Pre-Chapter A/N: Please do check out the first chapter of the novel I'm working on up on patreon (https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)- it's completely free to access. What can I say except you're welcome? Here we go. Lovely to have you all here, and I hope you enjoy this one. If you do, feel free to head over to patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) and read the next two chapters- I update there on a daily basis so there's always something for you to read.
Dropping to the floor was a mistake, I thought, as the woman jumped right on top of me and began to bring the knife down for what Ould have been a decisive blow. I bucked like a bull, and with inhuman strength, I managed to flip us, so I as on top of her with my back. I rolled off of her in a second, missing the knife she tried to ram into my back. She sprung at me, still on the ground, and we began to struggle as I grabbed the hand holding the knife at her wrist.
"Avada—" I heard someone begin to the left, and spun, moving the woman in the direction of the spell, using her as a human shield. I heard the last syllable of the deadly curse just as I managed to get her in position. I watched the light leave her glassy eyes with cold calculation, and banished the body in the direction of the spell with a flick of the wand that had finally fallen into my grip. The assailant sliced his partner into two even halves, from forehead to crotch, allowing both her halves to sail past him as he sent an orange curse my way. I jumped to my feet, allowing it to hit the ground beneath me. The tiles of the train station bubbled next to my feet like they had been doused in acid.
I retaliated with two arcing ribbons of cutting energy. The assailant, dressed in an amorphous black hood, moved, allowing both spells to slash into the marble walls behind him. I breathed in and roared fire from my wand, a torrent the size of a house, to make it impossible for him to escape. The flames passed through, and when they died out, there was no one there. I stared hard at the spot he was standing. Instant vaporization? Unlikely. I couldn't generate flames that hot.
"Is anyone hurt?" I found myself asking as I stepped away from my prev ious position while keeping a wary eye out for other assailants. Iy wasn't a question asked for care of what had happened to them, but guilt and pragmatism. That attack had been aimed at me, and so anyone who was hurt had done so because of my own failures to deal with the attack as it came. On the other hand, it was for the best if I got in early on, making people think that I gave two fucks about them and their situations.
A woman ended up being the first to draw my attention. She had begun to flee during the impromptu stampede that began once killing curses began to fly around. In doing so, however, she had pulled too hard and dislocated her boy's arm. I walked up to the little sprog and smiled a friendly smile at him. He smiled back. He was already wearing his school robes. That meant a wizarding family at the very least. He couldn't have come in through the Station portal in robes. That kind of braindead behavior would have seen a team of Obliviators sent here post-haste, and would probably have ended with young Mr. dislocated arm here being forced to say goodbye to his mother as she was sent to cool off in a Ministry Cell for nearly criminal levels of negligence.
The fix itself was easy. A wave of my wand and some muttered latin conjured a bandage that wrapped around the wound, keeping the bones in place, before I made the mend with another wave of my wand.
"All good as new, Kid" I said with a smile on my face,
"Thank you, Mr. Potter" The child said before I felt a feeling of apprehension and barely managed to lift a shield charm in front of myself in time. I watched, almost as if in slow motion, as the boy's body bubbled for a second or two and then exploded, sending blood and gore in all directions. What the fuck?
The blood splatted all over me, and for a second, I froze. Not from fear or anything so silly. It was from rage. That had been a child. I had few morals to speak of, but one thing was sacred to me. Don't fuck with kids— little troublesome arseholes that they were. I snapped to of it when screaming reached me from the other end of the platform. I looked over, another kid had exploded. It happened two more times before people jut started taking their kids and hightailing it out of there.
It was generally rude to apparate into or out of a place anywhere other than the designated apparation spots. That rule and politeness disappeared in a manner of seconds with both children and parents being scared of losing their kids. The Parents did not even bother trying to find what was causing the explosions. They just took their kids and left. I turned to the train, seeing the kids who had already been onboard making their way out. One of them was a familiar mane of bushy hair that instantly turned from a perfect brown the colour of mahogany to redwood— assuming redwood was red, of course. It was a terrible metaphor, but it was the first thing that came to mind as the boy she had been helping out of the train bubbled and exploded as she reached out a hand for him to take.
She froze. It did not shock me that she did, but that was possibly the worst moment. The crowd went insane. So did the kids inside the train. They began running, pushing, rushing, and shoving to get out of the train through the bottleneck that was the door and Hermione was right to the side of that. It would only be a matter of time until she was swallowed in the stampede, so I yanked my wand like I was pulling on a rope and summoned my intent. It was a modified seize and pull charm, but it did the job of pulling her in my direction and away from the train.
In the end, no other kids exploded, but it was too little and too late to prevent the panic. By the time the aurors showed up, I was comforting a still silent and mostly frozen Hermione in a train station that was empty apart from the few muggleborn who had had their families leave the station early, and those who still stood, sat, or knelt next to the splattered remains of children, and loved ones.
"What happened?" I heard a shocked voice ask, but it didn't matter to me. I took a look around before grabbing on to Hermione's hand and side-along apparating us out of there. I didn't have the patience for Rufus Scrimgeor and his antics.
XXXXX
Hermione had taken the better part of a day to get better, and to begin talking and regaining some measure of her former self. In that time, I'd returned to the ministry, claimed the apparation was accidental magic, paid the fine for an illegal one and accepted the warning before giving my witness statement. As expected, Scrimgeor had done everything but make the process easy. He'd quibbled and argued over every little point.
Where had I been standing when the first attack came? How did I stop the knife holder? Did I know she was a muggle, most likely under the imperius? Did I know that my actions were only a step below Muggle baiting— using a muggle as some sort of human shield to bar magical attacks? What spell had I used on the boy before he exploded? Did I know it would happen? Where was Granger? A million and one questions had kept me in his custody until the day was well close to ending, and then I'd just returned to even more stress, trying to figure out what to do about the situation.
—
"Snape is getting released" Sirius snapped from his position on the chair in the drawing room as he read the latest letter from Fudge. Hogwarts' resumption had been delayed for the first time in Centuries, the only other time something like this had happened being when someone stole the carriages which had initially served as the means for getting to and from the school for most wizarding families. It was massive egg in the face, and no one was willing to take custody of the dropped ball. The politicians were probably hesitating to take advantage of the situation because it was still unclear whose faction was going to take the W, and so most of them were waiting to take sides and pick whom to blame.
There was that, and then there was also the fact that picking up the dropped ball could spur accusations of having dropped it in the first place in a matter of days, and that meant that there was even more reason for them to remain focused on keeping the entire situation as far from them as possible. Early scapegoats were already beginning to show. Amelia Bones, a woman who would be tipped for the top job in another life, was being practically obliterated in the media. Scrimgeor, snake of the house, did not waste time to begin making calls for her to resign and relinquish headship as she had 'clearly lost her touch and has unfortunately become incapable of upholding and fulfilling the delicate mandate conferred upon her by the people of Wizarding Britain'. His op-ed had contained even more gems than that one.
He stated she was incapable of producing a corporeal patronus after her parents passed, and considering she had already become an auror at that point, there was no need for anyone to check. He claimed it as proof that she was mentally compromised and therefore unsuited for her position. Scrimgeor had basically broken every rule of police that I had ever come into contact with in my first life— never criticise the boss. Even worse, he had done it for personal gain. If this world was anything like mine, then Scrimgeor would be unlikely to enjoy the fruits of this labour of his. He'd either get bounced from the Aurors itself, or bumped down to the point where he'd be delivering coffee for a long while. It was not just a rule the young doctors appreciated, but something that the older ones enforced with all the authority and power of their positions.
Either way, what was done was done.
XXXXX- HAROLD LONGSTAFF
Has to be a fucking joke, he thought to himself as he walked back into the camp that he had called home for the better part of the decade. He had been proud of his work. An enforcer for the ICW, a position that made him one of the most important men in the world as he worked to enforce the will of the government that governed other governments. Of course, he hadn't truly thought that after his first month on the hob. He ended up staying because the pay was great and steady, the reputation was great for picking up birds on leave, and he got to basically spend his time doing nothing.
The Nations of the world paid lip-service to the ICW, and the ICW did not try to upset that delicate balance by actually using the enforcers they had on payroll for something useful. No, they turned them into glorified bodyguards on a barren stretch of rock formations that matter little. That had been his opinion until the 25th of December, when the rebels in Magical Asia struck at the Hogwarts school and killed the Emperor's favourite daughter. Truthfully, the word on the street was that she was the only one of his legions of offspring that the Japanese Emperor could actually tolerate. That meant that the rebels had picked the one target that he would have no choice but to respond to.
He had ignored bombings, mass killings, sudden disappearances of his key government officials with the air of someone who didn't even notice, but this was not something he would ignore. And that had meant that there had been a notable tension in the air for the last few weeks as they waited for the other shoe to drop. They had their duties and, even with provocation, their orders were to respond with extreme prejudice if Japan breached the argument signed with the ICW.
Perhaps this was even a good thing, he wondered. The tension was going to lighten a fair bit, The shoe had finally dropped. Three magical Indian villages, wiped from the map like they had never even been there. It was brutal, it was probably cruel, but it was unmistakable Japanese, and now that the emperor had had his pound of flesh, they could rest easy. Things could go back to normal for a decade or so until he was long finished with this posting and could leave this all in his past.
Of course, that ended up being very optimistic of him. He walked into the command tent and was met with a face that he recognised from the newspapers they received from Japanese territory very regularly. Mutsuhito, the Emperor's oldest surviving Son. He looked just like the moving pictures. A stern man in his middle age who looked like he would pass as handsome if he bothered to smile more, or if not smile, to at least pretend he didn't think everyone and everything around him was worth less than poo.
"Harold Longstaff. My men tell me things about you" The Japanese Emperor's son said as he walked in. The man did not rise to greet, he did not even turn in Harold's direction. He remained facing the Commander while he delivered his words. A power play if Harold had ever seen one. How'd he know he'd been the one to walk in? Surely, not from his footsteps or smell. The man had never met him before, so that was more than a bit farfetched. Something else.
"Commander, you've heard my words, and I advise you to heed them"
"What's going on here?" Harold finally found his voice again, hand reaching towards the wand he hid in his waist holster.
"Nothing much. I just came here to do you all the courtesy of demanding your abandonment of this position in person rather than over letters. Just manners, you see. Surely, an Englishman like you would recognise that."
"You make demands of us? How dare you?" He found himself saying even as the Commander remained silent. He felt fury lance through his body. The Commander was a paper pusher, someone who had gotten this posting because of his skill with words, not his wand, and it was showing. The fool had frozen in shock and fear from the mere mention of a threat? How pathetic. Harold rose to his full height and withdrew his wand from the holster, spell on his lips and then he froze. He couldn't move. His body was still, fighting every command he gave it. No, not fighting. It was ignoring every command. It was then that he saw the similarities between his situation and the commander's. What sort of dark art is this? He wondered in himself as he ached to do something of his own will, but his body remained still. Defiantly so.
"I dare because I am Prince Matsuhito, the heir apparent to the Empire of Magical Asia, the chosen successor of the Emperor himself. Now you recognise just who it is you speak to, and the power I possess" He said.
A paralysis spell? No. Nothing had hit him, he was sure of that. Could it be some sort of magical creature? No. Nothing had even gotten close enough to break his barrier. He hadn't been bitten, licked, or marked, and he definitely hadn't ingested anything. It couldn't be the air. His barrier filtered the air itself as well. So what was it?
"Wondering how I got you? How predictable. You should be wondering something else. If you and your commander are here with me, then what is happening outside this tent?" He asked with a smirk. Like a barrier was popped, he began to hear the screams and shouts. Those were his men screaming, shouting, dying, in droves. His body straightened against his will and began to walk out of the tent with the Japanese Prince behind him. When he left the tent, it was to pandemonium. Japanese wizards were everywhere. Appearing, disappearing, phasing through objects, and people, and more objects. It was just chaos as they unleashed magic of the kind he had never seen before.
One man turned to smoke to allow two spells pass through him before he solidified and tore out the intestines of both men who had attempted to curse him. Another man just barreled through several spells, not even feeling any effects until he reached their casters and tossed one to the side with a punch to his midsection and then grabbed the other, a girl he recognised as Damilola, by her face and crushed her head to a pulp with one hand. Off to the side, one woman sang and several of his men just turned around, raising their wands in the air. They turned to each other, each man pairing up against another and then walked until they were face to face before they spun gracefully, taking ten paces away. He watched, unable to turn away, as they acted out a muggle duel. They turned to each other and fired. Those who survived automatically paired up against each other and began again. He tried screaming for them to stop, but nothing. His body was no longer his, and that was his greatest fear made manifest.
"How do you feel about my lovelies, Captain Harold?" A man with thick circular glasses called out to him as he walked undisturbed through the chaos of the battlefield.
"Are we ready to move, Doctor?" The Prince asked.
"Just about"
A/N: Heard of Unit 731? Imagine what a magical version of that would produce. As always, the next two chapters are up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga). If you just want to read complete chapters and not my work in real-time, then feel free to purchase this story as a collection on my patreon (https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) page so you get to read each chapter after I finish it and not necessarily the daily updates available with a regular patreon (https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) membership- nice way to support this story and me while you're at it. Enjoy!