His office was full today. Ignoring the other occupants, he looked up at the clock and saw that it was seven o'clock in the morning. There was still enough time for him to get to King Cross.
Facing the other occupants, he moved to his desk and sat on his chair. The people he'd invited to his office this early morning were none other than his inner circle, or his Halo like they were called in the organization.
There was Sheda who was sitting beside her late husband's brother, Rowland. Beside Rowland was Lord Ambrosius of the Noble and Ancient House of Flume, the owner of Honeydukes. Unknown to most, Lord Flume was an alchemist who had been practicing his craft for over forty years now. He was one of Harry's many tutors.
On Sheda's other side was Manto Mopsus, the former Divination professor of Hogwarts and seer extraordinaire. Next to the blind seer was the man, the sensation, the legend—Gilderoy Lockhart.
Lockhart was not someone Harry would have ever thought would be a part of their group. The man was a fraud, or, at least, had been a fraud before he met Harry. Lockhart and others like Flume had been brought to Harry's attention by Mopsus. The blind seer had directed Harry to individuals with essential talents that would not only be valuable assets for his goals but be extremely loyal. For Flume it had taken both Mopsus and Bathsheda to convince him to swear loyalty to a child, but it had been pretty easy with Lockhart.
One might wonder what abilities the pretty boy had to be deemed a valuable asset. Well, Lockharts was a professional with the mind arts. He hadn't only been an Obliviator in the past, having years of career work to hone his skill, but he was also a Master Occlumens and quite skilled at Legilimency too. His only problem was that he was a lazy sod who had preferred robbing others of their hard work rather than struggling for his own success. But after he'd sworn his life and loyalty to Harry that changed. Harry handed him over to Rastrick and after a year the vampire did not only make the blonde ponce a Master duelist, but he had the ex-fraud being capable of wandless magic to a minimal degree. Harry didn't know the training regime Rastrick had put Lockhart through but he knew that even him, with all the memories and talents he'd gained from Voldemort's Horcrux, wouldn't want to go through such a thing.
Today Lockhart was still the pretty boy he used to be, but he could now back up his latest adventure series with live demonstrations. The celebrity was currently speaking to the vampire who had made him the skilled wizard he was today. Like always, Rastrick had an expression of mild amusement, his red eyes twinkling as he listened to whatever it was Lockhart was whispering to him.
Sitting on the couch by the bookcase were two strange fellows. One had no more than just three limbs and his left hand was a magical, wooden, artifact that the healers of Saint Mungos had used to replace his real arm which had been torn off by an angry Nogtail. He had more scars on him than Mad-Eye Moody. This was none other than Silvanus Kettleburn, the Professor of Care of Magical Creatures at Hogwarts.
In contrast, not much could be observed about Kettleburn's companion. He was cloaked and hooded in charmed fabrics, cutting an impressive and intimidating figure. Regardless of his obscured identity Harry knew who he was. He was Caradoc Dearborn, a former member of Albus Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix. The half-blood wizard had been attacked by Death Eaters during the war. Harry knew from Voldemort's memories that Voldemort had been there that day to oversee the performance of new Death Eater recruits. One of the young Death Eaters had used Fiendfyre on Dearborn's house and the half-blood had used a spell from his mother's pureblood family magic to stop the fire. Voldemort had had to step in during the battle as Dearborn had proved himself more dangerous than anyone had expected.
He had left Dearborn in a state similar to what the Lestranges had done to the Longbottoms. Harry found out from Dearborn, after the man had joined his cause, that Unspeakables had been the first responders at the scene after the battle. Their sensors had caught the spell Dearborn had used to stop the Fiendfyre and they were curious about it. They had been able to heal him from the effects of an overdose of cruciatus and in exchange of him teaching them his maternal family magics he'd ask that they employ him.
By the time Albus Dumbledore and the Ministry had arrived at the scene Dearborn had already been swearing his oaths in the DOM. Seeing a house half ravaged by Fiendfyre, everyone had assumed that Caradoc Dearborn was dead.
Manto had been the one to lead Harry to Dearborn and the main reason why the man had joined Harry was spite. Dearborn after his near death experience became enlightened. He realized that Dumbledore's 'stun don't kill' policy had been horrible for a war and had been what led to the death of his friends, the Bones and the Prewetts.
Of all of them seated in the study, only Harry and Manto knew who was under the Unspeakable robes. The others had taken to calling him Mysterio.
Coming out of his thoughts, Harry cleared his throat and all talks died. "Thank you all for making it here this early in the morning," he said in greeting. "We have a few things to discuss this morning before I make it to King's Cross. First, have any of you heard from Quirinus yet?"
"I visited Albania," Rastrick said, sitting forward, his amused visage replaced with critical seriousness. "Myself and my coven swept through the country for a week and we found neither hide nor hair of our Brother in the Light."
Harry sighed. He felt someone watching him and looked in the direction of the observer. It was Manto. He sighed again. If there was anyone who knew exactly what had happened to Quirinus and how Harry was planning to take advantage of the situation then it'd be none other than the blind seer. Manto would speak nothing of it though, his loyalty was truer than even that of Sheda.
"We will just have to double our efforts in finding him," Harry said. He caught Rowland stealing glances at Manto and shot the redhead a meaningful glance when he saw that he was about to open his mouth and speak.
His new psionic abilities also warned him before the man could speak. Harry utilized it well and made Rowland forget what he was about to ask. He will remember later but hopefully the question won't be made in public.
Rastrick and Rowland, aside Harry himself, were the only ones who knew the tried depth and limitlessness of Manto's gift. While Rastrick wasn't tactless enough to point out to Harry in public that Manto could find Quirinus in seconds, Rowland would do just that due to innocent assumption that Harry had forgotten about the blind seer's capabilities.
At his look and psionic command, Rowland closed his mouth though he had a confused look. Harry decided to place the attention on him now, to distract him from thinking further about this.
"How is the island project coming up, Rowland?" He asked.
The others looked confused and Harry, in two minutes, informed them of the magical nation of an archipelago of islands that he was setting up as a backup plan. Though he didn't tell them the secrets of the Fidelius wards encompassing each of the islands. They will only know the location when it becomes necessary for it to be disclosed to them.
"We are halfway done with transporting known magical fauna to the Ignoto Isles," Rowland reported once Harry completed his explanation of the isles to his Halo.
"Ignoto Isles?" Lockhart asked, arching his brows in amusement.
Rowland shrugged. "It's what the boys in the Assassin Squad are calling it."
"Rowland, you are to consult with Mysterio and Professor Kettleburn on the remaining half of the known magical fauna and all the unknown ones," Harry instructed and received nods from the three whom he had mentioned their names. "After that you will then acquire all known and unknown magical flora. In contrast to the fauna, these will be kept in powerful stasis chambers. Sheda can help you with that I believe. When you are done with that then acquire samples of all muggles flora and fauna. These will also be preserved in powerful stasis. I believe you know where to buy a magizoology trunk where all these static samples can be kept. A helpful tip, muggle internet will help you in discovering all the fauna and flora that exists. If you can acquire fossils too I will appreciate that. It does not matter if you have to break into some American lab to take the fossil. Just make sure to leave a fake that will stand against all tests and scans."
Rowland for a moment looked overwhelmed with his tasks but once Harry was done speaking to him, he nodded.
Harry faced Lockhart next. "How are the new recruits coming, Gilderoy?"
The man sat up proudly, making Rastrick roll his eyes. "They are handling the training well, Your Brightness," he informed. "In fact, two months is all they need before they reach the stage where they can be inducted into our forces."
Harry hummed in acknowledgement. "That's good," he praised. "And when they are inducted how large will our forces be altogether?"
Lockhart tilted his head to the side thoughtfully. "We have the Assassin Squad, the Black ops teams, the mechanized cavalry, and the commando troops. Collectively, after the induction of the new recruits, our forces will number three hundred. Sixty percent of that are muggles—ex military and the likes. "
Harry was even glad they had magicals at all. Forty percent, one hundred and twenty, was a huge number in fact. It took them a lot of covert actions to recruit from the magical world without their various ministries noticing. In a way, Voldemort's war helped them, destabilizing the British ministry's tracking systems of wizards and witches.
Their 'forces' as Lockhart had eloquently called them were known as the Luminaire Security but off their originally assigned work as Harry's private army, they pose as Lyght Neen Security Group. Lyght Neen was Harry's company.
Harry has judiciously used the imperius curse on the gracious Father Samuel and had made the man generate ten million pounds for him. The sly man had come up with quite the plan back then. Harry hadn't known that Catholics were so helpful or rich. It had taken two months to generate ten million pounds for some non-existent twins who needed replacement kidneys in India. And even after then people kept on donating more.
Harry had thirteen million to invest into various tech leading companies in the world. He'd created Lyght Neen to manage his investments and those of others willing to use Lyght Neen's services. He'd made Rastrick the CEO of the company and he hadn't expected the man to be frighteningly competent. In a year the vampire tripled Harry's investments and assets then he acquired five hundred customer's for the company. Lyght Neen was doing quite well today and Harry was halfway to being a billionaire.
Rastrick might possibly be the least loyal of the Halo, having sworn loyalty to Harry because of the life debt he owed him from Harry saving him from the Roman Royal prison, yet the man was a damn, fine businessman.
And regarding his loyalty, Harry wasn't much concerned anymore. Even vampires were not immune to his psionic magic. He could hear every single thought grinding in Rastrick's head. The man wasn't comfortable paying obeisance to others but he was not a backstabber. Also, from his memories, Harry could see that he was very different from other vampire Coven Masters. The goblins had taught him a lot about humbleness and servitude.
"That's good," Harry repeated. "Keep up the good work, Gilderoy. How is Lyght Neen faring, Xavier?"
The man grinned. One would only need to take a look at him to see how much he enjoyed corporate politics for it was certainly not the monotonous bureaucracy that had him this excited.
"We have gained as much as we can from the European tech sector, Your Brightness," Rastrick reported. "I brought a proposal here with me. It details my plans for us branching into the more bountiful, American technology sector."
"Hold on to it," Harry told the vampire, "we will go over it together when we are done with this meeting. In the meantime, have you heard of the Wonder of Bavaria?"
Rastrick looked taken aback by the turnaround of the topic but nodded. As he did, Harry slipped into his mind and began to take everything the aged vampire knew about the "Wonder of Bavaria."
It took just a few seconds and Harry had struck a thinking pose to make the others not wonder about the brief silence. He turned to Xavier. "I want you to investigate this old event. Find out if it holds any truth or is just a myth. If you have to break into the German Ministry of Magic to find the information I seek... do it, but don't get caught."
Everyone but Xavier looked confused and the vampire was internally wondering why Harry wanted to know more about the Wonder of Bavaria. That was simple. Harry knew, through Voldemort, that a genie had been in Bavaria in the seventeenth century.
Prinzessin Fee this genie had been called, a supposedly imaginary wife of various Bohemian Kings who had made all their dreams reality. Voldemort had only stumbled on her when researching sex rituals and their benefits.
Curious about a being who could make one's dreams reality, he'd visited the graves of the Bohemian Kings and had used a necromancy ritual to commune with their spirits and they told him about the genie.
Knowing that genies were immortal, Voldemort had searched for her years but never succeeded in finding her. But Harry would as he had something, or rather, someone, Voldemort hadn't had supporting his cause.
"Have Professor Mopsus assist you in your search. I believe it will increase your chances of success," he told the vampire, giving him further instruction.
Getting a nod from the Coven Count he turned towards Mysterio. "Mysterio, how is Project Niffler progressing?"
Project Niffler was a project Harry had come up with in which Dearborn was going to document every nano detail of all the ongoing and past projects of the Department of Mysteries for him. It was a Project that was going to take years before completion but from what Dearborn had already supplied him with, Harry had gained a lot. The staggeringly unbelievable researches the Unspeakables had conducted— and were still conducting —were mind-blowing. Some of the things in the DOM surpassed the most arcane knowledge Harry had from Voldemort's memories.
"Eight percent in progress, Your Brightness," Dearborn reported, his voice like a crackling radio, the result of the vocal disguise charm he was using.
Harry gave the man a nod. He could understand the slow gradualness. The DOM has been existing since 1672 so it will take a lot of time gathering and duplicating records, even sealed ones, of everything they have done since then, especially with just one man doing the job and not being able to do it all the time lest he'd be caught. Things would have been a lot easier if the wizarding world used computers.
"Ambrosius, anything regarding the Ministry and the Wizengamot that should be of interest to us?" Harry inquired.
The Wizard Lord nodded. "A few. I brought documents pertaining to them so that you can review them. If you wish to discuss your conclusions and plans for them after going through them then I'll be at your service as your noble political advisor," the man said with as much formality as one would expect of a wizard of his station.
Or I could just pluck the extra information or advice that I need from your head, miles away, without you knowing, Harry thought, humming.
He gave the lord a curt nod. "Sheda, you can give them the mirrors." At his command, Sheda stood up and opened a Mokeskin purse she had on her person. "Sheda here, some years back caught her fellow professor, Lily Potter, communicating with her husband, James Potter, via an enchanted mirror. With a virtuosic sleight of hand she was able to borrow the mirror from Mrs Potter and study it. She did eventually return it after in-depth analysis and last year she was able to reverse engineer the communication mirror. You will all protect your mirrors and maintain them, they're what you will use to keep in contact with me while I'm at Hogwarts and I'm going to assign you new duties and tasks via them."
He didn't really need the mirrors to contact them as he could do so mentally but only Sheda knew of his psionic gifts at the moment and she didn't even know much. He'd rather keep that secret a secret for now.
He watched as Sheda brought out the mirrors and distributed them. "They are all connected to one network. We can all contact each other or even hold conference calls," she informed her Brethrens of Light.
Once the mirrors were handed out and tested, the meeting was called to an end by Harry. The others left, with Sheda giving him a hug before she hurried to return to Hogwarts. Lord Flume left the documents he'd spoken of before leaving. Finally it was just Harry and Rastrick left in the office.
"Now, brief me on your plans for investing in American tech giants," Harry ordered. The vampire grinned and began the first of his proposals.