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Chapter Twenty Eight: Shadows of New York Part One:

Snow continued to drop from the sky in New York City. It had been snowing pretty much continuously for the past four months, with record levels of accumulation. The scientists were baffled beyond belief, they had never seen anything like this in their lives. There seemed to be no scientific explanation whatsoever of why New York City alone had accumulated so much snow, as the other parts of the Eastern United States area had been into spring with warmer weather.

The American Wizarding Government on the other hand had a pretty good idea that this unexpected weather was emitting from some magical source, but the question was when and where. They had little time to work on the location of the source, as they had to magically dispose of the snow, which was a long and tedious process, burning up a lot of time as the weather just seemed to get colder as the days went by. If they didn’t find what was causing this soon and put a stop to it, New York City would be transferred into a cold, barren, wasteland.

When he heard about the latest weather situation, Harry had a theory of what was causing this. There was no doubt in Harry’s mind that the recent sweeping cold weather and the mystical box stolen had a correlation. Much to his relief, Harry wasn’t the only one to come to that conclusions, as the American Wizarding Governments had attempted to find the box, but their efforts were cut down by having to make sure New York City ran well without the city crumbling. Whoever had control of this box, had used the really horrendous weather as their mask and Harry wouldn’t be surprised that they were plundering the city under the cover of the heavy amounts of snowfall.

It was a couple of days into spring holiday, as Harry sat right by the window, staring outside with the events of the past couple of weeks running through his mind. After the ordeal Hermione and Ginny had with Riddle, things had been remarkably quiet all things considered. That actually worried Harry a little bit, as if Voldemort was quiet it meant he was planning his next move. The goblins and the Ministry of Magic remained at a stand off, which didn’t look to be resolved anytime soon at all and as Voldemort gained power, that would create complications for Harry and his resistance group. They were doing everything in their power, with a couple of different contingency plans to evacuate people out of the country quickly when Voldemort had made his attempt to take complete control of the Ministry. Harry questioned whether it would be enough, but he hoped to at least minimize any causalities, but it would be impossible to eliminate all causalities. Sadly, that was the nature of war and an unfortunate realization Harry had come to some time ago.

Harry looked up and he heard his sister make her way down stairs.

“Harry, Mum wants you upstairs, the project she’s been working on since the summer, well, she’s got it done,” said Hailey.

“Really, that’s great,” answered Harry as he pulled himself away from the window and his thoughts, before he followed his sister upstairs. To be honest, Harry was rather curious about what exactly his mother had been working on upstairs all this time. All she had mentioned was it would be something that would help out against Voldemort.

Hailey and Harry made their way upstairs, where their mother was awaiting them.

“So, Mum, what’s the big project?” asked Hailey.

“Come inside and have a look for yourself,” replied Lily as she opened the attic door, to reveal a more scaled down version of the transmat that the Utroms had built to evacuate the TCRI building.

“You actually managed to successfully rebuilt the transmat,” remarked Harry.

“Yeah and it wasn’t easy, I had to go completely by memory and the first couple of times, when I pushed the button to test the transport function it smoked before it fell apart,” explained Lily. “Still after much testing, it should work, I managed to successfully transport a book to my office and back.”

“So, we can now take Voldemort and put him on the Transmat, before transporting him to some desolate universe, right?” suggested Hailey hopefully.

“As appealing as that sounds, there are a few drawbacks,” replied Lily. “I had to sacrifice long distance transport to add in the stealth features, eliminating the particular stream. It will transport you anywhere on Earth though. That’s part of the reason why it took about six months, long distance travel would have taken much longer.”

“Any other drawbacks that we should know about?” questioned Harry

“Someone has to be in this remote to operate the transmat manually because no matter what, the remote control function jammed the stealth feature, even Leatherhead couldn’t figure out how to adjust that part when I had asked him about that.,” added Lily. “Still, Harry, you said that Fred and George were having issues with the portal Floo Systems that you had planned on for using on a potential evacuation for Hogwarts.”

“Yes,” replied Harry, who was counting on the twins to work out all of the kinks, but they had ran into some unforeseen snags.

“Tell them not to worry about it, because I can now complete a portable version of the transmat to use for Hogwarts,” said Lily.

“Surely the magic in Hogwarts may interfere with the transmat’s transport features?” asked Harry.

“I thought so too, but I threw pretty much every magical spell I could think of inside this room at a rapid fire pace and everything transported fine,” answered Lily. “However, there is one more thing I need to test before I begin construction of a portable version for Hogwarts.”

“That wouldn’t be transporting a living being, would it?” asked Harry.

“Yes, it has to be done,” said Lily with a nod.

“I agree, I’ll be your guinea pig, Mum,” remarked Harry with a bit of a smirk as he stepped onto the transmat platform, remembering the last time he was one of these, he was zapped to the planet D’Hoonib.

Thankfully, with the Transmat only geared for travel on Earth, the worst that could happen would that Harry would get inadvertently transported into a Death Eater meeting.

“Ready Harry?” asked Lily and Harry confirmed with a short nod of his head as he watched his mother enter the coordinates into the console. In the blink of an eye, Harry vanished from view.

“Where did you send him?” inquired Hailey.

“My office at Hogwarts, at least that’s where I intended to send him,” remarked Lily as she looked at the console controls. “Now, if I am able to recall Harry at the same coordinates, then it would have worked. If not, I’m going to have to contact him using the mirrors to find out what exactly went wrong.”

Lily made her way over to the console and began to transport the same coordinates that she sent Harry to, before she pressed the button to activate the retrieval function of the transmat and seconds later, Harry was on the transmat, without any light signifying his arrival.

“Mum, both sending me there and getting me back worked out perfectly,” declared Harry as he answered his mother’s unasked question.

“So, nothing was wrong, nothing at all,” said Lily and Harry confirmed with a nod. “That’s great, now I can get straight to work on the portable version of the transmat. Depending on my schedule, it should be ready by next year.”

“I just hope it will be in time for it to do anytime because I’m not a big fan of Plan B,” answered Harry.

“What’s Plan B?” asked Hailey curiously.

“There are five hundred broomsticks currently located in an unused room at Hogwarts, held underneath a more advanced version Fidelius Charm,” explained Harry. “It was created in the time of the founders in case of an emergency. Back then broomsticks were a lot easier to control, it didn’t take as much skill to fly them, but they moved a lot slower than those today. The only reason I know about it is because Slytherin was the Secret Keeper and he mentioned it in his journal.”

“Harry, the Fidelius Charm dies when a person dies,” lectured Lily.

“The less powerful version that still exists today does, but the original version that Salazar Slytherin and Rowena Ravenclaw both invented can maintain the charm up to three thousand years after the death of the person,” answered Harry quickly. “The actual specifics of how to use this charm was lost under time, Slytherin never mentioned how in his journal, but he was very vague on a lot of things, as he obviously didn’t have the foresight about how many of his discoveries would be used and in the cases of the Horcruxes, abused.”

“So, I’m guessing that someone may have come across the partial record of the original Fidelius Charm and thus constructed what is used today out of it,” said Lily slowly with Harry nodding in agreement.

“Back to Plan B, the brooms are enough to get off the ground and far away from the Death Eaters if an evacuation would happen, but the problem is a fair portion of Hogwarts still can’t handle themselves with their feet firmly on the ground,” continued Harry. “It’s not the most coordinated of plans either. Don’t get me wrong, it’s doable, but not exactly the most convenient evacuation from Hogwarts.”

“Don’t worry Harry, the portable transmat should be ready to go as soon as I can,” said Lily.

“Let’s hope so, because that plan should only be used as a last ditch effort,” answered Harry with a nod.

Lily checked her watch.

“Oh my, I’ve been up here since breakfast working on this, it’s almost time for lunch,” announced Lily as she left the room with her two children following closely behind her to sit down at the take.

During lunch, Harry decided to flip on the radio to hear the news and what he heard wasn’t good news.

“Today, three more people were found dead in the snow covered wastelands of New York City due to automobile accidents from the slick roads,” announced the newscaster on the radio. “We encourage all those who have to go to work to extend extra caution. Road crews are attempting to clean up the roads as quickly as possible, but the unexplained record amounts of snow will take time to completely clear from our city streets.”

“And right into people’s driveways,” replied Hailey darkly but Harry raised his hand to shush his sister.

“This brings the death toll for this week up to twelve, one hundred and nineteen all together, with seventeen reported missing cases, and fifty people in the hospital suffering from severe cases of hypothermia,” continued the radio announcer. “As scientists continue to look for cause to this strange weather that is plaguing the city of New York, we once again encourage all of our citizens to remain careful, to continue to keep in touch with the news as you will get the latest as soon as we receive it. Right now, the temperature is nineteen degrees below zero with a wind chill of thirty and eight more inches of snow. Now back to your latest hits after ten minutes of commercials and five more minutes of the news.”

Harry turned off the radio as his mother sat lunch down on the table, before joining them.

“It’s really getting bad outside, Alexandra told me the other day that they can’t even find where the mystical box is, but as you know, she’s pretty sure that she knows that is the cause,” remarked Lily.

“Well, we’ve pretty much figured out who did that was the one who bankrolled that clock obsessed whacko with all that high powerful technology,” said Harry.

“Yes, but who would supply that guy with the technology just to serve as a distraction so they can turn the city into a frozen wasteland, Bishop, Shredder, Luther Malfoy, or dare I say it, even Voldemort, with an inside assist from his sympathizers?” asked Hailey.

“This doesn’t seem up Bishop’s alley, Malfoy’s in jail, and it would be very counterproductive for the Shredder to turn a city that he’s turned into a wasteland,” remarked Harry. “While Voldemort does have sympathizers in the country, they have died down a little bit lately since the new harsh measures. I honestly believe Voldemort is thinking long term plans and finding a way to conquer the American magical world is in the distant future. His warped mind has a need to control all the magical people in the world, but to do so, he needs people on the inside who understand this country and its inhabitants. To do anything to attract the attentions of the American Wizarding Government would be ritual suicide.”

“Yes, I was thinking the same thing, which just leads to a disturbing conclusion that whoever is behind this is a new and dangerous foe,” chimed in Lily as she finished her sandwich.

“That doesn’t fill me with great hope, rather quite the opposite,” said Harry darkly. “Someone who can figure out how to use a rare artifact that even the American Wizarding Government had been studying for years and hadn’t come close to being able to use.”

“I know,” replied Lily in a sympathetic voice. “The entire city could be put in peril if the artifact and those behind it aren’t found soon enough. The temperature is already dropping at a rate, it’s barely this cold in the winter months, much less when it’s spring. The snow is getting to the point where even magic can’t clear it up and you’ve heard the causalities on the radio.”

The three Potters finished their lunch in relative silence, before Lily heard an incoming Floo call from the living room. She excused herself from the table to take it, leaving Hailey and Harry alone in the kitchen.

After a few minutes, Lily made her way back into the kitchen with an apologetic look on her face.

“I’ve got to get down to the American Wizarding Government headquarters, Alexandra has called a meeting, one of her aides contacted me, said it was urgent, but the aide didn’t say why,” remarked Lily in a hurried voice.

“Well Mum, don’t let us keep you, I was about to head down to the lair for a visit,” said Harry and Lily nodded before grabbing her traveling cloak and she disappeared into the room. Harry rose to his feet. “Want to come Hailey?”

“No, not today, Harry,” remarked Hailey and Harry looked for an explanation. “I’ve got some homework I need to catch up on.”

“Okay, see you later,” said Harry as Hailey was left alone with her own thoughts. The truth was she had actually managed to finish all of her homework the evening before.

“Yes, no one’s been able to find where that mystical box has been coming from,” remarked Hailey as she slowly got to her feet. “Perhaps someone else can take a closer look at the city, they might have missed something. It wouldn’t be too hard to do it after all of this snow but why waste all this time talking to myself when I can get out there and have a closer look, might be fun, perhaps a bit interesting.”

Hailey got to her feet and walked up to her room to grab her broomstick, along with making a quick change of clothes. Maybe the Black Phantom could succeed where the American Wizarding Government could not.

In the corridors of the American Wizarding Government, a dazed looking young man looked at a shapely figure obscured in the shadows.

“She has been contacted Mistress,” remarked the aide in a dazed voice.

“I am well aware of that, bug,” replied a female voice obscured in the shadows coldly. “You have done a sufficient job, now be gone with you. Perhaps you may be a moderate diversion in the future from our younger ones to play with once we cast this city into darkness forever.”

“You are too kind, Mistress,” said the aide as a lifeless, soulless look appeared in his eyes.

“I know, I am the charitable sort,” replied the female. “You did your small part, but now the trap has been sufficiently set, now that meddlesome mortal will pay. She will learn a valuable lesson from stealing from us. The males of our clan may have allowed the book to slip away, but they have been punished and forced into slave labor by the more superior female members of our clan. They are nothing but strong arms, muscle to carry out our aims, the vision of Mistress Eskara.”

The aide looked on in his trance, not a word Eskara had said had been heard, he was just in a mindless stupor over her.

“I must depart now,” said Eskara. “My bloodlust will be fulfilled and all will perish, including the traitor. He must learn the price for fraternizing with you bugs. For now, I need nourishment.”

“Please don’t leave me, take me with you Mistress I’ll do anything, I need you,” begged the aide but a loud pop was heard before a bat flew from the corridors. The aide shook his head, as he began to lift from his trance, with no memories of his time under her control, just like Mistress Eskara had intended. He was useful in only baiting her prey into the trap where her slaves would be waiting to strike.

Two hooded figures managed to make their way to a snow drift, as they held up their wands. With the Muggle police barely able to navigate through the snow and the Aurors attempting to enable smooth travel through the city, it would have been easy to slip into the bank and get some additional cash to supplement their income. These two hooded figures were a pair of lazy young wizards who had used their magic to steal from Muggles but this was a bit bigger job than they had ever taken on before. Knocking off a bank would be like nothing they had ever seen, but by the time the snow thawed, they would have already have been out of the country with the take split down the middle.

“Alohomora,” muttered one of the thieves but while the lock clicked open, the doors were still frozen shut.

“Ah man, now what?” whined the second thief. “How can we get the money if we can’t get inside?”

“Shut up, there has to be a spell we can use,” said the first thief, as he attempted to thief. “Dude, I like so totally got it.”

“What, man?” asked the second thief.

“I know, bro, we can so vanish the ice around the door, and we can get inside, to cash in,” suggested the first thief before he frowned. “Do you even known a vanishing charm?”

“Man, you’re supposed to be the brains of this outfit,” argued the second thief.

“Shut up and let me think!” snapped the first thief as he frowned, waving his wand.

“I believe you can do your thinking in jail,” remarked a calm female voice and the two thieves whirled around.

“Dude, did you say that?” asked the first thief.

“No, dude, I thought you did,” replied the second thief in a dopey voice before they came to realize who that they weren’t alone. Hailey stood there, in a modified black phantom costume, wearing a thick black ski mask along with an equally thick black trenchcoat, gloves, and snow boots, all charmed to help her withstand temperatures from down to negative thirty degrees for the next three hours.

Before the thieves could summon enough brain cells to formulate a plan of attack, a stunning spell fired by Hailey knocked one of the thieves unconscious. The other thief’s eyes widened before he bolted out in the other direction, hoping to lose his mysterious attacker.

“They always run,” replied Hailey with a smirk, as she decided she would have a nice little skill sharpening session today, allowing the second thief to get a few minute start, before she pulled out, her broomstick, and shot up, careful to maneuver against the heavy gusts of wind that blew snow drifts throughout New York. “He shouldn’t have gotten all that far.”

In the lair, Harry was just finishing up telling his brothers and Master Splinter the events of the past few months since he had last spoken to them.

“Wow, those goblins are being very difficult,” summarized Don.

“Sadly, it’s the way their race is, they are mostly neutral unless the Ministry of Magic decides to do something that breaks the goblin treaties and believe me, goblins have very detailed standards on what they perceive to be a breach as oppose to the looser standards of the Ministry,” said Harry before he sighed. “Not to mention the fact that Voldemort’s attempting to convince the goblins that his followers are being victimized by the Ministry for having different beliefs, despite the fact that there are many within the Ministry in Voldemort’s pocket and the fact that goblins want the right to use the wand, well you can see why some goblins are willing to be swayed by Voldemort. If only for a short amount of time at the very least.”

“Yeah, Harry, it doesn’t seem too good,” agreed Leo. “Voldemort’s starting to spread but you’ll stop him. You have to.”

“Yes, he will but do remember this, it will not be easy,” added Master Splinter. “Lord Voldemort’s worked many years towards his goals and just because you managed to put a few of his key followers down, he will be much harder to defeat, especially for the fact that as long as he has the Horcruxes, he cannot be killed. Still, I have faith in you, Harry, but this alliance with Voldemort and the Shredder has been troubling me for some time.”

Harry stared, he had just mentioned it in passing a few times in the past but it has obviously been something had been troubling Master Splinter for quite some time. It had been cast out of Harry’s mind briefly, because there had been other things on his mind, but now that his sensei had mentioned it, it did seem worrying.

“Yes, but so far it’s been Shredder assisting Voldemort and he hasn’t gotten anything in control,” offered Don, breaking the silence.

“And that is a big problem,” interjected Raph. “If Shredder’s been offering all this help he wants something in return. He ain’t the generous sort.”

“Exactly my thoughts Raphael,” agreed Master Splinter with a nod. “Oroku Saki is, if nothing else…”

A loud thumping sound echoed from outside the lair, which caused Leo, Mikey, Don, Raph, and Harry to assume a battled position.

“Something’s out there,” muttered Leo.

“Yes, we figured that much, Leo,” replied Raph dryly. “But does it know we’re in here?”

Another loud thump answered that question as they stepped forward.

“Maybe it will go away if we ignore it,” suggested Mikey hopefully but a more urgent thump echoed from outside the lair.

“Let me in you meddlesome mutants, I know you’re in there!” rasped a pained, but surly, voice from outside.

“Is that who I think he is?” asked Don.

“Unfortunately, it sounds like it,” retorted Raph.

“Open the door and find out but be prepared to strike should our guest try anything,” whispered Master Splinter.

“I can hear you, rat, us vampires have super hearing!” yelled the voice from outside the door. “Now let me in before they find me.”

Harry sighed before he pressed the button, causing the door to swing open and the ragged form of Regulus Black to gimp into the lair, looking rather worse for wear.

“Shut the door Potter, unless you want them to come in!” snapped Regulus in a surly tone.

“Well since you asked so nicely,” replied Harry sarcastically as he shut the door behind Regulus, but the four Turtles didn’t relax their stance.

“Put down those weapons, you know it’s me,” said Regulus calmly as he sank down onto the couch, wincing as he clutched his ribs but the Turtles still stood there with their weapons still drawn.

“That’s the problem,” Black,” replied Raph, the incident where Black sold a map leading to the lair to the Squib Inquisition still fresh on his mind.

“So, tell us, Regulus, what’s with the sudden urgency to get away from someone?” asked Harry.

The thief made his way around outside, he looked from side to side and looked up, before he screamed as Hailey dove towards him on her Firebolt and the thief stumbled forward, before he bolted and then slid right onto a patch of ice.

Hailey stopped short, surprise mounting her as the thief had been frozen alive right before her eyes. The spot where the thief had been frozen had small, light, spiral waves of blue light emitting from the building right next to it, a large impressive looking glass building.

Hailey looked, the sudden realization coming to the girl that she had an idea where the mystical box was being located but she needed to find Harry and tell him.

Before Hailey could make her move, a black bat swooped from the sky before it dive bombed towards Hailey, fangs bared. Hailey gave a small surprised shriek, before she dodged to the right, but the bat remained persistent and went after Hailey, which caused the Potter girl to lose control of her broomstick and skid out of control, before she flew right to the ground landing face first into the snow drift.

Hailey felt something sink into the back of her neck and everything around her faded to an aura of fuzziness.

“So exactly what is this all about Black?” demanded Raph more forcefully then Harry was.

“Patience, terrapin,” replied Regulus as he massaged his side. “First you must realize that even if I was only partially turned into a vampire, I still have enough qualities of the creature to be considered to be one of them and I’ve done things that could be considered to be traitorous to the entire vampire creed.”

Regulus looked around, deciding to cut to the chase.

“I need to live in colder environments obviously, but earlier today a group of her minions found me in my underground, refrigerated domain, and decided to question my loyalty,” continued Regulus. “Obviously my attempts to show them the door weren’t well received and they decided to attack me, to bring me to her so she could decide what to do with me.”

“I’m sure your Black Wand buddies would have been able to jump in to help, Black,” remarked Raph in a forceful voice.

“Yes, they would, but they are on various missions in an attempt to find information on the Dark Lord,” answered Regulus. “None of them are currently in the city, so I think that even your miniscule brains could comprehend that.”

“Who is this woman you keep mentioning?” asked Don, in an attempt to steer the conversation in another direction before Raph cracked Regulus’s skull open.

“She’s called Eskara, she’s an extremely powerful vampire, in fact she’s the alpha female for the French Canadian Vampire Legion,” continued Regulus coolly and Harry’s eyebrows raised at the name of the vampire tribe, in sudden realization. “I have a very good reason to believe that she was behind the recent drastic weather changes when she swiped the mystical box.”

“You mean you knew all this time and you didn’t tell anyone!” yelled Harry angrily, losing his temper.

“Potter, I don’t have time to clue the American Wizarding Government on every little fugitive vampire that steals an artifact, besides it didn’t find out about it until a couple of weeks ago and it wouldn’t do much good as I have no idea where Eskara is anywhere,” remarked Regulus calmly. “Of course, I should also probably mention that the French Canadian Vampire Legion does not tolerating stealing so as we speak they may be setting a trap for your mother at the American Wizarding Government headquarters under the guise of an urgent meeting.”

“What?” demanded Harry.

“Perhaps you would like me to spell it out in smaller, simpler terms Potter,” said Regulus but Harry had heard him perfectly the first time and pulled out his communication mirror to get in touch with his mother as quickly as possible, to alert her that a trap might be sprung.

Hailey stumbled into her room, feeling very light headed and extremely ill as she collapsed on her bed. To be honest, she couldn’t say exactly how she got from where she was to her room. In fact, she really couldn’t remember much of anything over the last few minutes, as she laid flat on her bed, the will to move having left her. Perhaps if she had laid down for a few minutes, she could collect her thoughts fully to remember what she was doing recently.

Hailey rolled over, her eyes shut as she absent mindedly touched a pair of bright red nasty fang marks on the back of her neck.

Alexandra looked up from her paperwork surprised to see that Lily was standing in her office.

“Lily, my isn’t this a pleasant surprise,” said Alexandra in a surprised tone which caused Lily to frown at her friend.

“What do you me, I thought you had your aide sent for me?” inquired Lily in a confused voice.

“No, sorry, I haven’t sent for anyone,” said Alexandra with a frown, something was obviously very wrong and the temperature in her office started to a substantial margin.

“Something’s not right,” muttered Lily as she heard footsteps.

“Lily, not meaning to alarm you, but security is on minimum today, because of the heavy amount of Aurors helping with the city cleanup,” remarked Alexandra. “If someone tried, they might be able to force their way inside.”

Lily felt her mirror heat up and hastened to remove it from her pocket, to see Harry’s frantic face.

“Mum, it’s a trap there’s….” started Harry but the office door swung open to reveal a small group of male vampires, dressed in slightly modified roman gladiator outfits, causing the two witches to back up slightly, preparing for an attack.

“Kill the brunette, but take the red head, because Mistress Eskara wants her alive, she has the book,” remarked one of the male vampires as Lily and Alexandra took on their wands to defend themselves, despite the odds being against their favor.