Chapter 40

"Draco, your arm."

Draco eagerly extended his left arm from his kneeling position, displaying the newly branded Dark Mark with pride. That same hand was missing its pinky finger, having sacrificed it to facilitate his lord's rebirth. That had hurt, but it was worth it to have the Dark Lord restored. Worth it for a chance at revenge against Potter.

As Voldemort's new wand was pressed into the Dark Mark and a cold burning spread through it, Draco glanced towards where Goran was standing from the corner of his eye.

The Serbian mercenary had been very helpful in not only finding the Dark Lord's wandering spirit, but also in gathering the ingredients for the ritual. Draco himself had inwardly balked a little when the Dark Lord had, with great difficulty, conveyed his orders to acquire a pregnant muggle woman so that he could take over her unborn baby as a temporary homunculous body, but Goran had simply gone out and done it. That had impressed Draco a great deal, even if the Serbian wizard was only doing it for the money he'd been promised for his continued aid. The two of them had then stolen back into Britain and retrieved the bones of Voldemort's father, bought a temporary wand for him to use until he regained his own and found an old enemy of his from the time of the last war to use as the final part of the ritual.

But while the man had definitely been extremely helpful, it was obvious that he didn't care one whit about purity of blood or the noble cause of the Dark Lord. He was in it for the money, pure and simple.

Draco put the mercenary out of his mind. It was up to the Dark Lord to decide how to handle the man now.

Azkaban.

Bellatrix desperately licked away the dirt on her arm, hoping against hope that she wasn't just imagining things this time.

At the sight of the black snake and skull standing out starkly on her pale flesh, Bellatrix started cackling in mad glee.

He was back. The Dark Lord was back.

Her rapture drew in the dementors, but even they couldn't take away the bright spark of hope that now burned inside her.

Crouch residence.

Barty Crouch Jr., long held under the Imperius by his father, twitched as the cold burn of the Dark Mark penetrated the mental fog the curse created.

He wasn't free, not even close, but for the first time in over fifteen years, there was something else in his existence aside from the pleasant haze of the Imperius.

Hogwarts.

Severus Snape swiftly marched towards the headmaster's office, his pace the only real indication of his worry and consternation. He had not felt the cold burning on his left arm for a long time and it could mean only one thing. Voldemort was back and summoning his followers to him.

He paused to give the stupid candy themed password to the gargoyle guardian and waited impatiently for it to move aside, then continued striding up the stairs.

"Come in, Severus." The words were somewhat redundant, as he was already opening the door by the time the first syllable was spoken.

"He's back." Severus said simply, showing the blackened Dark Mark on his forearm.

Dumbledore seemed to age a decade in a second as he absorbed the news.

"I see." He sighed.

"What should I do?" Severus asked, knowing the older wizard would understand his meaning. It was late June, classes were over and his absence from the school would not be noted.

"We need information." Dumbledore said in that roundabout way he was so fond of.

Severus simply nodded and started making his way out of the castle. He had an old set of robes that he needed to pick up from his home in Spinner's End and then he'd need to make a very long distance Apparition according to the impressions he was getting from the Dark Mark.

Voldemort kept his face impassive as his servants grovelled forward to kiss his robes. He could smell the fear and guilt on them, the guilt of those who had knowingly abandoned their rightful master.

"Welcome, Death Eaters." He hissed quietly once they got back on their feet, taking great satisfaction in watching them squirm. "Fifteen years… fifteen years since we last met and I see you healthy and whole, with your powers intact, but your numbers much reduced. Did you find Potter unwilling to let bygones be bygones?"

They didn't answer the mocking question and kept their heads bowed. Voldemort reached outward with his magic and tasted their old hatreds, old fears and the familiar awe they had for his power. He touched these things in them and drew on them as he had always done. How easily led these proud men were.

"So many dead." He continued softly. "Slippery Lucius, burned to death in broad daylight for all the world to see. Macnair, the Carrows, Nott, Crabbe, Goyle and so many others, stolen away in the night, never to be seen again. Murdered, because they were too faithless to seek out their rightful master!" He finished with a snarl, making them cower back.

"I must wonder, my old friends, where were you all this time? Why did you not help your master, to whom you swore eternal loyalty? Why did young Draco and his mercenary friend have to perform this duty in your place? I must confess myself… disappointed."

He knew what would happen before it did. He could feel the very moment that Avery's nerve broke.

"Master!" The man said desperately, throwing himself on his knees once more. "Master, forgive me! Forgive us all!"

Voldemort laughed in both satisfaction at the display and derision at the presumption.

" Crucio! "

Avery howled in pain and writhed on the ground.

Voldemort released the curse after about ten seconds, leaving the man gasping and shivering on the ground.

"Get up, Avery." He said softly. "You have quite a debt to repay before you earn my forgiveness. Fifteen years of repayment."

Avery struggled to his feet with a breathless nod. Under the circumstances, Voldemort decided to forgive the lack of proper acknowledgement.

"So many dead." He repeated in a whisper, looking at all the empty spaces in the ranks of gathered Death Eaters. "Potter's actions will have to be answered, but your cowardice has allowed him to grow strong. I hear from Draco that he has been doing more than merely killing you, he has also been subverting the Ministry and ripping out the ideals of pure blood by the roots. Tell me, my friends, how are we to take vengeance for our fallen when you have allowed our enemy to gain so much power?"

Voldemort could almost admire what Potter had achieved. Could have admired it, if Potter's success hadn't come at his expense!

It had taken a long time of stirring up resentment, gathering support and removing obstructive people to create the conditions that would have allowed him to take control of Magical Britain, only to have it undone in a mere handful of years. Unlike him, Potter was ideally positioned, able to move openly and act far more overtly and had as a result smashed those decades of work in mere years. He had also apparently seduced Lucius' all too capable widow into his service. Narcissa would pay for that betrayal. Not by his own hand of course, as he had promised Draco to 'save' his mother since the deluded child thought she was under some kind of mind control, but Bella would be more than happy to punish her sister.

But Lord Voldemort was far from beaten. His most loyal supporters were still alive, if likely not well, in Azkaban, along with quite a few others that could be recruited in exchange for their freedom. There was also the surprise survival of Barty Crouch Jr., who he could feel through the Dark Mark was most definitely not in Azkaban.

He did not have the patience for another decades long shadow war, but Potter would yet fall to the might of Lord Voldemort

"Master…" Mulciber spoke up nervously, swallowing when he looked at him. "Master, we have been talking to people, while Draco was looking for you we have been searching for new recruits, with some success."

"So Draco tells me." He replied neutrally. "Very well, tell me of your efforts then."

Mulciber nodded like an eager puppy and started talking.

Goran stood off to the side of the happenings and kept any yawns, eyerolls or snickers to himself. These idiot purebloods and their theatrics…

When it was finally over, the barely human Dark Lord made his way over and the Serbian wizard couldn't help tensing. He'd done some pretty hairy shit over the course of his life, but this one definitely topped the list. On the plus side, the pay was better than the past five years combined.

"You swore no oaths to me, yet you helped Draco restore me and Lord Voldemort does not forget those who help him." The Dark Lord said, creepy red eyes fixed on his own grey ones. "What boon would you ask of me?"

"The blond brat offered me payment to help him carry out your orders, so I helped him. It was just business and that business will be finished as soon as I get my money, no boons necessary." Goran said with a shrug. He wasn't stupid enough to accept any 'boons'.

"An honest mercenary, I can respect that." Voldemort said with a lipless smile. He could tell that the other man was unnerved, but he was holding up admirably. He certainly had more spine than most of his followers. "Yet, I would like to know who paid you to seek Draco out in the first place. I would thank them personally for the aid they gave me." And of course see if more aid could be found there.

"That's not something you ask in my line of work." Goran shrugged again. "I got the job from my usual middleman."

"And I suppose this middleman wouldn't know either?" Voldemort pressed.

"Probably not, he'd either be obliviated after the fact or get the details some other way that can't be tracked, maybe both."

That was unfortunate. This unknown benefactor hiding in the shadows made Voldemort nervous. He doubted very much that they had sent this mercenary to aid in his resurrection out of the kindness of their heart.

Still, he needed all the help he could get and the Serbian wizard was more competent than most.

But Voldemort could sense no true fear or hate that would allow him to find purchase in the man's soul and didn't think that an offer to join his Death Eaters would be accepted. Not yet at least. It wouldn't be the first unlikely wizard that Lord Voldemort had seduced into his service.

"I would hire your services then." He said, wanting to keep the man close until he was made his.

"What kind of job?" Goran asked warily. He'd seen how this dark lord treated his followers and was wary of sticking around.

"At the moment, to get my followers back into fighting shape." Voldemort said, throwing a brief glare at the group of wizards miling off to the side. "These past fifteen years have made them fat and lazy."

Goran considered the offer. It wasn't something he'd done before, but getting paid to play combat instructor sounded easy enough.

"Alright, you've got a deal." He said, holding out his hand.

Voldemort gave another lipless smile as he took the hand.

Hogwarts.

"So Voldemort also believes that Harry is the one that has been killing his followers." Dumbledore said musingly.

"Come off it, Headmaster." Snape scoffed. "It is plainly obvious that he is the one."

"We do not know that for certain." Dumbledore argued.

Snape merely rolled his eyes in exasperation. The older wizard's obsessive need for undeniable proof could be damned frustrating. He hadn't always been this way, Snape recalled. Oh, he always liked to have proof, but it had gotten much worse after the debacle of Black's unlawful imprisonment. As if the mutt hadn't deserved it even if he was innocent of the particular crimes he was accussed of.

"What will you do now?" He asked, changing the subject.

Dumbledore frowned in thought. To be quite honest, he wasn't sure about what to do. Voldemort was apparently intending to gather strength at his current location instead of coming to Britain. Wise of him, considering the DMLE's bulked up state at the moment, but it did present a bit of a wrinkle when thinking of ways to act against him.

He would have to speak to Harry and inform him of this development soon. As the subject of the prophecy, he would have to know and it may present an avenue to establish a working relationship with the young Potter.

But he was reluctant to do it. Deep in his heart, Dumbledore knew that it was indeed Harry that was behind the disappearances of purebloods. He had the motive, the means, and as much as it pained the old wizard to admit it, the will.

Dumbledore still hoped that some of Voldemort's followers would see the light like Snape had, especially the younger ones like Draco Malfoy.

Harry… Harry would not give them the chance. No, if Harry had been able to make the first move and attack people during peace time, then he would not hesitate to use lethal magic as a first resort.

Still, Dumbledore was not yet ready to give up on Harry either. After all, he was in a relationship with three lovely women, proving that there was still love in his heart.

"I do believe I shall make an overseas trip to an island." He said musingly. "Would you care to join me?"

It wasn't really a question. Harry might need to be shown Severus' Dark Mark to convince him.

Snape merely sneered in reply.

June 29th, 2017. Spellhaven.

Harry was busy today. He had been busy every day for the past couple of weeks since they'd started bringing people over to the island, newly named Spellhaven. It had been slow at first, people being a bit dubious about settling on an uninhabited island, but it had picked up considerably since then. It wasn't just people working for him that were coming over now, but all sorts of others smelling an opportunity.

Harry and the girls had started off helping to prepare the place for habitation, but had since needed to devote themselves to more organisational tasks.

Dora was eager to get started on training fighters, but it was a bit early for that, so she was mostly working with the herbologists they'd hired instead. While the vast majority of the field of Herbology concerned itself with magical plants, there was also quite a bit of general knowledge on flora included. Seeing as there was no reason why the island couldn't have an at least partially self-sustaining food supply, they had decided to set up a few greenhouses. Harry refused to allow anyone to keep cattle because that would take up a significant chunk of 'real' space, but greenhouses could have their internal dimensions extended enormously and thus not infringe on the forest that he wanted to remain untouched. Meat would simply have to be bought elsewhere.

Luna didn't really have any 'fixed' job that she'd taken for herself, but she tended to flit all over the place and poke her nose into whatever interested her at the time. She also continued to alter the landscape of the island so as to make it less 'boring'.

Fleur had ended up acting as a liason for the veela that were intent on establishing one of their communes on the island. They had been the first non-employee group to come over.

Harry had expected that, had been counting on it even. The silver-haired beauties were always on the lookout for prime real-estate and the excitement of Aurélie's pregnancy hadn't faded yet. Fleur's grandmother had decided to move to the island herself in fact. He suspected that to be Fleur's doing.

Either way, he now had a veela colony on his island. That was great for attracting horny young men, but did come with some pitfalls…

"The veela have put forth a request to claim a section of beach exclusively for their commune." Narcissa read from the day's itinerary.

"Greedy little bitches, aren't they?" Harry asked rhetorically. "I didn't mind when they clearly marked their territory because then I don't have to care if anyone that walks past that point gets screwed half to death, but I'm not letting them hog a chunk of beach for themselves."

"I'll let them know." Narcissa replied, lips twitching in amusement.

"Good, and speaking of greedy veela… Penny, give Fleur's budget another increase."

"Again?" Penny asked incredulously. "Just what is she planning to buy?"

Harry could only shrug. His original plan had been to make another tower, only to get berated by Fleur and Dora, backed up by Narcissa when she heard of it. A grim, stone tower was no place to live they said and it would give the wrong impression according to Narcissa.

He didn't really get it, but let them have their way. It wasn't like he actually cared where he lived, as long as it was comfortable and had what he needed. Grim, stone towers just happened to be his preference. He thought they were cool.

Fleur had apparently foreseen this and appointed herself house planner-in-chief of their island residence. Fleur being Fleur, her ideas leaned heavily towards the French. Toss in Narcissa's insistence that it had to reflect his status and they ended up hiring a team of French magical architects to make a rather fancy château. They had fortunately restrained themselves from going completely overboard and making some kind of five hundred room monstrosity, but it was still bigger than strictly necessary to his thinking. That figured since a château was basically a miniature castle for all intents and purposes, minus the outer walls. Now Fleur was going a bit crazy with the interior decorating, which was the main source of the expense.

"Harry, I have to warn you that with the ward experts, herbologists, architects, everyone else you've hired and now this thing with Fleur, we're burning through both pounds and galleons at an alarming rate." Penny cautioned.

"I know, but it can't be helped." Harry replied and shrugged without concern. It was hard to feel threatened by bankruptcy when you were one of the most powerful wizards on the planet. "We'll recoup our losses later." One way or another. He was fairly sure that his bank accounts could take it, but the unsuspecting non-magical world also abounded with opportunities for a skilled and crafty wizard to make a quick fortune in case of an emergency. Something as stupidly simple as repairing spells would do it. Or they could go diving for sunken treasure, locator spells would make that a far less random undertaking than it sounded like. And that wasn't even going into anything illegal.

"And while we're on the topic of gold, Gringotts has sent another meeting request, although this one is worded even more like a demand than the others."

"Fucking goblins." Harry muttered.

He'd brushed off two of those 'requests' so far, mostly because he wasn't sure what to do about them. He knew exactly what the goblins wanted, they wanted reassurance that their banking monopoly would apply to his island.

Harry knew what he'd like to do about that. He'd like to tell the goblins to piss off. Unfortunately, it wasn't that simple. That idiotic banking monopoly was backed by international treaty and the ICW was legally bound to enforce it. North and South America had bucked it, but that had taken a lot of bloodshed and continued to cause diplomatic friction to this day.

Of course, his island poignantly wasn't an independent nation, nor did it fall under the jurisdiction of any existing government, making it a legal grey area. However, if the ICW decided that it was in their best interests to back the goblins on this, then he would have to choose between accepting it or flipping off the ICW.

Much like its mundane counterpart, the United Nations, the International Confederation of Wizards was a slothful beast bogged down by conflicting agendas, but giving it a clear enemy was very dangerous. The only reason the Americans got away with their defiance was because the ICW had at the time been engaged in a long and bloody campaign to bring Asia's magi to heel, having judged them to be the greater threat to the newly legislated Statute of Secrecy. By the time that had been finished, the American wizards were too numerous and too organised for the ICW to consider them worth challenging for the sake of the goblins.

The whole thing was quite stupid really because magic hadn't even been a secret in most of Asia back then and it had worked for them just fine, but the leaders of the ICW hadn't cared to consider the cultural differences and simply declared that their rules applied world wide.

But getting back to the topic of Spellhaven, it wasn't as if Harry was planning to create his own currency. No, he was perfectly fine with goblin gold being used, he just didn't want actual goblins anywhere near his island. For all he knew they procreated via fungal spores or something, like the Orks in Warhammer. It wasn't very likely, but no sense in taking risks. After all, when was the last time someone saw a goblin female?

"Is there anything from the ICW?" He asked.

"Not exactly." Penny said with a frown, pulling up a letter and handing it to him.

"Dumbledore?" Harry's eyebrow went up in surprise. Sure, Dumbledore was the Supreme Mugwump of the ICW(and wasn't that an asinine title?), but he wasn't likely to be the one to handle the goblin issue. Indeed, this was more of a personal request from an old teacher that wanted to see how a former student was doing. Problem was, he and Dumbledore had never been that close, which gave the otherwise pleasant letter a sinister undertone.

A sense of foreboding settled into Harry's bones. Yes, he had a good guess as to what this was about. He hadn't dared keep one of Voldemorts marked followers alive, knowing that the Dark Mark could be used much in the same way as a tracking charm and expose his secret stronghold on Ymer Island, but Dumbledore had a pet Death Eater in Snape, didn't he? If the Dark Lord was back, the old man would know almost instantly.

I suppose the tutorial is over. He thought with a certain dark amusement.

"Give him an affirmative reply." Harry said, handing the letter back to Penny.

"What about the goblins?"

"Ignore them, they're just posturing. As long as we use Gringotts coin as currency, they have no business complaining."

"Alright." Penny nodded. "Well, that's all I had for the day, so I'll leave you two alone."

The hint of a blush on her face made Harry smirk. Sometimes, he just couldn't help thinking that Penny was far too sweet a girl to be working for a bastard like him.

"I do believe she was expecting me to ravish you as soon as she left." He mused, turning his smirk at the blond witch.

"That is your prerogative, my lord." Narcissa said demurely, but a hint of excitement made it through her composed mask.

"Hmm, maybe later. Tell me what other problems people have been causing today."

Narcissa took a deep breath, obviously tamping down on her arousal. Obvious to him at any rate. "Well, there have been a few complaints about the werewolves you've allowed to settle on the island."

"What kind of complaints?" Harry asked, wondering if one or more of the werewolves had done something stupid.

"Merely concerns about their presence and how safe it is."

"Every precaution has been taken to prevent accidental infection. The only way for anyone to get infected is through either malicious action or unforgivable levels of stupidity and the werewolves we've allowed here aren't malicious." Harry said irritably. "Tell them to stop being a bunch of whiny shits."

"People won't like it." Narcissa warned.

"And I don't like having my time wasted. Next issue."

"Very well, next we have an inquiry from several prospective residents asking if their muggle relatives could also come."

Harry pensively rubbed his chin as he answered, noting that he needed to shave again. "I don't have anything against it in principle, but the lifestyle change would be severe… then again, I suppose they can always change their minds and leave if they find that they don't like it."

Once upon a time, Narcissa would have objected strenuously to having muggles anywhere near the island, but now she simply nodded her acceptance and moved on. "You also have a letter from Fudge. He wants to throw a Ministry fundraiser next month, on your birthday."

Harry simply stared at Narcissa for a long few moments and then shook his head with a sigh. "That man…"

Sometimes, Fudge was like a newly hatched duckling waddling desperately after its mother.

"Tell him to come over, on the same day as Dumbledore if at all possible. Might as well handle all this shite at once." He said with a sigh and got up to stare out the window.

His study was on the top of one of the corner towers and afforded him a perfect view of the rapidly growing settlement below, which was also called Spellhaven due to a minor misunderstanding that nobody had bothered to correct.

Harry didn't show it, but he sometimes had second thoughts about this course of action. His natural inclination would be to move to Ravenhead permanently and leave the troubles of the world behind. Let Voldemort and Dumbledore sort each other out, dangerous idiots the both of them.

But, and it was a big but, he couldn't do that even without the prophecy hanging over his head. Luna, Fleur and Dora would never agree to it. And they'd want children eventually, children that would need other people to interact with. He could already see the speculative look in Fleur's eyes when she looked at her pregnant grandmother. Even Dora looked thoughtful sometimes and there was really no telling what mischief Luna was plotting.

Harry didn't have many fears left, but that was kind of scary. It also meant that going into isolation wasn't an option.

He snorted lightly to himself. As if going into isolation had ever been an option. With the runes he'd carved into his body, his libido would quickly drive him crazy without constant release. The funniest part of that was that he was pretty sure that his natural libido would have been on the low end of the scale.

Narcissa stepped next to him, close enough that the swell of her breast pressed against his arm, which was really far too close to be considered anything but a come-on.

"It's going well." She commented, gesturing out the window.

Harry gave a noncommittal humm in response. Yes, it was going well and more importantly, creating Spellhaven was the best course of action available given the circumstances.

After showing Narcissa how much he appreciated what she did for him, Harry made his way towards Luna. His youngest girlfriend was currently far from the quickly forming settlement and he wanted to know what she was up to. This was the third day in a row that she had vanished further inland for hours at a time. He'd thought at first that she was just messing around with the geography, but now he wasn't sure anymore.

A quick apparition to somewhere more private allowed him to transform into a raven without exposing that little secret and then he was off, flying towards where the blood-bound bracelet indicated Luna was.

He could have just apparated all the way there, but he liked to see how the island's ecosystem was fairing.

The dirt they'd taken might not have looked like much when they had spread it over the island, but it teemed with life. The fertility rituals they'd performed had encouraged that life to grow rapidly. Tall grass had grown overnight and whatever other seeds they'd scooped up along with the dirt had taken root since then as well. There weren't too many trees yet, but those that were already looked a couple of years old rather than the weeks that they actually were. It wouldn't be long before a proper forest grew.

More importantly, there were already indications that it would be an enchanted forest rather than a regular one.

Forests had a strange relationship with magic. Trees were never magical themselves due to the magic channeling properties of wood. However, that property also meant that magic in forests didn't dissipate like it would otherwise. From what Harry had been able to gather, the Void constantly siphoned magic away from the planet, but a dense enough forest pulled it back and returned it to the earth before that could happen.

In this regard, most forests were at least slightly magical, but for a forest to be considered enchanted, there had to be a sufficient saturation of magical energy for magical plants and animals to start showing up.

Harry had already noticed the occasional flower or weed that was definitely magical and Luna had reported seeing a fairy a few days ago, so things were definitely on the right track. He was still going to insist on performing some more fertility rituals day though, just to be sure. It took a lot of magic to saturate a forest, even a relatively small one.

He found Luna at the approximate center of the island, pretty much at the exact spot where they had performed the first fertility ritual in fact. The volcano they'd raised loomed a small distance to the north and a transfigured lake basin filled with tranquil water sat nearby. The grass around this place was as tall as him and the few trees that had taken root were more than twice that already.

Luna was in a miniature clearing close to one of said trees and she was… humming a lullaby to a large plant pod of some sort?

"What you got there?" He asked, bemused.

Luna gave him a beaming smile. "We made a baby!"

"What?" Harry asked incredulously.

"Listen to it, Harry!" Luna advised excitedly.

Still quite baffled, Harry squated next to the pod and reached out to touch the strong, yet strangely pliable, walls. Now that he was paying attention, he could sense a powerful, but also very subtle, magic radiating from it. With some trepidation, he closed his eyes and shut out the physical world.

Some seconds later, his eyes snapped open in surprise. There was a soul inside the pod that was far too complex to belong to a simple plant, even a magical one. A nascent sentience, possibly even sapience, was growing within. The pod was the plant equivalent of a womb.

"I'll be damned." He breathed out. "When did you find it?"

"Just a few days ago." Luna answered, still smiling. Then she went back to humming.

Harry had a feeling that no amount of arguing was going to convince Luna that it wasn't their baby. Additionally, as was often the case with her, she wasn't wrong. This was no doubt the result of the fertility rituals they'd performed, so it was, technically, if you squinted, their baby.

"I wonder how Fleur and Dora are going to react to this." He sighed.

A short while later.

"I really hope this isn't going to be a running theme with you." Dora sighed, staring at the pod.

"Hey, you can't blame this one all on me." Harry protested.

The metamorphmagus gave him a look that said that she could, in fact, blame it all on him.

"He's right." Luna backed him up. "We all contributed to making our plant baby."

"I wonder what it's going to look like." Fleur said, clearly very amused.

"It doesn't matter, we'll love it no matter what." Luna said resolutely. "That means you can't experiment on it, Harry."

"I'll stick to uninvasive experiments." Harry agreed dryly.

Spellhaven. July 1st, 2017.

Dumbledore and Snape steadied themselves after the long-distance portkey provided by Harry deposited them at its destination. Fawkes flamed in a few moments later and settled on Dumbledore's shoulder.

"Curious choice for a portkey arrival area." Albus mused, looking around with interest.

Severus didn't reply, but he agreed with the sentiment. It was little more than an empty spot a short distance outside the settlement. Rather odd, as designated portkey or Apparition arrival areas were usually somewhere inside the actual settlement. In truth, this looked more like a temporary measure more than anything else.

They didn't get a chance to take in the sights much more than that, as the welcoming party arrived with the crack of Apparition.

"Severus." Narcissa greeted with genuine warmth in her voice, no doubt deliberately snubbing Dumbledore by addressing him first. The youngest Black sister had always been subtle like that. "I didn't know you were coming."

"The Headmaster insisted." Severus said sourly, though a hint of fondness shone through. Narcissa had been a friend of sorts during his Hogwarts years, a higher year prefect that had occasionally protected him from the pranks of the so-called 'Marauders'. Learning that she had ended up being the Potter spawn's mistress after Lucius' death had done nothing to soothe the anger he felt.

"I see." Narcissa said simply, giving Dumbledore a thinly veiled look of disapproval. "And you've brought your bird too."

"I think Fawkes wanted to see Harry again." Albus beamed, as if he hadn't noticed that he had been snubbed twice already.

Fawkes chirped as if to confirm it.

"Very well then." Narcissa sniffed. "Come, I will take you to Lord Potter."

Then she snubbed Dumbledore again by taking Severus' arm and ignoring the old wizard behind them.

"How have you been, Severus?" She asked warmly.

Severus was baffled. What had happened to the ice-cold Narcissa he was used to?

"I've been well." He lied. He hadn't been well for a long time, if ever, but that wasn't what people wanted to hear. "And yourself?"

"Never better." Narcissa said brightly. "I never even realised what I was missing until I entered my lord's service."

Severus tried not to stiffen with the anger he felt at the mention of Potter.

Judging by the way Narcissa's grip on his arm tightened, he hadn't succeeded.

"I know you have every reason to hate James Potter, but believe me when I say that the son is nothing like the father. Harry has never done anything to you."

He was a disrespectful, arrogant shit and a living reminder that James bloody Potter had stolen Lily from him. That was enough.

But he didn't say that, not wanting to snap at one of the few people in this world that he could consider a friend.

"He killed your husband." He said instead.

"Of course he did. Lucius sent an assassin after him and the head of a powerful family, much less two, cannot allow himself to appear vulnerable lest he invite attack. Harry had no choice but to respond with deadly force if he wanted to slay any budding plots against him." Narcissa said dismissively. "Lucius may have been my husband, but he was a fool who overreached himself in his greed."

Severus might be a halfblood descended from a middle class pureblood family on his mother's side, but the internal politicking of Slythering House wasn't that much different from the games the noble families played, only the consequences were less deadly. Still, he wasn't willing to concede anything where Potter was concerned.

"What about Draco?"

Narcissa sighed and looked a little sad. "I will always love my son, but he is even less wise than his father was. He refuses to acknowledge that Lucius dug his own grave or the grace and generosity that Harry showed us afterwards."

Severus was starting to get pretty ticked off by the continual praise that Narcissa was heaping on Harry fucking Potter.

Albus may have been pretending that he didn't exist, but he had also been listening to every word and knew that it was time to cut cut in before Severus' temper snapped. Fortunately, he spied the large frame and black ponytail of the wizard they were here to see. The invisible mantle of power and authority hanging about his shoulders as he spoke to a group of what appeared to be warders was unmistakable.

"Oh, is that Harry over there?" He interjected in a carefully manufactured oblivious tone.

"Indeed it is." Narcissa said and quickened her pace towards him, forcing the two wizards to do the same or be left behind.

Albus saw the moment that Harry became aware of them in the minute tensing of his shoulders and the sudden sense of watchfulness that he could feel from his magic, but Harry kept his back turned and waited for Narcissa to address him. The younger wizard's perception had grown considerably since their last meeting.

Albus quickly took in the four parallel scars decorating the whole left side of Harry's face. Remus had not known where he'd gotten them, only that it was in the same incident that had taken Sirius' life. Magical Britain was rife with rumors about what had happened, but neither Harry nor any of the three young women he was romantically involved with were saying a word.

"You're early." Harry said flatly, giving a quick dismissal to the people he'd been talking to.

"I wanted to take in the sights on this lovely island of yours before we spoke." Albus said with a cheery smile.

"Is that why you brought Snape with you?" Harry asked mockingly. "Hoping that the Atlantic air would blow away his bitterness?"

"Potter." Severus sneered back, the mocking tone immediately getting his goat. "As arrogant as ever."

" More arrogant than ever." Harry corrected. "And Fawkes is here too I see. Did you get bored hanging around the old man's office, you gaudy grilled chicken?"

Fawkes gave an indignant squawk and flew over to cuff Harry over the head with a wing.

"Heh, you haven't loosened up a bit." Harry said fondly. "Since you're here, I might as well introduce you to Etal. I've always wondered how you two would get along."

Albus wouldn't admit it, but he'd been rather curious about that himself, which was why he'd asked Fawkes to come with him.

Mere seconds after Harry hissed at the air in Parseltongue, the shimmering form of the quetzalcoatl zoomed in at high speed. The creature immediately started floating circles around Fawkes, clearly curious.

Fawkes didn't seem to appreciate the attention and flamed a short distance away. The quetzalcoatl zoomed after him immediately, prompting the phoenix to flame away again. Thus began the strangest game of tag the world had ever seen.

"Well, they seem to be getting along." Harry said blandly, watching the two mythical creatures chase each other across the sky.

"Indeed." Albus agreed with a smile. It was nice to see Fawkes having fun.

"Can we get on with this?" Severus growled, having no interest in watching the ridiculous spectacle and wanting to get away from Potter as soon as possible.

"Right, sure." Harry drolled and turned to Narcissa. "Thank you for bringing them to me, Cissy."

"It was my pleasure, my lord." Narcissa all but purred, much to Severus' disbelief, and quite deliberately brushed up against Potter as she left.

Somehow, seeing Narcissa clearly enjoying her position as Potter's subordinate and mistress annoyed Severus more than if she had been suffering.

"Come on then, this looks like the type of conversation that needs privacy." Potter said and started walking without giving either him or Albus time to acknowledge it.

That didn't lessen Severus' irritation either.

Albus decided to aleviate the tension with some conversation.

"I was sorry to hear of Sirius' death." He said with genuine remorse. Their relationship may have been strained due to Sirius' admittedly justified resentment at his unlawful imprisonment, but he had been a friend and student once.

Severus snorted. Hearing that the mutt was dead had made his week. Still, his snort was quiet and he did not speak the cutting remark that lay on his tongue. Whatever else Potter might be, he wasn't some mediocre wizard that could be provoked with impunity and Severus was acutely aware of the lack of legal protection from reprisal he had on this island.

"He died the way he wanted to, that's more than most people get." Harry shrugged.

Albus was about to say something else, but was beaten to the punch by a blonde missile that seemingly came out of nowhere.

"Harry!" Luna squealed happily and threw herself into the aforementioned wizard's arms.

"Oof!" Harry grunted as he caught her, needing to take a few steps back to stabilise himself. "Luna, didn't I ask you to stop doing this?"

"You did." Luna confirmed chirpily, gave him a peck on the lips and turned to the other two wizards. "Hello, Professor Snape!"

Severus was taken aback by the enthusiastic greeting. His former students were never glad to see him.

"Ms. Lovegood." He replied cautiously, feeling rather nonplussed. Teaching the girl had been… an experience. Oh, she was clever enough, but she was also infuriatingly moonbrained. Even worse, any insults or rebukes about her wandering attention seemed to simply pass through her ears with no effect. It didn't look like she'd changed at all.

"Hello, Headmaster Dumbledore!" Luna greeted the other visitor.

Albus was much more willing to simply take the situation in stride. "Ms. Lovegood. I must say that we missed you during the last OWL examinations. The Ministry examiners were particularly interested in seeing the results of being homeschooled by Harry."

"We were busy transfiguring the island." Luna replied. "Do you think they would give me extra points on my Transfiguration exam for that?"

"I'm sure they would." Albus assured.

Luna clambered around Harry's body like a squirrel until she was on his back, with her legs wrapped around his waist.

"Fleur and Nymphadora should already be at the château." She informed him.

Harry made a noise of confirmation and resumed walking.

Albus instinctively wanted to protest about the addition of the three girls to a meeting where sensitive information was going to be discussed, but held his tongue. They were clearly Harry's most trusted confidants and would likely be told afterwards even if they weren't present.

Severus had any number of things he wanted to comment on, but also held his tongue.

So they made the walk in silence. Well, silence except for Luna chattering at Harry from his back.

The drawing room was one of the rooms that Fleur had already furnished and was thus ready to receive guests. Harry and his girls were sitting together on a couch, with the two visiting wizards across from them and a low table with tea and snacks in between them.

Severus was feeling entirely out of place enjoying the hospitality of a Potter.

"Your letter said you wanted to talk, so… talk." Harry said, sipping his tea.

"The Dark Lord has been resurrected." Severus said while baring his left arm, pettily hoping to make Potter choke on his tea.

"Mm," Harry replied placidly, giving the fully blackened Dark Mark no more than a disinterested glance. "good tea."

"You already know." Albus concluded, trying not to smile at Severus's disgruntled expression.

"I guessed when you sent me that letter." Harry shrugged. "So, who's the idiot that helped Voldy get his body back?"

Albus did not want to paint a target on Draco Malfoy's back. "That isn't really important, I was hoping-"

"Still trying to protect Death Eaters, old man?" Harry interrupted archly.

"I have never protected Death Eaters." Albus defended.

Harry looked pointedly at Snape.

"Severus acted as a spy and has my complete trust. Regardless, I was hoping that we could work together and-"

"Do you always try to change the subject when it's something you're not comfortable with?" Harry interrupted again.

Albus was getting a mite frustrated by this conversation, but didn't let it show. "Harry, please. We cannot afford to be at odds with Voldemort having returned."

"Fine then, keep the idiot's name secret." Harry said dismissively. "I'm sure I'll be able to torture it out of some other idiot soon enough anyway."

"What?" Albus asked, badly startled by the horribly blunt statement.

"Did you think I was kidnapping Death Eaters to have tea and crumpets with them?" Harry asked, amused. "And don't look so damn shocked either. I'm sure you must have suspected that it was me doing it. I may not have left any evidence behind, but I was the obvious culprit."

Albus felt every one of his years when he looked at the hard green eyes of the wizard sitting across from him, gleaming with a cruel humor. Harry wasn't even seventeen yet.

"I had hoped it wasn't true." He said quietly.

Severus snorted quietly to himself.

"There's a prophecy hanging over my neck like an executioner's axe. I wasn't going to wait until it fell."

"I see." Albus said heavily. "I had often wondered if it was a mistake letting you know the prophecy so early. I should have known better than to put such a burden on a child's shoulders."

Fleur had stayed quiet so far and kept her temper in check, but that was too much for her.

"How dare you sit there and pass judgement, you sanctimonious old bastard." She seethed. "If you weren't so completely useless then Harry wouldn't have needed to get his hands dirty cleaning up your messes!"

Albus was taken aback by the sheer rage coming from the veela. And he didn't even understand where it was coming from.

It didn't go unnoticed either.

"You don't even know what she's talking about, do you?" Dora asked in disbelief, though her tone was rapidly turning to disgust. "I can't believe I used to respect you. You've been doing nothing but sitting on your arse and you have the gall to try that disappointed grandfather routine on Harry for actually doing something? If you were actually the greatest wizard of the age, you would have wrapped up this Voldemort situation before Harry ever made it to Hogwarts. Actually no, if you were actually the greatest wizard of the age, you would have taken care of Tom Riddle when he first started killing, right under your bloody nose ! There wouldn't have ever been a Voldemort."

"If you look at it another way, he did us a favor by being so weak." Luna piped up. "Putting aside his failure to act decisively decades ago, If he'd done his job properly in the wake of Voldemort's defeat, Sirius would never have gone to Azkaban and Harry would have grown up with him."

"And no doubt become just as big a waste of space as the mutt." Severus interjected with a sneer, unable to help himself.

Dora swelled with outrage at the insult to her recently deceased cousin, but Luna simply continued. "Harry would no doubt be different, yes. He might not have become my friend and if Headmaster Dumbledore had taken care of the Death Eaters, he might not have become strong enough in time to interest Fleur even if there was a Tri-Wizard Tournament to bring her to Britain in this alternative timeline. And of course, he would have grown up with Nymphadora as his family and probably wouldn't want to put his penis in her vagina. So you see, it's entirely possible that we wouldn't get to have such wonderful orgies if the Headmaster wasn't useless."

"Fuck!" Dora swore, breaking the silence that had followed in the wake of Luna's little speech. She turned to look at Fleur. "She's right. And if I didn't start boinking Harry, there's no telling who I'd have ended up with. My taste in men was never the greatest, so I might have actually hooked up with Remus Lupin or something."

"Don't say such horrible things, Nymmie. That walking pity-party would have made you miserable." Fleur shuddered before looking at Dumbledore with her upper lip curled in disgust. "Very well, so it seems likely that we girls have profitted greatly from your incompetence, but do not think for a moment that you have any kind of moral high ground. Even in the case of Harry hunting and killing Death Eaters, the onus sits largely on your shoulders. It was your job, not only as Chief Warlock but also as Voldemort's primary enemy, to bring them to justice. Instead, you allowed them to weasel their way out of punishment and let them go free, forcing us to get rid of them before they could rejoin their master."

"The wizarding world needed time to heal." Albus argued weakly, completely unaccustomed to being torn into so viciously. It hadn't happened since Aberforth had broken his nose at their sister's funeral, well over a century ago.

"An infected wound doesn't heal, it festers." Harry said flatly "Still, I have to give credit where credit is due… thank you, Albus, for messing up my childhood just enough to give me a lust for power, but not enough to break my spirit or make me hate the world. Also, thank you for being limp-wristed enough in the wake of Voldemort's defeat that I was forced to become a killer. Nothing puts some steel in a man's spine like fighting for his life, if he survives. I must admit that I wouldn't trade my girls and my power for an easier life if I had the choice."

Albus was by this point quite ashen-faced and wondering at how wrong this meeting had gone. He had envisioned coming here and convincing Harry that they should work together against Voldemort, finding and disposing of his horcruxes. Of course, there was still the issue of the horcrux in Harry's scar, but if all went according to plan, then Harry would either die at Voldemort's hand, making the Dark Lord mortal again, or he would win and something else would have to be arranged.

Getting taken to task like this wasn't part of the plan. Even worse was Harry thanking him for creating the conditions that shaped him into the hard-eyed killer he was now. Anger would have been so much easier to deal with.

Severus had been listening quietly up to now, but that final sentence was too much.

"Yes, because your life is clearly so very difficult." He said sarcastically. "Wealth, power, women, your own island… should we crown you king of the world as well?"

Harry merely smirked, knowing it would annoy Snape more than any kind of emotional outburst. "Those things make life pleasant, but not necessarily easy."

Severus could only sneer, having no real response.

"Are you saying that we make your life hard?" Dora asked archly.

"Well, we know that there's at least one part of him that we make hard." Fleur purred with a salacious grin, reaching over to rub Harry's crotch.

"Down, girl." Harry murmured, taking her hand in his and returning his attention to the still troubled-looking Dumbledore. "So we've established that Voldemort is back and that you're going to be useless as usual when it comes to killing him and his minions, did you at least find any of his horcruxes like I told you to?"

And Albus was startled once again. Since when did Harry know about horcruxes? He had of course known of the concept from his muggle fiction, but he could only have learned the word 'horcrux' from some very dark literature… Ah, the Black library.

"I have some ideas…" Albus prevaricated.

"Do share." Harry said drolly, not really expecting much.

"I have managed to narrow down the list of people who might have spoken to the young Tom Riddle on the topic of horcruxes, he may have some information for us."

"And who is this person?"

Albus felt a sudden foreboding at the look in Harry's eye, and fear for old Horace Slughorn's life. "Harry, if I tell you his name, you must promise me that you will not treat this man like a Death Eater."

"As long as he isn't a Death Eater or a Voldemort supporter himself." Harry agreed easily. "But if he isn't a Death Eater, then why haven't you already extracted this information from him? Surely he'd want to see Voldemort defeated?"

"He fears retaliation." Albus explained.

"I'm shocked that he's still alive." Harry scoffed. "If I was Voldemort, I'd have killed him ages ago to plug a possible information leak. Rather stupid of the Dark Moron."

That was most likely exactly what would have happened… if Horace hadn't spent the entirety of the war hiding in Hogwarts.

"In any case, I was thinking that the two of us would visit him and convince him to share what he knows."

"And why do you need me there?" Harry asked skeptically. "Is Albus Dumbledore incapable of persuading someone to give up vital information?"

"I think that your fame may be more effective than my skills of persuasion." Albus admitted.

Harry went quiet as he considered that. Now who did he know that was male, drawn to fame and old enough to have been around during Tom Riddle's Hogwarts years? In fact, it would have to be a former Hogwarts professor, wouldn't it? That was the only place that Tom Riddle had contact with the magical world before he graduated.

"Slughorn." Harry stated rather than asked.

"Yes." Albus admitted, reluctantly.

"Looks like I'll be paying Sluggy a visit after all or better yet, I'll invite him over."

"I think it would be best if I was present for that meeting." Despite Harry's word not to treat Horace like a Death Eater, Albus was not comfortable letting him go alone.

"Fine. Now on to other topics. Do you have any leads to the other horcruxes?"

"Mere suspicions." Albus admitted. "I know that Tom went to work in Burgin and Burkes after he graduated and exhibited a fascination with old artifacts. I am also nearly certain he was involved in the death of Hepzibah Smith, who had Hufflepuff's Cup and Slytherin's Locket in her possesion at the time and made frequent visits to the shop."

Ah, so it was Slytherin's Locket that I destroyed. Interesting. Harry decided not to share that bit of information. Snape certainly didn't need to know about it and Dumbledore still hadn't proven that he could play ball.

"So your theory is that he went after the other founder's artifacts too? Ravenclaw's Diadem and Gryffindor's Sword?" He asked. Both artifacts had vanished from the public eye nearly a thousand years ago.

"Tom was always obsessed with symbolism and, as I said, he was fascinated by old magical artifacts." Albus reasoned.

The diary as the first attempt, the test run, and then the four founder's artifacts would make five, plus the one in my scar and Voldy himself makes seven. Sounds plausible. Seven was considered magically important as a number, so a symbolism obsessed twat would probably find that appropriate. In truth, all the prime numbers were equally important where magic was concerned, but only as it pertained to arithmancy. Rituals, enchantments and even spells tended to be more stable if the number of control nodes making them up was a prime number. That was also why magical complexity had such an irregular difficulty curve. Seven was just that sweet spot where magic was plenty powerful but not yet terribly complex.

But I wasn't supposed to be a horcrux, which means he either hadn't yet made six at that point or he intended to split his soul more than seven ways. Either way, we're missing at least one item. Harry was absolutely certain that his murder was supposed to serve as the catalyst for the creation of a horcrux. Pieces of soul don't simply fly off by themselves after all, no matter how fragmented said soul is already. His mother's sacrificial ritual and Voldemort violating the pact he had unknowingly agreed to when he killed her must have played merry hell with the nearly complete process of horcrux creation.

In truth, Harry had only educated guesswork as to how exactly that piece of soul had ended up attached to him. Both his mother's ritual and horcrux creation were Death Magic, the latter also being Soul Magic. Toss in a direct hit with the Killing Curse, which was the purest expression of cold-blooded murder that magic was capable of manifesting…

Harry had long since learned that what a person did or had done to them reflected on their soul. The act of taking life was especially significant, as it was an ending, and both beginnings and endings were magically important. There had been an awful lot of endings focused on or around him that day and the soul of a year-old baby was much more susceptible to external influence than that of an adult.

It was also entirely possible that Voldemort didn't know about the scar horcrux, in which case he was likely to go for at least one more… if seven really was his goal.

Harry decided to needle Dumbledore a little.

"So, a soul split into six pieces? Seems a strange number. Seven seems much more likely for a wizard obsessed with symbolism."

"True." Albus conceded, hiding his slight nervousness masterfully.

"And given his penchant for theatrics, I would think that Voldemort could hardly resist commemorating His triumph over the prophecy with something special. My murder on that night would have been the ideal opportunity to make his final horcrux, wouldn't you say?"

Albus desperately wanted to switch to a safer subject, but that would look too suspicious.

"Yes, that does sound likely." He admitted calmly, still letting none of his feelings show.

"Is there anything else I should know?" Harry pressed, his expression inscrutable.

Albus recognised the tactic. He often used it himself. This knowing act got people to spill their secrets more often than not. He had never epxected to have it used on himself, but nothing about this meeting had gone according to plan. Harry simply did not allow him to take the lead in the conversation and his ladies had jumped down his throat at the first attempt of emotional manipulation.

Still, he couldn't tell Harry that he was a horcrux. This Harry would never agree to die for the greater good.

"No, but I did have a favor to ask."

"Oh?"

"Sirius told you about the Order of the Phoenix?" Albus asked and continued when he received a nod of confirmation. "Now that Voldemort has returned, I am reconvening it, but we have no appropriate place to use as headquarters. I was hoping that you would allow us the use of one of your unused properties for this purpose."

Not for the first time, Harry was kind of impressed by the gall of the man. Dumbledore didn't even seem to realise what an utter bastard he was being.

"What's in it for me?" He asked cooly.

Albus blinked in surprise at the question.

"You want to be paid for allowing use to use one of your properties?" He asked with a hint of incredulity. Albus well remembered Harry's rather mercenary attitude, but surely working towards the demise of Voldemort was payment in and of itself?

"Yes, but not in gold. If you are going to be using one of my buildings for your bird club, then you will share your information with me, and I mean all your information."

"You could simply join the Order." Albus suggested.

He did not expect the derisive laugh he got in return.

"And place myself under your inept leadership?" Harry asked, still chuckling. "The only way I would join the Order of the Phoenix is if you made me its leader."

Severus had needed to bite down on his scathing remarks several times already, but this was too much. The sheer arrogance in Potter's statement had him jumping to his feet.

But he hadn't counted on the stunner from Tonks that sent him flying into unconsciousness. The metamorphmagus had been aching to blast the greasy potions master ever since his comment about Sirius and his reaction had just given her the perfect excuse.

Harry had felt the hostility brewing in the air for some time and jumped to his feet almost at the same time as Snape, but his target was Dumbledore. He practically threw the coffee table and everything on it against the wall in his haste to close the distance between them.

One of Dumbledore's most well hidden, but also most crippling, failings was his lack of adaptability. He was a creature of information and careful planning and did not do well when faced with the unexpected.

The sudden explosion of violence caught him completely off guard as a result and while he did reflexively jump to his feet and snap the Elder Wand into his hand, it wasn't nearly fast enough to matter. His right wrist was caught in an iron grip and Harry's other hand yanked painfully on his beard.

"Now that we've dispensed with the artifice, we can get to the truth." Harry said softly, staring Dumbledore in the eye from a distance of no more than a dozen inches.

He didn't know if he could beat the old wizard in a straight fight, but combat skill with magic meant nothing at this distance.

"There really is no need for this, Harry." Albus insisted, trying to project as much calm as possible.

"I wonder, when exactly were you intending to tell me that I was a horcrux?"

Albus' eyes widened in shock.

"You know?" He whispered.

"Of course I fucking know." Harry scoffed. "You think I wouldn't notice a chunk of someone else's soul attached to me? I expelled that filth years ago."

"Truly?" Albus asked, not even bothering to conceal the naked hope in his tone.

"Yes, truly, now listen up." Harry growled and gave the beard another yank. "I can appreciate the position you were in with a toddler horcrux on your hands. The pragmatic thing would have been to kill me then and there, however ghoulish killing toddlers is. I don't know what half-baked plan you had to take care of that. Maybe you were hoping someone else would kill me so that you wouldn't have to bloody your hands. Maybe you were just delaying in the hope that some miracle solution would present itself. It somehow worked out this time, so I'm willing to let it go, but if you ever cook up another plot to direct my life in any way, shape or form, I will kill you. Understand?"

There was something strange about that. Albus had fully expected furious anger in response to the secrecy and the plot to arrange his death, but Harry seemed oddly unbothered by that. In fact, it sounded almost like a chastisement for not killing him as a baby. Harry appeared far more upset about the attempt to manipulate his actions, however little of that Albus had managed.

Harry was almost right. While he had indeed hoped for some miracle solution to the horcrux problem, his primary reason for meddling with Harry's life had been because of the prophecy. He had known that Harry would play a critical role in the conflict and done his best to facilitate a victory for their side while also making sure that Harry would die doing it.

Regardless, there was really only one answer that Albus could give given the situation he found himself in. Fortunately it was an answer he was happy to give now that the impossible situation with the scar horcrux had been resolved. "I understand."

"Good, now on to your Order of the Phoenix. I will let you use the old Black residence at 12 Grimmauld Place, but know this, Dumbledore; this is my war. You made it my war, with your soft touch and your dawdling and delaying and indecisiveness, and it's too late to play at being the general now. To be quite blunt, Dumbledore, you are a has-been, a leftover from a story that ended decades ago. Do whatever you want with your little band of vigilantes, but don't get in my way."

The words were harsh and something in Albus' chest tightened painfully. Not because of the words themselves, no, but because Harry had clearly dedicated himself to seeing this through. It was what he had schemed towards since first seeing the reclusive and disconnected lad in his first year, but it still pained him to look into the hard green eyes and see the killer that Harry had become. This wasn't what he had wanted for Harry, he wasn't even seventeen.

"What will you do when Voldemort is defeated?" He asked softly, fearing what would happen to Harry once he no longer had a well-defined enemy to fight. Even the presence of the three women in his life was not so reassuring now, when they did not object to this sudden violence.

"You really need to stop obsessing about my relationship with that stupid fucker. Both you and he have, knowingly or unknowingly, tried to define my life with that prophecy as the fulcrum sitting in the middle, but I'm not interested in either of your delusions. If I wanted to be a dark lord, I'd kill you now and seize mastery of the Elder Wand."

Albus had thought that he was done with the shocks for one day. Clearly he'd been wrong. "How did you…?"

"I'm just that fucking amazing. I could probably make a new set of Deathly Hallows if I really wanted to, but that would be a waste of time. The story about some anthropomorphic representation of death handing out gifts is bullshit in case you didn't know, nor does possession of all three items grant any special powers."

Albus was not often in a position where he felt like the less informed person in a conversation, nor did he much care for it. Still, he had little choice but to accept Harry's words as truth solely based on the fact that the younger wizard clearly knew more than he was saying. Perhaps it was something to do with the Peverell ancestry of the Potters?

"But we've drifted off topic." Harry continued. "I don't like you, I think old buzzards like you should be put away where they can't meddle in other people's lives anymore, but we have a common enemy and the enemy of my enemy can be an ally of circumstance, so I'm willing to work with you to get rid of Voldemort and then we can stay out of each other's way for the rest of your life. I'll contact you about Slughorn, now get off my island and don't forget to take Greasy with you."

"That table and tea set were expensive." Fleur said peevishly once Dumbledore and Snape were gone.

"Eh." Harry shrugged. A table was a table. "You and Dora should talk to your families and get them to move to Spellhaven if possible. I don't want them getting taken hostage and used against us."

Spellhaven wasn't completely unassailable of course, but warding an island was much easier than warding a random patch of land, not to mention that there were no bureaucratic restrictions on what kind of wards he could use. Plus, he had already set up a portal mirror as an emergency escape route to Ravenhead in case Voldemort actually decided to mount a direct assault one day.

"Right, will do." Dora nodded firmly, echoed by Fleur. After hearing what Death Eaters did to their victims, they would be willing to stun and kidnap their families if they refused to come freely. "What about Penny and your other senior employees?"

"Good point, they might be targeted too. I hope Penny doesn't quit her job over this, I never did tell her that I was moonlighting as a vigilante serial killer."

"Penny, I need you to contact the relevant person in the Indian magical community and have them ship me a few top of the line flying carpets."

Penny frowned at Harry in confusion. "I thought you wanted to go there and buy them yourself."

Harry scowled at that. "I recently learned some information that will probably require me to put off that trip for the foreseeable future."

"What kind of information?" She asked.

And he told her.

Penny took a deep, calming breath. "So let me get this straight, Voldemort was never completely dead, you've been murdering his followers over the past year and a half or so and now he's back and might decide to target me because of our association."

The worst part was that she wasn't even all that surprised.

"Maybe also your parents."

"… Damn it, Harry."

"Just ask them if they want to retire on a magical island or convince them to move to New Zealand or something. Either way, get them out of Britain. I'll pay for everything if I have to, because I sure as hell am not mounting any rescue missions if they stick around and get kidnapped."

"You're all heart." Penny said sourly and then sighed in resignation. "I suppose Voldemort would have targeted us because I'm a muggleborn anyway."

The problem with mixing war and magic was that it eliminated, or at least greatly diminished, a great many logistical issues that an attacker would usually face. Travel time, supply lines, geography… all of it barely even factored into consideration.

Realistically speaking, the defender in a magical war could only really claim knowledge of the environment, whatever traps he could prepare ahead of time and wards as an advantage, but wards were not to attacking wizards what castle walls had once been to medieval armies. Most wards in use today were of a subtler variety that wasn't meant to be a direct defense against attack.

The layman tended to think of wards as dome-like structures that sat on a certain area and those types of wards did exist to be fair, but they fell almost exclusively into the category of 'war wards'. They were so named because they were both highly power intensive and disruptive to daily life. As such, war wards couldn't be kept active at all times and were deemed a branch of magic that ordinary citizens of magical countries were barred from using.

Naturally, Harry wanted them.

"That's one hell of a big perimeter ward you're asking for, Lord Potter." The chief warding expert that Harry had hired said, rubbing his bristly grey beard.

"But can you do it?" Harry asked. He knew perfectly well that he was asking for a lot. Most perimeter wards were limited to a building or an estate at the most. The one he wanted would extend a kilometer in all directions from the shores of the island.

"We'll need something to anchor the ward to."

"Would underwater stone pillars rising from the sea floor in a circle around the island do it?"

"Aye, that would actually work better than what I had in mind and you're paying us enough that I won't even grumble about needing to get wet to set it up."

"I'll start raising them tomorrow then. Now about the war wards…"

The old warder exhaled gustily as he replied. "Since you sidestepped the law about those, we can set them up for you, but I have to warn you not to rely on them too much. They aren't even close to being a perfect defense."

"I know, but it's better than no defense at all."

"Can't argue with that. Alright, which ones do you want?"

"Broom Disruption Field for a start, as far out as possible."

"Hmmm. That should be about… three hundred or so meters out from the village. Any more than that and it won't do its job."

Not as much as I'd hoped, but I can work with it. Harry mused. The village is right next to the sea, so an approach from that direction would see any attackers going for a swim, and I can always turn the forest into a death trap once it grows a bit more. The sphinxes did say they owed me a debt…

But suppose they do actually swim to shore? Bah, I'll just enthrall a few dozen sharks and use them as guards. They might even be affected by the magic around here, which would be all kinds of interesting.

"That'll do. Next I want a standard Spellshield surrounding the village."

The warder briefly sucked on his teeth before replying. "That's not a small area. We can do it, but any half-competent ward-breaker will be able to tear it down in less than an hour and that's not even mentioning the brute force approach. A Spellshear will rip through it like it's nothing."

Harry knew that perfectly well. The Spellshear was a powerful bit of magic that was devastatingly effective against shielding spells of any kind. Not much use in a duel, but excellent if you needed to tear down a war ward in a hurry. It had been the death of more than one wizard that had placed too much faith in walls of pure magic.

"I know, but not just anyone can cast a Spellshear and any time the enemy spends cracking the ward is time I can use to mount a response."

"You sound like you're preparing for a war." The warder commented.

"Only the dead have seen the end of war." Harry quoted.

"You have got to be the most depressing teenager I've ever met." The man snorted. "I'm guessing you want the Spellshield paired up with something to prevent any clever bastards from just going right through?"

"You guess correctly. A Disintegration Barrier."

The warder whistled. "That's nasty."

"Saves time on corpse disposal though."

"Hah! And I suppose it's their own fault if they charge into a war ward like a bunch of lemmings, but I doubt that'll happen. These kinds of wards glow like a bonfire to anyone and anything with even a drop of magical blood in them when they're active."

"Then the ward will have done it's job in keeping them out."

Harry eventually settled on having five sets of increasingly smaller and therefore more powerful wards erected over the newly built village of Spellhaven, with the smallest covering only his and the girls' new home.

He fully understood that there was little point in getting overly creative on this since, as the warder said, only an idiot would charge straight into an active ward and they were impossible to miss, so all five sets consisted of a Spellshield paired with something else that would either kill or completely disable anyone that was stupid enough to actually do that.

The primary purpose of these wards was always to discourage casual attack and delay any overwhelming assault long enough to organise a resistance and evacuate people to Ravenhead if necessary. The secondary purpose was to force Voldemort to expend at least a portion of his strength smashing the wards if he came personally.

Once he was done talking wards, Harry went to check on a different security issue. Down he went, into an underground chamber that was being prepared for a very specific purpose.

"How goes it?" He asked.

"Pretty good." Dora answered. "I think that I've more or less got the draining and ventilation spells finished, so basically all that's left is to test it out and then let Fleur loose to do the decorating."

The room didn't look like anything special, just a decently sized square space carved out of the basalt that made up the island. Once Fleur furnished it, it would serve as a pleasant waiting room for people that arrived via portkey.

What made it special were that the only way to contact anyone outside this room was via communication mirror. Other than that, the room would be completely sealed from the outside world, with the only way out being a short-range portal similar to the one that led to Platform 9 and ¾ that would be made available once it was determined that the visitors were non-hostile.

The room was also equipped with a runic magic detecting scheme in case anyone tried to get cute with glamour charms. The floor also had a high-powered runic stun trap carved into it that could be remote detonated to knock anyone in the room unconscious in the event of potential hostile visitors. In the event of really hostile visitors, the kind that brought counter-measures for the stun trap, the expansion charms could be collapsed to squish them.

Despite everything, teleportation magic remained the most dangerous threat due to Spellhaven's isolated location. Fortunately, Apparition could be blocked entirely and portkey travel redirected to a location of one's choosing, so that threat was easily neutralised.

Harry was still working on his own version of the Marauder's Map that would cover the whole island to check for people who lied about their identity. It would have been easier with the original in his possession, but Harry always did like a magical challenge and if a bunch of kids still in school could do it, then by thunder so could he.

July 5th. Spellhaven.

Horace Slughorn was a man well aware of his vices. He liked his food, his drink and his various other pleasures, but most of all he liked to rub elbows with the rich, famous and powerful.

He had retired from Hogwarts when Voldemort fell and had always regretted that he would not be there to meet the up and coming wizards and witches of the next generation. He had especially regretted not being there when Harry Potter came to Hogwarts. Lily's boy had already done magnificently for himself, just imagine what he could have done with Horace's contacts!

At the moment, he was bitterly regretting ever hearing the name of Harry Potter.

"How many horcruxes did Riddle want to make, Sluggy? Speak up or you'll have to figure out how to brew potions without your fingers." The scarred young wizard threatened.

"Harry, you promised me that you would not treat Horace as if he was a Death Eater." Dumbledore protested.

"And I fully intend to keep that promise by not killing him. I said nothing about maiming if the blubbering fat fuck doesn't start talking right the fuck now however."

"Alright, alright, I'll tell you. I'll show you the memory even." Horace wailed fearfully.

A little later.

"Bye bye, Sluggy. Try to avoid helping any more psychopaths achieve immortality." Harry said as a form of mocking farewell before Slughorn disappeared in the swirl of a portkey.

"That was ill done, Harry." Dumbledore said with grave disappointment in his tone.

"Put a sock in it, old man." Harry jeered. "I don't have the patience to suck up to that fat bastard until he surrenders crucial information that he should have handed over decades ago. We learned for sure that Riddle was aiming for seven-way split of his soul and that's all that matters."

"Yet you made an enemy today where you could have had a valuable ally."

"I was always crap at making friends and I like to play to my strengths. I'll be expecting you to contact me if you track down any more horcruxes."

Dumbledore sighed sadly and nodded.