face hardened and said, "Do not ever call me Harry again. It Mr. Potter to you."
Dumbledore frowned and looked into Harry's eyes and said, "Very well Mr. Potter. Now as I was saying" But he was interrupted by Harry once more.
Harry wouldn't hear it. "No, headmaster, I know what you will say. The truth is that under Fudge's incompetence and you trying to take over St-Peter job at the pearly gates we are going to lose this war. The time has come for change, and the Scorpion Sorcerer is just the wizard to do it. Voldemort and his Death Eaters are not criminals to be punished with time in prison; they are soldiers on the opposing side of a war. You would do well to take a good long look at wars in the muggle world. When they fight a war, they understand that victory lies in defeating your opponent, not imprisoning him. Prisoners are taken, yes, but you cannot hope to capture and entire enemy force. It's an impossible task, and Voldemort's was just going to keep gaining supporters until the Scorpion Sorcerer showed up to scare them off. Under Fudge and your actions, all they see ahead of them if they get caught is a slap on the wrist and a short term in prison. Under the Scorpion Sorcerer actions they fear death and mutilation"
" Dear boy," Dumbledore protested, "We cannot sink to their level. If we do, we are no better than them."
"We are a free people, headmaster," Harry replied. "But if we are not willing to fight, to die, and yes, even to kill to defend that freedom, then we have no right being free." Harry looked straight into Dumbledore's eyes and said with as much conviction as possible "You may not be willing to go that far, but the Scorpion Sorcerer is. I am willing to follow him and use any weapons necessary to defeat those bastards, even using the Dark Arts if necessary. I believe a muggle by the name of General Douglas MacArthur once said something to the effect of, ""It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it."" A fitting quote don't you think."
Dumbledore stared at the young man for a moment, then rose and said, " I can only ask you to please reconsider where you are heading Harry. You know how important you are to the wizarding world. It would be ashamed if they thought that you were destined to be the next Dark Lord. Here is your time table. I will make sure that no disciplinary actions are taken against you this time. However, consider this a fair warning that I will no longer be lenient towards you."
Harry recognized this as a dismissal and picked up his time table and headed towards the door just as he was about to turn the door handle he turned around and said, " Just so you know, if I see for one second that any of your teachers are subjugating me to unfair treatment I will officially pull out of this school and hire private tutors until my NEWT's come about. I will then go to the board of governors and have you removed as headmaster. As for the rest of YOUR wizarding world I frankly don't give a shit if they burn in hell. Perhaps, when Voldemort has exterminated all of these cowards, I'll step in and take care of him. This way I kill two birds with one stone. "
Albus fell back in his chair and ran his hands over his face. He was getting a serious headache. He now knew that Harry was lost for good. There was no hope of getting him back under his control. He heard Phenias say, " You have made a real mess of it now Dumbledore. Our world will be lucky to survive this catastrophe."
Albus replied with raised eyebrow, " Maybe the best way to handle this is to let him take care of Voldemort. When he has completed his task we will make our move in and contain him."
Phenias replied, "You keep on believing that. Personally I think you will become a portrait much sooner than you think." He left his portrait and a very annoyed and a very pissed off headmaster.
Harry was walking down the hall and looking at his watch, he noticed that his Charms class was already over. He had a transfiguration class at three, so he decided to go outside and take an in depth look at Hogwarts grounds and memorize the layout.
London East Side close to the Tames River
Earlier that morning, Xiana and Remus apparated just outside the building they were going to inspect. The building in question was home to a tabloid paper that had gone out of business three months ago. Apparently all of the printing equipment and computer systems were fully operational. They were here to meet the real estate agent in order to inspect the premises. If they liked what they saw, then Xiana would make the decision to buy the place. This was part of Harry's elaborate plan to jump start the war effort. Harry wanted to start a propaganda war with Voldemort, by fighting his lies with facts..
Xiana was looking at the front of the building when she felt nauseous and ran to the side alley. Remus was concerned and followed her there when he saw Xiana vomiting in a trash can. He went to her and cast a cooling charm on her, knowing that it would help. He then conjured a cold ice tea and gave it to her. She took the drink and thanked him. Remus just smiled and said " The little tyke is active I see."
She smirked and said, "Just like the father, a real pain in the but sometimes."
Remus laughed his head off. He told her the story about Lily's pregnancy and had Xiana laughing by the end of his story. She took his arm and they made their way back to the front of the building. By the time they got back they noticed a woman looking at her watch. They approached the woman and introduced themselves. After some short pleasantry they made their way inside the average size building and began an in depth tour of the premises. After about an hour, Xiana asked the women if she could talk to her partner for about ten minutes.
The agent was more the accommodating and Xiana took Remus to one of the offices to discuss their proposal. There was no doubt in Xiana's mind that this place was ideal. For one thing the address of the building was 13 Royal Street. Most people in the wizarding world were fairly superstitious. If the building were put under Fidelius charm, no one would think it the wiser if they found no building between twelve and fourteen. No one in the wizarding world would build a building and put thirteen as an address.
The second thing she liked about the place was that it was very modern and had state of the are equipment. The place was not big, but it had a very cozy feeling about it. They could print out as many papers as they liked. They only thing they needed to do was to copy the duplicating charms and find out the Daily Prophet distribution listings. Between the Daily Prophet and the Quibbler, they could reach a good majority of the wizarding population. The Building itself was in a very well hidden area and the asking price was very reasonable. She would help Harry give every one a crash course with muggle computers. She had learned from Harry how useful the muggle contraptions could be.
After listing the pros and cons, Remus agreed with her that they should make an offer. If the deal went through, they would pay cash and have Harry cast the dark Fidelius on the premises as he was the only one who could do it. From then on, their operation would be ultra secret and well protected. Luna, Xiana, Remus and Harry would make up the bulk of the editorial staff, but they had other people in mind that could definitely contribute to the paper.
With their mind made up they went to the agent and offered $1.3 million pounds for the building and its facilities. The agent looked quite ecstatic and told them that they would be receiving the deeds via their e-mail address later this afternoon. Xiana was fascinated with muggle technology. Harry was right, muggles were definitely far more advanced in certain areas over wizard kind. Learning from Harry, she had developed a very healthy respect for muggle technology. In many ways they were superior to wizarding means. Of course on many other issues they were remarkably backwards. After signing a plethora of papers, they bid the agent farewell and Xiana apparated to her father's law office. She brought him up to speed on current news and gave him the muggle law contacts. Remus told her that he would meet her back home. Remus said he was going to pay a visit to the twins. Remus had a feeling that the twins would be sympathetic to Harry's cause.
Remus apparated into one of Diagon alley's transit points, and made his way to Wizards Wizarding Wheeze's. After about ten minutes of walking, Remus entered the shop and found himself looking at all of the shelves. The variety of pranks and jokes was truly astounding. Harry was right the twins were absolute geniuses. Some of their inventions could be tailored to their uses. After what must have been fifteen minutes, Remus noticed that one of the twins was approaching him with a huge grin on his face.
Fred came over and yelled, "Professor Lupin, what an honour to see you in our modest abode."
Remus smirked and replied, "Well, the pleasure is all mine. Please call me Remus of Moony. I have not been your professor in over two years."
Fred looked at him and frowned, "Moony, I remember that name from somewhere, but I can't place it for some reason."
Remus answered back, "Well, my brothers and I used to be well known in my days, maybe you heard of my name from some third party."
Fred looked at him and shook his head, " No, I pretty sure that you were never mentioned by any of our acquaintances. " Fred looked at him deeper and finally a grin came to his face and said.
"I remember your name, It was on the Marauder's map. How in the world did you manage to get your name on one of our most prized possessions." He enquired.
Remus smiled and said, " Well, I would think that being one of the four Marauders and the charms expert of our group was enough to get my name on that map. Creating that map, proved to be quite a challenge but we managed to pull it off in the end."
Fred looked at Remus as if he was seeing the all mighty God. His mouth kept opening and closing but no words came out. Finally Fred bellowed, "George get your butt out here right now." A few minutes later George came out and said, "Brother dearest, I have an important potion brewing, what ever is the problem?"
Fred smirked at his brother and said, "Well it seems that our dear professor Lupin has been holding out on us. Right before you my dear brother, is none other than Moony, as in a.k.a the Marauder. "
George looked like he was about to faint. He looked at his brother and together they went down on their knees and hailed Remus as one of their Gods. Remus couldn't help himself at the twins behaviour and burst out laughing. The twins got back on their feet and George managed to say.
"You must obviously tell us who the other three marauders were. Please tell us." They begged.
Remus took pity on them and replied, "Well Prongs was a.k.a James Potter, Padfoot was a.ka Sirius Black, and Wormtail was a.k.a Peter Pettigrew." The last he spat the words. Fred and George looked at each with a look that said they fully understood where the animosity towards Wormtail came from.
Fred said, " Well being that you are one of the Marauders, you get an obvious discount on all merchandise, after all some of these products were copied from some of you guys ideas. Second, what to we own this fine visit by yours truly."
Remus knew that he had to play his cards real smooth. Remus purged all of his emotions and said, "I am here to talk about Harry, and what Dumbledore did to him. I want to know how you feel about the whole thing."
Fred immediately had a sneer on his face and said, "What we think is that the bloody Order of the Phoenix and the meddling old fool railroaded our partner that's what we think. To think, that we wanted to join those bloody idiots last year. Thank God, it never came about. I wish we could meet up with Harry to tell him that we believe in him and that we stand by him no matter what. "
George added, " When no one believed in us, Harry was there and supported us. If it weren't for him, all of this would not exist. So if you are asking us where our loyalties lie, than I believe we just gave you our answer. "
Remus looked at both twins and saw a determined look in their eyes. After careful consideration he said, "Just so you know. Harry has started training people using far more powerful magic and methods that were ever thought at Hogwarts. The death of Sirius has affected him greatly. He wants to make sure that all of his friends and every member of his army are able to fight death eaters with weapons that are effective. No matter what you hear, Harry will never be a Dark Lord. He is willing to use and teach the dark arts only to even the playing field. Harry no longer believes in giving mercy to the enemy. Harry extends an offer for you to freely join him. I want to make sure that you understand that there is no pressure here. Harry will still love you just the same if you decide not to join him."
With out a moment's hesitation, both twins said, "We are in. Just let us know what we need to do."
Remus replied, "Don't worry, I'll let Harry know that you are in and he will contact you very soon. For now just carry on as if nothing was out of the ordinary. You must understand that the training you are about to take will give you a whole new definition of magic. The training I went through truly opened my eyes. Harry wants you to know that there is no light or dark magic. There is only magic and intent."
Remus reached in his pocket and threw a diary at them. George caught it and looked at Remus with a frown. Remus smiled and said, "This is my personal diary describing all of the pranks that the Marauder's pulled while at Hogwarts during our stay there."
The look on the twins face was priceless. They had a look that said if they never received any presents for the next five years, it would not matter. In their eyes the diary that they held in their hands was worth a vault full of galleons. Remus laughed and portkeyed back to Potter castle.
Gringotts Second Floor Department of Curses and Jinxes Bill Weasley's Office
Bill was currently sitting at his desk on his afternoon brake. He was busy reviewing all of the wedding preparations. Fleur and him would be married at the end of this month at Potter castle. Every time he thought of Fleur he had a huge smile on his face. She had a wicked sense of humour. Her laugh always managed to bring a smile on his face. Bill suddenly heard his mail bell go off and watched as a letter with the Hogwarts seal appear in his box. He broke the seal and started to read, it was from Ginny:
Hi big brother
I just thought I would send you a quick letter to see how you are doing. It's only the second day, here but I can already tell that this year is going to be different, especially after the sorting hat's parting words. I met Harry at lunch today, and he seems different both physically and emotionally. I told him that I was really confused with all that has happened between Ron, Hermione, the order, and him.
I know deep down in my soul and heart that what the headmaster did to Harry was absolutely despicable. No wonder he feels so betrayed the one's he thought he could trust were willing to sacrifice him on the alter. I would like to support Harry, but I don't want to disappoint mom and dad also. I don't know what do to big brother, I am so confused, and I feel helpless.
Harry suggested that I meet you and talk face to face. Could you come to Hogwarts this Friday afternoon? If you want to come I'll meet you by the lake. Send me a reply.
Love Ginny
Bill didn't give his sister's letter a moments thought. He wrote back his reply saying that he would meet her this Friday afternoon by the lake. War was on their doorstep, and the useless curses they were learning at Hogwarts would get them all killed. The only way to ensure her survival was to give her the tools necessary to properly protect herself.
Bill needed to make his sister understand the difference between evil and dark. He only hoped that it would be enough to sway her. He would also tell her that he had joined Harry, and watch her reaction. If she took it badly then he would be forced to obliviate her. However, Bill's gut told him that Ginny would join him. She was spunky, and a very powerful witch. Bill knew that she would make a very good addition to their side. This would also make it easier for him to help protect her. With that taken care off, he went back to work.
The Ministry of Magic
Current Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge sat at his desk contemplating a parchment on his latest popularity rating. With a sneer he took out his wand and cast incendio. The Gods must have abandoned him he thought. It was bad enough back in June when that bloody brat and the old coot had to go and prove him wrong. In his opinion, it would have been much better to ease the public into the current crisis.
Now the whole public knew that he had been proven wrong by that fat head, idiotic little brat. He knew that Dumbledore thought him to be a bumbling fool, but he would show him. He would prove that Dumbledore was not the only one who could make plans. Cornelius knew that he was not in the same class as the headmaster when it came to making plans, but sometimes a simple strategy was often the best.
As for the Potter brat, his plans to get him to Azkaban could wait. He had a much bigger foe to tackle in the form of the Scorpion Sorcerer. The most frustrating thing about the Scorpion Sorcerer was that there was next to no information on him. Not knowing your enemy led one to make stupid mistakes. Anyone who used dark magic like he did had to be a Dark Lord in the making. Of course to date, all he had done was attack the current Dark Lords minions.
Subtle information had been sent to the Daily Prophet to portray this Scorpion Sorcerer as the next dark menace, but it seemed that the public had other ideas. The current public mood was not very forgiving, and they saw this Scorpion Sorcerer as a man of action who was not afraid to show force against Voldemort. Cornelius knew that if he wanted to stay in power, he had to show that he could be a man of action too.
This task was even more difficult because of Dumbledore and his blasted Order of the Phoenix. God this game was getting so bloody complicated. Well for now all he could do was gather information from his informants and wait for the right time to strike. Maybe with more information he would be able to formulate a decent plan.
Right now educating the public with light spells, and recruiting more Aurors was good enough. Cornelius smiled to himself, when he thought of his metamorphagus informant currently in her seventh year at Hogwarts. It was a rare talent indeed to be a metamorphagus. He had approached Auror Tonks earlier about becoming an informant for him, and she had accepted.
Auror Tonks had replaced a Cindie Donovan from Ravenclaw. Cornelius knew the girls mother Corrine, from his days at Hogwarts. He approached her about using an informant to sit in lieu of her daughter at Hogwarts. He promised her fair compensation for her cooperation. The money would help the family send their daughter to Salem Academy in North Carolina, in the US. Corrine had readily accepted. Now, Cornelius would keep tabs on Dumbledore and the Potter brat. Since he was the minister of magic, he knew that Auror Tonks would never betray him. Cornelius looked at his watch and decided to go seek Weatherby and see if any information had been passed on from his informant.
Hogwarts Headmasters Office
Albus was busy going over some correspondence when he heard the familiar knock at his door.
Albus looked up and said, "Come in"
A 7th year girl wearing Ravenclaw robes walked in and said, "Good afternoon, Headmaster."
Albus smiled and replied, "Ah, my dear Nymphadora, how are you settling into Ravenclaw dormitories."
Tonks looked at the headmaster and gave him a dirty look about the use of her first name, but finally managed to say, "Well things seem much easier second time around. Just so you know, that bombastic, ignoramus of a minister of magic sent me a courier asking for some information on you and Harry."
Albus replied, "Good, I am glad to see that our plan is coming together. You can tell the minister that I am busy negotiating the new salary scale with our teachers, and you can tell him that Harry is becoming more withdrawn and aggressive towards his classmates."
Tonks looked at the headmaster and said, "As you wish sir." She bid the headmaster farewell and left to go to her next class. Inside she was seething, if that old coot thinks that I am going to set up Harry for him he has got another thing coming. Soon it will be time to seek Harry, and let him know that she is in place at Hogwarts.
Harry had set up the whole thing a week after his blow out with Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix. She had been appalled that the headmaster had been so willing to sacrifice Harry. If Sirius had been around he would have killed him.
Harry was Sirius Godson. In truth, she really liked Harry and considered him like a little brother. To top it off, Sirius had made Harry his heir and therefore the new Lord Black. She was part of the Black family and blood comes first. With that she went to transfiguration, which should be as exiting as seeing paint dry. Oh, well it could be a lot worse. For the most part she was safe here instead of chasing death eaters. In essence she mused, she was getting paid for keeping an eye on her adopted little brother and screwing Fudge and the headmasters plans in the process. Talk about luck Tonks mused.
Later that Evening Chamber of Secrets
Harry was just finishing expanding the right wall and transfiguring the necessary struts. Thank the lord he had his Naquadria wand with him, the power amplification of the wand was truly showing it's worth today. Harry had managed to expand the chamber of secrets to ten times its original size.
Harry would soon rename the chamber of secrets to the scorpion lair. Harry now needed to take care of the serpent statues. He took a close look at them and could not help admiring the statues. The details were truly exquisite. He approached the first statue nearest to him and started to closely examine it. He went to the back of the statue and could make out the scale pattern of the serpent on the stone. Harry was about to banish the statue when he noticed a curious symbol on the hood of the snake.
The marking itself was barely noticeable. The rune must have been burned into the statue and thus was only slightly darker in appearance then the surrounding rock. Harry looked at the engraving for what must have been five minutes trying to remember where he had seen this symbol before. He finally remembered it as a parseltongue rune. Only a parseltongue could activate the rune.
The rune symbol had many meanings. It could stand for an entrance, a door or a hiding place. Harry took his wand and traced the rune symbol with it, while hissing open, which was truth be told the first word that came to his mind. Harry's leapt back when he heard a scraping sound as if a stone mill had been activated. After a minute it stopped. Harry had no idea what just happened. He walked around the statue and looked towards the center of the chamber expecting some sort of trap door to have opened. To his disappointment he found nothing. He was about to banish the statue when he noticed that the statues mouth was open.
Harry noticed that there was a jewelled box sitting at the bottom of the lower jaw. He was about to climb up and pick up the box, when his gut instinct stopped him. He decided instead to do a magic scan. Harry brought forth his magical aura reading talent to bear and noticed that the box was layered with no less than seven different kinds of curses and jinxes. Harry closed his eyes and concentrated on his inner mind. He started riffling through his carefully ordered folders until he found his magical signature folder.
Harry hoped that he could recognise the curses put on the box and remove them. After what seemed like fifteen minutes had passed, Harry came out of his self induced trance and whistled loudly. There was no doubt in his mind that what he was dealing with was precious. Maybe it was something left over from the founder of the chamber Salazar Slytherin himself. Some of the curses put on the box were ancient and dangerous as hell. Who ever had put these boxes in there wanted to absolutely make sure that no one got a hold of it.
Harry began the difficult task of removing each curses and jinxes one at a time. He had to be very meticulous and take his time. The curses he was dealing with would kill him if he was not careful. Harry noticed that he was putting a lot of power in removing each curse. The last curse involved a blood ritual. After a solid hour of work he was finished and floated the box down to the floor and opened it. Harry found a large egg, it was jet black with green spots on it. Harry immediately recognized it as a Basilisk egg. Harry read the aura around the egg, but now seemed more confused than ever. The egg had a stasis field around it to preserve it for a very, very long time. However, that was not what intrigued him however. The egg seemed to be emanating a magical aura that belonged to Voldemort. Harry looked at his watch and knew that he had to get moving if he wanted to finish his remodelling.
Harry decided to inspect all of the statues and found two more statues with similar parseltongue runes on the back of the serpent sculptures. He repeated his earlier exploit but found himself removing even more curses. The last serpent required removing no less than 13 curses and jinxes. The last two items were a goblet and a necklace. The necklace definitely belonged to Salazar. Harry knew that these items were important but he didn't know what they were. He needed to do a lot more research to find out what these things were. All three items emanated the same magical signature. He knew that it belonged to Voldemort but there was something else there that eluded him, he knew he has seen it somewhere but couldn't recall it at the moment. Harry decided to transfigure a piece of granite into an obsidian chess and carefully stored the items there.
Harry continued working on the chamber. He had managed to banish all but 6 of the serpent statue. He transfigured the remaining sculptures into scorpions and had four of the statues line up at forty-five degree angle looking towards the centre of the chamber. He made sure that all the water underneath Salazar's statue was purified and put it in the newly conjured marble hot tub in a style reminiscent of the ancient Romans bath house. Harry decided that the mineral hot bath would also act as a medicinal bath. Healing potions would be regularly mixed with the water. Harry knew that the training he had in mind would be brutal and some creature comfort would be very welcomed.
Harry put the other two statues along each side of his newly conjured command chair made of highly polished black and emerald green marble. The statues were transfigured into shiny obsidian scorpions about fifteen feet in length. The back of the high command chair was facing a solid black wall made also of highly polished granite. The wall used to be the face of Salazar himself. The mouth of Salazar that used to be the exit door to the basilisk was now a seamless sliding door. Harry had also expanded the chamber housing the basilisk by mining the inner chamber. The inner chamber was now five times bigger than it's original size. The inner chamber was going to be his official command centre at Hogwarts.
The inner chamber was now roughly the size of the DADA classroom. The inner chamber would house all of his electronic surveillance system and he would formulate all of his battle plans from there. Harry conjured a highly polished semi circular table facing the south wall which would contain all of his electronic screens.
Harry also made sure to that the entrance to the inner chamber would be by blood wards and magical signatures only. Harry was now very glad that he had built his trunk manors. The learning's gained from that endeavour was now reaping it's just rewards. In building his trunk and with the help of his tutors, Harry now considered himself extremely proficient in the art of charm's and transfiguration. His last act for tonight was to move his obsidian box inside the inner chamber and put it against the south west corner. He decided to put the box under the dark Fidelius. Harry had a gut instinct that the box would become crucial later on. Harry had learned to trust his gut instincts.
Harry looked at the time, which was now showing 11:00 pm. He told Xiana that he was going to be late again tonight. She knew that he was remodelling the chamber of secrets into his army's training head quarters. Harry looked around and figured that by Friday he would have everything completed. Harry needed to come up with a way to send the listening monitors and the recording video information back to his command centre. Harry had a vague idea of how he wanted to lay out the electronic equipment.
Harry wanted to cut a cable channel into the current rock strata all the way up the large pipe that led into Myrtle's bathroom on the ground floor. North of the sink outside the bathroom window, there was a statue of a Mer Chieftain with a trident raised to the star. Harry had the idea of making the statue hollow and hide the distribution nodes and the antenna signal amplifiers inside the statue. Harry was going to transform the Trident into a very sensitive antenna for picking up video and cell phone signals from outside of Hogwarts.
Harry also wanted to repeat the same process with another statue. The statue of King Arthur Pendagon was mounted right on the left hand side of the main door to Myrtles bathroom. The area was perfect because no one ever used this out of the way hall. The statue was close to the moving stairs, the entrance to the dungeon and other classrooms. Before working on the statues, he needed to create the cable channels and then wait for his special order to come from the US. Harry was told that he would be receiving his modified electronics on the third week of September.
Harry ended up ordering two hundred cell phones, ten top of the line battle hardened laptops, fifty video cameras, one hundred listening transducers, a communication console, a video monitoring station, five fifty-six inch LED screens. Harry's last purchase was a projector with a large screen for the main chamber. The order came close to $2,172,050 US dollars. Harry had a gut feeling that this equipment would prove itself during the coming war. Well it was time to call it quits. Feeling tired again he decided to portkey out of the chamber. He couldn't wait to show Xiana the finished product. Harry apparated back to the trunk portkey chamber and made his way to the kitchen where he met Remus and Xiana.
Xiana said, "Hi love, how was your day?"
Harry made his way to his wife and kissed her soundly and said, "Hi babe, Hi Remus, I had a very productive day today. I told the headmaster, Ron, and Hermione to bugger off. I also made some very solid progress in transforming the chamber of secrets. It's exhausting work, but it is coming along nicely. How was your day?"
Xiana replied, "Well Remus and I ended up purchasing a newspaper agency in a nice remote location in London. This means my love that you are going to be busy this weekend putting the place under your parseltongue Fidelius. We figured that within three weeks time, we should be ready to print out our first paper. Remus is supposed to meet his contact on Saturday and get us a list of the Daily Prophet subscribers. When we are done, we will be able to piggy back our paper to every address the Prophet delivers too."
Harry looked at Remus with a big grin on his face and said, "Well done you two. Soon we will be fighting fire with fire. Time to print the truth that none of them want to hear."
Remus replied, "One thing for sure it will certainly get our world talking. By the way, I met with Fred and George today. I can honestly tell you that they are solidly in your camp cub. They would make fine additions to the group. They do not trust Dumbledore I can tell you that. You should probably meet them Sunday, that way you can see for yourself if they are acceptable. If they are in, they can start training with the others at night and weekends."
Harry said, "Excellent work you two. Things are slowly coming together. I'll go visit the twins on Sunday and this will also give me a chance to see Mr. Ollivander. I need to make you guys better wands and also some portkey rings. "
They spent another hour, discussing various logistical issues and nailing down some of the detail work that needed to be carried out. They soon went to bed.
Friday Afternoon By the Lake
Ginny had been shocked to learn what Bill had been up to. She had been amazed at what her brother Bill had to say. She was even more shocked to learn that Charlie was also with Harry. Apparently, Bill had been in France when the Scorpion Sorcerer struck. In her mind, the fact that Bill and Charlie were sticking up for Harry and their explanation for it finally lifted the weight that she had been feeling this last week. Talking some more with Bill, she got the impression that he was not telling her everything so she said.
"Bill, I get the feeling that you are not telling me everything, am I right?"
Bill looked at her straight in the eye and said, "Yes Ginny, I can't tell you everything until you are willing to take a witches oath that you will never betray or reveal the information that I give you Also, before I fully reveal everything to you, you will have to become fully proficient in Occlumency. "
Bill added, " This week to get everyone started on their occlumency, everyone joining Harry will be thought how to hide their minds before going any further. The information is so sensitive that Harry doesn't want to take a chance, I hope you understand."
Ginny looked at her brother and decided that she wanted in and wanted to know what was going on. She was going to throw her lot with Harry. Ginny looked at her brother and recited her witches' oath. Bill gave her a big hug, and a portkey. Bill told her that portkey would activate Saturday night at 8:00 pm. He told her to make it look like she was going to sleep. Bill asked her to cast a sound proof, and a notice me not charm around her canopy. Bill stated that he would meet her at the appointed portkey destination. Bill gave her one last hug and used his portkey.
Ginny looked at the time and for the first time in a month she smiled and made her way back to the great hall to get some supper.
Friday evening 6:00 pm at Wizard Wizarding Wheezes
Fred and George were busy stocking the shelves and Lee Jordan was at the cash register when they heard a voice say, " Wow, this is quite the set up you guys have."
Fred, George and Lee whipped their wands towards the stranger who was wearing what looked to be a charcoal grey basilisk robe with a deep hood and they both said, "Who are you?"
Fred and George heard the stranger chuckle and replied, "Let me put my hood down, and you can see who I am."
George replied, "All right, but no funny business or you'll wish you had never woken up today!"
Harry carefully pulled his hood down and smiled at the twin's reaction. Fred was the first to recover and said, "Bloody hell Harry, you scared the wits out of us." Both twins looked at each other with big grins and ran to pat him on the back. Lee Jordan came over and shook hands with Harry
Harry laughed and said, "It's good to see you boys. Sorry I never got in touch until now, but I was a tad preoccupied."
George said, " That's alright Harry, we were pretty busy ourselves. Hey listen, we saw Remus not to long ago and he gave us a more detailed explanation of what has been happening. We want you to know that we are with you one hundred percent mate. We think the powers to be are all playing us for suckers, it's time to turn the tables I say."
Lee replied, " Yah Harry, I feel like I don't have a choice anymore. It's like if you are not part of one of the big three you are a nobody and have no say. Frankly I am sick of it. It's time for our generation to step up and take control."
Fred replied, "I could not have said it better. Just tell us where to sign Harry."
Harry said, " You don't know how much it means to me to have you guys siding with me. I only wish that my ex best friends had seen the light like you guys have."
Both Fred and George could see the pain on his face at the mention of Ron and Hermione. George said, " Listen mate, even I have noticed how Ron has been changing over the years. He has been following Percy's footstep since he became a prefect. Ron has always had a nasty streak of jealousy, and he now has to pay the price for his decision. As for Hermione, you know as well as we do that she can't say no to any real authority. Don't beat yourself up over these two they aren't worth it mate."
Harry responded, " You guys understand that in the future you might come up against your own brother in a battle you know that? I will never lie to you guys. If you join me, I will be teaching you dark arts to properly fight Voldemort's forces. The stuff they are teaching at Hogwarts is complete garbage. The fight at DOM thought me that. Are you guys willing to learn the dark arts."
Fred, George and Lee looked at each other and said, " Yes."
Fred then said, " As for Ron, what will come will come. He made his bed, now he has to lie in it."
Harry looked at all of them one by one. He used his legilliment abilities to see if there was any subconscious manipulations or betrayals in the making. He found that they meant what they said. After a minute scrutinizing them, Harry said, " I ask everyone who joins me to swear an oath to never betray me or divulge any information about our operation. Do you wish to take the oath?"
The twins and Lee looked at each other nodded and swore a wizards oath to never betray Harry or divulge any information. Harry then smiled and threw a 2000 galleon pouch at them and a portkey ring. He told them that the money was for lost revenues since they needed to close down the shop for the weekend due to training. Harry told them that the portkey would activate for 8:00 pm Saturday evening. He told them to bring some spare clothes, everything else would be provided.
Harry shook their hands and apparated out to Potter castle.
September 8 Friday evening 8:00 pm Potter castle
Harry apparated close to the gazebo on the North terrace of Potter castle. Remus was the first one to spot Harry. Remus always found it disconcerting to see his cub apparate without a sound. In duels it gave him a tremendous advantage.
Remus said, "How did it go Harry?"
Harry replied, " It went better than I had hoped. The twins and Lee Jordan will be joining us. I made sure to scan their deepest feelings and found that they truly wanted to be with me." He said the last with a huge grin on his face.
Remus smiled back and said, " Way to go cub. I was fairly certain that the twins would be with you, however Lee Jordan is a definite bonus. He is very creative and a fast thinker."
Everyone had gathered to hear how Harry made out. Harry smiled back at everyone and said. " I want to thank each and everyone of you for coming tonight. I have lots to show you. Bill, Neville and Luna I gave you my lesson plans for occlumency and basic dark arts training. I will be there for the first month in fluxtime, after that I will let you take over the recruits training. " Harry paused to let the information sink in.
Harry continued, "Now we need to make sure that all of our recruits are accomplished occlumens. The integrity of everything we are doing depends on it. Don't be afraid to challenge their abilities. Outside of normal school hours, I will be teaching everyone the dark arts and body magic. During weekends, all recruits will go into fluxtime and learn dark arts with Neville, Luna and Bill. "
Blaise said, " Harry where are we going to learn dark arts at Hogwarts. The headmaster has access and monitors every room in that school?"
Harry looked at Blaise and with a smile on his face said, " Correction Blaise, the headmaster does not have access nor can he monitor a very special room. I will now show you your new training center."
Harry pulled out two rings encrusted with black diamonds. He enlarged them and said "These portkeys will take us there. Please grab a hold of the ring."
Remus, Xiana, Bill, Fleur, Charlie and Harry held on to one of the rings, while Blaise, Brianna, Neville and Luna took hold of the other. Harry and Neville took their wands and tapped the ring while Harry said, "Scorpion lair."
Everyone felt a tug at their navel and within seconds they were standing in a gigantic room. Everyone looked at the ceiling and could make out the stars in the heavens. The roof of the lair had been charmed just like the one in the great hall. The stars shining overhead gave the place a surreal atmosphere. Everyone could make out the scorpion statues and the command chair. The floors were a highly polished emerald marble and the walls were made of granite polished to a very fine sheen. On the floor at the centre of the chamber was two scorpions facing a phoenix with Canis Major and the Orion nebula all inlaid in the marble floor.
Brianna couldn't believe the beauty of the place. She could easily call this place home. It was certainly a lot nicer than the Slytherin common room. The thought and work that went into creating this place was unreal. God's she thought, that boy did nothing in half. Brianna was now looking at the weapons rack and the duelling platforms. The training she was about to undertake suddenly became very real all of a sudden. She had the feeling that before this was over she was going to go through the ringer.
South of the chamber, there were five duelling stands set up. To the North East corner of the chamber there was a potions lab with ten benches with cabinets filled with potion ingredients. To the South West Corner there were six shower stall. Three were for males and the others for females. To the North West corner, there was a full infirmary. Harry told them what his plans were for the scorpion lair. He showed them the hidden chamber where Salazar used to keep his pet Basilisk.
Harry explained his plans for gathering information from Hogwarts and other well know places in the wizarding world. Once again, Blaise was amazed at the amount of thinking and planning that went into creating their intelligence gathering network.
Harry went around the chamber showing them the potions laboratory, the duelling platforms, the hot mineral bath for relaxation. He also showed them the projection screen that would be used for lessons in duelling and battle strategy as well as entertainment. He also showed them the muggle area which would contain the high definition stereo system along with pool tables, dart boards and other muggle entertainment. Harry felt that he needed his troops to see what muggles could offer. He wanted them to understand that even though muggles didn't have magic they had other ways to compensate which could be just as good. He showed them his electricity generators like the one he made for the trunk manor.
Harry told them that by next week, he was hoping to have all of the electronic equipment hooked up. He explained to them all of the goodies that was coming to them. It was Neville who said
"Harry, how are you going to make all of this muggle technology to work. I heard that muggle electricity doesn't work at Hogwarts due to the many protection charms on the school?"
Harry smile and gave them a thorough explanation as to why regular muggle electronic doesn't work, and gave them a crash course on muggle physics. He told them about EMP and induced voltage and current spikes brought on by magical energy. He then explained about filtering and using iron casing. When Harry was done, they were all looking at him as if he had grown a second head. Bill was the first to say
" Well if you say so Harry. However it'll believe it when I see it."
Harry smiled and replied, " I'll bet you a case of butter beer."
Bill raised his eyebrows and said, " You got your self a bet."
Luna decided to speak up at that moment and ask a question which had been bugging her and said, " Harry, how are we going to get down here from the school?"
Harry looked at his fellow student and replied, " I will be making specialized portkey rings which uses my unique apparition signature. Each ring will use the person's magical energy to recharge, but the portkey will simulate my specialized apparition signature during transit. I will be making you rings and you will help make your new wands on the next full moon which is slated to be September 12." He let that bit of information sink in.
Harry continued by saying, "The idea is for me to set the training schedule via your new cell phone when you get them. I will bring you all over here to instruct all of you on how to use the muggle device. You will find them a lot better than owl's. You will head for your bed and put several jinxes and charms around your bed so that nobody bothers you. You will than portkey from your bed to the chamber and back to your bed when finished. I will instruct you on how to make your ring portkey work. Are there other questions?"
Harry saw that no one had anymore questions and decided to call it quits for the rest of the night. Tomorrow was going to be busy enough as it is. He needed to install the Fidelius charm on his new newspaper agency, and he needed to go into flextime tomorrow evening. He made sure to remind the ones that were not occlumens yet to avoid the headmaster or professor Snape at all cost. He told them to never look directly into their eyes. They all portkeyed back to the trunk manor by Hogwarts lake. From there Harry made sure to portkey Blaise and Brianna back to their dorm beds.
September 24 Potter Castle
Harry was sitting at his favourite chair looking into the soft blue flames emanating from his fireplace. He was presently going over the final details of his attack plan. A lot of things had happened over the last two weeks. It all started on September 12 when Harry apparated back to the castle and Xiana told him that his computer was acting funny. Xiana told him that it kept beeping.
Harry had logged into his computer that day to find that his hacker contact had found something for him. At the same time he also had an e-mail from the storage company saying that there was a big shipment in his storage compartment. Harry had been pleasantly surprised at finding out that the American military manufacturer he was dealing with had finished his order three weeks in advance due to a Korean contract that had been cancelled over two weeks ago. Apparently the company had switched its manpower towards fulfilling his order. Harry unscripted his message found that it was from TechnoMage. This second message was even more interesting.
Scorpio
We did as you asked and carried out a World Wide Web search for some information on the names you gave us. We hacked into several government and underground sites. We found quite a bit of dirt. Apparently, there is a company by the name of Salazar shipping company which operates from the port of Pasni in Pakistan. The company is registered as a shipping company for wholesale cargo. They ship cargo from the Arabian Sea to the French port of Brest. From there the shipping company is re-registered as Marvollo Shipping Ltd. In total there are six ships which fall under Marvollo shipping. They are medium size freighter ships capable of hauling 1600 T.T.E.
These freighters, leave the port of Brest to land at three American ports. One freighter goes to the port of Miami, one goes to New York, and the other one goes to Welmington port in Los Angeles California via the Panama Canal. They ship twice a year, but never the same ship at the same port. What they are really shipping we have no idea? These shipping company have been registered since 1978.
The other reference we found was a company by the name of R.Q.G. We found that company label in many places. Mainly in the African Sudan and various arms manufacturer in Europe and America. We hacked into the U.S Federal registry under GSA Fed market. R.Q.G is officially registered as Riddle's Quality Gems. The original company was founded in the U.K and moved their business offshore sixteen years ago. They have relocated from London to New York. They are quite close to the port of New York. They are located at 15 Jersey Lane. Look into your attachments, there is a data packet which includes detailed topographical maps, and pictures of all the areas including the ships. Hope this helps out. Thanks for the tip :)
Later
TechnoMage
September 12, had been very fruitful indeed. Early that evening, Harry had given instruction to Dobby and Winky to retrieve his order from his muggle storage area. While his elf's were busy getting his order, his troops had showed up at the appointed time along with Ollivander's whom Harry had given a timed portkey the previous week. That night Harry had made them his special portkey rings, while they were busy making their new wands. Harry supplied all of the material and carefully explained all of the steps to Ollivander. Harry had created all of the rings five days earlier in anticipation of the full moon. The blood runes had to be cast on a full moon. All that was needed to finish them now was to bleed and cast a series of specialized charms.
That night, Harry couldn't recall ever seeing a man as giddy as Ollivander was. You would think that he had just won the bloody lottery. Well he thought as giddy as Ollivander had been, his own troops were just as surprised and happy to be receiving their battle gear. Their most prized possession was by far their new Naquadah wands. They all couldn't believe how compatible they were with their new wands, and how powerful they it was. Everyone that night had been casting spells left and right.
There was so much magical energy in the air that it was giving off an eerie glow over the castle grounds. Harry had taken the time to explain to them about their portkey ring. He told them how many times they could use it before it needed recharging. Harry also explained how to activate the disillusion charm built into the ring and how to program a destination. The ring could have up to four destination. Every portkey ring was the same. It was an amethyst with a black diamond scorpion inlaid at its center. Another four black diamonds were place at each cardinal point of the ring. The band was made of Naquadah. The one thing he would never tell them was the blood rune that was concealed in every ring just in case someone changed their mind he thought. Dumbledore's betrayal had been a bitter learning experience he would never forget.
Later that night Harry had also given each one of them a brand new cell phone which were properly shielded against EMP pulses which should technically also shield against ambient magic. Harry already knew everything about their features since he requested it. He told them how it worked, and about text messaging and about setting an e-mail account with their phone, so that if they were somewhere where they couldn't talk they would still be able to type a massage to alert the others. This is where magic came in real handy. Harry knew that each phone would need to be recharged due to the fact that its battery would deplete. Harry had managed to emulate his electrical generator in his trunk manor and created a nine volt continuous source.
It essentially consisted a storage crystal that could be recharged with raw magical energy, a Naquadria amplifier, and a converter crystal. Harry had recorded the DC energy signature and imprinted the converted crystal with it. Although the storage crystal was small, the fact that it had a Naquadria amplifier, Harry speculated that the cell phone could go for at least three months before it went dead. When that happened the storage crystal would need to be recharged. Harry was the first to try his new cell phone by calling Xiana in the castle. The phone rang and Harry could hear his wife's voice loud and clear.
Now all Harry needed to do was to hollow out and rig the statues with electronic equipment and wiring. He would start with the Mer Chieftain statue outside of Myrtle's bathroom. He also needed to convert the trident and the sword into an antenna. Harry took the RCA dish apart from the base amplifier. He would hide the amplifier inside the statue and connect the trident to it. The trident would be made of white Iron with a core of Naquadah. The surface would be charmed to look like the rest of the statue.
That week following September 12, Harry had spent every spare moment installing, concealing and testing all of his muggle electronic. Harry made sure that all cabling leading down to the scorpion lair had been buried inside the rock strata. The other satellite dish he concealed in one of the trees on the other side of the lake. Harry used only high parseltongue for his concealment charms. This way they would be next to impossible to detect or break.
Later that Saturday, Harry had tested the whole package. He tested the cell phones outside and inside Hogwarts. The voice worked perfectly outside of Hogwarts but was a little choppy inside. It was more than adequate however. Harry had also developed independent power supplies for his camera just as he had done with the cell phones. The cameras themselves were all emitting at a different broadband frequency. This ensured that each camera could be tracked individually and it would make it easier to fix or dispose of a broken camera.
Harry made the energy storage device big enough so that it would last at least a year. All of the multiplexing units, receiver and modulation equipment were installed inside the inner chamber where all three Naquadria electrical generators were. These electrical generators provided all of the electricity to the projectors, camera monitoring board, the AC plenum, the lights for the green house, and the heat for the mineral bath. Some of the items like the mineral baths were also overlaid with magical charms.
By the time Sunday September 17 rolled around, Harry had managed to install 25 cameras and listening device through out the castle and on the grounds. He even had some strategic cameras placed deep in the forbidden forest. The only real obstacle left was to plant a bug inside the headmaster's office. Harry had managed to duplicate one of his trinkets but needed an excuse to plant the bug. Next time he met with Tonk's he would he would give her a cell phone, portkey ring and the trinket. Harry was now only taking DADA, Charms and Transfiguration for NEWT courses. He needed all of his time fighting Voldemort. It seemed like a waste of time studying the other courses.
Although he never took his OWL's in Runes and Arithmancy he would still be able to write the NEWT as long as he could prove he was competent to write those exams. The competency exam was the same thing as an OWL and was given two weeks prior to the NEWT final exam. Truth be told, Harry was learning next to nothing in his regular classes which was fine by him since he was not really paying attention anyway. This only seemed to piss off the carrot head and the beaver to no end. He always managed to show them up during every exercise. The beaver was starting to get really frustrated with him.
Most of his time however had been spent planning and avoiding trouble. All of his spare time had been used up setting the scorpion lair, teaching and maintaining his training. Harry had spent so much time in fluxtime training that it had become second nature now. Everyday he religiously practiced his occlumency, his magical aura reading, his martial arts, his body magic and dark arts spells. On top of all this he spent as much time as he could with Xiana.
Xiana herself had decided to help out with the magical training and also sit at command centre. She wanted to help monitor the cameras and conversations throughout the castle to see if there was any worthy news flying about. Xiana had also been working on their new broom design. Harry knew that Xiana was an excellent flyer and it had been his intention to develop his own broom during the summer but he never got around to it. Now that things were settling down a bit, it was a perfect time to start designing their new brooms. Harry knew that his wife wished that he could spend more time with her, but until he got rid of his NEWT's he would still be on a tight schedule. These days, he managed to get home between 10 and 11 pm at night. They would stay up a lot of times until 1 am talking and catching up on family issues and the days events.
Harry also managed to get a big brake against Voldemort on September 17. After being given the information from his contacts, Harry wanted to scout these places to gather as much intelligence as possible. Harry's gut told him that Voldemort was into some illegal businesses but he needed to find out what it was. His first priority was to start crippling him in the pocket book and shut down his operations. Harry's first precedence that Sunday morning had been to purchase ten invisibility cloaks.
Harry knew from personal experience that they were indispensable for snooping duties. He got the cloaks in a little shop in Knockturn Alley. He also managed to buy ten dragon hide battle robes, ten pairs of dragon hide boots and wand holsters with all of the defence charms put on them. They were quite pricey, but if his hunch paid out, he would get all of that money back in spades. He took his purchase and went back to Potter castle.
Following his purchase, Harry went about finalizing his plans. He used his cell phone and told Charlie, Bill, Fleur, Luna, Neville, and Remus to portkey to the scorpion lair. Harry met Xiana in the living room and told her that they were going on a fact finding mission. Harry laughed when he saw his wife smiling in anticipation. He knew that his wife loved the action. She was definitely an adrenaline junky. They both tapped their wedding band and portkeyed to the scorpion lair just in time to see everyone else gathering.
Harry had conjured comfortable chairs and made his way to the computer station just below the small theatre style screen. He activated the projector which was connected to the computer and uploaded the images and maps that TechnoMage gave him. He uploaded a topographical map of the Pasni port and then proceeded to give a rough explanation of who his contact was, and gave them a detailed explanation of how he found out about Voldemort's operations.
Harry had explained to them how Voldemort was most likely funding his army. Harry then explained that they were going on a fact finding mission. They needed to find out who the players were and what contacts they were dealing with. Harry reminded them to check for any concealment and repelling charms.
They all came back that night, and Harry collected all of the significant data and decided to go into flux time to give him time to properly prepare their attack mission. After finding out what they were up against, Harry had no illusion that he needed to completely destroy Voldemort's finances. Later that day, his group all came back and they pooled all of their information together. They found out that Voldemort had set up a fake imports business as a front for exporting heroine and hashish from Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Voldemort and his lieutenants had established a direct connection with the mountain farmers to grow these crops. Under the disguise of his export business he was able to hide the drugs using magic and get them into France. The drugs were then loaded with legitimate cargo from France in the form of wine and food exports. These medium size freighters would then make a drug run to America to all three ports. Once the ships were in ports, death eaters would seek their muggle contacts and carry out their transactions to transfer money and transport the drugs to predetermined distribution points.
The money would then be transferred via satellite hook-up to a Swiss bank account. There were two large shipments made to every port. One shipment was made in the fall and they other in early spring. These businesses had apparently been operating like this even while Voldemort had been a vapour. Harry estimated that by now there must be billions of dollars sitting in that Swiss account. God with that amount of cash, he could sustain a bloody huge army indefinitely.
Harry had also found out that the R.Q.G business was nothing but a front to get his hands on cheap diamonds for arms sales. The company set up a network of contacts with various defence contractors. They would get ten percent of any arms sales to the third world countries. To make things even worse, they also had a large list of government contacts in third world countries which provided them with a cheap supply of diamonds which they used as collateral to buy their weapons. R.Q.G had a flat ten percent keep on all diamonds used in the purchase of weapons. The bastard was playing both sides and making out like bandits while muggles were killing each other. The diamonds were then sold with a huge mark-up to the large chain stores like Burkes and such. Harry had been lucky that day that a large majority of Voldemorts players had been busy planning for their next big shipments.
Harry and his troops had been able to capture, interrogate with veritaserum and obliviate a number of people in charge. One particular gentleman by the name of Abbas Abdul Quadir had been a wealth of information on Voldemorts drug export business. The invisibility cloaks had come in very handy that day. Surprisingly most of the top lieutenants were either wizards or witches. There had been a hairy moments for Bill and Fleur but they had managed in the end. One low level death eater had been terminated and disposed off in order to avoid being discovered.
Harry had gone in fluxtime with Bill, Charlie, Fleur, the twins Fred and George, Ginny, Blaise and Brianna. Armed with all that new information Harry had needed time to prepare for their attack mission. Harry needed to get a hold of Voldemorts Swiss bank account number, and to also find out which of Voldemort's lieutenants was handling the accounts at Gringotts. For this to happen, he needed to dispose and impersonate Voldemort's top dogs when dealing with the muggles. One thing that Sun-Tzu always stressed was patience when planning for your objectives.
In order to have as many capable bodies as possible for this mission to take place. Harry had been forced to move his training time table for his troops. He had decided to allow fluxtime from September 16 to September 23. This way his troops would have a solid eight months of hard core training in the dark arts and duelling. Harry made sure to start every flux time at 10:pm at night, this way his troops could portkey to the trunk manor and would portkey back at the same time. This allowed them to get to their day classes until the required 24 hour period was done.
Harry himself had only gone in flux time the last two moths to take over Remus, Neville and Luna. By the time they had finished their last month of training, his most recent troops were over 75 percent caught up to his veteran troops. One thing was for certain, they were easily equal to most death eaters in lethality. Harry had been very pleased with Blaise and Brianna's progress. They took to the dark arts much quicker then the twins. That was not a big surprise to Harry, as he expected no less from Xiana's siblings. His wife had taken to the dark arts very easily herself. The same thing that happened to Bill and Charlie had happened to the twins. They had all been brought up to think of the dark arts as bad and should be avoided at all cost. It simply took time for them to realize that it was not the magic that was bad but how you intended to use it. Once they got over their childhood conditioning their progress in the dark arts had increased exponentially.
Harry was brought back from his memories by Blaise and Ginny talking about a curse they were having difficulty with. Every spare moment had been devoted to training and planning for the mission. His troops were training up to the hour before they were scheduled to portkey to their destination.
Everyone understood that this was a seek and destroy mission. Most of his troops had not killed yet, and Harry knew that training to kill but actually doing it was entirely different. Harry turned from the projector and looked at Ginny who smirked at him. Harry was glad that Ginny had moved on and let go of him. Over the course of her first fluxtime, Ginny had finally learned many of Harry's secrets and now knew that he was married and madly in love with his wife. She had been very upset at first, but she came to understand that it was never meant to be between them.
Once she let go of her childhood fantasy their relationship turned to that of close friends. Over the course of the last seven months to Harry's surprise, Blaise and Ginny became very close. Harry noticed how very protective Blaise was to Ginny. They were now an official couple, and Harry was very happy for them. Blaise had been very smart about it. He had officially asked permission from all of Ginny's brothers to date her. On their first few dates they had been chaperoned, but soon they were left on their own. Ginny's brothers were happy with Blaise decorum and intentions towards their sister.
Harry got up from his chair and noticed that everyone was waiting for the final brief to start. Harry went to the projector and brought up on the attack plan. He wanted to hit every site. The trick was to surprise them. The plan was to allow the three drug ships to proceed to destination and allow the transaction of money to be completed with the muggle contacts. When that was done they were to kill all of all contacts, destroy the drugs and destroy the ship beyond repair. Harry and Xiana would be at the last transaction point which would occur at Bridgeport New York. When the time came, Harry would try to transfer all of Voldemort's money to his Swiss account.
Those members who would participate in the transaction were to remember the Swiss bank account numbers in case something went wrong in New York. Each group leader was responsible for finding his or her transaction contact, eliminate them and impersonate them using polyjuice potion. When they were done in America they would all portkey to Marvollo shipping in France. When they were done eliminating that site they were to proceed to Pasni Pakistan and take care of all the contacts there.
Earlier that week Harry had made sure to open up a Swiss bank account himself with all of the security bells and whistles that the muggles offered. He didn't really care because if he was successful in moving Riddle's money to his Swiss account, he would then split the pot into much smaller holding and have them scattered around the planet. Harry decided to address the troops.
Harry looked at the screen projector and said, " All right everyone, it's time to go through our check list. Everyone should have their dragon hide cloaks, boots, a potion belt containing two vials of polyjuice, two vials of blood replenishing potion, two vials of nutrient potion, two vials of pepper up potion. You should all have two wands. Your new wand should be in your new wand holster strapped to your arm, and you old wand should be safely tucked in your dragon hide boot. You should also have your katana strapped to your backs with concealment charms and notice me not charms on them. " Harry gave them time to go through the check list one by one. Harry made sure that his wife and him both had their full basilisk battle wardrobes on.
Harry waited until they were done and said, " Each of you should also have a portkey necklace with your pre-programmed co-ordinates. Activate your portkey rings if you get into a sticky situation and you can't make the next rendezvous point. Each pair will carry an invisibility cloak with them. Make sure that you have your cell phones with you. You can send quick messages and apparition coordinate if you need too. The name of the game is stealth never forget that. Are there any questions?"
Charlie raised his hand and said, " Harry, if one group needs help and we are finished with our group do you want us to go and help them out or should they just portkey out of there. "
Harry replied, " If your group is finished with their targets and another group calls for help than by all means if you are not injured use apparition to get there and lend a hand. If the situation gets too sticky use a fuel air curse and use the confusion created by it to portkey out of there. Any other questions?"
Harry looked around and saw that there was no other question and said, " All right here are the groups. Members of group Wolf will be Remus, Fred, George and Lee. You will be taking on the freighter Mal Foi in Miami. Members of group X-Ray will be Bill, Charlie, Blaise, Fleur, and Ginny. You will be taking on the freighter Le Maudit in Los Angeles. Members of Group Zulu will be Xiana, Neville, Luna, Brianna and myself. We will be taking on the freighter Le Diable and R.Q.G head office."
Harry looked around to see if anyone had any questions. No one had raised their hands and continued with his speech. " Remember to stay focussed and when the time is right attack. Use group duelling techniques and always watch each others back. You have all practiced very hard to become proficient in both light and dark magic. Finally remember that your enemy's are utterly remorseless, and evil. They will kill you at a moments notice, do NOT give them that chance. I want to see each and everyone of you back here safe and sound when this is done. Lastly contact leaders for each group will be Remus, Bill and myself. Remember, do not under estimate muggle weapons. Make use of the Loki shield to protect yourself against bullets. Good luck"
Harry got to the center of the chamber and said, " Group Zulu form around me." Harry heard Bill and Remus do the same thing with their groups. Once they were all in formation, Harry said, " Invisibility cloaks on."
Harry looked around one more time and bellowed, "Activate portkey's!" Everyone felt the tugs around their navels and they were off.
Miami Florida
Remus and his group landed behind one of the crane shacks at the industrial port of Miami. Remus took stock of their situation and noticed that no one was visible within their location..
Remus said, "All right boy's, we need to find the port master's office to see where the ship is located." Remus took out his map to pinpoint their location. He noticed that they weren't to far from the port master's office. Remus told the twins to bring up the rear and start casting all the magical detection charms that they new. Remus knew for a fact that Voldemort's forces liked to operate in the shadow. That meant that they must have a secret base of operation somewhere in the port where they can meet their muggle contacts without fear of being jumped by muggle security service. They got to the port master's building and not knowing where they were going, they walked around the lobby until Lee whispered," Remus, look at this, it looks like a map of the building."
Remus and the twins came to have a look and sure enough it was a map of the building which showed the port master's office on the third floor. Remus looked around and spotted a fire escape. He told his group to follow him. They carefully made their way to the third floor and found the office. No one seemed to be there at the moment. Through the large window Remus could see a large muggle screen with the entire layout of the port. It was hard to tell from the hallway but the docks seemed to be labelled on the screen. Remus tested the door and found that it was not locked. They all stepped in under their invisibility cloak and made their way to the large wall screen.
George was the first one to spot it and whispered, "Look guys, the Mal Foi is docked at a place labelled ML-51?"
Remus took a closer look at the map and located the port mater's building in relation to the pier. He took out his wand and cast the memorie spell at the map. Now his wand would be able to point him to any destination he wanted on the map. They all got out of the building and Remus carefully led them to their destination.
After about a thirty minute walk, they found the ship. Remus and his group started casting all the detection spell that they knew. When they were done, they found that the ship had six different perimeter alarms and concealment charms. Before boarding the ship they needed to get rid of all these defences. Remus and Lee took care of the perimeter alarms and the twins broke the concealment charms. With that done Remus told his group to sit tight and wait for someone to come out of the ship. They waited for about an hour when they saw a large person wearing what appeared to be a black cloak.
They followed him from a distance. After about ten minutes they saw that he was standing in front of what appeared to be a muggle portable toilet. They saw the cloaked man looking around, probably making sure that no muggle was around and he entered the portable toilet.
Fred finally said, " Why would anyone take their wand in the Loo?"
Remus replied, " I have a feeling that the muggle toilet is not what it appears to be. We are going to wait until he comes out and then we will investigate the place." While waiting, Remus called Bill and Harry to give them a progress report and find out how they were doing. Apparently Harry had already programmed his wand at headquarters to help him find the ship quickly. Harry and his group found an underground distribution centre. Harry thinks this is where the muggles prepare the drugs for street distribution. Remus now believed that they would find something similar. After the transactions were complete Harry wanted them to completely destroy the facility. Bill was in the same boat as him. His group had also found their ship and were now looking at a muggle portable toilet also. These cell phones were incredible Remus thought. They could have up to six people on a conference call.
Just as Remus cut his connection, he saw the same man coming out of the portable toilet. He waited until the man was well out of sight and he took his group towards the toilet. He cast a couple of revealing charms to see if there were any alarms on the door. He did not find an alarm but he found a muggle repelling charm. He left the charm in place and opened the door. Remus found what appeared to be a regular toilet. He took his wand and cast Revelo. A door magically appeared and they opened the door and proceeded down a flight of stairs.
As they approached the bottom of the stairs, Remus could make out voices. They were now at the bottom of the stairs and followed a poorly lit corridor which opened up onto a work area. The work area was fairly large and had no windows. Remus had his group crouched down and followed the southern wall until they came to a set of shelves. Remus led them behind the shelves until they were close enough to hear voices.
A guy by the name of Carlos said, " Man I tell you, I sure hate dealing with these Limy bastards. Fucking guy looks at us as if we are worms. Hey Sam pass me the scale will you."
The guy named Sam passed him the scale and replied, " I know what you mean, I would love nothing better than to ice the fucker. What kind of a fucking name is Crab. They must have an awful lot of retarded people in England. "
Carlos answered back, " Yah I hear you man. You got to admit though, their shit is good stuff and they have the best whole sale price on the market. That fellow Goyle is going to be handling the transaction tonight. Just don't piss these guys off. Just take their shit and say nothing. Speaking of that I got the O.K from the cartel to wire the money into their account. He will be there to type the account number."
George's ears were tomato red after that last comment about Limy's. He thought to himself, we will see who is retarded tonight you piss ant. George looked at his brother and could tell he was thinking the same thing. Remus for his part was very intrigued that Crab and Goyle were over here. So that meant that Voldemort was using some of his veteran troops to handle the transactions. They needed to eliminate Crab and get Goyle to spill the account number to him. Piece of cake he thought, yah right. Although fairly slow on the take they were quite dangerous and needed to be dealt with quickly.
Remus took one last look at the place to come up with the best battle plan and whispered to his group to follow him. Remus carefully made his way back out of the work area and back towards the freighter. They proceeded unto the ship. Remus told the twins to make their way to the back of the ship and take out any opposition, sabotage the engine room and work their way towards the bridge of the ship. Lee and himself made their way towards the front of the ship.
They made their way towards the forward hatch and went below decks. They found a bunch of crates and removed the invisibility cloaks and cast a disillusion, and a noise suppression charm on themselves. Remus took out two dark crystals the size of an oranges and activated them. These were another creation from Harry. The way Harry explained it the crystals had a diamond core with a quartz outer layer.
The surface of the sphere had some runes etched on it and a small black rod which connected the rune to the inner core. He called black rod Naquadria. The were three runes on the sphere. One was a summoning charm, the other was an anti-apparition ward and the third was an activation rune. The other sphere was the same except that it had a rune that would create an anti portkey ward. The spheres wards would extend over a three hundred feet radius. These would be very useful because casting these wards on the spot was very draining and you didn't want to be weak going into battle.
They took out their katana's and began looking for the deck hands. There was no sense alerting the death eaters until it was time. Like Harry said, stealth was the order of the day. Remus found his first victim and quickly dispatched him by severing the jugular below the left ear. Remus made sure to cast silencio before taking action. Lee dispatched two more muggles and they levitated the bodies behind the crates and put a tarp on them. They made their way unto the bridge and they could hear Crab and Goyle discussing their meeting tonight. Lee was standing right behind Remus and took a step backward when he accidentally bumped into a small bell.
Crab and Goyle immediately took out their wands and stunning charm towards their direction, on instinct Remus ducked out of the way but Lee was forced to use a protego charm to avoid getting stunned. By this time he had revealed his position and Crab cast the crucio spell at him. Lee didn't have time to dodge and was immediately under the most intense pain he had ever known. Remus had to think fast, Goyle was the one who had the account number so he cast Ater-Cuspis which sent a slew of highly poisoned arrows towards Crab. Crab was the first to see the small arrows head towards him, he released his curse on the boy and tried to move out of the way. He missed most of them but two arrows managed to get him. One hit him in his wand arm and the other arrow lodged itself in his left thigh. Crab immediately dropped to the floor and screamed his head off. The poison from the arrow caused the blood to become highly acidic. You would literally start burning from the inside.
Meanwhile Goyle couldn't see his attackers and figured out that they were under a concealment charm. He cast a Revelo and sure enough he saw his two attackers. To his surprise he recognized one as the wolf Lupin. Not wasting any time, Goyle send an Avada Kadavra towards the wolf. Remus felt a cold wave spread through him and realized that they were no longer disillusioned.
Remus looked to his right and noticed that sickly neon green light coming towards him at tremendous speed. Remus knew that he couldn't move out of the way quick enough. Suddenly a table sailed in front of Remus and shattered into kindle. Lee had sent an accio spell followed by ablegatio the banishing charm. Goyle was thrown against the wall but managed to land on his feet and Remus followed up with some layered spells Stupefy-Petrificus Totallus-Immobilus. Goyle cast a protego but by the last spell and the extreme power these spells seemed to have, his shield failed and Lee had sent a stupefy his way. Goyle couldn't dodge the last one and was knocked out.
Lee made his way to Remus who was panting and looked almost grey in colour. Probably his wolf sense on full alert plus the adrenaline. Remus looked at lee and said, " Thanks for saving my life with that table, there is no way I could have moved out of the way in time."
Lee replied, "No problem mate. God dam I hate that curse." Remus squeezed his shoulder and turned around and cast Incarcerous-Metallum at Goyle. Steel like ropes came out of Remus wand and wound their way around Goyle's body. While Remus was busy preparing Goyle for interrogation, Lee looked at the bastard who cast the Crucio spell at him. Lee narrowed his eyes at Crab and remembered what Harry told them. Show no mercy to the enemy. Lee could hear Crab simpering on the ground, and Lee wondered how many people that fucker had killed, maimed and raped in his life time as a death eater.
With that thought, Lee took out his katana sword and with a quick downward thrusts he loped off Crabs head. Lee then pointed his wand and cast Incendio-Maximus. Crab's body combusted with extreme heat and after about five minutes there was nothing but a pile of ash. By then Goyle had been enervated and watched the whole seen with the boy and his long time friend Crab. To say the Goyle was shocked was an understatement.
The wolf and the boy had used dark magic and had killed without a moments thought. What the hell was going on here Goyle thought. Finally he looked at Remus and could feel the hatred coming from the wolf.
Goyle said, " How is it that one of Dumbledore's stooge is killing without remorse. Won't you get into trouble with your precious leader of the light?"
Remus replied with a sneer on his face, " Sorry to disappoint you, but my previous manager was far to stupid and slow to adapt. My new manager is much more efficient you see. He doesn't like to recycle old stock you understand. Perhaps you have heard of my manager, he goes by the name of the Scorpion Sorcerer." Remus finished the last with a wolfish smile on his face. Remus could see that Goyle was very aware of the Scorpion Sorcerer and smelled the fear emanating from Goyle.
Goyle stuttered, "What do you want. I have nothing for you."
Remus replied back, "We need some information from you." Remus heard the hatch open and whipped his wand out, but saw that the twins had arrived.
Remus said, " How did it go boys?"
Fred answered back, "Eliminated six hostiles, and the ship is rigged for destruction at your discretion oh great one." the twins looked at each other with an evil smile.
Remus smiled and said, "Good work boys. Well done indeed. We had a little confrontation but you are just in time for the interrogation. "
With that Remus pulled a vial of veritaserum and roughly grabbed the back of Goyle's head and tipped it back. Lee squeezed his mouth open and Remus put three drops of truth potion into Goyle's mouth. Remus waited until he saw Goyle's eyes turn slightly milky and began his interrogation.
Remus said, "Name!"
Goyle replied, "Gregory Goyle Senior."
Remus asked "How long have you been a death eater?"
Goyle replied in a flat monotonous tone, "22 years I have been in the service of the Dark Lord."
Satisfied that the truth serum was working, Remus decided to get down to business and asked, "What is the Swiss account number that you are going to transfer the money too from your drug sales?"
Remus could see perspiration forming on Goyle's brows, and knew he was fighting with all his might to resist answering the question. Remus bellowed, " Answer me now!"
Goyle replied, " The account number is " H666-O31416-9696R-7C13-99R9-246U-X777." Remus wrote each number sequence and verified that he had copied the right numbers correctly. When he was done copying the account number he decided to ask who the other death eaters were on the other ships.
Remus then said, "Who are the other death eaters on the other freighters to L.A and New York."
Goyle replied, " On Le Maudit McNair, Montague and Parkinson. On Le Diable there is Rabastan, Bella's husband Rudolphus Lestrange, Markus Pemberton, Tiberius Flint, and six vampires ."
Remus was now thinking furiously and finally said, " Why do you have so many of your people on Le Diable?"
Goyle replied, " There is a crate under a concealment charm where the drugs are hidden that has a very large quantity of diamond, ruby's, sapphire and amethyst."
Remus finally asked, " What is your master up to these days?"
Goyle replied, " He is going to meet a large contingent of mercenaries. I don't know where or when but it will be soon."
Remus looked at Goyle and decided that this was all the information he needed. He took out a pair of scissors and cut several locks of hair from Goyle's head. Remus then took out his katana and slashed at Goyle neck just below the left ear. Blood spurted everywhere, Remus took the empty veritaserum vial and filled it with Goyle' blood and cast a stasis charm on it. The twins incinerated the body while Remus decided to phone the other two group leaders and inform them of who they were facing just in case they didn't know.
Remus took out his cell phone and dialled Harry first. Harry answered and Remus began filling him on his discoveries. Thank God, he managed to get the Swiss account info because Harry only managed to get the log in and a password code before the contact was terminated by a vampire.
Harry managed to secure the computer. Remus also told him who he was facing on their freighter. When he was done he called Bill and gave him the same information. When he was done he hung up and looked at his watch. With all of the excitement they had an hour before meeting the cartel. Remus decided to make another sweep of the ship to make sure that they did not miss anybody. He told Lee to go collect their anti-portey and apparition ward generators.
When they were done, Remus rigged the explosives to go off early the following day. With that done they made there way to the distribution lab to transfer the money and destroy all hostiles. Two hours later they had completed their mission, and waited for Harry's signal.
Port of Los Angeles.
It was late in the evening and a full blown conflict was raging. Bill and his troops were currently taking care of the muggles, but with some difficulty. Not to mention the death eaters that were on the ground. Remus had informed him of who was on the ship, however there was no mention of the death eaters already on the ground. Earlier they had been dealing with seven death eaters. That number had been cut down to two. Currently Charlie and him were at point, and the last death eaters were hauled up behind a thick wall barricade. Bill began moving his troops into a circular advance.
The concealment charms were long gone, and it seemed that these death eaters could see through invisibility blankets. The enemy had been very generous launching Avada Kadavra and Crucio at them. Bill was very careful and made sure that his troops were never out in the open and always had solid protection as they made their advance.
Bill looked at Blaise and Ginny and said, " Take the left flank. He then told Charlie and Brianna to take the right flank." On my mark move. Bill let his hand down and his troops began their assault. Just as they were nearing the barricade when a muggle pulled out of the barricade and took out his muggle weapon and was firing at Ginny.
Ginny was the first to see movement and saw the muggle come up behind the barricade, he took out his gun and Ginny cast Stannum-Ancile. A silver shield surrounded her and bullets were being sent back to the attacker. At that moment Blaise got within view of the muggle and cast Ater-Cuspis which sent a slew of poisoned arrows at the muggle. One arrow hit him in the eye and he was dead before he hit the ground. At that moment a death eater ran from the barricade trying to escape but Blaise sent a Reducto in front of the man. The spell stuck the ground pulverizing the concrete and sent the death eater falling. The death eater was a lot more agile then they though when he twisted in mid air just as he was falling and cast an Avada Kadavra at Blaise. Ginny reacted within instant and cast Accio Blaise. She put full power to her wand and Blaise was summoned like a bullet to Ginny.
The death eater had enough time to get to his feet and cast Crucio at Blaise just as he was nearing Ginny's arms. Blaise went down writhing in pain. Ginny's eyes burned with a hellish fire and cast Semivir-Testis. With a grim smile, Ginny watched as the death eater gave an unholy scream. His face was twisted in pure agony. He was in so much pain that he vomited on himself. Where the mans genitals were, there was a dark reddish stain rapidly growing. Ginny had just castrated the man. Blaise had just enough time to stand up and saw the man's testicles come out of the bottom of his pants. All the man in Bill's group suddenly became very green in the face.
Charlie was the first one to speak and said, " Bill, I swear on my magic to do every thing in my power not to piss off Ginny. She is just down right scary."
Bill just looked at Charlie and nodded his head in agreement. Blaise looked at what Ginny had done, and made a mental note right there to avoid pissing off his girlfriend at all cost. Fleur had seen Ginny's handy work and they looked at each other. Fleur did the only thing she could and gave her a thumbs up. Bill got everyone attention and told them to form up on him.
Bill said, "All right everyone listen up. These guys are holed up way to tight. I wanted to reserve this as a last measure but we have not choice now. With this bit of magic the protection wards will be breached and the muggle police will be alerted to our position. When we are done here, we go straight to the ship, blow it up and portkey to France to wait for the others. We are going to use Harry's new weapon which he calls a fuel air detonation. Lets retreat behind those containers we saw by that ship."
They made a tactical retreat to the containers which was about 200 ft from their current position all the wile avoiding curses which were flying their way. They finally reached the containers and took position.
Bill said, "On my mark every one conjures up a fog of propane gas thirty feet above the barricade. "
Bill gave the signal and everyone made the wand movement to conjure a propane cloud. McNair who was hauled up behind the barricade looked at the other two junior death eaters and asked them if they smelled something weird. Just as he finished asking them he saw a small purple ball the size of a marble go over their head. The last thing that they saw was a huge ball of fire heading their way, and a loud sound rushing in all directions. The remaining forces were completely destroyed where they stood. Muggle forensic expert would later recall the horrifying scene. The bodies had been burned to a crisp, and were laying on the ground. Nearly all of their organs had been ruptured. One of the bodies was laying on his back with his body torn open length wise. His liver was crushed.
After the blast, Bill finally understood the power of that spell. Holy shit he thought, he had never seen destruction of that scale being done with a wand before. The barricade had been turned to rubble. They had been a fair ways when they had conjured the propane cloud, but still the resulting concussion wave had made their bones rattle where they stood. Bill was fairly certain that nothing had lived underneath the cloud. With that he told his group to get to the ship. Thirty minutes later, a freighter was burning in Los Angeles industrial port. Muggle authorities would spend weeks on the case, but came up with no clues as to the perpetrators of the destruction. When the ship was ablaze, Bill portkeyed his group to France.
Later that Evening in New York Harbour
Harry was on the ship Le Diable and was currently taking stock of their situation. As his luck would have it, he had run into the largest contingent of death eaters amongst the groups. Thanks to Remus recon he now knew why. Harry wanted that crate of gems. His group was systematically cleansing each ship compartment one at a time.
The ship was under lock down and his anti apparition and portkey ward generators were carefully concealed and operating. They had eliminated three of the bloody Vampires already. One of the Vampires had been caught by surprise, when Harry had been quick enough to parry his axes and caught the vampire in the heart with his katana. The blood sucker had disintegrated on site. The other two had been caught with dark arrows. In many ways Vampires were more formidable then magical beings. They were incredibly strong, fast and ruthless.
The were all hauled up where the drugs were and Harry had just about enough dealing with those fucking blood suckers. Time to put an end to them.
Harry whispered, "All right, here is what we are going to do. We are going to replicate sun light. Recall book three page 65 from Necron's series. " Everyone confirmed the spell he was talking about.
Harry said, "Stay along the bulkheads at roughly ten feet apart. When we are in position I will give off a red spark and I want you to cast the spell and work your way towards the centre crates."
Everyone got into position and then Harry fired off the signal and they all cast Solaris- Optimus- Lanthinus. The room was bathed in pure sunlight. They suddenly heard screams coming off from the crates in front of them. They all saw three vampires lit up like torches. They were setting fire to the tarps on the crates. After what seemed like a minute the Vampires were nothing but a pile of ash. Harry cast a quick Aquanimus and put out the fires.
Harry said, " All right, everyone cast revealing charms, we are looking for a crate which has some markings on it, probably R.Q.G on it. If you find it, let me know." They all got to work casting a series of revealing charms.
Neville said, " Harry, I can feel a ward over here but I can't brake it?" Harry came over and cast a dark revealing charm at the ward. Harry replied, " No wonder, its cast in parseltongue. Voldy himself must have been in here." Harry concentrated and everyone heard him hissing and then a soft green shield appeared and flickered out. At that moment a box appeared. Harry opened it and found that it was full of small teak boxes which were full of gems. Harry smiled and put the lid back on and cast a sticking charm to it. He reduced the box and safely stowed it in one of his charmed pocket. When he was done, he told Brianna, Neville and Luna to make their way towards the back of the ship, while Xiana and him would go forward.
Harry and Xiana were approaching the anchor ports of the ship. The place was poorly lit but they slowly and carefully made their way towards the paint lockers. Suddenly a shadow popped out from behind the locker and cast a bludgeoning spell point blank at Xiana which caught her right in her left shoulder. She screamed and was blasted back against some bails, which happened to be filled with packed cotton. Had she hit the bulkhead she would have busted her head.
Harry watched it all happen as if it were in slow motion and suddenly he was filled with a rage so hot, that his veins felt as if they were on fire. Anyone looking at him could see his eyes glowing like neon orbs. The attacker was about to cast another spell towards Xiana when Harry screamed Retroago-Figere-Scipio. The attacker had just started uttering Avada when Harry's spell hit the attacker. Harry heard Kadavra and the attackers wand exploded. Harry heard a scream as if a banshee was dying. Harry didn't waste any time and cast Nebula-Exustio. This dark curse causes a cloud of hydrofluoric acid to surround the attacker. The screams suddenly became unholy. Harry quickly cast a silencing charm and ran to his wife.
Xiana said, " Sorry love, I wasn't quick enough. Fuck this smarts."
Harry replied, " Don't move love. It's going to be all right. I'm going to open up your robe and scan you."
Even in pain, Xiana gave him a mischievous smile and said, " Really love I don't thing this is the time for that sort of thing."
Harry looked at her smiled and just shook his head and said, " Hey keep your mind out of the gutter Miss Potter."
Xiana smiled as Harry kneeled down, and opened up her battle robe. He noticed a dark purple bruise on her left shoulder. Thank God Harry had learned some medi magic. He used his wand and uttered Conviso- Corporeus. Harry read the readings and felt instant relief wash over him. Xiana had been badly bruised but no dislocated shoulder. Thank the lord for the basilisk robe. They took the brunt of the curse that's for damn sure. Harry waved his wand over her abdomen and saw that the baby was fine. Dam the thought of something happening to his wife and child and twisted his gut into tatters. He took out a healing and a pepper up potion, making sure that they were both safe to take for a pregnant woman. He then cast a healing charm on her head and shoulder.
Harry helped her to her feet and made sure she was o.k. He then went to the attacker who was now kneeling on the ground pouring a bucket of water on herself. Harry could see the skin peeling off her hands, but what really surprised him was the face that was looking back at him. This attacker Harry remembered very well from his 5th year as he still had some faint scarring on the back of his hands. Harry still had his hood on and a concealment charm on his face.
As he approached the figure Harry said, "Well, well, well! If this isn't a genetic cross between a toad and a human being. Well this would make her a halfbreed. Hello Umbridge seems you have fallen into some bad company lately. Tsk, Tsk,Tsk" Harry's voice came out cold and harsh.
The pathetic lump of shit kneeling before him looked up at him and screeched, " Who are you, and what do you want to do with me. You aren't going to rape me are you?" She said the last bit with her usual sickly sweet voice.
Harry replied, " I would rather fuck a dead tree rather then touch you." He spat. Without waiting for another response he waved his wand and pinned her up against the forward bulkhead. He then waved his wand again and the top half of her robe was stripped off to reveal a sagging set of breast.
Umbride who was now in extreme pain and was by now in a complete panic as she recognized the scorpion emblem on his robes and said, "Who are you?" She realized that her only chance now was to activate her portkey. She slowly reached down to her robes with her left hand and felt the familiar object and quickly pulled it out and screeched "Activate!"
Harry knew what she was doing, but he let her knowing that her realizing that there was no escape would mentally crush her. When nothing happened she threw the portkey on the ground and kept asking who he was. Finally he pulled he hood off and laughed.
Umbridge had been ready for anybody but this boy, who was looking back at her. With a sneer she said, " Ah now I know who you are little Potty!" Now a very bright move on her part she realized to late.
Harry sneered and said, " I have been dreaming of catching up to you later for some well deserved vengeance on my part. It seems fate had a much shorter time line than me. Now you fucking sycophant whore, you are going to beg for death I swear. Lets start with some retribution in kind shall we."
Xiana knew what that woman had done to him and she was not going to stop him no matter what he did. Well some things she would, but it had to be really bad. Harry decided to conjure his plasma sphere. He cast anther silencing charm and started launching sphere after sphere at her. Harry was burning I will not tell lies across her breast. The screams coming from the hag was music to his ears. After about twenty minutes he had the sentence spelled out across her breast. The flesh was burned black, and knew that the burns had to be excruciating.
She managed to utter her last defiance and said, " Don't worry you little shit, you aren't going to get out of here, Rudolphus will take care of you little Potty."
Harry gave her a feral grin and replied, " Oh, do you mean the Rudolphus Lestrange, husband to that psycho bitch Bellatrix. Well I'm afraid that he left our plane of existence about forty five minutes ago. He is currently just a pile of protoplasm draining into the ship's bilge."
When he was done berating her he said, " Well as much fun as this was, I have business to attend too." He cast the following ancient spell, Ki-Ud-diþ . A swarm of carnivorous desert scarabs descended on her and began eating her alive. The screams, goreand the stench coming off her was enough to make Xiana lose her lunch. When the scarabs were done there was nothing but a skeleton with little bits of flesh left on her bones sticking to the bulkhead. Harry banished the scarabs when he heard Luna, Neville and Brianna say, " Holy shit Harry?"
Harry whipped around and noticed who it was, and said " Sorry I'm a little late, but Umbridge kept me occupied for a little while. As you can see she has gone through my special weight loss program."
Neville frowned and said, " Remind me not to piss you off o.k" Harry just grinned and said. "Status report."
Briana replied, "We took care of eight muggle mercenaries and two wizards. We don't know where Rabastan is though."
Harry replied, " All right, I have the computer and the login details and Remus was able to get me the Swiss account number. It's time for the transaction to occur. We are suppose to meet them at eight p.m."
They all rigged the ship for destruction and made their way to the muggle underground lab. Under the invisibility blanket Harry took some polyjuice potion and became one Rudolphus Lestrange. He carefully removed himself from the blanket and took out the death eaters computer and made his way to the table. He noticed Rabastan in the corner and just nodded to him. Rabastan looked up at him and nodded back. Harry had dispersed his troops not to far from the entrance to the work area in case they needed to make a quick escape. Harry noticed that there must have been over a hundred muggles working in the lab. God dam he thought, this is going to get bloody.
Harry made his way to the table and took out the computer. He booted the laptop and waited for the access menu to come up. He hoped to hell that the login and password that he got from Lestrange worked. He carefully typed in the login and password and crossed his fingers. The computer waited a second and came back access denied. Fuck he thought what is going on. Harry took some deep breath and looked at the keyboard. He noticed that the stupid cap lock was on. God dam infernal stupid ass machine he thought.
He retyped the login name and password. The computer blinked and the desktop came to life. Thank God he though, one hurdle out of the way. He connected to the muggle Internet system and connected to the Swiss bank transaction home page. He had memorized the account number that Remus had provided him. He selected account transaction and typed in the thirty one bit account number. The man sitting in front of him was wearing dark sunglasses and had a long jagged scar running from his left eyebrow down to his chin. He was a rather foreboding fellow but truth be told, Harry found him kind of amusing. No doubt this guy was intimidating to muggles, but after having dealt with Voldemort, this guy might as well pass himself off as a circus clown. The man sitting across from him was named Ethan.
Ethan said, " Are we ready for the transaction?"
Harry replied coldly, " Let's get this done muggle." The man sitting in front of him lifted his eyebrow but said nothing. This was not the first time he was dealing with these strange people. His people kept going to them because they had some real good shit, and had low prices. His cartel leader had made it clear that he was to shut his mouth and get the transaction finalized. Ethan turned the computer towards him and typed in his account number.
Harry turned the computer back to him and pushed the enable screen button. Now came the tricky part. The first transaction went through and then the web page asked Harry if he wanted to carry out another transaction. He typed in his own Swiss account number and Voldemort's account and asked to have all of the money transferred from Voldemort's to his account. The page asked him if he wanted to really do this and Harry pressed the yes button. A little time bar showed up. It was showing him the transaction in progress.
Ethan looked at him and said, " Is there any problems man?"
Harry replied, " No, connection just seems a bit slow today." Ethan looked at him and nodded. After about five minutes, the screen blinked and said transaction complete. Harry looked at Ethan and said, "O.K we are done. See you next spring. We are going to unload the rest of the heroin. "
Ethan said, "I'll have some of my guys help you." He said this as if daring him to contradict him.
Harry replied, " No problems. Pick them out and I'll meet them at the exit. " Ethan went and picked four of his guys. Harry stood up and nodded to Rabastan. Rabastan decided to stay in the lab, which suited Harry immensely. This would make it much easier to deal with the muggle until they could destroy the lab. Harry still didn't know how much money he had transferred but that could wait. He needed to take care of business here first. As Harry was walking toward the exit where his troops were hiding, he gave them the hand signal to follow him.
His group under invisibility cloak followed Harry and the four muggles. Once outside, Harry gave the signal for his group to ambush the muggles. The fight was over before the muggles could even retaliate. After banishing the bodies into the sea. They all retreated behind a container and they all pulled off their invisibility cloaks.
Neville said, " Were we successful?"
Harry smiled and said, " Thanks to your hard work and dedication we have just cleaned out Voldemort of his funds. Don't ask me how much, because I didn't have time to check. I'll do this later tomorrow. For now we need to destroy that lab and destroy the ship. Here is what we are going to do..."
The all made their way back to the entrance to the lab. Harry whispered Ki-Ud-Gir-Zakal. Suddenly a desert storm came into full force inside the building. Then Harry cast Zi-Pà-úrgu-Mìna, which brought forth thirty Jackal warriors. Harry told them to kill everything they find inside. His desert fury confused everyone even Rabastan and soon Harry heard screams upon screams coming from the lab. Harry had no remorse about this. The muggles were responsible for destroying the life's of thousand's of their kind with these drugs. In his books they were evil and if there were a hundred less of them in the world then so be it.
Harry told his group to remove their invisibility blankets and to mow down anyone coming towards the exit. It didn't take long for Harry to hear a slew of Ater-Cuspis being fired. After about thirty minutes. Harry lifted the desert fury and banished his jackal warriors. The sight that greeted them was a horror show from hell. Body's pieces were all over the place. Blood was accumulating in pools in the floors depression area. No one was alive, not even the wizards. Harry made sure of that. No bloody portky or apparition was going to work tonight he though.
With that grim task out of the way. Harry told his troops to conjure a large propane cloud inside the building. They all took out their wands and conjured the propane cloud. He told them get out and wait for him on the docks. Harry waited until they were safely out of the way and then cast a plasma sphere at the cloud and immediately apparated out to the docks. Within seconds they all felt as if a small earthquake had gone off. The could see smoke and fire billowing out the muggle portable toilet.
Over the next ten hours they had destroyed all of the labs, ships and R.Q.G headquarters. Harry took all of the document he could find before levelling the place. They had killed all of Voldemort's hired help in the drug trade. The coup de grace had been the complete transfer of Voldemort's war chess from his Swiss bank account to Harry's. This would be officially known as the start of Voldemort's downfall. Harry would face many more challenges in the coming year, but this act had been a truly spectacular feat. The famous Chinese general Sun-Tzu would have been very proud indeed.
It was around 5:00 am the following morning that everyone portkeyed back to the scorpion lair. After fighting in America, France and lastly in Pakistan. The scorpion army was utterly wasted. They all had cuts and bruises. Several members were limping. Harry had made sure to let Dobby and Winky know to prepare beds and food for when the troops got back. Everyone made it back, showered, ate and hit the sack completely exhausted. Most of the regular students used their portkey ring to get back to their dorms. Harry, and the rest of the troops stayed at the scorpion lair. Well Harry thought this had truly been a month of challenges. He went to the conjured bed where Xiana was already sleeping. He laid beside her and in less than a minute, he was fast asleep.
Harry felt as if he was falling off a precipice and found himself drifting through a swirling black fog mixed with fiery red burst of light. His drifting seemed to last for ever until he found his feet hitting ground. The sky above his head was filled with intermittent lightning strikes. Harry found himself being pulled through a pathway leading to a large set of doors. Harry had no clue where he was, and wondered if this was a Voldemort induced vision.
Harry didn't know how, but he was sure that it was not. This felt far too ethereal to one of Voldemort's crude visions. Not knowing what else to do and feeling the pull towards the great doors, Harry kept walking down the path. As he was walking, Harry noticed a variety of statues lining the path. The statues gave off an eerie look and they all seemed to be looking at him. There were scorpions, Hydras, Nephelims, Extinct Dragons, and Jackal warriors to name a few.
After a while he finally reached the doors and found that the doors had all forms of Runes engraved on it. Harry noticed a set of scorpions facing each other, on instinct he pulled out his wand and traced the engraving. The moment he was done the doors starting opening. The sight before him was unlike anything he had ever seen.
There were huge obsidian columns rising so far up that you could not make out the roof of the place. What was even more interesting was the fact that flames of deep blue, purple and blood red seemed to wind into a spiral around the column. On the ground there were all manners of creatures both small and large. Harry could see large scorpions with human torso and head looking at him. For some reason, Harry felt no fear, in fact the scorpion man bowed their heads as he walked passed them.
Harry finally came to a large dome, that gave off an eerie blue glow. Harry noticed and archway, and knew that he had to go through there. Harry crossed the archway and found himself walking towards the centre of the dome. As he approached the centre of the dome he could make out a huge throne with scorpions etched all over the surface of the throne. Floating above the throne Harry saw a swirling mass of blue and green fog with a pair of black eyes with deep purple flames for iris looking back at him. Harry on instinct kneeled and bowed his head in respect and waited.