Template:Hidden Fall of Tree Hill

Hogwarts War with The Empire
Main Article : Hogwarts war with The Empire

{| class="collapsible collapsed" style="clear:both; width:100%; background-color:#B40404; color:#FFFFFF; font-size:100%; padding:1em; margin-top:1px; -moz-border-radius:1px; -webkit-border-radius:8px; border-radius:25px; border-color:#000000;" ! style="text-align:left; color:#FFFFFF; line-height:2em; background-color:#1C1C1C; padding-right:10.5em; | Hogwarts War with The Empire They came here to destroy us. There was no need for diplomacy because both sides knew that the goal was annihilation, and no amount of words was going to change the Teutons minds. That was the saddest part for me. The knowledge that death was the only way this thing ended. Either they died...or we did.
 * style="clear:both; width:100%; background-color:#D8D8D8; color:#000000; font-size:100%; padding:1em; margin-top:1px; -moz-border-radius:2px; -webkit-border-radius:8px; border-radius:25px;" font size="2" face="tahoma, Arial" color="White" |
 * style="clear:both; width:100%; background-color:#D8D8D8; color:#000000; font-size:100%; padding:1em; margin-top:1px; -moz-border-radius:2px; -webkit-border-radius:8px; border-radius:25px;" font size="2" face="tahoma, Arial" color="White" |



Following the Chaos that was the Hogwarts Civil War there was a brief period where there was peace in the region of Hogwarts. During this time under the leadership of the increasingly influential Harry Potter the city rebuilt itself, and the damage that the Malfoy's had done to the Republic was slowly repaired. But this peace lasted for less then a few months, and it became a moot point when Hogwarts begin receiving letters from the Empire asking for their surrender. This came as a shock as the two parties had usually shared a common interest, and that interest had been for mutual trade and never towards annexation but clearly something had changed. For Hogwarts they met this calls with returns saying that they were basically confused as to what had happened, and thus they wished to remain friends and trading partners but the response to this implied very clearly that the Empire wasn't going to let their aggression just go down and thus those inside Hogwarts reformed their defenses and prepared for the coming offensive.

On the Empire side of things they had been contacted by the forces of the Deatheaters and in this communication they had made deals with the Malfoy' in order to destroy Hogwarts in order to facilitate better control of Hogwarts more northern region as well as promises of giving up the other independents around Hogwarts. It had begun with several trips by the servants of Lord Voldermorte to Nuln itself the capital of Austria and while at first Priam Troy deemed it unimportant to him he was alerted to the interest in Hogwarts by some of his more disloyal members of Austria and this brought him to the negotiating table. In the end he cared nothing for Hogwarts and thus made a deal relatively quickly, but in a fake gesture of kindness he placed most of his political enemies in charge of the actual military campaign and offered them nearly all the rewards that went along with it.



Scouts that had been placed throughout the countryside begin reporting back to Hogwarts that a truly massive army was incoming towards the fortress in numbers in the hundreds of thousands. The Empire commanders had ignored the defenses around Tarherd and the eastern realm of Tinevarn was also ignored leaving the entirety of the Emperian army to make a near direct line towards the capital in Hogwarts. Believing that the army would first attempt to establish control of the region the defenses were prepared for the eventuality that they had more time to prepare but to their surprise the army made its way directly towards the fortress with only small splinters moving towards the mini castles scattered throughout the kingdom. Other then these forces the Empire also sent a large force under the command of Wilhem Delgougen of whom led a force of Austrians towards Dale where they would attempt to take control of the northern farming lands, and the extremely valuable central mining grounds. When they were only a day away from the fortress they sent one last letter to Hogwarts basically stating that if they didn't surrender they would all die within the fortress, and to this letter Hogwarts simply burned it and did not respond. There was some debate within the fortress but eventually it was completely agreed upon that the Emperian army would not honor the surrender either way, and thus they were fighting to the death no matter what way they did things. The next day the army of the Empire arrived on the outskirts of Hogwarts and begin encircling the fortress. While the Empire was doing this Harry Potter led a large contingent of Dumbledore's army through the tunnels beneath the fortress, and they made their way behind the lines of the attackers. Serius Black, and Severus Snape led the main tier of defenses at the massive bridge, while in the open fields of the western block the defenses were led by Albus Dumbledore, and Minerva Griffindor. A small relief force was sent northward from the large Hogwarts town of Holyhead, but the vast majority of Holyhead's forces were arrayed in Holyhead itself as it was threatened by a small army coming against it. The plan for Hogwarts was basically to use massive summoned creatures to block the attackers while the overwhelming Magi of the people was used against the basically exposed troops of the Empire. Damara Dodderidge the headmaster of House Griffindor would assemble a troop of forces as the attack was preparing to be launched against Hogwarts and moved this force into the neighboring nation of Dale of which was one of the most stalwart of Hogwart's allies and was going to come under some assault. The Empire's commanders present wanted to shell the fortress for two days before attacking and through this to wear down the defenders, but the overall commander in didn't think this necessary and simply ordered that the troops to move forward and mass the Hogwarts defenders.

Fall of Hogsmeade


The town of Hogsmeade was located just north of Hogwarts and located beneath it in terms of latitude it's taking was required before someone could take Hogwarts but problamatic in its defence was its nearly devoid level of fortifications. Placed in charge of the defence of Hogsmeade was Anders Hufflepuff of whom was joined by several other very influential members of Hogwarts in the hopeless defense of Hogsmeade meant more to damage the Emperian forces then actually hold the town. As the Empire forces arrived near Hogsmeade the town had been completely drained of population and the only remains in the town were some five hundred infantry from Hogwarts and nearly a hundred Magi. The Empire sent in some two thousand troops into Hogsmeade and these troops were able to quickly push the small Hogwarts forces out of the town, but they did take significant casualties after they were caught in several fire traps and acrurate archer fire from the buildings. Either way the forces of Hogwarts lost some sixty troops in the failed defence, but the Emperian forces lost nearly three hundred and eighty troops which was a drop in the bucket for what they had in total.

The Attack Begins
The Emperian army would halt itself in the ruins of Hogsmeade and unlike most of the north they did not devestate the town as they would use it as a staging point for their forward command while the main command remained north of Hogsmeade and ordered the battle from afar. In the west a small Emperian army assisted by a force moving in from Lorraine and western Austria wpuld halt itself north of Holyhead and block it from being able to send assistence to Hogwarts as the main army moved against it. In the east it was the forces of Dale that were beating back the forces of Austria and thus in the east the static nature meant that no reinforcements were going to be coming from either sides to the Hogwarts Battle.

The Western Field


The attack on the western field was always going to be the most numerous, and this had more to do with the fact that the commanders of the Empire believed so strongly in their superiority in numbers that the western field offered the largest of the attack avenues so thus the most troops were sent in. Alongside this large scale opening in the western front there was also the fact that the walls of the western section of Hogwarts were only a single tier while all the other sectors of Hogwarts were two tiers of walls, and in the case of the northern route there was three tiers of walls. Nearly fifty thousand troops were on this western side, and they prepared to attack in three waves with the first wave consisting of some 15,000 troops and this first wave was shockingly made up of most of the elite sections of the western army. In the defenses by this point Dumbledore, and the nearly two hundred Magi with him had summoned to them thousands of elemental creatures of which were hidden carefully in small crevasses throughout the fields thus concealing them from view and in this way they would create a massive shock value when they first appeared. Alongside the hundreds of Magi, and the thousands of Elemental also stood nearly four thousand regular troops of the Hogwarts Castle of which would defend the walls with arrows, and cauldrons but no one believed they could hold for long against such numbers. In command of the western attack would be Vaelin Troy a cousin of Priam Troy, and despite being known as a casual drunk and foolish in mind he was placed in charge of a large force of men at arms.

Lake Hogwarts
Lake Hogwarts expanded a large proportion of the eastern approach but there was a small series of locks, and islands that allowed the attackers to attempt an attack that of all the attacks would prove to be the most dangerous, and in the end the most devastating in terms of overall percentage lost. The Empire over the night had constructed hundreds of small boats which they would use to transport the force of some 14,000 in the first wave to the series of small island castles that dotted the lakes locks, while another force of 18,000 would make the attack on foot directly against the locks through the canals that were open to the ground. As an added attack angle a group of some 2,500 unarmored troops were prepared to swim to the first series of locks with the goal of being light skirmishers that would hopefully augment the attack, and would be armed by small equipment boats that would be sent along with the attack. The Empire forces would come at the river during the night, and they hoped that the night would provide additional cover but the Magi defenders would use illumination spells to light the sky once they knew the attack was underway and thus despite it being the pitch dark of night they could see all around them.

Northern Bridge
The Northern Bridge was a massive sixty foot wide bridge connecting the northern pass to the castle itself, and stretched for some six hundred feet with no cover. For this northern attack the forces of The Empire believed they had little chance of success and so Vaelin Troy placed in charge of the attack the noblemen Herdeck Ont of House Ont of whom were resisters to the direction of House Troy and had been a main source of Priam's ire.

The Suprise Attack


With the forces of The Empire being destroyed in the eastern locks, and massacred in the northern approach the overall commanders saw only one true oppurtunity and that was to throw all of their reserves into the battle on the western front which while being devestating for them casualties wise was the only one that they were even advancing into. But while they continued down this path of thought they could not see that the force led by Harry Potter and his friends was now only minutes away from their command base in the northern approach. The command base had been constructed beneath a hilltop which turned it into a valley, which they believed was a nice spot to conceal themselves but they didn't anticipate it would allow an enemy force to advance almost secretly to its outskirts. With the reserves spread throughout the region the commanders were defended by a small force of only some two thousand troops and by this point some of those had been sent to the northern approach to attempt to keep the defenders there locked down meaning there was only some 1,000 troops left in the command base to defend. Harry, Hermion, and Ron gathered themselves and their force and begin encircling the command base with their full force of some three hundred Magi, and they begin silently over the next few hours they each summoned elementals to them which brought their force to some two thousand meaning they were about to attack the command base with complete suprise and have the numbers advantage. Waiting till night Hermion, Harry, and Ron settled into the hilltop and laid together in what was perhaps one of the last moments that the Triumverate would ever have with complete trust and love for eachother. Together they talked about everything they had been through, and they promised themselves that when they were done they would try to just be students again.

The Massacre and Retreat



 * "You felt terrible as it was happening because how many of these men and women actually deserved to die. They were following orders though, and they had to die the same we would have if they had succeded."


 * -Ron Weezly

As night fell the Triumverate were awoken by Neville Longbottem of whome told them it was time. With this decleration the group made the sign that the time was now to attack and with this the entire force advanced over the hills and into the valley beneath. The Triumverate moved silently as did the rest of the force, and all around there was the bright hue of different colored elementals as the elementals followed their summoners into a massacre that would send reverberations throughout Europe, and lead to a further series of massacres that would prove to be a marking point in history. The group was able to reach the camp without any problem and they all silently took down any sentries that were present, and then once they were litterly touching the hundreds of tents they unleashed the elementals into the camp while the Magi waited on the outskirts and killed anyone able to escape the inforno of the elementals. Over the next few minutes the force of some 1,000 troops along with the nearly another 1,500 commanders, administrators, servents, and aristocrats were massacred leaving no survivors. With the command base annihilated they burned the remains to the ground to make sure everyone was dead before they then sent Magi messages to the defenders in Hogwarts that the command structure was gone.

Destruction of Greenshop

 * "Sometimes revenge is all you have left. So many lay dead all across the land, and someone needed to pay for those deaths. Someone was going to pay, and the consequences are unimagineable."


 * -Severus Snape

Following the destruction of The Empire Army, Dumbledore's army council quickly convened and decided that the Empire needed to understand that this sort of behavior would not be accepted. In order to do this they decided to destroy the city of Greenshop where the remenents of the army had retreated to, and reinforcements were now funelling into. A force of Magi led by Severus Snape would arrive at the outskirts of Greenshop as the massive army of The Empire was reasembling for another attack of which Hogwarts would not survive. Grouping together nearly a hundred Hogwarts Magi grouped their power together to asssist in the actual conjuring of the spell that would have dire cicumstances. The actualy spell would be cast by Severus Snape, and its effects would basically rip the entire city of Greenship into the sky and then it slowly turned into dust. Those who watched the destruction said that such destruction wasn't even believed to be possible, but what this had showed was how truly horrifying Magi could be when turned to the persuit of destruction.



Complete and Unconditional Surrender
When news filtered in to the Empire's military command that Hogwarts had completely destroyed the city of Greenshop, there was extreme fear amongst all present. The loss of the nearly 110,000 person city was too much for Karl Franz, and led him to send a letter of unconditional surrender to Hogwarts.

This surrender was unprecedented in Empire History, and would be a source of great shame for many of the military elites in The Empire.


 * }