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The Leaky Cauldron, ninety minutes after breakfast…

"Mister Zabini. Miss Crabbe. Miss Lestrange. Mrs. Meretrice. Mrs. Perks. Good morning to you all. Here to do some business at Gringotts?"

Blaise Zabini, Charlotte Crabbe, Cassiopeia Lestrange, Libera Meretrice and her bond-mate Sally-Anne Perks all blinked on hearing that voice from behind them, then they turned to smile at the man dressed in black approaching them from the public floo terminal located near the back of the charming magical pub that served as the main gateway between wizarding Britain's primary shopping district and the normal world. "Greetings and salutations, Master Severus," the eldest of the Meretrice quintuplets — who were, despite their being Avalonians having been publicly known since February, seen as truly blessed as multiple births at the same time were viewed as a special gift from the gods and goddesses of Magic Itself — said as she allowed Severus Snape to take her hand and courtly kiss it. "We'll be off soon to visit the noble masters of our family vaults within that honourable institution to ensure that all is ready before we take our oaths of office within the House of Lords Wizengamot later today," she added after he had greeted Charlotte and Cassiopeia the same way, then shook Blaise's and Sally-Anne's hands before taking up the empty seat at one end of their table.

"So what brings you here, Professor Snape?" Sally-Anne asked after Hannah Abbott had come over to take an order for a cup of coffee from Severus.

The potions master sighed. Despite his normal policy of favouritism to the Slytherins before 1997, Severus always did his best to help students from other houses — yes, even in Gryffindor — who showed potential in his chosen craft. The normal-born forester's daughter from Herefordshire had been one such person. Sally-Anne Perks had a wonderful study ethic, worked hard at everything she did, composed essays that were concise and got to the point without — as Hermione Granger often did before Raven Malfoy knocked some sense into the former's head during her sixth year — deluging the reader with unnecessary facts or a mass regurgitation of information obtained from textbooks…and she even went so far as to develop her own theories as to why certain things happened the way they did in the potions laboratory. She would have been a potential candidate for post-NEWT mastery training in the art hadn't Dolores Umbridge — out of a simple hatred of all normal-borns in the end; it often amazed Severus the former senior undersecretary had never been marked as a Death Eater — learned of Sally-Anne's soul-bond with Libera Meretrice in the winter of 1996 and saw her banished from Hogwarts.

He then smirked as he recalled what happened AFTER that school year ended. Dolores — who had been nearly sacrificed to the centaurs by Harry Potter just before the Battle of the Department of Mysteries — had been found by a vengeful Sally-Anne, with Libera and the other reborn witches of Rhosan Green at her side, in the Forbidden Forest, then subjected to a very vicious series of curses and hexes that saw the woman sent to St. Mungo's for a couple months. Before she could attempt to have the "uppity mudblood" tracked down and dealt with, the news of Tsukuyomi's presence in Britain sent the former High Inquisitor scurrying into undergarment-soiling seclusion in her family home in the London borough of Camden. Dolores wouldn't get a chance to try to get even with Sally-Anne until after Rufus Scrimgeour was killed at the end of the 1996-97 school year. Within a day of Pius Thicknesse being declared Minister for Magic, the Snatchers sent to Ross-on-Wye to locate Sally-Anne were sent back to Dolores all dead, their heads on pikes, their bodies missing…and with a note warning that "Death Eater Season" was coming.

Within hours of that gruesome act making front-page news in the morning edition of the Daily Prophet, Dolores Umbridge would become one of the first of well over two thousand "guests" to entertain the Hollows of Gonebren en masse for the first time in over fifty years.

"I came to obtain supplies at Slug and Jiggers before I engage in private research for the next month," Severus answered before he wandlessly put up a privacy bubble around them. "I take it you know what's going on with Draco and Theodore?" he quietly asked.

"We know," Blaise stated as the others nodded; none of them blinked when Severus moved to mask their conversation from eavesdroppers. "Harry's got something planned…"

A chorus of shocked gasps then echoed from the direction of the main doors leading onto Charing Cross Road, which made people's heads snap over…

…and then everyone at the table gaped on seeing the two women now standing close to the entrance on either side of Harry Potter as they took a moment to drink in the warm ambience of the Leaky Cauldron. On seeing who was now accompanying the Man-Who-Won to Diagon, Severus tried not to groan. Damn it all, Harry! Actually BRINGING the leader of the Schwarze Mädchen and her senior NCO right into the Leaky Cauldron of all places?! he mentally railed, once more reminded of all the many times he vented his spleen at the reckless idiocy many who had been sorted into Gryffindor in the past demonstrated.

"Lizzie Gibbon! My God, that IS you! How are you?!"

People gaped as a grinning Tom Dodderidge came over to shake a wide-eyed Elizabeth Gibbon's hand. After a second as her brain absorbed the sight of her former schoolmate — Tom had been a Hufflepuff a year behind the Gibbon twins; he had been the star keeper on the house quidditch team at the time — now alive as an elderly and hunchbacked man, the leader of the Schwarze Mädchen then laughed before she warmly embraced him. Soon enough, another old schoolmate made her presence known. "Oh, Merlin! Lizzie, you practically look like you did when you did your OWLs in '36!" Doris Crockford — she had been a year ahead of Elizabeth and Jessica as part of Slytherin; she had helped them study for their fifth year exams — called out as she came over to embrace the younger-looking woman. "Are you alright?! You weren't hurt when you went through that body-swapping thing after the Rittmeister turned you into one of the Space Angels, were you?!"

Elizabeth grinned as Harry sent a knowing look towards Severus, getting a nod and a slight smile in return from the potions master in acknowledgement of the Man-Who-Won's current plan to ease people into accepting the return of Grindelwald's Black Maidens into European wizarding society. "We hardly remembered what happened, Doris," she admitted as Tom scurried off to prepare tea. "One moment, we were on the grounds of Gretta's old school finding out we were facing an alien invasion of all things…and the next, we were in that cave sensing the Immortals close by. Then the Vinur Drekar came, she was attacked by vampires, then we got teleported to the factory!"

Hannah, who had been serving a nearby table, gasped. "Were you hurt?! Was she hurt?!" she demanded — with the right inflections of concern and fright in her voice, Severus mused with a private smile, admiring her acting abilities — as she came over.

"The Vinur Drekar teleported us to safety at the same moment she wiped out those vampires, meine Herrin," Margareta Hecht answered. "They never got near us. Still, even if they did and tried to kill or turn us, they would have suffered a very TERMINAL case of mesonium poisoning that would have either destroyed them totally…"

"Or, as we've heard in the cases of Angelus and some of his demon-possessed friends, be transformed into Terran-adopted Avalonians," Elizabeth finished.

The others in the pub all nodded in understanding. "Merlin bless that girl!" Tom said as he moved to get the tea ready at the main counter. "Pity that she has to stay quiet about who she is and where she comes from. Can't understand why, though."

"She's most likely a person who had her soul transmitted here from another dimension and inserted into an Avalonian body, Tom," Severus noted after dropping the privacy screen around his table. "That's the theory the Earth Angel came up with according to the latest issue of the Quibbler, where Miss Lovegood covered that incident about those thirty Terran-form Avalonians the son of the would-be master to all the founding crews of the Haida and Yamato had under his control; the Vinur Drekar saved them, too."

"She's as pure a Zoroastrian as anyone alive today that I know of, Uncle Severus," Charlotte added as Tom went over to give the tea to the just-arrived Schwarze Mädchen. "Still, General Raeburn decreed that since the Vinur Drekar has to keep silent about her origins due to an oath sworn on giri, she's to be left alone." She shook her head. "And I don't want to be the poor fool that tries to defy her wishes about that."

The others in the café nodded; many had heard of — or for those who had been alive during Grindelwald's War, actually witnessed — how bloody vicious the Protector of All Life could be to those who defied her on anything. By then, Tom noted what was on Elizabeth's jacket. "Oh, Merlin! Is that the Pour le Mérite Magique?!" he demanded.

Doris looked before she gaped. "My God, it IS! And with Oak Leaves and Diamonds! That's the equal of a First Class Order of Merlin! How did you get that, Lizzie?!"

"Battlefield medical spells I invented while I was in Yugoslavia hunting vampires," Elizabeth stated, which made people gape. "I devised a simple way of doing a blood purge of the ichor a vampire injects into its victim to turn a human into one of them. I was able to save several hundred people from becoming demon-possessed vampires; we had no idea if there was a Slayer in the area at the time, so we had to deal with them ourselves." She pointed to her Wound Badge. "My team and I found the Hellmouth that was spewing them out in the mountains not far from Banja Luka in Bosnia. I ultimately got this because I nearly got killed dropping a fuel-air bomb into it to destroy it."

"Is that like that meson bomb Mun Aesup used to destroy Azkaban?" another man asked.

"Not as powerful as what Aesup built," Harry answered. "Fuel-air bombs usually use the same type of propellant as what powers the automobiles that go up and down Charing Cross Road…but in a vapour format mixed with air to get it burning faster. If Aesup used that type of explosive on Azkaban, it would have wrecked the prison and killed anyone inside it…but we'd still have to deal with dementors since the ward stone on the island that allowed them to be created wouldn't have been affected."

"Merlin bless her!" another man called out. "That Mun girl should have been made part of the Wizengamot for doing something like that!"

A loud cheer echoed from the other patrons in response. Indeed, it had been a day of celebration across Britain when it had been confirmed that the Dementors of Azkaban had been wiped out to the very last being and would NEVER come back. "We never thought to use mesonium in weapons, mein Herr," Margareta then said as she gazed on the man who had asked about the similarities between a fuel-air bomb and a mesonium bomb. "All the mesonium available in Germany at the time was being used to create more Übermenschen to be served up for the slaughter at the hands of Frau Majorin Raeburn and her friends." She then shook her head. "What a pathetic and stupid waste that all was."

"Ja," Elizabeth breathed out in German.

Eyes locked on the silvery-blonde woman who had accompanied Britain's now-most famous expat magical warrior before Doris blinked. "You both have the same first medal," she said as she indicated the black-white-and-red undress ribbon with the diamond-encrusted oak leaves on the red field topping crossed crusader swords. "What is that?"

"The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds, Madame Crockford. At the time of its award, the third-highest bravery decoration of the German Reich," Severus said as he came over to join them, nodding politely to Harry.

"Isn't that like our Victoria Cross, Severus?" Tom asked.

"The very same, Tom, though awarded at multiple levels dependant if the person had been awarded a lower-ranked award before or if said person showed an uncommon level of personal valour. Almost the same as awarding bars to the Victoria Cross from subsequent awards, just like General Raeburn, Admiral Thompkins and Commissioner Larsden received," the potions master confirmed, making Elizabeth's and Margareta's eyes go wide on hearing what had happened to three of the War Hawks. "All levels of the Knight's Cross — which was, in my opinion, an unnecessary embellishment of the Iron Cross — were made to outrank the Pour le Mérite Magique with Oak Leaves and Diamonds. The first class Iron Cross outranked the Pour le Mérite Magique with Oak Leaves. The second class Iron Cross outranked the basic Pour le Mérite Magique." He nodded as he gazed on Elizabeth. "As it should always be done when it comes to awards of valour."

"You made a slight mistake there, Zaubertränkemeister Snape," Margareta stated.

"How so, Zaubertränkeherrin Hecht?" Severus asked.

Her eyes went wide on hearing that title applied to her. "How…?!"

A light smile crossed his face, which made people who had endured Severus' sharp tongue in class at Hogwarts gape at the sight of the normally dour man being respectful and friendly to a stranger…even if said stranger was a fellow Potions Mistress; the magical translation fields of the Leaky Cauldron had no problem whatsoever in helping the English-speakers understand the German titles Severus and Margareta used for each other. "Even though you were denied the right to gain a mastery at Nurmengard before the war started, you studied under Lady Tsukuyomi when you could spare time away from the battlefield. She's an accredited Potions Mistress in her own right and saw you and several of your friends 'posthumously' accredited as same in 1950 when the ICMC cleared the slate for all you ladies. Your discovery of the use of ruby mesonium crystals in various healing potions to increase their potency is accepted practice worldwide today. That's why you yourself were awarded the Pour le Mérite Magique with Oak Leaves."

She shrugged as a quirky smile crossed her face. "It was nothing, mein Freund. War — as Herr General Stonewall Jackson eloquently said during the American Civil War — is the sum of all evils…but it's ALSO the cradle of many innovations." She then sighed. "I only wish that it didn't come with such damned cost."

"That's the only true things all who fight in a war can say."

Eyes locked on Harry. "What's that, Harry?" Sally-Anne asked.

"It doesn't matter if you win or lose, Sally-Anne. It matters that you survived it."

People sadly nodded on hearing that…


A half-hour later, the three travellers from Buckingham Palace stepped through the portal connecting the Leaky Cauldron to Diagon Alley; Blaise and his companions had all gone off to Gringotts by then, accompanied by Severus. On seeing the main shopping street of wizarding Britain for the first time since before her last year at Hogwarts, Elizabeth paused before she sighed. "It's hardly changed since '37," she mused.

"There've been some changes," Harry assured her before waving over to the Technomancy Shoppe. "That was set up in recent years by a Korean-Briton friend of mine, Mun Aesup; as you'll recall, she's the one who wiped out the Dementors in '97. It's a big hit with the younger crowd as you can see," he noted on seeing the kids and teenagers crowd the plate glass windows to gaze on the incredible equipment inside. He then smiled as a pair of older witches who were heading towards the Cauldron automatically shifted themselves to stay as far clear of the Shoppe's main doors as they could…then tried to smother his amused smirk on seeing both of them pause on noting who was currently accompanying him before they turned stark-white, then they scrambled as fast as they could walk for the Cauldron. "But some things simply refuse to change."

"I don't know if that's a good thing or not," Elizabeth muttered.

"Harry!"

Harry smiled as he waved Elizabeth and Margareta with him towards Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. "'Morning, Ginny," he called out as Ginny Weasley came over to embrace him, delivering a playful peck on his lips. "How are things with you and Nell?"

"She's keeping in touch via the Dreamscape," Ginny stated. "Having fun becoming one of the 'nozzers' at Raleigh while she goes through basic training." She shook her head. "I swear, some of the chief petty officers there yell ever worse than Mum!"

"'Raleigh?'" Elizabeth asked.

"It's a shore establishment these days down at Torpoint in Cornwall," Harry reported. "The basic training school for the Royal Navy is there. Ginny's wife is one of Hood's founding crew of Terran-form Avalonians; she plans to be a medical assistant."

"We saw those ships up in orbit yesterday after we had a chance to recover from being cooped up in those gestation tubes for so long," Margareta stated as they all headed towards the shop owned by Ginny's older brothers. "Surprised a lot of us that the ship representing Germany was named Bismarck. I'd think that naming our ship after some of the anti-Nazi resistance groups like the Weiße Rose or honouring the people that were involved in Unternehmen Walküre in 1944 would be more befitting."

"Actually, Germany's planned space aircraft carrier will be the Walküre," Ginny stated as she beckoned the others inside. "The space missile cruiser that the Bundeswehr will crew will be the Weiße Rose and the space destroyer will be the Widerstand." She then chuckled as she moved behind the counter, drawing up some soda pop cans from a fridge. "Then again, what's wrong with naming Germany's battleship after Chancellor Bismarck? He's the man who literally brought Germany together in 1871, wasn't he?"

"Ja, he was…but it still makes me wonder why the name was accepted in the modern ship after the battleship built before the war went on Unternehmen Rheinübung."

"At least the sailors under Admiral Lütjens and Kapitän zur See Lindemann operated and fought with the same honour and courage the old German Navy showed in the Great War, Gretta," Elizabeth noted before nodding her thanks as Ginny handed her an opened can of soda pop. "It's just a damned shame that crew — and the rest of the Wehrmacht — had to fight under the overall command of such a deviant little monster like Adolf Hitler."

"Ja," Margareta exhaled before nodding her thanks as Ginny handed her a can of pop.

Both women then tensed on sensing a pair of people come down from the upstairs loft. Before they could snap-draw their wands, Harry placed a calming hand on Elizabeth's shoulder, which made her gaze upon him. By then, Ginny's brothers had come down, both then stopping and gaping on seeing who had come into the shop. "Oh, my Heavens!" Fred Weasley gasped before he stared in open-mouthed shock at his twin. "Forge?"

"Yeah, Gred?" George Weasley said with a knowing grin.

"You realize we have two of Master Gellert's lovely Black Maidens visiting us today?"

"Indeed, I do, dear brother. Which makes me want to ask something."

"And that is?"

"Are they all…?"

"…sexy foxes…?"

"…as both of you?!" the twins finished as one.

Margareta moaned. "Magical twins?" Elizabeth asked Ginny as she tried not to laugh.

"You get used to it," the youngest Weasley child confessed.

"Never mind," the commander of the Schwarze Mädchen breathed out. "Master Frederick, Master George, would you care to help out a group of helpless witches?"

Both men blinked. "'Helpless?!'" they exclaimed together. Calling the Schwarze Mädchen of all the known covens of witches throughout history "helpless"…!

"Not that I'd want to embarrass your sister in public by speaking of something that should stay private, but you know what she had to do with Nell right after her body-swap and they bonded, don't you?" Harry calmly asked as he indicated Ginny.

The three Weasleys blinked…before they all paled. "Bugger…!" Fred groaned out. "You mean to say, Brigadier Gibbon, that you're going to use…?!"

"The Vindictam Sanguinis," Elizabeth coldly declared.

Ginny gasped as Fred and George exchanged looks…and then they all grinned in delight. To make THAT invocation on Magic Itself — given the Black Maidens' current state as physical virgins! — would guarantee that the vampires that had tried to kill them the previous morning at Nurmengard would be wiped clear off the map. "Merlin! That's one step away from PERFECT!" Ginny breathed out in admiration.

"But not against the vampires."

Eyes locked on Harry. "Harry, are you crazy?!" George exclaimed. "The Vengeance of Blood would be PERFECT against those monsters! And it's totally LEGAL…!"

"As it would be using it against the wizards conspiring WITH the vampires to steal their magic as a way of killing off the Avalonians," the Man-Who-Won finished.

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

And then…

"Malfoy?!" Fred snarled as George shuddered with outrage and Ginny paled in horror.

"He's a latecomer to it," Harry stated as Elizabeth nodded in understanding. The long-simmering family feud between the Malfoys of Avebury and the Weasleys of Ottery Saint Catchpole — which had reportedly started when the former family blocked all attempts by the first Queen Elizabeth to ennoble the latter family and give it a permanent seat in the Wizard's Council…going so far as to try to CURSE the Virgin Queen in hopes of bringing the Crown under the sway of the former clan; of course, such a curse would fail because of the magic of the Crown protecting the Queen from such "treasonous" acts — had been as active in the 1930s as it no doubt was these days. Back when the Gibbons twins had been students, Abraxas Malfoy and Septimus Weasley engaged in what many considered an out-of-control prank war…but — as Elizabeth and some of her peers later discovered — was a series of attempts to create fatal "accidents" in hopes of ending either family line to bring the feud to a close. Obviously, with descendants of both families alive and well today, Abraxas (whom Elizabeth always saw as an arrogant arse) and Septimus (a rather kind man with a wicked sense of humour who actually dated Jessica Gibbon a few times) realized that their duties to their families' futures had precedence over perpetuating something stupid like THAT. "Ditto with Goyle, Leolin, Selwyn, Mithwold and Crouch…not to mention Runcorn and Matthews. Those last two really surprised me; I always thought Loi and Melli were smarter than that. But it's Nott who's the main supporter. That's according to the memories Raven and Ariel lifted from their brothers last night."

Amused laughter filled the room from all those who had prior experience with Draco Malfoy. "You'd think Draco would know better!" Fred exclaimed. "Even if he's been doing his best to hide Raven's existence from his mother, he's known all along about Avalonian telepathy even BEFORE the bloody Liberation! What's he trying to do?!"

"He thinks that because he's a 'pureblood,' anything he does automatically has the blessings of Magic on him!" Ginny declared with a sneer that easily matched anything Severus Snape could do. "Since Raven and Ariel — not to mention me — are no more than 'golems pretending to be human,' he thinks there's nothing we or any of our sisters can do which could stop him from getting ultimately what he wants."

"What did that family do to you, Frau Weasley?"

She blinked on hearing Margareta's concerned question before she breathed out. "Just before my first year in '92, Lucius Malfoy — he's Draco's and Raven's father — slipped a diary once owned by Tom Riddle into my cauldron when I was here buying my supplies, Sergeant-Major Hecht. You know all about Tom and what he became, right?" At the German witch's nod, the youngest Weasley added, "Well, that diary turned out to be one of the trinkets he used to keep himself tied to the mortal plane after Harry's mother obliterated the bastard in '81. It possessed me and unleashed the monster in Master Salazar's Chamber of Secrets — a bloody basilisk of all things! — on the students. Several normal-borns — chief among them Hermione Granger — were petrified by the thing before people figured out what was going on." She was quick to sense a flash of outrage burst from Elizabeth's heart on hearing that. Merlin! she mentally exclaimed. Don't tell me that 'Mione…! "Harry nearly died before he killed the damned thing to save my life, then used one of the basilisk's fangs to destroy the diary."

The brigade sergeant-major of the Black Maidens gaped before she stared wide-eyed at a now-blushing Man-Who-Won. "How old were you when you did this?!" she demanded.

"It was at the end of my second year," he replied.

Both Schwarze Mädchen gaped at him before they exchanged looks. "What do you think, Gretta?" Elizabeth wondered as she grinned at Margareta.

"The Wound Badge in gold for sure, Elise. Plus at least a Knight's Cross," the latter stated, which made Harry's cheeks redden even more. "Even the Grand Cross, maybe."

"A lot better than that fat schweinhund Göring ever deserved!" the former spat out.

A moan escaped the German witch. "Jawohl, meine Generalmajorin!" It was because of the first Grand Cross of the 1939 series of the Iron Cross being awarded to Hermann Göring in 1940 — atop it not being an award for bravery but for "the most outstanding strategic decisions affecting the course of the war" — that the Schwarze Mädchen never accepted the Grand Cross as having right of precedence over the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds. That medal, which was one step above the decoration Elizabeth and Margareta had been given in the German order of precedence, had been awarded only once to a Stuka dive bomber pilot from the Silesian town of Konradswaldau — today the Polish town of Grzędy — named Hans-Ulrich Rudel; that had been done near the end of 1944.

"So what say we plan to deal with some leicheblut schweinhunde?!"

The visiting Black Maidens gaped at Ginny. "Who taught you THAT?!" Elizabeth asked.

"Harry…via Tsukiko-sensei," the youngest Weasley stated as Fred and George both laughed. "We all were tossing it around in his sixth year — my OWL year — at every one of Voldemort's supporters who were in the school at the time. Idiots like Dumbledore were taking points off us left, right and centre…but we didn't stop."

"Because they bloody hell deserved it…and more," George stated before he walked over to stand close to Elizabeth. "So, Brigadier Gibbon, how may we humble shopkeepers be of assistance to you and your delightful coven this fine morning?"

"Show me what you have," the combat witch from Yorkshire purred…


Gringotts, that moment…

"So there're no objections?"

Griphook smirked. "None whatsoever, Your Lordship. Their Ladyships' family rings accepted them without question. You can take them right away to the Wizengamot chambers and allow them to swear their oaths of service right now. Come the next weekly meeting on Monday, they can sit with everyone else as full voting members."

Hearing that, Blaise breathed out. "Thank Merlin for that!" the Baron of Lewisham declared as he wiped his forehead with a hand. He had excused himself when Griphook and two assistants had brought up the family rings to be worn by the leaders of the Most Noble Houses of Crabbe of Saxmundham, Lestrange of Barnet and Meretrice of Wye from the vaults so that Charlotte, Cassiopeia and Libera could put them on and allow the magic inherited from their ancestors to acknowledge them as the true viscountesses for their jurisdictions and matriarchs of their clans. With the amendments to the Ministry Governance Act of 1705 having wiped away all legal barriers preventing Meridiana alumni from sitting in the Wizengamot, that meant that three more family seats with a six "seat point" vote spread would now be active once more. Adding that to the eighty-six active seat point votes present in the Wizengamot, that meant that the divide of votes between the "light," the "dark," and the "neutral" families would right now go 59-30-9. That meant that even without the votes of the neutral families, those who supported the reform agenda promulgated by Kingsley Shacklebolt would possess the fifty percent-plus-one majority needed to pass bills AND now have the sixty percent-plus-one majority needed to stop any filibustering in the Wizengamot.

Thinking of that, Blaise sighed with relief. The neutral families these days included the Runcorns of Halton (four points), the Ropers of Bellacourt (three points) and the Matthewses of Sutton (two points). Blaise's old housemate Achelois Runcorn stood first to inherit the former family after her father Herodotus passed away, which wouldn't really change much given the latter's heartbreak at what happened to his cousin Albert during Death Eater Season. Even more so, Achelois ALSO stood to inherit the seat for the Collinses of Widnes (four points), whose current patriarch always voted "light." Unfortunately, Achelois was too easily swayed these days by other people — especially pureblood traditionalists like Draco Malfoy and Theo Nott — to not really think for herself and the future of her clan. The only person who could keep Achelois clear of people like Draco and Theo was her best friend, Camellia Matthews…and she had strongly made it clear since after her brother's death that would NOT support anything invented by the people who killed Charles Matthews during Death Eater Season.

How in Merlin's name did Loi actually get sorted into Slytherin in the first place?! Blaise often found himself wondering when he thought of the slender woman with the rusty red-brown hair who lived these days down in Romney Marsh alongside Camellia as they apprenticed to be curse-breakers. Melli's a real Slytherin, but Loi…?!

The Ropers would stay pretty much neutral once the current patriarch Xavier Roper died and was replaced by his eldest daughter Lynn; she was a Hufflepuff alumnus who had been a year ahead of Blaise and his friends, not to mention the older sister of a year-mate of Blaise's who was also a badger, Jane. Unfortunately, the Matthews' seat votes would probably be seduced by the "dark side of the Force" — Blaise had been enamoured by Star Wars since he first saw it; his mother Veronica always taught him the good things about normal society, especially their science fiction — once Orion died and Camellia took over. Add that to Achelois' inheritance given that she would go wherever Camellia went, the votes in the Wizengamot could eventually go 59-36-3…unless Achelois got married to a person who could be seen as an acceptable heir to her maternal grandfather Pierus Collins. If that happened — Blaise doubted it since Pierus might decide that either of Achelois' younger sisters, Cassotis or Albunea, could inherit his family seat — and Camellia found some way to sway Achelois' mate to the dark, the standing count in the Wizengamot would shift to 55-40-3, which would still keep bill passage in the hands of the reformists even if it took away the right to halt filibustering in its tracks by any of the lords in the meeting chambers at the Ministry of Magic. While people like Draco and Theo weren't the eloquent speakers some of their ancestors were, they WOULD use that right to filibuster whenever ANYTHING came up which they might see as a threat to their power base, no doubt in hopes of driving other lords to the point where new legislation could be dropped or amended out of a desire to shut the loudmouths up.

"There is one more family that needs to be looked at today, Blaise."

He perked on hearing Griphook's voice, then blinked. Whenever his host switched to given names, whatever was said next was meant to be kept private. "Who, Griphook?"

"The Gibbons of Craiglockhart."

THAT made Blaise gape. Helena and Marcus Gibbon were Death Eaters of the same generation as Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange. They had both fought for Voldemort during the First Purification War and were part of the large group who had avoided a permanent vacation in Azkaban after 1981 thanks to claims of being under the Imperius Curse after they were caught red-handed by the Aurors. Both laid low until the Dark Lord returned in 1995, then flocked back to his ranks. Marcus had died during the Death Eaters' attack on Hogwarts near the end of June in 1997 when Albus Dumbledore had been mercy-killed by Severus Snape; he had been cut down thanks to a stray Killing Curse from Thorfinn Rowle in the wake of all of Voldemort's people having their nerves shredded thanks to a wide-area Morsmordre Crucio courtesy of Rose Potter. Helena was wounded in that same fight, but was rescued by Thorfinn and pulled clear of Hogwarts before Harry Potter, the Defence Association and Tsukuyomi's students elected to turn it up a notch and go for a complete wipe-out. Finding herself the Viscountess of Craiglockhart due to Martin having neither married nor sired children, Helena moved to formalize an engagement with Thorfinn; he was a close friend to Helena's brother and deeply regretted killing him even by accident. Fortunately for future generations, their relationship didn't get far: Thorfinn was killed when Death Eater Season was declared "open" at the start of July that year, while Helena would be captured and imprisoned in Gonebren six weeks later; she was now incarcerated in Azkaban even if her mind was a near-empty shell.

Thinking of that, Blaise then blinked as he quickly locked in on where the goblin was going. "Brigadier Gibbon's from Yorkshire! Craiglockhart is near Edinburgh!"

"Yes, that's true…but remember that our ways of tracking descendants doesn't take into account a person's physical location or moving to a new location to seek out a better place to live, Blaise. To say anything of personal magical power…or LACK of which in this case." As Blaise gaped in shock, Griphook indicated a parchment on his desk. "Our genealogists have detected a possible family link through a squib brother of Helena Gibbon's great-great-great-grandfather Thaddeus," the goblin stated as he steeped his fingers before his mouth to hide the hungry shark-like grin crossing his face. "If the lineage blood test proves this link, Elizabeth and Jessica Gibbon will turn out to be Helena's second cousins three times removed. And since there are no other descendants of that line we can track anywhere who are magical…"

"The Brigadier — as the elder-born of the two — becomes the next Viscountess Gibbon of Craiglockhart," Blaise finished. "That's another two points…"

"Which brings the 'light' vote to 61 seat points out of a total of a hundred," Griphook concluded. "Which will — for a time — keep Mister Malfoy and his friends suppressed."

"I'm worried about what might happen after Pierus Collins dies."

The goblin nodded in understanding. "Master Pierus' death would be quite regrettable. He is a friend to goblins as he is to all other magical beings." A sigh then escaped him. "And yes, I can understand your concern about what could happen, especially given how close Achelois Runcorn is to Camellia Matthews." He grinned again. "But I do know of ONE possible way to weaken or break Camellia's influence on Achelois, Blaise."

"How, Griphook?! Loi and Melli are as tight as soul-mates!"

An amused grin crossed his host's face as he gazed knowingly on the Baron of Lewisham. "Funny you should mention that phrase, Blaise!" Griphook noted. "You didn't hear it from me…but did you know Achelois has always had a fancy for Harry's sister?"

Blaise gaped. "Loi…and Rose?!"

His host winked; he had learned the human gesture years ago and always used it to make a point. "As I said…you didn't hear it from me, Chief Warlock."

The current Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot chuckled. "Hear what, Master Griphook?"

Both of them laughed…


Romney Marsh, that moment…

"AH-CHOO!"

"Bless you! Are you alright, Loi?!"

Achelois Runcorn moaned as she wiped the mucus from her nose, then nodded her thank as her best friend's house elf handed her a handkerchief. "Ah! Thanks, Boxy!" she said with a smile, which made Boxy shudder with delight; the elf loved and cared for his Mistress Loi as much as he did his Mistress Melli. "What the devil brought that out?"

"No contaminants in the air," Camellia Matthews said as she sniffed around.

Achelois nodded before she turned back to her tea. "I'll be heading over to Diagon this morning to get some potions supplies from Slug and Jiggers."

Her best friend gave her a look. "I doubt she will be there, Loi!"

The dual heiress of the Runcorns and Collinses rolled her eyes. "You're not my mother, Melli," she warned before sipping her tea and turning back to the Daily Prophet.

She hated it whenever Camellia tried to scold her about her deep desire for one Rose Potter. But despite the fact that all the logical arguments about NOT pursuing a relationship with the Meridiana-trained healer that so many people had made to Achelois over the years making a lot of sense deep down — which was the inner core of the Slytherin creed; without simple common sense, one couldn't be cunning…and any sort of ambition without common sense would ultimately lead to a total disaster — there was no denying this: The fiery-haired, emerald-eyed sister of the Man-Who-Won was the most beautiful person Achelois Runcorn had ever met bar none. Even the revelation that Rose was an alien in body — and a biological android at that! — back in February when her sister Avalonians had come to Earth didn't tarnish her in Achelois' eyes.

After all, atop being a magical powerhouse who had taken lessons from one of the most powerful and experienced warriors alive today — unlike many purebloods in Britain, Achelois Runcorn had long understood what Yomigawa Tsukiko had been fighting for back in the 1940s — to make her one hell of a fighter in her own right, Rose was frightfully intelligent, stubborn in a way that made her brother seem the most accepting of people, very defensive of family and friends and an innovative spellcrafter and healer willing to take risks for her patients regardless of who and what they were. Graduating from Meridiana maxima cum laude among a class of very brilliant students, she eventually earned seven masteries recognized by the ICMC thanks to years of hard study under the guidance of knowledgeable people on both Earth and Nerio before electing to apprentice as a healer specializing in long-term care issues such as various forms of lycanthropy. While having not opened her own business — Rose was still in the "residency" phase of her training under the overall supervision of Master Healer Elaine Buckshire of Ariadne even if she mostly worked these days on Earth in Britain — at this time, it wouldn't be long before she was granted the coveted title "Master Healer" and be able to work on her own. With the legal blocks preventing Meridiana alumni from doing business with the Hogwarts alumni that populated most of the magical side of Britain gone, it was a foregone conclusion that Rose would probably be snapped up to become one of St. Mungo's stars; unlike most other parts of what was traditionally called "wizarding Britain," the healers working at the hospital located near Hammersmith Broadway in London didn't mind dealing with practitioners of "non-traditional" forms of magical medicine.

Besides, despite Achelois having accepted Theo Nott's invitation to meet up with Adam Sewell and her friends the previous morning, the heiress of two seats among the Seven and Ten didn't care either which way about the bioroids who had fled to Earth months ago from their destroyed home world in the Phentax three-star system. And while it hadn't been personally proven in Achelois' eyes that the Avalonians' presence on Earth would be of benefit to all Terrans in the long term, what two of them did when they rescued Rose's cousin Maggie Dursley back in March certainly hinted that the artificially-born aliens would be a massive force for good for all Britons regardless of their being magical, metahuman or normal. The Avalonians were actively seeking out new planets to settle to the galactic "west" and "south" of Earth, many of which were reported to have massive wild magical areas which would make the Forbidden Forest near Hogwarts look like a postage stamp in comparison. They didn't seek to force themselves on Terrans, only helping those who wanted or needed such help; what had happened to Rose Potter and all the others saved by Alice Holmes, to say anything of people such as Angelus, Spike and Drusilla — which did set off Adam Sewell and his friends onto their current course against the bioroids — proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt. And the Avalonians had brought their own magic-like technology to give to their Terran allies, which — if used correctly — would keep greedy aliens like the Oni and their allies at bay until the natives of Earth could finally assert their place in the wider Universe.

So why even act as if she was supporting Theo and his new vampire allies?

Achelois sighed as she considered that fact. Yes, it would seem as a betrayal of her deep feelings for Rose…but the eldest daughter of Herodotus Runcorn and Napaeae Collins saw herself as a true Slytherin, following the path Master Salazar set out for his students over a millennia ago. Yes, she appeared weak-willed to others — almost to the point that some people said behind her back that Achelois should have been sorted into Hufflepuff back in 1991 — when she wasn't alone or with Camellia…but if she was truly as meek as some people made her, she would've fallen under the spell of some idiot suitor long before now and probably have been disinherited by her maternal grandfather along the way. People have such short attention spans, she often lamented to herself when she witnessed others muse about how unlike Pierus Collins she was. Even other "true" Slytherins such as Daphne Greengrass, Tracey Davis, Blaise Zabini and Pansy Parkinson-Black had been fooled by Achelois Runcorn over the years.

But not Camellia…

Not her precious Melli…

Yes, Camellia had her problems; her stubborn refusal to simply accept what had happened to her brother years ago and move on with her life being the primary one. But Achelois still loved her old roommate…and would NEVER tolerate any threats made against Camellia. It had been Achelois who had warned Lisa Turpin off shortly after the Battle of Hogwarts, stating that any attempt at seeking vengeance on Camellia because of Charles' involvement in the deaths of Lisa's parents would make things difficult for the half-blood native of Brechin…even if Lisa had, by then, won the sponsorship of Achelois' maternal grandparents to seek a future career in the Unspeakables. "My grandparents won't be alive forever, Turpin," she succinctly put it one evening shortly after the start of their seventh year after she had heard the blonde Ravenclaw vowing to friends that she wanted to take up the offer made by Camellia's mother to make a "clean sweep" of it. "What Charlie did to your parents was wrong. He was an idiot in the end and he paid for it. Don't stain Melli with the same brush people used on her brother. If you do, I'll make your life a living hell. I'm not above using blood politics to protect that which I care for. Make your choice and make it smart."

And while Achelois did understand that Lisa was still grieving for her lost parents, she HAD to put her foot down to stop the Ravenclaw from escalating an already tense situation into renewed fighting. The sheer viciousness of Death Eater Season in the summer of 1997 had left a lot of raw wounds in the hearts of many, some of which were still festering to this very day. While Achelois could understand where people like Camellia Matthews, Draco Malfoy and Theo Nott were coming from in the long term, she herself had got over what had happened to her cousin Albert and elected to move on with her life. Besides, even if he was driving for hard reforms that would their native society finally into the Twenty-first Century, you had to be a total dunderhead to not see that Harry Potter and his allies were pushing those changes while still respecting all the good things wizards and witches native to Britain had done over the years. Even Hermione Granger, a woman who seemed the most radical type of social reformer at first meeting — Achelois still enjoyed a good laugh or two when she recalled the normal-born witch's silly drive for house elf rights during their fourth year — had shown a lot of mental flexibility after the Death Eaters had been finally put down and the long process of reconstruction from both Purification Wars commenced.

Privately, Achelois suspected that Adam Sewell and his friends were heading for a big fall in the next few days. The Avalonians were fully aware of vampires and other such magical beings…and if what had happened to the Scourge of Europe and his friends were true, the bioroids really had no problems with the undead hunters of the night and would gladly help them regain mortal lives — which included the ability to bear natural offspring — if they wanted them back. If the mysterious "her" that just rescued the Schwarze Mädchen was keeping an eye on things from wherever she was based, any move on Azkaban by the daywalkers would probably result in a huge barbecue of the undead at the business end of that woman's ancient battle staff. It wouldn't take much to thoroughly sterilize the hidden prison island east of the Shetlands of any attacker. Studies done by the Unspeakables in the wake of what that lunatic Mun Aesup did to the place in 1997 revealed that Azkaban Island was supersaturated with mesonium particles that could form the base fuel for an explosion at the same scale as the Car'-bómba, the giant Soviet thermonuclear weapon detonated on Nóvaya Zemlyá back in the autumn of 1961.

All it needed was the right type of trigger.

And if what Boxy had said about that woman's battle staff was true…!

"No, I'm not your mother," Camellia's voice cut into her friend's introspection. "But I AM your best friend. I have a right to be worried about you."

Achelois blinked before she smiled at her. "I know."

"Do you think that people would support you starting a relationship with her of all people?" the other woman pressed. "Never mind her being an Avalonian. You know how close she is to her brother. If you marry that woman, Potter'll be seen as pulling your strings from the shadows. There's no way people would tolerate that."

"Oh, please!" Achelois snapped. "After what that old fool Dumbledore did to Harry until Tsukiko-sensei came along?! Harry would NEVER do that to anyone, much less try to convince his SISTER to do something like that! Yes, he doesn't want to give Draco and Theo and their friends the chance to turn things back to the way they were before Voldemort was destroyed, but Harry sees himself as above that sort of petty politics! All he wants is to create a society where he'd feel safe raising his own family once he finally knocks Pansy and Mandy up! Who wouldn't want that sort of thing, especially after what we all had to live through when we were KIDS, for Merlin's sake?!" She sighed before finishing her tea. "Melli, I love you as the twin sister I always wanted! I grieved for you when you lost Charlie! But you have to finally get over him! He made a bad choice and he bloody well paid for it!" As Camellia winced on hearing that, her best friend stood up. "By the time he lost his godfather, Harry was just sick and tired of constantly taking hits for something that his mother ultimately did! So he decided he wasn't going to go along with Dumbledore's stupid 'forgive and forget' path anymore. He took Tsukiko-sensei's lessons to heart and used them!"

She turned to leave…before hearing a muffled sob from the other woman in the kitchen. "Then why didn't he just send Charlie to Gonebren…?"

Achelois stopped before she gazed on a wet-faced Camellia. "It's like he confessed after the first day of our NEWT year, Melli," the former soothed as she walked over to draw her shaking friend into her arms. "That day, he just came from finding out that that a pack of Death Eaters had butchered a whole busload of elderly normals going to visit Loch Ness. It was an eye for an eye back then, Melli. The Queen demanded it and Harry — and Rose and Ron and 'Mione and Neville and Ginny and Luna and Raven and Cassi and Lotte and Ariel and Grace — had to obey. All of Charlie's friends from the Death Eaters who were there in Chalcot Wood that day never made it to Gonebren either. Besides, look at it this way: If Charlie succeeded in learning the secrets of the warding system Granddad taught your father, your parents, Phil and Lilibet would be dead. Not to mention my family, too."

Camellia shook her head. "He would have saved them…"

"But who would have saved Charlie and you from Riddle?"

That made the silver-haired girl wince. "Still…"

Achelois sighed as she warmly rubbed her best friend's cheeks. "Melli, sweetie, I'm not sure that the Avalonians and what they're bringing here are really the best thing for us Terrans. That's why I'm playing along with Theo and Drake right now. Are they strong enough to tackle someone like Adam Sewell, a man with FIVE MILLENNIA of magical experience under his belt? If they can do it, that's fine. It's no great loss. Sewell should have died at the Rail-Splitter's hand back in 1863; I can only guess how that monster managed to save his arse in the long run." She sighed. "But if the Avalonians can't put someone like Sewell down, it's best we find that out now before we'd get into something we can't get out of. That's what Master Salazar would have done in that sort of case. Those bioroids — and I don't count Rose as one as she was born and raised here on Earth even if the woman who created a new body for her to pull her free of Hufflepuff's Curse was a pure-born Avalonian — represent something that's too huge for a lot of people here on Earth to take. I want to make sure of it. That's looking out for my future." She leaned down to passionately kiss Camellia on the lips, which made the other woman swoon. "You should be doing the same thing, Melli."

With that, Achelois headed out. Camellia watched her go before she hugged herself, not sensing that Boxy had come up to place a comforting hand on her shoulder…


Diagon Alley, the Rosa Lee Teabag Teashop, an hour before lunch…

"Camellia Matthews?"

Luna Lovegood nodded before sipping her tea. "That's who I saw in my dream."

"Why would you be concerned about her, Luna?" Ron Weasley asked. He had a refreshed look on his face, as did the woman seated beside him. They had got together with Neville Longbottom, Rose Potter — who had managed to get away from her sisters-in-law and Dora Lupin before they could hex her for using the Love Doll jinx on them last night to give Rose's brother a chance to have a good night's rest — and the other sisters/relatives of Ron's year-mates for a quiet cup of tea in the wake of Charlotte Crabbe and Cassiopeia Lestrange claiming their family rings and their positions in the Wizengamot at Gringotts. Which could easily turn into something far more interesting — and potentially far more dangerous! — given who was now visiting Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes along with Harry Potter; everyone had been alerted early that morning as to what Raven Malfoy and Ariel Goyle had discovered last night. "You remember what Matthews' brother did to Lisa Turpin's parents, don't you?! The bastard's sister never reputed that!"

"Naturally, Ronald," the daughter of the owner of the Quibbler breathed out. "Charles and Camellia were very close to each other while they were growing up. He was always there for her when she needed help before she learned how to stand on her own two feet. Even if he made the wrong choice and joined up with Tom just before Lisa's parents were killed, that didn't mean that Camellia would simply STOP loving her own brother! Would you have stopped loving Ginny or any of your brothers if they made that choice?"

Ron jerked. "W-well…"

"Relax, Ron," Raven soothed as she squeezed his hand in support. "Just be happy that you didn't have to make an awful choice like that. Being part of the traditionalist families in this country forced that choice on many people." She sighed as she sat back in her chair. "If it's anyone's fault — outside Voldemort's, of course — it was Camellia's parents for coming down so hard on her brother like that for making such a stupid choice in the first place. If Aunt Diana had openly shown some compassion and pleaded to have Charles and his friends sent to Gonebren, it wouldn't be such a problem these days…even AFTER what we discovered that morning near Loch Ness."

The others winced as they recalled that bloody scene. An overturned bus whose gas tank had exploded, unleashing a fire that incinerated all the people inside — most of whom were elderly retirees enjoying a pleasant summer vacation trip to Scotland's most famous lake — without a single survivor. It looked like a simple yet awful accident caused by careless driving…hadn't the "Ministry Six" and their companions not sensed the echoes of very ugly spell work all over the area around the bus, to say anything of the sealing charms used on the windows, doors and escape hatches to prevent anyone from getting out of the burning vehicle alive. And while Charles Matthews and his companions hadn't been involved in that attack, it had happened on the very day Voldemort decided that it was long since time for all the areas of Britain that had been blocked off to his people to be unsealed to get at the mudbloods and blood traitors hiding behind those wards. It had just been simple bad luck that placed Camellia's brother and his friends — including one of the Dark Lord's inner circle, Augustus Rookwood — in the path of Harry Potter and his friends, all of whom were in a vengeful mood thanks to what they found at Loch Ness. And once it was all done, the standard elimination tactic employed by Harry and his allies when they killed Death Eaters — to have dead bodies dumped off Land's End to feed the fishes with the help of Harry's elderly house elf, Kreacher, thus forcing relatives to learn the awful news thanks to automatic will notices sent out by Gringotts — had been brought into play, unleashing a horrid psychological blow to Voldemort's forces, just as bad as what Voldemort's people themselves had unleashed during the First Purification War in the 1970s.

"Did she feel anything for Charles?" Neville Longbottom asked.

"She did," Rose reported. "Cried her eyes out when she got back home after Big Brother had Kreacher send him and his friends to Davy Jones' locker. Uncle Orion was a lot tougher about it…but he was hurt, too." She shook her head. "Once it was all over, I offered to find some mind-healers to help families get over their losses. But would the stupid dunderheads who were running things at the Ministry want that?! NO! Of course not!"

A startled laugh echoed from nearby, which made people look over to see a familiar face at one table. "Good morning, Professor," Luna greeted. "You must be happy today."

Severus Snape — who had stopped here have a quiet tea before he apparated himself back to Hogwarts and some long-overdue research projects — quickly recovered. "That might be too much of an exaggeration, Miss Lovegood. I am simply pleased that an injustice has finally been corrected and the people banished because of others' hatred of Meridiana and what it always has represented are once more back in the fold."

"Damn straight about that," Neville noted with a nod.

The potions master then gazed on Ron. "And Miss Lovegood is quite correct about how much divided loyalties ripped apart families in this country thanks to Voldemort, Mister Weasley. Miss Matthews wasn't the only one who had to mourn a loved one who made a wrong choice…or was one who made a wrong choice and suffered for it."

Ron winced as the others sitting around him nodded in grim understanding; they all knew of Severus Snape's feelings for the late Lily Potter…and how a stupid mistake he had made in their fifth year at Hogwarts had destroyed a long childhood friendship. "Why did you do it, Professor?" Neville then asked. "I mean, you're a half-blood. Same type of parentage as Tom himself had, in fact. Why join forces with him?"

A wry smile crossed the older man's face. Even if he had finally made his peace with Rose's brother in Harry's sixth year — mediated in a beautiful cha no yu hosted by Yomigawa Tsukiko herself in the Room of Requirements at Hogwarts — the potions master had not publicly spoken of the reasons that made him take the Dark Mark when he was younger and far less wise to the ways of the world. None of those who had suffered torment from Severus in his potions or DADA classes before 1997 bothered him about it after the Battle of Hogwarts; only certain older members of the Order of the Phoenix knew the truth…but they respected the man who had done such dangerous work to keep silent about what drove a man like Severus Snape. As did Harry Potter and his sister…though given the sheer scale of what Rose Potter ultimately represented — Harry first met Alice Holmes during the summer after his fifth year as arranged by Rose…which forced him to stay silent out of a very understandable fear of a Niphentaxian invasion of Earth in case the existence of their "robot slaves" was publicly revealed; if such happened, the War Hawks would have definitely been called into it, with all the ugly implications of THAT! — in the long term, Severus' secrets were actually quite minuscule in comparison.

"Because I foolishly believed at the time — not knowing the truth about Tom Riddle, of course — that Voldemort would actually be an agent for positive change in our society, Mister Longbottom," he finally said. "Brigadier Gibbon and her friends who went across the North Sea to fight for Master Gellert in the 1930s are not the first people who've sensed the deep rot our society has suffered from since the Separation Act isolated us from the wider world beyond the Leaky Cauldron. We became arrogant in our self-imposed belief that we were truly special, far above the 'muggles' that we finally drove out of our lives in 1692. Only normal-borns and those half-bloods and purebloods raised in normal society experienced both the magical and normal sides of British society, so they could sense what was happening and could deduce what could happen if something radical wasn't done. But because we held onto the feudal way of governance that ruled our lives since the Wizard's Council refused to accept the Magna Carta, there was no way for those who wanted to effect change to push for those changes peacefully."

"Revolution," Grace Longbottom breathed out.

"Indeed so," Severus stated before he indicated Rose. "Miss Potter's mother could have become the youngest Charms Mistress in history if she wasn't a normal-born. The only way she could be accepted as such at the time was AFTER she married her pureblood husband; not even Filius' influence could have helped Lily because he's part-goblin. If it was commonly known that I was a half-blood, I myself could have been blocked from obtaining my mastery in Potions; I was lucky that Horace Slughorn didn't care for blood politics and was willing to give me a chance when he saw how good I was." To Neville. "Poppy told me what you said to your parents about the type of society they were trying to save back in the 1970s when Miss Potter came with Master Healer Buckshire and Mrs. Farandole to examine Mrs. Weasley after her body-swap, Mister Longbottom. Indeed, it was a wonder to me — before I saw the truth in what Voldemort's chosen path was leading us all towards — that people were wasting their time and sacrificing their lives to save something that deserved to die out in my eyes." He sipped his tea. "I will say this: It was a fortunate thing that Lady Tsukiko and Miss Springfield were called into it finally. Albus couldn't bring himself to teach Mister Potter and all of you the hard truths about fighting a war; his own experiences fighting Master Gellert so scarred the man that he vowed never to kill again if he could avoid it."

"Don't be too hard on ol' Albus, Severus," a strange voice hailed from a corner of the room. "He knew that not everyone could do what was right instead of what was easy."

"I was wondering when you'd start talking, Uncle Dung," Rose said before sipping her tea. "What's with the invisibility charm, anyway?"

A chuckle answered her as said charm vanished, revealing a past-middle aged man with balding grey-shot ginger brown hair and brown eyes full of both wisdom and calculation. He was dressed in rather stylish civilians reflecting that he was quite wealthy…though in the eyes of normals, his current mode of dress would be seen as just too garish. "Hello, Dung," Severus breathed out. "What does bring you here?"

Mundungus Fletcher smirked. "Other than a chance to enjoy some of Rosie's lovely tea and do some business with the Friend of Dragons, not much." The magical artifact dealer — and part-time thief — smirked as he toasted his fellow Order member. "I will say this, Severus: It's so rare to see you of all people standing on a soapbox, so I was glad to keep my mouth shut and hear you teach the young ones here a few truths."

"Wait!" Luna cut in. "You actually do BUSINESS with the Vinur Drekar?!"

"Aye," Mundungus breathed out as he crossed his arms. "Do you believe she and those friends of hers she's protecting can stay cooped up on that damned factory by the Moon every day of the week?" He nodded towards the ceiling in emphasis. "No, they all come down to Earth — usually on the weekends — to go to quiet places and spend time breathing real air and walking on real soil, not to mention taking real baths in real water instead of them sonic showers I've heard so much about." He shuddered on saying that. "Never the same place twice. They don't want to be caught by anyone who might try to send them back to whatever hellhole they came from, of course. I helped them all get some spending money — both galleons and pounds — from some 'friends' of mine who decided that ol' Dung was getting too big for his britches and needed to be put six feet under." As the younger people gaped on hearing that — yes, Mundungus Fletcher dealt with stolen items and had engaged in thievery himself, but he NEVER had done anything that would warrant something like THAT! — the native of Liverpool smirked. "Don't expect me to say anything more about them, though. I owe them — especially the Friend of Dragons — my life for saving my skin back in March. You know how it goes."

The others nodded; the laws about magical Life Debts had been set in stone for millennia. "So what does this woman do for you, Dung?" Severus asked.

The older man smiled. He couldn't blame people for being so curious about such a young and vibrant woman who did things without demanding anything in return, armed with an alien weapon that could — in some ways — equal the famous Power Jewel itself. Hell, Mundungus himself often wondered about the Friend of Dragons and the twenty other girls whose souls had been dragged into this dimension around the time of the Liberation and implanted in Avalonian bodies — that much, he had got from all of them when they explained why they were forced to use what they called the "Rōnin's Salvation" to help keep themselves from going totally stir-crazy on the bioroid factory — from something that truly was darker than anything Voldemort could ever dream of; that much, he had long concluded after looking into those girls' eyes and realizing that all of them had once stared Death right in the face in something they were NEVER prepared for. And while he didn't like breaking his word to those nice ladies — even if he was a thief at times, keeping his word to customers was often the only thing that ensured Mundungus Fletcher stayed alive — he knew what sort of buttons to press in Severus Snape and the young folks who had gone totally medieval on old Tom Riddle and his friends during the summer of 1997.

"If she was a witch and went to Hogwarts, where'd she go?" he then asked.

Severus hummed. That was an understandable question; given the overwhelming influence Hogwarts had on British wand magicals, it was often the best way to draw up points of reference that would make sense. "I'd say Gryffindor," he answered. "Or most likely, Hufflepuff. The woman emphasizes the most positive traits of both houses. She serves others — her friends — with selfless dedication and uses her battle staff to protect those who can't protect themselves and she detects the threat in time."

The older man smirked. "Not Slytherin?"

The former head of Slytherin snorted. "Of course…!"

He then paused as other people's jaws dropped. "What else has she been doing?" Luna then asked as a smirk crossed her face. "Or can you tell us, Mundungus?"

"I'll say this much, lass," the magical artifact dealer stated. "That girl — if she was one of us — would have turned out to be as much a Slytherin as Harry really was deep down. Or ol' Horace himself. You think she just goes out there to save dragon clutches and kids that fall off magical stairs all the time for her good health and doing what her faith tells her to do?" He shook his head. "No! She's been making contacts all over Earth and Nerio with what she's done. Earning the sympathies and the admiration of a tonne of people, no doubt to make sure that when her friends stop being scared and come out of hiding, they won't be harmed in the long term. She's been involved in things that not even your dad's friends have picked up on, Luna. When I met her in March, she was smelling of bloody brimstone! When I asked why, she said that she had a little fun dealing with magical poachers who were trying to pick on some ghost hound puppies that wandered out of the Cave of Annwn not so far from where Meridiana is."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

And then…

"Merlin's bloody beard!" Severus gasped as the younger people's eyes went wide, they then exchanging shocked looks. "You mean to say that she saved…?"

"Little ones that belonged to one of the Cŵn Annwn," Mundungus completed, a smirk crossing his face. "Aye. The bloody Wild Hunt!" He then chuckled before sipping his tea. "So tell me now, Severus: You think that lass would have made it in Slytherin?"

"I'll say she would," Ron noted as the others breathed out…


Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, that moment…

"Some of this stuff is simply brilliant, Fred. Jess will love this!"

Fred smiled. "I take it, Liz, your delightful sister is a prankster?"

Harry and George both laughed on hearing that. "She dabbled in it back in Hogwarts," Elizabeth confessed after scanning the information on the dataPADD the Weasley twins used now as their personal pranking grimoire. As the Weasley twins and the Man-Who-Won discussed matters about using WWW products in the Schwarze Mädchen's upcoming campaign, Ginny was giving Margareta a tour of the shop and its wares. "Never did anything to prod that stupid Slytherin-Gryffindor feud on, but she did go after people who loved to bully others." As the twins and their spiritual brother nodded in understanding and approval — they knew Jessica Gibbon was a sister lion; that she did THAT made her okay in their books — the leader of the Black Maidens added, "Atop her duties as the leader of the Fourth Battalion, Jess was in charge of our Spellcrafting Group." Ignoring the gaping looks from her new friends — in all the stories of the Black Maidens they had read over the years, their many innovations in various magical fields of study been discussed rarely if ever rated a single paragraph — Elizabeth added, "While I personally would say much of this stuff would be perfect for what I have in mind, I would like to pass it by her to see if she can improve on it. If we do add modifications and judge it safe for public usage, I'm sure it'll bring a lot more profit to your company over time."

"Well, if that happens, we can compensate her and her friends," George stated. "Our standard commission rates are five percent for ideas, seven for prototypes and ten for pranks that can be put into production right then and th-…"

A bell rang to announce someone walking into the shop. "Did someone mention my name?" a more free-looking version of Elizabeth Gibbon — who was dressed in a conservative business suit, though in Gryffindor colours of deep scarlet and gold — asked.

"When did you get here, Jess?" Elizabeth wondered.

"Fifteen minutes ago," Jessica stated before she fluttered her eyebrows playfully at the twins, who were drooling in awe at such natural, wholesome beauty. As Harry tried not to laugh and Margareta whispered things to Ginny, the younger Gibbon twin added, "I was going bloody stir-crazy up in space with you and Gretta down here, so I brought down some friends to keep an eye on you two. And go raid my vault at Gringotts."

"Who?"

"Aimée, Lila and Cara."

Elizabeth tried not to roll her eyes. All three of those girls were Jessica's closest friends; they all had also supported her when she had been promoted to the rank of Obersturmbannführerin und Oberstleutnante and made the first non-German/Austrian commander of a battalion of the Schwarze Mädchen in early 1943. Aimée Sutone was a Walloon Belgian from Mons near the French border. She led the mission to deal with the local magical ministry in Brussels in late 1940 to destroy the loyalty stones that kept the magicals in that nation's African colonies enslaved to the "mother country," thus effectively stripping King Léopold III of nearly three-quarters of his magical combat force to support the Allies. She would finish the war with the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds, not to mention winning command of Third Battalion in late 1943. Lila Fontaine was a native of Morlaix on the English Channel coast of Brittany. Atop keeping the brigade headquarters staff running like a well-tuned violin, she also enticed dozens of fellow Beauxbâtons alumni to sign up to serve in the Magische Reichsarmee. That guaranteed that the "old regime" that had ruled wizarding France for centuries would finally collapse after the Liberation thanks to many "noble" sons and daughters swearing personal allegiance to the Führer…and, after the war, refusing to return things to "the way they always were." Because of her recruiting efforts, Lila was awarded the Pour le Mérite Magique. Cara Walthari was one of Jessica's company commanders. An Italian from the town of Mariano Comense near the border with Switzerland, she was one of the few Black Maidens who had magical combat experience dating from before World War Two; she had been assigned by the Italian government to help protect all that nation's volunteers sent to fight alongside the forces of Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39. She would later — in complete and total secrecy; only a dozen knew of that particular operation — help an American archaeologist and colonel in the Office of Strategic Services named Indiana Jones evacuate treasures from the famous Abbey of Monte Cassino before it was destroyed by the Fifth United States Army in early 1944.

All three were — when they were not fighting someone — quite flighty girls who were always distracted by handsome boys…which, Elizabeth was quick to sense on noting that her twin was now giving Fred and George very appraising looks, hadn't gone away after their near-death experience at the Battle of the Gates.

Oh, dear me…! the leader of the Schwarze Mädchen groaned to herself…

…just as the main door opened again to reveal three incredibly beautiful women, dressed like their friends in conservative business suits done in the colours of their old schools. "Elisa!" Aimée Sutone called out, her grey eyes sparkling with delight. "You won't believe this! I was able to access my Gringotts account in Brussels through the branch here! I've got nearly six times the amount of money I knew I had in that bank back in '45! How…oh, bonjour!" she then breathed out with a throaty purr as those eyes locked on the Weasley twins, who both were gaping in drooling delight on seeing such a tall, slender woman with sunflower blonde hair styled in a bob at her shoulders.

"Indeed, a wonderful morning to you all," Lila Fontaine said with a polite nod, her dark brown eyes sparkling with profound interest. A gently shift of her long, straight brown hair made Fred and George both swoon with delight as they inwardly thanked all the gods and goddesses of Magic that they had been born men. As Ginny tried not to roll her eyes and Harry shook his head, Lila added, "A lovely shop you have here."

"Now, now, you two!" Cara Walthari gently scolded as she cuffed both Lila and Aimée on the backs of their heads. "Stop looking at these poor fellows like a pair of hungry goblins wanting to tenderize some rare flesh!" She then smiled politely at the twins, her dark brown eyes twinkling with delight as she winked knowingly at Fred and George. "Please forgive my companions, my friends. It's been quite a long time since they've enjoyed the companionship of such handsome fellows as both of you."

"Behave, Cara! You're just as bloody bad!" Elizabeth scolded as Margareta moved to expand the trunk she had taken from Julia Hoffman so she could get the others' personal gear. "Besides, our esteemed hosts are professional pranksters." As Jessica's blue-grey eyes widened with delight and the others perked with interest on hearing that, their leader waved them over the counter. "Look at this."

Jessica came over to quickly scan the dataPADD sitting there…before her jaw dropped. "Oh, my God!" she breathed out in awe. "You came up with all THIS?!"

Her hosts beamed with pride as they came over to stand to either side of her while Margareta came over to hand Lila, Aimée and Cara their personal belongings. "Pranking is serious business, Jess," Fred stated. "You had Zonko's back in your day as I recall. They'd got too damned stale for us by the time we were going through Hogwarts, so we decided we'd show people what REAL pranking was all about. We bought them out…!"

"MIO DIO!"

Heads snapped around. "What is it?" Harry asked as he moved to comfort a now white-faced Cara, who had just drawn from her box of personal items a gold-trimmed red medal ribbon from which a red Maltese cross hung, that embossed with a gold annulus surrounding a blue field with a golden man's image on it, the annulus embossed with the words PRO DEO ET PRINCIPE. "That's no German medal…"

"No, Harry, it's the medal given to a Knight or Dame of the Order of St. Gregory the Great," Elizabeth stated as Cara — who was starting to shake like a leaf on seeing that a letter with the latter's home address in Italy on it and the seal of the State of Vatican City in one corner was contained with her personal belongings — allowed Aimée to take the medal from her hand as Lila moved to also comfort Cara. "It's one of the knighthoods the Pope can bestow on worthy believers. I'd suspect that…"

"What's this one?"

Eyes locked on Jessica, then everyone blinked as she reached into Cara's box to draw out a white-trimmed reddish-purple ribbon from which hung a white five-armed star over a green wreath of laurel tied at the base, the star trimmed in red and with inverted "V" points at the ends, that embossed by a circlet of golden clouds around a blue disk with thirteen silver stars in a hexagram formation. As people peered intently at the strange decoration, they didn't react when the door opened. "Looks American to me," Harry noted.

"It's the Legion of Merit, Mister Potter," a strange voice then declared from the direction of the doorway. "Rank of Legionnaire to be precise. I would assume Major Walthari was given that at the recommendation of Indiana Jones after she helped him get all the precious artifacts out of Monte Cassino in 1944. That, I believe, was the same reason Pope Pius XII made her a Knight of the Order of St. Gregory."

Heads snapped over…then both Fred and George both gaped in surprise on seeing the smiling man in funeral black standing by the entrance. As the Schwarze Mädchen all blinked in confusion as they sensed something strangely familiar about this newcomer, looks of awe crossed the Weasley twins' faces as their eyes went wide in realization. "Oh, my Heavens…!" Fred gasped as he turned to stare at his brother. "Forge…"

"Yeah, Gred?"

"Do you realize who our new friend here is?"

"Indeed I do, dear brother. After all…"

"…he was a man…"

"…who pranked the whole bloody world…"

"…while he was busy killing vampires!" both men finished together.

The newcomer smirked as Harry rolled his eyes. "You boys do that very well," he said.

"We've had years of practice," Fred admitted.

"And we are magical twins…Mister President," George noted.

Abraham Lincoln waved it off as the Schwarze Mädchen all gaped in shock. They had all — thanks to Regina Mitchell — known about the Great Emancipator's private hobby of hunting vampires, but never knew that the "Rail-Splitter" was still alive and well; after all, one doesn't survive a .44 bullet being shot into the back of the head at point-blank range! "I haven't been the President of the United States for seven score and five years, son," he said. "I appreciate the courtesy, but…"

"It's well-deserved, sir," Fred noted.

"How…?"

Lincoln focused on Elizabeth Gibbon. "We both were saved by the same man in the end, General Gibbon. I was protected from John Wilkes Booth thanks to Josef giving me an injection of ebony meson in my blood…while I suspect you and your friends had meson transmitter crystals secretly placed in your old bodies' brains sometime before you moved to destroy the World-Gate at Nurmengard after you learned of the betrayal of the Life-Bringer."

"The Rittmeister saved you?!" Margareta gasped. "Why would he do that?!"

The nigh-immortal vampire hunter sighed. "When I was revived and pulled out of my grave in Springfield back in '65, Master Staff Sergeant Hecht, Josef confessed to me that he didn't care at all to see the man who destroyed someone who once betrayed him — I assume he was speaking of Adam Sewell — killed off because of some fanatic 'child' who couldn't accept that his tainted 'cause' was long since lost." His hazel eyes narrowed with disgust. "Given what was just discovered about Mister Nott's current 'allies,' that Mister Sewell is still among the 'living' would disgust Josef as it does me."

The others grimly nodded. "We'll get the bastards, sir," Jessica declared…

…before Lincoln suddenly tensed, his eyes widening in surprise before a cold look crossed his face and he reached under his jacket to draw his woodsman's axe with the mixture of silver and ruby meson on the blade itself from his personal warp-space pocket. On seeing that, Harry moaned. "Need your floo, guys!"

"Right!" George snapped as people sprang into action…


They had made their way to Diagon Alley unseen and not sensed by the magicals who lived in this hidden place off Charing Cross Road and had long flooded it with their power.

Not even the goblins of Gringotts — who truthfully wouldn't care about fighting between the human tribes as long as they could make some profit out of it — sensed the double company's worth of vampires who had been sent from hiding places across the length and breadth of Britain by their leader to sew panic among the magic-welding cattle who arrogantly saw themselves as the top of the metaphorical food chain in Europe…and hopefully make use of the special devices provided to them by Adam Sewell to drain magical cores in preparation for the battles to come against the alien crystal-bloods whose "benevolent help" was critically upsetting far too many apple carts.

And while the stupid wizards who had allied with their leader didn't know about this little raid into Diagon — unlike their parents, people like Theo Nott and Draco Malfoy didn't really understand a tithe about what fighting a war was really all about — it wouldn't matter in the long term. With the memories of the Purification Wars far too fresh in the minds of their countrymen, this raid would — if it was done right — be seen by the idiots in the Ministry of Magic as the opening shot of another Dark Lord's campaign to topple the current regime for some idiot cause or another.

Finding the hidden entrances into Diagon and its branch alleys like Knockturn had been pathetically easy for the vampires; the mundane repellent charms worked perfectly for the normal cattle, but not for the masters and mistresses of the night. Once they were inside the magical shopping zone, they — who had assumed mist form to ensure they couldn't be detected before it was too late — began to gather within the shadows.

It was almost perfect…

…save for a few things.

The hunters of blood didn't realize that an undying monster that had chased their brethren out of North America during the Score and Four was in Diagon today…

They didn't suspect that the leader of a brigade of battle-hardened combat witches who made destroying vampires who threatened their normal allies one of their specialties was also in Diagon, along with her twin sister and four close friends…

They didn't realize that they had been compromised from the start thanks to the idiot fools their leader "allied" with thanks to those fools' crystal-blood sisters…

Because of that, the people who had unleashed Death Eater Season on Voldemort thirteen years ago had come to Diagon in hopes of stopping such a raid…

And the vampires couldn't begin to conceive of the idea that a young, humble servant of the Wise Lord Himself was watching this from her perch high in space…


Weasley Wizard Wheezes…

POP!

Everyone jolted on hearing that slight burst of compressed air, then looked up to see a paper owl flutter over their heads. "Oh, Merlin! She has GOT to teach us how she does that!" George said as Elizabeth held out her hand to allow the flying origami to land.

"She does it to you too, eh?" Lincoln mused, a chuckle escaping him.

The owl landed, then morphed into a wrapped sheet of paper around something solid. Elizabeth opened it…then blinked in confusion on seeing the pure gold skeletal key that had been wrapped inside the note. As she took the key in hand, the leader of the Schwarze Mädchen then gargled in shocked surprise on feeling the raw, wild, ANCIENT magic that was fused into the device. As Harry tried not to scream out at the fact that his own home had been compromised by the Vinur Drekar so she could get her hands on that particular key, Jessica scooped up the note that had been sent with it. Elizabeth then gasped as the key grew out to the size of the average longsword, which made all the others gape in awe and fear on seeing the device that could unlock the equivalent of Hell Itself on the fools that so angered its current welder.

«Say it…»

Elizabeth and Jessica croaked in disbelief on hearing a voice neither of them believed they would ever hear again in this lifetime. "Mummy…!" both sobbed.

«Say it, Elizabeth…don't be afraid…»

Elizabeth groaned out as she felt the key's power flood her from head to toe. As the voices of thousands upon thousands of vengeful spirits began chanting their call for justice in her head, the leader of the Schwarze Mädchen squeezed her eyes shut as she felt Them reach into her very mind, rip away all her mental defences with the ease of flipping the pages of a book to get at the pure inner soul at the very core of her being. Remembering what she had learned from pureblood classmates about Them, she then tried to fight down the raw fear exploding from her heart at the idea of being struck down by Them before she could see all her beloved sisters safe…

Silence.

Elizabeth croaked out in surprise as a tranquil sense of PEACE suddenly descended on her. As she stared in confusion at the key to Britain's first magical prison, she blinked as the voice of her late mother Alana Gibbon chanted once more inside her mind. As she then gasped on witnessing what had happened to her mother — who, along with her husband Edward, had been killed by a rampant mob of magicals during the London Blitz in some vain hope of striking at Grindelwald's Black Maidens by killing their "muggle" relatives — the scalding hate that had sent Elizabeth Gibbon across to Germany to fight for Gellert Grindelwald once more reasserted itself. That instantly chimed with the undying wraiths of vengeance the key now in her hand kept locked within the Maze Among The Rocks. Even if the Gibbons twins and their friends from Britain ultimately got their vengeance thanks to a sympathetic Margareta Hecht — who, during the raid she led on London to destroy the loyalty ward stones that made the United Kingdom the greatest magical power of the International Confederation of Wizards, personally interrogated and executed Minister for Magic Benedict Fenwick for his "crimes against humanity," then dispatched her team to hunt down EVERY wizard involved in the deaths of the relatives of the British members of the Schwarze Mädchen; in a gruesome reminder that the normals held true power over all living beings on Earth, Margareta had the bodies all crucified and left in Knockturn Alley — and had no reason to seek out anyone else, actually SEEING her mother die within her mind made Elizabeth cry out in agony…before she gasped on feeling a pair of warm hands land on her temples.

«Don't let it take you!» Harry's voice called out into her mind as he employed his own modified form of Legilimency when mentally "speaking" to an Avalonian to get her attention. «You've shown your worthiness to hold the Key of Gonebren. Use it! The Queen has given you Her Warrant! Use it!»

«Listen to Harry, Elizabeth…my little Lilibet…the Crown has commanded…you must do the Crown's Will…we're ready for them…do it…»

With a hiss that mixed both wild passion and steely determination, Elizabeth Gibbon flung open the door of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes and went to war…


Everyone in Diagon sensed it all at once before they saw it.

The goblins standing post at the entrance to Gringotts blinked before churlish smiles crossed their faces. The "Maze Dwellers" — as the Noble Tribe respectfully nicknamed the spirits that inhabited that prison deep within the moors of Cornwall — had never done anything against a goblin in the thousand years since Headmaster Salazar Slytherin of Kyme Eau created his quiet retirement home over a massive cluster of ley lines…and ultimately, thanks to the actions of several students of two of the other founders of Hogwarts, eventually gave the wizards of Britain a place they knew they could never conquer, much less control.

The wizards and witches doing their daily business all paused as a wave of icy cold washed over them from the direction of the Weasley twins' shop. As the memories of many — who recalled the times dementors had been sent to ravage the land at Voldemort's command during the 1970s and the mid-1990s — noted the horrid similarity between this cold and the chill those ghastly empathic vampires could unleash, the wiser of them then realized that whatever had come here could NOT be a dementor. After all, the lady who had founded the Technomancy Shoppe had wiped those things out of existence in 1997!

On recalling THAT, those wise people then paled in pure terror as the only OTHER cause for such a bone-chilling cold now flooding all of Diagon came back to them.

Gazing at the "T" junction between Diagon and Knockturn then made many soil themselves.

There walked Generalmajorin Elizabeth Gibbon, the English-born leader of the Black Maidens…

…with the Key to That Place — now grown to the size of a sword — in her hand.

As wailing screams of mortal terror started, the vampires hidden in the shadows perked as they felt the strange cold flood past them from near the entrance of Gringotts.

Blood-red eyes focused on the blonde woman in the modern business suit as she calmly came to a stop at a place where she could look down both Diagon and Knockturn.

Twirling the sword-sized gold key in her hand so she could grasp it by the tubular shank under the hollow oval bow — thus allowing the tip of the lever lock-like blade to point down — this strange woman seemed to gaze intently at the shadows before she grinned.

With a twirl of her finger over her mouth, she bellowed out in a Sonorus enhanced voice, "IN THE NAME OF MY SISTERS, I DEMAND THE VINDICTAM SANGUINIS!"

The vampires paused as all the screaming wizards all fell silent in wide-eyed shock, many of them all gaping on recognizing that strange Latin phrase.

"TO THOSE IN THIS LAND WHO DARED ATTACK US WHEN WE WERE HELPLESS AND TRAPPED BECAUSE OF SOMETHING WE NEVER DID, WE CALL UPON MAGIC ITSELF TO HEAR OUR PLEA FOR JUSTICE!"

Some of the vampires — who were knowledgeable in the language of ancient Rome — then tensed as they translated the phrase "Vindictam Sanguinis" into their native tongue, getting something that made them realize that whoever this woman was, she was invoking some of the oldest forms of blood magic into her cry for vengeance.

"TO ALL THE UNDEAD NOW IN THE QUEEN'S REALM ETERNAL — AND ALL THEIR ALLIES IN THIS LAND WHO ALLIED ONCE TO A HALF-BLOOD BASTARD CHILD OVER A DECADE AGO! — WHO WOULD TAKE OUR LIVES AND POWER TO STRIKE DOWN THOSE WHO NEVER WISHED THEM ILL, THE BLACK MAIDENS WILL DO UNTO ALL OF THEM AS WE DID THREE SCORE AND FIVE YEARS AGO TO ALL WHO OPPOSED US!"

As all the vampires snarled out their outrage at being PUBLICLY called out like that, the woman then bared her free arm to allow the great key in her hand to cut a shallow wound over the veins located there. Instantly, a burst of magic flooded out to wash over Diagon and Knockturn, surging past the five score and more of the undead to make them all gasp and retch on smelling the heady mixture of blood and pure magic — spiced with the burning, acidic, mineral-like smell of the Atom of True Life — emanating from that benediction sealed by the life blood of the leader of the Schwarze Mädchen.

Hearing the grunts and howls of pain from the undead fools who thought the shadows shielded them from detection, Elizabeth smirked as she sensed her twin and friends come up, drawn wands in their hands and looks of steely determination on their faces. As the witches and wizards around them remained still — save for Harry Potter, the Weasley twins and their sister emerging from Weasley Wizard Wheezes…not to mention a group of wizards and witches coming up from Rosa Lee Teabag — to await what would be called down next, the leader of the Schwarze Mädchen tried not to groan. Damned sheep and cattle, the whole bloody lot of them! she thundered to herself as Jessica, Lila, Cara, Aimée and Margareta formed a ring around their leader. Noting that, she dispersed the Voice Magnification Charm around her mouth before she allowed the Key of Gonebren to touch the flagstone walkway of Diagon Alley, allowing a spark to flash.

"We've vampires to kill!" she hissed out.

Everyone then gaped on hearing a haunting voice bellow out in turn…

«YE HEARD THE GOV'NOR, EVERYONE! LET'S BE AT 'EM!»

And with an explosion of fog and the roaring scream of thousands of vengeful spirits who had inhabited the Maze Among the Rocks for centuries, the Hollows came…

To be continued…


WRITER'S NOTES

1) Harry Potter character and place notes:

Doris Crockford was one of the magicals who was in the Leaky Cauldron at the time Rubeus Hagrid brought Harry Potter there to get his school supplies in Philosopher's Stone. The time she went to Hogwarts — and her house affiliation — are of my invention, which I also used in the Icemaidens series…as I also did with the owner of the Cauldron, Tom Dodderidge (as noted before, his family name is my invention).

The first name to Blaise Zabini's infamous mother, Veronica Zabini, is my invention; I first used the name in The Icemaidens and the Philosopher's Stone.

It was also in the Icemaidens series that I introduced the given name to Marcus Gibbon (who was killed in Half-Blood Prince), not to mention introduce the fact that he had a sister, Helena Gibbon; she would appear in Harry Potter and the Icemaidens.

The exact location of St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries was never given in the novels save for it being somewhere in London. The location indicated above, near the Hammersmith Broadway shopping centre located five kilometres south of west from Buckingham Palace on Great West Road (Trunk Road A4), is my invention.

The Rosa Lee Teabag Teashop was one of the places located in Diagon Alley as noted in the LEGO Harry Potter series of video games that came out in 2010 and 2011. This particular teashop also has a franchise in Hogsmeade. The name "Rosa Lee" itself — according to the Harry Potter Wikia — is Cockney rhyming slang for "tea."

2) Translations: Zaubertränkemeister — Literally "Master of Magical Beverages"; Zaubertränkeherrin — Literally "Mistress of Magical Beverages"; Kapitän zur See — Literally "Captain at Sea," the German naval rank title for the equivalent of a Navy captain/Army colonel/Air Force group captain (NATO rank code OF-5); Schweinhunde — Plural of schweinhund ("pig-dog"); Maxima cum Laude — Literally "with maximum honour" though normally translated as "with very great honour," this is the term used normally in academia for an intermediary honour between the level of Summa cum Laude ("with highest honour") and Magna cum Laude ("with great honour")…but in the case of Meridiana, this marks the top student of any class, earning higher scores than even one declared Egregia cum Laude (as noted in Part Three); Car'-bómba — The proper Russian pronunciation (using Scientific Romanization) for the Tsar Bomb, a fifty-megaton thermonuclear device that was tested on 30 October 1961 near the southwest corner of the north island of Nóvaya Zemlyá ("New Land") in the Arctic Ocean north of the Russian mainland; Cha no Yu — Literally "tea and hot water," this is the name always applied to a Japanese-style tea ceremony (which can be used, among other things, to help repair relations between two warring parties); Mio Dio — My God; Pro Deo et Principe — For God and the Prince.

3) As shown in the previous part, the general officers ranks in the German Wehrmacht ("Defence Force") were given slightly different titles than what would be seen as customary in the British/American tradition; after the new Bundeswehr ("Federal Defence Force") was created in 1955, the rank titles were adjusted to match the British/American standard. Thus, we get the situation where Margareta Hecht addresses Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson (1824-63) as General when he was only a lieutenant general in the Confederate States Army. To remove such confusion, here is the comparison between the World War Two ranks of the Wehrmacht (both Army/Air Force and Navy) with the modern United States Army and Navy ranks (listed under the appropriate NATO rank codes):

Special Rank
GE(A) — Reichsmarschall ("Imperial Marshal")
US(A) — General of the Armies

GE(N) — No equivalent
US(N) — Admiral of the Navy

OF-10
GE(A) — Generalfeldmarschall ("Field Marshal General")
US(A) — General of the Army

GE(N) — Großadmiral ("Grand Admiral")
US(N) — Fleet Admiral

OF-9
GE(A) — Generaloberst ("Senior General")
US(A) — General

GE(N) — Generaladmiral ("General Admiral")
US(N) — Admiral

OF-8
GE(A) — General
US(A) — Lieutenant General

GE(N) — Admiral
US(N) — Vice Admiral

OF-7
GE(A) — Generalleutnant ("Lieutenant General")
US(A) — Major General

GE(N) — Vizeadmiral ("Vice Admiral")
US(N) — Rear Admiral (Upper Half)

OF-6
GE(A) — Generalmajor ("Major General")
US(A) — Brigadier General

GE(N) — Konteradmiral ("Counter Admiral")
US(N) — Rear Admiral (Lower Half)

It should also be noted that the German Navy also had the rank of Kommodore ("Commodore"), which falls in below Konteradmiral. However, in this case, the German version of a commodore is more a senior captain than a junior flag officer; those promoted to such ranks were normally in command of small formations of ships.

4) The origins of the term Nozzers as applied to recruits who attend the Initial Recruit Training course at H.M.S. Raleigh is not known. A BBC documentary on the IRT course proposed that the term is actually a slurred contraction of the reply "No, sir!"…which recruits would be saying a LOT during the IRT course.

5) Notes on anti-Nazi forces and operations within Germany during World War Two:

The Weiße Rose ("White Rose") was a German Widerstand ("resistance") group opposed to the Nazis who were mostly intellectuals who advocated a non-violent approach to making the people of the land turn against Adolf Hitler and his cronies. Most of the members of this group were students then attending the University of Munich; their approach to voicing their objections to the Nazis was via graffiti or anonymous leaflets explaining their position as any sort of active resistance would see them killed. The White Rose group was active from June 1942 until the next February, when they were finally arrested by the Gestapo. Six of the group's leaders were eventually beheaded before the end of 1943…but the leader of another resistance group named the Kreisauer Kreis ("Kreisau Circle"), Helmuth James Graf von Moltke (1907-45), managed to smuggle the White Rose's leaflets to Britain via Scandinavia; leaflets containing the White Rose's message would eventually be dropped over Germany by Allied bombers. It surprised me that this group has NEVER been honoured with a ship name in the Deutsche Marine, so I decided that Germany's space missile cruiser would bear that name.

Unternehmen Walküre ("Operation Valkyrie") was an emergency continuation-of-government plan devised by the leadership of the Wehrmacht to ensure that — in case of a general breakdown in civil order of the nation due to causes such as increased Allied bombings on Germany or the mass uprising of slave labourers — the reserve forces of the Heer ("Army") would maintain order. This particular operation would be eventually hijacked by military resistance forces against Hitler, culminating in the famous 20 June 1944 Plot to assassinate the Führer via a briefcase bomb at his Wolfsschanze ("Wolf's Lair") field headquarters about five kilometres east from the East Prussian town of Rastenburg (today the Polish town of Kętrzyn in the province of Warmia-Masuria, located seventeen kilometres south of the border with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrádskaja Óblast'). Tragically, the plot to assassinate Hitler failed and the ringleaders were eventually executed for their treason. The name "Operation Valkyrie" would be known to many thanks to the 2008 Bryan Singer film Valkyrie, starring Tom Cruise as Claus Philipp Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (1907-44), the German army colonel who carried the briefcase bomb into the Wolf's Lair that day. Again, just with the White Rose, no ship in the modern German Navy was named in tribute to Stauffenberg or his Valkyrie allies, so I honoured them with a space aircraft carrier named after the operation plan they had used to dispose of the Führer and save the country.

6) Unternehmen Rheinübung ("Operation Rhine Exercise") was the first operational deployment of the famous battleship Bismarck — accompanied by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen — to carry out raids against the convoys keeping Britain alive and fighting against Germany. Launched on 18 May 1941, the operation was commanded by Admiral Günther Lütjens (1889-1941), who had commanded naval forces in the invasion of Norway and Denmark a year before and had also commanded a raiding mission in the North Atlantic with the light battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in Unternehmen Berlin from 22 January-21 March 1941, resulting in the destruction or capture of 22 ships. Unfortunately, Admiral Lütjens' luck with Bismarck was nowhere near as good; the battleship and her cruiser companion were caught in the Denmark Strait between Iceland and Greenland on 24 May 1941, where H.M.S. Hood was destroyed due to a magazine hit from Bismarck…but the German battleship was critically damaged in turn thanks to a lucky shot by the just-commissioned battleship H.M.S. Prince of Wales. Forced to retreat back to port because of leaking oil — and now with the Royal Navy howling for revenge at the loss of Hood, which had been the living symbol of Britain's senior service for two decades despite her being a battlecruiser with little deck armour, thus grossly unsuited for combat against a true battleship! — the Bismarck almost made it. However, a lucky strike against the battleship's rudder thanks to attacking torpedo bombers from H.M.S. Ark Royal saw Bismarck literally sail into the guns of H.M. Ships King George V and Rodney on the morning of 27 May. After less than an hour of brutal bombardment, Bismarck was a gutted wreck, with Lütjens and his flag captain, Ernst Lindemann (1894-1941) both dead. The surviving crew scuttled their ship just as the cruiser H.M.S. Dorsetshire put torpedoes into her side to finish her off. Of the 2,200 aboard Bismarck at the time, only 110 survived; Hood's crew only had three survivors of a total of 1,418.

7) The Grand Cross of the Iron Cross (Großkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes) was a special award under the overall umbrella of the Order of the Iron Cross. As noted above, it was NEVER given for acts of bravery in battle…but to mark victorious generals in the Prussian Army (and later the German Army) as well as senior commanders of allied armies. First instituted in 1813 during the Napoleonic Wars along with the standard Iron Cross in both First and Second Classes, the Grand Cross was awarded to five such generals, including the Prussian commander at the Battle of Waterloo, Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher (1742-1819). Brought back in for the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the Grand Cross was awarded to nine people. Authorized again for the First World War, the Grand Cross was awarded five times, including to future President Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934), who was a field marshal that had commanded troops on both the Eastern and Western Fronts. The Grand Cross was revived once more for the Second World War, but only awarded once, to the leader of the Luftwaffe Hermann Göring (1893-1946). Because of the fact that the Grand Cross NEVER symbolized bravery in battle — to say anything of the sheer level of corruption, cronyism and the abuse of drugs Göring was infamous for — the derision the Schwarze Mädchen feel for the man is quite understandable.

Atop the Grand Cross, there was even a HIGHER version of the Iron Cross that was awarded to symbolize the most successful single Prussian (and later German) battlefield leader in any conflict. This medal, the Star of the Grand Cross of the Iron Cross (Stern zum Großkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes) — which, like the Iron Cross First Class, was not worn from a ribbon but was a medal that was buttoned on the jacket under the wearer's left breast — has only been awarded twice since the establishment of the Order of the Iron Cross in 1813, to Gebhard von Blücher for the Napoleonic War and Paul von Hindenburg for World War One. A prototype version of the Star of the Grand Cross was prepared for awarding in World War Two, but never given; this medal was found by the Americans after the war and is now displayed at the United States Military Academy Museum at West Point in New York on the west bank of the Hudson River.

As an aside, the Iron Cross and all its derivative awards were only authorized to be issued during a time of war. Thus, each time the Order of the Iron Cross was allowed to induct new members, the medals themselves were date-stamped on the bottom arm of the cross with the series year date. Thus, all Iron Crosses and Knight's Crosses won by the Schwarze Mädchen during Grindelwald's War are all said to be of the 1939 Series of the Iron Cross. It should be noted that on the reverse side of the medal, the date 1813 is stamped to mark the year the Iron Cross was first instituted.

8) The Viscountcy of Craiglockhart (most recently Marcus Gibbon) denotes, as noted above, a suburb of the Scottish capital of Edinburgh, known in Scots Gaelic as Creag Longairt. Craiglockhart is five kilometres west of southwest from Holyrood Park.

9) The Cŵn Annwn (literally "hounds of Annwn") are the spectral hounds of the Otherworld (Annwn) as noted in Welsh mythology. They are often associated with all the many European legends of the Wild Hunt, where a phantasmal, spectral group of huntsmen with the accoutrements of hunting — accompanied with horses and hounds — engage in mad pursuit across the skies, along the ground or just above it. The Cŵn Annwn were often associated with the movements of migrating geese, while other legends of the Wild Hunt pertain that the spectral huntsmen and their companions ride during the autumn and winter. In Welsh legend, the Cŵn Annwn — as with Wild Hunt legends in other parts of Europe — was seen as a symbol of impending death.

I was inspired to note about the Cŵn Annwn here thanks to their appearance in Quoth the Raven, Nevermore, a fanfic that is marked as one of my favourites here and is written by the wonderful writing team operating under the pen name GenkaiFan; they are also the authors of another favourite Harry Potter fanfic story, Poison Pen. However, it should be noted that various elements of Celtic mythology — such as the appearance of the Irish war goddess Mórrígan in QtRN — has often made appearances in other various HP fanfics.

10) The incident where Professor Indiana Jones was involved in the rescuing of priceless relics from the Abbey of Monte Cassino in 1944 was first noted on in Phoenix From the Ashes; it was because of that incident that Indiana was eventually awarded the Medal of Honour.

11) The Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great was establish on 1 September 1831 by Pope Gregory XVI (1765-1846, reigned 1831-46) as one of the five knighthood orders of chivalry that the leader of the Roman Catholic Church can bestow. This special honour is bestowed upon Roman Catholic men and women — and sometimes, in rare cases, to non-Catholics — in recognition of their personal service to the Holy See and to the Roman Catholic Church, through their unusual labors, their support of the Holy See and their excellent examples set forth in their communities and their countries. The Order of St. Gregory is divided into four categories, of which a Dame of the Order of St. Gregory the Great (post-nominal letters DSG) — as Cara Walthari became — is of the lowest rank.

12) The Legion of Merit (short-form LOM) is a military award of the United States armed forces that is given for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements. The decoration is issued both to United States military personnel and to military and political figures of foreign governments. It is divided into four rank levels, of which the level of Legionnaire is the lowest; the LOM is normally awarded to heads of state or heads of government (the Chief Commander level), military chiefs of staff (the Commander level) or to general or flag officers and/or military attachés (the Officer level). Given the rather peculiar situation of Cara Walthari assisting Indiana Jones in his mission to Monte Cassino, awarding the Legion of Merit in such a case to what was then nominally an ENEMY OFFICER would be quite…unique.