Chapter 5:

At the meetings of the advanced study group, we each could make presentations. This time, I did.

"As we have seen, there are signs that we will be facing a new war with a resurgence of the Death Eaters, and a reappearance of he must not be named. It might be soon or years away, but we should expect the need to fight in a war.

One advantage our side may have, is a willingness to learn from, and not dismiss, muggle technologies.

You may or may not have been aware, earlier this year, and also little bit in the end of 1990, the British Commonwealth, along with their allies in America and other places, went to war against the Babylonian Empire over a dispute of ownership of a place called Kuwait. Of course the muggle names of places are different from the wizarding names.

There are some astonishing technologies employed by the British, and Americans in particular, that would be relevant to a wizarding war. First, to see if the exact mechanisms could work with magic and become a force multiplier. Second, to see if the equivalent functions could be created by magic as needed. Third, to understand the basic concepts and tactics, to see how they would apply to magical combat.

In this war, both sides had armour and long range explosive weaponry. However, the Anglo-American technology advantage was in being hidden, then striking accurately, and from long distance. Their flying machines would approach in a hard to detect manner, then release explosives that could find their own way to precisely their target without any further human attention. The defenders, had their own weapons including ones that could chase flyers, however those flyers were able to avoid being found.

Another aspect of the war, were Anglo-American long range explosives being accurate at a longer distance than the defenders.

Another weapon was the unmanned flying machine called a drone. They were used to identify enemy positions for later attack. Also, they were used to confuse the enemy firing at their manned flying machines. They were also used to directly attack the enemy by exploding on impact. They were

controlled by computers.

Finally, a weapon used for decades, is the ballistic projectile, fired by a hidden person, from a long distance away, and arriving faster than the speed of sound, so there is not audible or noticeable visual warning. One would need a permanent shield or confusion spell to avoid this long standing muggle technology.

I do not have the answers yet, but I think these areas should be looked at."

In the organized way we had to give presentations, Hermione had a response presentation. "I'd like to address the topic of sniper rifles. At the time of the Statute of Secrecy, European armies typically used flintlock muskets. I saw a TV documentary about them. Of course those were subsonic, but that would not have given enough time for even the fastest wordless spellcasters to put up a shield. It was that they had a delay from pulling the trigger before the ignition of powder and then the firing of the projectiles, and the range of being accurate was relatively short. Furthermore, repeat firings would take about 20 seconds, and there would be a cloud of smoke marking the location of the initial firing. It is possible that today's magical society assumes that today's rifles are similar to what was around in the 1600's. I was trying to research if any modern day wizards were part of World Wars One and Two, and I think I found some examples, so they should be aware of weapons commonly used in those wars.

Also, we should note that in the centuries before the statute of secrecy, swords were commonly used by wizards, but not bows and arrows. They must have thought that spells were more effective for attacks at a distance.

I have citations to back up my statements, if you are interested in seeing them."

My next presentation to the advanced study group was on the rules of war.

"There are laws governing combat situations in magic Britain. There are also customs. What happens when the other side does not follow them? What happens in the case a war, where losing means genocide? I maintain the a future war against Voldy and his Death Eaters would fall under both categories.

In the previous war against the Death Eaters, aurors were allowed to use the unforgivable curses. Of the three, only the death curse might be tactically useful for civilians, and it is not clear to me why that should be forbidden.

In muggle wars of this century, there have been treaties regarding treatment of prisoners. They were only followed when both sides followed them. During the Second World War, Britain and Germany followed the treaties strictly. There was one instance where Germany mistreated British prisoners, and Britain publicly retaliated and then both sides resumed following the treaty. During the same war, Germany and Russia ignored the same treaty against each others prisoners.

During the First World War, on the front of Germany versus France, Britain and its Commonwealth, prisoners of war were largely treated according to treaties. However, Canada was an exception. They tended to execute German soldiers trying to surrender, due to a belief that Germany did the same early in the war.

How to put the history of organized wars in the context of a conflict that largely consists of raids on houses and public locations?"

Later when I had my usual meeting with Dumbledore. I started with, "I want to deal with the dragon in the room based on my knowledge of this world. Many of the millions of fans of this world mistrust your decisions. However, you are the only viable leader in this fight, at this time, until Harry Potter is capable.

You do realize that you are part of a hero's journey story, with you as the mentor, and the mentor can never survive the whole story. However, your death was precipitated by your arrogance in your own curse breaking skills. You were compelled to put on the ring that contained the Resurrection Stone in Gaunt's cottage. You did use you're death strategically, so that Riddle thought that he'd gained loyalty of the Elder Wand, when in fact Harry Potter had that loyalty.

You might have desired the stone and that might have weakened your resistance. You should have brought along a qualified curse breaker, maybe one with experience with Egyptian artifacts."

I continued, "I understand of the concept of the greater good, and that you are a commander of this war, and that soldiers will need to die for it to be concluded successfully. Also, the stories were written with Harry Potter as the main character, and therefore his continual mistreatment angered manyof the fans, and they blamed you for that mistreatment. Also your decisions seemed at best, overconfident."

Dumbledore replied, "That you for that information, Tom."