Area 51, Nevada
"If you'll just go there here, Mrs. Black," instructed Major Mitchell, gesturing through a doorway off of one of the copious anonymous halls dug into the rock beneath Groom Lake.
Winona, knowing that she'd likely survive anything aside from the heat death of the universe or a black hole, smiled at the Major and entered the room calmly.
The room was white, with a pair of glowing florescent panels in the dropped ceiling above. Aside from a single institutional steel chair in the corner, the room contained only a pair of women in bog standard black suits with white blouses and ties, a brunette on the right, and a blonde on the left. Winona could tell both were armed with concealed carry holsters, and the clear plastic coil from their radio earpieces was nearly hidden by their short hair.
"Um, this doesn't look like a meeting with the President and his Cabinet," said Winona, turning around.
Mitchell stood in the doorway, and his armed airmen were visible behind him, "Mrs. Black, after what your brother did on-board Air First One, we're making sure that you're not carrying anything dangerous into your meeting with the President."
"Define 'dangerous' for me, if you please?" asked Winona.
"Anything magical, anything that's a weapon, anything that could be used as a weapon," said Mitchell.
Raising an eyebrow, Winona nodded slowly, then turned back to the two Secret Service agents.
"That will be all for now, Major," said the blonde.
"As you wish," said Mitchell, and Winona could hear the door close and latch with a click.
"So, everything magical?" asked Winona for confirmation.
"Yes ma'am," said the brunette.
"You got anything I can wear?" asked Winona.
"Wear, ma'am?" asked the blonde.
"You said everything magical has to go. Well, then I'm going to need some new clothes. Underwear too, if you please. I can cast some re-sizing charms if I need to," said Winona, slipping off her knee-length coat, which doubled as a robe when in more conservative magical company.
"Everything?" asked the brunette.
"I assume that since the Major mentioned magic, I can speak freely about it?" asked Winona.
"We're both witches if that's what you mean," said the blonde. "Though the President's temporarily halted enforcement of the Statute for the duration."
"Good, then I'll tell you two the truth. Everything I'm wearing is magical, even my underwear. Featherweight charms, cushioning charms, auto-sizing charms, expansion charms, imperturbable enchantments, cleaning charms, and a whole slew of overlapping defensive enchantments. I won't even go into the number of wands, weapons, and holdouts I've got," Winona explained, as she tossed her coat at the chair. As it flew through the air, it folded itself, and landed in a needly folded package on the chair. "Oh, and did I mention the self-folding charms as well?"
The blonde pulled out a wand, and then, with a few flicks and some mumbled latin, a light blue tunic and a pair of loose pants were conjured. Another few spells and some slippers, panties, and a bra joined them.
"Good, do either of you know any mannequin charms?" asked Winona.
"That'd be me," said the brunette, who conjured a nondescript mannequin. She then cast another spell, the wand motion connecting Winona to the mannequin with a faint and short-live magical conduit. As the conduit snapped, the mannequin was suddenly shaped exactly as Winona was.
"Impressive, both of you," said Winona. "I've give you both House points were you my students at Hogwarts."
"You teach at Hogwarts?" asked the blonde, surprised.
"I'm the Professor of Mundane Studies there," replied Winona.
"Ah, so you're why Britain is less of a laughing stock," said the brunette with a smirk. She then cast a dressing charm, and the mannequin was dressed in the conjured clothes. A sizing charm made them fit, if not exactly flatter.
Winona stepped over, but the blonde stopped her, "Sorry, can't have you messing with it. I assume a switching charm is fine?"
Winona stepped back, and nodded. She wasn't really worried, as she could either summon replacements from the Demesne if need be, or if she really wanted to impress, just preform the switching spell from wherever the meeting was.
With a mumbled spell from the blonde Winona was no longer wearing her bespoke outfit, but instead was wearing a set of conjured scrubs, scratchy if supportive underwear, and a pair of simple slippers. Winona sighed, "So, shall we? I'd rather not make the President wait."
The blonde kept her wand ready while the brunette stepped around Winona and knocked in a precise sequence on the door, which Mitchell then opened.
"Interesting," he said, before stepping aside and gesturing for Winona to step out. "This way Mrs. Black, let's not keep the President waiting any longer."
Winona followed Mitchell, and preformed a quick wantless switching charm before the door closed, switching into her old underwear, as well as gaining her wedding ring, which in addition to having a permanently disguised Resurrection Stone in place of the diamond, had a transfigured Elder Wand (achieved via temporal shenanigans) at its core. The True Cloak of Invisibility was in an expanded pocket of her knickers, just in case. It was never the wrong time to be the Mistress of Death. That she was sure Shepard also carried the Hallows, the Stone and Wand disguised not as a wedding band but instead a Class Ring (Lakewood High School class of '02), and the Cloak hidden in a similarly expanded pocket in his boxer-briefs, making him the Master of Death.
Of course, the Deathly Hallows weren't the only holdouts that Winona and Shepard carried even in their underwear, just the most famous.
And so it was that Winona Black was introduced to the President of the United States, the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the Head of the NBTR.
"Ah, the infamous Mrs. Winona Black," said Nimzicki with a glare.
"Did I do anything to you Mr. Secretary? Did I kick your dog or something that I don't remember?" asked Winona.
"Your brother told us quite the tale when we cornered him about his whereabouts prior to the mid-eighties," said Nimzicki. "That makes you quite infamous in my book."
"Ah, so …" said Winona. This little factoid hadn't been given to her by her past self, though he probably should have.
"Time Travel Mrs. Black?" asked the President.
"Well, time travel is quite easy," said Winona. "I'd show you my Time Turner, but you took away all my toys." She gestured to the light blue scrubs she wore.
"Time Turner?" asked Okun.
"It's a magical time travel device," said Winona. "Depending on how it's made, you can travel anywhere from an hour to two to a week or so back in time."
"You could warn us about the invasion?" asked the President. "Save millions of lives."
Winona shook her head, "That's not how it works. You see, magical time travel, as much as I've discovered at least, and as head of Cerberus' research division I've done a lot of research into the matter, considering my brother's and my origin, is consistent. In that, anything that happened, happened."
"What?" asked Nimzicki.
"Causality is maintained?" asked Okun.
Winona nodded, "And paradoxes are impossible. As long as you knew something happened, or observed it in any way, or even were affected by it tangentially, then you can't change the past. In fact, it's actually your emergence from time travel that causes you to travel backwards in time in the first place. From a certain point of view."
"I thought you and your brother claimed to be time travelers," said the President.
"From a parallel timeline," said Winona. "Similar in many ways, but not the same. Otherwise we'd not be having this conversation."
"And why is that, Mrs. Black?"
"Because you'd be a fictional character in a disaster movie," said Winona bluntly.
The room was silent.
"We should have realized when Clinton lost the election in ninety-two, and then you showed up after the Gulf War was over. I, we, thought it was merely the ASB that sent us back in time messing with us, and in fact, that's exactly what it was, only more than we suspected until the Destroyers appeared over London," explained Winona.
"Fictional?" asked Nimzicki.
"In my initial timeline, yes, quite fictional," said Winona. "But that's neither here nor there."
"So, do you know how to defeat them?" asked the President.
"Why do you think Jimmy made sure to bring David here?" asked Winona. "He's the key."
"So, that explains a lot, but can it explain this?" asked Nimzicki. He then pointed to a TV, and with a press of a button, the video played, revealing a CCTV recording of Shepard's encounter with the alien.
"Well, that's one of the gifts we have," said Winona.
" 'We'?" asked the President.
"Yes, 'We', it's part of what make us Shepards special, though I hope it's only because of the interaction of the Shepard and Skrobanek bloodlines, and not something either his or my own children will inherit," explained Winona by the seat of her pants.
"What was that?" asked Okun.
"That was Jimmy sucking out the alien's soul and absorbing it," said Winona nonchalantly.
"Soul?" asked Grey, speaking for the first time.
"The soul is quite real gentleman, have your Department of Magic look up horruxes for you if you're unsure. Or dementors really, those are more common," said Winona. "While the mundane world debates the reality of the soul, the magical one has known of its existence, and its malleability, for a long time. And no, it's not something special that only magicals have. Dolphins, the great apes, the tauroids, we all have them."
"Tauroids?" asked Okun.
"Centaurs and Sphinxes are the most common, though any of the standard 'half-man/half-beast' myths have some sort of basis in reality. They're hexapods, usually two arms and four legs, though many of the ones common to the Indian Subcontinent have four arms and two legs instead. I think dragons might be of a similar biological history, though they do not have souls," explained Winona. She was tempted to use her magic to provide illustrations, as she commonly did in her classroom, but as she claimed to have left anything magical behind, and it wasn't wise to advertise the ability to use wandless magic, she refrained.
"Sphinx are real?" asked Okun amazed.
"So, what did your brother gain by extracting the alien's soul?" asked Grey, wanting to move things forward.
"Well, aside from killing something that looked to be quite dangerous?" asked Winona. "The process allows us to gain memories, experiences, and for beings with magic, a bit of that as well."
"So, you know souls exist, and yet you admit to … what was it you said … 'absorbing' them?" asked the President. "What's to prevent me from throwing the two of your into the deepest hole in the ground and forgetting about you?"
"Nothing, though, in our defense, most of them were quite evil, while the others were … not fully aware of the extent of what we offered," said Winona.
"And your brother will collaborate all of this?" asked Nimzicki.
"Likely not, he'll likely tell some story about being an undead monster or some such," said Winona with a dismissive wave of her hand. "He was always one for theatrics. Take his little speech before killing the alien, right out of Princess Bride. He drops pop culture references like they were going out of style. He wants to be the coolest person in the room, and wants everyone to know he is."
"And you?" asked the President.
"I know that I am likely one of the most powerful witches on the planet, if not THE most powerful. I'm also content teaching and raising my family. My children are set to attend Hogwarts at the beginning of September, and in two years I'll take a short leave of absence from Hogworts, likely to work on the alien technology once it's salvaged. Then, I'll either return to Hogwarts for a few more years until most of nieces and nephews are done, or devote all of my time to research with Cerberus. The alien technology is quite amazing, and once we discover how their power systems work, we'll finally be heading out into space for real."
"You assume we can win?" asked Grey.
"I know we can win, and as soon as David gets his inspiration, which I'm sure he'll receive despite the presence of my brother and I, if not because of it, we'll have half of the weapon we'll need to destroy the aliens," said Winona.
"Only half?" asked Nimzicki.
"Doctor Okun here has been studying the other half for the past fifteen years," said Winona.
"The Scout Ship?" asked Okun.
"In one," said Winona. "We, and I don't necessarily mean my brother and I, though now that he's absorbed the alien pilot's soul he's an expert pilot, but I mean us collectively. Once we fly up to the Mothership, it's simply a matter of deploying the weapon, and then getting the alien Mothership into a stable orbit."
"Stable?" asked Nimzicki. "Seems pretty stable already."
"Mr. Secretary, that Mothership masses a quarter that of the Moon. It's already disrupted the Earth-Moon system, and the longer it hangs around, the worse that disruptions will be. If we wait too long getting it somewhere else, then we could lose more people to the environmental side effects of the Mothership than to the destruction wrought by the Destroyers. We leave it up there permanently, and it's the end of life as we know it here on Earth."
"So, what do we do now?" asked the President.
"You do what you would have done had Jimmy or I not been here. You play your parts. I expect you've got plans for nukes?" asked Winona.
"Will it work?" asked Grey.
"Attacking it head on?" asked Winona. She shook her head, "No, whatever applied phlebotinum they're using to defy gravity and generate shields, and not necessarily the same thing does both. Whatever it is, it'll protect their ships from most of the effects of a nuke. Hit the side, and it'll just destroy whatever's beneath it."
"The side?" asked the President.
Winona smiled and tapped the side of her nose, but kept quiet.
"Al," said the President, turning to Nimzicki, "Once this is done, we'll deal with the pair of them, but right now we need their insight. They know what mistakes we can make, and help us avoid them."
"Mr. President, I vehemently object. These two are dangerous, and the longer they are around us, around you, the more we are in danger," countered Nimzicki.
"You opinion is noted Al, but this is my decision. Aside from their heritage, they've been loyal citizens, and have saved the lives of millions of Americans," said the President.
"Thank you, Mr. President," said Winona with a nod.
"Thank you, Mrs. Black," said the President.