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Gerrards Cross in Buckinghamshire (twenty-five kilometres west-northwest from the City of London), a house off Oxford Road (Trunk Road A40), an hour before midnight…

"…can only ask that all people who live outside fully-protected magical districts in the United Kingdom maintain protective wards at maximum density and keep all floo portals sealed until we can complete the full sweep of the country. Anyone who still requires assistance is advised to contact their local Auror station," a quiet yet well-educated woman's voice with the prim accent of a native of Brandenburg echoed over the wireless unit sitting on the small end table in the living room of the small family farm next door to Siblet's Wood. "While we can but hope that the danger has passed for now and that there will be no more attacks, we cannot guarantee same. Further updates will come as soon as they are released by Generalmajorin Gibbon. Danke schön."

"On behalf of all of us in the United Kingdom now under the protection of you and all your wonderful coven-sisters, thank you, Colonel. Ladies and gentlemen, that was Lieutenant Colonel Lady Diana von Meißen, the newly-confirmed Countess of Droitwitch and commanding officer of the Second Battalion of the Black Maidens, speaking to you from our studio in Diagon Alley," Lee Jordan — who worked as the late night presenter for the Wizarding Wireless Network whenever he wasn't helping out at Weasleys Wizard Wheezes — announced. "Again, to recap this evening's top news story on the Wizarding Wireless Network, attacks at thirty-six separate targets across Britain by daywalker vampires carried out around suppertime were blunted with the swift reaction of the heroines of Nurmengard — after they were rescued from a slumber of sixty-five years by the Friend of Dragons yesterday morning in a cave near the magical prison — who prevented the mass slaughter of dozens of people, including many of the current roster of the Wizengamot itself. As to why these attacks happened…"

A gentle wave of the hand caused the volume to turn down. "It's because Theo fucked up, Lee!" Millicent Bulstrode said with a throaty chuckle before sipping her tea. "Can't blame them for keeping quiet about that part, though…"

Pop! "Mistress Millie, the farm animals are all inside the barn and asleep right now," an aged house elf announced as he stared upon his beloved mistress.

The stocky yet very muscular farmer with the wavy sienna brown hair and the dark brown eyes gazed down on the small creature who had been far closer to her than even her late parents Peter and Marion. "Are you tired, Nippy?" she asked.

Nippy shook his head. He had circles under his eyes and his movements — even for his age — were quite lethargic; in many ways, he reminded Millicent of Harry Potter's old house elf Kreacher. "Nippy is not tired, Mistress Millie!" he asserted. "Nippy is just worried that those nasty vampires will try to turn Mistress Mil-…!"

He paused as his head turned towards the front gate of the Bulstrode farm, which led onto Mumfords Lane, one of the side streets branching north away from Oxford Road towards the Chiltern Main Line connecting London Marylebone to Birmingham Snow Hill. Millicent blinked. "What is it, Nippy? Do you sense something?"

Nippy blinked a couple times before turning back. "Nippy is not sure what Nippy is sensing, Mistress Millie. That something just popped onto the lane beyond the front gate. A group of a half-dozen somethings, Mistress Millie. They don't feel like nasty vampires or any of those nice Space Angels. Nippy is not sure what they are!"

Millicent hummed as she walked over to one end of the living room, where a thoroughly modern entertainment system with all the bells and whistles — it had taken Mun Aesup a WEEK to explain that term to the technologically-ignorant Millicent…much to the latter's profound embarrassment; even if she was a half-blood with a normal-born mother, she was effectively magically-raised and had found "muggle" things to be far too strange on occasion — sitting in one cabinet. Tapping a control to call up all the home programs, she keyed into the security systems to activate the cameras located on the border of her thirty acres of farmland; much that she didn't have the vast amount of material wealth people like Harry Potter, Michael Parkinson, Daphne Greengrass or Tracey Davis possessed, what she did have was more precious than gold and she wanted it protected. As soon as the multi-purpose monitor screen flicked on and converted to touch-screen format — "Now THAT'S bloody technomancy!" she had said when Aesup had explained how it all worked after installing it five years ago — she tapped the icon that allowed her to bring up the image of the area past the front gate of her house.

She then blinked as Nippy popped over to gaze on it himself. "What the heck…?"

"They are beautiful!" the aged elf whispered; given Millicent's sexual preference and indifferent luck when it came to seeking out a permanent life-mate, Nippy had taught himself how to properly understand human standards of beauty so that he could help find a wonderful wife for his mistress to take. "But Nippy not sure what they are!"

Millicent nodded. She had met several Avalonian-Britons who moved into nearby towns like Gerrards Cross, Beaconsfield and Chalfond Saint Peter after the Liberation brought over two billion of them to Earth…with at least twenty million of them claiming British citizenship, half of which were now living in the United Kingdom itself and the other half on the bioroid factory and the space stations that the Avalonians brought to Earth. While she had dated a couple of those women, she hadn't met a girl who endured the "time of the month" with the farmer and decided that Millicent Bulstrode was the right lady for her. Yes, she had dated several of Rose Potter's friends — including Rose herself — before the Liberation, but they didn't really count, especially with that DNA loyalty lock that had been forced on all of them ever since they were given their new bodies by Alicia Holmes back in the 1980s to restore lives taken away from them thanks to Voldemort. And while she understood that seeking out a potential lover would be a lot harder for someone like her, she had more time than most normal women before menopause would hit and she would have to seriously consider adopting a child.

It was still bloody frustrating, though…

"They're frozen still," Millicent then noted.

Nippy blinked. "Does Mistress wish Nippy to look at them?"

She nodded. "Be careful, okay?"

"Nippy will be!" And with a pop!, he vanished from the living room.

Gazing on the screen, she watched as Nippy appeared just inside the closed front gates and began to use his elf senses to peer at the group of a half-dozen women standing on the lane. While the farm looked ordinary to any normal person that approached it, there were special repellent charms entrenched all along the edge of the property that would immediately make the curious who might want to learn what was inside the hedgerow-lined property cast their attention someplace else. And while no Avalonian could be affected by those charms — a fact that was unknown to the average British magical — Alicia Holmes had made it clear to all of her people living in country that the Separation Act WAS the law of the land and it was to be respected at all costs. That actually saw Millicent fall under the extra protection of the Special Persons Branch of the Denham/Gerrards Cross Detachment of the Thames Valley Police, which was the auxiliary part of the force composed of Avalonian volunteers. Save for the odd time that Millicent had encountered either policewomen or Territorial Army soldiers of the Royal Buckinghamshire Yeomanry (an armoured regiment based near the famous Bletchley Park at the northern end of the county) or the Second Battalion of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (an infantry battalion based in the county town of Aylesbury) when they came to purchase some of her fresh produce at the local market — atop the home farm, Millicent owned at least four satellite farms across the whole of Buckinghamshire, using house elves to keep the eggs, poultry and beef coming — she hadn't really got to know many of the Space Angels.

So what…?

Pop! "Mistress!"

"What is it, Nippy?" she asked.

"They are as still as statues, Mistress," Nippy stated. "Nippy feels magic from them, but it is not wizard magic or vampire magic. Nippy thinks they're golems."

That made Millicent blink. "'Golems?'" she said with a derisive snort, finding that rather ironic given the arguments concerning the Avalonians over the last several months…before her brow furrowed. "Who would make them?" she wondered.

True golems — beings created from inanimate matter, usually clay, who were brought to quasi-life thanks to powerful earth-based magic — were strictly regulated in Britain due to their capacity to unleash untold damage if they got out of control. That had been proven in the case of the Golem of Prague created by a wizarding friend of the famous rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel to defend his fellow believers from antisemitic thugs in the late Sixteenth Century. After she graduated from Hogwarts, Millicent's mother researched the creation of such beings to work as farm hands to relieve the pressure on all the house elves. Sadly, her being muggleborn had seen such research banned by the Wizengamot at the prompting of people like Lucius Malfoy in the late 1980s. Worse, the fact that Marion Bulstrode had done something like that had not been forgotten by the Death Eaters and their allies, which saw her condemned to Azkaban just before the island prison was destroyed by Mun Aesup. Remembering that, Millicent hissed as her eyes misted over. Even a brief level of exposure to the damned Dementors had so wrecked Marion's health that she died a couple weeks later in her husband's arms…and had so enraged Millicent that she gladly went out to torture a dozen of Voldemort's marked followers into near-insanity before sending them off to Gonebren for the Hollows to permanently render brain-dead. And while Peter Bulstrode tried to maintain a stoic calm afterwards, the loss of his beloved Marion saw him join her out of heartbreak two years later, leaving Millicent alone save for people like Daphne, Tracey and Pansy…not to mention Harry, Rose and their closest friends.

"You sure there's no sign of vampire magic with them?" she asked.

Nippy shook his head. "None, Mistress Millie!"

"No signs of monitoring charms or anyone close by?"

The elf shook his head again. "None!"

Hearing that, the farmer then hummed before she walked over to her work desk to draw out a special dagger. "Nippy, if something happens to me, get help," she ordered.

He nodded; he knew about poor Mistress Marion and what she had wanted to do before the nasty stalebloods hurt her. "Yes, Mistress. Nippy will get help."

With that, she headed out the front door and made her way over to the gate. Before she wandlessly unlocked the door, she gently prodded the tip of the dagger into her middle finger to draw out some blood. Lucky thing I remember Mum telling me about this when it comes to controlling golems, she mused to herself as the gates unlocked and opened up to reveal the group of women standing outside. Without hesitation, she walked up to their leader — a stunningly beautiful, dark-skinned woman with curly black hair that went to mid-back and blue-grey eyes dressed in stylish normal clothes complete with form-fitting blue jeans, a pullover sweater over a button shirt and trainers on her feet; she seemed to be a hybrid between an African and a Caucasian, which rather struck Millicent as odd — and stabbed her bleeding finger into the woman's forehead.

There was a flash of magic, then the golem seemed to jerk before her eyes blinked — perfectly akin to normal eye movement — then she focused on Millicent, a polite smile crossing her face. "Guten Abend, meine Dame," she began in accent-less German. "Mein Name ist Melissa. Was für ein Service oder Befehl willst du mich führen?"

"Do you speak English?" Millicent asked.

The golem blinked before nodding. "Yes, I do, Mistress," she said in English with a perfect BBC standard accent before waving to herself. "My name is Melissa." She bowed her head. "What service or command do you wish me to perform, Mistress?"

Blinking before taking a relieved breath, Millicent asked, "Is there anything inside you that would make you harm me or anyone within my house?"

"No, Mistress. The blood bond guarantees that."

"Was there anything in you before I made the blood bond which would have done that?"

Melissa blinked before a frown turned her lips. "I cannot remember if anything of that nature was placed inside me, Mistress. All I do remember was that some man had me woken an hour ago and ordered me to come here. I obeyed that order."

The farmer blinked before she nodded. "Nippy?"

Pop! "Yes, Mistress Millie?" Nippy asked.

"Take Melissa here inside and have her wait in the living room. She's safe. I'll do the blood bond with Melissa's friends, then we'll take them inside."

"Yes, Mistress! Nippy will take the pretty golem inside." And with that, the elderly house elf took the golem by the hand and teleported her into the house.

Millicent shook her head before she moved to the next golem, a pretty blonde with dark green eyes who was dressed in clothes similar to her companion's. Once Tamara was woken and checked clean, the farmer did the same to Nike (a tall and statuesque woman with brunette hair and blue-grey eyes), Lea (a sultry-looking woman with grey eyes and brunette hair cropped at the shoulders), Brittany (a dark-skinned girl with black hair and blue eyes) and Stephanie (a busty girl with wavy auburn hair and brown eyes). Once all the golems were off the lane, Millicent did a quick scan-around with her eyes and mage senses before heading inside her property, closing and locking the gates behind her. As she headed back into the house, Nippy came up to her. "Mistress, the pretty golems are inside the living room. Nippy didn't see or smell any nasty vampires try to sneak into the house while Mistress was busy with the pretty golems."

"Good," she noted as she mentally raised the house's defensive wards to maximum, keying in the personal anti-creature defences that kept things like werewolves and vampires off the property. While she didn't have any real prejudices towards such "dark" creatures — having giant ancestry and being the daughter of a muggleborn, she never cared for that nonsense — the memories of what Fenrir Greyback had done to many of her own housemates at the Battle of the Astronomy Tower were still quite fresh in her mind.

And given the number of daywalker vampires in the country now…

With that, she headed to the living room to see the golems standing in line of review next to her table, all at parade rest. Noting that, she nodded as a voice inside her mind began to whisper that she had just discovered something very important. As to the "what," she didn't know…but given that these beautiful creatures had just popped up on her front doorstep tonight — in the wake of attacks by vampires on pureblood traditionalists across the country — it was hinting at something that most likely would lead back to Theodore Nott and his new vampire allies. She knew she wasn't trusted by Draco Malfoy and those of his friends in the Wizengamot these days thanks to her siding with Harry Potter and the Defence Association back during their sixth year to fight against Voldemort and his allies — especially after Millicent served as part of the Inquisitorial Squad the year previous; she had been forced into that out of peer pressure, not any deep desire to support the pureblood traditionalist cause — so it stood to reason that Draco, Theo and their new friends considered her a threat.

So what was THIS all about…?

"Melissa?"

Melissa looked at her while the other golems remained still. "Yes, Mistress?"

"What were you built for?"

The golem seemed to think about it for a moment before she smiled. "I was constructed to provide intimate companionship for my mistress or master."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

And then…

"You're a bloody sex doll?!" a blushing Millicent demanded.

"Yes, Mistress." Melissa then gave her a look that — if the unreality of the situation hadn't been so damned distracting — would have made the lonely farmer's knees weaken and various parts of her body heat up. "Would you desire me to demonstrate?"

A rapid shake of the head as Millicent waved her hands in denial. "N-no! That's not necessary!" she sputtered out as Nippy — who had assumed a protective stance close to his mistress — tried not to laugh at the sight of the farmer acting so flustered. She then took a deep breath before scratching the back of her head…and then her eyes widened. "Oh, bugger! I'm an idiot!" Walking over to her entertainment set, she tapped controls to bring up an image. "Melissa, was this the man who woke you up and had you come here to see me?" she asked as she indicated the picture there.

Melissa looked at the image before she nodded. "Yes, he is the one, Mistress."

"Girls, was that the same for all of you?"

The other golems looked over before nodding. "Yes, Mistress," they chanted as one.

Millicent blinked a couple times before she sighed. "Okay, this is way over my head," she muttered. "Nippy, go up to Glencorse Manor. Ask one of the Black Maidens if I can get someone who might be an expert on golems to come visit me right away. Tell them what just happened and what I just did, alright? Wait there for a reply!"

Nippy nodded. "Yes, Mistress Millie!" Pop!

Once he had gone, the farmer then sighed as she walked over to where she had been sitting to finish her tea. She then blinked on noting that all six of the golems she had just claimed via blood bond had kept their eyes locked on her as she moved, which made Millicent blush again before she took a deep breath as she considered what she had just confirmed. Theodore Nott had woken six beautiful female golems and sent same to her house. Said golems were built as intimate companions. Millicent had been able to claim all six with a simple blood bond ritual. None of them appeared to have any sort of dark magic upon them, either from a vampire or any magical. Reason why…?

Unknown.

Gazing once more on Melissa, the farmer then blushed on seeing the inviting stare on the dark-skinned woman's face, which hadn't gone away since Millicent had asked her about why she had been created. Noting that the other girls weren't acting that way, she then asked, "Are all of you girls built for the same reason Melissa was?"

Instantly, their faces lit up like suns. "Yes, Mistress!"

And then came a chorus of sultry looks. "We're fully functional in all respects, Mistress," Tamara coyly teased as she winked at her.

"And we were built with no prejudices whatsoever," Nike purred.

Brittany gently tossed her head around. "We even have functions that would allow us to simulate a male lover if that's what you desire, Mistress?"

THAT made Millicent gape. "You're hermaphrodites?!" she exclaimed.

"If you desire it, we can become same," Lea stated.

"Would you like a demonstration?" Stephanie offered.

That made the farmer blink for a second before she gave them a knowing look. "How human can you girls act?" she then demanded.

"As human as you would want!" they all chanted as one, grins crossing their faces.

Millicent shook her head. Merlin! This is years ahead of anything Mummy ever thought she could make! she exclaimed to herself before taking a deep breath. "Do it!"

They blinked before they relaxed as they began to move with simon-pure human fluidity. They then walked around the table to gather around their new mistress. "Now, Millie…you strike me as a very lonely lady," Melissa gently teased as she reached up to pass her fingertips over the farmer's cheek. "Are you SURE you won't take us to bed?"

"We can keep you very warm at nights," Tamara cooed as she did the same thing on Millicent's other cheek while Lea and Stephanie warmly embraced the farmer from behind while Nike and Brittany moved to embrace Melissa and Tamara respectively.

"Or would you prefer a wonderful floor show?" Nike added.

Millicent blinked several times as she tried not to gape in shock on feeling those warm — and human warm at that! — hands on her cheeks…and that didn't count the softness of Lea's and Stephanie's hair brushing up against her own, not to mention two pairs of hard points pressing into her shoulder blades and the backs of her arms. As the golems giggled with delight, the farmer tried not to moan out. Bloody buggering hell! Who on Earth made these girls?! Why were they made?! If Theo was behind all this, I sure as hell wouldn't have expected THIS from him, especially…!

Pop! "Mistress! Nippy is…!" The elf then gasped. "Ah! Nippy is sorry!"

"Do not worry about your mistress being comforted like that, mein Herr," a strange voice stated, making Millicent look over to see an amused Linn Heinrich gazing on her with an amused smile on her face; she was in combat uniform with a pullover sweater in lieu of the standard camouflage top, though said sweater did have epaulettes at her shoulders, the slip-ons over them bearing the silver wreathed pip star of a German Army major. As Nippy sputtered on being called "my lord" in German, Linn walked over to gaze intently at the golems now surrounding her host, they looking at her in turn with friendly smiles. "Oh, my! You've done us a wonderful favour, Frau Bulstrode." The chief interrogator then gazed intently at her. "You did the blood bond with them?"

"My mother was studying to create golems when I was a kid," Millicent stated. "She used a lot of the notes Rabbi Loew's friend left behind. The whole thing got kiboshed by the Wizengamot since Mum was a normal-born, but I still have her notes."

Linn nodded. "Well, as I'm sure you now realize, these ladies are built for all forms of carnal congress," she calmly stated, adjusting her glasses. As Millicent sputtered at such an embarrassing statement like that, the native of Norther added, "I don't recognize them from Projekt Killer-Puppe, a special addition to Unternehmen Werwolf created by the SS near the end of the war with the support of technomancers based out of my old school. And they're not any of the prototypes my friends and I constructed as intimate companions for us while we were out in the field and needed a little relief from the horrors of war." As Millicent gave her a surprised look, Linn shrugged as her eyebrow arched. "If you were fighting and need a little — how's that term I just heard go again…? Ah! Stress relief! — would you remember to cast the proper contraceptive charms?"

The farmer nodded. "Good point."

"Are you our creator, Frau Major?" Melanie asked with a touch of hope in her voice.

The Lower Saxon combat witch shook her head. "Nein, meine Dame. I created thirty prototypes as part of our version of the Borghild Project, but all were men save for a half-dozen I modelled on friends from my old gymnasium who were killed by magical partisans just after the fun in the East started in 1941. None of you are them."

"So who did build us?" Lea asked.

"That, we will find out," Linn promised as she drew her wand. "If you wouldn't mind, Frau Bulstrode, I want to do a quick diagnostic charm on one of your new friends."

"Tamara," Millicent bade.

Tamara nodded as she pulled away from Millicent and Brittany, moving to relax herself close to the farmer's work desk. Linn then whispered, "Schlafen Galatea," which made the golem's eyes go wide for a second before her head drooped, her body locking up. "Well, well, well…" she whispered before casting some charms over the still woman. After a parchment appeared before her, she nodded, calling out, "Aufwachen Galatea," which made Tamara jolt before her eyes opened and she looked around.

"They're copies of what your people made," Millicent mused.

"Ja," Linn stated. "Exact copies in fact. Which means that someone got to someone who knew about this whole thing, then learned how to replicate what we created."

"Who could that be?" Lea asked.

"That, meine Dame, we will find out."

"Well, I can help," Millicent offered. "Turns out that the person who sent these girls to me is an old classmate of mine from Hogwarts, Theodore Nott. I noticed that his name wasn't mentioned in the attacks your friends intercepted earlier tonight."

That made Linn's eyebrow arch. "Herr Nott, eh?" she purred out. "How interesting." She then sighed. "Well, if I can prevail on Herr Nippy here to get me back up to my house, I'll leave you be with your friends. My thanks for your help in revealing this to us, Frau Bulstrode. I wish you a very pleasant good evening."

Millicent nodded. "Take her back, Nippy."

"Yes, Mistress!" And with a pop!, both Nippy and Linn were off.

Once they were alone, all the golems gazed expectantly on their new mistress. "Now, Millie…what say we go to a nice, quiet place?" Melissa teased.

That made the farmer's cheeks turn a vibrant red…


Near Combe Wood in Ottery Saint Catchpole (eighteen kilometres northeast of Exmouth), Thursday 22 July, after dawn…

"Good morning, my little moonbeam!"

A moan escaped the sleeping figure under the covers of the bed before they were pushed back to reveal the still-damp face of one Luna Lovegood. On seeing her daughter so distressed, Xenophilius Lovegood tensed. "Luna! What's wrong?!"

Sniffing, his daughter sighed as she sat up, pulling out a slip of paper from under the covers. Xenophilius took it in hand and opened it to see the two Chinese characters there:

城岩

He hummed. "'Chénglǐng' or 'Chéng'yán' in Mandarin. 'Sŏng'am' in Korean. And quite a number of terms in Japanese depending on the reading," he said in a calm voice, which would have sounded strange coming from the publisher of the Quibbler — a man known for being quite odd in his outlook on life — to other ears. "'Castle rock' in English."

"'Shiroiwa,'" she stated. "I finally figured out who the Vinur Drekar is."

That made him gape…before he relaxed himself. "Bad?"

"Battle Royale," Luna flatly stated. "I told you about Moroboshi Ataru's favourite manga series. The Vinur Drekar is most likely Inada Mizuho, Papa. Not just a replica of her as the Niphentaxians were want to do before the Lady Negako and her friends freed Rose's adopted people from slavery. But the real girl!" Slipping out of bed, she walked over to her desk to tap on her dataPADD — a personal present from Mun Aesup; even if the Korean-Briton technomancer normally scared Luna with the mad passion she always brought to her work, she had been the one who had rescued the younger woman from Azkaban before she blew the prison apart with a mesonium bomb in 1997 — and bring up an image. "Somehow, her soul was transmitted from the moment she was shot dead by her classmate Kiriyama Kazuo on Oki-shima…and allowed to become an Avalonian on the very day of the Liberation, most likely to make her a sex slave to whoever wanted a replica of such a woman to serve him or her. Look at this," she then bade.

He came over to gaze on the picture there before his jaw dropped. "Merlin! It's almost an exact likeness! Is this from the manga series?"

"Yes. I think that staff of hers was involved in her rebirth. And the rebirth of all the other girls in her old class. Uncle Dung told me yesterday that he had met twenty other girls who were dressed like the Vinur Drekar when she saved his life back in March after she encountered the pups of the Wild Hunt; that was just after she saved Catherine Fleming's life at Hogwarts, then went off to deal with those dragon poachers in Wales. Mizuho's class had forty-two people in it, twenty-one being boys." At his nod, Luna sighed. "Which then explains the whole reason all of her friends have elected to remain in hiding. After being made to KILL each other…!"

He winced. Xenophilius had read the manga series after Luna reported to him what she had learned from Henrietta Croce on Haida a week before concerning Ataru's favouring of Battle Royale, just after the Task Force came back from Yaminokuni. Stunned to note the parallels between what those kids had gone through and what Harry Potter and his friends had endured while at Hogwarts, he could only shake his head at the miracle that had probably happened when the Vinur Drekar — Inada Mizuho — had seized control of the staff she now possessed and used it to keep her classmates safe. "She was reported to be schizophrenic and delusional," he noted. "No doubt, when she was exposed to that staff, it shocked her back into a fully competent mode of thinking." He then gazed on his child. "What of her friends? Especially girls like Sōma Mitsuko?"

Luna breathed out. "I don't know," she whispered. "But — if their paranoia over being discovered, then being sent back to their place of origin factors into it — they would clearly NOT want to head back to the Greater East Asia Republic. After all, they were condemned to die in The Program, Papa. How would you feel if — at THAT young an age — you were told that all the civilized things you were taught were right and proper were being cast aside…with your only option being either to kill or die? Wasn't that the tag line of the Battle Royale movie? 'Could you kill your best friend?'"

He winced again. "And she will soon form a soul-bond with Ataru…"

"And Mizuho is his favourite manga character," she finished. "He knows now."

That made his eyes go wide for a moment. "How did he react?"

"I haven't asked him yet. We've been a little busy over here," she quipped.

That made him wryly chuckle…before a knocking sound echoed from the main door. Xenophilius blinked as he mentally linked into the house's wards before smiling. "Come in, Molly!" he called out through the open window. "The door's open!"

The muffled sounds of a door opening and closing echoed from the ground floor of the Rookery. "Xeno?! Luna?! Are you both up?!" Molly Weasley called up.

"Luna just got up!" the patriarch of the Lovegoods called back as he stepped out of his daughter's bedroom…then, as Molly shook her head in veiled amusement, he grasped a fireman's pole that had been installed in the middle of the building and slid down to the ground floor. "To the Batcave!" he called out, which made the matriarch of the Weasleys laugh in delight, clapping her hands. "What's the problem, Molly?"

She sighed. "Best come see it yourself, Xeno," she bade, beckoning him with a finger.

He followed her outside…

…before he found himself face-to-face with a young woman about his daughter's age standing statue-still about a metre away from his front steps! "Oh, hello! I'm sorry about that, my dear!" he apologized…before blinking on noting there was simply no movement at all from this person, much less the five other women standing with her. All were dressed in quite fashionable normal clothes with jeans and trainers. "Um…?" he began, gazing helpfully at Molly. "Did someone raid a department store?"

"We don't know," she confessed as the sound of Luna sliding down the pole echoed from inside. "There are a half-dozen of these things in front of the Burrow, not to mention a half-dozen in front of Stoatshead Hall and a half-dozen more in front of the Waterfall!" Those last places were the ancestral homes of the Diggory and Fawcett families. "All girls in normal clothing. Insanely pretty ones at that, but…"

"Father, what are these golems doing standing in front of our house?"

Molly gasped as she stared wide-eyed at Luna. "GOLEMS?!"

Xenophilius' daughter nodded as she came down the stairs to gaze intently at the beings now standing on her front lawn. After a moment, she reached up to gently thread her fingers through the long auburn hair of their leader, a very pretty girl with deep blue eyes. "My, they're beautiful! I thought that story about the Schwarze Mädchen making love dolls to ensure they didn't spend nights alone was just a silly rumour!"

Molly's cheeks flustered. "LOVE DOLLS?!" she exclaimed. "What sort of…?!"

"Calm down!" Xenophilius cut her off. "Think about it! Elizabeth and her friends may have been the best magical soldiers to live outside Admiral Thompkins, Generalissimo Yomigawa and Marshal Múromeca…but they were all young women with needs!"

"When did you hear this, Luna?"

People turned as Arthur Weasley came up. "I interviewed Marshal Múromeca for the Quibbler after we met her at Sirius' will-reading back in 1996, Mister Weasley," Luna replied. "She told me that as the soldiers of the Moscow Magical Front finished clearing the mess they made at Greifinswald, they found a group of German technomancers who had quite thorough obliviations done to them. After the marshal's interrogators got done restoring those fellows' memories, they learned of Project Killer Doll and what led to it." As the older Weasleys gaped at her, she smiled. "It was originally meant as a way for lonely girls to spend time in the arms of a caring lover without risking getting pregnant or dealing with venereal diseases; after enduring a life-threatening battle, would they remember to use contraceptive charms?" As Molly nodded in understanding, Luna added, "The SS got hold of the idea and decided to make them war golems as part of their Operation: Werewolf…but after Mister Hitler finally and kindly killed himself, Linn Heinrich and her friends went to shut it down to make sure the Allied soldiers didn't have to deal with them now that peace had come."

"I know," Arthur breathed out. "Turns out that many of the vampires involved in last night's fun were actually disembodied, their souls anchored to this existence via some type of horcruxes…but are now forced to possess war golems taken from the dungeons of the Trischen Academy where Major Heinrich and her friends hid them after Hitler died. With the amount of vampires killed in Diagon yesterday before lunch added to those killed last night and on Tuesday at Nurmengard — if those who tried to attack the Black Maidens were in the same situation — about forty percent are now accounted for." He then stared at the girls "invading" the Lovegood property. "These girls aren't SS. Millicent Bulstrode caught onto it late last night when she found a half-dozen of them standing outside the gates of her farm near London, then called down Major Heinrich to come look them over. Since her mother wanted to create worker golems to help out on the family farms when Millicent was a baby, she knew what to do with them."

"Blood bond?" Xenophilius asked.

"Exactly."

Taking that in, he tapped one of his fingers to allow a little blood to come out, then he pressed that into the golem's forehead. She jolted as her eyes blinked before she focused on him, a polite smile crossing her face. "Guten Morgen, mein Herr. Mein Name ist Renée. Was für ein Service oder Befehl willst du mich führen?"

"Guten Morgen, Frau Renée. Sprechen Sie Englisch?" Xenophilius asked in German.

She nodded. "Yes, Master," she replied in that language, a pleased smile crossing her face. "What service or command do you wish me to perform?"

That made Molly gape as Arthur shook his head…


Glencorse Manor near Edinburgh, just before breakfast…

"If this is a joke, I don't find it amusing."

"I honestly wish it was amusing, meine Generalmajorin," Linn Heinrich stated with a tired sigh as she ran her fingers through her hair. "Right now, the count of 'love dolls' that have appeared in front of Herr Nott's potential enemies is nearing a thousand. All the jäger companies in the field are teaching people how to do the blood bonds with them to make sure they don't cause harm, though the curse-breakers will go check them all to make sure they don't have any hidden surprises in them even if the blood bonds are forged. Freifrau Granger has allowed my people to examine the girls sent to her house in Crawley to see what they actually are and get an idea as to who might have created them. We did effectively hand over all the people involved in that project to the Soviets after I sealed my prototypes and the war golem prototypes in the bunker at Trischen. While we hoped they wouldn't have done that, it seems…"

"That our friends from Russia found a way to overcome the obliviations and learned of what the SS had made," Elizabeth Gibbon finished. "So why didn't Svetlána progress the idea further? It would have made an army of troops who would have been totally loyal to the government in Moscow and could have dealt with even low-powered metahumans."

"According to Nadéžda Nikítiča — she's the magical Deputy Chief of Mission for the Russians at their embassy in London; she and Freifrau Granger are good friends — that was the primary reason behind Generalfeldmarschall Múromeca being banished to the Spemát," Linn answered. "She was afraid that with the nuclear weapons the Americans were developing — despite the Soviets developing similar weapons — the Russians would be left at a critical strategic disadvantage. She never cared for the Statute of Secrecy in the first place, especially with the metahumans that appeared prior to the war and with the development of the Steel Angels long before the war started. Since there was no Soviet counter to the projects that Rittmeister von Taserich led…"

"It was a weapons gap that needed to be closed."

"Ja."

A knock at the entrance to the reception room made Elizabeth and Linn look to see a weary Hermione Granger there. "'Morning," the normal-born from Crawley said.

"What's wrong, 'Mione?" Elizabeth asked.

A tired breath escaped the other woman. "Svetlána Múromeca is dead."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

And then…

"What happened?" Linn wondered.

"According to Nadéžda, she died two months ago while still imprisoned in the Spemát," Hermione answered. "No known cause. There was no autopsy done on the body — as it should have been done with someone like her! — and it was cremated as soon as it was cool. The Ministérstvo Mágičeskie Del decided to sit on the news just in case some idiot somewhere in Eastern Europe decided to launch a campaign of revenge."

"Someone eliminated her," the chief interrogator then surmised, crossing her arms. "Given the sheer power of her magic from what I remember of her, I find it VERY hard to believe she might have died of old age or some disease. Even in the Spemát."

"Agreed," the special adviser to the DMLE said, nodding in turn. "They didn't even do the decent thing and inform her relatives. I just found out that Nadéžda's the marshal's first cousin four times removed! Even if she didn't know the marshal, she had a right to learn of her death! All of magical Russia deserves to know! She's their greatest hero…"

"She's not dead."

Two pairs of eyes locked on Elizabeth as Hermione and Linn gaped while they watched the leader of the Schwarze Mädchen rise from her chair to gaze outside the window at the bustling activity of her headquarters forces on the lawn of her ancestral home. "How can you say that, Liz?!" Hermione then asked. "They wouldn't lie about that!"

"Oh, I'm sure there was a body to cremate," Elizabeth stated as she gave her new friend a knowing smile. "But I think the soul vacated it long before the heart stopped beating…and was given a new place of residence to ensure she wasn't lost to the Te'a. Did you ever note what was recently erected near the Spemát, 'Mione?"

"What, Elisa?" Linn prompted.

"A village for hybrid children, Linn."

The others' jaws dropped. "Body-swapping?!" Hermione gasped.

"I think so," Elizabeth noted. "I could be wrong, though. We need it proven…and in such a way that those who DID want Svetlána made room temperature won't realize they missed their mark. Because if this thing with those golems is interconnected…"

"She'll be on her way here," Linn finished. "And if Herr Nott somehow supported this given the number of love dolls that have been found in Britain today…"

"Theo's got a death mark on his head," Hermione finished. "And I doubt Mister Sewell and his brother and sister daywalkers will slow the Bloody She-bear down."

"Especially with Avalonian blood in her now," Elizabeth mused.

The others nodded…


London, the Waterloo Club, fifteen minutes later…

A gentle knock at the door. "Marshal?"

"Vxodít', továrišč!"

The door to the guest room on the upper floor of the veteran's club opened to reveal a smiling Nathaniel Cartier. "Good morning, Marshal. A nice cup of caravan tea for you. Doubt your jailers in the Spemát remembered to serve you this while you were their guest." As he placed the tray on the nightstand beside the bed as Svetlána Múromeca sat up, he winked at her. "Fortunately, we had a nice traditional samovar in storage to use to heat up your tea to make sure it was properly prepared. Cream? Sugar?"

"Net," she said with a shake of her head. "Out in the field, we didn't have the luxuries those wonderful people in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps went out of their way to make sure you and yours got…to say anything of what the Americans did when it came to supplying their troops." As he ruefully chuckled, she smirked. "Even in a new body, I found I couldn't tolerate adding even a little sweetener to my tea. Spasíbo!" she said as she accepted the tea, which was — as per Russian custom — served in an elegantly cut glass contained within a well-designed silver holder. She was quick to spot the crest on the glass. "Your old regiment, I assume?" she asked.

"And my present regiment, thank God," he said as he sat down at the work desk nearby. "Two battalions in the Territorial Army; I'm the regimental sergeant-major of the First Battalion. Arthur's daughter told me you know that the 46th Tamár Guards Regiment was restored to service to fly those new MiG-37 multiple-role fighters that were unveiled recently at Sokól near the Spemát to aid in the defence of the planet. The Avalonians are doing that all over Earth. Boosting up military capabilities in both the full-time and part-time sphere to ensure that anyone stupid enough to consider invading Earth will know they will have a bloody time of it." He sighed. "Given what might have happened had that Moroboshi lad lost that tag race, it's all for the right reasons."

"Especially these planets close to us that our new comrades are seeking out for places to settle so that we don't damage Father Vólos any more than we already have," she admitted, which made him gape at her. She winked. "I may not accept the idea of the God you worship, my friend, but the folklore and legends of my people run deep."

"As they do here, too. Oh!" He then handed her a folded paper. "Daily Prophet."

She nodded her thanks as she took it, then gazed on the headline there before she blinked. "Stupid people!" she hissed. "If Fëdor Méjsonovič was truly behind this, he's going about it the wrong way. This is bound to turn even those of his own class against him in the long term once they find out the truth of his involvement."

"They might already have," he noted. "Hester Selwyn — she destroyed all her attackers as you'll note in the article there — is as traditionalist as they come…and she's now made an alliance with Brigadier Gibbon. Still, her attitudes towards all the changes that have happened since '97 are more than understandable. Her former guardian and distant cousin was a really nasty piece of work named Dolores Umbridge. She was the headmistress at Hogwarts while my great-granddaughter was doing her fifth year there. You met her, I recall."

That made her eyes go wide before she snorted as she recalled what he told her the previous evening. "Germióna Daniílovna?"

"Yes. It was after you finished training Harry at Grimmauld Place that I revealed what I really was to her. Beforehand, I didn't want to do anything that might have put my mates at risk from Riddle and his friends. Though…" — an evil smile crossed his face — "…I assure you, Marshal, they would have paid dearly if they decided to try to attack us. We may be a bunch of retired soldiers, but we are soldiers."

She nodded in approval. "Cukíko Makotóvna came to me after it was all done and over with to give me a full briefing on Xárol'd Jákovič's little summer campaign. It was quite well done. He took his lessons to heart — both from myself and from Cukíko — then applied them ruthlessly to those swine he was forced to fight because of Ál'bus Persíval'ovič's mistakes." She sipped her tea. "I was told of that prophecy."

A snort escaped her host. "Ruddy stupid thing in the end. Hermione told me that Dumbledore confessed himself that he had suspicions about Riddle right from the beginning, but didn't act on them whatsoever. If he did, it might have stopped that whole 'Voldemort' nonsense right at the start and spared thousands of lives."

"Over six thousand in the 1970s, da?"

He nodded. "Not like the sheer rivers of blood you saw spilled back in the Great Patriotic War, especially on the normal side of things. But when you deal with an isolated community of roughly eighty thousand people, that's a lot."

She shook her head. "It was a stupid mistake all along."

"What was?"

"The Statute," she admitted before sipping her tea. "Those who are 'pro-muggleborn' as you would have called them here say that if the Statute wasn't passed, the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment would not have occurred. That — to borrow your word for it — is a tonne of horseshit!" As he laughed — it was always good to hear the senior generals cuss like they were normal soldiers instead of "gentlemen"…even if a lot of his fellow club members would find it totally appalling to see someone as high ranked as Svetlána Múromeca speak like some street tramp, especially since she was a lady! — she shook her head. "I can understand that you don't care for the cause I supported with my magic for so long, továrišč, but some of the things Karl Marks did propose at the start made a world of sense. We are individual beings, but we are social creatures, so it's only natural for us to form societies where we belong. And when we do belong to a society, there are certain obligations and responsibilities we have, especially to those we share that society with. The Statute simply gave magicals the excuse to abandon their responsibilities so they could live their idyllic lives!"

"Which they could never have done," he noted. "With the small population — especially in places like Britain; places like China were never really affected by this — they would have inbred themselves into squibs without fresh blood coming in thanks to normal-borns like my great-granddaughter and Harry's mother. Where would their Statute be if that ever happened?" He sat back in his chair. "As long as it's done right and all the checks and balances are in place, socialism has its advantages. That's been proven here with the NHS and how it's been run since the Second World War. But we're human beings in the end, Marshal. We all make mistakes, so nothing can be perfect."

She sighed. "Da, that's true…"

A knock echoed from the doorway. "Yes?!" Nathaniel called out.

"It's me, Nate!"

"Come in, Arthur!"

The door opened to allow Arthur Nott to come inside. "Good morning, Marshal," the former Special Air Service soldier said with a polite nod of his head. "Just had breakfast with my daughter down in the Cauldron before we'd head over to Saint Pancras to get our train ready for today's runs to Paris. Nadéžda Nikítiča — she's the senior magical at the embassy on Kensington Palace Gardens — was having an early breakfast and waiting for your great-granddaughter, Nate." To Svetlána. "Heather touched her and found out that the folks at the MMD in Russia believe you're DEAD, Marshal!"

She blinked before a laugh escaped her, which made both men gape. After a moment, she slapped her knee before finishing her tea. "Oh, those wonderful little children!" she declared as she set the cup aside. "God! There's been a village of hybrid children sitting next to the Spemát since March! It's been known that many of the children in that village came to visit the old bábuška koldún'ja who's been imprisoned at the Spemát since two years after Iósif Vissariónovič passed away…and had visited her every day since the village was built! And you would THINK that someone inside the prison or in the MMD might have thought 'Wait! Could they have done a body-swap?!'"

"But you said that it was some of the guards — all staleblood fools whose relatives you liquidated back in the 1920s and 1930s — who tried to kill you!" Nathaniel protested.

"Da, that's true…" Here, she raised her hand to wriggle her fingers. "But a little memory-modification goes a very long way, my friends." As both British veterans smirked in understanding, she took a deep breath. "Ah, let it be for a while. I don't like hurting Germióna. She's a good child underneath it all. But it's necessary."

"I've already arranged for your ticket to get out to Barnstaple; that's the closest rail stop to the Isle of Lundy," Arthur stated. "You'll go from Platform Eleven at Waterloo down to Exeter Saint Davids at 9:20. Once you're there, you transfer to the train for Barnstaple on Platform Three at Saint Davids; you should finally get there a little after half past two. Once you're in Barnstaple, you can apparate onto Lundy; distance is about thirty-three kilometres as the crow flies. The old house is up by the northeast end, wedged into the side of a small mountain. You can't miss it."

"Spasíbo!"


The Isle of Lundy, that moment…

"NOTT!"

Theodore Nott yelped on hearing that screaming voice, then turned…

…before his whole face exploded in pain!

"SCHWEINHUND! WHAT IN GOD'S NAME POSSESSED YOU TO DO SOMETHING SO STUPID?!"

Watching Cathrin Vogt rail away at their current host — who nearly had his nose crushed by her fist; the woman had a wicked rabbit punch — Adam Sewell tried not to smirk too much as he sipped his tea. The millennia-old vampire — now forced thanks to what Abraham Lincoln had done to him in 1863 to make use of one of those wonderful combat golems that had been built by the Schutzstaffel near the end of the Second World War in Europe to make war on the Allies behind the lines; prior to acquiring his current body, he had been forced to possess other vampires or normal people to stay active — had, on first meeting the lovely redhead with the forest green eyes, come to like the native of Dresden. She had an inventive genius that was staggering to behold at times, a strong personal will and a complete amoral attitude when it came to the normal cattle.

She was the second child of Professor Johannes Vogt, a former runes teacher at Trischen who helped Linn Heinrich and her friends in the Schwarze Mädchen create the love dolls — "intimate gynoids" as they were called back then; it was the first ever use of such a term long before it became commonplace among technosexuals and those who were fans of science fiction — as part of the magical version of the Borghild Project. Vogt — a veteran of the Franco-Prussian War and World War One — was a normal-born who supported the Nazis from the beginning. He had, even while teaching at Trischen, born witness to the chaos that rocked Germany in the wake of the Treaty of Versailles and its grossly unfair clauses that put the onus of war guilt on the Fatherland — which was the worst form of hypocrisy given that the leaders of ALL the belligerent powers save the United States had welcomed the coming of the war in 1914; the reason Germany got slammed with war guilt was that the other powers needed help in paying the bills — and knew there had to be a strong hand to guide the country to a better tomorrow. While Cathrin and her brother Karl — he was here at Lundy Keep, as were their small troupe of assistants — weren't Nazis by any stretch of the imagination, they believed in the Nietzschean philosophy of the Übermensch. Thanks to their past association with Josef von Taserich, they knew of the horrid chaos that constantly rocked the planet Yiziba — the source point of all mesonium in the universe, including the elements of that horrid material in the blood of all the Space Angels — and didn't want to see such come to Earth; they had joined Adam Sewell and his group in alliance to find some way to either permanently remove the Avalonians from the equation or at least constrict them.

A metahuman revolution akin to Yiziba's catastrophic "Dawn of Power" two millennia ago was something NO sane man or woman would EVER wanted to see happen here.

It had to be stopped.

And it would be…

…as soon as certain other supporters learned their proper place in things.

"Indeed, I must also question what possessed you to do such a thing, Herr Nott," a cultured man's voice echoed from nearby, making Adam and his sister Vadoma — who were constantly accompanied by their close friend, Halbert Golden; he was the man who had ensured the living spirits of the Sewell siblings were taken away from North America in the face of the Rail-Splitter's terrifying rampage after the Civil War — look over to see a handsome man dressed like a scientist in relaxed clothing with a white smock standing at the doorway leading to the dungeons, which had been converted into work laboratories for the Vogt siblings. As the vampires smirked on hearing Karl's use of the basic honorific "herr" in lieu of the more proper "burggraf," the elder child of Johannes Vogt added, "Do you realize you've set us back months with what you did?"

"You said they were ready!" Theodore snapped.

"They were ready to be programmed to serve as war golems, you idiot!" Cathrin snapped; she always had the sharper tongue of the children of Johannes Vogt. "Mein Gott! Are all you purebloods in this verdammt country so short-sighted?! It's no wonder that Markgraf Potter was able to put you all down thirteen years ago!" As Theodore snarled on hearing that, she grinned. "Or did you forget that Harry holds a Life Debt over your head, Theodore?! Just like he does over Draco and Gregory!" Her eyes twinkled with amusement as she barbed, "Utterly Slytherin of the fellow, I would say!"

As Theodore sputtered in outrage, Adam sighed. "Karl, how bad is it?"

"We would have to start right from the beginning, Adam," Karl responded as Cathrin came over to stand next to him. "All of the new series of golems were sent off by our host to attack other people while your people tried to ensure our allies didn't reveal what we've been planning all along. A minimum of three months before new golems can be finished. Which means that you and yours will have to conserve your strength and hold off until you attack Azkaban tomorrow given last night's losses. I sent Antonia to get this morning's copy of the Daily Prophet to learn how badly we've been exposed."

The millennia-old daywalker nodded in thanks. He was used to this sort of thing in the end. War — the ultimate form of all human endeavours — had haunted mankind since the competition over resources began long before Adam himself had been born with the power of magic, then was attacked by a demon-possessed vampire to become one of the first of the hunters of the night to maintain his soul after being turned. He knew from the day he decided it was time for vampires to have their own nation and threw their support behind the secessionists in the United States that such a path ran huge risks…though he never realized the full scale of those risks until shortly after the American Civil War effectively ended at Appomattox Court House when still-corporal friends of his told him of how almost all the magicals of the land had rose up en masse to support and preserve the Union, even those from the states of the would-be Confederacy!

He then shuddered as he remembered witnessing what happened shortly afterwards…

At a meeting of the original Ku Klux Klan in 1865 in Tennessee, veterans of the armies of the Confederacy who were in on the secret of vampires had asked Adam if it was possible for the hunters of the night to help them "keep up the skeer" — as the famous rebel cavalry commander Nathan Bedford Forrest would have said it — and make sure the former slaves and their abolitionist supporters could never gain power in their home states. As that agreement was made, the door of the meeting hall exploded inward to reveal a ghost in funeral black, armed with a very familiar woodsman's axe.

In a show of that homespun humour he was famous for — tinged with a bowel-loosening madness Adam had seen many times before whenever he had the misfortune to encounter people who had been "experimented" on by a being far older than Adam Sewell — Abraham Lincoln calmly asked, "Ladies and gentlemen, a question: Are you patriots or vampires?"

Then — as the normal Klansmen all soiled themselves on realizing that the monster who had ordered their home states to be conquered and laid waste in support of the darkies had survived being shot in the head to continue his brutal war against the South — the Kentucky-born lawyer lunged in to rip the vampires apart, demonstrating ungodly speed and a frightful command of psychokinesis which showed that he HAD been saved by Josef von Taserich from falling victim to John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theatre, which was something that Adam and his allies clearly did NOT want to deal with.

The Score and Four had begun…

…which forced all the vampires in North America, even those possessed by demons, to learn — much that almost all of them would have wished not to comprehend such — that there were worse monsters than even the Old Ones themselves loose on Earth.

And when the Rail-Splitter proved himself even MORE powerful than a Slayer when he swept into Cleveland in 1874 and was mistaken for a demon…

…the smarter vampires quickly vanished from the continent — even the traitorous ones like Henry Sturges, the man who had taught Lincoln how to be a destroyer of the undead — hoping beyond hope that the black-clad hunter would not come after them elsewhere on Earth before the madness the ebony mesonium in his blood inflicted on him finally saw him mercy-killed at the business end of an Immortal's sword.

That never happened thanks to Dean Raeburn in 1889.

And while Lincoln had regained his sanity thanks to that woman…

…his own total metahuman power had not dropped a single iota.

Thus — while reconciling with more "kinder" vampires like his own teacher and adviser — the Rail-Splitter eventually stopped being a full-time hunter and faded into the night, allowing the Slayers to once more become the prime destroyers of the undead.

But he was still out there, Adam Sewell knew.

Waiting like a patient cat sitting on a beam above the floor of a barn for a mouse to appear, then lashing out to catch his prey when opportunity presented itself.

"We'll have to move fast," Vadoma warned.

Karl looked over. "What do you mean, Vadoma?"

"Once the news of our friends' deaths gets across the Atlantic, Lincoln will be on his way here, Karl," the pretty blonde vampire warned as she sipped her own tea. Hearing a snort from her current host — who had managed to repair his face with a healing charm — Vadoma's eyes narrowed. "Don't dismiss him because he's a 'muggle,' Mister Nott," she coldly warned. "He swats away Killing Curses like they were annoying gnats trying to bite him. Your late patron's predecessor, Lord Chaucer, learned that the HARD way in the 1890s when he asked for our assistance in helping conquer the Ministry of Magic." As the wizard's face paled at the idea of someone actually defying the most powerful magical spell ever created — a muggle at that! — she smirked. "Don't look so surprised, Theodore. Lincoln's blood is flooded with mesonium! The 'atom of true life' as it's also known! The Killing Curse unleashes unnatural death, which mesonium could fight with ease, even in diamond format. Didn't you see that with Miss Potter and her friends from Meridiana when they hunted Voldemort and his friends?"

Theodore shuddered as he recalled the events of the Battle of the Astronomy Tower. The knee-buckling, bowel-loosening horror he felt on seeing his father's gallant friends — who banded together in fear for the future of wizarding Britain so they could remove the filth from Hogwarts — being laid low by the Defence Association and elements of the Order of the Phoenix, joined for the occasion by Harry Potter's mysterious sister and five others from Meridiana…including a woman claiming to be the daughter of Bellatrix Lestrange herself! Mason Nott found himself duelling the "Girl-Who-Lived" — as the local press had come to call Rose Potter — and found himself hard-pressed to get past the flame-haired half-blood's hurricane of spells. Horrified on realizing that his father might be captured — and most likely sent to That Place since Rose's brother had made it clear over the previous year that he didn't trust the Ministry to do the right thing, which would force him to appeal to the Queen to get hold of a certain set of keys — Theodore levelled his wand on Rose and barked out the incantation of the Killing Curse.

Said curse looked as if it would strike her down…until an opaque silver sphere appeared around Rose to deflect that green bolt of energy into the ceiling!

As Theodore gaped in horror on realizing that the muggle loving monsters from Meridiana who had allied to Harry Potter had the power to resist anything Voldemort and his allies could throw at them, Rose gave him an annoyed look…then wandlessly banished Mason's son into a stone wall, knocking him out for the night.

"Merlin…" he moaned out.

"I'm back!"

Heads turned as a pretty woman with wavy dark brown hair that went down to mid-shoulder and nearly black eyes peeking out of a well-formed face came into the room. Like all of Karl's and Cathrin's other assistants, Antonia Kreuz was dressed in normal clothes, including form-fitting jeans, button shirt and pullover sweater. While Theodore didn't really care for normal fashions, he couldn't help but stare wide-eyed at her and the other assistants whenever he saw them. Then again, he was young and single; he needed to worry about seeking out a wife…so he would be attracted to such beauty.

"What did you learn, Toni?" Cathrin asked.

The newcomer held up the morning's Daily Prophet. "No word on last night's idiocy," she said as she gave Theodore a disgusted look, which made him shudder. "We've lost every local ally save possibly for Camellia Matthews, though Achelois Runcorn — who was transformed into an Avalonian yesterday around lunch — is going to persuade her to undergo a body-swap as soon as possible. Raven Malfoy finally used the Praeda Bellica to depose her brother and become Markgräfin of Avebury." As Theodore croaked out in horror on hearing that, she added, "All the other lords and ladies we've solicited for assistance are either dead or sent off to Gonebren save for Friefrau Hester Selwyn, who's jumped the fence and allied herself with Burggräfin Elizabeth Gibbon."

"WHAT?!" Theodore thundered. "I'll kill that blood-traitor for that!"

As he stormed off to his own quarters cursing all the way, the others rolled their eyes in disgusted amusement. "Herr Sewell, I ask this again: Why must we deal with these leicheblut schweinhunde in the first place?" Antonia hissed as she handed the paper to him. "Their arrogance and their inability to listen to reason is dragging us down!"

"A necessary evil, my dear," Adam calmly stated as he gave her an amused look; ever since he had been first invited into Lundy Keep after the shocking news of Spike's and Drusilla's "return to the light" months ago, he had used his own magic to subvert the internal defences of this place to ensure that Theodore could not listen to things he couldn't understand or comprehend. Mortals are so useful…yet keeping them loyal is SO aggravating, he mused to himself. "While the majority of the people in Britain are neutral towards vampires like us, they would never allow us to escape from under their 'benign supervision'; their annoying agreement with the Watcher's Council would have us facing Slayers if that happened, especially in the wake of what Willow Rosenburg did before the destruction of Sunnydale. I don't WANT to think of what they'd do if they learned the truth of people like yourself." He shook his head as he moved to finish his tea. "But don't worry about it, my dear. Once I use the magic within the prisoners of Azkaban to give me a real body again so I don't need to 'borrow' the one I have now…" — that he was possessing one of the war golems that had been built for Unternehmen Werwolf had been kept top secret from Theodore and his allies; European wizarding prejudice towards such beings was as vile in places as the Nazis' hatred of the Jews! — "…we can finally deal with such people." A smirk then crossed his face. "Who knows? Maybe their enemies might thank us for that."

Snickers echoed through the room on hearing that, then Karl gave Antonia a nod. She moved to join the Vogt siblings to head downstairs to the dungeons, which had been rebuilt over the last three months to serve as a construction laboratory in creating golems. Once they were in the well-lit space, Antonia made a gesture with her hand to activate the special defences the golems had placed here to ensure they wouldn't be disturbed, even by the vampires. Not that the blood-suckers would ever come down here; given that most of them were borrowing golem bodies to give them physical forms until Adam could give them new bodies — which revolted all of them — the idea of entering such an "unnatural" place scared them as bad as the Rail-Splitter and the Slayers!

Which struck the golems created by Johannes Vogt as totally hypocritical.

Vampires — by their very nature — were the epitome of "unnaturalness!"

"How long do we have to keep this up, Karl?" she then snarled as she sat down at the central work table, gazing on the empty human-sized moulds where new golems had been created. "It's bad enough we have to deal with the idiots Elizabeth and her friends fought to destroy during the war, but to deal with rebellious vampires as well?"

Karl chuckled. "As Adam himself just said, Toni, it is a necessary evil," he said as his own green eyes twinkled with amusement. As the other women snickered with amusement on hearing that — Karl Vogt was the only male-form golem of their group — he added, "This threat against our fully-organic 'cousins' was coming one way or another. Something as so life-changing as what the Avalonians brought to the organic Terrans was bound to make someone upset sooner or later. The logical approach to the situation was to ally with a group planning to do the Avalonians harm, learn their plans, then expose it to the right authorities. Sadly, given the nature of this situation…"

"The only truly trustworthy authority is Frau Inada," Agnes Wilhelms, who served as Karl's primary laboratory assistant, mused as a smile crossed her face.

Karl nodded. It would probably scare the hell out of the other Shiroiwa girls who had been brought across the dimensional veil and ahead ten years in time thanks to the Niphentaxians that the golems now at Lundy Keep knew of their existence. It had been quite logical to determine in the end. A group of twenty-one Japanese girls dressed in proper sailor suit-type uniforms while out in public and who appeared to be third-year middle school students — in Germany, they would be in the Obertertia year at a gymnasium — as they normally visited magical enclaves, people wouldn't blink twice on seeing such uniforms. All of whom spoke with Sanuki-Shikoku accents, indicating they were from the northeast area of the smallest of the Home Islands. All of whom had haunted auras around them which indicated they had a VERY close encounter with death in a most unnatural way, thus hinting that they had been in combat or had been caught in the heart of a terrible natural disaster…but given their skills with Lawgiver pistols and Peacemaker rifles, the former was most likely. One such girl of the group just OOZED sex appeal from every pore of her body…and carried a wicked kama scythe with her; that was Sōma Mitsuko, the golems eventually concluded.

Also among them was another girl — the possessor of an incredible ancient Sagussan weapon whose power was simply overwhelming; Karl believed this woman's "friend" was one of the dreaded haijo-ju, doomsday weapons whose existence had trumpeted the final fall of the Fourth Republic in the War of Clone Rights — who spoke with a classical tone of voice…

…and was a devout Zoroastrian.

That particular religion had NEVER made it to Japan.

Atop that, the Niphentaxians had been in the habit of creating Avalonian replicas of both fictional and real people ever since they discovered the bioroid factory a century ago. Including characters from Japanese anime, video game and manga series.

But in the case of these girls, they weren't just "Terran-form Avalonians" whose souls were created by the inner power of the bioroid factory…

…but "Terran-turned-Avalonians," girls who had been born naturally as Terrans, but somehow were forced to become members of the bioroid race.

With that all factored in — and knowing that what was seen as fact in one universe could be fiction in another; it was because of that situation that ALL magical ministries on Earth had long outlawed studies in inter-dimensional travel — the conclusion was quite easy to make…especially when mixed with a thorough search of the Internet to reveal the only fictional ethnic Japanese character who worshipped Ahura Mazdā.

The Friend of Dragons was Inada Mizuho.

And if there was anyone who could realistically put a stop to this — and ensure the golems would survive; those few Avalonians who had met Karl, Cathrin and their friends had simply accepted them as sentient beings without blinking, as had Mizuho and her friends when they had first encountered Cathrin and her sisters back in mid-June — it was her.

"Gretchen?"

The physically smallest of the golems in the room, a petite woman with stylishly short-cut dirty blonde hair and dark brown eyes, perked. "Ja?" Gretchen Streit asked.

"Go somewhere private where you can contact Frau Inada and tell her what's happened," Karl ordered. "Elle, I want you to go with her to make sure she is not disturbed."

"Jawohl," Elle Andreas, a beautiful Latino with typical olive skin, long black hair and dark brown eyes, said with a nod as she and Gretchen stood to leave…


Level Two of the Headquarters of Her Majesty's Ministry of Magic, after breakfast…

"Hello, Harry. Is this a bad time?"

Harry looked up from the dataPADD to gaze upon the smiling man with the greying dark brown hair and knowledgeable grey eyes behind round-frame reading glasses, standing beside a younger man with wavy black hair and hazel eyes. "Rupert! Xander!" he breathed out before rising to take Rupert Giles' hand in his own before shaking Xander Harris' hand. "Thérèse, can you conjure up some tea and coffee for our friends?"

"I feel like a glorified secretary!" Thérèse Peverell muttered before she moved to the small counter close to Harry's work desk where the coffee machine and all the supplies for making tea were located. "Cream and sugar with your breakfast tea, Professor?"

"Please, Lady Peverell," Rupert stated as he took a seat. "And none of that bloody 'professor' stuff! I never even graduated from Oxford, for God's sake!"

The beautiful woman with the Mediterranean tan and the sunflower blonde hair tied in side ponytails smirked. "From what I've read of what you've done with Mistress Summers and the other Slayers over the years since you began the clean-up of the Sunnydale Hellmouth, sir, you deserve that title. Besides, the leader of the Watcher's Council — even if such person was a 'muggle'…" — she made finger-quotes with one hand as she wandlessly prepared his breakfast tea — "…was accorded an honorary chair at both Hogwarts and Meridiana, with the right to advise the DADA chair at Hogwarts on all matters concerning defence against demons and vampires. Of course…"

"The pureblood traditionalists — in their mad desire to remove all 'muggle taint' from wizarding Britain which began many decades before your distant cousin decided to call himself 'Voldemort' — wouldn't ever hear of a normal man or woman come teach that particular subject," Rupert finished with a twinkle in his eye. He had been let in on the secret of Project V right from the beginning as a simple courtesy due to his leading the support group for the nearly eighteen hundred Slayers who stood as the main line of defence against all inter-dimensional threats from the Old Ones and the other things that went "bump" in the night, no thanks to an incredible spell unleashed by Willow Rosenberg in 2003 in hopes of stopping the so-called "First Evil" from wiping out the "Protectors of Humanity" (as people like Buffy Summers were often romantically addressed by others).

"Which is a shame," Thérèse stated as she wandlessly floated the tea cup over to the leader of the Watcher's Council. "What's your morning poison, Mister Harris?"

An amused Xander grinned. "Lady Peverell, my friends call me 'Xander,'" he stated as he winked. "Coffee. Double-double as the Canadians say it."

"Two creams, two sugars," Harry translated.

Thérèse smirked. "Okay!"

"My Lady! You shouldn't do that!"

That was a young auror cadet who had been pulled out of the Corps of Law Aurors School for the current emergency, Galea Thruston; she was a pureblood and paternal cousin to the drummer of the Weird Sisters, Orsino Thruston. As she moved to assist, Thérèse held up her hand. "Cadet Thruston, just because I'm blood-descent from Master Salazar doesn't mean I'm going to be as lazy as Tom Riddle was when it comes to work," she stated, which made the young girl — she had graduated from Hogwarts in 2009, Harry knew, alumnus of Gryffindor — wince. "That's part of why he was defeated at the end by Lord Potter and his friends. As soon as he stated getting followers, Tom sat back and let them do all the damned work to launch their 'revolution.' Since I vowed I would never follow Tom's path, I don't intend to gain his bad habits."

"Miss Thruston, would you please attend to your duties," Harry bade.

Galea winced. "Yes, sir!"

She immediately rushed off to the other side of the operations room. Once she was sufficiently clear, Rupert gestured with his hand to create a privacy bubble around them. "You're not having problems with the magical links forming between you and Gonebren, are you?" he asked as he gave the reborn and reformed last living soul fragment of Voldemort in a woman's body a concerned look. She should bloody hell be reformed! the leader of the Watcher's Council then mused. FOUR soulsword strikes and the Spirit-Breaker Fire-Light attack would be considered overkill on even Admiral Thompkins!

"It's hard, Rupert," Thérèse admitted as she floated the coffee cup over to Xander. "The magic of that place is at the Crown's command, so I couldn't hope to seize it for myself even if I was so inclined to follow my other-self's path. But the calling of that power in my head doesn't stop." She moved to make herself a cup of tea. "It's not so distracting now that I'm bonded to someone, but it's still there."

"Oh? Who's the lucky lady?" Xander asked.

"Myrtle Warren."

The visitors from Hampshire blinked. The Watcher's Council and the senior Slayers such as Buffy Summers had decided to base themselves at the academy for those trained to help guide the Protectors of Humanity, located on the north shore of the Solent ten kilometres south of Southampton. "Wasn't she a ghost?" Rupert asked.

"Moaning Myrtle," Harry explained, which made both Rupert and Xander nod as Thérèse finished making her tea, then moved to sit beside her friend's desk. "She was Tom's first victim when he discovered the Chamber of Secrets at Hogwarts back in '43. Her spirit was anchored to this plane thanks to a Life Debt link between herself and Tom, which carried over to Thérèse here after I soulsworded Tom out of existence in '97. The Vinur Drekar discovered that yesterday when she took the Key of Gonebren from my house to give to Elizabeth Gibbon so she could deal with the daywalkers that attacked Diagon, then went to Hogwarts to allow Myrtle's spirit to finally move on. When that happened, the influence of the nŏksbae rituals Tom used to help make his horcruxes allowed her soul to be replicated, then it was placed in an Avalonian body cloned off Myrtle's DNA. The Vinur Drekar brought her to Grimmauld Place to meet Thérèse…"

"And marei'cha took care of the rest," Thérèse finished, which made the visitors laugh as her cheeks reddened on remembering the blissful night she had spent in her new soul-mate's arms. "Since she's spiritually a Ravenclaw, Myrtle went down to the Department of Mysteries to allow the Unspeakables to look her over. Just like your people, Ian Boot and his subordinates are very interested in the Vinur Drekar and her staff, so they want to see if they can create detection spells which can track her movements."

"Daphne's promised to keep such under very tight controls," Harry added.

Rupert sighed. "It is such a pity that there are people who would question any person who simply acts out of the goodness of her heart and the convictions of her faith," he mused. "However — to quote Willow and Buffy — our dragon-lover friend does command the largest single piece of 'mojo' outside General Raeburn herself. I dare say she could give both Lord Rjazán' and Rittmeister von Taserich a run for their money. Given what she's probably gone through — as Luna has reported in the Quibbler since her first encounter with that girl — can we really trust her with such a device?"

"Any idea what it is?" Harry asked.

"We think it's a haijo-ju," Xander stated. "From the sketches people have made of it, it looks pretty similar to the fuckin' Mother of All Haijo-ju itself!"

"The Staff of Gihan," Rupert explained. "Created 17,000 years ago by the first Head Scientist of Sagussa when the post was created and that planet began its final downward spiral towards the War of Clone Rights. A poor man's version of a Power Jewel but one whose core power comes straight from Yiziba as was reported in the Prophet from witnesses yesterday who saw the Vinur Drekar in Gringotts after that raid in Diagon. Which means it was touched directly by the First Ones, the Seekers."

"Is that bad?" Thérèse asked.

"Potentially yes," Rupert stated. "The Power Jewels were programmed from the start to seek out orphaned girls who led very harsh lives before they became Hosts to those devices, just as General Raeburn endured after her parents and sister were killed by her uncle in 1879. Thus, the Hosts would be quite sympathetic to those who suffered as they did. The haijo-ju were never programmed in that manner, which means that anyone who has a strong enough will could potentially claim one of those things." He nodded. "And while the Vinur Drekar seems to be quite a charming young lady — at least that was the impression I got from her when she rescued Violet Day from drowning back in April — can we be sure she wouldn't follow Willow's path after she lost Tara?"

Harry nodded. Ever since he learned of what the "Scooby Gang" had endured after Buffy Summers moved to Sunnydale in the summer of 1997, the Man-Who-Won had been in awe of how one of the longest-lived Slayers on record had endured the many twists and turns Fate threw at her and her friends while they were trying to finish high school, move on to university and live their lives…during which she and her allies ALSO had to deal with a virtual army of demon-possessed vampires, true demons and all the other things living close to a Hellmouth always forced on them. Part of that incredible tale had been the story of Willow Rosenburg, a normal woman who discovered how to become an earth witch — such, as per the official ICMC description of those people, were always born as normals…but gained faith in the Old Ways to allow them to tap into the power of Magic even if there was no genetic quirk in their DNA which might have seen people like them invited to places like Hogwarts — and eventually was "seduced by the Dark Side of the Force" (to use the quote from Star Wars), driven insane by the loss of her lover Tara Maclay in 2002 to delve into powers not even Voldemort had ever mastered in all his years of studies.

Fortunately for her friends, Willow regained her sanity and used her power to awaken all the potential Slayers on Earth to bring down the First Evil in the final Battle of Sunnydale a little over a year after Tara's accidental death. Willow rated a respective 268 points on the Neuwied Test — according to that test's creator, Oberunsäglicher Johannes Neuwied of the Abteilung für Mysterien in Berlin; Daphne Greengrass suspected he would eventually be promoted to Stabschef der Unsäglichen within a couple years — which put her at the pinnacle of human magicals who were not augmented or influenced by mesonium (as witness the cases of Yomigawa Tsukiko and Heather Thompkins). Personally, Harry liked Willow very much. While most "born" magicals in Britain — those who earned invitations to Hogwarts or Meridiana — would consider people like her to be strange if not a perversion to the "proper" order, the existence of people like Willow had long proved Harry's personal belief that the power of Magic could be inherited by all if the right chance and opportunity presented itself. Also, Willow was frightfully intelligent at Hermione Granger's level, passionately caring and loyal to her friends and always thought outside the box; after all, would any "normal" magical think of using the power of the Scythe — Harry could never pronounce the real name of that thing — to awaken the power of the Slayer in every potential on Earth?

And speaking of which…

"…everyone has undergone this?"

Perking on hearing Kingsley Shacklebolt, Harry gazed at Rupert. As the chief of the Watcher's Council dispersed the privacy bubble, footsteps heralded the arrival of the Minister for Magic, now escorting the Elder Slayer — as magical reporters respectfully called Buffy Summers these days — into the DMLE operations room. Naturally, they were accompanied by their senior advisers. Walking behind Kingsley and Buffy were a calm Percy Weasley and a madly-grinning Willow Rosenburg…not to mention a woman who looked like Buffy's own twin sister! Seeing this, Harry blinked in confusion; while it was known that Buffy did have a sister named Dawn — later discovered to be a living sentient personification of an ancient tool which could open gateways to all known dimensions that was simply called "The Key" — no twin sister was ever mentioned.

"Yeah, we did," Buffy stated with a nod. "It was offered to all of us by the Sunnydale Restoration Committee as a way of helping us better master our own powers and allow them to be passed on to any children we have. Hey, Harry!" she then called out on seeing the director of the DMLE. "I thought you Brits were civilized!" she then scolded. "You had a party with vampires and never invited us! That's rude!"

Harry laughed as he offered his hand, which she took. Instantly, he felt a familiar warm aura surge from that grip, one he had known intimately since he had met his sister Rose in the late spring of 1996. "You're all Avalonians now, Buffy?" he asked as he gestured to make chairs for the new arrivals while Thérèse moved to make tea and coffee.

"Yeah. Ditto with almost all my friends, even Dawn…and she was able to keep the power of the Key after her body-swap," Buffy said as she sat, thumbing Willow. "The Avalonians of Santa Barbara felt it was being neighbourly, especially with all the losses we took while they were forced to watch us without being allowed to help."

"Oh…!"

"Xander!"

Xander perked. "What?!"

Percy gave him a stunned look. "You have both eyes now!"

Everyone groaned at that flat joke save for Buffy's twin, who had a calm look on her face as she assumed a protective stance behind the Elder Slayer. "No shit, Sherlock!" Xander snarled as Thérèse floated a cup of tea to Kingsley before making one for Percy. "Jeez! Your brothers must be going overtime in corrupting you!" He winked at Harry with his regenerated left eye; the original had been lost just before the final destruction of Sunnydale thanks to a servant of the First Evil named Caleb.

"Never noticed," Harry said as he sipped his tea before gazing at Buffy, then her twin. "Buff, I hate to mention this to you, but there are two of you."

Xander and Rupert laughed as Buffy rolled her eyes. "This here used to be the Buffybot," the Elder Slayer explained as she thumbed her twin. As the twin smiled politely at Harry, Buffy added, "The Avalonians rebuilding Sunnydale sensed her spirit was still drifting about in the ruins, so it was pulled into a meson crystal and she got a body cloned from me. We call her 'Anne' now after my middle name."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Harry," Anne said with a bow of her head. "Buffy has told me so much about you and what you've done."

"They also found the spirit of Warren Mears' gynoid girlfriend April and gave her a new body as well," Rupert added. "When April and Anne met, it was love at first sight."

"April-vayae thinks I'm a far better lover than Warren ever was," Anne added with all seriousness, which made her friends smirk at such a lack of tact. "Then again, he abandoned her, never once thinking of reprogramming her to be an independent person. It's really sad at times. I'm very tempted to kill him myself if I ever see him."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Anne," Harry mused before gazing knowingly at Willow. "Wills, did you go autograph-hunting when you found out about the Schwarze Mädchen?"

That made Willow blush as the others laughed. "Do you blame me?!" the earth witch protested. "To actually meet the first group of true magical freedom fighters! How were they saved?! The Avalonians weren't in control of their lives back in 1945!"

"We think it was Rittmeister von Taserich who…"

Thérèse was interrupted by running feet, making people turn as a panting Faith Lehane charged into the room. "Eff! What's wrong?!" Buffy demanded.

The Bostonian took several deep breaths to calm herself before she gazed on her predecessor as the Slayer. "We got a major problem, Bea!" she stated. "All the branches of Wolfram and Hart just went on a war footing about ten minutes ago!"

People paled on hearing that. While the demon-controlled law firm had considerable powers thanks to the Senior Partners, it projected a mask of civilized respectability to the world at large to ensure normal people didn't suspect something off about the organization and those who ran it. However, there had been times in history when the servants of the Wolf, Ram and Hart went to a "war footing." Such times normally struck whenever other demons moved to eliminate the Senior Partners' influence on Earth…though such incidents were actually quite rare, especially with the presence of one Vladímir Rúsalovič Tayčéško on the planet, a man dedicated to keeping inter-dimensional influences on Terrans to a very dull roar. Fortunately for those demons, Lord Rjazán' never intervened unless it was about to go totally south; thanks to the oaths he had taken after his Test twenty-five millennia ago, the Praetorian Guardian of Earth was constrained from acting openly if there were "normal" people who had the power to deal with such issues. A Slayer was seen as such a "normal" person in those cases.

And while Buffy had often wished that the "old fogey" in Russia would finally get off his butt and come help out in Sunnydale during the times she felt as if she couldn't go on in the wake of the non-stop bloodshed and fighting that was chewing up her high school and college years, she could understand the logic behind what drove the Heirs of the First Guardians, also known as "Praetorians." Akin to the "prime directive" concept from Star Trek that forbade more advanced civilizations from interfering or influencing the development of less advanced cultures, the oaths a man like Vladímir Tayčéško took to become a planetary Praetorian Guardian always demanded he hold off and allow those he protected to develop their own means of dealing with things like gods and demons…which would allow people to develop a faith in themselves and their own strengths as a species, thus turn away from worshipping deities as a whole.

Because of that, a weird "balance of terror" eventually developed between the First Guardians and those they opposed. If gods and demons went a little too overboard in their efforts to subvert mortals in this dimension, the Heirs of the Praetorians would unleash a can of cosmic whoop-ass on such errant divinities, sending them back to where they belonged with their tails tucked between their legs. That actually had made things somewhat easier in the long term, Buffy would eventually come to realize over time; she sure as hell would have never wanted to live on Earth 25,000 years ago when the Old Ones were running rampant on the planet without anyone around to stop them.

"What made them do that, Faith?" Harry asked.

Faith smirked. "Guess who just came back to Schloss Greifswald?" she asked.

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

And then…

"Oh, fuck!" Xander groaned out.

"Bloody buggering shit!" Harry croaked. "What about Meagan?!"

"According to one minor lawyer at the Berlin branch that was willing to talk to our people, Meagan probably became an Avalonian thanks to the Rittmeister," Faith stated, which made everyone gape. "He just came back yesterday afternoon from wherever he's been for sixty-five years. Some vampires and minor demons who were serving the Senior Partners got pissed that Meagan 'escaped' her 'banishment' to Rügen because of what she did for your godfather, then charged over there to put her down. Soon as Theresia's people sensed it, they teleported over to Rügen to stop them from hurting Meagan!"

Buffy blinked before she bolted to her feet. "C'MON!"

The others quickly moved to follow…


Schloss Greifswald, minutes later (local time: ninety minutes before lunch)…

"Buffy!"

"Theresia!" Buffy called out after she got clear of Willow's teleportation spell and ran over to join the leader of the Slayers native to central Europe, Theresia Halls of Frankfurt-am-Main. As she did a quick scan around to make sure no surprises were coming, she took the younger red-haired girl with the hazel eyes by the arm. "Give me an idea of what's going down…!" Her voice then trailed off as her eyes locked on the well-hidden manor house overlooking the Greifswald Bodden. "Oh, shit!"

The others who came with the Elder Slayer — a small quick reaction team of British aurors under Harry's command, plus the people who had been visiting the director of the DMLE when Faith had come to alert her friend about what was happening here — were also gaping in sheer awe at what was now happening over the field where Uchida Ryūsei had been beheaded by Margareta Hecht two years before World War Two began in Europe.

"Fuck…!" Xander breathed out for them all.

Everyone else nodded as they watched over two dozen humanoid figures floating in mid-air about five metres off the ground — the vampires all had special devices to protect them from the daylight similar to what those who helped Spike and Angel endure exposure to the Sun had once possessed; those that didn't have such devices were clearly demons in human form — as their bodies were mercilessly shredded from the inside-out by white energy burning them one cell at a time. As wails of ghastly pain and cries for mercy escaped them, people then found themselves gazing upon the rather ordinary-looking man standing near the back door of the Schloss, arms crossed as he stared at them with an expression akin to what anyone would look like dealing with cockroaches. Standing beside and slightly behind the Undying Lord was a smirking Meagan Schwartz, who clearly was enjoying the sight of those who would have claimed her soul confront something they couldn't hope to overwhelm. As a relieved breath escaped Harry, he perked as Thérèse's hand squeezed his shoulder. "Is she still the heir to the Black seat?" she whispered.

"She would be my heir if I died before Pansy and I had children; she stands before Dora and Teddy in that line," he quietly admitted. "Rose would succeed me if I died before Mandy and I had children. Since Meagan's been 'let go' by Wolfram and Hart…"

"Will they let her go, Harry?" Percy asked.

"With the Rittmeister back?" Rupert wondered. "To borrow Buffy's term for it, Percy, Freiherr von Taserich is the real 'Big Bad' in the eyes of all demons alive today."

The senior undersecretary blinked. "Oh…!"

"Harry!"

People perked, then smiled as Meagan ran over to them. Before she could embrace her cousin, the lawyer then slowed on seeing the troupe of a dozen Slayers standing there, including their overall leader and deputy leader. "Frau Summers! Frau Lehane! Frau Rosenburg! Herr Harris! Herr Professor Giles! Welcome to Schloss Greifswald!" She then gazed on the demons and vampires being burned alive in the air close to the back door. "The Rittmeister is a little busy right now, but he'll be happy to receive you and your friends as soon as he's done."

"I take it, Meagan, they didn't like the idea of you 'quitting' on them like you just did," Harry jokingly noted as he came over to warmly embrace the older woman.

"They didn't," the daughter of Marius Black stated. "When their monitor spells picked up that my body had 'died' — yet my spirit never was delivered to the home dimension of the Senior Partners — they sent these uncouth dummköpfe to find out what happened." She winked at the others. "They should have called for an appointment first."

People gaped at her, then everyone roared with laughter…

To be continued…


WRITER'S NOTES

1) Translations: Danke schön — Thank you very much; Schlafen Galatea — Sleeping Galatea; Aufwachen Galatea — Waking Galatea; Sprechen Sie Englisch? — Do you speak English?; Ministérstvo Mágičeskie Del — Literally "Ministry of Magical Affairs," the post-1954 Soviet (and after 1991, Russian) version of the Ministry of Magic, the successor organ to the NKMD; Vxodít' — Enter/Come in; Vólos — The Slavic god of the earth; NHS — National Health Service, the United Kingdom's publicly-funded healthcare system which is primarily funded through national taxation; Verdammt — Damned/Accursed; Oberunsäglicher — Senior Unspeakable; Abteilung für Mysterien — Department of Mysteries; Stabschef der Unsäglichen — Chief of Staff of the Unspeakables; Dummköpfe — Plural of dummkopf ("dunderhead").

2) British military unit notes:

The Royal Buckinghamshire Yeomanry (short-form R BUCKS Y) was first formed in 1794 as a yeomanry (volunteer militia cavalry) regiment meant for the defence of the United Kingdom against potential French invasion. The regiment dispatched a company of troopers for service in South Africa in the Boer War, then formed an overseas regiment for service in World War One that was converted to a machine gun battalion. In 1921, the regiment was amalgamated with the Berkshire Yeomanry (BERKS Y) and re-rolled as artillery; in that form, it served on the Western Front in the early days of World War Two, was evacuated from the Continent at Dunkerque, then dispatched to augment British forces in India. After the war, the regiment reverted to a Territorial Army role and underwent more transformations until it emerged in 1995 as 1 (Royal Buckinghamshire Yeomanry) Signal Squadron (1 [RBY] SIG SQN), a unit of the Royal Corps of Signals, which it serves to this day. In the universe of this story, the Royal Buckinghamshire Yeomanry was reformed with Avalonian help as an armoured regiment with headquarters in Milton Keynes at the northern end of the county.

The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (O&BLI) was first formed in 1881 from the union of two infantry regiments, the 43rd (Monmouthshire) Regiment of Foot (formed in 1741) and the 52nd (Oxfordshire) Regiment of Foot (formed in 1755). Nicknamed the "Ox and Bucks" and given a peacetime establishment of two battalions, the regiment formed twelve overseas battalions for service on the Western Front in World War One and nine battalions for service in Northwest Europe, North Africa, Italy and the Far East in World War Two. In 1958, the regiment was made part of the Green Jackets Brigade and would administratively be merged into the Royal Green Jackets in 1966. Today, the Ox and Bucks is seen as an ancestral unit of the Rifles. In the universe of this story, companies of the 7th (Volunteer) Battalion of the Rifles at Milton Keynes, Abington, High Wycombe and Aylesbury were expanded and merged into a two-battalion regiment and reformed as the Ox and Bucks, maintaining affiliation with the Rifles. The 2nd Battalion is based at Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire while the 1st Battalion is in Oxford. The 1st Battalion is tasked as an air assault unit while the 2nd Battalion is line infantry.

3) The Golem of Prague is a legend from the late Sixteenth Century. According to the story, Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel (circa 1520-1609) created this creature — called "Joseph" — to defend the Prague ghetto (Jewish quarter) from pogroms and other acts of antisemitism, especially in the wake of a potential order of expulsion or extermination issued by the Holy Roman Emperor. Joseph remained active except on the Sabbath, when the rabbi removed the shem (derived from one of the Names of God, this was a piece of paper similar to an ofuda that gave the golem its quasi-life and power) to ensure the creature could take a day off. While the legends vary as to the golem's fate, the origin story remains the same and still inspires stories right to this very day, including how the golem killed a Nazi in World War Two! In the universe of this story, Joseph did get out of control and caused a lot of damage…especially to those magicals sent by the Emperor to stop it, thus inspiring wizarding governments to pass strict laws over their creation and usage.

4) A gymnasium (plural gymnasien) in the German educational system is a school that ranges from Grades 5-13 (ages 10-18) on the North American scale which has a strong emphasis on academic learning; these sorts of schools were originally founded for the purpose of teaching classical languages like Latin and Greek. In many ways, this type of institution is similar to an American preparatory school or a British grammar school. These days, gymnasien are mostly state-funded public schools that are co-educational, but a number of private and parochial — as well as same-sex — schools still exist; back in Linn Heinrich's day, girls-only gymnasien were quite common. These schools divide their years using Latin terms: Sexta ("sixth"), Quinta ("fifth"), Quarta ("fourth"), Tertia ("third"), Secunda ("second") and Prima ("first"), descending in number as the student progresses up in grade. The first three levels are single-year classes. The equivalents for Grades 8-13 are split into two-year blocks, with each individual year marked with "Lower" (Unter) for the younger class or "Upper" (Ober) for the older class, i.e. Obertertia ("Upper Third") as the equivalent for Grade 9 in North America or the third year of middle school in Japan.

5) Harry Potter location and character notes:

The exact location of Ottery Saint Catchpole was never given in the Harry Potter novels save for it being somewhere in Devon. As there is a River Otter in the eastern part of the county — as well as a town named Ottery Saint Mary; the Harry Potter Wikia states this is most likely the inspiration for the name of the Weasley family's hometown — I placed Ottery Saint Catchpole on the north shore of the River Otter opposite Honiton on Trunk Road A30 connecting Exeter to the west and Basingstoke to the east (via Trunk Road A303).

As an aside, the two home names outside the Burrow (the Weasley family home) and the Rookery (a popular fan name for the Lovegood family home due to its shape) — as noted above — are the homes of the Diggory and Fawcett families. Stoatshead Hall, the home of Cedric Diggory's family, is named after a steep hill from which people could find portkeys to attend the Quidditch World Cup in Goblet of Fire. The Waterfall, home of the Fawcett family — a girl with that family name first appeared in Chamber of Secrets; in The Icemaidens and the Philosopher's Stone, I give her the name Shanessa Fawcett — is named in acknowledgement of a homophone to "faucet" from which water flows down.

The Dark Lord Chaucer was first mentioned in TI&tPS. He was active in the late Nineteenth Century. It was because of him that the village of Rhosan Green in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire — home of the Meretrice quintuplets — was made to literally disappear from view for over a century.

Galea Thruston is my creation. Her brother Orsino Thruston and his band, the Weird Sisters, first appeared in Goblet of Fire.

6) The term Keep Up The Skeer ("keep up the scare") was one of the personal maxims of Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821-77) of the Confederate States Army; after the end of the Civil War, he was made the first leader of the original Ku Klux Klan…but eventually quit the organization because it had become too violent even for him. In military operations, "keeping up the scare" meant to constantly and continuously harass an opponent until they were virtually run to the ground and had no means of defending themselves due to both physical exhaustion of the troops and lack of supplies, ensuring victory by either total destruction or surrender.

7) Buffy the Vampire Slayer character and object notes:

The Buffybot AKA Anne Summers first appeared in the fifth season episode "Intervention."

April Mears (the family name is my invention, taken from the name of her own creator, Warren Mears), first appeared in the fifth season episode "I Was Made to Love You," three episodes before Anne's first appearance.

Faith Lehane first appeared in the third season episode "Faith, Hope and Trick."

Violet Day (the family name is my invention, based on the woman who portrayed her, Felicia Day) first appeared in the seventh season episode "Showtime."

The Scythe AKA the (the second symbol of that word is a glottal stop, the sound being similar to what the hyphen in uh-oh represents) first appeared in the seventh season episode "Touched."

Dawn Summers AKA the Key first appeared in the fifth season episode "Buffy vs. Dracula." As an aside, the "Dracula" that appeared in that episode — in the universe of this story — was not the Vlad Ṭepeṣ that appeared in the Dracula sequence of novels written by Fred Saberhagen (1930-2007). This interpretation of the famous lord of Wallachia first appeared in the 1975 novel The Dracula Tape (1999 edition ISBN 0-671-57839-1); the "Dracula" Buffy fought was a fake who tried to play up on the latter's legend.

The incident concerning Xander Harris' loss of his left eye was depicted in the seventh season episode "Dirty Girls."

Theresia Halls is named in tribute to the unnamed German potential Slayer who appeared in the seventh season episode "Beneath You," though this is not the same woman as that character was killed in that episode. I based the name for this particular character on the actress who played that unnamed potential, Tess Hall.

And if you don't know who Buffy Summers, Willow Rosenburg and Rupert Giles — not to mention Xander Harris, of course — where have you been for the last two decades?

8) The War of Clone Rights on Sagussa was better described in The Senior Year; it was the primary cause of what would eventually happen to Moroboshi Ataru during the "Great Father Ataru" element of the storyline. This event occurred 13,000 years ago. I based the whole concept on the storyline of the Clone Wars that occurred on Krypton that was described in the World of Krypton mini-series, published in 1988 and written by John Byre as a side-story to his Superman storyline as was published by DC Comics in the wake of the Crisis of Infinite Earths maxi series, which initiated the first mass reboot of continuity for characters such as Superman himself. However, to give an idea of what happened on Sagussa, the War of Clone Rights lasted 514 years (a Sagussan year is the same length as an Earth year) and killed ten billion people, effectively driving the Fourth Sagussan Republic (the term "republic" in this case [in Sagussan, sen'a] also can translate as "civilization") to final extinction ten millennia ago.

As an aside, the Power Jewels and how and why they were created were first described in my fanfic story Wanderers.