c27

It was time. The preparation had been made and the men were ready. A fleet of ships, all armed to the teeth, sailed north. In the sky, the city of Dalaran floated, escorted by a modest fleet of airships.

The Battle Harem(no Garona this time, as she had judged that her skills would be of little use) invited itself onto Jaina's ship for the invasion of Northrend, much to the captain's exasperation.

"What is that song you're humming?" Jaina asked.

Luna stopped humming and thought about it, her brow furrowing. Finally she shrugged. "I can't remember."

Then she went back to humming.

Harry didn't know either, but the tune felt both naggingly familiar and somehow appropriate. That he couldn't identify it with a little effort meant that he probably hadn't listened to it often, but he must have heard it at some point. What kind of song could feel appropriate for invading by ship?

"That's going to bother me until I figure it out." He muttered.

"Figure it out later, it appears that our hosts have prepared a lavish welcome." Colette said, her usual playful tone holding a streak of tension.

She was right, though; the cold skies off the coast of Northrend were filling up with gargoyles and other fliers of the Undead Scourge.

"Begin releasing depth charges!" Jaina ordered and her crew was quick to respond.

Because everyone expected the Scourge to also send aquatic undead at them. Unsurprisingly, the sea mines started exploding soon after, lighting up the dark oceans with searing Light. Harry had designed those mines and they were primed to blow in the presence of undead. As added insurance, every ship also had plenty of close combat specialists on board to repel boarding attempts.

Meanwhile, the skies were being filled with anti-air fire. The dwarves already had most of the ingredients necessary to make that particular technology viable. The limiting factors had been rate of fire and accuracy. Instead of trying to fix those issues, Harry had instead provided enchanted cannonballs that would explode into undead-seeking shrapnel.

Frankly, Azeroth's local mages should have been able to do that as well, but they tended to chronically underestimate the value of mass-produced killing devices. It was all about legendary weapons and heroes with them.

"I think the enemy commander is panicking a little." Harry noted.

Well, 'panicking' for a given value of the word. Undead couldn't feel fear and thus couldn't panic the same as a living person. They could, however, be surprised and have to scramble. Judging by how the gargoyles – and presumably the underwater creatures – were rushing to spread out, the enemy commander was definitely scrambling to adapt his strategies.

Harry hoped it was Kel'thuzad. There was some unfinished business with that one.

"They're trying to flank us." Jaina agreed, spotting the flier swarm curving around the fleet, no doubt hoping that they would be more vulnerable from the back.

Which they were, but probably not as vulnerable as the undead hoped. Rotating cannon mounts for the win.

"Jessir, Luna. I think it's time we took to the air." Harry said, bringing out his Disc and hopping on to it.

He'd made a new one after destroying his old one for accidental Heresy. This time, it was decorated only with the image of a raven.

"Be safe!" Arko wished them, followed by a similar echo from Colette. Sally just huffed.

"You too!" Luna waved and they flew off.

Jessir got a Disc of her own, emblazoned with the image of a wolf howling before a full moon.

Once up in the air, they had a much better overview of the invasion. It was going well. The effect of the AA cannons and depth charges had shattered the undead's swarm tactics and the ships were now rapidly closing in on the shore. Once they hit land, the most dangerous part would be over and the warriors of the Horde and the Alliance could use their superior fighting prowess to carve out a beachhead.

Of course, the enemy wasn't stupid. They knew full well that the best time to halt an invasion by sea was when it was still at sea.

Scourge mages started conjuring blizzards and riling up the water. Too bad for them that they sucked at that kind of magic. The Northrend Expedition had a vastly more varied pool of talent, from archmages to clerics and shamans and druids. The Scourge commander had been relying on being able to keep all these casters busy with swarms of expendable minions so that they couldn't counter the necromancers.

It was still unlikely to have succeeded and Harry got the distinct impression that the Lich King would prefer to kill them all on land where it would be easier to raise them, but it would have been harder. With how prepared they were, the invasion was simply bulldozing through the opposition.

Easy victories were the best kind.

Seeing that the Horde ships were now close enough to start lobbing their shamanistically enhanced boulders at the shoreline, Harry decided to show them up. Conjuring one of his old favorites, the Forbidden Sun, and then weighing it down with Dark, he swung his staff as if it had a sling attached and lobbed the heavy spell in a ballistic trajectory. The flaming ball of death arced through the air and he saw several necromancers and at least one lich try to dispel it.

Heh, good luck with that. Harry snorted mentally. It might look and even feel like just an especially nasty fireball, but that modified Forbidden Sun had weight to it. Unless those necromancers had a proficiency with Light magic that they were keeping secret, they wouldn't be able to unravel the threads keeping it together.

A truth they realized when it was more than half way there and started Blinking to get out of the way. A few seconds later, the Forbidden Sun landed in the Scourge backline with an eruption of magma, fire and kinetic energy.

"You missed." Jessir teased, sniping gargoyles out of the air.

"I hit precisely what I meant to." Harry replied haughtily. "It isn't my fault that the necromancers aren't completely braindead."

Without a word, Jessir directed her Disc to fly away before he could complete the pun about them only being undead.

"Rude." He complained and took it out on the undead with another Forbidden Sun. If the enemy commander was at all smart, he would soon realize that the battle was lost and that it would be better to conserve his forces for fighting another day, so he wanted to get as much damage in as possible.

XXXXX

Luna had – unbeknownst to her – been more or less unanimously chosen as the leader of the effort to cleanse Northrend.

The Sisterhood of Elune had had time to get used to her by this point and no longer doubted that she was favored by their goddess, even if they didn't fully understand why. The Church of Holy Light had the resurrected Alonsus Faol as a representative and he preferred to avoid confusing the hierarchy with his resurrection, so he stayed away from position of authority these days. The druids of the Cenarion Circle and the shamans of the Earthen Ring also generally preferred to act in the background and did not step forward. Everyone else had other concerns and since they had nothing in particular against her, did not comment on the matter.

Thus quietly agreed that she was in charge, nobody objected when she said that they would be working to purify the area where the Alliance and Horde were busily building what would soon become Valiance Keep.

They were somewhat more dubious when she said that they should build a bonfire and dance around it naked, and it wasn't because of the temperature.

"Is this truly necessary?" Alonsus asked skeptically.

"Aye." His dwarven counterpart backed him up.

Unsurprisingly, the humans and dwarves were the most reluctant to disrobe. Both their culture and the Church of Holy Light was a lot more conservative than everyone else.

"We're working together, so we shouldn't wear anything that divides us." Luna argued. Plus, it just wouldn't be a proper dance around a bonfire if they weren't naked. "Rituals can be finicky."

She didn't know nearly as much about rituals as Harry and preferred the more freeform ones, but she did know that no ritual was ever improved by division of purpose in its participants.

That was enough to get the druids and shamans to agree. It helped that said druids and shamans were comprised exclusively of night elves, orcs and tauren, none of which had much concern about nudity.

Now under peer pressure, the human and dwarf clerics gave in, although not without a great deal of embarrassment.

"Alright, let's do this!" Luna cheered and started the party… the ritual, she started the ritual.

The gist of the idea was that the shamans would begin by soothing the tormented elemental spirits. Then the clerics of Light and the Sisterhood of Elune would start calling upon their powers to purify the necromantic taint. After that, Luna would use her own her staff – renamed the Staff of Dreams since the addition of the Tears of Elune to it – to thin the veil between Azeroth and the Emerald Dream, because the Emerald Dream was uncorrupted. Lastly, the druids would channel life energy from the Dream and into the land to revitalize it.

It took hours, but it worked and it was lots of fun. Once they got into it, even the humans and dwarves had stopped thinking about their nakedness.

"Great job everyone!" Luna praised after it was over. "I can put up a moonwell myself to keep the necromancy out. I'll see you all next time! If we keep going like this and we'll have this whole continent cleansed in no time!"

And it would make it easier to organize the purification of Lordaeron, which many people were writing off as not being worth the bother. Thus far it had only been volunteers working there, but if they could showcase how effective they could be when working together, then things would go a lot smoother.

All the clerics shamans and druids looked quite pleased with their achievement, too, which made her happy to see.

Deciding that there was no time like the present, Luna went to fetch the materials she would need to construct and bless a moonwell. Unlike fel taint, necromantic magic wouldn't be able to creep into an area of influence sanctified to Elune until the moonwell was destroyed.

They were going to put up soooo many moonwells all over Northrend.

In pursuit of that goal she needed stones. The invasion fleet hadn't actually carried any supplies or support personnel. It would be silly to expose them to danger like that when teleportation magic existed. Still, they had been here for just under a day and Valiance Keep was already well on its way to being built. Harry had managed to argue for closer cooperation between the Horde and Alliance at least in the initial stages, since nobody could argue that it would make no sense to expose both factions to attack while they were getting entrenched. Of course, the Alliance would then go on to help build the Horde build their own stronghold further inland. The Alliance was first simply because Valiance Keep was situated on the coastline.

"We should not be here helping the enemy built their fortress!" An orcish bellow sounded, in the familiar voice of Garrosh Hellscream. His angry yelling was quite distinctive. "Do you really think they will help us afterwards?!"

Well, most people understood why the Alliance stronghold was being built first.

Luna altered her course to go see who Hellscream was yelling at, and if she could help calm the argument down. It was nice to see people working together and she'd rather not have it ruined by one angry boy that she wasn't even entirely sure had good reason to be angry.

She jogged around a cart filled with lumber and saw the standoff. It was indeed Garrosh Hellscream, faced with Varok Saurfang and another younger orc with the earthy brown skin of the Mag'har.

"Yes, I do think they will help us afterwards." Varok replied, annoyed. "We have no cause to doubt their word."

"They. Are. The enemy!" Hellscream snarled back, getting right in Varok's face.

The other young orc immediately reciprocated, until the two of them were standing practically nose to nose. "The undead are the enemy. Do not make more where you do not need to."

Luna decided to interject.

"Hiiii!" She greeted cheerily, hoping that a little positivity would calm things down.

"Lady Luna." Varok greeted back with a small nod.

"You can just call me Luna. We're friends!" She smiled at him and peered curiously at the young Mag'har. She wasn't the best at spotting familial resemblances in orcs, but he was wearing Varok's armor and had his axe sheathed on his back… "Is this your son? Nephew? Younger brother?"

"He is my son." Varok said proudly. "Dranosh Saurfang."

The old orc looked at lot less morose than he had been the last time she'd seen him, which made her smile widen.

"I have heard much about you from my father, Lady Luna." Dranosh bowed his head slightly. "It is an honor to meet you."

"So polite!" Luna exclaimed happily. "It's great to meet you, too. Please, just call me Luna. I'm glad that you and your dad were reunited!"

Dranosh must have been left behind on Draenor when the Horde first came to Azeroth.

"What are you doing here?" Garrosh interrupted by snarling angrily.

"I heard you yelling and came to check if everything was alright." Luna replied. "You seem tense. Have you been getting enough sleep?"

"Are you mocking me?!" Hellscreamed roared, stomping towards her. He was only an inch or so taller than her, but he used it to loom nonetheless.

"Hellscream!" Varok barked, pulling him away along with his son. "Do not take your rage about losing a Mak'gora to Harry out on his mate. It is dishonorable and unworthy of a warrior."

"Oooh, you're still mad about that?" Luna realized. "If you want a rematch, I'm sure he would oblige you."

Judging by the fierce glee that lit of Garrosh's eyes, she had said the right thing. It always felt good to make people happy.

"Lady Luna…" Dranosh started.

"Just Luna." She interrupted.

"Luna." He corrected, making her smile. "Should you truly be arranging for a Mak'gora in your mate's name?"

"Harry trusts me." She said simply and it was true. Besides, she was pretty sure that he wouldn't mind a rematch.

Varok and Dranosh looked dubious for some reason, but Garrosh was quick to start setting conditions for the duel.

XXXXX

Bolvar Fordragon had a good feeling about this campaign. It could not be denied that the undead Scourge had to be fought, but he had expected it to be a brutal slog from start to finish.

Instead, they had managed to smash decisively through the initial Scourge defense and were now making fast progress fortifying their position. The new weapons had performed excellently. They had many fine champions the Light with them, such as the resurrected Alexandros Mograine and the returned Tirion Fordring. They had the mages of the Kirin Tor and their newly floating city of Dalaran with them. Harry had provided them with something he called 'holy gas grenades', which left behind a lingering silver mist that burned any undead that passed through it – an invaluable tool for dealing with the vast swarms of mindless minions the Lich King was sure to send at them. And for the past few hours, he had felt the disgusting taint of necromancy diminishing, its final disappearance heralded by a pulse of revitalizing holy energy.

"Ah, it appears that Luna is finished with her ritual." Harry commented with a small grin.

The powerful sorcerer and Speaker for Azeroth had been with them to check on how much of the holy gas they had used up. Bolvar had been wary of expending it too quickly, but Harry had assured him that it was easy to make in quantity and to not be stingy with it.

That was a nice change from the norm. All too often, valuable war materials tended to vanish far faster than anyone would like.

"Haha, even this deeply cursed land yields before the power of Lady Luna's faith." Highlord Leoric von Zeldig laughed raucously.

The paladin of the 7th Legion had been deeply impressed by the priestess' faith and determination to keep alive as many people as possible during the War of Shifting Sands and was not shy about saying so. From what Bolvar had heard, even many of the orcs had left that war with a great deal of respect for her.

Given that she had revealed Onyxia and saved young Anduin Wrynn's life from the black dragon's resulting temper tantrum, Bolvar had quite a high opinion of her himself. He felt at ease knowing that she would be in charge of purifying the land they took from the Scourge.

And if some of the more fundamentalist clerics of the Light complained about ceding so much power to the Sisterhood of Elune, then that was their problem. They had more important things to worry about than which religion got more prestige out of this.

"And the builders tell me that Valiance Keep will be built in less than a week at our current pace." Bolvar nodded with a pleased smile.

Everything was going remarkably smoothly.

And then Colette Blaumeux opened the door with a saucy smirk. Bolvar had only met the former High Priestess of the Silver Hand in Lordaeron a few times, but her new, larger body and more playful personality still threw him off.

"Oh, Harry~." She sing-songed. "You have another duel to fight with Hellscream. Luna arranged for a rematch."

"Damnation, we do not need this right now." Bolvar sighed in exasperation.

He was able to work with Varok Saurfang just fine, despite the fact that they had been enemies in the past. The old orc was clearly remorseful for what his people had done under the influence of the Burning Legion and striving to live the rest of his life with honor. His son, Dranosh, also seemed a good sort.

Garrosh Hellscream on the other hand…

Well, there was a reason why Saurfang tried to keep him as busy as possible.

"I can't refuse, though." Harry also sighed. "The Horde gets particular about this Mak'gora thing of theirs. What are we even fighting over this time?"

"I wasn't told." Colette frowned. "Luna said something about Hellscream not getting enough sleep, but I don't know what that has to do with anything."

"Well, I wasn't intending to humiliate Mister Anger Management again so soon, but if he insists…" Harry cracked his neck and strode out.

"That's the spirit! Show that knave what for." Leoric cheered and followed behind them.

Bolvar belatedly remembered that the dramatic paladin loved a good duel.

Seeing that they were likely not going to get anything more done at the moment, he decided that they might as well watch this duel and see if any damage control needed to be done afterwards.

XXXXX

Varok Saurfang looked like someone had pissed in his ale, so deep was his scowl.

"This Mak'gora is pointless." He said.

"It is pointless, but I'm not giving Hellscream the chance to scream about me being a coward." Harry replied, giving the orc in question a condescending glance.

Also, puns.

"You think me petty enough to spread rumors?!" Hellscream roared.

No, not really, but he'd imply it anyway because it made him mad.

"Of course not, I'm sure you're too honorable to do anything underhanded." He said insincerely. "Either way, I agree to the terms my wife negotiated."

Which was essentially no terms at all, just a no holds barred fight. How incredibly foolish of the orc.

"Very well." Saurfang grumbled. "Take your positions, then."

This event had not been advertised, but neither had it been quiet and when soldiers saw a big commotion they tended to get curious. Minor arguments or small standoffs between orcs and humans were common, but to have it happen between big names was something else. The stretch of empty land that would very soon be a courtyard in Valiance Keep was filling up with people.

"Begin!" Saurfang barked once they both confirmed their readiness.

Much like last time, Hellscream rushed forward at great speed, eager to get into melee range. Gorehowl sang as it cleaved through the air, aiming to smash against his chest.

But Harry was no longer there. Hellscream might run fast, but not as fast as a Blink teleport. Then, before the orc could reorient himself, the archmage launched himself up into the air and stayed there, safely out of the deadly axe's reach.

"Too slow." Harry teased, tossing a few fire bolts and magic missiles at his ground-bound opponent. Nothing strong enough to be particularly harmful, but certainly annoying.

"Get down here and fight me!" Hellscream shouted, smashing aside the spells with his axe.

"No, I don't think I will." A few more weak spells were sent to annoy the orc. "If you want to fight on my level, then learn to fly."

The brown-skinned orc ground his teeth together so hard he could hear them up in the air, and he almost expected him to turn red from sheer fury. Still, Hellscream managed to restrain himself from making the blunder of demanding that his opponent handicap himself just so that he would have a chance to win.

Too bad.

"Hey, I have a question." Harry continued talking, still flinging harmless little spells down at the orc, much to the amusement of the Alliance spectators. The Horde ones were less amused. "How loud can a Hellscream scream, if a Hellscream screams like Hell?"

It wasn't exactly the old woodchuck gag, but whatever.

Alas, Garrosh didn't seem interested in answering him. Instead, he rushed over to a stack of cannonballs with the clear intention of using them as projectiles.

"You can't be serious." Harry complained. "That's not going to work."

He was, of course, ignored. And to be fair, the cannonball was actually thrown with formidable force. With Hellscream's strength, his enormous hamhands and relatively low weight of the cannonball, he was able to chuck it hard enough that it would probably fly for at least two hundred meters if he was going for sheer distance.

Too bad that Harry wasn't a stationary target, nor was Hellscream particularly accurate.

"You know that these things have to come down at some point, right?" He pointed out, using magic to catch and stack the cannonballs in the air next to him. "Just imagine some poor bastard getting brained out of nowhere because of your reckless manual artillery."

Hellscream continued to display casual disregard for safe munitions handling until he ran out of cannonballs. Veins visibly bulging across his forehead with rage, he looked for alternative ways to attack a mobile aerial target. Eyes lighting upon a rudimentary temporary watchtower, he rushed to climb it.

Harry could have told him that wouldn't work either, but suspected he would get ignored. Besides, watching him fail would be funnier.

Thus did Hellscream launch himself from the watchtower with an enraged howl, axe held high with intent to cleave. Alas for him that a simple, if powerful, gust of wind, robbed him of momentum and sent him crashing gracelessly to the ground.

"Physics once more reasserts its ultimate dominance over the passions of mere mortals." Harry pontificated solemnly. "It is my quiet honor to counter your action with an equal and opposite reaction."

That was taking a few liberties with the definition of Newton's Third Law, but nobody present needed to know that. Either way, Hellscream smashed a fist against the cold ground in frustration and picked himself up, glaring up at him.

Harry smiled back and decided that he'd played around enough. As funny as it was to mock Hellscream, they were quickly reaching a point where going any further would make him look like a petty asshole.

Which he was, sometimes, but he was trying to paint himself as the aggrieved reasonable person here.

XXXXX

Dranosh Saurfang could only shake his head as Garrosh Hellscream's spellblasted body was carried away. The son of Grom Hellscream had never stood a chance, not against a wizard that was so easily able to fly.

Worse still, the Mak'gora had been over nothing but misplaced pride. Garrosh had taken insult over something that was almost certainly not an insult and shamed himself with his behavior. More importantly, he had shamed the Horde with it.

Wanting to keep good relations with Azeroth's Speaker and tangentially also the Alliance, Dranosh decided to approach the wizard, who was currently also being congratulated by his women.

"You fight well." He complimented, even though it had hardly been a fight.

"Easy to do with how much of an advantage I had." The wizard chuckled.

"Harry, this is Dranosh Saurfang, Varok's son." Luna introduced enthusiastically. Dranosh, this is Harry. And these are Jessir, Arko and Colette."

"An honor to meet you all." Dranosh gave a short bow. His words were unvarnished truth this time. This was a group that had done much for Azeroth.

"So polite." The one introduced as Colette said teasingly. "Someone has been taught good manners."

The two night elves seemed much less relaxed. They stared at him tensely, almost as if expecting another fight.

"So, what can I do for you?" Harry asked.

"Nothing, I just wanted to make sure that Hellscream did not damage our cooperation." Dranosh said directly.

"Huh, a diplomatic orc. Will wonders never cease?" Harry mused. "Your blunt approach would have horrified a trained human diplomat, but that you even thought to try smoothing over any ruffled feathers is quite impressive. Most orcs I've met seem to think that bulling forward is the only way to do things."

Dranosh really wasn't sure what to say to that. He didn't think he'd been insulted, but it didn't quite feel like a compliment either. "We share a common foe. Fighting against ourselves would serve only the undead."

"A rare opinion among your people." The one introduced as Jessir said. "We've barely been here for a day and I've seen at least six fights get broken up."

"To be fair, the orcs aren't the only ones starting those." Harry interjected. "There's plenty of grudges to go around."

"Battle will make brothers and sisters of us all." Dranosh said strongly.

"Keep talking like that and you might end up being Warchief." Harry replied humorously.

"Ooh, that would be really cool!" Luna clapped excitedly. "I bet Varok would be so proud."

"I do not think Warchief Thrall is looking to step down." Dranosh said. True, it was always possible to challenge him for the position, but he had no intention of doing so.

"Nothing wrong with a little forward thinking."

XXXXX

Several weeks after the initial landing, the war in Northrend settled into the slow grind everyone expected it to be. Undead specialized in slow, grinding warfare and none of the living wanted to overextend and get surrounded.

A floating necropolis much like Naxxramas soon showed up and they found out that Kel'thuzad was once more in command of it. Meanwhile, the Horde and Alliance strongholds were rapidly built and battle lines were drawn.

For Jaina Proudmoore that meant going back to Theramore. She had helped make sure the initial push was successful, but she didn't have the luxury of staying on the front lines and leaving the logistics to her advisors and council, as much as she sometimes wished she could.

Times like now. Even for a relatively tiny city-state like Theramore, the amount of paperwork that accumulated if you took your eyes off it was ridiculous. Jaina had been buried up to her eyeballs in reports, requests, proposals and other legal documents for several days already and there was still no end in sight.

And then she was interrupted. By Harry. This caused her some very mixed feelings. On one hand, it was a blessed distraction from the paperwork. On the other, he had brought a box of heart-shaped chocolates with him.

"No, I'm not accepting that." She said immediately.

"But I worked really hard on them." He protested, trying to act like his feelings were hurt. "I even asked Luna to tutor me in the ancient art of the chocolatier."

"That's nice, but I'm still not accepting them."

"They're really good, though."

Jaina had no doubt that they were indeed very good. In fact, they were probably the most delicious chocolates she'd ever taste.

"I'm not letting you seduce me with chocolates."

"I'm not here to seduce you, I'm here for a serious conversation."

"Trying to seduce me is just something you're doing on the side, then?"

"Look at you, having it all figured out." He grinned, putting the chocolates on her desk. "I'll just leave these here. If you don't want to eat them yourself, then give them to your minions or something."

"I do not have minions." And she absolutely was not going to let her subordinates have those chocolates. The rumors it would spawn didn't bear thinking about.

"Whatever you want to call them. We should make ourselves more comfortable, you look like you need a foot rub."

"I'm not letting you touch my feet."

"Do you even want to hear about my plans?"

Yes, she very much did. Jaina had promised herself that she'd never let herself become so comfortable that she would just wave off whatever he was doing and only hear about it later. Not even because of suspicion or distrust. At this point she was pretty sure that she could trust Harry to do something mostly good even if the method of it skirted right up to the line of what was morally tolerable. No, she would never allow herself to become comfortably dismissive of his antics because the smug bastard took entirely too much enjoyment out of shocking people and she did not want to wake up one day to learn that he had tried to arrange a marriage between Anduin Wrynn and some prominent orc female or something equally stupid.

"Are you saying that you won't tell me about your plans unless I let you rub my feet?"

"Jaina, sweetie, I can practically see the aura of stress around you. If there was ever someone who needed to have their feet rubbed, it's you. Don't make me call Luna."

Luna would just carry her off to the hot tub without listening to a word of protest, so that was no idle threat.

"Don't call me sweetie, and if your hands go any higher than my shins, I will turn you into an ice cube."

"There's no need for those kinds of threats, I would never go any further than you're willing to let me." He assured, and went to sit in one of the comfortable armchairs she had in her office.

"Uh huh." Jaina retorted sarcastically and went over to join him. Once there, she none-too-gently plopped one booted foot into his lap.

Harry predictably didn't mind her surly attitude and simply slipped the boot off. "So, is there anything in particular you want to hear about?"

Jaina stifled a small groan as he started massaging her foot. That was really the worst part of this, he was too damn good at it. "Are you doing anything that I'm likely to find objectionable?"

"Hmm." He hummed thoughtfully. "Well, I'm keeping my eyes open for any blood or flesh from a draenei female. I need some to make Sacrolash and Alythess new bodies, but there's so few of their race left that the stuff is at a bit of a premium."

"Miall turned you down when you asked, didn't she?"

"Yeah." He sighed, digging his fingers into the soles of her feet a bit more firmly. "I guess I can't blame her, but it's still pretty inconvenient."

Jaina decided to change the subject. "What was that fight with Hellscream about?"

She hadn't gotten any details, just that Harry won another Mak'gora against the hotheaded orc.

"Luna accidentally insulted him and suggested fighting it out." Harry snorted. "She sure has the orcs figured out good. But anyway, it was just a minor scuffle. I was far more interested in meeting Varok Saurfang's son."

"Why?" Jaina frowned in puzzlement.

"That kid could go places." Harry explained enthusiastically. "He's a fine warrior and has quite a bit of raw charisma. If he makes enough of a name for himself in Northrend, he could easily become the next Warchief of the Horde, one that the orcs will actually respect."

"They respect Thrall!"

"Nah, not really. Sure, they respect his power and what he's done for them, but they don't show much respect to his ideals. If they did then he wouldn't have such a hard time wrangling them. Their culture places too much importance on martial skill for a shaman to hold the position of Warchief."

"I suppose." Jaina couldn't really deny that a warrior would be more accepted after what she'd learned about orcish culture over the years. "But you really shouldn't meddle with who the Horde chooses to be Warchief."

"It's for their own good. Those battle maniacs need someone to point them in the right direction or they'll just end up being pawns for yet another world-ending threat."

"You really don't have any faith in the Horde at all, do you?"

"I have seen hundreds of human cultures, some of them so heinously stupid that only sheer luck allowed them to thrive for any length of time. Everything from a belief that they were the Chosen People despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary to warrior women who refused to wear anything other than nipple rings as armor. The Horde sits at a comfortable fourteenth place on my list of top twenty-five worst cultures ever."

"I'm not sure I trust your cultural assessments." Jaina said dubiously.

"You wound me with your doubt." Harry dramatically brought her foot up to his heart, but put it back down before she could protest. "Still, the bottom line is that I'm going to end up babysitting Dranosh Saurfang to make sure nothing happens to him. With him as Warchief in the future, the Horde can be much more easily directed to dying heroically instead of dying stupidly."

"You said you wouldn't try to wipe them out." Jaina reminded him with narrowed eyes.

"Unfortunately, the orcs reproduce too fast for a complete self-destruction. I'm afraid that Azeroth will have to put up with this plague of uninvited muscleheads for quite some time yet. The least they can do is fight for the world they invaded if they're serious about being 'honorable'."

Jaina wanted to object to how he said that, on Thrall's behalf if nothing else, but nothing he said was false. "So to be clear, you just want Dranosh Saurfang to become the next Warchief? You don't have any nefarious plans for how that will end up further weakening the Horde?"

"Not at all. This will, in fact, make the Horde stronger."

That was even more suspicious. She had no doubt that he was telling the truth, and yet she also had no doubt that it was some kind of trick at the same time. Jaina just couldn't see what it was. Politics had definitely never been her forte.

"What are you up to?" She asked suspiciously.

"Just doing my job, protecting Azeroth and stuff." He shrugged casually.

He wasn't going to tell her what the trick was.

"Right." Jaina sighed. "Anything else or can I have my feet back?"

Even though it was a really good foot rub. She wasn't going to let his incredibly skilled fingers lower her guard.

"Well…" Harry drawled, inspiring a sense of dread in her heart.

"Harry, what did you do?"

"Nothing much, just asked a friend to borrow something."

XXXXX

A few days before the invasion of Northrend.

Azshara paused in what she was doing when she felt something ping on her wards. It was about the equivalent of knocking on the door for magic users, It was also not something that any of her servants would do, which really left only one person that it could be.

Curious as to what he wanted, she teleported to where the disturbance came from and saw a glowing astral raven waiting for her.

"Azshara, my dear enemy! How are you on this fine day?" Harry greeted pleasantly.

"Better now that you are here." She returned just as pleasantly. "What brought about this most welcome visit?"

"Primarily a desire to once more behold your beauty." He lied politely. "But I was also hoping to borrow something of yours."

"I am a generous queen." Azshara conceded. "What is it you wished to borrow?"

"I'm sure you know about the impending invasion of Northrend." It was a statement rather than a question, a true one. "Well, Yogg-Saron was imprisoned under it and it would be nice to have a proper weapon to kill it with."

"Xal'atath." The Queen Beneath the Tides hummed thoughtfully. The Blade of the Black Empire was an artifact of considerable power, but one rather specialized in destroying the Old Gods and their creations. It would still be a formidable weapon if turned against other enemies, but no more than any other legendary artifact. Its whispers and visions also tended to drive weak-willed wielders mad.

One of Harry's wives/adventuring companions was a Shadow priestess, was she not? That could have interesting results and Azshara had always been a curious woman.

"Borrow, you say?" She said languidly. "Does that mean you would return it to me once you no longer need it?"

"Of course, I only steal from people I don't respect." Harry assured and she detected no lie in his words.

How curious.

"I will agree to this on one condition." She smiled.

"Yeeees?" He dragged out cautiously.

"You simply must come visit me in person again, and bring your family with you. I would like to meet them properly."

"I will do my best to convince them, but it may prove difficult. I'm afraid that most of them don't share my attitude towards respected enemies."

"A sign of poor breeding, that." Azshara sighed in disappointment. "All I can ask for is that you do your best, and I will send someone to deliver Xal'atath to the coastline."

"You have my most sincere gratitude." The astral raven bowed its head. "With it, I should be able to purge the Old Gods from Azeroth."

That was a goal they could both agree with. Those parasites were quite the nuisance, useful though N'Zoth was in the aftermath of her defeat in the War of the Ancients. And those loathsome undead weren't very pleasant to look at either.

XXXXX

"You agreed to go back to Nazjatar? Are you insane?!"

"It's fine, Azshara would never double cross us."

"How sure are you of that?" Jaina asked skeptically.

"Azshara's word is part of her and betraying it would lower its worth, in turn lowering her worth. For someone as narcissistic as her, that's completely intolerable." Harry explained smugly.

"She didn't seem to have any trouble betraying N'Zoth." Jaina pointed out.

"Their deal was that they would be equals, but acknowledging anyone as an equal is not in the Old Gods' nature. N'Zoth disrespected her station and sovereignty, so of course she turned on him." Harry waved off. "I just have to coach the girls to not offend her and we'll be fine."

"This still seems far too risky for a weapon, no matter how powerful…"

"It is a risk." He admitted. "Jessir, Arko and Luna are particularly in danger of putting a foot wrong. Still, for the chance to decisively wipe out the Old Gods, it's a risk I'm willing to take. In a worst case scenario, I'll go alone and bring some kind of present as an apology."

"At least tell me you aren't seriously considering giving it back once you're done with it."

"A man should never break his word without great cause, especially when he gives it to very dangerous women."

XXXXX

While the mortal races were pursuing their war against the Lich King, the dragons had not been idle. Alexstrasza the Life-Binder, having long been recovering from the torment she endured at the hands of Deathwing and the Dragonmaw orcs, had been rousing herself from seclusion in recent years. The invasion of Northrend gave her the final bit of motivation she needed to return fully to the world.

With the mortals steadily advancing deeper into Northrend, the Dragon Queen knew that they would eventually reach Wyrmrest Temple in the Dragonblight. This would prove to be a good opportunity to make allies against the undead, as the Lich King had become a serious threat even to the dragons, for all that he had avoided threatening them directly as of yet.

A meeting was called to discuss it.

XXXXX

"Welcome, mortals, to Wyrmrest Temple." The leader of the Red Dragonflight called out as they were led into the meeting chamber.

Harry felt vindicated in his decision to not bring Luna along with him. As amusing as her reaction would be to the eight foot beast of a woman that was Alexstrasza's mortal guise with her giant horns and solid golden eyes, this was probably not the time.

She was the only Dragon Aspect present, the others having sent representatives instead, all of them familiar. Kalecgos for the blues, Merithra for the greens and Chromie for the bronzes.

For the Horde, Varok had chosen to send his son, which Harry thought was either extremely canny or extremely lucky of the old warrior. Dranosh's uncorrupted brown skin would bring up far less bad memories for the Dragon Queen than if he had chosen one of the green-skinned orcs or come himself.

Bolvar had come himself as the Alliance representative, as he had plenty of subordinates that he could trust to handle things in case the Scourge got aggressive while they were meeting.

Rhonin was here on behalf of Dalaran and Harry had kind of invited himself along as the representative of Azeroth herself.

"We are honored to be here." Bolvar said, bowing at the waist. "It is our hope that together we may secure and heal our world."

"Well spoken." Alexstrasza said regally, gesturing towards the round table that had been prepared for their meeting. "Please sit and make yourselves comfortable. We have much to speak of."

"Before we get started on the serious stuff, I want to know how the moonlight dragons and the babysitter Ally sent you are doing." Chromie interjected peppily, wiggling a little in her very tall chair.

Now that he thought about it, making a table and chairs that could accommodate the variety of physical statures present here must have been a bit of a pain in the ass.

"They're doing great." Harry replied. "The whelps have calmed down a lot since Aurastrasza came by to look after them and we're making sure to make her feel at home."

"You seduced her, didn't you?" Chromie accused with amusement. "Trying to bring some more dragons into the world, eh?"

"Well, Merithra thought that I couldn't fertilize a dragon's eggs." Harry demurred. "I could hardly turn down a challenge like that."

"Dragons have occasionally mated with mortals in the past. Such unions have never produced offspring." Merithra defended her position.

"They clearly weren't trying hard enough, then."

"You seriously seduced a dragon?" Rhonin muttered to him softly.

"Mhm."

"…Nice."

What a bro.

"You know, Ally will technically be your mother-in-law if Aurastrasza decides to stay with you." Chromie pointed out with a grin, the little shit.

He hadn't known that Aurastrasza was one of Alexstrasza's kids, though.

"Luna will be ecstatic to hear that, I'm sure." Harry replied drily, turning to the Dragon Queen with a slight, not-quite-mocking bow. "Regardless of my relationship with your daughter, I hope to work closely with the Red Dragonflight towards the betterment of Azeroth."

That was no exaggeration. The Red and Green Dragonflights were easily the most unambiguously altruistic faction on the planet. Aside from incidents of corruption, coercion or mind control, no member of their flights has ever gone off the deep end and started causing trouble.

Alexstrasza's poker face was excellent, but she didn't seem displeased. "Aurastrasza has told me of the plans you shared with her and I would like to speak with you about them in more depth, but for now we should return to the matter of the Undead Scourge."

"Yes." Dranosh grunted, leaning forward awkwardly. He clearly wasn't used to diplomacy. "We have driven the undead from the field every time we clashed, but now they begin to entrench themselves in their underground tunnels or dark fortresses. Our progress has slowed."

"I was instructed to say that the Bronze Dragonflight won't offer any direct aid." Chromie responded. "Nozdormu wants us to keep a close eye on the timestreams to keep them stable, but otherwise doesn't want us involved."

The typical approach from the bronzes, although Harry hadn't missed that bit about only 'direct' aid not being offered. Information was often more valuable than mere combat power.

"The Green Dragonflight would prefer to aid in your efforts to purify the land." Merithra added, nodding towards Harry. "We have seen the work of Priestess Luna and approve. When this is over, necromancy will have no hold over this ancient land."

"Malygos' mind has recovered greatly in recent years." Kalecgos said earnestly. "I am sure he will agree to work with the mages of Dalaran to counter the foul magics of the Scourge."

"The Red Dragonflight has long wished to purge Northrend of the taint of undeath, but our numbers are too few. Mighty as we are, we can be brought down by overwhelming numbers, as poor Sapphiron has experienced years ago." Alexstrasza sighed.

The old truism where it didn't matter if the great knight can cut through a hundred goblins, if he was then brought down by the hundred and first. Or, as a more modern analogy, there was a reason why tanks needed infantry support.

The Scourge could afford to throw heaps of disposable minions at a big problem, because not only could the felled remains be raised once again if they weren't too badly damaged, but they'd also get that big problem on their side afterwards as well.

"If it is support you need, we will provide it gladly." Bolvar stated firmly. "The Alliance will be honored to fight at your side."

"As will the Horde." Dranosh added his own enthusiastic declaration.

If one didn't know better it was almost like they were trying to one-up each other.

They began discussing specifics, to which Harry had nothing much to add, aside from assuring everyone that he would continue to supply both the Horde and Alliance with necromancy-destroying weapons. He was mostly here because it was an important meeting and he wanted it to go well. So far, it was progressing very smoothly. Both sides wanted the same thing and had almost no points of friction. By all appearances, this discussion was merely for the sake of formality and logistics, rather than diplomacy.

And then Harry suddenly felt a stabbing pain in his heart. Due to vast experience, he could immediately identify it as being psychosomatic rather than physical, but that just made it worse. He was well protected against physical attacks and had plenty of options to handle it. Against this, there was no defense.

"Harry!" Rhonin yelped in shock, catching him as he wheezed and nearly feel out of his chair. "What's wrong?"

"Azeroth is being attacked." He managed to grit out, 'hearing' the slumbering titan scream.

Kalecgos had also surged to his feet and had his eyes closed, a deep frown on his face. "The world's magic flows are changing. Someone is redirecting the leylines."

Which would be vaguely similar to reversing a mortal creature's blood flow. No wonder he felt like he was having a heart attack.

"Malygos is the only one who should be capable of such a thing." Alexstrasza said in alarm.

"The surge needles!" Kalecgos exclaimed. "But… surely he would not? Those were meant to be tools to repair damage to the leylines, not redirect them entirely!"

"You might want to prepare an escape plan if you plan on confronting him about it." Harry chuckled painfully. He'd known that Malygos was going to be trouble. Nobody went insane for ten thousand years and then came back fine.

"Some of the things Malygos has said in the past few years have been deeply troubling, but I did not think he would go this far." Alexstrasza frowned.

"What is he planning? And what will be the consequences of it?" Bolvar demanded brusquely.

"As his sanity returned, Malygos sent members of our flight out to investigate how mortals used magic." Kalecgos began explaining. "He did not seem pleased."

"He spoke to me about the issue as well, implying that mortals cannot be trusted to wield magic." The Dragon Queen added. "I thought little of it at the time and told him that we cannot stop them from using it in any case."

"I'm guessing went quiet and thoughtful all of a sudden?" Harry guessed, already seeing where this was going.

The flash of a grimace on Alexstrasza's face confirmed it.

"So he seeks to take magic away from any but those of his choosing?" Dranosh summed up.

"Oh, we won't have to worry about that." Harry grimaced as another flash of pain wracked his heart. "If he succeeds in doing whatever he's doing, Azeroth will almost certainly die and I don't think the planet will survive her death throes. Does he even know that he's hurting a sleeping titan or does he just not care?"

"I… mentioned to him that you were her Speaker, but he was dismissive and uninterested." Kalecgos scowled. "I spoke out against his views on mortal magic users in the past, so I must have been left out of his confidence."

And no longer trusted to provide valid information, if the Blue Aspect had developed enough tunnel vision to think this was a good idea.

A commotion outside the meeting chamber their drew attention. Two red dragon's in high elf guises escorted a frantic Kirin Tor mage inside.

"Lord Rhonin, Dalaran is under attack!" He yelled out.

"What?! By who?" Rhonin demanded.

"Traitors, my lord." The messenger answered, giving a nasty look towards Kalecgos. "They teleported blue dragonkin through the wards and are looting the artifacts vault."

"I have to go." Rhonin said, getting on his feet.

"I will come with you." Kalecgos offered. "This cannot be allowed."

"We should return to the front lines as well." Bolvar said to Dranosh. "The Lich King may try to take advantage of this."

Dranosh grunted in agreement and looked towards Harry. "Can you teleport us to our strongholds?"

"I still feel like I'm having a fucking heart attack, ask one of the dragons." Harry groused back. He was trying to calm Azeroth down and get her to stop sending him echoes of her pain, but it was working about as well as trying to get a baby to stop crying. "Chromie, could you take me home?"

The bronze dragon was easily the least perturbed person in the room. She had probably known what was going to happen already and decided that not warning anyone was for the best. Or maybe she'd been told not to tell anyone.

"Sure!" The bronze dragon chirped, swinging herself off her booster chair and coming closer to place her hand on his leg.

A moment later they were teleporting, and it was weird. Bronze dragon temporal teleportations were way different than the normal kind.

They arrived… to a slaughter. The foyer that Chromie had brought him to was littered with the corpses of blue dragonkin and mages in altered Kirin Tor robes. Just how many goddamn traitors did the Kirin Tor have?!

"Harry!" Luna exclaimed, rushing close. "Are you okay?"

"In a lot of pain, but otherwise undamaged." He replied, letting her support him. "I see you've had some excitement of your own."

"They punched a hole through the wards and rushed at us, demanding we hand over the Key to the Focusing Iris." Arko explained with a scowl. She wasn't wearing her armor, but had her sword out and there was blood on her clothes. "We refused."

Right, that thing. He'd almost forgotten about it when the Blue Dragonflight made no demands that he hand it over. Now he knew why – they were planning to take it by force.

Joke was on them. The foyer might look fancy, but it was also designed as a killzone, with multiple stairways for high ground, walls for the defenders to hide behind, secret passages that opened only to the residents, traps both magical and mechanical, choke points to negate numbers and balconies to give archers and mages a vantage point. And everyone had to pass through it, whether they teleported in or walked through the front door. Malygos' snatch and grab squad had walked into a slaughter.

"What is happening?" Colette asked, also brandishing her sword and shadows still boiling off her shoulders. "Why did the Blue Dragonflight attack us?"

"Because Malygos has lost the plot." He explained. "We're not sure of the details yet, but our best guess is that he's trying to take all the magic away from the world."

Jessir had by now Blinked down from the balcony where she'd been set up and stared at him. "But that's insane!"

"Very, and we're going to need to put him down." He nodded. "The other Dragonflights are already scrambling to mount a response and I'm sure there'll be plenty of people from the Horde and Alliance doing so as well."

"Uh huh, but you're sitting it out." Luna said firmly. "You're in no shape to be fighting. We will handle this while you stay at home. I'll make some sexy nurse costumes for Sacrolash and Alythess."

"You know this pain is all psychosomatic, right?"

"Sexy nurse costumes!"

XXXXX

OMAKE: Congratulations, it's a…

The dining room was quite large – it had to be in order to seat the six adults and six adopted children, plus whatever guests they might have at any given time. It was in this room that the town's most unusual family had breakfast together every morning. Since it was still summer, they were all present. Except for Cordelia, who has in Los Angeles.

But they did have an extra in the form of Tara Maclay, a friend that Willow made in college. The girls had bonded over magic and become fast friends, staunchly ignoring the sexual tension between them that was thicker than pudding.

Problem was, Oz was still in the picture and Tara was, unlike Willow's more bisexual leanings, 100% pure lesbian. The resolution to that situation promised to be potentially explosive, but the girl was showing all the signs of a verbally and physically abusive father, which meant that she was getting adopted too.

But that was not the subject of the day's drama.

"Who the hell are you?!" Demanded the fourteen-year-old Dawn Summers, someone who most definitely wasn't part of the family the previous day… and yet she was.

"Dawn, what do you mean?" Joyce asked in confusion. "He's your stepfather."

"I've never seen him before, or any of them!" Dawn continued yelling, waving her hands in the general direction of the Battle Harem.

"Hmm, now this is an interesting conundrum." Harry said calmly, more curious than upset. It would make little difference to him if he got another daughter. "I don't remember her either, but I presume all of you dimensional natives do?"

The last question was directed around the table and they all nodded.

"Yep, known the Dawnster almost as long as the Buffster." Xander nodded.

"She's my sister, of course I know her!" Buffy snapped, glaring at him suspiciously.

"I very distinctly remember giving birth to her." Joyce added.

Willow, Oz and Faith gave similar answers. Even Tara confirmed to have met her before.

"How intriguing." Harry grinned. "Looks like we'll be doing some testing after breakfast."

XXXXX

Dawn was not keen on tests and Buffy was still being stubborn, so it took a while to wrangle them into it, but in the end it took very little effort to determine what was going on.

"Congratulations, it's an incarnated goddess." Harry pronounced, acting like a doctor in a delivery room.

"WHAT?!" Was the universal reaction.

"Well, not exactly." He amended. "You see, Dawnie here is the human incarnation of a trans-dimensional key, one that can be used by any two-bit hack with even the most rudimentary knowledge of magic to open the barriers between dimensions without having to know what they were doing."

"You mean… I'm not real?" Dawn asked in horror.

"Don't be ridiculous, you're very real." Harry scolded her. "I checked the integrity of everyone's memories and they show no signs of tampering, which means that you likely merged timelines to get the results you wanted. We don't remember you and you don't remember us because the only local timeline we existed in was one where you were never conceived. As far as this multiverse cluster is concerned, you're more real than we are."

That calmed the young girl down, although she still didn't look exactly at ease.

"But why would Dawn want to become a human if she was this key thing before?" Xander asked.

Harry was about to compliment him on his excellent question, but his head snapped up when he felt someone or something bulldozing its way through his wards with brute force. "I think we're about to find out. Get ready for a fight, ladies!"

Swords, bows and staves appeared in their hands, just as the wall of the sitting room was knocked down… by a curvy blonde in a red dress?

"Hi." The newcomer said with a smile worthy of a vapid magazine cover.

"Hello!" Luna smiled back cheerily.

"Nice entrance." Harry complimented, herding Joyce and the kids behind him. Buffy, Faith and Xander resisted and stood ready to fight despite his wishes.

"Thank you!" The curvy blonde exclaimed, her body language and tone screaming of honest vindication. "It's nice to finally meet someone who appreciates my style. Usually they're all 'what are you?!', 'how did you do that?', 'curse you, abomination!' and 'please stop beating me to death with my own arm'. They don't actually say the last one, but I'm pretty sure they're thinking it in between the screaming."

"I know, right? You give people a glimpse of how amazing you are and all they can do is complain." Harry affected a sympathetic tone as he nodded, already having a good idea as to what kind of person this was.

"You get it, you really get it." The home invader clasped her hands in front of her, actually getting a bit misty-eyed. "I didn't think there would be anyone in this stupid dimension that could understand how hard it is."

"Well, we aren't exactly local." Harry admitted, gesturing to Arko and Jessir in particular. "We're here on vacation."

"Does that mean you have the Key?" The blonde gasped.

"The Key? No." He lied, pointedly not glancing at Dawn. "I am, however, a wizard that knows how to traverse dimensions on my own power."

"That's possible?!" The blonde gasped again. "Can you send me home?"

"Sure, no problem. Just tell me a bit about your dimension so I can find it and then I can put together a ritual to send you there."

"Ooooh, I could hug you!" She jumped in place, making the building shake as she forgot to control her strength.

XXXXX

"Okay, what the hell was that?" Buffy demanded a day or so later, after the unusual newcomer was sent away.

They had all restrained their questions until the situation was over, recognizing the signs to just shut up and let Harry take the lead.

"Bound Hellgod." Harry replied succintly. "Powerful, but dumb as a sack of bricks."

"More powerful than you?" Willow asked in surprise.

"Not in this dimension and not bound the way she was." He shook his head. "She was too thick to see it, but our weapons would have easily killed her. Problem is that gods are tricky things. I couldn't be sure that killing her would actually kill her, or that she wouldn't pull a Sauron and show up three thousand years later in spirit form."

"So you sent her home instead." Xander nodded in understanding.

"Home? Pfft." Harry snorted. "I have no idea what her dimensional coordinates are and no amount of her describing how 'awesome' she was back there was going to reveal them. I sent her to a hentai tentacle rape dimension."

Faith spat out the water she'd just drank and started choking. Several others were similarly incapacitated. By far the most interesting reaction was Tara's flustered blush. Somebody was a bit of a closet pervert.

"Why would you do that?" Joyce was more horrified.

"Several reasons. One, if you trust a wizard you just met to hurl you through dimensions, you deserve what you get. Two, it'll keep her out of everyone's hair for the rest of eternity. Three, she was offensively stupid."