Chapter 14

Red eyes scanned the reports in front of him, "Morris, report."

"All Riker allies have left the base. They made no show of hiding their purpose. Riker has declared itself neutral in the war, which means all Rikers without special permission are banned from taking part in the war. On the high side, they can't provide any assistance to the Order or the Ministry either. "

"Dismissed," he barked, waving his hand towards the door. The men, his remaining inner circle, bowed deeply and left him to his thoughts.

He cursed to himself; he needed the rest of his top generals back. He needed Bellatrix and Dolohov.

The Dark Lord waved a long bony hand at the table, dispelling the map. He swept into his personal library, the warm crackling fire contrasting the icy magic cast out by the dark wizard. The bookshelf furthest to the right is what held his interest. Scanning the volumes he pulled a black ancient volume off the highest shelf.

'Wild Magic: Power Beyond Imagining' the cover read. Voldemort believed it held the key to recovering his power.

Tom Riddle had not predicted the repercussions of using the diary to bring himself back to life. The Creevy boy's magic was weaker and incompatible and only merging with his wandering spirit had allowed him to rise to his former power. Unfortunately, the merge had not made his power stable and he had to rely on daily potions to restrain the power. Creevy's magic had turned wild.

He had read this book front to back, looking for a solution. Only after the incident with Shadow that answer had come upon him.

The book included a dark ritual involving the blood of a mage. It uses the mage as a power siphon and makes him or her draw magic from the air, and feed it to and lock it into the ritual's master. That would not only lock the Creevy boy's power in, but it would likely triple his available power.

Dominance over the muggles would be simple if he held such power. Now, the only problem was getting a hold of the mage. He knew where Shadow was, of course, but Shadow was powerful and protected by many, including the wards of Hogwarts. Voldemort would just have to lure him back, and he knew just how to do it.

Baraccas.

Shadow hated him deeply.

Upon completion of this ritual he wouldn't need the vampire Potions Master any longer anyway, so his sacrifice would cost the Dark Lord little.

'Yes,' he thought, 'let the planning begin.'

The halls of Hogwarts gave off little feeling of security these days, especially to those that had to walk those hallways in the middle of the night. The walls seemed to close in on you, sucking away strength and warmth, chilling to the bone.

Hermione pulled her robe tighter around her, trying to keep warm as she patrolled, however futile it might be. The head girl was thankful of Kai's addition to the staff as night attacks on students had reached the lowest it had been since the beginning of the Second War; but, they had not completely stopped. Vicious attacks on those of 'un-pure blood' still happened multiple times this week, mostly this weekend when students knew the warrior was gone. This was the weekend and as such Hermione walked with her wand drawn.

Despite being on high-alert, she had no warning before she was slammed violently into the stone wall, a sharp forearm pressed into her throat. She cried out in pain as her head connected with the wall, spots blooming before her eyes. The muggleborn struggled as she felt her wand being ripped out of her hand.

"Well look what we have here, the mudblood," a voice hissed in her ear.

Her vision cleared and she saw three cloaked figures, obviously students, before her. The hooded cloaks disguised their faces.

"I've been hoping to come across you one night, mudblood," a dark gravelly voice whispered harshly in her ear. A hand caressed the side of her face. "You make the other mudbloods think they can be as good as us and that, that is just not acceptable. You need to learn you place."

Let me go! She pleaded silently, tears in her eyes. She tried to gasp for air. The darkness was closing in around her, the deep chill of the wall seeping into her very soul.

"Stand down," an angry voice came from the shadows behind the group.

To her surprise it was Draco Malfoy that stepped out of the darkness, his long black robes swirled around him as his strode out of the corner, his face dark and unreadable. Everyone knew that Draco Malfoy was the most powerful student in the school, magically and politically. Though Hermione suspected the first might be challenged by Blaise.

"Let her down," he stated calmly, his eyes looking hard into hers.

The arm was removed quick from her neck and she fell to the ground, tears streaming unconsciously from her eyes. She gulped air into her lungs, coughing at the clumsy efforts.

Was it over? She doubted it, Malfoy probably only wanted to join the fun.

"What do you think you are doing?" his deathly quiet voice hissed in anger.

Heads snapped around in surprise, "Boss?" one whispered.

"The Shadow resides in this school. We cannot be fools. He could kill you as easily as he breathes, as he has already destroyed some of your fathers. He knows all that goes on in this school and our orders are to avoid drawing attention to ourselves. Now get out of here," his arm snapped to the side, pointing in the direction of the Slytherin dorms, "I'll take care of this."

Quickly, the group dispersed on his orders, leaving the hallway empty save for the Head Boy and Head Girl.

"Hello Granger," the blonde spoke casually, removing the spells cast on her. "Get yourself together and get out of here."

With that said, he turned and walked away, leaving her staring at his back.

What just happened? Did Malfoy just save me? To what purpose?

With as enigmatic character as Malfoy, chances are she'd never know.

The night was cold and dark all over the United Kingdom that night, but nowhere as much as Azkaban Island. The land sucked all warmth and happiness from you down to your very bones, eventually driving you mad. Aurors that worked on Azkaban Isle rotated out after only two weeks.

To strong eyes the dementors were visible miles off the shore, guarding the water's edge. Thanks to his information from Sirius, the Shadow flew unaffected over the water's edge, unapproached by the demons. Like all animals, thestrals are unaffected and standardly unnoticed by the guardians.

Acting as naturally as possible, the large black thestral landed gracefully on the bank, neck twisting elegantly, making an eerie silhouette against the moon. Guards paused in their patrols to watch the predator as it strolled up the beach, closer and closer to the fortress, sniffing and occasionally pawing at the ground. Suddenly, with burst of great power, the creature took flight from a standstill, floating only to land on the top turret, scanning the sky. It wasn't odd to see these deathly horses around the island, but most took a sighting as a bad omen.

Suddenly the creature took off, flying around the dark side of the castle and disappeared.

The guards took a breath and breathed a sigh.

Melding with the vast shadows of the castle, Shadow moved quickly towards the warden's office. He needed to know which cells housed his targets or he'd spend hours finding them all in the maze like prison.

Standing in the shadows of the warden's office, he waited patiently, quietly watching the balding night warden read a newspaper tiredly, heavy eyes blinking. As he saw the man drifting, he sent a gentle, silent sleeping spell his way to ease him into sleep. That way his sleep would be heavy, but natural as to not look suspicious. Pulling out of the shadows, he slipped to the magical cabinet to the left, opening it and whispering the names of his targets.

"Alecto and Amycus Carrow, Bellatrix Lestrange, Antoine Dolohov, Vulcanus Mulciber," the final Inner Circle Death Eaters that had not been freed in the failed attack on Azkaban two years back.

All the files that came up out of the cabinet had one important thing in common. Maximum Security Level 2B.

Well that simplifies things.

Removing all traces of himself from the room he stepped gracefully into the shadows, disappearing without a sound.

Maximum Security Level 2B was deathly quiet, the silence here more heavy than in the higher levels, minimum security. These individuals had been here a long time, and would be here even longer, their pleas for help and mercy long gone silent in the blackness. There was nothing here left for the dementors to take so they only came down here if they were on rotational patrol. Staying in the shadows he slipped into the first cell: Vulcanus Mulciber.

It was quick, silent and clean. After nearly 20 years in this hell, both Dolohov and Mulciber welcomed death with open arms. The others, clearly mad even before incarceration, put up little fight.

A huge blow had been struck to Voldemort this night, half of his old inner circle dead.

Shadow the thestral stood again on the highest turret, thinking about the fight ahead, how much he had yet to do to get his revenge, both for himself and his parents.

It was a long road ahead.

Powerful wings spread wide and the Shadow left Azkaban forever changed.

The Shadow, now Kai, was tired at breakfast the next day and not looking forward to the Monday drag. The Head table was a flurry of activity as those in the Order whispered furiously back and forth to each other. Apparently, the deceased Death Eaters had been discovered on patrols early in the morning and Dumbledore had already been contacted. None had approached him about it. He didn't know if that was because they hadn't thought that it was him or if they were scared to.

Either way, it was a blessing as he didn't think he could deal with the nattering as they argued about the morality of his actions, or some such drivel. He had, in a humane way, ended the lives of five individuals that had killed many and tortured more.

Stiffling a yawn, he chewed on an apple as the morning mail came in a flurry of activity. The noise level rose dramatically as the older students read the headlines.

Emprisoned Death Eaters Found Dead In Their Cells

That was quick, he thought, he had completed his mission at Azkaban at about 2:00am, only six hours ago. Oh well, it was done and he had a class to prepare for and assignments to give back. Kai could feel the eyes of the staff on him as he left the Great Hall. So they did suspect him. Dumbledore would call on him before the end of day no doubt.

Kai waited in a dark corner at the back of the room as his 7th year class made its way to their seats. He stared at the back of Neville Longbottom as he walked in. He could feel so much potential in that boy it was overwhelming. The question was why he was holding back. That wand he had was not suited for him either. He decided that he would spend a little bit of extra time encouraging the Longbottom heir; such potential could not go to waste. As soon as the last student sat, he burst out into the room, stack of journals in his hands. As he walked through a set of rows, the journals flew, one by one, from his grip and landed on the appropriate student's desk, some harder than others. At the front, he spun on one foot and stopped, staring the class down.

"Those," he drawled, projecting his best Snape impression, "were acceptably done. However, it appears that I have a lot of work ahead of me."

Hermione looked down that front page of her journal. A big red 'F' was wrote at the time. Below it was "Ask me why in class".

There was no question of what she wanted to do, "Professor Boudreau, sir."

"Yes?"

"I received an F, sir, and I'd like to know why."

Kai raised an eyebrow, "Because you have brown eyes, of course."

The whole class stopped breathing and you could practically hear a dozen minds thinking, 'BWAH?'

Before anyone could say anything the mage continued, "I once knew this group of people, total idiots. Didn't have two brain cells to rub together amongst the group of them, and everybody knew it. They all had brown eyes. Hence, all people with brown eyes must be unintelligent."

He said it in such a matter of fact way that the class was stunned. Of all the people they expected to hear that from, Professor Boudreau was the last!

Near the back of the class, blue-eyed Ron Weasely let out a chuckle; he loved that Granger had just been put in her place.

"Don't get me started on blue-eyed people Weasley!" Kai snapped.

"Professor Boudreau, why would you say something like that? At least us muggle-borns know that the genetics for eye color have nothing to do with the genetics for intelligence, they're two totally unrelated things!" Hermione pleaded.

"I don't know about that gemetics stuff, but I agreed with Granger, eye color and intelligence have nothing to do with the other," called one of the Slytherins.

"You think that's unfair do you?" the mage purred. "That I judged all of you based on a few people?"

"Yes!" they called.

"So, you would then say that calling all Slytherins Death Eaters and all Hufflepuffs wimps, etc, would also be deeply unfair."

The room deflated. They'd be had.

"So you don't really feel that way, do you sir?"

"No Hermione. Everyone should see their real grades now. But do you see what I mean? Yes, many Slytherins come from the Dark Families and yes, a few members of these families have done evil, but why would that mean that not only are all Slytherin's dark, but they're evil? Same with people in other houses, not all Gryffindors are arrogant and rash, not all Ravenclaws care about nothing but books. This is called stereotyping," he paused. "Thoughts?"

There was dead silence in the room. Kai sat up on his desk, completely happy to wait patiently. The black haired teacher stared down each individual in the room, daring them to speak.

"The wizarding world is full of stereotyping."

Bless Blaise.

"They say magical beings are inferior, non-purebloods are inferior and the list goes on and on. To witches and wizards, anything that is stronger, more powerful than them, scares them, is inherently evil," Blaise continued.

"Exactly, anyone else?"

"Ever since I came into the magical world, it seemed like no one cared that I was at a severe disadvantage, that the other students had learned things that none of us knew. What we learned in primary school has no application here, unlike what magic-raised students learn. There's a muggle studies class, however terrible it is, but there is no magic-studies class so that we can learn about magical culture. We're just thrown in and no one cares that many of us drown," Justin Finch-Fletchly spoke passionately, surprising Kai. He'd forgotten that Finch-Fletchly was normal born.

"Thank you Justin. That's very true; the number of normal-born students that remain in the British wizarding world after graduation is very small. Most go out, and get a degree in the non-magical world and work there. Slytherin actually wanted to send Muggleborns to school a year early in order to promote better acceptance of the wizarding world. That is, until his wife was stoned to death by muggles."

Kai got up from his desk and clapped his hands, "Now, what about the rest of you? Mr. Malfoy?"

Draco's eyes flashed up to the mage's, flashing icy blue. He cleared his throat delicately, "I interviewed a Ravenclaw. I wasn't, in fact, surprised to find that whilst he loved to read, he really liked to fly and play a muggle sport called baseball."

"Why weren't you surprised Mr. Malfoy?"

"Because making assumptions about people can only hinder you. If you make blind judgments about people you will miss important things about them, things that you could use to your advantage as well as things that could harm you."

Kai studied the blonde, impressed by his words. That was a young man after his own heart. Now, he just had to tackle that 'mudblood' thing that the young Malfoy seemed to have.

"Exactly!" Kai banged his hand on his desk as he said it.

"Now Mr. Weasley…"

Hearing Weasley's response he could only think one thing.

It was going to be a long year with this one…