How to Con a Phoenix

I was talking to my familiar, who sulked on a perch in my home.

" Nagini, I know you can do it. You are the most beautiful Phoenix in the world. All birds wear these feathers. Remember not to twist, and most importantly, whatever happens, keep quiet. It is his job to sing, not yours. You need only stand still and look your lovely self. He will approach you on his own, " I gently encouraged her. Why not? It worked on humans.

Nagini raptly listened and agreed. She would soon return to the training room to practice on a Phoenix replica - a transfigured non-magical bird I was controlling.

The first attempt sunk when Nagini chatted the dummy up in Parseltongue. On the second try, she tried to twist around it like a mating snake. I finally convinced her to stand still and ignore the singing, but half an hour later she lost her cool and gouged out its eyes.

Now we were making some semblance of progress. The only issue came up immediately before the deed itself, when the birds must feed each other. Via regurgitation. First of all, I couldn't teach Nagini to regurgitate at will and had to whip up a potion. Second, she stubbornly refused grass and other Phoenix foods. Fawkes would surely suspect something if a potential mate offered him meat. I also had to test her saliva composition one more time. Something about her saliva looked off, it might expose her…

I couldn't stop thinking about how low I had fallen. Less than a year ago Voldemort was a Dark Lord who struck horror into the hearts of an entire nation. Now I was a bird matchmaker. If immortality and seizing power fell through, I'd get a job at a pet store and persuade rare creatures to breed. Coach them to do it by the book… Or better, draw on my experience with Lily and Bella to work as a psychic specializing in breaking people up. With occasionally lethal results. "Your trouble and strife shall leave you for life!"

But in all seriousness, "operation seduce Fawkes" turned out not as simple as I thought. Tom knew a great deal about magical creatures - how to avoid them, how to kill, butcher and use them in potions and rituals. I learned more in the past few months but never thought to focus on their mating or diets.

I was again nervously flipping through the most ludicrous book I had read in my entire life. The Flames of Love . Five hundred pages on Phoenix habits and not a word about magic. Nothing but field notes of an expert ornithologist. From a formal viewpoint, Phoenixes shared many traits with nightingales, peacocks and parrots. The male would sing, show off his opulent plumage and perform tricks to prove his status. The female would watch and wait to be awed. If she liked what she saw, she'd accept the courtship that consisted of grooming each other's feathers, gazing into each other's eyes and vomiting into each other's mouths. If both birdies were satisfied, they'd begin a chain of jumps around the world, taking turns side-apparating each other until the female took them to the spot where she had set up a nest - or in our case, a trap. There, the birds mated, and the female later laid one egg. If they were lucky.

No, this book answered all my questions about the mechanics. But I still hadn't the faintest idea what Phoenixes found attractive in females. What if Fawkes did not fancy her or called Albus? To heal her, for instance? Nagini needed makeup, but I didn't know what to hide or accentuate. She had no cleavage or bum to speak of, her four-toed legs bent in the wrong direction… In short, I was no judge of Phoenix beauty. What then, manipulate him? In Parseltongue? How did these birds discern an attractive personality if the partner stayed silent? I also couldn't ignore the possibility of Nagini feeling sick from the real Phoenix song…

I needed an expert in magical creatures. And I knew just where to find the best one.

I inventoried Death Eaters' pantries for an illegal but not particularly deadly creature, then found a prisoner capable of using a quill to write a letter to Newton Scamander:

I accidentally found myself in possession of a Tibetan Quasicorn. I am a big fan of your books and don't know who else to turn to. Our Ministry would kill him and arrest me if they find out. Please help us. Take him somewhere safe, or I will be forced to abandon him.

The owl left, and I returned to trying to process what I just read. Everything in nature, both magical and mundane, was balanced. Phoenixes never died of old age, so I assumed they had serious reproductive difficulties. And oh, they did, indeed… I narrowly stopped myself from burning the book when I reached that part.

Phoenixes mated like ordinary birds. But for a female to lay a viable egg, they required… Love! Meaning, two birds not mutually in love could score all they want without producing any offspring! What a load of unicorn manure. Babies came from fertilization. One egg cell plus one sperm cell, love had nothing to do with anything!

I struggled to believe it, but this book, every documented attempt to breed Phoenixes and testimonies of Phoenix owners all agreed that they in fact did not multiply without love.

This was more than a little disconcerting. Wizards and familiars shared an intimate connection. The stronger the animal, the more it affected its bonded human. I appreciated the slight improvements in apparition and fire-based magic but could only hope Nagini didn't give me their love fetish! Well, she was not quite a Phoenix, right? Actually, why worry at all - if worse came to worst I could always kill her for good.

Dumbledore had an unnatural obsession with love… Was it his familiar's influence? No, ridiculous. Plenty of people bonded with owls and cats but never developed a taste for mice or catnip…

I finished brewing the last of Nagini's regurgitation potion, then tinted her feathers into brighter, hopefully more seductive colors. These predominated in mating birds, so maybe it was their sexy pattern? Red and gold. Gryffindor!

With that, I received the news: Scamander sent a reply with the place and time to deliver the Quasicorn. Soon I was already waiting in an empty field, polyjuiced and in destitute clothes, securely packaged Quasicorn in hand. The plan was simple. Scamader was friendly with Albus, but I didn't offer him anything to warrant bringing help. This mountain goat with a single spiral horn was harmless save for its noxious gases and poisons brewed from its organs.

My target arrived via apparition and scurried to check on the Qasicorn. The otherwise routine capture turned interesting when I got attacked by a menagerie of small critters he had on him. Did he hide them in his pockets or what? Some little wooden doll, a flying green stingray, spheres with teeth… All equally easy to burn. After thoroughly frisking him and finishing off the last of the creatures, I took him to one of our unused bases for interrogation.

Just to think that I had originally set out to find a specialist in Phoenixes… No, he had done that part perfectly. Nagini needed contact lenses right away. Her solid black eyes were completely off-putting, black eyes surrounded by a wide white ring signaled "ready to mate." And her saliva was a bust. Entirely wrong composition. So what, remove her glans? There must be a more humane option, some potion to guarantee dry mouth… I'd also have to teach Nagini to bend properly by aligning her body parallel to the ground, or Fawkes would think she is not in the mood and leave…

But I also came across an altogether different treasure trove of information. History profoundly downplayed Scamander's role in the war against Grindelwald. What a humble little lamb. His head was bursting with priceless memories: experience with Obscurials, Albus's war efforts, Grindelwald's attempts to create his own version of the Resurrection Stone to raise an army of undead… Way to go, Grindelwald! I finally found a kindred spirit. I knew I couldn't be the only one to believe the Stone ought to work this way! Bam - and all the dead rise as your loyal servants! If muggles correctly estimated humanity's age and numbers, it meant a hundred billion potential soldiers. Soldiers who needed no food or rest, obedient to the point of suicide on command.

By far the most exciting discovery was his memory of meeting an Obscurial in Sudan. He had separated the smoky entity from its human host! Had I known that, I would have never left Ariana at Crouch's! Where to find another Obscurial… Half of the Order would sell me their souls and their firstborn for this knowledge! And what if we pulled off what Scamander had done to the Obscurial on our Tlahuilopochtli, except in reverse? Merge the creature with a human? Humans were perfectly controllable. No, that was unlikely to work… But embedding its cocoon into a human body might… I wouldn't say no to a personal prophet…

I was again revising my plans while my parallel self returned to interrogating Scamander. After topping him off with Veritaserum, I asked his opinion on Nessie's photo. He diagnosed her pregnant - deduced it from the shape of her horns and the color of her iris! Now that Russian's vanishing act made more sense. To my question about her due date and the number of eggs he replied that it was impossible to tell from a photo. And that there would be zero eggs because her species birthed live broods. Oh how I hated feeling like an idiot… Maybe release all of the anaconda-sized babies into Loch Ness? Muggles would have a blast… No, I could use them myself.

Between training Nagini and checking the Lestranges' drawing of the Phoenix trap, I received a message from Nott. He finally caught Lockhart's werewolf healer.

Lockhart proved to be a true master of his craft. It took me two full days and a convoluted ritual to retrieve his victim's memories. In the end, the withered old Armenian recalled every last second of his life down to the experience of crawling out of his mother's womb. The ritual maimed his body beyond repair, so all I could do was slow the decay and collect his memories to watch later.

People who bemoaned the magical world's decline could not be more wrong. The supply of magical genius was inexhaustible. This wizard here wanted to earn his laurels by saving the werewolves from their curse. And he almost created a permanent version of the modern Aconite potion.

The price of this invention was typical for Dark magic. To receive something, it must be first taken from elsewhere. And it was no dried slugs. Werewolves mating on a full moon birthed wolves with a human mind incapable of turning into a human. Our healer experimented on a few of these wolves, creating a potion based on their embryos; a werewolf who drank it could then be temporarily turned back with a spell. He ultimately abandoned the project because he couldn't stomach killing for every cured werewolf. Especially cured very conditionally.

As for me, brewing potions from embryos was a fantastic idea! They didn't put up a fight and were much simpler to produce than homunculi. We could surely improve upon this. Take an embryo, have it ritually die and take the werewolf's curse with it. Or a potion based around the same principle, where a wolf fetus frees a werewolf who drinks it… It was all good and well, only limited by the number of embryos: one embryo, one cured patient. Sentient wolves were so few in number…

We had already tried breeding ordinary werewolves during the full moon, then artificially aging the offspring. For whatever reason, these wolves' embryos did not work for the old wizard's method. Other than waiting years for the next generation to grow up naturally, my next best bet was raiding the Dark Forest.

The next full moon found me flying between trees of the Dark Forest in Elena's guise and cursing my stupidity.

The plan itself was decent. Greyback's latest batch of werewolves distracted the enemy, forcing Albus into the thick of it to reduce the casualties on both sides. He'd definitely succeed, but capturing the werewolves alive would not do him any good: these wolves' brains had been irreparably damaged with Dark magic. As a bonus, we could accuse Albus of cruel prisoner treatment.

I had entered the forest through the centaurs' territory. They definitely wouldn't tattle. Then commenced the "battle," where I stunned the wolves from the safety of midair. The entire forest yielded fourteen females and eleven males. Six more got silver shanks to the head for playing unconscious and ambushing me.

I stumbled into a predicament on the way back: a distinctly non-human ward snapped over a large part of the forest, blocking my path. And exposing Nagini for this would be a waste… When the centaurs first started chasing me, I thought nothing of it - what could these gnats do against me? As I understood from literature, battle magic was not their strong suit. They wielded nothing better than "arrows of fate": some peculiar artifact-like link between the centaur, its bow and arrows.

But the centaurs proved that wizards underestimated their magic. For one, I couldn't fly any higher than the tree tops. The broomstick I brought as a backup fell to the ground a dead weight. Second, these sorry excuses for horses somehow sensed me through concealment. Third, their arrows damaged my shields. MY shields! An average wizard would presumably die from a couple of hits because standard kinetic protections did nothing to stop them. I had an escalating urge to puzzle out the Resurrection Stone, summon all the authors of books on centaurs and give their souls a taste of real hell.

To not ignite an open conflict with another race, I subdued my hunters with humane methods. It was a mind-bogglingly ridiculous tactic: their brethren brought them back to consciousness as quickly as I stunned them. This went on for half an hour. I darted around, shouting that I got lost and simply wanted to leave.

At long last, my efforts produced some results. When the centaurs cornered me close to the border of their protective charms, they held their fire.

Let's try for a peaceful resolution first.

"Mars sure is bright today," I greeted them. I had no idea how true that was, but centaurs customarily talked about planets. What I did know was the future. I planned to shape it myself. "Jupiter heralds power to the Dark Lord. Venus says that love shall abandon the house of Albus Dumbledore. Many innocent-"

"Your words are as false as your face. The skies do not foretell this. Come down and explain what you are doing in our forest," the frontmost centaur with a severe face ordered me.

Hopefully the face comment was a coincidence… Or they sensed Polyjuice?

"You said it yourself: I interpret the skies incorrectly. We humans orient ourselves by stars. I got lost and accidentally wandered into your forest. Show me the way out, and I will leave," I said.

"Crimes beget punishment. First you must return the wolves you have stolen."

"Perhaps this first-time offender deserves a stern warning? Or a reward for ridding your forest of Acromantulas?"

"I am Bane, the leader of this flock. Who are you to presume you can give us orders?"

"Nobody important."

"Stow away your weapon," he said, casting a pointed glance at my wand.

"Only after you put away yours."

"No. Name yourself."

"A humble enforcer of sentences given by some to others."

"Show your face and left palm. Without distortions, mask or gloves. Or we shoot," he commanded again.

I had a good sense for lies. His last sentence was anything but.

Seeing as I stood surrounded by a herd of ticked off centaurs, I decided to project peaceful intent and bide time to prepare an attack. I kicked myself for not researching centaur preferences beforehand. Maybe I should have brought them a bag of oats… or a mare? Judging by their act, they'd be partial to Abidemi's smoking blends…

I was more than willing to reach a truce. What did we have to contest, the scarcely populated forest? They were good in my book: caught me on their own devices, did not alert Albus. I was not conceited. If I caused any damage, I'd reimburse them. Send werewolves to plant new trees or anything else they wanted done…

Portraying selective hearing in the face of over fifty magical arrows aimed at me, I pulled off my glove and mask with a wandless spell, then raised my left hand in a gesture of greeting. I didn't expect any pitfalls. Divination was a wooly discipline on its own, and centaurs preferred predicting global events. "War is coming," "famine is coming," "innocents will die." I needed no prophets to know that! I even knew precisely where it was going to happen: Africa. Nobody would mind a couple thousand extra deaths amidst the civil war in Ethiopia.

The centaur leader studied my hand, and I wanted to laugh. What was he going to see in a muggle woman's palm? I harbored healthy scepticism for all predictions, unless authored by Tlahuilopochtli. In the meantime, I kept trying to breach his mind with legilimency. The resistance was not exceedingly powerful - it was exceedingly strange. I could only speculate about him.

"What strange lines," he muttered darkly. "This one is straight as an arrow. You are tenacious in pursuing your desires."

"Yes, very much so." I nodded, holding in a chuckle. Another charlatan. Every living being wanted something and pursued it, even if it was food.

"But as of late, you have been struggling to achieve your goals in spite of your persistence."

Yes, struggling to escape from here. It applied to everybody. Nobody had everything they wanted. Although… what if he meant the Hallows or immortality? And most of my other projects were lagging…

"A bizarre life line, as if made up of two mirrored parallels. Is our executioner living a double life? Or has lived twice?"

Did he assume duplicity an integral part of a Dark witch's character? Two lives, one before becoming a Death Eater and one after? No, he couldn't possibly learn of my appearance here. Could he?

I tensed up and pushed harder against his mind, not forgetting about the area attack. Better hurry before this moron decides to spit out a prophecy. Thus far, he only tried to divine the qualities of the person before him.

"Your heart is cold and staggeringly empty," he announced.

But my bedroom was steaming hot, so don't you badmouth me! I had my perfect Bellatrix. She never used a Time-Turner, yet it was I who felt fucked out of my wits!

"Hrm…" The centaur scrunched his face like a weightlifter under a heavy load. "A twisted fate. Death… So much death…"

Yes, much. Maybe offer him to teach Divination at Hogwarts? I wasn't racist, would implement diversity quotas…

"How would you like to pledge your support to the Dark Lord? He can destroy Hogwarts, return the land to you and restore everything to the way it was before these pesky humans," I proposed.

"We shall never wear executioner garbs," he said smugly.

"There is no need to kill anyone. You will only be asked to withhold aid from the Dark Lord's enemies and allow his people free passage through the forest. You have no quarrel with werewolves, do you? In practice, nothing would change for you."

"A murder with someone else's hands is murder all the same."

Where were all these diehard idealists coming from?! If they rejected my offer for rational reasons, I would understand. Did Albus bite them? An airborne pandemic of gryffindorness and the greater good?

The centaur stared into my eyes with vacant gaze. It looked and felt nothing like legilimency. He could try all he wanted. My occlumency was impenetrable, especially to cheap horse tricks.

"What are you?" he asked, expression tensing even harder. "Eyes are passageways into the soul, but yours lead to an obscure place under a different sky."

I felt nothing throughout it all! Forgetting all about stealth, I hit him with full-force legilimency. He was in fact using some genuine centaur-brand divination… I cut him off with a Confundus before he could utter another word. No more games.

The creature tried to jump off the hook and order the herd to kill me, but I had time to paralyze and finish him off. The world lit up in a flash of Fiendfyre spreading in every direction. All nearby centaurs and trees got obliterated in the blink of an eye.

It was awfully bright and loud. I had to run before any retired transfiguration professors showed up to investigate. Now that the centaurs scattered, my high-speed flight felt much more pleasant. It took complete focus - after all, flying was essentially a self-applied levitation charm, and performing two different spell simultaneously felt worse than writing a different text with each hand. And here I was, flying, scanning the ward, batting off stray arrows and blowing the most audacious horses into giblets.

The thick carpet of dark snow-sprinkled trees was nearing the edge of the centaurs' ward. I would have liked to say I felt a hint of alarm or discomfort. But no - a cascade of someone's spells surprised the wits out of me. I crashed into a suddenly materialized wall and bounced into the nearest heap of snow like a rubber ball.

And then I found myself on the receiving end of Azkaban-worthy curses. The enemy, who had demonstrated admirable accuracy taking me down, did not put their best foot forward here. Every single attack missed. Not a bad tactic, to force me to dodge some spells step into the path of others.

Now, a question: who in Hogwarts had no qualms about Dark magic but couldn't use it against a human to save his life?

"Hello, Robert," I called him out. "The Dark Lord will gladly welcome you and forgive your past transgressions. We have no bans on magic. You can set your own limits, and your salary will far exceed the groundskeeper's."

My answer was an ice storm and a colossal lightning.

"We both know you stand no chance against me without Dark magic," I said, pausing to send forth a volley of curses that couldn't all be taken on the same shield. "I am much stronger than the woman who wrecked you last time." I continued to try to overwhelm him with simultaneous euphoria and torture curses, with a dash of boiling blood in between. "Fine concealment amulet, by the way. Albus's handywork?"

While the opponent was wrangling my now average Fiendfyre, I slashed my wand with concealment charms for every spectrum of senses and chugged a couple of potions. In the surrounding darkness barely broken by distant flashes of fire, it would take Pandora and my shaman working together to detect me. Abandoning the senseless battle, I ran towards the ward edge.

Alas, my amazing plan once again didn't survive the harsh reality. I heard an approaching clatter of hoofs and arrows whistling past. How many of these ruddy creatures were there?! They somehow relayed my location to Robert. The situation quickly went south. My tricks that worked against the centaurs did nothing against the human and vice versa. The magical arrows pierced centuries-old trees, transfigured steel and stone with the same ease. Robert was shielding the centaurs, who were piling in faster than I was killing them.

Having taken care of protecting his allies, he went on the offensive with a chain of quick stunning, blasting and cutting charms. There were no more trees left standing between us. I deflected it all, only to get hit with a bizarre cluster of lightning bolts every color of the rainbow. Did Albus really teach him, of all people?

The black tsunami I sent his way next dissolved everything in its path - snow, trees, unlucky centaurs. I didn't get to enjoy much relief before belatedly realizing that Albus only forbade him from using Dark magic against humans… The wave crashed against a muddy-grey spherical shield and wrapped around it. The groundskeeper looked trapped inside the ball of swirling darkness, but I was all too familiar with that shield to know better.

I wanted the kind-hearted oaf Hagrid back! The animal lover with a broken wand and three years of education who would have valiantly charged me with a crossbow…

Perhaps I should have stayed to fight, but safety always took priority. What if they held on until Albus's return? Fending off the unending torrent of arrows, I came up to the centaur's barrier to scan it. This was going to take a sore effort… I had nothing against blood magic except the process of acquiring the main ingredient. If only someone else's blood worked as efficiently…

I begrudgingly sliced my palm and pressed it against the barrier, visualizing a way out and running through possibly helpful spells. For a change, luck was on my side. I found a weak spot before bleeding myself dry, squeezed through the breach and apparated away.

Once the night visitor fled, Robert and the centaurs threw all their efforts into putting out the burning forest. Even after the flames exhausted the magic that imbued them with ravenous pseudo-sentience, the wildfire continued raging out of control. Albus Dumbledore soon appeared in the middle of the flurry, having missed the wolf thief by forty seconds. A couple broad swishes of his wand drove the fire down.

The previously serene forest blanketed in dull spring snow now looked like the aftermath of a drunk vandal party. Several square miles were barren, the ground itself vaporized five feet down. The surrounding snow melted, turning this blight into a shallow lake. A narrow scorched strip extended to the forest edge in the wake of the escaped visitor.

"Would you like to tell me what happened here?" Albus's question seemingly addressed the night skies.

Robert steadied his trembling hands and stood up straight despite feeling like a squeezed out rag. "The target, later identified by the wand as Elena Ivanova, infiltrated the Forbidden Forest," he reported. "Because the breach happened on the centaurs' side, I notified you and did not interfere until the Fiendfyre."

One of the centaurs stepped forward. "The foe burned our forest, kidnapped all sentient wolves and slain seventy-four of our brothers. From now on, the centaurs of the Forest support you in your war, Headmaster Dumbledore."

"I mourn for your loss, but it is undoubtedly the right decision," replied Albus.

Yes, things had gotten heated. It was a small miracle to escape without holes in my hide. We should try repurposing these arrows to finally shoot Moody in the head.

I leafed through this morning's newspapers. The centaurs took offense… It was all their own fault, the halfwit mules should have kept their chiromancy to themselves!

Ultimately, I had exchanged centaurs for werewolves. So be it. Centaurs were much fewer in number and didn't multiply by biting. Useless trash, not caring for anything beyond their precious moon and stars. I saw with my own eyes that they had nothing against sweeping area curses!

I held a meeting where Pandora-Elena told her heroic tale of razing half of the Forbidden Forest. The reactions divided. Some cheered for her exciting creature hunting trip, others called it a reckless stunt with unpredictable political consequences.

But the main goal had been accomplished: I now had raw materials for the cure. Limited, yet renewable materials. Muggle consultants said that each fertilized egg divided in four parts should produce four identical twins. Going by the material on hand, it added up to at most four hundred doses… so, less than a hundred liters or one largish cauldron. I'd manage on my own - I did have a Time-Turner.

While the potion simmered, I left to make arrangements for the press to cover magical creature regulations in the right light. With a cure around the corner there was no alternative but to force the events. I took out the holly wand with Fawkes's feather from my safe. Shame I never found a way to curse Albus or his bird through it…

Within an hour, I was waiting on Umbridge in her disgustingly pink and frilly home. The owner received an Imperius as soon as she stepped out of the fireplace. An interesting personality… Had circumstances been different, she would have made a perfect secretary for Rosier. I was half-tempted to breed her with Lockhart just to see the result. No, that experiment would be pointless. What do we do with the mongrel if it survived? Put down? Then why waste the time?

When all the evidence was properly arranged, I recalled some of Tom's experience and took my time killing her by feeding various curses through a blood whip. The client's wish was law - her slow and painful death had been sponsored by a group of French werewolves and veelas. They contracted Elena after learning of British barbaric anti-creature initiatives. I almost felt bad accepting the pitiful sum they'd scraped together.

I portkeyed the body to France and excused myself before the lawmen's arrival. The evidence they found included drafts of racists bills, a Phoenix feather and internal correspondence of the Order of the Phoenix that Aberforth Dumbledore, Weasley, Fletcher and Tonks helpfully shared. Of course, intelligent people would dismiss it as disinformation. But what portion of the population was intelligent? How many of them opposed me and were ready to die for abstract ideals?

Even if they believed Albus, some doubts were bound to linger. A more careful perusal of the papers would reveal a plan to chase the centaurs out of the Dark Forest. As luck would have it, the Headmaster of Hogwarts recently strolled by to put out a cursed fire… And the centaur chieftain didn't make it. Purely a coincidence!

And by the way, the school's groundskeeper survived a fight against the Dark Lord's protege unscathed. Just what sort of people did Hogwarts employ? Everyone called Durmstrang a Dark wizard breeding pit, but Hogwarts… Trees alight with Fiendfyre, ex-con mercenary for a groundskeeper, Death Eater potions professor taking lessons in raising homunculi from You-Know-Who… Terrifying to imagine what was going on in the Headmaster's office! I should commission someone to write a play wherein Albus wipes the Elder Wand off a corpse, then looks into the Mirror of Erised with a sigh and laments that reforging the Earth into a demon world is taking too long…

I didn't count on convincing everyone of Albus's villainy, but every recruit was worth fighting for. This was a start.

I saw power as a trident. The first component was personal ability. I'd only grow after resolving my Dark and Light magic issues. By the same token, it would be ideal to deprive the enemy of the Phoenix, Hogwarts and the Elder Wand.

The second consisted of the power of the organization multiplied by the loyalty of its members. It meant increasing recruitment and reducing the losses of non-replaceable soldiers. For the enemy, it would be best to sic the Order and the Aurors on each other. With Moody out of the way, their foot soldiers could be influenced with well-tailored propaganda. Physically eliminating the enemy had its uses, but not to the point of crippling our own country so much that it must rely on immigration.

This tied into the third part: judicial power. The possibility to impose will without violence. We did have some friendly faces in the Ministry, but any meaningful power needed the majority, and, once again, removing Albus. I also thought about working my own way in as a member of the Slytherin or Gaunt family. Why not? It worked for Lenin and Robespierre, and they killed far more people than I had!

Strictly speaking, this war was unnecessary. Tom had simply taken advantage of a historical window of opportunity. The magical world usually included a segment of old and powerful wizards who could team up to nip an ambitious upstart in the bud. Most of the contemporary ones perished in the war with Grindelwald, the following unrest and outbreaks of dragon pox. Their descendants stewed in resentment over unfair division of trophies and the election of the first muggleborn Minister in the history of Britain. When fate itself cleared out the competition and gifted you many young allies, it was only reasonable to accelerate the inevitable civil war…

A week later I learned that Albus had attended a closed hearing in France… where he somehow used his familiar as a witness to convince everybody of his noninvolvement in the feather affair. I was entirely too tired and desensitized to his stunts to be surprised anymore. Maybe Albus really was gay? He always knew how to wiggle out of a tight hole.

I kept on working. My followers revered me as a great wizard, but I often felt like the second coming of Lockhart. No more than a third of my accomplishments were original developments. I simply picked up pieces of other people's work and rearranged them to suit my goals. This time plagiarism brought us an experimental cure for lycanthropy.

In three more weeks I tested the potion on restrained werewolves. It made them thrash as good as Cruciatus, but the entire batch survived and gained the ability to keep their human mind in wolf form.

Some of the more depraved bastards led by Greyback declined the cure. Because it robbed them of the animalistic prey drive! I didn't object. There was never a shortage of work for maniacs. In a perfect world, they'd break the enemy's vanguard and lay down their lives in the last decisive battle. It would inspire a new bestseller: Greyback the Freedom Fighter. The hero of all werewolves! His sadism, pedophilia and cannibalism nothwithstanding - a war hero was allowed some character flaws as long as he used them against the enemy.

Now the cure was due to be weaponized. A dozen doses in my pockets, I went back to the werewolves I had once introduced to Lily.

Their huts looked more grimy and run down than I remembered, some scorched by recent fire. The same glowering pack of eight werewolves approached me head on.

"Wizards are not welcome here. Get out," said the leader, whose face sported several new scars.

I looked into his eyes for his name.

"I've already been here once before, Martin," I said, rolling up my sleeve to show him the Dark Mark. I was so sick and tired of being stuck in this waifish woman's body… The crosses we must bear for the cause… "I come with an offer you will not refuse."

"I still prefer you leave," he repeated in a softer tone.

I said you won't refuse! And you didn't even want to listen!

It didn't take much effort to stun eight unprotected human bodies and pour the potion down their throats. Schooling my face into a manic grin, I brought them back to consciousness.

"Welcome to the Dark Lord's army!" I declared and silenced the return stream of profanities. "Any volunteers to transform and feel the difference?"

"What was that? Poison?" said Martin with a snarl, realizing from the rotten aftertaste and slowly fading convulsions that he didn't wake up from an innocuous time-out.

"A cure. You now retain your mind in the wolf form."

With the help of some subtle mental prodding, one of them volunteered to try. True to my words, nothing bad happened. Of course, they then tried to kill me by simultaneously turning into wolves, but Cruciatus calmed them down. Just the gratitude I expected…

"I am going to write off your behavior as shock. Turn back this instant, or I switch to Killing Curses," I warned.

The wolves turned into humans, and I transfigured them decent robes.

"How's this swill any better than Wolfsbane?" Martin asked.

"It is not swill, it is a medicine worth life in Azkaban. One dose lasts forever."

"Yeah, so? What does it change?"

"Nothing. And everything. You no longer have the "I forgot my Wolfsbane and the beast took over" excuse. By the Dark Lord's will, you are citizens of Magical Britain with full human rights and responsibilities. You may own wands and property, trade, live however you desire within the bounds of law. Turning others is allowed with mutual consent and a permit from our administration."

"You wizards will never accept us," he scoffed.

"The wizarding Ministry won't. The Dark Lord extends you a beneficial offer to work for us."

"I don't believe in Death Eater generosity."

"Excellent. I hope you are skeptical enough not to expect "the greater good" drivel, either. You will not hear any empty rhetorics from us."

"Then what the blazes are you trying to pitch here?"

"The Ministry had centuries to integrate werewolves into the magical society. They never once bothered to try. We are offering you a fighting chance."

"What use do you have for us? Potion ingredients?"

"If we wanted you as cheap meat or curse fodder, we would have used the Imperius and not bothered talking. The ingredients will come from anyone who actively opposes us. You, however, are at a crossroads: continue fighting for scraps or help the Death Eaters forge a better world for us all. Those of you who decline the Dark Lord's grace will be left to fend for yourselves. Something tells me the Aurors won't take time to distinguish between werewolf factions in their preventive strikes. As for your usefulness… Even muggle werewolves inherently belong in the magical world. We have plenty of vacancies in care for magical creatures and ingredient gathering. You will receive wands and fair compensation for your work. Military service is available until we take over."

"You sing a fine tune. But you are no Dark Lord. What's to stop you from going back on your word? I can't imagine any of you privileged snoots accepting us into your society. Unless you mean putting us on a chain to guard your manors."

"I am very open-minded. The Dark Lord will gift me land as part of the spoils. You are welcome to live there. Under my protectorate."

"You mean as your servants. Why would he give you a colony? Not too rich for your blood?"

"Use your brain. Who is not afraid of you? Who would personally bring you the cure? Who can stun eight werewolves without suffering a single scratch?"

"I'm a werewolf, not a sphinx! I don't give a fuck about your riddles!" he raised his voice at me.

I swished my wand, letting my facial illusion melt into Elena's face. "Must I introduce myself or do you read newspapers?"

"You won't find many recruits here," he said grimly.

"Die as an animal or live as a man - your fate is your own. Anyone who is with me, step over this line," I said, slashing a line in the dirt between us.

Martin stood frozen as the other seven walked forward.

"You have sworn to lead and protect them. Are you going to abandon them now?" I challenged him. "Do you think the Aurors would spare you when they learn the rest have joined us? This cure won't stay secret for long. You know as well as I do how the Ministry lashes out at the faintest whiff of Dark magic. Or are you betting on Dumbledore? Even Remus Lupin, his pet Hogwarts werewolf with a wand, had enough common sense to chose the Dark Lord over the senile old man."

"Okay, suppose I believe it's permanent. Out of pure hopelessness," he said hesitantly, not meeting my eyes. "How much can you make?"

"With our current resources, up to a hundred doses per month. It should suffice if you don't turn indiscriminately. With full control of the Ministry, we can redact the laws to allow for thousands of doses per month and export it worldwide."

Grimacing as if chewing on a lemon, Martin dragged his feet to join his mates.

"You'll have a tough time convincing the rest," he said.

"This is exactly why you will be the one to do it. Since you are now my citizens, in addition to the cure, human rights and a salary-" I threw them a bag with a thousand galleons and ten wands, "you get a share of responsibilities. This is your first task. Search for other werewolves and help them make the right choice. Here are some tracking artifacts. Activate them when you secure a group, and we will come to pick them up. When the Ministry learns of the cure, the raids will start. We only defend those who join us."

"What about education?"

"Why, do you need lessons in putting one foot in front of the other? Finish one or two easy tasks first. If someone shows promise, we will teach them. Once we secure the country, we will build a Hogwarts for werewolves."

Yes, I had that idea. Only a fool would leave Dumbledore sympathizers free to raise a new generation of opposition. Sending the Hogwarts staff to teach werewolves under the threat of death held much better prospects.

I longed to bind them with vows but didn't have enough for the whole of werewolf society. Common interests would bind us tighter than any magic.

I imagined the look on Moody's face when he sees werewolves fight shoulder to shoulder with Death Eaters… And while my new diplomatic party was out gathering werewolves, I could finally get to Dumbledore's bird.

In the evening, Fawkes flew out of Albus's window to stretch his wings. Something was calling him to the forest. Thirty minutes of flight into its depths, he saw her. He had never before met another in this part of the world, but space was a relative thing. Fawkes almost decided to fly by when he noticed her eyes… They glistened with lust.

Fawkes showed off his best somersaults and tantalizing aerobatics. The female carefully watched him. He sang in his sweetest voice. The female attentively listened and let him approach. They lovingly brushed and fed each, then traveled all over the world in an exciting rush. At last, the female brought them to their homeland. There was a nest there. After they rubbed their bodies in culmination, Fawkes felt a little drowsy. What harm ever came from taking a nap?

This was one of the most revolting days of my life. Catching a bird after weeks of planning was child's play, I thought. Never again!

Nagini and I arrived to the Forbidden Forest disillusioned. I charmed a clearing against all known magical fauna, cast every concealment spell I knew on one tree and propped her on it.

Albus left for yet another court session, getting his groundskeeper off the hook for Dark magic charges. It hurt to remember how much it had cost us, but I was promised he'd be tied up for at least six hours.

The Phoenix followed the pheromone bait I had brewed from a Phoenix egg shell. With no reliable way to conceal myself, I watched through Nagini's eyes and advised her from afar. The male's song violently pounded at both of our heads. After surviving an hour of irremediable Cruciatus-level migraine, we went through the delightful experience of feeling our feathers scratched and gobbling the foul weeds Phoenixes called food. I barely kept from throwing up, but the worst was yet to come.

We had originally planned to kill Fawkes as soon as the lovebirds reach their nest in Egypt. Unfortunately, one-sided wards against Phoenix apparition simply did not exist. By the time we conjure one over the bird, it might smell trouble and panic. I had zero desire to summon an angry archwizard with the Elder Wand and a pocket army.

The plan had therefore been amended. As soon as they began mating, Fawkes received a slow-acting sleeping charm he was too distracted to notice. Because we couldn't risk spying on the birds to determine the right moment, I was forced to make personal sacrifices and stay in Nagini's mind. The whole time. Such was my cursed fate, to roam in women's heads and share all their sensations from sex. Bella, Lily, Nagini… I now had empirical proof that Phoenixes experienced orgasm.

Once Fawkes fell asleep, the Lestranges and I moved him to the makeshift ritual chamber we had dug out underneath the nest.

Nagini sat motionless on my shoulder, watching me feed other bird potions for healthy deep sleep and sprinkle him with my proprietary solution. I didn't want to linger about when Albus senses his familiar's death. The Lestranges were going to assist me in killing him permanently with a single blow.

We arranged the sleeping Phoenix on the slab of obsidian and read the spells. With one precise swing, I buried a goblin blade in his stomach. The bird did not wake up and felt no pain as the ritual drained its legendary life force through the open wound. In another seven minutes of synchronized waving of five wands, Fawkes ripened. Now that he could no longer be reborn, it was time for my little sideshow.

I dramatically glided my hand over dying Fawkes and commanded: "Reveal your true form!"

My plan was simple. I had conducted a casting for Ariana Dumbledore look-alike among the female prisoners. Plastic surgery and healing potions quickly adjusted the winner into a perfect copy. I then transfigured the drugged woman under Imperius into clear, non-absorbable liquid and poured it over Fawkes before we began the ritual. All that was left was reversing the transfiguration with a bit of flair.

It looked jaw-droppingly impressive: Fawkes's bleeding body billowed with black smoke that condensed into a nude, dazed Ariana. She got hit with a binding curse and fell over. Raising the wand, I conjured a well of darkness. The suddenly materialized crack in the fabric of reality began to consume the Phoenix and the woman. An eerie disembodied moan echoed around the cave, and the blackness swallowed them both. Unfortunately, it did not intend to stop. My will alone held it from swelling further.

I didn't arrange all this theater for my assistants. We had brought in a large audience: nine muggles and wizards ready to collaborate our own memories in any way the court orders. We'd give them live witnesses! At my signal, the Lestranges portkeyed everyone out through a one-way backdoor in the ward. I took another second to make sure the curse dissolved all the evidence, then, surrounded by closing in black haze, followed them.

I wondered how long it would take Albus to show up. Seconds to leave the court, several more to understand what happened and where… Would he confide in anyone about Fawkes's death? Order of the Phoenix without a Phoenix… Did this make us the new Order of the Phoenix?

In the meantime, having jumped through seven apparition points and four times by Phoenix, I met up with the Lestranges to thank them for their faithful work and hide the witnesses. Edward and Rabastan stared at my Nagini like a pair of witless children, Rabastan even asked to pet her…

I would have loved to stay and celebrate, but my other projects demanded attention. I'd scanned Bellatrix countless times, compared her to her sisters and other witches… If this last attempt didn't work, I would have to either pursue a degree in gynecology or find me a different woman.

"Bella, I trust you have already met Abidemi? I asked him to check your health," I got right down to business.

The hassles began within minutes, when Bellatrix dropped Abidemi with Cruciatus for telling her to strip naked. Upon regaining consciousness, he offered a compromise: set a bathtub into the ritual circle and place fully clothed Bellatrix in the water. This idea met much less resistance.

Bellatrix then had to be forced into smoking ceremonial herbs with a stern order. Abidemi danced in circles around her and two sacrificed muggles, shaking his grandfather's head.

It took me some time and a whole lot of willpower to overcome my self-preservation instincts. When a Dark wizard asks you to stand defenseless in an magic-collecting construct… In the end, I earnestly promised him he would die the millisecond I felt sleepy.

Now I was working as a battery. I would have thought it a quackery, but Pandora-Elena saw some amorphous grey shadows flicker and intertwine with Bellatrix's body.

Abidemi took off on his usual trip into the spirit realm. When he came back and curbed the drooling, he gave his conclusion:

"It's a bad one. She is under an infertility curse from breaking a marriage vow. Can't tell what kind without looking deeper. I need a wizard for that."

Now, that was odd. Her marriage ceremony included no curses for breaking any conditions. Having scoured the prison for the most useless wizards (who, unlike muggles, were in criminally short supply), we repeated the ritual.

When Abidemi spoke again, my stomach dropped.

"She's got two sets of marital bonds. One older, with you. And a newer one, I assume with Lestrange. It's a wonder she is alive, the second ritual should have crushed her into a wet meat pancake."

"Impossible, I never married her!" I told him off.

"Did you sleep with her before her marrying Lestrange?"

"Yes."

"There you go. She must've had the power and desire to subconsciously bind herself."

"Is it even remotely possible?"

"Why wouldn't it be? At its heart, magic is willing a goal and paying for it with energy. Wand-waving and suchlike only help with precision and efficiency. Many spells have been copied from instinctive magics."

"So what - if I wished hard enough for Albus to drop dead, he would?" I wondered. Oh, I apparently said it out loud…

"If you can't do something with a wand, you do all the less without," he said.

This sent Bellatrix into one of her tirades: "How dare you! Master is the most-"

"Calm down, Bella. For his rare abilities, Abidemi has been granted the privilege to question me in private. The same goes for you, by the way," I placated her.

It was official, then. The cause of Bellatrix's condition was "the power of love"…

"Abidemi, what can be done to enable her to bear my child?"

I instantly regretted not broaching the subject with Bellatrix beforehand. She gasped and choked out something unintelligible. Right… Let's count this as me proposing and her agreeing.

"I'm no healer, but if you ask me, the first step is to remove the clash of the two bonds. See if that does it," he said.

In other words, Bellatrix needed a divorce. It would slow her combat recovery… But I had many soldiers and only one woman.

"To what source did you tie her before this?" asked Abidemi.

"The Dark Lord is the heir of Salazar Slytherin himself!" Bellatrix started again.

Shush, darling. You sound like a cheap propaganda flyer. You should have seen my inheritance - a poisoned suitcase with no handle.

"I never had one, neither then nor now," I told him.

Abidemi threw up his hands and jabbered something in his language with a series of clicks and whistles. Detecting notes of disrespect, Bellatrix put him under another Cruciatus.

"Bella, enough."

While the shaman was regaining his wits, I called the house elves and ordered them to search for any books that mention marriage ceremonies in the absence of a family source.

"We are not finished. Abidemi, prepare to repeat the ritual. Bella, bring Andromeda here. I want to see whether she has the same ailment."

Hopefully it was possible to make do without Slytherin's source. I still hadn't the faintest idea how to clean up such a severe case with no living relatives on hand. And then there was the matter of adjusting the altar stone. They were usually carved from basalt, but I planned on testing everything: obsidian, granite, anorthosite, gabbro, diorite, dunite, latite, komatiite… Oh well, it was back to cracking the books on geology and ritualistics for me. Just in case, saw off a piece of Azkaban and try it alongside the rest…

Rowle, Rosier and Rookwood were collaborating on the strangest project of their lives. First, they disassembled a live muggle to improve the individual parts. It was a most tedious chore: adjusting the blood composition, soaking the kidneys in strengthening solution, hardening the bones, charming each separate ligament to be more elastic, consulting with multiple healers and chimerologists… And then they rebuilt the body from the ground up. The first nine subjects expired, the next seven personified propaganda warnings against Dark magic and could not move on their own.

But this last one was a success. They watched the augmented male muggle under Imperius wrestle a stone golem. Bare handed. Without armor, spells or weapons. And at least to a superficial observation, it was an even match.

Moving at incredible speed, the human dived under the golem's arm and punched it square in the chest. Seven hundred kilos of rock tumbled backwards.

The human got punched in the shoulder. The brawl should have ended then and there, but the specimen received no visible injuries. He rolled with the punch, pushed off the floor with one hand into a somersault and landed on his feet.

"Amazing," Rookwood breathed out. "A muggle fighting on the level of a werewolf, unaided!"

The exchange of blows continued. However improved, the human could not keep up with the whirlwind pace indefinitely. He finally missed a strike to the head. The stone fist that burst unaltered human heads into bubotuber puss merely sent this one into knockout. Nobody ordered the golem to stop. On the second dozen of kicks, the unconscious subject's skull began to warp like soft clay. It ruptured within seconds, spraying the golem in brain matter.

"Why'd the muggle keel over if the skull held? Haven't we reinforced it this time?" asked Rowle with a frown.

"Most likely a concussion. We'll see at the post-mortem. We can now move on to the second phase of our trial."

Rookwood lived for research. But while working for the Dark Lord obviously trumped the Department of Mysteries with its draconian restrictions, the former had a vexing habit of never explaining the goals behind their experiments… Rosier already argued they organize gladiator fights with a betting pool.

Their next orders were to test whether the modifications transfer by Polyjuice. As per his hypothesis, the potion did nothing to replicate titanium skull or artificial eyes. But modified organic tissue replicated perfectly! It didn't take a genius to guess that the Death Eaters' standard potions kit would soon include Polyjuice for an improved combat body.

Personally, he would much rather continue experimenting with application of runes to muggle technology. It opened up so many exciting possibilities! Instead, his second assignment had him waste away more time in the Department of Mysteries - this time on attempts to goad the aquarium brains into cooperation. He peevishly vanished the corpse and left for his day job.

All right, observation number one thousand two hundred and eighty six. A single isolated brain subjected to the next spell on the list. Curious how it would react to this one…

The brain got hit with the Fourth Unforgivable. Excess of pleasure ran the risk of disabling the higher brain functions, but in this case no one would notice the difference. The specimen convulsed for a second and resumed its previous course as soon as he canceled the spell. It collided with the glass wall… then proceeded to bump into it repeatedly… It was tapping out some sort of semaphore code!

Rookwood's heart sang. A breakthrough! Inform the Lord right away!

No, not before preventing brains from drawing any undue attention. Then they'd have to prepare habitat vessels… Set up a diversion to smuggle the brains out of the Ministry or stage a deadly pandemic where their "bodies" disappear before they are incinerated… The rest was the Dark Lord's problem, not his.