White Wolf Mercenaries

It was the beginning of another workday, even if for a certain group of retrained men and a pack of Werewolves it was the first day of a vacation.

However, a certain Severus Snape found himself face to face with a certain old man again.

"We haven't talked in a while, have we? How is your research progressing?"

"Sir, I have recently made a breakthrough on the potion you asked for, the one that should create a transparent crystal. I have managed to make a potion that, when released, evaporates the moment it comes in contact with oxygen and forms a polymer with nitrogen, unfortunately the result is far from transparent."

"What about everything else I've asked you to research?"

"It's all done, except for the Thunderbird blood. Hagrid has notified me that they'll be ready for sustainable extraction in another month."

"Excellent. A hundred and fifty points and two vacation days to Snape.

I have another job for you. Recent tests have shown that the regular performance enhancing potions might not be quite enough. What I need you to do now is go above and beyond and create something that pushes a human body beyond its limits for, let's say ten minutes to half an hour. You'll be rewarded depending on the performance and severity of side-effects.

Also, start familiarizing the Thunderbird chicks with being held by you, it should make the process of blood extraction much smoother.

Oh, and I'll take your most successful prototype of that air solidifying potion. I have a gut feeling I'll be needing it soon enough. If I do indeed need it, we'll have to figure out a way to reverse the effects, of course. As usual, the air solidifying potion is a secondary objective."

"Yes, master. It will be done!"

Gaude gave a few more instructions here and there, devised a few new possible methods of extracting ingredients from magical creatures that the Magizoologists and Hagrid could test for viability, asked a few relaxed-looking Herbologists to get to work on creating the perfect tea bush, and source of jasmine flowers with heavenly fragrance.

Once Gaude was done with management, it was time to experiment – since Snape had finished purifying most of the creature blood, he was going to do a test run on his favorite Bloodline Potion test subjects (plus a few wizardkind test subjects for comparison, just to be safe) with Re'em and Unicorn blood – he was hoping to get a further strength and recovery boost out of the two, respectively.

According to the Grimoire, the limit for adding bloodlines was three for a regular wizard and five once they had become an archmage-level existence. Of course, that was something that would hold true for adding human bloodlines to oneself, and even that in an unpurified form. Gaude had no idea how purification and the use of beast bloodlines would affect the side-effects.

As such, Gaude had a lineup of four dragonites, four humans from the training program and twelve no-name Death Eaters, captured straight from Diagon Alley. Naturally, the Death Eaters were dosed with the Draught of the Living Death, as it seemed to suit them so well.

Gaude started by giving a person from each of the groups Re'em bloodline potion, starting with a single drop. He then went up to eight drops, discovering that similar to the dragon bloodline, the changes became significant after eight drops.

What was even more interesting to Gaude was the fact that the muscles on their bodies seemed to bulk up by a lot, except for those with the dragon bloodline – their muscles went through a cycle of expanding and then contracting again, which measurements proved to be an increase in muscle density.

Next, he did the same with the Unicorn blood. The former pure humans without dragon blood in their system seemed to start weakening by the minute, the effect most significant in the one that had been given eight drops.

Even after using all the diagnostic spells Gaude had learned, he hadn't figured out what was wrong with them. After a while, the one that had been given eight drops died while the rest held on, barely.

The Death Eater test subjects seemed to fare better – none of them ended up dying. Gaude then decided to chain the final Death Eater subjects to a table properly and administered triple the recommended dosage of either potion to them.

It quickly became visible why it was a bad idea: in the case of the Re'em bloodline, their muscles kept swelling up until they literally exploded, leaving behind an extremely gory scene. As for the Unicorn bloodline, their bodies kept getting thinner and thinner, seemingly converting all the nutrients within into Unicorn blood. Apparently, Unicorn blood needed a lot of nutrients to be produced.

As Gaude had proven that it was possible to do a triple bloodline fusion just fine, he moved on to his final test subject: a kid who had joined Death Eaters during his third year in Hogwarts. Gaude knew that because he had given each of them a tiny little Legilimency treatment, leaving them all partially braindead – the strands of magic he had used to perform the act had 'accidentally slipped' during the procedure.

He gave the kid three bloodline potions: Dragon, Unicorn and Re'em, in order. He waited for the transformation to finish before the each successive potion. Then he performed various checks on the boy – it turned out that he hadn't lost any of the faculties he had retained before the start of the transformations. His condition seemed perfectly stable, until he actually started regaining higher brain functions. Gaude suspected that his recovery was related to the Unicorn bloodline, that could even keep one's vitality in an incorporeal form when fighting against a host's innate defenses to remain attached to them.

Finally, it was time to instruct his Runecarvers to get started on drawing the ritual once again – While there seemed to have been some issues with the Dragon bloodline stabilization, there was no way something would happen with the rest of them. Gaude executed the Death Eaters – the last thing he needed was Voldefart finding out about his experiments and getting his hands on strengthened loyal subjects.

Finally, he fed Dragon bloodline potion to the surviving test subjects, hoping to stabilize their condition and get them back on their feet. The procedure seemed to work, somewhat – their faces regained color and they were able to move once more, yet they were still terribly weak, as if their energy had been almost completely drained.

Next up, Gaude's Gobbledegook instructor told Gaude that he was ready to take a test which was negotiating a deal with a Goblin, using only Gobbledegook. Gaude had just the thing in mind for that, however, he was running out of time to get started on it right after being informed of the task.

---

It was yet another dueling session with Linda. She had decided that Gaude needed a lot more practice, even though all the jobs they had done together since the first one had gone smoothly.

"Hey, kid, I'm not sure which one of us is the teacher and who's the student!", Linda said, panting.

Yet, it didn't seem like her words were quite true – Gaude was on the ground, sipping on a few potions with most of his body covered in bruises, even lacerations could be seen here and there.

"Keep saying that and one day, it'll be you with ten fractured bones and more bruises than you care to count.", he retorted.

"Honestly, if this goes on for a few more months, it won't even be a joke anymore."

Gaude's face suddenly got very serious as he spoke: "Umm, auntie Linda, you might want to stay hidden for a few months."

"Why?"

"Remember that Sanguini vampire guy I killed a while back? Turns out there's an entire clan of them. They tried to kidnap Mandy and kill me and my big sister, so we kind of killed them instead. Anyway, I kind of ended up attacking their castle and helped Mandy kill their clan head."

Linda was absolutely dumbfounded. How can a child speak so easily about going against not just a family, but an entire clan of vampires? Where would he even get people with enough training to do it?

"You did what? You and what army?"

"Umm, I may have borrowed some of Grandpa Charles' men."

Linda still didn't believe what Gaude was saying. He must've been bluffing for some reason, trying to convince her to lay low like that. Had Gaude gone down the wrong path and picked up some conman skills?

"Some men, against an entire clan of vampires?"

"Well, there may have been four hundred or so of them."

That did it for Linda. There was just no way that Gaude would be able to get that many people from his grandfather without him finding out about it and stopping the boy.

"Auntie Linda, it looks like you don't believe me.", Gaude spoke in a disappointed voice. Then he said in a commanding tone: "Bring in the troops!"

The room quickly filled with men in shining armor – Gaude had planned that talk for a while already, and now was as good a time as any.

"Who are those people?", Linda asked, her eyes widening to a unhealthy degree.

"Those are my men. I mean, my grandpa's men. Still don't believe it? Restrain her!"

Before Linda could react, both her arms were already in the vice-like grip of two burly men, her arms held apart wide so she wouldn't do anything suspicious.

"Oh, I forgot to mention. They have an anti-apparition ward carved into their armor, so no running away. I've learned well, haven't I?

Now, let's get down to business, Nigtblade."

Gaude's entire demeanor had changed from that of a curious child's into that of a child tyrant's.

Linda's eyes widened once more, if you can believe it. "How do you know that name?", she asked.

"Did you really think I wouldn't have you followed after I noticed you acting strangely? I figured out you were in the hitwizard business the day you started training me.

ure, I might've let myself believe that you cared about me, but I was never blinded by your kindness. Now, listen carefully: If you want to stay alive, lay low for a few months.

Me and the Lestoat clan, or me and Mandy, if you want to be precise, are at odds with the Sanguini clan. I have on good authority that the one that took over after Mandy offed the previous clan head is a proper warmongering arsehole, intent on sending everyone he can spare after the three of us.

Unless you have an army of your own that can deal with around a thousand vampires, get yourself a room in the Firepit, polish your skills and enjoy the spa."

"Who are you? You're not Gaude!", Linda shouted.

"Hm? Not Gaude? Not the kid who you beat full of bruises and welts, hoping to get a good assistant? Not the kid you pretended to care for once the practice was over to sway his heart? Sure, I was never that kid. You see, it was all an act as I was in need of an Ancient Runes tutor and proper dueling training, and you were an outstanding instructor, way above my expectations. I no longer need you in that capacity. Fake or not, I decided to repay your kindness by warning you."

Tears were streaking down Linda's cheeks.

"I'm sorry.", she muttered, voice barely above a whisper.

"What was that?", Gaude asked, a bit more spitefully than he had intended.

"I'm sorry. At first, I just wanted revenge. Revenge on those that killed my teacher and humiliated me. In the beginning, I only saw you as a means to an end. Then I started seeing you as a child, just like I had been years ago."

"It's good that you've learned to speak the truth. If you started with that, I might've found it in me to help you out here and there."

Gaude turned to leave and said: "Release her. Return to base."

Gaude didn't see Linda slumping down to the floor, powerless to even move. He was unaware of the fact that she kept crying for hours until falling asleep on the floor. Even if the elf keeping an eye on her informed Gaude, neither the elf nor Linda would've been able to tell him why exactly she cried. All Linda knew was that she felt a terrible sense of loss.

---

Once they were in the base and Gaude had taken half an hour to calm down, he found Irma who was currently sparring with one of the Werewolves. Her moves were gracious like a dancer's, her bodysuit tightly hugging her curves. Her bob-cut hair was always airborne, Irma not staying in one place long enough for it to settle.

Her strikes were short, fast and precise, more often than not performed in a stabbing motion. Her chest barely swayed, seemingly constricted by a high-quality sports bra.

Gaude walked closer to the two, barely sparing a glance to Irma's form. While he knew she was hot as hell by his previous world's standards, he considered Irma his sister and even if he didn't, his body still needed a few years before reacting to anything like that.

Soon enough, she had beaten her opponent into the ground and placed a leg on the downed man, her perfectly shaped butt now demonstrated in two positions at once.

"Hello there, beautiful!", Gaude said with a grin faker than a three-dollar bill. He was in a serious need of some amusement. "Mind if I borrow you for some alone time?"

"Get a room!", the man on the ground said, most likely rolling his eyes.

"Hi, Gaude!", she said with a beaming smile. Irma's playfulness had been ignited by his remarks. Controlling her emotions, she one-upped Gaude: "Where do you want me?"

"Anywhere, but let's try and keep it civil.", he replied, then they both burst into raucous laughter.

"Actually, I had something I wanted to discuss with you."

"Oh? What's that?"

"Well, now that the Wolves have proven themselves, I think it's time to look into having them earn their keep.

I was thinking, let's call them the White Wolf Mercenaries, what do you think?"

"I'm ok with that name. What do you have in mind?", Irma asked, curious.

Gaude's smirk turned into a mischievous smile: "Oh, you know, this and that, piss off a few people, make a lot of people feel indebted to me, things like that. Afterwards, who knows. But first, I have to go to the bank."

"You mean, piss off people other than the Sanguini clan? You'll have to take me with you when you go pissing off people. It's my job as your big sister to make sure you don't get yourself hurt while doing it.", she said. "Why do you need to go to the bank, don't you always carry millions in that pouch of yours?"

"What I'm about to do just happens to shift the wizardkind's perception towards the Goblins and a few other races, so I'll ask for some benefits before I do it."

"Can I come with you?", she asked with puppy eyes, the freshly-sprouted ears amplifying the effect.

Gaude was about to firmly refuse, but his Occlumency shields were utterly demolished under the strain, so he said: "N- yeah, sure. As long as you're taking your pack with you. I think it's high time to do a little demo of your abilities."

Irma replied happily: "That sound's like a wonderful idea! The pack has been feeling bad about leeching money off you." Truthfully, the Werewolves didn't give a damn about where their food came from, it was Irma who felt a bit useless.

"Let's get to the base and get the wolves then.", Gaude said, walking to the fireplace. He had set up the Floo in his residence as well as the academy. While house elf magic was free, he felt more independent while using the Floo.

Gaude instructed: "Alright, you go first. Just say 'Werewolf Academy' and throw a pinch of Floo powder into the fire, then step through. Keep your elbows close to you, don't want you ending up at the wrong address as I once did. Once you arrive, step to the side, otherwise I'll bump into you from behind."

Once Irma had gone through, he waited for ten seconds and followed his own instructions.

"All the mutts that can do a full shift, line up!", Irma yelled.

Soon, sixteen people were standing in a line.

She commanded: "Show me what you got!"

All sixteen of the Werewolves let off crackling and popping sounds from their bodies as their muscles swelled and their arms, legs and snout elongated. All snouts except for one.

"Thomas, go back to practicing. You're still a step off.", Irma said with some disappointment in her voice.

Gaude finally spoke: "I think those fifteen should be quite enough. Does every one of you know how to use the Floo?"

The Werewolves transformed their heads back to that of a human and spoke as one: "Yes, sir!"

The werewolves respected Gaude at least as much as Irma, as he had shown decent leadership and support abilities in the battle.

"Good. Reassume your human form for the time being. We're all going to Gringotts."

---

A while later, a strange entourage of people exited the Gringotts Floo one after the other. One of them looked normal enough, if one didn't look at his eyes that had vertical slits for pupils.

Then there were sixteen people with form-fitting black body suits.

Naturally, they were Gaude, Irma and the Werewolves.

"Wait here for a bit. I'll get us an audience."

Gaude left them in the waiting area and found a free counter. While the tellers would be unlikely to have the authority to get him a meeting with the brass, they could at least call out somebody who could.

"I would like to speak with my account manager, Shatterjaw."

"Are you perhaps Mr Vywin? I've heard you have quite a few Galleons going through your accounts."

"You know what they say, money grows when it flows."

The Goblin grumbled something about uneducated people, then climbed down from it's chair and left through a door. After a while, it returned with Gaude's buddy Shatterjaw.

Shatterjaw had moved up quite a bit ever since Gaude had contracted him as his account manager. After all, his dealings with the bank had brought in sizeable transaction fees. That was also the reason why Gaude liked to keep most of his Galleons in his pouch.

��Shatterjaw! How was your boy's first time in the pit?"

"Mr Vywin. It's been a while since we met. My boy did quite well. He hasn't managed to make a name for himself yet, but he'll make it one of these days. He just couldn't wait one more year to fight with those his own age."

Gaude chuckled at that and said: "You got a good kid coming, careful or I'll be doing business with him in a few years."

The goblin, while he did seem a bit proud over his son, seemed to avoid excess waste of time. He asked: "Have you come here just to blow some hot air or talk business?"

"Yes, I'm here for business. There are actually two matters I'd like to discuss, but I fear that they are a bit outside your current expertise, and more towards the king's."

"What matters do you have to discuss with his majesty Grok Gringotts?"

"Matters of how Goblins are perceived by wizardkind and how I can change that. Also, a new very capable security force."

"What kind of a security force are we talking about?"

"Let's just say each of them is ten times deadlier than your run of the mill Werewolf."

The goblin seemed to twitch a little at the mention of Werewolves. That didn't seem like the best kind of start, but on the other hand, it was an excellent start. He did seem to become quite curious, as he asked: "How can you be so sure?"

I replied with a smug smile, careful to not expose my teeth as it would be seen as a challenge by Goblins: "Easy. I've had them fighting packs of Werewolves to test their abilities."

The Goblin looked intently at the stone on one of his rings, one with the function of detecting lies, then gave a feral grin as he said: "I'm sure his majesty can find a bit of time to talk with you. Perhaps you could wait until I discuss it with them."

Shatterjaw left through a different door than the one he came in from. Gaude took the time to make his way over to the Werewolves. On his way, he bumped into a man who had what looked suspiciously like the edge of a silver mask tucked under his robes.

Gaude decided to keep my eye on that one.

"Everyone, I've gotten the wheels moving. After a bit of wait, we should be able to get an audience with the king of the Goblins here."

After a few minutes had passed, suddenly there were people wearing silver masks everywhere, with their wands out. "Everyone, stay still and keep your hands where we can see them! Nobody needs to get hurt as long as we get the valuables!"

It turned out Gaude and company had chosen the day a goddamn bank robbery to introduce the Werewolves as security forces. It may have had something to do with the intel Gaude had received from Laly's team of little spies.

"Go wolf, take down hostiles and assess the situation. I'll stall them as long as I can. Count on around three seconds.", Gaude said, pulling out his own wand and casting 'Immobulus'.

Once he cast it, a transparent wave spread out. Every witch and wizard on the floor suddenly became stiff. The Werewolves, strong enough to resist the immobilizing effect, rushed about at inhuman speeds and hit the heads of each of the people in silver masks. A few seconds later, the people in the bank started moving again, but all the masked assailants had already been dealt with.

Now, the people were fearfully looking at the sixteen people next to Gaude, as many of them could swear they had seen them transform into Werewolves for a few seconds.

While all that had been happening, the Goblins had ducked behind their tall tables and reemerged with spears in hand and armor covering their bodies.

After a while, a door was opened by a goblin.

Shatterjaw had finally reemerged, now standing in the doorway.

Gaude, under the guise of Charles Vywin, used the voice-amplifying charm and spoke in a soothing voice: "Everyone, I apologize for the inconvenience. Fortunately, I had decided to pick today to try get my very own security personnel a contract with Gringotts. I simply wasn't expecting that there was a criminal organization that would volunteer for a demonstration."

The people were all suddenly looking towards him.

The people seemed to be satisfied with that explanation, as they went back to their business. It seemed that the wizardkind were quite well trained in responding to the first voice of authority they heard.

Right after Gaude had finished talking, he made his way towards Shatterjaw, followed by his entourage.

"These are the personnel I told you about. If it is permitted, I'd like to take one of them with me for an additional demonstration."

"Very well, but just one.", the Goblin said, seemingly a bit more respectfully than before.

"Daniel, you're with me. The rest of you, stick with Irma. Irma, keep them out of trouble."

The two followed Shatterjaw down a winding staircase, possibly to the level of the vaults. Finally, they reached a thick metal door with a pair of guards with swords and spears on each side.

Shatterjaw slid his palms across the doors and they started slowly opening. After a while, we made our way through. A large hall opened to us, decorated with gold and silver ornaments and precious stones. Somehow, the room didn't look tacky at all.

There was an old-looking Goblin sitting in a highly ornate chair.

"Hello, your majesty.", Gaude addressed him in gobbledegook, giving him a nod of respect.

"You must be Mr Vywin.", the old Goblin responded.

"I hear you have two interesting proposals to make me."

"Indeed, I do. First off, the matter of bolstering the security here. I have equipped my fighters with special artefacts that allow for stealth as well as bloodless incapacitation of any that attempt to cause trouble, all the while keeping the customers safe, as Shatterjaw can attest.

There is also the matter of changing the perception of wizardkind towards Goblins. I intend to 'modify' the fountain of magical brethren in the Ministry's Atrium, in a way that would end up depicting the most admirable quality of each of the races. I believe I have found a way to make the changes irreversible as well."

"Tell me, what is the trait you find most admirable in Goblins?", the old 'man' asked.

"Naturally, it has to be the blacksmithing. Artefacts made by Goblins are the most exquisite. That is why I intend to change the goblin statue from one admiring a wizard into one working on an anvil."