DISCLAIMER: Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the Copyright Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration.


While it hadn't wrecked Voldemort, the destruction of the locket horcrux HAD hurt.

That had been apparent an hour later, when the Death Eaters and their allies poured out of the Room of Requirement at Hogwarts — driven there by a shrieking Dark Lord as he tried to fight off SOMETHING that burned him from within the core of his battered soul — and found themselves caught in a free-fire zone.

Voldemort's followers had four things at their side when they went on their raids:

A willingness to employ fear and surprise.

A lack of control concerning the Unforgivable Curses.

An arrogant belief that their targets were weak.

And an unshakable faith in their master's power.

In the First Purification War — when most in wizarding Britain, dulled by the lack of discipline at Hogwarts and twenty-five years of peace, couldn't bring themselves to use their numbers against the rebels seeking to destroy or conquer them — that had been enough to drive the Ministry of Magic to its knees before a one in a million chance in the fall of 1981 saw the Dark Lord struck down at the hands of a mudblood!

Despite the ugly surprises at the Department of Mysteries, the Death Eaters believed that they could push it against their foes and get the same results.

The Battle of the Astronomy Tower — in latter years, sometimes called the "First Battle of Hogwarts" — in the late evening of 14 June 1997 gave them a rude wake-up call when they ran headlong into the Defence Association, who had spent nearly TEN MONTHS preparing for this very day.

To the stunned shock of people like Bellatrix Lestrange, the "icky babies" who had spat on the Dark Lord were too willing — and too CAPABLE! — of unleashing the Unforgivable Curses in all three categories…but had smartly circumvented the moral and legal issues by targeting the DARK MARK itself! Doing that STILL overwhelmed, burned and killed their targets thanks to the link between the Mark and the life-force of the one bearing the Mark…which saw DOZENS of fighters — both experienced veterans of the First War and green recruits — dropped like wheat before a scythe.

Not even the force of lycanthropes who had come to Hogwarts under the command of the feared Fenrir Greyback survived the evening intact; while the hardened werewolf that turned Remus Lupin years ago into one succeeded in infecting many students with the dreaded affliction, dozens more of his pack found themselves literally burned to death by the Cote Argentea hex…or slashed to ribbons with the Sectumsempra curse.

While the primary goal of the Death Eaters' mission that evening — to see Albus Dumbledore slain in hopes of disheartening the wizarding "sheep" in Britain — had been carried out thanks to Severus Snape, the butcher's bill had been high.

Voldemort — after he had recovered from the SECOND time a soulsword had been employed to destroy one of his horcruxes, which he was still magically linked to despite the clean breaks in his soul each time he split it to ensure his immortality…though he had no real idea what had exactly happened to him in spite of the crippling agony that had driven him to his knees — knew that he had to hit fast and hard to keep people from taking a chance to collect themselves, think the situation out, then move to mount a successful counterattack.

That led to the murder of Rufus Scrimgeour over two weeks after the Battle of the Astronomy Tower, which allowed Voldemort's hidden allies in the Ministry — with help from Pius Thicknesse, who had been subjected to the Imperius Curse and the use of mood-altering potions thanks to Peter Yaxley, a Death Eater who had been told to keep his head down until the time was right — to seize control, declare an "emergency" to impose martial law, then start to eliminate the mudbloods and blood traitors who would immediately try to rally against them. It could have worked…

…hadn't a certain meeting happened the day after Rufus' death at the west end of the Mall in the City of Westminster…


Buckingham Palace, Tuesday 1 July 1997, early morning…

"I must confess, Lady Tsukiko, you outdid yourself with your latest student."

Yomigawa Tsukiko smiled as she gazed with pride at Harry Potter, who — even if he had taken his fair share of lives over two weeks ago at Hogwarts — was still a teenager at heart; the flustered look on his face because he was standing in the presence of the Queen was simply priceless! "Yes, he was quite eager to learn once he was given the chance to truly learn. As were his friends, both those who came with him today to visit Your Majesty…and those out there who are ready to answer his call to arms."

Hearing that, the elderly monarch slowly nodded. "So it is war."

"Yes, Your Majesty. It's war," Hermione Granger, now standing to Harry's right, said. "Undersecretary Weasley, before we came here, reported that dozens of normal-borns and those who support their right to have and practice magic have already been kidnapped and removed to Azkaban Island in hopes of breaking resistance against the arch-traitor Riddle and his allies. He's collecting names now, but we think our very good friend Luna Lovegood is one of them. As the daughter of Master Xenophilius Lovegood, the publisher of the Quibbler, her incarceration would silence the free press from speaking out against the 'pure order' that Mister Thicknesse proclaimed last night when news of the death of Minister Scrimgeour got out over the Wireless."

Hearing that, the Queen nodded. "I see. Your plans, Lord Potter?"

"Hit them hard, hit them fast and keep on hitting them until they bear their throats and submit, Your Majesty," Harry calmly declared. "But to do that, we need your help."

"How so?"

"A Royal Proclamation issued by Your Majesty declaring a state of rebellion against the Crown and the peace and good order of Your Realm," he answered. "With that, the magic of the Crown and the loyalty clauses our ancestors swore unto the Crown in the Separation Act — as accepted by King William and Queen Mary in their Magical Royal Proclamation of 1692 that made the Act magical law and the cornerstone of the Magical Constitution of Your Realm — will force even those people who would never contemplate hurting another person to make use of the Unforgivable Curses on the Dark Mark. That's what the Death Eaters DON'T want. They want sheep and cattle that could be led to a slaughterhouse. They can't fight a society of people galvanized by patriotism and loyalty unto Your Majesty to become a pack of wolves. The odds are simply too great."

"I would recommend two more Royal Proclamations, Your Majesty," Hermione added.

"They are, Miss Granger?"

"One: Forever break all Ministry control over Hogwarts. Force the Board of Governors and the teachers in the school to swear on their magic to do all to better the cause of Hogwarts and what it is supposed to teach over any political agenda. This will ensure that the games played in our fifth year by Regent Lady Umbridge will never happen again," she answered. "Two: Declare that all treaties between Your Ministry of Magic — as signed in the name of the Crown — and all magical and normal authorities across Earth are to be considered suspended for the duration of the current emergency. That will make the arch-traitor Riddle's allies in Mister Thicknesse's government quite scared of outside intervention, especially from any alumnus of Meridiana like Harry's sister Rose."

"That would completely wreck any hopes of keeping resistance contained within Your Realm, Your Majesty," Tsukiko advised. "Riddle-san and his friends feel themselves in the right in this case. Any rebellion against them has to be stopped from involving outside powers; that's always been the ugly paradox of civil wars as the American Revolutionary War proved. By declaring a free-fire zone in Britain for outsiders to come in and help deal with Riddle-san and his friends, it forces the rebels against Your Crown to fight a war on two fronts."

"Which has NEVER worked," the Queen finished with a nod before she gazed on the woman standing now to Harry's left. "And what of you, Miss Mun? It strikes me odd that you're here. Unlike others of Lord Potter's allies who've been at his side for a long time, you haven't been mentioned at all."

"That was intentional, Your Majesty," Mun Aesup — who had been given the nickname "Lily" when she was younger, though she didn't use same now — declared. She was classically Korean in looks, with silky black hair styled in a bob at mid-neck and almost black eyes under reading glasses. She seemed the atypical nerd…until you looked deep into her eyes to see the inventive madness shining within. "As one descent of old Chosŏn, I already face prejudice because of the colour of my skin and the shape of my face." As the Queen scowled on hearing that, Aesup grinned. "But the fools who see themselves as 'better' than their peers always dismissed me as a potential threat. After all, I was only one person, not even affiliated with Harry's group when that monster Umbridge started to run amok at Hogwarts two years ago. That gave me the chance to watch them, guess their strengths and weaknesses, then plan accordingly. I approached Harry during the school term just ended to offer my services — and my inventions — to aid him in his just war against those who would seek to burn this ancient land to the bedrock."

"I see. So what have you created?"

"The one thing that the Schwarze Mädchen never used: A mesonium bomb."

Hermione turned stark-white. "WHAT?!" she shrieked as she gaped wide-eyed at her sister Gryffindor. "Are you INSANE, Aesup?! Using THAT is…!"

"I'd use it against the Dementors."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

And then…

"You propose to totally destroy Azkaban," the Queen concluded.

Aesup nodded. "Yes, Your Majesty."

"Explain your reasoning, please."

"One: It removes the only prison Riddle has under his control to stow away those who would stand against him. Without it, those his people do capture have much greater chances to escape and — when combined with Your Proclamations that 'Mione proposed just now — will make it simply impossible for Riddle to establish his 'pure order' with the whole COUNTRY rising up in arms against him. That makes what Harry has to do in the end a simple mopping-up exercise. I believe we could have it done by the end of August," Aesup explained. "Two: It destroys the ward stone on Azkaban Island that allows dementors to be created. With that gone, the souls of the dark wizards that were transformed by that stone into dementors will be released to pass into whatever awaits them in the next life. And with the physical destruction of Azkaban and the total eradication of the dementors, Riddle loses his two most precious ace cards in this game of poker for the future of Your Realm and all who live in it, metahuman and normal alike. As for whatever magical beings also ally with him, taking them down will be easy."

"What do we do with OUR prisoners then?" Hermione asked. "Much that I did take down some of Riddle's people two weeks ago, Aesup, I'm not comfortable doing that all the time. Not all of Riddle's people are marked; look what Sally-Anne and her wife discovered when those 'Snatchers' tried to kidnap her at Umbridge's order yesterday."

Hearing that, the Queen nodded. "Then let me give you this…"

She walked over to her desk to pick up a simple gold skeleton key. On the sovereign touching it, the magicals in the room all gasped as they felt an aura of raw, ancient power flood the room from that simple device. Seeing their wide-eyed looks, the Queen smiled. "This is the Key to Our Prison at Gonebren in Cornwall," she declared, making Harry and his house-mates stiffen on sensing the echo of the magic of the Crown in their host's voice. "We had hoped to avoid bringing this into play, but the foul murder of Our Minister for Magic by this so-called 'dark lord' cannot and WILL NOT be tolerated by Us. You have Our Royal Warrant, Marquess Harold of Taunton Deane and Grimmauld. Make use of Our Servants at Gonebren in whatever way you see fit to put this rebellion against Our Crown, Our Realm and Magic Itself down as swiftly as possible.

"You have two months to do this.

"Fail…and the Separation Act is no more.

"And We will recommend to Our Friends worldwide that the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy be ABOLISHED once and for all time."

Much to the Queen's personal delight, none of her guests reacted to such a threat…which to any normal wizard, would be a sign that a new Dark Age of Magic — the term for the horrid period instigated by the Protestant Reformation at the end of the Fifteenth Century that saw rhabdophobia become rampant among the normals across Europe — was coming.

But the people visiting the Palace now…

Harry bowed deeply. "It is as You Command, Majesty."

The Queen held out the Key. Harry cupped his hands to allow his sovereign to place the Key into his palms…and then he gasped as the wild, burning power of the Maze Among the Rocks flooded his body from head to toe. After what seemed a brief eternity, that power seemed to focus on the memories of his touching the Crystal of Suffering shortly after the start of his last school year in September…which made the mass consciences of the Hollows pause for a second before they realized that for truly the FIRST time in their existence, they would be guided by a magical who UNDERSTOOD what the Hollows themselves had endured in their mortal lives. A magical, raised among the normals of the land, who had been subjected to horrid psychological abuse in his childhood ultimately because of his magic…yet had never stopped believing in the inner goodness of all he met, even those who antagonized him once he discovered the truth of his magic and had gone to that ancient castle in the Highlands of Scotland to learn how to use his gift.

Even the one who had wronged Harold James Potter the most had not earned his hatred.

It was the EVIL that Thomas Marvolo Riddle had unleashed that the new Holder of the Key of Gonebren hated and wished to see destroyed once and for all time.

«We'll be there for you, Harry.»

Aesup and Hermione gasped as white smoke poured from the key to billow on the floor before Harry, rising up to form two ghostly figures, a man and a woman appearing to be about his age. Gazing at them, he gaped before stunned recognition crossed his face. "Dennis Bishop…Amy Benson…" he breathed out before chuckling as he recalled what he had learned about Voldemort's past. "Of course. You were normals…"

«Who were wronged by Tom before he understood what he was,» the spirit of Amy Benson replied with a smile. «You could have been so much like Tom, Harry…»

«But Tommy-Wommy never knew the truth of his parents until Professor Dumbledore came to the orphanage to tell him he was magical,» Dennis Bishop added as he wrapped an arm around Amy's shoulder, making Hermione and Aesup laugh on hearing that rhyming nickname for Voldemort. «Since he was born the day his mother died — and his father never knew that he had a son — there was no basis of hope in Tom to learn love. YOU, Harry, had your childhood memories of two wonderful people who loved you dearly.»

«And even if you nearly forgot it save for when your wonderful mother was struck down by my grandson, your heart remembered…and that kept you free of the ultimate darkness that haunts people's souls, young man,» a new voice said as the ghostly images before Harry changed to reveal a much older couple.

"Mister Riddle…?" Harry gasped on recognizing the similarity between the teenage version of Voldemort he encountered in the Chamber of Secrets and the ghost before him.

«Yes,» Thomas John Riddle — the father to Thomas Albert Riddle and the grandfather to Thomas Marvolo Riddle — stated as he wrapped a warm arm around the shoulder of his beloved wife. «Even if I didn't understand until the day I slipped from the mortal coil and found myself in the moors of Gonebren, I know now what happened when a grandchild born of my son from a daughter-in-law we didn't realize was magical came to my house one day.»

«He acted out of ignorance…but the spell that Headmaster Slytherin used to make us what we are now doesn't acknowledge that,» Mary Riddle added. «As much as the power of Gonebren — bonded to the blood of Slytherin — will never acknowledge the man now calling himself 'Voldemort' as the true heir to the family line.»

"'The power he knows not.'"

Eyes locked on Hermione. "What are you thinking of, Hermione-chan?" Tsukiko bade.

"The part of the prophecy that started this whole mess, Sensei," Hermione explained before gazing on the Queen. "Professor Dumbledore believed it was Harry's willingness to love and sacrifice himself for those he loved. In that, he was partially correct." To Tsukiko. "We trained under you believing that the 'power he knows not' was Harry's willingness — as it evolved after Sirius died and Harry united with Rose — to take the fight to Riddle and his allies in a way they themselves could not defend against." She then gazed on the two Hollows. "But the real 'power he knows not' — and the power he will NEVER have! — is the family magic given to Tom Riddle through his mother ultimately from Master Salazar himself."

"Most likely because he was born of rape," Aesup finished. "If Merope Gaunt HAD won your son's love properly, Mister Riddle, and bore your grandchild in marriage that was both legal and proper in the eyes of Magic, your grandson would have been able to claim the magic of his mother's ancestors — including the magic of Gonebren…which might have compelled him to become a servant of the Crown — and help him become something more than he is now."

«And that, my dear Aesup, is how you will not only defeat Riddle…but BREAK him.»

The Queen's eyes went wide. "Winston! How on Earth…?!"

A delighted cackle came from the spirit of a famous prime minister as he turned to bow deeply to his Sovereign. «I was not affected as much by Headmaster Slytherin's spells as Mister Riddle and his family, much less young Master Bishop and young Miss Benson, Your Majesty,» Winston Spencer Churchill stated. «I was 'drafted' by the simple fact that Your Father's Minister for Magic at the time of the London Blitz LIED to me when he proposed to go after the normal relatives of the Black Maidens who came from Britain as a way of forcing them to betray their master. He promised me that they would be treated humanely. Being burned alive in their own houses — as their spirits confessed to me eventually — was NOT what I would call being treated 'humanely.' When I learned the truth — via a letter delivered to my office at Number Ten by young Master Staff Sergeant Margareta Hecht herself in fact; this was just after she launched her raid into the Ministry of Magic to free the magical colonials, then nailed Fenwick and his lot to crosses — I never felt as betrayed by those who see themselves 'better' than those who live in Your Realm as I did then.» He then gazed on Harry. «You must make it a total victory, young Harry. Beat them…and BREAK them! Show this monster Voldemort what he could NEVER have. Do it in front of all his allies…and you forever will shatter the heart and spirit of the pureblood traditionalists who have run rampant over the Realm and over the Crown's former colonies beyond this land once and for all time.»

He then faded from view, leaving only those still alive within the Audience Room. Harry took a moment to absorb that, then he nodded. "With Your Leave, Majesty?"

The Queen nodded. "Go, Marquess Harold. Do Our Bidding." She then lightly smiled. "And come out of it alive and safe, Harry. Do it…but live through it.

"Because if you fall, I will ensure the War Hawks finish it off."

Harry bowed his head…


Two days later, "Death Eater Season" was declared "open."

To the shock of Voldemort's people, the morning of Thursday 3 July 1997 revealed that a "Magic is Might" statue that had replaced the Fountain of Magical Brethren in the Atrium on Level Eight of the headquarters of the Ministry of Magic had itself been replaced by statues showing all the magical beings living in Britain standing as equals beside each other, all ready to use their magic and power to protect a fountain…from which an obelisk emblazoned with La Reine Le Veult on all sides rose. Attempts by the Aurors to wreck this horrid "Fountain of All Equals" failed; none of them realized that their magic would not allow them to assault anything marked with the Norman phrase "The Queen Wills It"…which hearkened back to the Preamble of the Separation Act itself and the eternal vow of loyalty made by the Wizard's Council to the Crown in the persons of King William III and Queen Mary II for themselves, all the magicals in Britain alive at the time…

…and all their future progeny unto Eternity.

When Minister for Magic Pius Thicknesse — accompanied by the Chairwoman of the Muggleborn Registration Commission Dolores Umbridge, Muggleborn Registration Commission Chief Investigator Albert Runcorn, Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement Peter Yaxley and Chief of the Auror Office Thorfinn Rowle — came to the Atrium to gaze upon the Fountain, they were met by a team of Snatchers who had seized a group of normal-borns for eventual transport to Azkaban. As the possessed Pius tried to explain the "good" part of being brought to the Ministry, a voice then bellowed out the four words that every Death Eater alive had come to fear above all else:

"POTENTIO MULTIPLO MORSMORDRE CRUCIO!"

Yaxley and Rowle — not to mention two of the Snatchers and ALL the twenty-three other marked Death Eaters in the Ministry complex — were dropped to the floors as their bodies blazed with agony, worlds worse than anything their master had done. As Umbridge, Runcorn and the other Snatchers watched in stunned horror on seeing the Dark Lord's chosen warriors rendered totally helpless, Thicknesse collapsed to the floor in a daze, the Imperius Curse put on him by Yaxley shattered by the Cruciatus being used on the man who had stolen weeks of the former chief auror's life for a cause he NEVER would have supported.

Then, the sharp sound of a heavy metal key striking flagstone echoed through the Atrium.

That was followed by a statement that sent chills down everyone's backs:

"TO THE TRAITORS TO MAGIC…GONEBREN, 'A' BLOCK!"

Screams of howling vengeance echoed through the chamber as the Snatchers — not to mention those of their allies elsewhere in the Ministry complex — were all seized by a legion of glowing spirits that rose from the very floors to drag them down…and whisk them away to Cornwall and the living hell within Bodmin Moor. As the captive normal-borns watched in wide-eyed amazement as those who had taken them prisoner for the "crime" of "stealing magic" were dragged off to the Maze Among the Rocks, a slowly-recovering Pius Thicknesse yanked out his wand and unleashed the Sword-Slashing Curse on Runcorn and Umbridge, dropping them to their knees. Surging up, the former Chief Auror moved to level his wand at the former High Inquisitor of Hogwarts, the words of the Killing Curse appearing on his lips as he prepared to extinguish the disgusting woman's life. He was stopped at the last moment by Reginald Cattermole — whose wife Mary had been seized by the Snatchers — who reported that the Daily Prophet and the Wizarding Wireless Network had both been seized by families loyal to the Crown and a Magical Royal Proclamation had been issued by the Queen declaring a state of rebellion now existed between the Crown and the forces of Voldemort. On hearing that, Thicknesse — who was now being looked over by one of the former normal-born captives, retired Royal Army Medical Corps Major Hamilton St. John, a veteran of World War Two and a senior healer at St. Mungo's — gaped as his mind caught up to what had been declared after the Death Eaters were hit with the massed Cruciatus. Horrified that Gonebren had been reopened — which ONLY could happen if the Crown ordered it — he then jolted on sensing a wave of powerful magic flood the whole of the Ministry complex from somewhere to the north-northeast. Then, an invisibility cloak was tossed off a pair of people at one end of the Atrium, revealing Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. As people cheered the Boy-Who-Lived and his best female friend — save for the bleeding Umbridge and Runcorn, not to mention the moaning Yaxley, Rowle and the two Snatchers who had been marked — he allowed a glowing skeletal key the size of a sword to appear from behind him. Giving them all a chance to sense the ancient magic of the Maze Among the Rocks, he smirked.

"Defy the Crown…and you feed the Hollows."

His smirk didn't fade as he added, "Oh, by the way, Azkaban was just destroyed by a meson bomb. All the Dementors in existence have been wiped out."

Stunned silence…then a wild scream of joy escaped all the people in the Atrium. At that moment, Albert Runcorn — who, as a former Auror, was more capable of operating wounded than most normal people thanks to training he had received from Alastor Moody in much more innocent days — lunged up to strike Harry down…only to find that the Boy-Who-Lived was much faster with the huge key in his hand.

As a dazed Umbridge watched in horror, Runcorn was sent off to Gonebren, screaming for mercy…just as Yaxley tried to level his wand on the mudblood that had helped the half-blood brat defeat his master time and time again. Hermione gazed on him with a strange calm — as if dealing with a Death Eater was now no different than crushing a bug — and with a simple wave of her hand, raised the black flag against Voldemort:

"Morsmordre Avada Kedavra!"

As he dropped dead, a horrified silence fell as people took a moment to absorb what they just watched…then Mary Cattermole lunged for the wand that had been seized by one of the Snatchers that had just been whisked off to Gonebren, levelling it at Rowle and calling out the Killing Curse against the Dark Mark. That was like a gunshot starting a foot race; all the other former captives — save Hamilton St. John, who was a healer and wouldn't think of doing such a thing — snared their wands and finished off the two marked Snatchers before they raced off to other parts of the Ministry to wipe out all the other "traitors to the Crown" who were "polluting Her Majesty's Ministry of Magic" with their "staleblood, inbred filth." As Umbridge — who had seen and heard it all — screamed all sorts of obscenities at the "mudbloods" who dared "defy their betters," Thicknesse gazed on her…before a cruel smile crossed his face.

"Since Azkaban was just destroyed and the Dementors exterminated, we'll have to send you off to Gonebren to make sure you learn your TRUE place in this world, Dolores. Do have a nice time there. Now, Lord Potter, if you may, do your duty."

And with a touch of the Key, a howling Dolores Umbridge was sent to Gonebren…


By the end of the day, all of wizarding Britain was in a total uproar.

The news of Azkaban's destruction and the Dementors' extermination unleashed wild cheers among everyone in the land save Voldemort himself…whose plans had been dependant on the support of the empathic soul-wraiths to ensure those who would defy him could either be killed via the Kiss or kept imprisoned while more vital work to make his cause succeed was done. Without the Dementors — and without Azkaban! — how would he bring Potter to heel if he couldn't kidnap and imprison the mudbloods and blood traitors who sided with the brat?!

Then came the news of the "Ministry Massacre"…and it was stunning:

Twenty-seven marked followers of the "Arch-Traitor Riddle" slain.

Pius Thicknesse — freed from the Imperius Curse forced on him by Peter Yaxley and now heading to St. Mungo's for long term recovery from the use of soul-warping potions to make him more compliant to Voldemort's desires — had resigned his post effective immediately; in his statement, he declared, "I do not possess the favour of the Crown, so I cannot logically be Her Majesty's Minister for Magic." To Voldemort's stunned shock, Chief Investigative Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt — a member of the Order of the Phoenix — was declared interim Minister until the Wizengamot convened and confirmed him properly.

The Taboo set to detect usage of Tom Riddle's chosen battle name was eliminated…but with the Ministry headquarters once more beyond the Dark Lord's control, the Snatchers couldn't employ it to track down "undesirables." To say anything of no place to imprison them!

The Trace used to detect underage magical use was deactivated for the duration of the emergency. What was worse, a blanket authorization to use all the Unforgivable Curses on the Dark Marks was granted to all adult wizards, making it open hunting season on Voldemort's followers.

All treaties the Ministry of Magic had with the International Conference of Magical Communities and with all magical and normal governments were declared suspended. Anyone from outside wizarding Britain who wanted to help deal with the "traitors to the Crown" were welcome to come join the party.

At the order of the Crown, all lords of the Wizengamot who had joined Voldemort — or were suspected of allying with the Dark Lord despite their not being marked — had their titles stripped and their seats in the chamber put under threat from the Praeda Bellica to ensure that none could use any form of voting proxy to keep pressing their cause.

In concurrence with that, Chief Director Ragnok of Gringotts — who, days earlier, had been driven to tears when Harry Potter publicly returned the Sword of Gryffindor in apology for the grief wizards had caused goblins over the centuries — declared that all vaults owned or claimed by servants or allies of the "half-blood bastard child Tom Marvolo Riddle, also known as Lord Voldemort" were now sealed off from all access…and that anyone who DARED try to defy the goblins would be publicly beheaded on the spot and their assets absorbed into Gringotts for distribution to victims of the actions of wizards who rebelled against the Crown under the clauses of the appropriate treaties between Gringotts and Her Majesty's Ministry of Magic.

And the worst thing of all…

…there came the news that Her Majesty's Prison Gonebren had been reopened for business.

When Lee Jordan — just rescued from Azkaban by Mun Aesup and her family — interviewed Hermione Granger for the Wizarding Wireless Network two days after the Ministry Massacre about what would happen to people like Dolores Umbridge while in the Maze Among the Rocks, the normal-born from West Sussex said, "Lee, the belief that the Hollows hate ALL wizards is a lie. What the Hollows hate are wizards who — for one reason or another — used their magic or provoked the use of magic against those who had no defence against it; that's why they were so effective against delinquent wizards in ways the Dementors NEVER were. Believe it or not, all the relatives of the British members of the Schwarze Mädchen — who were massacred at Minister Fenwick's order during Grindelwald's War! — are Hollows now. So is Voldemort's father, not to mention the senior Tom Riddle's parents and two of Voldemort's primary school classmates from his time at Wool's Orphanage in London. All of them are waiting to teach those who will soon fill Gonebren all the lessons they never learned about their responsibilities when it comes to the gift of Magic bestowed onto us. If they truly repent in their hearts, the Hollows will go easy on them. That's why the prisoners of war from the Magische Reichsarmee who accepted what they did wrong were able to recover from their time in Gonebren within ten years of their release in 1946." Here, Hermione paused before she added, "But I strongly doubt ANY of the leicheblut schweinhunde imprisoned in Gonebren now will repent…so they'll wind up being empty husks when they're released from the prison, fit only to become fish food off Land's End, just like we did with all the Death Eaters we executed in the Ministry."

To Voldemort and his allies, that was the most horrible thing of all…


As July marched on, rumours began flying all across Britain about Death Eaters and their allies in the Snatchers and among the werewolves and other dark creatures disappearing from sight. Despite the Wizarding Wireless Network, the Daily Prophet, the regional magical daily newspapers and magazines like the Quibbler dutifully reporting all the times that normals, normal-borns and pro-normal wizards and witches were killed by "suspected traitors to the Crown," no explanation as to what happened to the casualties from the other side was made by the Ministry of Magic. Attempts by pureblood traditionalists who had not allied with Voldemort — yet were all smart enough to foresee that with the mass disappearances of purebloods fighting for the Dark Lord, their very economic and political power base in wizarding Britain was under dire threat — to demand an accounting from Kingsley Shacklebolt were silenced when a threat to give THEM a taste of the Hollows sent them retreating in disorder to their family homes.

Then came the Battle of Rhosan Green and the Chalcot Wood Massacre.

In the former incident, Sally-Anne Perks — joined by her wife Libera Meretrice and the other Meridiana alumni from the once-lost village of Rhosan Green at the north end of the Forest of Dean — swept down like avenging angels on a Snatcher camp near Libera's home village, which was holding some Hogwarts students who hadn't got clear of Voldemort's people, then disabled the captors and bound them up. Then — as witnessed by a wide-eyed Rita Skeeter, who had used her animagus abilities to try to learn what was really going on — the forester's daughter from Ross-on-Wye whispered the dreaded name of That Place…which allowed a company's worth of Hollows to emerge from the ground to drag the Snatchers off to Cornwall. After that, Libera gazed to where Rita was hiding, declaring loudly that the mechanisms behind the Taboo had been modified and linked to Gonebren; all one had to do was say the name and the Hollows would come take the "rubbish" away.

What happened in the latter incident in the small forest near Birmingham was even worse for Voldemort: Seven Death Eaters — including Augustus Rookwood, one of the Dark Lord's inner circle of advisers and a former Unspeakable — were slain by Harry Potter. However, the news of such deaths initially came when surviving relatives — and the general public through articles published in the Prophet — received the automatic death notices from Gringotts. Even more, twenty-six Snatchers — including their overall leader, Nicholas Scabior — were whisked off to Gonebren to entertain the Hollows. And worst of all, the Boy-Who-Lived was reported by Diana Matthews — whose eldest son Charles had been disowned by the family for taking Voldemort's mark and betraying all his family had long stood for; he had been killed at Chalcot Wood — to be wearing the white magical samurai armour used by Yomigawa Tsukiko during the War of Liberation. Even more so, the Boy-Who-Lived was also riding the beautiful nightmare Kenchū and welding the meson katana Senkō in his righteous campaign to destroy Voldemort; it was on the edge of THAT deadly blade that Rookwood had been killed. The other Death Eaters had died via soulsword.

Inwardly scared that Dumbledore's "golden boy" was no longer playing nice, the Dark Lord desperately launched attacks against all the family homes of Harry Potter's closest friends. And while most attacks wound up with more Death Eaters and their allies captured and sent off to Gonebren — the desire for blood vengeance seen at Chalcot Wood having bled itself off from Harry and his friends — Voldemort's people got lucky with Pansy Parkinson's parents Malcolm and Gruoch at the start of August; with their deaths, Pansy's older brother Michael became the new Earl of Keerford. Along the way, some Death Eaters found themselves betrayed by their own kin. Amycus and Alecto Carrow got the chance to learn how that felt thanks to the former's twin daughters Hestia and Flora shortly after Pansy's parents died. Once the elder Carrow twins were subdued, the younger twins invited Harry Potter and Nymphadora Tonks — now married to Remus Lupin — over to deal with them. Once they were telepathically probed by Rose Potter for all information about Voldemort and what he was planning, Amycus and Alecto were beheaded by Harry, thus allowing Flora to become the new Baroness of Norwich; Hestia wanted nothing to do with the Wizengamot.

A raid at Malfoy Manor was then mounted right afterwards to keep Voldemort and his troops off-balance. It also allowed the Ministry Six to free Garrick Ollivander — who had disappeared partway through the 1996-97 school year — and several other captives held there by Lucius Malfoy and his friends…one of which was Griphook, the goblin that had escorted Harry to his trust vault in his first visit to Gringotts all the way back in 1991. During that attack, one of Harry's closest friends took a cutting curse meant for the Boy-Who-Lived fired by Bellatrix Lestrange, despite the fact that he was protected thanks to the magical armour he wore: Dobby, the former Malfoy house elf who had been freed by the "Great Harry Potter" after the Chamber of Secrets incident in 1993 and had bonded with him in the wake of the Battle of the Department of Mysteries. Dobby's body was borne to 12 Grimmauld Place where he was interred in the garden, his grave dug by Harry…with the surprising help of Dudley Dursley, who had relocated himself to Islington from Little Whinging at the urging of Dobby and his mate Winky; neither of Dudley's parents — who, despite Petunia's past knowledge of wizarding Britain, refused to accept anything the "freaks" said about the potential danger Voldemort presented — had come with him, choosing to remain at 4 Privet Drive. There, a meeting was held…


Islington in London, 12 Grimmauld Place, Tuesday 12 August 1997, late afternoon…

"I'm sorry about Dobby, Harry. He was such a damned sweet guy…"

Harry chuckled as he patted his cousin's comforting hand. "Thanks, Duds. What's this about you getting a girlfriend that Winky told me about?"

The once-fat — and now quite muscular — amateur boxer who was now in the top ten of his class at the Smeltings Academy in Gloucester blushed before he reached into his pocket to draw out his wallet. A picture was handed over. "Eleanor Dresden. She's actually from Number Nine, but she goes to St. Trinian's School for Girls up in Cambridge." As Harry, Hermione and a few others in the room gasped on hearing that the new lady in Dudley's life was a student at the most infamous girl's public school in all of the United Kingdom, he smirked. "Mum and Dad hated it when they found out where Eleanor went to school, but they couldn't do a damned thing to stop it, especially after Piers got expelled from Smeltings for drug use and it got out all over town."

"You walked away from it, Dudley-kun," Yomigawa Tsukiko — who had based herself at Grimmauld as she monitored Harry's actions — stated. The Ministry Six, Harry's sister and her friends from Meridiana, other members of the Defence Association, Sally-Anne Perks and Libera Meretrice, all of the Weasley clan, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Minerva McGonagall, Alastor Moody and other members of the Order of the Phoenix were seated or standing around the living room as they relaxed and enjoyed tea and coffee served by Kreacher and Winky. "Be proud of yourself. Hopefully, your friend's experience will teach him the necessary lessons he'll need to better live his life."

"Yeah, like what I got when some things came two years ago to try to kill me…and I couldn't even SEE the damned things!" Dudley stated before he gazed on Mun Aesup. "You really used an atomic bomb to blow up the damned island where they lived?!"

"A mesonium bomb, Dudley," the Korean-Briton would-be technomage stated. "Same general design as the Little Boy bomb used on Hiroshima in 1945 — with no offence, Sŏnsaeng-nim…"

"None taken, Aesup-a," Tsukiko — who nearly was killed by the Fat Man bomb being dropped on Nagasaki three days after the Hiroshima attack — said with a light smile.

"A gun-type weapon," Hermione stated. "Mesonium bullet — I assume hyper-charged with magic — fired into a mesonium target core of an equal or denser format, also hyper-charged with magic. Works brilliantly."

"So where was this Azkaban place anyway?" Dudley asked.

"Just east of the Shetlands," Percy Weasley provided. "The explanation the Home Office arranged with us to provide to the public was that there was an explosion of a large underground field of natural propane triggered by a localized earthquake. Even if we're far from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, they do happen here in Britain."

"Rare but not totally unknown," Aesup affirmed with a nod.

"Once we get this all done, Kingsley, we HAVE to find ways to make better explanations when it comes to magical accidents than gas main eruptions and terrorist attacks," Hermione then warned. "People aren't as stupid as some would think."

"And there are those close-circuit television cameras now being used by the local authorities all around the country," Arthur Weasley added.

"I'll remember that," Kingsley noted.

"So what now?" Luna Lovegood asked. "Any news from Professor Snape?"

"Riddle is getting really desperate," Minerva reported; given the casualties that had been inflicted on the inner circle around Voldemort, Severus Snape was being kept on a very tight leash by his "master." "The most effective fighters within his inner group now left are Raven's father and Cassiopeia's parents; everyone else is less experienced or — in the case of people like Peter Pettigrew — simply can't handle such a violent change of tactics from what Albus pursued in the 1970s. The Snatchers are still out there, as are Greyback and his pack, but both groups have lost heavily thanks to the Hollows. The vampires have withdrawn; I think your public threat of calling on the Rail-Splitter to 'make them behave' scared them, Harry. There are still the giants, but Hagrid and Olympe report that the magical frost giants of Greenland — with the sasquatches and yeti helping out — will move in on Golgomath's group soon enough. As for trolls and anything else Riddle has, it won't matter in the long run."

"Target practice," a sullen Pansy Parkinson breathed out.

Sympathetic looks came her way. "So what now?" Fred Weasley asked. "Like it or not, we've got nineteen days before the Queen's Warrant to Harry runs out and we can kiss the Separation Act bye-bye, not to mention brace for the War Hawks coming in to deal with it. We have to settle Riddle's hash before then."

"We know that there are three horcruxes left," Alastor Moody grumbled. "We know what all three are: The Cup of Hufflepuff, the Diadem of Ravenclaw and Riddle's damned snake Nagini. We know where two of them are: Nagini's with Riddle and the Cup is in the Lestrange vault in Gringotts. We don't know where the Diadem is."

"Can we get the Cup at least?" Susan Bones asked.

"Impossible," Harry reported. "Griphook volunteered to ask Ragnok about it when he went off to Gringotts, but thanks to Bill and Fleur…" — he nodded to Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour, who had planned to get married this summer before events got out of everyone's control — "…I know that unless either of Cassi's parents go into Gringotts to get the thing out of there so we can get our hands on it, there's no way we can touch it. Treaties and banker-client privileges get in the way, especially since I don't think either of Cassi's parents realize the truth of what that cup really is."

"But it's forbidden to store horcruxes at Gringotts, Harry!" Hannah Abbott stated. "The goblins would have every damned right in the world to get rid of the thing!"

"Not when the client doesn't know what it is, Hannah," Bill warned. "If the client DID know — and refused to tell Gringotts about it — that's one thing. But given how hard it was for Sirius' late brother — Merlin bless the man! — to figure it all out, I really doubt that Bellatrix or her husband know what Riddle turned the Cup into."

"Thank you, William," the portrait of Walburga Black — now hanging on the wall dividing the living room from the central foyer — said with a beaming smile.

He nodded politely in turn. "What about the Praeda Bellica?" Daphne Greengrass asked. "Have Cassi strike down her parents, declare the Praeda Bellica and claim the family wealth."

"Treaty of Ynys Môn would get in the way," Hermione warned. "And I doubt even those traditionalists who didn't side with Riddle would want to change that."

"Guys, we're going about it the wrong way."

Eyes locked on Sally-Anne. "What do you mean, Sally?" Hannah asked.

The tomboyish blonde smirked. "You heard what happened in the Department of Mysteries, didn't you? When Rose used the soulsword on Harry's scar, Riddle suffered for it. He also — as Professor Snape reported — suffered when Harry destroyed the horcrux in that locket Kreacher kept an eye on all these years." As Kreacher — standing close to his master — perked on hearing his name spoken by the very nice mudblood who had soul-bonded with the beautiful Lady Meretrice, Sally-Anne smirked. "We know now that Riddle had to have mixed some elements of the nŏksbae process when he created his little trinkets since Professor Slughorn didn't give him the whole story about creating horcruxes. Logically, there's a magical link and a soul link between all of them and with the one who created them; what happened to Riddle thanks to Rose and Harry proves it."

"What are you saying, lass?" Alastor asked.

"What we need to do is sever all the links to the core soul, Professor. To Riddle himself!" Sally-Anne stated. "That means Harry — since prophecy forced this on his shoulders — has to get up close to Riddle and nail him with a soulsword."

"What if Riddle's figured it out by now and he's on guard?" Pansy warned. "He may be the most insane man alive because he mangled his soul up so much, but he's bloody brilliant atop that."

"Unless we hit him all at once."

Eyes locked on Rose Potter, who had a calculating smile on her face…


The beginnings of the planning for the second Battle of Hogwarts began that day.

Thanks to Horace Slughorn — who, after learning of the events at the Department of Mysteries in 1996, had been quick to understand what the real meaning of Rose's use of a soulsword on her brother was; that was what made him accept Albus Dumbledore's offer to return to teaching — the location of the Diadem of Ravenclaw was obtained from a guilt-ridden Grey Lady: Tom Riddle had hid Rowena Ravenclaw's most prized invention in the Room of Requirement of all places! And while it would have been simplicity itself to go to Hogwarts and destroy it, Pansy's warning about Voldemort finally catching onto what his enemies were doing put caution into the air. Eventually, Harry decided that it was time to employ an old Red Army tactic taught to him by Svetlána Múromeca — temporarily freed from her imprisonment in Russia's version of Azkaban during the summer of 1996 to help Tsukiko train Harry — and create a fire sack for the Death Eaters to waltz into so they could ALL be swept up by the Hollows for imprisonment at Gonebren without any hope of escape to fight anew.

Remembering what the ghost of Winston Churchill had advised him at the start of July, Harry decided that the best way to break the back of the pureblood traditionalist movement was to have the Hollows seize all of Voldemort's fighters and hold them fast on the grounds of Hogwarts while he himself would personally cut the Dark Lord down with a soulsword after using the long-distance ki beam version of that ultimate weapon — the Spirit-Breaker Fire-Light attack — to shred what magical and soul links his target had with the Cup of Hufflepuff. To make sure the Dark Lord couldn't defend himself, Harry would have Nagini and the Diadem destroyed just before that happened to put Voldemort into the hurt locker and ensure he couldn't defend himself. To ensure the magical python would be there, he arranged through Severus Snape to recommend that Nagini — thanks to her ability to be stealthy, not to mention poisonous to anyone who attacked her — probe ahead of the Death Eaters and their allies to perform a detailed reconnaissance of Hogwarts to ensure no trap was being laid.

The bait: Seize the Elder Wand from Albus Dumbledore's tomb.

Thanks to Severus reminding Voldemort about the events that led up to the headmaster's death in June, the Dark Lord realized that he had been practically sitting on a major prize all this time. With well-chosen words, Severus dismissed what had happened at the Department of Mysteries between Albus Dumbledore and Yomigawa Tsukiko concerning the soulsword employed on the Deathstick. If The Tale of the Three Brothers was to be literally believed, Death Itself had created the Elder Wand; what power could a mere mortal sorceress — even a frightfully skilled and powerful one like Tsukuyomi — have over it? Atop that, since Tsukiko eschewed wands, she would probably have not cared to claim the Elder Wand herself, thus allowing it to be claimed once more by Albus…and given that Draco Malfoy had disarmed the headmaster the night of the attack on Hogwarts in June, that meant that Lucius' son was the current master of the first of the fabled Deathly Hallows. And if the OTHER rumours were true and that the Elder Wand had been created by Rittmeister Josef von Taserich centuries ago, how was it possible for Yomigawa Tsukiko — who had once been the apprentice of Taserich's immortal "son," Hosan Hirosuke — to overwhelm something created by the Undying Lord?

"What of the fact that Potter has Senkō, Severus?" Voldemort asked at a meeting at the Malfoy mansion outside Avebury. "It was blessed by Raeburn herself…"

Severus dismissed that automatically. All the stories about the meson blade — which had been forged from Tsukuyomi's blood, thus descent from Master Hosan — being blessed by the Protector of All Life was nothing more than propaganda needed to ensure the International Confederation of Wizards wouldn't beg for the help from the War Hawks' leader to deal with the Dark Lady of the Orient during the War of Liberation. After all, if such stories WERE true, the ICW leadership then ran the significant risk of turning one of the most powerful beings on the planet against THEM if they displeased her because of their determination to keep the magicals in the colonies enslaved to European control…which they couldn't afford to do given the dual threat of Tsukuyomi and Grindelwald during World War Two, plus a potential follow-up conflict against Svetlána Múromeca and her allies because of their passionate support of Communism, which would have seen the purebloods of Europe totally wiped out as she had done in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s. Besides — again turning to the issue of Senkō being forged from Tsukuyomi's blood, descent from the meson in the blood of Master Hosan — the need to get hold of the Elder Wand had become all the more paramount. The blade could turn back the Killing Curse from NORMAL wands…but the Deathstick was a whole different type of wand!

Enticed by the idea of finally striking Potter down even if he was armoured up, Voldemort agreed to go ahead. Given that the vanishing cabinet that had been in Borgin and Burkes which allowed the Death Eaters to attack Hogwarts in June was still available and linked to the sister cabinet in the Room of Requirement — it had been relocated to Malfoy Manor at the start of July, ensuring it wasn't destroyed when the magic curio shop in Knockturn Alley was wiped off the map at the start of August — it was decided that an advanced party under the Lestranges and helped by Severus would sneak into Hogwarts to secure the castle ahead of time. Once the detection charms that tripped up the Death Eaters in June were converted to the attackers' use, any attempt by the Defence Association to storm Hogwarts could be successfully blocked. Once all was secure — the attack would be timed to ensure little resistance from the staff at the school — Voldemort would shift his forces to Hogwarts.

Draco Malfoy then offered to get the Elder Wand himself from Dumbledore's tomb…but was waived off by Lucius, who asked Severus to deal with that.

"It will be waiting for you when you arrive, My Lord," the potions master vowed.


D-Day was set for the last Thursday in August.

It would be a time when the Castle of Hogwarts would be next to empty of all staff; it was tradition for the teachers to take a week off before the start of the new school year to relax and refresh themselves before facing the day-to-day task of dealing with hundreds of children for ten months straight. If launched at dusk, the moon phase wouldn't be of help; that night would see Earth's satellite close to the new moon and the full moon that month had been on the eighteenth, a Monday. Fenrir Greyback was more than happy to have his surviving pack mates involved in the fight anyway despite the fact that they wouldn't be at top power. Harry Potter and his friends had ripped apart the pack with immunity and the werewolf leader wanted payback. Voldemort promised to allow the lycanthropes a chance to deal with the Potter brat's damned sister and her friends from Meridiana. "After all, the removal of ICMC recognition to our society works both ways, old friend," the Dark Lord noted.

The Death Eaters' advanced party had made its way to Hogwarts from Malfoy Manor around suppertime. Led by Bellatrix Lestrange and her husband Rodolphus, the group was also composed of Draco Malfoy, Vincent Crabbe Jr., Gregory Goyle, Theodore Nott and the surviving Hogwarts students who had taken the Mark that had been driven out of the school in May. As Severus opened the door of the Room to allow everyone out, the older members of the Order of the Phoenix descended on the corridor to deal directly with the attackers. As Draco and his unmarked companions fell back into the Room — the former dragging his godfather in along the way to pay Severus back for the older man taking the Unbreakable Vow the previous summer to ensure Albus Dumbledore died — the spells flew fast and furious between the two sides. Despite Bellatrix and Rodolphus holding their own, many of the others were mowed down like wheat before a scythe…but not without the Order taking casualties in return. In that mêlée, Remus Lupin and several others died, while Nymphadora Lupin was struck down by a sickly curse that would render her comatose…having never warned anyone that she had just discovered she was pregnant with her first child.

The Lestranges and several of the younger Death Eaters lead by Charlie Vaisey scrambled down towards the main academic levels just as the first wave of the Defence Association arrived. Led by Ginny Weasley, they launched their assault with massed Cruciatus Curses on the Dark Marks to incapacitate the Death Eaters…but found themselves attacked in return by Fenrir Greyback's pack of werewolves. As Lavender Brown led a counter-attack using the Coat of Silver hex to incapacitate the lycanthropes, Rodolphus moved to make a nearby column close to Fred and Percy Weasley explode. A shield spell from Harry Potter — who just arrived with the main body of the D.A. — saved the elder of the Weasley twins, then he charged off for the Room of Requirement as most of Greyback's friends fell, bodies scalded by the conjured silver as if they had been dipped in sulphuric acid. As Greyback himself fled from the castle to escape the burning tongues of the evil metal that had killed so many of his pack, Bellatrix grabbed her husband and pulled him towards the Administration Tower. As they fled, Rodolphus sent a parting curse bolt towards Hermione Granger.

Seeing the threat to her friend, Ginny Weasley — who was too magically exhausted to muster a shield charm — lept over and took it in the heart.

Scrambling to the ground floor, the Lestranges raced for the courtyard to get clear of the academic wing and make their way to the Hogwarts Lake, where they could summon one of the boats used to transport first years from Hogsmeade at the start of every school year, then take it to the island where Dumbledore was buried and get the Elder Wand. They were intercepted by a screaming Molly Weasley — who had just discovered what had happened to her precious daughter — and both Lestranges got a massive dose of the Cruciatus on their Marks from Ginny's mother. Grace Longbottom and Cassiopeia Lestrange then appeared. After barking to Molly to call off the attack, Rodolphus' daughter slammed a soulsword into his left arm to burn the Dark Mark away — which caused his heart to fail thanks to the link the Mark had with its wearer's very magical core — before beheading him with a katana borrowed from Yomigawa Tsukiko's weapons stores for the occasion. Howling with outrage on seeing her husband slain by this monster who claimed to be her daughter, Bellatrix moved to kill Cassiopeia. As Molly hurled one of the more darker Prewett family spells at the witch who had so hurt Ginny, Grace's fingertips landed on the older woman's skull…and exposing her fractured brain to the young magi's inner eye to the Te'a that all like her saw from the time of their Awakening to the day they died.

In a cruel twist of irony, Bellatrix fell victim to the same type of coma curse that she and her husband just placed Molly's daughter and Remus' wife into.

Meanwhile, Greyback was making his way towards the safety of Hogwarts Lake when he found an amused Yomigawa Tsukiko standing in his path. Snarling at the Jap bitch that had been the ultimate cause of so much pain for his pack, the werewolf leader charged…only to have Tsukiko used a knife-hand strike to rip his skull open through his eye sockets before she let go with a bit of her power to fry his brain from the inside.

As this was going on, Lucius Malfoy and Peter Pettigrew — who both had apparated to outside the boundary of Hogwarts, then approached under the cover of invisibility cloaks to keep watch on things and make sure all went well — found themselves caught by the former's daughter Raven. Without preamble, the deposed Marquess of Avebury — who still ached from the wound delivered by this monster in the Department of Mysteries unto him a year before — fired a storm of attack spells at her. To his shock and surprise, Raven seemed to VANISH…but had teleported herself to a position right beside him. One brutal thrust with her own katana later and Lucius collapsed to the ground…and then, for good measure, he had his wand hand lopped off before Raven knelt beside him and rabbit-punched him right in the face to break his nose!

Raven then hissed out the Cruciatus Curse to nail the man who had betrayed her best friend's parents and guaranteed Rose Potter would be separated from her beloved elder brother for nearly fifteen years. As Peter tried to flee while fighting off the horrid burning of his nerves through his Dark Mark, Raven lopped off his silver hand with her katana before slashing open his stomach to double him over, then ripped open his throat with another slash. "Your mother was always ashamed of you, traitor!" the daughter of the Malfoys of Avebury snarled as Peter felt his life-blood seep out onto the lawn. "I made damn sure of that before she passed away just after you were found alive! Die knowing you'll be heading straight to Hell, oath-breaker!"

At the same time, Harry — after seeing Remus' dead body close to the door to the Room of Requirement — blasted his way into the magical holodeck-like construct with a force-bubble spell, surprising Draco Malfoy and his friends…

…who were then stunned to hear Severus Snape ask, "What the devil took you so long, Harry?"

As Harry quipped about stupid dunderheads leaping before they looked, Vince Crabbe — realizing that this whole attack had been a set-up all along and that his former head of house had sold the Dark Lord out — unleashed one of the most horrifying spells he personally knew.

Fiendfyre!

Watching as the burly Slytherin was consumed by the storm of magical flame to become the only one of the Class of 1991 to die before graduation, Harry and Severus snared Draco, Theo and Greg, then ran like hell to get them all to safety. To contain the inferno ripping the Room of Requirement apart, Harry used another spell he had been taught by Tsukiko the previous fall — the Ventus Dracone, the Dragon Wind — to literally snuff the oxygen and magic out of the Room itself. When the fire finally faded, the Room — which had been set in the "Room of Hidden Things" mode — appeared to be gutted to the very stones of the floor, walls and ceiling, leaving nothing behind. Not even Vince's body, to say anything of the Diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw…


Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Thursday 28 August 1997, after dusk…

"There you are, lad!"

Harry's head snapped over, then he snarled as he marched over to launch a punch right at Alastor Moody's jaw. The retired auror didn't see it in time before stars appeared in his good eye as he was dropped to the ground. As Severus Snape tried not to laugh on seeing the dark wizard hunter laid low like THAT, Harry screamed out, "WHAT IN GOD'S NAME WERE YOU STUPID IDIOTS THINKING?! WHO'S IDEA WAS IT TO JUMP THE GUN LIKE THAT AND CHARGE AHEAD WITHOUT ANY BLOODY SUPPORT?!" He spun on the other Order of the Phoenix members. "WHO'S GOING TO BE THERE FOR DORA'S CHILD WHEN IT'S BORN?! WELL?!"

Horrified gasps responded from the older people before they turned to stare wide-eyed at the still body of Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin, now being cared for by Ariel Goyle. "Baby…?" a white-faced Molly Weasley gasped before she collapsed in her husband's arms and sobbed.

"Don't be mad, Harry! Please!" Dedalus Diggle stated as Alastor picked himself up, though he didn't lash back at the young man who had dropped him with a punch; the retired auror found himself quite impressed that Harry could do THAT to him. Dedalus and the other survivors of the first attack had stunned looks on their faces; they had NEVER faced such intensive magical combat until now and it had shaken them badly. "Ever since we all…well, you know…!" He then shuddered before grief-stricken moans stole his voice.

As he was comforted by Hestia Jones, Harry shook his head. "Give me a butcher's count, people!" he called out as he looked around the courtyard where the members of the Order, the Defence Association and the captured Death Eaters had been gathered to rest and recuperate.

"Remus Lupin, Elphias Doge, Sturgis Podmore, Bathsheda Babbling and Charity Burbage are dead," Minerva McGonagall reported. "Both Dora Lupin and Ginny Weasley were hit with the same type of curse from Bellatrix Lestrange and her husband. Filius didn't recognize it, so it must be Lestrange family magic of some sort. Right now, their life auras remind me of the state Neville's parents have been in for so long. What it means for Dora's child, though…"

"The life-link's strong, Aunt Minerva," Ariel stated. "If there's constant care, the baby should come to term with no problems and no harm to its magic." She then gazed once more on Dora. "I sure don't want the baby to go through what I went through."

As the older people breathed out in relief, Harry nodded. "Alright," he said as he tried not to give in to his anguish and outrage over what had happened to everyone, especially Ginny and Dora. Both were alive despite their current comatose state…and while there was the "A" option that could be used if he found unused and non-templated bioroid bodies at one of the three other Niphentaxian observation sites across the United Kingdom in London, Birmingham and Glasgow, he wouldn't try to exploit it unless he knew how to get away with it while NOT provoking an alien invasion of all things…!

Alien…

Damn!

He was STILL trying to wrap his head around that…!

Who on Earth could he talk to about this…?

Shoving that into the back of his head for the time being — while the thing about Alice Holmes' late master/father and his native race of humanoid mimics from a three-star system fifty light-years from Earth was a concern, the Niphentaxians' mania for keeping their presence on the planet top secret was something that now worked in the favour of people like Rose and her friends — he barked, "KREACHER! WINKY!"

Pop! "Master Harry, are you alright?!" Kreacher called out.

"Oh, my…!" Winky gasped as she looked around, her elf-senses picking up the auras of misery and death emanating from all around her. "Master Harry, what…?!"

"Never mind!" Harry urged. "Winky, take Ginny to her bedroom at the Burrow. Care for her constantly until her parents come home, alright? Kreacher, take Dora to Grimmauld and give her a guest room. Careful, she's pregnant. Care for her until I get home."

Both elves nodded before vanishing with their charges. As Molly sobbed her thanks at Harry for caring for her little baby, he made eye contact with Hermione and Ron. His best friends nodded in understanding, then the three walked over to one corner of the courtyard, as far from the prisoners as they could. "What happened with the Diadem? Did you get it?" Ron quietly asked.

"No, Vince destroyed it with Fiendfyre," Harry replied. "I don't know if there was some sort of magical backlash in this case, but there's no way that even a horcrux could survive THAT!"

"So it's two down, with one nicely isolated and free from grasp by any of Riddle's idiots once we slam them all into Gonebren. Once Bellatrix recovers from what Mum and Grace did to her, we can make her get her hands on the thing from her family vault in Gringotts to finish it off once and for all," Ron concluded. "That sounds good to me, mate. All you need is to kill that snake and it's just Riddle himself."

"I'm no expert on soulswords, but the lack of soulsword backlash via the Diadem might demand both the soulsword AND the spirit-breaker attack at or near the same time on Riddle himself when he shows up," Hermione advised before she whispered the Patronus Charm to send a mental message to Harry's sister and Neville Longbottom, both now on snake-hunting duty with Rubeus Hagrid.

A moment later, a fluttering spirit butterfly appeared before them. «Sorry, Big Brother,» Rose Potter's voice echoed from the image. «No sign of Miss Snake.»

A spirit-hare then hobbled up to stand close to them. «Harry, much that I hate to interrupt your fun, but a certain Dark Moron and his silly followers are now crossing Hogwarts Lake from the direction of Professor Dumbledore's grave site,» Luna Lovegood reported via her Patronus; the daughter of the owner of the Quibbler was on lookout duty in the Administration Tower. «It appears Mister Who has gone grave-robbing; I can see the Elder Wand in his hand. They should land by the Great Hall in ten minutes.»

"Thanks, Luna! Rose, Neville, Hagrid, find that damned snake!"

«We're on it, Harry!» Neville replied back through Rose's butterfly Patronus; despite all the training he had received over the previous school year, the newly-ennobled Marquess of Holdenhurst had yet to produce more than a silver mist.

With the Dementors gone now…

As the patronuses disappeared, Hermione gazed on her friend. "Bring the Hollows here, Harry. It's between you and Riddle now. They'll keep the Death Eaters detained."

"Let's finish it, mate," Ron said in agreement.

"Alright," Harry breathed before looking over. "Professor McGonagall?!"

"Yes, Harry?!" Minerva called back.

"Get our guests up to the residence wing!" Harry bade. "I want them to see this!"

"See what, Potter?!" one of the surviving junior Death Eaters, John Summers — he had been a Hufflepuff and a seventh year in the school year just ended — heckled. "See you finally die?!"

Derisive laughter escaped most of the other prisoners…though neither Draco Malfoy, Theo Nott nor Greg Goyle joined in. Thinking on that, Harry then mused that given that he and Severus just save the three young Slytherins' lives, they were probably wondering how they were going to get out of the Life Debts that now existed between them and the Boy-Who-Lived.

"Forget it, Harry! They're gonna be appetizers to the Hollows soon enough!" Ron then called out, making the captives all gargle in horror as Harry drew out a certain skeleton key and allowed it to grow to the size of a sword. "I say let's feed them to our friends in Gonebren now and get it over with!"

"No! I want them to watch as I dismember that half-blood bastard child freak of magic myself!" Harry snarled as his eyes flared, making everyone pale on seeing that. "Get them up there now, Professor!" he then bade Minerva McGonagall. "I'm going to sic the Hollows on Riddle's idiots! I want them to see what I'll do to Riddle, too! Make sure our guests can't call out to warn them of what's coming!"

"Good luck, lad!" Alastor bade.

With that, Harry stormed off for a door that lead into the corridor heading out onto the Long Bridge, the longest of the three stone bridges that connected both sides of the castle and the one closest to the Hogwarts Lake. With Hermione and Ron flanking him on both sides, Harry stepped out into open air, then gazed south to see a virtual armada of boats heading their way. "Looks like bloody D-Day at Normandy back in '44!" Hermione hissed out.

"And we're the Atlantic Wall," Harry mused as his eyes locked on the pale, bald figure in the lead boat. "Fortunately, we have the War Hawks fighting on our side."

"That good?" Ron quipped.

The others chuckled. Instantly, spells started lancing out towards the Golden Trio from some of the boats, though the inner wards surrounding the castle itself deflected them off. Harry smirked as he moved to rest the blade of the Key of Gonebren on the flagstone at his feet, not deliberately striking it on the stone to open the gateway to the Maze Among the Rocks and let the Hollows storm forth. Looking perfectly relaxed — which, he hoped, would anger the Death Eaters so much at such a casual display of dismissal towards them, thus make them waste more energy on firing spells and not think this might be a trap — he kept his eyes locked on Voldemort, almost taunting the Dark Lord to lash out at him with the stolen elder wood wand with the thestral tail-hair core now in his hand. However, the older wizard was holding off; no doubt, he wanted to be at point-black range to kill the Boy-Who-Lived.

"Let's confirm something," Harry mused. "'Mione, would you mind?"

"Of course, Harry. MESONIUM REVELIO!"

A swirling silver-red-black bolt of energy lashed out towards Voldemort from Hermione's right hand. Before the Dark Lord could raise a shield to block it, the bolt slammed into the Elder Wand, causing a mushroom cloud-like effect overhead. As the Death Eaters began bellowing out a storm of curses towards the three students on the bridge for brazenly attacking their leader in such a manner, Harry's closest female friend sighed. "Well, that proves that," the normal-born from West Sussex mused. "Rittmeister von Taserich WAS playing as Death when he encountered the Peverell brothers years ago."

"Why would he do that, 'Mione?" Ron asked.

"He's immortal, Ron. They get bored easy," Harry answered.

The youngest Weasley son nodded. "Right!"

Another spirit butterfly then fluttered down. «Big Brother! We found Miss Snake!»

«She's in Ravenclaw Tower, Harry,» Neville added. «She's trying to get to the window overlooking the Long Bridge right now…shit! Hagrid, be…!»

An explosion of glass echoed from behind and above Harry, making him calmly glance up as a large, dark mass seemed to drop down towards him. Without hesitation, he waved his hand up. "SAGITTA MAGICA!" he barked…as a STORM of glowing arrow-like bolts of energy lashed up to puncture Nagini's body from under the neck to the tail. The large magical python hissed out her pain at being wounded like that before a shield charm from Hermione deflected the falling beast to crash down onto the Long Bridge close to the academic wing. As Voldemort bellowed out in outrage on seeing his beloved familiar hurt like that, Harry smirked…

as he raised the Key and allowed it to slam down on the flagstone.

"Hold them here! I want them to watch!"

A titanic howl of voices bellowed over the grounds of Hogwarts, which made all the Death Eaters and their allies scream out on realizing they had waltzed right into a trap…

«AT THE BLIGHTERS, EVERYONE!»

A virtual STORM of glowing spirits lept out of the invisible gateway connecting the Scottish Highlands with the moors of Cornwall, forming two enveloping waves as they lunged down at the flotilla approaching Hogwarts. Before any of Voldemort's people could do anything — even activate their portkeys to escape the oncoming vengeance-crazed spirits — the Hollows snared them and yanked them high into the air, causing many of them to cry out in pain as they felt the horrid drain on their magic and their souls that contact with the inhabitants of the Maze Among the Rocks unleashed in all their victims. As Voldemort spun up to aim the Elder Wand at the deadly spirits that had cost him so much over the last two months, two of the Hollows lunged directly at him.

«Hey, Little Tommy-Wommy! Long time, no see, mate!»

The Dark Lord gasped as dim memories from his childhood came back. "Dennis…?"

Both the spirits of Dennis Bishop and Amy Benson plunged into Voldemort's chest, causing him to scream out in agony as his magically-created body — forged by the darkest of re-birthing rituals — violently reacted to the powerful family magic of the Slytherin line which touched all the Hollows of Gonebren, thus channelling the sheer torrents of life energy a DOZEN ley lines intersecting under the prison complex itself could feed through each of the body-less wraiths that now called the Maze Among the Rocks home. Watching this, Harry smirked as he sensed Rose and Neville race down from Ravenclaw Tower so they could get at Nagini. "Just got to time it right," the Boy-Who-Lived mused aloud as he sensed the great magical python move to gather what strength she had left to lunge at the young Speaker who had caused her beloved master so much harm in the last seventeen springs…

Nagini didn't sense her own death coming at her from behind.

Neville went low with his katana, striking at the level of the snake's stomach.

Rose went high with her soulsword, slicing right through Nagini's jaw into her brain.

As an explosion of energy erupted from the mortally-wounded python to light up the evening sky over Hogwarts, Voldemort — already being burned from the inside by the spirits of the two orphans he had badly hurt decades ago — howled with agony as the backlash of Rose's soulsword slammed into his mangled mind at nearly point-blank range. At that moment, Harry shoved the Key of Gonebren into Hermione's hand before he lowered the boom.

"SEISHIN-HASAI HI-KŌSEN!"

The Killing Curse-like green ki beam of the Spirit-Breaker Fire-Light — which Yomigawa Tsukiko learned from Earth's first true artificial intelligence, the fabled Earth Angel Moroboshi Negako, decades ago during the Age of the Steel Angels — lashed out to rip into the Dark Lord. As anguished cries echoed from the captive junior Death Eaters in the residence wing behind Harry as they watched their leader and master being literally shredded alive like that before their eyes, Voldemort's howl of agony turned into an ear-splitting shriek of mortal pain as he felt things deep inside his body ripped away and his magic violently torn from his control. A moment later, the Hollows that had once been two children Tom Riddle ruthlessly tormented in a cave on the coast of the English Channel in East Sussex vacated his physical form…just as the burning, scalding torch tearing him apart from the direction of the Long Bridge faded.

"ACCIO THOMAS MARVOLO RIDDLE!"

The Summoning Spell yanked Voldemort right at the Long Bridge, sending him — who, much to Harry's surprise, was STILL tightly grasping the Elder Wand! — smashing head-first into the inner guard rail close to Hermione. As a moan escaped the Dark Lord's blood-filled mouth, Harry reached over to draw out Senkō…then with one slash of the blade, forever shattered the Elder Wand. As Voldemort — who was try to marshal what energy he had left to strike back — gaped in shock on seeing the "invincible" wand now in two pieces, Harry sheathed the meson katana he had been loaned by Yomigawa Tsukiko, then calmly tossed Senkō over to Ron.

"You were betrayed all along, Tom," he breathed out, keeping his voice low. "Uncle Severus was always loyal to my mother, not you and not Professor Dumbledore! When we discovered your horcruxes, we knew we had you right where we wanted you! All we needed was help in dealing with all your playmates…but your own ancestor guaranteed that! Didn't feel so good when you felt Master Salazar's magic BURN you from the inside-out, eh?!"

The Dark Lord groaned out, "Pot-…ter…!"

"Don't worry about your horcrux in Bellatrix's family vault," Harry added as he moved to stand like some angry god over the fallen Voldemort, magic billowing in his right hand. "Three soulsword strikes and the spirit-breaker fire-light — the long-distance version of the soulsword — should be enough to burn the soul fragment there into nothing more than a mere dumb golem. Once the laws change and we can finally get rid of the thing, all its memories — even those that were absorbed into the Cup from your other horcruxes — will be used to make sure the whole world knows what you did since the day you killed Myrtle Warren!" He smirked. "Well, much that it's been fun — and it hasn't! — say good-night, Tommy-Wommy.

"ANIMAE GLADIUM!"

And the soulsword slashed down one more time…


The Second Purification War was over.

Over two thousand Death Eaters, Snatchers, lycanthropes and other supporters of the Dark Lord Voldemort found themselves incarcerated in Gonebren for the Hollows to ravage for six months before a rebuilt Azkaban Prison — now officially operating with a Royal Warrant as Her Majesty's Prison Azkaban — was reopened for business; while the meson bomb built by Mun Aesup had burned the old prison to the ground, the island was still intact and could be used. Once that was done, Voldemort's effectively-comatose supporters were transferred over, guarded by goblins until Aesup and some of her friends created special technomagic blocks to keep the inmates locked in.

Not that, for any of them, it would matter in the long run.

NONE had felt remorse for what they felt.

So they suffered unspoken agonies at the hands of beings who — when they were living people — the prisoners might have killed without hesitation.

For the Hollows, their duty had been done as the Queen so willed it.

After Gonebren was emptied in early 1998, they slept…

…until they felt someone other than the Queen grasp the Key of Gonebren.

As they had always done for a millennia to others who had been given the Key, the Hollows sought out the soul of this new Holder…

…and discovered an incredible surprise.

Harry Potter — being that he had ALWAYS seen himself as a normal person who had been blessed with magic and not just a magical person…with the sense of personal superiority over normals many of those beings often had — had been quite incredible as the Holder of the Key of Gonebren…

…but he had nothing on Elizabeth Gibbon.

For Elizabeth — a normal-born witch from Yorkshire — had parents who, after they were slaughtered by vengeful magicals for something they weren't responsible for, BECAME Hollows on their passing from mortal life!

And she — despite her having fought for the same cause as the warriors from Germany and elsewhere in Europe who had been incarcerated in the Maze Among the Rocks over sixty years before — had just called down one of the most powerful benedictions of Magic known.

The Vengeance of Blood.

When the beings reborn to avenge the pain of others learned why…

…they judged that this one was truly good.

And once more…the Hollows of Gonebren went to war.


Diagon Alley, near the entrance to Gringotts, Wednesday 21 July 2010, thirty minutes before lunch…

Harry Potter gave his head a slight shake as Elizabeth Gibbon's voice brought his reminiscing back to the present:

"We've vampires to kill!" she hissed out after she allowed the Key of Gonebren to touch the flagstone walkway of Diagon Alley, allowing a spark to flash.

Everyone seeing this 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 notes:

The given name of Peter Yaxley is my creation.

Mun Aesup's English name, Lily, was finally revealed at a recent update of Pottermore. Given that JKR hasn't done anything to expand on her, I decided to follow the common practice in Korea for those who adopt foreign given names when it came to Aesup. In primary school, she went by "Lily Mun" (or "Lily Moon" given the common Romanization of the han'gŭl syllable block ). On coming to Hogwarts, where respecting one's true ancestry was seen as proper, she went back to her birth name "Mun Aesup"…even if many of the people at the school got the name order wrong and often called her "Aesup Mun".

Dennis Bishop and Amy Benson were first mentioned in Half-Blood Prince. Thomas John Riddle (the middle name is my invention) and his wife Mary Riddle were first mentioned in Goblet of Fire. Thomas' and Mary's son Thomas Albert Riddle (again, the middle name is my invention) was first mentioned in Chamber of Secrets.

Hamilton St. John is a creation of mine for the Icemaidens stories; he first appeared in Harry Potter and the Icemaidens. In that story, he was Rose Potter's godfather.

The names of Pansy Parkinson's parents, Malcolm Parkinson and Gruoch Parkinson, are derived from one of my favourite fanfics, White Knight, Grey Queen by Jeconais. This fanfic can be read at the Fanfic Authors website; be warned that people have to register to read some of the stories there.

Golgomath was first mentioned in Order of the Phoenix. It was also in that book that Elphias Doge and Sturgis Podmore first appeared.

Bathsheda Babbling was first mentioned at JKR's official website.

Charity Burbage first appeared in Deathly Hallows.

John Summers (his given name is my invention) was one of those who tried to cross the age line to put his name into the Goblet of Fire so he could represent Hogwarts in the Triwizard Tournament during Goblet of Fire.

The family name of Myrtle Warren — commonly known as Moaning Myrtle — came from a recent tweet by JKR.

2) Translations: Chosŏn — Literally "New Morning," this is the name applied to the Korean kingdoms that existed on the peninsula from the mythological founding date of 2333 B.C.E. to 108 B.C.E. (called Kojosŏn or "Old Chosŏn") and from 1392-1910…and still forms part of the Korean name for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea); Sŏnsaeng-nim — The Korean version of the Japanese word sensei with the "-nim" suffix honorific which is the Korean version of the Japanese "-sama" suffix honorific; -a — The Korean version of the Japanese suffix honorific "-chan" applied to names or familial terms that end in a consonant sound (when the word ends in a vowel, it's -ya); Mesonium Revelio — Reveal the Mesonium; Sagitta Magica — Magical Arrows (a spell from Negima).

3) Kenchū ("Modest Heart") and Senkō ("Clear Light") were first mentioned in Part 11 of Avalonians at Hinata-sō. The former was a Siberian nightmare; I borrowed the concept from the fanfic story Lord of Caer Azkaban by Rorschach's Blot. The latter is a katana forged of mesonium in the same balance between the three different natural forms (diamond, ruby and ebony) as a Power Jewel (sixty percent diamond, thirty percent ruby and ten percent ebony).

4) The actual location of St. Trinian's School for Girls has never been given in the comics or the movies made based on them since the first comic collection, Hurrah For St. Trinian's, was published in 1948. I place the school in Cambridge in salute to the series' creator, Ronald Searle (1920-2011).