14. A Storm is brewing

The next months were calm but busy, full of researches and discussions about what society they want to live in. Moody was a good teacher, and they used his experience to talk a lot about topics of the group's interests as stealth, disguises, wards and protective measures. He was still curious about what Harry and his concubines were doing, but didn't try to hex them again, and was completely unaware of the real extension and plans of their group.

What bothered Harry the most were the somewhat frequent calls from the headmaster to talk. The first part usually centred in the progress of the World Wizarding Wrangles. Soon they had confirmation from schools in Brazil, U.S.A., Australia, South Africa, Mali and Saudi Arabia, and were in advanced stage of negotiations with Japan and China. Durmstrang was not happy with this development, but the Beauxbatons Academie's support was strong. Greece, Persia and Mesopotamia were still reticent, but their resistance was slowly breaking. Only the Russians had promptly and emphatically refused the invitation. To keep the plan of a dozen participants, their place was soon offered to India, who gladly accepted it.

The problem with these talks with the headmaster was that they always have a second part when the old man would try to influence Harry to do things totally against his will: avoid contact with Sirius, return to the Dursley's for the Summer, give up his freedom and accept the headmaster's guidance and guardianship, keep distance from his Slytherin's concubines, etc. They always were a hard exercise in patience for the young man, but he was developing a great resistance to them.

The articles in The Quibbler were a great fun for them. The one about Snape was followed by "Sirius Black's miscarried case: a study on the use of the government for personal interests" in the second half of January, and "Amelia Bones and how to put the blame on your subordinates" in the beginning of February.

Valentine's was a stressful but wonderful day for Harry. In fact, they expanded the celebrations to three whole days, so he could expend some time with each girl (human or not) in the group. With many of them, that was the first time he could talk with them in a personal way and learn a little about them. When in group, the extroverts usually caught all the attention, relegating the introverts to the background.

After Valentine's, the section "The Lies they told us" in The Quibbler brought out their masterpiece: "You-Know-Who Tom Marvolo Riddle is". Harry loved the title, even if it caused an extra hour with the headmaster wailing about that secret being revealed so soon. Fortunately Dumbledore had no knowledge of his close relationship with Luna and his father, so he couldn't blame Harry too much over it.

But the article had caused a lot of impact in the British magical society, to the point that Xenophilius Lovegood was summoned by the Ministry 'to clarify' some points of the article. He just sent them a note saying he was too busy to comply. Several people, including some from DMLE and other Ministry departments, tried to reach him with no success. Nobody remembered exactly were he lived, and owls carrying tracking charms or any other magic were unable to find him. Even the Weasley family, his close neighbours for decades, couldn't tell more than 'his home is near', not being able to point a direction. But Xeno didn't take the persecution so well, so much so that he took revenge with the next article, wrote by Luna with help from Susan, Daphne and Penelope Clearwater: 'Cornelius Fudge: a study on corruption'.

The article was a fine piece of investigative journalism. Its simplicity was a fine example of how little attention the magical society expended in even the simplest contradictions. A simple inquiry with the goblins revealed the extent of the inheritances received by Cornelius from his ancestors: a little less than four hundred thousand galleons. Then, a simple calculation with data provided by the own Ministry showed how much money Cornelius had received in his twenty plus years of service there: around two hundred forty thousand galleons. Then, reading The Daily Prophet's last article about Britain's wealthiest wizards you can find the Fudge family listed in the 6th position, with a total wealth of 3.6 million galleons. Where the difference came from?

.o0o.

The first thing Hermione Jane Granger did after returning to Hogwarts was search her head of house to see her results on the first term exams and compare them with the results of the others students in her year. She barely contained herself from looking until she found an empty classroom where she could be alone for the comparison.

Since her first day in a classroom all her efforts were focused in outdoing everyone else in her academic pursuits. It was a mechanism of defence that her ego had developed to compensate her for her huge incisors, her unruly hair, her lack of taste and interest in clothes, makeup and jewellery; her vocabulary too far-fetched for such a young child and her lack of friends. All the intelligence she demonstrated in classes was never used to analyse her persona. She was always criticizing the lack of proper behaviour of other children. She was always attempting to command how her peers should act. That not working, she would rat them out to whatever authority figure happened to be nearby. If she had ever asked herself if she would like to befriend a girl like her, maybe she could have seen some of her defects and corrected them. Unfortunately, when things had gone wrong with other children, she had turned to the adults, who praised and encouraged her good manners and politeness, her rich vocabulary and obedience, reinforcing the behaviour that made her isolated and unpopular in a vicious circle.

And now, in an isolated classroom, she was crying her heart out. She was first in her year in a single class: History of Magic. A class in which most students were doing self-study, and didn't participate in the exams applied by the ghost professor. In certain terms, she was expecting it. She had rationalized that each discipline would be dominated by a few 'specialists'. She had prepared herself to accept losing the first position in individual disciplines to these specialists, while expecting to excel in the overall grades doing better than them in the disciplines out of their restricted focus. But she wasn't the first overall. She wasn't even in the five first students overall. She had done all she could, she had put all her efforts in succeed, and she had failed.

How could she had failed? She was sure no other student had read so much, had worked so much as her. And the first student overall was Harry Potter? How could that be? Harry was a close friend until recently, and only an average student. He had put some effort this year, but still she rarely saw him in the Library or working in their common room. Every time she had saw him he was surrounded by a bunch of first-year girls. How could him surpass her grades?

Being such a lonely girl, always doing everything by herself, Hermione wasn't able to see the results of a good team work. She didn't have experience with how much time you can economize when the work is divided between many people, each one doing a part of it them sharing their results with all. She was so dependent on her good memory to repeat what she had read verbatim that she never benefited from the deeper understanding that comes from trying to express your knowledge in simpler forms, when you have an audience of younger girls eager to learn. She had always only count with what she read from the books and what the teacher tells in class that she never imagined how much an explanation from an older student could help you when you reach a block in your studies. What Hermione wasn't able to understand was that she was defeated not by lack of effort, but by lack of friends.

.o0o.

Harry entered the Forbidden Forest with his magic in full alert mode. He wasn't expecting nothing too dangerous, but the message Rhea had gave him from Firenze was a little cryptical, as always was anything that came from the centaur: "Someone expects to be subjugated by you in the Forbidden Forest. Don't delay. Bane may not survive another encounter with her."

He had walked for half an hour when he found the first signal of her presence, whatever she was: an unnatural silence around him.

He slowly advanced into a small clearing, expecting to be attacked at any moment. His wait wasn't long. He felt someone approaching him from behind at an amazing speed. When this someone was almost reaching him Harry dropped to his knees and used his arms to throw his attacker over his shoulder, a martial arts move he learnt from Su Li.

His opponent felt over her back and was immediately trapped down by the roots of the nearby trees, animated by Harry's magic.

"Ouch! That hurts!"

Harry stood up and approached his prisoner. It was a girl a little older than him, with long and wavy white hair, extremely white skin and golden eyes. Her body was slim but curvaceous, hips and breasts very accentuated in an otherwise fragile-looking frame, but Harry knew that her appearance was deceiving. She was fast and strong, he was sure of that. She wore a long green dress with slits on both sides to aid mobility.

"Who are you? And what are you?" Harry asked.

"What am I? Not a clue?" she answered then gave him an open smile, showing her fangs.

"Oh, a vampire. A very beautiful one. I'm Harry Potter, Hogwarts' student, miss...?"

"Do you know of an Alpine white flower with green leaves and yellow core?" she asked, pointing successively to her hair, dress and then blinking her eyes,

"Uh… Edelweiss, is it?"

"Good. Yes, I'm Edelweiss. I was expecting you were able to beat me. I wouldn't submit me to you if you couldn't. But that was really fast and somewhat embarrassing for me. I had the advantage of terrain and surprise and still you defeated me so easily!"

"Well, I having been training… a lot. But… aren't most vampires from Transylvania? And isn't it a little far from the Alps?"

"I'm Austrian. I was born in Innsbruck, Tyrol, in 1742. But when tuberculosis came to my family, my mother wasn't ready to die, or see me dying either. We made all the way to Transylvania, where we were turned into vampires as a way to escape death. Listen, I want to know you better, and I'm flattered that you seem willing to know me better too, but would you accept an oath of servitude so you can trust me to be a good girl and let me free again?"

"Oh, sure! Sorry, I forgot…"

As an act of good-will Harry freed her immediately. She got to her knees before him and gave the oath. Then, still on her knees she turned her back to him and removed her dress, falling on her fours. "To the victor the spoils of war!" she said while stretching her arms ahead, giving her back a beautiful curve and fully exposing her rear end to him.

.o0o.

"Wow! I heard about it, but… wow! Your magic is really fascinating used this way, even if I wasn't expecting your choice of… orifice. Do you know that vampires are sterile, don't you?"

"Hm? No, I didn't. You mean… I could have done… and no risks? Oh, my!"

"Don't worry. We can do it whatever way you prefer, whenever you want it. But always keep this balm of yours at ready. The natural lubricant function is another thing I lost when converted."

"There is something I don't understand. You are called undead, but you have a moving body and a conscious. This makes me see you as a living being."

"You're correct in considering me alive, even if it is a very different form of life. I'm sterile, as I said, meaning you'll not suffer me in PMS, cramps or refusing sex because of my inexistent period. I don't breathe nor does my heart beat. I'm stronger and faster than most humans, and I'm not so overwhelmed by emotions as they are. I don't eat or drink except blood, well some of us also have a thing for red wines, but I never developed the taste. There are few ways I can be killed. But the reason why we're called undead isn't because of our physical characteristics but because we don't have a soul. A human being has a short life full of dangers to shorter it still more, but when they die they will have a form of afterlife awaiting for them. My life is limited to this body; when it is destroyed, there will be nothing left of me."

"Wow, this is sad. I didn't know… I didn't know much about vampires until now. Are you sure there is nothing I could do for you?"

"There're some legends… Don't know if there is any truth behind them… Anyway, we have time, Harry. With your help we can make this body last for 15 to 20 centuries more. Now come here. Good… you are still lubricated. It's time you have a woman the way they were designed to be taken."

.o0o.

Ronald Weasley was again in trouble. During the holidays he had talked with his twins brothers about girls and his problems in catching one for himself. As it was their little brother asking, the twins even tried to give some good advices. They tried to explain to Ron how relationships go better when there was a balance on what you received from it and what it requires from you. They soon tired of the waste of time. Their brother was still too immature and selfish for a relationship with a girl. The idea of a girl as a partner whose needs he would have to comprehend and fulfil was foreigner to him. The examples his brothers gave to him about the kind of behaviour a girlfriend would expect from him horrified the youngest Weasley son. The twins, understanding that what Ron really wanted was a slave and not a girlfriend, stop trying to help him, and advised him to wait a few years until he gets older.

But Ronald Weasley was horny and becoming desperate. For a little moment he even thought that maybe his little sister could help him. Three hours and a quarter had last her bat-bogey hex! No, Ginny definitely wasn't the right person to help him! So, he turned again to the twins, but with another kind of approach. Convinced that magic had some easy solution to his problem, and that the twins were hiding that solution for some reason, he decided to rummage through their stuff looking for something that would help him with his problem.

Ron and subtlety never met. The twins immediately recognized what their little brother was trying to do and decided that he was in need of a prank as a lesson. So, they expended the last days of the break imagining things that would put him in trouble, writing them down on parchment and 'forgetting' the notes somewhere easy for him to find.

The first 'secret' that Ronald tried was a mess of annotations about how effective was dirty talk in exciting a girl. His first victim was a pretty little blond Gryff called Astoria. The girl was completely disgusted with him after seeing (again) his bad table manners at breakfast. When he came to her talking about his wish of putting his mouth in her most intimate places she almost succeeded in transfer his nose to the back of his head. Ronald have two days under madame Pomfrey's care to think about his failure. He concluded that the girl was still too young and immature to appreciate it already.

For his next victim he then chose Lavender Brown, a voluptuous and (according the male rumour mill of the school) easy third year girl. He had to regrow four teeth after fixing his jaw in a long night under Skele-gro potion. This time he had three days in the infirmary to think why his plan had failed. The time passed and he was still in doubt if he had tried to touch her boobs too soon or was only bad luck in having caught her on one of those bad days.

Things weren't going well for Ronald. He was behind in his studies, owed several late essays, his grades were bellow acceptable, he was constantly horny… He talked with Seamus and Dean but both boys were scared from the punishments they have received from McGonagall early in the year. All they gave to him was vague advice about using his imagination and his hand to solve his problem. But he had did it! He tried masturbation for a whole minute and nothing! Anyway, what good could his imagination do if he haven't a clue of what a girl's body looks like?

That thought was what put him on his next adventure. He needed to discover what the female body was like in order to feed his imagination! So, he put aside his already late homework to brew the invisibility potion he had found in the twin's room.

It took him a week to prepare the potion. He chose Tuesday's Charms class as a good moment, as it was followed by a free period. When the class was close to finish, he ran to the female restroom and drank the potion. It was a terrible potion, but must be working from the way his body reacted. He climbed up and positioned himself on top of one of the walls that separated the toilettes, hoping to be able to see whatever happened inside any of them. He was so excited that he dropped his pants and got ready for what he hopped would be his first conscious ejaculation, with his dick in hand. He was tired of wet dreams. He wants some real action!

But he wasn't felling well. The potion seemed to be revolving around his guts in a strange way. He was felling nauseous and dizzy. He started farting the moment the door was opened, and start vomiting the moment the screams began. Then he lost consciousness and fell, still holding his dick and waiting for his precious moment of discovery.

He wasn't expelled… yet. But McGonagall made sure he knew how close he was. The worst were his parents. The shame in the eyes of his mother, and the deception in his father's face.

.o0o.

The muggleborns in the group were specially busied showing the amazing world of electronic devices to her peers. They had used the Yule break to familiarize themselves with the newest products, and now were using the incredible capacities of The Room to create the devices and the power supply they wanted.

By the way, The Room's capacities and their fresh knowledge about Virtual Reality gave them excellent ideas about how to organize things in the modules they were designing for their new nation. With the kind of magic The Room was able to do, there was no need for furniture, devices, appliances… just food! If they could learn how to duplicate its capabilities, most of their problems in isolating themselves from the rest of the world would be solved! And the best was that The Room itself was able to show them how it was made and how it all works!

Harry was happy to see all these researches progressing so well because he had a special project he wanted to start as soon as possible but only after the main questions about their survival were answered: to complement the survival of the intelligent species he wants to care about the survival of their cultures. The Room was able to create many objects they in the group had only a superficial knowledge about. How was this possible? Where the knowledge came from? Where and how The Room stored it? His main question was: Can this be adapted to store all the knowledge and artwork created by all these species?

.o0o.

"Hey, dogfather, what was so urgent?"

"Hi, pup. Come here and see this."

"A locket? What is so special about it? Oh… Don't tell me, let me guess! Is it another of those horcruxes of Voldemort? This thing is radiating black magic!"

"Yes, it is. What surprised me more was where it was found: the Black ancient manor at London! I mean, it was the house I lived the first half of my life, and it was there! Well, in my defence I must add that it was moved there by my brother years after I left my home for good."

.o0o.

"So, we're now just one or two horcruxes from getting rid of Voldemort for good?"

"Yes, Rosalyn. That's pretty good, but we still don't know about what they could be or where they could be hidden."

"How can we find them?"

"Gemma, one of my first elves, is working on that. She preserved the soul fragment that she extracted from my scar and is trying to weaken it so we could use legilimency to extract its secrets."

"But is it possible to apply legilimency on a soul fragment?"

"No, we already tried it, but it didn't work. The plan is to force the soul fragment to possess an animal then apply legilimency on the animal's brain."

"Well, if you want my help, I'm in. When you plan to do it?"

"Saturday morning. This way we have plenty of time to do the legilimency attack and recover from the effort."

"Good. Who more will participate?"

"Well, I was counting with your help to select the best ones for this task and how we'll proceed."

"No problem. Let everything with me, we'll be ready. You have other things requiring your attention."

"Thank you so much!"

"Anytime, Harry."

.o0o.

It wasn't already 7am when they started. They were really excited to get some information. The runes to contain the piece of Voldemort's soul inside the jar were replicated in a large recipient. A poor rabbit was brought from the Forbidden Forest to serve as a container for it and introduced in the recipient. The jar was connected with the recipient and then opened. The soul fragment entered the recipient and wandered around for a moment before possessing the rabbit. Its wobbly and insecure behaviour was the first signal that the half year exposition to the fumes of the potent hallucinogen had any effect on the soul fragment.

They started the attack as soon as the possession was completed. Their first priority were the remaining horcruxes. It was just one, Hufflepuff's cup, which was in Bellatrix's vault in Gringotts. Then they search for a list of the Death Eaters and their crimes, focusing on those still alive (by Voldemort's memory). The next topic were his hiding places. They were finishing with it when the rabbit died and the soul fragment exited it. It was still 2pm. They evaluated the situation and decided to proceed. It would be better to eliminate that soul fragment as soon as possible. Five other rabbits were captured and kept in a box to be used one by one.

When all the hideouts and their protections were listed, they followed the other points in their list in order: the Dark Mark and its properties, Voldemort's plans and goals, his favourite strategies, his weaknesses, his unmarked supporters… The list was extensive because they wouldn't have another chance. With just one horcrux remaining they couldn't afford to keep this soul fragment around. A single luck rabbit was released alive when they finished.

.o0o.

"Well, now we know for sure that the 'I was under the Imperius' excuse was just a pile of bull shit. Do we have enough proof to sustain the claim in an article?"

"Yes, we have, but I'm not sure if we should publish it. First, we would need to publish its arithmancy equivalent as proof, and that can facilitate the work for any new Dark Lord. Second, it would alert Voldemort that we are aware of its secrets and he could find some way of protecting it, neutralizing our advantage."

"What about the Death Eaters' crimes? Do we have enough evidence to accuse at least some?"

"Nothing new. It's disgusting to know of so much crimes without the means to punish the culprits."

"But we have the means to punish the culprits."

"What do you mean? We just said we don't have proofs!"

"We don't have proofs to force others to punish them, but we do have the means to punish them."

"But… you mean… do you want us to make justice with our hands?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I mean!"

For some time they remained in silence, just looking each other to see if the idea receives some critic or support.

"Harry?"

"I knew we would reach this point some time, I was just hoping not so soon. These people already committed heinous crimes… they could still be doing more, against muggles. Madame Bones told us about how she was prevented from investigating crimes against muggles if the Statute of Secrecy wasn't violated. She even went to the Wizengamot, just to them transform the Minister's edit in a full law."

"But… are you willing to kill them by their past crimes? Or by the possibility they commit new ones in the future? They could have reformed themselves!"

"Possible, but not probable."

"We'll face some hard times in the future. Whatever we'll need to suffer will only be harder with people like them around. They are dangerous and they are magical. We must think in our safety..."

"I don't think I have the guts to be a killer..."

"You don't need to be a killer, I can do it… for us, I can do it. But I need you all to be okay with this decision, or I'll not be able to cup with what I would need to do."

"Oh, no, mister. I wouldn't let you all the pleasure for yourself."

"Edelweiss! You can't possible… Oh! You can!"

"Yes, it wouldn't be the first time for me, for a long shot. If this is what we need, this is what I'll do. But, as Harry said, we need the whole group to accept it. I don't want fingers pointing to us because we did the dirty job you didn't want to do."

"I see the point, I really do, but I had grow in an environment where respect to the law was considered the most important pillar to a peaceful and just society, and vigilantism is a disrespect against the law. I proposed the follow: we keep all known Death Eaters under surveillance; while they keep themselves clean we let them be, but any proof of new heinous crimes like murder or rape, they are done. What you think?"

"I can agree with it for now, under the reserve to review this point if we reach a state were things are becoming too dangerous to let them be."

"Agreed" chorused several of the girls. Susan wasn't totally at peace, but she finally also agreed and that marked the end of the controversy, the other girls who were in doubt following her capitulation.

.o0o.

"This sudden interest in the goblins isn't just because they are keeping the last horcruxes, is it?"

"No, it isn't. I found about them in my first day in the magical world. I found really intriguing that wizards and witches use a different species to do their banking services. Then I came here to see Binns going on and on about goblin rebellions. If it was strange to us let them care for our banking before, when I thought they were our friends, seeing how much loss of blood the two species had caused each other made it unbelievable. Why? It doesn't make sense!"

"Legend says it was Merlin himself who gave them the right to do our banking. People can hate and distrust them, but they would never deprive them of doing our banking without extra serious reasons. They would call anyone who proposes to go against a decision by Merlin himself crazy or traitor. That's a measure of Merlin's influence over Britain magical society."

"In August I contacted the goblins about the basilisk's carcass. The price they offered was a steal, and the general terms of the contract an outrage! They would have made more money from it than I!"

"If you were thinking of proposing a deal to the goblins for the cup, don't waste your time. The chances of they accepting it are minimal, and will cost you too much."

"And the chances to steal the cup from them aren't good at all. I think they never had been robbed."

"They were, in July 30th 2011. Quirrel, possessed by Voldemort, entered the vault 713 but the philosopher's stone was already moved from there. I saw the vault and the stone being removed from it some hours before the attack."

"Did you ask the soul fragment about how it was done?"

"Sure. But if the goblins discovered how, they sure would have closed the gap."

"Harry, you can't be thinking of doing it yourself! It's too risky!"

"Think in the prize, Hannah: to defeat Voldemort without having to fight against him and his Death Eaters. If he succeeds in regain a body before we reach his last horcrux we could lose hundreds of lives, including ours own."

"Ah… I see. But listen carefully, mister Potter. If you try something like this without a perfect plan and many alternative contingency plans I wouldn't let you out of my sight again for the rest of our lives. Is that clear?"

.o0o.

Author's Note:

1) SLYNNR wrote this review on chapter 12: "Might I suggest the name Edelweiss for one of the French names. It was the name of the song for the Austrian partisans during WWII. It's all about a flower that blooms in winter". I found the suggestion interesting, but Edelweiss isn't a French name, but German. So, instead of a French veela, I gave him an Austrian female vampire which will be a fierce warrior in future chapters, instead of just a name with little focus. Hope you liked her, SLYNNR.

2) Thank you everybody for the support so far. Please, remember to let me a review with your opinion about the path this story is taking and what you think I'm doing wrong so far.