Chapter 17 "Alliances and Tidings of War"

DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

"Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will let it pass over me and through me, and when it has passed I will turn and look down the path where fear has passed, and there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

-Frank Herbert, Dune

To All my readers, I know that in my last post I promised that I would put my chapters within a two-week period. Obviously, I failed and for that I apologize. It's taken me forever to get to a point where I'm happy with what I've written. All I can say is that I'm back and will finish my story. I do try to answer as much e-mail as possible but sometimes it does get overwhelming. Your words of encouragement as well as constructive criticism are always encouraged and welcomed. This chapter has been long in the making.

Take Care and Enjoy!

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November 16, 6:30 am Potter Castle

Harry woke up to find Xiana sleeping soundly. Not wanting to disturb her he carefully extricated himself from their bed and made his way to the showers. He had a very long day ahead of him and need to get an early start. After his shower he dressed himself in his bull battle robes and went downstairs for a hearty breakfast. Dobby and Winky had been up even earlier and already had a sumptuous breakfast ready for him. Harry couldn't help feeling how lucky he was to have these particular elves as part of the Potter clan. He made his way to the kitchen and sat himself at the table.

Dobby was busy finishing another stack of blueberry waffles when he noticed his master sitting at the table. With gusto he made his way to his master and said, " Master Harry Potter sir, what can Dobby get you this morning?"

" How about some scrambled eggs, back bacon, stewed tomatoes, waffles and a couple cups of your best coffee. "

"You is missing special wizard pumpkin juice sir."

"Special pumpkin juice?"

"Yes master, this be a special creation from Dobby and Winky."

Harry not having a clue about what Dobby was talking about said, "Well, what's special about it?"

" It give master lots of energy, and is replenishing magical core much faster. Winky also says that master have much more lead in pencil. Dobby, knows that Winky want large family to take care off."

Harry's face went beet red at that last comment. Oh well he thought, if they took the time creating it he might as well try it. He looked at Dobby, shrugged his shoulders and said, "Bottoms up."

Dobby smiled and popped back to the kitchen to fetch his breakfast while he mentally reviewed his to do list.

Harry finished his breakfast and went back up to his private study to pick up the books and the philosophers stones. He knew his subconscious had been working on that very enigma. Why would Dumbledore have made another philosophers stone? It would certainly explain his energy levels at nearly 160 years of age. Why did he have the book of Azuli? There were so many questions, and no answers. He hoped that his time in fluxtime would answer some of these questions. Harry sighed and stored the stones and books in his bag.

Harry heard the door open and saw Xiana in her bathrobe walking towards him. He smiled and waited for her to reach him. When she was close enough is grabbed her and kissed her with as much passion as he could muster. He knew he would be gone for the next thirty days and he found his time away from her much harder to take. He heard her moaning. When they were both nearly out of oxygen they broke away.

Xiana replied, "Now that's what I call a kiss."

"What can I say, you bring nothing but the best in me."

"I wish I had more time oh husband of mine, I'm feeling quite passionate myself. They say pregnant women are quite insatiable." She smirked at him.

Harry groaned, " You don't play fair."

"Of course not, I was born a Zabini after all. "

Harry put up his hands and said, " Well, I know when I've met my match. I give up."

Harry then turned deathly serious and looked up at his wife's deep blue eyes and said, " Today is going to be difficult for you. Just remember, show no mercy. Those bastards are responsible for more innocent death than I can count. They made their bed with the devil and now it's time to pay the piper."

Harry noticed a blue fire appear in her eyes and almost felt sorry for them. Some long awaited justice was going to be dispensed today he thought. It was time for their proxy to gain prominence. Nothing else needed to be said. They held hands and walked downstairs together. Once they reached the parlour, they parted. Harry went off to the library and Xiana went off to get some breakfast.

Harry made his way to the family safe and disabled the wards and picked up the jewel chess and the dark stones he had acquired from the cave. He then called Doby and told him to get fifty pound of naquadria and twenty pound of rhenium. He needed to make his staff in order to wield the more powerful dark magic.

He did a quick a check to make sure he had everything and made his way to the trunk manor by Anubis pen. Once he reached the pen he spotted Anubis and hissed, sss Great one, I'll be gone for the next two day, I'm counting on you to look after the family. sss

sss Be at peace master, I will not allow any harm to come to my family. sss

Harry nodded and vanished the glass pane from Annubis pen so that he could rome at will. He looked around his home to get a good mental image. Once he was done he apparated to the scorpion lair to meet with Ollivander. Harry slowly made his way towards the command centre and noticed quite a few people who were already up. He made his way towards the breakfast tables and noticed that Ollivander was up and already eating.

Harry approached the old wand maker, when he looked up and noticed him. He immidialty stood up and and said, " Thank you for harbouring me, in my time of need Mr. Potter. "

Harry bowed his head toward the old wizard and said, " The pleasure is all mine sir. I hope to make your stay profitable and mutually beneficial to the both of us."

The old mage inclined in head and replied, " The pleasure is all mine Mr. Potter, or should I say Scorpion Sorcerer?"

" Please, just call me Harry."

The old mage simply smiled, and said, "As you wish. It is obvious from our previous work together that you are building an army. I 've been reading the daily Prophet. Although an unquestionable rag as far as good journalism is concerned, one can still extrapolate enough information from the useless dribble to realize that your presence if at the heart of the chaos that is overtaking our world. I must say, we are more then overdue for a change of direction."

"Mr. Ollivander, throughout history revolution has served as the catalyst for change. When an organism ceases to evolve and become stagnant, it dies. Our world has reached a crossroad. We either burn our old exterior and renew our self form the ashes of the old like the Phoenix or we die. I'm simply the catalyst for renewal. Hopefully, when we come out of this crucible, the magical races will be united. There is strength in unity. Racial unity is the key to our collective salvation. For too long have the magical races lived on their collective islands and in isolation. We need to build bridges that will stand the test of time. Collective strength will make us stronger and create the tools to face the next millennium."

"Those are very high minded ideals, Mr. Potter. What makes you think that you have what it takes to unite the magical world?"

" I don't know that I have. However, I don't see anyone stepping up to the plate. On one hand we have the ministry, which is so self absorbed in the ideals of power and self-interest that they care only for themselves. Whole armies of sycophants back stabbing each other in the hopes of gaining some small favour from their masters. Meanwhile the ideals of good government are being swept away by rampant corruption. Also, let's not forget Albus Dumbledore, the self-declared leader of the light. The bastard is responsible for so many crimes against humanity that the lines between the greater good and evil have become blurred. Finally, we have Voldemort, the self declared dark lord who is so far gone from humanity that calling him a self serving psychopathic lunatic is far to generous. Before him lays the path to absolute destruction for our world."

Pausing to gather his thoughts, he looked directly into Ollivander's eyes and said, " Faced with these choices, what else is there?"

" Believe me Mr. Potter, I have been looking for an alternative for a long time. I've known for some time that change was coming. Having seer blood in my line you see, I've foreseen certain events, which will come to pass. We have reached a turning point in our history. I know that a terrible war is about to be unleashed. Seers are able to access the time plane through visions. Visions are the medium by which magical beings can gather bits of information leading to possible outcomes. No magical person can ever gleam the full picture of future events. So many variables come to pass within a span of time, that nearly any permutations of variables can create a final outcome that is impossible to foretell."

" Well we have our parts to play, and fate has hers. Now, onto other topics, I've gathered a set of stones that have extremely unique metallurgical properties that can easily blend with naquadah and naquadria. The magic's I am learning and inventing will require me to generate large magical densities, which would not be possible for a wand to channel. The naquadria wands are powerful magical amplifiers and focus. The problem is the energy flux and density that can be channelled with a wand is fixed due to their size. "

Harry saw that he had captivated Ollivander and continued with his explanation, "You see, the size of the naquadria core limits the magical density that can be harnessed. I think of it as a pipe. The larger the pipe the more flow it can handle and energy losses or pressure drop is much less. That is why I whish to build a staff. The staff will be able to handle much larger magical density and flux. The spells I'll be working with require magical flux that can't be handled with a wand. I would like you to come with and train with us. I would also like your help in researching the properties of the stone and work together in the creation of a staff. There may be a way to bypass the Moon phase of the ritual, but I'll need your help to modify the runes. Do you accept?"

Ollivander nearly had an orgasmic smile on his face and replied, " Mr. Potter, I have a feeling that this staff will be my greatest challenge and creation to date. Your scientific knowledge in material science will be invaluable in this endeavour. Let's not waste a minute, there are discoveries to be made."

Harry laughed at the man's enthusiastic fervour and replied, " As you wish. We have some friends who will come with us. They will be working on other projects. You wont need anything. Rooms, food, entertainment, books and materials will all be provided."

With that, Harry double-checked that he had everything he would need during flextime. When he was done, he went back towards the command centre and found Neville and Luna waiting for him.

Harry yelled, "Good morning you two you made it. Do you have everything you need?"

" Morning Harry. Yah, I think we have everything. Luna made a list last night and we just went over it."

Luna with an angelic smile on her face looked at Harry and said, " Sorry we're late Harold, but Neville was in the middle of giving me an orgasm and we had to wait until I climaxed."

Harry's eyebrows nearly fell off his face at that comment. He looked around and found most people stifling their laughs. Poor Neville was beat red in the face. You had to hand it to Luna, the girl was brutal in her honesty. Harry looked Neville in the eye and smirking said, " Good show mate."

Tonk's and Remus burst out laughing, with the rest of them following.

Harry told his group to gather around and said, " As you well know, this will be an intense four months. Hopefully we'll make some breakthroughs." Harry turned around to pick up his notebook when he heard the twins talking.

Harry looked up and the twins were nearly on top of him, Harry smirked and said, " Morning guys. You two ready for some serious experimenting?"

The twins looked at each other with an evil smirk on their faces and Fred said, " No worries mate. We got it covered." With that they each pulled out a box the size of a matchbox and enlarged it to the size of a multi compartment trunk.

George added, "When we're done, No one will want to get caught in the swamps."

Harry simply nodded and told the gang to follow him. They all made their way to the trunk manor by the great lake. Once they were all settled, Harry went up to the crystal room and activated Odin's eye. Once again, Harry would make more discoveries about magic, which would have long-term consequences for the war.

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Early Morning in Northern Ireland on Aran Island

A small pop sounded in the frigid air near the base of Errigal Mountain in Northern Ireland but no one was there to hear it. Wearing midnight blue robes stood the ancient figure of Albus Dumbledore. Looking very tired and dishevelled, he slowly made his way towards a small rock path heading North East. Albus feeling tired, slowly took his time marching along the path, he was in no rush. He needed time to properly think about his next move. He had looked at a mirror early in the morning and had been shocked at how gaunt he looked.

Of course the past week had much to do with the current situation he found himself in. The last few days especially had seen a complete meltdown of over five decades of work. When he thought of that blasted Scorpion, he seethed in rage. Of course, this wasn't the first time that the wizarding world had turned on him. Bloody back stabbing sheep's the lot of them. He looked up and was now approaching a large granite rock. He waved his wand in a star shaped pattern. The rock face suddenly shimmered and was now filled with ancient runes. He tapped three runes in a pattern set as an equilateral triangle. The runes were Thurisaz, Amsuz, and Raido.

Suddenly the air shimmered across his location on the other side of the path, and a large hidden section of a greenish marble door appeared. He again tapped a set of runes in a circular arrangement and the marble door swung open. Albus then tapped three more runes. He tapped Laguz , Sowulo and Pertho.Albus then took a silver knife with a dragon head for handle and quickly slashed across his palm. He then rubbed his palm across the Isa rune. A teal coloured dome briefly shimmered overhead and then disappeared. Albus looked around to make sure no one was looking and hurried across the path and entered the marble door. Once he crossed the doors threshold, the granite rock, the doors and the path vanished under a powerful disillusion charm and activated a set of blood wards.

Albus needed to reach his refuge. No one knew of this home deep inside the mountain, which he had hollowed himself over fifty years ago. He had spared no expense here. After all, nothing was too good for his beloved Maya. Just thinking of his beloved brought a restless sigh from him. He slowly made his way to his keep. He had to stop halfway to take a breather. Blast this useless old body he thought. The elixir kept his body alive and his magic strong. The elixir could only trim ten years from the age at which one started drinking it. Normal age time was the datum from which a wizard or witch would de- age. He had completed his first stone four years ago. Shortly after the Potter brat has so graciously pulled the stone from the mirror of Erised. Contrary to what he had told Potter, Flamel had been the one to implement the final protection on his Philosopher's stone. He had tried getting the stone from Flamel many times, but he had only succeeded in Potters first year.

Of course he had found out in due course what the protection was. It was amazing to him that a man who was over six hundred years old could be so damn naïve. Listening charms had always been easy magic for him. Albus stood up and resumed his walk down the path. Green lit torches came alive as he came near them. He liked that colour, it gave the whole place an eerie feeling. Albus smirked to himself. He almost wished that someone could find his mountain home. He had interlaced so much dark magic in the protection of his keep, that anyone whishing to lay siege to his home was going to experience a world of hurt.

Finally he reached a large oak door laced with large forged iron bands. He took out his wand and removed his wards. One of the wards caused instant castration. When he was done, he swung the door open and stepped into a parlour leading to the living room. Turning his gaze towards the middle of the room, he saw the large polished red oak trunk lying vertically four feet above ground. On top of the trunk, were four carved post, leaning at forty-five degree angle and set at ninety degrees to each other. Each post had gold and silver runes carved in them, representing earth, water, fire and air. The ends of the post were connected to a gold ring, holding a platinum bowl. The bowl itself had a pure crystal ball with a strange bright bluish light emanating from it.

Dumbledore approached the bowl and Accioed one of the plush leather chairs close to the fireplace. He plopped himself in the chair and rubbed his temples. He turned his head towards the large kitchen, and looking at the wine rack laying by the north pantry, decide that he needed a drink or ten. He Accioed a red Merlot from his rather large collection, and grabbed himself one his hand made German crystal glass. He looked at the wine label and uncorked the bottle. He brought the bottle near the fire to get a better look at the deep red liquid and poured himself a generous amount.

He put the glass to his lips and greedily drank of the blood red liquid. He felt the liquid burn down to his stomach. He poured himself a second glass and noticed that it went down even smoother. He finally felt his body relaxing. Albus looked at the eerie bluish light of his wife's soul and slowly felt his eyes become heavy. He allowed his mind to recall the events of the last few months. He found his mind unable to concentrate. He kept seeing his wife's Horcrux and the events that had put her in that state.

Unknown to Albus, his body slowly fell into a deep sleep. As he fell into a deep sleep, his hand began loosening its grip on the wine glass. The glass fell from his hand and smashed on the granite tiles spraying red wine against the oak pedestal.

Deep in sleep, Albus subconscious lifted the fog from memories he had buried deep in his psyche a long time ago.

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Flashback April 29, 1945 Berlin Germany

Albus was sitting with his wife of only two years, Maya Toitovna Bogdanovich. They had found each other four years ago at Lacedaemeon magical University in Greece. The University was situated in southern Peloponnesus, which was originally founded after the Dorian invasions over three thousand years ago. He had completed his apprenticeship there, and shortly after graduation, due to his brilliance in the art of transfiguration had been offered an associate teaching position under master Tyrrimas.

Over the following two decades, he had written many papers on fractal transmutation. He concentrated on determining the magical activation energy threshold and the amount of magical energy needed to effect what muggles call Plank's constant. The research helped to describe how to make a transfigured object permanent. Shortly after his doctorate dissertation, he had packed his bags and left the school for some much needed travelling. Over the next thirty years he travelled far and wide to all parts of the world to study magic from whomever was willing to partake in knowledge transfer. He travelled to Africa where he collected many books on the dark arts, especially in Egypt. He also travelled to the Americas, Asia and finally took a break in Russia. His final destination had been St-Petersburg. By then he had pretty much blown his famillyl inheritance. Deciding that he needed some funds, he had found himself an assistant's professorship at the Odessa magical school. He soon learned that he would be an assistant to the new Potions mistress Maya Toitovna Bogdanovich.

Soon after they had met, they had quickly found themselves to be kindred spirits. Albus found someone who was his intellectual and amazingly his magical equal. They had taken the time to know each other. They took it slow, as both of them felt no pressures to rush into anything. Over the next two years, they slowly fell in love with each other. They were married on their third year. Albus came to realize that he had found his soul mate. Some would call it the love of his life. They established a home together and were very happy. On his seventh year in Odessa, he received an invitation from his old University to become the next Transfiguration master. Using his contacts and influence, he was able to get Maya a job as the next potions master. The next year they moved back to Lacedaemeon magical University in Greece.

However, the invading forces of Atilla Octavious Grindewald would soon shatter his quiet life. In 1939, Grindewald's forces had smashed through the weak Greek magical government. The only place, which had stopped Gridewalds advancing forces, had been at the University. Albus and his wife had organized a resistance movement. They had summoned the most powerful native Greek wizards, Witches and other magical beings to fight at their sides. His study into the arcane dark magic had come in handy.

The fight had been brutal. When Grindewald forces had retreated, over 1300 Wizards, Witches, Werewolf, Vampires, Centaurs, and Vela's had perished. Their win at Lacedaemeon had forced Grindewald to consolidate his forces. Within a six-month period, he had pulled all of his forces back into Germany. Their win in Greece had been short lived. Over the next four years the Latin based countries of Italy, France, Spain along with Britannia would feel the hammer of his forces. Albus seeing the invasion of his beloved motherland had enlisted in the dark defense league. After many arguments, his wife had joined him. Over the next four years they would cross wands many times with Grindewalds forces. Due to their intelligence and magical power, both he and his wife had quickly risen into the ranks of the dark defense league and local Aurors. They had eventually been given the rank of hit wizard first class.

Shortly after their promotions, they had gone back to England and established a base of operations from Hogsmeade. Throughout this time, he and Maya had always fought together. They were widely acknowledged as the best-hit wizard team in Europe.

They had led teams on many raids on the main continent, but it seemed that no matter what they did, they had been losing ground bit by bit to Grindewald forces. The tide finally turned when the muggles launched operation Overlord. Operation Overlord was the biggest muggle sea and air invasion of all times. On June 6, 1944 three million muggles invaded the Normandy beaches of Omaha, Utah and Juno. Unknown to the muggles, Wizards and Witches from the free world had gathered to forms a strike team that would piggyback with the main muggle invasion force. It was felt that such a large muggle strike force would create such chaos, that it would help hide their magical assault. The other benefit was that it would destabilize Hitler and by proxy his ties with Grindewald forces. It was well known, that these two were allies, and that Grindewald would occupy his forces to help prop up his muggle counter part.

To the surprise of the Europeans magical ministries and their representative, the North American, Indian, and Australian contingent had many Native Indians and Aborigines among the hit wizard ranks. They normally never involved themselves with what they called the white man conflicts. The tribes included the Australian Djabugandji, Binigura, and Iningai. The North American natives included the six tribes Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscaroga, which made up the Iroquois nation. The Indian tribes were made up of the ancient Gandharvas, Yakshas, and Kinnaras. These ancient peoples brought with them arcane magic not known or lost to the European nations. These included dream magic, elemental, earth based battle magic, transmutation and magical beast control.

They were asked why they had changed their minds in helping them eliminate the dark wizard, and they replied that if they did not kill the Átahsaia, or cannibal demon, then eventually he would come to them on their sacred lands. Better to kill him now than later, where it might be to late. Regardless of why, the Europeans were very happy to have them on board.

Over the next nine months, he and his wife had established themselves as the most powerful European

Magical users. The native peoples were not included in that assessment. Albus had made the conscious decision to immerse himself into the dark arts. He had collected many prized books and scrolls on the subject during his long travels, but never took the time to really study them. Three years ago, he had immersed himself into the dark arts, much to the displeasure of his wife. After several years of fighting, even she could not deny their power in battle magic. Their successes had not gone unnoticed by the British Ministry of magic, specifically, the minister of magic who at the time was Markus Alexander Hastings.

The Hastings were an ancient Scottish magical family from the lowlands. They were said to be descendent of the ancient Celts. They were all aristocratic purebloods, who were full of their own self-importance Albus thought. Hastings had tried to pass himself off as a brilliant tactician. It became clear early on, that the man was a complete moron and a novice in the art of war. From 1941-1943, Albus and Maya Dumbledore had made fools of him and his administration. Albus had heard many rumors over the last three years that Hastings wanted to take him down a few pegs, but Albus had always brushed the man off. That error in judgment would eventually cost him dearly.

The day before the muggle invasion, the head of the British Auror division, Horatio Antares McPhee came by and told him that for greater efficiency, he and his wife were going to be on separate teams. Albus argued vehemently against that strategy. He and his wife had always been together. They complemented each other and watched each other's back. To be separated now on the eve of their greatest battle was madness. Albus hate for the ministry began on that day. As much as he loathed the idea of being separated from his wife, he had little power to countermand the order. He made sure to review important spells with Maria and double-checked their war packs and strategy. Under great suspicion, Albus asked to review the personal files of Maya's hit team. He was not able to find anyone suspicious. They made sure that their battle pouch was filled with potions and runic stones, and spare wands. Maria tried to reassure him that everything was going to be O.K, but he still couldn't shake the feeling of dread in his gut.

Albus and his wife were both given teams and directed to take the ancient Gaul city of Lugdunum (Lyon, France). The city was an ancient Druid conclave and the capital city of the Gaul's. That region of France was said to contain ancient Celtic magical manuscript. Most peoples believed that the Druids knowledge was only passed on from word of mouth. This was not entirely true. Before their death, Druids would inscribe their knowledge using runes. The runes would be stamped on very thin sheets of copper. The stamped sheet would then be brushed with tree sap. After some curing, the sheets were covered by a thin sheet of amber to keep them from oxidizing. Grindewald with most magical scholars knew this and had many of his researcher scour the country site for ancient Druid dolmens. If there were scrolls to be found, that's where they would be buried. No small feat, as the dolmens were protected by ancient magic. Many of his researchers were lost trying to break into the tombs.

The muggle invasion came, and all magical team piggybacked with them. They quickly made their way to Lyon via mass portkey. Soon after their landing, they came under intense spell fire. Albus surveyed the situation and realized that Grindewalds forces were only slightly diminished. Albus saw werewolves, Goblins, Centaurs, and a lot of dark wizards and witches. He soon found himself bombarded by spells and quickly sought shelter. Albus now realized that they had been ambushed. Either there was a spy, or their own ministry had set them up. Albus didn't think that it was a spy. Their units were made up of small cells, which were continuously being checked via veritaserum. The thought that he had been set up by his own ministry blinded him with rage.

If he wanted to win this, He had to fight for keeps. He released hi anger in the form of bloodlust and started killing without mercy. He released the tight grip he held on his core, and fed his magic into the dark arts. He felt a sense of euphoria like he never had before. The feeling was orgasmic. He split his team three ways. He took charge of the centre assault and told his two flanks to retreat, and make their way behind the enemy formation. Once they were in position, he told them to wait for large fireball to light up the sky. Once they saw the ball they were to attack their flanks with everything they had. No one was to be sparred. His troops also giddy at the prospect of battle, quickly obeyed. The resulting fight lasted almost four hours. Towards the end, he had lost nearly ninety percent of his forces, but they were victorious.

Albus let two senior Aurors take care of the cleanup details, and scavenge hunt and immediately headed towards the other side of town to go help his wife. Upon, reaching La Pierre Du Cheval Albus saw a battered Auror make his way down the street, and ran to intercept him. The man had deep gashes on his face, and was bleeding profusely from his right side. He looked to be in shock.

Albus said, "Where can I find your platoon leader?"

The man looked at him, as if he didn't recognize him.

Albus had no time for the man and grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him violently to get his attention, and repeated, "Have you seen my wife, Maya Dumbledore!"

The mans stuttered and replied, "Sooo,ssoo,sssooo Cccooolllllddd."

Albus gripped the man even tighter and said, "What do you mean so cold. Make sense man!"

The man finally seemed to come out of his shock and looked at Dumbledore in the eyes, Albus had always been a patient man, but the fear for his wife, the loss of so many of his comrades in his recent battles had left him short tempered. He finally took his wand and cast Legiliments. Albus dove through the mans memories like a lead weight dropped in water. He found that his wife and the remnants of her troops were hold up at the old Romanesque Benedictine monastery, the ancient abbey church of St Martin.

He quickly ran towards the church and was nearly felled by an A.K. He dove to the ground and came to rest behind a fountain. He quickly disillusioned himself and crawled besides an old flowerbed ledge. He slowly made his way towards the bike rack. Where the ledge broke, he peeked around the corner and couldn't see anything. He cast a heat signature charm on his glasses and peeked again. He saw a group of what he assumed were Grindewalds forces. He dug deep in his magical core and let his fear for his wife control his emotions, he then let loose Bombarda-Magnus . The spell was at short range and crashed into the unsuspecting horde within seconds. Part of the street and the wall where they were hiding was completely obliterated. Albus took another look, but no one was standing. He could hear moans of pain from those who would soon see the afterlife. His eyes held a glint and found himself not caring about their fates.

Albus carried on towards the church. The closer he reached the church, the colder he felt. He stopped for a moment to gather his bearings and saw dark shapes floating in the distance. He realized that he was looking at Dementors. That would certainly explain the man paranoia. He decided to head east to avoid the blasted beast. He came upon a side entrance and decided to proceed inside. He was surprised that he had very little resistance. Either Maya has dealt with the forces convincingly or the enemy had made a strategic retreat. For some reason, he felt like an iceberg had made it's home in the pit of his stomach. He marched slowly. He took his time to analyze the room. There were many ancient glass and stone artifact lying about. He came across a cabinet that was filled with copper sheets. His eyes widened at the treasure it held before his eyes. The scholar in him wanted to take the precious artifact, but he was on a much more important mission. He passed more cabinets, and saw a door on the south side of the room. He made his way to the door and cast a slew of dark wards. Finding no magical signatures, he crossed its threshold and found a man with Mayas team markings sealing a door.

He made his way to the man and said, " Who are you, and what are you doing?"

The surprised Auror whirled around and was about to curse him. Albus had anticipated the move and disarmed the man. The man seemed surprised to see him. Albus could tell that the man recognized who he was, and was nervous for some reason. Albus narrowed his eyes and said, "I'll ask again, who are you and why were you sealing the door?"

" I'm Auror third class Angus McPhee. My whole squad was just ambushed in this blasted church by Dementors. I managed to get away. There were to many of them. I barely managed to escape as it is. It was a free for all in there."

Albus frowned, " A free for all? Am I to understand, that more of your comrades are in there fighting for their lives, and you abandoned them? COWARD!"

Albus took his wand and was about to unseal the door when the man grabbed his wand arm and whirled him around. The man sneered at him and replied, " Look Dumbledore, there's nothing you can do. If you unseal that door, you'll doom us both. I won't let you kill me, you hear me."

Albus felt that something was very wrong. He looked directly into the Auror's Hazel eyes, and using his legiliments abilities, he immediately assaulted the Auror memories. Within seconds, he was digging through his memories. He quickly found the battle scene. By that time, McPhee had noticed the intrusion and tried to cast him out.

Albus felt the Auror resist. His Occlumency skills were good, but Albus mental powers were far greater. He was able to crush his pathetic attempt at evicting him. He soon found other memory links tied to the main battle scene. He decided to unravel these first. He found to his dismay that the man was a special agent to the minister himself. He had been working under cover for over eight years. His sole purpose was to remove any potential opposition to the minister. He found out that the Minister himself with the help of the DMLE director had planned to have he and his wife terminated on this ambush. The DMLE director, who was a close childhood friend of the Minister, had been the one leaking information to Grindewalds forces. Albus finally found the reason for this betrayal was because the pathetic excuse for minister felt that he and his wife were after his job.

A deep fear suddenly gripped him. He forced his mind back to the battle scene. What he found caused him to cry in anger. He clearly saw Maya and her squad fighting a frontal assault. Albus could see that the air was thick with spell fire. People from both sides were yelling, screaming and falling to all kinds of curses. Every member of her squad was so concentrated on the fight, that no one noticed McPhee leave his position and slowly make his way behind Maya. Albus saw McPhee attack his wife from behind. He had petrified her, and cast Incendio on her robes. He saw his Maya scream, as she was being burned alive.

He had then sent a reducto curse to the South side of the Abby, and blasted the door. Dementors had been waiting in ambush and began attacking the remaining Aurors. This had happened in the last ten minutes. He quickly pulled out of McPhees head and kicked him in the balls. McPhee released his grip and he quickly cast Avada Kadavra. The men fell where he stood, with his eyes starring at the cealing. In a fit of rage he kicked the man and sent a Reducto at point blank range to his head. The man's cranium exploded in a mist of blood and gray matter. A piece of the man's cerebellum stuck to his cheek. Albus was beyond caring, he ran to the door and pulverized it with another Reducto-Magnus. The door and part of the wall was pulverized into powder. He quickly brought forth all of the happy memories of Maya he could muster and cast Expecto-Patronum. An extremely bright and powerful image of an eagle spread out from his wand and attacked the Dementors.

He had cleared himself a path and went to find his wife. He felt his heart was going to burst out of his chest he was so worried. He vaulted across a set of bench and just as he cleared it, he could see that he was too late. His wife's soul had been pulled from her body, but was still hovering above her face. The Dementor was about to pull down his hood, to kiss the soul. If he chased the Dementor away he would loose her soul. He did the only thing he could, he reached deep into his knowledge and remembered a passage on Horcruxes from the book of Azuli. He had to act fast, he needed a receptacle to hold the soul. He looked at one of the shelves along the wall and recognized a fifteen-century Venetian crystal ball. He banished the crystal ball by Maya head, and having committed murder in cold blood, had already fulfilled the first criteria for making a Horcrux. He immediately cast several warding spells to hold the soul from escaping the crystal ball. He began chanting in an ancient dialect using phonetics. Tewet-Ka-Kheperu-Maat-Heru-Khuti-Mââ-Xerou

At first nothing happened, but slowly the bluish orb, which was Mayas' soul, began moving towards the crystal ball. The Dementor began screeching, as if it was in pain, or upset. Albus didn't care he had to save his wife's soul. He kept on chanting until the soul seeped into the pure crystal ball. Once her Soul was encapsulated, he cast his eagle patronus at the Dementor and managed to get it away from his wife's body. He ran to her and picked up his wife's Horcrux and grabbed his dead wife's burned body and took out one of his secret portkey, and took them to Dumbledore manor.

Once he reached the manor, he quickly put his wife's body in a stasis field and put his most powerful wards on her Horcrux. Looking at his wife's body and soul, a part of his own soul had died today. As her husband, he had failed to protect her. He had been careless and under estimated lesser people than him and it had cost him everything that meant anything to him. His beautiful Maya was dead, and her soul trapped. Tears streaked down his cheeks. They were going to start a family after the war. They had both agreed to live in England and had accepted teaching positions offered by Armando Dippet. He looked down at his wand and a deep rage filled him. His face had turned to stone that day. He swore on Morgana's dark soul that those responsible were going to pay.

Albus cursed the fates and knew that he would stop at nothing to bring her back. He realized that he could never be happy again until he and Maya were back together. If he failed, then he would make sure to release both of their souls. That day, he realized that he needed to be the one in charge. He needed to be the chess master. He had a lot of research to do, and the best place to do this was at Hogwarts with all of her resources. He needed to control the ministry and the Wizengamot. To do this he had to gain glory. Through glory would come influence and power. He would be the one dictating the terms. He needed to fashion himself a persona or alter ego, from which he would hide his true persona.

Suddenly Albus came woke up from his slumber, and looked up to see the pulsing blue light from his wife's Horcrux, and remembered his dream. He had once again relieved the events of his past. His leaned back in his chair and began formulating a plan to salvage some of his prestige. The only way he was going to regain some of his power base, was to take over the ministry and put his Order of the Phoenix members into key positions.

He needed to let go of his headmaster position at Hogwarts, and take over as minister of magic. From there, he would use the vast resources of the ministry to finish his research. He was going to destroy the Wizengamot. They were going to pay for their betrayal. He would then use the might of the ministry to reign in the Potter brat and destroy this Scorpion Sorcerer. He had already killed a dark lord and felt he could do it again. Man makes his own fate he thought. In his mind, there was no such thing as a supreme entity that dictated mans fate.

The great Albus Dumbledore had fallen into the same trap that many other great men before him had. In their power, they thought that they were untouchable. The great failure in their education is that they were not thought to comprehend matters concerning human destiny. Man supposes that he directs his life and governs his actions, when his existence is irretrievably under the control of destiny. Destiny is simply Fates mistress. In the end like Voldemort, Dumbledore would learn that one cannot cheat Fate.

END Flashback

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Morning of November 16 Southern England

Xiana was looking at her watch, for the fifth time since she had arrived at McAllister Abby. She had her full robes on and was under a disillusioned charm. It was still early in the morning, and she knew from her files that Matthew McAllister always went on his morning walk on his way to his stables, to meet with his mistress for his quickie fix. Little did he know, that his mistress was stunned and would be unable to meet his needs till the end of time. The thought of the obese bastard touching any woman made her skin crawl. Tubby was responsible for using his influence with Gringotts, that allowed Dumbledore to bury the Potter family will. He was also responsible for laundering galleons from family vaults that had been exterminated during Voldemort's first war into Dumbledore's vault. He had also been instrumental in pushing discriminatory werewolf and vampire laws in the ministry with Dumbledore's blessing. The ugly bastard was a closet first class bigot.

She was brought from her thoughts when she her someone whistling up the path. She was hiding behind one of the large red oak trees darting these lands. She watched the fat bastard waddling down the path in his ridiculous purples robes. She sneered and took out her wand. She activated her watch and made a full sweep of her surroundings. She looked at the dimensional map, which showed that the man was alone. Not taking any chances she cast a noticed me not, silencing and befuddlement perimeter ward. The last thing she needed was someone catching her in the act.

She waited until he passed her position and silently cast Petrificus Totallus. The tub of lard went down like a wounded Erumpent. The look on the man's face was quite amusing. She sauntered over to the idiot and removed her disillusionment charm. She flicked her wand and unfroze the man from his neck up.

The man spluttered, " Who are you to do this to me? Do you have any idea who I am? Release me at once and I may give you leniency. I'm a member of the Wizengamot and a high lord. Now release me!"

Xiana sneered and slowly lowered her hood and then flicked her wand. The man screamed as the skin on his wand hand started hissing and smoking. The epidermis started bubbling and the skin started falling off. The tissue began to char and carbonate. The stuffed pig screamed his head off.

The man began uttering obscenities at her. He went on and on about her being a whores spawn who should be a sex slave for Azkaban.

"Now, is that any way to talk to a lady." She purred at him.

She flicked her wand again and a small purple sphere of plasma shot from her wand and hit the man's right eye. The plasma ball penetrated the lens of the eye and instantly boiled off the jelly like fluid in the vitreous cavity and the instantaneous expansion of the gas ruptured the iris, lens, and cornea causing a spectacular blow out of the eyeball. The pig screamed until his voice was raw.

He finally stopped screaming and managed to pull off enough control to look at her closely with his good eye. He spluttered and managed to squeak, " I remember you. You were at the Christmas ball two years ago with your twin. You're a Zabini. Why are you doing this?"

When he realized she said nothing he whimpered and said, "Please, I don't know what you want, but I can make you rich beyond your wildest dreams. I can give you power. Please tell me what you want."

"Actually you're wrong."

The fat bastard frowned at her and replied, "Wrong about what?"

" My last name. Two year ago I was a Zabini, now my last name is Potter." With all the training in fluxtime, it had been over two years she thought.

She watched with pleasure as the idiot started sweating profusely. She knew him and his ilk's had been ready to prosecute Harry under Umbridge and Fudge's orders. " I see you remember Harry Potter. Well why shouldn't you, after all you tried to fuck him over did you not? Well you know what they say? What goes around comes around."

She felt his eye looking at her form and noticed his face changing into a sneer. He gasped and managed to speak,"I see that the half blood bastard didn't waste anytime knocking you up. Tell me, how long did it take for you father to disown you? Such a waste, how is it that the daughter of such a proud pureblood family lowers herself to shack up with such a pathetic wizard as Potter. He is nothing but a whelp of no importance."

With a look of disgust on her face she continued, " You know nothing of my family you disgusting maggot. You call my husband pathetic. He is a thousand times the wizard you could ever hope to become. You're not worthy of speaking his name. As for what I want, I want your head on a silver platter. My husband and his associates know all about your past dealings and your cozy relations ships with Dumbledore. We know all about your dealings with Dumbledore and Lucius Malfoy."

She watched with satisfaction when his face showed complete surprise, he started to sweat and plead for his life again. She pointed her wand at his neck. The man started screaming, and taking a deep breath she whispered, " Aquilo-Bipennifer." She watched as his head was decapitated from his shoulder. She waited until he had finished his last spasms. She levitated his head unto his body and threw a portkey at him. She waited until the portkey activated and pointed her wand above the cottage and whispered "Mosmordre." She looked up as the green skull and snake made its appearance and smirked. She then accioed her raptor broom from behind the oak tree and made sure she was disillusioned and took off. As she was flying close to the skull she thought about the snake face bastard and whispered, "Welcome to the revolution Dumbledore. Let's see how you respond to Riddles attack."

Meanwhile in the small magical district in the town of Hythe, Blaise was sitting in a little pub called the Hope Inn on Stade St. He was looking at his prey who was on his sixth Hobgoblin Ale. At least the fool knew his Ales if nothing else. Hobgoblin was one of the more respectable Wychwood ales. Of course, the file on High Lord Gurney Eric Mason had much to say about the man's impressive appetite for all things alcoholic.

The Mason's were an old pureblood family dating back to the dark ages. Their family had invented some wards and healing spells. They had helped stave off a variant of the black plague during the Dark Age, which had decimated some of the eastern magical towns. The family had done very little else in the last three hundred years. Like many pureblood families who did not marry muggle born wizards and witches, there magical talents had slowly eroded due to inbreeding. According to the file, he and Dumbledore went way back, even before the war with Grindewald. He had used his family connection to help elect Dumbledore as supreme Mugwump. Even thought Mason was a mediocre wizard, Dumbledore had kept him in power, and in exchange, Mason had endorsed every proposal the so-called light lord had proposed. Anyone who dealt with Wizengamot politics knew that Mason was a Dumbledore lackey.

He was sitting at a table near the fireplace adjacent to the West wall. He was wearing a glamour charm and was pretending to read his paper, which had been spelled to be transparent. He looked at his watch and wondered if Theo had finished his assignment. Looking around, Blaise was happy to see that the pub didn't have many people up and about. This was a typical morning where the local patrons were just waking up and getting ready to go to work. They were too busy wolfing down breakfast and coffee to pay attention to their surroundings. He looked up and found Mason walking up to the bar to pay his tab. Show time he thought.

Blaise had already paid his bill a while back, and simply walked out of the pub using the back door alley. There were the usual crates and garbage bins that one would expect at the back of any pub or restaurant. He picked a set of barrels stacked on top of each other and used his watch to scan the area. His map showed some muggles on the other side of the magical wall. There were no Witches or Wizards about. He cast a notice me not, sound proof and an alarm perimeter ward. He tapped his head and disillusioned himself. He didn't have to wait long before the stupid idiot came out of the back door staggering. The man seemed completely oblivious to his surroundings.

Blaise stepped out from behind the barrels and moved in front of the man. Mason bumped into him and stumbled back and fell to the ground. He looked up at Blaise and yelled," Watch where you're going!"

Gurney managed to sit up and looking at the man in front of him suddenly felt a cold chill run down his spine. The man was wearing scaly black-green robes and his hood was completely obscuring his face. He was tall and his voice was cold and impersonal. He was brought out of his thoughts when the man spoke.

"I know exactly where I'm going and what I'm doing. Do you?"

"I'll have you know I'm a high lord of the Wizengamot, with close ties to the supreme Mugwump. I suggest you run along, before you land yourself a one way ticket to Azkaban fool."

Again, Gurney felt his bones chill when the man whispered, " In case you haven't heard, that would be ex Mugwump."

"Not for long! You'll see, he'll be back in power before you know it. The Potter brat won't know what hit him. I'll make sure of that."

Blaise lowered his hood and saw the man gasp. The lump suddenly shot his wand out of his holster and tried to curse him. Blaise saw the fool coming a mile away and simply flicked his wand. The idiots wand was sent flying into the harbor. The man looked like he was about to shit himself.

Blaise pointed his wand and hissed" That's where you're wrong. Conflo-Corculum"

The last image that Gurney Eric Mason would see in his life was the ice-cold blue eyes and a small black scorpion tattooed on the left man's cheek. He now realized that he was looking at one of the Scorpion Sorcerers soldier. He saw a deep blue light strike him in the chest and felt extreme pain for a few seconds and blood suddenly spurted from his mouth and he knew no more. The curse had caused the man's heart to explode. Death was assured within seconds.

Blaise looked at the dead high lord and whispered, " Welcome to the revolution." He took his wand and pointed towards the chimney and cast Mosmordre. Blaise smirked as he saw the green skull and snake light up the sky. Part of the plan, was to let Voldemort take all of the blame for these deaths. His job finished, he tapped his wand to his ring and portkeyed back to the lair.

That morning the dark mark had been spotted all over England. The scorpion army was on the move. Slowly they were infiltrating the highest levels of power.

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Early Morning Riddle Manor

The Scorpion Army weren't the only ones busy that morning. Voldemort was sitting on his throne thinking about his next move. He was refining his plans to invade Azkaban. His first tasks were do teal with his treacherous Wizengamot minions. He had ordered Bellatrix, Mulciber, Valeria and Veturius to bring the traitors to him and retrieve a very special death eater from St-Mungo's. They had just come back with the little worms. He had no qualms exterminating them. They had been found out and were of no use to him. However, he was going to make sure that his death eaters learned the price for turning traitor. He looked up at his parchments and made one last modification to the rune sequence. His knowledge of Horcruxes and been invaluable for this research.

He walked from his throne room to the staging area. When he arrived, he found the lords bound and tied to their chairs. With a sneer of disgust on his face he looked at each one of them, and was pleased to see a look of fear on their faces. He so enjoyed drinking in the smell of fear this early in the morning. He looked towards where his servants were kneeling and found Barty Jr. standing beside Bella with a vacant stare on his face. That vacant look would change if his plan worked. First, he needed to stoke the egos of his death eaters. It was time for the carrot he thought.

In a soft hissing voice, " Bella, you and your group have done very well today. I am most pleased with your efforts. There are some muggles and scrolls for you and your group to play with. Be careful with the scrolls, the dark magic is quite potent. You will also each receive 500 galleons."

He smirked when he saw the insane glint in Bella's eyes. The other were pleased to just be thrown a bone. It was a fine morning indeed. He yelled, "Wormtail, get your useless carcass over here now!"

He heard the pathetic rat come sniveling from the kitchens. With a leer on his face he hissed, " Are the preparation complete Wormtail? I will be most displeased if they are not."

"Mmmymmmyy looorrdd, the Dementors are ready. The table and runes have been drawn to your exact specification my lord. "

Fixing his scarlet eyes on Wormtail he hissed, "Pray that they are Wormtail. I do not tolerate failure."

"Bring in the Dementors."

Wormtail and Mulciber scurried off to the anti chamber. They both picked up a nullifying crystal necklace and reached the Dementors. They pointed at them to follow. They came back with the dark demons gliding behind them. Everyone in the room began feeling the effects of the demon except for the dark lord.

Voldemort glided towards the traitors and said, " Did you really think that you could fool lord Voldemort? You belong to me you miserable worms! Lords indeed."

One them seemed to find his voice and stuttered, " My lord, we never wanted to betray you. A powerful wizard put us all under the imperius. Please my lord shows mercy. Let us make it up to you."

Voldemort whipped out his wand and hissed, "Crucio." The pathetic lump fell on his back and started trashing on the floor while screaming himself raw. After nearly two minutes under the curse the oaf shit himself.

Irvine was always weak he thought. With a disgusted look on his face he lifted the curse. He looked around making sure that all of his death eaters were looking and yelled, " Let this be a lesson to all of you. You're all responsible for your actions. If you succeed in your tasks, you will be rewarded. If you fail in your task, you will be punished. If you turn traitor, well you're about to see what happens to traitors."

He flicked his wand and the lords were petrified except for their heads. Everyone in the room who didn't have a necklace felt the effect of the powerful Dementors. He hissed in the ancient Celtic language and the Dementors glided towards their prey and lowered their hoods. With glee in his eyes he watched his death eaters shaking at the sight about to unfold. The ancient demons grabbed their pray and with practice born of eons, lowered their mouths to within a foot of their pray and with exquisite screams they began pulling souls out. The blue orbs floated above their victims and one by one they were absorbed by the ancient demons.

Lord Voldemort relished in the fear of his death eaters. Not only had he paid the price for his next ritual, but had sent a powerful message to his remaining troops. He flicked his want and unfroze the lords. He could see their vacant expression. The only evidence that they were alive was the rhythmic sound of their breathing. Without constant bodily care, they would perish within a few weeks. With a sneer on his face, he flicked his wand, and suddenly the kissed lords caught fire. In their non-existent state, they didn't even cry out as the blue fire consumed their bodies. Once they were reduced to ash, he scourgifyed their remains.

As he was ready to make his way to the ritual chambers, one of his death eaters came in thought the foyer and headed straight for him. He noticed that it was Amicus, he narrowed his eyes and hissed, "What do you want?"

"My lord, we have news that the dark mark was sighted all over Southern England early this morning. I was wondering why I was not summoned for the attack. Have I displeased you my lord?"

What in the name of Morgana's hairy cunt was going on he thought. "What do you mean the dark mark was seen all over Southern England? I haven't authorized any attacks. Are you sure about this?"

"Yes my lord, I just came back from the town of Hyte, and saw the dark mark floating over a pub."

"Do you know who was killed?"

"No my lord, I thought I would check with you first to see why I was not part of the battle?"

Voldemort looked at his eager follower and found he had no desire to punish him. The man simply wanted to know why he was not serving his lord. He narrowed his eyes and said, " Your devotion is to be admired Amicus. I must say this news greatly disturbs me. I can only conclude that someone is framing us for something. " He began pacing on the marble floor deep in thought. Someone clearly wanted him to take the blame for something but what? He needed more information.

He turned around and said, " I want three teams to go investigate where my mark was spotted, and find out everything you can. Amicus you take the west, Bella you take the south and Mulciber you take Eastern England. Now, all you leave me except for you Wormtail. Barty to the ritual room."

Voldemort had realized a long time ago that his ability to carry out necromancy and soul magic on other being had been severely diminished when he had created his own Horcruxes. Had he known the price at the time he might have searched harder for another option to immortality. He despised magical weakness of any kind. Necromancy was a powerful magic and he had unknowingly diminished his own ability to carry out. Hence his need for the pathetic rat, how he hated depending on anyone.

Voldemort went to his private chambers to pick up his tome, his Mayan blade and the Onyx chalice. He came back to the ritual room and told Wormtail to lay Barty on the table. He noticed the Dementor floating in the North left corner of the room. Using his legilimency powers he connected with the Dementor and sent the demon images of how the ritual was going to take place. The only acknowledgement that he got was a slight nod. Not wasting anymore time. He disrobed and began carving intricate runes on his body. He carved Ansuz above his heart for divine power, and then he carved the Nauthiz rune in the palm of his right hand to call upon destiny. The third rune was Pertho carved on his forehead to call forth the birth of new. He asked Wormtail to power up the runes with his raw magic. He then took his wand in his right hand and cast Caeruleum-Cremare on the Onyx goblet. A dark blue fire sprung around and on the goblet. He then took his ritual knife and sliced his left hand. He let his blood flow into the goblet. He added Chanca- Piedra , Mandrake root powder and crushed fairy wings to goblet.

Having finished his initial preparations he looked at the Dementor and sent him an image to come to the table. He told the Dementor to bend its head close to Bart's face. He took his servant's head and poured some of the goblets content into his mouth. He ignored the gentle blue fire licking his hand. He held the goblet in his left hand and took his wand and began chanting in ancient Yucatan Mayan. He hissed, "Ch'uhul- Ch'am- Ya-k'a- U-b'a-Ke-le-B'alam-Ma –Matan". Wormtail followed his maters instructions and with him repeated the chant seven times. After every chant, Wormtail would pour some of the goblets contents into Bart's mouth. A deep purple and black aura surrounded the Dementor and Barty. The aura began pulsing and began shifting toward a blood red color and soon shifted to a cerulean color. The Dementor extended its arms and opened what passed for a mouth. A small dark blue orb emerged from it's mouth and slowly drifted towards Bart's mouth. The blue sphere hovered above his face for a few seconds and then was instantly absorbed into his body.

Voldemort seeing the soul disappear into Bart's body ceased his chanting and waited. He hadn't realized how much magical energy would be expanded in this ritual. His damaged soul had been severely taxed. Were he not powerful, the ritual could have cost his life. Voldemort looked up and saw Bart's body trash as if it were under the Cruciatus curse. After a minute or so, he stopped trashing and took a big gulp of air as if it was the first time he had ever breathed.

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Bart's POV

The soul that once went by the name of Barty Crouch felt as if it was swimming in an endless void. It was somewhat aware of its surroundings. It somehow felt permanently tethered to some sort of energy shaft. At least that's what the other blue spheres projected, or rather felt. No one could speak in this state, it was more like having a permanent legiliments link to all the other spheres. He constantly felt weak. It felt as if he was being bled slowly. It remembered being ripped from the shell known as Barty. God how painful it had been. He never wanted to experience that ever again. Now that it thought about it, it should have tried getting itself killed. Anything would have been better than this fathomless existence. It was about to contact one of the other spheres when it suddenly felt a pull, and knew no more.

He took a sudden deep breath and opened his eyes. The last thing he remembered was the face of the Dementor as it was about to kiss him. He was disoriented and sickly. He felt as if he had wakened from a deep nightmare. He turned his head and noticed a semi bald fat man and recognized him as Wormtail. Still disoriented he looked in the far corner of the room and noticed a Dementor hovering there not doing anything. He sneered and spat at the demon. God he hated the bloody bastard creature. He brought his hand to his face and examined it. He then looked at his body and realized that he could feel once again. Finally realization dawned on him that he was back in his body. With a look a pure joy on his face he quickly sat on the table and brought his head up and noticed his lord smiling at him.

"My Lord, I don't know how you managed this feat, but you are truly the greatest wizard alive. I am yours to command as always my lord." Barty jumped from the table and keeled before his lord.

Smiling from his success and having his most trusted inner circle member back he said, " Rise Barty, stand at my side once again. Unlike the others, you have never failed me. Lord Voldemort always rewards his faithful followers."

They both walked out of the ritual chamber to see the surviving members of his inner circle reviewing plans. He was bringing Barty up to speed on past events since he had been kissed. The first one to notice them was Bella. Voldemort was pleased to see her eyes as large as dinner plates and her lower jaw wide open. He could tell by her confusion that she was wondering how Barty was animate once again.

It didn't take long for her restraint to break down and said, "My lord, how is it possible that he walks around as if he was himself again?"

He looked at her with narrowed eyes and said, " Let's just say that I've discovered some lost magic and leave it at that." The tone in his voice made it plain for her to drop her line of questioning.

" As you wish my lord."

She saw her lord looking at Bart with a smile when he hissed, " Now that Barty is back with us, we will finally succeed in our recruiting efforts. I want all of you to bring all the data you have on the Vampires, Werewolf, Giants, Trolls, Banshee's, Vela. I want numbers, location, current alliances, enemies, and magical protection. Bart will review our current plans and we will meet again in four days. That should give Bart enough time to comment on our plans and recuperate."

He was about to dismiss them when Alecto came running slightly out of breath with a tablet in one hand and a newspaper in the other.

"What have you got for me Alecto?"

"My lord, it would seem that some high lords faithful to Dumbledore have been executed. It would seem someone is framing us for the murders. I went to three different sites, and the answer is the same, no one remembers anything. I checked for obliviation, poisons and imperius but they were all clean."

Voldemort sneered and hissed, " There is only one explanation for this fool. Who else would be foolish enough to challenge me except this Scorpion wizard? The little bug is really starting to get on my nerves. Well if we're going to take the rap for this, we might as well give them more reason to fear us. I want to plan a raid on Diagon Alley very soon. I want you all to identify some worthy targets, it's time to have some fun."

Voldemort looked at the paper Alecto was holding and noticed it wasn't the Daily Prophet or that rag the Quibbler. It could only be that other paper again. If he ever found this Tenebrae Noctiluca (Dark Side of The Moon), he would take a month off his plans to personally torture the little bastards. That blasted paper was causing him more problems to his recruiting plans than he cared to admit. He had already sent two parties to try to find where the rag was operating. They'd come back empty handed, to his great displeasure. He'd let them know how very displeased he had been at their constant failures.

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The Discovery

Article by:Tenebrae Noctiluca

Faithful Readers, if you hadn't heard by now, our incompetent ministry and buffoon of a minister have once again failed the magical constituents of Britannia. Minister Mud, eerrr Fudge I mean, had the brilliant idea of filling the ministry coffers, by expanding Azkaban and housing all of the most dangerous dark Wizards and Witches from all of Europe and North Africa. Why would he do this you ask? Well minister useless didn't want to raise the average household income tax in order to make up any revenue shortfall that will no doubt occur due to the upcoming war with He-Who-Should-Have-Stayed-Dead.

Who really benefits from this deal you may wonder? Well I'm sure some of you have guessed it? The sniveling, over privileged, prejudiced, inbred purebloods who have been raping the British wizarding world for the last eight hundred years of course. By Merlin's sagging right nut, we wouldn't want to deprive them of their debauchery money would we? Well putting away the sheer injustice of magical Britannia, doesn't Fudge realize that he has just given a sure means to the half-blood dark lord to increase his army a hundredfold if Azkaban is broken into?

My fellow Wizards and Witches please do not delude yourself, the ministries security measure are bound to be cheap and inadequate. Azkaban will be broken into and the worst dredge that our society is capable of creating will be out on our street assaulting your sons and daughters. The minister is playing right into the hands of the self proclaimed dark lord, the half-blood Tom Marvolo Riddle.

For those of you who are new to our circulation, you heard right, Voldemort's real name is Tom Marvolo Riddle, his mother was the squib Merope Gaunt and his father was a muggle. Now, how hypocritical can you get? The half blood argument for his assault on our world is that he wishes to purge it of half bloods, muggleborns, and squibs saying that they are deluding the strength of our world? The boy apparently grew up abused at St-Mary's orphanage in the early 40's. Instead of using his powers to improve our world, the psychopathic maniac with a severe mommy and daddy issue has decided to proclaim himself lord of the purebloods and wage war on the rest of us. How pathetic can you get?

For those of you who fear his name and his death eaters you only give him power that he doesn't deserve. Instead of running in fear, why don't you all learn some spells and start fighting back? Muggleborns and half bloods outnumber the purebloods fifty to one, and by sheer numbers we can overpower them. Think about that the next time you see death eaters attacking your home.

Since we're into the topics of dark lords, some of you may have heard by now the conviction of Albus Percival Wulfic Brian Dumbledore for his ghastly deeds against the boy-who-lived. How the mighty have fallen. Dumbledore was convicted of breach of family inheritance, thievery and endangerment to name a few of his misdeeds. The self-proclaimed light lord is not so light after all. It's come to our attention that while Dumbledore was getting his just rewards handed down to him, the family manor was attacked and raised to the ground by the Scorpion Sorcerer himself. These events have done much to renew this person's faith that no one can escape fates justice. Dumbledore if you are reading this, welcome to the revolution.

Now as to Azkaban...ect

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Voldemort looked at the paper sheeting in rage. This was not the first time the rag had revealed information that should have never seen the light of day. Not able to keep his temper in check and seeing that some of his subordinates were also reading the paper he needed to put on a little show and vent off some frustration at the same time. With that thought in mind, he snarled and crumpled the paper and yelled, " Lies! How dare they vilify me the greatest dark lord in centuries. They will all die a painful death when I catch them." He threw the paper on the ground and hissed, " Incendio."

He turned around and snarled, " Get back to planning. Soon they will all see why it's not a good idea to vilify us. He left to go back to his chamber for some much needed reflection. The proverbial cat was out of the bag on many things. Because of that blasted paper, the moron's would beef up security even more just to prove a point. Perhaps a large break out was not ideal. Maybe a coordinated series of fast lightning strikes on the other wizarding prisons would be much better. He was realistic enough to know that he could not get everyone of them. He just needed to succeed on the ones that had the biggest payout. He would wait to attack Azkaban. He needed to lull magical Britain into a false sense of complacency.

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Ministry of Magic London England

Early that morning, as with most government offices across the world in muggle and wizard kind, functionaries were coming in with indifferent stone like faces holding some sort of stimulant in hand. Like well-oiled machines they slowly made their way to their offices. One particular functionary by the name of Martha McCauley made her way to her desk that was adjacent to the minister himself. She had been chosen over eight months ago to be the top ministry administrator. After over thirty-five years of experience as a professional administrative office manager, she had reached the pinnacle of her field.

She made her way to her desk and started riffling through the list of mail that the minister would have to see and take action. It was her job to categorize the mail in terms of importance. She picked up the daily newspaper and quickly riffled through them. She picked up the daily prophet and scanned it to make sure that they hadn't botched the minister's scripted article. Everything seemed adequate. She put it aside and noticed the other news print laying beside the internal documents ledger. She picked it up and started to read when she heard a plethora of swearing, curses and such coming form her boss's office.

The door swung open with a bang that echoed throughout the hallway. She quickly turned around to see an enraged Cornelius Oswald Fudge foaming at the mouth. He looked at her and shaking the paper in his hand bellowed, "Incompetent am I? How dare this pathetic rag call me a buffoon? I want to see Amelia Bones and Veturius Longshanks in my office in thirty minutes. Let's see if this insignificant rag can withstand his full power. He will have the Aurors and Unspeakable trace this bloody damnation of a paper. When he's done with the owner, he'll wish he'd never heard the name Cornelius Fudge. He looked at the paper in his hand and threw it at his secretary and marched back to his office and slammed the door.

She looked back at her boss door and simply shook her head. She sat at her desk and wrote the summons for both department heads. At times like this, she wondered if a career in herbology would have been better.

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Scorpion Lair November 20 Early Morning

Xiana was sitting in the lair at the main conference table typing on the computer. She picked up her mug and took a sip of her chamomile tea. She loved chamomile and it helped settle her stomach. The twins must have been playing a game of Quidditch she thought. Her stomach always felt that way when Harry was away. Sometimes she thought that the twins knew their father wasn't home, and weren't too happy about it. She had arrived early, because she simply couldn't sleep. She decided to floo to the lair and work on some files instead. She looked around the lair and noticed that it was very active early this morning.

She knew that Harry and gang would be back early this morning and they were all here to get their marching orders. She went back to her computer and finished inserting the final bit of information they had on their new appointees to the Wizengamot upper house. They now controlled over seventy percent of the upper house and close to sixty percent of the lower house. When the time came, they would have enough power to dissolve the government. She then proceeded to go over the accounts to make sure there were enough funds allocated to their research and development branch. She would send the accounts to the board for final approval later that afternoon.

Having spoken to the potions master, they were now within weeks of achieving key breakthroughs on several of their initiatives. They needed rare potion ingredients that were quite difficult to obtain. In other words, they weren't cheap. The body restoration potion was one of their most valuable research projects. That one had the potential to replace lost limbs, damaged organs, and even re-grow a brand new nervous system. She felt that due to the war, many of their people would need the potion. The mechanics were simple enough. It would require any of the person's own body part, a hair, bone, or tissue and just like polyjuice dissolve it in the potion and drink it. Voila, restored body.

The idea had come from merging the polyjuice potion, skele-grow, and Voldemort's body restoring ritual. One of Malfoy's ancient dark scrolls had provided a breakthrough. It appears that Hydra's have incredible regenerative properties. Through experimentation they found that Hydra blood and spleen mixed with dragon marrow and infused with mild proteonic silver provided unheard off regenerative capacity. It caused instantaneous mutation of the current DNA and RNA cells in the body back to its earliest embryonic form. The potion was then combined with growth steroid and aging draughts. This caused the regenerated body parts to age to a chronological age somewhere in their mid twenty's. It was analogous to resetting a timer to zero, and then moving the hands to the desired time. She was busy transferring money into different accounts oblivious to all the commotion happening in the lair.

She was tapping away when she noticed that everything had suddenly become quiet. She looked up to see Harry climb out of the trunk. He had his hood on, and she could see his eyes glowing A.K green. He was holding a staff. The first thing she did was gasp at the beautiful creation. It was unlike anything she had ever seen. It was about six feet high and two inches in diameter. The bottom was capped with a six inch Rhenium tip. The main shaft was pure Naquadria with magical animals carved on its surface. She could see scorpions, snakes, dragons and other creatures she could only guess.

The eyes of each creature were inlaid with a set of precious gems. Emerald for scorpions, ruby for dragons, and sapphires for snakes. Above every carved creature was a two-inch ring etched with runes inlaid with emeralds. Four feet from the bottom of the main shaft were two eight inch perforated Rhenium sleeve set four inches apart. Like their wands, the Rhenium sleeves were perforated with holes inlaid with black diamonds. The black diamonds provided a path for magical energy to reach the center of the main shaft.

The top of the staff had an eight-tip crown set forty-five degrees apart. Sitting at the base of the crown was a perfectly rounded four-inch light bender stone. Sitting on top of the light bender stone was a six-inch scorpion made of naquadria. The scorpion's eight legs merged seamlessly with the crown tips. The scorpion's stinger and pincers were made of perfectly shaped emeralds. Looking at the staff one could actually see the air shimmer around it. Harry holding his staff looked absolutely lethal. She was pretty sure that everyone in the room had the same thought.

Standing beside Harry was Octavius Ollivander. The bizarre man seemed extremely giddy for some reason. She saw the twins, Luna, Remus, Tonks and a few other carrying scrolls, parchments, boxes and weird looking plants.

Harry walked towards Xiana and kissed her. He whispered, "I've missed you love." He then turned towards everyone and said, " Hi everyone, it's good to be back. We don't have time right now to go over everything, but next week we'll be holding a full gathering to talk about our discoveries and how to incorporate them in our fighting techniques. I'm putting everyone on notice, two weeks from now we'll be having a full-scale battle exercise. You are all responsible for speeding up your training. I'll be sending all of you with Moody for the next week in fluxtime. I want everyone to be done with Necron's books. I'll be sending a list of new curses and shields with Akima, Michael, Tiberius and Yadislav. "

He paused to gather his thoughts, and surveyed the crowd who was waiting for his next words. " Since our numbers are growing, in order to fight more efficiently, improve communication, administration and mission execution the council and I have decided to adopt the muggle military structure of ranks and special units. That is why the military exercise is necessary. You will all be assessed on many subjects at various levels and scenarios. We'll be building your physiological profiles to determine what rank you should be. Make no mistake, there will be no favoritism here, the rank structure will be based strictly on you abilities, I'll swear my magic on this. We already have a good start on the uniforms, but we need some ideas on what the ranks and special unit badges should look like. Of course keep in mind that we are Witches and Wizards and should make sure that there is an element of magic involved in any ideas generated. The council is not the only one with good ideas and we would like you to bring forth any ideas you may have. That is all for now. I'll talk to all of you soon enough."

Harry looked at Remus and they both nodded at each other. Harry looked at his closest advisors and said, " Xiana, Remus, Tonks, Moody, Fred, George, Ginny, Bill, Blaise, Theo and Brianna please follow me to the inner chamber. We have much to discuss."

With that Harry made his way to the inner chamber. Once he was in, he went to the corner where he had once hidden those pieces he had found in the snake statues and waived his staff and whispered a spell. A black obsidian box appeared for everyone to see. Harry remembered the basilisk egg, the necklace and a goblet with a badger and the dark aura that so resembled Voldemort. (Chap 12). At the time he was building the scorpion lair, Harry had no idea what objects he had found in the statues. These last months of study had finally showed him how Voldemort had cheated death. The bloody bastard had turned towards the evilest of the black arts to torn asunder his very soul. He'd managed this when he was only seventeen. Harry had realized that Tom's diary was in fact a Horcrux that he has destroyed back in his second year. The scrolls that he had read had warned of dangers of splitting one's soul. Not only did it make the Wizard unstable, but it also removed the ability of the wizard to cast soul magic. One needed a complete soul to cast soul magic also known as necromancy.

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Flash Back Training Trunk

Harry was sitting in his favorite chair by the fire and had crossed out another book that had yielded zero knowledge on Horcruxes. He looked down towards the pile and was about to pick another book when Remus came barging in waving a positively ancient scroll and screaming that he had found the answer. The scroll had been from Dumbledore safe. The scrolls weren't the only useful information coming from the safe. The diary had explained how to create and use the Philosophers stone. The diary had also revealed much about Dumbledore's motives and what had driven the man to become dark and manipulative. The man wanted to recreate new bodies for his dead wife and himself and reconnect his wife's soul held in a Horcrux with her new body. Harry smirked knowing that Dumbledore only had half the answers. What Dumbledore lacked was a means of recreating a stable body. The elixir of life was one of the main ingredients only.

Harry turned back to the scroll and began reading. The scroll was about Varanasi the ancient, the place of atonement for man and god, the cleanser of spirits... the path to the other side. Varanasi is older than history, older than legend, older even than myth. The power existed even before the first altars were built by sons of Manu, it existed even before Lord Shiva himself came to atone for his sin of Brahmahatya epochs ago.

Very few places in this world still function as doorways to the higher and nether planes, only these spots still have residues of the magi of those ancient ages; the ages where gods and demons walked the Earth. Varanasi was a veritable motherlode for all those interested and steeped into the philosophic and the esoteric. The temple of Varnasavinamita had been the gathering place of demons and Jinns now long gone from our plane of existance. In those ancient days, the demons had built temples all over the world. They had also left their knowledge incribed in murals and on the temple pillars. In the very center of the temple was a pit and a veil. The pit was described as a portal to the neiter world. Harry had recognized it as another veil much like the one at the department of misteries. Their other temples must have such veils also he had surmised.

On one of the murals, contained writing in runes long ago forgotten. These runes had been discovered and deciphered over three thousand years ago by an Egyptian wizard priest of the order of Osiris. He had gone on a quest on orders from his order to scour the earth for ancient magic. He eventually traveled to what is known today as the valley of Balaghat near Kenha national park in India. He had stumbled on the ancient temple of Varnasavinamita and had barely made it out alive.

The temple was hidden by a plethora of dark charms and curses. The writings spoke of a Horcrux as a vessel. Into this vessel, a wizard who wished to escape the human fact of mortality could place a bit of his or her soul into an object. The soul bit is torn from the whole by the act of murder. After committing a murder, a wizard could and, evidently, usually did live with a torn soul. The soul could actually mend by virtue of repentance, forgiveness or time but must undergo unimaginable pain to atone for the sin.

The wizard who wished to make use of that tear in his soul could invoke an evil, highly secret and very difficult spell that placed the torn bit of soul into a vessel of his choice. This ensured some level of survival, even if the body was killed. The vessel must have powerful stasis charms cast upon it to ensure that the soul piece cannot escape. It is highly advisable to put many curses and enchantments to safeguard the soul piece. If the protection of the Horcrux is somehow defeated, the simple act of destroying the vessel would release the soul piece and destroy it forever. The Horcrux acted as a tether to the plane of the living. It prevented a Wizard or Witch left over soul from passing into the netherworld. Using the spell Avada Kadavra is necessary to help split the wizards soul. The three runes known as Raido (spiritual and physical renewal), Nauthiz (to accomplish the impossible) and Sowulo (spiritual protection) are carved on the chest and head. Raido is carved above the heart, Sowulo is carved on the forehead and Nauthiz is carved on the right side of the chest.

The third step consisted of transferring the soul to the receptacle using the following spell Tewet-Ka-Kheperu-Maat-Heru-Khuti-Mââ-Xerou. Upon completing the spell the wizard will be surrounded by a deep burgundy mist, the mist will shrink into a small ball and turn light blue. The small ball, which is the torn soul will then gravitates towards it's new home. The protection enchantments must be initiated immediately. Know that this ritual is excruciatingly painful. Many wizards and witches have lost their sanity using this ritual. As a final warning, know that the price of immortality is not without severe consequences. One cannot alter the balance of the universe without paying the price. I, demon Xoltor Ata Valteri keeper of the seventh gate of Alderan made an oath to never reveal the secrets of the demimonde under threat of complete destruction.

End Flash Back

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"Harry?"

Harry heard Xiana and snapped out of his thoughts. He looked to his left and said, " Sorry, I was just thinking of what's in the box and how they helped Tom come back to the living."

Xiana frowned, "Come again, I don't understand how a box helpedTom come back to life?"

Harry looked at his wife and the group and decided to give them a short version of what they had found in Dumbledore's scrolls on Horcruxes and how to destroy them. He explained what they were, how they were made and how to destroy them. He explained the dire warnings of creating them and their effects on their living bodies. He saw all of them shuddering and explained that one Lucius diary had mentioned that the dark lord was truly great as he had managed to create several of them.

Harry looked at them and said, " The problem we have is that we don't know how many more he's created on top of what we already have. If making one Horcrux can make you unstable, then this certainly explains why he's a raving psychopath. I know that I destroyed one in my second year when I destroyed Tom's diary. I'm sure the locket, and the cups are one also. I can feel his aura on them. The basilisk egg I'm not sure about. What we need to find out is how many he made and where the others are located."

Xiana was pondering what Harry said and looked up at him with a frown and replied, " I don't know if this means anything but three days ago we watched Dumbledore in his office as he was putting memories in his pensive. He was muttering something about Voldemort and possibly seven Horcruxes. He also mentioned getting a memory from some Slughorn, whom ever he is. Maybe this Slughorn knows about Tom's Horcruxes?"

Remus and Bill looked at each other and Bill said, " I think it might be worthwhile to steal Dumbledore's memories. I know this is going to be difficult, but he may also know where the other Horcruxes are. It sure sounds like he knows what they are. It would seem that our esteemed headmaster might know a lot more than we think about Voldemort?"

Remus looked at them, "I agree with Bill. It will be risky but at this stage we must be absolutely sure that we have destroyed all of Tom's protection before getting rid of the bastard."

Harry thought about what they said, and came to the same conclusion. They needed to know how many Horcruxes there was and where the others were located. One thing for sure, they sure as hell had the upper hand. Unknowingly he had stumbled on possibly three of them that would have been impossible for Dumbledore to get at. Access to the chamber of secrets requires parseltongue ability. The fact that they were hidden in bloody statues was also brilliant. It was pure luck that he had found any of them. Harry hated to admit it, but it certainly had required guile and magical talent to achieve what Tom had done.

He looked at them and nodded his head, " I agree with both of you. We have to find this Slughorn and raid Dumbledore's pensive. I suggest we get a plan going so that we're ready to execute when we come back from our meeting with the Camarilla. I don't know how much longer Dumbledore will stay at Hogwarts. When he leaves, so do all his possessions. In the meantime, let's destroy what we have. I suggest we go to the caves where Sirius stayed during my fourth year. It's far enough from Hogwarts that any magical backlash won't affect the castle. I have a feeling that the stasis spells have a great deal of energy stored in them. Remus and Bill will come with me to destroy these three abominations. Xiana why don't you and Brianna, Tho and Blaise start planning how we're going to steal Dumbledore's memories. Tonk's, Fred and George, see what you can come up with to find this Slughorn character."

" I'll get on it right now." Xiana went back out to gather the others.

Fred, George and Tonks went to the map of Britain on the wall and started planning their strategy. Harry took the box and apparated to the caves with Remus and Bill following shortly after. Harry transfigured a pedestal and put each item on top. He then waved his staff and erected powerful shields. He was astonished at the power of the staff. Bill whistled when he felt the power of the wards and shield being erected. Harry then cast several disillusion wards just outside the caves. He looked at his partners and said, " I suggest we cast our most powerful destructive hex. I'll cast on the cup, Remus go for the locket, Bill you go for the Basilisk."

They all took position and Harry said, " On the count of three. One, two, three!" Harry hissed Gu-Ul-Para, both Remus and Bill cast Lacertosus-Rumpere. Two deep purple almost black lances of light and one huge very dark green lighting bolt shot out of the staff and swiftly made their way towards it intended targets. The targets absorbed the spells, and instantaneously a cascade reaction occurred. Horcrux are meant to be able to absorb damage and repair themselves. However, there is a point at which the damage is too great and the Horcrux cannot use the stasis and soul energy to repair itself.

The energy has nowhere else to go but to be released to the outside with devastating effects. A huge wall of white energy erupted and pressed down on the erected wards and shields. Harry was using his aura reading capability to gage the integrity of the wards and shields. What he saw made him react instinctively, he pushed Bill and Remus to the ground and jumped on both of them, with his staff held high he hissed, Nisi-šen-šen. A large emerald dome formed above them and absorbed the incoming energy from the collapsed shields and wards. A loud bang was heard and all felt a series of earth tremors. The energy influx was incredible. Harry concentrated on his shield and absorbing the energy and redirecting it to his surroundings. Had he not had his staff, they would have been overwhelmed and suffered life-threatening injuries. The energy flux along with the ground tremors stopped. Harry canceled the spell and stood up. The others followed suit. They all looked inside the cave and saw three greenish vapors hovering over the objects, and with a blood-curling scream they vanished. At that point they could all see pieces of the caves roof coming down in great chucks. Harry accioed the destroyed Horcruxes and put them back in his box.

He turned towards Bill and Remus and said, "Well, I think we learned something new. I believe that destroying three Horcruxes at once is a bad Idea. The next one's we find we do them one at a time. I didn't realize the amount of magical energy contained by the soul fragments would be that powerful. We won't make that mistake again. Are you guys all right?"

Bill just shook his head, " Well besides having to change my shorts, I'm all right." Bill turned towards Remus and said, "How about you?"

Remus wiped his brow with his sleeve and replied, " Same here, I think I may need to change my shorts."

They all looked at each other and burst out laughing. They all felt the ground trembling again and Harry said, " We better get out of here, the cave is collapsing and I think the ministry will be here real soon." They all made their way back to the scorpion lair.

Harry made his way to the inner chamber and dropped the box in a corner. He wanted to collect all the Horcruxes and put them in there. He had a feeling he was going to need them in his final encounter with Voldemort. Never under estimate the power of psychology in warfare.

Xiana came into the inner chamber and said, "How did it go?"

Harry turned around and smiled, " Mission accomplished. Although from what Bill and Remus told me, they are currently changing their shorts. "

Xiana burst out laughing while shaking her head. " Life is never dull with you around love. I figured it must have been one hell of light show. We felt some very weak tremors over here. Those caves are some fair distance from the lair."

" Well you're right about the light show. Lets just say I'll never under estimate the magical energy contained in a soul fragment. I'll say this much, I'm sure glad I had the staff with me. From here on end it's one Horcrux at a time. "

Xiana just starred at him with her mouth open. She was going to lay into him for taking unnecessary risks, but decided to keep her mouth shut. After all she didn't know either that a soul fragment contained that much magical energy. She just looked at him and squared her shoulders and said, " Well at least you were lucky and no one got hurt. I swear I'll have gray hairs before I reach forty."

Harry approached Xiana thanking his lucky stars that she hadn't ripped a strip off him. She could be real nasty when she wanted too. He grabbed her and tenderly kissed her. He looked into her eyes and said, " You're right we were lucky today. As for gray hairs, they won't be coming from me. Black hair, gray hair, purple hair I don't care. I love you more and more as each day passes by. " With that he kissed her again looked at her swollen belly and smiled.

Xiana looked at her belly also and smiled. She looked at her watch and said, " You have to prepare for your meeting. Please be careful my love." She hugged him and left to go get Luna and Neville.

Neville and Luna came into the inner chamber and found Harry looking at his call phone. Neville looked at his watch and said, " Time to go Harry."

Harry turned around and looked at his closes friends and replied, " I was just programming the portkey. I figured and made one last check to make sure we have everything we need. We'll need this alliance more than I would like to admit. Having the Camarilla, as our allies will set a precedent for every other magical race. All right here we go grab on the rope it's activating in two minutes."

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November 20, Romania in Negoiu mountains in the Southern Carpathian Region

Harry, Neville and Luna landed with a thud directly in Shauna's bedroom. Harry immidialty cast a shield and dropped into a kata stand ready to strike. He looked around waiting for an attack but none came. The room was empty. He looked to his left and right and found Neville and Luna in similar stands. One could never be too careful, especially in a Vampire stronghold. Harry took a closer look at the room and liked what he saw. There was ancient tapestry from the Celtic, Macedonian and Roman era. There was a warm blue magical fire in the large fireplace. The mantel was a large highly polished granite slab that held many gargoyle statues. On the right wall there was a large painting of a wolf pack in a snowy dark forest. Harry turned around facing north and noticed a window with the light illuminating the north wall of the bedroom. There was a huge queen size bed with large oak post. All the furniture looked antique and would sell for a pretty price on the auction markets. He noticed Roman, fourteenth and sixteenth century pieces. Harry could make out several magical creatures engraved on the furniture. All in all Harry felt very comfortable here. There was a comforting dark feel to the place.

Luna looked around until she found the bed. She examined every inch of the room and especially the bed. She really loved the room and had every intention of recreating the same setting in her bedroom. She loved how the light struck the north wall. Of course the wolf painting would have to be replaced with a crumpled horned snorcack. She looked at Neville with her typical dreamy the world couldn't possibly faze me look and said, " I want our bedroom to be exactly like this. I can easily see myself having wild monkey sex and conceive in this setting."

Neville almost choked on his own spit, and Harry was finding the gargoyles particularly interesting. Harry cleared his throat and said, " All right guys, lets get this show on the road." With that Harry used his staff and cast an olfactory disguise and a disillusionment spell on all them. They could all feel the ice cube flowing down their spine feeling. Harry finally cast a sound proof charm on their feet and took his watch and rotated a full circle to get an idea of the layout of the castle. They all looked at the map that formed in front of them and how to navigate the castle.

They could see where the Vampires were congregating in the main hall. They left Shauna's bedroom and silently made their way to the reception hall. Along the way they passed hallways filled with ancient weaponry. They passed the hall where a life size statues of Alexander the great and his generals all dressed in their battle armor. There were actual wizarding portraits of his army in full battle. There was a large tome sitting on a pedestal. The tome appeared to be a full biography and description of his military campaigns and battle maneuvers. Harry couldn't imagine what muggles would pay for this supremely rare collection of one of the greatest military genius in human history. Harry felt a reverence for this man and his accomplishments.

Harry sent a silent blessing to the man who had died so very long ago. They made their way to the fourth floor of the castle and passed by another hallway where Harry stopped once again. This time his was looking at his one time greatest military icon. Hannibal, son of Hamilcar Barca. Hannibal revered as one of histories greatest military strategist. He was a master of the battlefield. Harry noticed a book sitting on a pedestal. He approached it an found himself looking at a tome of Hannibal's memoirs. Harry nearly wet himself. He knew right there and then he had to have that book. With a gleam in his eyes that didn't go unnoticed by Neville and Luna, they slowly made their way towards the meeting hall.

Along the way they found some Vampires guards and had to stop and divert their attention with some powerful confundus charm. Harry had every intention of showing up from a position of strength as equals. What better way to do this then to sneak in what is highly regarded as an impregnable fortress? Suddenly Luna stopped them and asked, " How do you plan to surprise them, and how to we stop them from attacking us?"

" I want to get close enough to the meeting hall so that I can get a mental picture of the place, then I will conjure some scorpions and apparate all of us in the meeting hall. Once there I'll silently cast some protective shields. This should protect us and get their attention."

" Just make sure that your shield can keep the Tellurian Aslope from getting to us. If they get you, they'll find a way to your sphincter and make you shit yourself."

Neville, recognizing how nervous Luna was and that this was her way of relieving stress played along and said, "Well that would ruin our day wouldn't' it? I don't think the Methuselah would appreciate us soiling ourselves in front of the princes. That might send the wrong message."

"Yah, I don't think shitting ourselves is the best way to start negotiations. I'll make sure our shields keep out the Tellurian Aslope." Harry replied.

They finally reached the end of the hallway and Harry peeked out to get a good look at the gathering and where they should make their entrance. Harry then conjured his two fifteen-foot scorpions and told Neville and Luna to grab a hold of him. He put one hand on one of the scorpions and touched his staff to the other and apparated to the main hall.

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One hour Prior to Meeting in The Main Hallway

Nicadimus was busy putting the finishing touch ups on the alliance documents. He needed to get this right. Like all-important treaties, it was a balance of give and take. He wanted to make the document fair and concise. He knew that the prices had their own agenda, but the very existence of the Camarilla was at stake. They had to unite under one banner or not at all. Already two thirds of the Camarilla was represented. Shauna was running interference for him. Methuselah Vardana and Ignatius would be arriving soon. Today was the day that history would be made. If he was wrong he they would be destroyed. He hoped that the Scorpion Sorcerer would make it on time. Nicadimus looked at the finished treaty and melted some blue was and affixed the seal of the Camarilla on it. He made duplicates for all the Princes, Elders and Methuselah's.

He looked into his ledger to make sure he had properly recorded the ancient prophecy. He was about call one of the Neonates to prepare refreshments when he heard the voice of his daughter. He looked up to find a contingent following her. He put away his book and went to meet the delegation. He immediately recognized Methuselah Caligula, Vego and Zenobia even though she had her hood on. They weren't as old as him but close. He was very pleased to see that Zenobia had come. She was of the Inconnu, which made her neutral from all warring parties. She lived in the wastelands under the ancient vampire city Varniya. The closest human equivalent title would be that of most high priestess. For her to leave the wastelands, and come to the gathering then events to come must be dire indeed. Behind them were the seven elders. Following from the rear were the seven princes. All of the power of the Camarilla was concentrated in these individuals.

The first one to approach him was Vego. "Nicadimus my old friend, you still look as sprite as in the old days. The millenniums have been kind to you."

"Vego you Cimmerian old hound, you look as young as when you fought Sargon II at the battle of Unartu."

"That was a long time ago my friend." They both crossed their arms and caught each other's wrist and touched foreheads. The ancient greetings dating back to the time of Caine was used to signify peace and friendship.

Vego then turned around and said, " Look who I found on the road to Carpathia, my old friend Caligula. He still looks as young and demented as when he was emperor of Rome."

Nicadimus simply smirked and said, " Of course he does, and I've heard that he still indulges in Roman style orgies and blood letting."

"One has to have a favorite pass time. The centuries can get lonely." Answered Caligula.

Nicadimus repeated the same greeting as with Vego. He turned around towards Zenobia and bowed with his arms wide open and said, " Of course one cannot forget ancient Zenobia of the Inconnu, and descendent from the Queen of Sheba. Sired Childe of Amun Anoxia Caliga, and keeper of the Antediluvian chronicles, Custodian of the Age of man, Vampyre and Wizard history and legends. Welcome to this most important of meetings. Your knowledge of the true history will be most valuable as we enter a difficult time for our kind and the world of man."

Nicadimus could hear the gasp from the assembled. They all knew what it meant to have the keeper of the chronicles. Every Vampire knew of the powers of the keepers of history. He then turned towards the Princes, and elders and greeted each one in return. He waited for everyone to be seated and looking around the large table he stood up and began his speech. " Brothers and sisters I welcome you. The reason I have called this meeting is to forge an alliance with the Scorpion Sorcerer. I know that many of you have heard of him and his battles in Britain. You may ask yourself why we should bother with the affairs of Wizards and Witches. I assure you that under normal circumstances we would have carried on as we have always done in regards to mortals and their affairs. However, these are not normal times. I'm sure you have all heard of the Dark Lord Voldemort. He came back from the dead two years ago using forbidden magic and is creating as we speak an alliance with the Sabbat."

Instantly the Princes were on their feet yelling and swearing. Prince Tarsus of the Broujah hissed, " What do you intend to do about this. How come we hear of this threat now? I Tarsus demand an explanation."

Within the blink of an eye, Caligula had Tarsus by the throat with his fangs an inch from his throat. He hissed, " Who do you think you're speaking too little boy! You forget yourself, I'll drink your blood before you can utter your next words if you don't keep to protocols fool." Caligula threw Tarsus across the room, and turned around to the other Princes, and spat, " This is a formal gathering and the Caine protocols will be adhered too, or you will feel the wrath of the ancients."

Nicadimus eyes were burning lava red, and hissed, " As Methuselah Caligula said, meeting protocols will be adhered too. Now as I was saying before I was rudely interrupted, Voldemort has an alliance with our sworn enemies, and I have no doubt that we will be facing his death eaters in combat before long. There is no use denying the fact that Wizards and Witches wield powerful magic that can easily our people. Most of you are not old enough to fight them as equals. In order to balance this, we need an equally powerful Wizard to side with us who can offer protection from their magic. In return we will offer the full power of a united Camarilla. Make no mistake, we will need this power to once and for all destroy the Sabbat."

He looked at the assembly and continued, " Shauna has been to Britannia and was rescued by the Scorpion Sorcerer. He's been waging war against the dark lord Voldemort with success. The dark lord has lost many of his closest advisers. I assure you it is no coincidence that after two thousand five hundred years of absence, the mark of the most feared magical priesthood in known history is once again in ascendancy. Shauna can attest to the power this Sorcerer wields. The signs are all there, we have consulted with our oracles and with the Centaurs, and they agree with us that a global conflict is coming. This cross road has been brewing for millennia. "

He looked around the table and could see the wheels turning in their heads. Here goes the final shock he thought, " You are all aware of my divination powers. What I'm about to say may shock many of you but I believe this to be the undeniable truth. It is my belief that this Scorpion Sorcerer is the long fabled Gehenna Black Raven. The long-prophesied night of the apocalypse."

At that last statement the room exploded into chatter. The elders and Princes kept looking at him as if he had announced that Caine himself was coming back to them. He kept banging the granite ball on the table for to no avail. Finally there was a loud scream for silence. Nicadimus and everyone else looked towards Zenobia who had screamed for silence.

" I too have read the prophecy, that was foretold by Lilith herself. That particular vision was acquired through powerful blood magic. There is no reason to get exited until we know for sure. The vision foretold that he would bear the mark of the black raven on his left ankle. The blood of two Methuselah along with the seven princes will be mixed and smeared on his left ankle. The mark of the raven with blood red eyes will appear if he is Gehenna. If not, he will still be a powerful ally to have regardless of the outcome."

Nicadimus inclined his head towards Zenobia and replied, " As always, wisdom of the ages speak through you my lady."

Zenobia looked at Nicadimus and a smile crept on her face, she finally said, "Are you courting me Nicadimus. My father always warned me about older men."

Nicadimus along with the other Methuselah burst out laughing. Finally gaining control he replied, " Ah my dear Zenobia, a tongue as sharp as the reapers scythe. "

He turned towards the other Princes and said, " I suggest we all go over the treaty document as we still have time to make some last minute changes if warranted. I believe you'll find it equitable. I would like to remind you that this is no time to get greedy. Our very survival is at stake. "

With that they reviewed the treaty and Nicadimus only had to make a few alterations. He looked at his watch and noticed that they had five minutes before they were to send for the Scorpion Sorcerer a.k.a Harry Potter he thought. The runner came back with a frown on his head and came to him and in a whisper told him that he had not shown up. Nicadimus looked at Shauna and gave her a look that said get your but over.

Shauna understood all to well the look she was getting. Without being told she pulled out the cell phone to try and reach him, but the second she reached for her phone, there was a sudden apparition to the south side of the main hall. At once the elders and the princes moved to an attack formation. It was Shauna and Nicadimus who immidialty recognized the intruder.

Nicadimus screamed, "Hold your position!"

Everyone froze. No one moved, but everyone got a good look at the sudden apparition. There were three people and two giant menacing scorpions behind them. They were all wearing what appeared to be Basilisk combat robes. The person on the left was a blond Witch, and the one on the right was a Wizard. They both held what appeared to be metallic wands. As interesting as they appeared to be, they were nothing compared to the person in the middle. He was holding a staff that quite frankly even impressed him in its looks. The staff screamed lethal. The man himself was an imposing figure. He was tall and athletic looking. His hood was on, and the only feature that could be seen were the emerald fires burning where his eyes should be. They held the same color as the Avada Kadavra spell. He looked at his fellow Methuselah and he could tell they were impressed. This Wizard screamed power.

The fact that he and his allies had apparated through their blood wards were clearly understood by all the Vampires present. Nicadimus was sure that he had done this on purpose. It was clearly a show of strength that said don't fuck with me, I'm here on serious business. Nicadimus cleared his throat and said, " Well if you wanted our attention, I would say you have achieved a resounding success."

Nicadimus turned back towards the Camarilla and said, "Please everyone may I present the Scorpion Sorcerer. All of you get back to your seat. Let us get comfortable we have a long night ahead of us."

With that Shauna went to greet Harry. She approached him in a non-threatening manner and bowed to him with her arms opened and said, " Welcome to the Camarilla. We have heard of your impressive accomplishments. With great respect towards you and your people we would like to talk about a possible alliance between yours' and my peoples. My father Methuselah Nicadimus felt that only a total gathering of the Camarilla would be worthy enough for our meeting."

Harry answered back, "It is with great respect that I too seek an alliance with your peoples. It is my belief that it is high time that the magical peoples of this world unite. There are dark times ahead of us. We will need to pool all of our strengths to meet the challenges ahead of us. Please allow me to introduce two of my closest advisers. Standing to my left is a powerful Wizard of the most noble and ancient house of Longbottom. His given name is Neville. On my right is a powerful Witch of the noble and ancient house Lovegood. Her given name is Luna. My true name, you will only find out if we have a treaty and only through a blood oath to never reveal my true identity. I know that this seems strict and I apologize for it, however there are many lives in the balance and all precautions must be taken."

With that they were led to their seat and refreshments were brought in. Harry silently cast a detection spell on the drinks and food brought to them and found them to be free of poisons and mind-altering substances. It had already been agreed ahead of time that he would determine if it was safe to partake in food and drink. The signal that it was o.k consisted of him drinking and eating. After refreshments, introductions were made. He was asked how he had managed to apparate directly to the main hall. He had informed them that he had used the muggle cell phone and the GPS function to read the coordinates within the castle. He told them that the first place they apparated too was Shauna bedroom using a new form of apparition that he had invented that could beat any wards. From there they had silently made their way to the great hall. Harry had praised Nicadimus on the incredible collection of ancient warriors and weaponry.

Nicadimus was greatly amused at how they had gained access to the castle. It spoke volumes about the man's intelligence and cunning. They were traits that he himself greatly admired. Noticing the reverence the Sorcerer had when describing the ancient warriors, Nicadimus asked, " Do you have a particular favorite?"

Harry looked at him and replied, " Well they are all great in their own rights. Alexander is a classic. For myself, I'm partial to Hannibal."

Caligula looked at him and hissed, " What could a mortal such as you know about that bloody Carthaginian?"

Harry looked Caligula directly in the eyes and using his Occlumency powers, called forth his folder on ancient military history and found the folder named Hannibal. Using his eidetic memory he began reciting all of what he knew about this great strategist.

"Hannibal, son of Hamilcar Barca, (247 BC – ca. 183 BC, short form Hannibal) was a Carthaginian military commander and tactician, later also working in other professions, who is popularly credited as one of the finest commanders in history. He lived during a period of tension in the Mediterranean, when Rome (then the Roman Republic) established its supremacy over other great powers such as Carthage, Macedon, Syracuse, and the Seleucid empire. He's one of the best-known Carthaginian commanders. His most famous achievement was at the outbreak of the Second Punic War, when he marched an army, which included war elephants, from Iberia over the Pyrenees and the Alps into northern Italy."

Seeing that he had the attention of the entire Camarilla he continued, "During his invasion of Italy, he defeated the Romans in a series of battles, including those at Trebia, Trasimene and Cannae. After the Battle of Cannae, many Roman allies joined Hannibal, who promised them independence and self-governance. According to some historians Hannibal lacked the siege equipment necessary to attack the heavily defended city of Rome, but it was not a lack of siege equipment, that even Livy mentions, but the shortage of supplies and the political agenda. He maintained an army in Italy for more than a decade afterward, never losing a major engagement, but could not force the Romans to accept his terms for peace. A Roman counter-invasion of Africa forced him to return to Carthage, where he was defeated in the Battle of Zama. After the war he spent his time planting olive trees until running for the office of sufet. As such he enacted needed political and financial reforms to enable the payment of the war indemnity imposed by Rome. His reforms were unpopular with members of the upper class, who with the help of the Romans forced him into exile. During his exile, he lived at the Seleucid court, where he acted as military advisor to Antiochus III in his war against Rome. Hannibal fled again, after Antiochus III lost the war with the Romans due to lack of supplies. He accepted their terms, making a stop in Armenia, where he worked as a townsplanner for the new capital. His flight ended in the court of Bithynia where he possibly achieved an outstanding naval victory by means of biological warfare and was afterwards betrayed to the Romans.

Hannibal is universally ranked as one of the greatest military commanders and tacticians in history. Military historian Theodore Ayrault Dodge once famously called Hannibal the father of strategy because his greatest enemy, Rome, came to adopt elements of his military tactics in its own strategic arsenal. This praise has earned him a strong reputation in the modern world and he was regarded as a gifted strategist by men like Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington."

Harry finished his recital and looked back at Caligula who was wearing a smile on his face. Finally with something akeen to respect on his face Caligula replied, "Well done Sorcerer. Your knowledge is for the most part complete. His memoirs contain a lot more details of those times however. Being a past Roman emperor, I personally loathed the bastard and the damage he inflicted on Rome. That being said, secretly I admired his guile and military genius. Had he been born Roman at the time, he would have made it to procunsul, maybe even Ceasar. " With that he inclined his head towards Harry and went back to reviewing the draft document.

It was now late in the evening and they were revewing the military assistance clause when an elder of the Nosferatu clan by the name of Zuulda Thaal loked at him and spoke in a clipped tone, "We have been going over the military assistance clause and the weaponry that you say you have. I do not mean to show disrespect, but you will forgive me if I'm a little bit sceptical. None of us here have ever heard of such things. I know that your magic is powerful, but to move entire army's in truncks that seems a little farfetch."

Eveyone had stopped what they were doing to see what the sorcerer had to say. Harry looked at them all and said, " I urge you to not take my word for it but to see the evidence with your own eyes."

Harry looked at Neville and said, "Show them."

Neville looked Harry in the eyes and nodded. He got up and pulled out a shiny pocket book size wooden square and put the tip of his wand on the saphire jewel. The wooden sqare quickly enlarged into a large trunk. Harry stood up and made his way to the trunk. He went to the large crystal on the front of the lid and put his hand on it. The trunk lid clicked open and he turned around to face the Camarilla and said, "Please follow me."

The Vampires all looked at each other and Nicadimus looked at Zuulda Thaal and with a sneer said, "Well do you want your proof or not?"

Nicadimus for himself was quite intriqued to see how such magic could possibly work. He followed Harry and his advisers down the deep set of stairs. He looked back and saw that he was being followed by his congregation. They all made their way down the steps and were led to a large set of metallic doors. The very fact that they had gone that deep inside a trunk was impressive to begin with. He couldn't wait to see what was on the other side. He made sure to bring up his full Vampiric abilities to bear. He hadn't lived to be over three thousand years old by being stupid. Who knew what lay on the other side.

Harry made sure that they were all at the entrance to the doors and waved his staff and hissed a password. He had disabled the blood wards in the eventuality that they would need to provide proof of their claims. They stepped throught the doors and silently smirked when he heard the Vampires exclaim the impossibility of such magic. Harry gave them a tour of the trunk and explained it's features. He told them about the porktey chamber and that there were many such trunks and that they were all cennected with their own floo system. He showed them the utilities room and how it worked. He explained that each trunk could be put under a dark fedelius and that they could be hidden in plain site, even in an ennemy camp. The trunck could act as the perfect trojan horses.

To say that Nicadimus was impressed was an understatement. He couldn't believe that the Scorpion Sorcerer had created such magic. The sheer size of the dimensional space was staggering. He had of course seen multi- compartment trunks before, but nothing that could even come close to emulating this creation. The strategic significance of such a weapon became immediately obvious to him. They could move their large Vampiric armies over entire continents instantaneously. The trunks came fully equiped to house and care for the needs of a whole army. They could hide an entire army in plain view. The sheer strategic value of having your forces ready to crush the rear at a moments notice was staggering.

Neville and Luna showed them the weapons chamber and explained what the lasrge blue like beach balls were. During their four months in flextime, Neville and Luna had worked on a poison extract from the magical cousin of the castor bean. The castor bean is not a true bean but a seed. The potent toxin Ricin can be extracted from the seed. It causes severe pulmonary edema within hours of exposure to muggles. Neville had found an even more potent toxin that could effect magical beings. He explained where the plant came from and its properties. The magical cousin was called Ricinus Cavitatis. The plant was known to grow at the entrnace of caves inhabited by dragons. The feces from dragons provide the magical energy that the plant converts into a supremely potent neurotoxin. The plant and it's toxicity had been know for a very long time. However, no one had ever figured how to extract the toxin in large quantities until now. Luna used her wand and wrote the plants data in the air.

Scientific classification

Kingdom: Plantae

Division: Magnoliophyta

Class: Magnoliopsida Magica

Order: Malpighiales

Family: Euphorbiaceae Magicus

Subfamily: Acalyphoideae Echylodendron

Tribe: Acalypheae

Subtribe: Ricininae

Genus: Ricinus

Species: R. Cavitatis

Neville and Luna explained how they had extracted the toxin in a liquid form that could be released on the enemy. The balls were heavily pressurized and contained a special type of nozzle made by muggles that would create a dense fog. The toxic fog was much heavier than air and would linger at ground levels for up to three hours. They had also invented an antidote that could be taken in liquid form or capsules. The antidote was good for up to a week. During that period of time any contact with the fog would have no impact. The enemy however would suffer death within hours of inhaling the fog. The fog could kill anything magical and normal. No races were immune to its lethality unless they had the antidote.

Harry could see many of the Vampires looking nervous. He was proud of Neville and Luna, they had come through in spades. There were three trunk manors that had been especially built to function as giant green houses and grow whatever plants they needed for potions and bio weapons. Harry looked at Nicadimus and gave him a nod.

Nicadimus for his part turned around to face Zuulda Thaal and said, "What say you now Zuulda. Does this satisfy you insecurties? Or do you need any more demonstrations?"

Zuulda bowed his head in shame and replied, "No ancient one. I fear I let my paranoia get the better of me. I will gladly join this Scorpion Sorcerer who ever he is. He has great power."

Nicadimus turned towards his group and said, "Now that everyone's curiosity has been satiated. Let us finish our negotiations. They all turned around taking their time to view the inside of the trunk manor. Harry turned towards Luna and said, "Your planning insights have saved our butts. Good show Luna."

"Well I'm not a Ravenclaw for nothing you know."

Harry looked at Neville and they both smiled and shook their heads. He hoped that Luna would never change. Her stoic apprach to situations always left him feeling calm. She never got exited no matter how dire the situation was. Well time to finish off this treaty he thought.

They had been back in the main hall for over an hour and had finally reached an agreement acceptable to all. It had taken Harry explaining why he was fighting and what he hoped to acheive in the end. He had described his plans in large brush stokes. He didn't go into every detail, but certainly enough for them to know that he had a plan after the war, that would impose a new order. They were ready to sign the treaty in blood when Nicadimus rose up and everyone stopped talking. Harry had an inlkling of what was coming. He hoped that they would accept a bargain instead. He looked at Neville and Luna and they too knew what was coming.

Nicadimus looked towards Harry Potter and said, " Before we sign the contract. Sorcerer it is a custom of our people to offer a bride as gift payment to seal important treaties. The older the bride the more important the cause. The older they are the more power they have. This is done to both protect you and us from treachery. In order to complete our arrangement, I offer my own daughter Shauna as bride prize to you. "

Here it goes he thought. Harry looked at Nicadimus and then Shauna and said, " Your daughters beauty is second to none. The bride price is indeed worthy of this treaty. You must understand that were I not married I would accept Shauna as my wife to be. She has all of the qualities that I prize. However, I have sworn on my magic to never betray my wife who owns my soul and heart. I have read your peoples history and laws, and I ask you if I offer you a gift equal in value to the bride price you have just offered would that be acceptable?"

Nicadimus narrowed his eyes and replied, " Such things have been done bofore, but I assure you the gift would have to be of great value to replace my Shauna. Make sure that you do not insult us in your offer of gift."

Harry inclinded his head. The warning didn't go unoticed by Harry. He reached into his robe pocket, and dug out a beautiful mahogany box encrusted with precious stones. He opened it, and pulled out a ruby red stone and heard the Methusalah gasp.

Harry looked up at them and said, " From your reaction I gather some of you know what you are looking at. I'm offering your people as replacement of the bride price this Philosopher's stone. Now the stone is know to make the elixir of life or permanently transmut a small amount of Iron into gold. Being Vampires, you have no need of the elexir of life. Throughout the ages you have accumulated wealth beyond any man's imagination. In my research, I have found another use for the stone that I think you'll find quite useful. "

Harry used his staff and conjured an enormous multy tiered crystal bowl and filled it with pure water, which cascaded from bowl to bowl like a water fall. He put the stone in the top bowl and conjured a Kama. He cut his palm and allowed his blood to drip directly on the stone. He then took his staff and touched the tip of the stone and allowed raw magical energy to flow into the stone. The effect was instantaneous, the water turned to blood. Not just any blood but wizard blood. Harry heard gasp from the Vampires. A water fall of blood cascaded from bowl to bowl. Harry took his staff and conjured crystal goblets for all of them. There was enough blood in the bowl to satiate hundreds of Vampires. He looked at the Vampires and said, " Drink up, I hear wizard blood is sweet and revitalizing to the taste."

Nicadimus had a hard time believing that one stone could reproduce the life giving blood that all Vampires craved. However when it came to this Sorcerer, achieving the impossible didn't seem to faze him. Wizard blood was special. The magic in the blood enhanced a Vampires strengths. The prominent gifts of each clan derived from Caine were amplified. To a Methusalah, having drunk the blood of other Vampires they ignited all of the gifst of the blood they had injested in the past. If this stone could reproduce Wizard blood, it was truly the most prized gift that the Camarilla had ever been given. With trepidation, Nicadimus looked at Vego who nodded and Caligula who smirked and shrugged his shoulders. The look on his face was one of intrigue. Nicadimus slowly apprached the crystal bowl and could clearly smell the sweet odor of blood. He picked up his crystal glass and dipped it in the bowl. He brought the glass to his lips and with the entire Camarilla congress looking at him he took a big gulp of his drink.

The effect was instantaneous. To him it was as if he were drinking the nectar of the Gods he thought. The blood was oh so sweet and warm as if taken from a living host. The instant energy boost was unbelievable. It was similar to having a sugar rush without the nasty side effects. His eyes glowed red and his nails and fangs elongated. He felt a sharp pain in his back and a set of poweful bat like wings sprung up. Nicadimus felt as if he could crush and defeat any enemy. Seeing the effect it had on Nicadimus every Vampire rushed to the bowl to get a taste. The effects were repeated over and over with varrying degree depending on their age. The Nosferatu looked positivly beastial and brutish looking. They looked like demons from the underworld. The Toriador looked like Veelas. The Malkavian had a phycotic look to them. The Ventru prince looked like he could give old Salazar Slytherin a run for his money in cunning looks.

Nicadimus wanted to know how he had achieved such a feat and asked, "How were you able to do this? How did you discover that you could replicate blood with the Philosophers stone?"

"Making the elixir of life for mortal men requires much more power and magical energy from the stone. Blood, either you are Vampyr or mortal sustains life for all. Where blood is concerned, I simply duplicated the blood that was already given. The stone didn't have to recreate it from scratch. It already had a matrix to go by. In this case it simply transmuted the pure water into its new matrix. The elixir of life requires a special spell and depletes the stones magical properties for over a month. Transmuting blood from water is a much easier process and depletes the stone for a period of two days only. This is blood magic and can easily be recreated by your peoples. "

Nicadimus replied, " This is indeed a great gift. From the looks of things, we will never go hungry again. I beleive this qualifies as an acceptable trade. "He looked around and found the clans agreeing with him. He could tell that Shauna was a little dissapointed, but he knew that she understood the significance of this gift. He looked towards Zenobia and nodded at her.

Zenobia turned towards Harry and said, "There is a phrophecy dating back to Lilith wife of Caine. She was a powerful Witch and through blood magic, looked forward through the sands of time and predicted that a bloody war encompassing the world of men and magical peoples would come to be. A conqueror would rise up who would fight for the Vampire race and all magical beings. To us he goes by the name of Gehenna Black Raven. Among our peoples he is also known as the knight of the apocolypse. There is no mention that he must be of Vampire blood. It does mention that he would be magical. With your permission, we would like to carry out a test to see if you are this person."

Every Vampire of the Camarilla was looking at him with an aprehensive look in their eyes. Harry looked towards Neville and and Luna and they both nodded their heads at him. Harry could of cursed the seven gates of hell. Why did this shit always fucking happen to him he thought. If he ever got a chance to meet Fate he would ram a baseball bat up its ass. He knew he couldn't refuse as it would seriously effect protocols. It was getting late and he just wanted to go home. He inwardly groaned as he was afraid of the outcome. He looked at Methuselah Zenobia and gave her a nod.

She turned towards Nicadimus and the Princes, " I hope you have all brought you Childe daggers with you? Nicadimus we will need the bowl of creation. The sacred bowl from which Caine created the Childe. "

Nicadimus walked towards a tapestry and waived his hand. The tapestry rooled up to reveal a wall. He pulled out a dagger and cut his right palm. He smeared his blood on the wall and chanted in an ancient language. The wall glowed red and a door appeared. He openend the door and walked inside a secret chamber. He came back with a beautifully carved obsidian bowl. It had a set of runes that Harry did not recognize. Nicadimus brought the bowl to the table. Each Methuselah and Princes came to the bowl, cut their righ hand and dropped their blood in the bowl. When they had all taken their turn, Zenobia waved her hand and the blood in the bowl began to swirl. As the blood swirled she chanted the ancient tongue of the Antideluvian era. After what seemed an hour to Harry but was only a few minutes, she looked towards Harry and asked him to bear his left ankle and calf.

Harry felt like a complete idiot, but followed her instructions. He took off his boot and walked towards Zenobia. He brought his naked lower left leg on the chair and looked directly into her eyes. She dipped her hand into the blood and smeared his whole ankle and calf with it. At first nothing happened, and Harry felt silly that he had been afraid of partaking in the ritiual. He could see some of the Vampires starting to look dissapointed but suddendly he felt a searing pain on his lower calf muscle. If felt like he was being branded. He looked towards Neville and Luna who had a look of utter surprise on their faces. The sensation on his left calf suddenly shifted and it felt as if it had been plunged in liquid nitrogen it felt so cold. Before he knew it the sensation was gone. He was afraid to even look, but he managed to pluck enough Griffyndor courage and peeked at his lower calf. His eyes nearly bugged out of his face. There for everyone to see was a black raven with red tears coming out of its eyes. He briefly wondered if Tiamat had know about this. He figured she probably did. As if his life wasn't complicated enough, now he was the recipient of some God damn long lost Vampire legend. Fate is one sick twisted bitch he thought.

He suddenly heard Caligula hiss, " By Lilith sagging tits, I can't beleive this fucking legend is true. If I could I'd shit on a Cartheginian head right now."

He heard a smack and found Zenobia glaring at Caligula.

"What?"

"Don't be so crude."

"I'm Roman what do you expect?"

She simply raised her eyebrows at him and turned back towards him and said, " It would appear Sorcerer that you have been chosen as our protector. Should you vanquish your ennemies, a new ara will ensure. If you fail we're all doomed. "

Gee nothing like a little pressure he thought. Harry just looked towards the ceiling and sighed.

Zenobia turned towards the Princes and said, " His protection is all of our responsibility now. Let this news spread to all of our people. Especially the Sabbat.

The Princes were now eager to sign the treaty and once they had all given a blood oath, Harry revealed to them who he really was. To say that some were shocked was an understatment. They took the news well, and after completing formalities they finally parted ways. Harry made sure to banish his scorpions before he left. As they about about to leave, one of Nicadimus servant came back with a book.

He looked towards Harry and said, "I beleive you will find these memoirs to be interesting readings. You will find a lot more tactics that he never got a chance to try on the battle field." With that Nicadimus offered him Hannibals memoirs.

Harry was speachless. He looked towards the ancient Vampire and bowed, "I thank you for this precious gift. I will cherish it above all other in my collection." Harry had Luna and Neville hold on to him and apparated. By the time they came back to the Scorpion lair it was almost midnight.

What none of them could have guessed at the time was the consequences that the ritual would have.

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Some where in the wasteland, North of the Saharan Desert

That night a slight tremor was felt in the deep desert. In a lavishly decorated crypt two large sarcophagus with large granite slab with grooves etched in an intricate runic pattern were suddenly bathed in light coming from magical torches. At the top of the granite slabs was a bowl that was gouged out of the slab. Above each bowl was a crystal ball filled with what looked like blood held in stasis. At the same time the mark appeared on Harry, there was a golden glow surrouding the crystal orbs. Suddenly the spell broke and the orbs fell in the bowl and broke.

The blood flowed from the bowl, and followed the intricate runic pattern. The blood finally reached the center of the slab where it met a small hole and drained off in the sarcophagus. The ground shook again and the granite slabs slid off the coffins. Two magestic looking beings crawled out of their ancient tombs. One was bald, with bat like ears and fangs could be seen peering from his lips. His eyes were pure lava red. His skin was pasty white and anyone looking at him would see an almost magnetic magical aura emenating from the bieng. He was an imposing figure. He was nearly six feet six inches and quite muscular. He was dressed in blood red robes. His lips and nails if one could call it that were as black as coal. His nails looked like they could cut through stone.

Standing beside him was a beautiful woman. A powerful magical aura also emenated from her. Her skin was mocha in colour and her eyes glowed electric blue. She had long dark black hair and also had bat like ears. Her nails were also charcoal black. She was tall and had deep aristocratic features. She was wearing a midnight black dress with a spider web design laced throughout. Her lips were black and fangs could also be seen protruding from her lips.

The male took the lead and followed an old lava tube tunnel. The woman followed him. They didn't so much walk as glide. Magic was crackling from both of them. After nearly thirty minutes of walking they reached a large circular obsidian door. The male looked at it and waved his hand. The door didn't move, it was literally crushed into powder. At the same time, thehe sand on the other side of the door was blown off as if a desert storm had blown it off.

Two being imerged into the deep Saharan desert under a full moon. The man looked a the moon and a deep beastial sound no one had heard in four thousand years roared on the ancient sands. Caine and Lilith had awakened. The time of the apocalypse was at hand. They had to find Gehenna. But first they needed to feed and find out what time they had awakened too. How much had the world changed during their long slumber.

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Well That's It until the Next Installment. Hoped you enjoyed. Tata for now!